Poetry and Art

Poetry has come into my world lately (not that I haven't enjoyed it for a while).

First, I'll be exhibiting at the New England Poetry and Art Gala at the Providence Public Library,  June 6th, 5-9 pm

A special evening of Poetry, Paintings & Music in the library’s newly renovated Grand Hall and Ship Room.  Meet and be inspired by the poetry of Fred Marchant, Stephen Dobyns, Rick Benjamin, Wendy Mnookin, Richard Hoffman, Alan Feldman, Alice B. Fogel, Jennifer Militello, Vivian Shipley, and others!  A buffet and refreshments will be served. Doors open at 5 PM for registration, appetizers and art exhibits.

At the event, poets will be reading art-inspired poems they wrote about paintings selected from New England Museums. They will be displaying images of the museum paintings on a screen while they read their poems.   Tickets for the Gala and buffet are $15 payable by check before June 2 to The Poetry Loft, PO Box 8235, Cranston, RI 02920. Include names and emails for registration.   Email questions to  info@thepoetryloft.org

Second, the Wickford Art Association will be hosting a Poetry and Art "challenge"  32 poets anonymously submitted poems and 32 artist anonymously selected one of those poems.  We have until June 30 to complete a painting inspired by the poem.  They will be photographed and compiled in a book.  In August there will be a reception where the artist meet the poets. 

Just Paint

I think I'm going to postpone art classes for a while.  I enjoy my fellow students and instructors and always find something that strengthens my painting, but I've reached a point where I just need to paint.   And paint.  And paint.  The classes and homework gives me the structure and discipline I often lack, so I'll need to work in that, too.

Interestingly, as I'm making this decision, I came across a great article from Robert Glenn.  He talks about the career paths and success of  two recent art school graduates. To quickly summarize, it was the person who cranked out 2000 paintings vs. 11 large paintings who is the success and represented by a number of galleries.

Also, not to long ago I read the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.  In the book he talks about the 10,000 Hour Rule.  This is the number of hours you need to put into your craft to become a success. (20 hours of practice every week for 10 years.)  "The thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder." 

Hmm... that's gonna mean a lot of painting to get in my 10,000 hours.

Many Minis. More Monday?

Sandy Road

Occasionally, I love working on small paintings.  I can get a feeling of accomplishment in one evening.  Because I don't have the luxury of working at painting full time, evenings and weekends are the only times I can find any time.  I decided to paint as many little paintings as possible in two weeks.  I first primed about eight boards and then found images where I could use a similar palette.  A couple of summers back, I took many photos of dunes on Cape Cod, so these became my subjects.  Now I'm hooked on capturing the beautiful colors in sand; the shadows and highlights at different times of day. I've also used work by other artists who were quite successful at capturing these colors as inspiration.  (If interested, these are all $50 each)

Empty Beach

Afternoon Dunes

Falmouth Marsh
SOLD

Hazy Day
SOLD

Dune Fence
SOLD

Wild Roses
SOLD

Back to Metals

Pewter Bowl with Fruit
SOLD

 I feel like I've been in another world the past few months.  I've put my "recreational" painting on hold while I painted with my buddies Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore.  The joys of being a landlord!  I've also been painting for homework, but most of that is not worth sharing, just yet.  I finally got back to some little paintings that were left in the early stages - it feels nice to finish something, even if only 6x6 inches.   

Brass Bowl with Fruir
SOLD 

Anthropology of Color Theory

I’m taking a course in Color Theory and never thought it would incorporate history, biology, and physics.  One of the sites below shows a time-line of color, from prehistoric times to now.  I never realized how much the availability of color and the media (oil, egg tempera) impacts art.  It makes sense that art would be influenced by the available tools, but I had not made the connection.  Yellow ochre has been around since prehistoric times but cadmium red became available in the early 1900’s. 

I have a BS in Biology, so I knew how Rods and Cones allow us to see color and shades, but just learned there are three different types of Cones, each react to different wavelengths of color.  Also, we cannot perceive the edges of objects where object and background have the same luminance.  The third link has a nifty tool that shows how this works.

 

This stuff may not be as fascinating to others, but I’ve always been the type of person who likes to understand the “why” and “how” of the world around us.  Hope you enjoy the links.

http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/history.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/cones.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/anuszkiewicz.html