Arrowmont Connections: Andy Saftel gives a virtual tour of his studio

Arrowmont is a special community full of creative people – a family who know that coming together and making art is important. We talk a lot about the Arrowmont Experience – connecting through craft and community. That connection exists beyond physical proximity. It is in shared memories and new ideas. It lives in the friendships we make with each other. It grows when we learn and support one another.

Whether on campus or off, we are connected as members of the Arrowmont family. Over the next few weeks, we are going to share stories from our community of instructors, residents, and students in a new series, Arrowmont Connections.

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Andrew Saftel is a gifted Tennessee artist and has been involved with Arrowmont for 30 years. He said about his work,

“I want it to be joyful. I want it to be positive. I want to pull people to my work, because I want to communicate with them. So I want it to be beautiful, colorful, honest – About my life, and what I’m feeling. There’s not a lot of positive messages out there… I want to be different. People come to it… they get a different [positive] feeling. I’m doing it for everybody.”

Andy was raised in Rhode Island and received a BFA in Printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. He has had over 45 solo exhibitions of paintings, sculptures, prints and collages in galleries and museums across the country, including Knoxville, Nashville, Denver and Atlanta. Saftel is the recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission and was selected to travel to Israel as part of a Tennessee/Israel Art Exchange. Saftel incorporates words, references to time, and visual narrative in his paintings and prints. He divides his time between the Sequatchie Valley in East Tennessee, Northern California and Patzcuaro, Mexico.

Recently, Andy led a virtual tour of his studio on Facebook (April 12, 2020). He talks about his work, and the sources and inspiration for his paintings and “picture poems.” Click here to see the video on Facebook.

Andy has been a long-time Arrowmont friend and instructor. In 2015, he shared on his blog,

“The first highlight of the summer was to teach a two-week printmaking workshop at Arrowmont School of Crafts, where I have taught many times before. I began teaching workshops for kids there when I was in my twenties and then moved on to the adult summer workshops.”

I love teaching these workshops for the community of the classroom and the joy of seeing people take the techniques and excitedly run with them, producing a lot of great work.

 

 

 

 

He also participated in a podcast for Blackberry Magazine, with Blackberry Farm brewer, Roy Milner. Click here to listen to Roy Milner interview Andy.

 

Andy has incorporated international partnerships into his studio practice. In 2014, he participated in “The Urban Experience,” an art workshop organized by the American Center and the Bengal Foundation. Andy was one of two American artists who worked with more than 100 Bangladeshi artists over nine workshop days in two cities. Click here to see the video.

 

Andy does a lot of work in Mexico – with prints and tapestry. He has worked with the Servin family of weavers in Santa Clara, Michoacan, since 2011. He wrote of a 2015 visit,

“This visit was particularly meaningful for me as this was the first time I met Juan, a really warm and friendly man, who has produced a number of world class tapestries of my images, and also the first time my wife Susan was able to visit the Servins.

I fully intend for these pieces to hang on the wall like paintings. I am also honored to work with such dedicated and highly talented artisans. My bond with these amazing craftsmen was further deepened during this visit. Their family compound is located on the outskirts of Santa Clara del Cobre, an important town in the mountains of Michoacan, highly regarded for the production of copper ware.

This collaboration would not exist without a third partner, Ruth Mitchell de Aguilar, who lives in nearby Patzcuaro and has worked with the Servins for years procuring the wool for them and doing a fantastic job of dyeing all of the wool (some of these tapestries have over thirty colors). She and her husband Sabino also built the looms used by the Servin family.”

Watch a video of Andy’s work and this partnership on the tapestry, Las Frutas del Mundo:

 

 

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Andy Saftel’s website: andrewsaftel.com

Andy’s blog: http://andrewsaftel.blogspot.com/

Andy’s contact:

423.533.2144
[email protected]

Twitter: @AndrewSaftel

Facebook: @AndrewSaftelArt