SMALL SURROUNDINGS

I have sold my drawings over the years but I have never wanted to make my living trying to please people with my work. Instead I have earned my way by doing framing. It has given me a chance to see on a very intimate basis many amazing works of art brought in by collectors and artists. I consider it a serious business, showing respect for the work in terms of the presentation which you see and in terms of preservation which you don't see - the work behind the mat and inside the frame.

In my own project I have chosen to go in the opposite aesthetic direction. I have been hunting for handmade frames that are a statement in themselves. My most satisfying finds have been longer in the area of being eccentric than classically constructed. Even the art is going backwards. I have been drawing to suit the frames.




The vine frame was a present from Wanda Miller. It was just a flat construction with no possible way to install anything in it. She said "I knew you would figure out what to do with it." 20 years later it occurred to me to have a normal frame constructed and attach the vine frame to it. The beetle, Scarabaeidea Propomacrus jansoni, from the "Insect Range" at the University of Michigan, with its twig- like appendages, suited the frame perfectly.

I have been very lucky in my relationship with the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum and with their entomology department which is housed in the same building. Mark O'Brien, who maintains their great collection, has allowed me space to draw in and has been more than generous in his help. Days spent in that building in Ann Arbor have been among the most fruitful and happiest that I have known in my professional life.




The folded leather frame was found on E-Bay. The seller dated it from the late 1800's. It was set up to hold a picture by sliding it in between the leather and a small flap of cloth. This was another case of impossible installation so I had a black frame built to act as a base. The beetle, Scarabaeidae Dynastes titus, has a background that emulates old wallpaper, true to finding a bug crawling up your wall.




The tramp art frame is German and was made by either a less talented tramp or one that had inadequate materials. It is the classic chip carved style but it is put together in bits and pieces, not long strips. The beetle it holds is a Cerambycidae Batocera.



I went over my budget to get this shaped wooden frame covered with tooled copper. It was irresistible. No one would ever confuse it with something mass produced. I bid. I won. I waited. Then I forgot it was even out there until it arrived in the mail and I found out that it was sent from Peru. It was a challenge to find something suitable for the shape and the feel of the frame. The winning insect is the beetle Cerambycidae Petrognatha gigas with its strange wavy legs and antennae. The flower it is sitting on is a delicate poppy that came in a bouquet from Mary Alice Benkert.

The butterfly enclosed in this little frame is a Nymphalidae Hamadrys feronia. It was part of a series of drawings of butterflies that are camouflaged but not in the way that they were designed to blend into their natural surroundings. Each background is specific to the insect and each one is quite different. This one is the pattern on a piece of textile that echos the weight and design of the wings. The frame is an Ebay purchase, handmade and irregular with a leaf in each corner. It is a common ornament but more charming than usual do to the hand of the person who made it.

I have a little supply of frames that are awaiting the perfect subject. One is another tramp art frame that was made out of a tin can! I have very high standards for my frames.

THE GEOLOGY DRAWER

"Rocks are records of events that took place when they were formed. They are books. They have a different vocabulary, a different alphabet, but you learn to read them."

John McPhee


Every fall my husband would take our three children to the gem and mineralogical fair then held at the Light Guard Armory. I would stay home, placing value on a couple of hours of quiet when I could get something accomplished. They would return with small brown bags filled with piles of precious polished stones and boxed samples of identified minerals. Everything would be revealed with awe at the kitchen table. One year I went too and became addicted immediately. Since then I have rarely missed the event.

Two of my husband's great prizes are his pieces of crazy lace agate, Cryptocrystalline quartz,
from Mexico. In ancient times they were worn to placate the gods and sharpen sight. We find them amazing for their brilliant colors and intricate patterns.

In the drawing they are coupled with birds, an indigo bunting on the left and a bobolink on the right. Behind are pieces of coral.

That completes the review of the drawings that face the first cabinet.

Recently my second cabinet was completed by Oscar Hoff, a fine carpenter and photographer.
I was lucky to have him work with my project as he could take my basic design, refine it and construct it so that it worked. It is one of the only occasions in my life when someone else completed something for me and I did not have to acclimate to it for a couple of weeks before liking it. I was happy immediately.
The theme of this cabinet is the SKY and its interior will act as a bookshelf. I will be introducing this work to the blog soon but first I am going to take a break and cover a couple of small framed works that have been completed for the room.

THE SHELL DRAWER

"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on the beaches of the world...perhaps you have seen it."
Stephen Wright



I live in Michigan where we are famous for our mitten of land surrounded by the beautiful Great Lakes which can be seen from outer space. The state is filled with hundreds of bodies of water from tiny ponds to sizable inland lakes. Fresh water is a fabulous resource but it is not home to the creatures and plants that I gathered together for this drawing. For me they are wonderfully exotic and mysterious.

The preserved fish in the center of the drawing is a puffer fish from the family Tetradontidae. When alive it was one of the second most poisonous animals in the world. Despite that, when prepared properly, the meat of the fish is considered a great delicacy in Japan and Korea.

The fan coral belongs to the order Gorgonacea. It is a colony of many individual polyps that began with a single founder. They anchor themselves with a long root in sand or mud, at right angles to strong currents that bring them the plankton they consume during the night.
Both the coral and the puffer fish are from the collections at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum.

The sea urchin, in the class Echinoidea, sits in front of the puffer fish. Its name comes from an old name for the spiny hedgehog. It is a spherical invertebrate with 5 part symmetry, covered with spines that act as protection and help with locomotion. The skin is a hard shell called a "test". The mouth, known as Aristotle's lantern, is on the underside and has 5 teeth.
Its main diet is algae and it is eaten by sea otters and wolf eels, among others, and the ovaries are considered a delicacy by humans.

The coral and the sea urchin might be confused with plants but they are animals. The only plant in the drawing is a piece of kelp I found on the beach in Massachusetts.

The many armed sunflower starfish, Pycnopodia helianthoides, on the far left, is a fast moving predator. The juveniles begin with 5 arms and keep adding more as they grow until as an adult they might have as many as 24 arms. The specimen I own was given to me as a present by Bill Close, another person in love with the world and its contents.

The objects that are less natural but still belong with the sea are 3 spoons and a cameo.


The largest spoon and the cameo came from my favorite antique store, Balcony Row in Holly, Michigan. Jim Hilty and Evelyn Raskin have created a combination store / museum that certainly speaks to cabinets of curiosities. Their interest in their inventory has the quality of genuine intellectual excitement. They have rescued so many architectural artifacts that even the structure of their building abounds in stories. Knowing people with such energy and integrity has been a pleasure.

The spoon has no markings but it feels to me like Florida with its carved wooden alligator handle and the bowl made from a shell carved simply and elegantly into the head of a native American. It might well have been made as a tourist item but it has for me enormous charm that lifts it above the trinket level.


The little shell spoon was made of 2 shells in 1907. I "repaired" it for the drawing. In real life there is a bit missing from the bowl of the spoon. Regardless of its condition it delights me to think of someone creating this souvenir. The tiny spoon is part of a pair of salt servers that were given to me by Henrietta Slote. Now that so many kinds of salt are available that you would not want to put into shakers, these little spoons are once again truly useful. My favorite is a salt made from pink Himalayan fossils. What could be more appropriate to serve with dinner in a room of curiosities?

THE EGG DRAWER

"If it thunder while she is broody the eggs will be addle, yea and if the hen chance to heare an hawk cry they will be marred. The remedie against thunder is to put an iron nail under the straw of the hen's nest, or els some earth newly turned up with the plow."
C. Plinius Secundus


It is startling to find that you have missed an obvious connection between things you have created. It had to be pointed out to me that an egg drawer next to a bone drawer was a clear alpha and omega - a beginning and an end. Eventually it would have occurred to me but what I was concentrating on was the beauty of shapes. I remember being taught in 7th grade, in a home economics cooking class, that the egg was a perfect food in a perfect container - spare and elegant. Much later when I did a series of drawings concerning food I chose the egg as the most appropriate lunch for a poet for just those reasons.


The background for the eggs is my version of the Milky Way in Sagittarius as seen in a photo taken by the Anglo Australian telescope. It was chosen both for its mystery and for the speckled quality that is so often found on eggshells.

The 2 paper boxes of eggs are in the ornithology collection of the University of Michigan. The larger green and blue eggs are those of the American crow, Corvus brachrhynchos. The smaller box contains those of the wood thrush, Turdus mustelinus.
The very large egg is that of an emu, Dromaius movaehollandiae. For a very brief period a man set up a booth at the Royal Oak Farmers Market where he sold all manner of Emu products - pain relievers, oils, lotions, soaps and some eggs. It was an unusual opportunity.
To the right of the emu egg is that of a domestic turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, and 2 killdeer, Charadrius vociferus, eggs that were given to me by a friend who determined, after watching them for a long while, that they had been abandoned by the mother.
To the left of the boxes are 3 impostors: a glass egg, an agate egg sitting on a granite tile sample that echos the egg shapes and the speckles, and a jasper egg. The little group of leaves is made of clay and serves only as a reminder of the trees.
The 2 actual eggs on the left side of the drawing are quail eggs purchased from a local Japanese grocery store. When I investigated the sale of quail eggs on line, the kind of quail that seems to be used for this purpose is the bobwhite quail, Colinus virginianus.
The 3 little turquoise colored eggs were laid by my Uncle John's finch. The poor bird was trying very hard but since it lived alone there was no hope of raising a little family.

THE BONE DRAWER

BONES
Bones do seem to last forever
But they remind you of mortality;
They are severed from reality
As they dally with our fears;
They are solid ghosts, the hosts
Of our pallid faults and frailty.
But we also need our bones
To support our ambition,
Free us from imperfect vision.

Arnold Klein



I have a friend who wears bones as jewelry and others who are nervous about even the thought of what lies beneath the skin. For me the shapes of bones are visually elegant and mechanically fascinating. One of my favorite artists, Eugene von Bruenchenhein, built tiny thrones and small towers out of chicken bones. The finished sculptures were painted with a very delicate and beautiful sense of color or they might be simply painted gold. He was capable of rethinking the use of bones so that each piece is unique. I have drawn 2 of these chairs at the Milwaukee Museum which will be part of the Bird Cabinet I am working on.

Set in the center of the drawing for the bone drawer are 2 pieces of sculpture by Peter Hackett, a gentle soul who recycles parts of animals he finds, who have died by violence or natural process. His work avoids disrespect even when it is humorous.

The cat's skull has a covering of avocado skin held in place by a carefully worked piece of wire.


The mythical beast is actually the skull of a woodchuck with mandibles attached as horns.


The drawing contains bones on loan to me from Missouri State University, Springfield. Some have I.D. tags attached. There are bird, mouse, shrew, muskrat, and rabbit skulls that look as you might expect. But then there is the armadillo skull, surprising for its lumpiness and almost duck-like shape. The spinal column might well be that of a sheep. It was found beside the road in New Mexico when I was traveling to Tucson with our son Barrett and the car broke down. When you are traveling with a naturalist you are never bored when you are outdoors. There are a number of chicken wing bones, vertebrae, an opossum femur and various ribs all lying on a marvelous patchwork piece of metallic embroidered Indian fabrics with mirror inclusions which we bought in Mumbai.

2 RECTANGULAR PIGEON HOLES

The beautiful metallic wood boring beetles of the family Buprestidae are among my favorite insects. Their iridescent colors come not from pigments but from minute grooves in the surface of the cuticle which, like a diffraction grating or pool of oil on the surface of water, breaks up the light into its component parts. As a result, they don't fade with time. Jan Fabre created an amazing metallic green ceiling in the Royal Palace in Brussels composed of a million elytra from these beetles. It is titled Heaven of Delight and even viewing it in photographs is thrilling.

The species in the drawing belong to the genus Chrysochroa. They are from Thailand and should feel at home as they are sitting on a piece of Thai marbled paper.

The shell in the center of the second drawing has been made into a charming container with hinges and a clasp. The background is a piece of Italian paper used in bookbinding, from the estate of Francis Robinson, an all-encompassing curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a man of many interests and talents and a prodigious collector of books and everything else. The objects that have spilled around the shell are hyacinth beans, castor beans, yellow Steuben beans, pinto beans, calypso beans and antique clay marbles.

5 SQUARES

One of my drawing students, many years ago, announced to the class that she knew about background colors. She had learned that there were 3 possible choices. I was stunned and expressed my belief that there are no rules in art.

We are all victims of misinformation. I was told in my formative years that the square was a bad format, static and boring. Since I thought that Josef Albers proved the rule I never investigated it. When I did little square drawings for the pigeonholes in my cabinet I was very surprised to find I enjoyed working inside the shape. The drawings were fun to construct and I liked the outcome very much. I found it so appealing I did several single drawings and a series of 24 for the Insect Cabinet, all in the square format.

I suppose if I had really kept my eyes open it would not have taken me so long to figure out that I had been mistaken. Recently, when I talked about my revelation to another artist I admire, Karin Klue, she immediately made reference to the landscapes of Gustav Klimt. Almost all of those perfect and astonishingly interesting paintings are square.


A Chinese bowl, filled with anemone spikes and carnelians found on the ground in Egypt by Elsie and Bill Peck, who dig there annually with the Brooklyn Museum excavation team at the Temple of the Goddess Mut.


The small, mirrored bag was a present I received many years ago and I have no idea who produced it. I have believed that it is from Central America but could be convinced otherwise. For the drawing I filled the bag with Native American pipestone beads.



A stack composed of a Native American arrowhead and 2 ax heads is supported by a rusted, cast iron tripod I found lying in a vacant lot. For contrast these rugged items are sitting on top of a piece of silk by Schiaparelli.


At some point I hope to identify the shells in this drawing. Right now it remains an area where I am woefully unskilled. The fabric underneath is a piece of silk brought home as a present for me by our son Arno after his university studies in Japan.