WHO IS BLIND BETH CHIP?
Who is Blind Beth Chip? How do the clouds of an Irish autumn echo the landscape?
Will the dogs help the turtle back to the sea? These questions - or, rather, images, are
part of the new exhibition, DRAWING ON DREAMS, at be Gallery in High Falls.
Ilka List’s Bronze and Terra Cotta sculptures, inspired by her dreams and poetic pen and ink drawings of Lynne Friedman, inspired and created during her residency at the Guthrie Center in Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan, Ireland, blend for a new show that explores the landscapes of the mind, spirit and tangible world.
As part of her creative journey, over an extended period of time List pursued and perused her dreams to reveal the inner workings of her psyche. According to List, “Dreams are portraits of the self painted in the non-verbal depths of the unconscious. They are the deepest reflections of our energy patterns and our hidden needs and thoughts. If we study them we find they tell us about our lives and suggest our significant individual destinies. We can each discover our own true direction from their intimate secrets.” Through this process she met the characters who “peopled” her dreams, including Blind Beth Chip, as well as turtles, wolves, dogs and others who embody the symbolic or archetypical in the myth and culture of many lands and ages. “Helping the Turtle to the Sea,” shown on the HOME page of this site, is a group effort of a young girl to guide a giant sea turtle making its way from the beach, back to the ocean, chaperoned by two small dogs.
No stranger to myth or legend, Ireland was the misty, rainy, cloudy impetus for Friedman to turn slightly inward, and to decline to do the expressive and colorful oil paintings for which she is known, in favor of quiet, strong and poetic pen and ink drawings. “Changing Weather,” is a three layered drawing that epitomizes the Irish experience for Friedman - stone, field and clouds moving across a horizontal page. Using the conservatory and the small village and hills near her Irish studio, Friedman used ink and wash to “find inspiration in the indomitable cycles of the natural world. The impulse that transforms experience and idea into visual form is the acknowledgement of transience and the possibility of renewal.” Friedman remained committed to this form of expression through her transatlantic journey home, and continued the series on more familiar terrain here in the Hudson Valley. Shown with Ilka’s tender, personal and evocative imagery brings together the innner landscape and the natural world around us.
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