A Walk in the Park

Me and my shadows, a mural of Central Park, studio view.

A Walk in the Park

I flew round trip LA to NYC recently and watched on the plane:  Arrival, yet another Amy Adams movie. Trippy. The movie was trippy. I guess my trip was trippy by default and like the story told in the movie I experienced time in something other than a strictly linear manner. It’s Spring as I write this. The seasons turned to Spring while I was in NY but it was a wintry Spring, mostly.

My photo collages for the mural composition. Gallery, top and stairwell bottom

The paper model I made to keep everything straight in my head and on the canvases.

Last winter I completed a mural for an apartment on Central Park South. The subject matter is contextual, it’s the Park. The mural consists of eight panels that line the entry gallery and stairwell. The compositions are the direct result of a walk in the park lead by a knowledgeable guide from the Central Park Conservancy. I had a certain criterion for the trek. I needed a number of views across water to get enough panoramic width to satisfy the area I had to cover. Then I needed height for the stairwell itself and came up with a grotto motif for under the stairs. If you know Central Park you can pick out specific identifiers in the mural that are unmistakable and this was another directive to satisfy.

First view upon entering, the Lake in front of Bethesda Terrace.

Above:Entering, turning to one's right and seeing all gallery panels of the mural.

Above: ascending the stairs up to the 21st floor level.

This apartment on the Park is not ostentatious, really. The area of the mural is relatively intimate so it was decided the painting should be sophisticated, urbane, yet low key. The palette is grisaille but actually consists of color washes created from three distinct hues, a warm, a cool, and a neutral. The value range is so narrow that at times the composition seems to vaporize before your eyes much like the space craft in Arrival. Have I come to the realization that it’s more important knowing what to leave out of a painting? What do you think? Is there anything there, really?

The distinctive green roof makes the apartment building easy to spot.

Have we Met?

How tiresome! The front stairs are all closed off and the fifth avenue facade looks like a construction zone with tent poles. Must be some stuffy little socialite affair. Actually, turns out it was a set-up for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art 2015 Gala , ho hum. No, I was not invited.  And I hadn’t planned another trip to see still more FLW ,(please see last blog post),but, oh well, since I’m in might as well. BTW I’m about half way through Frank Lloyd Wright: a biography by Meryle Secrest. Read about the axe murders and fire just before going to sleep last night. Actually, no, I didn’t sleep, well hardly.

So let us get into some really dreamy imagery. That would include most everything in the Sultans of India, 1500-1700 Opulence and Fantasy. Although, does shooting a disembodied head with a bow arrow count as a dream? Whatever, I couldn’t help staring at this odd little cosmos. Then I’ll take you over to the other end of the building, the American wing, for some Louis Sullivan and his offspring FLW. Let’s stop in a wee cozy gallery to see a charming collection of Robert Motherwell prints and circle back around to gaze upon an awesome Japanese room and end up contemplating Cleopatra’s Needle in the springtime. Done and done.

Detail of Sullivan staircase. Gorgeous, no?

Comfy. I think I could be very happy here.

Is there anything more beautiful in the whole museum than this?

Oh, there’s more of course. I went to the Met two days in a row, filled up a memory card, but that wasn’t even the reason for my trip. It was spring. Isn’t that enough of a reason? No? I’m teasing. Actually the point was nutmeg, I mean the Nutmeg State.

Motherwell, champion of the Abstract Expressionist.

A long way form Egypt.

Springtime in New York. Someone should write a song about it.

We’ll get there. We’ll get there.