Three reasons why “serious” artists need to make valentines too

 

1.     Materiality

Don’t worry about archival quality, Get over it. Grab a pair of scissors and go ephemeral. 

Use cheap and fun materials that you haven’t used since grade school, such as

glitter, doilies, stickers, crayons, and tape. You can spend a lot of money or none. It’s time to scour the junk drawers and baskets and find those cool wrappers you couldn’t throw out.

It’s a great time to recycle and use up saved detritus, like postcards, and ticket stubs.

 

2.     Message

It is all about generosity of spirit. Receiving and creating Valentines are meant to alleviate sorrows and burdened hearts. They aren’t about whether you are loved or not- they are playful exchanges of color and whimsy. Make one for the mailman! Give one to the cook at the restaurant! Share with strangers. (Though – I once gave one to an older gentleman who regularly sat in the last pew of my church. I was grateful for the way he always offered a smile when I needed it most. He pulled me aside the following week to nervously tell me that he was a confirmed bachelor!)

 

3.     Method

Play. Be silly. Cultivate a little garden of color in your own heart.

Lighten up. As the winter darkness weighs heavily on most of us, I believe the crafting of frilly pink cards can be a spring to the spirit. Let it all hang out. Creating these small tokens of color can be a meditation on all the connections we have to each other.

Don’t be so self-important. Create free art!

 

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!

 

Fast, breathless, and catching up on the art scene

 Seems like the Covid quarantine days are really behind us. There is so much to do, so much scheduled... that I spend much of my time walking back and forth to the large wall calendar in the kitchen and consulting the scribbles that fill in every nook and cranny of the grid!

Michael Gellatly and part of his 14 foot painting

Last night, after a virtual opening of an Art Queen exhibition I was in, called "Inner Power",  Michael and I braved the torrential rains and headed 45 minutes away to Torrington, Ct, the Five Points Art Gallery for an opening of his in the 2021 juried show. It was a delight, and as the evening went on it was quite a crowd. Everyone eager to share about their work and connect with others. 

We made it to the bar and, with a cup of red wine, turned to look at the works. The first thing that stopped me in my tracks was a complex wall painting of Carol Taylor-JKearney (IG @caroltaylorkearney ), a reverse painting on glass of her studio space. As we read the painting we were joined by her gregarious husband. Carol's paintings are on the backs of windows with lots of additions, such as screen silhouettes and ritual candles.

Carol Taylor- Kearney

I enjoyed the symbolic narrative combined with rich detailed painting. Her husband is involved as the art handler and supportive cheer leader.  Nearby we were enamored by a sewn painting called, "Seeds and Pods", by Geri Hahn.

Geri.g. Hahn and paparazzi

Both her  (@geri.g.hahn ) and her husband were fascinating. She is an artist who identifies with her synesthesia and as the evening wore on we shared with her reactions to other works of art. I loved it when she stood in front of Michael's painting and said it sounded like a David Burn and it made her mouth water (a much abbreviated version of our actual conversation). 

Don Bracken

There was a lot of loud art and some quiet works- like Donald Bracken's clay and acrylic , "New dawn, and Marianne Petit's pop-up anatomical flap book. (Ig @ mariannerpetit )

Marianne Petit

I also loved the works by Erika Larskaya, Deborah Buck, Michele Cook, and Kim Carlino. Congrats to Nayana LaFond for winning the grand prize with her painting addressing native americans and domestic violence. She will be having a solo show at Five Points in the future!

Michael and the curious in front of his work

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

Small Quick Pet Portraits

 

 

Manuel's Swiss kitty

Hershey and Sunny

I don’t currently have my own pet dog or cat- but when the kids were little we had several and they live on in my paintings.  I am grateful for the images of Sherman on the porch, Alice under the Christmas tree and Mr. Bo napping on the sofa. Now my sons have pets and I believe my portrait of Stevie Nicks is one of the best paintings I have ever done. It’s large, colorful and contains the memory of that late Alabama afternoon that I painted her. 

 

After sharing with my colleague at Swisssemester that I never painted a cat that my dad approved, she commissioned me to do a memorial portrait of her friends kitty. She said "do your magic", and I said, "Magic? You know I never painted a cat painting that my dad liked. But I am going to try".  

That was last month.

 

I just recently I finished a series of paintings for another family of pets. It felt fun. It felt magical. I especially enjoyed the looseness of painting on scraps of painted papers. 

 

Let the magic continue?

 

Hire me. I am quick and my prices are simple-

5 x 7= $70 (shipping USA included)

All works are acrylic on paper

Just email me with your preferred size, and some photos to work from.  

                                Tillystudio@aol.com

Satisfaction guaranteed. Pay when you receive the work 

If not satisfied, return the painting within 7 days.

Picture of Stevie Nicks, 33 x 22 inches

 Testimonials:

"I love what Tilly did with our Nelly Pup! She caught her sparkle and joy "- Dot, from CO

"Thank you for the beautiful painting. Our daughter was delighted with the gift. She burst into tears when she saw it" - Hannah from VA

"I received the portraits today!! I LOVE them and know the kids will too. You are very talented"- Liz in MA

Thankful to be a teacher

My Classroom in Zermatt was in a hotel, with tables lined up for a dozen students in each of the 4 classes. We covered the development of art and it's reflection on human's search for meaning, from prehistory to the Baroque periods. The students came from all over the United States and were high-achieving, brilliant, kind kids. They soaked in all the information and then, because we lived together, I was able to witness the real life application of their knowledge in conversations over dinner or walks in the village, and in the field trip to France. We moved in pods to keep clear of the virus and were together 24/7. Between classes we were with them as we traveled, hiked or skied.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to improve my teaching. I had a co teacher, Nicki D'Onofrio, who really knew her Italian classics and shared her passion for mythology. Together we bounced through the material and learned from each other. It was great having a partner so young and vivacious... as an exercise freak, she was nicknamed by the kids, "Quadzilla". I was called "Bob Ross" as my radio label, perhaps because I could seem pretty calm no matter the incident?

The sweetest part of the whole gig was being able to teach live.We did not resort to screens or virtual environments. The kids were stripped of any technology- no phones or computers, and they wrote everything out in pen or pencil! Research involved library books. Very old school. 

It took a lot to write out essays and make note cards and read 20 pages of text book a night. So the rapid hikes over mountain passes and to trail huts really did keep the body in check and help the focus. 

The schedule for a school day looked like: early breakfast and pack a lunch, three-hour-long morning classes within the hotel, a 5-hour break where we skied or climbed or hiked, followed by three more classes in the evening, a quick sit down dinner, a two-hour study hall and a 15-minute break before lights out! This went on for days, and days, regardless of the calendar! Then suddenly there would be an announcement of brunch, followed by a two-day hike or a 70-mile bike trip or paragliding options. 

While I was teaching, I was learning. A lot.

Took a teaching job in Europe and high-tailed it out of here!

Lufthanza flight from JFK (ny) to Frankfurt Germany

One of 4 trains across Switzerland

First view of the Alps ahead, my new home for the next 3 months.

 I've been offline for the last few months. Had an amazing opportunity to work with some superb teenagers in a foreign country. I hiked, and skied and taught art history and watercolor painting. #swisssemester 

FABULOUS TIME

Making the Best of It

Practices/ April 21

(Continuing the Daily Drawing During Quarantine)

Michael and I grow stronger. We take daily walks, laugh and share more of ourselves with the other.

We dance, we sing karaoke, we bake, we read to each other. 

Performance/ March 17

Connecting/ April 19

My friend Leesah hosts one of the first online virtual performances for St Patty’s Day. We join Wassaic community in online Bingo. We swap gifts with neighbors and find offerings at our door.

Gifts/ April 10

And every meal we eat together. And we trust when it comes time for the quarantine haircut, we will be there for each other.

Every meal/ April 18

Haircut/ April 27

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!

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?

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.

Elfing season

This has been a lot of fun!

Our house has been jumping with ideas and steaming kettles, ribbons, tape and twinkles.

What are twinkles, you ask?
Its a seasonal mix of cranberries, cinnamon, charm and gratitude.

#dyigifts #celebrateonashoestring #mullingspices #puttanesca

Painting plein aire at the Diner

The weather was lousy or I just hadn't developed the skin to feel comfortable in this northern hemisphere. So I tucked my art supplies into the warmth of my jacket and ordered a booth at the Millbrook diner, out of the wind.  Luckily, I work small and clean. A little bit of paint, water, paper towel and some acrylic paint pens, and I am all set to go. Sketching it in light sage green, I layered the colors until I felt the perspective to work.

Needless to say I could have been overwhelmed with the chrome and reflections...and at times I was. I took breaks and painted my coffee mug and the table settings instead. It always helps to work on more than one painting at a time.

The effort was to support the local free library with an art sale to celebrate the arts in and around Millbrook (NY), that evening. I thought I could not be more satisfied when I placed the picture in a fresh frame and up on the display easel in the library lobby.
BUT! Guess what?
I got even more happy when the art collectors snapped it up within the first couple of minutes of the opening. Stunned, I asked them what it was about the work that made them so eager. The husband replied that he was a local and he practically grew up in the diner. This is going to a good home!!!

All three works sold that weekend. I am so happy. Love it when I get to paint and the work goes home with other people.

#sold #artcollectors #pleinaire #painting #millbrookny #dutchesscountyny