Lying Like the Trickster

 

Let’s talk about lies.

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye.

Lying is news. Lies versus Science. Lies versus Nature. Lies versus democracy.

Who do we turn to for the truth? God? the Dalai Lama? Dr. Fauci? My mother?

Lying is not new. We seem to have been making up lies from time immemorial - all the way back to the dinosaurs. “I killed the biggest mastodon in the world,” Jontu said. Shocked, Tody said, “Really? That Neanderthal lady over there said she killed the biggest mastodon.” “No way! My mastie was bigger than hers,” Jontu protested. And then Jontu ran over and hit the lady on the head with his big stick.

Do you think other animals lie? Or do humans have a corner on falsehoods.

Oscar Wilde, my favorite Irish humorist, wrote a whole essay on lying.

“Facts are not merely finding a footing-place in history, but they are usurping the domain of Fancy, and have invaded the kingdom of Romance. Their chilling touch is over everything. They are vulgarizing mankind. The crude commercialism of America, its materializing spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man, who according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie, and it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington and the cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any other moral tale in the whole of literature.” (Oscar Wilde. The Decay of Lying. 1905.)

Well, Oscar Wilde needn’t worry. Some politicians find that truth is just an inconvenience. Who votes for an honest man, anyway?

Ah, I get distracted. I was going to talk about art, lies, and the self portrait.

I hate making self portraits. I want to be thinner. And have long red hair, a svelte body, long legs, and great clothes.

When I make a selfie or paint my picture, I have to redesign my smile. I don’t know what happened to my cute smile. It may have been the last to go. First, the great hair. Then the slim body. Then the smile. It’s hard work to recreate that devastatingly adorable smile I once had.

I still have great legs, though. Maybe I should just make a self portrait of my legs. Or, my tennis shoes.

Photo and words: Maureen Fitzmahan
Maureen is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Taska Sanford - Trickster and Coyote

 

Taska Sanford

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. - Mark Twain.

I think we are all searching for Hosteen Coyote. This elusive spirit will bring us fire and knowledge. It will laugh in our faces until we laugh back. Coyote holds up the mirror so we can see our true nature for the first time.

Taska Sanford.

I can not say for sure that my dad was always fascinated by the trickster for the same reasons that I am. Even when my father was not an old man he referred to himself as Holsteen Coyote.

When my mom moved to California to live with us after he died, we found letters from me he had saved over the years. I wrote to him and my mom often during my years in college so far from home. My letters were more often than not addressed to Hosteen Coyote. 

Coyote is by no means the only trickster in our collective consciousness. Coyote has many guises that run the gamut from silly, to self-reflective, to sexually deviant. That is quite a spread for one entity, but not unbelievable. 

Our family had a little adobe tucked in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico. It was a magical place that certainly housed many spirits and beings even when buttoned up for the long harsh desert winter. Our family spent summers there wandering the desert with a collective urge of searching. We were always searching with eyes, ears, tongue, nose, fingers, and spirit. We voraciously read about the Navajo, Tewa, and Zuni. About cowboys, saints, and artists. Anyone who stopped just for a moment to breathe in this high desert-scape also felt that deep drive to search. 

I think we are all searching for Hosteen Coyote. This elusive spirit will bring us fire and knowledge. It will laugh in our faces until we laugh back. Coyote holds up the mirror so we can see our true nature for the first time. We can even follow coyote back to the den, if we dare, for more tempting secrets.  And like the desert itself, coyote is not always fun and carefree. Life lessons come with a cost. Sometimes we overlook the consequences of our thirst for more. Never underestimate coyote and never underestimate the desert. They are both more powerful than we are. And we humans need things that are bigger than ourselves. 

When I look up to the galaxy cluster in the deep night and hear the yips of the coyote pups I know my place in the world again. Hosteen Coyote - father, trickster, and desert embodied pads through my heart and sends me to sleep body and spirit sated.

Photo and words: Taska Sanford

Taska Sanford is a member of the Art Junket in Berkeley, California (2018-2022)

Breaking Rules in Art

 

Man Ray, Woman with Long Hair. 1929

Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Neil Gaiman

Pablo Picasso. Leaning Harlequin, 1901. Metropolitan Museum, New York. This painting marks the beginning of Picasso’s blue period. It is believed that Picasso painted this sad clown upon learning of the death of a good friend.

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky). Sleeping Woman (solarization). 1929. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Man Ray was born in America from immigrant Jewish parents. He moved to Paris in the 20s and was not bound by one art medium, but experimented in photography, film, painting, and sculpture.

Graciela Iturbide. Mujer angel. Desierto de Sonora. 1979. Museum of Modern Art, New York. ‘The Angel Woman is moving gracefully between different worlds. Crossing the desert on foot while listening to recorded music, she combines old ways with modern ones. And like an angel, this Seri Indian woman seems to hover between ground and sky, heaven and earth.’

Definition

In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. (Wikipedia)

Artists as Tricksters

As I looked for the trickster in art, I see that art is about ‘disobeying normal rules.’ In fact, art disobeys the most basic rules of life - it copies life and pretends that the copy is real.

Deborah Roberts. That’s Not Ladylike No.2. 2019. “The works of Deborah Roberts question the common understanding of ‘Ideal Beauty’. She sees her work as a social commentary, making room for women who are not included in the stereotypical imagery of the beautiful woman of fashion magazines. ..Her works answer the need to critically reconstruct our idea of Beauty and the authority of the Female Figure.” (Kooness)

Artists are either proud of disobeying rules or they defend art as a snapshot of life. Different genres of art arise out of this age old philosophical debate. Is art real? Or, of course, not. Art is art. And grass is grass. And I am me.

Picasso grappled with this concept by writing, “The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

WORDS: Maureen Fitzmahan
Maureen Fitzmahan (Tokyo, Japan) is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

The Trickster and the Pandemic

 

It’s not funny

We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine. Donald Trump, President of the United States. January 22, 2020.

Everyone is going to die. There is no point in escaping from that, in escaping from reality. We have to stop being a country of sissies. Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil. November 20, 2020.

The Trickster and the Pandemic

The Trickster had an idea. What if he spread a deadly disease no one could see?

What if leaders said: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” (Donald Trump. January 22, 2020)? And, “No one will die of coronavirus in our country. I publicly declare this.” (President Lukashenko of Belarus) Or, “The virus is out there and we will have to face it, but like men, damn it, not like kids.” (Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil)

mbfitzmahan. Tokyo, Japan. 2021. (Billboard in downtown Tokyo from the city government warning “Stay home from work, from restaurants, and keep your distance until the end of the summer.”)

What if scientists found a cure, but half the people refused to get it? “One in five Americans believes the US government is using the COVID-19 vaccine to microchip the population.”

As of September 28, 2021 there have been 691,000 U.S. deaths since February 2020. The COVID 19 Pandemic is America’s deadliest. The 1918 flu killed 675,000 people. And the Trickster is not finished, yet. 45% of Americans have not been vaccinated.

The Trickster thinks this is fun.

I don’t.

Photo and words: Maureen Fitzmahan
Maureen is a founding member of the Art Junket (2014-2022)

Brian Nelson: Coffee at the Docks

 

Brian Nelson

Unloading Coffee in San Francisco, 1973.

Ed Nelson (my brother) and partner reach into a tight corner, winding up for a 6-foot toss onto a pallet board.

Among the many hands that brought coffee beans from plantations in the developing world to markets in the wealthy countries of North America and Europe in 1973 were those of the Longshoremen working in the holds of cargo vessels on the San Francisco waterfront. I was a Ship Clerk, down in the cargo holds with them, tallying. I took these, and hundreds more photographs, on the waterfront throughout the 1970's.

Brian Nelson. Roy, at the controls of the winches (at right), hoists the load out of the cargo hold. Roy was a London Docker prior to immigrating to San Francisco.

Brian Nelson. Willy Dedoud (aka The Dutchman, who often sang at work) hooks up a pallet down in the Lower Hold, 30 to 50 feet below the Maindeck.

Partners Willy Dedoud and Herman Garcia throw a pallet board on which they will build a load of 12 bags.

Photos and Words by Brian Nelson.
Brian Nelson is a member of the Art Junket. (2017-2022)

Another Cup of Coffee

 

Japan and coffee

I could drink my coffee, read my book, pass the time of day without any special thought, all because I was part of the regular scenery. Here I had no ties to anyone. Fact is, I'd come to reclaim myself. Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

mbfitzmahan. Nagoya Coffee. Japan. 2014.

In the 60s, American newspapers talked about how shockingly expensive Tokyo was and used the cost of a steak dinner or a cup of coffee to prove the point.  I hadn’t moved to Japan to eat steak dinners, but I loved her coffee and coffee shops. I must admit that when I first arrived I hoped to find door to door tea shops serving green tea at charming tiny tea houses. But, on the streets of Tokyo I found it challenging to find any tea rooms. Instead there were three or four coffee houses per city block. They served great coffee.  

Entering the coffee shop, a proprietor of the café showed me to a table and gave me a menu of kōhi listing coffees from Brazil, Kenya, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Java, and Guatemala. I have a strong memory of cradling my warm cup and reading Kawabata's Snow Country.  "They emerged from the long border tunnel into the snow country. The night was carpeted with white."　　国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。夜の底が白くなった.

mbfitzmahan. Nagoya, Japan. 2012.

The coffee shop in Tokyo was a place for coffee, but also a landing place between my university and language classes, and the many English conversation classes I taught.  I didn't go home between classes, spending the day traveling from subway stop to subway stop, and class to class.

I could choose a coffee shop for its theme or its kind of music.  In the Ginza I found a French style shop, dressed up in pink and white frills.  I listened to French chanson and imagined I was in a romantic cafe on the Champs-Élysées.  Jazz coffee shops were common.  Some cafes housed small libraries or fine art.  Some of these shops were sophisticated, others were ordinary except for their good coffee.

mbfitzmahan. Nagoya Train. 2013.

Coffee is a Japanese thing.  It was brought to Japan by the Dutch in the 16th century, before American colonists protested tea and coffee taxes at the Boston Tea Party. The coffee houses in the 60s were similar in many ways to today's American gourmet coffee shops.  Not like the pervasive Starbucks, we know today, but similar to our local coffee shops - General Porpoise in Seattle, Devoción in Brooklyn, or Spella Café in Portland.  Still, Tokyo cafes were different.  Better coffee.  (Or, is that a memory of a youthful day?)  Better service. And, of course, no computers.  There was little noise other than the sound of jazz.  Sometimes a café was just quiet.  Quiet.  A welcome and rare commodity in busy Tokyo.

mbfitzmahan. Nagoya, Japan. 2014.

If you are a fan of Haruki Murakami, you may be familiar with the coffee shops of the 60s and 70s. Murakami owned a coffee shop he called Peter Cat. “I belonged to Tokyo and its coffee shops. But I had never felt this loneliness there. I could drink my coffee, read my book, pass the time of day without any special thought, all because I was part of the regular scenery. ” Haruki Murakami – Dance Dance Dance

mbfitzmahan. Kyoto, Japan. 2014.

Words and Photographs by Maureen Fitzmahan - Union Vale, New York. Photos of Japan, 2012-14.
Maureen is a co-founder of The Art Junket (2015-2022).

First Coffee

 

My first coffee

Coffee had a mean, dark, acrid taste; she and I were not friends.

It was a hard walk over sand and stones down into the cave. My daddy picked me up and carried me the last half mile to the bottom. I was 5. “At the bottom, we’ll find a place where we can get something to drink,” he said. Way down - 750 feet - there was a cafeteria that smelled like wet dirt and burnt coffee. My dad sat me down in a white leather booth, walked away and came back with a small cup. “Here you go, Honey. Maybe this coffee will make you feel better,” he said. Taking a spoonful of coffee, he doctored it with lots of sugar and milk. I thought it looked a bit like coca cola and I was happy to get my first grown-up drink. But the taste of the 1950s, “good to the very last drop," hit me with a searing headache. Coffee had a mean, dark, acrid taste and she and I were not friends. Why would anyone drink that stuff?

Kathleen Barry Fitts. Maureen and Bill.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the end of my relationship with coffee. Years later, she apologized for our first meeting. She later introduced me to the warm aroma of fine espresso in the coffee shops of Tokyo. My first cup, slow brewed, took 24 hours to process. She called herself, Aisu Kohi (iced coffee). She taught me that any relationship that she might have to that awful Folgers Coffee at the bottom of the cave was merely accidental.

Kathleen Fitts. Maureen and her daddy.

Today I own a burr grinder, a knock box, and an expensive silver Breville espresso machine which promises to ‘use the right dose of freshly ground beans, ensure precise temperature control, optimal water pressure, and create true micro-foam milk to deliver a harmonious blend of golden espresso and velvety textured milk.’ I know! And, a million miles away from that over-cooked and headache producing cup of coffee lurking down in the cave.

Words: Maureen Fitzmahan
Photos: Kathleen Fitts

Maureen Fitzmahan is cofounder of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Coffee: 2021

 

Coffee in Music

Black coffee/Is my name/Black coffee/Ooh, is my thing. Black coffee/Freshly ground and fully prepared/Hot black coffee, boy/Mmh that's where it's at. Tina Turner

I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew
I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew

Landon Pigg, “Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop,” 2009

Kay Adamson. 2021.

It makes me think of mornings. Coffee. With scones and fresh raspberries. Barcelona in the Square seated at a table covered in red and white. Standing in line at Starbucks in New York. “Espresso, please. No! It’s my birthday. I’ll have a Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino!” Waking up to my love with a cup of coffee in hand. “Sleepless in Seattle” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. I don’t remember if there is coffee in this movie, but it is filmed in Seattle and I imagine a lot of coffee was consumed by the film makers.

What is it about coffee?

Musicians love coffee. The memories, the color, the passion. Oh, yes, and the love! I researched many songs inspired by coffee. I spent a whole afternoon listening to songs in Spanish where the troubadour praised his love with coffee colored eyes Was the drink called café because it was coffee colored? Or is the color brown called café because it is the color of coffee?

And then there is the smell of coffee.

I get lost in the aroma of coffee.
Cafe your eyes, cafe your skin,
Cafe the wish that was not.
Cafe of your hair, your walk,
Cafe your body that is no longer.
In the same cafe,
In the same city,
I want another coffee to forget. * (Luciano Pereyra, “Aroma de Café”)

Me perco no aroma de um café.
Cafe seus olhos, cafe da sua pele,
Cafe o desejo que não foi.
Cafe do seu cabelo, o seu caminhar,
Cafe teu corpo que já não esta.
No mesmo café,
Na mesma cidade,
Eu quero outro café para esquecer.

Black coffee is used to protest injustice. Written by a Black woman, and later sung by a bunch of White guys from England, “Black Coffee” originally was written to say,

Black Coffee is my name…
Way back on yonder, I don't know when
I was brought over before I was ten
You see my skin is brown but my mind is black…
Here in America, the land of the free
You can get what you want if you got some DoReMi
I started out as a slave
I got free, I got paid
Now I'm independent and nobody's maid
I got me a place, I got me a raise. (Tina Turner, “Black Coffee.” Listen to the original here.

Kay Adamson. 2020

And coffee can be philosophical, judgy, even metaphysical.

The trouble with the world today it seems to me
Is coffee in a cardboard cup
The trouble with the affluent society
Is coffee in a cardboard cup

No one's ever casual and nonchalant
No one wastes a minute in a restaurant
No one wants a waitress passing pleasantries
Like "Hiya miss"
"Hiya sir"
"May I take your order please"

The trouble with the world today is plain to see
Is everything is hurry up
It's "rush it through"
"Don't be slow"
"BLT on rye to go"
And coffee
I think she said 'coffee'
I know she said 'coffee
In a cardboard cup'

The trouble with the helter skelter life we lead
Is coffee in a cardboard cup
The trouble the psychologists have all agreed
Is coffee in a cardboard cup (Mandi Patinkin, “Coffee in a Cardboard Cup”)

I spent days listening to songs with the word coffee. A Google search took me through 342 pages of coffee songs. Joy, depression, love and loneliness. I think every composer, alive and dead, was challenged to write a song with at least one reference to coffee.

Even Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata about coffee. According to Wikipedia, Bach regularly directed a musical ensemble based at Zimmermann's coffee house. Bach wrote, "If I couldn't, three times a day, be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish I will turn into a shriveled-up roasted goat". (Wiki)

I could write about this all day. No end in sight.

Instead I will leave you with a playlist. Coffee, coffee, and more café!

Photos: Kay Adamson and Maureen Fitzmahan
Words by Maureen Fitzmahan

Katie Strange: Fumbling through Time

 

Kaitlin Strange

What strikes me about my life is how unfinished it is.

Time continues to turn and churn with every rotation of this interstellar ball of rock, water, and air. Slowly becoming. Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost”

Katie Fitzmahan Strange. Becoming. 2020.

What strikes me about my life is how unfinished it is. It makes sense. Seems to be a given with the way time progresses and doesn’t stop. But it’s not what I expected. 

When I was eight years old I assumed everything would be put into place by the time I was in high school. And at 17 I figured by 30 I would be set in the mold of who I was determined to become. I still hold onto the illusion that by 60 I’ll have arrived somewhere, or will be someone who is more complete than I am today. But, time and again I am reminded that nothing fully stops or reaches completion. Time continues to turn and churn with every rotation of this interstellar ball of rock, water, and air. And we’re just here for the ride. Slowly becoming.

Katie and Huxley Strange. 2020.

It is rare when the hustle, the flow and movement slows to a stop. But in the last year I can recall at least one distinct moment where time slowed to a palatable and undeniable stop. The pandemic brought it on. Lock-down in Barcelona started on March 12th. For almost 3 months the city was silent and still. The only activity in the streets came at 8 PM when neighbors emerged to their balconies to clap and holler for the healthcare workers. Otherwise the city was empty, like a set for a play - waiting for action but empty, silent, lifeless. 

And despite these fits and starts and moments of pause, change continues to envelope me and the people around me. My hair grows longer, the grey more persistent, the lines on my face more prominent. Friends grow families, change jobs, move towns. Parents age and slow. The change brings a melancholy with it - a relentless reminder of mortality. I worry about the fleeting amount of time we have together, about not doing enough to fill this time, about making a mark, about being a ‘good’ friend, sister, daughter, partner. I catch myself wishing time away and then thinking what a waste of time to worry so much. 

I spent 40 weeks growing a small person inside me. And 6 weeks sustaining and supporting this tiny human. As my body changes week by week, I am stunned by what time can do. How my body grows and shrinks. What creation and development looks like on the skin, the muscles, the mind. And the relief and ease that comes with having an age-old job of supporting life. 

Katie and Huxley. 2020.

I don’t need to worry about wasting time, when I am continually doing something just by breathing, eating, sleeping, and walking. I grow a limb here, a toe there. I make milk and I transform energy without thinking twice. All without thinking twice. 

The simplicity of the task is refreshing. There is a sense of relief that comes with time standing still. I can simply be and do at the same time. My existence and my actions are tied to an outcome that is more than myself. 

Maybe we spend so much time worrying about what we are producing, making, doing because we want to feel like we are a part of something. That we are more than ourselves. What peace we might find if we were able to sit still and find that by simply being and sitting we are a part of a greater sum than our small part. 

Perhaps that is what this time of slowing down has done for me, for all of us. We’ve found ourselves the space and silence needed to better understand a universal truth that connects us all, for better or worse. That even without movement, and the fast-tracked passing of time, we are all fumbling through the passing of time. We are all still becoming. 

Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange. 2020.

The words are by Katie Strange. The photographs of Kaitlin and baby are by Katie Strange and Maureen Fitzmahan.
Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange, living in Barcelona, Spain, is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Ana Perches: Manos a la Obra!

 

Ana Perches

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry. Frida Kahlo

I paint flowers so they will not die. Frida Kahlo

Ana Perches

“You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.
You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.
You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.
You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.” ― Frida Kahlo

Ana Perches

In the morning of Saturday, October 3rd, I panicked, “is our salon tomorrow?” I asked myself. Not checking the calendar, I decided, well…let’s try to get started, which I did.

I had an unused frame, 30 in. x 20 in., that I planned to use. First I approached it vertically, then I decided to turn it horizontal because my objective was to showcase Frida’s wardrobe.

On Friday, October 2nd, I had been disappointed at having to cancel my reservation at the de Young Museum where they were featuring Frida’s wardrobe. I canceled my reservation due to poor air quality in the Bay Area, but was able to reschedule October 28th.

About my medium - I’ve been in the collage mode. Partly due to the fact that I don’t feel like drawing and, partly because I haven’t been able to come up with any ideas to paint. So, I’ve been collecting visuals from magazines, old postcards, pamphlets and such. They aren’t always well organized but sort of.

Someone recommended a fantastic découpage glue that I adore (Liquitex, which is superior to Hodge Podge). I like my Cutco scissors which retail for about $100 and which were my mom’s who believed in buying the best. I love cutting and pasting like in elementary school. Okay, so I had plenty of materials.

Manos a la obra! Let’s do it!

I started with a silly sketch of the Mona Lisa, because I planned to merge Frida with Mona (but about 90% Frida) because somehow the theme of becoming was there.

We want to become like someone else but we want to become ourselves. And, what if, what if, what if, Frida had met Mona or had married Da Vinci and what if Diego Rivera had painted Mona Lisa, nude, of course. Now, that’s an idea for another art piece.

Ana Perches

See what a theme like Becoming can do? To sum up Saturday, my first day working on my project, which took me all day,  I got most of it done. The next day I added a few things (worked on it for a couple hours) and today I hope to finish it, but it’s basically done and it will be framed.

I will explain more on how the theme fits in when we meet on October 17th.  

The art and words are by Ana Perches.
Ana Perches, living in Berkeley, California, is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2020).
You can see the de Young Museum, “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving,” in San Francisco from September 25, 2020 to February 2021.

Taska Sanford: Cicadas Sing

 

Taska Sanford

I don’t really know what it was like when she was born, but I do know what it was like when she died.

That’s the way I always imagined my mom Caroline Gage Sanford was born. (Taska Sanford)

“Wednesday July 15, 1942
Cicadas sang
A young man took a drink
A young woman cursed
A crack of lightning struck and a tiny baby screamed her way into the world.
The little girl thought - Com-on Let’s get this started.”

Taska Sanford

Caroline Gage Stanford


That’s the way I imagined my mom, Caroline Gage Sanford, was born. I don’t really know what it was like when she was born, but I do know what it was like when she died.

I accepted the duty and the privilege to escort her to her death. She died Saturday, July 25th 2020, at home next to her garden just as she planned.

It was cancer, in the time of a pandemic, during lockdown. That part she did not ask for but she accepted it, matter of factly.

1001 Southern Nights

People will either write some form of memorial or at least think of one when they can not sleep in the darkest part of the night. With that in mind, writing this I still felt so disconnected.

As one friend, also going through loss, said it pointedly, “Your first home is now gone.”

Caroline Gage Stanford

The days of raw primal grief felt like the darkest of nights. Alone in my head while the world slept, I wrote this memorial over and over and over.

Because the thought of telling you about how I knew her kept Mom just a little closer, a little warmer, a little less dead.

I then began a transformation. I took on a new identity. I left behind caregiver, daughter, youngest child, and put on the shining, embellished robes of Scheherazade. You remember from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights? Scheherazade was married to a terrible Sultan that married girls only to kill them the next morning and then married again... until Sheherazade arrived. She beguiled the sultan by spinning the greatest stories ever - to keep herself alive day after day.  So I have become Shaherazade telling stories night after night. Stories that keep my mother alive in my heart one more day and then one more day and on and on. 

What story do I tell you? The time in high school in a heated moment when told my very favorite teacher, Mr. Yates, to fuck off? Mom laughed so hard when I told her, she spit out her coca-cola.

Or I could tell you about that day when I was in high school and she said in all seriousness, “Taska, you will need to learn how to make money to buy your own groceries and pay your own rent, but I will always buy you art supplies.”

Caroline Gage Stanford

High school was rough, like it often is, and I had trouble connecting with my dearest friends for a time. I found myself at home in the giant house on West Drive feeling alone but not wanting to go out. Then a new friend came along and reached out to me. Mom, who had worked long hours to set up her own psychology business, now had the time to see her daughter struggling with teenage life. So she stopped being as much of a mother and instead became my friend.

We did so much together that gave me joy and confidence. She taught me to garden, to sing, to call bad drivers “jackass!”

We talked on the phone every week - I mean EVERY week when I left for college. We wrote letters. We took cool art classes together and sent altered art books back and forth across the country.

Caroline Gage Stanford

And then as life progressed my dad died in 2013 and she lost her partner in crime. And because family is family, without batting an eye, Travis, Cedar, and I brought Mom (now Nana) out to California to live with us. When thanking Travis for so readily welcoming my mom, he said he had promised my dad to help her. So we did.

And for the next 6 years while I slid from the role of daughter to mother, my mom constructed a new life out here that was quickly built on music, gardens, art, new friends, and late nights at the bars!

I could also tell you the story about the week when Cecelia came to visit. The cancer was coming down on mom fast and furious. Then her beloved friend and cousin,  Cecilia Chilton, flew into town despite the pandemic. She fired up the iPads and she and Mom attended Augusta Music Camp online. What a phenomenon! I could not believe the strength and vigor mom regained. Her ailing voice returned and she played her guitar again and again.  Then the week ended, July 18th, Cecilia returned home, and mom lay down her guitar…...    

Taska Sanford

Alright Dad, I think we all did our part well with Mom’s last years. Now you and Mom can drive off in the Dodge minivan into the desert, together.

So you see I do have 1001 stories to tell about this amazing woman.

The art books are by Caroline Gage Stanford. The words and photographs are by Taska Sanford.
Taska Sanford, living in the the Bay Area, is a member of Art Junket West (2018-2022).

Becoming: 2021

 

My photographs are intimate.

The New Year
feelings of loneliness
the end of autumn.

Matsuo Basho

mbfitzmahan. Autumn in the Hudson Valley. 2020.

枯れ枝に烏の止まりけり秋の暮　芭蕉

Autumn evening
A crow perched
On a withered branch
Matsuo Basho

mbfitzmahan. Pawling, New York. 2020

My photographs are intimate. They are portraits of surprise, pain, joy - moments of life. I generally take photos of people, but even my landscape photos are portraits of a delicate life.

Matsuo Basho, a 17th century haiku poet, instructed his students on how to write haiku,

In composing haiku there are two ways: “becoming” and “making.”

mbfitzmahan. Homeschool. New York. 2020

Basho made a distinction between these two ways of creating art, and supported “becoming” and viewed “making” as inferior, inauthentic.

Basho taught,

For a haiku poet, to learn from nature should mean to submerge himself, to perceive the delicate life and feel its feelings, out of which a poem forms itself.

mbfitzmahan. Erin in Anshin, the woods. 2021.

Makoto Ueda, a scholar on Basho, wrote that Basho believed that,

Beauty in nature is a manifestation of the supreme creative force which flows through all things in the universe, animate and inanimate.

The artist can depict this force “when the object enters his mind and dyes it in its own color, whereupon a poem emerges by itself.

mbfitzmahan. Hudson Valley. 2020.

Makoto Ueda, “Basho and the Poetics of “Haiku.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Smuuer, 1963), pp. 423-431. The full article is accessible at JSTOR at https://www.jstor.org/stable/427098?seq=1.

The photographs are of 2020 in the Hudson Valley, New York.
The words and photographs are by Maureen Fitzmahan.
Maureen Fitzmahan, living in the Hudson Valley, is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).

Ana Perches: Pa’ qué son lujos?

 

Ana perches

Pa’ qué son lujos - A condemnation of superfluity and waste, ostentation, and vanity. And an affirmation of dignity and restraint, forbearance, and respect for the value of a hard-earned dollar. Or peso, in this case. Ana Perches, 2020.

La Calle

“Es una calle larga y silenciosa.
Ando en tinieblas y tropiezo y caigo
y me levanto y piso con pies ciegos
las piedras mudas y las hojas secas
y alguien detrás de mí también las pisa:
si me detengo, se detiene;
si corro, corre. Vuelvo el rostro: nadie.
Todo está oscuro y sin salida
y doy vueltas y vueltas en esquinas
que dan siempre a la calle
donde nadie me espera ni me sigue,
donde yo sigo a un hombre que tropieza
y se levanta y dice al verme: nadie.”

— Octavio Paz (Mexico, 1914-98)

mbfitzmahan. New York. 2020.

What if, instead of feeling stress, I felt energy. Instead of feeling scared, what if I felt inspired - for having energy, for feeling safe, for having food, clothing and shelter. Why should I feel stressed?

I am not entitled to feel stress when so many others are in dire straits or on the brink of being there, while I’m not there… yet.

If mere compassion leads to inaction, I’m back to feeling guilty again, about not feeling stressed, or about having the luxury to pretend I’m not stressed.

So, do I then get up from my chair to act, as Jean-Paul Sartre would have a person of “good faith” do? Let’s not get existentialist or philosophical here because that’s a luxury, too. While people are out scrambling for food, finding ways to make their next car payment, or come up with money to pay their mortgage or rent or…. With what nerve am I searching here for the perfect metaphor? A rhetorical question during rhetorical times. A Peruvian poet spoke of that in the 20th century, as have many other writers.

mbfitzmahan. 2020.

Yes, I’ve known stress before. But today, knowing what I know now and what I still don’t know and never will know, am I allowed to feel stress? I’m not asking for anyone’s permission but my own, and my answer from me is: No, Ana, you’re not allowed to feel stress.

Okay, I’m not allowed to feel stress. Because so many people are so much worse off than I am.

My father had an expression, which is à propos here. His expression was Pa’ qué son lujos, which is hard to translate but literally means, “What’s the point of luxuries?” We would hear that phrase from my father when he was enjoying a simple plate of Mexican beans instead of a pricey meal at a two-star restaurant. Or when having the money to buy himself a Rolex he would instead choose a Casio from Costco. Pa’ qué son lujos? Luxury! Who needs it. Or say, if we were at a restaurant where the waiter would brush away the crumbs from the white table cloth using a small dustpan and shiny blade, my dad with a sarcastic smile and a shake of the head, pa’ qué son lujos! What does luxury know? Know, about life. Or if someone insisted on using the correct fork for a salad or… you get the idea.

mbfitzmahan. 2020.

His remark was also a way of saying, “If only you knew what it was like to have lived during the Revolution.” His comment was in itself a metaphor because he was born after the Revolution, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, that brought the first massive wave of Mexican labor to the United States. What my father meant by that expression is that some people can do all that fancy fanfare and stuff because they don’t know what it’s like to go hungry. His philosophy of ¿para qué son lujos? was not unlike that

Pa’ qué son lujos is colloquial for ¿para qué son lujos? Pa’ is short for para in informal speech.

When I think of the Americans who lived through the Great Depression or of the immigrants and refugees arriving on American shores with nothing but a small suitcase and perhaps two nickels in their pocket, I think, pa’ qué son lujos. How could they understand their grandson or granddaughter whimpering about the pesto coming out too salty, or too caloric?

“Bubba, I’m on a diet, don’t add so much heavy cream, or butter.” Or, “Abuela, lard is fattening, I can’t have tamales! Or, “Tata, you know I can’t eat raw onions …pico de gallo has raw onions!” Pa’ qué son lujos! is not really a question but an exclamation. “You’re worried about that?” You’re stressed out because the tile isn’t lining up exactly straight above your $7,000 Miele stove? Or you are upset that you should have chosen a grout color a bit more grey instead of that brown hue? Pa’ qué son lujos!

My father did survive many micro-revolutions in Mexico, hard times for someone like himself who knew the value of work and who did not have parents to help him out along the stormy ride. He never talked to us about stress. In fact, there is no word in Spanish for stress, which borrowed the word from English starting around the 1970’s and called it “estrés.” My father got lucky, but not everybody does.

I walked along Solano Avenue on Monday. Deserted and empty stores on both sides of the street. Where are the people who work here? Who’s going to pay their rent? Will the owners of those businesses go inside once in a while, deactivate the alarm, turn on the lights, flush the toilet and wonder, “How could this have happened to me and to so many others?”

Restaurants displayed their hand-printed signs, “Take-out only.” And there was the lighting store with the old-fashioned lamps getting dustier each day. The dry cleaning stores were open, just in case you wanted your pants ironed or cleaned - if you wanted a crisp, starched shirt for work. Work. A luxury - or a painful reminder that a privileged few don’t need to work. Or some can work at home and don’t need a starched, ironed shirt while millions of others are out of work.

While I don’t mean to downplay the many kinds of stress people of all walks of life are feeling these days. As David Brooks has shown in his recent heart-wrenching editorials, as long as my situation is stable I cannot claim stress under my current circumstances. That would only be claiming another privilege I happen to have… for now. Pa’ qué son lujos.

My father’s tone of voice when he spoke those words, and the look on his face, conveyed at the same time a condemnation and an affirmation. Pa’ qué son lujos. A condemnation of superfluity and waste, ostentation, and vanity. And an affirmation of dignity and restraint, forbearance, and respect for the value of a hard-earned dollar. Or peso, in this case.

Ana Perches

Words by Ana Perches - Berkeley, California
Photographs by Maureen Fitzmahan - Pawling, New York. Photos of mid-Hudson Valley New York.
Ana & Maureen are Founding Members of The Art Junket.

“A long and silent street.
I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall
and rise, and I walk blind, my feet
stepping on silent stones and dry leaves.
Someone behind me is also stepping on stones, on leaves:
if I slow down, he slows;
if I run, he runs. I turn: nobody.
Everything is dark and doorless.
Turning and turning around these corners
which lead forever to the street
where I pursue a man who stumbles
and rises and says when he sees me: nobody.”

— The Street by Octavio Paz

Zoom - Conversations during the Pandemic

 

Zoom during pandemic

Art is an instrument in the war against the enemy. Pablo Picasso

We joined over the Internet to talk about our experiences as artists in this uncertain time.

The collective tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic has made us feel humbled and small. The waves of emotions and the immensity of the catastrophe feels too big to express. “Who am I to think that I could portray the scale of this tragedy?” 

Maureen and Kaitlin shared how debilitating their inner critics are. In this time of the pandemic, the inner critic is loud, taking advantage of our weaknesses. It’s hard to tell that inner critic to be quiet when she sounds so convincing. When we feel like we are coming apart at the seams, the inner critic is there to keep us from doing anything risky - especially art.

We are grateful to be safe, well-resourced, and with our loved ones. And we know that this is a privilege. We realize that people are suffering. Ana said, “How can I make art when others are in pain?” 

But, then Ana remembered that when words fail, that’s when we can and must use images and music to communicate.  

Kaitlin is journaling about her experience. She confessed to feeling a bit childish or self-centered about her writing. But, recently she reached a turning point and she found that she could, “turn the Particular into the General. The best storytelling and art is about personal moments.” 

Kaitlin suggested that we can honor our personal experiences. When we sit and tell our stories, they become meaningful. People need stories. And sharing our own story helps us feel less alone. It gives our lives context and beauty.  Kaitlin also recommended, “Be gentle with yourself,” she said. “It’s nice to be nice to yourself.”

And, yes, we need to be seen. That is what the Art Junket has always been to us - a supportive and positive place where we could honor our personal journeys and our art. Now, more than ever, we need a community to motivate us and bear witness to our originality. 

I spoke of the need to express our creativity as a kind of wellness practice. Brené Brown wrote: “Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgement, sorrow, shame.” (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who you Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. 2010.) 

As artists in this uncertain time, there is one thing we know for sure - we need each other.  Unexpressed wounds fester and shame grows like mold in the darkness of our thoughts. We need each other. 

Thank you for being our audience, for inspiring us with your creativity, and supporting us with your feedback. We miss you. How are you doing?

April 8, 2020. A month into the “shelter at home” orders, imposed by governments to control the spread of COVID-19, Erin Mahollitz (New York), Ana Perches (California), Kaitlin Strange (Catalonia, Spain), and Maureen Fitzmahan (New York) reached out to each other to talk about their feelings of fear, loneliness, and impotency.

Words and video by Erin Mahollitz (Pawling, New York). Erin is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015).



Kaitlin Strange: Lessons from Tuna the Cat - Surviving a Pandemic

 

Tuna, the cat

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods. They have not forgotten this. Terry Pratchett

Before a Cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed, like a dish of cream.
T.S. Eliot

Lessons from Tuna the Cat: Surviving a Pandemic  

45 days of quarantine takes its toll. Boredom, anxiety, frustration, fear are inevitable. Where do we turn to find a sense of contentment or, dare I say, joy? I turn to the smaller and simpler allies around me. Yes, I’m talking about my cat. Her name is Tuna. The isolation may have influenced my choice of her as a model for self-care. But when you spend this much time with another creature you tend to pick up on their habits. And Tuna is a pro at managing stress and fighting boredom. So here you have it, five lessons on quarantine from Tuna the cat.

Prioritize Sleep

Tuna sleeps most of the day. She knows the value of a good nap. Her sleep is at times interrupted by her customary attacking, pouncing, and chasing. In the end, she knows when to take a break. And, my friends, we all need breaks. 

These are hard times. No matter what this pandemic is serving you, whether you are supporting someone who is sick or sick yourself, taking care of children, trying to work, or just getting through the day. These are trying times. Stress comes from inside our homes as well as outside. With the internet, cellphones, and social media, stress and anxiety is not hard to come by. To cope, our brains and bodies need to rest and reset. Tired in the middle of the afternoon? Great. Take a nap. Emotionally exhausted after an epic news session. Fantastic. Take a nap. Can’t find the motivation to do anything? Feel yourself slipping into a pit of sadness? No worries. Take a nap. 

Do as Tuna does, get your sleep on. Life, even during a pandemic, is a lot more manageable if you listen to your body and sleep when you need to. 

Prioritize food 

What day is it? What time is it? Where am I? These are now daily questions. For a cat like Tuna, these questions are irrelevant and futile social constructs. Food, on the other hand, is the cornerstone of a happy daily routine. She eagerly awaits the most significant events of the day: breakfast and dinner. She knows when, where, and how she will be fed. And afterwards she is carefree and moves on with her day. 

Food can be a source of comfort, health, and sanity. In these simple times, food is the foundation of routine. You need to eat, so do it up. Plan out your meals and take time to prepare Even better, FaceTime a friend while you prep and cook. Savor your food. Enjoy the flavors. And don’t forget to indulge. We can’t spend hours preparing a culinary experience everyday. Sometimes you just need to binge watch trashy TV while eating boxed mac and cheese with hot sauce. 

Express your feelings 

Tuna is not afraid to let you know how she is feeling. Usually in the form of meowing in your face or jumping on your lap. She does not shy away from telling you she needs you, when she needs you. 

It’s hard to ask for help. Vulnerability and sensitivity does not always feel safe or comfortable. But your community is here for you. Trust that if you ask, they will respond. A phone call or a quick message will do the trick. People will be eager to help and support. In fact, they will be grateful. Because your vulnerability allows them to be vulnerable. So go ahead, let people know how you are feeling and what you need. 

Enjoy the simple things

Tuna will turn anything into a toy: a bottle cap, a piece of string, a price tag, a piece of lint. She isn’t picky. She welcomes the entertainment. 

When stuck at home it can be easy to find something to do. The long list of to-do’s and half-started projects are endless. But now is also a time to slow down, get grounded, and find joy in the simple things. So do as Tuna does, spend a few hours a day doing what makes you happy and curious. Get off the computer and the phone. Play with something physical - paint, food, wood, dirt, or a ball. Tuna will spend a solid 20 minutes playing with her own tail. Your to-do list and all the ‘shoulds’ of your life will be there when you’re done. 

Seek out the sun

Tuna will find any ray of sunshine and park herself there for hours. This is usually paired with the aforementioned nap or staring out the window and plotting against the pigeons. She’ll stretch out, take up space, and take it all in. 

This lesson’s pretty simple, cost efficient, and good for your health. If the sun comes out, find a patch of sunshine and sit in it. Or walk in it. Or do a workout in it. Or nap in it. But get that Vitamin D. And it’s not just Tuna. Research has shown that an increase in Vitamin D helps boost your immune system and protect again COVID-19. So there you go. Find that sun.

WORDS and PHOTOS: Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange
Katie Strange (Barcelona, Spain) is a founding member of the Art Junket West since 2015.

Tuna and Katie. Selfie. Barcelona, April 2020

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