Two friends just returned from Mali and another artist-acquaintance, Janet Goldner, just left for Mali. Since the last post was rather gloomy, I will move into the solstice with thoughts of Janet sharing art with Malians again. I first met Janet in 1990 in New York City at the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA). I saw her again at another WCA meeting, I can’t remember where. She’s had a thirty-year connection to Mali and does powerful metalwork masks and instrument-like objects.
Solstice remi
nds me of another artist I met also in NYC at the WCA,
Donna Henes. Donna does seasonal performances and collects stories of healing. I was particularly attracted to Donna’s work because of the locations she chose: lower Manhattan. She did one piece in the 1980s in front of Cass Gilbert’s Custom House, and also an autumn altar on lower Broadway…making the streets and public spaces sacred, animating them with light and fire.