Morris Graves at The Lake

Happy 100th Birthday Morris Graves

August 28th 2010

Morris Graves in His Leek Garden 

by Imogen Cunningham, Silver gelatin print, 1973

I owe Morris Graves a deep debt of gratitude. Before Graves died in 2001 he set up a foundation to provide artists with a residency in his studio at the home he called "The Lake". Secluded in a forested area of Northern California, Graves home during the last 30 years of his life almost floats on the edge of a small private lake. In 2004 I was awarded a residency and spent a month living and working in Graves own studio.  These are two of the paintings that I made at The Lake.

Each day at the lake  I went for a walk to a labyrinth built by another resident artist. In the center of the labyrinth was a prayer pole. That, and a painting by Graves that was in his studio, inspired the painting Prayer Pole. The painting, Ikon was inspired by Graves sculptures, Instruments for a New Navigation.

Morris Graves Studio, Seattle Times Magazine

The Wide World of Collage

I have a pile of paintings that need to be worked on yet find myself in the midst of a late summer malaise. When my friend Thirnley offered a workshop, Ordinary Life/Extraordinary Images: Using the dynamic art form of collage to explore ideas making the unseen visible, I said "sign me up!" Maybe it is a distraction from the work at hand but I hope it will be just the fresh perspective and artist's camaraderie to bring a new spark to my work.

St. Virgin by Dick Allowatt, collage

Exploring collage on the Internet brings forth a wealth of riches. I only got as far as the A's of the alphabetically listed collage artists on the Collage Art website before I found collage artist Dick Allowatt. I love his work. I followed one of his links to Notpaper, a blog that showcases collage art and where, asked to describe himself in 10 words or less, Allowatt says, "Renaissance influence with modern day attitude". I like the textures and patina in his work suggestive of lost treasures or relics and the uncluttered spaciousness of his compositions.
  
Link to: Notpaper

Link to: Collage Art

Link to: National Collage Society

Link to: Northwest Collage Society

A Tale of Two Cubisms

The technique of collage was pivotal to the evolution of cubism. To understand this it helps to start at the beginning. The term cubism was originally coined by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles in 1908 when he reviewed an exhibition of Georges Braque's paintings using terms like cubes, and Bizarreries cubiques' intended as ridicule. But the name stuck and the rest, as they say, is history, or at least art history. These early cubist paintings began to break down the picture plane into geometric shapes or "cubes".

The formal elements or composition of analytic cubism began to take precedence over its subject matter. The work became increasingly geometric, abstract and analytical so was called analytic cubism. Braque and Picasso both returned to subject matter without returning to representational naturalism by bringing divergent elements together into motifs thus synthesizing them, into the work. Hence, synthetic cubism. They began doing this by actually bringing bits of wallpaper, newsprint, oilcloth and even wood paneling into these paintings making collage a pivotal technique in the development of cubism. 

Sources: Art History Vol II, Marilyn Stokstad, 1995; Oxford Companion to Art, ed Harold Osborn, 1970; Collage, Clement Greenberg, 1958.

Paul Horiuchi - Master of Collage

 

Dormant Blue by Paul Horiuchi, Casin rice paper collage on canvas, 1981 

 

As abstract expressionism was storming New York City, modern painters in the Pacific Northwest gained a reputation as "Northwest Mystics."  The term, coined by Life Magazine, described a subdued palette, a sensitivity to the natural environment and the Asian influence on modern painting in the Pacific Northwest. Asian art and artists had a profound influence on the mid-century Northwest aesthetic. Mark Tobey, the learned elder of the Northwest painters developed "white writing" after traveling in China and Japan saying, "The Orient has been the greatest influence of my life." When Tobey became interested in Sumi Painting he was given a large sumi brush and sumi ink by his friend Paul Horiuchi. Seattle artist Paul Horiuchi learned sumi painting as a youth in Japan  winning a national prize for his work when he was just 13 years old.

 

 Paul Horiuchi, 1930

courtesy Paul M. Horiochi: Washington State History Link

Following his father and brother Horiochi left Japan for the United States in 1920 where he worked for the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming. His fathers death and the great depression followed by deep prejudice toward the Japanese during WWII made life in America challenging for Horiuchi but then in 1944 he moved his young family to Seattle. At first he ran a business, Horiuchi's Body and Fender Shop but he never ceased painting eventually winning prizes and showing in the Seattle Art Museum.

  Color Floating in Time by Paul Horiuchi

When Horiuchi married he also converted to Catholicism, his wife's religion, and changed his name from Chikamasa to Paul taking the name Paul in honor of Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso. It was Picasso and Georges Braque, who through their cubist experiments with collage inspired Horiuchi to reflect on the Japanese art of collage going back to the 12th century when poets and calligraphers arranged torn paper into landscapes. One of Horiuchi's first great collages was inspired by seeing rain blown shredded layers of notices on a wall in Seattle's Chinatown. After a career that produced over 2,000 paintings in 1999 Paul Horiuchi died. Printed on the program for his memorial service were the words, "I have always wanted to create something serene, the peace and serenity, the quality needed to balance the sensationalism in our surroundings today. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'm seeking beauty and truth in nature. This philosophy of mine hasn't changed for the last 50 years."

Political Art and the Politics of Appropriation

Mama Rabbit Protests Park Policy (Apologies to Beatrix Potter)

One great thing about getting involved in the local issue of fighting the National Park's policy of killing the rabbits in San Juan Island's American Camp National Historical Park is the wealth of rabbit imagery available for appropriation to our cause. Last night with the help of photoshop I took Beatrix Potter's charming illustration of a disgruntled Mama Rabbit and transformed her umbrella into a protest sign thus taking a familiar image and enlisting it to serve my cause. I credit Beatrix Potter by making an apology and hope I will not be sued. Chances are good no one in a position to sue me will ever see my appropriated use of Mama Rabbit. But what might happen if they did?

 Hope by Shepard Fairey, Offset Print, 2008 and Barack Obama by Mannie Garcia, Photograph, 2006

When Shepard Fairey's iconic image of Barack Obama began to generate national interest, including fame, prestige and money, the fact that the image was appropriated from a copyrighted photograph by  Mannie Garcia came to light. Garcia, who was on assignment for the Associated Press at the time, claimed he owns the copyright. The Associated Press claimed they own the copyright. Fairey contends that his work is protected by the fair use doctrine and does not infringe on the photo's copyright. When Fairey admitted to destroying evidence that he had used the photograph as was alleged by the AP it did not help his case and in May of 2010 the judge encouraged Fairey to settle.

The fair use doctrine allows for certain limited use of copyrighted material without permission for uses like criticism, commentary, reporting, research and education.