The Artful Mind August 2023 issue

THE ARTFUL MIND

Deborah H Carter Lotta Hoopla

UPCYCLED WEARABLE ART

Model@shondaevette Photography by Eric Korenman

The Fine Art of Printing Fine Art.

· Giclée and Photo Printing

· Digital Reproduction of Paintings

· Photo Restoration and Repair

Playa Santa 22 — Virginia Bradley

THE ARTFUL MIND

AUGUST 2023

GET TO KNOW THE ARTISTS YOU LOVE

DREW KLOTZ Kinetic Sculpture

INTERVIEW BY H CANDEE 8

WHITNEY MORRISON Soprano

INTERVIEW BY H CANDEE 14

DEBORAH H. CARTER

Upcycled Wearable Art

INTERVIEW BY SUSAN MACFADDIN

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC KORENMAN ...20

IMMERSED “AMBROSIA”

The Paintings of Ashley Garrett

JEANETTE FINTZ...32

ASTROLOGY FOR CREATIVES

With Deanna Musgrave - August 2023 45

RICHARD BRITELL | FICTION

THE CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE PT. 3 ...48

Publisher Harryet Candee

Copy Editor Marguerite Bride

Third Eye Jeff Bynack

Contributing Writers

Richard Britell

Jeanette Fintz

Deanna Musgrave

Susan MacFaddin

Contributing Photographers

Edward Acker

Tasja Keetman

Bobby Miller

September 7 - September 28 Reception for the Artist - Saturday September 9, 2 - 4 pm

Bruce Murphy

Brucemurphy17@gmail.com

Represented by Carrie Haddad Gallery

Prices and sizes upon request

BruceMurphy/Art on instagram / Bruce Murphy on Facebook

JOHN LIPKOWITZ

BOTSWANA and NAMIBIA: 2023

Ghetta Hirsch

“Balancing Act” Oil on Canvas, 2021, 20” x 20” Carolyn

Lyn Horton

“"An artist's work communicates essential elements over long periods of time, no matter how those elements change in form."

https://www.instagram.com/lynhortonphotoart http://www.crossmackenzie.com https://lynhorton.net

Phoenix One, 2019, 22.25 in h x 60 in w, colored pencil on rag paper

Trees Visting Rooms 3, 1979.80, subtitled Entering a New Era 23 in h x 29 in w, mixed media on Strathmore paper

White Ink Curves #1, 30 in h x 22 in w, ink marker on black gouache on rag paper

“Benevolent World", photography, by Elisabeth Ladwig

DREW KLOTZ KINETIC SCULPTURE

Drew’s early interest in the aerodynamics of flight directed his creative talents to kinetic sculpture best exemplified by his most recent works. Drew Klotz’s kinetic sculpture is made of aluminum and stainless steel and is mounted on a stand. As the kinetic sculpture revolves and dances with the wind, it choreographs its own enchanting aerial ballet.

Harryet Candee: Drew, you were a student at the Cooper Union School of Art in Manhattan. That is one excellent art school! It must be a lot different now. What from your educational experience was most gratifying and engaging for you during those years in school?

Drew Klotz: Cooper Union was a dream come true for me. It was in an environment where the students were serious about art, architecture, and engineering—learning the process of making art and having a professional artist, some very famous, teaching your class.

I loved working in the shop on projects of my own. Although I majored in sculpture, I took all the classes I could in painting, drawing, printmaking, clay, etc. One of my highlights in Cooper was creating an idea from start to finish in sculpture class. Start with the concept drawings, make a model/maquette, and finally create a full-scale sculpture.

Then came the joy and excitement of discovering

kinetic sculpture. How did this unfold for you?

DK: I was always making moving/kinetic art, even before high school. When I was younger, I came from an artistic family where creativity was encouraged. We were surrounded by very creative people in our neighborhood, artists, writers, musicians, etc., and word got out that I was creating "things" in the basement so that people would bring me old machines like vacuums, can openers, and various mechanical devices, and I would take them apart for motors, switches, and gears. I would then create my kinetic sculptures and enter them in various local art shows, where I won awards and sometimes sold my work. That was encouraging.

What materials did you initially use, and as you developed more experience with a broader sense of how "things like to work," what materials did you further explore and find satisfying?

DK: When I started making sculptures, I mainly

used found objects like metal and wood pieces, gears, motor switches, and whatever it took to complete a piece and make it work. As I made my sculptures, over time, I became more aware or focused on detail and the finished product. Nowadays, I enjoy making wind-activated sculptures. There are no motors, switches, or gears and no electricity to rely on. I call them green machines because I leave it up to nature to move them. The movement of my pieces is more pleasing because it is a random motion and not a mechanized cycle. I use aluminum for my sculptures because it's lightweight, easy to use, and strong.

What creative vision do you have that takes you from one project to the next?

DK: I love making kinetic sculptures that people will enjoy. It makes me happy. A fascination with moving sculpture intrigues me, and I think of other people who see them, and the proof is in their smile. I will make kinetic sculptures for the

Interview by Harryet Candee Photography Courtesy of Audrey and Drew Klotz

rest of my life and know they will change and morph over time into other things. Change is good. It keeps it interesting.

Your studio must be an interesting space, what does it look like?

DK: My studio is made of two shacks that used to be a gardener's shed. The only thing I did was cut an opening inside the shacks to connect them. My wife, Audrey, is a painter, so one shack is her studio, and the other is mine. It's messy—overfilled with metal, cuttings, tools, equipment, and sculptures. I am working on hanging from the ceiling. It is cluttered, but I can get everything that needs to be done there. If it's a large-scale piece, I cut it inside and assemble it outside. Our animals also surround us that we let wander freely. We have two goats, ducks, doves, cats, and my helper Elli, our turkey. They are all friendly pets and greet visitors when they come by to see our work—a little piece of heaven!

What have you discovered to be a theory or principle when making a sculpture, and what stumbling blocks have you encountered that challenge

you to relook at materials and designs?

DK: I will be making wind-activated sculptures of my design for a long time. When creating a new sculpture that moves differently, I make a test model first and see how it will react in the wind. If it doesn't work the way I envisioned it, I will tweak it or change something to get the desired movement I'm looking for. That can be a stumbling block because if it's not working the way I want it, then it's back to the drawing board. I'll put it on the back shelf until I find a solution. But when it works, it's excellent; and I will design a sculpture to harness the desired motion, color, size, etc.

Tell us what you enjoy most about a successful kinetic sculpture you have created.

DK: When I start making a sculpture and know it will be successful, I can't wait to finish it. When it's completed and placed in a nice setting with the wind blowing it around, I feel elated, "Wow, that's cool!"

Many of us are perfectionists and are always dissatisfied with a completed project. How is it with

you? Do you find you need a significant amount of patience at times when building a design?

DK: It would help if you always had patience— when creating anything, you can't rush it. I am in no way a perfectionist, but I have noticed that I pay attention to detail more than I did in the past. I spend a little more time working out the imperfections, but I do notice little mistakes, if any, that I make—even if others don't see them—and try to remedy them.

What was your early work that specifically involved creating a "flying machine" about?

DK: I was always fascinated with flight. As a kid, I would build model airplanes and collect miniature aircraft. I tried jumping off the garage roof with an umbrella, then a sheet tied to my arms and legs. Luckily, I didn't break anything! As I got older, I saw pictures of hang gliders, so I built one using bamboo and a big sheet of orange plastic wrap and wrapped it around the frame. I would run down a big hill at my grandparent's house next door with my glider, desperately trying to get off the ground, exhausted after several tries. I realized Continued on next page...

Wind Dancer, 18’ x 12 ’ x 12’

DREW KLOTZ KINETIC SCULPTURE

Audrey Klotz with Meteor Showers, 7.5’ x 5.5’

Wave, 15’ x 10’ x 10’

Framed, 3’ squares, 12’ x 10’ x 10’

the wingspan was too small, so I put that one on the back shelf. In my first year in college at Southern Connecticut, before transferring to Cooper, I had an opportunity to get hang gliding lessons with a few friends. I got the hang of it right away and finally got that feeling of floating in the air. It was great!

When I arrived at Cooper Union, I wanted to capture that feeling of flight, so I built a sculpture that would become part of the anti-gravity machine. When set in motion, you would float, become weightless in the air and activate other moving shapes within the sculpture. It was so popular it got the attention of ABC News and the New Yorker magazine. I finally succeeded in my quest for flight.

The Wit Gallery in Lenox is currently representing your kinetic sculpture. Lynda Strauch, owner of the gallery, has created a beautiful space. When I’m visitng Lenox, I see your large sculptures outside the gallery and watch people's reactions to the metal-moving parts, the motion sensitive cir-

cular shapes turning and spinning. Lenox is a great place for curious, creative-minded people. Do you find this to be true? In what ways?

DK: The WIT is a nice Gallery, and Lynda Strauch is a wonderful person. We have an excellent working relationship. The WIT is a gem in the Berkshires. Many creative people from around the world are attracted to that area for the art and music of Tanglewood. There's a rich history of artists, musicians, and writers who have lived and are living in the Berkshires.

Your sculptures must go to people and places that love to de-stress and read books. They are in idyllic locations, outdoors where nature and artwork are appreciated in a unifying way. How do you find your sculptures meshing within their natural and artificial environments? Do you have a preference?

DK: My sculptures go all over the world. I have had all kinds of people purchase my work because they like it, and it has a mesmerizing calming effect on people— almost a Zen-like meditation. I

guess you can say de-stressing quality to them. My sculptures have been placed in some public areas, but mostly private homes from mansions to small houses, super contemporary to old colonial houses. They look great in any environment, because I think people like the idea of color and motion in a natural setting. They are the perfect focal point.

Driving through the backroads of the Berkshires, do you see your sculptures alive and kicking in people's backyards?

DK: There are a lot of my sculptures around the Berkshires, but most are in private yards. You can’t see them from the roads, but I know they’re there!

Audrey, your wife, is also an artist. Please tell us a little about her work. How can you describe the creative art-making side of the partnership?

DK: Audrey and I met at Arts Alive Day in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was love at first sight, Continued on next page...

The Crew with Helios, 6’ squares, 23’ x 15’ x 15’

and to know she was an artist sealed the deal. We have three kids, a bunch of animals, and we just celebrated our 25th Anniversary in May. She's an outstanding painter, mostly abstract; as she says, she is all "over the place" in painting styles. She has painted pure color fields, abstract, realistic landscapes, animals, black-and-white abstracts, and currently colorful fantasy flowers. They are a "series," but she constantly changes her style. When creating new work for shows, she will put on classical music to get in the groove. She can paint for hours. We critique each other's work, and she is right most of the time! She also manages some business dealings, and I make her frames. We also do art shows and festivals together. We have a great working partnership, and at the end of the day, we eat dinner and watch British murder mysteries, among other things.

What in your life tends to be positive influences?

DK: Most everything I see in nature can be an in-

fluence—water, wind on different types of leaves, fish swimming, birds flying, waves on the ocean. My influential artists are Nevelson, Calder, Ricky, Snelson, Einsel, Tinguely, Smith—the list goes on! Music: Beatles, Stones, Doors, CSNY, Mitchell, Beach Boys, classical, old movie music, Glass, Williams, Jazz, old and new, contemporary Matheny, and some music that inspires actual sculptures! Everything influences me, but it has to be my original idea.

There is a science to kinetics that you probably find yourself explaining to people. In today's world, would you have a specific and slightly new way of explaining to those out there what is truly going on with your art?

DK: Kinetics is science, engineering, design, color, mixed together and applied to your own concept, sprinkled with imagination and invention. You would have to physically learn how to make things work using the right tools and mate-

rials. I think a good imagination. If you can see it in your mind, you can make it.

For me, I can visualize and build it first in my head. It needs feeling and soul and you need to want to spend the time to create it.

Thank you, Drew!

Info@witgallery.com

Www.thewitgallery.com

Twister, 7’ x 5’ x 5‘

Two Suns, 2’ circles, 7.5’ x 4’ x 4’

WHITNEY MORRISON Soprano

Interview by Harryet Candee

Soprano Whitney Morrison, who was recently named the inaugural Artist-in-Residence at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, will make her Berkshire Opera Festival debut as Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème, August 26, 29, and September 1 at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. She has earned praise for her “big, gleaming soprano” (Chicago Classical Review) and “vocally sumptuous” performances (Chicago Tribune). A Chicago native and recent alumna of the Ryan Opera Center, Whitney champions the African American aesthetic in classical music, embracing a style of performance that blends classical singing technique with elements of the gospel singing tradition. We’re so glad she spent some time with us, to tell us about her artful mind.

Harryet Candee: Complexity and human experience for you mean what in terms of your work as a performer?

Whitney Morrison: The whole thing. I see myself as a kind of minister of experience. My gifts lie in the humanities and the arts and so I am consistently mining my own experiences for real truth that can be translated on the stage. That happens all the time in each moment.

How far do your influences span?

WM: My influences span my ability to perceive and consume. My influences are not really limited in any way. I find inspiration in literature and my own lived experiences. For example, I am now reading Cole Arthur Riley, an author who puts words together almost like embroidery: delicate, impactful, functional. She self-identifies as an introvert, so she is a perfect person whose brain

I can pick for Mimi. Reading her book This Here Flesh, and seeing things from her perspective has served as a kind of reconnaissance for Mimi.

You initially did not plan on opera being your venue, but you were drawn into it? What was your connection with The Ryan Opera Center for Young Artist Programs?

WM: My entry into the opera field was through singing, unattached to operatic repertoire. Classical singing technique can be used in different kinds of expression like song or musical theater. My choir teacher, Lana Manson, was instrumental in this process (if anyone can say they discovered me, it would be her). She found me singing first alto in concert choir and said “if you show up, I will teach you voice lessons.” So, I showed up, I showed up every day. She gave me lessons and a whole artist’s palate to choose from. It was there

that I learned I had a skill and capacity for classical voice.

By the time I was into the Ryan Opera Center, I had already been pursuing opera for several years. A position in a prestigious young artist program had been on my vision board. After seeing artists like J’nai Bridges and Will Liverman emerge from Ryan Opera Center in Chicago, which also happened to be where I was from, I knew I wanted one of the coveted spots there. It was a privilege I know that a lot of young people don’t get.

What is your connection with Gospel Music?

WM: Gospel music forms my roots. I didn’t have a traditional upbringing because my parents split when I was younger. I went to different churches as a visitor, so I got an interesting curriculum. I was introduced to a lot of church traditions that shaped my view on the style, and that has given

Photograph by Jaclyn Simpson

me interesting roots to pull from because I wasn’t planted in one place for a long time as a child. I actually mostly sang in school coming up. I sang with gospel choir in high school, but after a while I did have church performances as well.

It wasn’t until college that I was singing in any one church very regularly, but by then I was primarily a classical singer so there was a lot of mixing and blending of genres at that point.

What did you enjoy the most about studying other subjects alongside music at the Eastman School at the University of Rochester, NY?

WM: There was an extra-curricular path where we could take classes like music business that were not a part of our degree requirement. I think some of the practical skills and the opportunity to think more creatively and entrepreneurially were great seeds for my residency with the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

One project I am working on for them now –which I can’t share just yet – was initially a project I did for that class and for which I won an entrepreneurship contest.

Tell us about a day in your life and thoughts related, Whitney.

WM: Though it is easy for some people to com-

partmentalize their life from their artistry, that is not really my approach. Mine is much more integrated. My own personal growth and care are vital to my art practice. The base of that includes the way I eat, hydrate, sleep and entertain myself, as well as different things I do for growth like reading and other experiments and moments. I take my music along with me throughout the day. At school, I would make flashcards and if I was standing in line at the cafeteria, I would pull them out a rehearse a measure. It is a kind of practice without walls.

I do traditional practice where I sit and study a score and sing through passages and study the language as people would expect. But I think the way the most compelling and integrated way to practice is by really engaging with the work.

My eighth great literature teacher Ms. Cokely gave me one of the best pieces of advice for engaging with a piece of art when we were reading the Diary of Anne Frank. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to identify with Anne Frank as a girl growing up in the southern suburbs of Chicago.

She taught us that whenever you are reading something, write in the margins whatever comes to mind, whatever it makes you think of, whatever doesn’t make sense, anything that is unrelated but your brain goes there. This allowed me to take

things from a different culture and context and be able to bring myself to it in a way that is authentic to me, but that is also authentic to the style and place of the work itself. It provides a way to connect. I am always thinking through the music in this way. I think about not just words, but the impulse behind them, if it feels natural. Would I say that, would someone say that? This is not just happening at my desk or at my piano - though those times are important - it can be at a stoplight on 67th Street as I drive through Chicago. I carry the music that I learn with me in my spirit whether I am at my desk or not.

Explain the Ryan Opera Center and your instructors and teachers that inspired and fed your ambitions and goals as a singer.

WM: Winnie Nyhus, my elementary school music teacher introduced us to Mozart’s Alleluia as part of an exploration of so many different types of music, all of which she taught us from a culturally neutral place. No one kind of music seemed more important than anything else, from Native American music to pop music. We could explore without putting too much on it. This fostered my exploratory spirit, even now. Even if music is in a different language, we don’t really say different things. Continued on next page...

Whitney Morrison in“Lawrence Brownlee and Friends: The Next Chapter”, behind the scenes Photograph: Andrew Cioffi

Julie Moore-Foster from Oakwood University where I did my undergraduate studies continues to be a friend and mentor. She shaped the progression of my pedagogical development and has been a great supporter.

Today I study with Julia Faulkner of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center. I booked a lesson with her online about seven years ago. When I showed up, she thankfully remembered me from a previous audition. She must have liked what she heard, because she let me stay and study with her. Since then, she’s been one of my biggest, most generous supporters, helping guide my singing technique and path forward. She prepared me for that audition at Ryan Opera Center and helped me forge a relationship with the house.

What is it with opera that you might find challenging as an artist?

WM: I think in general, there is a challenge in going into a primarily white space and system, with a curriculum that teaches people things that are not true about people with my hue. I am always trying to maintain my health while managing relationships with people who do not have a similar background to me, and may have ideas

about who I am before I open my mouth. My mistakes seem to count for a lot more and my wins are seen as representative of more than me as well. That is a burden my white colleagues may not carry.

Whitney, what, in your opinion, from experience, would you say is the most spiritual, mysterious, and deeply rooted connection opera has had for you up to the present?

WM: Anything you sing that has a story and that has a real depth of intention. For me, that synergy of communicating something true through the mysterious and spiritual offerings of my personal energy through the integration of body/mind/spirit is what falls in that category. The integration of all parts of me, through music. But I have a similar experience while writing or with any art form.

Have you also composed music?

WM: I have ideas for music and melodies and have done a little arranging. I haven’t yet penned a complete composition, but it is not off the table.

The Berkshire Opera Festival is excited to have you on board for La Boheme this season. Is this

your first time performing with BOF and visiting the Berkshires?

WM: I have never been to the Berkshires and this is my first Mimi, so it is both a role and company debut.

What is the most rewarding and beneficial lesson you have learned so far that can be shared, especially with those vibrant, emerging music students everywhere?

WM: What you need for excellence is within you and anything that points primarily to someone else or somewhere else is a red herring. Be focused on your own development and unique offerings and abilities. This foundation allows your thumbprint to be on everything you do, which is the point.

You are the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s first artistin-residence. Tell us what that will entail and about your Growing Room performance art installation.

WM: This residency is a unique and important opportunity to develop my own creative projects. I have had many ideas for work that I didn’t know would have a space to exist. It is nice for the space

Whitney Morrison Photograph by Simon Pauly

WHITNEY MORRISON SOPRANO

to be made with Lyric Unlimited for this experimental crucible. I can take ideas that predated this residency and have the chance to produce and experiment with them in ways that expands the breadth and depth of opera and classical music mediums. Our first project was Growing Room. For this mobile, pop-up performance art installation, we turned a greenhouse into a practice room, filled it with plants, a piano, a mirror and an artist. For this installation, I practiced as I would anytime, at various spots on the streets of Chicago.

Part of the performance art nature of Growing Room was not engaging with the passersby, it was one of the most incredible experiences with focus that I’ve been afforded the opportunity to have. From the outside, I was told it allowed people to interact with the work and classical music in a different way. There was no social script about how to interact with the thing, though. It was a big

draw for people watchers who might come, sit on blankets and watch people slowly approach and have an experience. After a while I forgot cars were passing on the busy street. I just got into the zone. As an artist isn’t it paramount to focus on what you are focusing on rather than focusing on people focusing on you?! You have to prioritize what needs your attention and what doesn’t.

This project is a kind of advocacy because people love a finished product but have a hard time appreciating the process by which the finished product comes to them.

Growing Room is a metaphor for artists’ need for protection and provision in challenging seasons in order to develop to maturity, parallel to how a greenhouse allows plants to survive, grow, and produce through all seasons.

Through Growing Room, there are resources, places, and spaces especially for developing

young artists—the most vulnerable. This project also honors the hidden, humble, and vital practice work of all artists.

Practice is a key component of every artform, yet the hours, discipline, and focus required are seldom understood and appreciated by arts patrons and audiences.

Thank you, Whitney!

Puccini’s La Boheme: Saturday, Aug 26, 1pm; Tuesday, August 29, 7:30pm; Friday, September 1, 7:30pm at The Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield, MA info@berkshireoperafestival.org

Whitney Morrison in the Growing Room Photo Courtesy of Artist

Marion H. Grant

Sally Tiska Rice

Golden Harp

DEBORAH H. CARTER

UPCYCLED WEARABLE ART

by Susan MacFaddin

“I use post-consumer waste to create works of art. What started as a way to acquire inexpensive and abundant art materials grew into a frustration with the amount of waste sent to landfills, much of which will take centuries to degrade. I feel challenged to create pieces that are beautiful, striking, and sometimes surprising. My primary aim is not to instruct viewers or scold them about consumerism and waste, but if my pieces are aesthetically engaging as well as thought-provoking, then I’m doubly pleased. And shouldn’t art do both?”

Susan MacFaddin: Deborah, what kind of reactions do you get when people see your work for the first time?

Deborah H. Carter: People love trying to figure out the origins of my materials, how I’ve put them together, and how much time went into each piece. But by far, the most common reaction is, “It’s really wearable?!”. Wearability is essential in my work, and I rarely create a piece that cannot be worn. The human form influences so much of my aesthetic. How will it work as a garment? Will it incorporate sound? How will the light strike the body? Will it be comfortable enough to wear for an evening or an event? And as my friends will warn you, “Be careful if Debbie invites you to her studio because she’ll make you try on a new piece to see how it works on your body!”

The variety of your unconventional materials is

remarkable. It’s impossible to list them all, but I’ve seen mussel shells, potato chip bags, Kodachrome slides, old sheet music, plastic cups, foam noodles, and antique books. You often choose things that some people would consider mundane or ugly. Please tell us how you select materials and what part they play in your process.

DHC: It always starts with the materials. They inspire and speak to me about their aesthetic qualities and inform how I will construct the garment, the potential for movement, and even sound. I’m so drawn to appealing shapes, colors, and patterns that could work wonderfully as a garment. And to the occasional frustration of my family and friends, I cannot pass up a pile of what someone has thrown away without considering its potential to be transformed into something extraordinary. For example, the materials used to create “Offence” came from a tangled heap of snow and

safety fencing I found abandoned on the side of a hiking trail near my home. People now regularly offer me collections of items like the bag of scratch-off lottery tickets fellow artist, Tommy, handed me last month. That project is now percolating in my head.

Where else do you source your materials? It sounds like many are found objects and you mentioned that people donate them to you. Do you purchase some as well?

DHC: Yes, all of the above. The post-consumer waste I use may have been found by the side of the road, in a dumpster, in the trash as food packaging, or on freecycle.org. I’ve been doing this long enough that I often receive carloads of donated items, such as discarded retail display pieces, leftover materials from other artists’ projects, or boxes full of CDs and electronic cables.

I’m always on the lookout for organizations overwhelmed with items destined for the dump who are happy to donate them in an eco-friendly way. I’m a regular customer at local secondhand stores and Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores, where they divert reusable household items and building materials from area landfills. I discovered one of my favorites through Yina Moore, Founding Executive and Artistic Director of the Adams Theater, who introduced me to Leni Fried and Mike Augspurger of The Old Stone Mill Zero Waste Makers Space in Adams. It’s housed in a 28,000square-foot former woolens mill that rescues all sorts of waste from industry. It is my favorite “candy store.” That’s where I recently discovered the materials for “Lotta Hoopla”, pictured on the cover.

If it starts with the materials, where do you go

from there? The way you transform them into a finished pieces brings to mind the saying: greater than the sum of its parts. What is “Lotta Hoopla’’ (See the cover photo) made of and what was your process once you chose the materials?

DHC: I constructed the piece from 1/2-inch foam tubes and plastic rhinestones over a hoop skirt cage. As far as process goes, I believe that art doesn’t happen without experimentation. You don’t know at the start what any piece will look like when it’s finished, and I think it’s a waste of time trying to figure that out in advance. The process is the art. For “Lotta Hoopla” I flexed and twisted the tubes in endless formations, then attached, removed, and reattached them dozens of times until I got the right look. And then I thought, “Why not put it right over the model’s head and make a skirt into a dress?”. Sometimes you have to go with a feeling and try whatever comes into

your

head. Trust yourself.

Your work looks very labor-intensive. How long does each one take to create?

DHC: The time involved for each varies greatly but can take a few days to several months. I recently kept track of the time I spent on “Unbridled,” which took over 150 hours to complete. I create many works from small repeating pieces that can number 100 to 700 elements. I often finish constructing a piece only to realize I have to take the whole thing apart to reconcile construction issues, movement, or wearability. I made “MeShell” from dozens of mussel shells. Initially, I affixed them in a horizontal pattern, then realized that a diagonal hanging allowed them to nest together, create an aesthetically pleasing design, and conform to a human body much more gracefully. Continued on next page...

THE ARTFUL MIND AUGUST 2023 • 21

MeShell Model: Gabrielle Grosvenor Photograph: Ogden Gigli

Henley Photograph: Regina Carter

Have you always been an artist? Where did your artistic journey begin, and how has it brought you to what you create today?

DHC: I grew up in Western Massachusetts where there were many creative people in our family, including painters, sewers, woodworkers, gardeners, and cooks. I can’t remember when I wasn’t imagining, making, or sewing. Sewing became a particular passion for me, and I made garments from patterns and began to develop my own designs. Wearing those creations to my high school and surprising my classmates with my fashions was so much fun! And I remember sitting in church with my family, and instead of paying attention to the service, I was studying the garments worn around me, trying to figure out how they were patterned and constructed. After college and a job working in the fashion industry in New York City, I attended Parsons School of Design and graduated with a fashion degree. Many years later, my husband and I moved to the Berkshires, and I chose to stay at home with my two small children. Anxious for a creative outlet, I signed up for a drawing course with Rosalind Gordon at IS 183 (now Berkshire Art Center). Her

approach and teaching methods were inspiring, and I began to create in whatever moments and ways I could find. I painted, sculpted, sewed, and devised art projects for my kids. When they started school, I took a position as a traveling preschool art teacher. Materials were expensive, and budgets were tiny, so I began collecting whatever I could to turn into art: eggshells, egg cartons, scrap paper, discarded CDs, and plastic. My upcycling days had begun. My enthusiasm for these offbeat materials and passion for sewing converged when I launched my line of upcycled women’s clothing called Smooth Stone Clothing. I designed garments using scrap fabrics and thrifted textiles, selling them at craft fairs, online, and to private clients. During that time, the intense colors and patterns of food packaging caught my eye and specifically those of my son’s collection of hundreds of potato chip bags in bright yellow and red. To my surprise, he gifted me his collection, and “Dipsy Chips,” my first garment in this body of work, was born.

“Bibliotheque” and “Well Read” recently appeared at the Authors Guild Foundation Gala at

The Plaza Hotel in New York City. How exciting! Tell me about their creation and about your connection to that event.

DHC: Eric Wilska, owner of Shaker Mill Books in West Stockbridge, MA, commissioned the piece “Bibliotheque.” He handed me a pile of old book spines and told me to make anything I wanted. Well, almost anything – he requested a steampunk theme, and we both love the results.

“Well Read” was constructed of an old dictionary I found in a dumpster that I knew could become a stunning piece of art. Besides sewing, I often experiment with various folding techniques to create paper forms that make up a garment. For “Well Read” I created over 100 floral shapes in different sizes to trail down the body as if along a trellis. Among artists, support and collaboration is invaluable, and “Well Read” came to the notice of the Gala organizer through sculptor Joe Wheaton, who recommended me. The Authors Guild advocates for the rights of writers by supporting free speech, fair contracts, and copyright. Model, Gabrielle Grosvenor, wore it beautifully, and I was honored to be part of the event celebrating and supporting American authors.You’ve mention col-

Well Read Model: Gabrielle Grosvenor Photograph: Eric Korenman

Too Young Model: @leopoldoOrlando Photograph: Eric Korenman

laboration. I’m guessing that your relationship with your photographer is all about that. What is the nature of that relationship and how important is it?

DHC: I’m fortunate to have worked with several talented photographers, and it’s undoubtedly a collaborative relationship. My work depends on the skill and vision of the photographer to capture my three-dimensional pieces in a two-dimensional or video format. Some pieces are constructed of materials that may change over time, and it’s crucial to record the work as it appears upon completion. It’s similar to how any sculptor would work with a photographer, but in my case, we have to consider not only lighting, set-up, and mood but props, styling, hair, and makeup. It’s a lot about trust and sharing ideas, and I rely on this second set of eyes to achieve the best possible result.

Is there someone working today who you’d call a creative influence? Someone who inspires you and helps fuel your creative impulses?

DHC: Definitely the Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen. She is the epitome of fashion art and

is constantly reinventing, experimenting, and challenging the definition of fashion. Van Herpen is unconventional in her aesthetic choices and creation of materials. My brain is always buzzing after viewing her work.

Your work, “Unbridled,” is currently on display at SculptureNow at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home and gardens in Lenox. How was it constructed, and did it pose new challenges as an outdoor piece?

DHC: It’s my first time creating an outdoor garment, and it’s an exciting experience being part of this celebrated exhibition. Bridal gowns of the Gilded Age were incredibly layered, ornately decorated, and famously rigid and constricting. I wanted to take the exuberance of the designs of Edith Wharton’s era and reinterpret them in something light and more carefree, therefore the title, “Unbridled.” I constructed the dress of biodegradable flowers made from the root of the tapioca plant, a drought-resistant, lightweight, renewable wood. SculptureNow runs through October 21, 2023.

You are represented by The WIT Gallery in Lenox, MA. Where else can we see your work, and do you hold open studios?

DHC: I was just notified that my piece, “I Fold” has been selected for WOW 2023 (World of WearableArt), an annual design competition that culminates in a spectacular performance-style exhibition in Wellington, New Zealand. “I Fold” will appear in the Avant Garde category and was created from pages of an antique German history book. I painted one side of each page black and then folded over 700 of them into origami tulip shapes that form the full-length gown and split train. The event will open on September 20, 2023 and run through October 8, 2023. I’m thrilled to be a WOW exhibitor and will be attending the opening as well as taking time to explore New Zealand.

I’m part of the Clock Tower Artists, a collective of 13 artists who maintain studios at 75 South Church Street in Pittsfield. Every month from May through December, we host open studio events: First Friday Artswalk from 5-8 pm and Open Studios on the first Saturday of each month Continued on next page...

I Fold Model: Judith Boyd Photography: @jonnycreative

Bibliothèque

Deborah H. Carter

Upcycled Wearable Art

Offence Model: Shonda Evette Photograph: Ogden Gigli

from 11 am – 4 pm. My work can also be viewed by appointment. Being part of this group of artists has been such a gift. We all make such different art, but the communication between creatives can be very supportive and encouraging. We don’t create works together, but there is definitely an air of collaboration. They don’t give me the answers, but they help me pose the right questions.

I wonder what it’s like to actually wear one of your pieces. Do you ever do commissions? If so, what is that experience like?

DHC: I recently completed a commission for a collector who requested a piece for her husband’s 90th birthday. The story of this couple is very touching. They fell in love and planned to marry when they were just 20 years old. Their parents strongly objected, saying they were too young. They defied their parents and married in the early 1950’s. Throughout a long and happy life together, their signature song was “Too Young,” recorded by Nat King Cole in 1951 that reached #1 in the United States and became the best-selling song of the year. The collector hoped to incorporate sheet music of that song into the piece, and

I suggested a vest. The final work, “Too Young,” is constructed of sheet music I purchased on eBay.

Knowing who would own and wear the piece was a unique experience, making the whole process so personal. During construction, I made a discovery that added to its charm and potentially its worth. I was struggling with a notch that I’d placed at the back of the vest, and in my attempt to resolve the issue, I noticed something written on one of the sheets. It was Nat King Cole’s autograph! I’d never noticed it before and thankfully hadn’t cut or sewn right through it. The collector was thrilled with the result and she proudly presented it to her surprised and delighted husband at his birthday party with the entire family in attendance.

I’m sure there are many places you’d love to see your work displayed, but is there one particular place that is truly aspirational for you?

DHC: The Met Gala, of course! That event is the nexus of fashion, art, and innovation. Seeing someone ascend the steps of The Metropolitan Museum in one of my creations would be beyond thrilling. I’ve already got several designs running

through my mind. I’m not kidding!

Here’s a question that I bet you get a lot. Is it fashion, or is it art? How do you respond?

DHC: Like any artist, I’m fascinated by shape and form, enthralled by color, and curious about the interplay of social and cultural issues. I have a favorite quote from fashion icon Carolina Herrera, “The difference between fashion and art is that fashion is art in movement.” That’s part of why it’s so important to me that my pieces are wearable. It speaks to a fundamental aspect of my work and wearable art in general. The body is my canvas, and the piece is incomplete without the interplay between the garment and the person wearing it. Its shape, structure, color, texture, movement, and sound are ultimately successful only when in concert with the human form. To me, that is art.

Thank you Deborah!

Ball Gown

Unbridled Model: @shondaevette Photograph: Eric Korenman

LONNY JARRETT

Fine Art Photography

Berkshirescenicphotography.com

413-298-4221

Lonny@berkshirescenicphotography.com

DEEP TURQUIOSE CAVERNS Acrylics and mixed media 16” x 20” THE EDGE Acrylic and mixed media 16” x 20”

RICHARD ALAN COHEN

Discovered World 3

Fine Art Photography in Limited Editions

“Otherworldly landscapes developed from everything and anything I see and can photograph!”

www.RichardAlanCohen.com

Richard@RichardAlanCohen.com

Instagram: @richardalancohen

RUBY AVER STREET ZEN

My recent series, The City Series, is inspired by the happily haunting memories of the atmospheres, rather than maps or architecture of cities. So, although location specific, these are not literal depictions. The abstract memory of the mood evoked by each city is revealed.

I intend to stimulate not only a response to the color, texture, shape and movement play, but to serve as a reminder of possibilities of bold choices.

Growing up on the southside of Chicago in the 60s was a history of rich and troubled times. As a youth, playing in the streets demanded grit. Teaching Tai chi for the last 30 years requires a Zen state of mind. My paintings come from this quiet place that exhibits the rich grit from my youth.

Ruby AverHousatonic Studio open by appointment: 413-854-7007.

rdaver2@gmail.com, Instagram: rdaver2

GHETTA HIRSCH

Most of my Berkshire Landscape paintings emphasize light on our hills and mountains. Lately, I have been painting distinct spaces in nature and moving away from wide horizontal views with skies, horizon, lakes, and reflection on water. I am still representing undulating ground patterns of the land as I love how the colors meet each other on the canvas, but I also paint trees and bushes, and look at the vertical power of their shelter. I feel I can enter this smaller space instead of just viewing the expanse of our land. This painting of an early fall is being offered for a Williamstown Juried Exhibit and might be seen in the streets of our town in September or October. It is still in my studio for now.

I am writing this short article as some of my paintings are still in a Kimball Farms exhibit, and I am preparing for an Open Studio. I realize that an “Open Studio” involves a lot of the same tasks as an exhibit. Walls must become a background for the show to come. All decor and knick-knacks must be removed. Paintings must be checked, unpacked, grouped, labeled, and hung in a curated manner. Refreshments add interest and must be planned. Flyers and mailing of invitations must be done at an appropriate time. And last, street signs will inform the location and parking for the event. If you missed this Open Studio, do not despair as I welcome visitors in Williamstown anytime as long as you call or text me.

I wish you a wonderful month of August and encourage you to take advantage of art opportunities in our Berkshires before the Summer ends. Ghetta Hirsch413-597-1716, ghetta-hirsch.squarespace.com

SALLY TISKA RICE

Born and raised in the captivating Berkshires, Sally Tiska Rice possesses artistic prowess that breathes life into her canvases. As a versatile multi-media artist, Sally seamlessly employs a tapestry of techniques, working in acrylics, watercolors, oil paints, pastels, collages containing botanicals and mixed media elements. Her creative spirit draws inspiration from the idyllic surroundings of her rural hometown, where she resides with her husband Mark and cherished pets.

Sally’s artistic process is a dance of spontaneity and intention. With each stroke of her brush, she composes artwork that reflects her unique perspective. Beyond her personal creations, Sally also welcomes commissioned projects, turning heartfelt visions into tangible realities. Whether it’s capturing the essence of individuals, beloved pets, cherished homes, or sacred churches, she pours her soul into each personalized masterpiece.

Visit Sally’s website to view her work and sign up for the email list to receive updated information on current art adventures. Sally’s work is on the gallery walls of the Clock Tower, open Monday-Friday 9:00-5:00 pm for self-guided tours. 75 South Church Street, 3rd Floor, Pittsfield, MA. Her work can also be seen at:

Soma’s Aroma’s, 81 East Street, Pittsfield.

-Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio, Artist Demonstration, Watercolor secrets and techniques, Friday, August, 4th 11am -2pm, 92 Hawthorne Street, Lenox, MA.

Open Studio Friday, August 4th 5pm-8pm and Saturday, August 5th 11am-1pm or call to set up a studio appointment at the Clocktower Business Center, 75 South Church St., third floor, studio #302, Pittsfield, MA, 413–446–8469.

Becket Arts Center, Members Show, August 3rd-21st with the reception Saturday, August 5th 2pm-4pm.

Crawford Square, John Krol’s September Featured Artist, September 1st - Oct 3rd, Opening Reception, Friday, September 1st, 5 - 8pm.

Follow on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Find quality affordable prints of Sally’s work at https://pixels.com/profiles/sallyrice

Sally Tiska Rice - Berkshire Rolling Hills Art, 75 South Church St., 3rd Floor, Studio 302, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 413-446-8469, SallyTiskaRice@gmail.com , www.sallytiskarice.com , https://www.facebook.com/artistsallytiskarice, Fine Art Prints (Pixels) - Sally Tiska Rice, Twitter - Sally Tiska Rice, LinkedIn- Sally Tiska Rice, Instagram - Sally Tiska Rice, YouTube - Sally Tiska Rice, TikTok - Sally Tiska Rice

MASON LIBRARY, GREAT BARRINGTON, MA

“EARLY WILLIAMSTOWN FALL” 2023 OIL ON CANVAS 30” X 34”

FRIENDS, BOTANICAL COLLAGE

whole world is an art gallery when you’re mindful.

- Charles Tart

ELEANOR LORD

oil paintings and more by ANN GETSINGER

To see more of the Artist’s Landscapes, Still-life, Portraiture and more, please visit— www.eleanorlord.com

FRONT ST. GALLERY

Center House Leonhardt Galleries AT THE Berkshire Botanical Garden

Sept. 1 — Oct. 15

OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 5 - 7 PM www.berkshirebotanical.org www.anngetsinger.com

Ruby Aver

Painting classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings 10-1pm at the studio in Housatonic and Thursday mornings 10am - 1pm out in the field. Also available for private critiques. Open to all. Please come paint with us!

Gallery hours: Open by chance and by appointment anytime 413. 274. 6607 (gallery) 413. 429. 7141 (cell) 413. 528. 9546 (home) www.kateknappartist.com

Front Street, Housatonic, MA

rdaver2@gmail.com

Instagram: rdaver2.

Housatonic Studio open by appointment: 413-854-7007

The City Series no. 9 Jakarta Jive Acrylic on Canvas 18” x 24”

KATE KNAPP, BLOCK ISLAND

Landscape, Pastel

“The Garden of Curiosity”

Nest of Bones 2022

IMMERSED

by Jeanette Fintz

There are certain moments on certain days in certain places that are memorable, if one is lucky enough to be aware enough to be witness to them—-that are so sublime as to take you momentarily out of your ordinary state and drown you in sensation. Happily lost, perhaps this shower of delight or awe lasts only long enough for you to catch up to your workaday self to prevent you from stepping off the curb into on-coming traffic.

Ashley Garrett’s paintings in the show entitled Ambrosia at September Gallery are aiming to impart to the viewer that experience. Experience is the key word, for Ashley’s works are not pleinair pieces painted from the eye “but what an EYE “, of Monet and the Impressionists, but from mind/body memory of a situation. The canvas support is there to catch the bits of sensations that have lodged in the nerves and muscles and brain of Ashley.

This sounds like they could almost be choregraphed into a dance, but unlike the Action Painting school of Abstract Expressionism the rhythmic self - referential and directive strokes

that build up surface in those works, thereby moving your attention from place to place to balance the visual field, do not top the agenda. That’s not to say the paintings don’t do those things or possess many powerfully placed brushstrokes. But the real agenda is to bring forth and transmit the memory of total immersion in nature, that Umwelt of one of Ashley’s marvelous titles, that includes but is not limited to the visual sense.

Abstract Impressionism coming in on the coattails of Abstract Expressionism and heavy on the optical vibrations and broken mark-making of impressionism, combined the two genres and fits a bit more comfortably as an antecedent to Garrett’s painting approach. But her intention isn’t to dazzle the eye, though many pieces do, or construct something nearly solid from particulate matter, but to bring together through recall of incident and feeling, a convincing and transporting experience shared between herself and the viewer.

The very smallest of Garrett’s paintings often done on paper, reduce a moment to its essence and like a haiku they exist to savor for the future the

memory associated with that sensation, triggered by that shape of shadow or dance of grasses at twilight. And that’s all you get. It’s not a sonnet it’s a haiku. You, the participant sharing the moment must bring to the piece your own memory of a such tremor of light and animate it with your associations thus prolonging, and still catalyzed by it.

In the opposing size category, I was intrigued by the tall vertical paintings in the show, like Flume and Verge for how they indicated the location of a sensate presence at about human scale, without precisely forming one. The realization of this locus has to do with how Garrett develops, through brushy distribution of colored marks or the placement of streaks of shadow, the sense of peripheral vision of a witness. Color theorists claim that color appears more saturated when seen from the corner of the eye rather than frontally. Ashley gathers her inspiration for the paintings by walking in nature. Notably in the paintings, little flickers and vibrations spread out and surround the hypothetical walker in nature with context,

pressing forward as a curved space, shifting as she moves, no solid ground but an accretion of glimmers marking her progress. I was struck by how little ground solidity or concern for the ground there actually was in these and others of the smaller paintings on canvas. A consciousness merged with the effulgent glow is what I take away from these.

Garrett uses a varied, responsive vocabulary of stokes and marks that often are determined by a feeling of what needs to happen in that zone of her canvas rather than as descriptive of a particular plant or tree or grass. One of my favorite pieces, Henbane, has a very active lower portioncan’t really call it a foreground (but almost, notable for that itself), constructed from accretions of a full range of softly neutral colors in joyful, curling densely packed gestures. That lower portion is so physically present that it rises up and forward to fill half the painting while the top portion of this square format is stabilized by a deep purple shadow shape nearly smack center. It’s a very satisfying and mysterious resolution both for

its opacity in the context of so much softly blurring complementary colors, and, also, for its definition. It immediately recalled a thematic shape in Virginia Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse” in which the landscape painter Lily Briscoe is preoccupied by a shadow shape in her composition, which ultimately recalls and symbolically resolves, through her deeply internalized connection to it, the events of a past summer idyl and the intervening events spanning a decade later.

This brings up the subject of time which is implicit in all landscape paintings and is very much part of Garrett’s concerns. The sense of summer and warmth captured through a palette of soft complementary colors of yellows and blues can be found in many pieces in this show. The paintings that intrigue me are the ones that are creating a half - light reminiscent of twilight, a liminal zone where shadow can shift from warm to cool and as dusk sets in, the environment becomes an opalescent shimmer. Painted grounds of muddy neutral blue start glowing against deeper more saturated blues, greens, and oranges in paintings like

Chiral and Umbra. Since these weren’t painted from life the time it takes to build up the color and for it to create a world is the time in the piece, I would suggest, depicting a suspended inner world which is non - specific and timeless. Henbane, Chiral and Scintilla all contain that value key called extended middle minor that transmits an eerie transitional mood. Vespertine, one of the several still life paintings have that wide range of dark middle values and more, balancing the rich darks against splotchy emphatic off - white strokes, pulling one of the most dramatic contrasts in the show. Another high contrast piece is the bracing, gestural Freshet, a large vertical painting in a major key.

Garrett often composes using a softly arcing diagonal movement in smaller works like Umwelt and longer verticals as Freshet and Verge that keep the picture plane mostly frontal, and very slightly receding into space. Two of my favorite small ones, Umbra and Chiral do the exact opposite, throwing the viewer right into a thicket of Continued on next page...

Ashley Garrett Verge 2023 Oil on canvas 40” x 32”

Ashley Garrett Henbane 2021 Oil on canvas 12” x 12”

IMMERSED “AMBROSIA” THE PAINTINGS OF ASHLEY GARRETT

Ashley Garrett Umbra 2021 Oil on canvas 16” x 20”

Ashley Garrett, Vespertine 2023 Oil on canvas, 24” x 18”

Ashley Garrett, Umwelt 2022 Oil on canvas, 10” x 8”

middle ground energetic markings and tangles of strokes. The larger scale off-white marks sitting on top of and moving across the surface in Umbra push back against all that bristling providing a foil and some temperamental distance by setting up a new spatial level in relation to the color beneath.

There has been some discussion comparing Garrett’s paintings and those of Joan Mitchell the great second - generation Abstract Expressionist. I see some similarities of color palette and indirectly something comparable with respect to their in-studio rather than plein-air production process, but for me that’s where it ends. Focusing on the quality and variety of brushwork; In her large major paintings, Mitchell used a vocabulary of similar size and type of strokes, grouped together to build semipermeable zones or walls of colored marks. To my mind, they are premeditated, and quite assertively directive even while the color is wooing the viewer with shimmers of nature. Garrett’s color and stroke come from a more internalized source. They project an intimate spontaneity, sometimes even appearing awkward and tentative. And they feel honest. The diversity of approach to stroke and surface can be viewed as both a strength and a weakness, depending upon one’s inclination. There is courage and confidence in

that tentativeness. In all their glory Mitchell’s paintings feel like they were produced for the viewer. Garrett’s feel like they were done for herself.

Ashley Garrett (b. 1984) graduated with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Love Apple Art Space (Ghent, NY), Gold Montclair (Montclair, NJ), Hood Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Chase Gallery (West Hartford, CT), SRO (Brooklyn, NY), RISD Memorial Hall Gallery (Providence, RI), and SEPTEMBER (Hudson, NY). Garrett has participated in group exhibitions at Ladies’ Room (Los Angeles, CA), Katonah Museum (Katonah, NY), Regina Rex (New York, NY), The Painting Center (New York, NY), Planthouse (New York, NY), Orgy Park (Brooklyn, NY), Torrance Art Museum (Los Angeles, CA), Geoffrey Young Gallery (Great Barrington, MA), , CA), Cross Contemporary Art (Saugerties, NY), Every Woman Biennial (New York, NY), Brian Morris Gallery (New York, NY), Schema Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Berkshire Museum (Pittsfield, MA), Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (Woodstock, NY) , Berkshire Botanical Garden Leonhardt Gallery (Stockbridge, MA), Hudson Hall (Hudson, NY). Garrett’s work has been reviewed by The

Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint, and Caesura Magazine, among others, and the artist has been interviewed by Gorky’s Granddaughter, Art Spiel. Ashley Garrett lives and works in East Chatham, NY.

Ambrosia Show dates: July10 - July 30, 2023. SEPTEMBER 4 HUDSON STREET #3, KINDERHOOK NY 12106 SEPTEMBERGALLERY.COM

Hours: Thursday & Friday11-5pm, Saturday 10- 5pm Sunday 11-4pm And by appointment. Contact: kristen@septembergallery.com dominique@septembergallery.com

Jeanette Fintz is painter of geometric abstraction, an arts writer and sometime curator who resides in Hudson NY. She is represented by The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston NY, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY, & Carrie Chen Gallery, Great Barrington MA. Her recent unstretched collaged paintings were featured in BUILT at The Lockwood Gallery through July 30 2023.

Ashley Garrett Chiral 2021 Oil on canvas 9” x 12”

TW McCLELLAND JEWELRY MAKER

TW McClelland has been making jewelry for over fifty years. His work is known the world over by jewelry connoisseurs and those who seek out originality, beauty, and quality. Engagement rings from his Wildflower Collection are worn by editors of Vogue, Vanity Fair, W, Town & Country, Martha Stewart Weddings, and acclaimed by many more.

In addition, his original pieces have adorned the red carpets of the Oscars and Cannes. In his work Tim is inspired by nature, light, and humor, and traditional metalworking methods. He uses his jewelry to create a joyful expression in a tiny space.

Most importantly, Tim hopes to be of service to his community, his customers, and the world around him.

Please see the website and feel free to contact TWM directly in relation to all things jewelry.

TW McClelland -

413-645-3399

info@twmcclelland.com www.twmcclelland.com

MARION H. GRANT

Artist Marion H. Grant is a member of Clock Tower Artists, and can be found most days working in her studio (no. 305) at Clock Tower Business Park, 75 South Church Street, Pittsfield, MA

Her current work in mixed media on paper and canvas combines textural materials, hand-painted papers, acrylic paint, and fabric in abstract compositions that that explore colors, patterns, and shapes.

About the work, Grant says, “My recent pieces reflect my ongoing interest in the interplay of geometric shapes, color relationships, and embellishments such as texture and drawing. Viewed as a whole, the paintings have unity; viewed up close, every element stands on its own as a unique passage.”

Grant’s studio at the Clock Tower is open to the public the first Friday and Saturday of each month April through December. Public hours on first Fridays are 5-8 and first Saturdays 11-4. Private visits to the studio can also be arranged by contacting the artist directly.

This fall, Grant will be showing with four other artists in the juried exhibition, “Veiled,” opening September 16 at the Becket Arts Center, 7 Brooker Hill Road, Becket, MA.

Marion H. Grantweb: www.mariongrantart insta: @marionh.grant email: grants3@earthlink.net

LYN HORTON

The three drawings from the “Branch Shadow” series of eight drawings became an entryway into reinstituting my routine in a new studio attached to new living quarters. I moved from a rural community where I had lived for forty-two years into a condominium in a small city forty minutes driving time away. The year and a half, before these drawings were made, was spent sorting, packing, moving, and resettling. The trauma of lifting myself out of a true home into a new unused one, in the midst of Covid to boot, had a tremendous impact on my incentive to create anything. Resettling involved accepting my new circumstances and putting my mind to rest.

The “Branch Shadow” drawings reflect my longing for a natural environment. They manifest a conversion of non-referential lines, which I had employed for decades, into lines referencing a dead branch, which, on their own terms, fly off into a realm of unrecognizable form. I have employed my naturalistic lines as a means of visual storytelling.

Lyn Horton -

https://lynhorton.net/

http://www.crossmackenzie.com/

https://www.instagram.com/lynhortonphotoart/

RED STATE, BLUE STATE, MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER

BRANCH SHADOWS 1, 2023, 15” X 22.375” INK ON RAG PAPER

BRANCH SHADOWS 4, 2021, 15” X 22.375” INK ON RAG PAPER

BRANCH SHADOWS 7, 2021, 15” X 22.375” INK ON RAG PAPER

“TIM REVERE”

ILENE RICHARD ILLUSTRATOR / PAINTER

Ilene is an established fine art figurative painter. She is known for her expressive and colorful paintings and her use of lines, which has become a signature style of her work. Ilene’s work is highly consistent and recognizable. Working as a published children’s book illustrator for many years has helped Ilene create a narrative with her work, which often features people in whimsical and fantastical situations.

Ilene is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Women Artists and an artist member of the Rockport Artist Association and Museum.

Ilene Richard –978-621-4986, www.ilenerichard.com, ilene.richard@gmail.com, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ilene-Richard-IllustratorPainter/109216825770985

CAROLYN NEWBERGER

Watercolor painting, mixed media, and a practice of drawing from life form the body of Carolyn Newberger’s work, with an emphasis on human connections and experience.

An avid and award-winning artist in her youth, Carolyn returned to art after an academic career in psychology at Harvard Medical School. Her work has received many awards, including from the Danforth Museum of Art, the Cambridge Art Association, Watercolor Magazine, and the New England Watercolor Society, of which she is a signature member.

Many of Carolyn’s performance drawings and plein air paintings accompany reviews and essays she writes, often in collaboration with her husband, Eli, for “The Berkshire Edge,” a publication of news, arts and ideas in Western Massachusetts. Carolyn Newberger— 617-877-5672; cnewberger@me.com www.carolynnewberger.com

Carolyn M. Abrams

“SPRING ILLUSION”

Barnbrook Realty Gallery

27 Housatonic Street, Lenox, MA Gallery Hours: Open by chance or by appointment anytime 518-928-7401 | www.carolynabrams.com

MARGUERITE BRIDE COMMISSIONED WATERCOLORS

If you have a special occasion in your future, consider commemorating it with a painting. A new home? An old home that you are leaving? A special vacation scene? It is nice to create longlasting memories with a painting. A custom watercolor painting of a wedding venue, a home or other special location is always a treasured gift for any occasion. Commission work is always welcome.

Marguerite Bride –413-841-1659 or 413-442-7718; margebride-paintings.com margebride@aol.com; Facebook: Marguerite Bride Watercolors.

CUSTOM HOUSE PORTRAIT, WATERCOLOR

PRANA

Deirdre Flynn Sullivan

The Red Hat of Mourning

The last humid days of summer Are waning as if the daylight sun Had turned into the moon.

Little breezes languidly sigh, With late summer lethargy; Bees and hummingbirds hover In a paradise of flowers; and Death approaches slowly, Skeletal and shimmering, Soon to be adorned In regal robes of sharp vermillion, Brassy gold and bitter brown.

Spring into summer

Is a pearl necklace of days When all things feel possible. A hat is worn with fluttery excitement And a hint of hopeful scent.

Now it hides broken sighs, Beneath shadowed skin. One forgets on balmy days of spring And steamy nights of summer That flowers do not last, That favorite colors will burn, And that every shape of beauty, A gift you must return.

~ Deirdre Flynn Sullivan, 9/9/2020

Red Hat, Flowers, and a String of Pearls ~ Mixed Media ~ Deirdre Flynn Sullivan

BECKET ARTS CENTER SUMMER SCHEDULE

The Becket Arts Center (BAC) has announced its 2023 summer schedule filled with art exhibits, lectures and workshops, music, theater, storytelling, and so much more for art enthusiasts of all kinds, young and old, near and far.

The highlights include: five juried art shows, four special exhibits, and a BAC member show (all free and open to the public); Music Brings Communities Together - free, live, outdoor music on select Saturdays through September ; Monthly Speaker Series lectures (free for BAC members; $5 for non-members); Live Art Demonstrations every Monday (in-person and livestreamed on Facebook); Art classes, storytelling, theater, yoga, and dance workshops (discounts available to members). For full schedule, dates, and complete details, the website.

The Becket Arts Center gallery and gift shop are open to the public Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, 12:00-4:00 pm. The BAC gift shop, featuring carefully crafted items by local artisans, can be accessed onlinewww.becketartscenter.org/shop or in person during open hours.

Programs are supported by grants from the following: Mass Cultural, Berkshire Bank; Central Berkshire Fund, a fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation; Feigenbaum Foundation, towns of Becket, Blandford, Chester, Hinsdale-Peru, Lee, Otis, Sandisfield, Tolland, Tyringham, and Washington, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Many thanks to our BAC members and business sponsors for their enthusiastic support of arts in our communities.

For more than 50 years, the Becket Arts Center (BAC) has been a mainstay of culture and art in the Berkshires. The Becket Arts Center’s mission is to ensure that creative expression is a vital and vibrant part of the everyday lives of the regional community. As a membership organization that supports the cultural and artistic needs of the Hilltowns, the Center offers diverse experiences that serve the full spectrum of artists, from the professional to the avocational, and arts appreciators, to inspire, educate, and enrich their lives.

Becket Arts Center –

7 Brooker Hill Road, Becket; email: office@becketartscenter.org

www.becketartscenter.org/membership

IN THE ABSTRACT KIMBALL FARMS THE CONNECTOR GALLERY

In the Abstract now on view at the Kimball Farms Connector Gallery. The show features an eclectic range of abstracts and includes lively, interesting work by several artists including husband and wife Keith and Mary Davidson, Ruby Aver, former Berkshire-ite Don Longo, and Caroline Kelly. Mobiles by Joel Hotchkiss, and more! Also on view are three newly installed sculptures by Binney Meigs.

All are welcome to celebrate the pleasure of unexpected discoveries any day through September 5th.

The Connector Gallery235 Walker St, Lenox, MA. kimballfarms.org

ERIKA LARSKAYA

Confinement and Breakaway examine the mental state of struggle to make sense of our environment, both physical and psychological. I incorporate childlike drawing to represent nonconformity; the unadulterated state before we get confined by rules, commitment, insecurities, and other “add-ons.”

“I distress and repair parts of the painting, as we do within ourselves. The drawings of floor plans and elevations, which I use as a starting point, create a sense of enclosure, which I expand by continuing the lines outward, breaking the structural pattern. This alters the sense of confinement, breaking away from the [rigid, static] norm”.

Erika Larskayahttps://www.erikalarskaya.art

KEITH DAVIDSON, DECONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE

UP TO A NEW DAY, FROM BREAKAWAY SERIES 36" X 48" MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS

Erika Larskaya

"As an abstract artist, I search for ways to represent the invisible, subtle, and unexpressed. I am driven to lay out fleeting and intangible experiences on physical surfaces". —Erika Larskaya

Erika Larskaya Studio at 79 Main St. Torrington, CT www.erikalarskaya.art

Draft, mixed media on paper, 16” x 12"

JOHN LIPKOWITZ PHOTOGRAPHER BOTSWANA AND NAMIBIA: 2023

John Lipkowitz is a Great Barrington, Massachusetts photographer who loves traveling to exotic and not so exotic places around the world. Asked to describe his photography, he currently refers to himself as opportunistic and experiential, always seeking to capture some of the essence of the people, places and things he encounters in that particular moment. Wildlife, people, grand landscapes, ordinary objects – each he attempts to see and capture with a very personal eye, whether from a big lens or iPhone or anything in between. His exhibits at 510 Warren St Gallery in Hudson, New York, reflect his personal spectrum.

This image is from his recent trip to Botswana and Namibia with his wife Nina. On one of their game drives in Botswana they found a lion pride with several youngsters playing - behaviors to be developed both for hunting and peer livingamong the only social cat species. Time and patience permitted the capture of dozens of such images. This is among his favorites.

510 Warren Street Gallery, Hudson, NY.

Opening Reception for John Lipkowitz: Saturday, September 2, 3 - 6pm.

Friday and Saturday 12 - 6, Sunday 12-5; 518-822-0510

www.510warrenstreetgallery.com www.johnlipkowitzimaging.com

ARTIST MARY ANN YARMOSKY

We long for a way to be heard from the moment we are born. For some, words suffice; for others, there needs to be a deeper form of expression.

That is how artists are born. Where one might send their message through an instrument in the form of music, another might write poetry or prose. Still, others speak in something more tangible through painting, photography, pottery, or sculpting. Words only bring us so far…art is the language of longing…a longing never fulfilled.

I have always found expression through art. At age five, I began speaking through the piano that sat waiting expectantly in our den, an instrument that brought me peace throughout the years. Later I took to creating through fashion design, dreaming up and constructing costumes for the Boston Opera Company and outfits for the fashionable elite of Newport, Rhode Island. From there, my path took many twists and turns as I lived as a wife, mother, caretaker, and professional career.

When my youngest son passed away unexpectedly several years ago, my longing to be heard returned with a vengeance. Words did not suffice. There are no words to express grief and hope for what is lost. On that journey of anguish, I met other women who had or were experiencing their style of pain. I marveled at their resilience and ability to go on despite different types of loss or simply dealing with the uphill complexities of life’s challenges. I began to recover my voice through paint and a bit of canvas, but it was not just my voice. The women I create in paint are a composite of the many amazing women I have met and continue to meet. I paint their humor, joy, hidden heartbreak, and longing. These women do not exist except on canvas, and their stories are yours to imagine. Hear them.

Mary Ann Yarmoskymaryannyarmoskyart.com

ANN GETSINGER

New work in the studio feels exciting. Unveiling “The Garden of Curiosity” on September first at the Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Leonhardt Galleries is a dream- come-true.

During my first- ever artist residency, in Virginia, this February, I found the time, space, and support for experimentation and its resulting surprises by working directly from imagination. This work will be unveiled at the exhibit.

Other new work, a series of nine small constructions of part painted, part object, was inspired by recent work constructing dioramas. The space between reality and perceptual mystery extends as I allow the unexpected to remain visible. Surfaces erupt with texture and the carefully observed stand in contrast to loosely abstracted passages.

This is the most challenging exhibit of my career due partly to intense experiences of the recent past and the work which was inspired there. Life has my full attention and the work in the studio reflects that.

Please visit www.anngetsinger for more info or to sign up for occasional newsletters.

“The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.”

– Paul Klee

PATCH, 2022, OIL ON CANVAS, 24” X 20”

LONNY JARRETT BERKSHIRE SCENIC PHOTOGRAPHY

My initial memory of awakening to the creative impulse was hearing the first chord of the Beatles, Hard Day’s Night, when I was six years old. I knew something big was happening at that moment, and I had to get on board! I began studying at the Guitar Workshop, the first guitar school in America. I’ve performed music most of my life and play jazz fusion with my band Redshift.

My interest in photography blossomed as an electron-microscopist publishing neuro- and molecular-biological research out of UMASS/Amherst and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx in my early 20s.

As a lifelong meditator, martial artist, musician, and photographer, everything I engage with comes from the same unified intention toward engendering the true, the good, and the beautiful. I endeavor to capture the light that seeps through everything in landscape and nature photography.

Lonny Jarrett -

Community: Nourishingdestiny.com

Books: Spiritpathpress.com

Art: Berkshirescenicphotography.com

Teaching: Lonnyjarrett.com

PEGGY REEVES AN ORGY OF SACCHARINE BEAUTY

“This new series of botanical paintings were initially inspired by the ferns in my garden, hence, the titles of the works are “Fernature #1, 2, 3” etc. The misspelling is intentional. The show at 510 Warren Street Gallery in Hudson, NY, August 427, will feature the series of gouache paintings on paper title “An Orgy of Saccharine Beauty.”

My intention is to lead the viewer over the lush threshold of abstraction and representation. Within the span from edge to edge of these imaginary gardens, there are contortions of vegetation that seems to be at play, in conversation, or neighborly interactions. The growth may bolster or support each other.

I see the plant life as a powerful, forceful agent and the title of the series “An Orgy of Saccharine Beauty” is meant to negate the normally held concept of a sweet or passive nature and delicate existence that the subject of flowers in art brings to mind. The plants are coming together in a connectiveness that also speaks of the energy, as Dylan Thomas wrote, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, drives my green age…” of the garden as a metaphor for the human condition. In most cases, what is immediately seen may shift, becoming richer over time with negative and positive spaces and shapes revealing themselves. The experience of sustained seeing may lead to new recognitions maintaining the sense of a liminal space and a story unfolding.”

510 Warren Street Gallery, 510 Warren St., Hudson, New York, August 4 – August 27, 2023. 510warrenstreetgallery.com

Conversational Spanish

Learn the fundamentals of conversational Spanish. All levels. Via: Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp video call, & Facebook Messenger

Instructor: Esteban Valdés

Author of the acclaimed book: Con Permisito Dijo Monchito (Amazon.com)

References available • 15 dollars per hour

ELLEN KAIDEN PAINTER OF METAPHORS CANYON RANCH

I am pleased and proud to announce a sizable exhibition of my paintings at Canyon Ranch in Lenox. To view, please contact the Wit Gallery in Lenox, MA. info@thewitgallery.com or call 413637-8808.

This year was the year to go all in as an artist and invest in myself. It is difficult to put yourself out there, but I have reaped the benefits.

It's been a productive winter, and hopefully, it will be a successful summer. I am proud to announce that I was awarded BEST water media artist nationally for 2023 by ADC, Art Design Consultants, a Juried show, "Art Comes Alive". My two-month show at Woodfield Fine Art in St Petersburg, Florida, opened a whole new world for me by putting me face-to-face with other artists and potential clients that knew nothing about me. I had good sales and was well received by a vibrant and young arts community, and I am happy to say I have a Florida gallery home.

My paintings are more than just pretty flowers. They tell stories about the world, politics, and women.

Last year I changed the way I approached my paintings. I started to work in series and better communicate my work's Metaphorical nature. To date, my series include "Lady Paints the Blues," the war in Ukraine, “Women's Voices”, and “The secret life of Sun”. "Flowers and just plain Happiness." This has proved to be successful for me.

Ellen Kaiden@www.Ellenkaiden.com

www.thewitgallery.com

FERNATURE 3, 24” X 30" ACRYLIC, GOUACHE

WOMENS VOICES, 40” X 50” PART OF MY WOMEN'S SERIES

Spring Fever 40” x 50”

MARK MELLINGER

Practicing art for 60 years and psychoanalysis for 40, Dr. Mark Mellinger’s careers concern what can be spoken of and what transcends language. In painting, collage and constructions of wood and iron he is drawn to the physicality of materials.

Avoiding predictability of style, Mellinger explores the possibilities of matter and media. Our lives and our world are transient. We must seek meaning in truth, creativity and connectedness.

Mark V. Mellinger, Ph.D.-

914-260-7413,

71 S Church St, Pittsfield MA

MARY DAVIDSON

Mary Davidson has been painting regularly for the last 16 years. Davidson’s paintings are a twodimensional decorative visualization of line, color, design, shape, patterns, and stamping. As you begin to study the paintings, you will find that the foreground and background tend to merge with overlaid patterns. “I love the intense complexity and ambiguity of space and dimension.”. The effect can be startling: the longer you look at the piece, the more you see.

Davidson’s New Hat series consists of 70 paintings. “I start with a basic drawing, building with color and shape, coming to life with gesture and flow. As the title suggests, the hats are important, and the millinery designs emerge. There is much joy in their creation, and my passion for playful designs is reinforced by their bright colors, linear rhythms, and patterns leading our eyes around and through the painting. My newest series is even more abstract, with an even stronger emphasis on design. I do like to use stamping, along with painting, because I love the result.

When I finish with a painting, I adhere the canvas with mat gel to gator board, creating a nice tight surface. My paintings are always framed.”

Mary Davidson413-528-6945 / 413-717-2332; PO Box 697, South Egremont, MA

mdavidsongio@aol.com marydavidson83155@gmail.com www.davidsondesigncompany.net

DON LONGO AT THE CONNECTOR GALLERY KIMBALL FARMS, LENOX

“Creating abstract art is so very cathartic to me. It allows me the freedom to choose the colors, textures and design format from my own intuition and see what develops. Sometimes it takes days of layering and other times it comes out in a few hours. The more intricate the layers, the more interesting I find the final composition.”

When I begin a new painting, my end result would be one where there is texture, atmosphere, and feeling. Many are based on my background of growing up in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts where the natural beauty of the land and the serenity of quiet places gave me the daily energy I loved.

My first paintings started with a more realistic design. I wanted to capture the light and the quietness of the environments, such as walking to the lake through pastureland, dreaming of my future, or driving the backroads by myself, looking for that solitary area to listen to the sounds of the wind, the leaves, birds and babbling streams.

Today, I concentrate more on semi-abstract versions of those places with some similarity of realism. I use colors of the season I want to represent with smooth and rough textures. I sometimes use close-up images to bring you into the painting, then make you travel around the scenery just like I did as a young man being there. Other times I like the viewer to be far away, looking at the solitude of the distant landscape.

Once I decide my viewpoint, I begin manipulating the canvas with textural pastes, acrylic paint, oil stains, water, mineral spirits, and spray paint until I get the final desired result.

I loved to explore as a kid, and I now continue to explore as an adult. But now I do it on my canvases.

Don Longowww.donlongoart.com

BOTTLES, 2019, 2019, ACRYLIC, 24” X 18”

GOLDEN AURA

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”

– Georgia O’Keeffe

Astrology for Creators August 2023

“Obstacles as Paths”

(Western Tropical Astrology. Time Zone ET)

Deanna Musgrave

We begin the month of August having experienced a few weeks of the Venus Retrograde that started July 23rd and will be lasting until Sept 3rd - 4th, 2023. As stated in my last column, a Venus Retrograde for creators might bring on a more introspective time in your studio practice. In general, Venus rules things like love, romance, relationships, money, luxury, and abundance. Now that some weeks have passed into this retrograde did you notice any changes in these areas since July 23rd? Certain astrologers advise against any major purchases or aesthetic changes during a Venus Retrograde as there may be regrets once this planet returns to express in a direct motion. This doesn’t mean you can’t do basic updates like refreshing a look you are already committed to but, astrologers don’t advise any major changes.

The other transit that began in July 2023 that we may want to begin reflecting on in August is the North Node changing signs from pointing towards Taurus to instead Aries which occurred between July 12th – July 17th (depending on if you go by the true North Node or not). In my last column, I pointed out that having the North Node change to Aries might bring about more of a collective focus on sovereignty, self-expression, entrepreneurism, gender politics, conflict, military, sports, and war. With the North Node moving signs it might also start to ease and provide solutions around the issues that arose in the past year and a half while it was pointing North to Taurus such as money, housing, food costs, land issues, the environment or art. I do expect some Taurus issues to continue for a few years, especially with the final Lunar Eclipse this fall and until Uranus moves out in 2026.

We also begin August on the 1st with a Full Moon in Aquarius which has to do with humanitarian efforts, visionaries, technology, alternative wisdom, outsiders, and invention. With Pluto coming back into Aquarius for 20 years as of January 2024, I will be watching this Full Moon for themes that might relate to how this sign will express a generational shift that will see power (both the good

and misuse of it) moving towards technology, humanitarian efforts, outsiders, and visionaries. During this Full Moon, we have Mercury in Virgo Opposite a Retrograde Saturn in Pisces. As an example, this could translate to a difficult communication (Mercury) about a hard lesson (Saturn) having to do with rebels (Aquarius) and the sea (Pisces). With Virgo’s interests in analytics and health, I wonder if it could be an awareness and communication (Mercury) of statistics related to public health (Virgo). It could also be something challenging with the media (Mercury) and government structures or institution (Saturn). As I have been observing Saturn in Pisces expressions for the past few months, I’ve noticed there is an association with this transit to artistic A.I. technologies, the UFO/UAP/USO phenomena, pharmacy and weird happenings in the sea or waterways. I would advise against travelling by water during this Full Moon given the tragic events surrounding the Titanic Submarine this past June 18th, 2023, where it went missing on a New Moon in Gemini that was Squaring Saturn in Pisces conjunct Mercury that was squaring Neptune in Pisces. The Titanic Submarine remains were later found damaged with the crew having perished. With Neptune representing the sea and Mercury connected with travel communications, as well as Saturn bringing in karmic waves of the past tragedy of the Titanic, one can see the connection of the planetary motions to this tragedy. Going forward, I will personally not be travelling by water during a Moon that has difficult aspects to either Neptune or Saturn in Pisces, especially if Mercury or Uranus is involved.

On the positive side, in synchronicity with this Full Moon in Aquarius, Mars in Virgo will be making a trine angle to Jupiter in Taurus. I’m guessing that while there will be a tense force discussed in the latter, there will also be a positive passion (Mars) with it that will be assisting expansion (Jupiter) in areas of Taurus such as money, food, housing, the environment, land, and beauty. Be prepared for a mixed bag of positive passion with complex communications with this Full Moon in Aquarius. For artists, this might create a situation where you are finding it difficult to communicate or express a new idea you are passionate about. If you experience that, know that all energies pass like weather and come at the new idea on another day.

Leading up to the New Moon in Leo on August 16th is going to bring complex energies. The period around August 13th – 15th could be interesting as the Sun will become conjunct with that retrograde Venus in Leo on the 13th which could “enlighten” (Sun) what you might be reflecting on with regards to relationships, love, beauty, money, abundance, luxury or your artistic studio practice (Venus). Soon after, around the 14th – 15th that same Sun will make a tense aspect of a square

angle to Uranus in Taurus. This could shine a light (Sun) upon a new idea (Uranus) around Taurus themes. You may get a sudden inspiration on this day that resolves the struggle you were having to communicate or express around the Full Moon on August 1st. This disruption or enlightenment will set the stage for that New Moon in Leo on the 16th where we could plant seeds to initiate new creative expressions, how we shine our light in the world or how we are in relationships with others.

I think the week of August 20th – 26th could be a bit intense. Venus makes a difficult Square to Jupiter starting on the 20th but, lasts through the entire week which could spell anything from money, food, housing, or other Taurus issues. Also starting on the 20th, Mars in Virgo will oppose Neptune in Pisces which can add to deception, illusion, fantasy, or disillusionment in areas related to Virgo and Pisces themes. These two signs have health, pharma care, spirituality and healing in common. This same week sees the beginning of Virgo Season on August 23rd which is going to start a bit bumpy given that its planetary ruler, Mercury, will be stationing to go retrograde on the 24th. For me, this translates into a period of heightened miscommunications and technology blunders. At the same moment that Mercury begins to station Retrograde at 3:58 am ET, the Moon makes a Square to the Lilith asteroid which feels intense given that the Moon has to do with our innermost feelings and Lilith often represents the parts of ourselves that people try to make us wrong for. The day before and during, Mercury will be in a trine aspect to Pluto in Capricorn which might reveal a positive revelation in that area of your chart. For the collective, this will be in the areas of authority figures, governments, and institutions. As I look at this series of aspects, it gives me a feeling of a family trip where, despite unfortunate events, is united in overcoming these obstacles.

The final important transits I will mention for August is Uranus going retrograde on the 29th for the rest of 2023 which happens just before the Full Moon in Pisces. Uranus retrogrades create a slowing down and reflection period having to do with innovation, rebellion, visionaries, and those who might consider themselves on the fringe of society. With this happening in sequence with the Full Moon in Pisces, it is likely going to have to do with the themes coming up with both Neptune and Saturn in Pisces. For each of us, Pisces will represent something different but, it does have a strong association with the arts!

Musgrave is an artist, energy worker, channel, and hypnotherapist. You can contact her through her websites at:

www.deannamusgrave.com

www.artisthehealer.com

Deanna

Deanna Musgrave | August | ASTROLOGY FOR CREATORS

FRONT ST. GALLERY

Pastels, oils, acrylics, and watercolors…abstract and representational…..landscapes, still lifes and portraits….a unique variety of painting techniques and styles….you will be transported to another world and see things in a way you never have before…. join us and experience something different.

Painting classes continue on Monday and Wednesday mornings 10-1:30 pm at the studio and Thursday mornings out in the field. These classes are open to all...come to one or come again if it works for you. All levels and materials are welcome. Personal critiques are available.

Classes at Front Street are for those wishing to learn, those who want to be involved in the pure enjoyment of art, and those with some experience.

Front Street, Housatonic, MA. Gallery open by appointment or chance anytime. 413-528-9546 at home or 413-429-7141 (cell) www.kateknappartist.com

JANE HUDSON WATER

The light of the Universe is ever present. It falls upon the Earth as potential energy, as heat, as creative force. It touches the the magnetic energy field of Earth creating great vortexes that generate storms and water. This quintessential substance carries the memory of every living being falling as it does to form all bodies. It fills and forms according to genetic principles that adhere to climates and landscapes, families and cultures. Humans have sought to control water, to domesticate it for convenience, the consequence being that it is deadened, lacking the vitality of its origins. We must now acknowledge its brilliance, exalt and praise it, spin it back into its heightened properties and recognize its partnership with life.

Jane HudsonJane.video@gmail.com

Http:://janehudsonpaintings.com

RICHARD ALAN COHEN FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

I create landscape images to highlight my reverential relationship with the environment through which I walk daily. My process begins with the discovery and exploration of a subject, and then moves on to imagining what the image could become. I see landscape as an invitation to the viewer to enter imaginary worlds, ones which may suggest past or future visions, offshoots of the moment that the shutter clicked. I take natural details of streams, waterfalls, moss rocks, and decaying tree trunks and put them in new contexts building imagined landscapes and new worlds. These provide a larger perspective that emphasizes the importance of climate change to even the smallest niches within nature. I give my images an otherworldly appearance to impart distance from the ordinary reality in which these spaces are threatened by global warming and to pay them respect as places of beauty.

I use perspective and scale to magnify tree stumps into craggy cliffs and small waterfalls and streams into mountain cascades. I pause at natural wonders to make images of them to preserve their existence and enlarge their importance as records of what natural beauty can be. I wish to set apart their beauty from threats of climate change by keeping their settings pristine, their surroundings otherworldly, their scale majestic.

As I have unbound myself from representing reality, I have freely expanded the time of the image far beyond the duration of one shutter click, compositing pieces of the landscape with satellite views, stars, and galaxies. A great advantage of making art is the ability to recapitulate reality. A photograph is an opportunity not to copy nature, but to allow the imagination to take one to new places.

I print my own images using archival methods to last, with technical excellence, and in limited editions to increase its value.

My work is exhibited in national and international galleries and has been acquired by noted collectors.

Richard Alan Cohen -

Richard@richardalancohen.com

www.richardalancohen.com

Instagram: @richardalancohen

CLIMATE FALLS #13

LIGHT BECOMES WATER

KATE KNAPP, BLOCK ISLAND

The Chocolate Cupcake

Part 3

Max did complain about Sarah and Albert to the king and the queen that afternoon. His report did not go as he had hoped. He said, “Sire, the guard named Albert and that bad little girl who is always hanging around the museum, God knows why, are making fun of Your Majesties.” His first mistake was to address his remarks to the king, completely ignoring the queen as if she was not even there. The king did not respond, but the queen asked, “There’s some bad girl that hangs around the museum? You aren't perhaps speaking of my dear Sarah, are you?” And as she said this, a very angry expression came across her face, and Max took a step back as he suddenly realized what a stupid thing he was doing.

“She makes fun of you and is not respectful of Your Majesty.”

“Do tell then, give us an example of the things she says.”

“She pretends to be you, Your Majesty, and she yells at Albert as if he was the king.”

“And

so what does she say?”

Now Max was not a very bright person, but he suddenly thought things through in that moment, and he realized that he was about to imitate Sarah saying the king was fat, stupid, and lazy. But it did not matter one bit that he was demonstrating what Sarah had said, the fact was, he was about to speak things that might get a man thrown into prison, or worse. Yes, you see the queen understood what her Sarah was doing: a thing that is called “imitations” at the court, and like a crafty chess player she had cornered Max into a situation where he was unable to say even another word without accidentally insulting the king. Max shook all over with shame and fear, bowed his head and asked humbly to be excused. Max closed the doors to the audience room and walked away down the hall, and he was confused by the sound behind him of the king and the queen’s loud laughter, because there is nothing funnier to a king and a queen than their game of imitations. Try it some time with someone you know well, and you will see exactly what I mean.

Then the king said to one of his guards, “Guard, summon Sarah and that old man, whoever he is, to the throne room AT ONCE THIS INSTANT!”

Meanwhile, back in the museum, in the room of the Paintings of the Most Famous Men, the dog and the bird were playing tic-tac-toe on the parquet floor, using twigs for Xs, and cherries for Os.

A palace guard went to the museum and ordered Albert and Sarah to appear in the throne room AT ONCE. Albert became terrified, but Sarah had a notion of what it was all about, and so she was not especially concerned. She considered that she might get a scolding from the king, but nothing else. But

for Albert, it was a different matter. He knew almost nothing about the king, the queen and the court, and had often heard people gossip about the terrible punishments that were given to people who might have insulted the royal couple. These stories were not true, but that made no difference.

Sarah and Albert headed for the palace, which was quite a distance from the museum, but Albert kept falling behind and Sarah had to stop and wait for him to catch up. Finally Albert simply couldn’t go on, and he stood stock still in the middle of a hallway of the palace, trembling all over with fear. Sarah went up to him and tugged at his sleeve to get his attention. Then she said to him, “The king is kind, the king is good, and the king is just. Repeat that after me.” And Albert did as he was told. Sarah made him say it a second and a third time. Then she explained to him, “What you have said is the truth, so have no fear.” And with another tug on his sleeve, they started up the staircase that led to the king and queen’s audience room.

As they entered, the queen said, “Now young lady, what is this we have been hearing about you making fun of the king and myself over in our museum? It’s not possible that it could be true, is it?” The queen said this to them with a mischievous smile and a look at the king.

“I’m afraid it might be true,” said the king to the queen, “and so I think we must investigate.”

Sarah bowed her head and said in her smallest voice, “It's true Your Majesty.”

“What?!” shouted the king.”

“It’s true, Your Majesties, but we did not mean to be disrespectful,” Sarah said in a slightly more confident voice. Then the king demanded, “Give us an example of what you have been saying about us.”

“All right,” said Sarah, and as she took a pose with one foot extended, she began to tap her foot in time to imaginary music, she folded her arms, rolled her eyes, and looking at the ceiling she said, “The king is fat, lazy and dumb.”

“Wrong!” shouted Albert, and he smacked his hand with his fist.

The king was overcome with pleasure to see himself so well imitated, but Sarah, turning to Albert said, “And so then, what is the king?”

Albert, having no idea what he was supposed to say, stood there confused, but Sarah waved her hand at him, and nodded her head till he understood and shouted out, “The king is kind, the king is good, and the king is just.”

“Just what?” Sarah asked him.

“Just, just, just… just a little fat, as I am, and like a king and an old man must always be.”

Then the king, the queen, Sarah and Albert laughed till they cried, and laughed till they cried again. And over in the museum, the dog and the bird, having finished the game of tic tac toe, started in on a game of checkers on the parquet floor, while some crows and pigeons sitting on the window ledge looked on. The crows wanted the bluejay to win, but the pigeons rooted for Rex, the queen’s dog.

The king and the queen invited Sarah and Albert to have lunch, and while they were eating the queen mentioned that on Friday evening there were theatricals in the court theater. At the theatricals, various members of the court performed short plays they had written. “Nothing longer than ten minutes,” the queen explained, “so the bad ones are over soon enough, and nobody gets bored.”

She also explained that the coming Friday was special because once a year the show was open to the common people, even though very few were ever bold enough to attend.

Then the queen made this proposal. She said, “I want the two of you to write a small play about myself and the king, in which you act out one of our arguments, and show the people how we scream at each other. Will you do it for us?” Albert was dumbfounded by this idea, but Sarah was silent and thoughtful, so the queen asked what she was thinking.

“Your Royal Highness,” she began, “I believe it might have been Max, the other guard, who came here to complain about Albert and me. He had your best interests at heart you know, because he thought that our behavior might be…” and here she chose her words carefully and continued, “misunderstood by some of the common people.”

“Sarah,” said the queen, “you might be right about that, but I so want you to do it. What would you suggest?”

“I think you should tell people our play will be about the king and the queen of Moldavia, and not about you. That way, there is no danger of it being misunderstood.”

“Moldavia? I have never heard of that country, where is it?” said the queen.

“I don’t know,” Sarah replied. “I read about it in a fairytale.”

So, Sarah wrote a play for herself and Albert, and she gave Max, the angry guard, a part in the play, which caused the queen to remark, “Sarah is the most thoughtful, smart and clever child I have ever come across.” And the king replied, “Absolutely,” banging his fist upon the table and pronouncing the word “absolutely” as four separate syllables. Sarah wrote a play in one act. She had never done anything like it before, but her teacher in the farm children’s school helped her a little, and gave her a copy of a Shakespeare play to take home, to study the form. She copied her play out in pencil on paper the queen gave her, but there was the problem of Albert not being able to read, so she decided to teach him to read right away. When she suggested this idea to Albert all he did was tap his foot, fold his arms and look at the ceiling, so she gave up the idea for the time.

Albert memorized his part, and if he forgot anything he was able to make up substitute words, because the play was simple enough. They rehearsed with a setting consisting of a table and two chairs. The table was set with a tablecloth and place settings for dinner. The dinner had to be served by Max, who was to wear a chef's hat and outfit, and stand on the side with a towel over his arm.

Under the table was a red carpet, and Rex had to sit under Sarah’s chair, but they were unable to get rid of the bluejay. If they attempted to shoo the bird away, the pigeons and crows, looking in at the window, created such a racket that they had to give it up and let her stay. Rex and the bird stopped their games during the rehearsals and watched everything with careful attention.

—Richard Britell, July 2023

Richard Britell | Fiction | The Chocolate Cupcake Part 3