It All Comes Back To Art…

Are you looking for a holiday gift for the art or book lover in your life? May I suggest Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s giant tome “Van Gogh: The Life”? For a mere $25.00 you can give the gift of three and half pounds of artsy goodness, guaranteed to keep even the fastest reader busy for hours and hours on end.

Billed as “an exquisitely detailed, compellingly readable, and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of creative genius Vincent Van Gogh” the book is a “serious, ambitious examination of his life”. Fortunately it does live up to those claims, and it should at nearly 1000 pages. It is truly absorbing reading, having sworn that I don’t have time to read it; I find myself thumbing through and getting lost in whole chapters at a time.

One of the most interesting things about the volume, and the reason it is getting so much buzz, is that the authors claim to have found evidence that Van Gogh was murdered and did not commit suicide as traditional histories claim. In an appendix titled “A Note on Vincent’s Final Wounding” Naifeh and Smith lay out the police report, accounts supplied by friends, relatives, enemies, fortune seekers, and the man they believe pulled the trigger. It is interesting speculation that a pair of young, wealthy teenagers summering in the town of Auvers shot and killed the painter. I find their arguments clear, timeline of events well constructed, and ability to fill in the blanks of the original story plausible. Naturally, the internet is filled with critics decrying their conclusion, although I have yet to see how Van Gogh’s committing suicide is a preferable end to his story rather than murder.

Several critics find Naifeh and Smith heavy handed in their treatment of Van Gogh as a man who is deeply depressed, an outcast in his own family, capable of wild mood swings and an emotional drain on his friends and family. I think the authors worked to clearly put forth the information they uncovered and paint a picture of a man who struggled his entire life. Naifeh and Smith take great pains to be clear that the Van Gogh Museum at www.vangoghletters.org has complete translations of the Van Gogh letters and their own site www.vangoghbiography.com has over five thousand pages of searchable notes from their research for the dedicated readers perusal.

“Van Gogh: The Life” is a commitment to read, but I don’t think you will be sorry. Van Gogh’s life story, his dedication to family, art and literature, is fascinating reading.

Alexander Calder born July 22, 1898 was an American artist and sculptor famous for inventing large mobile sculptures in primary colors. Calder is less well known for his design work with toys, tapestries and jewelry, the last of which is truly breath taking. Stop by and check out Marla Prather’s “Alexander Calder, 1898-1976” for a nice over view of the artist’s work or jump right into his Jewelry with “Clader Jewelry”.

 To do list – start a hobby

While helping to take down the gorgeous quilt show at White Mountain Library in order to hang the “Sweetwater Artists Open Exhibition,” I was reminded again how many talented people we have living in Sweetwater County. The majority of arts and crafts people I know are self-taught, studying from books and videos and taking the odd class as they are able. Many of them belong to a group of like-minded people who get together at their local library to work, learn and socialize. Before summer rushes by us completely, the Sweetwater County Library System would like to invite you to stop by the Community Fine Arts Center or one of the main Libraries and find a new hobby to read up on, group to mix with, or class to take.

The Community Fine Arts Center has the widest variety of instructional books and videos, sampling from dozens of subjects, everything from colored pencil work to ceramics, photography to collage. Our newest DVD purchases focus on working in oils and include five of Richard Schmid’s instructional videos along with his wildly popular books “Alla Prima” and “Richard Schmid Paints Landscapes”.

We also added a DVD class with artist Jean Chambers and a set of DVD’s on various kinds of printing, “The Art of Block Printing”, “Relief Printmaking” and “Monotypes and Monoprints”.

We also have several texts on hand making and binding books, including great examples of gorgeous artist-made tomes by masters of the craft. Both Suzanne J. E. Tourtillott’s “500 Handmade Books” and “The Penland Book of Handmade Books” have unbelievable  examples of handmade texts. The how-to books include “Unique Handmade Books” by Alisa Golden, Mary McCarthy’s “Making Books by Hand”, and “Hand Bookbinding” by Aldren Auld Watson. All of these selections have easy to follow instructions and are among my favorite “how to make art in a hurry” selections.

The Rock Springs Library regularly hosts several needlework groups including several ladies that work on bobbin lace. Over the years this library has built up a wonderful collection of bobbin lace instruction and pattern books, including Bridget Cook’s “The Book of Bobbin Lace Stitches” and “The Torchon Lace Workbook”. They also have the “Beginner’s Guide to Bobbin Lace” by Gilian Dye and “Lessons in Bobbin Lacemaking” by Doris Southard. All of these books are a great source for the beginning lace maker!

Rock Springs also has an excellent collection of jewelry making books including the very modern “Steampunk-Style Jewelry: Victorian, Fantasy, and Mechanical Necklaces, Bracelets, and Earrings” by Jean Campbell. Also available are several excellent chain mail books including “Beaded Chain Mail Jewelry” by David Whyte, Terry Taylor’s “Chain Mail Jewelry”, one of my favorites for incorporating beads with chain is “Chain and Bead Jewelry: Geometric Connections” by Scott Plumlee, and Denise Peck “Wire Style”.

The White Mountain Library’s craft collection caters to the quilters in the community and has a nice selection of new quilting books mainly focused on scraps and samplers. Ready for checkout are brand new books by Karen Costello Soltys’ “A Baker’s Dozen: 13 Quilts from Jelly Rolls, Layer Cakes, and More”, author Kathy Brown’s “Take 5: Quilts from Just 5 Fabrics” and the extremely well written “Schnibbles Times Two: Quilts from 5” or 10” Squares” by Carrie Nelson.

The Sweetwater County Library’s “gourd guru” Carla Hardy has helped the library acquire a nice collection of books showing what to do with your gourds after the fall harvest is over. Ready to gather up right now are “Quick and Easy Gourd Crafts” by Mickey Baskett, “Decorating Gourds; Carving, Painting and More” by Sue Waters, and my favorite, Jim Widess’ “Gourd Pyrography” which shows how to burn pretty designs into your dried veggies.

Stop by the Community Fine Arts Center or one of the Sweetwater County libraries to reconnect with a favorite pastime or find a new hobby! There are hundreds of different books and how-to videos on arts and crafts, dozens of classes to take, and clubs that meet every day of the week. When the cold snow and winds of winter are here you will be glad to have something new and exciting to work on.

Owsley Stanley (January 19, 1935 – March 13, 2011) was a colorful character, to say the very least, who had a profound influence on the music scene of the 1960’s and 70’s. He appears here on our page thanks to his creation of the Grateful Dead’s Lightning Bolt Skull Logo. A logo that is immediately recognizable from bumper sticker to tee-shirt proclaiming to all that a Dead Head is here!

Yes, that’s some man’s tattooed head. And no, I don’t really know why you would do that.

 

Stanley was born to a wealthy family from Kentucky and during his lifetime worked for the U.S. Air Force, studied ballet supporting himself as a professional dancer, designed some of the first high-fidelity sound systems for rock bands, created wearable sculptures, and most importantly worked as the Grateful Dead’s sound man and financier. Over the years Stanley also produced gobs of LSD, getting his start when it was still legal to cook up the drug in the United States. Through the years Stanley managed to run drug labs in several states and once successfully sued the state of California for the return of his seized lab equipment after a raid. He conducted acid tests with members of the Grateful Dead in 1966 and was featured prominently in Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, mostly on account of a major acid induced freak-out.

Yes, you can check “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” out at your local Sweetwater County Library, and No, we won’t add your name to some Government List if you do.

 

Stanley, along with his friend Bob Thomas, designed the Lightning Bolt Skull Logo in 1968 and in 1976 it graced the cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Steal Your Face” album. “Stealie”, as the skull became known, was based on a half glimpsed sign that Stanley saw one day on his way to a show. An excerpt from Stanley’s website (http://www.thebear.org/) tells it all:

 

            “The Dead in those days had to play in a lot of festival style shows where the equipment would all wind up at the back of the stage in a muddle. Since every band used pretty much the same type of gear it all looked alike. We would spend a fair amount of time moving the pieces around so that we could read the name on the boxes. I decided that we needed some sort of marking that we could identify from a distance.

I was in the habit of driving from Oakland to Novato in a little MGTF which had plastic side curtains, which were not very transparent, due to aging of the plastic. One day in the rain, I looked out the side and saw a sign along the freeway which was a circle with a white bar across it, the top of the circle was orange and the bottom blue. I couldn’t read the name of the firm, and so was just looking at the shape. A thought occurred to me: if the orange were red and the bar across were a lightning bolt cutting across at an angle, then we would have a very nice, unique and highly identifiable mark to put on the equipment.”

 

An elegant solution to a labeling problem, Stanley and Thomas managed to produce one of the most iconic logos of the 20^th Century. Thank you gentlemen, and Rest in Peace Owsley Stanley.

Mona Lisa’s eyes, that is.  Italian researcher, Silvano Vinceti, believes he has found initials in the Mona Lisa’s eyes that may reveal the model’s identity. Using high-resolution images of the painting Vinceti found tiny letters that were invisible to the naked eye. “Painted in black on green-brown are the letters LV in her right pupil, obviously Leonardo’s initials, but it is what is in her left pupil that is far more interesting,” said Vinceti, the chairman of the Italian national committee for cultural heritage.

Vinceti believes he can see the letters B or S or possibly the initials CE, just the clues he needs to establish that the model is not Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant, as has been thought, but a woman from the court of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. As further proof Vinceti offers “On the back of the painting are the numbers ‘149’, with a fourth number erased, suggesting he painted it when he was in Milan in the 1490s.”

Art Historians have long known, and pointed out, that symbolism, subterfuge, and painting go hand in hand especially among the Renaissance set. Vinceti sums up his scholarship with, “Leonardo was keen on symbols and codes to get messages across, and he wanted us to know the identity of the model using the eyes, which he believed were the door to the soul and a means for communication.”

Silvano Vinceti plans on announcing his complete conclusions sometime after the New Year, and we look forward to reading them.

In the meantime, if you are looking to read more about messages encoded in artwork may I suggest you stop by and check out “The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo’s Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican” by Rabbi Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner. A controversial work that seeks to prove Michelangelo’s ties to Jewish religious teachings through his work on the Sistine Chapel frescos, Blech and Doliner manage to be both entertaining and readable throughout the text. Whether readers are swayed to Michelangelo’s supposed Jewish connections or not “The Sistine Secrets” at least gives art lovers food for thought, and hopefully will encourage more research and speculation by Art Historians on the subject.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), one of the most influential Mexican painters of the middle twentieth century. Stop but he CFAC and check out one of them many books or videos we have on the artist.

“I paint self portraits because I am the person I know best.” - Frida Kahlo

Happy Birthday Charles Wilson Peale!

Born in Maryland on April 15, 1741 Peale left behind a rich legacy before his death on February 22, 1827. Best known for his portrait work, the artist painted close to 60 portraits of George Washington starting in 1772, and had the honor of being the first artist Washington ever sat for.

Peale also worked as a saddle maker, carpenter, dentist, optometrist, shoemaker, taxidermist, writer, and patented several mechanical drawing devices during his lifetime. Peale was an avid natural historian and in 1801 organized the first U.S. scientific expedition which helped to procure animals for display in what became the first museum in America, the Philadelphia Museum later renamed the Peale Museum.

Peale fathered 16 children, some of whom made it into his paintings. The most well known are his sons Raphaelle and Titian, shown in a double portrait The Staircase Group from 1795, and painted in the trompe l’oeil style.

One of my associates noted that I have not blogged in ages, and it is true, but I have been busy (as if that ever got anyone off the hook for not doing something they should have!). This past spring and summer has been full of new art shows to hang and take down, receptions for artists, teaching and taking classes, visiting art shows and hosting theatre performances, and last but not least trying to get some books read!

 

 

We all know as summer winds down getting books crossed off that summer reading list takes on a new urgency. There are

websites to help you of course; the

Infinite Summer Reading Group was created to help “endurance bibliophiles from around the world” work together at reading David Foster Wallace’s 1,000 page book Infinite Jest? 

 

But for most of us more than 1,000 pages of reading is just going to be too much to chew! Enter Anne Trubek (whose real job is as an Associate Professor at Oberlin College in Ohio). Ms. Trubek has compiled a list of short reads at “Thin Books for a Finite Summer”. She offers up four books, along with their page numbers, in the hopes of helping us all squeeze in one or two more books before the snow flies. And now, for your consideration I pass along to you:

 

The first on the list is Brenda Shaughnessy’s Human Dark With Sugar, at 96 pages this book of poetry counts as a perfect summer read. Trubek says of this piece that it will “keep you enamored and thoughtful” always a good thing!

Second on the list coming in at 224 pages is Love and Obstacles by Aleksander Hemon. This work is a collection of short stories about a Yugoslavian man who accidently immigrated to the United States during the 1992 Bosnian war. The author is Bosnian born and has a rich robust way of writing; everything is very lyrical and masculine.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin weighing in at 272 pages is a short story about an Irish girl and her journey to New York. It has been described as a slow moving novel that sneaks up on the reader with surprises at the end.

The heaviest book at 304 pages is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout won her a Pulitzer prize and a slew of other awards in 2008 for this collection of short stories about a middle-school math teacher in rural Maine. (It sounds boring, a math teacher in Main, but trust me there are lots of surprises!)

Now if all the above selections still seem to be too much to get through, you could always stop by and check out a nice art book to flip through. My current favorites to thumb through are all by the artist Andy Goldsworthy.

 

Passage

 

Wall: at Storm King

 

Time

 

Stone

 

Andy Goldsworthy: a Collaboration with Nature

Every single one of Goldsworthy’s books is full of gorgeous photographs of his nature inspired art, along with commentary about his process and thoughts about it. For a short read that is full of fascinating images these books are my go to art books right now!

Aka: Day of the Dead Report that should have been posted in October…

Day of the Dead Alter Rock Springs Library. October-November 2008.

For the month of October and first week of November the Community Fine Arts Center and Rock Springs Library had up a display to highlight the holiday of Dia De Los Muertos or the Day of the Dead. Jon Harwood and I put up a traditional three tiered alter, a Madonna figure with a skeleton in the role of the Madonna, flameless candles, traditional marigold flowers and photos of the first Librarian in Rock Springs. Staff from the CFAC and RSL brought photos of family members, offers of food the departed had enjoyed in life, and small tokens that represented the family members. To the right of the alter, a display of books about Mexico, Mexican artists, and Day of the Dead crafts were available for checkout. The display culminated with a series of talks on the Day of the Dead, first on Wednesday October 29th at the Green River High School and then on Thursday November 6th at the Rock Springs Library. I focused the talks on the artwork of Mesoamerica, famous Mexican artists and contemporary art of Dia De Los Muertos. The information and photos that follow come from those lectures, and if you missed the talk this year don’t worry next year Jon and I plan on a bigger and better display! Read the rest of this entry »