Even a Wolf Can Have a Change of Plans

      I met this autumn with a tinge of grief. The Swiss semester, where I worked last year, was in full swing and I missed it, even though I’d decided to stay home. In the last 26 years there have only been 3 or 4 Septembers that I wasn’t setting up my classroom. I love being a teacher and matching my energy to the fresh minds of the younger generation. So as the school buses ran up the street and the air got crisp with flavors of summer crops, I was free falling.

 

The Money Tree

        In the studio, I was pouring over deadlines, filling applications, planning exhibitions, and creating for the holiday market. I was also frantically putting up food - canning, freezing, stocking the shelves. Buying a generator.

 

Feed the Wolf

        My daily doodles and larger paintings filled with howling wolves, and stalking felines. They were hungry and I fed them pastry and cakes and set tables for dining with them.

 

Dining for Two

        Then my neighbors called about a position opening at the Town hall. The elected clerk had resigned and there was a need for an appointment asap. After a series of interviews, I‘ve found myself with the keys to the office and days filled with neighbors needing permits, or licenses, decals, certificates, or genealogical documents. Every day is a new adventure.

 

The wolf may have gone away. I can barely see it into the shadows.

 

Howl

       We can never get too serious about life plans and I am glad. If my life had been what I thought I wanted, it would have been so much less. I never dreamed of being a clerk and an artist. It is a balance of community involvement and creative isolation. There is excitement and curiosity, education, and discipline. I’m learning a lot. I love meeting new people and helping them register their dogs or get a hunting or marriage license. I also track down information, register documents, publish notices, transfer phone calls, read reports, balance checkbooks, and smile a lot to put people at ease.

 

Stay tuned to see how this works out!

      

the Orchid and the Wolf

Also, My Open Studio will be mid-October (16/17& 23/24) as part of the arteastdutchess.com open studio tour. Plan on stopping by and seeing all the work in our three-story art barn. My dad Julian Strauss, my partner Michael Gellatly, my niece Natalie Strauss, my sister Gwen Strauss and my spirit-daughter Kylie Gellatly will be sharing their work as well. It’s a family affair!

 

Location 55 Haight Rd, Amenia, NY 12501, both weekends from 11am-5pm. Follow the yellow signs to see studios from Pawling and Holmes to Amenia!

 

Lesson plan for home Equinox Ceremony

 

Expanding the Square

Start with a small back square piece of paper

On the equinox we think about the light, the dark, and the balance of the two opposites. It’s a traditional time to review the past year and note all the events and accomplishments that have lightened up your life. What sort of achievement are you thankful for? How have you grown? 

It is also about taking note of the bitter harvest. What were the hard times and what changes did you have to go through? Like I said, it is all about balance!

Students having fun. Check out samples on wall behind them

 

The NOTAN is a Japanese art concept that plays with the placement of light and dark elements. You cannot have dark without light or light without dark. This assignment will help you feel the balance.

 

You will need:

    4 x 4-inch square black piece of paper

    a regular white sheet of 8 x 11

    pencil

    scissors

    glue…I like glue sticks for this

 

Start by drawing your designs on the small black square, either organic or geometric, touching the straight edge of one side. Repeat along other sides. Avoid adding any element floating in the middle. After drawing lines, cut your black paper, along the lines, from each side of the square. You can draw and cut shapes within shapes- these are called “double cuts”. Nothing is thrown away. Place your square back together and all the pieced should be there. Lay it on your white paper. Then carefully lift your black shapes and flip them open like the pages of a book.  A double cut will be flipped one way and then the other. 

Keep it simple or go more complex

Can you see why this is called “expanding the square”? Your design will celebrate the balance of the fall equinox.

Enjoy

This student has gone on to be an artist @paintingsbycarina.com

 

Is Summer Over?

 

I’m only just recovering from the NECC summer enrichment program. Imagine spending every day making art with kids ages 5-11 and teen interns. It was awesome. One highlight was the week we spent on day hikes with Sachem HawkStorm, the chief of the Schaghticoke First Nations. He challenged a lot of our assumptions about the woods and how we approach our food and our history.  

 

My other joy this summer was the opportunity to spend a week in Iowa with my mother, just the two of us, traveling back to her childhood in Des Moines. We traveled even further back in time- visiting the town of Algona, that our family founded in 1847. I am working on an illustrated family tree text about my great grandmother, and we were able to meet with passionate members of the Kossuth County Historical Society who had tons of archives to share and were very helpful. The history of the founders is very much alive in the town today. Imagine my surprise to see a fresh colorful mural with my great great grandpa’s name in it?

Asa and Ambrose Call Founders of Algona

Less delightful was the awareness of the role our family had in the displacement of indigenous tribes. Mother and I traveled southeast of Algona to Tama, where the Meskwakie Nation have lands and a nice Tribal Cultural Center and Museum. It helped me get a better understanding of their culture and the impact of the homesteaders who stole their lands. I also identified the helpers who petitioned to let the Meskwakie return to their land, sold them acres, and advocated for their status as human beings under US law. Many of the helpers, like my great great grandparents, were horrified descendants or veterans of the Black Hawk wars.

 

When I am not writing or researching, I am painting a series of fairly silly wolf paintings. It is still too early for me to know what they mean. But I hope to have a few large unframed paintings for sale at my open studio in October. At that point I will make sure some of the proceeds goes to an organization that helps the wolves. They are in dire straits. If you have a suggestion which organization I should pair with, please let me know. I appreciate guidance here. A lot needs to be done.

 

I continue to do accountability art coaching via zoom. It’s been more fun than I expected. Now in my second 6-week session, I’ve found each group of artists to be inspiring, kind, and honorable. Every time I talk with them, I get so happy I just float! If you need help with your artistic practice, if you can’t get to the studio, let me help you show up. It’s all run through the MidHudson Arts Council in Poughkeepsie, though the participants are as far away as Colorado and South Carolina! Stay tuned for the virtual show of the participants work this winter.

 

Group shows on the calendar and places where you can see my work:

Opening on the 23^rd at ArtsMidHudson “Wish You Were Here” 5 x 7in. postcard show in Poughkeepsie NY. Through the 18^th the Reinstitute Millerton NY, see “Together in Isolation” outside underground installation. I just made the deadline! My work is called the Lost Keys of Covid. Closing the 24^th, my sketchbooks at the DM Hunt Library in Falls Village CT “Book Marks” show. My 6 large paintings at the Hammond Museum “Voices I Remember” show will be hanging through October, in North Salem, NY.  And through the 30^th, the Live4Art Gallery in Pawling NY features the Arteastdutchess studio tour preview show.

 

Thank you for reading through this. I hope you are well and finding creative outlets for your days.  Stay curious- Tilly