Dove & O'Keeffe not to be missed

This blog at ColourLovers on the Circles of Influence show in Williamstown, MA, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute shows some of the great paintings from the show. My son gave me the the catalog to add to my collection. The show continues through September 7. The museum itself is worth a trip, but what a delight it would be to see this show.

Workshops, exhibits and books, oh my!

Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." --John Lennon

I'm sure I've used this quote before, but it's very appropriate right now.

Teaching three workshops in seven weeks ought to be enough to keep a person occupied, but in-between I was also baby-sitting three days a week for our grandson, teaching a weekly class, setting up the exhibition for the Hithergreen class and having my second cataract surgery. I was not much in the mood for blogging most days.

I'll start with the exhibition, Beginners & Beyond, the second for the class at Hithergreen Center. The opening was April 21. The class provided an elegant spread of munchies, but the real treat was seeing their art displayed. There are 66 paintings by 27 artists in the show, all watercolors, but varied in subject matter and style. One painting sold right away and we've been told that another venue would like to display some of the paintings after they come down on May 30. I took pictures of the exhibition, but can't display them here, as some of the artists are still practicing by painting from copyrighted art and photographs. They understand that they can't sell their work and are required to attribute the original artist. I didn't have time this year to photograph individual original pieces and make a Web page. I hope I can do it next month.

As with my first surgery in February, the implant was good, but the first three or four days were touch-and-go. This time, instead of blurred, double vision, I had a great deal of pain and blurring. But by the fourth day the eye began to clear up and I'm very happy with the results. I can even work on my computer without glasses. I can also read and drive without glasses, but will be getting a prescription to prevent fatigue and improve my distance vision. Oddly, I found an old pair of trifocals that correct my vision almost perfectly. I have a photo of me wearing these glasses in 1990 at a book-signing--imagine huge, round plastic frames. I'm glad I had the surgery. If you're considering this surgery, Mayo Clinic has more information.

Yesterday we drove to Cincinnati to catch the "American Watercolors: From Winslow Homer to Edward Hopper" exhibition at the Taft Museum of Art. It was fantastic. In addition to the curated show, which originated at the Brooklyn Museum, there were images from the Taft's collection of 18th and 19th century watercolors, which made an interesting contrast. We also toured the permanent collection of the Taft, a world-class museum of 17th to 19th century painting and decorative arts in a small package. Rembrandt, Hals, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Whistler, Italian and Dutch masters--the list goes on and on, including a collection of Turner watercolors that is exquisite. The museum is easy to find and just a hop and a skip from the Cincinnati Art Museum. And five minutes away from Montgomery Inn at the Boat House, where we had fantastic ribs and strawberry shortcake for lunch. And that was my Mother's Day treat.

My new book is coming in August from North Light Books. Confident Color is 160 pages with 85 Try-it Activities in a spiral-bound hardcover format that stays flat for studio work. I've selected the work of 52 contemporary artists in a variety of media: acrylics, colored pencils, oils, pastels, watercolors, collage, mixed media and fibers to illustrate important color principles of harmony, contrast and unity through color schemes. Seven artists contributed detailed step-by-step demos of their color processes, including using a computer or a sketchbook for preliminary studies and mingling colors to select the best palette for a painting. Watch for my pre-publication offer of a signed copy and free shipping, coming soon on my Web site. Amazon.com is also taking pre-publication orders (unsigned, eligible for free shipping). Confident Color is almost ready to go to the printer. I'm more than a little excited about it, now that I've seen a few color-layout pages and the beautiful cover, a detail from Cheryl McClure's painting in the book. Cheryl was also the cover artist for The New Creative Artist.

Edward Hopper in Boston

Holland Cotter of the New York Times today reviewed the Edward Hopper show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts May 16 through August 16. I have the distinct impression that Cotter doesn't care much for Hopper. Personally, I like the big shapes and the way Hopper uses strong values and directional lighting. It isn't always a joyful light, though, as there seems to be a sad, sometimes frightening drama to Hopper's compositions. Edward Hopper, the MFA catalog of the exhibition, includes more than 150 reproductions of his art in various media. "High Noon" shown here is in our Dayton Art Institute and has long been a favorite with visitors to the museum. I love the directness of Hopper's watercolors, too.

Art in Ohio

The American Watercolor Society traveling show is hanging at the Middletown (Ohio) Fine Arts Center through March 17. Some of my students have seen it and said it's not to be missed.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is showing Andrew Wyeth watercolors and drawings now through May 6. I've been told it's a wonderful show and hope to get down there soon.

"Luminist Horizons" is at the Taft Museum in Cincinnati through April 29. Looks like an all-day trip to Cincy is in order.

I'll blog the shows as soon as I see them.

Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art

My son and I took in the Rembrandt exhibition at the Dayton Art Institute yesterday. For some reason I expected a small show, but it's a blockbuster and truly awesome. I tried to imagine the very small geographic area of the Netherlands as I studied paintings by the many skilled seventeenth-century artists on display in the show. Room after room of marvelous artworks, curated by subject, beginning with portraits of amazing depth and intelligence. The still lifes are rich and engaging, the landscapes luminous and atmospheric. Genre paintings of biblical times and contemporary life close the exhibit with Rembrandt's "Denial of Peter" as the dramatic finale. Interspersed in smaller spaces between painting exhibits are Rembrandt's etching and engravings, which are a worthy show unto themselves: "amazing" is all I can say about these small works. (Some have magnifying glasses attached to the wall for closer examination--what a great idea. Next time I go to a print show, I'll take my own.) There is still time until Jan. 7 to see the show in Dayton, so don't miss this rare opportunity to see works by the greatest of the great, Rembrandt. The show will move to Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. For more about the artists and art, click the link above.

Americans in Paris at the Met

Charley Parker has a great article about the current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Read his article and check out all the links. Delightful!

American Art Review

I've been reading the August, 2006, edition of American Art Review. It's one of the best art mags I've read in some time. Several fine recent exhibitions at smaller museums are discussed, including lavish illustrations. I was drawn to it because of a review of the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition in Vermont's Shelburne Museum (through Oct. 31, which my son viewed and gave high praise.) I was pleased to find Emily Carr in the same issue at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa until September 4. The Carr exhibit will travel throughout Canada until 2008. Next stop is Vancouver Art Gallery, opening October 7. There are many other interesting reviews, including Winslow Homer (Museum of American Art at Giverny), Thomas Moran (National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming,) and Painters of the Desert Southwest (Booth Museum, Cartersville, Georgia). I'm looking forward to reading the article on Harry Leith-Ross, whose paintings are at James Michener Art Museum in New Hope, Pennsylvania. "Poetry in Design" is the title of the exhibition and from the illustrations in the magazine, this appears to be a fine display of designed realism by an artist new to me.

Rembrandt on Lines and Colors

Charley Parker is celebrating Rembrandt's 400th birthday. He lists great resources on this amazing artist. You'll want to bookmark this one.

Aaron--a computer that (who?) paints

Several years ago my son and I went to the Boston Computer Museum to see Aaron at work, arguably the first artist-computer (as opposed to computer-artist). It was fascinating to watch. Aaron is the brain child of Harold Cohen. If my memory serves me, the Aaron we saw was larger than the one shown in the article cited above. It painted portraits as well as still lifes and landscapes and had a distinctive style similar to that of the inventor. As the huge sheet of paper inched its way across a sort of platen, mechanical arms swung around the page, periodically moving to the jars of paint to refresh or change color. Sometimes there would be a long pause, when I imagined a mechanical or digital brain trying to decide what to paint next. I looked around, but didn't see a curtained screen with a mad-magician frantically operating the controls, a la Wizard of Oz. To learn more about Aaron, Google: Aaron computer paintings. As for the link above, it took me awhile to figure out what the writer meant about Aaron seizing animals, until I recalled that a few years back a museum exhibited a dead cow preserved in formaldehyde as an avant garde artwork. I hope Aaron sticks to painting.

Slides of The New Creative Artist

The program I gave last night for the Western Ohio Watercolor Society in Springfield was a little weird. There was a good crowd of forty or so, considering that a competing workshop in Fairborn kept several people from getting to the meeting. The room was totally unsuitable for a slide presentation. The Springfield Museum of Art is a great place, but they weren't overly accommodating to the WOWS group. Since the group was founded there more than twenty years ago there had always seemed to be a rapport, but something is missing now. The room was set up for a breakfast meeting and we had to rearrange the seating as best we could. There was only a card table for the slide projector, not high enough, so someone found a rickety utility table in the kitchen that worked out. The west wall of the room is all windows and doors. There are heavy shades for the windows and above the doors, but I suppose safety regs prohibit shades across the doors. I wonder why they don't put individual mini-blinds or shades on those doors. This being daylight-savings time here, the sun shone brightly through the doors and almost totally washed out the slides on the huge screen. People were kind, oohed and ahed appropriately at the slides of some of the exciting work in my new book. But I was very disappointed that they couldn't have seen a better presentation. The moral to this story: before agreeing to do a slide presentation anywhere, make sure the facility has a suitably dark room, a projector table, extension cords and a projector. (I had to take my own. A museum doesn't have a projector? Please....) WOWS provided me with a portable mike and that was a big help. I can remember when the museum was an art center and they used to set up audio-visual aids for WOWS meetings. Times have changed, I guess.

Boston, Wicked and the woods

I've been out of town since last Wednesday, visiting my son in Boston. What a great town! We saw a David Hockney portraits exhibit at the Museum of Fine Art and visited my favorite Arthur Dove paintings while we were there. Then we went to the Fogg Museum at Harvard to see the American Watercolors exhibition, which was fantastic. Not a big show, but really good examples of the work of American artists from the 19th century to 1950. Whistler was my favorite, but I loved the Homers, Sargents and Hoppers, too. We went to see "Wicked," the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. It was great fun. I didn't expect it to be slapstick, but it was, in places. On Friday we hiked through the Garden in the Woods and enjoyed the early wildflowers, which weren't as far out as mine are, but there are many more than I have in my little woods. Nevertheless, I was glad to walk through my little woods when I got home and see even more wildflowers blooming and some new ones popping out. I discovered a couple of colonies of garlic mustard under the big fir trees before I left, so I pulled it all out this afternoon. I keep saying I've seen the end of it, but I suppose I never will. Still, in the woods I find only one or two each time I walk through, so I've made huge progress. In a few days, when I'm caught up on everything else, I'll update my woodlands pages on my web site. I have several paintings to get ready for juried shows. They all seem to come at once in the spring and the fall. I haven't entered shows for years but since I had a few pieces I did for the new book, I thought I might as well put them out there. Framing is so expensive I may not make a habit of it!

Art Institute ranked among top 3 for kids

By Leigh Allan

Dayton Daily News

DAYTON | "We're No. 3! We're No.3!" isn't the usual victory cry, but if you're the Dayton Art Institute and the only two ahead of you are the Art Institute of Chicago and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's no wonder Director Alex Nyerges is "honored and thrilled" to come in third.

The cause for celebration is DAI's high spot on Child magazine's rankings of the 10 Best Art Museums for Kids. Child particularly cited Institute pre-schooler tours, gallery hunts (with clues) and family Gallery Bags.

Child bases the ratings in its March 2006 issue on depth and variety of family and child tours and classes, educational programs for school groups and staffing. It tells readers not to miss the Experiencenter, which provides a wide variety of hands-on opportunities that change to match other DAI exhibits (Eyes of Architecture at the moment, Food for Thought beginning in March).

The DAI, which had more than 30,000 schoolchildren visit the recent Egyptian exhibit, The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt, was followed in Child's list by the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco and the Carnegie in Pittsburgh.

A master of color too long in the shadows

This was the title of an article in the Wall Street Journal reviewing an exhibit of Sam Gilliam's art at the Corcoran Museum, which recently ended. I noticed the resemblance of the photo in the article to a piece hanging in the entrance to the galleries of the Dayton Art Institute. I've grown to love this piece, especially in its current location, where it seems to float in space, a huge, radiant, bird-like presence that dominates the foyer of the museum. The canvas is 9 ft. 10 in. H by 25 ft. 8 in. W. The DAI purchased this piece in 1987 before its expansion. The painting was hung in a rather dark stairwell of the Italian Renaissance building and the first time I saw it, I thought it was a painter's dropcloth, I'm sorry to say. But after the museum's expansion in 1997 Gilliam's colorful work was given a proper presentation and lighting. It's the first artwork you see when you enter the museum.

Google "Sam Gilliam" images to see more of his work. Watch for the Corcoran exhibition in Louisville, Ky, Savannah, Ga and Houston, Tx.

Rembrandt: Don't miss it!

Charley Parker has posted another winner: Rembrandt: life, paintings, etchings, drawings and self portraits. Read Charley's commentary before going to the site. Allow plenty of time to browse and study the elegant drawings and paintings of one of the greatest masters of European art.

Van Gogh's drawings at the Met

Here's a rare opportunity to see the seldom displayed drawings of van Gogh. Read the review in the New York Times for details on the exhibit opening next Tuesday, October 18:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/arts/design/11gogh.html