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Archive for November, 2011

A Shift

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History on November 19, 2011| 4 Comments »

Sometimes my own view of a piece will shift over time.  Sometimes I might see something in the work that was not the focus of my attention when I was painting, something that gives me deeper appreciation of the piece.  Or it might work in the reverse, where I lose sight of that thing in the work that once was my focus in it and the work seems to resonate less with me.  I suppose this little painting, only about 5″ by 8″ on paper,  shown here falls in that first category.

This piece seemed to be a struggle from the outset.  The colors never fully went where I thought they should and the whole thing just never seemed to sing for me throughout the process.  The sky took on a murky shade and I worked at scrubbing away as much as I could but it was one of those situation where the atmospheric conditions and the gesso underneath  made the paint grip tighter in the creases and folds . 

 It just seemed blah.  I did this piece earlier in the year back in June and set it aside, next to a group of pieces that still need work or are in the same category as this painting.  I would look at it every so often and feel dismayed because it should work for me but it just didn’t have that crisp color with the depth that I try to find in most of my work.

 But over time, a shift in how I viewed this piece began.  Maybe the distance in time from the struggle of creating it  had allowed me to just look at it as a piece without the  memory of the process affecting my reaction.  I began to see the rubbed out sky not as failure of paint but as an interesting texture, kind of like a rough woodcut underneath the paint.  Each time I picked it, I did so with more and more affection, seeing it for what it was rather than what I hoped it might have been once in my mind.  It was a different version of my normal melody, my normal song.  Instead of being tainted by other versions, I now let this piece sing in its own voice. 

And I liked it.  The shift was complete.

It makes me wonder how many other things we view with a perspective tainted by our expectations and never allow that which we view to show itself for what it really is.  I know that I have often failed to go beyond my own biases and expectations and have probably missed the true nature of many things.  Therein lies the lesson…

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Malcah Zeldis’ Hank Greenberg

Posted in Neat Stuff, Video, tagged , , on November 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

On my recent visit to the Fenimore Art Museum, there were many pieces that really hit with me but one that I keep coming back to in my mind is a folk art painting from Malcah Zeldis titled Homage to Hank Greenberg.  Greenberg, the large figure of the baseball player in the upper center of the painting, played for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930’s and 40’s and was a power-hitting superstar of that era.  Known as the Hebrew Hammer, not only was he the hero of Detroit fans but he was also a hero to Jewish fans throughout the nation.  Malcah, born in the Bronx but raised in Detroit, was a fan of Greenberg’s in both camps.  He was to her, as the painting shows, larger than life.

The painting has a wonderful glow to it in the museum gallery, a bit more warm and orange than this image, that makes it most appealing.  This warmth draws you in and allows you to take in all the smaller details that Malcah has painted into the beautifully laid-out scene,  such as  scene directly below Greenberg where the artist and her family are portrayed sitting around the radio, listening to the game. 

I also find appeal in this painting in that the work is so confident and sure handed in the way the paint is applied.  It creates a real sense of solidness in the whole piece, giving you the sense that the artist is totally committed to their vision and their message. 

In short, I think it’s just a damn fine painting. 

For more info, on Malcah Zeldis, who is one interesting person, I refer you to a blogpost from the  American Folk Art @ Cooperstown site and to an interesting article from earlier this year in the Downtown Express, the Newspaper of Lower Manhattan as they put it.  She has led a vibrant and interesting life and still creates wonderful work at the age of 80.  Here’s a video that shows her in her apartment talking about some of her paintings and other objects she has found.

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Additions

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged , , on November 17, 2011| 4 Comments »

There are a couple of new paintings that have been added to the group of work I have hanging in my studio.  The two paintings could not be more different yet both have meaning and inspiration for me.  The first is the oil painting shown here, Pig’s Head from David Levine. 

The late Levine was the celebrated caricaturist whose work was a staple of  Esquire Magazine, the New York Review of Books and other publications over his illustrious career.  I wrote about him a few weeks back in a post about a caricature of Richard Wagner of his that also hangs in the studio.  He was also an easel painter and watercolorist of great renown, particularly his works depicting Coney Island and its people.  He was a really marvelous painter.  This piece was obtained from the estate of the late Thomas Buechner, who was a friend as well as a colleague of Levine, having painted with him and curated exhibitions of his work.

At first, I thought the piece was a bit macabre.  I mean,  it’s a pig’s head on butcher’s paper.   But the more I looked at this painting the more I came to see it in terms of color and form, taking in the light and shadows and the contrasts of color.  I see it as an expression of paint now and am constantly amazed by it when I turn to it from my painting table or desk.  It has real presence on the wall and is a beautiful piece of painting.  I am really proud to hang it with my work and find inspiration in it.

The other painting that graces my studio is from an artist much less accomplished at this point in her young life.  It is an interpretation of my Red Tree done by my friend Olivia from Illinois.  Olivia is a nine year old whose father recently contacted me, telling me how much he and his daughter enjoyed my work online.  I sent them a small print in appreciation and Olivia responded with the wonderful watercolor shown here.  She also sent a thank you that included a drawn self-portrait that I really like a lot.  Nice, strong lines.  Confident.  I can’t tell you how much this gesture from a young artist I may never meet means to me.  Just knowing that she has found something in my work in which she finds inspiration of some sort is gratifying enough for me.

So, there they are, two paintings done by two artists, one whose career is finished and another whose career, in whatever field she may someday choose, has yet to begin.  One is immensely accomplished whose work graces museums and great collections,  and the other just learning.  Yet both hang side-by-side,  both equally filling me with great inspiration and hope.  I can’t thank David Levine but I can send out my thanks and best wishes to my friend Olivia.

Thank you, Olivia, for your kind gift.  You made my day!  Keep up the good work…

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A Visit to the Fenimore Art Museum

Posted in Favorite Things, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on November 16, 2011| 3 Comments »

I have mentioned here that my work will be the subject of an exhibition at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown , NY next year, running from August 17 through December 31, 2012.  I had not been at the museum for many, many years so last week Cheri and I decided to pay a visit to both see the space where the exhibit will be hung and to see the museum as a whole.

I haven’t been to Cooperrstown in quite a while but from the moment I enter this little gem of a village I remember how much I like the place.  I’ve used the word idyllic several times recently here but must use it again to describe the atmosphere of this village built around the southern end of Lake Otsego, the lake famously referred to as Glimmerglass by James Fenimore Cooper, a name that now graces the renowned seasonal operatic company that resides there, the Glimmerglass Opera.  It is just a lovely  place especially in the quieter days of late autumn when the tourist trade is a bit slower and the beauty of the place shines through. 

Turning by the grand Otesaga Hotel, you head north up the west side of Lake Otsego and come quickly to the museum, resting on a slight rise above the lake.  The museum was built on the former site of the James Fenimore Cooper farmhouse and across the road is the famed Farmer’s Museum with its beautiful stone barns and outbuildings. 

I can’t really tell you how impressed I was with the museum, from the moment I entered the front doors  until the moment we drove away.  It is a truly beautiful space that is maintained to the highest standards.  We met with with Paul D’Ambrosio who we have known for many years and who is the President of the museum.  He gave us a tour through the galleries, giving us an education on many of the pieces.  For instance, the piece shown to the right, Eel Spearing at Setauket from William Sidney Mount, is considered the painting which serves as the face of the Fenimore Collection.  We were told that the lady in the painting from 1845 still has family that lives near the site of this painting on Long Island and that they periodically make the pilgrimage to the museum to visit their now famous ancestor.

After seeing most of the collections, including the  fabulous Thaw Collection of American Indian Art, we finally made our way to the galleries on the second floor and came to the East Gallery, where next year’s exhibit will be held.  I was a bit nervous with anticipation, to tell the truth.  But finally seeing the space and visualizing my paintings in the space helped settle my nerves.  The space is neither small nor large but has a sense of intimacy that I think will serve my work well.  There is a fireplace at one end that I could see my work easily hanging above.  The anxiousness of the unknown faded away and the actual idea of how the show might look began to take its place.  I now had sometihing tangible on which  to build the show.  A different sort of anxiety set in but it is the kind I often have before any show so I view it as an old friend who will ultimately help me in my task.

We talked for a bit about wall colors for the show which I hadn’t even considered.  I began considering colors that will push the work forward off the walls and accentuate the color in my work.  As we were leaving, Paul told me that my show would ne hanging at a great time next year as the show  hanging at that time in the other upstairs gallery would be an exhibit of American Impressionism featuring Mary Cassatt.   They would have a Monet, as well, to show his influence on the American painters.  He said there would be great crowds in the late summer for that show and would be great exposure for my exhibit.

So, we departed and I drove through the rain of that day with new concepts of how the work in the exhibit would relate to the space and to each other.  I began to have second thoughts about some pieces that I had originally thought might be perfect and paintings that I had dismissed began to come back into play.  The visit and the tremendous quality of the space and the works there raised the bar for what I wanted from my own work.  The task now seemed larger than before and I knew that I would have to really focus in order to make it work as I know it can.

In short, it was a good visit.  Thanks for the wonderful tour, Paul!

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Blue Moon

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , on November 15, 2011| 2 Comments »

I have a lot going on this morning so I’ll quickly show you this new piece that I call Blue Moon (You Saw Me Standing Alone) , taken from the lyrics of the old song.  There is something both restful and dreamily melancholic in these blue nocturnes.  There is also a wonderful sense of harmony created by the different blue tones in it coming together.  It may be a small piece, only about 4″ by 8″, but it has visual oomph, particularly in the way the blues hug the texture of the sky.  The color thins near the top of each ridge then pools darker in the depressions creating a nice rhythm in the blue night sky around the white eye of the moon.

Speaking of things  dreamily melancholic, here is a video of the Cowboy Junkies’ take on the old standard.  This version is from 1988 but the song has had many interpreters since being written in 1934.  Most probably remember the Elvis version but I have always  liked the exaggerated depressive quality in this version.  Plus, the person responsible for this video did a great job in putting together some nice mmon footage.

Have a great day!

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Big Foot Stomp

Posted in Painting, Technique/History, tagged on November 14, 2011| 3 Comments »

Singing and Mending-- Robert Gwathmey

I was looking through a book containing many of the works of the painter Robert Gwathmey when I came across an image that reminded me of a small piece that I had painted several years back.  Gwathmey’s painting was titled Singing and Mending and featured, like many of  his paintings, a depiction of  African-American life from the rural South.  This piece had a man in overalls playing a guitar while a woman mended a piece of clothing. It was the man playing the guitar that caught my eye.

Perhaps it was the overalls or the position of the guitar or the bare feet but all I could think of was a similarity in its nature to a small painting that I had painted a few years ago and which now hung on my sister’s wall.  It is a little oddity that I always look at with interest whenever I go to her place. 

 I call it Big Foot Stomp.

It was an experimental piece, a revisiting of another earlier foray in paint when I was just starting  years before.  I can’t quite recall what my initial intentions were with this piece. I remember that I laid down the splattered background with spray bottles of paint, masking the lighter center with a piece of matboard as I did the darker outer edge.  But I don’t think I ever had this figure in  mind when I began to paint in that center.

But I’m glad that he came out in this way.  I recall painting the head first, just laying down a silhouette of paint then trying to make something from it.  I remember liking the way the dark paint seemed to pop from the lighter background, making me think this was a black man.  The rest is hazy in my memory except for a slip in my brushstrokes that affected the size of his feet and for the decsion to leave out  the parts of his clothing that would normally be visible.  For me, these two elements really make this little guy special. 

There’s something about the white space where his clothing  would be that brings a spiritual element to this piece for me, as though his playing and the rhythm of his large feet on the floor are taking him to a place beyond the here and now.  I think the way he rests in the splattered background enhances this.

I’ve never painted another piece like this.  Maybe he was just meant to be one of a kind.  He certainly feels that way.  But at least in the Gwathmey piece I have found a spiritual relative to this lone guitar player.

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Beauty Translates

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 13, 2011| 3 Comments »

Beauty translates across all cultural boundaries. 

We visited the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown this past Thursday, to tour the facility and get a better view of the space where my work will be hung in an exhibition that opens in August of 2012.  I will write more about that in the upcoming days but I feel compelled to expand first on my opening sentence above in relation to this visit. 

 We finished our visit by heading into the spectacular addition to the museum that houses the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art,  considered to be one of the finest collection of Native American art in this country.  It’s pretty amazing that this group was only assembled since 1988.  The Thaws were committed to finding work that best represented the artistry in Native American objects based on their philosophy that the aesthetic power of American Indian art is equivalent to that from any culture.  This has resulted in a collection that is not home to  a few masterpieces set among some other lovely but typical pieces. 

 No, it is a collection of masterpieces. 

To give you an idea of the strength of this collection, there is a traveling exhibition from the collection that has been wowing museum goers in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Dallas museums and is set to open in Indianapolis on December 2.  It has 111 pieces from the collection and has earned rave reviews from critics for the sublime nature of the collected pieces.  Yet, you would never know anything was gone when you go through the collection on display at the Fenimore.  We went from display to display, our mouths open with wonder, the superlatives coming from us seeming so insufficient after a while.

Perhaps the highlight of their collection is the basket shown above, the famed Beacon Lights basket made by Washoe basketmaker Louisa Keyser, Dat So La Lee in her native language.  It is considered a treasure of American Indian art, called for the many years the most famous basket in the world.  It took Keyser 14 months to weave this masterwork and when it was first sold in 1915 it brought a price of around $1500, a small fortune in that day and a sum that drew headlines for the basket.  It is constructed of willow strips that run in horizontal bands around the basket held together with tiny willow strings that are woven vertically.  The threadwork is extraordinarily fine.  Most of the finest baskets of this sort have 27 strands per inch, or so I am told.  This basket has 30.  But beyond the sheer craft, it is the form that takes your breath away.  It is as pure and graceful a form as you will ever witness. Anywhere, in any culture. 

Perfection.

There are so many examples beyond this spectacular basket that I cannot even begin to start detailing them.  If you’re in Indy, take the time to examine that slice of this collected masterpieces.  Even better, take a trip to the beautiful village of Cooperstown and be prepared to have your breath taken away.  I know that I left the museum with the thought that started this blogpost ringing in my head.  Beauty translates.  Seeing this collection made me appreciate so much more the opportunity I have in communicating with my own work, this chance to create a visual language that goes beyond my own limited spoken and written range, beyond the confines of ones own culture. 

The opportunity to speak to the universal nature of the human spirit.  The work in the Thaw Collection certainly does that.

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11-11-11

Posted in At the Movies, Music, Neat Stuff, tagged , , on November 11, 2011| 3 Comments »

Most people think of anything that falls on the eleventh day of the eleventh month as being a time to commemorate the brave men and women who have served in the Armed Forces.  That, obviously, is a wonderful tribute to their sacrifice and is a worthy use of this day.  But this year, there is an added element to the gravity of the day.

This day in this year, 11/11/11, Nigel Tufnel Day.  I believe this has something to do with some apocalytic countdown attached to the Mayan Calendar. 

Nigel Tufnel was, and is, the lead guitarist for the band Spinal Tap, the heavy metal rockers who were the subject of  the celebrated film mockumentary This is Spinal Tap from director Rob Reiner back in 1984.  As played by Christopher Guest, Tufnel is best remembered for the part of the film where he is showing his guitars to Reiner and explains why the dials on his amps all go to eleven rather than ten, the normal top number on most numeric dials.  It is a classic bit.

The film has become a classic, deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress in 2002.  The film popularized the mockumentary style and Guest has made a great series of films based on this format of a traditional looking film dockumentary using a reperatory of actors and improvised (and often very funny) dialogue.  Best in Show, A Mighty Wind  and Waiting For Guffman are all exceptional examples.

So, today, at the clock strikes the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of this eleventh day in the eleventh month in the eleventh year of this decade, I will first say a silent thank you to honor the service of all the troops, past and present.  Then I will plug my guitar into my amp and turn it up to eleven. 

I can’t embed the actual  that started the ball rolling for Nigel Tufnel Day but you can watch it on Youtube by clicking here.

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Impassionata

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged on November 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Just a small piece on paper that I recently finished that I call Impassionata for what I think are obvious reasons.  It seems a bit darker on my computer screen at the moment than it does on the easel where I photograph so  it may require a new shot but for the present time this image will have to do.

This is a simple painting, one that is typical of my work.  There’s a nice combination of elements in this painting that make it feel deeper than its composition including a sense of depth into the picture even though there is nothing in the background to give perspective.  Perhaps it’s the gradation of the colors in the sky or the contrast between the deep red of the foreground and the bright yellow edge of the lit horizon.  To tell you the truth, I don’t really know myself.  The same composition with just a tweak here and there in color and texture would feel much different.

It’s a funny thing how a piece whose subject is so similar to many other pieces in  my body of work can still excite me.  I’ve often said that the subject matter really isn’t the focus of my work, that the passion for me comes from the color, form and texture.  The subject is merely a hand  extended outward to others to invite them in.   Many people may only focus on the subject before they realize they are really responding to these other elements that I mention. 

Well, at least that’s one theory.  It may change before the morning ends.  I reserve the right to contradict myself.  As Whitman wrote:  Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

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The World of Martin Ramirez

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, tagged on November 9, 2011| 2 Comments »

Among  the many great and sad stories in folk art is that of Martin Ramirez, a man born in Mexico in 1895 who came to the United States as a young man to work on the railroads.  The work proved too demanding for the small man and he soon was in despair, losing the ability to speak at that time as well.  He was diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic in 1930 and lived the rest of his life in mental health institutions until his death in 1963. 

Years into his institutional life, Ramirez started creating drawings and collages from the everyday objects around him.  This is how his work is described on the Foundation for Self-Taught Artists website:

Exhibiting a kind of iconographic vocabulary, Ramírez’s lovely drawings limn deep, vertiginous spaces through rhythmic repetition, disorienting perspectival shifts, and stagy composition. A mythic presence suffuses the animal, human, landscape, and abstract aspects of the work, all hemmed in by vibratory channels and warrens. A master of line and compositional control, Ramírez used graphite, melted crayons, and found pigments on paper fragments glued together with saliva and oatmeal. He also included collaged elements drawn from magazines and books. Recurring motifs in the work include mounted and armed jinetes (horsemen)—Ramírez was fond of horses and an equestrian back in Mexico—Madonnas, trains and tunnels, cars, and landscapes. Vernacular Mexican and American cultural themes and visual tropes, both nostalgic and resolutely modern, combine in a body of sensuous, dream-like images.

Martin Ramirez and Tarmo Pasto

In the 1950’s, Ramirez’s work was discovered by visiting art psychologist Tarmo Pasto who asked that he be allowed to keep any drawing that Ramirez produced.  Apparently, many pieces had been discarded over time in order to keep the ward clean.  Pasto championed Ramirez’ work and made it possible for the world outside those sanitarium walls to see the creations of this man whose mind seemed to transcend his captive life.  In the years since his death, the works of Ramirez have become some of the most prized in all of folk art and have been the subject of several  exhibitions in major museums.

I have never seen these works in person but am struck, even seeing mere images of them, by the almost trance-like rhythm of the patterns and imagery in them.  There is a beautiful grace in them that is only enhanced in knowing the story of this man’s struggle through his life.  It’s as though Ramirez was creating in his work, portals of release for a captive soul, a new world in which his inner mind finally jibed with the outer world.  That is how I choose to view it  in that I find the work filled with an almost idyllic harmony. 

 Postcards from a better place?  Perhaps.  Whatever the case, it is a gift to us from a world we may never know.

 

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