Drips, Drools and Underpainting at the San Jose Museum of Art

A favorite piece in the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art is a 3D fiberglass S form with parts of a face shown in a looping video.

After visiting the Jun Kaneko ceramic's exhibit (huge pieces!), Doris Fischer-Colbrie, Kathleen Gordon and myself took seats at the Prints of Andy Warhol audience participation table. The exercise was designed to teach underpainting. We'd seen the San Francisco school of abstract expressionism exhibit upstairs, which has also been unkindly referred to as the Drips and Drools school. You'll see some of that influence in the works below.

The work of Doris Fischer-Colbrie:

From Sherry Cordova Jewelry

The work of Kathleen Gordon:

From Sherry Cordova Jewelry

The work of Sherry Cordova:

From Sherry Cordova Jewelry

We also enjoyed the Women's Work printmakers exhibit, especially two prints from Louise Bourgeois. Below is a photo I took of a Bourgeois sculpture at Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miro in Mallorca.

From Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miro

Advanced Filigree DVD

Yehuda Tassa filling a flower component of a filigree pendant

Friend, filigree mentor, and filigree master Yehuda Tassa is about to release his second filigree how-to DVD. While reviewing the DVD for Yehuda in order to give him feedback before the final version is cut, I took some screenshots.

Yehuda Tassa, Yemenite Filigree Master, as seen in excerpt from his second DVD to be released in 2009

Back in the first few sessions of filigree workshops, Yehuda used to teach the flower project first. Once us intermediate students convinced him, he started teaching an easier project to the new students, and this is now a second project in his workshops.

Below are the first three things I ever created in filigree, years ago. The filler patterns that Yehuda is teaching are different than those in my pendant/pins. And, you'll notice I went for a prong setting in all three of my pieces; the DVD teaches a bezel set stone on a pendant. If the picture of my pieces looks familiar, perhaps you've seen the photo before in "The Art and Craft of Making Jewelry: A Complete Guide to Essential Techniques" by Joanna Gollberg, Lark Books.

"Fraternal Triplets"

Sterling and fine silver, amethyst, garnet, and peridot

Pendant/Pins

Valentino, Tiffany, Fabergé, and Lalique

I had a very enjoyable day recently admiring other peoples artwork. First was Valentino: The Last Emperor this is a *great* movie and the producer/director was at the showing to answer questions. With an initial limited release, the movie is playing in 25 cities. During the Q&A , journalist turned indie movie producer/director Matt Tyrnauer told the audience that they are currently making more copies of the movie because theaters all over the country are calling and asking to show it. On the movie's website they suggest that you contact your local movie house and ask them to bring "Valentino" to their screens.

Yes, the movie is about the world of fashion, yet it is mostly about the relationship between Valentino and his lifelong business partner who took care of everything else so that Valentino could concentrate on his art. The movie is also about the financial sector's takeover of fashion houses for purse and belt profits.

Our next stop was the Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique exhibit where the quality of the work was truly awesome. As with much traditional 'high end' jewelry, there was an abundance of incredible stones. The enameling was thin and perfect, with many flawless examples of the guilloché (l'art de l'émail translucide sur guilloché) technique.

View from Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco

Jewelry: the zine

I received my copy of "Jewelry: the zine" by Catherine Witherell and Deryn Mentock and immediately was drawn into this graphic and photo rich publication. I took a quick look at my three articles ("Creation / Inspiration", "How to Start an Arts Organization", and "Accessible Patinas") then moved on to the easy-to-read articles and all the pictures (of which there are many.) 

The zine contains bonus 3D content and will keep you engaged, so set aside some time to spend with it. You can tell the zine is a work of love by the very creative team of Catherine Witherll and Deryn Mentock, and it's unlike any magazine you'd ever purchase because of the handmade pages by many of the authors; and the zine itself is put together by hand.

The Table of Contents is below.  You can click on the title of this post to get all the information, including larger images of the Table of Contents, at Catherine's blog.

"Jewelry: The Zine" is 128 pages and includes 17 how-to projects and idea pages, specialty pages and it is chock full of inspiration in full color and hand spiral bound.   It is a limited edition and when they run out, they are gone. By FRIDAY the 27th AND Monday, March 2nd more copies of the zine will be bound and up for sale. Pre-orders for these production runs are being taken now.

 

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To purchase this zine, the particulars are:

Cost: $40

Ships in a big padded bubble envelope

Priority shipping to anywhere in California and Oregon and vicinity add additional $6

Priority shipping to Washington State and Idaho and vicinity add additional $7

Priority shipping to Texas and vicinity add $8

and anywhere else/further out in the US and further than Alberta in Canada add $9 for Priority shipping

Shipping to Europe is about $28 extra for the fastest shipping but the creator will gladly ship it at a slower pace.

Australia add $14 for shipping via parcel post which is about 5-7 days or add $31 for priority, about 4 days.

If for some reason you don't want that kind of shipping, please find out how much the shipping you want costs from California to where you live and add that amount and tell the creator what you decided.

You can now preorder it because it is on rails!  Please  PayPal the creator to account name      cathwitherell@comcast.net       and make sure your mailing address is correct.  If you don't do paypal you can email catherine (the creator) from the link under her photo at the top left hand side of her blog and to discuss payment options. Catherine's blog is at http://happydayart.typepad.com

I was reminded....

As I looked through the blogger gadgets the other day, I ran across the Miro gadget (see it -> below on the right). The gadget's Miro images reminded me of a visit to Fundacio Pilar i Joan Miro on Mallorca. The studio space was amazing, as were the views. The property is on a hill, overlooking the bay. The foundation holds print making workshops in one of the studios, displays the participants' results, and also exhibits the works of other artists. When we visited, there was an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois' work. You can see more pics of the foundation here.

Surprised to see a photo so far from a beach? Why was I on a trip and not diving? On a trip where the intention was to visit somewhere I wouldn't be drawn into the water, I didn't dive on this one. At Sant Elm, we saw a group heading out to dive (you can barely make out the dive zodiac below), and that made me want to head underwater.



And, from a bluff on another spot on the island we could see fish in the clear water below. More temptation!



Happily spending time on land on Mallorca, we enjoyed the abundant public art. Here's a pic of some of the scenery: a ceramic mural by Miro at Parc de la Mar in Palma de Mallorca.



Closeup of part of the mural

Hydraulic Press Demo

At last weekends Metal Arts Association of Silicon Valley meeting we watched a demonstration of the Hydraulic Press by local artist and educator Edith Sommer.

Here are some of her aluminum dies and resulting copper forms, along with some of her other tricks such as gasket rubber to make the shape deeper and wire taped to cardboard for embossing.

Edith Sommer demonstrating the hydraulic press

Visit to the Cantor Center

On the day before All Hallows' Even, I spent the afternoon with a friend at Stanford's Cantor Center for the Arts. We viewed the exhibit of Diebenkorn drawings and paintings of Santa Cruz Island. Santa Cruz Island is one of the Channel Islands off the coast of CA.

Also on exhibit were contemporary glass pieces, inspired by older Italian, Greek and other pieces.

In very comfortable craftsmen style chairs upstairs in the museum, we watched some great cloud action above the campus.

Afterwards, we headed over to the nearby Allied Arts Guild to view the work of some local artists. These flowers caught our eye.

Nice! -and- Patinas

Emanuela Duca has some very nice pieces of jewelry on her site. Clicking the title of this post will take you to her site.

Back to work! For the upcoming SFBASCG meeting in Los Gatos, I'm preparing a patina demo on brass, copper, and silver. I enjoyed experimenting with different materials last year when I gave a patination demo for the Metal Arts Association of Silicon Valley. 

Results of last years demo are shown below. The tobacco patina was interesting because the coarse and fine tobacco resulted in very different patinas. The friend that went with me to the smoke shop to purchase pipe tobacco for the demo was just asking me about the tobacoo patina the other day. She finds it amusing and interesting. Aren't we artists odd?!