Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Monhegan Island - Day 1



Both of these paintings are small - 6x8 "studies" I will call them. I went to Colin Page's studio last night with a group of folks from my painting class and someone made the comment that "studies" are simply unsuccessful paintings. I thought that was funny/true.

These are my first paintings from Monhegan. We went to Fish Beach and set up our stuff and watched while Michael (Michael Vermette) did a painting demonstration with a palette knife and introduced us to Black Oil Wax medium. I did the top painting there and I was slipping and sliding all over the place using that knife. What a mess. Oh, and I should point out that we only had 20 minutes to do these "studies"!

The bottom painting was done after dinner. I went down to Lobster Cove at sunset and tried to integrate some palette knife with brush. The cool thing about that painting was the experience of doing it. The wind was intense and blowing me all over the place. I couldn't make a straight line to save my life. This is a life ring on a post. They have these at various places on the island because the currents are so strong they can sweep you out to sea. The photo to the left I found on the web - taken by TR Smith. That's what it looked like in real life.

2 comments:

Ana said...

Lol! ROFL! lol....
I still remember the class when the teacher asked us to make sketches of one of us, each at a time, in 15 seconds.
LOL
What a disaster! I'm here in front of the computer but my mind is back at that class looking terrified for the first "thing" I did. It was a shock.
Worse... I didn't succeed... nobody did.
Only one girl did it once in one of those classes that had a pale idea of what was one of us.
I believe I still didn't recover... lol
Van Gogh and the impressionists suffered the same because of the wind and I remember reading in one of his letters to Theo that it was very windy, I don't remember clearly.
With this all in mind I think you supported it all quite well and came up with something.
I was researching about a Brazilian that is living in Chicago now and he did a "transgenic bunny" he asked a lab to do and he called her "Alba".
It was a scandal and I know him, and many of some who are in US and a certain woman that is at MOMA.
I know the asses these guys kissed so...
I was thinking about writing something because his writings is full of a pseudo-philosophy and all his work is nothing.
But I really don't have patience to write about things I don't like.
And I also don't want to raise this issue again.
It is very boring.
I didn't even find a picture of the bunny being a lamp... lol
He did some, he claims they are, "digital poems" in the 80ies... a word after another...
Wow! Memory lane!
I remember watching at one of this "poems" (LOL!)... and at that time, when we are in our twenties we feel ashamed of saying "I simply don't like it and think it is nothing".
I kept looking and went away.
The only thing I remember seeing of interesting is a tiny drawing, 20 x 20 cm (I use the metric system).
I even looked at it for 15 seconds.
lol
His name is Eduardo Kac in case you want to read some nonsense.
He mixes theories but you can see that it is so fake and that his knowledge is fragmentary. A little bit of this and that and mix it with "his" words. That disgusting jargon some artists or even art critics use.
I hate it. The backstage of Art is the same as in politics and those who are really good sometimes are recognized.
At the renascence it was already like this. It all started at renascence.
Congratulations! You survived!

Ken Foster said...

Finally I have something in common with Van Gogh! Thanks Ana.