Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for July, 2011

This Tornado Loves You

Posted in Video, tagged , on July 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well, my shows are completed and hung but that doesn’t mean my work is done.  Already I am prepping for next year and starting new work, new images based on ideas that arose in the final days before this year’s shows.  On July 28th, I have a gallery talk at the West End and today I’m on the road, taking a swing over to Erie to see my friends at the Kada Gallery to deliver some new pieces and talk over plans for future shows there.  They have shown my work for 15 years now but it seems like it was only yesterday since I first met owners Kathy and Joe.  Great folks.

As I often do on such days, I leave you with a bit of travelling music.  Today, it’s once again Neko Case, a favorite of mine with This Tornado Loves You.  Have a great day!

Read Full Post »

Stanley Spencer

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged , on July 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

I ahve a feeling that most Americans don’t know much about the English artist Stanley Spencer, who lived from 1891 until 1959.  I have to admit that I knew very little until stumbling across a book of his unique paintings.  However, our ignorance doesn’t detract from the man’s greatness or his fame as one of the greatest British painters.  Some maintain that he is their greatest Modern painter.

His work is unique and always interesting, with densely colored and arranged scenes that sometimes seem overwhelming to take in at one viewing.  The piece shown here at the top, The Resurrection of the Soldiers, is one such painting.  It depicts the World War I soldiers that Spencer saw as a medic and soldier undergoing a rebirth on the battlefield.  It serves as the altarpiece( you can see the altar and podiums in the foreground of this photo) in a chapel, the Sandham Memorial Chapel,  that was designed to specifically hold his war paintings.  Iam totally pulled in by the the intricacy and contrasting tones of the composition, taking in at as a whole without even being able to discern what the subject might be.  Moving in closer, it becomes even more compelling.

The idea of resurrection and other biblicaland Christian themes were sometimes the subject of Spencer’s paintings, in which he would transform the subjects of biblical stories into characters residing in his beloved Cookham, a small village in Berkshire. One example is his depiction of St. Francis, shown here to the left. Perhaps his best known work and one that  many consider one of the greatest British paintings ever is his painting of the resurrection of Cookham, shown at the bottom of this page. 

 I realize that the size of these photos doesn’t do justice to these paintings.  I had put off showing his work on the blog for this reason  but hopefully it will serve as an entrypoint to those who might want to investigate further his paintings or his interesting life which served as the basis for the play Stanley, a Tony nominee in 1997.  But even without the biographical material I’m sure you’ll find something in his work that stops you in some way.  I know it always stops me in my tracks.

Read Full Post »

Lessons in Living

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged on July 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well, the opening is over and the show continues to hang at the West End Gallery.  Good opening.  Talked to a lot of really nice people, many new to me.  Many thanks to everyone who came out.   You made the evening complete and  I could not be more grateful.

That said, I was sure glad when the night was over.  There comes a point near the end of an opening, especially in the aftermath of constantly promoting it by writing about it here,  where I am really tired of talking about me and can’t wait for that moment until I don’t have to say anything to anyone. 

So later that night, we came home and decided to quietly watch that night’s Jeopardy,  a show I have watched intently since I was a child when Art Fleming was the host in the 60’s. Before it came on, I caught the end of the ABC Evening News and there was a story about their Person of the Week.  It was a young boy, Josiah Viera, from central Pennyslvania who suffers from Progeria, an exremely rare (something like only 54 cases in the world) disorder where the child begins prematurely aging, most having life expectancies of between 8 and 13 years.  Josiah, now 7 years old, has the tiny body of a 70 year old.  He is 27 inches tall and weighs 15 pounds.

But Josiah doesn’t dwell on the hardships of his condition.  Instead he concentrates on his passion, that thing that brings him sheer joy: baseball.  He lives for the game, wanting to play it from the minute he wakes until the end of each day.  He approached a coach at the local t-ball league in Hegins, PA and told him that he wanted to play in the games.  They feared he might not survive more than a single game and indeed, after his first game, Josiah suffered a series of mini strokes and was hospitalized.  But he recovered quickly and his desire for the game was so strong that he was back after three weeks.  The news of this little boy and the joy with which he played the game captured the hearts of the local folks and by the last game there were several hundred fans ( not your usual t-ball crowd!) all cheering him on and chanting his name.  And as he stands on the bag at first base, which seems like a table under his small body, Josiah smile glows with the sheer and absolute joy of being safe.

Absolute joy.  How many of us allow ourselves to feel that?  Josiah’s time here is limited, as it is for all of us.  Yet his life is not sadder for that knowledge.  Instead he has somehow chosen to find joy in those few days, rejoicing in the moment instead of fearing the future or focusing on the  life that might have been under different circumstances, things which too many of us allow to take over our lives.

Life is now.  His pure joy is a lesson for us all.  Life’s too short to not revel in those things that make us happy. 

What is your joy and if it’s not the biggest part of your life, why is that so? 

Here’s the longer version of the story from ESPN on which the ABC story is based.  It’s a beautifully done report.  Have a great Sunday and again, thank you for everyone who came out Friday night– you brought me a little of that joy that I speak of.

Read Full Post »

Show Tonight

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on July 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well, another opening tonight.  It’s for my new show, Avatars,  at the West End Gallery in Corning, one that I’ve been featuring work from over the last couple of weeks.  This is my eleventh solo exhibit at the West End so there is a definite familiarity with everything but that doesn’t make it any less angst-filled, a condition I’ve described all too often here in the blog.

I won’t bore you with that today.

I will say that I really am pleased with this group of work.  The gallery has a very warm feel with the way the work hangs together and there is a sense of completeness.  I tend to view each show not from my judgement of individual pieces but rather how the group works as a single entity.  Looking at a hung show is like looking at painting for me, taking it all in and instantly weighing how each element affects the next, how each affects the overall look of the whole.  And with this show, there’s a feeling that each piece is in its proper place.  Completeness, as I said.

Of course, it’s easier to reach that feeling of completeness when there is a consistency of strength in the individual paintings.  I think this show has great strength throughout it.  That’s just my opinion, which should come as no surprise, but this is a really difficult group for me to pull out only one or two pieces that I could use as the answer when asked, as I always am, which paintings from a show are my favorites.  I could say that nearly every piece here is my favorite.  I know that sounds like a parent asked to choose which child is their favorite.  But, like a parent, I see things in each  that speak to me, that make each significant in its own way.  Things that make me proud as a parent. 

 So, I may not be able to tell you which is my most favorite but I will be able to tell you what I see in each that makes it special to me.  I  actually like seeing what paintings other people choose as their favorite, comparing what they see in each to my own feelings about the piece.  That’s one of the highlights of each show for me.

If you’re in Corning tonught, please stop in at the West End Gallery and take a look.  I would be glad to hear if you have a favorite.

Read Full Post »

The Calm Ahead

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on July 14, 2011| 1 Comment »

I see this painting that is part of the West End show that opens tomorrow night, The Calm Ahead, as a sort of personal aspiration, a goal to be reached.  I was in a gallery the other day and the person that I was speaking with asked about the tranquility that he saw in the paintings.  He wanted to know if that mirrored my own personal calm.

I responded by telling him that the purpose of these paintings for myself is to pacify my own fears and anxieties.  I told him that they were not a reflection but were instead a hoped-for endpoint.  They are what I wish to be-  calm and at peace with themself and the world around them.  I said that I felt that I was closer on that road to this place than I was not too long ago.

And that is really what I feel about this painting.  It is an idealization of the placid mind, the Red Tree standing tall and self-assured as it is bathed in the golden light from the sky.  I see the fork in the road as being symbolic of the choices that must be made as we make our way through the landscape of our life.  Some will take us to that place we desire and some will take us further away.  I see the fields as representing the work and toil of our lives, as those labors which sustain us.

That’s the short take on this piece.  I could say more but I think that says all that needs to be said. 

The Calm Ahead is 14″ by 24″ on mounted paper and is set in a 20″ by 30″ frame.  It is, as previously noted, part of the Avatars show at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY that opens with a reception tomorrow evening, July 15th.

Read Full Post »

Announcement: Coming in 2012

Posted in Current Events, Technique/History, tagged on July 13, 2011| 4 Comments »

If someone had told me as a child that someday I would be in a museum in Cooperstown, I would have keeled over from the prospect of being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame there.  Well, that isn’t happening but this is actually just as exciting, and unexpected, a prospect for the older me.  In 2012, the  renowned Fenimore Art Museum will host an exhibit of my work that will hang from August 17 until December 31, 2012.

The Fenimore Art Museum is a wonderful facility and houses several great collections including one of the largest and most extensive collections of American Folk Art , the  spectacular Thaw Collection of American Indian Art and a great group of Hudson River School paintings.  Current shows there include an exhibit of work by Edward Hopper and another featuring other American Modernists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

So, needless to say, I am excited by this chance to show in such a prestigious facility.  If you have read this blog for a while, you will not be surprised when I say that with this excitement comes a certain level of anxiety.  But that is simply part of the deal,  a small price to pay for such a wonderful opportunity. 

There’s a part of me that is very satisfied with this, as a sort of reward for the consistency of my work through the years.  I also am really happy for those folks who have followed and collected my work over this time, seeing it as a validation of their belief in the work.  They have been very important to me as a source of inspiration and energy for many years and I see this as a small repayment on their trust in my work.

So, I guess I should get back to work.  Even though it’s over ayear away, there’s much to be done.

Read Full Post »

Testify

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on July 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Another painting from this year’s West End Gallery show, opening  this Friday.  This piece is titled Testify and is 8″ by 26″ on paper.  Set in a white mat and wider black frame, its rich color gives it a real visual pop on the wall.  While it was in the studio, it was a painting that I found myself glancing at on a regular basis, my eye pulled to the deep oranges and yellows and the contrasting black trees that almost form a cage in the scene, which is the basis for the painting’s title.

I see the Red Tree here as the obvious central character, one that is making a testimony, an avowal, of some sort.   Some might see the word testify and take it for the evangelical meaning where one testifies or outwardly professes their faith.  Others might see testify in the legal sense where one is giving evidence.  For me, it is, in a sense, both.  I see the Red Tree as testifying to its own existence, as declaring that it has substance in this world, that is has a mind and voice of its own that must be heard.  It is existential truth.

The black bony trees serve as witnesses to this testimony.  You could see them as willing witnessses, reinforcing the Red Tree’s declaration of self.   In this view, their curves almost remind one of a celebrant in some sort of religious ecstasy, dancing and gesturing to the heavens.  But to me, with their united and encaging stance they seem to be trying to quiet the single voice of the Red Tree.  Their is a somewhat ominous quality to them in, a dark wall over which the Red Tree is trying to assert its truth.

Well, that’s how I read it at this point.  I have to restate that when I start a piece such Testify I am not going in with any idea that this is what I will be trying to convey.  I have no idea where the paint will take me and even now, as I sit writing this post, I am seeing things in it that evaded me before.  It’s as though I am almost looking at someone else’s work and trying to discern what it is saying to me.  I think that is when the work is most effective– when I don’t know what i want to say and just let the paint speak for itself.

I would testify to that.

Read Full Post »

Time Dormant

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 11, 2011| 1 Comment »

My show at the West End Gallery in Corning opens this coming Friday, July 15,  and this week I will be featuring several pieces from the show. This is my eleventh solo show at the West End and I really try to make each show have its own look and feel.  I think this year’s show, called Avatars, really accomplishes that goal.  I saw the show after it had been hung in the gallery and there’s a real continuity between the works as well as a clean overall spareness that echoes the quiet of many of the pieces.  It has a sense of calm throughout, a tranquility that I have long sought and often wrote about here.

This is a smaller piece, about 10″ by 10″ on paper, that I call Time Dormant.  It’s a painting that uses the exposed strata of the earth below to create a sense of passed time as well as a visual rhythm that plays off the darker trees above that rise in tangents from the earth.  The white of the moon serves as a cool distant eye that witnesses this passage of time as well as being a focal point that brings the elements together.

This use of strata is a spin-off from my Archaeology series and is really about creating the rhythm I mentioned above with strands of color that have an organic quality that seems natural and right to the eye.  My hope is  that this sense of rightness will make them register almost intuitively with the viewer who will immediately sense what these layers denote without much thought.  Again, that’s my hope.   It may not be the overriding factor, or a factor at all, in whether the piece appeals to a viewer.  I can never really know that.

But I do know that I like the calm in this small painting, this feeling of being connected to an eternal pause in time.  There is a soothing quality that speaks of something more than the eye sees.

Read Full Post »

Magic Numbers

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, tagged on July 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I was attracted to the numbers of baseball when I was a kid.  Those magical statistics that defined the performance of my favorite players, numbers that made the case that my favorite  was better than your favorite or at least gave me a hint as to how my favorite stood up against the numbers of the legends.  For instance, Ty Cobb’s .367 batting average and Babe Ruth’s 714 homers has been deeply ingrained in my memory for well over forty years, a span in which I’ve forgotten many other numbers that were more significant in my life.  So when when Derek Jeter reached the magical 3000 career hit plateau yesterday, I paid attention.

3000 hits is a venerable number to baseball fans.  In the 130 or so years of major league baseball only 28 players have ever reached this milestone number.  28 out of the countless thousands who have strode to the plate, bat in hand,  with hopes of one day reaching that exalted number.  It is a number that denotes excellence and durability, both traits that Jeter possesses.

Another trait for Jeter is his flair for showing himself in the biggest moments, as the many accolades he has received will attest.  Many other players have struggled with the pressure of reaching this and other milestones and have went into slumps, making the tension on themself unbearable as the games pass.  But Jeter would have none of that.  Needing two hits to reach 3000, he flew by the number with a legendary performance going 5 for 5 (that’s 5 hits in five at-bats or chances  for non-baseball fans) including a long homerun for his 3000th hit, a feat only accomplished by only one other player. 

But for all the numbers he has amassed, for all the World Series titles and records he possesses, one has to watch Jeter on a day-byday basis to get the full impact of what a great player he is. and what he has meant to the game.  I know for myself, he brought me back to the game after many years of having lost that spark for the game.  I was never a Yankee fan and often considered myself a Yankee-hater as I grew up.  Oh, I liked certain players, Mickey Mantle for example,  and revered their legends such as Ruth and Gehrig ( I remember with great clarity as 9-year old staring at Ruth’s glove in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown as though it were the Holy Grail) but the team itself rubbed me the wrong way.  I loved the underdog and they were never the underdog at that time.  I just couldn’t like such a team.

But that changed with Jeter’s rise to stardom.  He ran out every ball, did small subtle things that often changed the course of games.  He did some things very well and on those things that he didn’t  do well, he worked hard to make himself better.  As a young player, his fielding was somewhat suspect but as the years have went on his fielding has gotten better and better and now, even though his range is somewhat diminished, he is one of the most surehanded shortstops in the game.  Watching him on a daily basis, I was hooked on the game once more by something more than his numbers.

Yes, for Jeter you must judge him by more than numbers, even though he has an excess of golden stats.  For me, it was his ability to put aside failure, to not dwell on the last at-bat or error.  You never see panic in his game.  You never see him play with anger.  Oh, it might be there but his game face will never betray it.  It was this attitude of total effort that won me over.  I have never seen him take a game lightly or give a half-hearted effort and that is saying a lot in a game that stretched through three seasons of the year. He has taken a talent that could esily be squandered in the hands of a less disciplined player and transformed it into a Hall of Fame career through his hard work and attitude.

So, congratulations to Derek Jeter.  And thanks, for bringing a game that I loved back to me and for turning a Yankee-hater into a fan.

 

 

Read Full Post »

The Sharing

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on July 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well, the work for my show at the West End Gallery, Avatars, is complete and ready to be delivered later today.  Always a relief to be finished.   I’m pretty happy with this group of work and think it will hang well in the gallery.  One of the last pieces that I completed for this show is shown here.  Called The Sharing, it’s a 24″ by 24″ canvas and it has a great glow that I hope is showing on the computer screen.

The title comes from a few quick thoughts on the nature of sharing as seen in this piece.  The intertwined trees represent two beings sharing a life together, the trees strengthening one another,  one sharing the burden of support  for the other. They also represent a shared responsibility for the work that is required to sustain life.    The fields represent that work as well as the sharing of resources within a community. 

There is an idealistic quality to this piece, one of a common good that serves everyone.  Of an ideal world where we gladly accept part of the burden of those in need.  We are all made better by sharing.

This is not as eloquently put as I would like.  These are just off the cuff thoughts about this painting and what I see in it.  As I’ve said a hundred times before, you may see something completely different.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »