After spending weeks following sports, you come away feeling that there is a top ten to every subject. Who are the top ten “Point Guards” to ever play the game. Who are the best Golfers, who is or was the best putter, who the best sports announcer. It seems fitting and at the same time unrealistic to declare “best” ever in sports. This concept I believe does not lend itself to the creative arts. I don’t see art as being at all competitive, it’s more about what you like or appreciate.
Because I’ve spent so much time following basketball, I’ve not worked on many paintings of my own. So I will share with you a few artists who’s work I feel have been important to me. (Key words “to me”).
These 3 artists were introduced to me by Harvey Dinnerstein. I feel that they have influenced how I see my own paintings.
I believe “The Tate” has the largest collection of Gwen John’s painting. On my only trip to London, I was disappointed to see that they only had one painting on exhibit, having just pulled a complete showing of her work a week or two before.
When Isabel Bishop passed away, there was a small and brief exhibit of her work in New York. I did not know much about her but loved her paintings. There are a few examples of her work here at the Phoenix Art Museum, and I always look for them when I visit the museum.
Mary Beth McKenzie, teaches at the Art Students League of New York. When I was living in New York, she had a one person show. She also has a good book (if you can find it) “A Painterly Approach”.
Well I just completed something. This is an unauthorized painting of Cybel that I did from memory. This is a lot easier to do then you might think. I recognize my family in my paintings all the time and spend days trying to lose the resemblance.
Playing with lines and shapes, discovering the uniqueness of the human face with the tip of a pencil. Really everything is unique and the only thing we spend hours looking at every day is someones face. There is so much we take for granted and miss. Our brains like to take short cuts.
This drawing is in preparation a larger painting that I am working on.
I’ve never liked the term “Blue Eyed Soul“. Thought it was demeaning and still feel that way today. I’m only revisiting this notion because of “Sara Smile” the Hall and Oaks hit single of the late 70’s and new interpretation of this song by Rumer, another British female artist who has been able to recreate a sense of the past without being nostalgic.
Rumer’s rendition of “Sara Smile” is soulful and very much her own, understated, and in this live version of the song the band does all of the Hall and Oaks screams and shouts. If you like Rumer ‘s interpretation and I do, you might notice that the color of her eyes had nothing to do with it. Let’s place an asterisk next to the term “Blue Eyed Soul” that says “Eyes Don’t Matter”.
Women criminal investigators have become a staple for television series. In most cases, they are seen as having some unusual or rare ability, like Poppy Montgomery in Unforgettable or Emily Proctor in CSI: Miami. Gillian Anderson as Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson might be a bit upsetting for viewers in the US. She has no special talents other then her ability to think and being unapologetic about being a woman. Bravo.
“We don’t Judge”
People who do dreadful things are more complex then we could ever imagine and The Fall, a British Crime Drama about a serial killer is full of complexities. He is the kind that person, when found out, will shock his neighbors, family and have cable news reporters resort to the list of former FBI Profiler to recite their poorly conceived rhetoric about what goes on in the mind of a killer. This is being played out today (shooting at the Navel Facility in DC) and the truth is that dangerous psychopaths are never profiled until it’s to late.
Real crime investigators judge people and that is the reason why there are so many mistakes made. They are looking for what they know and not for what they can learn. In The Fall, there are a ton of opportunities to follow old and proven patterns, and the writers have very cleverly moved us off that track. The first five episodes have not brought us any closer to understanding Detective Gibson or our serial killer Paul Spector, played by Jamie Dornan. There is a new season underway for 2014 and I hope that the writers continue to avoid the “usual traps” and keep things fuzzy. It makes for a bigger mystery and maybe something we can learn about our own judgement.
