Closer

"I see myself as standing very much in battle against a whole lot of others who have found a way of working which for me denies the central essence of art, its humanity and its humanness.  Their art doesn't tell us about the deepest and most profound ideas of human beings in contact with other human beings."

 

-Leonard Baskin (1922- 2000)

 

A work by Leonard Baskin.

 

 

Over the past few days and several train rides of thought on the Max, I'm rethinking my approach to the September Issue series, or continuing the root of thought in a different direction.  Maybe this is a transformation of the series or maybe just a different viewpoint - one more personal.  I'm thinking going more personal is always a good thing - a closer view is more interesting than looking from a distance most of the time.

 

Today I'm not feeling as awesome as most days - a sore swollen throat and an achy head can do that.  I am confining myself to the comfort of our home and a couple of books I've been reading - the Audrey Flack one I mentioned a couple of posts ago and getting more education from "The Business of Art" by Lee Caplin (30th Anniversary Edition).

 

What have you been reading lately?  Hope you have a good day, and thank you for stopping in.

 

 



And I Glimpsed an Alien Pilgrim

While thumbing through fashion magazines for material for the fashion series of paintings, I come across quite a bit of advertisements that catch my imagination.  Not the kind of imagination that the advertisers are hoping to achieve - the "Oh, I would fancy wearing that" variety, but instead the "Oh, put her in the right setting and she would look like Benjamin Franklin!"  This is sometimes followed by a Who Would Wear That? session.

The following is one such ad for Chanel that captured my unwanted attention:
(And of course, I don't own the rights to this, did not create this, and I give full credit to Bazaar Magazine and the photographer for publishing this advertisement for Chanel.  This is also not the entire image, as it is a two page spread.)
Now that that's over, here's the image:

Her heavy, masculine brow caught my attention.  By the way, have you noticed the heavy brow look more and more in magazines?  I think we're headed toward Frida Kahlo's unibrow, but that's besides the point.

She looks like a severe pilgrim.

Soooo....I decided to do a little fun drawing of her with my frame of mind of how I saw this.  I drew it up using very severe line work of inner contours, and I wanted to omit as much curving lines as possible.  I then did washes of color over parts of the drawing to give more interest and dimension.

This is what I came up with that I promptly named "Alien Pilgrim":

Alien Pilgrim, 2013

Graphite and watercolor on paper

12x9"

 

 

The combination of the title and the image made me laugh, so it was only fitting that I wrote up the Etsy description for this protype in this manner.  Follow the link and I hope you laugh!

 

http://www.etsy.com/listing/123187667/original-drawing-alien-pilgrim-fashion?ref=sr_gallery_1&ga_search_query=alien+pilgrim&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=all

I am hoping it recieves the home it deserves - one with a sense of humor! :)  After all, why does fine art and little studies like this one have to be serious all of the time?

Onward to finishing the tree painting now.  I hope your enjoying your Saturday, and I hope that I at least gave you a smile.  Love to all!



 

No, I'm Not Crazy: The Beginning Thoughts and Inspiration

Today, I wanted to share with you a little of what's inspiring the September Issue painting series.



Sources of Ideas and Inspiration in my studio

 

Maybe it stems from going with my Dad to The Newstand, a store in Angola, Indiana, as a kid.  It was filled with racks of magazines, newspapers, candy, and cigars.  The aroma of the sweetest cigar tabacco and fresh ink was a heavy perfume for this place, and if I could have I would have bottled it.  Anyway, I have always enjoyed magazines.  The colors, the images, the landscapes and the models unknowingly taught me a lot about two-dimensional composition while I was growing up.

 

There is something ridiculous about fashion magazines that I've only began to understand as an adult.  I will probably never dress like that.  Some of the attire is ridiculous, other ensembles are ugly, and some are absolutely beautiful but completely non-functional for everyday life.  For instance, a typical day of riding my bike to the train and working at my part-time job mixing paint, followed by a session of oil painting or drawing screams to me, "You simply MUST wear Valentino today!", doesn't it? haha

 

While I would love to wear outlandish clothes and feminine delicate fabrics everyday, it's simply not my life, nor is it my budget.  These are for the wealthy or at the very least, the very financially comfortable populations who do have the lifestyle suited for these clothes with formal dinner parties, events, and all that is luxurious and leisurely.  (I daydream about what all that might be, but all I can come up with something that looks like the television show, Revenge.  I clearly haven't a clue.) haha

 

These clothes do not make an appearance in my everyday surroundings, but what if they did?  This mixture of the models I see in the magazines with my neighborhood in Portland is entertaining.  What if I saw her waiting for the bus?  What if she was a gas station attendant?  What if I saw them at Subway?  Everyone gets hungry.  Why not? Hahaha! 
 

So I began taking photos around my neighborhood.

 

Bus stop at the corner of the Tualatin Valley Highway & 170th., Beaverton

 

 

The Shell Station at Orenco on Cornell Road, Hillsboro

 

My hope with this series is that it gives people a laugh with the awkward narrative, and inspires some thought about how our world differs with the world created within the pages of a glossy fashion magazine.  Who and what are they marketing when we look below the surface of things?  I get the impression that I'm probably not the only woman who looks at these and feels a bit inferior when the pages close and I realize that my hair looks drab, my face looks tired, and I'm wearing yoga pants with holes in them.  More questions and observations arise as I think more about some of these images, and as the series progresses, I'm hoping that still more come to the surface.