Artist of the day: Clare Turlay Newberry

Let's face it: when I talk about an "artist of the week," it's most likely going to be an illustrator. Not that an illustrator isn't an artiste, etc etc, but you know what I mean! One of things I've come to realize is that illustrators hold a special place in my heart. Holed up for ohmyfreakingoditsnycslargestblizzardeversnowstormjuno  the blizzard that wasn't, I was browsing Etsy, when I came upon these lovely cat drawings from the 30s.

Claire Turlay Newberry was born in Oregon and began drawing cats at the age of two. Later in life, she went to art school here and there, but never finished. At first she wanted to be a portrait painter but once she achieved success in cat-drawing, she never looked back.

I love the limited color palette (the smokey grays, negative space, and a hint of red) and how well-observed her cats are. Of the seventeen books she wrote and illustrated, fourteen of them featured cats as their main subject.

Painter of the day: Aaron Birnbaum

"If you are durable, your resistance can overcome a lot of trouble... It is not the strength you got, it is the durable you got that [helps] you overcome all your troubles." - Aaron Birnbaum (1885 - 1998)

One day Molly and I would like to travel to the bi-annual Slotin Folk Art Auction in Buford, Georgia, but until that day we content ourselves with the thick magazine that they send in the mail. While flipping though this term's offerings, I was drawn to the work of an artist previously unknown to me, the Ukranian-American Aaron Birnbaum.

A fellow Brooklynite, he would sit on his couch (or the stool next to it) in his studio apartment, surrounded by buckets of paint, to work. (I smiled when I read that, thinking of the havoc it wreaks on our tiny apartment when I take out my art supplies.) His apartment was literally crammed with his paintings, which often were painted on top found objects -- fruit crate tops, old mirrors, pieces of plywood, serving trays.

Born in the Ukraine, Birnbaum carried with him the memory of the beautiful countryside of his homeland. But his childhood was far from idyllic. He was taunted for being a Jew (one memory is of buttons being ripped from his new suit), and at age thirteen was pulled out of school to apprentice with a tailor, where he put in 17 hour days, 6 days a week. At age seventeen, he went to NYC to meet up with his father, who had emigrated earlier, and became a tailor and dressmaker himself. He did this his entire adult life. At 70, retired, and grieving the death of his wife to cancer, he decided to take up painting. He approached it much like dress-making, even making cardboard templates for some of his reoccurring images, such as birds and ships. While his pieces were featured in group shows, he only really achieved greater recognition in the art world at the age of 100, when he was given a one man show at the Museum of American Folk Art.

Birnbaum was called a "memory painter" because he painted all the scenes of his childhood from memory. In addition, he painted the world around him, his life in Brooklyn. 

I love the playfulness of his work, the composition, the flatness of objects, and their strong graphic bent. I love the way he renders birds. And I'm drawn to his personal story -- reinvention at 70 after great loss, fame at 100, death at 103. I often feel restless and antsy with respect to career aspect of my life, impatient that I haven't yet achieved nearly what I want and yearn to. Impatience (coupled with a slightly pessimistic streak) is one of my hugest character flaws. Yet, knock on wood, my life is still much longer, and there's a lot of time left provided I don't waste it.

The artist, with his giraffes.