Caldor... rant, rave & shout out

I'm grooving on this drawing. An early one, exploratory both of the thing being depicted and in the manner of depiction. This sheet speaks to me. Lines like silhouettes only dimensional, appearing flat but also going within the form and puncturing and punctuating the outline making monkeys with more banana than banal in their personality.

Alexander Calder, better known for his mobiles (which hang in the foyer of nearly every major American museum touting the salt of its Modernist collection), was also a pretty smart draftsman. I don't mean to diminish Calder's mobiles, which are often cool; distaste derives more from the unimaginative way they're most often hung today.

Take the National Gallery of Art's East Wing in Washington, DC as an example. The entryway feels like a omniplex movie theatre and its opens up into a shopping mall like atrium. The hallway is designed to move people and it does so efficiently but at expense of one beauty of a Puryear. Nobody sees it because the environment functions as passage. Predictably, what do we find in the atrium but some hulking piece of art, in this case, its the Calder. Usually our boy is little more reserved and his pieces are silent birds, shifting like slow motion sattelites, overhead and asking us to tilt our heads and take in some sky.

Calder's mobiles, like giraffes, are cool and I totally would be psyched to live near one. On the other hand these iron space pterodactyls seem ubiquitous and curators strangle their potential by consistently headlining their entryways with their presence.

Enough, lets go back, get out of the museums, pre-1940's... before moving to Connecticut when Calder was a hobnobbing Parisian in the business of making circus. This more grounded Calder saved his flights for the pen and paper and this is what I'd like you to gander at now.


If you like that one, check this boxy, gridded one out. Near totally abstract and reorienting the viewer outta their seat and up from the perspective on top of the room...


This last circus one came after moving back to the states. It was done from the memory of the earlier ones and I believe was made to entertain some friends and his daughter. Its a broader statement about the circus but in some ways not quite as quirkily original as the other two. Its still cool but a little too book cover ready or circus poster dependent.


Another part of Calder's ouvre which should not be overlooked is his jewelry. This stuff is awesome and it feels just as much as if it were a drawing in space as it does a body ornament.


Calder also was a conspiracy theorist and is reported to have spotted aliens in Aix...


If you hear me mispronouncing, let me hit you on to this Caldor
RIP, my beloved DariNor Plaza

PS... Shout out to Strega-Cusano, who'll be cooking for the town of Greenfield and all-comers tomarrow from four till six pm

Beyond the Draw

Its Friday & when better than to check in with Tellman...

Here Come the Guns

Yo, hottest drawn music video ever...
Not usually a proponent of firearms but these post-it pieces are heaters:

Here Come the Guns from greg condon on Vimeo.

Word goes out to choo choo la rouge

and paragraphs out to G

Drawing in the Round

It's potty-time...



During the evenings I've been trying to channel Greece, Japanese inks, folk weather vanes and Putney into an object. On the first attempt failed miserably while trying to form images with a brush and some slip glaze. Sponged it off then tried again using a pencil as if it were an engraving tool.

Gratitude goes out to Stephanie for throwing the vessel. Last time I tried to throw on the wheel was sometime in early ninety and quite predictably (prepare yourself), this happened.

Hoa lotta shakin goin on

This is a painting by Vietnamese artist Dang Xuan Hoa. Is it real or is it fake?

Little fuss by Fernand

Awkward, quick hewn textures hacked free from the page... Labeled 1913, this is a small one, owned by MOMA, but not currently on view. He's credited with the following remark, "When I transfer the subject of a drawing on to a canvas, I simplify it; I subject its form to the overall conception of this painting; I get rid of the superfluous thing which might be in the way; I clear it of all the parasites which would rob its appearance of purity."

Apparently our boy was also into video art. Warning, prepare your ears then click here...

Machine gives way to nature

The other night a sketchbook was passed around over a meal. This is an interesting spread contributed to by the likes of Uncle Doug and Fearless Joe.

ol skool tunes & things that go creak in the night

Still slightly abuzz from a Saturday evening Alma mater earful of Mozart, Brahms and some courageousFrank Bridge. The treat was thanks to the initiative of a Dupre conspired visit that unsurprisingly, though unexpectantly, snowball'd into a phalanx of mostly New Havened interlopers invading campus to paparazzi a 3 day old cow, marathon crazy 8's, ascend Putney Mountain, motorcross the Marlboro Music Festival and second home Putney Diner.

My highlight was chillin' childless atop Mt.Putney eating pretzels and flipping through some 17th century Japanese inks and Reginald Marsh. To relive the experience peer this drawing by Baarron Von Segs

(Notice how well the Baaron nailed my hairy right leg, he's a sick man)

For others the peak may have been some Allegretto grazioso by the courageous Frank Bridge...


And after the intermission we were all delighted by a String Qunintet teeing off on Brahm's Vivace ma non troppo presto featuring among other powerhouses, Great Dane Johansen on large strings--->


But before I bid you ciao, one more from the diner, a writesey drawszey featuring Dupre, me, the Swiss consulate, BaaronVon and a peasant farmer from Sunderland...

What do I see in my coffee?

freak-out Friday: a barefoot country crossing

Following a tradition started by the good people of Art Decade I'd like to make Fridays more all encompassing. So, in case you missed it, give a gander to this weeks news in Saturday's Reformer.

Tellman isn't the only one gone barefoot... as here are also a few figure scrawlings ecked during today's class. I dunno, I requested the usual: "an Abercrombie model with nice abs, wearing boxers, preferably with blue eyes" and this sweetheart, seeming kinda homeless and lost, on a bike shows up. Well, he certainly had some original poses. My favorite was the chair grab.



Creates alot of windows for negative spacing...

Delightful Garden

Ahhh Hieronymous... roots, birth, thoughts adrift, post-meal conversation. Lets tip our hats to the harvest and peep this Tree-man. A much friendlier rendition than the better known, full-colored cousin, you painted in your Hell Wing.

Your ink drawing, located in Vienna, sports a beautiful bird-strewn valley, full of animals. Center river, your tree-egged, vessel brimmed man sets sail, gazing back toward his posterior, where a family communes over a near empty table.


For many more drawings, peep here. And if you havent, you must, a crotchety concert in an egg. Possibly a little reminiscent of Morning Sing?

Circus is in town

Fo' one mo' week...

Looks as though I'm not going to escape the Put Put for a run down to Philly. If anyone else finds themselves kicking round the City of Brotherly Love you oughta make it down to 127 S Sixteenth Street. Four painters are throwing down some mean compositions of trees, polka dots, animals eating people and knife wielding cowboys. I've seen a number of these paintings in person and encourage you to get some face time with 'em because some of them are physical and others are rhythmic in ways that books or computers can't quite convey.

Right around the corner is the Knodding Head and down the street is Monk's. One of of them makes great seared tuna sandwiches, the other has mouth watering mussels. Both of them serve Belgians. You might even be able to track down some of these painters as many of them are relatively local and I'm sure they'd love to talk painting over fries.

The gallery is Gross McCleaf and you can click on it here. Remember it, because you can usually count on a bombproof show hanging on these walls. For a preview of the circus, peep these below:








and because the blog-o-matic philas the drawings...

Chagall's Window

The other night I was playing some Writesies Drawsies with the Nathanimator, Uncle Doug, some writers and a dancer. A good, if not supergroup to swap doodles with. The game is sorta a near cousin of the drawing game Exquisite Corpse made famous by some artistically infamous Freudian French guys in the 20's but translates well to the modern parlor.

Directions: the game is played by introducing a line of prose; any line, heard, imagined or remembered, then passing it on to be illustrated (or just responded to in picture) by the nearest seated neighbor. That person then folds back the text thereby hiding the words and revealing only their freshly drawn picture. The picture is handed off down the line to the next neighbor whose responsibility is to respond to the picture in prose. The process repeats itself until you have made it around the table or run out of paper.

So the pattern is Write-Draw-Write-Draw-Write-Draw-and so on, or in specific detail; Write-Pass Text-Draw-Fold Text-Pass Drawing, Write-Fold Drawing-Pass Text, Draw-Fold Text-Pass Drawing, Write-Fold Drawing-Pass Text, on down the line of players. I'm not sure if Writesie Drawsie is the formal name or an odd mutant title given by the likes of Dupre. If anyone knows of its origin please divulge. And in the meantime enjoy this rather poetic example by some weary second-winding ringers who probably shoulda been working on evaluations...

Titian, Veronese & Tintoretto cook at the MFA

Scorcher of a show in Boston. Ticket prices may seem high but ya don't want to miss this. If you got the hankering for some Venetians this is cheaper than a flight to Italy with the added benefit that they don't often hang these heavy-weights side by side even in Forza Italia. Usually makes for wet pants.

Again, especially if you haven't seen these painters, get to Boston. Photographs just don't cut it. These guys are Renaissance high-wire acts and when you get your nose up on them they dazzel in ways subtle and manifold that painters don't these days. We're talking Tang mixed with diesel.

What follows are some jottings I made there a few weeks ago. Matisse woulda ate this show up and as as my drawings seem to line as of late in the Frenchman's direction, berets off to Henri.

Anyone else got drawings from this show, I'd love to see 'em... Jazione

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