It’s a busy Fall season here in Studio Clara. Happy to announce my participation in the upcoming show titled The Space We Exist In. This exhibition is curated by the renowned Ghanaian-American curator, Larry Ossei Mensah. It will be on view at Heather Gaudio Fine Art in Greenwich, CT from November 16 – January 18.
I’m so honored to be included in the show by Larry Ossei Mensah with some amazing artists. The other participating artists in the show are: Patrick Quarm, Deborah Dancy, Patrick Alston, Austin Uzor, Kim Dacres, Shinique Smith.
The works in the exhibition will include mixed-media portraits, oil paintings, my textile portraits, sculptures, calligraphy and collage. It’s sure to be a well-curated exhibition and I can’t wait for you all to see the show. I’ll have two pieces in the show, Ruby and a new piece I can’t wait for you to see.
The Space We Exist In is a group exhibition that serves as a platform for rich dialogue and self-reflection for both the artists and viewers by questioning what it means to ‘Hold Space’ or ‘Exist Within a Space.’ Curated by Ghanaian-American curator Larry Ossei-Mensah, this exhibition at Heather Gaudio Fine Art features a diverse ensemble of visual artists whose practices create visual poetry that invites viewers to engage actively with the artworks. The exhibition fosters a deeper connection between art and the audience by challenging viewers to redefine their perceptions of the world and their place within it.
In the meantime, save the details below:
The Space We Exist In by Larry Ossei – Exhibition Details:
- Exhibition Title: The Space We Exist In
- Dates: November 16 – January 18, 2025
- Location: 382 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830
- Opening Reception and Curator talk: November 16, 2024, 4-6 PM
Finally, it’ll mean the world to me if you’ll come see this exhibition. So, please come join me and the other artists plus the curator on November 16. It’s bound to be fun.
I look forward to seeing you.
The phrase ekphrastic poetry references a writing that is a vivid description of a work of visual art. Additionally, an ekphrastic poem can also be written about how the writer was impacted by the work of art.
This combination of art and poetry is what ekphrastic poetry is about.
In a FREE workshop presented by Pat Mottola, Cheshire Connecticut’s Poet Laureate, participants will be instructed in the fundamentals of ekphrastic poetry. Consequently, they will be guided to respond to Clara Nartey’s textile works with poetry! The works in her solo show – Everyday Stories – will be the subject of this writing workshop.
A poet laureate is a literary ambassador, a person recognized for his or her longstanding involvement in poetry, and represents the community through the art of poetry, promoting its cultural richness and fostering a love of literature among residents.
Furthermore, Pat Mottola is an esteemed poet and educator who has a wealth of experience and passion for poetry. As a creative writing instructor at Southern CT State University and president of the Connecticut Poetry Society, she has devoted her career to inspiring, educating, and connecting individuals from myriad backgrounds and diverse experiences.
If you want to try your hands at ekphrastic poetry, this is a good place to start. This writing workshop on Ekphrasis led by Pat will take place at the Workshop Gallery at Ball and Socket Arts. Spaces are limited, so please reserve your spot in advance. Email rsvp@ballandsocket.org with your name and email.
Date: August 6, 2024
Time: 6:00–7:30 p.m
Venue: Workshop Gallery (Ball & Socket Arts)
There is no fee for this poetry workshop, but please consider contributing to support the future of writing programs at Ball & Socket Arts.
Warmly,
References: News at Southern: Mottola Named Poet Laurette of Cheshire
This past week, I had the pleasure of being the speaker at a vibrant artist talk hosted by Ball and Socket Arts for my solo exhibition – Everyday Stories. The talk was moderated by Ilona Somogyi – the executive director of Ball & Socket Arts. It was a deeply enriching experience for all. The event became a lively forum where conversations about my Ghanaian heritage and the multifaceted role of cloth in my work took center stage.
From the moment the talk started, the atmosphere was filled with curiosity and engagement. Just about 15 minutes into the talk, someone in the audience asked the first question. And that set the tone for the rest of the event. The audience, a diverse mix of art enthusiasts and professionals, people from the community, and curious minds. They were brimming with enthusiasm and thoughtful questions. It quickly became clear that this was going to be more than just a presentation. It turned into a vibrant artist talk where ideas were exchanged and culture was celebrated.
More than Mere Fabrics
I took the audience through an exploration of how Ghanaian textiles are much more than mere fabrics. I explained that they are imbued with deep cultural, historical, and spiritual meanings. From the symbolic patterns of the cloths to its role in personal and collective memory, the conversation highlighted how these textiles are woven with stories and heritage.
I explained how outfits made from traditional cloths are often worn during significant life events—such as births, weddings, and funerals. Thus, beyond fashion, they serve as a tangible connection to one’s ancestry and communal history. The audience was deeply moved by the idea that cloth could act as a living archive, carrying the stories of those who came before us while continuing to weave new narratives.
In conclusion, thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to this meaningful discussion and vibrant artist talk. Your engagement and insights have made this experience truly memorable. Furthermore, I look forward to more conversations about the ways in which art and culture intersect and enrich our lives.
Warmly,
My motto for my art career is make time, create your best work, and share with the world. If you’ve been hanging with me for a while or reading my newsletters, I’m sure you’ve heard me say this more than once. I say it because I believe in it. I believe this is the best path to creating your best work and fulfilling your creative potential.
Many people can handle the first two parts of my motto: make time and create your best work. The last part of this motto, that is sharing your work with the world is the part that people struggle with. Yes. It can be challenging, I must admit.
It’s challenging to share your work
It’s challenging because sharing your work involves a level of vulnerability that most people are initially not comfortable with. I wasn’t comfortable with doing that when I started out. Yet, it’s very important to show your work if you want to take your work to a professional level. What happens though is that, just like with any other thing in life, the more you practice sharing your work, the more comfortable you become. The counter-intuitive thing that happens is that sharing your work actually builds your self confidence. Also, it opens so many doors of opportunity for you that you wouldn’t be able to get if no one knew about your work.
It’s rewarding to share your work
So, knowing all the benefits that come with sharing your art with the world, I’m a strong advocate for artists to share their works. Because, sharing your work not only brings joy to your viewers, it changes your own perception about your work and your self-confidence.
That’s why when I was invited by Curated Quilts to be one of their “expert” speakers on their series of virtual panel discussions titled “About Quilt Shows”, I agreed.
Curated Quilts Journal is a quarterly quilt publication that features artists in the modern quilt community. Their goal is to share inspiration and information for the creative journeys of modern quilters.
Curated Questions is their second iteration of this panel style event. On the panel, I’m glad to be in the company of some amazing creatives with a wide range of experiences sharing their works with the world. It’s a five part series.
Below is the schedule for the event by Curated Quilts:
Curated Quilts Questions Schedule
- March 14, Quilt Shows Overview: Carolina Oneto, Clara Nartey, Stephanie Ruyle
- March 21, Best Practices for Submitting/Prepping/Shipping: Cassandra Beaver, Leslie Tucker Jenison, Bill Reker
- March 28, How to Organize Your Own Local Show:Melissa Everett, Jennifer Fons, Dianne Semark
- April 4, Judging Quilt Shows: Sarah Bond, Cindy Erickson, Teresa Duryea Wong
- April 11, Jurying Quilt Shows: Amanda Hines Bernay, Sheila Frampton Cooper, Ann Johnston
As you can see, I’ll be speaking on March 14 as part of the first panel discussion.
Curated Quilts is currently offering a ticket bundle that includes admission to all five chats.
Valued at $85, early bird pricing of just $47 is available through Feb. 13.
After launch week, the price goes up to $65.
Tickets for individual chats will be available beginning March 1 and will cost $17 each.
If you’re at all curious or interested in learning more about getting your work into shows, then use my affiliate link to get 10% OFF your tickets for this virtual event. This is a special code for my peeps only.
Hope you can join us. It’s going to be informative.
Warmly,
Hey friends, I had a pop-up studio during New Haven’s city-wide open studios dubbed Open Sources. I was at the Bregamos Community Theater for my open Studios. In this month-long art festival hundreds of artists from across Connecticut open their doors to the public to exhibit their work and offer a peek into the creative process.
My assigned space – Bregamos Community Theater is next to Erector Square, which is a former toy factory building now home to dozens of artist studios. This proximity meant those of us artists in Bregamos Community Theater could enjoy some of the heavy foot traffic from Erector Square. On the other hand it also meant that some visitors may tire after going through the very large Erector Square and may therefore not come visit us. However, I was banking my hopes on the former rather than the later.
Getting ready for the day of the open studios was a lot of work. I had artworks ready to go. So, that wasn’t an issue. It was getting all the other things that go into setting up in an art festival that were. My biggest task was getting one piece of artwork framed in this creative way that I’d come up with. You see, folks are always asking to see the back of my work. So, I came up with a framing idea that would allow people to see both the front and back when the piece is framed.
Executing my idea though, took a lot more than I’d anticipated. It required a lot of design sense, trial and error, and collaborations. Oh, and of course, several runs back and forth to the home improvement and art supply stores. By the time the paint was dry, well I only had a couple hours to spare. But I made it work.
You’d think that working down to the wire, I’ll be late for the opening. Nope, your girl arrived before the doors opened. Setup was brisk and friendly. The owner of Bregamos Community Theater, Raphael Ramos was so gracious and willing to help in anyway possible. He climbed ladders to adjust lighting, moved chairs and tables around to make room for artists. He was an immeasurable help. Also, Gabe from Artspace– the organizers of open studios- was also very helpful.
The first day of open studios was a little slow. It was a beautiful autumn day. However traffic was slow. The second day, though, made up for what the first day lacked. Although it rained on the second day and the weather wasn’t that great (I had to wear my jacket most of the day), traffic was good.
All in all, it was a great event. It was so worth my time. Going in, I wasn’t sure whether it will be worth it or not. Right until a couple of days before the event, I was still debating whether to participate or not. Yes, planning and getting organized for the event took a lot of time away from my studio practice. But, like I said, it was worth it.
I met so many people. And I got to talk about my work for two days straight with people who were intrigued and interested in the work. People I would never had met if I’d stayed in my studio. Gallerists came by. Curators came by. Other artists came to chat. And art lovers from all over the state came as well. It was amazing. Going out, showing your work, and meeting people is a necessary part of being an artist. To all of you who I met at open studios, a big thank you for stopping by.
And to you my artist friends, I know it’s hard for a lot of artists to do this because we’re often introverts. But you can start slowly. Get your feet wet in small events and then grow from there. If you want to be a professional artist, showing your work, meeting people, and talking about your work comes with the territory. And we can all learn to do this no matter whether we’re introverts or extroverts. Friend, if I can do it, you can too.
Warmest regards,
Open Source: In Common Spaces is a city-wide arts festival for all artists in the New Haven area that’s organized annually by an art organization called Artspace. This year, for the very first time, I’m going to be participating in this popular art festival.
Open Source 2022 Art Festival is dubbed “In Common Spaces”, this year. There’ll be free workshops in collage, sculpture, creative writing, and more. There’ll be performances, lectures, exhibition openings and a whole lot of fun activities.
The aim of “In Common Spaces” is to have Connecticut artists invite the general public into their studios or temporary spaces to share their creative process and network with other area professionals.
So that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. I’ll be sharing a temporary space with other artists for my Open Studios event. I’ll show some of my work, talk about my process, and interact with people. This is my first time participating in Haven Studios/ Open Source. So, I’m not sure what to expect. I did get a temporary space to use in the Bregamos Community Theater in New Haven.
I’ll be setting up shop here with some of my artworks on display, as well as some work in progress that I can be working on while I’m there.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see the venue before hand. But I understand there are brick walls inside the building which makes it impossible to nail artwork to the walls. So, I’ll have to be creative with my display options.
The last time I participated in an arts festival was several years ago. That festival was an outdoors event and it rained all day on the first day. So, it’s a good thing that this festival will be indoors. From my previous experience, I know that setup can take longer than you expect. You have to arrive at the venue very organized so that you can hit the ground running and not waste time looking for where what is. I’ve got only one hour to set up before the doors open at 10 am. That means I have to streamline my setup process so that I can be up and running in no time.
I’m excited to get out there, meet new people, talk about art and see amazing art from the other artists who will be participating.
If you’re in the New Haven area, I’ll like to invite you to come see me at Open Source: In Common Spaces on October 22, and October 23 from 10 am to 5:00 pm at
Bregamos Community Theater
491 Blatchley Ave
New Haven, CT 06513
See you there.
Hey friend, I attended this year’s Armory Show at the Javits Center in Manhattan, New York City and I want to share the experience with you. I was very interested in seeing textile art at the Armory Show. How well is it being shown? How widely shown is it? What are some of the the techniques being used? And what is the overall collector interest in purchasing textile art at the armory show? These are the questions I had.
In this post I’ll share with you some of the works I was able to see and enjoy. I must say the Javits Center is a really large space. After two hours of walking the fair grounds I can’t say I saw everything that was on display. It was a truly invigorating visual experience. Galleries from all over the world were present with a variety of artworks to keep you constantly engaged for as long as you could walk around to discover them. Like I said, after two hours I was beat. Maybe, I should have taken a break and gone back for a second tour to see some of the works I missed the first time around.
Techniques: Textile Art at the Armory Show
Overall, my experience was a great one. I was pleased to see a strong showing of textile art at The Armory Show presented by both US galleries and international galleries as well. Discovering the different ways in which artists are using the textile medium to create art was really fascinating to me.
I saw works by an artist – JP Mika- who uses sewn fabric as his canvas and then paints on top of that with acrylic and glitter. I also saw works by the artist – Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola. He uses durags (fabric head coverings for Black hair), sewn together in intricate ways and stretched on canvas. There were also the works of Cornelieus Annor who uses fabric transfer and acrylics on canvas.
Another set of fascinating works of textile art at The Armory show were by Norwegian artist Ane Graff. Her works were wall hangings of hand painted and printed silk as well as sculptures. Her glass sculptures are each filled with colorful mixtures and they reference mental illnesses like Memory loss, Brain fog and depression.
Furthermore, some other textile based artists at the show you should definitely check out are Jordan Nassar who creates hand embroideries on cotton. And that of Sagarika Sundaram who creates exquisite works with wool and botanical dyes .
Praise for Textile Art at The Armory Show
Like I said, textile-based work made a very strong showing at the show. Here’s a blog that shows some of the “textured” art at the Armory Show. And finally, here’s an article that points out what a strong showing of textile art was at this year’s Armory Show. Below is a quote from that article
[They] created a harmony between textiles and figurative painting—which was a larger trend seen across the fair. Strong support for textile-based work seen in many booths may be due to museum exhibitions in recent years that have course-corrected the art historical canon. Craft-based work at The Armory Show was not only selling, but selling well, accounting for some of the top sales of the day.
Ayana Dozier, The 10 Best Booths at The Armory Show 2022
In conclusion, it was definitely worth my time to go see and experience all of this amazing textile art at the Armory Show. The Show is definitely on my list to visit again. Friend, if you ever get a chance to visit the Armory Show, take it. You won’t be disappointed.
Warmest Regards,
I had the pleasure of giving my lecture (nARTey – Art in the middle) at the Brooklyn Quilters Guild last weekend. What a delight! In this lecture I talk about how art always lurked around the boundaries of my life and how I managed to bring it into the middle of the mix of my everyday life. It’s an inspiring, educational, and energetic lecture that takes you through the journey of my art career plus lessons you can use. Besides, I show a ton of my work – from the very first piece I made to my current body of work.
What was so special about this particular lecture was the people. It was a large group, probably about 100 people in the room and others watching live on zoom.
My team and I arrived early so we could find parking and set up. If you know New York City, you know that parking always plays a major role in planning any event. We got a heads up from the Brooklyn Quilters Guild program coordinators about where to park and when to get there before the parking space fills up.
So, that was super helpful. It saved us what would otherwise have been a lot of angst trying to find parking in Brooklyn.
Most importantly, this was the first in-person lecture I’ve given since the pandemic hit two years ago. As a result, there was something really special about getting out there and interacting with people all over again. I’m an introvert but I love people. When you see me speaking on a stage, you wouldn’t guess that I’m an introvert.
It may sound contradictory for an introvert to love public speaking. However, recently, I’m finding more and more powerful speakers who’re actually introverts. Two examples who come readily to mind are Pat Flynn and Glo Atanmo.
Besides, there is nothing not to love about the people at the Brooklyn Quilters Guild. They were such an engaged audience. They listened, laughed, and enjoyed my talk. After an hour lecture, question and answer time went on for almost another half hour.
Although, the beginning was a little rocky with tech issues ( presenting live to a room and on zoom simultaneously), it was smooth sailing when we took off.
Thank you to the Brooklyn Quilters Guild for inviting me. It was my absolute pleasure. From some of the early comments I’ve received, I know you also had fun. Till next time, so long.
PS: If you’re interested in having me speak at your event, contact me ASAP. I’ve already started booking for next year.