Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2018 i Artists Magazine

We grow and change because we must. Achieving wholeness, striving to actualize our true selves, lies at the root of human accomplishment and contentment. When tasked with reimagining what Artists Magazine could be, the notion of completeness came to the fore. Artists want and need to connect with their creative selves. They genuinely aspire to be better—as makers and as mortals. To sustain the development of both, artists need to nourish their bodies as well as their souls. In short, they need to practice leading artful lives. To this end, we’ve added informative columns about color (in this instance, beautiful blue, page 14), wellness (page 18), allied design practices (page 24), emerging art trends (page 30) and current events (page 108). To inspire you further, we present an expansive photo…

Dating back as far as the 13th century, ultramarine blue was made from the semiprecious stone lapis lazuli, mined in what is now Afghanistan. To save money, artists often used a cheaper blue pigment as a base layer and covered only the surface of their work with more expensive ultramarine. Titian, however, wasn’t one to cut corners, and he made use of Venice’s location as a trading port and gateway to the East to purchase the vibrant pigments he desired. From the looks of Bacchus and Ariadne (below), he spared no expense. Today, ultramarine and other blue tones are as prized as ever, helping to beautify our homes and glamorize our wardrobes. –MICHAEL WOODSON FOLLOW @ARTISTSNETWORK ON INSTAGRAM AND SHOW US YOUR BLUE! #ARTISTSNETWORK_COLORSTORY Semiprecious lapis lazuli is the source…

“There’s information here, but not chaos. The built-ins have a taut, graphic quality. The Native American black pot keys off the graphic quality in the magical line of Matisse’s portrait. The room is tonal and quiet, but not without interest.” — Glenn Gissler throughout Glenn Gissler’s 30-year career, the New York City interior designer has earned a reputation for bringing calm, clarity and order into people’s lives and the homes. His natural ability to create an environment where disparate elements come together in harmonious dialogue, and where the sum of a space is always greater than its individual parts, is driven by his lifelong passion for “alchemy” — or “turning the ordinary into extraordinary,” as he defines it. Achieving this effect in an interior is, according to Gissler, both an…

DÉJÀ VU Botticelli’s Venus (at left) shares the same face and pose as the artist’s exuberant The Birth of Venus , which shows the goddess, hair blowing in the wind, riding the waves on a scallop shell and attended by other deities. In Venus , though, the feeling is more intimate, with the goddess, in a filmy camisole, standing alone in dim lighting.…

I used a thin veil of terre Pozzuoli oil paint diluted with mineral spirits for the imprimatura layer. I added veils of Indian yellow and burnt umber to the bottom third of the wood panel. The relatively warm colors of the underpainting remained visible throughout the process and provided a counterpoint to intensify and strengthen the cool colors that followed. For the sky, I layered veils of tints, chromatic grays and muted versions of ultramarine blue, cobalt blue and manganese blue. I did the same for the clouds, using mixtures of white and Naples yellow. I mixed indigo blue with Indian yellow and a trace of black to render earth and foliage. I then added chromatic grays and muted colors made from these same pigments as subsequent veils of color.…

Visiting Matisse in his studio in Vence, France, in 1944, the journalist Marguette Bouvier noted that “Congolese tapestries hang on the wall …” and that the artist had “… brought his shells and Chinese porcelains, his moucharaby [Moroccan textile screens] and his marble table and all the strange objects with which he loves to surround himself. Thus he reconstructed … this Matisse-atmosphere which he needs in order to live.” Throughout his career Matisse acquired a variety of objects that would serve as creative inspiration, as reminders of past experiences and as guides to the pictorial languages and formal devices of other cultures. They range from humble household items, like a tobacco jar, to more exotic objects such as Oceanic masks and Tahitian textiles. Many of these artifacts appear multiple times…

my firm, DesBrisay & Smith Architects, was recently tasked with converting a traditional school layout into a 21st-century learning space, and color proved to be the key. The Academy of the City Charter School is a public charter school in Queens, New York, and this project helped the Academy fulfill its mission to provide free, high-quality education to a diverse student body. We designed colorful classrooms (above), built with glass corners to allow acoustical privacy with visual connections. The most dramatic design choices were the colors, which give each classroom and grade an identity. There has been interest in multichromatic palettes in design for more than a century—our color choices were inspired by sources such as the architectural studies of Le Corbusier’s Polychromie architecturale. The school already owned Eames-inspired furniture,…

Shrouded by 18 acres of undeveloped land near Beach Lake, Pennsylvania, in the northern part of the Delaware Water Gap, is a group of painters, ensconced at their easels. The model lies before them in what the artist Patricia Watwood calls “a beautiful and challenging pose.” The sun beats down on them during the afternoon painting session. At the session’s finish, they go for a swim in the Delaware River. They explore the land’s meadows, covered in goldenrod, wild blueberries and apples, milkweed and lace. A breeze floats across a nearby pond, and as the day progresses, the artists guess at the hour based on the position of the sun and the sounds of the surrounding birds and insects. They rest in hammocks, share meals over a campfire and prepare…

Sculpture in Chicago GALLERY VICTOR ARMENDARIZ • CHICAGO, ILLINOIS GALLERYVICTOR.COM • CLOSING DATE TBA The group exhibition “3D” shows off the roster of sculptors at Chicago’s Gallery Victor Armendariz, with works incorporating bronze, steel, earthenware and wood, among other media. One participant is the Spanish artist Jesús Curiá Perez, whose sculptures combine ghostly bronze figures with geometric forms made of other materials. The bodies frequently seem to morph into starker nonorganic shapes, and the figures can seem both burdened and empowered by their strange predicaments. We feel that we’re witnessing a collision between expressive figurative sculpture of the early 20th century and the minimalism of a later era. Other works on display include Dean Kugler’s figures made of such materials as clay and resin and Cristina Córdova’s intricately patterned…

i first met Holly Solomon (1934–2002) in 1985 in New York, when she was opening a show of East Village artists, then the darlings of the art world, in her new uptown space. The East Village at that time felt like a young and armed art collective rallying against urban decay through street art, drag performance and noise punk. It was rare for me and my fellow East Village denizens to venture north of 14th Street—save perhaps to go to Danceteria, a nightclub on 21st. Solomon was one of the first to recognize the significance of the nascent East Village art scene and support it. Her endorsement wasn’t ignored in the greater market—but then again, Solomon wasn’t easily dismissed. I don’t recall the show or the opening, but I do…

It’s easy to purchase readymade canvases, but preparing a canvas yourself has its advantages. You can produce a greater range of shapes than those commercially available, you can apply grounds in the best way to suit your painting approach, and you can select the best type and weight of canvas for your subject. Some artists prefer heavy, almost burlaplike surfaces; for my work, I prefer lightweight linen prepared with an oil ground, which produces a very smooth surface. The following tips are useful for preparing raw cotton or linen, as well as primed canvas. SIZING Raw linen and cotton must be sealed to isolate the porous fabric from acrylic gesso or oil primer. Sizing prevents oil from penetrating and rotting a canvas. Sizes include polyvinyl acetate (or PVA, which I…

The name still glows in neon just off Canal Street in New York City, though now obscured by window glare. The glass on the doors reflects late-model, luxury SUVs as the words “Pearl Paint” smolder in red and white beneath the vans’ image. The sign once hung on the building’s similarly colored facade as a welcome mat to artists of all levels and incomes, but it’s now ensconced in a vacant lobby for posh rentals that go for about $14,000 a month. On the surface, the sign is a tribute to the building’s historic place in the New York arts scene as the home of Pearl Paint, a creative hub where any artist could get just about anything and get it on the cheap. To those who remember the sign,…

THE HUMAN FACE Painting realistic portraits in oil is challenging, but with the right guidance, it can be an amazingly satisfying experience. Popular instructor and lecturer Kristy Gordon boosts student skills and confidence with invaluable insights. She begins her online course, Portrait Painting, With Kristy Gordon (Artists Network University) with an overview of essential skills, such as staging, lighting and measuring techniques. Then she launches into a start-to-finish portrait demonstration covering underpainting, the color block-in and the refining of the features. Optional assignments help students hone their skills. What’s more, the course includes access to discussion boards and a gallery, so participants can share work and ideas with other students in the Artists Network University community. GO FIGURE! In the three-part video series Figure Drawing Essentials (Artists Network TV) Brent…