Suzanne Halstead, Interview Part 1 and Part 2. One of the first people to encourage me in making art. She introduced me to drawing mandalas, and playing with materials, and colors. I love her Sun Trees oil pastel above, and have it in my studio.
2. A Margaret of Many Names: Grete Marks(1899-1990) Labeled degenerate by the Nazi’s because she was Jewish, and forced to give up her pottery factory in 1934 Germany, and fled to England where she continued to create ceramics that still look futuristic.
Who are your favorite women artists? The National Museum of Women in the Arts is doing their challenge for March, Can You Name Five Women Artists? In the second in my series, here are 5 more for you to enjoy:
1. Gabriella Polony-Mountain(1918-) Mosaic Artist and Renaissance Woman. Her mosaic Music is pictured above.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts is doing their name #5womenartists challenge for 2017. For Women’s History Month, here is my first installment of 5.
To get a postcard about a show entitled Veils of Color ensures I will be wanting to go. Elizabeth Osborne‘s oil paintings are on display until November 15, 2015 at the James Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. In University of Pennsylvania alumni profile, the author quotes Philadelphia Inquirer critic Edward J. Sozanski’s praise for Osborne’s “Dionysian commitment to vibrant, saturated color.” Yes, vibrant, saturated color. I felt like I was stepping into sunshine, and in fact, some versions of these paintings have figurative versions, with a woman sitting at a window.
She was born in 1936, and grew up in Lansdale, where I now live. I was taken with the fact that she taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts(PAFA) from 1963-2011, teaching into her 70’s. She recorded an oral history interview with the Senior Artists Initiative, and organization that heartens me by its existence. In addition to oil painting, she has work in watercolor and printmaking.
I realized that I had seen her work at both the Woodmere and the Berman Museum of Art at Ursinius. I like to imagine that her veils of color saturating the Philadelphia area, appearing all around me, and that her legacy of teaching will continue to move outward.
Stratoz and I made our second day trip to Craftsman Farms, museum of furniture great Gustav Stickley, in Parsippany, NJ. I first discovered Craftsman Farms from an ad in American Bungalow quite a few years ago. We took our first tour circa 2003, and I was smitten with the tiles, the copper hearths, the textiles and inlaid wood. Stepping into the house was stepping into another world. Photography is not permitted inside, but I noticed the row of lanterns visible through the door, and asked Stratoz to take a photo for me. The lanterns light a trail into beauty.