Castle in the Sky

Detail - Castle in the Sky, acrylic on linen, 36 x 24 inches (click to enlarge) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

                    
MY GARDEN PARTY paintings have been  very well received up and down the East Coast. Well, why not? Who doesn’t like a party? After Garden Party’s debut at the Westfield Broward Gallery in Plantation, FL, Madame Garden Party was invited to be in the 75th Regional Exhibition at the Arnot Museum (NY) for the entire summer. Alice's Aura  from the group was exhibited at the Treat Gallery, NYC. and Castle in the Sky (above)  was shown at Manhattan Arts International Gallery as part of The Healing Power of Art exhibition and earned an Award of Excellence from  Renee Phillips, the gallery director.

I started painting Garden Party as just that: an outdoor party on a blanket on top of the earth’s soil where the guests' concerns did not extend beyond getting the last deviled egg, keeping dirt off the devil’s food cake and their clothing, and holding the local wildlife at bay. However as the series progressed, it became apparent to me that the work was so much more. Castle in the Sky depicts an evolved world where total harmony exists between humanity and nature. In fact, the two worlds have melted into one. Stylistically, society and its products (the girl, the castle and the chair) and the environment (the birds, sky, beach and water) have merged into one natural, utopian democracy. In this alternative airborne world, you can view the earth as we know it in snippets on the right side of the canvas. It’s between the girl’s torso and elbow and to the right of her thigh.

In all the Garden Party paintings, while technically painting a picnic, conceptually I found that I was exploring societal and environmental concerns by combining fantasy and reality. I used microscopic details to provide playful suggestions of a better, healthier world. This beautiful symbiosis is my "castle in the sky." Unlike the usual connotations that phrase carries, I believe it is perfectly achievable if we listen when the earth speaks to us.

I am not the first artist to dream of a Castle in the Sky. The master Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki designed his own floating world in an anime also entitled Castle in the Sky. Miyazaki said that he does not want to push any message on moviegoers; he just wants them to be happy after seeing his movies. I feel the same about my viewers. Still, I need to conclude this newsletter with a quote from the master:

"The earth speaks to all of us, and if we listen, we can understand."

Shhhh…listen.

A Letter to my Canvas

Golden Lady, acrylic on linen, 60 x 36 inches

DEAR CANVAS,

I am work,
you are art.
Together we are work of art.
An implement used in your bidding
with no brain, no train of thought,
voraciously I suck in colors all day long
and stuff myself
with starry shapes from the night
hoarding them to spew forth
like detritus out of flu's belly
when creativity beckons.

As you glut yourself
with my sensual shapes and color,
I watch them seep into your empty whiteness
until you are saturated– with me! You laugh
as you are tickled by my brushes,
sable soft hair masagiing
my spirit into you nebulous soul.
I love and hate you, vacuous sponge
screaming for my cadmium red––my blood!
Selfless hands continue love's labor
giving you everything you want
to the detriment of all else.
We need each other more than ever now,
urgently our transaction is consummated and
We are one: work of art.

But then you leave me,
alone.
Just like all the others before you,
proud and independent
sychophants gawking.
You alone are work of art
And I am nothing without you.

I could join the others
but colors and shapes collide
inside my throbbing head
in their eagerness to be born.
I must help them,
let them out.
I am work.

Yours,

Susan

Now and forever

NOW AND FOREVER, ART AND LIFE are so intermingled as to be indistinguishable. And so, for me anyway, are art and words...I hope, dear readers, that you do not think me an exhibitionist for showing off the burlesque of my skeleton in the name of art. Rather, I prefer to be thought of as an explorer of the physical world. To facilitate such exploration, I always try to put words to my art and art to my words. In this case I could think of no better way to draw the phrase now and forever than to juxtapose the "now" of my living flesh and being with the "forever" of my bones in the above split image.

I have not, as some have long suspected, taken leave of my senses or become morbidly depressed. I have wanted to do this drawing for a long time, but have been afraid that I would be hauled off to an asylum (if there are any left)–unless Halloween were impending when, for some reason, darkness prevails and skeletons become acceptable as a scary form of ersatz art.

I have no idea why our skeletal systems would be considered frightening. They are merely struts which enable our bodies to stand upright. Without a skeleton we would look like jellyfish minus the tentacles–just a tangle of gooey organs thumping around, loosely held together by a thin enclosure  of skin in a not-so-neat little wriggling blob. Now that would be scary!

I once viewed  my own skeleton during a visit to a radiologist who was assessing the damage an art- related injury had caused me. I had suddenly become unable to move my head, neck or arms after turning in an assignment to the New York Law Journal.  My doctor sent me to a radiologist who asked me if I had been in a car accident. Apparently every tendon in my neck and shoulders was torn. I wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to him because I was fascinated  by the hundred or so x-rays hanging round us as if they were art.  I was amazed when I recognized my own among them as I had previously thought all skeletons looked pretty much the same.  But mine, in fact, was a dead (oops, poor choice of words) ringer for me.

Oh, the accident...it was not vehicular at all but spilled-ink-ular. While finishing up a drawing and happily anticipating the couple of hours of sleep I would get, my formerly careful cat and faithful studio assistant, Muse, knocked over my bottle of ink, ruining my drawing. I was beyond miffed, so  I slammed my fist with all my might into the drawing board, giving new meaning to the expression back to the drawing board. And then, in fact, I went back to the drawing board. Because, no matter what, art prevails.

Today my tendons have healed,  and I still stand gloriously upright thanks to my skeleton, but I realize there will come a time when I will no longer be alive.

Life is now. Only art is forever. so I...

paint on!

The Legend of Appel and Falleisha

Detail - Waterfall, Acrylic on Board, 36 x 24 inchesXXXXX

  
APPEL ALWAYS LEFT THE FACTORY for his lunch. He canned applesauce there. It was a bus man's affair of sorts–his lunch––because he always took an apple with him. He had discovered the perfect spot to enjoy lunch. He did not wish to spend his lunch at the factory with his fellow caners. After all, he was with them all day, every day, anyway. It was just a hop, skip and a jump from the factory to the secluded site where he could escape the harrowing noise of the factory.

Had there not been a waterfall, he would still have heard the factory noises, but the waterfall drowned all that completely out. He felt at home and sometimes thought he wanted to stay in that spot by the waterfall forever. No chance of that! At the end of lunch, back to the factory he went.

Appel loved the waterfall so much, he would sit there gazing upon it for his entire lunch hour. He was transfixed by its cool whiteness and purity. Indeed, he would not even eat his lunch because he wanted to give back to the waterfall all the beauty and pleasure it gave him. So, every day just before he had to return to work at the factory, he would stand up, and whisper, "for you my dear Fall" and drop his apple into the rushing swell. It made quite a splash. Had he not been such a practical, well- balanced young man, he might have even thought that it made the waterfall happy and that the resultant splashes were laughter. He stayed there for a few moments, watching the water play with the apple until it disappeared into its mighty current. As always, he wished he could stay there forever. Alas, he was rooted in reality; he would go back.

On one foggy day, Appel was just settling into his spot. He couldn't see very much that day, except for a rainbow which had arched through the misty grey skies to touch the waterfall. But he could feel the waterfall's presence. Suddenly, he had the sensation of being caressed, even loved, although no one was with him. It is just the spray from the falls, he thought prosaically. The fog lifted a bit and as his eyes adjusted to the prevailing light, he was startled to see that he was not alone any more. Much to his amazement and delight, a beautiful girl was sitting cross legged right in front of him. She was incredibly lovely, but so pale he felt that she was in danger of disappearing into the whiteness of the falls. He had not heard her approach over the thunder of the falls, but there she was, right there in front of him.

Appel chuckled to himself because the girl was glistening, totally wet with rivulets of water pouring down her cheeks and forehead, a diaphanous watery veil about her face. Large, sparkling pear-shaped drops of water dangled from her earlobes. He had never seen such gorgeous decoration! She must have walked too close to the Falls, he mused. She didn't say much, but he really didn't care about that. He was thinking out loud that he would love to know her name. She uttered something. He was not sure if the sound was from her lips or if it was one of the rushing, slurping sounds the Falls made. But he knew he heard something - Falleisha ... Yes, Falleisha! And he knew in his heart that was her name, no matter where it came from.

Then he noticed something odd. The girl had a plate in her lap as if she were at a picnic, yet it was empty. He reached into his satchel for his apple and placed it on her plate. She returned the favor and produced, seemingly out of nowhere, a bottle of water and gave it to him. He drank it and noted it was the sweetest, purest, most refreshing water he had ever tasted.

She did not eat her apple right away. Instead, she played with it, throwing it up in the air and catching it, spinning it, twirling it around in and out of the copious waves of her abundant pale blue skirt. She hid it behind her back, then finally rolled it down between her breasts and watched it fall onto her plate. Finally, she threw it into the rushing waters at the bottom of the Falls. They both watched it bob into and out of view in the watery foam. Then, as suddenly as Falleisha had appeared, she was gone. Having no apple to give to the Falls because he had given it to Falleisha, he stuck his face into the spray and quietly announced, "I'll love you forever."

The very next day Appel wore his best shirt to work. It did not matter to him that the guys at the factory teased him about it mercilessly. He wore it because he had a feeling Falleisha would like it. It was the rich brown color of healthy soil with a pattern of branches and leaves all over it. He could hardly wait for the lunch bell to ring. When it finally sounded, he ran as fast as he could to his special spot and awaited the arrival of Falleisha. It seemed to take forever, but she finally appeared. He placed the apple on her plate and at that very moment, the rainbow appeared and clarified what he was doing. He was bestowing youth, beauty, happiness and immortality upon the one he loved, Falleisha. When she gave him the bottle of water, she bestowed upon Appel her snow-white purity for the ages. He drank of the purity and noticed that the branches and leaves of his shirt seemed to be growing, digging into the soil and reaching out over Falleisha. They had also grown roots and were pushing way down into the earth. His soil-colored shirt had turned into actual soil. Observing this, Falleisha started laughing. Water poured off of her, bathing what used to be Apel's human limbs but were now limbs of a tree. His branches were sprouting something red. What were those red things anyway? Then a very familiar scent wafted through the air between his limbs. It was unmistakable. The scent was that of apples.

The rainbow faded away, Falleisha played with her apple a bit, dropped it into the rushing waters and once again watched it disappear. She was never to be seen again-ever! Nor was Appel ever seen again after that fateful day.

Two Hundred Years later ....

In the very same spot near the factory where Appel spent his lunch hours and met Falleisha , the Waterfall is still merrily rushing along. There is an extraordinarily huge, tall apple tree which has taken over pretty much the whole spot. The tree is as healthy today as the day it was seeded because its roots have grown mighty and reached down into the aquifer through which it is nourished and refreshed daily. Every day at precisely 1:45 in the afternoon, - you could set your watch by it - this handsome apple tree drops one apple into the waters of the Falls, where it dances and bobs as if it were flirting, until it is consumed. It is the highlight of the waterfall's day.

After that, things quiet down for the afternoon. The tree lubricates himself from the bottom of its roots to the tips of his highest branches and leaves with the falls' life-sustaining waters. When the wind churns up for the evening and starts whistling through the moist leaves and branches, it seems to be singing, "Falleisha is the apple of Appel's eye." It is said that if you are very quiet and listen carefully you can hear Appel whispering to Falleisha, "I'll love you forever."

                                                                           

Elsewhere

 

Elsewhere, cropped, acrylic on linen, 30 x 24 inchesxxxxxxxxx

As an artist, I am always on the move. Whenever I am working on a painting, I am thinking about the next painting and then the next painting after that. I want to be elsewhere.

However, this dropped me into a time and location warp: when I am in the here and now, it is impossible for me to be elsewhere as well. The problem is that when I get to elsewhere, I am there, so I can't be elsewhere. So the only way to be elsewhere is not to be there. All the while I was painting Elsewhere in order to be there, show it to you, my viewer, and to clarify it for myself, I had to think of my next elsewhere, which is my next painting. I was therefore not elsewhere while painting Elsewhere; I was only elsewhere when I was not painting it–while working on my previous painting and thinking about my subsequent painting (both elsewhere and Elsewhere).

While in this state of painting flux, I always had you in mind. I took you with me. That’s what painters do. Every one of you is right there with me in the middle of this canvas in the land of Elsewhere, or what was elsewhere before and after I painted it. Wherever it is, I’m always glad to have you with me. We’ve got to stick together–here and  there and…elsewhere!

Alice's Aura

 Alices Aura, 40 x 36 inches

MY STUDIO IS ON THE SECOND FLOOR at Foxglove. Mr. Depingo rarely ventures up there, so he doesn't really know what I'm painting at any given moment. I have ideal lighting in the studio, four skylights and two walls of casement windows facing north and south. When I'm almost finished with a painting, I want to see what it looks like in different lighting, so I bring it downstairs.

Last night, after Mr. Depingo, who is naturally skittish, had already gone to sleep, I brought my current work, Alice's Aura, downstairs. I had just finished watching Local Color, a movie about the relationship between two artists. Because most of my intellectual and emotional life is devoted to art, if I am not painting myself, I watch others paint. This film inspired me to study my own painting, so I brought Alice downstairs and propped her up on the wicker love seat on the porch.

Alice Bisgood, my late Aunt Oddie, was the model for this life-sized painting. I prefer painting someone I know rather than a professional model. Doing so adds depth to the portrait because of the non-formal dimension the model's personality brings to the painting. Even when I am painting a portrait, I am painting shapes, not facial features or anatomy. The fact that I knew Alice makes the painting of her more challenging because in addition to rendering her shapes accurately, I have to take into consideration the intangible quality of her personality. After studying Alice to determine what needed to be done to complete the painting, I left her on the love seat and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Mr. Depingo was awakened by our dog, Bella, who barked to be let out. In that indeterminate space between dream and wake, he passed through the kitchen, and viewed my painting in the dim porch light. Startled, he jumped because he thought there was a strange woman sitting in our porch. I am glad he didn't try to stab her with a kitchen knife.

As a figurative painter with a formalist bent, like Edouard Manet, the father of modern painting long before me, I am more concerned with shapes and paint–its flow and the patterns and marks it makes. I know that they are the content of a painting more so than any model or subject matter. I know better than to try to paint my subjects literally or "realistically" although I have been accused of doing so. I explain to my accusers it is not even possible to paint realistically because my subjects are three-dimensional and my canvases are two-dimensional. So to even approach the look of reality, I or any other painter has to distort the subject severely when translating from a three- dimensional subject in a two-dimensional format.

Still, the image of Alice was "real" enough to scare Mr. Depingo. What does it mean that Mr. Depingo was startled when he saw the painting? Of course, it took him by surprise, but it also means that my painting techniques worked and Alice's significant form, true inner nature, or aura, if you will, rather than her mere outward appearance, emanated from the painting.

The painter's own aura can be sensed in a work as well. If you look at Willem de Kooning's Women paintings, you will sense de Kooning's aura immediately and strongly. The first time I saw one of these paintings in person, my heart raced, I hyperventilated and nearly fainted right on the floor of the Whitney Museum. The spirit of de Kooning lived on and emanated from the paintings. It seemed as if he were right there with me. It was overwhelming.

Because my use of paint captured Alice's spirit, the painting has a strong emotional pull. I am proud that this painting caused the visceral reaction that it did. It probably means that I am a competent  painter ...or...perhaps...

Mr. Depingo is a big baby.

Paint on,
Depingo

PS. The philosopher Walter Benjamin asserted in his famous treatise The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction that with the advent of mechanical reproduction, the aura of a work is diminished. I believe that you cannot experience the painting's aura by viewing it in digital form either. This in turn means that you're just going to have to come to Out of the Blue at the Avance Gallery (July 9th  opening) if you want to really experience Alice's Aura.

Uncatchable

Uncatchable, detail, mixed media on linen, 36 x 24" (click image  to enlarge)xxxXXXxXXXXx

UNCATCHABLE is one of the "guests" attending my Garden Party, a body of work containing 15 or so paintings exploring the theme of harmony between  humanity and nature. While working on these paintings, I did not know I was painting a garden party. Upon completion, though, observing the finished paintings leaning against my studio wall, I knew just where I was–at a garden party among my “guests.” And who doesn’t like a party!

Despite its theme, Uncatchable, is translucent rather than transparent, raising many questions. For starters:  Is the model morphing into a butterfly since her forearms are comprised of emerging butterflies and she has a winged insect adorning her face?  Is the butterfly a mask or is it part of her face? The butterfly's thorax looks remarkably like a human  nose. Is she in danger of being caught in the nets of the lepidopterists behind her? Is that what's causing "butterflies in the stomach"? Or does her composure and confidence tell us that she is immune to being caught? Or, perhaps in a broader sense she is a stand-in for feminism.

As to the question of why she sports caterpillars as garters? I can answer that...

so her stockings don't fall down!

Waiting for the Comedy

My shoes? Bernie Madoff with them.

PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK ME how I got to be funny. The truth is, I don't really know. Because I like the out-of-control, exhilarating feeling and sound of laughter, I have always tried to do, say or draw things to elicit it. I could never even fall in love with someone unless he provoked me to laugh. But other than that, I have no notion of where funniness actually comes from or what causes certain people to have it while others do not. We all actually have a funny bone. The only thing funny about the funny bone, though, is that it's not a bone at all. It's a nerve–the ulna nerve–and that weird sensation you feel when you bump your elbow against something is the ulna hitting up against the elecrenon. So it might cause you to feel funny, but not to be funny.

While recently pondering funniness, I thought back to an anecdote Papa Bisgood told me some years ago about taking his little girls, Oddie and Babe, my aunt and my mother, to the Sag Harbor Cinema (which unfortunately recently burned down.) Every Saturday he would buy each of them a chocolate bar at the concession stand. As soon as the lights dimmed and the newsreel came on the screen, my Auntie Oddie would noisily open her candy and swiftly eat it. But Babe would just sit quietly, watching the newsreel, chocolate bar resting in her lap. Papa would lean over and say to her, "Babe, what's the matter, don't you like your candy bar?" My mother replied that she did, but was waiting for the comedy to start before eating it. Sure enough, as soon as the comedy started, and not a second before, my mother unwrapped her chocolate and commenced eating it. Alternately laughing at Popeye and Olive Oil and eating the chocolate, she made the bar last through the entire comedy.

I would have a really nice way of wrapping up this post if Babe had turned out to be a standup comic, but due to the smattering of journalistic honesty in me, I must tell you that she did not. She became a nurse. How embarrassing–thanks to my mother's non-risible career choice I have no clue as to how I can conclude this ...except...wait a minute...it's coming...

except ... EXCEPT ... that I finally have an answer to that baffling question about the origins of funniness. Yeah, I believe that in my sample of one I have proven beyond a scientific doubt that eating chocolate bars while watching a comedy leads to funniness. If my thesis is correct, you are probably asking yourself right now, "Then, why wasn't your mother funny?" That's easy to explain. Funniness skips a generation. That's why I'm funny! Thanks for having the discipline to wait for the comedy, Mom.

(Note to self) Great, now I have to draw a cartoon funny enough to support my candy bar thesis.

And my advice to you, dear reader, is to eat a chocolate bar while reading it.

PS If you don't think the above cartoon is funny, perhaps my thesis is slightly off and funniness actually skips two generations.

LOL

The Art Trinity: the Painting, the Painter and the Viewer

The painting and the artist at Monmouth Museum

 

The painting and the viewers

The art trinity: Painting, Artist and Viewers

MONMOUTH IS A BEAUTIFUL AND INTIMATE MUSEUM in southern New Jersey.

We, painters  and viewers, had a wonderful time at the fall 2015 opening of Portraits  completing the three-way transaction that exists among the painting, the painter and the viewer. The reason the shows are so satisfying is because the art trinity is not really complete without the viewers.

The paintings, in my case, Catcher, are the stars of the evening. For me Catcher represents harmony between humanity and nature. Once created, however, Catcher became an entity unto itself.

As an artist, I am merely the technician that made Catcher happen. I did this by filtering the model  and all the images that make him up through my mind's eye. I kept the final image translucent, so that viewers can bring their own interpretation as to its meaning.

Most of the viewers told me that they could not figure out whether it was a peaceful image or a disturbing one. That contrast in a work is what makes a painting successful. An art critic/journalist tells us which pieces he decides to write about:

"It is the paintings where I don't get what the artist is trying to do that attract me. They remain with me. I keep thinking about them, trying to figure out what the artist is up to. When I understand what the artist is doing, I say,  "Oh yes, that's nice," and move on because the work no longer engages me."

You're on your own now, Catcher; thanks for being thought provoking!

Post Modern Shark Attack*

Digital Painting:  Hirst's Shark attacking DuChamp's Urinal

Damien Hirst

Nearly burst

Trying to out-camp

Marcel Duchamp.

To top Marcel's conceptual urinal

Damien worked in an air force terminal.

Eventually something fishy did fit

For the iconoclastic, ditsy  Brit.

Executing his fame-obsessed wish

In formaldehyde he dipped a fish

The resultant preserved postmodern shark

Enclosed in glass,  made its mark.

Bought by a hedge fund guy... funny -

Only he could afford the money

No shrieks of envy pass my lips

I'd  rather have my fish with chips.

*My poem and painting above reflect my thinking on some of the art that's around today.  If you would like to read more on the topic, take a look at Simon Doonan's article, Why the Art World Is So Loathsome. In it he quotes Camille Paglia and lets us know why some critics are calling today's art the Post Skills Movement.

Modigliani's Model

From my book of poems, The Flying Unibrow

Modigliani

Searched  nook and cranny

Looking for the perfect model.

An  emotional wreck at full throttle.

He took his search
Through zoo and  church
On a very long trek
For an elongated neck.

Stifling an hysterical laugh

His feverish quest cut in half
Modigliani
Painted a giraffe.

Botero's Model

Botero's Model, digital painting

A veritable Botero 

whose waist's not too narrow 

installs herself in my chair 

with a permanence seldom seen there

 but  in Pyramids or the Eiffel Tower.

Her bra doesn't wow her.

She throws it up in the air

with an absence of flair

poses there, weighty and immovable.

Thong totally removable.

It swings off her toe like a bower.