- Published on
I did a Valentine watercolor commission for the current owners of Mayor Crump's house here in Memphis. For music lovers, this was the Mr. Crump of W.C. Handy's song "Mr. Crump down allow..." You can see the historical marker over to the right. I love our music history here in town, and Andy Cohen had sung the song just the night before at my regular old time jam. (Which becomes slightly less old time when Andy's home from touring and rares back with occasional blues songs.)
I had such fun thinking about those connections that I walked over and painted Boss Crump's statue in Overton Park the next day. I was trying a new marker, and it got a bit muddy, but for the curious, here he is.
I had such fun thinking about those connections that I walked over and painted Boss Crump's statue in Overton Park the next day. I was trying a new marker, and it got a bit muddy, but for the curious, here he is.
Here's a wider view of the statue from several years ago. This corner is a part of my regular walk.
The song was written during an election, and Handy had been asked to write a song for, instead of against, Mr. Crump. After the song came out, Boss asked him about it, and Handy told him he'd gotten a better offer from the opposition. Boss asked him how much he himself had offered Handy and then how much his opponent had, and when he heard the higher figure, he reportedly said, "You did right." And now it's his name that is immortalized in the song, so it worked out well for him in the end.
Here's the statue of W.C. Handy on Beale Street.
Here's the statue of W.C. Handy on Beale Street.
- Published on
I hung a show last Thursday, just before heading out dancing for the weekend with a nice feeling of accomplishment. It's at Memphis Theological Seminary, which very kindly invited me to exhibit some prints there. (Chaplain Tiffany McClung not only offered me this chance but also helped me hang the show, which was absolutely lovely hospitality for a solo artist. Four hands do so much better than two.)
I do art for churches to use in their bulletins as a part of my career, but I don't often show this work. It doesn't really fit with my landscapes and ends up being a bit of a left handed step-child sometimes. I was delighted to have a place to show two different series of prints that hadn't been exhibited before.
The first is my Girlhood/Womanhood series. These prints began as an illustration for a blessing written by Kendra Hotz for the baby girl of friends of hers.
I do art for churches to use in their bulletins as a part of my career, but I don't often show this work. It doesn't really fit with my landscapes and ends up being a bit of a left handed step-child sometimes. I was delighted to have a place to show two different series of prints that hadn't been exhibited before.
The first is my Girlhood/Womanhood series. These prints began as an illustration for a blessing written by Kendra Hotz for the baby girl of friends of hers.
I enjoyed doing the girls, and the series made me think about what it means to be a woman as well. I've done several prints about women, claiming sacred and sexual space, as well as the traditional role of motherhood, as spaces of power for women. I'd like to add to this series as I have time and continue to think about women in the world.
I ended up adding a few tiny monotypes I also had kicking around and orphaned. They're based on family snapshots, and they're 3x5 to 4x6. Putting them up makes me want to do more of these.
I ended up adding a few tiny monotypes I also had kicking around and orphaned. They're based on family snapshots, and they're 3x5 to 4x6. Putting them up makes me want to do more of these.
My second series of prints in this show (there are two different hallways, upstairs and down, so I was able to have two discrete sets of work) is my Easter psalm series from last year. I have done several different sets of Lenten works, and last year I decided to mark the joyful season and remind us to celebrate the fulness of joy as well as penitence and self denial. It was fun to see them all up on the wall together.
There will be an opening Tuesday evening, March 3rd, and the show hangs until April 8th.
There will be an opening Tuesday evening, March 3rd, and the show hangs until April 8th.
- Published on
The Memphis Urban Sketchers met at the Cleveland Street Flea Market on Saturday. It's a funny little indoor flea market, right in my neighborhood, that has its own community inside. There are not only booths with regulars manning (or, more often, womaning) them, but a cafe and a barber shop tucked in the back also. One of our urban sketchers works there part-time and made us very welcome, with drinks and snacks laid on. It's an almost overwhelming place visually. I did all three sketches from one chair, near a window, instead of wandering around too much and having too many options.
I was playing with minimal color choices that morning. I liked my sketch above with just the sky colored in. (Watercolor and a Stabilo grey fine liner.) My second one I tried to pick out mostly the blue and yellow in the hat display, but I wasn't happy with the watercolor splashes in that one.
I was playing with minimal color choices that morning. I liked my sketch above with just the sky colored in. (Watercolor and a Stabilo grey fine liner.) My second one I tried to pick out mostly the blue and yellow in the hat display, but I wasn't happy with the watercolor splashes in that one.
I switched over to Faber Castell markers, also with a Stabilo fine liner, for the last sketch. I've had better luck with them in the streamlined color sketches. Also I've been working a lot in watercolor lately, and I find I lose my touch with the markers if I don't use them regularly. This seemed like a good opportunity to play with them again.
Both this sketch and the scene itself reminded me of a brocante (French for antique/flea market) I sketched in my neighborhood in Paris, so I scanned it in for comparison. It was one of the sketches from that trip I was really happy with.
- Published on
Playhouse on the Square is currently producing The Rocky Horror Show with the absolutely freakin' amazing Jerre Dye as Frank-n-furter. If you are within a day's drive of Memphis, run, do not walk, to see this production.
I grew up with the movie version. My more adventurous sister was in the live local cast that acted it out underneath the screen every Friday at midnight when we were in high school, so I spent some time there with Tim Curry et al.
Much as I love Tim in that role, Jerre is jaw dropping. He manages to completely make a cult classic his own, which seems like it would be intimidating, and he beautifully shows the instability and mercurial changes of the character. He is funny and heartbreaking and totally rocks his corsets.
The cast as a whole is marvelous, and the choreography and physicality are much more complex than in the movie. I also loved the Greek chorus effect of the ever-present Transylvanians.
I grew up with the movie version. My more adventurous sister was in the live local cast that acted it out underneath the screen every Friday at midnight when we were in high school, so I spent some time there with Tim Curry et al.
Much as I love Tim in that role, Jerre is jaw dropping. He manages to completely make a cult classic his own, which seems like it would be intimidating, and he beautifully shows the instability and mercurial changes of the character. He is funny and heartbreaking and totally rocks his corsets.
The cast as a whole is marvelous, and the choreography and physicality are much more complex than in the movie. I also loved the Greek chorus effect of the ever-present Transylvanians.
The show begins before the curtain with the chorus as zombie ushers roaming around in the "abandoned theater" the show takes place in. They dance creakily in the aisles, interact with the audience, occasionally sit in laps.
At right is my only sketch from my first viewing of the show, when I went with friends. Last night I went back to sketch more seriously.
They did an absolutely beautiful job with the opening and closing song "Science Fiction Double Feature," which I came home still singing and dancing to in my kitchen, which greatly confused my dog.
Ok, I'm a total fan girl, but I just have to say it again. JERRE DYE.
I was drawing quickly with just the light from the stage, light sometimes brighter than at other times, so there are some smudges and whatnot that happened. And drawing people is never my strength at the best of times, but I had fun trying.
I was too pumped to go to bed immediately after I got home, and there was a gorgeous moon rising outside my window, so I did one more page before I went to bed.
- Published on
I've been sketching Mr. Darcy a good bit this week. He's my favorite subject right now, and it's a good way for me to get loose and do some quicker sketches. He's also usually right there and handy for drawing.
I'm also playing with a couple of new materials this week. I have a new pen (above) and I also bought a couple of Derwent's Inktense watercolor pencil to test (below).
- Published on
I'm continuing to try to have a sketchbook with me at (almost) all times and to use small bits of time to do quick sketches. Above is one from Cafe Eclectic, when I got there a few minutes early for lunch with my friend Meghan.
Below are two recent theater outings. Opera Memphis recently put on Hansel and Gretel, with sets designed by marvelous Memphis artist Michelle Duckworth. Her fairy tale style is a perfect fit for set design, especially for a fairy tale opera. I love that Ned Canty, the newish head of Opera Memphis, is forging connections across art disciplines. He has added so much richness to the company.
Below are two recent theater outings. Opera Memphis recently put on Hansel and Gretel, with sets designed by marvelous Memphis artist Michelle Duckworth. Her fairy tale style is a perfect fit for set design, especially for a fairy tale opera. I love that Ned Canty, the newish head of Opera Memphis, is forging connections across art disciplines. He has added so much richness to the company.
Then last night Meghan and her husband Boris and I went to The Rocky Horror Show at Playhouse on the Square. The fabulous Jerre Dye was Frank-n-furter, and he totally rocked the show. It was marvelous. I was too busy enjoying it to sketch much, but I did do a quick one of one of the zombie theater ushers before the show started.
- Published on
I am absolutely delighted to announce here that I will have a solo show at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens this fall. They are having a show of Southern Impressionism as their headline exhibition and have asked me to create a show of southern landscapes to harmonize with it. The show will hang from November 1, 2015 to January 3, 2016.
For non-Memphians, Dixon is one of two local art museums that not only has a lovely collection of its own but also headlines major shows. They just finished a large exhibition of Rodin sculptures and opened a British painting collection, which I can't wait to see. Being invited to have a show there is a career moment for me.
It's also beautiful timing. I had just been feeling that as much as I love traveling and painting in other beautiful spots that it is time for me to get back to my roots as a painter. I spent a number of years painting our lovely local landscape of rolling fields and spreading oaks and hoping to help people here see our own places with fresh and appreciative eyes.
My favorite painter is John Constable, who declined to do the grand tour to Italy and chose instead of paint his father's mill, his path to school, the places he lived later with his own family. I have read his biographies and a chunk of his letters (there are many), and his practice of painting outdoors (he influenced the French on that point), doing sky studies, and painting the landscape of his home have greatly influenced my own practices as a painter. He wrote, "Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate 'my careless boyhood' with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful."
My Dixon show will pay homage to Constable and be called "My Own Places." It will be prints and paintings that prominently feature my family's farm, where I first began painting, and Overton Park, where I walk daily and paint often. Above is the first print I've created, a view of the Old Forest in Overton Park from across the lake. It's too far out to know what exactly will be included in this show, but this is where I'm starting.
For non-Memphians, Dixon is one of two local art museums that not only has a lovely collection of its own but also headlines major shows. They just finished a large exhibition of Rodin sculptures and opened a British painting collection, which I can't wait to see. Being invited to have a show there is a career moment for me.
It's also beautiful timing. I had just been feeling that as much as I love traveling and painting in other beautiful spots that it is time for me to get back to my roots as a painter. I spent a number of years painting our lovely local landscape of rolling fields and spreading oaks and hoping to help people here see our own places with fresh and appreciative eyes.
My favorite painter is John Constable, who declined to do the grand tour to Italy and chose instead of paint his father's mill, his path to school, the places he lived later with his own family. I have read his biographies and a chunk of his letters (there are many), and his practice of painting outdoors (he influenced the French on that point), doing sky studies, and painting the landscape of his home have greatly influenced my own practices as a painter. He wrote, "Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate 'my careless boyhood' with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful."
My Dixon show will pay homage to Constable and be called "My Own Places." It will be prints and paintings that prominently feature my family's farm, where I first began painting, and Overton Park, where I walk daily and paint often. Above is the first print I've created, a view of the Old Forest in Overton Park from across the lake. It's too far out to know what exactly will be included in this show, but this is where I'm starting.
- Published on
I'm trying my very first print on black paper. A friend with a great eye for art nudged me in that direction a while ago, wondering what a different block of mine would look like printed in white ink on black paper.
I didn't try that one, but the comment planted a seed, and I started this block soon after. This is only the first proof. I did some more refining this evening.
Below is the green block, printed first.
Then I had to carve the pattern block, which took a bit longer than I first thought. Sometimes the simpler designs leave more scope for pattern as you go, which can take longer than a more detailed drawing to start with.
I'm still trying to get the ink lightness just right on the dark paper. More proofs to come.
- Published on
I've been enjoying the gorgeous weather by taking Mr. Darcy out to the country to sketch the last couple of days. Here are the first day's results.
And here's my boy keeping me company while I work. I do love having a buddy with me.
- Published on
It was a gorgeous January afternoon --- sunny and mid 50's -- and my regular forest buddy got taken to the farm by my dad, so I decided to go down and sketch by the river instead. I wanted to try some new Tombow pens (above) and visit a tree my friend Matt Matthews had photographed (below). See his marvelous photo here.
I did a couple of very quick watercolor sketches with Stabilo pen as a base, and I did a marker sketch of a nifty driftwood sculpture I came across. Gorgeous day. Tomorrow I'm heading to the country to paint.
