Quilts are People Too

              Have you seen this thing? So amazing. On mornings that I wake up to sunlight and it isn’t because I accidentally slept in, I like to try and spot new fabrics that I haven’t spent some time considering yet.  My mother, Marian, made this quilt and to do so, went searching for the perfect fabrics at three different quilting stores to get just the right combination.  Have you seen many quilting stores around? The answer is no, which means she was really on a hunt and even traveled out of state to satisfy her vision of what was meant to be for this piece.

                Growing up people would always ask where I got my “artsyness from,” as if it was a genetic trait that was passed down (as an artist educator I am convinced that it is not genetic, although perhaps it is based somewhat on learning styles, a more visual learner may gravitate to the visual arts, but ultimately art is an area of interest just like soccer is; if you are really interested in it you will naturally take the time to perfect the craft.  Olympic games aren’t won based off of whether or not somebody’s parents were interested in the sport). My mom and I would always respond to that question with “Oh well, my mom’s Aunt Nellie is a painter,” or my mother would get a spark in her eye and say “Ed used to draw cartoons for me when we first started dating,” but we never answered “Marian is artist,” and this has seriously floored me over the past several years.  Let’s just get it out there people, whether I am an artist because of genetics or not, Marian is an artist! That should really be the title of this post.  I mean honestly, check these things out:

Marian gets an idea or an inspiration, alters it’s composition until it suits her standards, gathers materials, slaves for months, and then throws the completed pieces to people in trash bags saying “oh yeah, I forgot about these.” Artist friends – How perfect is that? Marian spent TWO YEARS creating those four quilts and in the end she almost forgot to give them to us on Christmas day as planned.  It’s so hard to value your own work the way it should be.  Perhaps it is in part because of the amount of time you spend on something like that, you become overly aware of the “flaws,” which more often than not are probably just areas that don’t completely sync with your mental vision of the piece and not actually problematic areas. But then again these “flaws” are the things that keep you moving on a piece long after you’ve passed your personal deadline.  

A Solid Start to the New Year

I’m so excited to be spending so much time brainstorming and planning for new workshops and classes that I’m doing throughout the community. Hence the blog post, I've just got to get all of these good vibes out somehow or I’m going to burst!  It feels so great to come up with an idea, find other people who are excited and supportive about it, plan the thing, do the thing, then do it all over again!  Even if that idea is just "my website needs more lightning bolts" I can just make that happen and it feels great.  This freelance thing is all feeling like a really good fit.
The two workshops at the Hanson Public Library I ran on January 2^nd really helped me ring in the New Year with a smile.  I felt like I was on a high for the rest of the night, so much so that my lovely assistant and friend Meghan Dinsmore went for celebratory pizza and beer at Damien’s afterwards.  While there we chatted with our waitress Kristi who is family with two of my “community supporters” (more on that later) and has also taken one of my classes.  Such a great feeling to be making these connections and bumping into people who know me for my art and teaching throughout the community. I never expected myself to be feeling so at home in my hometown.  I’m really settling down and it feels so good.  For so long I've itched to move away or live in a city, and while I still think that maybe I’ll do those things at some point in my life, I’d be happy to not do them for another 20 years.

One of the reasons that I felt like I had to move was because I didn't feel that there was a place for me here to jump into and feel satisfied as an artist educator who wanted to work outside of the school system.  There are plenty of community centers and museums with the types of programs I want to work in if you head to Boston and any other city around the country, some more artsy and accessible than others, but where were these places on the South Shore? I wasn't sure.  It’s true, there are a few great art centers on the South Shore, including one that I am happy to have a role in as their Visual Arts Coordinator (Laura’s Center for the Arts), but I have not been able to find consistent full-time employment in the field which has again left me at times feeling dejected and as though perhaps I am in the wrong place physically if not in my career choice.  These struggles have forced me to look at my personal network and community as well as within myself to see if I could carve out my own space in this physical location in this chosen career, instead of continuing to look around for it.  I want a space where I can grow my ideas at my own pace and get involved with others who have similar goals.  A space where I can connect with artists of all ages and provide opportunities for people to stretch and explore their artistic selves.  Okay, I’m getting really earthy crunchy so I’m going to put the brakes on and jot down a quick list of my Community Supporters that I am so grateful to have in my life.

God – just kidding, although I'm sure he's great and all, it's not like I won an Oscar here.

Cara Cappellini and Leeann Trigler at Whitman WellnessCenter.  These two have been supportive since day one, which must have been almost two year ago now, on this journey for me.  They have created a space that truly serves the community through their varied offerings and the consistent support they provide to people like me who want to give some legs to an idea. 

Kate Godwin and Nancy Cappellini at the Hanson Public Library have invited me back several times to run classes in their space.  I am so happy to partner with them because they truly see their space as a place for all members of the community and they strive to make it accessible to all.  Through their generosity and the generosity of the Friends of the Library I have been able to run classes there at a lower cost, opening up the program to a wider audience.

Local artists such as Meghan Dinsmore, Paula Tamara Hoss, ShannonMcDonald, Scott Francoeur, Emily Lincoln, Matt Tanner, Lisa Hegenberger, and Mike Mariano who have all shown me in different ways that it is possible to have an artsy idea, run with it, and actually make it happen.  Love you all and am so happy to be surrounded by your dedicated and creative entrepreneurial spirits.

Hypothetical Land

I think I’m getting back on the blogging bandwagon.  I’ve taken a solid 10 months off which is the same amount of time that I’ve been working at the new art center in Hanover.  The building didn’t actually open until last January, but in November plans started up.  Leading up to all of this, I showed up a couple times with detailed lists of things that I wanted to happen there and the answer to all of my lists was always “yes!” Now here we are leading into our NINTH gallery opening of the year and I could not be more excited about it.

This month the artists who will be showing are three painters dear to my heart.  Zheyu Zhou, Luke LeWand and Vanessa Varjian were all peers of mine in the MassArt painting department.  Each of them has a unique view of what it is to be making contemporary landscape paintings.  I could get lost in any of their paintings.  I went up to Zheyu’s studio in Quincy yesterday to pick up her pieces and you seriously could have gotten lost in one of those things!! The largest painting was not able to come with me because it was 6x8 feet.  Now I know Zheyu’s work is typically large, so I borrowed one of those big utility vans from Jeff’s family but ya, painting was still too big. 

Zheyu begins her pieces by carefully tie-dying the canvas she will later use to stretch, to begin the layout of the image she is heading towards.  After this is complete, Zheyu stretches her canvas around the stretcher bars to create her big squared off surface which then has to be primed with a clear primer or rabbit skin glue in preparation for the oil paint which is to come next.  Once Zheyu gets going with her oils and brushes, she focuses in on using a minimal amount of paint to create a solid blend of where the dye ends and the oil begins.  The process is meditative for her as she clears her mind and becomes one with this slow and careful process.

Zheyu is a truly gifted artist who began her artistic training while living in China.  It sounds as though her formative years of arts training were much more rigorous, as far as perfecting craftsmanship, than I have experienced here in the States.  This training started Zheyu on the way to an incredibly high level of proficiency; she could sit down and draw or paint anything she sees perfectly, but she chooses to create more ethereal works.  These paintings dance on the line of the conscience and unconscious, a beautiful place to be. 

Zheyu Zhou
Looking Homeward, 2011
Oil on Canvas
23"x28"

Zheyu Zhou
Meditation I, 2012
Oil on Canvas
45"x73"

I am so incredibly excited to see Luke and Vanessa's paintings tonight.  They haven't dropped them off yet so I'm not sure that the pieces I'm showing here will be in the gallery or not, but here are a couple of my favorites that I've pulled from their websites.

Luke paints in a way that just screams about his consistent studio practice.  You don't make gloppy, high chroma, gestural paintings like these if you're sitting down to paint once a month.  Luke is on a friggin roll and I love every second of it. There is so much to see here, I want to eat these paintings for breakfast.  Look at the consistency of the paint going from the top to bottom of the right side of "Runaway" and you'll see what I mean.  A thin background of medium yellow under thick, overlapping strokes of muddy green to a slightly thin thwap of blue, back to the yellow before hitting a patch of detailed green, possibly suggesting a plane, then you've got part of a pink figure hanging out on the edge and some fluid, ink wash consistency of green that circles your eyes around the bottom and back up the other side of the painting.  And that is just looking at one side of the painting, holy crap I can't handle it.  I want to jump into these paintings and swim away for one thousand days.

Luke LeWand
Runaway, 2013
Oil and Acrylic on Panel
14"x10"

Luke LeWand
Hills and Homes
Acrylic on Panel
10"x14"

Vanessa Varjian is looking around, picking up all of the interesting patches of light that she sees and putting them into a bottle for us to use as a nightlight.  These are solid, heavy pieces, that transversely are bringing up vague feeling memories.  I UNDERSTAND "November Sun Comfort," I have lived in that world and it has made me feel good.  Along with this Autumn painting below, Vanessa also has a bunch of paintings she did of the snowy landscape.  These are paintings I need to surround myself with in the cold months.  They remind me that there is light, beautiful beautiful light, even during our arid and dying days.

Another thing I'm in love with in these paintings are the dynamic shapes.  In "November Sun Comfort," look in the top right where the yellow horizon line bleeds into the gray sky.  It picks up in a couple spots and then kind of dances around in the outline of some organic and lumpy rectangle.  I don't know what is going on with that shape other than compositionally pulling what is happening below and above the horizon line together, a staple to further create the feeling of solidity in this dreamscape of a land.

Vanessa Varjian
November Sun Comfort, 2012
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
60"x72"

Vanessa Varjian
Garden Beds: Long After the Storm, 2013
Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper
9"x12"

Opening is this Friday from 6-8 at Laura's Center for the Arts in Hanover.  You can follow this link for more details.  If you miss the opening but want to come and check out the work anyway, it will be on display until the week of October 21st, just let me know when you want to stop in and I'll be sure to be there to give you a tour of the space.

Also, here are links to the artists' websites in case you want to see more of their work:

Zheyu Zhou

Luke LeWand

Vanessa Varjian

Photos of people in their homes at night.

Untitled No. 50
Pasadena, CA 1995
Digital Chromogenic Print 38 x 46.5"

Michele Iverson takes photos of people in their homes at night.  They don't know she is there and they never do.

Untitled No. 59
Pasadena, CA 1995
Gelatin Silver Print 38 x 46.5"

Michele Iverson knows that what she is doing is perverse and intrusive.  This excites her. Her excitement makes her uncomfortable.  She is interested in this discomfort.

Untitled No. 62
Pasadena, CA 1995
Digital Chromogenic Pring 38 x 46.5"

Iverson says that she would not want photos like this taken of her.  However, she quickly follows that statement with the acknowledgment that if photos like this were to be taken of her, it would be her own fault for not closing the curtains.

Untitled No. 63
Pasadena, CA 1996
Lightjet C Print 40 x 48"

Have you ever looked in through somebody's window at night?  Even just from a car window driving by?  I have.  I wonder sometimes about what color people paint their walls or how they set up their furniture.  I've never really SEEN anything though.  Maybe if I hung around for a while, I might.

Untitled No. 66
Pasadena, CA 1996
Lightjet C Pring 38 x 46"

Follow this link to the website for the Third Coast International Audio Festival and listen to what Michele Iverson has to say about her work.

Follow this link to see Iverson's website where you will find more photos from the "Night Surveillance Series."