Is That All There Is?

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

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

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

Please stand by.

Thank you.

Thomas Wright: An Original Theory or A New Hypothesis of the Universe.
London 1750

Scott Waterman

Walking On Thin Ice

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

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