STEAMROLLER GROUP
ANNOUNCING A NEWLY FORMED ARTIST COLLECTIVE FOR 2022 This blog post is a temporary landing page for our working dedicated website: STEAMROLLERGROUP.com From 1996 to 1998, a small cooperative gallery comprised of 12 not so local artists held exhibitions, auctions, poetry events and happenings at a small gallery space in the center of Frenchtown, NJ.…
Val Sivilli LIVE on The Large Glass
YOUTUBE • TWITCH • FACEBOOK Tuesday, April 26th, 8:00pm Eastern Time. Get a sneak peak to the new work that is vexing me at the moment. I could really use some feedback!
THE NECKLACE
My mother is the only person to ever give me a diamond. Yet, even she kept taking it back. Once I put all the pieces of this story together it became a possibility to me that this praying mantis, this “Symbol of God”, this “Divine Messenger” could be my mother and she could very well…
Rescue the Princess
This morning I wondered, can a Pisces can actually put out a Leo’s Fire? I wondered this because a close and very dear acquaintance once told me that I should not be with a Pisces because water puts out fire. This statement has sat at the back of my head since she informed me of…
May 1 – THAT
My Studio is OPEN. 11-5pm Saturday only. Send an email for an appointment. My CONTACT info is HERE Send a HEADS UP text before you walk up my staircase. WEAR A MASK !!! FRIDAY evening I will be interviewed live at HAM via twitch.tv by “The Large Glass”
Late night melancholy
Tonight is somewhat like that fateful night so many years ago when I realized that borrowing from Peter to pay Paul had run its course. Terrifying moment. When it comes – to make yet another biblical reference – it was a ‘Come to Jesus’ kinda moment. I am having another ‘Come to Jesus’ moment right…
Psych 101
Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html “Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and behavior in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). This is known as the principle of cognitive consistency. When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance.” Practically…
Getting a little bit better at this…
I bought a new microphone, a video light circle, getting jiggy with iMovie and I’ve been learning how to read with a little bit more emotion – sort of like singing. ! I think its getting a little bit better – thanks to a little bit to some friends….
BUMBLES and BEES
Thinking about buying one? Click here. I am painting Bumble Bees because Barry and I have been living with a tribe, a nest, a colony of Bumble Bees this past summer. They have taken to living beneath the thresh-hold of our back door. I have written a short story. I hope you like it. Barry…
Miss Logan Street
A True Story written by Val Sivilli narration, crown, sash and all of the notions : Chris Mundy banner and music : Val Sivilli VIEW ALL OF THE CRANKIES from ARTYARD’s FABULOUS EVENING!
A Righteous Old White Lady
“Nevermind if you think an angry black man is scary … try dealing with an old white lady when her food order gets screwed up – now that’s scary.” Incorrectly recalled quote posted via Instagram, tagged to me, her mother, by my 25 year old daughter currently living and working in Philadelphia. When I get…
Val Sivillli on view : 2/16 – 3/16 at RVCC Art Gallery !
Heejung Kim and Val Sivilli – RECENT WORKS: is on view at Raritan Valley Community College until March 16th 2018 at the RVCC ART GALLERY located in the COLLEGE CENTER HERE for Map of basement of the COLLEGE CENTER where the Art Gallery is located. HERE for link to Interactive Campus map. HERE for a…
Exhibiting at RVCC
Heejung Kim & Val Sivilli: Recent Work February 16 – March 16 Artists’ Talk: Fri., February 16th; 5:00-6:00 p.m. Reception: Fri., February 16th; 6:00-7:00 p.m.
Purge and Burn.
Destroying work via the flame can be incredibly cathartic. I have to admit, when I first considered destroying my work was a sour grapes kinda thing. Feeling all sorry for myself. So much Work.. so little interest… not thinking the work is valued in any way except for in my own head.. and I am…
“Phoenix Nest” Burn it #5
https://youtu.be/w6AdiffzsIU It seems that 47 year old women tend to be metaphysically obsessed with the Phoenix. I am no different. I was intrigued with the entire thing – the egg, the nest, the burning nest, the consumption by flames, the rebirth. Lot of Phoenix images came out of me that year around 2007. This particular…
“Re-Inventing the Arts in Hunterdon County.”
T.H.A.T. , The Hunterdon Art Tour completed its first year triumphantly! It seems that most of the visitors to our studios this year were other artists. At first this worried me, but I quickly realized how great that actually is. As we create a stronger community, as we become cohesive, when we are able to easily work…
TRUMPcare – or not earning 100K by the time you are 50.
There’s a day you wake up and find yourself in your mid fifties. It’s a day of reckoning – a day stained with regret – a day that is repeated over and over. Each time it revisits, an army of defenses are called upon to justify, rationalize, beat the fuck up, sob wildly about and…
VISITING ARTIST Val Sivilli shares insights at Del Val High School
Written by Rick Epstein Holland Township painter Val Sivilli and her inner beast were featured at this month’s installment of the Second Breakfast Visiting Artist Series on Friday. The series is held monthly in Sarah Ruppert’s art room during lunchtime, and students and staff are invited to attend. Lunch is BYO, but so far coffee and doughnut…
Hunterdon FERN
This past weekend, on the Friday night before Christmas, a group of very energetic and bold wonderful artists put together a pop up exhibition at the Prallsville Mills in Stockton, NJ. It was filled with artists from the county and beyond. Just bring your work! A wonderful night, wonderful energy. Barry purchased this little piece…
Bison, Bison, Bison or WART BABY
Something I wrote with levity this past summer. After treated a mysterious and painful rash on my hands with super duper cortisone infused hand cream and an intense and long prednisone session, the dermatologist froze off this very old wart that has lived on the palm of my hand since jeez I don’t know know…
Camouflaged Intention.
They are murdering Canadian Geese. It happens every fall. Every October. With their tiny little brains beneath their Cabela’s camouflage hats that say “Make America Great Again” they hide like cowards in a camouflage boat under a camouflage tarp and aim their rifles at unsuspecting geese as the sun struggles to make it through the…
First Friday in Kensington
link to val’s gallery on shopify This Friday from 6-9, Austin Henry Peer and Schuyler Burkeand Val Sivilli (me!) are showing our paintings at the Gryphon Cafe at 100 W. Oxford Street in Philadelphia. I’m not sure how long this show stays up, but the show will be fully hung for Friday, Sept 2nd ! Come see this…
August 9-16 “Can you hear me now?”
This is the first complete week of “An American SideShow Spectacular” 57-58. News Broadcasts are typed over the drawings. They are from the week August 9, my 57th birthday, to August 16. Having completed one week, my process is becoming a bit clearer. It seems I will probably need to be a week or so ahead…
57 – 58 : An American SideShow Spectacular
On Tuesday, August 9, 2016, I turn 57. I will begin a year long project on that morning. I will draw everyday with a Pentel RSVP or Pilot Precise V7 RT. I will choose a single object or group of objects or scene to draw each week. I will sketch each subject from 7 different viewpoints.…
Triggers
We are in an American Sideshow Spectacular. BUY THIS PAINTING ! This is one of the Trigger Paintings. “TRIGGER & GREEN APPLE” They are still wet, but will dry soon.
American Sideshow Spectacular
An American Sideshow Spectacular: A few new works… in the works… a little tease….. Artist statement: Val Sivilli These pieces begin with a Pentel RSVP pen sketch from my personal daily drawing journal. They are sketched from life. They are the visual observations of the details of my home. I draw while I am…
Fig Tree Poem Book
The Fig Tree on 9th & Christian was just acquired by the Lafayette Library Special Collection! YAY! There are 3 original versions of this book. Only 2 left!
The Scissors
Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn hardware store, scissors, seamstress, sewing, Brooklyn memories
Living with Barry
LINK to LIVING WITH BARRY – BLOG So, I live with this guy. His name is Barry. He speaks his mind. Most of the time, he is totally entertaining, loving, generous, interesting, passionate .. all those good things a woman wants. Just sometimes, he makes me a little bit insane. Now that I have assigned…
I Lost my Father’s Cornuto…
…when I was 13, still in Junior High School on Long Island, I wore it on a gold bracelet. The horn was my Grandfather’s. I never met my Grandfather. Always the loyal daughter, I wore it everywhere to celebrate my love for my Dad and his love for his Dad. Then one day it was…
wildness, in pieces, like a puzzle, kind of… OR Aretha and the Pope.
This wildness, this beast. These organized methods by which we investigate its secrets. They are like parts, pieces, kinda randomly referred to whenever it seems appropriate to refer to these parts. We look at this wildness. Then we create order. Order form the wildness. Order ABOUT the wildness. Just this idea of language trying to…
Wichita Falls in the Garden State
8/3/2015 If you ask, again, at the dinner table, why I don’t eat white flour, be prepared for a somewhat distasteful description of gastrointestinal malfunction. You have been warned. Mom is 84. Dad is 85. He has been in congenital heart failure for 12 years. Driving down to SMITHVILLE, to the housing development that lured…
On second thought….
A sweet time was had by me and I hope by at least a few others at the artist reception that the SFA gallery hosted this past saturday evening for my painting show “Unpacking the Wild Beast.” I was corralled by a crazy italian man from long island, complimented by the most amazing and productive…
“UNPACKING THE WILD BEAST” OPENS IN FRENCHTOWN, NJ.
For Immediate Release: May 29th, 2015 John Schmidtberger Schmidtberger Fine Art Gallery 10 Bridge Street, Suite 7, Frenchtown, NJ 08825 908.268.1700 http://www.sfagallery.com “UNPACKING THE WILD BEAST” OPENS IN FRENCHTOWN, NJ. Schmidtberger Fine Art Gallery in Frenchtown, NJ is pleased to announce the debut exhibit of local artist Val Sivilli “Unpacking The Wild Beast”. This show…
Respecting ANGER or the problem with not showing anger.
I want to believe that if someone is saying something nice and loving to me, it is not because they are trying to hide their anger. When you are pissed off at someone, you’re just pissed off. Many times, there is good reason for being pissed off. Most often than not, there exists a misunderstanding…
“I am the Beast” just the text
I am the Wildest Boar. Or could it be that I am the wildest bore? I’m not sure sometimes but it probably doesn’t matter, at least not to me. It is not necessary to get philosophical about it or to even define the possibility of my existence. I am aware that I am inside of…
What a Painter Does When the Studio is getting Packed up.
This residency has less than a week left. The oil paint really needs to dry. The paintings need to be rolled onto sonotubes in less than a week. So I really need to stop painting. So I took some photos of reflections from my windows. I walked around my little casita, started with the front doors,…
The RED Market Wagon sitting outside my window.
When I first arrived in Taos, it was on its side, randomly abandoned on the north side of the house. It was partially covered in snow. It took a few days for me to absorb the fact that it did not belong out there. This wagon, conspicuously RED among the stark brown January landscape of…
A Dirge for Academia and/or The First Attempt at the Integration of Intellect and Beast.
An Illustrated Story. A bit of fact and a whole lot of fiction. The Wild Boar (bore) CHAPTER TWO Woopie! The second chapter Book is Complete. Take a Look! http://atomic-temporary-37820955.wpcomstaging.com/blog/naming-the-beast-chapter-2-of-the-wild-boar-bore/
Lessons of our heroes – Or watching the Agnes Martin Movie
Inevitably, whenever we watch one of our heroes speak of their process, our inclination is to feel as if we have failed on some level and will never achieve even a minimally comparable level of success – either within our work or in the world at large. We realize that we already took the wrong path…
No apologies.. I’m a White Girl from Long Island.
… And I love the blues. Cause I got the blues just like anyone else got the blues. But this white girl always had this little nagging thing in the back of her head. Not poor enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not ugly enough, not thin enough, not fat enough,…
The Dreaded Artist Statement
The inside and the outside of the body, the inside and the outside of the mind – a family, a neighborhood, a political system, and system of ideas – DNA. all of this and more. My work mines the connections, the frustrations, the definitions. Life redefines itself yet we always come back to who we are. Who…
Praying to Saint Agnes
Yes, yes, I did that. Because, well, shit, i was able to get some success with only tiny little paintings – smaller studies – to get all ready for the bigger paintings, well, I’ll tell ya, they got over controlled and just looked kinda dead and I got so frustrated……… So I went to the Harwood…
Reflections of Taos through the Windows of the Wurlitzer Foundation
There are a lot of windows in the buildings at the Wurlitzer Foundation. And we have a lot of neighbors. We have a big big Mountain.
Off With Your Head!
They are cutting off the heads of people. Cutting off the heads of people and filming these people cutting off the heads of other people. They are feeling as if they need to cut off the heads of people and feeling as if they need to film the cutting off of the heads of people.…
Morning
Resume the placing of the mark on the field and the race began once again. It was the middle of the night and she wanted to go out for a walk but the moon would not cooperate. Everything that was visible is now unseen, unknown and full of the fear that night can sometimes bring.…
Naming the Beast
Placed within academia, me, a common Long Island girl, a “normal” girl, as my first Lesbian, separatist art school roommate called me, I was tossed into the higher educational system without much preparation.. Without warning. ACADEMIA! This “normal” girl had a very high regard for her “animal” self – her instinctual self. The person that…
Opening and closing the doors and windows a bit slower.
Part of being in another place is listening to the local public radio. Pure joy really. Except when you find yourself listening to Ravel’s Bolero. I just couldn’t help felling really sorry for the drum section. So repetitive. A bit of torture. But it’s the only station that comes in clearly, so I’ve been committed…
UNLEARNING
For the first time in over 2 weeks, I had a REAL nights sleep, FINALLY. I’ve been beyond tired. When I was 19 years old, I was determined to quit art school and move up to Woodstock, NY and become a potter. So, knowing nothing about how to actually do that, I drove up to…
Yet another attempt at illustrating the wild boar.
I think this one is actually on the right track. FINALLY!!! Here’s a sneak peek! Not putting it on Facebook just yet. Maybe when it’s finished.
DNA
DNA .. Bloodlines … Ancestry … Naples .. Bari … When I went to Italy, I stood outside of a the Hotel Luna in Amalfi. I have been told that the Barbaro’s, my mothers family on my grandfathers side, owned and operated that Hotel. I walked inside. I was fully prepared to introduce myself. I…
Naples/Nipples
Ha! Well yeah, this is where I’m going I guess. The obvious reference from the statue of Romulus and Remus suckling from the she-wolf. Not sure how much explanation this really needs if you read http://atomic-temporary-37820955.wpcomstaging.com/2014/11/11/the-wild-bore-chapter-1/ I’ve successfully liberated myself from illustrating the story with paintings. Whew! FYI
Making friends with the Moon.
Sleeping has not been coming easy since I left New Jersey. I’m used to a full uninterrupted 7 hours and that’s just not happening. It’s like I’m In a Twilight kinda resting thing. I finally put some heavier curtains over the windows since the moon is so bright. A local woman told me to “make…
Crow mind.
Just as the full gravity of Abraham Verghese’s character Shiva, finds his life’s path in Cutting for Stone, and tears are streaming down my face and as I’m cutting stencils to change directions on the paintings that I have begun, I think of my good friend Fred, who loaned me the audio book. I thought…
Night # 1 The Shaman at the Verizon Store
It’s a strange inexplicable fear that has come over me because my little cell phone has become non functional and it seems that whatever I or verizon does has no power to fix it so that the checking calling checking answering looking clicking touching caressing the thing is not a part of my day minute…
Regret be dammed
Those moments these pondering of wishing Of wishing that it were different Be damned Those mind games of peeling apart the words that come out of my mouth Be damned Those self flaggelative mind fucks that feed the beast Be damned, be gone. Walk Walk
3 days… And counting down.
In 3 days, I will be in the road, in my car and heading for New Mexico for my very first artist residency. I’m not sure why I haven’t ever gone to an artist residency before. It seems kind of silly, really, that I haven’t. There are various reasons that I could manage to muster…
Chapter 3 ?
So these feelings that pop up, they just seem to come from nowhere. Although that could not be possible. Can’t come from nowhere. Gotta come from somewhere. I’m wondering if my friend, my animal, my inner beast, my boar/bore, boor…. Bohar…. Has friends or family that live in other people, other humans. I’m mean, it…
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Val Sivilli 