I got to visit an art class this week at Memphis Hebrew Academy. It was delightful to watch the girls' enthusiasm as they leafed through my art journals. I took a bunch of my journals and travel sketchbooks and talked about what keeping these books means for my work and also my happiness. More and more I feel that my job is to spread the good news of keeping a sketch book and show the ease of using a brush pen in daily life. It's a rewarding thing to watch people think, "hey! I can do this!" That also happened recently at a women's retreat. Giving people the tools to express themselves and watching them play is a beautiful compliment to the time I spend at home alone making my own art.
The MHA art teacher Chany Fleischhacker wrote a blog post with more of her lovely photos at http://artbeatofmha.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-visit-from-martha-kelly.html?m=1 I so appreciated the joy in these images.
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Andy is one of my longtime friends and is a truly marvelous musician. I am lucky enough to get to play with him at my jam group when he's off the road. Recently he took a week's break from his nine month touring schedule, and I got to visit with him and his wife Larkin, also a wonderful musician.
Andy played a gig while he was home, and I showed up to listen and did some sketches as well. I'm still playing around with the new watercolor graphite I got in Paris and having fun with it. I'm back home finally and beginning to scan in sketches from the later part of the trip that I haven't yet posted here. I met my parents in Amsterdam, so I had less solo time for keeping up the blog the last few days of the trip. I got to hear Rene Miller and Dede Macchabee (I have no idea how to do accent marks on my American keyboard - sorry, y'all) several times while I was in Paris. They sound great together, with Rene's marvelous blues picking and Dede's 1930's kind of sound. They also look great and are fun to sketch, so I did them several times. Above is my favorite one, in a new watercolor graphite I found in my "local" art supply store that I walk past daily in Paris. I had a great time playing with it. I saw it several days earlier, but the Dutch landscape drawing exhibition (previous blog entry) decided me on going back to try it. Their subtle graphite and wash work was completely alluring. It's a lot of fun. The only thing I don't like is that, since it's graphite, it will press down and rub against the opposite page once you flip over and are drawing on the back of a graphite page. In spite of that, it's quite lovely. As a minor sidetrack to the blog, here's the sketchbook page where I tested it out the first time. I was quite pleased with the cat sketch on the left. Back to Rene and Dede. Here's one in fountain pen and ink wash. A bit cleaner than the graphite but also without the subtler shading. One more in fountain pen and watercolor. Dede wears the most stylish shoes.
It was cloudy and cold most of yesterday, so I was late getting out. Watching snow flurries through the window took away the bit of guilt I had been feeling about my lazy day. But late sunshine and the promise of music lured me out. I walked downtown to stretch my legs, did half a piece in the Place des Voges before I lost the sunshine (I'll go back and finish it soon), and wandered over past the Bastille to see Rene Miller play at La Fontaine, his regular Tuesday cafe gig. The French are a hardy lot. We sat outside despite a high temperature of 40 at best. Those big patio heaters only go so far, but helped. Rene sounded great, and I had fun sketching. Today was beautifully sunny. I did a watercolor of Sainte-Chapelle that I had been wanting to do. I hit the used bookstores for my traditional two thirds through the trip and running low on reading matter run, and I had tea with Audra and a friend of hers who will let me cat sit for her this August on the Left Bank. Delightful. It was a lovely, long walk home from Montparnasse Blvd. to the northern periphique. I stopped partway on my favorite bridge over the Seine and did a quick sketch of the changeable sky. Such a good day.
Here is my favorite photo from the evening. I wish I could have captured that feel in the sketches.
I spent one stellar day in the MFA last week. It started with a harp demonstration in the musical instruments collection. Neat to see the ancient instruments played and the history explained. Of course I sketched. Both the demo and the audience. Most of the rest of the day I just looked at art. The John Singer Sargent room blew me away. I'd seen small reproductions of the huge portrait of the four sisters, but walking into the room with it in person just blew me away. I stood there with tears in my eyes for a good while. If I'd had more time, I would have sketched more, but I wanted to see my main highlights (Sargent, two Constables, Inness and the Hudson River school, a couple of just lovely Pieter Claesz still lifes) thoroughly and deeply. I did take a lunch break in the early afternoon and sketched a bit as a palette cleanser. I also wrote down several quotes that really grabbed me from the tags. The presentation in the museum was stellar. Such a pleasant, light, open place to see the art. I loved it. I could spend days there. I did one more quick sketch at the end because, after illustration Revelation several years ago, I was intrigued by this Medieval madonna who was conflated with the pregnant madonna on the crescent moon in Revelation.
My second assignment for the Memphis News came out in the paper while I was gone (and I'm grateful to FB friends for posting it for me to see). I had seen at the last minute that the Mighty Souls Brass Band, one of my favorite local bands, was going to play at Dixon Gallery and Gardens. It was the perfect chance to enjoy some good weather and give a simultaneous shout out to two of my favorite Memphis institutions.
You can see their story posted online here. I also did a second sketch while I was out there. This was my warm up, with the watercolor coming afterwards. I've gotten to several dances while I've been in New England. It's such a hotbed for national bands and callers. I've seen Notorious and Lisa Greenleaf at local dances. Just amazing. These are the people we fly down south once a year for a special weekend. And the people have been incredibly welcoming. I've never walked into a dance hall not knowing a single dancer before. People have asked me to dance right at the start, kept asking me, talked to me at breaks, and truly made me welcome. I've even very grateful. I got a banjo lesson from Larry Unger and a ride down to the waltz in Connecticut he was playing yesterday. He also let me draw his unbelievable banjo wall. For my lesson I got to play a 1903 White Layde, and then he let me noodle around on his 1870's fretless with gut strings. Both were a joy to play. The waltz was three hours, so I did sat out a few and did a little sketching. Each half page is one tine's worth of sketching, so about 4 minutes each.
In the meantime, I'm grateful to Audrey and Larry for a marvelous weekend in their company and for the music they played in my house.
I am both listening to and sketching an awful lot of music lately, which is a lovely state of affairs. Nine days after hosting my first ever house concert, I hosted my second as well. My friends and one of my favorite local bands the Side Street Steppers had musical friends coming through town, and I have a bigger front bigger front room than they do. So they brought some more great music to my house and opened the show (above). Their friend Putnam Smith, who not only plays banjo but also owns a printing press, brought his band the Swamp Brothers. Banjo plus letterpress was all that was needed to talk me into hosting them. I got their name wrong in the sketch below. Putnam was going through all the iterations they had tried along the way, and when I'm drawing I don't always process everything verbal going on around me, so I ended up with Swamp Boys instead in the sketch... I did a little audience sketching as well, though with three bands in the living room, fully half the audience was also part of the show. That's Ben Hunter on the left and Christian and Vera of the Steppers on the right. The third act, amazingly playing in my own house, had just won the International Blues Challenge that week. It's a huge competition here in Memphis each year, with two winners, a solo/duo category and a band category. Out of all the musicians who descend from around the world. I was delighted some traditional blues (fiddle, acoustic guitar, harmonica) had won the contest this year and even more delighted to have them play in my home. Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons put on quite a show. Interestingly, both groups have a printing connection, and I managed to barter for all their cds. Putnam letter presses all his cd sleeves, and Joe's mom is a gorgeous block printer and did all the art for their album. I'd love to do some album artwork sometime. Putnam really liked my recent favorite print, "the Waltz," so my favorite waltz partner and I have now gone to live in Maine. Joe and Ben wanted some letterpress cards, so I got their cd as well, and an invitation to visit the art space they run in Seattle. It was a lovely evening of music and art.
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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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