Part II: Cuyahoga National Park: Paintings, Writings

Painting that has abandoned the dogmas, subjectivism and human centered regimes of modern art is free to explore everything. Objective reality has returned and the whole world is open to explore anew. The modernist aesthetic is merely the corporate aesthetic. Gone now is the repressive cloak of irreality which curtained art for the last 80 or 90 years. Art was veiled behind the thick and meaningless narcissistic cloak of ultra avant garde art, which achieved so little.  We can now free ourselves to use skill again, love the splendor of real things and beings, and be intelligent. Gone is the obsession with the materials and tools of art alone.

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Cuyahoga National Park-Paintings,Writings– Part 1

Note: open the links on this page in a different window, which means hold cursor over tab and press shift, then open in new window. Otherwise you will close down this page.

 

 Part I

Introduction

What follows is the story of a place over 3-4 years in paint, 2011 to 2016.  These are a series of 40 or so mostly Plein Air paintings done in, or close to, Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP). It is a catalogue of places, trees, animals, birds, wildflowers, the river and tributaries, as well as some built structures and people who live or work there. In between the images are autobiographical reviews of  these years, as well as reflections on history and painting, thoughts on the environment, both in appreciation of it, and in criticism about how our society mistreats nature.

Miniature of my Grandma at the Met

Edna Yenser Gormley (1897-199o)  painted by Julie Bruhns Kahle (Mrs. Marcel Kahle) (1858 – 1931

The Girl with White Fur

8. 1920–24
   Watercolor on ivory in gold-toned metal frame with stamped and enamelled black foliate decoration
   Sight: 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. (8.9 x 6.4 cm)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

My Grandmother was painted by Julie Kahle probably in 1919. I was told about this painting by my aunt and mother, who learned of it from my Grandmother. My aunt had gone to the Met shortly before or after my grandmother died and got a black and white version of the work. I was given a copy of it.

An Alternative History of Self-portraiture

In this blog of my painting work I have tried to give small art history lessons too, particularly if the history illuminates some aspects of my own concerns. I have decided to expand this idea further. Since I have done a few self portraits lately, it might be useful to reflect and make observations on the art of the self portrait in general and my personal history of doing them, as well, which is above this.  The last self portrait I did was called “History” so let’s delve a little into the history of this genre.

Violin Studies 2013-2018

 

 

I’ve done various studies of violinists and children playing violin in the last three or four years. My purpose here was exploratory, as is often the case. I draw largely to learn and record, explore and feel what I am seeing.  Only one painting so far, but there may be more. It is a genre I like very much. There are fine examples of people playing the violin that go back to the 16th century, at least.  My main concern was my children, who play this instrument.  Here they are not in chronological order with the most recent first. But you can see when they were done.

Selected Self-portraits since 1971

Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, writes in his autobiography that no autobiography is entirely honest. No one can write all the dark and hidden things in a human life. A few have tried, perhaps, from Kafka to Plath, but I am not trying to do that in any case. Twain did not have to deal with the fact that now big business is trying to make the personal the exploitable. They want to turn private moments into profit for them. They want you to pour out your heart texting and on Facebook and want you pay them big bucks to do it.