Corbu's Cave

Helen Frankenthaler @ Palm Springs Museum

2011-12-27T21:05:00.001-08:00

Helen Frankenthaler @ Palm Springs Museum, a photo by scott_waterman on Flickr.

1928-2011

A Day in Court

2011-12-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

Marie Antoinette. Did she ever get her day in court?
A print I found in Linda's office.

Last week I drove up to Santa Barbara and ended up in court. But I'm innocent I tell you! I had an appointment to meet Linda Chase, an interior designer who's in Summerland just a bit south of Santa Barbara. Arriving early for our date I had a little lunch, explored the Santa Barbara Museum: very nice, then walked around the corner where I discovered the extraordinary courthouse building. OK I confess. I knew it was there. I'd been to it many years ago. It's one of those beautifully designed buildings that beckons you: come closer, come inside. So I did.

Santa Barbara Courthouse

Come closer to the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

What a court room!

Not your typical ceiling unless you are in the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

Looking down the spiral staircase.

Looking up the spiral staircase.

Same spiral staircase. The stencil colors appear different to my camera due to the lantern.

Obviously the style is inspired by the Spanish Missions that predate the history of California as a state. Mission buildings usually have somewhat plain exteriors, smooth and white, stark against the often brilliant blue California skies. And like most missions the interior of the courthouse is dim but ornately decorated. Beautiful painted decorations. The motifs owe something to the Renaissance but this is the new world so the influence of native Americans is strongly in evidence. I really think it's the new world people who give the work it's exuberant punch.

The Ponce, Atlanta circa 1950

The exterior of The Ponce in Atlanta.
You enter under a low slung canopy and make your way to the back of the lobby which opens into tall grand space.

Tiffany ceiling of The Ponce lobby.

Panning down from the stained glass ceiling.

Stenciling in the cove. Lot's of gilding and glazing here too.

Stenciling, gilding, polychroming and glazing in the mezzanine.

I still have some of the stencils used at The Ponce!

Marbleizing painted to match some existing scagliola.

Kristen Marooney and Shane Robuck of Robuck and Company in The Ponce!

I would say the closest I've ever come to a project like the Santa Barbara Courthouse where architecture and decorative painting seem so dependant on one another is The Ponce in Atlanta,GA. That was 1981. A restoration? Perhaps it's more accurate to call it a recreation project because most every surface was primed white when I began. It was months of stenciling, gilding, glazing, and marbleizing. Coincidentally I recently met (online) an Antique dealer, Kristen Marooney, whose partner lives in the Ponce. Their company portrait uses my work as a backdrop. I love seeing that because it gives life to the place. When I was working in it there were no residents. Kristen's choice of brilliant raspberry couldn't be more wonderful, just what the Ponce needs, a little jolt to it's Edwardian pedigree.

Period.

2011-11-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

"The Period Room is Dead!"

Attention modernists: note the mural.

Look at those painted walls! For that matter the rug is undoubtedly painted as well.

Even though it's mostly hidden the mural in this room is integral and simply beautiful.

I wish I could attribute this quote. "The Period Room is dead!" It's was some shelter magazine, some designer, years ago. Obviously it struck a cord with me since I remember it. The idea is that you don't really want your room, your house to be all one thing. If you're sort of shabby chic then you better have some cool contemporary lighting. That sort of idea. Most people know this or do this instinctively in their own way. Usually period rooms are only found in the homes of the ultra-wealthy who have the money to assemble such a thing or in museums where they really should be. But fittingly here in Los Angeles where iconoclasm is the order of the day we have a period room installed in a museum that breaks the mold.

This is a shot of the Eames house (living room) taken on site.

The installation process at LACMA.

View into the installed living room at LACMA.

Naturally I would have wished for the Eames' to have a mural in their living room because to me that follows the same dictate. You have all this architecture in the usual materials and finishes and then, what, there's a mural to throw things off a bit. Having said that the Eames living room installed in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a thrilling sight. And in their day the materials and finishes that make up their house were completely unusual. The period pieces (Charles and Ray's own designs), are really only period pieces because that's how we view them today. What's so brilliant is the mix. Their furniture which owes everything to the industrial design and manufacturing process is draped and strewn with the quirky, crafty, and handmade. There's so much creativity and life in this living room it's really hard to believe someone's not actually living in it.

The Eames Living installed at LACMA

A closer view of a portion of the room (see above).

So for contrast I'm including in this post some of the Thorne Miniature Rooms at The Art Institute of Chicago. You'll excuse my slightly compromised shots. It's just me, my handheld camera, and viewed through glass. (Follow my link for more and better views.) The arrangements seem stilted and as lifeless as an animal preserved in formaldehyde. But just as we are transfixed by the sight of Damien Hirst's vitrines these little rooms engaged us. The craftsmanship is awesome so that brings us back to the Eames whom I've no doubt would have appreciated the rooms for that reason alone. Then there are the period murals to go with the period rooms and so I am hooked. Brilliant. Even delicately hand painted wall patterns. Just amazing. Let's get busy people.

de Kooning: A Retrospective

2011-10-29T13:06:00.001-07:00

de Kooning: A Retrospective, a photo by scott_waterman on Flickr.

Where have I been? I've been to New York. See what I saw on my Flickr!

All in the Family

2011-10-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

All in the Family

You know BAMO because they're one of the premier interior design firms in the country/world or because you've you spent a certain amount of time perusing Corbu's Cave. They're the San Francisco interior design firm that I've known since their inception, actually even before. They assembled themselves out of the Charles Pfister company and I met the partners there in 1989.

Fast forward to this week when I learn that another one of their stunning projects has been published. It's the home of Candy Chuang in Hong Kong and I'm very pleased to be a small part of it. A few years ago I painted a dining room for her parents whose home is nearby on The Peak. I been on the Chuang family yacht, even jump off it to take dip in the South China Sea. I think there's a strong influence of water in the BAMO/Chuang projects. They're cool and refreshing anyway.

Those are my paintings over the green sofa.

Even though there's just one page showing my work I've decided to include the whole piece from Interiors Magazine since I think you might enjoy it. If you're interested I encourage you go to the online magazine to read the article which is deftly written by Zahid Sardar. Zahid wrote and produced the cover story about my San Francisco flat back in 1993. Meanwhile the cover of this Oct/Nov Interiors Magazine is a shot by Tim Street Porter. Tim shot my place for HG in 1990. So you see it's all in the family.

Good-bye

2011-10-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

Say Good-bye to summer and all of that. It just sailed out to sea on a container ship. Yes? No! I don't know why you say good-bye. I say hello.

Hello blog readers. Here and now I present one of my strangest commissions: a mural of the Charleston harbor with Fort Sumter on the horizon and a cargo vessel sailing away as a Gauguin nude rings the wet out of her hair. What the.....? I don't know but maybe this looks really kind of wonderful installed. Since I don't have pictures of that I decided to inundate you with multiple studio shots.

This piece was painted for the home of an architect who's well known for his beautifully detailed classical architecture. So given that I have to assume this rather eccentric wild mural looks great in its setting. Because if you have one sort of thing, a square for instance, you'd do well to counter it with a circle. Or you know how Marc Chagall's mural looks so great on the ceiling at the Palais Garnier.

This project was painted in 2003. What were you doing in 2003? I had forgotten I painted this piece. But I dug it out to share with you because you're special. Maybe I'll be able to update you with some installation shots. In the meantime I give you image details, odd angles, and full views with ladders and such to give some idea of scale. The figure is close to life size. Actually maybe it is life size. What do think of all of this?

The Answer

2011-08-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

The Answer My Friends is Blow'n in the Wind

The View of Palm Springs from 8,516 ft.

120˚ F and gusty winds. How does that sound for a weather report? I just spent a few days in Palm Springs and summer in Los Angeles seems so cool after that. But honestly it was a wonderful little trip to the desert in the off season. One night around sunset I got on the Palm Springs Tramway and in ten minutes ascended to 8516 ft. Up there in the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument the air is cool, clear, and deliciously scented with pine. I love pines but this post is more about palms and a little project from my archives circa 2002.

Studio view of my painted palms.

Close up of one palm.

My original digital sketch for the Palm motif.

Come with me for a walk down an allée of king palms. They're gently bent from balmy breezes and they're rendered in sepia tones. Remember I'm a painter so the subject is always about something painted. These painted palms lead to the men's locker room at the Old Collier Club. And fortunately the locker room and the club are not the so often tacky glitz one finds in South Florida. No, this place looks like old money, reserved, slightly frumpy, and comfy. That's pretty much the style of the architects, Shope Reno Wharton and the interior designer, Amelia Handegan.

Exterior of the Old Collier Club, Naples, Florida.

Interior shots of the Old Collier Club.

More interior shots with my palms painting installed on the left.

No big story here. Just painted trees. But I can't emphasize enough what a difference it makes to have decorative architectural painting. Framed pictures on the walls? Ho hum. A nice color? Of course. Is that all? A wallpaper in this space? Please. Yes, please. Sometime, before you it's all over live in a space with some sort of mural. Your place could be a cave, a le Corbusier apartment, or anything in between and there would be a mural just perfect for your space. If you don't know what that might be just ask because I do. I do.

BAMO

2011-07-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Bamo: powers out tough stains!

That's probably what you'd expect from BAMO right? But no, it's an acronym for Babey Moulton Jue and Booth and they're an architecture/design firm in San Francisco. I've work with them on various project since their inception in the early 90s and I've mentioned them on Corbu's Cave a number of times. So this post is a bit of a retread because I am bringing up our Hong Kong job again. Fortunately I've got new pictures, so good right? I was prompted to revisit the H.K. job because I just noticed an image on the BAMO website I hadn't seen before. I'm including it here along with a few others from my collection never seen before. So there you have it.

The page from the BAMO site that prompted this post.

I really like the casual styling of the photo.
Looks like Queen Anne's Lace on the table in lieu of some rare orchid.
How chic! Or is that reverse chic?

The key for me in designing the painting scheme was getting the ceiling figured out.

These are the initial designs for the ceiling medallion.

Here's a close and wide view showing the ceiling just after installation of my work.

The house looked like this when I left.

Another shot of the finished house from BAMO's site. Nice don't you think?

Use the handy Google search box over there on the right. Enter BAMO or Hong Kong and you'll get more of this wonderful project, a home on the Peak in Hong Kong that I'm so happy to have been a part of. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all meet there for a little soirée?

Behind the Scenes

2011-07-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Hello Faithful Readers!

Robert Irwin's garden.

Baldessari after Dürer and Dürer

You've been to the Getty Center. You seen Robert Irwin's lush and sculptural garden installation, gazed upon gorgeous paintings by Dürer, and perhaps even found Baldessari's Specimen (After Dürer) but have you been behind the scenes? Okay, listen, stick with me. I'll take you there.

Detail of bed in the Paris exhibit.

Some bed, huh?

Photo-collage layouts for the exhibit design.

Associated graphics for the Paris exhibit.

Yesterday my friend David called with a last minute invitation. There was a cancellation which made room for me as an interloper in an IDSA exclusive tour of the Getty Center's exhibit:Paris: Life & Luxury. The highly informative tour was followed by a behind the scenes look at the exhibit design studio. Fascinating!

Exhibit designer talking about the process.
(The photo collages are in the upper left corner of the board.)

The design department at the Getty Center

One inch to one foot scale model of the temporary galleries where "Paris" is.

What did I discover? I am the Getty. I mean my working method is so like the exhibit design department except not only do I create the design, maquettes, and graphics but I also create the finished art. How was I to know? I work in isolation. I must get out more often!

Candid shot of the design offices.

Another candid shot with detail on the right of upcoming "PST" show.

More graphics from the Pacific Standard Time exhibit.

The Paris exhibit was nice, very nice but we also got a sneak peek at an upcoming exhibit that's more up my alley: Pacific Standard Time: Art In L.A. 1945-1980. In fact Getty design is all ready for it and on to the next thing. Here in Southern California we'll be treated to more than 60 venues where the story of art in Los Angeles will unfold. I can't wait but of course I'll have to.

This sign is on the door as you leave the design department.

Until next time this is Corbu's Cave.

Please note: click on any image to enlarge it. Do follow my links, (the off colored words), for more information. Oh, and please do leave me a comment, (anything), just so I know you're out there. Thanks!

Play Room

2011-06-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

Play time is not over.

This is Oskar Schlemmer in a costume of his own design.

No one ever says that do they? Oh, but I'm saying it in my tribute to Oskar Schlemmer, one of my favorites from the Bauhaus. Play time goes on and on.

Costume designs by Schlemmer.

Drawing for the playroom mural.

I did a very small painting project for a couple in Hancock Park, something rather simple really but they were quite happy with it. When I finished one of them asked, "Do you do anything else?" When he found out I painted murals I was shown the children's play room and asked to consider it. Fun! I'd never done such a thing so this was a chance to do something really different from my typical work. I don't know that I have a typical. Still, what I did is quite distinctive from my other projects.

The canvas are up and gessoed in the studio.

The beginning of painted form.

The slate gray is applied and more shapes appear.

More color.

Finished in the studio.

The long view.

Wide view in the opposite direction.

These parts are destined for the north wall of the playroom.

More of the finished work in the studio.

Costume designs for the Triadic Ballet.

Man Machine.

Actually I came up with three different ideas for the playroom and presented them in the form of photo-collages. The Oskar Schlemmer idea was the choice and truth be told it's just what I wanted. Schlemmer was familiar to me not only from studying the Bauhaus in art school but I had seen a wonderful show of his work in Baltimore in 1986. So he's been tucked away in my mental clipping file for some time.

West wall installed.

Jerryl Gorman and crew, Nico and Abraham, installing the south wall.

Southwest corner of the playroom mural.

Looking at the north wall with the west on the right.

Niko working on the east wall.

Wikipedia says Schlemmer was hard at work and self supporting at age 15. I don't know if that's completely true but he was a workshop apprentice at that age and his parents both died when he was still young. This is might not be the sort of background you'd expect to lead to such a witty, playful, and inventive artist. Working young instilled a love and appreciation for craftsmanship that Schlemmer carried his whole life. He taught this at the Bauhaus but he was also in charge of the "Fun Department" -all the parties and festivals. He's perhaps most remember for his Triadic Ballet (Triadishches Ballett) and that's a sort of party as performance.

This figure became known as the TV empress because she carries the television screen.

Jerryl's iPad with my elevations helped guide the installation.

Part of what I love about Schlemmer's work are the marvelous contrasts. Simple and complex. There's bright clear color and a range of neutrals. There are hard edge flat planes of color, visible brush work, and modeled form. There are references to machines but ones that seem to produce no serious work. The human form is even combined with the machine. This relates directly to his staged pieces. Oskar was very much of his time expressing the latest ideas in art and design which even today can look startling and new. The house where my Oskar Schlemmer mural lives was built about the same time Oskar was at the height of his artistic output so although it may seem in contrast with the architecture it also feels very much at home. More importantly the kids really like it -and so do their parents!

The Woman's Building where my mural was painted.
The cartouche above the door shows the letters SOCO
(Standard Oil Company) from 1913.

Addendum

About the time I was ready to start the playroom mural my friend David Chun asked if I was interested in an apprentice. I would need help for the project anyway and I think this project particularly suited David's skill set as a furniture designer. He makes beautiful drawings so he did the first round of sketches to which I made only minor changes. He also helped me with all other aspects of creating the mural.

My neighbor and fellow artist Marina Moevs rescued me at the last minute with a studio space. Actually what she did was check with her landlord and discovered there was one space available immediately which was exactly when I needed it. The building is of note so I'm including a picture of the exterior. The structure was completed in 1913 for the Standard Oil Company but it was made famous in the 1970s as a hotbed of feminist and artistic expression known as The Woman's Building.

Please click on the pictures above and you'll get an enlarged version. And there's my Tumblr site which is a picture only version of this blog. click this: http://scottwatermanartistdotcom.tumblr.com/
Oh, and don't forget to follow my links. All the text that's a different color lead to other places and more fun! Click them, will you?

2011-05-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Dream a Little Dream

I've been thinking about what to do with my future. I could be a mud doctor, checking out the earth, underneath. *

Do you ever feel you're behind the times? I'm behind the time I planned to add to Corbu's Cave which was the opening weekend of Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I was there and meant to tell you about it right away.

At the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood you reserve your seat so it's already a special event, not just a movie but when the lady sitting next to me sat down she said, "Isn't this exciting?". To which I replied, "Yes! I've had the book and now I'm finally getting to see the movie!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallon-Pont-d%27Arc

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is thrilling on a number of levels and it's still resonating with me, naturally I suppose since it's the raison d'être of this blog. Years ago friends from Paris brought me the book, La Grotte Chauvet a Vallon Pont-D'Arc, but really Werner Herzog's movie is the next best thing to being there. It's in 3D you know? And the caves are not now nor will they ever be open to the public.

http://www.friendsofart.net/en/art/giacomo-balla/dynamism-of-a-dog-on-a-leash

To me it's amusing to listen to people in the film speculate as to the creators and their works in the caves because after 30,000 years it's anyone's guess. In my little blog I'm not guessing. I'm telling you that the cave paintings prove my point that we need images on our walls above all else. I direct you architects and interiors designers to ask your clients -"Where shall we put the mural?" Because from caves 30,000 years ago to le Corbusier and every other sort of dwelling a mural is necessary. It's part of who we are as people. Isn't that clear?

* Btw the opening line is a quote from another movie, Days of Heaven. It's topical because it's Terrence Malick movie and his Tree of Life just opened. Dreamy I'm sure.

We Could Have Had It All

2011-04-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

The Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men
do not see it. -Thomas or somebody.

In fact I'm pretty sure it's me. The quote above is mine. I said that, or rather something like it every time one of my clients misses the point of having it all that they fail to enjoy it. Look back into my past posts and you'll find a great example of this. We're approaching the one year anniversary of my Ojai project/non project. They could have it all.

Watercolor by Eugene Emmanueal Viollet-le-Duc of Pierrefonds.

How about a country? Would you like your very own? HRH The Prince of Liechtenstein asked me for the world and I gladly gave it to him. Okay, so he didn't exactly asked me directly, in person but on behalf of the LGT Group of the princely House of Liechtenstein I painted a world map mural for their stunning San Francisco offices high atop the Embarcadero Center. Enter the marble stair way and you can see my work and find the locations of Liechtenstein Global Trust world wide.

Studio shot of my map mural for LGT.

This is one of my favorite types of commissions. The general direction is know but it's up to me to chart the course. I get just enough input and there's room for quite a lot of creativity. Paint a map, sure, but which one? I chose the less well known Peters projection rather that the very common Mercator projection. Principalities may seem like anachronisms but LGT is a modern day investment firm and Peters map shows the world accurately. Where Mercator shows Greenland and China as having nearly the same mass Peters correctly portrays China at close to four times the size of Greenland. Let's get it right people.

Installed view detail of my map mural showing Liechtenstein coat of arms.

Do you know where you're going to?

Watch for sea serpents. Life's full of 'em.

Still I give thanks to Mercator and others for their useful and inventive annotated cartography. I thank you. I used many antique references showing landmasses, navigation lines, and various storied creatures upon the seas. The antique style seemed better suited to the crest and coat of arms of Liechtenstein which I also incorporated into my mural. And I indicated the world wide offices in a font completely based on Mercator's beautiful script. Ironically the San Francisco office is no longer among those cities listed. The office is closed. The whereabouts if this map is unknown to me.

Ojai -no map. That's the way it is.

My "rough sketch" of a map mural for Ojai.

Just like LGT the people in Ojai came to me with the idea of map and I said great, I can do that for you. See my previous blog post for some charming photos of this beautiful property. Now I take you inside to show you my map composite. These days my rough sketches; my cocktail napkin drawings are more likely a Photoshop collage. It's easier in a way and gives a good idea of what the finished work will look like in the space. I take the rough and make it real which in this case would have meant substituting what's all around Ojai. I would added charming little images of the local flora and fauna and shown the terrain. It's beautiful and inspiring country and what a perfect installation for an odd little stairway landing. They asked for and I had planned two other painting projects for the house. "Had" is the operative word.

Adele in her video of "Rolling In The Deep"

Violette-le-Duc's mountain mural.

Violette-le-Duc's home La Vidette. He lived for just one year after completing these murals.

We could have had it all! -Adele. Do you know the song: Rolling In The Deep? The video? I captured a still from the video. Have you noticed that strange abandoned room where Adele sits in front of a mural of a mountain-scape. My only reference for such a thing is Violette-le-Duc. He painted a mural of mountains for his own place, La Vedette. Isn't it wonderful? He's such a fascinating character. I used his designs in an early project of mine. Historically we owe him some gratitude for showing us the beauty of Gothic in a time when it was not especially fashionable. He wasn't interested in fashionable.

Violette-le-Duc's mountain studies.

Violette-le-Duc's restoration project for Napolean: Pierrefonds.

Remember to claim your kingdom. It's all around you.

My job? It's to help you.

Now see my Tumblr

I'll Tumble 4 Ya

2011-04-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

You didn't ask for it but you got it.

The picture only version of this blog.

http://scottwatermanartistdotcom.tumblr.com/

Please visit my new Tumblr site.

All Parties End In The Kitchen

2011-04-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

Wide view showing the entire kitchen mural.

This view orients toward the kitchen but here I wanted especially to show you the beautiful compass rose in the floor.

My Wadmalaw Island mural project was one big mural or a set of four murals depending on how you look at it. Especially while working on it we had to think of it as four separate murals.

Studio view. Our light there tended to be on the cool side as you can see.
Note the dividing line. There's a door between those two parts.

The first panel is cut and waiting on the floor to be hung.

Alan Cooper and company hang the first panel. The kitchen portion of my mural.

The goal is always to have as few pieces as possible but there are actually more than four pieces owing to the interior architecture which includes single and double doorways. It doesn't make sense to include a blank space in the painting where a door would go. The sections of the mural above the doors were painted separately and so there are seams above the doors which are essentially invisible. Therefore the mural is one continuous unbroken picture plane of more than 140 feet.

My abstract corner. Channeling Clifford Still.

The mirrored door to the office open hides the corner and reflects more of the hall.

Another view of the corner and more of the kitchen wall reflected.

In truth it's all abstract to me. To paraphrase Magritte, 'This is not a landscape.'

Oh, but don't get me started on the math. There's so much math to making a mural and I'm not crazy about that part. Or perhaps I should say it threatens to drive me crazy.

Looking down the hall to the office. The kitchen is on the left.

One of my first assignments for my assistant, Christophe Cassidy, was to tackle the math, to figure out the puzzle of all the pieces and how they fit on the stretched fabric. Of course we'd check and recheck each other's calculations and sometimes we'd have to remind ourselves what part of the project we were painting.

The low country.

Looking into the kitchen.

Half of the kitchen portion of my Wadmalaw Island mural.

Double doors to the kitchen.

"All parties end up in the kitchen," Christophe would say to remind us that we were on the last part of the painting and it was indeed the kitchen. I think he was particularly excited to be in the home stretch (see photo).

Overlapping shots of the same area next to the kitchen double doors.

Same shot as above in perspective.

I love this sort of tangle of growth common to the wild parts of Wadmalaw.

Christophe jumping for joy. We're done!
This is a studio view and you'll note the break allowing for the double doors to the kitchen.

We're done but I'm not! Here I'm adding some painting over the door on site.
Work that would have been too difficult to match up in the studio.

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

This is Living!

2011-03-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

To the left is the waterfront. To the right is the main entrance to the house from the driveway.

In this post we've just stepped inside the door on the center left and will follow the walls indicated in red.

Just one step inside the front door of the Wadmalaw Island house and you can see a lot.

Looking from inside the guest room toward the door we've just entered from the driveway.

You see into the guest room on the right, through to the other side of the house straight ahead, and beyond the living room to the library on your left. And you can see some parts of all of my mural which I have divided into four main parts. In this post we will explore the living room portion.

During the installation.

Detail of living room portion, studio shot.

Looking into the living room.

Living room doors closed.

Part of the property that the house sits on is cultivated. So I depicted freshly plowed fields ready for planting and the natural forest bordering the field.

Looking from the hall through the living room and to the wall of the library.

This is a detail of the photo above.

Wide shot showing the entire perimeter of the living room and all of this portion of my mural.

I didn't really think about it but there's poetic logic to the living room portion of my mural showing the land that gives life; food and a livelihood.

Looking back through the open doors of the guest room. The living room is on the right.

Looking through the hall and into the living room from the library.

At the party given in honor of the craftspeople I met Robert and Lindsay MacLeod, Wadmalaw Island neighbors, who are using part of this land to raise their own crops. They also happen to be the craftspeople who made the beautiful outdoor lanterns for the house. Coming up I'll show more of the outside as well as the kitchen portion of the mural.

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

The Library (not public)

2011-03-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

The library is behind these walls. Here can see all of my library mural .

My flattened elevation showing me what I needed to paint.

The library is the upper left corner of this maquette.
Go here for more on the architect: http://www.rgkarchitects.com/

You, my readers, are not the public. Through me you have access to this private library. Actually we're going to concentrate on the outside of this library which is the third installment of my Wadmalaw mural entries.

Alan Cooper during installation.

Finished and close-up of sconce. Placement on the tree is purely coincidental.

My back in a studio shot.

First, a little more about the manner in which this project was conceived. As mentioned in my last post Glen Keyes' office sent me a beautiful set of plans and elevations but these I had to adapt for my own needs. What I needed were elevations which showed me the contiguous wall surfaces so I made them myself. Even better my good friend Alix Soubiran took these new elevations and made a simple paper model for me. Now I could really see what I was dealing with.

Looking into the library from the living room across the hall.

Outside the library and in.

Della works perfectly with my palette. That's a pink flamingo next to her.

Beyond the library walls there is water, the Wadmalaw Sound. Water, marsh, and a few trees that's the view in this direction. I placed a tree in the corner near the door to the library which has not leafed out. Somebody told me they thought my mural seemed to simultaneously depict all four seasons. That wasn't my intention but I like this idea.

This is one of the largest stretches of fabric I had to paint. It wraps the corner here.

The waterside is through the closed doors.

There's cake on that table. Good cake.

What I had in mind was the time of day which is that in between time, close to sunset or sunrise. The light is low then and colors are muted. My rather neutral palette causes the mural to change it's complexion. The changing light in the hall is subtle and continuous which is partly why you see differences in my photos.

Studio shot of the other end of a long panel.

Same piece as above installed. Note there's an inner and outer corner.

The end.

This isn't the end.

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

Be My Guest

2011-03-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Ask me.

The house floor plan. The guest room is in the upper right and outlined in red.

You may refer back to this plan as you look through my photos of the guest room.

We'll start near the single door, round the corner, and end up on the other side of the double doors.

This is elevation from Glenn Keyes' office showing one guest room wall, the door to the driveway, and one living room wall. I kept staring at this until the light bulb went off over my head. I had to rip this apart and create my own elevations.
http://www.rgkarchitects.com/

My Wadmalaw Island mural is quite large so to design and paint it meant breaking it down into manageable pieces. The floor plan is simple. It's this: +. A plus sign you might say. Simple right? Yes, of course, but there's more to it than that and anyway I'm more concerned with the elevations since that's where my mural comes in. What I soon realized was that the beautiful elevations sent to me were not quite what I needed so I reconfigured them to conform to the four quadrants of the house and named them for the rooms they defined: kitchen, guest, living, and library.

That's me in the studio with my (long handled) Whistler brush.
My assistant, Christophe Cassidy, brought in a music stand which held my sketch. See it?

The installer, Alan Cooper, and his crew at work on the guest room panel.

It was decided from the outset that the surrounding countryside would be the subject of the mural. I've been to Charleston and the area a number of times and have painted it too so this was familiar to me. The interior designer, Amelia Handegan, suggested I use the work of Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (1876-1958), as inspiration. I love Ms. Smith's work because she shows a strong sense of the abstract which goes beyond merely recorded information. And her work is beautiful. You can't argue with that.

The abstract corner. These out of the way places are some of my most favorite.

The abstract corner is behind the opened mirrored door.

Shells in the woods. Well remember, we are near the water. It's all around us here.

The small door on the left leads to the guest room.

The opposite corner far right is the living room.

The clients sent me a cache of photos taken on their property. There were a lot to choose from, some water views, fields plowed for cultivation, marshes, and wooded areas. So what shall we concentrate on? "What would you like to see", I asked. A little of everything they told me. So here's how I approached it: if you stood in the middle of the house and could look through the walls what would you see. That's basically how I composed the mural and used each room to represent a different aspect of the low country property.

Turning the corner.

The other side of the guest room.

The pocket doors closed to the guest room.

The opposite corner is the kitchen wall. And that's Della on the floor.

The land beyond the guest room walls is wooded and canopied with foliage. The trees are beautiful but all the other views have sky above so how could I use this view and maintain a consistent palette and values? I decided to render the forest view as if it were a misty morning with the upper story dissolving into fog. Solving this design dilemma was the beginning for me so here in this post I present the atmospheric and ethereal "guest room" mural, one of four.

Looking into the guest through the double doors.

Details of another abstract corner. Channeling Alice Smith.

Stick with me. we're only about one quarter of the way through this project. And please remember: click on any picture to enlarge. You'll get a much better view. Next up: the library.

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

Island Party

2011-03-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

Come with me, you're my date. I'm taking you to a party and you will love it. It's down a lonely road in the low country of South Carolina. We've left Charleston. We're going over the Esau Jenkins Bridge, under a canopy of old oaks, passed truck farms and down a dirt road you could easily miss if I weren't at the wheel.

At last we see it and it looks new but is this a new house? Could be a restored Antebellum. There are people on the porch, oh good, we're not the first to arrive. OK, let's go in. Wow, beautiful. Go on, I'm going to explore on my own. This doesn't seem to be a party where everyone congregates in the kitchen. But look there are just four rooms and this giant hallway that cuts through from front to back and side to side.

Waterside porch through the doors on the left and the library on the right.

Ok, true confessions: I've been here before, just once. I painted the mural that lines the hallway. The mural was created in California but I came for the installation and now I am back for a party given by the owners in celebration of the craftspeople who put this house together. In future posts I'm going to thoroughly explore this space to show you all of my mural. I'll take you back to the studio to show you the painting process and even further back to the planning stages.

Looking into the living room and the guest room down the hall.

View from inside the library looking across the hall to the living room.

Just outside the kitchen seen through the doorway on the right.

The library is behind the wall on the immediate left and the kitchen is straight ahead.

The view from the living room into the hallway and the library beyond.

Looking into the living room.

Now don't go away blog readers. This should be interesting.

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

Melrose Project

2011-03-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Detail of "110"

My painting titled "110" from 2005.
ink, watercolor, gouache on rag paper 11" x 15"

Another number for a title. This one's "134" done in 2006.
ink, watercolor, gouache on rag paper 11" x 15"

My trip to the South was Saturday through Saturday and shortly after my plane touched down back in California one of my agents, Joanna Burke, called, then dropped by my studio to pick up a couple of my works for an installation.

On the left my works installed at the PDC.
On the right, a shot taken from The Melrose Project looking toward the PDC.

The entry space at The Melrose Project. Just look at the scale of the rug and that table. Marvelous.

There's something called West Week going on in L.A. which is a brouhaha meant to goose the PDC. Showrooms have cocktail parties and such but I have to tell you it was across the street at a venue named The Melrose Project where it was happening.

Chic to Chic designer crowd at The Melrose Project.

This was just last night and despite our unseasonably cold and rainy weather the design cognoscenti dressed up and turned out to see and be seen.

Just look at that amazing marquetry and the painted chest!

Love that anthropomorphic table and the outrageous Baroque mirror.

Ok, here's something I really liked at the PDC. The pair of cast stone benches.
My garden would love those.
The planting on the right is actually next to The Melrose Project.
It's a garden design by Judy Kameon.

If I didn't meet you there last night please, won't you leave a comment just to say hello?

Spring Forward Fall Back

2011-03-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

Pensive bust at the High Museum, Atlanta

Does daylight savings time count if your outside you're time zone when it kicks in? It does and the ricochet effect of flying back and forth across the country and back to a place where for me it all began is a little discombobulating.

3100 Andrews Drive, the place of my grisaille foyer mural.
This helicopter view shows the back of the house and guest house.

Look! I found the house I was looking for (in my last blogpost).

Atlanta was snowing in white blossoms.

I have so much new material for Corbu's Cave from my trips to Atlanta, Charleston, and Wadmalaw but it will have to wait. So here's a mini post with just a few choice pix.

Atlanta's midtown towers from the Botanical Garden.

In My Father's House Are Many Mansions
Detail view of a Howard Fenster at the High, Atlanta.

Outside the High Museum of Art.

Somewhere in Charleston.

Time and Space

2011-02-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

That's me at the front door. Is it a Neel Reid house?

I just flew low over Atlanta trying to find a house I wanted to show you. I think is may be a Neel Reid House. It's that special. Unfortunately I couldn't find it but my excuse is this is a house where I painted a mural in 1983, (or was it 1984?), a long time ago! I'm not even sure what street it's on but I've got something to show you anyway, some shocking images really. Of course the photographs are probably shocking only to me because I can hardly identify what I know to be pictures of me. What was I thinking with those big thick socks and hot pants? Tell me! Fortunately I think the painting I'm doing is not so bad. It was my version of the Chinoiserie in the The Long Gallery at the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. I remember at the time I was mad for all things Brighton Pavilion. Of course you probably know the Pavilion was built by the Prince Regent whose father was mad King George. Atlanta is mad for Regency so apparently it rubbed off on me.

Me painting with spectators

I seemed to always be on a ladder

Part of my finished work circa 1984

So why drudge up this ancient history? I guess it's on my mind because I'll soon be paying a visit to Atlanta. Family will be there and possibly some more painting for me too. Don't worry I promise to keep you in the loop.

P.s. You do know that you can fly yourself low over most any city you want with Google maps?

P.p.s. If you're still interested I've got a few other posts about Atlanta:

Pompeiian Model

Trompe l'Oeil

Fox Theater

The Ponce

Update : I did find the house and I show you and write about it here:

Neel Reid House

http://corbuscave.blogspot.com/2011/03/spring-forward-fall-back.html

See Food

2011-02-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

(Please click on photos to enlarge.)

Hanks Seafood, Charleston. My frieze is in here!

I just finished reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by Thomas Mc Namee. It came out a few years ago but my sister just gave it to me for my birthday recently and I ate it up like a scrumptious clafoutis.

studio view

The first time I visited San Francisco as an adult I offered to take my host to dinner toward the end of my stay. "Anywhere" I said. As luck would have it we grabbed a reservation within just about 24 hours. The normal time lag for garnering a table at Chez Panisse is often a month or months but I was blithely unaware. The specialness of Chez Panisse was unknown to me. This was 1988. Since then I've been there more times than I can remember so it should be apparent that I "got it".

My frieze installed

Now anyone who visits a good restaurant in the U.S. is likely benefiting to some degree from the Chez Panisse effect. Charleston, South Carolina has become something of a foodie town. (Alice does not approve of that term: foodie. I like it fine.) There are so many good restaurants there and I'm happy to have my work in a couple of them. When I painted the frieze for Hanks Seafood I was definitely thinking of food, good food. My palette was meant to suggest freshly boiled lobster, raw oysters, creamy seafood bisque, you know, yummy.

Hanks interior showing my frieze.

Hanks Seafood waiters waiting to serve you.

I had some fun painting the frieze and it was sort of a surprise to me. I assemble the ingredients: the imagery, the palette, and the materials and just started painting with no preparatory sketches. I think this is sort of the way Alice works. You take really good ingredients and put them together without a lot of fuss. I followed that other Waters dictate too: use local. The background imagery comes from sea charts of the low country and many of the fish depicted are served in the restaurant.

Have you eaten yet?

Ready For My Close-Up

2011-02-12T17:36:00.000-08:00

Ready For My Close-Up

I saw Nixon in China today. It was a live broadcast from the New York Metropolitan Opera at Frank Sinatra Hall, USC. No doubt it is thrilling in person but the close-ups we got were amazing and I'm sure much more than those in NYC could see even front row center. Peter Sellars himself directed the broadcast and he seemed to have a number of flying cameras at his disposal.

But I digress because this post isn't about opera or Adams but Chase as in Linda Chase. Of course I'm in this too. I'll be your mirror, reflect who you are, in case you don't know. Linda Chase is one of the most chic decorators I've never met. Well, we've met on the phone but really we should meet in person. I know I'm ready for my close-up (look) at Nu-Vignette, Linda's new chic little shop in Summerland.

Linda has a number of my mirror images at Nu-Vingnette and she sent me close-ups (photos) taken in the shop which should whet your appetite for seeing the real thing. If Summerland's too long a drive from where you are go to Amazon or some other bookseller and order Linda's fabulous book on Beidermeier. Yes, she wears a lot of hats. Hats are back, you know?

Is That All There Is?

2011-01-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

Is That All There Is?

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing.

I guess in my case that would be keep painting, although, dancing may well serve as a metaphor for painting or whatever it is you have to do. I think I may have mentioned somewhere in this blog that when I was in art school I avoided painting. It seemed done, effete.

Someone should have told me, yes it's done, it's effete now keep doing it. Of course that could have been me. I could have told myself.

Look at these ridiculous paintings. I can't tell you much about them. They're my copies of some sort of primitive, itinerant, outsider artist's works which I created for a client of Amelia Handegan's. (I'm told they will be installed soon.)

Are they 19th century? 18th? I don't know. Whatever the reference they are now 21st century paintings and they have that kind of exuberance and playfulness that we can't help being attracted to.

Scott Waterman's studio.

Know what I mean?

Going To Extremes

2011-01-16T12:06:00.000-08:00

Jefferson Park part of historic West Adams

I'm walking in the dark through my neighborhood (6-6:30 a.m.) most often but on the weekends my schedule gets thrown off like yesterday. Taking advantage of the light I took my camera and went to the extremes. First stop was the Glen Lukens house by Raphael Soriano. It's quite exciting to see progress being made on this bit of architectural history. Someone's restoring it and that's a good thing. Apparently it's the catalyst that gave us stararchitect Frank Gehry.

Glen Lukens

I was taking classes at USC, summer classes in ceramics and art, drawing, art design, and the ceramics teacher -- Glen Lukens at the time -- was having a house designed by Raphael Soriano, and Glen somehow looked at me and said, "I just have another hunch." He said, "I would like you to meet Soriano," and I did, and I watched how Soriano -- a guy with a black suit and a black tie and a beret, you know -- I mean, he was a really funny guy. But there was something about it that excited me, maybe the drama of it, maybe the theater of it, and he knew what he was doing. He was very Miesian. He did very stark things, and that all excited me. Based on Glen's recommendation, I took a class at night in architectural design, and I did really well. I was skipped into second year. (interview)

front of Lukens' Soriano house

two views of Lukens' studio

Lukens house entrance

Now owing to the intent of this blog the question becomes what would I do with this house as a decorative artist, a muralist? What makes sense? I'd need to know more. My commission work is tied to the architecture the setting and the inhabitants. I know Lukens was a potter with a keen interest in ceramic glazes. That's fertile ground for developing a decorative painting scheme but I also thought of the Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer who headed the wall painting workshop. Where he was figurative I might substitute plant imagery but I like the general thrust and can see that sort of thing working quite nicely on Soriano's building either inside or outside, perhaps both.

Oskar Schlemmer/Figural Cabinet/version 2/1922

Oskar Schlemmer/Figural Cabinet/1922

Oskar Schlemmer/House of Dr. Rabe/Zwenkau/1930-31

Now walk with me down the street and around the corner to the other extreme, an 1888 farmhouse. It's hard to grasp how little development was here in my neighborhood not to mention Los Angeles when this was built. It was nearly forty years until the much more well known Adamson (dairy farmhouse) was built out in Malibu.

Starr Farmhouse side and cow

Starr Farmshouse facade

two extremes a short walk from my house

It looks like the project is stalled at this point but I serious doubt David is giving up. This house is so plain spoken I'm not sure it could stand a Turkish corner like other houses of the period. Do you see that big window above the front door? That room in there. I'm thinking traditional Japanese. Something plain, minimal, and serene. Otherwise I'm just so afraid this place could turn too Pottery Barnish. Something from the land of the rising sun might be just the thing.

photo by Pamla J. Eisenberg

What would you do?

UPDATE:

The Oksar Schlemmer idea has been hatched! I painted a children's playroom. Read all about it here: http://corbuscave.blogspot.com/2011/06/play-room.html

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In This Approximately Infinite Universe

2011-01-03T19:10:00.001-08:00

Hammer_lobby.test.03
Originally uploaded by scott_waterman

I am not a number.

Thomas Wright, An original theory or a new hypothesis of the universe, London 1750

2011-01-03T11:27:00.001-08:00

Thomas Wright, An original theory or a new hypothesis of the universe, London 1750
Originally uploaded by scott_waterman

Greetings blog readers. Salutations in the new year, twenty-eleven.

Please stand by.

Thank you.

Scott Waterman

Walking On Thin Ice

2010-12-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

Lake Michigan from the penthouse.

The Navy Pier, another view from the penthouse.

The exterior of 840 Lake Shore Drive.

I might also be dreaming of a boat to help me out of here, a toyboat. Oh, but that's another Yoko Ono song. I'll stick with the thin ice metaphor especially since many of my readers are literally looking at ice and deciding whether or not to walk on it. If you're an artist it's just what you do. Walking on thin ice.

A part of the hall in between my two paintings.
Check it out. (If you can find it!) I'm in Luxe Magazine

My painting in the east rotunda.

The plan view.

Ok, we're going to Chicago and of course this was winter so all this was ice. Even before I left Los Angeles I knew what I was going to paint but I'd never been to Chicago so I had to go and see the lake. The water, the melting ice, and the fog all blending just as I imagined it. Well, I'm a student of Whistler, don't you know?

My original Photoshop collage proposal.

Warming it up.

My maquette: it was sent to Chicago and returned a little mangled but you get the idea.

Looking into my maquette.

Everyone one of my projects is unique to its placement. I have to think I bring a fresh perspective, an outsider's eyes to the far flung locations where my work resides. Perhaps knowing my time there is brief I quickly distill the essence and serve it up.

Studio view, Culver City.

The installation process.

On the left, looking east. On the right, looking west.

840 Lake Shore Drive penthouse floor plan.
My work is in the center hallway (in yellow).
My east rotunda painting is the little oval on the right. (see above)
My west rotunda painting is the little circle on the left. (see below)

On the other hand my clients deserve a lot of credit because I'm creating something they've never seen before. That's a leap of faith. Thank you Kara and Jessica! Jessica LaGrange came back to me a second time when her client took the rest of the floor in the building designed by her husband. This time prairie was the inspiration or was it Rothko?

Prairie

My original proposal for the west rotunda.

My painted maquette for the west rotunda painting

Studio view, Los Angeles. The prairie abstracted.

My installed work, the west rotunda, a Chicago penthouse,
840 Lakes Shore Drive.

See you in the prairie, on the water, and wherever, until next time.

Tis The Season

2010-12-24T16:02:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, tis the season of the sensual world and to prove it I bring you cell phone photos and text from my visit to the Resnick Pavillion at LACMA.

The latest building addition to LACMA has been reviewed elsewhere and so I'm not going to do that here. Nor am I going to give a complete run down of the installation which is a whirlwind mix of cultures and art forms. I went through the brilliant and fascinating costume collection and came out of that space to see this wonderful mural fragment. It was only then that I wished I'd brought a camera. Oh but that's what cell phones are for, right?

The mural on the west wall of Structure 1 depicts the ceremonies associated with the coronation of an early Maya king at San Bartolo. Originally painted on the room's upper register, the mural measures about 33 inches high and it was partially destroyed when the Maya built over it. According to the team led by William Saturno, Karl Taube, and David Stuart, and the documention by Heather Hurst, this sequence records the birth, death, and resurrection of the Maya maize god. A Maya figure, carrying an Olmec-style baby representing the infant maize god god, strides toward a profile turtle head attached to a lobed body that contains threee dieties. One sits on a throne; the other is seated on a jaguar-pelt cushion. Their arms extend toward the adult maize god, who is shown dancing and beating on a turtle shell drum with an antler.

The Olmec-style baby in this narrative indicates the familiarity of the early Maya with these ancestral traditions.

Thank you Heather Hurst! Heather is the scientist/artist responsible for this mural fragment and much more documentation of Mayan culture. It's so brilliant I can hardly stand it. Here again I present proof of the dynamic enlightening and enigmatic qualities of the painted wall. I need it, you need, we have to have it. Now excuse my laziness but I thought the description provided was succinct and interesting as is so I give it to you thusly.

Mexico, Guerrero, Oxtotitlan Cave, c. 900-700 BC
Mineral pigments
Replica painted by John M.D. Pohl, Wendy Phillips, and Isabel Ramirez

Yes, there's more: another mural, also bizarre and beautiful. And you've got the Resnicks' dodads and whatnots. I've only incuded one object in the Eye for the Sensual exhibit, a fine grisaille rondel. Apparently given the choice I'm more drawn to the primitive. On the other hand the painting subject is a celebration of the primitive so there you have it, I am consistent. Please enjoy and prosper in the new year with my best regards.

Yours truly,

Scott Waterman

Continental

2010-12-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

It's an old fashion term meant to connote sophistication and whatever goes with that. It's also meant Europe but Europe's not what it used to be and these paintings of mine aren't on that continent. They were recently sold to a client in Asia because that's where the action is n'est-ce-pas?

Scott Waterman /2002/ acrylic/unstretched canvas

This post is kind of rushing it because I really don't have anything but these quick snapshots of the installation. Better images will follow I hope. I just want to make sure my readers were kept on their toes with no idea what I might paint or post next.

Is it working? Are you in toe stand?

Thank you and be seeing you.

Attention! Update! This project has been published. Please see my new post which includes a link to the online version of Interiors Magazine.

http://corbuscave.blogspot.com/2011/10/all-in-family.html

More Songs About Books And Mags

2010-12-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

As usual you really should click on the images to ENLARGE.

Are you following me? You remember the forced perspective trompe l'oeil mural in my last post? Yes, the one published in Trompe L'Oeil At Home. Well what I didn't tell you is that it had actually been published a few years before in HG (magazine). HG March 1988 was the newly redesigned ( and renamed) House and Garden magazine with its new editor, Anna Wintour. You know, the one who wears Prada? I guess maybe that came after when someone decided she'd be happier at Vogue, strike a pose.

So I was in the first new editor, new look House and Garden and now I'm in the first new editor, new look Architectural Digest. Is there any significance? If there is I hope it's above and beyond the rather obscure and insignificant way that my work is shown in both. Listen. I'm extremely grateful. They spelled my name right but my website, Windsor's website, and my blog posts show that silver leaf room much more explicitly and deliciously don't you think?

Much of the pond area lives behind a sofa! (detail on right)

I do like the January A.D. cover but permit me to suggest alternatives. Vote for the one you like best and you won't hurt my feelings if you like the original. I probably like it best myself but there's so much of that room that's left out, seems a shame.So I give you more.

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

Comments welcome.
Thank You.

Book Report

2010-12-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

Down the rabbit hole you go!

I'm in this book (a lot!)

Spaces and Illusions, High Museum 1980
(note painted-on-the-wall sofa back)

When I was still a student at The Atlanta College of Art The High Museum created a children's exhibit called Spaces and Illusions. Actually it was Mack Scogin, his associates at Heery and Heery Architects, and volunteers who designed and created the exhibit which was brilliant and trippy. Think Dr. Calgari meets Charles Dodgson. I worked there as a student guide and never tired of it. It was a playful series of chambers, completely thrilling to explore. Also included was a bit of trompe l'oeil painting, a strikingly believable "Hershey bar" and "sofa back" for a couple of examples.

Click on these pages to enlarge

Apparently the idea was planted in my head and soon afterwards I was taking commissions to paint my own versions of fool the eye painting. By the end of the (8os) decade I was sort of "over" it but Karen S. Chambers very kindly included me in her book, Trompe L'Oeil At Home (1991) so my work in that genre/period is nicely documented. Karen flatters me with a visual comparison to Borromini and by using more examples of my work than any other artist in the book. Thanks Karen!

click on these pages to enlarge

Commissions are one thing but would I ever use the technique in my own work? The first thing I thought of was a painting I did in 2001. It's from a series based on images in a little sketch/collage book of mine. Once upon a time my brother sent me a post card from London, I think it's a little bronze in the British Museum. I stuck the card in my book and splashed a little blue watercolor above as a sort of Dada gesture. Years later I retrieved it and reinterpreted it as subject matter blown up. My 2001 figure series was a mix of ultra flat and space popping images. The truth is I have no allegiance to any sort of technique or subject but teach myself what I want to know.

My Oakland Studio (2001)

What do you know?

Brandford-Horry

2010-11-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

Get out and walk in Charleston and you won't be able to move one inch without stepping into history, our history of the United States, not always so united. Imagine this: in 1833 the largest railroad in the world was based in Charleston and ran from Charleston to Hamburg, (no not Germany). Now here's where I come in: that railroad, the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company was run by Elias Horry, the name sake of the Branford-Horry House and in the Branford-Horry House I painted Elias Horry's name on the wall while nobody was looking.

Click on this image to enlarge.
It makes for interesting reading!

So here I am walking in Charleston on Meeting Street and I knock on the door of one of those beautiful old homes and what do you know, they let me in! Truth be told the charming and friendly present day owner's of the Branford-Horry House were expecting me. I wanted to see the graffiti on the bathroom wall. Ok, it's not graffiti it's my painting but owning to my usual technique of working off site I had never see the installation. I completed this project in 2002.

The Little Necessary Room under the stairs.

What's so wild is that I sort of grew up with the Branford-Horry House because we had a copy of The Golden Treasury of Early Houses and I use to obsess over the images in that book. Never did I image one day I'd be standing in one of those houses let alone have my painting on the walls of one. I know, it may seem like I'm making an awful lot over a little powder room tucked under a staircase but then again this is probably the most appreciated room by all the illustrious guests who visit this house made for entertaining. Yes, I think it may be the smallest mural in the smallest room I've ever painted but there's more. The owners have built a most beautiful county home out on Wadmalaw Island where I have painted my largest mural yet. Please stay tuned for that.

By the way if you didn't catch it in my last post Google Books has some choice pages from a recent publication called: Charleston Architecture and Interiors By Susan Sully where you can see some really nice photographs of The Branford Horry House.

Be seeing you!

Extra Texture

2010-11-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

David Ireland

I've just returned from a trip to Charleston and Wadmalaw Island. For the first time I was able to visit my mural installed at the Branford-Horry House (built c. 1755-ish) and I oversaw the installation of a rather large work of mine on Wadmalaw, (just completed November 2010), but I'll explore those projects in later posts. Here I want to delve into the texture of the Aiken-Rhett House, a place I visited in the late afternoon of my last day in town.

Throughout my stay I was rather engaged with the installation of my mural, making the trek out to Wadmalaw every day and wondering if I was going to see much of Charleston, the inside of it anyway. I know of and have previously visited a number of house museums in and around Charleston but there was that one that stood out in my mind. "I want to go to that run down one" I told people. Oh yes, they knew it but it was up to me to finally figure out it was the Aiken-Rhett which fortunately was just a few blocks from my hotel.

Brilliant golden autumn light and hardly anyone around to bother me. So it was a magical visit to a house that Antoni Tapies and David Ireland could only dream of.

Antoni Tapies

No photography allowed so being the artist scofflaw I am set my digital camera to silent and snapped away. The place is so thrilling to me, absolutely thrilling.

To be turned loose with a little self guided audio tour and each room I entered all to myself: I love this house! Tell me why do suppose that is?

Furthermore:

I found some wonderful photos on the Library of Congress website.
There are a couple of excellent blog posts at a great site I just found called The Architecturalist.
And Glenn Keyes Architects had a hand in the preservation of the house. More about that firm later.

The Standard Painting

2010-11-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

I have to admit I love that title because while it's perfectly true it sounds perversely arrogant. In some ways the painting does fit a standard, a standard landscape for L.A. There's a bit of trickery, some pumped up color, mirroring, and mandalas but isn't that sort of what you might expect from La La Land? The vast majority of Angelenos live in the flats of this big flat plane where any object of height becomes a beautiful silhouette in the magic hour while the sun sets.

My project forThe Standard Hotel was actually more than just a painting and like most of my work that is designed to fit a space there was a bit of planning involved: some preliminary sketches and a maquette. As usual I had more ideas than were needed. The end result culled a picture from my archives adapted to fit the circumstances. In this case the format was (for me) unusually narrowing and wide but it inspired me the way Hollywood was inspired to invent the widescreen motion picture.

I chose a silhouetted landscape that I flipped and book matched to satisfy the proportion of the "box" at The Standard. I guess the box might also be considered a sort of cage because at night when the whole lobby of the hotel becomes a seductively lit lounge the box has a girl in it. I know. It's like some throw back to the girl in a go-go cage. Weird. The way I addressed that situation was to "peel" a layer off my painting and repeat it on the window at the front of the box. It seemed a perfectly reasonable and comprehensible idea to me but I had some convincing to do so I made a small scale model, a maquette.

What I did was to encase the girl within the imagery of my painting. It wasn't my primary intention. I simply wanted to take advantage of the space. Even without the girl in the box the effect of repeating the silhouetted image on the front plane activated the painting especially as the viewer maintains eye contact with the work while moving toward it, away from it, or side to side. If I could show you a little video that would help. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm giving you multiple views including what I first saw. It's a nice lobby but I really thought about creating something that would draw you in, draw you right up to the reception desk where presumably you cross the conceptual threshold into another world.

You can see the painting more clearly in my studio but I do enjoy the combination of the painting and the printed plastic with the reception box. To me it's sort of perfect in its own way. Alas the set up only lasted for a few weeks. My painting came down and the silhouetted plastic was scraped off and discarded. That's so L.A. in a way. Make way for the new. Next.

Acknowledgements:

Sarah Jane Bruce was the go between. She made the arrangements with the powers that be at The Standard.

Joanna Burke introduced me to Sarah Jane.

Nieuwe and Oude

2010-10-31T14:19:00.000-07:00

Look. Aren't we constantly looking for the new? I mean aren't we constantly looking at the old? Yes.

Just about this time of year, late in the twentieth century I was in Amsterdam, so old and so new. I'm always impressed how Europeans, those people living in what some here in the U.S. refer to as "Old World" manage to keep it fresh and contemporary. Witness my little blog post on the stenciled walls of the Oude Kirk and the Tropenmuseum: a study in contrast.

Please come right in and straight up the impossibly steep stairs. I'm pouring you another glass of one of those delicious Dutch beers and inviting you to gaze out the window of my temporary digs in a 17th century Dutch canal house. There right across the Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal is the Old Church, the Oude Kirk, the oldest building in Amsterdam.

"Our" front door

View of Oude Kirk

OK let's go back downstairs across the canal and to the church. It's a short walk. Step inside where it's rather dark and a bit cold which is apparently just what some creative parishioners thought and so they stenciled warm and bright patterns here and there.

So that's some of the old painting in Amsterdam. Get on your rickedy old bike and let's go over the the Tropenmuseum for some nieuwe.

Now would you do me a favor and stop using "Old World" in conversation or anywhere else. I sort of loathe that term. It's so meaningless. Do you see my point?

Be seeing you!

Meeting Street

2010-10-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog Readers!

(Please click on photos to enlarge.)

Did I ever tell you about the work I did at The Planter's Inn? It was long ago, 1999 or so. I painted a mural for the bar. The bar may have a name but I don't know it. I do know the name of the restaurant adjoining. It's The Peninsula Grill and I have some work there as well, two of my mirror pieces. You can see part of one of those on the Planter's Inn website but I'm including my own photos of the mural because I happen to have a few, though not especially good ones. (Position your mouse/cursor over the small picture above and click for a larger version.)

Charleston, S.C. is the peninsula/city in reference. That's where bar, restaurant, and Inn are. I'm thinking of Charleston because I'm currently working on another mural that's going to be installed there, well near there. I'll blog about that later. So back to Charleston, you should go. Great historic architecture and lot's of tasty places to eat. If you don't want to splurge for the Peninsula Grill you might try Hank's Seafood. I've been there a few times I think. I met Harry Connick Junior there and he bought me dinner! OK, it wasn't just he and I. It was probably a table of eight or so and I was there because it's the location of another of my Charleston murals, a frieze. Amelia Handegan designed the interiors for the Grill and Hank's and she was starting a project with Harry. I was just along for the ride but I do remember Harry vividly. Really sort of wild and boisterous as if he were drunk but he doesn't drink. And yes he liked my painting too.

What do you think?

Update

I've been to the bar since I posted this entry and took some more photos which I've added below:

These new shots give a truer account of the atmosphere.
OK, one more drink then let's think about dinner.

The painted wall from caves to le Corbusier

2010-09-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

I started a blog that started the whole blog-world crying. Boo Hoo! No, not really but for some reason people were confused in my last blogpost. Do ya think it was because my pictures didn't match my words? I mentioned that I created a PowerPoint presentation and instead of showing the contents of that PowerPoint presentation I put up some of my collages which I assumed no one would mistake for the kind of thing typically associated with PowerPoint. Apparently some readers took my collages for my PP presentation. And why not? They could have been. So the joke's on me.

La Grotte Chauvet, discovered in 1994.

David Byrne has used PP for his own ironic take on corporate salesmanship so anything goes in PP. But no, my presentation was given at a big design firm in their cool modern office and I was there to let the designers know how my work could fit into their projects: boutique hotels and high end residential projects world wide. I also wanted to give them some background on the use of paintings (murals) in interiors so I used the idea behind my blog which suggests that every interior from caves to modernism (and beyond) is an appropriate setting.

La Grotte Chauvet, N 44° 21' and E 4° 29' 24".

La Grotte Chauvet, c. 28,000–23,000 BP

Just for a little shock value I included a picture of le Corbusier painting in the nude. I love this shot. He looks a bit confused, (as if he read my last post), and he's sporting that gorgeous scar from a shark bite or motor boat propeller. Which is it? And of course I showed some beautiful images of french cave paintings, as beautiful and mysterious as ever.

Now look how the ancient cave painting seems a kin to Corbu's mural. That just blows my mind. I mean the cave works are 17,000 years old. Oh well, they were discovered in 1940. It's quite possible Corbu saw them and referenced the memory. Btw the modern painting happens to be le Corbsuier's only mural in the U.S. It's at the (once) home of Ruth and Constantino Nivola in Springs. Corbu stayed there while working on the design of the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan.

Next: We'll go beyond!

Power Point

2010-08-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a first:

I recently put together a Power Point Presentation and delivered it to one of the top design firms. I wasn't about to get into fades and dissolves, background music, and what have you.

For the meeting I also brought a number of my paintings on paper. I had notes for all the images I showed.

It was a mixture of my work and historical examples for context. For me it was a perfectly natural blend because it's all the sort of thing I keep in my head anyway. The notes were dates, some names, and other facts I didn't memorize and as it turns out I didn't use.

Did I hear crickets chirping? Almost. I was nervous and yet too busy to be nervous. It was kind of an out of body experience.

The premise of my talk was borrowed from this blog, Corbu's Cave. I showed pictures of le Corbusier, nude even. There are probably enough notes and images from my presentation for at least three blog entries. So what's the point of me showing more of my collages instead? Not sure but I have the power to do whatever I want. Power Point or is it the power to have no point?

Orlando

2010-08-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Orlando

I'm referring to Virginia Woolf and her novel of that name. In the book the protagonist, Orlando, defies time and has a miraculous sex change. It's the time travel I'm thinking about.

To be here to be now at last I am free
at last at last to be free of the past
and all the future that beckons me

2006 I painted the silver leafed room in Bel Air. The original plan called for a time-out before my painted work was sealed. We wanted the silver to have some time exposed to the air so it would oxidize a bit. How long? Unknown. As it turns out our onsite patinas expert had an itchy trigger finger and advised sealing before we really got to see some of the beautiful luster that time creates.

It's time, it's always time to reorganize and take stock which is how I came across some of my test work for the silver room. The sliver paper sample has been stored in one of my flat file drawers since 2006. Fortunately or unfortunately it has functioned as an unguided experiment in tarnishing. In this blog post I present several views of the silver paper under various lighting conditions. It's all so unscientifically controled but the point is you can see places of oxidation next to areas hardly tarnished. The untarnished areas had pieces of Plexiglas resting on them so presumably the pieces of Plexiglas blocked air flow and : no tarnish.

Why do we like the look of aged things? Or is that even the question? There's a mystery in this thing called time. We want it new, we want it old. Huh? Both at the same time? Something like that. I still want to create a project that uses this beautiful silver paper, let it tarnish and paint something referencing a much more recent time. Chinoiserie is fine but I want something closer to our lives today. I'm thinking Abstract Expressionism, Antoni Tàpies, J.M. Basquiat, Mad Men, Star, that sort of thing.

See you later Alligator.
After a While Crocodile

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

flowers.kitch.01

2010-07-25T09:30:00.001-07:00

flowers.kitch.01
Originally uploaded by scott_waterman

Flickr it, blog it, Facebook it, and get on with it.

Here in My Car

2010-07-20T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hi, major news. A door closed and another one opened. You know, the usual. (!) One of my projects was put in the deep freeze and the same day I unexpectedly sold a couple of paintings to my Hong Kong client (via BAMO). Tant pis and yay hurray! So recent events have kind of thrown me for a loop and here comes a blog post that seems like a total non sequitur but stay with me, ok? (And do follow my links, they're great.)

I've been casually looking for a new/new to me car. It's casual or maybe uninspired better describes my mood as I hunt for car. The more I look the sweeter my (current) ride looks. I drive a 1987 Dodge Ram Royal Minivan. Ever heard of such a thing? It's very prosaic in a lot of ways but it also quite unusual for it's exact model, age, and its artsy graffiti. It's an art car. (I once lived next door to a household of tagger punks hence my painted van.)

So I'm looking at all sorts of things and then I think to myself: what is my fantasy car? It comes to me instantly: a Citroen! My father insists it the ugliest car in the world and many agree. To me it looks like the future even at 37 years old. Before my van, (which I bought new in 1986), I drove a 1960 Mercedes 220 Sb, pistachio green. So actually moving on to an older car again has a certain kind of logic.

A very quick Google search tells me the car of my dreams is for sale! I'm not going to buy it but if I were a little more insane, insanely rich, and insanely fortunately to have a Citreon mechanic down the street I might buy it. OMG it's so wonderful. I'd float over L.A. traffic in that thing. That beautiful Venetian blinded thing of beauty! My friend, Paulin Paris has just decamped to Paris for a month. Perhaps I should tell him to take a picture of himself for a ride in a DS, just for the vicarious pleasure of it.

Now to prove my devotion to the Citroen I take you back to my (Adobe) Illustrator class where I made the Citroen my final project. I'm sure my project garnered an 'A". Go with your heart, right? Fast forward many years later and I unearth my Illustrator project and subject it to the Jasper Johns maxim: Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.. Actually first I had to render a digital file into object form. I created a transfer print on canvas and did something to it, etc. And the results are pictured. I love making constructions like this but even though it's a small piece working on a big painting seems to take up less room. So back to painting and I'll be back to painting in my next post. Be seeing you.

Island Romance

2010-07-09T08:09:00.001-07:00

A number of events coincided in 2003. My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and the family met at a beach house on Folly Island near Charleston. That was nice, relaxing, and low key. I do remember enjoying it but it was a little bit of calm before the storm as I was in the midst of preparing to move from Oakland to Los Angeles. And I was in the middle of a commission destine for another island just a bit south. The commission was for four paintings for a wedding. Hey, is that a movie?

Back at my studio in Oakland I worked as long as I could on the paintings but my packing job was pressing so I packed up the partially completed work and got on with the move to the Isle of L.A. Moving ranks high as one of the most stressful events in your life. Cumberland Island is a nature preserved, calm and serene. I think I captured that in my work despite the circumstances. My four paintings were used to decorate a tent as part of a wedding taking place on Cumberland. Some years before a rather famous wedding took place on Cumberland Island. It must be a romantic place. Have you been?

Ojai On The Fifth Of July

2010-07-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

I went back to Ojai today for a meeting with my fabulously fortunate clients who have to my mind what most anybody in the world would love to have. Their spread, a few acres just outside of town, could hardly be more lovely. There's a ramshackle house that has been completely rebuilt and is sited just above a rocky creek. There's a red barn and a couple of out buildings currently under construction to house guests. My part in all of this will be small but I feel privileged to be able to fantasize that this is mine and my friends and family have come to share it with me.

I'll update my blog with the work I do there when it has been realized. I hope it will be soon. Following it's completion I have an enormous commission for a mural on the other side of the country so I must get busy.

Oh, btw, since this is Ojai and Beatrice Wood is part of the local folklore the house came with a few example of her work, some tiles that bare her unmistakable stick figure gestures. You do know that that Beatrice Wood is pivotal in the introduction of modern art to America, don't you? If not follow my links.

Thank you so much my dear readers from near and far. I so appreciate your taking the time to visit my modest little blog.