Karen Fitzgerald

I’m working on a new series of paintings loosely titled “Idir Eathara”.  I borrowed the phrase from an Englishman – its Celtic in origin and means the in-between place, specifically referring to geography.

Titles have always been extremely important in my work.  They act as a bridge between the visual language and the world of text, conversation and written language.  Titles bring viewers to the doorstep of the work.  Good ones often open the door as well.  Titles come from many sources – bits of conversation, radio interviews, borrowed lines of poetry.  They accrue on my phone, under glass on my studio work table, and on scraps that float around my office.  I used to have vague anxiety about the disheveled quality of this collection of naming, until I realized that I live with it just like I live with my clothes, food, and all the other ephemeral things that surround daily existence.  These things are the concrete grounding of living.  Titles (potential and actual) have the same privileges and exercise the same binding capacity.  Sometimes they form a work from the moment an idea takes hold.  Sometimes they wait to attach themselves.  Sometimes they form a sub-series and spawn a lengthy exploration.  Always they are idea based, feeling based, concept and intention based.  Once in a while I will leave a work untitled; it always feels mute when I do so, as though it’s voice has been incapacitated in some essential way.
There’s a long and delicious history of visual art trying to escape the world of language.  It will always be successful in the wild attempts it makes in that regard.  And from the poet, Czeslaw Milosz, “Language is the only homeland.”  I’m glad he did not qualify which language he meant.  We cannot escape the collision of languages – visual and spoken, visual and written.  It’s territory we’ve willingly taken on, an edge we balance on.  Yet titles offer a breathing space – somewhere between purposeful language and visual language, they expand the in-between territory that every visual artist inherits.

For me, Idir Eathara is the glove-in-hand phenomena where naming works is concerned.  It functions perfectly on so many levels regarding these new works.  They stem from a piece I made last year, The Great Divide.  Idir Eathara points to not only the horizon, which is the inbetween of sky and earth, but also to the inbetween of the physical and spirit world.  It calls to mind emotional inbetweens, as well as social, psychological and spiritual ones.
I believe titles are very revealing.  They can say much more about an artist than about the work.  Artwork truly becomes an independent phenomena once it’s titled and released into the world.  It can stand on its own feet.  But artists that shrink or shirk the job of titling are more than exposed by their work out in the world.  Rauschenberg comes to mind.  I think he wanted desperately to be poetic.  But his titles undermine his wishes.  And often they become sorry examples of a sort of hegemony of titling particular to the ’50′s and ’60′s – phrases and ideas borrowed from some obscure branch of philosophy or Latin, like the knowledge philatelic enthusiasts carry around with them.  In the end, titles are like the times that spawn artwork.

CALL TO ARTISTS:  BLOOM TIME

This opportunity is part of an ongoing exhibition project sponsored by Space Realty Group Gallery and Holiday Inn Manhattan View in Long Island City, NY.  Mary Pinto will guest curate this exhibition.

Flowers and blooming plants have been a focus of artists from antiquity to the present day. They symbolize life and death and everything in between, and are part of rituals the world over. Flowers appear in open fields, in vases and between teeth. They grow, they wilt, they give us perfume and attract insects; they are intertwined with our lives.

This exhibit is open to 2-D artwork in any medium that explores the symbolism, form or color of flowers and blooming plants, or their cultural or scientific uses.

A two-venue exhibition at Holiday Inn Manhattan View and Space Realty Group, Long Island City
39-05 29^th Street and  29-09 39^th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101

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What to send: up to 5 images, under 800kb each; 72dpi is adequate.  Label each file like this: Lastname_ImageTitle_01.jpg.  Example: Smith_Moonflower_01.jpg.  Please do not send a format other than JPG.   Send images  from now until Thursday, March 15, 2012. Please do not submit work that is not available and ready for delivery.  Send work to the guest curator of this exhibit, Mary Pinto, at: maryfpinto.projects@gmail.com Non-electronic submissions will not be accepted.   3-dimensional work is problematic in both venues as is small-scale work.

Please include a SINGLE Word document that contains your contact information AND corresponding information for each of the images you submit: your name, title, size, date, medium, and price.  The price should include a 15% commission, (see below).  Please also include a brief paragraph (up to 350 words) that describes, supports or enhances the work you are submitting within the context of  “Bloom Time”.  This statement will be included in a binder page at each venue.   This document should also contain the contact information you want publicized on your binder page.

Notification: Artists whose work has been accepted will be notified by Tuesday, March 20th.

Exhibition dates: Delivery and installation, April 17 and 18, 2012; show will open on April 20th.  Reception will be held May 17th from 6 to 8 pm.  Exhibition closes August 30, 2012; work can be picked up that evening after 6, or the next morning, August 31.

Delivery of artwork: Artwork can be delivered on the evening of April 17 between 6 and 8pm, or on April 18 between 10am and 4pm. Work that is not installation ready will NOT be accepted.  Your work should be wired on the back for hanging and have identification on the back (include title, price, contact information).

You will be asked to sign a waiver when you drop off your work, agreeing to self-insure or accept exhibition of your work with no insurance.  A 15% commission will be charged on all sales; this project is intended to produce sales of work.  Should your work sell during the exhibition, you will be asked to replace the sold work with a new piece – the project is set up to be “cash-and-carry” regarding sales.

This marvelous new magazine, Stone Voices, has its inaugural issue now on news stands and online.  See:    www.stonevoices.co

Beautifully produced, the magazine features work at the intersections of art, spirituality, mindfulness and creativity.  See page 100 for my feature article, The Stillness of Painting.  The September, 2011 issue also features a portfolio of my work on pages 56 – 67.

Please join me for “Daylight in Our Hearts” – an art exhibition and Gong Concert.

On Sunday, September 18, join us to see new photographs and gilded artwork.  The public reception will begin at 12:30pm and end at 2:30apm at 12 West 12th Street, corner of Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village, NYC.  The Great Hall is on the 2nd Floor of the institution.  I will exhibit 5 new gilded works.

Come visit the exhibit a second time!  On Thursday, September 22nd, Carl E. Davis will present a GONG CONCERT.  Carl is a Chinese Gong Master.  This concert begins at 6:00 pm and ends at 8:00 pm. PLEASE RSVP by going to kbfitzgerald (at) gmail (dot) com; in the subject line, please put “RSVP Gong Concert”.  This is a first-come, first-served event, with a free-will offering.

6 feet long with the girth of a baseball.  A pine (or fox) snake lives in this garden.  I wonder how it got in?  Several years ago, I reinforced the “no-deer” fence with chicken wire; too many chipimunks chewing new plantings.  He could never fit through the chicken wire.  But he is a climber.  I can imagine him scaling my puny 7′ fence, up and down.  In and out of the garden at his pleasure.  What might he feast on for dessert?  What dreams visit his brain, his heart, while he slumbers?

Will he assure a safer garden?  Will he chow down on the little chewers that have de-nuded my lilac trunks?  Does he like mosquitoes for breakfast?  One thing is certain.  This garden is more his than mine right now.  He has startled me into that knowledge.  What he will do with “his” garden remains to be seen – for I am not there and if I was, his ownership would still override mine.  So I bless his presence, and beg him to guard the garden well, and keep it safe.

Garden Blackbirds, 2011, watercolor on prepared paper, 16″x12″

Garden, 2011, watercolor on prepared paper, 16″x12″

June 24, 2011; 6-8pm.

Gilding has long been practiced by many civilizations.  There is evidence of gilding from ancient Egyptian excavations as far back as 2300 BCE; Romans practiced it after the burning of Carthage; the Chinese and Japanese trace it’s use to the Medieval period.

I am interested in its use to signify a realm beyond our physical world.  Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Hindu religions have all used it extensively to indicate spiritual presence.

A gilded surface signifies another space, another realm.  Creating that ground is a complex process.  The surface, whether paper or panel, must be prepared.  When I gild on paper, the ground is prepared with several carefully sanded coats of gesso, back and front.  Once I’m satisified with this ground, I seal it with an oil-based sealer.  This gives the gilding size something to grab, and promotes an even adhering of the leaf.  When I’m ready to gild, I prepare the leaf.  Sometimes I will tear up silver, copper or aluminum leaf to give an irregular patterning to the finished surface.  Each type of leaf handles differently.  Copper and aluminum are thicker and more brittle.  Silver, 12k and 23k gold are soft.  Though they are metals, handling them is like working with air.  They cannot be touched with the skin because they are so thin they immediately adhere to the subtle oil that coats our fingerprints.

Painting on a gilded surface offers a new realm.  The surface is alive with light; reflected, refracted, shimmering.  Thinned oil paint sitting on this surface interacts with the light.  The medium and surface feel alive to me, each adds many new layers of dynamic interaction, things I cannot ever hope to control.  Chance itself becomes alive on a gilded surface.

Stop in for a demonstration of gilding on April 9, 2010 at 3pm.  31-51 12th Street, 2nd Floor.  That’s an open studio day – no appointment necessary!

A young hawk called all afternoon.  We couldn’t see him, but his song made the sparrows flock for cover.  I heard robins singing this morning.  Certainly they are not daft, nor are the crocus blooming in the backyard.  Spring will be welcome this year. The red king and his dun queen visit every afternoon, picking over what the squirrels don’t want from the day’s feed.

During the December snows, my arbor collapsed along with the honeysuckle and clematis vines.  The mess lay on the ground until today.  We pruned the thorny rose reaching through our neighbor’s fence, and removed the pile of sad, wick canes.  It’s a hard job to take out a healthy plant.  The garden has  an open feeling now.  I’ve decided to not replace the arbor for a while.  Let it be open.

I am interested in that sense of wonder flooding in each time the grey is grown over in green.  It’s a slow process by today’s time standards.  Those slender spears of green do not seem to shiver in the Northwest winds.  Close to the ground they are drawing heat into their core.  Yesterday toward noon I saw 3 bees visiting the newly opened flowers.  The season is in full swing.  They too have secret shelters from the night wind.   The halls of the red king hold state secrets that will remain protected; who’d be interested in what a bird knows?

Early August Morning

Wisconsin in mid-August is a mystical place. Early morning fog rises from cool air meeting warm earth. Crows get up earlier than the turkeys, announcing the day with their call and response see-sawing across open fields. The pungent earth is lush, a rich green. The dirt soaked. It’s been raining weekly; tree rings will be fat this year.
On the second day visiting my garden, I discovered a 5 foot garden snake pinned beneath my steel milk can in the little red house. How he got there remains a mystery. But the can had crimped him completely. He struck out at me, mouth wide, forked tongue flashing. I lifted the can to free him and he wiggled under the cast iron chimenea. There’s little clearance there; I’m sure he felt protected. Why not go for the wide-open door? It took a full 8 minutes of wrangling with the broom to get him swept out. I saw him several days later; none-the-worse for a crimped pinning.  And while garden snakes are not poisonous, the incessant striking with that flicking tongue left me breathing hard and a certain limpness about the edges of my determination to weed the heavy grasses.   Thick with little snakes?  Maybe I’d discover a pine snake?
Prior to my discovery of the snake, I had attempted to mount the narrow stairs of the farm house to our old bedrooms under the eaves. Bending down to free a latch on the gate that barred the stairs I noticed a handful of brown. I thought the house was getting a bit dirty. It was a small brown bat, clinging to a secluded sleeping post. No climbing the stairs for me that day.
And finally, my ultimate charmers. The hummingbirds. On the 3rd day, I saw no less than 18 swarming in the jack pine. 3 visited the phlox together. One with a gleaming, glittering, green back, came in close. Sat on the arbor. Checked me out.  Not more than a foot away – bold little one, wondering who was slinging their weight around his yard.
The elderberries robbed from the ditch last year have survived their transplantation. May they grow and flower, and fruit – just so the turkeys have something to challenge the fence for.

The wild goldenrod is in full flower.  The little meadow has evolved with milkweed abundant and full of fat pods this year.  Monarchs were everywhere.   There is satisfaction to letting a field go wild, and watching it host the annual round of wild food production.   I tucked the garden in, weeded and wet, for another year of doing what it so urgently does.  Greening, growing, breathing for everyone.

West Corner, 15"x12", watercolor on prepared paper

Stop in at my September Studio sale; this watercolor and many, many others will be on sale at that time.  Friday, 9.24: 6-9p.m.; Saturday, 9.25: Noon-6p.m.; Sunday, 9-26: 1-5p.m., 2010.

What’s missing from your space?  Perhaps you’ve consulted with a Feng Shui expert and worked to align the energies.  Maybe you’ve changed colors, simplified or added cornerstones to maximize the chi flowing through your space.

What are you visualizing?  What tools have you given yourself to support and develop that visualization, goal, or dream?   Adding artwork to your space is similar to fitting the final piece of the puzzle into place.  The whole picture suddenly makes sense!

Finding art to fit your vision is a very personal process.  It’s also an essential action.   There is every imaginable style, process and idea out in the marketplace these days.  Art is the language of the human spirit.  It is as old as our earliest civilizations.  Art is a language that is also universal – it speaks to us no matter what words articulate our thoughts.  Living with art that not only reflects our vision but also expands our spirit is essential.  The call and response of the human spirit is amplified through artwork.

Spending time to find artwork that will embody the energy or changes you seek to create in your life will empower you in unimaginable ways.  You may be compelled to speak with people you would never consider introducing yourself to.  You might visit places or take trips you never intended to engage with.  You might poke around on the internet following links that take you to new sites and potentially new experiences.  There are hundreds and thousands of artists producing impeccable work these days.  These individuals are following what they envisioned for themselves, bringing into the physical plane ideas, thoughts, observations, feelings, senses and creations that expand our human conversation and articulate new corners of our souls.  Bringing this essential energy into your living space will provide resonance.  Like a crystal bell ringing, artwork that you respond to will be your avatar, that special guide that tells you when you are at home within your travels.