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.   

Skyscape

I am honored to be a part of Impact--a group of 25 Nebraska artists with a mission to educate through outreach programs and thematic exhibitions.  Our newest exhibition package is titled "Skyscape."  The symbolism and meaning in my painting are begging for a little explanation of the way my brain works...and the things that define the age, space, and time that went into the creation of my Freedom Sky. 

When I heard "skyscape," my first thought was of Georgia O'Keeffe's Sky above Clouds IV, which I'd seen at Chicago's Art Institute on a University of Nebraska study tour in 1997. The painting is huge (8 x 24 feet!) The portrayal of distance in this work has always fascinated me.  On that same tour, we viewed some of the fabulous public sculptures in Chicago, one of my favorite being Alexander Calder's Flamingo located in Federal Plaza.  It's color and curves are a wonderful contrast against the straight grid lines of the Mies van der Rohe buildings surrounding it.  Then, two years ago, I made several trips to Chicago where my daughter was being treated for severe migraines.  On one of those trips, I encouraged her to deny the pain and see a bit of the city. We walked to the Calder sculpture, where we took selfies and other touristy pictures.  So, as I searched for skyscape ideas, and the Art Institute was on my mind, I pulled up the Flamingo pictures and felt drawn to this one because of the transition of the grey-blue across the sky, showing distance and atmosphere. The light is interesting, causing the Flamingo red to appear black, with subtle reflections of red in the buildings.

While musing on the skyscape image, I was also reading Sue Monk Kidd's historical fiction, The Invention of Wings, and was blown away by the realization that the movement to abolish slavery was also the beginning of the woman's rights movement, and they are similar problems in terms of human rights.  All this was going on in my mind as Donald Trump came to the presidency, with the Women's March and lots of civil rights issues...addicting Facebook posts, research to verify "fake news," fear and isolationism.  

Suddenly, the perspective lines of the Federal buildings pointed to the center of the Flamingo, which became a spirit tree, with concentric tree growth rings telling the history of civil rights.  In The Invention of Wings, a slave girl tells about re-enacting her mother's story of her grandmother wrapping scraps of red thread to an oak tree, and ceremonially giving their spirits to the tree.  So, when the Flamingo became a spirit tree in my painting, it required red thread.  Another part of the grandmother’s story told how the stars fell from the sky the night the grandfather was sold to another slaveholder.  So, the stars in Freedom Sky…while suggesting the states symbolized on the American flag, are also falling from the sky.

Many days of Internet research on human rights went into my painting.  The rings of words tell some of the major events in United States history that have affected human rights.  On the gallery wrapped edges of Freedom Sky, I included letters and numbers…initials to honor some of the major players and legislation in the story of human rights in America, as well as those that influenced my painting (Kidd, and Calder).     

Federal Plaza is not in Nebraska, but, it is a pretty cool and unusual view of the midwestern sky.  The buildings and sculpture contrast in the same way federal laws and human rights clash…or rural (Chase County) and urban (Omaha) lifestyles differ...or like conservative and liberal viewpoints seem so at odds in these difficult days. We must look at where we've been and fight for our ideals, yet work and change together.

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