Next Saturday discover how symbols and collage can uncover another language

How to Bury a Friend

 

Artist Talk and Art-making Workshop
Join artist Tilly Strauss in this transformative workshop exploring love, loss and the healing journey of time.
Saturday, May 21, 3‑5 p.m.
Hispanic Branch

March 11 - August 12, 2016
Hispanic Branch
Starting with a phone call one autumn day, Strauss, an artist and mother, embarked on a journey dealing with the impending and then actual death of her close friend. Painting a painting every single day for six months, Strauss navigated her way through the spiritual grief, the heart‑rending loss, and the personal transformation that followed. For this show, Strauss has paired paintings with excerpts from her manuscript. Her story is both personal and universal.
Biography
Tilly Strauss recently relocated to Miami after living and working for more than two decades in Dutchess County, NY. Having been a painter her whole life, (she exhibited in her first show at age 5), Strauss loves teaching the joy as well as the history of painting to others. She currently teaches at a private high school and paints regularly at her studio, the Arthouse in the Falls warehouse district in Miami. Last January Strauss won first place in a plein aire event at the Deering Estate and had her work nominated by students to be part of “Teachers who Paint,” a juried exhibition at the Miami International University of Art and Design. She has won two separate month‑long residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and five of the works created there last summer were taken by a curator for exhibition at the Akin Natural History Museum in Pawling, NY last fall.

Eye knew they could watercolor

After over a half dozen daily watercolor exercises inspired by the book, One Watercolor a Day: A six week Course Exploring Creativity Using Watercolor, Pattern and Design by Veronica Lawlor, it was time for a challenge. All my painting class students were asked to paint their eye. As the kids grimaced and groaned at the start, I encouraged them with hokey phrases, such as "Eye know you can do it" and "my eye is on you"!

one student went beyond her eyes to her lips!

I am really happy to see them try so hard.

Outside display cases

mother and son

Love moments like this when my grown son comes to visit. Nothing gives me more pleasure than spending time with him and hearing all about his life, his thoughts, his dreams and aspirations.
Bill Baggs Park on Key Biscayne was pretty jumping today too. Being there meant leaving the phone and all my to-do lists behind. Living the Miami dream.

Goodbye seniors

About to be graduates tomorrow, my advisees and I exchanged last minutes gifts. We spent a day looking back at all their accomplishments. They stood in wonder in front of the mural they painted in 9th grade. As a gift I gave them each a bag of "advisory cards" with a portrait of each of them on one side of the cards and a quote of advice on the backsides. I added a card for me and a card for the home room in order to make it a dozen. All together each set is kept in a drawstring bag I purchase on sale at the Container store. they gave me a canvas painted by using their finger prints to make two hearts in multi-colors, with a legend for whose color was who on the bottom, and the saying "you've touched our hearts" on top. I love it. Plan to hang it near my closet where I get dressed every morning for work as inspiration.

Papel de las Lagrimas

I have been making small linoleum cuts of things I know to be true. Using each as a symbol within a vocabulary I am able, by altering the order and placement, to tell different stories. Lagrimas means tear in Spanish. These are pages telling a tearful story...

Thinking of my artist talk and workshop on the 21st at the Miami Dade Public Library. it runs from 3-5pm and I need an easy art project for those with an interest in transforming their loss into a work of art....

Big ideas

Drawing students tackle Mortality and Vanity in graphite. Here are three examples.

vanity

Cubist still life

 These always turn out well. I have the students divide their paper into random sections and then fill in some of the spaces with music sheets. Then as they draw the still life they must skip to a new area every time they reach a dividing line. ( The still life was kept on a rolling cart that could be safely tucked into the closet during my other classes. I would rotate it every day so they saw a new section without leaving their desk). Staying in warm earth tones helps pull together the classical quality of the subject matter.