HEY, MISTER! WANNA BUY SOME ART?

Like the paintings on the flood wall and wish you could have some on the wall of your living room? Not for me. Most of it would haunt my dreams. Someone must be interested but I didn’t see a lot of product moving.                

DEDICATED TO ART AND FREE TO ALL

Those words are inscribed in the granite lintel over the entrance to the Saint Louis Art Museum. The same could be said for Artica, which is completely commerce free. Someone set up this long line of plywood panels, supplied paint, brushes and drop cloths, and invited everyone to have a go at it. The mural changed form a number of times during the two days of the festival. This was the scene late Sunday afternoon. 

Big adventures await us beginning tonight.              

1:50

Most of the work was done when I swung by the Paint Louis wall Monday afternoon. A few finishing touches were being applied while visitors like me cruised for photos. This woman was posing in front of one section while another took pictures. They said they were friends of the artist. I asked if I could join in and they were happy to oblige. Since she was standing in a circle, it occurred to me to have her raise her arms like clock hands.         

Light And Dark

More cruising the work on display at Artica. 

The figures above have words torn into the green fabric but even up close I couldn't read much of it. 

The diptych in the second photo represents the scene right behind me as I took the shot - grassy fields with the wooden structure of Our Lady of Artica (more about which soon), a single Doric column standing there for god-knows-why and the old Cotton Belt Railroad freight terminal, whose long east wall has been turned into a mural by Artica founders Hap Phillips and Nita Turnage. Looks quite Fauvist to me. 

The last is the hardest to understand.It brought back hazy associations with some Japanese cemeteries I've seen.       

Peinture En Plein Air

Captions in French two days in a row, huh? Must be getting snobby. I'll have to speak in more guttural tones soon. The reasons will be apparent in a month or so. 

This young man was doing his thing just across North 14th Street from the sign in yesterday's post, part of the little street festival in Old North St. Louis. The painting was far from finished so I have no opinion about it. But what's that in the lower right corner? A child's car seat? Tell me if you see something different.            

Pick Your Art

Okay, mix and match. The woman in the center was doing some kind of free form posing or dancing or whatever you want to call it on a tarpaulin covered with fresh paint. Her body became part of the canvas. Didn't do much for me. The one on the right is daubing super-bright color on a canvas, something of an abstract expressionist style. I don't feel capable of judging this kind of art but I know when I like it (and I like Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko and Franz Kline).

The man on the left is something else. We saw him at the 2015 fringe and I wish I had a note of his name. He is a tap dancer but more than just that. He is something extraordinary and seemed to be in a trance. I'd like to do a whole post about him and I got a lot of pix. All I need is a chance to edit. So little time, so much to do.          

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Sheldon Johnson

Sheldon Johnson's studio was across the hall from Marlene Lewis'. Like me, he has a day job but a separate passion. Some of his work hints at the figurative. However, his recent stuff that I saw is abstract, coarsely geometric and muscular. He struck me as having a certain power, individually and as an artist.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Marlene Lewis

Marlene Lewis is a painter whose work ranges from barely figurative to abstract. She uses loose, vibrant color with a palette that reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler. Her studio is full of light shining on white walls, in contrast to the spaces of the men in the last two day's posts. The brightness suits her personality and her art.

The last photo was taken as an exposure test and didn't get my attention, Marlene noticed the reflection when looking at my camera's screen and immediately saw the possibilities. She was right.
                     

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Eric Ridge

Down the hall from  Henryk Ptasiewicz's studio at Koken Art Factory I met another painter, Eric Ridge. His style is both more and less realistic than Henryck's. You can see great photography, Hieronymus Bosch and Salvadore Dali in his work. The viewer suspects that you might find him in a corner of one of his own images.

                 

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Henryk Ptasiewicz

Finally getting around to editing pictures from the annual St. Louis artists studio open house weekend. It took place over a month ago. I go from place to place, learn about the artists and their work, then ask if I can take some candid portraits in their workspace.

This is my friend Henryk Ptasiewicz, who has appeared in these pages before. I first met him when he was painting en plein air in Citygarden while I was shooting downtown. His style is at once fresh, original and accessible, using loose brushstrokes to create a rhythm of vivid and darker colors.

More of these to come.      

Open Studios STL 2014 - Andrew Brandmeyer

Another young painter on the tour, Andrew Brandmeyer. I don't see many abstract artists around here these days. The trend seems to be toward the figurative but with reality rearranged, not surrealist but more subtle. Here, the woman seems to be disintegrating in some way, maybe so anxious that bits are shaking off her. Some molecules seem to float in the air (more out of the photo frame). Note the ceramic owl with a pink, empty, thought balloon.

He told me that the painting he's using as his Facebook header (link above) at the moment is based on a Caravaggio work. I searched a couple of online catalogs and couldn't find the reference. So use your imagination.                   

Open Studios STL 2014 - Portrait Of The Artist As A Portrait

I was visiting the studio of painter John Joseph Hunn and had taken some pix of him with a very large painting. His loft had plenty of wall space. Other areas had pictures in frames that would be appropriate for a Gothic church altar, a very clever idea.

As we were finishing a young painter came in, a woman not long out of school trying to make a name for herself. This is Anna Chekhovskaya. Hunn, who we will see tomorrow, suggested putting her in this frame, a brilliant idea. I'll steal any good ones that come my way.                                     

Dexter Silvers

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While I was walking around the back streets of the Tour de Grove I ran into a family who had a racing party going on the sidewalk. Friendly as can be - they gave me a big wave and hello, said something about my big lens and asked if I would take their picture. Of course. When I walked over I noticed that a man was working on a painting at an easel.

That's how I met Dexter Silvers, an extraordinary artist. He has lived in The Grove neighborhood for decades, making paintings of the St. Louis scene and images just from his imagination. That's what he was working on in the second photo. He has a studio and gallery in the building beside him, where I saw many of his works. This man has impressive talent. Locals, it's worth your while to go say hello and see his stuff. You can contact him through the link above.

Below, his charming wife, Gwen, and another member of the family, Frances. (I forgot to write down her relationship!)    

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Barry Liebman

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I walked into Barry Liebman's studio on Sunday, saw some of these paintings and thought, "wow, I bet this guy likes Cy Twombly." So I asked if he did. In response, he pulled out a beautifully-made art book about that painter. It told me something about Liebman.

He is an abstract painter who often uses mixed media to enhance the effect. Music is a great influence on his work: he has series inspired by the work of Charlie Parker and the Adagio from the 9th Symphony of Gustav Mahler (my artistic hero!). You can click here to listen - you'll get the point. No Western music is more profound.

Until recently, Liebman was co-owner of St. Louis' beloved Left Bank Books, one of America's finest independent booksellers. He will soon be moving to Whidbey Island, Washington, a jewel in Puget Sound not far from Seattle. Our loss, their gain.

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Portraits of St. Louis Artists: David Ottinger

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It's Open Studios Weekend once again, when St. Louis artists open their workspaces or gather in exhibition centers to show what they are making. I went around more slowly yesterday than in the past, spending more time with the artists, learning about them and their work, and of course, asking if I could take their pictures.

I saw some very original stuff, not the least of which was the painting of David Ottinger, professor of art at McKendree University in nearby Lebanon, Illinois. The long painting behind him has four iterations of the same person, apparently wracked in thought. I wish I'd written down the title - it was The Essence of the Decision or something like that. It's quite penetrating.

Yesterday brought portraits of eight or nine artists, many of which will appear here in coming days. Today, the second day of the open house, will feature different artists and spaces.

La Peinture En Plein Air

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Words sound so much more elegant to Americans when they are expressed in French. Just to say "painting outdoors" seems so bland. You know, you might be barbecuing outdoors or something.

Henryk Ptasiewicz was working hard en plein air when I met him, despite many interruptions from curious passers-by. I was interested by his unusual painting posture, which you can see in the phote below. He was curled up like a discus thrower, ready to spring open. When I took some telephoto shots from a distance, it was fascinating to watch his eyes dart from the subject to canvas and back again. The second picture in yesterday's post shows some of this.

If you would like to see the finished painting that Ptasiewicz was working on click here.

Almost As Realistic As A Photograph

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Looking north on 6th Street from just south of the downtown core.

My style of HDR photos has vaguely reminded of the work of some painter but I couldn't place it. It finally came to me yesterday: Richard Estes. You can see a large sample of his work through Google Images here. He is a member of the 20th Century school of (mostly) American painting known as Photorealism. Other members of the movement include Ralph Goings and Chuck Close. Close is a personal favorite but his work has gone far beyond approximations of photographs. Again, Google Images provides many examples (click here).

The link I see between some HDR photographs and photorealist paintings is this: they sort of look like conventional photos but not completely. More like paintings of photographs with detail, color and tonality modulated to suit the artist. People often see the images as hyper-real. A photographer with software like Photomatix Pro, which I use (thanks to Minneapolis CDPBer Greg for the tip), doesn't have nearly the range of options of a painter but, still, we can lift a scene like this one to something above the mundane. Plus, it just looks cool. I will now get off my soap box.

WHAT I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DO LAST NIGHT BUT DIDN'T: start an introductory yoga class. I'm 58 and have poor physical flexibility and balance - thought it might do me some good. But I left work late and was tired (whah) and didn't want another obligation. So I came home, had a bite and wrote this. And I'm happy.

TOMORROW: more HDR with the Thursday Arch Series, plus a new post on Gateway.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Gary Passanise

When I was looking for Gary Passanise's combination home and studio, people up the hill around the spaces of Craig Downs, Sarah Paulsen and Stan Chisholm told me to follow the lane down the hill and look for the hobbit hole. Around a bend, in the lowest of the old commercial buildings built into the hillside over the Mississippi, was a door leading still further downward.

That's where I found him in an office/sitting room. The living quarters and studio were down yet more steep steps. Loft-style living and working space blended into one another. Passanise is a painter in the tradition of abstract expressionism. The work hanging there, perhaps still in progress, reminded me a bit of Anselm Kiefer and Clyfford Still. Visit his sophisticated web site to see a variety of his work. His biography is worth a look. Besides his own art, Passanise is director of painting at the Leigh Gerdine School of Fine Art at Webster University in St. Louis.

I'm still inviting St. Louis artists to contact me if they would like to be part of this series.

WHAT I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT TODAY: How to use the Vanishing Point filter in Photoshop to paste text shaped in perspective into an image. Come back on Friday for Theme Day and grade my work.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Amy Thompson, printmaker.

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE - I just realized that last Saturday was my 500th post! Are we there yet?

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Stan Chisholm

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Stan Chisholm's St. Louis studio is tiny, maybe 4 by 12 feet. Makes it a little tough to get enough space to set up a portrait but, hey, you play the hand of cards you are dealt. He spends most of the year at the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is hard to characterize. He paints on canvas, wood panel or no parking signs, creates collages, designs clothing, makes prints and even decorates paper plates (amaze your dinner guests!). He's won a lot of awards and exhibited in many shows here and in Chicago (look at an example). You can check out many of his images (and his impressive resume) on his web site, 18andcounting.com.

When I look at Chisholm's work, I see elements of cartoons, graffiti wall painting, dada and surrealism. Some stuff looks like the bizarre offspring of a Georgia O'Keefe cow skull and an ewok.

Once again, I am inviting St. Louis artists who would like to appear in this series to contact me. Click my profile to the left for an email link.

WHAT I'M GLANCING AT WHILE I WRITE THIS: Jon Stewart making fun of John McCain again on The Daily Show. Too easy.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Thomas Shepherd, photographer

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Sarah Paulsen

Sarah Paulsen's studio is in same group of old commercial buildings as Craig Woods'. Some of the spaces are dug into the hillside leading down to the Mississippi and feel like bunkers. Paulsen's area, which she shares with Lisa Payne (whom I photographed at last year's open house), is on the top level and feels closer to the sun. It contains lovely watercolor sketches and photos of her grand tour of South America. I told her the painting on the wall behind her in this image reminded me of Max Beckman, who once taught at Washington University in St. Louis and has a room to himself at the St. Louis Art Museum. She told me that she had spent many hours in that room and that Beckman had been a great influence on her work.

You can see Paulsen's painting for the STL artists open house catalog here. She has also begun to create clever animations. Take a look at Midwest Hair and Begin. You'll enjoy them.

BY THE WAY, for my St. Louis readers: if you are an artist or know an artist who would like to be featured in this series and get some publicity, plus a free portrait to use, please click the link to my profile and email me.

WHAT I'M PISSED OFF ABOUT: The Canon factory service center has had my good camera, my 5D, for the better part of the last month and a half, now back for the third time for the same problem. Whah, whah, whah.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Stan Chisholm, who is a bit hard to characterize, but that's because he's so original.