Reminder of gift offer

If you sign up with your email to follow my blog by the end of the month, I will mail you a piece of art from my flat files!
Just add your email address to the window at the top of the right side bar, and press "submit". You will get a verifying window that makes you click to prove you are not a robot, and once you do that, you will soon after receive an email to verify your subscription. Then email me your address so I can send you your the packet.
Tillystudio@aol.com
It's a blatant ploy on my part to build up followers among friends as I embark on a year of writing intentionally. I plan to post issues of history and finding your voice in the story. I want to share tips for art lessons and crafty ideas that can be done at home or in a classroom.  And I will continue to point out the art in our communities. By subscribing to me, you will participate in keeping me accountable. If the art and stories inspire you, I hope you let me know and don't hesitate to pass it forward.
I believe that the arts can make a difference in shifting the world view to a more positive and inclusive place. It's my small activist act... trying to make the world slightly more hopeful, positive and beautiful.
Thank you!

What Really Happened to the Buffalo?

The Last of the Buffalo, by Bierstadt, 1888

In researching for my art history book, I was shaken to understand that the American Buffalo were systematically killed under the encouragement of our government. Hoping to force the Native Americans off the prairies and onto reservations, the thought behind the extermination of the docile species was that,  “every dead buffalo figures as one less Indian”. Without the herds, the native Americans would starve. This was the policy of leaders of government in the late 1800's, all the way up to President Ulysses S. Grant.

1938 nickle

Of course that was not depicted in the great paintings of the time. Alfred Bierstadt’s painting, The Last of the Buffalo, actually depicts a Native American in the act of planting his spear into the animal and surrounded by slaughter and a seeming abundance of wildlife. Bierstadt’s painting did a lot to reinforce the romanticism of the “wild west” and the white man’s “Manifest Destiny” to own all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Though convincingly painted, the work shows vast vistas of “empty” lands, symbolic dried bones and primitive savage warriors of the past and a dramatic blue sky portending to a bright future. Painted at the same time as Van Gogh in Europe was painting, this picture is as surreal as Starry Night. Both are interpretations of landscape reflecting dreams of the times. 

Unfortunately the reality was more of a nightmare. Congress passed a bill in 1957 to protect the Buffalo, but President Grant refused to sign it. In 2016 President Obama signed a National Bison Legacy Act protecting the mammals, who have been on the verge of being wiped out, from further harm.

A real photograph from the late 1800's

Currently, President Trump sees the need to protect hunting as a hobby, over protecting any endangered species.

Donald Trump Jr.

 

Bathtime Painting

painting by P. Bonnard

Soaking in the tub is such a great way to catch up with myself. It is also the time to let go of myself. Inside the hot water, I love musing on how the bath has been effectively depicted in art history.

Since indoor plumbing of the early 19^th century, scenes of the solitary bath have been depicted by many artists. My favorites are by Bonnard (1867-1947). Somehow the artist has so melded with the model (his wife), that I don’t feel like an outsider gazing in. I get the perspective of the woman bathing. 

Oil Painting by Bonnard

I love Frida Kahlo's painting,What the Water Gave Me, 1938, where she looses herself in daydreams. 

What the water Gave Me, by Kahlo in 1938

Personally, as I keep soaking, I find myself feeling more like Ophelia by John E. Millais (painted in 1851)

Ophelia (not soaking, but drowned)

 

Opening of "Depicting Our Town" at SHS

Tomorrow, January 18th, will be the opening of a juried group show I am proud to be part of.

Since returning to the area after years away, I feel very nostalgic about my hometown. It feels like home and so I have painted nests on the front porches of my favorite buildings on Main street.

A fancy public reception will be held on Saturday January 18th from 5 to 7pm There will be cash prizes announced at the event. In addition, guests who attend the reception will be invited to select their favorite work of art which will receive the "SHS Crowd Pleaser" award. (hint hint)
Gallery SHS is located at 18 Main Street, Route 41, Sharon, CT www.sharonhist.org
The show is open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 12 to 4 and Saturdays from 10am to 2pm

Maira Kalman, my Shero

This winter, while visiting kids in Vermont, I stumbled upon a cache of Maira Kalman books.
From her poignant series of cakes to her stories of her mother's closet, she drew me in, literally. A fantastic visual journalist, Ms. Kalman has invented the field and is who I want to be in my next life.

My drawing of Kalman that now hangs over my desk

Numbers and Alphabets in the Forest

Ever wandered into a fairy tale?  I took as many photos as I could before fear of loosing my grip on the camera forced me to put it away. A white fog surrounded the wood. I was looking for signs.

Inside the forest, at the furthest corner of the farm, I felt in another world. Towering over me, the trees were half a century old, initially planted when one of my sisters was born. Did my grandfather plant the seedlings for Annie, the Mathematician, or Gwen, the Writer? I cannot recall. But clues were there, in writhing shaggy vines and tripping roots. Mystified, I almost had to cut my way through.

Pregnant with Possibilities

It happened again.
Someone at an art opening, (this time a person who was 3x as big as I), asked if I was pregnant.

My answer is that I am pregnant with possibilities. Get out of my way!!!

Oh, Capernaum* (chaos to my mind now)

The world outside my kitchen sink

I’m having an existentialist crisis because last night I experienced the art of Nicole Labaki. She is a Lebanese actress, screenwriter and film director who in 2018 finished a 2-hour social-realist drama that will shake your soul. At first the award winning Capernaum is hard to watch, but the filming of it is so delightful that I hung in there. And I am so glad that I did. After the credits went by, Michael and I sat in silence for many minutes unable to shake our selves back to the present.

The main actor, a Syrian boy living in Norway, Zaid, is a kid of around 12 years old. His relationship with an Ethiopian baby (actually born of parents from the east and west coast of the African continent) is so sweet and poignant, and evolves to depict a pure and loving brotherhood. Both children are desperate and Zaid is prone to inventive nurturing. The film has a lot of silence, and the emotion in the faces of the children speaks the situation.

Labaki says that the spark of the story came to her late one night as she and her husband (who does the music for the film and agreed to mortgage the house for production costs), were driving home and at a traffic stop. Out the car window a woman was begging with her baby who was so tired he/she could barely stand, yet even at midnight, could not be allowed to sleep. Labaki wondered at the world of the child being limited to the square meter of sidewalk. She was at the time pregnant with her second child and appalled at the way the most vulnerable in our species were treated, at the extent of their maltreatment. For two years she interviewed children in the slums of Lebanon, many of them refugees from Euro-American wars. At the end of every interview she asked them if they were glad to be alive. Most said “no”.

The story is about a kid who tries to save his younger sister from being married off to pay the back rent. The sadness and powerlessness of the situation envelops the movie viewer. Set in Beirut, the story begins in court, where the young boy is trying to sue his parents for having born him. When the judge asks Zaid what he wants from his parents, he says that he wants them to stop having more kids. It is a poignant moment when we pan to the parents who have at least 7 kids and are pregnant with another. From there the story sweeps backwards and is in reality a story about papers, documentation, identification cards and political borders. Without papers, these families are desperate and invisible to all except those who mean to exploit them. 

I don’t want to tell you more. But since I experienced this story I have not felt the same about my work or my life goals. Thoughts fly through my head that I need to do something. Leave this bucolic country home I just landed back in and go to the refugee camps, or at least to the US borders where we lock up children and babies away from their parents. I could work in the prisons in upstate NY with art supplies or do a diaper drive for the Red Cross. Besides giving donations here and there like I always do, WHAT the hell should I do? I feel undeservedly lucky being born American and with economic options, but the stain of crimes done to others for the benefit of our national lifestyle is going to be a longer sentence. It is string of unending moral crimes.

Thoughts on the creative act

It is a gift to bring the tools of art-making to someone and open their world up to magic.

Michael and his daughter-in-law and grandson

We all have inside us something delightful to share. Somewhere in the early teens it is squashed by critics, both knowing and unknowing. That is why Picasso said it took him years to learn to paint like a child.
Stories and pictures, from our ancestors to the present, help us define who we are and why we are here. Those types of questions, it has been suggested, separate us from other animals. We are, if not in bare survival mode, always asking. It is good to write your own story from time to time.

Here we Are by Oliver Jeffers

The creative act connects us to a higher force, a power of energy that was there with the creation of everything in the Universe. Whether it is cooking, or cleaning, or sewing, or carving little Gnomes out of driftwood, when we are doing a creative act we can be present for our life. And what results is a gift for others, like your grandparents, total strangers, your pets, and your parents. A truly creative act will resonate much further than the origin, going across boundaries of time and space. This goes for making weapons as well as making love. So chose with awareness that some things will be funny and others quite sobering.

Follower's Offer

Since 2006 I have been blogging, but not as consistently as when I wanted to paint and sell a painting each day. Somewhere in the middle years I got busy, moved, got a full time teaching job, and lost the discipline of checking in. Now I am back at the writers desk, honing my vocabulary and dreaming of essays that turn heads and guide people to find art that delights and surprises them.

You, my followers, also must have gotten busy, taken full-time jobs, moved on to other apps and even (in hushed tones) died on me. 😞

Today, checking my stats I see that there is only a dozen of you that still check in and I'm so very humbly grateful. Surely it is time to give you some gratitude!!!
Let me know how I can send you a small gift, such as an unframed painting from my morning walks. For every follower/subscriber, I will send a small painting right now in gratitude for your support. It means a lot to me. Just go to my profile link and see where you can email me your address.

🎁

In the year ahead I plan on writing more regularly, unveiling new directions of thought, sharing some lessons and peeks into my families art history. I hope to keep you curious.

Materiality in work

Certain things in life make me happy. My jar of brushes would be one of them. Not to get caught up in owning a lot of things, I do admit my joy in collecting brushes, and colors, and tools to make art.

hand-colored lino print

What about you?

Moon calendars

Like the first photos of our blue planet from taken by the astronauts in space, a lunar calendar can make me feel small and also part of a bigger thing. There is the visual data to showing Time in it's best wonderful logic. You can't look at a lunar calendar without seeing the waves and undulations of nights. I highly recommend everyone consult one. For years I have bought and given these lunar calendars to others. This year I got two!!!

#lunarcalendar #time #visualdata

Jumping for Balls

I really wish I could own a day like Frances does, as she repeatedly jumps to catch a far-flung disintegrating snowball. There is hope and enthusiasm in our pet dogs that humans could really learn from. They are wise beings. It is Tuesday and I am sitting at my desk.

I am going out now to play in the snow.

This year will be a little less...

Thinking of all those who died last year, it is hard for me to imagine the space they held being so empty now.

I guess we get to travel a little longer and carry their potential a little heavier on our souls. If nothing else, I rejoice each day with the miracle of songbirds outside my window and my own eyes to see them, and the breath that still travels through me! Everyone be safe!

#loss #death #mourning

The Secret Fear of an Overachiever

If left to my own devises, I would probably lounge around post coital, musing about life and eat chips all day. But instead I tell myself that I may die soon, and I have much to accomplish in limited time.

With that in my head, I can barely sit down for tea!

The Focus Swings Back to Career

For the past 7 months I while I have been busy creating in my studio/writing space, I have also been devising new lesson plans. (It's like I cannot help myself). As an art teacher I think it important to create a nurturing space that encourages students to take risks. I strive to teach them eye-to-hand skills in the traditional crafting techniques of creating art. I absolutely love Betty Edward's book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It has led to increased skill and confidence in kids whenever I have used it. The process is intense and the results are strongly positive. In addition I want to up my game with digital art, so last fall I took a course at the Art Effect.  I also want to pair the arts with science by teaching data visualization. My brother got me two books by Edward Tufte that are very inspiring. And I want to work with English and literature professors to teach about visual journalism like Maira Kalman.
Though I have been busy I truly miss the classroom and the camaraderie of a community of teachers. I hope I can find a good place soon. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

Year 2019 in Review

My uncle passed away 3 weeks shy of a year ago. He knew he was going to die. The doctors had given him weeks, and not feeling that ill, (or feeling incredibly stoic), he took his last days getting his financial affairs and housework together. He changed all the light-bulbs and batteries and left instructions for my aunt on how to pay the bills.

This year I feel trivial taking an assessment on my life. So much has happened and been accomplished, yet I still feel at loose ends and unsure of the next step. I feel as though I would be falsely glorifying my past decisions if I look so hard, list so adamantly, and project too intently.

The year in retrospect was probably a 9 on a scale out of 10. Looking forward I expect the same, if I work hard and avoid the despair that comes in those taunting and slicing voices, located in my own head.

I like this image of uncle Pat’s flashlights. He left them all in a row for my aunt to find as needed. I want to trust that the light will be there for me, when I need it.