Philanthropist

I hadn't known of Julius Rosenwald until today when I visited the Montclair Art Museum's exhibit, A Force for Change, which features work by the recipients of the grants provided by him during the 20's, 30's and 40's.



The Rosenwald Fellows, all from the south and mostly (but not all) African-American could be compared to today's McArthur fellows. The grants were just one thousand dollars, but that amount went a long way toward allowing artists the freedom to work and study without financial pressure.

No photos were allowed but I also enjoyed seeing the work being done by children in the summer art camp downstairs. Much of it was based on or inspired by the Rosenwald Fellows' work.

Here, for example, (from the catalog), is a clay head by William Ellsworth Artis:



And here's the childrens' work:























And here's more of what the kids have been doing. Good stuff!

Oh dear

You can see how parched the garden is after the drought and heat wave.


But look again:


Bambi begone! And where'd you come from anyhow???

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Tool libraries

One of my many favorite blogs is the Tiny House Blog which celebrates tiny hand-made houses.

Today's post describes the building of this roughly cylindrical wooden "prairie schooner" on wheels, built by amateurs for under $2000 in under four months. What particularly got my attention was the mention that all the tools were borrowed from a local "tool library".

What a great idea! I googled "tool library" right away only to learn, sadly, that I live in a state that doesn't have such a thing. I guess my homebuilding days will have to wait.

The Meadowlands

Current read. Brilliant writing, subject so close-to-home familiar yet so exotic. First sentence sucks you in as he describes boarding a Secaucus-bound bus at Port Authority equipped as for a wilderness hike.





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Paper sculpture

Captivated this morning by the sprawling organic paper sculpture in the Amthropologie windows:













Later I get an email promoting a show at the New York Studio School:




Synchronicity I guess.


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Uncle!

It's going to be 104 today, so i hear. Guess it's finally time to give up and turn on the AC. But why is it that setting the thermostat at 80 feels normal and comfortable? If I turned the heat up to 80 in the winter I'd be roasting! For winter, 67 or 68 feels about right. But if I were to turn the AC down that low right now I'd be freezing to death.







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More

Getting much more control now. Understanding how to use layers and opacities and manipulate the various "brush" types. Addictive!

Brushes again

Well it's not that easy. But i had to try. And I'm starting to get the hang of it. Like any software program you just have to buckle down and figure it out. So that's what I've been doing. Baby steps. Practice!

Supposedly Hockney did lots of his paintings before he got out of bed in the morning. So I tried that.



The dark vertical is the bedpost. I think i may erase it. Or maybe just lighten it up Easy to do.

Later I went and sat in McDonalds and did some quick sketches of people. One of the virtues of phone-sketching is that nobody knows you're doing it. It looks as if you're checking your email. I like that.











I don't have a link handy but on the New Yorker website there is a weekly fingerpainting blog by Jorge Columbo, including little videos of the process, which is a part of the software. They seem to me to be more magical than instructional. Worth a look.

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Brushes

Boy am I ever late to the party. First of all I just started reading The Economist - my new favorite magazine for news and current events. It was on their website that I read about how David Hockney - one of my all-time favorite artists - had been "painting" with an iPhone.


He has since moved on to the iPad. This is all old news to the rest of the world, but it inspired me to download the Brushes app (he preferred the simpler original version) to see what it was all about.

It's a virtual cult. There's a special Brushes section on Flickr. At leat two New Yorker covers were created with it. Where have I been?


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