Back in March, I took a 3 day workshop with Jeremy. It was wonderful, and you can read about the whole thing at myamericanartist.com (indeed, that’s me pointing at the canvas in the second photo).
If you want to take a workshop with him, you should just call the California Art Institute and ask them to put your name on the waiting list for the next one – by the time it’s on the website, it’s probably sold out.
From http://www.thecityreview.com/rothko.html:
In notes taken at a Rothko lecture at the Pratt Institute on October 27, 1958, and printed in the catalogue’s notes, the artist allegedly made the following comments:
“The recipe of a work of art – its ingredients – how to make it – the formula.
1. There must be a clear preoccupation with death – intimations of mortality….Tragic art, romantic art, etc., deals with the knowledge of death.
2. Sensuality. Our basis of being concrete about the world. It is a lustful relationship to things that exist.
3. Tension. Either conflict or curbed desire.
4. Irony. This is a modern ingredient – the self effacement and examination by which a man for an instant can go on to something else.
5. Wit and play…for the human element.
6. The ephemeral and chance…for the human element.
7. Hope. 10% to make the tragic concept more endurable.
I measure these ingredients very carefully when I paint a picture. It is always the form that follows these elements and the picture results from the proportions of these elements.
I belong to a generation that was preoccupied with the human figure and I studied it. It was with utmost reluctance that I found that it did not meet my needs. Whoever used it mutilated it. No one could paint the figure was it was and feel that he could produce something that could express the world. I refuse to mutilate and had to find to find another way of expression. I used mythology for a while substituting various creatures who were able to make intense gestures without embarrassment. I began to use morphological forms in order to paint gestures that I could not make people do. But this was unsatisfactory. My current pictures are involved with the scale of human feeling, the human drama, as much of it as I can express.”
I’m back at the wonderful TED conference in Monterey. This year I decided to leave the digital camera behind, and sketchblog it.
Each speaker talks for only 18 minutes, much less than my usual 3 hour pose.
I’ve been watching the speakers on TV in the “Simulcast Room,” so it’s a challenge to get a strong likeness down quickly. You’re totally dependent on a constantly changing camera angle. Patience is a virtue.
If you would like more details on the speakers, I recommend:
the official TEDblog, or the somewhat less offical list of TEDBloggers.
via Arts & Letters Daily, an interesting commentary on the life of Rembrandt…
