Brooklyn-based designer Ryder Carroll prescribes a generic, blank notebook to organize productivity in a system he calls, “Bullet Journal.” Believing that pen and paper are mightier than an app, Bullet Journal’s simplicity and artfulness has beguiled some techies and planner junkies. A YouTube video explaining just how to do it has clocked over a million views.
I’m laptopping to you this morning from the Tate Modern in London, England. I’ve a confession to make. While I dearly love seeing quality paintings, and love even more trying to make them, I’m a bit of a junkie when it comes to contemporary installation art. This place is screaming with the stuff. Glazed gallery goers, their minds numbed by the visual challenges, wander in the ambience of this renovated power station on the south bank of the Thames. To the many who snicker and snort, it’s sort of an intellectual curiosity and freak show.
Today is my and my twin brother James’ birthday and the second anniversary of the day we said goodbye to Dad. An old friend recently came to the door with an amazing gift. It was something my dad had given to his dad shortly after they met in Fuengirola, Spain in 1964. Bert, an Englishman, first noticed Dad standing at an easel near the beach. A hobbyist, Bert cruised up behind to take a look, and as he did, a little crowd grew around the painter. The story goes that after a long period of saying nothing, Bert suddenly exclaimed, “My, that’s a magnificent brush!”
An old Chinese proverb says, “Do not grasp the brush before the spirit and the thoughts are concentrated.” This part of the creative process — the beginning part — needs to be handled with the same sort of attention as given to the later stroking. This is where you envision the potential; this is where you sort out the variables for the dish you are about to concoct. Why go for the same automatic cold rice, when almond gai-ding or egg foo-yong could be in the wok?
On Monday evenings in New York City you can go to the Jazz Standard on 27th Street and hear the Mingus Big Band. Behind a plain metal door and at the bottom of a dark staircase is a space not much bigger than a suburban rumpus room, where fourteen specialized cats blast the organized chaos with free improvisation — tight, then loose, then tight again. The melodic storytelling is of the late jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus.
If you’re going swimming, you’re better off if you swim with a friend. So goes the theory. Folks who get together and paint on Thursday mornings know what I’m talking about. There’s something to be said for collective consciousness, shared energy, or maybe just the joy of like-minded companionship.
Here’s a buddy system for studio-introverts or home-workers. You need a telephone friend who is in the same business, some music and a clock. Squeeze out and get all your stuff in order. Phone your friend and propose a time-frame. Two or three hours are good, or it can be until
From the place where you leave your kayak to the foot of Opaekaa Falls there’s a forested walk of about half an hour. The trail winds between the medieval roots of giant koa and baobob. Black boulders have been tumbled here and there by an ancient eruption. Unseen akikiki call from the canopy, and red junglefowl scratch in the underbrush. On the path there are fellow-travellers coming back from the falls. Others, going the same way as I, linger, while yet others, perhaps more professional walkers, dash on by.
Examine the work of an accomplished painter in any genre and you’ll likely witness the understanding and employment of flats. By this I mean those unsung, unapologetic saturations of colour without shine or impasto. Flats acknowledge the painting surface as a flat thing and at the same time enhance other features that give the painting its delicious illusion of depth. Good flats are technically difficult to execute — steady swatches of evenness must dodge the textural momentum of brush strokes in acrylic and oil. Most of the time, louder surface energy is the desired effect and it becomes the usual spotlight of the picture plane. But, oh, to be flat.
CALL FOR ENTRIES. Deadline June 22, 2016. Juror: Robbie Laird. Approximately $20,000 Cash and Merchandise…
Kate Stanley of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has written, “His visits have marked the human story since its earliest chapters. He stands beyond the circle of civilization in gentle judgment, taking note of youthful struggle and triumph. He looks on as children strive to do right, to heed their elders, to earn a miracle. When the darkest moments loom and hopes are high, this visitor crosses the threshold before the dawn to leave a message. He brings possibility, astonishment and delight.” Kate is talking about Santa.