Take 10 Minutes for Slow Art Day, Saturday, April 27

Saturday, April 27, 2013 is Slow Art Day.  Slow art  is the practice of taking the time to savor and really look.  They have a great Facebook Page with lots to look at--slowly, of course.  Slow Art Day was the idea of Phil Terry in 2008 when he spent several hours looking at Fantasia by Hans Hoffman at the Jewish Museum.  Compare that to the 17 seconds Art News estimates the average museum goer spends looking at one piece of art. There are a number of locations participating around Cincinnati:

•  Lisa Jameson from NKU is hosting an Slow Art Day Event at The Cincinnati Art Museum, and there's an interview with her here.
• The Daap Galleries at the University of Cincinnati.  
• The Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in Hamilton, OH.

The formal idea is to spend 5-10 minutes looking at several pieces of art (that's 5-10 minutes on each piece!) and then go to lunch to talk about what you see. If you can't attend one of the organized events, see if you can just look at something for 10 minutes and just see what you see.

Take some time look and think about art.

Bloom: A 2nd Try at the Crab Apple Tree

Earlier this week I posted a small painting of a tree.  I wasn't especially happy with the painting, so I tried painting another version of the same thing. 

I think this one is better.  It has a better composition, since the tree trunk is no longer placed dead center and the canopy is balanced across the page.  The tree is integrated into the background, and the paint quality enhances that integration.  The colors are unified across the painting, and it has a nice feel.  One of the biggest challenges with this tree, is that I'm painting from memory and feeling rather than looking at the tree.  It's a mood rather than a realistic image.  The joy of spring is diluted by a persistent cold that's slowing me down this month. 

I still think it could be a better painting though.  I'll have to think on how.  It's very difficult as an artist to look objectively at your own paintings and figure out what is good and what could be better.  Artists are like the women in the Dove video, we do not have a sound perception of our own work.

Crab Apple Tree

Spring has arrived in southwestern Ohio.  Everything's blooming, including the crab apple trees.  They look elegant against the dark blue of a stormy sky.  (Because this is OH, there are regular thunderstorms that roll through.

I think the colors of this painting worked, but the shape is "meh."  I meant to have the tree much more towards the left side of the page, but got carried away when I was laying in the indigo blue.  I think I'll try again on a larger scale.  This painting is about 7.5x6 inches on a piece of scrap paper. 

Show at Wyoming Wines

I have a show up at Wyoming Wines through the end of April 2013.  The shop runs wine tastings on F and S evenings, where they have a selection of wines to try.  It's an awful lot of fun.  If you get a chance, stop on by for a taste and a look.

When you visit, make sure to also see Bilog Coffee Tea & Gleato next door, where my friend and studio mate, Diana Marra also has her own show up.  I recommend staying for dinner.

 

Beautiful Beets

Three quarters of my immediate family likes beets.  Preferably pickled in the refrigerator.  (One member would like nothing to do with them.  I'm hoping he'll change his mind as he gets older. ) 

If you've ever grown beets--they're easy to grow, they're nutritious, and they're such a beautiful shade of red purple.  They should probably be going in the ground RIGHT now in OH.  (Always behind on the garden....)

One of the things that calls to the engineer in me (and these are out of my imagination) is how they get planted in such neat rows and have a nice rhythm of root and leaf.  This ended up a 5x7  (top) hand painted card with envelope (bottom).