Two works, Doughboy from Prospect Park and Woman and Child from Brooklyn War Memorial, were published in 3 Elements Review

Two works from the Anna Pierrepont Series were published in the Fall edition of 2 Elements Review. The works, "Woman and Child from the Brooklyn War Memorial" and "Prospect Park Doughboy" were featured in a two page spread and "Prospect Park Doughboy" was used as the backplate. Three Elements' issues are organized around writers and artists creating works around three words per issue. The words for the Fall issue were Doppelgänger, Bludgeon and Dirge. The works in the Fall 2014 Fifth issue were included under the title "Brooklyn Dirge". The images can be viewed, along with the other works in the issue, by clicking this link http://www.3elementsreview.com/current-journal. Please consider supporting literary journals such as '3 Elements' to encourage their mission to feature literary works and works of art.

"Doughboy and Spectral Figure with Veil, 14" x 17", Oil stick, oil pastel, color and graphite pencils, chalk pastel on paper, 2014

Postscript for the Out of Order show

I Brought an Ikea bag to the Red Hook waterfront to pick up the three pieces that were on display from the Anna Pierrepont Series at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition.

I went to the wall that the works were displayed upon and found it empty.

BWAC volunteers searched the floor for the works, as a new show was being installed.

Ultimately, a volunteer, Judith, holding a electric screw driver, told me that the works had been 'sold'.

A woman, Paulina V., had been coming each day that the show was open right before closing for the night, and that on August 9th, she had claimed all three!

Judith haggled with Paulina for an amount for the three works and the proceeds were donated to BWAC.

Will keep you updated.

Anna Pierrepont Series works exhibited at Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Coalition exhibition - Out of Order, weekends July 26th-August 17th, 2014

These three works from the Anna Pierrepont Series are currently on display in the Summer Group Exhibition at BWAC, please check out the BWAC site for additional information, http://bwac.org/. Will be present this Saturday, July 26th from 2-6 pm. All of these works are 14" x 17" framed works on paper:

Brooklyn War Memorial

America from the Customs House, Battery in Manhattan

Allegorical Figure from the Mahattan Bridge Entrance, Chinatown

All these drawings were created in the Summer 2014.

This is my first exhibition with the completely cooperative BWAC community. I worked there Wednesday, July 23rd and surveyed the artists that I am showing with and a companion jury show opening the same day, entitled 'Color'. Both shows have a large number of quite strong works and few places in Brooklyn are as beautiful as the Red Hook shoreline. Red Hook is a community devastated by Hurricane Sandy, including BWAC and others sharing space with it. The recovery has been painstaking, but the exhibition space is in fine shape.

Anna Pierrepont pictures published in the 2014 Second Issue of Slag Magazine, entitled 'Return

Works from the Anna Pierrepont Series were published in a beautiful new issue of Slag Magazine, along with works that concern the idea of 'return'. The creator of Slag Magazine envisions Slag Magazine as a portal for artistic dialog. All of the contributing artists' emails are listed towards the front of the issue and readers are encouraged to reach out to contributing artists and engage in conversation about the themes raised in their submittals. My theme was figurative funerary monuments in Greenwood Cemetery that celebrate the essential identities of the deceased. Check 'em out and contribute to the conversation! http://issuu.com/jonhenry5/docs/slagmagissue2final

Color!

In these latest images that I have created for the Anna Pierrepont Project are investigations of color. I called the images in the last posting, whites because I love to draw marble sculptures that are framed against magnificent neoclassical civic buildings such as the Customs House in Manhattan's Battery and the Appellate Division next to Madison Square Park. Europe, of course, is thick with sculptures of this sort and NYC only has a handful. I love these motifs because it enables me to explore the colors that dance in front of my field of vision. These new postings are explorations of color and I am quite excited about them.

Whenever I have an opportunity, I return to the Battery to draw the allegorical figures of the continents by the Customs House. This is Asia framed against the green windows of the quite undistinguished Two Broadway. Worked at One Broadway for a decade and these green windows were a visual touchstone of my life.

At Bronx Community College, is the Hall of Fame Gallery where I have returned repeatedly to draw the bronze busts of great Americans framed against yellow and brunt orange bricks of adjacent buildings and a barrel vaulted, beige covered arcade. The windows behind the busts reflect blue instead of the green of Two Broadway.

Anna Pierrepont Project at Home

For those that have followed and supported "the Anna Pierrepont Project on the Road" I thank you. The following works were created in NYC during the same period. At home, I have been working on a series of drawings that I consider my whites. I have discovered chalk pastels of such misty effervescence that they literally crumble when held. When I have purchase them, the cashiers need to clean the counter of the traces of light yellow, pale green or off white dust. Since discovering these wondrous materials, I have added them to my arsenal of materials to complement colored pencil, oil stick and oil pastel. I have been seeking out motifs that feature white marble figures against white marble backgrounds, in order to maximize their impact. I know of a few of these motifs that I have returned to repeatedly. One such motif is the statues of George Washington at Washington Square Park.

As can be well imagined, drawing in Washington Square Park has unique challenges, many tourists, buskers and one day a parade of Hare Krishnas.

Nestled in a niche in a apsidal chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is a beautiful niche sculpture of St. Joan of Arc. The figure is depicted in prayer, with eyes cast down but wearing medieval armor and a sword.

As one enters the path that leads to an entrance to the walking and bike path on the Brooklyn Bridge is an allegorical figure of a woman embracing a young child protectively.

More to come, txs!

Anna Pierrepont Project on the Road is finished

To complete the pictures for the Anna Pierrepont Project on the Road, I set out from NYC on two beautiful days in late August.

The first trip was to Morristown, New Jersey and the second trip was to Phillipse Manor, New York. Morristown was chosen due to the town being the site of a post-independence military encampment for the American army under George Washington for over a year. I attempted drawings of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette in conversation and another monument of Thomas Paine writing “Common Sense”. Two attempts to draw the Paine failed. I then made a quick sketch of the statues of the three Revolutionary war generals. This drawing was more satisfactory but was not completed. The second trip to Philipse Manor was to visit Sleepy Hollow cemetery. I had never been in the Morristown area before, but had lived briefly in the town of Sleepy Hollow just south of Philipse Manor when it was named North Tarrytown. Morristown is a dynamic, ethnically diverse town surrounding an historical town center, Morristown Green. The Washington statue is installed on Morristown Green. Philipse Manor is a suburban community by a local railroad stop adjacent to the Hudson river. The cemetery is on North Broadway, a continuation of Broadway that extends to the Battery in Manhattan. There were no traffic lights and no sidewalks, so entering the cemetery was tricky, becauses cars drove fast in both directions on the double lane North Broadway. The cemetery, the resting place of Washington Irving, was beautiful. It sits on a hill with a forested valley to the west. The first image I drew was of a white marble angel holding a scroll. The second image was of the statue that made me chose to travel to the cemetery, a Union Soldier on a pedestal, standing in front of about thirty graves of Civil War fatalities.

The juxtaposition was extremely poignant. A woman drove up while I made the drawing of the Civil War soldier and asked its meaning. I swept my arm in the direction of the graves, which spoke “far above (my) poor power to add or detract”. She rolled up her window after a quick glance and drove on. The framed drawings were delivered to the individuals that requested them in Kickstarter. I thank all of those who viewed and participated in “Anna Pierrepont Project on the Road”.