The 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan

The Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, the last of its kind in the world, left Mystic Seaport on Saturday, May 17, for the first time since 1941, to commence the historic 38th voyage. As the news reporter, who was doing a live report right behind me, pointed out, the Morgan was at Mystic before Pearl Harbor happened and before WWII began. I thought to myself "…and before my father was born."

One of the two tug boats at Mystic Seaport that pulled The Morgan

She was toed by a tug boat via Mystic River across Fishers Island Sound and up the Thames River to New London. As the ship disappeared from view at Mystic, we jumped into cars and drove to Avery Point by UConn to watch her pass in the distance from a scenic overlook.

Watching The Morgan from Avery Point

Welcoming crowds in New London's City Pier

Charles W. Morgan docked in New London's City Pier

Charles W. Morgan in New London

New London's train station right across from the pier

The ship docked in New London's City Pier and that's where she will be outfitted for June sea trials.

Worker bending sails on top of the mast

Following Sunday the outfitting began with workers bending sails, i.e. attaching them to masts. It was so amazing to watch and draw them!

Bending Sails on the Morgan

Bending sails on the Morgan

I have yet to see and draw the Morgan in her full glory, with opened sails. Can't wait till June!

Dalvero Academy is working on a new show, scheduled to open in 2015 at the Museum of America and the Sea. Stay tuned for more on that! 

"Draftsmen's Congress" by Pawel Althamer. New Museum, NYC

Dalvero Academy artists came to New Museum's "Draftsmen's Congress" on Saturday, March 22, 2014, to participate in the ongoing collaborative installation by Pawel Althamer. Here's a video I put together of what it looked like. We had fun!


Dalvero Academy Artists at "Draftsmen's Congress" by Pawel Althamer. New Museum, NYC. 03.22.2014 from Julia Sverchuk on Vimeo.
Soundtrack: Bucky Pizzarelli "Lime House Blues" live. Video: JuliaSverchuk.com (c) 2014

Adieu, Summer...

Fall has arrived on my landing page >

ArtsWestchester Exhibit :: Part 2 : Mural

Mural "What It's Like To Be a Fish" is now on view at the ArtsWestchester gallery through August 2012. It was done in collaboration with a dear friend, artist Eddie Pena, for a group show "Fish Tales" about the vital waterways of Long Island Sound. We started our research last summer by hitting local aquariums, drawing and learning about the species. 

In our mural, the left side is salty sea water, and the right side is fresh water. The middle is where they meet to form an Estuary, which is exactly what Long Island Sound is. Eddie and I intended our mural to be educational, so we took care to represent the species accurately. We depicted some endangered ones, like the Sand Tiger shark and the Loggerhead turtle. You might also recognize Black Drum fish, Atlantic Cod, Sturgeon, Striped Bass, Moon jellies, seahorses, terrapins, Blue crab, Sea Robin and more! See if you can spot the Clown fish (remember Finding Nemo?)

Here are some of my drawing studies from the aquariums. It was such a great experience to work on this mural! The final piece that's on view is enlarged to wrap around the whole room and features a transparent window overlay. Special thanks to La Benida Hui of R.A.R.E., the curator of this group show!

ArtsWestchester Exhibit :: Part 1 : Conservation Posters

I am excited for the upcoming gallery show opening on June 7th in the ArtsWestchester gallery. "Fish Tales" ( on view: June 8 - August 11, 2012) is a group art exhibition about Westchester's vital waterways. 

My contribution is conservations posters and a large-scale mural about the underwater life of the Long Island Sound, done in collaboration with an amazing artist Eddie Pena. Stay tuned for photos of our mural! It's being installed as I write this...

The exhibit is curated by an artist, wildlife conservation activist and founder of R.A.R.E. (Rare Animals Really Endangered), La Benida Hui.

Participating reportage artists, illustrators and animators from Dalvero are:
Audrey Hawkins
Bill Martin
Eddie Pena
Todd Rawson
Laura Vila Rawson
Dominick Santise
Julia Sverchuk
Evan Turk

Dalvero Mystic Augmented Reality Trailer

Dalvero Mystic AR gallery at the Museum of America and the Sea is viewable to visitors on their iPhone and Android devices. Artworks of 24 participating artists are spread all over the Mystic Seaport at locations that inspired them, as an extension of "Restoring a Past, Charting a Future" physical gallery exhibit. Through September 2013.



To view the AR gallery,
1. Download free AR app Layar
2. Search for "Dalvero Mystic AR"
3. Launch it on premises of Mystic Seaport

*Special thanks to Sander Veenhof for making this possible.

"Restoring a Past, Charting a Future" Exhibit is Open!

Today is a big day for me and the Dalvero Academy: our group gallery show "Restoring a Past, Charting a Future" that we curated for the Museum of America and the Sea is officially open to the public, and will be on view through September 2013. I'd like to commemorate this big day by posting a drawing I did during our very first visit to Mystic Seaport three years ago. The temperatures were way below freezing and my watercolors turned to frost right on paper.

Mystic Seaport became a milestone: never before have I had such a dive into American history.

On May 19th, we will be launching an Augmented Reality exhibit for this in-gallery show: visitors are able to experience artworks at locations that inspired them, visible on mobile devices, while walking the grounds of the Seaport. I believe this new technology will become ubiquitous one day, and it's a beautiful extension to our show as a connector between "Restoring a Past" and "Charting a Future".

*Special thanks from all 24 of us to Sander Veenhof for making this possible*

Stay tuned!

Positive Feedback Loops in Wood Planks

I spent many contemplative hours drawing planks of wood inside the belly of the world's last surviving wooden whale ship at the Mystic Seaport. As I was drawing ship's interior undergoing restoration (old planks are taken out, new planks are put in), I was thinking about healing and regeneration. Regeneration is essentially the creation of a positive feedback loop: making an old whaling vessel seaworthy again gives it a new meaning in today's context. 

I kept looking at these drawings over time, they held true to me for an unknown reason. Until I looked up meanings of "positive feedback loop":

"Feedback Loops can enhance or buffer changes that occur in a system.

 Positive feedback loops enhance or amplify changes; this tends to move a system away from its equilibrium state and make it more unstable."

"Positive feedback is used in digital electronics to force voltages away from intermediate voltages into '0' and '1' states."

And...back to looking at these drawings. Now they become abstract illustrations of binary code and how information is encoded in digital electronics. Or maybe it's my attempt at understanding how events are encoded within the wood fibers as the tree grows. Thinking through the hand makes new connections happen. I'll keep looking...

Breathing new life into the boat

P.S. The installation of the upcoming gallery show at the Mystic Seaport's Museum of America and The Sea has officially commenced on Monday, April 16th. I'm one of the 24 participating artists. More info here: dalveromystic.com

24 Artists. 1 last surviving American wooden whaleship in the world. 3 years in the making. Over 180 artworks on display at The Museum of America and The Sea, Mystic Seaport, CT. Opening April 28, 2012.  www.dalveromystic.com >

logo design: Margaret Hurst, Todd Rawson.

Mystic Seaport Show :: Follow Us on FB & Twitter

In light of our approaching gallery opening at The Museum of America and The Sea at Mystic Seaport, artists of Dalvero Academy have launched a Facebook page> and Twitter @DalveroMystic>. Follow us to see the behind-the-scenes photos from 2009 up to date!

The Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport, 2011

The Morgan Restoration, 2011

Portrait of a Great Man

This is a busy and exciting time for me and my fellow artists from the Dalvero Academy, as we're preparing for our group art exhibition opening in just a few months at the Mystic Seaport, CT. Here's a portrait of the director of Mystic Seaport's Preservation Shipyard, Quentin Snediker, who has been a major source of inspiration, information and support to us. Stay tuned for the details on our show! It's coming soon...

Quentin Snediker, Director of the Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport, CT

Paris :: Part 6 : Le Musee D'Orsay

Here's a drawing of the great hall of Le Musee D'Orsay with it's magnificent gilded clock. This once-upon-a-time railroad station is now housing most incredible 19th-century art, including impressionism, realism, postimpressionism, and art nouveau. Turns out the museum is only 33 years old.  I LOVE this place like no other. There are giant Toulouse-Lautrecs (how DID he paint such huge canvases? "With a broom", jokes my teacher Ronnie, as she walks by.) There are Van Goghs, vibrating with so much energy that they practically emit sounds. There are Degas figurines-a whole wall of them! There is the famous Renoir's "Boating Party" painting  that Amelie's neighbor kept copying in the movie. There's the Monet's "The Picnic" that Picasso studied over and over again with his numerous iterations. There are Bonnards, Cezannes, Daumiers, Gaugins, Monets, Vuillards...all those great impressionistic paintings are so alive in person, so beautiful, that their impact just overwhelms. I get very emotional there. I miss you, D'Orsay. 

p.s. Happy Birthday, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec! 

My iPhone Drawings in MoMA Augmented Reality Exhibition

This Saturday was a gorgeous summer-like day in New York. I was at the MoMA, anticipating the launch of the DIY Augmented Reality Art Invasion at 4pm. All that was needed was to figure out how to use Layar app. It took about 10 minutes of utter confusion, until the first signs of "it works!" appeared on my iPhone, in the room with Monet's Water Lilies.

The next hour and a half were spent roaming the museum and the atrium outside, discovering layers of virtual art galleries. My drawings were "attached" to the 5th floor, but technically could be viewed from any place inside and near MoMA by selecting the floor level within the Layar app. 

I was among 35 other artists who participated. I only met 2 while there, and one of them was Sander Veenhof, the mastermind / pioneer / curator of this exhibition. 

It's a very exciting experiment (well-executed, too) that has amazing potential. This exhibition opened my eyes to the idea of phychogeography.

"Developments in the field of phychogeography advance rapidly and radically. In former times the discipline required mental capabilities such as concentration and imagination, nowadays mobile phones provide us with easy-to-use viewing tools to percieve a multitude of fictive realities, anywhere we are, instantly. The technique causing this 'progression' is called augmented reality. It has led to an armada of virtual creativity of various kinds into our public physical space. Actually, AR has rewritten the scope of 'public space'. Physically walled private spaces, such as musea, are now open areas for anyone's objects and actions. To reflect on this and to investigate the implications for art intitutes, Mark Skwarek and I propose to infiltrate the MoMA with an augmented reality exhibition, curated and transmitted from a distance using GPS-driven Layer AR technology. A helpdesk will assist Conflux participants to collaborate and contribute a work to this "virtual DIY museum". ~Sander Veenhof (quote taken from conflux festival.org)

The 7 virtual MoMA floors will remain available/viewable permanently!

Instructions on how to see this virtual gallery: 

iPhone/Android: 

-Download (free) Layar Augmented Reality Browser app. 

-In your phone's general settings, make sure "location services" for Layar are "on". 

-Open the app, search for "art moma" and select "MoMA AR exhibition" 
 (Sander Veenhof / Mark Skwarek). 

-Open it, go to "settings": select "alternative positioning ON" / move "viewing range" to max / select floor

-My iPhone drawings are on the "5th-2D" level. 

-You can explore all the floors from any location within the museum. 

Enjoy! 

watch video >

read Opinions / NY Times >

read Wired >