SEPTEMBER 2011
STEVE ROSS, solo show of watercolors, Chelsea, NY
[photo below by James Dawson: Steve Ross and Roz Dimon with "FAITH," a watercolor in the show at Entryway Gallery]
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control
Stops with the shore;
Lord Byron
Watercolor, like water itself, mocks control. Unlike oil painting or drawing, which allow for multiple erasures, scrub-outs and do-overs, watercolor is the more reckless and daredevil of mediums. Every stroke counts and every misstep is visible.
But I’ve learned that it does no good to fight the water, to try and tell it what to do. My father, an avid sailor, taught me that the whole idea of “control” becomes different the moment you push off from shore.
The work in this show is a personal exploration of what it means to try and control something that is essentially uncontrollable. In life as in art the task at hand is to find the balance between how much and what kind of control to retain, and what to relinquish.
To explore this tension I’ve employed several constraints to confront my boundaries about control. For example, most of the poses were of very short duration, none more than an hour and a half. Although I might continue to work on the piece without the model present, the main thrust of the piece is accomplished in an amount of time that doesn’t allow for much fussing. I also gave up exercising any control over the model, allowing them to choose for themselves however they wanted to pose. Some pieces are executed using an extreme and improbable palette, allowing me to gleefully jettison any attempt at traditional realism. Finally, I have deliberately left several of the pieces “unfinished” as another way to confront my expectations and desire for control.
In these uncertain times it’s tempting to want to batten down the hatches and shy away from uncertainty. But for me, control is a false promise and sucks so much color out of life. The author John Steinbeck sums it up the best: “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. “
Steve and Julie Ross are the leaders of YOUTH @ THE CENTER here at St. Bart's.
MARCH 2011
ELIZABETH LEWIN
WELCOME TO THE TABLE. There's A Place for you.
"JESUS reminded the apostles that even when they do not see him, he will always be with us.
We celebrate children and offer learning that includes experiential ways of comprehending the divine and giving language to children to express the sacred.
We created a parallel experience for the children during storytime on Palm Sunday while the adults were listening to the Passion Play. During storytime we followed Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem to the upper room where we shared a meal."
Elizabeth Lewin
An installation by Elizabeth Lewin for Easter 2011. Elizabeth is a parishioner of St. Bart's who has added her creative spark for many years to our Children, Youth and Family Ministries among other areas.
