Photos: John and Suzanne’s Mom. A gourd-body bull by Dave Smyth is being shown at Concord Art’s juried member show, 2025. Don’t you love how artists see potential that so many of us miss?
Today’s pictures are mostly from art exhibits I attended this month. The show at Concord Art, above, was in the process of being set up when Meredith and I went. She aims to submit work for the next show and has appeared in several earlier ones.
The orange giant who is holding up the world is at the Fitchburg Art Museum, where Ann and I took in several exhibits — in particular the Bob Dilworth. Born in Virginia, Dilworth taught art for many years in Rhode Island. I liked learning more about noted 19th century Black landscape painter Edward Bannister, seen in the portrait with his wife. Dilworth’s paintings, which he often worked on for years, feature a collage-like effect from the layering of textiles, stenciling, more.
I knew about Bannister before, but was glad to read something about his wife here.
The next two photos do not show such professional work but rather are ceramics created by people of many skill levels who live in my retirement community. They made sea creatures for display in the nursing building. There’s a marine theme throughout that section, including a big salt water fish tank. I visited a friend there, and now I visit her in the memory-care building.
The final photo is actually from my December trip to New York City. There is loads of public art in Penn Station. Nice to have something to look at if your are too early for your train!
Photo: Suzanne and John’s Mom. Snowdrops arrive in Massachusetts.
I haven’t posted photos for a while, and now I’m realizing that today’s selection goes way back to early January, when Erik’s mother was still visiting from Sweden. She showed me a garden-like cemetery in Providence where she loves to run — and where we were greeted by the largest gang of wild turkeys I have ever encountered!
I particularly liked the unique headstone below: someone must have felt OK about having a final home in this park.
The next photo shows my frosty windshield in February. But indoors at John’s house, warm floral colors were defying the frost.
Note that Suzanne’s stone wall has a light pattern on it. It comes from the sunrise over the river in Providence and through her fence. I have to be quick with the camera as the pattern disappears fast.
The tree of many eyes was also in Providence. Kind of weird and interesting.
The tiny bicycle is ready for a windy ride. The chewed-up bench at the commuter rail station suggests to me that the train is often late.
The book store with the literary squirrel in Boston is part of the indie book store resurgence I wrote about recently, here.
There was a mechanical face in the sidewalk near the park. Conducting surveillance, I suppose.
Finally, a spring treat: Meredith Fife Day’s lovely contribution to a recent exhibit at Concord Art.
Talk about making delicious lemonade out of unwanted lemons! Here’s what two creative friends came up with during lockdown.
Sarah Buttenwieser writes at the Daily Hampshire Gazette, “Like so many of us, artist Katy Schneider worried about how to face quarantine and its uncertainty. Rather than bake sourdough, she reached for a bunch of discarded 3-by-4-inch aluminum slides from Smith College, where she’s taught art for 30 years.
‘I knew I could repurpose the aluminum plates,’ Schneider says. ‘I knew I needed a project to get through quarantine. I like working on things that are the same size.’
“She decided to paint shoes each day. ‘I wanted to play with color and texture,’ she says. ‘These tiny paintings became an exercise to keep me in the studio.’
“After a few weeks, she shared the images with friends, inviting them to write stories or poems about the paintings. … Her most loyal respondent was musician, music teacher and songwriter Jim Armenti.
“ ‘Jim wrote about every single shoe painting,’ Schneider says. There were 40 paintings.
“Schneider moved on from shoes. She began to paint other things she found around her house, like ‘laundry in a laundry basket.’ … Meanwhile, she kept sending Armenti images.
“ ‘Jim continued to write a poem about each painting. It was like we became beholden to one another to complete this daily practice, which has become essential. As soon as I am in my basement sitting with my paints, I feel more relaxed. …
“ ‘Unlike portraiture, which I’ve done so much of, these paintings are of things I’ve never focused upon,’ Schneider says. ‘I feel no pressure to match my best work, because I don’t have best work of these objects; it’s all new discoveries. I’m creating these weirdly joyful images during an abysmal time. It’s energizing. I’m having fun with it.’ …
“Schneider enjoys the fact that the slide dividers worked to protect history — slides — and that she’s repurposing them to create an historical document.
“ ‘These images preserve this time in history, as the slides did before they were digitized,’ she reflects. ‘We are all going through this at once, but alone, and there’s something echoed in that from the tiny images, each divided by squares on the wall, as the dividers kept the slides from one another originally.’ …
“Armenti … loved ‘the solidity of the project right away. It was in my wheelhouse. I just like to do the thing — write the poem — much as I like live performance.’
“He doesn’t watch videos of his musical performances and he doesn’t like to return to the poems he’s written, either. Instead, he considers the poems ‘part of my day.’ …
“Before 8:30 a.m., he responds to email, completes chess moves, takes language lessons online — Spanish, Italian and Turkish — and writes a poem in response to Schneider’s daily painting.
“ ‘I think of her paintings as being of things that are overlooked,’ Armenti conjectures. ‘I like to let a narrative emerge from them, for them to take me on an emotional journey.’ ”
Photo: Concord Art. “Silver Linings: Paintings, Process and Poetry” is an exhibit of Katy Schneider paintings and Jim Armenti poems. Visitors can see it at Concord Art until May 13, 2021. Covid safety rules are in force.
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