RED and Babel

Dr. Colin Bethel MD

     How to post in September when extending the relaxing mode of summer? "I have no ideas?" It is in the doing (painting, writing, movie making) that ideas appear! I made a movie for granddaughter and was shocked how many ideas occurred in the making.That is my lesson this month. Paula Pitman Brown said it, and I found it true! She also said, "Red is your color." (Van Gogh had his sunflower.  :*)) Click on to enlarge photos.

     Back in November 2005 I entered the Cambridge Art Association RED show an encaustic painting with copper leaf, Dr. Colin Bethel MD. At the same time I encouraged Cindy Ryan to enter her huge cups painting which won the prize! RED is a biennial show. This year I found lots of reds in my stash: Misappropriation, The Breakfast Club and Erika Zen-ing Out to enter.

Misappropriation

Erika Zen-ing

      The political painting Pen and the Dragon which is up now in Harvard Square's University Place gallery will be coming down from the Fall Salon. This reminds me of my Vanity in Aspic, my redo of Breugel's Tower of Babel,  the babble of the political season...the vanity and breaking of hubris.

The Breakfast Club

Pen and the Dragon

Vanity in Aspic

   
Pen and the Cashdragon:
The contest of good and evil, saint and demon, hero and villain, liberator and tyrant has long been a favorite of artists and writers. Here Raphael's St. George and the Dragon meets the cyberpen vs. wealthocracy. In the saddle of the white horse, wielding the pen and paintbrush, sits Arianna Huffington, icon of cyberjournalism. In the supporting wing stands Anita Hill, as the Statue of Liberty. The dragon emerges from the cave of the forces of pharmaceutical, petroleum and financial industries. The Supreme Court can be seen far in the background as the ultimate referee.

Vanity in Aspic:
The painting starts with the Flemish painter, Pieter Breugel's Tower of Babel, showing the foolishness of men's social pretensions as they strive to build a tower to God. As I was painting it, the men started to look like ants, and tower to look like aspic which melts or dissolves. The artist falls off the top.

Drawing and Painting to be continued

      Picasso said that painting is just another way of keeping a diary. So is my blog. This past month I report that I have taken up Life Drawing again and a course at the MFA called Across Cultures. I have been in a few juried shows and tried out some old approaches. I always want to be taking a course. It is fun to be with aspiring artists and to try both old and new materials. Of course all of the above are stressful as well...originating new ideas. So is showtime!

       Catherine Kehoe chose Unforgiving Vision for the SELF-ish show at the Cambridge Art Association. When asked for a blurb for the catalog, I submitted:

While painting myself as an exercise on cardboard, a red-tailed hawk dove from on high into the brush outside my window, an almost frightening force of nature following its laser vision to some oblivious creature. It struck me as the perfect metaphor for self-portraiture. Why is it that self-portraits are often unflattering, even at the hand of artists who famously flattered other subjects? In self-painting, the subject is oblivious, barren of artifice, a landscape of color, form and texture. The penetrating eye allows no escape for the quarry. 

         In class, we enjoyed making  contour drawings of the Tang dynasty horses to loosen up. Next we went on to draw the Meissen porcelain sculptures of birds at the museum, in order then to draw a context. I love researching the history of museum objects for surprises such as Augustus II's not only adding to art by commisioning these sculptural gems of birds and animals, but unfortunately hosting wolf toss socials for sport. After visiting the Dutch rooms, we will be working on still lifes and memento moris. Add to that, Paula and I are drawing and painting each other for works to be seen next time. I am keeping a diary for that project in a mixed media notebook where I add photos and materials to inspire me. Click to enlarge photos, and thanks for stopping by!

Politics is in the air and hits the canvas

      Spring starts March 20 and I have been too busy painting and listening to debates to notice. Today I went into the Chandler Gallery in Cambridge to see my Cacophony hanging (Feb.22, '16 post) Can't wait for the reception to hear Gerry Bergstein talk about this Small Works Salon 2016: Thesis/Antithesis.  Thirty-two pieces are in the show of this small gallery. The works fuse two contradictory ideas such as realism and fantasy, movement and stillness, or sincerity and irony. Bergstein says, "I have always thought that art deals not only with the question What is it?, but also with the question What ELSE is it?. The press release continues to say that the space that separates two opposites is filled with tension, humor and paradoxes. http://maudmorgan.com/gallery/smallworks2016_call.htm

The Pen and the Cash Dragon

      Listening to the news, I painted The Pen and the Cash Dragon for a Truth to Power show. I wanted to submit earlier paintings, Anita and the Ships of Fools and Baptism at Mount Areopagus; but the Cambridge Art Association rule is that paintings must have been created in the last five years. Speaking to power, I say that is fine for photographers, but some paintings take a long time. Also, one may have paintings in storage that were ahead of their time and might be appropriate now. I went on to paint The Pen... in the few days I had in order to be a good sport. One can't win them all. Click to enlarge paintings.

     In The Pen and the Cash Dragon, Raphael's St George and the Dragon meets the contemporary issue of cyberpen vs. wealthocracy. I appropriated the Renaissance artist's imagery to suggest the power of the pen (writing) and paint brush to replace the lance to skewer the evil of misused funds. In the painting are social media icons as brands on the horse, the smart phone, and Mail. Anita Hill as Statue of Liberty receives her award. Cyberjournalist Ariana Huffington leads a charge on the white horse to fight against overwhelming greed by pharmaceuticals (pictured in the cave), petroleum industry (torn icon) and finance, with the Supreme Court in the background lending no aid. I know you aren't supposed to explain your paintings...leave room for mystery and engagement of the audience.  

Anita and the Ships of Fools (after Goya)

Baptism at Mount Areopagus (the censored)

       I look forward to starting the Across Cultures drawing/painting class at the MFA this spring. In the meantime, I am life drawing once a week for 3 hours; and my friend Paula and I have a project drawing/painting each other. Structure is good. Hoping to see Munch, the father of Expressionists, in NYC at Neue Gallery in the near future! Thanks for looking!

A box for Serial Selfies, Winter 2015

     A  heavy snow day is a good time to update a blog. This week I entered a show entitled Unconventional Means at the Cambridge Art Association with an unconventional presentation, Serial Selfies, Winter 2015.

Top of box...painting fitted

     I entered 14 self portraits from last winter in a glass-topped box found at Michael's. The price was right and the box is a good storage place to store all those paintings from last year on card and canvas board.

     Of course, things don't always go as planned. In framing the lid underside, I broke the glass on two boxes and gave up on a glass finish. Who wants glass on oils, anyway!  In the second photo, you can see the tiny dowel framing around the top piece (to hold the painting in place wo glass). In the third photo, you'll see the tiny lattice work frame around the underside piece, secured to the top. Twelve loose flat portraits are stacked within. There is room for more!

      My blurb for the show:
During the deep snow winter of 2015, getting back to painting after ten years of art quilting, for lack of a model, I painted myself multiple times. The stacks of portraits on card and canvas board shuffling in the studio did not seem to want separate frames. Where would I put them? Then I found this box to house the flat works —the perfect unconventional frame, like the photo file on an iPhone, where the series can be presented, handled and viewed easily.

Box opened showing painting under lid and stack of 12 inside

     

The Lost Weekend: Perpetual Motion

Kathy, dear friend of 40 years, wrote to ask why she cannot find my recent blog postings. Only while madly sewing some blocks for Katie's Project Hope quilt did my brain catch up to this query to realize that a few days have elapsed since I have posted. Apologies. I don't want to lose my followers. :*)

Granted, there was the birthday party uno for Hannah at our house on Friday, the grandchildren sleepover, the Cambridge Art Association book group discussion on Francis Bacon at 10 the next morning, Hannah's class birthday party dos on Sunday at a gym with 25 lovely children, getting my new website loaded (not yet posted), locating a fast-to-make block pattern for the quilt, then real life. What is missing is a trip to RISD to see the Pat Steir show!

To post something quickly before I head to the wonderful Quilters' Connection tonight, I am uploading my five nautical blocks. Katie's Project Hope theme is the ocean this year. Several of us will contribute blocks made from fabrics provided and Katie will do the difficult work of turning it into a quilt. The fast and easy pattern is called Perpetual Motion. Like the ocean it is and fitting for me.