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Discovering Cathie Bleck
This week, I received word that Cathie Bleck's new book , Open Spaces, is finally being released. Cathie is one of my favorite visual artists. She is known for her work in illustration, having done work for people like Jimmy Carter and Deepok Chopra. 
Like thousands of other people, I came to know Cathie through her work. When I first encountered the work, I was so blown away that, like some pimply-faced, gawking kid, I just called her up and gushed at her on the phone for an hour or so. A reasonable person would have hung up on me and gotten a restraining order, but not Cathie. After a series of conversations and notes, she asked me to write an essay for her book, which I gratefully did. There are also essays by John P. Avalon, Stephen Post and Milton Glaser.
For those who live in the area, there will be a book release and exhibition in Chicago at I Space, Chicago gallery of the University of Illinois (Cathie's alma mater) August 5 from 3-6. A show of her work is up until August 26 and Cathie will do an artist talk on the 25th from 6-8.
You've had a look at one of her extraordinary illustrations, but there is so much more. I urge you to contact her publisher, Murphy Books, to get a copy of her book. Act quickly. The edition is limited to 3,000 copies!
One of my absolute favorites, Mother Nature's Son is below:
Mother Nature's Son © Cathie Bleck, All Rights Reserved, This image is not subject to the Creative Commons License that applies to the rest of the site.
Here is an excerpt from my essay:
To experience Cathie Bleck’s work is to tumble headlong into willow-ringed ponds, to climb a sap-oozing pine tree at midnight, or to suck the honey from its comb. It is to accept that nature’s sweet endowments come with the sticky, the bitter, and the prickly. It is to fathom that while God may have intended man’s dominion over nature, that we are not equal to the task.Gazing at her images reminded me of an old Twilight Zone episode I saw long ago. Looking at her work, I found myself wishing myself inside it. There, beauty burgeons from health, not from contrivance. Walk inside her artwork. This is what you will discover.
Her art argues with the notion that humankind is somehow superior to the rest of the natural world. People are never central in her compositions. We’re just another animal among the swirl and the swarm. But the lyricism, the tenderness and the affection with which she treats all living things persuades: we’re better off in her world than we are in our own, among the detritus of our dominion. There are no clear-cut, stump-strewn Oregon mountainsides, no rock-quarry wounds, or chartreuse copper-mining effluent ponds. In her work, there is life in love with itself.
Posted on June 16, 2006 08:09 AM | Permalink
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