I Walk in Agnes Martin's Footsteps

I write frequently about Agnes Martin on this blog. You can see more, learn more about this critically important artist over at ARTSY's page. Agnes Martin the master of the minimal.

In my own Art Statement I say this: "I walk in the footsteps of giants: Helen Frankenthaler, Agnes Martin and Joan Mitchell for the purity of their thought and action on the canvas as well as Linda Karshan, Sandra Blow, Vija Celmins, and Katherina Grosse. Whether what they do is lyrical, expository or just plain brash, to my way of thinking they are all pure abstract expressionists who make marks, lines, shapes, colors on paper, canvas, even buildings, and say to us, “here look at this, make of it what you will."

Below are some of my latest pieces from my website, rounderstudio dot com. At the moment this series is labeled Long Short, but the name is being changed to a more lyrical, hopefully more mysterious title, Bonitas Canciones, beautiful songs as sung by Mili Bermejo. This is an ongoing series, there are yet more to come, some are at my photographer, Jack Kulawik jrkphoto [at] yahoo [dot] com in Tucson AZ.

These are 11″x30″, graphite pencil, conte, prismacolor, erasure, pencil shavings and smudge on 90# Stonehenge, 2017. After a long summer working on paintings on canvas, I decided to challenge myself to return to working with drawing on paper, in an unfamiliar format for me, longitudinal. I cut 22″x30″ sheets of 90# Stonehenge in half. The self-imposed limitation of just drawing helped limit the palette to mostly grey tones and bits of color.

Bonitas Canciones #19, Nancy Charak artist c.2017

Bonitas Canciones #22, Nancy Charak artist c.2017

Artist of the Day: Diane McGregor

It is always a pleasure to see Diane McGregor's work. It was a pleasant shock, nonetheless, to see her new direction. I had always thought of Diane as a master of grids. We have corresponded about her fascination with and the philosophical underpinning of hers and Agnes Martin's work.

Diane took a leap into the unknown, which is what we artists must always do. Diane, like my friend, Greta Ward, learned about working with cold wax from Rebecca Crowell.

You can read further how Diane McGregor came to these new images and direction.

Boreas 1, oil and cold wax on panel, 12 x 6 x 2 inches, Diane McGregor Artist

Boreas 2, oil and cold wax on panel, 12 x 6 x 2 inches, Diane McGregor Artist

Hesperia, diptych, oil and cold wax on panel, 6 x 8 x 2 inches each panel, Diane McGregor artist

Artist of the Day, Agnes Martin

Today's Google doodle features Agnes Martin. I have featured Agnes Martin as my artist of the day previously.

Agnes Martin Interview (20:00 version, 1997) from Chuck Smith on Vimeo.

News From Rounder Studio. . .

First of all, a reminder that Rounder Studio is now in Tucson, as I have pulled an Agnes Martin and decamped to the southwest. You can see some photos of my walks with my dog Samwise Gamgee at my Facebook IOS album.

In Chicago, good things. The ARC is having its 40th Anniversary show, they are the second oldest continuing artist cooperative in the country. I won't be there but my painting Realization 5216 will.

ARC Gallery, 2156 N. Damen Ave., Chicago, IL 60647, 773/252-2232

• Exhibition Dates, September 25--October 19, 2013
• Gallery Hours, Wednesday through Saturday, 12--6pm and Sunday, 12--4pm
• Opening Reception, Friday, September 27, 6--9pm
• Panel Discussion, Saturday, September 28, 3--4:30pm, including our founding sister, Gerda Meyer Bernstein

You can see my work and the work of other fine artists (including Agnes Martin) at The Nevica Project, under the good auspices of Jayson Lawfer, in the Ravenswood neighborhood in Chicago, just a short 2-block walk from my former studio at the Cornelia Arts Building. Note that Jayson Lawfer is encouraging all of you who are attending the Art Expo in Chicago (September 19 – 22, 2013) this weekend to get to the showroom at

The Nevica Project, 3717 N. Ravenswood, Unit 115W, Chicago, IL, 60613, 406/360-0164

And then, the Cornelia Arts Building is having an Open Studio, Friday, October 4th from 6--10pm, you should go. My studio mates and friends will be there, Randi Russo, Scott Simons, Emily Roynesdal, Doug Birkenheuer, Doug Frohman, Kevin Swallow, Jason Messinger, Darrell Roberts, over 40 artists!

Artist of the Day: Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin at MOMA.

Agnes Martin at Guggenheim.

Agnes Martin at Dia Foundation.

Helen Frankenthaler is my Lodestar

Cri de Coeur 5951, © Nancy Charak, 2010, watercolor, prismacolor pencil on unfinished fabricated birchwood panel, 18”x24”

I can honestly say that there’s a very real sense in which I have never not known about Helen Frankenthaler and her work. My mother was a great admirer of Helen’s art, returned from a vacation in New York gushing about what she had seen when I was still in grammar school. To my sorrow that catalogue has disappeared. A good friend from junior and senior high school had Frankenthaler’s work in her house, along with Picassos and Kandinskys.

Tales of Genii III, Helen Frankenthaler, 1998, fifty-three-color woodcut from 18 woodblocks (17 maple, 1 mahogany) and 2 stencils on gray TGL handmade paper,” 47x42” (119.4x106.7cm), Edition 36, Artist’s proofs 14.

I choose Helen Frankenthaler because she is the head of a pantheon of abstract expressionists; to name a few, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Linda Karshan, Sandra Blow, Vija Celmins and Katherina Grosse. Purity of thought and action on the canvas emanate from Frankenthaler’s work, even if that work is a 53 color woodcut.

The Frankenthaler woodcuts astonish because they continue her pattern of breaking rules and ignoring conventional modes of working art media. She is widely credited with being the first to work with unprimed canvases, allowing oil paint to halo and stain, and in so doing, to influence a number of artists, Jules Olitski and Sam Francis as foremost examples.



Helen Frankenthaler is my lodestar. I keep two quotes from her displayed in my studio, “A really good picture looks as if it’s happened all at once. It’s an immediate image. For my own work when a picture looks labored and you can read in it—well she did this, and then she did that, and then she did that—there is something in it that has not got to do with beautiful art to me.”[1]

In the description of the exhibit of the woodcuts at the National Gallery of Australia’s website, she is quoted, “There are no rules, that is one thing I say about every medium, every picture. . .that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about.” [2] [1]Ibid

[2] http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/Frankenthaler/

Agnes Martin: Empty Yet Meaning-full

Agnes Martin, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK, Financial Times, By Robin Blake, Published: May 31 2010.

"Can a work of art be both empty of meaning and a pleasure to look at? It is a particularly tough question about abstract painting, because iconography, through which meaning and intention are found, is missing or concealed. Yet we always do find ourselves seeking out significance, and we look to the artist to help us."

[Agnes Martin's] "This work had all of minimalism’s patent characteristics: radically spare in appearance, made from immediately evident materials and with none of the traditional painting techniques that tend to make a holy mystery of artistic creation. After five years or so, most other leading minimalists grew bored and drifted in new directions but Martin remained on this track for the rest of her long life – no theory, no hiding of technique, no reference to actuality. “I paint,” she said, “with my back to the world.”