Margaret Bowland

Yesterday I went to Los Angeles to see Margaret Bowland's work at the Thomas Paul art gallery. The above pastel was not included in her work, but I found it on her website and love it. I will admit, now don't chase me out of town, my initial response when walking into the gallery was "I don't like this and don't want to look at it". Well, when Peter Frank arrived I had no choice but to sit and look at her work for an hour and I have to say that in that hour I found I was really becoming comfortable with the work and finding a lot of things I'd like to imitate. I think at first I was put off by the exposed female genitalia, the strange pairing of women, black, white, though bald (model has a disease) and Latina dwarf. However, when you look at the way they are painted, and look at their faces you can really see an empathy between the artist and her models. The gallery owner told us that this little girl will often take her own poses and ask the artist, what am I, or who am I and the work goes from there. I am inspired by her work and will hope to take something from it to put in my own.

Check out Margaretbowland.com

Portraits

Yesterday my Critical theory class, with Peter Frank, met at the Scape gallery in Corona Del Mar to view the work of artist Ray Turner. Turner has painted portraits of local art collectors - for the most part on 12 x 12" pieces of glass. He then paints squares of various colors on the wall and arranges the portraits on the squares. The gallery contacts their collectors, invites them to attend a photo shoot, but tells them that just because he photographs them, does not mean he will paint them. Ah , how smart - dangling the carrot, instilling the fear of being left out... The guy knows what he is doing. The buyer chooses the background color and the gallery sends a painter to their home to paint the colored square on their wall. The portraits are very interesting. Each one is painted with colors and brush strokes unique to the sitter. He really seems to capture individual personality. There was one portrait that stuck out as not like the others. It was far too warm in tone and felt over worked - not as spontaneous as the others. The jaw line and neck appeared rubbed out. I commented on this and Peter Frank suggested that the subject may have had plastic surgery and this was the artists way of dealing with that. The gallery owner had over heard, came out and wanted to know which painting we were talking of. Sure enough, the woman painted had loved her portrait and claimed this is what she would look like after her "next" surgery. I was impressed that Frank had such a keen eye as to figure out what it was. The portraits were inspiring. I'd love to give something like that a go. Another student pointed out, that by painting on glass he was probably saving time by blowing up the images and putting the glass on top of the photos and painting directly. Hm. One can only say, why didn't I think of that first?

Perspective

I had a surprise this semester. I was offered a position as a TA (teacher's assistant) for an undergraduate course on perspective. I laughed, thinking "I wonder who told the powers that be, that I could use a review in perspective"?

Well, my first class was on Thursday. It went well. It is a large class, in a small room, so much of the time I was just trying to figure out where to stand so I was not in the way. Basically the teacher (Scott Settle) demonstrates on the board and I wander through the tables checking to see that the students are putting their lines in the right places. It was tiring as I did not have a chance to sit down and they really don't take a break - for 3 and a half hours. I will get there early next week and try to fit a chair at the back of the room.

After perspective I hauled my stuff up to the MFA building where I met with Joe for our mentor meeting. I really liked Joe. He is very direct and easy to follow. He has a much grander picture for me that I admit I had. I realise that he is right in saying that in trying to figure out how to communicate content I left my style and personality behind. I now have to bring the two together - my work is starting too look too much like a product of LCAD. I spent today journaling, sketching, searching the web looking at other artist's work, images and finally after many hours of this I came up with a seed of an idea that I really like. Let's see if I feel the same way tomorrow!

I am learning so much about process!

New Website

Hi all and Happy New Year! Well, I had three goals for the break. One was to get a scholarship application ready to go out - it is nearly there, just have to pick up some docs from school and it will be ready to go. Two, is to get one of my thesis paintings repaired and at a state worth showing to my new mentor - Joe Gerges. I am almost there on that one. Will paint at least six hours today and get it there. The third thing was a new website. That is done! It is much easier for me to update and much easier for you and me to remember. Just go to serenapotter.com Please let me know if you see anything I need to fix. One thing I have done is added a section called dailies, where I have put all of the daily paintings from this blog in one spot. They are much easier to view that way.

Above is a painting by Joe. I really look forward to working with him. His work is quite different from mine and I hope I can learn more from him about physiology - painting the figure in such a way that it tells the story through posture, expression and so forth. His work is realistic but not "pretty". I like that too. His web site is joegerges.com

I am no longer officially working with John Brosio. It is a good thing to get input from different sources. I do feel he has helped me immensely in my initial progress and I hope to connect back with him later in this MFA journey. His work is at Johnbrosio.com

School starts tomorrow. I am just hoping I can make it down the mountain! The wind and rain are torrential today and are expected all week.