What's in a Name?

I'm thinking of renaming this monotype. Is there any reason I shouldn't? I've liked this print ever since I made it last year but I could never quite get it to tell me its name. It has appeared in two exhibits with the title "Messy as life." When one of my printmaking friends viewed it recently, she looked at the print, and at the title and said, "hmmm!" I told her I had never really liked the title and am thinking of renaming it "Virus." She responded, "I can see that." 

So I am thinking that when it comes down I'll rechristen it "Virus." I ask again, " is there any reason I shouldn't?" 

"Messy as Life", perhaps soon to be "Virus" is a monoprint made with Charbonnel oil-based etching inks on archival printmaking paper. It is 20 inches tall by 16.5 inches wide, framed.

   

Some random thoughts on the day after Juneteenth

Most of my formal education took place in public schools in Wisconsin, and Nebraska, and in a private liberal arts college in Illinois. I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to Denver, Colorado where I have now resided for more than two-thirds of my life. I had also never heard about what happened on the "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Oklahoma before I came west. Before I began interacting frequently with friends who don't look like me, I believed I was well educated.

Denver is more integrated than any of my previous homes, with a vibrant multicultural middle class...and a past power structure laced with and sometimes controlled by members of the Ku Klux Klan. For as long as I can remember Denver's cultural life has been ablaze with mainstream celebrations of Juneteenth, Cinco de Mayo, Gay Pride, the Cherry Blossom Festival, etc. Yet our neighborhoods and schools seem to be getting more segregated.

Across the street from my condo is a Baptist church, down the street to the south is a large mosque and up the street to the north are the Jewish Community Center of Denver, the Greek Orthodox Basilica, and a large Lutheran church: all in a row. The nearby Fairmount cemetery's Jewish section has been messed with in the past couple of years as has the mosque.

As I write, there is a committee of citizens trying to change the name of a Denver community from Stapleton, which honors Benjamin Franklin Stapleton, a five-term mayor of Denver and a high-ranking member of the Klan. It is reported that Stapleton began drawing away from the Klan in 1925 and subsequently worked to lessen its power in the police force. It is complicated.

About a mile to the east of my home is the City of Aurora, the third-largest city in Colorado. Last night a 17-year old boy was shot at the Juneteenth celebration. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. I don't know any other details. He was at what is usually a joyous celebration of the end of slavery. He was shot and killed. I am making no assumptions about his words, activities, or his race. I don't know who shot him or why. But I grieve for him, for his family, for us all.

Elaine de Kooning Speaks

May you experience "a glorious tough originality" in these challenging times.

Painter Elaine de Kooning made the statement shown below after moving to New Mexico. If you've spent any time in that enchanting state, you understand exactly what she was talking about.

I've been reading biographies of Elaine de Kooning, most recently "A Generous Vision" by Cathy Curtis. What a fascinating life, presented in a creative and unusual biography.

I have been interested in this artist's work since some of her large paintings were included in an exhibit of women's art at the Denver Art Museum a couple of years ago. Then I saw one of her small works on the wall of my Friend, Barbara H.  As a young art student Barbara H met “Elaine de K" in New York. The artist, who was as generous as she is said to have been, gave my friend the little piece that has a place of honor in her Denver condo.

I always knew that artist "Elaine de K” had an unusual marriage to Willem de Kooning, that she had painted before she met her husband and after they parted ways. I didn't realize that she was also an important writer, covering other artists, their processes, and their work for years. I imagine the artists of her time were thankful that she wrote about them. I am thankful that people have chosen to write about her art, her courageous personality, and her connection to the lives of the other artists of her time.

Go to your studio and make something

The past few weeks have been pretty challenging in most aspects of my life. 

When I want to scream in frustration, I try to remember a favorite saying of one of my art teachers. Whenever a student expressed frustration with events of their day, he would say "go into your studio and make something."

When the little voice in my head replayed that advice one afternoon, I pulled out a sheet of multimedia paper, watercolors, India ink, a brush, a fine-tipped drawing pen, and water. After cutting the paper to 8.5 by 11 inches. I folded it into eight equal rectangles and began painting. I made a two-sided copy of my painting onto regular paper. I folded it, cut it, nested the pages, and saddle-stitched it. Ta-Dah! Below is my first ever 'zine...a suggestion from an earlier Zoom roundtable. 

Grandma's Hoosier Cabinet

After Lizette Elizabeth Alt Beavin's funeral in 1968, her family gathered at her house near the church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin to clear out her possessions. Some of my relatives were expressing their passionate disagreement over what Grandma had left to whom. I was distressed and walked out back with my new husband to take a deep breath and try to calm myself.

Grandma's 1916 oak "Hoosier" lay in the ally. It had been dismantled and awaited large item pickup. At the time my husband and I were still in college, living in a small efficiency apartment in Naperville, Illinois. When we asked if we could rescue the Hoosier, we got a quizzical look. "What do you want with that old thing?! How will you get it to your apartment?!" we were asked.

We took the Hoosier to Illinois on the top of the 1955 Ford we had bought for $1. Now, more than 50 years later, Grandma's Hoosier has earned a place of honor in the history of our marriage.

In our Naperville efficiency apartment, the Hoosier was placed behind our hide-a-bed couch to make a small office where I could study before sunrise and husband could study well after the sun had set.

After my graduation, we moved to Dekalb, Illinois where I taught speech and drama on the fine arts team at Huntly Middle School, while my husband finished his degree. The Hoosier took up residence in our study as a desk and craft space.

We moved to Denver in 1970. Our little apartment in the old house on Pearl Street had a kitchen so small I could stand in the center and reach all its walls. The Hoosier was our only kitchen cabinet. I actually used the built-in flour and sugar bins, and I kneaded homemade bread dough on its pullout surface every Monday night.

Our first house, a Dutch colonial on Denver's Northside, had a dining room! The Hoosier became a china and linen cabinet. Our next house, a haunted 1911 Craftsman with Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired windows, had a country kitchen that welcomed the Hoosier which once again provided a perfect surface for baking prep and good storage for spices.

Today we live in an early 1970's condo on the Southeast side of town. Our all-season studio/sitting room/lanai is sunny and east-facing. The Hoosier rests neatly along the north concrete wall holding printmaking screens, woodblocks, and a variety of other "clean and dry" art supplies. Its white porcelain surface is nice for photographing small prints.

So we have disassembled and reassembled the Hoosier many times. It still has its penciled delivery instruction to my great grandfather, its meal plans for a young married woman in 1916, and a perpetual calendar with hearts and the initials of my Auntie Dorothy and her girlhood crush. My Hoosier is still beautiful.

Following Georgia O'Keeffe

I ordered Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern yesterday. It was the winner of the 2018 Dedalus Foundation Exhibition Catalogue Award. Now I have to wait two weeks for delivery.

A couple of years ago the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver exhibited perhaps three of O'Keeffe's paintings alongside many works by other artists whom she inspired. I was most fascinated by the film footage of O'Keeffe in her own surroundings. 

I hope it won't be too long before I can return to the O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Nearby Ghost Ranch is certainly on my bucket list. Although there is nothing about COVID 19 on the Ghost Ranch website ghostranch.org, I believe the ranch is one of the sites of the O'Keeffe Museum, so it is probably closed until further notice.

If life ever gets back to "normal"-this year or next- we will definitely plan a road trip to Santa Fe for our summer wedding anniversary. We often celebrate in New Mexico where my husband spent much of his boyhood. The 8-hour drive from Denver is beautiful and we usually see many American antelope not far from the highway in southern Colorado.

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I hope the Snooze on Colorado Boulevard survives.

We began eating Saturday breakfast in a restaurant almost 40 years ago when my love and I  were having heated discussions and decided to talk to each other in a restaurant because it would encourage us to be...civil. As our tensions subsided, we continued to have "family meetings" in a restaurant over breakfast. 

When we lived on Denver's North Side we breakfasted at the local Village Inn. We saw that location through numerous managers and had waitstaff competing to take us to their stations. Many folks on the North Side could tell you that if you were a regular, you'd see everyone in the neighborhood sooner or later.

Almost ten years ago we took up "temporary residence" in an apartment in Southeast Denver. By then we had become vegan and were sampling various restaurants to check out their vibe and their vegan-friendliness. One Saturday we walked into the Snooze on Colorado Boulevard. Although there was a 30-minute wait, we were greeted with smiles, shown to the free coffee, and the tent-like sidewalk annex with some extra chairs.

It would be hard to miss the niceness of the waitstaff. They were young and cool, and they treated everyone with cheerful attention. Everyone loved to eat at that Snooze: moms and dads with cranky kids, couples of every description, senior citizens with canes. And none of us minded a bit of a wait.

There is nothing vegan on the menu, but we were offered huge "veganized" breakfast burritos and assured that both their red and green chili sauces were vegan and would be good. If you think green chili needs pork (as I once did) to be delicious, you haven't eaten in the Snooze on Colorado Boulevard. We became regulars.

Denver is still sheltering at home. Who knows how long it will be before we'll be returning to Snooze on Saturday mornings. If that location survives. I hope it does.

digital photo:"Through the window on Colorado Boulevard" 

Unfinished business

What would you do?

This print began with some of my grandmother's yellowed lace, a block of wood, rubber bands, safety pins, and a towel. I placed the items on the bed of my copier/printer, rearranging them several times, and printed a number of transparencies with the black (only) laser ink. 

That night I exposed and etched a photopolymer plate from one of the transparencies. Then I made prints with sepia, black and red etching ink.

My concept was a composition that could be just a composition or a fuzzy reference to a left-handed fist. One of the other printmakers in the studio saw a racist caricature of a face and I could no longer look at this print. I have been thinking about this print for a couple of years. 

Originally I called this print "Resist!" The print shown is now titled "What held her back?" (That could be a bit of self-chatter)

I have quite a number of these prints, some with chine colle' -  a collage technique. Would you superimpose a translucent self-portrait over the "face" and "neck," or superimpose a drawing of a fist over the image, or place a foggy full-body image over the whole thing? Would you try all three? Leave it alone?

I think I know what I'll do, but I am VERY interested in your opinion.   

"Strange Times" a virtual exhibit

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" 
- Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

Last June I took a deep breath and answered a call for entry on the CaFe website, submitting four images to the recently opened R Gallery in Boulder, Colorado. I didn't expect to be selected for the "Lines" exhibit since there wasn't even a category for works on paper. I accepted two rejections with good humor. The acceptance of work was unsettling.

When I visited to check out the gallery before taking in my art, I received a friendly greeting when I walked in. R Gallery is excellently located. The owner, an artist himself, is interested in regional art and friendly toward emerging artists. I was accepted for two more exhibits in 2019.

Shortly after Coloradoans were asked to shelter at home in March, R Gallery sent out a call for a virtual exhibit, "Strange Times." My print, "Beautiful Morning," is now on display in that exhibit. Visit R Gallery and the exhibit at https://rgallery.art/. 

Beautiful Morning - Monotype made with Charbonnel inks and printed on Arches Cover archival paper on a hand-cranked press

Neighbors

What is the nicest thing you have done for a neighbor? Please tell me in a comment. 

Last night my brother-in-law noticed something not quite right in the doorway of a neighbor. He could have just gone to bed but he investigated. By morning, the elderly neighbor, who had fallen, was resting comfortably after a good night's sleep in new pajamas that fit him. He had slippers that fit him and a walker, with the promise that his neighbors would help him learn to use it. His brother arrived around 7 a.m. and thanked my family for all their help. 

I am comforted that the pandemic has helped us as a people to find our human compassion. When pestilence comes to visit, we all remember instinctively that we need our neighbors and we are needed by them. The exhortations about the evil of our neighbors to the South, North and across the oceans are fewer in our news broadcasts.  We appreciate the kindness of our neighbors. 

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, 

That wants it down.”  -- Robert Frost  

I believe that we can maintain our new-found spirit of neighborliness when today’s troubles are past. As members of the human family, we will all be better for it. 

“Rio after the wall” 6 inches H X 10 inches W   

Woodblock print on screen-printed background, printed on archival paper 

Will the 1101 exhibit reopen online?

1/1   Shelter  bjyost

All ten printmakers exhibiting work at the 1101 Event Center at 1101 West Mineral Avenue, Littleton, Colorado gathered March 7, 2020, to meet, greet, and celebrate our inclusion in the "1101 Print" exhibit, which was a part of  "Mo'Print (month of printmaking) 2020,"  the biennial extravaganza of hand-made prints - usually created with the assistance of a hand-cranked press. I believe this was the last of the public events allowed before COVID-19 caused us to confine ourselves to our homes.

Hundreds of exhibits, demonstrations and studio tours were canceled. But artists will create. I hope soon to announce the reopening of the "1101 Print " exhibit, this time online. You won't be able to experience the wonderful, quirky atrium where the works currently hang. You will get to look at a variety of prints made in a variety of ways by some well-known as well as some undiscovered artists.

The printmakers in this exhibit include Judith Bennett, Theresa Davis, Margaret DeKoven,  Cara Luneau, Cindy Marshall, Amy Martin, Yee Tseng, BJ Yost, D. Leighton Yost, and Bruce Zander.