A day at the beach

Shimmering waves, runners, surfers (the beginners and the more experienced), the umbrellas, the seagulls who try to steal some food, the branded clothing, the bikinis, the tattoos and the piercings.

The Scripps pier not far but almost in the fog.
the rescue team cruising all day along the beach in a car and on motorbikes.

The incessant sound of the waves. The piles of seaweeds and kelp. The tide which is coming down. The breeze under the umbrella, the sun scorching the beach just at the limit of the line of grey clouds…

Long boards, short boards, round boards, pointy boards, the ballet of the people going in the ocean and getting out. Lots of boards laying on the beach. The “swim-surf” sign with the yellow and black flag.

Usually I take a lot of pictures at the beach which I use for my images but today I don’t. I “frame” in my head a thousand images.

Push Pull at Art Produce Gallery

Art Produce Gallery





A few days ago I went to see "Push Pull" at Art Produce Gallery– it was almost the last day of the group exhibition of artists from San Diego and Victoria, BC. I really saw only one work: the strange hanging piece by Sandra Doore. The day I was in the gallery, there was no list, so I cannot tell if the piece has a title. It was not obvious either to know who did what unless you are very familiar with the artists' work. But without a doubt, the piece I was attracted to is from Sandra Doore. Made of slightly shimmering dark fabric, swollen and tightly sewed, the piece is beautiful to look at. It makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable but I see some humor in it. It is interesting to think about the piece she presented at the Art Tapout, during the live critic a few weeks ago:
Art Tapout Agitprop / Round 1: Sandra Doore - part 1
Art Tapout Agitprop / Round 1: Sandra Doore - part 2

Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Ave.
San Diego, CA 92104
lynn@artproducegallery.com

Georgia O’Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle at the San Diego Museum of Art

Gertrude Kasebier, "the Red Man", 1900

The SDMA is just on the other side of the street from the SDAI and Ricardo and I decide to go to see Georgia O’Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle: Gertrude Käsebier, Pamela Colman Smith, Anne Brigman, and Katharine Rhoades. I am excited to see which pieces by Georgia O’Keeffe are in the exhibition and I am interested to discover the other artists whom I barely know.

We start with the photos of Gertrude Kasebier. The first one is striking: “The Red Man” (1900): this is the first photo in this series of pictures that is more than one hundred years old. This Native American man looks at us with his soft smile and I wonder what is on his mind.
I love “The Sketch” (1903): a woman in the dark shade of trees next to a field. She wears a long dress or a skirt and she reads a book (or is she drawing?). It is difficult to say, everything is very dark, even if the scene seems to happen during the day. It's like day for night.


Gertrude Kasebier, "The Picture Book" (1903)

In “The picture Book” (1903) a woman and a child sit in the shade under a small tree. The woman points to something on the book the child holds in his lap. Very quiet picture. I cannot help thinking about the moment when the photo was taken. It was the present then and now it belongs to the past: the woman and the child are now certainly gone.
There is a well-known portrait of a more than life size figure: Auguste Rodin in his studio.

There are a lot of photographs here and almost none of them are contrasted. It gives a lot of depth and softness.

Then a series of work by Anne Brigman. She took a lot of nude self portraits in dramatic desert landscapes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. “Soul of the blasted pine” (1907) and “The Pine Spririt” are surprisingly contemporary, the naked woman being in timeless landscapes, it suddenly feels very close to our time.

One set of the most wellknown work by Pamela Colman is here: the rider-Waite tarot deck.


Georgia O'Keeffe, "Pink Tulip" (1926)

Then the series of works by Georgia O’Keeffe is introduced by “Pink Tulip” (1926): colorful, strong, determined and at the same time very soft. Not far “Canyon with crows” (watercolor and graphite on paper, 1917) shows her attraction for the desert long before she lived in Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and was certainly painted while she was in Texas.

I remember going to Ghost Ranch in 1999, to see the landscapes that inspired her and to hike in those canyons. There are many amazing places in New Mexico and Ghost Ranch is one of them. Changing colors, cacti and rocks on scorched land: and all the cliffs, plateaus, valleys, canyons, sandy buttes, creeks and nested villages are part of an empty and dense, unforgettable landscape.

“The house with tree – Green” (1918): simple shapes, beautiful lights, the black does not cover the surface and one can see spots of the white paper illuminating the piece. “Lake George with crows” is a very subtle landscape, with almost no detail but everything is there. Dense and dark colors.
All of the paintings I see are extremely structured and yet fluid. They are not detailed in the classic way but the essential lines are there. They exude force and calm. Their presence is strong but they do not shout.

A portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz in 1918: there is almost no contrast, she is leaning on a trunk of a tree. Her beautiful hands touch the trunk. The only white in the picture is a small piece of her sleeve at her wrist.

It is an intimate exhibition, with a lot of small pieces. I definitely feel welcome in this place filled with good vibrations from all these strong female characters. But I regret that there is almost nothing from the period when Georgia O'Keeffe painted the desert in New Mexico.

Photos at the San Diego Art Institute

"Here it's Peace", views of the exhibition at the San Diego Art Institute

I meet with fellow artist Ricardo Messenger at the SDAI to get some pictures he took at the reception of my solo show. When we are there he takes some more pictures. It’s nice to see the show and to talk about the paintings, the digital prints and art in general: we have a very animated conversation.

He says he likes my blog and especially the posts where I describe something my kids do. He says it is so simple and spontaneous. He is not the first person to tell me that. I am very interested by what happens in the moments where the children seem to do just what they feel like doing and usually with what is available to them: very simple materials.

I know pretty much what I want before I start painting. Things happen in the making of each piece but I have the main idea before starting. Also I use sophisticated materials – which are in general made for the painter: canvas, stretch bars, acrylic paint. Sometimes I wonder if all of these things are really needed, especially when I watch my children doing wonders with masking tape. There is a humility I like when an artist uses low key material, things people use in their everyday lives.

I eliminated frames from my work a long time ago – partly because of this reason: the frame says “look at the art, it is framed, it means it is important and beautiful”. Frames accentuate the distance between the art and the viewer.

Laughing with her children

Ingrid Betancourt and her children, just after her release

Ingrid Betancourt is free and it is good to see her laugh with her children. She had not seen them for more than six years. I have two little kids and I have no idea how I would deal with such a situation, I cannot even begin to think about it.

Now I hope all the other hostages held in the Colombian forest will soon be released...

No political situation gives the right to any group to kidnap people and keep them forever in inhumane conditions. No good cause should put people through hell, or it is not a good cause.

Ingrid Betancourt is free!

This is great news!
I was not at home today and when I came back I had the surprise to find mails from my friends to share the good news! thank you all!

A perspective on the present

Not a long time ago I listened to a program on the national radio about an elementary school which started a program (and it is also a study) with seniors living with Alzheimer. The seniors live in a housing community for retired people not far from the school. The medical staff decided to start sending a group of them to the elementary school to assist the children in different tasks, including helping them to read. The results are very interesting on both sides. The people affected by Alzheimer are improving because they see young children every day (who have no preconceived ideas about the disease), the seniors interact much more than usual and the children love to get some help and attention.

When interviewed, one of the seniors said she was really happy to help the children. She was talking on the spot about what she was doing. But then, she said that she does not remember anything when she goes back home, the following day is a complete new day, she does not even recognize the children sometimes, she does not remember good or bad behaviors, she does not carry any ideas in her head about this or that child. She just does what she enjoys doing. She knows she enjoys doing it when she is asked while doing it. Apparently the children are very happy to be helped and it does not matter to them that sometimes they have to repeat their names to someone they see every day.

One doctor was saying that the seniors participating in the program/study received awards at the end of the last school year. The woman who received the first award (she is the one who has spent the longest time in the school) said: “Why do I receive an award? For what reason?” And someone explained to her that she is the most dedicated helper at the school – but she does not know it.

I don’t know much about Alzheimer disease, I was extremely interested by that somehow optimistic program I listened to.

I was thinking about the people who are not affected by the disease (and this is linked to the previous post about Jill Bolte Taylor) : what if we could lift up the weight of all the past feelings we have, the weight of all the judgments, and the uninterrupted chattering of our brain which make us miss the most important thing we have: the present.

Jill Bolte Taylor: the clarity of the present moment

A few days ago I heard on the radio the astonishing story of Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher who suffered a massive stroke and "studied" it as it was happening. She witnessed from the inside the sudden silence of her left hemisphere (analytical, verbal, logical). It took her eight years to fully recover and her perception of Humanity changed drastically. The video I found on internet is quite long but worth listening to.

"In that instant, I suddenly felt vulnerable, and I noticed that the constant brain chatter that routinely familiarized me with my surroundings was no longer a predictable and constant flow of conversation. Instead, my verbal thoughts were now inconsistent, fragmented, and interrupted by an intermittent silence.

As my brain chatter began to disintegrate, I felt an odd sense of isolation. My blood pressure must have been dropping as a result of the bleeding in my brain because I felt as if all of my systems, including my mind's ability to instigate movement, were moving into a slow mode of operation. Yet, even though my thoughts were no longer a constant stream of chatter about the external world and my relationship to it, I was conscious and constantly present within my mind."

Listen to Jill Bolte Taylor's Interview with Terry Gross / Fresh Air on NPR.
Watch the video

What's next?

Changing scale

Last week I met some very interesting people. It was the first week in years I had so much time on my hands due to the fact that my children are in a summer camp.

I was excited about having all that time and I was sure I would paint and work on my images a lot, because I have a lot of projects that are waiting. But that is not what had happened. At the same time I know that I must take some time to contact people and that’s what I did.

After the excitement of the opening of my solo exhibition came various thoughts and in them, doubts and questions. Doubts about what I am doing and questions about what I will do next.

I have another solo show next year at the San Diego Art Institute and I am already thinking about what I will do. I am very excited about it.

I am thinking about transforming a space. To make it mine temporarily: to do something which will be partially erased in the end. I would like to work on another scale. It could be a mixed of temporary elements (direct painting on the wall) and element which are not (paintings on panels).

I missed Julien Colombier’s exhibition at Art Produce but I really like the photos I saw. I also like very much what Iana Quesnell just did for the Centro Cultural de Tijuana: a whole piece which takes the entire room. I also found very interesting the work by Jean Lowe at the California Center for the Arts, in “Innocence is questionable”, where she installed a whole group of paper mache furniture including a false carpet on the floor and paintings on the wall. I was delighted to walk in the psychedelic rooms of Murakami's show at the MOCA last November.

I like the idea of changing a room, to take it over. I like to see my work “on the wall’ but I see the limitation of that. I would like to transcend it, to go beyond. I also would like to show the work in progress to the people who come to see the show. I was thinking that if I have a project with a gallery, I could start the project and work for days even when the show opens and be done by the time the opening reception happens. That would be excellent. I would love to do that.

Computer crash

Camargue, France, december 2007

The computer crashed a few days ago and it is still not repaired (some functions, like getting the mail and internet access are still working). It is interesting because the computer cannot see two of the major disks and so, although all the files are there (now we know that!), we don’t have access to them. At first we thought everything was lost because there was really nothing anywhere. And the weird thing was, the backup disk disappeared too. I could not believe it was possible but I remained very calm. I thought “everything is gone, the thousands of photos I took, from the family, from our trips, all my digital research, all the archives of my paintings and digital files, all the texts, everything”. There is so much information in such a tiny space, I realized it is possible I am too confident about the computer’s ability to keep everything forever!

Right now I cannot put any picture from my camera on the computer because it does not see the device. I only have access to the images I put online through Photobucket… and the photos that are in the recycle bin of my computer! So I went there and I found photos I deleted a long time ago.