Abstraction, Serenity and Color in the Quarries

Don Ross at the Jackson Gallery opening in Middlebury, Vermont.
Behind him: Marr and Gordon Quarry, Reflection. 2012. 29 “x 43.5″

 

I recently saw an exhibit by photographer Don Ross that opened a new world to me.

What more can you ask of art?

Don’s photographs are  powerful, evocative, poetic.
Walking a fine and delicate line between abstraction and stark reality, Don shares an elegance and mystery which made ME see differently.

Rock of Ages Quarry, Abandoned Section 2012 43.5″ x 29″

Industrial debris usually makes me cringe. Scars made by humans mark mountains and litter the landscape around the globe. They are often are irreparable, insensitive and just plain ugly.

Not so in Don’s Quarry series. His work fills the gallery with a haunting geometry, somehow finding serenity and beauty in an industrial landscape. The photos are quite large, with a strong presence.

The way into the future is on a path created by seeing differently:  looking at the same old stuff and putting it together with new insights, new connections, new possibilities. Like Albert Einstein and Andrew Goldsworthy.

We need more artists like Don Ross.

Marr and Gordon Quarry, Detail 201 43.5″ x 29″

If you missed the show at the Jackson Gallery in the Middlebury Town Hall, fear not, you have two more chances.
It will be on display at the Castleton Downtown Gallery  May 15 – June 15. The opening reception is  on May 31 6-8 pm in the Center Street Alley. Free and open to the public.
Or this summer at the Marble Museum in Proctor, Vermont. Check their website for dates.

Or check Don’s website to see more of his ethereal and glowing work.

 

Maya- the language of Art

Tikal, Guatemala

Why does this steamy tropical world thrill me?

Perhaps it’s the mystery of a once grand civilization whose history is expressed in enigmatic images… In art.

A painting from a Mayan codex.The delicacy of their line drawings is exquisite. There are birds everywhere.

All that remains is their art. Their architecture. Their monuments. The mysterious glyphs.

But even that the jungle has claimed. Buried in centuries of layers of leaf litter turned to soil only the diligent digging of archeologists has revealed the little that has been explored.
Towering stone stairways rise above the canopy of tangled rainforest, capped with temples and carved facades. What do they tell us?

A Frieze carved into the side of a pyramid at Xunantinich, Belize.

They speak of ancient power, of many hands working to create a monument marking their place in history.  A platform reaching for  the stars, for the Gods. A place for prayer, for offerings, for sacrifice.

I find their frieze imagery hard to interpret… complex abstractions with one mask juxtaposed on another. Glyphs are interspersed with other symbols.

Burial figurine from Jaina island

Further study reveals a tender side to their work. Many small sculptures have been unearthed on the burial island of Jaina on the northwest side of the Yucatan peninsula.

Even though you KNOW that many have been here before there is an exhilarating sense of personal discovery.

A thousand thanks. (Random Acts of Kindness)

While I was in St. Johnsbury taking my show down last month I  lost a very important posession: my journal. I was juggling a salad-to-go and another notebook and didn’t hear it hit the pavement. It’s a moleskine notebook in which I record MANY things- to do lists, affirmations, gratitudes, etc.

It also serves as my wallet with all of the things a wallet might have tucked into the little pocket in the back. I paint the outside to make it truly mine. This one has a white winged dove on the cover. They have beautiful red eyes surrounded by a surprisingly bright blue. I decorated the back with hand cut petroglyph stencils.
I didn’t discover that it was missing until I was 2 hours down the road. I immediately called the places I’d been, to no avail. No one had seen it. I called again in the morning only to discover that there had been 5 inches of snow so it was buried and was likely to be swept into the gutter.

For some reason I didn’t panic, even though it was missing for nearly a week. I suspended my credit cards rather than cancelling. I was sad but not driven crazy.

Then it arrived in the mail in an anonymous bank envelope that could have been sent by anyone. Intact. No name.
No way to thank whoever the kind person was who sent it back to me.
So here is a random thank you, to all those people who choose to perform random acts of kindness and restore our faith in humankind!

And to the very wonderful person who sent my journal back!

 

Surprises in Surprising Places

St. Johnsbury, Vermont is in what Vermonters call the “North East Kingdom.”
It’s waaaaaay up in the northeast corner of the state, pretty far from just about anywhere.
I was there recently to take down a show of my work in the North East Kingdom Artisan’s Guild that had been up for 6 weeks.

The library is elegant, warm, and cozy all at the same time. I love the many spiral staircases.

On this trip I had the opportunity to visit the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, which is the town’s public library. It was a gift from business magnate Horace Fairbanks  whose family invented and manufactured the world’s first platform scale.

In 1871 he gave the building to the town of St. Johnsbury with the goal of  creating a center of culture for his town. It is certainly a success!

The library a treasure and a refuge. And in addition to the elegant architecture of the library, there is also an impressive collection of 18th and 19th century art, including some luminous examples of the Hudson River School.

Domes of Yosemite, Albert Bierstadt, oil on canvas 10′ x 15′

If you have a chance to get up there, don’t miss the Albert Bierstadt painting, Domes of Yosemite. He truly communicates the inspiring sense of vastness that the west imparts. Of course, if you are there you won’t miss it. It dominates the space built especially for it. I love that there is an alcove made especially for art. There is even a special balcony from which you can view the painting at a greater distance.

Be sure to give yourself plenty of time for contemplation. There is much to see!

Things come in Threes

There was a snowy drizzle while we hiked. Here we are standing quite a ways out on the frozen lake.

I know it’s a silly superstition, but sometimes things seem to come in threes. Yesterday I was hiking in our Vermont forest with my son who is visiting from Hawaii.

(We had three very nice hikes while he was here.)

It’s just wrong to answer a phone while hiking in the woods, so I let a call go to voice mail while  we kept on our way around the ever-expanding beaver pond. The call was from the Brandon Artists Guild, and I was quite sure that they were reminding me to bring in work for a new show which was due that day.

Conversation II © lizamyers
fired and painted clay

Later I dropped off three  watercolors for the show. But rather than a reminder to a deliquent artist to bring in work, I discovered that the call had been to let me know that three of my smaller works had sold that morning. One clay wall piece: Conversation, and two small 5″ x 5″ acrylic paintings, quite different in style and medium from the clay wall piece.

Eggs with Floating Ribbon
© lizamyers
acrylic on canvas 5″ x 5″

I was told that the patron had looked at and loved all three works which were hanging on opposite sides of the gallery.  She was trying to decide which one to purchase.

When she  realized that they were all three works of one artist (me), she decided that was a sign. She had to have them.

So there are three good things.

Now I’d better head to the easel and finish three new paintings.

In Search of Transparency: Watching Paint Dry

Last weekend I did a demonstration at the Copley Society’s Co/So Gallery at 158 Newbury Street in Boston. It was  fun.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on the layered glazes that  I use for backgrounds, so the demo I gave was about creating and pouring glazes. My goal is to create a unique sense of intensity within the surface of the image. As if the canvas itself has a transparent depth.

Watching paint dry at the Copley Society of Art

It’s probably not exactly the best thing to demonstrate since you have to spend a lot of time watching paint dry.

Really.

For me though, it’s fascinating. I pay very close attention to the layers as they are settling so that I can spatter and alter them thinking of composition and energy. Watching paint dry can’t be very exciting for most people, though it is for me. I did bring along many examples of work in various stages. I also brought different acrylic mediums; opaque and transparent crackles, gloss, mat, thick, thin… from Golden Paints. The variety of carefully calibrated mediums creates the opportunity to control the spontaneity of the poured colors.
Click here to learn more about Golden.
I also use metallic oxide powders in several colors.
If you’d like to see more images Co/So has a Facebook page with a lot of images of the presentation. It’s a great gallery with an excellent location. Go to Boston and take a look for yourself!

 

How to Hang an Art Show

Opening at the North East Kingdom Artisans Guild in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Be sure to get well focused photos! (not like this one!)

It was a brilliant, bitter cold day last Friday as I drove north to hang my show in the Back Room Gallery in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The show is at the North East Kingdom Artisans Guild. It will be up until February 28, 2013, so tell your friends and stop by! It’s quite near Burke Mountain Ski Resort.

Somehow I packed 36 paintings in Georgia, my burnt-orange Honda Element. I hung 34 of them.  As I drove north I thought about what it takes to hang an art show.

#1 Art (Do the work)  Many hours, days, weeks and months of work, if not years, go into preparing for a show. The paintings for this show are selected from the last several years. I didn’t bring the most recent work that I had done at the Wurlitzer Foundation last spring since it very southwestern. And St. Johnsbury is VERY northeastern. Only an hour or so from the Canadian border.

#2 Let people know! (publicize!) Social media such as twitter, facebook, google+ and blogging are all great ways to get the word out. Snail mail cards are lovely reminders as well. Though they are more costly, they last much longer.

#3 Transport the work. (get it there!) Loading my vehicle is always a laughable event. I treat my car like one big box, packing paintings vertically aligned, with mat board and bubble wrap layered between them. Often I put the paintings in felt bags which I sewed especially for this purpose. This show was a particularly challenging packing job since I took an 8′ painting. This made visibility marginal so I had to drive with extra caution.

I began hanging with the hot colored paintings. The long painting of two ravens on barbed wire is titled “Conversation” That’s the 8′ one that made driving a challenge on my way north.

#4 Hang the work (get it on the wall!)
There are several alternative approaches to determining the best layout for your show. You can hang the work chronologically, thematically or as I did in this case, chromatically. I grouped the hot-colored images in one area, then transitioned the colors from warm to cool around the room.

#5 Be there (at the opening!) The only way to meet potential patrons is to be there at the opening. Especially if you live a distance away, which in this case I did. And it feels great to hear the comments. Usually they are quite positive. At this opening a total stranger walked in and announced (jokingly) to everyone that he had done all the paintings. I congratulated him on the great work. It was very funny when he found out I was the artist. And there were several people who had driven quite a distance to see the show. Had I not been there at the opening I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet them.

#6 Record the event. (Take lots of photos!) I already have high quality jpgs and images of all of the paintings individually but I am kicking myself for not taking more photos of this particular show installation. And even more so for not checking the quality of the ones I took while I was there.

I’m sure there are steps which I’m skipping. If there’s something crucial you’d like to suggest, please add it in comments!

Now it’s back to the studio for me…