Shirley Gittelsohn on the Making of her Book

Recently local artist Shirley Gittelsohn spoke at Broadway Books about the making of her book, Paintings and Reflections. She was joined by her editor and project manager, Joella Werlin. We also had the pleasure of a few of the subjects of her paintings in the audience: Ernie Bonyhadi (Shirley's husband), Herb Goodman (full disclosure: Herb is our landlord), and Herb's dog Chouxie. Cannon Beach -- one of my favorite places  -- is another of Shirley's treasured subjects. Here are a few snippets from that great event. You can read more about Shirley's book here. We have just a couple of signed copies of this beautiful book left -- what a terrific gift it would make for some lucky person!

New Artwork from Syd!

Hey -- did you hear we have new artwork from Syd McCutcheon? All very colorful and whimsical -- guaranteed to brighten up any room and put a smile on your face. For some reason I'm particularly taken with "A Wild Hair." But I love them all. Come see for yourself! And the prices are incredibly reasonable.

Paintings & Reflections by Shirley Gittelsohn

Please join us Tuesday evening at 7 to hear Shirley Gittelsohn read from and discuss her book, Paintings and Reflections. The book reproduces dozens of Ms. Gittelsohn’s paintings, from 1958 to the present, in gorgeous full color. Each painting is accompanied by a short essay by the artist that places the work in the context of her life and work. We first wrote about the book in our" Twenty-Four Days of Books" blog series. Click here to read more about Ms. Gittelsohn's book and her background. This artist's memoir serves as an attempt, in the artist's own words, “to put my life and my art in order.” Please join us for a wonderful evening of "paintings and reflections."

Day Thirteen: Oaks Park Pentimento

For Day thirteen of The 24 Days of Books, we're going to stay local again. Oregon State University Press has just published an important art book called Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel Art with photos by Jim Lommasson. This book contains photographs (taken in 1982) of the strange and beautiful paintings that decorated the center column of the historic carousel at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland. First painted by German and Italian immigrants around 1912, these paintings were an exotic assortment of pastoral scenes featuring western explorers, Native Americans, an Arab riding a camel, and idealized women.

In the 1940s, two itinerant artists were hired to paint over the faded images and they filled the eighteen panels with depictions of local landmarks. Over the years, these new paintings also began to fade and flake, revealing parts of the original images in unexpected ways. (“Pentimento” means the reappearance in a painting of an underlying image that had been painted over.) These haunting new images, combining both the first and the second pictures, were captured by the photographer just three years before they were lost (forever? or perhaps not?) to another layer of paint. A good gift for anyone interested in historical Portland.

For many more gift-giving ideas, check out our gargantuan December newsletter, which you can read by clicking here.

Day Ten: Paintings and Reflections

Welcome to Day Ten in The 24 Days of Books! Today we're going to celebrate local and talk about a new book from a local artist: Paintings and Reflections, by Shirley Gittelsohn. Shirley was born in Portland in 1925 and, aside from a few years living in the Bay Area, her home has always been in Portland or in Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast -- one of my most favoritest places in the world. Her time at Reed College nurtured her artistic and humanistic interests. She also made many lifelong friends there and met her first husband, Bill Gittelsohn, who died in 2000.

Shirley has been painting for more than five decades, and the book presents more than fifty of her works. But, more than that, it presents her story, told in her own words. She is the daughter of Thomas Georges, an immigrant Greek entrepreneur, and Daisy Ostrow, her Oregon-born Jewish mother. Her paintings reflect her passions -- specifically, family, gardening, the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and particularly Cannon Beach, where she has a second home and studio, and Mexico, where she travels frequently with her second husband, Ernie Bonyhadi.

The foreword is by Arlene Schnitzer, former owner and director of The Fountain Gallery of Art in Portland, and the introduction is by Stephanie Snyder, John and Anne Hauberg Curator and Director of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College (I'm guessing her business cards must be huge!).

In Shirley's own words: "I have lived a long and fortunate life. My art reflects that good fortune: joy from family and friends, from blooming flowers, from Oregon's blue mountains, from the ever-changing atmosphere of Cannon Beach, and from Mexico's dazzling light." What a wonderful gift this book would make! Best of all, Shirley will be reading here in March, so the recipient of this gift could come to the reading and get the book personalized.

For many more gift-giving ideas, check out our gargantuan December newsletter, which you can read by clicking here.

Gift for Oz-ites

Got an Oz fan in your life that's hard to shop for? Here's a book that caught my eye, but it would definitely have to be for the right kind of fan. This is a fascinating interpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, that while devoutly loyal to the original text, is both surreal and surprising in its visuals. In this version, the acclaimed collage artist Graham Rawle has created more than one hundred artworks reimagining the famous fairy tale. The Times of London called it "a work of genius," while Nerve described it as "as beautiful as it is demented." Come and decide for yourself which it is -- or maybe it's both! For only $29.95, you can make some fan of Oz and/or art very very happy.