Artists Date at Home

I’ve not been keeping up with my Artists Dates for the creative group I attend, so I decided to do an at home, online time directly looking at art.

I’m always dismayed at my lack of knowledge of art history, although, to be fair, this is not a subject I’ve ever studied in any formal way. So when I come across a new name I try to investigate and find out more about the artist. I've looked at three artists in my online artists date today.

A name I discovered recently is Artemisia Gentileschi, who was painting in the seventeenth century, having completed an apprentiship with her artist father. http://www.artemisia-gentileschi.com/index.shtml

There is lots about her online including a website with a slideshow of most of her work. Her themes were largely biblical with an apparent slant towards showing women in more realistic poses and in rather striking activities such as performing beheadings, than similar themes depicted by contemporary male artists. But then the Old Testament is nothing if not gory at times, and some of the women recorded in it were apt to have to take care of themselves in the face of bog standard male violence and assorted wars.

http://www.artemisia-gentileschi.com/self.html

Last year I discovered the work of Niki de Saint Phalle in an exhibition at the Liverpool Tate. I spent hours in this exhibition in admiration of the variations in styles and the progress throughout her life as manifested in her art. Her life was not easy and in her own words she says:

“Some of my drawings look like those of mad people. Don’t we all have madness in us? Some of us are able to express it more easily.” N de SP
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/niki-de-saint-phalle/

More info here
http://www.niki-museum.jp/english/frame.htm
I found her ‘shooting paintings’ especially interesting. She’d create art with layers of paint inside, then take it out and shoot it. There was terrific old black and white video of this as she shot her paintings with a rifle in front of assembled guests.

Tirage

The third artist is Elizabeth Peyton who talks about her art in an interview on this site.
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/400

Hers is again an entirely different style from the above artists, but I especially like the look of her portraits.
Piotr on the Couch

I hope this is considered enough of an Artists Date when I report back to the group next week. But I’ve not made time to go to an art gallery recently and I’m not sure that this is the week to take myself off to view the Titians. Given the conflicting feelings I harbour about all that I might find myself standing there growling at them.

Update Feb 23rd:

Greer writing in today's Guardian talks about the value/devaluing of women artists and the tendency for their work to be subsumed into their father's. One commenter mentions a Gentileschi hanging in the Queen's Gallery in Edinburgh. So another addition to my list of paintings to visit!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/23/women-art-history

Sunny train trip

The Artists Way group I am now attending, begins with a recap of what each member has done in the way of Artist's Dates and ends with a commitment to your next one. Artist's Dates are activities you do on your own which nurture your creativity. This can be as varied as you like and as short or long as you want.

I took time for an Artist's Date yesterday when I was on a train journey up part of the east coast. Normally, I try to sit on a seat looking east over the Forth and the North Sea, in the hope of seeing seals and other wild life. A common sight when the train passes, are the rocks and seascape littered with posing seals and paddling birds. Not that I can identify the birds, having never owned a 'Girls Book of Birds/weeds/trees and other nature-ish things'. And I was never a member of the type of uniformed organisation which taught girls such knowledge.

On this journey I sat looking west for a change. Holding my rather untrusty camera in my hand ready for action, I began with some photos as the train crossed the Forth on the old rail bridge.

North Queensferry

The sun brightened up as the train carried on northwards and I hoped for some good pictures of snowy hills, but there wasn't a great deal of snow even on distant hills. By the time the train was travelling through Angus, the weather on the Grampians had closed in so there was nothing to be seen except very low snow clouds in the distance. Things brightened to a uniform dullness in Aberdeen. Before that, though, the sun glinted off the hills in the far distance as we crossed the Tay Bridge. And the sky was a glorious blue reflecting off the water in the Montrose Basin.

By the time I returned, the sun had set and there was no more opportunity to take photos from the train.

Weekend wanderings

For some time now, I have been interested in increasing my creativity. This prompted me to join an Artists Way group which was based around the book of that name by Julia Cameron. The exercises in the book are designed to help bring out your creativity by nurturing it, especially through ‘Artist’s Dates’. These are activities, usually done on your own which ‘feed’ your creativity wellsprings.

I try to fit in as many as I can but this tends to be sporadic in my case, however, I had a fairly inspiring weekend. On Saturday I tasted my way around the farmers market, eating all the veggie and sweet things on offer, before going along to watch a Tai Chi demonstration.

I followed this up with a visit to the National Library of Scotland exhibition of 500 years of Scottish Printing. The efforts the exhibitors have made to include some women’s printing history added to the relevance of the materials on display. There was one excerpt on a wall describing a woman’s letter to the legal body of the day asking to have her first marriage annulled as she was forced into it and the scoundrel absconded soon after learning her folks wouldn’t settle any money on her. She subsequently heard he’d been killed and married some one else. Predictably, aforementioned scoundrel turned up again. But! The story ran out before the end so I don’t know what happened!

According to the NLS website blog, the first book to be printed in Scotland that was written by a woman, was Ane Godlie Dreame (Edinburgh, 1603) by Elizabeth Melville, Lady Colville of Culross.




On Sunday I went to Threipmuir Reservoir for a walk and muttered constantly at myself for not bringing my camera to photograph the views across the Pentlands in the early autumn light. I had been doing so well remembering to photograph places I go on walks this year, but maybe I need to leave the camera somewhere obvious so I see it before leaving home!

The drawback to walks in the country is the mud. The walk out to the reservoir was wet, muddy and splashy from happy dogs chasing sticks through puddles spattering me with even more mud. Also, why do I wear my best jeans for these occasions? It just makes me moan, but I did enjoy being outside the city for a change.

http://www.theartistsway.com/

http://www.nls.uk/events/printing-exhibition/index.html

http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst2630.html