Art in Time of Uncertainty: 2020 and COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 - Art in Time of Uncertainty

COVID-19 Pandemic

A Pandemic: An Introduction (Update April 2021)

mbfitzmahan. The Art Junket. Berkeley, California. 2020.

Don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
Singing' don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Rise up this mornin'
Smiled with the risin' sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true. Bob Marley

April 20, 2020

On New Year’s Eve, 2019, the Chinese government reported a new virus in the Hubei prefecture. 11 days later, a man died from what would be called the “coronavirus.”

That was 3 months ago. We were celebrating New Year’s Eve in Upstate New York. I thought that 2020 sounded like a particularly auspicious year.

Ten days later the virus was spotted in the United States. Two months after that, infections and deaths increased exponentially, and on March 11th the World Health Organization declared that the world was experiencing a pandemic.

There is no cure or vaccine for the coronavirus.

mbfitzmahan. Pandemic-Lockdown. 2020

In 1969 I had the Hong Kong flu in Tokyo. Thirty years later I was bedridden for six weeks in Wales with a different flu. In early March here in Upstate New York, I suggested to Don that maybe we should go to COSTCO and buy extra toilet paper. Maybe buy extra beans and hand sanitizers. Do we have enough flour?

Governments throughout the world were dangerously unprepared for the coronavirus. Recriminations were tossed back and forth between presidents and prime ministers. Someone had to be blamed. Was it the Chinese? The Democrats? Those hospital workers that must be stealing face masks. How about Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos?

Although warned weeks before the outbreak, Donald Trump failed to effectively mobilize a nationwide response to the epidemic. The virus spread so quickly, that each week of inaction led to massive infections and deaths.

The president forbid visits from travelers from China, then from Europe, and then from everyplace else. Still people got sick and died. Even if sick, people were told to stay home. Only if “you feel like you are drowning or you can’t catch your breath should you go to the doctor’s or to the emergency room.”

Hospitals could not take care of all the sick. ICU’s were filled past capacity. Doctors and nurses didn’t have enough protective masks and gowns. Medical staff came down with the disease. Many died.

Tao Graham. Masks. Berkeley, CA. April 2020

Trying to avoid going to the store, Don and Eric make bread every other day. Don makes rice milk and Eric makes oat milk. Don makes kombucha. Erin helped us plan a garden and I bought seeds for planting. Our 6 year old twins are out back making the ground ready. Just waiting for the weather to cooperate. It snowed today on April 18th.

The CDC and the World Health Organization warn people: “wash your hands and don’t touch your face.” Avoid large crowds. Finally, in mid March governors from many states ordered schools to shut down. Non-essential businesses were forced to close and finally people were ordered to stay home.

We are “sheltered in place.” Erin and Eric take turns homeschooling their Kindergarten boys. Schools have been closed since March 18th. It is likely that schools won’t reopen until September.

The disease spread from community to community, unhampered and chaotic. Without a cure, the virus killed the most vulnerable - the old, the sick, African Americans, and Latinos. It also infected the young and killed some of them, too.

Don and I are the most vulnerable in our multigenerational household as we are both in our 70’s. On March 21st, Liam suddenly came down with a stomach ache, fever, and diarrhea. Augie, Erin, and Eric soon had similar symptoms. The family stayed upstairs in self-quarantine. Don and I fixed meals, snacks, and drinks and left trays on the stair landing. The symptoms lasted only 4 or 5 days, but Erin et. al. stayed upstairs for the requisite 14 days. Stomach ailments were not initially considered one of the symptoms of coronavirus. But, to be safe, the four of them stayed upstairs. A few weeks later, fever and stomach ailments were identified by the CDC as possible symptoms of coronavirus.

Kaitlin Strange. Quarantined in Barcelona. Barcelona, Spain. April, 2020

As of this writing on April 20th, 2020, globally there have been reported 2.5 million cases of the coronavirus disease. Since few people are tested for the virus - that number is probably only a scant 10% of the true number - the actual number of cases is more likely 20.5 million. In the United States there have been 767,379 cases of coronavirus. The likely number of cases could be as high as 7.6 million.

The first case of coronavirus in New York State was discovered on March 1. Today, a bit more than a month and a half later, the number of confirmed cases is 256,555.

The first death in New York State was on March 14th. Today the death toll for New York is 19,693.

Maureen Fitzmahan. Unmade Bed. Pawling, New York. March 2020.

Don and I go for walks down our country road. I listen to podcasts on the pandemic and go on Zoom and FaceTime to talk to our family. I watch British dramas on Netflix until 2 in the morning. The last time I walked out with a group of people was in late February when Don and I took the train to Grand Central Station and toured the Catacombs under the Basilica of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Manhattan. Touring tombs below the busy streets of New York City seems an uncannily prescient experience when the first death in New York City would hit 2 weeks later.

I felt very anxious in the first weeks. Boredom broke through next. Depression followed. Now I am writing this article, and I feel like I have some small purpose as I reach out to you, my artist friends. I feel like I am a small part of a global experience, sharing these hard months with 7.6 billion other vulnerable human beings.

Maureen Fitzmahan, April 21, 2020. Pawling, New York.

Brian Nelson. Untitled. Berkeley, California. April 2020.

Update: April 25, 2021.

One year has past since I wrote this article.

Around the world we are still working our way through this COVID pandemic. Worldwide there have been 14.7 million cases of COVID 19. There have been 3.1 million deaths.

The United States has suffered nearly 600,000 deaths, and 32.1 million cases of coronavirus.

Fortunately, none of our Art Junket members got sick. We all changed our lives considerably. Katie Strange who had left Berkeley moved to Barcelona in September 2019 to get her PHd. Her husband contracted coronavirus early in March 2020 and was extremely sick. Fortunately, Katie who was a few months pregnant, stayed well. She gave birth to a baby boy in August 2020. Then four months later, she and her family left Barcelona. The members of her collegiate were not able to meet because of the pandemic and any opportunity to continue her research was stymied. She and the family have moved to Vashon Island near Seattle, Washington.

Erin Mahollitz. “This Is Not the Homeschooling You Are Looking For,” Pawling, New York. March 2020.

Erin and our families have bought 20 acres in Upstate New York and Erin is still homeschooling her twin boys. Shauna and her husband escaped Brooklyn and have spent the last year moving from safe harbor to safe harbor to avoid the virus - Wisconsin woods, Colorado winter, Yucca Valley in California, and Seattle, Washington.

The former president, Donald Trump, denying the danger of the pandemic, made the health crisis a political platform. Fortunately, he was thrown out of office in the November elections and Joe Biden was elected president.

Vaccines became available, and many of us have been vaccinated in 2021. The State governments started inoculating health care workers and then those of us over 65. Quickly, everyone became eligible. As of April 2021, every adult in the United States is eligible to get a vaccine.

Don Fitzmahan. Maureen vaccinated! Westchester County, New York. February 11, 2021.

At first, it was very difficult to find an appointment to get vaccinated. Don and I were fortunate to be able to have the time and resources to get vaccinated with our first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at the end of February. We got our second on March 4th.

The country has not reached ‘herd immunity,’ yet. Nearly 30% of Americans have received at least their first dose of the vaccine. 229 million doses have been administered. Worldwide 1 billion people have been vaccinated at least once. Most vaccines require two shots to be completely effective.

25% of American adults are still refusing to get vaccinated because they distrust the government, fear the effects of the shot, or doubt the efficacy of the vaccines.

Since last year, the United States has suffered nearly 600,000 deaths from COVID 19.

In other parts of the world, the disease has surged. In India nearly 300,000 people contracted the virus yesterday. Japan continues to ban travel into their country. New variants of the virus are dangerously attacking unvaccinated populations.

There are signs in the news and from friends of high levels of optimism interspersed with deep levels of fear, depression, and ‘languishing.’

Maureen Fitzmahan, April 26, 2021. Lagrangeville, New York.

mbfitzmahan. Grand Central Station at Noon. New York City, NY. May 10, 2021.

Update: May 15, 2021

An unexpected turn of events brings us hope. On Thursday, May 13th, the American CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) announced that studies now show that in the United States vaccinated persons are unlikely to be contagious. In addition, the vaccines have been found to be 97% effective, even against the highly contagious and virulent variants from the UK, South Africa, Brazil, and India.

Because of the latest science, the CDC no longer requires vaccinated persons to wear masks in most places. Inside or out.

Fully vaccinated people (i.e. 2 weeks beyond 2nd vaccination) no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required. Also, vaccinated people do not need to be tested following a known exposure to the virus.

Katie Fitzmahan. Katie and Huxley Strange back in the United States. Seattle, Washington. February 14, 2021.

This is surprising and very good news.

Maureen Fitzmahan, May 15, 2021. Lagrangeville, New York.

The photographs on this page are by Art Junket members - West, East, and Abroad. In April 2020. I made a call to artists, most of us in isolation at home, to push through our fear, feelings of impotence and ennui. Go and take a photo. Use your iPhone or any camera available. How are you feeling, what are you seeing? Record this historic time through art.

Tao Graham - Berkeley, California - member of Art Junket West (2017-2022).

Kaitlin Strange - Barcelona, Spain - founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Maureen Fitzmahan - Pawling, New York - founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Brian Nelson - El Cerrito, California - member of Art Junket West (2017-2022).

Erin Mahollitz - Pawling, New York - founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Tech adviser and designer: Erin Mahollitz

Photos on cover, and front - Maureen Fitzmahan.

Maureen Fitzmahan and Erin Mahollitz are the founding members of the Art Junket (2015-2020).

Art and Journalism

Katie Strange - Line Drawing

My dream is to walk around the world. A smallish backpack, all essentials neatly in place. A camera. A notebook. A traveling paint set. A hat. Good shoes. A nice pleated (green?) skirt for the occasional seaside hotel afternoon dance. Maira Kalman, illustrator and journalist, Principles of Uncertainty, 2007

Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange. Berkeley, California. 2019.

and then nestled inside an article written in handwritten text. I’ve seen these illustrations in the New Yorker and as illustrations in books. Some artists call this graphic journalism or pictorial narration.

Maira Kalman, author and New Yorker columnist, said that when she began writing with illustrations, she asked herself, “How do I combine this writing and this art to say as much as I can with as few words as I can?” She describes herself as a ‘remix’ artist, feeling that words and artwork are inseparable.

Wendy McNaughton, based in San Francisco, calls her work ‘illustrative journalism.’ She draws pictures of people then uses their interviews to tell stories. She says that “Sketching opens up doors, while other media might shut them down.” She was featured on PBS and ended her piece with, “I am interested in the stories of people who don’t get their story told.” (PBS NewsHour, “How drawing opens up doors for this documentarian.” January 7, 2016)

Kaitlin Strange, a founding member of the Art Junket, was asked by Berkeleyside, a small local newspaper, to write a series of columns on women chefs on the east side of San Francisco Bay. Katie interviewed chefs and used one-line drawings to tell stories of how the women started making food for others, and what challenges the food industry has for a woman in the business.

Many years ago, I watched as Katie made these one-line portraits. She didn’t seem to be really paying attention to what she was drawing, she just made it happen on paper. Line drawing is an image made by pen or pencil against a plain background and a continuous line drawing is one in which a single, unbroken line is used to make the image.

Katie Fitzmahan Strange. 2019

At first making portraits for her friends and family, Katie started making portraits of women who inspired her. Then people started to buy her little drawings - drawings that she made as an expression of love of friends, family, and important ideas. She made drawings of the nature she grew up with. She drew animals she tried to protect. As Katie travels to work or on journeys abroad, she carries a quiet little sketchpad. On the bus, sitting at a cafe, or hiking in the Sierras, Kaitlin Strange records life as she feels it.

Words and illustration of Berkeleyside article: Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange

Words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Salvador Dali: Level Up

Salvador Dali

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Apple's THINK DIFFERENT advertising campaign. 1997-2002. Designed by TBWA/Chiat?Day ad agency. Text by Craig Tanimoto. Narrated by Richard Dreyfus and Steve Jobs. 1997.

Salvador Dalí. Explosion of Mystical Faith in the Midst of a Cathedral. 1959 - 1974.

Salvador Dali wasn’t a surrealist. Picasso wasn’t a Cubist. These iconic artists of the 20th century were explorers.

In March 2019 I visited the Dalí Theater Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. There are some paintings of Dalí I have liked for a long time. You know, the melting clock one: The Persistence of Memory. Or, a close up of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross in a darkened sky: Christ of Saint John of the Cross. When I was in my mid 20s I bought a Bible illustrated by Dalí’. It is the family Bible in our house today. I have to admit, though, that there are many of Dalí’s works that I just thought were plain weird.

When we visited Catalonia last Spring, we traveled to Figueres just to see the museum Dalí designed.I must confess, I was worried this would be a wasted trip. I needn’t have worried. We spent three hours discovering art in all its forms. We climbed a ladder to see an art installation that revealed a room that transformed into the face of Mae West. We stood on a viewing platform to view a corner of the vaulted courtyard where we found an abstract painting that metamorphosed into a face of Abraham Lincoln. Nothing in that building was boring or plebeian. Some art was strange, others were breathtakingly beautiful. The walk through the museum was an experience unlike one I have ever had before.

Salvador Dalí. Galatea of the Speres. 1952.

Dalí was the Marco Polo of art. He painted, sculpted, and made etchings and murals. He designed buildings and jewelry. He experimented with realism, cubism, surrealism, photography and film. He incorporated Renaissance painting into his art. Dalí unapologetically copied the art from centuries of other artists. He adopted ideas from Catholicism and modern science.

My favorite piece in the museum was Dalí’s Explosion of Mystical Faith in the Midst of a Cathedral. We saw a large copy of the painting in one room and then went in search to find the original. As if we were in an Escape Room, we searched throughout the museum for clues. I pride myself in being a consummate mystery solver after years of reading Louise Penny and Tony Hillerman, and watching hours of British mystery series. We finally found the original in the courtyard. I say “found,” but we never saw the painting directly. We never saw this painting of 7.5 feet x 5.5 feet. Hidden behind another installation, the painting can only be seen as a reflection in a mirror.

Dalí worked on this painting in his studio for 15 years and it is one of Dalí’s least known works. And, yet, the painting brought tears to my eyes.

Salvador Dali. Manifeste mystique (Mystic Manifesto). 1951.

Dalí copied the face of the ascending saint from Raphael’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1507. What stands out above all is the central explosion of white and yellow light. An energy bursts and shatters off the canvas. I felt myself standing amongst the figures scattered at the bottom of the canvas. Hoping to ascend.

Dalí said he was emotionally affected by the tragedy of the atom bombs dropped in 1945. After the war, he accused his fellow artists that their art' “comes so directly from the tube of their biology that they don’t even mix in even a bit of their heart or soul.”

Front page: Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory. 1931. MOMA, New York City.

Words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Salvador Dalí. Explosion of Mystical Faith in the Midst of a Cathedral. 1959 - 1974.

Salvador Dalí. Galatea of the Speres. 1952.

Salvador Dali. Manifeste mystique (Mystic Manifesto). 1951.

Negative Space

Negative Space

Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference. Bob Dylan, 2013

Negative space gives the observer some breathing room, a place to relax before moving on. The negative space in a composition may also help to shift the eye of the observer from a void to a place of focus. East Asian art effectively made use of the concept of emptiness.

mbfitzmahan. Eri Watanabe. Tokyo, Japan. April 2022.

Negative space is the empty space around the positive image of a painting, a photo, even within a garden. Negative space is far from empty. Negative space can form an artistically interesting shape, and may be the real subject of an image.

Toda Hokuyo, Painting of Squirrels Playing in a Persimmon Tree, ~1924

Negative space in Japanese is yohaku no bi,  余白の美, i.e. the beauty of a white space. Negative space is used in sumi-e paintings as well as in other art of Japan and China. It is this aesthetic that influenced the simple tatamis and shoji in a Japanese home. I am especially a fan of the white walls, aromatic grass tatami, and shoji that divide the rooms and allow a diffused light to come in from the outside. The Japanese admire a space between, also calling it ma, 間, or aida, a kanji used in everyday Japanese to mean in between.

Right panel of the Pine Trees screen Shōrin-zu byōbu 松林図 屏風 by Hasegawa Tōhaku (1539–1610).

19th and 20th century modern European painters used yohaku no bi in their paintings. After 1854 when the Japanese were forced to open their borders after 250 years of strict isolation, Japanese prints, paintings, and fine pottery were sent to Europe and North America. Europeans were ecstatic to see these ‘exotic’ new pieces of art and bought all they could find. Van Gogh, Paul Gaugin, Monet, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas copied the styles from Japan. Later Dalí incorporated these ideas into his work.

It is this admiration of negative space, that has led to an appreciation in the West of the minimalism seen in Asian art and perceived life style. Yohaku no bi is the aesthetic that influenced Japanese author, Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011).

Sumiyoshi - The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari), 1600s

FIRST ART WORK: Katsushika Hokusai. Moon Persimmon and Grasshopper. 1807.

WORDS: Maureen Fitzmahan

Paris, Street Photography

Maureen Fitzmahan

We'll always have Paris, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch, Casablanca, 1942

Ahhh… Paris. First among cities for a street photographer and documentarian. There are other great places to take street photos. The teeming streets in Manhattan present men and women of all kinds. Well dressed, poorly dressed, and undressed.

mbfitzmahan. Paris.

Street photography started in Paris. Refreshingly freed from the heavy cameras of their predecessors, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Édouard Boubat and Robert Doisneau documented Paris in pre and post World War Europe. They were joined by other photographers, many of them Jewish refugees, who escaped Hungary and Germany to work in photography in Paris. Their work captured an instant in the lives of ordinary people of the Paris of the 30s, the 40s, and the 50s.

mbfitzmahan. Cafe, Paris, France.

Cartier-Bresson was a pioneer in this genre. He carried two Leicas around his neck and would wait for what he called the ‘decisive moment.’ He would choose a crumbling wall, a waiting puddle or a staircase as a backdrop and then wait for people to fill in the story. He wrote, “In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.”

mbfitzmahan. Paris.

The motivation of the street photographer is to catch ordinary people doing what they do every day. Unlike portraiture or fashion photography, the subjects do not have time to pose and most photos capture them unaware. I like it when I capture some emotions such as anger, laughter, wonder, frustration, boredom, or surprise.

mbfitzmahan. Paris.

I live by an unbreakable code: I never make a photo that would embarrass. I feel a duty to the people in my photos and I remember their faces long after I make the photo. The people on the street may not look like movie stars, but they are beautiful in their natural surroundings.

mbfitzmahan. Paris.

mbfitzmahan. Paris.

Photos and Words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Mural for a Community

The Alta Visa School Mural, San Francisco. Designer and muralist: Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange. Art Junket Volunteers: Yun Suh, Annelise Dohrer, Zoey Olbum.

Alta Vista School, San Francisco, California

In April, Kaitlin Strange went looking for a wall. A wall?! I might look for a canvas or a new lens. Searching for a wall… is that something like Winnie the Pooh a-hunting for a Woozle?

Having painted murals with Susan Cervantes at Precita Eyes in the Mission District of San Francisco, Kaitlin thinks taking a wall and turning it into public art is a good thing.

In the 1960s, Latinos in the Mission District in San Francisco, borrowed the Mexican mural tradition from Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and painted murals as part of the Chicano Mural Movement. Kaitlin wrote her Masters thesis on those murals.

In May of 2019, Kaitlin found her newest wall. Alta Vista School in South Bay, San Francisco welcomed Katie to design and lead a mural painting project. After approximately 30 hours of painting, 20 gallons of paint, and with the help of about 25 volunteers, Katie's mural was completed in 3 days.

Zoey Olbum, Art Junketeer volunteering.

“The Alta Vista lower school had been talking about painting a mural at the school for years, but it has never happened (though there is a small one in the garden). It was the community at the Art Junket that has made this possible -- from Maureen's Level Up theme and her encouragement to go BIG, to Katie's vision and execution, to Annelise and Zoey helping to paint and to Manya and Brian's volunteer efforts for fire survivors. It was a real team effort, which I value most and find most satisfying in the art of creation. We weathered through a little bit of drizzle, lots of strong winds, and many hours of repetitive movements. I'm exhausted but feel so grateful and satisfied to create meaningful work that will brighten so many children's days. Many parents who volunteered commented on how the mural really cheered them up upon seeing it. “ (Yun Suh, documentarian and member of the Art Junket West)

Words: Yun Suh and Maureen Fitzmahan

Designer of mural: Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange

Photos: Kaitlin Strange and Yun Suh

Yun Suh is a member of Art Junket West and Katie is a co-founder of the Art Junket.

SKF - I Am Steady

The Murder Ballad

You put me in a shallow grave / You left me here while you walked away. (skf, I am Steady, 2019 )

skf is a member of Art Junket East.

I+am+Steady+SKF

SKF

“I wanted to write a murder ballad. I know it’s a bit dark, but I like dark.”

At first shocked, I did a bit of research and now I find myself completely addicted. A sub genre of the ballad, songs about murders have been around for a long time. Crime and murder in a song. What’s not to like? Usually passed down orally, these ballads are a murder mystery encapsulated in a short song.

Bob Dylan and Neil Young revived an interest in the murder ballad during 1960s and 70s.

For more murder ballads, you are welcome to listen to my playlist via iTunes or Spotify.

Original composition: skf

Photo and Words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Frankie Lee: Platonic Solids

Geometric figures - Art with Franky Lee

The solids combine with themselves and with each other to give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey. Plato, The Timaeus dialogues, ~360 B.C.E.

“I haven’t created anything with my hands for a very long time. When I was a kid, my mom and dad got me origami books. There were two large volumes. At the end, the most difficult origami were the modular origami.Taking one root piece, you replicated it many times and created giant three dimensional shapes. Taking the ‘Roots’ theme from the Art Junket, I took the idea that there would be one ‘root’ that shared and created many things from it.There are five Platonic solids. They are geometric figures. The faces are all equilateral. They are all equilateral triangles, squares, or pentagons.” (Frankie Lee, Member of Art Junket East, 2019)

Franky Lee

Plato wrote about these solids in the dialogue Timaeus c.360 B.C.E. in which he associated each of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) with a regular solid.

Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, and fire with the tetrahedron. There was intuitive justification for these associations: the heat of fire feels sharp and stabbing (like little tetrahedra). Air is made of the octahedron; its minuscule components are so smooth that one can barely feel it.

Water, the icosahedron, flows out of one's hand when picked up, as if it is made of tiny little balls. By contrast, a highly non-spherical solid, the hexahedron (cube) represents “earth". This clumsy little solid cause dirt to crumble and break when picked up.

Of the fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato said, "...the god used it for arranging the constellations in the heavens.”  (Wikipedia )

1. The tetrahedron - 4 triangular sides.

2. The cube/hexahedron - 6 square sides.

3. The octahedron - 8 triangular sides.

4. The dodecahedron - 12 triangular sides.

5. The icosahedron - 20 triangular sides.

Leonardo da Vinci was the first to draw Platonic solids as see-through figures. He drew the figures for his math tutor, Pacioli’s for Divina Proportione. Those sixty drawings are the only drawings da Vinci published in his lifetime. Da Vinci’s studies with Pacioli led to lifetime interest in mathematics and geometric shapes.

Leonardo da Vinci. Platonic Solids. 1492.

Art and words: Frankie Lee

Frankie Lee is a member of the Art Junket East.

Photos and words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Ana Perches: Assemblage - Theater

Assemblage - Theater

I rummaged through the basement and found a wooden wine box, and began to plan which of the objects I had at home could be arranged, pasted or attached to the inside of the box, as in a theater stage. (Ana Perches, 2018 )

I consider myself a self-taught artist. Only since 2014 have I engaged in art in a systematic manner after joining the Art Junket collective. For my first piece in 2014, I rummaged through the basement and found a wooden wine box, and began to plan which of the objects I had at home could be arranged, pasted or attached to the inside of the box, as in a theater stage. A theme emerged: Cielito Lindo, the Mexican folk song addressing a loved one, usually translated My Beautiful Sky or Heaven, the idea being “My Dear One.” At the center of the box is a small skeleton doll which I dressed as La Muerte with a piñata stick, hitting a smaller female doll hoisted by a wire, and who has blood on her clothes. This was my first assemblage, and is currently at home in my private collection.

mbftizmahan. Ana Perches. Photo. Berkeley, California. 2019.

I had not yet discovered the work of Joseph Cornell, the master of Assemblage and of the shadow box, until an art historian friend from Mills College pointed him out to me. I read about him, about his poetic theater-boxes and unexpected juxtaposition of objects. He was self-taught, a collector, a fan of second-hand stores. His story-boxes emerge from his psyche and dreams to invite the viewer into his own private world.

For subsequent projects I explored painting on canvas with acrylic paints and soon found myself wanting to cut and paste on canvas or wood, incorporating collage, fabric and three-dimensional objects. I am drawn to performance, to costumes, to movement and story-telling, as for many years I taught Mexican theater at the University of Arizona, and wrote plays which I staged, produced and directed for my students. Prominent themes in my plays were the border, feminism and politics. I find myself carrying these themes onto a smaller stage now, dramatizing not with words or actors but with objects, colors and textures.

I’ve always been a lover of the fine arts, but also of outsider art, and what the French call Art Brut (unpolished, unrefined, natural, “rough”). I found I had an affinity for this kind of art, well-suited to my limited drawing skills and technical immaturity. My kind of art is a bit “on the edge” but also physically and psychologically on the edge of the US-Mexican border. The Rio Grande separates the United States from Mexico and the Río Bravo separates Mexico from the United States. Same river, different name, same desert. A space overlapping two nations but a single space, joined and divided. This “both” and this “neither” is the basis of Border Art, a form inspired by graffiti, street art, outsider art and performance art. And by my own experience as a person from the border, a borderix.

Front page art: Ana Perches, Coyolxauhqui (Aztec Moon Goddess). 2015.

Artwork and words: Ana Perches

Ana Perches is a 2014 founding member of the Art Junket. She works out of Berkeley, California.

Photo of Ana: Maureen Fitzmahan

Ana Perches, Assemblage #3, 2014

Ana Perches, Cielito Lindo. Assemblage #1, 2014

Ana Perches, El Paso. Assemblage #3, 2018

Art Junket West

From garage to museum

All night my heart makes its way
however it can over the rough ground
of uncertainties, but only until night
meets and then is overwhelmed by
morning, the light deepening, the
wind easing and just waiting, as I
too wait (and when have I ever been
disappointed?) for redbird to sing.

Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems, 2012

This is the best— throwing off the light covers, feet on the cold floor, and buzzing around the house on espresso— (Billy Collins, “Morning,” 1998)

The Art Junket is a community based art group in the Bay Area in Northern California. Founded in 2014, two artists started an art movement on the east shore of San Francisco Bay.  Six artists were invited.  They weren’t professional artists, but they were eager  to make art and to meet other artists.   Each artist came to the salon with a newly created work of art reflecting a theme.  The artists were inspired and influenced by each other.

The art salon is a meeting of talent and ideas, where the members of the Art Junket have developed friendships and trust. It is a place where artists can take risks and feel supported. 

Every year, the Art Junket celebrates works created during the Art Junket’s latest series. The Art Junket Exhibition, first held in a garage in Berkeley, has grown into an official gallery show at Oakland’s Art Murmur. 

Maureen Fitzmahan and Erin Mahollitz, co-founders and leaders of the Art Junket, moved to upstate New York in July 2018. Kaitlin Strange, co-founder, took over leadership of Art Junket West.

Without a heartbeat, the Art Junket members made the change. In the Fall, the group, led by Katie and Taska Sanford, organized the Art Junket’s exhibit for Oakland’s Art Murmur’s and Art Walk.

Maureen Fitzmahan continues to support the group with copious emails, blogposts, Slack chats, and themes for each meeting.

“I am sure Katie can attest that every Art Junket get together is somehow punctuated by the presence of both (Maureen) and Erin; what you might say, what you have said, how you might approach or have approached something. You both come up in conversation and are referenced regularly. Missed is not enough to describe your absence, but you are present, regardless, through email and such, too.” (Tao Graham, April 2019)

Another change is in the horizon, as Katie Strange also leaves the Bay. She recently received a grant to begin studies in a PhD program in Barcelona, Catalonia - Spain in Fall 2019. There are plans to open a third branch of the Art Junket in Barcelona.

Oh, woe… Change is at the heart of great art. Sometimes it hurts.

Photos and words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Zoey and Brian

Katie Fitzmahan Strange

Tao Graham

Tony Jones

Manya Nelson

Erin Mahollitz

Yun Suh, Manya Nelson, Ana Perches, Erin Mahollitz, Tony Jones

Taska Sanford

Yun Suh

Annelise Dohrer, Manya Nelson

Zoey Olbum

Maureen Barry Fitzmahan

Erin, Ana, Tony, Zoey

Art Junket - East

"Ansel Adams begins with the extraordinary in a place like Yosemite, and then makes it even more so. Edward Weston begins with the mundane and turns it into something worthy of obsessive focus." Amy Scott, chief curator at the Autry Museum, Los Angeles, California, 2016

In 1905, Picasso asked Gertrude Stein to sit for a portrait. Picasso said, "Everybody says that she does not look like it but that does not make any difference, she will.” (Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933.)

In February, 2019, the Art Junket welcomed New York to the Art Junket. Art Junket East is a spin-off of Art Junket West in Northern California. The first salon on the East coast was held in upstate New York near Pawling, New York.

After years of showing my photos on social media and occasionally exhibiting my photos in a coffee shop or a gallery, I have found that a much more rewarding venue is to share my photography at the quarterly salons of the Art Junket.

The salon or cafe has a long and important history in the development of art. A salon has been an incubator for innovation in art.

CHINESE SCHOLARS - Bringing together a group of artists to a private home to share ideas is an ancient Chinese concept. The Chinese scholar was the Uomo Universale (Universal Man) two thousand years before Italy produced Michelangelo. These Chinese musicians, artist, writers, and thinkers monopolized the art of painting and calligraphy in China. They gathered over tea and shared their techniques, new tools, and ideas.

SALON OF PARIS - At 27 rue de Fleurus, they came to meet Gertrude Stein, an American expat. A prickly critic, but a devotee of new ideas, Stein invited the new, unformed future greats of the art and writing world. From 1903-1946, she supplied a unique place for thinkers to come. Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were among her guests. Stein said, "Matisse brought people, everybody brought somebody, and they came at any time and it began to be a nuisance, and it was in this way that Saturday evenings began." (James R. Mellow,  Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company, 1974)

Dressed in dark brown corduroy and seated in her overstuffed chair, Stein was a fearful sight. Terrified, the young artists shyly showed her their newest work. One of my favorite stories is that when the matron deigned to look at the paintings of Henri Cartier-Bresson, my favorite photographer, she advised him to give up painting, "Go back and work for your industrialist father."  Three years later, Cartier-Bresson, stopped painting and took up photography.

F/64 GROUP OF OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - In the 1930s, the f/64 group of photographers of California met in a friend's old barn in Oakland. The Oakland Bay Bridge wasn't built until 1933, so Ansel Adams, coming from San Francisco had to get there by ferry boat.  All the photographers showed up with photos in hand.

The males of the group were a hard drinking, hard womanizing bunch. They included Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Brett Weston. Interestingly, though, the group was more liberal than other art groups of the era and encouraged women photographers to join them, including Imogene Cunningham and Dorothea Lange. F/64 included as many women as men. The photographers met, philosophized and they partied, drinking illegal alcohol.  Ansel Adams arranged to have their work exhibited in San Francisco on November 15, 1932, at the de Young Museum.

THE ART JUNKET OF BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA - Over an espresso and a hot apple pie, my daughter and I met in a café on Solano Avenue in North Berkeley. Erin and I discussed the idea of reviving the salon concept for artists - a salon for artists who are beset with 21st century demands, yet feel a need to make art.  Supported by my second daughter, Katie, the three of us recruited a few friends to come to our first salon in March 2015. Art Junket West thrives in the Bay Area meeting quarterly and exhibiting yearly to the public. Five years later, the Art Junket East met for the first time in New York in February 2019.

Franky Lee. Platonic Solids. 2019.

Erin Mahollitz. Mitakuye Oyasin. 2019.

James Michel. Ceci n’est pas une spatula. Wood carving, New York Maple from Harriman Forest. 2019.

Kathryn Clark-Hilliard. The Silent House, the Birdsong Wilderness. Poem. 2019.

SFK. skf - Cross on Birch Hill. Musical Composition, 5 String Banjo, Americana music. 2019.

Lisa Sikorski. Breastplate #1. Rust dyed and felted silk and wool, cotton and metallic embroidery thread, magnetic clasp. 27 in x 12 in. x ¼ in. 2019.

Dan. Sycamore Gap. Vine charcoal. 9 in x 12 in. 2019.

Photos and Words: Maureen Fitzmahan

Brian Nelson - Venice 2019

It is by living there from day to day that you feel the fullness of her charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman, whom you know only when you know all the aspects of her beauty. Henry James, Italian Hours, 1909

Brian Nelson. Photogravure. Venice, Italy. 2019.

Six months before I left on two trips to Venice in the Spring of 2019, I read a volume of essays and reminiscences of Venice by Henry James that featured several etchings by James MacNeil Whistler. One of the etches depicted an impressive structure built along a bend in a canal, and seeing it inspired me to return to Venice to see if I could find it. The etching was Whistler’s favorite of all his Venice works.

Because Henry James’ writings provided no clue as to the location of the building, I studied a map of Venice, looking for bends in canals where Whistler might have sketched the building. I targeted a spot not far from Marco Polo’s home. I thought I might be able to see the building from the opposite side of the canal. Whistler often sketched while seated in a gondola, in which case I might not find a vantage point. Further problematic was that my map had labels, orange lines, and folds that obscured details in the neighborhood I was going to explore.

Venice is so compact, having narrow passageways, odd turns, half-hidden courtyards, and dead ends. If one is completely lost, a reasonable way to navigate the streets is to take all right turns or all left turns to find your way. Indeed, this navigational method brought me to the vantage point I was looking for, giving me a clear view of the building located on a bend in the canal. Its architectural details were not identical, but very similar to Whistler’s. Since Whistler’s etchings generally bear resemblances to sites rather than precise depictions, I regard his rendition of the site I found as a prime example of Whistler’s imaginative prowess.

I was still wandering through the neighborhood with my full regalia of camera gear, when just after rounding another corner, a Venetian approached me and started a conversation with me about the dilapidated condition of American cities and that it was time something was done about it. After a few minutes of listening, I asked him about the brass squares I’d seen nearby that are embedded into the pavement. On the squares are inscribed the names of former Jewish residents who’d been dragged off to Auschwitz. It was a friendly exchange between political opposites, and he commented toward the end that wandering through the streets as I was doing was a fine way to see interesting features of Venice.

Brian Nelson is a member of the Art Junket (2017-2022)