Color, Surface, Structure

Digital Photograph from the series
Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative (Who Could and Couldn't Marry Whom)
My Family Constellation (1953/1964)

Scanning the studio in search of an appropriate material, my eyes landed on a package of wood shims, those inexpensive sticks used to stir paint, level, etc. In a moment of serendipity, I realized they were precisely the material - the perfect medium - to translate the paper ‘bookmarks’ (above left) into a three-dimensional structure/surface for oil paint. After putting these two photographs side by side on Instagram, I realized I enjoy seeing the inherent variations in the natural tones of unpainted wood. Still, I'm eager to work with oil pigments on this new series of shim constructions (stay tuned:). The pattern suggests weaving, yet the stacks of shims are actually stepped. It seems I’m perpetually working out the relationship of color and surface to structure.

Self Portrait In the Glass

Just now as I'm posting this self portrait, I realized the reflection on the glass is a metaphor for the 'social mirror' - the ways in which our identities are partially and mutually constructed by the perceptions and projections of those around us. But the looking glass itself is often problematic.











Digital Photograph, June 28, 2016
(Includes image of: Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative (Who Could and Couldn't Marry Whom): Castoffs, 2015
Courtesy of Harry H. Laughlin Collection, Special Collections Department, Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University

FACULTY EXHIBITION

University of Maryland - Department of Art

November 2nd - December 11th, 2015

 

Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative: 
Who Could and Couldn’t Marry Whom - Fluidity
Collage, paper
2015

(Portraits and text courtesy of Harry H. Laughlin Collection

Special Collections Department, Pickler Memorial Library

Truman State University)

IMPLICIT BIAS

Joan Hisaoka Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts

and Busboys and Poets

September 18th - December 5th, 2015

The 'Flower of Life' as a Mixed Race Narrative:

a Yin-Yang Theory of the Life Cycle, Color and

Identity (the One Drop Rule is not a Two-Way Street)

XII and XXiV

Cut outs, paper
2015
(in the middle, work by Tim Davis)

Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative:
Who Could and Couldn't Marry Whom - Castoffs
Collage and cut paper
2015
(Portraits and text courtesy of Harry H. Laughlin Collection, Special Collections Department,
Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University)

IN THE REALM OF FORMS

Pearl Conard Gallery at Ohio State University - Mansfield

November 9th - December 8th, 2015

Reception and Curator's Talk: Monday, November 9th: 12:30 - 1:30 pm

Magic Garden Series, III

from Quilting the Waterway

folded, sewn paper cups, monofilament thread

on handmade paper

2004

Maryland Public TV

Works from "Embodying the Ephemeral" are included in a 20-30 second Pop-Up on MPT -
watch the entire episode or fast forward to 15:40 to catch it!!!

Catching up! Artist's Talk...

    ...at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art's Luce Center, Washington, D.C.

    Sunday, October 26, 2014

Catching up! Washington Post Review...

...by Mark Jenkins...

Upcoming Exhibition

EMBODYING THE EPHEMERAL

Flashpoint Gallery - Cultural DC

916 G Street

Washington, D.C.

October 17th - November 15th, 2015

Reception: Friday, October 15th, 6 - 8 p.m.

A review of "STREAM"

Just reading this now...somehow missed it earlier....


Rutland Herald (VT)

April 3, 2014
Section: FEATURES

Visual art review: 'Stream' - A meditative mix
Victoria Crain, Arts Correspondent

Right now, stepping into the Castleton Downtown Gallery is a serene experience. Artists Shelley Warren and Leslie Berns are presenting an exhibit called "Stream" that features multi-media installations of surpassing quiet. Their pieces incorporate both sound and motion filled with peace, inviting a visitor to sit for several moments - to see and hear a series of meditative video presentations, some superimposed on sculpture. "Stream" will be on exhibit through April 26.
A public artists' reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 4.

Berns and Warren studied together at Yale University School of Art and Architecture, Berns earning a MFA in painting, Warren an MFA in sculpture. Their collaboration for the current exhibit is serendipitous because they share a reverent and genuine approach to the content of their work.

Warren writes that the exhibit suggests that we consider an art where "self-expression is less about the individual ego and more about cultivating a higher self in harmony with the environment."
Warren's mixed media pieces incorporate her serene, still sculptures with the graceful motion and sound of Buddhist meditation laid over them like a veil. Although the activity in these pieces occurs in front of a viewer, the experience of seeing them is more like being covered in sound and energetic stillness.  "The main focus of my work is to bring together the practices of meditation, ritual and art.
I have devoted nearly 40 years in an attempt to understand and merge my inner experience and the outer environment, to be one and the same; these sculptures are, in essence, offerings and a meditative process. Using video as a medium, I then superimpose the sculptures with the visual documentation of these rituals; my attempt is to evoke a transformative occurrence."

Berns's "Grounding" is a photographic performance piece. Berns is seated on a small island, a stream flowing around her, and retrieves black tiles from her black garment, arranging them around herself in a circle. The seasons change, the stream passes her quietly, she inverts the tiles, depicting her personal meditation on time and change.

"Grounding" is a work-in-progress which ultimately will include a full year's seasons: nature's circle. Berns states that her work follows the recurring theme of transforming the duality of either/or thinking, by closely observing change.

These artists have transformed the gallery into a meditative space softened by a stream, a breeze on leaves, and chanting. The ambient awe makes being there a unique gallery experience.

Castleton Downtown Gallery presents "Stream: Recent work by Leslie Berns and Shelley Warren, March 26-April 26, in Center Street Alley, Rutland. Hours are: 1 to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; for information, call William Ramage, 802-468-1266, or email castletoncollegegalleries@gmail.com.
A public artists' reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 4.

Copyright, 2014, Rutland Herald

The Art of Caring

AREA 405's Auction and Reception to benefit CASA of Baltimore was a tremendous success!  About a hundred artists donated work.  Art sales, in-kind donations and corporate sponsorship totaled approximately $120,000.  One of my collages from my project Quilting the Waterway sold.  Now that's something I feel really good about!  Many, many thanks to Stewart Watson and the team at AREA 405 for hosting and organizing a great event.
 

 

AREA 405 Silent Auction

"Magic Garden Series, XVIII", 2004, folded dixie cups on handmade paper, 27" x 36"

'STREAM' - April 4th - April 26th, 2014 - Installation Shots

 

'STREAM' - Two-Person Exhibition

STREAM, a two-person show I have with Shelley Warren, will be on view in Rutland, Vermont for another ten days.  Many thanks to Lisa Austin for proposing the exhibit around the theme of Art and Spirituality.  While there installing the pieces I also gave a slide talk on my work to the Art Department at Castleton College and met a lot of great people!
Here's a link to an installation shot from the show (more photos coming soon....)

Downtown Rutland

Passage down to Gallery

The Castleton Downtown Gallery

Castleton College

Slide talk went well (complete with the usual technology glitches at the start. Thanks for the help, Bill and Karen!)

Stream along the way between the College and the Bed and Breakfast, Castleton, Vermont

The quintessentially charming Applewood Manor Bed and Breakfast.

Light-Years (Near and Distant Stars)

I am getting very close to finishing this piece! It's made up of twelve drawings that I began working on years ago, literally, as a daily, mostly morning meditation, usually for short periods, fifteen to thirty minutes at a time.  I sit my body down and through 'coloring', still my mind.  (As a child I loved to color.)  The present moment in time slowly comes into focus.  Thoughts and feelings gradually inhabit a quiet space and a meaningful direction in harmony with the day - the present - is sensed, intuited, apprehended.

Some 'keys' to the drawings:

  1 ring       =    12 months
  2 rings     =    24 months
  3 rings     =    36 months
  4 rings     =    48 months
  5 rings     =    60 months
  6 rings     =    72 months
  7 rings     =    84 months
  8 rings     =    96 months
  9 rings     =  108 months
10 rings     =  120 months
11 rings     =  132 months
12 rings     =  144 months

I chose a seemingly more random order for the drawings (than the list above) because the composition looks more spatially dynamic, kind of like pulsating stars.  And it also seems more similar to the way I actually experience the simultaneity of time, whether it's thinking about the past, being in the present or anticipating the future.  (It's also helped me to better understand and appreciate Pythagoras who theorized that the essence of the universe is found in numbers.)

In my mind, the months best correspond with the colors below, according to temperature.

January      -  Blue
February    -  Blue-Green
March        -  Green
April          -  Yellow-Green
May           -  Yellow
June           -  Yellow-Orange
July            -  Orange
August       -  Red-Orange
September  -  Red
October      -  Red-Purple
November  -  Purple
December   - Blue-Purple

I recall beginning the very first one of these drawings in order to work out the colors of the months and seasons for another ongoing (and ongoing!) project I began in 1997 - 'Kinder Quilts'.  These began out of the impulse to document my kids' growth and development and to 'map' the unfolding of their lives, while teaching them "Out of Many, One" - a 'rainbow color theory' of race and identity.

It's not apparent in the photograph of the drawings (back at the very top) but each image is 'framed' with layers of black Arches paper....

More 'Mountains' of Grief

The Parents, 1923
Kathe Kollwitz

Michelangelo's Pieta, 1499

Kathe Kollwitz
Mother with her Dead Son
Installed 1993 in the Neue Wache
Berlin, Germany

The Parents

The Parents, 1923

Came across this today while teaching drawing to young'uns (teens).  

As I was showing them a book on Kathe Kollwitz (Kollwitz again, see older post re: Newtown),

I saw this image upside down.  

The overall shape-quality embodies a 'mountain' of grief.  

The abstraction is so concrete, descriptive and expressive. 

 A woodcut about the loss of children to war.  

Today I think of Trayvon Martin's parents, and all parents who have lost children to gun violence.

Their grief, our grief, is embodied and recognizable here, almost 100 years later. 

Might Art play a part in the movement against gun violence?

(As I teach, the young'uns teach me.)

More Energy Fields - Ode to Schlemmer and Athena Tacha

Athena Tacha - Mathias Baldwin Park, Philadelphia

For various reasons, I googled 'southern California beach art' (!) 

and came across this image of energy fields (top).  Coincidentally, 

the environmental artist, Athena Tacha, a colleague and friend, 

has a show opening tomorrow at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery 

here in D.C.  Along with drawings, etc., it includes 

photographs of the project above.

Grief and sorrow - Expressionism.

Kathe Kollwitz - "Woman with Dead Child", 1903, etching

Mary Wigman - Hexentanz

Mary Wigman - "Hexentanz" (choreographed 1914, filmed 1930)

A couple of weeks ago while teaching Expressionist theory, well before the unimaginable tragedy in Newtown, CT, I realized there were connections to be made between the figures in Kollwitz's etching and Mary Wigman's "Hexentanz" (Witch Dance).  Both women sit on the ground.  Kollwitz's woman, with dancer's feet, could be the performer in Wigman's film, and vice versa.  In the etching, the mother looks part lioness, just as Wigman's 'witch' is animal-like.  Gesture in both pieces, so similar, expresses the innermost feelings of primal, intense grief, loss, anguish.

Hope to see you!

Recent Cut Paper Drawing with various other 'sketches'

"Vine Lines I" (Santa Monica Series) - 11" x 17"

O P E N
  
S T U D I O


Saturday, December 8th, 2012
1:00 - 5:00 p.m.


ez Storage Studios
4303 Rhode Island Ave.
Brentwood, MD 20722

more info

a Limited Edition

of ArtWare:

Nature- and Photo-Based Placemats that bring the Landscape to the Tabletop

Schlemmer's Energy Fields

Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet, etc.