Tag Archives: women artists

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Daily Evil: P is for Persnickety

Again, this might be evil in some situations and not in others.

I interviewed at the National Institutes of Health in the mid 1980s, with Dr. Steve Rosenburg. He asked how good I was with details. I said it depended. He asked what I meant. I said that I was excellent and persnickety when it came to science experiments, but at my present job I had trouble caring about the exact margin widths that the director of the non-profit I was working for wanted. He said that might be important. I said that I agreed, but I would be better off in a lab. He hired me.

I was excellent and persnickety in the lab and went from there to medical school 3 years later.

Etchings are profoundly persnickety. You can’t even do the drawing until you have tarred the zinc plate and then you etch the drawing in acid, take the tar off, ink the plate, run it through the press with paper and put more tar on the plate after you wipe the ink off. And once you get what you want, you have to re-ink the plate for every picture. This etching has two colors, which makes wiping enough ink off to get the lines right very tricky.

This is “Those are the pearls”, 4 out of 25, 1981, Helen Burling Ottaway. The plate size is 8.5 by 11 inches.

I am having to be persnickety about photographing my mother’s works. I am getting better at it, but it’s tricky to get the light right, without shadows. The cats always want to help. Today they are out in the box watching the birds, since they kept walking over the etching. I am jealous of the professionals downtown who have a camera on a frame and can be very very persnickety about the photograph. I may try my tripod, as a weak second. I have my mother’s slides too, so I could try digging those out. She did her own mostly, so I am not sure about them.

Hooray for the letter P!

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Daily Evil: N is for Nowledge

WHY do we spell knowledge with a K? And why does know rhyme with no? If that isn’t evil, I don’t know what is. Ok, here is a site that explains: https://www.dailywritingtips.com/kn-words-in-english/.

Let’s talk about knowledge and technique in art. Above are two watercolors by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway. Neither has a date. The lower one is certainly unfinished and I am not sure about the upper one. I can tell by the technique that the lower one is a much earlier painting. Some of the watercolor nudes do have a year: 1998. That was two years before she died of cancer. I think the lower one is from the 1970s, but the use of wet and dry paper for painting is already apparent, as well as color and line.

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Daily Evil: K is for Katherine

K for Katherine. The picture is one of my grandmothers, Katherine White Burling. My mother drew this from a photograph with conte crayon. I am named after this grandmother. This is a big drawing, more than life size, 18 by 24. I photographed it through glass, avoiding most reflections. My grandmother is wearing a cameo. We have a photograph of her grandmother wearing it as well. I do not know exactly when Helen Burling Ottaway drew this, early to mid 1990s, I think. The story is fiction but my grandmother could be quite wicked, so she inspired this. After all, Katherine means “purity”.

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Don’t get the Willies

“Caitlyn.” says grandmother. “You are 13 now.”

Caitlyn sighs internally. Another lecture about becoming an adult? This is the unpredictable grandmother, sharp as a knife. She will never behave like the book grandmothers. Though some of her friends say that their grandmothers don’t behave either.

“Where is your phone?” says grandmother.

“I left it in my coat.” says Caitlyn.

“I think you should take off your shades, too,” says grandmother gently. “Tea?”

Caitlyn reluctantly removes her internet connected sunglasses. Pale pink, but this grandmother isn’t fooled. Was it her eye motions that gave her away?

“Yes, please,” says Caitlyn politely. Her grandmother has an elegant tea service out and heats water by boiling it. Completely archaic. Maybe this is about net overuse.

“Are you observing males or females or both?” says grandmother.

Rats, thinks Caitlyn. Sex after all. She prims her mouth.

“I want to talk to you about the willies.” says grandmother.

“Being scared?” says Caitlyn. Good, not about sex.

“There is another meaning.” says grandmother pleasantly. “You will encounter certain men when you are old enough to date. I encourage you to study the boys for now, but you are more mature than they are. That is less true with the girls.”

“Hmmm,” says Caitlyn. She is studying her teacup, eyes down.

“Certain men will try very hard to control you. They will make promises that are silly and statements that are lies.”

“Ok,” says Caitlyn. Next comes the embarrassing part.

“You will recognize them in part because there are places they will not go and people they will not speak to. They are very very rigid.”

“Uh-huh.”

“As they get older, their territory will shrink further and further. They become more and more isolated. You do not want involvement with one of these, for two reasons. One is that they will try to isolate you.”

Caitlyn smirks. As if.

“The other: well, you know the story of Pinocchio?”

Caitlyn blinks. “Uh, yes.”

“In the story it is the doll’s nose that grows. In people the nose can grow, but it is really other parts that shrink.” says grandmother. “So it is important not to get the willies.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Caitlyn. And they both sip their tea.

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Daily Evil: J for Jarring

The news is pretty jarring most days. I hope that we remove viagra and the drugs of that ilk from FDA approval if the mifaprostone removal ruling holds. No viagra and the pregnancy rate would go down, wouldn’t it?

The watercolor is not jarring. The chrysanthemums are in a jar or a vase or a bottle. What amazes me about this glorious watercolor is the transparency of the jar along with the flowers alternating between soft and sharp. This is from 1992 and is just under 10 by 13 inches. My daughter picked this out from her grandmother’s artworks to keep.

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Daily Evil: I is for irritated

I am feeling a bit like this elf: irritated about the rain.

Ok, yeah, I did move to the Pacific Northwest 23 years ago, and I could have moved away. I love the beaches and the mountains here. But when we are having sun once every 10 days or two weeks in the season they call “spring” here, I do get a little irritated at the rain. Yesterday and today the wind is howling too. Whitecaps and I am very happy not to be out in a boat.

This etching is 2.5 by 3 inches, titled Rain Forest, number 5 out of 25, 1985.

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Daily Evil: H is for Hill

I can’t think of anything evil this morning.

This etching is titled Golden Hills, 2nd Edition, 14/20, 1980. The plate is 4 by 5.5 inches, so this is a lot of very delicate work. My mother used dental pics to draw in the tar on the plate. The darker lines are etched deeper in the acid bath. The shadowed hill is tricky, isn’t it? I think that the texture is a fine piece of fabric pressed into the tar and then lifted, to make the pattern so even.

I think these hills are in upstate New York. My maternal grandparents lived in Trumansburg, New York. By 1980 my parents were living in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Daily Evil: E for Ephalump

Oooooo surely it’s evil to make up new words. Or to verb words.

I think that my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, was thinking about Winnie-ther-Pooh’s Heffalumps when she made this. This etching is another small one, 3 by 2.5 inches. She did many tiny fantasy etchings. This is a proof, for me. An artist’s proof is an experimental run, before the final edition. She might change the ink color, or put the tar mixture back on the plate and change it.

I have had this album since I was very little. Winnie-ther-Pooh with a Brooklyn accent, but really really wonderful!

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Theme for April: Daily Evil

I have been thinking in a desultory manner or perhaps not really thinking about the A to Z April Challenge. I want to have a whole month of my mother’s fabulous art, but what is my theme? Mothers? No. Women artists? No. Discrimination against women artists? Sigh, no. Oh! I read an article yesterday about how the negative and nasty headlines get the major clicks. Today I read another very nice kind blog post about putting something nice into the world. So that gives me my theme! My mother’s art and daily evil impulses.

Impulses, not actions. Don’t we all feel those nasty impulses? Now I am interested in my own theme: how does that tie into my mother’s art? You don’t know? I don’t know either, but I know that many of us have complex feelings about our mothers. You might too. What does her art reveal or what does it trigger in me? And you get to enjoy her art, while you react with prim or gleeful horror at the Daily Evil Art Impulse.

Happy April!

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The first photograph is of one of Helen Burling Ottaway’s watercolors. It is signed, matted and shrink wrapped. Date: 1996. She died of cancer in 2000. I do not know the title, but this is Lake Matinenda, in Ontario, Canada. My maternal family has land there and I have gone there since age 5 months.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: placid. Heh.

Ooooo and later:

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National Museum of Women in the Arts

I took these photographs at Christmas 2017. My daughter and I visited my son and my daughter-in-law in Maryland. We went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It is fabulous. They have been closed for renovations, but I hope they’ll be open next time I visit my son and daughter-in-law.

The Smithsonian is also working on a museum about women and about time, too.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: museum.