Book Report 2

Amelia Handegan Rooms, arrived in a gift box.

It has recently come to my attention that I am published, again.  Look, it’s a selection of my painted commissions for your perusal in not one but two more Rizzoli publications. I say two more because I was first published by Rizzoli in the late 80s. However, this is now and Windsor Smith and Amelia Handegan both got book deals for 2016 and I am there and you are here and we are all together. So let’s take a look shall we?

The cover shows her own place.

The chapter heading for Birdsong reproduces my sketch.

This is my sketched, reversed and off color in the book,

A spread from Rooms showing  a part of my mural.

Birdsong, the house and its hallway covered in my mural.

Also seen in Rooms this painting I copied from an anonymous 19th c work.

I’ve probably done enough work for Amelia since 1988 to warrant a book unto itself but Amelia Handegan Rooms is about her work, beautiful work. I’ve done a number of large scale murals for her interiors and it’s always kind of thrill just to be able to make a painting so large, forty feet wide for instance and that was just one panel out of four. In "Rooms" you see glimpses of that mural project, (for a house called Birdsong);  a sliver of painted panels I did for Amelia’s own foyer; and a copy I made of a 19^th c. hand painted wallpaper for one of her clients .

The cover of Windsor's book hints at my silver leaf painting inside.

The top photo is from the book, the other two are mine.
Clearly the colors change significantly based on what the silver reflects.

Fyi the drawing for the wall painting seen above.

Another page from Windsor's book, same room, opposite end.

The Windsor Smith book, Windsor Smith Homefront Design for Modern Living, came out earlier in the year. There’s just one project of mine in the book, I’ve only done one project for Windsor but it’s a doozy and it ended up in Architectural Digest. It’s another unique opportunity for me, painting on silver, and painting an entire room in Chinoiserie. Oh and there’s a perverse thrill in hanging with a Picasso, rather a Picasso hangs on top of my painting.

What’s next? Tell me.

That's me standing before a stretched canvas for my current project.

Addendum:

Do you want to see my other book report? Follow this link- My first book report.

Orlando

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!

Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall.

All ya gotta do is call. If you're old enough or broad based enough to know the song I'm referring to then fine but this blog post really is about the seasons. Here in the northern hemisphere we're entering Spring but I can't forget readers in the southern hemisphere because they're starting Fall. So I've selected a project of mine that reflects the season no matter where you are. Impossible? No really, I've done it and you don't even have to get out of bed. Actually I'd prefer you get into bed. But first a word from our sponsor: Jean de Merry.


One winter I painted a flowering plum branch used in a print ad for Jean de Merry. They make furniture with an moderne/deco sort of vibe. Some how a flowering plumb branch seems to go with that. What doesn't it go with? Anyway, it was a fun photo shoot with a French stylist, yummy French catering, and a hunky model. So Christian Maroselli and Jean-Claude de Merry partners in Jean de Merry the company are the sponsors I'm referring to. Although, it's really just tongue in cheek because they had nothing to do with the real reason for this post, the four seasons bed.





One of the last projects I completed before leaving San Francisco was for an Episcopal priest who also happened to be a Chinese scholar. He was specifically interested in Chinese art history and had some beautiful scroll paintings among his treasures. It was kind of wonderful be able to examine his collection which might otherwise be in a museum but at a certain point it became a distraction from the commission he had in mind for me. A small daybed with a canopy had long since lost it's soft decorative feature and it was up to me to come up with a replacement. What I decided upon was a set of four images instead of just one so that the bed could change with the seasons.






The flowering plumb is for Winter, lotus for Spring, bamboo for Summer, and the pine symbolizes Fall. It's funny to think of but I wasn't so excited about the job when I took it. In the end I was rather happy with it. I think it's so pleasant to be able to lie down and gaze up at the paintings. I couldn't tell you the dynasty or school or whatever, they just beautiful images. I had to let all of that art history go because the images and the symbols just work.














The idea of symbolic imagery in painting reminds me of the beautiful chinoiserie in the HBO movie about Grey Gardens. Did you happen to catch it? When the music teacher realizes he must leave Grey Gardens you see a painted bird taking flight right next to him. And then there's a scene where Big Edie has been left all alone and she's on the phone trying to convince Little Edie to come back home. Meanwhile over her shoulder in the chinoiserie is a bird in a cage. Isn't that brilliant? Want some symbolic painting in your life? All ya gotta do is call and I'll be there. Yes I will.
Or just leave a comment, that'd be nice.