Lawrence Carroll A Place

1969 by Lawrence Carroll
oil, wax, canvas, staples, wood
212 x 93 x 34 cm  2017

There's waiting a place

someplace.  I have

not found.

A place I know

but cannot picture,

cannot describe

cannot feel.  

Untitled (stacked painting) by Lawrence Carroll
oil, house paint, wax, canvas on wood 
63 x 41 x 8 cm 1992 - 2017

It's there, over there

not behind me, but

over there,

ahead of me

and my impatience,

Untitled 2005 (house paint, wood, wax, plastic flowers
and Untitled 2017 (house paint and wax on canvas) both by Lawrence Carroll
installed in Museo Vincenzo Vela, Switzerland in 2017 

a place I'll sleep

with knowing its

a place I can sleep.

And not turn from side

to side, night to night,

but a place not silver or gold

but something else,  its

not perfectly round

A Place by Lawrence Carroll
pencil, house paint, masking tape, wax on paper
43 x 35.5 cm  1985

it's over there,

ahead of

not behind me. 

Lawrence Carroll  (1954 - 2019)

More about this  fabulous artist over on modernist aesthetic.

There are also some videos here and here.

looking out windows with David and Michael in 1936

setting stars 1935 oil on canvas by David Milne

   Read him slowly, dear girl,
   you must read Kipling slowly.

  Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses.

sunset beyond the islands 1936 oil on canvas by David Milne

  He is a writer who used pen and ink.

  He looked up from the page a lot, I believe,
  stared through his window and listened to birds,
  as most writers who are alone do.

  Some do not know the names of birds, though he did.'

big dipper 1936 oil on canvas by David Milne

Think about the speed of his pen.'

That was the English patient's first lesson about reading.

lightning 1936 oil on canvas by David Milne

She had turned from the ending of Kim, with its delicate and holy sentences - and picked up the patient's notebook, the book he had somehow managed to carry with him out of the fire.  The book splayed open, almost twice its original thickness.....

And in his commonplace book, his 1890 edition of Herodotus' Histories, are other fragments - maps, diary entries, writings in many languages, paragraphs cut out of other books.  All that is missing is his own name.

all text by Michael Ondaatje from his novel,  The English Patient 
these horizon paintings by David Milne are his most minimalist 

Life is simple

 Life is simple: smell nice, look pretty

 I can't hear myself think

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber from Winnipeg Manitoba
Flower Series 2018  acrylic on wood
represented by Gallerie Division from Montreal at Art Toronto

 My roots are in hell

 When you're easy to love, you're easy to tear apart

 You must leave your mother, but I never can

Gareth Edwards from Cornwall England
Flower Paintings Oil on Paper
represented by Jill George Gallery from London England
at the Art Toronto fair last weekend Oct 26 - 29 in Toronto
I attended with  my sister, it was her birthday.

the small handwritten text at bottom of each painting
is usually the name of the colour and the date

left : lemon  hand 2018
right:  pale moon  hand 2018

hot house orange 2018

Life is simple my friends.  When you are easy to love, you are easy to tear apart. xo

Carol Mahtab

Carol Mahtab (1935-2012), artist and environmental activist, lived in Digby Neck, Nova Scotia.
This post shows some images from her sketchbook, part of an exhibition of her work entitled still and moving that showed at the ARTsPLACE gallery in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2015.

Visitors were allowed to handle and photograph the sketchbooks, and these images were taken by my friend, Penny Berens.

"Carol's contemplative abstract works reflect her interest in Japanese Zen Buddhism, poetry, nature, and the foggy seascapes of her home in Sandy Cove"  says Janet Larkman, artist and curator of that exhibition.

"Her works appear simple, as if little is 'happening'. Yet when one gets still enough to be really present with them, there is an almost ominous quality, the content being so big it can never be fully known. "

I've kept these photos of Carol Mahtab's sketches for three years, and post them here so that they are easier for me to find.  (Perhaps you will like to see them as well.)

See more work by Carol Mahtab at this link.

"Because she was modest and never self-promoted, her work is not widely known.  Fortunately, she left behind a vast inventory of paintings created over her 60-year career.   Janet Larkman

like a child

after anni albers watercolour on paper judy martin

I am painting first thing when I wake up.
I set the kitchen timer for fifteen minutes, and tell myself:  "Just do fifteen minutes".
I am using a desk near the kitchen to make it really convenient.

after anni albers 1 judy martin water colour on paper

Years ago, when I had those four babes, I came across advice to mother artists.
"use part of naptime for the inner self. Begin with fifteen minutes"

so I did

I give this advice out to women now.

use the kitchen timer as a limit and as a permission
begin with fifteen minutes

anni albers note book on left

a few years ago, my husband's christmas gift to me was six kitchen timers, one for each room.

Now I set my timer to one hour.
Then I set it again for a second one.

rainbow by aili, dot circle by grandmom  watercolour on paper

I've been struggling with getting back to painting for years,
but it was painting patterns with my four year old grand daughter last month that helped the most.
She painted rainbows and spirals, I painted waves on horizons and circles and dots
These very simple things were so easy, enjoyable and meditative.

Picasso said  "it took me four years to paint like raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child "

dot grid judy martin oil and cold wax on paper

Also, I am inspired by Matisse's approach to painting.
He put cloth into his compositions to help him work flatter

And a 3rd thing:  Anni Albers notebook.
She worked with half square triangles, page after page of drawings , her designs for weaving

I am not giving up my stitching and quilt making practice.
I still think that the sense of touch is more powerful for reaching the emotions and the inner self than the sense of sight.

I am looking to paint as a faster way to get my ideas out....that's all.
It's been a break through for me  to actually do this.

Last week, I talked about it with our daughter April.

Judy:  I was thinking about Matisse the other day.  He painted cloth (curtains, clothing, tablecloths in his paintings) to remind him to be flat"
April:  His work became so flat
Judy:  And Joyce Wieland, she wanted her work to be round.   I wonder what I want my work to be.
April:  " soft "

the healing machine

the healing machine , individual component, baling wire, aluminum foil

This post is about Emery Blagdon's Healing Machine.

the artist believed that his art could cure people

When Emery Blagdon was 48, he started building the healing machine and continued for 31 years until he died in 1986.  He lived in Nebraska and created an environment in a shed creating sculptures made of baling wire, aluminum foil, hand-painted lightbubs, salts, and bright paintings of geometric shapes.

Blagdon believed he was sensitive to electrical current and was investigating the curative powers of  this unseen force.  He hoped that the objects he made might ease human pain and suffering.

Portrait of Emergy Blagdon with his works in progress by Sally and Richard Greenhill 1979

In 1979, a couple from England, Sally and Richard Greenhill, came to Nebraska to photograph the artist.

view of Emery Blagdon's shed with installation of more than 300 hanging and standing sculptures made from bailing wire and aluminum foil

After his death, Emery Blagdon's work was collected together by his friends, including Dan Dryden.  The Kohler foundation acquired the work in 2004 and after conservation, it became part of the John Kohler Arts Center's permanent colleciton.  This includes the workshop and 400 constructions, paintings, and other components.  It is on view until July 1 2018.

It is fascinating that he had the idea that static electricity and its emanating aura would cure those who experience both physical and emotional suffering and so created these fantastical objects.

painted light bulbs

painted wood with nails and thread

His paintings of concentric circles and angualr lines seem to generate power and reflect it outwards.

the healing machine indvidual component, baling wire, wood, aluminum foil sculpture by Emery Blagdon

Astonishing
Here is another article about this artist, and an audio.

a visionary art environment

I was most attracted to the sculptures that used masses of repeated small and interesting shapes.  These were carefully placed within each of the "pretties" (his word for the individual components) so that they channel the earth's natural magnetic energy.  Read more here.

I had to go experience this exhibition twice and still walked away in awe.  

catenary

Catenary is a term used to describe the curve assumed by a cord suspended freely from two points.

Jasper Johns made a series of artworks between 1997 and 2003 in which he tacked household string to the canvas or its supports to form catenaries.

Near The Lagoon  Encaustic on canvas and wood board with objects is the last of his 'catenary' series.

The string casts a shadow on the canvas.

Jasper Johns also pushed the string into the encaustic and then removed it.
The resulting mark is enlivened with paint.

I saw this painting during one of our visits to Chicago when our daughter, April, was studying at the Art Institute.

I respond to it.   Why?
The curve.  The materials that seem so real.
The visible touch of his hand.
The scale of it. (118" high x 84" wide x 4 " deep)

It's like an out breath..

Sati Zech

 When I started to use the internet as a research tool, I came across the work of Sati Zech.

A 2006 exhibition of her red and white bollenarbeit series excited many art lovers.

The rounded shapes refer to the rounded hills of her childhood landscape in southern Germany. Currently, the artist resides and works in Berlin.

 This beautiful white space is the Heidelberg gallery that held that important 2006 exhibition.

Sati Zech also works with black vinyl. The wall piece above is large, nearly 160 inches wide.

New work is in rawhide and uses the motife of repeated circles.  (2014)

In 2010, Zeck participated in a resdency in California.  James Chute interviewed her and the following quotes are from his article in the June 27 San Diego Union Tribune.

“I don’t want to have any contact with quilts,” exclaimed Zeck, whose English is salted with a pronounced German accent. “I never thought about quilts. I don’t want to make quilts. I have nothing to do with it.”  The only parallels between Zech’s work and most quilts is they both involve fabric.  Both also have the function of providing warmth. Of course, you have to pull a quilt over you for that to happen. With Zech’s larger pieces, you stand in front of her strange, hypnotic red shapes and layered canvasses and your temperature starts to rise.

“You can see, I’m not a drawer; I’m not really a painter. I’m a sculptor. I’m not really interested in color. I use color to show energy, that’s why my work is warm.”   Most of all, she’s intrigued by the “language beyond normal language,” how people reach out, cope and connect beyond mere speech.  “What happens when the normal language stops and you are in a crisis in your life?” she asked. “You are in really deep trouble, then you use other languages.

“I traveled and worked for 10 years in Africa, and for me this was very important because I found the same experience, that people don’t trust what you are telling. They don’t trust your words but they trust your body, they trust how you move, the way you look into my eyes, much more than the words.”   “The color red, I don’t use it as a color, it’s more like a statement, more like reminiscent to Africa. I never thought about it, but I’ve always lived in cities, and I think it’s reminiscent of the warmth, the heat and the energy of Africa, and the empathy between the people."

click here to read the complete article

More about this artist over on modernist aesthetic.