- 13 Oct 09
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Sump Pump
I had to turn on the sump pump today because of the first real storm of the season.
I had to turn on the sump pump today because of the first real storm of the season.
Gala and Granny Smiths
Braeburn, McIntosh, Granny Smith and Gala from left to right.
I cut up the apples today and got the shots I was hoping for. I have taken pictures of the eaten apple core, but I think these cut cores are more applicable to what I generally paint.
Going to the Barnes is kind of an adventure: timed entry, limited parking and pretty strict guards, and once inside more impressionist painting that you can shake a stick at (which they won’t let you do). As things are taking shape, there is a lot of discussion on where the Barnes collection will/should reside. Click here for Robert Venturi’s letter in opposition to moving the Barnes Collection from its specifically designed home. I don’t disagree with Christopher Knight, link below, but I read Venturi’s letter to be about the allocation of funds—a lot of funds and it lack of neccessity.
As I don’t have any skin in the game, my opinion is limited to the protection and presentation of the art more than the building. It is true the building was designed to house the collection, but this really only seemed to apply to the Matisse mural. My recollection of the building was it was poorly lit (original lights), climate control is apparently an issues (summer humidity) at least in parts of the building. Certainly improving the facilities would be the less expensive solution—albeit a non-spectacle expenditure. A more difficult issue, for me, is exhibiting the entire collection, which they currently do, in some fashion where one could easily see all the work, but I wouldn’t know how that could be achieved as the building stands. The salon hanging, including small paintings hung over doorways, makes it difficult to really see a fair portion of the paintings. Regardless of moving the collection to a more visitor friendly location—which it is currently not—something needs to be done to improve and protect the collection. Ultimately, I think the Barnes Collection’s strength might be the perceived difficulty of going there, the quirkiness of its installation and some really really nice paintings—well putting up the the two prior because of the latter.
Fix the building.
I am rethinking the fruit still lives, along the lines of the bricks I previously posted—geometrically cut cores to follow.
Taken while stuck in a traffic jam on the Northbound side of the Grapevine on Thursday night. It was the first time I ever turned off my car on the freeway—I was there for a little more than 2 hours.
I have a plan to take pictures of other people’s notebooks—ideally Moleskines only (despite it seeming rather done before, specifically the taking picture of other people things). I think I’ll just see what happens and not put any effort in to it. These are Whitney’s in her studio on her work table. I resisted sweeting it with a couple of my own—yes I have more than one with me all the time.
Prior to using digital images, all my paintings were made from thumbnail sketches that were made from the basic idea of what that thing looks like—something I still do. I make sketches and find a similar situation I can photograph. While I have no plans to eliminate the digital image, I have been thinking a lot about stand-ins and models in addition to how the sketch relates to this idea. So along those lines, I made this simple building structure out of corrugated cardboard. It is similar to a house I painted in Wonder Valley as well as a Russian Prison Barracks (which I apparently never placed on my website) I painted about 4 years ago. As for the model itself, I only made what you see; there are no back walls. The ground is my normally black platform, but i was cleaning it and liked the pattern the sanding created, so I shot it prior to returning it to flat black.
Wave
I took several pictures today of various items that are basically black and white (grey).
Square Knot
Just a quick post. I been taking pictures of my mixing jars of gesso as exampled above. I’ve got 6 values in addition to black and white (black is not in the photo).
