Popular Colors

Below is my newest work in the Running Stitch series - Carry On, 24"H x 60"W, painted and printed paper, cardboard, book parts, rubber, metal, tacks with encaustic on 3 joined panels

Carry On, 2010 (Click image for a larger view)

The title has several meanings/references: (1)the basket-shapes in the rectangles of the central panel, (2)continue or move forward, in regard to life in general or more specifically in regard to the texts of the dismembered books, (3)do something, i.e. make the next art work.


The Color RED
I made this piece in red because I like the vibrancy of red and red attracts attention. Besides, everyone knows   that people like red. (Or do they? Hmmmm. See below.)

Meanshile, from Wikipedia (the compendium of all the world's knowledge), this description of red says it all:

Red is the color that is on the outside edge of the rainbow. It is one of the three primary colors, along with blue and yellow. Red light has a wavelength between 630-750 nanometers.

Red is the color of some apples.

Red is the color of some blood and the occasional tomato.

It is sometimes used to mark things that are wrong, important, or dangerous.

Popular Colors
Based on a recent personal survey of an unusual type, red is not the most popular color. My survey consisted of submitting images of 79 works to an art consultant recently. (Yes, I have a lot of work around - and this was mostly old work.) While by no means an exact breakdown, I'm speaking here about dominant color, the works broke down about like this:

Red  -  17
Yellow/Orange - 32
Blue  -  23
Green  -  7

Of these, the client is "thinking" about taking 11 pieces, that break down as follows:

Green  -  4
Yellow  -  2
Blue  -  5

Not a red in the bunch. (You can congratulate me later if it really happens.) I think this survey provides valuable knowledge and debunks the prevalent view that green is not a good color for a painting. In my Questionnaire of 14 artists, green was by far the favorite color of the artists interviewed. Was it only Rothko who was a red devotee?

Matisse - Red Studio

Rothko - Four Darks in Red (at the Whitney)

Clyfford Still - 1949 No. 1

Philip Guston Zone 1954

Philip Guston Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1973

Most Popular Colors in Decorating
By chance, I happened to receive an email today from HGTV. I'm on their list because every day for 30 days in a row I entered their contest for a fully-furnished, newly-constructed home out west. (Note: I did not win.) So one of their headlines grabbed me: The Five Most Popular Colors. I had to see what they were. Here they are in order of least to most popularity:

5. Yellow
4. Pink
3. Grey
2. Green
1. Brown

Well, that's a big YUCK.  I don't see aqua, orange or magenta anywhere on there, colors that I prefer in my rooms. However, perhaps this is useful information for artists looking to sell work for over the sofa. Certainly Brown is good news for that because pretty much everything goes with it. OK, I do not like brown and I only like beige in dogs.

December Arting Expedition
I am off tomorrow for another trip to NYC with the Binster to visit some galleries and see the Ab-Ex and drawing shows at MoMA. I'll have a full report on my return.

Arting in New York

Both times this year that I've been to New York there have been weather extremes. Last February Binnie and I trudged through 17 inches of snow to see El Anatsui and Leonardo Drew in Chelsea. This past weekend, we drove in through torrential rainstorms on Friday and trained in on Saturday in temps that were 90-plus degrees by nine in the morning in the Connecticut exurbs. But what's a little weather when there's so much to see!

So I went a little crazy with the photographs of course and now the thought of resizing and adjusting them is making me feel tired already. But I never expected to use them all.

Conveying the vast richness of what we saw seems daunting and better approached by dividing to conquer it all. I propose doing a series of posts with images and details of those I thought were outstanding. Some of them have already been covered extensively and unbeatably by Joanne Mattera, so I'm going to skip those but maybe mention some of my personal favorites in those shows.

An assemblage of NY memorabilia including a photo of Binnie and me waiting in line outside the Whitney on Friday evening, snapped by a Keds' promotion staffer.

So here is a list of prospective posts with an image from each of them to pique your interest. I'm not sure about the order in which they'll actually appear, but these are things I would like to cover.

Tutankhamun's Funeral at the Metropolitan Museum 

One of the necklaces/collars of beads and leaves found in Tutankhamun's funeral cache, ca. 1336-1327 BC

This was a fabulous show of objects that I have never seen the like of. I was especially bowled over by these collars and other fiber items that have survived more than 3,000 years.

Famous Paintings/Sculptures that are mind boggling in person (mostly at MoMA)

Detail from "Rebus" of 1955 by Robert Rauschenberg, 8'H x 10'11" W

Henri Matisse - we saw the 'Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917" show at MoMA but no photography was allowed. I'm going to use some images from the website (I hope) to discuss it. Meanwhile, here is one of my favorite Matisse paintings that was not in the exhibition because it is was painted earlier.

"The Red Studio," 1911, about 6' H x 7' W

Charles Burchfield, Heat Waves in a Swamp, at the Whitney Museum

"An April Mood," 1948-1955, 40"x54", watercolor and charcoal on joined paper.

This is a fabulous show of huge, extremely dynamic watercolor paintings. The Whitney did an excellent job with this show and have it installed on the whole 3rd floor. Since they have an asinine policy of no photography anywhere in the museum, I couldn't photo it myself, but I bought the wonderful book and will take some pix from there to show you. 

Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography

Annette Messager, "My Vows," 1988-1991. (Framed photos and hand-written vows hanging from strings push-pinned to the wall.)

I'm not a photography buff, but I was really impressed with this extensive, inclusive and very well organized show of photographs spanning the entire history of photography. Pretty stunning!

Big Bambu, Mike and Doug Starn, an installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum

The enormous and intricate bamboo structure alone is worth the trip, but when you view the New York skyline through it (and the back of Binnie's head), it is a totally unique experience.

Other Faves - mostly sculpture - from all the museums

Yayoi Kusama, Violet Obsession, 1994, rowbow and oars covered with "phallic forms" made of stuffed fabric.

My New York posts will begin later this week after the next installation of The Questionnaire - this week featuring Debra Claffey.

A Week From Hell

It's been a long, hard week here between the extreme heat and humidity and exhausting computer problems. Ultimately the heat broke a little with a good soaking rain on Saturday morning and the computer(s) are fixed and improved beyond where they initially began after nearly 12 hours of work on them by a friend who is an IT wizard. I now have a brand-new operating system on my main computer and sparkling files that have been scrubbed of all the malicious viruses, worms, trojans, and evil-doers that were lurking in them. I won't detail what actually happened because I don't want to publicize the cretin who devised the knockout punch, but suffice it to say that it was a serious blow. Anyone who would inflict such a terrorist attack for no reason other than getting some kind of smug satisfaction at wreaking havoc on the world at large deserves to fry in computer hell.

Archangel. Michael slaying the devil. (Guido Reni's archangel Michael (in the Capuchin church of Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome, 1636) tramples Satan. A mosaic of the same painting decorates St. Michael's Altar within St. Peter's Basilica.)


No, I haven't gone and gotten religion over it all, but I am extremely grateful (in general) that there are kind and intelligent people around who understand the inscrutable world of computers and that one of these great souls came to our assistance. I'm sure that India is a wonderful country, but I would much rather have a knowledgeable guy from the next town be here in person. So I'm glad to put this bad experience behind me and focus on the improvements this has brought to my dear computer.

New York, New York
Looking ahead to this coming weekend, I am making the trek to Manhattan via dear friend Binnie's in Connecticut. The Binster and I hope to rendevous with other friends in NY and see some art in the flesh. One show I would really like to see is the new Matisse show at MoMA, “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917.”

Henri Matisse, Bathers By a River, 1909-1917

The Times today had an article about the research done on Bathers By a River, a painting which they say Matisse considered one of his five greatest works. The Times has an interactive feature about the painting showing the stages of its development over eight years. Here is the link to the slide/video/audio description of the process. On that site you will also find the link to MoMA's website which has a lot more about that painting and the show in general. Unfortunately, this show does not open until next Sunday, July 18th. Perhaps I'll get back to New York before it closes in October.

The Arting Trip List

Lee Bontecou, untitled sculpture, 1959.

1. Lee Bontecou
But in looking at the MoMA site, I see that they have now have a show on of work by Lee Bontecou, one of my very favorite artists. If my mind wasn't such a sieve, I might have remembered reading about it before, but I had completely forgotten it. This would be great to see because I only know her work from a couple of real pieces and mostly from reading about it. This is not a huge show, but I'm making it a must on the arting list.

2. The Modern Myth: Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times

From the MoMa website: This exhibition addresses the artistic traces of these motifs in modern art, as well as the practice of modern myth-making, through a nonlinear, thematic representation of works, following a rough chronology from 1797 to 2008. Among the artists represented are Matthew Barney, Joseph Beuys, Paul Cézanne, Enrique Chagoya, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Willem de Kooning, Juan Downey, Max Ernst, Adolph Gottlieb, Arshile Gorky, Wifredo Lam, Matta, Ana Mendieta, Wangechi Mutu, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Jackson Pollock, Odilon Redon, Mark Rothko, Jim Shaw, and Andy Warhol. I'd say worth a look.

Mark Rothko, Archaic Idol. 1945. Ink and gouache on paper, 21 7/8 x 30"

3. Several other shows at MoMA
Such as Mind and Matter: Alternative Abstractions, 1940s to Now, Contemporary Art from the Collection, and Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography.

4. Chelsea Galleries

Including: Jack Shainman Gallery - Leslie Wayne "One Big Love" with Jonathan Seliger "Spoils", Cheim & Read, "Le Tableau," French abstraction, and many others that I will have to look up or we can just walk by and look in the window. 

Leslie Wayne "One Big Love"

Installation shot from "Le Tableau"

The last time that I visited Binnie for an arting trip, it was February and, wouldn't you know it, that Saturday was the day that there were 17" of snow in Central Park. I just hope that this time the temperature is not over 100 degrees as it was last week. I've been hot enough for a while.

P.S. Any recommendations? If you have any suggestions on shows to see this weekend, July 16 and 17, feel free to make your recommendations in comments.