What if you were a wall, a blank canvas, a work of art yet to be created?

If you haven’t already, peek at Joy Part 1, and then…

Imagine… You are a broad expanse of wall – indoors or outside – material of your choice, and located anywhere in the world you’d like. Your surface is ideal for absorbing images and words, and showing them off as your own personal masterpiece. Showing off yourself as your own masterpiece. Now what?

Create yourself! Feel the joy!

Here’s a can of Krylon spray paint. Go!

What? One won’t do?

Okay then, select five, and enjoy your afternoon. Decorate yourself! Some of you have done it already – in smaller spaces – with tattoos. Some of you dream of having the courage to do it with tattoos. (And some of us would rather be a wall, and skip the tattoos, thanks.)

Well this is your chance to get wild! Cover yourself entirely, or leave areas untouched. You are the blank canvas: pure graffiti, figures, markings, quotes, formulas, diagrams, masses of color, quotations, T-accounts, HTML if you like!

So tell me -

• Are you an outdoor wall or an indoor wall?
• Where are you located, and how are you lit?
• What colors have you chosen?
• Have you asked for help in creating yourself?
• Who do you want helping you?
• If you were a painting, which painting would you be?

Do drop in to visit later this afternoon (I’ll have coffee waiting), and then describe what you’ve become. Tell me what adventures have taken place in your afternoon of painting. Declare yourself – visually, texturally. See what happens.

For fun:

This is a TOTALLY fun site where you can experience Jackson Pollock and the pleasure of splattering and dripping. It’s a blast! Give it a shot.

As for me…

I’m going to think about this, too. I may be in a very hot ruby red mood, masses of brilliant, clashing color. Yes. That’s what I’d like today, with a gentle, smooth surface, and light line scrawled through me. You need to approach to read me, to decipher the cursive that I will wear draped, dribbled, laced and luxuriant.

More than that? I don’t know yet. But I’ll ponder it, slowly, and otherwise, spend this day in the moment. Picturing paintings by Vlaminck, Matisse, Jorn, de Kooning, Guston, and the wrenching masterpieces of Michel Macréau. Color and emotion. Glorious, exuberant, mysterious, rambunctious, sprawling, enigmatic, mystical, mythical moments. I’m feeling fauve. Joyfully.

Just because.

• Your artistic self?
• Your unspoken, truest portrait for all to see?

© D A Wolf

Big Little Wolf’s Daily Plate of Crazy

“It is in an encounter, in encounters, that we become what we are”: F. DeClercq. This is a story of encounters. One with Mickael Casol. One with a painter, Massimo, needy of a model. Another of an ex ballerina turned model. The dogma: “warmth, serenity, power”, as Maryse Casol paints for us.  An unexpected photoshoot in a tiny studio.  Diana Krall, elegantly sensual, as background music.  The freedom and pride of saying “Je suis un fauve”- “I am a wild beast”.  What was denigrated in 1904 is what we call Matisse, Vlaminck, Derain.  “A pot of paint over the public” was the criticism.  But now…ah, how good can a pot of paint feel over us, we proudly reply.

Text, Concept & Modelling by Maison Casol Italy Ambassador: Giulia Meregalli
Photos by Massimo Geloso
MILAN, September 2009

“ è nell’incontro, negli incontri, che diventiamo ciò che siamo”: F. Declercq. Questa è una storia di incontri.  Uno con Mickael Casol.  L’altro con un pittore, Massimo, in cerca di una modella.  Incontra Giulia, ex ballerina, nuova modella.  Il dogma, Maryse Casol docet: “calore, serenità, potenza”.  Scatti fotografici inaspettati.  L’eleganza sensuale di Diana Krall come sottofondo.  La libertà di dire “Je suis un fauve”-“sono un animale selvaggio”.  Coloro che vennero denigrati nel 1904 ora sono per tutti Matisse, Vlaminck, Derain.  “ma è solo tempera lanciata sul pubblico” fu la critica.  Ora, orgogliosamente rispondiamo…”ah, ma com’è gradevole essere ricoperti di tempera”.

Testo, Concept & Modelling dalla Maison Casol Italia Ambasciatore: Giulia Meregalli
Foto di Massimo Geloso
MILANO, Settembre 2009

GIULIA ROSA MEREGALLI

About the Author
And the story goes, a little girl who spent the summers on the island of the wind near Africa loved to swim but didn’t like to sit in the sun.
She’d spend her childhood reading le petit prince over and over again, thinking about how difficult it must have been to be TAMED into friendship. (The fox) Ballet-ing in the meantime.

“Travelled the world and the seven seas”, being the best literature student in the school, passionate about Measure for Measure by Shakespeare, as by Marguerite Duras and her The Lover.
She bought a silk, ancient rose dress to feel more like Marguerite. And wore her nonno’s elegant hat in St Tropez.
Danced the night away at the Caves du Roy, but wouldn’t sleep the morning in order to see the fishermen leave and have a view of their boats in the distance.

Reading. dancing, meeting. I do believe that encounters, in an encounter “we become what we are” as said by Fabiola.
After that she was The Little Girl lost, to quote Blake, could go to any uni but was emotionally restless. So never stopping, always moving, always another place. Never naming Holly Golightly’s nameless cat.
Well now, it is about time I name the cat. Time to let myself be tamed.
And stop running away from myself and whatever scarred me when I was eine kleine girl.

I always wear pearls. I like silk.
I like the smell after it has rained.
I love to run and see the dawn.
I love to hug a friend and talk the night away.
I don’t miss an art exhibition, oh no no no way.
I use Rose essentielle by Bulgari, because, the rose, ah the rose, not only romeo and juliet, but also my second name.

I am often around with a white rose. The Weisse Rose, the only students that opposed Hitler. I am the one who wakes up in the morning and decides to pay an homage to their courage. Take a train to Munich, go to the university where they threw anti-hitler leaflets and throw 50 white roses.

It is worth it, living without hiding, because I have been, for a special person, “Meine kleine Weisse Rose”

MAISON CASOL
Established in 2004, Maison Casol is a creative agency based in Montreal, Canada. From contemporary art, luxury accessories, advertising campaigns to world class events, Casol delivers innovation with a classic savoir-faire.

Advertising Agency: http://www.casolmarketing.com
Boutique: http://www.marysecasol.com

Ian Carpenter is a painter from Brooklyn, NY who works mostly in colorful abstractions of dream-like landscapes. His works are playful with simple brushstrokes that create unexpected complexity and wonderment in the final product. He lists his influences as Paul Klee and Nicolas De Stael, art collectives like the Fauves and The Society of Six, and various outsider artists like Joseph Yoakum and Anna Zemankova.

Follow the artist’s blog for new paintings or buy a print from 20×200.

Maryse Casol – Paris – France
Campagne Publicité Printemps-Été 2009: Je suis une Fauve
Collection de carrés en twill de soie
90cm x 90cm – Roulloté main
Edition Limitée

Maryse Casol carré de soie Paris - France

Boutique en ligne: www.marysecasol.com

Ciò che pervade l’ animo del pittore è inquitentante è dolore la pittura non si prende cura del concetto qualitativo come l’ impressionismo, va oltre all’ apparenza; l’ arte non e’ più pregio ma ingegno culturale. Nel 1905 in Germania si afferma la tendenza dell’ espresssionismo costituita dai Fauves a Dresda definiti Die Bruche, successivamente nel 1911 a Monaco emerge il gruppo Der Blaue Reiter. L’ espressionismo sintetizza l’ animo interiore: la traccia pittorica scaturisce dalla mente ed è legata all’ oggetto. La rappresentazione pittorica di Hans Muller pittore dell’ avanguardia tedesca ‘900 assume molteplici spiegazioni:

1) Scenografia all’ interno di una locanda (N.R Milano)

2) Scenografia all’ interno di una botte dove il troppo bere porta alla morte (G.D Roma)

3) Scenografia funebre: l’ addolorata (abito rosa) in primo piano che dà le spalle stà piangendo la morte del figlio mentre il marito la sorregge. La signora (abito giallo) della coppia frontale osserva comprovata tenendo la mano sul petto,  il marito guarda assorto meditando. Seduto a gambe aperte con la mano appoggiata il signore con la sigaretta  incredulo dell’ accaduto in attesa di un verdetto. Nel tavolo a retro i “dottori della morte” si stanno confrontando.

La porta rettangolare simboleggia lo stato materiale della vita mentre la porta a cerchio (luogo sacro) come nei cerimoniali del medioevo e del rinascimento è la porta del trapasso dell’ anima dal mondo materiale al mondo spirituale. (Cini,Venezia)

A Dash of Color

The video link:  A Dash of Color

I saw this on the NY Times site. Cunningham has a point.

1907: A Very Bad Year

In 1907 a bout of speculation on Wall Street ended in failure, triggering a particularly severe banking panic. J.P. Morgan was again called upon to avert disaster. By this time most Americans were calling for reform of the banking system, but the structure of that reform was cause for deep division among the country’s citizens. Conservatives and powerful “money trusts” in the big Eastern cities were vehemently opposed by “progressives.” But there was a growing consensus among all Americans that a central banking authority was needed to ensure a healthy banking system and provide for an elastic currency. http://www.federalreserveeducation.org/fed101_html/history/index.cfm

Knickerbocker trust one of the largest banks in The United States at the time went bankrupt. Nelson Aldrich senator Rhode Island revises American financial system. aka Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs, FANNIE, FREDDIE–you get the picture.

Senator Borah Idaho Citing that “4% of the people of the United States own 80% if its wealth,” Borah advocated the lowering of tariffs to promote world trade, inflationary monetary measures such as paying depositors to put their money in circulation and reissuing silver, and, most importantly, the destruction of monopolies, which were “bleeding our people white.”
http://www.kevincmurphy.com/williamborah3.html date accessed 5/25/2007

1907 CULTURE and ART

Figure 1 Mit alle zibn finger

http://jhom.com/topics/seven/sevenfingers.html

1907 Marc Chagall These were years of hardship and poverty for Chagall. In Bakst’s studio he had his first contact with the modern movement, which was sweeping Paris, and it liberated his inner resources. His pictures of this early period are lyrical evocations of his childhood. In Study for Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers, Chagall presents us with the Jewish fascination with numbers. Art historian Sandor Kuthy suggests that the Yiddish folk expression Mit alle zibn finger, used to indicate the entirety of energy used in completion of a task explains this strange physical anomaly in the painting. http://www.answers.com/topic/marc-chagall He would later become a leader in the avant-guard.
1. Matisse painted his “Red Madras Headdress” which featured his wife as the model. The painting later became part of the Albert C. Barnes collection. [see 1925, Barnes] Matisse also painted “Blue Nude” in this year.
(WSJ, 11/28/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 7/9/01, p.A26)
2. http://pomegranate.stores.yahoo.net/0817.html

The model is Masam Matisse

Figure 2 Matisse Red Madras Headdress

Figure 3 Matisse Blue Nude 1907
http://www.soho-art.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.pl?fid=1138304066&cgifunction=form

Wassili Kandinsky Focusing on the first half of his career, the exhibition begins with a series of early landscapes inspired by the exquisite Bavarian countryside and folk imagery from Russian fairy tales and legends. It then explores how Kandinsky’s style evolved after he moved to Germany and co-founded the groundbreaking Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group.
3. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/kandinsky.autumn-in-bavaria.jpg

1907 Milestones: Public Works and Utilities

Building the MacArthur Bridge

At the turn of the century, St. Louis had two bridges over the Mississippi River, the Eads and the Merchants. The Terminal Railroad Association, a group that owned much of the rail infrastructure in the St. Louis area, owned both. The TRRA took advantage of this monopoly by charging what were considered to be excessive tolls. The issue came to a head when St. Louis hosted the 1904 World’s Fair. The city decided to build a public bridge over the Mississippi to break the monopoly.

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/kempland/freebridge-opening2.jpg

Figure 4 Free Bridge

Work began on the St. Louis Municipal Bridge in 1909. Piers were built, and steel was ordered. The three main steel spans were in place by 1912. At that time, funding ran out, and three successive bonding issues failed to pass during elections. As a result, the bridge sat without the approaches being built. The only part that was finished was the 6-foot wide walkway, which hung off the downstream side of the structure (it has since been removed, but the brackets that supported the walkway are still in place and visible in one of the photos below). Several hundred people a day crossed the bridge on foot. Funding kicked in again after several years, and the roadway on the upper deck was competed. Now known as the Free Bridge, it opened to auto traffic in 1917. The city and the TRRA were still feuding, so the TRRA put a defacto boycott on the bridge. It was not until 1928 that an agreement was reached, and trains started to use the lower deck. The bridge was in full operation by 1931.

Despite being a city owned “Free Bridge”, a small toll was added in 1932. The money was used for depression relief. The bridge was renamed the General Douglas MacArthur Bridge in 1942 after the famous general. The bridge was designated as the route for US-66 from 1929 to 1935, having taken over that roll form the McKinley Bridge, and then giving it up to the Chain of Rocks Bridge. It was designated City US-66 from 1936 to 1955. http://www.johnweeks.com/upper_mississippi/pagesC/umissC15.html

WATER
1900: The first experiments using lime and ferrous sulfate as water purifiers are conducted.

1904: The Water Division begins adding milk of lime (Ca (OH)2 ) and ferrous sulfate (Fe2SO4) to purify the water.

1908: A new Coagulant House is built at Chain of Rocks Plant to store lime and ferrous sulfate.

1911: Edward Wall is named Water Commissioner.

In 1911, Mr. Wall was made Water Commissioner. He immediately began to envision improvements and expansion of the Water Works to the 1930’s. A new intake was built mid-stream, and slightly upstream from the original raw intake. He also promoted the conception of a filter plant as a final step in the purification of the Water, which comprised Primary and Secondary Coagulation, followed by filtration and chlorination.
http://www.stlwater.com/history2.html

1907 Union Electric Ameren

The Ashley plant downtown has been providing steam for downtown businesses for 3 years; it is still in operation today.
Eight percent of U.S. households are wired for electricity. It took until the 1920’s until most homes were wired with electricity. My uncle who grew up in rural Texas didn’t have it in his home until he was a teenager in the 1950’s.
Other famous trusts
International Harvester 1902
Capitalized at $120 million, the merger acquired other concerns as its lines diversified. The federal government brought action against the company, and in 1914 the Supreme Court found the company an illegal combination under the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered division of the company’s property among independent corporations (United States v. International Harvester Company, 214 U.S. 987).
http://www.answers.com/topic/international-harvester-company date accessed 5/25/2007

1907 Anaconda Copper

Amalgamated Copper Company War of the Copper Kings. Greed, corruption, bribery and fraud, insiders getting fabulously rich while workers get robbed. That was the great battle for Butte, Montana, at the dawn of the twentieth century when it was the richest hill on earth. Copper was the treasure, eagerly sought after for wiring the modern world, and the hard rock below Butte was riddled with veins of the precious metal. Open pit or strip mine. Nation’s largest Superfund site.

Conclusion

Thomas Edison, autodidact, and inventor of so many modern conveniences conceived of the modern R&D (research and development) laboratory and financed it all with private capital. There were no government grants in those days.

Blaise Pascal, this French philosopher is a favorite off my son Ted so I had to work him in here some how. It is 245 years since the death of this French mathematician. People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
Blaise Pascal

You always admire what you really don’t understand.
Blaise Pascal

Archimedes
It is 2194 years since the birth of Archimedes another favorite.

Summing an infinite geometric series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1/4_%2B_1/16_%2B_1/64_%2B_1/256_%2B_%C2%B7_%C2%B7_%C2%B7

I dedicate this series of articles to my children.

I thank to the superb editing skills of Dr. Lisa Balbes
Without whom these articles would have been unintelligible.

Artist in Residence

Couleur Decor Society

With a French Gallery and Society, Couleur Decor, http://www.couleur-decor.org, I was immersed within Pyrenean landscape, the Fauves legacy and the Catalan culture.

Title:
All the little animals…

  

Un ritratto dall’ intima espressione.

 Il tratto iniziale incisivo evidenzia l’ intenzione di prolungamento del collo, i colori violenti collocano il dipinto nel movimento dei fauves sorto a Parigi nel 1905; ad essere ritratta  un’ artista di rilievo. 

Gli esperti d’ arte della corte d’ appello di Parigi confermano la tesi sull’ iconografia. 

Ad  esortare l’ artista italiano Amedeo Modigliani riconosciuto tra i più geniali artisti internazionali un’  importante capolavoro artistico

Davanti all’ arte non servono le parole c’  è solo emozione

(05-01-2009 /ore 19.22)

La stampa italiana ancora non ne parla vi siete mai chiesti il perchè?

image from www.lillstreet.com

Armonía en rojo

Armonía en rojo. Henry Matisse 1908. Museo Ermitage, San Petersburgo.

Henry Matisse pertenece a la corriente pictórica denominada “Fauvismo”.

El término francés Fauves, fieras, dado peyorativamente por el crítico Luis Vauxcelles a los pintores que expusieron en el Salón de Otoño de 1903  se convirtió en el apelativo de este grupo de pintores que llamaron la atención por la fuerza cromática de sus obras.

Influenciados por Van Gogh y Guauguin, estos “fieras” fueron más allá, independizando el color de las formas, con vibrantes contrastes cromáticos transmitiendo emociones.

Ya no se buscaba captar la realidad  desde un punto de vista realista. Como bien dijo Matisse: “El color debe ser pensado, soñado, imaginado.” Para captar la realidad tal y como se presenta ante nuestros ojos, ya se habían inventado las cámaras de fotos. El realismo dejó de tener sentido. Los artistas quieren plasmar una realidad subjetiva, percibida por el propio pintor.

Los fauvistas, al contrario que sus antecesores impresionistas y postimpresionistas, no juegan con las luces, las sombras desaparecen;  predomina el efecto bidimensional en sus obras. Matisse añade elementos decorativos.

Sus obras presentan una fuerza vital y optimismo. “Sueño con un arte de equilibrio, de tranquilidad, sin tema que inquiete o preocupe, algo así como un lenitivo, un calmante cerebral parecido a un buen sillón» declaraba Matisse.

Armonía en rojo fue encargada por un marchante ruso. En principio iba a ser realizada en azul, pero Matisse se decantó por el rojo, uno de sus colores preferidos por su gran carga expresiva.

Se ha suprimido la sensación de profundidad, primer y último plano comparten color y elementos decorativos comunes. Se anula ambién el claroscuro y el modelado.

La pintura se aplica de forma pura y los colores primarios: rojo, amarillo y azul son los predominantes. Los colores secundarios: violeta, naranja y verde aparecen en ciertos detalles.

Se combinan arabescos vegetales curvilíneos con líneas rectas. El dibujo aunque relegado a una categoría secundaria se realza a veces con trazos negros.

La pintura se expande, los objetos no aparecen enteros en el cuadro parece como si quisieran liberarse de la esclavitud de la rigidez del marco, convirtiendo la pintura en una explosión cromática de optimismo y vitalidad.

Title:
Hundred percent…
handmade in Europe…vol.3

Title:
She is like a Fish out of water…