Catherine Couturier Gallery continues its blog series entitled Safe in the Studio. With each blog post, works will be highlighted and discounted 20% for one week following the post’s publishing date.
In our last edition of Safe in the Studio, Catherine Couturier Gallery featured gallery manager, Erica Lee, and three works from the gallery’s collection. This week, the gallery is pleased to present the following post by gallery artist Jeri Eisenberg:
For more than 30 years I’ve lived in a home that my husband and I built on 18 acres of wooden land in upstate New York, five miles east of the Hudson River. To the north are the majestic Adirondack Mountains, to the southwest are the slightly older Catskill Mountains, and to the southeast are the Berkshire highlands of Massachusetts. Running through these is the Hudson River itself, and the valley where I live, about two and a half hours north of New York City. The Hudson River Valley is home to many stunning view sheds, and what has often been called the first American School of Painting.
View from Jeri's Bedroom Windows
All of this presents compelling, often dramatic natural beauty within easy reach. But it has always been the small, intimate and commonplace details in my own wooded backyard, and the foliage, flora and botanical material of the more prosaic locations closer at hand that have provided my photographic subject matter.
I rarely travel to a location specifically to photograph. Rather, I travel through my daily routines, and I photograph where I happen to go for one reason or another (as my husband loves to travel). But I always return to photograph in and around my own woods and home, where I feel comforted and cradled by soft greens in spring and summer, blazing reds, golds and oranges in autumn, and thick blankets of whites and misty grays in winter. I feel incredibly lucky to have lived where I do.
I feel luckier still that over the last seven years I have been able to also spend some time, most weeks, in the alternate reality of Manhattan. Living part time in a small New York City apartment couldn’t provide a starker contrast in terms of bustle and activity, culture and constant humanity. Museums, concerts and continual gallery going all came to an abrupt halt, however, on March 6, my last day visiting in City, when the impending threat of the Corona virus's spread became clear.
%20Installed_Jeri%20Eisenberg_sm.jpg "Jeri Eisenberg \"Sugar Maple Floaters (Red)\" Installed in her Bedroom")
View of Sugar Maple Floaters (Red) Installed in Jeri's Home
I am immensely grateful that I had the ability to retreat to my home in upstate New York and to bring my 91-year old mother from her senior community to shelter here with us through the worst of the pandemic. Socially isolating is vastly easier here (in fact, it’s my way of life here), and I am aware of the significant privilege that I have been blessed with in that regard.
It is not easy as I write this, given the ruptures in our society caused by widespread economic dislocation and social injustice, to find a way to contribute something of true consequence to help address our current troubles. Yet I take some comfort in this insight provided by Williams Carlos Williams:
"It is difficult to get the news from poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."
So I remind myself that, in these times as ever, it remains vital to see the small bits of beauty that surround us in the everyday natural world. That beauty may be fragmented, fleeting and fragile, but that it can comfort and sustain us. That notions of beauty may go in and out of fashion, and that beauty itself may be impossible to define, but that it remains essential to our lives. And, that like love, it gives us the fortitude to fight for a better world.
To learn more about Jeri Eisenberg and see more of her work, please visit her Artist Page.
The following pieces are available to purchase with a 20% discount for the next week. The discount will no longer be applicable on orders made after Thursday, July 2, 2020 at 11:59PM.
Canna, No. 2, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
36 x 22 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $2,000 ($2,500)
Canna, No. 6, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
36 x 22 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $2,000 ($2,500)
Seeking Solace, No. 4, 2019
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Triptych 36 x 34 inches, edition of 12: $2,800 ($3,500)
Pond Grass Variations, No. 2, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Quad 36 x 45 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $3,600 ($4,500)
Summer Greens, No. 14, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Triptych 36 x 34 inches, edition of 12: $2,800 ($3,500)
Star Magnolia, No. 4, 2012
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Quad 36 x 45 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $3,200 ($4,000)
Dogwood Canopy No. 2, 2015
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Quad 36 x 45 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $3,200 ($4,000)
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Catherine Couturier Gallery continues its blog series entitled Safe in the Studio. With each blog post, works will be highlighted and discounted 20% for one week following the post’s publishing date.
In our last edition of Safe in the Studio, Catherine Couturier Gallery featured gallery manager, Erica Lee, and three works from the gallery’s collection. This week, the gallery is pleased to present the following post by gallery artist Jeri Eisenberg:
For more than 30 years I’ve lived in a home that my husband and I built on 18 acres of wooden land in upstate New York, five miles east of the Hudson River. To the north are the majestic Adirondack Mountains, to the southwest are the slightly older Catskill Mountains, and to the southeast are the Berkshire highlands of Massachusetts. Running through these is the Hudson River itself, and the valley where I live, about two and a half hours north of New York City. The Hudson River Valley is home to many stunning view sheds, and what has often been called the first American School of Painting.
View from Jeri's Bedroom Windows
All of this presents compelling, often dramatic natural beauty within easy reach. But it has always been the small, intimate and commonplace details in my own wooded backyard, and the foliage, flora and botanical material of the more prosaic locations closer at hand that have provided my photographic subject matter.
I rarely travel to a location specifically to photograph. Rather, I travel through my daily routines, and I photograph where I happen to go for one reason or another (as my husband loves to travel). But I always return to photograph in and around my own woods and home, where I feel comforted and cradled by soft greens in spring and summer, blazing reds, golds and oranges in autumn, and thick blankets of whites and misty grays in winter. I feel incredibly lucky to have lived where I do.
I feel luckier still that over the last seven years I have been able to also spend some time, most weeks, in the alternate reality of Manhattan. Living part time in a small New York City apartment couldn’t provide a starker contrast in terms of bustle and activity, culture and constant humanity. Museums, concerts and continual gallery going all came to an abrupt halt, however, on March 6, my last day visiting in City, when the impending threat of the Corona virus's spread became clear.
View of Sugar Maple Floaters (Red) Installed in Jeri's Home
I am immensely grateful that I had the ability to retreat to my home in upstate New York and to bring my 91-year old mother from her senior community to shelter here with us through the worst of the pandemic. Socially isolating is vastly easier here (in fact, it’s my way of life here), and I am aware of the significant privilege that I have been blessed with in that regard.
It is not easy as I write this, given the ruptures in our society caused by widespread economic dislocation and social injustice, to find a way to contribute something of true consequence to help address our current troubles. Yet I take some comfort in this insight provided by Williams Carlos Williams:
"It is difficult to get the news from poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."
So I remind myself that, in these times as ever, it remains vital to see the small bits of beauty that surround us in the everyday natural world. That beauty may be fragmented, fleeting and fragile, but that it can comfort and sustain us. That notions of beauty may go in and out of fashion, and that beauty itself may be impossible to define, but that it remains essential to our lives. And, that like love, it gives us the fortitude to fight for a better world.
To learn more about Jeri Eisenberg and see more of her work, please visit her Artist Page.
The following pieces are available to purchase with a 20% discount for the next week. The discount will no longer be applicable on orders made after Thursday, July 2, 2020 at 11:59PM.
Canna, No. 2, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
36 x 22 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $2,000 ($2,500)
Canna, No. 6, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
36 x 22 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $2,000 ($2,500)
Seeking Solace, No. 4, 2019
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Triptych 36 x 34 inches, edition of 12: $2,800 ($3,500)
Pond Grass Variations, No. 2, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Quad 36 x 45 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $3,600 ($4,500)
Summer Greens, No. 14, 2020
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Triptych 36 x 34 inches, edition of 12: $2,800 ($3,500)
Star Magnolia, No. 4, 2012
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Quad 36 x 45 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $3,200 ($4,000)
Dogwood Canopy No. 2, 2015
pigment ink on Japanese Kozo with encaustic medium
Quad 36 x 45 1/2 inches, edition of 12: $3,200 ($4,000)
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