Martha Kelly Art

My partner was digging around on YouTube and found this video of me talking about My Own Places, the landscape exhibition I had at Dixon Gallery and Gardens in 2015. They invited me as a current landscape artist to do a solo show as a complement to their Southern Impressionism exhibit. It was the highlight of my career so far, and it was fun to revisit talking about the way I paint and carve prints and how those two media differ from each other. And how keeping a sketchbook has radically broadened the work that I do.

We had one nice weather day left yesterday. Really half a one. I took my show down this week, and I’ve been doing a ton of paperwork and the business side of working for myself, so I decided to go rogue with my bicycle yesterday. I have a milk crate on the back of it that will carry a nice amount of art gear, so I packed my sketching things, a lunch, and my current book and cycled out the Greenline to Shelby Farms park. I sat on a bench in the sun by my favorite small lake, which I had to myself except for a flock of ducks on it and a herd of buffalo behind me. I saw two great herons, ate my lunch and read, did this sketch, ran through the visitors’ center with a great gift shop (as well as other necessities) and cycled home. It was sprinkling most of the ride, but not badly enough to be unpleasant. The round trip was 25 miles, and it’s the first time I’ve done it on my own, which felt great. I really enjoy that protected bike path, almost completely out of traffic. It was a perfect day before I get on the run again. I’m grateful to be able to take a flexible day with the weather and just go when it’s nice and work other times to make up for it.

I pretty much spent the day on Broad Avenue on Saturday. It’s one of Memphis’s newer art districts, and they were having an art walk/festival. The Memphis Urban Sketchers met up at 10 at City and State, the coffee shop at the far end, and beautifully, my visiting sister went with me. One of her college friends is one of my sketching friends, and we had a ball. It was coldish to start, so we hung out at City and State a good bit. Above is a sketch I had done there a couple of weeks ago but not posted. Below are the people studies I did while we were all hanging out talking.

I was working in gray fountain pen and watercolor. I enthusiastically put down a bunch of wet paint in my regular art journal (5x5”), so I switched over to the 8” square one after and did a larger more connected spread. Elizabeth was wearing stripes, which are always such fun to draw. Vicki and Nancy were sitting with her, and I caught Nancy with a brush in her mouth as she worked.

All of this was accompanied by chai. Very civilized sketching. Afterwards a group of us walked all up and down the street, checking out the shops and art shows. The last three bought fantastic bowls of paella and sat out in the sunshine eating and visiting. It was an excellent day.

I visited family over the weekend and also did something of a Midwest art museum tour. Back in college I had taken one summer sculpture class in Omaha and visited the Joslyn, but my memory of it was hazy at best. It was a total delight. A gorgeous variegated pink stone building housing a beautifully curated collection. We had just that morning seen a piece on Helen Frankenthaler on one of the Sunday morning shows. My art knowledge of mid 20th century and beyond, especially in abstract work, is pretty sketchy. I had seen her being mentioned various places and seen a piece or two, but beyond that knew nothing. This monumental piece gobsmacked me in person. It’s the only one I managed to do a sketch of, but I was so glad to have that time to sit with it. Later one of my honorary nieces, which is how I think of several different daughters of people dear to me, wanted to do a collage project. I had told her that I’m always drawn to collage, but I don’t feel I do it well. So we sat down together with my journal page from the museum and each constructed at least an homage to the Frankenthaler piece we had seen together. It was great fun to do, if nothing else.

Here are a couple of other pieces I loved at the Joslyn. I’ve always been a total sucker for Dutch still life paintings, and they had a lovely breakfast piece — well on the fancy end of that category. Pieter Claesz’s super simple ones are my very favorites, but I really enjoyed this one from 1630 by Jacob Fopsen van Es. I was also struck by a Madonna with Botticelli/Fra Lippo Lippi resonances by Lorenzo di Credi, c. 1490. The detail is exquisite. I’m going to flood this blog post with too many photos, so I’ll put up another couple of favorites in a post to follow. Too good not to share.

It's Inktober on social media for artists, and I've been covered up in Pink Palace Crafts Fair preparations lately, but I'm also trying to do an ink sketch or two every day. I took advantage of the gorgeous weather lately and rode my bike out to Shelby Farms park on the Green Line the other day. It was glorious. One of these times I need to sketch the buffalo, but that day I just did the Clark Tower off across the fields. I love my milk crate that carries sketching equipment (and snacks) as I get to new places I couldn't easily get to under my own power before. I'm new to biking, being a seriously late bloomer, but I'm having a ball.

Today I rode out to Dixon. It's one of my favorite destinations, so I'd been wanting to find a route I feel good about taking. It was fun to get there on my bike, see the current exhibitions, do a few sketches, and ride home by way of Burke's bookstore. A happy day.

I've been painting like crazy since I got home, and I don't tend to push myself to sketch if I'm making art exhaustively in another direction, but I did finally get my sketchbook back out Sunday, and it felt good. I had biked to church and found myself with extra time, since I usually walk instead. I wanted to do a quick sketch of the chapel with the paraments I had sewn a few years ago. It turned into a muddy mess, though. So after church I cycled over to the park to spend a little time before meeting friends for brunch, and I decided to add trees. Trees make everything better. It was fun to sit on the other side of the park than I usually do -- faster to get there on my bicycle.

Then I continued on to Overton Square for jazz brunch at Lafayette's. All three of Di Anne Price's "boyfriends" now play with a guitarist there every Sunday. I so miss Di Anne on piano and singing her songs, but it's good to still have Sunday music with the guys.

I'm slowly scanning in at least my favorites from my sketchbook, so I thought I'd write about my last day. I had finished the work I needed to do there (still lifes for my September show and sketches for a graphic essay I'm planning), so I treated myself with another beautifully quiet morning at the Orsay and lunch at one of my favorite bakeries. It was amazing (and emotional) to stand with this self portrait by Vincent for 45 minutes, practically on my own. Two couples came through, saw it, and left. Otherwise it was just Vincent and me. Usually this piece is five people deep with everyone trying to take selfies. I felt so privileged to spend this quiet time with it. I've been thinking about self portraits a lot, had been doing some of my own (an annual Paris occupation for me) and had already done my study of Berthe Morisot's stunning one. I couldn't catch Vincent's likeness, and the background got a bit too dark, but it was wonderful to look at it deeply as I did the copy.

My friend Beth Rowlett so kindly made me a watercolor kit especially for this kind of sketching. It's attached to a wristband with heavy velcro, so I don't have to juggle the paint box as well as the book and water brush when I'm standing up in a museum. I like to sketch from a bench when I can, but there aren't benches everywhere I want to draw. You can see that I use the left side of the page to test colors or blot my brush as needed.

I also did a copy of a Bonnard painting. One of many things I love about the Orsay is that it has an absolute host of paintings of women and dogs. This one is completely charming, with their heads so intimately together. It speaks of the love in that relationship, and I was missing Mr. Darcy. I'd meant to copy it two or three years ago but hadn't gotten around to it that first summer of spending time here. Then it disappeared. The Orsay rotates paintings regularly. So when it reappeared this summer, I knew I had to take the opportunity.

I had such a good time being back at the Rodin Museum the other day that I returned today. It’s my last couple of days here, and I’m spending them in my favorite museums. I started off at the Orsay and then went over to the Rodin for tea in the garden with my lunch and more sketching. This place always fires me up. I did the top one in my big watercolor sketchbook. I felt like getting out a real brush and really playing. The rest are in my small 5.5” book with the water brush. I sketched my tea because I liked the cute little teapot.

Last was the gray pencil again with watercolor. It’s a fun place to try a bunch of new things, and I really love drawing Rodin’s statues.

I feel like I’ve been neglecting my sketchbook this trip, since I’m working both on the still life show and also on a possible graphic essay about Paris that’s in a bigger watercolor book. So I’ve been trying to lock back in a little lately and do some sketches just for me. It always feels good to come home with a visual record of at least the lovely bits of a trip that I don’t want to forget. In that vein, I sketched at the Rodin Museum where I met my friend Mavis yesterday. It’s one of my favorite places in Paris, but I hadn’t made it there yet this year. We had a lovely catch up, sketched, had tea, and then I stayed a bit after and did more sketching. It’s hard for me to walk out of there having done only one. I’m saving the graphic essay images for later, but here are a couple I did in my journal.

I also went back for my favorite curry at Kapunka, got a sidewalk table a second time, and did another sketch.

Good memories in Paris seem to be a lot about eating. Here’s the galette stand at the Bastille Market.

I came to Paris with the intention of doing a series of gouache still lifes for my September show at Playhouse on the Square. (The opening is lucky Friday the 13th for anyone planning ahead.) I like the depth I can get with gouache, but I’m still learning how it works, and often I find myself thinking it was better two layers ago. I’m going to have to pay attention and try to keep from over fussing. Somewhere along the way, I did a couple of watercolor studies in my sketchbook as studies before doing the gouache, and I really liked the lightness and airy-ness of them. So I’ve ended up doing four watercolors for the show as well.

It’s easy to default into the familiar and comfortable, though, and there was a time when watercolor was incredibly hard going for me. It still is sometimes, but I’m glad I pushed through and got it into my regular tool kit. I gave up on gouache two summers ago and don’t want to do that again, but I am still struggling. I want to do some forest studies with it when I get home, and hopefully that will keep me excited about using it. You can see the two side by side here and decide foe yourself. I think the gouache needs a little more blue in the purple shadows. I’ve got a couple I’ll do a small bit of balancing/retouching on next time I get the paints out. Right now I’ve shifted gears a bit and am painting more out in the city again.