Art and Meaning

She Found Her Voice by Gail Crum
from the exhibition 
Uncovered Stories

  If you are a member of the viewing public as opposed to being an   artist,   you may not know that one of the many beautiful things   that art does   is bring meaning to the times. Artists have a way of   looking at the world differently than most people. That quirky way   of   seeing gets   combined with the tools of expression, and the     end   result, the piece of  art, is what you see when you visit an   exhibition like my current   one, Uncovered Stories. 

 In this three-woman exhibition, the fourth one presented by Gail   Crum, Jill Milenski, and me in as many years, much of the work   presented was made during the pandemic last year. Artworks, such   as our trio of altered books made to keep us going and connected,   reflect what was happening just as a contemporaneous journal   written during the Civil War would. You just need to open your   heart to connect to the artwork.

The artists created altered books, which they shared in a 
round robin during the pandemic, to stay connected with 
each other when they couldn't meet.

 

Gail's piece, shown above, finds meaning in  uncovering the beauty in a cast-off cloth doll, which she placed in a glass case she lined with delicate handmade paper. She recasts the broken-down figure, ennobling it with beauty and grace. Indeed, she found her voice.

In her piece, below, Jill combines drawing, painting and  collage to create Doorways Into the Past, a piece that contemplates the joys and perils of raising a teenager during the pandemic. It's both fraught and wistful at the same time, and certainly something any parent can relate to.

Doorways Into the Past by Jill Milenski, as
seen in Uncovered Stories.

    Jill has made nearly two dozen pieces in this series,   exploring the rabbit hole of feelings, finding new   expressions every time. This is another beautiful aspect of   art, this time reserved for the maker of art. Yes, the viewer   reaps the benefits of the rabbit hole journeys, but for the   artist, long series such as this one, lead not only to deep   personal meaning, they create breakthroughs in one's   work  that forge new paths and create new challenges. It's   an exciting place to be.

  One of my own series relates to home and houses. I   started both drawing and constructing them as   assemblages about five years ago, when we were working   on an exhibition entitled Memories Evoked: Circling   Back  Home. In addition to teensy little oil pastel   drawings  of houses on top of boxes, I added sticks   stitched in place. I even created one large piece from an   old dresser drawer. Called Pink House, it was almost a     3-D  diorama of my childhood home. I put legs from an   old television on the bottom and an old rabbit ears   antennae on the top. I love that piece, which I still have.

Traveler by Gayle Pritchard, as seen in 
Uncovered Stories.

As I was preparing for my current exhibition, I started working on several new house drawings for my series, including Traveler, left. The two-dimensional wooden house is mounted on another piece of wood replete with my ubiquitous marks. A sort of map is nailed to the bottom, the "ground" area, and a beach stick is attached at the bottom. My oldest brother died as I was completing it, so I decided to dedicate the piece to him. I added the word cut from an old dictionary, traveler, as a sort of send-off for his soul. The map will help him find his way. Traveler is also a metaphor for his Irish blood; he had even more Irish DNA than the rest of his siblings, and one of our Irish surnames is a "traveler" name. Rest in peace, my brother.

So, these are just a few of the ways that artists both find and create meaning for the rest of the world to contemplate. I am grateful for the task.

Anticipation: Before Everything Else, Getting Ready

Gail Crum, Jill Gray Milenski and Gayle Pritchard created  

more than a hundred artworks in preparation for Memories 

Evoked: Circling Back Home. The exhibition is on view now

through March 12, 2017  at the Beck Center for the Arts, 

17801 Detroit Rd., Lakewood, Ohio.

To quote Henry Ford, "Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success." If that proves true, the opening of my artist group's three woman exhibition, Memories Evoked: Circling Back Home, should be a smashing success! It has been two years in the making, and the three of us have created over 100 artworks for the show. Last Friday we got all the work together to have a look before the artwork was installed in the gallery. Our take-away: impressive work, ladies!

As the Artist's Opening Reception approaches, March 4 at 6 p.m., we are seeing our exhibition proposal come to life. Here is the idea we submitted two years ago, the core of what motivated us to work toward this day for years:

For two decades, three artists with a shared aesthetic have met together, grown and supported each other. Though the artists express themselves through media as diverse as painting, assemblage and fiber, these three women share a passion for found objects, ephemera and colors chosen to give voice to the subject matter they explore here: memories evoked.  

In her work, Gail Crum rescues the unwanted and re-purposes the odd and discarded. Jill Milenski’s colorful imagery juxtaposes the idealized version of childhood with the reality of modern parenting. Gayle Pritchard integrates story-telling with fiber, paint, stitches and the written word in work that seeks to examine the past as a way to heal the present.

The artists met in a workshop Pritchard had developed to explore the process of imbuing ordinary objects with meaning. Twenty years later, these women have come full circle.  Together their diverse backgrounds in the business world, academia and art and their shared experiences as women in a complex world find confluence in the evocative and personal viewpoint each artist presents in the work displayed in this exhibition. 

Gail writes down titles of artworks that we have grouped
together for the upcoming installation in the gallery.

If you live nearby, we sure hope you can join us on March 4. If not, stay tuned for pictures of the installation and the opening. 

Preparing to Exhibit

Painting fabric for "Fear of Flying:

My house is an absolute mess at the moment. Not only do I have to finish tax paperwork for my company, but I am in deadline mode for an upcoming exhibition. (Details are on my Upcoming Events page.) My desk in my office is covered with paper receipts, and my kitchen table has neat little piles of paper ready for entry into my computer. My studio tables are full with almost-finished pieces, bits and parts here and there, waiting to be put in place. The overflow from my large studio pieces sit on my dining room table, where it is easier to walk around the large works as I finish them. When I was younger, it seemed easier to juggle so many "to-do" items at once. Now it's harder. I need to rest more. Everything takes more time.

My vision board from last year

That said, today I am giving myself a gift of time. I am taking the afternoon with my daughter and several close friends to make a vision board for the coming year. My daughter is our guide. She first learned to create a Vision Board in the context of a Native American women's circle she was fortunate to sit with for many years. She will be sharing some of those teachings about the tribal Medicine Wheel as we create our own visions for the year to come.

It is important to give yourself time to think and plan, no matter how busy you are. For me, having dedicated time for myself scheduled into my calendar works well. I am looking forward to some quiet meditation today as I chart my course for the coming year.

Detail of my assemblage, in progress