I haven’t blogged for a long time. Almost 4 years. This blog was originally created for my art. I used it to develop ideas taking them from concept to finish. Concept art is something I studied at UTD. In fact every studio class I took at UTD I printed out this blog and put it in my notebook.

The process I learned is helpful to me as an artist of faith. Right now I am in the beginning stages of developing an idea for an art show at Park Cities Presbyterian Church this fall. I have until August to develop a piece based on the scripture Micah 6:8.

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?              (NKJV)

I started this morning by reading the verse in context of the whole book of Micah. I am insistent that scripture always be placed in context when studying a verse. That means actual context and historical context. More on that later. I have immediately found that the verse has a different meaning than I first thought because it was written to a king, not an ordinary individual, but someone who has the power to change things. I have in my mind a general idea that the verse is a call to radical obedience to God.

I have some images in my mind, but that may change as I study.

My latest works have been watercolors. I am currently trying to put together a watercolor class. This painting seems to be an oil painting. But maybe a drawing or another mixed media piece.

Trash the Nasher - part one

When my Gallery Management class went to the Nasher Sculpture Garden on Saturday, April 25th we knew that our professor Greg Metz was going to trash it. In his own words, as an artist, an educator, a person who has traveled widely visiting museums and galleries, he believes the intuitions who exhibit art have a duty to place the work within its historical context and help preserve the intent of the artist who created the work.

The architecture of the Nasher is world class, the art work amazing, but something happens that is less than desirable in the context of the design of the exhibits, especially the placement of art in the sculpture garden.

The architect Renzo Piano designed the Beyeler Museum in Basel, the Menil Collection in Houston and Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris (in collaboration with Richard Rogers). While we waited for Greg to arrive I went inside the museum and was struck by the beauty of the building. I was wondering what it was that he objected to so much. It turns out Greg has no objections to the building. He said that Ray Nasher was very particular about his legacy and that Piano was a great choice. His only improvement would be to take the honey combed roof and raise it up about 3 feet from the glass roof. The roof is designed to keep the damaging sunlight from the art, but allowing for the light to fill the building. It is busy and distracts from the minimalistic approach to the rest of the building.

What Greg pointed out which amazed me was that you can’t see this beautiful building from the street. The building is hid behind magnolia trees, oleander bushes and bamboo. We were asked to walk around the building after the lecture and see for ourselves.

The building was designed with the idea of an archeology dig with in an urban culture. The travertine marble on the outside of the building is rough, while inside it is smooth helping to transition the visitor from the outside urban setting to the refinement of the minimalistic setting of the gallery space.

Nasher’s collection of modern sculpture defined as art from the 1860 through the 1960’s and his dedication to bringing this art to Dallas made him known as the Ambassador of art to Dallas. I have visited the museum on several occasions and have caught other parts of the collection as they rotate through the gallery.

As you enter the building there is a gathering space. Where the front desk is and where groups like ours gather. It had a strange combination of sculpture pieces. Amazing enough a post modern Jeff Koons baroque bust across from an Eskimo monolith – like piece and a green drop like piece that was place in a traffic flow area. Needless to say, it didn’t work. And having Greg point it out was just amusing. The work was unbalances in its presentation and weird. The large green piece might have held its own against the Koons work, but the Eskimo piece needed to be isolated somewhere because if its busyness and overpowering size.
To be continued. (It gets better)

Art Rag

My art blog isn’t all I wanted it to be. I have art blog block. I know this is rare and probably not a real problem, but I realized tonight I want to learn to write about art and I get writing about art block. I guess I think I don’t know how or I shouldn’t. There is a language that goes with art. I do speak it, maybe not fluently but I do speak it. Painterly, is my favorite art word at least for now. You know how I am about favorites of anything. I love all the colors. Maybe I lean towards red for while, then blue, brown… who knows what's next? I think it will be black and white art for awhile.

However, this weekend when I went gallery gawking with Brenda I noticed a new trend. Colorful art just like the fashions right now are very, very colorful. And also painting that had a varnish finish, very thick high gloss like an epoxy. Everything shined. I didn’t like it. It looked too Miami. And I know what I am talking about.

Another trend which I did like was the paintings that were done on wood especially an artist named Mark Smith at the Craighead Green Gallery. Check him. Brenda and I fell in love with his work.

Update on my submission. I forgot to pick up my canvas at Kinkos tonight. I ordered a canvas and a watercolor paper print. We will see which one works. I hope they turned out, you never know with Kinkos. (Kinkos is a bad word where I work.)

At work I am actually doing design, as in sketching and then rending in Illustrator. I got into a really interesting place before I had to leave today. I am working on a logo for a church’s capital campaign. The best part is I did this all in front on my boss and she was kind of amazed. Like I was on the light table sketching, then I drew it in illustrator and I was changing the line width and color and adding textures and she doesn’t know people can do these things. Then I tell her where I got the idea; from listening to the lady talk and looking at the architecture of the building and send the lady font samples and asking which one she likes and “look” like her church. People can’t give me a font, but they can choose one that is selected and they know if something fits or not. I know how to work with people.

My biggest frustration with work has always been people under estimating what I can do and not giving me a chance to do things. There I said it. I love the design process. One on my most favorite things was when I made mini quilts. I sometimes got to design them for other people. I would meet the ladies at a fabric store and pick out fabric and talking about motifs and sized and who the piece was for and all. I listen to people then I create. I learn about them and then I design. It isn’t so much about me as it is expressing something artistically for another person.

Drawing

This is a bad photo that I tried to get to look better, but it shows the start. I work from left to righ to avoid dragging my arm continually through a rendering. I still am not sure what else. I am going to photograph the bike path by my house with all the electrical wire. Not so much for that but it is a path and I can get the look of distance. I still am thinking of framing it with a cardboard box with writing on it like "will work for food."

I love drawing. It is nice to turn on the itunes and draw. Good stuff.

What's Goin' On

Gray sky morning
Frozen fingers
Crossing

I wanted to talk a bit about Greg’s gallery class.

For those of you who don’t know the Art Barn as we call it in the Arts and Humanities, Arts and Performance side of the campus at UTD, has a large space at its center which is the gallery. When Greg Metz my instructor came to UTD about 14 years ago, it became his charge. At that time very little was done with it. Greg has created an interesting history of shows. They are always contemporary and always different. The calendar includes several student shows and shows that the full time instructors curate.

The Gallery class started off based on a class at UTA where a group of students help run the gallery there. The class at UTD has evolved from that to one that includes speakers, museum trips, gallery hops and lots of volunteer hours in the arts community. Bottom line we get to meet a lot of interesting people that make art happen in Dallas. We will be hanging shows and helping at art auctions. This is a very welcome change of pace for me.

On the personal art front I am trying to arrange a photo shoot for my submission to the PCPC Art Show. The two parables I have chosen are the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. Hopefully this weekend I will be meditating on the text and writing about it. I have some idea in my mind about the Prodgial Son and what I want to do in that art.

That is where it starts. There is a picture in my head that I will aim at, but it never happens, something else does, always an adventure.

I have been going over in my mind the possibility of teaching art in my home. I would love that. Not sure if it is the time, I really don’t have a lot of time. But it is there in my mind.

I teach at the shelter tomorrow. I have to get down what I am doing. Tara and I talked about painting with oil pastels. I got the oderless mineral spirits today at Home Depot and I need to get some new reference stuff together. I need something for the other class to do. I may actually give in and do how to draw. For some reason when people sign up that is what they expect. I am so grateful to have Tara as a student because she loves to experiment and would never ask to do how to draw.