A couple of recent works are currently in Studio Visit magazine. Studio Visit only goes out to museums, galleries and collector’s, so editions are not widely available. Studio Visit is a sister publication of New American Painting’s. This volume is a collection of work chosen by Ian Berry of the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. Studio Visit web site.

For our final in-class project, I had the students each take a section of Picasso’s great 1937 painting, Guernica, and draw it using charcoal. We then put them all together to form the large reproduction of the masterpiece. Throughout the quarter, we investigated many artists and styles, including DeKooning, Dali, and Chuck Close to gain a better understanding of their styles and approaches to art making.

Looks like a very interesting show of Philip Guston’s post-Abstract Expressionist work at the McKee Gallery in NYC:

PRESS RELEASE
Although the MCKEE GALLERY has mounted many PHILIP GUSTON shows over the last 35 years, it has never exhibited the small oil panels together as a group. The early figurative acrylic panels were begun in 1968, but the date of the first smaller oils is undetermined. The dated oil panels begin in 1969 and the last ones in 1973. Many are undated.

These small oils, ranging in size from 9 x 10 to 12 x 16 inches, have always been special. Their diminutive size does not diminish their pictorial strength, whether as complex compositions of hooded figures in conversation, studio interiors, still-lifes or as paintings of single objects, such as a green shade, a cup, a nail or an umbrella. They are not studies or fragments of larger works.

Guston painted these small oils for a period of 5 years, while going through the first hooded figure series and the Roma period, and then he stopped. They have a unity to them that belies the span of time during which they were done. The panels are all very painterly, not flat, and exude a care and intensity of focus that convey the painter’s passion in making them.

The exhibition will include 45 works, mostly loans, and will open Thursday, November 5, continuing on until December 31, 2009.

View the show

The Herd, 2009, Pastel and Spray paint.

I first saw this scene in the movie, ‘The New York School’. It was one of those movies I watched over and over again in the library screening rooms at Moorhead State. All of the artist banter and Abstract Expressionist one-liner’s are priceless. It was here that I first heard Pollock’s famous retort to Hans Hoffman, “I am Nature”.

The Sundance channel is running a marvelous documentary about the Frenchman, Philippe Petit, who, in 1974, walked across a wire between the World Trade Towers, in NYC. What an engaging meditation on so many things, beauty, dreams, risk, mystery…the Towers… Petit was immediately arrested after making 8 crossings on his walk, and people demanded to know WHY anyone (he) would do such a thing, he said, “there is no why”. He couldn’t understand such a reaction to what he described simply as a “beautiful and mysterious thing”.

Here’s the original news report on the event: Click here

I asked my Advanced Typography students to visually “animate” this poem by Billy Collins, expecting to see 2D typographical layouts, but Nick Garcia produced this great start for a video animation of the poem.

A friend and former classmate at Moorhead State University, Anne Greenwood, opens a show at the Pendleton Center for the Arts on July 17, 2009. Her recent work titled, ‘Winter Count’, features embroidered pictographs of stunning originality. In her artists’ statement, Anne says that the work is deeply autobiographical and connected to her background as a naturalist. She is interested in culture and tradition. Her inspiration lies in the interaction of the past with the present and exploring cultural tradition.

With the criteria of a one day drive, this years’ summer vacation took us to the Black Hills. Custer State Park is simply great for hiking. There is a lot of elevation, but the views are amazing. Here is one of the hikes we made listed on Backpacker.

This is a summer with no particular goal in mind, other than EXPLORATION. Try new things, fail a lot, and look for a kernel of something interesting in my exploration. So far, stencils and spray paint have worked their way into a few drawings…and I’m drawing outside the lines. Any ideas?

There is hope…a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) showed up at our bird bath today. This beautiful little migrant bird marks an end to this very long winter in Minnesota, probably a week or so ahead of the Warblers that will be coming through in May. Last year, on a hike along the Mississippi river, near St. Paul, in early May, we saw an amazing variety of Warblers in a small stretch along Crosby Lake. The usual suspects, Yellow-rumped, Magnolia, and the Black and White, but also, less common occurances, Chestnut-sided, Blackburnian, Palm, and Yellow. I try not to think about what we didn’t see…Oh, and while we’re talking birds, Redpolls showed up at our feeders this year in April, a first in our yard, very unusual for St. Paul.

Having recently completed a label design for a micro-”brewer?” of Maple Syrup in southern Minnesota, I was very interested to hear on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) on my drive home from work one night, that Maple Syrup has become a hot commodity among thieves: “Sticky-fingered bandits make off with 15,000 litres of Quebec maple syrup”, READ MORE You’ve got to love the writer’s at CBC radio, they actually use humor in their stories. Oh, and yes, go out and buy (not steal) some maple syrup from Brian down in Eagle Lake, Minn.

A recent New Yorker article gives a great overview of the current state of our understanding of cave art, remarkable stuff:
After a visit to Lascaux, in the Dordogne, which was discovered in 1940, Picasso reportedly said to his guide, “They’ve invented everything.” What those first artists invented was a language of signs for which there will never be a Rosetta stone; perspective, a technique that was not rediscovered until the Athenian Golden Age; and a bestiary of such vitality and finesse that, by the flicker of torchlight, the animals seem to surge from the walls, and move across them like figures in a magic lantern show (in that sense, the artists invented animation).
Read more.

New work!

With all due respect to Grant Wood and his iconic painting, American Gothic, we put together a number of variations on this theme for a Photoshop compositing project at the Art Institutes Int’l. Everybody in the class did a marvelous job with this project, demonstrating original thinking, humor and technical virtuosity. Here are a few samples from the class:

Alex Carroll, Copyright 2009.

Belinda Kveen, Copyright 2009.

Carolyn Braun, Copyright 2009.

Trevor Ford, Copyright 2009.

Jesse Guzik, Copyright 2009.

Now that I’ve opened the pandora’s box of music, it’s going to be hard to stop. All of the Miles Davis fans know of this one, but if you haven’t discovered this yet…here you go. In this promo to the film, listen to the background music, that’s Miles. The soundtrack is fabulous, that is, if you’re into moody, noir sounds. This movie really has it all, cool soundtrack, noir cinematography, and even graphic design that looks to be Saul Bass.

I saw the Emerson String Quartet perform this Shostakovich piece in St. Paul, MN. The music is about war and conflict, and we were in throes of the bad period of the Iraqi war, so it was a powerful and moving experience. And, it made me want to go out and buy everything Shostakovich had ever done.

Other music…Glenn Gould

Recent drawing based on a Lascaux cave cow.

The Buffalo nickel was the object of inspiration for my first animal drawing in 2006. I had a cherished Buffalo nickel for a time, as a child, otherwise can’t really explain why I decided to draw the image on a particular day. And, for it to lead to the development of an entire series is mystifying and serves as a reminder to me to stay open to these inexplicable impulses (don’t edit them, over think them - just do it, and ask questions later), as they may lead to something…and, if not, so what?

This is a recent project for the local (Lake Superior) chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. It was great to work with an organization with such a strong environmental commitment. Here is their mission statement: “The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches. Founded in 1984 by a handful of visionary surfers in Malibu, California, the Surfrider Foundation now maintains over 50,000 members and 80 chapters worldwide.”

National web site: www.surfrider.org/

Stumbled upon this print by Leonard Baskin, always looking for parallels to what I am working on, I guess.

This is a recent abstract work, pastel and acrylic on board.

Picked up a nice book on Conrad Marca-Relli’s work.

This was a recent pro-bono project for a non-profit organization dedicated to mid-career professionals looking to find more meaningful work lives. They didn’t end up using my design, see the web site they chose here: shiftonline.org