I drove to New Jersey on Monday. Â Visited with friends in Jersey City and Morristown, and stopped in to see my art exhibition at Summit Medical Group in Berkeley Heights. Â I love how easy-peasy it is to find your way around the country via Google maps/GPS, by the way. It is clearly the greatest invention to eliminate fear of travel. Â It was an effortless, fun-filled journey!
This place is so beautiful! Â Space Planner Elizabeth Wiech did a magnificent job installing this show. Â I feel lucky to be a part of it. Â It turns out that my work is the most abstract of the bunch. Â I picked up the artwork I had delivered that wasn’t used – actually my friend Anne had delivered it for me originally, and so this was my first time there. Â Everyone was so nice and helpful from the valet parking attendants and security people to the reception desk ladies and maintenance. Â Thank you, everyone! Â I am just so incredibly grateful for the experience.
The art exhibition is in the basement floor of the Lawrence Pavilion building in the complex at 1 Diamond Hill (Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922). Â Each artist is represented with an artist statement and information on how to contact them in order to make a purchase. Â A portion of sales will go to a pet charity – this is an animal-themed art show.
Eight of my paintings are there – from my 18″ x 18″ oil & collage Echolalia series.
The exhibition will continue through November 2016.
Contact Elizabeth Wiech at (908) 277-8806 for more information. Â This is a medical office building – she will know the building hours. Â The show is open to the public and can be accessed through a separate entrance with stairs leading to the basement floor or through the main entrance using the elevator.
Twelve of my Talisman series paintings are hanging in the Community Room of the Sullivan Free Library in Chittenango, NY. Â I installed the show yesterday and the work will be there until I go back to school in September (2016).
I love my connection to the Chittenango community and with Karen Fauls-Traynor, who pops me into the calendar every July! Â The Community Room can be rented out for events and so, there are always people in there. Â It is part of the library but is accessed through a separate door at the entrance. Â I heard there will be a graduation party in there today! Â They also have afternoon movies (free) every Wednesday at 1:00pm.
The paintings are $200 each. Â They are 18″ x 24″ mixed media pieces comprised of oil & collage and chalkboard paint. Â I created them in the summer of 2008 in a studio space on my front porch while the television in the living room played Harry Potter videos 24/7.
It is pretty fascinating how positive energy and the idea of magic can create magnificent outcomes in our lives. Â One of my friends told me I need to immerse myself in painting again, but I don’t feel ready to go back to that type of isolation. Â I would need to sell quite a bit of art to fuel that inner motivation again. Â That seems to go against the grain of how other artists see themselves – as though art making is a desire that surpasses all consequences of the act.
Oh well. Â It is what it is. Â The idea of someone else valuing what you do, what I do, is what I crave. Â My friends in Florida have several of my paintings in every room of their house. Â I visited them last month – I hadn’t been there in thirteen years, so seeing my presence in their home filled me with so much gratitude and love. Â The idea that I matter to people. Â I don’t know how else to explain it. Â I just don’t want to make a bunch of art that sits in a pile in a closet somewhere, unable to breathe or see the light of day until I am gone or something. Â That just seems yucky to me.
If you are interested in purchasing one of these paintings, contact me. Â I can sell it off the wall and replace it with another. Â There are twenty-four pieces in this series. Â And they all need homes…. <3
The Sullivan Free Library is located at 101 Falls Blvd., right off Route 5 in the village of Chittenango, NY. Â It was the former State Bank of Chittenango. Â Click the link at the top of this post for hours of operation.
In about an hour, Chittenango High School opens its doors to the public/community for the annual school fair. It takes about three hours to install the middle school artwork on the walls in the halls between the two gyms. Â I will be back later tonight to take it all down.
Here are pictures of 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade art – Â from my students and those of my colleagues Gina Fargnoli and Katy Conden.
Chittenango High School is located on Route 5 in Chittenango, NY. Â The school fair is a visual representation of our entire school’s curriculum with elementary school stuff in the large gym, middle school stuff in the small gym and high school stuff all around the two story building. Â It will take place from 5:30 – 8:00 pm tonight!
Here is another meme photo I took for the school yearbook – #eatingmoney
This boy is my favorite model because of his hair, of course. Unfortunately he got a haircut last week and so, I won’t have the opportunity to take anymore shots like this for however long it takes to grow a foot of hair back, which would put him in high school or college by then.
The photo represents a fleeting moment in time, one that can’t be replaced, although photographs can be duplicated, as long as you still have the image on a computer or thumb drive.
A few months ago I shared that I’d repaired my painting Dream Time, but what I didn’t tell you is that around the same time my friend Joyce visited from Binghamton, NY, and I gave her a replacement Scrabble tile for the painting I made for her from this series. Â I didn’t want it to seem as though all of my paintings are falling apart at the seams – they are not, by the way.
The thing is that any additive sculpture or combine style painting utilizing found objects could come undone at any time. Â It could be bumped into or it could be a simple case of fluctuating humidity in the space where the piece resides.
My last post generated an array of opinions about the destruction of art. Â People in agreement with me and others so opposed to the idea that it was pretty intense! Â This happened mainly on www.linkedin.com where I shared the blog post in about a dozen art groups.
I really love the passion people brought to the table. Â I also love the comraderie of artists, that we all in one way or another are aware of the impact (or the hope of an impact) our art will bring to future generations. Â I wonder now how artists feel about the repairing of damaged art?
Joyce didn’t ask me to repair her Karen Tashkovski original, but she knew I probably had extra tiles in my art supply arsenal. Â I am not keen on repairing my work the way my cobbler fixes the heels on my favorite boots. Â While I try to use the strongest adhesives I can find, often the whole shebang can be very experimental, and I can’t worry about how my art will be displayed once it leaves the nest.
When I’m making art, I do admit to thinking about the compliments I might receive once it’s done, which puts me in a positive frame of mind, but I feel extremely in the moment and present while I’m creating. Â I’m not thinking about one hundred years from now.
The only time I do, ironically, is while working with encaustics.  The wax will eventually harden and become one with the wood surface (and by eventually we’re talking  a thousand years) and it will become the most everlasting type of artwork that exists.
Unfortunately, any time before then the wax is fragile and must be handled with care, something of which the art teachers who hung the Scholastic Art exhibit (in January of this year) and the visitors to the Whitney Building at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY were not aware.
My student’s silver key winning encaustic painting was terribly damaged during the show. Â Whether it fell from the wall or was touched, or perhaps it was the humidity in the building – I mean I don’t know and I’m not suggesting blame, but it was tragic.
The student does not take art class anymore, but I’m hoping she will be able to come in after school to rework it. Â The entire neck is gone and the feather part is cracked, like the plaster walls in my house. Â We used my personal encaustic materials so I’ve brought them back to school and will get to layering the uncolored wax on it to build the canvas back up and have it ready for Ellie when she’s ready to do it. The issue is that the wax takes time to heat up so it’s not a fleeting fix but a planned we-will-do-this-thing and make everything right with the world.
I think I took this damage harder than she did. Â I felt responsible even though I could not protect the art when it was not in my possession. Â She worked very hard on this piece and she was very proud of it! Â Now she must rework it, like the fraggles on Fraggle Rock. Â Whether or not she repairs the painting, it does not diminish the fact that she won high honors for it, but I think it’s difficult to accept that the art will not be the same the second time around. Â The hope is that it will be better. Â Yes, I’m ready to believe that!
Which brings me to the latest art tragedy: Â a sculpture by Cy Twombly was just knocked over by a visitor to the museum in which it was displayed.
Conservators will be repairing it. Â He died in 2011. Â But if he were still alive, I can’t imagine anyone would ask him to fix it.
Twombly is famous for creating these scribbly abstract expressionist paintings and my favorites are the ones done on chalkboard because they could easily be erased. Â Have you ever seen the scene in I <3 Huckabees when Dustin Hoffman’s character leans on the chalkboard painting in his office and he erases it with his jacket? Â And of course, the irony is that he is supposed to be an existentialist detective! Â OMG, I love that movie.
I am always questioning why things are the way they are and how these disjointed circumstances will eventually weave themselves into the story of my life. Â I even have an existential coincidence!
Now fashion, that is an art form that isn’t supposed to be everlasting. Â Colors fade, fabrics disintegrate. Â We are always looking for something new and fresh while still holding onto our loved possessions because of sentimentality or some such other unreasonable abstract.
I am now selling my art as fashion on redbubble. Â So if this blog post has convinced you not to buy my artwork in case of damage and the subsequent wrath of Tash (you really haven’t lived if you haven’t received that tongue lashing is how it goes), then maybe some Karen Tashkovski original leggings would be the way to go.
You buy them, wear them, break them in. Â Wash them, wear them, wash, wear infinity – until you throw them out. Â No artist fix or conservators necessary!
The hardest part of this Shopify business is reading the instructions. Â I’ve been working on it all afternoon and it’s still not in any way perfected. Â I just get really frustrated with my lack of computer savvy, which means I definitely need to take a break. Â I have uploaded twelve paintings to the site, but I’m confused about how to use their templates and I’m sure it is the simplest thing in the universe, and…blech.
Domino, 18″ x 24″, 2008, mixed media
Hopefully, I will get it together and it will all be good.
Perfect Fit, 18″ x 24″, 2008, mixed media
Here is the link to the sugar shoppe –Â http://karen-tashkovski-visual-artist.myshopify.com/Â I uploaded the Talisman paintings. Â There are twenty-four in the series but I only picked twelve. Â The challenge will be getting those paintings to the customer with as little erased chalk as possible. Â But when I added the chalk text, it was inevitable that the paintings would eventually erase. Â The idea that love is fleeting, I guess.
4 Ever, 18″ x 24″, 2008, mixed media
What is your opinion about the duration of art? Â Because these paintings have more than one fragile element. Â I decided that I would not allow returns. Â Not sure if that’s a bad idea – I mean, I can always change it – but who buys a painting and then thinks it is disposable? Â The artwork could get damaged. Â Pieces could fall off. Â But I am not the art repairman, am I? Â I know that Jasper Johns doesn’t offer to repair the found objects that break off his art. Â If they do at all. Â I’m pretty sure they are handled so carefully by art gallery and museum minions in white gloves.
It is the Dadaist perspective, like when the glass broke in that Duchamp piece, and he actually thought it enhanced the work.
I would need to find the kind of patrons with disposable income who really understand this mindset and their responsibility in acquiring art. Â I see the new owners as the guardians of…I was going to say my children, but that sounds so cheesy even in written form.
But if they are like children, then the analogy is the one out of SATC, when Miranda tells Steve, you try not to kill Brady when he’s with you and I’ll try not to kill him when he’s here.  I’m paraphrasing – can’t remember the exact line, but you get the gist.
Since my recent website update, I have been experimenting with different themes. Â Lots of redecorating. Â I’m sure I’ll change it and change it back a few more times before the year ends! Â It’s fun. Â I <3 wordpress.com! Â What do you think of the place?
I had a snow day today, which consisted mainly of snow-blowing the driveway (twice so far – I think I’ll go out there again in a couple hours). Â I also cleaned the house. Â I had every intention of doing more art career stuff but got sidetracked by a couple hours of pilates and sit-ups, as well as flopping around reading fashion magazines and perusing Facebook then finally uploading the last pictures of my students’ artwork for Scholastics.
The regional deadline for the Scholastic Art Awards is right around the beginning of Christmas vacation. Â Artwork is judged via JPEGs the first week of January. Â I’m entering ten pieces this year.
For me, winning those awards as a student  was more or less the springboard into this art journey.  I had been getting only packets for engineering colleges in the mail during my junior year in high school because I was in accelerated math classes.  All of my classmates are now CEOs of major companies or prestigious doctors, but no matter.  I still can’t tell you what an engineer does, lol.  I won a blue ribbon for my senior portfolio and three awards for my three individual entries – two more blue ribbons and a gold key.  And that sealed the deal for me.  I thought it meant something, like a sign that art was the right direction for me.
I shouldn’t say it like that. Â I didn’t pick art on a whim or because of some dumb magical thinking scenario. Â I knew it was the right thing for me. Â I think we’ve had this conversation before.
My students’ art is way better than this stuff but they don’t always win. Â Competition these days has been taken to an otherworldly level and it will always be disappointing to at least one someone who is uber-talented. Â There’s no way around that. Â But the dreams are very much alive and the excitement is building!
This morning I woke up in tears, the kind typically reserved for when Oprah interviews you. Â I guess my life sometimes feels like I’m in a labyrinth, one that seems to be a lot easier for other people to navigate but incredibly road-blockey for me. Â I’m sure I’ll find a way to laugh about this later but not now. Â The crummy weather day is insisting I remain miserable, sad and hopeless.
The good news is that I’m going to try to bottle the feeling and use it later as an element in a new series of paintings.  I have a vague idea of what they’ll look like – I often tell my students that I tend towards having psychic visions of future work, which helps to focus me during the process of going from thumbnail sketch to reality.  There are no thumbnail sketches yet.  Just feelings, colors, and fleeting imagery.  The planned series will be titled Futura, which is funny that I know that  – the way I knew I would call my cat Jasper before I met him.
I didn’t have a working title for a series of paper collage works I displayed back in 2004. Â I received a grant from Senator John DeFrancisco and subsequently was granted a lot of press on the show that accompanied the artwork. Â It didn’t actually work that way, but in reverse. Â I made the art a couple years before, secured an art show at Pastabilities restaurant in Armory Square (downtown Syracuse), charged up a storm to frame the art then applied for and received the $1,000 grant (or was it $1,500? Â I don’t remember).
I used to teach at Bryant & Stratton, my second job out of college, in the long-defunct Fashion Merchandising program where as a business college professor, I learned and taught students to write press releases that would get them noticed. Â I had a lot of success with my own press releases, frequently getting follow-up articles about my work published in the local papers.
John DeFrancisco is someone I’m following on Twitter.  Yeah – I tweet now.  You can see the link somewhere on the side of this blog post.  It’s https://twitter.com/karentashkovski.  I’m @KarenTashkovski.  I’ve tweeted a handful of times, mainly links to my social media activities – Pinterest, Facebook, here, etc.  I’m learning the whole hashtag culture or as I refer to it – number sign.  And I’m re-tweeting and following back.  Cyberspace is a vast black hole but it has the dichotomy of being a small world as well.  Kim Kardashian (yes, I’m following her – who isn’t?) could easily flick a thumb and retweet to her universe and all of a sudden as a consequence because we’ll become besties, I will be able to identify a Kanye West song (or not, probably not.  I’m more of a classic rock/alternative person).  Hopefully the real consequence will be resulting sales.  People have a lot of power at their fingertips, to friend you, connect with you and know you or at least your on-line persona.
I have a google email now too. Â It’s ktashkovski@gmail.com. Â I needed it for something, I can’t remember what now – and used it successfully to send Linda Bigness those videos through google docs. Â So they should be up shortly on You Tube and on here. Â Oh yeah, that’s what it was. Â I’m on You Tube. Â I have a channel (meant to be said with a posh British accent). Â I posted three videos, two of them of my students in my super secret (not so secret) Harry Potter club at school.
The hope with that is to seek a fairy-godmother-wizard person who will pay to send my students and their families to Harry Potter World in Florida. Â Oprah, are you listening? Â Because I’ve mentioned you twice now. Â And if you want to do a surprise interview first, then I will be well prepared. Â I have mastered the ugly cry and everything.
My mom is not a hoarder. Â Everything she has is organized – she just keeps a lot of stuff. In her defense, it’s a lot of our stuff, my sisters and me, things we left behind when we moved out. Â I can ask her for the most random thing – a super-ball for playing jacks for example, and she will produce it in thirty seconds or less.
I went over there today to hunt for vintage bridesmaid dresses for a Halloween costume idea I have and found a dress from 1978. Â Yes, it still fits, which is hilarious because it just feels so weird to put something on that I wore when I was fifteen. Â More so because it even exists, lol, and is actually in decent condition.
I started looking at the old photo albums stored in heavy duty plastic bins in the basement, which took the better part of the afternoon – all the bad hair and bad posture pictures that make me cringe and think thank God we didn’t have Facebook then. Â I’d rather be the keeper of my own image and so I brought the albums home with me.
Yesterday I went to visit Linda Bigness in her art studio at the Delavan Center in Syracuse, NY. Â We did a video interview and as soon as I can figure out how to send her the video through email- it’s about 45 minutes long – she will edit it for a future post. Â Watching her work made me wish I had a studio like hers and that I was as compelled to paint everyday as she is. Â I used to be.
In 1997, I worked as a Master Teacher at the New York State Summer School of the Arts.  It was held at Cazenovia College that year.  I was thrilled to have been hired by former Syracuse University professor James Ridlon because at the time they were looking for high school art teachers and I taught elementary  (although my certification is K-12) and I didn’t even have tenure.  I taught one class in the morning and spent the rest of the time in a studio space painting 36″ x 36″ canvases.  This was right after my first year at my job.  I was still living in my parents’ basement (cellar dweller) and right after that two-week stint complete with living in the dorm, I got my apartment on Woodbine Avenue where I ended up existing for nine years.
I had lunch every day with a Cazenovia art professor, Corky Goss, who later offered me the opportunity to exhibit in their gallery. Bring everything you have is what he said, because the space was so big. Â I took that literally and framed a heck of a lot of paintings for the show the following year.
I found pictures from that show in one of the photo albums. Â I think they were pictures Mom took because you can see the reception spread and Mom always documents the food. Â Upon reflection, it’s so funny because I still look at that show and remember how much I thought I had arrived as an artist and how I thought I was going to be phenomenally successful and all I would need to do is wait passively for the accolades and the next step to just happen to me. Â The rollercoaster ride, you know? Â Like it would just happen.
I wonder how many other artists have had that same feeling. Â Probably everyone of us at one time or another. Â The moment arrives and you are so sure it is a turning point but then it isn’t, wasn’t. Â Art is quite a ride, whether it is visual or performing arts. Â You have to have a thick skin to deal with the rejection. Â Maybe nobody has a thick skin. Â It’s more that we try to focus on the positive experiences and remind ourselves of them when things are not going so well. Â In my career, it was never so much about not going well, it was more success-nothing-nothing-nothing-success-nothing-nothing, etc.
Maybe things will change, maybe not. Â I’m not discouraged because I do feel very lucky. Â I have my family and memories complete with decades old paraphernalia. Â Reflecting on the past makes me realize that there have been so many good chapters in my life and a great many goofy ones.
So when I create art I have this thing about crafting a dozen pieces in a series. Â It has to be twelve for some reason and when it’s not I feel a little bit like the the TV detective Monk – a little OCD-ish about it. Â You can imagine what this is like for me when I sell only one out of a series and I’m left with stupid eleven. Â It is, I don’t know – I’m weird, let’s just put that out there right now.
If you watch New Girl on Fox, you would have caught the last episode where Jessie explains about how we all have stupid stuff wrong with us – we’re all weird. Â It’s a wonder anyone ever finds anyone to love, really. (Or am I the only one who identified with that episode?)
These pieces are meant to be purchased together, so they are technically one work of art even though I signed each one for some reason. Â They are 12″ x 12″ canvases, layered with thick canvas and painted with latex paint.
I traced a heart stencil I hand-made and cut up all sorts of textures to attach resulting in individually unique hearts. Â I added playing cards, suede and other fabric, and photographs from old calendars – Pre-Raphaelite imagery as well as Harry Potter film photos and international pictures from Paris, Greece, Scotland, Venice…and maps.
I don’t travel at all but I feel like a traveler in a way because my artwork can go anywhere in the world and I can feel transported by it. I almost can’t believe how many people from different countries have viewed this website, by the way. Â People from every continent. Â I assure you that I have no cousins in South America or Africa. Â I really need to get a passport and put myself out there for real, but then I would probably want all my pages stamped in the united colors of the over fifty countries represented here.
The finished hearts are stitched with embroidery floss then I added collage items – checkers, Scrabble pieces, wooden spools, tinker toys, buttons, sea glass and coins. Â Each is a separate entity but when together they tell a story, like always, a puzzle of my life or yours, or whoever embodies them/buys them and adds their own interpretation.
The one above now resides in a friend’s house and I can’t tell you in words what that means to me because it is poetically emotional in a way I just cannot express. Â It’s supercalifragilistically amazing when someone else cares for my work as much as I do. Â If you want one of these sets, let me know. Â I think I have five of them ($600 for a set of twelve).
I sell the 5″ x 7″ cards for $5 each.  They can be framed or used as  greeting cards and mailed.  (They are blank inside).
They take hours to make so in terms of being paid what I’m worth? Â Lol. Â People seem to equate time with money. Â Non-artists frequently ask me how long it takes me to make an abstract painting, as though it should cost a lot less than realism even though there are a million Bob Ross types who sell “realistic” landscape paintings made without reference materials.
The answer, naturally, is it took me my whole life. Â My whole life to figure out that I had a style, a body of work that represents me as an artist and as a person.
The cards contain stitched fabric and paper – some watercolors, some oils, and all of my favorite collage items – coins, stamps, sea shells, sea glass, playing cards, leather bits. Â I love the smell of leather or as my colleague at work and I call it, leathaaaaaaaaaaa!
They are among my favorites of my body of work because they engage all the senses.
These types of art shows are mainly for the experience, the social aspect, the putting yourself out there business of being an artist and rarely about sales. Â My mother generously spent the day with me so it was more about hanging out with her and laughing and eating roast beef sandwiches.
