Enchanted Forrest

The Enchanted Forest
Jackson Pollock 1947 

Kia..what?  It had been a while since I’d created a commission for the interior designer, Amelia Handegan, and as if to make up for lost time this was a big one, a large mural and several paintings for the River Course Country Club on Kiawah Island. 

Four panels from my Kiawah mural

19th c. Japanese folding screen

My original rough sketch ready to be faxed.

First version watercolor rendering for mural.

Second version watercolor rendering for mural.

It was a short cold winter day ending in that kind of absolute darkness you only experience far from light pollution, the night lights of city living that I’m so accustomed to.  All the roads were lonely, mostly deserted, so I had no choice but to trust the directions that sent me further into oblivion. By the time my rental car reached the Island I was practically giddy with anxiety. But a beautiful cottage, stocked with food, cozy and inviting, restored me after my transcontinental flight and ramble in the car. I was here in the low country to meet Amelia and Leonard Long, the developer, to find out what they had in mind, to pass muster, and to make a proposal on the spot. All went well and I was sent back to my California studio to create.

Above: various views of one side of my mural installed.

 “Just get it up, get it up!” If memory serves that’s what Amelia told the installers when she saw my mural unrolled. If it’s on the wall she reasoned there’d be no turning back. The developers wouldn’t be able to reject my work as she felt they might. Too radical? Not country club enough? Probably. I’m not sure. Anyway, not only am I not a landscape painter but my background is purely fine art/ art school, no special training in painting technique. The work is essential made up of abstract expressionist gestural painting mark making and washes. Who does that? Well, a lot of people, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, even traditional Japanese brush and ink painting but not the sort of thing you see in local South Carolina artist where grass always means green and the sky is sky blue. That’s exactly what they got for the additional paintings, not part of my commission as it turned out.

A professional shot looking straight down the hall,

my mural on either side.

Above: view of the mural on the opposite wall,

including details for comparison to the Ab Ex's.

Helen Frankenthaler, Barometer, 1992

Painted in 2006 by 2010 all went up in smoke. Well no, they saved the blue and green paintings but my mural and the structure: a total loss.  Looking back over the photos my work still looks good to me and it lead to a number of other commissions. The project nurtured my intuitive sense of Wabi-sabi, to trust my instincts, and let go on a big scale. The wild low country landscape is part of my DNA at this point, a metaphor for much in life, our lack of control in the grand scheme of things: Nature with a capitol N as Frank Lloyd Wright was fond of saying.

The finished clubhouse above and the beautiful disaster below.

A couple of my reference photos, the imagery that became my mural.

Well you do enough talk

My little hawk, why do you cry?

Tell me what did you learn from the Tillamook burn?

Or the Fourth of July?

We’re all gonna die

We're all gonna die

-Sufjan Stevens

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.

People Who Need People

Detail of one of my paintings.

    

Rizzoli pays tribute to Charleston’s own Amelia Handegan with a monograph due out next year. Finally!  Amelia’s been quietly practicing her craft in this small, relatively isolated yet beautiful, historic, town for decades. She’s caught the eye of the local cognoscenti and beyond, still, I expect this exposure will bring a greater audience into the know for a level of recognition her work so richly deserves.

An early dummy copy of the book. 

Blushing pink vignette in Amelia's office.

Typical eclectic mix in the office.

Photos showing the lofty nature of the space and the two antique panels I copied.

Over the years I’ve worked with her on a number of projects and she’s called upon me to create and stretch as an artist which in itself is quite gratifying. I snapped some pictures in her office which is a good representation of her aesthetic, rich yet un-fussy. 

The copies I made of the American primitive panels.

Details of "panel one".

Details of "panel two" I don;t know which one is nuttier but they both have that kind of joyous exuberance found in the best primitive paintings.

In Amelia's studio/office/showroom there is a couple of 19^th c. panels that she had me copy for a project a few years ago. That project was published in a magazine but didn’t include shots of my work so I’m presenting it here. My preference is to show my work in context which in this case I can’t do so I’m doing the next best thing by showing the originals hanging on Amelia’s walls and the copies I made in my studio with details. Enjoy.