And the Oscar goes to...

Sunday is a day I treasure because I usually spend it ensconced on the couch reading just about every word of the Sunday NY Times. I am a fairly new convert to this paper, having grown up on The Boston Globe, but happily having graduated from that paper after moving to western Mass. I now consider the tone of most Globe articles despicably snotty and I wonder if the change is in the paper or in me.

So yesterday I was reading away in the Times and arrived at "T" - the "style magazine" of the Sunday Times that occasionally has articles about art and current events. Many Sundays I skip this magazine because it's full of emaciated models in excruciatingly-expensive designer clothes posed in decayed buildings or vacant lots. (Not exactly my cup of tea.) But yesterday there were two articles of interest to me - one that absolutely made my blood boil and the other that I loved because of the photo of fabulous art and biographical info about the artist. The surprising thing is that both articles had a connection to Cummington, a small town out here in western Mass. (I'm always looking for that place connection.)

First the good news, some time ago Joanne Mattera included an image of work by El Anatsui on her blog. I was bowled over by the work's shimmering beauty that reminded me so much of the glowing, golden Byzantine mosaics at St. Mark's in Venice.

(Image at right shows the golden ceiling mosaics in the Basilica di San Marco, Venice, made from clear glass tiles with gold leaf on the back.)


Rather than mosaic, El Anatsui composes his works from aluminum bottle tops flattened into rectangular shapes or circles and joined into a sort of fabric with copper wire.

"Dusasa I" by El Anatsui, 20 feet by 30 feet, image courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, Chelsea

The article about El Anatsui in yesterday's "T", was entitled "A Thousand Bottles" and written by Alexi Worth (an artist himself whom I met years ago when he lived in Boston). The print story featured just one photo of Anatsui's work but the online version has a slide show of several pieces. There was a photo with the story of Anatsui, who is a Ghanaian and professor of sculpture at a Nigerian university. The article related that this work started when Anatsui found a discarded bag of bottle caps, brought them back to his studio and began experimenting.

Reading about the various styles and bodies of work Anatsui made over the course of his career was very inspirational because it shows that some artists take years to find their stride, but when they do strike it, they know what they're doing because of all the years and experiments behind them. This work is fabulously beautiful, but the artist does not treat it as precious and insists only that when it is exhibited, it be draped like fabric rather than hung flat. Exactly how it is draped is up to the gallery or museum although Anatsui does prefer horizontal ripples or folds.

"Red Eyes", 8 x 9.25 feet (also courtesy of Jack Shainman gallery)

This was a wonderful story and I really enjoyed it. (And the Cummington connection was that Anatsui had spent a residency in Cummington, MA some years ago where his use of a chainsaw led to a new body of work. I thought the chance of Anatsui ending up in Cummington from across the globe was really a strange little factoid.)

Now we come to the blood boiler, entitled "Butch Fatale: Lesbian glamour steps out of the closet. Daphne Merkin applauds." This sexist essay, supposedly celebrating lesbian glamour and centered on Rachel Maddow (part-time resident of West Cummington), displays Daphne Merkin's ignorance of and disdain for lesbians in nearly every line. Beginning by calling them "wallflowers at the homosexual dance," she goes on to decry lesbians with and without makeup, with and without fashion, famous and unknown, who participate in "a silly game played by a tiny pack of unalluring inverts."

Too bad you are so ignorant, Daphne. Why write about a topic on which you know worse than nothing?

Rather than lauding Rachel Maddow for her outstanding intelligence, awareness and ability that has taken the world of political commentary by storm, Daphne chooses to focus on Rachel's appearance and the fact that "she's not trying to pass, but she's willing to prettify her image sufficiently to endear her to male viewers." This is among the most ludicrous statements I have ever encountered and it can only be saluted with a chorus of loud Duhs followed by several letters to the editor. You are an insulting fool, Daphne, and I hope that you drown in the sea of stupidity that is your alleged writing. You get the Oscar for Best Supporting Homophobe.

And speaking of Oscars, if you didn't manage to stay awake (as I was not able to), take a look on Youtube at Sean Penn's gracious and intelligent acceptance speech for winning Best Actor and listen to what he has to say on the subject of civil rights for non-heterosexuals.

Shameless Self Promotion

Saturday was the opening of Physical Geography, and Lynette and I had a great time welcoming friends, relatives and interested people who had seen the article about our show in the Boston Globe. People seem to be fascinated by encaustic and have so much misinformation about it. Exhibiting encaustic works really feels like an educational project - informing people that it is NOT toxic, NOT batik, NOT about to melt off your wall, NOT that difficult to use, NOT made from crayons, etc., etc.

A Soapbox Digression: The other thing is that it's frequently necessary to lead people away from the craft or technical aspect of encaustic toward the fine art direction. As pointed out by guru Joanne Mattera, I am not an "encaustic artist" but an artist who paints with encaustic - a big difference in focus. Encaustic is the medium chosen to make a painting, and learning the technical aspects of the medium just makes me able to achieve my visual ideas. This concept sometimes gets lost in the discussion of the work, and I have to keep steering in the fine art direction - even steering myself. Why is this important? Because the visual ideas and expressions transcend the medium. The medium is not the message, it is the vehicle. Otherwise we become ghettoized or limited by the medium as in "woman artist."

Back to the opening...When we arrived for the opening, we were very pleased to see the wonderful job that Jero Nessen, Director of the ArtSpace gallery (and developer of the whole ArtSpace building) had done in arranging and adjusting the track lights. Many of the 80 artists in the building dropped by the opening and introduced themselves. Talking about art with other artists is always enjoyable, and it was particularly fun to talk encaustic with New England Wax members who came to the opening. Thanks to everyone for being so enthusiastic about the work! (NOTE TO BOSTON-AREA ARTISTS: ArtSpace has an annual call for proposals for solo and group shows.)

Center of back wall (this wall is 40 feet long) showing my work to left and Lynette's to right.

Looking right - these are Lynette's works. From left: "Harmonium" 10"x22" (an outstanding piece - too bad I cut it off), "Matter of Two" 29"x27", "When It Touches" 16"x48" and "Ruminant" 36"x36".

And continuing around to the right. The two works on the right of this picture are mine - picture taken last week before the lights were arranged. They are "Clark" 24"x66" and "The Maze" 16"x32".

This is starting again on the back wall but moving left this time - four pieces of my quiet, contemplative work - "Happy Family" 24"x24", "Wrigley's Best" 24"x24", "Clark" 24"x66" and "Foreign Influence" 24"x24".

Continuing to the left - Lynette's work: "Reveal" 30"x20" (on the card), "Slight Blueness", "Small Paladin, "Woven", "Dark Paladin" - the 4 small ones, "Paladin I" and "Paladin II" both 16"x16" and turning the corner with "Salt-Rose."

A close-up of Lynette's beautiful "Salt-Rose," 2008, 36"x36" - such a fantastic, weathered-looking surface to this piece but hard to see in the photo.

This is taken from the other end of the left wall and shows my blue diptychs on the left - each panel 16"x16". (Love those black heating/cooling panels!)

Here we are way on the other side of the gallery showing the left side of the entry. These three are my pieces - "The Portal" 16"x32", "Abound" (on the card) 36"x24" and "Red Pearl" 24"x24".


The entry wall on the right - kinda dark - from left: my piece "Falling Water" 16"x32", then Lynette's "Only a Few" 20"x16" and "Dot Burst" 20"x16". and finally my "Forever Blowing Bubbles" and "Tongue Tied" both 12"x24".

These are the same pieces from the other direction - "Falling Water" on left.

And if that wasn't enough, we also had a 16-foot long display case that we filled with encaustic "stuff" - wax balls, an electric grille with pots and brushes, encaustic paint, etc. - I like the reflection of the paintings on the glass.

So, a good time was had by all. Tune in in a couple of weeks for the encaustic demo we're doing.

Breaking Into the News

Just imagine - Physical Geography: Explorations in Rich Surface, the upcoming show that friend and fellow encaustic painter Lynette Haggard and I are opening next week, received a wonderful write-up in the Boston Globe Metro West edition! Arts writer Denise Taylor contacted us after receiving our card and press release from ArtSpace Maynard's director. It seems that Denise was familiar with Lynette's work and remembered my name from about 15 years ago when I was very involved with Somerville Community Access Television (I was producer of the year for 1994). Wow!

Denise wrote a wonderful article with a description of the encaustic painting process and she also described Lynette's work and my work. Here's what she said about mine:

"Natale's quilt-like abstracts piece together patterned rectangles of varying sizes outlined by thick, licorice-black whips of wax. Bright, cheerful, and chewy-looking, the more vibrant among them look like a Willy Wonka take on Mondrian. Others, using subdued mossy greens and murky blues, are quieter meditations. With curving strings, buttons, and plants encased in the wax, they seem to strive to order nature's unpredictable forms into neat sectioned panels that can't quite manage to hold them."

I like that "Willy Wonka take on Mondrian." I think that she's talking particularly about this piece, Happy Family, since that's the image I sent her.

Denise is very perceptive to note that I do think of my work as a garden, where the geometric borders struggle to keep the wild, organic components in line. And isn't that a metaphor for all of life? - that continual struggle for control that we are bound to lose just by the nature of things.