Sun Trees, oil pastel by Suzanne Halstead and glass mosaic frame by Margaret Almon
Part 3 of 5 Women Artists to Discover:
Suzanne Halstead, Interview Part 1 and Part 2. One of the first people to encourage me in making art. She introduced me to drawing mandalas, and playing with materials, and colors. I love her Sun Trees oil pastel above, and have it in my studio.
2. A Margaret of Many Names: Grete Marks(1899-1990) Labeled degenerate by the Nazi’s because she was Jewish, and forced to give up her pottery factory in 1934 Germany, and fled to England where she continued to create ceramics that still look futuristic.
Music(1961) by Gabriela Polony-Mountain, Regina Quick Center for the Arts. Photo by Wayne Stratz.
Who are your favorite women artists? The National Museum of Women in the Arts is doing their challenge for March, Can You Name Five Women Artists? In the second in my series, here are 5 more for you to enjoy:
1. Gabriella Polony-Mountain(1918-) Mosaic Artist and Renaissance Woman. Her mosaic Music is pictured above.
Margaret Tafoya from Pottery by American Indian Women by Susan Peterson.
3. Margaret Tafoya(1904-2001) Clothing Her Children with Clay. Tewa potter from New Mexico.
Hilma af Klint: Group IX/UW, No. 25, The Dove, No. 1, 1915, 151 × 114.5 cm, Oil on canvas. Foto: Henrik Grundsted. Courtesy: Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk.
4. Hilma af Klint(1862-1944) Swedish Spiritual Art with Rainbows. She was the first woman allowed to go to art school in Sweden.
5. Clara Driscoll(1861-1944) Designer of many of Tiffany’s Lamps
The National Museum of Women in the Arts is doing their name #5womenartists challenge for 2017. For Women’s History Month, here is my first installment of 5.
Emily Carr, House Posts, Tsatsinuchomi, B.C., 1912 watercolour and graphite on paper 55.4 cm x 76.6 cm National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Purchased 1928 3542
Detail of Equinox II by Elizabeth Osborne(2009), oil on canvas. Veils of Color Exhibit at the James Michener Art Museum. Photo by Wayne Stratz.
To get a postcard about a show entitled Veils of Color ensures I will be wanting to go. Elizabeth Osborne‘s oil paintings are on display until November 15, 2015 at the James Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. In University of Pennsylvania alumni profile, the author quotes Philadelphia Inquirer critic Edward J. Sozanski’s praise for Osborne’s “Dionysian commitment to vibrant, saturated color.” Yes, vibrant, saturated color. I felt like I was stepping into sunshine, and in fact, some versions of these paintings have figurative versions, with a woman sitting at a window.
Detail of Equinox II by Elizabeth Osborne(2009), oil on canvas. Veils of Color Exhibit at the James Michener Art Museum. Photo by Wayne Stratz.
She was born in 1936, and grew up in Lansdale, where I now live. I was taken with the fact that she taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts(PAFA) from 1963-2011, teaching into her 70’s. She recorded an oral history interview with the Senior Artists Initiative, and organization that heartens me by its existence. In addition to oil painting, she has work in watercolor and printmaking.
I realized that I had seen her work at both the Woodmere and the Berman Museum of Art at Ursinius. I like to imagine that her veils of color saturating the Philadelphia area, appearing all around me, and that her legacy of teaching will continue to move outward.
Lantern at Stickley’s Craftsman Farms in Parisppany, NJ. Photo by Wayne Stratz.
Stratoz and I made our second day trip to Craftsman Farms, museum of furniture great Gustav Stickley, in Parsippany, NJ. I first discovered Craftsman Farms from an ad in American Bungalow quite a few years ago. We took our first tour circa 2003, and I was smitten with the tiles, the copper hearths, the textiles and inlaid wood. Stepping into the house was stepping into another world. Photography is not permitted inside, but I noticed the row of lanterns visible through the door, and asked Stratoz to take a photo for me. The lanterns light a trail into beauty.
