BCBGMaxAzria cardigan, top and leggings, Ugg boots
Here are my most recent outfits of the day. We take a bunch of photos every day in order to get one decent one out of the bunch. Google photos has been animating the lot to produce these hilarious gifs. You can see how far away Katy is when she takes the pic. We do that to insure I can get my body to fit into the square dimension of Instagram. Should I begin to add these silly things to my Instagram account every so often – just because they are sooo stupid funny or are they just stupid? I have lost perspective.
Free People cardigan and top, BCBGMaxAzria pants, Nine West booties
Honora necklace, Banana Republic cardigan and dress, Karl Lagerfeld Paris boots
Banana Republic cardigan, Trina Turk top, BCBGMaxAzria pants, Nine West booties
Bailey 44 top, 7 for All Mankind jeans, Nine West booties
Free People cardigan and dress, Hue tights, Nine West booties
Chan Luu necklace, JCrew cardigan and T-shirt, Banana Republic pants, Nine West booties
Baublebar choker, Banana Republic suit jacket and pants, BCBGMaxAzria tank and T-shirt, Coach booties
Bailey 44 top, BCBGMaxAzria leggings, Karl Lagerfeld boots
Lord & Taylor cashmere cardigan, Banana Republic and Bailey 44 tops, BCBGMaxAzria leggings, Karl Lagerfeld boots
Here are the pictures from my art exhibition at Chittenango Middle School, Chittenango, New York. I’ve combined the Messages from the Other Voice series with the Pompano Revisited series to saturate the yellow walls of the school library with my personal narrative.
They will be up through April 2017.
The work looks better in person – the lighting is not great in the pics, but that is because the artwork is so high up on the walls. I do love the way the library looks soooo fresh and different with each show we install and everyone’s artwork ends up looking great. The captive audience thing always works for me, but it is funniest when I ask students if they have been to the library – if they have seen my art and they say something like I didn’t notice.
That actually doesn’t matter to me – no, not one bit – because I know that they have noticed it, if only in a smidgen of a subliminal fashion. It doesn’t take but a glance to place a positive aesthetic into someone’s visual cortex, lol. And then you can sit back and witness the processed results. It’s kind of amazing. And I really LOVE that. Art benefits people in so many ways in which they are not even remotely aware. It is everywhere. All around us. That’s me being subversive – in a good way.
I took a lesson out of my friend Penny’s playbook and re-worked eight paintings for my exhibition at Dolce Vita World Bistro that starts next week. Spent the last two days in intense artist mode, which I haven’t done in quite a while. It was a long time coming…and now I get it. I get what Penny feels. I get the lecture Anne gave me the last time we spoke – about making a commitment to painting because that is who you are. A painter. An artist. Much of what I told her about who and what I wanted to be seems inauthentic now.
Angel, 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200
Nobody knows the real me. Some of you know some of my secrets – but not all of them. It is strange to re-visit these paintings because I know what they are about, what they are still about and seeing them now as my future self, it is like I already knew the journey. I’m still on it, but, OMG, I am so much closer, if that makes any sense at all. It doesn’t have to. I know what I am talking about, lol, and so, I feel a profound sense of love for my old self. It’s weird and exhilarating, and just overwhelmingly emotional. I finally know where I am going and, of course, now that I know that, I can finally just enjoy the inspired action I will take to get there.
Me & Bob R., 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200
I added varnish to these paintings and chalkboard paint to the borders. Some were tweaked with twine knots and other mixed-media, a visual language insert to augment the journey, so to speak. These improvements are like the bridge that hurdles the gap between who I was and who I am now. Maybe I am not much different to the naked eye, but to me I’m vastly better, new and improved in mind and spirit. I am exposed and yet, still within the confines of my dreams where reality is soooo amazing. I love life as an artist. There’s truly no better way to live.
Flag, 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200
The series – did it have a name before? Because I don’t remember it. Regardless, I’m calling it Honor Thy Master. The original concept was the idea of the mandala as the first mark-making a human being creates. The circle and cross or X iconography on a white field is juxtaposed with torn postcards/notecards of artwork by Modigliani, Johns, Rauschenberg, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo…. I am honoring those master artists by adding their work to mine in combination with authentic mark-making. The addition of the chalkboard element, as always, is for the purpose of a third artist – the future owner of the work. My chalk marks will eventually erase and so, that person could add or subtract marks to the border with chalk themselves. In this way, we all join hands and make art together.
Footprint, 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200
I am so proud of the way it all connects. The twine is the rope that binds us in both love and angst; we are free to choose. It is powerful and yet so simple, so perfectly cast that it gives me such a thrill to put these puzzle pieces together – like, literally…really!?! So much joy in the perfection of it.
Blood, 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200
I will install the show next weekend. There will be a reception on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 6:00pm at Dolce Vita World Bistro. A unique dining experience! Antonietta Vigliotti has prepared a special menu for the evening. I will create a public Facebook event page for it and invite all of my friends and acquaintences, and they will be able to invite friends too – the more the merrier, although it is not a huge space. I think the dining room serves up to forty people at a time. Reservations are in order for the dinner, but you can come and hang out at the bar too! It will be amazing to see everyone! I can’t wait! <3
Dolce Vita World Bistro is located at 907 East Genesee Street, Syracuse, New York (13210). You can either call for reservations (315) 475-4700 or fill out the form on their web-site.
Landscape, 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200Dream, 24″ x 30″, 1998, mixed-media, $200
I drive past Grover’s Table a lot, like almost every day, and every single time I say to myself, in my best Tina Fey voice, I want to go to there! Carthage native and Westhill High School art teacher Jamie Ashlaw is exhibiting his vintage sign-infused paintings in the Fayetteville, New York restaurant until the end of the month. Last night I attended his artist’s reception. So, that happened.
I met Jamie once before at the Art on Porches event last summer. I bought a note card print of his Palace Theater painting. I really admire his work! It has the ability to transport its viewer into the past evoking a sense of nostalgia for both local culture and national advertising. He uses Golden Artist acrylic glazes, which allow him the ability to create precise lines within the lettering. The canvases become veritable photographic replicas of their resource counterparts. Exquisite!
Grover’s Table is a gorgeous place and I would REALLY love the opportunity to exhibit there, but I have to say that Jamie’s artwork looks like it belongs on the walls of this beautifully renovated exposed-brick-ey space. They should consider buying the collection – at least to put up periodically in between other artist rotations. Meanwhile, he has agreed to display them in the Chittenango Middle School library as my final artist for the year! We will install his show around spring break.
Jamie donated this piece in the above photo. It hangs at the host stand by the front door. A vintage-like sign depicting Grover Cleveland, who actually once lived in the neighborhood, only a few blocks east. So cool!
According to their web-site Grover’s Table is open as follows:
Tues.-Thurs. 4:30-9:00pm
Fri.-Sat. 4:30-930pm
They do not serve lunch but luncheons are available for groups of 35 or more
Closed on Sunday & Monday
Grover’s Table is located at 104 Limestone Plaza Fayetteville, NY 13066. For reservations call (315) 632-4907.
So, here’s something crazy weird and great – I will be exhibiting artwork in three locations during the month of April 2017. Showing watercolors – the ones with the baseball themed titles – at the Half Moon Bakery and Bistro in Jamesville, New York. No date as of yet for the reception, but I am hoping they will do a baseball cake or cupcakes for it. That will be fun for spring, right?
I’m installing an exhibit at Dolce Vita World Bistro in Syracuse, New York on April 2, 2017. It would be nice to keep them up longer than a month, but no deets on this yet. I would love to have a gathering one evening, maybe fill the dining room with friends and have music too, but I haven’t planned that far ahead. Art shows are a great excuse for a party! I will either exhibit the encaustic crown series from 2012 or something more retro – oil & collage paintings from 1998. I don’t remember what I called this series. I made them in the 2nd bedroom of my apartment on Woodbine Ave. during winter break that year. Does anyone remember anything pre-new millennium?
Crowning Glory, 18″ x 15″, 2012, encaustic, $125Karen Tashkovski, Life. Liberty. Happiness., 1997, oil & collage, $675
And finally, my 1997 oil & collage series of paintings Messages (From the Other Voice) isup in the Chittenango Middle School library, Chittenango, New York, for the next two months!
So happy to be able to share my artwork in public spaces (you know, to captive audiences). New work is actually coming soon. My sister is opening a yoga studio around the corner from my house. I will be making encaustic paintings to exhibit and sell there. I’m going to be turning my kitchen into an art studio during spring break next month to get those (horseshoe paintings and maybe hearts too) ready for Syracuse Yoga’s opening in May 2017.
Chan Luu choker, Free People cardigan, BCBGMaxAzria dress, Hue tights, Coach bootiesFree People top, Bailey 44 skirt, Karl Lagerfeld Paris boots
Here are my latest outfits of the day. My colleague Katy and I have so much fun at work. It is a joy to be there! We are working on a project together – a presentation for our peers that will take place during the Superintendent’s Conference Day on Friday. Each time we finish another sample of the activity we share them with each other and get really happy and giddy.
BCBGMaxAzria top, Banana Republic skirt, BCBGeneration bootiesChan Luu choker, BerkleyCashmere cardigan, Rachel Roy top, Banana Republic pants, Nine West bootiesBanana Republic cardigan and top, BCBGMaxAzria leggings, Ugg boots
That happiness is reflected in these pictures, I think. I am very relaxed in front of the camera because I am inside-out happy. My life is just really fun. I am grateful for my job, my colleagues and students, family and friends, and for art, fashion, music, good times…and Jif natural crunchy peanut butter…. <3
Banana Republic top and skirt, Ralph Lauren bootsBCBGMaxAzria dress, Karl Lagerfeld boots
BCBGMaxAzria selected a couple of pictures of me to share with their Facebook audience. They were plucked from my Instagram account via the hashtag (#) BCBGmoment. So exciting! And satisfies my childhood fantasy of being a fashion model, lol.
Baublebar choker, Free People top, Trina Turk skirt, Nine West boots
I started taking piano lessons! I can play rudimentary versions of five songs! Next up singing lessons, and maybe, eventually, I will be fearless enough to do an open mic night somewhere. Nothing’s impossible when you have the happiness factor on your side. 🙂
Banana Republic top, Free People top, BCBGMaxAzria skirt, Hue tights, Nine West booties
Dolce Vita World Bistro is across the street from Syracuse Stage – at 907 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse, New York. The restaurant serves international cuisine, hosts musical and theatrical events in collaboration with Syracuse University and promotes local visual artists via monthly art exhibitions on the walls of its dining room.
Friday night I attended the opening reception for What’s Left, an art show combining the talents of Le Moyne College colleagues Erin Davies and Penny Santy. The title is derived from a Robin Williams quote –
What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.
The show features wood collage pieces by Erin and oil paintings by Penny.
Meredith Cuddihy on violin provided the musical entertainment. There was wine and cake, and other yummy fare, as well as friendship, camaraderie, and lots of fun! It is always very special to support my friends in all of their endeavors and of course, any excuse for a party is a good one, especially now – we are weathering a severe cold spell in Syracuse, New York and no one really wants to hunker down in their respective shelters to wait it out.
According to their web-site, Dolce Vita is open Monday – Thursday 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm, Wednesday – Friday 11:00 am – midnight, and Saturday 4:00 pm – 11:00 pm. They schedule private events on Sundays. If you are interested in scheduling one, making a reservation or checking out the wonderful art, call (315) 475-4700 for the deets.
