inky steps

Landscape Monotype, 12 x 12 on BFK

Where do you go to find your way back to inspiration?

My path includes a five day workshop with Bill Park in his Portland studio. It was a perfect time with a small group of artists, two presses, lots of ink and plenty of time to explore this art form.

Over and over, I heard Bill say, "I want to encourage you to ..." He said something different to each of us, but I listened to those gentle words and I felt lifted above stumbling blocks of my own imagining. Lifted and pulled along to my own art making places.



Bob Dylan "Things Have Changed."

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

"Hero" by Mel McCuddin at NW Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA

Sometimes it's good to go with serendipity, to walk into the museum, and to walk the unfamiliar galleries. This painting knocked me to the floor.

I got much more than I expected at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

inspired

Tacoma Art Museum

The newly remodeled Tacoma Art Museum exhibit "Eloquent Objects: Georgia O'Keeffe and Still-Life Art in New Mexico" runs until June 7, 2015. O'Keeffe's work is elegant and gorgeous. I enjoyed looking at them from a distance and then stepping closer and closer until the museum staff person cleared his throat. I was just looking to see the brushwork! If you have a chance to see this show, take it!

John Nieto, "Buffalo at Sunset"

Since the remodel, TAM has opened up a large new gallery space and filled it with the exhibit "Art of the American West: the Haub Family Collection." The collection is stunning, with works by Nieto (above), Clymer, Terpening, Remington, Bierstadt, Moran, and others. This show is up until the fall of 2015.

Museum of Glass

Walking out of TAM, I was lured into the Museum of Glass by the large sign that read "Chihuly Drawings!" I have mentioned Chihuly's drawings on this blog before, and this exhibit expanded my respect and admiration for his work.

The final piece in this large show are plexiglass panels, backlit, with acrylic drawings on them. Spectacular!

For me, the truest measure of a great show is this: does it inspire? These two shows more than delivered and I leave Tacoma overflowing with ideas for my own paintings in the days and weeks and months ahead.

James Brown "I Feel Good."

inspiration: St Louis Zoo and Art Museum

I am just back from a road trip to St Louis, MO, where my family had a beautiful reunion. I got to see my father and all of my siblings and their kids, plus a lot of family. 

One special treat while in St Louis was going to Forest Park, the site of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and centennial celebration, but more commonly known as the 1904 World's Fair. You can read more about the fair here.

As we walked around the zoo and the art museum, I kept humming to myself the song, "Meet Me In St Louis." Appropriate, since my grandfather's name was Louis and he went by "Louie" and it was this grandfather's children and family that gathered... 55 participants!

I loved the zoo (and not just because admission was free!). Their gorilla habitat was wonderful and I spent a lot of time observing these majestic animals and sketching them. It was tough to sketch them, though, because every time one of them got close to the observation window, he would sit down with his back to us people. It struck me as an act of utter contempt. Wow. 

The art museum was grand all together, but especially grand in its huge entrance hall.

I especially enjoyed this Monet painting.

And this Modigliani.

St Louis is a special town and I look forward to going there again. Maybe next time, it won't be 92 degrees with 90% humidity. That was a little hard to take. The best part of the trip was seeing my father again. I am not sure that he knew me, but I knew him, held his hand, talked to him and loved the chance to see him again.

Love you, Dad.


"Meet Me in St Louis." Maybe you will hum the theme song, too.

museum inspriration: Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum

9" x 9" watercolor and ink

This week, at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, I saw sculpture by David Eisenhour that blew my socks off! His bronze and stone sea forms were staged in groups and some alone in such a way that I wanted to respond to them. I had to respond. I looked at them, again and again, circled them to see all sides, and wandered around the exhibit many times. In my sketchbook, I listed some sea forms that I wanted to explore myself. And soon! The BIMA is only one year old and if you haven't made a stop there yet, it's worth every moment. Admission is free. Truly great work there!

But, before I could respond to the Eisenhour sea forms, we were cruising the Sound and then tying up at the public dock in La Conner, where I toured the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum. This is a favorite stop for me, not because I am a quilter, but because I love the variety and imagination of art quilts. And, though I do not sew, I have gone into many quilt shops to fondle the "fat quarters" just for the joy of color and texture.

What a treat it was to discover fiber artist Marianne Burr and her work on the third floor of the museum! The work is as colorful and delightful as she is. All of her work is done on silk which she has handpainted and then stitched. It's really a painting that has been stitched to wool batting and then backed/framed with more fabric. It's enough to make me want to sew.

In the meantime, though, time to reflect and respond and you see some of that in the sketch above. Sea forms, glorious color and whimsey, and "stitches" of ink marks.

Variations on a Shaker Melody, Aaron Copland.

museum inspiration: Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA

Jen Elek and Jeremy Bert at The Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA

Sometimes, when walking through an art museum exhibit (or gallery exhibition), I feel a buzz of energy that makes my hair stand on end. It is not only a function of the artwork I view, but where I am in my head, what I have been doing with my own artwork, and my openness to looking at something new. That buzz can be the start of a cascade of changes that results in new art ideas and practices.

Earlier this month, I felt a buzz when at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA.

Even the exterior of this museum is exciting, with the enormous metal cone venting the "hot shop" where furnaces keep about 1000 pounds of glass 2400 degrees Fahrenheit!

Even better, inside the hot shop you can watch artists make their glass creations live, or you can stream it. It reminds me of some of my early Catholic lessons on hell and damnation.

Lenny Kravitz "Whole Lotta Love."

gouache vessel

Vessel 6, 29 x 22, gouache

Wet brush, loaded with water and pigment, hits the watercolor paper and moves and melds into the paper. What a thrill! I wanted to see if I could mimic with watercolor the feeling I get with Sumi. Nope. It's completely different. Sumi has more body and independence. But, this painting was a lot of fun regardless of any disappointments.

Here's the Sumi painting that inspired the larger painting. 

Not by any plan, the wonderful consequence painting ideas of my regular Sumi sketch paintings is a wealth of  painting ideas and references for further abstract work. If the sketch appeals to me, it just might make a great painting. 

You never know.

inspiration by Dale Chihuly

I am easily and often inspired. Probably because I LIKE to be inspired and I am pretty much on the lookout for inspirational people and things. 

This week, I had the fortune to see a beautiful exhibit at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA about the early work of Dale Chihuly. Not only did the exhibit show his early glass works, but it included some of his drawings. As soon as I saw this drawing below, I thought that I wanted to draw with a fist full of pencils. 

Since I am on the boat and only have the art supplies I brought with me, I made do with three artist pens. Awkward in my hand, I used them to do a series of gesture sketches of the passing sailboats. You most definitely aren't seeing double, or triple, it's the effect of multiple pens. 

 I am sorry I didn't buy the book, Chihuly Drawing when I was at the museum gift shop! Maybe I'll get it on the return trip.

I wonder if maybe the biggest predictor in being inspired by something or someone is my openness to being inspired. What do you think?

Inspired by International Artist Magazine

The images of his watercolor paintings jumped off the page at me when I read the article about Martin Taylor in International Artist Magazine. If you click the link to the magazine, you can page through to get to Taylor's pages and look for yourself!

He broke up his images into interesting shapes of color and then enhanced this design by using white acrylic to create lines around the shapes. I liked it well enough to try my hand at it myself. So far, I've just drawn the image onto my full sheet of watercolor paper, and painted just a few of the pieces. I'll let you know how this turns out. So far, I love the idea, and I'm excited by the start.

I've been thinking about inspiration and things that inspire me. What inspires you?

I wonder if maybe, just maybe, it's possible that the key to inspiration is the openness and willingness to BE INSPIRED. What do you think?

Willem de Kooning

I am reading "de Kooning: An American Master" by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, the 600 page biography on the great modern artist. Even though I have only read about a third of the book, I am enthralled by the man. And inspired to "work as though every stroke might be your last." Words to paint by.