Lee Mullican Discussion at the Getty

Coinciding with the retrospective at LACMA there is going to be a discussion at the Getty on Tuesday January 24, 2006 7:30 pm in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium, Getty Center.

Moderated by Henry Hopkins, and including artists Tony Berlant and Lari Pittman, the panel will be followed by a musical performance of Indian ragas featuring the North Indian Music Ensemble.

Calendars

It is time for a new calendar very soon. I like this one of Alan Wolfson's miniature urban environments available from Lulu.

An Abundant Harvest of the Sun

I was not very familiar with Lee Mullican’s work, so it was an experience for me to get to see this comprehensive exhibit. I wasn’t prepared for the tactile quality of lines of paint applied with a printer’s ink knife or the vibrating color choices. His influences include Zen Buddhism and pre-Columbian and Northwest Coast art, and a meditative reflection on nature and inner states. There is a tension between figurative and abstract and his work and along with other West Coast painters Gordon Onslow Ford and Wolfgang Paalen is distinguished from Abstract Expressionism through a concern with content and (from Susan C. Larsen, “Lee Mullican”) “a holistic meditative art resonant with the special touch and calligraphic signature of the artist’s hand but without the tragic overtones and violent gestural disruptions of the pictorial plane.”

I saw this article written by Larry Beinhart which seems to be a criticism about the role of art in society, politics, and religion in a vague way.

I liked this response from Mark Vallen.



http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1212-36.htm

http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2005/12/abdication-of-artists-retort.html

Psychedelic Folk Art by Byron Werner

I have always found Byron Werner's artwork visually fascinating. I enjoy the mandalas quite a bit and the portraits knock me out. He's using gift wrapping paper to make these paper mosaics.
Take a look: http://www.rockseye.com/werner/

A Lover's Glass

A Lover's Glass, which is also called a Reducing Glass, resembles a magnifying glass at first glance. The glass is for making the object you are viewing appear smaller, rather than larger. It is a handy tool for artists, especially those who are working large, because you can get a perspective on how the work is going without getting up or backing way across the room. This can save some time and energy.

As I was driving I looked up and saw what appeared for a moment to be an upside down rainbow. I slowed down to get a better look and then realized what I was seeing was a rainbow in a circle. It was huge and the sun was in the center, although mostly blocked by clouds.

I've just returned from a visit to Washington state. I had never traveled there before and so was happily amazed. In some ways it reminded me a little bit of the east coast, except the ocean sat on the wrong side, and the land seemed much bigger. Maybe due to the ever present fog obscuring the horizon, I had a sense of infinity.

Dream Scaffolds

I usually dream in series and it is sometimes like playing a game of Pictionary. I will get a setting in a dream that has a certain set of actions and sensations. The next night I will have a different dream, with a new setting and correlating actions, and then the next night another dream with yet another setting, and so forth. Eventually a pattern will appear, and then I usually start to begin to understand what it is about.

Lately the common thread has been structures, more specifically scaffolding like structures that can be seen around and beyond and climbed upon and through. The really interesting parts are the things that are happening within the spaces of the structure.

Last night I dreamed that there was an artist working inside each space and I was traveling around and through the spaces to see all the artwork as it appeared.

Progress

The painting I've been plodding along on for awhile is creeping towards completion. Now it only needs a few glazes, although sometimes that can go on and on. I'm taking comfort in a Leonardo da Vinci quote, "Art is never finished, only abandoned." I wonder which of his paintings he was referring to.....