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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Visit to Providence, RI




Felice and I in front of  'Homage to Mexican Folk Art' by Francisco Moreno, RISD.
Following our first intensive residency, I was fortunate to visit my friend, Felice, in Providence, RI. We visited two mansions in Newport and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. There is no substitute for seeing works of art directly. Often the format and scale of certain pieces turns out to be very different from the way I have imagined them. The content of a work can be so compelling that I visualize it in large dimensions, even though the original may be quite the reverse.

I was impressed with the Contemporary Art Collection in the museum. Each piece seems to represent an important body of work of its creator. I was quite fascinated to see one of Anselm Kiefer's large, heavy books and also one of Vija Celmins' ocean drawings as a print. This particular work was small and intimate, with ripples and waves lovingly shaded. Celmins' ocean series relates to my interest in water as a subject. However, I am more interested in creating the suggestion of water, rather than portraying each individual wavelet as it is captured in a photograph. 

Nancy Chunn's show 'Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear' seems to take a humorous look at the absurdities and fears inherent in North American life. Chunn's 'Front Pages' project was pithy and incisive. A copy of the bound book of these New York Times front pages transformed into drawings, paintings and graphics was available for perusal. 


There is a link to an image sheet with selections from the Chicken Little series.

We found time to view the graduate exhibition of Master of Fine Arts RISD students. There were some intriguing pieces which create sound as the visitor interacts with them. However, one was too delicate to touch in spite of the card inviting us to try it. 'Whole' by Astrid Toha combines abstract painting on the wall with projected images, suggesting an ambiguity which I aim for in my own work. Astrid was in the gallery at the time and gave me permission to photograph her work:

'Whole' by Astrid Toha, RISD MFA Thesis Graduate Show


The Breakers Newport

The Elms and the Breakers mansions were interesting to walk through. The owners impressed their guests with elaborate decor and huge proportions in the rooms used for entertaining, which seemed too busy to our more minimalist eyes. The private bedrooms showed more elegant restraint, with muted colors and pale furniture. I actually found the enormous and exotic trees in the gardens to be more captivating than the houses.