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

Andrew Saftel Exhibit at Tew Galleries - Atlanta, Georgia January 2015

I first met Timothy Tew when I was in my early thirties and showing my work in an Atlanta gallery next to Timothy’s gallery. I would arrive to deliver a pick- up truck loaded with paintings wrapped in a plastic tarp and Timothy would pull up in a yellow convertible, top down, always cheerful and would greet me.

In those days he was always enthusiastic about my work and wished me well with the upcoming exhibitions in Atlanta and elsewhere. I have not shown in Atlanta for the past six years and was thrilled when Timothy contacted me about the possibility of showing in his gallery. He came to visit me in rural Tennessee last summer and looked over the work in the studio at that time.

My work has evolved and has a different feel than the earlier work, so I felt it was important for him to see the art in person and also to see where I live and work to get a context for my life and where the work is headed.  He took time to look at everything in the studio with a discerning eye and probing mind, which I greatly appreciated. He spent the night at our house and I thoroughly enjoyed his company and the diverse conversation.

His gallery director Jules Bekker and I worked together in those early years so I was quite pleased to know that I would be working together with her again.

So my new exhibition entitled ”Green Light Go” opens Friday January 23rd at Tew Galleries, Atlanta. I am pleased with the selection of work that they chose, which includes works on paper, paintings on panel, tapestries and sculpture.

Andrew Saftel - January 2015

A Constant Moving Forward

"Obstacle", 21x93x10" carved walnut, maple and cherry, oil paint, varnish- 2014

The life of an artist is a roller coaster with unpredictable peaks and valleys. The last couple of years for me have been challenging—not in terms of making work but as relates to the burden of the marketplace.

I love making and working with my hands to produce things that are my response to what I experience and discover in the world I inhabit. I can do this night and day. It is a practice. It never gets easier but continually changes and evolves like a living breathing thing.

The great challenge in all of this is to separate the making from the selling, and to never repeat oneself. All of what I have done before has to be eliminated from what I will now do.

The market tends to want what has already been done and proven but I have always been one
who goes against what I am told to do.

To keep vital as a person and an artist I keep moving into new territory. I love to work on sculptures when inventing new work as the act of working with my hands in this way releases my brain, allowing new thoughts and images to arise.

Ceramic sculpture is what I started with in high school. I rarely sell sculpture so making it allows me a certain level of freedom. I get a form or image in my mind, do drawings, make parts, and then assemble them until the image becomes a three-dimensional reality.

"Fruit Boat", 78x82x11",carved cherry, maple and poplar, bronze, acrylic, colored pencil, varnish,
2014

It is a constant moving forward towards the finished piece. I love this process and will spend countless hours obsessively working away, allowing my brain a rest that painting does not give me. I sometimes paint for days and then cover it all up and start again. Painting is a constant thought process for me as far as creating forms, images, color combinations and surface treatments.

Throughout my career I have taken breaks from painting and turned to sculpture as way to continue
working through ideas, many of which cannot be expressed in two dimensions. I have been working on two sculptures for the last six weeks that have been a joy and make me happy to be engaged with.

I once again have the feeling of being an eight-year old boy heading up to the baseball field with my glove and ball on a spring Saturday morning; a feeling I constantly strive towards in the studio.

These are transportation images, a car on a road and a boat on a bronze dock.

The long, stretched out car is made of cherry, as is the road it is on. (photo above)

How to Make a Living as an Artist

Recently, I read an article in the Washington Post about professional artists working in the United States. As a full-time artist myself, this gave me something to think about and I wanted to share some of my thoughts here on the blog.

Except for the blue chip artists at the top (who also started at the bottom), making a living as a full time artist over a long period of time is incredibly difficult in many ways. Keeping the work relevant, fresh, honest and true for decades is the main challenge that professional artists face. And this doesn't even begin to address the issue of making money as a full-time artist.

It takes an odd combination of business skills and personality traits to develop and maintain relationships with galleries while also building a market and following for the work. The right attitude is sometimes difficult to maintain. The "art world" can be brutal in terms of its fickle way of treating artists, which is also a challenge.

Finding a balance between working in the studio, other life interests and staying connected to the world as well as people is important and different for every artist. It takes a deep commitment to the work, discipline and a constant curiosity about the world around us to maintain a consistent studio practice over many years.

 This is a serious endeavor. Art is work...that's why it is called an artwork. For all artists there are times when interest in the work wanes and one must continue working. There is really very little support for artists in this country except for the commercial marketplace. Because of this, making a living as an artist for an entire career is extremely difficult. That is why the percentages in the article are so low.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to continue to make a living working in my studio. It is a hard won dream come true that could not happen without a few things. First are the galleries that I have worked with. Carol Stein at Cumberland Gallery in Nashville has believed in my work, exhibited and sold it for twenty five years.

Then there are the collectors who have supported my work over the years. I appreciate them immensely. There have been a handful who have continued to build significant holdings of my work, for which I am very thankful. These are relationships that are very special and an integral part of continuing to work in the studio and support myself.

Life as a professional artist has a certain ebb and flow. I would never want to discourage anyone who is considering pursuing the artist's life...but it's important to know going in what to expect.

I'd like to close with a quote from Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art.

 

"Creative work is a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of our contribution. Give us what you've got."