I have written here in the past about the composition from the iconic James McNeill Whistler painting Arrangement in Grey and Black— better known as Whistler’s Mother. It’s a beautiful, solidly structured composition that works as a wonderful template for creating a solid visual image of any subject.
Several years, ago, contemporary photographer Aline Smithson used Whistler’s image as the basis for a series of photos that she called Arrangement in Green and Black: Portraits of the Photographer’s Mother. Inspired by a print of Whistler’s painting that she found at a rummage sale and using her then 85 year-old mother (an obviously loving and patient woman who unfortunately passed away before seeing the finished series) as the subject, Smithson created 20 images with varied takes on the famous composition.
They are quietly comical individually and as a group. I just find them interesting. Below are some of my favorites.
For more on Aline Smithson’s work, please follow this link to her website where you will find many more portfolios featuring her distinct eye for observation. She also has a current exhibit, Aline Smithson: Self & Others, at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massacusetts. It closes May 1 so if you’re in the area, don’t waste any time in getting to the museum.
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears to hear it.
despite that, Schiele created, to my way of thinking, one of the most provocative and distinct bodies of work in modern art– all before an all too early death from the Spanish Flu in 1917.
We first ran up through Central Park to the Neue Galerie, a small museum just above the Metroplitan Museum that features German and Austrian Modern art. It’s a beautiful collection situated in a beautiful 5th Avenue mansion which makes for intimate, if sometimes crowded, viewing of the art. If you’re in NYC, the Neue Galerie is worth a visit if only to see this piece even though there is much, much more to see there.
Here are the dates for my scheduled events for the upcoming year:
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
I wanted to feature some music this morning that kind of jibed with the Henri Matisse Blue Nude cut-outs above that the artist produced in the early 1950’s. I wasn’t sure what I wanted but I settled on something from composer Burt Bacharach. 
I was looking at this painting in the studio yesterday. It’s another orphan, one of those pieces that went out into the world and came back without being able to find a home. I normally try to figure out if there is an apparent flaw in these orphans and often there is something that is just not right. But sometimes I notice that these pieces are often pieces that I see as being more personal, more connected with my own life’s narrative. This painting, called No Mail, falls into this category. It evokes a certain time and feeling so vivid in my memory that it immediately emerges for me when I look at this painting.
Redtree Times