I just got off the phone with Laura Huff who is photographing giant oak leaves that she finds behind her house, flattening and arranging them in groups.  Some images include a ruler showing the longest one at 12''.  Many of Laura's  multi-color silkscreens use leaf and leaf vein patterns.  A special series features the beautiful American Chestnut Tree   supporting the work of The American Chestnut Foundation to save the species.  

 Laura discovered that one of the physical therapists helping her recover from a fall who looks something like Clark Gable, didn't know of the actor or about Gone with the Wind.  Turning 94 in December, Laura is focusing on writing a memoir, saying she always liked art that tells a story.  She was 11 in the 6th grade when Pearl Harbor was bombed and she writes her first reaction was, 'I never heard of Pearl Harbor, so what's the big deal?". She had been following news about the Isolationists in Congress. Her brother clued her in as to its significance as a naval base. and that war would soon be declared.  Another story is about marching in the 1969 Vietnam Protest.        -ccvess

​
The Cabinet is happy to post Laura's account of her career.

         I happily painted away in my new style for two years until it came time to plan my thesis. I had no idea what I wanted to do. My painting professor, who had been so encouraging, left for an exchange post in England, and I didn't care to start over with a different advisor. But what if I transferred my major to Printmaking at GW, where I could take serigraphy (silkscreen printing or screen-printing?) From what I had seen of this medium, my flat, hard edge, vivid color painting technique could easily carry over in prints. It worked!
        A year later an idea for my thesis evolved. Since I had always been interested in children's picture books, I now had the perfect opportunity to write a book for children and illustrate it with sikscreen prints. So over the summer my thesis-picture-book, called Plain Plus Fancy, was born.
            After I received my MFA degree and later moved into a new house, my husband helped me design a studio in the sunny lower level of our home.  He built shelves, storage racks, screens and a darkroom in the unfinished basement for producing photo-positives for my screens. For printing, I used a separate room where I could run an exhaust fan in the window when I cleaned  up with solvents. In a  bright open area I did matting and framing on a large counter top, and stored prints in map drawers underneath and elsewhere. There were also spaces for miscellaneous tools and equipment, including a handy light table. In 1974 I established the Laura Huff Studio, with screen-printing as my major business, using Schedule C on my income tax every year until retirement in 2021. 
            During those many years, while working in my home studio and in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA, I never grew tired of the possibilities I could explore in this medium, the variations I could try, the layers of color I could build, the compositions I could construct.
          ​  I built my first screen in serigraphy class by hinging a wooden frame to a wooden base and stretching organdy material (later silk or polyester) to the frame by staples. For stencils, I used torn or cut paper, positioned on printing paper on the base. I then pulled oil-based ink across the top of the screen with a squeegee, which pushed the ink through the openings in the screen on to the paper beneath. Later stencil methods included rubbing crayon on the silk over wood scraps or carvings; dripping water-based glue on the screen in various patterns; contact printing with ferns, leaves and small metal clockwork pieces arranged on special photo-film. After exposing these objects with a sunlamp, I rinsed the film with warm water, which opened up images previously covered by the objects. Finally, I pressed the wet film into the underside of the screen. When dry, I was ready to print. Most often I enlarged  negatives of photographs or drawings in an enlarger, and exposed them on high-contrast film, ending up with both positive and negative images called photo-positives. Later, I had Office Depot create photo-positives by copying my drawn images on clear acetate. This saved me from mixing up the short-lived chemicals I used in the darkroom, though I couldn't get negative images. This simpler technique was perfect for the Christmas cards I printed every year.                
            Most of my work is based on natural images – trees, flowers, and most often leaves. For many years I used both positive and negative images of one skeletonized leaf, turning the intricately veined 
leaf into trees, fans, quilts, flowers, or abstract designs. In the darkroom I magnified the original leaf into different sizes, then overprinted them, building up layers of colors. Having no preconceived idea of how the print would look in the end, I let one printed image suggest what should come next. Often, I used only one or two images, moving the same paper each time I printed. Sometimes I finished the picture with the negative stencil on top, causing the under-printing to show through as the positive image.  Along with circles and other geometric shapes, I used moire patterns and marbled designs             
(originally created on paper) as part of my compositions. The marbled patterns became either water or wind in different prints.                        
            A few years ago I focused on American chestnut trees, becoming very interested in the story of how a blight, starting in New York in 1905, spread south and destroyed the once prolific trees. I created a series based on one giant American chestnut tree taken from an 1878 engraving of a group of chestnuts in a Philadelphia park. The addition of watercolor, pastel or cut-out circles of tissue paper  made each tree in the series different. The culmination was a solo show at Printmakers  inc in 2017.
             Venturing in a different direction, I expanded my artistic interests to portraits of my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cats, dogs and deer. More planning was required to produce these silkscreen images, which required exact registration with, unfortunately, “low-tech” equipment. 
            Group calendar projects have consumed many years of my screen-printing career, starting in 1976 and 1977 at the Graphics Workshop in Glen Echo Park, Maryland. With two other workshop members, I later joined the new Washington Women's Art Center (WWAC) near Dupont Circle. There we started the Original Print Calendar, which ran from 1979 through 2013. In 2018, I was included in a special exhibition at the Katzen Arts Center of American University in Washington, DC for former
members of the WWAC from 1975-1987. 
            I also taught screen-printing classes at the WWAC, Glen Echo Park, NOVA Community College, Alexandria, and Montgomery County, MD Adult Education. Besides showing prints in many juried shows, I also exhibited silkscreen, colored pencil and watercolor miniatures with the Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Society of Washington, D.C.at Strathmore Hall in Maryland for a few years. 
            I worked and exhibited my prints in several different studios in the Torpedo Factory Art Center for over forty years, most recently in Printmakers inc, for nine of those years. 
  For me, creating silkscreen prints has been a long, rewarding career.    

MAXINE CABLE:  TRANSFORMATION
A RETROSPECTIVE SURVEY       Featuring STUPA VILLAGE
 
SEBROF FORBES CULTURAL ARTS CENTER
3535 University Boulevard West 
Kensington, MD, MD 20895
 ​
For more information contact Dennis Forbes
email:  [email protected]  or   (301) 933-4170
 
January 1- January 30, 2022
HOURS:  Friday- Sunday 12-5 pm
 
RECEPTIONS:  Saturdays JANUARY 8th   1-4 PM
with TOBI CISIN: HORN SOUNDS FROM THE ALPS & TIBET
and JANUARY 29th  1-4 PM
MASKS REQUIRED

ABOUT TOBI CISIN:   The Swiss alphorn, an ancient wood horn predating metallurgy, is used to play beautiful melodies primarily to call cows grazing in the mountains. The Tibetan dung-chen is a long metal horn that is used to play long, loud, low-pitched tones to summon good spirits and dispelling the bad ones.  In Switzerland it is said that one time the buddha heard an alphorn in the Swiss alps and decided to have long horns in the mountains of Tibet.

Alphorn Soloist Tobi Cisin performs on a beautiful handcrafted alphorn made in the Vaud Canton of Switzerland by the master alphorn maker, Gerald Pot and also specializes in French horn.  She has a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and degrees in music education and anthropology.

Ms Cisin studied with the great alphorn virtuoso, Jozef Molnar, Gilbert Kolly and William Hopson.  During the summer, she spends time in the Swiss Alps and has attended many alphorn courses including Tzoumaz, Nendaz and the Alphorn Academy of Switzerland.  In 2007 she competed in the top ten percent at the International Alphorn Competition of Nendaz.  
 
Her alphorn 1991 debut in Washington, DC with the Swiss Folklore Group was to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the founding of Switzerland.  Since then Ms Cisin has appeared as a guest artist with the Folger Consort, many local orchestras, the International Horn Society Workshops and has performed at many Swiss, Austrian and German cultural events.  She is affiliated with Blaskapelle Alte Kameraden, and the Swiss Folklore Group of Washington.
​In Switzerland it is said: “Once upon a time the buddha heard an alphorn in the swi

                The paintings in the Overthrow series were inspired by a book by the journalist Stephen Kinzer: Overthrow, America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, which I discovered soon after it came out in 2006, three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Like many who came of age during the Vietnam War era, I have questioned my country’s many interventions, and I wanted to understand the patterns of our involvement in the overthrow of other governments and our leaders. 
     Kinzer, who served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany and Turkey, and as Latin American correspondent for the Boston Globe, documents regime change operations carried out by the U.S. in fourteen sovereign nations over the course of a century, writing only about those cases in which “Americans played the decisive role in deposing a regime,” whether by threatened or actual invasion or through covert operations. In these accounts, I was struck by the elegiac statements of the deposed, which convey the asymmetry of confronting a nation as powerful as the United States of America. Some of these heads of state submitted their resignations in order to save their people from bloodshed; sometimes we have only the words of their compatriots. 
     In thinking about how to bring these events to light, I thought almost immediately of the Mexican and Latin American tradition of retablo painting These votive paintings typically tell stories of misfortune followed by a rescue through the miraculous intercession of a saint. The artist recreates the story as told by the protagonist, whose words are written on the painting. The role of the artist as a faithful listener yet imaginative recorder of stories not widely known seemed to me a fitting one for rendering these stories of regime change. Thus, I have appropriated the retablo genre, rejecting the concept of a unified historical narrative, instead combining fragmentary story elements and knowing these stories have been and will continue to be told by the people whose governments were overturned.

       In formal terms these paintings employ many features of retablo: flatness, the condensation of pictorial space, and the inclusion of written narrative. They contain components of a linear story of a coup, but like many retablos, they may also jump backward and forward in time, referring to causes and subsequent events. In other ways I have taken liberties with the genre. These paintings do not feature saints; rather, they give voice to the deposed leaders or their representatives. Unlike most retablos, they are not meant to connect to a divinity or supernatural world; rather, they commemorate grief and loss, alluding to the psychic trauma experienced          Carolyn Prescott, Berlin, 2021 

References
Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow, America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Times 
Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2006. (Note: Mr. Kinzer does not bear responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation in the painting series or in this portfolio.) 
Elin Luque Agraz and Michele Beltrán, “Powerful Images: Mexican Ex-Votos,” Retablos y ex votos. Museo Franz Mayer, Artes de México, 2000 

Then I started casting from molds.  First I made the original form using plasticine, an  oil-base clay.  Then I made a polyurethane mold backed up by plaster.  Because of the size of the work, there would sometimes be five of six sections to the mold.  With this method, the first application of the Design Cast mixture would be the final outside surface.  Fiber strands could be added and then several  layers of fiberglass saturated with Design Cast.  The final thickness, not more that one-half an inch, would be very strong, as hard as steel.  When using this method for larger, outdoor pieces, I made a welded steel inside frame to which I attached the parts.  Casting for molds gave me the opportunity to make more than one piece if I wished.
 
The Design Cast mixture could be used as mixed.  It was also possible to add powdered pigments to create a color, or finely ground glass or sand to create a texture. The final piece would be cleaned and sealed.  Paint could be added, or a patina could be applied.  I found a copper paint.  I could let the first coat dry and then while the second coat was still not yet dry, I could add on some acid.  This produced a greenish, metallic patina which became one of my favorites.
 
I worked for approximately twenty years with Design Cast.  I made reliefs, fountains, sun dials and commissioned outdoor sculpture.  These pieces exist locally and in various parts of the country, and they have held up very well.  I have several sculptures in my back yard that have been there for many years, and are in excellent condition.  I felt a real sense of loss when the producer of this material, having met with legal difficulties when trying to sell the formula, gave up and stopped making DesignCast.

NANCY FRANKEL (1929-2021)

Acrylic cityscapes at Maplewood, 9707 Old Georgetown Rd, Bethesda.  February 10-  April  7, 2013.  


One is blown away when coming upon Monderer’s “East River” paintings in the small area, which serves as a gallery at Maplewood.  The panoramic view consists of five canvases. The viewer not only sees the sweep of the river, but is drawn in by the vibrancy of the scene.  The artist uses color in a bold, forthright manner. 

Monderer’s choice of scene ranges from the large, over-views to the up-close look at shops.  Above the colorful stores, we delight in the all-over pattern created by open and closed windows. One dramatic scene is captured in “Under the Westside Highway”.  The stark contrast between the shadowy blacks under the highway, and the sun-blanched buildings on the other side of the street demonstrate the artist’s grasp of composition.

Monderer paints from photographed scenes.  When comparing some of the photographs to the paintings, we see how the artist pulls another aspect into the scene before us.  Stressing some areas and omitting others, she injects her experience to make a coherent arrangement.

 Monderer’s cityscapes are alive: there is a great  the appreciation for the sculptural dynamic and the colors that make up a metropolis.

It’s hard to say why one retrospective appeals to me while another does not.  The Gensken exhibit was certainly interesting, but, with the exception of a few pieces, nothing really elicited much of a reaction.  I’ll start with the few works that did appeal to me.

The large tableau at the entrance to the exhibit was the most powerful work in the whole exhibit for me (my wife disagrees, but she didn’t like anything in the exhibit).  The photos below don’t really capture the eerie other-worldly feeling evoked by this tableau of mannequins in very strange outfits.  It is a very large tableau, taking up as much as a 30 ft square space.

In the exhibit itself there were various areas where works from different phases  in the artist’s progression are shown.  I will ignore most of these and only concentrate on a few I thought worthy of comment.

Gensken was very interested in architecture.  Not only her famous/infamous “Fuck the Bauhaus” work speaks to that interest, but there were also pieces dealing solely with structure and foundation.  Here is one example from an era in modern German architecture when unadorned concrete was in vogue.

It’s very hard to understand the commentary of this piece without the commentary provided by the MOMA curators. It was, like many other pieces in the exhibit, something interesting but also very forgettable.

Here are a two photos from “Fuck the Bauhaus”.

Another piece that I liked was the hanging, distorted metal tools and utensils.  (My photo dos not really convey the impact of this piece.)  I can’t really put into words why I liked this piece, but it was one of the few that stood out for me.

Gensken lived in the U.S. (mostly in NYC I think) for several years.  Like many others, she saw the dark side of the Disney world as shown here.

She was in NYC  on 9/11.  She made several pieces to evoke the feelings from that horrible disaster.  The exhibit features two in which she has created  a sculpture  likeness of a part of the inside of the passenger section of a commercial airliner.  

I’m sure this piece has evoked strong reactions among some who viewed the exhibit.  However, once again, I found the piece “flat” in some sense – it was very obvious and did not leave any deep impression afterwards.

Karen and I have spent a fair amount of time discussing and debating what makes an exhibit powerful  and what does not.  In all fairness to Isa Gensken, we had never heard of her before this exhibit even though she is well known in Germany.  So, it’s not like seeing an exhibit of pieces that are new for you from an artist you are already familiar with.  But, this would seem to make it even more imperative to give the viewer the full breadth of the artist’s work.  I can only assume that the MOMA curators assiduously attempted to do just that, which leaves me with the impression of an artist who dabbled in many areas but did not pursue any of them seriously.

                                                                                       -Doug Hilmer



ED:  Here are links to other responses to the exhibition and to an excellent video prepared by MOMA.

Roberta Smith:    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/arts/design/isa-genzken-retrospective-at-museum-of-modern-art.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

Peter Schjeldahl: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2013/12/02/131202craw_artworld_schjeldahl

Video link:  
This excellent short video includes installations views of previous exhibitions, some works not included in the MOMA show and interview sound bites that elucidate the Genzken’s approach and the resulting body of work .  The dynamic of the video adds what is missing in the exhibition, the balletic and dynamic elements that in many cases are lost in the completion and static display of the final sculptural event.     http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1345?overlay=isa.288.1364

The collages have a lively spirit.  The contradiction of the light weight materials and Spiewak's approach to collage as hard-hat construction gives an edge to the cut paper.  She uses spring loaded scissors like a chain saw, carving broad sheets of paper into natural shapes which she then uses to build images.  For the wall installation, she cut large leaf and twig forms in classic, silhouette style from black paper arranging them in a whorl on the stage-like wall and it’s proscenium wings at the end of the gallery.  The silhouettes seem to swim in a common current and one almost senses that a wind will blow through and skitter them about.  Spiewak found inspiration for this large work one morning early in the eerie quiet after a stormy night when she saw a carpet scatter of organic matter and leaves strewn over the grass. 

While the installation has gravitas, most of the works are playful and colorful.  The most recent collages show a beguiling synthesis of technique, composition, and jaunty rhythms resulting from the luxury of full-time studio work.  For the last couple of years since her retirement fro the National Park Service, Spiewak has been at work in her new studio at Eastpines Center, Passageways Studio Studios, 6001 66th Ave, Riverdale, MD.              -ccv, wdc