Paper and Threads

I just returned from the International Quilt Festival which is held in Houston, Texas annually.  It is a wonderful mixture of classes, exhibits, and vendors.  This year, my Everyday Matters friend Raena joined me, for the second year, for part of a day.  She doesn't quilt, but the doll exhibit gives us something fun to sketch together.  My doll sketches aren't painted yet, so they won't be posted until later this week.

Instead, I'm posting a bug I painted on fabric with Tsukineko inks in my class with Judy Coates Perez, and two continuous line contour drawings which I'm still loving for quick, slightly wonky images.

The first is drawn on tinted paper - my pencil case contents.  The second are the tools that I used for my second Quilt Festival class - soy wax resist and instant dyes on silk with Ginny Eckley. 

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 My mother's huge retirement complex is always very decorated for the holidays.  For the last several weeks there have been 3 foot scarecrows scattered throughout the gardens and lining walkways.  I stopped during our walk to sketch one - quickly in pen on tinted paper and then watercolor pencil for color.

I'm off to the International Quilt Festival in Houston on Wednesday - 5 days with old friends.

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Our Journal Study Group, minus Teri, went to the preview of the new Islamic Art Galleries at the Met this week.  Wow!  The space was closed in 2003 for renovation and they even brought in artisans from Fez, Morocco to create special architectural decorations.  There are 15 galleries full of amazing art - beautifully arranged.  At the end of our walk through all 15 galleries, we split up and each went to sketch one thing - meeting 30 minutes later to share our sketchbooks and go to lunch.

I sketched 5 very small (3 inches high or less), wonderfully decorated cosmetic flasks which were used to hold Kohl powder.  The notes said that the powder was picked up with a small brush inserted through the tiny hole on the top.  They were made in the 10th-12th C in Iran or Central Asia.  I put the shapes of a gorgeous vase and an ewer behind them to add some scale and contrast.

After lunch we went to "Stieglitz and his Artists: Matisse to O'Keefe"  This was his personal art collection - much of it from artists he supported in the early part of the 20th C..  It was my second visit to this exhibit and I'm sure not my last. 

Alfred Stieglitz introduced America to Matisse and Picasso through shows at his gallery "291."  Both artists were later exhibited in the famous 1913 Armory Show (International Exhibition of Modern Art) which was a landmark exhibition.  These drawings from 291 were donated to the Met and were among the first pieces by either artist in the Met's collection. 

The first time I went, I sketched an early Matisse drawing in order to learn more about his "lines."  It is called "Nude With Bracelets" (1909).  

During the second visit I sketched another Matisse nude and a very small Picasso drawing done on ledger paper.  I was able to link to the originals from the Met's Collection.

Matisse Reclining Nude (1907) and Picasso Study of a Harlequin (1904-5 to show the originals)

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My husband and I are taking a course at Columbia about Art vs Culture.  It is a small discussion class at the Heyman Center and the first text that we read was The Two Cultures - a transcription of the 1959 lecture at Cambridge by CP Snow.  The "artists" were the great writers of the time and the scientists were in the hard sciences - physics, chemistry, and mathematics.  The premise was that these cultures were so different, that artists and scientists could not communicate with each other.

This past week we began class by reading Genesis 3 to reflect on the tree of life and tree of knowledge and then went on to consider 4 discussions between artists and scientists.  Scientists are making rapid technological advances ( like cloning), but are the "artists" capable of understanding and discussing the possible perils of these discoveries, thus beginning a dialogue about good and evil inherent in them?  Can they be translators for the society at large. 

Just because we can DO something, should we DO it? 

I doodle to keep my mind on the discussion - and here is my tree of knowledge and two classmates - all scribbled on the back of a handout with ball point pen.

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Picasso's drawings, from 1890 (age 9) to 1921 are currently on exhibit at the Frick Collection.  My husband and I walked down for a quick visit this past weekend and this is a drawing inspired by one of his standing nudes.  The fountain and plant were added later when I sat down with my husband in the Garden Court of the museum.

The drawings combine his early, very realistic style, with an evolving cubist style - and he was a master of both.  The majority of the drawings, and a video about the exhibit can be seen here.  I was disappointed that the one I chose to draw is not one of the drawings that is reproduced.

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