Chas Fagan

Chas Fagan at work. See more at chasfagan.com

I spent the morning at Chas Fagan's studio.  I spent the afternoon wondering if I've been doing it all wrong.  Whenever students say "Can I ask you a question?" my standard response is "I have all the answers".  We laugh, and they feel comfortable asking me whatever is on their mind.  I don't bother  telling them that my answers might not be right. I hope they are right....at least for me and them.

Chas Fagan is a Charlotte artist who does big historical commissions around the country.  He's working on a large sculpture of Thomas Spratt and King Hagler (Catawba) right now, and I am lucky enough to be on the selection committee.  This gives me an opportunity to see his work up close.  Chas also completed the bronze sculpture of Captain Jack that sits across the street from my office---it's the sculpture he's working on in the image at top.  I can't show any images of the current project, but what we saw today is a maquette, a scale model that, once approved by the group, must be enlarged from the 2 foot maquette to the approximately 7 foot sculpture.

Chas explained the process, which is complicated, but a traditional method of lost-wax casting that has been utilized since the Greek civilization was at its height. He will enlarge the clay maquette to full scale at the foundry, and then the process of bronze casting will begin.  Here's a link to describe the cire perdue process.  I've done it before---it's a blast, but it's really tough to describe, and not what I'm interested in.

He has a degree in Russian Studies (now there is a useful degree!), but no real formal training in art. He is a historian and student at heart, though.  His studio is filled with research on every historical detail you can imagine regarding his commissions; notes on the topography of the installation site, studies---lots of studies. In the midst of all of this are books on art and artists.  He might not have formal training, but he spends a lot of time looking and researching. He mentioned that John Singer Sargent is a particular favorite, and we talked a little about Caravaggio.

Bust of Lincoln by Chas Fagan. See more at chasfagan.com

Throughout the studio were numerous maquettes in various states of completion.  There were several Lincoln busts like the one above.  There was a maquette of both Bush presidents, together, but still armless, headed to 42's library.  There was a maquette of Ronald Reagan in casual wear that Chas said was "a little too thin" and needed to be revised. There were dozens of maquettes, and all were destined for prominent locations. Casually perched on a desk was a painting of 4 First Ladies---Martha Washington, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan and Michelle Obama commissioned by C-Span. Honestly... I think he's stronger in sculpture.  But, that said, three of those portraits are nicely done; one is not his strongest work.

Here's a link to an interview with C-Span about his sculpture of Ronald Reagan, installed at the Capitol Rotunda.

Chas Fagan and I come from very different art worlds. Working primarily through commissions and large scale public projects, he has to deal with  a lot of people along the way.  He does it extremely well.  While I do commissions at times, I can't imagine dealing with committees and jumping through all the hoops he has to jump through and trying to please all the people he has to please each step of the way. I would go insane. I'm much more content with making images in my own personal little vacuum and then, if someone happens to fall in love with it after the fact, I get so excited I just want to give it to them with a big, red bow on it. Being in his studio made me conscious that not everyone thinks like I do, and perhaps I should qualify my answers just a little bit more.

I Went To Spain and.....Part I: Reina Sofia Museum

I suppose it's somewhat silly to begin a post on Spain with photos from the sky, but I actually like these. I'm not a photographer, and I'll never claim to be, but even a blind squirrel can find a few nuts.

Miami, March 2013. Photo by Carolyn Jacobs

Carolyn Jacobs,  Sunrise in Espana, 2013

Not my hotel, Madrid, 2013. Photo by Carolyn Jacobs

Not my hotel, but across the street from my hotel, and a far more interesting building than my hotel in Madrid.  I don't know much about Spanish history, but the first thing I realized--without the aid of any history or guidebooks---is that the Romans were no where near the old city when it was first laid out.  It is a crazy maze of meandering streets that make no sense. I missed me some good old-fashioned Roman urban planning while trying to figure out where the hell I was going in Madrid. Love 'em or hate 'em, those Romans had a good sense of direction. Spaniards....not so much.




In general, Spain's economy is in the toilet. This bank had closed just days before, and protestors had lost their life savings. It was rainy and chilly in Madrid the entire time we were there, but I think there is a general vibe of exhaustion in the city.  People are just hunkered down and hoping to survive.

The Reina Sophia Museum
The Queen Sophia Museum is the modern art museum in Madrid.  The Prado takes you, basically, from the Renaissance into about 1850, and then the Reina Sophia takes over.  The big contemporary exhibit on display was Spanish artist Christina Iglesias, and it was quite lovely. Here's a link to the exhibit: Christina Iglesias: Metonymy

Christina Iglesias at Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid. Photo by Carolyn Jacobs

Christina Iglesias at Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Photo by Carolyn Jacobs

Christina Iglesias at Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Photo by Carolyn Jacobs

Christina Iglesias at Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Photo by Carolyn Jacobs

Here's a link to her website: Christina Iglesias She uses a fairly wide variety of materials, and I particularly like that it feels painterly without forcing it.  The interaction of object and space is beautifully handled.

Faith and Glory

stock photo from Nat Geo

When I was about 25 or so, I visited the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City.  While there I saw numerous pilgrims crawling tiny step by tiny step across the courtyard to the old Basilica. The old one is sinking into the ground and breaking in half; there is a modern one in the same courtyard. The one in the picture isn't the oldest one---it's just the most famous one---others sit nearby.

I was really struck by the sight of women in skirts and head scarfs crawling forward, knees scraped and bleeding, in some cases, silently crying. Here I was, a tourist, interfering with their private pain, or glory...I'm not sure which. I've often wondered what inspires that kind of faith. I don't really believe the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe--likely it was manufactured to herd the local natives into the Catholic church, but I wonder what switches on in someone's brain to have that kind of faith in something or someone?  I wonder if there is anything or anyone I would crawl across a stone courtyard, bleeding and crying for? Does wisdom and experience make us immune to that kind of faith---be it religious or personal?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I've been thinking about this book a lot lately. Then, this morning as I tidied up my room, I came across an old journal--a journal that documented in painful detail one of the most challenging times in my life. I never want to repeat the experiences mulled over in that journal. It reminded me of the way Tereza was tethered to her emotions, so utterly committed to them in the most fundamental way. I've read this book a couple of times, and it's one of those books that shifts meaning a little each time I read it. The Times review, published in 1984, isn't a gushing one, but one thought caught my eye:
 

"We can hope, with Milan Kundera, not to enact one of his elegant paradoxes in our separate choices and discover that either one leads to the same exhausted end."


The movie is definitely worth seeing, but obviously lacks the nuance of the book. But it's hard to go terribly wrong with Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche.
Watch it here:

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------

"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.

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.