Heading South

Heading down south for awhile-
Off to a place of beauty and adventure.

I look forward to sharing more when I return;

he ART ISTS

Two Big Black Hearts by JimDine at the DeCordova Sculpture Park. Lincoln  MA

Today is the day of Cupid and Eros that day to celebrate LOVE so I thought I would look up some of my most fav artists who have used the HEART in their ART. Of course Jim Dine comes first to mind, and it is interesting to note that many of these artists fall under that umbrella name of Pop- Artist.

Jim Dine who was born in Ohio in 1935 likes to use imagery to hang  his landscapes on, I am paraphrasing here. In a life time the iconic graceful shape of the heart has allowed him to explore paint, printmaking, drawing,collage and sculpture.

Jim Dine, Sunflower, 2005

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/P/P04/P04226_10.jpg

Robert Indiana an artist who used is advertising skills to make

what began as a Christmas card into a worldwide symbol including a postage stamp.

Robert Indiana, Chatsfield Gardens, England 

I remember having the LOVE poster in my dorm room. Now the Love sculpture can be found in plazas in Japan, Philadelphia, New York and Taiwan. A beautiful message that clearly many have loved.

Here's to your  LOVEly celebration.

Now I am also going to include in my homage a dozen red roses painted by me and currently on view at Framed Image.

http://www.framedimage.net/index.html In their Mostly Red show.

"Afternoon Tea". Pastel. C. Buschmann

Going to Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh, 'Self Portrait with Straw Hat",1887 Oil on Canvas,Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam(Vincent Van Gogh Foundation);F:469,JH:1310

I have been going to the Denver Art Museum exhibition "Becoming Van Gogh" as much as I could since it first arrived in Denver in late October. Each time I go I see old friends in the images on the walls. Many paintings and drawings are ones I once pored over in books.
I love this exhibition because it approaches Vincent Van Gogh in the serious way he approached his own work. The exhibit truly studies and looks at the manner in which Van Gogh deliberately went about acquiring skills and building on his own abilities to become the expressive human being whose art work has riveted our attention for more than a century.
If you are looking for confirmation of Vincent as some kind of basket case who crazily piled on color and line and then went roaring into a Provencal field and cut off his ear then this is not the exhibit for you.
At this writing the exhibit is over. It finished with a 24 hour continuous exhibit so the public could see this exhibit. The last few times my husband and I went we took notice of whom was looking with us at this exhibit. We saw a lot of families w/children discussing color and emotion. We saw students and fellow artists all carefully looking and discussing. This exhibit was wonderful. I highly recommend the book which was written as the catalog. I feel we have seen a true landmark exhibit.

Early Van Gogh drawing,1882, pencil, at the Hague

Vincent went through a variety of visual steps I have watched adults and children travel as they learn how to handle an art medium. Working with too few subtle value changes, not recognizing their own personal visual communication skills as strengths. You can see he has power of composition and an interest in texture in this early piece. Now 6 years later after 1000's of drawing you can see that love of texture has evolved into a personal shorthand of dots and dashes, He has experimented with handling a reed pen and milk washes.  His work shows and increased understanding of how to edit his emotion.

V. Van Gogh Drawing "Wheat Fields w/Sheaves in Arles in the Back ground" 1888, Private collection

But it is still Vincent Van Gogh, after a long an arduous journey.  His was a Journey that many artists recognize, they understand the path he trod. This exhibition at the Denver Art Museum was remarkable as it showed the markers of that path, a path many artists recognize because they so frequently set out on it themselves.

Anguish

" The Child's Head on his Mother's Hand's" Kathe Kollwitz, 1900

We hold life so delicately within our grasp. Kathe Kollwitz the great German artist knew the delicacy of living and I am so sorry to see that we as  Americans are beginning to experience, again, that tenuous, beautiful gift of our  days.

Catching Up

Just was rereading my own blog list and was taken with awe at the words in this blog which I have in my sidebar by Marla Bagetta http://marlabaggetta.blogspot.com/ . This is a keeper for me and for those of you involved in creating and appreciating the art process you may enjoy the read also.
I have another blog which I would like to bring to your attention. This is one an old high school friend of mine is writing and is a timely and gentle read after this current election. http://terrifiedtissue.blogspot.com/  Enjoy the read and I will get back to you my gentle readers later- and now to my basement studio to paint and draw on this snowy day.

The Jacarandas in bloom in the Parque Central, looking at Volcan Aqua in La Antigua, Guatemala. Which reminds me - I have added to my sidebar Antigua Daily Photo- a real treat for catching a glimpse of life in that beautiful city.

Ancient Road #3 Carsulae Italy

This past June I had the great good fortune to go to Italy and stay and work at La Romita-http://www.laromita.org/.  La Romita is (as one friend said after I told her about my experience there ) a camp for artists. Ah yes it is, and in a beautiful setting above the city of Terni in the "green heart of Italy".  Even though it was unusually dry and there were fires later in the summer it is still lush by my western eyes. It is the landlocked part of Italy and perhaps as I was raised in a landlocked state, i.e., Kansas, I felt a sense of recognition.

We 13 artists stayed comfortably in what had once been a small monastery and for the past 40 years has been a respite for artists and artists groups. There is a comfortable studio in which to work (a reconverted chapel) . After a morning breakfast equipped with a map, laden down with our painting supplies, and filled with a lecture from the night before of where we were going. We were driven to some near or far hilltop town. Some you would recognize such as Assisi.

Or some would be new to you/ us, unless your specialty is Italian hill towns. We would tumble out after traveling windy roads and find a place to perch and paint. Then we were returned to La Romita for a delightful lunch or we stayed out all day in places like Orvieto or Perugia.
One such blissful day we were driven to the ancient Roman town of Carsulae. This town was built on the Via Flaminia an original road of the Roman Empire which connected Rome to the Adriatic Sea. Theroad was built in 220-219 BC. The city gained prominence because of its beautiful site. Tacitus and Pliny the Younger both spoke of the beauty of the place. The road was also one on which you could travel to the springs of nearby San Gemini ( we painted San Gemini our first painting day). Carsulae was abandoned because of an earthquake and I also read because of robberies which eventually occurred scaring off merchants from the Via Flaminia.

Today you can see beautifully askew ruins. They include a theatre and amphitheatre and of course the Via Flaminia. I took refuge under some low hanging branches and sat down on what must have once been a busy thoroughfare and made a plein aire piece of the view.

 Did I mention it was warm, hot, one needed shade. I looked across the hills which had given Carsulae its original beauty and had to agree with Pliny. This is a site of great beauty even today.  Over my right shoulder I could follow the Via Flaminia and see the arch of Traiano (so named because silver coins from the time of the Emperor Trajan 98-117 were found there). This arch is the remainder of three and was originally covered in marble.

So this past year I have walked 3 much used roads of the past. Each one brings to my mind the daily lives of the people who lived along these paths. When I see the arch of
San Damianos (or Traiano) I wonder at the skill of the arch builders. I think also of the skill of the cliff dwellers of Canyon de Chelly and the piled stones creating the ball courts of Mixtel Viejo. Three places of overlapping times going about thier daily business of survival.
http://cbuschmannart.com/index.php/gallery/79-artwork/167-italy

Canyon de Chelly- Ancient Road.Path # 2

I have had the great good fortune to grow up on land which allows you to literally see the "bones of the earth". This is what I call the rises and hillocks of the geography of Kansas. Here in Colorado I see great ridges and vertebrae of the earth when I look at the Rocky Mountains.When I travel through New Mexico and Arizona, as I did this past spring, I am able to look into the very interior of the land. When I pass a deep arroyo or the edges of the Rio Grande Valley I feel as though I am looking between the very ribs of the land. Accompanied by good traveling friends I traveled beyond Mesa Verde past Shiprock, Arizona and onward to Chinle, Arizona. What pulled us was to experience a deep incision into the earth which humans have been living in since 2500 to 200 BC.

This  groove into the earth has been known as Canyon de Chelly since the 1500's when the Spanish discovered and followed the Navajo Indians deep into this Canyon.  The Canyon was called the Tseyi by the Navajo (Dine). This word Tseyi translates into "inside the rock". The Spanish mispronounced the name and  it was adapted into English with a French-like spelling pronunciation.

Deep inside the rock, humans have been sheltered and carved homes into the walls of the steep walled

promontory.

When you stand on the edge of this vast windswept land and look down into the center you see relief from the wind and also the comfort of grass, water and trees. It is here that animals as well as man has lived. 

  The land is not federally owned but is owned and managed by the Navajo. If you want to see the area you must enter with a Navajo guide. We had a great guide who told us not only anthropological discoveries but stories of his youth growing up in the Canyon and ancient tales of Origin of the Anasazi.  You need all these tales to be woven together as you ride the sand-laden road at the bottom of the Canyon.

    Other than the sheer beauty of the walls , the colors and the majesty of this ancient home land there was a destination in this deep place. That was to see close up the rock which goes by the name of "Spider Woman".                                                                                        

"Spider Woman" is reputed to have sung along with Tawa, humans into existence. The Navajo offered her the top of the rock on which to live. She taught the women to weave. As you know spiders have been associated with the art of weaving in many cultures. In Greece there was Arachne , Amanetsu in Japan and Ixchel of the Mayans. "Spider Woman" came up from the 2nd world to the 3rd world and that passage is said by some to be marked by this red pinnacle upon which she made her dwelling. 

The Canyon for me had a spiritual quality. I not only marveled at the numbers of people and stories there were here but the spiritual beauty of this place which had provided life , meaning and art to its residents.

Check out my April 11 2011 post http://colorcreates-pastelsdaysplaces.blogspot.com/search/label/woven%20color To find where Spider Woman is today.