Summer Blogging

It’s summer and the living is easy in the art world. Most bloggers have not been in a posting mood, and there isn’t much to write about either in the month of August. Most of the galleries are closed in Chelsea, but I did get to see the fabulous Chaim Soutine exhibit at Cheim and Read Gallery one more time (after my first visit in July). Did we see the same show? Partial Recall is a worthwhile exhibit at Lehmann Maupin: I liked Christian Curiell’s paintings. Yegal Ozeri also has a striking portrait that stands out in a group show at Mike Weiss.

The Folk Art Museum has some of Nek Chand's amazing work up thru September. He's also at the Visionary Museum here in Baltimore. Also At the Folk Art Museum is, White on White, an exhibit of 10 large intricatly embroidered fabrics; simply amazing.

Since Charles had so many great posts from Sante Fe this past month, I knew ionarts was in good hands; get out of the master’s way, I say. This has been a very productive summer, however; I got some paintings completed and have some more in progress. This week I started printing a second edition of lithographs, which we will finish this week. You can follow the progress on my flickr site. I find it very exciting to watch the inked roller glide over the plate and lay the color down on paper. It’s an amazing process, and I learn so much each time. The New York Times had an interesting piece on the Singular Multiples exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: that's one civilized way to make prints.

I’ve illustrated a few books over the years, and I’ve been slowly writing and working up images for another. My inspiration was given a great boost by a wonderful exhibit at the New York Public Library titled French Book Art/Livres D’Artistes: Artists and Poets in Dialogue, through August 19th. The exhibit consists of 126 artists’ books, created between 1874 and 1999; included are works by Picasso, Matisse, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Dubuffet, Alfred Jarry, and others. An edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (the French translation, Le Corbeau, by Stéphane Mallarmé), illustrated by Édouard Manet, was a great surprise.

It’s all about breaking the traditional rules, expanding the possibilities of a book's shape, form, use of type or hand-written script, to conceive new and exciting ways to blend verse and image. I think the possibilities for my book are about to change course. If nothing else I have a renewed appreciation for type and good paper.