BWAC is back for another season with a lot of great art which includes the national juried print show on the first floor. Upstairs the water color artists from the Rockaways have returned to show as a group plus our members show which will include the return of bwac members and many new members. There are also several featured artists including me. I have my own little corner of the BWAC world in bay one on the second floor panels 115 to 122.
detail from The Viewers
We have all been craving the places we would go and the things we would do and that is what my work speaks of this year in contrast to last year.
detail from Times Up
Here is a view of my little corner of the world at BWAC. I hope you will come out to Red Hook and see what we have all been up to over the winter’s break. In my next post I will include images of other artists work in this beautiful show.
Also for those of you who missed it here is the link for my interview with my local arts PSWT group.
Just have to add …. I went to see my piece in the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibit on NY Responds to covid/BLM …. last time I’ll mention it but this time with pictures.
7:30 pm Wednesday, April 21st, 2021 via zoom from my studio with Steve Ettlinger as the host for an artist talk with me. He will also interview Robin Roi. Join Zoom Meeting
“The real voyage of discovery consist not in seeking new landscapes – but in having new eyes.“
This quote from Marcel Proust’s seven volume Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time) which I think is a journey many of us have been on in this past year of lockdown and separation. Places we have not gone, people we could not see or embrace, things we could not do ….. this is what this past year was made of for many of us.
A year ago I thought it would be a breeze creating pieces for a three person exhibit, Awakening, with two other collage artists Tony Wells and Dennis Shelton. Instead I found myself in a kind of limbo cut off from many of the things that inspire me to create and give me inspiration ….. my family and friends and being out and about in the world. But I was so inspired watching the arts rise up finding new ways to be seen and heard giving a voice to what people were feeling or missing. Zoom became a vehicle not for just corporate meetings but for dancers and musicians to gather not only with just one another but to share with anyone who was hungry for what was being served.
I hadn’t realized how much the show and tell of art with deadlines and sales had become an inspiration for me to create until the lockdown. I decided to give a workshop in how to make my collage portraits while zooming with a group of creative people of different disciplines and I remembered that I create because it is what I love to do. I called the piece I made Lady Zoom and she was my first awakening.
The detail above is of Lady Zoom hands because they have always been my voice. It is the first piece I made for the Awakening Exhibit
Each of us, Tony, Shelton and I had to do our interpretation of an image from the knockout first Clay/Liston fight here is a detail from that awakening or rebirth of Clay’s career.Detail from collaborative work with Tony Wells
arts Park Slope/Windsor Terrace spring salon exhibit
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BWAC’s 2021 spring member’s exhibit
I have been selected to be one of the featured artist for this exhibit and it was so interesting going through my 50 years of sketchbooks, looking at my thoughts with new eyes and trying out ideas that had only been thoughts for years. For some of my works I will show both the inspiration and the result like the piece below
It was fun playing with textures and variation of color for In The Shadows from a forty year old sketch but I could look at it and see it was the shadows that drew my attention to want to remember the moment.
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 int a museum!
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 losses: 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 last 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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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
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.
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.
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 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.
