Diary Of An Artist In A New World

Two New Easels

Needing two new easels I settled on the universal type (vertical mode plus watercolor mode) and small enough for easy storage. Those easels always have design faults, however. The legs tend to spread while you work for a start, so I made some improvements - chain stays for the legs and a cross brace for extra watercolor stability.

After centuries of making easels you would think the manufacturers could get something as basic as an easel right, but it seems not. I remember a story of Vincent going to a blacksmith to make an improved painting tool, so it seems to be a long term problem. The only easels I have that work well without modification are the eight I made myself about four years ago and my Stanright aluminium easel. Every wooden easel made in Italy or France that I have purchased has needed improving. The chain stays should be standard. They make the easel more user friendly without preventing the easel from folding up. Stability is especially important if I am going to trust putting my laptop on it.

I'm Not Afraid Of Dostoyevski

How is it that we can become afraid of reading certain writers, especially Russian ones? It is only words after all, isn't it? Well I finally dipped my toe into Dostoyevski after all these years of promising myself that I would, and I am loving it.

Before I break open a bottle of champagne I do have a confession to make. I have chosen the 'Dostoyevski For Dummies' approach. Yes, I cheated, I found an audio recording of the LA Theater Works doing a dramatization at Audible.com. People like Ed Asner doing the performing. I had been looking for the book itself, but when I saw this I knew it would be a great way to become familiar with the characters before starting the book itself. It might be a sort of Dostoyevski Light, but I am loving the characterization, and am looking forward to the main meal.

When I bought my iPod I had no idea that it would open up the world of literature like this for me, but I love listening to books and podcast's as I walk down the street. If anyone with an iPod has not discovered the books for sale for iTunes and iPod yet, go to audible.com If you like books at all you will be pleasantly surprised.

Beam Me Up Scottie (Well, Soon, Maybe)

Not to be outdone by a 22 room space hotel announced a few days ago (see my post "The First Artist In Space" August 12, 2007), Brigelow Aerospace has brought forward its plans to launch its own space station called Sundancer. Although not described specifically as a space hotel that would seem to be the most likely source of income for the venture.

Brigelow has already launched two inflatable test orbiting space ships called Genesis One and Two. Sundancer appears to be planned for launch before 2010. So it seems there is going to be ample opportunity to become the first artist in space. Now all I need is the four million dollars or so to get up there. Maybe I will just have to Hitchhike. Have thumb, will travel...

A Creative Week In The Studio

It is wonderful seeing different personalities in the syudio all doing things their own way. These photos were all taken this week in the studio. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by people making artwork. Artists are my favorite people.

Alicia Grey's Hens Photos

Alicia, and her friends and family went to the Hard Rock Cafe and then came here afterwards for a late arty party. They were lots of fun, although when it came time to start drawing that was when the laughter and giggles were most apparent. In the class there was one who proved that grey hair doesn't slow down the ability to have loads of fun. It was a big group and I was cleaning dishes and glasses until 3:30 am, but it was worth it, these women know how to party and passionately get involved in bohemian life.

Georgina Camp's Arty Party

One of the many reasons arty party's are so popular here in the studio is because everything is genuine. That includes my delight at hosting all these beautiful women. There is also a special magic associated with Hens Nights . Perhaps that because it has the joy of the coming wedding, but this event has no purpose other than relaxing, and having a good time without any stress. Of course the charms of my bohemian studio and the charms of the model ensure that a fabulous time is had by all.

The Children In The Slaughterhouse

I finished re-reading Slaughterhouse Five last week and I have been remembering, savoring bits that I liked and chewing the bits that need a bit of chewing. It is a brilliant book that gets better each time I read it. I love the way Kurt Vonnegut crafts words, I love the way he interfaces reality with his poetic idea of what reality is or might be. I love his ability to weave humor into such a humorless subject, and put little touches of humanity here and there in unexpected ways.

I especially love the part of the book where Billy is watching a movie. Billy is either mad because it is his way of dealing with trauma, or he really can move through time in a random manner. He watches a movie one night, but he watches it in reverse because time is going backwards. It is a war movie. It starts with a city on fire but there is a mysterious force that sucks the fires and explosions out of the city and puts it into cylinders which are magnetically lifted into the belly's of passing bombers where they are stacked in neat rows in the bomb bays. The aircraft fly backwards towards Britain. They are damaged but as they fly over France German fighters fly up and suck bullets out of the bombers so that they are suddenly perfect again and no one is injured anymore. Crashed bombers fly up from the ground to re-join their friends. The dead pilots come to life again.

The planes land back in England, and the cylinders are shipped to the United States where workers, mostly women, disassemble them and separate the dangerous contents into safe minerals which are then placed back in the ground where they remain safe forever. All the characters grow younger, including Hitler, until they are all babies and unable to harm anyone. It is a beautiful movie.

This section of the book was read by Vonnegut in 2003 and set to music. It is called Tock Tick. It is reproduced at the end of the book, at least it does in the Audible.com version. I love listening to a story teller reading books which I listen to on my iPod. The audio book format has many advantages and in this case especially so because the book was followed by Vonnegut talking about aspects of the book, then there was a discussion between Vonnegut and a war buddy of his about the war, the book, and life. Then they played Tock Tick.

Listening to Vonnegut talk was interesting not just for what he said, but because it created yet another interface with the fire bombing of Dresden in World War Two. Vonnegut put the hero of the book, Billy Pilgrim there in Dresden during the firebombing. Vonnegut, however, was writing from direct experience. He really was there as the incendiary devices fell and the city was destroyed. He was a prisoner of war. He couldn't do anything to stop the bombs but he did survive miraculously. Possibly because he was locked in a deep dungeon. Perhaps just because he was lucky. While Vonnegut vastly exaggerates the extent of the deaths on that terrible day he accurately conveys the sense of menace and futility of war in all its brutality. In many ways the most callous acts within the story are not the indiscriminate killings of the distant bombers but the accumulated small atrocities committed on a daily basis  by individuals, enemies and supposed comrades alike.

At the end of the book, after all the tens of thousands have died in the bombing, and the war is coming to a close, a soldier is caught stealing a teapot and is shot by firing squad as a looter. As Vonnegut says - so it goes.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Available as audio book for iPod/iTunes at Audible.com (which is cheaper than buying it directly from the iTunes Store)

Available as hard copy book from Amazon.com, or at your local bookstore.

A Load Of Bosch

At sketchclub and drawing class we normally discuss the work of an artist. This week it was Hieronymus Bosch, the inspiration for the artist we discussed last week, Brueghel. There is a lot written about Bosch, which is remarkable considering how little is known for fact about his life. It seems that someone who depicts a hellish world of half human monsters, sadistic perversions, and anal obsessions is going to get talked about quite a lot in modern times. Bosch, if he were here, would need to thank both the psychoanylists and surrealist painters for popularizing his pictures and starting endless dissection of their meanings. Bosch would probably disgusted by modern morality and think us deserving of the many punishments depicted in  his works, but if he could get past that he may well be amused at what is conjectured. I prefer the mystery in his imagery to too many explanations.

We know the year of his marriage, his death and the year he joined the Brotherhood of Our Lady. We know his father and grandfather were painters, and we know his real name was Jereon van Aken. We know his wife was wealthy. Apart from that we known little else that is factual about him. I think that is enough, though, for it allows the imagination to to fly without restriction.

So this week we allowed the creative spirit of Bosch to fly within the studio and inspire all of us as we worked. This is some of the results.

The First Artist In Space

From my earliest memories I dreamed of being the first artist in space. While Bill Gates dreamed of money, Murdoch of world domination, Steve Jobs of beautiful machines, and George W. of the mother of all oil wells, I was lost somewhere on the moon painting moonscapes or on a starship photographing the center of the galaxy.

Even today, when other people count sheep to get themselves to sleep, I take my seat in a spacecraft amongst the moons of Jupiter. I have to confess that I have only ever used two screen savers. One was a view from the space station of the earth, and the current one is a photograph of Jupiter taken by the Galileo spacecraft in 1995.

There are few things possible to imagine of greater beauty than the cloud tops of Jupiter or the rings of Saturn. I check the web sites for the Cassini mission to Saturn and the Mars rovers every few days to see the latest photos. Currently there is an image of one of Saturn's moons called Encaladus on the Cassini site. Encaladus looks like the most beautiful pearl in existence.

I dream of being in a little compartment on Cassini taking photographs and making drawings and paintings on my Wacom tablet and trusty Macintosh. I could paint the beauty of space, and then in pictures and poems try to explore the loneliness of being out there, in the middle of the inky blackness with a limited supply of resources. It would be worth it to know that I only had a few weeks of air left if I could just communicate some of that feeling I get from extraordinary beauty.

I remember the first time I saw Saturn. It was in a 4 inch reflecting telescope I had put together from old parts as a project with my young sons. It was in Cairns on a warm evening that we took the telescope outside and after looking at the moons of Jupiter we spotted Saturn low in the eastern sky. That year the rings were nearly side on to the Earth and the planet looked like a yellow ball with a long yellow nail through it. It was the strangest sight, and even now it remains my best ever view of this wonderful sight.

I would love to be the first artist in space. and have a bohemian studio amongst the stars.

If I end up with four million dollars it is still possible to be the first space bohemian. Today it was announced that the first Space Hotel is planned for launch starting in 2012. The rooms are 22 pods around a central hub. It is the strangest looking thing, like a sea creature and proof that reality is always stranger than fiction. When science fiction imagined space stations years ago they visualized wheels in space. Maybe that will happen one day, but so far the space station we have, and now this space hotel are nothing like the future world predicted not long ago.

I would love to be a guest on the Space Hotel in my Galactic Suite painting the marvelous view of the Earth below and its extraordinary beauty like a jewel in space.

Theft Of Precious Brueghel Paintings

On Sunday thieves walked into the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Nice, France, around 1pm and just 5 minutes later brazenly walked out with 4 painted treasures. Police believe that the speed of the operation indicates the thieves knew precisely which paintings to target, and that quite likely they were stolen "to order". It is believed that the pictures are too well known to be sold on the open market.

The paintings stolen were "The Allegory Of Earth" (illustrated) and "The Allegory Of Water", both by Jan Brueghel, and "Cliffs At Dieppe" (1897) by Monet, and "Poplars At Moret-sur-Loing" (1890) by Sisley. The loss of the Monet and Sisley are bad enough, but being realistic, works by both artists are not so extremely rare as the two allegory's by Brueghel. As Patricia Grimaud, deputy curator at the museum pointed out, there are only 5 paintings of this type by Brueghel left in France.

The tiny supply of Brueghel paintings in the world is being depleted steadily by selfish greed like this. The round painting illustrated is another Brueghel that was stolen in Hertogenbosch in 2004. An Internet search reveals a previously stolen Brueghel painting, "The Temptation Of St Anthony" was recovered in Madrid in 2002. Sadly, more paintings are stolen than are recovered.

It is a great sadness to me when I hear of this kind of tragedy. It tears at my heart. It is an alien thing to me to treat artworks as commodities like this. To me these works are cultural treasures belonging to humanity and as such, sacred objects to be protected by all, for all.