Art in the Studio

Listen Up: A Call For Images About Music

2012-02-01T00:16:00.000-05:00

Listening to music while making art is a common practice in the studio. All that silence of solitude needs breaking up with melody and rhythm. It keeps us company, gets us singing and dancing, influences our moods and creeps into our art. It must affect us all - some of us subtly and others more overtly. Does it get into your art? That's the question I'm posing in this call for images about music or musicians.

Detail from Blues for Etta, 2012 (click to enlarge)

Until recently, I can't recall making a piece so directly about a musician myself, but Etta is often in the studio with me and has become part of the rhythm of my art making. I felt like I just had to do something when I heard that she was about to leave this world. I may have been influenced by my brother, himself a musician, who has recently taken up painting. He's making a series of portraits of jazz musicians, each in a different monochromatic hue. I like that idea because it combines his lifelong devotion to jazz with his new passion of painting.

My friend Joanne Mattera, curator of several successful online shows, including today's Dots Show, suggested this curatorial theme to me. I would probably have just gone for a color, but that's been done many times over, and this more intriguing topic may bring some interesting results and give us more clues about what really goes on in others' studios.

So here's the deal, email me an image 72 dpi, no more than 10"x10", of one of your artworks that is about music or a musician or that was influenced strongly by music. Title your image with your last name and the name of the work. In your email, make MUSIC the subject and give details about date, size and materials. Also tell me something about how you were inspired to make the piece. Note that your work doesn't have to be a portrait of someone or contain a figure. In fact, the more abstract the better.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A RECAP OF INFO REQUIRED FOR SUBMISSION TO ONLINE SHOW

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: February 18th at midnight.

MY EMAIL: nancynatale@gmail.com

SUBJECT LINE OF EMAIL: MUSIC

IMAGE SIZE: 72 dpi, maximum 10" x 10", minimum 4" x 4"

TITLE OF IMAGE: Last name_artwork title

INFO ABOUT IMAGE: Full title, year, materials, size

OTHER INFO: Your name, city, website, what the work is about

I am planning to publish the show post by the end of February, if not before.

Inspired By a Master

2012-01-25T21:48:00.000-05:00

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you are probably familiar with my Big Three - Leonardo Drew, El Anatsui and Lee Bontecou. Other masters, such as Joan Mitchell, Philip Guston and Richard Diebenkorn, also inspire me, but the Big Three appeal more to my somewhat dark and grim natural aesthetic. Above all, materiality or physicality is what resonates with me.

So, as I think any artist must, I ask myself from time to time how much I should be influenced by my inspirations. Should I try to copy their work? How much of them should rub off on my own work? Is there a point where my work becomes more about what they want to say than what I do?

Thinking L.D., 2012, found and invented materials with tacks and encaustic
on two panels, 48"H x 60"W (click to enlarge)

Here is the first piece I've made that somewhat deliberately (in my mind at least) refers to work by one of my Big Three - Leonardo Drew. If I didn't tell you that, would you have guessed? (Of course that's provided you are familiar with his work.) What I was thinking of was his work with boxes put together into a grid, such as his No. 43 of 1994, image below:

Photo of Leonardo Drew's No. 43 taken from "Existed"
(For more about Leonardo Drew, see this blog link to his show
at the DeCordova Museum.)

Now, you can see that my piece looks nothing like his, really, but thinking about his piece is what got me going. His piece has 3-dimensional boxes with rags, found objects and all kinds of stuff in them. My "boxes" are just strips of painted cardboard that frame strips tacked inside them. And my piece is ever so neat, compared to his.

A detail from Thinking L.D.

The Creative Process - Try and Try Again
Just to let you in on how the creative process went for me, I first started with "boxes" the same size throughout the panels, made just with strips of natural cardboard painted with clear encaustic. I used them to frame strips of other materials that I tacked down as usual. I ended up with something that looked like a cardboard bookcase. So I scrubbed that.

Another detail from Thinking L.D.

The second version enlarged some of the "boxes" but continued them throughout the length of the panels. I thought it still looked like too much cardboard. Then I removed rows of the "boxes" at top and bottom of the panels and put in painted strips that extend the width of each panel. I liked that because they broke up the "box" look, and it turned out that these strips were what really interested me. (After coloring in the cardboard "boxes" with oilstick, I was happier with the overall piece.)

An Unexpected Bonus - A New Direction?

Half 'n' Half, 2012, found and invented materials with encaustic and tacks, 32"H x 40.5"W

In fact I liked those painted strips so much that I decided I should make another piece using the leftovers (plus a few more). I put them on a panel and then added that to a panel I had already made in Running Stitch mode. After tweaking the R.S. panel a bit to make the two halves come together more, I was happy. (The bottom panel is one I had made myself so its measurements are a bit off from the standard. However, it turns out that I like the little bit of difference in width between the top half and the bottom half. It gives it sort of an architectural look)

Detail of painted strips from Half 'n' Half

A Moral
Don't we expect a moral from any story - or at least a good ending? Well, the moral is that whatever pings your aesthetic brain cells and gets a piece started is a good thing, but being able to see what you've got and where you're going with it is a learned response, I think. And, who knows, a move made out of desperation may be that unexpected path that takes you to artistic nirvana - or not. You'll just have to try it and see.

Blues for Etta

2012-01-21T03:44:00.003-05:00

The whole world seems to be mourning the death today of the great Etta James. She passed away much too young and after a hard life filled with both pain and ultimate success. I own probably 12 or 15 of her CDs and play them in the studio pretty much every day. I will miss knowing that she's out there still singing.

New Work
Back at the end of December when I was planning to make two pieces for my upcoming solo show, I had an idea based on a quilt from the 1930s that I had seen in a book You know how two ideas floating around in your mind can sometimes coincide? Well, in this case, the quilt top idea came together with the news I heard about Etta James being very ill and expected to die soon. The result was Blues for Etta, mixed media with encaustic (including record albums, sheet music, tarpaper, copper, aluminum, and tacks) on two panels, 48"H x 60"W.

Blues for Etta, 2012, details in text above (click to enlarge)

I don't know how this looks on your monitor, but on mine it's disappointing because this image doesn't convey the vibrancy of the blues and resonance of the browns. And the reflectiveness of the copper really makes the whole piece shimmer.

Here's a detail showing one of several images from CDs that I incorporated .

Recently I read Etta's bio, Rage to Survive by Etta James with David Ritz and I recommend it - not too well written, but the tale of a great spirit who emerged into the world despite overwhelming odds. Here's a link I found on The Guardian to an obituary of Etta that reprises much of her bio. It tells much of what shaped her hard life and determined approach to life that was revealed so strongly in her singing. She was a tough cookie and that came across vividly. (Read a column by my e-friend Wendy Rodrigue in Gambit, the New Orleans paper, about Etta that includes an image of my Blues for Etta!)

Recommendations of Etta's CDs
I am not a fan of Etta's earlier recordings where she shouts instead of sings, but when she came into her own later in life, she became one of the very best blues singers. Here's a good article about her from The New Yorker with some Youtube links. Unfortunately, the links are mostly from her earlier work. If you want a really good, mellow CD that I think is one of her best, try The Right Time, an excellent recording with Steve Winwood on guitar. For an album that's more jazz than blues with lovely piano accompaniment, try Time After Time, some of her best. And Matriarch of the Blues is also a good one.

Etta on Youtube
There are many videos of Etta on Youtube, some better than others, but here's a good one from Matriarch of the Blues, Bob Dylan's Gotta Serve Somebody.

Adventures in Making Art

2011-12-28T23:22:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I received notice that I had been awarded a good-size grant by the Artist's Resource Trust, a fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. I applied seven (count 'em, 7) times for this grant without getting anywhere until this year. The grant is not contingent on my completing a project, but I did describe a project on the application that I hope to complete. It involves building a wall of works on 24 panels in an 8' x 12' configuration. The works would be in my Running Stitch series and I would like to show the wall in a small museum.

The Bing at night, photo by Chris Marion Photography, from The Bing's website

Money Changes Everything
Remember that song by Cyndi Lauper? Well, here's how the grant influenced me and changed my plans. I am having a solo show beginning February 3rd at the Bing Arts Center in Springfield. (I posted about this in more detail on my Art of Bricolage blog, link here.) Although I have known about this show for a while, I had planned to show oil paintings because the space is quite large and I didn't think I had enough bricolage on panel works to fill the space. But when I learned that I got the grant and might be able to complete the project I envisioned, I was jostled out of my complacency. My thinking was that if I planned to contact some museums and other exhibition spaces about showing my uncompleted project, I had better have some big work to show them.

The Black One, 2011, tarpaper, book parts, patinated metal, oilstick,
tacks, encaustic on panel, 36"x36" (click to enlarge)

I've been gradually increasing the size of works that I'm making from 36" x 36", as above, to two just-completed Running Stitch pieces on 30" x 60" single panels. Waiting in the wings were four panels ready to make two diptychs, each 48" x 60", but I've been stalling on them. The grant has now motivated me to get cracking and get building. I have changed the title of the Bing show to GEOMETRIC BRICOLAGE: Found Materials Transformed and I've planned out the two 48" x 60" pieces so that I can complete them in time to show.

Discoveries of Scale
It's a good thing I've never had to work in a widget factory because I really don't like and can't do multiples of the same thing. Every time I make a piece, I do something a little different. As I've proceeded piece by piece with the Running Stitch and RS variants, the overall size has increased as well as the size of the elements. I have discovered that as the works get bigger, they need more structural elements to carry visually from the greater viewing distance their size requires. This is probably like reinventing the wheel but it's been a slowly evolving Aha for me to realize this.

Look At America, 2011, 30" x 60", painted paper and cardboard, book parts,
patinated metal, record album parts, tarpaper, tacks, encaustic on panel.
(click to enlarge)

The work above is constructed/painted on one panel, but I divided it up vertically and put in those black horizontal bands to give it more structure.

This American Time, 2011, 30" x 60", painted paper and cardboard, book parts,
patinated metal, record album parts, advertising posters, record album parts, tacks
encaustic on panel. (click to enlarge)

In this work, I used the solid red book cover pieces to add structure and unify the various colors, marks and printing.

You wouldn't believe how much looking, reconstruction and time it took me in working on these two pieces to figure this out.

Plan Ahead
So now with the next larger size, I am beginning with a strong structural plan for each of them. The challenge is to add variety and irregularities while maintaining the structure. (As you see with The Black One above, if the structure becomes too regular, it can get dull. However, in defense of this piece, I enjoy the simplicity as a change of pace, and in person, many more irregularities present themselves.)

Progress
When I remind myself that I only began making this work at the end of 2010 and of how many pieces I've made this year alone, I find it surprising. It's been very absorbing - I would even say entertaining. Keeping myself interested and entertained in the studio has become my mission in life, so I guess things are going well. And this year, not even counting the grant, for the first year in many years I have made enough from art to pretty much cover my art expenses. I'd call that a successful year for me. I hope it went well for you!

Out, Damned Spot! Out, I say!

2011-12-17T21:50:00.001-05:00

This is the time of year when it's pretty hard to stay on course in the studio. There are just too many things happening in the outside world - parties, shopping, grant applications, studio visits and other distractions. I am feeling all that interference with the normal course of non-events in my private world, and to top it off, I am moving into a different kind of work.

Having just completed two large works in the Running Stitch series, my mind's eye is sort of fixated on that mode. I've been making notes and sketches for future projects and want to get started on them for the solo show I have coming up in February. But, I'm also interested in submitting works to Supria Karmakar's call for submissions for The Wax Book, a juried exhibition at Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro to be shown during the Sixth International Encaustic Conference in June.

Back in the 1990s I made a lot of artist's books - and pretty much drove myself crazy, by the way. My personality is not one that cleaves to the neat and tidy, plan-ahead world in which I made my artist's books. I'm a little more rough and ready and felt I was boxing myself in. I'm a lot more comfortable with either a paintbrush or a hammer in hand, so I gave up artist's books and went back to the messy, hands-on world of painting. (Here are some images of books I made in the 1990s - complicated, all handwritten and I made them in small editions of four or six books the same. Ugh!) (click images to see larger)

Visiting Nature - open

Beach Music - open

On The Road - open midway

The fact is that I could just have changed the type of artist's book I made and not gone for the intricate dimensional pieces I was doing, but when I'm done with something, I'm flat-out done - that is, until I get back to it at a later date.

So, this past week has been a bust in the studio. Between visitors, working, shopping, driving to Boston and partying, I barely got in there. Today I finally came face to face with myself and started trying to come up with some ideas. I couldn't make my usual mess because I'm having visitors on Monday, so that meant I couldn't do what I usually do - pull everything out and try some things. Coming up with ideas under pressure is probably my least favorite part of being an artist. I just get squirmy and do anything to avoid that blank spot between my ears - email, Facebook, magazines, newspapers, trips to the trashroom, anything, anything to get me out of that nasty blank spot. Today I even tried sitting quietly in my chair and visualizing something I would like to see but that didn't work either.

Finally my eye lit on three objects that I've had kicking around the studio for a couple of months and have planned to use one of these days. I brought them to my table and started fooling around with them. Wonder of wonders, I got ideas (or "idears" as I would say)! I believe I have a solution for my book making problem! (In fact, three solutions.) As soon as I had a few preliminary plans in mind, I got the hell out of there before I acted too soon and screwed things up.

No, I'm not going to tell. You'll just have to wait and see - along with me.

New Work All About America

2011-12-07T00:39:00.000-05:00

Never have I felt as American as when I have traveled outside America, and I don't think that is a unique experience. Our native country is such a part of our psyches that it just becomes reflexive, so natural that our Americanisms are unrecognized for what they are. However, I rarely use the word "America" to refer to this country, preferring "U.S." instead. "America" seems a little outdated or a word used only by politicians or advertisers. So that makes it a little surprising (to me) that my two newest works both refer in their titles to America.

Look At America

Look At America, 2011, 30" x 60", painted paper and cardboard, book parts,
patinated metal, record album pieces, tacks, encaustic on birch panel (click to enlarge)

The title Look At America is the name of a book used in the piece and getting my titles from books used like this is a becoming a common practice for me. I posted several details from this piece last month and here's the link, but the photo above was taken by a pro who has it correctly lit and containing many more pixels than my earlier amateur shot.

Here's what I said about the piece in my post last month:

My intention with this work was to reference landscape but not really depict it. There are pieces of maps in there and the combination of green, brown and blue could be earth, trees and sky. But I didn't want it to be a literal representation of place. After all, the Running Stitch series is about memory, so perhaps this is about memory of landscape rather than landscape itself. The black sections could be roads or they could be gaps in memory (or they could just be formal elements in the painting).

I think this piece has a very complex organization but that the rhythmic black elements in the center section hold it together. As a loosely metaphorical representation of America, the piece had to represent the complexity of this country--the physical beauty and vast spaces combined with the crowding, crumbling and abusive use of so many resources (and people). On the other hand, it's not a literal representation so making it complex just allows the viewer more opportunity for discovery as well as giving me more to juggle.

This American Time

This American Time, 2011, 30" x 60", painted paper and cardboard, book parts,
patinated metal, record album pieces, tacks, encaustic on birch panel (click to enlarge)

The title for this piece came about by accident in a sense. I have begun to use advertising posters for performances along with other found cards and printed materials. From somewhere, I cut out the words "This American" and partially obscured them by cutting off the bottom of the letters. At the other side of the piece, I had put in the word "Time" in an upright position so that it could be read. When I saw these words together, they made sense as a title to me because there are a number of references to time in this piece--dates, words, texts, pieces of things that relate to specific annual events or time elapsing.

Although the emphasis on time is certainly not specifically American, I'm not alone in recognizing that we Americans are increasingly under pressure of time these days as we try to fit more and more into our lives. The burden of a busted economy and necessity to struggle financially adds to a feeling of frantic movement and spinning our wheels. Technology has eased many things but also made it more difficult to escape its siren call. How frequently do we check our email or Facebook? Can we fit in another call or text message while we are doing something else? Multi-tasking is a way of life and concentrating on the here and now has become a goal toward which we must strive rather than the expected way of dealing with life. I speak for myself in this because I find now that if I am not doing at least a couple of tasks at once, I feel a sort of emptiness along with a beckoning from other things calling for my attention.

In thinking (after the fact) about the meaning of formal elements in this work, I could envision the solid red horizontals and verticals as depicting paths through the maze of printed and painted elements. Dividing the whole into parts is a representation of time as well as space and I think these elements perform both functions. The extreme red so present everywhere is a call to action and attention. Everything is on high alert, not only according to the Bush terrorism scale, but just the way red functions psychologically for us, urging us to "Look Here Now."

But, conversely, if everything is urgent, then nothing is. That sounds like American time to me.

xxx

Coming Soon

2011-12-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

The new red piece in the Running Stitch series.

A detail

I just took this to the photographer's tonight along with the new green piece - red and green, get it? I hope to post full views of them both later this week.

Look at This America, One You Don't Want to See

2011-11-20T18:20:00.010-05:00

From Laura Moriarty's Facebook page.

The Artist's Depiction
The image above is what Joanne Mattera called "Sunday in the Park With the Aftermath of George (Bush)."

Lt. John Pike pepper spraying non-resisting students at UC Davis.

The Real Thing
You have probably already seen this real image of a man in power treating non-resisting students like roaches by spraying them with pepper spray. This strolling Keystone-Kop-looking guy is Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis police force. He has a lot in common with Lt. Anthony (Tony Baloney) Bogogna of the NYPD (see below).

And here's the video the precedes the UC Davis action and shows that afterwards the police, in full, ridiculous, SWAT, riot gear, backed away from those vicious students (armed only with iPads, iPhones and their voices). By the way, a UC Davis spokesperson said later that there were 35 police officers, 50 protesters and 200 bystanders present during this action.

A note on what pepper spray is:

"Pepper spray, which in many countries is defined as a weapon and is often illegal for civilians to possess, can cause tissue damage, respiratory attacks and, in rare cases, death. It is considered far superior during crowd control to more violent forms of self-defense. But, like Tasers, which can also cause severe injury and death, there is increasing concern than it is being used by law enforcement without discretion or proper understanding of its dangers. The UC-Davis video will only amplify those concerns."(from the Washington Post)

These officers are employed by UC Davis and were called in by the Chancellor of UC Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi. This is her statement as reported by Huffington Post:

"We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal."

The UC Davis Police Chief, Annette Spicuzza" claimed that it wasn't "safe for students to camp on the quad. It's not safe for multiple reasons."

And, in what is probably the most ludicrous claim of all, Spicuzza claimed that it also wasn't safe for her officers on the quad because they were outnumbered by students. The amount of riot gear the police were wearing plus the stun guns, pepper spray, enormous "batons", handcuffs, and all manner of other equipment strapped to their bodies makes this statement totally asinine. But if you watch the video to the end, you will see the police slowly shuffle backwards away from the students who are yelling "Shame on you." Apparently they were just fearful for their lives, those poor over-equipped guardians of the law!

Now calls are being made for the chancellor to resign after displaying her total lack of understanding of what the hell was happening on her campus and not showing horrified dismay over the actions of "her" police force. She has called for a 90-day investigation of the incident when 90 minutes would probably suffice.

As a final comment on her behavior, get a look at this perp walk the chancellor makes in front of seated and totally silent students. She had said that she was afraid of walking to her car because of the students. The only voices you hear in the video are those of reporters asking questions of the chancellor. Otherwise, there are just ominous-sounding footfalls.

This is not an America I want to see. It is a place where those in power think they can treat the rest of us with disrespect and abuse. This is the kind of treatment that people in black and immigrant neighborhoods are subject to much of the time. It's a Bush/Cheney-attitude where force is used to keep down the Little People and show them who's in charge, without regard for moral or legal right.

The sad part of it is that this is just one little, now viral incident. This cruel and abusive behavior goes on all the time with no one noticing or caring. We are subject to our corporate masters more and more and the police are simply their minions, just as much serfs as the rest of us, but able to take out some of their aggressive and hateful actions on those they are supposedly protecting. I find the whole thing sickening and depressing. I remember Kent State, where protesting students were actually shot and killed, and all the student strikes that followed. I hope that we are not entering a period like that again but our corporate masters will not relinquish their power voluntarily.

Here is a great article about the Militarization of Campus Police by Bob Ostertag, a journalist and professor at UC Davis. He makes some wonderful points, right on the money!

And furthermore, as posted by Mira Schor via Joni Spigler:

Even Bambi's pals get the spray!

And another one:

This one is even more meaningful - Lt. John Pike pepper sprays the Constitution
even as it's being written. Oh, yes! He has sprayed on the rights of us all to peacefully
protest and express our constitutional rights to free speech. Thanks to Kiril Devyatov on Facebook.

And still more of these http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com/ This guy is the laughingstock of the WORLD!

Look at America

2011-11-17T00:18:00.001-05:00

OK, I know when you read the title of this post, you were expecting me to rant about some political development, but in fact Look at America is the title of my most recent piece, part of the Running Stitch series. The title comes from the spine of a book I used in the work. It was a large, pale green book published by Look Magazine that was a photographic journey through the U.S. I have to confess that I have never really looked at the book; I was more interested in the cover. (BTW, click on pics to enlarge.)

Look at America, detail 1, showing the book title

My intention with this post was to first post the image of the piece and then flesh it out with some details, but maybe I should post the details and then the whole image at the end. We'll see how it goes.

So, this work was the first one I made on a complete panel that's 30" H x 60" W. I have made others that were wider but none that were quite this dimension. I liked working on it and it feels substantial (good over the couch size), however, I decided to divide it up into sections so it looks as if it could actually be made on three joined panels.

Detail 2 showing graphic elements

I made Look at America right after making the two pieces that I do not consider part of the Running Stitch but instead part of a new group called The Dark Series. (Here's my post on it.) As a result, I think some of The Dark Series rubbed off on this work. I felt a need to put in more graphic and bolder elements. Also, because of the larger size, the elements are wider - and there's a lot of black in this new work.

Detail 3 showing more graphic elements with metal, text and paint

I confess that I had some trouble with this piece. I made it one way, wasn't too happy with it, experimented with adding elements here and there, and then ended up really taking it all apart and putting it back together again. My concern was to make it less symmetrical, more complex and richer. My resolution involved first making it more symmetrical than the first layout and then destroying the symmetry to a certain extent.

Detail 4 showing a non-standard element

I also wanted to put in some pieces that had a different shape than the horizontal strips to interrupt the regularity.

Here's the whole piece: Look at America, 30" x 60" x 1.75", mixed media with encaustic on panel.
Be sure to click and enlarge.

My intention with this work was to reference landscape but not really depict it. There are pieces of maps in there and the combination of green, brown and blue could be earth, trees and sky. But I didn't want it to be a literal representation of place. After all, the Running Stitch series is about memory, so perhaps this is about memory of landscape rather than landscape itself. The black sections could be roads or they could be gaps in memory (or they could just be formal elements in the painting).

Of course it's hard to get a sense of this large and pretty complicated work in this small format, and this image is also not the good one taken by my professional photographer and lit so you can see more reflections of the tacks and metal pieces. However, I hope that seeing so many details will give you a better sense of what's going on in it.

At Long Last, Pollination

2011-11-07T16:47:00.002-05:00

About two years ago, Greg Wright was invited by the Brush Gallery in Lowell, Mass. to curate a show of works in encaustic. Greg wanted to shape the show around a theme, and chose pollination because he thought it had many "nuanced definitions." In addition, he "wanted to use the beautiful and life-sustaining pollinating activities of bees, producers of our beloved wax, as a point of inspiration." [quoting from Greg's Curator's Statement.] He invited a group of artists whose work he knew to create pieces about pollination that stretched the definition beyond the garden and into the realm of metaphor, poetry, philosophy and emotion. Yesterday, November 7th, was the opening reception for Pollination: Beyond the Garden. (Click images to enlarge)

Two of Greg Wright's dynamic paintings from the show.

Note: Greg has posted on his blog the full text of the exhibition catalog along with images of all the work in the show. So for a closer look at the work with details on titles, sizes and materials along with statements from the curator, the artists, the filmmaker and the beekeeper, check this link.

Thinking about this theme for such a long time and having made work for it more than six months ago, we artists in the show were all very curious to see each other's work in the flesh. It definitely did not disappoint. Here are a few shots from the opening that show the work and the artists involved.

A wall of pieces by Kellie Weeks about water-borne pollen.
Closeups of two of these works below.

Toby Sisson and Cherie Mittenthal admire a wall of work by Laura Tyler

Laura Tyler is a beekeeper as well as an artist and has also created the film, Sister Bee, about her experience with honeybees. Laura, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, will be present at the Pollination show on Beekeeper Day, November 19th, when she will screen her film. Tony Lulek, President of the Norfolk County Beekeepers Association, will also speak on that day about Colony Collapse Disorder and its effect on honeybees.

One side of a dimensional work by Toby Sisson

Toby Sisson, the recto side of another untitled piece.

Foreground, Toby Sisson, the verso side of the piece above

Three works by Sue Katz

Greg and Binnie Birstein in front of Binnie's work

Binnie Birstein's work

Two paintings and a dimensional box by Lynette Haggard in the window of the Brush Gallery with sun streaming in.

Binnie and Lynette with flowers presented to them by Ellen Granter,
a former student of Binnie's and the subject of a blog post by Lynette

Milisa (Misa) Galazzi with her work

A closeup of Misa's delicate work that is hand-stitched on paper, then cut out
and dipped in wax. When it is hung away from the wall on pins,
it casts shadows behind it.

Kim Bernard and Binnie Birstein share a laugh and a hug

Kim with her work

Me with my work (not the most flattering lighting, is it now?)

Three pieces by Donna Talman

A detail of Donna's work

Another detail of Donna's work

Surprise visitor from Truro/Provincetown, Cherie Mittenthal of Castle Hill Center for the Arts, along with Kim

Stealth gift instigator, Misa, made a great thank-you card for Greg that we all signed

Then she framed a show postcard that we all signed

Then we all chipped in to present him with the pen we used for signing - a hand-turned
pen created by Misa's husband, David Michel of Pipe and Paddle Woodworking.
The pen actually looked like Greg's paintings!

Two other supportive artists who came to the reception, Linda Cordner and
Joanne Mattera, deep in conversation. That's Greg's shoulder on the left.

The Pollination catalog that contains all the statements and images of all the works.

If you want to order a catalog to be sent to you, here's what to do:

Send: Buyer's name and mailing address along with a check for $16.25 per catalog to:

Brush Gallery & Studios
Att: Catalogs
256 Market Street
Lowell, MA 01852

Greg may also have some available for sale at the conference in June if you can wait that long.

One photo I missed getting yesterday is Eileen Byrne, Executive Director of The Brush Art Gallery, who was so kind and helpful to Greg and all of us. But, thanks to Google, here she is:

Eileen Byrne - Thanks for all your help!

So there you have it, a wonderful time was had by all and there is still more to come:

Kind of overexposed, but I hope you get the idea!

Reporting In On The Latest News and Views

2011-11-05T23:49:00.001-04:00

Growing Older, Growing More Conservative
Uh-unh. Not me, man! I heard on the radio that a new survey from the Pew Research Center shows that there are generational gaps in political views and attitudes toward the government. Supposedly, people grow more conservative as they age. This study says that if the Silent Generation (born between 1928 and 1945) had their way, Mitt Romney would become the next president because this group considers themselves more Conservative. This political orientation supposedly grows weaker as generations become younger, with Millenials (born between 1981-1993) being both the youngest and most Liberal.

Wikipedia map showing percentage of self-identified Conservatives, according
to a Gallup survey, August 2010. The darker the state, the more Conservative.

Now I don't want to say that the world revolves around Massachusetts, but I don't know any people (except the next-door neighbors that we don't talk to) who are self-identified Conservatives. Notice how pale the East and West Coast states are? We are Liberal here! Furthermore, we in Massachusetts have had experience with Mitt Romney. I wouldn't elect him to ANY office, let alone president. Where were we in that survey?

I don't know about you, but the older I get, the more Liberal I get. That doesn't mean that I'm not skeptical and pessimistic, because I am. Still, I don't want to tell anyone how to live, I want us all to have equal rights, I want to have the government regulate corporations (who are not people but business entities organized to make as much profit as possible), I want the police to enforce the law but not make it, I want us all to make nice, but probably not all of us will. I want to be that old lady in tennis shoes who stands on the corner with a peace sign. However, I will probably never do that because I'll be in the studio making art and talking back to NPR when they publicize these assinine surveys telling me how Conservative I am.

Oh, That Nasty Storm
Oh, the misery we suffered during the past week - trees brought down or torn apart by that weird October snowstorm that led to no power - for DAYS - no lights, no heat, no cell phones, no cable or internet, no refrigeration, no warm showers, no Facebook! We here in Easthampton were without for power for three days and I was about at the end of my tolerance. I would have made a lousy pioneer woman. Some poor souls have still not had their power restored after a week, and I feel empathy and pity for them because it is really miserable to have no light and heat when it gets down below 20 degrees at night. I would not want to go through that again any time soon - or any time at all.

Our house with tree limb on roof and electric wires

In the aftermath, we found we had plenty of damage but no direct hits to our house. We had a broken limb that stretched across the driveway and hit the wires where electric power comes in from the street, but we got it removed pretty quickly and the wires were OK.

Flattened ornamental grasses

Our mulberry tree split right down the middle and is now laying on an apple tree
and a dogwood tree. Still waiting for our tree guy to cut it up.

Our fence at the back of the property was badly damaged by a heavy limb
from a neighbor's tree. This has already been repaired. We need to keep out
the bears and coyotes and keep in the dogs.

There are a lot of other broken branches and limbs but all in all, we consider ourselves lucky to have gotten off as lightly as we did.

I am not someone who goes through life looking for lessons to be learned, but in this case, I did learn how lucky we are to have electricity continuously available except in extreme circumstances. I am still in appreciation mode and relishing the fact that I can flip a switch and have light, TV, internet, heat and all the rest of the modern conveniences.

In God I Don't Trust

The "official" motto of the U.S. on the sides of U.S. $1 coins (that nobody uses)
From the NY Times - Getty Images.

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I've been ranting away on the recent nonsensical resolution passed 397 to 9 by the House of Representatives reaffirming the Official Motto of the United States as "In God We Trust." Although the "unofficial" motto of the U.S. since its inception was E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), the House felt it necessary to remind President Obama that the "Official" motto, going all the way back to the Red scare days of Senator McCarthy in 1956 was "In God We Trust."

Why does this bother me so much? Aside from the fact that the country is going down the tube while Congress sits around on their asses mouthing off about complete nonsense, I resent this Religious Right assertion of what the U.S. does or does not trust. Personally, I do not believe in god or gods, and as the Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, Roy Speckhardt, wrote in the Huffington Post:

"[This motto] is in direct opposition to our national tradition of secular governance and is a slap in the face to the many nontheistic Americans who object to government endorsement of religion.

By placing "In God We Trust" in public buildings, public schools and other government institutions, we weaken the wall of separation between church and state. Even though this motto doesn't favor one religion's god over another, it assumes that there is a god, and that there's only one. That excludes polytheistic Americans like Hindus, nontheistic Buddhists and the 16 percent of us with no religious affiliation. This kind of government sponsorship of religion runs afoul of the First Amendment and should be strongly rejected by our legislature and our judicial system. It is the sworn duty of the government to uphold the Constitution, and allowing this resolution to pass would be a direct violation of that obligation."

Kindly do not tell me what I do or do not believe, if you please. I am not conservative and I do not trust in god. Thump that bible and that nonsensical survey all you want, I'm not buying it.

Birth of The Dark Series

2011-10-29T06:54:00.000-04:00

The series of works that I have been making for nearly a year, The Running Stitch, is framed in my mind as relating to the way memory is built up and breaks down over time. The mixture of materials that I use and the fragments of text, books, objects and colors metaphorically represent segments of experience that are stored sequentially but retrieved in a fragmented and almost random order. I enjoy making The Running Stitch and I think that my most successful pieces in that series contain a dark aesthetic.

The Black One, 2011, tarpaper, book covers, patinated aluminum, oilstick, encaustic, tacks, 36"x36"

That said, sometimes I feel compelled to make works that are related to but not part of this series. These works celebrate the color black and revel in darkness. This part of my oevre precedes The Running Stitch by many years and seems to be my natural aesthetic. So here are two large works in what I have named "The Dark Series." (Click pix to enlarge.)

As far as the context and/or antecedents of this work, I think it derives from my great admiration for and study of African and African American art. This is my connection to Leonardo Drew and El Anatsui. At the same time, it relates strongly to the early work of Lee Bontecou and to Louise Nevelson, both white American artists. I believe that Bontecou's canvas work of the 1950s and 1960s was also strongly influenced by an African aesthetic as was Nevelson's.

Material World, 2011, cardboard, rubber, book parts, album cover parts, rubber,
patinated aluminum and copper, oilstick, encaustic, tacks, 36"x36". (Most of the
cardboard in this piece comes from the boxes that the tacks are packed in.)

Both The Running Stitch and The Dark Series are composed of found and invented objects in a form called "bricolage," which I have written about many times (and which is the subject of my Art of Bricolage blog). Bricolage has probably always existed and predates the use of conventional or specialized art materials. The Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s claimed this use of "everyday materials" for their own to "break down the dichotomy between life and art" (to quote from MoMA's statement on the topic). However, that movement did not combine the free or low cost materials in a geometric presentation, and geometry seems to be a major part of my own aesthetic and of both my continuing series.

I like this idea of having two ongoing series. It lets me feel free to experiment more. Someone recently called me a rebel, and I guess that all of us who grew up in the '60s have a rebellious outlook to some extent. That seems to have become stronger as I've grown older and witnessed the way the world threatens to break apart. It won't be long now before I'm out there on the streets occupying something, but right now I'm quite busy occupying my studio.

Painting Freedom

2011-10-28T10:39:00.000-04:00

Coming soon - a post with my newest work. I am having two pieces re-photographed because I made changes after the first go-round. (The photographer says some people have gone for three and four times on the same work, so I guess I'm ahead of the process.)

Anyway, meanwhile, I just noticed this today:

Joan Mitchell, untitled, 1991

Willem deKooning, 1983

I thought the Joan Mitchell piece had a lot of the same feeling of deKooning's late work in its openness and freedom of marks. This imagery seems just as different for her as deKooning's did for his oevre. Maybe we all get to that place in our work as we release our hold on life?

The Joan Mitchell image is from her New York dealer, Cheim & Read, where an exhibition of 13 of Mitchell's works called "Last Paintings" will be shown November 3 - January 4.

SHIFTING at UMass Amherst

2011-10-19T10:10:00.002-04:00

Sick of hair! So how's about some art for a change?

In the center foreground - part of a work by Sue Katz, to the left - work by
Donna Talman and to the right - work by Toby Sisson.

Last Saturday afternoon I went to the Hampden Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, about half an hour from where I live, to the reception for SHIFTING, a show of works in encaustic curated by Sue Katz. I took some pictures with my iPhone that are not the best but will give you an idea of the work. The show is up until November 10th and you can see the hours on the Hampden Gallery site. It's well worth a trip! I am also giving the website address for each artist for more info about their work. Click each name for that artist's website. CLICK PIX TO ENLARGE (By the way, here's a link to a very nice article about the show in Preview Magazine.)

TOBY SISSON

DONNA HAMIL TALMAN

KIM BERNARD

SUE KATZ

PAM FARRELL

In the gallery with Pam Farrell, Lynnette Haggard and Catherine Weber

More On Hair

2011-10-18T01:00:00.000-04:00

I don't want to beat the subject of men's hair to death, but I saw the following picture, and just had to share it with you since so many apparently enjoyed my last post on the topic.

A unique look (This appears to be a prison look - all those empty hours.)

This great photo is from a blog called The Hair Hall of Fame. The link to the blog was sent to me by Catherine Carter after my post last week. Normally, the blog posts images of women's hair and the headliner (wink, wink) is the image below.

How many cans of hairspray went into this creation?

Check in daily for a chuckle.

Meanwhile, I was wondering if the Big Hair of Phil Spector (shown in the last post) influenced the Big Hair of his one-time wife Ronnie or vice versa. (Ronnie is the Patron Saint of The Hair Hall of Fame.)

Ronnie Spector (and the Ronettes)

Phil Spector during his trial for murder

It's like the chicken and the egg, don't you think?

Something Different: New Work

2011-10-12T03:13:00.001-04:00

Well, maybe not that different, but exploring the Running Stitch in a couple of different directions. I've been thinking for a while about stripes so I made a couple of smallish pieces to begin working with a couple of stripey ideas. These images are just me and my poor photography skills, not the really GOOD professional photos, but it's just to give you an idea of what I'm up to. (CLICK PIX TO ENLARGE)

Last Garden, 2011, 24" x 24",
painted cardboard, book parts, patinated copper, album cover parts, tacks, encaustic

Last Garden detail

Remnant of a Dream, 2011
painted cardboard, book parts, patinated copper, tacks, encaustic

Remnant of a Dream detail

And now here's one below that I've been thinking of for a while - a mostly black painting made with tar paper. The image below shows the piece in the laying out stage without all the tacks and encaustic. The top left part is just bare panel painted with black gesso and with the marks of the previous piece that I stripped off of it. That look is what really prompted me to make this new work.

Black One, 36" x 36", tar paper, book parts, patinated aluminum, tacks

You can see that it's really not all black because the book covers do add color, although the color doesn't look as strong in person as it does here. I am excited about making this one because it relates to previous works that I made with tar paper back in the mid-'90s. Here is one of those below:

Tar Paper Piece, mid-1990s, about 22" square, tarpaper, found wood, tacks, nut shells, paint

Of course when I look back at old work, it makes me wish that I knew then what I know now after many more years of working, thinking, experimenting and looking. That "if I only knew then" is the kind of remark my mother always used to make to me when I was growing up, but youth always has its own ideas. There's no short cut to knowledge. It has its own timetable.

Men's Hair: A Few Complaints

2011-10-10T01:31:00.001-04:00

I'm taking a little holiday from art and from the political atmosphere here. I was going to write a really snarky post about the many, many, too many men I see who are basically bald but have a smidge of a ponytail stuck on the backs of their heads. Then I thought: "Gee, that's kind of mean. I better not do it." But I live out here in the capital of earthy crunchy and many of these guys are aging hippies who've been wearing their hair this way since the '60s. There are so many of them. No, it's not their fault that the rest of their hair has disappeared and left only that weird, wispy thing on the backs of their heads, but they need to update their look for this century.

Image from the internet - but it could have been from Happy Valley, Mass.

You see, the rest of us are stuck looking at their heads. And if you think it's fun to stand in line behind one of these guys, think again. So, men, if you have one of these, please cut that thing off the back of your head. Do your public a favor.

Definitely not a good look!

I am sometimes (when in a charitable mood) reminded by one of these hairdos of the Egyptian boy hairstyle.

- although it looks much better on the hieroglyph. Apparently this ponytale-on-the-side-of-the-head style was just for boys. As they hit puberty, they shaved their heads completely (apparently due to the heat, the head lice and the need to wear wigs). I should point out, of course, that this was probably just for the aristocracy. The rest of those guys busy providing bread and beer, building the pyramids, mummifying bodies and digging tombs were probably not dressed in diaphanous linen with beaded collars, nor in jeweled ponytails or decorative wigs. In fact, they may have been dressed just like the guys doing all the heavy lifting at those archaeological sites you see on TV with some kind of head covering and loose caftans. In that climate, there's not much else that's comfy. (And we won't even get into what the women wore, now will we?)

But I digress. I also want to lodge a complaint about men with long hair. I know, I know, many people (women included) like the long hair on men. I happen not to care for it. Is this a sign of aging, do you think? Back in the '60s, I liked it OK, but that was 50 years ago. Am I old or is the hairstyle?

Brad Pitt

Remember Fabio - long hair with shaved/depilatory-ed chest

Keith Urban - he really goes for the greasy look

Snoop Dogg - the braids are at least neat but give him kind of a girly look, I think

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow - his hair (wig) looks fairly clean here but is usually skanky. I think the double braid beard is a cool touch. But beards are an entirely different subject. Just wait till I get around to that.

Ian McKellen as Gandalf

I especially don't like it when it's greasy - intentionally or not - that is, made to look greasy with hair product or just greasy from not washing.

Now, you notice that I have given you images of actors or other famous men with long hair and none of them look particularly horrible. They are also not shown in real life, at the grocery store or walking around the streets of Happy Valley in all their hairiness.

The reality is more like this. Clean but wouldn't he look better with short hair? Really?

Or this. Well, this is in a world of its own
(bet it doesn't look like this now that he's behind bars.)

It's just not very attractive. Wouldn't you agree?

But, you know what I'm leading up to, don't you? It's The Combover or comb over or comb-over. And there's that Prince of Combovers, the Donald. (first had a typo that said "Price of Combovers." Guess the Donald's money was on my subconscious mind.)

It's all too easy to make fun of this bird's nest.

OK, this is in the same league as the bald ponytail. In fact, you sometimes see them together - the bald combover ponytail - all three on one head. There is no doubt that it's quite an intricate task to keep those pieces of hair aiming in the right direction to cover that spot that keeps getting bigger day by day no matter what you do. In fact, Wikipedia says that there is even a comb over patent:

It's quite a weaving job - better than a handmade rug...(get it?)

I found some pretty bad looks

From http://www.blog.joelx.com/bosley-medical/925/

http://rynomi.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/the-comb-over-and-the-kingdom%E2%80%94redux/

http://www.holytaco.com/combover-awesomely-bad-photo-gallery/

Well, I won't include any more. Let's just say we all know what they look like. And "we" know them from the back and sides as well as from the front.

I'm sorry, guys. I know it must be a big adjustment in your self-esteem to lose your hair. But it's either Hair Club for Men or get out the razor. Bald really is better than these things above.

Michael Jordan

Bruce Willis

Vin Diesel

Now those guys all look great. And if you have any doubt, just compare them with the following:

Brian May, former guitarist with Queen

OK, he's lucky enough to have hair but he looks like he's wearing one of those wigs the British barristers wear. Brian, think about it: wouldn't you look better with short hair? Really?

He used to look like this, but those days are long over.

This is him with hair dye in 2008.

All right. I've been mean enough and picked on the poor guys sufficiently.

Getting older is no picnic. You think you look one way, then you look in the mirror and see some old stranger. "Who's that granny looking back at me?" you wonder. "OMG, it's ME!" Yeah, yeah, it's no fun but I tell you what, I'm not planning on growing a pony tail or learning how to do a comb over.

"Kindred Spirits" at Clark University

2011-10-07T02:35:00.000-04:00

Postcard from the show

On Wednesday night I went to the opening of the exhibition Kindred Spirits at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. This was a show of works in encaustic by 10 artists that was curated by Toby Sisson, Assistant Professor of Studio Art in the Department of Visual and Performing Art at Clark. Student interns, under Toby's supervision, installed the work and would have received an A+ from me for their layout and placement of the work. There was a lovely sense of spaciousness on the walls and resonance between works. I took a lot of pictures of the exhibition with my iPhone 4. The mushiness of the photos make me wish that I had the higher megapixel count of the newest iPhone. I know that there will be more posting of images (hopefully with a better camera) because many people were taking photos. These images are just to pique your interest and urge you to see the show in person since it's up until December 12th.

Artists in the show

Entrance to the show - 4 works by Joanne Mattera from her Vicolo Series left and orbs by Miles Conrad to right

Close-up of one of Joanne's works showing the carving of the "vicolo"

One of Miles' works

Lisa Pressman with one of her works

Close-up of one of Lisa's paintings

Four works by Laura Moriarty

Showing the relationship between Laura's and Lisa's work

Another attendee - Lynette Haggard

Three works by Sue Katz

One of Sue's works

Toby speaking to Sue and Marybeth Rothman

Two works by Marybeth Rothman

Sculptural prints by Kathleen Lemoine

Installation of wall works by Kim Bernard

Kim Bernard talking to gallery visitors in front of Donna Talman's works

Lynette with a work by David Clark

A closer look at a David Clark monotype

Here's another link to a description of the show from Pulse Magazine.

Recent Work of All Sizes

2011-09-24T23:49:00.000-04:00

If you re a regular reader, you have no doubt realized that I've been shirking my blogging duties recently. I have felt that there was not much to be said about anything. I blame this on Facebook sucking away my writing energy. Yes, yes, it's all Facebook's fault. I take no responsibility. So, since Facebook has taken it upon itself to make drastic changes in its format that no one seems able to understand or master, I feel overwhelmed by it and unable to cope. It has driven me back to blogging.

This too, too obvious title came to mind for my post, but I resisted. (The book title originally
belonged to Thomas Hardy, of course, but I liked this image better.)

Anyway, tonight instead of Facebook, I went down the list of blogs I used to follow in pre-Facebook-Obsession days. One of those was Alexandre Masino's blog and his post was called "Oeuvre Recente" (except with an acute accent over the first "e" which Blogger won't let me put in). I loved that post title and even understood it with my limited (read, mostly nonexistent) French. It has a much more distinguished and arty feel than "Recent Work." However, I am resorting to the English translation for my post.

What my work table looks like when I'm making little pieces

Little Work
Today I finished up making 13 small pieces in the Running Stitch series. They range from 6"x6" to 22" x 10". Although I have previously made some small ones, I overpainted all the elements with encaustic so they had a much different look. These little ones were made in the standard Running Stitch way. I didn't photo all the pieces, but just had a photo from the other day when there were only eight of them.

Note that they still have their blue tape on the sides. The sides, when untaped, will all be black.

This one is my favorite (10"x8"). I love this green color of the encaustic,
a color I mixed but one that is near a new color Hylla Evans is considering making.
This piece is being gifted to the dear Binster.

What brought on this surge of littleness? - you might ask. I have a submission in mind and am making them for that purpose.

Next on the docket are three pieces I am making for the MassArt Auction. This year, because I am represented by Arden Gallery, my work will be eligible for the live auction. That is, if they jury in one of my works. I thought it would be worth the opportunity of experiencing the live auction and the publicity for me and for Arden. We'll see what happens. If they don't want anything, shame on them and I'll have another three smallish pieces in my inventory. More about this later.

Another view of the same thing, from the other direction. Feel any different?

Big Work - In Another Medium
It all started when I happened to see a sale on big stretched canvases at a local art supply store. They were discounted 50 percent, and I thought it was a really good deal since they had a lot of 48" x 48" and larger for pretty cheap prices. The stretchers were inch and a half deep with canvas wrapped around the sides, and while they were not finest quality, they were not bad (Windsor & Newton). So I first bought six of the 48" x 48". The next week, I went back and bought six more 48" x 48" plus two 60" x 48". In the interim of purchasing the two lots, I had been invited to have a solo show next year at an art center in Springfield, and I thought these canvases would be just the thing. (Note - you can click on pix to enlarge)

Aqua Electric, 48" x 48", oil and oil pastel on canvas

Big Sea, 60" x 48", oil and oil pastel on canvas

You see, I had a hankering for working in oil paint. I really love mixing color, and while I do some of that with encaustic, it's much easier with oil. I also wanted to just paint instead of doing the constructing that I do with my encaustic work.

Sunrise, 48" x 48", oil on canvas

Sunset, 48" x 48", oil on canvas

Clouds, 48" x 48", oil on canvas

I did have fun with these. I bought a supply of some great medium that was alkyd based, sort of a semi-gel thing that came in a quart-sized can. I mixed individual colors on small paper plates and I used chip brushes that I could throw out instead of having to clean. I wanted my oil painting experience to be as much fun and as pain free as possible.

Bright Future, 60" x 48", oil and oil pastel on canvas

So outside of their having some dumb titles, I am quite happy with these pieces. They are not masterpieces but they are colorful and uncomplicated. I am hoping that my art consultant will sell them in the corporate market in the interim since I can always paint more for the show next year.

I wish I had some photos of my studio while I was painting these because it had to be turned over strictly to oil painting while I was working. It's a messy process compared to encaustic - at least the way I work, but I do enjoy it. The smell of oil paint always gets to me since that's the medium I first used.

Although you might not pick these pieces out in a crowd as genuine Natales, I think you can see the relationship to my Running Stitch work. We all have a way that we work that can't be hidden no matter which medium is used - or which size.

Finding the Real in the Midst of All That Fake Crap

2011-09-14T23:08:00.000-04:00

Over the Top, mixed media with encaustic on panel, 30" x 30", 2011

Mona Lisa, mixed media with encaustic on panel, 30" x 30", 2011

These two new pieces are headed for Arden Gallery in Boston on Saturday if you are in the neighborhood and want to see them in person. The newest material I am using in the mix of elements is record album covers. If you click on the images to enlarge, you may see some evidence of that.

Authenticity
Last Sunday I sat in our newly-arranged dining room, which is now more like a reading/sitting lounge, and read the NY Times. I haven't done that for a while and it was great to page through all that stuff and try to find something of interest. What struck me was how many articles I saw that dealt with authenticity or The Real. I guess now all those TV reality shows have finally become reality. That is, there is nothing real any more; there are just people claiming that they are real.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rant alert: By the time I got to the end of this post, I was rip roaring, so if you're not in a mood for a political, anti-war rant, stop reading now and just think mild, pleasant thoughts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A case in point about authenticity: Stephanie Rosenbloom under "Cultural Studies" cites the following people who claim they are "authentic:" Michele Bachmann, Anderson Cooper, Sarah (Duchess of York) Ferguson, Jon Huntsman, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Katie Couric, Rick ("I hate the Gays so much that I must be one") Santorum and Pope Benedict XVI.The only names missing from that list are the Kardashians, authentically fake celebrities - famous for nothing except being famous.

According to Rosenbloom's article, the problem of people claiming to be authentic, which makes them automatically inauthentic, is that they are maintaining virtual selves in their social media personae. We are all apparently split personalities because of Facebook or because we're trying to be celebrities/politicians. We all want to edit out the boring parts (the "real" parts?) and just get to the personalities and faces we want to present as our authentic selves.

Or, if we can't blame it on Facebook and Twitter, we can chalk it up to Oprah, who popularized finding your "authentic self" in the 1990s (she's gone now and can't object). If it's not that "O," then it's the other O, as in the prez. You have to know that Obama's in trouble when Maureen Dowd turns on him, as she's been doing in her columns for a while now. Last Sunday she called him the Sleeping Beauty President who only awakes when his polls take a downturn. He's a split-personality president, she says, who is divided between Energizer Barry and Enervating Barry and that confuses people (no wonder) because we never know which one we're gonna get.

This sets the stage for Rick Perry, who always comes across (this is me talking) as Worse than Bush.

He is authentically frightening. When the languid, non-combative Obama is the only figure standing between this bible-thumping, death-sentencing, climate-change-pooh-poohing, evolution-denying, swaggering, anti-intellectual and us, we are in some disastrous trouble. I thought we had dug ourselves out of the black hole of Bush-Cheney, but it's not looking good.I am authentically worried by the looming reality of this possibility. And let alone the horrific damage he can do to our country, how can I even stand listening to Lamebrain II? Don't make me have to live through this again. Pullease!!!

Post 9-11
Then there was the article about 9-11 headed "Outdone by Reality: How artists and writers struggled to find a deeper meaning--or simply turned up the volume and headed for the Jersey Shore." You see what I mean about reality shows permeating culture? Could this fake authenticity have started with the 9-11 attack? Yes, it happened and it was horrific, but look how many politicians took advantage of it -- starting with Bush and Juliani? And then Bush-Cheney started the unending wars that have bankrupted our country and killed and wounded so many thousands. Meanwhile, we all go on with our lives and pretend those wars are not happening. No, it's not Vietnam all over again because there is no draft. There are no marches in the streets, no protests except for a few "nuts", there is no civilian pressure to end the wars. In fact, it's the reverse. People worry that if the Defense Department cuts back, they will lose jobs manufacturing arms and materiels. Those wars could go on forever just like 1984. Who can deal with the reality of all this?

I have to stop reading the paper.

Photographing in the Studio

2011-09-09T23:44:00.001-04:00

Sometimes you have to supply a picture of yourself in the studio. Of course you want this image to represent both you and your studio in the best way, but that's not so easy. Today Bonnie, my official photographer, and I went to the studio to get an image I could use for a couple of requests. Here are a few of the rejects and the one success that I'm including for your consideration. (Of course I'm not showing you the ones that were so bad that I deleted them. These are just bad enough to learn from.)

Image #1 - REJECTED

Image #1 - I wanted to show some things in the foreground that I work with and in the background some of my work. Why it was rejected: I am too far away from the camera, there is old work in the background, and the work is lined up with my head, materials in foreground are too random and unidentifiable. It looks too cluttered.

Image #2 - REJECTED

Image #2 - I wanted to show that this was a large space, well lit and that I had plenty of room to work. Instead I look like an ant in the corner - who is that over there? Too much stuff on the tables and the floor. A big trash can is right in the foreground.

Image #3 - REJECTED

This is closer to me so it's a little better because at least you can see that it's me. I like seeing the work behind me, but what's all that stuff in the foreground? Looks messy. Do I want to show off the diet Polar drink and handiwipes? Am I a painter or a carpenter?

Image #4 - REJECTED

Too much dirty floor, shot into the window so details are lost.

Image #5 - REJECTED

Who is that over there? Why are they showing off the chair, the fan and the trash can - not to mention that dirty floor again?

Image #6 - REJECTED

This shot is better because it shows the encaustic set-up in the foreground and me supposedly working on a panel, but did I lose my best friend?

Image #7 - ACCEPTED

OK, this is the one. I like the set up, I'm smiling, the work shows in front of and behind me. I wish you could see more of the work on the wall, but at least you can get a hint of it. I would also have preferred it without those black lines of paint on the wall, but that's what's there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDENDUM
With emphasis on the "DUM(B)"

Image with no black lines

Thanks to friend, blog reader and Photoshopper Linda Cordner, I no longer have black lines on my wall in the accepted image! Somehow I never remember that reality can always be improved through the magic of Photoshop. This is a big improvement, I think. (Also thanks to Karen Jacobs for pointing out that the clone tool works wonders.) Much better!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

We also made a short video in the studio this morning. I was able to download it from the iPhone to the computer but getting it from the computer to the blog was beyond me. I guess I need to find a 15-year-old to educate me.

Now where's the reader who knows how to load a video?

Two Abstract Painters

2011-09-07T00:32:00.000-04:00

Joan Mitchell, 1991

Lee Krasner, 1973

I debated what to call this post. Should it be Two Strong Women? Two Women Painters? Two Biographies of Women Artists? Or maybe Two Art Icons? As you can see, I finally decided to avoid gender and focus on genre in the title, but gender plays an important part in their personal histories as well as their places in art history.

Krasner, Milkweed, 1955

What brings these two painters together in this post is that I just finished reading the two recent biographies about them: Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter by Patricia Albers and Lee Krasner: A Biography by Gail Levin. I strongly recommend both of these books. That's not to say that they are easy going; they demand commitment on the part of the reader because they are filled with detail - people, paintings, problems, successes, failures - all the things that make up full lives of artists. But they do a good job of presenting the personalities of Mitchell and Krasner - both strong and opinionated women, who struggled with relationships with men in their lives as well as trying to continue making their own work and carving out a place for themselves in the patriarchal art world.

Joan Mitchell, City Landscapes, 1955

Lee Krasner was 17 years older than Joan Mitchell (Krasner born 1908, Mitchell born 1925) but they were both part of the Abstract Expressionist painting scene in New York during the 1950s. Krasner, of course, was married to Jackson Pollock and moved out of Manhattan with him to Springs (East Hampton) on Long Island in the mid-1940s. Mitchell moved to France in the mid-1950s to be with her lover, artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, and lived there for the rest of her life.

Mitchell, untitled, 1960

I can't recap their lives except to say that if they had been men, their lives as artists would have been a hell of a lot easier and they would have received the recognition they deserved. As it was, they had to fight so strongly for everything that it gave them both a hard edge and a cynical attitude toward life. Abuse of alcohol played an important part in both of their lives: for Mitchell, it was her own over-consumption, while Krasner spent years of her life coping with and trying to manage Pollock's alcoholism. Once Pollock had perished at age 44 in a drunk driving accident, Krasner was free to pursue her own career, but she was always under Pollock's long shadow, on guard against comparisons of her work to his as well as trying to fend off those who tried to gain control of his work by approaching hers.

Both Mitchell and Krasner died at fairly young ages (Mitchell at 66 and Krasner at 75) and had painful ends. Krasner suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and diverticulitis. Mitchell had cancer of the jaw and lung cancer. I can't help thinking that their struggle to prove themselves and continually battle against those who minimized or failed to recognize their artistic achievements wore them down.

Krasner, The Seasons, 1957

One major note about both these artists is their legacy to artists of the future. They both established foundations to benefit artists in need. In fact, I was the recipient of a generous grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1995 and that validated my art career to me as nothing else had. It made a very definite improvement in my life. The Joan Mitchell Foundation also awards grants to painters and sculptors annually and funds art education for New York City youth. Not to start a gender battle, but how many male artists established such foundations to benefit artists and make a lasting investment in the future?

New York Gallery representation: Lee Krasner - Robert Miller Gallery, Joan Mitchell - Cheim & Read

Pollock Krasner House & Study Center (great website)

New Work and Immortality

2011-08-28T22:47:00.000-04:00

Centerfold 1, mixed media with encaustic, oil paint and cold wax, 30"x30"x1.5", 2011

Centerfold 2, mixed media with encaustic, oil paint and cold wax, 30"x30"x1.5", 2011

Here are some other new pieces that I have been working on. The center rectangles are patinated copper and my usual horizontal elements have been overpainted with oil and cold wax medium. (Yes the encaustic was fused before the oil paint mixture was added.)

These pieces are related to the Building Blocks series (see my website) but take it a couple of steps beyond.

Notes on Immortality
Today, because of the enforced couch time brought on by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene, I actually got to read the Sunday NY Times. I haven't done that for quite a while. One of the articles, by Stephen Cave, contained excerpts from his forthcoming book, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization. His premise is that the quest for immortality is "the motor of civilization" and that without our constant striving to be immortal, civilization would cease to function. This, he claims, has been proven by scientific research.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The original research study that he cites records the difference in subsequent actions by two groups: one group reminded of their mortality before the subsequent test (Hey, dumbo, you're gonna die) and the other given the same test but without the warning. (They didn't really say the "Hey, dumbo" part.) The two groups were composed of "court judges" (to distinguish them from Judge Judies?) from Tucson. So the test was that they had to rule on a hypothetical case of prostitution, and the result was that the group who had been reminded set a higher bond on the prostitutes than those who hadn't.

The results of this study, and the subsequent "more than 400" other experiments aimed to test the "worldview" of participants, claim to support the "Terror Management Theory" which holds that we (humans) attempt to manage our fear of death by adhering to "cultural, philosophical and religious systems" that offer immortality [if followed] - my brackets.

My Take On This Thesis
Personally, I think this all sounds totally dubious. Now, it may be true that I do not subscribe to any system which purports to offer me immortality, but if I had just been reminded that I was going to die, why would I care about some poor working girl trying to make a living? Haven't I got bigger things to think about? Although I try not to think about dying because it kinda adds a bad taste to the moment, if cruelly reminded that it's bound to happen one day, I think about those near and dear to me, my giant collection of stuff that will have to find a home, and how glad I am that my body will not go to the Fisher & Sons Funeral Home (Six Feet Under for those who don't recognize the name). Wouldn't that make you more lenient instead of more strict - or am I just out of step with the test subjects? (I would like to have your comments on this.)

Death as the Engine of Life
Continuing with the article, the author claims that if there were no death, civilization would grind to a halt because our drive to seek immortality propels all our actions. Therefore, with the achievement of immortality, "We would have no need for progress or art, faith or fame." We would all wander around aimlessly for eternity, purposeless and timeless.

My assessment: first, I think he's been reading too much Anne Rice. This sounds an awful lot like that vampire series. Secondly, I think that many of us are more concerned with improving our life here and now on this planet and in this time than we are with making ourselves ready for some illusionistic future life with halos, clouds and harps. Do most people really believe that if they follow all the rules and don't step on the cracks, they will be guaranteed entry into the promised land? And is that why they make the choices and lead the lives they do? Does anyone really want immortality? Is that why we make art - to become immortal?

The Pace of Life and Art

2011-08-26T01:02:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I feel that my life is racing by and I can hardly keep up. Other times, it seems to crawl or be stuck in a Groundhog Day mode. This past month has been a slow period in which I seem to be picking up that boulder for the long trudge up the hill again and again. And, of course, my work in the studio is what guides all the sensations. It feels like the work has been coming together at a snail's pace. In the end, I'm happy with the result so I guess it just took as long as it took to make.

As Sweet As Honey, mixed media with dominoes and encaustic on panel,
36"x36"x1.5" (click on picture to enlarge)

As Sweet As Honey is one of three pieces I made that use dominoes to comment on the theme of pollination. They will be shown in Pollination:Beyond the Garden at the Brush Gallery in Lowell, Mass. in the fall. That show has been curated by Greg Wright and will include work interpreting pollination by eleven artists who work in encaustic. Below is an ad for the show designed by Lynette Haggard that appeared in Art New England this month.

In addition to the art, the cultural importance of the theme will be broadened by inclusion of the film by Laura Tyler, Sister Bee, and a talk by Tony Lulek, President of the Norfolk County Beekeepers Association. There will also be a catalog of the show available.

My piece As Sweet As Honey will be shown with Dark Companion, a piece of the same size that I had finished some months ago. I have been using it as the opening page for my website. Somehow the first piece that I made, before As Sweet As Honey, was not working for me. When I had it hanging up and it didn't look any better to me over time, I finally tried to improve it. That didn't work either, so I just started over. Sometimes a dog painting is just a dog and remains that way no matter what you do. The trick is to recognize that before you spend hours trying to make it into something it will never be.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Facebook comment on this piece by Joanne Mattera:

I love the rhythms going on, the underlayer of lyrical line overlaid with the tap-tap-tap of the nails, and the purposeful meander of the dominoes, their dots an echo of the nail's staccato. That yellow grid is very "sweet" compared to your usual palette, and a lovely counterpoint to the black and white.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TV Recommendations From the Studio

2011-08-21T00:14:00.001-04:00

Busy, busy in the studio. I'll have some images of new work to post early next week. In the meantime, I thought I would recommend a couple of things I've seen on TV recently.

The first is a new HBO documentary, Gloria Steinem, in her own words. This is an hour-long program that sums up Gloria's life and career with lots of clips, interviews, images and commentary. She has had a full life and been a leader in the so-called second wave of feminism. (I don't really get why feminism has to be divided into waves, but from today's perspective, waves differentiate various efforts and timelines in the movement.)

It's surprising how much I had forgotten about what Gloria had done to work for women's political progress and about the women's liberation movement itself. The gains that women have made have been of very recent history and I guess we all tend to forget unless we are looking back. I guess I focus more on the lack of progress, rather than the gains. For example, one interview showed Gloria with Bella Abzug where they were both saying that they fully expected women candidates for president and vice president to be totally the norm in thirty years. What a disappointment that has been, as has the minimal number of women in Congress, in high-level jobs in business and achieving parity of pay - to name just a few areas where quantifiable inequality still persists.

Seeing women of many ages marching to achieve abortion rights really brought home to me how important that achievement was because previously abortion was dangerously illegal. Gloria herself had an abortion and publicly admitted that as part of the abortion rights movement. That fact was thought to be a shameful admission for a young, unmarried woman at the time.

The current war on women by the Republican Party is trying to put us back to that era where unmarried girls don't have (or don't admit to having) sex, where birth control is denied or unavailable, where abortion is murder and therefore illegal, where women are subordinate to men, where only hetero sex is acceptable, where the bible is literal truth and science is just another wrinkle in the political game.

Gloria, we need legions of you to fight the same fights over and over again! Can't we ever just move beyond patriarchy and get real for once?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fair Game: 2010 movie about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts

Next is Fair Game, a movie we saw on demand about the outing of Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent by the Bush administration. This was a fast-paced story with good acting and a plot that rang true, although movies always take some liberties for dramatic effect. In actuality, Cheney's righthand guy, Scooter Libby, took the fall for his disclosure of Plame's name and its subsequent publication in the Washington Post. (Of course his pardon was nearly instantaneous.)

As much as I hate recalling anything about the Bush administration, I do remember this happening. It was part of the inexorable march to war on Iraq that Bush-Cheney undertook. Now the odd thing is that if you Google this movie, up will pop a number of websites that debunk this movie and claim that it's all a load of crap, that the movie exaggerates Plame's and Wilson's stories and that even deny that Bush-Cheney lied about the reasons for going to war. But wait a minute, I was there. I know they lied about the invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction, they invented suspicious actions and imports of supposed tubes and uranium and scientists and whatever else it took to make it seem plausible that Saddam (the Madman) was about to bomb us off the face of the earth (or if not us, at least Israel).

So I say that those websites that debunk this movie are still spinning the lies on behalf of Bush-Cheney. I believe the movie (with allowances for glamour, simplicity and dramatic impact) and I enjoyed the hell out of seeing Cheney depicted as a devious Dr. Strangelove-type and Bush (in actual clips) as the dumbass that he was. Besides, you usually cannot go wrong with a Sean Penn movie and Naomi Watts is both beautiful and a good actor. Here's a review by Roger Ebert that has a realistic take on it.

Alexander McQueen and The Cone Sisters

2011-08-07T22:14:00.005-04:00

Now there's an odd trio for you - two elderly Victorian ladies and a contemporary avant garde designer - but all three were actually quite ahead of their time.

Ever so long ago, in mid-July, this was the way we spent our Saturday in New York - visiting the McQueen show at the Metropolitan Museum and the Cone Sisters exhibition at the Jewish Museum. I have to hand it to myself for having the persistence to continue with posting about this trip because I've dragged it out so long. Nevertheless, I'm determined to finish. (click pix to enlarge)

Metropolitan Museum
We (Binnie Birstein, Greg Wright and I) started off the day with an early train to NYC from Connecticut. When the cab dropped us off in front of the Met, there was a long line waiting to get into the museum. We raced upstairs to the McQueen line as soon as we entered, but the crowd behind the ropes waiting to get in was already in the hundreds. Greg and I were dismayed (to put it politely) and would have given it up, but the Binster was determined.

Crowd waiting for entry to McQueen show (image from the internet)

She decided that she would wait in line while Greg and I looked at exhibits downstairs and she would call us when she reached the doorway. Although we didn't really agree, she was not to be moved, so Greg and I went about our business.

Greg with the Ancient Greek krater showing a painter applying encaustic to a statue
of Herakles

The first stop, but of course, was the krater of the encaustic painter that Greg had not seen in person before. He was so happy to be there. You can see that he is beaming.

Greg with the Fayumn portrait of the boy Eutyches

In this photo, Greg seems to have turned into a Fayum portrait himself

Anyway, we happily visited several galleries in the antiquities wing for an hour or so while Binnie waited upstairs in line. Then we went to an information desk to ask where the exhibition of Richard Serra drawings was located. While we were standing there waiting, I noticed a sign that said if you joined the museum, you and all the members of your party could be admitted to the McQueen exhibit without waiting. I was incredulous and made sure that I was reading it correctly. Why hadn't we known about this before? Membership was $70 and Greg and I agreed to split the cost. We stood in another longish line to get a membership and with our temporary pass, we texted Binnie. She met us upstairs and we went into the exhibition with the membership pass.

Alexander McQueen, "Savage Beauty"
“You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.” - Alexander McQueen

Was it worth the wait and the $70 is probably what you're wondering? Overall, I would say yes, it was. I am certainly no fashionista and Project Runway is the closest I come to being concerned with fashion, however, I do think that McQueen was an artist who was closer to a sculptor than a designer. His mastery of tailoring was superb, but more than that, his imaginative innovation in conception and use of materials was quite incredible. Following are some examples.

Dress made from shellacked razor clam shells he first found on a beach.

Dress made from medical slides stained to look like blood on top and
dyed ostrich feathers feathers on the bottom

Coiled corset made from aluminum 1999-2000

Dress of woven leather, neckpiece of pheasant feathers with resin vulture skulls

Leather shaped corset with horsehair skirt

Spine corset made of cast silver

Here is an 8-minute video narrated by Andrew Bolton of The Costume Institute, curator of the exhibition. This will show you the exhibition gallery by gallery. (For more photos of each gallery and info on the designs, here's the link to the Met's blog on the exhibition.)

Seeing the exhibition was not a great experience in that it was so crowded that it was hard to get close to the pieces and see the detail. It was also much darker than in the video and I found the soundtrack annoying. But despite all that, I am glad I saw it. I had no idea of who he was or what he had accomplished in his short, rather sad life.

Isabella Blow with Alexander McQueen early in the fashion game

One blog (which apparently is stronger on fashion than punctuation) gives his story as follows: "Son of a taxi cab driver he dropped out of school at age 16 and went to work on Savile Row as a cutter and tailor at : Anderson & Sheppar, Gieves & Hakes and then Romeo Gigli. McQueen finished his education and graduated in 1994 with a Master’s degree in fashion design from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Isabella Blow legendary fashion guru discovered Alexander and purchased his entire graduating collection, which helped him make industry connections."

By 2006, he had markedly changed his appearance and was dressing and
hobnobbing with fashion icon Sarah Jessica at a Met gala

When I saw the shoes and hair from his spring 2010 collection (image below), I couldn't believe it and actually wrote a blog post about how horrifying I found it. However, seeing everything in context makes me understand it better, even though I still think those shoes are pretty devastating.

Spring 2010 collection on the runway. The lobster claw shoes horrified me.

Greg and I went through the exhibition together and looked pretty closely at things. We noticed that the first dress in the shot above was called the "bee dress" and I found an image of it by itself (this gallery was about the influence of Nature on McQueen).

The gold-colored hexagons on the hips are separate paillettes

Alexander McQueen committed suicide at age 40 on February 11, 2010, shortly after the death of his mother. R.I. P.

Read the NY Times story about the final few hours of the show here.

“Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment, I wasn’t born to give you a twin set and pearls.” - Alexander McQueen

Claribel, the eldest and one of the first female doctors, and Etta Cone

The Cone Sisters at the Jewish Museum: Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters

After a visit to the sculpture show on the Met's roof (underwhelming), a brief rest and then an incredibly expensive but tiny lunch in the Met's restaurant, we hiked it up to the Jewish Museum to see an exhibition about the Cone sisters' collection.

Etta bought the first five paintings in 1898 to decorate their apartment, but after the sisters met Gertrude and Leo Stein, they discovered Matisse in Paris in 1905, began collecting his work, and eventually owned 500 of his works, making theirs the largest and most comprehensive collection of Matisse's works in the world. On their death, the collection was donated to the Baltimore Museum and that museum has put together the loan of 50 pieces for the show at the Jewish Museum.

Matisse: Interior, Flowers and Parakeets, 1924, part of the Cone collection

Matisse: Large Reclining Nude, 1935

The Cones also collected about 100 works by Picasso and had extensive collections of lace, textiles and jewelry. This was another very crowded exhibition and it was difficult to see the works. The most interesting part to me was not the paintings but the jewelry and the handwritten letters between the sisters and with Matisse and Picasso. There was also a short film about the sisters, their relationship with Matisse and their collection. This show runs until September 25th so there is still time to see it. Here's another good link.

The Cone sisters' apartment showing their extensive collection of art

Maira Kalman
After looking around the rather compact Cone exhibition and seeing the film, we went upstairs to an exhibition of works by Maira Kalman. I like her witty drawings and ironic commentary but I have to say that I was about done in by the time I got there.

Maira and Pete by Maira Kalman

Maira has done many covers for The New Yorker and writes a blog for the magazine

Viewing her work and the collection of objects she put together required some intimate looking, ironic interpretation and a lot more attention than I was capable of giving, so I'm afraid I really couldn't do it justice, but if you are a fan of Maira's, you probably would have loved it because there are many small works to look at. Unfortunately, it ended July 31st.

And so, dragging ourselves slowly and reluctantly in the heat, we made our way to a coffee shop where Greg and I told Binnie we wanted to cut our plans short and go home to Connecticut. We are just not the troopers that the Binster is, and that's all there is to it. Luckily, we revived enough after the train ride to have dinner in Binnie's favorite Chinese restaurant before we called it a day.

Three Chelsea Galleries and the High Line

2011-07-31T17:36:00.003-04:00

Remember when I went to New York? Well, I barely do. It seems so long ago, but I insist on dredging my cluttered memory bank to bring you the remnants of my experiences. Thank goodness for photos or my mind would be a complete blank (well, nearly).

Three works by Ruth Hiller. The gallery website gives the dimensions of the
far right piece, called "oe", as 34 x 14 x 2 inches.

NOTE: Click on any of these images and they will open larger.

Ruth Hiller at Winston Wachter
So there we were in Chelsea - hot, tired but determined. We wanted to see Ruth Hiller's show at Winston Wachter on West 25th Street. (Note: there is an umlaut over the "a" in Wachter but I don't know how to add it.) Ruth is an encaustic homie and her work looked great in the gallery. I have to admit right up front, however, that I failed to get the titles and sizes for individual pieces.

Greg acting as the human scale again with large pieces by Hiller

Ruth's statement says that she is exploring "the parallels between microscopic and macroscopic elements....I find the visual similarities astounding." These are parallels that Greg has also explored in his work. Ruth works with very smooth surfaces on panels or slabs of wood with rounded corners. Each piece has one or more dimensional protuberances that are sliced open to show layers of color within. She calls this work "3D encaustic."

Side view of one of the works

One small room in the gallery was lit with blacklight to illuminate Hiller's use of fluorescent pigments.

Four large works

Hiller's saturated colors, rounded forms and colorful three-dimensional elements made for an unusually minimalist exhibition of work in encaustic that was striking in its simplicity and clarity of concept.

Binnie with one of Hiller's large pieces

Along with Ruth Hiller (her website here), the gallery was showing poured enamel paintings by Leah Durner and glass sculpture by Eric Woll. The resonance between the works of the three artists made for a unified show with a pared back but vibrantly colorful look.

Four large poured latex enamel works by Leah Durner

Closeup of two Durner works

Installation of glass beetles by Eric Woll entitled "The New Normal",
60 x 47 x 7 inches

Glass squirrels by Eric Woll

This is Winston Wachter's summer show and it will run until some time in September (date not given), so there is still time to see it in person.

Li SongSong at Pace Gallery
We happened to be walking by Pace on West 25th Street and stopped in because the building looked so attractive.

Exterior of Pace Gallery, West 25th Street, Chelsea

When we went inside the massive space, I was overwhelmed by the heavy impasto on the gigantic paintings by Li SongSong. I was so fascinated with trying to capture the dimensional effect of the two or three inch thick painted surfaces, that I barely scanned the overall images presented in the work.

The gallery's website says this is the first solo U.S. exhibit by 38-year-old Chinese artist Li SongSong, and the show consisted of 11 giant works, up to 17 feet wide.

First big gallery in the nterior of Pace

This is a detail of the painting in the photo above that's behind
the two viewers. I didn't see the image of the painted figure until
I later looked at this photo. All I could see in person was texture.

I was hoping to include some better photos of the work from the gallery's website, but apparently they are not allowing the photos to be grabbed. And they don't have info about the size of each work or the subject. So all I can say is that the paintings were constructed from slabs of canvas or aluminum overlapping one another and they were very big.

Here's a side view of one of the biggest paintings that was constructed from
slabs of painted aluminum.

Another view of the same piece

And still another view

You can see that I went right into construction mode when I saw this work.

And here's a closeup of the impasto that looks like cake frosting

The website says that Li works from photographs and film stills, some of which record world history and some of which are more personal. He blows up and grids the images into panels and then grids again with pastel colors and graphic patterns that distort the images, sometimes digging through the impasto to hidden colors layered underneath. This technique makes the original images "become[s] abstract and expressionistic, both obscuring and neutralizing the original content as it explores the imperfection of memory."

Two paintings in the show that certainly look like they commented on Chinese society -
and not in a good way.

Tamar Zinn at The Painting Center

When our plans for New York had firmed up a bit, I arranged to meet my Facebook friend, Tamar Zinn on Friday afternoon. We seem to agree so frequently on political comments as well as art in Facebook, that I thought it would be fun to meet each other in person. Coincidentally, Lynette Haggard had just posted an interview with Tamar in her blog and Tamar had two paintings in the show "Grey Matter" at The Painting Center.

Two works by Tamar Zinn in "Grey Matter"

Tamar's wall in the show - we thought it was the best of the exhibition

Before meeting Tamar, we first went to The Painting Center on 27th Street to see the show. This is a great space, a non-profit, that shows about 20 exhibits a year and posts images of artists' work in a online database, the Art File, and in an artists' registry. For details see the Center's website. (And by the way, they are closed for the summer.) Tamar's work looked great in person. You can see more of it on her website.

Overhead view of the High Line
(all images, unless otherwise noted, from the High Line website)

The High Line

Next we headed over to the High Line, an elevated public park. I have heard so much about it and was really looking forward to seeing it in person. (Don't forget to click pix to enlarge.)

The abandoned High Line

A brief history taken from the website: The elevated railbed was originally built in the 1930s to remove dangerous freight traffic from the city streets as part of the West Side Improvement Project. (There were so many accidents between trains and street traffic before the High Line was built, that 10th Avenue was known as "Death Avenue.") The last trains ran in 1980 and the railbed was abandoned until demolition was threatened and Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, was formed to save it in 1999. After a lot of hard work by the group and its supporters, the property was handed over to the city, a design process began and the selected team of James Corner Field Operations, landscape architects, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an architecture firm ("experts in horticulture, engineering, security, Maintenance, public art and other disciplines") began design and construction. (Check out those websites for some fabulous project info on the High Line and others - worldwide.)

Here's a great computer-generated video that shows the design process in flyover mode - really cool.

The High Line was scheduled to open in three phases: Phase One June 2009, Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street, and Phase Two June 2011,West 20th Street to West 30th Street. (I don't know what happened to Phase Three but apparently CSX Railroad still owns the section between West 30th and West 34th Streets.)

Overhead view of High Line park

People walking on the High Line with traffic below

Plantings - now really huge

People relaxing on wooden loungers

New Yorkers needing a lawn to lounge on

Watertowers visible from the High Line - note how pathway contains rail-like
impressions in the concrete

My skyline view with plantings foreground

Viewing windows to the street below

High Line at dusk looking out toward the piers

This park is really spectacular. The photos here don't show how varied the plantings are and that some are really large scale. They are like prairies or meadows of native plants, most now in flower or with seedheads from flowers that have passed. I was sorry that my Iphone had run out of gas by the time I got to the High Line, but these photos from the website are probably way better than I could ever have done anyway.

So we had a great time sitting at a little table and chairs, enjoying the people watching in a cool breeze and waiting for Tamar to join us. It was a real pleasure to meet her in person and learn about her life in the city. After chatting for a while, we walked along the High Line and then left it to pass through the now-totally gentrified Meatpacking District and up to 7th Avenue. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant recommended by Tamar, where we were joined by Winston Lee Mascarenhas, another encaustic homie, who was in New York for a residency at the School of Visual Arts.

By the time we trained it back to Binnie's in Connecticut, it had been a very full day. But on Saturday, we were getting up bright and early to make it to the Met for the Alexander McQueen exhibit. More about that in the next post - if I can remember that far back.

Update on Brian Dickerson

2011-07-30T01:53:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago in New York, I, along with friends Binnie Birstein and Greg Wright, visited Kouros Gallery at 23 East 73rd Street to see an exhibition by Brian Dickerson. I had only seen his work online, but it was magnificent in person and I was so glad that I had the opportunity to see it. In an earlier post, I gave details about the show.

Brian Dickerson, Autumn's End, 2010, oil, wax, mixed media on wood,
31 x 21 x 5 inches

Brian and I had corresponded a little by email prior to my visit to the gallery, and afterwards he sent me a video by John Thornton, called "Excavation," that includes gallery shots and an interview with him about his work. He gave me permission to repost the video here, so I hope you enjoy it. It's about 12 minutes long.

The show at Kouros is up until next Friday, August 5th.

Meanwhile, I've been very busy both in the studio and at home online. I hope to fit in my continuing posts on the New York visit soon.

The Latest NY Art Trip: Chelsea Galleries

2011-07-24T14:47:00.152-04:00

This feels so long ago that I can barely remember - but it was only a bit over a week ago. In between have been long sessions of oil painting, work, writing and lots of heat - you know, the usual. My intention for this post was to finish up Friday since I only posted the morning session the other day. However, I have just finished looking through, adjusting and resizing the photos I took - and now I have carpel tunnel in my right hand because there were so many just from the galleries. So I'm going to include what I can in this post and save some for next time. Here goes...

Mark Wagner at Pavel Zouboc Gallery

Pavel Zouboc on W. 23rd Street was the first stop on the tour after lunch. This gallery specializes in collage and is currently showing "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" by Mark Wagner (through August 12th). This show was nothing short of totally AMAZING (even though I hate that overused word). Mark Wagner must have no life because it is all spent making this work. I took a lot of closeups, but the work has so many tiny details that I don't know if you can see them. (Be sure to click on these images because they will enlarge.)

Greg beside the huge, 14-panel "Liberty" with a part of the
viewing platform in the right foreground

Wagner calls this work "currency collage" because it is all made from actual one dollar bills. The biggest piece in the show, "Liberty," is 16 feet x 4 feet and is composed of 14 panels that I figure must about 38" x 16". Within each panel, the detail is incredible and the overall composition is ingenious - very humorous and inventive. He cuts the tiniest little slivers of the bills - really incredible.

Liberty torch - note George Washington and the cartoon character at the apex

The press release from an earlier exhibition at Pavel Zouboc Gallery states that Mark Wagner, "creates collages that speak to the cultural, social, political and symbolic roles that money plays in our society....[He] transforms this icon of American capitalism into representational images whose symbolic force asks us to question our understanding of money, its cultural significance and relationship to art." See the gallery's website for many more photos of the work.

Worker Bees, 2011, currency collage, 16 x 37 inches

Closeup of Worker Bees

Trafficking, 2011, 37 x 16 inches

Closeup of the green light in Trafficking

In case you forgot, here's a dollar bill with the green seal to the right of George.
How many of these were used in the green light above?

I really loved these pieces - so clever, so obsessive - all made with currency

Closeup of Pretty Please, 12x16 inches

*&?@#!, 12 x 16 inches

This trunk contained a stop-time video of Wagner and an assistant
at work making the collages plus snippets of currency and
assorted objects. It was fascinating to watch the video.

Of course I also liked this unique piece (image from the gallery's website) called
Plumbing the Depths, with collage by Mark Wagner and paint by Joey Parlett, 2011,
24 x 24 inches. Great surface.

Cheim & Read on W. 25th Street was the next stop. They are showing "The Women In Our Life: A Fifteen Year Anniversary Exhibition," up through September 17th. This was a more pared-down show with single examples from ten women artists who have worked with the gallery. The exhibition announcement notes about the artists, "their selection, impressive in its scope, evolved in response to the artists' individual work." I take that to mean that they weren't chosen just because they were women. (Remember to click to see bigger images of the works.)

Joan Mitchell, Minnesota, 1980, oil on canvas in four parts,
102 1/2 x 243 inches

Closeup of Minnesota

Lynda Benglis, untitled, 1972, "beeswax, damar resin and pigment" on wood,
36 x 5 7/8 x 3 1/4 inches

Greg showing the scale of the Benglish piece

Louise Bourgeois, Nature Study No. 5, 1995, pink marble and steel,
20 x 36 1/2 x 23 inches

Also included in the show was work by Ghada Amer, Diane Arbus, Louise Fishman, Jenny Holzer, Chantal Joffe, Alice Neel and Pat Steir - all first rank artists. Check out the gallery website for a checklist of the works in the show.

Next was Stephen Haller Gallery on W. 26th Street. There was a group show of gallery artists, including my favorite Lloyd Martin, and an exhibition of "Collage Paintings from the 1960s" by Larry Zox. These pieces were quite interesting because they were just assembled roughly with staples and looked very contemporary.

Banner, 1962, collage, oil, staples on board, 72 x 72 inches

Another piece by Zox, this one much smaller and mounted in a sort of shadow box

Another Zox piece, about the same size as the one above. This one was my favorite.

The group show and the Zox show are up until August 5th.

Well, I think three shows are about it for this post. Still to come: Ruth Hiller's show at Winston Wachter, Li SongSong at Pace and Tamar Zinn at The Painting Center - plus the fabulous High Line.

P.S. Many thanks to Greg Wright for serving as the human scale for some of this work.

In Memoriam: Three Archived Posts

2011-07-23T10:06:00.001-04:00

I'm working hard in the studio and can't spare the time to blog right now although I'll be back soon. Meanwhile, here are three interesting posts I wrote about the dear departed along with the reasons why I chose these particular ones from among the many. I think they are worth reading or rereading.

The Queen portrayed by Lucien Freud

Lucien Freud: My post of February 4, 2011 here.
When I looked at the stats for my blog last night, I saw that the number of hits on Thursday and Friday was in the thousands! Between the two days, there were more than 5000 hits, where they are normally in the hundreds. At first I thought they were all New York dealers responding to my work as publicized in Joanne Mattera's blog (irony), but actually they turned out to be people who were somehow directed to the post I had written about Lucien Freud last February. An unknown search engine listed my post and directed people to it because of Freud's recent death. Here's what I said about Freud last February after reading a book about what it was like to sit for a portrait by him.

A portrait of Roy Neuberger reading, by his grandson, Matthew London

Roy Neuberger: My post of February 19, 2011 here.
Last night I received a comment on a post I had written about Roy Neuberger from his grandson, Matthew London, a New York photographer. Neuberger was a well-known art collector and founder of the Neuberger Museum in New York. He lived to be 107 years old. Matthew thanked me for writing about his grandfather and directed me to a website he had set up for him. He also listed his own website, where he had posted portraits of his grandfather. Matthew London's photographs are strikingly beautiful and I urge you to visit his website to see them.

Rob Moore from the Boston Sunday Globe article about him

Rob Moore: My post of December 17, 2009 here.
I continue to get comments on this post from people who search Rob's name and find it. There is not much available on Rob, a wonderful painter and teacher at Massachusetts College of Art for 26 years. Rob Moore died in 1992 at the untimely age of 55, before the internet could immortalize him. Only years after graduating from MassArt and painting many paintings was I able to understand what Rob meant in his criticism of my work and assignments in color theory classes. He was a brilliant teacher and a very colorful personality. He is still very much missed by his students. How I wish I could show him how my work developed. It only took me 20-some years after studying with him.

My Arden Show Reviewed

2011-07-21T18:59:00.002-04:00

Featured in the Arden show - Schematic, 2011, 30x40 inches,
mixed media with encaustic on panel (click to enlarge)

In case you haven't seen the blog post yet, this afternoon Joanne Mattera reviewed my current show at Arden Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston (up until July 30th). Joanne is starting a new feature, cleverly called "Critical Mass," in which she reviews shows in Massachusetts. I was fortunate enough to be included in the premiere post, along with Jennifer Riley and Damian Hoar de Galvan, who are showing at Carroll & Sons Gallery in the South End.

Starting off with "If Nancy Natale is not known to the New York art world she should be," Joanne went on to allude to my work as "the love child of Lee Bontecou and El Anatsui." She described it as "equal parts formal beauty and polyrhythmic muscle."

Wow! How great is that? Thank you, Joanne! If anyone wants to know, you can tell them that I do not yet have a New York dealer but of course I'm interested.

And just in case you think I haven't been working away in the studio while the show was on, here's the newest piece from the Running Stitch series.

Red Passage, 2011, 24x60 inches, encaustic and mixed media
on three joined panels (click to enlarge)

Friday Morning in New York

2011-07-20T01:14:00.000-04:00

OK, OK. I've dawdled long enough and I can't postpone it any longer; I have to wrestle all my experiences and memories of the recent arting trip to New York into some kind of post, or posts. Writing about it chronologically would be one way to organize it, but why should I let that influence me?

This reminds me of the debate as to whether it's better to eat your favorite thing off the plate first because you just can't wait to get at it, or whether to save it until the end so it can be savored and will be the last part of the meal you taste. I think I'm going to go for the best first, as I do when eating, because there's always the chance I could stroke out before I clean the plate - or finish the post.

Dawdling on Binnie's terrace on Friday morning
(Greg Wright, left, and Binnie Birstein, right)

View from Binnie's terrace - See why we were dawdling?

(By the way, you can click on most images to see them larger.)

Brian Dickerson at Kouros Gallery
We began our expedition on Friday by first visiting Kouros Gallery at 23 East 73rd Street, on the upper east side. We went specifically to see a solo show of constructed paintings by Brian Dickerson, whose work I had seen online and included in a post in my Art of Bricolage blog. Brian had seen the post, emailed me and kindly sent me a catalog of the show that contained images of his work and an excellent essay by Eve Bowen of The New York Review of Books.

Brian Dickerson, Untitled II, 2010, 30 x 23 x 7 inches, wax, oil, mixed media on wood

Autumn's End, 2010, 31 x 21 x 5 inches, oil, wax, mixed media on wood

Seeing work online and then in person can sometimes be disappointing, but this was certainly not the case here. What was surprising was the scale of the work. All three of us had thought that the work was much smaller, perhaps because of the intimately worked surfaces, but these pieces were substantially sized, many pieces fairly deep, and all having a powerful presence. The color was a surprise, too, because although the overall tone is fairly dark, there are areas of saturated color that appear in some paintings behind the main plane or in a corner of the piece. These colorful places suggest that perhaps the entire piece was once strongly colored and became darker over time.

Roseboom, 2010, 71 x 31 x 6 1/2 inches, oil, wax, mixed media on wood

This is thoughtful, carefully made and deeply considered work that required being made over a long period of time. There are traces of change, earlier states, blemishes, hidden color, multiple coats of paint, scraping, wear and marks. The work looks as if it had been made from old, used wood, but I understand from the catalog that it is all new wood that has been worked to its present state.

An unusual feature of Brian's work are the small openings into the interior of the works. These gaps or spaces seem to offer glimpses beneath the outer skin and into the heart of the paintings. The spaces are mysterious, unknowable, unfathomable. To me they represent the mystery of life itself, the source that humankind is always trying to reach through religion, philosophy, meditation, drugs or some other method of discovery that allows movement beyond the present to attain the sublime secret.

I was really wowed by this work and think that it shares a feeling for the darkness, for loss, for the sense of time and memory that I strive for in my own work. Sensing a shared sensibility doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it is a powerful connection.

American Abstract Artists 75th Anniversary
at OK Harris, 383 West Broadway, Soho
Next we took the subway down to Soho and walked a few blocks over to OK Harris. This enormous gallery was founded by Ivan Karp in 1969. Ivan Karp was Leo Castelli's co-director for ten years, from 1959 to 1969, when he left Leo and went out on his own, establishing his gallery as the first on West Broadway in Soho. When I was in school at MassArt in the late '80s, Soho was the locus of a thriving art scene. Now it's mostly expensive clothing and shoe stores - the way of Kardashian World.

Outside OK Harris showing the advertising banner.
All of Soho used to be filled with these in the heyday of the gallery scene.
The groups of men are cigar smokers and construction workers.

OK Harris is so big that they put on five solo shows at one time and do that seven times a year. It is so big that it could fit the huge American Abstract Artists 75th anniversary show into the space and still feel gigantic. I took only one picture that shows how big just one gallery is and doesn't do a good job of it.

Front gallery showing one corner

I took some scattered shots of works that I liked, but the AAA site has a full complement of photos showing the whole exhibition. In fact, their site has images of more work than we saw because OK Harris was closing for a month and a half the night we were there, and many works had already been removed and packed for shipment.

For some reason, the black and white and/or grey works really appealed to me, and those are the images I'm including here. This is kind of surprising, given all the color in many works.

Merrill Wagner, Wave, 2009, rust preventative paint on steel,
41.25 x 60.25 inches

John T. Phillips, My Daddy Drives a UFO, 2008,
oil on linen, 76 x 78 inches

Mark Williams, Split Diptych-Correspondence (1033), 2010
acrylic on canvas, 14 x 21 inches

I guess there is a certain horizontal stripeyness that these works have in common, and who does that remind me of? Hmmm.

The small grey gallery was, by consensus, the best gallery in the show, and one group in particular was a hit with us, image below from the AAA site.

L. Gabriele Evertz, Contrast and Assimilation: Blue, 2009,
acrylic on canvas over wood, 24 x 24 inches;
C. James Juszczyk, The Wanderer, 2009,
acrylic on canvas, 29.5 x 33.5 inches;
R. Gail Gregg, Crosscut, 2005, encaustic on coardboard,
16 x 12.5 inches

Since you will have all the images from the exhibition to look at on the AAA site, I'll show you what else I photoed - the back room.

Left side storage area in back room

Binnie looking at some paintings on the floor - showing desk at the back

Right side of storage area in back

Staff lunchroom - a great collection of signs

The desk

Suspicious characters lurking on the front stairs

Lunch
Always one of the day's highlights, lunch on Friday was exceptionally good. We were hot, tired and ravenous. It was late and our Iphones were not giving us the right info. We stumbled onto a great little place called Bistro Les Amis on Spring Street.

Inside dining room at Bistro Les Amis

The air conditioning was soothingly cool, the service was friendly and prompt, the prices were not too bad and the food was excellent. Furthermore, the restrooms had piles of paper towels. Ahh, heaven!

I'll have to continue with the afternoon events in my next post. Stay tuned for the Chelsea galleries, a face-to-face meeting with a Facebook friend, and a great dinner at a Japanese restaurant - oh, and the High Line.

Ahrty Photos from the Art Trip

2011-07-18T00:10:00.000-04:00

Overload

Alienation

Looking up the staircase at Kouros Gallery

Fuzzy, illegal photo at Richard Serra exhibition

Art Daze

Unidentified giant, rusty, cylinders in Chelsea

How Sweet It Is on the High Line

Palms or petrol?

Must be time for...

Another photo?

Thanks to the models and art companions - Binnie Birstein and Greg Wright
More posts to follow, this time with text.

New York Bound

2011-07-14T02:05:00.000-04:00

New York midtown skyline

Every few months I need to make a trip to New York to do some heavy looking. Luckily, my dear friend Binnie invites me to stay at her beautiful home in Connecticut when the need for an arting trip makes itself felt, and the city is just an hour away from there by commuter rail. This time, joining Binnie and me, is our good friend Greg Wright. This threesome is a sure bet for many laughs, a lot of discussion of art and innumerable other topics.

Since the Chelsea galleries are closed on Saturdays during the summer, we will be heading there on Friday instead and have quite a list of special interests, recommendations and favorites. If we managed to hit them all, we'd take more than one day, I'm sure.

Brian Dickerson, Autumn's End II, 2011
Oil, wax and mixed media on wood, 42 x 21 x 9 inches

One gallery not located in Chelsea but on East 73rd Street is Kouros Gallery. A show of Constructed Paintings by Brian Dickerson has just opened there this week and that is a special destination for me. I have only seen Brian's work online, but he sent me a wonderful catalog that the gallery printed with many images of his work and an interview by Eve Bowen of The New York Review of Books. The interview relates how Brian developed this work and continues to make it, his motivation, his inspiration and the context in which he places his work. This well-written piece was very insightful and illuminating. I hope to include a post about Brian's show when I return from my visit.

The Cone sisters on either side of Gertrude Stein. Claribel (left) was a doctor and Etta (right) was rumored to have had an affair with Gertrude before Alice B. Toklas came on the scene. Stein wrote of them in Two Women: "There were two of them, they were sisters, they were large women, they were rich, they were very different one from the other."

On Saturday, we are headed to the Jewish Museum to see a wonderful show of work on loan from the Baltimore Museum of Art that was collected by the Cone sisters of Baltimore directly from the artists beginning in 1905. This is the most intact collection of early work by Matisse, Picasso, van Gogh, Gaugin, Cezanne and other modern masters. To see about 50 works from their collection, which at one time numbered about 3000 pieces, is a remarkable opportunity.

Also on view at the Jewish Museum is an exhibition by Maira Kalman, whose paintings and observations I have often enjoyed in The New Yorker and the New York Times.

Alexander McQueen dress made of razor clam shells, 2001

Then, of course, there is always the Metropolitan Museum, which has so much to offer. We would love to see the Alexander McQueen show but don't want to stand in line forever, so we may see instead the Richard Serra drawings. There is also a piece by Liza Lou that I would like to see of a mile-long coil of white beadwork.

For dinner Saturday, we have a reservation at Robert at the Museum of Art and Design. Binnie raved about this when she went there before, so this time we're all going.

Wow, it sounds action packed and I left out a lot on purpose.

July Show at Arden

2011-07-11T00:27:00.001-04:00

I had a wonderful time yesterday at Arden Gallery. A few artist friends and my always-supportive wife Bonnie were there celebrating my first appearance on Newbury Street with me, and I was available to meet some collectors that Arden had invited. Bonnie took all these photos - thanks for a great job!

Me with Brought to Tears, 24x24

First of all, the people of Arden are great - very welcoming, enthusiastic and warm. Everybody should be so lucky to be represented by such a terrific gallery!

Some Fell Among Thorns, 24x42, and Schematic, 30x40

This is the picture that was in the sneak peek, so you've seen this already, but I'm going to go around the gallery and show you how each piece relates to the other. There were just five pieces in the show, but they were beautifully displayed and lit. I thought they looked great in place (but then I'm prejudiced).

Some Fell Among Thorns

Schematic, 30x40, with Brought to Tears

The gallery where my work was exhibited is the middle room of three in the gallery. There is an opening into the third room between the picture above and the one below. On the other side of the opening, the walls are painted a lovely soft brown, which really complemented my work.

Passing Days, 24x24, and Cinch, 30x40

On the small wall between rooms, two amazing works in encaustic by Matt Duffin were hung

Here Greg Wright, Joanne Mattera and I (back to camera) are discussing Schematic

Lynette Haggard and Binnie Birstein examine my book about
the Running Stitch series (apparently a real sketch)

Joanne tells us what's what. Here we're in the third room of the gallery
where works from each of Arden's artists is shown.

Three works by Joanne Mattera along with those of other gallery artists

Andy Woodward, one of the Arden staff, with a large Joanne Mattera work

We resort to drink (spring water) in the front room of the gallery.

The featured artist in the front room was Teri Malo. Here are three of her smaller works.

To get the color and image right, here is Teri Malo's A Deeper Measure from Arden's website

A nice shot of Lynette with Joanne. In the background,
one of Teri's works with a window onto Newbury Street.

A good time was had by all, as you can see.

This was a lovely introduction for me with a lot of laughs and much discussion of art, artists, shows and, of course, personalities. Not shown in these pictures were Linda Cordner, Philip Gerstein, Eleanor Steinadler, Cynthia and Richard Frost, and Chris Kyle and her husband (sorry, I don't have your name). There were others that I don't know, but thanks to everyone who came to take a look (and not just at my work).

Then today, back to the studio to finish a big piece. An artist's work is never done.

Sneak Peek of July Show at Arden Gallery

2011-07-05T20:12:00.002-04:00

Joanne Mattera's sneak peek of my show at Arden

Where would we be without Facebook? Home alone, no doubt. Here's a photo which Joanne posted this evening in the Encaustic group in Facebook. It's a peek at my show this month at Arden Gallery, 129 Newbury Street, Boston. ardengallery.com

And while we're at it, here are professional photos of the three new works that are included in this show. The ones I posted earlier were certainly not up to par.

Schematic, 2011, 30x40 inches, mixed media with encaustic on panel

Cinch, 2011, 30x40 inches, mixed media with encaustic on panel

Passing Days, 2011, 24x24 inches, mixed media with encaustic on panel

And just arrived today, the first five copies of my book The Running Stitch Series.

NANCY NATALE The Running Stitch Series | Make Your Own Book

It's a large format landscape style, hard cover book with a dust jacket, 13x11 inches, 20 pages. The photos are large and clear. I'm very happy to see the size of them and how well they came out, thanks to JohnPolakPhotography.com who now does all the photography of my work. I wish it was possible to make it large enough for you to read because there's an actual text and it's not just a picture book.

Unfortunately, because it's a self-published blurb book, it's pretty expensive. I think your best bet is to become my BFF and see if I'll cement our friendship with a copy!

I will have a couple in the gallery and will be getting more.

Holiday Weekend

2011-07-02T00:02:00.002-04:00

Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958 - from the Whitney Museum website

Holidays are not made for artists. It's either a hassle to fit in family goings-on with your own schedule or you just give that up and take advantage of a long weekend by putting in extra hours in the studio. I'm hoping to spend some time painting if I can drag myself away from reading the new Joan Mitchell bio, Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter: A Life by Patricia Albers.

Joan Mitchell in the studio in the mid-1950s. I saw in the bio that this is one
of the photos taken of Mitchell by Art News for her interview by Irving Sandler
in the "--- Paints a Picture" series. This was in 1957.

I do love a good book you can sink your teeth into, and reading about women artists is always fascinating to me. This biographer, Patricia Albers, uses a lot of purple prose and inserts many of those fictitious omniscient narrator statements that I find so annoying. (Joan breathed a sign of relief and ...) Once I got over all that, I started to find the detailed story of Mitchell's life interesting and to marvel at her accomplishments in the art world of her day, or of any day for that matter. (I have written about Mitchell previously in the blog here.)

This Mitchell diptych appears on the cover of the Klaus Kertess book
(and looks much more alive, by the way). The title is "Lille V" from 1986.

Reading this bio motivated me to pick up one of the large format books of her work that I have in the studio to look at the development of her paintings. (The book I like best is the one by Klaus Kertess. It has better reproductions than the one by Jane Livingston.) Looking at the way her work changed over time was inspirational.

With all the drinking, carousing, socializing and psychoanalysis that went on in her life, the fact that Joan Mitchell was able to keep working for more than 40 years is amazing. That she regularly made extremely large paintings (the smallest was about 5 x 6 feet) and developed her work into the dynamic, airy and lyrical paintings which comprise the bulk of her oeuvre is really remarkable and a testament to the power of determination and persistence. Working that large requires a real physical effort as well as a heavy emotional, intellectual and aesthetic investment.

But that's what it's all about - continuing to work, pressing on despite it all, giving up holidays, flag waving and crepe paper in the bicycle spokes, in favor of the hot studio, the smell of paint, the brush in your hand and the whole wide world in front of you, just waiting to come alive.

New Work and July Stealth Show

2011-06-26T17:56:00.000-04:00

"Schematic", 2011, 30" x 40", paper, ink, metal, oilstick, tacks and encaustic on panel

The annual encaustic conference seems to be a real marker in my life, like BC and AC. Even before I register for it in January, I start planning my life around it. As the beginning of June nears, I start shunting things to AC when I'll return home, conference over, and have all that luxurious time to kill. Funny how it never happens like that.

So when I got back from the conference this year, I was faced with all the doctor, dental, hair and car appointments that I had put off, plus all the work from my day jobs that I had postponed. However, Arden Gallery had promised to hang my work in the middle section of their gallery during July and I wanted to include new work. Yes, it would have been a lot simpler if I had not decided to try out a new series that I'm calling "Building Blocks," but I am not known for my simple approach to life: if I can complicate things, by gum, let me at it.

"Cinch", 2011, 30" x 40", paper, ink, metal, oilstick, tacks and encaustic on panel

So in addition to everything else I had to get done, I managed to make some new work. Here are two new works from the Building Blocks series that will be hanging at Arden Gallery for the month of July along with three other pieces. This will not be an official show with a postcard, reception and all the rest but a summer try out for me as a new artist. I'm thinking of it as a stealth show and I'm very excited to see my work hanging all together in a premier Boston gallery on Newbury Street.

I'm planning on being at the gallery on Saturday afternoon, July 9th, to welcome friends and visitors, take photos of the work and just celebrate the moment for the personal achievement it is. If you are around and want to stop by to say hello and take a look, I would be glad to see you. If you can't make it that day, the work will be there for the month of July, so I hope you will stop by if you are in Boston.