Look, See

Two

Two, 2005, HTML, 520 x 448 pixels

Qinglü set framed

These just back from the framer, to be sent for October group show to be announced soon:

Qinglü (Blue & Green), 1-5, 2005, Pencil, watercolor & ink on paper, approx. 8.75 x 6.75" each

One from this set, don't mind the reflection:

Thanks to Kim Smith for her help with the framing. Take a look at Kim's excellent collages.

Around the house

Around the house: two paintings by Ann (left, ca. 1982), two drawings by me (right, 2005 and 1979).

This is a drawing of my sister, Tobi, 1979, about 8 x 10 inches, in a frame I made for it.

Three

Three, 2005, HTML, 394 x 376 pixels

Guitar recordings

A couple of fellow artist webloggers have posted their own music- Tom Moody and Douglas Witmer. I thought I'd post a few very ragged little recordings of me on guitar, not that these are even in the same league of production as Tom and Douglas.

I haven't recorded in quite awhile. These are all a year and a half to two years old. All recorded with an inexpensive Sony lavalier mic on an IBM laptop. Sound quality is poor. Multi-tracks are funky and low tech. I'm playing six string, twelve string, and tenor guitars and some mandolin here and there. These are all simply little snippets.

1. These files were named after I listened to them on playback. Each has a mood that I thought was labled pretty easily, almost cliche-like, hence the titles.
• Driving-Rhythm-22sec.mp3 404k
• Empire-Majestic-24sec.mp3 378k
• Langorous-Pastoral-37sec.mp3 675k
• Reggae-Brunch-44sec.mp3 889k
• Romantic-Wagonwheels-48sec.mp3 848k
2. Recorded for Rudolf's Diner, Issue Seven, Green, Spring 2004
• Green1.mp3 573k
• Green2.mp3 913k
• Green3.mp3 642k
3. Jamming at a house in the country, ca. October 2003, using a multi-track digital recording software called n-Track. Warning: I'm listening to and playing along with previous tracks played back over a little earphone plugged into one ear, which is hard to do- hear me go wildly off the beat and try to recover. There is enough here I like with the mandolin that's worth listening to.
   • GuitarandMando.mp3 1.2m
   
   

Four

Four, 2005, HTML, 404 x 344 pixels

Five

Five, 2005, HTML, 322 x 622 pixels

Pollock at Met and MoMA

I saw two Pollocks in NY in May that made me realize I've never given him his proper due. Sure, everyone admires Pollock, but I felt that his work was very uneven, that the drip paintings was something he stumbled on and couldn't sustain, and I really don't like much of his early, more Surrealist-influenced work. However...

On Wednesday, May 18, I saw Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, at the Met:

On Thursday, May 19, at MoMA I saw One: Number 31, 1950:

These paintings are very much about the body being the center of gesture- the lines show Pollocks reach, his rhythm, and although large are really about human scale; because they are made with the whole body we see them with the whole body.

Seeing these two paintings two days in a row was a revelation. You can see how there was nothing before like them, and how influential they are. These two paintings show Pollock in a perfect groove, on top of every bit of the surface, knowing how to hold back, act, and stop.

Newman and Rothko at MoMA

Still more from the May NY trip-

Barnett Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis at MoMA: this is how you look at the painting- sit a bit, walk across the front of it, get really up close, stand back. I hadn't seen the painting for a very long time. If you spend some time with it, get really up close, move across the front of it, the zips set up pauses in the surface that your body reacts to. You become very aware of your body and its relationship to the field of color. At times, it's very much the feeling of looking at, say, Half Dome, but without the specific landscape getting in the way- it's a feeling of nakedness, of things stripped down, of your own breathing.

My time walking past the Newman made me see a yellow and red Rothko in the same room in a new way...

All this time I thought the white lines through the red middle were painted, but they're not, they're scratched into the paint. It looks like the scratches were made with a large brush hande or, maybe more likely, a flat screwdriver; the edges of the paint along the scratches make it look like a screwdriver or very small flat palette knife. In order to make these lines Rothko had to stand in the middle, arm out, and walk to the edge at either left or right, pressing in and pulling those lines across. If you walk along and follow those lines it's like you're the one making them along with Rothko.

Mondrian at MoMA

More May NY trip photos: a treat to see so much Mondrian in one place. Look at how the bars wrap around the edges or stop a centimeter or two from the edge. The black bands are like channels in fields of white. Early on Mondrian took a unique approach to the frame- he'd put a band of white painted wood around the painting, say, and then another flat panel back behind the stretcher, and then maybe a thinner band sticking out from the edge around like a flange. It shows that he had thoughts about how to read his paintings- he painted the edges, the frames lifted the canvas off the wall, the painted edges and the channels of black give the surface a depth.

Everything is handmade, just beautiful. Mondrian's are not flat planes, not designs. He considers the entire object.

Recently I went to a party at a condo that had been remodeled by a guy with a lot of money. No detail in the whole place didn't have money thrown at it. He was especially proud of his "Mondrian" bathroom- white tiles on the walls with black bands running through, red, yellow, and blue porcelain. The bathroom was no closer to a Mondrian than a 60's dress with black bands and red, yellow, and blue rectangles. Here's a guy who thinks he's very cultured, but the result was offensive and completely missed the point of Mondrian. He'd obviously never really looked at a Mondrian.

Matisse, Gelman Collection, Met

Another photo from the May NY trip- this is a wonderful 1951 Matisse, Platane (Plane Tree), ink and gouache on paper. Fast and direct- Matisse is making cutouts at this time, working on the drawings for the tiles, windows, and chasubles for the Vence Chapel. This is from the Gelman Collection at the Met.

Manet's Boating

Manet's Boating at the Met. See following cheap digital camera pics from the May NY trip- look at the paint and the strokes. Little details, small things, the artist's hand- that's what makes the paintings. Paintings are handmade. I wrote about Manet's The Dead Christ and Angels not long ago:

...you go up and you see, and you look at his other paintings, and in some ways, if you read the paint, he's telling you pretty directly that painting is a means to representation and that there are lots of shortcuts to it. The paint is like tempera- you know when pre-schoolers stand at their little easels and cover sheets of paper with tempera paint, and it just goes on and covers and colors and has this strong presence, very direct? That's the paint in this painting. It's just such a straight shot from his brush. There isn't a lot of messing around; well, there probably is some fussiness, but it doesn't show. And to get even more direct, look at the dark outlines around the hands- he's really drawing with the brush with such confidence, just like our young pre-schooler would outline an object.

Malevich at MoMA

More May NY photos- these two by Malevich are just so powerful. Neither is probably higher than twenty inches, and they're both just so human- the surfaces and edges of the paint tremble with the presence of their maker; so vulnerable, just oil paint on fabric- they breathe. And the space in both paintings... you just soar. What's wonderful is the space between these two, one above the other. You come upon these in a large room- Duchamp is at one end of the room, then walk to the other end of the room, past a window looking out on 53rd St, and there are these two, waiting to pull you in and take off.

Clyfford Still at the Met

Tyler Green
posted about Clyfford Stills at the Met. Here's some shots from May, but I avoided
the David Smith in the middle of the room. These Stills are unlike anything typically
hanging at SFMoMA at any time- smaller, a different touch (not quite the same
feel of the palette knife), and that orange and green is unlike any Still I've
ever seen, and I've see plenty.

It seems that few people like Still- many are indifferent, many hate his
work. But I think they're missing something. You have to hang out with them,
to walk in front of them, to stand close and look up and across the surface.
Still was indifferent to us, I think, and his paintings are kind of stoic.
It's kind of corny to talk about the heroic situation of the lone viewer confronting
the terrifying void. Blah, blah, blah. On a good day, a good Still can do
that.