Category Archives: New York, NY
Q: You have worked with twenty-plus galleries during your career. Which ones do you consider the best?
“Myth Meets Dream,” 1993, soft pastel on sandpaper, the earliest painting that includes Mexican figures
A: Probably the most prestigious gallery that represented my work was Brewster Fine Arts on West 57th Street in Manhattan. Brewster was my first New York gallery. In the summer of 1996 I mailed the gallery a sheet of slides, as we did in those days. I was living in Virginia and had been a working artist for ten years. In July while traveling around Mexico, I decided to check the phone messages at home in Virginia. I was thrilled to receive an invitation from Mia Kim, the gallery director, to exhibit pastel paintings in October! And she had not yet even seen my work in person.
Beginning that fall, I gained representation with Brewster Fine Arts, an elegant gallery specializing in Latin American Masters like Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, and others. I am not Latina, of course, but I showed there due to my subject matter. At my October opening, I remember Mia declaring to the attendees, “Barbara has the soul of a Latina!” That night I met fellow gallery artist Leonora Carrington. She and I were the only non-Latina artists respresented. I knew I was on my way!
The gallery continued to present my work in group exhibitions and the staff gave brilliant talks about me and my creative process. For many years whenever I introduced myself to a new art aficionado, they already knew my work from having seen it at Brewster. I continued to be represented there until the gallery closed years later.
Also, Gallery Bergelli in Larkspur, CA did an excellent job of representing my work. I applied for one of their juried exhibitions, was accepted, and afterwards, they offered permanent representation. Soon they introduced me to one of my best collectors, with whom I am still friends.
I have worked with many galleries, some good, some not, for various reasons. Ours is an extremely tough business. Unfortunately, many of the best and formerly-great galleries are gone forever.
Comments are welcome!
My blog turns 7 years old on July 15! Here is the very first post from July 15, 2012. Q: What does it take to be an artist, especially one living and working in New York?
Barbara’s Studio with works in progress.
A: The three Big P’s – Patience, Persistence, and Passion. Without all three you will not have the stamina to work tirelessly for very little external reward. You can expect help from no one.
There are so many obstacles to art-making and countless reasons to just give up. When you really think about it, it’s amazing that great art gets made at all. So why do we do it? Above all it’s about making our time on earth matter, about devotion to our innate gifts and love of our hard-fought creative process.
And, my God, it even gets harder as we get older! So what do we do? We dig in that much deeper. It’s a most noble and sacred calling – you know when you have it – and that’s what separates those of us who are in it for the long haul from the wimps, fakers, and hangers-on. I say to my fellow artists who continue to work despite the endless challenges, we are all true heroes!
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Lucky me to still be in the same studio! However, when you visit now, you see more tables full of pastels, more postcards on the walls, newer pastel paintings, etc. What I wrote seven years ago still rings true.
Most importantly, THANK YOU to my 42,000+ subscribers for taking this journey with me!
Comments are welcome!
Q: As you reflect on your overall art career beginning with your art education, what major event stands out as an important sign that you were headed in the right direction?
“His Mortal Enemy Was Poised Ready to Strike,” soft pastel on sandpaper
A: In 1989 I left a career in the Navy to pursue life as a full-time professional artist. In July 1996 Bryan and I were traveling in Mexico. Something told me to check the phone messages at our Virginia house so I did.
There was a message from Mia Kim, the director of Brewster Arts Ltd. on West 57th Street in Manhattan, requesting a dozen large pastel paintings for a two-person exhibition in October, just three months away!
At the time I was still living in Alexandria, Virginia so exhibiting in Manhattan – let alone securing prestigious gallery representation – seemed a far-off dream. Yes, I had sent Mia slides, but she had not seen my work in person. She first saw my “Domestic Threats” pastel paintings when I delivered them to the gallery for exhibition. The show was called “Monkey Business.”
Brewster Arts was an elegant New York gallery that specialized in Latin American Art. There was just one other non-Latina artist that Mia represented, Leonora Carrington, whom I met that October at my opening. I remember Mia introducing me and declaring to the entire crowd, “Barbara has the SOUL of a Latina.” I’ve always loved that. It was the first time I realized I was really on my way!
Brewster Arts Ltd. continued to represent my work until the gallery closed some years later.
Comments are welcome!
Q: What’s on the easel today?
Works in progress
A: I have two large (38” x 58” and 58” x 38”) untitled pastel paintings in progress.
Comments are welcome!
Q: What does a pastel feel like in your hand?
With “Prophecy,” 70” x 50,” at Westbeth Gallery
A: Each manufacturer uses distinct binders to hold the raw pigment together to form a pastel stick. Due mainly to this binder, each pastel feels slightly different. Rembrandts are medium-hard and I generally use them for the first few layers. The black backgrounds of my pastel paintings are achieved by layering lots of Rembrandt black.
I enjoy using Unison because they feel “buttery” as I apply them to the sandpaper. If you’ve been to my studio, you know that I use just about every soft pastel there is! Believe it or not, no two are the same color.
Each pastel has its own qualities and some are harder or more waxy than others. Henri Roche has the widest range of colors and they’re gorgeous! I want them to show so I use them for the final layer, the ‘icing on the cake.”
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 348
“The Orator” in “Worlds Seen & Unseen” at Westbeth Gallery, NYC
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
The percipient apprehends the primal quality of art as beauty and symbol, in an experience that invariably involves a sense of radical mystery. Art dissolves the fog of Consensus in which we normally operate to reveal the unseen in the situation. It places us in exactly the same position as the first people who stared up at the stars in wonder. The work of art is perpetually new; it demands reinterpretation with each era, each generation, each percipient. Great works of art are like inexhaustible springs originating from a place beyond our “little world of man.” They reconnect us with a reality too vast for the rational mind to comprehend. Therefore, art can be described as the human activity through which our all-too-human mentality is overcome and in light of which all finite judgments are shown to be inefficient. It is at once a sinking to the source and a leap toward the infinite.
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
Comments are welcome!
Q: What made you fall in love with soft pastel versus another medium?
“The Champ” in “Worlds Seen & Unseen” at Westbeth Gallery, NYC
A: I like to get my hands right into my work. In other words, I don’t like brushes or anything else to intervene between my hands and what I’m working on.
I work with 400 or 500 grit Uart sandpaper so the downside is that I rub my fingertips raw from blending layers of soft pastel onto sandpaper. I’ve tried using rubber gloves (they make my fingers sweat and wear out fast), cotton gloves (they leave bits of lint on the paper), using a blending stump (it leaves lint on the paper), etc., but nothing works as well as my own fingers. So sore fingertips are an unavoidable occupational hazard. I sometimes take days off from the studio just so that my hands can heal.
I adore color and love looking at the thousands of pastels in my studio! After working with this medium for more than thirty years, I still love what I am able to accomplish and I am still pushing it to do new things. The colors are rich, intense, velvety. No other medium is as sensuous or as satisfying.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 347
“Prophecy,” on view in “Worlds Seen & Unseen” at Westbeth Gallery, NYC
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Like the cyclotrons of physicists, the artistic work is a machine for uncovering hidden layers of reality. It gives us insight into the psychic forces that shape the world, enabling us to divine where we come from and where we are heading. It is in this sense that art can be said to be prophetic.
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
Comments are welcome!
