Christmas Gifts from Stevie's Artisans

My good friend Martha, who lives in England, bought some earrings from Stevie's Artisans Urban Folk Art for two friends who live in California. Bonnie received the silvery gray "Fleur de Lis" style and black "Double Asia."

Meg received "Big Red Rose" and green "Cut out Leaves" earrings.

All arrived in time for Christmas and all are sculpted from lace

by Naemeh Shirazi of Stevie's Artisans Urban Folk Art.

Lace Roses in Sarasota, Florida

Last week I took a little break and visited some friends in Sarasota, Florida. Julie and her husband Vinnie are artists and designers who create museum installations through their company, Ciulla Designs. Julie makes gorgeous gold jewelry based on archaeological designs and Vinnie creates fantasy collages - bathing beauties riding manatees, water skiers pulled by NYC taxis under the Brooklyn Bridge, etc. Julie bought a couple of pairs of Naemeh Shirazi's lace earrings and suggested I visit and show some of the Stevie's Artisans' work at some Sarasota shops.

We get together whenever they are in NYC - usually dinner at Al di La Restaurant in Park Slope - but I have been longing to visit them and see the mid-century modernist home they live in. They bought and have been restoring Paul Rudolph's masterpiece, the Umbrella House. The house has an elegant glass jalousies facade with lots of built in cabinetry features inside. The "umbrella" is a trellised canopy system that shades and cools the house - remember, houses weren't as extensively air-conditioned in the 1950's and 1960's when this house was built.

I met with Liby (Elizabeth Rice) at her home furnishings gallery/shop - she loved Naemeh's silver vine leaves earrings & pendants and also really liked the Ivette Urbaez silk screened dress I was wearing (red tulip dress) I met with the manager of her apparel/accessories shop - Terra Nova and Cheryl Ralya seemed to like the lace jewelry more and agreed Ivette's tulip dress, fire escape tunic, and teal roses & thorns skirt would go well in the shop. How exciting for Naemeh and Ivette! I left jewelry samples with Julie to show to the buyer at the Ringling Museum gift shop. I think Naemeh's rose pendant and earrings would really compliment Mabel Ringling's "roses"

artwork/accessories collection.

So, what else did I do in Sarasota because I didn't go for all work and no play. Julie and Vinnie have a lovely pool in their back yard and we also swam in the Gulf - warm and a really cool green color - unlike the aqua blue of the Mediterranean or the Caribbean. Julie and I went looking for alligators at the Myakka River State Park - no gator sighting but lots of hero and oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. I sat in at a rehearsal of the Key Chorale, the community chorus Julie sings with. (For years, Julie and I sang togther and served on the board of the Brooklyn Philharmonia Chorus.) The Key Chorale are fabulous and they are performing terrific music - Britten's "Saint Nicholas Cantata."

The day before I left I had lunch with Julie and friends from either the chorus and/or her rowing group - all terrifically interesting ladies in business, the arts, and some retired. Cheryl rows with Julie & Vinnie and Mary Chadsey creates amazing majolica pottery in her studio Mariooch. We are talking about her joining Stevie's Artisans Urban Folk Art.

Fashion on the Street

A Chance Encounter

A couple of Sundays ago two friends (Sharon Fahlstrom & Vigdis Eriksen) and I were on our way to see an exhibition at the New Museum on the Bowery when I had one of those great chance moments. You might even call it a New York moment. I was half way down the stairs to the Borough Hall subway station when I saw a flash of one of Ivette Urbaez's silk screen designs going by. "She's wearing one of Ivette's dresses. I need a picture," I shouted to my friends.

Vigdis whipped out her camera while I ran down the street to stop the girl and beg her to pose for a photo. After I caught up with her, I blathered on about Stevie's Artisans - my company - I represent the artist who designed the dress she was wearing, etc.

Her look was very cool. She was wearing Ivette's racer back tunic/dress: gray cotton with a black abstract silk screen print of fire escapes. She had accessorized with a cotton scarf and she was wearing sneakers with electric green laces.

She was totally happy to let me take a few photos because she said she absolutely loved the dress, loved how well it fit and was amazed because she always had such a hard time buying dresses. She told me she also loves the shop where she made her purchase - Lily on Court Street in Brooklyn.

She was so gracious and I forgot to ask her name. So I thanked the mystery Ivette fan and then we all went on our ways. A very serendipitous chance encounter!

Sardines, Bacalau & Fado

I recently vacationed in Portugal - Lisbon, Porto and the Douro wine region. My husband, Tony and I were joined by long time friends who live in England. Martha was my college roommate and I've known her husband as long as she's known him - since 1970. We like vacationing together.

We shared a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment in the Baixia neighborhood of Lisbon on a pedestrian street lined with restaurants and stores, very near to lots of public transportation (Metro, buses, trolley, trams) and the harbor. We also had access to the very affordable taxis.

Lisbon is fantastically hilly with meandering streets in the older districts. Luckily our neighborhood was flat and the streets were on a grid - a result of the area being totally destroyed by earthquake and fire in the mid 1700's. Unlike Italy where the building and houses are stuccoed in gorgeous colors - sienna, ochre, umber, pink, blue, etc, the facades of Lisbon's buildings are covered in ceramic tiles. Each house is different so the effect is a crazy quilt of different patterns, colors and textures - wonderfully riotous. Although Portugal faces the Atlantic, the red-tiled rooftops present a rather Mediterranean look.

I ate lots of fish, especially sardines and cod - which makes sense for a nation with so much ocean coastline. The sardines were just coming into season as signs in all the restaurants informed us. I mostly ate them grilled and doused with Portugal's splendid olive oil, however the best I ate - lightly floured and sauteed in olive oil were at a roadside dive on our way to the wine country. Usually the sardines were served with boiled potatoes that were salted and bathed in olive oil. Simple but incredibly delicious.

The cod was pretty much always baccalau - salted cod, but unlike what I usually find here it was thick cuts of cod that had been salted, then reconstituted with rinsing. I love fresh cod, but the baccalau had a smokey flavor and a much meatier texture than fresh cod. Sometimes I had it grilled but the best was baked in olive oil with a crunchy corn bread topping. It was luscious with interesting textures. The bakeries served lovely croissants and rolls and a really wonderful dessert called tart do Belem (a puff pastry shell filled with a creamy custard with a burnt sugar topping. A little like a creme brulee but not so egg custardy.)

We went to Portugal for Fado - a bluesy vocal music that began in the dockside bars of Lisbon a hundred of so years ago. The musical accompaniment is guitar and a Portuguese 12 string guitar that looks a bit like a viola da gamba (a medieval guitar.) The singers, mostly women, usually sing torchy, bluesy songs about love, loss, Lisboa or simply fate (fado) and there is often some improvisation with the lyrics. The best Fado clubs are in the Alfama section of Lisbon - the oldest neighborhood that still has vestiges (especially the tile work) of the long Muslim rule in Portugal. Everyone recommended Club do Fado - a venue for mostly younger, up and coming Fado singers. The next night we went to a Parreinha Cafe, a restaurant/club owned by a retired Fadista Argentina Santos. We listened to older, more established singers - a good contrast from the performers of the previous evening. The food was exceptional and I tasted a suggested aperitif: white port. The flavor was somewhat reminiscent of a dry sherry and made a terrific pre-dinner cocktail.

I loved riding the tram on a roller coaster like ride up and down Lisbon's steep hills. On one early morning run I found myself in a little courtyard festooned with laundry hung overhead. One line had all lacy panties, another brassieres and the third was socks. Oh, I wish I had carried my camera, but I usually run as unencumbered as possible. One evening after dinner I decided to check out the Red Line on the Lisbon Metro. It's the newest line and each of the six stations is decorated by different artists in different motifs. The terminus is a three tier construction with soaring steel trusses designed by the noted Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava.

Most of the artwork in the stations was painted tile installations: cartoon images or amoeba swirls or a fabulous crazy quilt design that also incorporated a 3 dimensional quality in the way it was installed in recesses and pop-outs. There were also terrific iron-work railings and metal sculptures. My friend Sharon had a similar experience exploring the art filled stations of the Moscow Metro. Then it was on to Porto for more art and Fado and wine. Lots of good wine.

Time Passes

A friend told me she is putting together her summer reading for her two week vacation in Maine in August and she just ordered my husband, Tony Scaduto's biography of Bob Dylan on Kindle. Tony published that book just before we started living together back in the early 70's. It was the first biography of Dylan and many still consider it the best. Full disclosure: I like Dylan, but have never been a huge fan and I've never been one to read non-fiction, least of all biographies. However, I loved Tony's book because it fully captured the music, the politics, and the feelings of the 60's era. For me, his book really evoked the emotional upheaval we all had just lived through and experienced - a fantastic accomplishment for a writer.





One of the iconic figures of that time, Suze Rotolo, died recently. She is remembered as the girlfriend on Bob Dylan's arm on the album cover of "Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" and although Tony was never able to talk to Suze when he was writing his book, many years later we became friends. Suze was a great beauty, a very principled person and a wonderful artist. She and her husband Enzo were warm and generous hosts - and we shared many delicious meals, good wine and stimulating conversations. As she requested, her memorial, held a couple of weeks ago, was a wonderful party with music, her favorite foods prepared by her son Luca and a gorgeous slide show of images put together by Enzo - a beautiful celebration.

On May 5 we went to a reading and book launch for Heywood Gould - author and screenwriter of Cocktail, Double Bang, Fort Apache the Bronx, etc. I haven't read his new book yet - The Serial Killer's Daughter - but I really loved the last one - Leading Lady. Lots of old friends - from Woody's NY Post days, his bar tending days and his TV and movie days - reminisced at the dinner afterward. They regaled each other with drinking stories and journalism tales: big stories covered and how they ended up at the NY Post in the first place. They had all started as copy boys and then worked their way through the ranks as police reporter and then feature writers. Invariably there was mention of friends & colleagues who have passed away: Vic Ziegel and a then last week, Leonard Katz.

Lenny Katz had been in rehab recovering from a fall that resulted in a broken hip. He and Tony talked weekly and Lenny was always upbeat and optimistic - a real fighter. What a shock that he succumbed to what turned out to be lots of complications. Tony and I saw him last October when we were in Florida for a family wedding. We had a rather forgettable lunch at a Chinese restaurant in a West Palm Beach mall but Lenny was funny and sharp and extended his usual gracious invitation for us to visit with him and his lovely wife, Marilyn. He and Tony sat on a bench outside the restaurant, smoking their cigarettes and chatting before we headed back to our hotel. Two tough old guys having their moment. It was sweet and now, a touching last memory of Leonard Katz, author of a biography of Frank Costello, journalist and terrific police reporter.

By the Sea Quilts

For many Christmases and birthdays, I have been the lucky and proud recipient of quilts and wall hangings hand crafted by Teri Scaduto. One of her quilts drapes over my piano, another - a Frank Lloyd Wright cityscape hangs over my bed and my favorite - a view of Sciacca, Sicily - hangs in my kitchen. All are works of art.

Full disclosure) Teri is my step-daughter. I've known her since she was a very smart, very talented and very rebellious 14 year old. I have watched her blossom into a gorgeous woman who is still one of the smartest people I know. Teri is an amazing quilt maker. Her color sense and craftsmanship is superb. She is also a fabulous mom.

Teri and I share a love of swimming - she swims daily - and a few summers ago, we logged in a lot of pool and beach time together in Sicily. Below is her quilt Night Swim.

Teri began quilting 16 years ago, with a simple calico nine-patch for her new-born son. She quickly discovered that quilting is a fascinating mix of the practical and the creative. She remains intrigued by the interplay of light and shadow that can be achieved in fabrics, as well as the endless possibilities inherent in combining traditional quilt patterns with modern sensibilities. Her expertise on the long-arm machine allows her to add intricate thread work to enhance the finished pieces. Her quilts, which range from the traditional patterns to contemporary designs, have won top prizes in several juried quilt shows.


Teri Scaduto and her son Christopher live in Babylon, New York.
Her background includes careers as a caterer, writer, and editor. These days, as a professional long-arm quilter she uses an industrial sewing machine mounted on a 15-foot table to do the decorative stitching that holds together the three layers of her customers' quilts. When not in her quilting studio, creating her own designs or finishing her customers’ quilts, she spends her time in, on, or near the water.

Our Glass - Fused Glass Art

A year and a half ago my sister Anita proudly showed me the glass art she had crafted using the warm glass process, also known as fused glass. I had just started Stevie's Artisans and she and her partner, Mike Sweek, were happy to join my curated collection of artisans. I was excited to represent their work.

Then Anita was diagnosed with liver cancer. But, my sister was a fighter and she was optimistic about her chances. Anita and Mike and her daughter Alyssa kept making beautiful glass. Anita died September 1, 2010, in the loving care of her daughter Alyssa, her three sisters, Mike, her Aunt Bert, her best friend Thalia and Alyssa's boyfriend, Russell.

Our Glass and Anita's spirit and creativity continue in the work carried on by Alyssa Trudeau and Mike Sweek. Mike feels Alyssa's work is every bit as inspired as Anita's glass art. I agree. Alyssa's boyfriend Russell Borne - a graphic artist and photographer - has joined the group, contributing lots of creative fire and energy, plus he documents all the work. BTW, Russell also designed and constructed the Stevie's Artisans website - lots of family involvement in these enterprise. and endeavors.




Like Anita, Alyssa, Mike and Russell also share a love of and aim to capture the play of light on glass. In addition to coasters and plates, they especially like crafting sun catchers and mini landscapes created from mixtures of opaque, iridized and transparent colors. I am struck how they manage to impart warmth to a medium that by its nature is brittle and hard and in the fractured patterns of some of their work, they are creating glass art with an edgy vibe.

Last month I made a site visit to Portland, OR where Alyssa, Mike and Russell live and work. Russell and I worked pretty solidly for two days to finish the Stevie's Artisans website but there was definitely time to visit the Our Glass studio sited in Mike's garage. They showed me prototypes, works-in-progress and all the glass ready to go up for sale on the website. We kicked around lots of ideas over a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir. It was a very productive week-end.

My Website

Finally, My website is live!

You can go to www.steviesartisans.com to see what is available from the eclectic "gang of four" artisans who are Stevie's Artisans. The Home Page introduces the four artisans: Ivette Urbaez, Teri Scaduto, Our Glass
(Alyssa Trudeau, Mike Sweek & Russell Borne) and Naemeh Shirazi. Besides a short description of what they make, each artist has some images illustrating their work.

You can find the work by category i.e. silkscreen fashions, quilts, fused glass art and jewelry or you can go to the artisan's page. The artisan's page includes a bio and artist's statement and of course, all the work available for sale. The website was designed and constructed by Russell Borne and I think it is very user friendly. BTW, you can still find Stevie's Artisans on etsy.com/shop/steviesartisans

So, check it out and buy something from Stevie's Artisans. Or, please send a comment to tell us what you think. A sample of what you will find at Stevie's Artisans:

Sculpted Lace Earrings & Pendants by Naemeh Shirazi:


Fused Glass Art by Our Glass: plates, luminaria, candle holders & coasters.
















Original hand printed silkscreen fashions
by Ivette Urbaez - flirty skirts, dresses, leggings, tunics & kid's clothes.










Hand crafted Quilts by Teri Scaduto:

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Berlin

In February I spent a fabulous week in Berlin. My friend Sharon Avery Fahlstrom curated an exhibition of her husband, Oyvind Fahlstrom's work at the Aurel Scheibler Gallery in the Mitte section of the former East Berlin. I arrived two days before the opening so I was able to help out a bit - I helped Aurel's assistant Rebecca attach wall labels while Sharon made the rounds of the gallery, dabbing touch-ups on the walls. One of my favorites - "The Garden" is in this show.

The show is beautiful and has generated glowing reviews in the Berlin & the Frankfurt press. The show comes down the end of April except for The Garden. That piece will be up until the third week of June. After the opening we all celebrated at a lovely dinner hosted by Aurel at a nearby restaurant, Sale e Tabachi. The menu was orechiette con broccoli rabe, grilled bronzino with a fennel/caper sauce and lemon sorbet in vodka for dessert. And of course, copious amounts of wine. (Sharon and I shared several memorable meals at Sale & Tabachi: calves' liver in a Marsala reduction & fried sage leaves, and for a late dinner - vitello tonato for me and a lovely seafood soup for Sharon.)

It was bitter cold but luckily my hotel was so well located I could walk down the Unter den Linden a couple of blocks to the Brandenburg Gate and then to Peter Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial - a sculptural land art piece that reminded me a little of the Cretto di Burri - Alberto Burri's memorial to the 1968 earthquake victims of Gibellina, Sicily. The next day I went to Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum - an architectural masterpiece. BTW, my son Michael Scaduto graduated from the Cooper Union School of Architecture. Eisenman was one of his teachers, Libeskind is a Cooper Union alumna and I also saw a house deigned by John Hejduk - former Dean of CU School of Architecture. Cooper Union is well represented in Berlin.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, a friend brought me a small zip-lock bag filled with pieces of "wall" rubble. On the sidewalk outside the hotel I stayed at is a standing segment of the wall, beautifully graffiti decorated. Many of the streets are clearly marked with a cobblestone line, to mark where the wall separated East from West. Checkpoint Charlie still stands as a Cold War Era monument and you can have your photo taken with an actor portraying a U.S. or Soviet soldier - just like the "gladiators" posing outside the Colosseum in Rome. There is also the "Wall" museum - very much a home-made collection of cold war/wall memorabilia, art and personal mementos donated by Berliners. It's all slightly cheesy but absolutely heartfelt.

Towards the end of my trip I met with one of the Stevies Artisans, Naemeh Shirazi who now lives and creates her sculpted lace jewelry in Berlin. We met at a hip coffee house - St Oberholtz in Rosenthaler Platz. (It is so easy to get around Berlin on public transport: the UBahn subway and the elevated SBahn and buses & trams.) Naemeh and I caught up over dinner - foccacia, pork schnitzel and creamy broccoli soup for Naemeh - and we exchanged 20 yards of lace and 2 bottles of dye I brought from NYC so she can make lots of beautiful lace earrings, many in new styles she has developed. She gave me a ton of new inventory which I've added to my website, which is now live - http://www.steviesartisans.com

On our last day Berlin we hit the art museums. Our whirlwind visit began with the Neues National - a Mies Van der Rohe building that houses a superb modern art collection: Kirchner, Dix, Klee, Picasso, etc. Then we headed for Museum island for the Pergamon to see the cobalt blue tiled Ishtar Gate, the colossal Market Gate of Miletus and the Pergamon Altar which is even more magnificent then the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum. We had a Turkish meal at the Pergamon Museum cafe - a splendid idea to serve a menu that is themed to the art collection. Then we went on to the Neues Museum to see the bust of Nefertiti and a lovely Egyptian art and sculpture collection.

We ended the day with a very quick tour of the Hamburger Bahnhoff led by the director, Udo Kittlemann (a friend of Sharon). The Hamburg Bahnhof, a former railway terminus is repurposed as the national contemporary art museum: Joseph Beuy's archive and art, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Warhol, etc.

Built in 1848, the Hamburger Bahnhof is the only surviving terminus in Berlin from the late neoclassical period and is one of the oldest station buildings in all of Germany. I loved the vaulted central gallery with its steel trusses - I know Sharon could imagine Falhlstrom's works installed in that space. Udo led us through an endless series of huge open galleries - spaces designed for really big works. Dusk was edging into night when we left and the building glowed with a Dan Flavin light installation. Magical!

I'd like to report that we ended our last day in Berlin with a fabulous meal, but instead we had an acceptable meal at Berlin's so called "best" restaurant. We should have gone back to Sale e Tabachi. I left the next morning - bitter cold but filled with brilliant sunshine - perfect for my bus ride to the airport to return home. I look forward to returning some spring to see the linden trees in full bloom on the Unter den Linden.