Our Story

Our Story -  (Acrylic and pencil on canvas, found objects on panel) 2016, 60x48”

While in Mexico last January I began working on canvas for the first time. A friend had given me a large piece of canvas and I wanted to make something that I could begin there and then bring back to Tennessee to finish. I tore three pieces from the large canvas, sealed them with gesso, stapled them to the table and began drawing with pencil on them.

On a walk the previous week I found a street that had concrete puzzle pieces for the roadbed and there was a pile of discarded pieces from which I took two that fit together. To me they were male/female, yin and yang and a symbol of how things fit together (or don’t) in life. I traced the puzzle pieces all over the canvases in different configurations and off I went. Once I had the overall patterns from the puzzle pieces for a background, I began freely drawing images on the canvases. 

Then, with acrylics, I spent a couple of weeks staining and painting them. I rolled them up and carried them back to Tennessee. Once back in my studio I glued the canvases to birch panels and continued to paint using thicker acrylic paint. The canvases are smaller than the panels so there is a border of exposed wood around the canvas edge. I then carried the image from the canvas out to the wood border to integrate the canvas with the panel. This is very exciting for me as the initial pencil drawing and original stains are visible in the completed work. Also I was able to draw with pencil at any time during the process. This is very different and somewhat liberating from the carved and thickly textured paintings I have been making for years. I really enjoy the freedom that this process gives me although I will continue to do the carved paintings.

The painting “Our Story” is about our collective immigrant stories but also about my family history in particular. We found a census from 1900 in Boston that has my great grandfather’s family listed. He came first to the U.S. in 1890 from Russian Galicia and the rest of his family came later. My great grandfather is classified as a “coat tailor” and his five children “in school.” I projected the census list onto the top left of the painting and “Coat Tailor” in the middle. I then collaged a small coat, which was on a little puppet that I had in the studio, under the words “coat tailor.” In this way I brought my great grandfather and his story to life over a hundred years later. In light of the current immigration crisis in Europe, I feel it is important for Americans to be sympathetic as the vast majority of us are immigrants here. This story is Our Story.

Andrew Saftel June 2016

A visit to the Servins in Santa Clara, Michoacan, Mexico - January 2015

Members of the Servin family have been weaving for decades in rural Michoacan, Mexico. One of the elders, Jose Servin said he has been weaving for thirty- five years. I’m not sure if his was the first generation to weave wool rugs and serapes in a traditional style or if earlier generations had been involved in the craft. Jose is a warm, receptive and generous man and welcomed us with open arms.

Ricardo, Juan, Andy, & Jose 

This was perhaps my fifth or sixth visit to the Servin compound, where many looms are in use. Jose’s brother Victoriano was the first in the family to begin producing amazing tapestries of my images in 2011.

Victoriano has since stopped making these tapestries for health reasons but his son, twenty-seven-year-old Ricardo, and Jose’s son, Juan, also in his late twenties, continue to produce these stunning weavings.

Juan Servin at work on a tapestry

Both Ricardo and Juan first became involved in the process at less than ten years old.  We have developed friendships based on this collaboration, in which we are thankful for each other in the mutual production of images and the weavings made from them.

This visit was particularly meaningful for me as this was the first time I met Juan, a really warm and friendly man, who has produced a number of world class tapestries of my images, and also the first time my wife Susan was able to visit the Servins.

Ricardo Servin working on "Entwined" tapestry

Both Juan and Ricardo had four-to-five-foot-wide pieces on the loom in progress and were more than happy to demonstrate the mysterious (to me) process in which they weave the images without the aid of diagrams, computers, or images behind the loom.

Sometimes Juan draws on the warp. They work from 8½ x11 inch print-outs of the images I send, starting at the bottom and working up, rolling the weaving up under the loom as they go, never seeing the whole until they are finished.  It is really quite something to witness.

Ricardo showing the printout of Entwined that he works from

The process is very physical, done standing, and takes a tremendous amount of concentration. From the beginning I have stressed to the weavers to interpret the images and colors to adapt to their process so that it is more than just work for them. On this visit Ricardo said he has been honored to be making these tapestries.

A detail of the tapestry 

I fully intend for these pieces to hang on the wall like paintings. I am also honored to work with such dedicated and highly talented artisans. My bond with these amazing craftsmen was further deepened during this visit. Their family compound is located on the outskirts of Santa Clara del Cobre, an important town in the mountains of Michoacan, highly regarded for the production of copper ware.

This collaboration would not exist without a third partner, Ruth Mitchell de Aguilar, who lives in nearby Patzcuaro and has worked with the Servins for years procuring the wool for them and doing a fantastic job of dyeing all of the wool (some of these tapestries have over thirty colors). She and her husband Sabino also built the looms used by the Servin family.

It is my hope that we can continue to work together far into the future. The images I have created for the tapestries have influenced and become part of all of my artmaking in other media. I am indebted to Ricardo, Juan, and Ruth for being willing to continue working with me on this creative journey.

Andrew Saftel, Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, January 2015

Another Time Around the Sun

What was and is to come

The beginning of a new year is always a time of reflection, contemplation and hope for what is to come as well as a chance to see the past year in a different light.

2013 was a busy and productive year in which my work took me to a lot of interesting places.

 

The year started with Where Water Meets Land, an exhibition at The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, of fourteen large-scale photographs and two large collages based on my experience in Bangladesh in 2010. I gave a gallery talk and a hands-on workshop at the museum. We also produced a brochure for the exhibit. It was very meaningful for me to share the imagery from such a beautiful country and talk about my experiences there, especially since Bangladesh is ground zero for important global trade and environmental issues.

I showed the same photographs and collages at Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, where I have been represented for over twenty years. The owner, Carol Stein, an early supporter of my work, organized an evening lecture in the gallery in which she asked me questions about the work and the experience in Bangladesh. I thought it was a very stimulating conversation and the large audience seemed very interested and moved by both the work and words.

Later in the summer I showed the Bangladesh body of photographs at Bennett Gallery in Knoxville, where I have also been exhibiting for over twenty years. They held a Saturday afternoon talk in the gallery there, which was very enjoyable. It was inspiring to connect with interested people about the work and to visit with old friends. People seem to really respond to this work. I don’t consider myself a photographer, but this body of work in photography possesses some of the same sensibilities of light, surface, and image as do the paintings. At Bennett Galleries, I showed nine new paintings with the photographs.  The photographs and paintings remain for sale at Bennett Galleries, Knoxville.

In the Spring I juried an exhibition of regional high school art for an exhibit at the Gallery at St. Andrews Sewanee High School. I also gave a lecture on my current work and attended the opening for the exhibit. I cannot fully express how meaningful it was to interact with the students and be supportive of their art endeavors. I have been involved with this school for many years. They have a really committed studio art faculty, great facilities, and an emphasis on the arts. I am a deep believer in the importance of arts education for all grade levels. This is another conversation.

I returned to Sewanee in June to teach a one-week printmaking workshop at Shakerag Workshops, which had its ten-year anniversary last year. Shakerag was started by several art faculty members at St. Andrews to provide two weeks of craft workshops with leading artists and craftspeople. This was my third time teaching there. I just love being there with inspiring people in such a beautiful setting, focused on what we all love. Studios are open twenty fours hours and it is an all out, high–energy mix of work, food, play, lectures and connecting with other artists.

I was invited to give a short talk on my work at the Frist Center for the Arts in Nashville along with two other artists as we all had work on exhibit in the Martin Artquest Gallery. This is an excellent hands-on experiential gallery for people of all ages. I spoke about my experiences with art education as an artist and a teacher. They hung my large woodcut, La Frontera (2010), a large 33-color woodcut printed in Patzcuaro, Mexico, and also two of the blocks used for printing.  People are allowed to do rubbings from the blocks. The Frist has been a monumental addition to the cultural world in our region, originating and hanging many important exhibitions. I stop in every time I go to Nashville and there is always something worth stopping in for.

 

The highlight of 2013 for me was my exhibition, Las FrutasDel Mundo, (Fruits of the World) at the Centro Cultural Antiguo Colegio Jesuita in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico. This exhibit consisted of two strains of work made in Mexico since 2009.

I have been working in the printmaking workshop at the Colegio since 2009 and have produced drypoint etchings, woodcuts, and collagraph prints, in collaboration with the printers there. Some of the imagery in the prints references the Mexico-U.S. border (la frontera), with movement indicating crossing. This imagery became the basis for another ongoing project with local weavers.

Beginning in 2011 with a chance visit to a local store, looking for rugs, I asked about the possibility of using some of my own imagery for a rug. Thus began a collaboration between myself, a family of weavers, and the talented and knowledgeable Ruth Mitchell de Aguilar who procures and dyes the wool. A father, Victoriano Servin, and his son, Ricardo, and nephew, Juan, have been weaving spectacular tapestries based on my images. They are all enormously talented.

For me it is a welcome challenge to create images for the weavers to interpret in woven wool. It forces me to simplify and consider the images more carefully. It is very exciting to see what they will do with the image using the spectacular dyed colors. I can’t wait to see the next one! These are one of a kind, non-computer aided, hand dyed, hand-made tapestries for wall or floor. Inquiries welcome (inquiries@andrewsaftel.com)

So, back to the exhibition, which consisted of eleven of the tapestries hung on the walls, eight small, framed tapestry designs, eight prints, four large watercolors, two panel paintings and a collage on panel. Some of the tapestries are quite large so it was an impressive exhibit in a grand space in an old stone building with tile floors and large windows along one wall. There is an evident evolution in the imagery from the earlier prints to the tapestries so that all of the other works are visible in the tapestries.

People loved the work and really praised the weavers for their impressive skills. I’d like for them to receive even more recognition. We have all formed friendships through this project, which will continue and will nurture our cross-border, cross-cultural endeavor. We produced a brochure for this exhibit as well and also a documentary film by Nemesis Films: Eduardo Bautista, filmmaker. You can see the complete film Las Frutas del Mundo on You Tube. I think he did a great job to tell the story of the tapestries and capture the feeling and emotion of the collaboration. I am very proud of this project, exhibition, collaborations in printmaking and tapestries and see a lot of possibilities for future work together in Mexico.

As I go through the year, sometimes it seems like things are stalled and nothing is happening with the work and I’m disconnected from the world out there. But as I look back on all of the exhibits, talks, workshops, travel and connections with people, it adds up to a deep and rich life.

 

                                                     What is to Come?

 

Always a tough question but one can speculate, reach and hope for things. I try to put ideas in motion, like a train, and then see where they go. I just keep working  everyday and know that it will add up to more than I can imagine a year from now.

I am enjoying where the imagery has been going and hope to continue to use the ideas and characters in the newer work.  I think there is a good balance between the humor and references to more serious issues in the falling fruit imagery and the idea of horizontal movement across borders. Right now I am working on some sizeable watercolors/ drawings, searching for more images for new tapestries and paintings.

I am eagerly looking forward to several upcoming projects, workshops, travel and exhibits in 2014 in addition to the studio work. First off, Cumberland Gallery in Nashville will be taking some of my work to the LA Art Fair- January 16-18. Carol Stein does several of these fairs each year, which is great exposure for my work. Her booths always look great since she has a selective, eclectic, quality eye for art.

In June I will be returning to Bangladesh to lead printmaking workshops under the direction of the Bengal Foundation. As we did on the 2010 trip to Bangladesh, my friend and poet Whitney Baker and I will travel together, he leading poetry workshops. I am a little nervous but really excited about the trip. We have a lot of friends and fellow artists there that we will be glad to reconnect with. There is an election there right now so hopefully the outcome will lead to a better situation. The details are just being outlined but I’m sure it will be a very deep experience in many ways.

 I will be teaching a two-week printmaking workshop, at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine from August 10-22. This will be my third time teaching at Haystack and I really look forward to it. I will teach multi-block collagraph and relief printmaking. The campus is in a fantasy setting on the rocks of the Maine coast. The director, Stuart Kestenbaum, has a special way of setting a great tone at this really special school.

We will see what else the year brings but I eagerly await whatever comes in the studio and out in the world of people moving through time together.

As always, thank you for stopping by my blog and please feel free to share it with anyone you think might enjoy. You can also follow along on social media (Twitter & Facebook) to keep up with the latest happenings. 

Day of the Dead and Ocumichu Sculptures in Mexico

Greetings from Patzcuaro, Mexico. I've so enjoyed being here for my exhibit and then the annual celebration for the Night and Day of the Dead here.

 

This is an occasion when families decorate graves and then spend a night communing with the dead.

 

The best thing is a huge craft concurso (competition) in which artisans from all of the surrounding towns and villages bring their work to be judged and sold.

 

The work is absolutely outstanding. I particularly like the low fired ceramic sculpture from Ocumichu, a town about three hours away.

I bought a great airplane.

I am so inspired by the imagination and skillful execution of the sculpture done in this town. 

Here is the documentary film created about my collaboration with the Mexican weavers. I hope you enjoy!





 

Fruits of the World Exhibit in Mexico

I'm very excited to announce a new exhibit opening tomorrow (October 25th) at the Centro Cultural Antiquo Colegio de Jesuita in Patzcuaro, Mexico. The show, called Fruits of the World, includes woodcut prints, drypoint etchings, watercolor and other mixed media pieces as well as a selection of tapestries created through a collaboration with Mexican weavers.

I currently have a studio in Patzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico but I first visited the area on vacation in 2009. I returned to the Jesuit Cultural Center through a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission to hold a printmaking workshop.

The new exhibit will include many of the prints created at the workshop, including "La Frontera," a work whose title means the border and explores the cultural, social, and political issues surrounding the border between Mexico and the United States.

The Fruits of the World exhibit also includes a series of hand-woven, custom-dyed woolen tapestries. The imagery depicted in the weavings is mine, but the execution of the designs has been undertaken by local area master weavers.

As an artist and inventor of images created in diverse mediums, I constantly seek collaborators and defer to other's skills and different levels of interpretation of my images. I encouraged the weavers to take liberties with aspects of the imagery and color, so this process became a collaboration between us.

It is not merely a reproduction of the images I drew, but an interpretation of them in wool; grown, dyed and woven in Michoacán, Mexico.

I requested that the weavers sign their creations alongside my own signature, something they had never been given the opportunity to do. I plan to honor their contribution at the exhibit when the tapestries are on display for the first time.

To see the brochure for this exhibit, please click here.

Tapestries Featured on ArtStormer Blog

I was honored to learn that I was recently featured by Betsy Wills on her blog, ArtStormer. Wills created her blog as a way to chronicle her interest in the visual arts. And while she claims to be ignorant of art curation or selection, she has a keen eye and a way with words.

There are so many talented artists in the world and as someone who makes my living solely from my art, I appreciate people like Betsy who are passionate about helping to showcase artists and their work.

You can read the full post by Betsy Wills on her ArtStormer blog here.

Betsy: Thanks for the kind words!