Crucifixion Scene
Thought
Heading to an exhibition of paintings
by Sylvia Ludins and her sister Florence
at the Graduate Theological Union library
Sylvia was the more prominent
perhaps the more industrious,
she stayed unmarried until her death
at age 56 in 1965,
at age 56 in 1965,
Native New Yorkers, quiet socialists
who came of age during the Depression
who began to exhibit in the likely venues,
Greenwich Village, Art Students League,
They eventually settled in the SF Bay area
Sylvia's work hasn't been seen in 70 years
and since 1965 apparently has been
in storage in a Berkeley garage
Up on Holy Hill
Sylvia's painting dealt in Jewish themes
with an expressionistic social realism
combined with more romantic symbolism
When the oppressed seize the day
The horrible toll of war
The young artist in New York
During WWII she worked as
a shipyard draughtsman
Not a member of the Party
but a committed Communitarian
Memorabilia
with skylight
The student sketchbooks
Like most of her fellow travellers
Surrealism held all the attraction
of the sea in summer
She propped open
the windows of her mind
And had a rather
deft hand
Yet her bread and butter
in populist working class
social realist cartoons,
Clean factory town
reminds me of Woody Guthrie
Not to say
always cheerful
Damn you,de Kooning
The exhibition space
sacred in its way
Works by Florence
Perhaps she was the more
religiously inclined of the two,
Christian images surface
in her work
She seems to have been
more inclined to the
abstract avant garde
There's Florence on the right
The more bonnie sister
she married and lived long
Sampson by Sylvia
Berkeley Northside
she ain't what she used to be
but then again she is
The students return to classes
stop in for the cherished tattoo
not peer pressure, self-expression
Neo-Berkeley
so well-fed,
a high premium
on cuteness
Coming Soon:
Class Day Part B:
Class Day Part B:
Chancellor Dirks $700,000 Fence
31 August 2016
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