Extra Texture

David Ireland

I've just returned from a trip to Charleston and Wadmalaw Island. For the first time I was able to visit my mural installed at the Branford-Horry House (built c. 1755-ish) and I oversaw the installation of a rather large work of mine on Wadmalaw, (just completed November 2010), but I'll explore those projects in later posts. Here I want to delve into the texture of the Aiken-Rhett House, a place I visited in the late afternoon of my last day in town.

Throughout my stay I was rather engaged with the installation of my mural, making the trek out to Wadmalaw every day and wondering if I was going to see much of Charleston, the inside of it anyway. I know of and have previously visited a number of house museums in and around Charleston but there was that one that stood out in my mind. "I want to go to that run down one" I told people. Oh yes, they knew it but it was up to me to finally figure out it was the Aiken-Rhett which fortunately was just a few blocks from my hotel.

Brilliant golden autumn light and hardly anyone around to bother me. So it was a magical visit to a house that Antoni Tapies and David Ireland could only dream of.

Antoni Tapies

No photography allowed so being the artist scofflaw I am set my digital camera to silent and snapped away. The place is so thrilling to me, absolutely thrilling.

To be turned loose with a little self guided audio tour and each room I entered all to myself: I love this house! Tell me why do suppose that is?


Furthermore:

I found some wonderful photos on the Library of Congress website.
There are a couple of excellent blog posts at a great site I just found called The Architecturalist.
And Glenn Keyes Architects had a hand in the preservation of the house. More about that firm later.

The Standard Painting

I have to admit I love that title because while it's perfectly true it sounds perversely arrogant. In some ways the painting does fit a standard, a standard landscape for L.A. There's a bit of trickery, some pumped up color, mirroring, and mandalas but isn't that sort of what you might expect from La La Land? The vast majority of Angelenos live in the flats of this big flat plane where any object of height becomes a beautiful silhouette in the magic hour while the sun sets.

My project forThe Standard Hotel was actually  more than just a painting and like most of  my work that is designed to fit a space there was a bit of planning involved: some preliminary sketches and a maquette. As usual I had more ideas than were needed. The end result culled a picture from my archives adapted to fit the  circumstances. In this case the format was (for me) unusually narrowing and wide but it inspired me the way Hollywood was inspired to invent the widescreen motion picture.

I chose a silhouetted landscape that I flipped and book matched to satisfy the proportion of the "box" at The Standard. I guess the box might also be considered a sort of cage because at night when the whole lobby of the hotel becomes a seductively lit lounge the box has a girl in it. I know. It's like some throw back to the girl in a go-go cage. Weird. The way I addressed that situation was to "peel" a layer off my painting and repeat it on the window at the front of the box. It seemed a perfectly reasonable and comprehensible idea to me but I had some convincing to do so I made a small scale model, a maquette.

What I did was to encase the girl within the imagery of my painting. It wasn't my primary intention. I simply wanted to take advantage of the space. Even without the girl in the box the effect of repeating the silhouetted image on the front plane activated the painting especially as the viewer maintains eye contact with the work while moving toward it, away from it, or side to side. If I could show you a little video that would help. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm giving you multiple views including what I first saw. It's a nice lobby but I really thought about creating something that would draw you in, draw you right up to the reception desk where presumably you cross the conceptual threshold into another world.

You can see the painting more clearly in my studio but I do enjoy the combination of the painting and the printed plastic with the reception box. To me it's sort of perfect in its own way. Alas the set up only lasted for a few weeks. My painting came down and the silhouetted plastic was scraped off and discarded. That's so L.A. in a way. Make way for the new. Next.

Acknowledgements:

Sarah Jane Bruce was the go between. She made the arrangements with the powers that be at The Standard.

Joanna Burke introduced me to Sarah Jane.

Nieuwe and Oude

Look. Aren't we constantly looking for the new? I mean aren't we constantly looking at the old? Yes.

Just about this time of year, late in the twentieth century I was in Amsterdam, so old and so new. I'm always impressed how Europeans, those people living in what some here in the U.S. refer to as "Old World" manage to keep it fresh and contemporary. Witness my little blog post on the stenciled walls of the Oude Kirk and the Tropenmuseum: a study in contrast.

Please come right in and straight up the impossibly steep stairs. I'm pouring you another glass of one of those delicious Dutch beers and inviting you to gaze out the window of my temporary digs in a 17th century Dutch canal house. There right across the Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal is the Old Church, the Oude Kirk, the oldest building in Amsterdam.

"Our" front door

View of Oude Kirk

OK let's go back downstairs across the canal and to the church. It's a short walk. Step inside where it's rather dark and a bit cold which is apparently just what some creative parishioners thought and so they stenciled warm and bright patterns here and there.

So that's some of the old painting in Amsterdam. Get on your rickedy old bike and let's go over the the Tropenmuseum for some nieuwe.

Now would you do me a favor and stop using "Old World" in conversation or anywhere else. I sort of loathe that term. It's so meaningless. Do you see my point?

Be seeing you!

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?