C AROLYN NEWBERGER

CAROLYN NEWBERGER ART FROM IN & OUT OF THE FOREST

Interview by Harryet Candee Photographs courtesy of the Artist

If I may refer to your recent writing, Illuminating the Hidden Forest, ch. 42, we can see so much in the simple changing of the earth from

winter to spring. (Softly into the Night, charcoal and collage, vs. “spring” photo) It is also an anal

ogy you have brought to our attention of what exactly is going on our planet, so I have to ask you to please explain this theory that you have brought enlightenment to my artful mind.

Carolyn Newberger: Liminal state refers to a place in between one social order and another. In anthropology, it is used to refer to the temporal space between rituals, with one ritual ending a season or a time of life and a subsequent ritual marking the beginning of the next. We are in such a time. Our quarantine marks the liminal space between the world as we knew it and the world as it will be. We don’t know what that world will look like, but 38 • JUNE 2020 THE ARTFUL MIND

we know that it will not be the same. So this is a time of uncertainty, fear, and for many, a rethinking of what has been taken for granted and what is important. Changings of seasons can be liminal, as winter turns uncertainly into Spring, or late adolescence as children turn into adults, or pandemics, as our worlds change irrevocably into a new kind of order. My collage, Softly into the Night, captures a liminal moment, as the central figure, wrapped and floating through space, is between one state and another, perhaps between life and death.

How and where and in what ways has your latest artistic voice been most clearly heard?

I have found a new artistic voice in discovering and immersing myself in the forest. I am fortunate to live in a home surrounded by nature. With the help of my little dog, rescued two years ago, whose every sense comes alive in the woods, I am acutely alive there, too. The forest stimulates my eyes to see, and my voice to write. Over the past two years I paint in the forest and pen essays describing what I am discovering. Many of these have been published in The Berkshire Edge, a publication of news, arts and ideas in the Berkshires.

“I go where my soul takes me”, is a statement describing the many ways you live your life. Can you elaborate on a few examples of this nature of being for us?

It’s very simple. If something excites me, I will pursue it through research, explore my thoughts through writing, or capture my impressions visually. Artistically, this can take many forms, such as the exploration of the human body in life

Trillium pushing from the ground Photo: Carolyn Newberger

Softly Into The Night, Carolyn Newberger, mixed media 30 x 42”

In The Grotto, Carolyn Newberger Watercolor, 9-6-2018

drawing, writing about and illustrating music and dance performances, searching for mushrooms in the forest, or playing with the possibilities of turning old work into new with the additions and manipulations of collage.

Over the past year, you have been collaborating with artist Philip Gerstein, a notably good Bostonian abstract painter, and you, a mixed media realist. Together contributing reflections and contemplations on nature through realism and abstraction in an art exhibit at Galatea Fine Art in Boston. What have been some of the goals and challenges for both of you as a duo? And, what have you been learning from this joint relationship? Most artists work as singular entities, so this is groundbreaking and worth understanding.

Philip is indeed, a wonderful painter. He uses color, form and texture to create vibrant abstract images that speak to me, and in which I often see nature embedded within. We are both members of Galatea Fine Arts, a Boston gallery, and when we discovered that our solo shows would occur simultaneously in adjacent gallery spaces, we felt that showing our work in pairs would create a kind of artistic conversation about art and nature across what have been seen as boundaries between realism and abstraction. His abstract canvasses evoke nature. My plein air forest paintings seek form, color and texture in nature. Underlying both our work is our mutual search for the pulse of life emerging through the layers of paint.

Bursting leaves on the doomed branch photo: Carolyn Newberger

Over the course of the past six months, life has changed as we know it. Has it launched a surge of creativity for you? Emotionally, and practically, you must be naturally grounded in order to allow positive energy take you through each day. I also wonder, does your living space, so beautiful, or your private family life have anything to do with it?

Life has certainly changed. Confined to home and walks in the forest, my observations have become more focused. Continued on the next page...

Philip Gerstein After the Humans, 2016

Carolyn Newberger and Philip Gerstein collaboration on Nature and Abstraction. They have approached nature across the line that often times divides abstraction from realism. Carolyn records hidden treasures she finds en plein air. In a studio, Philip creates abstract forms, rich texture and emotive color that find their echo in nature Carolyn Newberger: Trees In The Winter, 11 x 9” pastel/toned paper, 2020

Carolyn Newberger, Purple Tooth Rosettes, 6 x 8” watercolor and pastel, 2018

Philip Gerstein, God Shall Wipe All Tears, 2018

I notice things that I didn’t notice before. Small things. I feel the weight of the passage of time, as the activities of the outside world are reduced or eliminated. I describe these changes in recent essays in the Berkshire Edge. I now have several ideas in my mind for new work that is conceptual, expressing an emotional experience in the world of pandemic and change, using collage and mixed media to communicate these layered ideas.

With your background in education and psychology, can you give us your thoughts on best ways for us to stay healthy and motivated?

Well, I can’t predict the summer weather, but cooking healthy and delicious food and walking in the woods have been important to our sense of wellbeing. Motivation can’t be forced. Sometimes it’s ok to take it easy and not feel as though we need always to produce. Read a good book. Listen to good music. These are balm for the soul and stimulus for the mind. Reaching out to friends and family can be a bright side in this dark time. In my 40 • JUNE 2020 THE ARTFUL MIND

opinion, we should pay attention to what feels right for us, and not be critical of ourselves if we don’t produce as much right now.

Is what you create 100% for you, or what is created for your potential viewers? We create differently I think for just ourselves. When we have an audience we sometimes gear it towards being a certain way so that it is liked, or bought, or what we think would be acceptable. That is one of the artist arguments we have within ourselves with artmaking.

When I write, I aim for simplicity and clarity, so being understandable to the reader is very much on my mind. This is also true if I have an idea that I want to communicate visually. But mostly I am inner driven. Both writing and images emerge in the process of their creation. I learn what I am thinking as I write, and I learn what I am seeing as I paint.

“Without a continuous thirst for art education, our art can go stale or disconnected from the soul”. How would you react to this thought?

Teachers, classes and colleagues are central to my development as an artist, and I am grateful to them all. This February I attended a four-day workshop with watercolor artist Stephen Quiller, and was energized with new ideas and techniques. But there are many ways to keep vital and connected as artists that have to do with engagement in general, whether in quiet ways, like poet Emily Dickenson, or in engagement with others.

Carolyn, you are a visual artist, musician, and writer. How do you find yourself juggling these venues, and how would they overlap?

The overlap between art and writing is natural, because I draw at music and dance performances and use the drawings in reviews that I write, often with my husband, Eli. Similarly, the forest inspires both the images and ideas that appear in “Illuminating the Hidden Forest” in The Berkshire Edge. Music is on a somewhat different tangent. I am

Carolyn Newberger, A Pond in Springtime, watercolor. From Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 41: Filled by time and grace, April, 2020, Berkshire Edge

a classically trained flutist and play jazz washboard with my husband Eli’s band, “Eli and the Hot Six.” I adore jazz and studied jazz tap for many years before I injured my knee. Being a musician definitely influences how I respond to and write about music and dance. I don’t worry too much about juggling. When I have a show or a concert, I’m all in with focusing on that. If that means putting something else on the back burner for a while, that’s ok.

Your studies of the forest are enchanting! Do you feel like an explorer when in the woods? How does the tromping and discovering moments with Lily feed your imagination and inspire you? Do you run back to the studio to review your findings like a treasure hunt?

I totally feel like an explorer in the woods, and I consider Lily my canine sensory extender. She shows me that there is always something new to notice and get excited about. The forest has become my studio. Weather permitting, almost all my drawings and paintings are en plein air and I rarely make changes in the studio. I also often write many of my essays sitting in the forest. Other times I may need a few days at the computer for ideas to percolate and develop.

Do you believe something new will cross your path this summer? Like what can you imagine?

I have no idea but I’m open to anything. At the moment, I have been affected both in my art and my writing by the corona virus.

Tell us about your life in Boston, please. What bridged the gap between there and the Berkshires for you and Eli?

What I miss most about Boston is being close to my family and to my art friends. We have years of growing and maturing together as friends and as artists. We stay in close touch, and one of my friends has a second home here, but I miss our weekly life drawing as a group. I also have a cherished book group and writing club. The gap is bridged somewhat by wonderful new friends here and by regular visits to Boston, which I hope will resume in the not too distant future. And Lily, too!

You were such a city girl in Boston! Now you

are a Berkshire girl. Do you miss Boston life?

When I was a little girl, I would dream about someday living in a cabin in the woods. Well, that dream has come true and I feel as though I have come home. Everything is here, from the natural world to a rich cultural life. This is a difficult time for our cultural institutions and our business community. My heart goes out to them, and I hope that we shall be able soon to regain what makes this place so very special.

In what ways has your art making changed since living in the Berkshires? Have you focused on new techniques? What have you happily left in Boston that no longer works for you in terms of artmaking here? What has strengthened your art now that you brought from Boston?

The Berkshires brought me the forest. Drawing and painting in the forest is challenging. I’ve adapted to an art kit that can fit in a fanny pack. That means that I have to work in a smaller format with limited supplies. Rather than constraining me, I find that it liberates me. I observe more closely, I make more out of less, and am more fully immersed in what I am painting. The drawings that I create during performances are challenging in a different way. There, I have to work fast, especially with dance, which is in constant motion. There I have to convey movement, emotion and the spirit of the performance. What I brought from Boston is a solid foundation. I had great teachers, years of figure drawing, classes in classical oil painting, watercolor technique, drawing and anatomy for artists. I can’t stress too much the importance of hard work and practice, practice, practice. •Tapping into the collectors of your art work, what can you tell them about your work as of today that you think they might like to know? •Actually, as many of them follow my work, I think they know that there will be surprises around the corner. What makes art so exciting is the possibility of play and of new discoveries and challenges. So stay tuned! Thank you, Carolyn!

www.carolynnewberger.com

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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. In addition to the printing services, Berkshire Digital does accurate photo-reproductions of paintings and illustrations that can be used in books, magazines, brochures, cards and websites. 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 and Stamford. 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 ARTIST JOAN GRISWOLD

CARY HILL SCULPTURE PARK Salem Art Works (SAW), invites the public to visit the Cary Hill Sculpture Park on SAW’s campus in Salem, New York. Featuring sculptural works by world-renowned artists such as Mark Di Suvero, Kelly Cave, Mia Westerlund Roosen and Peter Lundberg, the Cary Hill Sculpture Park is free of charge, self-guided and open every day from dawn until dusk. While SAW’s general programming for the public and artist residencies is on hold, the sculpture park offers a wonderful opportunity to enjoy nature among world-class artwork and bucolic views of Vermont’s Green Mountains and surrounding Washington County, New York. The park features mostly open terrain that can be walked or driven, allowing ease of social distancing, and maintaining health protocols. Like any organization, SAW recommends that all visitors observe the recommended person-toperson distance of at least 6 feet and to wear masks when close to others from different households. In tandem with continued operation of the park, SAW will be offering online programming through the spring and summer via our social media channels. Please Salem Art Works is located just 90 minutes from the Berkshires. About SAW: Salem Art Works is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art center and sculpture park located in rural Upstate New York. Founded in 2005 by artist Anthony Cafritz, Salem Art Works is dedicated to supporting both emerging and established artists in the creation of new and progressive work, as well as promoting the understanding and appreciation of contemporary art within the region. Salem Art Works – 646-391-6923, b.gleeksman@salemartworks.org;www.salemartworks.org. Follow us on Facebook (Salemartworks) and Instagram (@salemartworks) for more information.

ENJOY THE SUMMER!

EYE OF THE TIGER, 22X30 INCHES, WATERCOLOR

CAROLYN NEWBERGER

Carolyn Newberger is an artist, musician and writer who came to art after an academic and clinical career in psychology at Harvard Medical School. A recipient of awards from Watercolor Magazine, the Danforth Museum, the New England Watercolor Society and Cambridge Art Association, she writes and illustrates music and dance reviews in The Berkshire Edge, a publication of news and ideas in Western Massachusetts, often in collaboration with her husband, Eli Newberger. Her most recent project is an illustrated book of essays, “Illuminating the Hidden Forest,” which is being serialized in The Berkshire Edge. www.carolynnewberger.com

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Jason And his Grandmother

CHAPTER 9 We Rob a Warehouse

Saturday came and I had to work for Bluto again, we were going to get copper pipe from a warehouse on Broad Street. Bluto said that the owner of the warehouse wanted to replace the old copper pipe with the newer plastic pipe. I was not positive that Bluto was not doing something dishonest but I did not consider it to be my problem. I was just a kid and the helper, what did I know about copper pipe? Nothing. We did not start removing the copper pipe right away. We had to have coffee and donuts first. I told him I didn’t drink coffee, but he said it was a part of my job. He parked the truck behind the building and we sat on the steps of the entry of an old warehouse, directly across from the train station. There was a train engine idling in the distance, and the smell of diesel fumes in the air. The sounds and smells gave me an odd, anxious feeling. I decided to tell Bluto about my problems with Mrs. Hagner, it seemed like a good time. I explained to him how she was going to fail me unless I got at least 90 on both the math and science exams. I said it was because I disrupted her class, but the truth was that I had never disrupted her class at all. “She hates my guts and I don’t know why.” I said. Bluto did not say anything at first. He was so struck by what I said that he just sat there on the stoop looking at me. He even stopped chewing his donut and sat looking at me with his mouth partly open. Wrinkles appeared on his forehead. Then he began one of his lectures, but he did not get very far. All he said was, “It is because you are…” Then there was a long silence and he began again with, “They are always going to…” Then, in confusion or embarrassment he gave his explanation up completely, and instead of any lecture we set to work removing the copper pipe in the basement. Working with him that morning was a very strange experience for me because he obviously had something specific to say about me and my predicament, but whatever it was, there was something about this explanation he was obviously very unwilling to tell me. It had to be some sort of observation that would involve the prospect of hurting my feelings I presumed. There was the likelihood that his explanation would turn out to be some outlandish notion like his idea about the Coca-Cola Company; some convoluted political theory that would present some analysis of the behavior of my teachers and myself. But even so, as useless as his ideas often were, I was intensely curious to find out what it was. I was so curious in fact that I said not a word more about it. Even if Bluto’s ideas about the government, politics and the crimes of the soda companies were just a lot of silly bluster, on the other hand Bluto knew a great deal about the procedure of disconnecting and removing copper pipe in an old building. We had to find the main water pipe and shut it off, and then he had to turn off the var ious valves that led to different parts of the system. That was insufficient because water seeped through the various valves and there was enough water in the pipes so that the torch would not get the pipes hot enough. He had to unscrew certain openings on valves to drain out more water. He would have me hold the pipes with pliers while he heated the pipe with a torch and when the solder turned from gray to silver I would give it a twist. He did all this complicated and difficult work with great accuracy and concentration, and little by little he improved on my part of the task with little suggestions that would never have occurred to me. I asked him how he knew how to do all these things and if he was a plumber and he said. “My father was a delivery man for parts supply stores and he would always take me with him when he made his rounds. He was never one to go in the front door of a business if he had a delivery to make, but would go by the side door where the work was being done. My father liked to chat with the workmen while they were working, and that was the reason he liked to deliver parts to the workers, and not to some secretary at a desk in a front office.” “Sometimes we would be in transmission repair garage, and he would deliver a box of gears. Then he wanted to have a look at the deconstructed transmission and see how the work was going. In this way I learned how to rebuild a car transmission, just by watching it being done, since I had nothing else to do while I waited. My father was constantly being fired, because he took so long with his deliveries; always stopping to talk with the workman at their various jobs. At that time the economy was booming, and Pop would just get another job. Once it was plumbing supplies, and so I learned how to plumb, then it was roofing supplies, and we would be up on a roof someplace seeing how copper flashing was nailed down.” That was Bluto’s explanation of how he happened to know how to do so many things. I had my doubts however. I watched my mother thread a needle one time, and after than I knew how to thread a needle. I watched a boy in my class playing the violin, and it looked so easy that I tried but it turned out to be much more difficult than it looked. None of that mattered however, the more serious question was this: If Bluto was so smart that he could learn numerous skills by accident, was that any proof that his theories and ideas were correct? If a person is a master of one thing, can one automatically assume some indirect mastery of all things? Is the mastery of an art composed of certain inevitable steps so that the procedure is predetermined? We were in a cavernous old warehouse, down in the cellar. We threw the pipe on the floor and it rang out and echoed in the silence. In the distance we could hear a train pulling out of the station. It was a strange morning and all the time Bluto was silent and frowning, thinking about something. We left at 11:30 because Bluto wanted to get to the scrap metal yard before it closed at noon. Bluto backed the truck out into the street, turned it around and parked it in front of the warehouse. He opened the door, got out and said, “You drive Albert.” There was no point in warning him that I had no idea about how to drive a truck, and did not know what to do with the clutch of a standard shift. Bluto insisted I drive, but before he had me turn on the engine he gave me some simple instructions. He held up his hands and sort of rubbed them together as an explanation of how a clutch worked saying, “It works like this, my left hand is the flywheel and my right hand is the clutch plate, when you let the clutch out they come together like this and the truck starts to move.” With that he brought his hands slowly together and rubbed them around. I had no idea what it all meant. I pushed the clutch pedal to the floor as I had seen him do a thousand times, and turned the key in the ignition. I pushed down on the gas and let out the clutch, the truck leaped forward about five feet, shut off, and Bluto went flying off the soda box into the back of the truck. “That’s inertia,” I said to him. Bluto had never been on the soda box passenger’s seat before; it was a new experience for him. By the time I had driven six blocks down Broad Street and stopped at two lights I had mastered, to a certain extent, the truck’s clutch. Once the clutch was out all the way and the engine didn’t stall; after I had put the thing up into second and then down into third; at that point I knew in my heart that Jason was right about cars, and I was wrong. There was no arguing with the feeling of the seat pushing against your back as you pressed down on the accelerator. One listened to the steady increasing roar of the engine, but more than those things was the engine, seeming to count up to four over and over again as it idled at a light; the thud, thud, thud, of a happy old oil burning engine, faithful and intelligent as a dog. We drove into the scrap metal yard and parked in front of a huge piece of cement bordered all around with a strip of steel, like a single huge parking space for an eighteen-wheeler. Bluto told me to drive the truck up onto the cement slab, and shut off the engine. After that we went into a huge barn like building with hardly any lights or windows. Off to one side of the entrance was a makeshift office consisting of two walls, a door and a window looking into the interior. The floor of this office, which was probably made of cement, was entirely covered with dirt, and the only place it was almost clean was the path between the desk, the door, and the cash register, swept clean by the foot traffic of the proprietor and his customers. It was in this establishment that we were apparently going to transform our copper pipe into cash, from which I would be paid my five dollars for my mornings work.

—RICHARD BRITELL: FROM THE BLOG NO CURE FOR THE MEDIEVAL MIND

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