Author Archives: ehwfram

About ehwfram

I am an artist living in Vermont, inspired by the day-to-day details of life.

Every Day The Same

As I sit here at my desk and look out the window, I feel like I’m in a crow’s nest. I can see the top of our blooming magnolia and the many leaf buds that have started to pop almost overnight on the deciduous trees. It’s an indication of the steady progress we are making, despite the fact that it’s still necessary to wear several cozy layers both indoors and out.

Chickadees reliably take up residence each year in the purple-roofed birdhouse (just to the left of the magnolia) that is a spot of color throughout the year.

A sense of metamorphosis is filtering through to the studio as well. Although not technically difficult to execute, my latest house piece has taken much longer to come together than it should have, perhaps a symptom that I need to switch gears for the time being.

How fortunate for me that my father gave me two miter vises from his workshop when he and my mother were clearing out their house to move to smaller digs.

With spring’s arrival and the ever-widening spread of vaccinations, COVID is loosening its grip here in Vermont. The resulting sense of liberation calls for change, prodding me to explore other ideas that have been brewing on the proverbial back burner for a while now.

I used the same dye bath for both the raw silk that covers the tiny house and the organza that is yet to be stretched over the medium-sized house frame. Since the dye itself becomes progressively weaker with each dip, I was able to get the medium value of blue I was going for — dark enough to show through the final layer of undyed organza, but not so dark as to obscure the smaller house within it.

“Every Day The Same” became the working title for this piece long before it was anything but a fleeting idea in my sketchbook. As the weeks of winter wore on, my routine was just that — a predictable daily schedule with little variation, signifying both the safety and the tedium of a habitual existence. Can you relate?

Various stages of house building. The smallest is finished, the medium one is painted and ready for the organza panels to be sewn together and stretched over it, and the large frame is still raw wood, ready for its first coat of paint.

Concentric houses represent both the overall repetition of that routine, as well as the layers of self that many of us have become better acquainted with in our isolation. That said, in the absence of life’s usual interruptions, this has also been a time of unparalleled richness, allowing for much learning, growth and productivity. I feel this piece can be viewed in two ways depending on your perspective: as a moving inward toward a greater remove, or as an expansion outward in an expression of evolution.

Every Day The Same 2021 © Elizabeth Fram

Hard as it is for me to believe, this is the 18th in my COVID house series. Beginning with “Relative Distance”, the invitational piece created for the Sheltering in Place project at the Highland Center for the Arts last summer, little did I realize how that piece would spur a series that would carry me through the many months to follow.

Every Day The Same 2021 © Elizabeth Fram, Hand-dyed silk & wood, 9″H x 6.5″W x 6.5″D

This series has been an undertaking of a specific point in time, lending a sense of solace and of connection during a period when both were sorely needed. I don’t think it’s being overly dramatic to say that that is the power of art.

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I’m pleased to share that my piece “The Secrets She Keeps” (detail in the banner above) was selected to be part of the Surface Design Association’s exhibition The Bones of Building, curated by Mo Kelman. The show can be viewed online. As noted in its introduction, the structural “bones” of the 20 pieces exhibited are evident, such that they provide not only the physical architecture of the work, but are central to the expressive nature of each piece.

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Symbolism and its use by artists to convey underlying messages is always intriguing, which is why this article from The Guardian caught my eye last weekend. It discusses how clues left by portrait painter Hans Holbein the Younger have led art historian Franny Moyle to suspect that a painting long-thought to have been of Henry VIII’s wife Catherine Howard, may actually depict his wife Anne of Cleves.

Moyle’s research on the subject will be featured in her new book The King’s Painter: The Life and Times of Hans Holbein. While the book won’t be released here in the US until October 5, 2021, you can listen to a preview — 5 excerpts read from it on “Book of the Week” on the BBC Sounds podcast this week. Episodes will be available for 30 days from the first day of broadcast.

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Instagram of the Week

Dionée © Benoît Averly

Benoît Averly aptly describes his sculpture as a mixture of texture, repetitive patterns, simple shapes and quiet balance — all qualities I find irresistible.

Down The Rabbit Hole

In looking for new subjects to draw, I’ve been seeking out photos of my artistic heroes. With very little effort, one can find some pretty remarkable images online.

Admittedly, searching in this way can become a bit of a rabbit hole if you aren’t careful. It’s easy to get caught up in unanticipated articles and links. Yet perusing these old photos also offers a tiny peek into the person behind the giant — a touchstone more intimate than critical essays and curatorial art-speak can offer.

As far as practicing my drawing is concerned, the fact that the majority of these resources are black and white plays to my advantage. Their lack of color gives me the opportunity to stretch by adding and working with various hues as I see fit, pushing the limits of what I know so far.

I’m coming to recognize that, even when using a photographic reference, drawing facial features is an exercise in empathy. Unlike a still life, there is a human being behind the shapes and forms one is diligently trying to capture. Alice Neel stated that she was painting her subjects’ souls in addition to their bodies. While I’m still working on more rudimentary levels of portrayal, I do find myself thinking about the person I am drawing, wondering how a conversation might unfold and what I might learn if I were lucky enough to have any of these heroes actually sitting in front of me.

YouTube, it turns out, can be a pretty decent substitute by providing the opportunity to hear artists (at least those from the 20th & 21st centuries) speak for themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed this 1978 video of Neel. She reminds me of my grandmother in many ways — partly because they were born around the same time and Neel’s look with the hat and chunky necklace is very reminiscent of the elder ladies in my family as I was growing up. But beyond that, also like my grandmother, Neel’s confidence and down to earth tell-it-like-it-was attitude captured in this interview is endearingly human.

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I have great admiration for reportage illustrators and have written about them before. For court illustrator Jane Rosenberg, the Derek Chauvin trial in times of COVID presented a far steeper set of challenges than I am experiencing in just trying to keep up a regular practice. It was interesting to see the results of her labors and to read about her experience in this New York Times article. The New York Post published a much deeper article about her career last September, as she remembered “40 years of legendary bad guys”.

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Instagram of the Week

Lara Blanchard is a multi-disciplinary French artist who makes embroidered etchings and textile-based sculptures. That description doesn’t begin to do her work justice. It is both fantastic and fantastical; be sure to check out her Instagram feed @laraorsolupa.

Sidestepping Into New Territory

After a busy several months, I’m yearning for a break from routine. My solution is to change things up a bit in the studio in lieu of a get-away. I have a couple of new pieces in the pipeline, but I’m not going to rush them. Instead, I’m giving myself the gift of taking a side-step and am devoting some time and energy to experimentation — tweaking familiar processes in new ways, and exploring with completely new materials.

While I generally like the colors and some passages of pattern in this stitched-resist swatch, overall it’s too much of a mish-mash. Next time I’ll try to harness effects that bear repeating, yet with more control and organization.

It’s been something of a happy coincidence that, on a lark, I just happened to check-out Every Tool’s a Hammer by Adam Savage from the library. Riffing on the nuts and bolts and many facets of his life as a maker, Savage (of Mythbusters fame) outlines and affirms the approaches that have contributed to his successes — and just as importantly, to the failures that have eventually led to that success.

Using the same dyes as for the first cloth, this test has a better sense of rhythm and more coherent pattern.

He addresses a variety of techniques that he’s come to rely upon. And speaking directly to the benefits gleaned through periods of methodical exploration and discovery, he acknowledges the inherent and longterm advantages to be found there. More anecdotal than didactic, the wisdom shared is applicable across the board — whether you are a seasoned artist or a young person just starting to find your way.

Inspired by Emma Carlisle, I asked for & received a set of Tombow Dual Brush Pens for Christmas; they’re perfect for this period of stretching. As Savage writes, new tools are a way to explore the space of possibility. Apparently these pens are used quite a bit for calligraphy, but the brush-like tip on one end, which provides a calligrapher with a thick/thin line, allows me to lay in broad swaths of color in a moment or to squeeze into small spaces with its tip. For my purposes it’s both a drawing and a painting tool in one. Some colors are affected by other colors drawn on top, and some aren’t. Adding black and white charcoal pencil extends the possibilities for mark-making and visual texture.

Many of the tenets and discoveries Savage outlines, I (and you too, no doubt) have painstakingly made for myself over the years, so there’s a sense of reassurance in the shared epiphanies. Even so, it turns out to be the perfect companion to my current explorations which are serving up an inevitable share of frustration as I slog through unfamiliar terrain. With that in mind, if you know a young maker, it’s a book that would make an excellent gift for the beginning of their journey.

Because I’m always fighting my natural tendency to work tightly, I love the looseness of this drawing. The Tombow pens make it almost impossible to get too detailed. I have a small 5.5 x 5.5″ Global Art Handbook sketchbook that takes the ink well, without bleeding through the paper or causing it to ripple. It’s a concise size for practicing faces. My set of pens is limited to 10 colors and I find myself reaching for hues I don’t have. Even though I’m trying to be imaginative and play into the limitation, I couldn’t resist ordering some more to fill in the gaps.

Elaborating on the messy reality of making, Savage acknowledges there will be plenty of mistakes along the way, and where you end up will most likely not be the place you’d envisioned when you first began. But he rightly points out that that is why we love making — if we knew exactly how things would turn out, what would be the point? Accommodating and welcoming the inevitable wrong turns and side tangents opens the door to something much greater than initially imagined.

This sketch has ventured into the “overworked danger zone”, but there is something to be said about the depth of color that comes through. Learning by doing is the only answer.

He illustrates this theory with a quote from painter Francis Bacon: “One has intention, but what really happens comes about in working.” And that is the notion I’m hanging onto as I delve into new territory.

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Instagram of the Week

Speaking of Emma Carlisle, take a look at her Instagram. There’s something about her use of color and line that conveys a sense of place and of immediacy that I find both soothing and exciting at the same time.

How Is An Artist Like A Maple Tree?

What a delightful week this has been!
With temps in the 60s, our snow piles are receding and the garden beds are reappearing. “Snow Moon” is now complete, just in time for me to turn the page on winter and to fully welcome spring.

My last post showed the first of 4 panels for “Snow Moon”. This and the two below are the other three.

First a bit of news. I spent the better part of two weeks in February writing an 800 word narrative about my practice, weaving together the threads of background, inspiration and process in a peek behind the curtain of what I do. Happily, it was accepted as an “In The Studio” post for the Surface Design Association blog and was published there last week. Please take a look.

Some figuring was necessary to be sure the moon read as a sphere despite the change in plane from the front of the house to the roof around the corner. I needed to create two circular stitched resist areas – one on each panel – adjusting each so when they came together the moon would read as one image

Moving on, this week’s post is all about sharing creative sparks.
I find fresh inspiration often accompanies the change of each season and, to that point, the last couple of weeks have set the stage for fresh ideas via an abundant line-up of online talks and exhibits, giving me much to think about and to be inspired by. Hopefully one or two of the links below will get your springtime creative juices flowing, much like the sap of our iconic Vermont maples.

Of all 4 panels, this is my favorite.

First off, the Vermont Studio Center arranged for Janie Cohen and Rachel Moore, executive directors of the Fleming Museum and the Helen Day Art Center respectively, to have a conversation (watch here) about how they are navigating the choppy waters of taking their institutions forward with the goal of becoming more racially just. Cohen also addresses this monumental task in the Seven Days article “Vermont Museum Leaders Reflect on the Past and Pandemic Present to Rethink the Future“. The whole article is important, but scroll to the section entitled The Museum of Truth and Reconciliation for her contribution.

Each panel is stretched over and basted to its corresponding house-shaped cut-out made of Peltex.

Last week was rich with separate real-time slide presentations/artist talks by Bisa Butler, Lissa Hunter, and Susan Brandeis, broadcast from Wisconsin, Maine and North Carolina. Each of these three inspiring artists sits on a different branch of the diverse textile-art tree. Take a trip through their websites to see their amazing work, or search Youtube where they all have talks/videos to view.

The sides are stitched together with a blanket stitch

It was a particular pleasure to listen and watch while one of my art heroes, Dorothy Caldwell, compared notes about practice and inspiration with her fellow artist and friend Claire Benn. Their conversation is also available on Youtube; watch it any time.

After long days of embroidery work, seeing the structure complete is always a treat

As Spring grabs hold of our spirits and senses, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is currently showing “Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joys of Nature“. It brings together two giants whose love of the natural world formed the basis for much of their work…perfect inspiration for this time of year! Listen to the accompanying lecture by Ann Dumas, consulting curator of European art, as she compares their work in detail, offering insights while guiding viewers through a tour of many of the pieces in the exhibition.

Snow Moon ©2021 Elizabeth Fram, Stitched-resist dye and embroidery on silk with foraged branches, 18.5H x 9″w x 7.5″D The feeling of being in the woods is enhanced by the branches, don’t you think?

Special thanks to a generous reader who alerted me to the opportunity to take a virtual walk-through of “Richard Diebenkorn, Paintings and Works on Paper, 1948-1992“ at the Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. Click on the Viewing Room tab of the gallery’s website to be granted access. It’s high-definition viewing at your own pace, with the ability to zoom in on Diebenkorn’s inspiring work.

Living With Distance ©2021 Elizabeth Fram, Stitched-resist dye on silk with balsa wood and silk organza, 8.75″H x 6.5″W x 6.75″D I snuck this piece in around the making of “Snow Moon”. Although similar to “Isolation“, the inner house in this one is smaller with brighter colors, suggesting adaptation and acceptance.

And finally, you may remember that in 2017 I wrote about the thrill of seeing works by Diebenkorn and Matisse together at SF Moma. In that spirit, and as a chaser to your shot of Diebenkorn at the Berggruen, check out the documentary “Becoming Matisse” in which Matisse’s great-granddaughter Sophie, an artist herself, accompanies us through the stories, family photographs, and locales where Matisse lived and worked. It reveals the person behind the icon.

Mud Season will soon be behind us and, with more and more people becoming vaccinated, we will all soon be out and about. Yet I can’t begin to express how meaningful all these opportunities have been in the interim. It’s particularly encouraging to hear art professionals from all sectors of our field continually mention how the pandemic has precipitated change in their work and institutions, generating adaptations that have made these benefits available in ways that weren’t imaginable a year ago.
I surely hope this new era of accessibility will continue. Please leave a comment and/or link if you have an online experience to share.

White On White

As I was setting up a folder in my computer to store the images for this post, it hit me that we are already almost halfway through March. This winter seems like it’s flown by. In talking with a friend the other evening, we brushed against the theory that time tends to be perceived as passing much more quickly in the absence of novel experiences. Sound familiar?

With two panels abutted together and the start of the embroidered trees overlapping the shibori “moon”, this is the first glimpse of what is in store for this piece.

In the beginning of the lockdown, with my regular activities out and around the community curtailed, I found it hard to keep track of what day of the week it was. But that has slowly resolved itself as I’ve inadvertently established a new weekly structure within my isolation.

Kasimir Malevich’s White on White from 1918, now housed at the MoMA in New York, appears deceptively simple. Yet close inspection reveals depth and nuance that convey a sense of calm and healing. Reaching back to college Art History, I vividly remember seeing a slide of this piece for the first time, and that my first impression was curiosity.

Until I get the vaccine, my studio routine remains pretty consistent. Every day I try to stitch a bit, draw a bit, with some reading and/or writing sprinkled in for good measure. Yet, despite the outward predictability and repetitiveness, I am astounded that my days never feel tedious. Add to the above the wide range of talks now available via Zoom, and I might even say this has been one of the richest years ever within my practice. Funny, how things work out.

This mid-process image from about a year ago of “The Secrets She Keeps”, shows the piece after the first pass of embroidery and before the resist-dye stage. Without color as a distraction, the beauty of texture and pattern is highlighted, not unlike the rhythms that have developed during these weeks and months of lock-down.

Among the most satisfying perks of weaving all these elements together is that I have time to consider things at a slower pace, so unexpected connections often rise to the surface.

I took this picture of Louise Nevelson’s work at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine a year and a half ago. I usually make note of the title and details, but unfortunately neglected to do so – apologies.

Last week I listened to an excellent recorded lecture on the life and career of Louise Nevelson, given by mixed-media artist and former art teacher Linda Finkelstein. It was an illuminating hour (listen to it here), that filled in many details about the acclaimed sculptor from my native state of Maine. Linda’s talk shined a new light on Nevelson’s work for me, to the degree that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about it since.

Linda Finkelstein credited this book, which covers Nevelson’s life and career in great detail, as one of her main resources. Happily, my library had it.

Meanwhile, this week I’ve been embroidering panels with fields of snow on my current piece, “Snow Moon”. As the patterns build up, it’s hard not to get swept up in the visual strength of Texture – with a capital T, exemplified in the white stitches on white silk. While color is a huge influence on much of my work, there is an undeniable attraction to the subtle power of a monochromatic statement, as Nevelson certainly knew.

Is it too much of a stretch to see these weeks and months of remaining largely at home, following a routine that is outwardly much the same from one day to the next, as a time of white on white — ostensibly bland, yet akin to the depth of Nevelson’s sculptures or Malevich’s painting, and as richly textured as a stitched drift of snow? I guess it’s all in how you choose to see things.

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Instagram of the Week

Interestingly, when I searched the hashtag “white on white” on Instagram, most of what came up were architectural interiors, wedding cakes and floral arrangements. But then, out of pure coincidence, Liz Sofield’s (@liz.sofield.artist) striking work popped up in my regular feed. Such a lovely expression of white on white!

Snow Moon

This Saturday’s full moon (February 27th) will be 2021’s Snow Moon. It’s known as such because typically more snow falls during February than any other winter month…a designation I see as an attribute.

Planning for areas of snow in my next piece, it was necessary to keep those fabric sections free of dye. This is my first experience with “capping” (wrapping the areas meant to be protected in plastic)

I still get as excited about winter weather advisories foretelling heavy snowfall as I did when they held the promise of a day off from school. Now though, they signify a cozy day in the studio with multiple steaming cups of tea and the best possible natural light to work by.

So far, so good. The capping seemed to work pretty well. Note the “pleated” shibori area that abuts the plastic. It is purposely dyed a lighter color.

Admiring Carol O’Malia’s snowscapes at a local gallery several years ago, I was surprised when the gallery director mentioned that winter scenes are generally a harder-sell. I guess most people must favor warm and sunny settings, but my preference, if given a choice, is always a snow-covered landscape. The art cards I’ve saved and pinned to my studio wall through the years attest to that fact.

My snow gallery

I’m particularly fond of Japanese prints that depict snow scenes. So, with winter on the brain earlier this month, it was a happy discovery while poking through the Harvard Museums’ website on a completely different mission, to come across “The Armchair Traveler’s Guide to Mt. Fuji”. Just one in a series of video Art Talks, this guided tour of 3 paintings depicting Mt. Fuji centers its discussion on the mountain’s significance during the Edo period. Fascinating!

Eventually this will be part of a house that will be called “Snow Moon”. The moon is resist-stitched (kawari mokume shibori) just above the snowy horizon. (The blue dividing line is water-soluble ink that will disappear after I finish the embroidery that is yet to come. If you look closely, you can see the ink also outlines the roofline of the house.) This close-up doesn’t really show it, but the dye gets progressively deeper in color as it moves away from the moon (see previous picture). I dip-dyed the piece, moving farther from the moon area with each dip, in order to suggest its glow in the sky.

And, because nothing ever seems to happen in isolation, around that same time Carol Gillott of Paris Breakfasts wrote about an exhibit she’d seen last summer at Musée Guinet: Mont Fuji – Land of Snow. Her short post centers on snowy Japanese prints and the Prussian blue pigment which became integral to them after it was introduced to Japan by Commodore Perry in the eighteenth century. As always, she includes the added enticement of photos of Paris.

Getting ready to embroider, I have drawn trees for each section of the house, and chosen the thread colors that I’ll use for them and their shadows.

But if you’re looking for something a bit closer to home to satisfy (or convince you of) a love of art and snow, you’re in luck. Head up to the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro to enjoy their Open Air Gallery: Ski and Snowshoe Trail, which includes a wonderful variety of sculptures by Vermont artists on a 1.8 mile trail that begins at HCA and loops through the neighboring Wilson Farm.

Flags along the trail are a bright spot of color on an overcast Vermont day.

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Instagram of the Week

I guess you could say we’re all homebodies to some degree these days. Erika Stearly’s lush paintings celebrate the inside, making me appreciate my love of interiors even more than usual. I especially enjoy that she often shows a painting in 4 to 5 images along the way to completion.

Gesa Marie's Home in Munster No. 1010 by Erika Stearly

When We Emerge

My first piece of 2021 has returned from the photographer, signaling it is well and truly finished. Although it was a bit of an engineering puzzle compared to all my other little houses, who doesn’t welcome a good challenge at the start of a new year?

Since the coronavirus took hold, books have been a refuge for me; this piece is a nod to that fact. In addition, inspired by a set of Christmas matryoshka dolls that are part of our holiday decorations, I wanted to reference the joyful surprise of uncovering something unexpected and special within an outer shell.

This piece opens like a book to reveal a smaller house within that depicts a diverse crowd of people on that proverbial sunnier day we all anticipate so hopefully. It conveys that we will get through this dark period, and we’re doing it together.

The buttons, while not exactly a silver lining, are a reminder that beauty is 90% perspective and that positives often lie hidden within the gloom. Despite the challenges, my family and I have had much to be grateful for during this time. Not least among those advantages, I count on art-making because it has kept my mind and hands busy through all the uncertainty. It has been no small boon to be able to process the varied emotions of the past year via these little structures.

When We Emerge, back view ©2021 Elizabeth Fram This shot of the back of the piece shows that the threads used to sew the buttons to the inside were carried through and left hanging on the outside, suggesting the prickly nature of the past year, and to some degree, the virus itself.

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Book Report

I’ve set a goal of reading at least one non-fiction art/business book each month this year. Written in 2006 by architecture critic for the New York Times Michael Kimmelman, The Accidental Masterpiece – On the Art of Life and Vice Versa was my choice for January. Kimmelman draws a connection between art and daily life as experienced by all of us as regular folks — not as a phenomenon meant only for the elite. While discussing such subjects as creating one’s own world*, collecting, following a routine, and appreciating the beauty and exceptional qualities to be found in the ordinary, he makes the point that it’s not a stretch to imagine that our days are often steeped in artistic endeavors and influences, even within our outwardly most humble actions. Fostering the ability to recognize what that idea means individually to each of us, and how that concept manifests itself, is a path toward enriching each day.

Generally fascinating, although I felt a few of the chapters could have been shorter, Kimmelman unpretentiously offers some thought-provoking and relatable musings about how the pleasures of art are within reach for everyone.

*Coincidentally, and in the same vein as Kimmelman’s ruminations, a new subscriber sent me a link to Ann Patchett’s moving essay These Precious Days which appeared last month in Harper’s Magazine. It’s not short, but it is oh-so-worth reading. It will move and uplift you, and I bet, like me, you will finish it feeling grateful that there are those who have the ability to translate even the direst of circumstances for our consumption, helping us to digest them and still find beauty.

Inspiration

I come across many wonderful artists on Instagram while I’m scrolling by myself. There are a few that make me want to exclaim “Wow! Look at this!” but I’m usually alone at the time, except for Quinn. Then I though of you. I’m going to try to remember to share the most exceptional of what I find at the end of future posts.

@Khaled_dawwa
Khaled Dawwa of Clay and Knife is a Syrian-born artist who has been based in France since 2014. A short post about him on Hi-Fructose, that incorporates images of his work and a bit of his backstory, states that he is “influenced by his own experiences (which include being)…injured in a 2013 bombing, then arrested, imprisoned, and now exiled.”
Powerful stuff.

Just Do It

Usually, I think of January as one of the more relaxed months of the year. But somehow that hasn’t turned out to be the case in 2021.

However, no complaints!
With the help of a planning workshop I took with Alyson Stanfield a couple of weeks ago, I’ve managed to keep the most important balls in the air, while also checking off a few chores that typically lurk around the edges of my list, yet somehow always get pushed to the next week, and then the next week, and so on.

Cleaning my drawing pens is one of those tasks that I should tend to more regularly, but just don’t. However, when the lines begin to skip frustratingly and the ink won’t flow despite the converter having just been refilled, I know the time has come.

I draw with Platinum Carbon Ink for its beautiful, rich black line. But the downside is it contains microscopic carbon particles that will gum up the works if one isn’t diligent about pen cleaning.

I have been reading that an inexpensive ultrasonic cleaner (a home version of what jewelers use) is great for loosening the flecks of dried ink that tend to build up in hard to reach places. So far, patiently letting all the components soak in numerous water baths over a period of hours, followed by a gentle brushing with an old toothbrush and a good flush from a slow-running tap, has done the trick. But I’m curious whether one of those cleaners might not be a speedier and more thorough option, which in the long run might encourage me to be more diligent.

Last week I finally took the time to dutifully clean all my pens and converters and I’m now reaping the rewards: smooth flowing lines that could seemingly go on for days. Like so many things, once you finally get a chore done you can’t help but wonder why in the world it took so long.

Too Good To Pass Up

At times books feel like lifeblood; never more so than now.
And while I’m not yet at the point of thinning out my library, I am making a real effort to not bring too many new books onboard…unless they’re digital.

Studio books – a drop in the bucket if you consider all the others scattered in every room of our home.

As an aside… I love digital books for a number of reasons. First, they take up no physical space so there are no worries about where to store them. This is particularly helpful for reference books — the big, heavy ones that aren’t often needed, but which one still wants to have readily available on the “shelf”.

Embroidery

Digital space-saving also makes it possible to bring a ridiculous amount of reading material along when traveling (remember traveling?) so there are myriad options to choose from on a long flight, during an unexpected delay, or on a rainy day. I should have had my Kindle with me on this trip.

Shibori

Finally, I love that because of the back lighting, colored images are enhanced and come alive when viewed on an iPad. The ability to zoom in to see details is a wonderful advantage. I’m embarrassed to admit that more than once I’ve caught myself spreading out my thumb and index finger over an image on a paper page in an unconscious attempt to get a closer look.

Draw & Paint

But I digress.
The main point of this post is that this week, for the first time since I can’t remember when, I actually bought an in-the-flesh exhibition catalog. A Hyperallergic article about a show of Aminah Robinson’s (1940-2015) work, currently at the Columbus Museum of Art, sent me on a search to find out as much as I could about this prolific artist – previously unknown to me, but a cultural icon in her hometown of Columbus, OH.

I was blown away. The scope of Robinson’s work: painting, sculpture, textiles, book art, illustrations, mosaics, and on and on and on… is remarkable. So I ordered the catalog from the Museum (better to support them than the huge entity that will go unnamed) and now I’m just waiting for its arrival.

Raggin’ On: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson’s House and Journals

So far it’s been a fruitful month for exploring the work of women artists. A few more I’ve been learning about:

Bisa Butler – Dynamic portraits in cloth that tell the story – the African American side – of the American life
Georgia Rowswell – A mixed-media artist whose environmentally conscious work celebrates the beauty of the Wyoming landscape. Her website alerted me to the documentary The True Cost, a stirring commentary on the human and environmental after-effects of fast fashion.
Suzan Frecon – Color is her driving force. Her approach, unlike Robinson’s, is that art should not need the embellishment of story; that it has the singular purpose of speaking for itself.

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And finally, Unmasked: Artful Responses to the Pandemic opens this coming Saturday at the Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT. It is a safe and in-person exhibition that reveals how the challenges of COVID-19 have impacted artists’ practices and output, while also demonstrating that art-making & creativity can offer a form of protection against the negative effects of the coronavirus.

Unmasked postcard

The selfies of friends (5 of which are included in this show), and the little houses I’ve been making this past year, have certainly proven to be a bulwark for me during this trying time.

6 “Bests” For 2021

As a final post for 2020, let me offer something short and sweet to either close-out the old year, or to begin the one (depending on when you’re reading this).

Our niece adopted a quarantine puppy! While I’m looking forward to the day when I will be able to meet Mavis in person, it was almost as much fun to work on a drawing of her as a Christmas present.

I’m a sucker for “best of” lists because they always prove to be a source of new inspiration in one way or another. So in that spirit, I’d like to share a bit of the wealth that has brightened the past year for me. I hope something in this grouping will catch your eye and lift up your 2021.

Best Podcast: Art Juice
Louise Fletcher and Alice Sheridan always seem to have something interesting to talk about, whether it’s on the business or practical side of art. I learned a lot from them in 2020 and always enjoy their down-to-earth and unassuming approach.

Runner Up: City Arts & Lectures
Their tag line says it best: “conversations with outstanding figures in literature, politics, criticism, science and the performing arts, offering the most diverse perspectives about ideas and values”.

At various stages along the way, I like to take pictures to map my progress. Sometimes I can catch missteps in a photo that I don’t see when just looking at the drawing in the flesh, which helps me to reign in any problems before a piece goes awry.

Best Art Blog: Susan Abbott’s Painting Notes Blog
Susan’s knack for writing about her own work while weaving in a healthy and palatable dose of art history offers insights that are always inspiring — a testament to her teaching ability. She doesn’t write all that regularly, but it’s a red-letter day when a new post appears because it is guaranteed to contain some nugget that I will continue to think about for days afterward.

Best Newsletter: Gaye Symington’s Morning Messages
I read Gaye’s almost-daily “newsletters” first thing each day to start my morning on a positive note. Her efforts are a gift. They are a reminder that despite all the bad news that will undoubtably surface as the day wears on, there is still much beauty and joy to celebrate, right in our own backyards. Gaye includes images and links that touch on art, the natural world, and the many folks who work hard at bringing light to the rest of us. Plus, she always closes with a poem.

Laying in marks like this is a lot like stitching. In many ways, working at one discipline feeds my practice of the other, making them mutually beneficial.

Best Books:
It’s hard to attach the label “best” to any one book, but here are my top 10 of the 50 I’ve read this year. Many are not new, and some I’ve touched on in previous posts — here, here, & here. But as I look back, I realize that these were the books that brought me the most solace and insight during this wild year.

- - Circe by Madeline Miller
  - Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
  - Afterlife by Julia Alvarez
  - Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  - Keep Going by Austin Kleon
  - Breath by James Nestor
  - Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
  - Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
  - A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar
  - And BONUS: Material: Making and the Art of Transformation – How Working with Our Hands Makes us Human by Nick Kary (thanks Pam!) This was my last book of the year and a lovely way to close things out. It is a beautifully written meditation on making, tools, and materials, with a measure of history thrown in.

And finally,
Best New (to me) Concept: The “Not-To-Do List”
I happened upon this idea last month when reading an old, old post by Lisa Call. It’s a worthwhile twist to consider while planning your goals and solutions for 2021…whatever they may be.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!