Tribal Treasures on a Summer Afternoon

Cicadas drone, crickets chirp in the lush green hills.

The humidity is noticeable, but not unpleasant, as I sip a small cup of expresso and admire the cache of heavy silver bracelets on the homespun indigo cloth before me.
The light skims along edges and among patterns of incised and repoussed design.
Ancient spirals, floral discs, twisting scales and peacock feathers, reveal themselves in glints and shadow on the cool metal.

Though in New England now, each piece brings up memories of steamier days in Southeast Asia and the thrill of discovering something authentic in the mishmash of forgeries and tourist pieces that have dominated the Asian art markets for several decades.

As the world becomes smaller and traditional cultures tweet and surf the web,
it is gratifying to know that art historians and anthropologists are still researching and recording the traditional cultures of tribal peoples in these rapidly changing times.

In many Southeast Asian groups, jewelry forms reflect Neolithic and Bronze Age art, animist religion and represent the microscopic view of the universe. The lovely old patina from wear and use adds to the visual power of these handsome dance objects.

The Barbier-Muller Museum in Geneva holds a treasure trove of traditional jewelry from Indonesia,Malaysia and the Philippines. They traveled a breath-taking exhibit called Power and Gold back in 1985 and the catalog by that name is a must have for those interested in such things. In 2000, Anne Richter gave us The Jewelry of Southeast Asia , her wonderfully insightful study of the history and cultural impacts of ancient as well as dominant cultures of the region on jewelry design.

I’ve enjoyed re-reading these books as I researched these bracelets which are now up on my website. Go to www.deborahgarnercollection.com to learn more, then choose Adornments/Asia /1. and click on the thumbnails.

Complete book information is given in the text, if you want to enter this fascinating world via these lovely objects.
It is truly a rich feast.

"Energetic Revelations" New Work by Deborah Garner

Two years of exploration have culminated in a body of work being currently shown at Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
This is the introduction to my process given at the opening May2,2011 at the request of viewers.
The work can be seen in a slide show at http://www.artistsofleyden.org
“Energetic Revelations” refers to the spontaneous and intuitive approach that was taken in creating this body of work. It was my goal to disassociate from the end result, to forgo conscious intellectual judgment during the process and keep my artistic ego in the background as much as it is humanly possible. I wanted as direct a means of expression as I could put on paper and later on canvas.
This journey began two years ago when I had the good fortune to collaborate on an interactive art work that was presented at the Zendai Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. After visiting the Shanghai Museum and deepening my appreciation of Chinese ink paintings, I purchased some horse hair calligraphy brushes and determined to explore traditional Chinese painting on my own.
The results were humbling and discouraging. The dynamic characters I tried to copy were clumsy and wooden from my untrained hand, but the brushes were divine. I loved their flexibility and responsiveness to the tiniest movement. It was like holding the reins on a thoroughbred racehorse. I could feel the potential of these instruments. To my delight, I found that if I held the brush at the handle’s end and let it respond to the most subtle gesture, a wonderfully graceful and expressive line was created. I had to disconnect from trying to control the results and let the ink loaded brush lead the way.
It became a visual dance as I tenuously released fear and gave myself over to the process. I blurred my vision by squinting so I couldn’t judge what was being put down and soon marvelous forms were revealed. It was instantaneous and required me to literally “go with the flow”.
The speed was exhilarating and the slightest hesitancy immediately created a train wreck…
I began to trust the process and work larger, eventually using a dowel with my brush taped on the end to get more physical distance and worked with the paper on the floor, as I stood over it.
I had feelings of lyrical verse flowing from the brush in the smaller works and the early large ones. I felt they were melodious, whispered poetic phrases. But soon I felt I was taking urgent dictation from a different “voice”.
Later I noticed that these strong expressions seemed to coincide with natural disasters and dramatic weather events…it was like Earth herself was urging me to pay attention to what is going on. Heat waves, volcanoes, hurricanes, microbursts, the Gulf oil disaster all were recorded here. As an interesting aside, I do not have television reception in the wooded hills where I live. I had limited exposure to visuals online prior to and during this work. This added to the sense of surprise when obvious correlations were discovered.
As a dealer in the traditional arts of tribal peoples for the past 30 years, I have a background in cultural anthropology. The mark making that became primitive alphabets and sacred calligraphy were ultimately symbols of power, the word made visible.They were transmitted to shaman/priests from the world of spirit or Divine realm in ritualized settings.
All cultures have examples of this. The earliest Chinese characters were etched onto oracle bones in 2,000 BC/CE. Other examples include Nordic runes, Haitian ve-ve, and Arabic calligraphy. In South East Asia it is still practiced today by animist -Buddhist monks of great power.
In 19th C. psychiatry this method of intuitive discourse was termed “automatic writing”. The Surrealists felt that automatism was a higher form of behavior than the constrictive reflexive one that psychiatrists deemed it to be. They believed that automatism directly expressed the creative force of the unconscious in art. It became part of their Manifesto and the cornerstone of Surrealism.
Andre Masson led the charge in the Surrealist circle with automatic drawing and poetry writing. Later the leading lights of the Abstract Expressionists: Pollack, Krasner, de Kooning, Motherwell and Kline all met regularly to experiment with spontaneous drawing, poetry and introduced various glyphs and calligraphic elements into their paintings. Other New York artists of the 1940-50s, Pousette-Dart, Twarkov , Tomlin and Gottlieb developed work around these themes as well. Interestingly, many of these artists were aware of and interested in ethnographic art termed “Primitive Art” at the time and read books on anthropology and Jungian psychology. I have enjoyed discovering affinities with these action/gesture painters.
Many artists outside of these circles created a similar visual language at a slower
Speed, most notably Miro, Klee, Mark Tobey, especially his White Writing series, Brice Marden and Cy Twombly.
There are so many I have yet to discover that found themselves on this path during their experimentation. I love the synchronicity of discovering other kindred spirit painters at just the right moment.
In my personal approach to direct painting in oil, I found the gestural flow translated differently in the viscous nature of the paint. Spontaneity was curtailed by the drying time between layers. What resulted was more of a short hand dictation in some cases and calligraphic arabesques in others. As in the works on paper, intellectual premeditation was avoided and the finished works were still “revelations” to me…
My art making has in turn been visionary and symbolist for the past decade.
This foray into abstraction has opened me to infinite possibilities of expression and I can tell that it has only just begun.

Google Art Project: Check it out!

As yet another massive storm dumps two feet of snow onto of the already substantial ground cover, cabin fever begins to intrude upon the tranquility of these woods.
The cats have chosen to sleep off the dream of winter, but for us humans, an exciting new cyber adventure has been provided by the new Google Art Project.
This incredible website permits one to wander at will through actual galleries via street cam technology of over a dozen major museums worldwide. You can zoom in to see brushstrokes in paintings, watch commentaries by curators and related videos on You Tube and even create your own collection….I’ve already got my eclectic collection started with William Blake’s “Ghost of a Flea” from the Tate, London and a smattering of tribal offering from the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
What a fabulous way to spend a snow day or any free time and expand your knowledge of art history and world museums… As a museum lover and artist, I could get lost in here for days.
Check out their intro tutorial to see all the possibilities this site offers.
Thank you Google and all the museums that participated in launching this project!
What a wonderful resource!

Dazzling Seminole Patchwork

The colorful and dynamic ceremonial attire of the native peoples of the Florida Everglades is instantly recognizable. The patterns are evolving into more and more complex work even while referencing antique forms based on the natural environment.

Patchwork designed skirts, “ohoone”, are the traditional attire for Seminole and Miccosukee women, to be worn for the New Year ceremony known as the Green Corn Dance. Before the arrival of Europeans, Woodlands Indians from the Northeast to the Southeast participated in this ritual.

The Green Corn Dance is held to mark the height of the new growing season. Taking place during the new moon phase of the “Everything Growing Moon”, which usually falls around the end of June or first of July. It is a time of purification and cleansing, as well as a celebration of a year of new life. The ceremony itself extends over several days and involves dancing, singing, and a ritual ballgame.

Besides the sacred nature of this ceremony of renewal, it is a social time for the local Native community to see and be seen in dazzling and colorful patchwork clothes. The women have been making skirts and jackets for themselves and their families all year long. Until fairly recently a Seminole or Miccosukee adult woman may require three or more long skirts to be properly attired during the duration of the event. This was very costly in terms of material and time required to produce such elaborate work.

Many young people today favor jeans and tee-shirts with a small amount of patchwork on a hat or jacket, although many are making simple patchwork articles to sell to tourists.

As each year’s dance ritually requires new clothing, ones from previous years serve no ceremonial purpose. More care is taken in design and execution in clothing produced for family than patchwork made for the tourists passing through the reservations.

These skirts were collected after they had been worn for the Green Corn Dances of the 1970s and 1980s. Names of the makers were recorded when that information was available but the Miccosukee are very private and sometimes reluctant to divulge that information.

The beauty and aesthetic appeal of the dazzling patterns prove them to be a collectible, traditional Native American art form. The creation of complex patchwork patterns with mosaic- like fragments of cloth is labor-intensive work that is admired and seen as expression of identity within the Miccosukee and Seminole communities. It is also highly appreciated by other Native American peoples and textile lovers around the world.

To see examples and learn more please visit my web site www.deborahgarnercollection.com.
Go to Textile Arts/ Americas

September in Santa Fe

Santa Fe is special in any season but September brings forth visual delights and olfactory pleasures that note the arrival of autumn.


I was lucky enough to find myself in the high desert under the full moon at the recent equinox. Rain had at last come to the parched earth and every living thing seemed to rejoice. The sagebrush seemed luminous against the saturated lavender-grey earth and myriad indescribable shades of sea greens glowed as the heavy clouds passed over.


Huge clumps of golden-flowered chamisa were everywhere, here and there joined by purple asters. Aspen leaves had turned to yellow and the cottonwoods were following their lead. Roasting chili peppers and pinon smoke wafted through the air,the traditional incense in this ancient land.


No wonder so many artists and writers have found inspiration here.


The Museum of International Folk Art sits high up Camino Lejo on Museum Hill with three other fine museums. MOIFA houses the world’s largest collection of traditional folk art from around the globe and is a feast of color, texture, and form. They also have one of the finest collections of traditional costume from around the world in their collections.


Curator Bobbie Sumberg has put up a carefully selected exhibition called “Material World” which features stunning examples from the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Near East many from the 19th C. She has written a richly illustrated catalog of the same name to accompany it which is available in the museum bookstore.


For a sampler of the treasures to be found there visit http://www.moifa.org/

Filled with Southwest soul food: beef and chile tamales from Santa Domingo Pueblo,
perfectly seasoned pinto beans, butterfly shaped bread hot from earthen ovens and lemon yellow melons, I gathered up the inventory soon to be online http://deborahgarnercollection.com and headed back to New England against a watermelon pink sunrise.


Arriving home I was startled to see how quickly peak foliage season is arriving in the hills. Soon the local autumn pleasures of fiery maple trees, apple cider and mountains of pumpkins will fill my senses and New Mexico will be a world away.
Until then, I will savor both.
Wishing you all the pleasures of this special season…

Make Time for "Picasso Looks at Degas"

“Picasso Looks at Degas” is a visual picnic for a summer’s day!

This delightful exhibition at The Clark in Williamstown, MA displays many small works that are gems, such as Picasso’s powerful self-portrait as a young man in charcoal and the exquisite chalk portrait of his father. Degas is represented by dark and dreamy monotypes and charcoal sketches of bathers formed of elegant line and form. Large paintings by both artists of women at work ironing, washing their hair, or plying their trade on stage and in brothels are placed in close proximity.

Through the catalogue and signage we learn that most were Picasso’s interpretation of earlier works by Degas. It is humorous at times and awe-inspiring at others as we witness the risks and innovation both artists pursued to capture their subject. Large scale preliminary drawings by Degas in slashing gestured lines and animated ink washes held me transfixed for some time. They look vital, alive and totally contemporary where Picasso’s now “classic modern-isms” seem dated to the viewer today.

As introduction to the theme of this exhibition the curator states:
“Pablo Picasso is said to have remarked that "good artists copy; great artists steal." Throughout his long and prolific career, Picasso often made works of art in response to his predecessors, "quoting" famous compositions by Rembrandt, Delacroix, Manet, and others in his own paintings. In his youth, contemporaries also noted the influence of Edgar Degas in Picasso's paintings of cabarets and cafés, portraits, women bathing, and ballet dancers—subjects that had come to define the older French artist's work.”

“When he moved to Paris in 1904, Picasso lived in the same neighborhood as Degas, though they apparently never met. Despite striking differences in character, they shared many preoccupations. Both were artistic revolutionaries, yet much of their work was based on the human figure and informed by their knowledge of the past. They were both superb draftsmen who also experimented radically with sculpture, printmaking, and photography. Picasso's interest in Degas even inspired a series of etchings, made late in his career, in which Picasso depicted Degas himself, a final act of homage to the older man.”

If you find yourself in the Berkshires this summer put “Picasso Looks at Degas” on your must-do list. If you are too far away between now and September 12th, visit it online at http:www.clark.edu for a taste.

Eaarth, A Must Read this Summer

Last week a powerful combination of unseasonably high temperatures and artic air from Canada collided over our area and produced an explosive storm. Heat lightning illuminated the skies as 50-60 mph gusts swirled the trees in a circular motion,horizontal rain lashed everything. Huge trees were uprooted, power was lost for days, for those of us in the hills so was phone service and water, as most wells have electric pumps.

Having grown up in the hurricane zone in the South and losing the family home to Hugo I thought I had escaped the tropics here in the cool northern woods. After the recent microburst and the blustery days all Spring it obviously isn’t so.

As most scientific communities and environmentalists recognize things have dramatically changed and we are in essence living on a new planet. Most of us are still thinking the "global warming thing" is decades away. We flip the channel when the latest volcanic eruption, tornado, typhoon, earthquake, flooding etc. is shown in yet another part of the world. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico further depresses us… and it is depressing.

Bill McKibben, a renowned environmentalist, writer, activist rang the warning bell about global warming in 1989 in his book, The End of Nature. In his newest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet he clues us in that we “aren’t in Kansas anymore”.In a sober but not hopeless tone he urges us to look at the data from the last three years and face the facts, our climate isgoing to be totally unpredictable for the long haul.

This is the most important book for all of us to read this summer. After you swallow the bitter medicine of the current state of affairs and finally understand how interconnected it all is, you wonder what you can do.Well actually there are lots of things that are being done on local levels worldwide. 10/10/10 is a major day of action to wake up the world to new ways of living that can sustain us locally as we attempt the goal of scaling back CO2 emmissions to 350 parts per million.We are heading up past 375 now quite rapidly.

To empower us in living the new reality Bill has started an international movement called 350. You can read articles, keep abreast of the latest ideas of sustainability and make a difference by going to the website www.350.org. Getting back to basics, becoming more self-reliant is something urbanite and country dweller can do when creatively thought through and implemented. Let’s all take off the blinders and get to work!