ABSTRACT PAINTINGS
Acrylic on canvas
30” x 30”
Toni Morrison said that to forgive oneself, one must first experience the full impact of one’s actions, fall down, and struggle with one’s past decisions. That self-forgiveness is freeing, but one must "go through the fire" first.
That "forgive and remember" may be a more sustainable path forward than simple forgiveness, which can run the risk of restoring the past. And—I might say—grasping at the familiar harm.
Acrylic and fabric on gallery-wrapped canvas, 36” x 36”
I was welcomed by new friends in Valencia last year, traveling together the next day to others in Alicante and Moraira along the Mediterranean. Little did anyone imagine the shock of floods and deaths in their communities in this, the following year.
24” x 24”
acrylic on canvas
"Sailboat" recalls my daily walks around Jamaica Pond—part of Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Triangle in Boston which, throughout and after covid, offered peace in its predictability. The afternoon boat and pastels drew my mood upward as I passed people walking dogs and toddlers and simply smiling a hello to me, a stranger.
acrylic on canvas, with silk
30” x 24”
I have always been drawn to the multiple colors in the Moonfish, or Opah, especially my favorite orange, sometimes spotted, thin, round fish.
24” x 36”
acrylic with oil stick on canvas
Private collector, Miami, FL,
Syria was still in my head that morning. In the studio, I watched what flew from my brush. I hosed down the black and later, when I flipped the piece, I found a sketchy man’s profile, his eye on a scattering of particles. The next month I was asked to give the painting a title. I thought of the young girls worldwide speaking up and thought, He’s watching a pink revolution.
Acrylic and wood chips on Canvas, 22" x 22" 2011
Private collection, Palm Beach, Florida
acrylic on canvas
17.5” W x 23.5” H
RED, Cambridge Art Association. JUROR: Dan Byers, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, at Harvard University
acrylic on linen
32” x 38”
framed
painting, acrylic on canvas
31” x 41”
acrylic on paper
17 x 20
acrylic on paper
12” x 18”
acrylic on canvas, framed,
25”H x 31”W x 1”D
"Elegy to the American Republic," influenced by Robert Motherwell, returned me to a sombre mood as 2022's fall colors darkened. The blue-tinged white, surrounded by splashes of darkened yellow ochre, came to me in a dispirited imagery of the spice, turmeric, which represents fertility and prosperity. The confused, mixed shape of what could be a "3," a B" and an "8" suggest a negation of that fertility and prosperity. The concepts darken as the country speaks against abortion rights and raised minimum wages in this republic—so different from Motherwell's Spanish Civil War.
oil on cradleboard
24” x 1 7”
acrylic on canvas
24” x 30”
Sheherazade saves lives by telling stories to the king with her hands, costume, her body and shadows, with dance and sound.
acrylic on canvas
14” x 18”
acrylic on canvas, framed
Years ago, I was struck by Audre Lorde’s poem, “A Woman Speaks.” The image it evoked rang as personal and worldwide events became known to me. Lorde died in her 60s in 1992. She is known for writing from emotion. Given that I paint from emotion—shunning words and planning while doing so—I have also always written and been drawn to the written word. Anger and outrage are as common to me as to Lorde. While our issues differ in details,—injustice, identity and to the challenge of choosing to go on by speaking out call at us to
A Woman Speaks
BY AUDRE LORDE
Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus
where the restless oceans pound.
I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities
who am ageless and half-grown
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths
as our mother did
mourning.
I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white
9 “ x "11”
oil on paper
Private Collection: Chicago
48” x 36” acrylic on canvas, framed and wired in two directions
Cambridge Art Association's 2020 RED Exhibition
JUROR: Layla Bermeo, the Kristin and Roger Servison Associate Curator of American Paintings, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
36" x 36" Mixed Media Acrylic on Canvas
acrylic on canvas
30” x 30”
As in much of my work, I respond to new and old poems, mine and others’. Just as I had chosen my title, I came across a poem of the same name, by Brian Russell. He writes of "a world in which I am left to my own devices....as the batteries die useless...a map in the sand/mark civilization within me...detailed blueprints of a ....finite frontier...a sea filled with intricately depicted monsters." After the fact of my painting, I felt its pandemonium mirrored in Russell's poem.
SOLD
Acrylic on Linen, 2014, 30" x 40"
Painted at Residency, Marnay-sur-Seine, France
University Place Gallery, Cambridge, MA
acrylic and watercolor on canvas
mixed media
32” x 32”
HAJNAL, the 20-something Jewish Hungarian-American opera singer has sailed with young Jewish anti-
Acrylic on Canvas, 24" x 30"
Acrylic on Canvas, 28" x 32"
Cambridge Art Association's "Face to Face," Juror, Arlette Kayafas of Gallery Kayafas, Boston, MA.
Private Collection
acrylic on canvas
31” H x 25” W
18” x 36”
I learned more deeply about Lee Krasner’s convictions and commitments to Jackson Pollock and ultimately, directly to her own work, through Ninth Street Women. Her chutzpah, determination. Fortitude.
acrylic on canvas, sand
38” x 26”
acrylic and India ink on canvas, UNFRAMED
20” x 20”
mixed media and acrylic on canvas
24” x 24”
gallery wrapped 1.5” canvas
This painting was used in the online edition of The Miramichi Reader, a Canadian journal of exciting flash fiction. https://miramichiflash.miramichireader.ca/2021/07/23/my-fake-brother-by-leonora-desar/?fbclid=IwAR3VIUf88Ka4cJGPqOGosG5hLYAzQzVYkkyuV6Fk178-WNud53EtLG66oF4
As Australia’s more austere signifier continues, we count the number of innocent animals lost, the homes, the livelihoods, the institutions, the families. As it gets closer, we will think of ourselves—our animals, our homes, our livelihoods, our institutions, our families.
24” x 36”
acrylic, found papers, charcoals, painter’s apron and acrylic on canvas
24” x 30”
acrylic, acrylic ink and thread on canvas
The myth of Ariadne’s thread speaks of the soul's knowledge of our deep-rooted unfolding Self. Without Ariadne, Theseus would never have escaped the Labyrinth. Her quick-thinking and shrewdness helped Theseus find his way out of the Labyrinth. Despite her help, he abandoned her on an island as he returned home.
36" H x 24" W Acrylic and paper on canvas
In Memory of my mother
Acrylic on Canvas, 24" x 36"
acrylic paint and ink on canvas
28” x 32” x 1”
handmade papers, acrylic, watercolor, paper and thread on canvas
23” W x 28” H
acrylic and mixed media on canvas
22” x 28”
The irony of meaning.
An afghan is a blanket or shawl, usually knitted or crocheted.[1] It is sometimes also called a "throw" of indeterminate size. Afghans are often used as bedspreads, or as a decoration on the back of couches or chairs.[2]
A person from Afghanistan is also an Afghan, something of beauty, of humanity.
“There is a fashion, I observe, in these things; and her work was a sort I perceive to have become very fashionable of late--the netting of soft wools into various articles for women's heads and shoulders, and even into cloaks and large shawls or blankets--Afghans, Lilly says they call them--to be worn as protection against dust in summer drives.”
Henry, Caleb Sprague (1860). Doctor Oldham at Greystones, and his talk there. New York: D. Appleton and Company. p. 220
acrylic on canvas
24” x 24”
24” x 24” x 1”
acrylic on canvas
James Baldwin said< “To live, we must relearn how to dialogue with death”
«Pour vivre, il nous faut réapprendre à dialoguer avec la mort»
Horviller Delphine: Vivre avec nos morts
Or Walt Whitman, Chant VI (end) Song of Myself
acrylic and detritus on board
15.5” x 17”
Acrylic, graphite, photocopy and ink on canvas (Mixed Media)
Framed
21 H" x 25"W
22” H x 38”W
acrylic with sand and targel on canvas
acrylic and acrylic ink on on canvas (unframed)
Private collection, Dover, Massachusetts
near Provincetown, this scene past the cliffs looking down on the ocean, draws a painter
Cape Cod, gouache and acrylic ink on paper 11" x 11”
24” x 24” x 1”
acrylic on canvas
acrylic and tar gel on canvas, framed
12” x 16”
acrylic on canvas
20” x 24”
Private Collector, Rhode Island
oil on cradled panel
12” H x 16” W
24 x 24
Mixed media: acrylic and oil on handmade papers on canvas
20” x 20”
acrylic on canvas
Baldwin persisted in seeking, through his writing, a road to Jerusalem—that place which classical antiquity believed was the center of the world, God’s home. (working title) A Retreat From Wars
20” x 20”. acrylic on canvas with cord
One of two artworks by Newton Art Association, “Matters of the Heart” — Mosesian Art Center, Watertown, MA.
A response to the poem, “The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
acrylic and ink on canvas
24” x 30”
acrylic on canvas
private collection, New York
18” x 24”
acrylic on canvas
acrylic on canvas
20” x 20”
acrylic on paper
H 12” x W 9”
framed and matted, H 15” x W 12”
private collection, Dover, Massachusetts
collage on handmade papers
20” x 24”
gouache and acrylic ink on paper
5.5” x 7”
oil on panel
11” High x 14” Wide
(dedicated to Tom Stocker)
acrylic on canvas
20” x 20”
acrylic impasto on canvas (wired in multiple directions)
24” x 30”
acrylic on canvas
36” W x 24”H
Acrylic on Canvas
24" W x 30" H
http://cambridgehealthassociates.com/gallery
gouache on paper
12” x 15”
mixed media on canvas
acrylic on canvas
26” x 21” framed
acrylic on canvas
acrylic on canvas
24” x 30”
Wikipedia: “A mannequin (also called a manikin, dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is an often articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, windowdressers and others especially to display or fit clothing. The term is also used for life-sized dolls with simulated airways used in the teaching of first aid, CPR, and advanced airway management skills such as tracheal intubation and for human figures used in computer simulation to model the behavior of the human body. During the 1950s, mannequins were used in nuclear tests to help show the effects of nuclear weapons on humans.[1][2]”
2021
Acrylic on canvas,
30” x 40”
30” x 30”
acrylic and mixed media on canvas with cord
unframed
5” x 8”
India ink and watercolor on paper
acrylic on canvas with cardboard
37.5” W x 25.5” H, Framed
36” W x 24” H, Unframed
acrylic on museum wrapped canvas
24” x 24” x 1”
unframed
Acrylic and prepared paper on canvas, 20" x 24" 2015
Private collection. Chicago
24” x 24”
acrylic on canvas
25.5” W x 37” H
acrylic on canvas, framed
36” H x 24” W
The Northern Triangle region of Central America (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) persists as the most violent region in the world, after Syria. El Salvador, for example, exceeds the UN maximum, identifying it as a society in an epidemic of violence. This epidemic drives migration from the Northern Triangle.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-violent-northern-triangle
ink and acrylic on canvas
40” W x 30” H
PRIVATE COLLECTOR, Orange County, California
15” x 16”
acrylic on canvas
Private Collection
acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas
11” x 14”
For 40 years I return to nature in Maine
acrylic on canvas
23” x 30”
acrylic and tar gel text on canvas
20” x 20”
acrylic on canvas
53” x 26”
9” x 11”
oil on Hahnemüle paper
Acrylic on canvas
18" x 36"
oil on board, 16” x 20”
acrylic and ink on canvas
24” x 24”
acrylic on canvas
30” x 30”
The title signifies walking and stepping on each beat of your own tune
Acrylic on canvas
Belmont Gallery
Frankenstein-Mary Shelley Anniversary Exhibition, 2018
Acrylic on canvas.
18" x 22" framed
Acrylic on Canvas, framed
16” x 20”
acrylic on canvas
36” x 24”
8” x 12”
pen and ink and gouache on paper
24” x 30”
acrylic on canvas
2019 Members Prize Show | February 7 - March 23, 2019
"I was pleased to discover experimentation, skill, wit, whimsy, historical references, adept observation, and beauty in this group of submissions." - Cambridge Art Association, JUROR: Lisa Crossman, art historian and Curator, Fitchburg Art Museum. University Place Gallery.
60 artists chosen from among 145
24.5” W x 30.5 H
Mixed media painting: acrylic and found papers in French and Portuguese
acrylic on masonite
16” x 16”
acrylic on canvas with India ink
24” x 36”
Bits and scraps of wood. I paint them and arrange as a child does. I remember sitting with my little boys, each separately, those years apart, arranging and arranging those wood blocks. Not making anything but fun.
11” x 15”
hand-dyed canvas, handmade papers, ink and acrylic on canvas
torn, cut and hand dyed canvas on cradled panel
24” x 28”
Responding to Robert Frost’s poem of the same name,
Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost - 1874-1963
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
From The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1947, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1942, 1951 by Robert Frost, copyright © 1970, 1975 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
8” x 8” x 2”
found wood, charcoal on paper on cradleboard
found wood acrylic, found objects on cradled board
16” x 20”
24” W x 36” H (Unframed)
Mixed Media Collage on canvas
Jacki Harrington was a vibrant member of the Rockport Art Association’s Experimental Group. She spoke of the magical transformations of color in her pressed flower art. That led me to make an abstract bouquet of pressed cut-paper.
Mixed Media Collage: acrylic on canvas with handmade papers, torn acrylic-painted canvas, dyed raw canvas
34” x 34”
torn and cut handmade papers and canvas on painted canvas
34” x 34”
12” L x 12” W x 4” H
acrylic painted keys and roasted orange peel on board
James Baldwin hoped that when one day, all came to ruin, the next generation would find something of his work buried in the rubble and use it to begin again.
He invited the hope that wars’ aftermath brings. That hope reigns in color and energy. The indomitability of wars' survivors is in rebuilding, again with the color of energy.
He believe that the reality of the human condition and the African American experience whisper and shout to start again, even when we feel we can’t. To face the need to bear witness for past and future generations.
handmade painted and dropped paper on mixed media paper
16” x 20”
32” x 32”
acrylic, dyed and handmade papers on cradled board
Mixed media collage
handmade papers on watercolor paper
9” x 12”
mixed media hanging assemblage
43” H, 40” W, 18” D
assemblage of wine box panels, found objects immigrants seeking asylum carry with them, acrylic on canvas
42” W x 36” H x 2”
Assemblage of wood scraps and charred wood on cradled panel
10" x 10"
cardboard, box liners, silk, found and handmade papers and acrylic on board
16” H x 20” W
segmented cradle boards, acrylic
10.25” x 13”
wired to hang
Mixed Media on cradled birchwood panel
found wood and copper piping on cradled panel
16” H x 20” W
private collection
found and handmade papers on board
12” x 12”
handmade papers and acrylic on cradled panel
acrylic and found and handmade papers and boards on cradled panel
acrylic and found papers
Private collection, New York City
wooden picture frame, found and handmade papers on board
mixed media on wood panel
12” x 18”
found paper, cardboard, mat board, sandpaper, acrylic paint on paper
doll’s arm, found wood, acrylic on found boxtop
16” x 20”
Wood Assemblage of found wood, wood scraps on oak
12" x 12"
wood scraps and acrylic on cradled birchwood panel
12" x 12"
wood findings on cradled birchwood panel
12" x 12"
wood scraps and acrylic on cradled birchwood panel
12" x 12" wood scraps, acrylic and torn paper on panel
Mixed media on cradled birchwood panel
My painting, mixed media and writing pull from my inner life and its response to social problems. I was MacDowell Fellow in writing where I met Ruth Orkin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Orkin) who, years later, influenced my street photography in many countries. After a solo exhibition in Havana, I moved to abstract painting, exploring Not Thinking by painting gesturally with full-bodied, from emotion and breath.
I have traveled this woman’s life from many roles. At seventy-six I have been a lone traveler since the Sixties, visiting strangers, wandering their towns as teenager, young woman, mother, re-meeting others along the way. gGrandmother, ex-wife, psychologist, painter, writer, photographer, opera singer with a lost voice. I read women’s feelings through their eyes, drawn mouths, their shifting feet and arms raised in dancing in the dark. I watch them record stories I share with them in words and images. Their emotional worlds mirror my own history. They embrace sorrow, stand up to the world, consider how to solve an imminent problem, stand guarded or in imagination with lined faces and private thoughts. They proclaim their joy and stoicism as they face work and my camera. At all ages they fill with desire and pride, confusion and fear. They confront anger, sorrow, joy. Our gazes meet each other from opposite sides of a lens, reflecting on each other.
color, frames from video interview
In her Havana apartment with Angel nearby, I interviewed Juanita on video about her ring. She then told me the story of her son.
Liz and Pres, or Presto as many called him, were like surrogate grandparents to my young sons. My husband, the novelist, Richard Frede, admired Presto after first meeting him at MacDowell Colony in Ric's 20s. Pres might have been in his fifties then. When I came on the scene ten years later, in 1966, Ric said, "We're going to a little Italian restaurant down the road." He meant down the driveway. There, in their A-frame house built on land Ric had given them for a summer home, I met the artists I would bounce around with, as my first son and five years later my second son, galavanted into the Southern New Hampshire fields and streams where Presto saw his nymphs. It was with Liz and Presto that I saw my first purple mountains, heard my first loons at Willard Pond where bullfrogs, blueberries and 3 rocks would be featured in Presto's paintings. It was with them I took my boys in tow to Jim Bolle's Monadnock Music concerts in Jaffrey on Sunday afternoons. It was with them and our writing and painting families that my adulthood was born.
Take a look at Gregorio Prestopino's work in its early social realism WPA days in Roosevelt, New Jersey, to his casting off of that social pain and turning instead to the light and beauty of his nymphs hiding from all but him in the Monadnock Region: http://gregorioprestopino.com.
Liz taught me how to make pickles from scratch in our garage, biscotti, caponata and showed me how to plant. Bepe and Nora and Paul and JoAnn and their kids hung out and talked politics and art.
Liz illustrated endless children's books and Mademoiselle covers and was close to the artists, Milton and Sally Avery and Ben and Bernarda Shahn. After all, they lived in Roosevelt, NJ. Both Liz and Sally earned enough money as illustrators to support their husbands' art.
One rainy day in 1981 I bought my first SLR and stopped at Liz and Pres's to ask if I could try some pictures on them. I realized only then that they had just learned that Presto was very sick. They barely hesitated and were with each other and me as though it was an ordinary grey afternoon. They were saying goodbye and acknowledging what was happening without saying a word.
I visited a beekeeping village in southern Bulgaria with friend of a friend. He came from a family of beekeepers and his grandmother nurtured a special flower garden to produce her honey. Each morning the friend and I awoke early to tend to the bees and walk to the local coffee stand where the same men shared a daily bench. Along the way, I passed these two women. They could have been from my own Hungarian past.
I passed this young mother as I walked along the Alameda in Mexico City, passing by her table as she stood there with her uncle and a small boy. A blown up news article from la Jornada pulled my attention to the story behind her gaze. Her mouth was wired sufficiently to allow food and drink to pass through. The man answered my questions. I offered to translate her story in English, on the back of a cardboard sheet, and she accepted.
Archival pigment print
Le Marais, Paris, 2010
There is little to say about these images that give me peace and balance in New England. Fungus gravitating to each other, seed pods on stems while Emily investigates a painting site, steps to a Rhode Island beach, cairns to mark buried items, caches of nourishment and trails,
I created the Nuclear Bird in 2017, 3 years after my 2014 artist residency in rural France. Reviewing my photos now, I find two taken in sequence and which resound, in my American mind these months, as our president has reneged on the US commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement.
In Marnay one day, a friend and I walked our one-speed bikes back from Nogent on a different route from the usual. On this hot September late afternoon the reactors we'd grown used to passing, appeared from a different angle in that moment, beautiful in the clouds they seemed to form. I looked down to the road then to a dead bird at my feet. The reactors shooting beauty into the sky, the dead bird on the ground—one man-made, the other natural—seem now to have reacted to each other.
Evenings, a bunch of us would walk on the other side of the Seine. Whenever we went into the next town that September, we were aware of an anachronistic dissonance between where we came from and the rural environment we were now making art in. The fields, the cow nibbling at our hands, early Sunday brocantes rotating among local villages, the Seine outside our studios where we swam in late afternoon light, a neighbor stopping by, the cart ringing its cry of fresh-baked croissants on unpredictable mornings, full-course dinners on the patio and evenings listening to parlor music.
Dohyun danced with her computer, Patraek praised and contemplated the morning’s bottled orange juice. We read books made of paper and poetry, often without wifi access and I stumbled through Beethoven sonatas on the library baby grand while Cliff read his working poem. We foraged for leftovers on weekends when Christine didn't cook.
We'd left our cities to enter an older history than we from the US could know. How could those reactors co-exist for thirty years with the Aube Valley's organic charm—its neighbors, farmhouses, haystacks and cows, its old stone foundations, its welcoming family of the mayor and its botanical artist’s retreat across the way, the Seine and its swans by our windows?
I write this today as President Trump abandons the Paris climate agreement, and neither the bird nor the reactor can change his mind.
IN 2014 I spent September at an artists' residency in a village in the Champagnes-Ardennes. Late afternoons we met by the Seine, talking to neighbors.
We walked often, evenings, along the dirt road, just after the bridge over the Seine.
I would bike here before dinner.
[Origin: anima (the vital principle of life, physical life); OED]
He appeared in that moment like Michelangelo’s David.
Wonderful lively reception this Thursday for my solo exhibition, "CUBA: Waiting for Change," still up through June 23, 2016: http://www.multiculturalartscenter.org/galleries/
First, I thank Cuban American writers, Flora González and Pablo F. Medina, for their rich writing and reading for this exhibition.
And to friend, colleague, painter and painting teacher, Emily Osman Passman(http://www.emilypassman.com) for photographing and videotaping. I include some photos here.
González writes about Cuban literature and culture and is Professor Emerita of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College (http://www.emerson.edu/…/faculty…/profile/flora-gonzalez/444). Thank you to Flora and her husband for sparkling the reception where Flora spoke of seeing the sound in my photographs."
“Cuba: Waiting for Change” Photographic Exhibit by Barbara Trachtenberg Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, MA. Text by Flora González
Reception May 19, 2016, 6 - 8 PM
Although “Cuba: Waiting for Change” concentrates on still portraits, some capturing pride in work as in “Young Worker,” or depicting daily survival through peddling of fruit in a front porch as in “Alicia in the Blue Wall,” the collection also depicts Cubans in action.
In “The Street” the eye falls on the bright colors of the men’s clothing, orange, turquoise and blue, yet the frame is also filled with sound as the two men on the right argue while the other observes a scene off to his left. “Playing dominoes” gives us the arms and hands of men who perhaps no longer labor to earn a living, but the game creates community in the shuffling of dominoes, the sound keeping hands and minds alert and dancing to the rhythm of play.
The centrality of music and dance in the lives of Cubans is the subject of three moving photographs:
In the first, “Armando and the Kids,” the father points to the hieratic pose his older son assumes as if listening to an internal tune.
In the second, “Ballerinas on the Prado,” young girls capture the sun’s rays as they wave white scarves while dancing in the round.
In the third, “Tango on the Prado” captures the moment when the young couple hesitates as they mark the beat of Argentine song.
When classifying these photographs as portraits and life sketches, I think of two quotations by Henry Cartier-Bresson:
1. “One must always take photographs with the greatest respect for the subject and for oneself.”
2. “To take photographs is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeting reality.”
With this engaging collection, photographer Barbara
Trachtenberg has opened windows into today’s Cubans and their changing reality.
A second honor at the show was the presence of Cuban American poet, Pablo F. Medina and his wonderful poem, "The Food of the Gods," which he read in response to the photograph, "Fruit." (I won't post it here, so buy Medina's book, The Man Who Wrote on Water). (http://pablomedina.org)
__________________________________________________
And thanks to the many writer-friends who volunteered their words in response to this narrative photography of CUBA.
TO Cambridge poet, Karin Tate, who wrote in response to this color version of
"Abuela y Nieta"
The young eyes say it all
Gaze steady
Straight ahead
And there’s brown
Shade of the earth
An old door
The embrace of twilight
The touch of a hand on a paler cheek
Warm
A gate
Open or shut
Keeps in or keeps out
Safety
Inside
Oleander green
An echo of outside
Fresh
White flowers riot on a dress
Pink shoes dance on her feet
TO Paul E. Fallon, Cambridge Architect and writer of Architecture by Moonlight, who wrote his response to "The Street," in 2013, before Obama's announcement to end the Embargo.
"Three young men lean against a wall. ...teetering between autonomy and connection... neighbors barely touching in the push-pull of attraction and repulsion. One looks away, past the corner and the others, appearing independent. His shoe on the wall and cocked elbow reveal the energy line flowing to his opposite. The other balances that energy with ease, balancing the iron-grilled window, the heavy sill upon his head. He gazes right to the third man’s shrug—in question or indifference. Are they uncomfortable neighbors—the US, Cuba, and Haiti—pretending their watery borders are farther than reality measures? Ignoring, doubting, miscommunicating? Might I be any of these men? Don’t I feign autonomy, claim the center, and grow exasperated daily, explaining what's clear to me, yet foreign to others? The Street is the image of 3 discrete men who, through word and gesture, create fragile community."
TO Ricardo Calleja, Cuban American teacher and writer in Brookline:
"Waiting for Change"
Marina stands at the door of Number 53
It’s any street in Habana Vieja
that’s seen its share of neglect.
Her hair cascades to her shoulders
framing an attractive, somewhat manly face.
In her tight white blouse and short skirt
she awaits her compañero home from work.
Will he be kinder to her than her last?
She’s made him his favorite dinner—
arroz, frijoles negros, picadillo—
hopes he’ll fry the platanos
and that after dinner
he’ll sit and tell her about his day
They’ll lounge together quietly
listening to romantic boleros by
Omara Portuando and Compay Segundo—
perhaps their favorite, “Veinte años atrás.”
That after making gentle love
she’ll sleep safely in his arms.
TO friend and Cuban painter, JULIA VALDES, in relation to her painting who says
“Cloth is not a passive element.
It has folds and bumps on which
I place things because I want
the cloth to transmit ideas.” http://oncubamagazine.com/culture/julias-many-skins/
And to Alper Tuzcu, Turkish Composer-Musician-Lyricist:
“Ventana verde”
Looking out my green window
as the wind flows from the north,
looking out from my lonely soul
when I know nothing will change.
I don’t know, my friend,
when the new day will come.
Maybe one day
we’ll be able to see
beyond my green window.
Thank you to poet, Kathleen Aguerohttp://www.kathleenaguero.com, Richard Hoffman, poet, essayist, memoirist and fiction writer, https://richardhoffman.org; and Lee Hopehttp://leehopeauthor.com/about-horse-fever/ for connecting me with Pablo and Flora and helping make this celebration of my love for everyday Cubans a success.
PAPIERS COLLÉS
Papier collé is torn or cut paper. I love found paper, and collect travel memorabilia to add to the paper towels I use to wipe my brushes.
I made some of these papiers collées in a French village where I spent the month of September, 2014 at an artists’ residency. I include metaphor in my work though, as with other art, I don’t find the metaphors, or the story, until I have already begun the piece.
I love collage as much as I do painting and include collage in my mixed media, and have collaged since my early 20s.
These are constructed on heavy watercolor paper and are some of many others I have in my workshop. Since I spent the previous three weeks in Berlin I had time to bike with new friends and collect paper (including a subway ticket from my long train ride with a small group of tourists visiting Sachsenhausen, a “model” concentration camp on which others would be designed. Before leaving for the residency I visited the two best art supply stores in Berlin and bought (Golden more expensive than Boston) acrylics, a couple new brushes, more watercolor paper
While this piece is somber, most of the others are playful, reflecting the freedom I felt to be served a month overlooking the Seine and limited to simple materials.
acrylic and graphite on paper
11” x 15”
acrylic on Arches Watercolor paper, 11” x 15”
acrylic on BFK Reeves paper
(8-ply mat, framed)
11” x 15”
watercolor and pen and ink on Arches watercolor paper
9” x 12”
acrylic on paper
9” x 12”
watercolor on paper
11 x 15
watercolor on paper
watercolor on paper
8.5 x 5.5
acrylic on watercolor paper
papiers colle
Papiers colles
watercolor on paper
8.5 x 5.5
India ink, watercolor, pencil on paper
Acrylic and encaustic on found papers and Arches watercolor paper
,
First of three related collages:
Torn paper collage: construction paper, charcoals on mixed media paper
Second of three parts of tryptich
Torn paper collage: construction paper, charcoals on mixed media paper.
Exhibited in Boston State House Demonstration, November, 2017
Third of three parts of tryptich
Torn paper collage: construction paper, charcoals on mixed media paper.
Exhibited in Boston State House Demonstration, November, 2017
14" x 17"
Torn and found paper on Arches watercolor paper.
Berlin
Made during my 3-weeks’ residence in Berlin in the home of fellow artist family of Ruprecht Dreher, I arrived without materials, bought a small acrylic set, a giant sheet of Arches quality watercolor paper, the PVC adhesive and scrounged from wrappings, art ads, train tickets and paper towels I constructed these papiers colées. A lot of fun with no plan in sight though this series brought less abstract, more literal figures.
14" x 17"
Torn and found paper on Arches watercolor paper
14" x 17"
torn and found paper
14" x 17"
torn and found paper
14" x 17"
Torn and found paper on Arches watercolor paper
