Craft as art, art as craft

In a recent post Anna Conti remarked on some marvelous paintings that are made with thread, stitched so finely that you have to get up close to tell what the medium is. One of the things that I love in art today is when the traditional boundaries between art and craft are blurred and artists use "traditional" craft materials to make art that goes beyond craft. In order to do so, they have to have an understanding and respect for their materials which is not that common in today's art world. The best of what they create can be truly stunning. There are two such exhibits in SF today - one at the SF Museum of Craft and Design and the annual Pacific Center for the Book Arts exhibit at the SF Public Library (6th floor)

Randy Shull is a North Carolina artist whose work has attracted national attention. He has worked in a variety of mediums, including furniture design, architecture, painting, and landscape design. His painted sculptures and wall pieces blur the distinction between painting, traditional furniture, traditional sculpture in a unique way. His structures combine whimsy with sculpture to make something completely unique; his wall clocks are even functional!
“In my life, in my work and in my travels I like the excitement of crossing boundaries. I love the interplay between lifestyle and work and the products that come out of that interaction. Sometimes it is painting, sometimes it is furniture design, sometime it its architecture, sometimes it is garden design, sometimes it is travel."

SF Museum of Craft and Design, 555 Sutter St until September 28th.
Links:
http://www.sfmcd.com/
http://www.randyshull.com/
http://www.bellevuearts.org/index.htm


BookWorks 2008 - This new exhibition features nearly a hundred contemporary, sometimes sculptural, unique or limited-edition books by members of the Pacific Center for Book Arts. The book arts have a long history--from the first cave drawings, scrolls, illuminated manuscripts and letterpress printing, to more recent forms of visual expression and communication made possible by digital technology. Drawing on past traditions, but free to envision the future, contemporary book artists and craftspeople use a wide range of book forms, materials and techniques to express their concerns as artists and inhabitants of the 21st century. The books on display are distinguished in their design, typography, illustration, hand bookbinding and printing processes and paper. Pacific Center for Book Arts is a member-service organization committed to providing its members opportunities to show their work, socialize with other practitioners of the book arts and learn from their peers. Members include calligraphers, custom binders, printmakers, conservators and many others. For more information, visit www.pcba.info.

Exhibition: From July 1 through September 26, 2008
Main Library, Sixth Floor, Skylight Gallery
Related Programs: Artist Talks
August 16 and September 13, 2008, 1-3 p.m.
Main Library, 6th Floor, Skylight Gallery,
100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

Creative Irritation

I like art. Even though it irritates the hell out of me.

Sometimes art is just plain irritating, like when I saw the excess resources used by Matthew Barney in his 2006 exhibit at SFMOMA, which among other things featured a sculpture consisting of 1600 gallons of liquid petroleum jelly.

Sometimes the irritation builds up in a Louis Black ranting way, like when I saw the Gilbert & George retrospective at the de Young earlier this year.

And sometimes the irritation is in a beneficial and inspiring way, the irritation that drives me to write, construct or draw, or design greeting cards. I call that Creative Irritation.

Long ago, I was in a writing workshop led by author and SF Chronicle columnist Adair Lara. She told a story of an author friend in Marin who tried to inspire herself to write by going to local coffee houses, but she found the Marin atmosphere was too cordial. So her friend drove to Berkeley, sat down at a table in a coffee house, and quickly began absorbing the significant amount of aggravation in the atmosphere. Soon she was writing prolifically. I tried it myself a few years later, basked in the agitation, and scrawled out an impressive number of stream of consciousness pages.

At Open Studios one year, I discovered the art of Erin Carney. Carney creates a variety of abstract paintings, which capture the diverse beauty of light and shadow. Her paintings are not intended to have recognizable images; however that does not stop those of us with vivid imaginations from decoding them like personalized license plates.

One of my favorites is “Tranquillity,” which looks like a delusional dream about belly buttons after eating large servings of three flavors of Jell-O. Ok, it is an abstract study of color, light and shadow.

The fact that Carney is a lighting design expert is evident in her paintings. Or maybe the fact she is an artist is evident in her work as a lighting design expert. There is a huge difference between a house with lights and a house that is well lit. Her current show at Red Union Salon on Union Street carries the lighting connection further, as one could get their highlights done while viewing the artwork.

I purchased a small painting from Carney which I named Creative Irritation. It got on my nerves as soon as I saw it.

It is a series of rough brush strokes with thick paint, making an increasing number of centerless squares, each slightly larger and overlapping the previous one. Each square is made without turns at the corners, but with four harsh slaps of the brush. After each stroke, the brushes were dipped in a different color, creating multiple colors in each brushstroke.

I took the painting home and hung it on my wall to the right of my computer screen, transforming my writing space into that cranky creative cosmos known as The Berkeley Coffee House Effect. Works every time.

by Phil Gravitt

New Cal Academy Coming Soon

Via Fecal Face: Jesse Pollock and Lindsay Irving toured the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, and posted an update HERE (with lots of photos, including these two.) Only 45 days until the opening!

Incidentally, the CalAcademy has always integrated art and science in their exhibits - HERE's an interview with Tiffany Bozic, one of the artists participating in the CalAcademy's Artist in Residency Program. One of her images, "Battle of the Deep":

Needle and thread at Jack Fischer

The Jack Fischer Gallery consistently shows work that is so highly skilled and original that it's impossible for me to walk past his tiny space without getting sucked in. That's what happened Thursday evening when I was on my way to another gallery on the 4th floor of 49 Geary.

I saw the hand stitched images by Lauren DiCioccio and Aliza Lelah from the hall, but I didn't realize what they were - they looked like drawings and paintings at first.

Aliza Lelah's isolated figures are photo-based "paintings" derived from found photographs. She writes on her web site that her pigment is recycled fabric and her binding medium is stitching.

Lauren Dicioccio's "drawings" are also photo-based, derived from mass-produced images in newspapers, magazines, plastic bags, and 35 mm slides. The excess threads dangle from the surface, much like the drips in graffiti painting.

Their work is perfect together. The show is up for the rest of this week.

Lauren DiCioccio and Aliza Lelah
through August 16th at Jack Fischer Gallery
49 Geary, #440, San Francisco

Pia Stern at 455 Market Lobby Gallery

This isn't the best venue for Pia Stern's delicate and introspective art work but at least she's getting a show. Unfortunately, the Lobby Gallery is a busy, noisy place where her sensitive and thoughtful pieces are lost in the hurrying throngs and loud cell phone chatter. She's been with a local gallery for years but has only had one show with them (to the best of my knowledge). I think that's a shame because her work has a meditative beauty which reveals deeper meanings on repeated viewings.

Her works often contain cryptic images - ladders, crosses, animals, boats, bicycles - which draw the viewer in and encourage you, as viewer, to make up your own stories. Stern states, “I view painting as a disciplined activity akin to meditation or prayer.It is something that I must do on a regular basis so as to feel fully engaged with life on a spiritual level.The work depicts a kind of dialogue with myself -a process that reflects a search.Ultimately, I view my paintings as visual interpretations of psychological and philosophical dilemmas that confront me.”

The 455 Market Lobby Gallery is open weekdays; the show will be up through September 5th.

What really happened to the little mermaid.

"Mermaid Meat, The Secret to Immortality and Other Japanese Ghost Stories"
A 70 page illustrated book and 1 hour cd of storytelling (with musical accompaniment)
by Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu
ISBN 978-0-9797528-0-3

This little multi-media gem is an accessible and affordable work of art by two San Francisco contemporary artists and a Japanese woodblock master of Ukiyo-e. And maybe this silk-covered book-with-CD is also a transitional format for the book.

Brenda Wong Aoki describes herself as "a solo performer specializing in song/dance/monodramas." In this book, she presents four of her ghost stories - all female ghosts. These ghosts are filled with passion, rage, and the power to manifest their will. They cover the classic human themes of love, desire, betrayal, selfishness, delusion, cruelty, redemption, and the hunger for immortality.

The stories are presented in Aoki's written words and performed in her voice, accompanied by musician Mark Izu. For visual accompaniment , Aoki chose the woodcuts of Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, a talented and innovative artist from the 19th century whose work looks strangely contemporary. Aoki's stories also range back and forth through time. She writes in the forward, "It's the actions of the dead that bring us to the present. If you know the past, you can change your future."

I read the stories and looked at the pictures before listening to the CD nested in the back cover. I was impressed and moved. Then a few days later I clicked on the track for "Mermaid Meat" while eating breakfast . . . yowza - she reached out and grabbed my throat and that was the end of breakfast.

It's been postulated that books have outlived their usefulness, or at least their primacy in storytelling and may "end up back where they started, locked away in monasteries (or the depths of Google) read by a select few". Brenda Wong Aoki is a story-teller of the most ancient form, but in this project, she combines multiple technologies to pass her story along via the spoken word, the printed word, and the image. "Mermaid Meat, The Secret to Immortality and Other Japanese Ghost Stories" is of its time, with a message from/to all time.

Birth of the Cool: Karl Benjamin

Red, Blue, Pink, 1958

Totem Group IV, 1957T

Two weeks ago I went to Oakland with several new friends found via the Internet including SF Mike (http://sfciviccenter.blogspot.com), his domestic partner, another friend and Matthew (http://lotsasplainin.blogspot.com/) to see the "Birth of the Cool" show at the Oakland Museum. The day was utterly delightful and Mike and Matthew's comments on the show enabled me to see the work with some new perspective. Matthew, like me, was a child of the 50's and the furniture, textiles and the Barbie doll (!) brought back memories of family rooms, plastic dishes and unfortunate accidents with the huge glass sliding doors that were so prevalent at the time. The show introduced me to a whole new group of painters. Birth of the Cool is a reference to a 1959 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum called Four Abstract Classicists, which featured the work of Lorser Feitelson, John McLauglin, Karl Benjamin, and Frederick Hammersley.The show presents a cross-section of art created in Southern California in the 1950, from hard-edge abstraction to architecture, furniture design, animation and jazz. It was an innocent, upbeat time and the work reflected that ethos. The lines are playful and clean, hedonistic yet not too self indulgent. The designers of the day were fascinated with the new materials of plastic and steel and totally oblivious - in architecture - to considerations of economy, energy and space. The huge glass windows and sleek furniture presents a vision of an America that was confident and open and could afford anything it wanted, even enormous cars with even larger tail fins and houses that leaked heat and would cost a fortune today to heat. America was on top and although McCarthyism laid a dark shadow over parts of the landscape, it doesn't seem to have touched these artists and designers or their rather Utopian vision of how American should, could live.

I had never heard of Karl Benjamin (or the other painters either) and found his work very intriguing. He painted overlapping and interlocking precise forms in startling combinations of rich colors that still look fresh. In a 2002 interview (NY Times), Benjamin explains that he stopped painting back in 1995. A bad back, a bad hip and “years of drinking too much,” he said, made handling the canvases difficult. “I started getting too creaky to haul these things around.”

"A self-taught artist, Mr. Benjamin began painting in 1950 while working as a grade school teacher. His principal started it all by asking him to add 47 minutes a week of art instruction to the curriculum."

“I bought some crayons and paper,” he said. “And the kids drew trucks, trees, mountains. That was boring, so I said, No trucks, no trees. And they said, What should we do? I said the right thing, even though I didn’t have any background in art. I said, Be quiet and concentrate.”

That exercise — ultimately a lesson in “finding the right color to put down next to another” — is not far from Mr. Benjamin’s own sense of composition. As he likes to say, “Color is the subject matter of painting.”

“As an abstract painter, you’re always flying in the face of your country’s values,” he said. “All of a sudden (Morris) Louis is selling a lot, but I’ve never made a lot of money. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about getting the colors right.” These words should have been written in huge letters over the exhibit and on the walls of every art school in the country. Be quiet, concentrate and get the colors right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_the_Cool
http://www.museumca.org/exhibit/exhi_cool.html
http://www.andover.edu/Addison/exhibition/2008-Winter/BirthCool.htm
http://www.birth-of-the-cool.com/
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A173087

Pick Up the Pieces

. . . in the immortal words of the title of that one song by the Average White Band.


A bit of my soul is in Marsden Hartley's Black Duck.

When I am in a new place, the first thing I want to do is find a museum. It's a compelling impulse, but I've only ever followed its demand without attaching any meaning. I don't attempt any interpretation--which makes some kind of sense to me. I mean, we don't wonder why we're hungry for breakfast; I don't wonder why I need to find art to look at.

Nor do I generally examine the why when I have a deep response to art, that sense of recognition and knowing and even fulfillment. Sometimes joy. But how can one get all that simply from viewing an image?

Thomas Moore offers this answer:

When I find myself in a city, for a lecture or other business, and have a free hour, I always try to visit an art museum or gallery. I do this not only because I'm interested in art, but because I work with the soul and I live a human life; I have a family and I get sick and I have thoughts of mortality. I visit a museum to find myself. On the prowl for art, I'm like the Egyptian Isis, who sought all over the world for the pieces of her dismembered brother and husband, Osiris.

A piece of my soul might be encased in a gallery in Seattle, or Rome, or Brussels. In fact, I have found lost portions of my soul in these very places. I remember walking up a curving stairway in the magnificent art museum in Brussels and discovering a great piece of my identity in the twelfth-century stone reliefs I saw there. . . .

This is from The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. I highly recommend the chapters on dreams, archetypes, and of course, art.

(Another bit of my soul is tucked away somewhere in Liza Lou's Kitchen.)

NORTHERN CALIF VISIONARY ART

This is an exhibit at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, through September 7. The genre is not one of my favorites, but I have to give the curators credit for putting together an exhibit that shows the diversity of themes and approaches. The works range from 1970s through now, the artists are all northern Californian.

My objection to a lot of visionary art is actually to one manifestation of it: paintings that combine hyper-real attention to minute detail with garish color and symbolism or representation so obvious it is trite - in short, bad science fiction book cover art. And yeah, that school of visionary art is represented here.

But there were some very pleasant surprises too. Janet Rayner's "Threshold" is beautifully painted - the quality of light in it is masterful and evocative. The surreal landscapes of Bill Martin could just about cross the line into sci fi book art, but they manage to be utterly believable little worlds in their own right, and fascinating to contemplate entering. There were a couple of other peices that struck me in their vision and artistry, but I neglected to make adequate notes the day I was there.

The Grace Museum is hosting a panel discussion, What is Visionary Art?, on Saturday August 23, at 1 pm.

An Interview With Alyson Belcher

Photography has always been an important topic of study in the art schools here in San Francisco. Both the Art Institute and The Academy of Art University are known for their photography programs. Much has changed in photography since Ansel Adams and Minor White created the fine art photography program at San Francisco Art Institute.

Recently I asked Alyson Belcher, who is on the faculty of the photography department of The Academy of Art University, for her thoughts on the current trends in art education and specifically about the shifts in the teaching of photography at the university level.

"Art education in general is becoming more interdisciplinary. Students are encouraged to cross boundaries, to work with many different mediums. We are also seeing critical theory playing more of a role in art education. At some schools, I've noticed that studio art faculty members are actually art critics. Every school has its own approach. With regard to teaching photography some are more geared toward art and some are more commercial. A lot of schools these days focus more on art and critical theory, especially at liberal arts universities. Private art schools may give students a more technical foundation and are more likely to prepare students for a career as a commercial photographer."

Contrary to an often popular belief, art school has never been an easy way to a degree. Alyson points out that a good education in art requires sharpened skills in the basics.

"I have a lot of students at the Academy who are extremely bright, but they may not excel in a traditional academic environment. Sure, there are always students who opt for art school because they think it's easier than going to a liberal arts university. But I find that those students who are not motivated to learn and grow don't stay in the program beyond the first year. I love it when I get students who come to art school because they think they won't have to do math. After one year in the photography program, they find out how important math is. Or students who think that they will never have to write--they want to let their pictures do the talking. While their photographs do need to clearly communicate, it's also important for the students to learn to articulate their ideas in writing. Grants, business proposals, artist's statements--these are all things they will have to write when they get out of school. Overall, I am very impressed with my students at the Academy. I'm not just saying that because I teach there. Once they realize the high expectations we have, they either step up to the plate or drop out. More often than not, they rise to the challenge. Of course there are always a few who do just what they need to do to get by."

The mastering of technology is something no one can escape in this digital age. It has been integrated into almost every aspect of our lives, not only our work and leisure, but also our creative pursuits, our art. Today's students begin their education with a high level of competence in the arena of computing and digital technology. These are tools they expect to have access to and use.

"One challenge in photographic education is how to incorporate digital. Should it be taught alongside film or should it replace film? Some educators are teaching introductory classes that focus more on what photography is and can do, regardless of whether it's film or digital. They are looking at how cameras work and what kind of creative approaches can be explored--many of these things are the same for film and digital cameras. In addition to providing a technical foundations for camera use, they are discussing things like the properties of light and optical culture. Both Robert Hirsch and Angela Faris Belt have recently published new introductory books that take this new approach to teaching the basics of photography. Hirsch's book is titled, "Light and Lens," and Faris Belt's book is "The Elements of Photography.

"We are seeing more and more students who are creating narrative work using digital montage techniques, both in the fine art and commercial realms. Students often shoot locations and models separately now, and combine the two in Photoshop. The work has a very futuristic, surreal quality."

One could say all of this helps make the case for the "film is dead" camp, but Alyson doesn't believe so.

"We have an increasing number of students who are interested in alternative processes and mixed media. I think we have made a good case for keeping film around. Students want black and white darkroom classes. I have many students who are very committed to film. But within the next year we are going to change the intro class to include digital and film and it won't have a darkroom component. Students will be able to take a darkroom class after they have completed their basic courses. After that they can decide which direction to pursue with their work. "

Photo: Alyson Belcher making pin-hole Polaroids, Racoon Hollow, Gloden Gate Park. ©2008 David W. Sumner

Bay Area Art Now at Yerba Buena

What is Bay Area Art Now?
Saturday, August 2, 2008; 2:00 pm
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street btw 3rd and 4th Streets
For 15 years, YBCA has been championing the work of emerging artists of the Bay Area, in a triennial showcase that has launched many careers, but is the concept of a regional exhibition outmoded? What does it mean to be a Bay Area artist in a world that is both local and global? Moderated by YBCA Executive Director Kenneth Foster, this conversation brings together YBCA’s multidisciplinary offering of BAN 5 artists including Todd Brown, Co-Director of the Red Poppy Art House; performance artist, Dohee Lee; Madeleine Lim, Executive Director of the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP); visual artist Lauren Woods; and a surprise guest. (Free.)

also mentioned in the Stark Guide
Website: http://www.ybca.org/exhibitions/

Sara Minardi

Thanks to the odd shape of the café displaying her work, I discovered the drawings and paintings of Sara Minardi. Café Trieste in the San Francisco Financial District was constructed from the leftover ground floor space of a newer condo building, giving the café the appearance of a series of converted store windows. Even Minardi's small painting hanging from the hallway wall—which is three feet from the glass front wall--can catch the eye of unsuspecting passers by. The big, sad, expressive eyes of Minardi's thin figured girl were eerily real, and the artist accurately captured natural slouching posture.

Minardi's female figures are innocent, imperfect. The faces, eyes and posture communicate contentment, reflection, bewilderment, perplexity, hunger, exhaustion, and hope, as shown in the fascinating and mesmerizing look of “Ballet Dancer.”

Minardi's web site,
http://www.beesandbears.com/
shows her wide creative range, with more figures in paintings and drawings--some are a combination of painting and drawing--plus mostly hand sewn stuffed creatures and monsters, stationery, greeting cards and stickers.

Minardi does not use models or poses. Most often, the beginnings of a figure drawing come to her as a gradual idea of a certain look. She starts her drawings with the eyes and head, with the head tilted down or down and away, or the eyes wide open looking right at you. Her works convey her appreciation for the effect of lighting and shadows on a slouching figure. A close examination of her paintings shows that beyond the realness of the figure, there can be added bones and extended and distorted limbs.

Her painting, "Mother Earth," is both beautiful and disturbing, the head and face of the figure appear young and evolving, the body appears older and gaunt.



"The Saint" is angelic with a halo, and like many of Minardi’s drawings and paintings, was inspired by Aeon Flux cartoons, and the feel and look of paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Anime popular in her youth.

Many of her early works incorporated buildings in the background. The red and blue buildings of “The City” reflect her native Syracuse, New York.

“The Whore” started out as a slouching figure on a bench, with a longer dress, and then became angry and upset. The scene is tense, like an Edvard Munch painting. Much of the figure was drawn by candlelight during a power failure; the blue skin was a surprise to Minardi when the power came back on.


Minardi’s stuffed creatures and monsters are often “scary cheerful” mixed in with “cute and adorable,” like Aliens Meets Sanrio. As a child, she was encouraged by her parents to draw monsters that scared her, as a way to dissipate her fears. The inspiration for Minardi’s current creature creations is drawn from her life experiences, dreams, fairytales and stories from her childhood.

Minardi learned to sew as a young child, adding designs to her jeans as well as to purses she created. Her early stuffed creatures were all sewn by hand. Today she uses a sewing machine for the bodies, and a needle and thread for the faces and features. Like Minardi’s drawings and paintings, the three-dimensional creatures and monsters show mood and feeling, their individual character exposed by the artist’s purposely imperfect and asymmetrical designs.

# # #

A solo show of new works by Sara Minardi
-= OF QUEENS AND CAKE =-
Opening Friday, September 12th, 2008 from 7pm-9pm
THE SALON
377 Guerrero St
(between 15th St & 16th St)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Opening in February 2009 at:

D-Structure
415-252-8601
520 Haight St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
http://www.d-structure.com/dstructure/

by Phil Gravitt

Sketch Tuesday at 111 Minna

Eva Lake brought her camera to SF this week:

St. Frida

For better or worse, Kahlo’s painful life and unique paintings have produced a romantic, feminist mythology of suffering and defiance in the face of physical and psychic pain. “Balzac has invented everything,” Colette wrote and he might have even been able to invent Kahlo if she had not done it herself. Born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Indian mother, Kahlo was a rebel even before the traumatic accident, which, at 18, left her with grim life-long medical problems. During her long recovery – which, in some ways, lasted the rest of her life – she used her art to express her pain. She had met Rivera before her accident and was attracted to him, but it was during her convalescence when she painted her first self-portrait that they became friends and later, lovers. Like Jane Eyre, she could say “Dear Reader, I married him” and their tumultuous marriage lasted until her death (with one intermission for divorce and remarriage). Her marriage to the elephantine and womanizing Rivera was both a blessing and a curse; they were mutually unfaithful, tormented each other and yet, inspired and supported each other.

According to her biography, it was after her miscarriage in 1932 that she began to paint the works, which would make her famous. Combining the folk imagery of Mexican retablos, the grotesque details of suffering present in 17th century Spanish polychrome religious art and surrealism, she portrayed feminine suffering in ways that had only previously been seen in the more extreme examples of religious art. Think Grünewald, think Northern Renaissance paintings of Christ on the cross, think of the cruelty and delight in pain of Meso-American art, translated into 20th century visual poetry. As Hayden Herrera points out in her Biography of Frida Kahlo (1983), art was a solace. It was a way to say to the both herself and the world, “I am still here.” She turned her physical being into an icon of both masculinity and feminity. The unibrow, direct gaze and traces of moustache (less in real photos than the paintings) played up what she saw as the male aspect of her personal. But her vibrant clothing, flowing skirts, elaborate hair styles and jewelry were based on the traditional clothing style of the women of the Tehuana region of Mexico, who were the real figures of authority in their society. Nevertheless, although she claimed the authority of women in control, she also slavishly adored her oversized and unfaithful husband. (Sanford, The nerve of Frida Kahlo, NY Review of Books; Herrera, Chapter 8)

Her painting repeatedly refers to the pain of her attachment to Rivera. Among the most famous of those is “The Two Fridas,” from 1939, about the time the couple briefly divorced. On the left, Frida is dressed as a bride, her heart open and a cut artery dripping blood onto the dress. On the right, the everyday Frida is strong, her heart is healthy and she holds a cameo of Rivera as a child, a symbol that her union with him is far deeper than that of a marriage. In numerous paintings, she cradles him, paints him as a quasi-religious icon or indicates, in paint, that he was the center of her life.

Much of her work suggests surrealism, a tag that she rejected when Andre Breton tried to recruit her into his circle. In "The Broken Column" (1944), she portrays her naked torso, with a metal rod in place of her spine and thick straps and nails holding her body together. In "The Little Deer" (1946), her face is attached to the body of a deer, which is bleeding from nine arrow wounds. And in "Without Hope" (1945), ailing in bed, she appears to be vomiting animals, fish and a skull. Yet, it was not all paint, blood and suffering. She enjoyed life passionately – even during her many illnesses, she had enough joie de vie to say, “It is not worthwhile to leave this world without having had a little fun in life.”

"I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality," she claimed. And on another occasion, she noted. "I always paint whatever passes through my head, without any other consideration."

That was not strictly true. Her art reflects all sorts of influences, some European like Cubism and, yes, Surrealism, the most predominant art style of the day. Other influences cam from her native Mexico, not only that of her husband, but also of folk art, Aztec and Roman Catholic iconography. Given her many illnesses and surgeries, it’s not surprising that she was obsessed with death. She was very Mexican, but her mixed heritage contributed to her originality.

She produced only about 200 paintings – primarily still lifes and portraits of herself, family and friends. She also kept illuminated journals and did many drawings. Arguably, it was during her and Riviera’s 1933 visit to America that she began to develop her signature style. In Henry Ford Hospital, done after one of her traumatic miscarriages, she graphically conveyed her desolation and pain. She exorcised her pain through her painting.

During the last decade of her lift, Kahlo’s health continued to deteriorate. She drank and took drugs to alleviate the pain and the works from this time are darker, with rougher surfaces. Yet, her caustic humor and playful wit could still charm. Just before her death, she incorporated the words Viva La Vida (Long Live life) into a lush, richly painted still life of watermelons.

She died in her sleep in 1954 at the age of 47, apparently as the result of an embolism, though there was a suspicion among those close to her that she had found a way to commit suicide but others reject the idea. Her last diary entry read: 'I hope the end is joyful - and I hope never to come back - Frida.'" Tucked away in the retrospective is an anonymous newspaper photograph of her state funeral. Rivera is there, his sadness evident. He only outlived her by three years.

SFMOMA's Frida Kahlo exhibition runs through September 28, 2008. For tickets and information, visit SFMOMA.org.

* Imaging Her Selves: Frida Kahlo's Poetics of Identity and Fragmentation, by Gannit Ankori
* Portrait of an Artist - Frida Kahlo, VHS video.
* Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, by Hayden Herrera.
* Frida Kahlo; The Paintings, by Hayden Herrera.
Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo, by Margaret A. Lindauer.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo.html
http://www.fridakahlo.it/
http://www.fkahlo.com/

Sarah Jessica Parker lands show at Bravo

I'm sure that every artist that reads this is going to run out and apply to be on the show (item found at multiple sites). Or not. This isn't really local to the Bay Area but it's so off the wall that I couldn't resist posting it. Art as a competitive sport that spectators find interesting - I don't think so. It's not that artists aren't competitive because they are - ferociously so. But making art is not the most exciting thing to watch and I can't image many artists would be able to create much while the TV cameras, crew and all the assorted noise is going on around them. Any bets as to how long the show lasts?

Aspiring artists to compete to produce various artwork

By James Hibberd

July 20, 2008, 12:00 PM ET

Updated: July 20, 2008,

Sarah Jessica Parker's art competition reality show has found a home at Bravo.

The network has picked up "American Artist," from Parker's Pretty Matches production company and wunderkin producers Magical Elves, as part of its development slate. Bravo is expected to announce the deal Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.

The hourlong show has been described by the Elves team of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz as a "Project Runway"-style competition series that takes on the art world. Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. The network declined to comment.

If ordered to series, the art project show would give Bravo another skill-driven reality show to its lineup, along with the Elves' "Top Chef" and "Top Design."

Parker, Cutforth and Lipsitz shopped the art series earlier this year, before the Weinstein Co. made a deal to move the Elves' Bravo hit "Runway" to Lifetime. The Elves defected from "Runway" when the duo signed an overall deal in May with Bravo's parent company NBC Universal.

Facing the loss of its top-rated show, Bravo has said it will significantly increase its development slate this year by about 45%, including opening up a fourth night of original programming on Mondays.

Good article here: http://twocoatsofpaint.blogspot.com/

Summer in the city

Summer is traditionally a slow time in the galleries but I found a lot to look at:



At 49 Geary, I start at the top floor and work my way down. There is a lot of nice work on display but these stood out for me:

Gallery 415 is showcasing the works of Brazilian artist, Silvia. In spite of her father’s death and her husband’s serious illness within a week of each other, her works are joyous affirmations of life, acceptance and strength. She will be speaking on her process at the gallery on this coming Saturday at 2 PM. It should be an interesting talk.

from her statement:
The idea for this body of work came to me as a way of dealing with the enormity of emotions - the loss, sorrow, fear, pain, and despair - flowing over and in me. By drawing my heartbreak, I could slowly accept what was happening. Through acceptance, I have been able to be at peace in the present moment and begin to find happiness once again. I have learned that feeling good is my choice. I can't depend on life's circumstances to make me happy or be at peace. Change is its own master. I have no control over how, when, or why things change. But, I can reach within myself and find peace and happiness no matter what is going on, good or bad, to me and the people I most love. http://g415.com/

Toomey Tourell is featuring a group exhibition honoring the 10th anniversary of the gallery. They’ve got a stunning piece by Brian Dettmer up and numerous other small works from the gallery artists – all well worth seeing. Todd Bennett, the gallery director is friendly and helpful; that always makes the gallery going experience more pleasant. He told me that they are going to have a video of Dettmer making one of his altered book pieces up on their website.
http://www.toomey-tourell.com/

Brian Dettmer's carved books are intricate creations, which seek both to seduce the eye and provoke the mind. Through the cut open cover of a book the viewer sees layers of specifically selected text and illustration carved from the pages of the book. Through the gaps in an architectural drawing or perhaps the chambers of the human heart, one can see a word peeking through, perhaps a clue to the larger meanings of the piece. These pieces seek to bridge the gap between a medium's form and its message. Dettmer manages to use the contrasting layers of image and text to explore the conveyance of information, as well as being able to get the viewer to examine what that can mean.

Dettmer
Art Exchange Gallery has some gorgeous pieces by Dennis Hare and a whole wall of Ruth Wall’s surrealistic collages and monoprints as well as their usual eclectic combination of pieces. According to the gallery, even though Wall studied with Bischoff and Park, she decided not pursue a gallery career. In her old age, she chose this gallery to show her works. I’m glad that yet another hidden SF woman artist is getting her day. I always find it interesting to see what works come back on the market and how they are priced.

crossposted at: http://cheznamastenancy.blogspot.com/
where non-members can post (comments are moderated to avoid spam).

A Reason to Drink

I went to the Los Altos Art and Wine Festival today.

First things first: the wine. Chardonnay everywhere. I don't drink chardonnay; I don't like the oak. But I was very happy to see that Leal was pouring the Carnaval meritage. Unfortunately, that was sold out. The only red at Leal was the syrah. I am not always a syrah fan. I like big, fruity wines. I steer away from the overly dry. But the gentleman from Leal let me taste it, and I told him I would make an exception for his syrah, the 2005, which was fruity and a little spicy, very balanced, not too heavy, a nice wine.

Now for the art. Let me put it like this: I wandered around with my glass of wine. I saw straw hats on which someone had glued dyed ostrich feathers. I saw pet portraits, these huge oil paintings of Fluffy and Fido. I saw masses of handmade pottery items glazed in earth tones, including this frog.
Just so you get an idea of the proportion? The frog is perched on a wine barrel. That is one big-ass frog.

I saw big paintings of hearts and butterflies. Then I had what seemed a brilliant thought, and so I called my friend E.

Me: I just thought of the funniest thing.
E.: [waiting] . . .
Me: You know why art and wine are such a natural pairing for festivals? [pause to let her think about it] Because you have to be drunk to buy this crap!

Oh, people. I'm sorry. But does the world need more mobiles that look like they are made from marbles and coat hangers? More generic beach art?

Do these faces make the world a better place?

P.S. I wasn't going to post these pictures; I felt bad, you know, my goal is never to hurt anyone's feelings, and some artists/craftists do view the work of their hands as inseparable from themselves, and so are in for a world of hurt when the work is criticized. I told my friend E. I was not going to post the pictures, though, and then she and I talked about art and criticism and how being an artist generally means presenting one's work to the public, which invariably means the public will have some sort of reaction, and I realized that I must post the pictures, for that is what criticism is about. (If you can call this criticism; I'm not sure that I would. But as a writer, I know to separate myself from what I produce.)

If it makes anyone feel better, every time I stood still in wonder that such work could be exhibited and sold, I would overhear another festival-goer exclaim, "That's beautiful!" and open her wallet.

Daniel Levigoureux at Thomas Reynolds Gallery

Last night Thomas Reynolds Gallery opened a show of new works by Daniel Levigoureux. I attended and liked the work very much. From my collector's point of view the work seemed very affordable and well crafted. The works range from the interestingly geometric to rather spare.

Also on display are a few drawings that Daniel did upon arriving in the City.

IMHO Thomas Reynolds continues to be one of the nicest people in SF much less the art world. A drop by at his gallery is well worth your while as a couple works by most of the other artists he represents are on display in the back room as well.

Bruce Conner: 1933 - 2008

Another one of the members of the beat generation died this week. I was looking up his art work (along with that of Neri and De Feo) and realized that I came to SF just four years too late. A lot of their work was dated 1962 and I came here in 1966, just in time to deal with the hippies whose interest in art seemed pretty shallow and completely bound up with drug use (not that the beats didn't take some pretty lethal drugs themselves).

I remember seeing a lot of his experimental films in some very off beat, back room types of places. He was never a main stream kind of filmmaker which made looking at his works even more exciting but those were the days of a lot of experimentation in underground cinema. All you had to do to get a contact high was breathe deeply (and not very deeply at that). They were in parts of the city that I won't go to at night any more but then, were full of artists' apartments, studios and store fronts where we used to show our work. Ah, the days of cheap rent. We didn't make much money but we lived a lot better on less because this was really the city that knew how. The glory was already fading; many painters had already left and the Monkey Block was being torn down to make room for what would be the BoA Headquarters. But I valued what I could find of that time and lament its passing. I doubt if the much ballyhood hippie movement will leave anything as substantial in its wake.

Wikipedia has a good entry including this great part:

Conner reacted by attending openings, only to move among the crowd wordlessly pinning buttons that read "I am Bruce Conner" or "I am not Bruce Conner" to their clothes. Many send-ups of artistic authorship followed, including a five page piece Conner had published in a major art publication in which Conner's making of a peanut butter, banana, bacon, lettuce, and Swiss cheese sandwich was reported step-by-step in great detail, with numerous photographs, as though it were a work of art.

I remember seeing him in the Haight, casting equal parts scorn and humor upon the scene.

From his Obit:

Mr. Conner never stayed with one medium for long, resisting the art world's inclination to identify every artist with a style and a biographical myth.

Asked once by a critic to mention some artists who influenced him, Mr. Conner said, "I typed out about 250 names," and instructed the writer to add that "limited space prevents us from printing the remaining 50,003 names on Mr. Conner's list of influences."

Mr. Conner announced his own death erroneously on two occasions, once sending an obituary to a national art magazine, and later writing a self-description for the biographical encyclopedia Who Was Who in America.

Excellent analysis of one of his films: http://thiscruellestmonth.blogspot.com/2007/05/report-on-bruce-conner.html
other films seem to have been removed due to "copyright" issues by a third party.
http://www.rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=301
http://robertolsenart.com/blog/2008/07/08/bruce-conner-1933-2008

Glories of the Ming

Thanks to my dear friend Bob who is a member of the museum, I got to see the exhibit today - first thing on the 4th of July. Art first, barbeque and fireworks second; as a Navy brat, I can wave the flag with the best of them but for me, celebrating the 4th means acknowledging the contributions of ALL the people who built our country. It seemed appropriate to got to a museum of Asian art today, seeing how Chinese labor built so much in the West and were so poorly compensated. I am critical of China’s current politics but I have no quarrel with the art; they have a long and fascinating history and I’m glad to live in a place where I can experience the best that their culture has produced.

The exhibit is glorious, glorious and more glorious, even if (as SF Mike pointed out) rather inhibited by being crammed into too small a space. The PR for the exhibit claims that that it displays the “grandeur and opulence” of the dynasty and for once, the PR is not just hyperbole. However, unlike Mike, I don’t think that the move downtown was all that beneficial for the collection. The old Asian had two huge floors wrapped around a beautiful central courtyard with windows overlooking Golden Gate Park. This visually expanded the space, allowed natural light and prevented the claustrophobia that occurs from the low ceilings and enclosed spaces that I feel is a problem with the new Asian. I took many art classes at the old De Young and having been “backstage” as it were, can testify to the miles and miles of storage and office space that was never open to the public.

Unfortunately, the new museum is right in the middle of a rather gritty downtown area and when you ride the escalator up to the various floors, you get a fabulous view of SF’s urban blight. The view down of the gravel-topped roof is (to say the least) not very interesting. I’ve always wondered why they couldn’t put a few strategically placed pots of bamboo or at least, rake the gravel into Zen patterns. Xensen of Seven Junipers, who works at the museum, says that there are load-bearing issues preventing a roof top garden but I also heard that there could eventually be a garden – for the elite. Let’s hope that it improves the view for us plebeians.

However, I do understand the politics involved and the need for the “new kid” on the block to pound his chest and proclaim that “his” is bigger than “theirs.” The architect managed to maintain the graceful Beaux Arts façade of the old main library while expanding the interior in very creative ways. I love that they have maintained the old catalogue room – complete with the original floor, roof and windows as a space for events. The huge marble stairway in the middle of the entrance way gives one a stunning vista which includes the original arched ceiling while the mezzanine is perfect to show off some of the museum’s collection of Persian and other Middle Eastern ceramics.

After seeing the exhibit, I think I have to revise my viewpoint that the Tang Dynasty is my favorite period for Chinese art. I love Tang pottery, especially the horses and the willowy court dancers. But the Ming Dynasty calligraphy and silk paintings are superb and the jewelry, while too ostentatious for my taste, is gorgeous. Apparently, according to the Met Museum web site, the “early painters recruited by the Ming court were instructed to return to didactic and realistic representation, in emulation of the styles of the earlier Southern Song (1127–1279) Imperial Painting Academy. Large-scale landscapes, flower-and-bird compositions, and figural narratives were particularly favored as images that would glorify the new dynasty and convey its benevolence, virtue, and majesty.” While I acknowledge their craftsmanship, I don’t much care for the more elaborate cloisonné pieces but I realize that everybody has their own preferences. Perhaps I appreciate the difficulties of painting on silk because I am a painter and calligrapher. There is no room for mistakes and the fluid brushwork and delicate colors are breathtaking. Mike has an image up of marvelous small horsemen and soldiers from a Ming Dynasty tomb. My inner child wanted them immediately to play with while my more adult taste gravitated toward the silk paintings.

Another thing that struck me as I was researching the Ming Dynasty is how many Chinese dynasties referred back to the art of a previous era; the Ming instructed their artists to emulate the Song; the Song Dynasty – one of the most brilliant eras in Chinese history – referred back to the Tang (619-906) which is considered “the” classical period in Chinese art by the Met. Tim Johnson’s blog, “China Rises” has an amazing list of Chinese inventions, many of which occurred before the Ming Dynasty gained power.

The museum is open on July 4th and this Sunday, July 6th, is a free admission day. The exhibit will be here from June 27–September 21, 2008 and I think it’s a must see for the summer. There is also a host of related fascinating programs and activities

Links:

Asian: http://www.asianart.org/index.html
Report of the opening by SF Mike: http://sfciviccenter.blogspot.com/
Seven Junipers: http://7junipers.com/log/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty
Metropolitan Museum: http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/hd/ming/hd_ming.htm
http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Chinese/html_pages/index.htm
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHchina.html#china
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/