February 2012
21 posts
One night in Venice...
a cold damp February, the mist rose up around me as the night fell. And there in the middle of it all sparkled the warm lights of pasta on the table.
lucious slumber...a narrowing
And so when I am lulled into the comforts of home and think why go anywhere? That is exactly when I must go, lest I be put into an initially luscious slumber in my comfort – but the trick then is the lusciousness gradually is overlooked and ones “eyes” begin to close – and our world narrows in. This is one way I stay awake, travel. My art is the other way.
From the Tunisian Journal
the journal Myanmar...
OLD BAGAN Burma
My last temple. The sky is pink, birds call, I am alone – in the back the wind blows. It feels desolate and ancient. The pages of time have turned back.
from the Cambodian journal...
1/6/02 A sense of place – it seems only when people leave home do their eyes open to what home is – home with its familiar colors, light, sound, smells. It seems to me that one must keep eyes (senses) open all the time to really be alive – to be fully alive. Why be fully alive, (?) because it is why we are here. Or why I am here. To experience as much as possible. That is what this 3-D reality is...
the art process...the life process
Art to me is about discovery…I encourage my students to not get ‘precious’ with their work, to be ready to always risk it for something new. Once we get too precious, then we stop growing the work. It is a metaphor for life.
late light low
Color, texture, light...
as real as subject matter as the doors….
to detail or not to detail....
When it is all about light……
color alone...
Sometimes you just have to look at the colors…forget surface detail…what are the colors of where you are right now? What are the colors of your day? Who are you in color - today?
Our mighty steed
The Journey begins….
March 1st 9 am we will take leave. Van crammed with bodies and bags, books and pillows. Tootsie Pops for treats. Wintergreen Lifesavers for freshening, the “BEAT Shower” so called.
San Fran China Town
Taking the southern path out, a deep southern path, and a high northern return, the range of light, colors, tales and tastes will abound.
LA Space...
Pacific Blue Night....
Space....Rt 66
Blue space
Still lives to build...
Accessories...to be had...
Cusine...Americana
Creative Processing...
In all forms!
attention now turns to...
The BEATS trip coming soon. Look closely and see 2 of the travelers on the far dunes of White Sands!
From the Roman Sketchbook: the paintings.
Rome is the eternal city. In my countless visits to this ancient crossroad, now metropolis, I continue to discover and unravel the unending tale that is Rome.
This series of paintings is motivated by the pages of The Skin of the Milk: A Roman Sketchbook, which is a celebration of the flavors, textures, lights, and tales of my experience that was and is Rome. This series, like the city, is...
January 2012
3 posts
in situ ...
Foro Romano….e basta!
a creative wrestling match..welcome to my process!
It showed up! After five different approaches, my final painting for the April show, made its complete appearance today, and wow did I work for it. A good tussling match ensued, scraping, gluing, mixing, slathering, tearing – new print blocks were cut and printed. Scraps from previous works were embedded.
And the Roman Forum was built, this time, in a couple months. Daily approaches were made but...
Evening Light - portion
Rome glistens with evening light.
December 2011
8 posts
4+3=7
7 - the number of completion.
4 - the square - this life here and now
3 - the triangle - the divine trinity
Archetypes, that cross time and place.
Why not celebrate with food. Hence the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
And so anchovies go shhhhh…..
Pondering pink patina...
the Horned One...
Moses by Michelangelo is part of a whole…part of the tomb of Julius the II. Ultimate he was pulled from the project to do some “painting”. Moses, however, remains a potent and powerful figure. But you may wonder why the horns?
From glorified skin to radiant as a halo to horns, from Greek to Latin with bits of Hebrew, translations made alterations hence the horns. Just think...
Chestnut season..
Fall brings chestnuts. You will smell them roasting on most every corner of Rome. Holiday time candies them, marrons glaces, try them. And as my dear Lida told me of roasted chestnuts…”always with white wine”. So next time in Rome buy a cone-ful of perfumed nuggets and sit down with a glass of white, and take your time.
Oh and do try the marrons glaces gelato too!
the carrot...
A delicious lunch is easy to come by in Orvieto. Don’t forget to have the local wine by the same name. And when you are at home, making your own red sauce, don’t forget the carrot, good olive oil, some onion and a grate of carrot (perhaps some pancetta too) makes a delightful preparation for the San Marzano tomatoes to be received in to. Then simmer and later savor
Don’t forget...
in times of sparsh food...
pigeons were raised for meat. Hence underneath Orvieto, there are many dovecotes pocketing the walls of the underground.
oh those Etruscans...
Etruscans were the inhabitants of Central Italy eons before Rome got herself organized. As they built their city states in Central Italy the Greeks were organizing
the South of Italy. The Etruscans left us a lot of art, and curious architecture to ponder, that is what the Romans did not destroy.
Travelers often consider going to Cervetere or Tauquinia to see Etruscan ruins. And I do recommend...
Orvieto shimmers...
A cool November stroll, across the rock that Orvieto sits upon, leads certainly to the Duomo. The cathedral shimmers under a facade-skin of mosaics.Imbedded in the columns and the surface are tiny tesserae that glitter as jewels. Tesserae is the plural term for the many small pieces, the tessera, that make up a mosaic.
Started in the early 13C the Duomo is what most people come to see but, there...
November 2011
17 posts
here and now...
Leave quiet Frascati behind and train back to Roma Termini. Wander back down the Monti. Near Mary Maggiori is the church of Santa Prassede and you will see a rare example of the square halo.
Square means here and now, where the circle references the divine realm. Dear Pope Pascal, holding the church in his arms, was alive when this mosaic was created.
oh yeeessss
prosciutto to porchetta
Frascati is a very quiet town during siesta.
Train out of Rome for a mere half and hour, past the aqueducts south of Rome and then through the grape vines of Frascati.
Find your way to the market piazza. A small stand allows you to help yourself to the wine while they slice off a fatty, savory slice of roasted pig. Then eat all of it with your hands!
history mshmistery
And then there is the food.
Ok so I cannot stop myself, in the catacomb of St Agnes up the Via Nomentana you will find deep under the ground a carving, dating to the 4C, of a big, fat, round prosciutto. The fellow once entombed in the related grave had been a butcher!
Then to now we do so love our prosciutto.
the Bedrock...
From the 9C BCE the huts of waddle and daub were the first architecture on the Palatine and all the hills. From huts to palaces, to grandeur to ruin and back again.
Palatine vista
After some 25 years, since my dwelling in Trastevere, my studies and explorations finally begin to tease out the tales.
I see the thread back to those early traders who would gather at the foot of the now Campidoglio and Palatine hills on the riverside. They would trade salt and other goods.
Iron Age huts grew up on the hills surrounding, postholes are found, ancient altars were set up and...
Trastevere
Roman pinks...
the paintings of pinks debut this April…
after all...
a painting, no matter how realistic or how abstract, is in the end an arrangement of colors and shapes and in my case textures too.
to know my paintings...
is to see through my eyes…
vines find...
their way up and down the Monti homes.
work of hands
And don’t we all need a red cyclamen in the background as shutters are restored.
the Monti
Drawn by the grand and the over-looked, I continue to find my way back to Italy, of late Rome over and over. Rome may seem like a knotted tangle of history, tales and currently of traffic and tourists. To appreciate Rome is to slow down, wander, and peek around corners.
Find your way to the Monti, the neighborhood that gathers around the church of Mary Maggiori. Enjoy her certainly but do not...
the Binding
Time spirals back, unwinding histories into one long continuous tread that connects deep into the bedrock of who we are, like the original word for religion, “religio,” binds us back. We cannot separate ourselves from where we have come, and it is folly to try to do so. We are part of this glorious tapestry, this wonderful weave. And nowhere is the full extent of time made manifest, more...
Colori di Roma
Consider the terra cottas of Rome or cooked earths, from burnt and raw browns to carbon black and ocher yellows, colors soothing to the eye.
Now add on the reds of Pompey, how did they make that gorgeous hue, still not so sure. Squash a mineral or two and have some malachite green and azurite blues. But now we are talking frescoes.
Then watch all the colors transform even more as the sun angles...
Love's Source
With hennaed hands and wrists decked with bangles the women of India shimmer.
Love’s Source celebrates the women in all their glorious sari colors and unending generosity when I traveled among them.
Shades of India
Gray rain soaks.
Wind blows wet.
Mists hang on the islands.
I have met the monsoon.
Nod of the head.
Flick of the hand.
Auntie calls from the window,
“I thought she was a Parisi.”
Women flutter.
Mangos pile high.
Chapatti is sweet with cabbage.
Chutney tickles the nose.
Chai lingers on the tongue.
Stone cut on the curve.
Voices rise up.
Vibrations deeply resound.
Time stands.
...
October 2011
2 posts
subtle to dramatic
And just when you have grown used to the ochers, beige, and silver-sage morning shows up! From Morandi to Monet!
Truth to Monet was light! What we visually perceive is based more on the light and atmosphere than the objects themselves! So you think the sky is blue?