Atelier Voyeur

" Ballad of the Jealous Lover",1934, The Spencer Art Museum, Lawrence, KS

With May in Denver feeling like March weather NEVER left I am going to  reflect a few weeks  back when I was in much warmer Kansas City. I discovered that the Studio of the regional artist Thomas Hart Benton was a few blocks away from my daughter's apartment and open to the public.

So how do artists set up their space, I wonder with much the same interest I have in wanting to know how homeowners store their stuff? Especially since I always seem to create places that are prone to tumbling down.

Boom Town

The studio is left as it was on the last night Mr Benton painted in it in 1978. This studio can be found at 3616 Belleview Ave. Kansas City, MO. When I look at it through the eyes of a colorist I see a quarried limestone home with subdued colors yet a feeling of comfort and ecleticism. He had a window put in the northside of his garage/carriage house and there he painted from 1939 to 1978.

Prior to that time Mr. Benton traveled to Paris where he attended school. He also lived in NYC where he worked with the Art Students League. Some say he was influenced by the work of Bruegel which he saw in Europe. He was influenced by the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. His work was too regionalist for the Parisians and he was not political enough for the New York art scene. Yet he was named after the first state senator from Missouri and his father had high political ambition for him. Instead Benton became an artist who prided himself on knowing the various regions of the USA and the foibles and social difficulties of its inhabitants. He was an artist and a teacher. One of his most famous students was Jackson Pollock. Some say that Benton's circular dynamic compostions which pulled the artists eye in was employed by Pollock in his drip paintings. What do you think?

Mural at the Missouri State Capital

Jackson Pollack

Sounding Out

Thought I would be out of the studio by now and working outside/Plein aire. It is still a little nippy to sit or stand, observe, respond and paint. So I have been inside trying to work trying to challenge myself to quickly and intuitively solve visual problems instead of overworking them.
Had a wonderful respite. One of my all time favorite musicians was in town- Lyle Lovett. I love to listen to him. His music is so lush and he is so thoughtful.  He performed for a fundraiser at Colorado Academy. In a gymnasium with only 700 other people I was able to see and hear him. His musicianship and artistry are so strong. Take a peek at the video which I have attached and it might remind you as it did me of the paintings of the Belgian surrealist painter  Rene Magritte.

http://music.aol.com/video/in-my-own-mind/lyle-lovett/1450679 

"l'Homme au Chapeau Melon" by Rene Magritte in 1964.

Lively artists/ Artists Atelier/studios

Some people walk by their neighbors homes at night and enjoy the warm lights through the windows of families gathering and living their life. I enjoy the idea of  lights and windows reflecting the industrious long hours of artists working in thier studios. I am beginning a series of artists I know and admire and the studios in which they work. First off let me say my studio is not yet realized but it is much better. I have moved from  a corner of the basement shared with my cats to a refurbished small basement bedroom vacated happily by my daughter (she moved on to her adult life). So this is not my dream studio I have more visions. One of my favorite books is Alexander Liebermans' "The Artist in His Studio". Let me show you a glimpse of Paul Cezannes' last studio.

I recently had the great fortune of visiting the Colorado Studio of Joellyn Duesberry, see my Feb. 13, 2010 posting -"With love/Out and About". A friend of mine purchased a painting of Ms. Duesberry's and we went to her studio. She has a lovely small barn in south Denver. Her house and garden are a few steps away.I love to see the materials an artist uses for researching the work which they do. My friend giddy with the difficult decision of selecting a painting. (Here's the secret she loves them all). So now you have seen glimpses of a working artists studio and I hope to introduce you to more Colorado artists and their studios in the months to come. Cheers and heres to you and your studio!

Dancing with Degas on the Plains

" Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
  Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!"
        by Thomas Nashe ( 1567-1601 )


When I time it just right I can hop in my car and drive from Denver to Kansas City and have my eyes increasingly filled with the color of spring as I drive East. I leave my house with its just blooming Forsythia and marching tulips to run into a ballet made up of blooming redbud trees some where between Salina and Kansas City.

When I spy those flowering trees, tucked into  new green fields I immediately am reminded of the rows of ballet dancers in tulle which Degas painted and drew.

Ah Edgar Degas in Kansas! Who would have thought it? I know he would have given the glorious color of the redbuds this name.

Dancing among the Spring grasses in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

Sweet colors of Pacque

A few Printemps ago I took a trip to Lyon, France with my sister to visit my niece and her family. I was struck by the brilliant yellow of the forsythias on a grey day.

See the poisson (luscious chocolate fish) in the fenetre (window). The French Easter/Pacque motifs are not bunnies running around but fish.

Ah Delicious!

Ah savoring Spring in Lyon with my sister!!

Have a memorable Fete de Printemp with your family this week!

The Secret of Keeping your Art Mojo Alive

I started collecting art when I was in college. Fortunately, for me I married a man who loves to collect also. Everywhere we have lived we have gotten to know the community we are in through its artists and artistic contributions. While living in Okinawa, Japan, I continued my love of contemporary printmaking by collecting the work of Japanese contemporary printmakers, learned about Mingei (Japanese Folkart) and was introduced to Japanese culture through the various arts and crafts. Now I live in a small house with a variety of objects, both two dimensional and three, let alone the dog, two cats and friends and children. Soo because I love to cast my eyes on objects and do not like to be inundated with too much visual clutter I have developed a way of putting on display only parts of our collection at a time. Every 2, 3, or 4 months, whenever the spirit moves me I change the objects on my walls. No, I don't repaint and sometimes, frequently- I don't change the nail holes (that is part of the challenge).

For instance, somewhere around the end of February or the first part of March I pull out more of our Japanese collection, in particular our Hinaningyo. Hinaningyo are dolls which were traditionally used to celebrate, The Doll'sFestival, Momo-no Sekku (Hinamatsuri) and is celebrated on March 3.

 Because I have 2 girls (now young women, not living here) I especially enjoyed the idea of having a time set aside for their celebration. But because I am not Japanese I did not display them in the traditional manner. I arrange ours, to fit in a small alcove in our Living Room. Traditionally there would be the Emperor and Empress, followed by the royal court and appropriate displays of food and peach blossoms. Our ningyo(dolls) come from a collection which was divided, so is not complete.

 I also change the pictures in my Living room and Dining room to go with the season. I don't put up all Japanese or all city scapes or landscapes. I find that too boring. I do think that art when juxtaposed with other work, becomes richer especially if they might share compositional or color similarities. 

This year because we were not at home, March 3, I did not put these dolls out until this past week. Last year I did try an exhibit of ONLY landscapes which I felt was visually boring. I enjoy letting the Ningyo have their moment away from the tissue coverd boxes they reside in, when not on display. 

Besides I can only think that Spring must be round the corner, (even if the snow is flying here in Denver), when I see this lady and silk screen print done by my friend Eugenie Torgerson.

I remember the Springs of Okinawa when I get this dancing lady out.

Or set this lady dancing on the bingata (ikat dyed fabric from Okinawa) of a Noren (curtain).

These objects allow me to remember and to

 look at the new visual liveliness they will bring to my life before I tuck them away for another time when Spring needs heralding.

Ah so you get it?! My Mojo, my secret energy booster is often visual and creating a space which is visually energetic must be flexible.

Colores de Guatemala

I've returned once again from a country which dazzles my eyes with color and emotion each trip. Guatemala has much magic and one aspect which is often focused on, and rightly so, is the weaving made by the various indigenous groups of people. The close packed tightly woven fabric can be seen everywhere one travels in the highlands. I picked up an excellent book in Antigua which is making me think more deeply about the fabric and helping me to look at the land, air and environment through the glasses of the colors and weft of the fabric. "Weaving Space: Textiles and Tales from Guatemala" David B. Greene is the author. So let me show you a few pictures of the space which people walk through in the markets.

I selected these photos because I wanted you to see the ease with which the color red-violet is interjected into the everyday life. See the stunningly woven blouse the women is wearing in the bottom picture. She has a sun-ray embroidered neckline which I believe indicates she is from the Chichiconstenango area. Now, I am not an expert just an admirer. A person whose eyes become happily filled with color.

These are tortillas carefully arranged in overlapping concentric circles. We asked the two Mayan women who helped us in the kitchen of the Cascade Medical Team if we could purchase handmade tortillas from them for one of our meals. They brought them in baskets gently warm and invitingly arranged. A treat for the eye and tummy. Notice how the repeated colors of the cloth create a visual rhythm as they enfold the tortillas.

Last year I began a series of paintings based on what I experienced in Guatemala and the colors of the color wheel. This is one I did thinking about the red-violet colors I had seen on the lawn and noticing the beauty this gardener was carefully picking up.