american society of contemporary artists NUMBER 54 WINTER SPRING-2015

By Dorothy Koppelman

T he Terrain Gallery presents this landmark talk as add-ing immeasurably to the meaning of the current Tate

Britain exhibition "Late Turner: Painting Set Free":

I think there is nothing more beautiful in this world than the relation of opposites as Aesthetic Realism sees and describes it in the very structure and substance of all things. It is that relation of opposites, subtle, changing, always new and yet abiding as time, that art presents. However, in the history of art, there has never been before a means of having the lives of the artists deeply coherent with their work. There has never been, before Aesthetic Realism, any idea that a man's life could be like the art he makes. When Eli Siegel said in 1941, "The res-olution of conflict in self is like the making one of oppo-sites in art," he gave all people, and certainly all artists, a way of having the beautiful logic of art become as well the happy logic of our lives. Opposites as beginning as any for the visual arts are Light and Dark. We couldn't see without light and no painter ever saw light on an object without also seeing shadow or dark. One of Eli Siegel's Fifteen Questions in the great 1955 publication Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? is about Light and Dark: DOES all art pre-sent the world as visible, luminous, going forth?—and does art, too, present the world as dark, hidden, having a meaning which seems to be beyond ordi-nary perception? —and is the technical problem of light and dark in painting related to the reality ques-tion of the luminous and hidden? The "reality question of the luminous and hidden" is (See Koppelman page 8)

E stelle was a woman of many faces! She was loving and caring to her friends. When I was ill she would

call every few days to make sure I was taking my pills and feeling better. She would send me funny and sappy emails to make me smile. Whenever I needed her as-sistance in anything for ASCA she was right there! She was my sounding board. She would often make diplomatic suggestions which were al-ways really helpful. Another side of Estelle was her political and social activism. On a daily basis I would receive emails to sign petitions or send money for causes important to her. Her creativity often followed the lines of activism. She be-lieved in women’s equality, whistleblowers, good govern-ment, and equality all around the world. Her sculptures often related to those subjects. She liked to keep active and always loved going to her belly dance classes. Even though she was not a reli-gious person, she supported the “Actor’s Temple. ”When she wanted to give me a gift…she made a large (See Estelle page 6)

LIGHT AND DARK, HIDING & SHOWING IN JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER

REMEMBERING ESTELLE LEVY

“Abstraction in Blue” Stoneware

Snow Storm—Steam Boat off a Harbour's Mouth Making Signals in Shal-low Water, and Going by the Lead. The Au-thor Was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel Left Harwich.

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LES QUATRE SAISONS COLLECTION “PAYSAGES ABSTRAIT”

By Santina Semadar Panetta

T he Paysagism Abstract or Naturalism Abstract em-braces the Post-impressionism philosophy, where

time is wedged and the rupture of the recurring rhythm is created and fixed into presentism, giving the works an entelechical moment, a musical wave, a luminous flow and a breath of life. The language and rhetoric of the Post-impressionism Lyric movement are the essential apparatus applied to capture the impression of the passing moment to immor-talize the relentless temporal transformation on the sur-face of Nature. The objective is to state a permanent challenge to the entelechy philosophy, expressing polarity, ambiguity and antinomy to the interwoven linkage between the seasons. The concept of the Paysages Abstrait collection lays in the unification of the perpetual movement and fugacity of the temporal, where Nature is organized and reconstruct-ed with images of poetic conveniences of forms in soft movements. Expressed in the works is a cosmic narcissism; the symbiosis manifested in the paintings evokes the reality of the perpetual changing seasons, and the perissological sequences of the temporal into the intemporal. The abundance of fragmentation symbolizes a subdivi-sion of the permanent progressive, which gives metaphor-ically a sense of lightness to the real. Cinetism and interactions of the simultaneous con-trasts, opposition and juxtaposition and the syncope sur-faces, are an activating dynamism transcending the Na-ture and its narcissism that reflects in the shimmering light escaping in the water limpidity. Water, source of life, embodies reflects of the earth; becoming the apparatus in the gaze of the passing sea-sons. It is the transistor element, an ontological metamor-phosis essential to the earth; running its teleological course into the horizontal demise. As an artist, in the“ Les Quatre Saisons” “ I linger in the concept to awaken the observer sensibility to immortal beauty and creation. Proposing a promenade throughout a forest filled with light, where the trees are the links from the tangible to the intangible. Enrooted into the earth, with a perpetual re-generating evolution of ascension diverging into the void. The trees convey a polysemy dimension, bearing the role of two different worlds by unifying the two dimensions and becoming the Axe around the Cosmos embrace. The “spatio-compositional,” the cinetico-temporal and the “spatio-chromatic” are a pleonasm intensifying the unification of the divine everlasting creation, which arous-es emotions and places the spectator in the presence of an uninterrupted creation of splendour.

Santina Semadar Panetta “Les Quatre Saisons”

Oil, 60 X 72 2009

Like the Impressionists predecessors, I embrace and persist with same abecedary to depict the evanescent to an oblivious state of euphoria, where the emotions and sensa-tions are no longer chaotic, but a structural language in the wheel of the esthetico-iconographical expression in capti-vating the never-ending ephemeral.

Helen Levin

ASCA Members: ASCA Member Artist, Helen Levin has just written her memoir: PROSPECTING HEART: MY CHILDHOOD IN

A FOSTER HOME, includes a chapter on her becoming an artist!

"Feeds the soul of my kindred spirits" - Helen Levin Available through Amazon.com for under $10.00.

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By Amie Ilva Tatem

H ave we ever wondered -- when looking at a Picasso painting -- what it would be like to pose a few ques-

tions to the great artist, himself? Of course, art is non-verbal expression and therapeutic -- to artist and viewer, alike -- and needs no words. After all, it is not literature. However, we can benefit from hearing how the artist be-gan to be an artist and other sharings. And -- if a tech-nical bit of information comes through in the process, we are all the richer for it. In welcoming our editor, Hank Rondina back, I posed a few questions to him and here it his heartfelt sharing. Hank -- During your days of confinement and recov-ery, were you able to work on your art? When I went into the hospital on November 17 my con-cern primarily, was what was about to take place. After a major dose of chemotherapy and the destruction of my immune system, my stem cells were reintroduced in my body. And then it became a waiting game to rebuild com-munity and the bone marrow. Unfortunately, the first in-troduction of the stem cells was not working as expected and the remaining stem cells were reintroduced. During this time I gave absolutely no thought to any-thing creative. My goal and hope was that my body would react to the second infusion and that we would get home by Christmas. Fortunately, the "second round" took and I was able to get home on December 22. I have been considering new pieces but have not taken the next step as yet. Thank you, Hank. I -- as well as many others -- am grateful that you are taking on the multi-faceted job of newsletter editor again. "Keep on and keep on keeping on" -- with God's help. Stephen Beveridge -- When did you know you were an artist? Was there any event that precipitated it? When I was nine years old I knew I could draw. I did-n't know any artists. I came from Clydebank, a shipbuild-ing town in Scotland; John Brown's shipyard was at the end of my short street. The men who ate lunch against the fence every day had built the Queen Mary, and the Queen Elizabeth and were working on the QE2. When I was seven I would meet them there for lunch. On my birthday they presented me with a working wooden model of one of the cranes. I may not have known any "artists" but I knew people could make great things with their hands. I was working in New York City for Local 137 of the Sheet Metal Workers Union. We manufactured mostly custom electrical signage. We also fabricated artworks for Bruce Nauman and Stephen Antonakos, among oth-ers. I was busy making things of my own and hiding them under the bench so the boss wouldn't see. One day, Stephen Antonakos spotted what I was doing. He wanted to see what I was making so I showed him. It

was a copper and wood maquette for a neon sculpture. He told me I was wasting my time making signs and that I was an artist who should be making art. A year later I was out of work and making paintings. I never went back. So, you started with three-dimensional art. When you began painting, what style did you do? And, can you share what the creating of art does for you? My initial forays into painting were abstract expres-sions of my emotional state. I interspersed these thera-peutic statements with representational watercolors. Ab-stract expressionism gave way to process paintings with a more decorative aim. The two styles duke it out to this day. I find self-esteem in art making. It's something I do well. The process brings me peace and the finished paintings never cease to amaze me. Art is an expression of self beyond the conscious socie-tal negotiation. Thank you, Stephen Beveridge. I identify with your ex-pression re: two styles that "duke it out ..". And I believe that, this is the artist's condition...the happy dilemma. And one which makes art endlessly exciting and fascinating, and why we hang in there. So, the artist does not have to decide on one particular style. Thank you for the provoca-tive words that are food for contemplation . Emerson said, "Most men die with most of their music in them" . As we artists confront each day, we realize that we are letting our music out.

Stephen Beveridge's web site is : artgrows.com

THE ARTIST BEHIND THE ART

Stephen Beveridge “Resignation”

Watercolor 10 x 8 inches

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ASCA GALLERY

T he ASCA ART GALLERY presents examples of art by ASCA members selected from the Gallery Al-bum. Please send photos of your recent work,

and if space permits, they may be included in upcoming editions of the Newsletter. Remember to include your name, the title of your work, the medium, and an arrow showing which side is UP.

Mail your photos to —Hank Rondina, 209 Lincoln Place, Eastchester, New York 10709, or

e-mail your jpegs to artist@hankrondina.com

Amie Ilva Tatem “The Start of Forever”

Acrylic on canvas

Linda Butti "Cherry Tree II"

María de Echevarría "Oriental Poppies"

Acrylic and Oil on canvas

Harriet FeBland “O.K.”

Rosemary Cherundolo “Sedona”

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Neva Setlow “Verticals 2014”

Hank Rondina “Homage to Steve Miotto; New York State of Mind”

Neva Delihas Setlow “Remember Us“

Frank Mann “Oculus, No. 21”

Annette Lieblein "Jazz"

Monoprint

Elvira Dimitrij “Disconnected

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(Estelle Continued from page1) ceramic menorah to give to my family. She is greatly missed----I think of her every day!

Barbara Browner Schiller Painting is a craft for those who believe that expressing oneself on a canvas, using col-ors, figures, lines, is a way to portrait our struggle, our joy, our dreams and our spiritual beliefs; as well as the percep-tion that society always had of painters: dreamers and cham-pions as well. That in my view was Estelle Levy, a caring per-son, and a champion. Some-one that wanted the best for every one of us and wanted ASCA to be once again the center of the world. God bless Estelle. Your work will be remembered forever. Love to you Estelle Dario Puccini She was a warm and charismatic person. When I was welcomed to join ASCA she did it with the greatest joy and sincerity. Mara Szalajda This is my thought regarding Estelle: "I'm going to miss her presence and her art in our exhibits. enthusiasm for life and art was contagious!" María de Echevarría "Estelle was one of the most interesting people that I’ve ever met! She was a bubble of con-troversy, inspiration, eccentricity and a deep well of love and em-pathy!!! I’ve known Estelle for over twenty years, but we became very close over the last couple of years…She and I had both incurred injuries at the same time, and we would comfort each other emails, cards and phone calls!!! (She was much better at comforting probably than I was!!!!) encouraging, inspirational in so many ways—her fabulous art, her fabulous style of dressing, her hair color and make up!!! I’ll never forget meeting Es-telle on the upper west side one afternoon---she emerged from a cab in a colorful long dress, red hair blowing in the breeze, complete with and huge cast on her leg!!! What a sight! Loved her!!! I saw her last show at Columbia….she couldn’t make it that evening and my husband and I stopped by her apart-ment after the opening……she was gone soon after that…..She continues to inspire me…she will always be with me…..” Thank you, Linda All I can say is that I was shocked, not knowing any-thing of her serious problem.....she was always cheerful and looking forward...dressing colorfully on rainy days

was her signature. I miss her every time I think about her. Marie Mutz Estelle enhanced the evocative echo of her talent transcending through her Art a constant inspiration of ex-pression and reflection on our existence. Estelle’s love of Art and Life was quite inspiring and embracing, I can only say a humble thank you for cross-ing my life path! Santina Semadar Panetta Estelle and I were friends for many years, coming to-gether as artists. t was al-ways enjoyable to be with her as she was, energetic and quite funny. She was interested in and knowl-edgeable in everything and was an excellent artist, who worked in many mediums, including installations commenting on important social issues of the day, as in her whistle blower series. She especially loved her latest ceramic works, which were very innovative and expressive of her own personality. She had a strong sense of justice, and when she saw injustice, spoke out strongly. As an example, she used to

play n Central Park; there she observed teen agers who had been assigned to working on the roof of an old storage shed. Thinking this was danger-ous work for children, Es-telle immediately contact-ed authorities in the Parks Department and the re-sult was one would no longer see kids around the shed. I think of Estelle often.

Marcia Bernstein Estelle was a wonderful artist and sweetest person in the world. She had encouraged me in many ways as an artist who expresses her thought in art freely and as a woman who stands up for things she decided to. When I first met her at our annual show about nine years ago, we instantly became friends. I still have a feeling that she calls me up one day and talk to me things to manage ASCA shows with her sweet, energetic, witty voice. I just wanted to hug her one more time... Wishing her creative time in heaven. Much love, Sachie Hayashi' Estelle Levy was also a member of the National Asso-ciation of Women Artists, She worked on , on fundraisers and helped NAWA store Pedestals in her studio. Estelle exhibited with the Catherine Lorillard Wolf She was fun to be with. Janet Indick- former president of NAWA.

“Ancient Worrier”

“Ancient Whistleblower”

“Belly Dancer with Jingles”

“Buddha”

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Whenever I'm about to hang an exhibit, the first person I think of is Estelle. Year after year, she watched and asked questions (and sometimes ran interference on my behalf). Moreover, she was somehow able to puzzle together the often vague intuitions that struck me as I tried to shape a singular impact from an array of disparate work. I valued her input, her support and, most of all, her superb understanding of what I've come to think of as the art of "groupness." I'll miss her presence, but I shall fully expect to share space with her spirit any time I participate in creating an exhibition of artworks. Bruce Kozma Always a big smile and hi Hank how are you. She was one of the first calls I received after my diagnosis. She is irreplaceable and will be missed Hank Rondina

“Princess”

“Oh Henry”

“Queen of Hearts”

“Expression in Gold and Copper Stoneware”

“Honoring Whistleblowers”

IRON DOME and TEAR: ART IN THE SHADOWS OF WAR

56 Artists from Israel and abroad respond to war A special invitational exhibition that was displayed at the Windows-Museum- Gallery, Ramat Aviv Mall, Tel Aviv, Israel during August, 2014

I t all have started with one email that was sent by Israeli curators: “Hello, Fellow Artists, a cruel war is taking

place in Gaza. Difficult views, a lot of pain and frustration mixed with pride and faith; the heart is alert to every change and news. The falling of rockets & missiles along-side running to the shelters at times of sirens; the head is occupied by worries about our soldiers’ life, the soldiers that are fighting to ruin the tunnels in Gaza. Views of the wounded, reports from the hospitals; everything is too difficult to handle, unbearable even though, many artists continue creating precisely during those pressure days, Part of the frustration is relieved through artistic expres-sion. Indeed, The cannons continue shooting but the muses refuse to be silent! We are inviting you to take part in an immediate art exhibition that we are organizing in Tel Aviv, The project aim to present your reactions and feelings during these days. In the exhibition will be participating artworks in various mediums and sizes…if you are interested in be-ing part of the project, please, answer this email “ I was visiting Israel during July- August, my reply to this email was: Yes! As a matter of fact, a day before receiving this email, I took in my hands one of my solid sculptures made of wire mesh covered completely with white concrete, this sculp-ture depict a group of humans embracing each other, becoming one piece, After watching TV for too long with tears in my eyes and broken heart, I had a spontaneous urge to break parts in the sculpture, the wire mesh re-vealed from the open “wounds” of the sculpture, I pulled wire mesh out of the holes and cut part of one piece as a symbol to “kriah”(tearing in Hebrew) the Jewish act of tearing one’s clothes at the funeral home. Later I’ve paint-ed the edges of the torn part in red, not only as a symbol of blood but also because of the words: “color red” that were an alert on the TV screen as each time there was a siren in Israel, alongside the name of places. The empty space inside the sculpture is reminding the tunnels, there is also an option of adding a flashlight inside the sculp-ture. The last touch of my new creation was smearing color pigments on the outside of the sculpture; it became dirty with earth colors, various brown mixed with yellow and red. The finished sculpture: PAINFUL EMBRACE (July, 2014) Size: 12”x12”x10” Medium: wire mesh, concrete, glue, color pigments The special exhibition was very impressive, expressive and emotional During the Artist’s Reception (August 20) I was already (See Weinberg page 10)

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(Koppelman continued from page 1) crucial in the work and life of Joseph Mallord William Turner the great English painter who lived from 1775 to 1851. Turner had a passion for light and the light he loved was turbulent, churning, always in motion. He studied light and painted it with intensity in relation to floods, storms, fog, steam, snow, and to what critics have de-scribed as "cataclysmic, or elemental events." This is Turner's Fighting Temeraire, the greatest painting— "without a parallel in art," said Ruskin," by the greatest of English painters. William Makepeace Thackeray writes of

it: The old Temeraire is dragged to her last home by a little, spiteful, diabolical steamer. A mighty red sun amidst a host of flaring clouds, sinks to rest on one side of the pic-

ture, and illumines a river that seems interminable. The little demon of a steamer is belching out a volume of...foul, lurid, red-hot malignant smoke; paddling furious-ly, and lashing up the water round about it.... Here, with its grand shape, thin masts and luminous colour combining somehow bride, dowager and ghost, a British "ship of the line" is being towed to her end by that dark yet energetic little steamer. On the right the sun sets and spreads its light on the water to include the bulky sil-houette of dark wood in the foreground. And too, within the setting sun is the round, cool moon. As artist, Turner was driven by his desire to see, his tremendous love for light and what it could do; but in his life he was too much driven by his desire to hide, to be in the dark. The way light and dark are in his work is breath-taking; the way these opposites quarrel in his life is monu-mentally painful and sad. Listen to this description of the man who painted that blazing and yet sad light —a light that includes and is en-hanced by the presence of darkness — by E.V. Lucas in his British Pictures and Their Painters: The life of Turner illustrates better almost than that of any man how little correspondence can on occasion exist between beauty and the maker of beauty. Turner's works are marvels of a loveliness and grandeur; Turner was mi-serly and squalid....He saw visions and glorified even what was already glorious; and he deliberately chose to live in houses thick with grime.” Stories are told of Turner's secretiveness, of how he didn't want to be watched, or "spied on" when he worked, how he guarded his secrets from other artists; Turner was gruff, he cowed his fellow artists—Constable for exam-ple—and other people, not knowing him, called him "the dusty little man with a pencil."

But along with Turner's apparent miserliness, there was generosity. At his death he willed a large part of his very large fortune to found a home for indigent artists; money which his grasping relatives managed to get in-stead. And, although he quarreled with other artists, and was competi-tive, he once told his most ardent admirer and defender, John Ruskin, that the critic did not under-stand what hard work it was to make even a medio-cre painting. This is called Peace: Burial at Sea, a memorial to David Wilkie, an artist with whom Turner had once quarreled about the technical questions of light and dark and the merits of using black in painting. Critics have praised this painting and they have also said that the black sails were Turner's final technical and sly triumph over Wilkie; but I believe the way black sails, black smoke, black reflections work together in this paint-ing, along with warm and cool blue water, white and blue sky, have in them pride and a genuine melancholy at once. I think this painting shows that Turner wanted his generosity and his stinginess, his arrogance and his se-cretiveness to work together for one purpose. He was

trying to take the quarrels of his life and change them into the composition of art. I have some-times come to tears in reading about his life because the great painter did not know, could not have known,

that the composition of his art had in it what could have made his life more peaceful. For me, looking at the life and work of Joseph Turner has been like finding a new continent; and every aspect of it is testimony of the truth and the need for Aesthetic Realism This is one of the paintings that made me feel close to him: The Slave Ship; it illustrates supposedly a story that affected Turner as a boy. An unscrupulous slave trader, for financial reasons, threw all the diseased and dying

"The Fighting Temeraire" by J.M.W.Turner

"Peace: Burial at Sea" by J.M.W. Turner

"The Slave Ship" by J.M.W. Turner

9

slaves off his boat even though he knew that assistance for them might be had. I think Turner used that story and changed it into an allegory about himself, and that he was after something ecstatic—freedom—through that light. The boat, which the artist saw as like himself is freed of burden and lifted high in the water in a feeling of release; a release which occurs at the same time, and as I see it, because those dark, turbulent, embroiled figures which the artist saw al-so as an aspect of himself are illuminated in the yellow foreground sinking into the water. The combination of the submerged and the yearning, soaring Turner is presented to view. And that vertical blaze of light joins the two sides of the painting for all to see in a brilliant composition. Jack Lindsay, in his work on Turner, quotes Ruskin on the

painter's purpose: “Turner was never afraid of bringing dingy oddments into his works, "smoke, soot, dust, and dusty texture; old sides of boats, weedy roadside vegeta-tion, dunghills, straw-yards, and all the soilings and stains of every common labour. And more than this, he could not only endure, but enjoyed and looked for litter, like Covent Garden wreck after the market. . .he delights in shingle, debris, and heaps of fallen stone. The last words he ever spoke to me about a picture were in gentle exultation about...'that litter of stones which I endeavored to repre-sent.” When I read that I thought, "I understand. I think that as artist Turner had to find form in chaos, he had to see light in debris, find, as Eli Siegel once described it, "God amidst the garbage." But, as person, Joseph Mallord

William Turner, like many art-ists, used the evil in people, the ugliness he saw to say the world was a place to hide from and be superior to. I think the ques-tions Mr. Siegel asked me in

Aesthetic Realism lessons about my desire to hide and my desire to see are questions Turner was yearning to hear. In an Aesthetic Realism Art Inquiry of 1967, those les-sons in which Eli Siegel taught me what my deepest in-tention as a person and an artist is, and for which I will be grateful for the rest of my life, this painting, Landscape of

Rats and Garlic, was discussed. I described the painting this way: "the thing that took me so much was that the shape of the white garlic and the grey rats are the same, but a rat can want to go in, to vanish speedily, and the garlic with that smell, obviously comes forward, and I wanted to have them cast up by the sea, in the open, under the sky.

Mr. Siegel asked me: "What do you think of garlic? It happens," he said," that many persons who like to recede deeply are fond of spicy things. Would you say your love for garlic was in the whole world, for the whole world?— Is it sunny or is it furtive?" And Mr. Siegel asked me what I wanted in my life, "What are you for—gusto or reces-sion? What is your message in this painting?" Mr. Siegel saw what I wanted; "to show," he said, "both shame and triumph in the open; to study pride and disorderli-ness." Through questions such as these I have been able better to distinguish between the two desires that fight in all people: the desire to have con-tempt for things and to vanish; and the desire to see them with form. In Aesthetic Realism consultations now, because we ourselves have been asked the liberating Aesthetic Real-ism questions, we can gratefully ask about the "reality question of the luminous and the hidden" in a person's life, as Eli Siegel describes it in Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? The pleasure of seeing opposites as one, in being asked questions so that one can see this, is the only rival to contempt; it can also lift the burden of shame. We know this for ourselves; and we have seen it happen. Turner, in his life, was too furtive and he succumbed to contempt, darkness too much. Towards the end of his life he even secretly left one home in London to live in Chel-sea with a Mrs. Booth; and he, the great Turner, to keep off prying, was content to be known to the boys in the street as Puggy Booth. At the same time he was hiring a boy to row him on the river Thames so he could be in a storm, study its changes. What he saw on the Thames was a light that made the terrors of darkness beautiful. This is Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight. Dark and light do not merge into one another in this painting, they confront one another and we confront them. There is a simultaneity of utter, blazing, almost unlooka-ble at light and black: black on the right, with touches of a fiery red, and black masts, black ships on the left, and a black buoy in the yellow water. That conflict which Turner's life had in it so uncomposed, a conflict between unconfined love and constricting contempt is here re-solved in a blazing ecstasy. It is paintings like these that caused Cosmo Monkhouse to say that as Turner grew older he robbed Nature of her darkness and Earth of her weight. This is The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute done in ( See Koppelman page 10)

"Landscape of Rats and Garlic" by Dorothy Koppelman

"Keelmen Heaving in Coals" by J.M.W. Turner

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W e need volunteers to help continue the survival of our ASCA Newsletter. We welcome art-related articles, reviews of exhibitions and your upcom-

ing shows. Send your material to:

Hank Rondina 209 Lincoln Place,

Eastchester, New York 10709; Telephone (914) 793-1376;

or email it to artist@hankrondina.com

( Koppelman Continued from page 9)

Venice about 1843 eight years before Turner died in De-cember of 1851. Constable, the English landscape painter said of these Venice paintings: "They are...visions—only visions, but still one would like to live and die with such pictures." That is true. One sees something like heaven, with that angel whiteness and breadth of blue, light sky. But in the fore-ground there are the "dingy odd-ments," the inner life, the "pain," Rus-kin writes about. The great mes-sage of all those magnificent paintings is—light and litter are in the same world. It is a message that means a great deal to me and it affirms Eli Siegel's Aesthetic Realism principle: "In reality opposites are one; art show this."

Painter Dorothy Koppelman, a long time member of ASCA, is a co-director of the Terrain Gallery (TerrainGallery.org) which celebrates

it’s 60th anniversary this year. She is also a consultant on the faculty of the not-for-profit

Aesthetic Realism Foundation (AestheticRealism.org).

"The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute" by Turner

Lea Weinberg “Painful Embrace”

Back View

(Weinberg continued from page 7)

back in NY. IRON DOME and TEAR (August 6-31, 2014) Tel Aviv, Israel, Curators: Doron Polak and Ayelet Amorai Biran Production: Shlomit Noy; Design: Eran Gil This exhibition was also shown in NYC from Novem-ber13-26, 2014 “Kipat Barzel” curator Doron Polak at the Fusion Muse-um/ SPACEWOMb GALLERY/57 Stanton St. New York, NY 10002

Lea Weinberg “Painful Embrace”

Front View

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E sther Berman, a member of ASCA, died on August 30, at age 88, peacefully in her sleep at home.

Esther was a wonderful collagist, doing very sensitive and beautiful abstract work with paper. She received sev-eral awards for her collages. Early in her art career she also worked in clay sculpture. She had studied at the Art Students League. Esther was a kind and giving person, always ready to help, and never had a bad word to say about anyone. She lived a full life and was part of a loving family. She was much liked by all who knew her. I was her friend for about 40 years, and will miss her very much. . Marcia Bernstein

By Linda Marston-Reid

Poughkeepsie Journal January 15, 2015

C ity existence has been described by novelist and travel writer Jonathan Raban: “Living in cities is an

art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to de-scribe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the con-tinual crea-tive play of urban liv-ing.” We can think of few better artists to define the creative city than Basha Maryanska, who is con-currently exhibiting her city paintings at RiverWinds Gallery in Beacon and Artist’s Palate restaurant in Poughkeepsie. The “City Dreams” exhibit at RiverWinds Gallery fea-tures several of Basha’s New York City paintings. “We are delighted to have Basha’s paintings featured in our gallery for January, as they bring color, energy and joy to what can be a pretty drab month,” said Mary Ann Glass, co-owner, RiverWinds Gallery. “People have been coming in to bask in their warmth and enjoy the fantasy of ‘City Dreams.’ Visitors to the gallery can feel the lively energy coming off the paintings.” “High Line” articulates the feeling visitors have when walking along the elevated walkway above the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City: the rush of the traffic be-low, the beauty of the natural landscape selections for color and design, and the fantastical designs of the win-dows and support structures of the surrounding architec-ture. “Spring in Central Park” is especially enticing, with what appears to be warm breezes flowing around the park and the city seen in the distance through the trees. “Times Square” brings to mind the works of Aldo Rossi, a postmodern Italian architect that created fictional city landscapes in a painterly manner — the floating bits of color in the foreground create a playful base for the build-ings. Another exhibit of Basha’s fantastical cities is on now at the Artist’s Palate restaurant in Poughkeepsie. These paintings include buildings that have a feeling of being plucked from dream cities, where color, pattern and de-sign are in command. Magic and visual poetry come to mind when viewing works such as “Painting the Town Red,” the vibrant orange, magenta and red tones create a

IN MEMORY OF ESTHER BERMAN

Esther Berman “Tranquil”

Mixed media collage14x14

PAINTINGS OF BASHA MARYANSKA

EVOKE ‘CITY DREAMS’

multilayered cityscape, one that feels inspired by a woven Ikat carpet. While this artwork feels free, it is ordered by a variety of archetypal geometric forms that populate all cities that we can imagine. Cities also demand walking and Basha captures the anonymous passerby we all encounter in the city. The series of “Walking Shadows” paintings are imagined by the landscape of the city combined with the movement and color of the sidewalk. “Come to My Window” is an abstract viewpoint of looking out onto the city, and alt-hough the line of sight may be shortened, the myriad of other windows, buildings and people on the sidewalk can be seen from that place. “Journey,” a two-panel painting, shows us the fantasy of the city from afar, while we are still arriving as visitors, where everything in the city is im-agined. The painting captures the arrival as a tourist or perhaps the memory of that traveler returning home to the city. Linda Marston-Reid is the president of Arts Mid-Hudson. The column appears every other week in Enjoy! Contact her at 845-454-3222 or lmr@artsmidhudson.org

“High Line”

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ASCA OFFICERS President Barbara Schiller President-Emeritus Harriet FeBland

Vice-President Erin Karp Vice-President Raymond Shanfeld Vice-President Frank Mann

Vice-President Richard Karp Exhibitions Treasurer Mara Szalajda Recording Secretary Corresponding Secretary Lisa Robbins Social Secretary Olga Kitt Historian Frank Mann Board of Directors: Hank Rondina, Fred Terna

ASCA NEWSLETTER Publication Director Hank Rondina

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Dorothy Koppelman, Santina Semadar Panetta,

Linda Marston-Reid, Hank Rondina, Amie Ilva Tatem

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Hank Rondina,

COPY DEADLINE FOR THE NEXT ISSUE

JUNE15, 2015 Send your material to:

Hank Rondina, 209 Lincoln Place, Eastchester, New York 10709; Telephone (914) 793-1376;

or email it to artist@hankrondina.com

ASCA Newsletter is published 4 times a year. Copyright ©2013 by ASCA

Permission is required to reprint any portion of this newsletter.

Linda Butti—Yuko Nii purchased “Cherry Tree” for her Williamsburg Permanent Collection.–ALSO– Solo show, Art Lab Art Gallery, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Oct 2014–ALSO–”Upclose” a retrospective of Women Artists on Staten Island, Wagner College Gallery, March, 2015–ALSO– .Art Lab Invitational Gala, April, 2015, Snug Har-bor Cultural Center, SI, NY–ALSO–Rogers Memorial Gallery, solo exhibit, May2015, South Hampton, NY–ALSO–Interchurch Center, solo exhibit, June24-August 20, 2015, Dominick Botticelli—Exhibited at High Line Arts Show New Century Artists 530 W. 25th St. NYC March 11th -29th

Rosemary Cherundolo–Hank Rondina Exhibited at the Westchester Italian Cultural Center at the Generoso Pope Foundation, Tuckahoe, NY Sept 13-Nov. 14 Maria de Echevarria— Participating in the Eldorado Studio Tour on May 16 and 17, 2015. Eldorado is near Santa Fe, New Mexico. this event there will be 56 studios open, and María will show some 40 acrylic and oil paint-ings in her studio. Contact her at 505-466-6693 or at echeva@earthlink.net.. (See gallery) Harriet FeBland— Exhibiting at Lessedra Gallery. Sofia Bulgariath Painting & Mixed Media Exhibit December 2014 thru May 2015–ALSO– ASCA "Creative Epipha-nies" Westbeth Gallery, NYC Feb. 28 thru March 162015–ALSO–SAGA Soc. of American Graphic Artists"100th Anniversary Centennial Exhibition" Students League, NYC Oct 22 thru Nov 6, 2015–ALSO– NAWAN at. As-soc. of Women Artists" Small Works Show" (Feb 4-Feb 25 2015 (See gallery) Richard Karp—Solo Exhibit “A Life’s Journey” The Stu-dio Space On Madison, 80 Madison Ave., Dumont, NJ May 18-June 7th. Annette DeLucia Lieblein— Two woman show New Directions at the Mamaroneck Artist Guild in Larchmont NY March 31st—April 25th.Reception is April 12th from 2 - 4pm.–ALSO– Exhibiting in the Westchester Biennial at the Castle Gallery in the College of New Rochelle April 22nd to June 20th (See gallery) Frank Mann— Recipient of the Botticelli Prize, present-ed by Effetto Arte Magazine, Rome, Italy March 1, 2015 (See gallery) Basha Maryanska— Exhibited in “From the Heart” at Spire Studios, 45 Beekman St., Beacon, NY. April 5

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–ALSO–High Line Arts Show New Century Artists 530 W. 25

th St. NYC March 11

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Alan Roland—Solo show of 12 watercolors, "The Magi-cal Ravine Off Wallace Hall Road," at the Knox Gallery in Monterey, Massachusetts from February 6 to March 21. Neva Setlow— Received the Best of Show for her sculp-ture, Verticals 2014, at the East End Arts in Riverhead, NY. The juried exhibition, “Line”, will be on display until June 13.the 34th Faber Birren Color Award Show at the Stamford Art Association in Stamford CT–ALSO–Islip Art

Museum’s Exhibition Up: Collages in Mixed Media–ALSO–NAWA 125th Anniversary Members Exhibition at The Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Gallery NY October 3-30 Recep-tion October 9 (6-8) (See gallery) Lea Weinberg— Exhibiting Two metal mesh 3D Stars (from the installation: “Scar of David”) at Belskie Museum of Art –ALSO– Science, Inc., Closter, NJ in the “Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey” April 19 to May 3, 2015 Opening Reception: Sunday, April 26, 2015, 6 to 8 pm–ALSO–photographs of Lea’s works “Fire Flowers” and “Six Memory Candles with Names” are in: “Memory of the Holocaust and the Heroism” group exhibition from March 24 - April 30, 2015 at Tel Aviv University Sourasky Central Library, Israel. Reception: Wed. April 15, 2015 at 6pm Lea’s two works on paper are part of WCA Interna-tional Caucus project: Women Do It–ALSO–The Traveling Postcard Exhibition was presented on March 2015 at the UN Conference- the UN Women’s HeForShe campaign; the postcards show will travel to more venues

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