Neal Siegel

On a magical journey through a unique sculpture garden I looked forward to photographing an array of bold forms of clay, stone and steel. What I found buried within the obvious was a tabletop reflection of autumn foliage and light.
In November, 2006 I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My life has changed, but my desire to create has not. As the reflection in the tabletop inspired me to move in a new direction, I have altered my approach to the creative process. While my great passion will always be composing and capturing an image in the camera's eye, I find great satisfaction in the art of printing.
I have been a very fortunate man and have been to many exotic places in the world.
This is a good time for me to revisit my visions and share them with others.

Sean Callahan

Dogs best friend

I have been a patient at NIH for over fifteen years. I am so incredibly grateful to everyone there for all they have done for me during this time. In many ways NIH has been a driving force in having me explore my creative side. While going through treatments there I started painting in watercolor and I have been on a creative journey ever since. Many of my paintings are dog related because I am inspired by dogs and the unconditional love they show us on a daily basis. I believe dogs have the ability to heal us emotionally and physically. I live in Vermont and have two yellow labs that are my constant companions and have taught me many life lessons. Some of these paintings are of these gentle souls that have changed my life forever, and of other dogs that I have met along the way.I am very honored to have this opportunity to share my watercolors with fellow patients and their loved ones at NIH. I have walked the halls of NIH over the years during times of stress, sadness, concern. The artwork has always been a way for me to find peace. I hope that my paintings can bring a smile, evoke thought, or bring back a happy memory while they are there.

Jean Gumpper

JEAN GUMPPER
ARTIST STATEMENT

In my work, I respond to landscape as a metaphor for emotions and experiences. The layering of the ink, for me, echoes natural processes such as the layering of leaves, water, trees and light as well as the overlay of my thoughts as I walk through the landscape. Making the prints is a way for me to relive an experience and, in some cases, to help come to terms with it.

The monoprints use actual leaves and branches from where I often walk as printing blocks. Included are symbolic winged dragonflies in gold leaf. I completed this series after going through radiation treatments for breast cancer. The prints represent change and possibility after a surprising diagnosis.


Constant Change, woodcut, 20” x 42”

In this print, color is applied in a series of transparent and opaque layers through a reduction woodcut process and, gradually, the layers build up into a completed image. The image comes from a hike in the mountains that started as a sunny day. A few drops of rain started to fall in the pond along the trail. I glanced behind me and saw an ominous black thundercloud. One constant in my life is change.

Cary Brown

After a life-threatening experience in 2005 involving cancer of the appendix, I moved inward. I felt a need to take a closer look -- a need to really feel and see life and death. Instead of painting vast landscapes, I pushed into it. I began to read a lot of poetry. My appetite grew for that big question: What is this all about? What is reality all about? What's going on above us, below us, on the surface of an orchid, in the heart of a woodpile, in the mind of a bird? So began my journey with this new work. Having studied photography at U.Va, I was drawn to the medium again when contemplating reality. The Polaroid emulsion process was a perfect match: it enhanced the ephemeral qualities, the elements of surprise and humor in nature. It allowed me to create wind and to be able to bend wallpaper, which seemed then to take on layers of reality infused with the strangeness of poetry that help things meet in that middle area of chaos and order, where truth -- perhaps -- hovers. I yearned to freeze all of that so I could study it. Of course, gradually the work began to take on a life of its own. Through the process I began to consider the spirit in these objects -- the light, the love, the energy, the beauty, the magic-- in essence, the truth. A story evolved: I would see it, hear it, and then go in with color, form, and sometimes words and bring the piece alive. After this I began to comprehend Emerson, Eiseley, and Dillard, all authors whose words were meaningful to me. I followed their assertion to really, really look and be a conscious witness. In this way so much more will be given to you. I kept exploring and came to the woodpile of an old ash tree we had to cut down on our farm. Here I mourn her in two pieces. In the last image, The Moo Piece, I saw through a child's eyes, where the innocence is, real intuition. I began to think of dreams, time travel, and the cosmos, then returned to my pot of boiling elements: wind and clouds bubbling in water, along with wood piles, donkeys, cows, flowers, birds, land, dust, and the laws of nature. I began to laugh, and it was then I knew I had been restored -- my soul had been fed and magically returned to its great capacity for joy.

Novie Trump

My work is influenced greatly by the ancient relics and stories of past civilizations that I studied as an archaeologist. I am particularly drawn to massive stone markers- Mycenaean beehive burial mounds, Mesopotamian steles, Egyptian columns and Celtic monoliths. These time-worn stone monuments inform the shape and heft of my sculptures, while their weathered patinas inspire my layered surfaces.
In conjunction with these monumental forms I often use archetypal symbols taken from ancient myths and tales. These iconic images take many forms: the bird as harbinger and messenger, bones as touchstones of quiet power, the forest as a threshold to the unknown.
These symbols are used to express such universal human experiences as love, loss, fear, death, courage and transformation.

Martha Oatway

Math Series was inspired by a hydrodynamics textbook published in 1890. Most pages are covered with individual equations and their derivations, which are very abstract visual images to me. The equations, punctuated by prose, become an exercise in positive and negative space. I combine the hard equations with organic forms from my etching, drypoint and woodcut plates as well as additional geometric symbols. By uniting the disparate elements of chaos and order, I have created my own visual language.In the time since I started Math Series, I have had the honor of working with several scientists and mathematicians and have incorporated their work into my prints.Knowledge Series stems from Math Series; here I have introduced biological elements along with organic molecules, tables and graphs.All the prints are monoprints, which are one-of-a-kind prints with a repeatable matrix. I combine paper lithography with collagraph, etching, drypoint and woodcut plates to create the images. Each color represents a separate pass through the etching press.

Barbara Tyroler

In Beijing Impressions; Portraits of a Foreign Landscape, Tyroler examines the figurative landscapes synthesizing the ancient with the contemporary, the literal with the metaphoric, to reflect the people and the city in cultural and political transformation. The resulting exposures provide a foreign, yet intimate vision, influencing a tone of multi-layered introspection and transition.

The Understory:Overlooked Beauty from the Forest Floor
Isabel McLean Mixed Media /Textile Artist
Every blade in the field,
Every leaf in the forestLays down its life in its season
As beautifully as it was
Taken up
Henry David Thoreau

Only when man has done as much, may he call himself the equal of a weed.
Donald Culross Peattie

I create art celebrating the understory of the forest—the overlooked beauty found in nature often labeled debris. I see extraordinary beauty in natural items that can be found simply underfoot on the forest floor.I collect often unnoticed fragments found on hikes and walks- from galls found in goldenrod stems along a trail, to rosehips that have fallen from climbing rose vines, to catalpa pods scattered along the sidewalk, to pinecones resting in a bed of pine needles. I then compose the forms three-dimensionally, accentuating shape, texture or color to create dynamic compositions.To catalogue the simplicity and natural beauty inherent in natural detritus, I create a felt “canvas” by washing, pounding and dying sheeps wool. I then arrange the blooms or pods into a composition and sew the collected pieces onto the wool felt.Through the fragility and impermanence of my art, I hope the viewer will notice the overlooked beauty found in the world around us—the green of a new seed pod, the interesting differences between a row of galls, or the pale pink of a fading bloom.

Tati Kaupp

My work, both painting and ceramics, involves the observation ofdomestic habitats, still lifes that are not still. I focus on decorativedomestic objects, like pottery forms and chairs, and describe theiractivity in a setting- landscapes and ecosystems within a domestic realm. Interior objects and exterior nature commingle in a habitat of my own making.

Jeff Wilson

The beaches on the Outer Banks of North Carolina are a constant source of inspiration for my paintings. It is no wonder that man first learned to fly there. Everything seems to be flying there; sand, sea, clouds and sometimes even rooftops. It is the windiest place I know. It seems in perpetual motion, a world of waving grasses, pounding waves, and shifting shadows. I have vacationed and painted there for over twenty years. Almost every painting in this exhibit was started there. It has been my Arles.I have always considered myself more a painter than an artist, if I may make that distinction. An artist is one who makes a statement about society or human nature or about himself/herself; I am more concerned with using paint in response to what I see. I am a realist painter. I marvel at paints ability to render figures and objects and to create atmosphere, mood and drama. Most of all, I am a painter of light. But what makes me an artist is that I am a recreator. I take in what I see and watch it appear on the easel new and changed. The painting becomes a vision fused with my ideas, moods and memories, transformed by my skills and limitations. It is influenced by other painters I see and study, the music I listen to, my physical comfort or discomfort and the perseverance and dedication I give to my intension. It is this aspect of my artwork, never knowing exactly what will transpire, that keeps me motivated and intrigued.Many of the works in this show are the result of a continuing investigation into painting on copper panels. Many artists over the years have experimented with this substrate, including Rembrandt, Goya, El-Greco and Chardin to name just a few. It has significantly changed both my approach to painting as well as the finished works. My paint application uses thin glazes and the paintings have a smoothness that is the inherent nature of the copper panel. Copper also lends an illumination to the work where the warm tones of the metal are allowed to peek through the thin paint layers. I also like to employ an etching technique of drawing into the wet paint that also reveals the warm copper ground.My employment at the National Gallery of Art in the Design and Installation Department has also been a tremendous source of inspiration for me and my art. Working so closely with some of the greatest art of the ages has given me a first hand insight into the lessons and techniques of arts great masters.

Barbara Southworth

"There's something about the winter light that is beautiful in its own right," said Southworth, a fine-art photographer who favors wilder landscapes over gardens. "I don't know if there's a correlation between getting to be of a certain age and feeling more comfortable and at home in winter."
Water, rendered soft-edged and flowing, is a recurring subject, and she is drawn to the vibrant green hues of winter found in lichens and mosses. Nature, she says, can tell us a lot about how plant communities grow and coexist, good lessons for the gardener, even in winter.
"What we are saying here is that nature doesn't die, it's just a time for getting ready for coming back, the quiet before things break loose and the delirium of spring in Washington," Southworth said.

Excerpt

Stripped Bare, Winter Scenes Reveal the Artistry of Nature
By Adrian HigginsThursday, January 3, 2008

Sheep Jones

Sheep, whose given first name is Elaine, grew up the oldest of five in rural Maine, with parents who did not support her artistic plans. They wanted her to make a decent living, but creating art "was all I ever wanted to do," she says. She acquired the nickname Sheep as a teenager trying to grow out her bangs, and it stuck.
After getting a degree in fine art at the University of Maine, Sheep married her high school sweetheart, Charles Jones, and followed him from one academic job to another. She painted in her spare time and in her twenties had one successful art show. She never forgot how good it felt.
The couple moved to Fairfax in 1987, when Charles landed a tenured position at George Mason University. For several years, while raising two sons and working as a waitress, Sheep had no time to paint.
But she started entering local art shows again in her forties, and almost immediately began winning awards. In 2000, she became a resident artist at the prestigious Torpedo Factory Art Center in Old Town Alexandria.
Sheep has limited depth perception, the result of an accident at age 3 that left her blind in one eye. She and others wonder if her unique visual perspective may have something to do with her success.
"That is something people really do talk about, is the layering in her work, and I think she's probably overcompensating for the fact that she can't see in one eye," says Jennifer Glave Kocer, director of the Rentz Gallery in Richmond, which carries Sheep's work.
Many of Sheep's paintings depict scenes from farms and nature, including fanciful renderings of plants and their roots, as well as dirt and the creatures that live in it. "When you pull up the roots of a plant, you don't know what else is down there. I just let my imagination go," she says.

Excerpt from the Washington Post

Making It
By Margaret Webb PresslerSunday, October 22, 2006

Margaret Huddy

Margaret Huddy watercolor

Joanne Miller

My photographic expression reflects a journey of connection and introspection. Walking a path at nature’s pace, the wisdom of life is revealed in the details. Raised in the suburbs of Washington D.C., the natural world was presented in the context ofmy backyard and neighborhood environment. I valued simplicity and harmony, and sought freedom of spirit. Chasing butterflies with a net, keeping cocoons in jars onmy windowsill, I was a collector of quiet beauty.During my twenties and thirties, I worked professionally in art galleries and as a location scout for television commercials and documentary films. These experiences broadened my vision of the world.At age 34, I moved to a houseboat on an estuary of the Potomac River ten miles from the U.S. Capital. My relationship within nature was seamless. Living the cycles of life, for four years I photographed animals common to an urban river: crows, blue heron and deer. The grace of a wing, an isolated splash from a landing, minimal details reduced to their essence in black and white. These images are not lonely ones, they share a quiet contentment.Like the wildlife I photograph, my expression is instinctive and intuitive. Life on the river is timeless. Days turn into years. And then like the seasons of change, I moved back to the suburbs.Now in my 40’s, I continue to explore the co-existence of nature and civilization. As the challenges of modern life come in closer, my journey with a camera continues to delve deeper into the essence of beauty. Whether sharing these experiences with others or on my own, I find that a connection to nature is essential for our spirits to thrive.

Anne Massoni

the body of work i have pursued for my thesis is about inherited illness. more specifically, the illness of endometriosis that has been passed down from mother to daughter in my family for at least three generations. endometriosis is a “silent” chronic illness that affects millions of women. it is considered “silent” because it has no outward signs, no visible indications of illness and because endometriosis can come and go. the reason why it happens is not fully known and it varies in degree depending on a long list of factors. millions of women suffer silently because it is hard to diagnosis (with little medical relief), is often misdiagnosed, or they are told the illness is in their head. this illness has affected almost every woman in my family and yet until i started sending my images to my family over the internet, i didn’t know about their illness and they had no idea about mine.illness related to female reproductive organs is often not talked about at all; it is for many women something of which to be ashamed or secretive. in my family, my grandmother died of ovarian cancer at 56 (i was three), my mother in an effort to avoid ovarian cancer had a complete hysterectomy at the age of 35 (i was eight) and i, at 26, was diagnosed with the same fibroids my mother and grandmother had and which left untreated could result in ovarian/uterine cancer. being part of this medical pattern is daunting and yet i find myself unable to express extreme emotions of anger or frustration because of my familial relationship to my mother and grandmother. perhaps it is not the burden of possible illness and current illness but rather the significance of a seemingly cyclical pattern that not only is the source of this work but the connection that most frightens me.the work i am doing for my thesis involves several factors: inheritance, illness, silence and the unease of illness and pain. the work stems from the own emotional and physical pain of dealing with my endometriosis, as well as the connection that i share with my mother and my grandmother. the images are built, through computer manipulation using found snapshots of my mother, grandmother and me. each image also contains medical information in the form of medical diagrams, drawings or photographs. the snapshot, a type of image with which we are all familiar with, serves as a point of identification with the viewer and speaks of history and fragmented memory. the repeated faces of these three women at different ages help to identify for the viewer the notion of inherited family traits passed on from one generation to the next. on the other hand, the snapshots are cropped and manipulated to such a degree that a sense of discomfort develops as the viewer, at times, can only make out the idea or glimpse of a person. layered medical diagrams illustrate the notion of a subtext beyond an inheritance of features alone. the mood and tone of the images both hint at familiarity and discomfort.

Brooke Rogers

The common yellow pencil serves in these works as a metaphor for creation. The poet writes with it, the artist sketches with it. Twisted and curling, looping and leaping, the work of creation is a muscular and robust activity. By extension, the pencil suggests the written word, specifically the central role played by ‘The Word’ in the Biblical creation narrative. The works shown at NIH are from a series of gouache paintings, (gouache is like watercolor, but more opaque), entitled Psalter – an old word for the Bible book of Psalms. As often as not, it is God’s role as creator that the psalmist magnifies through his hymns of praise. It is as hymns of a sort that these pencil paintings not only describe an energetic and encompassing space, but fill that space with the music of creative utterance.

Bill Mould

I am drawn to working in ceramic clay because of its inherently ambiguous nature. It is extremely flexible at the start, and dangerously brittle just before firing. Coming from the earth, it has a solid reality, but when worked it can become intensely spiritual. The clay is ready to assume many shapes, textures and meanings.
As a linguist, I am fascinated by language. How difficult it is to express thoughts and events through words, and how easily those words slip from context and acquire ritual meaning far beyond their syllables. And frequently texts are partially effaced to make room for new words, just as our beliefs and passions change shape to accommodate the new.
With words from Hippocrates, Sophocles, the Old Testament and the New; with symbols from Assyria and Sheba, ancient America and modern robotics, these sculptures are meant to evoke lost worlds, hidden meanings and the eternal truths of ritual.

Tom Cogill

These photographs were taken between 2001 and 2004 in San Mateo Ixtatan, a remote town in the mountains of northwestern Guatemala, in order to publicize the work of the Ixtatán Foundation.

Hee Sook Kim

My work is based on the spiritual and healing power of nature related in childhood memories and cultural disclosure of hidden, ambiguous, mysterious, yet empowering aspects of Korean women: awareness of female identity has been intertwined with ancient Asian philosophy, herbal remedies for curing diseases and disorders, and mysterious reminiscences of childhood.My interests in nature, mysterious healing power of it, began in 1995 when I placed an acupunctural diagram of a human body in a work on paper. Right after the September 11, thoughts on life and death budded and grew based on personal experiences. Organic shapes and leaves stared to appear as the implication of generational rotations of a life’s circle. Acceptance of mental and physical sufferings and loss of lives responded through searches for the cure and healing of them in progress: images of herbal plants and texts of herbal treatments used in different cultures emerged gradually. In the summer of 2003, a residency in Taos NM, lead me to a different stage of collecting natural plants in mountains and prairies. It transformed into the creation of communications through spaces, words and languages, lines and shapes, colors and emotions, layers and mysteries, lightness and darkness, and consciousness and fate.In my childhood, herbal remedies were common methods my grandmother always used for treating various physical disorders and diseases, which reminded me of the increasing interests in Asian herbal remedies to cure diseases as a reasonably fresh attitude towards unknown knowledge; ancient Asian theory states that we could find a remedy in herbs if there is a disease. Images of wild herbal weeds are carefully selected to deliver their inherent natures to cure physical, mental disorders and diseases. Texts are adopted to prove medical effectiveness in remedies; herbal remedies as recognition of a different culture, Asian culture in this country. Visually layered surfaces are designed to create ambiguity, mystery, hidden power, and spirituality.Words are openings, portals to other worlds rooted in magical places where sense is a new way of thinking, where thinking is embodied in breathing. Intimate visual spaces conjured by spirituality invites viewers to a special journey: into an imaginary land, the work.

Laura Ferguson

Laura Ferguson talks about making The Visible Skeleton Series.I have scoliosis, a deformity of the spine. My body's asymmetry creates the need for a subtle effort of balancing, in my physical relationship to gravity and space, as well as in my psychic sense of centeredness and wholeness. The conscious awareness of walking, moving, breathing - bodily processes that usually unfold by themselves - has made me attuned to my bones and muscles, nerves and senses, like a dancer. Drawing my body, I focus on this heightened awareness and transform it into visual imagery. My drawings seek to create a visual counterpart to the texture of kinesthetic experience: that inner-body awareness that is at once the most universal yet most private aspect of being. Making this work has been a learning-through-drawing process. It has given me a deepened visual understanding of my own body and a connection to that which is unique in each individual. Together, the drawings that form The Visible Skeleton Series tell the story of my journey and how I transformed my body's experiences into art.I think of the series as being the equivalent of three-dimensional sculpture: a way of being able to view this body from many different angles and perspectives. Using myself as subject and model allowed me to work from the inside out as well as the outside in. The more I tuned in to the interactions of my bones and muscles, nerves and senses the more I focused on my self, paradoxically the more I was able to transcend my own personal experience and speak to something universal in my work as an artist.The Visible Skeleton Series project began almost twenty years ago, when I started to experience physical disability related to my scoliosis, and felt the need to understand what was happening to my body. I had undergone spinal fusion surgery at age thirteen, and had been fine for many years afterward. Because I am an artist and tend to think in visual terms, I needed to be able to picture what my scoliotic spine looked like. As I began to learn about anatomy, I realized that the imagery was quite visually compelling, and could be interesting on many levels, from the literal to the metaphorical. I decided to undertake an artistic inquiry into scoliosis.Scoliosis is a flawed model of the beautifully designed human musculoskeletal system, but I wanted to portray it as having its own more complex beauty, one that viewed deformity as differentness, and differentness as individuality. I studied anatomy with Irene Dowd, a noted teacher and neuromuscular trainer who helped me to understand the dynamics of the body in motion. I retrieved and studied the records of my surgery, a fusion of the T5-12 vertebrae, with grafted bone, performed by Dr. John Cobb, which was followed by a year in a plaster turnbuckle body cast. I also was privileged to be given access to the Anatomy Lab at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where I have spent many hours drawing from the skeletons.Scoliosis is a complicated rotational deformity, and the process of conceptualizing it three-dimensionally has been challenging but rewarding. At first I used my own x-rays as the basis for my drawings. Later I consulted with orthopaedic surgeons and radiologists for information and help in having medical images made specifically for the purpose of making art. Thanks to Dr. Andrew Litt and Phillip Berman at NYU Medical Center, I was able to have a 3D spiral CT scan, an exciting new technology that allows me to view my skeleton from any angle, rotating and tilting it to match whatever movement or pose I'm interested in drawing.Creating images of my body that are anatomically accurate, but also personal, has felt empowering, as if I were regaining a sense of ownership of my own body that had somehow been lost when my experience was medicalized. The more I understood and internalized the configurations of my unusual body, the more graceful and comfortable I felt in my skin and the more manageable my pain and disability have become.

Duane Keiser

John Grant

"The 'Doors of Perception' were identified by Aldous Huxley as a set of limiters to our consciousness that can be held closed for most of our waking time so that we can go about our daily lives taking care of business.What excites me about this work is that it challenges my 'limiters.' Deep observation, with the addition of imagination and technology yields a new and energizing perspective.Can understanding, empathy and change be the natural evolution? Or what will my 'limiters' allow?"

Margaret Boozer

Winter Landscape is made of porcelain and belongs to a larger body of ceramic wall works titled Land/Marks. The following is a catalog essay from Boozer’s 2004 exhibition of that work.As Margaret Boozer conceives of and makes her ceramic wall and floor works, she envisions them as physical drawings. In some works, she pounds, pulls, tears, cuts and breaks the clay. In others, she splashes slip (liquid clay) into a frame, handling it like paint. Boozer encourages the natural tendency of clay to crack and pull apart, creating negative drawing lines: think of a mud puddle drying out on a hot day. Kiln splits and cracks and other accidents…what is unintentional…further suggest linear elements. The final drawing is at once raw and visceral and reminiscent of aerial maps or charts.The title, Land/Marks, offers insight into the concepts and meaning of these works. Land can be as specific as the soil we walk on and cultivate or as general as the landscapes and landmasses that form the face of the earth. Marks are notations, signs, and symbols to make things readable and knowable. Landmarks are objects that mark a boundary of land or serve as a guide for travel. Assumed in any discussion of landmarks is the idea of mapping. In reduced scale, maps order and make sense of the land.Maps are metaphors in our culture for personal experiences, journeys, and passages. Maps are memory; they are a collection of marks by which we recall what we know. And it is in the idea of maps as memory that Margaret Boozer’s recent work reaches its fullest metaphorical flowering. Perhaps as we experience these physical drawings…these visceral maps…we are moved to remember our own landmarks.

Lotus leaf

Min Enghauser

I began making photographs as a child; exploring, learning and becoming aware through photography. It was once said, ”Spirit stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen.” For me, photographs, and the act of making them, are glimpses of those timeless Spirits, glimpses of the pure and unbiased realities of nature and time. The eye of the camera unlike eye of the viewer, does not look at life subjectively, no judgment is passed, no value placed, no claim staked. In that it is the most like the Mind’s eye. When I photograph I try to detach. I don’t question the attraction I have to a subject, it’s an attraction so it’s primal. I expose the film and move on, not interfering, not questioning, not staking a claim. Its in the printmaking part of the process when the photographs become mine and to what I was reacting becomes clear and what is to be revealed is, if only to me. I tweak and fuss the image until the sense of light, the tones and textures elicit familiar feelings, primal attractions, a sense of Spirit of place. And I delight in that something that is unanticipated, that something that I thought could not be seen. In making the photographs mine they become my teachers. And they impart an orderly quietness of symmetry in which Spirit reveals itself.

Bert Shankman

My passion is to see beauty in life as I interpret it through the form of flowers. Flowers are my metaphor for life. I see birth and death, pain and joy, agony and ecstasy in flowers. My objective is to give shape, texture and color to my feelings through the images I photograph. I am intensely passionate about my work.I record an image on film by 'playing' with sunlight using the different lights of the day and different qualities of filtered light. Many times I am deliberately seeking a preconceived image but frequently I find the spontaneous. The work I do in my 'dry darkroom' is just as important as the 'work' I do behind the lens. The image is not complete until I am satisfied with it as a print.My goal is to create images where I can 'see' my feelings and to share those images with others.

Peggy Fleming

ADAMA SALL

Writing is

peace of mind; a

fresh piece of paper and a

great pen that will just

flow across the page. My ideas,

fears and hopes are all down on paper.

They wait,

for whenever I'm ready

to deal with them.

1996

Lynden Cline

In Spanish, the word "to wait" is the same as the word "to hope"...esperar

Much of my recent work centers around feelings I have about identity and about family. This issue is complicated for me, as I was adopted. I have never been in touch with my biological family, and a period of time passed before I was placed with my adoptive family. Frequently, I start out thinking that I am working through some particular feeling about my biological family, but later come to realize that my adoptive family is the screen by which I judge all family relationships. It is impossible to separate the two.Working with emotional material pre-dating even my own birth, I submerge myself in the painful feelings -- I sometimes sink to the bottom, unable it seems, ever to rise to the surface. My husband asks "Why do you torture yourself?" I don't think that I am strong enough to be an artist. This job, this commitment I have made to myself to make art -- art that is as much a part of me as my hand. Art that spills the contents of my soul onto the floor.I work from my heart. I frequently cry when I am putting a piece together. It is difficult to say what each piece means, or what each element means. I try to just move steadily forward. I typically do no sketching, no concept work, I just start with an element -- a fence, a chair, a tree. I believe in forces outside myself, they guide me. I am overwhelmed by the process, as I am overwhelmed by the reaction people have to my work. I never thought that work so personal, so full of my feelings, could touch others -- in ways, I'm sure, that are both different and similar from the ways it touches me.I don't live with my sculptures. They sit, stacked up, in pieces in my studio. Sometimes, just being there with them can fill me with feelings of pain. They are like animals, hiding in the corners.Most of my pieces border on monochromatic: the natural color of steel; copper sheet with a patina that darkens it to dark blue/gray with streaks of pink; walnut stained to a dark, warm brown. It's steel that speaks to me the loudest. Several years ago, I was mystified by metal. Drawn to it, but sure that I could never have what it takes to work in it. But I felt its energy, its sureness and its depth. I now find joy in the process of manipulating steel. I love the noise, the heat, the sparks, the challenge. The physical act of translating feelings into a structure is a valuable part of the process of my art. It takes strength from me and gives me strength in return.I have shown my work as an object-based installation -- showing several pieces in a room by themselves. I have hung metal branches from the ceiling and used old wooden gates to break up the space. Gorecki's 3rd symphony played in the background. At one of these shows, a local curator described my work as chapters of a book. I was touched by another who said that my work was poetry.

Bridget Walsh

Patterns of Growth

When I was little, I wanted to be an artist, but I wasn't good at it.In art class, I was messy. My paper ripped, my paint spilled, the ink bled though my paper onto my desk. Marker and glue got onto my hands and clothes. The other kids were better at it; they had tidy drawings with yellow suns. Somehow, I felt like an artist anyway. I am still messy. The energy and untidiness is still in my paintings.I use bits of paper, lists of things to do, old paperback books, the kind of stuff that fills your purse or pocket, as collage material. I layer paint, collage, and lines over other until balance comes through the clutter.I am currently working on a series called Patterns of Growth. As time passes, we grow. We embrace our scribbles and work them into a thing of beauty. Layers of experience and knowledge cover and reveal what was before. Appearances change on faces like the surface of a painting. I paint in a way that demonstrates the constant change and growth around me, finding beauty in the mess.

Collection of NIH

Pam Jennings

Russell Nesbit was perhaps the most well known muse for Washington area artists. This was true for students and teachers alike. He started modeling decades ago to help make ends meet when it was difficult, largely because of segregation, to get work as an acrobat, his life’s love.Russell’s last modeling job was sitting for this portrait in the fall of 2001. He was very ill with colon cancer but he insisted on working. He got so sick that he was too weak to take public transportation from his home in DC to my studio in Alexandria, Virginia. I would drive him to and from my studio. He was so proud of the idea that he was the model for three paintings in my first solo show which was at the Art League in Alexandria.As I painted Russell I knew that my work was about much more than a show preparation. I was recording the last days of a wonderful man whom had led a wonderful life. Russell was a very patient, generous and nurturant model. While we worked he educated me about jazz and told me fascinating stories about jazz artists. One of my favorite stories is about how much Russell loved Billy Eckstein and how he would follow the singer around the country as he performed. Russell also told me about his background as an acrobat and his experiences with discrimination which included exclusion from the Ringling Brothers Circus. He trained young black girls from poor neighborhoods in acrobatics. He told me that he and his students were once invited to do a private show for Ethel Kennedy. He studied photography at the same school as Jackie Kennedy and in the army he helped train parachuters how to jump.Sometimes I was at cross purposes while working with Russell. The painter in me wanted to paint but the Clinical Psychologist was interested in knowing more about his developmental history and how it shaped his character. For example, I was very interested in the fact that he was adopted and had never met his biological parents. He once told me that he had the fantasy that they saw him when he performed on shows like the Ed Sullivan show.The psychological dignity of this final pose was in direct contrast to the way that cancer was undermining Russell’s physical integrity. The merciless and ugly process of death was the opposite of the beauty that my eyes wanted to observe and that my hands wanted to render. The cancer was violent. Once, Russell threw up in my studio. It was painful to watch the disease eat away at him as his weight declined. Sometimes his feet and ankles were so swollen that he could not wear his shoes. I remember going to a shoe store to try to find some very wide but warm shoes. I wanted to surprise him! There were moments when Russell was so weak that I had to take him to the hospital where he was given blood transfusions. Apparently he was bleeding internally. Through all of this Russell wanted to work and he did so without complaint.I hope that this pose captures this quiet, dignified man’s fight with death, and more importantly, his love of life. Yes, cancer was killing him and he was physically fading away as evidenced by the largeness of his white shirt. However, his courage and his sense of responsibility to art were eternal traits that would never end.While this portrait was very much motivated by my need to produce work for my show, my own medical history was inseparable from Russell’s experience. At the age of 19 I had a malignant parotid gland tumor that was surgically removed. Although I survived cancer, this experience has been omnipresent in my life. So, my portrait of Russell is also a portrait of me. If this portrait gives comfort and hope to even one fellow patient both Russell and I will be very happy

Kay Chernush

During my surgeries for breast cancer and the chemotherapy that followed, I often found myself visualizing light -- light coming from darkness, light that was full of color and energy, playful light, healing light. I tried to imagine myself floating in light. Those images came back to me during early morning swims in the summer of 2003, as I tried to regain my strength. I was intrigued by how the light changed its shape and character as it danced on both surface and depth. As I cut through the water, the play of light gentled my body and buoyed me up. "WaterWorks: A Healing" is an attempt to capture that part of my journey.

Don Fear

“Healing Steps: Jamie’s Journey”

Excerpts from a Caretaker’s JournalPhoto-Assemblages and Writings by Don Fear
Signs, symbols, and objects—what do they mean to us?
Objects given and received, gifts. Gifts given from the heart, when illness hits, often take on a different meaning than what a simple object may be able to convey. A crystal with healing powers, a handmade angel for the Christmas tree, a figure of Yoda—all take on a different meaning, one of importance. They become more than just objects; they become symbols of hope and connections to another world, the spiritual world. These objects, minute as they may be, are gifts of hope and most of all love. Cards by the hundreds, best wishes for recovery and good health from loved ones and friends. Objects of paper, maybe, but they are much more. They become connections with loved ones who are near and far away. They hold us together when we are apart.The importance of these objects has become more evident since my wife’s diagnosis. A lot of things have become clearer. Jamie and I are realizing how deeply we are connected. Our spirits are together forever, the untouchable and the unseen.One day she said to me, “We need to document the many gifts that people have sent.” The connection was already there, made without being spoken. I had been doing exactly that. Over the previous days, I had been scanning the objects we had received. Objects often disappear and quite frequently get covered up by other important things. Jamie and I had been on the same wavelength. For some unknown reason during her three surgeries, I had been collecting bits and pieces of discarded medical items, packages from tubing, latex gloves, hospital ID bracelets, and any other items that I could scavenge. I don’t really know why I had collected these things. It was as if I were driven to collecting anything I could hold on to that had a connection to her. A friend of mine whose wife also has cancer revealed to me that he had also had the same urge but didn’t know why and had stolen a pair of examining gloves. I said to Jamie, “You are not going to believe this” and then walked down to my studio to get some of the images that I had made. When I showed them to her, a tear appeared in her eye. I reached out and we just held each other.This was the beginning of my documentation of our healing process—photo assemblages and writings of things, places, dreams, and memories that we have shared since her diagnosis of a rare cancer, mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. Some of the objects in the images live on the windowsill of our guestroom, overlooking an area of woods. It is a great window to study the change of seasons. Jamie looks out over these woods, accompanied by the many objects she has received; among them are her favorites, the butterflies, which have become her symbol of healing and a visualization tool. Her collection includes several pins, magnets, and a large wooden butterfly from Bali that dangles from the ceiling, a gift from her older sister.As she stands there looking and touching each one, I can’t help but think that at times, a lot of times, she might just want to become a butterfly and lightly and effortlessly take off and leave her body, if only for an afternoon of cruising the woods that she so loves. The image of the butterfly allows her the opportunity to leave her body and enter that place in her mind that says anything is possible. Producing this work allows me to clarify both my own existence and what Jamie means to me.

Philip Kohn

"The Looking Glass"
Interactive video art by Philip Kohn

Philip Kohn is a researcher studying brain function in the Section on Integrative Neuroimaging at the National Institute of Mental Health. During his eight years at the NIH, he has been involved in studies of memory, schizophrenia, Williams syndrome, aging, reward and story comprehension. His interests in artificial and natural intelligence, evolution, photography, psychology, interactive arts, mathematics and computer science have come together both in interdisciplinary study of the brain, and in the creation of new works of art using technology as a medium.In 2002 he had his first public showing of an interactive video installation called "Once Upon a Time." This piece allowed participants to add their own short video segment to the ends of a growing story tree. He was surprised by how easily people shed their inhibitions in the context of seeing themselves "on display" as part of an art work. He decided to further explore audience participation in interactive video art with the idea of creating media which would engage people in the creative process.Making art and designing experiments both involve playing with possibilities to best bring to light the effects of interest. In both the result is often not what was expected. Having an open mind to the unexpected is part of the creative process in both art and science.While making "The Looking Glass", there were many happy surprises that were part of the interplay between artist and medium, or between imagination and reality. For example, the method used to separate people from background had the side effect that standing still causes you to disappear like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland with the eyes and mouth disappearing last. At first this seemed like a problem, but then the realization came that this was a wonderful way to encourage people to move around. One of the goals from the start was to make something that would cause people to dance around and act strangely becoming their own exhibit for others to wonder at. The hope is that the playfulness that went into the creation of The Looking Glass will be echoed by the play induced in its audience.Just as we sound different to ourselves when we hear our voice played back, we also look different to ourselves when the bonds of immediate reality are broken. This installation breaks down the reality of the mirror in time, space and color. Every minute it changes the type of distortion. Some of these include: time delay, warping the image when you move your hand across it, drawing with your hand, time speed up and slow down, time forward and backward, time re-splicing, mirror flipping, rotation, coloring and zooming selected colors.Note that no video is saved for more than a minute, and that this exhibit is completely self contained without any connection to other computers or networks.

Tomihiro Hoshino

From an article by Katie Boswell.... "One of the exhibits currently on display is the artwork of Japanese artist and poet Tomihiro Hoshino. In 1972, Hoshino was working as a physical education teacher at a junior high school in Japan when he injured his neck in a gymnastic lesson and was left paralyzed from the neck down. During his nine years in the hospital, he learned to paint by holding a paintbrush between his teeth. It was this talent and his faith that gave Hoshino hope for the future. His beautiful watercolors of flowers are complemented by his accompanying poems, which give a glimpse into the challenges of his condition and his deep sense of joyful hope.
One watercolor's accompanying poem reads:

"They went through a dark long period under the ground.
They sprouted at great risk to life.
But blades of grass show us the most beautiful figure
of their lives without a single word of such part."

When Hoshino's work came to the Clinical Center for display, it was originally intended only as a temporary exhibit. However, when he read the endless comments NIH visitors, patients and staff had written in the exhibit's guest book [visit www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/ccnews/current/ to read some of the comments], he was extremely moved. "He was so impressed by how Americans responded to his art that he donated the entire exhibit to the Clinical Center," says Lillian Fitzgerald who works in the CC office of facilities management.
Katrina Blair, the office manager for the lab of biochemical genetics at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, is a poetry therapist trainee and graduate student who found special meaning in Hoshino's art. "His work speaks to all the senses," she explains. "Poetry therapy is about your personal life journey. And a poem or piece of artwork can talk about trials and tribulations, but in the end, for it to be healing, it has to come back to hope. Every piece I picked from Hoshino's exhibit spoke of hope. His work spoke very heavily of that."
The Hoshino exhibit is now permanently displayed on the fifth floor of the Hatfield Center."

Caroline Danforth

The temptation to disregard the symptoms was great, as long as they were quiet. Once they grew louder, and impossible to ignore, we had a diagnosis that required immediate attention: primary peritoneal carcinoma, stage four. From chemotherapy to major surgery, my mother Ute endured eight emotionally charged months, with more victories than we ever could have expected. I went to every treatment, absorbing everything, trying to be strong, as my mother continues to be. My mother is now in total remission and our joy and disbelief is indescribable.These small paintings are one outlet I have found to begin to process what my mother endured during chemotherapy. The plant I have depicted is called Tear Thumb, an invasive plant that grows prolifically in one of our beloved regional parks. It is invasive, fast growing, mysterious, and a symbol of my mother’s illness and her response, which has strengthened and inspired us all.

George Juliano

This work of art by George Juliano is on loan from Dr. Nelson, an NIH employee in honor of his mother, who was an artist and exhibited in the Clinical Center Galleries.

George Juliano's artist statement:

"I was given 3 months to live. My diagnosis was metastatic small cell carcinoma. It was during the final days of my chemotherapy when at 3 AM I went downstairs to my studio and made this piece. I placed tumors on the piece. This represented the elimination of the tumors from my body. Through the prayers of a great number of people from many faiths and excellent care from my doctor, I have been cancer free for six years."

Fleming Lunsford

As an artist, I know the necessity to create for my well-being. I have an anxious drive to get into my studio and into a mental framework to make my photographs. My work had been included in a wonderful program created by Susan Parochniak and Lillian Fitzgerald at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia to bring art into its new facility. It was fascinating to hear that the radiologist who previously had been reluctant to participate in the art project selected my children’s Icarus series to hang in the hall of his treatment area. As many of his patients were women, he wanted them to see the photographs of children playing to inspire courage and an even stronger drive to fight their illness. I was humbled by such a meaningful purpose that had been attached to my work.But recently, I experienced the patient side of Martha Jefferson Hospital’s endeavor. I was late in pregnancy with my second child when the doctor informed me that there was a problem; he could no longer find a heartbeat. We were sent to the hospital for an ultrasound, and since we were a last minute appointment, we had a significant wait. As I sat in the new waiting room which felt and looked more like a living room than a hospital reception area, I was drawn in by the varied and wonderful display of artwork. I wandered the halls and into other waiting areas marveling at the sculptures, the paintings, and collages. I returned to my waiting area to get my husband, and we both walked about, absorbed by certain pieces, intrigued by others; wondering how on earth some sculptures were pieced together. Our ultra sound brought great news, but my memory is not of how harrowing the hour and a half wait was. I remember with gratitude how the artwork took my mind off of our potential loss; it gave me a focus other than myself at a time when I desperately needed it.I have spoken to friends who have also had appointments or been patients at this new facility. They have talked effusively about the quality and variety of the artwork throughout the hospital. I am not alone in my enthusiasm and support of the art program there.To have been on both sides of Martha Jefferson Hospital’s art program was very powerful for me. As an artist, my work took on greater meaning and provided a direct audience that I could think about as I created my photographs. As a patient, I know of its potential power because I – and many others have experienced it first hand

Tim Tate

My work deals primarily with memory, healing, loss and history. I use this structure as a framework that holds the meanings of my pieces. While I spend a great amount of time building each work’s content long before it is actually produced, I also allow for further interpretation. Each viewer is encouraged to bring to these pieces his or her own experiences, attitudes, and culture. The melding of intended and unintended, expected and unexpected, the individual and unique interpretations of each piece and what it has to say to each viewer is what I hope occurs.
Many who are affected by my work have suffered losses of their own. This loss offers a window into my work and hopefully aid in healing that viewer. Producing them has aided in healing my losses. This is the motivator behind much of my work.