Bob (and me) in front of one of his larger paintings
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Secret Diary of an Artist
(April 2000)
Bob (and me) in front of one of his larger paintings
Last week was a busy week for Art Openings - those receptions, parties, shindigs, bashes held at the site of a new exhibition to encourage the public to come visit. Any artist who wants to keep up with what's 'out there' should attend. More important, however, is the desire to support your fellow artists. They are then more likely to come to your next opening. The art community is very supportive of its members, I find. I don't go to EVERY opening, of course - I'd be a physical wreck if I did. But I do try, and I generally feel pretty guilty if I can't make it.
Sebastopol First Thursday Artwalk
So, anyway, on Thursday I drove the 40 or so miles up to
Sebastopol in Sonoma County to attend their regular First Thursday Artwalk. A
lot of towns have these now. Because there are several different galleries to
visit, it doesn't really matter if you don't like all the art. I'd never been to
the one in Sebastopol before because it's a bit too far after a hard day's work,
but my good friend Carol Herzog had paintings in two separate shows. I own one
of her paintings - a magnificent abstract in rich glowing tones of gold and
brown which hangs in pride of place over my fireplace. In order to be able to
afford it, I did a swap with her for one of my collages. This is a great way to
build up an art collection. Lots of the artists of the past exchanged paintings
in that way. Of course, it depends upon the other artist liking your work as
much as you like hers. Carol and I are in this happy situation most of the time.
She's very accomplished and recently completed a huge canvas for an important
corporate commission. One of her openings was at the Quicksilver Mine Company, a
really neat gallery at the back of a store full of artistic gifts and artifacts
on Main Street. She had 5 or 6 paintings on the walls and in the window of the
store itself. They looked fabulous, and I was surprised to see her new colors
were subtle, meditative grays with touches of dark red. Although entirely
abstract, the shapes remind me of Southwestern symbols. In the gallery itself
were the vibrant, often quite startling abstracts of Robert Rice whose time
spent in the Far East have inspired some of the calligraphic and decorative
patterns which appear alongside a kind of Abstract Expressionism. The show was a
real knockout. We (Mike and I) then went on to the Sebastopol Center for the
Arts to see "Driven to Abstraction", which had been juried by that
well-known painter of crazy-looking domestic dogs in equally chaotic and
colorful environments, Roy De Forest. I was expecting a chaotic show...and
that's exactly what it was. There was far too much art, for one thing. And
a lot of the art was badly painted. It was tough to focus on the good stuff
amidst all the work that looked like it had been done by people who thought that
in abstract painting anything goes. I know I probably sound like an art snob,
but as someone who has been teaching and practicing abstract painting for some
years now, I think I am able to discriminate between abstract art that is
sophisticated, thoughtful, and sincere and that which is simply an apology for
not knowing how to paint. Not that I blame the painters who did it. I blame the
juror. No artist is going to agree with all the juror's choices, but this show
didn't look like he'd given much thought to the process at all. There was so
much art that the organizers had to hang some of it in the nearby Sprint Copy
Shop, where even the good paintings looked awful. Having sounded off, I'd like
to mention one really outstanding piece: a charcoal wash by Eloise Rauscher. I'd
have awarded it Best of Show, but that honor went to a collage which really
wasn't an abstract at all.
'Art From The Center' at The Underground Gallery
On Friday I attended the opening of Art From The Center in the Underground Gallery at the San Rafael Downtown Art Center. I wanted to go because, although I teach at the Center, I don't often get the chance to mix with the other teachers and resident artists whose work was on display. It was interesting to see what they had been getting up to lately. The work which comes out of the Center is incredibly varied - landscapes in oil, portraits, amazingly realistic still lifes in transparent watercolor (by Ann Langston), mixed media abstracts (by Darcy Gray), highly original ceramics (by Molly Blauvelt), sculpture, fiber art. A large semi- abstract with a mysterious vase floating in a shimmering red and yellow background, by Stephanie Jücker, caught my eye. (She has her work in Hang Gallery in San Francisco.) I found my framer friend, Gary Godfrey, chatting up a beautiful girl who works for Lucas Films while balancing a plate of delicious cold cuts on his knee (the food was on his knee, not the girl - although a little later the food fell on the floor.) I like Gary. He's from the East Coast and is very talkative and direct. If he's trying to sell you something - like frames for your next show - he goes right in there and tells you what a great job he'll do. He did some lovely work for me a couple of years back, but nowadays I mostly don't frame my canvases at all. Susan Ticken, who I've known for years, was there with two new paintings, one a moody portrait of a Native American man in monochrome browns. She told me that she'd used the famous Chester Arnold-via-the-Old-Masters' technique of grisaille which is then covered in multiple transparent glazes. Anyway, it was very effective. Susan's an incredibly versatile artist - you never know what she's going to paint next. She seems to be able to paint almost anything in almost any medium. This makes her the ideal person to teach the kids art class at the Downtown Art Center and to run the Art Summer Camp, which is very successful. I took a critical look at my own two paintings, Mixed Messages and The Printer's Poem, and didn't feel too bad about them. The Poem one is pretty weird, but if this isn't an opportunity to display one's latest experiment, I don't know what is!
Click
here to see pictures taken at the opening
'Adventures in Bobland' at Powell Street Gallery
On Saturday night, after a 400-mile round trip to Merced to deliver all the paintings for my show 'Annotations' at Merced College , Mike and I looked in on Bob Burridge's opening at the Powell Street Gallery in San Francisco. They called it Adventures in Bobland which made it clear right from the get-go that it wasn't to be taken too seriously. Judging from the number of red dots (Sold signs) by the paintings, however, it's evident that the public does see his work as something to collect. This has got to be the liveliest opening in an upscale art gallery that I have ever attended. It was an RSVP affair so someone at the door checked your name on a list then gave you tickets for free wine and martinis. There were balloons and streamers hanging from the ceiling, wall-to-wall people and, of-course, a heck of a lot of paintings (even a whole extra gallery in the bathroom!). Robert is SO prolific. He paints every day, he says, whether he's on the road traveling between workshops or in his studio in Rancho Arroyo. His paintings positively sing at you in brilliant primary colors with juicy brushstrokes flying every which way. Because he finishes them off with a brilliant gloss varnish the colors seem brighter still. Some paintings were pretty big, especially the signature piece "Adventures in Bobland", which is chock full of paint pots, food, wine bottles, a cello, an easel with one of his own paintings of two large martinis, flowers, hearts, a cow looking through the window, and the mountains beyond. Phew! My favorite was an abstract. He's been doing quite a few of those recently. Anyway, Bob (and his beautiful wife, Kate) was obviously having a whale of a time schmoozing with his friends and public. I was impressed that he was able to find time for us to take a few photographs. But that's the way he is - always time for everyone.
After I'd finished looking at Bob's paintings, I went upstairs to the third floor where Christine Cohen's detailed watercolor paintings are now hanging. She is a popular teacher at the Downtown Art Center and this showing at Powell Street represents a major achievement for her. She has attended several of Bob Burridge's workshops and, for a while, her style was strongly influenced by his, but these watercolors were entirely original, bearing the marks of a skilled botanical painter. I wish her lots of luck in this new setting!
Christine Cohen at Powell St Gallery
Click here to see more pictures at Powell Street
January 2000
entry (New Year's Resolutions)
February
2000 entry (Painting in the Mexican Jungle)
July 2000 entry (A Visit to the Tate
Modern and Fondation Maeght)
December 2000 entry (Positives &
Negatives of the Year)