1 By Robert Hudson
The Woven Tale Press
Vol.III #8
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Sandra Tyler
Author of Blue Glass, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and After Lydia, both published by Harcourt Brace; awarded BA from Amherst College and MFA in Writing from Columbia University; professor of creative writing on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including at Columbia University, (NY), Wesleyan University (CT), and Manhattanvill College, (NY); served as assistant editor at Ploughshares and The Paris Review literary magazines, and production freelancer for Glamour, Self, and Vogue magazines; freelance editor; Stony Brook University’s national annual fiction contest judge; a 2013 BlogHer.com Voices of the Year. http://www.awriterweavesatale.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Michael Dickel, Ph.D.
A poet, fiction writer, essayist, photographer and digital artist, Dr. Dickel holds degrees in psychology, creative writing, and English literature. He has taught college, university writing and literature courses for nearly 25 years; served as the director of the Student Writing Center at the University of Minnesota and the Macalester Academic Excellence Center at Macalester College (St. Paul, MN). He co-edited Voices Israel Volume 36 (2010). His work has appeared in literary journals, anthologies, art books, and online for over 20 years, including in:THIS Literary Magazine, Eclectic Flash, Cartier Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Sketchbook, Emerging Visions Visionary Art eZine, and Poetry Midwest. His latest book of poems is War Surrounds Us, (2015). http://www.michaeldickel.info
ARTS EDITORS: Seth Apter Mixed-media artist, instructor, author and designer. His artwork has been widely exhibited, and represented in numerous books, independent zines, and national magazines. He is the voice behind The Pulse, a series of international, collaborative projects, the basis of his two books The Pulse of Mixed Media: Secrets and Passions of 100 Artists Revealed and The Mixed-Media Artist: Art Tips, Tricks, Secrets and Dreams From Over 40 Amazing Artists, both published by North Light Books. He is the artist behind two workshop DVDs: Easy Mixed Media Surface Techniques and Easy Mixed Media Techniques for the Art Journal. http://www.sethapter.com Donald Kolberg Sculptor, painter, art marketer and writer. His artwork has been exhibited throughout the U.S. in museums and galleries with his current representation at the Parker Art Gallery in St. Simons, Ga. He has been featured in an NBC short documentary and numerous print and zine publications. He is founder of ArtCore an international newsletter, and continues to be active in art groups presenting classes on marketing and art techniques including workshops on creating Strappo’s, a dry transfer acrylic monotype. A graduate of California State University, Los Angeles, his master work was continued at Otis Art Institute. Additionally he produced Periscope Up an independent television production for a Pennsylvania PBS station. His artwork has been included in the publication ‘Sculpture and Design with Recycled Glass’. Additional artwork and information can be viewed at http://www.DonaldKolberg.com PHOTOGRAPHY EDITORS: Susan Tuttle Award winning iPhoneographer and DSLR photographer. She is the author of three instruction-based books (published in the US and abroad by F+W Media, North Light Books) on digital art with Photoshop, mobile photography and DSLR photography, and mixed-media art. Her fourth book, Art of Everyday Photography: Move Toward Manual and Make Creative Photos (about DSLR photography and mobile photography) was recently released by North Light Books and has been a best-seller in its category on Amazon. She is currently the Technical Advisor for Somerset Digital Studio Magazine. http:// http://www.susantuttlephotography.com Charlotte Thompson: Conceptual photographer and owner of Digital Art Transparency Overlays. Besides designing book covers, her works are in individual collections both in the U.S. and abroad, including Denmark, Sweden, Australia, and Korea. She has shown her photography at Photo Contemporary, OPF Gallery One, Raleigh Studios, and in a Hollywood exhibitions. http://www.opfgalleryone.com/artists/charlotte-thompson
Woven Tale Publishing Š copyright 2013
ISSN: 2333-2387
Editor’s Note: The Woven Tale Press is a monthly culling of the creative Web, exhibiting the artful and innovative. Enjoy here an eclectic mix of the literary, visual arts, photography, humorous, and offbeat. The Woven Tale Press mission is to grow Web traffic to noteworthy writers and artists–contributors are credited with interactive Urls. Click on an Url to learn more about a contributor. To submit or become a Press member, go to: http://thewoventalepress.net
http://www.malinskyexpressionism.com
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Edg Acrylic on
ge of Reason Unstretched Canvas
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“
As a second generation lyrica abstractionist, what sets my w apart from Abstract Expressio ism is a return to spacial dep and an evocative poetic lin to color field abstraction – frequently a single colo field populated by organ forms pushing at the bou aries of the tradition defined rectang
This d series beyond dimensi spacial d ly creates realility th definitionof a Loosely Bound Acrylic on Free-Form Shaped Canvas
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al work onpth, nk n or nic undnal gle.
dimensional moves d the twoioal illusion of depth and actuals a three-dimensional hat challenges the a painting.
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– Richard Malinsky Form of Breath Acrylic on Free-Form Shaped Canvas
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Child of Joy Acrylic on Unstretched, Free-Formed Canvas
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Cascade of Joy , Acrylic on Unstretched Canvas 6
http://petermcfarlane.com
C
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annibal ask eries
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Eagle Chainsaw, Rototiller Blades, Scythe, Machette, Table Leg
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Ravenous Chainsaws, Steel, and Typewriter Keys
As the first chainsaw ‘shape-shifted’ into a metal “ mask in my studio, the play on ravens as ‘tricksters’
and ‘gluttons’ became obvious. The fate of ‘clear-cut forests’ and ‘clear-cut cultures’ literally seemed to hang in the raven’s beak. – Peter McFarlane
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I’ve included objects in the work that have transformed landscape, such as the chainsaw, machete, and various saws and blades and, as well, objects that speak symbolically to the loss of culture, history and technology. – Peter McFarlane
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Wolf Chainsaw, Shovelhead, Steel, and Lacquer
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Breach Chainsaw, Nailgun Nails, Plate Steel
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Purple Sky Circuit Board, Paint, Solder, Wire
After much trial and error, I discovered that by paint “ the circuit board and re-igniting the circuits, I could cr
landscape that appealed to the subjective and objective Over time, I created traffic and lightning and other feat that played With metaphors associated with circuit boa power. The work was more in the realm of the aesthetic found the idea of making landscape beauty out of landfi components appealing. – Peter McFar 11
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Lightning Strike Circuit Board, Paint, Solder, Wire 12
https://amyjosprague.wordpress.com
Hummingbirds (A Memoir Opener) “Amy, you’re gonna get it,” Nikki tells me. I’m hiding between the lilac bushes, Barbie’s head in my hand. It’s our weekend at our father’s old farmhouse. “What’d you use?” “Daddy John’s pocket knife.” I’m not afraid. My father is harmless, even almost scared sometimes. “I’m telling!” And she runs toward the house. I fish for the knife in the pocket of my dirty overalls and slice at Barbie’s pretty blue eyes so they open. I sit and poke little holes where her pupils are and then I saw at her ratty hair. I lick my bottom lip, almost got it. A pleasure fills me. “Amy! You get in here!” It’s Grandma Helen—I can see her wiping her fat hands on her apron through the lilac branches. The white house is blinding but filthy. The shutters are falling off. My Uncle Bob saunters up the dirt driveway and tosses a beer can near my hiding spot. He doesn’t see me, I breathe. His hands, I don’t like his hands. I wait for him to get to the porch before I emerge. I stuff the knife in my pocket and leave Barbie behind. “Amy, what are you doing? Give your daddy his knife back, you don’t belong with that. Come in it’s lunch time.” I race up the stairs and into the kitchen where Grandpa Leo sits in his brown chair that spins and spins when you lay across it. He’s next to the window, above the lilacs, watching the hummingbird feeder as usual, sipping his Old Style. I know it’s time to be good so I toss the knife on the table and take my seat. Nikki and Jodie are already eating their Spaghettios from the chipped blue china dishes I always love to look at. The kitchen is a dismal yellow place with large wooden silverware hanging on the wall. There’s dishes and beer cans and paper bags all over. The floor is a brown linoleum that slants down into the next room where Grandma’s organ sits. My sisters and I sing church hymnals with her on Sundays. There are old jelly jars all over, filled with old fashioned candy, and flowers fill white bubbly vases. The floor then rolls into the paneled living room. On my tricycle I barely have to pedal around the rooms. Grandpa’s torn, black leather chair sits in the corner. The first time he gave me a sip of his beer, I was sitting on his lap, picking at the stuffing coming out of the arm. 13
Daddy John walks into the kitchen on his long, faded denim legs. He wears one of three shirts—this one brown and white plaid with the pretty metal buttons. He sits down at the table and opens another beer. “Jesus Christ, John. You’re good for nothin’. Good for nothin’. You got three babies here and alls you do is sit around and drink, pissin’ your life away. Can’t even hold a job.” I don’t look at my dad, because he’s silent. Grandpa shakes his bald head. I finish and get up to go outside, reaching across the table, barely reaching the knife but I do, and slide it towards Daddy John and look at him. He pinches my cheek. Outside we race for the huge apple trees. The pink blossoms fall across the yard like snow, and if you stand beneath the two of them, they arch over you and it’s like being in a snow globe. The swing Daddy John built is a board on one piece of rope. Nikki gets there first and Daddy John comes out to push her. I climb the tree, up the nailed-in boards my cousins pounded into the bark. Heavy bumblebees buzz all about in the honeysuckle fragrance. “Daddy John, Daddy—when’s it my turn?” Jodie and I take turns asking. For the first and last time I see my father get angry. “I’m not ‘Daddy John’ I am your dad! He can’t take you’s away from me!” He walks away and out into the field where the hay bales dot the horizon. We follow him, chanting his name. It’s getting dark and Grandma tells him to put us in the tub. All three of us strip down, shameless with the door open. He fills the tub, sees us and looks away. He gets up and says “Okay, okay you’s, wash up,” and he leaves, making Grandma come in to wash our hair. She calls me Salt for my white-blond hair. Nikki is Pepper and Jodie, Paprika. I know it’s safe here, where Daddy John isn’t. We march up the nappy orange stairs to the room we share with our father. It’s divided in two by an orange afghan. We crawl up into the high double bed we share, Jodie in the middle because she’s the smallest and we don’t want her to fall out. It’s dark up here and my pajamas are clinging to my wet body. Daddy John kisses us good night and says “I love you,” and walks toward the light in the door, descending the creaking steps. I watch him disappear and then my eyes catch, as they do every weekend we are here, on the haunting picture of The Last Supper. There are golds and silvers and glittery greens in it and it shimmers somehow, in the dark. I stare at it, somewhat afraid and I don’t know why the terror, and doze off. 14
http://www.michellefirmentreid.com
The The natur natu “involves involves th th
thoughts, thoughts, w w als, als, and and elem ele relationship relationship transformat transformat
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” ”
Ocean of Thought
re of ,, ure of my my exhibition, exhibition, he continuation of my interest interest in in the the fate fate and and transition transition of of while incorporating incorporating into into my my work work writing, writing, man-made man-made materimateriments of ements of nature. nature. II desire desire finding finding new new ways ways to to show show the the p p between between the the natural natural world, world, artist, artist, art, art, and and view view with with the the tion tion of of materials materials in in aa visual visual poetic poetic resonance. resonance. –– Michelle Michelle Firment Firment Reid Reid
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http://www.samuellynne.com
Robert Hudson’s
assemblages assemblages are are found found in in the the most most prestigious prestigious and and influential influential museums museums in in the the world, world, including including the the National National Gallery, Gallery, the the Museum Museum of of Modern Modern Art, Art, the the Whitney Whitney Museum Museum of of American American Art, Art, the the Art Art Institute Institute of of Chicago, Chicago, the the Hirschhorn Hirschhorn Museum Museum and and Sculpture Sculpture Garden, Garden, the the de deYoung Young Museum, Museum, the the San San Francisco Francisco Museum Museum of of Modern Modern Art, Art, the the Los Los Angeles Angeles County County Museum Museum of of Art, Art, the the Museum Museum of of Fine Fine Arts Arts in in Boston, Boston, the the Philadelphia Philadelphia Museum Museum of of Art, Art, the the Stedelijk Stedelijk Museum Museum in in Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
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Marguerite Mixed Media
“Robert Hudson is somewhat of a magician. The magic that he performs is in his ability to juggle seemingly incongruous forms and mediums, and bring them all into balance with remarkable ease.” – David S. Rubin
Red Figure Mixed Media
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Ellipse Mask Mixed Media
Bar Mixed Media
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Derby Mixed Media
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Point of View Mixed Media
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https://yourmondaymoment.wordpress.com
Confessions of a Makeup Addict
“I came out of the womb waving a red lipstick.” -Rose McGowan
I love makeup. I love everything about it. I love the product names from my youth: Airspun, Moisture Whip, Kissing Potion. The packaging: crisp boxes gift wrapped in cellophane, the little molded clear plastic caps protecting new lipsticks and most of all, the promises. I’ve been known to wander the aisles of my drugstore with no particular purpose and leave with $78.53 in new promises. I just say no to the plastic bag from the cashier and slip my new foundationeyelinerlipglossbronzer into my purse and mentally, my wish has been granted and I am already transformed. I can trace the groundwork for the attraction. My parents moved my sister and me to Virginia where knowing no one, I decided I could turn myself into a new, better, older looking version of myself. So, there I was in 1983, 14 years old and sitting in the front seat of the school bus, directly behind the driver. While all the cool kids sat in the back, smoking pot, I used the twenty minute drive to slip a hand into my LeSportSac and pull out the magic: Maybelline Great Lash mascara. I used the mirror over the bus driver’s head to sweep my lashes. Appraising myself, I would smile with achievement. I looked older. Since all the windows were closed, I was also a little high. When weeks later, on two separate incidents, grown men flashed me, I was shocked. But secretly impressed. Wow, this stuff really works! It seemed to me that makeup was connected to power and I soon got another example to prove it. My mom became a Mary Kay consultant. Makeup, which had been taboo for me, was suddenly ok. No more stabbing myself in the eye when the bus hit a pothole. I was shocked and thrilled to discover that I was not just sanctioned to wear makeup, but also recruited. My mother practiced her sales pitch on my little sister and me. Our living room was being visited by the UPS man (for whom I would prepare by spraying myself with Babe perfume) and weekly would deposit carton after carton containing pale pink boxes of things I had never heard of: foundation, toner and my all time favorite, palettes of eyeshadow. The eyeshadow required mixing with a few drops of water and had to be applied to foundationladen eyelids with a little brush. The brush was a work of art. When you twisted the stem, the brush disappeared inside. I was hooked. 27
I convinced my mom to pay me $30 per UPS delivery to open all the boxes, apply her gold embossed label and stack them on the matching pale pink shelving unit in her closet. I went with her to “complimentary facial” parties. I set up the little personal mirrors on the hostess’s dining-room table and helped demonstrate to the guests the “upward sweeping motion of application.” I slathered on more face cream than Joan Crawford. It was glamorous. But more than that, I saw women sigh with satisfaction as they welcomed their newly transformed selves. I imagined my parents, sister and I driving around in a pink Cadillac, the sign of a truly successful Mary Kay Image Consultant. While makeup didn’t get my family a pink Cadillac, it did get me a lot of other things: dates, jobs, an exciting interview with Barbizon Modeling in New Haven (I was pretty enough to pay for classes, not pretty enough to get signed) into college, married and a ten year career as an entrepreneur. Of course lipstick and blush didn’t get me those things. I got them. Makeup gave me the confidence to do it. It seems that lately, as a woman over 40, I have noticed all kinds of little signs that I need to change, yet again. This time perhaps, from a heavy makeup user to one on probation. Last week my photo was taken in a group. Beforehand, in front of the mirror I thought I looked pretty good: short funky hair, a gorgeous print blouse, aquamarine stilletos and the cherry on top: red lipstick. When I saw the photo I thought, Who’s the old lady, squinting into the sun with neon lips? Oh. No. That’s me. It was a startling revelation. How do I go for less is more and retain the confidence, the transformation from the girl, no-woman without a face, to the new me? Someone who is still taking chances, in fact has just recently thrown it all on the line, closing a successful business to go in a new direction, to be a Successful Writer of all things? Don’t I need new lipstick for that?! In retaliation, I went naked. No mascara, no powder, no eyeliner. It was only one day, but it had results. I realized I looked ok with a little lip gloss and a good night’s sleep. But I love color. I need it to breathe. My face may have new lines where foundation likes to gather, but somewhere on my personal landscape, I had to find the possibility of transformation, a sign to myself that I will be successful and someday make some money. So, today I took stock of my body and ended with my feet. I appraised them resting on the coffee table. They looked positively pre-pubescent! I drove quickly (SPF 60 lavishly applied) to the drug store. I found just what I was looking for in nail polish: a deep gloss burgundy. The name? Rich as Rubies. It cost $3.99
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http://donatelladangelo7.tumblr.com/
Donatella D’Angelo
, a photographer and graphic designer from Milan, Italy, shows us with her pictures a state she calls “static-dynamism.” A few years ago, she started out on a personal journey, exploring “body and identity” in her work. Influenced by Futurist’s motion-studies using long exposures, her photographs expose dualities—of body and soul, presence and absence, life and death. Absence gains shape from movement, the beating heart reveals itself in the overexposed light reflecting from the body.
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Mimesis #1
Mimesis #24
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Transparent forms begin to appear in the light, as a hint of the person emerges. D’Angelo uses naked bodies freed from erotic provocation and in familiar, quotidian settings to exalt the poetry of the human body.
Milo
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Meli
Andrea R
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Mimesis #11
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D’Angelo’s photographs present the relationship between the inner and outer person, the public and the private revelations of ourselves to others, exposed through a surreal ghostliness of blurred motion as the body paints with light through empty, everyday settings.
Mimesis #27 (With Dorothy Bhawl) 34
http://www.harryally.com
“The content in my work is often ambiguous an
work is related to the gestalt, an incomplete – Harr
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Boy Legs With Polka Dots Charcoal and Acrylic on Paper
nd rooted in a surrealistic trust of intuition. The eness that suggests rather than illustrates. ry Ally
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Red Figure With Black Arm Mixed Media on Canvas
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In some works an obvious image appears, other pieces are less obvious and are often layered with fragmented ideas, incomplete thoughts, and multiple meanings. Each painting usually begins without a preconceived image. They begin with a series of random mark-mak-
ing. Marks, images, textures, and colors often appear, then are revised, altered, corrected, rejected, and a t t i m e s e v e n a c c e p t e d . The works are based on an improvisational search f o r c o r r e c t ness with an emphasis on documenting the history of the painting. They
Figure With P
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Figure #84 Charcoal and Acrylic on Paper
are a response to the physicality of painting, a love of materials, an appreciation of process, and to the seduction of surface. The p a i n t i n g s a l lude to the beaut y o f d e c a y , t o violation, and to vulnerability. They are excavations, a palimpsest of
surfaces layered with a variety of materials...dry pigments, acrylics, tar, fabrics, oils, bonding agents, along with different clays dug from the Georgia soil. From these materials figurative images are often unearthed.
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–Harry Ally
Polka Dots #2 Torso Charcoal and Acrylic on Paper
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White Figure Mixed Media on Panel
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White Figure With Green Leg Mixed Media on Panel 40
http://opalreflections.com
Vivid
I remember the excitement and anticipation that we felt when Daddy would say (as he reliably did each Sunday afternoon): “Who wants to go to Grunning’s?” With squeals of delight we scrambled into the back of his old station wagon that served not only as the family conveyance but more importantly, a humble workman’s pickup. Seat belts hadn’t yet been imagined, thankfully, so we climbed in via the tailgate, not caring if our clothes picked up the chalk dust of grout and ceramic shavings, evidence of the week’s artisanal labors. Daddy would roll the rear window down all the way, so that we could feel the rush of air on a hot, soggy, summer day, and watch with wonder, as the road slid away, disappearing into the distance, before our eyes. We babbled incessantly about our sugarplum dreams: “I’m going to get a double-scoop of Banana on a sugar cone, with jimmies!” I was confident that my decision was perfect and my previous dalliances with Butter Pecan and Black Raspberry were securely behind me. I don’t recall what Eileen or Matthew opted for, but they too had their favorites, and we competitively extolled the virtues of our choices. The thirty-minute drive from Orange to South Orange was fascinating, as we marveled at how “rich people” lived, their well-manicured terraces spreading out like plush carpets in front of huge mansions. Daddy would drive by way of Llewellyn Park, a private section of West Orange, home to Thomas Edison and “…many other famous people”; where Dad had done some bathrooms and kitchens. With flair and pride he, like an impassioned tour guide, would give us the ten-cent tour, as he deftly maneuvered his junky, old, station wagon up and down and around the hills and private estates of Llewellyn Park. Miraculously (or so it seemed to us) he’d find the “secret shortcut” (egress onto Mt. Pleasant Ave.), and head over to Wyoming Avenue (the widest street we’d ever seen) to South Orange Avenue. Then, the ultimate decision: Grunning’s in the Village (left turn) or Grunnings on the mountain (right turn). It’s remarkable that so many decades later, my senses are easily awakened by stopping in a charming ice cream shop in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Again, I smell the 41
lush, green, freshness of wide open spaces, as I leaned out of the rear tailgate. I relive the sights, sounds and smells of Grunning’s so long ago. And of course I remember licking my banana ice cream, in an attempt to slurp it up before it melted in my sticky hands.
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http://www.gabelangholtz.com
As a recurring theme in many of his works, Langh ed in nontraditional ways. These paintings are an a heavy emphasis on the two-dimensional surface playful quality that’s remi
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Outboard Acrylic and Grease Pencil on Canvas
holtz explores traditional subject matter presentamalgamation of color, texture and pattern, with of the canvas. As a result, the paintings have a iniscent of children’s art.Â
Dinghy Acrylic and Grease Pencil on Canvas
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“My approach to painting is explorative in n
allow them to surface as I work. I find this The adventure of the process is wha – Gabe La
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Nola Acrylic and Grease Pencil on Canvas
nature. I do not paint with ideas, but rather method to be both mysterious and exciting. at ultimately moves me as an artist. angholtz
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Two Pears Acrylic and Grease Pencil on Canvas
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Farm Fresh Acrylic and Charcoal Pencil on Canvas
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Bottled Up Acrylic and Charcoal Pencil on Canvas
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http://www.michelinerobinson.co.uk
Emotional Landscapes
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Yearning Inks on Yupo
Whispers Inks and Acrylic on Yupo
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“I bare
do their thin dance with t represent/m into visual r
Playing With the Strings of My Heart, Inks on Yupo 51 51
ely use a brush, opting instead to let the inks
ng, and guiding them by moving the surface...When I the inks, my subconscious mind picks up the images that mirror my thoughts or feelings. My hand then turns them representations of my emotional landscape. – Micheliner Robinson
“
Je l’apercois Inks on Yupo
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A State of Mind Inks on Yupo
A Tale of Two Hearts Inks on Yupo
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