DECEMBER | ISSUE
Holiday TRA ARTist inspired cocktail guide
NO 7
al newbill
Abstract Expressionist Al Newbill was raised in Detroit, where he attended the prestigious magnet school Cass Technical High School, and took classes at the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Newbill headed for New York where he studied at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Hans Hofmann School of Fine Art, and the New School of Social Research. In 1957, Newbill showed at the New York Artists’ 6th Annual Exhibition alongside contemporaries Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Hans Hofmann. Two years later, Newbill exhibited at Leo Castelli gallery in New York City, in the same year that the famed gallery also showed Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella. After fifteen years in New York City, Newbill turned to teaching, taking various positions around the United States, including those at Cornell University and University of California, Berkley. Eventually, Newbill settled down in Ohio, taking a position at Ohio State University in Mansfield until his retirement in 1976. Sadly, Mr. Newbill recently passed away at the age of 91.
plum & rum old fashioned
Ingredients 45ml Chairman’s Reserve Rum 20ml Plum Purée A small dash of sugar syrup 4 drops of Plum bitters Method – Pour all ingredients in cocktail mixer to shake – Add ice cubes into tumbler – Pour mixture into glass Garnish with slices of fresh plum
HOLIDAY
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claudia hershman
“I am attracted to the freedom in children’s art and seek to capture that spontaneity and joy. Experimentation and a love of color, shape, and pattern are the focus of my process. My prints and paintings evolve without preconception. When a piece begins to have it’s own life, a dialog between us emerges. I add marks or collage with color or pencil, and then react to the marks, colors, drips, and accidents, even working with my fingers, to move further into the piece. When all comes together, the piece is finally is finished. Making art, for me, is not about intent, but about the experience itself. " - Claudia Hershman Art has been a part of Claudia Hershman’s world since she was a child.
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INGREDIENTS 5 Blackberries 2 oz Spiced rum 3⁄4 oz Simple syrup 3⁄4 oz Fresh lemon juice 1⁄2 oz Egg white 1 barspoon Activated charcoal Garnish: Angostura bitters HOW TO MAKE THE FADE TO BLACK COCKTAIL In a cocktail shaker, muddle the blackberries in a shaker. Add the remaining ingredients, and dry-shake (without ice) until the egg white turns foamy, for 20 seconds. Add ice and shake vigorously until well-chilled. Double-strain into a chilled coupe glass. HOLIDAY 2018•MIXED Garnish with 3 dashes of Angostura bitters.
lisa goedert
Lisa Goedert takes her inspiration from scientific line-drawings and mathematical illustrations. She loves the simple beauty of the Line. While she mostly works in an automatism fashion, she will later “go back in” and labor over capturing a certain rhythm to a line. Its thickness, curvature, and relationship to other forms are crucial in her work. Goedert also communicates using organic forms. Ovals and circles can symbolize the smallest of stones to the greatness of the cosmos. Seedylike sprays of dashes and dots also add a visual rhythm and vibration. Goedert grew up near grassy fields with reedy ponds. These natural forms feel like math to her. Goedert enjoys the mysteries of the sea, space, and forest, and is inspired by the many patterns found in nature like those on a bird’s plumage, or the way tree branches cut across the sky.
sugar cookie martini
ingredients 1 ounce vanilla vodka 1 ounce amaretto 2 ounces Frosted Sugar Cookie or Vanilla International Delight Coffee Creamer Instructions If desired, coat the rim of your glass with light corn syrup and then dip the rim in sugar. Place ice in a martini shaker, along with all ingredients. Shake and strain into prepared glass. Serve immediately.
HOLIDAY 2018•MIXED
mary rousseaux
 Rousseaux is an artist fluent in different visual medias -- painting, sculpture, the artist book and photography, but remains primarily a painter. Her fluency and versatility has allowed her to expand the language of painting. She has been at the forefront of creating work that pushes the imagination and challenges the traditional definitions and formal concerns of contemporary painting. Working on or altering the two-dimensional surface, continuing to investigate how we see, her work conveys a layering and compression of time, space and place that is directly informed by the changing landscape of the city. Her work continues to explore the ideas of memory and how they weave together to create our reality.Â
raspberry cream mimosa
Ingredients (Serves 4): 1 bag frozen raspberries (approximately 2 cups) 1/4 sugar (or more depending on taste, see below) 1 cup heavy cream 1 bottle of Martin & Rossi Asti Champagne - or - Sparkling Wine (Asti is more of a sweet champagne, you can use a dryer champagne for more of a bitter sweet taste) Fresh raspberries for garnish Directions: In a small sauce pan, thaw raspberries on medium heat until they've broken down and become soup-like. Add sugar to sauce pan and combine, stirring until sugar dissolves. Add more sugar to taste if you'd like it more sweet. Remove from heat and puree until well blended. Pour mixture through sieve in to freezer-safe container to remove raspberry seeds. Let mixture cool. Add cream, stirring to combine. Place in freezer for 3-4 hours (or overnight), until frozen. When you're ready to serve, add 2-3 tablespoons to each champagne glass. Pour champagne over each and top with raspberries HOLIDAY
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mark wolak
Mark Wolak claims he has always been an artist. This statement goes far beyond Mark's focus of painting. Mark began drawing before he was ten, studied guitar and martial arts through high school, and made a short career as a musician in his 20's. Disillusionment with the music industry brought him full circle to rediscover the visual arts again. Mark began began drawing again years after he originally put down the pencil as a child. Mark created a method of working which is uniquely his own. Mark makes each and every canvas unique. He rarely repeats himself. His canvases are each unique in size. This nuance gives each work its own character and helps Mark to create individual statements each time he works. His unique method involves painting "wet on wet", which means he never allows the painting to dry while he is working. He rarely uses brushes. He prefers to use found objects, sticks, and other "tools" to get the desired effect.
toasted s'mores martini
NGREDIENTS 1 oz. dark chocolate or milk chocolate godiva liqueur 1/2 oz. fluffed marshmallow vodka 1/2 oz. heavy cream hershey's chocolate syrup and crushed graham cracker for the rim marshmallows as garnish small bamboo sticks INSTRUCTIONS Dip the rim of your glass in the hersheys syrup and then in the crushed graham cracker. Pour the chocolate liqueur as slowly as possible over an upside down spoon into the glass. Mix together the heavy cream and marshmallow vodka in a separate container. Pour the vodka mixture as slowly as possible over an upside down spoon to make the layered look (see picture). Place the marshmallow on the bamboo stick as a skewer. Brown the marshmallow slightly over an open flame (or under a broiler). Do not allow to catch on fire. Lay the bamboo stick on the drink and light the marshmallow for effect before drinking. stir together the drink and enjoy HOLIDAY
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jim stellaÂ
Jim Stella was born in Detroit in 1954 and was attracted to art from an early age. He attended University of Detroit Jesuit high school where he was inspired by art teacher Jim Bridenstien. In 1973 he attended Pratt Institute, NY where he studied sculpture and anatomy. He later returned to Michigan to attend the University of Michigan on a medical illustration scholarship.Stella graduated with high honors. He continued his artistic education at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, where he studied watercolor under the direction of Richard Jersey. In the 1980s and 1990s, Jim worked in interior design and woodworking using a variety of materials and colors to execute his vision indoors. Stella's compositions flow directly from his mind to canvas. As he puts it, "The representations in my paintings are drawn from everyday life, but they are re-integrated to reflect how I see them, perceive them, or remember them. I like the large format because thoughts flow in a lot of different directions and fast. The size is designed to take up your field of view, yet contain small elements your mind can follow."
the blue christmas martini
50ml gin 25ml lemon juice 25ml blue curaçao maraschino cherry
Place a maraschino cherry in the bottom of a martini glass. Combine the gin, lemon juice and blue curaçao in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, and shake vigorously. Strain the mixture into the martini glass and serve.
HOLIDAY
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frank gallo
Frank Gallo has worked primarily from the human form. The sculptor was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1933. He studied art from 1951 to 1959 at the University of Toledo, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and the State University of Iowa. Gallo was professor of sculpture at the University of Illinois. Gallo's works are often mildly erotic, with elongated figures that may sit or recline in postures suggesting extremes of boredom or selfinvolvement. Often distorting his life-like figures Gallo has commented, "I'm obsessed with the female figure. I get static from some women - you know, women's lib- who say that I capitalize on them. But that's not fair. What I express in these pieces is worship, not exploitation. I'm interested in the beauty of the female figure, and I'm trying to express it, the way I feel it." Museums with works by Frank Gallo include: The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Grace Museum, Sara Roby Foundation Collection, Neuberger Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Dennos Museum Center, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
winter wonderland
WINTER WONDERLAND COCKTAIL
Serves: 1 drink INGREDIENTS 1 oz Cream of coconut (such as CocoLopez) 1½ oz Vanilla Vodka 1½ oz Creme de Cocoa Ice INSTRUCTIONS In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine cream of coconut, vanilla vodka and creme de cocoa. Shake until well chilled and combined. Strain into an ice filled glass.
HOLIDAY
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katerina friday
Katerina Friday is a Russian-born artist with a background in drawing, painting, and animation. She received a BFA at the College for Creative Studies, where she studied traditional animation techniques, illustration, and multi-media. Her work ranges from representational to abstract and conceptual. Â Having grown up in Russia, she has lived in Detroit area for the last decade, and brings a cross-cultural approach to her art through multiple mediums.
the aviation
INGREDIENTS 1 1/2 ounces gin 1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice 3/4 ounces maraschino liqueur 1/4 ounce crème de violette (optional) Maraschino cherry, for garnish
DIRECTIONS Add the gin, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur, and crème de violette to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until thoroughly chilled, strain into a coupe glass, and garnish with a maraschino cherry.
HOLIDAY
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susan morosky
Susan Morosky's art develops from an abstract vocabulary inspired by the properties of water, fields, and their boundaries. She works to create a natural rhythm as a means to reflect spontaneous effects and the underlying forces as witnessed by the human spirit.
In her work, the analysis takes place on the surface of the painting. Layers are continuously reformulated by adding and removing material. Surfaces are candidly penetrated revealing consequences, which become embedded to varying degrees in the final form, finding this process akin to natural forces upon the physical world.
For Susan, making art is a journey to understand the natural world through the observance of movement, form, and color. It’s her approach to visual discovery.
blue christmas coconut cocktail
Ingredients 1 cup pineapple juice ½ cup blue curacao (you can use also non-alcoholic blue curacao syrup) ½ cup vodka ½ cup coconut cream 7 cups ice coconut flakes for garnish Instructions Pour a small amount of cream of coconut and coconut flakes to two shallow dishes or plates. Dip rim of glass into cream of coconut then into coconut flakes to rim glass. Add pineapple juice, blue curaçao, vodka, cream of coconut, and ice to blender. Blend on high until ice is crushed and desired consistency is reached. Pour cocktail into rimmed glasses and serve immediately. Enjoy!
HOLIDAY
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russell chatham
Russell Chatham (born October 27, 1939) is a contemporary American landscape artist and author who spent most of his career living in Livingston, Montana. The artist is the grandson of landscape painter Gottardo Piazzoni,[1] though he is essentially a self-taught artist. His work has been exhibited in over 400 one man shows and in museums and galleries over the last five decades. Notable art critic Robert Hughes is numbered one of Chatham's collectors and there are others as diverse as Paul Allen and actor Jack Nicholson. Chatham's work eschews the narrative tendency of much western art and presents landscapes that stand in intimate relationship towards the human figure even in the absence of it. In the early 1980s Chatham began making lithographs and now stands as one of the world's foremost practitioners of that craft.
the brown derby
Ingredients 1 ½ oz Bourbon (choose a gluten-free brand) 1 ½ oz Freshly Squeezed Grapefruit Juice ½ oz Honey Syrup (made from equal parts water and honey brought to a simmer and cooled) 1 grapefruit slice, for garnish Instructions Combine all of the ingredients into a shaker with ice, shake vigorously and strain into a chilled champagne coupe or cocktail glass garnish glass with sliced grapefruit.
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lenore gimpert
Lenore Gimpert is a 1997 graduate of the Center for creative studies, and received both her MA and MFA from Wayne State University. She has a strong love of history, particularly the Greek Hellenistic, Baroque and Rococo periods. The romance of these periods is portrayed in her paintings and drawings as we view the old and classical through her contemporary eye. Her work constantly is metamorphosed from classical statues, to wrought iron gates, to a combination of statues and gates or furniture details to corsets. She paints very different subjects, from varied times, with consistent elements of curves, femininity and romance. In her art she uses various materials and techniques to fuse the old and new. She emphasizes form over color. Her sparing use of color serves as a signature accent, to give her work an elegant ancient feeling.
butterscotch martini recipe
Butterscotch Martini Recipe In a cocktail shaker full of ice cubes add… 1-1/2 ounces vanilla vodka (regular vodka will work if that’s all you have) 1-1/2 ounces butterscotch schnapps 4 oz Cream Soda (Add more Cream Soda if you like your drinks sweet.) 2 oz Sprite Gently shake and pour into a glass. Drink up!
HOLIDAY
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paul varga Born in Detroit to parents of Hungarian ancestry, Paul's family resided in suburban Chicago and later returned to the Detroit area during his childhood years. In this impressionable time frame he would visit the Art Institute of Chicago and later during high school years, the Detroit Institute of Art. His interest in many art forms was nurtured at Central Michigan University where he received a BA in Art education and an MA in Art, with a concentration in sculpture. Although he finds drawing and printmaking to be quite rewarding facets in art, most of his studio time is concentrated on sculpture. From the early 1970's to present he has balanced the careers of Art teacher and sculptor. His teaching career has taken him to four high schools throughout Michigan from the Detroit area to Marquette County. In 2008 he retired from teaching to concentrate his energy on sculpture. In 2009 he was commissioned to create a nine foot bronze sculpture that was installed by Lake Michigan.
christmas coffee cocktail
Ingredients 4 oz strong coffee 1 1/2 oz amaretto liqueur 1 1/2 oz coffee liqueur 1 oz butterscotch schnapps 1 oz creme de cocoa fresh whipped cream grated chocolate, for garnish Instructions Combine strong coffee and liqueurs in a glass. Stir to combine and top with fresh whipped cream. Garnish with grated chocolate. Serve warm or over ice.
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greg white Greg White, a well-known Detroit artist, has been painting for over 40 years. He works in oils on canvas and wood, and has developed unique painting techniques and finishes that involve multiple layering of subtle textures and colors. His paintings reflect a wide range of styles that can be attributed to artistic influences of Rouault, Chagall, Blake and Inness, among others. Philosophically, the Gospels, Thomas Merton, Zen writers, the Taoist Chung Tzu and Carl Jung inspire him. His approach to his canvas` is founded on the belief that symbols in art evoke a communion and unification of our outward and inward selves. Greg is also an accomplished muralist, and his work can be found in homes throughout the metropolitan Detroit area as well as out of state. The themes of his murals are expansive and appeal to the individual interests and tastes of the homeowner while astutely considering the context. In this medium, he has replicated Roman and Italian frescoes and Polynesian art, as well as period and culturally influenced themes. Nature and landscapes are a specialty. Greg’s mural work is decorative and inspirational but always sensitive to the existing environment. And, as an accomplished alchemist, he blends unique colors and glazes to achieve a distinctive, lasting and rich depiction of any subject he portrays.
apple pie on the rocks
Ingredients 1 oz . Vanilla Vodka 1 oz . Fireball Whiskey 4 oz . Organic Apple Juice Pinch of Ground Cinnamon Brown Sugar for the rim Grind a little finer for more successful sugaring Optional: Cinnamon Stick for Garnish Ice Instructions Wet the rim of your rocks glass just a little, and gently sugar the rim with the brown sugar. In a martini shaker, pour the vodka, Fireball, apple juice and ground cinnamon together with a handful of ice cubes. Shake 10 times and pour the contents into the glass without wiping off the sugar rim. Serve chilled and with a cinnamon stick, for garnish. HOLIDAY2018•MIXED
mimi prussack My intention is to use nature as a springboard for the exploration of space. I concentrate my attention on scenery I have personally experienced to study space and light. In order to study the complexities of the shapes found in nature I experiment with cropping photographs of the landscape. I am concerned with the direction, brightness, and angle of the light. How the trees are illuminated and the resulting shadows affect the way the light is transmitted onto the neighboring surfaces. The rhythmic patterns of the shadows and negative spaces become the focus of the work. A colorful underpainting is applied and the surface is slowly built up with numerous layers of paint and glazes. Many areas are carefully painted to allow the previous layers of color to show through from beneath the surface. The use of a limited palate at the onset aids in expressing space and natural light. This adds to the vibration and illumination of the surface. The use of an elongated format adds to the drama of the work. - mimi prussack
cranberry aperol spritzer
CRANBERRY APEROL SPRITZER Champagne or Prosecco 2 oz. Aperol 2 oz. cranberry juice 4 oz. Sparkling Ice Essence of Tangerine In a shaker, combine ice, Aperol and cranberry juice. Add Champagne or Prosecco into a tall glass, pour in Aperol and juice mixture, leaving room to top with Sparkling Ice Essence of Tangerine. Garnish with an orange peel.
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TRA ART GROUP TRA Art Group was formed in 1989 by owner Tim Pike. Tim has over 30 years of experience as an art dealer in the Midwest. Over the years, Tim has collected a core group of talented Michigan artists who create works in all medias including Painting, Sculpture, Digital, Printmaking, Wood Working, Metal Work and Forging, Glass, Ceramic, and more. TRA has a specific focus on promoting Michigan art, artists, and artisans, but we show work from around the globe. Names such as Miro, Picasso, Calder, Kahn, ect. are also available through TRA's network of contacts. The client can personalize any piece of art using our Custom Framing services. We have a list of experienced and professional art installers and movers who can help facilitate one piece, or an entire collection, around the country.
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