Winter painting. Print experiments. Seeing Bisa Butler's work.
February highlights include updates to my website, experimenting with giclée prints, and seeing the premier museum of black history and culture in the United States.
Hello friends,
Welcome to this latest installment of my monthly art newsletter. My objective with this newsletter is to show you art I’ve made and other art I’ve seen and am inspired by.
Read on for my thoughts about recent paintings I’ve worked on so far this winter, my new experiment with giclée prints, and a recent visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
WINTER PAINTINGS
During the month of January I painted every day as part of the Strada Easel online challenge. The goal (and requirement to complete the challenge) was to paint from life every day of the month, and post the output on Instagram or Facebook. Considering the cold, winter weather where I live in New England I chose to paint indoors in my studio. I certainly admired others who painted outside despite living in other cold climates like mine, but I chose the path of least resistance this time.
As a result I painted a lot of fruit, pottery, and flowers. I enjoyed this challenge, and It led me to paint several items for the first time, such as bananas (surprisingly difficult), and more pears (my favorite fruit to paint).
Check out a few examples of my recent still-life paintings here, and you can see more examples and images on my website.
I added 16 new pieces to my website recently, and I will continue to add new work in the coming days. I have a backlog I’m working through, with about 20 more pieces yet to be added. Please note that I won’t be able to ship any orders until the week of March 20th. If something catches your eye, you are welcome to purchase now and I will ship to you by the end of March.
ART PRINTS
In preparation for Somerville Open Studios, coming up later this spring (May 4-5), I am experimenting with some giclée prints (pronounced jee-clay, I had to look this up in order to write about it!). This printing format refers to a technique specific to fine art prints and results in an image printed with high color quality on archival paper. I would like to offer these for sale alongside my original paintings during the open studios event in May.
I recently chose three paintings to test as prints. Step one was to photograph the paintings, which I do anyway for uploading to my website. I use a digital camera to create images I might print, and I use my iPhone for images I use online. iPhone images are easy to work with and a smaller file size, meaning they load faster on my website. When it comes to printing, however, I want the highest quality file possible and that comes from the digital camera. The biggest factor I try to control for is lighting. About a year ago, I bought some official looking photography lights.
I’m working now with the images I took with my camera, and testing out how the files work for prints. It will take a few more weeks to get the results back from the printer, but I’m glad to learn more in this area.
MUSEUM STOP
My husband and I recently passed through Washington, D.C. and had some time to see a couple of museums. Our first stop was the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which neither of us had been to previously. Like we do at most museums, we took the elevator to the top floor, and worked our way down. The top floor exhibit includes a variety of contemporary art by a wide range of artists. One artist that stayed with me, and who I read more about afterward is Bisa Butler, a fiber and textile artist known for quilted portraits. Her piece depicting Harriet Tubman was incredibly striking and based on a nineteenth century portrait of Tubman found only in 2017. The piece is called I Go to Prepare a Place for You, and it is part of the museum’s permanent collection.
A note about the museum itself: the floors above ground feature a wide range of achievements by black Americans in the arts, entertainment, and music as well as sports, business, and the military. In the three levels below ground, the museum presents the origins of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the resulting centuries of international and domestic trade in enslaved people. Starting at the bottom floor, and working upward, museum visitors move forward in time through the events of the Civil War and eventually the civil rights movement. The foundation of the museum is built upon slavery. And the top floors of the museum showcase achievements despite and amidst the horrors of the past.
By coincidence I saw Butler’s art a second time, two days later at the University of Florida Harn Museum of Art, located in Gainesville. (Side note: we drove from Massachusetts to Florida over a few days time, and are working remotely for a month to escape part of the New England winter. More about my forthcoming Florida paintings will appear in a future newsletter.)
Butler’s piece Mannish Boy is inspired by the 1955 song “Mannish Boy” by the blues musician Muddy Waters, which is about racism in the Jim-Crow-era South. Like so much of Butler’s work this piece is based off of a historical photograph, and also inspired by the 1968 Civil Rights poster campaign “I Am a Man.” The piece emphasizes the challenges of black manhood, which is reflected in the serious expression on the subject’s face.
This March 2023 article in The New York Times shows images and videos of the artist working in her studio. After reading more about Butler and her career, a few ideas stuck with me:
She was classically trained as a painter, and early in her career moved into quilting and fiber art. It’s unique to see these two skills blended in this way, which has resulted in something striking and new.
As someone interested in history, I appreciate the historical themes which occur throughout Butler’s body of work. All of her pieces are a provocation, and an invitation to think more deeply about the subject at hand.
Not only are these quilted images based on significant people and moments in black history, but the material and fabric patterns Butler uses are also specific to various African cultures and diaspora communities. The final result is something thoroughly layered with meaning and symbolism.
THANK YOU!
Thanks for reading this far! And thanks for subscribing to my newsletter. I’ll send out another post in mid-March.