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The World of Ed Heck Music, Art, Literature & Luggage

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ED HECK

Ed Heck at Galerie Mensing, Berlin

26 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

From Near-Extinction to Super Distinction Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 27

Monster Guitar

Up Against the Wall, Sabre Tooth

og by dog, creature by creature, with each new painting Ed Heck is getting closer and closer to his stated (tongue-incheek) goal of (art) world domination. Not since the heyday of Erté, Warhol or Peter Max has an artist cut such a wide swatch across multiple elements of commerce internationally. Heck hasn’t crossed over, he’s taken over, and done it with a smile, true humility and impeccable artistic credentials. At first glance, one might take a look at a gallery full of Ed Heck’s work and call to mind the immortal words of the legendary Popagandist Ron English who actually staged a notorious Soho exhibition called “Hey, my kid could do that.” In pairing the work of his artist friends with their progeny, English threw his dagger at the establishment and had a lot of fun at the opening with the families. That was a few years before Ed Heck took one of his self-described “child-like doodles” to the School of Visual Art’s silk-screen facility and made a print that became the amoeba in the evolution of what would become The World of Ed Heck. Ed Heck’s arrival on the scene was not announced with trumpets blaring or rockets red-glaring, rather it was painted into existence, unfolding like a sunrise. It happened for him in the course of a four day Artexpo, at the Javits Center, New York City, 1999, the Capital of the Art World. Fast forward to early 2012. Ed is standing in front of the Mona Lisa, at the Louvre, Paris, France. He had just finished another whirlwind sold-out tour of Galerie Mensing’s chain of locations in Germany (Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf and beyond). The September, 2011 show was so popular, they called him back for another run in February. “They started carrying my work about five years ago,” Ed was saying shortly after returning from his most recent trip. “Progressively it was getting a little more popular. The gallery owner, Harry Mensing, said I did better than any artist they had there, including Britto, for first time out. In one hour last September, Berlin and Hamburg sold everything. It is still going really well and they asked me to come back a little sooner. I can hardly keep up with the demand.” Over 200 pieces have sold there since September, and Heck came back with forty + commissions, and just received a note asking for 30 more paintings. “People want special things in a painting, for example, their dogs, or if one thing was sold that they liked, they request similar one on the same theme. For some reason, Germany is really big on the dog pictures. People ask me, ‘Why do you always do dogs?’ I didn’t always do dogs though I always had them as pets. ‘Whose dog is that 28 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Greetings

By VICTOR FORBES

you’re painting?’ The main one is the generic Ed Heck dog, I don’t do specific breeds.” Heck never set out to be strictly a painter of man’s best friend, but after his first canine painting sold within a day of being placed a New York gallery’s window, the Director called the artist saying, ‘I need another dog!’” and it took off from there. “I actually enjoy doing them,” continued Ed. “Dogs kind of show their emotions and you can play with that. In Germany they really love the dogs and it just connected. The first two trips, we ran out, so this time I brought plenty. Fortunately, they like my other stuff also.” Meanwhile, back at the Louvre and the Mona Lisa… “I got there early, had a good 10-15 minutes alone with her except for the guards, then the place got mobbed. I left her and walked down the halls, seeing all of these pictures on the walls that I have only seen in books.” Safely ensconced back in his Greenpoint, Brooklyn, studio (“I was born here and just waited. It has become the new Village”) Heck is preparing for the next round of activity—TV shows, all kinds of books, luggage, linens, pet toys, Drum City and who knows what else. But it is the paintings that drive the machine and there is no compromise or shortcut in their execution. Meeting the orders from Germany and preparing for Spring 2012 Artexpo, Ed works in an old industrial building that has been converted to artist studios. He recently doubled his space and is about to expand again. “I found out if you give up sleeping that adds a little more time. I’m a one-man band and know I can’t do that anymore.” For 16 years, Ed Heck held down what most in the field would consider a dream job: staff illustrator at the American Museum of Natural History—salary, benefits, security. Heck’s particular assignment was that of a scientific illustrator specializing in fossil renderings and dinosaur reconstructions. One afternoon, on a research and development excursion, Ed and a fellow worker went to the movies. Jurassic Park had just been released and the two felt a field trip to the local Loew’s Paramount would be instructional, if not inspirational. In a circuitous way, it was because when they left the theatre in the glowing late afternoon sunlight streaming down the West 57th Street canyon, Heck came to the realization that he would soon be going the way of the creatures he immortalized if he didn’t somehow adapt. “They don’t need us to draw dinosaurs anymore. They just made live ones,” he told his partner on the way back to the Museum. At night to unwind from the rigors of his job, Ed would fill scrapbook after scrapbook with his whimsical exercises. His desire

Ed Heck Lookin’ Cool before Bath Time at Galerie Mensing, Berlin

was to draw like a child. “When I was younger my mother had this old Bible with detailed etchings, and I would pick out the hardest one and copy it. I always loved children’s drawings, and envied their freedom to paint as they want to, outside the boundaries of art-world standards. If you ask a youngster if they can draw that, they say ‘Sure.’ Then we are told things have to be and look a certain way. I was teaching myself how to draw like a young child without any care of what people would think.” Putting aside his adult artists’ ego, he declared his artistic independence. “Knowing no one would see them, I felt free to do what I wanted to do.” He executed hundreds of these self-described “doodles” over the years but in actuality felt like he “didn’t even do them. I don’t know where half of them came from, probably my subconscious. You can’t pre-conceive something people will like. ” These little drawings took on a pivotal role in his life shortly after his epiphany at the movies. Rather than fall victim to the Tyrannosaurus Blues, Ed decided to take a course at his Alma mater in preparation for the 1999 Artexpo, where he planned to take a booth and test the waters. “I didn’t know what I would show there, so I decided to learn the silk-screen process.” While coaxing the

ink-laden squeegee over the hand-drawn screen on to a sumptuous sheet of rag paper, Heck had what he calls “a religious experience” as he pulled his first print. The instructor, Donald Sheridan, told him, “The things you are putting together in class you could sell today.” In preparation for his initial foray into the artworld, Heck took his self-described “oddball art with brilliant color and bright fun,” to Excel Fine Art on Columbus Avenue to get framed and it was here that he met Tom Winer, who echoed the silk-screen instructors sentiments. “Where did you get these,” he wanted to know. “They’re mine!” Heck replied and Tom asked if he could put some of the work on display. “One of the dogs went in the window and a couple of days later he sold it and asked for more.” Further heeding his instructor’s advice, “That drawing would make a great painting,” Ed completed a few and marched them into the neighborhood art gallery to get framed where musicianturned-gallery director Tom Winer was employed. He recalls their first meeting. “I immediately saw that his work was, in my opinion, extremely appealing, that he had superstar qualities and it was just a matter of Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 29

Heck, ’Expo and Appice BUILDING DRUM CITY

Carmine Appice & Ed Heck

Drum City This is one place of which it can be truly said, “We built this city on Rock and Roll.” Ed Heck’s collaboration with the world-famous drummer Carmine Appice (who jump-started “hard rock” with the Vanilla Fudge) fits right in with his interest in music (he played in bands through high school). “Carmine’s girl friend, Leslie Gold, the Radio Chick, brought him to Artexpo where Paul Stanley from KISS was exhibiting across from me. ‘Hey, you want to do something?’ he said and he came to my studio about a week later and we created the first piece together. ” Recalls Carmine of their initial interaction, “Ed asked me if I painted and I said ‘No, but I can draw drums.’ He gave me a pad and showed me what to do. First we did a self -portrait. Then a piece called Drum Head, which had my portrait inside a drum. We sold a few of these then I came up with a whole idea of a city made of drums and other famous place like Stonehenge (as Drumhenge), The Pyramids and Moon Landing all made of drums. Eventually we will have a collection of 24 such paintings of world landmarks created of drums. I look forward to finishing this. Ed is an incredible talent and I love working with him. He is like family to us and a close friend. I am really happy things are happening for him.” “We are looking for gallery spaces now to plan some exhibits of the Appice/ Heck work,” said the artist.

time before it would happen for him with enormous potential. I hung one of paintings in the window and the response was immediate, really quite amazing. He had that special magic that we in the commercial art business – whether it is music or anything else – just dream of and it turned out to be true for Ed. “Ed has a combination that rarely exists – that special amalgam of ingredients that touch people in more than an art way. Psychologically, emotionally, intellectually, it’s all there and I believe that’s a big part of his success.” Sure enough, Heck outsold every other emerging artist the gallery represented and that success led him to the Artexpo shortly thereafter. As it opened, Ed was just hoping the management wouldn’t, in his words, “throw him out” of the show when they saw his actual exhibition. Instead, the opposite happened. Attendees 30 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

were crowding around his booth, buyers from near and far. “Do you have a catalogue?” they seemed to shout in unison. A neophyte in the business of art, he printed no literature (“My walls are the catalog”). He just hung his prints and paintings and “Holy Art Fair, Batman”, somebody got the joke. Everything sold, with orders and commissions for more. After one art fair, Ed was a made man. “I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a really big hit; I was overwhelmed by the response. From there, it all just snowballed.” The World of Ed Heck went from seedling to Redwood forest just like that. Stranger things have happened, yet there is no need to elaborate “The comment I get most often from people is, ‘Your work makes me smile.’ I can’t ask for anything more than that.” During the first Artexpo, Ed’s wife was pregnant with their

Taxi Dog

Bull’s Eye

Air Guitar

Monster Drums Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 31

The Ed Heck Collection

first son and he had a good job… “A job you could have for life, but I really enjoyed doing this stuff and wanted to take the plunge. I didn’t know what to expect and was overwhelmed, not prepared for the response. I knew I couldn’t do both — there’s not enough time in the day — so I had to make a decision.” A little while later, Heck left the Museum even though his wife was pregnant with their second son. “I could have retired out,” he said. “There’s a fine line between boldness and stupidity. Thankfully it worked out for the best. I am lucky and grateful that people are attracted to what I ended up doing. “I’m having fun,” he continues. “Meeting so many different people is one of the best things about it. One of the things I really enjoy is that it can go into so many areas.” He was recently in Las Vegas at the Travel Show to unveil a line of luggage coming out with American Flyer where Celia Liang, vice president of product development and design on the Ed Heck collection for American Elite Inc. stated, “Ed Heck is an extremely talented artist and his unique style and approach to art make this collaboration exciting.” The Ed Heck line of bedding and textiles for Maine Street Living is expected to be at U.S. mass retailers at the end of the third quarter. The collection will feature Heck’s artwork from his books and paintings with rollout events that will include art displays and book signings. Heck has written and illustrated numerous children’s books for Penguin, starting with Big Fish, Little Fish and the company has the Ed Heck Just Board line which includes these six titles to date: Good Night Dog, Monster Opposites, Many Marvelous Monsters, Shape Up Pup, ABCD Eat, and Color by Penguins. In addition, he is in negotiations with Harry Potter’s publisher, Scholastic, for more projects. Heck also works with a popular children’s performer, Kimmy Schwimmy, drawing all of her characters for print and TV, even animating her songs. The characters she created have been made into puppets for the live shows and DVD by the artist. 32 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Kimmy Schwimmy and Ed Heck

“People, most of the time, buy visual art for emotional reasons. To me, art is theatre, and with Ed, if he was a performer, he’d be a mime, because a mime has to impart a message without using words, in a very simple way. It’s a special craft and Ed is like that. His work is very powerful, very succinct and in the simplest conceivable way has the greatest impact. That is the greatest gift when you are an artist. He’s very unique and his success is predicated largely on that: anybody can appreciate what he does, whether you’re an intellectual or not, anybody can get it. I believe that he can go much father as an artist in terms of his messaging if he chooses to. He can become an important artist, even in the litany of fine art. It’s not just about sales, it’s about profundity. He has enormous talent—he has the skills of a photo realist. In music we call it chops and he has incredible chops. I think Ed could be as big an artist as anybody out there.” For further information, visit www.edheck.com

ZALUSKI’S HUMANSHPERE rolled into Chelsea during Armory Arts Week, New York City

The Armory Show’s splendiferous designer of the “Waterfront Lounge on Pier 92” Tucker Robbins, and Dr. Bob Baker take a breather

Leslee and David Rogath of Chalk + Vermilion and Martin Lawrence Galleries

Amsterdam artist Sophie Walraven and Fine Art Editor-in-Chief Victor Forbes

Dr. Bob Baker, Carla Baker at the Michael Schultz Gallery

PHOTOS BY JAMIE ELLIN FORBES

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF VICTOR BENNETT FORBES victor@fineartmagazine.com

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SPECIAL THANKS MARILYN GOLDBERG, ED HECK, SAMIR SAMMOUN, DR. ROBERT BAKER, DR. MOSES HERKELIAN, PAUL ELMOWSKY, RICHARD FORBES, STEVE ZALUSKI, ITA BULLARD,

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ITA BULLARD creates original art with an eclectic mix of techniques and absolutely no pretension. Her muses have come from deep within her spirit to find fulfillment through many years of dedication to authenticity and honesty of expression. Ms. Bullard was born in Paris in 1940. As a Jew in occupied France, she spent the first years of her life in hiding with her family. At the age of 21 Ita left France bound for New York City. In 1967, she met an ambitious and charismatic business entrepreneur. The two shared a life together for 35 years. While she assisted him with a plethora of successful ventures as partner/secretary/treasurer/family manager and companion, Ita found time and the space to begin creating her collection of oil, water color, acrylic, gouache and sculpture that now number over 100 pieces. Wanting to expand her artistic creativity, she left her New York City penthouse life and traded it for the quiet serenity of Lake Champlain, situated in the Adirondack Park region of upstate New York. Her new home and studio/ gallery are located on Valcour Bay across from Valcour Island one of the more famous locations in Revolutionary War history, where Benedict Arnold delayed the British advance in 1776 which led to the British defeat at Saratoga in 1777. Ms. Bullard participates in various community projects, ranging from hosting Chamber of Commerce meetings to benefits for the local PBS and has donated numerous paintings for fund raising auctions for PBS and various other local and national/international charities

Michael Jackson Blue, 36 x 42, oil on linen

More than seventy years after his death, the recently canonized Brother André Bessette, C.S.C., remains beloved for his mercy to the sick, for his devotion to St. Joseph, and for his role in the construction of the majestic Oratory of St. Joseph in Montréal, which continues to be visited by millions of pilgrims each year. Pope John Paul II lauded Brother André as a “man of prayer and friend of the poor who led a life dedicated to the relief of human suffering.” Ita Bullard recently painted the face and hands of Brother André to complete this stained glass window donated by Don Strack to the St. Alexander Roman Catholic Church in Morisonville, NY.

Tulips, 24 x 36, oil on linen

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT italew@msn.com 6 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

PHOTO BY JOSHUA KRETSER www.PODSTUDIONY.com

ITA BULLARD

Little Boy Waiting for Food, 48 x 48, oil on linen

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Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 1

John Chamberlain, Photo: Robert McKeever, courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Guggenheim’s Chamberlain Retrospective Explores Six Decades of Masterful Work The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents John Chamberlain: Choices, a comprehensive examination of the work of the late John Chamberlain and the first U.S retrospective since 1986. Comprising approximately one hundred works, John Chamberlain: Choices examines the artist’s development over a sixty-year career, exploring the shifts in scale, materials, and techniques informed by the assemblage process that was central to his working method. The exhibition presents works from Chamberlain’s earliest monochromatic iron sculptures and experiments in foam, Plexiglas, and paper, to his final large-scale foil pieces, which have never been shown in the United States. Chamberlain was first celebrated at the Guggenheim in a 1971 retrospective. “One day something—some one thing—pops out at you, and you pick it up, and you take it over, and you put it somewhere else, and it fits. It’s just the right thing SPHINXGRIN TWO, 2010, at the right moment. You can do the same thing with words or with Aluminium 192 7/8 x 165 3/8 x 145 5/8 metal,” Chamberlain has stated. Fit and choice have rightly become inches (490 x 420 x 370 cm) the guiding principles for Chamberlain’s work. His respect for the Private collection Installation view: John material’s inherent properties informs the multiplicity of his forms, Chamberlain: Choices, the simplicity of his process, and the work’s complex underpinnings. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February 24 - May The title of the Guggenheim’s exhibition pays tribute to the artist’s 13, 2012 process of active selection, or choosing, that is fundamental to his © 2011 John Chamberlain / Artists Rights Society (ARS), practice. The exhibition is organized by Susan Davidson, Senior New York Curator, Collections and Exhibitions. For more information www. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim guggenheim.org Foundation

8 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

My Identity

Seeking Shambhala: The Quest for Perfect Peace, At Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The search for the utopian realm of Shambhala, also sometimes known as “Shangri-La,” has captured the imagination of people for thousands of years. Be it a state of mind or an actual place somewhere in Central Asia, this legendary kingdom is said to be ruled by a lineage of 32 mythological kings who are protectors of Tibetan Buddhist texts. Shambhala is a fabulous kingdom hidden by mist and a ring of snow covered mountains, where the rulers safeguard the Kalachakra Tantra, sacred teachings about the “Wheel of Time” that, through practice and meditation, allow one to achieve enlightenment. The texts also foretell of a world that descends into chaos and war, and of one king who will emerge after the apocalypse to restore order and The Shambhala in Modern Times, 2008, Gonkar Gyatso prosperity in the year 2424. “I am always delighted by opportunities to bring to light paintings from our collections that have not been readily exhibited,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “Asian Conservation has breathed new life and energy into these magnificent kings by returning the paintings to their original regal and glorious formats. By combining this 17th-century set with contemporary art by Gonkar Gyatso and Tadanori Yokoo, new connections are formed. Our visitors will be pleasantly surprised by the symbolism, color, and brilliance of this exhibition.” For more, www.mfa.org

The Fifth Dharma (Religious) King of Shambhala, Sureshvara II (Divine King), Tibetan, second half of the 17th century Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 9

Women’s Studio Workshop Growing Their Outreach Programs Women’s Studio Workshop is a visual arts organization with specialized studios in printmaking, hand papermaking, ceramics, letterpress printing, photography, and book arts. Artists are invited to work at WSW as a part of our Fellowship Program, Artists’ Books Grants, Residencies, Internships, or to learn new skills in our Summer Arts Institute and community workshop series whose mission is to operate and maintain an artists’ workspace that encourages the voice and vision of individual women artists, to provide professional opportunities for artists, and to promote programs designed to stimulate public involvement, awareness, and support for the visual arts. www.wsworkshop.org

WSW co-founder and Artistic Director Tatana Kellner (second from right, in the purple) leads a workshop on monopriting and encaustic during WSW’s Summer Arts Institute (SAI). Each summer during SAI, WSW hosts over 20 two to five day intensive workshops in papermaking, screen printing, letterpress, intaglio, encaustic, and book arts.

2012 Artist-in-Residence Beka Goedde in WSW’s papermaking studio. WSW supports women artists in all stages of their careers.

Jen Blazina (far left) silkscreens wallpaper, with help from WSW’s Chris Petrone, Terez Iacovino, and Kristen DeGree (left to right). WSW supports women artists in all stages in their careers through Fellowships, Artists’ Books Grants, and Residencies, through which artists have access to WSW’s specialized studios in printmaking, papermaking, ceramics, letterpress printing, photography, and book arts.

Jamie Eva Forbes, Board Members Richard Forbes and Robert Stack and Jamie Ellin Forbes

Chili Bowl Shoppers at WSW, Annual Chili Bowl Event 10 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

WSW fund-raising dinner, at Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, NY

Hand-made books and hand-made paper on view.

SAMIR SAMMOUN Extolling the Virtues of Peace Via A Life in the Arts “Sammoun has indeed built upon history to develop a personal style that is reflective of his inner being. Nothing is held back by these emotionally charged canvases that capture the essence of Nature as recreated by Man, in this instance Samir Sammoun. — Constance Schwartz, Director and Curator Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York

By VICTOR FORBES

ne of the most sought after and beloved artists working in North America today, Lebanese-born Montréal-based Samir Sammoun closed out 2011 with a sold-out collection at Boston’s prestigious Galerie D’Orsay. Featured in the exhibition were Sammoun’s masterful works on canvas of olive groves, fields of flowers and cityscapes along with his new bronze Olivier I, a self-contained prototype of his vision to develop this sculpture of Samir Sammoun at his sold-out exhibition at Galerie D’Orsay, Boston, MA, a singular tree into a series of life-size replications to be installed as symbols of peace in public parks and gardens around the world. was a rendition of an olive grove from his father’s land, a 48” x 72” “Sammoun’s body of work is an in-depth depiction of the canvas that was shown to great acclaim at the International Artexpo connections he makes between his long-time residence in Montréal in New York City. Introduced to the work at this major art fair, Roslyn (New York) Museum Director and Chief Curator Constance and birth and childhood in Lebanon. Painting and sculpture emerge Schwartz went on to compose these words in the introduction to as statements of common familiarity to be shared by all. His admirers Sammoun’s monograph, aptly entitled Walking With Giants: “With enter into a personal involvement with the work making him a dramatic flair, an attractive, energetic and brilliant communications man for all seasons of expression through the universal language of engineer, Samir Sammoun, follows the path of the Impressionists… art, notes Jamie Ellin Forbes, Director of the Fine Art Museum of enriching their characteristics with his unique and personal vision… Long Island (1990-1995) and publisher of Fine Art Magazine. The and a more adventurous and experiential approach in terms of his compelling power of his vision is truly informed in the majesty of involvement with the formal the new sculpture created in the aspects of painting…Brushwork, age-old Lost Wax method. The composition and color take on a table top model, a 18” finished life of their own in the painter’s piece that serves as the maquette process.” for the highly anticipated fullS a m m o u n’s d r e a m — scale version, is imbued with a his vision, in addition to the vital energy that summons a rare sculptural installations—is to combination of awe and comfort create a mosaic of a full-size olive to the viewer. grove suitable for installation As a boy growing up in the in public buildings, such as the Chouf Mountains, south of Beirut, United Nations or in a great Sammoun has fond memories of an room, as in a museum, with a idyllic life centered around harvest perhaps 100 paintings hanging time in the olive groves. “The next to each other, designed so olive tree is a subject very close to that when put together the result my heart,” he declares, “because will be powerful. from the age of four I began to “The harmonious nature participate in the harvest with my of these vistas represents the entire family. The trees bear their different themes of life and the fruit once a year in autumn, around Collectors viewing Sammoun’s book, Walking With Giants various joys with which people live the start of the school year.” Sammoun seeks to share that cherished era of blissful childhood and are designed to inspire feelings of peacefulness, first amongst memory by recreating the spiritual and physical landscape with this individuals, then to be expanded to nations and ultimately the major project that pays tribute to his homeland’s pastoral scenery world,” says the artist. and vibrant tradition. The olive tree possesses a majestic lineage “The olive grove in all its majesty and simplicity,” continues dating back to the great flood when Noah’s dove returned to the ark Samir, “is home to the tree of life. When you enter an olive grove, with an olive branch, declaring that land was near and civilization you are at peace with yourself and there is a wonderful silence. The could resume. olive is a complex plant yet a simple tree. The back of the leaf is silver, The initial painting that launched Sammoun’s “Peace Project” the front dark olive green. They flicker, so there is just a little bit of Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 11

Olive Grove Before Harvest, 48” x 72”

a few who feel it as you and I do”. magic there. The beauty of the groves is special just before harvest. (Letter by Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin. 22 January 1889) I render the atmosphere as it is to transmit the peace that you feel when you get into this place. What I really An admittedly fervent disciple of van want is for the peasant from the mountain Gogh, the spirit of Vincent is ever-present to tell me, ‘This is the field I just labored in Samir’s works with swirling movement in yesterday.’ of paint giving life to traditional landscape “This is the work for which I long elements so that they take on a mystical to be remembered. I am continually atmosphere of ethereal unity amidst the fascinated by the grove and the simplicity intense activity of his line. This dynamism of its significance thus venerating this tree.” is always natural as Sammoun makes the In creating the new sculptures, mountains, fields and trees dance like Sammoun relates, “I imagine it in my waves, channeling the pure and primitive mind from my childhood. The trunk of energy of his hero. Without fanfare but the tree becomes an important reflection with great dramatic effect all the more of the strength of these thousand year old memorable for its subtlety, Sammoun groves.” With distant memories tempered magically sets himself apart from every with the harsher realities of modern other painter seeking to represent nature. times, the darkness of the olive tree’s base, His works are one of a kind, and he is not combined with the beautiful silver and able to make the same painting twice. olive green of the leaves on the branches, In addition to The Peace Project, Samir very much reflect his psyche. dedicates his artistic energies to fund“The olive tree trunk presents a very raising for juvenile causes. His exhibits Olivier, bronze, 18” ht... strong contrast between light and dark, at the adjunct gallery of the Montreal expressing happiness and sorrow at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Marc-Aurele Fortin Museum in Old same time. My art is a very intense internal process and my soul will Montreal have raised considerable sums for the Saint Justine Children’s always be like this mixture of feeling.” Hospital. Continually growing as an artist and humanitarian are

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Ah! My dear friend, to achieve in painting what the music of Berlioz and Wagner has already done…an art that offers consolation for the broken- hearted ! There are still just 12 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Samir’s primary goals. “His talent and highly personal painting style…are enthusiastically received by collectors as well as the academic community,” comments Jacqueline Hébert Stoneberger of the Plattsburgh State Art Museum, which holds two of Samir’s originals in their critically

Tuscany, Winery on route between Florence and Sienna, 48” x 72”

built a wonderful bridge, creating a connection between people of acclaimed permanent collection. Sammoun’s ability to different cultures who all love one artist. We have so many people transform his visual perception into a material form, who fall in love with his work.” expressing what he perceives, represents the history of art Walking With Giants is a phrase coined by an art writer in a unique mode of expression. Sammoun offers a very who has spent many days with the artist, touring Montréal personal and accomplished visual perception in the long restaurants and museums, collecting responses from curators and chain of the giants of art history; a very specific and unique directors and basking in the glow of a room surrounded by contribution to the ways in which man “sees” the world. Sammoun’s master works. This title not only reflects an All this energy emanates from such a quiet man. A action— walking—but an objective. Samir’s fervent man so unassuming and easy to get along with he says, desire is that his paintings reside on a wall with other “If you can’t be my friend, you cannot be anyone’s.” Yet, great paintings. While “genius” is an over-used and there is a dynamic in his softness, a quiet in the explosion over-wrought phrase to describe an artistic talent, of color. It is indeed the flowering heart, a well-spring of in Sammoun’s case it is justifiable if you take the perfectly constructed energy that captivates all who come definition to mean being able to convey perfect love, in its path. It is the branches on his trees responding, hope and harmony via one’s own creativity. In this being silent, allowing others to get through. “When I’m case, Sammoun is undeniably a master, a genius if you in the execution of the painting it is a very intense, but will. His presentation is not clouded by delusions of amazingly enough, a relaxing process. Why? Because I am grandeur or shallow artistic temperament cloaked in discharging energy into it and afterwards I feel just great.” a body of work. There is no disrespect for his gift, As proprietor of Galerie D’Orsay, a prominent his audience or those who came before him. Even in gallery in a city known for its historic and vibrant a long line of giants, Sammoun stands tall amongst art scene, Sallie Hirshberg has been instrumental them. His place in art history is secure and growing in in presenting Samir’s work to the city’s prestigious stature as more become aware of his work around Boston Museum of Fine Art where a number of his the world. While museums and presidential paintings have been selected for inclusion in annual palaces own and display his output, Samir fund raising campaigns. “We are quite proud to relishes his relationships with his collectors, represent Samir,” she said in recent interview. one in particular, a Vietnamese accountant in “There is no one like him. He is full of life, Montréal who had fallen upon hard times. “I generous of spirit, and an amazing painter. offered to buy back the paintings, but he Samir has been with us a good seven years Cypresses, bronze sculpture, 24” ht.. refused to let them go. ‘How,’ he asked, and every show that we have with him is a ‘can I sell you back something that I talk to every day for 20 sold-out exhibition. The collector base for his work is quite eclectic, minutes before I go to work.’” comprised of people of many backgrounds and nationalities. He has Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 13

Dennis Manarchy Constructs 35’ Prototype Film Camera For ‘Vanishing Cultures’ Project As part of his upcoming Vanishing Cultures – An American Portrait project, Dennis Manarchy – Chicago-based and world renowned photographer – has spent over 10 years perfecting and constructing by hand a prototype film camera that barely fits in a semi-truck. The dimensions are 35’ long, 12’ tall and 8’ wide. The resulting film negatives are 6’ by 4’ with stunning visual detail. The camera will travel over 20,000 miles around the U.S. to photograph Vanishing Cultures in their natural environments for exhibitions, documentaries and educational material with the intent of capturing the uncommon beauty and individuality that defines the American people in a way that has never been done before. The means will be one of the world’s largest functioning film cameras capable of producing timeless images in microscopic detail not possible in the digital world. Stadium-sized traveling outdoor exhibitions featuring 24-foot portrait prints in captivating detail, documentaries, educational materials and cultural celebrations are planned. Vanishing Cultures will be a ground-breaking photographic, educational and historical tribute to the American cultures that have helped to shape those which are thriving and those which are vanishing before our eyes. The power and scale of these images will bring a voice to individuals who ordinarily would not be heard, and it will raise awareness on a vast array of social, economic and environmental issues. Manarchy always had a fascination with cultures. He lived with a Lumbee Indian tribe when he returned from the Vietnam war, which helped him to readjust to society. He has spent time with a circus troupe, lived in the swamps in Louisiana with the Cajuns... he loves the simplicity, the honesty and the way that these people have held on to whatever culture(s) surround them. Aligning with PBS as fiscal sponsor, Manarchy is seeking a corporation/foundation as a title sponsor for Vanishing Cultures and has fund-raising page at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2060332949/vanishingcultures-by-dennis-manarchy. Kickstarter won’t fund the entire $10 million project budget, but it will be critical in helping with our initial expenses: camera design, developing of our prototype negatives, etc. “We have to start somewhere,” he says, “and Kickstarter is great because it gives people a chance to be a big part in getting Vanishing Cultures off the ground.

14 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Chad Tepley, Project Manager, Dennis Manarchy and the prototype camera

Exhibit concept

MATTHEW TROYAN

“ You Carve A Path To A Man’s Soul.”

— F R ANZ KLINE

Honor, Oil on canvas, 40” x 36”, 1961

’’When the United States emerged from World War II as the most powerful nation in the world, its new stature was soon reflected in the arts. American (and European emigre) artists, (writers) and architects—especially those living in New York City—assumed the leadership in artistic innovation that by the late 1950s had been acknowledged across the Atlantic Ocean, even in Paris. Critics, curators and art historians, trying to follow art’s ‘mainstream,’ now focused on New York as the new center of modernism.”

—Marilyn Stokstad, British art historian

15 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

“When the heart of the observer meets the heart of the Creator there is a symphony of angels in the Heavens.”

—Dr. Robert Baker

By JAMIE ELLIN FORBES

he Abstract Expressionists were a brawling and irreverent bunch. They had to be. They were carving out new universes on big sheets of canvas and found pieces of lumber. Sometimes their behavior turned vulgar and violent. As when Jackson Pollock ripped the bathroom door off its hinges at the Cedar Bar. While Frank O’Hara saw Pollock’s act as “something (in which there was)… a sense of genius,” Matthew Troyan failed to see any brilliance in such an act. Right then and there he stood up from the table all were sharing and bellowed, “I CAN’T BE HERE ANY MORE! I CAME TO PAINT NOT ENTER ANOTHER WAR!” With those words, “the best colorist in the world” (according to Franz Kline) chose to abruptly withdraw from his intimate alliance within the gatherings at the fabled Greenwich Village landmark and made his exit from the tumultuous New York City art world. Retreating to domestic quietude, he settled in Connecticut where he was given solo museum shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art in 1954 and again in 1965. Troyan’s departure from the midst of the scene was not solely a death knell for fame and fortune, but a brave move that enabled him to paint in peace and create a considerable body of work until his death in 2007 at the age of 94. Many in that creative and volatile group of poets, artists and writers would certainly make their mark, but for Troyan, who had endured years of unimaginable suffering, peace and dignity were far more meaningful than membership in this unofficial club of current and future giants. He lived first-hand the push and pull of violence resulting in war and did not care to perpetuate the hostility and frustration of anger merely to gain an understanding of abstraction. Troyan had already perfected his abstracting expressions and impressions witnessing real life tortures. Born February 19, 1913 in Kielce, Opatow County, Poland, Matthew Troyan was the youngest surviving child of nine. His father, Pawel, was a blacksmith and traveled extensively throughout Poland to create decorative gates, iron railings and ornamentation for wealthy clients. Matthew finished his public school education, and in 1937 began a four-year course of studying painting at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art under Professor Ted Pruszkowski. Soon after graduation, he was taken prisoner by the Nazis and spent three and one half years as a prisoner at the camps at Mauthausen, Auschwitz, and Ebensee. Upon release from the camp at Ebensee in 1945, Matthew began a six year course of study at the Academy of Fine Art at Dusseldorf under the guidance of Professors Pankok, Housier, Champion and Schreibert. A chance meeting there brought him together with Joan Miro who guided and gave advice to Matthew on his painting. Matthew received recognition as an outstanding student and was given the honor of painting a mural on the wall at The Academy of Fine Art at Dusseldorf. He was involved in a number of group exhibitions at Duisburg, Frankfort, Hanover, Mulheim Ruhr, Dusseldorf, and Gmunden and Munich in Austria. Troyan came to the United States 16 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

In the Moment, Oil on canvas, 76” x 51”, 1961

in December 1950, aboard the U.S.S. Balou as a displaced person. He made his way to Greenwich Village. Troyan, the artist, was well-prepared to join the ranks of de Kooning, Pollock, Kline, James Brooks, Alfred Van Loen and the others merging into the New York City and East End Long Island scenes to paint and discuss art. They were all young and surviving in the post-War climate of intellectual change from which the New York School of Abstract Expressionists developed. New artistic language emerged which resulted in the birth of an unorthodox, modern, nuclear-age environment. The burgeoning Cold War threat of annihilation was synthesized by these painters, poets, writers and philosophers. Troyan’s experience as an artist who had lived in what was part of the dissolution of a civilization to this revolutionary group was more than welcome. Few were better suited to join the dialogue than he—a Calvary Officer who survived the Tuchola Forest massacre of men and horses and then three and one-half years at Auschwitz, Mauthausen and the Ebensee Concentration Camps as a prisoner and camp “artist.” A Catholic survivor of the holocaust, Troyan was intimately well-versed in the horror of destruction. He had his vision to offer and share with the group based on his experiences and his relevance was cemented via personal familiarity with war, slaughter and prison camp life. With his European art

training and interaction with Miró and Polish intellectuals, he was an easy fit within the group. The group imagined their paintings as vehicles to convey the vast possibility of nothing in which personal theories and palettes originated, dialoguing the abyss, evolving the foundations of a school. The hardships that Troyan had endured along with the constant struggle to successfully communicate led him into an inner battle that most artists try to convey through their work. Matthew was in a constant struggle between good and evil, as many artists are and that internal struggle that rested within his unconscious always manifested itself some way on his canvas. It was his unconscious storage bin that permitted him to take all of his life experiences and to meld them with a real understanding of color theory to come out with something that is quite exceptional and quite specifically Matthew’s and his ability to move paint. Taking excursions into the hinterlands of visual consciousness as developed by Richard Poussette-Dart in his photography and paintings, The New York School of Expressionists’ explorations into color and abstraction married conscious images moving into unconscious psyche. Artists mirrored and painted previously unknown concepts, like atomic annihilation, as reflective pools of simplicity in non-traditional and new personal styles. Color field images, influenced by the European Modernism in works by Mark Rothko and Esteban Vicente were included, as were lines of splattered paint investigated by Pollock. This “school” was a tailored fit made for Troyan. They gleaned, as a group, first-hand from the personal knowledge displayed in his images. The Expressionists’ dialogue of art and art theories employed in their work developed what became a decomposition of the known art alphabet. The postatom bomb era shaped the artists in multiple directions. The civilized world’s ability to annihilate, stated abstractedly, was a constant theme. Core names were developing. Their canvases painted, demonstrated the ingress and egress. Concepts and ideas not seen before became dissected and disseminated expressions. These new visual constructions using color, light and line formed the New York School painters’ response to their emotional displacement brought on in the post war era. The image of nothing that goes hand and hand with annihilation saw lines charred, burnt and blackened; expressions and impressions instilled to depict wasted civilization. This landscape was an intimate part of Troyan’s experience, which he had no problem accessing and employing on canvas in works imbued in an already evolved style and background. By 1955 Troyan was living and working in Connecticut, refining on canvas the war trauma experience through richly expressive paintings. The human torso was explored, his love of horses, the female form, landscapes, abstracts and still lifes were placed stylistically in his new visual template for artistic construction using his particular vision of color, light, line and form. He remained ensconced in the heart-beat of the New York Expressionists’ emotional displacement of the era though he did choose to pass on further interaction, exiting with his convictions intact. The image of nothingness that goes hand-in-hand with annihilation—charred burnt and black remains or wasted civilization—was an intimate part of Troyan’s oeuvre. He was gifted with an ability to review or see his most abstracted thoughts as impressions and ponderings to form images as conversations emanating from the wellspring of his passion. He had honed his talent utilizing the backdrop of war as a witness to the annihilation. Troyan needed no outside stimuli to access his shadows and lines of simplicity. Nor did he find it necessary to deconstruct his imprinted memory to access images that would become paintings. With an ability to review or see his most abstracted thoughts or musings as image conversations from innate passions, he executed his desired compositions with a style strictly his own. His work reveals the overall depth of his brush as it taps into spatial relationships, enabling him to characterize an abstraction conceptually via his use of color and contrast with light. His ability to execute and render (realistically or 17 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Classic Recline, Oil on canvas, 54” x 88”, 1962

“Troyan’s unique ability to build an image as expression of internal impressions, utilizing his personal depth of soul as landscape, forged to form a life exponentially less ordinary.” not as he chooses) the subject matter at hand reflects an ability to extrapolate sense from what his former colleagues called “nothingness.” Imbuing his imagery with the spirit of his being, he paints a vision of his soul. Composing with vibrant color to achieve this desired communication of forward-marrying the complexity or lack of it through an expression of very painterly brush strokes, he acknowledges his soul’s possibilities for redemption after peering into life’s difficult abyss. The resultant reflections of what he has experienced and perceived are documented in his paintings, some of which are set forth here in print and online for the very first time On Friday, February 10, 2012, Jamie Ellin Forbes, publisher of Fine Art Magazine interviewed noted art historian and collector, Dr. Robert Baker in his gallery on Long Island. The following transcript includes italicized excerpts from Troyan’s memoirs and diary consisting of dialogues and interactions with Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Tworkov and Hoffmann. They are insightful, entertaining and of great historical importance—in-the-moment remembrances of highly enlightening art criticism intertwined with great friendship resulting in intimate and very educational first-hand descriptions of the artist, the art, their thoughts and their process. The memoirs provided to him by Mitzi Troyan were translated by Alina Sobera, professor of languages in Canada. Matthew died in 2007 at the age of 94 at his home in Connecticut with his wife Mitzi and his Children Lisa and Tom by his side. His extensive body of work is now stored, documented and articulated by Dr. Robert H Baker. JEF: Tell us about your new Matthew Troyan book and project. Dr. BAKER: The title of the book is: A Date with a Monster: The Life and Works of Matthew Troyan – A Tribute to the Human Spirit. The importance of the book is not just his art, but the message of his art and what it means to the world. Matthew was in a constant struggle between good and evil, as many artists are and that internal struggle that rested within his unconscious always manifested itself some way on his canvas. FINE ART: Troyan, for a few years, was an integral part of the New York School of Expressionists. Do you know how that happened? Dr. BAKER: Yes. Matthew came to New York four days before Christmas in 1950 with $7.00 in his pocket. He began to inquire where he could find artists that dealt in today’s art, a place that he could go and learn and paint with others that would offer up information on new styles and allow him to become who he was inside of himself. So Matthew made his way to the Village because they said that that’s where everything was happening.

ences and meld that with a real understanding of color theory to come out with something that is quite exceptional and quite specifically Matthew’s and his ability to move paint. It is what he uses from color theory and touches with his inner self that makes him unique. Troyan: “Kline, you create the works characteristic of New York in your studio. You are able to talk about art because you have a true knowledge of it. I can’t speak as you do even though I want to but my language stops me. In your black and white imagination you’ve found international recognition. I know, like me, you can’t afford good material – you use ordinary paints and big brushes used for houses. The occasional true titanium and zinc makes you happy because you can create soft Watercolor from the Troyan sketchbook, 9” x 11”, 1932 special effects. Don’t worry about my color.” Kline: “Troyan you paint with such freedom, like you become the brush Matthew Troyan, 1953: and the brush is you; me, I ponder and fret on one canvas after another. “New York didn’t spoil anybody; it opened new paths of thought and To only have your freedom, your energy, your truth in the seconds in swallowed a lot of sour things in its throat. It created new clear paths to which you create. I don’t, I can’t, I need to…” follow that permitted the use of the best tension on art expression; as I Troyan: “My truth and what you call freedom and energy is the hauntwrite this the glass houses of New York reach into the skies.” ing messages I have taken with me from my imprisonment. Kline you (The reference to “glass houses” comes from a Polish myth in don’t want this painful teacher. I know that you walk canvas to canvas literature where glass houses are the land of milk and honey and on the walls of your studio for days and even months struggling with freedom from the oppression of Poland). your imagination. That wonderful imagination of yours growing from the white color black and from the black to white. No explanation comes FINE ART: What about him moves you to such a great degree of from you. It is locked inside that imagination of yours. No titles but a interest? fearless presence from the first hit of the brush to the last. Control in this Dr. BAKER: What captivated me was his truthfulness. There was way was always a sign of true courage. The world is full of color and I a great truth about his painting that was not couched in the need to have seen it in the trips that de Kooning and I have taken out east in satisfy someone else’s requirements of what he should do but rather Long Island. But, your black and white is truly a creation and belongs the truth that came from within him that he placed on a canvas. There only to you in your very special way.” was no pretense of needing to study what he put on the canvas, it just came from the insides of Matthew. What captivated me most about FINE ART: Who else did he impact? Matthew was his ability to overcome the most atrocious things that Dr. BAKER: He walked out on Pollock. He struck a chord with one can’t even imagine that one man can do to another and rise above Hoffman and they found a common core of understanding for art. that and do something great with that experience and turn it from They both felt the same things coming from similar backgrounds; the horrific into something beautiful. This impresses me because in most need to put it down on a canvas to evidence that background and they instances its just words. But this is truly his life and its an experience both saw the importance of color to evoke responses from the people that he documents. He writes about suffering, watching his friends that would view their canvases. They were not unlike Picasso in the killed, being beaten almost to death, escaping execution three separate sense that they needed to have a response to what they created. They times, being a war hero, being in the cavalry and fighting the Nazis forced the response by the choice of their colors and they needed that on September 1st in the Tuchola forest. When you look at man like to verify what they were trying to communicate. that, you have no right to complain. He was an extraordinary example FINE ART: So they understood they weren’t painting in a void, they of the strength of the human spirit. were painting to share a concept with others. What was the length of FINE ART: Do you think that this spirit affected the people he time he dialogued with the expressionists? associated with? Dr. BAKER: Absolutely. I know it affected Kline there’s no question “Pollock and James Brooks were friends. They started to experiment about that. Because Kline really wanted to understand from this man using watered down dye pigments to create the suggestion of forms uswho was so special in all the things he went through, he wanted to ing stains or the points of wet brushes to start. Pollock had a passionate understand what made him able to manipulate color in the way in dedication to emotional truth and this was a very important starting which he was capable of doing and if he could learn that inner skill, point for Brooks. However, the similarity of these artists end when you he would become a better artist. examine their paintings. Pollock’s paintings are direct, attacking, sharp, FINE ART: Do you think its from experience or its an innate talent? and quick in tempo whereas Brooks talks with his feeling about his Or the shock of having witnessed what he witnessed? forms and makes possible attacks which talk to the bone marrow with its Dr. BAKER: I think it is a combination of everything… His uncreative agony. This combination of violence with thought modification conscious storage bin that permitted him to take all of his experiis the trait of his creative inspiration. The painter convinces himself that 18 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

his work belongs only to him and that it is his internal force that drives it; this doesn’t mean that the work ends with this, for he knows that this familiarity is the main channel of feelings recognized in his art and the expansion of form and space.” Dr. BAKER: He would have been more active, certainly, had it not been for his lack of English. Kline asked him over and over how he had this superior understanding of color and to help him move his color as Matthew did, but he couldn’t explain it to him in “the language he needs.” They asked him countless times to exhibit with them but so many things got in the way. He didn’t have money and needed to work only to buy more paints. He wrote that he “did not have time to make exhibits now; it is very frustrating for me.” Yet he was right there with them all until 1953, when he had an abrupt departure after the argument with Pollock. Before that, he travelled out to the East End with them and on the way, of course painted houses in order to buy bread which he couldn’t do from what he was painting. He tried and tried and tried and he said, ‘Hell, I’ll paint houses. I’ll do something, I have to live.’ And that’s what he did. Troyan on Jackson Pollock: “Jack and I had a talk about art and Tworkov told me that ‘if I knew what I wanted to paint, I would like to paint for sure’. Tworkov believed that subjective material was not different from reality, that it comes from the outside which he calls the real world. His painting is neither spontaneous nor automatic. He creates a concrete expression that is dictated by his feelings and expressed in a language far from primitive or elementary. His colors can be compared with instruments in the orchestra. Visible differences exist in his echo of red with a unity of yellow and blue. We finished our conversation with this thought from Jack: ‘the subject is with me from the beginning of my painting to the end as are the color parts’. I definitely noticed that unlike me or Kline he used brushes of great quality, camel or ox, 2 inches or more. I guess he thought the viewer would know.” Dr. BAKER: That was Matthew’s take on him. He says people don’t really understand the importance of what Pollock created. They think it’s a mish-mash of garbage but it’s brilliant. FINE ART: And Matthew wrote this in ’52, ’53? Dr. BAKER: 1952. FINE ART: After sitting down, talking, listening, watching, seeing the paintings, everybody went to everybody’s studio, and this was his impression? Dr. BAKER: Yes. Here’s what he said about Brooks. Brooks talks with his feelings about his forms, he makes possible attacks in art and he talks to the bone marrow. I thought that was a brilliant description. He creates with agony. The combination of violence and violent thinking, and the modification of the trait of creative inspiration is seen in every stroke. The painter has a conviction and is driven by an internal force which is unstoppable. This is the way he viewed him. He said you could see his drive that he had no control over. He also noted that Jack Tworkov said to him: “If I knew I wanted to paint, I would have started painting long ago.” Tworkov believed that creation belongs to an artist only. The true subject is not typical for an individual but it functions as an adaptation to time that people live in. For Tworkov, the mind invaded by feelings is a subjective material that art is built on. It comes from outside which he calls the real world, invades his insides and then he puts it out there on a canvas. He’s spontaneous and not controlled. He wants to create a concrete expression of his 19 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Love, Oil on canvas, 53.5” x 43.5”, 1957

inner self and his feelings. Troyan to Franz Kline: “Often you make canvases of 10 feet or more and by doing these, do you feel yourself better? Do you have an intellectual realization of your emotions and your own stylization?” Kline to Troyan: “ You have to give out of yourself to paint and it is easier if it is big-beyond expected boundaries. Half of the population lives in the chaos of the city, the other half try to escape the noise. I think it is useless to ponder who is right, for nobody cares and so you are you, to feel the you inside. You, Troyan, your colors beat into the inner part of man. You carve a path to a man’s soul. I need those tools but I can’t have them because they belong to you. I am me and I must learn that.” Troyan: “Kline, you create the works characteristic of New York in your studio. You are able to talk about art because you have a true knowledge of it. I can’t speak as you do even though I want to but my language stops me. In your black and white imagination you’ve found international recognition. I know, like me, you can’t afford good material- you use ordinary paints and big brushes used for houses. The occasional true titanium and zinc makes you happy because you can create soft special effects. Don’t worry about my color”. Kline: “Troyan, you paint with such freedom, like you become the brush and the brush is you; me, I ponder and fret on one canvas after another. To only have your freedom, your energy, your truth in the seconds in which you create. I don’t, I can’t, I need to though”. Troyan: “My truth and what you call freedom and energy is the haunting messages I have taken with me from my imprisonment. Kline you don’t want this painful teacher. I know that you walk canvas to canvas

Pride, Oil on canvas, 54” x 38”, 1959

on the walls of your studio for days and even months struggling with your imagination. That wonderful imagination of yours growing from the white color black and from the black to white. No explanation comes from you. It is locked inside that imagination of yours. No titles but a fearless presence from the first hit of the brush to the last. Control in this way was always a sign of true courage. The world is full of color and I have seen it in the trips that de Kooning and I have taken out east in Long Island. But, your black and white is truly a creation and belongs only to you in your very special way.” FINE ART: Kline said this to Matthew in a conversation and Matthew had written it down? Dr. BAKER: Yes. From Matthew’s diary...It was sensitive to history, modern in the best meaning of modern, full of the presence of the life he lived in. FINE ART: Thank you for this enlightening discourse on a great man. All of us need to understand Matthew Troyan’s direct participation, his involvement, his influence in actuality as well as his unknown influence on the Abstract Expressionists. It’s an important school and people are constantly revisiting and looking for any information that comes out concerning that very important era in American art. FINE ART: He wants to merge the outside world with his inside view and he wants other people to share the experience. He wants to draw them in that way and Matthew shared these viewpoints with these people. Dr. BAKER: Yes! FINE ART: He saw deeper into their work than the critics and even 20 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

the artists. Dr. BAKER: Yes! These are actually his experiences that he needed to put down, his conversations. His only regret was that his English was very poor. He felt that he could not glean as much as he needed to from those he considered to be masters of the new age of art. FINE ART: It’s amazing you have his voice preserved through the diaries. Dr. BAKER: Yes, it is an extraordinary compilation. I have so much stuff on Matthew. Imagine having his report cards from Dusseldorf? I mean, its crazy! Who has that stuff? FINE ART: There are some people who are born to annotate themselves. Dr. BAKER: It’s an amazing thing! What’s incredible is that his second wife, Mitzi, kept it all together and was a great archivist. FINE ART: She believed in him. Dr. BAKER: She did. She said to me: “I wish that when I came home after work that I wasn’t so damn tired and I had paid more attention to what he was trying to tell me about his canvases.” FINE ART: They married after his first wife passed? Dr. BAKER: Yes. They became friends and it was seven years after his first wife passed away that he remarried and then decided to raise her children, not adopt them but raise them and give them school and education because he thought that school was very important. Dr. BAKER: This is Matthew: a new vision demands a new technique. Where force influences complete recognition of an artist and his work, the idea that art was created by itself is typical only to America. In my opinion, all students, in the majority of cases, create good art. Nowadays, a good abstract artist loses inspiration and sometimes doesn’t paint for months and months. He lives in an apathy and he wants to lie down and simply sleep and get rid of all those heavy thoughts of creation. An artist is an artist when he paints and nobody is as much concentrated on himself and in himself like the artist. The artist gives up his own outside being, and is captured by the Art. FINE ART: That’s interesting. He really feels the muse of the art is the reason for existence. He sums up depression very nicely. And he’s witnessed it in all his Expressionist friends. Dr. BAKER: That’s why Willem de Kooning used to say that art was never for him a calm or a pure thing, it was a “vulgar power.” FINE ART: I had never heard that quote. Is that a popular quote? Dr. BAKER: No. FINE ART: That’s unbelievable. Dr. BAKER: Matthew was a friend of de Kooning who told him: “Art is dramatic and it doesn’t create from outside, nor inside from any gentleness. Strong ideas, something which pushes you ahead and excites you when you strike the canvas with paints and actively makes you enter into the painting. That’s what art is.” FINE ART: That was an amazing interaction. Do you know of anybody else that has a diary like this? I don’t. Dr. BAKER: No. Even though Matthew had Alzheimer’s, his last request was that someone would pick up his notes and his memoirs and tell his story. Because he thought his story was important in that he felt that it made you look at the truth of the artist. FINE ART: Oh that’s very interesting, Bob, very interesting. Is there any other quote you’d like to share with us? Dr. BAKER: Yes. When the heart of the observer meets the heart of the creator there’s a symphony of the angels of the heaven. It was my under-

standing of what Matthew was about, with the angels. His singleminded purpose was to communicate with the observer. He felt that communication was so vital to human existence that if it could occur, there was hope for mankind. FINE ART: What gave him the presence of mind to record? Dr. BAKER: He thought it was important to understand the soul of man. FINE ART: I see. He’s looking into the soul. It’s a soul push. Dr. BAKER: It’s a soul push. His art was meant to share the universality of the human being, that there was a central core in which we all came, and that if we could speak to that, then we have hope and we can rise above anything and accept all of the omnipresent differences that are inherent within the world and move ahead as a human race. FINE ART: I think that’s brilliantly said. I happen to agree because I believe that is the only reason for communally coming together to share information; it certainly isn’t to have arguments. This must reflect his experience in the war; from having seen the absolute horror of what can occur if people don’t agree. Dr. BAKER: It also was a result of his childhood experiences. He and his family lived through unspeakable violence, seeing villages burned by the Cossaks and who knows what else. His father mysteriously disappeared because all he wanted to do was have a free and independent Poland. FINE ART: Does he comment on the fact that atomic energy has occurred, that there is this ability to annihilate all? Photo of Troyan, Connecticut, 1954, age 41 Dr. BAKER: No. He didn’t comment on that. FINE ART: Because his sense of annihilation was so immediate, he “Troyan’s genius of recording his thoughts and had seen everything burnt before him? opinions will no longer go unnoticed. … Dr. BAKER: Yes. Some of his paintings show the destruction of Warsaw in very modern and impressionistic ways. He did one that Tworkov, Kline, de Kooning and Pollock have is in red and black and oranges and yellows and periodic presence of now been unlocked for the world to see.” small figures that cries out about all of that destruction and how we have to move beyond that in and its progression through the order for us to survive as a race. ages. Gordon Root, who is a good FINE ART: Well you have friend of mine and managing Diso brilliantly stated his purrector of Chiurazzi International pose and with such a loving kindness and generosity you’re Ltd., myself, and Lilly Speigel sharing this. whose husband Paul Yeni was Dr. BAKER: For me, Matan artist who was also in the thew epitomizes the nature work camps in Nazi Germany of which we all struggle to are part of the team. We will become. A truthful, loving present Troyan’s art and words to individual, understanding the the students in hopes that we can importance of the human spirit help them understand how art and understanding its ability to has moved us above and beyond rise above all the pettiness that insignificant petty jealousies and exists in the world. And I think arguments that are present from in understanding his thoughts one nation to another to a higher and of others similar, we have plane. We hope that this mesan opportunity to survive as a sage gets through to the younger Dr. Robert Baker, with Troyan masterwork at National Arts Club, New York human race. generation so that the future FINE ART: Brilliantly said, generations of the world can have Robert. It is a beautiful sentiment. So you and your wife, Carla, are now a better outlook on uniting mankind. It is time for the world to learn going to take your 3,500 piece collection and present it to the world. and appreciate the body of work produced by Mr. Troyan and it is Dr. BAKER: Yes, and allow people to view the art and reach their my pleasure and privilege to champion this cause. own conclusions. We intend to do that through exhibitions and shows FINE ART: Do you have a website for the art yet? throughout the country. We have an unusual opportunity to partner Dr. BAKER: Yes. www.matthewtroyanart.com. We are in the midst with Chiurazzi International Ltd., a 19th century company from Italy of creating another website, because I’ve just put the finishing touches that created molds with the permission of the Italian government of on the Matthew Troyan Foundation for the Visual Arts, the purpose all the great masters in Italy that made figures in statuary. The joint of which will be to provide a scholarship annually to the student that exhibition will show the universal spirit that exists in art from the best represents Matthew’s thoughts on life, on humanity along with ages to the present times. his talent as an artist. There is also a video that we produced ton FINE ART: Where are the exhibits to be held? YouTube about 16 minutes long that speaks to Matthew and some Dr. BAKER: We are setting up one in Naples, Florida and we are of his experiences and shows about 150 of his paintings. That’s on going to be doing a one month presentation in the Miami Day School YouTube, Matthew Troyan and that will give you a better underin November. The purpose of that is to do a lecture series about art standing of Matthew. 21 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Presenting for the first time, the complete works of

MATTHEW TROYAN

Master of Expressionism, Respected colleague of Kline, Pollock & de Kooning Historical paintings and insightful journal entries

The Dancer, Oil on canvas, 32.5” x 29.5”, 1960

“Abstract art approaches the most direct relationship we can have with the world.” —Robert Lapoujade

for further information concerning Matthew Troyan

contact Dr. Robert H. Baker CIRCA SOMETHING

117A South Country Road, Bellport, NY 11713 • (631) 803-6706 www.matthewtroyanart.com 22 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

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The Chaotic Harmony of Svetlana Hakobyan

Svetlana Hakobian, Me and You, 73 x 92cm, oil on canvas, 2004

By MOVSES ZIRANI creations that open up to life with sincere and “simple” expressions are meant for worship, from the as earthen formations. Such are her portraits and still life works. ancient monoliths up to the modern spiritual temples, are The Yerkir series of village scenes can be classified in this category. wide at the bottom—glued to the earth, and are narrow, pointed upward at the top, as if ready to soar into the sky. They create a bond between earth and heaven, between the spiritual and the earthly. The Armenian churches are very typical of such monuments. Their architectural solutions aim to create a relationship between the earthly man and the heavenly principalities. Svetlana Hakobyan is Armenian. As an artist, she has two personalities—one is earthly, life-loving and going after beauty. The other is spiritual and chases after mysticism. However, these two personalities not only do not cross, but also complement each other with dialectic bonds. For this reason, she simultaneously creates art with different styles of expression. The first kind of art work is earthen, treading on with sure Svetlana Hakobyan, The Chaotic Harmony, 104 x 160cm, oil on canvas, 2002 footsteps, saturated with lively sensations and colorful

hose monuments that

Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 23

Svetlana Hakobian, Universe Subtlety, 100 x 70 cm, oil on canvas, 2011

Svetlana Hakobian, Storm of Flowers, 100 x 70cm, mixed media on canvas, 2009

These paintings have a different quality, different characteristics and a different nature. She has started this series in 2002, after visiting her forefathers’ homeland, Western Armenia. The Yerkir series has an earthly character, but somehow they suggest nobility and ecstasy because they are painted with much emotion and a special tenderness. Svetlana Hakobyan’s forefathers were killed by the Turks during the Armenian genocide in 1915. When she visited their land, the villages of Western Armenia were barren. She only saw forsaken houses, empty streets, withered and lonely trees. Even the birds and wild beasts had left the region, that otherwise were kept clean, cared for and stood firm. They not only offer a hospitable sight, but also it seems that they miss their rightful owners and wait for their return, wait for Svetlana Hakobyan and her children to come and give life to those empty towns and fields, to give water to the thirsty trees and bushes, to call back the birds and beasts, so that their children and grandchildren catch fish and crab in the streams, run barefoot in the streets or climb the mountains, even without underwear. This is why Svetlana Hakobyan has painted her forefathers’ landscape with special care and “virgin” brush strokes. These scenes are simple and humble, but put on a special meaning and monumental nature under Svetlana’s brush strokes. The artist has intentionally named the series Yerkir. For the Western Armenians, Yerkir means land seized and emptied from its inhabitants, whose earth is baptized and anointed by the centuries-old sweat and blood of its people. There is a call in her creations, a sacred prayer of homeland nostalgia, and a burning desire to return…

Svetlana Hakobyan, Still Life With Plums, 100 x 80cm, oil on canvas, 2006

24 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Svetlana Hakobian, The Significance of Home, 100 x 90cm, mixed media on canvas, 2010

Only those who do not have a land and have survived genocide, can completely understand Svetlana Hakobyan ‘sYerkir series, its fascination and artistic feeling. Although we have dubbed the canvases of this series “sacred prayer” and “burning desire”, however the artist has not detailed and personalized them. Through the national, she moves toward the humane and spreads on pan-human dimensions. This double-personality artist is like the medieval architectural monuments: she is firmly attached to her forefathers’ land, but to escape the daily difficulties and additional troubles, she circles (without disrespect) the daily routine and the tangible surroundings and tries to enter spiritual mazes, in order to depart for the universe, and to dig into the borderless unknown, where “prayer” is rendered “desire”, and “desire” becomes “returned reality.” Through illuminated and colorful lines and stains, she soars as “The Lady of Dreams”, as a “Secret-Seer” in the “Chaotic Harmony” where “Universal Flowers” smile bitterly, where “Undulating Emotions” as “Beginnings” herald the birth of victory in the eternal movement, and from where “Fiery Seeds” burst to liberate “Sea to

Sea Armenia”, where, behind burning fences and mauve hues, is pictured Ararat, the sacred mountain of the Armenian nation as the symbol of survival. If, at some point the Yerkir series is separated from Svetlana Hakobyan’s portraits and still life through nobility and bliss, then Sea to Sea Armenia bridges together the mortal and the eternal, where the earthly and spiritual meet as life “heartbeats”, as a “vision”, where the “wandering rules” turn the captured homelands into dreams. The Armenian architecture, with its structure, style and spirit, is the direct reflection of the people who has created it. And Svetlana Hakobyan is its carrier and expresser in pan-human spheres. Her art, in its wholeness, is on one side rooted in the earth and tough reality, and on the other hand, it wanders in space to search and find its national identity, human right and especially those pan-human, undeniable values that separate man from the animal and render it Man with a capital “M” and face it with human responsibilities. (The author holds a Doctorate in Fine Arts) Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 25

NOAH’S ARK ART GALLERY Art Dealer & Broker

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Noah’s Ark Art Gallery, Center Grand park 2, B.B. Street, Zalka Metn, Lebanon Tel: +961 4 711-852, Fax: +961 4 714-943, Mob: +961 3 72-72-11 E-mail: noahark@idm.net.lb , Website: www.noahsarkgallery.com

4 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

ARICA HILTON PHOTOGRAPH

Claudia Kleefeld’s Patterns of Nature at Woman Made Gallery

Claudia Kleefeld with her daughter Chiara

By ALLISON MAUCH In Patterns of Nature: The Spiral and Interconnectedness, Claudia Kleefeld’s exhibit of her new body of work at Chicago’s Woman Made Gallery, the artist examines the symbolic representations of spirals and the perpetual presence of the spiral pattern within the universe. Over three years ago, Kleefeld began her journey investigating the correlation of spirals and how they are connected in nature. Describing her work as “bridging the gap between art and science,” the artist records her fascination with the history of the spiral pattern in correlation to its interactions within the human body and spirit to uncover the true meaning of the spiral iconography. Kleefeld’s paintings, drawings and visual art, such as Blue Ringed Octopus and Spiral Motion Universe demonstrate her diversity. The use of the ever-present spiral makes evident the multiplicity wherein the spiral pattern exists within nature and humanity. The artist has made it her goal to unveil the force of the iconic spiral with hopes to ‘reconnect’ others to this most basic of human forms. Kleefeld’s exhibition is in conjunction with the 15th International Open Juried Show, sponsored by Linda Warren, founder and director of Linda Warren Gallery in Chicago. The Open displayed work from contemporary rising women in the art world and this year selected Women Made Gallery to host the juried show. Founded in 1992, WMG has made a significant impact in Chicago and its surrounding areas. Their stated mission is to “support, cultivate and promote the diverse contributions of women in the arts through exhibitions and other programs that serve, educate and enrich the community.”As a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about women’s art, and advocating for the equal treatment of women’s accomplishments, the Woman Made Gallery often hosts events designed exclusively for a specific demographic or issue associated with all women regardless of cultural, religious or ethnic backgrounds through multiple forms 26 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2011

diary of dead bones 7. Fingertips conte on paper 22.75 x 15.25 inches Book Spiral, books, floor to ceiling, 8’, 2011-12

of artistic expression, offering stimulating and educational programs with a focus on women artists, performers and writers who share an interest in the interaction of the arts in contemporary culture. To find out more information about the Claudia Kleefeld solo exhibition, Woman Made Gallery or future exhibitions, workshops or juried art shows, access www.womanmade.org. Donations are also accepted through the gallery website. Ed. note: the print version of this article inadvertently ommitted the byline. We regret the error.

Logarithmic Spiral of Life, oil on linen, 2011

Blue Ringed Octopus, oil on linen, 8.25 x 11 inches

Sidney Maurer

Sid Maurer’s world renowned celebrity icons have new collections each month of the Superstars that inspire Mr. Maurer. The people he has known loved and believed in who have made significant contributions to the betterment of mankind. No other artist, living or dead, has done or is capable of doing what Sid Maurer does to achieve the desired results. In this regard, he is a completely unique in the history of art and, in all likelihood, into the future as well. Celebrity and sports enthusiasts worldwide have been commissioned Sid Maurer’s work for their personal use in business. Relationships with the music greats such as Donavan has resulted in Sony Music publishing his story this month and has enhanced rising auction prices of Sid Maurer Originals. Additionally, Sid Maurer celebrates his lifetime friend Donovan who will be awarded top recognition in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame April 19, 2012.

Sidney Maurer

Marilyn Goldberg, President of Museum Masters International and her team has expanded the horizon of Sidney Randolph Maurer. The company’s marketing expertise has caused for highly appreciated sales for the world’s greatest artists, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Tamara de Lempicka and etc. Museum Masters International works daily with the 86 year old artist whose amazing energy continues his artworks daily. We celebrate his life, his art and the memory’s he shares with the world with Rock and Roll and the celebrities who’s enhanced his life. He is a miracle of stories!

Contact MMIMarilyn@aol.com www.MuseumMasters.com 30 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

Marilyn Goldberg

The Comic Stripper Anthony Williams

Anthony Williams British Pop Artist engages in Comic Book Art and has had great influence in the ever growing world of Pop Art. Anthony Williams is the renowned British artist engaged by Marvel and DC comics and the original illustrator of Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider Man, X-men, Captain America, the Hulk and many others. Also the creator of many images and strips of much loved cartoon characters such as Scooby Doo, SpongeBob and The Flintstones to name a few for more than 2 decades which has transcended into his own development of comic strips called; Zero-Heroes, The Horrids, Badtime Stories. He now celebrates the birth of Lichtenstein in his new series adapted from the German press which created the dots with Totally Mashed. He now celebrates the birth of “Totally Mashed” and his homage to Lichtenstein in his new series. This has been adapted from the original German press that created the dots for Totally Mashed. The homage to Lichtenstein will be released for the opening of the Parish Museum in Southampton.

RAD Boy

Robert A. Delgadillo Robert A. Delgadillo, professionally known as RAD, is an artist whose work celebrates the glamour and fashion of the world’s one and only HOLLYWOOD! The famous illustrations have been treasured by major corporate advertising campaigns, including Kitson LA. The artworks have been featured in national and international magazines, and have graced the exterior of many famous buildings in Los Angeles. RAD’s artistry is defined by bold colors, energetic lines and incredible humor. RAD’s popularity and sales are growing upward daily. His artwork can be found in the most celebrated Hollywood homes and galleries.

Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 31

Homage a Honoré Daumier 1808 – 1879 • Printmaking Master The artwork The Uprising (About 1860) inspired contemporary painter John Pacovsky as he created this, one of more than 120 pieces in our Absente Homage to Great Artists Collection.

GRANDE ABSENTE ~Absinthe Originale Its maker’s private recipe has stood uncompromised since 1860. Hand crafted in Provence. Only fine botanicals of the region are selected – including artemisia absinthium, the wormwood of legend. Grande Absente is 138 proof so please enjoy responsibly. www.grandeabsente.com Grande Absente Liqueur, 69% ALC/VOL., Grande Absente and Grande Absente Logo are trademarks owned by M. P. Roux, Imported from France by Crillon Importers Ltd., Paramus, NJ 07652 © 2008

Carnevale Dog

Jeanette Korab – Looking Forward In Captured Moments Jeanette Korab investigates multiple media textural applications in her current series of works, which are featured in her new book Carnevale de Venezia, which will debut at Artexpo New York, 2012. Ms. Korab’s backg ro u n d i n f a s h i on photography and design lend a richly formatted appearance of complexity to the artwork she creates. “ With The Vortex of Ruffles, a new original in her textural Venice mask series, Ms. Korab captures a complex emotional mix of beauty, reflection and unease—a desire for foundations entangled in a world of whimsy,” notes Brad Funkhouser of Heritage Imaging. This current body of work continues Ms. Korab’s development of the Carnevale as a means Jeweled Opulence of communicating her ability to see through the facade or mask of life, while documenting the highly artistic elements of the adorned participants. In Carnevale Dog (mixed-media on canvas 16” x 24”), the

Vortex of Ruffles, For further information, visit www.jkorab.com

well-known celebrity canine, a regular attendee at the festivities, is rendered with a fanciful touch that reflects his regal air as he looks upon one of the famous historical structures in Venice. Jeweled Opulence (mixed media on canvas, 18” x 24”) is further evidence of Ms. Korab’s masterful ability to combine elements of reality and fantasy that make for an enticing and throught-provoking image—an in-depth study of the nature of her subjects. Whether an adorned dog or a bejeweled reveler, her vision is crystal clear. This is no mere embellishment of the actual or a snap-shot of time but a glimpse into time-stopping perpetuity, a brief moment gone in an instant but residing eternally in a work of art whose subjects gaze steadfastly into the future while living forever in the present. It is mystical and magical work by a truly refined artist. SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 27

Living For A Dream —Vera Nova and Eric Gale I love you so My only dream Let me belong to you Don’t go away Don’t disappear Let me stay in you And I hear you say, “Come in.” Now listen, my old world I am leaving you forever It’s so easy to say “Goodbye.” Life of a dream is immersed in light It’s so real, it’s so bright For me, just for me. Living For A Dream music and lyrics © VERA NOVA

ERIC’S STORY By Vera Nova, as told to Victor Forbes

met Eric Gale in a gallery in Toluca Lake, a little town just outside Studio City, California. I was managing the Mastopietro Gallery as an art director, actually as a whole staff in one person. He asked me to try to sell a couple of old paintings which, he mentioned, were given to him by one or another of the megastars he backed when he was one of the most in-demand studio guitarists in the recording industry. I remember being warned by the friend who sent Eric to the gallery that he was capable of exhibiting a remarkably bad temper, sometimes, and that he was not in the best of health. Even so, Eric came right on time, dressed in an old, dark blue tee shirt and jeans. He seemed quiet and, like a poet, immersed in deep melancholy. I was just getting ready for my one person show, cutting and constructing some pieces of cloth into a French maid’s outfit for myself. Eric was quite amused that I was going to be a servant at my own show. I explained that no one wanted to serve my guests coffee or drinks for free. While we engaged in a slightly sarcastic conversation about art and life, I had to remind myself that I was face to face with this legendary guitar player who was absolutely impossible for me to reach, by any means, just a few days ago, and he actually came to me asking for help. I was quite bewildered by this situation. I told him that this gallery is not doing that well, like almost any other gallery, and he started laughing quietly. I said that businessmen have turned art into an industry and killed it. You have to be commercial to be successful. He told me that my art was very exciting and he doesn’t see anything commercial in it at all. I told him that I also write music and sing and I was looking for a musician like him a few years ago when I was recording my originals. He wanted to hear my music. I had a cassette with me, he listened to it once and then he had me play it over and over again. Then he said, “The music sounds powerful. I would play for you.” “At $500 an hour?” I asked. 28 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012

“Not at all,” he responded. “It would be a pleasure. It’s very inspirational.” And I still didn’t believe the situation. A couple of days later, Eric came to my house just to play music together. I didn’t notice that he ever got tired, I mean tired playing music. He was listening to every sound I played on my keyboard and he joined me, picking up my black electric guitar, called The Square Bullet, which he enjoyed playing very much. I had been so discouraged by both my reality and the so-called music business that I just couldn’t believe that a musician like this was listening to me so carefully. Unfortunately, we did not record what we played together over those many hours and days at my home. Eric visited me very often and this music was like a dreamy butterfly which lived a very short, miraculous life. We played continuously, by ear, and I felt that his soul was crying; sometimes he made me cry with tears. I also loved to cook for him. I had a collection of old Bordeaux, French Bordeaux, and he loved this wine. One day, he came over and he was very tense, telling me that he was going to have to drive a cab, and he didn’t have enough money to pay for the permit. Pushed to the edge financially, he thought it was the only way to make some money. He needed to add a hundred dollars for his permit and I gave him a check right away and told him how much I don’t want him to do this job. I said that I took lots of jobs irrelevant to my nature and things never worked out. I barely had enough to pay my rent and this time I want to be free because I have to find out for what I’m born. “If this world makes an artist such as you drive a cab,” I said, “this world is very sick.” He was very touched. I don’t think he ever drove this cab, and he brought me a check back very soon. Eric played in all kinds of clubs for miserable money, pitiful pay, hating it. He told me often that people are playing garbage. He loved to say, “Oh, just playing garbage,” that’s what he was saying about his gigs. Not every time, but very often. He wanted to try to put our project together. He wrote some numbers down, a budget, and told me, “We have to find somebody to invest in it.” He believed, or wanted to believe, that this project was, and would be, of great importance. Soon Eric had to move out of his nice house and relocate to a very poor neighborhood in North Hollywood. He told me that he had never faced such nasty racial problems as he did over there and when he said that, I realized that my consciousness never put him in any race. He was so much of an individual; so much of a character. The soul of a pure artist never belongs to any race or group or level in our sick society. I also realized that I never heard any foul word from him. He was very well-spoken but he just liked the word “garbage”—oh, he loved this word so much. Most of the time, it was hard for me to believe he had a bad temper. He recorded with so many great stars—Quincy Jones and Paul Simon, among them. Some of them he called friends, like Chevy Chase, and he mentioned that he was going to be the band leader on the new Chevy Chase television show. He smoked hashish a lot and coughed terribly. Sometimes I felt he hated the whole world. This Chevy Chase Show gave him some little spark to handle his terrible financial reality. It gave him,

actually, a big hope. He was so excited. He thought that he would be back on track with this show. He even planned to produce our project by himself. The next time I cooked, it was for his whole family, comprised of his Japanese wife and three sweet little girls, so quiet, so beautifully behaved, such a rare thing. The girls loved him so obviously. They were all over him all the time. The Chevy Chase Show was a short relief but it was over very soon. It seemed as if nothing was working out for Eric, or for me. I was struggling on my own, challenging myself to live as an artist. It was natural that nobody wanted to assist me in my art because I am nobody, but it amazed me that no one wanted to help Eric in his terrible despair. However, we did manage to record something in a real recording studio, and Eric brought his little girls to the session. Eric was very serious, but when he started playing that first tune, that funk, he made everybody laugh. His sound was quite unexpectable. The second song was a ballad. Then his guitar started to cry. I felt he was bringing my life back to me. Unfortunately, the young sound engineer didn’t understand the situation, how important it was for us to complete these songs. And when Eric was about to play the third song, the engineer insisted he had to get the room ready for the next group and we had to leave. I saw Eric only a few times after this night. A month or two later he died, and soon after I lost my place in Studio City in the earthquake. It seemed to me that this hidden desperation and struggle came out at once after his death as a devastating relief. I still have this master tape, it survived. I feel that I have a responsibility to make this music live because Eric so lived in it and maybe it flew back to its own wonderful place in the universe. I remember one day, when he didn’t know me well yet, he asked, “Why are you so kind to me? I’m not doing too pretty good.” I said, “When I usually look at people around, the world seems so dark. Very rarely can I see the light such as yours. I need to support

it or it’s going to be dark around me again.” He wondered, “Light? What do you mean?” And I’m answering, “Your talent is turning the ugly and smelly garbage of your living into beauty and grace.” “Is it so? Burning life into a flame?” I said, “No. I think it’s a very cold process. It is like creating an eternal light. Light like light of the stars whose bodies do not exist anymore. You better stay cold.” And he said, “I got you.” Then he loved to say very often, “Let’s stay cold.” That was our code, his final words to me. for more information, www.novatownsite.org

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frogandhummingbirdco@yahoo.com http://frogandhummingbirdco.com http://thefrogandhummingbirdco.com Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 29

Élyse Aussant at her ES ART Galeria exhibition, Barcelona, Spain, February 2012

Élyse Aussant: Paint, Emotion & Globalization Through her paintings, Élyse Aussant shows her poetic vision of reality. Urban, lustrous, unifying and stemming from the current planetary globalization, her work is a testimony to the artist’s sensibility and generosity. She creates spaces where light and depth coexist. Her work is intuitive and sensory. Each of her paintings are a blend of abstract and figurative art, an image of her vision of the world. The relief of her layers and her raw textures shows her ability to transpose her preoccupations and desires as a modern woman. By VICTOR FORBES

Élyse at the Lake Placid (New York) Celebration of the Arts, October, 2012

lyse Aussant has always painted. This way of expressing herself has always been a part of her life. When she was young, to get the attention of her father, who was an accomplished technical artist, she made pictures and drawings. “This method usually worked,” she recalled, laughingly. “I still use it today to create personal contacts, to touch people or even provoke something within them.” Aussant started to make a living on her own in 1991 at the age of sixteen as an actress in Montreal but it was in 2005 that a special interest grew for her paintings. Many visitors to her home wanted to know where the paintings came from and if they could get one. “I then started selling some of them and had some solo exhibitions. This is how painting came into my life.” 14 • SunStorm • Spring 2012

With numerous solo and group exhibitions on her dossier, including a recent success at Es Art Galeria in Barcelona, Aussant has shown also in New York, Toronto, Paris, Brussels and Perpignan. Her work be on view at the Jayson Samuel Gallery booth at the 2012 New York Artexpo. A native of the Canadian province of Quebec, Élyse is well known in her hometown via exhibits at Galerie In-Vivo, Studio Bizz, Galerie du Cercle Carré, Galerie FDART, Galerie Soho (in Old Montreal). Despite the grey and drab wintery climate of this bustling city, many of the artists there are flourishing through their extravagant use of color to convey an attitude of cheer, joy and power—an antidote to the winter blues. “I love Montreal, especially Old-Montreal,” says Élyse. “That is why I often paint it the way I

Love City

do, the way I see it. When you are on the Victoria Bridge coming in the city at night, I think it is a magnificent view of the city on the riverside. I love the ambiance in Old-Montreal, I have so many fond memories of it since I have been living there for seven years now and they have been seven very intense years if I may say so. I love the action we find in the city, the people also, I am fascinated by them.” Aussant is a very energetic person, much like her vivacious, flashing colors. “They give me the feeling that I am sharing my energy with anybody who looks at my paintings. We live in a world that obliges us to be ‘within the action’ to reach our goals and I want my paintings to reflect that and, as I mentioned, give energy to those watching. Whether they are liked or not, the colors I use usually grasp the attention of the viewer and create emotions, which is what I am looking for.” Élyse brings her creative vision to successful fruition by “Painting with my heart.” In doing so she finds there are no limits. “My studio is a place where anything can happen. It is a place where I feel completely free and comfortable and that must show in my paintings. Since I am a very emotional person, I express my overflow of feelings through painting. We often think of someone sitting on a stool, brush in hand, painting quietly…that is not me. I paint standing up and it sometimes becomes a very emotional and even physical event!” The resultant interchange, fueled by the passionate dispersal of paint on canvas by any means necessary to convey the message, works. Just look at the painting reproduced at the top of this page. You don’t need an art critic to tell you how to feel. “The fact is,” continues the artist in a recent dispatch from her studio, “I use a spatula, spray paint and even my bare hands...I can start over many times until I am truly satisfied with the result. If we

could throw my paintings under an X-Ray, you would find many paintings underneath. For me, inspiration must be present because that is what is doing most of the work.” Élyse says she is “blessed” that her paintings have opened so many doors in her young life with hopes that her career will keep progressing to consume “more and more space in my life. I have always wanted to find a job that would allow me to travel and I feel I have found the perfect one, one that makes me very happy. My paintings are starting to be present in many parts of the world and I'm in heaven!” In her home studio, Élyse’s environment molds the creation of this powerful and uplifting body of work. When she is at the easel, she completely loses the notion of time. She unhooks the phone, plays music and is totally absorbed by what she is doing in the moment. Motivated to levels of greatness by a favorite painter from her home province of Quebec, Johanne Corno whose work is rife with texture and an extraordinary sensuality, with an equally inspiring life story life story, Élyse states, “My inspirations do not only come from painters. I have a lot of actor friends, who inspire me greatly! I am also touched by the planetary situation (ecologically speaking). Every person I meet that I feel is true and sincere will inspire me. I am a perfectionist and as I mentioned earlier, a very sensitive person so I must always push myself to do more and do better... always questioning myself. I am made that way.” Ascribing to no particular “school” or association, Aussant has finds that her way to learn is to “let myself be touched by things, life, love. What I see and feel.” Besides painting, Élyse occupies her time with “Writing, dancing, singing, music, movies, documentaries, traveling, the sea, the planetary situation, friends, love and high heeled shoes!” SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 15

Sonya Fe: A Lifetime of Artistry and Wisdom By KATIE KELLY A MODERN INTRODUCTION When I first e-mailed Sonya asking for an interview, I was looking to solidify an appointment. I told her that I was available that week, or the week after, and that I was very flexible. I wanted her to respond with a date and a time that I should call her. Her response was a terse: “Next week would be better for me…” Next week? There are seven days in a week and twenty-four hours in a day the last time I checked. How were we going to connect when I got answers like “Next week would be better for me…”? And then I decided that I really, really liked Sonya. She was not confined by the restraints that I am; that’s not how her mind, or her world works. We would connect whenever it happened, and that was that. BIOGRAPHY TO DATE Here is what you already know about Sonya: A native Angelino, Sonya was raised in an East Los Angles housing project by a JewishAmerican mother and Narragansett-Mexican-American father. At age thirteen, she won her first scholarship and was invited to participate in a summer program at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. She received her formal art education and earned a B.A. degree from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. There is strong a Mexican presence in the design and coloring of her work (extremely reminiscent of the late Frida Kahlo). However, Fe does not credit one source, rather stating she obtains her inspiration from everywhere. And indeed there are traces of many cultures in her work, one piece featuring a star of David and the next a baby adorned in Catholic Rosary Beads. Sonya’s work is about identity. Her paintings predominately feature brown-skinned women, animals (horses, cats, monkeys) and children. Despite the different aesthetics; her body of work is an exposure of the human identity. Her work expresses sexuality, innocence, love, fear, and uncertainty; the full spectrum of human emotions. The shame and apprehension of a pensive child can be seen in I Hope I Don’t Grow Up To Be Like You. A woman rests her head on her knees, yet her face is fraught with consternation and she is surrounded by geese; a depiction of a woman at rest never fully being at rest in Taking Time Out. In You Can Only Rise, a woman who is hopefully on the border of glee seems to be picking herself up after a fall from a horse; showing that after a personal failure or loss, comes a definitive optimism that things can only get better, and this strong heroine embraces that ideal as she begins to push herself back on her feet. Sonya is a strong and confident artist. She explores the female role in society and her work asks the same of its viewer. In one of her pieces the words I am Sony Fe. This who I am. Who are you? are written on the hem of a skirt. Sonya’s work strongly concentrates on the female form. Fe includes menstrual blood in many of her pieces (Thank God). A symbol of the unique ability of a woman to produce a child and the continual process her body goes through that a man will never experience. She also depicts the female breasts in many of her pieces, though often not exposed, but rather seen through a gossamer top. Her titles are as strong as her work like Kiss My Ass, and Papa Don’t Tell Me What to Draw. She’s an individual, exploring what it is like to be an individual; the pain behind having to discover your own identity. The complexity of struggling to figure out who you are.

There is nothing easy or simple about her work, because there is nothing simple or easy about the soul within a person. Sonya’s work can also be innocent, as represented in The Cat Ate My Homework depicting two schoolchildren standing amongst fallen papers; two cats at their feet, one with a shred of paper in his mouth. Her work also extends beyond the canvas. She illustrates Running Deer Plays Hooky by By Arturo Muñoz Vásquez. It’s the story of a seven yearold Native American student who plays hooky from school to avoid the shame of not being able to read. She also illustrated A Storytellers Nightmare by the same author. Sonya’s work can be found in numerous private and public collections. She has been exhibited in museums and galleries all over California, and in New York, Japan, and Mexico for over thirty years. She is a master of the arts who blends cultures and influences present and future generations. Most recently, she participated in the restoration of the History of Highland Park mural in Highland Park, Los Angeles. Before the new paint could be laid, years of graffiti and old paint had to be shaved off. Sonya was one of the original artists that worked on the mural in 1977. At fifty-nine, her stamina is awe inspiring. THE INTERVIEW When I called Sonya, she was doing yoga on a rainy day in California. She was laughing and in good spirits. Immediately we started talking about exercise and health. Every September Sonya goes to a spa for her birthday. She likes living in a holistic-centered world. She enjoys taking care of her body and mind and eating right. Spas create a space void of negativity. It’s impossible to live that way forever, but it’s nice to break away. She comes back revived. Sonya keeps her energy elevated at home by exercising as soon as she wakes and then goes straight to painting. Judy Baca (of the Baca mural) e-mailed her a week after their project was supposed “done,” and said there was in fact more work. Sonya went back and attacked the project with vigor. She jokingly likens herself to a modern day John Henry. Judy credits the completion of the project largely to Sonya’s continual effort. While still a toddler, Sonya had insight that some adults have yet to obtain. She tells a story of the morning her mother started work and left her and her sister in the care of a babysitter. The siblings sat on the top of the stairs sobbing inconsolably; the ironic key to her enlightenment. Amidst tears came the realization that nothing was going to stop them. Her mother’s departure was inevitable. She explains, “From that moment on, and I now it’s going to sound odd SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 19

because I was so young, I knew I was responsible for my own self. I was responsible to take care of my heart.” Not surprisingly, when asked if she has ever struggled with her own identity, her terse retort is, “Honestly, no.” Sonya saw things as a little girl that bothered her. As she grew, she learned the name for these things—injustices—and they became the primary force behind her work. “There were things women couldn’t do, and I always thought I was a human first. I wanted to do what I wanted to do regardless of sex or color.” She couldn’t accept that boys took woodshop and girls were confined to cooking class. She doesn’t think people get upset enough about the media’s portrayal of women. “Run like a girl” she finds very offensive because there is nothing wrong with being a female. This phrase can make girls think they are not good enough and that there is something wrong with them and she thinks that is “death.” She also detests when men call each other “pussies.” Her response to that insult is, “Why do they have to put down our body parts?” She paints because she doesn’t have time to go to Hollywood and change media portrayal. When she talks to people she brings these issues up and hopes that maybe it spreads. She produces her art to make people aware of women and children and the inequalities they experience daily. Sonya certainly is not effected by the often small-minded views of society or the despair that is common among our anti-depressant reliant populace. “I don’t look at life as a hardship. I’ve always enjoyed my life wherever I am at. I have been up and I have been down and in both places I have been me. I didn’t let anything destroy my spirit because I have me.” She knows she has the the right to get what she wants. She doesn’t listen to outside noise but rather what she calls the “life within.” And she believes people need to attend to that life; to stop looking to experts and doctors for advice and “just listen to ourselves.” Sonya is always working. “I don’t have to force myself to paint, ever.” She tosses and turns at night when she knows something isn’t right. She is a studio painter so she likes to initially observe without pencil and paper. She’ll take pictures and make some sketches but really she wants to immerse her soul in the idea and the technical part will come later. She usually starts four paintings at one time, then takes them all to a level, then to another level, and then works on them individually until they are done. After a brief respite she looks at them with fresh eyes and makes any needed changes. It is important to her to have her art recognized. “When you create something that doesn’t exist, from your mind, you want other people to see it and know what they think.” If it wasn’t then she would have given up, and claims that is why most artists abandon the dream of a professional career. “You get tired and just decide to paint for yourself.” “My art is my whole life; my tragedies, joys, experiences, sadness. My art is my diary.” She learned that sometimes when you are struggling that’s when the good work comes. After the battle, you have a new way to look at things. Of course, the actual process is excruciating because you are making something that hasn’t existed before. When you finally get it right, “it feels like an orgasm, you don’t need anything else in the world but your paint.” As far as her most rewarding response from patrons; the ones that really get her are when people come up to her and cry. If she can touch someone like that, she thanks God and thinks she is doing her job. “I paint my experiences hoping it will brings out something in you. Maybe I can express something that you have never been able to put words to.” One time Sonya delivered a piece to a woman who exploded in tears. Sonya was walking on air that her work could affect someone like that. She is not just creating, she is touching people. The piece that hits Sonya the hardest deals with the death of her second ex-husband. Sonya had married for a third time and thought she would not be massively affected by his passing. But when his time came, it struck a blow. She realized the love was still 20 • SunStorm • Spring 2012

How Did You Get Here?

there. She had pain she couldn’t imagine. From this aching came two large paintings. The first was Words Are No Comfort, a piece about the organic nature of suffering and how one has to learn to live with discomfort. It depicts “two large women with great big butts. It shows physical power on canvas. One of the girls is crying.” The second piece shows her ex-husband as a skeleton with long hair and a red bandana standing in the desert next to his deceased dog. What she is trying to say is, “Yes, they are bones, but where do they begin and where do they end?” There are also two baboons right next to them eating corn and watermelon, “because there is always that silly side to life.” The painting also shows the universe and the stars to symbolize how we have to go on living and we are all part of a whole. Being an artist is difficult. Sonya says, “Do you really want to be an artist? Right now I am reaping the rewards, but that was not how it was. All my time was in the studio, I didn’t go on dates. Men asked me out but I wouldn’t go because I was too hungry to paint. I would come home after my day job and paint, paint, paint. And on the weekends I didn’t have anyone to hang out with.” Studio life is like voluntary solitary confinement. You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to lock yourself up and work. Then comes Friday, and you want to rest and socialize, but how do you meet people? In her early years, she didn’t smoke, drink or do drugs and all her money went to art supplies. Instead she opted for the beach, and if a normal person talked to her, she would have lunch with them and make a friend for the day. She admits that she probably seems like a nutcase when she leaves the studio because all she wants to do is talk. But if you want

Another Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure

to do something well, you cannot repeat, you have to be serious and create. You have to spend time with your craft. The only negative thing Sonya has to say is about the art world. She has met many crooked agents who make you feel like you are not worth anything, then sell your work for thousands. “They always act like they are doing you a favor. They treat artists like ignorant children.” Sonya believes artists need to get more business-like, and that they can be. They are not stereotypical flakes. Sonya says “most art is beautiful large greeting cards; production art work. We need art that requires thought, not romance novel art.” She looks at art magazines and sees repeated stuff that took no mindful thought. “They are just technically skilled, and their work is formulated.” She hardly sees the work of good painters instead people who find a formula and keep copying and copying. The positive is that she sees formulaic artist as less competition. Her advice to fellow artists is: “Don’t let anyone tell you how to paint. You can’t please everybody if you are constantly letting in everyone’s critique. Some will like your art and some won’t. Some will understand and some won’t. But you, as the creator have to do what you have to do.” When you’re an artist it’s a lifetime plan, not a five year plan Five is too far. She’s a day to day person. She does plan for art shows within the year. Her next goal is to have a show in in LA. Currently she writes poems. She has two ideas for a book. She kept a journal on a trip to Europe in 2005 that she would like to publish. She’s also dreamed up a venue called “Traveling Soda Pop Show,” featuring her work and the work of her son and first husband. Sonya’s greatest ambition is to get her work into museums

My Unborn Babies SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 21

My Broken Heart

Men: You Can’t Live With Them & You Can’t Live With Them

where they can be on display for the masses. However, the art world demands more than talent. You can’t just be in studio, you’ll get overlooked. Some people use agents or manager; Sonya doesn’t. Adding to that is that her work is not for “over the couch,” they are pieces that make you think. She believes her work belongs in a public place for people to study and discuss. When our interview ended, Sonya told me that she had a lot more time, if necessary. But I had all I needed. Sonya is a force. The task of writing this article seemed momentous. But I knew one thing; Sonya Fe has the precept for perpetual youth, personal joy, and the creation of enchanting art. She has been cultivating it since she was three years-old. 22 • SunStorm • Spring 2012

I Saw Him Have His Fits

Maternity, Bronze, 7” x 37” x 14”

Withdrawal Into Oneself Bronze, 19” x 18” x 18”

Jacinthe Dugal-Lacroix cel: 613-676-3632 studio: 450-224-1175 www.sculpturedulac.com sculpturedulac@hotmail.com

Dream of a Venus Bronze 86” x 21” x 14”” Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 1

SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 1

Artexpo New York - The Tradition Continues Artexpo New York, the world’s largest fine art trade show for over 33 years, returns to New York City for an extraordinary weekend featuring fine art from both established and emerging talent, art industry seminars and entertainment at Pier 92 on the Hudson River, New York City’s renowned “Art & Design Pier.” This year, the show will run concurrently with the Architectural Digest Home Design Show, hosted at Pier 94--so attendees will have even more reasons to visit the Piers. “We expect the 2012 Artexpo New York to double our successes in 2011,” said Artexpo CEO Eric Smith. “Last year, we hosted 250 exhibitors in 450 booths and had 15,000 attendees. With the Architectural Digest Home Design Show positioned next door, we expect that 2012 will attract 20,000 collectors maybe more.” With artwork for every taste and budget, Artexpo New York 2012 will feature art from over 20 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Ghana, Italy, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Spain, Senegal, United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Showcasing innovative new paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, photography, ceramics, glassworks and more—all under one roof—Artexpo New York will follow the Armory Show, culminating the city’s widely acclaimed month-long celebration of art and design. “ We’re providing something for everybody,” said Smith. “More than any other show, Artexpo New York is inclusive and dynamic and enables all areas of the art world to flourish. It’s a place where emerging artists are discovered and where artists from all disciplines find a market for their work— even in the current economy.” “If you’re in the art industry, you need to be at Artexpo,” said Smith. “Whether you’re a buyer or an exhibitor, you can attend our innovative, free education seminars for up-to-theminute information on a myriad 2 • SunStorm • Spring 2012

Gianfranco Meggiato, Sfera Conchiglia

Josef Kote, Romantic and Calming, Blazing Editions

of topics, including The Art Business Plan, Effective and Creative Gallery Marketing, Powering Your Marketing with New Media, Checklist for Art Licensing, 2012 Color Trends, and the Relationship Between Artist and Collector. Because of the strong increase in exhibitors and anticipated attendees, we’re also introducing new amenities for our guests, including an elegant new VIP lounge sponsored by GE Capital and a luxurious bistro.” Exhibitors and attendees can look for ward to exciting preview events, entertainment and Artexpo’s popular [SOLO] pavilion, showcasing contemporary artwork by hundreds of the world’s top emerging, independent artists. At the show, Artexpo will also showcase it’s highly acclaimed Artexpo Studio, a complete set of tools Artexpo has designed to help independent artists market their work, create higher quality reproductions, spend more timein the studio and increase revenues. For 33 years, Artexpo New York has been the world’s largest fine art trade show, providing trade buyers and weekend shoppers with access to thousands of innovative works from artists and publishers in a single venue. Over the decades, Artexpo has hosted many of the world’s most

Deljou Art Group

Hans Petersen

renowned artists, including Andy Warhol, Peter Max, Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring, Robert Indiana and Leroy Neiman.

Michael Albert: “You Are What You crEATe” Michael Albert is Rather than sit in traffic changing the world during rush hour, one cereal box at a he stayed at the time. The creator office and slowly of what he calls found his niche. “ C e r e a l i s m” “As I got busier is a gifted, in my career, dedicated I knew that if and exuberant I didn’t take proponent time in the of Abraham day to create, I Lincoln’s would just be a The professed desire to be known as juice salesman. So I decided that at the Birth of someone who was “worthy of the end of each day, I would lock the doors, Cerealism esteem of his fellow man.” Albert adds crank up the music and make art.” Collage that it wasn’t purely for his ego, but for the At first, Albert was working with junk 1996 idea that he desired to accomplish something mail and stickers that he came across in his truly worthwhile. “I thought art could possibly business. “What a waste of energy and resources be that for me but in the beginning I had no idea that somebody paid and created for me to look at what that meant. I did know that I really enjoyed and throw right in the trash,” he thought. Rather than spending my time making art and I had a real sense add to the ecological mess, he would take the back of a of accomplishment after creating something. There was writing pad, cut and paste the “garbage” and create. Those always the chance that it could possibly be great, but only time quirky, detailed, one-of-a-kind pieces evolved over time into an tells about such things. Art has continued artistic expression of museum quality work, to hold that interest and promise for me or yet are so simple that Albert has taken his I wouldn’t have kept doing it.” scissors and glue pots to classrooms across When Albert was 19 and studying the country, opening the doors of making business at NYU he decided that whatever art to literally thousands of young people he ended up doing, he want it to somehow and making a career for himself. be of value to society. “I didn’t want to just make money, although I “It is a simple process,” continues the artist. “Cutting and pasting did want to make money, too, but when you consider someone like is a primal human thing. I think I’ve just taken it to another level.” van Gogh, who achieved greatness as a person who created things By incorporating great lyrics, Lincoln, Shakespeare, King David et that are priceless but didn’t see many sales during his lifetime…that al, it is a way for Albert to take all the things he has learned and inspired me to think maybe art could be my way. van Gogh didn’t cares about into a visual form. “I listen and look at things so that get to see how great he was, but probably felt he was on the right when I see or hear something that really strikes me as worthwhile, track to have kept creating and evolving as I can really express it. I don’t like elitist he did or he wouldn’t have spent all that time things. I like the idea that somebody who and energy drawing, painting and writing doesn’t have any money to spend can create about it in his letters. Through art I hoped a masterpiece that can hang in a museum to achieve greatness. van Gogh achieved or be paid a lot of money for it. With a pair greatness after his death. He wasn’t being of scissors, a little glue and with your own honored or taking long lunches at Maxim’s. time and creativity, it is something that can He spent his time creating. The honor came be there for everybody. You don’t need oil after his life. paints, canvasses or brushes. Thousands and “There are many people who make thousands of kids are doing this now as a boatloads of money that no one wants to result of seeing what I’ve done and who is to study or are really cared about a century after say that one of them won’t become the next they’re gone, but in van Gogh’s case they do, great artist in history.” we all do. Who can buy Starry Night? Is there “I always liked George Carlin’s piece a price on it? Is it for sale?” ‘These words have never been said by anybody As a young entrepreneur, Michael else in this order.’ and the random things started a distribution company with his that I had collected all put together were a brother which was the cog in launching Tazo completely unique and random creation. I Teas out into the world. Then Starbucks was using things that would have otherwise came along and took over and he found gone into the trash.” that he was in no position to benefit in the Creating things that were interesting long run for his efforts of helping to pioneer was icing on the cake for Albert who then the brand in the greater NY Metro area.” moved on to cutting up photographs and From that rude awakening, they started Sir repositioning them as collages. With four On the road with Michael Albert Real, a “state of the art fruit juice company.” young children, he took a lot of pictures of Michael did not let the ebbs and flows of the business world impact the family. “We used to get doubles at the drug store and had double his creativity. In fact, he honed his artistic skills every day after work. the amount of bad photographs.”

“- and not just in an artistic sense.”

10 • SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012

23rd Psalm, Collage 2006

d m, ge 6

Sir Real Lemon Man, wax oil drawing, 1995 God Bless America, collage, 2004

Combining images with type was a natural progression and his she was interested in. Then he found my phone number on the artistic career began in earnest. Albert started with “found objects” website and said why don’t we call him, ask him questions about his in his New York City apartment building where he came upon the technique and see if we can get any advice. He made the call and she now famous Frosted Flakes cereal box that started it all laying next took it upon herself to create a collage out of a cereal box at home. to the incinerator chute. The The teacher was very glad that ensuing “mash-up” will one she became interested enough day be headed to the Museum to do something on her own. of Modern Art, with the Then we had a conference call Smithsonian, he hopes, hosting and she came up with all kinds his Lincoln’s Gettysburgh Address. of questions which she typed “I created art in the up and asked me. Now she is beginning because I thought in the process of a creating a art was really important, and self-portrait. I sent a tube full Gratitude Bookmark, collage, 2008 was something I could do even of my posters for the students though I was working and and offered to do a free visit getting my career going in the business world. to the school which will probably happen this fall. I will also visit “More people know who Ben and Jerry are than some of the libraries and museums in Pittsburgh. That type of thing makes me most famous artists in history. I also think there are feel like I am on the right track somehow. It gives only six artists in history who anybody has heard not just my art but my life a deeper meaning. of —I’m talking about people who know nothing One of the things that make me think I am about art—Michelangelo, DaVinci, Rembrandt, on the right track is that a lot of art teachers are van Gogh, Picasso, maybe Andy Warhol.” teaching my work in their classes. They’re using Being a business student, with great real-life what I do and then have the kids bring in boxes acumen, Albert knows he doesn’t have to part with from home and create their own collages in their his masterworks just yet. Rather than sell and be in own style. The idea of using the creative side of the the gallery world, he travels the nation to schools brain to learn about subjects like Lincoln, or quotes and libraries, often gratis, demonstrating, teaching about subjects they are working on is different. I and encouraging young people to bring in their don’t see that happening with a lot of other artists. cereal boxes and other similar items and make Only a handful are being taught in the schools. their own collages. “Being kind to another human being that “A teacher called me from Pittsburgh and nobody else knows about, is as great as this and told me the project the students had was to do a is something we all can do. Nothing is truly self-portrait based on some other artist’s work. He worthwhile that you can’t take with you after this life. told me that a girl in his class, who up until then There are levels of happiness—some people find it had not been too engaged in art, found my work on a beach. I am happy standing in front of a library online and told the teacher she wanted to try to create something in class in Alabama for the love of it. That gives me a deeper meaning my style. First, he was really happy that she had found something for every thing that I do, that I am really doing something special. — VICTOR FORBES SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012 • 11

“Tie-Dye Kitty”. 1970. Our bedroom. All tie-dying by JS and CS!

CATHERINE SEBASTIAN: “ALL THAT HISTORY & MUSICOLOGY”

By KAY CORDTZ

celebration of the nexus of music and art at the J.B. Kline Gallery in Lambertville, New Jersey occasioned the first showing of 15 Catherine Sebastian photos of musicians from Elizabeth Cotten to Lady Gaga, taken over a time span of more than four decades. The exhibit was part of the gallery’s Music Month activities featuring the work of a dozen artists and photographers in which the subject matter was music and musicians. Other artists showed works from watercolors to collages and mosaics. Sebastian showed photographs printed on metallic silver gelatin fiber paper using pigment inks, subjects included Mick Jagger, Pete Seeger, Paul Butterfield, Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur, and her husband John. Sebastian recently had her first solo photography show, “Catherine Sebastian’s Beautiful World,” at Oriole 9, in Woodstock, NY. The exhibit showcased her colorful interpretations of her environment in differing light and seasons, and while it included a couple of her better-known musician portraits, the New Jersey show is the first time a show has focused exclusively on the musicians she has captured in a variety of settings and moods. In December 12 • SunStorm • Spring- 2012

of 2012, Sebastian will have a solo show at the J.B. Kline Gallery. “It was a remarkable feeling, standing back and looking through other’s eyes at the collection of prints,” Sebastian said. “Until this show they’d been cached in boxes and negative books taking up two storerooms in my studio. I wasn’t aware of going for a theme, apart from sharing some amazing moments, but as it turned out, I chose mostly performance shots.” J.B. “Jeff ” Kline’s ancestors have held many elective offices in New Jersey, including Mayor of Lambertville, and he inherited the large, rambling building on trendy Bridge Street that houses the gallery. A musician himself, Kline decided to use the building for music and other activities benefitting the community. The gallery has a stage for concerts and open mic nights, and Kline sells musical instruments upstairs. A coffee shop occupies the space facing the street. “I was given this building as a gift, so I decided to use it give it back to the community,” he said. “We have concerts here, we have movies, book club, open mic, drum circle, daycare, yoga, ukulele jam night, parties, and art openings.” According to Gary Cohen, curator at

the J.B. Kline Gallery, “I’d been managing the gallery for several months when Jeff told me that he’d like to have a Music Month right after the holidays and told me to run with the idea. A mention on our Facebook page intrigued a number of local artists enough to contact me- and the idea of a show featuring an eclectic group of artists working with musical themes started to take shape. “Catherine’s work, which I knew and loved from our correspondence and friendship on FB, seemed ideal and I reached out to her. I always envisioned a wall of her images and photographs, but I guess I didn’t make that quite clear,” he laughed. “After she sent her canvas of Taj Mahal to me via New Hope where John was playing a concert at the Winery, I wrote and asked when and how would I get the rest of the pieces. Once Catherine recovered, she embraced the idea of being the featured artist, and I think she had a great time working up a show within the show. I know I had a great time collaborating with her.” Cohen’s band, featuring a few special guests, played at the Saturday night opening. Barr y Peterson, a singer/songwriter/ humorist whose rhyming verse narrative

TAJ MAHAL Notodden Blues Festival, Notodden, Norway, 2000. I looked up and saw Taj on the hotel porch with the overhead light pots looking like perfect smoke rings. Irresistible shot!

for the children’s book Ivory Joe was featured in the show, said he was “astounded” by the variety of art that was included in the exhibit. “It’s great to see the visual and musical come together in an event such as this,” he said. “This place is a nexus for extraordinary talent of both varieties and it’s known as such.” Peterson said he first met Sebastian while they were hanging the show. “I think her work is fabulous,” he said. “Her photos are absolutely unbelievable. I like them all, but I like the one of Pete Seeger best. He’s just such an inspiration to everybody and the photograph captures that.” Scott Rodas, who books concerts in connection with his job promoting library programs for Ocean County, NJ, was also impressed. “Much of the art was really beautiful,” he said. “I like art that’s full of light and brightness. I really admire the mosaics but Catherine’s photographs were my favorite. “ Kerry Perretta, a management consultant from Princeton who describes herself as “artsy,” learned about the show from a newspaper article, and was knocked out by what she found there. “I was so exhilarated by everything Catherine Sebastian’s done, such a beautiful review of all those wonderful

Mick Jagger & Charlie Watts - Spotted Ahmet on a gray morning’s walk and stopped to say hello. He said he was “just waiting on a friend.” Imagine my surprise when the band floated down 5th Avenue on a flatbed truck... publicity stunt, 1975.

Catherine and photographer/collector Reed Mitchell at the opening. Photo: Kate Moore.

decades!” she said. “All that history and musicology—Mick Jagger on the street, Debbie Harry. John Sebastian, Bonnie Raitt, it’s a delight. Her eye, her spirit, her heart comes through the camera, it’s thrilling, just beautiful. I’m so pleased to be here.” One of the most popular pieces in the show was Sebastian’s 1970 portrait of Elizabeth Cotten onstage in Oakland with her guitar. “I was at a big show in San Francisco when someone mentioned that Elizabeth Cotten was playing that same night over in Oakland,” Sebastian said. “I grabbed my camera bag and my hubby and raced over. The club lighting consisted of one low-watt spot so I pushed

The Hubby - John Sebastian on autoharp

my Ektachrome to a scary 1400 ASA. So glad I went for it!” for print inquiries: picturecat@mac.com SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 13

LEON OKS

“I paint for the satisfaction of the created work.”

Vision I

Morning Harmony

Contact information: oksart@gmail.com www.leonoks.com 16 • SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012

The ever-growing audiences who are drawn to and moved by the work of Leon Oks have no doubt an interest in Leon Oks the man and the genesis of what we see and try to understand about the power of his work and its emotional impact. When not yet old enough to really understand, Leon looked at the world around him and was captivated by the beauty of colors, of bodies and faces, the light and the dark. These all touched his little boy’s heart, and he knew even then that his passion for creating art was implanted. Leon’s Women As a disciplined, academically based painter, L eon Oks is able to smoothly weave that basic under lying foundation into a tapestry of his own unique fanciful inspiration. As one very important catalyst for his interior vision, he uses the female form. He paints her with fluid brushstrokes, luminous sparkling color and dynamic movement, multiple perspectives with flowing lyrical lines and resplendent sensuous beauty. His women are vessels of creative power and span the range of human emotions. She is Nature, Mother, Joy, Sorrow, and Struggle. He abstracts the essence of his subject and makes it his own. Leon’s Memories In his bittersweet nostalgia of his years in the Ukraine, under suffocating Soviet bureaucracy, Leon Oks is able to retrieve the sweetness and ignore the bitterness. With a palette of soft ambers, burgundies and golds, he evokes idyllic, rounded, shaky, charming villages; soft flowing landscapes, and swaying birch trees, alive in their ever changing wooded golden greens. The mood is warm, soft and seductive, as we recognize the depth and emotional power of Leon’s work. Mr. Oks has exhibited widely across the United States, at many international exhibitions in Europe, and is a frequent contributor to Art Fairs around the world. He has received many first place awards in juried art shows both nationally and worldwide. Recently Leon Oks was awarded The Leonardo da Vinci’s “True Face” prize for “Artistic skills reported by many experts on art” as well as through national and international publications and the “David Di Michelangelo” award by the Italian Association of Art (“Italia in Arte”). His paintings can be found in numerous private collections, corporations, as well as museums and have been frequently anthologized in such volumes as International Contemporary Masters, Famous: 120 Contemporary Artists, Portraits d’Artistes (Editions Regards, 2007), and International Artists Yearbook. He has been profiled in a lavish monograph, Leon Oks: Dreamscape, published by World of Art in 2007 and co-written by Petru Russu. It is available on Amazon.com. Oks is the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and nominations, by such bodies as the American Biographical Institute, The International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England, The Museum of the Americas in Miami, Florida, Art Now, and the World Academy of Letters.

Awakening 30” x 24”

If the range of emotions and thoughts that I have experienced in the process of painting are visible on my canvas, only then do I call it finished. It is at this point, knowing I have met my standards; I gain confidence that the viewer will respond in a similar way.

Memories II 30” x 24”;

below: Behind the Stage, 40” x 52”

SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 17

International Women’s Day Celebration

Maxine McCrey Montano and Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely

Fine Art Magazine attended the luncheon hosted by The New Future Foundation, Inc., in conjunction with The United Nations 56th Session of the “Commission on Women, Their Contributions and Impact,” in recognition of International Women’s Day (March 8) as marked by women’s groups around the world. Theresa Freeman was honored with the Sojourner Truth Award at the luncheon hosted by Maxine McCrery. The New Future Foundation recognizes, when women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development. International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. Suffragettes campaigned for a woman’s right to vote. (The word ‘Suffragette’ is derived from the word “suffrage” meaning the right to vote.) International Women’s Day honors the work of the Suffragettes, celebrates women’s success, and reminds of inequities still to be redressed. The first International Women’s Day event was run in 1911. 2011 was the Global Centenary Year. Fine Art Magazine has supported the efforts of women in multiple art forms at various levels of accomplishment in their careers to find there voices in stating their missions over our 38 year publishing history.

Luncheon Panel Members and attendees supporting Maxine McCrey Montano and Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely presenting Theresa Freeman the Sojourner Truth Award

Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely, Theresa Freeman, JaRon Eames, and Maxine McCrey Montano

At 95, Edith O’Hara Sustains Life-long Passion for Theater

Gala Event Celebrates Veteran Artistic Director’s Accomplishments

delivered by representatives of Congressman Charlie Rangel. Previous honors have included awards by Governor Celebrity surprise guests, Cuomo, and President Barack accolades from around the globe, Obama and the first lady and a celebration of a lifetime of Michelle Obama, and the New achievement and passion in York City Council, proclaiming theater marked the February Edith O’Hara Day in New York 12th birthday celebration of City. Edith O’Hara at the Thirteenth Still on board as the Street Repertory Theater. The repertory owner-operator, Ms. event was MC’d by Dell Long, Publicist and Producer, and O’Hara founded the theater Leslie Wyche, emissary for Councilwoman Inez Dickens Dell Long, Spats Donovan and Edith O’ Hara song and dance man Spats in 1972, and throughout its Donovan. Performers who attended included eight year old hip-hop decades of activity she has supervised hundreds of productions, artist Little Man, jazz singer Eureka Rose, Michael Jackson dancer including the longest running Off-Broadway play in New York, Jesse Valencia, and hula hoop performer Milo. The finale salute “Line”, by playwright Israel Horvitz. “Line” has been in production included songs from Edith’s son Jack O’Hara and his wife Annie. thirty-eight years at the Thirteenth Street Theater, and has been Edith’s two daughters Jill and Jenny O’Hara were also in attendance. produced on stages around the world. Celebrities who got their start Ms. O’Hara, whose theater career began in a 5th grade play in a at The Thirteenth Street Repertory Theater include Barry Manilow, one-room schoolhouse in Idaho, was honored with praise and good Bette Midler, and Chazz Palminteri. Ms. O’Hara, who is celebrating wishes ranging from congratulations sent by the Irish Consulate, to her 95th birthday, called it the best night of her life! Proclamations delivered by Leslie Wyche on behalf of New York —DELL LONG City Council member Inez Dickens and a Congressional Record, 18 • SunStorm • Spring 2012

WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP Athena Film Festival Theme New York, NY – Barnard College’s Athena Center for Leadership Studies, along with Women and Hollywood, held the 2nd annual Athena Film Festival, “A Celebration of Women and Leadership,” February 2012 on Barnard’s campus in Morningside Heights. The Festival focuses on the diversity of women’s leadership in both real life and the fictional world, illuminating the stories of women from across the globe who have made a difference in their countries and communities. The goal was to expand on last year’s robust dialogue about women and leadership—what it takes to excel, collaborate, lead, and inspire—and to celebrate the vision, courage, and resilience that women leaders share. The 2nd annual Athena Film Festival Co-Chairs were: Debra Martin Chase, President and CEO of Martin Chase Productions, Academy Award® nominated motion picture producer (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Princess Diaries and the upcoming Sparkle), Emmy Award® nominated television producer and Jennifer Christman, a Barnard alumna and Executive Director of The Picture Nekisa Cooper House. Additional members: Diablo Cody, Academy Award® winner for Best Original Screenplay (Juno),making her directorial debut with Lamb of God; and Mira Nair, Academy Award® nominated and Emmy winning director whose credits include Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair. These incredibly talented women continued to pave the road for women in the entertainment industry. “Not only is it critically important to support women in the arts, but also to highlight the accomplishments of women from all walks of life and from around the world. The Athena Film Festival is a wonderful forum where women’s voices can be heard and amplified,” said Debra Martin Chase. This year, the Festival presented for the first time The Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award, in memory of the Hollywood producer and founder of Stand Up to Cancer who died in June 2011. ABC News anchor Katie Couric, a co-founder of Stand Up to Cancer, presented the award to Ziskin’s daughter, Julia Barry, on behalf of her mother. In future years, this award will be given to a trailblazer in the film industry who sets an exemplary standard for other women to emulate. A production of Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership Rachael Horovitz

24 • SunStorm • Spring 2012

From left to right: Julie Taymor, Gloria Steinem and Katie Couric

Julia Barry, Katie Couric

photos by Kristina Bumphrey Studies and Women and Hollywood, the Festival boasts a diverse range of films, including narratives and documentaries, that exemplify its mission—to illuminate the stories of courageous women who have made a difference across the globe. Additional awardees include Rachael Horovitz (Moneyball, Grey Gardens) for her exceptional talents as a motion picture producer; Julie Taymor (SPIDER-MAN: Turn Off the Dark, Across the Universe, Frida) for her vision and courage as an exemplary director; Dee Rees and Nekisa Cooper (Pariah) for their impact as an emerging writer/ director and producer; The Fempire: Diablo Cody (Young Adult, Juno), Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas, Couples Retreat), Liz Meriwether (No Strings Attached, New Girl), and Lorene Scafaria (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Seeking a Friend at the End of the World) for their creativity and panache as screenwriters; and Theresa Rebeck (Seminar, Omnium Gatherum, Smash) for her leadership as a playwright and author of films, books and television.

Renea Menzies

The Art of Sculpted Oil “My creative soul was inspired by a desire to evoke my emotions at the deepest level with vibrantly colored swirls that exude off the canvas and into the heart of the viewer.” www.reneamenzies.com

Renea with Kim Simmonds of Savoy Brown at the Lake Placid Celebration of the Arts, Oct. 2011, Lake Placid, NY SunStorm • Spring 2012 • 25

MICHAEL SALLINGER “It’s a golden time for artists.” “ You signed on, shipped out, and went where the process took you. And if you were lucky, it was fruitful.” — Chuck Close

Sallinger’s motto, poster created by the artist in Photoshop and PageMaker Painting with fire

By VICTOR FORBES

e says, with movie star bravado, “I can make anything” and it is not an idle boast. The mashed up discs on his spine attest to that along with a voluminous body of work in many media. Michael Sallinger was trained early on by his father, who owned a Bronx machine shop that fabricated custom metal parts for Grumman’s moon-landing vehicles in the 1960s. Sallinger is as comfortable with a table saw as he is with a paint brush. “My father was always pleased whenever I would pick up the saw and make something, or even when I made a drawing. I learned quickly in the machine shop that not everything upscaled, that things had to be proportionate. Early on I realized that what was in my head — I could think it and my hands could do it. He liked to say I just ‘got it.’” At his studio, hidden away in the hills of upstate New York, aptly named “The Factory” in homage to Warhol’s fabled headquarters, there is an abundance of everything in organized chaos. Stacks of old vinyl records ready to roll on a new turntable, iPads iBooks and iMacs surrounded by the latest monitors and video cameras, hooked up to a 60” digital printer. A recently added white grand piano rules center stage…and that is only Studio A. The next room houses the heavy equipment: arc welders and reamers, torches and tap and die sets, miscellaneous power tools, goggles and masks. No assistants make his sculptures, print his posters or shoot his videos. Sallinger could be the love child of Picasso and Warhol, with a little Vivaldi thrown in for good measure. He’s prolific, he’s Pop and he loves music. “I’m a big Vivaldi guy,” Sallinger says. “The Four Seasons was my favorite.” Conceptually his role model is Alexander Calder. “I like art that does something other than you look at it.” A museum-goer all his life and a card-carrying member of the Met and MoMA, Sallinger, enjoys (as an astute student of art history)

the heralded masterworks of Reubens, Michelangelo and Old Dutch Masters and is determined to make his own unique contributions to be part of the historical continuum. For Sallinger, of all the greats, Calder’s work had the major impact on his own oeuvre. “Not taking anything away from the other artists, but Calder’s creations move. Being a metal fabricator and an artist, I can certainly appreciate his technique.” In a mobile all the elements are individual pieces of one sculptural composition which is one of the reasons Sallinger has devoted most of his energy over the past three and a half years to putting short films of his works on ustream and Facebook. “That’s why I like doing these videos,” he states. “You can’t show a mobile flat. When everything is lined up in a cohesive shoot, the mobile would be like a metronome in the exact beat with the song. I would hit record and sometimes keep going till the mobile stopped moving. It was always on.” With the advent of various internet streaming channels, and the capacity to compose and record music on an iPad, Sallinger has been putting music to his videos of late and accompanies moving pictures with his own improvisations, recently adding pianist/composer/producer Scott Staton to the mix. “Young people, especially, are accustomed to looking at videos with good music. My goal is to at least keep them watching as long as the song lasts.” Sallinger has 100 videos online at press time. “I love them all and am a big fan of my own work. I make myself happy.” Encompassing sculptures both indoor and out, from large scale steel constructions to table-top illuminates, Sallinger is as comfortable welding as he is on the computer with Photoshop and PageMaker and on the iPad with a simulated piano keyboard. Totally self-taught, he has created a collection of digital imagery combining seminal quotes by great thinkers in layers of type and a variety of typefaces that blend with color to make a coherent artistic statement. His musical themes for the videos are surprisingly sophisticated considering how they are made. SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012 • 3

Sallinger’s use of material objects in motion to produce an artistic effect (the textbook definition of kinetic art) incorporates all that in his sculpture and now he adds one more element: sculpture that reacts to sound. “Kinetic sculpture gets me excited, it moves and there is always a different view, a different angle. Anything I make is not only kitschy and fun to look at but, I hope, interesting.” This is all part of Sallinger’s goal to keep the viewer engaged with what he is doing. “It is a golden time to be an artist,” he states. “The opportunities of the internet, with so many ways to get your art to millions of people, require that you first attract the viewer and then give them something to watch of interest in this age of very short attention spans. I am trying to get people to slow down and pay attention to what I am doing, to give people as much stuff as I can to keep them interested.” To facilitate the audience for his own creativity, Sallinger has embellished his production facility’s mission statement to take art to the next generation, appealing, he hopes, to the physical, emotional, spiritual and visual elements of the viewer. “Every sense,” he proclaims. “Whatever we need to do to get them to stop for five seconds and pay attention. To get them totally saturated into the object and keep them from being bored. People are often intimidated 4 • SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012

by art. I hate when I hear that. They always say the same thing: ‘I don’t get art.’ Well, you’re not supposed to get it.” Hanging on the walls, up against the walls, leaning everywhere is the art on paper and canvas with a plethora of sculpture vying for position. Some are wall models, others sit on the floor or on pedestals, while more stand outside: large, breathtaking works whimsically joining and curving through space. Sallinger’s wall sculptures are constructions both painterly and colorful with each aspect of the piece blending color and shape with equanimity. This lifetime outpouring of work is his personal battle against complacency. Not a day goes by without him putting metal to saw, brush to canvas, pen to paper, or design to printer. Michael Sallinger was annointed early on by Elaine Benson. She could show just about anybody in her storied Bridgehampton, NY gallery and she chose him. Sure he was young, boyishly handsome, but he was a stalwart sculptor and became one of her top-sellers. Sallinger was on the map. Elaine’s power in the Hamptons was unrivaled and she wielded it mightily, yet gently. She was so revered that Dan’s Papers kept her in their masthead as a member of the Board of Advisors for a good many years after her death. Yes, she was powerful and her acceptance of Sallinger with three exhibitions

Sallinger’s handiwork, miniature books and his trademark lips

Red Sumo I

in three years put him on the artistic map. It is a cherished honor no one can take away. Elaine still imparts her strength and power, even from afar. Invoking her memory does wonders. Blessing from Elaine Benson fostered confidence in Sallinger—not that he was lacking in that department—and in his collectors. His work sells consistently galleries and at art fairs though he has taken a few years out of the limelight to develop, refine and curate his extensive body of work. His signature Lips adorn most everything two and three dimensional and when they are otherwise occupied, his beautiful muse, Lisa, commands center stage. Sallinger will stop at nothing to achieve his purpose. One of his projects is a series built around the human hand, embellished with various strands of beads. These rare earth magnet hands are only made in China and the manufacturer is about to cease production. Sallinger is stocking up. His other joy is book production and he has created a series of miniature books that show the many facets of his oeuvre. Sallinger is relentless in his desire to create new ways for SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012 • 5

6 • SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012

Kinetic

people to enjoy and pay attention to art. He is preparing the release of a collectible production combining music, video, computermanipulated imagery, sculpture and drawing into a portfolio that will also house an audiophile vinyl record album. Analog or digital, Sallinger has always been ahead of the curve creatively but dedicated to tradition in so many other facets of his artistic mode of expression. Physical and cerebral, coarse and delicate, in Sallinger’s work beauty is often the making one of opposites. It wasn’t always like that. In the beginning, he was on the other side of the art spectrum: a gallerist in Nyack, New York, in the 1970s and 1980s—the days when the art world was booming with a rising middle class that wanted beauty in their homes that could also become collectible and perhaps, one day, profitable. Sallinger’s galleries were well known for the combination of the two. He began as a “kid collector” in high school, buying posters for his room, starting with Sophia Loren and then a Picasso poster he bought at The Museum of Modern Art. After marrying, he and his wife frequented little firehouse auctions and acquired more art. With a modest assemblage of paintings and prints, they opened a gallery and sold most of what they put on the walls. It was successful. “So much so,” continues Sallinger, “that I purchased the adjacent building. We went to 2,000 square feet of modern gallery space from a 200’ sublet. Whatever I bought was something I loved so if I it didn’t sell, I didn’t care. It became part of my immediate collection.” Sallinger soon discovered that many people liked what he liked which made for a lucrative gallery business. He tooled around town

Stable, not mobile

Tools of the trade SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012 • 7

A few pages from Sallinger’s notebook

Lips I

in a leased Maserati for seven years, then a Red Rolls Royce that he owned. The success allowed him to acquire more space and he began to work with one of his tenants, the sculptor Gerry Geltman. Sallinger was involved in all aspects fron helping to make the sculptures to organizing exhibitions and publishing a monograph on Geltman in 1988. “Before I started working with Gerry,” Sallinger recalls, “I was taking pieces of metal and welding them together I didn’t like working like that. I was not a junk yard artist though I tried that for a bit and found I just don’t work that way. My process is I have to draw my ideas out, make a little model, then make it bigger out of wood and then make a large one. I invented a way to fit the pieces together so I didn’t have to weld them. This came out of necessity so people could pick them up, move them and put them back together.” Determined to only promote and sell the work of artists he liked, Sallinger found in Geltman a link on the artistic chain to his heroes and took a natural step out of the somewhat static gallery scene into publishing and promoting Geltman nationally. “I was only interested in work that made me happy, excited. Miro, Picasso, Calder, all of the ’60s artists—Johns, Stella—all the guys who did wall constructions, 3D type art. I like all that stuff and that’s the kind of art I liked to represent. Geltman fit in with that for me. When I started making my own art, I went down that same road. I never looked at an artist and said ‘I’m gonna paint like he paints’—never. But when I saw something I liked, it stayed with me.” “Picasso said, ‘I’ll make it, let someone else make it beautiful.’ I liked what Gerry used to say, that he could make a simple line beautiful, sexy—a woman’s waist, her breasts, her ankles. A beautiful silhouette. I look for that beautiful continuous line when I am drawing. If the shape of that object pleases me, it doesn’t have to be painterly. I am more of an Abstract Expressionist,” Sallinger adds. “I would mix big buckets of paint and found that was physically cathartic. Then I would let that dry and throw another puddle on 8 • SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012

the floor. I liked it, finished it and moved on to the next thing. The color moved me and often made for that physical, hard-edge line I sought.” Back at the Factory’s Studio B, Sallinger is organizing his body of work for cataloguing and future exhibitions. You can’t artspeak of Sallinger. He cut his teeth on Calder, loves him majorly, and his sensibilities reflect Calder’s joy and simplicity as well as the complexity behind it all. His way with layered type collage reflects Kruger’s, but with more kindness, inspiring rather than deflating. Hollow lettering, perhaps, but not empty sentiments. Same with his videos. They rock through the creative process, making perfect use of the capabilities of modern technology and communication. He’s working the deal with the same earnest enthusiasm that enchanted Elaine Benson. It’s a curious element that few are able to maintain. Picasso did and made a point of purposely thinking like a child. Sallinger remains the kid at play. Sometimes with fire, sometimes with ink. He gets it out there and gets it done. With his studio

Sallinger Wall Sculpture

secured and generators ready for the next nor’easter, Sallinger plans a well-informed attack on the media. His channels are in place on the internet and he will be well-represented at select art fairs. The vinyl and book will debut at the New York City Contemporary Fair in October of 2012 with full band performing live. This will certainly acquaint and in some cases re-acquaint the world with Sallinger and Sallinger with the world. He’s been preparing a long time for this opportunity to bring the vision to fruition.

The back room Michael Sallinger’s “Factory”

Sallinger is quite astute when it comes to the machinations of the starm a k i n g m a c h i n e . H e ’s been there, done that and absolutely owns the T-shirt. His desire to re-emerge is multi-tiered. As the fireplace crackles back in the Factory, Sallinger settles into a philosophic mode. “I cr ushed three Eyes vertebrae man-handling all those sculptures,” he says. Yet he opts to carry on in a labor-intensive field. Hard work enabled him to be where he is today. Then once you make it, selling it becomes a priority. He is quick to point out that he has had sold-out exhibitions and sold at least one piece in every exhibit he was ever in. One memorable experience at Elaine Benson’s is worthy of repeating here. “I like metal working and I like wood, I like cutting out pieces, that they’re tactile, they’re four dimensions. I did that with Geltman and finally one day got the nerve to talk to Elaine Benson. She said no to Geltman two years running and the third year I talked

her into letting him in. I made 21 brass pieces for his exhibition but nobody really liked them. Finally after four years, I convinced her to give Geltman a center court show of his huge metal pieces that stayed there for years. Elaine liked my work ethic, that I was a young guy knocking myself out for another artist, obviously not making any money. She just liked me, we just hit it off and became friends. I related to her. Then I showed her my Mobus series. She loved them and we sold them out. When they were gone, a collector wanted another so I went to my warehouse, brought the piece to his home, gave it a coat of paint, signed it right in front of him. They were impressed that the artist himself brought the piece over and installed it. The next year, Elaine gave me another show, Facade Series deux.” On the desk at The Factory are vintage VHS tapes of Warhol movies. Trash with Joe Dellasandro and a couple of others. Just to set the mood, invoke that Warholian energy. Winding down the interview, Sallinger said, “Some artists finally get what they want— success—and they go to drugs or alcohol or whatever. Nobody else on the planet has to like what I do. I love what I do. It makes me happy and I think I’m a lucky guy that way.” He jumps off the couch, ushers me out the door. “Gotta get to work,” he says. As I drove off, in the rear-view mirror I could see smoke in the chimney, as if he was stoking the fires of creativity. SunStorm Magazine • Spring 2012 • 9