Corbu's Cave

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Time and Space

That's me at the front door. A J. Neel Reid house.

I just flew low over Atlanta, (via Google Earth), trying to find a house I want to show you. It's a Neel Reid house. A brilliant classicist, Neel Reid, is well known to the landed gentry of Atlanta. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to paint a mural there in 1983 or was it 1984? Doesn't matter, the point is I've got some rather shocking images to show you! 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 so into the Brighton Pavilion. Of course you probably know the Pavilion was built by the Prince Regent whose father was mad King George. Atlanta loves, loves 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. If you're still interested I've got a few other posts about Atlanta:

Pompeiian Model

Trompe l'Oeil

Fox Theater

The Ponce

More here:

Neel Reid House

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

Friday, February 18, 2011

See Food

(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?

Saturday, February 12, 2011

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?

Friday, January 28, 2011

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?

Sunday, January 16, 2011

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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