Know Oskar?

This is a little leap (from Winslow to Oskar). What do they have in common? For an Expressionist, he had a somewhat subdued color pallette as well. Had trouble with women. Had a fling with Alma Mahler- Winslow would've but he was long dead. He had also given up on intellectual creative types. The modeling is the stuff that intrigues me. They both sculpted with their paint and the sense of light in both of their painting can be real unusual and breathtaking.

And these were the only two painters that I lectured on.

Also turned up a book on Kokoschka from a thrift store on Saturday morning for the magical price of $7.00 while my daughter was at her meeting.

Oh, a word of advice. There was also sitting there in the thrift store about eight volumes of the Time-Life Library of Art - the ones on individual artists in the slip cases. The two that I've read, the one on Winslow and the one on Whistler were inaccurate and pretty low on the reality of the time period which the series claims to be presenting. Pretty pictures though. And nice photos.

Oskar had a long face and a big jaw. I thought maybe we were distantly related. Want a kick? Find a copy of "Murder, The Women's Hope" amd read it. (Oskar's play) I tried to imagine a stage production of it - women and men running back and forth across a stage killing each other - but all I could see was a bunch of 16 year old boys in phony armour (sic). It was actually produced. Old Oskar was actually a gifted prose writer.

Thrift stores are incredible places for art books if the managers don't care or don't know what they've got.

I got the Sistine Chapel for $3.00 once.

More Winslow

Homer was a pretty straight forward guy. The Gulf Stream from yesterday was probably more of a metaphor about him and his critics and his place in history than anything to do with race and human strife, and blaugh blaugh blaugh. You have to remember that the Impressionists were trying to take over the world. Homer's color palette was his own, though by all counts he was an impressionist. There is much said about he was a true American artist and he learned from himself rather than others. Its just not true. You can find the Millet influences and the Manet influences and Turner's watercolor palette on Homer's work at different stages.
I love this one, because the painting came out of a argument he had over a meal with John La Farge in which he stated he didn't need the impressionist colors, he could paint an entire painting with brown and blue. This reproduction is showing a little pink which I don't think is in the original. Maybe its just my monitor.

Picasso was painting like this at the very same time. 

Winslow Homer for $7.00 plus tax

Just found this for $7.00 in a thrift store on my way to dinner with my writer friends. Debated if I really needed it. It is 2 / 3.5 ' including a nice green matting and frame. My office is a Winslow Homer exhibit as it is. I have one 1880s "An Afterglow" from England and "Schooner At Key West" from 1903. The new one is the watercolor that later developed into this:

 

                                      
An oil that is probably over the top for Winslow. He hardly spoke to people and as far as I know didn't explain the story of this painting. It probably didn't have one. He was nicknamed the Obtuse Bard by his painter friends in the 1870s in NYC. His courtship of a lady named Helena DeKay (See Website link here) did not go anywhere because he did not talk. The Oil above was 1899, rather late, he died in 1910.
Anyway, I'm convinced the watercolor was based on something he saw. He sometimes staged his paintings, or had props in his studio that he would stick in as needed.

The sea was his id, if that explains anything. He was a serious drinker by this age and pretty much lived alone except for his contact with his family (brothers and their families) Most of the kids in the paintings are his nieces and nephews or the children of his patrons. He never married. I like "An Afterglow" because one of the women was his lover.
I bought it.
For me, I connect with the new watercolor. I've been feeling a little like a survivor as of late, wondering how I got here and how come I'm so lucky. Comes with edging past middle age I guess.

The albino moose I decided are twins. We know all about twins in my house.

Albino Moose

Picture passed on by a friend. We find each other no matter what. The caption said the odds of seeing two of them together is very very high and unlikely. Little do they realize. My theory is that there is really only 50 people in the world and we all know each other. Moose can't be so different.

Man Just Lying About It

An update about my evil behavior: I discovered I could just steal the email list of members off the GLAWS web site, so I did that and emailed all individually, leaving good old Tony off as well as everyone he cc'd on the messages to me. Oh, I left his wife off the mailing as well. So I received a bunch of email responses and have three people interested in sharing the table. I'm waiting for Tony to find out and come rap my knuckles.
The lady so interested, Kelly Sullivan Walden, I emailed back that I'm doing my own table because of the recruitment problems with the groups that are invested in this sort of thing and I that did not want recruiters at my table. She could sign up as an individual if she wanted. Or pass it on to members of her organization. I've not heard back. I think she was only interested in eating me alive.
I know where the Publishers Association of Los Angeles meets (they were ones that wanted to protect their members from me) so I thought I would just go over on the 16th and put flyers on all the windshields in the parking lot. Don't tell them I'm coming.

The Independent Writers of Southern California are still napping.
Thought I'd go by the Sierra Club Camera Committee this Monday night and let them know. I'll let you know their reaction. I've let my membership lapse with them. But, I've been camping with some of them, so maybe they'll let me.




 

Another Interested party- LA TIMES BOOK FESTIVAL 2010

Are they authors, WNBA-LA authors?  Would you be willing to have the  booth be a WNBA-LA booth? What is your book, by the way?  And the books of the other authors? I'm full of questions...and so glad to have this opportunity to  explore this with you! Kelly Sullivan Walden President, Women's National Book Association (Los Angeles Chapter) www.WNBA-books.org/la www.DreamProjectUN.org www.KellySullivanWalden.com (323) 893-3028 On Nov 1, 2009, at 11:22 PM, Dan Mc Nay wrote: > Kelly, > > I have three committed, so there's room. I've only started doing  > outreach. > > Thanks > > Dan >

Are they authors, WNBA-LA authors?  Would you be willing to have the booth be a WNBA-LA booth? What is your book, by the way?  And the books of the other authors? I'm full of questions...and so glad to have this opportunity to explore this with you! Kelly Sullivan Walden  President, Women's National Book Association (Los Angeles Chapter) www.WNBA-books.org/la www.DreamProjectUN.org www.KellySullivanWalden.com (323) 893-3028 On Nov 1, 2009, at 11:22 PM, Dan Mc Nay wrote: Kelly, I have three committed, so there's room. I've only started doing outreach. Thanks Dan

What service are folks using to create this kind of email?

I added the picture of Alice for effect. Maybe mirrors for the coop table I'm trying to create would work. We'd have double the people and books.

How Obscure

A friend gave me this book after I had dropped out of college. I barely remember it now. Mostly, the only image that remains is Jude looking at the distant towers of Oxford and realizing that he will probably never make it. Reading the recap on Wikipedia, I can understand why. I guess my friend knew me too well. I will never make to academia, though I work as staff in a major University (USC). It's just as well. They would have held me back. I have the freedom to be irreverent as I want. (My wife, who appreciates me, has told me that's what I am)

Lets's quiz: How obscure have you gone?

Charles Brockden Brown? (The first American Novelist, for those who don't know)
Queste del Saint Graol (English Translation, of course) 11th century French King Arthur allegory
The Story Of The Stone- Cao Xueqin, Vol 1 (Dream of The Red Chamber) Chinese 1700s, only managed to almost finish the first volume- about where I am with Proust
Headwaters of The Mississippi by Captain William Glazier 1901
The Autobiography of August Saint-Gaudens 2 vol.
The Mistress of the Manse by Dr. Holland

I once was in a class with John Rechy and mentioned that my ex-wife had bought me a great copy of Flaubert's Temptation of St. Anthony and he disappeared into his bedroom (he only taught in his apartment) because I was sure he wanted to look it up.

How many have read all the Mars and Venus books of Edgar Rice Burroughs?