18 posts tagged “vermont artist”
that if eyes were made for seeing,
Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow;
they neither toil nor spin,
yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these. (Matt. 6:28-29)
This painting is not yet finished, but it's far enough along that I feel okay about posting it. I had to get to where I at least liked it.
The goal was to create a painting that was excruciatingly beautiful; ridiculously beautiful. Shimmering sky, iridescent feathers, translucent petals. Yup. Ridiculously beautiful. Still work to be done, but it feels close.
Back to the palette and easel.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch,
you must first create the universe.
-Carl Sagan
For lunch we take a walk up to the ice- cream store, and have a picnic by the lovely swimming pool belonging to the Brandon Inn. Then we stop by the Inside Scoop, an ice-cream and antiques store, with cool toys, games, fascinating trinkets, Mexican folk art and fine antiques. Lots of inspiration to be found there, and great ice-cream too!
Not a bad way to spend a summer day!
This year the Brandon Artist's Guild's community project is titled "Starring Brandon" so we chose that for our Aartz theme as well. Large cardboard cut out sandwich board costumes, and some ingeniously engineered constructions will be part of the Fourth of July Parade. It's always so much fun to see what these fabulously creative minds come up with.
So very much has been consuming my energies for the last few weeks I have been sadly neglectful of this blog. A wonderful Kidz Aartz group spent a week with me making clay wind chimes & pins and acrylic paintings.
I've been working on the new website, which is COMING ALONG FABULOUSLY.
Writing a few proposals;
dealing with finishing up a round of commissions etc. etc.etc.
Finally have been able to allow myself a respite of color and canvas.
The Aegean Moon image is a long overdue project, that I'm very happy with. The creative process has allowed me to delve into memories of a fabulous experience in Greece a few years ago.
The painting is still unfinished, but most compositional aspects have been dealt with. The moon is now about a third of it's size in this painting, and I'm working on light and shadow...the drama of it all. the beach pebbles are much more colorful and ocean foam more believable. Celestial stage lighting.
to create sunshine
-Romain Rolland
I am yearning to be in a warm place, even though skiing in our sun-drenched Vermont woods was lovely today.
So I am painting sunflowers, continuing with the triptych that I have already begun. This morning I poured layers for the background of a new amarylis image. This one will be a pink flamingo with a pink amarylis.
Study in Pink.
Should be fun.
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time" Tolstoy
Here's the beginning- well, far from the beginning actually, but the first view that has any detail that can be discerned... At least I hope the petals of some of the sunflowers are visible. It's a triptych measuring 30" x 54" and is a long overdue commission. There are MANY layers of poured acrylic color in the background with luminescent and interference powders and emulsions, much of which will be completely covered with the dancing petals of the sunflowers. They will give the viewer a sense of seeing the sunflower against a magical night sky.I was challenged by a friend to blog this process.
So here goes!
Tennesee Williams
Tad Merrick has been my friend and photographer and my surrogate sibling for as long as I've been in Sudbury. It's great to work with someone who has a sense of humor that matches mine, for better or for worse. Tad is quirky in a way that I find ever so familiar. He's also the bass player in our band, the Sleeping Dogs. And in real life he's a great photographer.
Last week he and Louis Pattis, another photographer and good friend, came to photograph my show at Gallery in the Field. Louis is an amazing photographer in his own right, and also owns the Brandon Inn. He and his lovely wife Sarah have been a driving force for quality and progress in Brandon for many years as well.
The photo shoot was quite an undertaking.
I was amazed by the complexity of the set-up and the amount of energy and expertise that it took to do the job
It took several hours just to get the lights arranged for the over all shot. Then much of the next day to do individual images of each piece. 3D is more challenging than flat art because you have to decide which angles are important to show, which best represent the art work.
Thanks so much, Tad and Louis!
The planet spins, wheels turn on the highway and the calendar page flutters, hovering on the brink a new year.
Change is constant, change is imminent. The challenge is to choose change. Determine the most useful and constructive change, then enact that choice.
Since the opening at Gallery•in•the•Field on December 6, I have been immersed in the season. Friends & family; wrapping up classes at CSC and CCV; mailing boxes hither and yon across the country, etc. etc.
Now a wintry sun is about to set on my first quiet day at home in ages. In the past week and a half, our houseful of family has been inundated with swift and drifting snow, deluged with unseasonal, warm rain, beset with strong winds... The creek is brimming, perhaps about to flood, but with tonight's bone chilling cold that becomes less likely, and all visitors are home safely.
The forecast is snow and cold through New Years Eve, then sun on the first day of 2009.
My muse is shivering. She is in the process of re-grouping, re-vitalizing projects left bobbing in the wake of the show, preparing for the next semester, which will have a much better schedule than last. Very promising.
Time now for a cup of tea, and cozy retreat with the cats and my new book: Enclosure, by Goldsworthy. Yay!
Work while you have the light.
You are responsible for the talent
that has been entrusted to you.
-Henri Frederic Amiel
It has been quite an intense journey/labor of love getting the work to this point, but for some reason I've keep stretching out for the goal. Firing and re-firing kilns, mixing colors, trimming sponges and brushes, Adjusting and readjusting lights in the wee hours for accuracy. Sleeplessness. Life swirling around me in its normal tidal surge.
The absurdity of it does make one wonder about why artists do what they do. What is the passion/tenacity that makes me forgo sleep/normalcy/food/comfort to get the job done.
These are a few images from the show at Gallery•in•the•Field.
A very fun part was doing the drawings. Texture and color and luminescence thanks to interference colors, which radiate off the walls.
I am pleased with the installation of the show. The space is SO BEAUTIFUL. Warm, beautifully patterned floors and a soaring ceiling. There is a bit of danger. Precarious art is always alarming. The vessel drawings are new, and satisfying. A very nice surprise return to a familiar technique. Carved slab vessels. Nothing technically new, but like speaking French after years of not even thinking about it. The poetry and synapses and grammar are all there waiting to be aligned and burst into song.
Loving this new work. It has been a grueling grind preparing for this show. Teaching way too much, sleeping not enough. My hands are sandpaper from clay and paint, but it is energizing to watch the pieces grow, take them out of the kiln and bring them to life with color.
Have been working with a new clay that has less grog. It fires a resonant red color.
These two pieces are called Diva of the Canyon and Duet.
Why am I so driven to make these things?
to be at home wherever I find myself.”
Gallery Director Annie MacKay is currently presenting an exhibition of work by world renowned photographer/collage artist Rosamond Purcell. The drive over the mountain from Brandon was well worth it. Purcell is an articulate, deeply philosophical artist. She spoke of her artistic and scientific fascination with transition from the natural, to man-made and, through the process of decay, back to natural. She also addressed an artist's need to constantly self-challenge and grow.
Her compositions are richly textured, complex and fascinating. Museums and zoology labs around the globe have invited her to photograph their collections. Some of the photo-collages in this show were composed with diverse artifacts from World War I: medals, photographs, newspapers and books, treasures unearthed in a Maine landfill, which she writes about in Owls Head, On the Nature of Lost Things.
Texture, patina, detail, color and challenging questions.
Purcell composes and photographs these elements, or shoots them as-is. Technical photographic expertise serves as her palette, with the occasional assistance of termites (no, I'm not kidding) and time.
Another component of the show was a series of photographs from museums and laboratories throughout the world: museum specimens of all sorts.
I was particularly amazed by a photograph of a calcified passerine nest. Through a millenia-long, slow-drip of calcium-rich water it has turned to stone. The nest itself is as-found in the depths of a French cave. In the background, pale, fragile tissue creates a ghostly, other-worldly negative space, perfectly complementing the form of the nest. Having spent time climbing in caves immersed in paleolithic art in France, this link with truly ancient past resonates. Beyond any conceivable framework of time as we simple humans understand it, tiny hearts once pulsed within these eggshells. The ephemeral fragility of tissue could not be more opposite.
I had just purchased Purcell's most recent book Egg and Nest, having found it on Carel Brest Van Kempen's terrific blog, Rigor Vitae. (go there to watch time lapse photography of his amazingly detailed wildlife paintings and feast on his writings!)
I arrived at the opening with Purcell's latest publication firmly in hand in hopes of having her sign the book, which I'm glad to say, she did!
Copies of the book, and other writings by Rosamond Purcell are available at the gallery. Be sure to check out the website of Bigtown Gallery to read about Anni MacKay's wearable art, and their yummy selection of yarns.