Art Preservation Redux

As a follow-up to my last posting, which elicited some great responses, I'd like to continue just a bit longer on this theme of art preservation.

Some fellow bloggers despaired at how altered book artists destroy books in the course of their art-making. I'd like to assure people that, as long as these artists utilize discarded library books, nothing valuable is being destroyed. Once a book has been marked up with spine labeling, pockets, identity stamps and barcodes, its' intrinsic value is totally diminished in a collector's eye.

Many libraries desperately need shelf space as the rate of publication has sky-rocketed with the technological advances in publishing. Thus many libraries are at the stage of "new book in, old book out." So altered book artists are doing libraries a favor by buying up these discarded books and actually giving them a new life in another form.

But another cautionary tale for those who create using older materials. Before you buy that book that would make a wonderful platform for your art, do yourself a favor and smell it.

That's right -- smell it!

If it smells "whiffy," then it would be a good idea not to buy it. Smell is one of the first indicators of mold and mildew, which spread rapidly throughout collections, including yours.

Look closely as the book. Does it appear dusty with a fine white powder? That may not be dust but a spore colony. This is dangerous ground for those who have allergies and/or asthma.

Back about 25 years ago, an archivist who worked for a museum was handling materials that had this white dust. Unfortunately, the archivist had a major asthma attack and died. His family sued the board of trustees and won the case. Many museums and libraries around the country installed hi-tech HVAC systems after that disaster.

Well, I think that about does it on preservation/conservation -- from me anyway. I've added several links to various institutions that can help if you have any questions about working with these types of materials.

Art preservation: a cautionary tale

image from the Australian government
preservation projects: mold and mildew

I was just visiting Donna Watson's blog and saw the wonderful objects and materials she brought back from her recent trip to Japan. Several people mentioned that she should scan the more fragile items rather than handling them.

This raises some key issues we need to be aware of, especially in this digital age where now we are dealing with not only ephemera, but also with "cyber-ephemera," for lack of a better phrase.

In my profession we are trained about preservation of historical objects (monographs, maps, photographs, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, etc.), and the same practices can apply to our creative works today. Many of us already know about acid-free papers, not to use plain tape, etc. Did you also know that --

> hand lotion can ruin fragile papers? The oils and fragrances that rub off on these delicate materials can destroy them over time. Wear archival gloves (those simple white cotton gloves that we see at quilt exhibits) to protect your materials.

> archival storage boxes are readily available online or at some art stores. They are museum-quality boxes that are acid-free and lignon-free. Why bother? Direct or bright light can adversely affect papers, textiles and even artwork on canvas. If your artwork is not on display, why not store them in these boxes and prolong their lifespan.

> extreme swings in heat and humidity can destroy. I had a friend whose hand-crafted journals became mildewed because they were stored on a wood shelf in her studio (below ground level). The same is true of extreme heat and dryness, which can cause materials to become brittle and literally break apart. A basic ventilator/air-conditioner can help regulate the environment and prevent that occurring.

> and finally on the "cyber" front -- not only should we all be making back-up CDs of our work and images, but also negatives. Someday the technology may change and suddenly the CD format may not migrate to the new platform -- remember those old 8-track tapes and LP turntables? Many people throw older equipment away, but often these are the only machines that can run those formats. With negatives, a trained photographer/developer would be able to retrieve those images regardless of any changes in automation.

Some tips are available online at the Northeast Documentation Conservation Center in Massachusetts, and there are several conservations centers around the country, including the excellent Smithsonian site.

I hope I haven't sounded too officious on this, but it does bear thinking about.

I will be back another day soon with happier topics!

Invisible landscape conditions the visible one . . .

I think I've entered a brown period in my artistic endeavors. These past weeks mostly everything I touch, whether a painting or a photograph has been tinged by brown, by sepia, sienas and umbers.

Does the season influence one's palette? It must.

I know that by late winter I am hungry for exotic tropical colors. And sounds change, too, the melodies change and gavottes and rondels, maypole dances and young girls skipping double-dutch pervade the air and continue through the warm summer days alongside colors of kiwis, persimmons, mangos, flip-flops and bubble-gum.

But now the pace slows. The rhythms are more pensive as if leading us to that lullaby time of deep winter, a time for adagios and nocturnes, of lullabies and bittersweet love songs. So, too, the colors of November -- subdued tones and hues, the splash and cacaphony of summer have now mellowed to the eye and ear.

This painting marks a departure for me. I usually paint landscape; this is more a land(es)cape.
After weeks of walks in our local woods and along footpaths, of browsing quiet lakesides and beaches, the play of light and shadow seemed to insist itself upon me. And so, Shadowplay evolved.

Shadowplay
acrylic, pastel & oil pastel on canvas
2" gallery edge

I liked working with the layers of acrylics, of daubing and stroking in small skidmarks of color with pastels and oil pastels, of scraping back to a layer beneath, uncovering more patches of light. This is also much larger than I'm used to working with, 24 x 36, with a 2" gallery edge.

I am terribly fond of the Pre-Raphaelites, of their deep umber passages of foliage entwining the edges, of the voluptuous folds of shawls and gowns; also of Julia Margaret Cameron's 19th c. photography. It's interesting when we stop to consider how much we are influenced by other mediums and textures.

So, another brown creation -- Renaissance -- a digital image of a clematis vine that wraps and entwines itself throughout part of my garden:

Renaissance
digital photograph with textured layers

Using various techniques for texturing the original photograph, I tried to bring a certain mood to this image, one of a waning blossom with the tiny promise of a new life nestled beside it.

For within deep autumn is always the promise of a spring yet to come . . .

"Out of this wood do not desire to go . . . "

There comes a time when nothing you can write or say will capture the sheer beauty and solace that one finds unexpectedly. But we endeavor, nonetheless . . .

I stumbled upon this scene on my way to work one morning last week. As I rounded the corner of this quiet country road, a sweep of pale pink coated the woods. I had never seen this before. Apparently, once the taller trees had lost their canopy of leaves, the smaller understory trees now had the sunlight necessary to continue the change in color. Eventually, they will be a bright scarlet. But at this moment the delicacy of the hue was amazing. I felt I had drifted into something from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- a fairyland, a dreamland, a land of reverie where Oberon and Titania reign supreme.

I know that words cannot begin to describe how I felt standing before all this -- acres worth as far as the eye could see -- but I hope these few images convey the wonder of it all.

Out of this wood do not desire to go . . . (Titania, Midsummer's Night Dream)

A quick trip to Cape Cod in the autumn does wonders for one's spirit! Glorious weather, walks on the beaches, good food, good wine, good reading and to spend time with a true friend -- what more can one ask? Just thought I'd share some of the photographs from our time away -- enjoy!

Art Explorations: Rodin and Schiele

Truth and Beauty: Variations on a Theme

In this interim period between now and the year's end, I hope to spend some time with varying aspects of art, such as drawing on paper with a pencil or a piece of charcoal, to explore the human body and faces and hands -- those very basic elements of humanity. In preparing for this period of exploration, I spent some time at my favorite art store buying papers, graphite pencils and a few books. These were not expensive art books; rather those little Dover editions that we see scattered around libraries and bookshops from time to time, most costing under $10. However, they do capture some wonderful works in a simple format, many of which are reprinted editions that have fallen by the wayside.


Auguste Rodin:

One book I bought was on Auguste Rodin and is a reprint of an extended interview he gave back around 1911. The discussions between the two men are enlightening on how Rodin's mind worked, how he physically worked, such as in the following description, which I am loosely paraphrasing:

. . . throughout his studio nudes walk, stroll, recline, chat, moving around the room in a natural manner, bending to pick up a book, to eat an apple or some grapes. All the time Rodin watches, reaching for a piece of clay and quickly beginning to shape a small figurine. These are his studies for larger works. There is constant movement of the human body here, no posing on pedestals, no artificial posturing -- just movement . . .

Rodin's intense belief in respecting the natural movement of the human body -- how it bends, sways, tilts, stretches, aches -- enabled him to render powerful depictions through his hands and fingers, through his arms and shoulders that leaned into the creating process, pushing and shoving pieces of earth and stone. To throw oneself into the creative process so wholly, to "see" and to honor so thoroughly was and is an amazing feat!

* * *

Egon Schiele:

Written in 1819, Ode on a Grecian Urn contains probably the two most discussed lines in all of John Keats's poetry -

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,
that is all Ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know.

Very comforting. And yet what is Beauty? Who defines it? Does it change from culture to culture, from epoch to epoch? Yes, there is no denying that it does and, left to the marketing forces of today, the concept is exchangeable with each new fashion season -- easy come, easy go.

The second book I purchased was Egon Schiele: 44 Drawings. I have seen Schiele's paintings throughout the years, but these black & white drawings are stark in their depictions of women and men in early 1900s Vienna. They are disturbing in their grim, realistic portrayal of human bodies on the brink of starvation, deprivation, often degradation.


How different from a Rubens nude, where the plump bodies nearly fall off the page in their sumptuousness, where muscular torsos command the space they inhabit! Here we see pain, anger, hunger, despair -- and yet -- a strange kind of beauty in Schiele's dark sinuous lines of ink and charcoal. These bodies appear to be fighting the contained space they are in, trapped and contorted as in life.

You cannot take your eyes away from the drawings. They haunt you. There is nothing between you and these figures, nothing to shield you from the reality, the truth of what one is seeing. In this moment of truth we discover, or uncover, a strange beauty because of Schiele's vision of truth.

So, is Truth beautiful? Is Beauty truthful? Both artists created varying manifestations of Beauty and Truth. Who is to say which is the better, the more truthful.

Artistic expression is not only in the eye of the beholder, but also in the eye of the artist.

Food for thought . . .

Art for under $100, under $200 . . .

Walk in the Dunes under Moonlight

($95)

Ah, we've all seen it -- the daily painting blogs, the Under $100 blogs, the Painting-a-Day blogs. So I've come up with my Winter Solstice Sale.

Yes, this is totally crass and commercialism at its' worst.

Yes, I am a starving artist. Well, not exactly starving but on my salary, it's close. Truth be said, I am just desperate to clear space in my studio for a new onslaught of creative energies, for works I am planning but have no elbow room in which to work.

I think that if other artists can do the daily painting / painting-a-day thing on their blogs, I can certainly latch on to that concept in my own way. Afterall, I do NOT want to be my own best collector. I want my artworks to be out there in the wide, wide world to be enjoyed by others. I also believe firmly that Art should be enjoyed by all, not just the wealthy and the wannabes.

So, this is a very transparent effort on my part to combine capitalism and marxism -- how's that for "holiday" spirit? Note, too, no reference to religious holidays, simply Winter Solstice, thus returning to our true pagan spirit -- (pillaging and plundering? -- no, no, that's not right . . . )

Many works are listed under $100, but there are other categories if you so choose to open your pocketbook a bit wider.

This will run through December 20, the eve of Winter Solstice. ArtID (see the link to your right) handles the monetary aspects (PayPal), while they alert me as to where to ship. What could be easier . . . ?

I promise I will do this only once a year.

I promise I will not moan, whine, plead or cry.

No pressure, my fellow bloggers, artists and friends! Share your comments about all this, too. Hey, I could have called this my Autumn Tag Sale -- now that would have been pretty tacky. However, we had snow showers throughout the area today (arghhhh!) -- thus the switch to Winter Solstice. It seemed more in keeping! :~)