Tilly Strauss finds herself in her art
By Andrea Valluzzo
Photography by Sabrina Eberhard
As the oldest child in a military family, Elizabeth “Tilly” Strauss spent much of her youth moving from the U.S. to Haiti, Malaysia, and back. It’s little surprise, then, that for years her artwork was dominated by paintings of suitcases and maps.
She’s now planted her roots firmly in Dutchess County, living on her family farm in Amenia, and working as the town clerk of Northeast.
The arts are clearly in Strauss’ blood, however—so much so that as a youngster she resisted becoming an artist. Her lineage, tracing back to Lucas Cranach in the 1500s, includes artists, curators, and archivists. But after graduating Colorado University with a degree in art history and painting, she decided it was time to create work of her own.
“Making art is really a way to find out who I am and where I am,” says the painter, whose go-to medium is acrylic but who also enjoys drawing and watercolor. “I think that, because I moved so much, drawing became a way to communicate.”
Nature and trees are her biggest inspiration, she says; there’s nothing like a walk in the woods to ground her. She often paints leaves, adding images and words that give a sense of place to the leaf—and help her to make sense of the environment around her. They become like messages inside fortune cookies.
“It’s a thing I return to again and again; whenever I’m feeling low, I go for a walk,” she says. “I lived in Miami for a few years, and one thing I missed was just opening the door and stepping out into the woods.”
In her studio, she spends time exploring her own history, and the history of women in the arts. Last year, she debuted a 10-part series, “Who Is She?,” exploring women artists successful in their lifetimes but largely forgotten today. She profiled one artist per month, creating a 20-page magazine and YouTube videos— and earning a Dutchess County Legislature citation last fall. Her twin passions intersect in her most recent project, begun earlier this year. In “Museum Matrons,” she looks at 10 women who were influential in the founding of museums. “I felt impelled to do this after digging into my ancestral tree, and discovering how little I know about my great-grandmother Florence Cowles and her daughter Florence Kruidenier. They were the visionaries behind the development of the Des Moines Art Center and other institutions in Iowa.”
She is a founding member of the Inspiration Art Group International, and has been featured in group exhibitions. Her work can be found at tillystudio.com.
Through her online blog and multimedia research projects, she hopes to give today’s art students the knowledge she wishes she had while in art school. “I want to tell history stories that will wake up a teenager who is bored with art, bored with school, ” she says. “I also want to honor my ancestors, who were not like the top-tier artists in the world—but they were in the world, and they have personal stories.”
