Summer 2015

The summer of 2015 has been an eventful, fulfilling and deeply rewarding season. The earlier part of the year was a pressure- cooker as I produced work for three solo gallery exhibitions beginning with Timothy Tew in Atlanta and then following with exhibits at Cumberland Gallery in Nashville and then Bennett Galleries in Knoxville.

I love to create work for exhibitions and will always work with galleries. There is something about picturing a space or an environment and then working for months with that space in mind. I enjoy collaborating with the gallery staff on how best to place the work so works in different media create a conversation with each other. For me, one of the greatest benefits to working as an artist is to live through cycles with the work. 

Starting a body of work is like pushing a train uphill. Then one gets the momentum going and the work begins to present itself and the ideas, images and concepts begin to pour out through the raw insistence of working every day. There is always a point in the process where I am certain that there will never be enough time to make as much work as I need for the space. Terror! Usually in the middle-of–the-night. Then, slowly, day after day of what seem to be small things in the studio, add up to more than I ever could have pre-conceived.

There always magically seems to be the perfect amount of work when the deadline arrives. To photograph the work is the deadline for inventing titles for everything. It is also when I can finally start to see everything I’ve created as a whole. To deliver the work is always nerve-wracking but heroic when accomplished. Then it is celebration time, which, I think, is really important. 

I try to take some time off after an exhibit or at least just begin to play with some new ideas and materials. Hopefully travel, which is the most important thing for life and work; cook great meals, visit museums, go out in to the mountains somewhere, walk on a beach. Just sit around reading and watching the goldfinches eat the sunflower seeds. Be with friends. The studio is an isolated place.

And then the process starts all over again, sometimes with another goal in mind and other times I may work for months on end with no exhibitions in mind.

This past summer was especially meaningful in many ways. The exhibits did well, which is always exciting and meaningful to the whole process of living this way. It has always been a prime motivator that people get the work, are inspired by the content and stories underlying the art and luckily, want to live with it. I can see it in peoples faces at openings when they engage with the work, are excited and come away different and inspired about their lives in a new way. It sounds corny but I’ve seen it and it propels me to begin to push the train up the mountain again.

The pace of life and working in the studio has been more relaxed this summer and I hope, will continue. My goals as an artist and the pacing of work have changed as I get older. Life outside of the studio is as important as the achievements with the work.

My wife and I have always loved growing our garden of vegetables and flowers. This years gardening was just what I needed after a busy spring. The process of getting the soil ready, starting plants from seed and tending the plants until harvest is the perfect antidote, for me, to the hard work and thinking that goes on in the studio. We also love to cook using our fresh garden delights.

The first highlight of the summer was to teach a two-week printmaking workshop at Arrowmont School of Crafts, where I have taught many times before. I began teaching workshops for kids there when I was in my twenties and then moved on to the adult summer workshops. 

I was joined by my former studio assistant and dear friend, Shane Darwent, who team taught with me adding digital inkjet printing techniques which we combined with traditional printmaking. Shane was a great addition to the class and an excellent teacher. He is now in an MFA program at U of M in Ann Arbor and will do great things there. We worked together in the studio for five years and I will miss him dearly. We had a great group of students in the workshop, most of whom were repeat participants. 

I love teaching these workshops for the community of the classroom and the joy of seeing people take the techniques and excitedly run with them, producing a lot of great work. We also have a ball together with a large amount of humor and laughing amidst the serious discussions. Arrowmont is at the best it has ever been in my twenty five years of involvement there. There is strong leadership and a youthful feel of excitement on the campus.

After Arrowmont, I had three days to prepare a talk for the Tennessee Summer Arts Academy yearly gathering at Belmont University in Nashville. This is a chance for high school art, music, dance and theater teachers from across the state to convene for workshops, lectures and inspiration. They asked me to be a “muser” and speak about my life as an artist. I was thankful for this opportunity as it allowed me to pause and reflect on my life; the evolution of my work, teaching experience, mentors and the miracle of how one is given the gift of a life in art. I spoke to a group of three hundred and fifty very enthusiastic folks. I enjoy public speaking and this was no exception.

Before I left for Arrowmont I received a commission to create an eight by four foot painting about music for the new Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville. I got a start on it before Arrowmont and after the lecture in Nashville I only had two weeks to finish it. I love deadlines. I worked like mad and created what I think is a great piece. I love music and it is a huge part of my working process in the studio. My father was a jazz lover and I grew up with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington on his turntable. I used some of Duke Ellington’s had written notation for Satin Doll on the painting.

Once the commission, titled “Musical Fruit,” was completed and installed I could really begin what I envisioned would be a real, relaxing summer. I worked on a 24 x 64 inch collagraph print that I used as a demonstration piece at Arrowmont. It was physically demanding to ink up and print the two blocks over each other on one sheet of Rives BFK paper but I managed to print six good ones, each inked differently. It is entitled” Fruit in Hand.”

I finished the summer in California where I did some work, thinking, reading and writing ( I have begun to write a memoir of sorts). I am feeling like my life and work are going into a new phase. I am more relaxed about it all and am very excited to make work in an experimental direction for no perceived market. I plan on doing a lot of drawing and sculpture so we’ll see where it all goes.

The world seems to be at a very dynamic moment. The flood of immigrants into Europe has been heartbreaking but inspirational and we should all appreciate our lattes and comfortable beds, as well as try to find a way to help. I could care less about the circus of blowhards in the political campaign in the US. Instead I am looking for ways to use my time to help people, mentor younger artists and contribute to our vibrant Tennessee art community.

Andrew Saftel

September 2015

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 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

Around We Go

“Around We Go” is a 60x82 inch acrylic and collage painting on wood panel.  The general idea behind all of my work is a combination of looking back at history in an attempt to understand how we got here and a comment on how we are collectively moving through time together in the present.

This painting is no exception.  In it I use circular forms, wheels, and plants growing, among other images, to represent time passing, like clocks ticking.  In the top right of the painting it reads “First, Full, Last, New,” referring to phases of the moon.

The large, clock–like circle on the top left, over the car, was taken from a textile from India. The line drawing of the horse on top comes from a drawing I did of a Sioux Indian wooden effigy that I saw in a museum. The long stretched-out car is my design, from which I have made several sculptures in wood and metal.

I grew up on Narragansett Bay in RI, so the water and boat metaphor is a consistent theme, hence the two people in the boat on the left, going into their futures.

I love to read about history and use references to what I’m reading. I was reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, about the Lewis and Clark expedition, so I used William Clark’s handwriting from his diaries, “We Proceed On,” on the bottom of the painting. This phrase represents how we all just keep on through challenges in life to get to where we are going.

After high school I went to California and ended up working in the carnival for several summers while in art school in San Francisco (I graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute), so the ferris wheel is a metaphoric image I use as a reference to time, fun in life, and getting the proper prospective on life from a higher viewpoint.

The little white house on the bottom is a nearby abandoned country house. We live in rural Tennessee and these ”ghost houses,” as I call them, are all around us. I see them as monuments to days gone by
and country ways that are fast disappearing. “Around We Go” has many references and metaphors. I use the term “we” when talking about my work because I feel like I am making my work for all people and referencing things that we all experience.

“Around We Go,” circling the sun, rotating on our axis, riding the ferris wheel of life together.When making these paintings I don’t begin with a plan or sketch. I gather images and materials, begin with one element, respond to that, and then keep adding things until a story or title presents itself. It is an open, organic process where I am only in control some of the time. I start with a wood panel (¼ inch birch with a grid frame on the back), do some carving and embedding of objects and then begin to paint with acrylic paint. I probably worked on this painting for a month or six-weeks, building up layers of color and texture, adding and subtracting until it filled itself up.

The colors refer to the hopeful colors of Spring.

Andrew Saftel
Pikeville, TN
November 2014

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts 2014

I just finished teaching a two-week printmaking workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine. This was my third time teaching there, the first of which was in 1994.

Haystack is a very special place for several reasons. It is located on the tip of a granite island on Penobscot Bay and was designed by Edward Larabee Barnes to be integrated into the landscape and have a low impact on the delicate ecosystem.

The director, Stuart Kestenbaum, a poet and all-around special human being, is caring, nurturing, funny and very interested in the studios on a daily basis. This is a place where people come to learn techniques in their respective disciplines but almost more importantly to experience time together in a way that day-to-day life does not provide.

In this workshop I covered several direct, non-technical, painterly ways to make prints. I feel that it is important to show ways for all artists to engage with printmaking in a way that is not restrictive, caustic or limited to age-old techniques and above all, lots of fun.

The eleven participants were all open-minded, hard- working, mutually supportive, engaged, excited and all made great work. People hit their strides at different times in the workshop but all did extremely well and will take new ideas and approaches to artmaking back to their studios.

I have been teaching one or two-week workshops at schools similar to Haystack for many years and feel very strongly that these institutions provide an environment in which people can achieve things they never knew they were capable of on many levels.

The world needs these places--and more of them. I saw things happen between people every day that were what we were put on the planet for: kindness, generosity, nurturing, understanding, patience, exploration, risk-taking, sharing, speaking the truth, crying, loving, caring and creating.

It is my hope that the 90 or so people that were there take these things back in to their lives and spread them out to others and keep them alive in the world.

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