Remembering_____ The Art of Mountain View Cemetery

Mausoleum
In honor of Memorial Day, I’ve decided to write about cemetery art. All photos contained in this entry are my own.

I have never considered visiting cemeteries to be ghoulish nor morbid. On the contrary, I find them peaceful, beautiful places that are, more often than not, full of interesting art treasures... from mosaics, to the carved stone statuary to the ironwork and cast bronze memorial plaques and urns...I am usually delighted.
Urn

This is a small mosaic (about 12" x 10") made with gold smalti that is located in the back of a dark crypt in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. When the sun moves toward the west and shines through the door, the background of the piece is illuminated and the gold sparkles in the light.

Mosaic

One of our Japanese foreign exchange students told me that cemeteries are the best places to meditate. However, I love them best for picture taking venues. I used to tape paper on the tombstones in the old cemeteries where we lived in Western Massachusetts and make rubbings. These days, it's all about the camera.

Ironwork

Here in the Bay Area, we have some incredible cemeteries. All of these photographs are from the Mountain View Cemetery at the end of Piedmont Avenue. Every visit there is like a trip back in time, reminiscent of shaking hands with railroad builder Charles Crocker, admiring the brushwork of Yosemite landscape painter Thomas Hill, and hearing architect Julia Morgan rhapsodize about her designs for Hearst Castle.
White Marble Bust

Bust detail

Designed by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (whose other credits include New York's Central Park), Mountain View's acreage offers spectacular vistas of the San Francisco Bay's surrounding areas. The cemetery is an impressive repository of local and state history and some incredible art.
Hope

Mountain View is distinguished from other cemeteries by its architect's vision of man and nature and their relationship to each other. It serves as an example of the humankind's search for a civilized life in harmony with the environment.

Gabriel


Between the art and the breathtaking sunset views of the Bay, the place lends new meaning to the words, "Rest in Peace".

Landscape

Annie Leibovitz - Speaking With Her Lens

Annie Lebovitz

I have just come from the closing day of the Annie Leibovitz retrospective exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. It was a mob scene, but I'm glad I went. My initial response to these photographs is to realize that perhaps her most important work is that for which she is least famous. This is not meant to discredit her shots of celebrities, because they are as fabulous up close and personal as they are reproduced in her books and other places, but many people aren't even aware of the massive black and white American landscapes that she took during her travels...


...and the chilling shots she took of women who were victims of domestic violence or the pictures that recorded the violence in Rwanda and Sarajevo.

Lebovitz had been riding in a car en route to photograph Miss Sarajevo when a mortar rocket hit a young boy on a bicycle right in front of her vehicle. (above) She helped get him into a car that rushed him to the hospital, but he died before they arrived.

This current collection of photographs are the elements that made up her life with her partner, Susan Sontag, her parents, her three children....
Susan Sontag

Leibovitz once remarked that there was no distinction between her professional assignments and her personal life, that her life consisted of one common thread of photography that linked both elements together....so while the photos of celebrities were, indeed, present, this exhibit was courageous in so many other ways.
Demi Moore

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. of England

Nicole Kidman

One of the most powerful images in the collection is a Cabinet Room formal group pose of President Bush, Dick Cheney, Condeleeza Rice, Colin Powell, George Tenet, Andrew Card and Donald Rumsfeld taken in December 2001. Except for Cheney's omnipresent smirk, their faces are difficult to read.
The Bush Cabinet

When the show first went up in Brooklyn in 2006, Leibovitz was asked during the media preview what makes that picture so uncomfortable to look at.
"I think it's the people," she said.

I first became cognizant of Lebovitz' work back in the early 80's when I lived in Houston. My good friend, Al, who had known her for some time, told me that he had bumped into Annie on his way to Austin one day and accompanied her to photograph Elvis Costello. The photo later appeared in her first book.


The early works from this book are among her most famous.

Christo

On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, promising him he would make the cover. After she had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone (she would recall that,nobody wanted [Ono] on the cover."), Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to recreate the kissing scene from the Double Fantasy album cover, a picture that she loved. "What is interesting is she said she'd take her top off and I said, 'Leave everything on'...not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that she was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her... I shot some test Polaroids first and when I showed them to John and Yoko, John said, 'You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it'll be on the cover.' I looked him in the eye and we shook on it." She was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon. He was shot and killed five hours later.
Lennon and Ono

National Public Radio talks about this exhbit and interviews Annie Lebovitz HERE.

The Wedding Night of Tobias and Sarah

Have any of you seen the film, "Home for the Holidays" with Holly Hunter and Robert Downey, Jr.? Hunter plays an art restoration specialist in that film. This is an occupation that has always interested me, but I never got around to pursuing it. Most people aren't aware of the intensity of saving an old painting, restoring it. With this in mind, I have departed from the usual feature of art and artist on my blog today so I can share a step-by-step visual of the process involved in restoration. In this case, a very old painting had been split. This is the story of how the two pieces were reunited into one painting. (Thanks to J.W. for sending this to me.) I hope you enjoy it.

Bredius never saw the painting "the wedding night of Tobias and Sarah" as it is now in the Bredius Museum. He was owner of the right-hand part, the other part was in the 'Centraal Museum' in Utrecht. In 1996 two restorers from the Municipal Museum in The Hague, Wietse van Noort en Jan Venema, cleaned and restored the painting and put them back together again.

Initial reconstruction took place in the sixties. On the left part, two wingtips and the sheath of a dagger appeared after a restoration. This proved that the two parts had actually been one painting once. Now it also became clear that the green-clad figure is the arch-angel Rafaël who is rendering the evil spirit harmless with a burnt offering. In 1993 the art historian Albert Blankert proposes to restore the two pieces to one whole again. They decide to execute the plan at the restoration workshop of the Municipal Museum.

Both paintings had yellowed, but one was worse than the other. So the old varnish had to be removed to match the colors left and right. Especially on the left part many green-brown overpaintings were discovered, for instance on the side of the table. These may have been later corrections on Jan Steen's somewhat free and lively way of painting.

Especially in the grey smoke the layer of paint appeared very worn, i.e. many black dots from the background became visible. The macro-photograph shows how below the thick brownish layer of varnish the pattern of wear reveals itself.

Jan Steen is a painter who first roughly colours the background and only later fills in the foreground detail. Whenever he makes corrections such as here the corner of the tabletop which was changed from straight to oblique, it will become visible in the long run.


This is a macro-photograph of the tabletop edge which shows clearly how someone who thought Jan Steen's way of painting too untidy, overpainted it with a solid brown layer. The granular pattern shows that the pigment used to be much coarser than it is now.

Before a painting is cleaned, it is always hard to predict the condition of the layers of paint below the old varnish. Here, on the left upper part of the Tobias-and-Sarah half, the image seems reasonably well-preserved. There is crackle, but that is normal in old paintings.

Only after the cleaning the left side shows itself severely damaged: gaps and scorchmarks appears, possibly caused by a fire. The light- and dark yellow patches are old holes which at various times in the past were filled and retouched.

Old damage in the red chair also reappeared. One can see clearly how the painting was cut right through the depiction. Half a chair is quite unusual in 17th century paintings. Steen, who often depicted this chair in his interiors, always painted all of it.

After removing the old varnish, the two separate canvasses have to be joined. This is done through a so-called re-canvassing: a new canvas is attached behind the old one. The two paintings had in the past been re-canvassed separately, so they had to be peeled off in order to fit together on the new canvas. Here you see both parts, together with the patches for the missing corner and the strip in the middle,on the re-canvassing table, where a slight underpressure can be applied.

Through the gleaming plastic-foil the surface relief of the paintings is clearly visible. When the old and the new canvas are pressed together by the underpressure, the recanvassing table can be heated so the adhesive paste, a mixture of wax and resin, melts. After cooling down this provides a lasting adhesion.


Here the two halves have been attached to the new canvas, becoming a single object. Now all the unevenness between the old and the new canvas has to be removed. For that purpose, a strongly skimming light is shone from the side.


In order to function as painting, the canvas has to stretched on a canvas stretcher. Of course this has to be a new one, because the size of the painting has changed completely. The dimensions have to be determined very carefully, so that the whole of the picture can be seen in front and not obscured by the groove of the frame.


Also the folding of the edges had to be done with maximum precision, so that the image would not show up oblique on the canvas and therefore in the frame. Accurate to the millimeter, the unpainted edges have to be divided equally across all sides.

When the stiff canvas has been folded correctly across the stretcher, it is fastened with sharp carpet nails. To prevent anything going wrong during the stretching, the edges are watched carefully on all sides.


The recanvassing and stretching is done. Now the painting can be varnished, after which the retouching can begin. A photograph in this stadium is essential, to be able to determine later at any moment which parts exactly were done by Steen and which details and larger parts have been added later.

Tobias' legs during the retouching. Dot by dot the worn old layer is touched with new, adjusted paint. Note how the structure, the relief and the legibility of the untreated leg do not show to the advantage, whereas to the right everything looks as it was intended.


The pillow to the left of the pillar has been retouched, to the right it hasn't. The relief and the texture are gradually returning. The retouching process takes forever, it is also the least spectacular phase of the restoration. It does show however, what has been gained.


Another example: to the right of the seam, the wing has been retouched. The damage on the left side was caused by being overpainted for many years: only in the 1950's the wing was uncovered again.


In a few months the ruins of an old painting turn into a legible and enjoyable work of art. The retouches which are least problematic are done first, so their results can point the way for the more difficult parts.

Before the filling in of the larger missing parts there was much consultation with the parties concerned, experts and interested people. On strips of paper the first proposals for shape and color were laid down, and here the possibilities are being discussed with prof. Van de Wetering, restoration expert, and Ariëlle Veerman, restorer from the government department.


The missing wingtip also had to be completed. Without wanting to imitate Jan Steen, a convincing filling still had to be made. The spread-out wing of a large mounted seagull from the Museon served as a useful model.


It is good to realize that, in spite of all the efforts, we are still dealing with the remaining middle part of a larger painting. The painting probably used to be much larger, especially on the left and the top side, possibly several decimeters. The kneeling couple might have been the centre of the composition. The restored parts are all that is left of a large, monumental composition. All one can do is to try to picture it in the mind's eye.

Yulia Hanasen - Razzle Dazzle and WOW!

Yulia Hanasen

All of Yulia Hanasen's mosaics are fabulous, but it was this portrait of Albert Einstein that first caught my attention. There are many renderings and photographs of the man, but none that catch that expression of something extra in the same way that Yulia's portrait does. Can't you just see the wheels turning in his mind?

Albert Einstein

All of Yulia's mosaic works seem to have that little something extra that causes one to pause and marvel. Her precise fitting techniques, the color choices that seem to reach out and grab the viewerr, the exacting placement of each piece of glass or tile....so well-thought-out...perefect but not static.... These are mosaics to dream about.

Venus


Yulia Hanansen is a second generation mosaic artist who is not at all new to mosaic art. Her Mosaic Sphere Studio, LLC will be celebrating its 7th year anniversary this year. The lofty mission of the studio is to build greater public awareness about mosaics, and to exhibit the superb qualities of this art form.

Purple Iris

Along with mosaic artwork, the studio offers adult classes in mosaics, where a small group environment allows for thorough study of mosaic techniques and methods.

Red Poppie


Ms. Hanansen’s latest works represent her fascination with the cosmos and the human connection. She is currently working with the layered glass mosaic technique, where tiles are not only glued next to each other, but on top of each other. Latest solo show “Crater Lakes: Imaginary and Real” featured images of the lakes created by the impact of asteroids into Earth’s surface. Other works, such as this 116' mural are equally as ambitious.

Chippewa Creek

Click HERE to take a tour of this mural in progress.

Ms. Hanansen’s works have been exhibited in the galleries nationwide: Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, Mesa, just to name a few. She has also shown her artwork locally at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, MI, the Michigan Guild Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center, Paint Creek Center for the Arts in Rochester, and the University of Michigan W.Robins gallery. Work has been collected by patrons in the USA (AZ, MA, NY, CA, IL, FL, GA, MI, TX, WA, OH, PA, NJ, OR), Russia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Israel, Australia, Italy and even the South Pole!

White Peony

Please visit her Mosaicsphere web site for more pictures and information.

Ralph Goings - Painting the light

Santa Cruz artist, Ralph Goings, is a realist painter who has exhibited in this country, Europe and Japan. He is represented in museums and private collections here and abroad. When I view his work, I can hardly believe they are paintings rather than photographs.


He omits nothing with his paint brush in capturing what a camera's lens would see.


One thing that Goings' work has in common with photographs is its examination of light. Photography records, not objects as things in themselves, but the fall of light on objects—in other words, the way in which light is shaped by anything that interrupts its trajectory from the source.



Goings is recognized as one of the original members of the Hyper-Realist or Photo-Realist group of the late 1960's. His work draws our attention to the ordinary everyday experience of American life... showing that there is beauty in the mundane.



Art critic,,Edward Lucie-Smith writes about Going's work:
"He wants to tell us that the most ordinary things are well worth looking at—provided that we have the discipline to look at that property, on their own terms and for their own sake. After all, this is precisely what Vermeer does in the View of Delft. Why should Goings be ashamed to follow his example?"
All works shown in this entry are in private collections or collection of the artist.


"My paintings are about light, about the way things look in their environment and especially about how things look painted.
Form, color and space are at the whim of reality, their discovery and organization is the assignment of the realist painter."

---Ralph Goings

Kelly Price Colston AKA Paper Ballet

"Weirdo Punk Rock Chicks Kinda Rule"

Kelly Price Colston

Mixed media artist, Kelly Price Colston's AKA “Paper Ballet” wrote a description of herself that is as interestingly diverse as her art:
"artist. mother. collage fanatic. obsessive compulsive. terminal procrastinator. in love with color. dots. candy. bizarro characters. i am a vegetarian dog owner. i run or walk daily. i love all people. i sometimes like to watch spiders make webs. if i was still a kid, i'd be on the top bunk, reading or playing with crayons and paper."

Accordian Man [artist card]

Ah, if only it could all be described that simply.

Killing Off the Memories

Kelly’s work embodies a complex examination of opposites and of such heady subjects as sex, gender, childhood trauma, fear, human relationships…. Even her materials can speak of opposites. This traditionally comforting, finely stitched quilt is emblazened with pain and contradiction.
Filth
With each new image comes a myriad of thought, compounded with emotion and slathered with a nice dose of deep awe and respect for her technical expertise. Her mixed media work is simultaneously lighthearted and weighty, compelling and repelling, thoughtful and carefree. Each is precise and at the same time chaotic, with its own language and sense of order. Seamless. Broken. Fractured. Whole.
Fat as Pigs


How does she do this? What inspires her?
Neal Cassidy and the Broken Dolls

Kelly states, “Usually my drive to create is born from inspiration via nature, animals, relationships and loss/fear/sadness. Not all of my work is depressing, per se, but I do enjoy intensity. I think above all else, I value truth in emotions and my art seems to find a home within that honesty.”
(No wonder I respond so deeply to her work!)
One Hundred Dreams

Although she has taken a few art classes, Kelly is primarily self-taught with an innate, sophisticated sense of balance and design. When I view her work, I find myself scanning its surfaces to find relationships between the characters and situations that she creates. Kelly has an uncanny way of makiing the bizarre an everyday occurrence... and the commonplace odd and exciting.
Brothers in Arms

A stickler for routine, Kelly rises at seven every morning to help her daughter prepare for school. Then she goes to her studio across town and walks her dogs for an hour. After that comes sketching and the morning meal and then art before and after lunch and again after her daughter returns from school.

“Routines are important for people with depression and artists especially. I think it can become very easy to get behind in your work and ambition if you don't create an atmosphere of professionalism for yourself.”
Self-Identity [artist card]


Because she is a collage artist, Kelly's medium of choice is old magazines. She enjoys the quality of the paper when it has become worn and slightly brittle and finds that it is very easy to tear and shape in the hand, as opposed to newer magazines.

“ I also like watercolor paper to collage onto for it's strength and texture. I am all about details, so I love that watercolor paper will take splattering with gouache well. the color and beauty of the paper is beyond comparison. I swear by ebony pencils for sketching and a pair of micro-tipped Fiskars scissors are a MUST in my studio. I also prefer the glue sticks that are purple and not clear glue. I like to know where I am putting my glue.”
Just Blame Mother


A current goal for Kelly is to be free from depression and anxiety.

“I realize that having obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder are not easy to recover from fully. but I don't lose hope. An enormous part of my art is grounded in the faith I have in miracles and learning to trust myself again.”
Mystic

When asked whether the internet, technology, media, et al, are helping or destroying the art world, Kelly responded:

“I love this question because I use Photoshop and digital art is my biggest profit-producing medium. I don't think technology destroys anything. I think poor standards destroy art, and that happens, unfortunately, in every single medium and has existed since Leonardo and before. Some dipshit will ALWAYS try and create "art" because they just want to be an artist/art scene type. Me, I think art is in my bones. it's just at the core of who I am. Media and technology have not changed me; they have helped me. Whereas, new art accoutrements have helped artists for ages, so does the mouse. I Icertainly know that my art career wouldn't have taken off had I not had the internet at my disposal.”
Become

Fortunately for all, Kelly has a prominent presence on the world wide web …here, here , here and here as user “psychepreserved". When you have the opportunity, look her up. Her amazing works of art will hold your attention for hours on end.

Tammy Lee - Mosaic Art Imperfect Perfection

"My mosaics originates from a love of color, reflection, and texture. Every single piece is a distinctive creative expression. Each tesserae (mosaic piece) is hand cut and shaped by me and each piece of art can contain literally hundreds of small pieces placed closely together to create a larger image. I work with all kinds of materials but have a special fondness for glass. Many times my materials have been ordered from all around the world."

Tammy Lee

Imagine being able to create mosaic art as graceful and detailed as this!


Bay Area native, Tammy Lee (shown above with family), makes mosaic art that is informed by the constructs of everyday life. She generously enjoys sharing her experience with others and finds that doing so expands her own spirit and creativity.

“There is a certain imperfect perfection about mosaics that I love. Most mosaics look so random. However, thought has gone into the placement of every single piece to get the right effect. Each tiny piece of a mosaic is touched several times. It is cut, shaped, polished and placed. Every piece is deliberately placed to create the whole mosaic experience!”

To illustrate the process and painstaking detail that Tammy so carefully instills into her work, she created a step-by-step instructional pictorial to show how this beautiful mosaic panel was produced. It spans more than five feet in length:

Spiritual Eyes

The piece began with this sketch.


Here we see Tammy’s use of stained glass and glass beads to start the production process.



In the third step, she added three shades of green stained glass shards to give the piece some color.



The intricate stained glass lashes were very time consuming to construct. Tammy filled in the remaining portions of the eyes with mirror.



The bindhi was created from an antique wine glass bottom.


Tammy laid down the background in a traditional opus vermiculatum pattern to emphasize the facial shape.



This shows the detail in the stained glass lay pattern


The final step involved grouting the panel in 3 colors : Sandstone for the skin, pewter for the eyes and north sea green for the iris.



Please visit Tammy’s Gallery for photographs of the wide variety of work she creates. Tammy makes everything from murals to interior decorative art to garden mosaics, and it is all captivating and beautiful!

_____________________________________________

UPDATE: ATTENTION ALL ARTISTS!


Orphan Works Act of 2008

Click HERE if you cannot see the video above.

On April 24, Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representatives Howard Berman (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced legislation (S.2913, HR 5889), which is now being referred to as the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008. It is virtually the same bill that was presented in 2006, and subsequently rejected by Congress. But now, they are trying again.

If passed, the Act would radically alter copyright laws, taking away the automatic copyright now guaranteed to artists of all types who create any type of work. Right now, under U.S. law, artists are automatically guaranteed copyright on everything they create, from the sketches in their sketchpad to their best paintings and sculptures. Under the Orphan Works Act, every creator will be required to register everything he or she creates in a private registry system, requiring a fee of course, and supposedly to make it easier for the "public" to search for works and contact the creators if they want to use the works for some purpose.

Everything created in the last 30 years will need to be registered through this as-yet nonexistent system, including those works already registered via additional fees with the copyright office. If they aren't, and some member of the public makes "due diligence" to find the creator of a work and can't find him or her, that member of the public is entitled to use the work without any limitations, and artists will have no legal recourse. That means every piece of work artists have out there, especially online, would be open season for use by major publishing houses and businesses (Microsoft — who owns one of the largest online image databases — and Google have already voiced support for the bill and indicated they will use thousands of images) and everyone in between. Proponents of the bill say it will assist the public in identifying and contacting creators of works and going through the proper channels to contact them to ask for permission. While we understand the need for an organized system of search, there are MAJOR FLAWS in the proposed bill that need to be addressed before any such proposal should take place. Here are a few points:

Under this law, artists would need to register EVERY piece of work they create, including those works that you have already registered with the Copyright Office officially, in some system that does not exist and would likely require them to pay to do so. The time and cost to do this is going to be prohibitive for visual artists.

While this is meant to apply to all types of creative works, including music and literary, visual artists will be impacted the most because of the sheer volume of work they create, making it very expensive to register everything they have ever created or will create.

For the visual arts, there would still be little protection for them and their work, even if it is registered, because search tools would rely on names of artists or titles of work, and not image recognition tools, which are still in their infancy of development.

Under this law, if artists register their work, they would have to respond to EVERY inquiry sent to them for use of the work. So in other words, if an artist has a work out there in a registry system, and some person contacts the artist and says he or she wants to use the artist's work for free on his or her Web site or in his or her new catalog, the artist would need to take the time to officially respond to every inquiry within a specified time limit, letting him or her know if the artist doe not want to have him or her publish the artist's work for free. This will take a lot of time and effort that professional artists do not have.

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill, and yesterday, May 15, the Senate Judiciary Committee did as well. This means the bill will be presented to Congress, likely before the end of May.

We need you to write to your representatives ASAP and let them know that you do NOT want this bill to be expedited, as it is now. Tell them we need a better solution, or tell them you don't want it at all: Just be sure to tell them something soon.

Click the links below to get more information on the bill, including a video that gives you a great overview of the artists' concerns:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Ychttp://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00261http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185http://www.capwiz.com/artsusa/issues/alert/?alertid=11346091&type=CUhttp://www.asmp.org/news/spec2008/orphan_update.phphttp://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/Perlman080313.pdf

Click below for several options of pre-written and editable letters that you can fill out, and that will automatically identify and send it to your representatives when you enter your address. http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/