Color My Weekend: Dark Gray

The clouds look heavy and dark, swirling above the bright autumn leaves. They move along quickly and the bright blue sky remains. Thank you autumn wind!

A Picture By Any Other Name

For years, I have wondered why so many "modern" artists leave their works untitled. Laziness? Elitism? Pandering to the broadest interpretation?

Numbering works is just as unhelpful.

1957-D No.1 by Clyfford Still

I have no idea what to do with Still's creation, and he does not help me.

I don't really need too much information to understand Manet's work, but it's nice to know they were having lunch, rather than just creating a triangle for love and composition.

Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe by Edouard Manet

Then today, I randomly picked up Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book for Artists and Critics. This is a book for those with short bursts of free time (like me), who love art and wonder what others think about it too. Luck brought me to page 565 and the section On Titles For Paintings.

"Whereas certain people start with a recollection or an experience and paint that experience, to some of us the act of doing it becomes the experience; so that we are not quite clear why we are engaged on a particular work. And because we are more interested in plastic matters than we are in a matter of words one can begin a picture and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all." - William Baziotes

Ok. I agree that some emotions and experiences are not easily communicated through words, and titles can seem limiting. But you have to try, so that the viewers can come on the journey with you and share and be engaged.

Or you can use titles to mess with us. I also like a good joke.

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

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Color My Week: Red

I usually like to decorate in neutral tones with a few highlights of color in the autumnal family. Nothing too bold, beyond creating a warm and comforting environment. Then Christmas comes along and the boxes of decorations are opened and suddenly there is RED everywhere.

 

For a few weeks, I get to submerge myself in childhood Christmas memories. The good ones. And now I also get to watch my children get excited as they unwrap the ornaments and recognize their own paper wreaths or the collection of yarn ornaments from Danish relatives.

Even the silver glitter-covered shoe ornament that my daughter gave me two years ago has survived to give another season of joy.

But it's the color red that indicates that Santa is on his way and that the spirit of the season has returned to my house.

Happy Holidays!!

Color My Weekend: Gray

"Gray day. Everything is gray. I watch, but nothing moves today." (Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days)

Every autumn brings a delicious new set of hues. As much as I love the almost-too-bright sun fawning all over the trees, I really truly love a gray fall day. The dark gray clouds make every rich color deepen or even disappear into the foggy mist.

Gray is technically not a color. It sits somewhere between black and white. Black and white photography relies on the grayscale to convey its art.

That's how photography began. A magical world drained of color, but boldly reducing emotion to somewhere between black and white. The visual equivalent of Shakespeare's moral excuse "Tis nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Hamlet)

Tis nothing black or white, only shades of gray.

Color My Weekend: Brown

As a color, brown gets a bum rap. Brown does not make us catch our breath. It's a word to describe a dull, vague earth-tone that makes all of the other colors stand out, like grass and flowers and this man and woman:



Ginevra de' Benci by Leonardo Da Vinci

Self-Portait by Rembrandt van Rijn

Nothing vibrant and inspiring about brown, right? No family of brown paints at Sherwin Williams.  No child says "Brown is my favorite color." That would show lack of enthusiasm for the color wheel and require psychological evaluation. And brown's half-sister, beige has an even worse reputation.

But since winter is coming, I have been thinking about brown and how much I do like it.

Here are just some of the brown things that I like.

Coffee with just the right amount of milk.
Chocolate: creamy or dark or hot
Toast before butter
The leaves after the fall when the cold weather comes.
The "mud-luscious" world in springtime
Polished wooden floors to dance upon
Picture frames that hold the people I love
My first car
My current car
The toy box
The bookcase
Scotch

Have a great weekend!

Go here! Touch that!

Number 11, 2003

by Dorothy Ruddick

I have spent much of my cultural education wandering past/sitting before/staring at art, respecting its creators and the heartache and elation that went into each work. And always paying close attention to this rule: Do not touch.

I recently forced a roadtrip on a very hot day to Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ, where I happily touched art. I touched a lot of it. I touched everything that had a green sign that said "You may touch this sculpture with care."

A lifetime of supressed impulse washed away as I moved from abstract metal boxes, to worn away Greek muses, to paintings brought to life ( the very fun Seward Johnson's Were you invited?  based on Renoir's masterpiece The Boating Party), to a frightening King Lear, shown below (Johnson again).

A special meadow exhibit of Steve Tobin's work let me wander through metal plant roots that swirled two stories up and swooped back down again. Some were dancing duos and some cast shadows that danced. I touched them all.

It was magical for a person who follows the rules and is never comfortable, even when the piece asks you to add yarn to the spiderweb or write on the wall.

Plus peacocks wander the front grounds and you are asked not to chase them. This one stood next to me, this close, for 10 minutes preening. I felt we had something special.

So, go visit if you can. It was the most fun I've had in a while.

A Rose Is A Rose No More

Yesterday afternoon I took this picture between rainstorms:

Today, that rose does not exist. The storms scattered its petals and tore its stem.

I almost didn't grab my camera. I started to say that I was tired. I tried to ignore the pale pink against the rusting blue metal.

I have learned to recognize this impulse in myself to take the easy path and ignore the spark to take the picture, write the blog, carpe the diem. The choice of inaction is silly and lazy. I am neither silly nor lazy.

And I will no longer hesitate.