The Story of Little Squares Continues

An image from the Rouen Book of Hours takes us down another path in the journey away from Ellsworth Kelly, while staying inside the land of little squares.  One could easily suppose that squares lack meaning, particularly in an exercise such as I described in the last post.  However, the square itself (along with the imperfect, but square-ish box) is an intriguing shape and one that does not occur in nature – so far as I know — at least not on the scale of things visible to ordinary sight.  If it exists in the microscopic world of small scaled things, or in the subatomic world of the structures of things perhaps some scientist will let me know.

However, the square as an idea — as a perfect form — holds a certain fascination for some people, and in the medieval world, squares play a very prominent role in images of divine events.  Squares appear in medieval art in a variety of ways.  The image posted here shows how three squares are used to decorate the left side of a page illustrating the Kiss of Judas.  Each of the three squares has illuminations within it of patterned flowers.

I can’t say why the squares are there or what the particular significance is of three squares — whether it relates to the Trinity or to something else — why two squares are colored pale gold and one is red or why the squares are decorated with flowers — or why these squares share so much of the page with the narrative picture which is quite small in comparison.  All I can say with certainly is that squares have an important, playful/serious role in the art of very early times. 

This post is part of a series of short essays related to answering why Ellsworth Kelly is not a “real” artist, while I take the reader into a meditation on the meanings and “true” uses of squares in art. 

Thus the “sterile” use of Kelly’s squares has had a vibrant, adventurous life elsewhere in art’s long history.  But stay tuned for more squares.  Come visit my store on CafePress!

Find picture here.

Mirrors into Thought

I’m busy painting koi these days, doing my own version of Monet’s Nympheas idea, living as it were in imaginary pools of water, becoming it sometimes seems a fish myself, so immersed I am in a world of blue.  So, it’s intriguing to reencounter a work like this drawing of flowers and to find so many similarities in it to the fishes and the pool. 

Though the colors are entirely different and the associations are quite opposite, this picture bears a mirror likeness to the koi ponds.  This similarity is made all the more mysterious by their oppositions.  One takes place outdoors, the other inside the house.  One is natural, the other is civilized and artificial.  One is vertical, the other horizontal.  But inside both pictures are formal means of ordering the visual idea.  Both images have a “swirl” of sorts as its schematic center.  The implicit visual movement of the flowers in their design, both the flowers in the vase and the ones arranged on the design of the cloth, echo the swimming motions of the fish in their pond. 

I’ve noticed this kind of visual metaphor before in my paintings.  I have no idea what it means.  Beneath the subject matter lies a process of ordering and arranging that is as much the subject of the painting as are the objects depicted.  Somehow in the precise ways I order things, my personality lies hidden. 

It might seem that a person’s way of ordering ideas would be the last thing about themselves that they would “hide,” and yet I only discover these facts of self-hood for myself by this very indirect means.  And without even realizing I was doing so, naturally I reveal something of myself to others also by these tacit devices.

We project ourselves outwards upon the world in myriad ways.  Just that sense one has of knowing people, of taking the measure of them, even of people that we just meet when we make those crucial “first impression” judgements — all these effects are signs of the self that is foisted out.  Even a shy self is thrust onto the stage of life despite one’s efforts to seek shelter. 

We are all actors on the stage as William Shakespeare once keenly observed.  For the artist the picture is but another kind of garment one wears to demonstrate and manifest the self to the world.

A picture is a strange mirror because it distorts as much as it reveals, pressing ideas outward into the world in a thousand disguises.  Yet behind all forms of concealment, one person peeks through.  Paint.  Do paint, and I guarantee you’ll gain self-knowledge though you may not always recognize the face you see in painting’s strange mirror.
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[Top of the post:  Drawing of Flowers in a Vase, by Aletha Kuschan, Caran d'ache on Canson paper]

Bonnard’s white jug now mine

This is the third (and last) little copy I made while strolling among Bonnard’s paintings at an exhibit in 2003.  Now it’s a stroll down memory lane. 

The poignant thing about an exhibit like that, when it’s an artist whose works you really love, is the transcience of it.  Bonnard’s paintings will appear together in other future exhibits, sometime, somewhere. But each time you have a chance to see works together this way, you know that you are not likely to see them again — at least not in ensemble.  Some of them one is unlikely to ever see again, unless one happens to be the most assiduous globe trotter, for normally they are scattered everywhere.

This white jug (that’s what it is) appears in the same painting as the orange jug, on the table in the Dining Room overlooking the Garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  My copy of the white jug turned out to be rather less legible than the orange jug.  (The yellow circle is the rim of the jug, and its bright interior is blue.) However, the fuzziness is Bonnardesque in its own way.  This little jug is a very tender keepsake to me.  From it rises up memories of veils of color from Bonnard’s scintillating and chalky colored surfaces, of his dining room and its primeval forest beyond.

[Top of the post:  Notebook drawing after Bonnard, by Aletha Kuschan]

I’m an Artist

Strictly entre nous, I paint and draw, and I post my work here.  In some circles, however, that would not be enough.  In certain fancy art circles, drawing and painting is not what makes one an artist.  And it is so unfair that one has to defend oneself this way.  I can do conceptual art if I so desire.  It’s just rarely that I desire. 

In fact, I posted pictures of my parents’ refrigerator once at another site and offered it for sale.  The price was very reasonable.  Unfortunately, before I could get the marketing thing really rolling, the refrigerator broke and had to be replaced.  The heavy art object had to be turned over to someone who wasn’t even a collector — certainly he was no connoisseur.

Thus alas, the deal fell apart before ArtNews ever even got wind of it.  Well, sometimes we have to suffer for art.  But on the upside, at least my parents have cold milk and vegetables again.

I may yet sell the refrigerator in my apartment.  It doesn’t belong to me, but that’s merely a minor detail.  In art lingo, we call that “appropriation.”  I hear Jeff Koons does it all the time.

If after reading this, you find your heart set upon owning one of these works, contact me.  I’m sure I can work something out.  After all, I’m an artist.  We’re “creative.”

[Top of the post:  Conceptual Refrigerator Art, by Aletha Kuschan]

Ants on the March

Of course, with summer you’re going to get some close encounters with insects.  It simply goes with the territory.  Might as well just invite them to the picnic. 

[Top of the post:  Child's Drawing of Ants along with Ant Stickers, collage detail, by Aletha Kuschan and kid]

Vertical Flowers

I love summer.  Some people complain about the heat.  Not me.  I complain about people who complain about the heat.  I love the heat.  I bask in the heat like a turtle.  I’m not talking about getting a suntan, mind you.  That’s bad for your health.  I’m talking about a sitting in deep shade, sweat still pouring off me, sweltering in the 90% humidity and loving it kind of appreciation of summer.  I’ll admit: a breeze can be good too.

So, I love to paint summer pictures.  I’m not the only one enjoying humidity.  Plants love humidity, and they grow like crazy, and I like to see them grow.  When summer gets really maniac with stuff growing everywhere, I’m in heaven.

I love the round, billowing forms of folliage on trees.  I love fonds of grass, the scribbly texture of weeds growing with abandon.  I love the texture, the layers, the depths, the color, and the long hours of daylight.  Consequently I enjoy painting images like the one above, summers of fact, and summers of imagination.

[Top of the post:  Crepe Myrtles in August, by Aletha Kuschan, acrylic on canvas]

 

Free For All

I’m so pooped.  Been drawing in a way I’m not accustomed to, making a rather detailed drawing in colored pencil.  Included in the picture I worked on today are rows of fonds of Rousseau-esque tropical plants.  I have to count the leaves to keep track of what I’m doing, and it’s just about driving me bonkers!

A good antidote would be something like the above.  I made this collage in my studio one afternoon for the sake of a photograph and then disassembled it, keeping the better fragments and consigning the remainder to the dumpster.  It was something fun to do.  Things like this make good designs for kids’ murals.  This one has some genuine kids’ drawings in it.  It was physical and fast, measuring about 80 x 80 inches.

In contrast, the drawing that’s driving me bonkers measures 11 x 14 inches!  I’m still working on it.  Not ready to post yet.

[Top of the post:  Design for a Child's Mural, by Aletha Kuschan, collage of drawing fragments stapled to the studio wall]

Edible Chesapeake

I’m very happy to announce that one of my honey jar paintings appears on the cover of the summer issue of Edible Chesapeake magazine, soon to be hitting the stands all around the Chesapeake region.

 

Edible Chesapeake is a quarterly publication that celebrates the abundance of local and seasonal foods in the Chesapeake watershed. The magazine celebrates family farmers, fishermen, food artisans, chefs, and other food-related businesses, as well as the consumers, home cooks and restaurant-goers who support them.

 

Both the publication and its web site contribute to the growing national movement throughout the United States that is encouraging people to eat more locally-grown and locally-produced foods. By eating locally, consumers help sustain the small family farms that grow these foods, and everyone gets to enjoy food that is fresher, tastier and healthier for us. Furthermore we help reduce the cost to the environment and our pocketbooks of transporting foods over long distances.

 

[Top of the post:  Summer cover of Edible Chesapeake magazine with Honey Jars painting by Aletha Kuschan.  Photograph:  Aaron Springer, courtesy of Edible Chesapeake magazine] 

 

Cabinet of Curiosities, More Curiosities

Once upon a time, long long ago, Smithsonian magazine did a story on the Chinese soldier statues that were being unearthed near the ancient capital of Xi’an.  Based on a photograph in the magazine I sculpted this soldier torso in clay.  It’s never been baked and sits atop this dresser where it’s sat undisturbed for about 25 years.

Over the years it has attracted a number of friends, some of whom are visible in the photograph — including a wooden duck, that stands guard over it.

[Top of the post:  Dresser top of Curio Objects, photography by Aletha Kuschan, sculpture of Chinese soldier by Aletha Kuschan]   

Pen Lines are not Elephants

Always remember that it’s just a drawing.  You can make a dozen drawings.  You can make a hundred drawings.  If you look past the immediate task, you can gain enormous freedom with the immediate task.  Removing your hesitations about the drawing you’re making now means that you can concentrate more upon the drawing you’re making now, taking bold steps, fully aware that if something doesn’t work out, there’s always another drawing following this one where corrections and new ideas can gain the day.

So it often happens that artists learning to draw with pen try to avoid making mistakes, since the pen line is permanent. They devise ways of evading error. They allow their reluctance to commit a mistake to take precedence over the ideas they wish to express.  They pursue the common wisdom that says draw the initial contours using chalk or pencil, firm up those lines with pen, and later erase the guide lines so that only the pen line survives.  This process is fine as far as it goes.  I’m not knocking it.  I’ve used this technique myself for certain kinds of finished pictures.  But underlying the technique is an altogether unnecessary fear, that of making a “mistake.”  When you stop worrying about making mistakes, though, you are opened up to the opportunity of using pen line as a direct tool of expression. 

I love pen precisely because it preserves every mark.  When I draw with pen, I do so very freely.  If I think the contour goes here, that’s where I put it.  When I realize that I was off by this much, I throw down another line as the correction.  Both lines are visible in the drawing, and the energy between the lines becomes a record of my thoughts.  The drawing that results is not only a “drawing of an elephant” but is also a “drawing of what I thought the elephant looks like,” which is a slightly different animal.

When you are learning to draw, my advice to young artists (and young at heart artists) is to put the ideas down with directness.  You are, after all, making a drawing not an elephant.  The directness of the lines-as-ideas has a beauty all its own.  And when you use pen in this way you take advantage of the unique properties of the medium. 

Let pen lines be pen lines.  That’s my motto.

[Top of the post:  Drawing of elephants, by Aletha Kuschan, pen and ink]