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

 

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!

 

Lesson plan for home Equinox Ceremony

 

Expanding the Square

Start with a small back square piece of paper

On the equinox we think about the light, the dark, and the balance of the two opposites. It’s a traditional time to review the past year and note all the events and accomplishments that have lightened up your life. What sort of achievement are you thankful for? How have you grown? 

It is also about taking note of the bitter harvest. What were the hard times and what changes did you have to go through? Like I said, it is all about balance!

Students having fun. Check out samples on wall behind them

 

The NOTAN is a Japanese art concept that plays with the placement of light and dark elements. You cannot have dark without light or light without dark. This assignment will help you feel the balance.

 

You will need:

    4 x 4-inch square black piece of paper

    a regular white sheet of 8 x 11

    pencil

    scissors

    glue…I like glue sticks for this

 

Start by drawing your designs on the small black square, either organic or geometric, touching the straight edge of one side. Repeat along other sides. Avoid adding any element floating in the middle. After drawing lines, cut your black paper, along the lines, from each side of the square. You can draw and cut shapes within shapes- these are called “double cuts”. Nothing is thrown away. Place your square back together and all the pieced should be there. Lay it on your white paper. Then carefully lift your black shapes and flip them open like the pages of a book.  A double cut will be flipped one way and then the other. 

Keep it simple or go more complex

Can you see why this is called “expanding the square”? Your design will celebrate the balance of the fall equinox.

Enjoy

This student has gone on to be an artist @paintingsbycarina.com

 

Is Summer Over?

 

I’m only just recovering from the NECC summer enrichment program. Imagine spending every day making art with kids ages 5-11 and teen interns. It was awesome. One highlight was the week we spent on day hikes with Sachem HawkStorm, the chief of the Schaghticoke First Nations. He challenged a lot of our assumptions about the woods and how we approach our food and our history.  

 

My other joy this summer was the opportunity to spend a week in Iowa with my mother, just the two of us, traveling back to her childhood in Des Moines. We traveled even further back in time- visiting the town of Algona, that our family founded in 1847. I am working on an illustrated family tree text about my great grandmother, and we were able to meet with passionate members of the Kossuth County Historical Society who had tons of archives to share and were very helpful. The history of the founders is very much alive in the town today. Imagine my surprise to see a fresh colorful mural with my great great grandpa’s name in it?

Asa and Ambrose Call Founders of Algona

Less delightful was the awareness of the role our family had in the displacement of indigenous tribes. Mother and I traveled southeast of Algona to Tama, where the Meskwakie Nation have lands and a nice Tribal Cultural Center and Museum. It helped me get a better understanding of their culture and the impact of the homesteaders who stole their lands. I also identified the helpers who petitioned to let the Meskwakie return to their land, sold them acres, and advocated for their status as human beings under US law. Many of the helpers, like my great great grandparents, were horrified descendants or veterans of the Black Hawk wars.

 

When I am not writing or researching, I am painting a series of fairly silly wolf paintings. It is still too early for me to know what they mean. But I hope to have a few large unframed paintings for sale at my open studio in October. At that point I will make sure some of the proceeds goes to an organization that helps the wolves. They are in dire straits. If you have a suggestion which organization I should pair with, please let me know. I appreciate guidance here. A lot needs to be done.

 

I continue to do accountability art coaching via zoom. It’s been more fun than I expected. Now in my second 6-week session, I’ve found each group of artists to be inspiring, kind, and honorable. Every time I talk with them, I get so happy I just float! If you need help with your artistic practice, if you can’t get to the studio, let me help you show up. It’s all run through the MidHudson Arts Council in Poughkeepsie, though the participants are as far away as Colorado and South Carolina! Stay tuned for the virtual show of the participants work this winter.

 

Group shows on the calendar and places where you can see my work:

Opening on the 23^rd at ArtsMidHudson “Wish You Were Here” 5 x 7in. postcard show in Poughkeepsie NY. Through the 18^th the Reinstitute Millerton NY, see “Together in Isolation” outside underground installation. I just made the deadline! My work is called the Lost Keys of Covid. Closing the 24^th, my sketchbooks at the DM Hunt Library in Falls Village CT “Book Marks” show. My 6 large paintings at the Hammond Museum “Voices I Remember” show will be hanging through October, in North Salem, NY.  And through the 30^th, the Live4Art Gallery in Pawling NY features the Arteastdutchess studio tour preview show.

 

Thank you for reading through this. I hope you are well and finding creative outlets for your days.  Stay curious- Tilly

A Ride to the Past

My family is flawed. Because of that, the research into my roots for my art project has often stalled. I write about leaders and pioneers in their fields who are acclaimed for their achievements. Yet with a little searching I find them prejudiced, mysogynist, racist, or thieving. Many harbored opinions that I consider untenable today. My family story, much of it a story of white males, had to be balanced a bit by focus on the strong matriarchs. The women come to light (and literature) in the branch of Americans that wrote books and kept diaries. I want to focus on the brilliant and inspiring Florence Cowles, (1861- 1950), who grew up in Algona and traveled the world visiting schools and talking to teachers. That is what drove me to the Midwest last week- a need to gain a clearer perspective on the people I admire.

Florence and Gardner Sr and their home famous for mandatory Family Sunday Lunches

Our week in Iowa felt much fuller than a mere 7 days, for the amount of time we spent in the past. From the moment we landed at the airport and took the road named after my granddad into the city, we were faced with signs of family legacy from the late 1800's to mid 1900's. It was special traveling with my mother. She had grown very quiet over the summer, and on the trip her memories came flooding back. She remembered details, names and addresses and recounted little stories every where we went! I booked us a room in the Savery Hotel, Des Moines' first sky scraper at 13 stories, across from the Cowles Commons. We looked out to the capital building dome covered in 23 carot gold. Grand Avenue linked us to her childhood neighborhood, her grandparents home and the art center. 

Though Florence spent one year at the Chicago Institute of Art, her legacy is in the education emphasis of the Des Moines Art Center

After a few days in Des Moines we ventured up through a sea of corn and soy crops to Kossuth County and the town my relatives founded, Algona in 1854. Within minutes of arriving in the sleepy town, we saw fliers about the restoration of a family grave and colorful murals across multiple buildings referencing Asa and Ambrose, the patriarchs of our Cowles branch of the family! Ambrose is Florence's father. Needless to say, we were welcomed warmly to the Kossuth County Historical Society and quickly overwhelmed with the amount of information and personal items in the collection. All my questions were answered and I only wished my sisters could have been there to glean from their own perspective from the treasures on display. 

 

Mid week we visited the Meskwakie Nation in Tama, and had to ourselves an afternoon in the Tribal Museum. It was important for me because any story of my pioneer ancestors has to acknowledge the settler colonialism that crushed the indigenous population. Manifest Destiny was firmly in the minds of the pioneering Asa and Ambrose and the land they staked a claim to had other residents. 

 My time in Iowa answered many questions about the limitations of my ancestors and exposed me to their liberal leanings. I came to see that they were compassionate and on record as eventually supporting the Meskwakie (Sac and Fox) in their bid to return and own land. People like Governor Grimes were real heroes, changing the tide and protecting the native Iowans from the homesteaders. Florence's diary detailed some of the cultural interactions she witnessed between her mother and the destitute tribes that passed through. The stories of the settler's survival emphasized their willingness to treat the natives fairly and peacefully in all transactions. I learned about a handful of other people who also felt the enslavement of blacks and the incarceration of natives were wrong and to be protested. I feel relieved that Florence spent time and money securing decent support for the natives and spoke up about the civil rights of all those less fortunate. 

 

Of course there was Hezekiah, Ambrose' wife's father... my great great great grandfather and Florence Cowles' grandfather). He and his brothers fought in the Black Hawk and Civil war, clearing the natives away from good farm lands and from potential cross-continental routes to rich mines.

Exploring my Settler Legacy

My family is full of creatives, risktakers and influencers, so it is inevitable fodder for a project to go looking for them. In search of the story behind my great grandmother Florence Call Cowles, I am off on a week-long adventure of research and memory-lane type of wanderings.

Florence and Gardner on their Around the World Trip in 1924

 

The first stop is Des Moines Iowa- the birthplace of my mother- and here I should share that I will be dragging her in tow. It has been since 1994 that we were last in the city. Our plans are to visit the art museum, the newspaper, the health clinic, performing arts center, the Cowles Commons, Drake University, the old neighborhood, and then travel to Tama and the Meskwakie Indian Reservation before ending in Algona- the county seat created by Florence's father, Ambrose Call. 

My suitcase of maps

Originally, I thought my mom and I could rent a car and set out across NY state and meander though the upper midwest to reach DesMoines, after visions of fruitful conversations and daydreams over rural landscapes, but my mother was less than enthused. She has tried to convonce me not to do this trip, practically begging my boyfriend to take her side. I know we will have fun and, like a reversal of the parent child relationship, I believe this will be good medicine for us. We will enjoy it, God dammit! 

Mom at lunch wondering what the hell we are up to

And I have compromised with plane tickets to Des Moines and a rental car just for the state driving needs. And a really nice hotel for the first few nights.

Day to day postings will be on my Instagram: tilly Strauss

More will follow here as I summarize my findings. Wish me luck. Wish US luck.

August happenings

 Hey there- You know the saying "when it rains it pours"?

 So many things have converged and I am proud to say that my art has been able to get out of my studio and into the world!

Right now I have works at the Hunt library in Falls Village, NY, at the Hammond Museum in North Salem, NY and at the Kent Library in Kent Lakes, NY! In addition, I was a panelist with 6 other fantastic artists last weekend at the Hammond. We were talking about emotion and creativity.  Next weekend I will be hosting a free workshop at the same museum on Collage and Processing Trauma. 

 

There are also some virtual shows I am proud to be a part of- such as the Wells International Covid-19 show, a member exhibition with ArtQueens and a culminating show (soon to be up) of my coaching clients, (accountability coaching for 6 weeks for artists, through the ArtsMidhudson.org). 

My day job continues to be herding and inspiring 7- 11 years olds at the community center's summer enrichment program. It fills my days with laughter, but does bring hobbley achy feet by the end of the day.

So I am actually reclining with a lemonade as I write this... getting ready to load the car with more paintings for more places really soon. Thanks again and always for your time and support. It is lovely to be able to make art, and even more fantastic to get to share it with others.

Don't hesitate to reach out for more information!

Cheers!