Things the mind already knows
- frida@artyardbklyn.org
- Apr 18, 2025
- 11 min read
This week with Teaching Artist Ajani Russell Advanced Studio on zoom explored various forms of divination including astrology, chiromancy (palm reading), aeromancy (interpreting the weather), apantomancy (omens in everyday objects), scrying (divining from a reflective surface) etc. Ajani put together an extensive presentation of artworks depicting forms of augury including work by Remedios Varo, Georges de la Tour, Mikhail Vrubel, and Julio Romero de Torres.
Ajani summarizes: “After we looked at different artistic portrayals of divination or works that included themes of augury or fortune telling, artists were urged to think about modern practices of divination like the practice of groundhogs day which is a form of apantomancy.
Some observations about the works created during this session:
The perspective of Adji’s piece places the viewer into the position of the diviner. Also the shape of the basket creates an eye- invoking themes of seeing scrying.
Karla has multiple components that exist in different times and places collaged - bringing together symbolism of astrological divination with a mathematical twist. The round maps of the stars is reminiscent of a Mayan calendar. In addition, the directional movements of Karla’s piece reminded Jamie of feelings of divinations she’s experienced before.
Margaret depicted a fortune received from a Zoltar game as referenced a piece by our very own Meridith McNeal.
Margaret Hardigg, Augury, and Meridith McNeal, Zoltar Speaks
The line quality of Vera B.’s hummingbird piece projected movement associated with the actual flight of the bird. The work is directly connected to Vera’s practice of associating augury with particular animals.
Both Liv and Cheyenne’s work felt like aura paintings but they contrasted because Cheyenne’s subjects aura was radiating from a fixed point while Liv’s was enveloped in it. Adji loved the aura color schemes and Travis noted the expression of Cheyenne’s face and the color blending.
Jules flipped the lens on groundhog day in her wonderfully humorous drawing - the magic the groundhog experiences and the absurdity of having an omniscient groundhog.
Travis’s pencil drawing called to mind several types of augury. Cheyenne described it as alluring and loaded with different imagery. The emotion of the linework was also very compelling.
Meridith created Magical Things Palm Portrait a watercolor painting depicting a vintage palmistry book she's had since high school and examples from her Palm Portrait project. Travis saw the personified gloves as hands and the type of gloves reminiscent of the gypsy woman reading the palms.
A protective eye hovers above a cup ready for a tea leaf reading in Lila’s digital piece.
Scarlett references astrology with a star chart embedded in her work.
Ed depicts the sacred number 5. Ed explained that in ancient Greece, the number 5 was considered sacred and held significant symbolic meaning. It represented the union of the first even and odd numbers, and was also associated with the universe and the five principles within man: body, soul, psyche, intelligence, and divine spirit.
On Tuesday in Advanced Studio in person AYB Intern Scarlett Wagner taught her very first ever AYB session! Scarlet showed the weaving of the Miao people as inspiration. She then passed out several pattern options and brightly colored embroidery floss for bracelet making.
Scarlett writes about the session and her experience. “The Lesson in Advanced studio this week was a lesson on learning how to read friendship bracelet patterns. When thinking about what kind of lesson I wanted to teach I thought about different ways I could interpret the theme of literacy. I have always loved doing crafts such as crocheting and making friendship bracelets, which often require the skill of reading patterns. I realized that pattern reading falls into the theme of literacy so I decided to design a lesson about reading friendship bracelets. I also worked in the arts and crafts center of a sleep away camp for a summer and friendship bracelet making was really popular, so this was something I have a lot of experience teaching. My goal was to challenge the artists in advanced studios and teach a tactile lesson rather than drawing or painting.
During the lesson we discussed how we show love and appreciation for people. A lot of people talked about gift giving as a love language. We also shared about some of our favorite homemade gifts that we had either made or given. I personally love to make friendship bracelets as gifts. I had a good experience teaching. I really appreciate the feedback from the people in the class. I also appreciate how patient everyone was, since this was my first time teaching an art yard lesson. Something I found challenging was teaching a craft that is very intricate so a large group of people.
I was really impressed by the class's work! We had a very mixed range of experience with making friendship bracelets. The people who already knew how to do the knots were really amazing at helping other people. It was also really cool to see people working together to figure out how to read the patterns.
Ariel Abdullah, Freestyle bracelet with spring flowers
Ajani came up with the term “freestyling” when making her bracelet. This means that she didn’t follow the pattern and just created her own pattern. It was also really nice to see people getting inspired to also freestyle their friendship bracelets. It was also really interesting to see what colors people picked and why they chose them. Some of the artists relied on their knowledge of color theory.
Bracelets by Scarlett Wagner and Ed Rath, Freestyle
While Kevin chose to do the autism awareness colors to highlight the fact that it is autism awareness month. People were also making more than just bracelets! We had people making bag charms, rings, phone strings and key chains. A lot of people also were motivated to take their projects home and continue working. I look forward to seeing people's work as they continue to keep working.
This week AYB Art Matters was in action at PS 17, while PS 6 had a vacation day today.
Teaching Artist Evelyn Beliveau sums up: “Exciting week for PS 17! With our Grade 4 class participating in the Women’s History Month celebration (featuring artwork by Leo), we met with Grades 6, 1, and 2 to start a new short-term project.
Inspired by Jasper Johns’s 0-9 series, we are creating 0-3: abstract artwork based on layered numerals. Our full team was on hand to kick off this project: Dennis, Leo, Scarlett, Clementine, and myself (Evelyn).
While viewing artwork by Johns, students noted that they could recognize some of the layered numbers, but they were hard to decipher, and different numbers jumped out at different students: everyone had their own experience of the artwork. Some students speculated that the piece was created as a vision test! We discussed this quotation from the Met website:
“Since the mid-1950s, Johns has focused on everyday icons and emblems, or what the artist famously referred to as ‘things the mind already knows.’ … By rendering numbers as abstractions comprising layered lines and forms, Johns challenges their functional duties and the systems of knowledge they connote.”
I asked students to consider the familiarity of numbers, and how they function differently when layered and obscured vs. when we see and use them in everyday life.
Then, we started making our own artwork. Grade 6 created a border around the outside of a sheet of paper, learning to use a ruler as both a measuring tool and a straightedge. Then, they worked with pencils and Sharpies to draw the numerals 0, 1, 2, and 3 on top of one another, filling as much of the space within the borders as possible. They will add color next week with watercolor paints.
Grades 1 and 2 jumped right into the numerals, first with pencil, then with Sharpie. Then, we used brush-tipped markers in a range of vibrant colors to color the shapes between the overlapping lines, resulting in a stained-glass-window effect. I challenged students to choose colors such that no shape would end up the same color as the shape next to it. Students worked enthusiastically and also had a chance to practice careful, gentle marker shading.
I’m grateful for our team, who all spent time working closely with students on linework, erasing pencil from underneath marker, sharing markers, and staying focused. It takes a village!
Managing Director Dennis Buonagura adds: The ART YARD BKLYN team at PS 17 in Jersey City surely got their steps (and stairs) in this week. The Women's History event in the school's auditorium was a smashing success with Teaching Artist Leo Emabat's excellent (about 50 of them!) 'buttons' depicting the historic person. This meant a lot of rushing back and forth from the art room to the auditorium.
I arrived at the event early (as we still had classes scheduled throughout the day) and was immediately given a 'passport' - which was stamped each time I stopped for a presentation. Leo's 24" round disks served as activation buttons.
Many of our fourth grade students participated - and many other grades were visitors. I am always impressed (and certainly was at THIS event) at how young people can acquire the confidence to make eye contact with adults and remember prepared speeches. I could have never done this as a fourth grader (and I haven't improved much now as a septuagenarian!) so my congratulations to all.
All were excellent and I have no favorites but honorable mention to the students who portrayed Anna May Wong, Shirley Chisholm, Meryl Streep, and Amelia Earhart - who stayed in character throughout the entire event and were able to answer my questions (which were not part of their "speeches" so I know they'd done their research!).
Our afterschool sessions are now quite large (in attendance) and we have fantastic assistance from PS 17's Miss Scott as a coordinator. Teaching Artist Marina Soliman continues to work with our original group who, this week, completed drawings/paintings of storefronts (flower shops, fruit stands, etc - what? no delicatessens? I keep forgetting we're in Jersey City and not NYC!) and ended the session with smart critiques. The larger group of younger students worked with Leo, Clementine and Scarlett on a piggy-back session of Evelyn's Jasper John's 0-9 lesson - with slight variations.
I met with the principal, Dr. Brower, to discuss ideas for next year - which includes a larger scale project of puppets (similar, but way different in many ways to Leo's puppet lesson at PS 6). A lot of brainstorming (and supply lists) to do!”
Other Art News
AYB Artist Marilyn August is visiting with a friend in Barbados. She brought the most adorable mini paint set and created a sweet painting of her surroundings!
Marilyn J. August, Painting in Barbados
AYB Artist Liv Collins shares: “A new piece I’m working on for Thomas birthday. This is from an old photo of on his motorcycle when he was probably 20 years old.”
Several of us made our way to the Whitney Museum this week, and it’s no exaggeration to say the visit left us energized, inspired, and deeply moved. The current slate of exhibitions resonates with the kind of thoughtful, layered, and relevant work we love to engage with at ART YARD BKLYN—and it all began with Marina Zurkow: Parting Worlds.
Marina Zurkow installation views Whitney Museum. Photos Meridith McNeal.
Marina Zurkow is a dear friend and her work has been important to AYB for a long time – appearing in past exhibitions, classroom inspiration, and even collaborative projects. Seeing her powerful solo show at the Whitney, and revisiting her climate conscious work through the lens of her new work, was a full-circle moment for us!
Parting Worlds brings together Zurkow’s software-based pieces, animations, and a site-specific commission on the museum’s terrace. Through subtle shifts and mesmerizing visual cycles, the works reveal complex ecological systems and the fragile interdependence between humans and nature. The animations Mesocosm (Wink, TX) and The Earth Eaters depict the surreal and sometimes bleak consequences of extraction and overuse. The newly commissioned The River is a Circle meditates on the Hudson River and its surrounding ecosystems, both visible and hidden. The exhibition invites reflection, asking us to slow down and pay attention to what the earth is telling us.
From there, we moved through three additional exhibitions that offered equally striking experiences—each one connected through a shared sense of place, identity, and reclamation.
Collection View: Louise Nevelson recontextualizes the work of a formidable sculptor who saw New York City not just as her home, but as her raw material. Nevelson’s signature black assemblages—made from scavenged street debris and transformed into abstract, architectural forms—take on new life here. The interplay of shadow and shape, of absence and presence, feels almost cinematic. There’s a meditative quality in the way she cloaked her found materials in monochrome, allowing us to consider them not as “junk” but as pieces of a personal and urban mythology.
Louise Nevelson installation views at Whitney Museum. Photos Meridith McNeal.
Amy Sherald: American Sublime offered a profound emotional shift. Her large-scale portraits celebrate Black Americans in moments of stillness, introspection, and joy. Known for her iconic portrait of Michelle Obama, Sherald continues to expand and deepen her visual language—centering everyday people and illuminating the richness of Black life. There is reverence in each painting, and a deep connection to both history and future. By referencing American Realist traditions while consciously rewriting who gets to be seen in those spaces, Sherald offers a bold and necessary reimagining of American identity. Her use of color—bold, unexpected, and sublime—is both a visual delight and a conceptual triumph.
Amy Sherald installation views at Whitney Museum. Photos Meridith McNeal.
Sherald’s work was especially exciting to see in light of the portraiture our elementary school students at PS 17 have been working on. Her painterly choices and nuanced representations of individuality gave us plenty to reflect on in our own approach to likeness and storytelling through art.
We ended our visit with Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night, an exhibition that crackles with energy and wit. Kim challenges the primacy of sound by exploring language, notation, and Deaf experience through drawings, installations, and video works. Her reimagining of musical notation and infographics, grounded in American Sign Language, reframes how we think about communication itself.
This work resonated deeply with Ajani’s recent lesson exploring ASL, where students were encouraged to consider how meaning is made through gesture, space, and expression. Kim’s powerful visuals take that idea even further—making space for Deaf perspectives while dismantling the idea that speech is the only or “best” form of communication. Her recent mural Ghost(ed) Notes—spanning multiple walls—is both humorous and sharp, making invisible experiences vividly tangible.
Each of these shows is a knockout & highly recommended!
SAVE THE DATE
You are invited to join us Saturday, May 3, 6-8pm for the opening of our next exhibition From A to Z at the gallery at 180 Franklin Avenue.
It is going to be an exciting event -- DJ Abby will be keeping the music going, Reg Lewis will MC, Adji will offer tarot readings, Ajani, Evelyn and Mia will draw portraits, and we will have a raffle of super-fun AYB merch!
On view will be the work of AYB Artists from the following sessions: Carved Wood Sculptures created with Rainy Lehrman, Letterform Paintings created with Evelyn Beliveau, a large-scale Mural Portrait created with Vee Tineo, ASL Watercolor Gestures created with Ajani Russell, and Zines created with Maraya Lopez.
Please consider becoming a sponsor for this event, we are using the party as a fund raiser for AYB programs!
Donations can be made easily through our donation page (Venmo, PayPal, GoFundMe, or check).
💗💙💚💛💜🧡🩵🩷
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