Category Archives: Art

Short & Sweet

Considering it’s the season of giving, I’d like to share something special with you.

First a bit of backstory:
My father has always been a big fan of the newspaper’s daily comics. When I was little – and even now – he would/will often comment on the drawing skills of certain cartoonists, particularly their ability to convey so much with a spare line. I got the idea from an early age that these weren’t just the “funny papers”, they were also art. Those sentiments have stayed with me. To this day, Dad still reads the comics religiously and, since our local paper doesn’t carry the classics, he regularly cuts them out and sends them my way. Lucky me!

Comics

In a Doonesbury strip this past October, the character Zonker Harris is thwarted by some less-than-enthusiastic kids when he tries to read a Doonesbury strip to them. As a former professional nanny, Zonker suggests to parents/readers that if they want to foster a love of cartoons that will last into their kids’ adulthood, they should encourage them to watch animated classics. He (or more aptly, Garry Trudeau) then offers a link to the Oscar-nominated, 1967 short film “Windy Day” by John and Faith Hubley as a great place to start.*

In the spirit of the season, as well as in appreciation for my father, who introduced me to an art form that allows one to find joy and humor in the everyday, as well as in oneself, please enjoy this short, heartwarming and sweet film. It holds a special reverence for the joy of imagination as we experienced it as kids, and hopefully have held onto as adults.

Happy Holidays!

*A bit of a treasure hunt: Look for the Chagall reference about 2/3 of the way through.

Swept Away

Very occasionally I run into an image that, in the best analogy I can think of, burrows beneath my skin and won’t let go.

Last week, while researching something completely unrelated online, I somehow happened upon this amazing photograph and was absolutely swept away. I feel something indefinably visceral and ancient each time I look at it. But beyond that, most simply put, it brings me joy.

Eyes as Big as Plates # Agnes II (Norway 2011) © Caroline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen

Eyes as Big as Plates # Agnes II (Norway 2011) © Karoline Hjorth & Riitta Ikonen

This is just one piece within an expansive collaboration named “Eyes as Big as Plates” between Karoline Hjorth (NO) and Riitta Ikonen (FI). Considering my own current portrait project, the age of the subjects was no doubt the initial attraction. But the more I study the images, each subject’s integration within elements of nature somehow feels like a true and long-held secret finally revealed.

I’ve lifted an excerpt from Hjorth’s statement directly from her website, hoping that it will inspire you to visit one of the above links to see more of these amazing photographs.

“We need to learn to see not just with Western eyes but with Islamic eyes and Inuit eyes, not just with human eyes but with golden-cheeked warbler eyes, coho salmon eyes, and polar bear eyes, and not even just with eyes at all but with the wild, barely articulate being of clouds and seas and rocks and trees and stars.” ROY SCRANTON

Eyes as Big as Plates is the ongoing collaborative project between Karoline Hjorth (NO) and Riitta Ikonen (FI). Starting out as a play on characters from Nordic folklore, Eyes as Big as Plates has evolved into a continual search for modern human’s belonging to nature. The series is produced in collaboration with retired farmers, fishermen, zoologists, plumbers, opera singers, housewives, artists, academics and ninety year old parachutists. Since 2011 the artist duo has portrayed seniors in Norway, Finland, France, US, UK, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Japan, Greenland, Czech Republic and South Korea. Each image in the series presents a solitary figure in a landscape, dressed in elements from surroundings that indicate neither time nor place. Here nature acts as both content and context: characters literally inhabit the landscape wearing sculptures they create in collaboration with the artists.

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Meanwhile, I finally feel comfortable enough to leave my sketchbook and have moved into the next phase of my elder women portraits. I have still have a way to go with the stitching portion, but here’s where I am to date.

Inspiration Time

Travel time is often inspiration time.
With that in mind, mid-coast Maine has a wealth of artistic options to scratch the itch.

How many times have I thought the above? Relatable words on a poster that hangs in Laurel’s Dolce Vita in Thomaston, ME. Stop in for a treat – I highly recommend the Raspberry Puffin – a sugar bomb for sure, but worth every bite!.

As I get back into the saddle after a week’s vacation in my home state, how can I help but share a heaping handful of artworks that caught my eye while away? Created by artists both familiar and new to me, this fresh serving of work will undoubtedly feed my creative hunger in one way or another in the weeks ahead.

Langlais Sculpture Preserve & Art Trail

It doesn’t get much better than experiencing art preservation and land conservation in one package on a beautiful August day in Maine.

Bernard Langlais (1921-1977), native to Maine and a painter turned sculptor, studied art far and wide, including in Norway on a Fulbright grant. After living in New York, he and his wife moved to Cushing, Maine in the mid 1960’s, bought an old summer cottage and began renovating it. The experience of working with wood turned the tide, so to speak, and he soon abandoned painting for abstract wood reliefs and large free-standing sculptures that often pay homage to animals. His work, frequently site-specific, can be found all over the state of Maine.

See more of his work in the Collection of Colby College

©Bernard Langlais

Zoom in to catch the details of this Langlais wall relief.

The half-worked sculptures in Langlais’ studio give hint to how prolific he was. The organized chaos and cocooned rustic feel of this space reminds me a lot of my grandfather’s, then father’s, & now brother’s under-the-house workshop in the almost 100 year-old family cottage on Orr’s Island.

An example of a Langlais painting

Considering how close the Langlais Sculpture Preserve is to the Olson house depicted in “Christina’s World”, it’s no surprise that Langlais made this piece after Andrew Wyeth’s iconic painting.

The home of Alvaro and Christina Olson is now a national historic landmark under the stewardship of the Farnsworth Art Museum. Since we were so close, I had to swing by.

Center for Maine Contemporary Art

A smattering of the exciting work from the current exhibits at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art:

Hilary Irons,”Saint Anthony Abbot & Satan (after the Master of the Osservanza Triptych)” 2022, Oil, acrylic and marble dust on panel.

I had to look up the painting that was the inspiration for this piece after my visit – follow the link above if you’re curious too. The side-by-side comparison is worth it. This work is part of the CMCA exhibit “The View From Here” that has the unifying concept of unique and dynamic ways of looking at the world.
Hilary Iron’s use of color and pattern give the impression of batik fabric. Her reference to the Maine woods and the insertion of what I read as commonly-seen detritus on a Maine forest floor: white pine tassels and assorted tree litter, give this piece a sense of grounding and of place. Saint Anthony and Satan are represented by a dandelion and ghost pipe fungus, respectively – also common to Maine flora, though I’m not sure what, if any, meaning those representations carry.

Lois Dodd, “Sunlight on Spruce at Noon”, 1974, Oil on linen

I have become quite fond of Lois Dodd’s work after initially learning more about her in another Farnsworth exhibit in 2019 and after listening to the nonagenarian talk about her work on a Zoom presentation offered by the Princeton Art Museum last November. This piece is also part of “The View From Here”.

Reggie Burrows Hodges, “Father’s Self-Portrait”, 2017-19, Acrylic and pastel on canvas

The text accompanying Reggie Burrows Hodges work in his exhibit “Hawkeye” references how Hodges merges memory and surveillance in his paintings. I found myself appreciating the formalities of the way he breaks up space, creates depth through color, and (although hard to see in this particular piece) adds dynamism via lines drawn with pastel on top of the paint.

Veronica Perez, “you make me feel”, 2022 artificial hair, bobby pins The name of Perez’s exhibit is “voices, whispering”.

Excerpted from the accompanying literature: “The works are monuments to feelings of love, loss, and grief and are catalysts for exploring the forgotten and stolen histories of the Latinx diaspora. Veronica Perez’s practice is both introspective and community-oriented. Much of the work in this show is built in, and by, communities in Maine through Braiding Circles: artist-organized gatherings that use the act of hair-braiding to discuss identity, experience, and belonging.”

Quilting bees, knitting circles, braiding circles – there is much to be said for and learned from the discussions that arise while sitting within a group and using ones hands. For a timely and local example in which you can participate, look into Eve Jacobs-Carnahan’s Knit Democracy Together, a project that addresses the US electoral system in a series of knitting circles.

Dowling Walsh Gallery

Scott Kelley’s flock of large watercolor paintings of Great Blue Herons reads beautifully from afar and up close. “Test” swatches of paint were included in many of the finished pieces, an unusual and somehow satisfying addition, maybe because they are usually an unseen aspect of watercolor painting. These pieces call to mind the work of traditional Chinese paintings, John James Audubon, and Walton Ford.

Scott Kelley, “Fourth Aucocisco Drawing”, Ink and watercolor on paper, 8-1/4″ x 10-1/2″

Scott Kelley, “Study for Winter”, Watercolor and gouache on paper, 40″ x 30″

Farnsworth Art Museum

I’ve said it before and will say it again, the Farnsworth Art Museum is a gem. If you are ever near Rockland, Maine, be sure to visit.

Ashely Bryan, “Untitled (Laundry in the Garden)”, oil on canvas, Collection of the Ashley Bryan Center

Their current retrospective of Ashley Bryan’s work “Ashley Bryan: Beauty in Return” hinges on Bryan’s belief “If you put art into the world, you will get beauty in return”. A comprehensive display of “the artist’s work from throughout his long career, including paintings, illustrations, puppets and stained glass, the exhibition is a joyful celebration of the enduring power of art and the human spirit over adversity.”
There is so much about this piece that I find exquisite. Exuberant color, pattern and brushstrokes are irresistible. That fact, paired with the elevation of such a commonplace sight as hanging laundry that is holding its own within the landscape, speaks to Bryan’s virtuosity in finding and giving us beauty.

Andrew Wyeth, “By the Light of the Moon, Second Version”, 1987, Watercolor on paper, Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art

When I was young, I was in awe of Andrew Wyeth’s extraordinary ability to portray realism. Now I find myself much more attracted to the abstraction within his work. This piece is a perfect example.

Andrew Wyeth, “Charlie Ervine”, 1937, Tempera on Panel, Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art

This is a striking portrait – not just of a man, but of the house behind him. The weathered clapboards convey as deep a story as Ervine’s craggy features. Studying the painting up close, you can suddenly see subtle passages of color, within seemingly neutral areas, that are absolutely lyrical.

James Browning Wyeth, “Shorty”, 1963 Oil on canvas

Working on portraits of aging subjects as I have been lately, I am entranced by the individual features of this man and Jamie Wyeth’s handling of and reverence for them. Then, pulling back to absorb the piece as a whole, I’m delighted by the contrast between Shorty’s weather-beaten, scruffy appearance ensconced in the sumptuous fabric and luxury of the chair, coupled with the rich color and light of the piece. What a study!

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So many inspiring works, so much to think about. Thanks for hanging in there with me for the tour!

I’ll leave you with a parting shot of iconic Maine

The working harbor off Sprucehead Island, settled for the evening. Notably, there’s not a single pleasure vessel in sight.

Finding Resilience Through Art

“The studio is a laboratory, not a factory. An exhibition is the result of your experiments, but the process is never-ending. So an exhibition is not a conclusion.” ~ Chris Ofili

Last week, on my way to deliver my pieces to the Gruppe Gallery for our show “Tucked In”, it felt a bit like moving day. The back of my car was filled to the brim with work made in 2020/21 to mark many sides of Covid as I had experienced them: ten dyed and embroidered houses supported by foraged branches and a dozen framed portraits of friends who’d graciously shared selfies of themselves at a time when getting together socially, let alone for in-person drawing sessions, wasn’t possible.

One view of the exhibit, with Leslie Roth’s “Tick Eater” in the foreground on the left.

More than 15 months ago, Dianne Shullenberger, Leslie Roth and I began to scheme about putting together this exhibit of the work we’d been making since lock-down began. In the face of so much despair dominating the past couple of years, we wanted to offer some good news.

This selection represents half of the portraits I have on view.

A frequent topic of discussion between us had been how grateful we all felt that we’d had our art practices to help us get through this crazy time. It seemed important to share with others that hopeful perspective and the sense of resilience we gleaned from our work. The end product of those discussions is Tucked In: Resilience in Small Moments.

Another view that includes my houses, a couple of portraits, and one grouping of Dianne Shullenberger’s watercolors on the right. These photos don’t get close enough to show the finer details of all the work in the exhibit. I hope you will come to the gallery to take in those nuances in person.

It wasn’t just the fact that going to the studio offered regularity and purpose – although it did and that was huge – but our work also became an outlet providing solace and even something of a protective shield of normalcy against the chaos brewing outside our studios where everything seemed so topsy-turvy and out of control. This show is a feel-good manifestation of how we each, in our own way, found and tapped into pockets of positivity in the face of a global pandemic — through our homes, our gardens, our friends and our wildlife neighbors. The common denominator being our art practices.

And while what you will see at the Gruppe Gallery through June 19th is a culmination of the work of a specific time, it is also an example of how (certainly in my case, by branching out into 3-D work) those months were, as Chris Ofili’s quote references, a time of experimentation. His words remind me that every exhibit is just another mile marker along a path, not the end of a journey.

Please join us for the reception on Sunday, May 15 from 1-3pm if you can.

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I don’t consider myself a birder, but I am definitely a color-lover.
I have been reading The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson. It’s part natural history lesson, part true-crime, nestled under the umbrella of the world and art of fishing flies. I keep running to Google to check out alls sorts of unfamiliar birds mentioned in the book.
These spectacular photos, and this link, will give you an idea – as they did me – of what the fuss is all about.

Banded Cotinga

Lovely Cotinga

Spangled Cotinga

Paying Tribute

I was saddened to read last week that Jerry Uelsmann has died.
During college, we probably spent at least 95% of our time learning about art and artists of the past, but Uelsmann was a living artist who broke through that wall of antiquity.

Jerry Uelsmann, detail ©2022 Elizabeth Fram, Watercolor and gouache on paper, 12 x 9 inches. Working on these portraits is such good practice – but so humbling. I’m learning how important it is not to rush through the drawing phase. If I lay out the drawing and then leave it to come back to later, time and space make it easier to see where adjustments are needed.

Looking back, his work definitely had a formative impact on me. While I was intrigued by the ideology of the Dada movement and iconic surrealists like Dali, I found it hard to connect with much of their work. Jerry Uelsmann was a contemporary exception; his imagery spoke to me and stayed with me. His “artful juxtapositions”, as his NY Times obituary termed them, were both approachable and curious. Looking back, I think it was Uelsmann’s photo montages that first nudged me toward grasping the importance of looking for and creating unexpected connections.

I’ve always loved this image. This old dorm room poster is tacked to my office wall, where I still enjoy it every day.

The mystical quality of his photos pulled me in, appealing to my college-age self by feeding the desire to find meaning that comes with growing into adulthood. Yet even all these years later, his images still touch on something fundamental.

Electric Milk © Elizabeth Fram, Watercolor on paper, 30 x 22 inches. This ancient painting (c. 1979) was inspired by the surrealistic objective to defy reason and Uelsmann’s example of combining disparate objects.

Intellectually, the intent behind his imagery still remains just out of reach, but one can understand enough of his visual language to feel encouraged that translation is possible — perhaps through the vocabulary of dreams. The various elements within each finished image have enough relatability to give the resulting montages an essence of personal relevance despite their mystery. Ultimately, he poses riddles that connect to something within our deeper selves.

I still refer to this wonderful monograph for inspiration and escape.

Uelsmann was a pioneer, conjuring in the 1960s what he appropriately termed “the alchemy of the darkroom”. Photoshop may have made that form of magic accessible on a more universal scale, but I’ve yet to find work that contains the same haunting aura of myth which makes Uelsmann’s work so memorable.

Face Value

Not to be too overly dramatic, but I long ago reached the point during this pandemic where any in-person human interaction has become the highlight of my week. Over these past couple of years I’ve come to appreciate my trips to the post office, the library and the grocery store in ways I never would have thought possible.

Dignity ©2022 Elizabeth Fram, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches My hardcover Daler-Rowney Classic sketchbook takes ink and pencil equally well. The 8.5 x 11 size is big enough to stretch out upon without feeling unwieldy. It’s a trusty workhorse.

So I’m not exaggerating when I say it was absolutely wonderful this past Saturday to attend the Artist Social at Studio Place Arts for the Face It exhibition. Plenty of (masked) people turned out and it was so fun, not only to chat with folks I haven’t seen other than on Zoom since last summer, but to even meet a few people for the first time as well. The lift I got from it has lasted all week.
On top of that, the previous Monday I attended my first life drawing session since March of 2020. Things are definitely looking up!

In chatting with the executive director of SPA when I dropped off my work for the show, she mentioned how she felt the time had definitely come for an exhibit of portraits. She went on to say that she’d chosen the subject selfishly because she knew that working in the midst of them would be both comforting and normalizing.

It was a brilliant idea and, frankly, her reasoning is largely why I continue to draw, paint and stitch faces. Even though I often don’t know my subject, I still get a sense of human connection from studying and trying to execute something as personal and unique as facial features. Taking the time to really see someone else is something we’ve all missed, and I hope we won’t take the ability to do so for granted once the masks finally come off.

Face It closes on March 5th. Check out the Seven Days review to whet your appetite for a visit before the show ends.

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Speaking of connection – are you familiar with the word “pareidolia”?
It’s the formal term for the tendency to perceive shapes or an image out of randomness, such as seeing something in a cloud formation.

Lisette ©2022 Elizabeth Fram, Watercolor and graphite on paper, 12 x 9 inches I started experimenting with Strathmore Toned Mixed Media paper last year. It’s been a whole different learning curve to begin with a background that is medium-toned, rather than stark white. It comes in 3 colors – this is the tan. With a vellum surface that is akin to hot-press, it allows for erasures without damage. It is heavy enough that it doesn’t need to be stretched and doesn’t buckle from layers of washes – at least with the amount of water I use. It’s acid free and 30% post-consumer fiber; again, a good workhorse and convenient for traveling out of the studio. It’s what I brought with me to life drawing last week.

This brief article refers to it specifically as seeing faces in everyday objects, tagging the occurrence as an instinctual evolutionary hold-over geared toward protecting us from danger. I don’t know about that; I’ve always thought the images I tend to notice had more to do with my imagination compensating for boring moments.

But lately I seem to conjure more faces (as opposed to other images), which I attribute to all the portrait work I’ve been doing, figuring that I’ve become more finely attuned to the physical characteristics of the human face. Evolutionary phenomenon or not, it makes life a bit more interesting, don’t you think?

Work in Progress ©2022 Elizabeth Fram, Stitched-resist dye and embroidery on silk Slowly but surely this piece is coming along. This week has been all about working with the hair. It needs more color, so I still have a way to go – plus, I haven’t even started with her shoulders. I’m having a bit of a love-hate affair with the background pattern & color. In the long run I think it will elevate the piece, but it has surely made the process more challenging.

Small Plates

To me, the half the fun of tapas – or a pre-Covid cocktail party with lots of different appetizers – is the variety of small plates one can sample. Most weeks, my time in the studio mirrors that approach – a little bit of this and a little bit of that filling up the hours. In that spirit, here are a few so-called “tastes” of what’s been swimming in my head these past couple of weeks.

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First, my big news is that the Fall Issue of the Surface Design Journal is now out. Every autumn SDA publishes an International Exhibition in Print. This year’s show, “From Confrontation to Catharsis,” feels both relatable and personal. The diverse scope of work exhibited addresses many of the overwhelming challenges of 2020. As I read each artist’s statement, the word that often comes to mind is “fragile”. So much of the work is a commentary on fragility: of our systems, our planet, our connections, our history, and even our human-ness.

SDA Journal Page

However, in viewing the show, one can’t help but also be reminded that there is empowerment and strength in expression, and as such there is an underlying sense of hope that resides with these works.
I am gratified and honored that “Until the Bitterness Passes”, one of my shibori houses from last year, was selected to be included.

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It’s Inktober!
While I haven’t followed every prompt set out this year, I have enjoyed interpreting of a handful of them. Here are just a few.

Another perk of the project is it’s great for filling up those last few straggling pages in one’s sketchbooks.

I have 4 different colors of ink on hand and Inktober has been an opportunity to experiment with them — supplementing with a tiny bit of watercolor when a different color is needed.

It also gave me an excuse to go ahead and purchase my new favorite under-$10 art supply (does one really need an excuse to buy art supplies?): a porcelain petal palette. It’s a great tool for mixing numerous values of ink all at once.

Porcelain Petal Palette

Oh, and speaking of cheap supplies, check out my new water jug! It’s a creamer that I found and snapped up this summer for just this purpose – also less than $10. The spout is brilliant for wiping the extra water off one’s brush before dipping it back into the ink. Now I wish that I’d also gotten the creamer from the black set since I usually have two water containers going at once, one for dirty and one for (relatively) clean water.

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Meanwhile, I’ve been puzzling my way through the shibori/embroidered “letter from home” I showed you last time. Surprisingly, the mussel shell was a snap to realize, but figuring out what to do with the envelope has been an unexpected challenge (lots of stitches sewn and then picked out). Next post I’ll write more about my discoveries and process along the way, but in the meantime I have some experimenting to do in order to figure out how to approach the dyed pattern in relation to the central shape – as well as what overall finished size/shape to use.

©2021 Elizabeth Fram, Stitched-resist dye and embroidery on silk, approx. 12 x 16 inches I think I’m going frame this one like this. Allowing the area without pattern to show provides a much needed sense of balance to the piece as a whole.

Framing will be part of that consideration. Unlike in this piece, which I dove into without finished dimensions in mind, I need to plan ahead so I don’t back myself into a corner.

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I get a lot out of James Cleary’s 3-2-1 Newsletter; it’s a short and sweet shot in the arm each Thursday. The list below was particularly resonate. Maybe for you too?

How to Build a Career in 7 Steps:
1. Do great work
2. Share it publicly
3. Cold email people 2 steps ahead of you
4. Talk about your work and trade ideas
5. Host events and meet in-person
6. Become friends
7. Rise together

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I get just as much of a lift from the beauty of my garden in fall as I do in spring and summer. While the colors are a bit more nuanced, they’re just as striking. Did you happen to read the NYTimes article “Take a Walk in the Garden Before It’s Too Late“?

With that in mind, my Instagram recommendation this time is @pottersarms, whose images of flowers, often in various states of decay, are quite lovely and somehow momentous.

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And finally, to bring you full circle, the next time you’re in Asheville, NC consider a meal at Cúrate – a tapas bar that will satisfy any yen for delicious variety.

Breathing Deeply

Working on the stitched watercolor garden pieces this summer has been just the break I had hoped for while simultaneously opening the door to new explorations. It’s been like taking a deep breath. There’s nothing quite as fun (or as good a stretch for the brain) as pushing toward some sort of new evolution and seeing where those explorations might lead.

Rounding the Bend ©2021 Elizabeth Fram, Watercolor and stitching on paper, 5 x 5 inches. I haven’t posted new pieces from this series since the beginning of July. Time to catch you up! You can revisit all the pieces on my website.

Coincidentally, in catching up on older podcasts, I recently listened to Alice Sheridan and Louise Fletcher of Art Juice talk about “Kickstarting Creativity by Taking a Break”. That doesn’t necessarily mean taking a rest from making art altogether (although it could), but rather creating an interruption by switching gears to something different.

Having now returned from their month-long respite, it’s worth listening to their follow-up episode, “A Time for Reflection”, as they discuss some of their realizations from their time away.

It’s an honest conversation about an artist’s life, dipping into elements and responses that are familiar to all of us.

For my part, I’m grateful for the sense of camaraderie that comes when others share about issues we may have in common. At the end of the day we’re all just trying to make a go of a creative life – why not travel together?

In considering my own, shall we say, intermission from the work of last year, not only has the painting itself been equal parts challenging and rewarding, but the incorporation of the embroidered houses has provided a welcome sense of grounding and continuity while still allowing me to find new ways to play around with the idea of something “hidden in plain sight”.

I’ve completed a dozen of these little stitched paintings to date and expect to keep going in some form or another. I took a first stab at what moving beyond the “safety” of the houses might look like in this little close-up of my daughter’s Maranta leuconeura. The question that is floating around in the back of my head now is how might I let the stitching on paper branch into portraits.

Basically, texture is at the root of my interest. It’s the textural effects of the stitching, together with the visual texture of the paint on paper, that most intrigues me.
Meanwhile, I’ve begun a new shibori piece and expect to be back at my frame embroidering on cloth in earnest, just as soon as the dyeing is complete.

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

A Little Bit Of Everything

Such a sobering week.
I have spent most of it trying to grasp the horror of what we’ve all witnessed, while doing my best to learn from those who are far more in touch than I as they respond to George Floyd’s murder. The voices that have most moved me are those of people on the street, in the midst of peaceful protest, articulating their direct experience of life in this country as African Americans. Many of them, interviewed in the moment, demonstrate more grace and eloquence, measured strength and wisdom than one might think possible in the face of this latest devastating event.

How could one’s heart be anything but heavy at the way our communities of color have long been, and continue to be treated? Words are woefully inadequate.

I am a privileged white woman who has never for a moment worried that my actions might be observed and misconstrued as threatening. And even more tellingly, I have never ever worried that my children might be profiled or be mistakenly, dangerously detained because their race made them inherently suspicious. I cannot fathom how harrowing living within that reality must truly be.

I tend to turn to books as a means for reaching beyond my ignorance and for improving my understanding. Both Ta Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me and Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give have guided me along that path. Kareem Abdul-Jabar’s May 30th op-ed in the LA Times also sheds light.

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My piece for the Sheltering in Place exhibition is now complete. The show will be a compilation of both visual work and haiku. Exact dates and venue are still to be announced. It will also be available to view online. I will let you know details as I get them.

In a completely unrelated note, other than the fact that it has to do with stitch, in 2018 the BBC produced a show called A Stitch in Time with fashion historian Amber Butchart. It explores historical figures in art and the clothes they wore. Each piece of clothing is carefully recreated, exploring techniques and materials as they were originally used. The mixture of art, history, and authentic construction techniques is fascinating. I viewed it on Acorn TV through my library’s RB Digital app, but you can also see the six episodes on Youtube.

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And finally, my “Selfie Project” of friends continues — this week with the supremely creative Hasso and her canine pal Woody. In addition to the one she sports in this image, Hasso wears, and has worn, many hats: artist, curator, landscape architect, graphic designer, illustrator, and organizer of our weekly life drawing group.

The photo she sent was filtered, so it was difficult to see and capture minute details (her eyes for instance). But as I told her when I sent her a scan of the finished drawing, that fact made this piece challenging in a good way. I love to get lost in details but, because of the blurred effect of the photo, I was forced to think more in terms of lines as marks and pattern for filling blocks of shape, rather than as a means for describing form. One of the great things about this project is that each new selfie offers worthwhile lessons to learn along the way.

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Finally, the ever-present question is what can each of us do to make the world a better place? I’d like to thank Cory Huff of The Abundant Artist for proposing to his email subscribers that he would match any gift up to $1000.00 this week to The Black Futures Fund. I can’t think of a better way to try to contribute to change than to support Black arts and culture.