Dry point of Murphy © Linda Appell 2025, with permission
I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for my work and the feeling I have for my life.
-Henri Matisse
I am channeling Jenny Holzer this morning, among other artists I have known and loved. "I want to tell you what I know," she wrote on one of her projected wall pieces, "in case it is of use." And what a visual artist knows is usually expressed without words, or in combination with words in a collage. Linda Appell uses cut or torn fragments of old newspapers to create frames around, or within, her dry point prints. In the image I have chosen to illustrate this blog post, the evocation of a human's loving attachment to a dog is calmly settled in its historic framing, complete and entire.
Linda Appell is a friend, a long ago friend from college in fact, and I reconnected with her and her photographer husband, Michael Gold—whose photos have graced my blogs—when I moved out of the city to Upstate New York. It was a serendipitous reconnection as we'd fallen out of touch for many years, a reconnection for which I am deeply grateful.
We are living through difficult times, and those of us who work as artists—no matter the art form—must make extra efforts to continue generating new work, not only for ourselves, but for the survival of our loving attachments to one another, our beleaguered country, and the world. However we are able to raise reflective sensations through our work is worthwhile, even if it is a struggle. So, when I heard that Linda had attended a print-making workshop over the summer and produced 30 finished pieces, I knew I had to designate a special visit to view her work, and talk about it.
We had tea together that afternoon. Michael set my plate artfully with a single grape in acknowledgment of my peculiar eating habits, and to make me laugh, which I did, of course. He then posted the "still life of a grape on a plate" on his Facebook page.
Those of you who have followed my blog or my publications over the years know that I have a special connection with the visual arts, and have written about art and artists often. My father was a collector, and he also drew well. He would show me a painting he had just purchased, stand in front of it, and try to explain how it was rendered, and how it made him feel. His love for art remained inside me, as words; I became a writer. And though I became a writer, to be in the presence of visual artists is an inspiration, a pleasure, and a privilege.