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!

 

The Artist Behind the Man on the Syrup Label

 As the maple sugaring season goes on, many people have asked if I made the label featuring my pa's smiling mug. I did not. But my boyfriend Michael did! He is an amazing artist who makes his living doing illustration work for many publishers across many genre. I think he is especially good at those "exploded views" for How-To books. But he can draw anything...and I mean anything!!! I have tried to stump him, asking for a drawing of a clear glass of vodka tonic against a fur wall with a rusty nail and a dead fish...but that is another story! 

Michael has done all the drawings for Rita Mae Brown's Sneaky Pie Brown Murder mysteries as well as a series of maps for George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones. So we find ourselves in high quality company and are seriously proud of our labels!!!!

Twelve years ago when I was moving away from the farm, and sure to miss my pa, Michael secretly got together with my dad and drew this portrait IN PENCIL when he was at an artist residency. It's so special. I cried with joy and wonder when I saw it and had it framed with me in Miami. The original is a treasure.

 

Now that we are bottling a new batch of syrup and packaging the sugar and we have many different iterations that need tweaking for weight and date. Michael is working hard behind the scenes. It is not always easy and several computers need to be configured to line up the print exactly with the sticker edges.

We have a temporary set up in the sugar shack so that Dennis, who is full time sugar master, can make changes and corrections.

Michael is also gifted with another incredible virtue! He's positively willing to do what ever it takes to make us all happy. To see more of Michael's work check out his website:  www.mgellatlyart.com

Vision Vessel Valentine's Day Afternoon Fun

 Art has the power to transform and it was with that intention that Lisa and I hosted our first ever vision vessel Valentine workshop. We started with reading a list of affirmations and a short guided meditation to set the tone. Once everyone got settled into decorating their miniature cardboard houses, it was pretty silent and focused. Everyone worked with scissors and glue to collage the surfaces. After an hour, the houses were spectacularly unique. We felt refreshed and inspired. I could not stop smiling. 

I am still waiting for photos from Doug, Bobbi and Elena!

Some focused on their goals, or warding off their neighborhood  threats. Others focused on dreams of vacations, or getting back into their hobbies. Others focused on manifesting their affirmations.

Vision vessels are really 3D vision boards. We collage on top of a house everything we wish for our "nest". It is reinforcing positive vibrations and giving an image to what we desire.

To help the art work it's full magic, the houses have to remain visible for a while. Many have openings, (doors and windows), where we can stuff little notes of dreams or worries as we manifest big changes.

Why I collect art?

 To be totally truthful, I can't answer this.

But there is some history and a flash point I can share.

I've grown up among artists and always enjoyed walls, cabinets, shelves and lawns full of art. My parent's friends and my grandparents all had amazing collections or were creators themselves. So there was always lots of art around. Not only did it tone the atmosphere of the settings, but a surplus lay stacked under beds, lined racks in the basement and moldered in rolls up in the attic. 

Then there was my Selina Trieff moment. 

I was 20 years old and living in Boston, and it was a weekday I had off of my gallery job. Suddenly, with no plans, I took the Provincetown ferry out to Cape Cod. Strolling along the shops, I found my way into the Berta Walker Gallery where there was a show of oil and gold leaf portraits by Trieff, a mysterious artist who lived and worked from 1934 to 2015. Looking at the picture above, a painting I eventually had to buy, I had a visceral reaction: shivers on my limbs, a spinning in my head. I left the gallery for fresh air and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at other pieces of art in other galleries. No matter what I was looking at, this painting of Trieff's kept floating in front of my eyes! I had to have it. I had fallen in love. Negotiating with the gallery I set up a plan for installments and soon was able to bring her home. It has been almost 40 years and 4 homes since then. I love looking at it everyday. I wonder at the texture and the mark-making, the way her dark shape fills the frame. I wonder at the character, "what is she thinking?". I marvel at her hat. And the eyes! The eyes still look deep inside me and seem to ask me, "what are you thinking?"

This Trieff piece has been joined by a second one, given to me as a gift by one of my sisters, who also owns a delightful sleeping pig painting by Trieff.

Look at the attitude of that Goat!!

There is a movie, Their Lives in Art:Robert Henry and Selina Trieff, available for schools and institutions through Vineyardvideo.org, that I would love to see someday.

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.

Why Trees?

Baby Leaves

It goes back to my childhood.

I've been working on a new series and it never seems like the right time to talk about it. 

So much is going on in the world. There are pressing issues, and my inquiry about trees doesn't have the importance or presence to be vigorously promoted. 

But here, my friends, is a little introduction. 

I am squireling away at paintings in the barn. 

They are drawings and panel paintings that celebrate trees as companions.

All winter, on my daily walks, I came to appreciate some sentinels in the forest and hedges. These majestic, broken trees held stories. They resonated inside me. I crawled over and under maple lines in the spring. During the silence of the NY Covid isolation mandate, the trees inspired me with both their stillness and their moving. Just as they started leafing up, 

I got a large board of birch ply and cut 92 oval panels in order to dissect and discover what is behind the power and fascination of what some would call "nature bathing".

Baby Leaves is inspired by one of my earliest memories. I was about 4 years old and living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. On my walks to and from pre-school we must have crossed through a jungle because there was a carpet under my feet of diversely shaped and colored leaves that were so beautiful I often froze. I had to be practically dragged by my Amah across them. I still recall the vision, the variety, the richness, the smell and the beauty. It was heaven, and still is for me. 

I would not mind if that same vision was my last memory.

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

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

Drawing during Quarantine

A Vector at the Door/ March 20

“Quarantine” is derived from the Italian word for 40 days. Back when the Bubonic Plague was hitting Venice, the city leaders took it upon themselves to close their borders and limit all traffic going in or out for 40 days, at the end of which the danger seemed passed, and the word “quarantine” stuck.

On March 13, 2020, when my government leader, (NY State Governor Cuomo), mandated closures of businesses, schools, churches and restaurants…(everything that was not deemed “essential”), I turned to my home and wondered what self-isolation really meant. It seemed very abstract.

The first day I raked the yard and was amazed that nature was still on track, doing its thing regardless of the political fallout or terrorized feelings we were having. 

Daffodils/March14

I reached out and heard from my children and close friends who live further away. 

Reaching Out/ March 15

I felt assured that cleanliness would be the battlefront, and made sure to stock up the pantry. I am still not sure what the fuss was about toilet paper, but all the stores ran out of it early on! We were cautious of visitors and wary of interruptions. Life was already shifting

Soap/ March 18

Stocking Up Provisions/ March 24

Poignant Art in Times of Panic

Today with all the news headlines are of crashing stock markets and shutting markets, uncertainty (and insensitivity) in political leadership and a contagious, possibly terminal, epidemic on the loose, we can look to the arts for humor, brevity, distraction or focus. Artists ideate and imagine. Ideation is the process of pulling forth solutions to a question. The role of the artist is to imagine- and that means to give form to an image, movement, or sound as a solution.

I am reminded of an artist who was able to alter a simple iconic image and make it resonate as the voice of the disenfranchised. In his best images he combined rage and tenderness. David Wojnarowicz, (1954-1992), was an American artist at the peak of his career in the 1980’s. Working under the slashing (and insensitive) government of President Reagan and amidst the scorched-earth Aids body count. He turned personal confessional expressions into powerful political activism. Wojnarowicz suffered a life of childhood abuse, homelessness, teenage prostitution, and by the time he was a young adult he was losing his friends to the Aids crisis. His art famously clashed with forces of censorship and repression. He called out, with his art serving as a social critique, the political mythmakers such as Jesse Helms and the conservative Christian’s who would insist that condoms and safe sex not be talked about in schools. Wojnarowicz most famous work, Untitled, 1988-89 is a platinum print photograph taken as a section of a natural history diorama. It is of the American buffalo jumping, one after the other, over a cliff. The image is beautifully developed and hauntingly cropped. It symbolized the hopelessness people felt within the medical crisis looking at government policies. His image brilliantly spoke to the marginalized, from the Native Americans (the diorama story) to the Aids victims.This was seen not only as the swan song of the poor, sick and politically invisible, but as the prediction for our society as a whole if we continued without a change of heart.

Untitled by Wojnarowicz

When a friend apologized for making art that was less than political, that focused on beauty, Wojnarowicz replied, “…these are so beautiful, and that’s what we’re fighting for. We’re being angry and complaining because we have to, but where we want to go is back to beauty. If you let go of that, we don’t have anywhere to go.”

self portrait by Peter Wojnarowicz

 I'm thankful for Wojnarowicz and artists like him that do the dirty work, remind us of death, and of what is valuable (and worth fighting for) about life.

Are you using the latest Stamp on your Love Letters?

My series of drawings and history of the USPS love stamps was printed in the February 6th, 2020  edition of the Lakeville Journal, page A3.

Because it is the week for mailing out Valentines, we can look forward to the unveiling of the new 2020 Love stamp. Every year, on and off since 1973, the US Postal service has issued a new love stamp for the purpose of sending out your cards of intimate sentiment!

Sue at the Amenia Post Office shows me the new stamps

The first official love stamp featured the iconic stacked LOVE design by Robert Indiana. It cost eight cents!

By Robert Indiana

It was created for the Museum of Modern art's Christmas card and never copyrighted, so it has popped up everywhere. Poor Robert Indiana doesn't get a penny from it. Another design, a few years later, was created by the the nun/artist/activist, Corita Kent.

Corita Kent

There used to be a water tower in Boston that featured her rainbow slashes.Wonder if it is still up?

This year's love stamp design is by Alberto Alcala. He also designed last years. He is one of 4 art directors with the post office. You have probably used his stamps many times. Last spring he made the stamp of the waving flag. It is from a photograph he took while walking along the shores of Lake Michigan. Another Forever stamp series he designed last fall was of holiday wreaths against doors.

Alcala's stamps

More about it on page A3, under "The Season for Romance"!

Lakeville Journal

Gift wrapping for my subscribers

Tricky part is intuiting which goes to which home. They are all oldies but goodies, and I am so happy to share. I get inspired by having readers visit the blog. Feels good to give back.

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.

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