Recycled paperweights are given new life

If you look closely enough at Rita Wolfson’s one-of-a-kind crafty creations, you’ll see little triangles of patterns cut from paper and arranged into pleasing compositions onto a variety of items both decorative and useful. Her recycled, re-inspired and re-created designs find their way onto vases, glass paperweight bottoms, bookmarks, coasters, jewelry, ornaments, picture frames, and anything else that happens to spark her imagination. According to Rita, the papers she uses come from anywhere and everywhere.

Boston born Rita’s first experience working with paper was designing a pin by covering up the printed matter on it with paper from a Museum of Fine Arts catalog. “I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing, but my fingers seemed to take over and lead the way,” she says. She uses just about any discarded paper that catches her eye — whether from magazines and catalogs, cereal boxes, menus, wrapping papers or birthday cards — deconstructing it and then re-assembling the pieces, giving it a whole new twist. As she puts it, “I see beauty in all kinds of paper and my fingers feel the beauty.” She emphasizes that these projects all have to do with paper that has been discarded and then recycled into a new life.

Coasters made from laminated cut paper designs

I asked Rita what her favorite creation she has made is. She insists she does not have a favorite, but that she enjoys and loves everything she makes.

All sales proceeds from her re-created items are donated to charities and organizations, which include The Renal Transplant Unit at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, The Fragile X Foundation, The Lupus Foundation NE, REACH Beyond Domestic Violence, The Learning Prep, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the Harry Gloss Scholarship Fund at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UMass Boston (a lifelong learning program for people 50 and older, of which she has been a member since it began almost 13 years ago).

“OLLI has been exceedingly kind to me and I show my wares there at least three times a year. I have partnered with a local book store called Back Pages and have shown there several times, too.”

Rita Wolfson

Even though Rita does not think of herself an artist, she derives pleasure from the creative process and from the benefits of her efforts.

Where does she do her work? “I work mostly at the kitchen table. I can look out at the Charles River and that makes for a very peaceful atmosphere. For me my work is creating, giving to charity, and helping to clean up the environment.”

Picking up on popular culture’s current fascination with all things having to do with cupcakes, she got the idea one day to try to fashion her own version as a holiday ornament. She went home and started designing them, playing around with paper and glitter, and the final result was a shimmering colorful cake platter full of ornaments in shiny foil cupcake wrappers.

Cupcake Ornaments

She displayed them recently at a holiday gift table she set up at a daytime art lecture at OLLI UMass Boston, where they sparkled sweetly in the light that came through the windows.

Jen Matson
Jenn Sherr
Joshua Marcus
Regina Valluzzi
Jess Barnett
Andrew M Slezak
Carmela Cattuti
Dianne Brooks
Paula Ogier
Linda Goldberg

The exhibit features several découpage artists, as well as abstract and contemporary painters, photographers, and a digital painter (me). There is a reception tomorrow, Wednesday, November 16, from 4:30-6:30 pm. The cafe is on the first floor of the Hancock Tower, but the art gallery is inside the cafe’s second floor loft. Come meet and chat with these ten artists, wander around this expansive space and enjoy the art, and have some refreshments prepared by the Blue Glass Cafe.

Thanks to Sean McCaffrey, the Blue Glass’s manager, for giving local artists this opportunity!

"Chardonnay Yogi," Copyright © Paula Ogier 2010.

When I was painting this peaceful Bovine, I asked my friend, Certified Wine Specialist (CWS) Eden Stone, what kind of wine a yoga practicing cow would drink. Without missing a beat, she replied, “Chardonnay.”

And that is how Chardonnay Yogi came to be.

"Ellie," Copyright © Paula Ogier 2011

Do you know someone who would just love receiving a colorful portrait of their pet as a holiday gift? Consider one of these not-so-traditional pet portraits. I enjoy painting them, but what I love even more are the reactions from the folks I paint them for.

Not only is the portrait style non-traditional, but the medium is as well – I use an electronic pen and pad to create a digital painting, which I then have giclée printed on quality archival paper. I have them printed by the wonderfully patient Mark Peterson, a photographer at Somerville’s Joy Street Studios, who has a giclée printer and great color management skills. He works tirelessly and uncomplainingly with me on getting the color just right.

"George Loves His Toys," Copyright © Paula Ogier 2011

The lead time on each painting is approximately four weeks, once I have appropriate photos to work with. If you’ve got a pet lover in your life, consider this special and personal holiday gift idea.

They can be purchased either framed or unframed to suit your gift-giving needs.

To learn more about having a pet portrait made, please visit my artist website at PaulaOgierArt, where you can see more examples. You’ll find sizes and prices there, and tips on photographing your pet.

"Star Gazing" (Toby) Copyright © Paula Ogier 2011

The soaring sculpture weighs approximately 10,000 pounds. It is made up of 2,342 pieces of hand-blown green glass spikes.

This casual and stylish neighborhood tradition, while still young, has grown immensely in the last couple of years. Its many offerings bring a bustling crowd to the Harrison Street area every Sunday for everything from herbs, honey, fresh produce, free range chickens, baked goods and smoked fish, to paintings, jewelry, baby clothes, home decor, stationery, refurbished furniture, antique typewriters, vintage shoes, miso-seared salmon wraps and foot-long chili dogs.

The rotating selection of food trucks has included BBQ Smith, Bon Me Foods, Boston Frosty, Boston Speed Dog, C-Cups Cupcakes & More, Clover, Eat, Go Fish, Grilled Cheese Nation, Grillos Pickles, Lefty’s Silver Cart, Lincoln Street Coffee, M&M Ribs, Rhode Illin Ice Cream, Roxy’s Gourmet Grilled Cheese, Silk Road BBQ, Staff Meal, The Cupcakory, The Dining Car, The Froyo Truck, and Trolley Dogs.  

The Go Fish food truck, one of many tasty options available

After this weekend, I will miss this great excuse to get outside on Sundays and wander five minutes down my street to all the colors, creativity, energy, dogs, and delicious aromas. All the outdoor artists’ tents won’t be back again until May 2012.

Fortunately, the SOWA Farmer’s Market will continue through the winter beginning November 13, so fresh, locally grown produce can still be found in this neighborhood. The indoor SOWA Vintage Market will also remain open on Sundays after the SOWA outdoor season ends. It will be closed on Christmas and New Year’s Sundays.

And on the first Friday night of every month, the SOWA First Fridays tradition continues, with SOWA Artists Guild artists opening their studio doors to the public for art, conversation and refreshments. Pay these talented folks a visit!

"Flutter By" (Lola) © copyright Paula Ogier 2009

My love for painting animal portraits was inspired by my love of my own pets, who have been important members of my family. Yesterday, my beloved 15 &  1/2 year old Lola passed away, at home and surrounded by her family including her feline brother Sammy. Reflecting upon our love and respect for her, and her incredibly strong spirit, I can’t help but feel that animals make us better people. Lola, you remain in my heart for all time. I love you dearly, sweetheart. xo
Rest in peace.

The green glass tree by Dale Chihuly at Museum of Fine Arts Boston

I have been wondering if the green glass “icicle” tree was going to stay in the MFA Boston’s new atrium now that the Chihuly glass exhibit has ended. It seems such a natural part of the museum’s new wing. As it turns out, the answer is: they’re trying to keep it.

As an MFA Boston member, I received an email today that looks like this. The Museum is asking for gifts in order to acquire the piece, with every dollar being matched by a challenge grant.

The first time I saw the tree from across the atrium, I didn’t occur to me it wasn’t real. It was pretty exciting to get up close and realize this gleaming tree was composed of countless spikes of green glass.

Are they also trying to keep the light-catching orange glass stalks that have been in the narrow outdoor enclosure adjacent to the atrium? I love the vibrancy they add there. There is no mention of them, so my guess is no. In any event, good luck MFA Boston! I hope you get to keep this tree.

I saw a Chihuly glass installation for my first time last year at the lovely waterfront Milwaukee Art Museum. The sheer enormity and wonder of the piece caught me by surprise, its vibrant orange arms reaching out into the vast white space of the lobby. The MFA Boston’s show, however, turned out to be that multiplied by a thousand. Room after room of glowing large-scale landscape installations create an atmospheric fantasy land. Strangely beautiful glass vegetation combines with chandeliers and sea creatures in a journey that feels like a melding of a Dr. Seuss tale and a visit to an alien planet.

According to Dale Chihuly’s website bio, the artist enrolled in the country’s first glass program at the University of Wisconsin in 1965, and continued studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where he went on to establish a glass program. He also worked in the Venini glass factory in Venice. He has gone on to co-found Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State and to see his work included in over 200 museum collections around the world.

I hope you can find a few hours this week to stop in at the MFA Boston before this show ends on Sunday. For museum hours and other information, visit the MFA Boston’s website.

"Left Turn" by Glenn Davis

Five summers ago I had the pleasure of taking a 10-day journey through the Southwest United States. If any region could have resembled an alien planet in comparison to my fast-paced, well-populated Northeastern metropolitan city, that was it. There were borax mines and sun-fried shrubs, dusty shadeless roads, valleys of unfathomable vastness, a full moon lingering high above the buttes, and the sense that we were gliding through an imaginatively crafted, but perhaps not quite real, world. A world equal parts beauty and bleakness.

And that memory may be what first captured my attention when I came upon the watercolor paintings of Glenn W Davis recently at the Uptown Espresso Caffe in the South End. The lines, shapes, subtle coloring and color shifts, paired with an occasionally other-worldly use of perspective, put me back there again, but from some other angle. There was something elusive in Davis’ images that made me feel both comfortable and vaguely off-kilter, and that is a feeling I remember fondly from somewhere out there in the wild west. “Sunset at the Bottom of the World,” one of a group of three larger pieces in Davis’ “Landscape Yarns” show at the café, turned my perception delightfully upside down and perhaps sideways too—it was hard to tell exactly where I was situated in the landscape, but that was okay with me.

"Flat On Her Back" by Glenn Davis

I naturally figured Davis had been to the Southwest, too. The paintings evoked the wide passes and open skies that I remembered, as well as the worn rocks, the dust in the air and the full moon in the sky. But when I asked about his inspiration for this series—a vacation? a former home?—I learned he’d come to them through a series of doodles that he drew during a meeting. Drawing 42 doodles whose motif was a diagonal line and a circle, he eventually developed them into small paintings. He transferred the simple drawings freehand to watercolor paper and then applied watercolor paint in what he considered the appropriate color palette. When I entered the café, the series’ three large pieces with their dramatic black mats, were the first thing I noticed, dreamy and inviting against sage green walls.

“The titles came quite a long time after,” said Davis. “I don’t remember the impetus for titling the paintings but I do remember laying most of them out on my work table. Then I proceeded to fashion titles as I looked at each piece. A lot of the time the picture would just suggest a story. Titles like “Flat On Her Back” or “Sunset At The Bottom Of The World” or “Disoriented In The Desert” would occur to me. I made use of the Beat aesthetic of ‘First thought, best thought.’”

"Mist Valley" by Glenn Davis

Davis has rendered in watercolor for more than 25 years. He originally wanted to paint with oil paints but couldn’t afford them, and while attending New England School of Art in Boston he tried working in acrylics, but didn’t care for “the plastic-like effect the paint had when it dried.” Watercolor paints and tools were recommended to him as an inexpensive alternative. “I tried learning watercolor painting in art school and felt I couldn’t control the medium well enough to get satisfactory results,” says Davis. “However, my desire to express myself without the use of words was strong. I decided to just sit down and learn the mechanics of watercolor painting. I had the mistaken idea that watercolor couldn’t be controlled as oil paint or pastel could be. However, it could be mastered because the paint wouldn’t go outside the puddle of water you put down on the paper. What made it seem difficult was the fact that watercolor was transparent and all the other 2-D media were opaque. Once I realized that, I approached it with transparency in mind.”

Davis discovered glazes as a way to create both colors (taking two colors and creating a third by adding glaze without mixing) and depth (the more layers, the more glazing would bring them to the foreground). Reflecting on what it is he likes about the medium, Davis says, “There is something about the look of watercolor; the layers of color, from the transparent to the translucent that other media don’t have, that make it an unsurpassed source of light.”

Until now, watercolor has been his primary medium of expression—his most recent paintings are a series of endangered animal portraits—but for the time being, he’s put his watercolor brushes aside to take up graphite, and pen and ink, developing “My Cat is Gone,” a pen and ink graphic novelette for children that is in the final stages of production. He’ll be self-publishing it with the help of the Harvard Book Store and their ‘Paige M. Gutenborg’ bookmaking machine. Davis said, “The idea blossomed one evening shortly after my wife lost one of her pet cats…and my daughter had to euthanize a pet cat of her own earlier. I had the whole story in one draft.”

Glenn Davis' pastel drawing from Chalk Walk 2010

I asked Davis about other projects he’s been involved in. He once participated in an outdoor Chalk Walk on Church Street in Harvard Square that he calls “an art for art’s sake project.” Selecting a 2” x 4” watercolor landscape, he transposed it freehand to a 2’ x 3’ drawing onto the Church Street pavement.

Another project, temporarily shelved, is an installation called “Whisper (To Me) The Elaborate Symphony of Need and Desire” which has seven drawings of couples depicted in ballpoint pen, each drawing sitting on a music stand with the couple within whispering to each other. As Davis envisions it, “As you stand in front of any individual portrait, a particular symphony plays until you move away.” This installation “would be actual as opposed to virtual. My sense of it is that it would make for a richer and more stimulating experience to walk around the music stands and have the music triggered on and off than participate virtually.”

In the meantime, I’ll be going back to Uptown Espresso Caffe to visit his watercolor paintings again, over a really good cup of coffee and a tuna wrap panini in this friendly little neighborhood spot. “Landscape Yarns” will be on display there until July 31, 2011. The café is located in the South End at 563 Columbus Avenue, at the corner of Wellington Street.

All images in this post property of Glenn W Davis. Do not reproduce without permission.