Cumulative power of tiny specks....

Landscape at Saint-Charles, near Gisors, Sunset  by Camille Pissarro

We always doubt the power of the small, the contained. We doubt our single, individual lives, wonder if we can matter at all.

The power of a bit of dust lies in juxtaposition with other unnoticed specks. It's in the whole where a speck has its best effect. One star in a sky of stars. One life in a history of lives.

  This is my favorite picture from the current Clark Art Institute exhibition. It's called Landscape at Saint-Charles, near Gisors, Sunset  by Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903. The application of color is in spots and specks. The effect is cumulative and it almost glows on the canvas.  

Specks, little dots or points of paint are featured in a technique called pointillism pioneered by Charles Seurat. In this picture the museum notes, Pissarro was experimenting with that technique.  We could experiment too, try to see ourselves in the context of our country, our continent, our planet, our solar system, universe, multiverse.  As we zoom out, our speck-ness seems more and more natural, comfortable. We are in places as it were. Right here. Right now.

Two from The Clark, Degas

The Clark had a free admission day on Easter. I took photos of my favorites. I'll start with two juxtaposed works, Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, and Portrait of a Man both by Edgar Degas.

New Years Eve Crazy & Sawaya's Art of the Brick

Love this red fellow on the right who is busy rebuilding himself as we all hope to do each New Year's. And the one below who is witnessing something from behind his grey curtain, a new view that makes him gasp - we don't know why.

The images are LEGO sculptures I viewed in the Vero Beach Art Museum in November. The show was called "Art of the Brick," and the creator is American artist Nathan Sawaya. All are made from LEGOs.  He is interviewed in the documentary LEGOS, the Brickumentary, which is actually quiet an odd and interesting film.

Don't quite know what to hope for the world in the coming year. The property of crazy expands with each passing day. I don't know that it's getting larger though. Might be diffusion. Maybe it's just spreading out which will have the effect of dilution. Maybe. Or it might be infection. Ah well.

Have already watched several sets of glitzy techno-tainment fireworks with totally unappealingly overproduced music tying it all together. From several different countries. Is there just one school of fireworks showmanship in all the earth? Probably taught at Neilson Ratings. Ha ha. Actually I really liked the fireworks just not the music they are saddled with....

Anyway, happy new year. It's now 2 am. I was supposed to go somewhere at 11PM to ring in the year. Off to a questionable start.  But then the future always is an open question isn't it. (Determinists you are excluded from this thought) Ting-a-ling.

Words inspired by Susan Green's cool art

BLUE ORGANICS, PRIMORDIAL

A flotilla of single cells pressing together.

A splash of lifesavers and belt buckles 

or donuts with sprinkles here or there.

Pairs of chromosomes considering the future. 

A random collection of empty picture frames in storage.

The nested shells of whirling electrons.

A jumble of jellyfish or curly fries in colors.

Every planet or light switch in all the universes known or not,

as seen from an angle in a singularity, 

All converging to a single rectangle.  Tangle.

Everything.

                                                    - mad mar mistryel walker

This artwork called Pastel Wonder by artist Susan Green was displayed at ARC of Westchester Gallery 265 in Hawthorne in their Side by Side exhibition and is included in the show's booklet. I think it won some kind of award at the reception on April 19 2015.

The reception was quite a lot of fun with host Zork Allen, a bunch of poets, artists, ARC clients and their families and some wonderful art and a couple fun film shorts. Hope they do it again next year.

SCAN demo with Rick Daskham

It never ceases to amaze me - how a roomful of people silently follows the artist's every move. You could hear a pin drop. SCAN members are a great audience.

Artist DeeDee Calvey at Cornwall Bridge Gallery

Artist Dee Dee Ball Calvey is having her first solo show at the Cornwall Bridge Gallery. There's a lot variety & color, arranged with that painterly feeling of touched-ness.

Here's the artist herself posing between two of her works. Musician Bo Missinne jumped into the shot - yes the reception was fun!

At the opening there was music also the duo Good Medicine Rx, (Michel Rae Driscoll and Jeff Duggan)  played and made a bit of toe tapping harmony. Dee Dee did some flute work with and with out Jeff. Got drafted myself willingly  did one song, "Shalain" (Thanks for asking!)


Wasn't sure until the last minute I would be able to attend (last minute computer support for a relative and who knows how long that might have taken) but I am so glad I made the drive. I wasn't so green of me I guess, but I really enjoyed it.

Fine Arts & Crafts in Bethel, Sat after Thanksgiving

Fast talking, always smiling, Bohemian wildman artist Mike Seri sent me this poster. He curated the first Pop Up Bethel show and i have to tell you it was wonderful. So why not do your Xmas and Kwanza gifting right here and support the arts. So check this out:

Pop Up Art - fabulous works right in Bethel

Pop Up Art, curated by local artist and poet Mike Seri, had a depth to it, of style and nuance. It had some amazing intricate engaging works, lots of whimsy, and plenty of opportunities to look into the human alter ego as well - in many different media.  I missed the opening, but enjoyed everything so much when I finally got to see it. The video above was produced by Take Notice Productions which has its own Youtube channel.

Artists in the show include: Erin Nazzaro, Frank Foster Post, Tarol Samuelson, Katie Bassett, Juan Andreu, David Teti, Eric Camiel, Leslie Pelino, Bibiana Matheis, Nicole Cudzilo, Juan Andreu, Michael Morris, Joseph Farris, Tara Burgess, Ival Stratford-Kovner, Judith Wyer, Suzanne Ross, Tanya Kukucka, Kathleen Benton, Keith Dube, FranK Kara, Chris Durante, Kenny Hess, Justin Buto, F. Henry-Meehan, Jim Felice

The gallery is opposite the Bethel cinema.

Video no long up I guess.

Watch "Pop Up Art Bethel - Contemporary Pop Up Art Gallery Reception" on YouTube

Fibers in Fine Art - unexpected intricacies

When I hear the word fiber I used to think digestion.  But not this week. Two different shows - one local, one vicarious - have pointed me toward its capacity for beauty.

The local show is at Art and Frame in Danbury (Rte 6 near Camomile).  These pics don't do it justice as each has so many subtleties and such understated nuance. The artist name is Paula Renee and she combines weaving and knotting, applied color and collaged papers (I am guessing here) with wonderful sense of color. She's won two awards: One from the Society for Creative Arts of Newtown for best in show (a silk "stiching" called Red Trees Lakeside, and another from The New Canaan Society for the Arts for a mixed media work called Brain Storming.. The photos here are not very good.

Her stuff is only up until tomorrow so get out this weekend and see this free exhibit. You might take one home even - as there are many small sized, matted items with good prices!

The vicarious show - well that is an online article about artist Lauren DiCioccio's gorgeous  hand embriodered issues of the New York Times. This is not your momma's embroidery. It is MOMA's kind of embroidery though. Check out Katie Hosner's great article at http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/lauren-dicioccio-sewnnews

Small, colorful works at Art & Frame

There is an interesting Small Works show, around 200 pieces from 80 local artists, up through January 6, 2012 at Art & Frame in Danbury. That's on Route 6, (60 Newtown Road),  in the same plaza with Camomile Natural Foods.  I wasn't going there, just walking by, and the display caught my eye, lured me inside.  The works are various, with various prices, and the atmosphere was soft and friendly as opposed to austere and sterile.  I liked being there looking at the art. You can find their website at http://www.artandframeofdanbury.com, and their facebook page at http://facebook.com/ArtandFrame .   I noticed three Alberettis two by Robert and one by Mary Lou, all with a nice well-touched feel. Check it out. Made-in-America too.

POEM with artwork - after Jay Defeo's The Rose

Cosmic Super Nova, Mountain, Flower, Nirvana

on Jay Defeo's the Rose 

 

On top: The Rose, Bottom:
my response to it

At the start was a vague idea

 about climbing mountains, the forms,

 the form   of mountains

It became   a mountain of paint

a canvas 11 feet high,
8 feet wide, 11 inches deep

A mountain eight years long.

There were brushes for painting it up, 

slathering on the peaks

Knives for carving down the crevasses

making symmetric straits and canyons of implosion

hacking away material

to get down into the mythical center

of this inverse starburst..

Cleaning the brushes

sharpening the knives

day after day, month after month

year on year, the daily wrestling

the readiness to cascade to the center 

of toil her commitment leading deep, 

and growing deeper though glistening white

Like the expansion and contraction 

of a universe And those opposing planetary forces

the building up and the wearing away, 

 the building up the carving down into 

 the building up despite the erosion of sharpened steel 

 in her own two hands she shaped it with 2300 pounds of oil paint.

And when it was done it lurked behind a wall

like a dormant volcano 

or a lover you no longer want as a roommate

and she refused to paint for years

Later she painted smaller-sized botanicals, 

little but weighty abstracts as if the literal enormity 

had gone out of her.

Eventually the mountain went down the fire escape 

They took out the window took out the wall 

to get it out of the Filmore Street studio

to let it unfold in public view 

let it flower, this endless road

this journey of making

the name came late,

The Rose, 

a concentric flower

petals, arrayed around a center
of daily sweat followed by stillness

its silvery shimmering a monument 

of whites of lights and highs accented 

by shadowed abyss, this human reaching 

for meaning reaching and collapsing

 into the event horizon of art

c MM Walker  2011
written for a Free Poets Collective reading  celebrating the Women Beat-ear poets, writers and artists, held at Broad Street Books in Middletown

Update: It's on display at the Whitney currently http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/JayDeFeo

SCAN fall sale reception

The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown had an opening reception for its fall holiday show Friday evening. Lots of artists, a few local pols, everyone with cider or wine, noshing on fattening snacks and wandering in isles of art. A nice time, lots of great stuff to see and buy if you have a few bucks to spare. Ends tomorrow at 5. (10/23) Might be bargains!
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Honoring The Women Beats

Helen Peterson

Yvon Cormier

An event called Women Beat Era Poets/Authors/Artisits: A Celebration, took place at Broad Street Bookstore in Middletown, CT on Sunday. Like most women during the 50s, they were a bit under-exposed, and despite their own rebellions they seemed overshadowed at the time by their outlaw men.  I have to admit I enjoyed listening to their work.
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 Poet Yvon Cormier who organized the event, asked to me read poems representing someone, and I chose Jay Defeo - a visual artist rather than a poet, who now in retrospect is considered one of the definitive American Abstract Expressionists.
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Joan Kantor

Colon Haskins

For the occasion I put together six poems, five so called found poems gleaned from her own words as found in a lengthy oral history interview with Defeo conducted around 1976. The last was a reaction poem to her monumental one ton painting, The Rose which was eleven feet high, eight feet wide, 11 inches deep and eight years of effort long. It's now owned by the Whitney Museum.
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Dolores Lawler

Mad Mar Walker

The former Poet Laureate of Long Island, George Wallace was suppoed to read Janine Pommy Vega. He was unable to come at the last minute so Dolores Lawler read Pommy Vega's work instead, as well as some some Denise Levertov and some of her own. Helen Peterson, co-editor of the Waterhouse Review read Diane DiPrima, Joan Kantor, author of Shadow Sounds, read Hettie Jones, Yvon, who organized the reading, read Mary Fabilli and Colin,Haskins, who's put out a whole slew of fine poetry chapbooks and started the Free Poets Collective among many other ventures, read Elise Cowen.
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Robin Sampson

Sympetalous

 I only have two pics from the open mic, Robin Sampson and Sympetalous.  I have video but give me a month or two to sort that out.

According to the press release: This event is proudly presented by the FREE POETS COLLECTIVE, IN COLLABORATION WITH BROAD STREET BOOKS & CAFÉ, The Wesleyan Bookstore. The next Free Poets Collective event is Farmtober on 10/22, 1-4 at Fort Hill Farms in Thompson, CT

On the Women Beats - a reading this Sunday

On Sunday October 16th 11A.M. - 2:30P.M. at Broad Street Books in Middletown Ct there will be:

 A CELEBRATION OF THE WOMEN BEAT ERA POETS/AUTHORS/ARTISTS　　 

The press release reads:

"This rare spectacular event commemorates Women Beat Generation poets, authors, and artists, featuring international poet GEORGE WALLACE, former Poet Laureate of Long Island, N.Y. based in N.Y. City, author of twenty-one chapbooks and was named artist in residence at Walt Whitman’s birthplace, reads Janine Pommy Vega; Helen R. Peterson, of Canterbury CT, writes poetry and fiction and is coeditor of The Waterhouse Review reads Diane DiPrima; Joan B. Kantor of Collinsvile CT, author of Shadow Sounds (Antrim House) reads Hettie Jones; Mar (Mistryel) Walker of Danbury, CT, painter singer and author of Inverse Origami the art of unfolding, reads Jay DeFeo; Yvon J. Cormier of West Haven CT, author of Life Sketches in Blue, reads Mary Fabilli, and Colin Haskins of Glastonbury, CT, latest poetry collection Drinking of You (Ye Olde Font Shoppe) is Free Poets Collective founder will read Elise Cowen. Following the features there will be open mic, music and a reception.

 This event is proudly presented by the FREE POETS COLLECTIVE, IN COLLABORATION WITH BROAD STREET BOOKS & CAFÉ, The Wesleyan Bookstore. YVON J. CORMIER will host the event at BROAD STREET BOOKS, 45 Broad St, Middletown, on Sunday, October 16, from 11:00A.M. to 2:30P.M. For more details visit http://freepoetscollective.webs.com/ or questions, call 860-233-4984."

Earthquake? Tree Sculptures?

I was minding my own business yesterday, sitting at my desk/worktable dabbing a brush at a painting. And I heard this rattle. First I yelled at the cat. Then I thought there must be a large squirrel or two in the attic. Then I noticed the desk itself was in motion and I looked over at the back of my computer stand and the cords were swaying as if a strong wind was blowing past them.... I was sure a huge truck must be backing slowly in to the house without realizing it, so I ran outside to stop them before they knocked it off the foundation.

 It was a beautiful bright day. The mailman was talking special delivery with the neighbors, no trucks in sight anywhere. "Did you notice anything odd, just now," I asked. "I think I heard a large truck go by," the mailman said, handing me the mail as he does everyday.  hmmm. Of course, an earthquake (5.9 on the Richter Scale) had occurred just then, its epi-center in Mineral, VA. Today, I asked him, "How bout that large truck we heard yesterday?" He just laughed. "And to think it came all the way from Virginia!" he said. You just never know.

The photo shows a giant tree-trunk sculpture called Smoke Jumper by Joseph Wheelwright which stands outside of the Katonah Museum of Art. Mr. Wheelwright does amazing things with natural materials. Somehow this giant "ent-like" tree man looks like the earth shifted under his feet, and he has momentarily lost his footing.  (Though as a smoke jumper, maybe he is walking between the flames or just touching down to earth.  Still, he's perfect for an all natural earthquake post.) Five of these giants will remain on display at the museum until May of 2012. Remember the Ents? They were tree people from the Lord of the Rings. Anyway be sure to visit Joe Wheelwright's website and check out his amazing work. (http://joewheelwright.com)

Poetry at New Britain's Museum of American Art

On April 17th, 2011, twenty poets read poems on paintings that were hanging at the Museum of American Art in New Britain. The poems were all written specifically for painting the museum had on display. Behind the podium was a large slide show of the paintings - so that as the poet read, the listeners could see the painting that inspired the poem.

This extravaganza was dreamed up and arranged by Colin Haskins (the CT Beat Festival & The Free Poets Collective) in cahoots with the very congenial museum staff. Particulars of the reading were fussed with by a few busy ladies from the free poets collective. I will be adding a few shots the readers are below, in the grainy manor of my phone. I wrote a poem for the occasion on a Georgia O'Keeffe painting in the museum's collection, that I had never seen before - of New York and East River, a surprising subject for O'Keeffe.

It was a wonderful event, really wonderful and I got a great poem out of it, well I like it anyway:


East River from the 30th Floor of the Shelton Hotel, 1928
a painting by Georgia O'Keefe

New York morning panorama
Center stage: blue wedge of river
of tugs and steamers
barges, buoys
gruff handlers yawning,
a days work taken on,
busy already at dawn

On its banks: A greyed up city of squared rooftops
synchronous to the horizon
aligned with smoke stacks and chimneys
ingrained with streets and avenues
a structure of shelter, housing:
the sleepy and the busy,
the languid and the industrious,
the despairing and the inspired alike

Here is a vast city as smooth as the velvet petal
of a white flower filling a picture frame
Or a row of desert bleached skulls
empty and eyeless, cast like dice
yet full of various purpose.

A city ready. egalitarian a city welcoming the day
a city that history will alter
as a painter alters a canvas
one layer covering another
visions and revisions
in this accented high-rise air
waking to this earnest tenement light


Written for an ekphrastic Event of the Free Poets Collective at the museum of American Art in New Britain CT, April 12?, 2011 subsequently included in Visions and Verses? an Exile Press/Free Poets Collective publication

Inspiring pastel demo with Clayton Buchanan

Pastel artist Clayton Buchanan gave a local workshop last week. Wow. Now, first I have to say that I don't work with soft pastels much or ever. I work with oil paint and oil pastels, occasionally watercolors, collage - yadayada.  But the way this artist talked about what he was doing, and the way he was doing it shed light for me on the process of "seeing."  Check out his website, by the way - his finished works are gorgeous.

His method was at first baffling. He'd stare at his subject, then stare at his chalks. (a familiar enough process). He'd suddenly pickup one and make a little mark here or there on the paper. At first the results didn't seem to make much sense or form a picture. It was just little squiggles or patches of color. But after a while the subject emerged from the chaos of color into a recognizable and accurate picture.  During the process a roomful of 30 people sat silently watching for an hour and a half.  There was a ten minute break, and an occasional question shot out by onlookers - but mostly these folks, all artists,  watched intently.  And it was worth the wait!   He also had two great handouts about using pastels and using them for portraits. The event was put on by SCAN.

Mr. Buchanan said we should try to see our  compositions in terms of "plains of light and shadow," and to try and see those plains in terms of color rather than value.  That really hit home for me. I am currently working on a bunch of paintings. One in particular features two men sitting on a bench in the early sunlight. I am trying to apply these ideas:  "Plains of light an shadow" and color rather than value . I think these ideas will allow me to move forward with this particular picture in a different way than before.

Bruce Gray’s wild kinectic sculpture – gravity with sound effects!

A Kinetic Sculpture by Los Angeles sculptor Bruce Gray, titled "Califormia Dreamin"

One of things I am always excited about in a work of art - is a sense of motion. But with kinetic sulpture - you have the immediate delight of motion in three dimensions rather than motion hinted at on a flat plain. This sculpture also has sureal sound effects, even though it doesn't seem like the Califormia Dreamin of that era.. Another thing I like about it is the idea of alternate routes that all lead to the same destination and the juxtaposition of natural force (gravity) and man-arranged force which lifts the iron ball to the top for another cycle.

I found this video featured on a blog called DenverArtsyGal - she has a fantastic blog and twitter feed so take a look.

"False Faces" - masks (1916-1948) by W.T. Benda were at WCSU

W.L. Benda's amazing masks were shown at Western Conn. State University's Alumni Hall this past week, by his grandson Thatcher Taylor who is a theater student there, with the assistance of Elizabeth Popeil an associate professor. Taylor is a personable sort and was there to act as a tour-guide. He is studying set design and theater tech at the college.

Alumni Hall is full of glass and has a chandelier. The masks were all in plexiglass cases. This arrangement made reflections difficult to avoid. So instead I gave in to them and tried to position them in the photo frame with some mixed results.

GOLDILOCKS >

THE EXECUTIONER:

What I find odd, thinking back, is that male masks could have the full range of humanity, could be old or evil However, female masks were all idealized as youthful, beautiful, unblemished.

I wish I had seen a wider variety of the women characters so I could know if this was an artistic choice or just the whim of the curator. I think I will paint some women as they are, warts and all. I really enjoyed this exhibit.

PAINTING: Tulips by Alexander Couard

This lovely little watercolor painting is by an artist named Alexander Perot Couard. When my parents got married in 1949 Mr. Couard himself gave them this painting as a wedding gift. Mr. Couard and one Miss Burgoyne lived a few houses down the road from my grandparents. When my mother and my Aunt Florence were young children in pigtails, he came to the  house  and took photos of them to reference for various paintings he was working on. (They still have the photos...)

One of the interesting things about this work is that it is all about reflection, It features cut tulips with a oval mirror behind them, which reflects partially opened French doors, and the landscape beyond.

This beautiful work has been on display in my parents house all of my life. I have been looking at this painting for almost 60 years. It may be why I paint.

NOTE: This painting was photographed with a phone through the glass in the frame.