One afternoon, not so long ago, I encountered three amazing images of women. In each, a woman wears a special head covering.  The first came from a posting by my photographer friend, Ulas Tosun.  It presents a woman he photographed wearing wonderfully colorful clothing.  Hers is the face of an older woman, strong and showing signs of a life lived with determination. 

I was taken by her strong stance and I loved all the patterns and color.  I thought it would be wonderful to be up close enough to paint her portrait.  Those eyes and the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth would be wonderful to try to get down on canvas.  Hers, I am sure, would be an important story to tell.  And then, there was the invitation to handle the posture as well as Picasso did in his large classical figures and to present the color and patterns with the inspiration of Matisse and his odalisques.

Just hours after finding Ulas' photograph, I found myself in front of the magnificent painting of the Visitation by Pontormo, the Italian Renaissance painter; on view at the Morgan Library and Museum, from September 7, 2018, to January 6, 2019.  Standing just under seven feet tall in recently restored brilliant color, it is quite a painting to encounter. 

Sitting there, looking up, way up, I was in awe of the canvas, wanting to take in as much of it as I could.  And then, suddenly, my eyes stopped and fixed on the woman in the background of the painting.  She was in the background but swiftly moving to the center of my focus.  The woman with the grey green veil on her head. most likely accompanying Elizabeth, the older cousin, to her meeting with Mary, called to me.  She seemed to be saying:  "Don't you recognize me?"  She did indeed remind me of the woman in Ulas' photo.  Younger perhaps and of a different time and place but equally compelling.  She was already in a painting, a magnificent painting but I wanted to paint her again.

Those two images should have been enough for one afternoon.  But then, on the way home, dealing with a bus that took too long in traffic, I found myself on Facebook with an another amazing woman.  Debra Rapoport posted the photograph below of a woman draped in a variety of kinds of netting.  Again, there are the eyes so filled with life, the suggestion of a wise smile, and the covering of the head.  Clearly, she is looking at me, and at you.

I have invited each of these women to my studio.   I am not sure what will happen as I try to engage them in an art project, but last week's drawing exercise while working with Ulas' photo gives me hope.

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          An art exhibition was not as important in sending us to Oaxaca; as the Derain, Balthus, and Giacometti exhibit was in launching our trip to France.  Nonetheless, another museum show did provide a strong second for our decision to travel to a new part of Mexico.  Many friends had encouraged us to branch out beyond San Miguel de Allende and spend some time in Oaxaca: "If you like San Miguel, you will love Oaxaca."  Friends' words were resoundingly supported at a lovely show at the Yale University Art Gallery last summer,  Small-Great Objects:  Anni and Josef Albers in the Americas.  This was an exhibition of pieces of art that the Albers, an artist couple -- she, an esteemed textile artist; he, an esteemed painter -- had collected in their travels in Mexico and South America.  The Albers had loved Mexico, especially Oaxaca, for its art, grand Prehispanic ruins, food, weather, and friends with whom they enjoyed life in a very special way.
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          The exhibit contained beautiful pieces of sculpture and textiles, alongside examples of art by Anni and Josef Albers that their collection had inspired.  Also to accompany the show, Yale University provided charming audiotapes by Anni Albers describing their love of Mexico to which they travelled many times in their lives,  over a period of thirty years beginning in 1935.   

​          Many things stopped me in my tracks as I toured the exhibit.  Anni's textiles, with which I was less familiar than her husband's paintings, were stunning in their beauty and link to the weavings and other art forms she had found in Mexico.  Josef's paintings, set along side photographs he had taken of Mexican homes, made really clear the connections between his iconic square paintings and what he had seen when he looked at Mexican windows and doors.  

          How lucky were we to be going to a place that had so captivated these wonderful artists and stirred their imaginations.
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No one had prepared us for this.  We needed to understand more about what was happening.  Yes, we knew about the hugely important teacher strike that had happened in 2006, and occasional later incidents of protest; but we were completely ignorant of the significant political activity that had continued without a break.  Getting hold of an explanation was not easy.  We asked all sorts of people about what was happening in the Zócalo, we got back shrugs, tired looks, and "Something is happening in the Zócalo?"  It was clear that whatever it was, it was not sitting easily with the people we asked.  We sensed ambivalence and sadness. 

       Later in the week, we went back to the square.  Some of the housing structures had been removed and we could see parts of an open public space.  As our friends had recommended, we sat at a café and watched life but we were amongst just a handful of visitors.  It was also now easier to see the many large banners of protest and also to notice the many groups of young people.  They met in circles to discuss what seemed to be issues very important to them.  They formed a kind of university of the public square.  I am sure these young people could have taught me a lot about what was happening at the Zócalo but my poor Spanish language skills kept me from joining them.  

       Hopefully, when we return (and we will), my Spanish will be better.

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       A very positive review in the Moon Oaxaca travel guide by Justin Henderson required that our first day include a visit to the "exceptional bookstore, Libreria Amate."  This store is a goldmine of English language books on things Mexican -- Mexican art, history, literature, cooking, archeology, anthropology, and more.  A special table held English translations of books by contemporary Mexican authors, books like the splendid The Story of My Teeth, by Valeria Luiselli.  Special shelves held a wonderful collection of books about the past and current social, cultural, and political situation of Oaxaca.  Looking at these, I knew I was getting closer to understanding where I was.  I thought that the person who knew to order and stock these books could tell me a lot about Oaxaca.  That person was the owner of the shop, Henry Wangeman.  He wasn't there on our first or second visit, but I sent him an email with my questions and we found him on our third visit.  I was right.  He knew and was willing to share a lot of his experiences in Oaxaca, on the teachers' strikes and much more, like the crisis around corn and local peoples' efforts to reverse the horrible effects of not using Mexican corn seeds.   

       Conversations with Henry were gifts.  Before we met him, we knew we would soon be returning to Oaxaca; but after spending time listening to him, I knew we would return with our eyes open wider.  On our last visit to the store, I purchased a book called Teaching Rebellion:  Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca, edited by Diana Denham and C.A.S.A Collective, published by PM Press, in 2008.  The book is a collection of testimonies by twenty-three people -- activists, schoolteachers, students, housewives, children, organizers, artists, journalists, religious and union leaders, journalists -- who participated in the 2006 movement for social justice in Oaxaca and what became known as the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca.  These are wonderful stories about life in a time of great change, told by those living it.  If I were still teaching, I would ask my students to read this book.

       Henry's store was not our only interaction with books in Oaxaca.  Here is a delightful photograph I took of the facade of the public bibliotheca/library on Alcalá.  It is never too late to read.
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       Several times on our trip, I was taken with the extent to which Mexican artists give back to their communities.  They go far beyond the donation of individual artworks.  Artists in Oaxaca create and give whole new spaces for others, spaces in which others can enjoy the awe of creativity.  Indeed, they make and give niches.  The extraordinary generosity with funds and time and the deep connections between artists and their communities are quite different from what I have come to know of artists in the U.S.  
     
      Our first encounter with this wonderful phenomenon was the Museo Arte Prehispanico de Rufino Tamayo.  Tamayo, a famous Mexican artist, not only donated his entire collection of more than 1,000 pieces of pre-Columbian art to his hometown of Oaxaca City.  He also renovated an important 18th century structure to house the collection.  Tamayo intended each piece which he carefully selected for its aesthetic and emotionally expressive qualities to teach his community about the diversity and skill of their ancestors who had created the work.  His message reaches all of us.  I took lots of photographs in this space.  Here are a few 0f my favorites.

       In Ocotlan, a village not far from Oaxaca City, we found the remarkable contributions of the artist, Rudolfo Morales.  The internationally known artist gave his fortune to his hometown.  Among the many churches and other public buildings he restored are the Templo de Santo Domingo and the main municipal building that also includes his frescoes.  His foundation, based at the Casa Cultural Rudolfo Morales, continues to fund a variety of educational, environmental, artistic, and community projects.

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        And then there is the amazing Francisco Toledo who is still with us, and whose name came up in connection with so many attempts to improve life for people in Oaxaca.  I made a list of his projects but I know it is missing many items.  The first I encountered was the Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca that he founded.  He donated the colonial building in which it sits and the amazing art library that is said to house anywhere from 25,000 to 66,000 volumes and a collection of at least 7,000 prints.  It was a great place to visit, filled with students pouring over wonderful texts.  There were also many students present in Etla, San Augustin, just outside of Oaxaca City.  There, Toledo renovated an old textile factory and created a great cultural center, exhibition space, and art school.
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        It was hard to find in Oaxaca City a museum with which he was not connected.  For example, he was key in the founding of the Photographic Center, Centro de Fotografia Manuel Alvarez Bravo and the contemporary art museum, Museo de los Paintores Oaxaquenos.

       But his influence does not stop with art.  One of the most impressive gardens I have ever visited, rich with historical and cultural significance, is the Ethnobotanical Garden nearby the Templo Santo Domingo.  With others, Toledo was responsible for securing the site and the creation of this garden.

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​Be sure not to miss the wonderful cultural and historical center, Centro Cultural Domingo (right next door to the Ethnobotanical Garden).  Beautiful buildings, a museum chock full of wonderful pieces, great concerts in the cloister, and very special exhibitions of contemporary art.  

   
​     What a sky over one of John Singer Sargent's most impressive painting spots!  We had less than a full day in Paris before we headed south, but we used it well.  This photo is from our long and easy stroll in the Luxembourg Gardens (long and easy, that is, until we got busted by a cute Paris policeman who told us dogs were allowed only in one small quadrant of the Gardens).  The photo shows the wonderful weather that blessed us through our two week stay.  No need for those turtlenecks or umbrellas that we packed.

     Early the next morning, on a Sunday in Paris without cars but thankfully, with taxis; we left from the Gare de Lyon on the fast and comfortable TGV train to Avignon.  Here is a view of the train station from Ula's perspective:

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       They sure look happy, don't they?  Well, we were all very happy.  The view from the train was stunning.  Morning clouds lifted to reveal a bright blue sky.  Field after field was a beautiful green.  So special is how in the midst of vast green expanses and masses of trees, small clusters of village buildings emerge.  It all looks just right.  The placement of the trees on the landscape, the purple mountains in the distance, etc. --- it is like a perfect still life arrangement.  There are even scattered gatherings of white cows, perfect inspiration for the painting I am working on.  David read, Suzanne wrote and sketched, and Ula gathered her thoughts.  Here is some of what Ula was thinking on that train ride:

       "I did it again.  I wowed them with my great travel skills.  Suzanne put me in my red bag at JFK and didn't take me out until we left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.  Not a peep was heard from me on that flight, not even when that noisy baby was crying and crying.  I am now doing my calm and quiet routine on the train.  I love it when taxi drivers and train conductors tell me that I am the best dog traveler they have ever met.  About Paris, I like it so far.  I can sit outside in cafes and restaurants where very efficient waiters bring me handsome bowls of water (l'eau sans gas).  French dogs seem nice.  A quick hello is okay for them and their owners, not like New York where dogs and their owners have hurt feelings if I don't want to sniff and play forever.  Sylvie's apartment in Paris is big with just enough places for me to settle into.  It has good smells.  The cat, Theo, who lived there for many years. must have had a good life.  So now, we are off to Provence.  They tell me there is a big, friendly dog there.  We will see how that goes.  In the meantime, we travel.  I watch Suzanne.  She sure does love these landscapes!"

     We all stayed very happy on the train until about 2:45.  Then, everything stopped.  We came to a halt at an unscheduled station.  An announcement:  An incident requiring police intervention was changing everything on all the trains.  No trains were being allowed in or out of Marseille station (our train's final stop).  No one knew how long we would be kept from moving.  What had been a very quiet car came to life.  Just about everyone began consulting their phones and other devices.  People shared news.  The incident involved stabbings at the train station in Marseille, two young women were killed, the police had gunned down one man, the accused.  The level of tension on the train was high.  There have been too many incidents like this one in France and elsewhere.  As hours passed, the car became quiet again.  We sat and waited, David read, I wrote and drew, including a little notebook sketch of David reading.  
   

          The week of jazz was even more wonderful than David the drummer had hoped it would be.  David, the American jazz student on the sax, six French musicians from the area, and Roni Ben-Hur, the wonderful teacher and coach for all, played a lot together.  Every morning after breakfast, every afternoon after lunch, and every evening after dinner, they jammed.  They worked on a set of jazz standards and some Brazilian music.  At the end of the week, the ensemble presented a concert.  Philippe and Marie Edith's home filled with jazz enthusiasts.  Friends and neighbors came even from a distance for the celebration.  Everyone contributed a pot luck dish as part of the amazing sharing that occurred (as David put it while watching people join the party:  "I haven't seen so much kissing since high school").  The concert was a hit.  
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            While David played the drums, I drew.   Some pencils and pens, a little bit of watercolor paint, my trusty art dog by my side, a simply gorgeous landscape --- it doesn't get much better than this.  Here is some of what I saw, and pages from my notebook with some of what I tried to make of what I saw. 

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          And there was more than music playing and drawing.  We ate and drank incredibly well, and often.  Marie Edith ran a very special restaurant in Uzes for a number of years.  And that shows in the skill, creativity, organization and care that she puts into every meal -- special beef and chicken daubes, magret de canard, foie gras, oysters and mussels, pates, special anchovy ceviche; and so on.  In the evenings, we ate together indoors, but lunch was usually outdoors, out under the trees with a lovely breeze and bright sun beyond the shade of our table.  Thankfully, for the sake of our bodies, we also got in some exercise.  I knew I would be doing QiGong with my friend GAP. in Paris, but I was delightfully surprised to find QiGong -- two different classes -- near the small town of Vers.  Musicians and non-musicians went to find Qi and did.  We also had some wonderful opportunities for touring.  Two of them were to the market in Uzes.
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          At the beginning and end of the exhibition are quotations that stopped me in my tracks.  The first of these is from Giacometti, writing in 1967.

                         "All of the art of the past, every age, every civilization, arises before me, everything is                                simultaneous as if space were taking the place of time."
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Indeed, what is displayed in first rooms of the exhibit show that these supreme modernists had a special connection to the art of the past.  They were not overthrowing the past; but finding new ways to let their art be energized by the past.  Giacometti draws wonderful copies of classical sculptures, Derain is said to have been converted by the art he saw in Rome, Balthus discovers Piero della Francesca.  All three discover the marvels of art from Oceania and Africa.   Most touching for me were Balthus' copies of Piero's frescoes for The Legend of the True Cross series. 

I love that in the midst of this most classical of paintings, in its upper left hand corner, one finds what could be the beginning of a  wonderful modern abstract painting. 

          In the second major section of the exhibit, a section called "Silent Lives," one sees the three artists confronting nature and physical reality in landscapes, still life, and figures.  As they confront reality, they also break with it.  To make art, they connect with but then leave nature in order to show us how hard they work to perceive it; and to create, not a natural truth, but a pictorial truth.  Giacometti's work best exemplifies for me the struggle to perceive and then depict his acts of perceiving.  His tangle of lines reveals both the difficulty and his determination to put down on canvas the image of another person or thing.

          Balthus paints a still life not as a mirror to someone's real life tabletop, but as Balthus' own unique story of tabletops, and of home as a domestic space.  His is a story about violence, explicit and below the surface violence.  Think about the image below in comparison with what you usually think of as still life painting.  I didn't want to get up too close to this one.

          Relevant to these artist's connection to the broader culture is the extensive amount of work -- scenery, costumes, etc., that each of them did for the theater and dance.  Here is Giacometti's tree for Waiting for Godot.  Once you see it, it is hard to imagine a production of the Beckett play without it.

          The importance of the participation of these artists in a very active and distinctive community of artists at the beginning of the 20th century cannot be overstated.  The consequences of the sharing that went on between artists was brought home again to me in a museum show we saw later in the week.  At the Marmottan Museum, the museum dedicated to Monet (1840-1926), we saw an exhibition of Monet as collector.  The rooms were filled with a hundred or so paintings and other pieces of art by other artists that Monet had purchased, received, exchanged, and collected while he was alive.  Paintings reveal artists visiting each other, painting each other's portraits, and influencing each other.  This exhibit allows for a close look at the life and work of Monet and also the larger artistic setting of which he was a part.  It shows art as an interpersonal as well as deeply individual pursuit.  It makes the point about art and friendship in a period of time just before that of the Modern Museum show.  It also shows the danger of the categories we often impose upon art, categories that mark boundaries between work we call "academic," "impressionist," modern."  Monet's connections with and collections of other artists show that artists themselves regularly cross over those boundaries.

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          "Time Stands Still in the Studio" was the only room that showed significant whimsy.  The curator, Jacqueline Munck, gets close here to both the artistic process and the artists' understanding of what happens in the studio.  She puts two wonderful quotations on the wall.  One by Giacometti, and the other by Balthus who describes what it is like to be in Giacometti's studio.

                    "Inside the studio ... the creative process with its retouches, its restarts, and its acts of                              destruction, stands apart from the passage of time."   Giacometti, 1956

                    "The studio is the work place ... the place for crafting...I remember Giacometti's.
                 Magical, cluttered with objects, materials, papers, and that general impression of being in the                     close proximity of secrets."   Balthus, 2001

           I think that this painting/self-portrait by Derain of the artist in his studio reveals some of his secrets.  The painting is filled with references to and symbols employed in traditional still life painting across the ages; but it is also very much a painting of the artist at his home, in a domestic space.  Derain breaks the boundary between studio and home.  

           The last part of the exhibit, entitled "Coming to Grips with Darkness," changes the tone again.  It brings us back to our three artists as they set traditional themes into very dark contexts.  As Jed Perl aptly put it,  this is an exhibition about the melancholy of modernism.  The times in which these artists lived was not an easy one, and they certainly saw and knew that.  The challenge they took up was how to create a new art suitable to their time, and simultaneously an art that drew on the past, the past of their own and other cultures.     

          We are back here to that struggle to both find, plumb the mystery of, and depict a very harsh reality, a struggle that we have seen over and over in this exhibition.  We also see the humanity, sincerity, and rigorous order with which the artists pursue their struggle.  The works displayed show the courage to create beauty in a world whose darkness and despair they very, very clearly see.  As the title for this room says, they have come to grips with the darkness.  The painting that best makes the point that they see some hope and light in the darkness is this still life by Derain.  This is a painting that has made it through the struggle,  the struggle we all face.  The white lines are indeed the light that overcomes the darkness.
 

          At the very end of the exhibit, we find a quotation by Derain on the last wall.  Like the one from Giacometti, it has to do with time.
     
                    "The mind knows neither past nor future; the mind is an immense present."

This line reminded me of the Buddhist saying that goes something like:  Every moment that we live, as we live it,  contains every moment that has happened before it and every moment that will happen after it.  Thinking of Derain's words with that in mind,  I hear Derain saying that in making paintings, he seeks to include all of what we know and might know as art.  Certainly, in looking at his work, I could see so many earlier painters -- Rubens, Delacroix, Corot, Renoir, Cezanne, and so many Italian painters from the early and late Renaissance and Baroque periods.  To the extent that his paintings also show the search for something new (Giacometti calls Derain "the most audacious of them all"), his work is avant garde and points towards paintings that are yet to be painted.  I left the exhibit with lots to think about, and, even more important, lots to paint with and for.  My museum visit blessed me with more sources of inspiration and a greater sense of responsibility to paint.

           Remember that review that started all of this.  When I returned home to New York, I reread Jed Perl's review.  Having seen the work he wrote about, I could appreciate his comments even more than I had at first reading, especially that very powerful last section and line of his essay.  He describes the exhibition of Derain, Balthus, and Giacometti at the Museum of Modern Art as a corrective and response to much of what is to be regretted about the current state of art and art history -- the too easy equation of a particular artist's style or sensitivity with a particular political tendency (as in the identification of Picasso's classicism during the years of World War I with the later Fascist and Nazi attraction to classicism), the winks that too many contemporary artists seem driven to put into their art pieces, the excessive irony and skepticism.  In answer to all of those, the show in Paris

                   "responds with a clearheadedness and an intrepid confidence rare in the museum
                   world.   What we have here is nothing less than another side of the great modern
                   adventure.  That Derain, Balthus, and Giacometti are so absolutely insistent on
                   rejecting irony in favor of sincerity and magic in favor of metaphysics gives this
                   exhibition a particular urgency in our own dark times." (Perl, 2017, NYRB)

Five More Glorious Days in Paris 

           This museum visit over the course of two days certainly made the trip to Paris worthwhile, but it was not the last wonderful experience.  More museums, visits with friends, great restaurants, markets, a little shopping, wonderful walks through many sections of Paris, and even some Chinese movement joyfully filled our hours.  Here are just a couple of highlights.

          I wrote above about attending Qi Gong classes in the south.  We did the same in Paris.  Right across the street from the Museum of Modern Art, on a terrace of the Palais Galliera, we had a terrific early morning Qi Gong class with our artist friend, GAP. (I have written about GAP. in an earlier blog on this website, click here to see that blog).  She is a vigorous and inspiring teacher. Following class, we visited GAP.'s wonderful studio, and had a lovely coffee with her and her gracious husband, Robert.  They live in an apartment filled with art and other signs of a wonderful life.  It is a another perfect Paris apartment.  We are blessed with friends who share how much they love where they live. Here is a photo of a new wall in GAP.'s studio that she built with her son to house her work.  An amazing amount of work!  
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          Towards the end of the week, our good friend David Frost who is now teaching in London took the chunnel train to come and spend a few days with us.  It's astonishing to me that one can travel from London to Paris in less than 2 1/2 hours, that's the same amount of time it takes to get from Manhattan to Pine Plains. Hmm.  We visited together the Louis Vuitton Museum,  in the Bois de Boulogne where Paris meets Neuilly-sur-Seine, a trip strongly recommended by our Parisian friend, Sylvie.  The building for the museum is a fantastic Frank Gehry structure.

          The current exhibit in the museum is a show entitled, "Being Modern:  MoMA in Paris."  I confess that when I saw that title, I said to myself: "I came all the way to Paris to see pieces from New York?"  As soon as I entered the exhibit, all disappointment and skepticism vanished.   It is a terrific exhibition, especially for anyone with an attachment to MoMA's history in New York.  It is not only that some of the most wonderful pieces from MoMA that we have come to know and love are on display. 

          You, my dedicated reader, are probably feeling the way I did at the end of the abstract expressionism section:  Enough with museums.  I will spare you from having to read more words about the other museums we took in.  Instead, I will close this very long blog with some observations about the difference between Paris and New York, between Parisians and New Yorkers.  The first is not to be taken too seriously; but the second, holds something worth thinking more about.

          Early in our stay, I wrote to our Paris friend, Sylvie, to tell her that I had been mistaken for a Parisian twice on my first morning walk with Ula.  Sylvie replied that I look too happy to be taken for a Parisian.  She explained that to look like a Parisian, I would need not only to wear black but learn how to sigh and complain all the time.  Well, after she told me that, I indeed heard many sighs and complaints from Parisians.  This was not true for all Parisians, but for many that I met in shops or other public spaces.  Whenever I said we came from New York, the reaction was always something like:  "Oh I love New York, it's not like Paris.  Paris is just cute, it's a museum.  New York is a real city."  Then they added some version of "Everything is possible in New York, nothing ever changes in Paris, you can't do with your life in Paris what you could do in New York."  I would walk away thinking, I could do with a little more cute; and wondering whether most people who live in New York think everything is possible.  

          On a more serious note was the difference I saw between New Yorkers and Parisians (and people in the south of France too) in how they spoke about Donald Trump as president.   In the U.S., in the circles in which I usually find myself, I have become accustomed to people starting their laments about our current political situation cautiously and calmly; but then, they quickly speed up, listing a whole set of things that are wrong, in a very agitated tone.  What started as a group sharing a nice dinner together is whipped into an anger filled mob with back and forth between everyone there about how awful Trump and his administration are.  This goes on until we are all just too tired to say anymore.  In France, on the hand, the mood is much more somber and dark and quiet.  They say simply that they are very fearful about what might happen because of this U.S. president.  They are as informed, if not better informed, then we are about what is happening in the U.S.; and they are scared.   This difference, I think,  has to do with differences in life experiences.  People in France, they themselves or the generations immediately before them, directly experienced the horrors of totalitarianism in the forms of fascism, nazism, and communism.  They lived through World War II.  They know better what to fear.  

     

     Research for this painting drew from a wonderful catalogue of an exhibition of art about Mary across the centuries (Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea), held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.  It was given to me by my friend Kay Deaux.  The book contains helpful essays on how images of Mary have shaped Western art since the 6th century, and the social and political significance of Mary's image.   The most helpful and revealing essay was Amy G. Remensnyder's "Warrior and Diplomat:  Mary Between Islam and Christianity." 1 It filled in many of the gaps in my understanding of Islam.  This historian shows the many ways in which Mary, a Jewish historical person, is an important religious figure in Islam and Christianity.  Both faiths speak of her as exalted, a woman singled out and chosen by God for a place above others in the history of humanity.  From the Qur'an:

                        O Mary, indeed God has favored you and made you immaculate,
                           and chosen you from all the women of the world.
                                                                                             Sura 3:42

     Remensnyder describes how for centuries, across the Middle East and Europe,  Muslims and Christians have gathered together in religious shrines dedicated to Mary, to show their devotion to her.  One of these, Mary's Chapel on Lampedusa, seems especially relevant to my painting and to crises in our current world.  The Shrine on Lampedusa, a small Italian island off the coast of Tunisia, provided safety in the 17th and 18th centuries to both Muslim and Christian refugees, as each religious group fled the hostility and prisons of the other; and now, is the entry point to Europe for so many migrants, many of them Muslims,  fleeing war and oppression.  Pope Francis visited the shrine at Lampedusa in 2013 to criticize the 'globalization of indifference' to the migrants' cause, pray for the many who are risking their lives in the hope of a more just life, and praise the Italians for their rescue efforts (Remensnyder, p. 49).  

     My research also included internet searches for information on Omran Daqneesh.  I learned that on the day of the bombing, he was taken to an underground hospital (it had been previously hit by airstrikes).  The open wound on his forehead was treated and bandaged, and he was discharged.  His parents and siblings were also rescued from the rubble and treated, but his eleven-year-old brother died in hospital.  At least eight other people are said to have died in this particular bombing.  Having lost their home,  Omran's family found a smaller place in which to live.  Every week, I check the internet to see if I can learn something of what happened to this little boy since the video was made of him.  There was only one story about another bombing in Aleppo.  It was first reported that he had been killed in that later attack, but that was quickly followed by a report that he was fine.  Since then, there has been nothing on the internet.    

     But maybe there are other ways that Omran can return.  Muslims and Christians understand that the special child in Mary's lap is an important prophet who brings us needed news and knowledge.  What might this child prophet, shown here, say to us?  What might he help us understand, what might he help us do? My wish for my painting is for it to be a witness.  I want it to be a call to us to recognize and do something for Omran, and all the other children who suffer because of war and refugee status.  

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1 A wonderful article on Mary's rich and complex role in the religious, artistic, cultural, political, and military relationships between Muslims and Christians appears in Verdon, T., Katz, M.R., Remensnyder, A. G., and Rubin, M. (2014)  Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea.   New York:  Scala Arts Publishers.

     These days, we need as many nice stories as we can get.  Here is my contribution for the month.  

     A few weeks ago, I was delightfully surprised to receive a message from Ulas Yunus Tosun, a Turkish photojournalist who takes remarkable photographs in his pursuit of social justice.  Much of his work documents the struggle of refugees in the Middle East.  

     He first contacted me through Facebook.  Initially, when I saw his friend request,  I paused over the name.  It seemed familiar, but I couldn't connect it with anyone I knew.  Sometimes that happens on Facebook, and I didn't respond.  Then, a message came from my website that the same Ulas Tosun had completed a contact form.  Reading that, I learned that Ulas Tosun was the photographer of the amazing photograph of mothers and children stopped by a fence at the Turkish/Syrian border that I had used in one of my paintings.  Ulas found the painting (and me) just by chance as he was searching the internet.  He wrote to tell me that he liked my work and was happy that his photograph had inspired me.  I immediately responded to tell him how much I valued his work and to thank him for being in contact.

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     The small painting that is the right panel of this triptych was inspired by Ulas' photograph that I found on the front page of the New York Times, on September 22, 2014.  

    

     I wrote about the process of doing the painting and my hopes for it,  in an earlier blog (see February 2, 2015 entry).  It is good to be able to write about it again and say how special it is to connect with a person whose work/art I looked at long and hard and used in my own work.   As Ulas put it, "even if we are in different countries of the world, it is very nice to be in the same feeling and the same philosophy even if we speak different languages and have different cultures."  

     Often these days, I search for signs of hope.  Given my life now, I am often looking to art for hope.  I think I found some here.  This is not only a nice story, it is a story about the wonder and joy of art that goes on not just in, but between people.  May we all have more of that!

The above are some of the inspiring pairings of paintings by Matisse, always on left, and Diebenkorn, always on right, on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art.  The exhibit is there until January 29 and then travels to San Francisco.  It is a wonderful show.  Each painting is beautiful on its own, and the pairings that demonstrate the influence of Matisse upon Diebenkorn are lovely.  No heavy-handed decisions by the curators, Janet Bishop and Katherine Rothkopf.  The viewer doesn't feel she is being forced into an unlikely way of thinking about the work.  Instead, the viewer gets to appreciate all that she might have enjoyed before, and learn something new about each painter through the pairings.

The idea for this show began with the discovery of two drawings in the basement of the Baltimore Museum of Art, one by Matisse and the other, by Diebenkorn.  The curators were captured by the links between the two pieces of art.
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They went from this finding to the discovery of many other works that reveal how hard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) had looked at Matisse's (1869-1954) work and used it in his own.  The walls of this exhibit tell the story of how Diebenkorn, who collected as many books about Matisse and attended as many shows of Matisse's work as he could,  saw something in a Matisse painting or drawing that he then adapted and moved forward.  That something might be a strong diagonal black line, a splash of bright hot orange-red in a painting made up of large areas of cool color, a fusing of the outdoor landscape and the indoor interior, the reduction of the figure or portrait to the essential drawn lines, the arrangement of patterns and blocks of color...  

Beware: The relationship between Matisse and Diebenkorn should not be seen simply as one artist copying another. Diebenkorn did his very distinctive work through and beyond the work of another unique artist, Matisse. Diebenkorn saw things in Matisse that helped resolve problems that he, Diebenkorn, had been struggling with.  An example of such a problem was Diebenkorn's wonder at what to do about facial features in a painting that was on the border between abstract and figurative.  He used Matisse to bridge the gap he had been trying to cover; for example, Matisse provided him many examples of heads without any features or with only simple lines indicating eyes, nose, and mouth.  In many instances, it is as if Diebenkorn had been able to so deeply and carefully enter Matisse's imagination that he could use it to take a next step in art: A step that solved a problem for Diebenkorn and enhanced the contribution Matisse has left to all of us.  

Some students who took my study of lives (psychobiography/life writing) class may remember a class exercise in which everyone wrote an obituary for herself or himself.  The obituary could be written as if one died in one's present state or at some imagined future time.  If you remember the assignment, you remember the distress it provoked.  In light of that, I offered my own version of the exercise.  In my first paragraph, I wrote that I died in a museum while looking at a canvas by Matisse.  I was so overwhelmed by its beauty that I just dropped dead in front of it.  

I really liked the Baltimore show but I am happy to report that I left breathing; deeply, pleasantly breathing.

But if I had been overwhelmed, it might have been by this very large nude (36 1/4" x 28 3/4") by Matisse, 1935-36, that I don't remember ever seeing before.

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Or it could have been this equally large canvas of a "Cane Chair --- Outside" done in 1959 by Diebenkorn that knocked me over.
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This portrait, long neck and all, is just lovely.  Maybe not quite as lovely but certainly very thought provoking are two later pieces that Kahlo did while in the United States.  Through both, she expresses her strong criticism of life in the north and one offers a striking contrast between her view of life in Mexico and that in the U.S.

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Grace Hartigan (1922-2008) is known as an abstract painter but, given her use of everyday objects in her work, is also connected with the pop movement.  The above is a painting of mannequins from one of the many bridal shop windows Haritgan saw in her Lower East Side neighborhood. I like the combination of the abstract and the figurative in her work,  the way portraits emerge out of the swirl of big, bold gestures, and wild, experimental brushwork.   There is lots of drama and energy here, you see a painter working hard to get it right. I also like the monumental quality of the painting. That involves more than just its large size of 72 9/16" by 102 3/8".  It reminds me of those grand old master paintings in art history -- those portraits of aristocratic family groups.  I read later that Hartigan based the composition on Goya's portrait of the Royal Family of Charles IV, circa 1800.   She was well recognized as a painter and as a teacher of painters.  
                 
                                   "Somehow, in painting I try to make some logic out of the
                                world that has been given to me in chaos."  
                                                                                                              Grace Hartigan
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Until January 11, 2017, the Guggenheim Museum in NYC presents a marvelous retrospective of the paintings of Agnes Martin (1912-2004).  Climbing the circling ramps of that unique space, the museum visitor not only looks at paintings but feels very up close to a person working.  It is like having a visit with her and probably getting as close as one could have gotten to Martin in life. 

It is not unusual these days to come upon video elements in an exhibition, including films in which the artist speaks.  This exhibit offers film of Agnes Martin painting and being interviewed about her work.  The video teaches a lot about the artist in her work.  Watching her paint and listening to her words,  I could go back to viewing the paintings thinking I better understood them and why she did them  I also felt certain that no one else could have done them.  Her paintings are a complete, or near complete, self-representation of Agnes Martin by Agnes Martin.   

One particular piece of the film has been in my thoughts since I viewed it.  The interviewer asks Martin if she ever painted a negative emotion.  Martin unequivocally says "no," that her aim has been to paint positive emotions -- joy, gratitude, friendship, etc.  She wants to have the viewer feel "elation" in front of her paintings.  She adds that tragedies are bad enough when they happen and asks: "Why would you want to repeat them in painting?".  I think Martin gets what she wanted.  The emotions I felt while standing in front of her work were positive. They have a calming, peaceful effect.  Looking at them carefully, quietly, for an extended piece of time, I felt relaxed.

But what about my own painting?  Not the still life paintings, but my depictions of current events.  Martin's strong statement about tragedy gets my attention.  She wants to provoke "elation" in the viewer, I paint images of dead children being carried out of the rumble in Syria, and refugees held back from freedom by metal gates. 

I spend time with photographs of the world's horrors to recapture and repeat the events.  I don't leave that tragedy.  I make it my job to put on paper and canvas the image and a record of the feelings the event provokes.  Instead of Martin's list of joy, gratitude, and elation; I have a list of sadness, hopelessness, and despair.  My aim is to evoke a sense of connection with the people in the event and a sense of responsibility to them.  I want the art to be a call, to provoke a determination that something needs to be done about the horror-- that I, the viewer, need to do something in the face of events like this.   

Recently, I have been working on a series of prints compelled by the murder of Shamaii el-Sabbagh, a 31 year old Egyptian woman killed by the police as she participated in a small peaceful memorial gathering,  The masked riot police were said to have used birdshot to break up the procession as the people carried flowers to Tahrir Square.  Shamaii el-Sabbagh was the mother of a 5 year old boy, an accomplished poet, a recorder and preserver of Egyptian traditions, and a left-leaning activist.  Photographers and videographers captured a moment to moment account of her murder on January 24, 2015.  The internet was filled with images of her death and the efforts of her friends to support her, to keep her from falling to the pavement, to carry her to a safer place, and to cradle her and place her down gently as she died.

I thought it important to have her image on paper in a form that can be held.  Here are four of the prints.

Seems we have gotten far away from Agnes Martin's luminous, order-inspiring, and elevating art.  I hope not. We need her paintings and their encouragement of calm and peacefulness more than ever.