Different

There was a big figure 3 --white on dark brown. Its upper loop was the same size as the lower loop. So many people thought. and yet this upper loop was
SOMEWHAT, SOMEWHAT, SOMEWHAT
larger than the lower one.

This figure 3 always looked to the left -- never to the right. At the same time it looked slightly downward, for only in appearance did this figure stand perfectly straight. In reality, not easily discernable, the upper
SOMEWHAT, SOMEWHAT, SOMEWHAT
larger part inclined to the left.

And so this big white figure 3 always looked to the left and a little downward.
Or perhaps it was different.

I can't stop reading and relishing in these prose poems of Kandinsky from 1912. Concrete and abstract but all full of question, doubt, discovery, and SOMEWHAT, SOMEWHAT, SOMEWHAT of a true truth, and that's different from the garden variety of truthiness...

take care,
Rachael

simple and true.
happy.
Rachael

I've been obsessed with all aspects of modern design (as in that era from about 1909 to 1949 for the purpose of my fascination) as so I've been looking at and loving the british Design Museum's website. It was there, today, that I rembered and got all goofy about lovable Penguins and their design tradition.
For your browsing pleasure:
a good overview of the Machine Aesthetic
Russell Wright and more about Russel
and for straight up Modern Art, the Phillips has a great web resource for the Societe Anonyme show that is there right now...
and then there's this lovely little wierd Marden Hartley Black Duck painting...


(Black Duck, 1940–41, Marsden Hartley, American, 1877–1943, 71.75 x 55.88 cm (28 1/4 x 22 in., Oil on Masonite. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)


more soon and be careful on the ice, ok?
take care,
Rachael

This broken ankle has me hobbling, wobbling, completely staying away from the holiday frenzy of parties and malls, and reflecting a lot more than I am 'doing'. It's not altogether a bad thing.
I sat for hours last week cutting scraps of failed paintings, punching holes in 'em, and re-attaching the parts as paperdolls.
I've been reading everything I can get my hands on... from Sharon Olds (my favorite of hers is also Geeky Mom's and she posted it here) to a pile of Fast Companys to a big stack of glossy art books (my favorite of which is Debating American Modernism).

take care,
Rachael

Now, I've been drawing feet and hands for a couple of months. Everywhere. These little walking lines have waltzed all over my notebooks, my drawings, they're the heart of my paper dolls and then they changed a little on Tuesday night. While sitting in the ER smarting from a fall I started drawing a golfball swelling in the left ankle.
Tuesday night, on my way to an artist's trade, I managed to slip on ice and fracture my left tibula. Aside from joking about my 'peasant ankles' and 'leg leg foot' for years, I never really thought about my ankle. Well, now, housebound for a couple of days and confined to moving around on crutches, I'm pretty aware of the broken little guy.
I don't have much pain and the extra rest is actually kind of nice, but I appreciate these short Poems of a Broken Ankle and the fact that I have health insurance. I can't tell you how many artists I know who don't and that's pretty scary. Sure, a broken ankle can keep me off my feet for a little and crutch hobbling around for a few weeks but what if it tanked my credit? Yeesh, I may have a little less mobility for a bit but I'm one lucky duckling. More soon, Rachael