All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✭ Here's a little something to help us all learn how to draw:


How to draw a simple bird from Marion Deuchars on Vimeo.

The drawings are from illustrator Marion Deuchars's Let's Make Some Great Art.

Marion Deuchars Portfolio at Apt Studio

✭ Last month, the Walker Art Center's blog featured process photos and explanatory text for London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga's woven tapestry Lost Forty, part of the exhibit: "Goshka Macuga: It Broke from Within". What makes this such a fascinating post is its description of the use of Photoshop in the extraordinary art-making. Read "Compositing Goshka Macug's Lost Forty Tapestry (A Guide for Photoshop Geeks). A related, and another very good post, is here.

Exhibition Discussion (Video; Macuga discusses her concept, materials, and process.)

Goshka Macuga in Conversation with Curators Peter Eleey and Bartholomew Ryan (Video)

Goshka Macuga on FaceBook

✭ The archives of the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery include a "squeeze" collection. As this interesting post explains, "A squeeze is a series of sheets of paper that are layered on top of each other and moistened to create a wet pulp. This substance is pressed upon the inscriptions of ancient monuments, creating a paper mold and capturing the impressionistic writing for a 3-dimensional negative effect." Learn more about the Squeeze Imaging Project, and the collection that is "the largest outside of Iran and Iraq". 

"3d Imaging to Unlock Ancient Mysteries"

✭ What's the next best thing for a painter who can't afford canvas? Apparently, marshmallows. Let no one tell you art isn't fun.

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ New York City's Museum of Biblical Art is showing through October 16 "On Eagles' Wings: The King James Bible Turns 400". In addition to presenting the historical context for the translation and publication of the King James Bible, the exhibition features a series of paintings by International Arts Movement founder, contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura. Crossway Publishers commissioned Fujimura to design and illustrate an English Standard Version of the Bible to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible's publication. Fujimura created five large paintings of the Four Holy Gospels and a series of smaller artworks for each of the Gospels' chapters. He uses water-based Nihonga ("Japanese-style paintings") materials. This video introduces Fujimura's commission and shows some of his exquisite work.

Makoto Fujimura - The Art of "The Four Holy Gospels" from Crossway on Vimeo.

Gallery for The Four Gospels Frontispieces

MOBIA on FaceBook and Twitter

The Four Holy Gospels at Crossway Publishers

Barrymore Laurence Sherer, "Four Centuries of Love and Suffering for the Word", Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2011

✭ For those of you lucky enough to be in Europe, Edinburgh International Festival, which opened last week, continues through September 4. The festival presents performances in opera, dance, music, and theatre; showcases visual arts, among them the exhibition "Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields and Photogenic Drawings", inspired by the techniques of 19th Century photographer Henry Fox Talbot; and includes artist talks and workshops. The spotlight this year is on Asia's cultures, with artists from China, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam featured.

Browse Interactive Brochure

Festival Videos

Edinburgh International Festival on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✭ The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts opens "Reflections of the Buddha" on September 9; the first loan exhibition of Pan-Asian Buddhist art in St. Louis, the show, which will continue through March 10, 2012, features more than 20 masterpieces from seven important American collections, including those of the Asia Society in New York City, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The artworks date from the 2nd Century CE and, in addition to hanging scrolls, include sculptures from Afghanistan, China, Korea, India, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Tibet.

PFA Blog

✭ The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, is showing through November 13 "Heavens: Photographs of the Sky & Cosmos". 

Mark Klett, Six Quarter Moons, 2005

Split-Toned Gelatin Silver Print, Ed. 12/20

Sheet 7-1/4" x 9"

Gift of Hall Family Foundation, 2010.18.14

NAMA on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Collaborative Works of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe

Mark Klett in Museum of Contemporary Photography

✭ "The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States" remains on view until August 27 at the Art Museum of the University of Wyoming. The Vogels' gift to the museum includes such artists as Richard Tuttle, Gregory Amenoff, and Robert Mangold. 

Image Credits 

Left: Lucio Pozzi, Hanging Chair Series (Part of One Work in 50 Parts), 1993, Graphite, Watercolor, and Ink on Paper, 9-14" x 7-1/8"; University of Wyoming Art Museum Collection, 2009.4.30

Top Right: Gregory Amenoff, Laumede #16, 1997, Gouache on Paper, 12" x 9"; University of Wyoming Art Museum Collection, 2009.4.1

Bottom Right: David Gilhooly, Frog Sandwich, 1977, Painted Ceramic, 4-18" x 3-5/8" x 3-3/4"

All Works: University of Wyoming Art Museum, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, Joint Initiative of Trustees of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and National Gallery of Art, with Support of National Endowment for the Arts and Institute of Museum and Library Service

Vogel 50x50 Website (1,250 images; the collection numbers 2,500 artworks) This site also includes background on the Vogels as collectors; information on Fifty States participating institutions; audio and video; and a tour.

The museum's exhibition of Seattle-based Etsuko Ichikawa's "NACHI  between the eternal and the ephemeral", a fabulous mixed media installation Ichikawa created for the museum, ended earlier this month. Fortunately, a video was made of Ichikawa discussing her work. Inspired by the Kumano waterfall, Nachi, the installation is made of large glass pyrographs (drawings created with molten glass on paper), many thousands of cotton threads, and a video projection. 

NACHI Project (Excerpt from Exhibition Proposal)

Be sure to visit Ichikawa's site, hyperlinked above. Her work with glass, plastic piping, and mixed media is extraordinary. Also see images from her performance of Firebird at Tacoma's Museum of Glass in September 2010. The videos on her site are worth your time, too.