Filed under: Drawing, Fleeting thoughts..., painting, Photography | Tags: art, artist, drawing, Fitchburg Art Museum, Georgia O'Keeffe, museum, painting, still life, visual art
I know…I know…it’s been TWO WEEKS since I last posted. Sigh. Things are just so busy. Hopefully, to make up for missing the past two Fridays, this post is an image-filled extravaganza, so hang onto your triple espresso…(and get me one while you’re at it! Make it a decaf though…I have plenty of self-induced stress, so I don’t need to rely on caffeine to put me in a state of hysterics…)
So, my big news is that the group show that I’m participating in (Still Life Lives!) opened last week at the Fitchburg Art Museum. WOO HOO! I was thrilled to see some of you come out to see it. Thank you!!! I totally appreciate the time and energy it took to head out there. I hope that everyone found it worthwhile, as I think it’s a very interesting show.
Elizabeth Kostojohn, Nameless Problem #2 & #1, 2013
Here are two drawings from my new series! (Yes, that’s food.) I think that they looked pretty good. It’s hard not to panic when your work is on the wall. But, as I wasn’t wearing a name tag, I managed to calm down a bit…
Elizabeth Kostojohn, 6 drawings from Hurt & Damage series
These are more of my drawings! I’m happy to see them up. This show is kind of a big deal for me, as I’ve got two bodies of work up…never mind being amongst the super talented people that are also participating. I kind of wish that we had name tags, as I would have liked to have met some of the uber talented artists!
But enough about me…here is some of the AMAZING work that is up…
Emily Eveleth, Snake Eyes, 2000, Oil on Canvas
I wish I had a wall in my house big enough for this painting. It is stunningly beautiful. Eveleth’s mastery of oil painting captures the soft and sticky essence of her subject in an intense gaze. This painting alone is reason enough to come to the show. This painting is breathtaking and mesmerizing. It’s gorgeous even on this lousy computer screen. It will blow your mind in real life…
Mary Kocol, White Crabapple Blooming Branch, 2011, photograph
Kocol had several photographs from her Ice Garden series. These are AMAZING. In spite of being frozen, there is something very dynamic about these images. I think that’s particularly true of the images where you can clearly see the sky beyond. I keep thinking, “POW!” in my head. (Please don’t ask me to explain myself…I am neither a writer, nor an art critic…) So beautiful. I love it.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Untitled (Pink Camellia), 1935, Pastel
Oh yes…I forgot to mention that this show also features work from FAM’s permanent collection! Amazing, right? This work by O’Keeffe is in the same room as the Kocol photos…brilliant! It’s like rubbing elbows with celebrities!
Elisa H. Hamilton, An Apple a Day, 2013, Mixed media on paper
Hamilton has an amazing talent with color. Each of these drawings really pop with vitality. Please take a look at her website!!! I also love her drawings of domestic interiors and objects, especially “Vermont Studio Portrait.” Very impressive.
Cynthia Greig, Nature Morte no. 18, 2010, chromogenic development photograph
Okay. This is a PHOTOGRAPH. I kid you not. I believe that the artist paints everything white, and then actually outlines the objects with charcoal…THEN photographs it. My brain still can’t wrap itself around this. It’s so clean and beautiful! I’m amazed at her analog virtuosity.
Victor Schrager, Untitled #7 and #472, 2011, Pigment print
These gorgeous, saturated, soft focus still life photos are the work of Victor Schrager. I love the vivid colors and in focus/out of focus combinations. Amazing, right?
Kathleen Volp, Wan-Li RUMBLE and Still Life with Impostor and Wan-li, 2008, Mixed media, oil and aluminum on panel.
These pieces are enormous, glossy, and embossed METAL. No joke. Volp’s work always amazes me…it is always compelling, masterful in technique, and truly impressive. Please take a look at her website so that you can appreciate the range of work that she does. Mind-boggling…
Evelyn Rydz, Gulf Pile I, 2012, Pencil and Colored Pencil on Drafting Film
This is an AMAZING and delicate drawing. Rydz is my “drafting film god.” She and I both use pencil/colored pencil on drafting film. I bask in her drawing brilliance. Her work is so delicate and GORGEOUS. She often draws piles of objects that have washed ashore. I’m sorry that this is not a good photo…it does not do her work justice. I just checked her website, and it says that she is having a SOLO show at the MFA in 2014. So impressive!!! That is MUST SEE show. (I’m not kidding. Check her website. Mark your calendar.)
Mary O’Malley, Altar #4, 2010, Gold Metallic Ink on Paper
Ahhh…this drawing is SO beautiful. I am in such awe of O’Malley’s work. I was lucky enough to meet her at the reception. She is a lovely person. I hope I conveyed to her how much I love what she does. Her work is so timeless…it feels both historic and yet so contemporary.
Shelley Reed, Ribboned Flowers, Ribboned Fruit (after Mignon), 2010, Oil on Canvas
These paintings were really breathtaking. I love how dark and intense they are. I believe that she looks at historic works and then interprets them in her own artwork. Please check out her website. I pretty much want to own all of her work. Maybe if I eat ramen noodles exclusively for a year, I could swing it? Hmm. I’ll still need that fantasy house with enough wallspace, though…more noodles for me, I guess…
Janet Rickus, A Bird Painting, 2012, oil on canvas
Yes, that’s a painting…not a photo. Rickus’s work is hyper-real and beautiful. Beautiful composition…color…light…realism…I love it. Her work will definitely make your jaw drop. I feel almost like they are views into a gorgeous world that I WISH I could be a part of. The elements in the images are unpretentious, yet they are so perfect that they are still awe inspiring. I might have to get this for my house so that I can meditate upon it, and somehow be inspired to make my disaster-area home be marginally more lovely.
On this note, my son (5 yr old) has decided that we should make our house a museum. He doesn’t seem daunted by the fact that we have nothing museum-like in our house. I’ve told him that no one is going to want to come to see our “junk.” We joke about this. He’s still determined to do it, somehow. In fact, he’s trying to entice passersby with this “advertising” at the front of our house:
Yes. That says, “MUSEUMOPNEG TADAY.” Yes, I allow him to do this to our house. Yes, those are little purple flowers stuck to the tape for aesthetic effect. Oh but wait…there’s more:
He wants to make sure people understand that they are “WALCAM” to come in. And:
Just in case there was any doubt that we were “OPEN” or not…
If you do stop by to check out our “Museum”…please note that the mess inside is what this museum is actually all about. Imagine taking a Joseph Cornell box and shaking it vigorously…it kind of looks like that, but with more Lego. Just try not to trip on it all whilst taking the tour. Currently, we’re working out the “gift shop.” Brace yourself…
Filed under: Drawing, Fleeting thoughts..., painting | Tags: arts, godzilla, Kindergarten, Michele Lauriat, Middlesex School
Well, this is has been my son’s first week at kindergarten, and ALL IS WELL. No major disasters/meltdowns/hysterics. I haven’t gotten any disgruntled phone call from his teacher yet, so I feel that everything must be going FABULOUSLY. Hopefully, my child’s rather grouchy side (understatement) has somehow NOT surfaced. He’s kind of Jekyll and Hyde…sometimes the most loving, polite child…sometimes devil spawn. I struggle with the devil spawn side of him, especially when it comes out in public, or with friends. I feel like I should wear a t-shirt that says, “I know…I’m sorry!!!,” just to make up for all of the times that he’s rude/grouchy/unfriendly. Sigh. I think that I am starting to feel my gray hairs growing in. Is that possible?
But, I know…what’s not to love, right? That backpack is bigger than he is. So cute.
Lucky for me…he likes to make weird stuff, just like Mommy. Here are a couple of recent examples:
What are those bizarre creatures??? WHO KNOWS. They’re adorable, though. I must keep them. FOREVER.
Hilarious, right??? He decided that his Godzilla head needed a block body. I love this. So cool. What’s not so cool, however, is the pigsty that we call a living room. I clearly have no shame to be able to publicly post this picture with my living room as a clear disaster zone. I hope that those of you with kids will have some empathy for the tornado-like effect that 5 year olds have upon a household. Notice the empty 2 liter bottle in the plastic crate. That bottle is apparently part of one of his “creations”, and it cannot be thrown out/recycled. Sigh. So now we’re literally keeping trash along with our toys. Great. I feel like Sisyphus shoving this mound of toys/blocks/trash up a hill, only to have it come tumbling back down on me. Next time that happens, I’m just going to take a nap underneath it all…
I did manage to get out this week to see some art. WOO HOO! I went to see the work of Michele Lauriat at the Cornelius Ayer Wood Gallery at the Middlesex School in Concord, MA. Her work is STUNNING! Everyone should go check it out.
She does GORGEOUS, large scale paintings/drawings of natural scenes in an abstract way. The is an enormous amount of layering and mark-making. She tends to pull out certain parts of a painting into deeper colors and higher contrast as focal points. I could seriously have stood and gazed at this piece all day. It’s really so beautiful.
This painting is enormous. I’m sorry that this is not a great photo…(which is why you must go see it yourself). Her work totally sucks you in, as you become mesmerized looking over both the work in its entirety, and the amazing details.
Stunning, right? You can’t see it in this photo, but the darker area in the upper left is just amazing.
She also had some very interesting pieces that have an irregular silhouette. I wonder if she made a larger work…decided what was really capturing her attention in the work, then painstakingly cut it out as the finished piece? I LOVE IT. The beautiful and delicate edge to the paper is now part of the work as well, as opposed to being just a neutral boundary. So cool.
WHEN, not if, you decide to see this show…I’m going to give you some direction as to how to find it on campus. There seems to be only one main road into campus, which terminates into a large, one way loop. JUST BEFORE you start to enter that loop…look to your right. There will be a gap between two brick buildings. Walk between these buildings and go straight down a staircase. There will be a gray building in front of you. Enter that building through its far left door, and you’ll be there!
Well, I’ve decided that I’m such the super-mom, as I managed to get my kid to school with a healthy lunch AND visit some art this week. I’m ignoring your comments that I’ve forgotten about the living room. I’m just going to lie here underneath all of the junk and take a nap. Wake me when it’s 2:00 so I can: 1. pick up my child from school. 2. maintain my self-proclaimed title of “Super-mom” in spite of evidence to the contrary.
Oh, and if there is an annoying advertisement at the end of this post, I apologize. Looks like WordPress is going to sully my blog artistry with tawdry ads. Fascists! So be it.
Carry on…
Filed under: Fleeting thoughts..., sculpture | Tags: art, decordova, Jaume Plensa, Lincoln Massachusetts, Parks and Gardens, sculpture, Sol LeWitt, Tony Feher, turkeys, Visual Arts
This week, I took my five year old son to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA. I LOVE this museum. In spite of the fact that I had to keep saying, “AAAAAAA…DON’T CLIMB ON THAT,” I think he had a great time. He met some other kids and they spent a good amount of time climbing on some logs cut up from a fallen tree. I was wishing that I’d somehow brought a latte and a lawn chair, but no luck. They should rent those. (I mean the chairs, not the lattes…)
Okay Mountain, 4-Wheeler Rollover
This was the sculpture that I wanted my son to see. Hilarious, right? So awesome. The tire ruts in the ground are in a swirly/loopy path that noodles around until you reach the tipped over ATV. It just makes me laugh, for some reason. (I hope that doesn’t offend the artists…) It’s great to have this kind of thing in a place that’s rather highbrow…not that this art is lowbrow…(or Loenbrau…) but you know what I mean.
Tony Feher, The Nothing Before Something
Tony Feher currently has a solo exhibition at the DeCordova. I wrote about the show here. This is very striking…a brightly painted telephone pole. It’s like the Z axis…or a big stake in the ground…It makes me think of the astronauts putting a flag on the moon…kind of monumental.
Speaking of monumental…
Sol LeWitt, Tower (DC)
I like how pure this is. I kind of wish it was enormous…building sized…except that you can’t go in. That would be cool, right?
The next three works are all busts…so different, though!
John Wilson, Eternal Presence
I am SUCH a fan of his work. Gorgeous. He had a solo show at the Danforth, which I wrote about here. He is supremely talented and brilliant.
I’m kind of pondering the base, though. I think that they need to fill in the dirt around it so that we don’t see the rough bottom edge of the concrete. Thoughts? It kind of makes it look like an afterthought, or as if it could be moved anywhere, and isn’t properly rooted to it’s ground. Just my two cents. It’s a stunning work of art, though.
Jaume Plensa, Humming
I love how this is distorted and elongated. Don’t you love the title too? I think of the sound of Buddhist monks chanting a long “Om……” I like how this one is in the shade….seems right.
Joseph Wheelwright, Listening Stone
Fascinating, right? I don’t know whether to think his upper ear is listening, possibly to the sounds of nature or of my son’s yelling, or is he listening to the earth? Thoughts? Sometimes as a parent, I feel like my head’s made of stone and I’m not listening. Is that bad?
Aaron Stephan, Untitled (16 Cans)
You can see the silhouette of my son standing amongst this sculpture. It’s pretty minimal. It’s also kind of funny, because if you turn around…this is what you see:
No, that’s not part of the sculpture. That’s just a trash can. Don’t you love the DeCordova???
Besides this excursion, we also went to visit a friend who was renting a house on Plum Island. My son and my friend’s son had a blast generally running around and yelling. You know how it is, right? No? Well, you’re damn lucky, then.
Take a look at this RIDICULOUS dahlia we saw:
No joke.
Speaking of ridiculous, take a look at this turkey we saw at the same farm:
They are SO CRAZY looking. He really is like a big butterball. Sometimes, he would raise and fan out his scraggly tail feathers, like a moth eaten peacock. What an odd creature. I love the dark iridescent feathers on the main part of his body. I could do without the blobby snood. Look how freakish the domestic turkey is compared to the wild one:
Right???? If I was that wild turkey…I’d run, or rather fly, out of there STAT! It makes me think of these guys:
Run, Alice! RUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!!
slightly wonky 