VIRTUAL GALLERY inside!
Berkshires artzine promoting the visual and performing arts since 1994
THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021
JANE HUDSON Photography by Edward Acker
The Fine Art of Printing Fine Art. · Giclée and Photo Printing · Digital Reproduction of Paintings · Photo Restoration and Repair
“The prints have amazing clarity and are absolutely beautiful reproductions of the original works. Clients are amazed with the quality.” – Virginia Bradley
Playa Santa 22 — Virginia Bradley
Drop-off & Pick-up Available in Great Barrington, MA and Millerton, NY Studio located in Mount Washington, MA l berkshiredigital.com l 413 · 644· 9663
“Spring Rivulets” 2020, Oil on Canvas
Ghetta Hirsch website: www.ghetta-hirsch.squarespace.com instagram: @ghettahirschpaintings Text or call : 413. 281. 0626
CAROLYN NEWBERGER
"Contagion" is a reflection of our fractured time of pandemic, racism, and polarization. Watercolor landscapes over chewed papers frame human figures who are attracted, repelled and destroyed by the forces of nature and human cruelty.
Contagion, watercolor on collaged paper, 30 x 38 inches
cnewberger@me.com www.carolynnewberger.com 2 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
617-877-5672
MATT CHINIAN American Social Realism
#1723 Hannaford Parking Lot 11-6-20 16x20
Available at thelaffergallery.com Other inquiries: mattchinian@gmail.com THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 3
THE ARTFUL MIND
ARTFUL PANDEMIC RELIEF TO THE RESCUE
APRIL
2021
VIRTUAL GALLERY 2021 ...10 JANE HUDSON / ARTIST PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDWARD ACKER
INTERVIEW BY H CANDEE...20
RICHARD BRITELL / FICTION PROCTOR CRONK STARTS COLLECTING ART PART TWO...36MISS TORPEDOES...60
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MYLA J. BLUM
Carolyn M. Abrams
Morning Has Broken 10 x 10 oil/cwm on paper
MIXED MEDIA ON WATERCOLOR PAPER 18 X 24”
mileamin49@aol.com 786-303-8218
Www.carolynabrams.com http://www.healing-power-of-art.org/carolyn-mabrams/ Www.facebook.com/CarolynmAbramsArt
THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 5
#1723 HANNAFORD PARKING LOT 11-6-20 16X20
MATT CHINIAN Like a reporter I record the time and place of my wanderings around Upstate New York and New England. I find places and scenes of fascination: quiet woodlands or gas stations, farmlands or industrial sites, places I see in passing, sometimes from the corner of my eye often easily overlooked by others. This is where I find beauty. This is where I find the sublime. mattchinian.com
“The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.” ~ Rene Magritte
BERKSHIRE DIGITAL
KATE KNAPP
FRONT ST. GALLERY Pastels, oils, acrylics and watercolors…abstract and representational…..landscapes, still lifes and portraits….a unique variety of painting technique and styles….you will be transported to another world and see things in a way you never have before…. join us and experience something different. Painting classes continue on Monday and Wednesday mornings 10-1:30pm at the studio and Thursday mornings out in the field. These classes are open to all...come to one or come again if it works for you. All levels and materials welcome. Private critiques available. Classes at Front Street are for those wishing to learn, those who just want to be involved in the pure enjoyment of art, and/or those who have some experience under their belt. Perfect if you are seeking fresh insight into watercolors, and other mediums. Front Street Gallery – Front Street, Housatonic, MA. Gallery open by appointment or chance anytime. 413-528-9546 at home or 413-429-7141 (cell) www.kateknappartist.com
Since opening in 2005, Berkshire Digital has done fine art printing for artists and photographers. Giclée prints can be made in many different sizes from 5”x7” to 42”x 80” on a variety of archival paper choices. Berkshire Digital was featured in last Summer’s issue of PDN magazine in an article about fine art printing. See the entire article on the BerkshireDigital.com website. Berkshire Digital does accurate hi-res photo-reproductions of paintings and illustrations that can be used for Giclée prints, books, magazines, brochures, cards and websites. “Fred Collins couldn’t have been more professional or more enjoyable to work with. He came to my studio, set everything up, and did a beautiful job in photographing a ton of paintings carefully, efficiently, and so accurately. It’s such a great feeling to know I have these beautiful, useful files on hand anytime I need them. I wish I’d called Fred years ago.” ---- Ann Getsinger We also offer restoration and repair of damaged or faded photographs. A complete overview of services offered, along with pricing, can be seen on the web at BerkshireDigital.com Another service offered is portraits of artists in their studios, or wherever they would like, for use in magazines, as the author’s picture in a book, websites or cards. See samples of artist portraits on our website. The owner, Fred Collins, has been a commercial and fine art photographer for over 30 years having had studios in Boston, Stamford, and the Berkshires. He offers over 25 years of experience with Photoshop, enabling retouching, restoration and enhancement to prints and digital files. The studio is located in Mt Washington but drop-off and pick-up is available through Frames On Wheels, 84 Railroad Street in Great Barrington, MA (413) 528-0997 and Gilded Moon Framing, 17 John Street in Millerton, NY (518) 789-3428. Berkshire Digital - 413 644-9663, or go online to www.BerkshireDigital.com
“Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction. All good painters know this. But the painter cannot dispense with subjects altogether without his work suffering impoverishment. ” ~ Diego Rivera
6 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
Alex Kamaroff
THE MONSTER IN MY CLOSET By Alex Kamaroff There’s a monster in my closet. Mom and Dad said it was only my imagination. It’s not. It looks like a small, ugly animal, but it’s not an animal. It’s a monster. It has very long, sharp fingernails, a face like a gorilla, and big, protruding teeth with zigzag edges. Last night it came out. I could hear it messing around my room. It took out my Star Wars toys and threw them all over the place. Then it crept over to my bed. I opened my eyes a little so it didn’t know I was awake. But it didn’t touch my covers. I think it’s afraid of blankets, because when it reached out to see if I was awake, the covers made a static electricity spark. It let out a gargled scream and scurried back into the closet. It has two short, fat legs, and when it runs, it looks like two tree stumps on wheels. I crept out of bed and pushed my toy chest against the closet door so it couldn’t come back out. When I woke up the next morning, my toy chest was moved away from the closet door. All my toys were scattered around the room, and my favorite truck was broken. All four wheels had been ripped off. Dad got angry and punished me for making a mess in my room. I told him it was the monster in my closet. I said I’d clean up my toys and dad said I couldn’t watch TV that night. He just shook his head, and I heard him tell Mom that I had a vivid imagination. Something to do with having an imaginary friend. I said nothing more about the monster. I got dad’s hammer and nails and nailed my closet door shut. Last night I heard it banging at the closet door, trying to get out. Dad charged in and told me to stop making noise. I hoped the monster would bang a lot while dad was there, but the monster was silent. The next morning Dad spent over an hour getting the nails out of the closet door. I had to eat dinner in my room, and again I wasn’t allowed to watch TV. My dad was starting to get on my nerves. He’s a good dad and all, but he doesn’t know everything. That night it went into the kitchen and made a mess. The next morning there were broken eggs on the floor, milk dripping from the
counter, and an entire jug of grape juice that had spilled inside the refrigerator. The freezer door had been left open, leaving a gallon of chocolate cherry Garcia in a soup, and all the neatly stacked frozen meat to spoil. Mom’s favorite teapot was in shards on the table, and some of the dishes had been smashed. She made me clean up the mess, and then Dad sat me down and gave me a long, boring lecture on responsibility and respecting our home. Now I’m mad! What to do? What to do! Then I had it. Matches and Mom’s hairspray. All I had to do was spray and light it up like a blow torch. I’d seen it done on a TV science program. That would scare the monster and maybe he’d go away. Mom and dad went to bed early that night. I sat up in bed all night long trying to stay awake. Just as I was nodding off, I heard it sneak out of the closet. With Mom’s hairspray in one hand and Dad’s lighter in the other, I waited silently with my weapons hidden under the covers. It saw me and spit out a low growl. It didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard in my life. I was looking at it in the moonlight and it looked back at me. We stared at each other for a long time. I reached under the covers and it saw what I had in my hand. Before it could move, I sprayed it right in the eyes and lit the spray with the lighter. The monster’s face exploded. It let out a violent, unearthly schreek as it ran around the room, lighting the curtains on fire. In the next instant it leaped out my window. Mom and Dad ran into my room in time to save me. Dad carried me in his arms down the stair and into the street. By the time the firemen arrived, our house was in flames. We slept at a neighbor’s house and the next morning there was nothing left of our home but a hulking black corpse. Dad says the insurance will pay for us to have a new house. I got another lecture about fire and am now banished from watching TV for six months. My dad still can’t stop telling me how careless I was, and how I’d have them in ruins. Mom calmed him down, and I think I’ll get TV back before six
whole months. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad met with a real estate agent, and are looking for a new house. Only one thing scares me. They want a house with a lot of closets.
Glendale Brook Studio 27 Church St. Lenox, MA 01240 Or call and ask for Alex! 413-623-5081 glendalebrookstudio@gmail.com www.glendalebrookstudio.com THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 7
MORNING HAS BROKEN 10 X 10” OIL/CWM ON PAPER
CAROLYN M. ABRAMS Carolyn Abrams grew up in Brunswick, NY well known for its rolling hills and amazing light and sunsets. Her work is an exploration of the wisdom of art that she finds as a passionate artist. Intuition has always guided her in her exploration of the spiritual and physical worlds. An enthusiastic learner, new techniques and unique art materials drive her work to best express this passion for creativity in her ethereal and peaceful nature-inspired paintings. Most recently her work with oils and cold wax have provided the perfect medium for expression. From the natural world that surrounds the area in which she lives, to the bell that is rung by a lyric or poem, each work reveals the elements of impressionism and abstraction. Feelings of hope and harmony are ever present in her work which attracts many of her collectors to follow her on her journey. Carolyn M. Abrams www.carolynabrams.com; Facebook www.facebook.com/CarolynMAbramsArt
BRUCE PANOCK STICKS AND STONES, THE END OF THE ROAD
BRUCE PANOCK PHOTOGRAPHY
MYLA JILL BLUM
MYLA JILL BLUM Myla Jill Blum, native of Pittsfield and now “snowbird”, started painting when she moved to Florida 22 years ago. Even before then she dabbled a little here and there with painting. Always creative, Myla now enjoys painting “outside” the lines and pushing herself with color, medium and boundaries. She is grateful for all the support and “nudging” to finally “do something” with her art. Myla Jill Blum - mileamin49@aol.com
FRONT ST. GALLERY
Kate Knapp
I have been a student of photography for more than 20 years, though most intently for the last five years. I am primarily a landscape photographer. Recently my photographic voice has migrated to the creation of work with reference to other art forms, notably encaustic painting and ancient Chinese and Japanese brush painting and woodblock art. My intention is to create with viewer a moment of pause and reflection; a moment to digest the image and find their own story in the art. Each image is part of a limited edition. There are several sizes available. Each piece is priced according to size. Images are unframed and printed on Hahnemuhle archival papers. Bruce Panock bruce@panockphotography.com
ELEANOR LORD
Landscape in pastel
Painting classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings 10-1pm at the studio in Housatonic and Thursday mornings 10am - 1pm out in the field. Also available for private critiques. Open to all. Please come paint with us! Gallery hours: Open by chance and by appointment anytime 413. 274. 6607 (gallery) 413. 429. 7141 (cell) 413. 528. 9546 (home) www.kateknappartist.com
Front Street, Housatonic, MA 8 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
www.Eleanorlord.com
Keith Emerling
SHARON GUY
Oil and Watercolor Artist The beauty found in nature is a valuable commodity in a world with so much uncertainty.
Brilliant Light
Fine art, greeting cards and elegant food for a new and changing world. 413-442-2483 https://keithemerlingfineart.com https://studionotes.etsy.com https://thelittlecookbookofphilosophy.com https://mysecretlifeasachef.com https://keithemerling.com
sharonguyart@gmail.com (941) 321-1218 https://www.sharonguyart.com
Mark Mellinger
Sawfish Handsaw, dried paint, pine 50”
Pequod 2018 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30”
Painting - Collage - Construction 100 North St Pittsfield #322
914. 260. 7413
markmellinger680@gmail.com THE ARTFUL MIND
APRIL 2021 • 9
THE VIRTUAL GALLERY The perfect way to select Fine Art by Featured Artists MYLA J. BLUM BRUCE PANOCK CAROLYN M. ABRAMS MARK MELLINGER GHETTA HIRSCH CAROLYN NEWBERGER
Art is a sound investment and a lifetime of enjoyment! For art sales contact artist directly or Go to: The Artful Mind on issuu.com for live links to each artist To show your art on a gallery wall: email: artfulmind@Yahoo.com Visit FB: ART GALLERY for Artful Minds 10 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
MYLA J. BLUM
B Mixed media on watercolor paper 18x24” 2020 $125
A Mixed media on watercolor paper 18x24” 2020 $125.
D Mixed media on watercolor paper 18x24” 2020 $125.
CONTACT: C Mixed media on watercolor paper 18x24” 2020 $125.
mileamin49@aol.com 786-303-8218 THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 11
PHILOSOPHER’S STONE
STICKS AND STONES, THE END OF THE ROAD
For this body of work, everything starts with the search for shapes and patterns in the landscape. When I get back to the computer I then mask out what doesn’t add to the subject. This could take days of effort. When the shapes and patterns have revealed themselves, Then I begin thinking about the background, the colors and the textures. It all evolves….or fails magnificently. —Bruce Panock
12 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
BRUCE PANOCK
END OF THE SLOPE
Each image is part of a limited edition. A LONESOME ROAD
There are several sizes available. Each piece is priced according to size. Images are unframed and printed on Hahnemuhle archival papers.
CONTACT: www.panockphotography.com bruce@panockphotography.com 917-287-8589 THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 13
Carolyn M. Abrams Garden of Eden 9 x 12” oil/cwm on paper $200
Carolyn M. Abrams Into The WIld Sea 16 x 20” oil/cwm on paper $300
14 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
CAROLYN M. ABRAMS
Saffron Sky 16x20” Oil/cold wax $300
Pleasure in the Pathless Fields 10 x 10” oil/cwm on canvas $250
Www.carolynabrams.com http://www.healing-power-of-art.org/carolyn-mabrams/ Www.facebook.com/CarolynmAbramsArt
THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 15
Prometheus' Gift 2021 Acrylic on canvas 10" x 10"
Lipstick Landscape Acrylic on canvas 12" x 12"
I’m lucky to be able to work throughout this trying time, both alone in my art studio and remotely with my patients. Exploring new methods and media; experimenting with materials. — Mark Mellinger
16 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
MARK MELLINGER
Subterranean Pyroclasm 2020 Acrylic on canvas 60" x 48"
Sargasso Sea Acrylic on canvas diptych 2021 10" x 20"
CONTACT: 914-260-7413 markmellinger680@gmail.com THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 17
GHETTA HIRSCH
“Dusk” 2020 Oil and Cold Wax Medium on wood panel. 6”X6” with framed white wood 3/4” wide. $390
“Old Snow” 2021 Oil and Cold Wax Medium on wood panel. 6”X6” with framed white wood 3/4” wide. $ 390
Frozen Tracks” 2019 Oil and Cold Wax Medium on Wood Panel, 8”X10” with grey wood frame 1/2” wide. $ 175
All works can be seen in my studio as I am now vaccinated. Call or text Ghetta Hirsch at 413- 281 0626. Website contact is ghetta-hirsch.squarespace.com. Here are the last Winter paintings for this page. All four paintings are framed. CONTACT: Ghetta-Hirsch.squarespace.com Instagram@ghettahirschpaintings ghettagh@gmail.com Please text or call 413-281-0626
18 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
CAROLYN NEWBERGER
In Time 30 x 22 inches, mixed media (watercolor and torn paper), $3200.0 Seeking Haydn 30 x 22 inches, Mixed media, $3200.
What are we doing; where are we going? Mixed media (watercolor, charcoal and torn paper), 34 x 42 inches, $4200
CONTACT: www.carolynnewberger.com cnewberger@me.com 617-877-5672 Commissions Upon Request
THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 19
Artist JANE HUDSON Interview by Harryet Candee Photograph of Artist by Edward Acker
Harryet Candee: Tell us how you have been doing over the past year and what news and awakening thoughts have come to mind? Jane Hudson: Clearly this has been a tumultuous year for everyone, each of us experiencing it uniquely. For me, it was a year of art making, meditation, and getting focused on my inner life. Obviously the impact of the pandemic and the political climate made for stress and anger. So to counter those societal forces, I retreated into selfreflection. I have to say I do appreciate the ardor with which younger folks than I are dealing so directly and forcefully with racial justice issues, climate peril, technology and its impact on reality. At my age, what I can do is represent the forces that impact my life in images that emerge from deep within. 20 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
What about the most current transitions and trending focus in art have you been working on inspired by the pandemic? There are so many threads to the fabric of Art these days. So many wonderful and heretofore invisible artists are being celebrated in galleries and museums. There is also a movement addressing the spiritual and the ephemeral in painting in particular, much by women. One can still see large color field abstractions as well as digitally contrived NFT’s. I think Jane, with all the roads and avenues you’ve travelled down in the arts, from music to video to art, you must be super sensitive and have developed intuitive nature needing to burst at the seams over the past year. Would
the Tarot card series you produced be one of the qualifying outcomes? Guide us through your discovery and process on this project, please. I have to go back to late 2018. I had been working in geometric abstraction and its color. Although I wasn’t able to see the show, the Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim was a bell weather for me. I have, over the course of my life, been interested in mysticism, magic, metaphysics and soul work, and esoteric practices of the past such as alchemy and shamanism. My first encounter in my 20’s with the Tarot was in London in the great Library there. A friend showed me an ancient deck, and gave me the basic tools to pursue a practice. I have read the cards off and on since then. Af Klint comes into the picture as a reminder of my interest in Madame Helena Blavatsky’s Secret
The Wheel of Fortune, acrylic on canvas, 16”x16”
The Hierophant, acrylic on canvas, 16”x16” 2020
The Hermit, acrylic on canvas, 16”x16”
The Hanged Man, acrylic on canvas, 16”x16”
Doctrine. Blavatsky started the Theosophical Society in London in the late 1800’s. Her spiritualist cosmology was a powerful influence on many artists of the period including af Klint as well as Kandinsky and Klee among others. It was in this context that Modernist Abstraction was formed. What comes together for me is the need for a spiritual context outside of formal religion. The Tarot offered me a familiar practice to address the large questions of life. Are you a Tarot reader? What does one need to learn in order to be a Tarot card reader? I am not a ‘reader’ as such. I could read cards for others, but my main interest is using it as a daily meditation on the nuances of experience that come to play in my life. Yes, one can learn the meaning of the cards, the
trajectory of the ‘journey’ and the stories that come to play. But, the best way to learn is to trust one’s intuitions and react directly to the images. Of course there is a wealth of symbolic material having to do with esoteric traditions. That is for deeper study. What is the mysticalness about Tarot cards that has fascinated you? I have to go back to the point at which my spiritual journey began in earnest. I had an epiphany of sorts in early 2019. With eyes closed, I saw a radiant image, centered in what I believe is my third eye. The power of it was so intense that I was almost overwhelmed. This is where the painting and that energy joined. That beautiful radiance carries through to this day,
and is like a beacon for me to connect with Universal energy. The Tarot carries this energy through its many manifestations, and so the project to paint the series seemed inevitable. Have you marketed these Tarot card sets to the public? I have sold three of the pieces and have them all listed on my website (http://www.janehudsonpaintings.com). The series is only of the Major Arcana, the pillars of the whole system, twenty-two in all. Making these pieces was more about painting than about the cards. They are concerned with symbology rather than any particular narrative. At the same time, I pick a card every day as part of my meditation process. This is more connected to the Continued on next page... THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 21
JANE HUDSON
Time, acrylic on canvas, 24”x36”
effect of the cards, their synchronicity with life’s events. I do not have a gallery representation at this time, so it’s up to me to do the marketing. Given the pandemic and its limitations on physical spaces, it’s hard to find exhibition opportunities. Being somewhat fluent in computer operations, I have created a website on my own with which to promote my work. I find social media really helps to spread the images around the world! I have been fortunate to have shown my work in a number of local venues in Williamstown and North Adams before the doors were shut. Some of my work from a year and a half ago is hanging at Tunnel City Coffee at MASS MoCA. So far, what would you say has been your most successful art endeavor? Your most challenging art endeavor? I guess the most successful so far would be the Tarot series. It was a breakthrough for me giving me the context for a lengthy and rich exploration. The most challenging is the new representational work. I am not studio trained although I taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for thirty-two years! Consequently I am devel22 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
oping a drawing style that’s suited to my needs while I gain greater control. In the past I have worked in gouache for the geometric abstractions, but am now exploring the subtleties of watercolor that are many and demanding. Because of limited studio space in my home and my endurance I make fairly small work so works on paper or small canvases suits me now.
before and after the election. The first painting I made after reading this was of a ‘room’ where the double vortex crashed through the walls. In each developing piece the vortex retreated but the rooms remained. They have become places of memory, of psychic knots to be unraveled. These are not narratives, but metaphorical locations, places to enter.
The stages you have gone through in creating art include a series of surreal rooms, and also of geometric spiral intersecting vortex patterns in color, from 2020 into 2021. Tell us about this body of work you have produced, please. The ‘rooms’ are reflective of the interiority of winter in a pandemic. My home is the site of my inner world as well as my domestic life. In my esoteric investigations I happened to read A VISION by my favorite poet, William Butler Yeats. In this piece he reflects upon a four-year episode of his wife’s ‘channeling’ certain astral masters. The meaning, although quite arcane, is basically that both individuals and cultures go through interpenetrating vortexes of expansion and contraction. This notion of being caught in a vortex really spoke to me, especially in the tumultuous months
Has this been totally a different or new direction in visual art for you, or has it come up in similar ways in the past? This is quite a different direction for me. In work leading up to the current paintings, I made reference to the magnificent natural world that is so intimately present for me. Of course living where I do, I encounter natural wonders and their unique presences all the time. The vines, the trees, the wind, the mountains and water have all contributed to my adventure into representation. Does this art bring on a feeling of safety for you as it seems they each might have a therapeutic benefit for mind, body and soul? There’s no question that my art has always been a refuge for me, but the combination of the present pressures as well as my stage of life has made the
The Source, acrylic on canvas, 24”x36”. 2019
painting a special place of light and wonder. Do you have sense of where your latest art you are now making is leading you to, or do you not want to know till you get there? I suppose there will be more imagery, more speculations from my bewildered psyche, and more love proposed out of all the vicissitudes of a long life. Many of your paintings remind me of my collection of memories and travels. Sort of like a visual journey I see in your work. Have you had some amazing travel experiences in your life? What was your most memorable? Why? I’ve lived in twenty-four different addresses. I’ve travelled to Europe, North Africa, Mexico and Guatemala. I was privileged to shoot some video for a classical scholar in Sardinia. I shot video of the standing stones at Avebury, England. I visited the dolmen and ancient fortifications in the west of Ireland. I climbed through a tunnel to an underground dwelling in Tunisia. I guess I’ve been searching for origins all along. I see you have taught at one time an interesting
class I would love to have been a part of as a student. Tell us about the course, Contemporary Art Practice, intro to art and cultural theory and philosophy. It sure seems to me that everyone, everyone! would greatly benefit from taking this course! We need this in our lives today, I think. It would help us all to be more humane to each other, you think? And being the communicator that you are, I bet it was a great class! My main teaching gig at the Museum School was in Video. But as the years went by, I began teaching in the Graduate Program where I ventured into post-Modernism and cultural theory. The thrust of this material was to unpack the dominant cultural narratives of institutional power. The consequences of this unraveling can be seen operative in today’s culture wars. For me and my students (we’re talking 15 years ago) the discussion came down to art practices and the remedy for the dominance of Western Art History. So much has come of these arguments, some of it beneficial but with unintended consequences. Would you change any of the lessons in order to make it relevant to today’s world if you were
to teach it now? There is a great deal literature devoted to identity issues in the academic marketplace currently. It was just burgeoning as a field of study when I was teaching. To be introduced to art and music at a young age is like a gift. It is a good thing, too, because you start to live with it naturally. What was your introduction to the arts like? My father was a concert pianist and my mother, an actress. I learned about performance at a very young age; piano lessons and operettas at age three and four. Finding my own voice in the context of those very large personalities has been a life’s work! How then did you take it up on your own accord as you grew up? As an English major in college I was exposed to the poetry of Yeats and T.S. Eliot (among others) as well as the Beats. This led me to write my own poems (the poetic metaphor still resonates in my work). I was a member of the Drama club in college and acted in a number of plays. I liked acting, Continued on next page... THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 23
JANE HUDSON
Room IX: The Witness, acrylic on canvas 16”x12”. 2021
Room VIII: The Meeting, acrylic on canvas, 18”x24”
24 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
Room V: The Audience, acrylic on canvas, 18”x24”
but was always frustrated by having to voice other people’s language. Music had eluded me, as my father’s genius was a challenge of grand proportions. But in my 30’s I became a bass player in a Punk band with my husband, and found a musical outlet that I could call my own! Did you find that you had to have a balance in order to keep up with both music and art? For a while in the 70’s and 80’s I was painting big abstractions, making video art and playing rock and roll. It was a heady time. Ultimately the painting and the music gave way to Video. I was teaching as the technology was advancing at a breakneck pace, so I had to devote much of my attention to addressing those changes. Also, I took on the intellectual exercise of the cultural critique. Not much time or mind left for other things. Who was your mentor that influenced and inspired you along the way? I have to credit my husband for his constant support of my artistic life. We did many things together from teaching to performance, music and video. In the end, I have benefitted from his experience as an artist and his indomitable energy. Otherwise, my dear friend Holly Edwards, Professor of Art History at Williams, has been a constant supporter, acting as a mirror to my actions and thoughts. We have to bring your husband, Jeff into this
interview now. Okay, tell us about him and about your years together and what the both of you have done together musically and more. ( I loved being introduced to Jane and Jeff Hudson on youtube!) Jeff was trained at the Museum School. I met him in a loft building in Boston where a thriving group of artists were working. We started out as collaborators in video and performance. Not long after we started working together, we became romantically involved and married. We ran loft galleries in the waterfront area of Boston, as well as making our art. We happened to travel to England in ’77 where we encountered Punk and the Sex Pistols. We were transformed, and upon our return, we formed The Rentals with one of our students. We didn’t know how to play, but we loved the energy, and over time became somewhat proficient. We recorded a few singles, an EP called WORLD TRADE, and an album, FLESH. This music is available on YouTube under Jeff and Jane Hudson. So whats Jeff doing now? Jeff loves technology. He’s writing electronic music, and has a new album, ELECTRIC POWER, available on YouTube as well.
task I have eschewed, as writing never quite gets to the core for me. The paintings tell my story. What is most valuable to you in your life right now? My health and the opportunity to learn. Would you consider a throwback and create a video about the Pandemic? I haven’t made video for fifteen years. The effort it would take me to gain mastery of the medium now is more than I care to expend. Video is so ubiquitous, so much a part of everything going on technologically, that I wouldn’t know where to begin. Where can people see your artwork now? Website? Instagram? Email? Website: http://www.janehudsonpaintings.com Instagram: @antiquergirl Facebook: Facebook.com/hudsonsart Email: jane.video@gmail.com
Thank you, Jane!
At some point this year, it must have crossed your mind to write a biography. If you were to do that, what highlights would you emphasize? I think I’ve pretty much covered that here. It’s a THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 25
DYLAN W. KUBIS, PLUM ISLAND THREE
DYLAN W. KUBIS
APRIL SNOW 2021 MIXED MEDIA AND OIL ON CANVAS
GHETTA HIRSCH APRIL SNOW
Have you ever seen the last snow at the beginning of spring in the Berkshires? The ugliness of mud season is just about over, the baby grass is growing in that fragile green and suddenly, a powdery or very wet snow comes along... Winter is saying goodbye gently and what you have is a soft green and mauve landscape one morning. These colors do not last as by noon the sun is forcing the grass to reappear and the bushes to shake their branches clean. Even the early tulips and daffodils survive that last snow. We tend to worry about our first blossoms and wonder how they will survive. But they do, just like the grass that will cover our hills for the rest of the Spring season. They make me think of our lives right now. How lucky we are to have survived this past winter, 2020 and to see hope in front of us. For this painting I used pastels to draw a wooded hill by Pontoosuc Lake in Lanesborough. Then I added some texture with oil paint and cold wax medium. The effect is as ephemeral as the first snow in winter. I feel like I can gather that soft snow in my hands. I hope you like the effect. I was also entranced by the long shadows of the trees and how they appeared transparent to me. Gentle light and gentle snow in this painting are soothing, don’t you think? Please visit Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester to see some of my work or reach me through my website for a Studio visit. Looking forward to an artistic spring and summer. Ghetta Hirsch - ghetta-hirsch.squarespace.com. Instagram @ghettahirschpaintings. Call or text: 413- 281-0626.
MARK MELLINGER PROMETHEUS' GIFT 2021 ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 10" X 10"
MARK MELLINGER I live in two separate worlds. One verbal and one visual. What they have in common is an attitude of pushing into the unknown; of allowing unconscious elements to take form within consciousness. I couldn’t live without both. Art came first, but after a while I began to feel self-indulgent and isolated. I wanted to address problems of mans’ impact on the environment. I went through careers in art, photography, carpentry, ecology and microbiology before landing in psychology at 30. 10 years ago, when we found a loft in Pittsfield, I returned to my first love, art. It’s not like riding a bicycle. I had to start from scratch. I feel I’m just now catching up to where I left off 50 years ago. I’m not satisfied with a piece for a long time. I’ll put it away and work on something else. I’ll look at it upside down and in a mirror, trying to get a handle on what’s wrong. It’s a very solitary meditation. I might gesso over everything except some small bits that are working; then start over from those. The viewer completes the process. It’s a collaboration. It’s a thrill when someone “gets” a piece, but I’m OK when they don’t. The connection with the viewer should be as rare and special as marriage. www.markmellingerart.com markmellinger680@gmail.com
There have been many influences in my life: the imagination of Walt Disney, and his greatest accomplishment Disneyland, the landscape photographer Ansel Adams, filmmaker, Tim Burton and my Dad, who helped me write this narrative. During my younger years my family and I traveled across Europe and the United States. This exposed me to the beautiful creations of art, and architecture; classic, impressionistic designed landscapes we viewed also impacted my special vision. I started Inspirational, Sensational Photography (ISP) as a tool, a creative tool to allow me to share my special needs vision with you. My photographic visions are based on my creative spirit, and my desire to enlighten those that question people with special needs. People like me are creative, we can express creative thoughts, in words, paintings, drawings, design, and yes, like me photographs. We are creative souls just like you. The photograph of the Cardinal has special meaning to me. My older brother Sebastian passed away a few years ago. He was always symbolized as a Cardinal and it seems nearly every time I am out creating artful photographic images, my brother’s spirit joins me. Lastly, I am ready to assist the many online and print based publications to expand their stock libraries, create images for editorial use, assist the many regional companies to find the creative art that will inspire and motivate their employees and drive new business (via their advertising to a national and worldwide audience). Are you interested in purchasing new art for your home, based on a theme that you develop? Well, I am the one you should call first. My images are offered as custom-made prints, screen savers, images that can be added to t-shirts, merchandise and much more. Reach out to me Dylan at Dkubis@gmail.com; view my latest images on Instagram @DWKPhotos. My website and Facebook marketplace will be ready later this month. Email me to access to my e-commerce sites.
“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky
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MARGUERITE BRIDE THE MOUNT WATERCOLOR
MARGUERITE BRIDE WEDDINGS IN WATERCOLOR VIRGINIA BRADLEY, CATENA 5
VIRGINIA BRADLEY The Catena Series: an alchemical discovery of related moments in disconnected times. Catena 5 began as a colorful organic composition. But as winter commenced and COVID hung in the air, the painting turned into a dark, dramatic, moonlit, stormy seascape. The blustery fog descending into work literally represents the struggle and process beneath the final surface of the image. Simultaneously the shimmering silver moonlight promises distant hope on the horizon. The moon represents the masculine in the chemical wedding transforming the materials in the painting’s process. This alchemical transformation is embedded in the painting and on closer observation, one witnesses the seascape dissolving and percolating into textures and forms. Further exploration of the painting reveals a reflective tranquility. The Catena Series began in July 2020 and Catenae 5, 6 and 7 into their final form in February 2021. I have been considering how the pace of life has changed since the onset of the Pandemic. At moments time seems to stand still and at other moments it races by. In my study of music and ancient texts I came upon the word Catena, which refers to related moments or an interlocking chain. Catena spoke to the chain of chemical reactions and physical engagements that are the continuum of my painting and life. The alchemical transformation of materials is the basis of my painting practice. This experimental process is driven by a questioning search for meaning and beauty in our human existence. The studio becomes a kitchen laboratory where I experiment with alchemical recipes; new, ancient and imagined. This search has become even more significant during COVID Pandemic. The painting process has become a beacon to search for stillness and stability. Virginia Bradley - virgbradley57@gmail.com www.virginiabradley.com
Do you have special occasions in your future? Anniversary? Wedding? Graduation? Retirement? Selling a home and downsizing? Don’t forget, a custom painting of a wedding venue, a home or other special location is a treasured gift. Now is a great time to commission a house portrait or favorite scene you would like captured in a watercolor. Paintings (or even a personalized gift certificate, then I work directly with the recipient) make a cherished and personal gift for weddings, retirement, new home, old home, anniversaries… ..any occasion is special. Commission work is always welcome. A very personal type of commission that has been becoming more popular….paintings of your wedding venue (church or other stunning setting, for example, the “Mount”). Or a “special” location that is meaningful to the bride and groom. Perhaps a gift certificate to the bride and groom for a painting of a special scene from their honeymoon? Visit my website for info about an alternative wedding guest book as well. Be in touch …it is guaranteed to be a fun adventure! Marguerite Bride – Home Studio at 46 Glory Drive, Pittsfield, Massachusetts by appointment only. Call 413-8411659 or 413-4427718; margebride-paintings.com; margebride@aol.com; Facebook: Marguerite Bride Watercolors
CAROLYN NEWBERGER SEEKING HAYDN 30 X 22” MIXED MEDIA
CAROLYN NEWBERGER Carolyn Newberger is an award-winning artist and writer whose love of the figure is a natural extension of a career in psychology. Her concern for people and their challenges informs her art, whether it be in the studio with a model or in the concert hall capturing a musician or dancer in performance. Her drawings express the essence of her subjects, with their rhythm, flow, character and intensity. Carolyn Newberger - www.carolynnewberger.com
“If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced.” ~ Vincent van Gogh
THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 27
ALEXANDRA ROZENMAN ARTIST Interview by Harryet Candee
Harryet Candee: Why has collage become your choice venue for art making during our time of quarantine? I love collage, by the way. Art has so much more meaning to us during Covid, and everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours? Alexandra Rozenman: About a year ago right when COVID started, being very alone at the moment in Boston, I decided to escape from the city to my parents house in Virginia. That suddenly left me without a studio. I usually have a huge wonderful space in which I teach and work 24/7. About a week later I started a project called “Coloring book for adults and children” on Patreon website. This particular idea became stuck because I wanted to change the drawings and did not want to keep them just as outlines. Looking for the ways to keep in touch with people I started showing videos of myself drawing and doing works on paper on Facebook. One day I cut a piece out of an unfinished watercolor during the video. That turned it into an art material and I started a collage project that has been developing since. Something felt really wonderful and new, uplifting, experimental, refreshing about this very old idea of collaging out of already made pieces, as well as Matisse-like idea of creating my own color paper, and also cutting black figures later on. 28 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
Often when people talk about collage they think about the use of found objects and often textiles, but here I created rules of “painted surfaces” or “old works on paper” to be used as materials and later, adding black construction paper. A website www.rozenmanpaperscissors.com was born and here is the description it has on the website: COLLAGE: SELECTION-DISSECTION-CONNECTION This project started with quarantine. After an unexpected and needed move out of my studio space, I started working on smaller pieces of paper adding ink and watercolor to some of my older drawings that I found around my parents’ house. Everything felt disconnected. My thoughts began separating older images into shapes first, inside the watercolors, then combining watercolors with drawings, watercolors with watercolors, and drawings with drawings. I was choosing sections and making shapes out of old ideas – selecting. Dissecting and connecting pieces of my older work gave me ample space for new ideas that I needed so much at that time. I was inside the process – when paintings, drawings, or anything else you have at the moment makes themselves available to you because you are giving them everything they need to express themselves, in exactly
the right way at exactly the right time. My thoughts materialized into shapes, shapes into images and images into untold stories. At the end of May, 2020 I invited other artists to add to the project by giving me unneeded work on paper, or their students’ work or painted paper to use in the project. Can you explain a bit about your process used to create “Before the First Act”? What is this piece about? I think the piece “Before the First Act” tells a story about two characters in a theatrical space. It has cutouts from about eight pieces as parts of its materials and invites us in to interpret it in any way we want. I want my collages to be upended and I think I managed to do that. Each collage is alive in its own way. The more you look at it the more you discover. I create each collage by responding to the process of a composition. Disconnection and connection seem to be one of the meanings behind this series of work. Tell us about the significance of the symbolic use of animal and human forms? Animal and human forms first came to my work a few years ago. I called them “Kind Monsters”.
Rozenman Before the first Act watercolor collage on paper 15x11" 2020
They are always renewed, never the same. There was an idea to make a book about them but the writer who was originally interested in the project abandoned it and now they are just living by themselves, without any upcoming book behind them. It is OK, I think. They are very personal, and originally, illustrated my relationship with another human being that now fell apart. Now the creatures are very lonely inside the compositions. I allowed it to happen. They are not Mermaids or Angels or Sirens… they are only my own creatures. Roughly how many finished pieces of art have you done since quarantine came about? This will make a great exhibition for you when we go live! It is hard to say... Over 150 if we count the drawings, collages, and also works on canvas that I came back to in October, 2020. I already had a two-people show this February in the Fountain Street Gallery in Boston. The show was originally scheduled for April of 2020 but was postponed first because of COVID, and later because of the flood in the South End. This joint show with Nora Valdez, a sculptor from Argentina, was originally planned to have much more work on canvas from 2019, but nevertheless turned out to be an amazing positive creative experience during COVID. Something not exactly planned, but nevertheless, interesting because of the whole situation. I sense a freedom in your art to express yourself, and though you have had classic training, you go beyond the traditional ways of making
art, and you follow your intuition, am I correct on that? You are right. My imagination was stimulated by forbidden freedom and I have been painting and drawing intensely since childhood. In the Soviet Union though, everything was planned and everybody was expected to do things in a certain way. If you rebelled then you had to deal with lifethreatening consequences — like losing jobs or being rejected from schools you wanted to go to. In order to become an artist in the Soviet Union, you were supposed to study classical art and realistic drawing for five years and go through extremely tough exams; if you were lucky you can be admitted to one of the five Fine Art colleges, or enroll in the Architecture school. I rebelled against a strictly classical education and ended up studying privately with Grigory Bruskin. a well-known dissident artist; thanks to him I was able to join Moscow’s alternative cultural scene of the 1980’s... And then Gorbachev “happened”. I loved being a teenager in the falling-apart Soviet Union. There was freedom in the air, the time of Perestroika and most young people my age were full of hope and excitement about the future in Russia. In the mideighties, some American and Western European Art started entering Russian Museums and galleries. That was such a breath of fresh air. Maybe for you, making this series has grown and come to life and has had some good therapeutic benefits. Or, have you used it as a way to journal through this year’s strange times. Are you also writing?
Yes, it was very therapeutic, especially at the start when it was more experimental. I find new ideas and experiments to be very therapeutic. They give us hope. I used to write in the 90’s in Russian, and in 2005 worked on a series of short stories based on the large paintings I made that year. Each painting had a short story that also served as the title of that painting. Those images and texts have not been published but maybe they will be some day; in a way it is still work in progress. Perhaps the time has come to start looking back into some old ideas in the sketchbooks kept since 1988. Before Covid’s grand interruption, what were you in the midst of creating? How would you describe the differences and similarities in your art making before Covid to the work you are making now? Since 2012 I have been working on the TRANSPLANTED series which focuses on humorous narratives of me cohabiting, moving with, running to, waiting for…etc. famous artists. By inserting myself into the painting, I point out the irony of living with an artist’s work as it relates to immersing myself into the lives and works of these artists for inspiration and painterly history. The idea is evolving and becoming more political. The last painting from this series was the playful piece “Letting Pablo Go!” It is a comment on Picasso’s Guernica and is my self-portrait at the same time. I also have been working on the Inside/Outside idea for the last ten years. In these works, there is Continued on next page... THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 29
ALEXANDRA ROZENMAN
Rozenman Alexandra Letting Pablo Go! oil on canvas 40x30" 2019
a transformation game involving inside and outside – furniture appears in the forest, theater stage falls into the ocean, and old ships become small to end up burning in a cozy fireplace. Collages grew out of drawings but once I started working on canvases again in October, old themes seem to still be returning, and are developing independently. You could define the newer imagery as Visual Fairytales with personal symbolism that continues to grow and evolve. Alexandra, can you tell us about your background, and what life was like for you in Russia and then moving to the states? I was born to a Jewish family in Moscow; there is a lot to tell… On my father’s side there were lawyers, industrialists, and engineers, from what is now Belarus and Ukraine. Many were impoverished or perished during the Civil War, Stalin’s purges, and the Holocaust; men were with the Red Army during the Second World War, and the remains of the family found themselves in Moscow after the war. My Dad is a mathematician and computer scientist, instrumental in building the pioneering information retrieval systems in Russia and later in the US. He likes to draw, and when I was a kid we used to draw together; works of both authors were proudly displayed on our apartment walls. On my Mom’s side, also from what is now Belarus and Ukraine, we were related to the family of Marc Chagall — his first wife Bella, the one shown flying on his early paintings, is my great aunt. However, there were no other artistic associations that I know of. On my mother’s side math30 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
ematicians are overrepresented. My maternal grandfather Boris Rosenfeld was a mathematician and a historian; among other things, he co-authored a definitive history of mathematical sciences in the Islamic world from the Middle Ages to the XVII century, a huge volume published in Istanbul, Turkey. My Grandfather, my Aunt, and my Uncle were or are professors of mathematics and taught in the universities both in Russia and here in the US. My mother in Russia worked as a teacher, and here works with an organization helping the US State Department to document and resettle refugees from all over the world. Adults were never comfortable in the Soviet Union; at the end of 1980-ies everybody felt worried. My parents decided to leave Russia many years ago but in 1988 with Gorbachev letting Jews leave this opportunity became real. I was only 17, struggling to forge my artistic and personal identity. That’s why I never felt neither excited or ready to become an emigrant. Nevertheless, as I had no other choice but to follow my parents - who were struggling at that time to save the money for the tickets to America - I started reading books about modern American Art, in a fairly chaotic way. Based on my readings, I concluded that if I wanted to become a real artist in America I had to go to New York. In 1989 we arrived in America. Instead of going to NYC, I found myself in Pasadena, California. That’s where my aunt who sponsored our trip lived. Pasadena shocked me. I felt like I had landed on another planet. I had to learn everything from
the beginning; the language, the names of the people, the names of the streets – everything was unknown, like in a dream. I had to struggle hard to shape my new personal and artistic identity in a new land that was immense and almost ungraspable. Where was New York I had read about? Could I find it on a map? How can I get there? My parents had to survive, find jobs, and take care of my little sister… I was falling off the family tree… into a lonely artist path. I started looking for ways to move to New York and found a program called “Studio Semester in New York”. The program was giving artists’ studios to work in. At that time the program was a part of SUNY, Empire State College… That’s how I got my first smallish studio space on the Lower East Side: with no heat and with pieces of plywood on broken windows. But it did not bother me. “That’s how American dreams are built”, I thought. I was wrong. Cold, starvation, solitude, and depression are not a necessary condition to pursue your American artistic dream. In the meantime, I worked in many jobs, including some very exciting ones: I was an art assistant to Douglas Davis and his Russian/English translator in Ronald Feldman gallery for a few months. I was lucky to get a babysitter job in the house of a retired ballet dancer who was opening an Art School right then. She hired me as an instructor and my American teaching career began. All in all I made very few friends in New York and my English was improving very slowly. That’s why I felt frustrated and New York became somehow unbearable to me. In 1993 applied to Gradu-
Rozenman Playing Games with Goya oil on canvas 34x24" 2019
ate schools, was accepted to the Museum School (Boston MFA), and moved to Boston. After graduating I moved to Minneapolis for almost 10 years. It’s a long story. But to make a long story short I am back to Boston again. I live, paint and teach in Somerville. During COVID I escaped to Virginia but I am planning to be back in Brickbottom building in April. Alexandra, from your point of view can you describe to us the Moscow’s underground movement? What kind of art was being creating? What was the energy like? Before Gorbachev launched his “openness” policy in 1985-86, belonging to the “underground” was a kind of subversion that would have led to artists to be banned or prosecuted. Just over a decade earlier, in September 1974, the authorities had bulldozed an outdoor exhibition of “unofficial” art in the woods near Belyayevo, on the outskirts of Moscow. Gorbachev wanted not to overturn the Soviet system but merely to loosen its grip on public life. He hoped that glasnost would promote healthy criticism and that perestroika (meaning “restructuring”) would help the system work better. Instead, he found he had opened Pandora’s box: the trickle of mild criticism he had expected swelled to a torrent of pent-up frustration, especially from artists who had been forced underground. In a nation of state-run galleries, where the party controlled what could be exhibited (and even restricted supplies of artists materials), “official” art steered clear of subversive messages; this policy
automatically excluded everything abstract, surreal, or erotic. The Communist Party held that artists had to be “engineers of the soul” and serve the cause of building the Communist utopia. The art of socialist realism, at its most didactic, gave us nothing but happy workers and tireless farmers, and heroic portraits of Lenin. The recurring staples of socialist realism provided fertile ground for parody, with a tone that ranged from wry questioning to bitter disillusionment. Until the late 1980’s, the underground art could have been exhibited only in the artists’ own crowded apartments. The label “non-conformist” alerted us to the fact that there was no single salient movement: instead, a mixed bag of styles drew on the forbidden fruits of pop art, conceptualism and surrealism. I was just a teenager in the 80’s and everything felt full of hopes and dreams. Many underground movements developed at that time. Three main groups functioned in Moscow from the 1950’s on: Lianozovo Group, Sretensky Boulevard Group, and Moscow Conceptualists school. After graduating from high school in 1988 I spent a lot of time on Arbat Street showing my work, just hanging out, discussing and practicing freedom of imagination with the group of artists who were teaching at GIK (State Institute of Film) in Moscow. It was magic, supported my freedom of creativity at that time... and then one day I woke up in Pasadena, California. Oy. ... Did you start out loving art at a very early age?
Yes, I did. I grew up in the Soviet Union where artistic freedom was repressed. My parents were freethinkers and art-lovers. My father painted when I was growing up and I happily joined him. I was five years old and we visited museums and art galleries almost every week. I was already enrolled in a wonderful art studio for children. It was different from many other schools. Because it was part of the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts - artists who taught there were able to create a curriculum based on art history, with no politics attached to it; this was exceptional for a Soviet Union institution. Who have been your lifelong influences and mentors? In what ways have some of them inspired you? My very first and very important influence was my father. He taught me to be myself, trained my imagination from a very early age and stimulated me to paint through my childhood. My very first art teacher, Galina Kofman, taught me at the children’s studio at the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts since I was 5. She taught me to be inspired by art history. When I was a rebellious teenager - thanks to my family - I landed in a studio of a later famous Moscow Conceptualist Artist Grisha Bruskin. Just watching him working on his Alefbet Series in the 80’s inspired my imagination and gave me an amazing feeling about freedom of imagination. In America I had 2 teachers, both Boston-based artists: Gerry Bergstein and Robert Ferrandini. I Continued on next page... THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 31
ALEXANDRA ROZENMAN
Rozenman Two Chairs watercolor and ink on paper 16x20" 2016
Rozenman A Cat the Gymnast on the Veranda watercolor collage on paper, 9x12" 2019
Rozenman Two Beasts watercolor and ink on paper 20x24" 2015
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Rozenman Flood in the Painter's Studio oil on wooden board 16x12" 2020
think they both influenced my work – Gerry Bergstein supporting my surrealistic ideas and Ferrandini by helping me to believe in painting, beauty and Romanticism. My approach to beauty and wonder came with me from Russia and keeps playing a big role in my work. I am always working either with it or against it. I am still in touch with all my teachers. Are you solely an artist in order to make a living? I am a teaching artist. I own and keep my own Art School in Somerville, Mass. It is very hard work. But I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. Before Covid, what would be an average day in the life of Alexandra like? I will be teaching in the studio almost every day, including weekends. There will be morning classes, after-school classes for kids, evening Open Studios, seminars, and hopefully time to work on my own work as well. “Two Chairs” and “ Two Beasts”: I love these two piece of art I came across on your website. What can you tell us about this, and other art works similar? Thank you. Both of these pieces are from my old watercolor series called “Tales on Paper” from a show that I had in Beverly Tassenary Gallery in Newbury College Gallery in 2015. The series “Tales on Paper” started in 2013; these are watercolors and drawings combinations. My works on
paper from 2000 till now are a raw stream of imagination that is totally sincere. “A Cat Gymnast on a Veranda”: Explain this painting, please. I adore it. Thank you. A simplified image of a black cat has been invented this May in a work on paper in a piece where a cat was sitting on an armchair. Later there were more collage pieces telling stories about the same black cat. The piece “ Cat Gymnast on a Veranda” tells a story about a cat going for a walk across the whole composition. The Cat is very big, but lighter than the table and the ceiling. Images are supposed to be playing with the space, making one feel an open air of an outside veranda. It is a small, only 9x12” watercolor collage: https://www.alexandrarozenman.com/productpage/a-piano-a-plant-and-a-cat-on-a-veranda What might be some of your upcoming plans after things go back to the new normal in terms of making and showing art? I am a core member of a Fountain Street Gallery in Boston and my next two-person show should be in 2022. There are a few group shows to look forward to, for sure. Joy Street Studios Building will probably have Open Studios in the Fall of 2021 that I will hopefully participate in. Otherwise I am open for surprises. By the way, we are inching our way to the new norm. We all wonder how our lives will be different and pick up. Perhaps you have already felt good energy rising from the shadows.
Maybe your artistic intuitiveness is picking up a new frequency as you continue creating art today. Do you see anything new surfacing subconsciously in your art making yet? Yes, times are strange. I am moving into a new apartment in Somerville and am planning to set up an office space with the video section to be able to work online in more creative ways. We will see what that will do, and how it will change the way I teach art. I also hope to find time to work with video programs with collages. That is a BIG maybe, but can eventually bring me to animation. What do you enjoy doing when you are not making art? I enjoy cooking, teaching and hiking, not necessarily in that order! What has been your favorite film or series, or book that you found that you can recommend? I really enjoyed “The Queens Gambit” Netflix miniseries, written and directed by Scott Frank. It starts in the 1950’s orphanage, where a young girl reveals an astonishing talent for chess and begins an unlikely journey to stardom while grappling with addiction. It is about a brilliant character and how it evolves and goes through different phases and times. Very beautifully filmed and composed. I enjoyed the cinematography of it. I also re-watched many iconic films of the Soviet era including Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears. It looks back upon three decades of Soviet postwar history and sums up the passions for the last two Continued on next page... THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 33
ALEXANDRA ROZENMAN
Rozenman Alexandra Distance oil on canvas 36x24" 2018
decades of Soviet Power, from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, in the context of main-stream Soviet mythology. If the French Cinderella finds herself a prince, the Soviet Cinderella finds herself a working-class Mr. Right and a three-bedroom apartment. There is no fairy here and no crystal shoe, that suspicious object of bourgeois fetishism. Cinderella’s own willpower and the magic of the cinema take on the fairy quality. Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears is the story of Katya, a working girl from the provinces who becomes the director of a prominent factory and finally gains personal happiness. The film won an Oscar in the United States, perhaps because this is the closest that Soviet cinema came to Hollywood, in the way it put together realistic settings, popular mythologies of anti-intellectualism, and fairy-tale logic. When I paint paintings about living in imagined communal apartments with famous artists those movies probably are in my unconscious memory. What are the first three things you will be excited to do once Covid has passed? I am really looking forward to hugging friends! This strange year showed us what it is we really miss, who we are in touch with every day in our mind. Also, I hope to restart my regular classes in the studio – I am ready to make them smaller but I am really tired of Zoom teaching and want to see humans in the flesh. Also, summer is coming, and I want to spend more time on the ocean! What is Art No 99 School all about, and is it 34 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
open to online classes? You are the founder, correct? How did you start this up? Art School 99 was established in 2009 after I came back to Boston from the Twin Cities. It is called Art School 99 because its original address was 99 Franklin Street in Allston. With special programs, classes and salons, we are dedicated to helping all students, both old and young, to discover their unique potential - as artists, creators, and thinkers. We offer all the basics from Observation Drawing and Color Theory and bring each student up to his or her own heights of finding their own style in Art. I am a teaching artist. My desire to start my own Art School was rooted in my family history and love to teach. Art is a tool for personal growth and my job is to teach others how to use it without hurting themselves and those around them. We are born creative, but if we neglect to develop and strengthen these skills, our creativity becomes inhibited. By encouraging a child's creativity, you set the stage for endless opportunities for that child's imagination. A healthy imagination not only creates a resourceful and productive individual, but it also builds self-esteem. 40 years later these same people become adults in classes like Art Center's and evening programs in Colleges. Many of them have lost their creativity and imagination on the way, but now have knowledge, education, and a very different kind of curiosity. Teaching adults I always remind myself that the mediocre teacher tells, the good one explains and the brilliant one inspires.
I would love to direct readers to where they can see your website and enjoy connecting with you. Can you give us your contact info for that? http://www.alexandrarozenman.com my website http://www.artschool99somerville.com my art school http://www.rozenmanpaperscissors.com my collage project https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDTAKAftMx05MuIe7CPXRAw/featured my youtube chanel https://www.1stdibs.com/search/art/?q=rozenm an my 1stdibs gallery https://www.fsfaboston.com gallery in Boston that represents my work https://www.fsfaboston.com/unfolding-roads my February show in The Fountain Street Gallery https://fineartamerica.com/shop/framed+prints/roz enman Limited Editions https://www.patreon.com/AlexandraRozenman My Patreon Project about coloring pages
Thank you, Alexandra!
CAPLAN-JONATHAN MOONRISE ON BALDWIN HILL FREILLINGHUYSEN-KINNEY GAZING CAPLAN-MICHELE BONNARD HAS DINNER
CARMEAN-KAREN BLUE LILACS
KLAGSBRUN-LORRAINE DAISY PICKERS
GUILD OF BERKSHIRE ARTISTS LIGHT UP THE SEASON
Twenty-nine artists from the more than 170 members of the Guild of Berkshire Artists are exhibiting 45 works in the current online art show “Light Up the Season”. This is the fourth online show in the Guild’s series: “Art in the Time of the Pandemic.” It runs through April 30 and can be viewed on the Guild’s website at: https://www.berkshireartists.org. The show includes artists working in oils, acrylics, photography, fiber and mixed media. Many works reflect the Berkshires environment during late winter/early spring - with titles such as: Twilight Field, Undermountain Road and Leaning Tree. Cheering viewers with the promise of spring are pieces like Blue Lilacs, Tre Chic Amaryllis and Pink Landscape and, for some fun, My New Hat, No Mulligans and Clown. Needing an escape to warmer climes you can view Bamboo Forest or
Reflection Pool, Granada. These works are unusual, creative and original pieces from the talented members of our artistic community here in the Berkshires. All artists in the show have pledged to donate a minimum of 25 percent of the proceeds of their sales to the COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund for Berkshire County, administered by Berkshire United Way and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation in partnership with Northern Berkshire United Way and Williamstown Community Chest. This fund supports nonprofit organizations helping those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. You can access the fund directly at www.berkshireunitedway.org/berkshirecountycovid19fund for more information. This online art show will continue through April 30, at which time another in the Guild’s online
MARKEL-SARA FOUNTAIN FANTASY
series will be featured. As each new show arrives, previous shows will remain accessible on the website. In normal times the Guild of Berkshire Artists creates in-person gallery shows in various Berkshires locales including the 1854 Old Town Hall in West Stockbridge and the Welles Gallery at the Lenox Library. In October 2020 we mounted our first outdoor show of large multi-media works at TurnPark in West Stockbridge. In 2021 the Guild plans a gradual return to normalcy with a Summer Solstice weekend tent show at Arrowhead in Pittsfield. Guild of Berkshire Artists - for more information, email berkshireartists@gmail.com or visit www.berkshireartists.org.
JANET PUMPHREY
“FROZEN”
JANET PUMPHREY
PHOTOGRAPH "Lilith with Silk Rose"
JANET PUMPHREY GALLERY 17 HOUSATONIC STREET, LENOX, MA 01240 WWW.JANETPUMPHREY.COM (413) 637-2777
Julia Grey Archival Inkjet Print At Large Studio, Las Vegas,NV www.xgender.net
THE ARTFUL MIND APRIL 2021 • 35
Lost in the Woods PART 1 A few miles south of Paris we stopped for a hitchhiker standing by the side of the road. Even from a distance one could see that he was some sort of distinguished fellow, perhaps fallen on hard times, and this assumption turned out to be more than the truth. Climbing into the back seat he uttered a few words of thanks. It is a fact that the very first words a person speaks are exactly like the first notes that sound from a violin, because it is possible to immediately see the depth of understanding, and skill of the player of the instrument, and so it was with Professor Buboni. We could see at once that he was a man of intellect, and most likely well read and knowledgeable. With a few further words he spoke, I can’t recall what. We could see that he was an angry man, eager for argument, and easily inflamed. After a few miles of silence, as we traveled down the road, he made a comment mostly to himself about the style of a house on a distant hill, and from that comment one might conclude his portrait. It was just some comment about a house never to be seen again, and in the tone of his voice was a deep regret, as if it was his own house lost in some past tragedy. His name was Arnold Buboni, and since Buboni was not a common name, when the opportunity arose I googled his name and was able to find a lot of information about him. Just two years previous he had been a distinguished professor of art history at Cambridge University. His position was an honorary one and he did no teaching or lecturing; simply because of his great reputation he was provided with an income and a furnished faculty home. In exchange Buboni allowed the University to list his name in their catalogue as Professor Emeritus of Art History. This reputation of his was based on his numerous books and articles the most famous of which was his “Theory of Art Historical Destructivism.” I found a definition of his theory of destructivism in an on-line encyclopedia. Arnold Buboni’s Theory of Destructivism: An object is not considered a work of art until history has shed the object of its original intent or purpose. For example, an altarpiece becomes art when it ceases to be considered an object of religious devotion; a portrait of a king becomes art when we no longer know who the individual in the painting was. Therefore, the whole process of artistic appreciation is essentially a process involving the destruction of original significance. Professor Buboni said of his theory: “The germ of the idea struck me in a church in Rome where I 36 • APRIL 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
had been admiring a Raphael Madonna. I was thinking about how perfect the color of the tan background was to bring out the blue drapery, and how these two colors most perfectly combined to accent the colors of the flesh of the face. Just then, I heard an old woman praying, she was sitting in a pew behind me. I did not speak Italian but it was easy to understand what she was saying. She was pleading with the Mary of the painting to preserve and look after her husband’s life, the said gentleman to be undergoing surgery that morning. In that moment I felt the profound shallowness of my artistic appreciation of that Raphael Madonna, whose true meaning I was destroying for her in the process of admiring it only as a work of art. At the entrance of the church I passed a plastic statue of Mary with hundreds of candles burning in front of it. It was the sort of plastic statue produced by the millions from casts, in which the features have a vague generic character like cheap funeral monuments, and I thought, “All the love and pathos has disappeared from these objects, and now it comes down to these sandblasted objects of devotion. Buboni’s Theory of Destructivism had serious limitations obviously. It was not a theory that could be applied to modern art. Modern art, whose purpose is simply to be art, has no prior function from which it is divested. This was not a problem for Buboni because he was not interested in any art works created after 1900. The forgoing is the extent of the formal information I found out about him, and the rest of the information I found came from several unreliable and even contradictory sources. First was the student newspaper at Cambridge and then several student blogs, and finally Buboni’s own personal blog posts dealing strictly with art matters up until about a year ago, when it stops abruptly after several enigmatic and disturbing posts of a highly personal nature. Buboni was highly regarded because of his reputation, however, this did not mean that he was well liked by his colleagues. On the contrary they were envious of his fame, and jealous of his privileges. Furthermore, they had to treat him with caution and respect, because his wit and tongue made him dangerous even to his few friends. The damaging nature of his ready ‘observations’ is well illustrated by the following. There was an exhibit at the university. Professors were invited to display works from their private collections. This exhibit included many never-beforeseen paintings and drawings, the cherished possessions of their owners. Thomas Aimes, a professor of painting and drawing, had to be teased and coaxed to display his small drawing by Leonardo, which had been in the Vasari collection. The University agreed to take out insurance for this unusual drawing to be included. Buboni, taking a quick look at the drawing declared, “This is obviously no Leonardo, the strokes are right handed, it’s probably just something by a lesser known artist like Da Sesto. Buboni however, was entirely wrong about this. Professor Aimes had noticed the right-handed strokes years ago and took the drawing to a specialist who explained that Leonardo was just shading with the paper upside down, this was clear from the very slight backward tails at the end of the stroke which showed that the stroke was a left handed stroke with the paper upside down. Poor Professor Aimes was too proud and too full of hatred for Buboni to come to the defense of his Leonardo, as if to have to defend such a thing was beneath his dignity. But he should have said something when he had the chance, because soon after the bank nearly foreclosed on his home because his loan was secured by his Leonardo drawing.
Buboni’s serious difficulties seem to have begun at a dinner party a few days after New Year’s Eve, two years ago. He was drunk, and his drunken friends were chiding him in an apparently innocent way about never writing any articles about art after 1900. In reaction to this he declared, slurring his words in his drunkenness, “Articles about art history written after 1880, are not art history at all, but just advertising copy intended to sell trash to rich idiots.” First of all Buboni did not really believe this, and even if he did he should never have said it. Even if a cow is not really sacred, it is best to not attack it, but also, he especially loved some of the Impressionists, although not all of them. His enemies debated what to do with this remark and decided to leak it to a source that could do him the most damage, so they gave it to the editors of the student newspaper who had no trouble reworking his remarks into something inflammatory. Their article was titled, “Buboni says Cezanne’s Paintings are Garbage being Sold to Rich Idiots.” This article was very unfair, and had been written by the students simply from spite, and to create a controversy, but it had a decided effect on Buboni. He felt he had to do something to prove himself to the students so he decided to teach two classes at the university. The first class would be Basic Drawing, and the second Basic Painting. It was his intent to reintroduce all the lost practices and procedures of the old masters in these classes, and to re-establish the lost arts of painting and drawing on a firm foundation. This plan was his second big mistake. One unfortunate side effect of Arnold’s plan was that Professor Thomas Aimes now lost his teaching position. Thomas was only a part time faculty member, hired to fill in for a year for someone on sabbatical, but now his classes were taken over by Buboni. This was the same Thomas Aimes whose Leonardo drawing had been disparaged by Buboni. The university welcomed this plan because they were anxious to be rid of Aimes anyway. Thomas Aimes was a great admirer of anything modern and radical and he had recently given the assignment: “Discuss the importance of graffiti on historic monuments in our area.” This assignment was misunderstood by his students with some serious disastrous results. As so often happens at universities with part time radical professors, he had a dedicated student following among whom were some editors of the school paper. Aimes had nearly lost his house, and did lose his job, but he still possessed his authentic Leonardo drawing and his dignity. The last straw came for him when he had to pack the great Buboni’s groceries at the supermarket where he had been forced to take a job. Buboni did not recognize him, and Thomas was unsure if he was glad about it or not. That night after work Thomas did not go right home, he went to the library instead. His intent was to use the library computer and read as much about Buboni as he could in preparation for writing an article about him for an art journal. Articles were constantly being written about Buboni and his theories, so this was not unusual, but Aimes was filled with evil intentions.
RICHARD BRITELL: FROM THE BLOG NO CURE FOR THE MEDIEVAL MIND
EDWARD ACKER PHOTOGRAPHER
Time Flies D Get Pictures EdwardAckerPhotographer.com 413-446-8348
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Photo credit: Joy Cummings
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