Here's to 2010

Just after I had made a resolution to put more just artwork up here on the blog, I read Nanny Goats in Panties and see that it's not too late to join in her Resolutions Party Post.  So not wanting to be a party pooper, I'll have to make it public here!


OK....  this is called Electric Landscape from my Power Series of 2007.  It's also the new wallpaper I put up for my Twitter account.




So my other resolution is that I will learn more Romanian, so that perhaps I can be nice to the folks that don't have any English.

Of course I have really bad language skills so even if I can get one or more rudimentary phrases down like:  Boy, that show was a stinker!  I loved the way the actor used the stage space.  I also got a subliminal CD that tells me learning Romanian is easy and that I'll succeed!  I have until April, when I return to my wonderful friends in Bacau.  This is a photo of the Romanian flag that proudly waves over a bulletin board in my studio! 

And when I get over to the Nanny Goats in Panties blog, I find that her friend over at Mama's Losin It, is doing something similar!

Since I'm not a power blogger, I hope that I'm doing this correctly
5.) It’s time to list your New Year’s resolutions for 2010.

Happy Happy Merry Merry

The Art of Time

Do artists resent the fact that most of us work in the dark so to speak?  I know that I'm a compulsive art maker and while it's a hoot to sell the work and have work in a show, it's always seemed like the icing on the cake.   I like the work!  It's so much fun and if it gets noticed - wonderful - but it won't stop me from plugging away.  We all joke about how we'll be famous after we shuffle off this mortal coil. 

For one artist, that keep plugging mentality has finally bought her some fame and fortune!  We can thank New York artist (and member of the studioNOTES group) Tamara Wyndham for this inspiring link.

Public Art Across the Pond

Yes, that fiesty street artist known to all but his mom as Banksy, is at it again...  Special thanks to Mark Westall, Owner at FADwebsite from my Visual Artists and their Advocates group  on LinkedIn.  

Just click here to see some fabulous new works!

Christmas is Coming

waaaay too fast if you ask me!  I hate years when Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November.  It's like a week gets taken away from us before Christmas.  So much for my good plans to design a Christmas card for the folks who have purchased my art work in the past - guess it will  be a New Year's card!  I'm also going to give them a small print of some new work I'm doing based on the photos I took up at the Gladding McBean Pottery in Lincoln.

The Sweet Hubby did get lights up on the house and make a tree out of pvc pipe and wire and lights for the front lawn.  Now it would make just too much sense if I posted a photo of that here, so I'm not going to do that.  In the email box to day were too funny as hell photos that I don't know who took.  If you're one of the photographers for this, please let me know so I can credit you!

You really have to admire the chutzpah of  the Ditto neighbor.

There's a story that goes with this one:

"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas  decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard."

Come to Viewpoint Gallery on 2nd Saturday

Not only will you find a great show there... but I will have some new work there, some all matted and ready to go.  Viewpoint is on J St in midtown Sacto between 20th and 21st Streets:  2015 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95811-3124      (916) 441-2341

I've got a selection of both black and white, hardly manipulated photos to color photos to downright digital collage - but all work is based in photography.  Why talk about them, when I can show you?  Prices range from $75 to $15.  All you need to do is go to the gallery and ask to see the work in Ann Tracy's drawer!

Cally Lilly

  American River Bannon Slough

Dream of Tulum Ruins

  

Electric Landscape 

Ghost Horse Colorado 

  Heart of the Matter

Homage to Joseph Beuys 

New York Day

New York Night

  Open Road

 

 

Something strange is going on with blogger right now... it won't let me label the images...  But do check them out in person....

Sudsy Performance

I don't know about you, but to me, Hollywood actors  - like James Franco, pictured to the left - are entertainers rather than artists.  I make that distinction between theatre people as well as in the film world.  Entertainers, to me, are those that like the familiar and are not interested in seeing how far they can stretch an art form.

In theatre these are the folks that would love to do Sweeney Todd (or insert the name of any popular play that is at least 10 years old) again, for the 5th time.  In film, those are the folks that like to do the big blockbusters with cars exploding and breasts exposed and people being killed and/or mutilated.  I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, it's just something that I've noticed. 

Then there are the people, in both theatre and film, who long to stretch the boundaries of their genres.  They aren't happy unless there's some way to do something differently to make a point or to perhaps give new life to a text.  I consider these folks the artists of their genres.  That's why Viewpoints training (movement training) was so important to me as both an actor and a director.  It was a way to re-conceptualize a show or a portion of a play.

Back in 2003, I was accepted into the Director's Lab West workshop held that year at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena.  It was a great learning experience and I now get group emails from folks who do the workshops each year.  This morning Dan Wilson told a tale of eating lunch in front of the TV and watching a soap opera in which Franco appeared.  Franco, if you don't know, was in both Spiderman and in Milk.  Later he caught an episode of Fresh Air, the NPR show, in which Franco called the soap opera gig a performance art experience!?!

He included a link that was in the Wall Street Journal - who knew that bastion of fiscal conservatives would have any truck with performance art?  Even if you think much performance art is pretentious (and I agree with you on some of it), please read the article HERE.  It might make you think twice.  I know that I've changed my concept of Hollywood actors thanks to Franco!

Burn the Art, Not the Duck

I think it was the 2nd time that I went to the Burning Man Festival out in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada (north of Reno) that I saw a beautiful, huge, balsa-wood duck.  It was as big as a car, or maybe bigger.  And I think that someone sat inside it and drove it around.

This was back in 1997 I do believe.  At that point in time, the Fest was a little less controlled than it is now.  Back then anything out on the playa near The Man was fair game to be burned.  So when it got dark, I was surprised, no horrified, so see that the duck was traveling out to the playa center - the "we'll burn anything" zone.  It was late that night and I was bushed from riding my bike all around Black Rock City, so I decided to let the rave music rock me to sleep.  One of our camp mates - my good friend Art, owner of Luna's Cafe here in Sacramento, go there for lunch sometime - decided to stay up and go out and shoot photos.  As Art walked away from our rented RV, I could hear people yelling  "Burn the duck".




Apparently the guys who built that duck didn't understand the burning rules - if it's out on the playa and if a flamethrower is near it, bring your marshmallows!  A little bit of research on the Burning Man site, showed that it was called Trojan Duck Lounge by Robert Burke.  Robert, I was sorely afraid for you and the duck.  But the next morning Art reported that the duck was safe - whew!

So I think this is the windiest into to just about anything I've written lately.  Aside aside, I want to thank Paddy Johnson of ArtFagCity who is down in Miami at Art Basel Miami Beach for this link


Wish I could be there to "feel the glow".

Art Basel Miami Beach

I think they call this international art fair Art Basel Miami because it's too damn cold in Switzerland this time of year and this way gallery owners and artists get an opportunity to write off a trip to Florida! There was an article and slide show at the Art Info website and I pulled out a couple of  photos of work that I think really express the times we are living in.

All this talk about the economy was probably the genesis of this piece.     At least that's what I thought until I went back and looked at the name of the artist - Cildo Meireles, Zero dollar (1978-84).  OMG, Cildo died in 1984.  But like many works of art, I guess this is just timeless.

And then there's this piece by Kirsten Pieroth, Inflated Dinghy (2009). Harmonica, rubber dinghy, hose, and video. My question to you is does this make music?  Looks like you could fill the boat with air and just let it deflate into the accordion - which they are calling a harmonica?  It's a German gallery that is showing this so it could be a language glitch.

I also liked Gerhard Richter's abstract painting, plus works by Robert Longo, Barbara Kreuger and John Baldessari. But these are only the picks from the Art Info folks.  One of these days I will go there myself,  with my own work, which will sell like hotcakes and get me a wonderful high profile gallery.  Girl can dream can't she?

Will be interesting to compare the faves of Artinfo.com with those of Paddy over at the Art Fag City blog.

Starry Night Music

My dear friend Debra Ayers is one hell of a pianist - be it rag time or contemporary classical music!  So we have to give her and her Montage Music Society a BIG shout out for their excellent review that just came out:

GRAMOPHONE

December 2009

Review of Starry Night Project

Montage Music Society

“Richly colored music inspired by some equally colorful art.…illuminating (Starry Night)…

absolutely delicious  (Seurat)

…sumptuously lyrical (O’Keeffe)  …purely joyous and exuberant (Gauguin)..”

“..an effective and natural unifying idea which musical organizations and concert presenters frequently use to inspire both their audience and themselves.”

Although the Montage Music Society’s Starry Night Project is one of those scary-sounding not-for-profit projects that involve more logistical support than small naval skirmishes, any commissioning initiative that results in such lovely music written exclusively about works of visual art is its own justification. In fact, it’s an effective and natural unifying idea which musical organizations and concert presenters frequently use to inspire both their audience and themselves.

In this case, the featured paintings belong to prominent collections including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Matthew Harris leads off the night with illuminating and perspective sketches based on paintings by Van Gogh, Rousseau, Picasso, Ensor, Matisse, Dali, and Mondrian, their brevity making this an excellent game for classical music parties.

Stephen Paulus contributes a beautiful adaptation for cello and piano of his rhapsodic, hypnotic song-cycle Art Suite, inspired by Brueghel, Degas, Seurat (absolutely delicious) and Larry Rivers. Libby Larsen’s “portrait” of six Georgia O’Keeffe paintings are suitably ominous and spare, and every now and then sumptuously lyrical. Andrew Lists’s Noa Noa, inspired by a monumental tableau by Gauguin, is the most purely joyous and exuberant music on the program.

The recordings were made in 2008 at Merrimack College’s Rogers Center for the Arts in North Andover, Massachusetts. The sound is full of life and detail, just the way composers like it. The booklet-notes by the composers or collaborators is a historic document in itself.

Laurence Vittes, GRAMOPHONE, December 2009

If you like contemporary classical music as much as I do, you can go here to order it on-line.  Do it now, you won't regret it!