Artist of the Day: Paul Conly, Tickles his Theremin

Paul Conly, musician, composer, singer, songwriter. Cousin, in-law, friend, big-time family. One of the hand people. You will find Paul on YouTube. His work is captured on IMDB, composer, soundtrack. Also on Discogs.

Paul Conly and Bebe

Artist of the Day: Nancy Rosen

Here's my artist of the day Nancy Rosen. We exhibited together at Woman Made Gallery in 2008. Nancy Rosen's work can not only be seen where she exhibits, plus her website, but also BIG-TIME on Grace and Frankie on Netflix. Nancy's work is featured as the artwork of the Lily Tomlin character Frankie. Sweet.

Nancy Rosen, artist...

Artist of the Day: Bridget Riley, Greatest Living British Artist

Bridget Riley in 2012

Bridget Riley, the greatest living British artist, discusses her processes of working and making art, "At the End of My Pencil." At the end of this statement from the LRB (London Review of Books), she ends with this. . .(this essay is dated October 8, 2009). Here's another link to her discussions of her processes. . .

You cannot deal with thought directly outside practice as a painter: ‘doing’ is essential in order to find out what form your thought takes. The ‘new curves’ that I started in 1998 grew directly out of paintings such as Shimmered Shade. The latent visual arcs and sweeping movements came to the fore in Painting with Verticals 1 (2006) and Red with Red 1 (2007). Retaining the diagonals and verticals of the earlier group of paintings, I introduced a curve that connected to the existing structure. This is the underpinning of my new curvilinear work. The vertical is still there, acting like a break in the movement across the canvas. The cut collage pieces define the various contours that arise from combining and recombining the slender curve with its diagonal accents. This has developed into a layering technique that allows me to weave forms and colours together in a supple plastic space. I have reduced the number of colours and increased the scale of the imagery. Would it be possible to once again build up a repertoire of these invented forms, a repertoire that might gradually acquire sufficient momentum to put itself at risk, to precipitate its own kind of hazard? It is only through the experience of working that answers may be discovered within the inner logic of an invented reality such as the art of painting.

Bridget Riley, artist, Red with Red (2007)

She begins the essay with:

For me, drawing is an inquiry, a way of finding out – the first thing that I discover is that I do not know. This is alarming even to the point of momentary panic. Only experience reassures me that this encounter with my own ignorance – with the unknown – is my chosen and particular task, and provided I can make the required effort the rewards may reach the unimaginable. It is as though there is an eye at the end of my pencil, which tries, independently of my personal general-purpose eye, to penetrate a kind of obscuring veil or thickness. To break down this thickness, this deadening opacity, to elicit some particle of clarity or insight, is what I want to do.
The strange thing is that the information I am looking for is, of course, there all the time and as present to one’s naked eye, so to speak, as it ever will be. But to get the essentials down there on my sheet of paper so that I can recover and see again what I have just seen, that is what I have to push towards. What it amounts to is that while drawing I am watching and simultaneously recording myself looking, discovering things that on the one hand are staring me in the face and on the other I have not yet really seen. It is this effort ‘to clarify’ that makes drawing particularly useful and it is in this way that I assimilate experience and find new ground.

Bridget Riley, artist, Movement in Squares (1961)

Artist of the Day: Emily Rapport

My artist of the day is Emily Rapport. She makes paint reflect light. Her work is part of the reason I miss Chicago and my old neighborhood of Ravenswood.

Emily Rapport artist, Addison El Stop.

Emily Rapport artist, After the Storm

Artist of the Day: Joan Mitchell

My artist of the day is Joan Mitchell, fellow Chicagoan. h/t to Hyperallergic. I had the pleasure of seeing her work just about every working day for 10 years while at my job at the big law firm. So many of my co-worker secretaries had no clue what they were looking at.

Joan Mitchell, artist

Joan Mitchell, artist

Joan Mitchell, artist

Artist of the Day: Judith Joseph

My artist of the day is Judith Joseph. We met through overlapping memberships in the ARC Gallery, women's art cooperative in Chicago. Judith Joseph's work is about color, light, joy and simchas. I always look closely at her work because there are always sweet surprises in them. Should I ever marry (what again! nah), she will make my ketubah.

Plumeria Ketubah, 2007, Tucson, Arizona, 18" X 24", Judith Joseph, artist
collection Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Stein

And one more thing, she blogs. Find Judith Joseph's blog here.

Artist of the Day: Kevin Swallow

My artist of the day is Kevin Swallow, a stalwart, devoted, lunch-bucket kind of artist. He shows up every day and works. He works in the historic Cornelia Arts Building, in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago.

Here he is announcing a corporate commission.

Wrigley Building, Kevin Swallow artist, 2014

Artist of the Day: Diane McGregor

My artist of the day, fellow southwesterner, minimalist, Diane McGregor has a new group exhibit,
"City Grid/Urban Patterns," at SMINK Fine Art in Dallas, entitled "City Grid/Urban Patterns." It opens Saturday, May 17th, with a reception from 5-8pm.

SILENT NIGHT 1, GRAPHITE ON PAPER, 6" X 6" (FRAMED 16.25" X 16"), 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.

Artist of the Day: Mary Jo Marks Aardsma

Mary Jo Marks Aardsma is my artist of the day. We grew up together, we then after a too long number of years, resumed our friendship, both artistic and personal. Her website is http://marksaardsma.com/index.html.

Artist of the Day: Emily Rapport

Damen Sunset, Emily Rapport, 10"x14", watercolor

Emily Rapport, artist, is having an open studio, here's her artist website. I picked "Damen Sunset" because I truly love Emily's feel for watercolor and because this is a scene that fills me with nostalgia for my hometown and for the Brown Line, one of the mellowest transit rides in the world.

Ravenswood Open Studio
One Day Only…

Saturday, September 14, 4pm – 9pm

Featuring all new oil paintings by me PLUS work by studio mates Marion Kryczka, Amavong Panya and special guest artist Leo Kogan. Location is 4541 N. Ravenswood at Wilson, #403. Older works will be available and priced to sell. RSVP to our Facebook event here.
Free to enjoy, close to Ravenswood Metra, Damen Brown Line and plenty of free parking.

And in the shameless promotion department, Emily Rapport is my guru, my webmeister, she does my website, rounderstudio.com and here's her webwork website which is eatpaintstudio.com.

Artist of the Day: Bridget Riley

I confess to not having been a fan of Bridget Riley's early Op Art, but in her maturity, her late works are just stunning. Here's an article from The Guardian which states unequivocally that the greatest living British artist is Bridget Riley. Thank you Jonathan Jones.

Artist of the Day: Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin at MOMA.

Agnes Martin at Guggenheim.

Agnes Martin at Dia Foundation.

Artist of the Day: Joyce Owens

Joyce Owens, artist

Joyce Owens, artist

Joyce Owens, artist

Busy blogging day, nice. Here's my artist of the day, Joyce Owens, the link is to her exhibits throughout the world at the behest of the United States Department of State. The link takes you to her Swaziland exhibition which is now on-line. Below are other links in other embassies where Joyce's work has been shown, Stockholm, Addis Ababa, Monrovia, Nato Headquarters in Brussels.

Artist of the Day: Leon Ferrari

Yes, my artist of the day is Leon Ferrari, an Argentinian conceptual artist. Yes, his work is blasphemous, so what?

via

[Artlyst], and via [Glasstire]

"Conservative protestors and Catholic church authorities in Argentina launched furious attacks on three art exhibitions during the same period, and succeeded in shutting two of them down, on the grounds that they were an insult to Christianity. The first of the censored shows, closed to the public on Dec. 17, 2004. It featured the works of renowned Argentine artist León Ferrari, who stated that his greatest sin was having confessed that he didn't believe in hell.

Ferrari's Buenos Aires show depicted images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary as well as various saints in a blender, an electric toaster and a frying pan. Shortly after the exhibit opened Cardinal Bergoglio, the than Archbishop of Buenos Aires, declared that the exhibition was "blasphemous" and demanded its closure".

Orchestrated Protests erupted in the area and Cardinal Bergoglio accused the artist of "blasphemy" in an open letter, prompting a group of Catholic lawyers, who called for the show to be closed. A handful of fanatics also invaded the cultural centre and smashed several of the pieces on display, accidentally injuring a woman who was visiting the the gallery. A judge later ordered the city government to close the Ferrari retrospective, because it "wounded the sensibilities of Christians." According to her statement, the show invaded the privacy of practising Catholics, who constituted the majority and subsequently this gave the court the right to impose their will in having the exhibition closed."

Artist of the Day: William Wegman

William Wegman, His First Moveable GIF.

William Wegman, photographer

These are such a delight, as is so much of William Wegman's work with Weimaraners.

Artist of the Day: Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Bernini, Costanza Bonarelli

h/t to Clive James of The Atlantic dot com for these paragraphs on Bernini.  Ellipses mine.

"Bernini left nothing out of the range of emotions, and this in turn left some of his work ripe for scandal. He was ripe for that anyway. His libido was always in a rage. If his wife had lived longer, he would have generated even more children than the 11 he did. Just before he married her, he was having an affair with Costanza Bonarelli, the model for the beautiful bust that is now in the Bargello collection, in Florence. When I first visited the Bargello, I hadn’t yet been to Rome, so she was my first 3‑D Bernini. I could see immediately how the texture of the carving either didn’t fit into the Renaissance at all or else brought it to an end. The naturalism was bewildering, because you would have thought that some of the earlier sculptures in the collection were already as natural as could be. Between that head and the pretty, slightly plump young woman who inspired it, there is no distance that we might call monumentality. The sculpture simply says that Bonarelli was once alive, even though Bernini came close to killing her. She was already someone else’s wife, but when Bernini caught her having an affair with his brother, he went berserk, drawing his sword and chasing his brother in and out of churches. Meanwhile, to his eternal shame, he directed a factotum to slash Bonarelli’s face. This is a very nasty moment in the narrative. . .[the] excuse for Bernini is that such a retributive mutilation was a widely spread practice among men of the day. Perhaps, but you can’t help wondering whether the force of his passion was really an argument for the fineness of his feelings.

Nevertheless, the Bonarelli is a fine piece of sculpture. They all are, as long as Bernini did them. Such was the demand for his style that he had to call in lesser artists to supply the demand. But when he was the author, the result was a hit every time, with the exception of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV, which the king himself thought was a dud. Similarly, Bernini’s succession of designs for the Louvre Palace in Paris ended up going nowhere, at the price of a huge drain on his energy. He was accustomed to having his energy drained, but outright failure was never typical. What was typical was a lucrative success, in a long career that culminated in his shaping and decorating an entire church, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale. As with all the other projects that involved architecture along with sculpture, he was the complete master of both media, and if he was constantly pushed beyond his natural pace, well, being pushed was his pace. He seems to have slept soundly enough; it was to others that the cost was heartbreaking. The ordinary people of the city picked up the tab, because all the outlay came out of money that the popes stole from them in lieu of providing the simple social amenities that might have saved their lives. Nevertheless, there is no arguing with the results obtained by the dream team of Bernini and Pope Urban VIII. The Rome we see today is the Rome they built."

Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Teresa

Here's Simon Schama's Bernini episode which opens with the Ecstasy of St. Teresa, tells the story of the Bonarelli and illustrates the magic of Apollo Chasing Daphne.  Dig in.

Artist of the Day: Rodin

Nancy Charak, photograph, Rodin Burghers of Calais, London

Nancy Charak, photograph, Rodin in Metro Paris

Nancy Charak, photograph, Musee Rodin Paris

 Today's artist of the day is Rodin. I go along with Google and the Google doodle on this. There's a Rodin museum in Philadelphia, that I'm sure is worth the trip. My first trip to Paris was a 3 day marathon that missed the Musee Rodin. The third photo of the lines waiting to get in to the museum were taken on my second trip, and it was later in the afternoon, my feet were starting to hurt, and I remembered seeing ice cream a few blocks back.

Artist of the Day: Paul Delvaux

I grew up in the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum. I'll write about my Field Museum experience in another post. The Belgian artist Paul Delvaux is one of my favorites, which is strange to me because in general the Surrealists mostly leave me cold but there is a haunting, ambiguous eroticism in Delvaux's work that has always mystified and enchanted me.

Paul Delvaux, artist

Paul Delvaux, artist

Paul Delvaux, artist, The Village of the Mermaids

Here's a reference to Delvaux's The Village of the Mermaids, which I used to stare at, seemingly for hours, a poem by Lisel Mueller.

I still don't know what to make of those strange doe eyed mostly naked women wandering ethereally, that's a word isn't it, ethereally, in sylvan glades, ruins, near oceans. with strange clothed men looking on and walking away. I should add that the Mermaids painting disappeared from view for a number of years while the Modern Wing of the Art Institute was being built. When I saw the painting again after some number of years, it was like seeing an old friend.

Paul Delvaux: The Village of the Mermaids Oil on canvas, 1942 Lisel Mueller Who is that man in black, walking away from us into the distance? The painter, they say, took a long time finding his vision of the world. The mermaids, if that is what they are under their full-length skirts, sit facing each other all down the street, more of an alley, in front of their gray row houses. They all look the same, like a fair-haired order of nuns, or like prostitutes with chaste, identical faces. How calm they are, with their vacant eyes, their hands in laps that betray nothing. Only one has scales on her dusky dress. It is 1942; it is Europe, and nothing fits. The one familiar figure is the man in black approaching the sea, and he is small and walking away from us.

Artist of the Day: Bridget Riley

I'll be honest, I wasn't too enamored of Bridget Riley's earlier "op-art," it seemed too mechanical for my tastes. However, in examining her life's work, I am totally wowed.

Bridget Riley, Arcadia

This piece is one of my faves. . .I have talked about her work previously here.

Bridget Riley, artist, Arcadia

From: Gallerist NY. "Every five years the German town of Siegen, Germany, the birthplace of Old Master Peter Paul Rubens awards its Rubens prize to a “painter living in Europe in honor of his or her lifetime’s artistic accomplishment.” This year, Artforum notes today, the award has been given to Op artist Bridget Riley, who has an exhibition at the city’s Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen from July 1 through Nov. 11."