This October we spent some time in the Catskills and one of the fun discoveries was the Assembly in Monticello, NY. The space originally a Buick dealership has been transformed to an art gallery by artist Bosco Sodi.
For the first exhibition Bosco asked a group of artists from mostly Mexico to “give us your retired, your stashed-away masses yearning to be seen”
Paula Cortazar work on different stone was fascinating! Inviting to stay a bit longer and follow the intricate designs.
Eduardo Sarabia – loved his work which reminded in it’s usage of political statements on ceramics of Grayson Perry‘s work.
The little statue is by Gonzalo Lebrija – basically showing how I feel every day :)
inviting you to try the bellows out to make those birds sing.
Ugo Rondinone showed a couple of those stone faces – the instagram page makes me want to see even more of the work!
Downstairs was another room with some work by Izumi Kato as well as by Boso. I loved the Izumi Kato chairns- sometimes hidden in the niches. I enjoyed this exhibition that will be still at the Assembly until May 1, 2023. If you are in the area of Monticello in NY definitely put this gallery on your list!
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s family curates and organizes this exhibition of his work with about 200 pieces to celebrate his life. And while many seem to find this odd ..I actually truly enjoyed the exhibition and yes I also think it is cool that the family can gain from this exhibition…why not?
I loved seeing his children drawings- which are so reminiscent of his later style but when you see his later work you know it is not a child anymore drawing.
Little views of the Zeitgeist and big happenings
As well as the living room and kitchen of his childhood reassembled- I though it was neat.
I always loved the stream of thoughts – crossed out words and connections in his work
What I truly enjoyed in this exhibition were the works of art he made on different surfaces, stretched with different materials as well.
Molding, baseboards, trims, twine, sisal, canvas
Painted on a moving blanket (or so I think because I have one of those unpainted in my basement from the move still)
And what a great pattern to paint on !
The fridge doo
Humor …I loved this one LOL
And I even got a kick out of the studio replication
including the paint marks on the floor from previous canvases.
His love for music and jazz musicians – like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis
especially delighted
But then again – all kinds of surfaces – work that seemed to belong together- loved how it was put together by his family
And of course …topics that have been prominent back then and still are – like police brutality
The painting below made me think of De Kooning’s painting Woman – if it was the inspiration for it, I do not know but that is what my brain made me think of.
and the crown
poetic art – I loved this one as well!
The exhibition was very well visited but we went on at the earliest slot at 10am on a Sunday and things spread out.
And probably as a nod to the music I grew up with which came out of the speakers, I appreciated the Palladium night club they recreated with the two paintings he had done for the VIP area of the club .
It is kind of crazy to think that these really were part of a nightclub- but I guess as crazy as to think that there are murals of Marc Chagall in the Met Opera.
And how fitting that both places are/were also about connections and “see and be seen”.
There is not closing date for the exhibition yet, so if you have a chance, go and get there- it is well worth it, hop on the Highline afterwards and enjoy a great day in the city- art, and sightseeing combined.
This summer we spent a lot of time in the Catskills Region in NY State. My husband is writing on another book and was craving a different environment to do so and the cats and I said “meow, why not” …well ..the cats were in the beginning not so cool about this but they got used to traveling :)
We rented a super cute house with a gorgeous fireplace and enjoyed the cooler evenings sitting outside with a drink and just chatting and solving world problems ;) I love this blue stone wall so much !
The kitchen was really cool and I loved the old brick floor. The owner is very much into a foraging style and I loved how she used a lot of unusual things for her home in a practical but also sometimes in a decorative way.
She also had a couple of those bunnies made of fabric – which I am not sure of if they are actually antique or made to look antique. Very intriguing.
Close by is Bethel, the actual place of the Woodstock Festival. Many people think it happened in Woodstock, NY which is a quite far from here, but residents in Woodstock made sure it couldn’t happen there and so after the tickets were already printed the organizers found a place at Max Yasgur’s Dairy farm here in Bethel. (residents here weren’t happy either and Max was ostracized after the event)
The dairy farm does not exist anymore but a music festival venue and a museum dedicated to the Woodstock Festival sits at the former premises. It was a very interesting exhibition.
The history of the era, the music – have always fascinated me and my stepfather was actually a huge fan of the music back then and when I was a teenager we would listen to a lot of records from that time and he would talk about how he would have loved to be at the festival. He went to the Love-and-Peace Festival on the Isle of Fehmarn in Germany, where Jimi Hendrix had his last appearance but that wasn’t quite the same ;)
Lot’s of colors
And a nice exhibition how music posters of that time were screen printed and used Art Noveou posters as inspiration.
I love this design and the lettering.
Such an iconic poster …so iconic it is also to be found at MoMA.
And this is where it all took place. It is hard to imagine this being full with tens of thousands of young people. If you are in the area, check out the museum, I liked it.
I am not quite sure what this building used to be …maybe a silo – but it was intriguing.
The Narrowsburg bridge – on the one side New York ..on the other side Pennsylvania. Narrowsburg is a really cute town and we spent a lot of time there.
Hello Turkey Bussard …and please stay where you are! LOL. They were everywhere and in the morning I could see them taking off from a tree in front of our cottage by the dozens …impressively big.
Lots of antique stores around and we found some corbels – the top two are already mounted to our deck on our house. We loved the patina. The other two will find a spot ;)
The Delaware River at Skinners Falls – it was fun being out there – watching people in their kayaks or tubing, people picnicking on the rocks.
Ok this bridge was a bit scary LOL!
Every morning two fawns visited the cottage – they were so darn cute…and fast. This picture was actually taken by my brother in law ..I usually just got white tails.
We saw this cute little barn&studio and boy…I love this so much- can I have this as my art studio please? This mini Dutch Colonial house really made my heart pitter patter. I think this needs to be a stamp :)
Old school 4th July Parade in Narrowsburg – all the fire departments in and around Narrowsburg took out their old and new fire trucks for the parade …I guess that is normal …lol- but hey – remember I am from Germany and this might have been my first non-city 4th of July celebration.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip to the Catskills Region …I did and we will be back for sure.
“War is not healthy for children or other living things” is a patch that I bought and put on jeans over 20 years ago!
It is the same design as shown but in color.
What a lovely post and that barn would make a nice studio and stamp.
BTW, in my little town of 5000 people in NH, our parades always include fire trucks and police cars.
I know that the children love them and the adults get to see what their taxes bought this year (we vote on these items every spring).
Take care Nat.
For my Birthday in July my husband surprised me with a trip to the Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley in New York State. It had been on my bucket list for a long time and gosh it was soooo cool!
There is something so beautiful to walk around in Nature and look at gigantic art which appears different from all kinds of angles and in different lights and seasons.
Storm King was founded and opened in the 60s and it is pretty massive.
“Storm King Art Center’s dramatic landscape includes farmed fields, natural woodlands, lawns, native grasses, wetlands, and water.”
Don’t be fooled by the cloudy and cool looking pictures – it was an extremely hot and humid day .
But it didn’t deter us from hiking around and enjoying everything.
Where every you turn around there is something to see- sometimes very colorful and prominent
Menashe Kadishman’s Suspended was one of my favorites – all you wonder is “how is this even balancing and holding up” . It was fun to see people interacting with the sculpture and walk underneath.
“Tomio Miki, who exhibited among a group of avant-garde, politically active artists in Tokyo in the late 1950s and early 1960s, settled in 1963 on the human ear as his primary sculptural subject for the next several years. He often depicted them individually, on a giant scale, as represented in the work at Storm King. Sometimes he combined ears with other elements, such as spoons or colored lights, or made series of them set in rows or in boxes. Miki spoke quixotically about his choice of the ear, saying that it originated in an “experience in a train, when, for no reason, I suddenly felt myself surrounded by hundreds of ears trying to assault me. This personal episode, however, wouldn’t be any precise answer to why I make ears. I can hardly say I chose the ear. More precisely, isn’t it that the ear chose me?”
Ursula von Rydingsvard’s For Paul—made of cedar wood
Alexander Calder , Black Flag, 1974
The museum hosted an exhibition of Mark Dion – Follies.
“The job of the artist,” he says, “is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention.”
Appropriating archaeological and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between “objective” (“rational”) scientific methods and “subjective” (“irrational”) influences.
One of my favorites- the next 3 works below by Louise Bourgeois – it is always such a treat to see her work in person.
“While typically black, Nevelson’s sculptures are occasionally white or gold; their monochromatic surfaces lend a sense of order and unity to the varied parts. Among Nevelson’s first gold-painted sculptures, Royal Tide I was included in the historic Art of Assemblage exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1961. Nevelson cited a religious resonance in the color gold, as well as a natural and spiritual connection to the sun. She was also interested in its timeless quality: “Gold has been the staple of the world for ages; it is universal.”
Sky Chapel No. 1, 1958-59
“Number Seventy-Two (The No March) is one of Louise Bourgeois’s most complex and politically charged works. This intricate sculpture—a floor work made from 1,200 individual cylindrical pieces of marble and travertine—was created in homage to a non-violent protest against the Vietnam War. Bourgeois also imbued the work with a more universal meaning, noting: “The No March also means accepting you’re almost nobody. You have to merge with thousands like you.”
Five Units Equal, 1956
Gorgeous fountain by Lynda Bengalis which resembles ocean waves lapping at the shore, slow-moving lava, or prehistoric creatures.
You can rent bikes and go out in the fields- which we should have done but we realized too late and walking in heat of 100F/38 C and in that sauna air wasn’t really our thing that day.
We made a promise to come back at one of the other , cooler seasons.
Alexander Liberman – Iliad and Adam
nearly seventy feet, Endless Column by Tal Streeter
A different view of Alexander Liberman’s Adonai -it is also in the very first picture. This sculpture was and is made out of gas storage tanks and the original sculpture deteriorated and was refabricated in 2000 after the artist had already died. I find it interesting – is it still his artwork? He knew it would deteriorate – should it been left as is?
It was such a cool way to celebrate my birthday- it is beautiful up there in NY – State anyway – so if you have never been and have a chance- go for it :)
Hope you enjoyed this outdoorsy – ArtStroll – until next time!
A couple weeks ago Kim and I decided to take a little trip to the Botanical Garden in New York City to see the Roberto Burle Marx Exhibition. It was such a treat – even though going that far uptown is quite a hike.
One thing that the visit reminded me instantly of is what an amazing artist nature is and how inspirational it is to go to a Botanical Garden.
From Flowers that look like something from a fairy tale
To plants with leaves that look as if they were painted on.
We loved the Garden part of the Roberto Burle Marx exhibition a lot – gorgeous pattern on the pavement- beautiful plants with tons of patterns, texture and lines. As he said: “A garden is a complex of aesthetic and plastic intentions; and the plant is, to a landscape artist, not only a plant – rare, unusual, ordinary or doomed to disappearance – but it is also a color, a shape, a volume or an arabesque in itself”
Made me appreciate plants that I usually do not really think of wanting to have
Another amazing plant with awesome leaves! “One might think of a plant as a brush stroke, as a single stitch of embroidery; but one must never forget that it is a living thing. ” Roberto Burle Marx in a 1962 lecture.
Looking into the water in front of the fountain.
We also happened to come a day too early to see the “Corpse Plant” open.It rareley blooms and only for about 1-2 days. It was a coincidence that we went right when it was going to bloom as we had planned the trip for quite some while but it was cool to see this amazing plant right before it opened. We were spared of the insane smell it releases when it opens (hence the name) but fear not …the ride home at 94 F on the NYC subway probably was worse when the Corpse Flower smell hahahah ;)
This is some kind of ginger – isn’t this insanly cool? I love ginger and this makes me love it even more .
Let me sneak in another awesome plant …and nope we did not go into the Botanical Garden with a white paint brush LOL –
Water plants- where is the frog. I am always fascinated by water plants must be all the stories and fairy tales too.
Look at the color !!!
And these cacti – it is so funny to me that these delicate flowers are blooming out of this really prickly sturdy thing.
Palm tree pattern and texture
And a giant allium – I need one of those for our garden .
Inside the Library we found this beautiful glass on the floor
And then enjoyed some gorgeous paintings – the one above on fabric by Roberto Burle Marx.
I found it fascinating to look at his paintings after walking through the garden and seeing pictures of his gardens.
“If I do gardens, I don’t want to paint; if I do paintings I don’t want to do woodcuts; if I do prints from woodcuts, I don’t want to do lithography. Each specialty calls for its own technique and medium of expression…I will not do a painting that is a garden. Without a doubt painting and and all sorts of artistic issues have influenced my whole concept of art. I have always sought to avoid being restricted by formulas…” Roberto Burle Marx 1973
I love the shapes and colors and some of them look like gardens or landscape to me
Here is a tapestry by him – also pretty amazing.
Another favorite part of the exhibition was the interactive tile making – based on Marx’ tiles some tile post-its were provided along with different blue colored pencils.
After painting the visitors were encouraged to place them on the wall – it was so beautiful – and fun to see this post-it tile wall.
A wonderful exhibition with an awesome mixture of nature and art. If you have a chance to go – it was so worth the trip!
WOW …what an amazing 3-day Workshop organized by OOAK and held by my sweet friend Birgit Koopsen and me.
Color Crush was the name of the workshop and 21 super sweet, sharing, caring and fun students joined us for this retreat!
Friends attended, Friends were made and
the first day was all about color theory and exercises to work with color and get it really down :)
It was a great date with color and pattern
and even if some of the exercises forced some of our wonderful students to get out of their comfort zone…the spirit was upbeat and color crushing.
Look at all these smiling happy faces.
The second day was all about …well Color of course but also Mono Printing. Because knowing your colors really helps getting the results you want.
We marbled …and…
we mono print painted just a little bit…since this is usually a full day class.
And created fun backgrounds. And for some …it was the very first time mono printing- YEAHHH.
We composed some beautiful collage material and made some cleaning tasks artful and enjoyable ;)
And late in the evening of day two, when all the students were gone to dinner …Birgit and I sneaked in to have a happy look at this colorful classroom. We might have been like little kids in the candy store seeing all the work.
On the third day we bound an art journal together out of all the single pages we worked on so far and started finishing up some of the pages
It was pretty cool to see the group combining Birgit’s and my techniques with their own style- so inspiring and stimulating!
Look at the well used ArtFoamies and StencilGirl Stencils!
And here is our group – minus two who had to leave earlier – with their favorite pages in their art journal!
Thank you so much for coming to Birgit’s and my Color Crush workshop. It was a real pleasure to spend so much time with you creative souls and get to know you better! You inspired me a lot and I couldn’t wait to get back into my studio, it was such an uplifting time. Thank you also to Shelley from OOAK and her awesome team for inviting us and organizing this great event! And last but not least a big hug to my friend Birgit – love co-teaching with you and looking forward to our new plans ;)
Hope you enjoyed the photos of this workshop! If you want to know where I teach next- check out my In-Person Class Schedule – in the next couple weeks.
This Tuesday, Cheiron Brandon from my Creative Squad is happy to share with you some amazing cards using my new Manhattan ArtFoamies and inspired by this month’s theme: “Today is the Day.” I invite you to join me and my Creative Squad to stop procrastinating and be inspired to make today the day you finally tackle that artsy thing you’ve been meaning to get to for so long. Start that new project you’ve been planning for months. Try out that new product you bought ages ago. Experiment with that new technique you read about last year. Try it! Today is the Day!
Hi there! It’s Cheiron here with my monthly post for N*Studio. This month ‘Today is the day’ is our theme, and our mission was to tackle the artsy thing you’ve been meaning to get to. As a card maker, I make tons of cards…but I never seem to have one when I need to send for a birthday, thank you etc. I kept saying I would make a stack of cards, like at least a dozen to have on hand for occasions that come up. I also always say that I will take new products and spend some just for fun playtime with them, but that does not always work either. I set aside two hours the other day to play with Nat’s new art foamies and two things happened 1) I had a great time playing, and 2) I made a dozen cards!
I started out just playing with the Manhattan foamies. The set includes a positive and a negative, so you can add two different layers of color to the stamped image. I tried them out with all different kinds of paints including Distress Paints, Golden Fluid Acrylics and Blick Matte Acrylics and got great results with all 3!
Once I was finished stamping, I cut all the images into squares.
Then I turned them into cards. For some cards I used just the square and a simple sentiment. For a couple I turned them into a shaker card and used the cut out heart on the shaker card on another card. I think you can be real simple or fancy depending on the recipient. It sure feels good to know I have built up my card stash AND have managed to throw in some play time at the same time!
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Aren’t these cards awesome! I colors Cheiron used and the shakerbox is just too cute!
Here are the supplies she used to make those cards – note that some of the links are affiliation links:
Maybe you will even play along with us -I would love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
See you next Tuesday for another project from the Creative Squad!
Thank you for sharing this, Nathalie. Awesome!
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