Leila Holtsman

Hurricane-proof art?

2011-08-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

The owner of "Bending" happily reported to me today that my outdoor piece installed on her balcony in DC survived the 65mph winds we experienced last Saturday. "The ceramic pods didn't move at all." The neodynium magnets held fast.

"Savage Beauty"

2011-08-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Savage Beauty

Thrilling! What remarkable visions. Pictures don't do the work justice. I wish that my design-savvy mother had been there with me. She would have enthusiastically appreciated the pattern-matching, the innovative use of material (including clam shells or hair/beaded silk chiffon combo) and the idea of making the side silhouette perfect.

By the second room, I thought, McQueen is dressing goddesses. The clothes themselves seemed larger-than-life. And the use of mannequin hoods focused attention on the work. The mood music filled the rest of the remaining space.

My favorite dress: gold feather dress

in the gothic room.

My favorite show video: Chess Show from 2005

Waiting in line for four hours,

walking slowly through galleries I'd never been in before, I had great conversations with teachers, lawyers, Korean language-loving IT workers, art critics and pumpkin carvers. It was a fabulous moment in time.

"Tumbling" gets poetry press

2011-08-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

"Tumbling" 48"H x 72"W, steel, vinegar, acrylic, ceramic

THE STONES THAT SLEEP

by BRASH

The stones
That sleep

In the stream's
Rumble
Keep
Themselves in place
With dreams
Of eventual tumble
To ocean deep
Crumble by crumble.

At 2009 Artomatic, the poet, Brash, wrote a poem inspired by my work, "Tumbling." On August 4, a blog, Long Story Short, published the poem, "Stones that Sleep," on its Poetry Page. Congratulations and thanks to Brash!

Frieze Cast of Characters and Narrative

2011-08-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

The Frieze Project
Cast of characters

The Muse - Gaga
The Wanderer - House
Wise Guardian and Divine Warrior - Superwoman
The Father - General Petraeus
The Wanderer’s Supporters - New Orleans Jazz Band

Narrative of the First Frieze Panel:

Image #1 - Mirror images of the empty cliff and the Bamiyan Buddha looming over the entire valley in Afghanistan begin the story of the Frieze. These represent the sense of destruction and loss that I feel when I’m in the presence of the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Image #2 – Crinoid, in my vocabulary, represents durability and survivorship.

Image #3 – The Temple of Dendur in situ in 1875.

Image #4 – The temple of Dendur dismantled into some 640 blocks, in storage on Elephantine Island in the Nile River, waiting for the political game to play out between Washington and Cairo in the late 1960’s.

Pink Line Noise Spotlight

2011-07-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Spotlight on Leila Holtsman
By Katlin Chadwick on Jul 11, 2011

It seems right we should start with the desert. The barren landscape is blurred by a subtle softness. Its sand feels soft to the touch. Colors are muted, hazy. And the atmosphere feels dreamlike.

But if you become at all acquainted with the desert, you’ll also find it’s one of the hardest things known. Leila Holtsman describes this contrast with fervor.

The landscape is rock solid underneath, and it hides things. Only when it gets a major drenching—every 5-10 years—can you see the truth revealed. Flowers bloom and life emerges from places most unlikely. And you can sense that it had been hiding there the whole time.

Leila is a mixed-material artist who creates sculpture and site murals. She transfers and screen-prints found images and objects onto steel panels. Her solo show at Artisphere (www.artisphere.com), The Frieze Project (http://www.artisphere.com/calendar/event-details/Visual-Arts/Frieze-Project-Leila-Holtsman.aspx), is up now through August 6th.

During her childhood, Leila spent ten years in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It was here where she became utterly in love with the desert. She identifies this passion as her wellspring. That’s not to say her ideas come from here only, but it might be fair to say, in some way, most do.

Only recently has she begun to verbalize this inspiration.

“I don’t know completely what it means. It’s so infinite; and that’s why it’s a wellspring. Just when I think I’ve tapped it, I discover I’ve only uncovered one capillary.” There are so many ways, figuratively and physically, to explore softness versus hardness. Contrast not only makes for interesting explorations in material, contrast is also reflected in Leila’s journey into an artist.

Leila’s father was a linguist, so her family moved often when she was young. She’s always had an interest in different cultures, histories, languages, and landscapes. Art was included in this, of course—but in the larger context of a culture.

After receiving her MBA, she climbed the corporate ladder to become a successful businesswoman in the finance world. She never knew she needed art until she took a pottery class at the Torpedo Factory (www.torpedofactory.org). It was there she discovered she needed that physicality art could provide—sculpture specifically. She liked the way her hands moved over clay and the asymmetry they could create.

After much nudging from friends, she finally, though still warily, made the shift from the corporate world to full-time artist.

Her everyday life shifted from the overly analytical to the creative and the physical.

“Making a work seems to strip life down to its essence. It simplifies it into something pure, and there is nothing else in that moment.” This comes only with hours upon days of focus and being surrounded by art.

“Simplicity, naivety, and spontaneity come out of this intense focus and not thinking that hard,” she says.

There’s thinking, and then there’s thinking. She’s not talking about analytical, left-brain thinking, but the act of doing art every day and blocking out everything else.

“If you do, all the crud (read voices) comes out, you can acknowledge them, and then it’s easier for the good stuff to eventually pour out,” she says. Stuff just gets solved.

Shutting off that analytical side can be tough. It’s why writers get writer’s block. For Leila, it’s hard but intensely worth it.

“I’m not a multi-tasker, and sometimes this overly technological world is challenging for me.” She loves to be able to go into her studio with one, sole focus. It’s a big reason she makes art.

Another big reason is to communicate.

Instead of engaging and persuading people to do things based on what she finds statistically (what she was used to in the corporate world), nowadays, she works with others to place her art in their homes (http://www.leilaholtsman.com/commission.html). She loves the feedback and the give-and-take in the process.

Art is a communicative tool. And it doesn’t have to be pleasant and pretty and nice—just effective. So what does “effective” mean?

“Since my work is organic, ‘effective’ can mean a broad range of things. It can mean the viewer sees the shapes and colors as representative of my inspiration. Or it could mean they just see the color as an oversimplified emotion. Or it can mean something in between.”

Her goal is to have her work communicate with others. If she’s there with her viewer, she often feels the need to use words to help—she has a linguist background after all. She likes words too much to not use them to help communicate.

“My work is part private, part public,” she says. “I don’t publicize everything, but it’s important to me to share a lot because I want people in it.”

She’s also not wedded to viewers seeing what she originally saw. She’s open to interpretation. Some of her work is physically interactive for that reason. In her piece entitled “Bending,” for example, abstracted clay spheres are magnetized and moveable atop a steel surface.

“On some level, you must disassociate from your art. It’s hard, but it stops being your baby. And the ultimately successful communication if someone buys it,” she says.

Another important reason art keeps her engaged is the act of continually learning more about her materials.

Her main materials are steel, clay, and printed images. And she consistently wants to get to know them better.

“If I don’t keep learning something new about the material each time, I die.” For example, she loves frescoes. With her most recent endeavor, “The Frieze Project,” she was inspired by the softness of frescoes and, therefore, wanted to figure out how to make steel seem soft. She discovered she didn’t have to use the same plasterized lime as in traditional frescoes, but could layer gesso instead. She filled the nooks and crannies of the steel, making it seem deceptively soft but still reading as steel.

“The Frieze Project” subject matter required this softness and ghostliness. The screen-printing she’d done in the past produced a clean, precise, vivid result that wouldn’t have worked. So she used a solvent transfer, usually done on paper, on steel instead. This translated into something not literal or verbal, but dream-like and intuitive.

Through her materials, Leila communicates. In the past, she worked a lot with both the sensitivity and aggression that comes with steel. This reached a small audience, which was satisfying, but she wanted a broader reach.

“I found people respond very strongly to figures and narrative—as do I.” And this brings us to about eight months ago, when Leila first began “The Frieze Project.”

A frieze usually tells a story or relays a journey. In this piece, there are layers upon layers of this theme of journey.

As a child, Leila moved every two to three years to cultures strange to her, an uprooting that has inevitably impacted her. The theme of home resonates in much of her art, and in this piece especially.

Where is home? What does it mean to wander from place to place?

In a way, this frieze narrates a journey of the journey itself. It’s a modern-day take on the Odyssey sprinkled with pop culture characters from today. There are many wanderers, a main one being Leila.

And the journey in actually creating the frieze is interesting in itself…

It seems right we should end with the desert.

The most overt layer of journey in the frieze is inspired by the journey of the Temple of Dendur from Egypt to its current home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Leila grew up around ruins, and she’s always been both puzzled and emotionally moved by them.

When she first saw the temple in the museum, her immediate reaction was anger. Anger that someone would pull this great temple from its Egyptian context, stripping it of its meaning. Anger that turned into inspiration.

Within a few weeks after starting “The Frieze Project,” however, she learned that this inspiration was flawed.

She learned that the temple’s being here was actually a calculated move by Egypt to save its tradition. In the early 60s, the Aswan Dam was created to control the Nile and fertilize surrounding land to support millions more people. With this additional flooding, temples would be destroyed. Egypt couldn’t save them all, but saved a few by moving them back from the flood area—moves that had huge monetary costs. The U.S. was one of the countries that provided funds, and Egypt repaid them with a temple.

The Egyptian government gave the Temple of Dendur to the U.S. as a fair exchange for money and expert archaeological assistance. But I was in love with my idea that it had been unfairly gained and was reluctant to abandon it for a couple more months.

“I’ve never experienced that amount failure in that concentrated amount of time,” she recalls.

Three months were spent in reflection on how she should proceed. She had a choice to make. She wanted her piece to have kernels of truth that she would embellish, so she could either follow her anger to its original source. Or adapt.

Perhaps it’s because of her variable upbringing, or her big career shift, or even her everyday swapping between left-brain and right. Perhaps because of one of these things or all of them combined, she reworked the frieze as something that would be true to her.

“I’m nothing,” she says, “if not adaptable.”

The Frieze Project: Now through August 6, Artisphere, Mezz Gallery, Free

Artist Talk: Critiques and Collaborative Art Studio Environments; Tuesday, July 19, 7p.m., Artisphere,Bijou Theater

Source:
http://pinklineproject.com/article/spotlight-leila-holtsman-corporate-type-turned-mixed-material-artist

big

2011-06-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

Originally, and to this day, I want to wrap a building with a frieze. I'd applied to several artist residencies and for grants, but had no takers. I was delighted last July when Artisphere jurors, Jefferson Pinder, Jayme McClellan and Al Miner, accepted my proposal for an internal frieze, site-specific for the Mezz Gallery.

I thought that I knew what the Frieze was supposed to look like. Anger inspired it and I knew I wanted color in it. So I'd planned to print screen images in color, a la Rauschenberg's 34 Illustrations for Dante's Inferno.

Numerous dead ends in terms of the underlying narrative, meant 3-4 months of treading water. I collected images blindly, not knowing yet how to use them. At least I knew I'd be working on steel to get better acquainted with its properties, specifically how to take advantage of its porosity, which I thought meant "softness."

I met with Gretchen Schermerhorn and Marty Itner of Pyramid Atlantic(an excellent, too-little known print studio) to tap into their expertise in solvent transfer and screen printing. Discussing my project with Gretchen convinced me to use solvent transfer as the best way to evoke the dry desert and dream-like qualities I was striving for.

Simultaneously I was reading two of my husband Dave's gifts: "Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum" and Fagan's translation of "The Iliad", in addition to "The Odyssey", "The Writer's Journey" and my perennial favorite, Gaiman's "The Sandman" series.

An underlying troublesome voice insistently reminded me not to be too literal and give it all away, story-wise. So many factors to bring under control.

Arc of Mystery at Artisphere - Pyramid Atlantic

2011-06-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

Take a look at Pyramid Atlantic's Marty Itner blog review of my Artisphere show.

Silhouettes

2011-05-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

The silhouette tests from last August are making their way into my frieze.

Blackrock Arts Center - Gazette

2011-05-20T06:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Accidental pictures and organic forms dominate BlackRock exhibit
byOn View, Claudia Rousseau

A three-person exhibit in the Art Gallery at the BlackRock Center for the Arts is modest, but intriguing. While the works in this exhibit are generally on a scale too small for the large, airy space, this requires the viewer to move in closely, and to look harder.

The photographs of the late Carl Dahlke are selected from a body of work titled “The World at My Feet.” Dahlke passed away last November, so the exhibition takes on the character of a memorial. Fascinated by the patterns and forms that one can frame looking down, many of his photographs have a faintly naive quality. They reminded me of looking at the street while walking to school as a child, checking for cracks, or becoming enthralled by some detritus or accidental formation on the sidewalk. In this, they provoke memory of a kind of experience that is fairly universal.

Dahlke was a software developer, and had remarked in his artist’s statement that his photography, which he practiced alongside this frenetic work, forced him to slow down and give himself the time and space to see those small things that get passed over so easily in our ordinary lives. This idea is well communicated in the photos where the surprising beauty of a few pieces of blue glass strewn on the ground (“Blue Glass on Ground”) or the accidental crucifix formed by some bits of glass and leaves over the cross pattern formed by the seams of concrete panels on the street (“Green Glass and Cross”) record that stopping and looking. A number of photos include painted marks on the street the kind that usually herald construction of some kind and send a chill through the average commuter. Dahlke found interest in these somewhat mysterious marks, and ways to pair them with other shapes to create his unexpected compositions. Again, these are modest pictures, but they hold the sense of delight and thoughtful contemplation with which they were taken.

Leila Holtsman’s contribution to this exhibit includes two three-dimensional works and a group of “Frieze Studies,” all of which involve a technique of printing with acrylic ink on steel, most of it salvaged. Among the more interesting aspects of the imagery printed on the steel pieces is the dominance of plant and other organic forms, perhaps suggesting the entropy in nature, where plant life begins to creep back over abandoned structures. In this, there is some connection with Dahlke’s photos that seem to document those forgotten places, and in a few instances, loads of junk and broken bits pushed into piles (“Heavy Hand 1 and 2”). Holtsman also uses mythological references, such as the horned moon crown of Isis, or the arms of the empowered goddess raised in ceremonial gesture. While I could have wished for a richer use of this imagery, perhaps with more color and more consistency, the message it makes is fairly clear. The best works are the two sculptures, “Untitled (Strella #1 and #2) of salvaged steel made into star or mountain-like forms about a foot high, lovely in their ruffled edges and the vegetative, netted imagery growing up over them.

Last, but certainly not least, are the paper sculptures of Jessica Beels that make up the largest number of pieces in the show. All are small, delicate and evocative of the amazing and often hidden patterns of growth in nature. Beels has developed a technique of wrapping a steel or brass armature with overbeaten wet flax and creating a taut, translucent skin with paper derived from the leaves or the bark of trees like mulberry (kozo and gampi fibers). The effect is extraordinary in that the resulting objects feel as if they are themselves, natural forms, with all the delicacy and surprising strength that things like bones and shells possess. For example, there are nautilus forms that look like the bleached remnants of these animals, the echo of their marvelous bony structures still evident in death.

I loved “Nautilus Skeleton,” a large wall piece that looks heavy but has that same surprising lightness that such things have in nature. The tiny cup-like forms that are part of her “Lotus series” are delicate and light as flowers, and other small pieces look like strange creatures that might be found stranded on the beach in late summer.

Two works have a more scientific or biological character: “Protein (Dodecamer)” and the “Fractal/Julia” set. “Protein” is a spiral form with points and curves that connote the tiny structures that make up the stuff of life. The Fractal series refer to the fractal patterns in nature, especially in shells, which these works evoke. Finally, three small scale pitcher-like forms (“Polka-dot squash series”) are painted with metallic acrylic to create light and dark patterns on their surfaces. They feel like something between the jeweled cups of Benvenuto Cellini and the artifacts of the tomb of an ancient Near Eastern queen that include a necklace of golden leaves. With her degree in art history from Harvard, I suspect Beels intended this reference something she expresses more fully in the jewelry she also makes. Beels’ artist’s statement sums up her aims evident in these works: “I am intrigued by the combination of geometry and randomness in natural forms, how patterns dissolve into and echo each other. Whether jewelry, vessels or purely contemplative pieces, my work explores the juxtaposition of interior and exterior spaces, light and shadow.”

Source: http://www.gazette.net/article/20110518/ENTERTAINMENT/705189948&template=gazette

Blackrock Arts Center - Germantown Patch

2011-05-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Arts

Ancient Temple Inspires Artist’s Work in BlackRock Exhibit

Leila Holtsman’s pieces are precursors to a 120-foot work to be featured in a solo Artisphere show.

By Tiffany Arnold | Email the author | May 13, 2011

new

Credit Leila Holtsman

Leila Holtsman used gesso and broad panels of steel to tell the story of the Temple of Dendur, what began as an ancient Nubian temple, got its name after a flashy Roman makeover and is now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection in New York City.

“I’m trying to tell the story of three different points of the temple’s life,” said Holtsman, who chatted with Patch from her metal studio in Beltsville, Md.

The panels Holtsman created are part of a three-artist, mixed-media exhibit on view at BlackRock Center for the Arts. The theater is hosting a reception Saturday, May 14.

Holtsman said the work featured in the Germantown exhibit are studies for a 120-foot work she’s spent a year developing for an upcoming solo show at Artisphere. She said power and sacrifice were common themes for Dendur. Storyboarding and mockups have helped her organize the concept visually, she said.

“I’ve got well over 100 images going into this piece,” she said. “I’ve got a palette of five, six colors, photos that I’ve purchased that I couldn’t take myself. I’m telling three stories in a frame of how all this came about. It’s a lot to keep up with.”

This fascination with ancient temples started at an early age.

Holtsman of Garrett Park, Md., grew up in Maryland, but her parents were globetrotters. She spent 10 years of her childhood living in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Arabic was her first language, she said.

“When you live there, it really is another world,” she said. “You walk through things that have been left the in the same places that they were built 5,000, … 3,000 years ago. There’s something that takes over your soul, turns you into a romantic and makes you want to protect them and appreciate them just they way they had been left.”

It’s only recently that decided to devote all of her energy to being a full-time artist. Holtsman said she thought her world travels would have led to a government job, working for the U.S. Department of State, perhaps. She has a degree in international studies and Russian from University of Virginia and an MBA from University of Maryland. Yet, she left a job with the Red Cross.

She has no regrets.

“I was quitting a really great job,” Holtsman said. “In terms of the way people look at it here, it was a really desirable job, great paying, great benefits. It was interesting. Because I was leaving that, I thought it was really important to move on to something I really wanted to do. It was part of finding my voice.”

Source:

http://germantown.patch.com/articles/ancient-temple-inspires-artists-work-in-blackrock-exhibit

working ideas - contrast

2010-08-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

Using my archive of images from my January trip to South Carolina, I'm reducing a number of them to strong contrasts, possibly to use in future prints on steel.

Study for a Frieze

2010-04-09T06:54:00.000-07:00

Salvaged steel and tempered glass.

Crinoids in living color

2010-03-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

Browsing the internet to learn about the relationship between crinoids and oil deposits (and after seeing 100s of images of sandy-colored crinoids), I'm amazed to find that these fossils and probably the living animal can be purple.

Source of image and information: "Preservation of hypericin and related polycyclic quinone pigments in fossil crinoids" by Klaus Wolkenstein, Jurgen Gross, Heinz Falk, Heinz Scholer, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences

A man named Blumer discovered a remarkable group of organic pigments (fringelites) in purple to violet coloured specimens of the Jurassic crinoid ‘Millericrinus’ (=Liliocrinus) from northern Switzerland. These pigments are also accompanied by several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which were proposed as transformation products of the pigments .

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/273/1585/451.full

Snow Walk: Adams Morgan to Dupont Circle

2010-02-06T07:36:00.001-08:00

Lauriol's sentinels.

Snow split.

Echo: umbrella and Dupont Circle fountain's dish.

Snow Lights

2010-02-06T07:22:00.001-08:00

"The red light contains some orange in its hue, and the green light contains some blue, to provide some support for people with red-green color blindness." (Wiki) The whiteness of the snow wrapped around the lights brought that out for me.

Textural Tracings Exhibit

2010-01-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

Installation views of the "Textural Tracings" Exhibit at Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach, So. Carolina. This is a three-person show, which includes the works of Beth Kendall, Novie Trump and yours truly.

The Gallery occupies a huge space (55'x25'). It was a challenge and a delight to place our 25 works in this beautiful place.

Each work was positioned with plenty of room to breathe.

Talking to the students of the Sculpture, Mixed Media and Professional Development classes was great fun and stimulating. An exhibit like ours is one way for students to ask questions about contemporary sculpture and for me to receive fresh feedback about my work.

With the fabulous help of Gallery Director Cynthia Farnell and an energetic team of people (thanks to Dan, Rachel, Wayne, Matt, Chris, and Easton among others), we installed a great show. Chris and Cynthia install one of Beth's pieces here.

Thanks to the generosity of Cynthia Farnell and the Rebecca Bryan Gallery of Coastal Carolina University!

New work

2009-12-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

Escape Christmas

New fragmented work

2009-12-05T20:54:00.001-08:00

Christmas to the Rescue

Arlington Arts Center - GRACE

2009-11-22T18:44:00.000-08:00

This week I had a chance to drop by Doug Moulden's acrylic and plaster on plywood wall sculpture show at Greater Reston Arts Center and IMAGE/PROJECT, a photography and video show curated by Taryn Simon at the Arlington Arts Center.

Doug Moulden makes empty landscapes so the viewer can insert herself into the scene. To me, the work feels like tapestries on the wall. They appear soft and as though they were draped on the wall. The effect of many layers of acyrlic ink was pleasingly impressionistic and invited the touch.

IMAGE/PROJECT
Leslie Awender's photography is striking. She has 5 works related works, her Red Earth series, in this show. They invite comparison and kept me coming back to observe their details more closely.

Alma Leiva's work is a reminder of the power and manipulative quality of photographs. She documents in her videos the violence in Honduras.

Upstairs is new work by resident artist Jill Romanoke. Her kimono-like hanging system for her double-sided drawings is very successful, drawing me all the way around the work and encouraging appreciation of the prints on translucent paper created both in Maine and here in Arlington.

1050 K Light Box Gallery

2009-11-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

Monday flyby: the hallway galleries in the gorgeous new building at 1050 K Street, NW (designed by Hickok Cole Architects.) Check out the lobby light box currently featuring Ezra Stoller's photographs of "Man in the Machine". The light box was included early in the building design process, because the client wanted to tie the building together with artwork.

rainy day chocolate

2009-11-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

"I'm done with the rainy, cold, and wet part of my day. Now I'm in the warm and dry part of my day. I'll be in the chocolate shop the rest of the evening."

Try Robert's new Lavender Shiraz.

Track housing

2009-11-07T20:43:00.000-08:00

When is a house not a home? Take a look at the works of Etienne Bossut and John Kormeling.

Sculptural Caesar Salad

2009-11-07T03:04:00.001-08:00

Last night, a crisp cool, quick-walking sort of evening was the invigorating backdrop to the crowded First Friday scene in Dupont Circle/14th Street areas. My fly-bys included Hillyer for Martha Jarvis Jackson's, "Ass Against the Wall", (2) WPA for Minna Nathanson and Joan Belmar's Coup d'Espace, "Influence = Convergence", (3) Smith Farm for Dulce Pinzon's "The Real Story of SuperHeroes", Congrats to Brooke Seidelman, on her job as new Gallery Directory, (4) Project4 for Laurel Lukaszewski's solo, "Once," and (5) Creme Cafe for a bite to eat with Ani and Dave.

"Superheroes" was thought-provoking, asking me to compare immigrant workers in generic jobs (from nanny to cook to prostitute) who are sending home a significant amount of their weekly wages back home. I was struck by the obvious, but no less poignant: How hard they must each work. How different their culture is that they choose not to spend their money on material goods, but on making their families' lives better.

"Once" is beautiful. Laurel presents clay cherry blossoms floating all over the space, evoking April in November.

"Ass" is a cool installation piece featuring a Tadjikistanian donkey, wood + ?. That donkey photo on silk is compelling, grounding. The crowd was too large to allow a complete viewing; the show needs a return visit.

"Convergence" is the effect of two artists' sharing studio space for a couple of years. For me this show is all about the delight and concern. It's delightful that another person can inspire you. Maintaining your own voice is a concern.

Creme Cafe served Ani, Dave and me some good food in a too-noisy atmosphere. They (Creme Cafe, though not to take anything away from Ani & Dave) have a good sense of humor. They're willing not to tell you what's in the vegetable platter which enticed us to order it and be wowed. They managed to make the humble Caesar salad look sculptural.

Gestural Electricity

2009-11-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

Tod Machover, from MIT's The Media Laboratory, created instruments and software that are helping people to create music. It's a magical combination of electrical stimuli and interactivity in the case of the Beatbugs and Shapers. The instruments measure sound, muscular movements and electrical current from the body to create music in response to the player's feedback. It seems improvisational. Gestural electricity is the essence of the Hyperchair. Penn n Teller were involved in the development of the Hyperchair, which happens to look like a magic prop, actually.

Learned that some researcher has discovered that simple repetition of singing songs to a stroke sufferer does nothing to help regain speech. Melodic Intonation Therapy uses half-tone variations and percussive movements to help retrain the brain in speech. No wonder so frustrating results-wise, but at least a humane, connective act.

The Hyperscore requires only the ability to read and draw a line. I was struck by Machover's comment at Carnegie Institute tonight that kids under 8 yrs and older folks over 70 yrs were most responsive (creative?) with the instruments. The Brain Opera, an interactive music creation experience using both these instruments and software resides in Vienna, Austria. Now I need a residency in Vienna!

All good architecture leaks

2009-10-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Hickok Cole Art Night: what a fabulous party! There were so many engaging people, all interested in architecture or art. A generous table too.

Hickok Cole purchases one art work at the annual Art Night Washington Project for the Arts fundraiser. The method is unusual. It's basically an "Employees' Choice" award. Thanks to all HC for choosing my work this year.

Tac, thanks for the dotty picture.

The other architectural highlight is an article that I wrote for the AIA/DC Chapter, interviewing two of my fellow Artomatic artists, Erwin Timmers and Fabian H. Rios Rubino. Take a look at How to ART-ify Your Architecture.

Cross Currents: Trends in Contemporary Art Media

2009-10-25T19:55:00.001-07:00

Please check out a great sculpture group show called, Cross Currents. My fellow artists are Dana Reifler Amato, Elizabeth Burger, Ian MacLean Davis, Mary Early, and Hadieh Shafie. It's at the Rockville Campus of Montgomery College, Paul Peck Building, 2nd Floor, 51 Mannakee Rd. It's up until November 6.

I have four pieces up including a corner work specifically made for the gallery. The steel is salvaged from an earlier work that didn't happen as planned. Going around a corner gives the work added dimensionality and really makes the ceramic pods pop out.

New work - printing on steel

2009-09-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'm printing on steel as I prepare for my fall shows. This is one of my new works, which is a highly-magnified image of a crinoid's exoskeleton on sheet metal.

Installation view of WVSA exhibit:

My first show is Strata Displaced, a solo show partly funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Please join me at the opening on September 17, 2009, at the ARTiculate Gallery in Washington, DC, from 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm.

The DCCAH grant will help bring this new body of work to a wider audience. The pieces also incorporate some of the ideas I started to develop at last July's residency at Rocky Mountain Recycling, a metal scrap yard in Denver. The show runs until September 25 and 30% of all sales will support WVSA, a non-profit that provides arts-infused programs to children and adults.

Memories

2009-08-31T13:52:00.001-07:00

My NPR interview (see this link) stirred up old memories. The memories themselves are less important to me than that they are refreshed and are current stories once again. This is one of the points of my memory series. I realized that after my mother died, there were a certain body of memories from my years living and traveling overseas that I will no longer be able to hold as current stories.

Print screening on salvaged steel seemed to be the most appropriate way to communicate that loss. The steel already had some rust pock marks on it and is much more pronounced 1/2 year later. The wonderful thing is that the simple act of making and hanging the pieces in my studio has kept these memories current.

NPR: Geography of Friendship

2009-08-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

NPR interviewed us as examples of how being thrown together by the dorm lottery at University of Virginia led to our life-long friendship due to our vulnerability, race and proximity

The NPR link http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112330125

This was a fun reminiscence with one of my best friends, Sally Hoffmaster. We especially enjoyed recalling all the points that a short radio story can't bring in and, come to think of it, would result in a different story. My thinking is that the reasons for our good friendship are more our mutual interests in music and art and our similar and quirky senses of humor.

copper

2009-07-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

The copper skeleton plate that I fished out of one of the barrels is highly finished. The shape of the skeleton and my thought that copper is easily bent, leads me to weave the strips. The idea is good, though as with all of my studies during their residency, the execution is rough. Weaving allows copper to literally shine. The metal's strengthen is its reflective quality.

Aluminum pipes

2009-07-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

Aluminum pipes (short, 3/8" diameter) attracted me for their similarity. I simply line them up horizontally and then vertically. The pipes each make their own sound when struck. The wind coming in through the shed's back door kicks one of them over, making a tinkling sound against the concrete floor. I look up to watch them fall down on each other domino-fashion, each making it's own high-pitched sound, like low-silver-content coins.

Mt. Evans hike

2009-07-23T22:16:00.000-07:00

I climb to the top of my first "14-er": Mt. Evans, a poster-child of sorts for the Wiki entry on "altitude sickness." Starting from Summit Lake, it was an exciting climb for the variety: first and foremost, the GOATS, and also the spectacular views, hard uphill climbing, bouldering and slip-sliding down a 1,000 foot scree field. Very satisfying, yet a humbling experience due to my reaction to the altitude on the last 500 feet of the mountain. Larry, Glenn and I talk about Glenn's daughter starting her climb on Mt. Kilimanjaro and wonder how she's doing.

Steel torching

2009-07-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

Wielding 6000 degrees F of fire and turning steel into molten metal is satisfying in a primal way. Spending several days torching, I gouge and pierce into steel discs of .5" to 1.5" thickness. I experiment with slag as a design element, but decide to grind it away. The red-hot flowing metal reminds me of magma, which in turn reminds me of the concretions I saw on the Dinosaur ridge wall.

Oxy-acetylene torch

2009-07-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

The oxy-acetylene torch: the power of Vulcan in a hand-held tool! Frank and Tony from the maintenance shop showed me how to safely use the torch and calmed my fears.

In the yard, the torching crew (using the big oxy torch, cut apart gigantic steel - 10' diameter containers, huge sides of steel, enormous tangles of steel cable), take the time to find and cut 1/2 dozen pieces of steel for me. They are covered from head to toe with suede jacket, chaps, bib, gloves, respirators and helmets.

Favian, the crane operator, swings the claws of the material handler, immediately finds a 1' disc and with the greatest of delicacy, gently places the disc two feet away from my feet. I give him a thumbs-up with delight. Juan, Francisco and Manuel cut and cool the other discs for me and forklift my finds back to the Shed. They are generous, gentle men working the toughest job in the yard.

Lead Sheet and Stainless Auger Drill Blades

2009-07-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Exploring the lead only with my hands at first, I was struck by its malleability. My gloved hands could easily unfold, straighten and bend the metal. With only a bit of hammer force, I could crease the lead so that it would stand on its own.

The curves of the stainless steel auger drill blades appealed to me. I buffed up some of the blade surfaces to contrast with the as-found surfaces.

Flat Iron hike

2009-07-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

The Flat Irons outside of Boulder are striking rock planes in front of the Rockies.

We climbed between Flat Iron 1 and 2.
The angled cuts in the lichen and moss-textured boulders caught my eye (and tripped my feet.) This hike was a conflict between safety and appreciation.

Red Rocks and Dinosaur Ridge concretion

2009-07-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

We visited the majestic Red Rock. Two monumental cliff faces loom on either side of the amphitheater. The "rocks" used to be ancient seabed that was lifted by the earth into its current position. It's a Wonder.

Across the way, we saw a concretion, embedded in a wall along Dinosaur Ridge. This one was a ball in sedimentary rock, probably sandstone, and formed by some chemical process after the rock was deposited. On the one hand, it's just a ball o' dirt. On the other, maybe there's some fossil treasure inside?

The metals

2009-07-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

The metals that RMR recycles range from the huge (ten-foot diameter steel liquid containers) to the tiny (aluminum turnings). The first days I spend getting to know the materials that I could work with. What catches my eye are repeated shapes - rail car axles, condenser tubes and the bales - of copper, aluminum and stainless steel. One of the most intriguing finds is a lead sheet which looks like distressed canvas.

First impressions

2009-07-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

Walking through RMR's yard for the first time, I am struck by the gigantic size of the material handlers, shears, guillotine cutters and baler. They're monster machines, efficiently moving huge amounts of material. My temporary work space is filled with noise and dirt. The yard's backdrop is a ten-story grain elevator.

One of RMR's guys stands next to the claws of a material handler.

The yard is divided into sections: torching, shearing and baling. The goal is to process as much of the metal as quickly as possible and to ship it out via railroad or truck.

Rocky Mountain Recycling Residency

2009-06-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

One week in July in the Rockies with my husband and our friends. Then two weeks in July in the Rockies at an art residency.

Rocky Mountain Recycling (www.mountainrecycling.com) has generously agreed to host my residency. The company recycles all scrap metals including Copper, Aluminum, Brass, Stainless Steel, Zinc, Aluminum Cans, Lead, and all types of Iron and ferrous metals for companies in the Front Range, the plains and mountains surrounding the Denver area.

Residency possibilities include working with new metals, exploring curves in metal, making large pieces, learning to use a plasma torch, and exploring the boundary between print and metal.