Tim Flach photographs

 

 

Tim Flach, see more at www.timflach.com

Tim Flach is a photographer whose work is somehow both epic and intimate at the same time. And they are beautifully, perfectly composed. Don't spend time thinking too much....just look.

Tim Flach

Carolina Dreaming

You and Me, Carolyn Jacobs, c.2005, oil, wax and sand on paper

Last night I dreamed I was inside one of my paintings. Underground, forced to scoot around because it was so cramped  I couldn't even crawl.  It looks very different though, because now I realize I've always painted the scene from the outside, looking in.  A small shaft of light illuminated the space, which was populated with amazingly large creepy crawly creatures. I was searching for something terribly important, and I knew what it was during the dream, but now that I'm awake, I've lost it.  I searched for a long time though.

I love and hate such a vivid experience------

Hey! My eyes are up here!!

I often say how much I love my job. I'm never bored and often opportunities to do really interesting things just drop in my lap---murals, collaborations with the symphony, meeting interesting people...many days bring something new and unexpected.

When someone wants to donate art to the institution, I sometimes go out and photograph it and get a sense of whether or not it's something suitable for the permanent collection. That's what I did today. I trekked waaaay out of town to a lovely, exclusive home in a gated community to see some work. Now, I had TONS of grading to do back at the office. Tons. So I probably wasn't in my most accommodating frame of mind.

A mature man opened the door and quickly showed me a series of nice, but 1970's dated looking works. Probably not something we'd invest in, but they certainly weren't awful. I turned my attention from the images and asked "Did you purchase these yourself? Why are you getting rid of them?"

"My tastes have changed" he told my breasts.

I turned my head, and looked around his home, which was tastefully and expensively furnished and zeroed in on the paintings on the walls.  I could barely contain the shriek of horror I could feel gathering in the core of my being as I recognized.....Thomas Kincaide.

"What's the department like where you teach?" he asked my cleavage.

"Which campus are you based?" he inquired of my nipples.

"How many students go there?" he mentally undressed my chest.

It took several more minutes before he gathered the information I needed about the work....during which time I was mocked by Kincaide images of sickeningly sweet cottages and brooks and flowers that do not die, and manufactured light that drills through my eye with shrieking "eek, eek, eek" that sounds like the stabs in the shower scene of Psycho in my head.

It was one of those times in my life when my exit felt more like an escape.

The Charlotte Observer has 5 questions for Marek Ranis

Marek Ranis, Albedo-Carpets, 2007, 7' x 6', wool. Handmade by Tibetan
refugees in Katmandu, Nepal; based on Albedo paintings.
No child labor was used to produce the rugs.
 

He's not an art historian, but otherwise, this is a nice little Q&A! Go Marek, my friend!

Marek Ranis makes multimedia work about social issues like climate change and war. And he's a really cool guy. In this Q&A, he talks about his work and how Americans tend to view it versus Europeans:

"There is something special in America and Charlotte. People are much more willing, especially at the openings, to talk to others, much more open to engage in some kind of conversation. They ask questions and are more willing to say I don’t understand or question the work. I really enjoy that exchange more than Europe where people are a little bit more jaded and they feel like they don’t want to show they don’t know something."

Read more at the Charlotte Observer

Article by Joanne Spataro


Visit Marek's' website: Marek Ranis

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/11/07/3650050/marek-ranis.html#storylink=cpy

“It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.”

Oh, this is the best explanation of the importance of the writer and artist in society:

"Educators do all in their power to prepare you to enjoy reading after college. It is right that you should read according to your temperament, occupations, hobbies, and vocations. But it is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar, unwilling to explore the unfamiliar. In science, we respect the research worker. In literature, we should not always read the books blessed by the majority. This trend is reflected in such absurd announcements as “the death of the novel,” “the last of the romantics,” “the last of the Bohemians,” when we know that these are continuous trends which evolve and merely change form. The suppression of inner patterns in favor of patterns created by society is dangerous to us. Artistic revolt, innovation, experiment should not be met with hostility. They may disturb an established order or an artificial conventionality, but they may rescue us from death in life, from robot life, from boredom, from loss of the self, from enslavement.

When we totally accept a pattern not made by us, not truly our own, we wither and die. People’s conventional structure is often a façade. Under the most rigid conventionality there is often an individual, a human being with original thoughts or inventive fantasy, which he does not dare expose for fear of ridicule, and this is what the writer and artist are willing to do for us. They are guides and map makers to greater sincerity. They are useful, in fact indispensable, to the community. They keep before our eyes the variations which make human beings so interesting. The men who built America were the genuine physical adventurers in a physical world. This world once built, we need adventurers in the realm of art and science. If we suppress the adventure of the spirit, we will have the anarchist and the rebel, who will burst out from too narrow confines in the form of violence and crime."

Anais Nin, 1949 (Diary of Anais Nin, Vol 5)

From Brain Pickings

Beverly McIver, The Mint Museum and Me !

Ohhhh, this is going to be fun! I'm helping out Mint Museum's master educator Rita Shumaker by leading a painting session on expressionist figure painting on November 20 (6:30-8:30).  This is one session only in a three session class that's in conjunction with Beverly McIver's exhibit at the Mint. 

Beverly McIver, Renee Moving Away, oil on canvas, 48x48", 2003 courtesy Mint Museum

It's a lovely little show...intimate, containing primarily portraits of the artist's mother and mentally disabled sister. It's gestural and direct, and there seems to be great joy within the works.  I saw just just moments after viewing the big Giacometti exhibit at the Bechtler, and the contrast was marked. The stillness and structural veil of Giacometti's work compared to the intimacy and directness of McIver's---two wildly differing approaches, but both dealing with psychological status.

Here's a link to the exhibit: Reflections: Portraits by Beverly McIver at the Mint Museum

And here's a link to the artist's website: Beverly McIver



Contact the Mint if you're interested in the class (but do it soon)!

Everything Comes to an End

I read this a couple of weeks ago, and it has been haunting me. When he was 22, Stieg Larrson wrote this letter to his girlfriend, to be opened in the event of his death. 27 years later, it was. It is beautiful, haunting and bittersweet for me.

Stockholm,
February 9, 1977

Eva, my love,

It's over. One way or another, everything comes to an end. It's all over some day. That's perhaps one of the most fascinating truths we know about the entire universe. The stars die, the galaxies die, the planets die. And people die too. I've never been a believer, but the day I became interested in astronomy, I think I put aside all that was left of my fear of death. I'd realized that in comparison to the universe, a human being, a single human being, me...is infinitely small. Well, I'm not writing this letter to deliver a profound religious or philosophical lecture. I'm writing it to tell you "farewell." I was just talking to you on the phone. I can still hear the sound of your voice. I imagine you, before my eyes...a beautiful image, a lovely memory I will keep until the end. At this very moment, reading this letter, you know that I am dead.

There are things I want you to know. As I leave for Africa, I'm aware of what's waiting for me. I even have the feeling that this trip could bring about my death, but it's something that I have to experience, in spite of everything. I wasn't born to sit in an armchair. I'm not like that. Correction: I wasn't like that...I'm not going to Africa just as a journalist, I'm going above all on a political mission, and that's why I think this trip might lead to my death.

This is the first time I've written to you knowing exactly what to say: I love you, I love you, love you, love you. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. I want you to know I mean that seriously. I want you to remember me but not grieve for me. If I truly mean something to you, and I know that I do, you will probably suffer when you learn I am dead. But if I really mean something to you, don't suffer, I don't want that. Don't forget me, but go on living. Live your life. Pain will fade with time, even if that's hard to imagine right now. Live in peace, my dearest love; live, love, hate, and keep fighting...

I had a lot of faults, I know, but some good qualities as well, I hope. But you, Eva, you inspired such love in me that I was never able to express it to you...

Straighten up, square your shoulders, hold your head high. Okay? Take care of yourself, Eva. Go have a cup of coffee. It's over. Thank you for the beautiful times we had. You made me very happy. Adieu.

I kiss you goodbye, Eva.

From Stieg, with love.

From Letters of Note

10 Rules of Writing (but let's pretend it's about art)

Zadie Smith's 10 Rules of Writing, but I'm telling you, this can apply to art as well.

1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3. Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.
8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9. Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10. Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.
    

More at Thought Catalog

Met Publications offers online viewing

You can read at least 293 different fully online texts from the Metropolitan Museum. This makes Carolyn very, very happy.

Metropolitan Museum Online Publications

Here's the first one I'm digging into:

The Care and Handling of Art Objects

Modern Mondays and me at the Bechtler Museum

Visit the museum November 5 for the Modern Mondays program Living With Art. Carolyn Jacobs, studio faculty member at Central Piedmont Community College, and Karen Derksen, Director of Winthrop University Galleries, lead a discussion on how to incorporate art into your life and home, and offer practical tips to properly maintain it. Participants will also learn how the Bechtler family incorporated art into their professional and personal lives. 

Cocktails at 6pm. Lecture at 6:30. Tickets are $8 for non-members. Free to members.


Modern Mondays at the Bechtler Museum

Collaboration with Charlotte Symphony

Carolyn Jacobs, (in progress and untitled) 24x18"
acrylic, starch, pastel on Stonehenge paper

October is a busy, busy month!

My Drawing II class has been asked to create images to be projected while the Charlotte Symphony plays in Tate Hall on October 25.

This is a little sneak peak at one of my contributions, which is in progress....

November is my museum month....

I've got two exciting events coming up!

Monday, November 5, Karen Derksen and I will give a talk at the Bechtler Museum on the idea of looking at art versus living with art. It's part of the Bechtler's Modern Monday Series.  We'll talk about subjective things like what draws you to purchase a particular work, and then about more practical issues like installing it and maintaining it.  We'll also talk a little about how the Bechtlers incorporated art into their daily life.  Fun in the 4th floor gallery should be had by all!
Cocktails at 6pm
Lecture at 6:30pm
Scheduled to last 45 minutes to an hour.
The Bechtler site isn't updated with it yet, but here is a link for more info:


Bechtler's Modern Monday Series

Then, on November 13, I'll be leading a figurative session at the Mint Museum exploring expressive color. This is in conjunction with Beverly McIver's exhibition, and part of a class with master educator Rita Shumaker.  Fasten your seatbelts, we're going to be flying high! This is scheduled for 6-8pm.  Come early, stay late....the museum is free and open to the public on Tuesday nights.

Here's the info on the Mint session:
Hand and the Eye

See you there, my friends :-)

Tattoo

Carolyn Jacobs, Tattoo, 18x30", conte on grey Canson paper, 2012
30 minute sketch

Safir and an apple...

Carolyn Jacobs, Safir (with apple), charcoal, 22x30"
30 minute pose

More art, less lupie

I gave my card to someone tonight, and as it left my hand I thought "Holy shit, I haven't posted in a long time!" Waaaaaaay. Toooooo. Long. 

Life gets in the way sometimes.  Since my last post, I have packed up all my belongings----shall I go on a tangent about how I have become a hoarder? I then moved all belongings exactly one mile into a new-to-me house.  I am almost done with unpacking all these things, most of which I have grown to hate (or at least question) in the last month or so.  That said, there is a grand transformation that takes place when one moves into a new abode.  The nesting inclination is a little like The Force.  Or a bad rash. It leaves its mark.

I bought cat xanax in the form of air freshener to help my cats adjust to the new house. $50.  I do not want to examine this purchase too closely.

Since I no longer have a fenced-in-yard, I spend an alarming amount of time walking dogs and picking up poop.  This makes me realize that my previous yard must have been....okay, I do not want to go there either. Literally.

It absolutely makes my day when I take the dogs on their evening walk, and glimpse the small herd of deer who graze in a yard that backs up to the greenway. We regard each other with equal fascination each time.  And each time I walk away smiling.  I think they walk away confused, wondering what the hell that idiot woman is smiling about.

And then, there is lupus....its own full-time job.  Trying to balance nesting with resting is challenging.  Benlysta infusions wipe me out a little for a day or two. It would be difficult to hate prednisone more than I do, and I am glad that I only have online classes to teach this summer.  It's just A LOT to deal with, and the way I deal with most things is to make art....and I haven't been able to.  But I see the light at the end of tunnel; the number of boxes left to unpack is in single digits, and unless I fall into a sleeping beauty-like stupor, I should be back in the saddle soon!

Carolyn Jacobs, Amy B, charcoal and conte on grey canson paper,
around 24x18, 30 min. sketch
Collection of the model.

I drew a quick sketch of Amy last year, and it was not even remotely successful, and it has haunted me--like all bad drawings haunt me.  But this one....I'm okay with this one.  It's a good likeness, and captured her affect pretty well.

Gestures, gestures and how about a gesture drawing?

Carolyn Jacobs, 3 minute gesture drawing, vine charcoal, 18x24"

Carolyn Jacobs, 3 minute gesture, vine charcoal, 18x24"

Carolyn Jacobs, 1 minute gestures, vine charcoal 24x18"

Carolyn Jacobs, 1 minute gestures, vine charcoal, 24x18"

Carolyn Jacobs, 1 minute gesture, vine charcoal, 24x18"

Carolyn Jacobs, 3 minute gesture, vine charcoal, 24x18"

Carolyn Jacobs, 1 minute gesture, vine charcoal, 18x24"

Carolyn Jacobs, 1 minute gestures, vine charcoal, 24x18"

Carolyn Jacobs, 1 minute gesture, vine charcoal, 24x18"

Carolyn Jacobs, 5 minute gesture, vine charcoal, 24x18"

Russell Crotty

Russell Crotty, Vancover. Source: Russellcrotty.com 

I really enjoy most of Russell Crotty's work. I like the fact that most of his work is free of the need for framing; that it is three-dimensional, but still feels like drawing.  Mostly, I love that it makes me think of drawing in a new/different way.

  Click here a short video about him and his work at Turner Contemporary.

Suspended Together

I am always ranting to my students about using beauty to draw the viewer in.  A great concept doesn't change the fact that your work is going to be viewed from 15-20 feet away at first glance, and you need to find a way to make someone actually look at what you've done. Once you pull them in, have something interesting going on.

Suspended Together, Manal Al Dowayan

Suspended Together has that potential. Here is the artist's statement:

“Suspended Together” is an installation that gives the impression of movement and freedom. However, a closer look at the 200 doves allows the viewer to realize that the doves are actually frozen and suspended with no hope of flight. An even closer look shows that each dove carries on its body a permission document that allows a Saudi woman to travel. Notwithstanding their circumstances, all Saudi women are required to have this document, issued by their appointed male guardian.

Suspended Together, Manal Al Dowayan

The artist reached out to a large group of leading women from Saudi Arabia to donate their permission documents for inclusion in this artwork. “Suspended Together” carries the documents of award-winning scientists, educators, journalists, engineers, artists and leaders with groundbreaking achievements that gave back to their society. The youngest contributor is six months old and the oldest is 60 years old. In the artist’s words, “regardless of age and achievement, when it comes to travel, all these women are treated like a flock of suspended doves."

You can see more images here: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/02/suspended-together/

Quick Ink Wash

Carolyn Jacobs, quick 20 min. ink wash on Arches 140lb paper

To me, the secret of grace is learning how to move within your limitations.

Noemie Goudal

Noemie Goudal, Les Amants (Cascade), Colour Photograph, 168 x 208 cm, 200

This is lovely, isn't it?  See more at Noemie Goudal. Enjoy.

"Brainwave"

There are times I wish I lived in NYC. This is one of those times.

Brainwave at the Rubin Museum of Art

Brainwave at the Rubin Museum of Art 

Click the link above for more info about this series of discussions about memory.

Trixie Whitley

I have discovered Trixie Whitley, and I am a little bit in love:

I love the top comment on this video on youtube:

"Man, that Fidel Castro can groove."

 

A Thousand Thieves
Source: Nowness.com

This is simple and really beautiful.

A Memory Palace

I have been kicking this idea around for some time---at least since reading "The Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie.

I am haunted by everything I've forgotten.  About 10 years ago, I was struggling with some chronic headaches---like a headache that lasted a month long---punctuated with an occasional migraine. The kind of migraine where you have to lie in a darkened room protected from every stimuli because any interruption of the tenuous hold you have on sanity will push you over the vomiting, writhing edge. I shudder just thinking about it. 

The myriad of doctors dedicated to confusing me and not working together while treating my lupus symptoms decided I needed a battery of tests.  One of those was a memory test, and the results were equally alarming in their individual potential and collective vagueness.  The neurologist said "Either you are in the early stages of Alzheimer's, or lupus is affecting your brain." I think it's fairly safe to say it is the latter rather than the former.  I voiced my concern about Alzheimer's to my primary doc, and he put me at ease (about Alzheimer's, anyway) by saying "Carolyn, everybody loses their keys; it's when you can't remember what keys are for that we start to really worry".  Whew. But then that means lupus is picking away at my brain in some way....

I forget a lot of things. Little things. Big events.  Some are just very vague, but some are gone completely.  Brain fog is worse on some days. Some of my students love this; some are exasperated by it; some probably don't notice.  I used to tell myself I just need to live in the present, but then one day a colleague invited me to sit in on a discussion of a landscape painting I'd done (now hanging in the 3rd floor hallway of the Overcash Building).  I hadn't looked at the painting since completing it several years before.  Immediately, I was transported back to the moment I painted it.  I remember what I was thinking as I painted each passage.  I remember why I chose one color over another. I remember what the paint smelled like.  I remember the way the canvas responded to each stroke of my brush. 

Ultimately, I realized that I can remember almost all my works in this way.  I am sure there are a number of reasons for this---the fact that I was clearly present in physical and emotional way has to factor---but what really concerns me is figuring out what to do about it.

My thinking is that building my own version of a memory palace might be key to feeling I have some management of this condition I find myself held hostage. I don't know exactly how it will come together it, but at this point, I see a series of work that forms a visual record of memories and events. A memory palace exists in the mind, but I can't rely on mine.  I need the physical embodiment of a memory----both for memory's sake, and just maybe, for sanity's sake.

Landscape: David "I make my own work" Hockney

David Hockney, 'Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 & 29 November 2006', 2006. Oil on 6 canvases. 182 x 366 cm. Courtesy of the Artist. © David Hockney. Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
Source: Royal Academy of Art

David Hockney takes some digs at Damien Hirst in his exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, stating prominently that he has made all his own work.  Meanwhile, Hirst is over at Tate Modern, featuring works conceived by Hirst, but made by studio assistants.  This article cites the historical practice of workshops/studio assistants: The Independent .

As I understand workshops, they were the primary educational venue for artists.  An apprentice would study, work with a master, and once a certain degree of skill had been achieved, he would strike out on his own.  I use the masculine here because with only a few exceptions, it was all men.  Those who didn't rise to the level of their own workshop toiled away at a master's shop. The article compares the use of workshops throughout history, but what it doesn't mention is that Hirst, when he did show examples of his own paintings see Wallace Collection, they were not at all "masterly". I would say he would be relegated to preparing canvases, sweeping floors and underpainting in a master's workshop.

I don't deny that Hirst is sometimes interesting conceptually.  Nor do I respond to Hockney's work in general.  The debate is not about the art, but about what is more important: the concept, the execution or the finished "product".  The obvious answer is that all three are important.  Works that are more than passing fads have all three; the concept is interesting and relevant, the execution is reflective of the time created, or indicative of progress, and the finished work finds that sweet spot in between.

Here's a link to David Hockney's show at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Here's a link to Damien Hirst's show at Tate Modern.