Tis The Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.