Wowsie! Basketball At Its Finest!

K-State, in the second overtime, barely beat Xavier! What a game!

Boo Hoo Jay Hawk!

Number 1 seed KU just lost to #9 seed Northern Iowa. UNI was ahead most of the game. KU came up at the tight, tense end, just not up enough. I'm really sad.

But on the other hand, I lived in Iowa for 4 years, so I think I'll cheer for UNI now. How great they must feel to have upset KU! They deserve to feel good!

Fickle me!

Stamps, Continued

Take, for example, Helen Frankenthaler's seminal work, Mountains and Sea, painted in 1952:

It is recognized as one of the early landmark works of the Abstract Expressionist era. As a response to her experience of the Nova Scotia landscape, she experimented in this painting with brushing and pouring oil paint onto unprimed canvas. Frankenthaler is credited with developing this technique, called Color Field painting, yet it is her students, Kenneth Noland and Barnett Newman, who are most frequently mentioned in association with this method.

Oh well. Old, familiar story. Onward and upward.

Abstract Expressionist Stamps From the P.O.

The U.S. Post Office recently released a new set of ten beautiful 44c stamps, each featuring a painting by an American abstract expressionist painter. The artists featured are Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Joan Mitchell Adolph Gottlieb Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning. I can hardly wait to use them; my friend Pam will get the first specially stamped letter.

The P.O. really did a good job of it: the stamps are big and vary in proportion according to the original canvases. The back side of the page features information about each artist and identifies the title of each featured painting. And there is a wonderful quote by Robert Motherwell: "The function of the artist is to express reality as felt."

One flaw, as I see it. Of the ten artists featured, only one is a woman. Yes, the attention given to the A.E. movement was mostly to the male artists, but there were plenty of women who should have received equal or more attention. I would like to see stamps in tribute to Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jane Frank, Perle Fine, Mary Abbott, Sonja Sekula, Elaine Hamilton, Grace Hartigan, and Hedda Sterne. (And I'm sure there are more.) These are names that are not so familiar to us, right? Time to help set the record straight.

Rachel Whiteread Drawings

Saw a great show of drawings by the sculptor Rachel Whiteread at the Hammer Museum in L.A. today. Created on a variety of papers such as graph paper, newspaper advertisements, and archival paper, she drew with common materials such as gouache, pencil, and ink, but also used uncommon drawing materials like correction fluid and varnish which resulted in exceptionally beautiful surface and tonal qualities.

Black and White Floor (detail), 2001

Rachel Whiteread

white ink on black paper

ROCK CHALK JAY HAWK!!!!

It is March Madness time! Are you watching? I am!!

Classroom Alive With Creativity

It was a great week at school, especially for the night class. Everyone was working on interesting projects, solving problems, having fun, printing well.

Gwendolyn Rhinehart models her workshirt.

Diane Paull and Bryant Schumacher humor the photographer.

Ernesto Ortiz prints a layer of color.

Ernesto's finished screenprints

Jillian Aguilar and Jazmine Guillen brush blockout on their screens.

Bunnies, Bunnies, Bunnies

Long Beach City College has a plethora of resident rabbits. They are beloved, even though inbreeding over the years has resulted in odd mutations such as extra ears. The campus offers peace, pleasant surroundings, and volunteers who provide food and care. In return, the rabbits remind us how simple a happy existence can be.

Lounging by the Library

Ducks and Bunnies Hang Out Together

Making Friends

My True Native California Garden

After all the heavy rains and now that it is spring, everything in my garden is growing like a weed! And here is the proof:

Hmmmm... spend time in the studio or pull weeds.... spend time in the studio or pull more weeds... spend time in the studio or...

Springing Forward

Time Piece, 2002

SolarPlate print

We adjust our clocks as a new season arrives. Grass is greening, birds are tweeting. There is heat in the sunshine now. Sophie seeks shade; I look up to the bright, cloudless, happy blue sky.

Three New Collages

These 6" x 6" collages are part of the series begun a few weeks ago. The first three were posted earlier. The last of the three posted here is actually a painting, not a collage.

New Work From Printmaking Class, Part 1

I love this point in the semester! Lots of good work is rolling off the etching press or coming out from under the silk screen. Here are just a few examples, hopefully whetting your appetite for more:

Traci Durfee

screenprint

Traci Durfee

screenprint

Sandra Babayan

dry point

Tamara Carlin

dry point

Roger O'Leary-Archer

dry point

Roger O'Leary-Archer

dry point

Roger O'Leary-Archer

dry point

Roger O'Leary-Archer

dry point

This Week's Swap Finds

Even though quite a few vendors were no shows because of the anticipation of rain, Joe and I had a good time at the swap this weekend. We got there early on Saturday and were heading home by the time the rain began. Here are some of our finds:

Vintage Rubber Stamps: There was a huge box of them! Must have been a couple hundred, all numbers. I held myself back to just these few. They'll be handy in my art making - for use in drawings and monoprints, and as tools to create imagery on hardground coated zinc plates for etchings.

Colorful Straw Birds on Sticks: I think I can photograph these and then play around in photoshop. The resulting images can be used in any of a number of ways - to use as templates for photo-emulsion stencils in screenprinting, or as templates for hand carved wood blocks for stamping. They also might be perfect for experimenting with a process I've just learned about: Screenprint an image onto a zinc plate and before the ink dries, sprinkle on some carborundum grit to make a collagraph plate.

A Pinocchio Bendie: Our artist friend, Kate Savage, created a series of paintings featuring Pinocchio. We'll give this one to her as a present.

An Array of Plastic Bugs: Hmmmm, not sure how to use these... maybe as a display on the mantle above the fireplace. Why not?!

What a Great Prezzie!

My friend, Michelle Scharf, gave me all these homegrown, organic lemons from her tree. They are fresh and delicious. Suddenly, I've got a hankering for lemon meringue pie...

As Bob Dylan Predicted...

A hard rain is falling...

Yet more rain in Southern California! Our monsoon season is far from over. Heavy cloud cover this early Saturday morning, 56 degrees, more rain on the way. Love it, love it.