Open Studio This Weekend

This weekend I will be in the studio with my family... four artists, (three generations), making art. People are welcome to drop by and visit. Since it will be a "working studio tour", we have scheduled demonstrations every hour. Do you wonder about the inspiration and tools of creating art? This is a unique experience to see art produced and reflect on styles and interests found across generations of a single family.

 Over two days, May 1 and 2, in one barn, working from 11- 5pm each day, we will be ready for visitors to witness the creative act, ask questions, and purchase work. This is open to all, free event. Caution required as it is a barn, with some innate hazards and the studios contain some radical ideas.

 

Michael, Julian and Tilly in front of HF Art Clinic

Really, as part of an eastern Dutchess county group of artists, we have gotten together to open our studios www.ArtmostNy.com. The studios are open from Pawling to Amenia. Check out their website!

At our studio barn on 55 Haight Road:

Julian Strauss, beloved veterinarian, well known for his small batch maple syrup products, now moves from the sawmill to his wood shop. Using the slash from his timber production, he will be creating maple and walnut spoons, forks and stools. A small gallery in the converted waiting room displays his kinetic sculptures and backwards running clocks. Recycling is his passion and evident in the materials he transforms into lamps and unique jewelry.

Tilly Strauss, moi, his daughter, will be in my skylit loft on the third floor. What comes through in the paintings when I focus my lens on the outside world, are visions both personal and universal. I will be launching a sale of my current series, “Conversations with Trees During Lockdown”. The small oval birch ply paintings are ready to hang and for sale.

Michael Gellatly, my partner in life, will be exhibiting and working in the transformed Kennel room. He is an artist and illustrator. He will be working on a series of smaller abstract landscapes. His larger paintings are mind-blowing in technique and vision. He is recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and residencies. Forthcoming he will have a 17-foot painting included in the Wassaic Project’s summer show.  His work has illustrated maps for George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, books for Rita MaeBrown and the products of Home Farm Maple Syrup.

My niece Natalie Strauss

Natalie Strauss, the teenage granddaughter of Julian, and my dear niece, is a scholastic award-winning writer and painter. She currently specializes in depicting animals. Her intimate knowledge of them stems from weekends at the farm, summers working at the Millbrook Trevor Zoo and her own domesticated menagerie in Massachusetts. She will be painting in the operating room.

 

 Please visit our Home Farm Art Clinic, 55 Haight Road, just off route 22 north of Amenia. The Home Farm Art Clinic- part workspace, part show case and part clubhouse- is a rich environment of historic and artistic interest. Originally a barn for draft horses, the three floors also served up until recently as an animal vet clinic and library. Today it houses workshop studios and gallery space for family connections.

Open May 1 & 2 from 11am to 5pm both days. Light refreshments outside, please wear masks.

 email questions to tillystudio@aol.com

www.tillystudio.com

 

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