I’m beginning to relax a bit with my painting. Instead of trying to paint like Joan Miró, I am concentrating on my own iconography (see Narrative or Portrayal of Feelings?, Little Thought Experiment, Simplify, Beginning of an Iconography?). My younger brother is a wonderful musician. He is working on a Rachmaninoff piece, and told me […]
For the past several posts I have been revisiting my enjoyment of Joan Miró. I do this with an ulterior motive: to explore his means of creation and apply them to my own ideas. Lately I am particularly intrigued by The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers, one of his ‘Constellation’ series. I […]
I’ve always thought that to ‘abstract’ something, one condenses it into its essence. Caricaturists do this all the time when they present recognizable portraits of their subjects with prominent features exaggerated. Most artists try to tell the truth as they see it. Visual artists do so by using color and form that represent the essence of scenes or […]
One of Miró’s works that has obsessed me of late is The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers. Its title alone is fascinating. It combines line drawing with shapes, which when studied, reveal the narrative. Even without study, the arrangement of the dark shapes is appealing. The design holds together without knowing Miró’s […]
When I was a kid I had several methods of coping with scary movies on TV. The first was to hide behind the couch and peek out. The second, depicted below, was to put my hands over my face and look through my fingers. Dad offered to turn off the movie if it was so […]
I came up with a sketch for the three weapons we are using to combat lung cancer. It is a schematic and, as such, clearly indicates each agent and its route of administration. My watercolor is a transcription of the sketch, with little modification. The three modes include whole brain radiation; a pill that works on […]
Hospitals are places where one can get really sick. Nursing facilities are touch and go – like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. It could take hours to go to the bathroom; nursing staff can make mistakes on medications; neighbors could have annoying hacking coughs, etc. Home, surrounded by […]
After a long hospital stay, one anticipates the arrival of a loved one back home. I couldn’t think of a subtle way to represent this so I opted for the obvious, as corny as it is. Home is certainly where the heart belongs. So be it.
Caregiving is hard work. I saw it first hand when I was growing up with my older brother Mike. He is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. He needed help with everything and had to be watched constantly. If you weren’t careful, he would take the food from your plate. However, there is a difference between […]
More about Radiation I thought I would try redeeming myself from yesterday’s portrait. Today’s ‘After and Before’ refers the the effects after and before (reading the portrait left to right) radiation to the entire brain. Of course the treatment is supposed to kill cancer cells, while leaving the non-cancerous cells alone. The bad thing is, the […]
