What Carries Us

Hello, my friend,

I have been thinking about strength this week.

Not simply physical strength, although that is part of it.

I was recently interviewed about my own experience rebuilding strength after several difficult years, and one of the questions forced me to articulate something I had not fully put into words before:

Strength, for me, has become the capacity to participate fully in your own life.

That can mean being strong enough to lift a painting, climb a ladder, work for hours in the studio, travel, make decisions, build a business, or simply keep going when life asks more of us than we expected.

But the more I thought about it, the more I began noticing other forms of strength.

Strength in materials.

Strength between two people.

The strength of a friendship that allows each person to become more fully themselves.

The strength of things carefully made.

The strength of memory.

And perhaps most importantly, the things and people that carry us when we cannot carry everything alone.

At Gallery FUMI in London, designers Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn have created an exhibition called Companions, built around one of the simplest and oldest architectural ideas: the shingle.

The shingle appears throughout nature and traditional building: the scales of a fish, the shell of an armadillo, the overlapping cladding that protects homes from rain and weather.

For Wegwerth and Dehn, the form became personal while they were restoring their own home and studio in Germany’s Vogelsberg region, where wooden shingles have long been used as practical protection. Their new furniture collection translates that logic into cabinets, tables, chairs, and sculptural objects. 

What interests me most is not simply the beauty of the surfaces.

It is the idea beneath them.

Strength does not always come from one solid piece.

Sometimes it comes from many smaller parts overlapping, supporting one another, and distributing the weight.

There is something deeply human in that.

The collaboration itself reflects the same idea. Two makers, two sets of skills, one body of work.

I find that especially compelling because handmade wood has become such an important part of the physical character of Stefani Art Gallery. Many of the pieces surrounding us were made from reclaimed wood, with the marks of their previous lives still visible.

Good materials do not lose their history when they are reused.

Sometimes that history becomes part of their strength.

Explore Companions at Gallery FUMI

Later this month, The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., opens Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea, an exhibition examining the enduring friendship among Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb, and Mark Rothko.

Nearly 90 paintings, drawings, and watercolors trace their shared experiences, artistic exchange, and the support they gave one another over decades. Many of the works have never been publicly exhibited before. 

Rothko has long been one of the artists I return to most often, so this exhibition immediately caught my attention.

But the more interesting story may be the friendship itself.

These were not three artists trying to become the same artist.

Avery remained connected to recognizable landscape and figure. Gottlieb and Rothko moved further into abstraction. Their visual languages diverged dramatically.

Yet they remained connected.

That suggests a form of friendship I value deeply: one that does not require sameness.

The strongest relationships do not diminish individuality.

They make room for it.

They challenge us, encourage us, influence us, and sometimes help us see possibilities we might not have found otherwise.

The Phillips Collection describes the exhibition as an exploration of the experiences these artists shared and the support they provided one another.

That word, support, seems particularly important.

We tend to build cultural histories around individual achievement.

But very few lives, artistic or otherwise, are built entirely alone.

Explore Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea

Two things happening in the Pacific Northwest caught my attention this weekend.

At the Portland Art Museum, Look With Me takes place Sunday, October 11. These are brief, 20-minute conversations focused on a single work of art, designed to slow visitors down and encourage closer observation. That philosophy is very close to our own continuing idea of learning to see. Portland Art Museum

And on October 17, Leland Butler and Leonard Harmon will speak as part of the Indigenous Northwest Biennial in Salem. The exhibition brings together Indigenous artists working across traditional and contemporary forms and continues through October 25. Salem Art Association

Richard was Italian, and he was an excellent cook.

He approached cooking much as he approached photography: instinctively, attentively, and without unnecessary fuss.

With his photographs from Celilo Falls currently surrounding me in the gallery, I have found myself thinking not only about the work he left behind, but about the quieter things that remain with us.

Meals.

Habits.

Recipes.

The familiar things two people make and share over years together.

I recently came across an old Cook’s Country recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese and immediately recognized it. It is remarkably close to the way Richard made his.

He served it with a good Italian red wine and the sourdough bread and butter I made at home.

The photographs preserve what he saw.

This recipe preserves something of how he lived.

Serves 2 generously

Finely chop the onion, carrot, pancetta, porcini, and anchovy together, either by hand or briefly in a food processor. Separately, lightly crush the tomatoes with their juices.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion mixture and cook until softened and beginning to brown.

Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, sugar, and red pepper flakes, and cook briefly until fragrant.

Add the ground beef and pork, breaking the meat into small pieces as it cooks.

Pour in the milk and simmer until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Add the white wine and reduce again.

Stir in the tomatoes and water, then add the dry spaghetti directly to the sauce. Cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is tender and the sauce has thickened around it. Add a little more water, if needed, as the pasta cooks.

Finish with fresh basil, salt, pepper, and plenty of grated Parmesan.

At our table: Italian red wine, warm homemade sourdough, and butter.

I used to think strength meant being able to carry more.

I understand it differently now.

Strength can be physical, certainly. It can be built slowly through repetition, patience, and recovery.

But strength also exists between things.

Between pieces of wood that overlap and protect one another.

Between artists who remain themselves while supporting each other’s growth.

Between friends.

Between people who build a life together.

Between generations.

And between the life we are living now and the people, ideas, habits, and memories we continue to carry with us.

The things that carry us are not always the things we expect.

Sometimes they are a body becoming stronger.

Sometimes a friendship.

Sometimes a photograph.

Sometimes a recipe.

Sometimes another person.

Perhaps strength is not only what allows us to bear weight.

Perhaps strength is also what allows us to keep participating fully in the life in front of us.

And sometimes, strength is what carries us.

If something here brought someone to mind, please feel free to share this letter with them.

If you’re new here, welcome. If this was forwarded to you, you can explore past issues of This Week in Art, Design & Culture.

Have a fabulous weekend.

Christina

Christina Stefani
Founder, House of Stefani

[Enjoy more of my writings at the House of Stefani online magazine.]