Art, Writing, Design
Winter is a season of challenge and rest. It’s a time of stark beauty, quiet light, and endless space. In winter, we see right down to the fundamentals of things, and we make the most of what we’ve learned the rest of the year. Winter is the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. Here are some paintings and collages, celebrating this season of contrasts. Happy Holidays!
Some of you may recognize this tree, if you’ve ever visited Sequoia National Park in California. It is one of the ancient redwoods of North America, over 2500 years old, the largest currently living tree, by volume, in the world. It is named for the American Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman. And it is one of the US’s natural treasures living under threat from climate change.
In 2021, staff and scientists of the National Park Service rushed to protect the General Sherman tree and many other giant redwoods when the KNP Complex wildfire burned through Sequoia National Park. Now, redwoods are adapted to fire and even depend on seasonal burnings to release their seeds. But climate change is making wildfires more frequent and more intense every year, and the 2021 fires were beyond anything recorded in the park before. No one knew if the trees could withstand the heat that was destroying everything else.
But survive they did, with bells on. In fact, after the fire, dormant buds of new branches, some dormant more than 1000 years, awakened and sprouted, among other amazing demonstrations of resilience and adaptation.
Faced with the relentless onslaught of bad news these past several years, I thought of the redwoods, and how nature provides inspiring and encouraging examples for every occasion. Adapt and thrive is the message here.
I believe that humanity has the inner strength to get through our challenges, much as the trees survived the fires of 2021. The struggle is far from over, but they are still standing, and so are we, still able to choose a better way forward.
I made this work to celebrate that strength. It belongs to my ongoing series on climate change. And of all the great trees, I chose to portray the General Sherman because, after all, he triumphed through fire, too, didn’t he?
-Jen
What’s that, you ask?
Artists Sunday, always the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, is one of the world’s largest art events, dedicated to supporting and celebrating artists in our communities, and encouraging people to buy art as gifts during the holidays.
This year, for Artists Sunday, I’m opening a new project – a Mystery Mail Art subscription.
Now, you may look at the time stamp on this post and think, um, Jen, considering your time zone and all, aren’t you a little late for Artists Sunday?
To which I would say, don’t criticize my personal failings. This is just the opening day of a permanent rolling project that you can get in on at any time.
Check it out.
The concept is basically an art-of-the-month club – a chance for you to collect small original artworks.
I have a passion for these little things – handheld art, portable art, working art, daily life art. For every larger canvas or sculpture I finish, I’ve also made piles of journaling cards, mini paintings, micro-zines, pocket objects, and so forth. These fun, useful objects often don’t get a lot of exposure.
Well, not anymore! As of today, the Jen Fries Mystery Mail Art subscription belongs to the most experimental, whimsical, category-busting art I make.
Subscribers receive one or more small, original artwork(s) each month, for twelve months, via US mail.
I choose what each subscriber gets, because I don’t know in advance what I’ll be making. Hence, “mystery.” It could be cards, paintings, drawings, collages, micro-fiction or poetry, or anything else that comes out of my experiments.
$20/month covers the artwork plus shipping and handling. Your first artwork will be shipped as soon as possible after you sign up, with subsequent works mailed on a fixed date thereafter. Your subscription expires 12 months after beginning. Subscribers can cancel anytime, of course.
Quantities are limited. I’ll sign up only thirty (30) subscribers at a time. I know my limitations.
I’m using Patreon to manage this and future subscription projects for now. Their system is easy and reliable. Follow this link for the full details: Jen Fries Arts on Patreon.
If you’re unsure, I’ll gladly send you one Mystery Mail Art piece for a one-time payment of $20. Email me, drop a comment on this post, or send the $20 via Paypal using the button below. Make sure to tell me it’s for one (1) mystery mail and provide your mailing address. You can opt to subscribe later whenever you like.
Well, I’ve just about settled down from the rush of Open Studios at the Brickbottom Artists Building in Somerville. It was a great weekend, despite a rainy start. The energy was terrific. I want to thank the wonderful folks who bought art from me, as well as everyone who stopped to talk with us about our work.
Also all the OS organizers who worked like mad and did a great job, our lovely hosts who opened their loft for us, and my fellow artists with whom I shared the space. It was a blast, thanks to them.
Now midnight approaches, soft jazz plays, and my cat is asleep on my lap as I write this quick note. As soon as I click the Publish button, I’ll shift her so I can go to my own bed, absolutely exhausted – and start afresh tomorrow.
I’ll end with this: Many of the Open Studios visitors told me they were feeling inspired by all the art and meeting the people who made it. They felt excited and interested and wanted to take up creative hobbies again that they had dropped for one reason or another. I can’t tell you how happy that made me. I deeply hope they do it, all of them.
Today’s world is so inhibiting, even discouraging against us expressing ourselves. Before we take the first step, we convince ourselves we’re not good enough. Even to try is just too pretentious of us. But that’s just bullshit.
Art is one of the most basic human things in all of life. It’s like walking and talking – a natural impulse. But it’s not brain surgery. No one will suffer if we screw up an art project. So don’t hold back. Don’t worry about results, or winning approval, or any of that. Just do it. Slap some color onto a piece of paper. Squish some clay. Write down some words. Decorate that cake. Pick up that ukulele. Do it just to please yourself, not for likes or subs. It’ll make things better, I promise.
Good night, everyone, from the EST time zone, and thank you. Never stop creating.
Thanks to my colleague, Amy Norrod, for these photos of my art and set-up.
Yes, I’m actually coming out of my house! I’ve been doing so much work that I decided to make one of my rare public appearances to show it off and tell people all about it. I’ll be displaying medium and small works on canvas, small works on paper, journaling/note cards, and tiny micro-zines, and I’ll be happy to answer questions and engage in sociable chit-chat.
Get event info here: Brickbottom.org.
Behold! A selection of the art I’m bringing to the event.
Meet and Greet the Artist
Technically, I’m not literally opening my studio. I’ve been a member of the Brickbottom Artists Association of Somerville since 2020, but I only live near, not in, the physical Brickbottom Artists Buildings. I’m what we call an Affiliate Member. (Though, to be honest, I’m really freaking close, just a few streets away.) So I am bringing my studio to you, thanks to a kind and generous resident who is hosting several Affiliates for this year’s event.
I’ll have pieces for exhibition and pieces for sale, and I’ll be there to say hi, chat you up, answer all your questions great and small, and generally make myself pleasant.
Start Your Holiday Shopping Early
This is a great chance to exploit my fever of experimentation, as I will be showing a wide selection of small artworks and handmade cards for mailing or journaling, all very easy to buy, carry home, and gift to loved ones or yourself.
Works on canvas are ready to hang. Art Books and micro-zines can take you on amazing journeys, as books do. Mini paintings can adorn any desk, wall, cork board, or table, easily. And journaling and note cards are the ideal chance to embrace Art as Lifestyle, with original, unique abstract paintings designed for work as journaling cards, bookmarks, or note cards.
Business Stuff
If you’d like to buy some of my art, please be advised I’m accepting cash only at the event.
Yes, I know, it’s terribly backward of me, but I do so few of these events that it would actually be less efficient to set up a system to process credit cards.
But I realize it’s inconvenient for many of you, so you can also buy art online, right now or any time between now and the end of the event on Sunday evening.
If there’s any art on this site you particularly like, email me, and I’ll let you know if it’s available and for what price. You can buy it online before the weekend and pick it up from me in person at the Brickbottom.
The journaling cards are $15 each, or buy three and get a fourth card free.
Be sure to ask me about any other special offers as well as ongoing or future projects on the event days.
Hope to see you there!
-Jen
End of November Web Forecast: Expect an unseasonably heavy flurry of update posts from yours truly for the rest of this week.
Okay, it’s been a period of time. My last post was made the night before Election Day in the US, and by now, we all know how it turned out. Sigh.
I just want to say that, for me, nothing has changed from what I wrote then. I chose hope. I’m not googling how to change my mind after the fact, like many maga voters reportedly did. You can read the full pre-election post here, if you missed it earlier.
However, when I say I choose hope, don’t expect any pollyanna-ist reassurances here at Jen Fries Arts. No fluttering of the thing with feathers. That’s not my scene. My style of hope is the kind that spits out a bloody tooth and wades back into the fray, because where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I will be damned if I ever give up on what I know to be right.
Of course, it’s all been terribly inconvenient. There were emergency jettisons of certain social and personal connections, some of whom wouldn’t leave quietly. I still feel physically like I’ve been in a car accident. There’s My Sainted Mom who feels just as bad and just as pissed off. And on top of everything else, the cat’s been poorly, poor baby.
All of it utterly derailed what was supposed to have been a whole month of prep and info for my Open Studios event, which is scheduled to start – checks notes – frikkin this weekend. November 23 and 24.
So this is just to get you all caught up. Expect an unusual-for-me rush of posts about the Brickbottom and Joy Street Open Studios weekend here in quaint and romantic Somerville, MA. Also some website and shop updates. I’ll be doing all this work tonight and tomorrow, basically. Apologies in advance, but the new info will be good for you to have.
For starters:
Open Studios, November 23 and 24, at the Brickbottom Artists Building, 1 Fitchburg Street, Somerville, MA.
I’ll be sharing space with some colleagues in Unit B450, in the Bakery Building of the Brickbottom complex.
I seldom do these kinds of events, so this will be a rare opportunity to see me outside my little stoat burrow. I’ll be showing small to medium works on canvas or paper, hand-painted journaling cards, some micro-zines, and maybe some hand-made art books if I can finish them on time. I’m also up for chit-chat about methods, styles, affordability, sustainability, and life in the zombie apocalypse.
So if you’re around then and there, come on by. Info at Brickbottom.org.
Social Media.
I am now on Bluesky. If you use that platform, please look me up there @jenfriesarts.bsky.social.
I joined Bluesky as an alternative to Facebook, but I am still also on Facebook and Patreon. Of course, it’s all just social media with the usual nonsense, so …
Become a Subscriber.
I encourage everyone to subscribe for free to this website, comment on posts, and follow my projects and articles free of algorithmic interference.
Click the little blue WordPress Follow button at the bottom of this and every page to subscribe. And don’t forget to set your notifications preferences, because another upcoming update is that this blog will also serve as my newsletter, with a monthly round-up and other exclusive subscriber content in the new year.
Keep calm and carry on. See you soon.
-Jen
Hi, all.
It’s been almost half a year since I posted last, and the reason this time is that I’ve been pretty deep in the weeds, personally. There have been some developments in my work, some chronic health issues popping up, and some practical things that had to be addressed. But mostly it’s been the same worry and stress that everyone has been feeling lately – politics.
Tomorrow is Election Day in the US, the last day for casting ballots and the first day of counting. It’s tomorrow as of the time of writing this blog post. By the time you read it, we’ll be well into the process. I don’t expect it to be quick, clean, or easy. It will likely be some time before we know for sure what path my country is going to take.
I won’t lie, I’m sick to my stomach about it, but in keeping with my personality, I’m more angry than scared. There are people I will never forgive for what they’ve taken from me and my world these recent years. I’ve lost friends and family connections to an ideological cult. My cynicism is a hot, inflamed mess. My capacity for trust is totaled, uncertain if it can ever be fixed. I’ve felt stuck, paralyzed, unable to commit to plans because I have no idea what conditions to plan for. The most fantastical and outlandish worst-case scenarios seem all too plausible now.
Everything I’ve been doing, all the ways I’ve been presenting myself, the public image I project, it’s all being second-guessed. Can I, like this, really operate in a new reality? Is this version of me even functional, let alone relevant, to any of the roads opening before me? And if not, how should I adapt? Which Jen should take over and where should she appear?
By 1:00AM, Tuesday, November 5, 2024 (though I guess it’ll really be Wednesday morning), the last polls in the USA, in Alaska, will be closed and concepts will start transforming into things. Only then will we start to get a clear idea of what we’re dealing with.
It matters tremendously, of course, but however it works out, Election Day is only the beginning. It’s just the day of making a choice. Doing things to realize that choice comes after.
Whether we end up regrouping to relaunch our opposition to ascendant fascism, or we celebrate democracy’s win with sweeping actions to clean our house at last, we will need to dedicate the rest of our lives to curing the critical rot in our society. I’m coming around to the belief that this struggle will never end. It will return again and again, as outlined in an inspiring historical analysis by Heather Cox Richardson. And I kind of don’t mind that. I think this is what it means to “fight the good fight” and to “keep the faith” — to be willing to embrace that never-ending work as one’s self expression and the definition of one’s community. That’s how “American” should be defined, as a people who fight for freedom and stand against the forces of autocracy.
I’ve decided to get a bit of a jump on all the work, so to speak, with a series of blog articles on the topic of principles. I’ll get down to the granular texture on specific topics in later articles, but in this inaugural statement I want to make one thing clear.
I am a left-leaning, liberal progressive, and proud of it. I support progressive policies in the US, I give my vote to Kamala Harris for US President, and I want to state in as strong terms as possible that I provide no safe space – zero safe space – to haters and manipulators.
If you are a racist, a sexist, misogynist, transphobe, homophobe. any kind of genderist, a corporatist of any kind, a fascist, an elitist, a denier of science, history, or simple facts, a warmonger or profiteer, or an extremist of any kind, you are not and will never be welcome here, because I’m done with all that crap. That’s Point 1 in the post-election 2024 reality, whatever else it might be. It has always been what I’m about as a person, and it always will be. Simple as, end of.
I have only a tiny community right now, but it might grow – it could happen – and this statement will always be on this website, applicable to all people and situations. So if someday, someone has a problem coping with getting their bullshit called out, they were warned.
I’m going to wrap this up with words from the most famous American President ever to win a civil war, because I feel he captured that moment, this moment, and every similar moment more perfectly than I ever could.
And I’ll close my own words with one of my recent watercolors. It’s a very small painting of something very large. It is the sunrise.
It’s our turn now, all of us. Choose hope, people.
– Jen
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
It has a kooky name, but it’s a fun event. In Somerville’s city-wide Yart Sale, Saturday, August 10th, the local arts community open up their yards and front porches for impromptu art exhibitions and sales. It’s a relaxed way to get to know your more boho neighbors, soak up the culture of Our Fair City, and maybe pick up something beautiful for your home or a gift. I’ll be participating again this year, showing new and favorite works.
Rain is predicted, but the forecasts so far think it will clear out well before noon on Saturday, so we should be good to go. Just in case, the rain date is Sunday, 8/11.
Visit the Somerville Arts Council Yart Sale page for event details and an interactive online map of all the participants, HERE.
I will be on my porch, 12:00 to 6:00PM, with a short break at around 3:00.
I’ll be showing paintings and collages, artist books, and tiny art that’s great for bookmarks, journaling, and notecards. If you will be in the Somerville area this weekend, do stop by for a meet-and-greet.
Three new small paintings. These abstract landscapes express the light and weather of spring, using Prussian blue, yellow ochre, and burnt siena. I enjoy tonalism and limited palettes. I like to select some variation on the primary colors, or even just one color – Prussian blue is a favorite. The limitation does an end-run around my over-thinking and perfectionism and lets me get kind of Zen with light, shadow, and mood. It’s a liberating restriction.
Spring is in full bloom, and filling my head with ideas. Behold!
Out and about
The garden is up and running – largely without me, I admit. The daffodils are especially robust this year. (I wish I could say the same for the studio lighting or my poor old camera.)
A little sketchbook tour
Inspired by the energy of the season, I’ve been letting all my ideas make their pitches. Those glorious daffodils again, this time in two vases. This year’s solar eclipse – from photos. We didn’t get totality over Massachusetts, so while I took a moment to observe the partial over my studio (safely!), I also watched the totality over and over, live on NASA tv. The little Medusa concept doodles happened because I am convinced Medusa and the Gorgons were solar mythic beings. Next, ephemeral springtime forest plants – North American bloodroot flower and fern fiddleheads. (Did you know, that part of the violin is both named and designed after the plant?) All of these sketches are plans for future artworks.
The color sketch was just testing out some watercolor pencils. I’m not particularly in love with this set, but the SATOR design is an idea in development for some typographic abstracts. The SATOR square is one of the oldest good-luck charms in western culture, found decorating doorways of ancient Roman buildings.
And finally, testing out different pens – a dip pen, a bamboo reed pen, and a fountain pen – the one in black. I sketched with a glass pen, too, but forgot to photograph it. I like them all, but I think the reed pen gives that Real Artist vibe, at least in these little drawings.
In Other News
New small paintings are ready. I’m just editing the photos. I’ll post them separately, and they’ll be added to the shop soon.
An Alchemy of Dragons is on a brief hiatus. As I prepare to introduce the second protagonist, Iarius, and expand my characters’ world, I found I need to corral an explosion of plot bunnies. I also realized I made some mistakes in the earlier chapters. So I decided to pause, rework some details, and get more of the story written in advance of posting. Maps are being drawn. Character portraits are being designed. A world-building wiki is coming together as I go along. I’m pretty excited about the upcoming improvements. Watch this space.
-Jen
Jen Fries Arts 