BOLLI member Gloria Bernstein has opened a Studio/Art Gallery in the Colonial Real Estate building at 552 Main Street in Waltham. While the space will be officially open for the public by July 1, 2021, it is actually open now for visiting. She reports that she has many new exciting paintings.
Gloria, a member of the National Association of Women Artists, has exhibited at various venues in New York. Before moving to Massachusetts, she served as president of the Sullivan County New York chapter of NOW and a family court mediator.
She has an MFA degree, has published a book of poetry and received awards for her paintings.
Congratulations, Gloria, and the best of luck to you on your new venture!
The BOLLI Journal staff is proud and pleased to present this year’s volume of visual art and writing by members of our BOLLI community.
Enjoy “virtually” thumbing through this collection of written and visual art work. Writing includes works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and memoir. Drawing, painting, printmaking, mosaics, glass, and even furniture are featured. In addition, this volume’s array of photography includes nature/wildlife images and portraits as well as travel and street scenes. It definitely showcases this community’s remarkable talent!
Unfortunately, at this point, because of BOLLI’s current “online only” status, we really cannot say when print copies of the volume may become available for order and distribution.
We thank all of our BOLLI writers and artists for their marvelous contributions and look forward to you, the members of this community, sharing your reactions with that remarkable creative group.
Caroline and her husband Larry met in architecture school and still maintain a firm together. They joined BOLLI in the fall of 2015 because, Caroline says, “Larry and I tend to focus too much on work. I realized we needed an outlet that we could both enjoy. After some research, we decided on BOLLI where we could have both a learning and social experience.”
Since joining BOLLI, both have enjoyed the wide range of classes the program provides, “giving each of us opportunities to learn things that we hadn’t had time to study over the years.” In addition to the courses, though, Caroline says she has especially enjoyed the summer/winter lecture series on history and music. She has also joined the Membership Committee and assisted in organizing this spring’s Back-to-School Brunch.
Outside BOLLI, Caroline has a variety of “extra-curricular” interests that keep her busy. “I have always loved plants and flowers,” she says. “I never had much time while working, but after retirement, I took a cue from the book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and decided to start a small vegetable garden. It’s difficult to battle the rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels, but I am persistent.”
“One thing that led me to architecture was my love of drawing,” Caroline muses. “Unfortunately, after you reach a certain stage, you don’t get to use those skills that much in an office. Last summer, I took the drawing course offered by BOLLI, and it helped me get back into sketching. In her recent course on 18th and 19th Century French Painting, Suzanne Art encouraged us to try our hands at still life.” On Suzanne’s cue, Caroline went, quite literally, back to the drawing board and created the following piece of work.
Caroline’s Recent Still Life
Perhaps her most encompassing interest, though, has been the Schwirian house and the preservation of the Auburndale Local History District. “Our home has been a labor of love for 42 years,” she said. “It was kind of run-down when we bought it, so we have a lot of ‘sweat equity’ in it.” She goes on to say that a small part of the house dates from 1810 when it was the gatehouse for a long-gone estate. Most of it dates from 1849, when it was one of the first houses in Auburndale, a Newton village. The house was designed by architect Charles Edward Parker who also designed the United Parish Church of Auburndale (1857) located nearby. United Parish is one of the few remaining wooden Romanesque churches in the area and is noted as a Newton landmark as well as being on the National Historic Register. The composer Horatio Parker was born in the house in 1863. Parker, who wrote primarily church music, went on to be the Dean of the School Music at Yale where he taught Charles Ives.
“Many of the homes in our area date from the 1840’s to the early 1900’s,” Caroline says. “Many in our neighborhood feel that we are only the temporary stewards of these houses. When a number of our neighbors realized that the character of the area was changing, a concerted effort was begun to protect the houses and their history by creating a local historic district.” Caroline co-chaired the Historic District Committee for the Lasell Neighborhood Association, and, following state guidelines, she, with others, researched the history and styles of many homes in the area and then presented the findings to the City of Newton. “Of course, politics were involved, so it took five years of work,” she says. “But the Auburndale Local Historic District finally became law in 2005.” Her interest in preservation has influenced her work and led her to move on to another office that focused on preservation projects. In private practice, renovations and/or home additions are designed to be compatible with the original structures.
Caroline, was born in Cleveland and attended Western Reserve’s School of Architecture (now Case Western Reserve University). She was one of only two women in her Freshman class of thirty plus classmates and was one of only twelve to graduate five years later—this during a time when only 1% of all licenses architects in the U.S. were women.
In the fall, Caroline and Larry will be sharing their love of architecture when they will serve as BOLLI SGLs. Their five-week course will focus on learning to look at architecture. “When we can, we enjoy traveling to see the art, the architecture, and the culture of other places,” she says. “My favorite journeys, though, are the ones that take me to see my grandchildren in Ohio and DC.”
BOLL Matters editor and “Meet Our Members” feature writer, Sue Wurster
There’s nothing I like more than getting to know the people around me even better! I hope you’ll leave a comment for Caroline in the box below. It means a lot to each of our profiled members! And I’d love to hear from you about you!
Congratulations to Suzanne on the publication of her book!
Suzanne says that “the memoir is about the ups and downs of the creative process, its challenges and joys, its successes and failures. It also includes over 100 color images in color of my paintings, prints and drawings.”
Suzanne was the subject of one of our first BOLLI Matters member profiles. Just type her name into the blog’s “search box” to bring it up so that you can read more about her and her work. In addition, she has a beautiful website you can access in order to see many of her paintings. Go to: suzannehodes.com (or just click on the picture above).
The book is available at Blurb.com (less expensive) and at Amazon.
So, what is Creative Nonfiction? The simplest, clearest, and probably most “apt” answer is this: true stories, well told. Recently, Steve Goldfinger shared a piece about Henry and Claire Booth Luce, and now, Lydia Bogar provides her thoughts about her local childhood library and the woman for whom it was renamed.
A FAVORITE HAUNT AND THE OLD LADY IN THE PAINTING
by Lydia Bogar
The Greendale Branch, Worcester Public Library
Even as her vision failed, my maternal grandmother always had her Bible, TheMorning Telegram, or The Evening Gazette) in hand. As she grew older and needed both a magnifying glass and a bright lamp to help her, she continued to read, every day, until her death at the age of 94. She passed her love of reading on to me, and it wasn’t long before the library became a favorite haunt.
The Greendale Branch of the Worcester Public Library was built in 1913 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie. The children’s section of the library was on the left, divided from the adult books by an enormous, heavy, oak desk where you showed your card to the librarian and were then able to borrow books to read at home.
I started with the Little Golden books and got hooked. Years later, I decided to turn a sharp right inside the front door and, over the course of that summer, read everything in the fiction section. That was when I met Mary, Queen of Scots and Ernest Hemingway. Eventually, I would drive my mother’s car there to “study” with friends. In my family, women passed on not only our love of reading but books as well. I have been hooked on mysteries since an elderly aunt left me her collection of Perry Mason paperbacks in 1968. My mother helped me to grow by passing on The Power of Positive Thinking, Silent Spring, and The Quiet American.
In the library, there was an enormous marble fireplace along the back wall. A portrait of Frances Perkins, for whom the library was renamed in 1944, rested above it. When I was a child, I had no idea who Frances Perkins was. To me, she was just an old lady in an old painting.
Frances Perkins
Eventually, though, I learned just who this remarkable woman was. Born and educated in Worcester, she started learning Greek from her father as a child, took classes in physics and chemistry at Mount Holyoke College as a young woman, and worked with poor, undereducated women in Illinois as an adult. After her graduation, Frances devoted herself to mentoring working women, black and white, especially those in factories who were trying to support their families on miniscule paychecks. She later earned a Masters Degree at Columbia University, writing her thesis on malnutrition among public school children. It is difficult to imagine how many glass ceilings she shattered just in her own educational efforts.
In 1911, when Perkins was in New York, she witnessed dozens of factory workers leap to their deaths in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire—a turning point in her life. From that point on, she dedicated her life to seeing labor conditions improve for workers. She worked with a legislative committee after the disaster and became a consultant to Governor Al Smith. Eventually, her lobbying efforts caught the attention of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who appointed her to serve as his Secretary of Labor, the first woman to serve in a U.S. Government Cabinet position. Serving in that position for over 12 years, she championed such causes as the Civilian Conservation Corps, Federal Emergency Relief, Fair Labor Standards, and Social Security.
Years before Rosa Parks or Gloria Steinem made their marks on our culture, Frances Perkins said:
“I promise to use what brains I have to meet problems with intelligence and courage.”
Quite a resume for a woman from Worcester whose portrait still inspires young visitors to the Greendale Branch of the Worcester Public Library.
Frequent BOLLI blogger, Lydia Bogar
Lydia has become a frequent BOLLI Matters contributor, even creating her own monthly feature, “Lines from Lydia.”
BOLLI Member Dick Hanelin shares linoleum prints based on his photography with the Camera Club.
At a meeting of the Camera Club during the spring term, relatively new BOLLI member Dick Hanelin shared linoleum prints he has made from photos he has taken. The amount of detail and intricacy in his work are quite stunning. Here’s what Dick has to say about his art.
I was an elementary school teacher for 37 years and taught in New York City and Newton, MA. As a teacher, I integrated the visual and performing arts into all curriculum areas. After retirement, I took a variety of art courses and found I was most smitten by creating sculptures and linoleum prints. Through Arthur Sharenow’s course at BOLLI, my interest in photography was rekindled, and I have used some of my photos as a springboard for creating some of my linoleum prints.
I was drawn to linoleum prints because of the bold and graphic images that can be created through the use of contrasts. In seeking out subjects for my prints, I am always thinking about shape, texture, line, and value. These elements of design are my driving force. That is why, for example, I find construction sites and basements (not your typical subjects) as fertile ground for my prints. I try to create a tension and movement in my pieces by using both realistic and imaginative elements in my compositions.
The printmaking process begins with making a drawing and then transferring it onto a block of linoleum. I then carve into the linoleum with a variety of tools that create marks of different thicknesses. After this, ink is rolled onto the block of linoleum. (For my prints, it’s black ink.) Where I have cut out the linoleum, white lines, shapes, and textures will appear, while the rest of the print will be black or gradations of grey. This process takes much time, but I find it very enjoyable.
Dick and his wife Isobel, both career educators, are now active BOLLI members who serve on the Study Group Support Committee. We are all benefitting from the wealth of their experience!
BOLLI Member, SGL, Study Group Support Committee Chair, Writer, and more…
Every August, a group of writers and teachers of writing gather at the Bread Loaf Inn near Bread Loaf Mountain near Middlebury, Vermont for a ten-day conference. The New Yorker has called it “the oldest and most prestigious writers’ conference in the country.” And this August, that group of prominent writers and teachers will include BOLLI’s own Marjorie Roemer.
Marjorie’s background as a teacher of writing is an impressive one, which includes her having served as director of the Rhode Island Writing Project and having been a frequent contributor to The Quarterly of the National Writing Project. Her scholarly publications have appeared in numerous professional journals; she has presented at a wide range of professional conferences; and, all along, she has taught.
At BOLLI, Marjorie’s memoir writing class has been a perennial favorite, with many participants, in fact, returning semester after semester. (One class member has actually taken the course all nine times that it has been offered!) “I’m most relaxed when I’m teaching writing,” she says, “and after teaching everything from junior high through grad school, working on writing with this population is thrilling.” She explains that, in this setting, people write what is real, providing testaments to lives lived and reflected upon. “When we read and share, it is a stirring affirmation of our time of life and the wisdom that helps us to cope.”
And yet, writing and teaching writing were not Marjorie’s original path. She actually started out as a dancer.
“I think I always danced,” she muses. “We did a lot of creative play in the neighborhood school I went to in Queens, so there was often a lot of movement. I started lessons with Sophie Maslow at the New Dance Group when I was six.” Sophie Maslow, who danced with the Martha Graham company for nearly a decade, was, herself, a modern dance pioneer who founded the group. “Sophie did with us what modern dance teachers do with children—jumping over puddles, reaching up high for stars. It didn’t seem serious enough to me, and I didn’t like it. So I took ballet—and, to me, that was real dance! Eventually, when I was old enough to take the subway into the city, I studied at Ballet Arts at Carnegie Hall, and on Fridays, after class, I would go to City Center to watch the NYC Ballet Company. When I was a high school freshman, I finally saw Martha Graham, and it was a revelation. I began studying at the Graham studio and then, later, I was back at the New Dance Group—this time, with a new appreciation for puddles and stars. And then, I went to Bennington, in part because of its famous dance department.”
Marjorie in a piece she choreographed about a medieval lady and a bird.
After graduation, Marjorie studied at the Jose Limon company on a scholarship. Classes were not only taught by members of the company but often by Jose himself whom she remembers as “a tremendously elegant man who wore black tights and a ruffled white dress shirt when he taught. I never danced with his company but with Joe Gifford and my then husband Martin Morginsky who both ended up forming companies in New York. We taught and performed at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. And then, I had a baby, needed to make a living, and began teaching junior high school.”
After a thoughtful pause, Marjorie says that, “teaching feels like choreography to me” and that, to this day, she still gets that “on-stage, it’s-here-and-now, rush” before every class begins. “I feel like my whole life has been ‘provisioning’ as I have looked to find the rhythm and the shape of it. Looking at a class this way gives me a sense of how I might shape it–but how I might improvise at the same time.”
This juxtaposition of planning and improvising seems to be central to Marjorie’s thoughts about dance, about teaching, and about life itself. “That idea of working with ‘the chance thing’ is so intriguing to me…surprising yourself—shaping but maintaining some wildness.” The poet Stanley Kunitz, she points out, says that, “when you pay too much attention, the garden becomes a landscape.”
Today, Marjorie’s writing takes a largely reflective bent—as is evident in the following sermon she wrote and delivered recently at the UCC in Franklin.
RECALCULATING
A Sermon by Marjorie Roemer
I’m a retired English professor, but the sonnets of Shakespeare are not all memorized in my mind, in order 1 – 154. They are not even all entirely familiar. But one of them has always nestled in my thoughts, even before it had particular, personal meaning for me. Sonnet 73. Here’s the first stanza:
That time of year thou may’st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
The poem reflects on the waning of life, the time when most leaves are gone, when only a few yellow leaves remain. The branches that once were filled with birds are now bare, like the empty section of a church where the choir once was housed. The poem is about the November of life… that time of waning. Not the end, but toward the end.
Somehow, the poem always seemed resonant for me, but as my husband was struggling with brain cancer in the last year of his life, the words seemed more and more relevant, etched into my consciousness. Don died almost a year and a half ago, but the poem follows me around, stays with me as background music, a sound track for my life.
That time of year thou may’st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
So, now in my 76th year, I think about this November of life. There is much, always, to remind us about aging. The new aches and pains, the knees that don’t quite work the way they used to, the forgetfulness, the night blindness, the diminishment of some faculties, the many losses in our world, in our circle of friends, in our closest loved ones.
But perhaps nothing marks age for me as sharply as my incompetence with electronic devices. Four-year-olds can manage what I struggle with. My grandchildren need to be called in to show me, one more time, how to play the DVD, how to work the iPad, how to text. What is intuitive for them is not for me and seems to mark a dividing line between our lives. Even more significant than our differences in musical taste, or the TV shows we watch, or the movies that we go to are these differences in how we access information, place ourselves as receivers and senders of the pertinent facts about our lives.
If I manage to master one medium, they are already on to the next. I’m on Facebook, but they have moved onto to InstaGram or Twitter. I can manage writing on the computer, but I don’t blog, use wikis, crowd source, or podcast.
What I have finally managed to use is my GPS. For several years, I avoided it. That woman with the irritating voice always wanted me to get on 495 from exit 17 on 140 instead of the King Street exit 16. So, I found myself at odds with her from the beginning. I put away the device and said I’d get along without it, Googling directions in advance and printing out a map. But, recently, I’ve come to rely on the lady in the GPS. When I’m driving alone now and floundering, it is useful to have her tell me that in .2 miles I will be turning right. Or to have her let me know that I’ve got another 45 miles to go on this road and I’m likely to arrive at my destination just in time.
But if I have any idea where I’m going, that I want to come home on 495, not on 126, that I don’t want to drive through Framingham Center on this trip, that I won’t get off the highway at Forge Park . . . I hear that voice saying over and over again recalculating, recalculating.
It has become a new mantra for me . . . recalculating. As I move on to a life alone after 48 years of marriage, to a house without children in it, to a life after retirement, I find myself recalculating, taking a new path, making new choices in the November of my life. And in this “time of year thou may’st in me behold,” while there is no GPS to tell me where to turn or how many miles more I have to go, I have found remarkable guides along the way, a reminder that when you have to throw yourself on the mercy of the universe, it will respond, it will provide.
I began to search out supports. Suddenly, friends became more central to my life . . . the women’s group at the condominiums where I live, the people I know from BOLLI. Old friends. Things that were in the background of my life moved to the foreground. My children became essential to me in a way that was new. And I added some new things as well: painting classes at the Danforth Museum and attendance at the First Universalist Society in Franklin.
I did not grow up believing in a bearded man sitting in the sky keeping watch over my every move and listening to my every cry for help. But I can’t help but believe in some sort of benevolence in the universe, some way that the world can provide what we need if only we are ready to receive. I arrived at the church sort of unexpectedly, venturing tentatively one Sunday when I read there would be some Miles Davis music played. It was right down the street, easy to get to, easy to sit down, and easy to enter on the fringe of this community. The music was great. The feel of the place was interesting. Though the rituals were new to me, the feel of a sacred communal space was palpable. I stayed.
Eventually, I took a sermon writing class and found that the task of writing in a way that bears witness to your own experience while also offering some hopeful idea for others to grab on to was intriguing and challenging. For me, in this last year, the primary subject has been loss– how to deal with it, how to survive it, how to make something useful from it. Writing sermons offered me new ways to approach the problem. I’ve searched for images or situations that could name what I was experiencing. What I found was…Recalculating.
So, on my recalculated journey, what have I found? Certainly that there is love and support in the world that you may overlook when you are tightly enmeshed in your own self-sufficient, small cocoon. Possibilities for growth and new directions are there when you need them enough to seek them out.
The final couplet of that Shakespeare sonnet is:
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Those lines haunted me as Don was dying. Mortality is certainly something we all know about. Still, we come, at certain moments in our lives, to know mortality more acutely, more directly. So it was for us when the surgeon said: “The surgery was entirely successful; he has fourteen months to live.” For fourteen months, we lived with that life-sentence hanging over our every minute. And it was true . . . those moments became more precious because we knew that they were few, that they would soon be gone.
And if there is something positive to be wrested from this ordeal, it is that sense of mortality that gives meaning and savor to life. It is because it is fleeting that life is so very precious; it is because it is finite that we have to use it well. And, in the end, it is love which is the enduring, transforming action. Love emerges as the stave against obliteration, the defense against loss.
In her online column, Heart Advice, the American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron has some advice that can be applied here. She says:
YOU HAVE A CHOICE
If you have embarked on this journey of self-reflection, you may be at a place that everyone, sooner or later, experiences on the spiritual path. After a while it seems like almost every moment of your life you’re there, where you realize you have a choice. You have a choice whether to open or close, whether to hold on or let go, whether to harden or soften, whether to hold your seat or strike out. That choice is presented to you again and again and again.
Well, if you eliminate political cartoons a la Pat Oliphant, and funny papers, and illustrations, and graphic novels, you are left with the spot cartoon–a single drawing or sequence of drawings that have no particular meaning beyond a simple comment on either something going on in the Zeitgeist or in common amusing experiences. For example, a great Peter Arno cartoon shows a lonely spot next to a street lamp. It is night, and a young couple is talking to a police officer. The guy is carrying the back seat of an auto, and he says to the cop, “We wish to report a stolen car.” No social message. No moral. Like any good cartoon, it is self-referential, and its only purpose is to garner a laugh. Like this one–
It was one of those tree huggers, wasn’t it?
How are cartoons conceived? Well, in my case I may be thinking of something or observing something, and a switch occurs to me–something that relates to the original notion but turns it around or reveals an unexpected consequence.
All the same, I’m sorry for the poor Red Sox.
Let me trace one idea I had for a cartoon. For some reason, I was watching some ants. What do ants do? They bite people. What if one bit an ant expert? How would the ant feel about that? How would he behave afterwards? And the cartoon flashes in my head. One ant is prancing about in a very conceited manner, and another ant says to his companions, “He’s been impossible ever since he bit E.O. Wilson.”
Of course, it all loses its punch when I explain how it came about, which is why I should never tell anyone where my ideas come from.
Corgi and Bess
How did I get interested in cartooning? I suppose it was because when I was very little, my father would read me the funnies after I was tucked up in bed at night. My heroes were not sports figures or soldiers: they were Moon Mullins, Mutt and Jeff, and Ignatz Mouse. So I guess that’s when I started scribbling down little sketches. At Harvard, I had a lot of cartoons and stories printed in the Harvard Lampoon, and later, when I got a Master’s Degree in Journalism at Columbia, I contributed cartoons and a cover to the Columbia Jester.
“Et tu, Spot?”“If you can’t rely on Land’s End, whom can you rely on?”
In New York, I worked for various advertising agencies as a copy writer, finding time to submit cartoons to national magazines. I even placed a couple of drawings in Collier’s and Argosy; alas, they both went out of business, killed by television.
Of course, every cartoonist’s dream is to place a drawing in The New Yorker, and though I sent in hundreds of “roughs,” none were ever accepted. Frankly, I think the cartoons they do print just plain stink, but that may be sour grapes.
While working in New York, I met Na’ama, married her, and became the father of Gideon, Seth, and Aliza. Then our family returned to Boston where I took over the family business – we were wholesalers of glass and plastic bottles. After I retired, we divided our time between the USA and a home in Italy. Returning to America, we felt a need for intellectual stimulation, so when we heard about BOLLI, we enrolled and have been taking classes ever since. And every once in a while, an idea strikes me, and I draw it up.
Editor’s Note:Sam also provides cartoons for BOLLI’s newsletter, The Banner. This month’s volume, now available online and in hard copy, features yet another gem. Be sure to check it out!
Fred Kobrick refers to himself as “a highly experienced amateur hobbyist” who loves the challenges that taking pictures provides. “Here is a recent photo of me,” he says, “out in Wyoming, one of my two favorite places in nature to photograph, the other being Africa.”
Fred describes his passion for nature photography in this way: I love being close to nature. Attempting to get superior results pulls me into the scenes, takes my mind to wonderful, calming places, and even takes over my mind at times. I love the open-ended challenges and creative endeavors. Sitting and flying birds, for example, are geometrically more difficult than fast-action sports shots, and I love improving at that.
He talks, too, about some of his most memorable moments “in the wild.”
The moment on the Snake River, after endless practice and attempts, when I got the perfect “fish catch” photo of an osprey taking a big fish from the river–capturing both eyes of the bird and the eye of the fish…
Two lion cubs playing over their dinner remains, after eating their fill…
A perfect sunset in the Okavango Delta taken from the Fish Eagle, the world’s best outdoor bar…
Walking the streets of Hanoi and seeing a young boy’s changing facial expressions as he read a Vietnamese Conan Comic Book, photographing it as he turned the pages…
Another Snake River moment–this time, getting the almost impossible picture of a red winged blackbird with his wings fully stretched out, including his full and perfect reflection in the water…
And the perfect candid of a mother and baby moose looking at each other in the water, as I hid, unseen, in the bushes.
Among other favorite shots are…
Cheetah, hunting
Why is Fred taking our picture, Mommy?
Giraffes on Watch
One Thirsty Lion
It’s a treat to have a wallow…
Pied kingfisher, Kenya
Recently, at the urging of his kids, Fred entered several of his nature photos in Smithsonian Magazine’s annual nature photography contest. As a result, he now has a Smithsonian gallery online. To see this stunning work, go to:
Fred says that he came to BOLLI after he heard great things about the program from friends several years ago.
I tried a short one-week program, loved it, took a course or two, and was told by some people that they thought I would enjoy teaching BOLLI students and do that well (I had been a popular teacher in two graduate programs at Boston University). I’m looking forward to more interesting and new subjects to explore as both a student and a teacher and am thinking about possibly creating a sequel to my China course, which many students have requested. My friends were right. I’ve loved BOLLI.
Eight years ago, I retired from 33 years of teaching art in the Boston Public Schools, and, soon after, my sister took a class in monotype printmaking. When I saw the variety of techniques used in the process, I was greatly intrigued and took a class myself. I’ve been printing ever since!
Monotype printmaking involves planning, spontaneity, and unexpected outcomes. Although the basic technique consists of painting on a plate and then running it, with paper on it, through a press, the print does not end up being an exact copy of the plate because of what happens as it’s put through the press. Monotype has been called “the most painterly method among the printmaking techniques” and is often called “the painterly print” or the “printer’s painting.”
I particularly enjoy monotype because the process offers infinite potential for variation– including working on prints after they’ve been through the press. I use watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, acrylic paints, and collaging. I’ve also worked with styrofoam and linotype and created several collages out of cut up, rearranged, and recombined monoprints.
Frog and Harvest Monotypes with Watercolors AddedDeer MonotypeAfter the Aborigine 2.1Collage Made from PrintsPennsylvania Tree LinotypeHenna Plant Styrofoam PrintTrees & Bird Monotype with Collage
Although I’ve been aware of BOLLI for about 10 years and encouraged my husband David to join, I didn’t join myself until one and a half years ago. I’m so glad I finally did. I have really enjoyed the classes and meeting so many vibrant people through it. I like taking a variety of courses and being exposed to so many new ideas. In addition to BOLLI, I really enjoy time at our condo in Williamstown. There’s so much to do out there– theater, museums, and the beautiful outdoors!
A blog devoted to the interests of BOLLI members and potential members
