Welcome!

Welcome and thanks for visiting! Take a look around and please let me know if you are interested in purchasing work.

Silkscreens	Oils/Acrylics
Photographs	Mural

The 16×20″ paintings on wood are $550 each, the 2’x3′ paintings on canvas are the same; 3’x3′ paintings on canvas are $800 each. The silkscreens on paper are $100 each and the photos are $20. Please drop me a line if you’re interested in seeing anything in person – it’s always difficult to tell if you really like something from a photo.

New Paintings for Sale – get ’em while they’re hot!

I’ve talked with many of you about my new series of paintings, but I wanted to tell everybody how excited I am about these new pieces. Please click on any of the thumbnails above to see larger photos.

They’re 11″x14″ on wood panel, with silkscreen and enamel. I’d first started working on these maybe three years ago, silkscreening layer upon layer upon layer. I was never really happy with them, and then I screened an opaque cream layer over almost the entire surface – and then I really didn’t like them!

So, I put them in a stack in the back of a closet and pretty much forgot about them until I was doing some cleaning about two months ago. I found them and thought, well, at least I can re-use the wood panels… So I started to sand them down and found, to my great joy and surprise, that the sanding process brought out a beautiful combination of layers, colors, and patterns.

After sanding all five of them, I decided to do a single layer of silkscreen on top, in black – it’s the line drawing you’ll see with the text from a chant inside, “I am love and you are love, we are love, all is love.”

I was really happy with them and walked out of the studio thinking they were done. A few days later I was sitting a five day silent meditation retreat (yay!) and suddenly saw them with additional detailing in enamel which would bring a beautiful contrast between the creamy matte background and a more colorful and shiny foreground (setting up background/foreground contrast is easy when you work representationally, you can just do it with content – not so easy for us abstract folks).

So – I hope you like, they’re priced to move at only $150 each – send me an e-mail at sadiesketch@yahoo.com if you’re interested (I’m happy to tell you more about them or arrange to show them to you if you’re in NYC).

Thanks for reading and looking, Sadie 🙂

Drop me a line

Hi all – scroll down for general blog – photos, notes, rants, and miscellaneous finds (you really, really, need to watch the Muppets video posted Aug 26th). Drop me a line and let me know what you think, or if you are interested in a piece. Or you can visit another Sadie Rosenthal, or another. Please note that the pieces located on these pages are highlights.

And for you true Fraggle freaks (I love you one and all), here’s a favorite Cantus clip (he shows up about 3 min in if you’re impatient and want to scroll ahead…) –

Portraits

For some reason, I think – both because I was getting a little bored doing what I know how to do well and needed a challenge; and because I’m somewhat masochistic – I decided a while ago to do a couple of portraits.  An absolutely gorgeous friend of mine sat for some photos back in January, and I’ve been working on two 2’x3′ oils from that shoot for a bit.  It’s been interesting and challenging, frustrating and… and I’ve walked away from them for a bit, come back etc…  Just spent some good time on one of them today something really shifted.  There are still some drawing problems – the face is still too wide, and not quite long enough, but something came alive in the eyes today (and even though I’m still having problems with the lips, she is starting to smile…).

New Sketches

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks – the silkscreen lab closed today for the winter break and I was trying to get a bunch of stuff finished before they shut the doors at 7pm.  Didn’t quite happen (somehow I always want time for just one more screen…), but I got a lot done. 

I’m a little fried right now, so I’m not going to edit and post everything, but here are some of the very preliminary sketches for the SUNY Albany Hillel mural. 

I’ll try and get the others posted soon, but it may not happen until I’m back from Elat Chayyim on the 30th, we’ll see… 

New Pics – SOHO

Quote of the day “Singing opera made me good at painting.” – Homer Simpson

Out wandering today, mostly in SOHO, a bit in the Village – first day of snow, and pretty cold for much of it (seemed to get warmer as the day went on…).

Fell asleep last night watching Zeek sleep (there are new pics of him too in Flickr for those of you who just need more cat pictures). Is there anything better than watching a cat sleep? Moving from light sleep to deep he gives one long exhale then doesn’t breathe in for a long time. His paws start to twitch – I always wonder what he’s chasing – what is he trying to destroy, the little devil? His ears twitch – chasing dream birds? dream mice? dream nth dimensional cat toys (those things he chases when awake that we mere humans can’t see).

Movement

On the subway home today I was re-reading a Pema Chodron and found the most wonderful thought – “The Buddhist teachings tell us that over the course of many lifetimes all  beings have been our mothers.  At one time, all these people have sacrified their own comfort for our well-being, and vice versa.”  I read it and kept going, then went back – what an incredibly radical statement.  Can you imagine what the world would look like if we took it seriously?  What would a daily commute on the subway look like?  What would simple interactions in a store look like?  There couldn’t be such a thing as road rage.  Crime wouldn’t exist – it just wouldn’t make sense.  Wouldn’t happen.  And war?!?  Hell’s bells, it even improved my mood towards my ex-husband!

Speaking of all my moms, in all our lives, I spent the evening with about ten tonight, women who I have the privilege to spend some time with once a month at the BJ/SPSA shelter.  Thursday isn’t my usual night, but they always need extra hands around the holidays, and I wasn’t traveling, so I was happy to help out.  Last night I was out with some friends watching them blow up the balloons for the parade, and we got into a “what are you grateful for” conversation, and I thought I’d come up with a fairly decent list, but tonight I have a whole new realm to add. 

I got to the shelter early, but about half our guests were already there waiting.  I was confused, but ok – whatever.  It turns out the bus driver who picks them up from their day placement didn’t feel like waiting around so he picked them up and dropped them off an hour and a half early.  Which means that they had to spend an hour and a half sitting on wooden pews and couldn’t go downstairs until one of the volunteers showed up.

In my list of things I’m grateful for, it didn’t even occur to me to put ‘the ability to move around freely.’  I didn’t have to ask permission to leave my apartment and head into the city, I didn’t have to sign any paperwork to leave when my shift was done, I just walked out the door and got on the subway.  So right now I am incredibly aware of, and grateful for, the simple freedom of being able to move around the world as I wish.

Completely unrelated – for someone who didn’t used to cook (hells bells, for someone who lived in an apartment in DC for four years without having the gas turned on for the stove!), I’m getting pretty good at this.  I made a killer lasagna today – zucchini, carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, fresh oregano, mozzarella, provolone – I’m bringing leftovers to Romemu tomorrow night, so if you weren’t thinking of coming, you might want to re-think that… 

Sending blessings and peace, and much love.  Have a good night, wherever you are.

Karski Monument

The Polish Consulate just unveiled a new statue of Jan Karski, at 37th and Madison. There’s no good way to sumarize him, go out and get a copy of Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust” By Thomas Wood and Stanislaw Jankowski.

P.S. – I happened to be randomly on that corner a couple of weeks ago – the statue is really lovely, it’s definitely worth a visit.

Meandering Slopeside

After a lazy Sunday morning (and I do mean lazy), I spent the afternoon wandering around Park Slope. By the time I got started I was already starting to lose the light, which was a little frustrating, but there were still some good shots. Plus it got me out of the house and focused (no pun intended), which I really needed. There are 47 shots in this set. If you’ve got some extra time, here’s an oddly fascinating video on Beijing’s New Subway.

Zeek has landed!

Both my roommate and I were out of town for the weekend, so poor Zeek (the cat, not the magazine) had to stay with roommate’s ex-girlfriend.  Well, being in a strange space apparently didn’t agree with Z, so he spent the wee hours of the morning racing back and forth across her tiny studio apartment…  Do I need to say she wasn’t happy (the ex, not the cat)?  So, after a long (good, but long) weekend in Norwalk CT  and Northampton MA (Board retreat, and meeting, and a staff meeting), I had the extra added adventure of rescuing Z before the ex did him in…

Random and Misc.

You know life is getting too busy when dinner is a Balance bar and an apple at the studio, and half a thing of cottage cheese over the sink at 9:30 when you walk in the door…  So much for civilization.  Why do I even own plates?

Speaking of civilization – apparently, if I’d read the paper earlier, I could have been one of the many joyous souls listening to Slash read from his memoirs.  Something really wrong about that.  Actually, speaking of really wrong – (and I’m not making this up – in the paper today, I swear) – “While hunting in the Allegheny National Forest northeast of Pittsburgh, Rick Jacobs snapped a picture of what he claims is the famed Sasquatch, or bigfoot, of American lore.  While bigfoot researchers feel it is a juvenile specimen of the famed creature, the Pennsylvania Game Commission says it is nothing more than a bear with a severe case of mange.”  Bigfoot researchers?!?!?   What the hell is going out there in the world? (although, is there a possible Bigfoot/Slash conspiracy to rule the world? very possible).  Better yet – spell check doesn’t like “bigfoot” but “Bigfoot” is just fine – ?!?!?!?!

Weird day for the radio station that plays in my head (you know the one, for some reason always tuned three stations off, repeating some bad song you heard when you were leaving the gym in the morning).  Started off in the subway when something I was listening to (an actual .mp3, not just in my head) had a mandolin in the background which started the Hooters’ Nervous Night going (for a good couple of hours, but only the middle part because who has actually heard the song since the late 80s? – ok, couldn’t find a video for it, but And We Danced, while minimal on the mandolin, is definitely worth a watch).  A couple hours later wandered into a shop and heard sad, sad 80s Sinead O’Connor.  Evening in the studio brought much Beirut, and then, some more.  Printing actually went pretty well – I went in frustrated but felt like a couple of things resolved themselves today.  And gave me a few clues for tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll bring my camera in this week and show where things are at right now…  We’ll see how the week goes (off to CT at the end of it for my Board retreat…).  Apparently ending the day with (after a youtube search for Sinead brought up nothing I was too excited about) – wait for it – Peter Gabriel & Youssou N’Dour doing In Your Eyes.  Ok.  There you go.  Thanks for playing.

Spent the day at the Botanic Garden – beautiful (warm) October day. Spent yesterday reminding myself why I don’t spend more time wandering around the Chelsea galleries than I can possibly help. I feel like I have to do it every now and again, but wow is it depressing. There’s just so much painful stuff out there, and somehow those galleries all feel like a hybrid of used car sales lots blended with an operating room (that’s not exactly right, but it’s the closest I can get). That having been said, there were a couple of interesting things worth seeing.

Biggest surprise for me was a set of sculptures by Chris Offili at David Zwirner. I have really mixed feelings about his paintings – I think I always want to like them more than I end up actually liking them, but his Annunciation sculptures are – insanely gorgeous (you really need to see them in person, the shots on Zwirner’s web site don’t begin to do them justice). There’s a great photo show of Andre Kertesz’s late work polaroids at Silverstein Photography. Other photo shows worth seeing – some great cow portraits (really) by Lewis Stein at Charles Cowles. Some great WWII era b/w pieces at Alan Klotz.

Not a lot I can recommend in terms of painting shows – some really lovely landscapes about light by Stephen Pentak (oil on wood – beautiful, rich surfaces) at Kathryn Markel. Some really nice abstracts – Shirley Kaneda at Danese – interesting shapes, colors, nice crisp edges, interesting movement. Finally – an installation that has – possibilities. I don’t think it’s exactly working yet, but some interesting possibilities – Yael Kanarek at Bitforms.

Construction

These shots are from a day of wanderings, Prosepect Heights, Prospect Park, elsewhere in Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

I don’t usually shoot at night – I’m just not usually carrying a camera, but with it getting darker earlier (I guess we really are in late fall) – it was fun to play around a bit.

Romemu Sketches

I said I’d post some of the drafts of the sketches for the walls at the gym, here’s where I’m at.

These are a combination of silkscreen, handpainting, and collage. They’re 26″x40″ on paper.

Burtynsky

Meandering through YouTube I stumbled on this interview with Edward Burtynsky.  It doesn’t give a good sense of his work, but for anybody who is already a fan, definitely worth a watch. If you get a chance to see his photos in person, definitely worth it.

Good day in the studio (thank you Dom for letting me stay late) – making progress on the Romemu drafts – there are now four or five of them that are working well. I’m a happy girl. Be even happier if I can get a couple more “finished” before Tuesday’s meeting, but, we’ll see how it goes…

Yesterday was one of those surprise moments – somebody had thrown away a good amount of this gorgeous deep maroon paper and I started playing around with it – the cutout shapes are actually making these pieces really come together. It’s so funny how the little, unexpected thing bring everything together. I’ll try to shoot a couple of the drafts and post some pics in the next few days.

A Wednesday

So, two days of staff meetings – long, but we got a lot accomplished.  You know, I’m really blown away by how amazing our staff is, it’s just a bit odd to be such a virtual organization – there are these long stretches where we just don’t see each other (or some people see some but…). 

Good day in the studio afterwards.  I’m working on these largeish paper pieces – silkscreen/collage/painted on – as sketches for wall hangings for Romemu (since our new space, as lovely as the people are, is a gym).  They’ve been fighting me like mad, but today a couple of them started to work.  I’ve got ten that I’m working on as a group, if I can get for or five really working well by the time we all get together again, I’ll be happy. 

Right now the elements are one large abstract shape, repeated, with Hebrew text, with some rectangles printed and then abstract shapes hand painted in on the side.  One is working really well, two or three are staring to get there, and I’ve got about six or so still really needing to come together.  We’ll see, but I’m feeling a lot better about them than I was this morning. 

Traffic cat

Don’t ask me what this cat was doing hanging out watching traffic, but isn’t he great?!?

I walked out of my apartment in the morning and went to cross the street, he was just relaxing and watching the world go by.

Can’t imagine how he ended up there, but he seems pretty happy about it…

There are 26 shots in this set – just daily wanderings.

Hamsa

Saw this beautiful hamsa on the rearview miror of a car, with the windshield reflecting the building across the street.

Didn’t know if I could get the shot or not, but… 🙂 There are about 40 shots in this set.

Two screens down

Thank G!d, the print studio is back open – three weeks closed and I was going a little batty. Burned two screens and printed one – I really like the one I printed – I did a yellow/orange blend, a blue/green blend, and a blue/green/cream blend. It’s a simple single image, and I don’t know if I’ll do another print over it or not… we’ll have to see. Starting to feel like I can breathe again!

Red Bank, NJ

Coming back from the gym today this morning, about 10:30, there was the most amazing half moon out in a beautiful, beautiful blue sky.  Perfect late summer day.

Yesterday, in an ongoing series of daytrips out of the city, I took a day trip to Red Bank, NJ – about an hour from NYC.  Interesting town – like so many, it splits down the middle, right at the train tracks.  To the right is fairly affluent and almost completely white, to the left seems to be mixed income and almost completely Latino.

There’s a pretty little marina (wish I’d taken my camera) where I sat and read for a few hours.  They have one of those old fashioned (couldn’t tell if it was original or not), rail road car diners (decor was better than the food though).  St. Anthony of Padua is a somewhat unfortunate modern building, but it has beautiful stained glass windows visible from the street, and the legend “G!d is Love, Love One Another” on the side (the exclamation point is mine, not theirs).

Walking down a side street around 7pm I saw a restaurant with an enclosed patio – there’s something wonderful about seeing a girl with a sparkly tiara celebrating with friends. She was too young to be getting married, so maybe a Sweet 16? Made me smile.

Aside from that, Red Bank seems to boast a lot of old Victorian homes (including a pink and white Victorian train station), a Wawa (?!), and a fondue restaurant – how many towns can say that?