Stuff my turkey with simplicity! The art of Hayley Gaberlavage

Written by Ryan Tramonte | Tuesday, 01 December 2009 16:41 A Round with Ryan

Oh, I am thrilled! With the white knight named Thanksgiving having recently swooped into my life on his white horse to save me from my everyday, mundane and boring existence, I was once again given the joy of analyzing my life for things for which I am thankful.  Each year when this happens, I get to think of all the things, and people, and talents, and relatives that make my life so complete, and then I envision myself dancing around in the poisonous poppy fields in the Land of Oz.

While I realize my attitude towards Thanksgiving is not shared by most, or for that matter anyone else, I must say that I like the holidays.  I enjoy holiday music, holiday drinks, I especially enjoy holiday weather, and I just adore winter fashion.  However, I do not need one specific day to appreciate my world.  I am quite capable of appreciating it all year long.  Trust me, I am thankful for my mother all 365 days a year and I am sure, aside from the few times I have publicly humiliated her and the one time she found a Hustler Magazine in my room (I blamed Bff Moose), she is thankful for me all those same days.  So, what ends up happening to me on Thanksgiving is that I get to revisit memories and moments in time that I do not want to revisit.  I like leaving things in the past, just where they belong.  People all around me remembering the worst possible moments in my life, reminding me of them, and then asking, “Aren’t you thankful you aren’t fat anymore?” or “aren’t you thankful Bff Moose had a subscription to Hustler Magazine?”

The best is when people wait for me to be thankful for them, to their face.  I am puzzled by the happy smiles across their anxious faces, after reminding me that they had done something that changed my life drastically, but that something, of course, is something I cannot remember.  And, because I am so incredibly kind and sweet and, of course, in love with the idea of making people happy, I thank them.  However, I refuse to thank anyone who is requesting thanks for doing something bad to me for what they like to call, my own good.  Those folks can suck it!

The one thing I am truly thankful for is the one thing I have the least of in my life: simplicity.  When I am asked what I would do if I won the lottery, my response is always: simplify my life.  I don’t care how, and I would probably hire someone to do it for me, but I just want simplicity.  At no time during the year is life more complicated and less simple than the holidays.  From people trampling each other to death on the floors of Wal-Mart (I cannot imagine a more horrific place to pass), to one day and two meals taking two weeks to arrange, the holidays define complicated, and dash to hell any hopes I have of a simple existence.

Simplicity is not something that I crave during the holidays alone.  All year long, I strive for simplicity, and all year long, I fail miserably.  By June, my dreams of running out of my log cabin in to a field of wild flowers, while Pa chops wood and Ma bakes bread with Mary and Carrie, are dashed to bits on the stones of my complicated landscape.  By August, I am in full-complicated swing, and by November, I am making a list of ways to simplify the next year.  It’s a cycle that I cannot and refuse to abandon, until I have reached enlightenment.

My quest for simplicity came late in life.  As a child, I chose three of the hardest career goals to strive towards.  I planned to be become a vet, or a lawyer, or really hit it big as a dancer on The Carol Burnett Show.  Now listen, my plans had nothing to do with my love for dogs, or law, or dancing.  I knew then, that if I landed one of those gigs, I’d make bank and all my needs, wants, and desires would be taken care of with the swipe of a little magic piece of plastic.

But, as time passed, I realized that being a vet would have me in school way too long.  Being a lawyer would have me wearing suit daily.  And given my addiction to cupcakes, my apprenticeship with The Chippendales never manifested into a career of dance.  I wanted time, comfort, and cupcakes more than money and success.  In other words, my desire for simplicity was growing.

My desire for “simple” often leads me in directions that other art appreciators might not venture.  Some writers and critics find work that is simple to be designed for mass consumption and marketing.  They criticize the work for lacking originality and thought, and will in many cases, disregard the artist all together.  A simple look back into the history of Pop Art and the artists that made it a movement, will explain what I mean.  On the other hand, I see art that is done in a simple format to be refreshing and inviting.  Now, when I say simple, I am not referring to a dot in the center of a canvas or scratch board.  I am also not referring to the artist who leaves the faces of their subjects blank because creating features is too difficult, or stiffens the artist’s style all together.  I am talking about an artist who, while creating simplicity, is still creating a valid and working piece of art, one who follows the rules of good art and still offers the viewer a pleasing aesthetic, without feeling as if they are deciphering a message.  That is not to say that all artists who keep it simple have no message.  Many times the simplicity is the message, or the message is clearly spelled out in the simplicity of the work.

Hayley Gaberlavage is one such artist.  With works on paper and canvas, Gaberlavage displays control over the sometimes-complicated methods associated with creating simple works.  Gaberlavage creates a series of works in many different categories ranging in medium and subject matter.  Her most impressive works are those on paper.  Mixed-media delights on paper are one way to describe the fun and ease of the work this artist hands over to the world.  Her images, although simple, are strong and alluring.  Each one offers the viewer the opportunity to see the workings of good art, while still being able to enjoy simplicity.  In her pieces “Olive Feed” and “Olive Poppies”, Gaberlavage created two floral pieces that are anything but standard floral productions.  With these two images, she shows her ability to break something down to its simplest form without losing the feel of the work.  These two images keep the delicate feel of a floral image with out the details of petals and stem and color.  The soft circular motions that dominate both images are how Gaberlavage is able to remove detail and keep impression.  She finds the one thing that makes the image work, and removes the rest.  In her creation “Support the Exterior Step”, she is able to use a series of a common shape, the oval, over and over again to create an image that looks like and translates as water.  The random placement of the ovals supports the idea that perhaps there is little thought into this creation.  However, random placement and accidental success are all the results of practice and work over time.  The piece is an example of, and supports the idea that, Gaberlavage is a thinking artist, and a working artist with a talent for simplicity.

In her landscape series, I advise the viewer to pay attention to the title and color of each painting.  The landscape paintings are what appear to be color placements, or color studies, until you read their titles and you are given the chance to really appreciate what you have before you.  “County Fair”, is an example of how the artist uses color to translate her thoughts.  The pink at the bottom is in perfect balance with the blue top section, and the brown in the center cuts them both in the perfect spot.  In “Pinwheel”, the background is secondary to the area depicting the titular pinwheel of the painting.  Here, we see simplicity at its fullest yet still we are able appreciate the workings of an artist’s mind that might differ greatly from our own.  I am not sure about you, but I would never have considered creating the pinwheel the way Gaberlavage does.

Nowhere is her use of balance and positioning more obvious than in the landscape “Rising”.  In this piece, the artist is using one line of one color to give the illusion of something rising.  Is it the sun, perhaps?  One line, one color and the message is clear.  Simplicity is this artist’s signature.

Perhaps there is something at which to shake a thankful stick.  Gaberlavage’s work can be seen in a show title” The Good Life” at Home Space Gallery until December 9, 2009.  Included in this collection is the piece “Dixie Cups”.  With this image, Gaberlavage shows that she does not need to stick to an abstract format to keep it simple.  She shows that her ability to simplify her subject matter translates well when she is creating imagery, as well.  She uses some of the same techniques that we see in her abstract works on paper, but has a more intense use of space and color, relying less on the titles.

The simple truth is that I am thankful for my family, my friends, my job, my car, my lips and Samantha at Rouses on Royal Street.  No matter how tough I try to sound, the simple truth is that without these people and these things in my life, my life just might be well, simple.  Only I might have to go to movies all day instead of to work and the gym.  I just might be able to drive around in a Ford Fiesta like Calista Flockhart, and make my own lunch, and tell myself jokes, and hug myself, and make myself smile...you get the picture.  As Jan Brady learned long ago, sometimes it easier to find the simple truth about what we are thankful for by paying attention to the people around us.  Because it is through those people that we define ourselves and become us, and without that, our lives would be, simply, boring.

Log on to www.haleygab.com for an image library.

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