And now for something completely different… me.
15 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
True to my complex personal art history, I often combine media to create a texture, a patina, and a dynamic surface to fulfill my ideas in concrete, paint, fiber, and steel to build a communally created work of art.
My largest artwork to date, a 500′ acrylic on concrete mural, was my first public work of art and involved the hard work and imaginations of all 25 inner city gang youth who helped me work make it. Granted, they were court ordered to choose to work on the mural or go to jail, still, I feel we all made the right decisions to paint our art outdoors and make history beautiful.
Mural
15 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
In 1985 I wanted to work on a mural to learn how to do it. I volunteered to help in East LA on a 500′ mural working with gang youth. After the first day, the original leaders quit because “it’s too much work” and I was the last (wo)man standing. So I co-designed the mural with James Garcia, the last man standing, and we led my ’25 little felons’ to victory in their ‘rehab’ to the community beauty. I earned a whopping $2000.00 for six months of hard work, ten weeks of which were spent with the gang youth. They were amazingly talented. I asked one boy who was fantastic at drawing and painting about his background in art. He told me, “Oh, this is my first painting. But I did everybody’s tatoos in prison.”
The Concrete-Nature Experience
29 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
I sculpt with concrete and/ or acrylic units because they can be so true to an idea, and take any form imaginable. From lace-like curtains in acrylic units to monolithic masses, these mediums hold light and form like no other; they are purely visual songs of the moment with great strength and staying power.
In some artworks I combine two mediums of bright acrylic colors or tiles for surface interest. In all my artwork, I re-purpose and recycle materials throughout the art. I love this work of being an artist and making art, especially art for others to see.
Typically, my large (500′ long and smaller) murals, friezes and sculptures are installed in cities, where millions of viewers can see them everyday.
Viewers make a sort of connection and thereby an energetic response the lives in the art, too. That is where art has the most power: in the hearts and minds of the people who view it and take a second to put their attention with the art.
In a nature setting, by virtue of the human art experience, viewers engage in their rapport with the art, the gardens, and their imagination in the refreshing juxtaposition of the stony surfaces with delicate botanical energies.
The New Tone in Paintings: Neo Tonalism
30 May 2011 1 Comment
June in our area has some gorgeous evenings for the monthly Art Hop that are balmy with a possible breeze, and by evening the afternoon rains have usually cleared. And yet, our May 19 Art Hop in Historic Monument saw rain snow, sleet, fog and finally sun in that 5-8pm time slot! Still, some loyal art lovers came out and made the rounds to kick off the local art event. Later, when the sun came out, one would never know we’d had such a weather-filled day.
I was out and about, too, but I admit I ventured into town after the sky brightened. The afternoon’s thick fog made the whole town seem surreal, moody and mysterious like a tonal painting.
The moody character of the late 19th to early 20th century painting known as Tonalism is seeing a comeback recently among artists and especially art collectors. Instead of great detail, the artists work more with the general mood and tones of their scene, and using a very limited palette of mostly earth colors. These atmospheric paintings use soft edges that evoke feelings. Perhaps it was a result of the bleak post Civil War tenor that influenced the movement’s minimal hues. Prior to that era, the full spectrum, dramatic and detailed luminist paintings dominated painting in the U.S. with its grand scenes of the power of nature and light.
Tonalist paintings are not of a particular place, or even done at the place, but are more of an imagined locale for the subject of the painting which is primarily the mood and feeling expressed. Tonalsm is the opposite of Impressionism, which uses the brilliant full specturm instead of a limited use of hues. Today’s plein air artists seem to use a combination of the tonality of that limited palette and the generalized, rough brush strokes, almost as if just an underpainting, and then add touches of the brilliant colors they see outdoors.
When tubes for paint colors became available, artists went out into nature, carting their materials on their backs or with a friend’s help, and painted on the spot, having to return a number of times at the same time of day since the fugitive sunlight changed the view drastically as it moved past the scenes. These days, with our renewed interest in natural habitats and conservation, the love of natural scenes is again a favorite. Neo tonalism is the moniker for the current variation on the theme, but we do see hints of a bit more color in them.
Humans and social networks
12 May 2011 Leave a Comment
Gangs:
So many of these kids go to church or worship services, and some of my gang kids from my 1985 mural would frequently go to the funerals of their friends. Their lives are not the same as others’ lives. They have nobody to belong to in a true sense, and they don’t even “belong” to themselves. Their gang is, on a most primitive level, a social network, a tribe, a family. If their tribe can make a living on drugs and violence, that is how they do it. In theory, it is not much different than warriors of any age (ours included), and a mind set not easily overcome without intervention, love, and commitment, but most importantly, a place to “be”.
Is it okay if I don’t like the art world in general?
19 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
I can’t hardly believe the things that get put into public art. I mean, really… In San Jose, a person put sails on a tree stump/ tree limbs and they paid for it. I do think that there is more to public art and public thinking and public awareness than that.
If that’s all there is, then, take my ideas and run with them. Live my ideas as I do, and feel the freedom, the love, and the connectedness that lives in the art works that I create and put out for you.
See you in art.
Is it okay if I don’t like the art world in general?
19 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
I can’t hardly believe the things that get put into public art. I mean, really… In San Jose, a person put sails on a tree stump/ tree limbs and they paid for it. I do think that there is more to public art and public thinking and public awareness than that.
If that’s all there is, then, take my ideas and run with them. Live my ideas as I do, and feel the freedom, the love, and the connectedness that lives in the art works that I create and put out for you.
See you in art.
Art: Touching the Human Heart
06 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Even saying the word “touch”, we instinctively know that the “touch” part can be about metaphorically touching the human heart. That moment is physically and mentally “out of this world” and we have a connection beyond a physical object. This connection is to the metaphorical art spirit, and this is what makes even simple artworks much more than a mere rock or utility thing.
Actually, even a stack of rocks placed just so offer the intent and recognition to us that a human being touched it, placed it, and experienced the intent prior to us. Here in our community, when we go for a hike in the hills, we may see that somebody place a few rocks in a small, albeit interesting, assortment. This could be a way of marking the trail, with an intention of some sort, likely to remind the hikers of a place in the path. And it could just be for fun. In any case, we recognize some intention of placement.
Likewise, if someone knocks over that little rock pile, we may feel sad at that cruel intent as well. It is remarkable that humans look for meaning in an intention with just a moment’s glance.
So how much more powerful is the public art and art experiences we share with others on a daily basis, even as we drive past a sculpture in a car and not on a human paced walk. It only takes a second, or a nano second, for us to respond in our hearts, and we may carry that moment for some time: days, weeks, years, a lifetime.
From human experience far earlier than written history, our recognition of the human touch, of what a person touched and intended, can reach us tens of thousands of years later, long after the person who created the intent has left the planet we now inhabit. We only know that a person made the artifact, and it remains for us to ponder a life lived in another era.
These days, we have public art that we share on purpose in our community. Some of it we can see from along the highway, some from along a country road, and we know someone placed the art there to show it to us. No other living creature seems to make that intention, or catch on to it, either.
So let me encourage you to take notice of the art and human touch you may see around you, be it a garden, a church statue or flowers growing in a sunny window pot. Somebody put it there, somebody wanted you to see it, and the reason is pretty darn simple: just because.
On Kitsch
01 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
I already know I will always value petroglyphs, a drawing by Holbein or a painting by Van Gogh or Sargent over work by Warhol or Eder or even Hirst. I prefer to be awe-inspired, gaze in wonder and enjoyment, have some rapport, or at the very least re-excited every time I look at a piece.
Yep. There is a consciousness that moves through the works of artists that is either authentic, genuine and moving, or stuck. It doesn’t matter who the artist is, but the consciousness matters. A mere ink swish of a brush from a Zen master is stunning. An overworked or thoughtless goop of oil paint, regardless of sales price, will always be just a sad waste of paint.
A Happy New Year Day
02 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
I have marmalade cats with white creamy swirls, marmalade poodles (but none of them girls); a spotted pile of teeny poodleys giving me kisses so oodley cute-a-ly, they scramble my lap with tiny toesys, cov’ring me up in a quilt of fur-posies.
