We had an English Model who is a modern dancer who travels and lives between Europe and here; I imagined I was painting a woman coming out of the lake, near Stonehenge – but I don’t think she comes from that part of the United Kingdom (she’s closer to Bath, if I recall what she was saying).

First time we had a paid model who was told to keep her clothes on; I’d have preferred she had taken them off – since I liked the model I painted her, else I’d not have bothered.

 

One thing with the model ….everything is there – nothing really needs to be invented – the human model has everything – all that’s needed is to extract what I want – that’s why I like painting models.   I also put in a woman I often see painting from the model with her drawing of the model in the lower right.

I took the painting to the adjacent room so I could look at it away from the setting it was done and my first thought was ..  the colors hit me from a distance – I want my paintings to hit the viewer before they even know what they’re looking at.  That seems to be something I’m achieving more often as I trust myself as a creator. 

I’m not sure my digital photo really captures the effect I’m talking about.  When I go to a museum and look at the painters I most admire, like Cezanne, Manet, Matisse, etc, often the colors have a power beyond the painting, they speak directly to the soul.  I try to allow that to happen in my work.  When I looked a this painting from 30 feet away – the colors spoke to me.   If that’s my gift, I try to stay with it…amplifying it ….letting it happen.

Also, a curious thing is beginning to happen, and I noticed it today. 

To step back a bit –  I often sketch, I carry little black sketchbooks that I spend several hours a week sketching in whenever I have spare time – it empties my mind and sets me a peace with myself – and often when I’m in turmoil – or just captures a feeling, I sketch.  

I’ve developed, or refined a cross-hatching approach that feels right to me and do most of my drawings that way – creating a lot of subtleties in tones and lines – all that I’m usually aware of, as I am sketching. 

I consider my sketches every bit as important as any other painting I do and I’d feel very sad if I lost a sketchbook as I put so much of myself into my sketches and my sketchbooks.

The curious thing that happened here – in the rainbow effect in the left part of the painting – I began cross hatching just as I do when I sketch with pen on paper. 

I used many colors rather than one pen color – and I noticed the cross hatching approach added an additional element to this painting today.

I tried to capture the spirit of this woman – European, Celtic (not sure if she really is of Celtic background or not – but as long as her features remind of that, who cares if she really is or not – it’s only what is in the artist’s mind and heart that really matter), almost as if she was Guinevere rising out of the Lake (or Lady of the Lake).    

A bright red shirt/blouse was my aim to fully capture – but I could not get all the bright reds that I wanted.

Overall, I was pleased with this work, only I would have rather painted her nude than clothed – but that was not my choice; a woman with a great body like hers ought to be painted nude, its more interesting that way, at least, to me.

After, I went into Manhattan, over to the Metropolitan, which will be the subject of another post and video.

I was briefly at the Chelsea International Fine Art Exhibition” benefiting UNICEF at Agora Gallery (Chelsea) last night and was impressed with some of the work I saw; I was not expecting that ….. and the curator of this show has very good taste (I spoke with her for a moment).

I had dinner nearby and went home.  Been an exhausting day of an exhausting week.  Worked a lot of my Second Life Metrics deck for IBM and I needed to clear my head…and I think this show did the trick.

This opening of Hannah Wilke will take place on September 8th, 2007 – but I’m planning to attend because I studied with Hannah Wilke in 1975-76 while I was taking courses at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and I ran into her at the Guggenheim a year or two before she died (Hannah Wilke died in 1993).

I remember Hannah as a handsome woman who did a lot of erotic sculpture.  I was invited to her studio a couple of times when I was in her sculpture class at SVA.

While I never really related to the strong feminist element of her work I liked her as a person … and while I didn’t know her well, she touched my life and that usually means to me ..that I should show up at an opening of hers and try to understand what her life was about, especially the end of it – which must have been painful.

Well…. I guess we all have to take the cards we are dealt by life – I look forward to reconnecting with Hannah Wilke’s late work at her opening next month at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.

Hannah Wilke, Intra-Venus Tapes, 1990-1993

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
Soho

31 Mercer Street, 212-226-3232

September 8 – October 13, 2007

Opening: Saturday, September 8, 6:00PM – 8:00PM

Web Site

“…The Ronald Feldman Gallery will exhibit Hannah Wilke’s Intra-Venus Tapes, a two-hour video installation on sixteen monitors, shot and planned during the last two and a half years of her life and completed since her death from lymphoma in 1993.Producer and participant: Donald Goddard
Technical producer and sound editor: John Carlson
Technical Advisor: Thomas J. Veltre

Other works by Hannah Wilke will also be exhibited.”

I met Hans Viets and his wife Lauren Viets for Brunch in Park Slope last Sunday; I had been in communication with Hans Viets since earlier this year when I tried, unsuccessfully, to set up a meeting between Hans and Fred Storehouse while the Viets were living in Milwaukee.

I took a short video, above, of our lunch meeting (just to give you a flavor of what our meeting); it was nice meeting both of them.

Hans gave me a copy of his latest Artists’ Catalog which has some fantastic work in it.  I opened up the catalog and  was immediately struck by his Planet Plant painting and Figure 7, along with his engineering style drawings that remind me, sorta, of Leonardo.

One of the things that struck me about Hans Viets is his dedication to quality in his work, a need to put craft and time into it, to not overproduce it.

The Viets just moved back to New York and I was interested how much they’ve traveled, lived and was part of the art community in Germany and Milwaukee and Williamsburg Brooklyn (he worked with some well known artists, also at the Dia Art Foundation in the past).   I also showed Hans Brooklyn Artists Gym in case he was interested in a temporary studio space.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Viets again at some future Art Opening.  It’ll also be interesting to see how Hans Viets work changes now he’s back in New York.   I get the impression that life was slower in Milwaukee and gave, perhaps, more time to focus of work.   Having lived in the Midwest in the early / mid eighties (Minneapolis), I know that to be true (and the Midwest can be a lot colder in Winter than NYC).