I dropped my phlox print off yesterday for an exhibition at Dixon Gallery and Gardens. They're having a retrospective show for artists who have exhibited in the Mallory/Wurtzburger gallery there. I am delighted to have work hanging in that museum again. The opening is this Thursday, January 19, from 6-8pm with music and food. The show will be up through April 9 to complement a show of current American art by the Crystal Bridges museum.
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Here is my sketch from the same painting that I did in the exhibition 13 years ago. I did a watercolor study for this oil on paper piece several weeks ago, but I hadn't had time to get to the actual painting what with Christmas shows, commissions, and the trip to Washington. It feels great to paint again. I drew this out two nights ago and started painting yesterday morning. It's close to done. I'll look at it again with fresh eyes in the morning. This is the fourth in my series of "woman alone in a large world" series of paintings. The series started in Paris with me sitting on a couch, dwarfed by the enormous two story window behind me filled with night sky and stars. I've been examining my life lately, thinking about direction and how to live to be happy and make the most of my time. Self examination tends toward the literal for me. It is almost always accompanied by self portraits. I've intended these to be something of a valentine for others also living singly. This is perhaps the most alone feeling, without dog or stars or banjo, but I included one of my favorite paintings I've done, one that was in the Dixon show last year, to be a window out into the wider world and also to have my abiding vocation present in the piece. Every time I do one of these, I hear from someone who is touched and sees him or herself in this place as well, so it's a kind of "solidarity" moment for me to reach out to others. Society gives us romantic couples as the only possible, successful way to live, and that's a lovely thing. But I have also found great freedom and creativity in living alone, as well as periodic lonely days, and I love the independence to pursue my art full tilt. I think it's good to offer different visions of acceptable ways to live, even if there is also great joy in finding a partner. Alice Steinbach (Without Reservations), who wrote a middle aged version of Eat, Pray, Love ten years before Gilbert's book came out, said that given demographics, all women should learn to live alone. That is so very true. My grandmother married at 30, which was quite old for her era, was happily married for 50+ years, and still had another 20 years on her own after my grandfather died, because she lived to 104. Here are a couple of the earlier pieces in the series. I think my spring show at WKNO will be self portraits, interpreted somewhat loosely. They seem to be where my head is at the moment.
I'm still scrambling around with my show a bit, since the opening is tomorrow night (Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, 5-6:30pm), but I did manage a bit of sketching. The weather is fixing to change, so I took yesterday afternoon to go hang out in the forest with my sketchbook and drink in the last of the gorgeous weather. It's good to have the flexibility to do that and reorder my priorities as bit as the weather calls to me. And it was fruitful. I might try an oil from this first one. We'll see. Then tonight I went to Dixon to see Wayne Edge's new show and hear some of my favorite jazz guys play at the reception. I couldn't resist sketching them too.
publicly invited Mr. Darcy in a facebook post to come in for the interview as well. He's got three rescues of his own and knows that Mr. Darcy is my constant art companion. So we both went in this morning to the studio.
What I realized today (aside from what a southern accent I have, which hits me annually as I do this interview for my big show of the year) is that my brain really closes one book artistically and moves straight into something else. I came home from Paris and spent a good bit of time painting and making prints from the landscape watercolors that I did there, but in the two weeks since the show got on the walls, I've completely shifted over to this new series I'm doing, and that's what was in my brain to talk about. Fortunately the first one of the self portraits was in the show, so it was a legit topic of conversation. And talking about the trip and my art process gave me things to say that weren't "Hey, I did this specific piece that you can't see because it's radio!" So here's the interview, about 15 minutes, for anyone who's curious. My show is fully up, signs and everything, my reception is this Friday (Nov. 18th, 5-6:30 at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis), so I went dancing to celebrate. And to restore a little equilibrium after the week that was difficult for me and so many of my friends. It was marvelous to spend a weekend with sisters and other special people and to get my joy on dancing. Usually dance weekends are the only time I completely walk away from art and don't even sketch, but I did do just a couple at Noodle in Decatur, Georgia, while having lunch with our crew. The laughing Buddha above was too delightful to ignore, and I also loved the warm lamps dancing above the table tops. Plus it's nice to have those good memories woven into my art journal.
One of the seriously fun things about having a printing press is getting to do your own signs. Even doing the most mundane things, I somehow feel connected to centuries' worth of printers setting type and taking power into their own hands, all the way back to Guttenberg and the brave Reformers daring to print Bibles in the vernacular for people to study for themselves. Nothing so weighty tonight, but I did make signs for my Celestial Paris show at Playhouse on the Square. I've been allowing myself a bit of a soft opening since the reception isn't till Friday, Nov. 18 (5-6:30), and there is no play currently on at the theater either. I've been kind of wrung out the last few weeks, so taking my time has been almost mandatory. I'm definitely more scattered than I usually am hanging a show, but I'm proud of the work, and the last signs will be up soon. I grouped the show in overall areas of Paris (and used the back of the gallery to also hang a handful of my Amsterdam watercolors from the spring), so I made signs to help orient people in the general areas of the city. I also made a "Je suits Charlie" sign, referring to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. That really rocked me. It was not only in a city I love, but it was an attack against artists for making the art that they do. I'm worried about the move away from tolerance and free speech across the world. That attack felt deeply personal to me. Again, the printing press resonates. So many people have been killed over time for having the audacity to say what they think in print. Presses continue to feel dangerous (the one I have was attacked not many decades ago before being restored), and making typeset art about Charlie Hebdo felt right. I couldn't mount a Paris show at this time without trying to stand with the people there, at least in a small way. In the spirit of printed words having power, and while I had the press set up for type and the ink out, I made myself a sign as well. Liz Gilbert often says, "Onward!" about marching forward in life, and the simplicity and force of it appeal to me. Sometimes putting things in print, even if I know I'm the one who has done the typesetting, feels authoritative. I make reminder signs and hang them up for myself when I feel stuck sometimes, and it is definitely a season for me to pick myself up and move forward. So a sign will be a good reminder hanging in my workspace somewhere.
I just hung Celestial Paris, my show at Playhouse on the Square through the end of the year. It's a whole passel of my on site watercolors I did in Paris, plus oils on paper and a handful of carved prints based on them. Whitney Jo always gives me the huge wall because she knows I'll get obsessive and fill it up. Six weeks' worth of beautiful weather in Paris certainly helped that. I hung in groupings of different areas around the city, and sky studies were an ongoing theme of the summer. Here are the block prints I did. I meant to do more but got distracted by the oils instead, for the first time in a long time. Skies are just fun in oil, though. And here is my set of sky studies with Montparnasse. I was playing with the idea of 25 Views of Montparnasse, loosely following Hokusai's Mt. Fiji project, showing the tower from different angles and distances. There are also plenty from my apartment window with the solid form acting as a nice foil for all the different stunning skies I saw. There is a small set of Amsterdam watercolors I haven't gotten on the wall yet (with the reception still a couple of weeks away and no play going on at the moment, I've allowed myself a "soft opening" at the end of a very busy month), but those will also be up in the next few days. The reception will be Friday, November 18, 5-6:30 pm.
My work for the Daily News has given me a leg up on the calendar this year. Here is one of Jerry's SnoCones I did for them over the summer. I'm laying out both Memphis and Paris calendars this week and will have them available for order soon. I'll have a bunch of full page watercolors like this one, but following in last year's footsteps, I'll also include a few more sketchbook feeling pages as well. Here's my musician one for this year. A sketch of Breeze Coyolle's band on top and Le Tumulte Noir on the bottom. I also think I'm going to be a little self indulgent and include my show from last year at the Dixon. It was such a highlight for me that I want to just keep savoring it a little bit. I'll probably make that one March for my birthday. I'll post the full set of images and get them up for order soon.
My next to last day in Paris was a lovely transition for the next bit of my trip. I had seen a poster for an exhibition of Dutch landscape drawings, so I set off to find it. There's a Dutch institute in Paris, which I am delighted to know about. They had a gorgeous landscape exhibit, and also a show of recent Dutch printmaker Jozef Van Ruysdevelt. I did two sketches (looking at skies) in the landscape show. Huge, glorious watercolors and wash drawings. I didn't draw in the print exhibit, but I did buy the catalog, which did my suitcase no favors at all. Given that the language choices were French and Dutch, I figured it would not be available at home. I also took a picture of his sketchbooks displayed in a glass case, which gave me a thrilling flashback to my Dixon show last fall. And I love seeing people's sketchbooks now that I'm having such fun keeping my own. |
online store Martha Kelly is an artist and illustrator who lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee. Get occasional studio email updates. Categories
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