For years, I have created floral and garden paintings as the subject of my art. During the last number of years, I’ve focused ever more closely on the centers of flowers as they speak to me more deeply of the reason for their existence. And ours as well.

As a passionate gardener, I am inspired by the gardens I designed and tend surrounding my own studio in Northport. These flowers represent to me a microcosm of the universe. The outsize scale of these individual flower portraits demands attention. They ask questions beyond the canvas.

What is the purpose for such magnificence in nature? What is the reason for such color, such form, such diversity? What is their relationship to the communities in which they belong, their relationships with other plants and species that sustain them, invade them and nourish them? What of their lifecycle of birth, growth, senescence and rebirth? As humans, what can we learn from their seemingly simple existence?

Initially, we see with our eyes. We name the subject, identify it and classify it. But, we also have a duality of vision which allows us to contemplate with an inner vision. This art invites both the external and internal views.

The dual naming of each painting reflects the complex meaning of the work and is an enticement to think more deeply about the subject. This painting, Pay Attention Here – Orange Hibiscus, is at first a call for contemplation of purpose and secondarily, the common name of the flower which enables a more familiar entry into the conversation.

This year is revealing a lot of unexpected and unusual experiences.

We are making a lot of “firsts steps” into the new unexplored realm of reality. One of such “first steps” for NAWA was its 131st Annual online Members’ Exhibition.

Not only was it a leap of faith into the 21st century by itself, the fact that this was a necessary measure due to restricted social distancing made the Annual Exhibition a very personal experience.

We missed sharing our time together during the installation, being squeezed by the eager art visitors, friends and family at the reception, and commenting on each other’s shoes and dresses—although we could see scarves, hairdos, cool glasses and necklaces as we were watching the Zoom Reception and the Awards Ceremony on our home computer screens. BUT we are still together in numbers—a new record of 254 artists participated in the first NAWA online Annual. The Jurors remarked on an outstanding quality of work as well as the variety of genres and media. The online schedule allows us to host the Annual on the homepage at www.thenawa.org website for three months, until the New Year.

Congratulations, ladies, we did it. Again!

The Artists Panel series enables us to zoom into Award-winning artists to learn about their inspiration and their process. This series will be uploaded to NAWA YouTube channel in November for later playback.

Thank you so much for being a part of NAWA!

Natalia Koren Kropf
NAWA President

Dear NAWA Community,

I hope that you are staying healthy and keep creating during these unprecedented times.

The past three months at NAWA have been very productive.

I am very proud to say that the 131st Annual Exhibit was very successful. We have given 34 awards totaling 10,000 in prizes. If you have not had the time to see the virtual exhibit, please visit the NAWA website. All work is available for sale through our e-commerce site.

As most of you know, we are currently working on the 131st NAWA Catalog that is archived in many US museums and libraries. If you have additional questions about the catalog, please email office@thanawa.org.

We have recently updated our member database and added a feature to the NAWA website that allows current members to create a member account and take care of all their membership needs. We have sent the instructions regarding this new member’s feature and hope you will find it beneficial.

This year, NAWA has welcomed seventy new members into our community. The online New Member exhibit will open on November 1st. We invite you to visit the NAWA website and see your peers’ work.

As always, I wish you continued success and creative expression.

Warm Regards,
Biana

How One Grieving Artist Turned Tragedy Into Art

This article appeared in Highbrow Magazine, by their Chief Art Critic and our own co-editor Sandra Bertrand.

Before the September 11, 2001, attacks, before the current pandemic, grief of such cataclysmic proportions seemed unimaginable for many. But when sculptor Suse Lowenstein’s son Alex, along with his schoolmates, was lost in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, unimaginable grief became a tragic reality for her. The question was, how to survive it?

This mother turned to her art, sculpting herself naked, frozen into the position she fell upon hearing the news of her son’s death. Soon after posting in the Pan Am Victims’ family newsletter about her project, 75 women responded, and the result, “Dark Elegy” has become a monumental sculpture, now residing on Suse’s East Hampton property. Director Jill Campbell’s documentary Seat 20D (First Run Features), provides an eloquent and stirring depiction not only of the work and its creator, but a landscape of those whose lives have been effected by the art.

Campbell’s camera lingers in closeup on the shapes of the sculptures clustered about Suse’s lawn. Arms are raised, heads and hands are clasped, bodies twisted and prone in the agony of grief. The sculptor walks among them, randomly touching an arm here, a leg there. In its totality, it can be painful to contemplate, yet cathartic.

“Americans are not quite ready to accept nudity,” the German-born artist reflects. She is irked that such reactions get in the way of the work. Its power is unmistakable. I couldn’t help when watching recalling Rodin’s figures from the “Gates of Hell.” She explains the steel armature of the forms, wrapped in chicken wire, injected with foam and synthetic stone, then covered in a fiberglass mesh that gives the forms a bandaged look. Other works on her property are finished in bronze, but such efforts seem futile to her without a permanent home for the monument. What will become of it is anyone’s guess and a concern for her younger son. Attempts were made to persuade Syracuse University where Alex attended to accept “Elegy” but so far it is too “large” for them.

Particularly touching are glimpses of Remembrance Week, held annually at the university with 35 scholarship students participating (the number of student victims on the flight). A chorus of voices ring out with a rendition of “I’ll be Seeing You.” At another moment, Suse and visitors to the monument listen to a musical recital on the anniversary of September 11.

The film is laced with personal accounts of mothers who suffered a similar tragedy. One woman’s daughter, a fledgling photographer, printed a photograph of herself as a gift to her mother shortly before the flight. Suse’s own physical pangs of loss are echoed by another mother who compared the moments when she heard about the crash to her original birthing pains.

Several years in the making, “Dark Elegy” is undoubtedly a moving and profound work of art. But perhaps its larger significance is in the solace it has provided for the grief-stricken women it represents.

The Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument

On August 26th, a monumental event took place on behalf of American women everywhere. The Women’s Rights Pioneer Monument was unveiled on Literary Walk in NYC’s Central Park, starring Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth. This 14-foot bronze tribute, several years in the making by sculptor Meredith Bergmann, is long overdue. Until the present, if women wanted to see themselves memorialized in such a surrounding, they would have to go contemplate Alice in Wonderland with her Mad Hatter or the winged angel over Bethesda Fountain. Those days are gone.

Pam Elam, the president of the non-profit Monumental Women, said the responsibility was to have art “reflect the reality of the lives of all of the people who see it.” From the parks department to the Central Park Conservancy to the public design commission, then the Landmarks Preservation Commission, its realization was not an easy task. Finally, a third figure was added, Sojourner Truth, the African-American abolitionist and suffragist. “I wanted to show women working together,” the sculptor said. “I kept thinking of women now, working together in some kitchen on a laptop, trying to change the world.”

Readers are encouraged to make this a must-see experience on the next visit to New York City. (SB)

JANET SCUDDER

By Sarah Katz

I met a woman who said to me, there were more women artists than we know, they just weren’t written about as much as the men, and their achievements were not as appreciated. She suggested we find these women and write about them so they continue to be a part of history. So, I went to the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum, and I saw this lovely fountain, by a woman.

Have a look with me at Janet Scudder, 1869 – 1940, a successful early 20th century sculptor. She was not an iconoclastic artist, her work is traditional and was popular, but I think her achievement is remarkable, and so is she.

She is best known for her decorative fountains, especially the Frog Boy which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Young Diana, which received honorable mention at the Paris Salon of 1915. Her works were shown in 14 museums, her fountains were placed in the gardens of the New York Elite and she received many commendations for her medals, bas relief portraiture and memorial sculptures

Frog Boy Fountain, cast Bronze, 37 ½ in. x 26 in. x 19 in.

She was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and faced many obstacles to her development. Her mother died when she was five. She was raised by her father, her grandmother, who was blind, and the housekeeper. She was interested in art and drawing from an early age. From high school she attended the Cincinnati Art Academy and studied sculpture.

She said, “I became a sculptor because I couldn’t help it.I tried water colors, woodcarving, portrait painting and I hammered brass. Brass gave me no response and every echo was a thud.”

She later wrote that “The feel of that clay in my hand was entirely different from anything I had ever experienced before. Just the mere sensual part of it, the touch, seemed to fire me with something tremendously stimulating.”

The Young Diana, Bronze, Rich Green Patina 1910, 7 ft. 6 ¾ in.

After the death of her father, she interrupted her education to help support the family. She taught woodcarving at a local college until her older brother helped her with the cost of finishing her education. Perhaps because of the fragility of the family finances, she focused her creative spirit into commercial success. Her talent for gesture and delight in the natural world is evident in her playful fountains.

Tortoise Fountain, Bronze with Patina, 27 in. high

Interestingly, her paintings are more personal, and suggest a deep inner life.

She continued her studies in Europe, and lived in Paris for most of her adult life. She was active in the artistic life of the times. She believed that women artists were as capable as men, and strong enough to handle the physical demands of the work. She faced the usual prejudices. She once had to resign from a position in a wood carving studio because the men went on strike over having a woman working there!

Nevertheless, she persisted. She established herself as a professional sculptor in America and Europe and enjoyed a busy and fulfilling professional life. She received a commendation for her humanitarian work during WWI in France, and was active in women’s suffrage.

She seems to have lived openly as a gay woman. I haven’t read anything about how that affected her work or her life, but I have recently located a copy of her autobiography, “Modeling My Life” and am curious to see if she talks about it. Reading about her life and her works makes me wonder if we might judge a woman’s accomplishment differently than we do a man’s? In my own life and career, I have faced many obstacles, and I have judged my progress harshly. At a certain point, I came to feel that my greatest work of art was not any object I had produced or gallery I had gotten into. It was my life

Janet Scudder pursued a career in art, when very few professions were open to women. She came from a humble background and achieved a big, creative successful life.

Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist

Whitney Museum of American Art through November 1, 2020

Untitled, 1931, Agnes Lawrence Pelton

Some extraordinary artists manage to elude the public grasp, by design or fate and the time in which they live. Agnes Pelton (1881–1961) was a visionary symbolist who depicted the spiritual reality she experienced in moments of meditative stillness. She gave through her own vocabulary of curvilinear, biomorphic forms and delicate, shimmering veils of light, a vision of a higher consciousness within the universe.

For most of her career, Pelton chose to live away from the distractions of a major art center, first in Water Mill, Long Island, from 1921 to 1932, and subsequently in Cathedral City, a small community near Palm Springs, California. Her isolation from the mainstream art world meant she was relatively unknown during her lifetime and in the decades thereafter.
Originally organized by the Phoenix Art Museum and curated, catalogue written by Gilbert Vicario.

JEFFREY WECHSLER

My involvement with NAWA began in 1988, when NAWA president Liana Moonie realized the need for a permanent collection for the association. She approached Douglass College, the distinguished women’s college at Rutgers University, suggesting that the university might house the new collection.

This was a perfect fit. Douglass College was a recognized leader in advanced education for women, with important women’s studies curricula and research into women’s history.

The Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers has always sought out collections and exhibitions that presented important but overlooked aspects of historical and modern art. Thus, the NAWA Collection at Rutgers was established.
My curatorial career has been centered at Rutgers (from where I retired in 2013). In 1988, as the curator in charge of American Art, I became the individual primarily responsible for the selection, maintenance, and presentation of the collection. Besides initiating several NAWA shows at the Rutgers museum, I have been pleased and honored to organize NAWA exhibitions at other venues, including a show at the UBS Gallery in Manhattan marking NAWA’s 120th anniversary, and a presentation at the Morris Museum on the occasion of NAWA’s 125th anniversary.

I have always been interested in styles, artists and groups that have made worthy, but generally underappreciated, contributions to American art. NAWA’s early and ongoing mission to promote and exhibit the art of women is something I admire, and I have continued to work with NAWA as a board member and in curatorial and advisory capacities.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Kate Kennedy

It was a busy summer for NAWA SC. We have opened three great exhibits since July and three more exhibits are already scheduled in 2021. We have been lucky we have been able to still have physical exhibits with social distancing and masks. The SC Art Divas are pleased we are now being recognized for excellence and creativity in our region. A must see is our cutting-edge 3D online exhibit just launched by the Vendue Art Hotel, Charleston SC. This exhibit, “Inspirational Journey” honors author Pat Conroy, his writing and community service, and was sponsored by Robert Lange Studios and Gallery. Over 50 works of Art by CS, FL and MA Chapters are on view.

The Vendue Art Hotel, Gallery 26, Inspirational Journey

Here’s the direct link to the special 3D exhibit for your social media: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=Hu9vD9ngtPZ Filmed in the incredible Gallery 26 at the Vendue.

The second sister exhibit “Inspirational Journey – Small Chapters” opened simultaneously at Coastal Discovery Museum and is also a physical exhibit and online at www.nawasc.org. There are many new things to see on our website including the Zoom Reception video with guest conversations by Jonathan Haupt, Director of the Conroy Literary Center, Natalie Hefter, Director of Events and Coastal Discovery Museum, and our artists. Sandy Dimke did a fabulous job as the exhibition lead. Both of the exhibits are open October 15th to November 30th 2020 online at www.nawasc.org

Press is ongoing for these exhibits: Radio Personality Brook Ryan did a morning segment and Instagram story, HolyCitySinner.com online: https://www.holycitysinner.com/2020/10/09/national-association-of-women-artists-south-carolina-to-present-art-exhibition-at-the-vendue-art-hotel/

In September, the “Earth to Sky” Exhibit was well received at the Art League of Hilton Head Gallery. The wonderful exhibit scored the Cover and an Article for Carolina Arts Magazine, and an article in Low Country Weekly Newspaper. Thank you Joanna Biondolillio and Susan Irish for the exhibition leadership and hard work.

Sisterhood of Chapters Exhibit:
“Some Like it Hot”, the first sister chapter virtual exhibit was a smash with 82 women artists participating. We had over 2500 views in each of the 4 virtual galleries, and our website clicks went through the roof! We were able to work together, and meet other chapter members to make women’s art visible. I loved being able to meet the artists and match them with their work at our virtual reception.

New things coming for website for 2021
Education Page
Archived Exhibits

Upcoming Zoom Panel Discussions: Art and Social Commentary, The Influence of Literature on Art, Gullah Art, Folk Art, Fine Art and more.

Upcoming Exhibits:
Treasures of Our Coastal State, Coastal Discovery Museum, January 20th to February 28th 2021. Save the date! Prospectus will be arriving in members email soon.

“Art Angels” April 2021 for all members who have volunteered for at least 6 hours since NAWASC inception in 2018

Marker 23 Gallery, Stuart, Florida is a joint exhibit with the Florida Chapter. Save the date March 2021, with prospectus coming soon.

FLORIDA CHAPTER

by Roberta Milman-Ide, President

The World may have changed drastically since last Spring but NAWAFL barely skipped a beat. We were already a Board and Membership accustomed to communicating online due to the logistics of having both seasonal Floridian residents as well as members living throughout a very large state. So, when venues closed, we immediately turned to having regular Online Art Salons, Art Talks & Art Workshops for all our NAWAFL members. This has been a wonderful way to stay connected, to learn from one another and grow a stronger sense of community through this online Zoom platform.

And, in addition to attending our Online Events, where you can interact, ask questions or give feedback, you can also view our online events on our new NAWAFL YouTube Channel, some (such as Art Salons) are for public viewing to help promote NAWAFL and our artists, while other workshops are by invitation link only.

And, all online Art Salons and Workshops are included with your NAWAFL Membership! We plan to continue this throughout the Fall, Winter and even beyond as venues slowly and safely reopen. These online art workshops and talks can only be made possible by our amazing volunteers and our Online Art Salon Coordinator, Anabel Rub Peicher.

In addition to our active online events, we participated with our sister Chapters (NAWAMA & NAWASC) over this past summer, in our first combined and first Virtual Online Exhibition: “Some Like It Hot”. Virtual Exhibitions offer a unique user experience to visiting galleries and viewing art at one’s leisure. This is a relatively new experience in the Artworld; but one that I’m sure will become an added enhancement to most brick and mortar venues in our future. I tremendously enjoyed our exhibition collaboration with NAWAMA & NAWASC and look forward to many more in the future, both virtual and in brick and mortar galleries. NAWAFL is also looking forward to exhibiting as soon as more venues become open in Florida.

But for now, we’ll see you online!

Please visit our website at www.nawafl.org and click on our “Board of Directors” to see the fabulous team who are making NAWAFL so active. And, become a member! And… if you are already a member and want to know how to get more involved with our online art salons and workshops as a volunteer, click on: Anabel’s link found below ONLINE ART SALONS & PROGRAMS COORDINATOR on the site. Active members are what powers our success!

MASSACHUSETTS CHAPTER

Jennifer Jean Costello, President

Our mantra this year is more or less ‘month to month.’ And so it’s such a wonderfully positive feeling to know that we’re on our 4th Quarter and, well, we’re not just ‘surviving’ – we’re thriving! There are silver linings to everything, and if I can’t see some of you as much face-to-face as we’re used to, at least with Zoom we are still able to connect, share, and celebrate the many great things occurring this year.

Some of the highlights of our chapter have been continuing our members’ visibility through AREA CODE Art Fair (as a response to the impact of the novel Corona virus on the arts and culture industry.)  A sector that operates as both a major economic driver and source of social connection and well-being throughout New England, AREA CODE is a ground-breaking contemporary art fair that presents a range of digital and decentralized in-person experiences across greater Boston. AC featured works from established artists, new up-and-comers, and highlights social justice activism and advocacy in art.  Hello World, An Art Affair Around the Globe (a virtual travelogue of artworks created by nearly 250 artists working in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia, is available at https://transculturalexchange.org/activities/hw/venues.htm and our online 5 ‘Shops’.) We have had sales and in addition to the venue, presence has tried to maximize our members’ artistic talents.

Second, a ‘Fall Sowa Pop-up’ to thank our members: ‘Art and Activism’ to confront and blur the dichotomy between art and activism, as well as create narratives of resilience, healing, solidarity, and freedom. Along with the Pop-up, there is a demo/talk about some aspect of international exchange at Trans-Cultural Exchange’s 2021 International Conference on Opportunities in the Arts: Create the Future, which is planned for November 4-7, 2021. Topics we are exploring: Artists Band Together, The Thrill of Discovery, Art, and Activism.

Our Chapter continues to grow with a healthy roster of 2020 and beyond exhibitions, www.nawama.org/calendar: Sheltering in Place II Social, along with our Scholarship 2020 recipients Wrileidy Lopez, Hallie Gagnon, and Carmela Murphy. These bright and talented young women received $1500 each with the third underwritten by Signature Consulting. Last, welcoming our 15 new members (Yay!) and continued PR coverage via Artscope’s E-blast, IG, Facebook, along with Fountain Street Fine Art ‘Lust After’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6ptNcUxsSU0 , Atlantic Wharf Gallery ‘S|HE’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5624uc3x8_g&feature=youtu.be  and Canvas Fine Arts ‘Floating Dreams’ https://artscopemagazine.com/2020/05/floating-dreams-strikes-a-chord/

To say something like, “So much has changed over the past 8 months….?”  For the simple reason that, of course, it has. And yet, it also hasn’t: the sun is still shining, ice-cream still tastes yummy, basically doing ‘our joys’ this time of the year is still enjoyable even on a lesser scale. Let’s end with the big question we are all asking, most certainly, is exactly, what does that return of the Art World look like? And of course, I wish I could answer it with a level of certainty that just isn’t possible right now. All we can do is watch how the larger cities are doing. And most significantly, our artist members can’t wait to hear Welcome back! – whatever that “coming back” looks like. The best two words!

May the end of the year bring us all some sun and a chance to catch our breath – be well!

By Nancy Vineburgh

Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Artists

By Jontyle Theresa Robinson

This NAWA Reads pays tribute to black female artists and it does so by drawing upon a provocative and prescient book, Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works of Art by African American Artists. Bearing Witness is the exhibition catalogue for a 1996 installation launched at Spelman College. Spelman is the oldest and best-known college for black women in the world, and the only black woman’s college affiliated with a major academic consortium, the Atlanta University Center.

Mounted in the museum of the Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Academic Center, the exhibit featured sixty works of art from 25 contemporary African American women artists – their paintings, fabric art and sculpture. As described by the African American scholar, V.Y. Mudimbe, all of the works embody three aspects of traditional African art. Many are functional, utilitarian and all represent “memoriae loci”, places of memory. In this context ‘memory’ relates to the Greek martyr, which connotes witness.

This triad is reflected in the image on the catalog’s cover. The image, ‘Watching’ (1995), is a recycled, decorative furnace grate, a piece the artist may have found at a junkyard or swap meet. Its original use was to cover an aperture in a dwelling through which hot or cold air passed. Behind the grate, we see a middle-aged American woman peering out and watching the future. A bird rests on the outside of the grill who is also watching. The bird symbolizes Jim Crow, a body of state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the South throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Watching by Betye Saar, there is an active witness, a place of memory. The artist has created a mixed media collage of paper, fabric, and acrylic paint on the flat side of the grate. She combines two meanings: the utilitarian function is obvious in the grate itself; the artist then made herself the subject of the work to certify or bear witness to the hot and cold temperatures of the twentieth and nascent twenty-first century.

NAWA South Carolina Chapter member, Diane Britton Dunham, recommended Bearing Witness, which has served as an inspiration throughout her painting career. Diane is both a gifted Gullah artist and respected historian whose insights I wish to share with you. Diane discovered Bearing Witness in 1997 at a book festival. She found the cover “beguiling” and upon opening it, she realized she had never heard of these artists, nor their lives, nor their stories. “I wanted to create how they created. I wanted to be like them, to know them, to be a part of them.” Diane began to research many of the featured artists’ lives, “and eventually they became my friends in spirit.”

Bearing Witness is divided into several sections that encompass the themes explored by these twenty-five artists. The first section, ‘Warrior Women: Art as Resistance’, explains how the civil rights and women’s movements influenced female black art. We view the work of Elizabeth Catlett and Faith Ringgold in diverse media. Section two, Triumphant Determination: The Legacy of African American Women Artists, introduces us to Harriet Powers, Sarah Mapps Douglas, Mary Edmonia Lewis and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller to name but a few. The third and fourth sections take us into the twenty-first century and provide glimpses into Afro-U.S. women’s art.

The exhibit’s curator, Jontyle Theresa Robinson, sums up the significance and relevance of this exhibit and its companion catalog. “The urgency of “Bearing Witness” cannot be over emphasized. In four years, a new century will begin. This exhibition of contemporary African American women artists is not an historical exhibit, nor is it a retrospective. As the century closes (20th century), “Bearing Witness” informs us about the present and portends the future.”

I highly recommend this book to our members be they sculptors, painters or mixed media artists. As we know, art reflects society. In our current and complex climate, we expand the value of our work by understanding traditions and artistic expressions through knowledge of diverse cultures and art experiences. Bearing Witness underscores the experiences and artistic talents of our nation’s black female artists.

I have 2 paintings on exhibit at the 2020 FL3TCH3R Exhibition at the Reece Museum in Johnson City, TN.

The Transmigrations Of Souls, Mixed media on canvas, 48 in. x 60 in., 2019-2020.

Last Christmas I watched with vigilance and sadness, the pandemic rampaging in Wuhan, China, spreading throughout China and by the first days and weeks of the year 2020, the coronavirus already claiming countless lives in Italy and Iran. I began this painting over the holidays of 2019, deeply concerned for China, Italy, Iran and traveling migrants throughout the world escaping war zones. I finished it at the end of February with global lives lost and in anticipation of American lives facing the inevitable.

Denise Shaw

Nansi Lent
Untethered
Queen City 15 Gallery
317 Main Street, Poughkeepsie, NY
November 6–28 15, 2020
Reception: November 7, 4:00–6:00 PM

Adele Grodstein
Piermont fine Arts Gallery 2020
Adele Grodstein Paintings
Dreamscape with Leona Carrington, Mexico City, 1954 Ash Street, NY
Fort Collins Museum of Art, CO
August 13 – August 30, 2021

Biennial Exhibit

Rhonda Urdang
Arizona Biennial
Tucson Museum of Art
140 N. Main Avenue, Tucson, AZ
Through January 16, 2021

Kimberlee Alemian
Interview with Spotlight News Magazine
spotlightmagazineinterview_kalemian

Sandra Bertrand
Highbrow Magazine
How One Grieving Artist Turned Tragedy Into Art
By Sandra Bertrand, NAWA NOW, Co-editor, Highbrow Magazine, Chief Art Critic
highbrowmagazine_sandrabertrand

Sonia Stark
Whitehot Magazine
The Empathetic Portrait: Sonja Stark
whitehotmagazine_sonjastark

As the days grow shorter, and Fall looms with new concerns, our expectations for our lives and our creativity do not have to diminish. We have proven over the last several months that we are up to the challenge.

Take our first online Annual Exhibition, for instance. This year we had the greatest number of member participants ever—254 artists demonstrating their unstoppable drive and determination in the face of a pandemic setback. There have been other online themed exhibitions as well with a healthy participation. Weekly Zoom and U-tube member interviews have provided us with a close-up look at a variety of artistic processes and philosophies. A new format, NAW Educates, introduces an exciting exposure to participants sharing their expertise with us. Even the possibility of new partnerships (Don’t miss Sandra’s interview with Francois Colbert of the University of Montreal’s Department of International Arts Management) is an invigorating development.

We continue to take a look into artists from the past (take a look at Sarah Katz’s investigation into the early 20th century sculptor Janet Scudder or the transcendental painter Agnes Pelton, two artists who you will discover in our Under the Radar section.) Member Shout Outs and our Red Carpet choice give readers another opportunity to get to know our membership better. Nancy Vineburgh’s reviews in NAWA Reads is another opportunity to explore the lives of other artists of note. There’s more, of course, to keep you up to date on our NAWA board members and national and chapter activities.

And there’s you. What you’re thinking, feeling, and creating is important to us. Let us hear from you. This is your newsletter, your forum.
Wishing you good health and inspiration as we move onward!

Sandra Bertrand

Sarah Katz