Work in progress (2)

More work has gone into my painting of the Angel of Incineration about to firebomb Dresden. This is what it looks like now.

See my December 12 post for an earlier view. Some work remains to be done.

Work in progress

Here's the Angel of Incineration diving to deliver her fireball to the prone city of Dresden. This is a work in progress. Still looking amateurish at this point.

I'm painting it for a show on the Dresden firebombing I'm having at the at Bard College at Simon's Rock January 18 to February 12. It will be in the Great Barrington college's Atrium Gallery.

After 1 1/2 years working with acrylics, I've switched back to oils for this one to keep it in sync with the other paintings in the series I did several years ago.

My painting is derived from William Blake's Pity show below.

Ornithologically speaking, my wings are in the wrong position, unless she's putting down her flaps to slow down for a landing. Also, I have to tone  the gold down.

The painting is 4' x 5' and the bodies are cut-outs of canvas that I gessoed to the painting. The face of the prone woman, in my painting, is a blowup taken from Blake's. I also collaged a print of the horsewoman's face on the angel.

But it lost too much of the detail in the enlargement. And what you see instead is yesterday's effort to paint a reasonable facsimile of the Blake face. It isn't there yet.
Click on photos to enlarge.

Street joy

 During my gallery quests in New York, I shot lots of pictures. Last Friday I took more than 200.

One of my favorites from that haul was this one.

  Photo by Grier Horner/All rights reserved

Click on photo to enlarge.

Work on the wild side

Photos by Grier Horner

If you want to take a walk on the wild side, hit the Paul Kasmin Gallery in Manhattan and feast your eyes on Walton Ford's allegorical nature paintings.

It doesn't take you long to realize that the subjects in the Great Barrington artist's monumental watercolors would just as soon feast on you.

As these wolves are doing on the body of a dead soldier killed at the Battle of Borodino in 1812. This is where Napoleon won the battle but lost his quest to conquer Russia because he failed to pursue the retreating Russian Army.

 

 In this detail from that painting, you can see how brilliantly Ford depicts the wolves' ferocity and aspects of his painting style. The works are watercolor, gouache, pencil and ink on paper. These are not timid paintings either in subject or scope. This one is 60" x 119".

Below is a detail from another painting, The Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London - 3 December 1830.

These are photos of the paintings as you see them in the gallery, glare and reflections included. They were taken December - 179 years and one day after the incident in which two tigers mauled a lion.

My shot of Ford's painting, An Encounter with Du Chaillu, includes not only the marauding gorilla, but refections of me taking the picture and a truck passing by on the street.

Paul du Chaillu was an anthropologist, explorer, hunter and author who confirmed the existence of gorillas on a trip to West Africa during the 1860s.

In a nice twist, the gorilla, not du Chaillu, comes away with the trophy in this painting. And it leaves you wondering if the animal is going to manage to kill itself with the gun despite its twisted barrel.

Ford, who was born in Larchmont, New York, in 1960 is in the art world's bigtime. Museums give him shows. Critics give him raves. Collectors buy his work. The New York Times writes feature articles about him, as do other publications.

In a January 2009 New Yorker profile, he told writer Calvin Tomkins, "Before Fay Wray comes to Skull Island, King Kong isn't doing anything. There's no story until she shows up...What I'm doing, I think, is a sort of cultural history of the way animals live in the human imagination."

He may be giving the human imagination too much credit.

What he's doing is the way animals and events live in his imagination. And he does it powerfully.

Ford's show will be up through December 23. The Paul Kasmin Gallery is located at 293 Tenth Avenue at the corner of 27th Street.

Gallery Quest 5

 In my ongoing Gallery Quest, I hit 27th Street on Friday. I was lucky. If I'd put the trip to Manhattan off or gone back to 23rd Street as I'd planned, I would have missed Andrea Mastrovito's wild and wonderful show at the Foley Gallery. It closed yesterday.

His large paintings were butted together forming a single work of art that must have been 75 feet long as it circled three walls of the gallery at 547 West 27th Street.

I couldn't find any reviews, but New York Magazine gave it this squib:

"An exquisite show composed almost entirely of paper and exploring the edgiest theme of all: love. Imagine if Van Gogh had had a child who became a genius in the art of origami."

I think I'd slice a little Kara Walker and James Bond to that mix as well. And a pinch of Edward Scissorhands.

Here are a two details of the diptych show at the top to give you a better idea what this young Italian artist is doing.

 

Lights. Cameras. Action. Color. Drama. Humor. Figures formed of cutout letters. Animals copulating. Adam and Eve. Origami. Well, not exactly origami, because that's the art of folding paper. I think Mastrovito's is the art of cutting and layering paper as he builds his collages.

And here's a closeup from another painting. It gives added insight into Mastrovito's technique.

How's the Gallery Quest going? Stay tuned.

Photos by Grier Horner/Click to enlarge

Moonglow

This is the moon taken through the trees last night with a handheld camera. And below, camera hand held again, is a shot of the windows of my house emitting light like flames.

And here is the hand that held the camera and the camera that was held. Also there is paint under the fingernails and on the cheek.

I painted in the afternoon. In the morning Gae came over and we figured out what paintings she was going to put in her house.

At noon I went to hear Ellen Lahr, a former Eagle reporter, talk at Berkshire Community College. She spoke engagingly about sources who had acted bravely as sources for several stories she wrote. Then Ellen and I went to lunch in Lenox.

"Which wine, white or red, goes best with the tomato soup?" I asked Ellen.

"Red. I believe in color coordination."

So I got the red.

Photos by Grier Horner/All rights reserved. Click on photos to enlarge

Where's the sled

Rudolph and the gang must have had the day off when we saw Santa cruising on his Harley on I 495 the other day.

Or maybe St. Nick has put them out to pasture.

If he did my son Eric, a Hog owner, will be delighted to discover the jolly old elf's new mode of transportation.

I'm not sure whether a Harley contributes more to global warming than eight reindeer. Nine if it's a foggy night.

But I do know that this bellowing cycle is going to give new meaning to the lines:

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
  I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

To any kid wondering if these saddle bags can hold all the toys, don't forget Santa crammed everything into that chimney-capable bag he flung on his back. After all, Santa's magic.

P.S. This is my 100th post on Blogspot. Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man has had a much longer history at www.grierhorner.com/blog. Click on photo to enlarge it. Photo by Grier Horner/All rights reserved.

Thanks for Thanksgiving

Emily and Heather ham it up to make a crying child laugh. Photos by Grier Horner/All rights reserved.

Thanksgiving at Pete and Zoa's is not just a meal. It is the annual gathering of the clan. And it lasts from Thursday through Saturday.

This is my Thanksgiving album. It features:

• Emily, a high school senior who just starred in her high school musical, and her sister Heather, who is studying dance at  the University of Cincinnati.
• Pete and Zoa Guernsey, who have hosted the annual family Thanksgiving feast for almost half a century. (And may the tradition they started - one that has created a tight-knit family - continue a long, long time.
• The girls, Zoe, Sarah Mei and Riley. And the Pitt players.

Zoe, Sarah Mei and Riley.

Shannon, our daughter; Cookie, Babbie's sister, and Pete, the host and patriarch.

The bunch (some memebers missing).

 Playing Pitt, a commodities trading free for all. From left, Pete Jr., Zoann, Sarah Mei and Zoe.

Ending the way we started with Heather and Emily. They're  dozing after the feast.