color and light One Good Thing One Creative Thing Day 5

One Good Thing: Watching the sunrise over breakfast.



One Creative Thing: [Written at the library yesterday]

I have to admit I hate crayons. Even as a child I hated then. their colors are dull and they never stay sharp enough. I clearly remember repeatedly trying to color shapes only to find the crayon drawing on the other side of the line. I know that there were kids in my class who could color perfectly, their lines were never crossed and when they filled in shapes the colors covered evenly with all the strokes going in the same direction.

After crayons we were introduced to colored pencils, 12 color boxes of Prisomcolor to be exact. While I could sharpen the point as much as I wanted the colors were still bland, no matter how hard I pushed. I craved the streaks of vibrant colors as much as I wanted to create the images in my head. But I was still sloppy and would get in trouble for not following the directions (remember this was just lower school). I tried, I really did, but my hands just couldn't move the pencils as delicately as the projects called for.

At home was a different story. Here I had my father's old watercolors that I would spend my Saturday mornings painting with rather than watching cartoons (the TV was in my parents bedroom). I remember years of painting little landscapes on scrap paper. I would create them with repeated lines; obsessing over the exact tone of the ocean, the sand, the clouds above. Each of them would be tiny worlds that I could enter. Around that time I was reading the Secret Garden and was enamored with the Scottish Moors. I drew scene after scene of what I thought those moors would look like.

When I had painted the pans empty my father would take me to the neighborhood art store to choose a new set. He was adimant that I use "real" paints not the flashy kids ones (whose flash was in the packaging not the paint). In the end I would usually come home with a yellow enamel box of Pelikan paints, the same sort I used all the way through college. My father never studied art or teaching but he knew what he liked to look at enjoyed reading about art. If he was going to have to hang the pieces that I did up then he wanted to like what he was looking at. In his mind this meant that I should have the supplies that would give me the best chance of taking the idea from my mind to the paper.

It was during these hours alone in his shop that I would play with the brushes, pigments and water, learning how each of them worked. While my princesses stood out as sloopy among the giant crowds of homogenious royalty that hung in the hallways of my school at home, with the watercolors my work was delicate.

The difference was simple; at school I was limited to choosing the colors and perhaps a little pattern while at home I was free to paint as I pleased for as long as I wanted to (or not at all). At school we were each handed a box of scented markers (at least these were vibrant) that no adult would pick up. At home I was given real supplies, pencils and paints that I would still use today. In retrospect there was no question about where my real art making was going on but at the time I sure I must be the worst artist in the world because I couldn't get my flowers to look just like the girl who sat next to me in class (who by the way was always weatring matching Benneton socks and shirts).

I knew. I knew not to stop what I was doing at home, in some ways I couldn't. I felt it when my father would take me for long Saturdays of walking from gallery to gallery in SoHo and I knew it when we would spend entire days in a single wing of the Met. I could see it in the modern paintings and I could see it in the cases of African masks. So I didn't stop. After each of these days out with my dad I would come home and try my hand at what I had seen.

Even now when I return to visit my father and find relics of my childhood art around the house. Its survival over the past three decades is not sentimentality, although that I am his daughteris part of it, they are all pieces that he felt were beyond my age when I created them. He knew it then and despite himself has directed me in this direction. I always find it amusing when I hear about parents who brought their children up to be doctors or lawyers and I respond that I was brought up to be an artist.

At this point it is up to me. If I really want to be this artist that I can be I have to work at it put in the time and space. Otherwise I am jut another person who messes around with paint.

Creative Streak

There is a creative streak going on in this house lately. It took a while to come to me but I've finally gotten back into the swing of it. Here are some of the projects I've been working on.











1) Watercolor 2)Watercolor 3)Holiday card design 4) Holiday card design 5) Elephant pants 6) Elephant skirt.

Studio Inspiration

Spaces click here for flickr credits




Moods click here for flickr credits

Sketching

I haven't been able to get into my studio to make anything in weeks. Actually it's half in boxes and the rest is strewn everywhere. So I decided to take my creative energy and start sketching again. I haven't had a sketch book since before Alder was born. The nice thing about a sketchbook is that I can take it along. So while A is in the sandbox I can draw (I'm not exactly a playground socialite).








On the cost cutting front so far we've baked one loaf of bread and the only food purchased out was a cup of coffee and a brownie (I was working at a late night fair downtown last night)

American Edible

An amazing women's theater group. I miss seeing them live. Here's a bit about the food we eat.

Art and Cratf part 1 Art

[Thanks to Abi for letting me use her computer and play with the chickens]

A few weeks ago as I sat in a figure drawing workshop waiting for the model to arrive I was talking to the woman sitting next to me. She is ninety and has been an artist since she was eighteen. Still she makes her way up the four flights of stairs in an old factory building to her son’s studio for our weekly workshop. She was telling me the story of their home on a hill in New Jersey. When she and her husband were looking for a house they drove around the area and he sat in the car with the kids while she checked out the house, if she liked it he would come up and check the yard. That was it, they chose a house that way and bought it on the spot and stayed there for over thirty years.

She talked about how the house was perfect for raising boys, which she had three, with a field in the back and the combined open space with the neighbors they could wander freely. She credits the space where her children could watch the living world what helped two of her four children to become artists. The garage was turned into a studio for her where she would paint and draw all day. Often her husband, also an artist, would come home and look in at what she was working on and tell her that it had been the same thing as what he had been working on that same day.

The conversation drifts from art to music to a discussion of ways of increasing the amount of people who come to our workshop. Right now it is small six or seven people at most (I am the youngest by at least forty years), the problem they have is that when they advertise people show up expecting instruction and the members aren’t there for that, they come together to pay for the artist (and I think for all of us it is nice to get out of the daily routine).

The model comes in and we talk with her a little while about poses and timing and then we draw. There was something particular about that model that was very calm; I found that I did not want to use any gesture lines only smooth shadowing and contour lines. My choices were all about what I wanted the sketches and drawings to look like. I spent the entire three hours discovering what sort of line embodied this woman. There was no purpose to what I was doing beyond the image I was creating; I was creating a piece of art.

After an hour the model is done and I am walking down to my car I feel a buzz of energy, I have spent the last two hours working on one single drawing. I felt as though I had just started and there was so much more that I had to do to in that drawing. But it was late and I was tired, despite the buzz of energy. I drove home scarcely listening to the news on the radio even as news of the cyclone was still new.

I take the time once a week to draw the human body not because I want to eventually do large oil paintings of people; in fact I haven’t done an oil painting since college. I draw from life because as I learn the human body I begin to be able to see the world better. To understand how to put other things down on paper in ways that makes sense to my eyes. Like so many other things in my life I know I need to understand myself, or at least my form, to understand the rest of the world.

Even if a lot of my pieces are abstract I still use what I know from figure drawing to create it. For me all of my pieces are all about finding the balance on the page. When I am working on a collage it is almost like a puzzle to find where each piece belongs with in the balance of the page and the feelings I want to express on it. To me this is art, using a visual medium to create a balance in a specific space.

Of course a specific space does not need to be limited by the edges of a piece of paper. When Christo put up his Gates project in New York’s Central Park he was doing the same thing, limiting his space and creating an emotion with it. To be sure his works have more dimensions because not only do they deal with the visual effect of the pieces but also with the human elements of people interacting with them. Each artist creates these parameters for their works.

The boundaries of art are not limited to the visual, but I can not speak about them with much personal experience (I have already talked about writing quite a bit in this blog). What I understand about the creation of art is that it is a relationship one that leans as much on emotions and imagination as it does on technique. I remember being told in college that a piece of art work is never done but I do not believe this; sometimes it is possible to find the balance and then, if you leave it alone, you are done.

Here is a list of some of the artists who have been inspirations to me for a long time. I am not including any artists that I have discovered lately because I have not sat with them long enough to be influenced, regardless to my attraction to their art.

Sonia Delaunay

Georges Braque

Jasper Johns

Alexander Calder

Faith Ringgold

SALE!!!

In an effort to start anew in all of our creative activities in our family I decided that part of the process would be to make room for more of our own goods so our shop will be having a sale on all kids toys and clothing this weekend 30% off.

Also everything in my etsy shop is 20% off!!!!

Here's to cohesiveness and beauty!!

Studio Work

I've been remiss in showing what I've been up to in the last few weeks, partially because I haven't done a lot. So here are a few of the projects that I have been working on.

These are the first set of silk screening images. At first they were just going to be t-shirts but I think I'm going to print some on wood as well.


Cattails


Father and Son


Abstract


A Knitter Among the Crowd


I've also been trying to use up a lot of the scrap material I have around and these homes started to appear in my mind, I'd like to make enough to put on a banner.


This is kept me up late last night, it's my first big piece of work with linen and I really like the color combination, I'd keep it myself except our dinning room is full of red tones and it looks out of place. The Runner is up for sale in my etsy shop

Sketching

It's been unusually quite this past few days with the rain and other nasty weather. To pass the time when I'm at the shop I've been sketching a lot. It felt good just to draw and play with colors for hours on end.

I Feel So Official

My Studio

There has been some talk about how simple living and having a space of your own do not fit together. I have to disagree, simple living, when it comes to homes has to do with useful space. I have my own space because if I used shared space to work on projects the house would be a sea of fabric and paint. Instead I have a room where I work on my projects where they don't have to be put away for meals, and Alder isn't running off with spools of thread in the middle of my using them.

I try to spend some time in my studio every night, it's my personal sanctuary. Sometimes I'm working on stuff but other times I'm just sifting through old pictures or reading my book. I end up staying up late when I get going on projects but somehow losing a few hours of sleep to be creative balances out.

The room itself is a work in progress, it gets to new levels of organization and chaos depending on the day. Today we are having guests who haven't seen the place since it was still in boxes so they will want a tour, so I spent last night cleaning. I took this opportunity to take pictures and I thought I'd put them here to remind me what is under the piles when I get frustrated.

28 Days Wood Prints

One of the things I plan on doing more of when we are in Vermont is printing. I had to put away my print making stuff when Alder was born. Between the sharp blades and the fumes it seemed like a bad idea with baby. In our new place I am going to have my own space with a window for ventilation some I can start up again. Until then I get inspiration from a few different artists.

Nikki Mcclure

Mary Azarian

Eric Drooker
open books and then Flood and watch the sequence.

Sonia Delaunay-Terk

Daphne Taylor

Inspiration

Amy and Trish 2005
Originally uploaded by Ink Spots.

I was sitting working on another sewn cover for a book thinking about how exciting and satisfying it is to work on projects like this and to finish them (not always my strong suit). But over the past few years I have been inspired by these two women to focus on my projects. It isn't anything they have said to me just the example that they have set for me. But they aren't just tireless artists they are amazing women who I love spending time with. They have become some of the people who I have connected closest with in Denver. I will miss them a lot when we go. But they are the sort of friends that don't disappear because of distance.

note: a year ago trish stopped smoking but the picture is one of my favorites so I had to use it.

Day 3: Museums

From Spring Break ...

Santa Fe must be a great town to bike around when it is warm enough. As it was the weather had turned cold and windy after lunch but we decided to walk up the hill to the museums. Some of the museums in Santa Fe are in a complex called Museum Hill, this also includes two research facilities.

While Mary went to the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art we went over to what we thought was going to be an anthropological museum. That building ended up being a research center. I wished I had had something to research. The idea of sitting along the windows deep in reading some text thrilled me. Unfortunately Alder is not quite into long library stints unless there are a lot of board books to chew on.

So we went to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. It was interesting but the whole thing was low lit and it made both Alder and I squirmy after the first hour. Luckily we found a great children's exploration room filled with lots of foam blocks made to look like adobe. While Alder enjoyed himself climbing through piles I imagined being there with an older Alder, wondering what his interests would be at four, seven even sixteen. Kevin was enthralled by the exhibits that covered history and daily life.

On an amusing side note the bags of flour they used for the exhibit were from the mill in Cortez where we used to get our flour. I still have one of the Blue Bird bags waiting to find a use for it.

Our next museum was the International Museum of Folk Art. This was the best part of the trip to me. The permanent collection of work was a little overwhelming. There were hundreds and thousands of pieces from all over the world especially many miniature figures of religious ceremonies and village events. A great deal of this collection was Mexican and the bright colors were a welcome contrast from the low light of the first museum.

The exhibit that I really connected with was called Variations. It grouped items not by country but by what they were. This meant that you could look at twenty different masks from all over the world and see the continuity of the human experience. The exhibit got me thinking about the artists in this country who use the vocabulary of these other cultures to make their art. Rather than acknowledging that there could be an American culture they go outside to find a cultural form to use. I understand the draw of this, the Mexican colors or Japanese starkness are both intoxicating. But these artists not only take the methods but the experiences as well.

These artists may be having fun playing in these forms but I do not think that they are really making art from the soul or heart. Yes the folk process involves taking elements from others but they should be taken and incorporated into the artists own experience. It should be form that is "borrowed" not experience.

The exhibit itself only fueled my want to work on my print making. I am trying to use images that I am finding in an old family photo album as a starting point to make art that is about me and what I have experienced in life. Who knows where it will all go.

Frida Kahlo

Kevin and I watched Frida last night. For Kevin it struck on the interest in the process of art making and how that often gets lost when you are looking at art and discussing it. Frida Kahol's paintings are intense emotional pieces stemming from her own life. She did not create them for the art critics and historians to dissect. They were created because she had to create them for herself. Yes the topics were of more universal appeal than she would have thought but that only served to benefit her.

The whole conversation got me thinking about imitators. People who are struck by her artwork do it an injustice by copying her style. If they were to truly emulate her they would focus on being true to their own internal monologue. There have been times that she has inspired me to try self portraits but the outcomes have nothing to do with her actual paintings. I couldn't copy her because my experience in life is different.

What I find in her paintings is a sense of strength and vibrancy. This site is a "biography" of Frida Kahlo using her paintings to tell the story. http://www.fbuch.com/fridaby.htm I come away from them with a feeling that one must do not just think about doing. Life is present and if you are an artist you should be making art not just talking about making it.

Yesterday I cleared my art table and I look over there right now and can see the project I am working on. I don't feel spiritually connected to Kahol but my respect to her, as with the other artists whose work I like, would be in creating my own honest work.

The Big and the Heavy

You'd figure that since we know were moving that we would stop acquiring new heavy furniture but this in the last few days we've picked up a few things.

On Friday we went up to Boulder for a change of pace. Every time we go we have it in our minds that it will be different. But it never is, the town is a mixed message of environmental spiritual peace and mass consumerism. I'm torn which annoys me more, the trustifarians walking the streets asking for money or the fact that the Pearl Street Mall that touts itself as a unique small town place is filled with the same stores as the malls. We try ever six months to like Boulder, but we can't.

However, there are somethings that you can find in Boulder that we occasionally need. This time we were heading to the bookstore, a book on Native American Healing (I'm still not sure what it's for but Kevin made a persuasive argument that it was useful for some sort of acupuncture crossover), and to Two Hands, the paper store (I was hunting for small vellum envelopes). Kevin found his book, after an hours search with a fussy baby, hungry wife and having to lug the stroller up and down the stairs a few times. I however only found things I didn't need at the paper store.

Once again Boulder was turning out to be a disappointment. After regaining some of my sanity through eating lunch at Mountain Sun, including a surprisingly good tasting espresso stout, we headed back to the car. Walking back past the paper store we saw one of their old paper display shelves out on the side walk with a FREE sign on it. How could I not.

With much effort from Kevin we moved what must have been at least 200 hundred pounds of wood on to the top of the car and got home with out the roof caving in.

From Art shelf

Our second find of the weekend has a larger impact on our life. We bought a crib from Craig's List for 75 dollars. We trekked down to Centennial to pick it up. The family had not dismantled the crib yet so Kevin did while mom corralled her two children and the 'step son' played the guitar. The ride back up home we enjoyed making up the story of this family's life.

From Art shelf

I was a little afraid what Alder's first night in the crib would be like but I had no reason to, the boy already sleeps anywhere. The crib's in our room so the only real difference was that I had to stand up to hand him a bottle.

As for the night sleep I think we all like this arrangement better. It's a little sad that his warm little body isn't bumping up against me all night long. But Kevin does his best to fill the gap and he doesn't pee in the bed.

On Being Domestic

Bread

The kitchen captured me today! I've been cooking and baking all afternoon. I baked four loaves of bread. I like this recipe for it's ease but I'm getting a little tired of the flavor so it's time to branch out. Still the act of making bread is one of the most centering in my life. I love how it smells like bread as the gluten forms and how it sighs when I punch it down.

It wasn't just bread that I made to today. Decided to make a nice dinner for Kevin, since he made homemade pasta last night. Stufato di Agnello alla Vino Blanco (lamb), Saffron Couscous, a Fennel and Onion soup, and bittersweet choclate pudding. Sounds like a lot of work but it actually only took an hour, except for whisking the pudding. Not bad for throughing something together with what is around the house.

Cooking, like reading, is something that I approach as a completely personal experience. I may be cooking for a group of friends or myself; either way it is the act that is satisfying. Back when I lived by myself I would make nice dinners for one, now that I have someone else to offer it to I give it as an act of love.

The comparison to reading is far reaching. Like cooking no two people read the same written piece the same way. As a child my father read to me the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books every night. I loved the sense of adventure and place that Tolkien created. In high school I discovered that most people I met who had read the books looked at them in a very different manner they saw them as magic and war oriented. Neither view was wrong.

Cooking is the same way, many people may make a soup but none bring to it my expectations of both the outcome and the experience (I'm guessing most don't think this much about it). I on the other hand revel in the soup. I love the chopping of the ingredients, watching the onions turn from white to transparent, listening to the pot ask for more liquid, and the smells that infuse the house. I love knowing when to push the heat and when to use time. Of course I love the eating of the soup but not as much as creating it.

I watch other people cook, ones who enjoy it, they follow recipes milligram to milligram, or they have different spices. The experience seems nothing akin to mine although they still love what they are doing, their enjoyment does not seem to come from the same thread as mine. Then there are those rare occations when I meet someone who approaches the kitchen the same way I do, my husband included, and I feel as though I have found a soulmate.

On a seperate but equally domestic note. I don't usually get giddy about inanimate objects except art and books but I was down right giddy yesterday when Kevin came home with Alder's new cloth diapers. We've easily spent the cost of the new diapers on disposable ones in the two months we've waited for them. Yes I love them for environmental and economic reasons but my main reason for love is that disposable diapers give Alder a rash. He's been in the new diapers since last night and the rash has vanished. So while I can where my Earth Mama badge again for having him in them I'll know that I'm also making the little bug more comfy.

Design and the Changing World

For a final day in New York my Dad, Alder and I went to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum for Design Life Now, the peoples choice triennial . Alder amazes me in his ability to stay calm for long periods of time. We spent over an hour in the exhibit and I only stopped once to feed him. His patience allowed me to really enjoy the exhibit.

While there were many pieces that I liked as well as many I didn't what really excited me about the triennial was the breadth of what was represented. It really spoke to the the ways in which our culture is changing and being changed by technology. Years ago the Triennial focused primarily on objects and architecture but with the advent of the Internet and the new focus on individuals designing for themselves the exhibit has grown to include video games, communal blogs, and magazines such as Ready Made and Make. Because of the interactive nature of design of today forms are now becoming more accessable and in many cases more whimsical.

The piece I found the most disturbing was a training "game" for the military but I understand why it was included. "Today, with much of the U.S. military’s work, such as peacekeeping missions, happening away from the battlefield, soldiers need greater skills and training in diplomacy and decision-making. To accomplish this, ICT creates synthetic immersive experiences that are so compelling, the participants often react as if they were real." The similarities to the new Will Wright (creator of SimCity) game Spore
was eerie. Life and fantasy are coming closer and closer together. Not a reasuring idea when it involves our military's orders in Iraq.

Mass MOCA, and Our Own Performance Piece

Mass MOCA Mill views

Sunday Sarah, a friend of hers who came up for the weekend, and I went to Mass MOCA in the rain. I enjoyed Ahistoric very much.

"At a time when the very idea of history seems under siege - by governments grown forgetful, by media which assaults already shortened attention spans with ever tighter news cycles, and by historians themselves, who are provocatively re-interpreting long held truths - artists are exploiting the material of history to shape and give new meaning to the present. Ahistoric Occasion spotlights the growing interest in historic reenactment and revision in contemporary art.

Artists include: Paul Chan, Jeremy Deller, Peggy Diggs, Felix Gmelin, Kerry James Marshall, Trevor Paglen, Greta Pratt, Dario Robleto, Nebojsa Seric-Shoba, Allison Smith, and Yinka Shonibare"

The other exhibit was a retrospective of Huang Yong Ping's work. Like most retrospectives that I have seen I am always a little overwhelmed by the quantity of work from one perspective. Mass Moca was an appropriate museum to house the exhibit it because the amount of large works in the show. Of all the pieces the Traveling Guide for 2000-2042 and his 108 Cards were the pieces I felt most connected to. The House of Oracles, both the name of the exhibit and a specific piece gave me a different sort of thrill. The piece included a shepard's tent as it's location and I fell in love with the idea of a studio in a canvas building; where the light and the weather is both immediate and kept away. While I enjoyed some of his pieces I felt as though I was looking a remnants from a lot of performance pieces.

We headed back to the house in Plainfied for my father's ribs. Iris, Richard, AManda and Margret had babysat Alder all day while we were at the museum and when we arrived he was asleep on the floor in the midst of all the noise.

Our neighbor Irene and her son David came over to meet Alder, I haven't seen Irene in a few years and David in almost twenty. I remember when his son Daniel was born, now he's married. I forget how much I love talking with Irene. When we usually come to visit I'm too rushed to sit with her and talk. She always tells the most interesting of stories about growing up in ALabama and her life as an opera singer. I need to remember to visit her when we are back in April.

Eating ribs at my dad's house is a performance piece of it's own. The meal always starts with people trying to be polite about how they are eating. It's a battle of wills quickly won by the ribs themselves. Those who attempted to use silverware to eat them quickly revert to the finger method. As the meal comes to an end everyone takes their bones to the fire place and throws them in and we watch them burn.

Ribs

Brooklyn

Brooklyn with Alder in Jan 2006

When I'm going out for the day in a city, be it Denver, New York or someplace I don't know as well I prefer to just get started and then figure out where I'm going. It seems that otherwise planning ends up taking most of the morning. With that in mind Alder and I boarded a 1 train this morning. We decided to go to the Brooklyn Museum to see the Annie Leibovizt exhibit.
I never thought that her photos were exceptionally artful but a lot of people had been talking about the exhibit. I was surprised that when you got past the Rollingstone cover art her work was great. I would have liked to stay longer and look at one wall that was covered with snapshot sized pictures, a time line of her work but Alder was more interested in the larger work, I don't think he can really conceptually grasp photos when they are that small yet. But we did spend a half hour in the exhibit which is pretty long for a baby. Of course most of the time he spent flirting with women who had come to see the exhibit.

The other special exhibit was Ron Mueck's sculptures. I had seen a small one before but this exhibit had both small and huge. I'm not sure I liked them as art work but I loved the disconcerting feeling I had being around these life like sculptures that seem to be in mid-movement. I expected to see them exhale or move slightly. The rest of the museum was disappointing, but I don't regret paying to see the Annie Leibovitz show and the Ron Mueck one also.

After the museum we walked through Prospect Park to Park Slope to wander a bit. In high school a lot of my friends lived there and I love wandering around there, but I haven't been in fifteen years so it was all new to me. The last time I was there it was still a little rough around the edges. Now it's like the Upper West Side was in the early eighties.

The park itself was great, the trails were more wandering than those in Central Park or City Park even though all three were designed by Olmstead. There is even the last remaining forest in Brooklyn in part of it. More than either of the other parks this one has hills and winding paths, much of it reminded me of the Brambles in Central Park. Alder's opinion of the park probably focuses on the swing in the play ground and the fact that I stopped him from eating the rubber mats that cover the ground (some how eating the playground itself seemed like a bad idea).
The Park Slope neighborhood felt so comfortable to me. Not that we could afford it but all these different areas of Brooklyn that I've been to lately is making me think that I might add Brooklyn to the list of possible places to move to. I'm not sure what Kevin would say but I can at least put it on the list.

Dinner 1

On a side note Iris Amanda and Dan came over for Vietnamese food tonight. This was the first time Dan has seen his nephew.

Stacey