Breakfast with Juan (Gris)
What a great way to get up and greet the morning. Yes, with sunshine! but also with the happy Juan Gris, whose synthetic Cubism makes the world a better place.
I am surrounded by pets. The cats flank either side of this powerbook and the black shadow is lying on my feet. The cats are hungry and know if I succumb to their watching me, there will be extra food. Shadow is just protecting me...(I guess).
Today is lots of business dealings which will be great to get behind us prior to the next two weeks happening. Grassroots is beginning to perc. You can tell that the tribe is beginning to assemble from the hangerouters in front of Gimme! coffee and the stackouts of beer (lovingly referred to by the crowd at the Shure Save as "THE WALL OF BEER"). Wednesday is promising to have great music before the festival with Keith Frank on the Commons, Toivo at the Farmer's Market in Tburg and American Hellcat Drivers at Barangus. Rob has timed it all out with sequencing and drive time all figured in...so what with the volunteering, the hanging out with friends and the guests coming to visit, it should be a wild place here in Trumansburg while I am embracing peace and personal turmoil all on a 8.5"x 11" stack of tracing paper.
I feel that if the last two weeks of Hartford are any match to the last two weeks of Syracuse (which, I thought was going to be a waste of time and it turned out to be the great jettison into my working analog and getting back to my loves)--it should be good. We will be having a group crit a week from Sunday and a week from Saturday, a road trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA. Of course there is our show in the Silpe Gallery and our graduation dinner which the teens and I made favors (stacks of black pencils that said Hartford Art School Illustration MFA 2009 tied with red and white ribbons). I am giving some Luckystone prizes (small stuff...but meaningful to me as I feel we should encourage and support those in the program in small ways. I figure if I can model this behavior and continue to give those prizes after I leave, maybe others will be inspired to do the same). I set up the blog "Squint" for Hartford along with establishing the Facebook Group for the MFA program. I hope others will raise their hands and contibute versus assuming that this stuff just "happens". It saddens me that there are so many that just take and take...and wonder when it stops, why? I saddens me there is no commitment beyond the personal to expand to a commitment to the group. This putting oneself forward should be part of the growth...but you cannot make people reach out when the universe rotates around them. Harumph. Sorry about the rant...(I did clip a bunch out as it got too vitriolic and petty).
With the prizes, I am going to talk about taking trips/journeys and how some people plan and organize while others wing it. Both people come back from their journeys changed, inspired and hopefully open to continue to do this. Our collective shared journeys embrace a desire to go to places that are not commonplace for each one of us. We may physically be in the same place, but every student is on his or her path, some searching, some sharpening-but changing and being open to that change. I am giving out the personal maps for each traveller.... Nuf said. I need to script this thing.
Shady is growling in her throat. I gotta go to the door.
Jiri a few hours later!
Jiri Part 1
Synthetic (cubism, that is)
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I love this period of Mr. P. Picasso's work (admittedly, I like a lot of his periods)--that of synthetic cubism. These little jewels of decorative illustration are happy moments of color, shape, form, found objects and beautiful compositions. I just put these out there as a way to make the day a bit nicer despite the rain (which is making a lot go mouldy these days). There is a lot here to take as inspiration from the palette to the happy wallpaper patterns to the idea of these little domestic scenes that do no more than welcome to to have a cup of tea and contemplate what's next. No one is going to get riled up from this stuff.
Today, finish the Jiri portrait, pack and organize. The money grubbing teens are anxious to get outside to clip and prune more. I wonder if they can make this happen prior to the downpour we are scheduled to get.
Both of the cats are sneezing, a very disturbing sound and experience. MeiMei has the sniffles which adds to the auditory experience. I am happy they can stay here on the porch and nurse their maladies and let me leave them to their illness. Shady is snoring and moaning in her sleep. I am going to get her going to wake up the two under 20.
Need to think about the non Holiday, Holiday card. I am thinking a growing theme a la Craig Frazier. Plants, vines, trees, a natural approach. Maybe how man is represented? or could man and growing be fused? Also, a synthetic cubist image...it just comes down to what. This is going to be a crash and burn as soon as it hits. Feels like the holidays now anyway. Its in the fifties and I am wearing a wool shirt. Thats trouble in July.
Oy. More later.
dinner time.
It's late. Sorry I haven't had a chance to breathe. Its all coming together. Tomorrow, I get the paper to wrap my work. All the prizes are packed. All papers. I need to gather and compile art supplies and the computer stuff. Had a bit of fun making some woodgrain brushes in photoshop. But, there is the wacom, the memory stick, pens, ink, blue pencils, black pencils, erasers, tracing, new notebook, lined notebook, all the printouts of the schedules...the reference all printed out, the SF pix, Chads totem pole totems (flattened and ready to reassemble). Then there are the "which elements of the Quniform do I take?". The Quniform is like cuniform, only it's my garb, my Q-uniform.
A nice possible project came through the door having to do with local music and venues. It is still inception, but maybe some nice local portraits may happen. I think its design and illustration. Was working on a portrait of Jiri Harcuba (a Czech glass artist) for the ongoing series of small shows at the Museum of Glass ("The Masters of Studio Glass") and found the reference wanting. I went to Flickr and found an excellent image with nice features/nice gesture. I wrote the glass artist a note asking permission to use the image (Now, I am acting like a big girl!) and away we go. I am about half done. Its looking nice. Very spare...one color.
My Wood Duck image was accepted at Bagstabfor production. The image that got into the Society show got votes, but was shunned (too edgy? Liza Minella was dumped too). We will see if Little Richard makes it.
Kitty, Alex, Nigel and Mabin were all cutting and pulling, tearing and whacking weeds and wood. The backyard is getting in shape for the second half of the summer which goes from green to greybrown and leggy. Now, there is hope that leggy will be a bit more tailored and elegant. Nothing like 4 people between 15--19 all leaning into it together. Anything is possible. To that, Rick, the veggie stand man at the top of the hill wanted to know if Kitty and Alex wanted to do some farm work with him...and Kitty jumped on it, whipping out a pen with her cell number etc. Wow. Nothing like putting some cash in the bank, eh?
now
Yesterday I finished up putting the cherries in jars and did some cooking. Love the new adds to my mis en place--that being the stuff you keep on hand to cook-- and without these ingredients, it just doesnt happen (olive oil, garlic, leeks, onion, sea salt and pepper, lemon juice, lime juice, scallions, chicken stock). You get the idea. New adds, ginger, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and worcester sauce. I bought black caps, zucchini, new leeks, and hot house tomatoes from Rick's stand at the top of the hill--which was great. Rick and the missus regaled me with tales of all the hard cider, peach brandy and booze that the two of them make on the side. Lots of winking and insights. Very funny. Localvores to the enth degree.
My illustration mis en place has a lot of do with software, ink, brush pens...etc. The pictures above are just sketches from my sketchbook.
Worked the better part of yesterday--building my files of reference etc. for CF Payne and Gary Kelley next week. Need to lean into the file building for the digital class the following week. I boxed up the 8 15"x 20"s. All my prizes are wrapped and in bags. Thesis papers are packed with my shoes to show. Started the pile of clothes and underwear that need to go. My bag of quarters for coffee and laundry is ready. Picture hanging hardware needs to happen. Need to check with Kitty on wheither she wants an interview at Hartford after her tour/ info session.
It's late and I need to roll the hometeam out of their respective racks.
Daruma picture.
working on Barnum sketches still.
More from Mr. Hnizdovsky
all images above:
Reprinted with kind permission.
© S. Hnizdovsky, 1985
www.hnizdovsky.com
Yesterday we got Kitty off to the Adirondacks with her beautiful , blonde triple friends. Alex was off to a party in Geneva, so R. and I had the evening just for us. We found ourselves at Felicia's Atomic Lounge where Paris Texas(a Django Reinhardt inspired trio) was playing. We met up with Peter Hoover who was offering a large plate of dilly beans to all assembled and sharing nips of his Rhubarb Brandy he had recently concocted. The music was great as were Peter's tales of bootlegging, field recording and music and how the two inevitably became/become overlapping. Peter's tales of localvore dining, wine and liquor from the divine peach brandy made from overripe peaches that had wintered in a commercial fridge at a local fruit farm, to the double cherry brandy that he kept folding into the next year...to the beautiful pinkjuice that the rhubarb produces. We talked about his time in Pittsburgh and how he had met Arnold Bank and then, as if it had been planned, I got a Facebook message from a field recorder friend of his who was also a student of Arnold. The message was very nice and saying that he and I had a mutual friend who was in from London....Arnold and Rose's son, Stephen! Another reason to join Facebook!
Must get the loose ends finished up this weekend. Then there is packing for Hartford. I was thrilled to look over my collection of cardboard boxes to find there was a perfect box for all my 15x20 prints. Must go, work awaits.
Oh, and the images above again are from Jacques Hnizdovsky. The beans are a bow to Peter's beans!
Alibris
images above courtesy of:
© S. Hnizdovsky, 1985
Reprinted with kind permission.
www.hnizdovsky.com
I was presented with a glistening stainless steel bowl brimming with a stockpot's quantity of translucent, ruby sour cherries. Kitty had climbed the trees with Alex on the ground, working with Peter to gather cherries for his projects and yet some for me and for Peggy. So, I pitted for a bit last night, and an hour or so this morning and now I have a stock pot of cherries in sugar and a bit of lime juice, mascerating prior to cooking up preserves which I will put in jars tomorrow. It was wonderful for Kitty and Alex to spend time with Peter making and picking, talking and learning about his world, and what he loves to do, collect, think about. Plus, the pizza was divine as well. Lucky ducks!
The woodcuts are from the current illustration boyfriend, Jacques Hznidovsky. They are bookplates (truly a design, type and illustration project of the past) integrating type and his lovely illustration to powerful results. There is an "englishness" to his approach to these personal tributes that I really love in the integration of type and illustration, the simple framesthat are the glue between the two.Lovely. As bookplates were a pleasure for bibliophiles and necessities for the wealthy patrons in the past, when books were treasured, and libraraies contained in rooms devoted to reading, learning and the sheer physicality of books, what is that moment now? A Kindle with an electronic book? No need for real estate, for book tables and book lights. I even have the 100 classics on my iPhone to browse at will, waiting for kids or in the cracking corners of time we have during the day. And, surprisingly, I like it that I can read in bed with the lights off...with something as small as my hand. But the smell of the ink, new glue and the lovely hand of rich paper is lost. The viseral, the tangible are gone leaving us unadorned content that only our imaginations can embellish. The sensuality of the printed page and speaking as a designer, the wonder of seeing a print piece develop and bloom on press is missing. However, with change comes a new appreciation. I am waiting.
Speaking of books and words, Carol TInkelman forwarded the advance copy of Lisa Cyr's article on the Hartford Art School in the June issue of Communication Arts Magazine (the illustration issue I have my Fort Worth image in). I am briefly noted (and am flattered to no end) and would love to share the article with you>>
There is more work to be done this weekend to get prepped for next Saturday's trip to Hartford. I need to finish my Barnum sketch, gather and output the reference for Gary and Chris Payne, create brushes and type for the Barnum stuff (scrap pile) and pack, wrap the pictures and get my wits clear. Then there is the prep for the guest who Rob will have along with the prep for Erich while I am gone. Holiday weekend, pffft.
More later.
Cherry Picking.
image above:
Reprinted with kind permission
© S. Hnizdovsky, 1985
www.hnizdovsky.com
I give you a cabbage from Jacques Hnizdovsky, current illustration boyfriend. Look at this thing...blacks and whites singing together. And yes, its a "spot". What a way to start a rainy day. The way we got going was to take Kitty and Alex at 6 a.m. to meet with Peter Hoover. They were all going off to pick sour and sweet cherries by the gallon and then bring them back t mash up for Peter's cherry homebrew. There was a bit of trepidation as I forced this on them, but as Peter and Peggy are so wonderful and kind, interesting and sharing, I saw my two griffins unfurl their wings, pat their dog and begin to sparkle and smile. Yes, this was going to be just fine...! They are going to be with Peter through the day (despite the rain)--and they should learn quite a bit!
We close on our refinancing of the house (much lower interest rate) later today. And because its that time of the season (the day before a holiday) I expect we will have the phone ringing with immediate needs and requirements that have to happen right now before the individual goes on break. Coffee awaits.
Thanks Peg!
all images above:
Reprinted with kind permission.
© S. Hnizdovsky, 1985
www.hnizdovsky.com
Peg Nocciolino, colleague from Hartford, amazing illustrator and all round go to gal, when seeing my foray into the pen with the sheep prompted me to look at the work of Jacques Hnizdovsky. Wow. Love this stuff. The site I posted has a wonderful collection of his works from lino cuts, woodcuts and prints to paintings and drawings. This black and white work is very much in a hand I would like to develop. Perhaps Mr. Hnizdovsky and the late Leonard Baskin, along with Evelyn Ness can spur me on. This is all a sidebar to the portraits I want to launch into. Its great to have quite a few things to prompt thinking and research.
baaaaa
Am fiddling around with texture and sheep. Yesterday was round one. The other completed last night is doing some things that are amusing. Am planning on more experimentation with sheep and rooster heads. Kitty told me that the background cannot be as textured as seen in this noodle. More graphic... not sure. Insane patterning is fine by me. This lamb can be married with a lion (for a holiday card). Well, and speaking to Holiday cards, they are back on the plate again for one of my clients.
Remember--
• no red no green
• no blue, no silver
• no candles, no wreaths
• no trees
• no snowflakes
• no obvious "holiday stuff"
• no SANTAS, RUDOLFS, STARS
• no doves (we have overused them)
• but keep it professional and personal
• just typography is too boring
• no new year orientation
Yikes.
Alex is playing golf in the rain. Kitty is making jewelry and watching tennis. I am getting them hitched up with a friend who needs cherry pickers for his cherry cordials that he brews with his still. Tall highschoolers are perfect for this thing. I am getting the company in the right spot (payroll etc.) prior to going to Hartford. Need to finish my Barnum picture.
More later>>
Am trying to figure out how to make the slide show from last year's class of 2010 presentation work in a non glitchy way. The new powerpoint and keynote on my new flashy big presentation...makes things easier to work with. Another day of rain here.
Al baby
Been thinking and looking at caricature work recently. You all know of my love of Pablo Lopato's work and that of Steve Brodner. However, the Aubrey Beardsley of caricature work is Al Hirschfield. His penmanship is exquisite, flowing and perfectly brief. He is calligraphic but spare in his linear decisions. His work is predominantly black and white, but when he leans into color, it adds to the illustration but with the linear bones being so strong--color becomes a detail and not a driver of the picture. I have been looking at these and other guys to see how they abstract a face and yet maintain a likeness that the viewer says "hey, that's...". Granted, many of Hirschfield's and Lopato's imagery are of pop stars and celebrities. Brodner takes on political characters in addition to the star studded icons we all know and identify with. All of these illustrators have created a series of character shorthand marks and treatments. This is my first step with Gary Kelley and CF Payne during their week of "work on your own project or work on a fictional character portrait". I want to learn the clues and start distilling and developing that same personal character shorthand to begin to attempt to develop images like these artists. I think I am closer to where Lopato is...but the fluid line works for me too. Maybe a merger of spirit?
I have been exhausted and slept all afternoon yesterday. Surprisingly, I am thinking clearer and not feeling as scrambled as I had been previously. I need to stop running myself down as much...and take the time, go to bed early and push for sleep. Sleep seems to make straight all those tangled ends, and permit day dreaming and thought that fatigue seems to surpress.
Shady is learning to be a frisbee dog. She is vigilant by the chipmunk hole--waiting, hoping and sniffing for their emergence. Alex is asleep on the porch. Kitty is off making things. Birdfeeders are full and the annuals are blooming.
Whoa.
Working on a sketch for Barnum. Quick and dirty vector/ not for the final...just more blocking. I hope to output this and work on top of output...putting in a poster, maybe some drapery. I will do a second version with some of his people/ creatures in the background...FeeGee Mermaid? Jumbo? The freaks are confusing...the quesiton is how to make them work as they are so odd that they might compete with the strength of the man.
Closing of school/starting of summer stress is happening. It is scheduled out through til end of August with too much overlap and frankly, not much of a break. The weeks I am going, we are going to have 4 guests on top of it all with random visits and different comings and goings with pick ups at airports etc. I am doing a courtesy week of someone sitting in with us...with a small project for her do do. I have moms around here calling me asking very vehemently to hire their kids as they cant get "real" jobs with their summer schedules...so I have become the fallback employer. Also, I we are having a closing on a real estate refinance before I go to Hartford. And appointments, checkups, doctors are wedged in between... Sorry to vent...It's just nutty.
The college thing is making me quietly crazy. Our scores and grades are just this side of totally being in the middle. Plus, my teen has no interest in getting materials, doing research etc. and when approaching the campus reacts to whether the kids are cool or not...forget everything else. I tell you, for the fortune and stress of paying for that fortune, community college looks like a viable option to get the student to engage in this stuff.
Gotta go. The shuttling of kids to graduation related events begins. Need to pick up the thesis...
and get that resolved. R. is off to Seattle on Sunday. I feel like we are grinding out one week to the weekend. Maybe we can see the Sufferjets tomorrow night just for us.
quick now!
New logo for the Stonecat Cafe...now calling themselves outside the cafe as Stonecat.
Am working on some inexpensive labelling (designed specifically for black and white printer home technology with khaki/kraft paper as an accent. They are coming out with some very original sausages created by genius Scott Signori along with some very imaginative other food carry out, take home or give to...from the region. Scott and Jess were very brave to ask me to help them with the sausages...and I took the ball a bit further than they had brought to me...and they are kindly letting me pursue this creative approach. Its looking very good and fresh...Now, I need to slug away on their website layout.
Kubb: The local game of champions
Kubb (pronounced /kʉb/ in Swedish or /kub/ in Gutnish) is a lawn game where the object is to knock over wooden blocks by throwing wooden sticks at them.
Kubb can be simply described as a combination of bowling and horseshoes. Today's version originated on Gotland island, Sweden.
Rules vary from country to country and from region to region, but the ultimate object of the game is to knock the "King" over, before your opponent does. This, combined with the fact that there is a certain level of strategy that can be used by players, has led some players and kubb fans to nickname the game "Viking Chess." However, unlike chess, if a player or team knocks over the king before achieving their objectives, that player/team immediately loses the game. Some games have been known to last for hours.
The game can be played on a variety of surfaces such as sand, concrete, grass, or even ice.
Kubb is a good game for children (under supervision), although in such cases, the 8-meter pitch length (specified in some instructions), ought to be shortened.
Also, Just did the Kubb Collective mark. Here it is on a bunch of things at Zazzle. The Kubb Collective is a group of fun people here in the Tburg area that gather regardless of weather to play competitive Kubb--with people paying in per game and the proceeds given to charity.
I am a bit frustrated (but without frustration, growth will not happen) with my portrait project at Hartford. I am not going to get into it...but as soon as something is finalized, I will post. Urg.
The thesis is at Staples today for binding. Done.
We are getting amazing rain (looks like hail!) with lightening and a downpour. Should disconnect. More later.
Sent out a ton of loose ends...and with the fed ex packages went cds of data for these folks I am giving the work to...to send to their vendors to get done. I am tired of the late night "wha...wha...what....?!" Now, its tag, your are it. Two down. One more to go. Have rescheduled all the mobile dates in early July to August where we have a bit more time to stretch out and relax versus two trips to Corning in one day before Hartford was happening. So..the last two weeks are not glutted with doctor appointments, in office surgeries and plans. Too much. August is relaxed compared to the beginning of a schedule we are roughing in...which is this side of paralyzing.
Its midnight and I need to sleep. I am a dull person.
Solstice.
Slow going today. Yesterday we were in Ithaca doing what Kitty and Alex and I adore...shopping for toilets. It is wonderful comedy...from the flushing of buckets of golf balls, to more "technical" aspects of the toilet (ie bowl shape to height). The amazing thing about toilets as objects is that they are slip cast ceramic units (3, the tank, the bottom and the tank top)....kind of a big sculpture...that in itself is impressive. Sad part is that they could be so much more fun with decals etc. etc. but it must be a tiny cost bump that people are not willing to pay for...or at least at Home Depot. We also shopped at the local craft store (bursting with scrapbooking stuff for Father's Day and Graduation (from Kindergarten, HS and College) for paper for me and findings for K as she is hot on wire jewelry theses days. We rolled back into Tburg and I spent the better half of printing and assembling my thesis paper copies (which I am just this close to completing). A few more hours and a trip to Staples for binding and I will be done. The prints came Friday and they are great! Big, bold, high saturation. As good or better than anticipated.
I am working on a sketch of PT Barnum in a very inspired by Circus posters manner. Barnum is being portrayed in my picture as being a whiteface clown--with circus inspired lettering for his name...as if its a poster promoting him. All taken from clues from the research. What I like about this is that a midtone grey or greyblue can draw the face, the creases and shaping, and then having the opportunity to go in with a color (using my new and exclusive filter, multiply) to sock in the red/ face paint so the man still reads through the decoration. He will have a ruff...either tight or loose (the Barnum Posters show loose)--I would really like to do the work just with the computer as it would be faster...But I will puzzle over it with trace and see what happens. This is due Wednesday and I have a good chance of making this deadline.
I would like to do this project in three ways...one line and tone, one calligraphic> just black, red and tan...and the third, really simplified down (much like the Czech clowns). But, I have time for one...so one it is.
We are chez lake. It has decided to give us a bit of a respite from the rain...though we are wearing jackets and layers as it is decidedly cool. All the pruning is adding up--as the trees and vines in their newly tamed state are nice and shapey. The deer do not eat the hosta here (unlike at the Headquarters...where I am going to get out the great guns (read, Irish Spring Soap) and go after those buggers. The work done to the back of the house where we had frozen pipe tragedies is wrapping up...So, onward. It is nice being here as this is the signal that summer has begun. Tonight is the Summer Solstice. Hopefully, the clouds will clear and we will be able to enjoy the longest day --admiring the sun. One can hope?
Kitty is busy making an origami menagerie. Alex and Rob are visiting and I am writing you and thinking about my picture...I just finished figuring out how to put a password on our wireless network to shut off the wireless hogs that encroach on our hospitality in the summer. Remember last summer and my rage/rants. (and more)Problem> solution...And maybe they will not be sitting in our yard with their notebooks doing their email. If they want a signal, they can buy it themselves...or surf off of someone else....You know, just re reading the raging from last summer really is whipping me up. But, nothing to get whipped up about...the giant firewall has been erected...and the antics of the handwringing when we unplugged the airport before we left the house everyday or the sheer in your face about our network being down has been eliminated. If there had been a conversation about paying for parts of the month, there may have been another solution. But hey....Our smart other neighbors did the same thing... Password please!
Reallly should wrap it up. Any suggestions on summer reading. Somehow I need to think about "literature" and all I can imagine is mental candy.