Tag: Karen Gersch
When I learned in early September that Gregory Fedin had recently passed away, I looked online for obituaries and for any bio material. There was next to nothing about Gregory or his wife, Nina Krasavina, who had died of breast cancer in 1996 at the way too young age of 57. Gregory had been away from the circus scene for a long time, and was never a master of self-promotion, but still I found the neglect surprising and unfair.
“Contrasto! Constrasto!” Carlo Mazzone-Clementi used to holler. Comedy teams have traditionally relied on contrasting characters, the stronger the contrast the better. Laurel is skinny, Hardy is pleasingly plump. Keaton had Joe Roberts, Chaplin had Eric Campbell. Harpo Marx is said to have stopped talking to differentiate himself from his yackety-yak brothers. The Odd Couple’s Oscar Madison was a slob, Felix Unger a neat freak. Contrast gives you something to play off of, but you still have to have a good act! With great serendipity, I recently stumbled upon these three entertaining examples.
In a previous and popular post, this blog had the privilege of sharing Karen Gersch’s paintings and drawings of classic clowns. If you haven’t seen it, Do Not Pass Go and instead click here immediately!
It is a real privilege to be able to present the work of Karen Gersch on this blog. I’ve known Karen for over three decades (though we’re both 29), and she’s quite the Renaissance woman: clown, acrobat, painter, educator, producer — and for all of those three decades New York City’s hostess to ever so many variety artists visiting from around the globe. Karen & I even performed in the Hubert Castle Circus together with Fred Yockers in the late 70s, and I want to say in my defense that any stories she may tell about me from those days are nothing more than wine-induced fabrications. I thought the best way to introduce Karen to the blog was this series of her paintings and drawings of classic clowns. We’ll follow up in later posts with her look at more contemporary clowns, and some of her own performance writing. But first some links:
Karen’s current exhibition at the Blueberry Music & Art House in Greenwich, Connecticut
Karen’s art web site.
Karen’s Showboat Shazzam (formerly Circus Sundays) series at the fabuloso Waterfront Museum (this is last year’s schedule, but check back for this June’s events)
Karen’s Acrobrats performance web site.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin