Letters to Eliza

     Last August we voted the new themed show of Impact Nebraska Artists to be "Nebraska Roots."  We will gather this weekend with 24 new artworks and it's been fun to see my peers posting their creations on Facebook. The challenge of painting to a theme and showing with other amazing artists is intimidating. It stretches my imagination, skills, work processes, and understanding of self and others.

     This painting has been a struggle. Started in September, it has been through many phases.  Some of the middle stages were better than near the end! I consider my strength to be balanced compositions, though graphic lines and symbols are often used as a crutch to create balance and focal points. 
     Years ago, I created a collage around a photo of
my great-grandparents and their four children (the hired man was also in the photo).  I had several prints of this small painting and used it in an early stage of Nebraska Roots.  The image became precious...thus, the struggle.  It's difficult to work around a part that you love in a collage, because it may become obliterated...or try to take over the composition. You can see here the photo fights the tree as a focal point. And I loved the real pressed leaves on that tree! They had to go.
       My brother had done a lot of family history work a few years ago, and mom had given him a box of family documents.  He emailed me some photos of letters our great-grandfather, William Vasey, had written in 1879 to"Eliza, my dear wife," who stayed in Iowa while he set up the homestead in Dawson County, Nebraska.  I made gel transfers of his beautiful handwriting (on the right), creating another "precious" problem.

     In the letters, he answers her questions about Indians in the region (1500 camped in the western part of Frontier County), tells of being cheated out of one site,  going over 50 miles to the Loup River to obtain cedar logs for foundation of their house, and says land is going fast.. "if there is anyone wanting to come out here, tell them they had better come soon."
     On the left, to balance the script on the right, I collaged a copy of an envelope addressed to Mrs. Wm. Vasey, Grundy County, Iowa.
     Here, in the fifth photo, I tried to lose the precious, but couldn't because that's what it was all about!  I had actually painted over my grandfather, and could hardly see the great-grandparents...so I cut out duplicate images of those three, making them more important (though still pretty small), and actually moved my grandfather to the place where the hired man was in the original.
     My son had a surprising critique for me.  He said I'm too subtle!  He saw color and missed all the hidden detail until I pointed it out. And he  That's sort of how I've always painted...using the layers of collage to hide secrets.
     I want to try another version of this theme and format.  If it turns out better, I may swap out this Impact piece. Check impactart-ne.org to view other artists' versions of Nebraska Roots, as well as our four other exhibits. "Skyscape" will be in Bancroft, Ne during April.   

Tate Gallery

Ja-was? –Bild (Yes-what? Picture), 1920

While visiting my daughter in England, I was able to take in an afternoon at London's Tate Gallery.  The featured exhibition is about Kurt Schwitters and his artistic ties to England after exile on the Isle of Man for being labeled a dissident by Nazi Germany.  He was one of the first great collage artists, known for his series of "Merz" paintings...named for the collaged use of a clipping from an ad for the Kommerz Bank. A lot of his work became sort of strange, and I'm not thrilled with most of his assemblages, but this painting brought me to tears.  Titled "Ja, was?", the shapes, colors and depth, along with the use of the corrugated cardboard as found in many of my own paintings, hit a nerve and I can hardly wait to share it with students in my upcoming classes at Mid-Plains Community College (ARTS2990).  

Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, 1844

The Tate has a large collection of works by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) described as perhaps the greatest artist England has produced.  I love the color in the landscape shown here.  There was a special exhibit on color theory as used and taught by Turner, where I learned about a book by the poet/philosopher Goethe, Theory of Color. Turner approved of Goethe's (1749-1832) theory of color being at the edges of dark and light, and rejected Isaac Newton's theory that light alone was responsible for color.  This special exhibit also included a great timeline of the colors Turner used according to their availablity and invention of paint tubes.