Virtual Art talk May 5th 7pm

 

Hey friends!

Mark your calendars and drop in next Thursday evening to a zoom gathering of my latest workshop, “Producing an Art Series with an Accountability Coach”,  participant’s culminating show. For six weeks this winter, through the sponsorship of Arts-Midhudson,  I worked as an accountability coach for artists seeking to develop a series of work. Every Tuesday evening we would check in with each other, give feedback and celebrate the progress. 

See link below to RSVP:

https://www.artsmidhudson.org/artist-talk

The artists who participated are from NY to NM. One artist had just moved and created a series of 30 collages constrained by the size of her cardboard boxes. Another created a series of expressive works intended for a large exhibition in New Jersey. Another artist used the six weeks to paint and mourn the recent loss of her siblings. A couple artists are new to the art world and allowed themselves to experiment, produce, and plan exposure. The collaborative support and wisdom of the group was so exciting. Two artists used the time to create illustrations following a specific screen play or children’s tale. They experimented and created in new media, combining the processes innovatively. Subjects range from Goddesses to grids. 

Drop in next Thursday to see what happened. 

I have been an artist long enough to grow two babies to young men! With all the distractions of motherhood and farm life, I have found the parameters of working in series to be the best way to show up for myself. It’s about discipline and curiosity. the most exciting thing is to look back at the end to the beginning. There are so many lessons to gather along the way! My next workshop is already full. We max out at 7-9, so everyone gets time to share and the attention they deserve. Perhaps this is something you or a friend of yours might be interested in participating in someday? Feel free to shoot me an email and i will put you on a waiting list.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Hope to see you at the show!

Tilly

To RSVP:

https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/WebLink.aspx?id=291&name=E231621

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!

 

Call me your "summer accountability art coach"

There is still two weeks before this virtual opportunity starts.  

Called "a workshop"- it technically is just an online check-in, so you can do it from anywhere that you have access to Zoom. You only need to take notes the first meeting, June 15 at 7pmEST. You get your own materials and make your own hours.

How it works:

I will start you off with tips and tricks to setting up a studio practice that will help you complete a series of work. By walking you through handy steps and thought process, I will set you on the course with a weekly mantra. 

Once a week, Tuesday's at 7pm you will check in with me and we will discuss issues like time management, frustrations and any other blockages you may be suffering. If you miss a session, it will be recorded and available to check out when you can. You will work on your own during the week towards your individual goal. I just keep you on track by being there, to check in and ask how we, as a group, can support you.

 

In the end we have an opportunity to celebrate our successes with an exhibit of our work together through the MidHudson Arts Council in Poughkeepsie NY. 

This is a great opportunity if you want to get some art done, but know that a summer calendar can be like a run-away train. Together we will carve out time to focus, decide on a realistic scope for your series and you will create works that you will be proud of. 

Signing up soon at www.artsmidhudson.org/workshops  Registration ends in about a week.

Cost $100 -$115 for ages 16+

Make Art this Summer with an Accountability Coach

Are you frustrated with not getting to the studio? Do you need help and a plan to make some art over this summer? Are you stuck? Are you currently in a hard place and need some light? Are you confused and trying to find a creative style? Do you have ideas but lack the discipline to show up for them?

Well- perhaps it is time to Show up for the Muse with me via Zoom!!! • Show up each week for 6 weeks • All Media artists are welcome! • Once a week Zoom to check in on your progress • Email support at any time • Exhibition at end of session at ArtsMidHudson

We can do this together! I have been teaching art to all age groups for the last 26 years and have learned that making art is possible for everyone if they just show up. The challenges in life cost all of us time and space, but I am living proof that an art practice can lift you, like a life raft, through turbulent times and it can enrich your participation in the good times. Just a few years ago my marriage was crumbling. I was sitting at the bedsides of two dear dying friends and my father-in-law was degenerating into Dementia. On top of it, my children were leaving home as adults. The feeling of loss and lack was almost unbearable. By a miracle, and through a daily gratitude list, I was able to see my way to the studio. Not expecting to be able to do much, I focused on one thing, the color orange! I painted with that color until the tube emptied. Have you ever looked at an apple (the same apple) for 30 days and tried to see it differently? It is a classic art lesson that forces you to go beyond the physicality of the subject. Certain parameters on your art can actually push you to see through to a liberating perspective. I learned so much about seeing the world when I tried to paint the greens of summer in Pyrole orange! Ever since, I have been showing up every day to paint my way to health and happiness. I have seen firsthand how a daily art practice can transform a life.

Some of each series can be seen on my website: www.tillystudio.com. Now I am passionate about helping others find their way through the challenging times, and even the best of times, by showing up for the Muse. Doing anything for 40 days, and there is historic proof that it will change you!

The details! Go from feeling cloudy to clarity As your accountability coach, I will inspire discipline to the creation of at least 6, and possibly up to 40, works of art! Sign up through www.ArtMidHudson.org , under summer workshops $100.00 per person AMH Members and $115.00 per person non-members This is a virtual class. Our weekly zoom sessions will be on Tuesdays, June 15, 22, 29, July 6, 13, 20; 7pm-8pm You will be guided each week through goal setting, series synthesis, time management, handling challenges, chronicling insights, and of course-celebrating successes! The class participants will be your new support group and I will be available for email support as well. We have a group exhibit opportunity at the MidHudson Arts Gallery in Poughkeepsie!! Expect bonus PDF resources and downloads as well as links to other artists and stories of working in a series. Are you ready to show up? Working in a series has many benefits. It is a tool to process an event, emotion, and even relationships. If you do anything for 40 days it will change your life! Sign up at www.artsmidhudson.org Questions: tillystudio@aol.com Let’s show up together!

Successfull studio tour has me feeling inspired to help you create a series too

 It's been a whirlwind of fun and socializing since we opened our doors to the studio a week ago!

My Pa- Julian in his gallery of kinetic scrap sculptures

Me- Getting a quick break from the mask

My niece Natalie demonstrating her painting technique in the Operating room

Michael in some heated conversation with a fellow artist

My nephew Ian pondering the next step in his cardboard creation

I am amazed by the love and support that came gushing forth from the local scene as well as from family and friends from afar. People came from Brooklyn and Albany, Poughkeepsie and Hartford!! There were fantastic conversations and brief exchanges of possible future dates to gather again. Each one of us with work in the barn had at least one sale. I feel joyous and emotional at the memory of it.

Many of the visitors were curious about the process of creating a series of work, like my "Conversation with Trees During Lockdown"  series, and I will be offering, through Artsmidhudson.org a workshop this summer for those who want a coach to push them through the creation of a 6 week series. 

The class will consist of a group zoom session one evening each week, for 6 weeks. I will guide you through planning and executing a body of work. You will get lots of support, such as downloadable information and exposure to artists who use the series process well. There is also a bonus of an exhibition at the end of the 6 weeks at the MidHudsonArts gallery in Poughkeepsie! 

More in my next post. But please spread the word! Thank you

Tree Conversation about to be Launched

 

assorted painted 8 x 6 oval panels from newest series

That I am not a natural at languages clearly stands out with a father who speaks about nine and a little sister who lives and speaks fluently in France. It was truthfully my crayon and paintbrush that helped me communicate and make friends.

 

Trees were my first friends. At age four, I attended an art school located somewhere between an ancient stone temple and the massive aerial roots of a banyan tree in Kuala Lumpur. I have the earliest, distinct, memory of the sound, smells and visual abundance of walking on paths strewn with a variety of shaped leaves.

 

Art School (with my mom) in KL, painting arches and trees

During the lock-down last year, when the calendar cleared and everything went quiet, I undertook a painting project that would pit my skills against a variety of arboreal characters.

 

As an art teacher, I have exhorted my students to identify their inner critic. We all have one or two, (or more). The tenacity of those belittling voices can ruin the fun of any painting session. It is through my teaching that I confronted memories of my own.

 

In second grade, I painted a mural of a holiday pine tree in my Haitian classroom. Proudly standing back to look at the result, I was crushed when my teacher leaned to my ear and whispered, ‘You really can’t paint trees, can you?” Granted, I was trying a new “textural brush work”, but her voice still rings true over 50 years later!

 

As I contrived to once and for all learn how to paint a tree, I studied the limbs, roots, bark, and crowns. Entering into the space of a tree I felt their energy emanating towards me! I can hardly pass one nowadays without saying “hi” or “hello”. Just looking closely at them brings me a sense of understanding, peace, and joy.

 

Be Like a Tree

Each of the Tree Conversation paintings is in acrylic on a hand-cut birch-ply oval panel. Every panel is 8 x 6 x 1/2 inches and drilled with a recess in the back so to hang flush to the wall. In addition, every painting’s backside contains quotes or thoughts taken from a variety of sources and pertaining to a leafy conversation.

 

Starting the first weekend of May, at our open studio on the farm, I will have a couple dozen to share. On May 3^rd I will launch a website sale of my favorites on my store for a limited time only. Please email me with any questions you may have. It is my hope that we all use whatever language comes naturally to us, to converse with nature. I have found it an easy way to get a spiritual measure of oneself.

 

Please subscribe to my blog by email. (top of the right hand column) I post once or twice a month on subjects ranging from what is happening in the studio, to art historical revelations, to seasonal delights of farm living. I’d love to have you in the conversation.

www.tillystudio.com

Virus Anniversary Ponderings on a Plague Saint

 

Marking the anniversary of yearlong pandemic-induced closures and nationwide isolation, I am drawn to St Sebastian as a perfect devotional image. Depicted tied to a column, tree or stake, he is riddled with arrows and gazing, with a beatific smile, up to the heavens.

Back during Bubonic plagues of 17^th century Europe, Christians embraced the saint as an intercessor for their prayers. Sebastian, who lived in Rome, became a martyr who submitted to torture and was left for dead twice. He seemed to defy odds, surviving arrow wounds and beatings. For that reason, he could serve as a lightening rod to relieve and protect others from the plague.  

 

There are other saints to pray to for help in times of plagues, such as the Virgin Mary and St Roch, but St Sebastian seems to be the perfect one for me.

His ideal physique, riddled with arrows has come to symbolize the toleration of multiple zoom meetings and multiplying obituary pages, while the archers, who run away on the receding road, are the business commitments and goals of a “get-me-ahead-at-any-cost” lifestyle. The calendar is the rubble of antiquity around us. I strive for the verticality, and the connection to God.

 

St Sebastian By Botticelli

, Tempera on panel, 1474 (Berlin)

In the 14^th century the “Black Death” killed 30 million people in Europe alone, and an estimated 75 to 200 million across Eurasia. Some people blamed God and turned to focus less on the afterlife and more on a humanist philosophy of earthly delights. Many blamed marginal groups such as the Jews, and instituted brutal and devastating pogroms. The movement of the Flagellants reflected a growing belief that self –harm could win God’s favor and spare the body or even the community. Many people attended gruesome performances of the faithful whipping themselves into frenzy. In the port of Venice, they instituted a law for 30-day isolation applicable to all incoming ships, called a “trentino”, and then extended that for what we now call a “quarantino”

In the 15^th and 16^th century, with the European hunger for world exploration, (and exploitation), 80 to 90% of indigenous populations in the Americas were wiped out by small pox.

Just this week America reached a milestone of 500.000 deaths due to Covid. There hasn’t been public mass mourning until President Biden and VP Harris stood in silence with 500 lit candles. We seem like Sebastian, suspended between two deaths, those of our loved ones and possibly ours. St Sebastian reminds us of that as he is depicted still alive a moment or two before his death. He shares in our personal vulnerability.

 

 Featured art work:

Digital drawing, dimensions variable. Last May, my 82 year old mother had to undergo massive surgery on a rare abdominal cancerous tumor during the Covid crisis. We had to drop her off outside the hospital and wait to hear from her after hours of surgery and recovery. I did this drawing as a prayer and a nod to St. Sebastian. (And mom's doing great!)

Swisssemester.org equals learning, persistance, endurance, and endorphins

 I was pretty quickly shocked by the daily athletic requirements of the program, but with persistence I was able to cut my lag time from over an hour to 5 minutes behind the rest of the 48 teens! It felt like that was a wonderful achievement. I can only hope to get even more fit. Swiss semester put me out of my comfort zone and gave me the hiking bug! Seriously, it was a gift to be able to thrash my body against the natural elements and reduce the scope of my worries to the next couple of steps or the next breath. I felt all my worries about American Politics, family health, a purpose in life, etc, just fall away. Each day was planned and assigned.  Outside of classes, all I had to do was follow directions, read the trail markers and make it to the meeting places. You had to be flexible and open to changes. A lot depended on the weather and us keeping Covid virus safe.

#newhobby #athletic #challenges

Storms and blessings as Tree stories continue

We had a terrible storm. 

The trees were thrashing about, their limbs flying through the air. Leaves and acorns and twigs covered the ground. I heard cracks and soft heavy thuds. Every tree around me completely defined the wind.

 After the storm passed, the next day was sunny and the air filled with sounds of chainsaws and generators. My Pa was out there removing huge trees off the fence lines and feeling gleeful about the winter fuel. 

Living on a farm in the country means you live in the company of trees. I continue investigating into my insecurities, by painting 100 trees....

I am tapping into my youthful artist within and reflecting on the models and memories of my artistic path.

This is an early memory of the first art club I belonged to. My dad started the Home Farm Artist's Association by placing his daughters and nieces on the hay wagon, with a can of crayons, while he worked the fields. We drew all day, side by side, eeking out our own interpretations of the landscape, and mounted shows in the evening for our grandparents and their cocktail party friends to enjoy.

Such is the life and the good foundations of an artist's family. I feel blessed.

Rollercoaster love affair

As much as I love trees, (being in them, under them, and surrounded by them), I have found my desire to draw them meets constant resistance.

This started in 2nd grade. I had just finished painting the Christmas tree for the class holiday mural and stepped back to assess it with my beloved teacher. She leaned in and said, "you really don't know how to paint trees, do you?" I had, in my defense, been turning the brush this way and that for texture, but I guess it did not translate.

The shock of that exchange has lived inside me for all these years. When students ask me to demonstrate a tree in paint, I can do it, but often there is an echo inside my head that wonders if they will catch on and see that I "really don't know how to paint trees."

It's hard not to paint or draw trees when you do a landscape, or create a place. Being a fictionalist, my paintings often illustrate a real setting and trees often sneak into the frame. My trees grow out of small gestures, blurred as if my reading glasses had failed me in clarifying the languages of limbs and leaves.

Then in college, my professor declared that I must eliminate green from my palette. Apparently green paintings are unsuccessful and never sell. So my greens come in shades of purple and ochre and pyrollian orange.

So I am starting this project of painting close to 100 small paintings of trees at the ripe age of 59 in order to move through the critics, the ghosts, the self-talk, and the comparisons. I hope to explore different ways to convey the importance of trees and I know it might take close to 100 times get it right.

I hope you can join me when I present my tree stories going forward. Thanks for looking.

Tilly

Moving While Staying Still

Looking Up/ March30

(continuing series of Covid19 journal daily drawings)

There are parts of the isolation that feel surreal and stressful, and then there are other parts that feel almost blissful in silences. We are getting to know our neighbors and have found gifts on the doorstep a couple of times. Reciprocating, I made large batches of ramp pesto to leave at the doorsteps, and of course, left bottles of dad's maple syrup.

Trip to Town/ April 20

Putting on a mask and grabbing a handful of gloves is "the new normal" before any endeavor. In fact on our morning walks, we keep a mask in the pocket just in case, though we rarely run into another human. All of our interaction with colleagues is through the computer.

My Peeps/ April 23

I love the daily walks, sometimes in the early morning mist, and others in the waning dusk of the day. The countryside is alive with critters. Without the usual distractions, I am able to pay attention. I almost have a relationship with the one-eared rabbit, the romancing wood ducks, the tousled teenage red tailed hawk, the near-exhausted-from-parenting house wrens and the scampering chipmunks in the stone walls.

Walking/ May 18

When night falls we have fallen prey to the offerings of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Our roster of films and TV shows betrays a new obsessive interest in Scottish history. The doorway was through the TV series Outlander. The key was finding both Michael and I are descended from families who immigrated to the America's from Scotland. The fun is finding how far back we can go (1430!) and then watching historical films of the era.

TV Family Tree/ May 14

Nightmares

(continued Daily Drawings during the Covid Pandemic)

Nightmares/ April 24

A month into the national quarantine and numbers of deaths silently continue to rise. Unemployment increases are shouted about in the news. Congress tries to print more money. Alternative stations start floating conspiracy theories. The president encourages protesters to ignore the science, suggests injesting bleach, and screams hysterical over trying to find someone to blame.  No one I know will talk politics, because it is too exhausting and unbelievable. What outrages us one day is overshadowed the next. I feel like I am holding my breath and waiting.

The city, two hours away, empties out and soon all the empty houses on our country road are filled with city people. The stores seem ransacked. There is still no toilet paper to be had. Or whole wheat flour. The trash thrown along the road reflects a higher economic shopper. Maybe we are all high, panting thru stifled homemade masks.

Mask Making/ April 11

I attend church on line, and the local hospital erects a tent in the parking lot to handle the expected rise in patients.  I can’t sleep and worry about my job as a school teacher.

Easter Sunday/ April 12

Hospital Tent/ April 13

The New Normal

(Continuing the Daily Drawings During Quarantine)

Pajamas/ March 27

Feeling wiped out by stress, insecurity, the moon’s position, or imagination, I beat myself up for being weak and dull.  

Wipe Out/ March 21

 Astrological influences aside, we make efforts to dance to the radio, support local restaurants with take-out, sit on the deck at sunset. The calendar loses all its power to define life. Days run into each other, melt, and stop altogether. 

TakeOut/ March 22

I wear my pajamas all day, for days on end, and nobody notices.

Calendar/ March 25

Time for Worry/ March 26

(Self portrait in the hour glass)