New Year, New You: Celebrate with Tea 101 - classes begin on December 30, 2014

• Tea 101

• Prep the Pot (Tea 101) Class  - Tuesday, December 30, 2014; 6:30

  • How tea created empires and revolutionized culture.

  • Overview of the production process: harvest, oxidation, blending, and bagging.

  • Introduction to the main types of tea, and their less common variations.

  • Benefits to a lifestyle of overall wellness

  Place: 1120 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Floor; near 42nd Street, NYC

  If you'd like to know more about classes, or to arrange an on-site course at your business,

• Contact/Register: Natasha@kronentea.com 
• First Class: $49.00 (ask for NYAE discount)

Merry Christmas 2014 - Nativity Scenes in Art

18th Century Neapolitan ornaments on the  Metropolitan Christmas Tree

 Collected by Loretta Hines Howard since 1925 and on view since 1957, 

over 200 figures were donated in 1964;  Linn Howard, Loretta's daughter, 

still dresses the tree with her daughter, Andrea Selby  

Made possible by gifts to The Christmas Tree Fund and the Loretta Hines Howard Fund.

The Metropolitan Museum's Christmas Tree is a seasonal favorite. Fully decorated by Thanksgiving Weekend, it remains one of the time-honored traditions for New Yorkers and visitors, who seek out the best holiday displays all around the town. This year the tree will be on view through January 6th: Epiphany.

 Neapolitan Baroque Crèche 

As we look at this magnificent  Baroque Nativity scene, arranged at the front of the Metropolitan's Christmas Tree, we might wonder when the Nativity scene in art began.  According to contemporary literature on the subject, we believe that the earliest Nativity scenes appear on sarcophagi in the 4th century, when Emperor Constantine permitted public worship and the building of churches:

Nativity, Stilicho's Sarcophigus, 4th century, 

Sant'Ambrogio Basilica, Milan

In the East, Byzantine depictions follow the description of Christ's birth found in the Gospel of James, which sets the joyous occasion in a cave:

Nativity, Byzantine, ivory, 10th century, Louvre 

Nativity, Daphni Monastery, 11th century

Later artistic interpretations relied on the Gospel of Luke and Matthew, in which the birth takes place outside an inn and the Christ Child is placed in a manger.

Nicola Pisano, Nativity, Pulpit, Baptistery, Pisa, c. 1260

Giovanni Pisano, Nativity, Pulpit of Sant Andrea, Pistoia c. 1300

Early Netherlandish and other late medieval works in northern European found inspiration in the 14th century visionary texts of St. Bridget of Sweden, who described  the Virgin Mary kneeling over the Christ Child laying on a bed of straw, radiating light: 

Hugo van der Goes, Nativity, Portinari Altarpiece,c. 1476-8, 

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The mystery and miracle of Christ's birth finds several expressions in the history of art - peace and love, exultation and song, spiritual meditation and faithful devotion:  

Alessandro Botticelli, Mystical Nativity, c, 1500, 

National Gallery, London

George de la Tour, The Newborn Christ, 1645-7, 

Museum of Fine Art, Rennes

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Adoration of the Shepherds, 1605-10

Metropolitan Museum of Art (part of the El Greco exhibition through February 1)

Matthias Grunewald, Nativity, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1510-15

Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar, France

Feliz Navidad 

 Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noël

Fröhliche Weihnachten

Feliz Natal!

from all of us at

New York Arts Exchange

Beth New York

aka. Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange

Judith and Hanukkah

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1620

T'was the 5th Night of Hanukkah and all through the house,

Cheese blintzes scent the kitchen

Sour cream delights the mouth.

Dairy products recall the courage of Judith

Who fed Holofernes cheese and wine

Then smote him to save the Israelites

In Bethulia, way before Antiochus IV's time.

The story of Judith of Bethulia who beheaded the Assyrian general Holofernes belongs to the Hebrew Bible's Apocrypha, right next to the chapters on the Maccabees, which tell the story of Hanukkah. We imagine that Judith's selfless act foreshadows the triumph of the Maccabees.

Here is the story of the Maccabees and Hanukkah.

Here is the story of Judith and Holofernes on Arthistory.about.com,

And here is a video about Judith and Hanukkah.

Plus - more works of art that feature Judith: 

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and her Maidservant, 1612-13

Alessandro Botticelli, Judith and Her Maidservant, 1472

Caravaggio, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1598-99

Cristofano Allori, Judith and the Head of Holofernes, 1613

Valentin de Boulogne, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1626

Donatello, Judith and Holofernes, 1460

Johann Adam Boller, Hanukkiah, c. 1705-32, 

Jewish Museum, NY, gift of Frida Schiff Warburg

Happy Hanukkah to all and to all a good 5th night,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director 

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

NYAE Exclusive: Luncheon with Diane Radycki on Wednesday, December 17th at 12 noon

Professor Diane Radycki with her book on 

Paula Modersohn-Becker: The First Modern Woman Artist (2013)

The New York Arts Exchange is pleased to offer an exclusive opportunity to meet Professor Diane Radycki, associate professor of art history at Moravian College and the director of Payne Gallery, for a private lunch and conversation about Paula Modersohn-Becker.  Professor Radycki has just returned from the opening of the Modersohn-Becker Retrospective at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in Humlebaek, about 22 miles outside of Copenhagen, Denmark.  She will tell us about her work on PMB and the current exhibition - a virtual trip to Louisiana in the heart of NYC.


Please join us for this exceptional occasion - and holiday celebration as we end our 2014 Fall Tour Series.

Day and Date: Wednesday, December 17
Time: 12 noon
Place:  Asia Society, in the Garden Court Cafe, Park Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets
Fee; Included in the Fall Tour series; $60 a la carte.
(Lunch is not included.)


We look forward to sharing this wonderful event with you -
Best wishes for the holidays,
Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.
Director
New York Arts Exchange
www.nyarts-exchange.com 

Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours -

Thank you for 11 years of joy and friendship - 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nešić

Director, New York Arts Exchange

Face Painting in the Dark: Poems by Ann Cefola

Ann Cefola paints with poems: still lifes, landscapes, self-portraits and other works of art.  She is a visual artist, as surely as those who delineate with brush or pencil.  She shapes, carves, digs in and reveals.  Peeling away layers of optical appearance, she mines for meaning, creating a personal iconography of circumstance.

In “Teint Pur Mat,” Cefola begins our reading of the poem with a French proverb: “Il fait dur d' être jolie (It's hard to be pretty).”

In white slip like lace, close to mirror, my mother fills 
eyebrows with Charles of the Ritz gold pen.

Chanel No. 5's scent glossy and brown as her mink stole, dabs
from a square bottle.  Touch & Glow, shaken hard in one hand.

And so the poet continues to describe the intimacy of a woman's toilette observed by her daughter, the room suffused with “pharmaceutical scents” sprinkled, sprayed and poured into use that become the heirlooms of experience: habits, products, gestures and olfactory associations.  These moments of watching and waiting transition into joining the female tribe by enacting rituals of beautification.

pale frosts of junior high.  How makeup marks my life;
Elbowing at the girls' room mirror, I draw

And contemplate: ruminating over this fashioning of the mask, this living inside and outside of the body:

help me get closer to my true snakeskin.
To swim toward grace, she knew what must be applied.

Along with these evocative images – the optical, the physical, the invisible and the remembered – which interact and overlap, simultaneously, like a Cubist's collage, there is sound: a voice that too sketches out the scenery, as in "Sugaring"

            At the pancake house, I say Blueberry, you say Cinnamon Sugar.                                                      

This poem makes my mouth crave maple syrup.

Thankfully, Cefola includes her masterpiece “Demoiselles 7,” which I have enjoyed for lo these seven years since we worked on our respective “Demoiselles” for the 100th anniversary of the painting's birth (mine was the catalog essay for an exhibition; Ann's her magnificent dialogue between the five prostitutes and art history):

To give and daily be discarded.
To live a heaviness in limb,
to feel  one's blood finely carbonated,

to sink back into empty pupils.

You blame Braque, Léger, Gris

They saw the world vibrate, could see the other side.

They heard the discordant violin, broken guitar.

They knew the danger of still life.

Picasso's ladies talk back, released from their stationary poses, to rant about the issues that still plague humankind:

We Demoiselles that changed the world,     and didn't.

As we travel from page to page, following the poet alight on urban and rural terrain, capturing the very essence of existence in all its vibrant or drab quotidian colors, we eventually face death itself in her poem “Road to Windsor,” dedicated to Susan Hall Anthony (1930-2009), co-founder of the New England Writers Association.

There she is, shimmer and light,

about to loose the body like an old nightgown.

I offer useless prayers.  Embrace her a second, last, time.

She holds on as if spirits speak in dialogue no one can hear.

This mural-like existence no less than two women, a portrait,

a Vermeer.  Love doesn't go away, I say.  She knows.

I put my hands at my heart in Namaste,

a gesture she returns.

And so the poet heads for home through the Vermont farms and Main Streets as we too take our leave from this journey through a virtual exhibition of Celofa's perceptive imagery:

Green hills home to sheep and dog, black-eyed Susans bright.
The envelope that folds in on itself,
daylilies that close at night.

Chuffed, we look forward to another Cefola collection.

Ann Cefola's Face Painting in the Dark was published by Dos Madres Press in 2014.   Her other collections of poems are St. Agnes, Pink-Slipped published by Kattywompus Press in 2011 and Sugaring published by Dancing Girl Press in 2007.  She also translated Hélène Sanguinetti's poem Hence this Cradle published by Seismicity Editions in 2007 (enjoying the Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Residency at Santa Fe Art Institute to prepare).  Cefola received the Robert Penn Warren Award, judged by John Ashbery.  She earned her MFA in Poetry Writing from Sarah Lawrence and still lives in New York.

Namaste,

Beth New York
aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic
Director
New York Arts Exchange

Kolektiv1: One Night of Wine + Jazz for Art

and the New York Arts Exchange

invite you to

ONE NIGHT-
WINE + JAZZ
FOR ART

to support

emerging art + artists

NOVEMBER 20, 2014, 6-9 PM

Liederkranz Club at the Phipps Mansion
6 E. 87th Street 

Click to buy Tickets 

Wine tasting with 100+ different wine/food pairings

to support kolektiv1's artists + spring art shows
 

PERFORMANCE BY:

  Brad Baker Jazz Ensemble 

Dance to jazz and swing

Taste 100+ wines from all over the world

Enjoy tapas style food pairings

Bid on a silent auction of affordable art

ARTISTS: 

Mane Sakic-Slobodan Miljevic-Valentina Brostean-Robert Dandarov-Gerri Davis-Gregory de la Haba-Clarity Haynes-Esther Ruiz-Fabian Tacuri-Max Tzinman-Marjorie Van Cura

 

·        Live Jazz, Swing, Dancing by the Legendary Brad Baker Jazz Ensemble

·        Wine Tasting of over 100+ wines

·        Tapas-Style Food Pairings of: Dates, Gorgonzola, Pastourma, Pan Roasted Rack of Lamb, Lollipops, Pan Seared Scallops, Cauliflower & Raisins, Duck Fries and more!

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