Caught in a Whirlpool

Two works in a show entitled "Black and White" held Dicember 1-19-2012

"Spazi" - "Spaces" carborundum print

"A Secret Garden Under the Sea"  -  Lithograph

I've just escaped from weeks of hectic confusion . . . caught up in the center of a whirlwind. 

Two shows at the same time and the work that continues in my house. 

From Past to Present

Museo Machiavelli S.Casciano V.P.

 From that very first show ever (explained in the preceding post) up to the last and most recent one, time has passed with art classes and contacts with artist friends and teachers who have been my precious guides.  Changes have come about in my painting. Wouldn't the contrary be strange.    A process of maturation is inevitable: self criticism, a visual awareness of other artists' work,  experimentation,  learning by trial and error and just  plain   painting.

Last June I participated in  a show located in the villa  once residence of Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian  historian, writer,  politician and philosopher. The villa  is now a museum that bears his name. The exposition was articulated throughout the entire villa and I chose the wine cellar because of its suggestive atmosphere.

Note the stone and brick walls and, in the background,the original wooden kegs which stored  wine  made from grapes harvested in that area. The odor of wine, even though the kegs are empty, was inebriating!!!

Below are other works from the show.

These last two pieces are old wooden "doors" that sealed the huge kegs where wine was aged. I refinished them using  wax, polished them and applied small paintings depicting Bacco, God of wine and harvest, along with other figures in a dream world  of pleasure. It was fun doing these especially for the occasion.

Down Memory Lane

 Working with watercolor during  these past few weeks has brought memories of my very first "real" show years ago (1991). I say "real" because it wasn't the usual end-of-year show for family and friends that normally closes an academic year. It was a show for the public and in a public place.

I was a student at "Art è", another private art school here in Florence, when our teacher proposed this show on behalf of a good friend, owner of a nursery that specialized in raising geraniums. 

She wanted to combine her show of plants with a show of paintings depicting geraniums and the show was to be held at the Botanical Institute of the University of Pavia in northern Italy.      To say the least we were all  eager to participate.
 
This was a beginning for me.  I had never measured my work in front of complete strangers before and was amazed at the reception  my work was given.

Here are examples of some of the paintings. Unfortunately the pictures are not all satisfactory but you get an idea of what I was doing at the time.

Time Out!

dots of  Fall color

Although my time for painting is limited for the moment, I manage to snatch at even 10 minutes during the day if only to scrutinize what I've done or to add a brush stroke here and there if necessary. We are doing work on the inside of our house so I am in the midst of moving things from place to place, getting rid of all that isn't strictly necessary. For me, a professed hoarder, this is a difficult lesson  but I'm beginning to like it.  I feel pounds lighter.


The other day, however, before the rainy season started, I took time out for a walk in the garden.

The last roses of summer

our persimmon tree ablaze with red leaves

 Beautiful! Recharged my energy completely.

Watercolor behavior

color proofs continued



 These proofs are experiments with various preparations of  watercolor paper before applying color. Top left: soap on dry paper and burnt umber with drops of pure water applied after. Bottom left: soap applied to paper then  colors added while soap is still wet. Center top: paper prepared with alum and water and then drops of burnt umber. Center bottom: soap applied to dry paper, then a wash of burnt umber was applied. Right top and bottom: fixative is sprayed on paper and while wet the wash of color is applied.

Why all these proofs?  The proofs are an attempt to discover in what ways  colors react to various preparations on your paper as well as to study the properties of each individual color; some are transparent, some are heavy with sediment and therefore opaque. This knowledge helps to create texture and brilliant color in a painting.


8 x 11inches
20 x 28 cm



Watercolor experiments

6 1/2  x 6 1/2 inches
17 x 17 cm. 

More proofs with watercolor. I'm trying to do a small painting every day.

This color sketch was done on wet paper without a preliminary drawing starting from two or three large color spots that I let dry.(top right and center)

From there, studying the possible forms created,  I found my figure and created the structured space around him.  (measuring space)


 
 
top - drops of color, (red,green,yellow), intermingle on dry paper.

middle - wet color sprinkled with salt. salt lifts color leaving  texture.

bottom - wet paper. drops of primary colors and their compliments let mingle.


6 1/2 x 6 in
17 x 17 cm.

Again, beginning with spots of color, (terra umbra bruciata and ultramarine blue) left foreground, right hand corner and top center, I created my figures and constructed the space surrounding them. (measuring space)



Waiting it out

What to do if your telephone goes mute and not only are you isolated totally from the rest of the real world but you can't even click onto your blog world? Nothing you can do really. You just have to patiently wait it out.


Wait for the telephone company to answer your desperate call and send out a technician (thank goodness for cell phones). Once technician #1 comes around to find out what the problem is you have to wait again until he makes a report to a second company, the one that actually repairs the damage. But this company only deals with problems directly concerning 1° company, ie.: external wires from the house to the telephone pole, all the rest is your problem.

Technician #2 puts in new wires from the house to the pole, (eaten by our expert company of field mice ) and puts my phones back in working order but finds two teeny weeny wires that he is convinced have short circuiting powers and decides to exclude them.

Where did these teeny weeny wires go? . . .to my computer's modem, of course!  Soooo . . .wait another few days to find an electrician who would come to the house (we live in the country) to solve a teeny weeny problem like this. Luckily we  found someone who solved the problem in minutes so I'm back on line. And, by the way, those two teeny weeny wires? Couldn't have caused a short circuit even if they wanted to. . . Boh!

During all this waiting, no telephone calls, no Internet to distract me, I've contiuned to play with my watercolors.

some "teeny weeny" proofs 



color - wet on wet



5  x 6 in. (14  x 16 cm)

5 x 6 in (14 x 16 cm)

Painting With Spots!



my aloe vera plant



I started Fall house cleaning a few weeks ago after a hot summer of inertia.  The dust was inches thick, no exaggeration I assure you. Only it wasn't just dust. As I came to realize shorty after, it was the natural habitat of hundreds of nasty minute beasties
. . . dust mites, spiders, and who knows what else. Shortly my stomach was a red mass of itchy bites and blotches that were unbearable. Alas, I took things into my own hands. I decided to cure myself using the lymph from my own aloe vera plant, as always, to heal the bites and soothe the itching. I didn't think that my plant, secular to say the least, would have dust on it too and. of course, the same beasties!

aloe leaf and lymph

The bites on my back healed straight away but the areas where my hands could reach to spead the lymph  got increasingly worse. It was finally a dermatologist who saved me . . .  cortisone pills . . .  antibiotics ( there was an infection in some ) . . .  and a cream to soothe the itch. She explained that it was the hot, dry summer that had created favorable conditions for the multiplication of these pests and living in the country that didn't help. Aloe Vera had never been a CAUSE before. I had always used it with no negative side effects. A lesson for me, though, caution with home remedies in the future. (and less cleaning?)

Despite this uncomfortable situation, as I had promised myself, I've managed to paint a little everyday. When I paint everything else is blotted out, my concentration is complete and my itching stopped momentarily.

I've organized a small area into a studio space here at home. I'm working with waterolor, water based acrylic and collage on paper. All materials easily transferred here from my studio in the city. Not the easiest materials to use but at least, if something goes wrong. . . muddy colors. . . or the composition that just doesn't work, all you do is tear up the paper and start again. I find it's a good way to gain back my confidence and to play with color.





watercolor

natural pigments



Beginning Again

Four years ago I was asked to take on a job that was far from home and far from my studio.

forms in a structural space

A job with a lot of responsiblity and very challenging, but it took me away from my painting, my printing . . . Now I'm back home, I am trying to begin again. First I joined an art association and have become active  in order to shake myself and to begin new work.

form in a structural space

 I'm not  happy with what I've done so far.  It's as if I'm afraid to mess something up.      But . . . that is exactly what I have to do. . .    

start messing up!

The oil paintings here are new, part of a recurrent theme of mine:

           "Measuring Space"

form in a  structrual space

Since I am primarily interested in the human
body, its forms and substance and I consider the

body a perfect structure with proportions,
measurements and weights, I confront the

structure of the human body with that of a civic building: muscle and bone, tissue and lymph vs.

cement and steel, plaster and glue. They are superimposed: the human form over technical drawings.





form in a structural space
(ink and gesso over a city map)
(framed by the iron rim of a wooden keg)

  











Wonders in nature



wild pears...mini...dolcissimi...masterpiece of nature

 "For every artist worthy of this name everything in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, accepting without fear every external truth, read there, as in an open book, every interior truth"

++++

"Per ogni artista degno di questo nome tutto nella natura è bello, perchè i suoi occhi, accettando impavidamente ogni verità esteriore, vi leggono, come in un libro aperto, tutta la verità interiore."                                        

AUGUSTE RODIN (1840-1917)

An Installation

I have written 5 previous posts about my Etruscan project at Hotel Fontermosa: graphic solutions, room numbers, greeting card, and portraits. This is the last of the series. . .an installation created for the hotel’s dining room. First a short definition. Installation art describes an artistic genre of  works that are often  site-specific, three-dimensional works designed to transform the perception of a space. It is an art form generally applied to interior spaces.
Using wax and wire mesh, I created two Etruscan  figures, the double flute player and the dancer, ever present entertainers at a festive gathering in Etruria. My intention and purpose was to complete my Etruscan theme in an area used for the consumption of food and beverages, a dining hall, where the magic flute and ballerina evoke sensations of conviviality, music, dance,
In the Etruscan tradition the sharing of food played a role of primary importance. The practice of offering a banquet for various festivities or celebrations signified that there was a special communion between the participants and the divine. Precious  foods were offered: milk, wine, honey, meats and particular breads made with herbs and cereals.

My figures were modeled after a dancer depicted in the Tomb of the Triclinio (above left) and a dancer depicted in the Tomb of the Lion (above right) and, of course, the flute player from the Tomb of the Leopard (below) (all can be seen in the archeological site at Tarquinia.)
  Many sketches, many preliminary plans were drawn and a near-life size drawing was made to help me with proportions. Then the inner structure of metal tubing and wire was made. It had to be solid and secure because I intended to suspend my figures from the ceiling so that they would be free. . .weightless. Now in the dining room, objects of curiosity, they are often touched making them swing (especially by children) and, in a way, they are brought to life.

 

It was winter, I remember, and the wax was hard because of the cold.  I had to use a hairdryer to make the wax soft enough to press into the wire mesh. The process was slow because of this.

The materials I used  varied.  I am a hopeless hoarder so I have a studio full of THINGS  that I hate to through out,  “you never know when they will be useful!” The wire mesh, once cut, twisted and pulled, rolled and folded, was covered in places by yellow colored tarlatan ( a kind of gauzy cloth that you use to clean inked plates while etching), it  was painted, was lined with transparent acetate sheets or just plain plastic.  Bits of metal were used to decorate both figures. Silver leaf was used on the musician’s face.

Once ready to be placed in the dining area, a Plexiglas panel, (1 mt. x 3 mt.) was  fixed to the wall behind the area where they would hang in order to create a virtual space.

Details

www.fontermosa.it