Artists of the Season: Winter 2003



Tony Gruenewald

Born in Manhattan, Tony Gruenewald has lived in Edison since 1964, growing up in the shade of the Ford Plant¹s water tower. He is the product of the Edison Public Schools, graduating from Edison High School in 1977. After graduating from Rutgers University¹s Livingston College with a BA in Journalism, Tony has had careers in broadcast journalism and advertising. He currently works for the New Jersey Unit of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic in Princeton, coordinating volunteers and public affairs initiatives. If all else fails, he still holds a Teamsters card.

Tony began writing poetry in 1993 after watching MTV¹s Spoken Word Unplugged. His off-beat humor made him a favorite at local reading series in New Brunswick, West Long Branch and at the Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge and eventually became a featured reader at those and other venues throughout the state including the Trenton Avant Garde Festival and Princeton¹s Cafe Improv. A chapbook, Headlines From the Daily Grind, was released by Northwind Publishing in 1995. His work has also been published by The New York Times, The Aquarian Weekly, Adbusters, FZQ, Slow Trains, The Taj Mahal Review, The New Jersey Review of Literature, Caffeine and many other mostly defunct journals. Most recently his poems have been seen in the Edison Literary Review, which he also designed. He has also had humorous essays published locally.

He says his backgrounds in journalism and copywriting have made him a ruthless editor of his own work. ³Particularly when writing for broadcast,² he notes, ³the importance of every syllable and nuance becomes amplified.² He adds, ³Did you ever notice how all of those old Motown records started with some unusual sound or effect? That¹s on purpose. Berry Gordy knew his records were in competition with dozens of others to make the radio. He knew if he grabbed your ear immediately, your were more likely to listen to and buy his records. Whether commercially or creatively, I write with the same philosophy.²

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Ford Motor Company Edison Assembly Plant, 1948-2004

Suburbs sprouted
from surrounding fields
feeding it the sweat and muscle
that conceived
Jimmy Dean¹s and Steve McQueen¹s
silver screen
dream machines
on the midnight shift
to a turbocharged
tomorrow;
producing paychecks
for first roofs
not rented
and delivering
horsepower
to devour
the endless asphalt
toward a newly minted
American mirage.
-----------------------
Red Light District

Spring brings
road crews
sprouting like dandelions
destined to entomb me
in traffic
and fill my senses
with the scent of
out-of-tune diesel
inducing me to dream
of red lights
and scream
as I discover
I can determine
the make and model
of every vehicle
deemed deserving of fossil fuel
during the last four decades
from the size and shape
of its tail lights
And I swear
that the arrow on the sign
that leads to the on-ramp
is the tip of the tail
of the devil
himself
disguised in an orange safety vest
waving me through waves
of virgin asphalt steam
traffic flag in one hand
pitch fork in the other
---------------------------
Shipwrecked

The sun melted into the Caribbean
like orange and lemon sherbert
onto a rippling blue bowl

She leaned against the ship¹s railing
as we satiated ourselves
on the sumptuous tropical sunset

She said it reminded her of sunsets
on Lake Something-or-another
at home in Vermont

I recalled the setting sun
reflecting off the refinery towers
along the Jersey Turnpike

She said nothing
leaving to find someone
who shared her subjective sense of romance 

Judith Morse
 Judith received her B.M. from Manhattan School of Music and her M.A. and Ed. M. from Columbia University. She holds a conducting diploma from the Vienna Conservatory where she studied under Yuji Ozawa. In New York, Ms. Morse studied conducting under Anton Coppola and violin under Raphael Bronstein.
  As a participant in the Tokyo International Conducting Competition, she placed 8th out of 194 international participants. Her placement afforded her the opportunity to conduct the Forth Worth Symphony Orchestra. In 1987, she was invited by the Russian government to conduct the first American orchestra to tour Moscow. A standing ovation was received and the performance was carried by Moscow Radio. For the past two years, Ms. Morse has been one of 12 conductors selected internationally to work with Kurt Masur and the American Symphony Orchestra League in New York.

Myra Slava Grendus Stojko
Myra Slava is educated as a sicentist and linguist, but has always had a love for the visual arts. Born in Ukraine and educated in Europe and the United States, Myra Slava received a B.A. from Hunter College, NYC and a M.A. and M.Ph. from Rutgers University. She has had a career as an educator for over thirty years, and had the privilege of receivng numerous accolades and awards within her profession.

Myra Slava's artistic talents began emerging as a child in Germany, where she studied with local artists. She went on to win several German county and state art awards as a teenager.

In the United States, she studied at The Art Student's League in New York City and was trained in watercolors at trhe Korean Watercolor Institute under the direction of Mija Kim. Myra Slava exhibited several watercolors and placed in competitions held in Japan and Korea.

Myra Slava has a great passion for traditional Byzantine icon paintings, and has pursued this love through her studies with iconographer Daniella Ionesko of Paris, France. Ms. Stojko studied classic European icon techniques and now employs the techniques of Renaissance masters, such as Cennini, in her own icons. While employing these age-old processes, Myra Slava enjoys injecting her own originality into the works while retaining the sacred spirit of the artform.

In her secular art, Myra Slava is greatly influeced by the Masters of the 17th Century and the French Impressionists. Through the use of various mediums, such as egg tempera, watercolor, acrylic, oils and pastels, she endeavors to faithfully reproduce the beauty of her surroundings through realistic interpretation. Her landscapes and cityscapes are inspired by her travels throughout Europe and the United States.

Myra Slava is and has been a member of several Arts organizations and has exhibited in numerous galleries in the United States and abroad.