I am fortunate to be at the Vermont Studio Center for a two-week artist residency, of which one week has already flown by. VSC is located in the town of Johnson, Vermont. Artists from across the United States and abroad convene here for the time and space to make their work, as well as the comraderie of others. When we are not in our studios, we gather for meals at long wooden tables in the dining hall. Over an occasional glass of red wine, I have shared conversations with a video artist from Los Angeles, the Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Nigeria, and a printmaker from outside Boston, among many. My studio is in the Barbara White Building which houses printmakers, painters and photographers.
I have spent the first week of my residency continuing my work on The Eva Project, a series of drawings/prints that celebrate the women in my family beginning with my great grandmother Eva (on left) who traveled to America from Poland in the 19th century. The drawing of my grandmother Sophie is featured on the right. The pastel drawings are a likeness of these women, but are rendered as if they are living statues, modeled from stone or marble, living on forever in my memory. The butterflies, which I researched, represent common species found throughout Poland, and remind me of the journeys each woman has made and of the fleeting quality of life itself.
