2021 New Beginnings

The Wall January 2021 ………. what changes will the new year bring?

2020 was a hard year but I loved that I had my art to carry me through as a relief valve to express what I saw and felt. 2020 my work got into a museum!

The WAH Center in Williamsburg asked for art created during the lockdown and my piece Loss received 3rd Prize. It was a year of so many loses: loved ones, jobs, businesses, homes and I think a loss of innocence about the world as we knew it. I live near a hospital where I also volunteered for about 20 years and they sent us all home in March. Its been almost a year and I still miss my work there.

I remember as I walked the halls the diversity of the people who work there and my heart is warmed by all of them working together to save lives. The constant sound of sirens was the background of my daily life night and day for months.

But its a new year with new opportunities. The exhibit at MCNY will reopen mid February and run until April 11th. WAH will have its yearly salon exhibit. I will be part of a three person show with two other collage artist in April and there are many new things that will be happening at BWAC this year. So I have to get back into my studio and see what the new year will bring. For all of you who have ventured out to see my work in person thank you and for the few times I ventured out myself it was wonderful to meet and talk with those of you who did. For all of you who are waiting for the world to open up again all of these shows can be seen online. Just go to the sites I have linked.

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MCNY and me

For all of you who came to BWAC for the arts ps/wt open studio or the BWAC holiday market … thank you. For those of you who came on days I elected not to be there so sorry that I missed you but thank you for venturing out in these difficult times.

I hope everyone has stayed safe and had a good holiday and you are preparing for the new year that will be a year of changes. I’ll begin with one of my pieces which was selected for an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York called New York Responds: The First Six Months. I know I said that before but now need to add out of twenty thousand submissions my piece Say My Name was selected to be a part of this exhibit on New York City responds to covid and the BLM movement. The exhibit is up until April 11th but I have just been informed that due to the need for repairs to the museum it will shut down from January 11th until mid February and the exhibit will run until April 11th, 2021. I recently took a virtual tour through the site and I am amazed at the diversity of the exhibit showing not only what NYC experienced in the height of the pandemic but also how New Yorkers experienced it through the unrest, demonstrations and covid restrictions. One more time here is Say My Name.

Prints of Say My Name II (below) may be purchased on line from my Square shop plus other images from the series

HOLIDAY MAKERS MARKET DECEMBER 5/6 12 TO 5 PM

I love art. I love being in a community of creative artists when we are all exhibiting together and I love being able to show you some of the great work from a few of the artists I will be exhibiting with this coming weekend.

First you will be greeted by this beautiful festive rickshaw that we are lucky enough to have with us for the holidays. You have to come and see it in person to really enjoy its beauty. Last week when I went in to set up I was amazed walking in the door to seeing the rickshaw and right next to it Sandra Forrest’s stunning stained glass work. Here are the three pieces that reminded me I want to do some collaborative work with Sandra combining my ceramic work with her beautiful glass work.

Next you will see Alise Loebelsohn’s beautiful paintings that are also on glassware, scarves and a few other items.

There is such a great mix of artist with different approaches to art including Alicia Degener’s paintings and beautiful tiles that take you on a tour of Brooklyn and other parts of the city.

For all you animal lovers out there look for John and Wendy’s stunning colorful painting of cats and dogs. Need a portrait of your best friend they can do that for you or get a kitty pillow.

But there is so much more before I get to me. Renee Radenberg has both functional glassware and colorful jewelry. light up a room with this candle holder.

Gerard Barbot has both whimsical assemblages and jewelry made from his eclectic mix of found objects. This is my favorite an inspired piece made during our lockdown.

I think this is all enough for now to inspire you to journey out to Red Hook to smell the sea, feel the sun and breeze on your face as you look out at a big sky watching the ships sail by after you have looked at great art and bought some wonderful gifts for the holidays right from the hands of the artists into yours.

But before I go, I’m going to include several of my napkin ring designs from when I first started working in clay to the city-scapes and the paper relief sculpture collages.

Once again here are the jazzy cigar box purses. I keep showing them because they are an example of what can I do with what I already have that will take me some place new and that always makes me smile.

UP-DATE # 2

Arts ps.wt has been extended one more weekend at BWAC .

But that is not your last chance to purchase some of the great items in the BWAC Holiday Makers Market because we will be expanding for your holiday shopping. Give to those you love the gift from the hands of the artists.

Wear a mask upon entering and social distancing required inside.

Up-Date

Just in case you can’t come this weekend, arts ps/wt @ BWAC and has been extended one more weekend until November 21/22. But if you do come, it will lessen your chance of missing out on seeing more of the cigar box purses I’ve created with images from my jazz paper collages. Look for them in the Makers Market @ BWAC with all the other great artists exhibiting.

AND if you make it over to WAH in Williamsburg you will see that I received third prize for my work from the juror Paulina Pobocha, curator of MoMA. This exhibit runs until December 20th

FALL BACK …..

Fall back into all those things you love doing like going to art shows and to help you with that honorable mission I can give you a couple of options. I have two choices that begin tomorrow.

First my work will be at BWAC with arts ps/wt because its the safe way to have our open studio and you can see many of us at once because we will all be there showing and selling our work the next two weekends November 7/8 and 14/15 from 1 to 6 pm. I will be there in the late afternoon 11/7. The Red Hook open studio can be seen in our second floor bay 2 gallery.

Here is my wall with my work from the juried Black & White show, BWAC’s members exhibit and my ceramic cityscapes.

I am also in the Maker’s Market and there you can purchase photo prints of some of these pieces. There I will have t-shirts printed with the image from my piece Say My Name.

Brand new, first time out, with images from my series of musicians at work purses made from cigar boxes below.

And I’m not done yet . You can spend one day checking out my work at BWAC with arts ps/wt and on the other day venture to Williamsburg and catch a couple of my pieces at WAH and see my work with a group of other artists exhibiting what we did during the lockdown. Below is Still II.

The weather this weekend is 70º and it will be beautiful by the water. Mask and social distancing is mandatory at BWAC as is enjoying the sound of the water lapping up against the rocks below the open space of the big blue open sky. Plenty of open space to be enjoyed. all that and a day with artists.

I just realized I forgot to tell my big news. My piece Say M Name was

accepted for an exhibit at The Museum For The City of New York opening December 18th and running until the end of April The exhibit will be called New York Responds.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

This year and all of its events brought a depth and change in my work and I hope you can make it out to BWAC to see not only what I have done but also how other artists have been affected and the effect this year has had on their work.

Below Say My Name. $1800 (16 x 20). This collage paper relief sculpture is in the ground floor juried Black and White show. The timely title of the exhibit was decided even before 2020 began and gave it a whole new meaning once the new year arrived.

You can purchase a 14 x 16 inch print in the Makers Market for just $175. framed print $200.

As a general rule my work is about small moments of human connection. But there was a metaphorical change in my work after weeks and months of the re-awakening of black and white Americans and people all over the world. All this while hearing the constant sounds of sirens and nightly hearing the numbers of dead from covid-19 increasing. The NY Times posted on their front page the names of the then 100,000 people who had died. A number that has now almost doubled.

Black and White juried exhibit Double Duty framed 16 x 20 inches $1800.

Upstairs in the members exhibit CURRENT(s) are five more pieces of my collage work addressing current events. I was struck by the painful similarities of then and now. The 1960’s as I was growing up and now showing how far we as a nation still need to go.

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Then, on the left, and Now on the right. The 16 x 20 framed originals are each $1500, but affordable prints are $200 framed and $175 matted. Smaller 11 x 14 framed prints are just $160.

I hope you can make it out to see the three shows plus the Makers Market then go outside and sit by the water and contemplate all you have seen. Then come again and bring your friends after telling them what you have experienced.

If you can’t make it to BWAC but are interested in purchasing prints of my work you can go to our etsy shop and buy them on line.

BLACK & WHITE EXHIBIT

The national juried exhibit opens at BWAC and its a great show. Give yourself a treat to come and see BWAC’s three shows: ground floor is the Black & White exhibit (plus there is the makers market overflowing with functional art to purchase).  Our member’s exhibit, CURRENT(s) is on the second floor in bay one flowing into bay two along with our second juried exhibit Transparent As Glass. I was blown away by many of the pieces from this show.

Come see how the arts express the experiences we have all been sharing, covid-19, BLM movement, political unrest, isolation and the bonding and distance that has created. And again there is the big expansive open sky to prepare your mind for what you will experience inside BWAC, the crisp water and the sound of the waves surrounding the one part of NY harbor that lady Liberty faces. Treat yourself to comfort and culture.

Before I sign off framed prints of some of my works for these shows are available in the Maker’s Market

BWAC Wall

After you have checked out my small collages and tableware in BWAC’s Makers Market and the ground floor Black & White juried show head upstairs to panel 159A as you enter bay 1 and see my wall. You will see a lot of interesting art throughout the two shows and enjoy Red Hook, fresh air and the water.

FALL SHOWS

BWAC had planned last winter for this year fall show to be BLACK & WHITE which has now taken on new meaning in the mist of BLM and covid-19. Usually my work tells about little moments of human connection, but 2020 brought a whole new dimension to my work. First all three pieces I submitted to BWAC were accepted into the show and the first piece below, Say My Name, is being used as PR for the exhibit. 

16 x 20 inch prints of Say My Name will be on sale in the Brooklyn Makers Market on BWAC‘s first floor and through this blog so check back for more information about purchasing one of three different prints.The juror for Black & White exhibit is Jenée-Daria Strand from the Brooklyn Museum and the curator for the exhibit is BWAC member Kenneth Jackson.

Aside from the national juried show on the first floor our members show, Currant(s) is upstairs in the two bays on the second floor. I will be exhibiting several pieces including Then below. I want to show you through my eyes a journey of black history in this country.

 

Also available in the first floor Brooklyn Makers Market Study of A Dancer in Pause which a detail from The Dancer and the Poet.

 

There is always a journey and a process to a finished piece. I First discovered the paper that I used as the background for dancer and poet and then realized the figure would be too small for the background and went on to do a much larger piece but still loved the expression on the  smaller portrait and searched for the story she had to tell in her eyes.

 

Black and White and Current(s) will be at BWAC September 26th until October 24th. Come and spend a day by the water out on the pier in a place where the sky is greater than the land and the water reminds you we are an island and we are all in this together. Mask must be worn inside and social distancing required but outside there will live music and drinks.

 

Excuse images below. WordPress changed their format and I’ve no clue how to fix what has become of past postings.