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Tina Olsen | Landscapes & Visages
May 7, 2021 at 8:00 am - May 31, 2021 at 5:00 pm
To be held outside with distanced small group viewing of work inside
EXHIBIT runs May 7 – May 31 Fridays from 4pm-8pm or by appointment
I was a lonely child, bored with what adults said and did. I found refuge in nature, animals and occasionally my twin sisters.They were a year younger than I was. My schizophrenic /autistic brother, 5 years my junior, was often left in my care – and was part of the reason, as an adult , I would work as an arts therapist. But back in grade school with 40 children in a class, desks nailed to the floor all in a row, I would look out the window, draw and write poetry. We used pen and ink and I remember writing once over and over,”I will not talk.”
But talk I did, and mostly I was not understood. In college I would loose sight of the topic in stories and metaphors, never knowing why I was not understood. I would become overwhelmed with my passion for the subject, and see other relationships to it. I could not understand how the subject wouldn’t be related to all the other things I thought of.
The only subject that made any sense to me was art.
I could never understand how every subject didn’t have to do with every other subject. I didn’t see the point in math or history, which seemed to be only the history of killing and its dates. I was finding my way. I looked out the school window, drawing and writing poetry to pass the time.
Art put it all together for me. I first fell in love with the abstract expressionist work of sculptor Peter Voulkas. It was emotional and natural looking and I had never seen anything like it. Inspired by him, I made pots out of rough black clay that looked like big organic rocks. Looking back I see them as expressions of despair as if I were looking to go home into a cave.
I was born in 1943 just before the war ended and nowhere – not in my family nor any where else – did anyone ever talk openly about fear, despair, beauty or anything deeply personal. I remember wondering about that and why no one ever looked at me directly in the eyes. This was New England and people then were very emotionally reticent.
So making art became a way for me to find within myself a connection or communion with the world that was otherwise missing.
As is the case with all of my work, I recognize in this painting a connection to my childhood that feels timeless – though the images may be disturbing they are beautiful to me. I would come home from school, which I disliked, and walk along the railroad tracks beside our house in Springfield, Massachusetts where I grew up. There were no adults, the tracks went on and on, the sand was everywhere and there were red scrub pine trees which I loved and would sit in for long periods of time. I sang to the birds and they answered me.
