Thursday, August 30, 2007

Drawing with Edna

 
 
Untitled, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Last Monday, August 27, Edna and I got together again for another day of joint drawing. For those of you looking for the first time, Edna Casman and I have been working together on the same artworks for over two years. This joint work is in addition to our own current work, for Edna painting, for me making whirligigs. The last ten months we have created about sixty five finished drawings like those above and hundreds of experiments, which we throw away when the pile gets too deep. The drawings are not premeditated except for some occassional broad theme like flowers or landscapes. One mark follows another. The drawings have grouped themselves into five broad categories - Floating, Flowers, Landscapes, Dark Blobs and Post Diebenkorn Exhibit, these drawings done after we had each seen the exhibit in Taos, New Mexico, at the Harwood Museum, Diebenkorn in New Mexico. We are constantly rewarded with surprise after surprise and do not know in the least where this work may lead or do we care.
Posted by Chuck at 06:09:16 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Las Cruces Museum of Art

Early last summer the Las Cruces Museum of Art issued their annual call for portfolios to review for their 2008-2009exhibition season. I sent a digital portfolio of the flower drawings Edna and I had done earlier this year. On July 21, I received a rejection notice. Oh well. But there’s more. Today Edna and I each received a package from the Las Cruces Museum congratulating us on our upcoming exhibition at the museum. The package contained all the usual paper work: letter, contract, inventory list, disbursement instructions, biographical questionnaire, exhibition calendar (Feb. 6 through April 4, 2009), floor plan and map of Las Cruces. Two acceptances against one rejection makes it a done deal, I guess.

2009? Does my Microsoft Works Calendar go one and a half years ahead? My personal event horizon extends about as far next October. When scheduling art exhibitions, I’ve found this commitment represents the far bracket in the range of possible time tables. It could have been a week and a half.


As to Las Cruces, which you haven’t heard of unless you live in New Mexico, the Mogollon Indians first populated the area until about 1450. In 1598, a colorful and bloody history unfolds with chapters of a brutal Onate claiming the Rio Grande Valley for the King of Spain, the United States expansionist war with Mexico, the Gadsden Land Grab, Apache Indians, the railroad west to the Pacific and Billy the Kid. More peaceful now, and still with firm connections to Mexico, Las Cruces is a city of about 80,000, home to New Mexico State University and a growing population of unbloody retirees.

Posted by Chuck at 05:42:24 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Two New Drawings with Edna

 
 
Untitlled, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
 
 
 
Untitlled, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
 
 
Edna and I got together last Wednesday, August 15, for another drawing session. These are the two drawings from that afternoon. We laughed as the second drawing emerged: the marriage of two personages.
Posted by Chuck at 04:44:00 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, August 13, 2007

Figure Drawing

Figure Drawing, 24″ x 18” (61cm x 46cm), black pastel on paper

 

 

Figure Drawing, 24″ x 18” (61cm x 46cm), black pastel on paper

 

 

I had made a new year’s resolution to spend time restudying the human figure. A few months back Edna and I had spent a morning jointly drawing from the figure, and I decided to honor my resolution. Last Friday, August 10, I took up my position with several other artists around the model and spent an engaging two-and-a-half hours drawing. The two examples above are from that session.

 

 

Posted by Chuck at 16:05:39 | Permalink | No Comments »

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Edna’s and Chuck’s Post Diebenkorn Exhibition Drawings

 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
We started the first three drawings after I had seen the Diebenkorn in New Mexico Exibition in Taos, but Edna had not. We did not finish them. By last Monday, August 6th, we had both seen the exhibit. We finished the first three drawings and did three more.
Posted by Chuck at 05:33:55 | Permalink | No Comments »

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Viewer’s Response to Edna’s & Chuck’s Recent Drawings

 

Here’s one viewer’s response to the recently posted landscape drawings.

” - I like the line drawings that you do with Edna. I’m not sure whether I like knowing the motivation behind them or not. The picture of the tent whatevers in New Mexico is interesting, but I almost liked wondering what the shapes were better. Still, neat interplay with thick and thin lines, erasures, white space. Quite interesting. (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/08/09 - 17:13:17″
 
Don’t be shy about commenting folks. Edna and I are interested in your responses to the drawings. I’m also interested in your response to the other work I’ve put up.
 
Edna adds: Although NM and other places have wonderfully improbable landscape features and although lots of landscape elements and shapes must be filed away somewhere in our brains, I am not deliberately putting those marks on the paper. In fact, I try with some diligence to make shapes that I have not really thought of before. Moreover, I hope their placements on the page, relative to a natural landscape, are unusual, ambiguous or amusing. Really what is happening is that one mark suggests another and the relationship between the shapes and lines keeps us engaged and exploring the possibilities of the drawing.”
 
[next day]
 
Chuck confesses:  What’s this?  I’ve been caught being my own apologist, justifying, defending against an accuser, who isn’t even there, yet, getting my pins all in a row, positioning for the jibe not yet come, planning for the imagined onslaught.   My imagined adverse adversary, whose doggerel I imagine will tear the image flesh from the structural bone and then eat the bones leaving nothing but a pool drying saliva, is merciless hunter in my mind and nobody else’s.    The photo of Tent Rocks is an apology.  Tent Rocks exists without the drawings and the drawings exists without Tent Rocks.  I don’t need Tent Rocks to explain the drawings.  Anonymous comes along and says, “Don’t need Tent-Whatever.  I can enjoy the drawings without anybody’s help.”  Edna’s right.  I know that.  That’s why we get along in a drawing or painting.  We make all the drawings one or two marks at a time, each successive mark in response to the marks already on the paper.  There is excitement working this way, without premeditation.  But I am still looking over my shoulder for that killer, hunter, fending off its threatened attacks with the weapons of reasoning.  Yessh!  Will I ever grow up?

 

Posted by Chuck at 17:57:49 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Friday, August 10, 2007

Whirligig #39 Crankshaft

 
 
Crankshaft for Whirligig #39, 8 5/8″ (21.9cm) long, brass
 
 
 
 
Drawing Showing Crankshaft and Its Location in Whirligig #38
 
 
I made the crankshaft from 1/4″ diamenter solid brass rod and the crankshaft arms from 1/2″ x 1/16″ flat brass stock. I soldered three of the shaft-arm joints. The total throw is 2 inches. The loads on the shaft are very light. So far, I have not had a problem with soldered joints at the scale I’ve been working.
Posted by Chuck at 04:22:54 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Plan for Whirligig #39

 
 
Plan for Whirligig #39, 24″ x 18″ (61cm x 46cm), pencil on paper
 
 
Whirligig #39 will have three sets of blades arranged on a crankshaft. The fore and aft blade sets will be fixed to the crankshaft and drive it. The center blade set will rotate in the opposite direction and at the same time move in an offset circle two inches in diameter. I have finally located a source of sheet aluminum heavy enough to serve as a vane. This design introduces some asymmetry to construction, which will be come evident on completion.
Posted by Chuck at 05:51:39 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Grandkids

 
 
 
Megan just Shy of her Fourteenth Birthday with Selfmade Earrings, 16″ x 14 1/2″ (41cm x 32cm), charcoal on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Alex, Age Nine, Intent on Holding Still even though I Kept Telling Him to Realax, 15″ x 13″ (38cm x 33cm), charcoal on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
Our grandchildren were here for three weeks this summer. We had loads of fun at Camp Dunbar cooking, sewing, macraming, hiking, museuming, origamiing, skating (ice and roller blade), jewelry making,  breadmaking and reading.
Posted by Chuck at 17:34:58 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, August 6, 2007

Drawing with Edna

 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Tent Rocks, New Mexico
 
 
Edna and I have gotten together to draw three or four times over the last several weeks. These three drawings are from the dozen or so we’ve done since June. We decided to put an horizon line in the drawing. That’s about all that’s needed to evoke a landscape. It’s also one of the first things the visual cortex does - determines edges and then their orientation. Just to let you know we’re not making up any old thing, the photo image is of tent rocks near Cochiti Pueblo about an hour north of Albuquerque. Our drawings are grounded in the natural fantasy of the New Mexico landscape.
Posted by Chuck at 04:15:20 | Permalink | Comments (3)