At Long Last, Pollination

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!

The Pace of Life and Art

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.

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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.

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Alexander McQueen and The Cone Sisters

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.