The Woven Tale Press, an online publication dedicated to showcasing noteworthy artists and writers, is holding its second annual Hamptons fine art competition July 1-Oct 1. This distinguished contest is in memoriam to artist Elizabeth Sloan Tyler – the mother of the founder of WTP, Sandra Tyler – to honor artistic talents deserving of greater recognition. First place is a one-week retreat in Elizabeth’s former home in the Hamptons, NY. Contestants hail from all over the country, with 2017 winners flying in from New Mexico and Texas.
“It means a great deal to me, to be able to repurpose my mother’s home as a retreat for artists,” says Sandra Tyler. Elizabeth Sloan Tyler was a prolific artist who painted in the obscurity of her cellar, back on Staten Island where her daughter grew up: “My mother’s years of painting in that cellar serve as an apt metaphor for what we strive for at WTP: to bring to light works by artists who otherwise may be toiling away in their own ‘cellars’.”
It was only later in life when her mother relocated to the East End of Long Island that she was finally able to have a studio filled with light. Sandra Tyler now seeks to share that light-filled studio and her mother’s home, with other artists. The charming, expanded 1909 cape, imbued throughout with her mother’s ambient abstract landscapes, is an oasis for the creative seeking a quiet escape, and is walking distance to the Amagansett town, ocean beach and New York City train.
Since its inception in 2013, WTP has expanded into a full-fledged enterprise showcasing standout works of art and literature. Both writers and visual artists alike praise WTP for its scope and mission. “The Woven Tale Press continues to be a valuable media outlet source for an array of artists that cross a variety of mediums,” artist John McCaw notes. “The eclectic mix of art combined with the aesthetic layout and the knowledgeable staff make Woven Tale Press a leader in an ever changing global art market.” And of WTP’s standing as a literary journal, writer Jaqueline Crooks states, “The Woven Tale Press features writers and artists from around the world who have something different to say. It is definitely where I want my stories to be placed—it means I’m going in the right direction.”
Complementing the digital magazine, is the WTPCentral blog with daily posts on everything from interviews and artist-studio peeks; exhibition and indie book reviews; and exclusive gallery curator profiles to distinctive reviews of artists’ and writers’ websites which draw attention to these cyber “cellars” that otherwise may go unnoticed. The WTP “Bookmarks” monthly series is devoted to spotlighting various literary and art resources from around the web, and the WTP quarterly art correspondent series features writers who report back on gallery highlights from various cities like New York, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles.
WTP is renowned for its diversity of talents featured in its magazine which is published ten times a year. The scope of mediums runs the gamut from painting and photography to sculpture and installation. Recent standout WTP artists include:
Dillon Samuelson’s whose paintings and drawings use portraiture and images of the human body to express emotional content. Most of the imagery is self-portraiture or personal friends: “In these paintings I’m focused more on an impression than a direct likeness; using light, implied movement, or paint application to capture a sense of a person or emotion. I find I can sometimes express a feeling better through the distortion or obstruction of a face than I can with a more true-to-life approach.”
Dillon Samuelson
Self-Portrait
Oil on canvas
11” x 14”
Em
Oil on canvas
12” x 16”
Susan Clinard who works in wood, clay, bronze, stone and mixed media. As the artist-in-residence for the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, CT, her studio is a 200-year-old, renovated barn: “In the main part of the barn, there are several rooms where objects have been pushed aside throughout the years by its many inhabitants. Specifically, the objects reflect the brilliant mind of the Eli Whitney Museum’s director Bill Brown, who has been collecting oddities, gears, cranks, springs…you name it, it’s likely there. I have been the fortunate recipient of some of these lovely objects, which carry a history with them as well. I like to imagine what that history might be and then in my work incorporate some of the sensation I get from this exploration.”
Susan Clinard
Waiting Room #2
Mixed media
8’ x 4.5’ x 38”
By Susan Clinard
Holding her
Mixed media
9” x 9” x 4”
By Susan Clinard
Emilia Dubicki whose paintings are primarily abstract, but sometimes representational imagery is integrated into the work. She shows work nationally and internationally and has received residencies from the I-Park Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center; and the Wurlitzer Foundation. In summer of 2017 she showed paintings at Five Points Gallery in Torrington, CT and in summer 2016 she had a show at Fred Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Her paintings are in numerous private and corporate collections. “Each painting is an opening into another painting, to try and do what I didn’t do in the previous work.”
Emilia Dubicki
The Summer House
Acrylic on canvas
56.5” x 56.5”
By Emilia Dubicki
Sweetest Decline 1
Oil on canvas
54” x 66”
By Emilia Dubicki
Mayme Kratz , who is a mixed-media artist best known for creating art inspired from the natural life of the desert that surrounds her Phoenix, Arizona home and studio. Kratz creates sculptures using found organic fragments, desert ephemera and resin. She collects seeds, flower pods, bones, wings, vertebrae, shells, as well as birds’ nests, twigs and branches–all dried and preserved in the harsh desert environment. With great reverence for the natural world, Kratz creates cast resin pieces of fragile beauty locked in fluid translucent resin. The artist embeds her found objects, sometimes spliced or broken apart and arranged in precise patterns, in luminous, cast-resin wall panels and vessels.
Mayme Kratz
Memory Block 225
Resin and seed pods
2” x 2”
By Mayme Kratz
Night Bloom
Resin, poppy pods
And hesperaloe pods on panel
By Mayme Kratz
All winners will be published in The Woven Tale Press and be featured in a spotlight on WTPCentral. Proceeds from the $25 entry fee go to supporting the WTP editorial staff and general editorial expenses. For more information, as well as to subscribe for free, go to http://www.thewoventalepress.net/.
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