Inspired by: An Eva Hesse watercolor

On the way down to Nashville we stopped at the St. Louis Art Museum to look at a small showing of prints and drawings done by sculptors. A few of them were quite nice, but a watercolor by Eva Hesse really stuck with me.

Cameraphone image of an untitled Eva Hess watercolor hung at the St. Louis Art Museum

I knew Hesse’s name prior to last week, but I didn’t know anything about her work. Interestingly, I don’t like a lot of it from what I can tell, with the exception of the untitled 1968 watercolor to the right and a 1969 installation titled Contingent, that looks a lot like an installation I did as a college student. The brief at the museum talks about how the two dimensional work was an exploration in light leading up to Contingent.

Both my wife and I were drawn to a beauty within the painting. The shapes reminded me of farm fields adjacent to one another, something I’ve been attempting to incorporate into my own works in the last year or two. But I also took note of her layering. Penciled lines unabashedly bordered and bled through the delicate watercolor wash. Such transparency and layering is something that’s eluded my fledgling attempts to convey the sense of space a person experiences when supercells roll over alfalfa on the Plains. Mmmm, I can smell that distant rain piercing the greeny-sweet alfalfa now.

Hesse’s painting seems to be just the kind of work I needed to see this summer. I’ve started to work on some small paintings, but there was an aspect of these works that was lacking. I was limiting myself to one media and method too strictly — despite referring to myself as a mixed media sculptor. I was only allowing myself to work within an overly basic idea of paint. I realized this before seeing the Hesse artwork, but her watercolor in essence gave definition to my realization.

Now let’s hope I can put some action to this inspiration in the near future!

On painting, and other media all mixed up

Sometimes I wonder why I’m so drawn to clay when my inspiration is so ethereal.

It’s more difficult to represent — either realistically or abstractly — such wispy notions with a substance that turns to rock after you’re done with it. Painting allows you to create transparencies on a surface that much more accurately mimic the kinds of light I’m so attracted to in the case of thunderstorms over the prairie.

However, I still want to create a way to beautifully and imaginative portray said supercells with sculptural materials. I believe it can be done, if I’m able to give more time to the idea. Recently I’ve been doing a little bit of painting anyway, as a way to think through the problem. And because the clay around the house (almost all of it reclaim) was either too wet or too dry to work. And I haven’t found a new supplier yet, though have one in mind.

Conceptive creativity vs designing spaces

My predisposition towards creating and refining interior spaces is getting the better of me again. Here we are in our new little home which we moved into — I avoid the word purchased since the bank still own’s 90% of it — in part because it was livable. Livable, yes, but not ideal.

First project underway, now complete.

The trick in part will be not putting too much time or money into the place, and working on projects that add the most value. The home isn’t in the best of neighborhoods and we won’t be able to add infinite value to the space with our projects. This, however, is a practical point of view. Merge this with a designer’s sensibility, which considers the practical as well as the aesthetic, and that’s where I’m headed.

The most expensive project will be replacing the kitchen cabinets. In our previous home we got away with painting and replacing the hardware, but the cabinets there were in better shape and more plentiful. We have a lot of saving to do before I tackle the kitchen. Before then will come removing the wall between the living room and kitchen (which is done), adding walls and flooring in the basement to create a family room and a bathroom (the bathroom is already partially plumbed) and painting inside and out.

Part of creating an organized studio space for myself to work in will be adding the walls in the basement. This is a relatively inexpensive project when you don’t include flooring, but it takes a fair amount of time. As in probably a month of weekends start to finish when you consider the wiring and pluming that will also be involved. And building in an entertainment center.

The struggle comes with another pervading inclination, that of creating works of art. Today I want to start a small series of paintings. My clay is either too wet or too dry at the moment (I’m still looking for a local supplier of a new clay body that I like since we moved) so I thought I’d do something in the way of conceptive creation, in this case painting (something I do on occasion). I quickly realized, however, the lighting over the new work surface I scrapped together is insufficient, so I’m back to thinking about spaces and projects around the house.

It’s a vicious cycle for me.

Bookish grafitti

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted any grafitti. Yesterday my wife and I went through three boxes of dusty old books for my mother-in-law and I found this gem amidst the rabble.

Still more clouds

Doug Johnson, a Grand Island painter, has some really nice work:

Gary Ozius, a Kansas artist, judged the miniatures show at the Prairie Winds Gallery earlier this month:

He is risen

He is risen indeed.

A 13th-century wall painting in the Catedral Vieja of Salamanca, showing the Risen Lord appearing to St Mary Magdalene.

Image from Lawrence OP’s Flickr Photostream.

More art with clouds

Cloud related artwork I’ve come across in the past couple of months (it doesn’t come up very often from what I can tell).

This first painting is by Bruce Lowney. Via my friend Joel Armstrong.

And now for some of Joe Page‘s fluffy cloud inspired ceramic objects. Via The Mud Bucket.

Karen Krull Robart’s textile storms

Yesterday evening I made it to the Prairie Winds Art Gallery during an opening for a show titled Spirit of the Cranes. While there I was excited to see Karen Krull Robart‘s fiber works, depicting storms on the prairie, for the first time. One of the works, Tempest Brewing, even includes a tornado.

It’s crafted from hand painted and hand dyed cottons. From Robart’s website:

    Much of the inspiration for her work comes from the sunsets seen from
    the front deck of the home she shares with her husband, Bill.

    Karen’s landscapes combine the arts of painting and textile construction. Each sky is hand painted on either
    cotton, silk, silk satin, or rayon; the result is a truly unique piece of cloth. Most of the other features in her
    landscapes are pieced using fabrics that have been hand dyed.

Maybe I’ll get one of her smaller works for my birthday (hint hint). Of course, I also still want one of Jane Flanders’ ceramic bones.

International Artist Day

Apparently today is International Artist Day. My request as an artist on International Artist Day is for a full year of subsidized dedicated studio time. Think someone will grant my wish?

I’m really not one for all these self-declared holidays, but the following list of celebratory suggestions from the Artist Day’s website is worth sharing:

    1. Visit a gallery and explain why you’re there.
    2. Purchase a piece of art to support an artist.
    3. Visit an artist’s studio.
    4. Take an artist out to lunch and explore their world.
    5. [And the perfunctory] Come up with your own ideas to participate.

I’m figuring on visiting the Art Farm in Marquette, Nebraska this afternoon for their Fall Harvest. Does that count as a gallery? And just for kicks the following is a painting from my dad’s store.

Van Peen painting

This is one of the better (and more colorful) ones he’s has for sale at the moment in his Milestone Gallery. It’s signed Van Peen.

Post card painting

I wandered across the street this afternoon looking for an antique birthday card in anticipation of my father’s 60th tonight. While paging through a notebook of old postcards, most circa 1915 (or thereabouts), I saw this one.

Post card painting

It’s hand-painted. You can see pencil lines around the building — the chimney in particular — and clouds. There’s no stamp or postmark on the back, just the following written in pencil:

Some of Margarets painting
Happy New Year!
O.C. Givens family.

There’s a pink/peach tinge to the snow on the roof and smoke from the chimney that I think is a nice touch.