solitude – Art Spiel

September 4, 2023August 29, 2023, by Amy Talluto

Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

A Meditation on Artists’ Residencies, a Dune Shack and the Twilight Zone

Ray Wells dune shack with well pump in the bottom left foreground, Provincetown/Truro 2016, photo courtesy of the writer

Sometimes I find myself scrolling Instagram on a dark day in February or March, just wondering what it would be like to make art in a lighthouse…or in Robert Rauschenberg’s old fishing shack…or in a Florida swamp…or in a small RV in a Utah ghost town…or on an island in Italy. Artists’ residencies are a nice thing to dream about when you feel stuck or in a rut and when life is wearing you down with mundane pressures. Sure, there are the big ones like MacDowell and Yaddo, but those are uber-competitive and hard to get into. There are so many other off-the-beaten-path secret outposts that will happily allow a creative person to try on their lifestyle for a bit. As an artist, it’s so helpful to get out of dodge now and then and hit the road for new sights and sounds.

April 22, 2021July 22, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Leslie Kerby: Happy Place Project

Art Spiel Photo Story

In early February, the bleakness of winter got to the New York City based artist Leslie Kerby. She decided to reach out to friends near and far, as she had done during lockdown, this time asking them to send photos of the places around their house where they were able to find some solitude. She contacted everyone individually which opened up possibilities for longed for exchange. To her delight she received many beautiful photos. It took her a couple of days to figure out how she would paint from them. Ultimately, she decided on watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media collage on vellum, which enabled painting on both sides, while letting the light in. “It was a gift to visit with everyone in their home. A testament to the value of human connection,” she says.

NEW LINK to whole project

May 6, 2020June 4, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Anna Shukeylo

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Anna Shukeylo, photo courtesy of the artist

Anna Shukeylo is an artist, curator, writer and educator normally working and living in New York City, currently and hopefully temporarily stuck in her hometown suburbs of New Jersey. Her main mediums are painting and ceramics, and her work focuses mostly on voyeuristic experiences of city dwelling. Her work has been exhibited throughout New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana and internationally. She is a contributor at Artcritical.com and is a full-time Fine Arts Lecturer at Kean University in New Jersey.