I know nothing about golf but had a chance to spend the day with two of my favorite people at a golf tournament. Beautiful sunny day, not too hot, and all around me were people standing and waiting, watching and walking. Page after page of over-par drawings (too many strokes, too little captured) I finally got a birdie.


take care,
Rachael

If I were asked what my spiritual practice is, I would have to say it was, is and probably always will be drawing. I’ve been practicing, practically zen-ing out, seeking and finding a really satisfying experience through the act of making marks on paper. This isn’t really new for me, but something is different about drawing lately. Maybe it’s that I’m hungrier to see or that I’m more willing to/more able to concentrate, or that I’m not hiding my process as much.


Oh and also I found these paintastic brush pens (refillable with liquid watercolors, I've found) which are pretty fabulous to draw with. These are recent sketchbook drawings and two short short stories about specific moments at which I felt myself have a drawing-growth-spurt...
Part 1
Last week I substitute taught for the last class of a short Beginning Drawing class. I was the stranger amid a nice group of about 15 students who had worked hard for five weeks learning how to start a drawing, how to measure scale and size, how to work with values, how to use perspective, how to keep at it and why someone might want to. Essentially, I gave them a free card to play, to relax, to try things they hadn’t tried, to know that drawing is a skill we will all be building, to draw outside, to turn a drawing over and start again upside down. While I hoped to inspire this small group of beginners, I forgot how inspiring the enthusiasm, the structure, the format of a beginning drawing class can be. I began again.

Part 2
There is a wonderful drawing show at the Rochester Contemporary and because of it they had a drawing club informal drawing session.Two hours of drawing with others in the middle of this gallery reminded me that I'm not the only kid who needs to draw to think, reminded me that there are always a zillion creative solutions to any problem, that drawing is both a personal thing and a very social connector. And I left with so much excitement, so many snippets of ideas, and some nice connections to strangers.


So then, thank you for looking and listening and drawing.
goodnight,
Rachael

This is the truth of it. I have been nose in a book in all of my sparetime of late. I'd come home from work, pour some iced coffee and read and read and read. I lost a whole weekend even. Among the stories I swallowed:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon left me in love with Joe, in awe of the Luna Moth, and a-gog again at the power of transformation, escapism, and love in the midst of gotham city.

This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes was kind of snarky sometimes but mostly a very funny and smart warning label of a book. Plus it had me craving donuts.
and

The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster was probably my least favorite because it seemed so carefully planned but it did have smart characters and a helluva lot of imagination.
And I'd reccomend 'em all, as I would escaping the work-a-day world with someone else's stories every once in a while. It's got me spinning some stories too and looking at the world with a strange perspective. All of these interconnected stories...

Last Sunday was the last day of the Francis Bacon show at the Albright Knox (their press release is here) and I had a chance to see it with some good friends. The show (curated by Michael Peppiatt) focused on Bacon in the 50's and had all the iconic images (the popes, the man walking a dog, the anguished faces, the vivid colors, the motion in the brushtroke). Because each room was full of big canvases, we walked slowly. Each of us (including the toddler) was pulled into some of the paintings and pushed away from others.

After we took in the show, I looked through the tabloid brochure that was given away at the front counter and wondered why so much of the design, content, and style of the brochure was about scandalizing the painter's story.




What? This is what the education department came up with to help viewers understand the show? This is the free brochure that adds to the experience of the exhibition? For what purpose? What is the show about; Bacon's life or his paintings?
No doubt, Bacon lived a scandal filled life and we are a scandal-loving society, but what function does it serve to provide a gallery publication (however throw-away it is) whose purpose is to titillate? How much of Bacon's paintings need to be interpreted through his personal history, specifically his sexuality? Is that the key detail defining them? What about other contexts? What about simply letting the paintings be seen as paintings, not as puzzles to be solved with endless autobiographical details?

In the week since I picked up the stupid thing (and really, I am convinced the idea of creating a tabloid to accompany the show is stupid), I looked into some of the writings about Francis Bacon and got a sense of what is wrong there. The New York review of Literature has Julian Bell's well written, well reasoned review of the Bacon bits (forgive me, the recent Bacon literature) that sums up why some people seem obsessed with the painter's biography and scandalous story.
More about Bacon and the show in Buffalo:

A preview from Buffalo Rising about the show

A review in Outcome Buffalo by Tim Moran

A review in the Toronto Star by Peter Goddard

A smart blog entry in response to seeing the show. Some thorny problems arise for a mild mannered kid's tour when the whole show is about sex and scandal. Couldn't the show be about paint?

The official site of the estate of Francis Bacon

The Francis Bacon studio was put back together again in a museum at Hugh Lane in Dublin



And so, I would be interested in your thoughts about this. Maybe I am missing the true truth of Bacon's work or the educational value of a tabloid brochure but I know few painters who wish their work to be seen as reflective of their getting kicked out of Dad's house for wearing mom's underwear...

arghhh.
Rachael

I manage to manage a busy art school at a small museum in a mid sized city. Each summer we run about a billion classes with the help of an amazing crew of creative teachers. The place is hopping and it's truly a lot of fun. I never earned a degree in art education, per se, but I have had lots of book learning in the arts and humanities and am ever learning. That background provided, here's a bit more of the lessons so far from the art, artists and energy of my dayjob.


Make it colorful. Make it bigger. Make it without saying you can't make it. Kids will jump feet first into the creative process, but adults always hesitate.


Collaborate. Simply, truly, it's better if we make it together.

Be as fully into the making of whatever it is you are making as is possible. The image above of a fully absorbed young painter inspired me to make a paper doll and spend some time pushing myself into the concentration of looking, drawing, living a little more thoroughly...

good luck with it!
Rachael