Art meets Reverse

When it can't go forward, art goes backward.
I found my way back to reverse glass painting in honor of a former teacher. Joze Ciuha is a Slovenian artist of international acclaim who is known for his provocative, politcal and exquisite work in this technique. I remember studying in Salzburg with him in 1974, doing days and months of figural studies, while his show of impressively large oil & glass panels hung in one of the city's prestigious galleries. His topic was "generals" before the fall of Tito, when Yugoslavia was a still a Soviet satellite. The immense portraits featured chimpanzee faces in generals' attire with cyrillic inquiries, commanding and unforgettable.

When Art Media, Portland's cherished art supply store, announced a workshop, I lept at the chance to join Karin Boe-Hadley and immerse myself. Work is planned and executed in reverse, beginning with highlights and ending with background, which is often goldleaf (or similar metal leaf). It provides complete respite from other thoughts.

Fall has started off with this tiny portrait and relief to have another opportunity to reclaim glass, images, ideas, and fond memories of sketching with Joze at the Salzburg Zoo where a particularly clever monkey tricked me out of my pencil when I mistakenly thought he was aiming for my figs. Art can still trick me like that monkey. Sometimes I have to turn back, to move ahead. What reversals have brought unexpected gifts in your life?

Art meets Egg

Spring brings everything back up out of the dark. The garden at Artimentary Studios beckons us outside...see the Redroom? Indoors, the internal landscape takes shape as we hold Eggamas (our Easter, Spring Equinox, and general family celebration). In our family, a loose and fluid term around here, each of us has very different imagery. We batik our eggs; they are not painted.
Traditional Pysansky tools and methods are used, but we adapt and expand designs from different sources. Ariel's work is exciting and modern, though she is very reverent of the historic craft. She comments "After 10 years I'm still only starting to get across some results I like in this medium. Maybe if I do this throughout my life, I might someday have a bit of the precision and delicate composition seen in the traditional artists. They do this each day for hours and there is no way to match that kind of discipline."
Marieke works like she draws; her pieces remind me of sufism. She works from her interior, and symbols seem to call to her on their own. Her rendering is always unique.







Jeff, as a sculptor, finds the boney surface of the eggs as a ground for the dyes to be unpredictable and somewhat frustrating. But check out the textural quality and impressionistic color! Sumptuous.
We get a great mood going, huddling around the dyes in the scent of natural beeswax candles. We heat our tools, dipping them into traditional wax, which is guided on to block out the design, applying each layer, alternating with dyes revealing a composition done in reverse. Conversation is leisurely and lively. Unexpected egg events occur throughout the process, from blowing them out, all the way to rubbing off the wax at the end to unveil the batiked patterns. The trick is to accept some Raku ("happy accident") along the way. The point is the doing, as in yoga. This one by Ariel actually looks like robin yoga.
Mine are always about praying with my hands, sinking my mind into nature, digging for beauty, composting suffering, planting gratitude. For me it's all about the big prayer, as Anthony Bloom (a greek orthodox bishop) calls it: "Thank you". So here is my namaste, Eggamaste, to you! What art calls to you this spring?