Story Without a Plot

Here it is! The official show announcement.  Through the month of August, I will be the featured artist at RiverSea Gallery in beautiful Astoria, OR. Opening: August 8th, 6-8pm and on Facebook Live from 6-6:30pm. Show  dates: August 8th - September 8th RiverSea Gallery 1160 Commercial St, Astoria, OR. For those of you who cannot make it in person, I will be broadcasting on Facebook Live from 6-6:30pm. Go to my Facebook art page to see it. Don't do Facebook? Have no fear! You do not have to have a Facebook account to view it. I will be sending out an email the day before the opening with details and a link. (You can sign up for my newsletter by clicking on the lovely lady with the gun just to your right...) In addition, on August 13th at 5pm I will have an online artist talk, probably in the form of a Zoom call. I will provide a short talk on exhibit, then open the “room” up for questions. I will be sending out an email the day before with details and a link to the event. We will be presenting my collage paintings along with intaglio and woodcut prints. The work is inspired by classic film noir and pulp fiction covers, full of romantic longing, drama and adventure. Populated with femme and homme fatales, they evoke mysterious narratives. Come bathe yourself in the intrigue and glamour of a bygone era! RiverSea Gallery is dedicated to the safety of all it's visitors. Therefore masks and social distancing are required (fortunately it is a very large space!)We hope to see you there!

An Inspiring Trip to Greece!

My husband and I took a trip to a place I've wanted to go for a long time- Greece! We visited mainly Napflio and the Peloponnes Peninsula, the island of Hydra, up to Delphi, then Athens.

Some of you may remember that I love ancient history, and that I did a series of art based on The Odyssey. It was sensational to be in and around the place where The Iliad and The Odyssey was conceived, sung, shared, and eventually written down. In fact, we visited the ancient site of Mycenae, which was the palace complex where Agamemnon himself lived and ruled.

The "Funerary Mask of Agamemnon" from Mycenae, housed at The Archeological Museum in Athens.

(If you'd like to see some of the inspiring art I saw during my trip to Greece, check out my post on my facebook page.)
Being in Greece lent depth and richness to my understanding of The Odyssey. One experience I had was the realization that my conception of the space and atmosphere was generalized and lacking in sensitivity. It was fanciful, but vague.

"The Land of the Lotus Eaters" Leslie Peterson Sapp

The sense I have now is the astounding ruggedness of the place, how rocky mountain slopes charge down and continue deep into the sea.

Delphi, Greece

I also did not have a sense of the palette. These parts of Greece are dry dry dry, and the rocks are pale and crumbly. I suppose the pale rock is part of why the sea is so green-blue.

Greece, somewhere between Epidavros and Poros

The artist whom I can think of who really got a great take on what it feels like to be a westerner, idealizing ancient Greece, is Puvis de Chavannes, a French artist active in the late 19th century.

"The Shepherd's Song" Puvis de Chavannes, 1891

"Patriotism" Puvis de Chavannes, 1893

"Young Girls by the Sea", Puvis de Chavannes, 1879

Also, Picasso captured it, perhaps with more individuality and sophistication, in many of his early works:

"Acrobat on a Ball" Picasso, 1901

"Two Adolescents", Picasso, 1906

"Boy Leading a Horse", Picasso, 1905-6

Although I am committed to doing more Film Noir works for the time being, I am wondering what will transpire if I decide to do more Ancient Literature work in the future. One very inspiring object I saw during my travels is a late Hellenistic funerary urn at the Archeological Museum.

Who knows?

A Brief Primer on Collage.

Some of you have never seen my work in person. But even those of you who have, it can be difficult for people to tell how I make my art using collage. Often people don’t realize it is collage at all.

There are many ways to make collage art. I would organize it into two main techniques:
1. Cutting up and combining recognizable found images
2. Using colored paper as a form of paint, building an image similar to the way a pointillist uses dots.

Many artists use some combination of the two. Each combination of techniques has its pluses and minuses, and lends itself to different intents. Borrowed imagery tends to be more conceptual, because it makes us think about the imagery in a different way. Using colored paper as paint tends to be more formal or aesthetic. 

Although the deep history of collage is ancient, the modern concept of collage probably started with Georges Braque, in 1914 (though some credit his buddy Pablo Picasso with this)

Georges Braque, Still Life on a Table Gillette, 1914

Braque first added wall paper with a wood grain print to his cubist drawings as a sort of visual pun. The collaged paper also functioned as a color to support the abstract cubist design.

Georges Braque, Mandoline, 1914

He went on to use found objects and images such as text from newspapers and advertisements. Can you believe these darn things are over 100 years old?

A good example of an artist who uses found images is Hannah Hoch, who was a pioneer of the art form and used found imagery to create art that made social commentary.

Hannah Hoch, Da-Dandy, 1919

Hannah Hoch, Untitled, 1930

In the 1960's, Robert Rauschenberg combined found images with silk screen, paint and drawing. 

Robert Rauschenber, Skyway, 1964

Robert Rauschenberg  Mirthday Man, 1997

A couple of contemporary artists who do similar things are Ellen Gallager, and fellow Portland artist, Karen Wippich!

Ellen Gallagher, Getting Hair Did, 2005?

Karen Wippich, Basket of Adorables, 2017

Kurt Schwitters is a good, early example of an artist who used paper primarily as one would use paint, to create abstract designs. Although he did use text and photographic images, they were used as color, value and texture, rather than for conceptual references. (He was also an early developer of installation art.)

Kurt Schwitters, Fur Moholy, 1934

Kurt Schwitters, Santa Claus, 1922

Many collage artists used found images in combination with using colored paper as a form of paint. Romare Bearden was a master of this, using photographic images to create narrative and reference, mixed with pure colored paper to support the formal aspects of the picture.

Romare Bearden, House in Cotton Field

Romare Bearden, Springway, collage on paperboard 1964

Finally, some artists use colored paper exclusively, with no found images, to build a picture from the ground up. This is the technique I use, and Romare Bearden also used this technique in his "Black Odyssey" series.

Romare Bearden, The Water Nymph, 1970's

Leslie Peterson Sapp, Ino and Odysseus Have a Chat, 2017

At times I will also use text, but in the manner that Schwitters did, simply as color and texture.

Leslie Peterson Sapp, The Paradigm, 2016

Finally, there is contemporary encaustic art, which often uses found imagery embedded in layers of wax, creating an atmospheric, layered affect.

Bridget Benton, Catching the Fall, 2016

I don't tend to use borrowed imagery because, frankly, my mind doesn't seem to work that way, and I just get all confused while I am doing it. I have chosen to do collage because cutting paper forces me to simplify shapes in a way that makes my art stronger.  But who knows what direction my art will eventually go????

Athena, Telemachus and the Origin of the Word “Mentor”

Telemachus, walking the beach now, far from others, 

washed his hands in the foaming surf and prayed to Pallas: 

“Dear god, hear me! Yesterday you came to my house, 

you told me to ship out on the misty sea and learn 

if father, gone so long, is ever coming home …

Athena came to his prayer from close at hand, 

for all the world with Mentor’s build and voice, 

and she urged him on with winging words: “Telemachus, 

you’ll lack neither courage nor sense from this day on…”

"Telemacheia" Leslie Peterson Sapp 16"x20" Collage painting on panel.

And so Athena, daughter of Zeus, assured him. 

No lingering now—he heard the goddess’ voice— 

but back he went to his house with aching heart 

I love the way the gods appear in mortal form throughout The Odyssey. Sometimes it is Athena, sometimes Hermes, sometimes they appear as strangers, sometimes as people known to the character in question. There is a common theme in each appearance; the character meets a person who acts as a guide or helper. After this guide or helper leaves, the character realizes they have not been talking to a mortal person, but a god in disguise. The cloaked gods are described as having a numinous quality, or being beautiful, or glittering, or youthful. In this piece I attempt to express the simultaneous presence of mortal and divine with the figure of Mentor and the face of Athena in the sea and sky. 

"Telemachus knelt where the grey water broke on the sand" W. Heath Robinson

It is not my intention to tell you the entire plot of The Odyssey here. If you want a little background you can always visit cliffnotes.com (yes, cliff notes!) to get the context of the plot. What I want to show you is why I am inspired by this scene, and also to show you other artists' versions.

At this point in the poem, Athena has decided to go to Ithaca and advise Odysseus’ youthful son Telemachus. I am touched by Telemachus, who has grown up without a father, and longs to find him.

"Athena and Telemachus" lithograph by Marc Chagall, 1975

Prince Telemachus, 

sitting among the suitors, heart obsessed with grief. 

He could almost see his magnificent father, here … 

in the mind’s eye—if only he might drop from the clouds 

and drive these suitors all in a rout throughout the halls 

and regain his pride of place and rule his own domains! 

Daydreaming so as he sat among the suitors

Telemachus and King Nestor. Apulian krater. Mid-4th century BC. 

Athena persuades Telemachus, recently come of age, to go on a journey in search of news of his father.

Telemachus is gripped with self doubt. So, he goes down to the beach to pray. He is approached by the form of Mentor, a friend of his father.

Telemachus’ courage and conviction are revived. We all need encouragement and guidance. Sometimes we turn to those in our lives, and sometimes we turn to a spiritual practice. And sometimes it feels as though the divine universe has sent us someone to help us on our way… like a mentor. 

Penelope, the Matchless Queen of Cunning

So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web—

by night, by the light of torches set beside her,

she would unravel all she’d done.

"Penelope, the Matchless Queen of Cunning" Leslie Peterson Sapp 16"x20" Collage, acrylic, cheese cloth, fiber paste

Aside from the interesting literal story, this scene also taps into the archetype of Woman as Weaver, or the Weaver of Fate or Destiny. This is a universal archetype, with versions in cultures all over the world and across time. 

Click here for a little list of weaver archetypes in mythology.

Mayan Teotihuacan Spider Woman

Included in my depiction is a couple fanciful elements: The tiny ship in the deep background… could it be Odysseus coming home? Also, the scene she is weaving is about Scylla and Charybdis, an incident in Odysseus’ adventures that Penelope could not possibly have known about. I thought it would be interesting to propose that maybe she is unconsciously following her husband’s wanderings in her dreams or in her deep creativity.

"Penelope Unravelling Her Work at Night" Dora Wheeler, 1886
Silk embroidered with silk thread

I also like this scene because Penelope is a person who is making the best of a situation where she is almost powerless, and must use her cleverness and guile to survive. She is put into a difficult position by her husband’s extended absence, a position that is difficult for us to comprehend today. It displays a big difference not only in the position of women in society and succession of kingship and property, but also of the sacred tradition of hospitality. 

To learn a bit about hospitality, read the analysis section of cliffnotes.com or a great article about The Odyssey in one of my favorite online magazines, The Art of Manliness.

Penelope and Laertes’ Shroud. Red Figure Red Vase. S. 440 BC.

For a description of the context of this scene, look at cliffnotes.com.

The Land of the Lotus Eaters

So off they went and soon enough 
they mingled among the natives, Lotus-eaters, Lotus-eaters 
who had no notion of killing my companions, not at all, 
they simply gave them the lotus to taste instead … 
Any crewmen who ate the lotus, the honey-sweet fruit, 
lost all desire to send a message back, much less return, 
their only wish to linger there with the Lotus-eaters, 
grazing on lotus, all memory of the journey home 
dissolved forever.

"The Land of the Lotus Eaters" Leslie Peterson Sapp 16"x20" Collage painting on panel

The Lotus Eaters is another brief but well known episode in The Odyssey, and takes place on one of the many islands that Odysseus and his crew stop at, and they barely escape. Not because of a fighting foe, but because a potential pitfall of basic human nature. 

Most of the time people interpret this scene with two meanings; either The Lotus Eaters people who are lost in drug addiction, or people who have rejected society’s requirement to work, or strive, to achieve, and they live in the moment, at peace and one with nature. There is a famous Tennyson poem about it. Here is a link to an essay by Mike Jay about how the The Lotus Eaters symbolizes a rejection of over work, progress, colonization, imperialism. 

"The Lotus Eaters" W. Heath Robinson

I have a pretty unconventional version of the Lotus Eaters in this series, in fact, you could say I took a flight of fancy to a meaning no one else, as far as I know has arrive at.

When I start working with an image, I often start with a google search of images, to see who else out there has painted the scene and how they interpreted it, how they dealt with the space, the positioning of the characters, etc. When I did a search for the Lotus Eaters I ran across some pretty unexpected images. 

Some were connected to The Lotus Eaters, a new wave band from the early 80’s. They were one of the very earliest bands that were ascribed a gay identity. 

 

Along the same lines I came across the a Yaoi graphic novel series called The Lotus Eaters. Yaoi is a genre of graphic novels and fiction from Japan that focuses on same-sex romances between boys (but produced for a female audience). 

From these things I made a leap from The Lotus Eaters being a symbol not only of the rejection of work and strife to being a rejection of the masculine compulsion to prove one’s masculinity. What if the incident is a fable for men’s’ constant anxiety to appear strong, capable, macho, and above all, not gay? What if the horror of being perceived as gay is enough to compel one another to never even touch on that isle for fear that once you taste it, you’ll never escape?

But I brought them back, back 
to the hollow ships, and streaming tears—I forced them, 
hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast 
and shouted out commands to my other, steady comrades: 
'Quick, no time to lose, embark in the racing ships!’— 
so none could eat the lotus, forget the voyage home. 
They swung aboard at once, they sat to the oars in ranks 
and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.” 

To me, this scene also has a great deal of humor to it. I love the image of grown up tough guys being dragged away, tears streaming down their faces, like children who don’t want to leave a playground. I think it is funny that these men, so adventurous and brave, would cry over something like that. I love that they simply forgot all about the important mission they are on, and didn’t care anymore.

I think Odysseus’ reaction is hilarious; “Quick! No time to lose! Let’s get the heck outta here before anyone else eats these flowers!” He knew that if too many of his men tasted the flower, his plans to return to Ithaca would be doomed.