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Written by Ryan Tramonte | Monday, 16 November 2009 09:21 A Round with Ryan
Women have always been a mystery to me. From my earliest memories until now, I can think of only a few occasions on which I have actually understood what a woman was saying, without having to just agree with them and allow them their way, based on the fact that I am a man who prides himself in his Southern charm. When my mother speaks to me, I know in the first five words if I am going to understand what she is saying or just nod my head and agree with her. With my sister, it is the way she addresses me. If she calls me Ryan, look out. If she calls me Brud, then I am safe to listen without clenching my butt cheeks together. With Bff Dore, it is the way she breathes before she even speaks that gives me a clue as to how much I should even try to understand on the first go-round. I have just reverted to assuming that on a regular basis I will receive a “talking to” from Bff Monique.
And, I never disagree with Bff Nicole from Lafayette, based on fear alone. I couldn’t care less if she is telling me the sky is falling or that my zipper is undone, I smile, agree, and then tell her how fabulous her hair looked while she was explaining things to me. This is how I handle all women, from my psychic Miss Elizabeth, to the bitchy stewardess on my last Continental flight from Houston (I would have pushed that bitch out at 30,000 feet if wouldn’t have killed everyone on board), I just smile, chuckle, and add a hair compliment. It gets them every time.
However, there have been two women in my life that I have never had to work at understanding. Both of my Grandmothers were top-notch individuals, and both got their messages across to me as clear as Mikasa crystal. My Maw Maw Toni was easy, she never made demands, and she simply liked to listen to us talk. No matter what we said, she listened and always had questions. She once told me the one thing she liked about talking to all of her grandchildren was that we were so much smarter than she was. She said she learned so much from talking to us that given the choice, she would talk to us all day long. She told me my cousin Cindy was the smartest and my cousin Dwain was the funniest. What she failed to realize, was that she was the reason that Cindy was smart and Dwain was funny. In fact, she was the reason we were all who we were. When a certain cousin (who shall remain nameless, because she is female and I am afraid of her) contracted warts, Maw Maw Toni broke out the home remedy of rubbing garlic on the wart and burying the garlic in the backyard. While Lipgloss Kristie (oops) and I buried the garlic, I thought what an amazingly fascinating woman my Maw Maw Toni was. Always full of ideas, and never realizing just how smart she really was. It wasn’t until my adult years that I realized the value and rarity of having such a humble creature in my life, so full of love and compassion.
My Grandmaw on the other hand made many demands. When I asked her if I could get a tattoo, she asked me if I wanted a trailer to go with it. When I asked why I needed a trailer, she explained that I would need somewhere to live after my shotgun wedding. I decided against the tattoo, not just because she mentioned the horrible word “wedding”, but because after we finished laughing she said, “you wouldn’t spray paint on the Mona Lisa now would you?” That is why I didn’t get the tattoo. I was her work of art, she had helped to create me, and I was going to respect that. When most kids were dropped off at college by their parents, I rode with my Grandmaw. She took the time to brush me up on things that “grown boys” need to know. The main point she covered? You guessed it, women. “Every girl in this school is some other man’s daughter,” she said, “if you can’t respect that, stay home”. Since I had already put a deposit on an apartment and had gotten my first keg party invitation, I decided to respect that. As time went on and I grew up, we became more like friends than grandmother and grandson. We made Wednesday our day to chat on the phone. We would compare notes on Project Runway. And when I was super lucky, I would have the extra time to spend the night at her house. One evening, upon finding me to be a bit too stressed for her comfort, she introduced me to a little game we named “Top 5”. The game was simple. It 
required one of us to come up with a topic, and then we would both make separate lists consisting of the top five things that we knew, felt, or experienced, to match the topic. When she came up with the topic “Top 5 Kindest People We Had Ever Met”, my Maw Maw Toni was Number One on both of our lists; she had passed away a number of years before.
Recently Patti Adams and the Garden District Gallery presented New Orleans with the opening of the show entitled “The Elements”. The show consists of fourteen female artists, mostly from New Orleans and the surrounding area. Using various art forms, these fourteen women took on the task of bringing appreciation and awareness to the four elements that have always been credited with being the cornerstone of the world: fire, water, earth, and air. With featured artists including Patti Adams, Kim Bernadas, Jean Cassel, Nancy Dawes, Nikki Martin Rue, and Chicago based artist Jean Sanno, the gallery brought together a collection of artists that provided the work as cohesive as the four elements themselves.
I wondered for one week about this event. I knew that I admired several of the participants, and of course, I have written about women over and over again. But, with all of them in one room, would this be too much for my little male mind to wrap itself around? I imagined I would be fine.
Although the list of female contributors read like a who’s who among Big Easy artists, I was particularly thrilled to see the works of four of my favorite female artists. Carol Leake, Allison Stewart, Patricia Tait Jones, and Jean Cassels are producing some of the most impressive images in varying genres in the art world. While the show was impressive, I have chosen to discuss these women and their art in support of a show that not only celebrates art, but also celebrates the strength of women within the art community.
Carol Leake is a faculty member at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art. She is also responsible for the creation of the Blue Easel Club, an organization that centers its ideals on the concept that one cannot just be an artist, but must live the life of an artist if they are to be a successful artist. Her image, “Waiting” depicts a very pregnant female artist standing in front a rather large portrait. The viewer is being lead to believe that the image was created by the subject and from her judgmental stance, that she has finished the creation, and that she is making a final decision on adjustments. The interest in the piece is that the viewer is left to decide if she has created, perhaps, the face of her unborn child based off what she knows to exist in its creation already. The piece can also be seen as the subject having created the image in her form, her form before she became pregnant. The person that she will never again be, looms large in her life, but is created by her, in a way giving her the strength to let that person go. The eyes of the image are closed. This factor supports both interpretations. The unborn child’s eyes cannot be drawn in because drawing in the eyes is as drawing in the soul. And in saying good-bye to a previous version of herself, it’s the death of the woman she was before becoming pregnant. It is through simplicity, that varying versions of the same creation can come about. The less time the viewer has to spend deciphering the actual images, the more time they have to create the stories that bring the work alive.
Allison Stewart stands as one of the leading female artists in the city as far as my humble opinion is concerned. Viewing her work is like looking straight into not just her, but her ideas about humanity. Her delicate floral and landscape creations are perfect examples of the fragility of the environment in which we live. Her layering of colors, and use of light keep her images wispy and thin. It is almost as if you can feel and hear the breeze affecting each image. With her background in biology, her work seems to display the idea that we are all connected as one, man and nature together existing together, one as the predator and one as the victim.
While Patricia Tait Jones’ work may lack the detail that some people like to see in landscapes, she makes up for that by including in each piece, an appreciation for who she is in her life. My favorite of all of her creations is titled “City from Algiers Point”. Although I am partial to artists who use texture and thickness, that is not the reason that I feel so strongly about this artist and specifically this piece. As an artist, I have had a difficult time finding my place in the world; I have also had a difficult time finding a place in the world that would feel like home. While I whisked around my imaginary Oz looking for God knows what, I have realized, my backyard is where I belong. Home has never been any other place than where I am now in my life. When I look at Patricia’s work, I feel that either she has experienced the same feeling as I, or she is able to translate that into her work with ease and with as little detail as possible.
Jean Cassels has been an illustrator since 1969, illustrating over fifty natural history books for children and taking animals and placing them I the latest fashion, or fad, attires. While so many artists out there do this today that the cute, dressed-bunny market is flooded, kids don’t even care. However, with Jean, I see an artist that is genuinely interested in the workings of nature and the animals that live in it. My favorite by Jean? That’s an easy one; it is the smooth lines and bold colors of “Pepper as Napoleon”. In this work, Jean dresses Pepper, a Dalmatian, in Napoleon’s clothes. No storybook cuteness, no thinking about being licked by a puppy - this piece is art, and that’s what I think about it.
A few years ago, my Grandmaw died of cancer. Once again, finding my place in the world has been a challenge. I stopped playing “Top 5”, I dread Wednesday Nights, and I haven’t had a moment’s relaxation since. At times, I think something will give, and the anger, upset, and loneliness will surrender to the laughter that I used to feel when she would ask me to translate a passage from her latest Danielle Steel novel, but it doesn’t. Until then, I must instead, try my hardest to understand the women around me. I must use what Maw Maw Toni and my Grandmaw taught me, to recreate a world, which may not be so easily understood, as it is just a wonderful place to be given the chance to live.
Great article cuz!
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| Ryan Tramonte |
 Ryan Tramonte is the General Manager of French Art Network and Rue Royale Art Partners of New Orleans. With galleries in Carmel by the Sea, California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; New Orleans and Key West, Florida; the company’s family of galleries represents 54 artists from across the globe. With his office in the center of the French Quarter at 541 Royal Street, Ryan has managed to surround himself with some of the most beautiful aspects of New Orleans, its artists. Artists mold the way we think and live on a daily basis, they are one of society’s most prized possessions. Ryan, himself works in all mediums, but centers his work on painting and collage. |
