Anchor & Oar Commission for Hyatt Place Hotel

Andrew Saftel, Anchor and Oar, 2017
Acrylic and collage on birch panel, 72x96 inches

This painting, commissioned for the Hyatt Place Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, is loosely based on the life of David Farragut, for whom the original hotel was named. However, it is more generally about all people and how we move through time together and share a common history.

The anchor represents settling down and staying put and the oar pushes us on our way through our lives. Guests in the hotel will be dropping anchor for the night and then employing the oar as they move forward in their lives.

Farragut, born in Knoxville, was a career naval officer, a Union  Navy commander during the Civil War and the first Secretary of the Navy. I used his signature on the top of the painting and included two views of his ship, the USS Hartford, which he commanded in the battle of Mobile Bay, where he famously said “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

Half way down the left side of the painting are the words from a letter Farragut dictated and signed in July 1862, which said, “Sir, The Department informs me that no reports of firing have been received
from the vessel under your command since the first of January last, and requests me to call your attention to Art. 14 Page 5, Ordnance Instructions.” I like the sense of humor Farragut employs here.

The Knoxville postmark and the words “Got Here O.K.” were from a postcard in 1937 written by my wife’s grandfather, who served in the Tennessee General Assembly, to his wife in Clarksville, letting her know he had arrived in Knoxville safely. I changed the date on the postmark to bring the painting into the present.

Below the postmark are the words “East Tennessee Marble” where written by William Strickland, the architect of the Tennessee state Capitol. The marble industry in East Tennessee from the 1850s to
the 1930s, produced marble that was used all over the country, especially in Washington, D.C. There is still marble being quarried south of Knoxville today.

I often have references to time in my work and the words, “High Tide, Sunrise, Sunset, Days Full and April has Thirty Days,” refer to our shared time together on this planet. Time passing is what we all have in common. The musical staff is also a reference to time.

The horseshoe I found hiking in the Smokies. It is a symbol for good luck and also a part of the Farragut family crest. “Arrival” and “Departure” on the top of the painting come from my passport and symbolize how our lives (and hotel stays) have a beginning and an end.

The small man on top of the little book on the bottom left of the painting is taken from an East Tennessee folk art carving of a miner. The piece of wood and stone on the top of the painting I found on the beach in California. The two pieces of marble on the bottom center of the painting were from the original floor of the Farragut hotel. The raft of refugees represents all families who came to this country as immigrants including my family and David Farragut’s.

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

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)

Printmaking Workshops in Bangladesh: As the Trip Comes to an End

 

I conducted three printmaking workshops in Bangladesh in June 2014. Two were in the capital city of Dhaka and one took place at  Rasjshashi, which was a six hour train ride from the city.

 

The techniques I taught were monoprint, a one of a kind print, and chine-colle, a way to collage other materials on to the prints.

 

We were given the theme of "The Urban Experience" as a topic by our sponsors, The American Center of the U.S. Embassy Dhaka and the Bengal Foundation.

 

These workshops were very challenging for me as a teacher for several reasons but the students in all three workshops were extremely energetic, ambitious, cheerful, hopeful and hard -working. They came from various backgrounds, classes and geographic locations within Bangladesh.

 

Some spoke some English but we managed to communicate with the common-denominator of creating art together.

 

As I prepare to depart for home tomorrow I am filled with a mix of emotions about my time here. I love this country and its people, however it faces all of the issues of a densely populated country with limited resources and capacity to support its population in the long run.

 

This is my second time here teaching and probably my last. I wish my dear friends here all of the goodness and hope for the future and am thankful for all of the warmth and kindness that they have shown me.

We will have an opening this evening at the Bengal Art Lounge of over fifty prints made in the workshops, of which I am very proud.

A.S. June 25 2014

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!





 

A World of Wonder

the "Hickory Horned Devil"

The other day while walking from my house down to my studio, I was shocked to stumble upon this insect. Living in a rural area of Tennessee, I often encounter nature and its creatures in interesting ways, but I had never in my life seen anything like this.

What you're looking at is the Hickory Horned Devil. It was 6 inches long and fatter than my thumb. The critter reminds me of what I used to see as a child when I'd visit my grandparents in the Caribbean and snorkel around coral reefs.

Not only is the larva stage of this insect amazing to look at, it turns into the Regal Moth, which has a 6" wingspan.

Things like this are what inspire me and give me hope. We live in a world full of fun and wonder, but it's only when we take time to really look for it.