injured

These are details of one of the paintings in the stash that inspired Barbara Levine (former director of exhibitions, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) to write ‘Finding Frida Kahlo‘. The trunks of materials (diaries, letters, recipes, paintings, stuffed hummingbirds, and so on) have been called forgeries by some interested parties in Mexico (ArtSlant article, NY Times article, Christopher Knight’s take), and I am curious to see how this all plays out.

Detecting forgeries is a difficult art, because the science can be faked (although sometimes people are so sure of their ‘eye’ that they refuse to believe scientific evidence to the contrary, e.g. de Groot insisting that ‘Merry Cavalier‘ was by Frans Hals despite the fact that some of the paints used were not developed until long after Hals had died), and of course mistakes are made both ways (a collector of Rembrandt burned one of his paintings thinking it was a forgery, later it turned out it probably wasn’t).

Both those claiming these were Frida Kahlo’s belongings and those crying fraud have a stake in the outcome, influencing the way they see these pretties.

I do love Frida as a deer, a friend almost bought this version years ago, but didn’t, because it would have been a quite a stretch financially – of course looking back he thinks it would have been worth the sacrifice. So often in life it would be nice to have the benefit of hindsight ahead of time, eh?

Click the link below to see more:

“Finding Frida Kahlo” by Barbara Levine from Princeton Architectural Press on Vimeo.

texture

The warm colour of this recent piece doesn’t appear when I put it on the blog, nor the texture, of course.

I love it when I get to visit art I’ve only seen in reproduction and can finally see the surface and the real colours. Size also has such an impact, whether because a piece dominates the space or because it is small and draws the viewer in, and none of that comes across in a book or on-line.

At this time of night my wish is for more hours in every day, there never seem to be enough daylight hours for anything I do with colour. Plus more hours in the night for composing. And calorie-free chocolates.

dawn

I started this piece with a chalk sketch of a lovely 10-year-old I know. She has a beautiful wavy blond mane and a lovely singing voice, neither of which shows up here. I love her eyebrows, their angle gives her a vulnerable look.

Sometimes when I sit down to compose a new picture I can’t figure out how to start, the visual equivalent of writer’s block, I suppose. Suddenly I can’t remember how, as if I’d never done it before, and I swear it happens every third time I sit down to sketch out something new – absolutely ridiculous.

After struggling for a couple hours somehow I finally tap into it, then spend the rest of the night sketching out new pieces. Until when I should be getting up the next morning.

Luckily, there’s the work of creating the final versions before I do it all again.

broken

This window is in a beautiful building in the village my mom lives in, it was abandoned 19 years ago.

In my art I like to use images from my life and the places I’ve explored. Damaged old buildings evoke so many emotions, and questions.

This piece is not finished but I haven’t figured out where to go with it next.

locations

This is what I’ve been finishing up this week, another architecture + script. I love gothic anything, I haven’t put the buildings in my work much, but I do use this old Italian handwriting frequently.

All the travelling has stopped (for now) after a weekend at a beautiful town up the coast for a wedding (also beautiful). My computer celebrated by coming down with some dreadful, barely fixable condition, and now, after everything it went through as a cure, I’m having a hard time finding my stuff. I may have to learn quite a bit more about computers to get everything re-organized, adding to the chaos of moving back in to my regular life.

It has not been enough to keep me from thinking about a trip to New Orleans in March though, I’ve been dreaming about the food, music, and the architecture.