110th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition with the California Art Club
Attack of A-I painting and Robot Sculptor
hand wrought sculpture and painting has slipped into a narrow role in the cultural life of nations. All else is manufacturing and reproduction. Think of the value of poetry to the people. It is good or bad but relies on personal engagement, heightened sensitivities and depth of exposure that is rare in the cacophony of modern societies.
Article in Marin Living. April 2021 issue
Sabin Howard’s WW1 Memorial
Poses combine with stretch pulls and folds of fabric in the uniforms make it seem each individual sheds skin to become new; a being born in the chaos of war. Somehow you have amplified the pain and the voice of this soldier. Powerful stuff here, Sabin.
A painting by my friend Huihan Liu
Clarity, Light, and Substance are always central to the figures in Huihan Liu’s paintings. They live in a shifting world of disappearing environments and thick, animated atmospheres. Their few possessions are simple, tactile, brightly decorated markers of human aspiration, vulnerability, and need. I always love his beautiful, careful paintings.
Dan Taylor features writer for The Press Democrat
In another chapter of his long career as a portrait artist, John Deckert, 73, of Santa Rosa, stepped from behind his easel and in front of his computer for a remote appearance on national television Monday.
Most recently recognized for his series last year of more than 60 portraits of essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic, Deckert appeared on the “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
During the program, he presented a portrait virtually to Kaiser emergency room nurse Haley Gonzalez of Ukiah, who cared for him just before the pandemic when he fell and broke bones in his “painting hand.”
“I took a photo of her on my phone, and once my hand was healed, I painted her portrait but I never got the chance to show it to her during the lockdown,” Deckert explained on the show.
Gonzalez, 31, who has been a nurse for the past six years, was on staff at another hospital and was helping out at Kaiser when she attended to Deckert, she said in a phone interview with The Press Democrat Tuesday. She joined the Kaiser ER staff a year ago.
“He was my patient and he asked to take my picture,” Gonzalez recalled. “That was the last I heard of it until ’The Kelly Clarkson Show.’ The whole thing was very beautiful that he decided to do this. We’re very appreciative.”
Deckert and Gonzalez arranged to meet in person this week so he could give her the portrait he painted of her.
Deckert has a long history as a professional artist. For 20 years, he lived in New York City. He came to live in Mill Valley in 2003 before settling in Santa Rosa’s Rincon Valley four years ago.
After the 2017 wildfires in Sonoma County, Deckert painted portraits of emergency crews and community leaders, including Hank Schreeder, then the Santa Rosa police chief, and Tony Gossner, then the Santa Rosa fire chief.
Last year, as the pandemic encroached, he painted portraits of essential workers and others still at work as many sheltered at home, from mail carriers and electrical repair crews to hospital workers and store cashiers.
A longtime Marine reservist, Deckert also has honored servicemen in his paintings. There are 35 of Deckert’s paintings in the permanent collection of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. Last year, the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation recognized him for his paintings of the military.
You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.
The Kelly Clarkson Show
See it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uzyJV-UEIA
or on her website:
https://www.kellyclarksonshow.com/video/man-paints-incredible-portraits-of-essential-workers/4327260
Artemisia lives
Probably just digging myself in deeper.
The WEEK posted a short article
https://theweek.com/speedreads/961147/california-artist-creates-custom-portraits-show-gratitude-frontline-workers
my thoughts on this photo by my friend Didier Arnauld
this layer and those layers;
a landscape 80 million years old
molded by vast internal pressures;
moisture in the air
and unimpeded sunlight;
a pocked face up
to meet it.
toss-toss-toss
Many years ago I learned to juggle. It wasn't easy. With two balls in one hand and one in the other, I was perplexed by failure after failure when a good friend revealed that she had been to clown school and could teach me a great lesson about juggling.
"Toss," she said, "but don’t bend your focus to catch. Toss the next and the next and let them fall too. Pick them up and do it again until you find the rhythm and aim of the toss. With practice, you’ll know soon enough when to reach in for a catch.”
And she was right; Don’t worry about mistakes. Don’t fret over failed attempts. Keep tossing and you will learn to catch, but only if you learn the rhythm and aim of the toss.
She's in an assisted living facility and I wish I could juggle for her now -to show I still remember. It is a good lesson I’ve kept close to my heart all these years.
Austin College
I had a little feature in Alumni news
Enough said
I saw a painting by Matt Smith out in the field and made a comment.
So no one is confused, this painting is by Matt Smith, not me.
I just like it. A lot.
article about the exhibition in Tampa
https://www.tampabay.com/news/military/2021/03/03/tampa-airport-exhibit-features-local-military-artwork
Tampa airport exhibit features local military artwork
The MacDill Air Force Base At Home and Abroad exhibit is viewable online and in the airport’s main terminal.
The artwork of U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Kristopher Battles is featured in a new exhibit at the Tampa International Airport called MacDill AFB: At Home and Abroad. Artwork pictured on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021 in Tampa. [ LUIS SANTANA | Times ]
The oil-on-canvas painting, “Untitled, Afghanistan,” by Kristopher Battles, captures a moment between Marines talking with locals overseas as part of their civil affairs work.
“It tells a narrative; there’s these two different cultures meeting,” Battles said, “two groups who normally would not be talking.”
It’s one of Battles’ favorite pieces on display as part of a new art exhibit at the Tampa International Airport called MacDill Air Force Base At Home and Abroad, which opened just before the Super Bowl and runs through the summer. The exhibit in the airport’s main terminal gallery, and viewable online, features photographs, paintings and drawings by military servicemembers and veterans.
They show service life at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and in the 20-country area of operations for the U.S. Central Command, a unit headquartered at MacDill, said Erin Dorrance, spokeswoman for the command.
“Art is another way for us to honor the past and inspire the future,” Dorrance said, “so we thought this exhibit was perfect.”
Much of the artwork came from artists associated with service branches’ official art programs, Dorrance added. This includes the work of Battles, who served as a combat artist in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. He lives in Virginia and is the artist in residence for the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
As a combat artist, he would take his pencil box and camera, and sketch and photograph key scenes, Battles said. Once back in the U.S. or whenever he could get to a studio, he would print out the photographs, work on compositions, put them on canvas and have more time to paint.
His paintings, which include portraits of servicemembers and slices of life — like Marines napping together — are intended to communicate what happens on a deployment. His subjects become symbolic representations of every Marine, sailor, soldier and airman.
“I want people 50 or 100 years from now to know what people who served overseas in the early 21st century experienced while onboard ship or in a Forward Operating Base,” Battles said.
Having the exhibit in the airport and on a virtual gallery opens it to people who might not go to a military museum where this kind of work would be on display.
For the airport administration, it offered an opportunity to build on its relationship with MacDill. The two entities share the Hillsborough County air space, and many returning servicemembers reunite with their loved ones at the airport, said Danny Valentine, a spokesman.
For units at MacDill, such as U.S. Central Command, the opportunity to showcase the work to visitors who came for the Super Bowl was an added plus.
“We wanted visitors to know how important the connection is between MacDill and the community,” Dorrance said.
Someone asked about tags and graffiti in New York City in the '70s
I can tell you from my experience seeing all these tags that it put a lot of visual energy and animation into each train ride. A lot of people thought it was bad, but I saw a lot of young people who wanted some kind of recognition - any kind of recognition. I didn't do graffiti or tags, I worked in my studio, a tenement 5-floor walk up but it's what I wanted too. Someone to see something I did and acknowledge it. All the tags inside the trains created AN ALMOST ATMOSPHERIC MULTI-LAYERED HASH OVERLAY AT EACH SUBWAY RIDER'S HEAD. It was as if their thoughts came alive like in the comics. BLAM! SMASH! That's how I read the scene. A lot of people wanted it shut down, but I found a lot of energy just bursting from the seams in New York City at that time and the tags and artwork all over the trains was a great part of it.
feels like I'm being frisked
Probably gonna get some hate on this comment but wandering around the art world these days can seem a lot like walking down the street with every other pedestrian asking for spare change. I feel like I'm being frisked, "Hey, you got any money, mister? Nah, he ain't got nuttin'. Hey lady, you got any money? Waddabout you kid?"
Why do I paint . . .
You ask why do I paint -
Because that blank canvas is the only void in my life I can fill.
Sometimes I worry about my art friends and then I think this - the stories told in our paintings have been released to anyone who can see, anyone who understands the language of visual art. Now we are free of it and with eyes lifted the easel presents another void to fill. A world of empty that needs to be filled.
Time it was . . . and what a time it was . . .
This is a tiny detail from a painting I’ve got on the easel right now. If you asked me casually how much time have I put into this painting, I’d probably say something like, “Maybe a couple 3 hour sessions.”
However, sometimes I take a photo at the beginning of the session and again at the end of a session. So I look back at these time stamps to add up more like 16 hours so far.
Time flies by when you do the work you’re really interested in.
From my alumni newsletter
I graduated from Austin College.
They seem to like the award I received from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.
https://acmagazine.austincollege.edu/capturing-dedicated-service-on-canvas/
Michael Stadler
After the wildfires swept through Santa Rosa one year, I took a couple guitars over to Michael Stadler for a look-see and while they weren't good for that particular project I handed him my personal treasure, a $40 thrift shop special to ask what he thought about it. He took it in those big hands of his and held it gently examining this beat up old thing. Then, under his arm, under his suddenly lively fingers dancing on the frets, acrobatics over the flying strings . . . the magic of incredible music ! ! ! There I was, no stage, no microphones, I- alone as the audience, out in the open sky, with a fresh breeze blowing, and springtime wakening the fields . . . and Michael just seemed to make everything come ALIVE in that moment with my old banged up guitar. It was a moment of magic for me that could not go unrewarded. The magic of Musicians, the magic of Art.
