A little more country and the big city

Posted on July 1, 2010 by ruthek

For more pictures and stories about our “art camp” in Door County, see Jan’s blog and Sandy’s blog. Anita has a brand new blog where you can see her work.

Sandy sent this wonderful thank you note: Special thanks to Anita for all her hospitality and the use of her home and studio. Special thanks to Kathy for her hospitality. I'm sorry you weren't up to all we did, but it was good being with you. Because of you we know about such glorious places as the Garden Gate and got to dine on such good asparagus.

Special thanks to Ruthe for all her help putting the blog together…..and especially this year adding Picasa to my computer. What a blessing that was in doing this blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And thanks to Ruthe also for all her excellent instruction on the books, and for the "Paper in Three Dimensions" book. Thanks to Jan, our worthy Best of Show, all the blood, sweat and talent who kept everyone laughing.I'm a richer woman for the experience of last week. Loving you all, Sandy

At breakfast with Eli this morning I said I would not want to move back here. Walking downtown afterwards I could feel the power and energy of the city and realized I still loved it. The sun was shining; lots of people on the streets; the city looked wonderful. Once I knew every building, every alcove and alley. Now there are many surprises. Walking toward the Daley Center I stopped to take a picture. Someone came over to me and said the Stanley Cup was there. I could stand in line to have my picture taken with it, or just take a picture of it. It’s there, somewhere, behind the Picasso sculpture.

Walking near the Chicago River and the Opera House.

Wabash Avenue with Chicago's Trump Tower in the distance.

My destination was the Cultural Center, one of my favorite places. I saw an exhibit of jewelry made with handmade paper by Arte Papel Oaxaca. Unfortunately there was no catalog, they wouldn’t let me take photos and there is only this one article I could find on the web. I’d love to show you more, or better, I‘d like to go and be part of the collective.

An exhibit about Louis Sullivan, the architect, was also very interesting; lots of photos and information.

A newly created space within the Center is Project Onward, a studio and gallery for artists with mental and developmental disabilities. There was a lot of good work and a lot going on within the studio. I was much impressed.

Back to the city

Posted on June 29, 2010 by ruthek

Back at Sandy’s in Arlington; filled with swirling, unstructured thoughts, about bookmaking, about my friends, about the week, and about me. I feel so much better when I have people around me and lots of challenges. All week I was much younger than my 76 years. My hip still aches and sometimes I have trouble walking, but I was happy and nothing bothered me.

Being teacher for the week was a great pleasure and I was sorry to see it end. We left Anita’s about 11 am and drove south on the scenic route, sailing past the ice cream store but stopping at The Flying Pig, a combined garden center and gallery of outsider art, great things to look at and charming ladies running the it. What a great place!

Sunday morning, the sun shone briefly on too much heat and humidity for 8 am, then thunder and lightning filled the sky. After the storm was over, I drove over to Carol, not far away. Family day, or, at least, family afternoon. Carol invited some of my cousins for lunch. It’s a kind of family reunion each year when I come back here, but each year our numbers grow smaller. This year’s theme seems to be a recounting of all the people we’ve lost. Many of my friends in Chicago were older and long gone. It made it easier for me to leave Chicago thirteen years ago. Did I mention, this is nostalgia trip time?

In Chicago with good friend Betty and feeling very lucky. Found a parking space a block away at 6:05 Sunday night. From 6 pm a permit is required for parking. Could I get to Betty’s, get the permit and get back to the car before the cops came? Decided I couldn’t give up the space, so I really scurried. The cop was there when we returned, busy with someone else. Very lucky. Found two parking spaces Monday night. Didn’t like the first one. Very, very lucky.

We went out to Rockford to see a Japanese garden. Do you think I’m obsessed? Rockford is about 2 hours away; I’ve only been there once before, many years ago, before the Japanese garden was built, and long before I cared about Japanese gardens. The garden was lovely; worth the drive, but somehow American Japanese gardens are never as satisfying as Japanese Japanese gardens. It has something to do with the trees.

Back to the big city and cell phones, traffic and noise

Posted on June 26, 2010 by ruthek

This is our last morning in Door County. It's been a great trip. Not only have we all been productive,

we went to a wonderful play (Tom Stoppard's Heroes) visited two spectacular gardens and spent some time at Kathy's house in the woods. Only Sandy, Jan and I came up this year; Sue couldn't make it. Kathy joined us part of the time, but she hasn't been well and didn't have energy for all of it. So this year it was three of us and Anita, our hostess.

We went back to the Garden Door, the master garden we visited last year, but the really spectacular treat was Overbeck's, a nearby private home and garden. This is a living work of art; the garden and the house being embellished with mosaics, stained glass and carved wood in amazing, tasteful ways, not at all exemplified by that website.

Between the book workshop last week and art camp this week it's been the best two weeks I've had all year. Nothing like a little stimulation to make me forget all of my health problems. My week in Chicago should be equally good.

What a week!

Posted on June 24, 2010 by ruthek

We worked all day Tuesday, Wednesday morning and part of today with great results. Tomorrow we'll have show and tell with pictures. Here are some pictures from the week:

Jan hard at work

My workspace. I hate to admit it looks a lot like my workspace at home.

The studio.

Looking back at the house.

Looking toward the lake.

The house.

Of course, all was not work. Here are Jan and Sandy exercising.

On the road

Posted on June 21, 2010 by ruthek

Sunday June 20

Another beautiful, sunny day. Yesterday was a nostalgia trip. Some of my visits in Chicago concern the here and now, but often they dip back into the fathomless past. I spent the night with Joan, Richard’s cousin. I’ve known her since I was 20, and even though I am no longer Richard’s wife, she remains my cousin. We deal with the here and now, but the past sits just behind an open door. We talked non-stop, all through dinner and on to a visit to Linda and Tom, who live in a house filled with art. Tom is an amazing, highly productive artist. I ache for him, that he does not get more recognition.

I am sitting in Joan’s kitchen watching the birds at the feeders, the squirrel under the feeders cleaning up seeds the birds dropped and a chipmunk that steals seeds and darts away.

We went to see more of Tom’s art: sculpture being installed on the Purdue campus;

Linda, Joan, Ed and Tom

a wonderful mosaic with 150,000 tiles at Andrean High School.

I am overwhelmed by this man.

More talk, then into Chicago with traffic as bad as I’ve ever seen it. If this happens on Sunday, what must Monday be? I made a quick, unsatisfying stop at Paper Source, then out to Arlington Heights to meet with Sandy and Jan over a wonderful dinner. We looked at the books from the workshop, which inspired Sandy to add more tools and materials to the supply we are carrying. Tomorrow morning, after quick stops at Trader Joe’s for snacks and Office Depot for more paper, we’re off to Door County.

Monday

The drive to Door County was largely uneventful–only about 10 minutes of heavy rain as we left Illinois. We arrived about 3, unpacked the car visited over lemonade and then another show and tell for Anita and Kathy. We are now suitably inspired and ready to go to work tomorrow.

Cardio update

Posted on June 10, 2010 by ruthek

Wearing the monitor, last Thursday, nothing happened until early Friday morning. Then I was back in afib for the day, but it was never as bad as Wednesday had been. I went back to rehab and exercised in spite of the flutter. When I woke up Saturday morning, still fluttering, or fibbing as they call it, I took the old dose of my meds. By noon I was feeling good and have been fine ever since, even though I immediately went back to the reduced dose. I tried to ask the doctor about it, but his staff just told me to do what he had said and wait to hear from them. (Remember, he has the personality of a drill sergeant.)

I've been waiting all week; in fact, I'd pretty much given up. Since I was feeling good, I didn't care. Today was the big day–they finally called, not with an answer, but an order to come in again, possibly on June 29. Obviously, this is not an emergency. I made the appointment for July 6. I have a busy three weeks coming up and I won't let them spoil it.

Next week I'm taking that book making workshop at the Society for Contemporary Craft. Then the next day, Saturday, I'm driving to Chicago then on to Door County for another art camp. Back to Chicago the next week to visit with friends and relatives and attend a nephew's wedding. I'll get back here July 5. But I promise I'll post again before that.

New York, New York

Posted on March 29, 2010 by ruthek

Rainy Monday in New York City. I can't decide where to go that would make it worth a possible drenching, having at times been very wet in New York rains. I wanted to go down to Chinatown and buy some probably arcane Chinese spices. When I was in Shanghai at that tea tasting ceremony I bought a wonderful, herbal concoction. I saved a little bit in hopes of finding someone who could tell me what was in it. Of course, I forgot to bring it with me. Maybe I'll just go down and buy a selection of sticks and bark. I know there are also tiny rose buds and jujubes.

Today and tomorrow are my last days here. Wednesday morning I drive back with Robin and Steve. Rain is in the forecast all three days.

Besides camera shopping, I've been to Kalustyan, a wonderful place for exotic, imported foods, spices, candies, etc. I could have spent hours there, but I had one more stop on Friday: Japan Society to see a beautiful show of Kuniyoshi woodblock prints. Very satisfying. On Saturday, Renee and I went to the Asia Society and then a movie. Yesterday I went to the Rubin Museum with Phyllis. Two featured exhibits were about death: Remember That You Will Die, and Bardo: The Tibetan Art of the Afterlife. The idea of Remember That You Will Die rather bothers me in the abstract, but the exhibit itself was not troubling; I could only distantly relate to it.

New York Wednesday

Posted on December 24, 2009 by ruthek

Metropolitan Museum day. We looked at Japanese and Chinese art, missed a show about Chinese lacquerware, and left with aching legs. Because of all the slush I've been constantly wearing a pair of Merrell fleece-lined boots. They keep my feet warm and dry and the gummy cleats on the soles keep me from sliding, but they're nowhere near as comfortable as the Merrells I usually wear. Sitting on the bus and subway to get to Columbus Circle was a treat.

Lunch at Whole Foods, more crowded than usual, then on to the Museum of Art and Design. This has always been one of my favorites, and I loved it even with aching legs. Their show Slash: Paper Under the Knife, is filled with wonderful cut paper creations. Take a look at the Teacher Resource for good photos of the conceptually most interesting works. We finished with Madeleine Albright's pin collection and then dragged ourselves back to the apartment to rest up before dinner, going to a place nearby that didn't require crossing a street so I could wear real shoes instead of the boots.

New York Tuesday

Posted on December 23, 2009 by ruthek

Very full day. We began with Hockney on 57th St. (He's in two places.) I wanted so much to love his work. I find it intellectually interesting–sort of–but I'm back to the question: what is great art? There was one piece, at Pace prints, I really admired. It was largely computer created and probably impossible to do without a computer program. Inspiring! (Hockney slide show) I like the pictures online better than the real thing.

On our way to the subway to go to Hockney two we passed an amazing gallery called Ana Tzarev. It was huge and filled with the work of Ana Tzarev, a woman I had never heard of. I'm not about to tell you I've heard of every artist, but the size and location of the gallery made me wonder about who bankrolled her. You can read all about her here and here. Amazing what you can do with money.

Hockney on 25th St. was a little more interesting. There was more work, more thinking about perspective, which of two paths to take, stuff like that, but no AH Yes moment, nothing to enter and get lost in.

Back to the subway to one more show, but first lunch. We stopped at Cosi's, a decent fast food place. Along with the ingredients for each dish were the calories. I must say it gave me pause: I selected my lunch very carefully and ate mostly vegetables. I'm not complaining. I was just amazed at how meaningful this was to me.

The last show was Serizawa at the Japan Society. I've known about Serizawa for years. His wonderful calendars were sold at Aiko's in Chicago. But I had no idea how prolific he was and how wonderful his work is.

Hockney

Posted on December 20, 2009 by ruthek

My motivation for this trip to NYC is to see the Hockney show at PaceWildenstein. I first became interested in Hockney when I discovered his photo collages. I had little interest in his early paintings, particularly the swimming pools, but have enjoyed reading his thinking about painting and photography.

Some of his photographs bear some similarity to the Gigapans I was playing with. In a lecture he gave in 1983, he talks about photographs being an instant in time, whereas paintings are a record of time passing.

Why is a painting based on the camera (and with one viewpoint) more interesting than a photograph taken from the same spot and enlarged – even when taken with a large plate camera? And my conclusion was this lack of time, the static quality photographs have is due to the fact that it's the same time in every area of the picture. The removal of the hand (the removal of the body) causes this. The hand moving through time reflects the eye moving through time (and life moving through time). The evidence of the hand is our time. On Photography, © David Hockney, 1983

I would love to know what he thinks of the Gigapan, which is after all, a robotic hand moving through time.

He also compares the use of one point perspective in Western art to the multiple viewpoints in Cubism and the progression of images in Chinese and Japanese art.

The Hockney website

More about Hockney

http://www.youtube.com/v/cIfDdW9GKmA&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

So what, you may ask, does all this have to do with the exhibit of his paintings in New York? Thinking about Hockney I came up with his photo collages, which are making me think about my own work. I would like to do a book about the Japanese gardens I visited. I would like a way to present more of the photos I took–I never posted all of them. Just as I did with the collage I made of the photos of the 300 year old pine tree in Tokyo, I often took multiple shots of views that didn't fit into one image. How do I present them in book form?

Here are some of the images I'm playing with: