Hidden Pond Yarns

Many of us are especially focused on family at this time of year.  So please indulge me when I explain how very proud I am of my daughter, Katya. The busy mom of two little ones, Katya has long had an interest in knitting and a great eye for colour. When the pandemic began, she took the opportunity to open a home-based business, offering hand-dyed yarn. Hidden Pond Yarns is getting 5-star reviews!

Katya's gorgeous yarns are available through her Etsy site. Their rich colours have even re-kindled my own long-dormant interest in knitting.

All in good fun

For me, one of the joys of being a grandmother is making things for the grandchildren.

Here is a recent project I've completed for my little grandson, whose nursery has been given a "hunting lodge" theme. 

I made the "stag head" from a pattern by Amie Scott, a Toronto-based pattern designer, who also offers clothing patterns. On her website are similar patterns for unicorns, bunnies and rhinos. Amusing, yes?

Félix Fenéon @ MOMA

As part of their "Virtual Views" series, New York's Museum of Modern Art offers this 4-minute video, profiling Félix Fenéon, "an extraordinarily influential but little-known figure".

Anarchist, civil servant, art critic, publisher, dealer and collector, Fenéon "shaped the development of modernism". He is credited with coining the term "Neo-Impressionism", and championed artists like Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Signac, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani.

To learn more about Fenéon, visit the MOMA website.

art21.org

Recently I read about this non-profit and its website in the New Yorker magazine (May 4, 2020). Since the pandemic, the magazine's listings of art events have shifted to on-line resources for movies, dance, music and visual art.

Art21.org is a treasure trove of information about art in the 21st century. Among the more than 200 artists profiled on the site are Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, David Altmejd, El Anatsui, Louise Bourgeois, Theaster Gates, William Kentridge, Maya Lin and Judith Scott.

The foundation of the Art21 Library is the nine seasons of Art of the 21st Century, produced by PBS and winner of the Peabody Award. Nearly one thousand hours of original documentary footage are available, and are supplemented with transcribed interviews, research materials, educational publications, web pages, books, and digital and analog artwork reproductions. The website also includes material for educators, and offers a free subscription to their weekly newsletter.

Interested in learning more about the contemporary art scene? This resource might be just what you're looking for.

Hudson Artists virtual gallery

Floral #1, Michele Meredith, mixed media, 12" x 9"

Thanks to the inspired and diligent work of certain executive members, my local artists' group has launched a new initiative.

Colors on Winooski, John Vazalinskas, oil on canvas, 15" x 30"

The AHA (Artistes Hudson Artists) has opened a virtual showcase of members' work. It can be accessed here.

Just a Little Circle, Jane Wright, fused glass, 11" x 11"

This year's annual spring show was cancelled, and our monthly meetings have been discontinued, but seeing the recent work of members in our on-line gallery offers some consolation.

Storm King sculpture park

The southern-most art destination on our recent trip to New England was the Storm King sculpture park in Cornwall, New York. Ever since I learned about this site, I have wanted to experience it for myself. The park is named for its nearby mountain. The project began in 1960, and its 500 acres now receive 200,000 visitors each year.

We arrived on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and it was already busy, though never crowded. Trams travel a circuit to help visitors to reach all corners of the vast space. Rental bikes are also available on site.

Visitors are asked not to touch or stand on the sculptures. Exceptionally, a few are meant to be touched, and they are so labeled in the handout and on the site plaque.

A panoramic view taken from near the hilltop museum building.
The landscape seems to extend endlessly in all directions.

The rolling hills offer many vantage points.

Almost all the sculptures may be viewed up close.
Here is Untitled, by Joel Shapiro, 1994

Black Flag, Alexander Calder, 1974

Visitors enjoy interacting with the sculptures,
sometimes striking a pose for photos.

Here, a viewer performs a physical exam of Three Legged Buddha, by
Zhang Huan, 2007.

Alternate view of Three Legged Buddha. The sculpture weighs
more than 12 tons. The head is a self-portrait of the artist.

Some sculptures were placed in relation to water features,
like Roy Lichtenstein's Mermaid,  1994

An example of land art, Storm King Wavefield by Maya Lin, 2007-8.

Lin's best-known work is no doubt the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington DC. Storm King Wavefield, above, consists of seven nearly-400-foot-long waves, ranging in height from ten to fifteen feet. It is considered to be an environmental reclamation project, situated on what was once an 11-acre gravel pit that supplied material for the New York State Thruway. The rhythm of the masses replicates the scale of a series of mid-ocean waves.

Another example of land art is Storm King Wall, by Andy Goldsworthy, 1997-98.

The stone wall continues on either side of a small pond, up the hill and into
 the woods. It measures 2278 feet, and is Goldsworthy's largest work to date.

These Ionic columns are massive in scale, and overlook a vista.

Some sculptures interact with each other.
In the foreground, North South East West by Lynda Benglis,
1988/2002/2014-15.

Others relate to the trees and detritus in the woods, or mark the margin between
open ground and forest.
Here, Eight Positive Trees,  Menashe Kadishman,  1977

Other sculptures, like City on the High Mountain, by Louise Nevelson,
are more stand-alone.

The website for Storm King is a rich source of information about all of their 100-plus sculptures. It allows you to search by artist, by title or by decade, and offers details about the making or installation of each piece. 

The compelling story of Françoise Gilot

Here's a fascinating read: the profile of Françoise Gilot written by Alexandra Schwartz  and published in the July 22, 2019 issue of The New Yorker.

In "How Picasso's Muse Became a Master", Schwartz writes:

"Gilot is ninety-seven now; she has been painting nearly as long as Picasso did, and is enjoying something of a revival. In October, I went to Sotheby’s to watch a curator interview her about a new edition, from Taschen, of fanciful travel sketchbooks that she made in Venice, India, and Senegal. Gilot, still beautiful in a navy-blue suit and knotted silk scarf, was lucid, witty, and pitilessly dry in the French way."

Schwartz refers extensively to Gilot's own "remarkable" 1964 memoir, "Life with Picasso", written with the art critic Carlton Lake, and recently reissued by New York Review Books Classics.

In this "Me Too" era, Gilot's story has much to tell the contemporary reader about the challenges inherent in the roles of muse, lover, artist, and independent spirit.

You may be able to access the article through this link.


  

The Way We Talk About Art Shouldn't Be Impossible to Understand

Are you often stymied by Art-Speak, the gobbledygook that purports to explain a particular work of art?

Here's a great article on the subject, written by Jackson Arne and published last year on artsy.net:

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-way-talk-art-impossible-understand?fbclid=IwAR1WwlDxeuMvnSL5GJOweWkJNRxbDrrm-QDf8lGnY1p28RxG7OgAiC2nQok

Art for Sale, March 30

And now for an item of strictly local interest.

In my little town of Hudson, Quebec (pop. 5000, little changed for the last 40 years) we have many valuable assets. We are situated on a lake, and our connections to nature include an extensive network of walking trails and parks, a bird sanctuary, a yacht club and three golf courses. There's a lively cultural scene, including multiple artist and craft groups, music and gardening clubs, choirs, two history museums, a literary festival, a summertime flea market, an art gallery or two, and even a theatre.

Much of this activity is sustained by our biggest asset, a vibrant volunteer base. The library, Meals on Wheels, a palliative care centre and so many more initiatives are dependent on volunteers.

But one of the real gems of our little town is the Bunker. Located in the basement of the library, its staff accepts donations of clothing, furniture, kitchenware and bric-à-brac, selling it all at bargain prices and then using the revenue to fund not only the library but many other worthy causes. As the Bunker is only open on Saturday mornings, it has become a community "thing" to pop down and see what treasures await the discerning eye.

On March 30, the Bunker is staging a rare and special event.

The Artificial Divide between Fine Art and Textiles is a Gendered Issue

Thank you to Dianne, who sent along this link to an article from Frieze, a contemporary art magazine published eight times a year from London.

Bayeux tapestry

The article was published as a response to the recent Anni Albers exhibition at Tate Modern, which ended in January.

Written by Amber Butchart, it notes the resurgence of interest in textile art, and explores the artificial divide between fine art and textiles. Medieval embroidery was prized around the world, but it was during the Renaissance that "fine art", with its masculine associations, became more valued, and this separation was accelerated by the academies.

Well worth reading, the article explores the marginalization of needlework while referencing the Bayeux tapestry, the non-European tradition of stitching, and Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party.

Ten free on-line courses to help jumpstart your creativity

References, Anna Valdez, 2014

Perhaps this is just the tonic needed as we struggle through a very long winter.

Thank you to SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) and its Fiber Art Friday newsletter for passing along the link to this resource.

Robert Genn's criteria for judging art

October Song, Robert Genn

For years I have subscribed to The Painter's Keys, an e-newsletter formerly published by Canadian painter Robert Genn and, since his death in 2014, continued by his daughter Sara, also a painter. The newsletter covers a broad range of topics of interest to artists in all media, and to art aficionados. Often an older post is pulled from the files and re-published.

A recent post, originally published in 2005, outlined the criteria that Robert Genn proposed to evaluate a work of art. Occasionally, Genn served as a judge or juror, and he would score the entries using the following "evaluation points":

• compositional integrity, 
• sound craftsmanship, 
• colour sensitivity, 
• creative interest, 
• design control, 
• gestural momentum, 
• artistic flair, 
• expressive intensity, 
• professional touch, 
• surface quality, 
• intellectual depth, 
• visual distinction, 
• technical challenge and 
• artistic audacity. 

He wrote,

"If you were to assign a maximum value of 10 to each of these fourteen points, an almost impossible top mark would be 140. Loosely speaking, a total of around 50 is often enough for an “in.” My system doesn’t favour realism over non-objective work, but in my jury duty hard-won realism often wins out with these points."

Grove with Yellow Green, Robert Genn, 

While I would have trouble distinguishing "artistic flair" from "artistic audacity", I would not argue with the double-weighting of this quality. The vocabulary of the checklist is helpful when I try to articulate my response to a particular work, whether it is my own or other's.

The original article may be found here. The terms are further explained in a subsequent post.

Visual Design: my interview with SAQA

Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) is an international group I have belonged to for many years. One of many posts that I've shared about SAQA was written last year, outlining some of the benefits of membership.

So I am delighted now to share with you a web-interview I did recently with Deborah Boschert as part of a Seminar Series on Visual Design, available exclusively to SAQA members. The Seminar Series is part of a whole collection of videos, articles and other resources on Visual Design for SAQA members. It's one of the projects developed in recent years that adds enormous benefit to membership.

If you decide that SAQA is a group you'd like to be part of, use the code SEMINAR to get a $10 discount for new members. 

Self-guided walking tours with Portrait Sonore

Some time ago I was introduced to Portrait Sonore, when Dianne Robinson told me about their walking tours. She had heard a CBC broadcast that described a two-hour Montreal walking tour of Leonard Cohen-related sites, available in English and French.

Portrait Sonore is a free app that offers a number of audio tours. Here is the list of tours available:

Montreal / Expo 67
Parc Jean Drapeau / Public Art
Montreal / Leonard Cohen
Montreal / Downtown Modern
Gesù / 150 years of history
Latin Quarter / 30 murals
Vancouver / Downtown Modern
Quebec / Parliament Hill
Winnipeg / Downtown Modern
Toronto / Down town Modern
Ottawa / Downtown Modern
Halifax / Downtown Modern

For some reason, the link to the Leonard Cohen tour was not working for me, but we decided to take advantage of the Montreal / Downtown Modern tour. With earbuds in place and my phone's GPS activated, we set off on the 135-minute audio tour.

And what an eye-opening experience that was. I learned so many things. For example:

The CIBC building, completed in 1962, is 45 storeys tall. Built in the International style with a slate facing, it was once the tallest building in Canada and the entire Commonwealth. It was superseded within a few months by Place Ville Marie, shown below, which added a penthouse especially for the purpose of surpassing the CIBC building. Because this cruciform-shaped skyscraper was built to withstand the rumblings of an underground railway terminal, it is thought to be particularly earthquake-proof. What was once a restaurant on the top floor is now an observatory, open to the public.

1 Place Ville Marie, 47 storeys tall,
forms a nexus for Montreal's underground city,
with indoor access to over 1600 businesses, several subway stations,
a suburban transportation terminal,
and tunnels extending throughout downtown.

Montreal Stock Exchange Building

The 48-storey Montreal Stock Exchange tower, completed in 1964, held the title of tallest building in Canada until 1967. Also in the International style, it was financed by the Vatican, and has the distinction of being a reinforced-concrete structure. Its construction was controversial at the time, as there was some doubt about the suitability of the materials for such a tall building.

Place Bonaventure

At least two of the buildings included on the tour are considered to be examples of the Brutalist style: Place Bonaventure and Habitat 67. Place Bonaventure, completed in 1967, was at that time the second-largest commercial building in the world.

Habitat 67

As we walked up McGill College Avenue, we could track the changing building codes as evidenced by the heights of the buildings. The oldest structures were six storeys tall; later buildings were limited to ten storeys. Still later, taller buildings were allowed, but only if the higher levels were smaller than the base of the building, creating a kind of tiered wedding cake effect.

The Royal Bank Building

An example of this is the Royal Bank tower, neo-classical in style and 22 storeys tall. When it was completed in 1928, it was the tallest structure in all of Canada, and the tallest building in the British Empire.

We learned about Silo #5, a grain elevator, now unused, measuring some 400 metres in length.

Silo #5, in the Old Port

And Windsor Station, built in 1887-88 in the Romanesque Revival style. It was rescued from demolition in 1970, and has yet to find a new vocation.

Windsor Station

And it was revealed that the Chateau Champlain hotel owes some of its distinctive arched windows to Frank Lloyd Wright's influence. 

The Chateau Champlain hotel, otherwise known
by its unfortunate nickname, "The Cheese Grater".

We found the audio tour to be very informative and reasonably easy to follow. For best effect, begin at Stop #1 on the map, and follow the various locales in order. I look forward to exploring some of the other tours from Portrait Sonore.

Other walking tours of Montreal can be found at Heritage Montreal's Architectours and through the McCord Museum. Note that these tours are led by a guide.

Eco-Dyeing: a Resource

As a subscriber to Fiber Art Now, I was delighted to access their complementary e-book on the exciting topic of eco-dyeing. Now I am sharing it with you!

Perfectly-timed with our anticipation of spring and more time spent outdoors, environmentally-friendly dyeing can be achieved using plant material and simple techniques. The book also includes inspiration and how-to on rust dyeing. Eco-dyeing can lead to fun projects with children (Easter eggs, perhaps?) to intriguing wearables, or to the most sophisticated of gallery installations. The approach can be used with papers as well as cloth.

The e-book is available here. Consider it a taster for what could well become an obsession.

Griffintown Tour

Having seen G. Scott Macleod's multimedia project In Griffintown at the Centre d'Histoire de Montréal, I was happy to learn that his self-guided walking tour of Griffintown is now available on line.

Montrealers know Griffintown as a historic working-class neighbourhood that birthed the Industrial Revolution in Canada and was once home to a large immigrant community.

The 21 stops on the tour are spread over about ten city blocks. Each stop is accompanied by a short video clip that tells a story about the community or a particular building. Photography, drawing and animation are used to create a visual record of the sites. Combined with brief histories and a Google map, the images and animations are now freely available as an online self-guided tour. Guided group tours may also be available.

Griffintown has a special place in the hearts of English-speaking Montrealers, as so many Irish immigrants made their homes here. I look forward to seeing the magic that Macleod has worked with his animated sketches and his evocative story-telling.

You can read my October 2015 post about Macleod's museum show here.

ArtDaily.org

Billing itself as The First Art Newspaper on the Web, ArtDaily.org is available as a daily bulletin that you can subscribe to, for free.

It's been around since 1996, and offers a wide selection of news about exhibitions, auctions, publications, and more.

And if you're planning to travel, you can use this site to do a search for art events that coincide with your trip.

The Art Assignment

A recent discovery is the website "The Art Assignment", a treasure trove of inspiration, instruction and ideas.

You can learn more about it here.

Warning: This could become addictive. Here's a sample:

Another course from Coursera

Six weeks ago I posted here about an on-line course designed by the Museum of Modern Art and offered through Coursera. The 8-week course, titled In the Studio: Post-War Abstract Painting, focused on the technical approaches of eight individual artists, what made their work distinctive, the trajectory of their careers and their place in that period of art history.

Initially I had no intention of pursuing the course. "Far too busy," I told myself.  But since it was available at no cost, I decided to give it a try and was soon completely engaged. Each of the eight units required certain readings and viewing of videos, followed by a quiz, and I'm a sucker for that kind of structured learning. I found the material interesting, and it was presented in an effective variety of formats.

With the course nearing its end, I have now signed on to another of Coursera's free on-line offerings, though I haven't yet begun it. This one is called Modern Art & Ideas. It's a five week course, again designed by MOMA. The course proposes to explore modern art, not chronologically, but through four different themes:

• Places & Spaces
• Art & Identity
• Transforming Everyday Objects
• Art & Society

No prior knowledge of art history is required. Enrolment ends May 20. More information is available here.

Free on-line painting class begins today!

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Green on Blue), 1968

Thank you, Dianne, for putting me onto this exciting opportunity.

MOMA has designed an on-line class offered through coursera.org, titled In the Studio: Post-War Abstract Painting. It includes art history and theory as well as hands-on painting assignments. It is available at reasonable cost, and for free if you don't care abut getting the certificate. Financial aid is also available.

Here is a description:

About this course: Want to know how some of the 20th century’s most celebrated artists made abstract paintings? This course offers an in-depth, hands-on look at the materials, techniques, and thinking of seven New York School artists, including Willem de Kooning, Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko. Through studio demonstrations and gallery walkthroughs, you’ll form a deeper understanding of what a studio practice means and how ideas develop from close looking, and you’ll gain a sensitivity to the physical qualities of paint. Readings and other resources will round out your understanding, providing broader cultural, intellectual, and historical context about the decades after World War II, when these artists were active. The works of art you will explore in this course may also serve as points of departure to make your own abstract paintings. You may choose to participate in the studio exercises, for which you are invited to post images of your own paintings to the discussion boards, or you may choose to complete the course through its quizzes and written assessments only. Learners who wish to participate in the optional studio exercises may need to purchase art supplies. A list of suggested materials is included in the first module.

For more information, please visit the website. The class begins today!