"Cy Twombly is my bete noir"

That not so inspiring comment was made yesterday by the instructor  at my Olli course  titled "Enriching Your Modern Art Experience." The carrot was that it is being taught at the Morris-Frelinghusen House in Lenox, a mid-century trove of fantastic art and iconic architecture.

At one point the instructor asked us to consider why paintings have grown so large in the last century. I think an equally important question is why do apples grow on trees instead of on the ground?

Thank god Judy was there and I could bitch the whole way back  on the beautiful path to the cars.

There was a nice Picasso etching on the wall of the teaching studio that was unmatted, foxed, warped and generally treated like a print on a dorm wall. I offered to help Kinney Frelinghusen with some rematting and archival presentation - he said they have some 6000 prints at the house that are sitting in boxes.

I did speak up several times with disagreements and was reminded once again that the instructors in these classes so often underestimate the experience and intelligence of the audience. Or maybe they are just dumb and out of touch narrow minded fools with degrees. Pity the poor student at RPI being taught that Cy Twombly is just a bunch of scribbles.

By the way, if you want to appreciate Cy Twombly, go the MFA in Philadelphia where there is a whole room of  ten large narrative  canvases ( Fifty Days at Illiam) and you will probably fully appreciate his enormous talent as I did on a visit there a couple of years ago. They don't translate well in reproduction.

There was also a great deal of thinly disguised derision over a slide of one of Felix Gonzalez-Torres candy spills. Later, I found this interesting review: Biennale '07. Perhaps I'll learn more after the end of each class when I go to the trusty internet to counteract the narrow minded views of the professor emeritus of cultural history at RPI. Love that "cultural history" denotation - right up there with "gender studies" and "communications". My major was in  "Risk Taking Behaviors". Just kidding.

Just returned from the Berkshire International Film Festival - in G.B. and Pittsfield. Saw a new  good film on Jean-Michel Basquiat. He seemed to be undone by the death of Andy Warhol and the critics' dismissal of much of his work (that and a little too much heroin).  I was just thinking - this modern art class could have been directed on critics, the role they have played and which criticism has been borne out by time. Hilton Kramer says something very nasty about what an infinitesimal place in history Basquiat's paintings will occupy. In retrospect, how huge a part racism must have played in the criticism. Quick: name one influential african american artist of the twentieth century.

Emerging Artists Show

Whoa - the gallery was hopping last night with the opening of the new show. The place was jammed with people actually looking at the art and talking to the  five artists who were present. Excellent fun.

I thought I'd just grit it out but ended up having a wonderful time. I just stood in the back near my wall of paintings and took in all the positive remarks, many by people who had no clue who the artist was.

I sold a painting - the gallery owner, Jill                          
Bokor, bought this one - Landscape #1360
which was inspired by a stripe of late sun
on the fields at Lila Berle's sheep farm
up the road. That was very flattering plus
Sandy Smith - her husband and                                                                                                                      co-owner of the eponymous
gallery said I had gotten better
and liked this one below which seemed to be the
show favorite:

Up the street at the Geoffrey Young Gallery there were tons of local hipsters looking at Jonathan Hankey's photographs which are wonderful, simple, unpretentious photos of mostly local scenes. Probably no one but me realized that our images were both mainly drawn from the same area - Locust Hill, Baldwin Hill and the sheep farm - we both live near Coon's Dairy farm and must have the same visual images imbedded in our collective craniums.



Some people were very interested in the process and materials I use so I gave mini-lectures on the properties of casein and gouache and enamel and tried to encourage people like Christina Dubois to get inspired and start painting again. Unfortunately, Karen Inglehart wasn't there - I love her paintings and her palette and would love to meet her.  http://www.karen-iglehart.com

To top off the evening, I had dinner at Bizen with Kelley DeLorenzo and David Anderegg. I told Kelley she was my personal archivist after she remembered something about me from the way past that I had totally forgotten. (We met in kindergarten in Upper Montclair, NJ). She said she had learned from my first show that despite my sharp tongued highly critical nature, I was an optimist at heart. Which is so true.

It was a fantastic meal with great conversation. I'm inspired and can't wait to get back to painting.

New paintings

Yesterday I hung new paintings at the Gallery to

replace those that had sold at the opening.

Landscape 1315  on the right is another painting

with fall colors although fall has pretty much

given way to winter here with a nice

sloppy inch or two of snow saturday night.

So I guess Landscape 1314 below would reflect

that change perfectly even though it was painted

months ago during the dreg-ends of winter. It has

more wildness and energy than the others I

have hung at the gallery. There's alot of scratching

and texture in the lower area. Gary and two other

friends who were looking while I was hanging

picked it as their favorite of the six on the wall.

Several people have suggested that I try to work larger. Most of my current work is in the 4"x10"

neighborhood matted to 11x14 but still quite

small. Marilyn pointed out several pieces    

she though would translate well to a

larger size. She said just go out and buy some

canvases.   I like keeping them small and therefore affordable - that's what we did best at Mill River Studio. But after nine days in DC seeing paintings that were as big as a house, I'm inspired towards a larger, more expansive and expressive form of     painting.

This de Kooning at the East Gallery - part of the       Meyerhoff Collection (1945-1995) exhibit  - was inspirational. Both Faroll and I thought it was beautiful and timeless. I later read that the critics called the period in the eighties when he turned away from the vulgar, grotesque women, his "old-age style".  Isn't that terrible? I guess he didn't like it either because when he moved to Easthampton he resumed the women series and his prices soared when it was disclosed that he had dementia - now we know it was probably Alzheimers'.

   http://hirshhorn.si.edu/dynamic/collection_images/full/82.135.jpg   shows another painting from the more lyrical examples. These personify the term "action painting" that was often used along with abstract expressionism and New York School to describe that group of post-war painters who now fill our museums. Can you imagine the reception if de Kooning had painted his women series today instead of  some fifty or more years ago?

Here's a good example:
 http://hirshhorn.si.edu/dynamic/collection_images/full/66.1197A.jpg

So working larger will be a goal for the new year. My make-shift studio at home seems a little small and confining for larger works so I'll have to do something about that or maybe just start marginally larger like 16x20. It would be nice to frame the painting without glass since they have the feel and texture of oil paintings so I'm going to try using some gessoed gatorboard. We'll see.

Holly

Art Glut

So Laura called Monday and said she had sold three of my paintings - two framed and one matted to three different people - one new and two who had bought art last summer from the gallery. Very exciting especially since it happened in the first few days the show was up.

I've been in DC for six days and am thoroughly saturated with art - post-war american art - which is all I'm really interested in these days. Two visits to the National Gallery, the Hirshorn, the Phillips Collection and the botanical garden and Museum of the American Indian and the Building Museum have left me dazed and confused but content.

I did see some kick ass art though and much of it was new to me. Many of the paintings owned by especially the Phillips Collection have never been licensed for reproduction (I'm guessing here) not because they are lesser works but because they don't seem to need the extra money. It's so refreshing to see "new" work that hasn't been diminished by over exposure. Who ever thought Van Gogh's sunflowers would grace refrigerator magnets and lunch boxes?

This tempera and oil on canvas called Le Tournesol )The Sunflower), c. 1920 is surprisingly by Edward Steichen who was both a photographer and painter although he threw away most of his paintings when he decided to devote himself full-time to photography.

It was the brightest thing in it's room at the East Gallery and, again, I had never seen it before.

I also saw the seminal painting by Helen Frankenthaler  Mountains and Sea which was the first painting to use thinned oil paints on unprimed canvas (soak stain) and paved the way for other artists like Pollack, Morris Lewis and Kenneth Noland. I love her work and the changes she has made over a long career but as many times as I have seen this painting reproduced, to see it in person  only  confirmed what I had already felt - I don't like it all that much. It's kind of watery and blobby. I don't get it. But she represented the second wave of color field painting and opened up a whole new way to do things differently even if it meant using a technique that is bound to keep art restorers in business for a long time. Luckily, she didn't like the halo effect the oil paints created and soon switched to acrylic which probably won't eat into the canvas as readily as oil paint.

I'll try to add a link to that image but have to end now as my brain is foggier than the Chesapeake Bay.

Holly

Up and Running

The show is up and I've gone to DC for a week plus of museum saturation and family Thanksgiving.

It took the better part of two days to hang the  small works by six artists but it looks great with distinct styles and palettes all generally held together by the landscape thread.

Now that I write that - I realize I'm getting sick of landscapes. Maybe it's just being in such a vibrant part of DC - near Logan Circle - that makes me feel that way. Plus I loved the view of the New York skyline from lovely Secaucus and parts south. The blue haze on the skyscrapers looked very much like the blue haze on the Taconic Range ( if it was umpteen years ago and erosion had yet to take place).

I'm hoping I'll become more inured to the traffic noise which seems  assaultive.  And at 7 am the dogs spied a large rat running across the sidewalk and decided to give chase. But I like the vibrancy and diversity. This is a particularly good neighborhood as it  runs the gamut from  sew 'n vac  and Vegas Lounge to a ratty 24 hour 7/11 followed by a gentrifying Whole Foods, very modern galleries and chi chi residences with rooftop party rooms.

            Here are a couple of paintings that Laura didn't choose to include. She likes the pretty ones.              
            These have a little more grit.

         I'll be posting photos of DC as the week wears on. This afternoon nephew Ivan and I are going to to the Phillips Collection- he likes Rothko and I am wild about twentieth century american art

         up to about 1980.

         Okay, scratch that. The sun just came out and the C&O Canal Towpath in Georgetown      
          beckons. We'll go to the Phillips during the week when it is free. Cheep, cheep cheep.

          Holly

Whew

Miraculously I am finished after three weeks of pulling everything together for the gallery group show.
I've got everything photographed, matted or framed, signed and titled and labeled on the back, an artist's statement, numerical and photographic inventories and a postcard which came out much darker than the proof. I still have to add to my mailing list and send cards but for now I'll just put them in all the obvious places and make sure to carry some with me when I go to the Co-op for lunch.

People have been so nice to me that I feel  like I'm living a good
version of the movie Groundhog Day except it's my
birthday and I'm maybe ten years old.


At Liz's urging, I've included some of the pieces with multiple openings. She liked them and thought others would as well. It's difficult to predict what will grab someone's attention.

Her favorites were a couple of pieces that I really didn't think anyone but me would like. One was very monochromatic and still while another vibrates with color and is unlike anything else I've done. And the third she said reminded her of a scene in the Alps. I'll include photos of them when I get back from DC.

 These multiples are a little hard to see since I've cropped the mats. I've got to spend some time rigging a better way to photograph the art. I've got it on an easel now and it isn't exactly 90 degrees so the corners slope away. It isn't as noticeable on the single opening paintings which can be slightly cropped but it really shows on the three included here.

Tomorrow, as the ultimate luxury in winter preparedness, I'm having all my windows and doors professionally washed. This will be a first for me in the twelve years I've lived here and there is quite a bit of baked on fly hieroglyphics, etched spider tracery, dog nose schmut and grackle poop.

Holly

Sunrise - Sunset

Thought I'd give it another whirl today and see if the formatting issues have been resolved after a little tinkering.

I've read that the reason sunsets are better in the fall is because it's drier then. That's not much of an explanation but it's true - the sunsets are so vivid  they seem like a pop artist's rendition.

The only good thing about switching off daylight savings time is that I'm up at the same (old) time which is a  lot earlier now. Okay that was a joke but I do seem to be catching a lot more sunrises.

So  here's sunrise this morning from my deck looking east, (obviously). The intensity of the burning white hot sun in contrast to the shadowed mountains can be almost frightening. How would you ever be able to suggest it in a painting? I don't think you could do it with paint. It's molten and slick.

And here's tonight's sunset from my porch
looking southwest. The photo is tame compared
to the real thing. I see some geometry and shapes in these two shots which could be interesting to
pursue in a painting. Although I've tried this kind of dramatic silhouette before with poor results. I think it was the dark outline of corn stalks and tassels looking up at a bright blue sky. Really didn't cut it at all.

Okay then.  I still can't drag and position the text or photos. And although everything looks okay now - it probably won't after I publish. Had I known this site was so wanky.........





Holly