By Martina Sestakova

On April 14, we shared a blog that highlighted a fun creative project when our members painted a photograph provided by Dora Patin. Today, we are sharing artworks inspired by Pritha Srinivasan's photo. Keep on following along as we have other fun project in the future! 

Our Inspiration: Photograph Provided by Pritha Srinivasan

Our Interpretations: Artworks Created by MAA Members

Alan Rich, Acrylic on Canvas (Palette Knife Only), 11" x 14"

Dora Patin, Oil on Canvas, 8" x 10"

Ellen Yehuda, Pastel on Paper, 6" x 9" 

Jenny Wilson, Oil Crayon, Charcoal Pencil, Acrylic Paint on Board, 8" x 10"

Maria-Elena Lazarte, Oil on Canvas, 8" x 10" 

Pritha Srinivasan, Watercolor, 4" x 6"

Nina Srinivasan, Watercolor, 4" x 6"

Tena Turner, Colored Pencils, 9" x 8"

By Martina Sestakova

On April 15, Montgomery Art Association held an artwork critique with artist Susan Abbott over Zoom. Many of our members participated and engaged in a lively conversation over ideas and techniques. We are pleased to share an email communication from MAA member Lily Kak to Susan Abbott. Thank you, Lily, for sharing your insights. We are planning on scheduling other critiques in the future. Stay tuned and stay safe.

Hi Susan,

I took a look at the video of the critique - thanks for sharing your thoughts on my painting, which I call "One World: Overcoming Alone, Together." In this 15" x 22" painting, I wanted to contrast angry and sad moods going from the top left diagonally down to the bottom right (red and blue) with hope and triumph on the top right (yellow, orange, rainbow). The purpose was to show angry red virus, which gradually turns lighter around the triumphant child in a rainbow dress who unshackles herself from her rainbow mask unlike the rest of the world where everyone is masked. Every one below her is sad: the masked people, the news reader, the health workers, the man in front of the stock market. The hand washing on the top left washes into the blue below it. I had so much to say in this painting that, as you noted, it is busy with a lot going on! In fact, I had even more to say and had to restrain myself from adding even more thoughts in this painting. I plan to focus only on pandemic paintings this year and hope to make them all uplifting (which will be a challenge).

I thought your comments were very helpful. Thanks for your expert critique.

Lily Kak 

Lily Kak, "One World: Overcoming Alone, Together"

Disclaimer: Copy of email and artwork published with written permission by Lily Kak.

By Martina Sestakova

There is no shortage of creative ideas among our members. Dora Patin suggested to use a photograph as a source of inspiration and encouraged us to create artworks in our preferred mediums. A quick post on our MAA Member Facebook page turned into a fun project for many. One idea, different interpretations. This activity celebrated the diversity of our members' work. Want to participate? Check out the MAA Member Facebook page for ongoing conversations and activities about anything and everything art. Scroll below to see submitted artworks and the variety of mediums used. 

Our Inspiration: Photograph Provided by Dora Patin

Our Interpretations: Artworks Created by MAA Members

Carol Starr, Watercolor on Yupo

Alan Rich, Acrylics

Anastasia Walsh, Mosaic

Dora Patin, Oil on Canvas

Tena Turner, Colored Pencils

Ellen Yahuda, Pastel on Paper

Anastasia Walsh, Alcohol Inks

Roxana Rojas Luzon, Collage

Marti Wells, Watercolor

Glenview Mansion is currently closed, and all artwork is still on the walls and secure. As a today, our “Colorful Explorations” show is scheduled to run until May 8, with artwork pickup scheduled for May 11. Please delete the March 30 pickup date from your calendars. If you need to pick up your artwork sooner, please email Elissa Poma to make arrangements.

Oasis Gallery Show is closed until further notice. Participants' artwork is still on the walls and secure. As of today, pick up is still scheduled for April 13-14. Contact: Helen Wood

Danielle Glosser’s workshop, “The SMART Artist: A Strategic Planning Workshop” on April 4 has been cancelled. Registrants will receive a refund, and we will work to reschedule the workshop for a date later in the year. Contact: Anastasia Walsh

The April 8 members' meeting is cancelled. Contact: Alan Rich

The Kensington Day of the Book Festival on April 26 has been cancelled, so there is no need for an MAA booth.

Our scheduled show at Art Enables in DC starting in May is likely to be postponed until late summer. We're discussing rescheduling for July or August.

As of today, there are no updates about our May show at Kensington Library.

Kat Peterson 

Lives in:  Bethesda, MD

Website:  katpeterson.crevado.com

Facebook:  Kat Peterson

Instagram:  kat.petersonstudio  

Media and Subjects: I love any form of illustration because it inherently tells a story of a person, place or time. Even with just one image, it can visually communicate a message. I work in any media that supports the enhancement of this visual communication. Recently, I have been working mostly in watercolor.

Why you joined MAA:  I joined MAA to be able to network with other artists and to learn to market myself better.

Something fun about you:  It was so much fun for me to be able to own my own women’s clothing store. I could do all of the artistic things I enjoy like fashion buying and illustration for the store. It was so enjoyable to be my own boss and I learned I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I’m certain this will come in handy as I further develop my art business. 

Artist Biography:  I think I have done every media possible throughout my life. I was fortunate to be able to take private classes in watercolor as a young girl. While still in high school I was recommended to learn printmaking/lithography skills at The National Portrait Gallery. During this time, I also was able to take ceramic classes at The Corcoran School of Art. I went on to learn skills and techniques in many media at Montgomery College including photography, drawing and painting. I also furthered my study of the figure, composition, color, printmaking and sculpture while there. I was accepted into Maryland Institute College of Art where I received a BFA, majoring in Illustration. While at MICA, I found a love of portraiture, advertising, fashion and book illustration. I also found that I am very enthusiastic about learning to understand other cultures through the art they produce. I went on to receive a Master’s in Counselor Education from McDaniel College, where I studied diversity issues and the many ways teaching methods can be facilitated and advanced through the arts. I have taught at a variety of schools and exhibited locally. Later, classes at the Delaplaine Arts Center I found to be very inspiring. Last January, I was honored to be asked to exhibit at the Town Hall in Mount Airy, MD. 

By Judith Levine

It took several months for us to be in the same place with enough time to do an interview, but it was worth the wait. Jonathan Jaeger’s sunny disposition and huge warm smile just pull you right into his world.  

The artist was born in 1970 in Oklahoma City, adopted in 1973 where he would end up with two brothers and a sister and many relatives who form his close-knit family. The family moved to Washington, Pennsylvania to be closer to part of that extended family in 1975.  He spent his time growing up in Pennsylvania. 

“My earliest memory is from 2^nd grade when I realized I wasn’t an ace artist straight away!” he said. Though he had not had formal classes, he began to do a lot of sketches.  He only took one art class in high school but was disappointed when it turned out to be very formulaic and lacking in passion for art. He began university at Dayton University in Ohio as a communications major. Jaeger returned to Pennsylvania, switched to Mercyhurst College and earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology in 1998. Other than the one Art History class at Dayton, art faded from his life

The next five years saw Jaeger working for the state government as a social worker. “I continued to pursue a career in social work and believed it was my calling [but it was] not my passion,” he said.

That first year saw him at a halfway house, focused on helping troubled youths. “I realized I wasn’t cut out for the turmoil.” He switched to a program that focused on troubled families, a job that lasted for four years; then a friend mentioned he was moving to Washington, D.C. and Jaeger decided to go with him and spend more time with family in this area.  He got a place in Germantown and, “I thought I had landed in heaven!!”  

The places he had grown up and worked in were fairly homogeneous and for the first time he was living in an area well known for its diversity. The artist is multi-ethnic and says “I had some racial issues growing up, sometimes I still do, I am always walking the line between one race or the other and that causes me to feel like I have no identity.”  (He is part White, part African American and part Polynesian)  He met his wife online, and they married in 2006. They are currently raising their son and daughter in Silver Spring.

Initially the artist continued to do social work but he began to realize he needed to decompress. He left social work behind and went to work at Washington Adventist Hospital as a transporter and art came roaring back into his life. “Art was sort of looming...I was into tech...” so he began using a digital app to make paintings and drawings that he shared on social media such as FB.      “One day I said to myself ‘If I can paint on digital, I should try doing it using actual paint’. So I went to my basement and did. [I realized] it was a passion thing and I couldn’t stop.” Soon he became a member of the Olney Art Association, he then met Sandra Perez Ramos leading him to both Montgomery Art Association and the Washington Projects for the Arts Gallery where he currently exhibits regularly.

When asked about artists that he gravitates to, he immediately mentioned Jean-Michel Basquiat. Anyone familiar with Basquiat can see why. Both paint in a somewhat similar style, use of colour with those fierce yellows, oranges and greens. Both show profound passion in their paintings. The biggest difference is that Basquiat paintings show the inner torment that led to his early death while Jaeger’s deal with things around him, things that see him using the full range of emotion. He closely identifies with Van Gogh for similar reasons, the colour, the movement within the compositions and the intensity.  The third painter he feels a kinship with is Picasso. And like Picasso, he has no plans to end early. It is not to say that he doesn’t feel things to the depth of him-he does.  It is that he has refused to allow it to destroy him.  He sees a passionate need to speak through his work as the way to feel complete.  All those years he pushed his passion for art down are behind him. He now can no longer imagine a life without being an artist. 

Jaeger’s advice to a new artist is “Feel what you are painting. Don’t be judged by society. Follow your ethics.”  Johnathan Jaeger is a deeply religious man. He continued, “This conflicts me sometime when the passion I reflect, how I think how G-D would judge me as opposed to how my church would see it. In the end, freedom is very important to me when I choose what to paint.” We finally agreed that we see our talent is something we personally see as a G-D given gift to be used as honestly as we can.  To that end, the artist hopes to do a lot more travelling across the United States and eventually to Europe where, hopefully he will be seeing his work exhibited. And yet it is here he expects to keep returning, where his family, his friends, and his heart remains. 

Note:  To view title of work just hover your cursor over the lower right bottom piece.         

By Susan Brown

Come and take a look at our colorful work at Glenview Mansion from March 1 through March 27th. A number of the paintings in this exhibition express color found on vacations, other places, or other ways of seeing. In other words, they display scenes of travel and varied reactions to that travel. 

The color of light in a different country impressed John MacArthur and Helen Wood. For John, the light in France shown there on the lavender fields is very different from light on this continent even in lavender fields. He thinks it is because of a violet tone in the light there. Helen visited Kruger National Park in South Africa at the end of winter, just before spring. She was struck by the stark contrast of the winter trees against the clear sky particularly in the “golden hour”, that time just before sunset, the sky just lightly pink. It seemed to her as though the African trees were glowing. In contrast, Laura Aikman thought less about the actual color of the scene she found in Spain. She looks for places that stand out and Ronda, Spain, was both awe inspiring and terrifying due to the fact that it is perched on the side of sheer cliffs. Recently, she has been experimenting with exaggerating color and this scene lent itself to that process, a process she enjoyed very much.

Robert Shiao, Susan Fitch Brown and Gale Marcus painted scenes fromthe United States. Robert put together an image of Red Rock near Sedona, loving the beautiful red of that area and paired it with some cacti found in Tucson, Arizona. He liked the interplay of green and red, the bright colors. Susan painted from her nephew's photo taken on a hike in Idaho. She chose the photo because of its vivid and varied colors. The picture's beautifully vivid sunset set against the rugged mountains was an enjoyable challenge to paint. Gale had been looking for old cars to paint and found hers in Key West, a blue truck against the orange of an old Spanish style church. The color contrast was also important to her.

Pauline Rakis traveled - in her "A Walk in the Woods" - in a different way. She began with some green which reminded her of the leaves of a tree, then added purple which reminded her of orchids. So she decided she was painting a scene in a tropical woods, maybe Florida or south of the Border, and then added orange which seemed to be a path through the woods. In this case, her travel was in her imagination, a journey she much enjoyed. 

Glenview Mansion is just off Baltimore Road between First Street and Twinbrook Parkway, and next to the F Scott Fitzgerald Theater.

The opening reception is Sunday, March 1, from 1:30pm to 3:30pm. 

If you are interested in purchasing artwork from the gallery, please contact Betty Wisda at bwisda@rockvillemd.gov or 240-314-8681. 

Lives in: Silver Spring, MD

Website: www.graysonstudios.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GraysonStudios/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/graysonstudios/

Media and subjects:  Printmaking and painting (oil on panel)

Why you joined MAA: To be in community with other artists.

Something fun about you:  I am an avid reader, hiker, and biker (hybrid bike).

Artist Biography: Deborah Grayson makes drawings, paintings, sculpture and prints that draw on magic, myth, and memory to create a contemporary picture of the real and imagined worlds of women's lives.  Grayson’s creative process embraces deconstruction as part of creation. She is intrigued by the process of bringing together seemingly disparate materials – old, new and found  – to build her bodies of work.  

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Montgomery County, Maryland, Grayson completed a BA at the University of Maryland, College Park and an MA and PhD at Michigan State University.  In addition to her studio work Deborah Grayson is an independent scholar and much sought after workshop facilitator and speaker.

By Judith Levine

On February 13, 2020, John MacArthur and I attended Maryland Arts Day in Annapolis. Sponsored by Maryland Citizens for the Arts, the event was attended by people from all over the state. Many were organizers and administrators; fewer were artists. We split up and began speaking with fellow attendees and came home with a lot of new contacts. All were united in the need to see an increase in funding for the arts, gratitude for the current Maryland administration’s support and concern for lack of Federal support.

There was a slew of legislators speaking as expected, many who have been strong backers of funding for the arts, especially in education. The speakers who most impressed the audience though were Yumi Hogan and Joyce J. Scott. Yes, Hogan as in Larry. Yumi Hogan (shown at right) is the wife of the current governor and an exceptionally talented painter. She spoke most eloquently about the need for education AND support for working artists.

Then came Joyce Scott (who I'm shown with in the photo below). Scott’s work speaks for itself over her long and well-known career. But many don’t know that Scott is also a very gifted—and funny—verbal storyteller. She left all of us rolling on the floor with her stories, but then she had us feeling tears as she spoke of her ancestors who were slaves. This multi-talented artist used her time to take us through her personal story and that of her family, many of whom are just as talented.

After the formal speeches, we split up to meet with our legislators. Montgomery County has its own chamber, and we heard from our State Senator Nancy King. She has personally gotten many arts funding bills written and passed. I was invited to contact her office to continue our conversation. I also had the opportunity to touch base with legislator Kirill Reznik. Kirill is an immigrant, born in Ukraine; Nancy happens to be part of the LGBT+ community. Both understand what it means to be part of groups with specific needs and concerns. 

John--who sketched the proceedings, shown below--and I hope to use the contacts we made to help the Montgomery Art Association grow and contribute to our goals of supporting each other as artists. I do urge our members to think about having MAA join this vigorous supporter of the arts in Maryland. Wheaton Arts Parade, Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County and BlackRock Center for the Arts are just three among many county groups who are members. And I personally look forward to getting to represent us again next year.

MAA member Maria Elena Sayan received the Viewers Choice Award at the MAA Members Show & Sale at Oasis Gallery in Bethesda for her still life Summer Zinnias and Herbal Tea.

More than 80 guests at our January 25 opening reception voted for their favorite works from among the 65 pieces in the show. Shirley Crawley took second place, and Helen Wood was third place.In total, 65 MAA members are in the show, and many of them attended the reception, each sharing thoughts about what inspired them to make their pieces. 

The show runs until April 10. You can visit Monday-Friday, 10 am-4 pm.