Mother, daughter meld creative juices

By SHARON KENNEDY, Sentinel Correspondent

At the Washington Printmakers Gallery Ruth Allen Siskind, a poet, and daughter Marian Osher, a printmaker, meld creative energy and mood in an exhibit entitled "Relativity."

Although Osher dedicates the show to her father, William Siskind, who died of cancer last August, she said
it will also help mothers and daughters think about their own relationships."My mother is my closest friend,"
Osher said Friday. "The shared experience of planning this exhibit... gives special meaning to our lives."
In "Relativity," which opened last week, Osher and her mother succeed in passing on the love and understanding shared between a mother and daughter which far exceeds the regular Mother's Day observance.

"Relativity" is a well selected title, as Osher's 13 interpre­tive prints have interactive
dependence upon her mother's exhibited poems, and similarly, four of Siskind's interpretive poems
respond to four of her daughter's works. Each poem is printed and mounted flush without a border
on mounting board and adjoins Osher's interpretive prints. The interpretive prints and poems,
all copyrighted, are each purchased as a unit.

Osher decided last summer to collect copies of her mother's poems — which span over 600 in number.
Siskind's poetry was an unorganized collection kept in drawers throughout her Bethesda home.
With the help of an older sister, Siskind began composing poems when she was a preschooler. Much later in life, while attending college in Philadelphia, a number of her poems were published in literary magazines.
Now in her 60s, Siskind continues to write.

The planned activity to organize Siskind's poems was one of intense involvement between mother and daughter giving Osher and her mother something to do together during a rough time of coping with William Siskind's illness and death from cancer.

"The feeling that is so special is my mother's sensitivity and beauty to let me know what she was feeling," Osher said of their creative sharing. "We were able to talk about the feelings of her poems and found that we were on the same wave length." In "Relativity," interpretive prints and poems hang side by side depending on the other for wholeness.

In "Quest," Osher uses striking purple and yellow in a lithograph to interpret her mother's poem which mirrors the same title. The image is one of a dreaming, sleeping figure in the foreground with a road drawing the viewer's eye to a golden city mentioned in the poem.

Siskind thought about Dorothy's first view of the Emerald City and the yellow brick road in the land of Oz while writing the poem. Osher describes Siskind as the traditional mother who stayed at home with her children during their early child­hood. Only when the youngest child was in junior high school did Osher's mother
take a civil service job with the federal government.
See ARTISTIC, page 17

Artistic  duo  exhibit  their work

From page I5

"Mother was extremely creative, mak­ing all of our Halloween costumes, even making up bed time stories. Poetry was a way for my mother to express her feelings and
a creative interest which mother never thought of as a profession," says Osher. "Patrons responding to this exhib­it have given my mother the encourage­ment to
publish her collection of poetry."

To foster Osher's interest in the arts, her parents gave her an easel, paint box, and studio space for her 15th birthday. "My father too was creative in working
with his hands. He loved to work with tools, to make functional things, and fix things around the house," Osher says. Her father worked for many years as a
mechanical engineer and designed a U.S. battleship used during World War II.

After graduation from Montgomery Blair High, Osher went on to earn a bachelor's degree in art from the Univer­sity of Maryland and a master's degree in
printmaking from George Washington University. She currently works from her Rockville home studio as a stone lithographer. She has exhibited at the
Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina and will be exhibiting in a group show in Brussels, Belgium this October. Osher describes the stone printing
process as a number of steps in preparing the stone to receive an image by graining it. Once graining is complete, and the stone is dry, it becomes grease sensitive.
Osher can then put an image on the stone with a lithograph pencil or crayon. Etching is accomplished by using a mild solution of gum arabic and a few drops of
nitric acid which is brushed around on the stone for five minutes. Soon the stone •is ready for a second etching and finally ready for rubbing with printing ink.
Osher points out that each color takes a separate printing following the stone's regraining.

One of Osher's prints, "All the Won­der in this Autumn Day," interprets a day in Osher's childhood. The focal point of the print is abstract figures of a mother and
her children, in a vibrant orange and gold collage, holding hands while sharing a special warmth. The print is reminiscent of childhood circle games played with
other children or a mother. The accompanying poem is entitled "Young Mother."

"All the wonder in this autumn day
Calls me urgently to leave my work and go,
To take the children's hands and walk away,
To glory in the colors and the winds that blow.

There will be other days to clean and sweep,
To smooth the little dresses, or make the silver gleam;
But beauty such as this is will not keep:
We must gather all its glow to warm a winter dream."
Ruth Allen Siskind

Autumn 1954 © 1988 RAS
"Relativity