foto by Chiara Pilar
Bluesky
BEBINA BUNNY free download here
-
Why not make something?
Posted in Crafts, Drawings & Paintings, Living With Less, Textile Arts
Tagged blackboards, Los Ojos studio, making, solutions
1 Comment
Blackboards and the aesthetics of the ephemeral
My studio is in the San Lorenzo area of Rome and its acquisition was a major happening for me. From the very beginning I knew it needed a giant blackboard like the one I’d seen at Roscioli‘s wine bar. One of the Roscioli brothers told me where they gotten theirs and I promptly ordered one for myself. The blackboard was so heavy that it took an entire afternoon to mate it with the wall.
Los Ojos, my studio, is rather small and my blackboard is very large. So its presence is imposing and dictates the layout of the studio in general. When I decided to do my studio make-over, one of the big problems was moving the blackboard.
So why am I so fixated about having a blackboard? Could it be an imprinting leftover from my teaching days? Or did I become a teacher just to have access to a giant blackboard? What is it that I find so fascinating about blackboards?
Years ago, I use to prime large canvasses with black paint and used chalk to make the initial sketch. Like a blackboard. Making changes was so easy plus painting on black created instant chiarascuro.
The ephemeral nature of blackboard writings can lead to eternity. Because it gives you the freedom to erase and start all over again. Because making mistakes is often the only way to get it right.
Einstein at his blackboard via
Rudolf Steiner. Where the thoughts come from. Blackboard drawing to the lecture on the 9 August 1922
Joseph Beuys Blackboard Drawings
Before blackboard moving
Related links: Blackboard Teaching and Learning from Art + Joseph Beuys’ blackboards, thinking for expulsion + The History of the Classroom Blackboard
The Royal Art Lodge
While doing some huipil related research on Pinterest, I stumbled on The Royal Art Lodge. Wow! Their work was so entertaining that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. The Royal Art Lodge was a group of Canadian artists who met once a week to collectively make small scale drawings and paintinngs. Founded in 1996, they disbanded in 2008.
Their absurdist paintings are a kind of happy Gothic full of humor and wit. During the six years they collaborated together, The Royal Art made a remarkably huge collection of art so full of energy and charm that it makes me smile.
Related links: Royal Art Lodge + more Royal Art Lodge + Life After Winnipeg’s The Royal Art Lodge + Collective Simplicity and Global Mass Artput +personal message blog + The Royal Art Lodge
Sand collection
Cleaning out my studio means coming to terms with dormant objects—objects that are there but not used. In this category is my sand collection. I started it over 20 years ago when I lived in southern Tuscany and spent much time on beaches. Not happy with just sand, I also began collecting “souvenirs” of special occasions (ex. birthday candles) and happy moments (ex. carnival streamers). The collected were given homes in fruit juice bottles (my kids’) and sealed with wine bottle corks (mine). All of these carefully labeled and dated bottles were displayed on a granite topped chest of drawers. Then, when we left Tuscany, these little bottles were abandoned in a cabinet. But now that my studio is going through it’s Born Again phase, the collection has re-surfaced. Marie Kondo would probably tell me to dumped them. But I won’t. It would be like throwing away a diary.
Sand Collection
Italian journalist, short story writer and essayist, Italo Calvino, also had a sand collection. Except his was on paper. In 1984, Calvino published a collection of essays written while living in Paris entitled “Collezione di sabbia” (sand collection). Calvino said that the brain begins in the eye so he used his eyes to develop his brain by “collecting” the visual world. This “Collection of Sand” is divided into four parts: 1. Exhibitions-Explorations 2.The Eye’s Ray 3. Accounts of the Fantastic 4. The Shape of Time.
With curiosity, Calvino observes museums, maps, the written language, gardens, monuments, etc. These visual observations led to written contemplations. Strangely enough, only now as I write this do I see the relationship between Calvino’s “Collezione di sabbia” and my Bebina Bunny book.
My little bottles are objects that remind me of an experience as opposed to objects meant to give me an experience. So they will stay.
related link: Italo Calvino’s essays, Collection of Sand, is a brainy delight
Posted in People, Rome/Italy
Tagged Bebina Bunny, Collezione di sabbia, Italo Calvino, Los Ojos studio, Marie Kondo, sand collection
Leave a comment
Jean-Michel Basquiat, unwittingly sustainable
To manifest their respect for the environment, many artists today use recycled materials to make art. However, there are those artists who use recycled materials simply because they can’t afford to buy ex-novo. Take, for example, many Outsider artists.
And other artists, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, have such a drive to create that they will painting on anything and everything that comes their way.
Basquiat via
Basquiat is now known internationally and one of his paintings can sell for up to $35 million. However, this unique artist was once homeless and often slept in a cardboard box.
Then, around 1979, he met Alexis Adler, a 22 yr old woman from Seattle transplanted to NYC. Eventually Basquiat and Alexis began living together in a cheap apartment on East 12th St. There Basquiat painted every surface possible including a gold lamé coat Alexis had gotten from a thrift shop. The couple lived together for a year before splitting. Alexis continued to live in the Basquiat painted apartment but now, 35 years later, Alexis has decided to auction off her Basquiatian past.
Adler shows off the coat she bought, only to have Basquiat paint it that night.Photo: NY Post: Anne Wermiel
sweatshirt painted by Basquiat via Photo: Christie’s
Alexis Adler’s collection at Christie’s
Supreme and the Basquiat Estate collaborating on two oxford shirts, a long sleeve tee, a few short sleeves, a hoodie, and a M-65 Cassius Clay jacket. via
door painted by Basquiat via
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Andy Warhol (collaboration). Alba’s Breakfast, 1984 via
Related links: GHOST-HUNTING BASQUIAT IN HIS OLD EAST VILLAGE APARTMENT + Alexis Adler on Her Never-Before-Seen Basquiat Trove + Basquiat Reclining Nude + Jean-Michel Basquiat: 80 Percent Anger and 20 Percent Mystery + The short life of Jean-Michel Basquiat, graffiti artist turned gallery commodity + Jean Michel Basquiat Bio: Graffiti Artist Turned Sociopolitical Force + Basquiat: A Film by Julian Schnabel
Posted in Drawings & Paintings, Living With Less, People
Tagged Alexis Adler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, painted clothes
2 Comments
The Narrative Within 