Midweek Meditation -- Churchill Style

Churchill Painting at the Easel, Simon Brushfield

"At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used neat."  ~ Winston Churchill

My last "Colorwork Meditation" (#13) focused on black.  I planned (and I still do plan) that my next "Colorwork Meditation" (#14) will focus on white.  

Funny thing is...  I have started that "colorwork"-post-to-be twice, and it still is not happening...  Truthfully, now that I have spent all that time searching for quotes on "white", I have found that a lot of them are actually quotes on "white and black" or "black and white".  And, many are not so much about art as about racial relations (which is understandable) but I do not remember this (at all) when searching for "black" quotes. 

(Maybe it's me and my searching?)

At this point, I would suggest that it does make a difference if you search for "white quotes" or "quotes on the color white" or even "artist's quotes on the color white". 

Funny thing is... when I last went searching... I came upon the above quote by Winston Churchill.  I never knew that Churchill painted.

That finding lead to this:  "Although he is best known for his service as prime minister of Great Britain during World War II, Churchill was also a painter and produced many works of art over his lifetime."

A Room at Breccles, Winston Churchill

Daybreak at Cassis, Winston Churchill

And then, I saw this: 

When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort, he simply replied,

"Then what are we fighting for?"

(Top) Image credit:  http://simonbrushfield.com/paintings-by-adolf-hitler-and-winston-churchill-the-art-of-war/churchill-painting-at-the-easel/ 

Churchill's paintings:  https://www.google.com/?trackid=sp-006#q=winston+churchill+artwork

A Spring Fling -- The Art

For the better part of three days during the week that followed the Spring Equinox, I was very lucky to join my sister while she was in New York on a business trip.

On Day 1 we were at the Guggenheim Museum, and I came home with these photos from that beautiful place.

 
It had been a good number of years since I last visited the "landmark" museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  The work of conceptual artist, On Kawara, was displayed throughout the central, spiraling part of the museum.  I won't try to describe On Kawara -- Silence.  Instead I will quote from the Guggenheim web page:  "Through radically restricted means, On Kawara’s work engages the personal and historical consciousness of place and time."  (That does sum it up very well in just one sentence.)

Day 2 (while my sister did her work thing) I walked to the Museum of Modern Art where I spent the morning trying to see as much as I could see.  It really was a lot!  I took pictures of a small fraction of what I saw.  Before starting to put this post together I realized that I did not know the names of much of what I photographed.  Happily, I did find some names at the MoMA website.

The Olive Trees ~ Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Bridge over the Riou ~ Andre Derain, 1906

The next three shots are from Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye.  This was a bright and colorful exhibit that made me happy.

The medium used in Crowhurst is "gouache on gelatin silver print".  It is an image of "the 'Crowhurst yew,' located on the grounds of a twelfth–century church and said to be over four thousand years old."  The image was rather breathtaking, and I found that "four thousand year" thing kind of mind boggling.

Crowhurst ~ Tacita Dean, 2006

I liked this pairing of two works of conceptual art.  I am sorry that I am not able to give you any names on these.  I do remember enough facts about them to safely say that both involved life, death and mortality.  I don't want to get anything wrong, so it's probably best that I don't try to say more.

The "medium" for the last work, Sallim, is "steel frame, perforated metal plate, caster, aluminum venetian blinds, knitting yarn, acrylic mirror, IV stand, light bulbs, cable, electric fan, timer, garlic, dishes, hot pad, and scent emitter".

Sallim ~ Haegue Yang, 2009

The "knitting yarn" was actually a piece of crocheting.  All of the yarn ends floated gently in the breeze from the fan.

Sallim Detail ~ Haegue Yang, 2009

An interesting piece.  Of course I was intrigued by the yarn.  But the multi-layered meanings of everything put together were a bit beyond me, so I searched online and from this page I learned that "for her sculpture Sallim, Yang reproduces a full-scale model of her Berlin kitchen. Sallim (roughly translated from Korean as “running a household”) considers the noncommercial space of the kitchen as a site of preparation for action and the organization of life."

I did see a lot more, but this is enough for now.  (I need to get back to my kitchen or my knitting because there is work tomorrow.)  I love the way that modern art can give you a lot to think about.

Midweek Meditation -- O'Keeffe Style

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”

“I have been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”    ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

In early 20th-century America, art was a man’s world, where women – even those with extraordinary talent and groundbreaking vision – were seen as no equal to men. Georgia O’Keeffe helped changed that. With an idiosyncratic style and bold use of color, O’Keeffe was at the forefront of American modernism. In a career that spanned more than six decades, she “made it possible for other women to explore a new gamut of symbolic and ambiguous imagery.”  ~ as expressed in her obituary in The New York Times*

My daughter painted the tribute to Miss O'Keeffe in an enrichment class at school when she was in the fourth grade.  I do love it!  I took these photos earlier today.  Laying the painting on the floor near indirect window light eliminated most of the reflections on the glass.  Normally it hangs in my dining room not very far away from a similar painting made by my son (Ref: Andy Warhol).  Love that, too!

* Source (Oct 20, 2014): http://www.womenwhochangedamerica.org/profile/georgia-okeefe/ 
 

Midweek Meditation - Warhol style

"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning."     ~ Andy Warhol

I took this photo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in August of 2007.

As a (very young) child of the 60's, I have long wanted to quote Mr Warhol in a blog post.  But each and every time I googled and then read "andy warhol quotes" nothing really worked for me.

"Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?"

Late this evening, truly by accident, I learned that today is Andy Warhol's 86th birthday.  He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928.  Sadly, he died at the age of 58 in 1987.

Though I did, some time ago, rightly decide that quoting Mr W might not work effortlessly for my blog, this photo could help to explain my post tonight.

A painting my son made at school when he was in third grade hangs above my desk.  I do love it!  I took this photo just minutes ago.  Not very far away is a similar painting made by my daughter (Ref: Georgia O'Keefe).  Love that, too!  I will share it on another day.

Some final words from Mr W...

"Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball."

Midweek Meditation - Kandinsky style

"There is no must in art because art is free.”  
                                                                         ~ Wassily Kandinsky

When I think of Kandinsky, this work, Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913, is what comes to my mind.  It is one of my favorites.

"I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could...."

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."            

                                                              ~Wassily Kandinsky,

                                                           Russian painter and art theorist.

Kandinsky is credited with painting the first purely abstract works.

On White II, 1923

Composition X, 1939

"Music was important to the birth of abstract art, since music is abstract by nature—it does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses in an immediate way the inner feelings of the soul...

In addition to painting, Kandinsky was an art theorist; his influence on the history of Western art stems perhaps more from his theoretical works than from his paintings."
                                        ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky
                                                            December, 3, 2013

 Photo credits:  http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/wassily-kandinsky/color-study-squares-with-concentric-circles-1913
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kandinsky_white.jpg
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kandinsky_1939_Composition-X.png

More Peaches

Peaches in Paintings

 
Paul Cézanne is one of my favorite painters.  He painted a lot of paintings with fruit in them.  This one is named Still Life with Peaches and Pears.  From the Wikipedia entry on Paul Cezanne:  "Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects."

Cézanne's work came to mind when I began my last post, but I felt that the peach photograph would be more evocative in a discussion on looking at the colors in a real life peach.  There is no doubt that Cézanne saw "all gray, and red, and purples in a peach".


The Color "Peach"

I was thinking about "peach" Crayola crayons (Oh, how many hours I colored and drew with them as a child!)  I found a web page that shows Crayola peach crayons through the years.  Here is a photo from that website of the 1962-197? peach that I used.  (Much as I remember it.)

Here is the current, since 2006, peach Crayola.

Does either one look anything like a peach?  I think not.  "Peach" as a color is a third (see 3) definition for peach (from www.freedictionary.com):

peach (pēch), n.

1. the round, pink-to-yellow, fuzzy-skinned fruit of a tree, Prunuspersica, of the rose family.
2. the tree itself, cultivated in temperate climates.
3. a light pinkish yellow color.
4. Informal. a person or thing that is especially attractive, liked, or enjoyed.

A Peach in a Poem

And one more peach came to me as I wrote my last post.  I was remembering a poem with a peach in it, from a class I once took on modern poetry.  I found myself searching until I found what I vaugely remembered...  The poem is by T.S. Eliot and its title:  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  I was surprised to find that the word "peach" is used only one time in that entire poem.  But the words "Do I dare to eat a peach?" were the words that I remembered most.

Enough said on that.  It would be completely out of my realm to begin to discuss literature, but I do like to read a good poem every now and then.

Also Intarsia

As I perused the world-wide-web last week to get some idea of the feelings already out there about intarsia (knitting), I learned that intarsia is also known (possibly more commonly known) as a woodworking technique where different colors of wood are inlaid together.  I think that it would be correct to say that intarsia in woodworking predated intarsia in knitting.

This photo shows an example from the early 15th century.  It is at the Collegio della Mercanzia in Perugia, Italy.

Here is a more contemporary example.

I also found intarsia done in stone.

This is an intarsia portrait made in stone.  It is entitled "Mr. Lizzadro" and it is a portrait of the collector behind the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art.  At the musem website I learned that they are in Elmhurst, Illinois and that "Lapidary is the art of cutting and polishing stone."

I liked learning all of this.

In the Wikipedia article titled "Intarsia" (which covers woodworking intarsia and mentions intarsia done in stone) I learned, "It is thought that the word 'intarsia' is derived from the Latin word 'interserere' which means 'to insert'."

The Wikipedia article titled "Intarsia (knitting)" begins with this two sentence paragraph:  "Intarsia is a knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. As with the woodworking technique of the same name, fields of different colours and materials appear to be inlaid in one another, but are in fact all separate pieces, fit together like a jigsaw puzzle."

Intarsia is an art and a craft that may be worked in various media...

Photo credits:
Collegio della Mercanzia:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/debbcollins/3939907401/
Wolf Intarsia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wolf-Intarsia-md.jpg
Mr. Lizzadro:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/suttonhoo22/4419221718/

Midweek Meditation

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."        ~ Claude Monet

Midweek Meditation

http://www.flickr.com/photos/friedel/5221369248/

"If one says 'Red' (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds.  And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different."

"In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is - as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art."  ~  Josef Albers

Josef Albers was the husband of Anni Albers, whom I quoted last week.  From Wikipedia (February 1, 2012):  "Josef Albers (March 19, 1888 – March 25, 1976) was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century."

Photo of my old textbook, cropped and (almost) straightened.

I knew of Josef Albers long before I knew of his wife Anni.

He wrote one of the few textbooks that I saved from college. 

In the cover illustration (from my now 'old' edition, which is "The revised paperbound edition copyright 1975 by Yale University"), the small squares are the same color, but the lower one appears duller or darker.

From Amazon (February 1, 2012):  "Josef Albers’s Interaction of Color is a masterwork in twentieth-century art education. Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, this timeless book presents Albers’s unique ideas of color experimentation in a way that is valuable to specialists as well as to a larger audience.

Originally published by Yale University Press in 1963 as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates, Interaction of Color first appeared in paperback in 1971, featuring ten representative color studies chosen by Albers. The paperback has remained in print ever since and is one of the most influential resources on color for countless readers."

Midweek Meditation

“Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the direction of the materials.”          ~ Anni Albers

"Annelise Albers (née Fleischmann) (June 12, 1899 – May 9, 1994) was a German-American textile artist and printmaker. She is perhaps the best known textile artist of the 20th century."

"At Walter Gropius's Bauhaus she began her first year under Georg Muche and then Johannes Itten. Women were barred from certain disciplines taught at the school, especially architecture, and during her second year, unable to get into a glass workshop with future husband Josef Albers, Anni Albers deferred reluctantly to weaving. With her instructor Gunta Stölzl, however, Albers soon learned to love weaving's tactile construction challenges."

"Albers worked primarily in textiles and, late in life, as a printmaker. She produced numerous designs in ink washes for her textiles, and occasionally experimented with jewelry. Her woven works include many wall hangings, curtains and bedspreads, mounted "pictorial" images, and mass-produced yard material. Her weavings are often constructed of both traditional and industrial materials, not hesitating to combine jute, paper, and cellophane, for instance, to startlingly sublime effect."

Information on Anni Albers was obtained from "Anni Albers", Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, January 25, 2012.
Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahgb/5250920401/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Midweek Meditation

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.                     ~ Scott Adams, US cartoonist

Midweek Meditation

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."  -- Vincent Van Gogh

"The Starry Night"

My photograph at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, August 2007.

Midweek Meditation -- The Bag and the Magnet

 "In all object making, that aspect which relates to its conceptual interpretation is art, that which relates the object to an intended purpose is design, and the quality of its execution is craft."  -- Hella Basu

I must warn you, gentile reader, that I am likely to repeat this quote.  I came across it about a year ago.  I copied it and printed it; and it has been held by a magnet (depicting a sunflower painting by Van Gogh) on my refrigerator ever since.
I like knowing that other people (besides myself) think about such things.
I am not really saying that the designer bag is "art".  But together with the quote, it gives me something to think about.  (And then there is the magnet...)

My First WW Knit in Public Day -- One More Day to Breathe

This past Saturday, June 11, I attended my first ever World Wide Knit in Public Day!

     It was at the Osterhout Library in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  The only thing is, due to wet weather, it was indoors, back in the Reading Room, and therefore not very public.  Still, it was wonderful to meet some new knitters, and from different walks of life.  The hostess, Elaine, was very welcoming.  There were refreshments and even a drawing for a door prize.

      I helped one woman knit for the first time.  Initially she was slow on her self-confidence, but I soon could tell that she was 'good with her hands', in the way that people who have done a lot of other crafts are usually quick to learn knitting.  It turns out that (sadly, it was while she lived at a women's shelter) someone had given her a little suitcase full of art supplies and that she is a painter.  When we were leaving, she showed me a small photo album of her oil paintings.  Many were very good.  I gave her much encouragement.

     As I walked to my car, what I thought about most was a moment when the painter told one of the other knitters (who was somewhat cheerfully bemoaning turning 50 and the fact that her son had just moved from home to Maryland), "Every day is a gift.  It is one more day to breathe."