Color and Kinetic artists

Spiral chromatic room at Color in Space and Time

Over on my new blog and website - so new and so shiny! - there have been some blog posts:

• Color wheels: about the color charts I use to guide my color choices
• Inspiration in Everyday Objects
• Google's Art Project
• Elias Crespin: kinetic artist

Later today I will be posting about the Carlos Cruz-Diez retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Color in Space and Time which opens tomorrow, but I previewed last night. First I have a lot more photos and video to upload and his lecture at the museum to attend.

Art League of Houston exhibition

Untitled #3

Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 48"

©2010 Caroline Roberts

I am excited to announce that two of my paintings, Untitled #3 (shown above) and Untitled #2, have been accepted into the Art League of Houston show, "Gambol", which opens this Friday. I'll be there and I'd love to see you! The opening is from 6 to 9pm at the Art League on Montrose, next door to Texas Art Supply.

I blogged about the creation of Untitled #2 in these three entries:
Untitled #3, work in progress day 1
Work in progress, day 2
Untitled #3, completed

Of course I'm not just resting up, thinking about the opening or planning for the holidays. Untitled #5 is on the easel - I'll post some work in progress photos this week - and Untitled #8 has been stretched and is in the process of being gessoed. Okay, that's not happening right this minute as I type (that would be messy!) but I will be finishing that up today.

A visit to the Whitworth, Manchester

Triptych: Sliver Birches & Bindweed & Beneath a Rotting Tree by Michael Porter

Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK

At the weekend I went up to visit my old stomping ground, Manchester, where I went to university. Going into the Whitworth Art Gallery, I found they had an exhibition on that was fascinating to me - a real touch of serendipity. The "Deep Rooted" exhibition is all about trees, and introduced me to a contemporary artist, Michael Porter (b. 1948), who paints trees, many of which are from the same wood in Derbyshire.

He walks in the woods making notes, rather than sketches, and then returns to the studio to paint, aiming to capture the memory of a place and its change over time. The paintings grow over time too, taking around six months to complete and involving oil and water based paints. The visual and physical textures on these paintings are fascinating.

The paintings above are hung in the south gallery of the Whitworth, overlooking Whitworth park and the trees outside. They had an iPod with audio files as part of the exhibition and I listened to a couple of tracks that were Michael Porter talking about his work in painting trees. He didn't talk about his materials disappointingly, but he did mention that he takes photographs on his walks. He has been walking in that Derbyshire wood for twenty years and found that he tends to photograph the same trees over and over, recording their appearance and growth over that entire time period.

Sadly the gallery store closed before the gallery (why?) so I didn't see if they had any catalogs for the exhibition or postcards, but I saw from his website that Michael Porter has a book of his paintings.

After the show

What a fun and busy evening! I had some fantastic discussions with my guests and was surprised (very pleasantly) by their views of my paintings. I was especially surprised by reactions to one painting in particular (the one above) - reactions ranged from "I love it!" to "I can't bear to look". I also noticed that there were stronger and more positive reactions to paintings that had come from a greater emotion even when that emotion wasn't the actual subject of the painting. I do wish I'd thought to have someone take a few photos during the evening - my husband and I were way too busy talking to our guests.

Talking about my work and answering questions is always great for sparking ideas and thoughts about what I do, but it does also make me feel a little fragile for a day or so. Like I bared my soul to someone and I'm not sure if they'll ever speak to me again. Don't know why I'm worried - I'm excited that a few people mentioned they would like to visit the studio so I am planning an Open Studio event for June. In fact, a lady from my neighborhood stopped me in the carpool line today and specifically asked that I let her know next time I do anything.

Wonderfully I did not get hit by the post-show struggle to get back to work as recently described on Tracy Helgeson's blog. Perhaps because I hung the paintings a week or so before the reception and perhaps because I still have plenty of work in progress. I got back from the show determined to tackle a new body of work that's been buzzing around in my head for a while- more on that later in the week!

On a totally different subject, I have signed up for a blog triage with Alyson Stanfield. It starts tomorrow and I'm really excited. I have ideas and intentions but I need something like this to hold me to a timeline and hopefully get past the perfectionism that wants to have every i dotted and t crossed before I post.

Exhibition hanging

Harvest coffee exhibition

It's been a busy, busy week since we got back from NYC, and on Saturday afternoon I hung a wall-full of paintings at Harvest coffee in Houston. The exhibition is simply titled "New Work" and is all work done in the last 12 months. Harvest have two walls that they use to exhibit works by local artists - sometimes photography, sometimes paintings, sometimes mosaics. They also have live jazz two nights a week, on Mondays and Thursday; and they make a wonderful soy latte. With that, free wi-fi and more sofas than the national coffee chain, what's not to love?

I will be sending out invitations to an artist's reception in the next few days - to get a copy sign up for my mailing list.

Remember the acrylic paint store, Guerra paints, I mentioned last time? I have ordered my first set of paints from them and I'm very excited! I ordered a very basic palette of pigment dispersions - 2 blues, 2 yellows, 1 red (I have a ton of red tubes left) and 2 whites. I did say basic - right back to my first color mixing lessons basic. Also the acrylic base and the thickener. As soon as they arrive I will start experimenting and I'll put the results here. I'm hoping to get a huge range of paint consistencies without foaming or binding issues. I will also try mixing the paints I make with the paints and mediums I already have.

Harvest coffee exhibition, part 2

On a different subject I have been loving Luann Udell's 25 Random Things: Action Steps for your Artist's Statement. I finally realized last night that my statement is not about all the work I will ever do (including in the future) but only about what I do right now. I don't know why that wasn't obvious to me before. Such a perfectionist!