Peniche Remembered

In September 2021, I was in Lisbon, Portugal and visited the Aljube Museum, a collection dedicated to the country’s 20th c history of Resistance and Freedom. In photographs, original documents, videos and installations the museum tells the story of Portugal’s Salazar Dictatorship. This story includes political courts, colonial wars, prisoners in solitary in Aljube, the resistance and the April 25, 1974 Carnation Revolution which ended 48 years of dictatorship. My work was inspired by a visit to a second Portuguese prison of that era at Peniche. I had the Aljube in mind when I came across an attractive building rising from a rocky foundation perched over the Atlantic in a charming fishing town where I’d stopped to eat sardines. Peniche Remembered contemplates the quiet world of those left behind to mourn their disappeared loved ones, trapped behind cell doors or ‘disappeared’ into the ocean.

Lesbos Monastery

A storm of Greek letters fly around a monastery as if to say ‘give me shelter’. This will be another year of migration from the war torn Middle East westwards across Europe, the first port of call in western Europe is likely to be the Greek Island of Lesbos..

Icarus over the Guadiana

So many examples of hubris abound. Here I was thinking of all the young who can not be told and the cost of flying too close to the sun. Icarus has defied wise advice and is plunging to his death.

Fall of the Temple

With a nod to Picasso’s Gernika, a contorted stallion flees a falling temple. Across time another temple is framed by a noose. On its dome lady liberty stands firm but stars are falling from her crown.

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The End of Coal

I was reflecting on Eric Eyre’s grim report on death and addiction in Appalachia and in the huge job losses in coal country since the 1970s. 7% of Central Appalachia remains polluted from this historic industry and mountaintops flattened by open removal mining. Small towns are home to generations of mining families in limbo, awaiting investment in new industries and environmental restoration.

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Remembering Guston Remembering

Two years ago I began revisiting Philip Guston’s work. I thought I was more interested in his WPA murals and the influence of Renaissance artists like Piero on his early projects. At the time I was working on a set of images on the theme of war & peace and was particularly interested in Piero’s war scenes. But the more I looked at Guston, the more interested I became in his later very raw depictions of violence in the American South. I created a mixed media response to those images, incorporating some of my old prints of war scenes, playing with Piero, and inserting Guston-like characters. I called it ‘Remembering Guston Remembering’. When I learned of a scheduled National Gallery Guston retrospective, I considered a post-Covid trip to DC. No sooner had I begun imagining this trip than I learned about the Show’s cancellation. I was amazed at the controversy this proposed retrospective generated—some of the work to be included was deemed racist. In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement the Gallery’s caution was understandable but it was disappointing that the NG did not rise to the challenge to contextualize the controversial imagery in some of the work—an exploration of raw, racist American history laid out by one of the country’s great 20th c artists and intellectuals. Maybe the National Gallery was persuaded that our own brutal, racist history was too much for us to see and that we were incapable of understanding the artist’s irony. Fortunately there was enough dissent to cause reconsideration, and rescheduling. No doubt we’ll all be very carefully instructed…..

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CHANGING CLIMATES: PLEIN AIR SKETCHING IN PORTUGAL

In May/June of this year I was an Artist in Residence at the Convento São Francisco in Mértola, Portugal. The former Franciscan convent stands above the convergence of the Rivers Oeiras and Guadiana in the Alentejo region, south and east of the capital Lisbon. Historically part of the Roman breadbasket, the region has grown increasingly dry in recent decades. A complicated pumping system brings river water up a steep hillside to the convent’s many irrigated gardens and interior patios shaded by Cyprus and Poplars. The old noria/well house offers relief at midday to painters and amphibians alike and became a favorite retreat from the sun. My atelier was within thick convent walls which provided natural air conditioning. At day’s end the Guadiana was my swimming pool—the best possible way to cool off.

It’s a short walk from the convent grounds into Mértola, across the old bridge over the Oeiras. Until modern times the road to Mértola was the river—first the Romans, then the Moors, then the Christian kings, and nowadays water sports enthusiasts. For an artist, it’s a dream—a 9th c castle, built by the Moors, a Roman baptismal fount surrounded by 3rd c AD fresoces, a parish church carved out of a former mosque. The Town Hall sits atop a Roman house, easily visited by entering the main door, enjoying the extreme A/C and descending a flight of stairs to find stellae, amphorae, ancient walls. Another modest house contains the Islamic art museum, and another Arte Sacra with paintings from the 15th-16th centuries. The old Customs House stands in ruins beside the Guadiana—on my nightly swim route.

Sheep and cattle trails marked the land for centuries. Increasingly prolonged droughts and extreme heat over recent decades have affected land use and caused flight. Like the landscape, the Convento São Francisco has seen its share of change, including closure in the 19th c, after which it fell into ruin. In the 1980s, the Dutch Zwanikken family arrived, by chance, in Mértola. They were quickly seduced by the landscale and light. They eventually acquired the ruined convent and grounds and set to work on what is now a 40 year restoration project—reestablishing gardens on an historic model, irrigating the land, involving the local community. Theirs is another chapter in the story of Mértola. And so, too briefly, was part of mine this spring.

Rags to Riches

In response to Columbia City Gallery’s call to the 6th Annual Chop Challenge, I decided to salute the world’s highest paid living woman artist, Jenny Saville, by celebrating one of her nudes. My nude was fashioned from Green Eileen rags, purloined from the scrap bin in the shop next door to Columbia City Gallery, Seattle. I snipped and glued bits of tees, sweaters, skirts and dresses into my voluptuous figure and added a bit of tempera in celebration of women, and fashion. I’ve given my Jenny a fetching pair or red mules, matching earrings, and a light cotton shawl.

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Enigma Variations

All of us are foreign to the other/s. The adventure of travel is the constant

reminder of our otherness but also our ability to learn and connect. A recent trip to

highland Mexico gave me a chance to appreciate differences and I responded back in the studio

with a few intaglio prints--my attempt to catch a bit of the mystery of 'the other'. May 22

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by Sarah Banks February 2017

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I was thinking about García Lorca today--his writings that always spoke truth to power. He gave voice to the often voiceless--scenes from Blood Wedding come to mind. It's the joy/exuberance mixed with sadness that has always struck me--"at the heart of all great art is an essential melancholy". Which is how flamenco, the gypsy lament, melds exuberant dance with mournful song. Así es la vida.....

Art Inspiring Poetry

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“Immortal Mother”
By Wendy Osserman
Inspired by ‘Thetis”

Is she drowning him?
Costumed in strips of water
     she holds him straight upside down
     his baby ankle cupped in her hand

I read the title
she is Achilles' mom
     Now I see the blade of moonlight
     pointing at his heel

Sky and field
past and future enclose her
     a goddess who can change shape
     and prophesy

She would hover here forever
to protect him
     She might save him
     if she let him go

This sea daughter will learn
what mortal mothers know
     giving birth
     is giving death

 

“Dear Thetis"
By Teya Priest Johnston
Inspired by “Thetis"
ADULT JURY FIRST PLACE
This is what happened.

I was eleven, sequestered,
hellish, angry, Florida, summer.
Mercy a constant longing.
A reprieve in mother’s drug cabinet.
I slept, not for lack of love,
but a solemn anguish holding vessel.

There were pools everywhere,
except not in our backyard.
The slap of awakening
was severe. The house hotly full,
with no sound of baby sister.
I leaped,
the first time seeing,
every curtain closed,
meant no sight of tricycle,
no red wagon carting dolls,
no way to know the world.

Across the street, a manicured yard,
lines of black trim along the white
flat-topped pebbled roof,
no cars in the drive,
a snake-curve of sidewalk led
to the filigree iron gate,
hanging open.

In a fire walker’s
singular hysteria,
no pain, not knowing
how I arrived.
I held my breath.

Thetis, there she was
leaned over, peering down,
hands upon her precious knees,
little mouth pursed
with deciding.