Circling Storm Clouds, Angeles Forest

Circling Storm, Angeles Forest II ©2013 Katherine Kean
oil on linen 6 x 6 inches 

 "Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail." John Muir, Our National Parks

Living on the edge of a National Forest, and the steepest mountains in the US,  I am often reminded of John Muir, the "Father of the National Parks" and a person who considered the mountains his true home. Muir Woods in Northern California is well know and more locally is Muir Peak (elevation 4688') in Angeles National Forest north of Altadena.

On a Sierra Club Outing, author Albert Palmer tells of a conversation he had with John Muir on the trail. He asked Muir, "someone told me you did not approve of the word "hike" Is that so? His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: " I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, 'A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them." - John Muir, as quoted by Albert W. Palmer, The Mountain Trail and its Message (1911) pages 27-28 - excerpted in A Parable of Sauntering .

Horses and Freedom

I had the pleasure last weekend of visiting Return to Freedom, a wild horse sanctuary in Lompoc. These horses come from various herd families and many of them are quite unique, such as the Sulphur Springs herd with their distinctive dorsal and leg striping, resembling the horses painted on cave walls dating back to 26,000 B.C.E.

I took part in a Photo Tour lead by Kimerlee Curyl an accomplished equine photographer. There were many amazing photographers in the group and everyone there seemed to share a love for horses. For my part, the discussions about ISO numbers and F stops flew right over my head. Yet even though I am not a photographer, I got plenty of images of horses in the landscape. Some may reappear in future artwork. In the meantime here are some images from the day.

The horses themselves ranged from the cautiously shy to curiously playful to bold. We stayed with each group for about 45 minutes. Some stayed quite still, clustered together. Anytime one of them so much as perked an ear, the sound of dozens of shutters releasing filled the air. I began feeling like paparazzi to the horses.

We moved on to a group of mostly mares, who in spite of the heat, with a little prompting from Kimerlee, were willing to gallop around us so that we could take action shots.

All except for one, who seemed more inclined to join the photographers and stand in the middle watching everyone else run around.

We visited the stallions last and what a difference. Bold. Fearless. Curious. Inclined to walk right up and see what was going on.

For more information about our wild horses, their dwindling numbers, and current issues about their management, please visit the American Wild Horse PreservationCampaign.

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights

Raindrops and Twinkle Lights Sketch Katherine Kean
graphite on paper

 "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
 
Here is a sketch, enhanced in PhotoShop to emphasize contrast, that I'm making to map out the trajectories of raindrops at night as they are lit by holiday twinkle lights. In one of the neighborhoods where I walk they start putting up lights early. Even though summer officially ended less then 10 days ago, they are in fact already up, have been up, albeit in orange. I suppose that the orange is meant to signify Halloween, although I'll never get what twinkle lights have to do with Halloween, no matter what color they make them. Halloween, to my way of thinking, has nothing at all to do with little, sparkly, twinkle lights. Cobwebs and crypts, bats and crows, yes. Little, sparkly, twinkle lights, no.

 Once it seems like I have a satisfactory plan on paper I'll start this painting. The drawing will be a guide for when I get lost in the drops, as is bound to happen. I can't wait!

In the meantime, savor the first days of fall. The early days of fall. No need to run out and start decorating your trees just yet. Wait, at least, until after the leaves fall.

My Favorite Questions and Answers From Twitter's Ask A Curator Day

 

Wednesday was Twitter's Ask a Curator Day. Once a year, museums of all kinds around the world make their curators accessible to the general public. Anyone with a Twitter account can ask questions by using the #askacurator hashtag. More than 500 museums registered officially to answer questions. This global online event took place over a 24 hour period and due to the time zones it looks like New South Wales got to go first.

Here are just a few of my favorite questions and answers from the day:

Bluemooie, "Regarding your collections, how do you ensure that you're not purchasing stolen works?"
ArtGalleryofNSW,‏  "Great question! The gallery has a rigorous process for researching provenance. Read more here http://bit.ly/150OWIu "

All About Art, "How do you come up with new exhibition themes? Market research, a curator's vision or...?"
Tyler Collection, "Great question! We look carefully at our collection & think about new ways of interpreting it."

Jessica Cham, "What has been the most outlandish request from an artist involving the installation process of their work?"
ArtGalleryofNSW,  "The relationship between artist & curator is sacrosanct! Often the most outlandish ideas are the best!"

Steve Puttrich, "As a Curator, what's your #1 pet peeve?"
Museum of Inuit Art, "Seeing "the Inuit people" anywhere. Honestly. Inuit means "the people" so it's redundant but so prevalent."
Orphan Train Depot, "People getting offended when we decline an object that has nothing to do with our collection."
Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum Stop,‏ "When people leave objects for the museum with no information about the history of the artifact."

CaFE, "What advice do you have for an art student (both undergrad/grad) just starting their career?"
Boca Museum of Art, "Best advice for art students: have good quality images of your work for submitting to museums, galleries, etc."

Steve Kahn, "What is the best advice you would give an artist?"
Whitney Museum, "Don’t judge your success as an artist by success in the market—it’s not the same thing."

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Guggenheim Museum, and The Museum of Fine Arts Houston all got together to answer questions directed to their JAmes TUrrell exhibitions. You can find the conversation here: http://storify.com/LACMA/2013-askacurator-day-turrell-trifecta .

It was as much fun as last year. Just as it ended I realized that I neglected to ask a lighting question that's been on my mind. I guess it'll be first on my list for next year....

Is It Done Yet?

Marsh House 2013 Katherine Kean
oil on linen 6 x 6 inches

How do you decide when a painting is done?

 For me this has always been something that's mostly intuitive, but as I go along I realize that these days I spend a lot more time thinking about it - especially as I'm approaching the end. Lately it seems to be a matter of whether I feel 've reached clarity on what I think the painting is about.

What do other artists say? Here are some quotes on the subject:

"To put it as simply as possible - and this is a simple answer, not a total answer - I know when a painting's finished when I understand why I wanted to do it in the first place." James Elkins

"The painting is finished when the idea has disappeared." Georges Braque

"One always has to spoil a picture a little bit in order to finish it." Eugene Delacroix

"That's the terrible thing: the more one works on a picture, the more impossible it becomes to finish it." Alberto Giacometti

"When a painting is done I feel it actually recedes from me. Everything coalesces and moves away, and I can no longer focus on a single part of it. It suddenly does this gestalt." April Gornik

"It can be difficult to assess when a painting is complete. For this reason, I often set aside the painting to prevent overworking it. When I am unsure, I ask myself if doing more would add or take away from the purpose of the painting." Mary French

"I paint until I become the audience staring at the painting staring back at me. It’s how I know the painting is done." Eric Fischl

"When nothing is wrong anymore, then I stop." Gerhard Richter

Watching Clouds Float By

 Clouds Sailing Over Tweed River Valley ©2013 Katherine Kean
oil on linen 6 x 6 inches

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."

John Lubbock

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." Sam Keen

Cloud watching is high on my list of ways to not waste time, along with reading, bird watching and gardening. What are your favorite ways to not waste time?

Smooth, Dark, and Fast

I wrote previously about the end of the original Blackwing pencils and how disappointed I was when Eberhard Faber stopped making them. At the time I didn’t know that I was far from alone in my admiration for this particular pencil, and it seems to be a particular obsession here in LA.

My pencil supply has been dwindling, so knowing that other than the name, and a reputation and quality to live up to, and that the Palomino Blackwing and the Pearl have no connection to the original, I went ahead and ordered and have tried out both.

From top to bottom: the original Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602, Ebony,
Palomino HB, Palomino Blackwing, and Palomino Pearl

After working with them, I’m starting to lean towards liking the Pearl the most. It seems a little smoother and blacker. They both live up to the slogan, are smooth on the paper, dark, hold a point a bit longer than most, and they smudge and erase well. For now I’m happy to have the familiar shape (not round, so they don’t roll away) and the removable, replaceable (and customizable) eraser. These are made by the Palomino Company, the same company whose pencils I turned to when I first ran out of the original Eberhard Faber Blackwings. The tagline printed on the original and new pencil is “Half the pressure, twice the speed” – clearly the choice for anyone with a light touch.

Another plus in my estimation is hearing back from Customer Service at Pencils.com that "No animal tallow is used in the manufacture of our pencils. Some lead suppliers used to dip their graphite leads in the fat from whales, but this practice ceased a long time ago. Pencil leads are now dipped in a petroleum-based liquid."

Will it live up to its predecessor? Seems promising. I guess we'll see.