Olympic musings

I'm not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but I think if the Olympics had an event for not being interested in the Olympics, I might just medal… or maybe at least make it into the competition. Personally, I think one of the most noteworthy parts of this worldwide ritual is how overblown the congratulatory self-regard of the athletes (aided and abetted by the breathless commentators) for their accomplishments can often be. I recall a few years back, hearing on the radio about some runner breaking a record, and that runner waxing effusive about how going a few seconds faster on a track had "rocked the whole world" or words to that effect. 

Uh… sorry, no. 

There is a great big part of the great big world for whom the Olympics is just one more news story out of thousands, and breaking records -- even "world" records -- is in the end merely a matter of temporary statistical change… and "the best in the world" is very often only the best in the world on that particular day.

So I was intrigued to hear on NPR today that there was a time when it wasn't just athletes, but poets, painters, sculptors and others in the arts also who took part in Olympic competition. It hasn't happened for some time -- I think the last Olympic medal given for poetry was in 1948.

But it's certainly an intriguing notion, and it could bring a whole new audience to the Olympics. Of course, by their very nature, such arts contests would require a greater attention span on the part of the audience than that required of most athletic events, which might be a problem.

Could be cool, though. -- PL

Here's a link to an interesting piece on the history of these nigh-forgotten Olympic games:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/books/review/poetrys-relationship-with-the-olympics.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Rockwell Kent show at the Bennington Museum

Yesterday was a lovely sunny Sunday -- warm but not too hot. Perfect weather to drive up to the Bennington Museum to see their new exhibit of the paintings and woodcuts of Rockwell Kent.

I was somewhat familiar with his woodcut stuff -- he's probably most famous for his illustrations for a 1930 edition of "Moby Dick"* -- but I don't think I''d ever seen any of his paintings.

It's almost always a nice drive up to Bennington, and this time we took the route from Brattleboro, VT over Route 9 heading west. This allowed us to stop briefly at the Vermont Deli in Brattleboro to pick up some food for lunch -- a great place with great food, and I was surprised that with all the people crowding it we were able to get in and out within minutes. Sheer luck, I guess.

The exhibit of Kent's work focused mainly on the landscape paintings he did while living in Vermont, but also featured some of his print work, both wood engravings and lithographs. His work, especially the prints, definitely has an Art Deco feel to it, but I think the paintings reminded me a lot of the art of Georgia O'Keefe, both in the color palette and the abstractions of shapes.

"Masterng Mount Equinox" c. 1920

"Transcending Death" c. 1923

"Valley of Vermont" c. 1921(?)

Regrettably, I did not write down the title of this next painting of a quarry or mine, nor was the photo I took of it and its "tombstone" (the card describing the painting) of sufficient clarity for me to garner that information from the image. But I think of all the pieces in this show, this is the one which caught my attention the most. 

       It really does hover most effectively in that unquiet space between a recognizable scene and total abstraction. -- PL

(07-28-12 Correction: This painting is NOT by Rockwell Kent, as I thought it was, but by another artist who also lived in Arlington, VT, named John Atherton. It is titled "The Ore Pit" and was painted by in 1947. Thanks to commenter "jfranklin" for the correction!)

P.S. As I did in my blog entry about the Howard Pyle show at the Norman Rockwell Museum, I have to note another "tombstone" with errors on it at the Rockwell Kent exhibit. Here it is, with the problem areas boxed in red:

As you can see, "my" should be "may", and "of drawing" very likely was meant to read "of the drawing". (And no, I am not obsessive about looking for these kinds of mistakes -- these are two that just popped out at me.) -- PL

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*… which can be seen here:

http://clubs.plattsburgh.edu/museum/mobydick3.htm

… and which, weirdly, are described as "PEN, BRUSH, AND INK DRAWINGS" in the Wikipedia entry on Kent, as are many other of his book illustrations -- all of which, I am fairly certain, were wood engravings.

"Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered"

A few days ago, I was sitting on the porch with Jeannine, enjoying breakfast in the cool morning air, when she mentioned that it might be fun to go sometime to the new Howard Pyle exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum. My interest was piqued -- I've always loved Pyle's work, especially his illustrations of Robin Hood. Given that I had nothing particular planned for the day, I suggested that we not wait, and go that day, and she agreed.

The show was great -- many of Pyle's original oil paintings were on display, as well as some watercolors and a goodly number of his black and white ink drawings. One of the paintings -- I think it's titled "The Mermaid" -- is one of Pyle's best-known works and one I have seen reproduced many times in books and on prints and posters.

However, it was not until I got close up to the painting that I noticed a really nice detail…

… clinging to a rock under the crashing surf is a little crab.

I am so used to thinking of beautiful color when considering the work of Howard Pyle that this painting, an illustration from an edition of the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, surprised me with its monochromatic look.

I was also struck by the way Pyle had rendered the giant in such a way as to emphasize his great size by painting him in soft, almost cloudy tones, as if seen from a great distance through the haze of intervening air, while the human in the lower left is rendered in harsher, more solid shapes and tones.

The influence of Pyle on the later works of Frank Farazetta is clear to me in this closeup detail of that human figure… it puts me in mind of a number of the cavemen which Frazetta painted.

There were many pieces which dealt with scenes set on or near the ocean, but I think my favorite was this one, an illustration of the "Flying Dutchman" from a story in Harper's Monthly Magazine. I love the way Pyle achieved the look of the foam on the ocean's surface in this watercolor… and the composition is brilliant.

I really enjoyed the show, but I have to mention two things which caught my eye, two silly mistakes that struck me as pretty obvious… and made me wonder about the process of putting together shows of this nature.

The mistakes were on two "tombstones", those descriptive cards which accompany the pieces hung on the walls and also those in display cases. One of them was for a print by another artist, something which had inspired Pyle. As I read the card, I noticed this mistake:

… the unnecessary repetition of the word "the".

Moving into another gallery (if I am remembering correctly, the show occupied four rooms in the museum), I was looking at some examples of books with Japanese prints in them from which Pyle had derived some inspiration, when I noticed the following:

Obviously, the word "extensive" should have been followed by another word like "collection" or "library".

As we were leaving the museum, I spoke to a woman at the front desk and told her about these two errors. She listened to me politely and seemed to be somewhat concerned, but also said she didn't know if they could be corrected, as the show had come from another museum, and the cards belonged to that museum.

So how did these mistakes survive through one exhibition and into another? It seems pretty absurd to me that such obvious errors could not be caught with even slightly careful proofreading. I am pretty certain that I am not the only person who noticed these things, so it is pretty likely that in the show's previous incarnation someone MUST have mentioned them. So why no corrections? I know it's a minor point (or two minor points), but it seems to me that when you are putting on an important show of a major artist like this, you would want to have it as perfect as humanly possible.

Moving on…

Having enjoyed the show, and beginning to feel slightly peckish, Jeannine and I considered our food options. We checked out the Rockwell Museum's cafe, which was a pleasant space but only stocked with pre-made sandwiches, most of which had some variety of (gag!) mayonnaise slathered on them. Then Jeannine remembered something from our last trip to the Rockwell -- on a whim, I'd taken the road from the museum in the southerly direction, to see where it went, and as it turned out, it took us to Great Barrington, not far from one of our favorite restaurants, Xicoh Ten Catl.

The idea of fresh, delicious Mexican food won out over stale mayonnaise-ridden offerings, so off we went. Xicoh Ten Catl did not disappoint -- we got a table outside on their shady porch, the air was slightly cool and soft, and the simple meals we ordered (a vegetarian burrita for Jeannine, the chicken version for me) were just perfect.

We followed the meal with a casual stroll around downtown Great Barrington, doing a little shopping, and then headed home, with one more stop in Hinsdale for a soft ice cream. Not a bad day. -- PL

Sunset

Jeannine and I attended the opening of the Ezra Jack Keats show at the Eric Carle Museum two nights ago. Keats is best known for the picture book "The Snowy Day" which he wrote and illustrated.

As part of the opening, there was a lecture about Keats by Claudia Nahson, the curator of the exhibit. My ears perked up and my brow furrowed (yes, simultaneously) when she spoke of how one of Keats'  early professional artistic endeavors was working on the original "Captain Marvel" comic books in the 1940's… but the slide she used to illustrate this point showed a Jim Starlin cover from the 1970's version of "Captain Marvel" -- completely different character published by a different company.

The artwork in the show itself was interesting, but it could hardly match the sight which greeted us as we began to drive home -- a gorgeous sunset. It was one of those sunsets which explodes into beauty and changes rapidly, but I did manage to get one or two photos of it when I found a spot where I could safely pull the truck over and get out with my camera.

Tasty! -- PL

"Countless"

I generally like the writing of Lincoln Child, especially the stuff he's done with his writing partner Douglas Preston. So when I saw a new book of his at Barnes and Noble last week, I picked it up… even though, when I read the inside front jacket flap, I groaned in dismay.

I reacted this way because whoever wrote the jacket flap copy pushed one of my "pet peeve" buttons relating to use of the English language, and in this case, it was the misuse of the word "countless".

"Countless" is a great word -- it means, literally, "too numerous to count"...

… which is why when I read or hear it used to refer to something which is CLEARLY countable (as in something like "He knocked the bowl off his desk and countless M&M's spilled onto the floor"), its really bugs me. And that's been happening more these days as "countless" seems to be going down the same road as "awesome", another great word which has been so overused that it barely means anything now.

Here are the pertinent lines from the jacket flap:

"Deep within the Sudd -- a forsaken landscape that is neither land nor water, south of the Egyptian border -- Stone believes he has found the tomb of the god-king Narmer, the pharaoh who united upper and lover Egypt over five thousand years ago. Lost to history, Narmer's tomb is rumored to contain a prize that has been sought for countless centuries."

The way I read that, this pharaoh lived somewhere between five and six thousand years ago. At the outside, that is only sixty centuries. I can count that high in under a minute -- it's not even remotely "too numerous to count".

It's just another example of writers succumbing to the temptation to be bombastic and use words which over-exaggerate, for no good reason. Why mutilate the word "countless" when "many" would certainly suffice? -- PL

Shellback Artworks grand opening!

Well, I'm back home and recovering from a busy weekend  helping my buddy Steve Lavigne celebrate the grand opening of his new store, "Shellback Artworks", in Wells, ME yesterday. Jeannine and I went up for the private pre-opening party on Friday night, which was fun, but the real work (for me, anyway) started on Saturday at noon, when I got to the store and found about a dozen or more people waiting with stuff to be signed. 

Here's the banner which greeted us when we arrived.

I sat down at the table provided for me and for the next couple of hours didn't stop signing things ranging from comics to backing boards from blister-packed toys to t-shirts to plush TMNT dolls and a few things more. I only got a break around 2PM, and managed to snag a few pieces of the free pizza Steve and his wife Denise had provided for the people attending the opening.

I hadn't done a signing in quite a while, but it was a lot of fun, and I wish Steve the best of luck with this new venture. RIght now, the shelves are not completely full, but Steve has a lot more stuff on the way, and I don't doubt that in short order the place will be chock full of cool stuff -- art supplies, comics, and toys. Steve and Denise's lovely daughter Gracie has a display case in the store with some of her cool handmade jewelry, and I bought two matching necklaces for Jeannine and Emily.

It was pretty neat to see the way Steve arranged the big Turtle sculptures in the store -- now he just has to make sure people don't tug on them (they look solid, but they're actually pretty fragile).

I took some photos during the moments when I had a chance to get up and walk around. Unfortunately, I don't remember the names of some (well, most) of the folks in them -- sorry!

I think Denise took this photo of me with a young woman named Robin who was in the area working on a "Fight Cancer" event. I signed her poster as well as the sleeve of her t-shirt.

This cute couple posed for a photo op with Michelangelo and Donatello.

That's a happy Steve in the center right of this photo chatting with customers as Denise rings up their purchases.

Here Steve appears to be sketching a Turtle head for a couple of fans…

… one of whom also displayed some TMNT body art.

During a lull around 2PM, I tried to get some photos that I could put together into a panoramic view from where I was sitting during the signing, but I screwed it up, so the result is a little crude. 

But it does give a fairly good view of the lower level of Shellback Artworks. Behind that yellow/orange wall in the background are the stairs going up to the second floor, where Steve currently has the gallery space and the first exhibit, which is a group of pieces from my collection of work I've done by myself or in collaboration with other artists.

And if you go around to the right side of that yellow/orange wall, there is a set of stairs leading down to the basement, where Steve will be holding his various art classes.

So if you're in the area, check it out! -- PL

"Shellback Artworks" sign is up!

Steve Lavigne's wife Denise just sent me a photo of the newly-installed sign for the store...

... looks pretty cool! I'm looking forward to doing my signing there tomorrow (Saturday, June 16, noon until 3PM) at 1509 Post Road in Wells, ME. -- PL