An Abundant Life - Here In This House That Turns Darkness To Light

Last week I wrote about the new show that was opening at YES Gallery, and the opening celebration was so wonderful that I wanted to share a bit about it here now. There have been wonderful shows and openings and events since the beginning of the gallery opening its doors last August, and somehow every show and opening and event just keeps getting better and better. The band Ocean Channel performed at the opening, and they were wonderful that during the sound check I was already so excited by what I was hearing. When they began to play at the celebration it was truly inspiring and so beautiful that everyone kept asking me where I found them and I'd share how they walked in the door one day and asked if I ever had music at the gallery. Their music and their energy and the friends they brought with them added so much to the evening and I am so grateful that they decided to walk into the gallery and that they liked what they saw and wanted to be a part of it.

This time around, as I wrote last week, I found myself in a very new and unexpected position of having to do most of the hanging myself. I hadn't thought it would be possible, but because of the unexpectedness of something that happened, I had no choice but to say a lot of prayers and get up on the ladder and start hanging. Everyone who sees the show keeps telling me its the best one to date, and all I can do is thank God and be grateful that though it seemed impossible, it was made possible for me to do this monumental task by myself and to do it so well that visitors keep telling me how beautiful it is. It really would have been impossible on my own, but with God all things are possible, and it's with so much gratitude that I share some images and videos here of the new show at YES Gallery.

Here In This House That Turns Darkness To Light

YES Gallery

408 6th Street

Hoboken, New Jersey

Ocean Channel Performing

At The Opening Celebration

A Leisurely Walk Through YES Gallery

With "Jackie Gleason Presents Music For Lovers Only"

Playing On My Vintage Stereo

On An Evening After The Opening Celebration

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Finding New Wings

As I have been preparing for each new opening at YES Gallery, more and more I've been curating sections of the space on my own before the Artist who has helped me in the past arrives to begin hanging art with me. I don't like ladders, and so from the very beginning someone I know had been helping me with hanging the work, and I also wanted to make sure that everything was done correctly in order to protect and show the art at its best. But there were some areas that the person who had been helping me wasn't understanding how to work in, and so I had started to do those on my own, and little by little I had done more and more until this time around there wasn't very much left to do except for two big walls and a few other places where I knew pretty much what I wanted, except I didn't want to climb the highest ladder myself to do it.

But in the way that sometimes happens, there was an unexpected shift and the person who has been helping me left much earlier than expected on the first day and on the second day even earlier than that. In the past I would have been completely at a loss, but this time around, though I was surprised by the unexpected change of plans and the absence of the help I thought that I would be having, I decided to just say a lot of prayers and keep on going. It was a very strange experience because the schedule change was such a surprise on both days that it could have completely left me at a loss, but what ended up happening was that I discovered that the ladder was a very stable and excellent one and that I could climb it and do the work I needed to do all by myself. I also had to move around some very heavy and bulky objects and a lot of other smaller objects too because of the decorative aspects of YES Gallery, but even those things were made possible when I just sent prayers up and said in those prayers that this needs to be done so please help me do it.

There was no other way because on the first day the person who had said they'd be helping me left earlier than planned, saying that because we'd be working late the next day it was better to stop earlier which I agreed to though that's not the way we had done it in the past or planned it this time around, and then when the next day came this person left even earlier and completely unexpectedly, when we were in the middle of beginning to work on one major wall where we had taken everything away from so everything was literally in a shambles. So I prayed and climbed the ladder and hauled and lifted and moved and hung and pounded nails and moved the ladder and pounded more nails, shifted things around and moved more things and hauled and put everything back together again. Someone I know was nearby the gallery just as I was getting ready to go and was walking out the door, and when I told her the story and that this the majority of the curating and hanging had been completely done by me, she came into the space and took a look at the walls and said she thought it was the best ever. When she looked at the wall that I had done completely on my own she said, "I love that wall!" It was truly an astonishing experience because I knew that though in the past I wouldn't have thought it was possible, I had hung the artwork in most of the space myself and the places where the person who had been helping me had done some hanging, I had been the one curating and adjusting and making sure things looked the way they needed to look.

Over the next few days more and more people came in to say how much they thought everything was so beautiful, with one very young visitor arriving who said in the way of kids these days that "this is dope!" I have received lots of very positive responses to the gallery at other times before, and many people have told me how beautiful it was, but this time just knowing that it was so much of my own vision and work that people were responding to gave me a feeling of great gratitude to God and joy in being able to do the things that had to be done to create this installation. As I completed the preparations for the opening of the new show, I found that I had to keep adjusting things the other person had done. It was such an odd experience because though I had to do that in some cases before, this time it was almost as if I was seeing everything in a different light. Someone I know had visited the gallery a few weeks ago and said that she knew that I "curated every inch of the place," and she was right. I had thought that the person who was helping me cared as much about the space as I do, but that's impossible because it's my gallery and only I can love it and care for it as much as it needs to be loved and cared for. Someone else could just look at it as a job and that was what was happening with this other person. I'm grateful for the help I had in the past, and I'm grateful for the unexpected change of plans that led me to discover that I could do all these things that I didn't thing were possible. Sometimes other people can help you do the things you want to do, but sometimes they can't because they don't understand your vision. Now that I've found the ways to do the things I was thinking I couldn't, I've found new wings that can help me fly.

A Few Of The Scenes

From The New Show

At YES Gallery

408 6th Street

Hoboken, New Jersey

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Real And True

Two weeks ago I had the honor to attend an event in support of Hudson County Commissioner Anthony L. Romano. As anyone who knows me knows, I am very particular about the people and places I post about and who I give my support to. I am an encourager, and I enjoy being kind and supportive of people and their businesses or professions, but I also know that my word is only as good as my own integrity is, and so when it comes to writing blog posts or posting on Instagram, working with people, inviting Artists to show their work in YES Gallery, showing support and speaking highly of people, I have to really feel and know that the person who I am giving my support to is genuinely someone of excellence.

There are times when I meet someone and I am impressed and over time as I get to know them the more I see and discover and experience, the more impressed I am. Commissioner Romano is one of those people, and not only have I had the experience of seeing for myself that he is someone who can be relied on to really care about people and communities and who wants to do his best to help make the world a better place, but I have heard wonderful things about him from other people who I know are really and honestly great people themselves.

It was such a pleasure to attend the event and see and hear all the wonderful things that were being said about Commissioner Romano from people there who are from so many different areas of the communities in Hudson County. It's such an enjoyable experience to be in a room full of such good people and to be able to celebrate and show support for someone who is so real and true.

An Evening In Support Of

Hudson County Commissioner

Anthony L. Romano

At The Antique Loft

Hoboken, New Jersey

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Flowering Springtime

Easter Sunday is such a special day and always has such beautiful memories for me. I think of visiting my Nana, sitting with her in church when I was a very small child and looking up into her face as the glowing springtime sunshine lit up the windows and filled the space with light, and later as a young adult, visiting with her in her home in East Hampton and bringing a gardenia that she knew immediately how to take care of and find the perfect place in the window where it would scent the whole room, gardener that she always was.

At YES Gallery there are so many memories that have been brought together from so many parts of my life, and springtime and Easter are a wonderful time to look back to beautiful days while enjoying a beautiful present and renewing and growing into the future. Several years ago I gave my mother an Easter Egg filled with chocolates, and it is in the window at the gallery now. Memories of the first Easter dress I bought with my own pocket money when I was very little are woven into the handmade decorations and flowers that adorn the windows. A beautiful gift of a calla lily from a lovely new friend who was thoughtful in not only the gift itself but in adding a small message of congratulations on a decorative wooden marker in it adorns a table and reminds me every day how good and kind people can be. The very birds that sing outside the windows and through the open door on warmer days seem to be reminding me of the birdsongs of days gone by as they sing new ones.

There is such joy at Easter, a deep feeling of knowing the goodness and love of God, and with the added beauty of the blossoms and warmth and sunshine and greenery all around that this time of year brings forth feels like a beautiful celebration of all that means new life. Happy Easter!

A Few Springtime Views

From YES Gallery

408 6th Street

Hoboken, New Jersey

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Spring Celebration

This past week there was another event at YES Gallery, a celebration of spring and also of seven months since the opening. I've been adding flowers and decorations to the windows to bring the outdoors in and the idea of growth and new life to the views people see from the sidewalk, and just as spring begins slowly and all of a sudden everything is blooming, the windows began with some paper decorations I made and then I found a few lovely hyacinth's one day in the flower district, then some calla lilies somewhere else, then an azalea and some pink African violets and then one day on my way in after a big rain storm I found a downed tree branch that was just beginning to bud and I brought that in too. As I added more and more flowers, everything seemed more and more lovely and there is a fragrance now that is such a naturally sweet and beautiful one, filling the air as the flowers bloom and grow and more are added.

Ever since I was very little I've always loved finding and discovering the blooms of spring. In the house where I grew up there were not only many old and beautiful trees, but there were daffodils, narcissus, lilacs, purple and white violets, blossoming trees and shrubs, forsythia, and herbs and flowering ground cover along with an old English garden full of flowering plants that bloomed in seasonal time all spring and summer and into the fall. Finding the beginnings of the greenery and seeing the buds beginning to form and then grow and bloom has always been such a joy for me, and having my blooming windows at YES Gallery has been bringing all of those feelings of exploring the springtime garden back to me.

I read a poem at the event last week, a favorite for many years since the first time I heard it in college when I took a poetry course from a Professor who was also my Don in the English University tradition, and so I was able to do other work outside of the class in conference with him. The poem I chose to read was a section from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, not only because it's a favorite, but also because it begins with the lines, "April is the cruelest month" and the event was toward the end of March and near the beginning of April. I had been thinking of it as the scent of hyacinths was filling the gallery because they are mentioned in such a beautiful way in that poem, and so I read up until that part just to give people a glimpse of that glorious and powerful way of using language that has meant so much to me all these years. Afterward, I was so excited and happy to find that there were people there who responded to the poem and its beauty, and it was a lovely experience to know that this poem that was written a little more than a hundred years ago is still moving and reaching through the minds and hearts of people today. Words for me can be like paintings, creating worlds that touch us deeply and resonate as they grow ever deeper into the core of our being, blossoming and blooming and touching us with their life giving meaning as flowers touch us with their colors and shapes and scent.

Celebrating Spring

At YES Gallery

408 6th Street

Hoboken, New Jersey

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Creating Anew

The other night when I left YES Gallery, I was planning to go to a supermarket to go food shopping on my way home. I was really tired from a very long couple of days, and the weather had gotten colder again for a bit so I wasn't really in the mood to go to the supermarket which was a bit out of my way, but I felt like it was something that it was important for me to do. I write it in that way because I didn't really need to go food shopping at that market on that particular night. I had enough of the things I need on a day to day basis and the trip could have waited. But I felt like for some reason it was important for me to go that particular night to that particular market, and so I did.

I've written in these pages before about the times when I am led to do something or to go somewhere and when I follow through and do what I feel that it's important for me to do, I am always blessed in some wonderful way by a meeting or by something I find or by a place or person or something that happens that is miraculous and life changing.

On that particular night, as I set out to go to the supermarket, I was planning to walk one way but felt led to walk another. After walking a few blocks, when I turned the corner and was nearing where the market is I saw a large round woven piece of furniture that at first I took to be a large basket or storage bin or maybe even a bed for a pet that had its cushions removed. It had been put out on the sidewalk in the way that people often do with things that they no longer want or need in this area, and I was going to walk past it, but something made me turn back and look at it more closely. When I did I realized that it was made of a heavy vinyl, and that it was a coffee table that was made to be used indoors or outdoors, and that it was in perfect condition. I wasn't sure of where I could store it, but I knew it would be wonderful to have it for the sidewalk outside YES Gallery as the weather became warmer, and so I stood for a few moments thinking it over and finally decided that it was too wonderful to just leave it there and that I'd figure out where to put it when I got it back to the gallery.

I brought it back and gave it a quick cleaning that night and then the next day gave it a more thorough one, letting it dry as I arranged some new spring flowering plants in the windows and did a few other arrangements and decorations and touch ups in the gallery. For the time being I had put it up in the loft where I thought I might be able to store it against a wall behind one of the easels, but I was still trying to think if there was a better way to arrange it so that it could be used inside. A few people who had come in had gone up into the loft to browse and I'd moved it a bit to the side so they could move about more comfortably, apologizing for its being in the way and explaining that I was in the process of bringing it in. Interestingly they didn't seem to mind it, and so I began to think that maybe all I needed to do was reconfigure a few things and maybe it could actually work in that area. In thinking about a possible cover for it the night before I had remembered a vintage suede hand painted fringed shawl that I thought might fit over it and be a nice way of masking it, and after it had dried from the cleaning I moved a few things around and after pushing it a bit more to one side I draped the shawl over it. Years ago one of my Artist and Designer friends had said "What you can do with fabric!" and though I hadn't really thought about it until that point, using and finding and draping textiles of all kinds is something that I always love to do.

The newly installed coffee table has made the loft area even more beautiful, and the design of it is something that I enjoy so much. It's rustic and cozy and very boho chic as people used to always call my way of designing my apartments, and it added a dimension that makes the space even more comfortable to be in than it was before. As the weather grows warmer I may move it outside, but then again I may not. YES Gallery has a way about it that keeps surprising me with inspiring ideas and new ways of doing things as if everything I do there is being created anew.

A Newly Installed Coffee Table

At YES Gallery

Inspiring A New Design

And A New Creation

    

Blessings,

Jannie Susan