Paintings by a Polish-American Artist
83Oil Paintings by Wanda Ast
A Polish Immigrant - A Polish American Artist
Wanda Maria Kowalska Ast and Professor Curtis Chapman met through a mutual friend and at his invitation she visited Reinhardt College several times in the late 1970’s to give demonstrations on painting and batik print making for Professor Chapman’s art students.
Unaware of this earlier history and acquaintance, I began teaching history in 1998 at a private liberal arts institution in North Georgia, Reinhardt College.
My office was on the bottom floor of the library and one day a distinguished and kindly-looking older man I did not know came tripping down the steps and casually glanced through my open office door and smiled.
Suddenly, he seemed terribly taken aback; he stopped, entered my office hand extended and solemnly intoned -
“You must know Wanda, Wanda Ast. I would recognize her artwork anywhere. I am so pleased to meet you. Please tell me how you came to have one of Wanda’s batiks?”
Professor Curtis Chapman, Reinhardt College's Professor of Art, had correctly identified a large abstract painting, in cool blues and greens, which hung on my office wall.
I explained that I was Wanda's granddaughter and he told me about her earlier forays to Reinhardt to work with his students.
We became dear friends as well as colleagues and for many, many years we regaled each other, and all who would listen, with what could only be described as the “Tales of Wanda.”
Wanda Maria Kowalska Ast was my paternal grandmother, my "Bobcia." She was an extraordinarily eccentric, vivacious, intense, articulate, and talented woman. She survived the Nazis and the Communists and emigrated to America with her husband and four children to begin a new life.
She learned to speak English (she already spoke Polish, French, and German) and she raised her children. Before long she began writing stories and poetry, often winning awards from the Georgia Writer's Association.
Then she began drawing in chalk and painting in oils and acrylics. In her sixties and seventies she began experimenting with, and mastered, the physically arduous process of "batiking" - which involved applying hot wax to fabric and then dipping it into tubs of hot dye, then pressing the wax out of the fabric with an iron.
Repeating the labor intensive process again and again would eventually produce breathtakingly beautiful and elaborate designs, some abstract and some representative. Her paintings and batiks were exhibited at numerous Georgia colleges, banks, and several fine art centers.
Wanda, as might be expected, was a voracious and eclectic reader - literature, history, philosophy, religious devotionals, and poetry. Her most beloved poet was Rainer Maria Rilke.
She remained an iconoclastic, yet devoted Catholic all her life. In examining the body of her artwork, one can find nature based paintings, still-lifes, nudes, modernist informed abstracts, as well as, religiously themed paintings.
She was a passionate woman, devoted to her art and to her family, but not at all the typical grandmother. We never baked cookies together, or sewed an apron, or decorated Easter eggs. But our time together was always enlightening, challenging, different, fascinating.
For my tenth birthday, just as I was about to board a plane whose destination was Athens, Greece (my father was in the Air Force and had been assigned to Athenai Air Base for a three year rotation) she handed me a large, heavy volume.
D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, full of beautifully colored illustrations. I had never heard of Greek Mythology, knew nothing of the Titans, Mount Olympus, Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Dionysius, Hephaestos, Demeter, Athena, Poseidon, or of Hades and the river Styx.
I consumed the book, its stories, its pictures during the long overseas flight and then stepped into the bright sunlight of Greece, into mythos, into the land of the gods and goddesses.
Shortly I would climb the steep stone steps carved into Mars Hill look down on the Athenian agora (agoraphobia), wander through the Parthenon, and explore many other ancient temples and ruins. History and fantasy became one, they were my reality.
I still cannot bear to read the Romanized version of the original Greek names. They are somehow so not right. Not Mercury, but Hermes, not Diana, but Artemis, not Venus for heaven's sake, but Aphrodite rising from the water. Could they have any other names?
We are infinitely interesting, diverse, and multi-faceted creatures;certainly, my Bobcia was. The Polish-American immigrant who never baked cookies, whose walls were covered with nudes, was also a deeply spiritual soul and wrote the following in her journal.
The will of God – nothing more, nothing less – must be the rule of our lives. Prayer is not insisting upon our way, it is discovering God’s will for our lives.
It is in our surrender of wills to God, that we are inviting God to do His work through us. Then we can say with Paul….I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
Sacredness is, in a sense, a feeling – but a feeling that goes to the very heart of life. It is a feeling of recognition directed toward what is great and high enough to give our small lives meaning, to put our personal journey in a greater perspective. It is a feeling of reverence for human life.
Throughout our life there will be dry times when we need to remember we were called to hope. For these times, the Spirit gives understanding and courage. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. Instead, it is the gift to endure fear and failure – your own and others.
Let us always be open, surprised, continually blown away by the terrific possibilities of life, open to new directions, always to see open windows where others find closed doors. This is God’s gift, and we are truly God’s handiwork, created to live in the Spirit of the Lord. Amen.
Wanda Maria Kowalska Ast -- 1986
Oil Painting and Using Acrylics
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Art, Painting, Batiks, Sculpture
- Abstract Watercolor Paintings by Wanda Ast
This is a selection of abstract watercolors, all done by Wanda Ast in her fifties and sixties. Mrs. Ast experimented with a variety of watercolors and painting mediums as well as a variety of painting surfaces - canvas - paper - cloth - in an effort - A Painting Style All Her Own - Wanda Maria Ast
Wanda Maria Ast emigrated from Poland in 1951 and settled in Georgia. There she raised her four children. As soon as she felt she had a good command of the English language she began writing poetry. In her sixties and seventies she began painting in - Batik is from Indonesia
Batik is one of the typical Indonesian art. Batik has evolved for centuries in Indonesia, and it proves that batik is a cultural heritage of Indonesia. The ability to make batik is hereditary ability. This... - Beautiful Batik Textiles.
In the beginning.......... My love affair with exotic textiles began long, long ago, maybe before I was born; maybe as a genetic memory passed down to me from my dear Grandfather, Thomas Pratten, for he had... - Original Batiks - Wax Resist & Dye Process
A collection of abstract wax-resist Batiks created in the 1980's and 1990's by Wanda Ast, an American citizen of Polish descent, who immigrated to the United States after World War II. - Batiks: Ancient Process ~ Modern Art
Batik which is patterned cloth created by using layers of wax and multiple dye baths are both extremely beautiful and time consuming to create. This essay contains general information about traditional batiks and specific information about a twentiet
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Comments - Paintings: Polish American ArtistLoading...
Great art, great story, and a really good quote I'll take with me for the rest of my life...
"Courage isn’t the absence of fear. Instead, it is the gift to endure fear and failure – your own and others."
What a fabulous Hub!!! How generous of you to share so much of your art - plus the great story. Voted up and awesome!
Thank you, thank you. I especially value your opinion and your journalist's eye.
More paintings to follow - just don't have any text developed yet. I spent last night from 12:00 to 3:00 putting that one together - I am incredibly slow when it comes to typing. Can't stay up that late too often, as the students are still waiting for me the next morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Thanks again.
Thank you mistifields. I appreciate your comments. I hope to share more of her work in the coming weeks and months. Theresa
Such a great Hub!!! Thank you for sharing the story and the artwork!
Thanks for visiting and for the encouraging comment. It means a lot coming from someone who has quite a way with words herself.
Your grandmother's art is stunning. I like the colors she uses and the shapes in her artwork. She is truly gifted. So you two didn't bake cookies, but you seem to have had a terrific intellectual and spiritual relationship with your grandmother. That is priceless.
This article is so well-written and I can tell it is a labor of love. Voted up! Interesting and beautiful!
Thank you. I have always thought she was quite good, but it is helpful to get an unrelated, unbiased opinion from someone else. I hope to do additional Hubs in the near future featuring more of her work. I am very fortunate to have about twenty of her original paintings and batiks and over a hundred photographs of other paintings and batiks. I tried to do a good job on the accompanying text -thank you for your comments.
Prayer is not insisting upon our way, it is discovering God’s will for our lives.
She must have been a very wise and talented woman.
She was indeed...and high-spirited and eccentric and dramatic...not your typical grandmother. :) She made life interesting wherever she went. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I appreciate it.
I just posted a comment here. Did it disappear?
It must have disappeared and I don;t know why. I didn't get to see it. Off to the hardware store...maybe it will be here when I get back. Have a wonderful day.
Hi phdast7
"Courage isn’t the absence of fear. Instead, it is the gift to endure fear and failure – your own and others"
Through your story I see that your grandmother was a wise, colourful and talented woman.
Voted up and awesome.
Hi Sueswan-
She was indeed. Thank you for recognizing her strong qualities and my attempt to do right by her. I really appreciate your comments.
Wow! I breathtaking sometime when you read the things and place that others have visited , touched and seen in their lives, and sometimes if the evils of this world have not been able to blind your true vision , that things that are eminent in our view . I can only say Wow! Phdast7.
The art , the process that you explained, the other interests this person took on with such ease , hence the reason for me simply saying Wow!
Thanks for sharing . I told you I would be coming around , now there is that much more reason.
Life is beautiful , when your eyes have not as yet been compromised.
Bless.
Hi Sky- You are so very welcome and thanks for all the Wows! :) She was a very talented artist and poet. I am working on editing a collection of her poems, but it is a huge project and may take me another year. In the meantime I thought I would share some of her artwork with the Hub community. Check out her Batiks when you have time (2 hubs. Most of them are abstracts.
I have been very blessed to inherit about twenty of her paintings and batiks. I did not inherit her artistic talent; my creativity seems to be in teaching and writing. God has given all of us talents and gifts. On our life's journey we have to discover them and then use them to glorify God and bless others.
Hope you have a wonderful Christmas. I look forward to reading more of your work on the New Year. :)
God has given all of us talents and gifts. On our life's journey we have to discover them and then use them to glorify God and bless others.
I love this so much, I had to make sure I told , immediately.
Thank you. I will be reading more shortly.
Bless,
The pictures ( paintings ) again are just simply amazing thank you for sharing them :)
My School Dean agreed last year that I could spend two years focusing on editing and compiling my grandmother's poetry - instead of working on conference papers on the Holocaust (at every end of year review we have to document and justify the quality of our teaching, service on committees, and research efforts - so for two years this will count as my research component).
The goal is to publish a volume of her poems, that includes a 5-10 page bibliographical introduction and some plates of her artwork. Editing the poetry is slow going, but last summer I scanned several hundred pictures of her work into my computer and I started playing around working on an introduction.
If finally dawned on me about a month ago that I could post some of her work on a few Hubs and gauge the response. There is always the question in my mind? Have I selected a piece for inclusion because it is really good or did I include it because she was grandmother and its part of my family history? Getting external feedback has been very helpful.
Happy New Year. Theresa
Even to my Oriental eye, these paintings convey the very life and the very pathos, that a person must have felt in her lifetime.
I was intrigued by the 4th painting from the top: it speaks much. The color is unreal.
I am impressed!
..I read 'The will of God'; and I will not say anything on those words. Such wisdom should be listened, and understood. Thank you.
Thank you GoldenBird. What wonderful, perceptive, and respectful comments. I appreciate them. And thank you for the terrific and encouraging fan mail. :) I hope to read some of your work soon.
I loved reading about your Grandmother and viewing this gallery of her lovely art. Thank you for sharing her with us. This is a treasure. :D
Happy New Year!
Both she and her work have been treasures in our lives for many years. Thanks for your comments. Happy New Year to you too. :)
This is extraordinary. And I thought your other two hubs about your grandma were good. This is really, really special.
Thank you Capricorn. She really was quite good. Hopefully before too much longer I can post a couple more hubs of her work. Thanks so much for taking the time to come by, read, and comment.
Please do. One of the things that makes this so special is your words about your life with her. I'm a little choked up about it, actually. My grandma died a few years ago, and I've still got her singing in my ear with her little voice.
I am so sorry you lost your grandma and I do know what you mean. On a number of occasions since I first wrote this Hub when I came back to respond to people's comments, I have cried because I miss her and this brings it all back. Thank you so much for you comments from the heart.
How wonderful to share your life with such an incredibly talented, wise woman. Who would choose baking over her art?
My thoughts exactly. Who would choose baking over art? :)
She was an amazing and unusual woman and artist. I finally found time to do a Hub about my grandfather, her husband, who was a sculpture. It is called "Marble and Stone."
Thank you so much for visiting and commenting. :)
Hello again! Another of your terrific hubs. Thank you so much for sharing. I've got to go back and see what else you have waiting for me to read. (I love the poem!) God bless, SusieQ42
Thank you, thank you. So glad you like these Hubs on art. They are a great pleasure to write and put together since they are all about my family. Glad you loved the poem. She was quite a poet. If and when I can ever get all her poems scanned and retyped, I will share a few on HP. Have a great day. Theresa
I came back for another read--Theresa, the art is wonderful and so is the prayer at the end--how lucky you are my dear to have this be a part of, and influence, your life. Thank you for sharing it with us all.
Audrey - Aren't you kind and thoughtful? I was very fortunate to have unusual and creative immigrant grandparents. Even my father's focus on geography and history and survival skills -- are a consequence of living through the Nazi, and then the Soviet conquest of Poland and then coming to America and starting over.
These cataclysmic events shaped them and helped shape me. The other major influence in my life of course was my mother, an English teacher who bequeathed me a deep love of language and literature. I was very lucky. Thank you so much for your comments. :)
Excellent, excellent is this piece. The art is beyond any words that I am able to express. How blessed are you with such a rich family history! The art is exquisite. Thank you for sharing this part of you and your life with us. Amen for sure on this one! Sweet ending to an awesome hub. Agape love to you always, Faith Reaper
Good Morning Faith - I am incredibly blessed and I have come to appreciate my family gifts and heritage more and more as I have gotten older. At 15 they were just "sort of weird relatives." I am so, so glad you loved her artwork and I just loved her journal entry/prayer when I found it. Thank you for your generous encouragement. Blessings!
mistifields Level 1 Commenter 6 months ago
This is indeed a very intriguing art collection. Thanks for sharing. Voted up.