Woman as Warrior

PA Issue 87 | August 2017

www.poetsandartists.com GOSS183 PUBLISHING HOUSE 604 Vale Street Bloomington, Il 61701 USA

PUBLISHER | E.I.C. | CURATOR Didi Menendez CURATOR Sergio Gomez MANAGING EDITOR and WRITER Lorena Kloosterboer DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS Magzter PRINT-ON-DEMAND and PDF Blurb and Magcloud INTERVIEWERS Erin Anderson Daniel Maidman Grace Cavalieri Heidi Elbers POETRY Alexis Rhone Fancher Dulce Maria Menendez Grace Cavalieri Lauren Redding

Copyright Š 2008-2017 All rights are reserved by PoetsArtists, GOSS183 and contributing artists and poets. All artwork and images are copyright of the contributing artists and may not be reproduced without explicit permission. This publication cannot be reproduced electronically, digitally, in print or any other form, format, or media without the explicit, written permission and approval of the copyright holders. All images and artwork are used with permission of the authors/creators or their representatives.

The views and opinions expressed within this publication are those of the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of PoetsArtists or its staff.

Artwork from this issue are on exhibition at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago from August 18th through October 13th, 2017.

Photography by Debra Livingston Poem by Nin Andrews

CONTENTS ANA MENENDEZ

Legendary poetry icon Grace Cavalieri interviews journalist, author, and poet Ana Menendez.

MARIA BRITO

Artist and contributor to the Woman as Warrior Exhibition, Erin Anderson interviews Designer, Collaborator, and Art Consultant to the stars, the fabulous Maria Brito.

RACHEL CORBETT

Artist, author, and contributor to the Huffington Post, Daniel Maidman interviews the author of You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, Rachel Corbett.

E L I S A B E T H R A M FJ O R D

Artist and contributor Erin Anderson interviews Art Collector and Gallery owner extraordinary Elisabeth Ramfjord.

CHRISTINA VAZQUEZ

Artist and contributor Heidi Elbers interviews multimedia journalist and a Deputy Director at PAMM, the vibrant Christina Boomer Vazquez.

WOMAN AS WARRIOR NATASHA KERTES STEPHEN WRIGHT YUNIOR HURTADO TORRES ASTRID RITMEESTER JENNIFER BALKAN DONNA BATES LEEANNA CHIPANA NATALIA FABIA DEBRA LIVINGSTON SHANA LEVENSON DEBRA BALCHEN FELICE HOUSE GARY JUSTIS MARCO GALLOTTA RAYMOND THORNTON VICTORIA SELBACH CARMEN CHAMI SYLVIA MAIER MATTHEW CHERRY SUZANNE ANAN ERIN ANDERSON EVA MUNDAY PAOLA ESTRELLA ANA KANE HEIDI ELBERS MICHAEL VAN ZEYL ALIA EL-BERMANI OMALIX NATALIE HOLLAND ELIZABETH CLAIRE OSPINA DANIELA KOVACIC JUDY TAKACS NICOLE ALGER RICHARD PRICE JANICE BOND NINA COVINGTON BRETT HARVEY DANIEL MAIDMAN KRISTINA SAFONOVA

THE CURATORS

Sergio Gomez is a Chicago based visual artist, curator and

Didi Menendez is the creator and publisher of PoetsArtists.

creative entrepreneur. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree

She has been curating shows with Sergio Gomez at the Zhou

from Northern Illinois University. Sergio’s work has been subject

B Art Center in Chicago for PA for several years now and has

of over 40 solo exhibitions and has participated in over 150 group

also curated with him at Sirona Fine Art in South Florida.

exhibitions in the US and abroad. His work has been exhibited

Recently she curated an exhibition at Bernaruducci.Meisel

in Italy, Spain, Sweden, Egypt, England, Austria, Korea, Belgium,

Gallery featuring only women realists.

Mexico and the US. His work can be found in private and public collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art, Brauer Art

A pioneer of web publishing since the late 90’s, she is also a

Museum, and the MIIT Museo Internazionale Italia Arte among

poet and has been published in several online publications

other public and private collections.

such a NO TELL MOTEL, 42 Opus, Blue Fifth Review, Dan Murano Online, and others.

Besides his ample studio practice, Sergio Gomez is the founder/ director of 33 Contemporary Gallery, curator/director of exhibitions

Poetry from her original publication MiPOesias has been

at the Zhou B. Art Center, contributor for Italia Arte Magazine, Art/

selected and featured by Best American Poetry and her

Design faculty at South Suburban College, co-funder of the Art

publication OCHO won a Pushcart Prize in 2006. Along

NXT Level Program which helps artists launch and succeed in their

with Grace Cavalieri, Birdi Jaworski, Michelle Buchanan,

art career. His weekly Art NXT Level podcast inspires and educates

Ron Androla, Bill Stobb, Amy King and others she ran a very

contemporary artists around the world. Sergio has curated special

successful podcast which launched in 2005. Many prominent

projects for the Chicago Park District, Garfield Park Conservatory,

art collections have acquired works after being published in

ArtSpot Miami International Art Fair during Art Basel Miami,

PoetsArtists including The Tullman Art Collection in Chicago

Sirona Fine Arts (with Didi Menendez), Evanston Art Center, Museo

and the Bennett Collection of Female Realists in Texas.

Regionale di Scienze Naturali of Turin, National Museum of Mexican Art, and ExpoChicago among others.

Originally born in Cuba, she now calls the Midwest home.

DULCE MARIA MENENDEZ

Salome as Warrior It is not her beauty which strikes me.

It is not her smile for nothing at all which blinds me.

It is not her fate to have been born on the 22nd of October 1932 during The Great Depression attached to a Calendar full of names of Saints and her destiny to have Maria Salome be crowned on her blond mane head then being left an orphan at age five which haunts me.

It is not her dancing with my father in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon for no reason at all other than Beny More’s song is playing from the little radio placed by the window as her groovy sunflower sleeveless dress sways around the living room as the fragrance of Aqua de Violetas expels from her long wavy hair as the Miami breeze enchants us and my sister and I watch and start dancing too which humbles me.

It is not her green pools of ocean eyes laughing holding up a beer and cheering to and hoping for a free Cuba with my abuela as they finish the Saturday chores which swats me like a mosquita against the wall.

It is her not remembering expelling ten pounds of my crying flesh on a hot sticky Havana Sunday morning in the middle of July 1960 which has destroyed me.

HEIDI ELBERS

Christina as Warrior INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINA BOOMER VAZQUEZ As an artist and arts-based professional working in New York City, I am constantly striving to be better and do more for others. There are women in my field that I look to as role models, one of those being Christina Boomer Vazquez.

Christina is the Deputy Director of Marketing and Public Engagement for the Pérez Art Museum Miami. She’s also an Edward R. Murrow Awards winning journalist and the creator of Emmy award winning ‘Call Christina.’ As a passionate journalist, Christina always told the stories of people and their communities. I am honored to share Christina’s inspirational words about how she developed into the incredible woman that she is today. - Heidi Elbers HE: “Woman as Warrior” is an exhibition

description. Without bitterness or remorse, my

dedicated to female empowerment, to women

grandfather often recounted for me each moment

who are heroes among champions. The show’s

of his life with a sparkle in his eye.

co-curator, Didi Menendez, notes that our first experience with “warriors” can be found almost

Each obstacle was a moment of reflection, each

anywhere – at home, school, work, or even seen

defeat a learning lesson. He was also a fierce

in the news. What does “warrior” mean to you,

defender of freedom of expression and freedom

and who were your major role models who

of speech. He understood the transformative

inspired you growing up?

power of words and images. He believed holding the powerful accountable was both an art form

CBV: My grandfather influenced me greatly. With

and one’s civic responsibility. As a Miami-Dade

his broad smile and quick wit, Andrew Vazquez

County auditor, he never backed down from

could find a stroke of sunshine in every cloud. It

a fight. He could be dogged in his devotion to

was magic. Like so many during his time, he came

transparency. But it was his unique ability to find

to America from Cuba in pursuit of freedom.

the humor in just about any slight that I think

What he encountered was a world that didn’t

afforded him the resiliency one needs in life. I

quite understand the way he looked, the way he

truly believe it takes courage to be hopeful. To

spoke, or the way he liked his coffee. A former

bet that the best is yet to come. To see possibility

Havana Law School student, my grandfather had

in the wake of life’s daily storms. Much of life

to give up studying law and instead scrubbed

is about learning how to thrive even after being

cold floors at a Chicago factory and walked on

dealt a perceived bad hand.

layers of thin ice to and from the small apartment he occupied with his expecting wife and young

A ‘warrior’ is someone who tirelessly and

son. The sunlit days were short, the winters long

courageously harnesses hope against any obstacle

but never was there a hint of hardship in his

in pursuit of a cause. Emboldened by conviction,

tenacious and resilient, a warrior powerfully

CBV: The desire to pursue journalism took root

inspires others with her fearless spirit and fierce

during the first Gulf War. I was 13 years old,

determination.

documenting each development with pink and purple pens in a series of journals. One day I

Shellie Karabell was another inspiration and

was listening to a radio reporter in the field in

guiding light in my life. The veteran journalist

the thick of battle and that was the moment.

has covered most major international news

History was always my favorite subject growing

events since 1980 throughout Western and

up and I thought as a journalist I could stand on

Eastern Europe and the Middle East for outlets

the frontline of history.

such as ABC News, PBS, AP Broadcast, and CNBC.

As for what motivated me to persist. The short answer, one word, you. That’s who I fought for

I often think about how lucky I am that my

each and every day. You. The community. When

path collided with Shellie Karabell in the sun-

I covered immigration in Arizona I used to deal

splashed, mid-century modern, California desert

with an inbox of hate mail. The vitriol included

city of Palm Springs in 2004. Shellie empowered

death threats some even urged me to “kill

me to find my voice. Both figuratively, (not

yourself ”. That never deterred my insistence

tolerating anything less of resolute confidence

that all voices in what is a nuanced debate

in expressing thoughts to connect with others)

should be heard, my determination to give

and literally, (instructing me to belt out Peggy

context to spin, to speak truth to power and to

Lee tunes for practice in pacing and intonation).

encourage empathy for different perspectives. I

She was ruthless in her critique and I loved her

have also braved dangerous situations including

candor. This was a woman who broke barriers,

a solo trip to San Pedro Sula, Honduras at a

dodged bullets and covered Presidents as

time when it ranked as one of the most violent

she stood on the front lines of history in the

cities in the world. Armed with my camera, I

making. By teaching me a bit about everything,

hired a fixer to help me navigate local roads as

from sommeliers, to poise under pressure, she

I explored why an unprecedented number of

left a lasting imprint on me through her fearless

unaccompanied young children were fleeing

pursuit of truth and fierce defense of democracy.

along the dangerous migrant path north to the United States. I wanted to understand

HE: You are totally a warrior in the work force.

their plight, share their perspective, and

In your career as a journalist, you’ve immersed

uncover the social, economic and security

yourself in difficult situations, maintaining

reasons driving that heartbreaking decision

strength and composure. What motivated you

in order to offer viewers context to what was

to pursue and, more importantly, persist in such

a national conversation. With ‘Call Christina’,

a demanding field?

the investigative consumer protection segment

I created, I felt honored to both assist and fight for

activists. I confronted an out of state landlord tenants

economic crime victims. My team worked tirelessly

dubbed the “slumlord millionaire” to get answers for

to help thousands of individuals and families. My

people living in deplorable and dangerous conditions.

primary motivation behind every story was rooted

And, I held a Governor accountable for an inaccurate

in a fundamental desire to be in service to the

fear-mongering assertion that there had been

community and to democracy.

“beheadings” discovered in the Arizona desert. What

HE: Being a warrior implies some level of invincibility

each of these stories have in common is that at their

but also a whole suite of challenges. What were some

core they were about the pursuit of the truth for the

hallmark career moments where “nothing could stop

benefit of our viewers. That goal in each case was

you?” And, to counter that, were there ever any

more important than any obstacle along the journey.

hurdles that felt insurmountable?

Be it from within an organization to the community One moment that comes to mind when I read your

at large the biggest hurdle to any endeavor is apathy.

question is a series of investigative stories I produced

It sours and strangles the compassion, awareness

alongside a key mentor, veteran investigative producer

and curiosity needed to fuel change and community

Mark LaMet, documenting how the Maricopa-

engagement.

County Sheriff ’s Office had failed to investigative hundreds of sex-crimes cases involving children. At

In a piece entitled “Cultural Guerrilla?” Argentina-

the time I was near the end of my pregnancy. It was

born artist Julio Le Parc writes in 1968 “I believe that

a race against time and biology. I remember rubbing

one must act. Act whenever possible. Act in order to

my belly and telling my daughter Mina to hang tight

create different situations where one can develop a

if she could, Mommy had some more work to do to

more concerted, more orchestrated, action. Act even

help kids. I remember being ripe with pregnancy,

at the risk of making a mistake.” He goes on to say,

in Arizona’s unbearable summer heat, and walking

“The role of the intellectual and the artist in society?

in for a tense follow-up interview when the public

Bring to light the existing contradictions within each

information officer quipped “when are you having

sphere. Develop an action so that it is the people

that baby?” Mina was born 10 days after her due

themselves that produce the change.”

date and I swore it was because she was right there with me, knowing we were both working to get those

I think the antidote to apathy is inspiration and I

stories on the air. We felt a responsibility to the child

think we need more inspired leaders being change

victims of Maricopa County who had no voice, no

makers in their fields to galvanize communities to

way of telling the story themselves.

tackle challenges from the local to global level.

There have been several hallmark career moments. I

HE: You recently underwent a pretty big career shift,

went toe-to-toe with a powerful Sheriff. I uncovered

moving from broadcast journalism into the art world.

how a State Senate President was targeting Hispanic

But as Deputy Director of Marketing and Public

Engagement at Pérez Art Museum Miami, you’re still

people to art. Modern and contemporary art is by its

actively engaged with storytelling and community

nature challenging. Some visitors describe it as “hard”.

building. What crossover have you experienced in the

Our goal is not to interpret the art, but to tease out

two fields?

details to highlight relevancy for our viewers ranging from the technique, to the artist’s background, to the

Artists and journalists are storytellers. In a recent

subject matter in order to create new pathways for

appearance at PAMM poet Aja Monet stated, “I believe

people to be engaged with the work. In addition, to

artists are the gatekeepers of truth.” Journalism and

both add warmth to the museum’s digital channels and

the art world are both truth-seeking and noble fields.

make that human connection with our visitors, we are

I like to joke that my boss never changed. It was the

now producing a wealth of original content to include

public. And, it still is the public. Journalists and artists

artist interviews, behind-the-scenes curator-led tours,

live in a framework of thoughts and ideas. They share

PAMMily profiles highlighting museum staff and their

an inquisitive mind, using images and words to tell a

involvement in the community and we just launched

story, share a feeling, bear witness to history, confront

a new #PAMMKids Ask a Curator series where children

perceptions, convey the human experience, expose a

can ask our curators the questions on everyone’s mind

truth, challenge the status quo. And you won’t find

creating fun moments for art education.

two members of society who fight as fiercely for freedom of speech and freedom of expression as the

I have also worked to launch a new monthly series

journalist and the artist.

of public programming on one of the museum’s free days called quite simply, “community night”. The

In a Nieman Storyboard article entitled “Journalism and

goal is to increase PAMM’s visibility and relevancy by

Art: Complementary and Collaborative Storytelling”

inviting folks to join us in a conversation on a subject

Michael Blanding explains “art and journalism began

matter they care about that is timely and topical

converging sometime around the French Revolution,

because in the words of PAMM Chief Curator Tobias

when

social

Ostrander, “All contemporary art is a conversation

conditions and politics began to appear in the work

about contemporary life.” Community night has been

of artists like Francisco Goya and J.M.W. Turner…

successful in reaching people who may not have come

By the 1960s and ’70s, conceptual artists like Hans

to the museum otherwise and is part of this effort to

Haacke and Dan Graham were using the language and

build relationships and foster dialogue.

images

representing

contemporary

structure of investigative journalism to comment on controversial social and political topics.”

HE: Journalism is an art form in itself, so I’m interested in how that passion translates to the visual arts. What

What I bring to PAMM is certainly my background in

attracted you to start working with the museum? Do

community building and storytelling. I added to the

you collect? Create? Admire?

staff a full-time Digital Journalist, a first of its kind position for the museum, with the aim of connecting

CBV: There was one day not too long ago when my

daughter asked, “What makes us human?” From the

have to fight for 90-seconds of air time, at PAMM we

dawn of man there has been art. Etched into stone,

can build an evening’s program. One example was

carved out of bone, dyed onto parchment. What makes

last March when we built a community night program

us human is to ask the question, to sing it, to sculpt it

with the local school district, police department and

and paint it. I have always been fascinated by artists’

Guitars Over Guns, an arts-based mentoring program

minds and the prism by which they see the world and

to empower at-risk youth, for an evening discussion

the medium by which they choose to share that with

about youth gun violence in Miami. As a Miami native,

us. I also believe an arts education fosters analytical,

I have been proud that we have PAMM and feel blessed

problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. For these

to be part of an invigorated new senior team working to

reasons my daughter and I were frequent visitors to the

guide and shape its future in service to the community.

museum since its opening in the new New Herzog & de Meuron-designed Building. In fact, it was only after I

HE: In any field, career growth and being a “lady boss”

accepted the position at PAMM that I learned Mina and

can feel daunting. Young female professionals are often

I were already on the website! There she was, barely

challenged by their age and gender, met with disbelief

two years old, perched on my lap in front of a Polly

– “oh, you’re in charge?” Do you have any advice for

Apfelbaum floor piece.

young women and gender-identifying women who aspire to be “the boss” and take charge of their careers?

I felt very much called to the museum and to this position. It took just one conversation with PAMM

Stand firm, hold your ground and know things about

Director Franklin Sirmans over a cup of coffee to

yourself to be true. Since my daughter was about three

know I wanted to make that career shift.

With a

years old I’ve told her knowing things about herself

mission bigger than the study and display of artworks,

to be true was like her Superhero power. If the truths

I believe museums can and should be a place where

are hard-working, you are capable, you are kind, you

the community can talk about the issues we face in a

are tenacious, then when anyone hurdles an insult

nuanced and robust way. Museums play a very important

or casts some shade, it is like a bullet bouncing off

role in society, far greater than perhaps in decades

Wonder Woman’s silver cuffs, “clink, click” - they

past, as America finds itself short on spaces created

don’t penetrate, they don’t even hurt, because you

for thoughtful discussion. I’ve always felt that PAMM,

fundamentally know who you are.

with its architecture designed for public engagement and stunning waterfront location in Downtown Miami,

The best response to critics and the best way to take

should serve as Miami’s town square. That Franklin

charge of your career is to, ‘do you’. Stay focused, lead

shared that vision, and my passion to see PAMM grow

with a strong moral compass, with compassion and be

and connect with the community, is what drew me to

yourself, because after all, everyone else is taken.

this position. In a heartbeat I realized I could serve my community in perhaps a more robust way in this capacity. Whereas in broadcast journalism I would

Exterior view of the PAMM Photography Credits Production Noor Blazekovic Photography Natasha Kertes Make-up: Carolyn Jones

ASTRID RITMEESTER

Little Champ | oil on canvas | 32x32 | 2017

Astrid Ritmeester is a Dutch realist portrait artist whose paintings rely on 17th Century Dutch and Flemish techniques, but whose background in theater costume design adds a theatrical touch to her bright, contemporary portraits. Ritmeester seeks to draw the viewer’s attention to the subject’s eyes, skillfully using subtle, loose brush strokes with a gifted eye for vivid colors, contrasting values, and beautiful soft edges.

Ritmeester’s Little Champ depicts her 9-year-old daughter Rose, a playful, funny, carefree, and energetic child who loves to swim. To illustrate the child’s competitive streak, Ritmeester painted her wearing reflecting goggles which somehow reinforce the youthful yet resilient determination on her daughter’s face. This superb portrait radiates the artist’s strong sense of tenderness and pride for her child—masterly capturing her fledgling warrior in the hope that she will find her rightful place in this big world once she flies from the nest.

DONNA BATES

Storm Trooper | oil on dibond | 24x24 | 2017

War Paint and Curlers | oil on dibond | 36x24 | 2017 War Paint and Curlers 2 | oil on dibond | 36x24 | 2017

LEEANNA CHIPANA

Cusquena | oil on canvas | 19 inches diameter | 2017

NATALIA FABIA

Blue Chitta | oil on panel | 30x30 | 2016

STEPHEN WRIGHT

JAW (Jack as Warrior) | oil on canvas | 30x40 | 2017

Stephen Wright is a figurative painter who craves artistic freedom in order to feel free to explore and paint for the sheer pleasure of it.

His background in graphic design has proven an invaluable base to create strong compositions depicting realist subject matter.

Wright describes the woman in his painting entitled JAW (Jack as Warrior) as a comic-book-like bright exclamation point type.

It depicts our publisher’s daughter Jacqueline, as a woman screaming—not out of fear but rather like a warrior, in an intense and powerful gesture frozen in time. Her facial expression exudes confidence in a non-violent and non-threatening way, inviting compassion and admiration. Jack, an actress, has often been confronted by ambiguous situations where her Cuban heritage

did not meet the Hollywood stereotype during her auditions for Hispanic roles.

Wright’s painting, entitled LAW (Lori as Warrior), is a portrait of his girlfriend healing from a work-related injury. The dark “battle” tape decorating her skin amalgamates with the contours of her bra, forming an interesting pattern and contrasting beautifully against the well-structured skin tones. Her dignity and composure trigger admiration and respect.

With these two pieces Wright contrasts two kinds of warrior women; one is imperturbable and sophisticated, the other is complicated and electrifying. Both mirror themselves in each other.

LAW (Lori as Warrior) | oil on canvas | 40x30 | 2017

KRISTINA SAFONOVA

N.Y. Artists Series

Featuring photography of artist’s studios in New York.

Victoria Selbach | Port Washington, NY | NIKON D750

Hilary Robin McCartney | Upper West Side, NY | NIKON D750

Reisha Perlmutter | Williamsburg, NY | NIKON D750

Sarah Yuster | West Brighton, Staten Island, NY | NIKON D750

SHANA LEVENSON

Home | oil on canvas | 36x22 | 2017

Shana Levenson paints contemporary portraits in a classical approach, in a quest to go beyond realism to capture the personal truth and genuine essence of the subject. She seeks a deeper connection with the people she paints, sharing their personal stories and experiences with sensitivity and respect.

The Blessing | oil on dibond | 39x46 | 2017

DEBRA BALCHEN

Majaji Warrior Mother Goddess Queen | fired earth-hand painted | 15x15x10 |2017

Warrior Mother Goddess Queen | pastel paper | 6x3 ft

FELICE HOUSE

Virginia Eastwood in the Good, The Bad and The Ugly Part II | oil on canvas | 60x40 | 2017 Stasha Dean in Giant | oil on canvas | 90x60 | 2013

GARY JUSTIS

Birth of Athena | photograph of projected light | 14x11 | 2016

Portrait of Meela | photograph of projected light | 14x11 | 2014

Gary Justis captures light projections using LED, incandescent, refracted, and reflected light to create virtual life forms. Hovering between complete abstraction and nearly-recognizable imagery, these portraits set themselves apart in an imaginative and highly original way, inviting the viewer to instinctively connect with them on an emotional and spiritual level. Justis expertly validates the viewer’s desire to seek symbolic substance in ethereal imagery and our innate need to assign meaning to conceptualized shapes and unexpected colors. Each of his portraits is inspired by the envisioned persona of an artist friend, in which he seeks to capture the subject’s unique and enigmatic characteristics.

Portrait of Drell | photograph of projected light | 14x11 | 2015

MARCO GALLOTTA

Diandra and Rain | cut out photograph and acrylics | 24x36 | 2016

Marco Gallotta is an artist who manipulates photographic images by cutting interesting, sinuous patterns into them, overlapping them, and enhancing them using various wet and dry mediums. His process of transforming images results in fascinating, innovative visual compositions that have an elegant, organic look.

Gallotta’s piece, entitled Diandra and Rain, is a cut-out photograph enhanced with acrylics, featuring a portrait of model and activist Diandra Forrest and her baby. Despite her challenges due to a congenital disorder characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair, and eyes, this African-American beauty became the first model with albinism to be signed by a major modeling agency. A role model and activist, Forrest fights against discrimination and speaks out to raise awareness regarding this hereditary condition characterized by the absence of melanin. Posing with her daughter Rain, Forrest reminded Gallotta of a classical Madonna with child. However, far from depicting a religious icon the resulting portrait is a striking vision of a beautiful, strong woman, a role model, and a real-life warrior.

VICTORIA SELBACH

Victoria Selbach’s painting entitled Kali Ma is a portrait of curator Mashonda Tifrere, who launched ArtLeadHER as a dynamic platform to celebrate, support, and bring awareness to creative women thriving in the male-dominated art world. Selbach describes Tifrere as, “a warrior for women artists, a true Shero.” In this painting—which is part of her Goddess series celebrating the strength and courage of contemporary women—Selbach beautifully depicts Tifrere as the powerful Goddess Kali Ma, the divine female warrior and destroyer of evil forces, who speaks truth to ego, shattering the illusion of a self-centered view of reality. Skillfully capturing the strength within, this heroine’s warm, sensual curves and steady, confident gaze juxtapose strikingly against the bright blue background, a massive sky representing positivity and invoking the omnipresent power of Amazon warriors we recognize in today’s global female leaders. Selbach painted this portrait larger than life so that the luminous, towering image elevates women as divine forces of nature.

Kali Ma | acrylic on canvas | 60 x 50 | 2017

Victoria Selbach | Hero | collage and acrylic on canvas | 52x76 | 2017

CARMEN CHAMI

Mexican artist Carmen Chami’s painting methods are highly influenced by her background in professional art restoration in which she specializes in the great 17th Century Masters of the New Spanish Baroque. Inspired by these historic painting techniques which produce sumptuously rich colors and light, she researched and studied the best Mexican baroque artists—such as Cristóbal de Villalpando and Juan Correa—which led her to discover their precise sequence of color application using just eight pigments. Today, Chami uses this precious knowledge to create her own paintings, in which color plays a central role to achieve powerful, elegant, and highly dramatic expression. Chami’s compositions are based on narratives inspired by people. There’s intimacy in her creative process that guides her models to interact with their surroundings, resulting in hyperbolic, flamboyant poses.

Chami’s superb portrait entitled Aya Watanabe shows a beautiful, strongminded Japanese woman who, despite coming from a sociocultural tradition of female submission, broke the rules early on to carve out her own destiny. Chami visually captures Watanabe’s courage, strength, and sense of self-reliance, essential characteristics to take the road less traveled. The traditional Japanese setting is a reminder that we never quite break with our past, no matter how far we have come. The use of fine realism in combination with strong graphic elements makes this portrait a joy to the eye.

Action and Containment is part of a series of studies involving the imagery of the expressivity of hands which convey emotions in a highly visual way. Needless of narrative, this melodramatic piece articulates the dramatic movement of internal struggles many viewers will recognize.

The silent internal conversation is represented by the intricately knitted fabric symbolizing entangled, bunched up, and wrung out words often better kept unspoken.

Action and Containment | oil on canvas | 63x23 | 2014

Aya Watanabe | oil on canvas | 64x48 | 2017

GRACE CAVALIERI

Ana as Warrior INTERVIEW WITH ANA MENENDEZ GC: I found you first as a poet. Are you a fiction

to a friend who was not Cuban and she told me

writer who writes poems or (secretly) a poet who

she cried reading it on the train ride home. That

writes stories and journalism?

intimate connection, even if it’s only with a single reader, that’s why I write.

AM: The highest form of flattery you can give me is to call me a poet. So thank you. Poetry is

GC: What do you believe is “a Feminist?”

my first love – I learned to read poems before I learned to read stories. There was Jose Marti, of

AM: Anyone who has eyes to see and a heart

course. And then my uncle, Dionisio Martinez,

to feel. The only way – male or female – that

who is a sublime poet. I grew up surrounded by

one can be “not a feminist” is to shut oneself

his work and the work of his friends, including

from experiencing the world in all its inter-

Silvia Curbelo. My uncle was giving me Carl

connectedness and mysterious creation. Life is

Sandburg’s books when I was in elementary

female.

school (“The fog comes/on little cat feet…”).

And all these years later, poetry is the first form I

GC: How does a person achieve a sense of

turn to for delight, comfort, disruption. And, yet,

identity? Whether an émigré or native born?

I’m not a “real” poet. I do write it, half in secret, but I know I am missing the discipline and rigor

AM: “Identity’s nothing but the role we play

of a true working poet. I won’t flatter myself.

in public.” That’s David Hinton’s translation of something Wang Wei wrote 1,300 years ago.

GC: In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, was the

Nothing’s changed. Identity is performance. And

Pushcart Prize winning story in your collection.

as far as attempts to fix it go, a highly over-rated

What do you think the judges saw in that? Why

one at that.

do you think it won?

GC: What are you wearing right this minute?

AM: I was a member of the jury for the Pen/ Faulkner award a few years ago, and I still can’t

AM: Black pants and a black tank top – both from

say I know how literary prizes work. When it

Target.

comes to my own writing, I try not to analyze it too much. More instructive than the Pushcart for

GC: Tell us everything you cooked this week that

me was when I gave an early draft of that story

you were proud of.

AM: I love cooking, and I don’t understand why

the piece comes from the passage of time. So at

everyone doesn’t indulge. What could be more

some point, I found these other, older characters.

creative than taking raw, indigestible material

And by then I’d written so many versions of the

and turning it into something delicious and

story that this draft seemed to write itself. Of

nourishing? Most days I cook or prepare three

course, there was a mound of failure behind it.

meals a day. It’s only Tuesday, but this week I’ve

That’s what people don’t see. All art, I suppose,

already made steak with roasted potatoes and

rests on mounds of failures.

Brussels sprouts, a coconut red lentil soup and a fabulous beef and barley stew after a recipe just

GC: How hard is it to be a writer?

published in the New York Times.

AM: Not as hard as hauling concrete bricks. Not GC: What triggers a story in your mind? Take us

as hard as working in the sun all day. Not as hard

through the process from first idea to character

as being a refugee, like my great-grandmother

to situation.

Hannah, who left Lebanon at age 14, already the mother of an infant daughter she would lose to

AM: Oh man. This is hard. It is not a rational

illness a few months later and 7,000 miles from

process at all. And each story is different. Most

home.

times it starts with a character and a “what if ”? Or some emotion that I need to get down in written

GC: What was one thing said to you, early on,

form. In the case of “In Cuba…” it started with a

that let you know you were truly a writer?

joke, the final one about the German shepherd.

AM: It wasn’t a word, it was a sound: laughter.

I’d gone to interview the sculptor Tony Lopez –

And it came from my classmates gathered around

this was back in the early 1990s—and he told me

the lunch table, delighted with a story I’d just

the joke. I didn’t include it in the profile I ended

told. I was hooked.

up writing about him, but I never forgot the joke.

GC: What is sensual in your life?

So sad and so funny at once. And when I got into the MFA program at NYU, I decided to try

AM: Running on the beach in the morning, the

to write a story that ended, like a punch line, on

sound of sand under my feet. Birdsong, the smell

that joke. My first efforts were disastrous. In the

of the sea. The variations of green in the foliage.

early drafts, it wasn’t old men at Domino Park,

A cup of good coffee. A glass of good wine. New

but young, recent arrivals working in a restaurant

white sheets…As long as I’m alive, the list has

kitchen. It just wasn’t working. The sadness of

no end.

RAYMOND THORNTON

Femme de Guerre | oil on panel | 60x48 | 2017

SYLVIA MAIER

Hawa Bah, mother to Mohamed Bah | oil on copper | 48x36 | 2017

Sylvia Maier paints American narratives in broad, supple brushstrokes, inspired by Rembrandt’s raw mystery and the passion of the Renaissance. Influenced by her biracial heritage she examines current cultural differences within familiar social settings in public places. Maier approaches each piece by sketching an impromptu scene that catches her eye, after which she recreates the tableau with models in order to gain deeper artistic insight and work out the subject matter. She aims to capture a multicultural figurative world, where art, music, ceremony, and tolerance reign, often focusing on speaking truth to power and highlighting social injustice.

Maier’s painting Hawa Bah, mother to Mohamed Bah is a tribute to courageous women everywhere fighting injustice. This piece explicitly refers to the unjust killing of a 28-year-old immigrant from Guinea, Mohamed Bah, by the NYPD in 2012. His mother Hawa Bah had called for an ambulance, but the police responded instead. To this day, Hawa continues to fight for justice in a $70 million lawsuit against the city, highlighting police brutality and the need for mental health reform while nationwide numerous people with symptoms of mental illness continue to be killed during encounters with police. Maier celebrates this strong, heroic, and compassionate mother as a true warrior.

MATTHEW CHERRY

Jadyn Persistent Defender of the Nasty Persuasion for All Underdogs Project 23 moving forward looking backwards oil on canvas | 72x72 | 2017

Jory.Commie Dyke Boi for Femme Power Project 23 moving forward looking backwards oil on canvas | 72x72 | 2017

SUZANNE ANAN

Hard Work Never Killed Anyone | oil on canvas| 30x20 | 2010

ERIN ANDERSON

Erin Anderson paints the human figure using oil on copper sheet. In her body of work, she explores the dynamics of interpersonal relationships as well as the fundamental connections between humans and the environment. The interplay between paint and metal substrate allow her to portray different levels of reality, revealing dynamic and changing layers that can either be perceived directly or

sensed instinctively. Her figures are anchored in a classical representational approach, exquisitely rendered in a detailed yet subtle manner.

Karen In The Digital Age | oil on copper | 12x9 | 2016

ERIN ANDERSON

Maria as Warrior THE MARIA BRITO STORY It’s a cold, rainy Monday morning and I’m on a bus headed for New York City. It’s a trip I make often, usually on Thursdays for openings. Today is a little different; I’ll be sitting down with Maria Brito, art advisor and a fixture on the art scene. I’ll admit I have some nerves about it.

She is a powerhouse: art advisor to the likes of Sean (PDiddy) Combes and Gwyneth Paltrow, curator and collaborator, entrepreneur, high end designer, book author and all around tastemaker. To top it all off, this is her second career.

Before she followed her passion for art she went to Harvard Law School and worked for almost ten years in law. Talk about drive.

My bus arrives at Port Authority late and I scramble into the rain for a cab. My driver can’t find the address in his GPS (29-35…the dash confounds) and I try to tell him to just use the first number in the address. He doesn’t understand. I hand him my phone and he starts moving in the general direction, finally dropping me off after overshooting the location by about a block. Again I scramble in the drizzle, ducking under awnings to the next street up. We’ve arranged to meet at Soho House, a nondescript place from the outside, and I’m assuming that’s what they want. A place meant only for creative professionals where exclusivity and anonymity are prized.

Despite my late bus and my floundering cab driver, I’m there ten minutes early and Maria hasn’t arrived yet. I’m glad, I want to look over my notes one last time to make sure I remember everything. I look up as someone walks in the door, a chic young woman wearing black pumps with the signature Louboutin red. I look at my own heels, TjMaxx. I remember images that accompanied the interviews I read during my

research. Maria always looked fabulous in edgy, colorful fashions and designer heels. I feel I’m in a little over my head.

As I sit back in my chair I see Maria walk in. I breathe a sigh of relief as she’s in sneakers and casual jeans and top. I'm glad she's the sort of normal that doesn't wear Louboutins on a rainy Monday and I can feel myself relax a little.

After exchanging quick hellos we are swept into an elevator to the restaurant to find a place to sit. I make small talk while simultaneously thinking over my first question. I had read in a previous interview that her parents hadn’t encouraged a creative career path, that they felt it wasn't stable enough. I assumed perhaps that meant she hadn’t had many outlets to art while she was growing up.

We sit down in plush seats near the back of the room and she orders an Americano, black.

To get started, I ask if there was a moment in her childhood where she remembers being especially struck by a piece of art, assuming it wasn’t a regular part of her upbringing. Sensing my meaning, she corrects me immediately,

“My parents were very good nurturers of my creativity but not as something I could depend on to sustain myself.”

She describes being enrolled in art lessons, going to the theater, going to plays, and visiting artist studios. I’m a little embarrassed at my assumption, but I also have an immediate fondness for her parents who clearly paved the way for her passion of art to grow. Echoing this sentiment, she went on to explain,

“Actually I sort of got my first training with them (her parents), going to artists studios, living with art in a very different way. They had collected some works that were interesting, my grandparents had collected some works that were interesting and that had some value. But it was like a hobby. It wasn’t something they considered to make a living.”

Later she revealed that she traveled to New York with her family once a year since she was young.

It is a testament to just how important high culture and art actually is to her family and I can see now how central it was to her upbringing.

“They were like let’s go to the Guggenheim or let’s go to the MET and let’s go do Broadway shows and let’s go do off Broadway and let’s go and see the nutcracker at the ballet so I had that.

I’m very lucky because I have been coming to New York since I was seven and many Americans who live here now didn’t come to New York for the first time until they were 25.”

“I think the first time I came to New York I was 21” “Yes, you see? I was very lucky in that sense and that I always knew I wanted to live here. Even when I was seven, we took a trip to see this show at NYU and it was Frida Kahlo, the wife of Diego Rivera. That’s how she was known you know, pobrecita she was like totally crazy or whatever.

It was between that show, that and also Keith Haring in the subways, I’ll never forget.”

"It's incredible that you had the opportunity to see all of that!"

"It’s a thing that I treasure, a lot of people didn’t even know who Frida Kahlo was when they were seven no matter how much art history they studied. Even nowadays not that many people go to see the shows at NYU at the Grey Gallery and at the time it was very, you know, the village was not like it is today. It was funky, drugs, Washington square park was selling a lot of drugs. That whole village area where NYU was,

I mean the university was good, but the area itself was not as clean and sanitized and posh as it is today. It was bohemian, for sure, it was beautiful, but it was not as nice as it is today. My parents took those kinds of risks to see things that were special and unique."

I am filled with incredible admiration for her parents while simultaneously feeling struck with just how deep that vein runs in her family.

She goes on to explain that they valued art tremendously, but they considered it their pleasure not their livelihood, “It wasn’t forcefully, but it was like “Ohhh, that poor girl who went to Graphic Design school...”

“Got that degree and makes no money...”

“Yeah exactly, that kind of thing. It was actually kind of a vile way of doing it either way but I think that it was like inception right? Like you plant a seed.”

I nod remembering my own mother’s not so subtle recommendations to look into the field of psychiatry as a career option. My mother came from blue collar Detroit and so practical career paths were the only valid ones she considered.

We talk some more about early education, art classes and her love of the process. I ask her if the creation of art was something she was still interested in. She said yes but that the hardest thing for her was her lack of patience. Laughing, she recalls, “I would go in and say ‘this is how I do it’ and the teacher would go ‘no, no there’s a process to doing this!’ I also took graphic design although that was the hardest because you have a lot of rules to follow.”

This insight into her early approaches to art making and creation are telling. It’s clear she has always had the ability to feel inspiration acutely and her “impatience” was perhaps her haste to capture the moment, to manifest her inspiration immediately. As artists, we can relate to this feeling. It’s why we do what we do and that

impatience is something most of us grapple with.

It's clear to me that creativity and intuition are fundamental aspects of who she is. Interestingly, a big reason why she’s achieved the success that she has is because her intuition and creativity is balanced by logic, process and structure. I don’t know a lot of people who have such an equal balance; a lot of us either have one or the other.

“Art history was a big thing for me. I took electives and then advanced courses throughout school because it was super important for me. To this day I think I know as much as people who have degrees in art, but I don’t say that because they get very offended.”

I tell Maria I assume her interest in art history has helped her immensely with her business to give collectors context to the work. She sits back and I can tell she’s digesting an answer that comprises of so much more. She does this often throughout the interview, reviewing the scenario in 4D, evaluating every aspect, and quickly!

Superficial processing doesn’t seem to be a part of her makeup. Recognizing and dissecting complex elements is another strength that speaks directly to her success.

“I still get people who did two years of Sotheby’s special training who call and ask me how I made this business. ‘I dedicated my life to this and now I’ve opened a bakery because I couldn’t find my way through being an art advisor the way you’ve done it.’ And I think the important thing is you can’t really be too theoretical. This is a business of intuition and so there are artists who are terrible no matter how many big guns they have behind them and there are artists who have something really special in them. There are also artists who combine, not the highest degree of talent, but talent with business savvy. If you don’t have all those things… I’m sorry, we don’t live in a bubble. It’s not all about academics and museums. Even museums are trying to do things differently these days because they’re seeing their levels of attendance going down so much.”

Again, I see how balance and well-roundedness

is imperative, not only to the success of her business but in most businesses in general.

Now I’m interested in her law background.

Initially I had assumed she’d had very little exposure to art during childhood and law was something she pursued at the encouragement of her parents and maybe also just because she felt like there weren't any other good options out there. Now that I realize how wrong my initial assumption was, Harvard Law School seems like more of a blip and I’m trying to understand how life took her in that direction. Going with another assumption, I ask Maria if law school was a misery because it fostered very little in the way of creative outlets.

“At that time I believed my own story and the story of my parents so I thought it was amazing.

I’m here! This is such an opportunity and it’s so unique and I feel so great about this. So I kind of like fooled myself into this idea of well maybe all the courses were amazing and my teachers were incredible and the people I met were absolutely brilliant. But yeah…it’s a very dry place and it doesn’t really foster that much creativity, right?

I mean, there is a lot of creative thinking, but I think I got the most out of that time with critical thinking. You have to challenge everything from a perspective that actually has a foundation. So I’m good at thinking critically and also thinking in a quick way because you have to react in that type of environment very quickly. I think that has helped me a lot with where I am today."

After graduating from law school, Maria spent the next nine years practicing law in Manhattan as part of a larger firm. It was a comfortable job in that she was paid handsomely and afforded the freedom to do the things that she wanted.

It was also during this time that she frequented galleries in Chelsea, meeting artists, gallerists and curators.

"Ten years ago when I started my own collection it was a very, very closed world. Today is very porous and super open in relation to what it used to be. I had that passion for things that were

beautiful and helping my friends also hang their works and curate and rotate."

I think if they are anything like their mother they someday will.

Working to help friends acquire art, she found validation when they would later call to let her know their acquisitions had appreciated significantly. After working in law for some time and the birth of her first son, she realized she needed a change. Suddenly the prospect of going back to work at a job she hated wasn't a viable option.

My next questions have to do with business, art fairs, the brick and mortar model and how the market is ripe for disruption with the right tech and approach. Like everything I notice she evaluates from every angle, pluses, negatives, challenges and advantages. For instance, I assumed the big fair model was a boon for her business. She would be able to cover a lot of ground quickly showing clients a multitude of art in minimal time. She agreed this is true but was quick to recognize the strain it's putting on a lot of other aspects of the art world and how a brick and mortar gallery is sort of in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. She also admitted, she didn't want to come across as jaded, but it was easy to get art fair fatigue. Something I don't think she needs to feel ashamed to admit, just in the time it took to coordinate our meeting she was occupied first with Frieze New York and then abroad for the Venice Biennial.

"I thought the job that I do makes no sense, I mean it does, but at the time I didn’t see the point in it.

I’m just one brick in this huge wall of attorneys, all unhappy, you know? It’s not creative, I’m an entrepreneur, I feel it, I have it in me, I have to do something. I just can’t keep doing this."

This moment feels like a coming full circle in Maria's life. Starting with inspiration and passion for art, going into a field that is dry, structured, logical, taking what she needed from those experiences and letting that environment shape a part of who she is. Now it was time to embark upon the life she wanted. I also have to add, I'm amazed at her timing. She decided to leave her very safe, secure career to start a new, risky venture right after the 2008 economic woes and after just becoming a new mom to boot. I'm literally astounded at her grit and I imagine 99.9% of us wouldn't have had the guts. I have to know more. I don't have children (yet) but the prospect of losing my career in the responsibilities of motherhood is a real fear for me and I found her reply fantastic: "The way I see it is that balance is just so much bullshit. They put it out for us and then what do you do with that? I think you pay more attention to one thing than another at any given time you know? I think it is super important for my kids to see me working and engaged in something I love.

That was also one of the reasons why I said I can’t model my life after something I hate so much. For me to show my kids that I’m doing something I love is very important. I don’t know if they fully understand…"

I look at my phone and realize our time has probably gone a little over and we wrap up the conversation. I come away knowing a little more about Maria. Someone who is primarily known for her celebrity clientele, fashion forwardness and instinct for the art market, but equally interesting is the path she's taken to get to this point. After all, while she was going through the steps, it was anything but straightforward.

But in hindsight, it all fits together with the kind of elegant synchronicity that comes from a life lived with passion and intent. I see how her experiences lent her the knowledge, skills and drive she needed to build a business that was exceptional. The most exciting thing is that she really has only just gotten started.

We say our goodbye and she heads back out into the dreary Monday afternoon rain while I head in the opposite direction to Port Authority. I don't know if our paths will cross again, but I know at the very least, I will be keeping my eyes open for her next big project.

EVA MUNDAY

Excerpt from SELF-DESTRUCT | digital photography Inkjet print on photo rag | 20x20 | 2016

LAUREN AMALIA REDDING

Abyss I was only ever a bottom-dweller.

Thighs that push coral weights Only seen as the muck from which they came, And hands that lacquer gossamer matter Are reviled by bioluminescent distaste.

I am a stout maker, a candlestick taker, Carmine wicks in my thermocline cave

They all turn from my bloated stomach.

But my navel is a pale axis That instigates plate tectonic praxis, And they abandon me amidst my contractions As their marble floors reverberate.

I am the dawn crashing their breakers, A pallid mercenary of seismic intervention

Yet they gag at my sight, and do not perceive That my wrists and womb are filigreed With amoebas and sea anemone, Cylinders in the abyss.

Lauren Amalia Redding (b. 1987, Naples, Florida) is an artist and writer living and working in Astoria, Queens, New York. She received her B.A. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and her M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art in New York, New York. Her exhibition history began with a solo show at Chicago’s renowned Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. Since then, she has exhibited extensively across the United States. Redding has also been featured as one of “Today’s Masters: Artists Making Their Mark” by Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. In October 2015, she was an artist in residence at the Florence School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, housed in Giorgio Vasari’s former studio. Her poems were published through the Pen + Brush in Manhattan and are in a few different issues of PoetsArtists. She recently curated the seminal “Argentum: Contemporary Silverpoint” exhibition in Manhattan, and also curated “No Net Ensnares Me” for the Rockport Center for the Arts in Rockport, Texas. This fall, she anticipates a solo show at Menduiña Schneider Gallery in Los Angeles.

PAOLA ESTRELLA

Struggle with the Wedding Dress | November, 2016. Mexico city, Mexico | Video-performance | 12 photographs

ANA KANE

Birthright | egg tempera and oil on canvas | 48x40 | 2016

Floating Woman | egg tempera on canvas | 60x40 | 2016

ELIZABETH CLAIRE OSPINA

Heather | oil on linen | 24x24 | 2016

JENNIFER BALKAN

When I Grow Up | oil on aluminum panel | 24x24 | 2017

HEIDI ELBERS

Heidi Elbers paints the human figure in loose, painterly brush strokes, always leaving the background white and vaguely nebulous in order to avoid distraction and maintain the focus on her subject. Her fascination with extravagant costumes started early in life. Embellishments

related to Mardi Gras and the cultural history of the Bayou region—such as furs, sequins, and feathers—are used to accentuate physical beauty.

Ceremonies | oil on canvas | 24x18 | 2017

MICHAEL VAN ZEYL

Headwind | oil on panel | 60x40 | 2017

DANIEL MAIDMAN

Rachel as Warrior A CONVERSATION WITH RACHEL CORBETT Rachel Corbett is the author of You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, which won the 2016 Marfield Prize, the National Award for Arts Writing. She has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Art Newspaper, the BBC, New York Magazine, and others. At the time of this interview, she was the editor of Modern Painters magazine. She has since left the magazine and is currently working as a freelance arts writer.

Daniel Maidman is a painter and writer. His art is included in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the New Britain Museum of American Art, and the Long Beach Museum of Art. His art and writing have been featured in ARTnews, Forbes, W, Juxtapoz, PoetsArtists, and The Huffington Post. His first book, Daniel Maidman: Nudes was published in 2016.

THE CAREER Daniel Maidman: Let’s talk about you and your work and career. Did you study journalism in school?

Rachel Corbett: Yes, I went to grad school at Columbia for journalism.

DM: What did you do after that? What were the steps that led you to what you’re doing now?

RC: Honestly, I would have done about anything after grad school. I finished in 2007, and it was right about the time of the economic collapse, and magazines were laying everybody off, and it was not a good time. So I would have been a transportation reporter, or a public health reporter… anything really that I could get a job in.

I started freelancing here and there for ARTnews magazine. I had always wanted to write about art anyway. I felt like there was a big opening in arts writing, because a lot of the writers I was in school with were scared of art; they thought you had to have a PhD and that you needed to know a lot of history to write anything about art. And then a lot of the art writers I knew were not necessarily writers, they were art historians or theoreticians who were not writing the most readable stuff.

So I felt like there was a place in between that not many people were accessing. That’s what I really wanted to do. I think ARTnews was good because they’re a mix, they’re on the more journalistic side of the criticism spectrum. Since then I’ve worked at just about every art magazine. I went to Artnet

for a while, if you remember. They used to have a magazine online that was different from what’s online now, run by Walter Robinson. I went there, and then they closed down a year or two later and then… then what did I do? Well, I bounced around at some of these art magazines for a while, and then I went to The Art Newspaper for several years.

I decided to write the book at one point. So for four of those years, I was still freelancing but I was maybe half and half, working on the book and freelancing.

I’d go in a couple weeks a month basically. When I finished the book I took stock. It was my first time back being full-time in the industry. So I’ve been editing Modern Painters for a little over a year.

DM: Are there any overarching themes or structural issues that you’re interested in in your work as the editor?

RC: It varies so much. I look first and foremost for good stories. That’s what I want. Things that haven’t been told. Interesting lives. Work that engages the world, reflecting the world in some way if it’s possible. You’re always trying to find a mix between things that your readers want and things that you think they should know, people you want to introduce them to. I would say it’s more like you just know it when you see it, when you find it, than that you go out looking for it.

DM: The text from the magazine that I read didn’t feel overwhelmed with jargon, it didn’t have that exclusivity.

RC: Which one did you read, do you remember?

DM: I read the Salle interview with Dana Schutz, I read your reviews – RC: Of course. The Salle and Schutz interview I think is really good. The reviews in the back are always a bit more varied… it’s criticism, it depends on the writer, some of them you get a bit more jargon than others; but as a whole I like it to be readable. That’s the goal. But not dumb. People who are reading an art magazine are usually pretty educated, they already know something about it if they’re picking it up in the first place. You can’t be news anymore in art magazines, you’ve got to find a way to be either analysis of a phenomenon and do a deeper look, or a feature, something that’s very nicely written that takes you into a place. You know I like that kind of thing. I like narratives, personally.

DM: Are you working on another book?

RC: Not right now. I’m thinking about it.

DM: So you have ideas percolating?

RC: Yeah, probably false starts, but I have a couple. I get torn because there are things that came out of that book, characters that were interesting that I want to revisit that sparked ideas for entire books. And then I also just don’t want to go back to Paris at the turn of the century.

THE BOOK DM: How did you come across the story and what attracted you to it?

RC: I’ve loved Rilke since I was 19, when I read “Letters to a Young Poet” for the first time. My mother gave me the book. I was finishing college and trying to figure out what to do with my life, sort of teenaged depressive or just kind of unsure where to go and what to do, and I read that book cover to cover immediately in one night and then I read it again and again and again. I still read it every maybe year or so.

And then later I became an art writer and separately heard that Rilke was a secretary of Rodin’s and I thought, that’s so weird, they don’t seem at all like congruous lifetimes and figures. I looked into it a little bit, I just looked at the dates and realized that he was in Paris with Rodin when

he started writing “Letters to a Young Poet,” and he was only 26 when he started writing that book. First I was shocked that he was so young and that he was meant to be the wise poet giving advice to a young poet, and then I thought if Rodin was his mentor. Rodin was his mentor, it turned out, for five years. Rilke went there first to write the book, then he came back to be his secretary.

The third time he came back they were more equals and friends. And so during that first stay he started writing the Letters. They come from Paris.

And I thought a lot of that must be coming from Rodin.

So I read his diaries from that time and his letters and compared them with “Letters to a Young Poet” and found traces of Rodin, and thought, what an amazing backstory to this book, that’s one of the most beloved and famous books of all time. So then I talked to my agent about it and he was like, “Yeah, great, do it.” And so it happened.

DM: Your book felt like an epic job of world-building. You had a lot of physical detail and time-specific detail. What was your process in fleshing out an abstract narrative into a highly visualized and physical phenomenon?

RC: For me what I found is that I would read the biographies, and there are many on both artists. Then I would read some of the literary criticism that put them in place and time, to just outline basically what happened when and the basic narrative structure. Then I would read books about Paris at the time to get a sense of what things smelled like there, what the streets looked like.

They would be books in no way related to Rilke or Rodin.

I read a book about the origins of zoos in Paris and what they meant, so I could try to imagine what the zoo looked like for Rilke or for Rodin even a couple decades later. I couldn’t even tell you what all the sources were, but a lot of historical, encyclopedic type of books, a lot about the architecture, a lot of the history of the redesigns of Paris and what that entailed. And then it was really just trying to get a picture in my head. And you try to imagine yourself on the street, looking around, and if there’s something you can’t place, if there’s an aspect like – where there trees? was there greenery around? or what was there? – you try to find a book that maybe showed pictures or stuff.

DM: I’ve noticed in books covering a historical period or an historical incident in the kind of detail that you have, some people go fully novelistic, some people give a kind of animated description of what can be obtained

from primary and secondary texts, and then there’s a kind of compromise that some authors strike between what can be plausibly described, and where you have to step back and say, “And here’s what we have from documents.” I saw you doing that a few times, and I was wondering to what extent that decision was a conscious choice for the structure of the book and how it developed as you were writing the book.

RC: Do you mean like saying whether we know this or we don’t know this?

DM: Yeah. “We don’t know who the girl was.” That kind of thing. Or you’ll have a vivid description of him sitting in a room, but then you’ll back up to a quotation from a letter, and you’re not going to say, “Here’s what he was thinking.” You’re switching idioms. You know, a more novelistic and then a more historiographic depiction.

RC: Yeah, that’s a really constant battle I think, because you want it of course to read like a novel. I would love if I could. But there are moments where you just can’t make it up, you just don’t know. I spent I don’t know how many hours trying to find out who that girl was in that passage, because Rilke says it’s his [Rodin’s] daughter, but then, he never had a daughter, so that’s impossible. And I couldn’t figure it out, but I really wanted to include that scene with her.

So I just thought for the sake of journalistic accuracy I just have to say, “We don’t know who it was.”

There’s a couple of other things. I think I say at one point – Rilke writes that really amazing letter after the ten days in Paris where he confesses to Rodin he’s not actually just there to write a monograph, he asks him, “How should I live?” I would have to say, “Well we don’t really know what Rodin replied.” Because we don’t have a reply. Probably he didn’t reply. You really want to know, “And then, what did he say?” But you have to back off. I’m a journalist first, by training, so I was always having to be in check. My editor was telling me to expand scenes and make them more novelistic or write more about the texture of a place or the characters. At first that was a little difficult for me, because I felt like I had to stick so much to the facts, and over time I allowed it to become more a narrative.

DM: It was very satisfying as a narrative. I mean it’s an exciting, page turner. So I felt like it succeeded in

that sense while clearly maintaining responsibility as a piece of research.

RC: Well, the good thing is that there’s a lot of material on these guys. They’re so hugely famous that I couldn’t even begin to read all of the books on them.

There’s a lot of material to work with, you just have to shape it. There was much less on Rodin’s inner life. We don’t know it as well, because he didn’t keep letters or diaries the way Rilke did. But that also works in the story because he becomes this cold, stoic, more exterior figure.

DM: I’ve always gotten a sense of him as an almost totally exteriorized person.

RC: Yeah. And he was a master of surfaces, so he kind of believed everything should live on the surface, everything you need to know about a sculpture you can see, the emotional expression should all come through… and that may be how he lived, a little bit. He didn’t say much, he felt like you could get everything you need to know just by watching him work. He did like to talk and he did interviews, but he only talked about his work.

DM: Your description of him is of a person almost completely unaware of their surroundings. Is that the impression you got from what people write about him?

RC: Yeah. Literally when he was working sometimes, that’s what people would say, they would be talking over here, and he would be looking at a nose or something and tinkering with it and just stop hearing them speak and tune them out. Or he would have models come in and then he would forget about them and they would just be sitting there for hours waiting and he would work all night long and never address them. He did have that aspect it seems. A workaholic, obsessive in his work. And he didn’t really care about anything else, it seems to me. Other than women who were not his wife, he didn’t really care.

DM: You know the early sculpture of her [Rodin’s wife Rose Beuret] and then the later sculpture of her, right? Like there’s one of her as an adorable peasant girl, and then the next sculpture you see she’s middleaged. It was kind of shocking how unaffectionate the later one was.

RC: Well he has this kind of funny saying, when he first met her he’s like, “I loved how strong and vigorous and hardy she looked,” almost like he gave her masculine attributes. That’s what he liked about her though, she looked like a peasant, like a hard-working peasant woman, and he’s like, “I was attracted to that immediately.” So it’s a weird thing where it seems unflattering, and yet that’s what he was drawn to. And he was kind of that way himself. He wasn’t quite a peasant, but he was a middleclass guy who believed strictly in labor and work and that was it. So they were kind of a good match in that way, she embodied those qualities for him.

DM: All I know is about her is him humiliating her with Camille Claudel.

RC: Yeah, he was not a good partner, that’s for sure. I mean, she endured a lot. Rilke has a beautiful description of her. He says that she was like a teacup held beneath a waterfall. That’s how she handled Rodin.

DM: That’s fantastic.

RC: Isn’t that great? That was what her life was, with Rodin. She was like his maid basically. First she was his studio assistant, then she modeled for him. She covered up the clay with wet cloths at night, she tended to all of that, and then also tended to the house, cooked and cleaned.

DM: Did she have suds on her arms that one time? Does Rilke mention it?

RC: Yeah! It’s in there. I think it’s a description Rilke writes. He writes about her, he doesn’t know who she is at first, and she’s got an apron and soap suds on her hands like a maid.

WOMEN IN THE WORLD OF RODIN AND RILKE DM: So let’s talk about the role of women in the lives of the characters.

RC: One of the most common comments I get about the book is that it has such great women characters and that it’s a feminist book, which is not anything that I set out to do writing a book about two dead white men, but I’m of course thrilled by that assessment. It just treats Clara Westhoff, who’s Rilke’s wife, as a real character and artist, which she was, and their mutual friend Paula

Modersohn-Becker, who was a brilliant painter, probably the most talented among that young group at the time, and she was a big figure in Rilke’s life also – and then also Camille Claudel and Rose Beuret, the wife of Rodin… it just basically treats them all as people. I don’t know why people keep talking about the women in the book, but I think it’s because Rilke and Rodin didn’t surround themselves with uninteresting women, they were drawn to accomplished, talented women, so they are interesting figures on their own.

Rilke met his wife in Worpswede, the artist colony. There was a group of them, it was Paula, and Otto Modersohn and Clara Westhoff. He first liked Paula, but then he eventually decided painting was an illusion and he didn’t like painting, he didn’t respect it, sculpture was the real; so then he was more interested in Clara, and Clara also knew Rodin. She was a student of Rodin’s in Paris and she introduced Rilke to Rodin. She’s a really interesting figure. Rilke left her right away, in Worpswede, and she took care of their daughter on her own while he was in Paris, and she was resentful of this. She also wanted to work and to be in Paris near Rodin. He was her idol too, more so probably. So she left the daughter behind for a while with her parents and she also traveled and worked.

Some of her sculptures today are in the Rodin Museum I believe. You can still see them, but she never had a huge amount of fame.

Paula Modersohn-Becker did, and it’s still ongoing.

I just saw a show of hers, it was at Galerie St. Etiene, here in New York, uptown, they show a lot of German Expressionist painters. Modersohn-Becker’s paintings are very flat-faced portraits, very round girls, it was this style of kind of peasant portraiture that was going on with this group. She was really interesting. She’s a tragic figure, because she was the best painter, and she also left her husband behind to go to Paris. Paris is where they were all going to work. She left her husband behind and tried to be a painter there, but her family disowned her and she ran out of money. No one would support her, so she ended up going back home where she got pregnant and died right after childbirth.

DM: That’s an awful story!

RC: I know. Rilke wrote one of his best works about her though, a really long poem, “Requiem for a Friend.” You should read it if you get a chance.

DM: I need to read Rilke in general. Have you read “The Invention of Morel”?

RC: No. DM: I just read it, it’s the book that “Last Year at Marienbad” was allegedly based on. I haven’t watched “Last Year at Marienbad,” all I know is the famous shot with the shadows. “Morel” itself is inspired by “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” the author [Adolfo Bioy Casares] was a protégé of Borges, who wrote the introduction to the book because he loved it. It’s about this guy who goes to an abandoned island, escaping from the law, and then finds it inhabited by what appear to be the ghosts of a number of wealthy vacation-goers, and the scenes he witnesses keep on repeating… it’s very short and extremely disturbing and it has to do with the transformation of things into images – you just reminded me of it talking about how, “Yes, she did die, but she has a fantastic poem.”

RC: Right, she got at least something out of it.

DM: Some compensation, yeah. I would think Alma Mahler would be a character in your book as well.

RC: She appears, briefly. She has a funny quote in there about how all of these young girls spend all of these thankless hours waiting for Rodin to – all of these models were just lined up, in their lipstick, waiting for him to grace them with his, his eyes I guess, I don’t know, and often he just forgets they’re there, they just sit there waiting forever and he doesn’t pay them any attention.

But she posed for him also. And she’s an amazing figure.

I wish she were in there more. Oh, and I can’t forget, if we’re going to talk about the women, I have to mention Lou Andreas-Salomé. Are you familiar with her at all?

DM: Very little.

RC: Salomé was Rilke’s first great love really, second maybe, and she’s known today as a muse mostly. Nietzsche called her the smartest woman he’d ever known. He tried to marry her, twice. She and Freud were good friends and they had a long correspondence. And Rilke. She was his first editor, and she told him his poems were too sappy and sentimental and he should man up a little. She also changed his name. His given name was René. She said that was too feminine, too French. She said he should have a strong, German name. That’s how he got Rainer.

That was all her doing. So she’s now known as this woman attached to all these celebrated male figures, but in the time she was a very celebrated thinker herself: a philosopher and a writer, a kind of feminist philosopher, and then later a psychoanalyst.

FIGURATIVE ART DM: If you have anything interesting to say about it, and you don’t necessarily need to, the focus of the issue is going to mostly be figurative paintings of women, primarily by women but also by men. Do you have anything to say about the state of the field or any thoughts that you want to share?

RC: It’s interesting to think about in the context of Rodin, in the way these shifts have evolved, and how when you look at Rodin today, I think a lot of it looks classical and it’s kind of so what, you’ve seen it a million times. You can’t even see it again. Take Michelangelo and Rodin, it’s like it’s a person’s body. But when you know how outrageous it was, the way that he made hands, or the disproportionate bodies, or these kind of lumpy figures, you know it really was revolutionary at the time and he was horrifically chastised for it, for both being too faithful to the body on the one hand, he was accused of casting his figures rather than sculpting them – DM: It was “The Age of Bronze” or something, right?

RC: Yeah, exactly. And then on the other hand accused of making disgusting… like the Balzac, a saggy, ugly figure.

And I think it would be so important for any students to look at the different kinds of figurative sculpture over time, just to see all the ways that the body was represented, and how that teaches you a great deal about history itself and the psychology of what was going on when the sculptor was working. How it manifested in the bodies of the art that was happening. So much of Rodin’s sense of the body represents what was happening with Nietzsche and Darwin and religion dying out and realism happening.

DM: Did you read “Rodin on Art,” the Paul Gsell book of interviews?

RC: Yeah yeah yeah.

DM: There’s a description there, and I have not read it in years, but it’s of a scientist I think named Berthelot

A CONVERSATION WITH RACHEL CORBETT Interviewed and Photographed by Daniel Maidman

– and this is Gsell writing, it’s not Rodin – he has this fantastic description of the dismay of modern man at the failure of God to explain the universe.

He’s a chemist or something, I don’t know what Berthelot did, but Gsell has this romantic vision of him as having looked into the mysteries of matter and found the Creator distressingly absent everywhere, and this darkness that’s descended on him, but this spirit of searching still animates him, and he pursues it even in the face of a certainty that he won’t get an answer. And he sees all this in the Rodin sculpture.

RC: That’s what he was saying that he feels Rodin feels?

DM: He sees that as the story that the sculpture tells. He’s walking around Rodin’s studio looking at different sculptures and writing beautiful descriptions of them. And it’s this riveting description of this one face that was obviously tilted down a bit and there was overhead light and his eyes were in shadow.

RC: Yeah, Rodin had kind of a scientific view: you start with a leaf, say, and then contemplate the leaf completely, and sculpt the leaf from every side and intimately know the leaf, searching for the truth of the leaf. And only then you move on to a tree, and then a hand, and then the body. It was kind of scientific, the process of observation, but also kind of god-like in a certain sense too.

DM: To me that’s a very mystical structure. That doesn’t make it less legitimate. I think that’s one of the very few ways to successfully learn to see, and learning to see is a process that takes many years.

RC: And it translated very well into poetry, for Rilke as a writing exercise too.

I think it’s the same thing. The lesson was “don’t write love poems,” don’t start there – start with describing a tree, or a panther, or something small in nature, and eventually, once you understand the essence of that thing, how it moves, how it operates in the world, then you can move on to bigger things.

Then you can get figurative sculptures and love poems and the big ideas. At least that was the lesson. I think there’s something to it.

Rachel Corbett’s first book, You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, was published by WW Norton in 2016. It will be released in paperback in October 2017.

Artist, teacher, and independent curator Alia El-Bermani paints the human figure as well as occasional still lifes and naturescapes. Her noteworthy figure paintings, expressed in an understated color palette and loose, flowing brushstrokes, present thought-provoking narratives in which the psychological depth of her subject is key. El-Bermani seeks to persuade the viewer to interpret the veiled meaning behind the visual narrative in order to discover an empathic connection with her subject matter.

El-Bermani’s painting entitled Hear Me is meant to hit the viewer over the head. A slender young African American woman with clenched eyes, tilted head, and the word “roar” shaved into her side hairs seems to scream—perhaps in anger, pain, or simply in feral frustration. The decorative background, delicately patterned yet nondescript, symbolizes the way in which western art often depicts women; as mere decorative, submissive, and silent objects of beauty. The jacquard brocade fabric represents oppression—creased, gradually unravelling at its edges, obviously past its useful prime. The intentionally strident contrast between the ‘pretty’ background and the unruly woman says it all, and even though the painting emits no sound it speaks volumes about the way in which women today are breaking free from the shackles of sociocultural norms regarding beauty standards and appropriate feminine behavior.

ALIA EL-BERMANI

Hear Me | oil on aluminum panel | 40x30 | 2017

Natalie Holland, born in St. Petersburg, Russia, is a classically trained artist. After graduating from the Russian Academy of Arts she relocated to Norway and later moved to London, fascinated by its multicultural diversity, cosmopolitanism, and dynamic art scene.

Natalie Holland is best known for her traditional figure paintings, often portraying everyday people she discovers in her neighborhood. Her captivating symbolic figurative work focuses on contemporary societal narratives such as feminism, human rights, religion, and today’s sociopolitical challenges.

Holland’s poignant painting Light Warriors depicts a Caribbean woman who single-handedly raises her two sons while running her own local business. Holland was inspired by the woman’s dignified posture, her colorful attire, and tangible inner strength. Observing the trio waiting for a bus one evening, Holland was struck by the way the boys—playing with light sabers—leaned against their mother, and how her body language and facial expression show the indispensable courage, strength, and wisdom to raise her children well. Holland’s tableau exquisitely portrays this mother’s hopes and dreams for her children’s future and the affectionate devotion which sustains her through life’s recurring struggles, capturing all the qualities of a great warrior.

NATALIE HOLLAND

Light Warriors | oil on dibond | 24x20 | 2017

ERIN ANDERSON

Elisabeth as Warrior T H E E L I S A B E T H R A M FJ O R D I N T E R V I E W EA: You are a businesswoman and an entrepreneur

and multifaceted psychological dynamics. Do you

practice of art making in your life. What (or who)

emotional connection to the subject or is it a

but you started as a creative and still foster the

were your biggest inspirations when you were young and how did these influences help shape the

find you choose work based primarily on your combination of factors?

direction you took later in life?

I always choose artworks and artists that l love,

ER :When l was young l wanted to be a fashion

with the artists, show and promote their work.

designer and started working at a clothing store at

the age of 15. The store was run by a young couple,

a French designer and his wife who was a former supermodel. I got a chance to be an assistant to

a designer, participate at fashion fairs and they even used me as a model. I worked for them for 3 years and they taught me almost everything l know

about customer service and what it’s like to run a store. They were definitely my biggest inspiration

otherwise it’s difficult to both work together It is really a balance between my rational and my

sensory abilities! Nevertheless I must admit that my cognitive reaction to an artwork, often is the

winner, although quality is never to be neglected.

The last factor is very important to me.

EA: Do you mind sharing what artists you’ve included in your personal collection?

early in my career.

ER: Oh, I have several, both abstract and

EA: You designed and made clothes when you were

Aron Wiesenfeld , Alexandra Niemzcyk, Gabriel

younger. How did you want people to feel in your

clothes? Do you ever find these early intentions inform and shape the artwork that you both make and are drawn to?

ER: It was a short career. I drew and made my own clothes when l was a teenager, and started out as a sort of multi-artist. I think that everything

combined shaped my future works, as an artist.

My aim was to convey my creativity and the

figurative. Just to name drop some; Lene Kilde, Schmitz, Ingebjørg Støyva, Audun Grimstad....

EA: The premise of the WAW show is to dedicate the exhibition to the woman who symbolizes a hero among champions. I see any female entrepreneur taking risks and succeeding in her

field as a hero and a champion. What would you tell young women today about having the courage to follow their dreams?

customers satisfaction, which still is one of my

ER: I have given advice to young women to dare

feeling of making someone happy.

ability to realize them, but not be too impatient

main motivations as a gallerist. I still love the

The work you choose in your gallery is often reminiscent of the inner life, emotional layering

to stand out and believe in their dreams and their about reaching their targets. I don´t see myself as

any kind of hero or champion, but I have a number

of situations where I have found the right balance

gallery business. Has it ever seemed difficult to be a

to mobilize enough courage to implement it anyway.

female gender roles often prevail?

between my own feeling of fear related to risks, and After all, it is at the border of your comfort zone, that

strong woman in a world culture where traditional

usually great things happen! I think that those who

ER: Starting a business is risky anyhow, for both men

pace and a great passion for my work as a gallerist.

in your own capabilities. And be able to work hard

know me well, regard me as a risk taker, with a high

I am lucky to be able to work with something I feel a true inner motivation to succeed with, so it is not difficult for me to mobilize passion for my work. But l

have to admit that it took me almost 10 years to build up the courage to say (and mean it) that l don’t care

what other people think and that l will keep following my heart! Next year l will have been running the gallery for 20 years.

I will encourage others to move patiently forward

and women, but you have to have a strong belief

and truly believe in what you do. I really don´t see any limitations regarding traditional female gender to show more self confidence, although I have great

respect for women who choose the more traditional role in life.

EA: As a gallery owner and an artist, what advice do

you have for artists who are getting started in their careers?

with work they really feel passion for. My best advice:

ER: As mentioned, I would encourage them to believe

night, and if it does it usually doesn’t last. Don’t

Define your style and what you want to express,

Work hard and be patient, success doesn’t come over

undermine yourself and don’t give up when you meet resistance. Don’t team up with people with negative energy. Find your weakness and don’t be afraid to ask

for help, you cannot be good at everything. And last: Be visible on social media!

EA: The depiction of a woman warrior can come in many forms, what most conveys the image of a strong woman to you?

in their work and show great passion. Be patient. and always try to develop yourself, so you don´t risk stagnation. Work hard and don’t give up, take a NO

with pride and keep working even if it is difficult.

The “stayers” are the ones that often make success in the end. Establish a relationship with a gallerist

or agent who wishes to contribute to your success, with marketing and introduction to collectors and

galleries internationally. Stay visible, if not in public, be visible in social media!

Difficult question! I think a strong woman has the

EA: Do you find the personal balance between

weakness, and despite the fact that not everybody

times where the pull to satisfy one or the other is

courage to be open about her own vulnerability and else loves to see you succeed, fights her own fear and

brings forward courage to move on in the direction of

entrepreneur and creative difficult? Are there ever distracting or is it a more synergistic dynamic?

her dreams. A strong woman doesn’t get too affected

ER: The balance is always difficult, mainly because

and dreams.

background as an artist to be able to have a “tribal

by others, but dares to believe in her own capabilities

It takes considerable determination and grit to start

any business from the ground up let alone a successful

time is a limited resource. But I am happy to have a

language” with the artists and better understand their

struggle and wishes. I always Wish l had more time to paint though....it’s a kind of meditation for me!

BRETT HARVEY

Overflowing |Gypsum cement and weathering steel | 15.5x21x17

DANIELA KOVACIC

The Knowledge | oil on canvas | 60x48 | 2017

Chilean figure painter Daniela Kovačić examines sociocultural topics, such as self-identity and collective identity, through her paintings of women and children. Her striking portraits focus on the gaze and body language of her subjects casually placed in commonplace settings, revealing her keen interest in psychology and human nature. Kovačić’s dynamic compositions—handled in a realistic, painterly style—are built up in strong, loose brushstrokes with a keen eye for lighting and a subtle color palette, emphasizing the atmosphere of the gripping narrative.

Kovačić’s poignant painting, entitled The Knowledge, depicts a fragile-looking pubescent girl sitting cross-legged on the floor while she plays with a set of half opened Matryoshka dolls. In the throes of adolescence and its drastic physical changes, this child represents all women. Symbolized by the nesting dolls, she is her grandmother, her mother, herself, and her future daughter simultaneously, carrying parts of each within herself. Gazing directly at the viewer, the girl seems to glow with the knowledge that we are all one, and that the strength in every woman simply lies in being born a woman—and that, like all women, she will have to become a warrior.

Judy Takács is a figure painter who captures her subject matter with painterly brushstrokes based upon the tenets of realism, skillfully honoring her chosen medium, oils. Takács favorite color, red, often functions as a foundation for her supports on which she masterfully creates skin tones that bring her subjects to life. She seeks to capture her subject matter with empathy and a bit of irony in order to express reality, tell a story, and convey shared human struggles.

Usually, Takács’ models are strong, mature women with expressive facial features to help impart her striking visual ideas.

Takács’ enchanting portrait of her muse Kim, entitled Lady in Waiting, depicts a slender redheaded woman poised for a fight, adroitly set against a bright red background which echoes the color of the vintage boxing gloves—symbolizing both weapon and protection. The figure is calmly poised; her body language conveys she’s ready to fight, yet her composed, dignified expression reveals her penchant for negotiation and persuasion. Lady in Waiting represents the restrained rage most feminists feel when our rights are threatened and violated, as well as our desire for nonviolent, rational solutions— she’s the personification of the peace-loving warrior.

JUDY TAKACS

Lady In Waiting |oil on linen | 36x24 | 2016

NICOLE ALGER

Talking Stick |oil on canvas | 30x36.5 | 2013

RICHARD PRICE

Athena |oil, acrylic, transfer | 38x38 | 2017

GRACE CAVALIERI

Athena’s Dirty Little Secret “I have brought an army of angels to bring the settlers home safe I’ve battled all love that’s not of use and lain under men until they were slain by other men I turned a cobbled walk into a stream of gold I’ve worn a white flash suit to prevent explosions on earth I’ve taken the moon and held it like desire hot in my hand I’ve posed as your confident so that I could keep you safe All these thing to make happiness my journey of strength All these things to guarantee I do not disappoint the gods as A Woman And as A Woman I proved that an abyss is merely from looking down at jagged rocks yet from that place I opened the windows of clouds from a high tower and saw

caught as I am in midair

as the goddess of power

that the green stands still on earth

the geese are clucking

I saw the empty boots from children left beside the stair I saw them coming up the hill toward me I saw that this is what I wanted all along to pour the milk

to open the door

I wanted to be there.”

Grace Cavalieri’s forthcoming book is Other Voices, Other Lives, a compendium of poems, plays and interviews (Alan Squire Publishers.) Five Cavalieri poetry books have been published by GOSS183.

JANICE BOND

awakening. (from the series, Beyond the Binary) | photo on aluminum | 8x10 | 2017

NINA COVINGTON

Machisma Portrait of Chelsie |digital photography |20x16 on metal | 2017

Nina Covington—photographer, activist, and provocateur—gives voice to those who step in front of her camera by capturing their personal narratives in a compassionate way in order to highlight social issues and injustices. Covington is a strong visual storyteller whose remarkable images show unvarnished, honest, oftentimes dark realities, yet also reveal profound beauty, both on a visual as well as an emotional level.

Covington’s digital photograph entitled Portrait of Chelsie is part of her series Machisma which celebrates the strength and power of women by exposing the beauty that lies both in their femininity and masculinity.

This visual dichotomy seeks to examine archaic gender norms our society has yet to eradicate. Evocative of a Rembrandt, the masterly lighting in this black-and-white portrait creates an exquisite chiaroscuro, inviting the viewer to see the often-overlooked splendor of this seminude model, to interpret her haunting expression, and feel her soaring strength—she is, without a doubt, a true warrior.

The Australian artist Debra Livingston expresses herself using both traditional and digital mediums, placing a creative emphasis on photography. Through her hauntingly expressive images Livingston seeks to describe biographical narratives that are insightful, evocative, and transcend time and place.

For the Woman as Warrior exhibition, Livingston created a complementary pair of photographs representing the iconic fictional superhero Wonder Woman, respectively entitled She returns late at night and Wonder Woman, Warrior. The photographs were created by using skillful lighting to achieve a subtle chiaroscuro while maintaining high chroma, and then digitally constructed to convey a symbolic narrative.

The stunning model—respectively shown with and without costume—represents self-expression, individual choice, and independence from complex sociocultural traditions. There’s palpable strength in these striking images which convey the principle that beauty is never an invitation to possess or objectify. They symbolize the universal potential of women to determine their own destiny using their personal abilities, strengths, and talents.

DEBRA LIVINGSTON

Wonder Woman Warrior with Raven | digital photograph printed on canvas | 24x34 | 2017

YUNIOR HURTADO TORRES

La Maravillosa forma de ser quien soy yo | oil on canvas | 6.5x4 ft | 2017

ZOR ZOR ZOR

Though It Is Still Hurting Me, It Is History Now |matt inkjet print on photo paper | 36x24 | 2016

ALEXIS RHONE FANCHER

At Eighteen When I wanted to be seen When I danced out to the edge When I was so afraid to love When I longed to be a Marilyn When I slept my way to the top When I opened my legs but not my heart When I shouted at my mother over dinner: When I grow up I’ll be somebody, not like you.

When I took a lover twice my age When I told him I wanted photos wearing only my grandmother’s ruby necklace When he shot me, butt-naked on my mother’s oriental rug When I went home to flaunt the affair When I fluttered a cache of the photos onto her bed When she walked to her closet and opened the bottom drawer Alexis Rhone Fancher is the author of How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), and Enter Here (2017).

She is published in The Best American Poetry, 2016, Rattle, Slipstream, Plume, Nashville Review, Hobart, The MacGuffin, Diode, concis, decomP, and elsewhere.

Her photos are published worldwide. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. She lives in Los Angeles.

When she handed me a large, blue envelop When I looked at photos of my mother, naked, her young face wicked, movie-star dreamy, When I recognized the girl who wore only a ruby necklace and looked like she had plans even bigger than mine When she said, I was only sixteen. He was forty.

OMALIX

Omalix paints the female figure with an emphasis on a personal narrative through which she explores her emotions and experiences—those which she

cannot express in any other way. Her classical, highly skilled approach to textures and details reflects her love for realism. Despite high detail, she aims

for visible brush strokes that retain evidence of the presence of her hand. Omalix strongly believes that the act of painting always translates into a form of self-portraiture, whether she paints herself or a model.

Solitude Not Loneliness | oil on cradled wood panel | 36x24 | 2017

WOMAN AS WARRIOR NATASHA KERTES STEPHEN WRIGHT YUNIOR HURTADO TORRES ASTRID RITMEESTER JENNIFER BALKAN DONNA BATES LEEANNA CHIPANA NATALIA FABIA DEBRA LIVINGSTON SHANA LEVENSON DEBRA BALCHEN FELICE HOUSE GARY JUSTIS MARCO GALLOTTA RAYMOND THORNTON VICTORIA SELBACH CARMEN CHAMI SYLVIA MAIER MATTHEW CHERRY SUZANNE ANAN ERIN ANDERSON EVA MUNDAY PAOLA ESTRELLA ANA KANE HEIDI ELBERS MICHAEL VAN ZEYL ALIA EL-BERMANI OMALIX NATALIE HOLLAND ELIZABETH CLAIRE OSPINA DANIELA KOVACIC JUDY TAKACS NICOLE ALGER RICHARD PRICE JANICE BOND NINA COVINGTON BRETT HARVEY DANIEL MAIDMAN KRISTINA SAFONOVA