Change of Address

To view Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man, which is posted every other day, go to http://www.grierhorner.com/blog.html

This self portrait of the artist and blogger was taken by computer yesterday as he was talking with his son and grandson in Louisiana. That's what put the smile on his face.

Golden Gown

Photo by Grier Horner/All Rights Reserved

This is a work in progress, the latest in my Runway series. It is oil over acrylic. Not too much more work until it's done. 

It's the first time in a long time that I've worked in oil, which used to be my standard paint, and I've been having fun. The figure has been done with pallet knives and my fingers so far.

The painting is six feet by four feet.

From Greylock

Photo by Grier Horner/All Rights Reserved

We drove up Mount Greylock the other evening and I got this shot of the setting sun. At 3,492 feet it is Massachusetts' highest peak.

It's eight miles up its twisting road - eight luxuriously smooth miles since its reconstruction several years ago.

It was our first ascent this year. It's a place of such beauty we wondered why we don't go up more often.

I used to climb it on my bike. I wish I still could. The ride up was work but the ride down was exhilarating. Once I pedaled up on January 1 on a day when the snow was only about an inch deep. 

On another winter descent I skidded in a patch of snow and landed on the side of my head. Those were the days before I wore a helmet. Almost knocked myself out.

It is a rare winter when you can ride up. Usually the snow comes early there, piles deep and stays until spring.

Grier Horner | One Life Photos 2011

VOTE for me. If you like the pictures I've entered in this contest - One Life Photos 2011. To vote, and see the pictures, click here. The winner gets $10,000. There's still time to enter. Thanks.

The Vote Count: at 10 a.m. , Aug. 19, - 25.

By the way, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man is back on its original spot - one that had been eaten and spit out by Lion.

When I bought Lion, Mac's new operating system to replace the beast had carried my burden previously - was it  Snow Leopard? - Lion killed Contribute, the software I use to do my blog.

Contribute is made by Adobe and that firm's Loveesh Kumar, exercising the patience of Job, talked this non techie through the harrowing procedure of installing the software on my iMac, which seemed to fight us every inch of the way.

Although my sites up and running again - I have a new post on it now - I may stick with blogspot for a while to see if I can built some readership here.

(Photo by Grier Horner/All Rights Reserved)

Faces 2

On the subject of faces I've painted over the years, here are some more. Some of them are details of paintings and some are the full painting. A number are self portraits.

Faces

In my painting life I have created a lot of faces. Here are a few. Well, more than a few.

dddd

El Anatsui, the African phenominal African artist, demonstrates why he has catapulted into fame in a show at Stone Hill Center at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.

While exhibiting for more than 30 years, Anatsui didn't come to international attention until 2004 when his work was part of Africa Remox, an exhibit seen in Dusseldorf, London, Paris Tokyo and Stockholm.

Anatsui has a local connection. He is represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. Jack is the son of Erwin and Florence Shainman of Williamstown. He father is a professor emeritus at Williams College.

The hangings are made of recycled metal bottle caps recycled from liquor  bottles. He strings them together with copper wire.

All this began about 10 years ago when he found a big bag of cast off  caps along a roadside.

When Gary Tinterow, the curator of modern art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, first saw them in 2007 he told the New York Times, "I was blown away."

According to the Times, Tinterow arranged for the Met to buy one that day.


Liquor was part of the slave trade, so the caps give the work a symbolic quality that I gathered from material from the Clark rather than my own brilliant analysis.

I love the way these works are hung - you might say drapped - the folds contributing to their beauty.

Anatsui was born in Ghana in 1944 and works The show will be up through October 16.

El Anatsui

El Anatsui, an African artist who has created a splash in America, has some spectacular hangings at the Stone Hill Center of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.

Jeanne d'Arc and Me

A couple years ago I did 35 paintings about Joan of Arc. Big, bold - at least I thought so - paintings. They were exhibited once and three were sold. But there are 32 stacked up in my house. This is a house in which 450 are stored.

Me, I love them. But someday I think they're going to be tossed in the back yard and go up in a burst of flames - like the flames this one portrays.











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