Art from Intuition

My colleague Dean Nimmer has recently published "Art from Intuition - Overcoming Your Fears and Obstacles to Making Art" which I mentioned earlier in this blog. He included an image of my inkblots before they became my Inkblot Series which I began in his week long workshop at the Art New England summer workshops in 2006. If you go to page 70, you'll see the grouping of these babies. He describes the blots as stencils, which they are not.

The image above is "Necklace", 8 feet by 8 feet, ink and glitter on paper. This work will be on exhibit at the Bromfield Gallery this summer in a show entitled "Rara Avis".

Turkish Street Art

Spice Bazaar

Talking Turkey

Through a lens, darkly

In my Drawing Skillbuilding class, I assigned my students an exercise to take 50 digital photos of whatever drew their eye, then pick out their favorite 5 or 10 - the purpose was to figure out what is of visual interest to them. When I took my photos on my recent journey, I attempted to do that as well - not to focus entirely on the architectural wonders or scenic views, but instead to snap the views that I found enticing. Hence the graffiti, the peeling painted walls, the ironic and weird rather than the iconic.

Istanbul graffiti

This is an image from Istanbul. I don't know what it says, but the whole thing - gray wall, dripping paint, skull, and graffiti, appeared to be a powerful composition.

Anybody see a relationship between this and my work?

Istanbul Musings

I usually don't like to take photos on trips because I feel that I miss out on the actual experience of being there. This time, with a digital camera freeing me from the concern of taking photos that I would only find out were awful after spending too much money on the printing, I began to really have fun. Here are a few of the scenes that got me really excited, for political or artistic reasons.