Watch: Cutie and the Boxer

I sometimes wonder if we haven't regressed when it comes to women's rights, especially in the media.  On TV shows and in films women are portrayed in ways that are alien to me, and I am a woman.
I especially get frustrated with the way creative and other historical female figures are portrayed in film. I could list many films, "Pollock", "What Maisie Knew", "New York Stories", "Sylvia" - to name a few, where the women's creativity is either seen as secondary to their male partner's, portrayed as silly OR their actual talents become a palimpsest on top of which a dreary or overblown romance is rendered.
See how many films and documentaries about male creatives you can come up with, then try and come up with an equal number for women. Good luck with that one.

That is why "Cutie and the Boxer" was so refreshing and thoroughly watchable. Rather than going for the obvious line of exploring Ushio Shinohara's career that never reached the heights of success that was forecast in his earlier years, or examining the complex relationship with his wife Noriko (who by the way has GREAT style), the filmmakers created a multi-layered documentary that incorporated the above to actually make Noriko, I think, the main protagonist as a talented artist whose circumstances curtailed her career. It was a surprising twist.

Watch it, it's great.

From Beginning Acylics to Abstract Art

Every now and then in life we experience a moment of utter perfection. The moment the teacher of my new evening art class turned off all the lights, illuminating the new falling snow while we practiced automatic drawing was one of them. This new class which began last week, is about abstract art. It's the same teacher I had before (local artist Ursula Gullow) but the tone is different.

In this first lesson we looked at the idea of automatic drawing. Ursula made an excellent point. When we create art with a clear plan of what we want at the end, the subsequent process becomes a series of tasks, with the creativity happening at the start. Whereas if we create art spontaneously, we become the medium along with the materials we use, the creativity is ongoing.  As someone who has always created with a plan, this has been liberating. That is not to say that it is always easy to work spontaneously, my brain doesn't do this naturally. But I am trying!

As part of the class we created our own automatic drawings in the dark using black lines. I chose to draw continuously from one line without lifting my pen from the surface. It was a good feeling to be with these people I barely knew, in the dark, collectively creating. We used the drawings as the basis for paintings. Many people used different colours and materials. I stuck with monochrome. The piece I did fought me for a while, then somehow it came together.  Below is the result.

What you can't see in the picture is the areas that are raised, peaks of paint. I have decided to call it 'Cartography' because to me it seems like a map, a map of my subconscious perhaps.

Paulo Freire's Wisdom

Study of Glass and Light

It was with great trepidation that I approached the portion of my acrylics class that required us to practice painting still life. Partly because I never cared for representational art nor understood the point of most still life paintings. The other reason was, I thought I would make a horrible mess of it.
At school my drawings and paintings never looked much like the object I was trying to depict, it seems to be me that to the layman, a picture  is 'good' because they can recognize within the work the object that is being represented. While I have never subscribed to this idea myself, there is still the awareness that, if you are trying to master painting, painting from life is an important exercise, even if you don't intend to continue in that vein and branch off into a more abstract or conceptual direction.
Therefore I approached the exercise with an open mind as best I could. It was very difficult, and I was not impressed with the result. But I did learn a huge amount about composition, light and color.  At some point I realized that you have just stop looking at what you are trying to paint and work with the canvas/surface making decisions that will convince the viewer of the object/s although it may not be directly, visually accurate.

That painting I created showed me where I had gone wrong and where to focus in the next class. So I chose in the next class to paint a group of glass jars - in the previous still life there was a glass jar that didn't work and looked more like a tin can.
Here is the result. Not perfect but I thoroughly enjoyed doing it. It was much tougher than I thought it would be.

 

Again, perfect it is not. For example the jar on the far right was poorly done, the size is too squat and the mouth is not well defined, the bottle in the middle is asymmetrical and the base on the far left one is a mess, lacking depth and with too much heavy colour. BUT I do love the lettering on the far right jar and I like the base of the central bottle. Also think the shadowing works ok and the mouth of the jar on the far right isn't bad.  Now I can understand why Giorgio Morandi spent so much time painting vessels...

Do This MOOC!

I am currently participating in a MOOC called Live! A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers provided via Coursera by CALarts.
It is a really great course full of wonderful resources. The CALarts teachers have done a superlative job at structuring a course around art theory but also encouraging collaboration.
Part of the course has been weekly sketchbook assignments.  Last week we had to create a visual of ten sources of inspiration. I did mine as a Pinterest board (see below).  I cannot recommend this course enough. For someone like me it has been endlessly useful, it has helped me structure my creativity and expand.  I am by nature lazy, I can talk myself out of anything, but the activities and networking with other members of the course have energized me.  PLUS I have found a new way to use Pinterest! When you are an independent lifelong learner like myself, it is hard sometimes to really know how well you are doing or come up with ways to assess and expand on the knowledge you are gaining. Courses like this help because they gave me exercises that I would not have thought of doing.

The advice on how to critique and articulate feelings on my own art and others has even helped improve this blog! 

We are in week 3 and the course lasts for 9 weeks, at this point I dip into the course and look at the videos and read forum posts daily but then also keep track on Twitter and other social media sites as well as blogs. I am by day an instructional designer and adult education specialist, and so I know what I am talking about when I say - this is how education should be! Collaborative, at the student's own pace using materials and technologies to aid learning when relevant. Well done CALarts, Jeannene Przyblyski, Ph.D. and her team!

Adventures in Acrylics

 

I've been taking night classes since November of last year. I started with collage because it was medium I know. To be honest, the clincher was that the teacher is a local artist that I love - Ursula Gullow. Her work is accessible and also compelling. I was really nervous to join a class, it's weird being a student when you have been a teacher for as long as I have!

However, it was a great experience and Ursula is a great teacher. While in that class I started to use paint, specifically acrylics. I don't think I have painted since being at school and through the years I actively avoided paint in favor or fiber arts and sewing. Turns out though, I love paint. So after that class I signed up for a beginner's class in acrylics with Ursula as the teacher. It was a revelation... I started with low expectations of my work but I have been immensely pleased with the results.

The last class was last week and I am now doing an abstract class, again with Ursula Gullow.
For more of my pictures, check out my Tumblr page.

Textile Art

 

To be honest, I don't really like this picture. I used spray paint for the branches and they lacked definition and the angularity one expects with tree branches. Ugh. So I tried to fix it with the running stitch and it improved it but still... Plus the kimono blossoms just don't do anything for me and look imposed. That's ok, it's all learning!