The colorful digital artwork on the walls brought sparks of light to the space at Never Ending Books. In one piece, swirls of darkness and fluorescence together ripped across an undulating landscape. In another, the dark forms of buildings, lit from within by explosions of brightness, melted into one another, suggesting vastness and a riotous amount of life. In still another, the forms of leaves and pale branches draped across the view of a passing stream. They and many others are part of visual artist and musician Shula Weinstein’s show “The Sun Rises on a Coastal Town,” running now at the State Street spot for the next few weeks.
But on Saturday night, the art opening also brought the coastal town itself to Never Ending Books, as Weinstein welcomed a parade of guests all afternoon and treated them to a little music at night.
The pieces in the show represent a departure for Weinstein, who had never done digital art before the pandemic. Her interest began when she bought a new computer, a Mac, at the beginning of the pandemic, intending to make music with it.
“It had some tools and I was just checking it out,” Weinstein said. She discovered everything she needed to make art in the application Preview.
Moving to digital art was something of a surprise. “I was always a hands-on person,” she said; digital art was “not my roots at all… it’s tricky about digital art and having an ethos that the art wants to be connected to the ground. But there’s a lot of very fertile ground between that and a login, digital world.… It’s so flexible and fluid and I love the crossover” between the digital world and more traditional art techniques. “It’s so rich.”
It makes sense to her now on a personal level as well. “I’m a daughter of the Borg, partially,” she said with a laugh, “and also definitely an earth child.” She also found that the world of traditional and digital art weren’t as separate as they first appeared, or as they’re often made out to be. “The process is so organic. And you can time travel, undo, undo, and undo, and it’s a magificent, magical tool.”
Ultimately, all that matters is “the emotional response,” she said. “Does it touch your heart?”
Each piece began with a photograph, “usually a texture,” Weinstein said. That texture might come from a closeup of a swath of street or sidewalk, or a plank of wood, “something natural-ish,” she said. It might also come from a photograph of a paper cutout. “Then I just cover it,” Weinstein said. The original image “might show through a little bit,” but the original image was “just to get it rolling. I need something to start with.”
The texture, as it turned out, was all the spark Weinstein needed. Each piece was about “seeing beyond what it is. I want to just let me mind be free with it,” she said. The jump from the surfaces of pavement and wood to cityscapes and landscapes was immediate for her. “I see it right away,” she said. “It’s right there, so I have to actualize it.” She still makes a piece every day. “I do about 20 or 30 versions of it” in the span of a few hours, she said.
For Weinstein, the landscapes were a form of travel. She was at home, caring for an ailing relative, and “I needed a place to go,” she said, “and I starting making these landscapes to live somewhere else, just to unload. So the emotional component of that was a necessity.”
Weinstein drew from her own past travel experience in the United States and in Brazil, where her brother lives. But the pieces aren’t of specific places. “They’re a mish-mosh, a mashup,” she said. Though she realized, as the pieces accumulated, that “I have so many with water, so I said, ‘OK, let’s make a show with this body of work.” Thus the idea that the pieces were all depictions of a coastal place.
Did this place have a name? “No,” Weinstein said with a smile. “You’ll have to tell me when you know, okay? Promise?”
Showing her art at Never Ending Books made sense, as Weinstein has been involved with the space for a long time. “I came in in the ’90s,” she said, “and it was already rolling.” She was previously married to Roger Uihlein, who ran the spot, and found Never Ending Books to be “like a clubhouse for all those years. I’m so happy the reins have been taken” by the Volume Two collective. “It’s so wonderful, and I’m so grateful.” The spot is part of the “soul of the city.”
Weinstein continues to do digital art every day, and is finding new ways to combine it with traditional art techniques. “I’m all over the map,” she said.
On Saturday evening, there was a way in which the edges of that map aligned, as Weinstein brought her artistic and musical worlds together, and created a community in the process. The concert itself was organic, as Weinstein and fellow musicians Craig Edwards, Joe Flood, and Ben Ross took turns performing songs, with the other musicians falling in as they felt. Edwards led performers and audience alike in an old song that turned out to be a cautionary tale about the danger of chain stores destroying the local economy, a reminder that the old is ever new again. Flood and Ross each performed a number. When it was Weinstein’s turn, she performed a take on “Old McDonald’s Farm” that succeeded in turning that all-too-worn children’s song into something stranger, more compelling, and even a little sinister. The audience listened, rapt, warming the room. The art on the walls, depicting the energy of a coastal town, was made real.
this is a wonderful tribute to a stunning artist/musician
i am blessed to have several pieces by her in my field of vision as i write this
kudos shula
i am eager to see the show in person