artHound

There are some days that simply define summer, and Monday was one them. This made it the perfect day for a small road trip to Millersburg, Ohio. The drive through Holmes county was a reminder of just how beautiful the rural Ohio landscape is.

The reason for the outing: to pick up a small Kelsey Excelsior platen press. It appears to be in good working order, albeit a bit grimy. At present there isn’t much time to devote to its rehab, but parking it on the cutting board should be motivation enough to have it cleaned up and moved to the studio by Thanksgiving.

Shouldn’t every kitchen have a tabletop letterpress?

Last night the enticing fragrance wafting in from the solarium indicated that the epiphyllum finally bloomed. Even a single blossom on this plant is worth staying up for: the flower is stunning, the scent is ethereal and the show only lasts one night.

Watercolor is the medium of choice to capture the delicacy of this flower.

The deadline for photographs for the 2009 Daily Drool Calendar is imminent and the hounds just don’t seem to care. The usual snapshot is a big, black nose looming in front of the lens. Only the promise of a treat enticed them both into the picture frame. . . with Thurber licking his chops!

Yours, Mine and Theirs - High Stakes Portraiture opened at Summit Artspace Friday evening with over two hundred people in attendance. Many stopped in to meet the four artists and view the collection of paintings and photographs they have created since submitting their proposal last year. The artists, Stephen Csejtey, Sean Berrodin, Patrick Dougherty and John Smolko, teach art in northeast Ohio high schools. The student models were from their own classes and from each other’s in an exploration of the question: “Is the artist’s ability to capture the essence of the sitter influenced by his familiarity to the sitter or is being able to quickly relate and respond to an individual inherent to being an artist?”

The insect in Illusion/Desire/Possession isn’t exactly the scarab from Edgar Allen Poe’s tale of buried treasure, but it does suggest that famous gold bug. The inspiration for this monotype is the golden tortoise beetle, the elusive little bug with a taste for bindweed and related vines. Undisturbed, it appears as a drop of molten gold, surprising to see and beckoning to be held. Touch the leaf or disturb the plant, though, and it morphs into a nondescript, plain version of a ladybug. A chance encounter with these curious insects on a sweet potato vine evoked multiple metaphors including the illusion of want/desire and the reality of achieving/possessing. Pretty heavy stuff from the critter eating holes in the leaves!

The phrasing is from William Legrand speaking about his presentiment of impending good fortune in Poe’s The Gold Bug: “I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief. . .”

Illusion/Desire/Possession was recently exhibited in the Artists of Rubber City 18th Annual Juried Show.

Rather than spend yet another dormant winter, this over-achieving rose must have been plotting its ascent to the top and its reappearance as a delightful overhead bouquet.

Simple enough. . . Tuesday tag from Shirley requested a six word memoir title and included four steps:  

1. Write the title to your own memoir using 6 words.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who tagged you.
4. Tag 5 more blogs.

Took two days to realize the obvious:

. . . let me give it some thought. . .

Perfect! Artwork to accompany it? Hmm. . . I’ll have to think about that. . .

It must be nice to just stand around looking all green and statuesque while others do all the work. The West Hill Neighborhood Organization has been busy with preparations for Green with Envy : a tour of city gardens which will be held this Saturday in the West Hill/Highland Square area of Akron. Eight incredible urban spaces will be open to the public. There will be a bit of art, too: one site is an artist’s garden and two will feature guest artists. Jean Powell has been creating casts of leaves in a variety of sizes and colors. Ammy Milec’s creations, Stoned Heads by Ammy, will be making an appearance, too!

A selection of new little prints and/or an excuse to play with ink:

May, June and August

Arctic, Sunshiny and Rain

This Thursday evening the Akron Art Museum’s Film Series will feature Helvetica, produced/directed by Gary Hustwit in 2007 just in time for the ubiquitous typefaces’s fiftieth birthday. Hustwit brings a lot to the party, with a guest list that includes passionate, opinionated type designers (read ‘characters’) and a chronology that demonstrates the magnitude of the effect the sans serif lettering style had on society (read ‘consumers’). Relationships, politics, fashion and corporate culture all come into play, with amazing results.

Helvetica has become part of our environment - a constant presence in the world of print, noticeable only when it’s absent. That could be one of the reasons that the pages from ABC of Lettering by Carl Holmes have the look of another era. In this folio (circa 1940s?) from the bookshelf of late artist, Claire Cressler, the most modern typeface is Gothic, “adaptable to every type of sentiment from the merely blatant barter and trade to the highest and most sublime poetical aspiration.” One wonders how Mr. Holmes would have described Helvetica.