Sunday in the Art Room SITAR

 Welcome to 

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

 

I have tried to write this post 3 times and each time I felt lost in what I was trying to communicate. Then, I found 

Amy Sherald 

Amy Sherald is an American artist who's know for large scale portraits. She painted the official portrait of Michelle Obama and is represented by 

Hauser & Wirth Gallery. 

 

Born in Georgia, August 30th 1973. 

At first I thought I was just going to write about Amy and her life and how she got started bla bla bla.

It turns out that this amazing woman/artist stands for what she believes in.

She creates mostly in portraits depicting African Americans in everyday life. Using staged photographs of her subjects she paints in a style of simplified realism. 

In 2016, Sherald became the first woman as well as the first African American ever to win the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition with her painting, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance). 

The next year, she and Kehinde Wiley

 were selected by former President Barack Obama (Wiley) and former First Lady Michelle Obama (Sherald) to paint their official portraits, becoming the first African Americans ever to receive presidential portrait commissions from the National Portrait Gallery. The portraits were unveiled together in 2018 and have significantly increased attendance at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 

In December 2020, Sherald's piece The Bathers (2015) was sold at auction for $4,265,000, nearly 30 times the pre-sale estimate. 

 On November 17, 2021, Welfare Queen (2012) sold for $3.9M in a Phillips New York auction and brought to light the need for more governance around resale royalties for artists. However, that hasn't happened in the US to date.

I'm very impressed with this artist and how far she has come in the art world, especially in the US. Still, my profound respect and admiration for her, is when she pulled her art exhibit "American Sublime" from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in July of 2025. 

The decision, by a high-profile artist, came as the "things" administration has railed against “wokeness” in federally funded museums and cut funding for local cultural institutions across the country, putting artists and their work in the spotlight.

Ms. Sherald said, "She was told there were discussions about removing one of her pieces from the exhibition – a painting that depicts a transgender woman as the Statue of Liberty." According to a statement obtained by the New York Times, Ms. Sherald said, the Smithsonian had proposed replacing the piece with a video of people discussing it, which she says would have “opened up for debate the value of trans visibility.”

She stated, "At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced, and endangered across our nation, silence is not an option." 

 

The cancellation meant that the National Portrait Gallery lost the chance to present its first ever solo exhibition by a contemporary black woman artist. 

"Trans Forming Liberty" is a 10-foot-plus portrait featuring a transgender woman in a pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty. 

The exhibition, which was scheduled for September 2025, was canceled and later moved to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The show opened on 

November 2, 2025, and is scheduled to run through April 5, 2026. 

Due to the Baltimore Museum of Art's independence from federal funding there was no backlash from the "thing's" administration. The show was a massive hit, completely selling out by late February 2026. It drew approximately 84,000 visitors over its five-month run, breaking attendance records for any exhibition held at the museum since 2000. 

BMA Director Asma Naeem actively recruited Sherald to ensure her work, including, "Trans Forming Liberty" could be show as originally intended. While the White House had previously celebrated Sherald's Smithsonian withdrawal and criticized the painting as "divisive and ideological" there were no reported attempts by the administration to interfere with the BMA's private operations. 

There were at least 12 artists in the US that pulled art exhibits, concerts and dances due to the "thing's" suppression on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and "woke"  

In other words his hatred for all people except himself.

(I had to throw that in)

Before Covid I was asked to enter 3 pieces of "Shock Art" I created these.

This is a 3-D hand I created. The pills are vitamins and I broke the needle off the syringe.  

When I brought the art in to hang you would have thought I brought the devil with me. I had to fight the committee (of which I was on) to show the art. I won. There were other artists too but for what ever reason their art was, I guess not as shocking. 

As artist, well know or not we must create what we feel, what we want and who we are and then stand by our creations. 

 

Don't forget this Friday is the day to show your FFO Challenge art

I hope you enjoyed meeting 

Amy Sherald

Nicole 

 

Sited:

Hauser and Wirth Gayety , wikipedia, Christian Science Monitor   

 

Saturday Garden boo hoo hoo

 Hi Everyone!

We had a nice day today so together 

Mr. M. and I worked on the garden area. Ya know taking it all down. I'm heartbroken.

I knew I was going to be upset not having a garden this year, but I didn't think it would affect me so much. 

We did all of this work on Friday. 

Mr. M. did the heavy lifting and I got things ready for a dump run. This kind of work is so hard on Mr. M. with his health. But he is a trooper and never gives up.

He got all three raised beds dug up. 

 

I didn't think galvanized rusted.

 

However, I was wrong.

 

I emptied totes that had poly, and starter pots in them. I will see if my neighbor wants the starter post but the poly will go to the recycle at the dump.

 

I washed and sterilized more 5 gallon containers that I will keep.

 

I want to save this piece of poly so I hung it up and will wash it tomorrow. It has a lot of pollen on it.

 

Mr. M. got all of the plants off of this platform and stacked lumber on it. It really sucks not having a garage or an outbuilding to store things.

All but 3 totes are going to the dump tomorrow.  

 After everything is cleared away we will weed wack and mow. 

I guess that's it for now.

Hope you are having a nice Saturday.  

It's supposed to be 73°F here today.

 Nicole

FFO Friday Face OFF 4/17/26

Welcome To Friday Face OFF (FFO)

This is the place to show off your face art.

You know, ANY type of face, nature, the face of a flower, photography, drawings, paintings, AI. There just needs to be a face in your blog post, a link back to my blog and please use the image below. 

Thank you.

I'm still feeling WELL and yesterday got a clean bill of health on my eye. The sun is shining and right now we are OK.

However, because of circumstances out of my control I did not have any time to create a face. So this week I give you what I have been obsessing on. 

Birds.

These are all taken from the internet and I really watched not to get AI birds.

 

There are the pretty ones 

 

 

There are the fancy ones

 

I can't leave out the Dracula Parrot.  

 

Or this King Vulture 

Or this little guy that pretty much says, "Don't mess with me." 

 

I love all of these faces. 

 

 

 

But my favorite has to be this cheeky Secretary Bird

 

I mean come on, she is a star.

I did learn this. Some birds have a row of bristles that protrude from the end of their eyelids that can be called eyelashes. But while human eyelashes are modified hairs that protect the eye, bird eyelashes are modified feathers.

 

No AI faces today. 

 

Here are the features.

Louise from Standing in Danger has not been feeling well. Hope she is doing better by now. 

 

Linda from LinsArt  This wasn't planned to show a bird. I use number generator. It worked out though. 

Two reminders.

 

Please use this image on your post. Thank you. 

First, FFO Portrait Challenge is April 24th.

Please show a face that you have created in any art form including photographs that portray one or all of these expressions.

Happy, Sad, Tired, Surprised and or Anger. 
 

Please use this image on your post. Thank you. 

The next reminder is for 

Sunday in the Art Room, SITAR

It is ANYTHING art that you would like to share.

That's it for me. 

Now show me your face

Nicole   

Tuesday Flowers

 Hi Everyone!

Today the sun was shinning so I thought I would check out the soil in my big garden. Yep, it is rich and so ready for planting. I'm not going to take the chance of hurting myself so I will let the soil sit this year. Feed it and have it ready for, maybe, next year. In the mean time I walked across the street to my good friend Elke's house and took some photos of her flower garden. She was out weeding. We had a nice visit too.

 

 

It's spring here and it's showing.

Nicole