“Revolution in the Making” – Abstract Women Sculptors Become Change Agents I

“Revolution in the Making”

Abstract Women Sculptors Become Change Agents I

Hauser Wirth & Schimmel recently hosted an astounding exhibition,

Revolution in the Making:
Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947 – 2016.

Here are some highlights….

The amazing “Intersection“, by the amazing Abigail DeVille, with my beloved Mark within.

Jackie Winsor  in the courtyard: “30-1 Bound Trees“

Lara Schnitiger ‘s Folie a Deux, created (spun?) out of nylon, chopsticks and wood. 

More to come.

Keeping the Faith: Inspired by the Storied Quilts of Faith Ringgold

Keeping the Faith: Inspired by the Storied Quilts of Faith Ringgold

I recently led elementary school-aged students through a project inspired by the storied artist Faith Ringgold, progenitor of the art of the “Story Quilt“

Students used pieces of “eco-fi” (made of recycled plastic bottles) felt, upon which they built their “story”, using pieces of cloth/fabric/textiles, ribbon, more felt, “pom poms“, feathers, fabric tape and so forth. All materials soft fabric or adornment materials.

Some young artists glued two to three pieces of felt together, some used a single sheet.

Students learned about gluing different sorts of materials together. How does one glue down feathers to a surface, while retaining their “feather-like” quality?

Students worked in close proximity at the cafeteria tables where our class is held, interacting and sharing about their pieces as they went along.

The color and texture of the materials seemed to affect the makers. The young girl above in the flowered dress put her piece to her cheek a number of times, enjoying its softness.

This young artist displayed incredible patience, cutting and gluing multitudes of repeating shapes onto the felt, bordering them with fabric tape, and even backing the piece with black felt.

All of the makers displayed relish and joy in the materials, and unbounded creativity. Whether working abstractly or figuratively, the students shared their stories with shapes, color, texture and imagery!

What a JOY!

Great Walls of Color

Great Walls of Color

I have been watching with interest the development of a magical mural being painted over the entire surface of an industrial-looking building  at Broadway and Cloverfield Streets in Santa Monica,, rising like a multi-hued phoenix over the gray pavement.

Intense gradations of color flow over the building, which look airbrushed…spray-painted. This looks like the color foundation. The windows are protected by taped plastic.

Detail painted in representational style goes up over the rich hues. The building stands in stark relief to its surroundings. Is that a little girl painting the Broadway side wall?

Close..an image of one…realistically rendered, yet with a certain comic book illustrative feel.

The look of drips, air brush painting, gradated color softly shifting in value, and graffiti art combine to create something striking, all rendered in stunning color.

Masterful use and blending of color creates a vista of skulls which seem to incorporate elements of urban art and graffiti and intensify the feeling of a “dreamscape”, or landscape of dreams.

This magnificently adorned structure is now the stuff of dreams and magic, lifting us out of our daily reverie, and shocking us out of ordinary reality, into another order of being.  Gratitudes to those that conceived of this gift, passed it through the powers that be, and made it happen.  Thank you for sharing with us a true example of art’s transformative power.

Georgia on Our Minds

Georgia on Our Minds

 

Georgia O’Keeffe – American Artist –  November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986

Georgia O’Keeffe is considered one of the greatest American artists of the twentieth century.

She is best known for her flower canvases seen in close range and her southwestern landscapes.

 Hibiscus with Plumeria, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1939, oil on canvas 40 x 30 inches

Artist and painter Georgia O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She started making art at a young age and went to study at the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1900s. Later, she lived and studied in New York City, the center of American art world, and studied at the Art Students League there.

She was unsatisfied with her art education, and thought she would never stand out as an artist trying to imitate reality the way she was trained. She did not paint for four years, and worked as a commercial artist and later as an art teacher.

She was inspired to paint again in 1912, when she attended a class at the University of Virginia Summer School, where she was introduced to the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow. Dow believed that the goal of art was the expression of the artist’s personal ideas and feelings, and that this could best be done putting together arrangements of line, color, and shading, and not trying to “copy” something in the outside world.

Blue Flower, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918, Pastel on paper mounted on cardboard, 20 × 16 inches

Dow’s ideas offered O’Keeffe an alternative to the realistic style she had been taught, and she experimented with them for two years, while she was either teaching art in the Amarillo, Texas public schools. When O’Keeffe was teaching art at Columbia College, Columbia, South Carolina, she decided to test Dow’s theories.

Wanting to find a personal language through which she could express her own feelings and ideas, O’Keeffe began series of abstract drawings that are now recognized as being among the most innovative in all of American art of the period. Abstract art uses elements like line, color and shape as a vehicle of  the artist’s expression. Abstract art doesn’t have to look just like something we see in the outside world.

Sunset, Long Island, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1939, oil on canvas board, 10 x 14 inches

O’Keeffe mailed some of these drawings to a former Columbia classmate, who showed them to the famous photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz.  Stieglitz gave O’Keeffe her first gallery show at his “291 Gallery” in New York City in 1916 and she married him in 1924. He was 54, she was 31. It was not an easy marriage, and she spent much time away from him, in New Mexico.

Black Mesa Landscape, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1930, Oil on canvas mounted on board, 24 1/4” x 36 1/4 inches

After frequently visiting New Mexico since the late 1920s, O’Keeffe moved there for good in 1946 after Stieglitz died. She often painted the rugged and rocky New Mexican  landscape  which she loved. She had the ability to capture the natural beauty of northern New Mexico desert and mountains in her art.

O’Keeffe died on March 6, 1986, at 98 years old in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Perennially popular, her works can be seen at museums around the world as well as the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.