Martha Banyas. Valley and Shadow: Another Life by M. Banyas

Martha Banyas Valley and Shadow: Another Life

Vitreous Enamel Sculptures

Our individual transformations consisted of all these things somehow connected with one another, and—if we were truly successful—to the perceptions of others who might respond to them as something they themselves recognized—personal offerings of our unique being.

Ellen Dissanayake

Martha Banyas Valley and Shadow: Another Life

Vitreous Enamel Sculptures â&#x20AC;˘ 2009 - 2015

Front cover: detail, “Winter’s Water: Rite of Passage.” Back cover: detail, “Cycles of Connection”

Valley and Shadow: Another Life This series chronicles my journey through the valleys and shadows of cancer, from coming to terms with the diagnosis, through treatment and on to recovery.

Quote on page one used by permission from Ellen Dissanayake. From “Two Orphans and a Dog: Art and Transformation,” The Haystack Reader: Collected Essays on Craft, 1991-2009, pp. 175-181. Co-published by Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and University of Maine, Orono in 2010.

www.marthabanyas.com

Design: Ann Marra Photography: Paul Foster

Contents Offerins to the Fire by Sonja Dahl

Artist’s Statement

The Work Guardians: Restoring Balance

Demon of Dread

Batik: Tales of Healing

Ikat: Layers and Threads

Radiant Body

Minangkabau: Resonant Memory 22 Cycles of Connection

The Edge of Quiet

Winter’s Water: Rite of Passage

Frayed World

Edith’s Hands

The Clouded Mirror

Iconography

Notes on the Work

Studio: Process and Drawings

Making Minangkabau

Resumé

Life goes on grinding up glassâ&#x20AC;Ś May whatever breaks be reconstructed by the sea with the long labor of its tides. From Ode to Broken Things by Pablo Neruda1

Tell me a story, Pew.

What story, child? One that begins again. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the story of life. But is it the story of my life? Only if you tell it. From Lighthousekeeping by Jeannette Winterson2

Offerings to the Fire: Recent Sculptures by Martha Banyas :: Sonja Dahl

On the Indonesian island Bali, where artist Martha Banyas first encountered what she describes as “an intact and harmonious culture of visual symbolism,” each stage of a person’s life cycle and all their attendant transformations are carefully and elaborately “ceremonied.” Offerings of great variety and specificity are made to ensure safe passage through life. It is collectively understood that each transition involves both beginning anew and leaving something behind. When people eventually die, it is customary to build elaborately beautiful funeral pyres for the cremation ceremony that releases their souls into the ancestral realm. In the Balinese-Hindu cosmology, a person’s body is a microcosm of the universe, made up of the five primary elements: air, earth, fire, water, and space. When a person’s body dies, their soul cannot be freed until its five elements have been returned to the macrocosm through burning.3 Fire releases the soul from the physical realm of the body. In the higher elevations of Martha’s home state Oregon, the ponderosa pine forests also require fire to release their seeds and fertilize the ground for the next generation of trees. Many living things are in some way fertilized, tempered, ripened or destroyed by forms of fire. To burn is to transform something from matter into essence, initiating a phoenix-like cycle of fire, release, ash, and regrowth. It is fitting, then, that the medium Martha Banyas chose for her series of sculptures, Valley and Shadow: Another Life, which narrates her journey through cancer, is enamel, one of the fire arts. Enamel itself begins as silica dust, the refined powders of glass that originated in the depths of the earth. When submitted to the kiln’s fire, this “glass ash” melts, tempers and hardens to its copper substrate. As accretions of this near-geologic process, Martha’s sculptures transform the trauma of breast cancer into poetic allegory for not only the burning away of disease, but also release of certainty and regeneration of soul. They are the offerings Martha has created to mark her safe passage through illness and honor both her own transformation and that of other cancer survivors. Understanding these works as acts of generosity in the form of offerings is key to a deeper interpretation of their significance. Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift, maintains that art operates as a gift economy. He describes the gifts we give and receive at times of transition such as illness and death, as “making visible the giving up we do invisibly…They are not mere compensation for what is lost, but the promise of what lies ahead. They guide us toward new life, assuring our passage away from what is dying.”4 Taking Hyde’s cue, my reading of Martha’s twelve sculptures is influenced by their generosity; by her sensitivity and skill in their rendering as well as her conviction that sharing her own experiences through the medium of her artwork is a generative act, one that connects her with a broader level of

collectively shared human experience. While one can by no means claim their own personal experiences as essentially universal, Martha has created room in these sculptures for her viewers to find themselves in the work. She does this through an empathetic handling of archetypal imagery, using symbols and characters as stand-ins for herself and her own journey through suffering and transformation. By narrating her personal experience with breast cancer through symbols she extends the story outward to her viewers, inviting them to bring their own experiences to their understanding of the work.

This spirit of care, or even affection, pervades the imagery of many works in this series. In pieces such as Guardians: Restoring Balance, and Cycles of Connection, figures gather around each other in gestures of support. In others, such as Ikat: Layers and Threads, significant characters from Martha’s past—an orange-striped cat in this instance—appear in solidarity with figures undergoing trauma. The characters who populate these sculptures are all old friends of Martha’s, beloved object-companions found on her many journeys in the world. These ‘familiars’ of Martha’s—Petruk the trickster, the Javanese dancer puppet, the basketbodied puppet from Burma, the blue jaguar from Mexico—occupy honored places in her studio, and have over time born witness to and shared in the accretion of her work and life. It is unsurprising then, that she chose her most beloved such objects to help her narrate her tale, giving them the roles of guardian, companion, and stand-in for the self. These figures lend her imagery both allegorical power as well as a tender intimacy. They operate in the work as “biological objects,” a term anthropologist Janet Hoskins has used to describe the ways Western Sumbanese people use their personal belongings to narrate the stories of their lives. She explains, “the stories generated around objects provide a distanced form of introspection…and a form of reflection on the meaning of one’s own life.” These ordinary household possessions “might be given extraordinary significance by becoming entangled in the events of a person’s life and used as a vehicle for a sense of selfhood.” 5 One of the primary materials humans have used throughout history for narrating personal and collective identities—and which Martha uses to great effect in these artworks—is textiles. Cloth provides powerful metaphors for embodiment and life itself, and through the interlocking warp and weft threads of weaving, an allegory for connectivity and community. Cloth has also long been the vehicle for humanity’s innate fascination with and need for pattern, mark-making, and symbol systems of all kinds. From her early research about tattoos through her decades of travel as a trader of world textiles, Martha’s sensitivity to the metaphoric connection between skin, cloth, and selfhood is acute. In nearly every piece comprising Valley and Shadow: Another Life, she references significant textile patterns that over the years have entered her visual lexicon through travel and trade. In Batik: Tales of Healing, for example, she has reimagined a traditional Javanese sarong pattern depicting phoenixes rising from the ashes, into a motif depicting mammary glands and the lymph system, linking her physical trials with her psychic regeneration. Again, in Edith’s Hands, the motif of one of Martha’s most beloved indigo-dyed batik cloths wraps and cushions the autobiographical figure whose breast is shot through with radiation. The very image of

wrapping oneself in cloth is deeply emotional, as it calls up thoughts of protection, care, and even death. Cloth is the surface treatment we give our bodies on both daily and ceremonial levels, so it makes sense to me that the symbolic power of the motifs we wear eventually transmutes through our skin and imprints itself upon our souls. Art theorist Suzi Gablik refers to the connectivity of our souls as the “collective dreambody,” pointing out that the individual is an organ of the collective. Her visionary approach to art theory focuses on the relational aspects of art—that which “fosters psychic mobility.” She describes work such as Martha’s as “opening oneself up to a range of visionary experience in a culture whose mindset has made the very idea of other worlds unthinkable.” 6 Martha’s use of archetypal imagery from textiles and other hand-made objects does just this; synthesizing her experiences as a traveler through the world and through cancer with the influences from her studies about the social systems of meaning-making across the world. Like the spiraling inner passageways of the moon snail shells Martha uses as breast iconography, these works connote for me a deep inner listening to the psychic reverberations of the collective dreambody. As works of art, these sculptures offer their viewers complex semiotic storylines to follow, winding through such dualities as life and death, beauty and trauma, inner and outer experience. The human breast itself, locus of the cancer that forced this work into being, is biologically and psychologically expressive of such twoness: consciousness and the sun, in balance with unconsciousness and the moon. Taschen’s Book of Symbols explains, “Symbolically, the twoness of the two breasts suggests a constellation of opposites, while the sameness of the breasts invites a linking of those opposites—a way to get from the known to the unknown.” 7 Martha’s passage through breast cancer was a monumental task of restoring the balance of her own biological and psychological “twoness.” The artworks of Valley and Shadow: Another Life are the means by which she has navigated the slippery path between known and unknown. Like the beautiful ash from which a phoenix or a newly released soul may rise, these artworks are both markers of Martha’s transformation and allegorical reminders of the collective potential for metamorphosis in every twist of fate. In this ultimate act of release she now offers these works outwards to the public, where those who encounter them will be rewarded with a generous visual, emotional, and soulconnecting experience.

References: 1. Neruda, Pablo. “Ode to Broken Things.” Publisher unknown. 2. Winterson, Jeannette. (2006) Lighthousekeeping. New York: Mariner. pp. 49. 3. Eiseman, Fred B. (2009). Bali: Sekala & Niskala. Singapore: Tuttle. pp. 116. 4. Hyde, Lewis. (1979) The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. New York: Vintage. pp. 55. 5. Hoskins, Janet. (1998). Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives. New York: Routledge. pp. 2. 6. Gablik, Suzi. (1991). The Reenchantment of Art. New York: Thames and Hudson. pp. 47. 7. Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism. (2010). The Book of Symbols. New York: Taschen. pp. 388.

Martha Banyas has always been an original. When others were firing glass onto copper discs or enameling lightswitch plates, Martha was creating original imagery on her enameled brooches, while continuing to explore other innovative possibilities in the visual arts.Â Her curiosity about traditional Balinese masks, and how they are carved, led her to travel to that Indonesian island to apprentice herself to a traditional mask carver. That not only introduced her to a more three-dimensional way of working, but to the richness of Baliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s culture as visual inspiration. Martha is truly an artist of the world, using her own personal stories as source material and blending them into sometimes exotic forms of expression that often mix materials/techniques that are entirely original.

Lloyd E. Herman

Founding Director Emeritus Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Artist’s Statement

:: Like many West Coast artists my eye turns to the arts of Asia for inspiration more than those of Europe. My arrival in Bali in 1981 marked the first time I had ever encountered an intact and harmonious culture of visual symbolism. Coming of age in mid-century midwestern America was dynamically rich, but harmonious it was not. Discord and discontinuity dominated our arts and popular culture. But neither of these dynamics has ever captured my imagination. My creative impulse and the drive to pursue it are tied to harmonics. It is the balancing of opposing forces and the orchestration of multiple voices that inspires me. I prefer synthesis to deconstruction. I work to weave together, not tear apart. Bali presented me with clues to a very different understanding of art—a coherent vision of creative synthesis. I was determined to follow those clues and discover where they might lead. In 1985 after nearly fifteen years juggling careers as a gallery artist and a college teacher, I walked away from the financial security of my tenured position and struck out on my own, bound for a barely imagined future. On one of my first trips to Bali I had apprenticed myself to a master mask carver in Ubud. I returned to Bali to begin again, and this time, instead of taking the craft of carving back into my studio as I had done before, I followed the masks themselves as they made their journeys from a Balinese artist’s studio out into the world. I followed the masks and in the process I became a traveler and a dealer, a collector, a curator and a gallery owner. I came to know the masks as trade goods, ritual objects, ethnographic artifacts and as works of art. From masks I expanded my quest to include a wide range of Southeast Asian arts. Over the next twenty years I retraced the trade routes of the Silk Road as it threads its way west through Central Asia and on to Eastern Europe. I followed the elusive and evocative trails of motifs, techniques, and meanings of art and artifacts. I was very fortunate to have begun my gallery career with William Jamison, a legendary Portland art dealer. William encouraged my intercultural explorations throughout the 80s and continued to represent me up until his retirement shortly before his untimely death. After William’s death, I drifted away from the gallery world and concentrated on running my own business. In 2005 after twenty years of travel and trade, I closed my gallery, built myself a new studio and settled down to serious work with enamel again. In 2009 this beautiful life came to a halt. I discovered that I had a tumor in my right breast. A month later I underwent surgery to remove it. It was a month permeated with dread. With cancer there are no certainties, only probabilities. Time took on an entirely new meaning in my life and in my art. I realized that whatever time I had left, I wanted to be in the studio working. I wanted to make meaning. Whatever I made must have the full weight of my intellect, my emotional intention, and my skill in order to make as precise a visual statement as possible.

Martha Banyas

2010 Enamel, copper, wood 8½˝ w x 7¼˝ h x 2˝ d

Artists collect art. I’ve always felt a special connection to these three figures. They occupy places of honor in my studio. For many years they have watched over me while I worked, serving as muses, confidants and critics. As I began this series it seemed both logical and auspicious that they should appear and assume the roles of supporting characters or guardians. From left to right they are the Javanese Dancer, Petruk the Joker and Blue Jaguar. Each of them brings its own strands of history and memory.

Guardians: Restoring Balance

Demon of Dread

An aspect of Shiva, Mahakala represents the absence of light. His strong association with death is obvious. But he carries a potentially deeper meaning as well, for Mahakala also serves as a powerful protector of souls. Mahakala exists outside the boundaries of time. Inherent in his nature is both the possibility and the necessity of transformation.

2013 Enamel, copper, steel, mica, wood 13˝ w x ⁄⁄¾˝ h x 3½˝ d

A sarong in classic Javanese style serves as the ground of this piece. A favorite friend appears in the form of a very old Burmese puppet. In one hand he is holding and caring for a moon snail shell; with the other he reaches out to reassure the female character as she floats in a field of radiation. Behind her a blue-green figure, her husband, helps and supports.

2010 Enamel, copper, wood 16Ë? w x 7Ë? h x 2Ë? d

Batik: Tales of Healing

This figure is tattooed with patterns from Central Asian ikats. Her body opens to reveal the underlying cellular structure of a radiant self within. The cat/tiger, who stands guard, is based on my dear departed cat Balti. The double spiral motif is an ancient symbol of feminine power and mystery. The far background serves as a map of my path toward recovery.

2011 Enamel, copper, wood 9˝ w x 6½˝ h x 2˝ d

Ikat: Layers and Threads

An old Chinese puppet with moon snail breasts stands in for the self. Her pose derives from a Persian miniature of a woman who welcomes wild birds to perch on her hands. In this case what materializes is a winged emanation of her own spirit—her radiant self.

2011 Enamel, copper, steel, wood 9˝ w x 10¾˝ h x 2˝ d

Radiant Body

Minangkabau: Resonant Memory

When we are threatened we turn to powerful role models for guidance. We put on masks of endurance. We strike brave poses like this dancer. She stands within a background of textiles inspired by my memories of time spent with the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra. Minangkabau culture is historically matrilineal, derived from long tradition. Feminism is not theoretical; it is embedded in practice. Women are persons of power.

2012 Enamel, copper, silver, brass, wood 12˝ w x 15˝ h x 2¾˝ d

Cycles of Connection

The Self is surrounded by a framework of the familiar, natural world—the personal landscape—flowers, leaves, trees and night sky. Her mask provides an appearance of serenity while her hands offer a gesture of balance. Petruk returns as a protective helper.

2012 Enamel, copper, silver, wood ⁄⁄½˝ w x 7˝ h x 2½˝ d

2012 Enamel, copper, steel, wood ⁄⁄¾˝ w x 12¾˝ h x 2½˝ d

This portrait within my heart honors my closest companion, my husband, whose tenderness and unwavering support sustained me. Patterns of curves and barbs, spirals, hooks and arrows cover the layers and tie them together. The two figures recall the interplay of masculine and feminine. They juxtapose the hardness of metal and glass against the softness of wood.

The Edge of Quiet

Winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Water: Rite of Passage

For every trial in life there is a turning point at which we clear the obstacle and see for the first time that there is indeed an end in sight. Emerging from narrow darkness we return to a luminous world, but we carry with us the struggles of our passage and firsthand knowledge of the fragility of life.

2013 Enamel, copper, wood 18½˝ w x 10˝ h x 2½˝ d

This juxtaposes the motifs of four layers or planes of existence. In the foreground is the personal in the form of a female figure, wrapped in a sarong. Behind her is the visible world of natural landscape. Behind that a much older tracery of community stretches back into prehistory, represented by 10,000 year old pictographs from an archeological site in southern Oregon. Underlying all these worlds is an image of cellular structure, the web of life that holds and supports us all.

2014 Enamel, copper, wood 18½˝ w x 10˝ h x 2¼˝ d

Frayed World

During radiation treatment, I had to hold absolutely still for 30 minutes. The first day was relatively easy. I calmed myself down and relaxed. But I wondered if I could manage to do this twenty-nine more times.The second day, a remarkable thing happened. As I closed my eyes to begin my

treatment time, an image of my mother unexpectedly came to me. She was above me looking down from the spirit realm and extending her hands down to me, sending me rays of love and healing. With this image came a flood of memories of my mother. The time passed before I knew it. After that she was with me every day. And each day thereafter she was joined by another loved one (grandmothers, relatives, friends), eventually forming a circle, each extending their hands in healing and love and evoking a lifetime of interwoven memories.

2014 Enamel, copper, steel, mica, wood 10 1/2Ë? w x 18 1/2Ë? h x 2Ë? d

Edithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hands

I’m looking back at the entire journey from the darkest period when it began through the slow return of light and hope. At every step some dear friends have been there at my side. My witty and irrepressible companion Petruk anchors me and helps me maintain a sense of humor. The soulful Blue Jaguar peers on my behalf through the clouded mirror into the unknown future that lies beyond.

2015 Enamel, copper, mica, mirror, wood 26 1/2˝ w x 10˝ h x 2˝ d

The Clouded Mirror

Iconography

Weaving double ikat, Tenganan Bali.

Textiles fascinate me in terms of both symbolism and process. Symbolically a woven textile is a perfect analogy for life. The warp of the fabric is like our DNA strung on the loom of our body. The weft is spun from our experiences. It accumulates thread by thread throughout our lives. The process of weaving proceeds through repetition and accumulation. The interlocking fabric that results is the story of our life, marked and patterned by the events and forces that shape us.

Batik is a cloth which is drawn upon or stamped with wax. Silk batik tulis (hand-drawn), central Java.

The cloth is then dyed and the waxed areas resist the dyes. The process is repeated for each additional color, and the design is built up as in multiple stage printing. Ikat is a patterned cloth in which the warp threads are dyed in designs before the cloth is woven. This is a particularly challenging technique because the design must be pre-visualized and precisely maintained throughout the process of warping the loom.

Patterns are among the oldest of human marks, so old that

Central Asian embroidered suzani.

we can only speculate at their early meanings. Outside the traditions of European perspective, pattern retains a central place in the structure and meaning of art, reflecting the importance of pattern in maintaining cultural continuity. In this manner, backgrounds can carry as much and sometimes more information than the foreground. Often that information has been condensed and codified into symbols. The long association between symbol and pattern is exemplified in the art of tattoo. I first began to investigate tattoo as an art

form in 1972. I imagined that we are all invisibly tattooed with our experiences, and that if we had special glasses, we could read each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tattoos and know something of each othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lives. I did numerous prints using personal narratives as tattoo imagery. I also did a documentary video on what was then the underground culture of tattoo, focusing particularly on the clandestine world of full body tattoo and its connections with gender identity. Influenced by the remarkable mask traditions of Native Americans of the Northwest Coast, masks began to appear in my enamel work in the late 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Masks change the persona. They transform, disguise, shift and hide. They link us to other worlds, psychological, mythological, historical. They demonstrate the layered nature of our realities.

Ulu, mask. Wood, bamboo. M. Banyas, 1987.

Some of the most powerful experiences of my first visits to Bali were the mask and puppet performances. They were often performed outdoors lit by oil lamp or kerosene lantern. Each performance presented a combination of history lesson, popular entertainment, local gossip and religious ritual.

While in the West puppets have been relegated to minor roles in the entertainment industry, in Asia puppets continue to play a central role in classical theater traditions, especially in China, Japan and Indonesia. In Indonesia in particular, puppets retain power and magic. It is puppets who stand in for gods and mortals alike in the timeless mythological epics of the wayang kulit (shadow puppet theater). Like the mask, the puppet and its stage present a layered reality, complex and nuanced with both light and shadow. Wayang golek puppets, made for Body Tjak performance group. M. Banyas, 1990.

Serigraph with color ink. M. Banyas, 1974.

Notes on the Work Page 12 ::

Guardians: Restoring Balance

One evening I found my husband drawing one of my favorite sculptures from Javaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Petruk, a joker/trickster character from the Wayang or puppet plays. I had been sifting through possibilities for some key element to unify and energize a series of large scale pieces about the cancer experience that had captured me and redirected my life and my work. This image of Petruk offered a key. Removed from context and translated from carved wood to pencil on paper it offered a rich avenue for both metaphor and making. Indonesian drama is religious by nature and mythological in subject. Petruk operates outside the action of the play. He often serves as a chorus, commenting on the action both onstage and off. He is free to poke fun at the characters and to satirize the social and political lives of the community.

In this image Petruk is joined by an old Javanese puppet and a blue jaguar. The puppet is unnamed, probably a court dancer. I found her on a trading trip more than twenty years ago. The jaguar is carved and painted wood. My husband bought him for me thirty years ago on our first visit to Mexico. Once, on a visit to Puget Sound, I came across my first moon snail shells while wading at low tide. I had no idea what they were. The shells are milky white and spiraled. Barnacles cling to some of them like bezels with missing gems. I took several home to my studio. As I began to draw them I realized that they evoked images of breasts. The presence of the barnacles suggested the presence of tumors. For me it was a painful but beautiful image, one that could serve as a symbolic vessel for my complex feelings. Page 14 ::

Demon of Dread

The month between my initial diagnosis and the start of treatment was the most difficult time. There were so many medical variables, linguistic ambiguities and statistical approximations to sift through and at the end, a number of gut-wrenching and irrevocable decisions. It felt like a demon of dread had me in its claws, and that became the subject of this piece. I turned to a classic Buddhist image, Mahakala, as a key to its character.

Page 16 ::

Batik: Tales of Healing

Here, anatomical drawings of mammary glands replace traditional floral motifs of batik. They connect through a network of orange lines to the lymph system. Behind these are blue dotted lines of radiation as well as another traditional batik motif, the phoenix, shown rising from the ashes. The sarong is a flat textile that is worn as a hip wrap by women. It is both protective and symbolic, serving as a canvas for personal and mythological meaning. When opened and viewed as a whole an underlying narrative of healing emerges from the constellation of designs and symbols. Barely visible behind the leg of the puppet, a kris, a ceremonial knife cuts a small tumor from the fabric of life. Page 18 ::

Ikat: Layers and Threads

This piece encapsulates a variety of experiences I had while undergoing radiation treatments. Lying perfectly still for thirty minutes at a time requires some effort and I found that visualizing my thoughts and feelings helped me maintain my concentration. Life takes place on many layersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; personal, social, emotional, intellectual. Each one has its own pattern of signs and symbols that we use to filter our perceptions and express meaning and belief. Illness brings us to a new place of valley and shadow. It takes us beneath our skin and reveals the layers of our lives in ways we cannot foresee. When our lives hang in the balance, being can seem unbearably light. Page 20 ::

Radiant Body

The long, ritualized process of radiation treatment began with tattoos. Three permanent bullseyes on my breast. They presented targets uncomfortably close to my heart. Radiation is imperceptible. No sound. No visual. The effects are intangible, cumulative and taken on faith. As the days repeated, I was surprised to feel a new sense of consciousness began to emerge as though a chrysalis had opened. It was a radiant, calm self who acknowledged the richness and value of my life despite the medical uncertainties I faced.

Page 22 ::

Minangkabau: Resonant Memory

For me art is ultimately a celebration. Even purely analytical art is celebratory. It celebrates the critical power of the human mind. For me making art is a celebration of synthesis, which is at the core of human experience and ultimately at the heart of life. I value the privilege of making art. When I pay close attention to the process, from the first infatuation of inspiration to the last painstaking detail of execution, I often find that despite its flaws and imperfections reality can be cause for unexpected celebration. Page 24 ::

Cycles of Connection

There are moments in life when time is held in suspension while forces beyond our control and comprehension decide our fates. We are obligated by love and duty to remain calm, to show patience and determination in the face of potential disaster. Sometimes self-discipline can only go so far. We may require the assistance of a kindly ally. Even a metaphoric ally can offer strength, humor and support.

Page 26 ::

The Edge of Quiet

This piece was influenced by a 19th century Mexican portrait painter. For nearly fifty years, Hermenegildo Bustos painted the people of Guanajuatoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;common folk and aristocrats alike. The portraits are in the permanent collection of the Alhondiga Museum. I love to be in the presence of these pictures with their complex social and psychological messages. I wanted to try something similarly iconographic within my own narrative. The winter I worked on this piece we had hung a large embroidered textile in our living roomâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;my favorite Uzbek suzani. We spent many evenings admiring its beautifully embroidered patterns and intertwining designs.

Page 28 ::

Winter’s Water: Rite of Passage

As an experience, cancer brings with it many milestones, many turning points, but few are cause for celebration. Relief is in short supply. Happiness is rare and noteworthy. If I could pinpoint my first tentative feeling of happiness it would probably be the moment I first dared to think that I might make it through. I might survive. Before that, even to imagine being happy again felt impudent, as though I were recklessly, foolishly tempting fate. Imagining again that life stretched out in front of me returned me to the currents of life. This piece, with its references to the sea, recalls the body of work I had prepared to start just before getting my diagnosis. A chance reading of Rachel Carson had led me to an unexpected fascination with tide pools. Beginning with field guides, rubber boots and drawing pad, I progressed from field trips to studio work and from initial drawings to firing test pieces and maquettes. All that work was put on hold. Page 30 ::

Frayed World

Beneath the deep fractures of our world lie deeper and deeper levels of connection—ourselves, our landscapes, our histories, our cellular unity. The world outside my studio—the land, the river, the sky—is continuously pulling itself apart, shredding into new pieces, and drifting into new configurations. I see it happening every day. One response is to wrap my personal world tightly around myself, like a sarong.

Page 32 ::

Edith’s Hands

As I was working on drawings for this piece and thinking about the somewhat miraculous vision of my mother’s hands, the image of an ancient Native American mica hand popped into my head. I knew this was exactly right. When I began researching, I found that I knew that hand from long, long ago...undoubtedly due to my mother’s interest in such things. It was made by the Hopewell people, Moundbuilders of southern Ohio. This piece, from AD 100-400, was uncovered from a mound complex site near my hometown, which I visited often growing up. Of the mica hand, it has been written that “…this elegant icon conveys through form and a sense of gesture a suggestion of communication between the human community and the world of spirits beyond.” Yes. Page 34 ::

The Clouded Mirror

These images and the experience of creating them enabled me to radically reframe my experience of illness. There was not just the illness, but the redemptive act of transforming the complex emotional, intellectual, and spiritual into art. With each piece I grappled with different aspects and let the vehicle of imaging come to me gradually as I worked on drawings. When some combination of images and ideas felt right, I worked from that thread trying to expand and develop the central theme. From the beginning I felt the community of spirits that supported me and I followed their clues. I want this work to be a reminder of how profoundly this experience changed the fundamental unity of my life.

Studio: Process and Drawings Vitreous enamel, put simply, is a thin coat of glass fused to metal in a kiln with high heat. The enamel is specially compounded with materials that allow it to bond to certain metals, most commonly copper, silver, gold, and steel. When the kiln temperature is about 1500Ë&#x161;F the vitreous enamel will melt and fuse to the metal base in a few minutes. â&#x20AC;&#x153; It has a permanence, depth of color, and a complexity of light refraction found in no other media.â&#x20AC;? Fred Ball, Experimental Techniques in Enameling. 1974.

Making Minangkabau: Resonant Memory

46 Each piece begins with sketches then moves to a detailed, scale drawing. After that I cut the individual elements from sheets of copper, form them as necessary, drill and solder them and prep the metal for enamel. Notes on my drawings help me conceptualize how to stage the various elements, deciding the order in which they will be enameled and the sequence of the firings for each piece. It is not uncommon for a single element to require fifteen firings. When all the elements are completed I begin the assembly process which includes cutting and carving the wood foundation. Each piece takes months to complete.

Resumé I began serious studio work with enamels in the early 1970s. I have taught college classes and workshops, and have exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. In 1985, I started Apa Ini, a folk art gallery in Portland, Oregon. For the next 20 years I traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and Turkey, and was a dealer in ethnographic and tribal arts and crafts. During that time my personal work evolved in many different directions from making masks and life-size puppets in Bali to continuing work in small scale sculpture and jewelry. In 2005 I returned to full-time studio work in enamels and metals.

Martha Banyas Education

Ohio University. Athens, Ohio. 1967-1968. Full tuition scholarship, graduating with honors. M.A. Printmaking. Miami University. Oxford, Ohio. 1962-1966. B.S. in Art Education.

Work Currently a full-time studio artist in Portland, Oregon. Apa Ini. Portland, Oregon. 1985-2005. Founder and sole proprietor of an ethnographic/handmade object import business traveling, collecting and selling exceptional objects from all over SE Asia as well as Turkey and Eastern Europe. Mt. Hood Community College. Portland, Oregon. 1971-1985. Tenured full-time faculty; head of printmaking department, also taught metalsmithing, enameling, and Survery of Visual Arts. Portland Community College. Portland, Oregon. 1972, 1973. Taught jewelry and metals. Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. Portland, Oregon. 1972, 1973. Taught silk screen printmaking.

Selected Group Exhibitions Alchemy 2: Transformation in Contemporary Enamels. The Enamelist Society Conference. 2013. Without Boundaries: Transformations in American Craft. Craft Alliance. St. Louis, MO. 2012. Alchemy: Transformation in Contemporary Enamels. The Enamelist Society Conference. “ Best in Show” award winner. Arrowmont School of Crafts; Gatlinburg, TN. National Ornamental Metal Museum; Memphis, TN. 2011-2012. SOFA. New York. Represented by Mobilia Gallery. 2007. Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection. Museum of Fine Arts. Houston, TX. 2007. The Art of Enameling. Moblia Gallery. Boston, MA. 2006. Body Tjak. A performance group of 12 Balinese and 12 American performers, performing percussive works in various locations in the USA and Indonesia. I made two life-size basket puppets and two smaller, matching rod puppets plus six masks for their ensemble. 1990. The Tale of Panji. Lewis and Clark University Gamelan. Portland, OR. A Javanese opera written and directed by Vincent McDermott, head of the Lewis and Clark gamelan. I made three life-size basket puppets for numerous performances. 1990. Gallery Group Show. Jamison/Thomas Gallery. Portland, OR. 1989. Color and Image. Invitational. Gallery Association of New York State. 1988-89. Metalsmiths Making Sculpture. Invitational. Traveling Exhibition: Mitchell Museum, TN; Cococino Center for the Arts, AZ; National Ornamental Metal Museum, TN; Wichita Art Association, KS. 1986-87.

New Work. Invitational. Wita Gardiner Gallery. San Diego, CA 1987. Masterworks, Enamel/87. Aoki Metal Ltd. Tokyo, Japan. 1987. 50th Anniversary, Metals Exhibition. Contemporary Crafts Gallery. Portland, OR. 1987. Poetry of the Physical. Inaugural Exhibition. American Craft Museum, New York City, NY. 1986. A New Tradition. Invitational. Georgia State University. Atlanta, GA. 1986. Enamels Now. Wita Gardiner Gallery. San Diego, CA. 1986. Deception and Revelation: Art of the Mask. International Gallery. San Diego, CA. 1986. Forum Für Schmuck und Design. Köln, West Germany. 1985. Menagerie. North Terminal Connector Gallery. San Francisco International Airport, CA. 1985. Fine Works. Invitational. International Gallery. San Diego, CA. 1985. Group Show. Gallery Artists, Jamison-Thomas Gallery. Portland, OR. 1985. National Crafts Invitational. Kent State University. Kent, OH. 1985. Contemporary American Heritage. Invitational. Elaine Potter Gallery. San Francisco, CA. 1984. National Jewelry & Unique Objects. Invitational. Fine Arts Center of Tempe, AZ. 1984. A Mano. Invitational. University Art Gallery. New Mexico State University. 1984. Multiplicity in Clay, Metal & Fibers. Invitational. Skidmore College, NY. 1984. Northwest Fusion. Invitational. Visual Arts Center of Alaska. Anchorage. AK. 1984. Metals & Enamels. Invitational. Kyoto Municipal Museum of Traditional Industry. Kyoto, Japan. 1983. International Schmuckshau: Material. Invitational. Munich, Germany. 1983. Vitreous Enamels. Juror. A.R.T. Beasley Gallery. San Diego, CA. 1983. Enamels/Glass. Invitational. Eastern Kentucky University. Richmond, KY. 1983. Metal & Enamel Invitational. Robert Else Gallery. Cal State University. Sacramento, CA. 1983. Oregon Biennial. Portland Art Museum. Portland, OR. 1983. Enamels, ’82. Invitational. Dimock Gallery. Washington D.C. 1982. 3 Artists Invitational. Concepts Gallery. Carmel, CA. 1982. NorthWest Crafts Exhibition. Museum of History and Industry. Seattle, WA. 1982. Animal Kingdom. Invitational. Gallery Eight. La Jolla, CA. 1982. Enamel Today. NorthWest Crafts Center. Seattle, WA. 1982. Enamels, ’81. Invitational. Venture Gallery. Lathrup Village, MO. 1981. The Animal Image. Invitational. The Renwick Gallery. Washington D.C. 1981. “Inanna.” Enamel, copper, stone, bone. Metalsmiths ’81. University of Kansas Gallery. Lawrence, KS. 1981. M. Banyas,1985. Enamels 50/80. Invitational. Brookfield Craft Center. Brookfield, CT; Manchester Institute of Arts & Sciences, NH; and Worcester Craft Center, MA. 1981. Oregon Biennial. Invitational. Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR. 1981. Porcelain & Enamels. Invitational. Contemporary Artisans Gallery. San Francisco, CA. 1981. Concepts in Metal: The Figure. Invitational. The Kresge Art Gallery. Michigan State University. East Lansing, MI. 1980. Materials & Concepts in Three Dimensions. Invitational. Hewlett Gallery. Carnegie-Mellon University. Pittsburg, PA 1980. Off the Body: Metals and Enamels. Invitational. Bradley University. Peoria, IL. 1980. Flux, Fusion, and Fireworks. Outstanding Merit Award. Contemporary Crafts Gallery. Portland, OR. 1980. Northwest Enamelists. Traveling exhibition. Visual Arts Resources, Museum of Art. Eugene, OR. 1979-1981. 2nd International Shippo (Enamel) Exhibition. Tokyo, Japan. 1979. Objects, 1979. Judges 3rd Place Award. Western Colorado Center for the Arts. Grand Junction, CO. 1979. Portland Crafts Invitational. Sapporo. Japan. 1979. Forty Oregon Craftsmen. Timberline Lodge. Government Camp, Mt. Hood, OR. 1977. Containers. Contemporary Crafts Gallery. Portland, OR. 1974. Testimony to a Process. Invitational. Portland Art Museum. Portland, OR. 1974. Body Craft. Portland Art Museum. Portland, OR. 1973. Works on Paper. Hoffman Gallery. Oregon School of Arts and Crafts. Portland, OR. 1973. Artists of Oregon. Portland Art Museum. Portland, OR. 1972. Paper Works. Portland Art Museum. Portland, OR. 1972.

Selected Solo Exhibitions Apa Ini Gallery. Portland, OR. 2001, 2004, 2008. Jamison/Thomas Gallery, Portland, OR. 1986, 1987, 1988, with mask and puppet performances. Elaine Potter Gallery. San Francisco, CA. 1985. The Mask behind the Mask. Contemporary Crafts Gallery. Portland, OR. 1984. Greenwood Gallery. Washington D.C. 1981. Contemporary Artisans Gallery. San Francisco. CA. 1980. Montalvo Center for the Arts. Saratoga, CA. 1979. Hoffman Gallery. Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. Portland, OR. 1979. White Bird Gallery. Cannon Beach, OR. 1978. Contemporary Crafts Gallery. Portland, OR. 1977. Anne Hughes Gallery. Portland, OR. 1975.

Publications

Alchemy 2: Transformation in Contemporary Enamels. The Enamelist Society. 2013. Without Boundaries: Transformations in American Craft. L. Hamilton. Craft Alliance. 2012. Alchemy: Transformation in Contemporary Enamels. The Enamelist Society. 2011. 500 Enameled Objects: A Celebration of Color on Metal. Lark Books. 2009. The Art of Enameling. Linda Darty. Lark Books. 2004. Craft Today: Poetry of the Physical. American Craft Museum. 1986. Enamels, Enameling, Enamelists. Glenice Matthews. Chilton. 1984. American Craft magazine. Portfolio Feature. Feb/Mar, 1982. Cloisonne and Champleve Enameling. Strosahl/Strosahl and Barnhart. Scribner’s. NY. 1981. State of the Crafts. Petock & Associates. 1980. Calyx magazine. Portfolio feature. November, 1979. By Hand magazine. Portfolio feature. November, 1979. Encore magazine. Portfolio feature. November, 1978. Alternative Photographic Processes. Kent Wade. Morgan & Morgan. 1978.

Detail, “All we are and all we dream....” Enamel, copper, wood. M. Banyas,1983.

Selected Commissions The Tale of Panji. Lewis and Clark University Gamelan. Portland, OR. A Javanese opera written and directed by Vincent McDermott, head of the Lewis and Clark gamelan. I made three life-size basket puppets for numerous performances. 1990. Body Tjak. A performance group of 12 Balinese and 12 American performers, performing percussive works in various locations in the USA and Indonesia. I made two life-size basket puppets and two smaller,matching rod puppets plus six masks for their ensemble. 1990. Rizzuto Residence, Long Island Sound, NY. A six-panel porcelain enamel wall sculpture for an exterior wall. 9’ x 18’ x 1’. 1988. Oregon Institute of Technology. Klamath Falls, OR. A series of enameled steel figures for an interior wall in the aquatic center. Oregon Percent for the Arts. 11’ x 23’ x 2”. 1985-86. Washington State Art in Public Places. Mountain View High School. Vancouver, WA. Fifteen, enameled steel life-sized steel figures for exterior courtyard. 5’ x 60’ x 2”. 1985. Mt. Hood Medical Center. Portland, OR. Three, enameled wall panels on steel. 22” x 30” x 2”. 1985. Ronald and Anne Abramson, collectors. Washington, D.C. An enameled wall piece 36” x 48” x 6”. 1983. The Governor’s Awards for the Arts. Oregon Arts Commission. Four, enameled wall panels, given by the Governor for outstanding contributions to the arts. 1980. Kaiser Permanente Health Care. Portland, OR. Four, dimensional enameled wall panels for clinics. 30” x 18” x 6”. 1980.

Grants Fulbright Grant. International Studies Department, Mt. Hood Community College. Granted to a group of tenured faculty to do individual research in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the summer. Results published in a teaching module, Cultural Understanding through Visual Perception. 1981. Oregon Arts Commission. Individual Fellowship Grant. Funded to return to Bali and work with master mask-maker, Ida Bagus Anom. Mas, Bali. 1984-85. Program Development Grant. Mt. Hood Community College. Funded to build an enamel slide bank of historical and contemporary enamel slides. 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982.

Selected Workshops Enamelist Society Conference. Arrowmont School, TN. Enamel mask workshop. 2011. Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. Portland, OR. Enamel workshop. 2011. Enamelist Society Conference. Oakland, CA. Enamel workshop. 2009. National Enamel Guild. Montgomery College, Washington D.C. 1983, 1988. Brookfield Craft Center. Brookfield, CT. 1986, 1987. Georgia State University. Art Department. Atlanta, GA. 1987. Wichita Art Association. Wichita, KS. 1986. Southwest Craft Center. San Antonio, TX. 1985. Enamel Guild South. Miami, FL. 1985. Haystack Mountain School. Deer Isle, Maine. 1985. Program in Artisanry. Boston University. Boston, MA. 1985. Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Gatlinburg, TN. 1981, 1982, 1985. Summervail Workshop. Colorado Mountain College. Vail, CO. 1982, 1983, 1984. San Diego State University, San Diego, CA. 1983. 92nd Street Y. New York City, NY. N.E.A. Artist in Residence. 1982, 1983. Craftsummer. Miami University. Oxford, OH. 1982. Penland School of Crafts. Penland, NC. 1979, 1980, 1982, 1985. Craft Student’s League. New York City, NY. 1981. State University of New York at New Paltz. New Paltz, NY. 1981, 1982. Virginia Commonwealth University. Richmond, VA. 1981.

Monkey ancestor brooch. Enamel, copper, silver. M. Banyas, 1982.

Selected Guest Lectures Enamelist Society Conference. Keynote address. Arrowmont School, TN. 2011. Enamelist Society Conference. Oakland, CA. Lecture. 2009. SNAG Conference. Portland, OR. 1994. Lecture. Art Resources. Osaka, Japan. 1987. Northwest Designer/Craftsmen. Seattle, WA. 1987. Program in Artisanry. Boston University. Boston, MA. 1985. National Enamel Symposium. Summervail. Minturn, CO. 1982, 1983. Renwick Gallery. Smithsonian Institution. Washington D.C. 1983. Cal State University, Metals Department. Sacramento, CA. 1982. Northwest Enamel Symposium. Seattle, WA. 1982. SNAG Conference. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. 1981.

“Terpsichore.” Enamel, copper. M. Banyas, 1981.

Travel From 1981 until 2005, I traveled extensively in mainland and island SE Asia, spending many months a year in Indonesia. Throughout Indonesia, Asia, as well as Turkey and Eastern Europe, I searched out makers of all kinds, expanding my knowledge of cultures as they expressed it through materials and techniques. I cannot emphasize enough the value of learning from these makers. Those lessons have immeasurably enriched my own making and meaning.