Happy 90th Birthday Ellsworth Kelly!
a natblog: because there's too much stuff in my head keeping me up at night.
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
May 31, 2013
September 25, 2012
July 6, 2011
In Memoriam
Cy Twombly 1928-2011
My line is childlike but not childish. It is very difficult to fake... to get that quality you need to project yourself into the child's line. It has to be felt. (Cy Twombly)
My line is childlike but not childish. It is very difficult to fake... to get that quality you need to project yourself into the child's line. It has to be felt. (Cy Twombly)
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| Cy Twombly Tiznit 1953 |
February 8, 2011
Another Reason To Love The Internet
If you haven't seen the Google Art Project yet, you must! Vincent posted the link himself which compelled me to share it with as many people as possible. Being part of a museum exhibition design team, I love the opportunity to get a view of spaces I'm not necessarily going to get into soon.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
October 19, 2010
The Creative Process or....Not Again Part 1
"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. "
The creative process is a mystifying one.
To harmonize passion, inspiration, and opportunity is in itself an art, and it is- well… a bitch. As you know, If you consider yourself “creative” (whatever that may mean to you) there’s hardly a shortage of passion and inspiration. You also know, if you have what Zorba the Greek calls "the full catastrophe"- family, house, pets, that job thing, etc., the opportunity phase of the process tri-fecta is quite elusive. Trying to synthesize the “process” in your day to day life, requires an enormous amount of time obsessing and strategizing over the monumental task of having and balancing it all. Once you get to the place where “opportunity” strikes, you may find, at times (more often than not for yours truly) the door to self-doubt and fear opens. Leaving you (me) in crisis mode. More about this in an upcoming post.
I bring this up because I’ve been floundering to finish a photography project I began last winter. A project, that at the time, had a wonderfully organic, spontaneous beginning. It is an ambitious project, which I have been peripherally working on in very small doses over the past several months. With THIS winter beginning to sneak up on us, I’ve been obsessing yet again to finish the first phase of what I consider a grand body of work. A body of work that my friends, colleagues, and creative soul mates have been insisting I complete if I know what’s good for me. My friend- who I’ll call Jim- because it’s his name, has been lovingly nagging me about my progress. "Have you developed that f@#&ing film yet?? What are you f@#&ing waiting for??" He does this frequently, and being a catholic school survivor, I do find I respond fairly well to it. (If you have friends in similar situations take a page out of Jim's book. They need it!)
The topic of “the process” is one that voice in my head and I discuss a lot. I don’t think it's something that will ever really be figured out. I guess it’s why it’s called a process. We all have our own. We all respond to it differently. I guess the whole point is whether or not we respond.
Try to pick up at your library or local independent book store “Art and Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It has a reputation for being a little "self help-y" but it's actually an insightful, humorous look at what making art does to us.
May 11, 2010
Frank Frazetta
in my own skin was drawing. I loved to draw. I'd draw anytime,
anywhere, on anything.
I'd draw epic detailed pictures of knights and castles on my desk in math class. I'm proud to say I've served detention for my art!
One day, Robert Beck-fellow misfit and vandal brought in a couple of glossy paperback books on the art of Frank Frazetta. I nearly lost my mind! It was like seeing the Sistine Chapel ceiling for the first time!
It was the Renaissance meets Sci-Fi, meets Rock and Roll. I ran home that day and nagged my mother to take me to the book store to buy my own copies. I couldn't take my eyes off these epic images; the heroic figures, the moody landscapes, and the women!
Wow! I've never seen anything like it. Any of it. This was pretty heavy stuff for a twelve year old. What I think really amazed me most was the fact that a living person created this work. The closest I ever came to it was seeing pictures of church walls in Italy. For a twelve year old who loved art more than anything else, looking at these books was like going to church! Albeit church where the nuns were scantily clad, buxom heroines, wielding broad swords.
My love of Frazetta opened a whole new world to me. A world of books I may not had otherwise read; from Tolkien, to Bradbury, to Greek mythology.
For me, Frazetta was an introduction to art history, literature, and classicism all in one. Pretty heavy stuff for a twelve year old indeed!
Frank Frazetta passed away on Monday. He was 82. He was an icon. He made his art on his terms. It's how he made a very successful living. His art, though quite commercial, was masterful in every way-and for that I think he'll be most remembered. As I write this, next to me are the copies of those glossy paperbacks I escaped into thirty two years ago. Tomorrow I'm bringing them to work to show all my nerdy friends.
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