Know Notes Aloud

knowNotesaloudPICart

Maybe or not
nothing, keyed
but a breath taken
anchored to create
seatbelts denied
smoked grass, poured gas
rear view backseat driven ride

base guitar, black bass
four strings uncooked and cast
re-keyed, the tiger swam at last
by darned maps, medicine token chips
drumsticks feather fields,
wild deer ticks
running lights and a pedal
steel guitar lick

beautiful chess boards fell
soon pieces meet neatly with love
playing muttered muddy water songs
a music sees the ebony cartel
dances become plays, plays become dances
with the turning of an allen wrench

blues crowds faded, creeks begin croaking
fenced, the dazed and hoaxed
despair dated, the fretboard floating,
blanched, the neck bowed, straightened on rosewood, coaxed
tuning proclaims know notes aloud

wolves blinked, eyes break opened
bluer than Utah’s salt lake
a world understood, stood understood, vinyl swill,
sweat pouring, pouring piano rained
water pelting like bullets kill
tickled ivory keys looking arranged
pictures hang, stretched on buffalo skin
promised like lines in pools
a dive so deep, one polish kiss

pride changed the rules
the sun re-aligned, flared and poached
winning ways, cymbols snare, united states lease
high hats, and luminous dates, a golden roach
guns lifted, marching marshell, swollen peace
a market place, large fruit, top of mantel
money tucked in the wallet of time, nothing urned
bongos banged, fired by candles, the war burned
c clef that says know notes aloud

a flight ticketed, flirting contained,
a baby’s handprint due,a tailored garden, a reading road
calender’s re-printed, a press word key ,labor day cue
weekend goodbyes, memories sent abroad susustained
a foreclosed site, autumn maple ray, paved, slowed
grass marquee played, the bees harbored, john deer shoed
from a to z,uncharted paper bundled, ride
laminated, cut, pasted, then pathed
highway ridden, Kentucky skinned, Louisianna and lathed

one new fishing rod, pinned, our fate, basted word press
our black grandmother’s address,
Gerry Mandered, us again split in two
walking in silver, slandered, shoes
a crooked clap, again at the cape
a four track, trading tape
a clapping preamble
a horn’s blow, geese honk
the majority whip
the tambourine trembles
are unheard, redress
we are the singers
sounding
the siren
know notes aloud

Poem by Heather Whitley Gibson

Yesterday’s Moth

Mar20

A cloth thread
it was yellow; shinning
bright steel blue
cob webs; recyclability
drips design retractable
and Tuesday received
buckets freely
I see a moth
from yesterday poems on
a blank piece of paper
cloth; thoughtfully pinned
inside made
thoughtfully re-read intimately
exhaust/senescent
tube; in my heart
leering down
it’s sinful weakness

My ears are doing-that
windshield-wiper
thing-slowed-down
wiping out
hands off; buzzards; leftover
ground down white wrapped yarn
the bones of a coat; hung hanger
wreck debris aged
falling of the bone
in waves; falling off the bone
in waves; it just comes
nothing hurts
it’s supposed to

Poem By Heather Whitley Gibson

“Painting Abstraction: new elements in abstract painting” by Bob Nickas.

Jan5

Oregon College of Art and Craft Library:

“Painting Abstraction: new elements in abstract painting” by Bob Nickas.

Featured Artist: Michelle Ross

She is well known for her contemporary abstract paintings, which “[traverse] the history of abstraction, design, decoration and the love of language” (here). Her work has been likened to Mondrian, Hans Hoffman, Giorgio Morandi, Agnes Martin, Mary Heilman, and Robert Mangold. Ryan Pierce has stated that “Ross’ paintings are firmly grounded in the tropes and traditions of modernism,” they are “refreshingly free of the gimmicks that crowd a lot of abstraction these days,” and they “link the classical and the modern with grace and reverence, leaving plenty of open space for whatever happens next” (from a 2007 review on PORT).

More images of her recent work can be seen on the Elizabeth Leach Gallery website.

“Painting Abstraction: new elements in abstract painting” by Bob Nickas.

For this week’s library pick, we have selected a title that showcases many of Michelle Ross’ contemporaries and other artists pushing the limits of abstract painting. The book is Painting Abstraction: new elements in abstract painting by Bob Nickas.

After a prefatory essay on the “persistence of abstraction,” the book is broken up into six parts: “hybrid pictures,” “Rhythm and Opticality,” “Color and Structure,” “Found/Eccentric Abstraction,” “Form, Space, and Scale,” and “the Act of Painting.” About a dozen or more artists have been selected for each section and a short text describes how each particularly addresses some issue related to that section’s theme.

For example, Nickas asks “Is the hand of an artist more visible to us when drawing and line are central to her paintings?” (139). He then demonstrates how this question can be answered in the “affirmative” by a close investigation on the work of Allison Miller. Several large, full-color reproductions of her work follow in order to illustrate his point.

Painting Abstraction is an authoritative compilation that addresses the key issues in the field of abstract painting from the last five years and profiles 80 different contemporary abstract artists including Mark Grotjahn and Amy Sillman. Bob Nickas work is an excellent balance of research, critical analysis, and, what all great art books so often have: art, art, and more art.

New Possibilities: Abstract Paintings from the Seventies – in pictures (guardian.co.uk)
Abstract art painting | Creating, drestroying & transforming a painting (yasoypintor.com)
The 9 most stunning abstract art facts of the year (yasoypintor.com)
Dance of form and formlessness (thehindu.com)
Peter Schjeldahl: “Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925,” at MOMA. (newyorker.com)
Automatic Photo Paint Abstraction with Studio Artist – MSG (pixiq.com)
Hyperrealistic Oil Paintings by Alyssa Monks (sandroesposito.wordpress.com)
Unspoken stories (thehindu.com)

British pre-Raphaelite barn owl painting discovery

Dec19

British pre-Raphaelite barn owl painting discovered

From the Huffington Post:

Attic Owl Painting Sells For Nearly $1 Million At Christie’s Victorian Art Sale (PHOTO)

Posted: 12/17/2012 12:31 pm EST | Updated: 12/17/2012 12:31 pm EST

Everyone dreams of finding that one priceless item hiding in the corners of a dust-ridden attic. One UK teacher recently experienced the joy of rescuing such a forgotten antique, all thanks to an old owl painting that turned out to be worth nearly a million dollars.

Jane Cordery, an art teacher in Hampshire, discovered the detailed bird portrait in her attic after attempting to clean the space for a plumber. She’d never seen the ornate owl, but the painting’s intricate brushwork caught her eye and she decided to e-mail a photograph of the find to Christie’s auction house. According to the Daily Mail, One look at the owl and art expert Brandon Lindberg knew that that the work was worth much more than anyone suspected.

The auction house determined that the painting, titled “The White Owl,” was created by pre-Raphaelite artist William James Webbe, and experts valued the work at £70,000 ($113,449). Beyond the British masterpiece’s hefty price tag, it was also revealed that the UK’s Royal Society had exhibited the owl in the mid 19th century, exposing the piece to leading art critic, John Ruskin, who described it as “a careful study” with excellent brown wings.

The attic artwork hit Christie’s auction block last week, far outselling its estimated price — the winning bid was £589,250 ($951,050). Cordery maintains that she had never even seen the painting before her impromptu winter cleaning, while her partner, James Ravenscroft, remembers receiving the work as a present from his mother. “It’s a complete shock,” Cordery told the Daily Pioneer after the sale. “We were not imagining that in our wildest dreams.”

The owl depicted in the painting is a barn owl.

The motto of the painting is inspired by this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

The Lure of Long-Lost Art: James Webbe’s White Owl (artmarketblog.com)
There’s a £70k Pre-Raphaelite owl in my attic: Teacher’s joy after stumbling across battered old painting by eminent artist (dailymail.co.uk)
Portrait of a Barn Owl (leighdiprose.com)
Indian owls threatened by superstition (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
The Beautiful Art Revival: Passion for Pre-Raphaelites (theepochtimes.com)
Ruskin and Pre-Raphaelitism (cultureandanarchy.wordpress.com)
Pre-Raphaelite art exhibition in London
Mild weather brings bevy of exotic bird species (jsonline.com)

Re-posted from (dearkitty1.wordpress.com) who nominated this blog for 2012 Best Blog!

Thank You. I am honored by this wonderful blogger! Of course I don’t have all six stars, but as you can see by the re-post above why am so appreciative.

Denise Burge: Original Dirt (May 14 – September 4, 2011)

Dec19

Elmhurst Art Museum
150 Cottage Hill Ave.
Elmhurst, Illinois 60126
630.834.0202

Denise Burge: Original Dirt (May 14 – September 4, 2011)

Denise Burge, Louise's Tree's, 1999

Denise Burge, Louise’s Tree‘s, 1999

Cincinnati based artist Denise Burge, approaching quilting from a painting background, views the creation of her work as its subject as well as its medium. Using the storytelling tradition learned in her community while growing up in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains, Burge uses her works as a commentary on everything from her family to the natural environment.
The Appalachian region has a history of folk artists concentrating on storytelling featuring aspects of religion, poverty, and the natural resources of the land. By using the quilt as her medium, Burge interprets what, to her, is a nostalgic and functional form of expression. Exploiting patchwork and sewing techniques as a vehicle for ecstatic pattern, Burge seeks to suggest her compositions as and analog to natural patterns of existence. Her work is constructed with a variety of materials and methods, both recycled and new, suggesting aspects of physical growth and renewal through the process. Shredding, slicing, layering, and turning forms and patterns inside-out, the artists sees her creations as a way to reenact and connect with the transformations that the earth constantly undergoes. Her nostalgia leads her to a romanticized conversation about attachment to our landscape. In the Appalachian landscape, people often see the brutality that can be exerted upon the earth, but also become viscerally connected to land and place as a natural resource and source of vitality. Burge uses her work to contemplate this contradiction and question the complexities of our relationship to our natural world.

Elmhurst Art Museum
150 Cottage Hill Ave.
Elmhurst, Illinois 60126
630.834.0202