Painting in Concert

Artists Are Losers ...... NSFW

2007-04-04T16:53:00.001-07:00

A graphic rant against the Catholic League's war on art and artists, which pits the president of the Catholic League and mayor of NY against the sculptor Cavallaro, the CODE PINK girls, Sinead O'Connor, John & Yoko and other free spirits.

In Michelangelo's time another fiery Dominican held sway: Girolamo Savonarola insisted on strict cleanliness and purity, was excommunicated, and preached against vanities bred in a world of hypocrisy, domination and greed. In 1497, Savonarola organised a giant bonfire of all those things that proclaimed vanity - masks, gowns, gluttonous consumption, art that portrayed nudity - in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Even Botticelli threw what might have been some of his greatest works onto the 'Bonfire of the Vanities' as it came to be known. Michelangelo did not join this purging extravagance. But the fad was short-lived and Savonarola and two fellow monks were put on another bonfire in the same square the following year.

Michelangelo Memo Makes $576,000

The violent rantings of a lunatic bully over a chocolate Jesus:

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League: But you know what bothers me? It's not even the artist. I mean, we have a lot of these loser artists down in SoHo and around the country. What bothers me is that this guy Knowles, who is an artist in residence, the owner, the president and CEO of an establishmentarian site, the Roger Smith Hotel, 47th and Lexington, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, that is what bothers me, because now we have the establishment kicking in.

And to put this out during Holy Week, on street level, when kids can walk in off the street, these people are morally bankrupt. And my goal is to make them financially bankrupt.

Detail: Battle Between Carnival and Lent: Pieter Brueghel; 1559

Battle Between Carnival and Lent (for Bill Donohue); dgr; Easter 2007

Panel One:

Transsexual in Mardi Gras parade, CODE PINK dancing girl, photographer Renee Cox, CODE PINK woman in Muslim headscarf, playful Pope Paul II

Sinead O'Connor makes the scene, smoking a very politically uncorrect "fag" (cigarette).. You Go, Girl!! Mardi Gras transsexual shaping up.

Panel Two

Grumpy clown, sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro with "My Sweet Lord" nailed to the barrel he's riding, two nuns looking at it with amusement/repugnance at Jesus' junk, Prince at the Superbowl

Panel Two: Prince has got some company

newcomers to the Carnival: the poet Alan Ginsberg with his lover Peter Orlovsky from a photograph by Elsa Dorfman that was published in the Village Voice last year..

next to make the scene: John and Yoko from Two Virgins

John & Yoko; Two Virgins; 1968; from Canadian cover as the US judged it obscene.. so they did a back view.

Panel Three

Papparazi, figure with I Love New York sign, gaunt and weak Rudy Giuliani in wheeled chair

Four Cardinal Virtues make the scene

Four Cardinal Virtues from Victorian era print... also used as symbols by the Masons.... oh wierdness

Panel Four

Catholic League President Bill Donohue with Jack in the Box head holding sign "Artists Are Losers," the Michelangelo sculpture Risen Christ later defaced by the Church by affixing a gold loincloth, the Monkey Pope painted by Titian in the 1500's in another wheeled chair, a banner overhead that reads "Catholic League for Rudy 2008"

Ominous doings on the Lenten side:

Bush praying with Cardinal Egan of New York. Bill Donohue has lost his Jack in the Box head, and is more nearly his rabid self.

Cardinal Egan and Holy Child

The banner now reads "Catholic League for Decency" as it's pretty clear they haven't come out, and can't come out, supporting Giuliani.
Detail:

Just to prove I can paint:
Detail of the cardinal's left hand resting on the child's head.

My Easter Mural shapes up:

This is a painting in progress. Tune in for more changes as I post them here.

2009... panel four has changed again... bill donohue's head is now a warring ape

Painting is another way to rant (editorialize.) I'm really pissed off that Donohue would say "Artists are losers. They're morally bankrupt. I intend to bankrupt them financially."

Really, really pissed off, Bill.

The Battle Between Carnival & Lent (for Bill Donohue)

2007-04-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

I thought I got it out of my system when I wrote "Following the Naked Christ" in a tone I thought was most objective. But the ire in me rose and I thought of Brueghel's "The Battle Between Carnival and Lent" So I figured I'd paint a picture of this modern battle, pitting the modern day Savonarola that is Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League versus the sculptor Cosimo Callavaro.

On Brueghel's Battle Between Carnival & Lent:

It is one of the central emblems of the early modern period, most famously illustrated in Peter Brueghel's eponymously named painting of 1559 in which pale, censorious Lent, virtually done in by its austerity, battles corpulent Carnival revelers in the streets of an imaginary Flemish city. In Brueghel's sixteenth-century interpretation, we have no doubt who he believes is winning the contest. Like his contemporaries Erasmus and Rabelais, Brueghel clearly understood the power of the ludic over its graver alternatives. And yet it is the coexistence of these two themes that he celebrates and immortalizes. Carnival has no meaning without Lent; locked in an eternal contest, they enact the battle between passion and reason, appetite and intellect, pleasure and piety, excess and scarcity that encompasses so many of the questions that guided and shaped the lives of early modern Europeans.

Paula Findlen

My painting would follow this format:

It turns out that Cosimo Cavallaro and Renee Cox are very civilized people. Both artists have been targeted by the Catholic League. And it turns out that the president of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, is a rabid madman.

How could I say everything I want to say in a painting? What technique could I use?

Because my painting would be about the war of the conservative nutjob rightwing extremists against art, artists, culture... which is the Culture of Value, the Culture of Life, the Culture of Diversity. The Culture that Celebrates Life.

So I took Brueghel as my starting point... now this was getting easier, as Cosimo Cavallaro is a beautiful person,

as is Renee Cox.

© Renee Cox

So I put them on the Carnival side, the celebration of life. On the other side, the Lent side, I had Donohue, who looks like a pudgy nothing,

but then I had Rudy Giuliani, the gaunt opponent of the arts in New York City... the mayor who has targeted both Cox and Cavallaro...

unfortunately he's looking something like the vampyr in Nosferatu.

On the Carnival Side, there's the Dixie Chicks:

And, I suppose Madonna,

but I much prefer Sinead O'Connor:

The Lent side is mighty lean, so I'll go for that horrible monkey pope? cardinal? painted by Goya? Velazquez??

can't find it.

Aha!! It's Titian!!

The Monkey Pope

But I'd like to include this of the Life Loving Pope on the Carnival side, of course:

On the Carnival side, I must include these women from CODE PINK:

And because he is/was a beautiful person who I never forget, I'll put Harvey Milk, who was my Supervisor in SF, on the Carnival side:

Phew, tall order.

Now, I know WHAT I want to do, the thing is HOW can I do it?? In the manner of Brueghel (doable) or in the manner of Romare Beardon (doable)???

How??

Step One:

Cosimo riding a barrel, on his "spear" three roasted chickens... perfect for the food artist.

Step Two:

The gaunt mayor Rudy Giuliani, a figure with a I Love New York Flag, rosary beads on the chair's platform. This figure is too weak to joust.... dunno if I should include Rudy G for 2008, or how he's earned the Catholic Vote...

Step Three:

CODE PINK girls Renee Cox and the goofball Pope

Step Four:

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and the Monkey Pope, also on a wheeled chair... these Catholic leaders are looking very weak and frail.

(Pope Paul III 1468-1549)
"He also incurred virtual war with his own subjects and vassals by the imposition of burdensome taxes"

Step Five:
In order to keep the panels scanner size (8x10) I've done them separately.
Now it's time to tape up.
I use blue painter's tape, to put all four panels together... the joint is loose enough so I can continue to fold and scan.
The challenge is to get all these figures to share the same space.
Brueghel used a perspective from above to get his panoramic scene.
My viewpoint is only slightly from above, and in other places is dead on.... will have to work this out.

Step Four A:
Bill Donahue:
Donahue's head is so round I've given him the golf ball head of the advertisement for jack in the box
I pasted in the Michelangelo Risen Christ ruined by the church with a vulgar brilliant gold codpiece arrangement.

now we're having fun.

Step Two A
Mayor of New York and Presidential Hopeful Rudy Giuliani

Step Three A

CODE PINK girls, Renee Cox YO MAMA!! and the goofball Pope

Step One A

The sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro with a copy of his "My Sweet Lord" on the front of the barrel he's riding. Two nuns look on in amusement/fascination/condemnation/horror. "I can see our dear lord's junk!!!"

This is a painting in progress.

Stay tuned, as I continue to post the stages of this piece as I am working on it. I plan to have it finished by the weekend. Another way to editorialize is to paint.

Following the Naked Christ

2007-04-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

Today would have been the day that the LAB gallery, a subdivision of the Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York, displayed the work of Cosimo Cavallaro, “My Sweet Lord” a six foot anatomically correct sculpture made out of chocolate.

Although the Catholic League (with 300,000 members) rallied their case through emails to 500 religious groups of all denominations and effectively shut the show down, there is a tradition of the Naked Christ in art that goes back hundreds of years.... at least to St. Francis of Assisi. in 1200.

St. Francis: “Follow the naked Christ”
The tradition of following the naked Christ goes back to St. Francis who stripped himself naked in the town square to announce his intention to follow the naked Christ:

St. Francis is quoted as saying: Nudus nudum sequi Christum, “Naked to follow the naked Christ.”

St. Francis saw Christ as naked, as did these artists:

Giovanni di Paolo 1200’s

Ravenna Mosaic

There's nothing in art history to compare to Cosimo Cavallaro's Christ until Michaelangelo's wooden Naked Christ of 1494:

The Catholic Church and Nakedness

Many historical church leaders have disassociated nudity with sexual immodesty. St. Thomas Aquinus, for example, defined an immodest act as one done with a lustful intention. Therefore, someone who disrobes for the sole purpose of bathing or recreating cannot be accused of immodesty.

Pope John Paul II writes: "Sexual modesty cannot then in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness. . . . Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person, when its aim is to arouse concupiscence, as a result of which the person is put in the position of an object for enjoyment. . . . There are certain objective situations in which even total nudity of the body is not immodest." ref

The Naked Christ in Modern Art
These artists had to battle for the authenticity of their work:

Naked Christ: sheep bones, scrap metal, scrap wood

The sculptor Michele Coxon who lives in Wales, says she drew inspiration for her Naked Christ from sheep skeletons, abandoned machinery, and river flotsam. “I wanted the image of a man who has suffered and whose earthly body is decaying.” Naked Christ

This sculptor had to battle the church over this naked Christ in the stages of the Cross:

Llew Summers; Naked Christ; Stages of the Cross

A beautiful Naked Christ by the sculptor Bill Hopen:

The strongest expression of the Naked Christ in modern art is that of the sculptor Subirachs, on the Passion Facade of the basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The sculptor was completing the work of the architect Antoni Gaudi who designed the building 123 years ago.

Josep Maria Subirachs, the sculptor chosen in 1986 to execute Gaudí's plans and initially known to be an atheist (he is the author of statements such as "God is one of Man's greatest creations..."), now confesses to nothing more virulent than a respectful agnosticism.

Known for his easy-to-identify hard-edged and geometrical interpretations of the human form, Subirachs has stated that he was "born nine months after the death of Gaudí." When multitudinous demonstrations of artists, architects, and religious leaders called for his resignation in 1990, Subirachs replied, "My work has nothing to do with Gaudí."

The casus belli at that moment was the anatomically complete rendering of a naked Christ on the cross, which Subirachs defended as part of the stark realism of the scene he intended to portray. Contracted on the two conditions that he be allowed complete artistic freedom and living space at the work site, Subirachs eventually prevailed, and his work is now virtually undebated. "I intended a contrast with Gaudí's more baroque style," explains the sculptor, "with a harder vision and a brutalization of the stone itself."
Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia]
Website of Josep María Subirachs, Sculptor

The Naked Christ

For more than 800 years there has been an art tradition of portraying the Naked Christ. Some of these are depictions of the baptism, where nakedness was the practice. But the strongest expressions of Christ's nakedness and humanity have been that of the crucifixion... these are, in my opinon: Michaelangelo, Subirachs and Cavallaro.

The Christ figure is naked because he has gone through days of torture and humiliation before being nailed to a cross. What astounds me, after all these hundreds of years, is that the Church and the public do not protest at depictions of torture, including the tortured Christ, but react with horror at the Naked Christ.

Detainee at the Roger Smith
"Detainee", a mixed-media, action oriented and interdisciplinary collaboration will be presented at The Lab, from Monday, January 29 through Friday, February 2, 2007, during the hours of 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. Detainee links the image of the United States of America with its recent decision to implement the Military Commissions Act of 2006, focusing within this performance work on the absolute power that the State has determined is within its moral and political prerogative to hold over any individual. David Duckworth, as a bound and blindfolded detainee, becomes the paintbrush with which interrogators paint the American flag on the floor of the gallery

Just two months ago this performance art was shown at the same LAB Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel that cancelled the exhibition of Cavallaro's naked Christ, "My Sweet Lord." Perhaps the public did not raise the hue and cry because the detainee depicted was not naked, or maybe Americans have become used to images like this.

1. Painting in Concert -- Let There Be Light

2007-03-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

Creation myth for an unpainted canvas:

"In the beginning was the void and formlessness, mysterious, dark and grey... out of the chaos the painter brought form, created by the contrast of dark and light."

Paint Project: Separate Light From Darkness; Paint Something Round

Subject: Paint an Egg (or an apple, or a lightbulb, etc.)

Our Teacher & Guide: The Master of Shadow & Mystery... Leonardo

Creation Myth: Genesis, the beginning:

First The Creator made heaven & earth. The earth was without form and void,
and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of The Creator was
moving over the face of the waters. And The Creator said, "Let there be light";
and there was light. And The Creator saw that the light was good; and The
Creator separated the light from the darkness.

For our beginning we'll be using a monochromatic pallete, so you can find out just how much color there is in the least amount of color. Take Paynes grey and White.

(don't panic!! you can use black and white, burnt sienna and naples yellow, raw umber and parchment white, or graphite gray and white, or any really dark color and really light color. Stay away from complimentary colors to begin with, unless you just must use deep hooker's green and light pink... If you must, then you must... But our Creator in the myth above didn't get around to color for a few days.)

In the creation myth above you'll see that the Creator began with formlessness and void, darkness was on the face of the deep.

How we'll interpret that here is that your canvas begins with formlessness -- grey.

Mix a Middle Gray

On your pallete on one side put a nice big pile of white, on the other side a nice big pile of paynes gray or black, and in between them mix a pile that is half white, half black.. to a grey that is just between them in value... not too dark, not too light.

Take time in this step. Mix a good pile of paint that is middle gray. Put it right in the middle between your black paint and your white paint.

Later we'll mix other piles midway between these first three piles, giving five total values.

Black, Dark Gray, Middle Gray, Light Gray, White

Step One:

So mix a grey that's midway between your darkest dark and your lightest light, and prime your canvas with that.

I like to prime my canvas loosely, rather than one flat color, and I use a brush and a kitchen sponge. I use sponges during the painting to wipe stuff out, to create texture, to blend tones. Sometimes I use my fingers as well, to blend, to paint, to rub in areas.

After I have toned my canvas with middle gray, I use a soft charcoal pencil to sketch in loosely.

All the following stages took about 10 minutes each.

My subject is four eggs and a fork on an open book of DaVinci's drawings

I've toned the canvas, and drawn in a very sketchy manner the forms of the objects.

Step Two:

Establish some of the dark areas and some of the light areas. Now you're coming out of the chaos into order... let there be light... and let there be dark to contrast with it.

Out of the middle grey I've established some the darkest darks and some of the lightest lights. If you can't tell, squint your eyes at your subject... the darks and lights will pop out.

Mix grays between your piles of paint, so you now have five values from white to black.

Black, Dark Gray, Middle Gray, Light Gray, White

It's really important to keep your brushes clean. Don't mix colors with your brush, use a pallete knife, or a small putty knife. Trying to paint color into color to mix color on your canvas at this point will get muddy results

Step Three:

Continue to develop your forms and refine your drawing.

I've continued to develop the forms, but an egg has gone missing. The angle of the book edge on the left has changed as well. Because I started very sketchy, and didn't take a lot of time with the drawing, I've now found that I need to go back and really study what goes where and how. Not a major disaster if you're willing to work it through.

Form is in the Shadows

Leonardo wrote SIX BOOKS on Shadows. He considered development of shadows as the primary means to describe form.

Shadow is the obstruction of light. Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because, without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined; that which is contained within their outlines and their boundaries themselves will be ill-understood unless they are shown against a background of a different tone from themselves. And therefore in my first proposition concerning shadow I state that every opaque body is surrounded and its whole surface enveloped in shadow and light. And on this proposition I build up the first Book. Besides this, shadows have in themselves various degrees of darkness, because they are caused by the absence of a variable amount of the luminous rays; and these I call Primary shadows because they are the first, and inseparable from the object to which they belong. And on this I will found my second Book. From these primary shadows there result certain shaded rays which are diffused through the atmosphere and these vary in character according to that of the primary shadows whence they are derived. I shall therefore call these shadows Derived shadows because they are produced by other shadows; and the third Book will treat of these. Again these derived shadows, where they are intercepted by various objects, produce effects as various as the places where they are cast and of this I will treat in the fourth Book. And since all round the derived shadows, where the derived shadows are intercepted, there is always a space where the light falls and by reflected dispersion is thrown back towards its cause, it meets the original shadow and mingles with it and modifies it somewhat in its nature; and on this I will compose my fifth Book. Besides this, in the sixth Book I will investigate the many and various diversities of reflections resulting from these rays which will modify the original [shadow] by [imparting] some of the various colours from the different objects whence these reflected rays are derived. Again, the seventh Book will treat of the various distances that may exist between the spot where the reflected rays fall and that where they originate, and the various shades of colour which they will acquire in falling on opaque bodies.
Leonardo da Vinci
The Notebooks

The more you work to develop the shadow side of your egg or round object, and explore the cast shadow, the more I think you will come to appreciate and understand why Leonardo, the master of shadow and mystery, considered shadows to be of the greatest importance in building form.

Work in the shadows to create form and light.

Step Four:

Continue to develop form, drawing, value, and texture. Pay attention to the edges of objects... where are they hard and clear, where are they diffused and softer? Shadows are diffused and softer. Pay attention to the light reflected shadow on the bottom of objects on the dark side of them, the side away from the light. Painting this reflected light will make the forms more real looking.

There, I've found the missing egg. I've also corrected the axis' of all the eggs so they're pointing the right way. I've three brown eggs and one white, so the tonal relationships are going to be really important.

Step Five:

Try to bring your painting together by developing the whole thing. Foreground, subject, and background should all be developed.

From here on in, the devil is in the details. I'm not fretting so much about the daVinci drawing as I am the tone of that leftmost egg. That circle shape underneath it is a quarter I used to balance it on the book.

_________________________________

OK, now paint an egg. If you want paint several eggs. Use black and white to do it. Keep the size of your painting about 8x10 inches.

When you're halfway through scan (or use a digital camera) your results and show them to the group... this way we can all learn from what each other is doing.

When you're finished, or nearly there, scan (or use a digital camera) your results and put them up. It's okay if it takes you all week. Just make a start.

_______

If I can answer any questions, or if I haven't made myself clear, or if you wish to critique my "Eggs on Leonardo," I'll be happy to hear what you have to say. But most of all I'd be happy to see your egg paintings. Have fun!!