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Ukraine Flower Series: Theatre Rubble II. June 2022. Mixed media on custom wood panel, 42 x 60 inches
June 4, 2022

What Rubble Really Means

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MY MOTHER’S RUBBLE

My British mother, once in awhile, would tell me about life in London during WWII. Nazi Germany was terrifying. The bombing incessant. Many she knew died under building rubble. Whole blocks disappeared. What were hallways, bedrooms, and bathrooms became pyramids of brick rubble. Prams in the air, pets flat and quiet. Her fiancée, a British pilot, died early in the war. Scarcity was everywhere.

Being a child, I had no way to truly understand the true meaning of “rubble.” It was only in high school in America, when we were given the assignment of writing about concentration camps, did I first begin to learn the magnitude and scope of what “rubble” could mean.

To reduce to rubble means you take entire societies and break them into fragments.

What you can’t blow up, you burn. As we each stood up in class and read our papers over the course of a week, almost everyone broke down crying. Mine was on Treblinka in occupied Poland where 300,000 were murdered (the last survivor of that camp died in 2018). Most of my classmates were Jewish and they already knew what rubble meant…the reminders were living with them – surviving grandparents with a number tattooed on their wrists. Classmate Wendy Aibel did not just cry. She wailed. For the rest of my life Kathe Kolowitz’s drawings reminded me of that wail in that classroom (as an adult Wendy Aibel-Weiss would be professionally involved in organizations that had to do with children and trauma).

Mother of Sandra Filippucci

Mother of Sandra Filippucci

Still, I did not connect those horrors to my mother. I thought she’d be pleased with my effort and scholarship but the mere mention of concentration camps was like pricking an overripe tumor.  Offal and bile emerged shrieking, “WHAT’S DONE IS DONE!,” and to get to my Goddamned chores. She wanted a smiley face life. Big flowers on the wallpaper, bright yellow, lots of jewelry, expensive whiskey. I did not understand her reaction but sensed that talking about any problem was a weakness. You were weak if you complained, which she confused with talking. So nothing important, traumatic or life-altering was ever discussed. She was so stuffed with secrets that we would not learn about them until after her death. The woman would have had her arm amputated before she would ever go to a psychiatrist. Say nothing. It will go away. Open another bottle. This all kept her unfamiliar with Love.

I was a confused outsider when we moved to Long Island. Although born in Brooklyn near the Brooklyn Naval Yard – now transformed into shops and where I had my custom wood panels made – my background for Long Island was atypical – I was the military “brat” of divorced parents.

The parents of Sandra Filippucci

My American soldier father & British mother

I did not grow up with a library or a pool. We had baked beans in Europe and were glad of it. I had lived in England, France and Germany on American military bases in Post-war Europe and could speak some French and German. I had been left in a French convent in La Rochelle, France when my mother disappeared into America where she would construct another life (you can read about that experience here: SISTERS OF THE CLOTH), and eventually retrieve me back to New York. She was tough, fearless, determined to run from the horror.

An outsider I remained. One generally becomes an artist because of difficult or non-existent childhoods. And although I was protected from the explicit horrors that had happened around me, children like animals, sense sorrow, loss, bereavement, anxiety, fear.  My childhood was spent under the emotional rubble of secrets, silence, and denial.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FLOWERS

On February 24th, 2022 Ukraine was invaded by Russia. It soon became clear that this was a war not an invasion – a war on a society that Putin wanted to obliterate. I kept hearing the word, “rubble,” over and over and over. History repeating itself. For the first time, I could see my mother sheltering in those subways, hiding in those theater basements, ducking into those doorways.

My mother – along with an entire generation – probably had Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome but back then, you just got on with it.

The woman who had given birth to me was physically beautiful but she suppressed so many wretched moments that it made her very, very difficult. Ugly in fact. She suppressed the reality of war with flowers and pretty dresses and locked up her humanity so tightly one would think she was in fact, not human. Empathy seemed foreign to her. Violence was the go to reaction. If she hit something enough it would behave or maybe just go away. When you grow up with violence as a way of life – either as a culture or as a personal reaction to your own annihilation – it is considered normal to “sort someone out” with a punch in the face. She remained unfamiliar with Love for the rest of her Life. She got lost under the rubble.

Art was my way to cope with her. Art was my way to cope with Life.

I chose flowers to express my sadness and anger at yet more lives being lost, more generations affected, more rubble forming pyramid shapes all over Ukraine.

Flowers are of great cultural significance to the people of Ukraine. I also realized with this Series that flowers to my mother represented innocent times before the war.  With the god-like powers of 3d software, I could render my own flowers using wireframed cloth  that would react to gravity, light & texture. I felt that I had to “make” my own flowers out of fabric like shrouds for the countless lost. This Series has freed me in unexpected ways – the work has become more abstracted, expressionist and has provoked a deeper understanding of a difficult parent. 

My lesson about all of this is this. Perhaps I have worked too much from my head all my life not allowing emotions to become too loud. They seemed to just cause mayhem. Pandora’s Box. Why did I not understand until now that the great art out there in the world that I have long admired comes from a deeper place and that the emotions are loud. You FEEL the art. It took a horrific, unprovoked war in a distant place to jolt me into understanding that actual rubble creates generational emotional rubble. In understanding my mother, I am understanding myself. She was a survivor. So am I except that I wish always to be familiar with Love.


MOST RECENT FROM JUNE: Rubble One and Two. The residents sheltering in a local theater in Mariupol wrote in huge letters outside on the pavement, “CHILDREN.” They still got bombed. There was so much rubble it was considered a mass grave.

Ukraine Flower Series: Theatre Rubble II. FILIPPUCCI

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Theatre Rubble II.” June 2022. Mixed media on custom wood panel, 42″ x 60″

Ukraine Flower Series:

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Theatre Rubble I.” June 2022. Mixed media on custom wood panel, 42″ x 60″

 

SOME FROM PREVIOUS MONTHS: National Library, Drama Theater, apartment buildings, nuclear power plant, civilians, children’s center

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: National Library, June 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40 x 60

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: War Rubble – “National Library,” May 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40 x 60

Ukraine Flower Series: War Rubble Drama Theater. May 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40 x 60

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: War Rubble – “Drama Theater,” May 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40 x 60

FILIPPUCCI - WAR RUBBLE: Living Quarters, May 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: War Rubble – “Living Quarters,” May 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40″ x 60″

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES:

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” March 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40″ x 60″

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: Civilians, March 2022. Mixed media on custom braced panel, 40 x 60

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Civilians,” March 2022. Mixed media on custom braced panel, 40 x 60

UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES February 2022: Mixed media on rag paper, each 40″ x 60″


PAX of Beatus, 3d porcelain ceramic ©FILIPPUCCI 2021
February 24, 2021

The Trouble with Pink

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Large Scale 3D Printed Ceramics

THE TROUBLE WITH PINK

“THE ORDER,” a 3d ceramic series begun in the Summer of 2020 during my complete isolation during Covid, was all black and white. It sprang from memories of being put into a French convent La Rochelle at age five.

When Biden became President, I was greatly relieved after all the tumult & ugliness for so long. I started seeing pink. That’s how things begin for me…I see a color or shape in my dreams, my walks, or doing something mundane like the laundry. 

I have an uncomfortable relationship with pink. Pink…the symbolic color of tenderness, affection, romance and peace. PAX, Latin for peace. PAX be with you. Pink the soother, has been definitively linked to toning down aggression, and its use in holding cells for violent criminals.

Pink for me however has another meaning: my mother, Beatrice. It was her favorite color and therefore I wanted nothing to do with it.

PAX of Beatus, 3d porcelain ceramic ©FILIPPUCCI 2021

PAX of Beatus (a different iteration), 3d porcelain ceramic ©FILIPPUCCI 2021

Pink is too frivolous for my pragmatic nature but far worse, painful. In 2018 I tried a few pieces in pink (you can see those on my Instagram feed: @filippucciart). Beatrice no longer walks the earth but when she did one could describe her as a wild boar in pink. A confusing dichotomy. You thought “pretty lady” but under the pink was a tough personality, a bristling, masculine Joan Crawford of judgement and meanness. The least maternal person you could imagine but there she was, a blonde in pink wearing pink lipstick.

Here’s why using the color pink in my work – with all its subtle iterations – helped me better understand her.

PAX of Beatus (a different iteration), 3d porcelain ceramic ©FILIPPUCCI 2021

PAX of Beatus (a different iteration), 3d porcelain ceramic ©FILIPPUCCI 2021

After creating numerous pink cloth studies over the last few months, some insight arrived. Not all at once, mind you. It kept tugging at me until I got it. My mother wore pink because that’s what she wanted to be. She wanted to be affectionate and peaceful and pink but because of an undiagnosed personality disorder, was the opposite. The total opposite.

I will only say this. Art saved me from pink, got me away from it, and then brought me right back to it. Finally, I did not look away. You could say that I found my inner pinkness. I am not afraid of pink any more. To Beatrice…PAX be with you.


Flying Nun, Summer 2020. 3D study for a large ceramic sculpture-FILIPPUCCI 2020
August 19, 2020

Contemporary Ceramics

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Large Scale 3D Printed Ceramics

SISTERS OF THE CLOTH

New work from the quiet isolation of the Spring and Summer of 2020. This Series is built upon the impressions of a five year old in La Rochelle, France, where – for awhile – I was put into the custody of nuns who lived in a medieval convent. 

Art Blog - Sandra Filippucci Aug 2020

Forgotten laundry in Santa Fe, New Mexico 2020

CORRIDORS & SHROUDS

Rag, Santa Fe NM Summer 2020 - FILIPPUCCI

Rag, Santa Fe 2020

The impressions began with walks in neighborhood cul-de-sacs where I noticed pieces of cloth. I would notice one, then another, and another. In New Mexico, many still put their laundry out to dry, often draped over a fence or stone wall. Sometimes, these are forgotten…left there to fade into the seasons. Couldn’t tell you why rags and laundry caught my attention but once you start noticing something, there’s a reason.

In the quiet of this pandemic, my dreaming revealed corridors and shrouds. My waking now held terrors. Abandonment, loneliness. I resisted remembering until those terrified little girl memories of flapping cloth creatures emerged forcefully, impatient with all the waiting. From bundles of rags, I “saw” fabric – copious, flowing, mysterious – rise into form.

As a 5 year old, I struggled to grasp that real women were under all that drapery. I could ask nothing for speaking was discouraged. Other than the perpetually seated Abbess, this community of French nuns was always in a hurry, dashing and darting with bundles, parcels and mops. Incessantly toiling. Like household gods, each was a silent expert at what they did. You said little, did much. They were frighteningly beautiful blurs, smudges of white and black. Everything in its place, everything in order.  

CERAMIC | The Novitiate - Sandra Filippucci 2020

©Sandra Filippucci 2020

Wearing different habits to denote their status, there was a distinct hierarchy within this community, and you quickly learned who was at top, and who did the laundry. They all commanded their space wherever they were or whatever their assignment was – all knowing, all powerful but in fact, many years ago nuns had little to no power within the church. I’m not sure they even do now. These obedient women were consecrated worker ants, always minding the time, polishing and starching as they noiselessly prayed.

Decades later, I remember those figures of cloth rushing down ancient corridors, making sounds like the sails on fishing boats in the La Rochelle harbor.

WHY CERAMICS

The shrouds in corridors became sculptures of cloth. Since I work with 3D programs, I began assembling fabric in an abstracted manner but still figurative. Joan of Arc has been my primary subject matter for so long that this different way of working startled me. The work just became. And it wanted to be ceramic. This is what led to that.

I’d been to a lecture in Taos at the Harwood Museum in 2019 organized by Ann Landi of Vasari21.com, on the Evolution of Art Criticism, which included panelists Peter Plagens, Laurie Fendrich, Lucy Lippard and Garth Clark. Garth Clark is a distinguished writer, curator and lecturer on modern and contemporary ceramic art. I was galvanized by his understanding of this medium, which I never seriously considered. I bought his 2003 book, “Shards,” and wondered when and how I would produce ceramics.

CERAMIC | The Worker - Sandra Filippucci 2020

©Sandra Filippucci 2020

This new body of work, “Sisters of the Cloth,” can only exist as 3d printed ceramics. Some pieces appear simple, but are in fact, quite complex. Created with 3d software, they are well-suited to 3d printing. The process will involve clay extruding to the largest size, and then combining the sections into life-size sculptures. They will be fired like pottery, and then hand-glazed. They can be constructed with permeating resins for outdoors, hung on walls, suspended from ceilings. Editioned smaller pieces will come first, because when working this way, each side must translate well.

Ceramic always suggests fragility. These iterations of fresh novitiates, postulants and weary old nuns wearing extraordinary hats no longer exist in the real world. The habits they wore have virtually disappeared. These are the impressions of shapes – sometimes apparitions – from a five-year old mind. I have harbored these windswept impressions over a lifetime and, like the statuary that filled their Medieval convent, these pieces are a kind of vesper, a chant from the sanctuary of dreams. 

The Abbess - Sandra Filippucci 2020

The Abbess – ©Sandra Filippucci 2020


SORT OF AN ART BLOG
  • Ukraine Flower Series: Theatre Rubble II. June 2022. Mixed media on custom wood panel, 42 x 60 inches
    What Rubble Really Means June 4,2022
  • NFTS - CLOTILDA OF CHESS | The Red Bishop ©Sandra Filippucci 2022
    My Blockhead Adventures with Blockchain Art, Part Two July 7,2021
  • NFT Red Queen from Chess Collection - ©Filippucci 2021
    My Blockhead Adventures with Blockchain Art, Part One July 6,2021
  • PAX of Beatus, 3d porcelain ceramic ©FILIPPUCCI 2021
    The Trouble with Pink February 24,2021
  • Flying Nun, Summer 2020. 3D study for a large ceramic sculpture-FILIPPUCCI 2020
    Contemporary Ceramics August 19,2020
Opening last night in MINUS 4 degree weather! Than Opening last night in MINUS 4 degree weather! Thank you to all who braved the icy blasts and purchased prints to support World Central Kitchen. @wckitchen @filippucciart @coppertritscheller @fivepointsartsct #cornwallartists #cornwallart #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukraine_beauty #ukraineua #torrington #connecticutartist #defiance
Hope to see you at the Opening Friday, February 3r Hope to see you at the Opening Friday, February 3rd.  Five Points Gallery is at 33 Main Street in Torrington. Runs until March 11. Also new bronze horses by Copper Tritscheller. @filippucciart @coppertritscheller #galleryart #connecticut #torrington #cornwallartist #cornwallart #primarycolors #fivepointsgallery
Civilians II, 2023. Ukraine Flower Series: the Pow Civilians II, 2023. Ukraine Flower Series: the Power of Defiance solo opens Friday, February 3 at Five Point’s Gallery in Torrington, Connecticut. 33 Main Street. Copper Tritscheller will also have 6 horse bronzes from her new Resilience Series. @filippucciart @coppertritscheller @fivepointsartsct #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukraineart #antiwar #warart #bronze #soloexhibition #connecticut #torrington #litchfield #contemporaryartist #putinswar
Arts writer and gallery director Ann Landi flew to Arts writer and gallery director Ann Landi flew to New York from Santa Fe for a “museum fix,” and then came up to Cornwall to stay with me for a few days. Thrilled with her strong response to the Ukraine Flower Series - which is opening at The Five Points Gallery Feb 3 to March 11, 2023. Two pieces are also being shipped to The Wright Contemporary in Taos (Ann Landi’s gallery), which opens Jan 19. We had some great moments watching Kenneth Clark’s “Civilization” Series and ok maybe some whisky was involved. @annlandi33 @filippucciart #ukraine #ukrainewar #contemporaryartists #studiolife #artswriters #artstudio #torrington #thewrightcontemporary #fivepointsartsct
Stay strong. Hoping for Peace in the Ukraine in th Stay strong. Hoping for Peace in the Ukraine in the New Year. @filippucciart 🇺🇦#peace #pax #2023 #warinukraine #ukraine #worldkitchen #strongwomen #womensupportingwomen  #joanofarc #resistance
VOTE! No excuses. @filippucciart #vote #voteblue # VOTE! No excuses. @filippucciart #vote #voteblue #vote2022 #votevotevote #ivoted #womensupportingwomen #womensrightsarehumanrights #womenmarch #cornwallct
Ukraine Flower Series - “Hope,” October 2022. Ukraine Flower Series - “Hope,” October 2022. 40”x60” Heart-wrenching that the carnage continues. I thought that this Series would have ended by now but every day, every night, every morning, every evening there is sorrow.  So much has been destroyed but the prongs of Hope still remain, still push toward the light, still refuse to disappear. @filippucciart 🇺🇦 #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraineinvasion #warinukraine #hope #courage #ukrainepeople
Ukraine Flower Series: “Mariupol Maternity Hospi Ukraine Flower Series: “Mariupol Maternity Hospital - Angel Wings,” March 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40 x 60 in. Made back in March when Russian troops bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol. @filippucciart 🇺🇦 #mariupol #ukrainewar #flowers #contemporaryartist #artistsoninstagram #instagramart #contemporarypainting #worksonpaper #childreninneed #ukraineinvasion
UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Black Sea Beaches”, Au UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Black Sea Beaches”, August 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40”x60.” On Tuesday Russian missiles struck ports, beaches and apartment buildings in the Black Sea port of Odessa and Mykolaiv. Strains credulity that one insane dictator is responsible for so much destruction but that has happened before hasn’t it. 🇺🇦 @filippucciart #ukraine #ukraineinvasion #ukrainetoday #ukrainewar #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukrainerussia #contemporaryart #worksonpaper
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SANDRA FILIPPUCCI

Contemporary American artist based in Connecticut. 3d printed sculptures, painting, drawing. Part of a group of New York artists working with technology since the mid-eighties and was the first artist to have a digitally based solo exhibition at The Museum of American Illustration in Manhattan.

Opening last night in MINUS 4 degree weather! Than Opening last night in MINUS 4 degree weather! Thank you to all who braved the icy blasts and purchased prints to support World Central Kitchen. @wckitchen @filippucciart @coppertritscheller @fivepointsartsct #cornwallartists #cornwallart #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukraine_beauty #ukraineua #torrington #connecticutartist #defiance
Hope to see you at the Opening Friday, February 3r Hope to see you at the Opening Friday, February 3rd.  Five Points Gallery is at 33 Main Street in Torrington. Runs until March 11. Also new bronze horses by Copper Tritscheller. @filippucciart @coppertritscheller #galleryart #connecticut #torrington #cornwallartist #cornwallart #primarycolors #fivepointsgallery
Civilians II, 2023. Ukraine Flower Series: the Pow Civilians II, 2023. Ukraine Flower Series: the Power of Defiance solo opens Friday, February 3 at Five Point’s Gallery in Torrington, Connecticut. 33 Main Street. Copper Tritscheller will also have 6 horse bronzes from her new Resilience Series. @filippucciart @coppertritscheller @fivepointsartsct #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukraineart #antiwar #warart #bronze #soloexhibition #connecticut #torrington #litchfield #contemporaryartist #putinswar
Arts writer and gallery director Ann Landi flew to Arts writer and gallery director Ann Landi flew to New York from Santa Fe for a “museum fix,” and then came up to Cornwall to stay with me for a few days. Thrilled with her strong response to the Ukraine Flower Series - which is opening at The Five Points Gallery Feb 3 to March 11, 2023. Two pieces are also being shipped to The Wright Contemporary in Taos (Ann Landi’s gallery), which opens Jan 19. We had some great moments watching Kenneth Clark’s “Civilization” Series and ok maybe some whisky was involved. @annlandi33 @filippucciart #ukraine #ukrainewar #contemporaryartists #studiolife #artswriters #artstudio #torrington #thewrightcontemporary #fivepointsartsct
Stay strong. Hoping for Peace in the Ukraine in th Stay strong. Hoping for Peace in the Ukraine in the New Year. @filippucciart 🇺🇦#peace #pax #2023 #warinukraine #ukraine #worldkitchen #strongwomen #womensupportingwomen  #joanofarc #resistance
VOTE! No excuses. @filippucciart #vote #voteblue # VOTE! No excuses. @filippucciart #vote #voteblue #vote2022 #votevotevote #ivoted #womensupportingwomen #womensrightsarehumanrights #womenmarch #cornwallct
Ukraine Flower Series - “Hope,” October 2022. Ukraine Flower Series - “Hope,” October 2022. 40”x60” Heart-wrenching that the carnage continues. I thought that this Series would have ended by now but every day, every night, every morning, every evening there is sorrow.  So much has been destroyed but the prongs of Hope still remain, still push toward the light, still refuse to disappear. @filippucciart 🇺🇦 #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraineinvasion #warinukraine #hope #courage #ukrainepeople
Ukraine Flower Series: “Mariupol Maternity Hospi Ukraine Flower Series: “Mariupol Maternity Hospital - Angel Wings,” March 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40 x 60 in. Made back in March when Russian troops bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol. @filippucciart 🇺🇦 #mariupol #ukrainewar #flowers #contemporaryartist #artistsoninstagram #instagramart #contemporarypainting #worksonpaper #childreninneed #ukraineinvasion
UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Black Sea Beaches”, Au UKRAINE FLOWER SERIES: “Black Sea Beaches”, August 2022. Mixed media on rag paper, 40”x60.” On Tuesday Russian missiles struck ports, beaches and apartment buildings in the Black Sea port of Odessa and Mykolaiv. Strains credulity that one insane dictator is responsible for so much destruction but that has happened before hasn’t it. 🇺🇦 @filippucciart #ukraine #ukraineinvasion #ukrainetoday #ukrainewar #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukrainerussia #contemporaryart #worksonpaper
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“Captivated by the mystique of Joan of Arc,  Sandra Filippucci passionately creates iconic imagery that is relevant to the issues of our time.” –Linda Durham, Curator for Voices of Light Exhibition

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