Blogging 'Round the Globe

I'm touting a few blogs here, including a couple of my own "underground" blogs. ;-)  But no pushy-pushy expectations here or anything! ;-)

First stop: Give us This Day (our daily painting) is a blog, my blog, where I post a wide range of oil paintings and occasional watercolors by well and lesser-known painters, from ancient art to ultra-contemporary. A particular emphasis is placed on women painters. The posts are organized simply with the painter's name, dates and if known, the title of the work; as well as the genre or school or movement. I'm sure I'm not as correct as a real art historian in regard to the latter, but my three readers are welcome to correct me. I hope that if you like an image you see on This Day, you will do a little research on the artist and enjoy an art history moment on your own.

Give Us This Day is brought to you from Western Massachusetts, which makes it likely you will see photographs I've taken myself at favorite local museums. When photography is allowed, that is. I want to thank Linda of Vulture Peak Muse and Jerry of Grown Up Backwards for leaving their comments there on a regular basis. And a thanks to Jeff of Open Museum and toliwaga for following the blog and setting me straight on a recent error.

The other new blog I've been keeping sort of hidden is Chiseled. It is much newer than This Day, though similar in format. The differences are that, as its name implies, it is about sculpture. I also often post two or three images of a particular work or different works by a given artist, as I don't post there daily. I think I'm devoting about one post a week to it.

Second stop is at Forever Under Construction, authored by my Iranian blog and email pal,Homeyra. There is a lot to sink your teeth into there about peace, freedom, art and humanity.

I recently received this link from Homeyra, for a post on the work of Mona Shomali, an Iranian artist working in the U.S. I love her style - reminds me of Kirshner and Matisse all at once, but with an obvious female touch.

Mona Shomali

To Ben Heine in Belgium, I send a heartfelt congratulations on his engagement. Visit the Ben Heine site for lots of wonderful graphic art, painting, cartoons and photographs.

There is gentleman who comments here by the name of imac who blogs fantastic original photographs from his home in Lincolnshire, UK and from his travels with his lovely wife. And as he puts it "occasional insanity thrown in". Mac is a fun, happy person and a talented photographer.

Please trot on over and say hello! The world is smaller than you think!

Sky Watch Friday

Unfortunately, I did not have the good fortune to go to New Zealand and take these photographs myself. Lovely Step-daughter #1 vacationed there recently and shared her photos with us. And what gorgeous skies she captured!

I'm sorry to say I don't have information on exactly where these were taken. At least one of these is in Queensland.

And here is the traveler. Thanks, "Mar"!

For more photographs of skies international, visit the SkyWatch site.

Welcoming April and National Poetry Month

For mere "folk", the song lyrics here offer a lot to sink your teeth into. 

Joni Mitchell at her mature best. 

Enjoy.

Magdalene is trembling
Like a washing on a line
Trembling and gleaming
Never before was a man so kind
Never so redeeming

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Ecstasy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

I am up a sycamore
Looking through the leaves
A sinner of some position
Who in the world can this heart healer be
This magical physician

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Misery
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh, climb down, climb down he says to me
From the middle of unrest
They think is light is squandered
But he sees a stray in the wilderness
And I see how far I’ve wandered

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh, all around the marketplace
The buzzing of the flies
The buzzing and the stinging
Divinely barren
And wickedly wise
The killer nails are ringing

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Tragedy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

Artist of the Week: Louise Bourgeois b. 1911

" My emotions are disproportionate to my size. My emotions are my demons."

~ Louise Bourgeois

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE is a cinematic journey inside the world of a legend of modern art and an icon of feminism. Onscreen, the nonagenarian Louise Bourgeois is magnetic, mercurial and emotionally raw--an uncompromising artist whose life and work are imbued with her ongoing obsession with the mysteries of childhood. Her process is on full display in this intimate documentary, which features the artist in her studio and with her installations, shedding light on her intentions and inspirations. Louise Bourgeois has for six decades been at the forefront of successive new developments, but always on her own powerfully inventive and disquieting terms. In 1982, at the age of 71, she became the first woman to be honored with a major retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. In the decades since, she has created her most powerful and persuasive work, including her series of massive spider structures that have been installed around the world. Filmed with unparalleled access between 1993 and 2007, LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE is a comprehensive and dramatic documentary of creativity and revelation.

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE: Movie Trailer - Watch more top selected videos about: Movie_Trailers, Louise_Bourgeois:_The_Spider,_The_Mistress_And_The_Tangerine, Louise_Bourgeois, Marion_Cajori

Bourgeois interview

Louise Bourgeois:  An Intimate Look at a Provocateur

Spirals abound in Louise Bourgeois’s art. She says they make her think of control and freedom, and of strangling someone...

Spiral Woman
 

Louise with Spider IV, in 1996.

Bourgeois is best known for these sculptures and casts of giant spiders. There is a meaning in there. 

"My best friend was my mother.  She was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable and dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat and useful as a spider." 

 Modern and contemporary art sometimes takes knowing something about the artist. Bourgeois fascinates me:  both in her work and in her independent energy and spirit. I'm currently reading a book I picked up at the Williams museum store called The Runaway Girl. 

 Maman
Installed outside the Ottawa National Gallery

  "subtle", huh? hehehe  :-)

 Do You Love Me?

The Blind Leading the Blind

1947-49

wood construction and paint
" If I was to have a museum, I don't think I'd have any words on the wall at all. I want people to have a visual experience. I would show what I am working on now. "

 Spider Home

 This small sculpture is more fitting of the quote above and my favorite of the spiders Bourgeois created.

"...all my work in the past fifty years, all my subjects, have found their inspiration in my childhood.  My childhood never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama."
~LB

Blind Man's Buff

 Femme Maison, 1946-47
Louise Bourgeois: Between Body and Anti-Body 

The spiral is glass, this time, hanging from the ceiling of the Guggenheim in NYC.

I recently had the pleasure of photographing the nine piece installation depicted below, which decorates a parking island in front of the Williams College Museum of Art. All of the pieces are depicted in my photographs of the exhibition by clicking here. See this post for other photos of these sculpture series.

The following three photos are my own, taken a couple of years ago at the MoMA, NYC.

 Quarantania