art museums

Of Light and Air

~ MaryG ~ 8 Comments

I dragged brought my husband to the special Winslow Homer exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Given my recent interest in watercolor painting, I couldn’t miss Of Light and Air.

Here’s what I learned:

Watercolors fade. These paintings are delicate. That’s why they only display them once every forty years or so—and in very dark galleries. (If you really want to make art that lasts forever, watercolors might not be a great choice.)

One of the most famous (and vibrant) pieces in the show

Pencil lines are OK, as long as they don’t bleed into the paint. In fact, most of his works were described as “watercolor over graphite.” And being able to draw well really helps. Plenty of modern painters can’t draw, but most artists I admire draw well…really well. So, keep practicing or studying drawing.

Having started as a commercial lithographer and magazine illustrator, Homer could create a realistic image with just a few well-planned lines. In fact, one of his magazine employers sent him to the front lines of the Civil War to draw battlefield images. Talk about trial by fire!

A sponge diver in the Bahamas. I have no idea how he would’ve painted something like this without a photo to refer to.

Watercolor paintings are about choices. There is no real white in watercolors. Your white is your paper, so what you choose not to paint is a critical decision.

Things can be represented with just a few brush strokes. Layers matter. Choices. What will you choose to fully depict? What will you simply allude to with a brush stroke or two?

Driving Cows to Pasture, 1879
“This watercolor, painted in central Massachusetts, is noticeably looser and more abstract than earlier work. The boy, turned away from the viewer, is seemingly rooted to the ground; dappled hills and unruly vegetation surround him. A moody sky, composed of thin washes of blues and purples, casts a somber tone. The cows, rendered as brown dabs on the hillside, would be easily missed were it not for the title. Here, Homer embraced abstraction as well as some advanced watercolor techniques, removing pigment through scraping and lifting to create rough rocks and ghostly ferns.”

Everyone’s eyesight gets worse as they age. Apparently Homer told people to save rocks for your old age, because “painting rocks is easy.”

Thursday Doors — The ICA/Boston

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments

This door is a work of art by Kazumi Tanaka, a living artist born in 1962.

First conceived in 1996 during an unusual artist residency at Sabbathday Lake in Maine (the last active Shaker community in the world), Tanaka’s door was not shown until 2025. As part of The ICA/Boston’s Believers exhibition, the anamorphic door sat permanently ajar and is said to have alluded to Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee’s sentiment that the Shakers should open windows and doors to receive “whoever will arrive” in a spirit of openness and generosity.

Thursday Doors challenge

Make some Plans

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

What things give you energy?

I tend to suffer from a bit of inertia. I really love to sit on my couch – in my favorite spot – and drink coffee and read or write things on my phone or computer.

Now that my kids are grown and my job is mostly remote, nothing really forces me to get dressed and get out. Sometimes I throw on clothes and makeup five minutes (or less) before my first Zoom meeting of the day.

Eventually I always get dressed and go for a walk, swim, or bike ride. Exercise give me energy. I also like having plans with people I like, to do things I like. For example, last week I took Wednesday off to go see the big Edward Hopper exhibit in Gloucester, MA. It was a beautiful day and I went with my parents. We had fun and it was energizing to be with my dear mom and dad and also to talk about the art we saw.

No photos were allowed in the Hopper exhibit, but you were allowed to take pics in other parts of the museum.

Gloucester fishermen, 1907
Gloucester fishermen, 2015, by Jim Hooper

And guess what? It turns out Edward Hopper’s wife, Josephine Nivison Hopper, was a painter herself and was almost entirely responsible for his tremendous success, but got no credit at all during her lifetime! Ain’t that always the way? I’m ready for a Hollywood biopic about their fascinating lives, love, and art. I hope that writers’ strike ends soon.