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Happy New Year! Looking Back and Facing Forward

Writer's picture: Barbara Swanson ShermanBarbara Swanson Sherman

This week I'm making plans and getting organized. Last week I worked hard to completely fill my 2022 datebook before the year ended and made a bunch of collages. Here's the book--so full I can't close it.


a book full of collages

And here are some of its pages. A Japanese print of a crane with willows; I may do a drawing like this.


A Crane in flight, willows, pine trees

A Rhino with a collection of globes.


a rhino and flying globes and planets

Whales and bed linens.


Whales!

I"m pretty sure this portrait is by Robert Henri, pronounced Hen-rye, a founding member of the Ashcan School, author of The Art Spirit, a book found on every artist's bookshelf. I love the way he uses red in his faces. Don't you love her?


Robert Henry portrait of a girl with rosy cheeks

Enhancement with markers.


Florence

Abstraction of navy blue and pink--a favorite combination.


Navy blue and pink

Lime!


Lime green paint, willow tree

This looks like an Alma Thomas--it was on a magazine cover.


Alma Thomas painting, collage of torn paper

I love to play with scale.


collage of a house with out of scale birds and bees

A house on Sutton Place.


Front door with penguins family

And a rhino in Venice.



This is so much fun--so devil-may-care after the painstaking pen and ink work, as much as I love drawing. When my drawing muse has taken a vacation, as she has since my bout with Covid last month, tearing up magazines and just putting images together any old way is both restorative and energizing. I'm getting ready to start my next drawing--the interior for House of Yellow.

What else am I planning? Two shows coming up at Art at First, our program at First Presbyterian Church at 12 West 12th Street.

In January, with an opening reception on January 22, Spiritual Travelers, curated by Max Kornfield, presents work created as a visual expression of the artists' spirituality or reflection on their religious heritage. It will run until the end of February.

Beginning in early March, 7 Days; Artists View The Creation. Artists from the church and the community at large illustrate different versions of each day's miracle as the Earth came into being.

As the time gets closer I'll keep you informed. Maybe you'll come see!

One last bit of good news. Remember how I said The New Yorker had stopped putting the little walking man in their enclosures? I was so sad. But he showed up in the latest issue.



Did The New Yorker hear my complaint or did they realize on their own that Eustace Tilly walking with his nose in a book is vital to their image? However it happened, I'm glad to see him again.




January 05, 2022

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