off again!

but not before I set this sucker up: miroproject.blogspot.com

Ok, it was a school project, but I do think there's something to be said for noting the eras in which artists work. Especially artists whose work span 8 decades...

My personal favorite

So Mallorca, Spain was beautiful, but the time has come for me to move to Burma/Myanmar to teach. I hear the internet service is not the best, so you may not hear from me for a while. I will do my best to keep up the bloggin' on my visa runs, every 90 days....

Mingalaba!

Rauschenberg at Gemini

Robert Rauscheberg's 1967 Lithograph print "Booster" was the first of several things. It was the largest hand made lithographic print of it's time, requring two lithographic stones, one after another, at the Gemini studio in LA. It was also the first print to juxtapose silk screening with lithography. What started as an experiment ended up as a turning point for both the artist and Gemini.

"Booster" 1967 

Are there any artists left today who are breaking ground on new ways to paint, print, sculpt, or anything? Is there anything left undone? Of course the art world underwent change in the past 50 years, since artists like Rauschenberg were around doing never-before-attempted experiments, but I wonder if there are still materials, techniques, or tools that have yet to be unveiled. I guess it's not all that likely...

It's hard not to find something you like in an exhibit like "Rauschenberg at Gemini" (currently showing at the Philbrook museum in Tulsa). The artist did so much and in a countless variety of materials and tools. There is cardboard, textile, traditional prints, prints on polyurethane sculptures, prints onto clear vinyl curtains and draperies. This is an artist who was not interested in maintaining a consistent theme or style, nor did he seem to care to much about public reception...

What did he care about? The potential within ordinary materials. He didn't believe in confining art to paint, clay and canvas. He embraced a range of ordinary items and incorporated them freely into his work, saying "I've always been more attracted to familiar or ordinary things because I find them a lot more mysterious." And, really, what do we know about the possibilities of rope, cardboard or metals to become art work? Nothing, unless we try...

"You begin with the possibilites of the material." - Robert Rauscheberg

It is so deliciously affirming to have a world-renowned artist like Rauschenberg advocating all of the most valuable things I have learned from Reggio Emilia, the things I try to impart to children when I teach art, and what I believe most deeply when I observe and create art myself. 

Google Art Project

Have you seen this yet? This is awesome. You've got to try this.

http://www.googleartproject.com/

blank canvases as yet outnumbering quality finished pieces....

I don't quite know what my problem is...some of these canvases are a bit...warped. Taking a good square-on photo has proven tricky. Nevertheless- here is the completed cool-color line study and collage line study. Unfortunately, I've reached another brick wall.  

Shadow artist

Larry Kagan creates sculptures out of steel wire that appear abstract and formless. Flip a switch, and the shadows they cast reveal the real purpose and thought behind the formless wire. Using shadow as his medium, Kagan explores ways of encrypting form into inanimate material, and challenges the viewer to transition from seeing an abstract image to seeing something representational quickly and with a mere shift in lighting. It is a challenge to our perceptions and it is a wonder to behold.

Earlier this year, I read about a project on shadows conducted by preschool children in Reggio Emilia. It is such a mystifying subject- what are these dark things that follow us around sometimes? Where do they come from and what are they for? What do they symbolize? The children's ideas are not too far off, actually...

Back to the grind...

Having "painter's block" for the past few weeks was the result of a number of factors. I hadn't painted in a while, as I transitioned from Portland to Tulsa, but also I've struggled with choosing subject matter. After my course in the winter, I took away many ideas for developing the series I had begun- increasing scale, and going back to the amorphous shapes that I began with in the fall... returning to these was the key to getting back into the grind, however- I could stand to break out of the abstract again. The problem is, I must see the face in order to paint it, and I have find a face that I care to paint....that tends to take time. In the mean time, here is what I've done:

A scaled-up line study with pinks. Though elongated, this does not really take my previous work any further or develop it in any way. I do like it's simplicity and the way the colors work together, but I will not feel at ease without progress. 24X40"

A line study with yarn. 8X10". I am tempted to take away the line and leave the shapes alone but I fear that it will strongly detract from the composition. Fear never got the artist anywhere...

An experiment in creating depth. Thus far, I do not get the sense that the shapes are approaching or escaping the lines any more than were they flat. I'll look at this further when it is complete. Actually, my father asked why I never leave any spaces blank in these compositions....I can't imagine it would appeal to me more than filling it in, but it's another route to consider... 32X48"

Patrick Heron

Here I am- home for over a week with around 11 huge canvases at my complete disposal. All of the time and resources I could ask for.....and my mind is totally blank. No ideas. Barely enough motivation to lift a paintbrush and casually contemplate its contours.

So, instead, I research. Ideas have to come from somewhere, after all.

Patrick Heron, a British painter, writer and designer, has a unique style that seems at times like Matisse's paper cut-outs, and at other times like Rothko's colored blocks and lines. He composes his works with color at the forefront of meaning and importance. Using bold, bright colors and large blocks or shapes of each one, he draws the viewer in to his designs like bees to a flower.

Ryan McGinness and the graphic image

Using graphics that you might find anywhere from on a bathroom door to the instructions for putting together an IKEA furniture piece, McGinness composes paintings using screen printed prints from home-made stencils and home-made graphic images.

McGinness is not conservative with his paints, or his color schemes, creating a vibrant array of images, shapes and lines on the canvas, overlapping, interlocking and positively exploding with color. Although they may at first glance appear messy and disjointed, a closer look reveals the deliberation with which McGinness balances form, contrast and hue within each work.

His latest series focuses on the female nude. A provocative and intimate subject, McGinness reduces the powerful images to the bare minimum shapes- a conservative rendering of positive and negative space that leaves the viewer with some work of the imagination. He held a recent exhibit, "Women: The Blacklight Paintings", at Club Madonna in Miami, using live nude models painted to reflect the blacklight as part of the show. An innovate draw if I ever heard one, and a way to appeal to the less "artsy" crowd...

Bruno Munari

The famous Italian graphic designer and children's book writer was a ubiquitous presence in the bookstores and art shops I visited back in April. I believe he is most famous for his book that uses forks to represent different Italian hand gestures (apparently, there are more than just a few!)

Were it not for the "cigarette?" one, I would buy the book for my 4 year old class next year! I guess it's not like they've never seen cigarettes before...although they would be more familiar with a fork gesture representing stuffing a betel nut into one's cheeks:)

Zhang Xiaogang

These haunting, somewhat cartoon-like portraits hearken back to official family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution. The faces that stare back at you from the canvas have a surreal quality, both alien and familiar, officially sanctioned, yet private and vulnerable. Xiaogang achieves such an array of emotions and provocations through his surreal and intimate portraits.

A more detailed take on his inspiration and work can be found here. 

The artist in his studio

'Friend' for the cover of Artzine

'A Big Family'

'Identity Portrait 2'

from Bloodlines: Big Family series

Speaking of surfaces...

Leonardo Drew gives the act of studying a surface renewed depth and meaning. Drew creates large rectangular sculptures by filling tiny wooden boxes with various forms of refuse- paper, plastic, rusting metal and other roting things. 

Of his works, critics refer to the implications of suffering and enslavement based on the type of materials he uses and how he manipulates them, saying:  "forcing his materials to decay, subjecting them to heat and soaking them in rusty water, he is commenting on life, death and rebirth".(http://www.leonardodrew.com/PDF/NewYorkTimes2000.pdf)

The similarities between Drew's massive constructions and the micro-cosmic surface photos I've been taking makes me feel justified in my entrancement by their composition. Dark, earthy color schemes, the sense of random order, of natural environmental change carving away a landscape or a surface the way an artist does, painstakingly and intentionally... although these are not themes that may cross through Drew's mind as he stuffs raw cotton into a new sculpture, his process draws a likeness to that of decay and transformation in the wilderness. 

More surfaces, Yosemite Nat'l Park

Part of this is just enjoying the special macro-mode on my camera, but there's also so much more to see when you look very closely at surfaces in nature and in your everyday environment. Taking small swatches like these even show so much variation, texture and interest as to form very viable compositions in their own right. 

Granite with bits of lichen

Lichen overtaking rock

Granite fading in and out

Bisected cedar cross-section

Cedar cross-section with chasm

It's easy to imagine the microscopic worlds that exist when we can see the environment they exist in as vast, varied and complex. These images could even lend themselves to a smaller version of Slinkachu's world of diminutive dudes in Little People in the City.

Beautiful brick walls

Sure, you've heard about Tuscany. Beautiful rolling hills, vineyards, peaceful countryside, etc. etc. It's true, but what you don't hear (as often, at least) is how beautiful the brick walls are that make up the villages doting each hillside. Buildings in Tuscany were made to last, many of them remain from as early as medieval times, and give particular charm to an already beautiful part of the world. Best viewed CLOSE up: