Meeting Street

Hello Blog Readers!

(Please click on photos to enlarge.)

Did I ever tell you about the work I did at The Planter's Inn? It was long ago, 1999 or so. I painted a mural for the bar. The bar may have a name but I don't know it. I do know the name of the restaurant adjoining. It's The Peninsula Grill and I have some work there as well, two of my mirror pieces. You can see part of one of those on the Planter's Inn website but I'm including my own photos of the mural because I happen to have a few, though not especially good ones. (Position your mouse/cursor over the small picture above and click for a larger version.)

Charleston, S.C. is the peninsula/city in reference. That's where bar, restaurant, and Inn are. I'm thinking of Charleston because I'm currently working on another mural that's going to be installed there, well near there. I'll blog about that later. So back to Charleston, you should go. Great historic architecture and lot's of tasty places to eat. If you don't want to splurge for the Peninsula Grill you might try Hank's Seafood. I've been there a few times I think. I met Harry Connick Junior there and he bought me dinner! OK, it wasn't just he and I. It was probably a table of eight or so and I was there because it's the location of another of my Charleston murals, a frieze. Amelia Handegan designed the interiors for the Grill and Hank's and she was starting a project with Harry. I was just along for the ride but I do remember Harry vividly. Really sort of wild and boisterous as if he were drunk but he doesn't drink. And yes he liked my painting too.

What do you think?

Update

I've been to the bar since I posted this entry and took some more photos which I've added below:

These new shots give a truer account of the atmosphere.
OK, one more drink then let's think about dinner.

The painted wall from caves to le Corbusier

I started a blog that started the whole blog-world crying. Boo Hoo! No, not really but for some reason people were confused in my last blogpost. Do ya think it was because my pictures didn't match my words?  I mentioned that I created a PowerPoint presentation and instead of showing the contents of that PowerPoint presentation I put up some of my collages which I assumed no one would mistake for the kind of thing typically associated with PowerPoint. Apparently some readers took my collages for my PP presentation. And why not? They could have been. So the joke's on me.

La Grotte Chauvet, discovered in 1994.

David Byrne has used PP for his own ironic take on corporate salesmanship so anything goes in PP. But no, my presentation was given at a big design firm in their cool modern office and I was there to let the designers know how my work could fit into their projects: boutique hotels and high end residential projects world wide. I also wanted to give them some background on the use of paintings (murals) in interiors so I used the idea behind my blog which suggests that every interior from caves to modernism (and beyond) is an appropriate setting.

La Grotte Chauvet, N 44° 21' and E 4° 29' 24".

La Grotte Chauvet, c. 28,000–23,000 BP

Just for a little shock value I included a picture of le Corbusier painting in the nude. I love this shot. He looks a bit confused, (as if he read my last post), and he's sporting that gorgeous scar from a shark bite or motor boat propeller. Which is it? And of course I showed some beautiful images of french cave paintings, as beautiful and mysterious as ever.

Now look how the ancient cave painting seems a kin to Corbu's mural. That just blows my mind. I mean the cave works are 17,000 years old. Oh well, they were discovered in 1940. It's quite possible Corbu saw them and referenced the memory.  Btw the modern painting happens to be le Corbsuier's only mural in the U.S. It's at the (once) home of Ruth and Constantino Nivola in Springs. Corbu stayed there while working on the design of the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan.

Next: We'll go beyond!

Power Point

Here's a first:





I recently put together a Power Point Presentation and delivered it to one of the top design firms. I wasn't about to get into fades and dissolves, background music, and what have you.




For the meeting I also brought a number of my paintings on paper. I had notes for all the images I showed.




It was a mixture of my work and historical examples for context. For me it was a perfectly natural blend because it's all the sort of thing I keep in my head anyway. The notes were dates, some names, and other facts I didn't memorize and as it turns out I didn't use.




Did I hear crickets chirping? Almost. I was nervous and yet too busy to be nervous. It was kind of an out of body experience.





The premise of my talk was borrowed from this blog, Corbu's Cave. I showed pictures of le Corbusier, nude even. There are probably enough notes and images from my presentation for at least three blog entries. So what's the point of me showing more of my collages instead? Not sure but I have the power to do whatever I want. Power Point or is it the power to have no point?

Orlando

Orlando

I'm referring to Virginia Woolf and her novel of that name. In the book the protagonist, Orlando, defies time and has a miraculous sex change. It's the time travel I'm thinking about.






To be here to be now at last I am free
at last at last to be free of the past
and all the future that beckons me








2006 I painted the silver leafed room in Bel Air. The original plan called for a time-out before my painted work was sealed. We wanted the silver to have some time exposed to the air so it would oxidize a bit. How long? Unknown. As it turns out our onsite patinas expert had an itchy trigger finger and advised sealing before we really got to see some of the beautiful luster that time creates.








It's time, it's always time to reorganize and take stock which is how I came across some of my test work for the silver room. The sliver paper sample has been stored in one of my flat file drawers since 2006. Fortunately or unfortunately it has functioned as an unguided experiment in tarnishing. In this blog post I present several views of the silver paper under various lighting conditions. It's all so unscientifically controled but the point is you can see places of oxidation next to areas hardly tarnished. The untarnished areas had pieces of Plexiglas resting on them so presumably the pieces of Plexiglas blocked air flow and : no tarnish.








Why do we like the look of aged things? Or is that even the question? There's a mystery in this thing called time. We want it new, we want it old. Huh? Both at the same time? Something like that. I still want to create a project that uses this beautiful silver paper, let it tarnish and paint something referencing a much more recent time. Chinoiserie is fine but I want something closer to our lives today. I'm thinking Abstract Expressionism, Antoni Tàpies, J.M. Basquiat, Mad Men, Star, that sort of thing.





See you later Alligator.
After a While Crocodile

Click on Tumblr for more pictures of this and other projects. Thanks!

flowers.kitch.01

flowers.kitch.01
Originally uploaded by scott_waterman

Flickr it, blog it, Facebook it, and get on with it.

Here in My Car

Hi, major news. A door closed and another one opened. You know, the usual. (!) One of my projects was put in the deep freeze and the same day I unexpectedly sold a couple of paintings to my Hong Kong client (via BAMO). Tant pis and yay hurray! So recent events have kind of thrown me for a loop and here comes a blog post that seems like a total non sequitur but stay with me, ok? (And do follow my links, they're great.)

I've been casually looking for a new/new to me car. It's casual or maybe uninspired better describes my mood as I hunt for car. The more I look the sweeter my (current) ride looks. I drive a 1987 Dodge Ram Royal Minivan. Ever heard of such a thing? It's very prosaic in a lot of ways but it also quite unusual for it's exact model, age, and its artsy graffiti. It's an art car. (I once lived next door to a household of tagger punks hence my painted van.)

So I'm looking at all sorts of things and then I think to myself: what is my fantasy car? It comes to me instantly: a Citroen! My father insists it the ugliest car in the world and many agree. To me it looks like the future even at 37 years old. Before my van, (which I bought new in 1986), I drove a 1960 Mercedes 220 Sb, pistachio green. So actually moving on to an older car again has a certain kind of logic.








A very quick Google search tells me the car of my dreams is for sale! I'm not going to buy it but if I were a little more insane, insanely rich, and insanely fortunately to have a Citreon mechanic down the street I might buy it. OMG it's so wonderful. I'd float over L.A. traffic in that thing. That beautiful Venetian blinded thing of beauty! My friend, Paulin Paris has just decamped to Paris for a month. Perhaps I should tell him to take a picture of himself for a ride in a DS, just for the vicarious pleasure of it.






Now to prove my devotion to the Citroen I take you back to my (Adobe) Illustrator class where I made the Citroen my final project. I'm sure my project garnered an 'A". Go with your heart, right? Fast forward many years later and I unearth my Illustrator project and subject it to the Jasper Johns maxim: Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.. Actually first I had to render a digital file into object form. I created a transfer print on canvas and did something to it, etc. And the results are pictured. I love making constructions like this but even though it's a small piece working on a big painting seems to take up less room. So back to painting and I'll be back to painting in my next post. Be seeing you.

Island Romance

A number of events coincided in 2003. My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and the family met at a beach house on Folly Island near Charleston. That was nice, relaxing, and low key. I do remember enjoying it but it was a little bit of calm before the storm as I was in the midst of preparing to move from Oakland to Los Angeles. And I was in the middle of a commission destine for another island just a bit south. The commission was for four paintings for a wedding. Hey, is that a movie?







Back at my studio in Oakland I worked as long as I could on the paintings but my packing job was pressing so I packed up the partially completed work and got on with the move to the Isle of L.A. Moving ranks high as one of the most stressful events in your life. Cumberland Island is a nature preserved, calm and serene. I think I captured that in my work despite the circumstances. My four paintings were used to decorate a tent as part of a wedding taking place on Cumberland. Some years before a rather famous wedding took place on Cumberland Island. It must be a romantic place. Have you been?