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!

On Being a Good Hostess for Heartbreak

Haunting, acrylic on panel

These festive holidays of light actually fall on some of the darkest days of the year. Every year, as Christmas and Hanukkah approaches, many people see the world like George Bailey in “It’s a wonderful Life”. They feel that they just can’t do it. There is so much stress, from going off diets to diving deep in the red with finances. On top of it, we may have attended more than our fair share of funerals. My aunt, (who was a veritable Christmas elf) passed away at the end of November and a friend lost her grown son to the ultimate moments of depression.

Do I need to go into all the reasons people might not be as happy as those perfect family units in the advertisements? Some people can’t handle it. Perhaps a loss, a breakup, some past trauma, the political divide, the seasonal light disorder, or insufficient funds are to blame. In a season of ritual gathering, pressure gifting and belting carols, we can feel alone and unworthy heading into the holidays.

Throwing a party comes with all sorts of lists and preparatory steps. May I suggest that we not forget the friend suffering depression at this time? Gatherings can seem full of false cheer and guests may feel as if divided by an invisible wall looking in.

Have on hand simple items like tissues, treats, small oranges and offer your friend moments of stillness. I always try to have wine, nuts, assorted teas and fruit to share. Small oranges can remind us of brighter times with their sunny color and sweet taste. I keep a few handy to pass to the homeless on the street corners.

How can we be here for each other? The biggest gift of all the holiday gifts, the one the corporations don’t intend us to remember, is the gift of our attention. Speak frankly and share memories. Listen in stillness and try to understand. Don’t tell someone depressed to “cheer up”, but be honest and unflinching with your concern. When people are grieving and mourning, it’s okay to remember together and even laugh with the tears. It is important to talk and listen with respect. Everyone’s depression is different. If the discussion gets heated and aggressive, try saying, “Lets talk about that another time.” And walk away. Moving the body is always good, so an invitation to walk around the block can be just the ticket to brighten some ones mood. Some depressed folks appreciate a sad movie or a depressing book, like The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath. Self-help books should be shared sparingly. Often it’s a double-edged sword, leading to additional feelings of inadequacy.

Art and music can be used to set a mood that embraces the idea of small joys making big holidays. Song lists can cover a range of holiday genre and eras. So often I am not truly in the present moment unless I am painting a picture. For me paintings capture the fleeting moment that enriches my appreciation for little things, like sunlight and a good mug of tea. Looking at a work of art can bring wonder to life.

Lit Candle, sewn paper painting

Don’t forget the tissue box.

Beyond the Signature Cubist Style, a closer tracking of Picasso's Versions K, L and M

My interpretation of Picasso's interpretated Version K

Picasso's continuing exploration of Delacroix's famous Women of Algiers in their Apartment, led to fifteen oil painted canvas interpretations. Not merely copying, Picasso was stealing motifs and transforming the image into his own language. (He is believed to have said, "Good artist's copy, great artists steal") Each translated version was named for the sequential letters of the alphabet. 

His Version’s K, L and M are all monochromatic cubist designs. Cubism is the most recognizable style of Picasso at the height of his powers. These works excited the public and once they hit the market, post Ganz family collection, they held a range in value between 7 and 13 million dollars individually. I love the asterisk-like armpit hairs in the reclining figure. It certainly dates the work.

Versions K and M are in private collections. 

My copy of Version L

Version L, a solitary seated woman, was bought by Berlin’s Museum Berrgruen for over 11 million in 2011 at auction. The catalogue said, “She is the Goddess Astarte enthroned in her temple, seated en majeste, but also sphinx-like, inscrutable, a mythic image of sexually powerful and fertile womanhood brought forward from the distant past, to be approached with deference and awe”.

My interpretation of Picasso's Version M

Version M was painted the day Picasso heard his wife Olga, whom he had been estranged from, yet refused to divorce for decades (because he was Catholic), had died. It is in monochromatic tones of umber. There are no facial features. Picasso has simplified the figures to outlines of geometric shapes piled together like a child's play blocks. The precarious balance of parts makes the space one you would only enter at your own peril. The inviting odalisque trope is gone. These "women" inhabit their chamber and warn the trespasser of freshly mined territory. This painting was last seen when it sold for $10 million to a private collector in 1997. For Picasso, freshly widowed and recently broken up, this version signaled the near end of the series. Only two more explosions follow.

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Poetry Book Cover!

I am delighted to have one of my paintings grace the cover of a collection of poems by Su Love (formerly Su Smallen). The book, called Weight of Light, is due fresh to the stores by Green Writers Press next month!

According to Green writers Press: Su Smallen is the author of six collections of poetry. Her first collection, Weight of Light, was nominated for the Pushcart Press Editor’s Book Award, and Buddha, Proof was a Minnesota Book Award Finalist. Su was awarded the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, several fellowships and grants including from the Jerome Foundation, and residencies including with the St. Croix Watershed Research Station. With Laurel Poetry Collective, she published books and broadsides for ten years. Su was a professional choreographer and dancer, and her poetry has served as scores for dance and film, including Miracle of the Spring.

Sue will be reading from her newest Green Writers Press poetry collection entitled Kinds of Snow on April 15th at Green Writers Press. More info can be found on her website: www.susmallen.com

The painting was a large one I did when going through the thickest part of a divorce. A woman almost obscured by a swirl of maps stands in a dark, book shelf lined, space with a dripping red object in her hands. If you want to know more, I can tell you.

Meanwhile please go out and buy the book! Thanks- Tilly

A Gratitude Attitude

I am very grateful for the things and people I have in my life right now. When I take the time to list them, I shift my naturally pessimistic mind to a more grateful outlook.

letterpress

Having gratitude in your heart makes you feel better about life. It is an amazing practice. I have used it through divorce, raising teenagers, moving to a new city and more challenging times I can think of. It really works. If today everyone practices gratitude, we will shift the planet towards peace. I believe it. What are you thankful for?

Burning Bed

These are fiery times full of explosive action.
Fire is part of renewal and growth. It is a way of shedding the past.
Relationships ignite in passion. Then risk going up in smoke.
There are times in Life when you embrace the fire.
Surrender.

I painted this in 2010 when I felt as though I had been traveling through a ring of fire and emerging into a whole new life. I believe anyone who can relate to persevering through hell, or burning with new sensations, will "get" this picture.

This small acrylic painting on wood is a reminder that
some things have to end in order to have the brighter future you dream of.
Why not light the match? Fan the flames?

It is signed on the front lower right corner

In honor of Lent I am surrendering and letting 40 paintings from the past few years go to auction starting as low as $10.
This is painting number 11.
I don't always want to let work go. This REALLY is one of my favorites.
Selling on Ebay helps me make space, keep the flow and pay for materials.

My collectors are the most fiery awesome people out there, from Texas to Raleigh, Sacramento to New York, and Boston to Miami!
Why don't you join them?

Veteran's day

Our family farm since WW2

I've sprung in part from the union of two heroic soldiers. My grandfather wore a uniform, while my granny Z did her underground work in civilian garb. It's come to this. Home Farm was once the homestead for refugees of war,  a literal "new beginning" for a pair of young lover-fighters, my grandmother and grandfather, each idealistic and rebellious. After the war they faced the McCarthy era persecutions in their adopted country and my grandmother moved back to Europe. Later, the farm became the home of my step-grandmother, on her strange way down from rooted German aristocracy. Built on sacrifices and hard work, it's been my home farm.

love the flag

It's come to this. I'm terribly sad today that my grandpa, grandmothers and all the family members of Michael's who lived and fought in the last World War are all dead. Their stories live on, but the voices are gone. I fear that the silence of our war veterans will clear room for us to repeat big mistakes. Once again. Lessons (stories) today hail us to never forget that we have sprung from heroic Veterans.

Tracing my predilection for cardboard literature

2016 signage

My interest in the intersection of raw street signage and the tragic narrative of society victims goes back many years...specifically to my divorce. That is when I found myself on a new and precarious financial and social brink. In 2009 I photographed my teenage son at the intersection of our small town with a sign, haunting and hinting at our new sense of place.

 

My son, July 2009

 I altered the sign to be more specific in 2010.

cardboard, ink, paint and collage, December 2010

 In 2011 I moved to Florida where the cost of living is a lot less than New York. Immediately I took notice of the many beggars standing at the highway intersections with their signs. I became entranced by the messages, the short stories, the written summaries, and the haiku-like poetry scrawled in cardboard and waved against car windows in an effort to tug our hearts and open our wallets. The authors seemed under duress. The signs were like flags and themselves were important to the beggars. They refused to part with them as if they would be powerless without the scrappy badge. The attitude reminds me of studio artists. We all are begging for attention. We are standing in situations of duress and with luck can find ink and a surface to create a story that, like a great work of art, whistles a wallet open.

February 2013

In 2014 I started making street signs in the style of great artworks.

After Brito

After Giotto

I'm so freaking excited!

How to Bury a Friend (in the abbreviated version) is hanging at the Miami-Dade Public library today!

It took years to realize and now I know the whole series is a project on the road to becoming a book. The moment I saw the labels yesterday, in English AND Spanish, I was thrilled. (I want to get them done in Kreyol.)

Oscar Fuentes (the Biscayne Poet) did the installation. I assisted and, though we had two days, we finished it in one day, from 10 am to 5 pm... The library lent me the plexiglass and printed all the text. Oscar will go back tomorrow and patch up some holes and add the main signage, and perhaps a table of books... the ones Steve and I enjoyed, as his life came to closure.

To see the thirty two paintings lined up with their own space almost brought me to tears. While hanging it I shared stories with Oscar of Steve, Jen, my divorce, and the transformative process of wallowing in grief and coming to find the spirit too robust to stay sad forever. I'm convinced it is against our human nature to stay miserable. To do so, you have to work at it. You have to be blind to the small miracles and ungrateful for the continual blessings of Life.

 I'm so grateful for Oscar!

The gallery space is right off the lobby by the computer banks of the Hispanic branch of the public library. It's in "Little Havana". 1398 SW First Street. I guess I should mention that there will be an artist talk and art-making workshop on Saturday May 21st.
The show runs through August 12th.
It is so beautiful, I hope people can see it.

To Ashes, my painting and my bones

This is a day of ritual; a day of contemplation, and a time to meditate on the ephemeral nature of the things of this earth. I'm sharing some images of paintings made and burned up. They are not my golden calf, they are my language to praise God and life. Today is a day of contemplating one's transgressions.

Today, the first day of Lent, marks the start of a 43-day period between Mardis gras and Easter, which is an allusion to the separation of Jesus from all the hubub, when he went in the desert to fast and pray. The devil tempted him. Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13.While not specifically instituted in the Bible text, the 40-day period of repentance is also analogous to the 40 days during which Moses repented and fasted in response to the making of the Golden Calf . A lot happens with disciplined focus in 40 days. See my forty divorce documents, (2010), a daily painting ritual that brought me peace and hope with the end of a dream.

Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.

—Genesis 3:19

According to Wikipedia, "in some traditions, other practices are sometimes added or substituted, as other ways of symbolizing the confession and penitence of the day. For example, in one common variation, small cards are distributed to the congregation on which people are invited to write a sin they wish to confess. These small cards are brought forth to the altar table where they are burned."

A couple of destroyed paintings from past Ash Wednesday seasons. (The old nest in my head, birdsongs, and suitcase full of shoes)

Developing an Absurdist World

If I paint this out, I know I will be alright. I am alright! It's just some timely images that appear like a dream falling out of my brush. Like poetry acknowledges the pain behind metered words, this grouping plays humorously with a soul's (mine? yours? his?) longing.

I found the headline used in the Los Angeles Times...didn't make it up.

Feel as though I have slipped, in my mental and emotional psyche, down to the bare bones. With nothing left to think of or do, (no head, arms, or legs), I might as well just soak in the tub.

What are we

but vessels for a range of emotions?

The divorce is final. My heart is feeling fertile. Set in a winter wasteland, the painting contains a range of possible messages. I found the random headline to be more than poignant. It's perfect. It's just paint, too.

HANGING AT THE MOUNTAIN COW CAFE

With Peter Cascone and Michael Gellatly, our works will be up through the month. I've got 7 anxious chicken paintings from the years 2007-2009 on the walls. Here is a copy of my artist statement:

Ever since my marriage started failing and good friends started dying I have made a commitment to do things differently. I paint every single day. I love my chickens. Through these two realms I have found a voice for my sadness, my courage, and my faith. Within my daily practice I recall memories and visualize evocative tones that distill symbols into paintable vignettes. My work blends text and image in humorous, dissonant, and melding ways to explore security, panic, and the mortal experience. Because I feel transient as a species, the perpetual conflict between leaving and being is evident everywhere in my work. This duplicity is also captured in the whimsical palette, the playful brushwork and lightness of imagery that lay bare the anxieties of our time. Brushstrokes, text, and nature are strategies I explore in transforming the material to be spiritual and harvesting the spiritual to material.

I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from college with a BFA and a BA in painting, printmaking and art history from Colorado University in 1984. Born into a family of artists, curators, and spiritualists, I spent the first 20 years as a world traveler. I am the mother of two sons. The last two decades of my life I have lived in rural Dutchess county and been blessed with a network of artists that inspire my great love for roots with wings.

Gift ideas for the teenager and even your ex

Mill Street Loft's Junior art institute has fun classes after school February through March for the 11-14 year old on your list. I'm hoping to teach a mixed media class where we will play in assorted new experimental art media, such as Golden gel skin transfers and Derwent inktents.

Also, as Nora Ephron says, "Marriage comes and goes, but divorce is forever"- how about my 20 page art book with 40 paintings saying goodbye? It's $30 plus shipping. As a bonus I will throw in one of my "You've ruined my life" postcards with the purchase.

And if you are in the region please check out my small paintings at the Mill Street Loft (45 Pershing Ave) and at the Twisted Soul (47 Raymond Ave) in Poughkeepsie through January 19.
And several interesting (if I may say so) new works at the Hanbeck Gallery (South Center Street) in Millerton on weekends.

Thank you.

Divorce Series for sale

It started at the lawyers office...

Faced with the 40-page document that defines the end of my 24-year marriage I was both skeptical and shocked that it took so many and so little words to cover it. For me there was only one way to process it.

In the days that followed I created 40 small paintings, one each day, to mirror the pages of the document in poetic narratives. Using found headlines (text) and an encyclopedia of personal images, I painted and blogged about the process of loss, grief, anger, denial, and acceptance. The commentary I received, both privately and publicly, took me by surprise. I can't thank my viewers enough. The insights shared sustained me through out the process of acceptance.

I am now offering my 8 x 8 inch hardcover book with 40 paintings in it for an art lover's collection. I have a very limited quantity right now. I plan to ship the books the first week of December.

Cost is $30 dollars plus shipping. Shipping is $7.99 US and Canada, and $13.99 international.

PLEASE ADD $6 to shipping on top of the $7.99 the button charges for shipping IF you need it shipped overseas. Sorry for the inconvenience- I can't seem to figure out how to successfully automate this button!

Celebrating quietly with olives, french fries, and a glass of Chianti

In addition to my cell phone being full of text messages such as my eldest son surviving a parachute plane jump, my youngest passing a serious test, my former husband cashing the settlement check, my new book has just arrived! It's the Divorce Document Series. It is hard bound with twenty pages that feature 40 colorful transforming paintings! Just in time. I may not like where I am at- but I can accept it now.