The October Blur

I was here. I am here. But much of it feels a blur. We had open studios over two weekends, and family. With 20 other #arteastdutchess creatives we opened our spaces and invited people to explore and see the world a bit like we do. We invited my brother's daughter Natalie to exhibit, Michael's daughter Kylie to read her published poetry (the Fever Poems), and my sister Gwen arrived from France to read from her book.

wolf paintings in the barn

Pa (julian), Michael and Me- with art clinic barn in the background

Invite to the Author reading Saturday the 16th

My wall art calendars for 2022 printed: For the Birds

Wolf painting painted during the open studios: Sneak

Author reading: Kyle Gellatly, Gwen Strauss, Julian Strauss

For a while the barn showed what was inside

Natalie Strauss with studio visitor, artist Alexis Rockman

We had over 77 people visit each weekend. The interaction was so valuable. It is hard to produce art in isolation and then open wide the doors to anybody. But I found it strengthening and invigorating. I also got a lot of tips and recommendations from people. I am full of gratitude.

Alyssa Kogan article on our Amenia portion of the tour in the 10.5.21 Hudson Valley News

 

Hot Cross Buns

 I am not talking about a trip to Fire Island. It is about the magic of being where you are, and seeing icing on the cake.

Film crew from the Trevor Zoo interviewing Pa for YouTube

As the season of hibernation wanes, I feel hunger and desire. Last month we had the full "wolf moon" which traditionally references the depletion of our pantries and symbolizes bill collectors at the door. This month's full moon is the "worm moon", and... have you noticed how many earth worms are in the road? They are waking up and plowing through the thawing the soil. Perhaps it is time to go fishing?

I started the month painting pancakes. They serve as vehicles for the sweet maple syrup our farm has been producing. The sugar season was a little bumpy, with temperatures swinging from 60 to 20 degrees in the last days. We barely made 195 gallons of syrup before the trees finally started budding. The best part of the process, besides being outside in the sugar bush, is being with my dad. I get to witness how he moves from project to project, taking a moment in the sun, sawing wood with headphones, daydreaming into the steam of the evaporator pans... there is a grace and sense of solidity. When you get into a conversation, it can be really deep.

My hot cross bun, 7 x 5 inches, acrylic on paper

 I end the month with a painting of a hot cross bun, bought on impulse at the register of our local grocer. A little research online reveals the indented top and icing cross are for Jesus and the spices inside reference the embalming ingredients. These buns were common in England until 1592 when Queen Elizabeth I decreed they could ONLY be made on Good Friday, Christmas or for burials! She reasoned that they were "too delicious to be eaten any other day". Somehow I wonder if we are getting the full story. But digging further I find that the buns have protective (embalming?) powers. They can save you from shipwrecks, so were commonly taken on long sea voyages. They can also cement a friendship. There is Irish lore: "half for you and half for me, between us two, good luck shall be".  This little painting would make a good gift paired with that sentiment, don't you think?

It's easy- just be the first to email me (tillystudio@aol.com) for for directions to send $55 USA

Wassaic Festival Tomorrow!

Nestled in the Oblong valley between the Connecticut state line and the NY Hudson River, the Wassaic Festival is happening tomorrow! It is a broad event created by a core group of artists. The work on display and presented in performances is playful, risky and witty. Building off a residency program, the Wassaic Project is a ten-year running institution with an investigative mission to explore new ways of seeing and thinking and to foster artists in their research. They have had year after year of maintaining freshness and quality.

Set in a casual country landscape, the Festival has food trucks, music, multi-experiential opportunities, lots of people, paintings, sculptures, and a gala atmosphere. It is free, fun and full of local color. The historical hamlet with the old Mill and Luther Barn are old-world early Americana. There is familiarity and comfort as the train rolls through town every hour. Dispelling the snobbery of much of the art world, firemen and country locals rub elbows with Yale grads, young poets and musicians. It is a seedbed for incredibly poignant contemporary statements. Don’t miss the artist talks scheduled every hour!

In the bucolic setting, experience the possibilities of performance, complete with literature in art, films, art in the stalls- not in pristine white galleries- and music that goes into the night. The place is bubbling with possibilities.  There is a generous and infectious attitude and the festival will be followed in the next few weeks with artist-taught youth camps, and more opportunities to share in the creative process. For more information visit www.wassaicproject.org

 Expect thousands. All are welcome. Art is fun and thought-provoking. It is free and family friendly, with kids art making opportunities. 

Free and Fast Artist Talk

Every second Friday of the month, from May through October, the Pine Plains NY Free Library hosts a free and fast evening artist talk. In the darkened upstairs community room a small group of young emerging artists, all current participants of ChaNorth’s art residency, share 5 minutes of their work history and current focus using words and slides. Recently seven artists ranging from locales down the road in Chappaqua and Brooklyn to further away in Atlanta and Rancho Cucamonga, and across the seas from Japan, joined a handful of locals in the audience to share what drives their artistic focus. Painters were followed by sculptors and the evening was capped by an award winning performance poet, Mia Willis. The artist’s concerns were personal and political, humorous and scientific. The event felt like a vibrant injection of energy and stimuli for the wondering soul. Plus, the librarian always makes great brownies!

The next opportunity to follow up with the current artists will be at the free open studio on July 28^th at the Spruce Farm off route 199 just west of the village. It will allow us to see in real time the product of the artist’s month of investigations.

ChaShaMa  supports artists by partnering with property owners to transform unused real estate into spaces for artists to create, present and connect. These monthly events are free. A new batch of creative’s will be in the library August 16^th at 7pm.

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

Is world peace too much to ask for?

As artists, one of our jobs is to show others the dream and to manifest a potent desire to make it a reality. So... I am unapologetic about calling for every wishbone cracked, every fallen star, every stray eyelash, every birthday candle blown and every other wishful opportunity given, to be the doorway to world peace.
My sons probably tire of me. They collect guns. But ironically it is in their faces that I see the urgency of my request. It is their beautiful spirits and the miracle I know involved in their being that makes me ask for the silly, seemingly year-2017-unrealistic-world-peace.
I am not going to talk about the American president. Or the obnoxious GNP of the USA.
Instead I will talk about the beauty of new babies- grandchildren.

And of poets... playful lovers who remind me that world peace begins in our own homes.

 Thank God for music, poetry and art and roofs over our heads. And let there be world peace!
#worldpeace #guncontrol #motherson #poets4thePeace #militarygames #militaryhistory

Starting off Basel art fair week with home grown student show

 For one night only, we hosted a pop up event! One hundred works of art, juried by visiting RISD scholar. We had a couple violin musicians in the corner...

 A poetry reading...

plenty of Art fans and good food!

(wow, my feet hurt.)

Dora Maar fellows

High on the hill of Menerbes, we gathered with local inhabitants to attend the monthly Salon provided courtesy of the artists working for the last month at the Dora Maar residency program, an off shoot of the MFAH, (Houston, Texas). They shared their works in progress. First  Morgan Puett, an multimedia conceptual ex-fashionista spoke about Mildred's Lane, an art cooperative and philosophical community she has fashioned in the rolling hills of rural northeastern Pennsylvania. While at Dora Maar, Morgan is working on a Mildred's Lane dictionary and the lexicon of a new philosophy of collaboratively making art while creating meaningful community. Her passion in this life long undertaking was heady and left me quite blown by the knotted, convoluted, and unique use of jargon. Intellectually I was primed for the poetry reading that followed. Geri Doran, the author of two books of poetry has been writing her third while in residency. Geri was on sabbatical from her professorship position at the University of Oregon. She had filled the year with travel and her next stop- after France- was a residency in Spain. Her poems were tender windows onto suffering and longings. I asked to see the written poems after the reading... finding myself needing a visual... sometimes the sound of words is not enough for me. It was satisfying, she was accommodating. Her last book, Resin, winner of some Walt Whitman award, is going into our collection. The night wrapped itself around us with the third fellow, Jason Anthony, speaking about his times in Antarctica, hinting at fatalistic forecasts for us all, and sharing his book of Antarctic cuisine, HOOSH. Hoosh is also in our library now as well!

after the presentations each artist answers questions

The evening ends with a fabulous meal wrapping us into the next day.

First thing at my sisters

 I wake up and find that spring is here! The almond trees are starting to bloom and the grass looks to need it's first cutting.

We start each day with our coffee outside and some time to reflect.
The house is so old and lived in that the large stone steps just inside the front door are worn uneven and smooth like river rocks. The stairs in the outside courtyard lead nowhere. If you look longer you will see signs of an old sill, and echoes of a doorway, now filled in, opaque with stone.

My sister is one of the creative spirits that I admire the most. She is disciplined and hedonistic. She balances hard work with great food, music, friends and intellectual investigation. Surrounded by art and artists, her life looks intentional, rich and witty. I couldn't help snapping a picture of her "Duchamp in the corner".  Looks pretty good?

Studio language on my Labor day

Spiritualism and aesthetics...it is so hard to describe what I am searching for when I labor over a work of art. By my age, I have come to realize that there is a certain vocabulary that repeats itself even if the medium changes. In this totemic work of plaster, burlap, felt, embroidery thread and paint, there are the songbirds, hearts, wings, and fruit. These images have threaded themselves though my art since...well... years and years ago. There must be a reason, and someday I might mine my photo albums and listen to the family stories and actually figure it out... but right now the symbols flow from my paint brush, dance with my needle and thread, and trace across my sketchbooks of their own volition.
Aesthetically my work balances between black and white (I love the way Picasso used black, and how Cranach the Elder and Alice Neel used a fluid outline). Perhaps because of my Carribean based youth and my current residency in Miami, most of the work has a pitch of bright colors. One constant from my traditional western education is the rectilinear flat plane.
I don't know the meaning of these pictures yet... I work on them, adding layers or sanding layers off, until they feel right, and then, I try to place the parts in poetic juxtapositions that might reveal something of the situation of where they were made. Perhaps they are all over the map. I am going to try to find out...

What a poetic evening!

An amazing performance of literature readings by VSC residents and guests left me pretty pumped up and speechless. I went through a roller coaster of emotions: from laughter to gulping tears, from shock to commiserate comfort. The energy in the church was raw and throbbing and at times, exploded. The place was packed. People were at the edge of their seats. We became a community of vulnerable tenderness and bonding. Still reeling from it, the poems and stories continue to be the conversation topic at mealtimes. I have a book list as long as my arm. Jerriod's poetry is in a few magazines. Beth read her hilarious poems made up from google searches and spying through trash. Her poem about the news of her dad's death left us breathlessly suspended similar to her spider like"fingers over the keyboard". Lesley had some really good poems about family gatherings, and I was glad to find that she has a wonderful website of her poetry. Alan, most notable as an actor, is working on a new collection of poems that are inspired by snapshots he has taken, where he both describes each object and spirals away in a line of thought, and excellent storyteller. Sanderia read an excerpt from her novel, Mourners Bench, which will be released this fall. Pre-order on Amazon. Demisty read three poems and I really liked the one about the inelegance and embarresment of merging bodies; it reminded me a bit of my layered life drawings. Stacy shared visions of growing up with angels and/or mental patients. And Matt, a very published poet, screamed some of his shorter  poems and an excerpt from his 180 page poem he is currently working on.
I think I am so moved because of the richness of the experience, the talent, the evident hard work and fearless searching... The evening was one vision that I imagine of Paradise.

Matt Hart performing poetry

Alan Cummings, Sanderia Faye, Jerriod Avant, Stacy Seidl, Demisty Bellinger, Lesley Wheeler, Beth Roddy, Matt Hart

*****All photographs by Maxwell Mackenzie*****

Sketching the poetry of routine

the studio building

my cozy bedroom looks out onto Clay St.

A semblance of a routine is slowly establishing itself- after a morning in the studio, I've taken to napping during the afternoon and painting late into the night. I stop everything for the meals- fabulous organic fresh meals served at 8am, noon and 6pm. I am pretty restless trying to sleep through the night... not used to the rural sounds, missing my lover, worried about the loud creaking floor boards if I need to creep to the bathroom. I am easily awake by 6am. The songbirds and an occasional gravel-crunching sound of a car passing slowly punctuate my morning prayers/meditations. 

Last night we had a poet reading by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who has written three award winning books of poetry and is a professor in the NY State university system.  Her reading was very theatrical and entertaining. She writes using words as though spotting them on a rambling walk. Her sense of wonder and awe remind me of the poems of Mary Oliver, and her reverence for nature, considering the fragility of the moment, recall the writings of Rachel Carson as well. As the talk ended she spoke briefly about correspondence, the loveliness of snail mail, and her recent collaboration on a chap book, Lace&Pyrite: Letters from two Gardens (by Organic Weapon Arts press), with Ross Gay. I thought of collaborations I have tried long distance with girlfriends and sisters and how they fizzled and ended and I thought about trying it again.

I like the idea of taking a dusty system, like the postal service, and using it as a basic parameter to a time based art project. The pace of packaging, stamping, and mailing correspondence delivers a segment of time that suspends routine and allows space to let the imagination flourish, unlike the immediacy of phone, text, and email.

Believe and Ask

Sometimes you have to dust off your baggage and ask for what you really want. I was able to do just that, and, as a result, enjoy a really wonderful holiday with both my sons, my Michael, his kids, and my folks. We tried to keep the holiday simple. So of course, it was magical.

If I weren't concerned about the privacy of others, I would post pictures of the long walks, the poetry and song by the tree, the yummy laughter filled and laden tables. I felt and received love. I stood in the place that felt like home. It was short, but very, very nice. May there be some lasting Peace on earth.

A poem to go with his July flowers

Micheal’s Climbing Roses

Year One, the ‘Straggle and the Thorn’
two down, hung strangled and forlorn.
Weak shadows cast on rotten steps,
painted nails and twisted ankles.

Ten more pass in the blink of an eye
eleven down, high as the crows fly.
Early Baroque leaf-green reach,
bamboo armatures, black mold, and jar of honey.

Twelve year blossoms dripped echoes,
memories, deals, and heaven’s shadows.
Bones held them out at arms length,
farther out from the hardwood footings,
past the scratches and the smile in her eyes.

In the end, the moth size crimson cuttings
dropped down off the hill, through the bridge
and right between the cheeks of another summer,
touching this time, once again, the older bird heart.
 (written by M. Gellatly)

I'm a freak at coctail parties

Recently I have found it so lovely to have friends who can talk about politics, and the state of the universe. For so long I have been relegated to trying to look good and speak of little importance. Keeping everything light and being decorative is how you throw a good party. I think I like bad parties. I don't want to talk (or listen) about the Kardashians, or Bieber's police record. I don't want to blame one political party or the president. I want to discuss the things we need to know about the food supply, and healthy practices, and our rights as human beings on the same planet as each other.
I'd rather talk about God, death, and poetry, than sex scandals, car chases, and serial killers in the making.
This art is playing with Mylar Dad picked up from the dump, and with the truth about what we should know and what we are being given as news...

A butterfly in Miami tonight

Don't think I will get to paint today because I am going straight from work to a Billy Collins Poetry Reading. It's one of Miami's little gifts, bringing in the talent of Mr. Collins, to a theater for free. This two time Poet Laureate  makes you cry, laugh, and wonder about more things than you ever thought about. I am thrilled to spend an evening with him. Listening to poetry is sort of like holding onto a butterfly. You can't clench it tight or (like in the classrooms back in the day where we analyzed it to bits) you will kill it. I am going tonight with open palms/ open mind.

Pain, Poetry and imbalance on Miami Highway

Balance...How quickly it can go. Each day, each minute, can be different.

This is painted on plaster on scrap of cardboard. It is a medium I find intriguing with all the exposure I get these days to intersection signage. All along the Dixie Highway (route 1) I come across stories printed in black ink on cardboard. "Hungry. Out of work. Please help", "God bless you Please feed me","Trying to save for my Ferrari", "Just had a baby, help me keep her. No job no money." "I'm a Vet with cancer". The homeless raise up these signs in hopes to tug at heartstrings and shake a few dollars out of each car. I don't always have change, and as I sit at a light in the car- windows up and a.c. on- I feel forced to be audience to their theater. Drama. It's out on the streets and everywhere.
What if I joined them? Held up my signs... "need a pedicure", "so tired...", "can you hear me now", "who do I blame?" I have made a stack of them:

Tears, even the rain, captured in a jar

... to those who have suffered

much will be revealed

follow your tears

the future needs us

now.

Drew Dellinger