Ocean Waves

Life has conspired to keep me from the beach and those waves this spring, but I’ve made up my mind to be there at least 2 times during the end of May. I want more photos of breaking waves, especially here in south Florida on bright sunny days. The explosive quality of the waves is a natural expression of joyful color and energy. I will never have enough images of waves to look at and enjoy. It is time to create another oversized pastel or acrylic painting of waves.

In this particular photo taken two years ago the pale aqua tints in the curved form of the breaking wave are particularly wonderful. The expression of energy in all those tightly packed puckers in the mixture of tan/gray beach sand and water is different to that which I’ve been used to on the north Atlantic shore in New England, New Jersey and Delaware. I’m sure it has something to do with the stronger slope of the beach here in south Florida as opposed to the more gradual slope up north, and the quality of the sand itself. The natural fine white sand of the beaches has been replaced here by heavier coarse sand dug up from beneath the ocean during beach replenishment. I know that the original sand was white and fine because the few surviving dunes – those not buried under tons of masonry concrete, and manicured gardens – is purest sparkling white between the mounds of palmettos growing there.

At the top of the photo the darker richer aqua of the incoming wave expresses something about the complexities of color, the depth of the water, and the currents beneath as they slide past the beach.

On a bright sunny spring or summer day when a light to mild off the ocean wind blows in south Florida the energy in the waves is joyfully exuberant.

May Graphics

Once again I continue the series of monthly graphic art reviews for the past six years begun in January 2014

2008

The photo shows all the graphic material I designed to send out to galleries in the year of the Great Recession. Actually it started in January of 2007, possibly earlier, but that’s another story. In 2008 I designed these materials and took them and/or sent them to galleries with little or no response. Some were returned marked “Addressee Unknown” as so many small businesses and galleries failed that year. This was my last hurrah seeking gallery representation. Today I show only through Art and other organizations.

2009

Giuseppe Arcimbaldo, a Renaissance artist made portrait paintings composed of food and vegetables. I used this as an antecedent to the artwork of Jan Svankmajer in my post for May 16, 2009.

2010

The Republican slogan that election year of the great BP Gulf Oil Spill was DRILL BABY DRILL. I designed this graphic for my post of May 19,2010. I changed that slogan to the epitaph “Drill Equals Kill!” If we aren’t careful that will be the result of drilling at sea - the death of the earth’s great oceans, not to mention all the creatures therein and one of our major food sources. Of course, the death of the oceans would be the major component in the death of planet Earth. And, yes, Virginia, we do have the potential to destroy our home.

I have since stopped posting about such calamities because there will not be any change in humanity's propensity toward self-destruction just because I complain about it.

2011

“I remember when all this was trees” by Banksy was one of several images I posted of the phantom artists graffiti paintings, one of 3 entries on this blog about Banksy. He is one of my all time favorites because his subversive artwork often appears on derelict structures, appropriate to the expression of his concerns.

2012

I made this graphite powder drawing of Marlin Brando smoking pot back in 1980. Yes I copied the photograph as exactly as possible, emphasizing the photographic characteristics in a super large, Super Realism format (32’ x 40”). I used a studio publicity photo that I had bought in New York City, and I believe to this day that when a visual artist converts a photograph to super or hyperrealism, he/she changes the nature of the artwork, both in media, and technique, but especially in conceptualization so as to make it his/her own.

The Super Real drawings are from the 1970's to early 80's, the time I call my "fifteen minutes,” because I made and sold many graphite drawings to theater, music and motion picture industry persons in New York City.* In late fall of1979 I was engaged to shoot photos and draw a Hyper real drawing of the Dakota for Yoko Ono and John Lennon, but we all know what happened to prevent that from happening.

This particular drawing of Brando resides along with a set of similar drawings in our Goddaughter’s restaurant, Characters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

2013

“Lesbos”(16” x 16”) is a mixed media distressed painting made as part of the “LGBT Pictionary” presented during Gay Pride month, June 2013 at Camp Rehoboth, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.


Notes

*Andy Warhol coined the phrase, "in the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

Art in Nature at the Top of Jupiter Lighthouse

If you are in Jupiter, FL and you have good legs and lungs, climb to the top of the lighthouse. Be sure it is a clear and sunny day with the wind out of the southeast, and the color palette in these photos will greet you when you emerge on the platform at the top. A visiting friend said it best. “Oh my, this is magical.”

The pictures were taken looking northeast, southeast, and east at the confluence of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian River (which is not one) and Loxahatchee River (which is one). I've also added a photo of the irreplaceable great Fresnel lens that makes the beam of light visible to ships up to 28 miles out at sea.

To be clear, I can hear the "Artworld" art critic type person saying, “these are like any great number of pretty scenic photographs taken by amateurs.”* And, I know it isn’t art until a person recognizes it as such, and makes the appropriate photographic and/or painting choices. As an artist, I should have used the edge of the lighthouse platform or people in front of me to achieve depth of field focus from foreground through the entire panorama of ocean, river, and Intracoastal before me to emphasize the fact that I was actually present to the creation of art. So, next time I pay my 9 dollars, and go up those steps, I’ll be sure to put a bit more of an artsy spin on the images. Meanwhile I’m loving and seeing the magical color in these images as Art.



Notes

*The term "Artworld" was coined by Arthur Danto in the essay of the same name in "The Journal of Philosophy" in 1964. The term denotes galleries, museums, critics, artists, literature and theory about art as a cultural entity.

April Graphics

Okay, so we almost didn’t get this done in April. Never the less, here it is, April Graphics. Once again, I’m showing each artwork with a link to the entry it illustrated. The title below each image is the link. If you wish to take the time to see and read the graphic in context, just click on the title. Of course, I know that this is the “cybervoid” and few persons, if any will take the time to do so. Still, I recommend the reading because I know you will find the entries informative.*

April 2008

Trashed Beach Photographs

April 2009

The Commodified Blog Versus This Journal

April 2010

Kite Boarding

April 2011

Diane Arbus

April 2012

Time

April 2013

LGBT

Notes

*Cybervoid – coined by yours truly to describe the huge nebulous space created by electronic media and millions of people with their mundane diurnal dithering into which anything of value seems to drop and vanish.

Pierre et Gilles Exhibit, "Heroes"

“Heroes” at Gallerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France through May 1st. *

A short break from my own work to that of my favorite artist couple in the Art World, Pierre et Gilles. The duo works by building elaborate tableau in their studio, posing friends and models, shooting the images, printing on canvas, and then painting into the photo. Each mixed media photo/painting is put in a frame tailored specifically to the finished product. This particular painting from the current show is “Achille,” the model, Staiv Gentis (2011).

*The Advocate, “In the Galleries: Pierre et Gilles’ ‘Heroes," by Christopher Harrity. Posted April 18, 2014, 2:05 PM, EDT, viewed 11:41 PM, EDT.

History of a Commission In Reverse:

Part II

On February 25th I wrote about these three panels, a commission for friends’ master bedroom. At this stage of the project all three panels have two colors and have been distressed once. My friends love boating and have a 38-foot cruiser, so I’ve found photos in my morgue of sunsets and sunrises on the Intracoastal and the Atlantic Ocean.* I’ve manipulated the photos in Adobe Photoshop so that parts have dropped out and the distressed surface of the painted panels will show through. The three photos are centered, one on each of the (18” x 24”) panels. I have to varnish over them, wax the panels, paint a new color over each panel, and distress again. Much of what is visible now will be - at the least partially, and at the most totally - hidden.

The process of creating mixed media distressed paintings is to a great extent free from. It is impossible to predict what the panels will look like until after all the above processes are completed. Thus, I won’t know what the next steps will be until I see these next steps finished. I do know that I want to embed written words, and type into the paint, but I don’t know what type and words will be there at this stage of the process, though they should have something to do with retirement as a privileged stage in American life, joy, and friendship, because our friends are retired, show so much joy in their diurnal lives, and are such good friends.


Notes

*A morgue is an artist’s file of pictures kept as an aid to drawing and painting. I do not use any photos from magazines or other sources. My morgue is composed completely of photos I have taken.

Intracoastal Thunderstorm

I took this photo a few years back, and just happened across it today in my morgue file of pictures taken to use in my paintings, drawings, and mixed media distressed artworks. The light thundershowers we had off and on yesterday (and I do mean light) reminded me how rapidly the weather can go back and forth here in south Florida. While doing my laps I had to get out of the pool two times while a thundershower passed. Each time there was just enough rain to wet the pavers around the pool. However, the showers weren't an annoyance because they served as the proverbial self-pinch, as though God were reminding me how fortunate I am to be able to live this life in retirement. Those of us in my generation have our retirement at a time when so many younger persons in the education profession can no longer hope to have this retirement lifestyle since the powers that be seem to be set against educators in general, and most specifically those in public education.

O-o-ops, I seem to have fallen into a bit of a mini-diatribe about that which I perceive as an inequity in our culture, not so subtly perpetrated by the super rich corporate oligarchy through FOX News and other political outlets. I don’t apologize for my digression, though I do thank God every day for this wonderful retirement that many middle class persons in my generation have been able to achieve!