artblog

 
Posted by libby

Andrea Blum, detail of Plateau

Any number of local organizations have been reminded in the past year of what a crap shoot a commissioned artwork is (no point in naming names once again).

The latest organization to roll the dice and lose is the University of Pennsylvania, which has recently installed a piece of public art, "Plateau," on 40th Street, at the western edge of the campus (except that's not really accurate, since Penn continues to creep further and further west, building by building).


Plateau and stores across the street

In Plateau, artist Andrea Blum has created tables and benches dividing the campus green ending at 40th between Walnut and Locust streets, and the "community"--I put this in quotes because the building on the other side of the street belongs to Penn, too--a row of shops and restaurants. The 15 x 150-foot-plus Plateau, of perforated stainless steel and of concrete, in photographs appears nearly invisible.

But in the real world, it looks dark and menacing. It's uninviting, even forbidding, a sort of no-man's land.


62 degrees, no customers

When I say no man's land I mean it. It was a balmy 62 degrees and sunny yesterday, so I headed out to see if Plateau's dark gray benches, tables and screens would attract the lunch-time crowd. Not a man or woman or child ventured across the dark gray concrete lip and the black gravel underfoot to use Plateau.

I totally get that the committee (which included the ICA's Claudia Gould and Penn's campus architect Charlie Newman--people with some visual expertise) might have thought the piece would be kind of transparent and invisible, matching the gray, rectilinear cityscape, a sort of low, non-fence fence with a shady pavillion at each end.

They made a mistake. Since Plateau's erection, a flurry of articles in the Daily Pennsylvanian and one in the University City Review have attacked the thing. Not that attacks on a new public piece means that much.

I called Susan Davis, the sweetest lady on earth, who heads the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority's Percent for Art program. She said that all new public art projects elicit strong negative reactions when they first appear.

Then she defended Plateau: "It's a terrible time of the year. ... Let's give it a chance when the planting is done and the lights are on and the weather is warm."

But I can't seem to find anyone at Penn who thinks any planting or landscaping remains to be done. Yesterday, the weather was warm enough for people to sit on the benches. And the lights are indeed on. I've included a night image to prove the point.


Plateau detail at night

And speaking of night, Plateau is definitely improved by the lighting. But the spaces still look chilly and uninviting. This is partly because the lights, like the piece itself, have a high-tech, architectural look. They are long tubes that bring to mind office fluorescents. The piece is the embodiment of the TV show, "The Office," which is the embodiment of the bureaucratic culture at Penn, by the way. So I suppose we can say the artist nailed it.

While that's well and good, it's a questionable trait for public art, which must meet a different standard than other art. Public art has an obligation to reflect the way that a community prefers to see itself and its values.


Plateau and brute modern Penn high rises

So part of what's wrong with Plateau is it reflects the actuality of Penn, and not Penn as it prefers to see itself. As for reflecting values of the neighboring community of Victorian-home preservationists, liberals, libertarians, intellectuals, Plateau certainly missed that boat.


Inside look at a pavillion

Perhaps the cage-like pavillions will provide welcome shade in summer, but that alone can't ameliorate the grimness, which brings to my mind a prison refectory with the tables and chairs bolted down to resist misuse by the criminals.

Besides, I'd like to raise Roberta's favorite complaint about so much public "art" these days--why are we squandering one-percent-for-art money on seating arrangements?

There's some funny background here. The money for this project was held in escrow from past development at 36th and Walnut. At that time, a Vito Acconci seating arrangement was rejected as inappropriate for a variety of reasons. I actually think some of the reasons made sense--too many blocked sight lines inviting lurkers and hiding nearby businesses. But the work was a hoot--little ivy-covered jungle huts for sipping lattes. At least it was quirky and brought greenery to the gray cement expanse of sidewalk.

As for the conventional cafe tables now arranged at 36th, they look fine enough to invite sitters even in cold weather.

Somewhere, I heard that the artist would receive a large payment if the piece were removed (if you look at Blum's history, she has had work removed in the past). One of my friends, an artist herself, suggested to me that a clause like that was screwy, an incentive to create something ugly. Good point--get paid twice. (However, I do understand why such a clause also makes some sense, given the fate of "M. La Chamarre," Dubuffet's Centre Square sculpture removed from its original home by the fates and changing owners).

I'm hoping Susan Davis is right and I'll have to eat these words in the spring, when the grass grows greener and we have grown accustomed to a wintery Plateau.

permanent link   libby 5:01 PM
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Posted by roberta

Post by Rob Matthews

Greg King "Instilled"

The DIAlogue lectures at Mt. Olivet Presbyterian Church (22nd/Mt. Vernon)
brought Gregory King to speak this week. Greg has worn a few different art hats over the years. He started off as a painter (but who didn’t?) and has shifted away from that over the years. Now he creates videos, films, drawings and plays with the band called Rachel’s. The way I would best describe Rachel’s would be as an indie/experimental chamber orchestra. The band performs with films and videos King assembles for the music. They also have worked with theater and dance groups combining music, stage performance and film.



Greg King "Three Constants"

King’s talk showed the transition from his work as a painter entering Hunter College for his MFA to his current film/video work. His examination of space has changed as he has shifted from one medium to the other. His paintings were influenced by Kiefer (large scale infinite landscapes and cavernous interiors). See Three Constants, Timeline, Dialectic as examples. His palette shifted to a rich examination of blue at one point and those paintings were really satisfying even as a projected image.


Greg King "Cache" detail

Drawings such as Cache (2002), Gate and Excavation demonstrate his use of line to allude to architecture and his chops with perspective.


Greg King "Gate" detail

The use of buildings and city space took on a greater weight in his work when he moved from Kentucky to New York and now figure heavily into his film work. He’s also used the opportunity of travel to borrow from a variety of architectural periods in European history. See photographic works such as Continuum Paris and Continuum Hamburg as examples.


Greg King "Continuum Paris"

Diegesis (2003) was his bridge from painting to video. The painting was used to create the video (film stills of the individual rectangles in Diegesis were turned into a kind of animated video).
As King shifted from painting to video and Super 8, the space of his work became compressed. Part of this is the limitation of Super 8 to convey depth. Another reason seems to be the shift from creating singular painted statements of space to the use of time and traveling through the infinite rather than attempt to paint it in one shot.


Greg King "Diegesis"

King’s videos start with a solid concept but randomness also figures heavily into his practice. One film was the result of King walking the longest north-to-south stretch available in Manhattan shooting one film still at the corner of each block. He filmed walking both north and south directions. The film was exhibited with two projectors side-by-side to give it a somewhat symmetrical composition. The majority of King’s film works off this symmetrical format but with varying results. Some remain recognizably grounded in the city skyline seen from a low vantage point. Others become more ethereal and less recognizable.


Greg King "Duomo Frame by Frame" detail

Not being well-versed in video, my mind went to the end of 2001 with the mirrored used of landscapes as “special effects.” I won’t embarrass King by suggesting that was his intention. Pop culture has rotted my brain over the years.

He has also taken that dialogue between the painting and video of Diagesis and turned it to the combination of print and film. Duomo Frame By Frame takes every film still from a video made at the Duomo and combines them into one print. The same method is used from a video he made shooting the landscape of Italy from a moving train as he traveled from Rome to Florence. Eileen Neff’s Locks Gallery show with her photos of the whizzing NJ landscape came to mind.

Randomness occurs in such works as Blackout (2003) in which King captured a lot of footage from the blackout in NYC that year. The accompanying score by Rachel’s lends the Super 8 footage a Depression-era quality that enhances atypical shots of Times Square completely darkened and a lifeless, unlit skyline.

Thematically, King talked about his work in terms of physical vs spiritual- taking what is considered to be a cold idea of architectural space and examining the metaphysical potential. Light seems to be the element used to convey that sense of mystery and unknown. He also related personal information (how his work shifted after 9/11, etc) and how that personal relation to space affected his work.

I gauge the success of a lecture by how many questions are asked at the end. For instance, I rarely get a lot of questions. This means that I usually bomb. King could have fielded questions well into the night but he was saved by Dayton at the end. As with all DIAlogue gatherings, there were open studios that followed the lecture.

The next DIAlogue lecture is February 17th and the lecturer will be NY-based photographer John Silvis.
If you have any questions or if anyone wants to be put on the mailing list for announcements concerning this, write to daytonc@verizon.net

--Rob Matthews is a frequent artblog contributor. You can see one of his "Word Made Flesh Made Graphite" drawings in "Fine Line" at Adam Baumgold Gallery.

permanent link   roberta 2:03 PM
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Posted by roberta

[Note: This post from Douglas Witmer follows the Anna Conti collaborative coloring book drawing posts here and here.]

Post from Dougas Witmer
I'm starting to collaborate a bit with my children on (and from) their drawings...some documentation on "dgls"(see here, here and here). January 2006 has been a month of very free and varied drawing for me. Plus I have now learned to draw a very crude Barney, and a dolphin...new additions to my previous repertoire of clouds, houses, kitty faces, dog faces, and my stock-person face, etal.

--Douglas Witmer is a regular artblog contributor. See his website for more.

permanent link   roberta 11:35 AM
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Posted by libby

Anthony Campuzano, The Police are Here

Outsider obsession meets insider concepts in Anthony Campuzano's energetic exhibit, The Police are Here, up at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery until March 4.


Campuzano, Employee Pricing

Campuzano, often appropriates obsessive stories in his word-driven art, and writes them out, word by word, in colliding color blocks of raving text that go straight back to the text insertions of outsider artists like William Hawkins and Sister Gertrude.


Campuzano, Portrait of Kathy Change

He adds a dose of political paranoia in this outing at Fleisher-Ollman, in pieces such as "Portrait of Kathy Change," and "Portrait of Mae Brussel," the latter a 12-panel piece filled from top to bottom with Lee Harvey Oswald's final words. Mae Brussel, said gallerist John Ollman, is a talk-radio host with an Oswald obsession.


Campuzano, A Bigger Story

But it's in "A Bigger Story" and some of the smaller pieces that Campuzano tips his hand. Suddenly we're not only in the world of billboards and political cartoons, but we're also in the land of conceptual art, of John Baldessari and Lawrence Weiner. In Campuzano's work, the elegance of Baldessari's and Weiner's whippet-clean words collide with juicy visual environments. Campuzano's words are overused and borrowed from a world filled with hyped-up language.


Campuzano, Freedom and the Guy

Campuzano crowds the language into his spaces until it explodes into some unexpected truth. I like the way he sees.

For other artblog comments on Campuzano, go here and here.



A James Castle cartoon appropriation

Also at Fleisher-Ollman, a series of drawings by outsider artist James Castle, whose widely admired soot-and-spit drawings also include these never-before-seen pieces, recently found by his family in a portfolio. The images are political cartoons appropriated probably from Herblock. Castle, who had an extraordinary memory for images, reproduced these from memory (how do we know this, I wonder somewhat belatedly). Since he was profoundly deaf and could not read, he replaced any words in the cartoons with scribbles.

Looking at them is not unlike looking at the New Yorker feature on the back page, cartoons for which readers are invited to supply the captions.

For me, the highlight was the stitched-together tiny sketch book, which contains smaller versions of some of the political cartoons on the wall. A swell facsimile, available for handling, is hanging next to the original.

permanent link   libby 11:35 AM
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Posted by roberta

cozzolinoshiva.jpg
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

On Jan. 13, I met with PAFA Associate Curator Robert Cozzolino(pictured above in front of Ramon Shiva's "Chicago MCMXXIV" 1924) who gave me a preview of his then-upcoming exhibition "Art in Chicago" (see post).

The show opens to the public on Feb. 4. (See many pictures from the show in my flickr set).

In distilling the show down to a 700-word piece (which was then cut to 500 words by the PW editorial team) I find that I mis-represented Cozzolino's intent for the show. Here's his clarification.

Post from Robert Cozzolino



Dear Roberta:

I feel like I am something between a cranky old guy and an expert picker of nits in writing to take issue with what is good press (!) but I have to correct some things in your Weekly preview of Art in Chicago. The subject is simply too close to my heart to let it go and too splashy new in Philly to let it ride without feedback.




Ed Paschke, "Red Sweeney" 1975

First of all, I think you know that I admire how dedicated and passionate you are about covering what happens in Philadelphia's museums, galleries, studios and beyond. Having written for Madison, Wisconsin's weekly, Isthmus , I know that you only have so much space every week, indeed every month, to cover what you feel deserves to be covered. It can be frustrating to know that there are three great shows and two fascinating interviews that you want to write about but are forced to choose only one, leaving the others to simply be listed, the interviews for your own experience. Therefore, that you spent as much time and space as you have on Academy's new exhibition is beyond wonderful. I also find it inspirational that you go beyond your regular writing gigs and cover Philly so thoroughly and with intelligence and wit. I've only been here for two years and have worked as a curator in town for slightly more than one. In many cases I have learned about great local artists from you first. So I have come to see Artblog as my spyscreen on Philly's best, weirdest, and most worthy art.




Seven Lively Arts, 1947 (det) 7 panels commissioned for Ricardo's restaurant, now gone. Right panel is "Drama" by Ivan Albright.

So please see these corrections as helpful -- not as my wrath. I really do not have a wrath. Sometimes I wish I had a personal wraith. Perhaps it will touch off debate, perhaps not.

I have a couple of big concerns and a few little ones (which I am not going to touch on). The main one -- and to me the most important -- is that you somehow misunderstood the way in which I am framing Chicago art. I do not want to be misunderstood by you or your readers. That is
a bad thing indeed.




Christina Ramberg, "Shadow Panel" 1972

All of my research, curating and writing about twentieth-century art strives towards obliterating invented and pointless labels and categories. Often these labels were invented out of convenience and stuck (example: "abstract expressionism"). In many cases these catagories establish artificial norms upon which to justify old value judgements. An example: Greenbergian modernism, which dominated postwar assumptions about was Modernist (flatness, attention to paint and surface which should act like paint and surface) and therefore what was not (illusionism, narrative content).

The very very very last thing I want to do is to even hint that art done in Chicago of any period should be seen as its own category. That is exactly how it has been treated in the past as a way to exclude it from the supposed mainstream -- which was often a select and finite group of artists (often favored by a loquacious and highly visible critic, very often in one particular small provincial place in the United States -- any guess where?).




Ray Yoshida, "Jizz and Jazz" 1971

Categorizing art made in Chicago as its own thing in effect negatively isolates it and makes it an
anomaly. The artists in this show were actively engaged with the national -- and in some cases -- international art world. While there is a great deal of continuity (previously denied) among the three generations who are the focus of the exhibition, the qualities are subtle and in no way constitute a sustained movement of some sort.




Macena Barton "Salome"1936

What this show argues is that we need to expand our narrow view of what constituted modernism in America and look beyond New York. We could be looking at Dallas or San Francisco or Toronto. I believe that questioning what we have been told over and over again was the only (or correct) form of modernism in the visual arts helps us understand all of modernism much better -- including the usual suspects. I am arguing for expansiveness, inclusiveness, and a more complex and exciting way of understanding the twentieth century. I do not want Chicago to be
seen as isolated from the rest of what was going on in the world. It was part of modernism, not apart from it and contributed its own aesthetic viewpoint and concerns of content to our national identity. Let's remember that while Chicago artists and critics have lamented that artists who spent their formative years in the city eventually "fled" to New York or Los Angeles, what they took with was a piece of Chicago (think of Claes Oldenburg for instance). Why don't we talk about that process being positive and recognize a powerful Chicago diaspora?




Roger Brown, "Buttermilk Sky" 1974

Second -- while surrealism was a strong influence in the city over a long period of time there were many other stimulants; these artists were not "surrealists" -- but took cues from the movement's major artistic and literary figures in order to achieve their personal aims. One consistent theme in this exhibition is that each generation insisted -- in a nutshell -- that they
were doing their own thing. They knew about Duchamp and Kandinsky, and Dali, and Miro, Dubuffet, Bacon, Warhol, etc. But they tried to make something personal and unique in the face of these examples. That is one reason why the later generation (including members of the Hairy
Who) responded so strongly to anonymous folk art and the art of self- taught artists like Yoakum.




Paul La Mantia "The Fragile Trust" 1971

As for Yoakum; it isn't true that members of the Hairy Who "discovered" him. It was more complicated than that. According to one version of the story, a couple of people saw Yoakum's work (John Hopgood and Tom Brand) and then introduced it to a dealer in Chicago named Edward Sherbeyn. Sherbeyn gave him a show in 1968 and Karl Wirsum (Hairy Who artist) saw the work there. He introduced the others, including non-Hairy Who friends Roger Brown, Barbara Rossi, Ray Yoshida to the work. It is more accurate to say that they championed him like no one else. They treated him with great respect and helped him attain greater recognition, something that continued after his death. By extension I think they helped draw more attention to America's self-taught artists and raise cultural consciousness about them.

I'd hate to think I wasn't clear on these things and am sorry if I was muddled in my explanations during your visit. It was a friday the 13th after all.

In writing all of this I cannot help think of Dali's famous aphorism, paraphrased here: "It is not necessary that people speak well of Dali, only that people speak of Dali."

It is hard for me to feel comfortable complaining about good press; but I feel at least you should know of these corrections.

Hopefully this all makes sense.

Cheers,

-- Bob

permanent link   roberta 10:27 AM
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Posted by libby

The long-time executive director of Fleisher Art Memorial, Thora Jacobson, is leaving there in late February to serve as chief operating officer of Philagrafika, the Philadelphia Print Collaborative's project to explore the widespread impact of print media on art.

Jacobson has been at Fleisher for 33 years, and has served as director since 1983. She will be leaving Feb. 25. Here's the press release.

And Philadelphia Inquirer Fine Arts Editor Jeff Weinstein (as opposed to pop culture editor), is leaving at the end of February for Bloomberg News in New York, where he will be editing arts and culture. The move is more about his personal life--his partner is in New York--than about wanting to leave the Inquirer, he said. And he seemed certain that he would be replaced.

permanent link   libby 2:49 PM
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Posted by roberta

We got these two great thoughts about coloring book lines which I had said were problematic because they teach you to toe the line. See previous post.

From Anna Conti

You know, I never thought about coloring book lines as boundaries. They always struck me as guides. Guides point the way and give advice, which the traveler is free to ignore at any point along the way. Sometimes I feel like heading for the hills without a map, but other days I just want a cozy little guided excursion.

--Anna

From Dayton Castleman

There's an interesting paradox in your comment on coloring books and their teaching to color inside the lines. Regarding how you ought, or ought not color, I see the medium itself as fairly neutral (although elementary school teachers may be culpable!). The curious thing about lines is that without them, we'd have nothing to color outside of. They may suggest conformity, but they also facilitate rebellion.

--Dayton

permanent link   roberta 8:21 AM
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Posted by roberta

This week's Weekly includes my preview of "Art in Chicago" opening Friday at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Here's the art page and below is the copy with some additional pictures.

[Note: Curator Robert Cozzolino posted a correction to some statements in this preview. For his comments see post.]



Second City
A show at PAFA argues Chicago's maverick surrealism was a movement of its own.

Jim Nutt, I'm All A'TWit, 1969

Early in the 20th century, while New York painters were plying their trade as abstractionists, artists in Chicago chose painted figures and landscapes of a dreamy surreality instead. A new exhibit at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, "Art in Chicago: Resisting Regionalism, Transforming Modernism," argues this maverick surrealism spans the entire century in Chicago, and should be seen as a distinct category rather than as a regional blip on the New York radar.

Some might take issue with the show's inclusion of the raucous, outsidery paintings of '60s-era Hairy Who artists--Ed Paschke, Roger Brown, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt and Ray Yoshida. But PAFA associate curator Robert Cozzolino, who organized the exhibit, says, "The one contribution this show might make is that it doesn't stop at 1945, which is a line in the sand. We'll show that the quality persists across generations. It's been said the Hairy Who didn't have much in common with earlier Chicago art, but there's a lot characteristic of Chicago art in the Hairy Who."

About a third of the 60-odd paintings, drawings and sculptures from 1912 to 1987 come from PAFA's collection, including the recent acquisition of Nutt's I'm All a TWit. Cozzolino gathered the rest of the work from private collections in Philadelphia and Chicago. Cozzolino, 35, is a Chicago native and art historian whose Ph.D. thesis focused on Ivan Albright, who's prominently featured in the exhibit.


Ivan Albright, Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida, 1929-30

Like several other Chicago-area artists, Albright and his twin brother Malvin studied at PAFA, and their father was a monitor for Thomas Eakins. This PAFA-Chicago School of the Art Institute connection points to the two-step the institutions have been doing for a long time, funneling students and faculty back and forth through a network of friends and family.

One of the show's curatorial coups is the "Seven Lively Arts," a group of mural-sized paintings made by the Albrights, Aaron Bohrod and others for the late Chicago eatery Riccardo's. After the restaurant closed the 8-by-4-foot paintings were dispersed and brought together again only in 2002 by Chicago philanthropist Seymour Persky. This show will be the group's museum debut.


William S. Schwartz (De Profundis detail)

Early works by Nancy Spero and Leon Golub are included, as is a painting by Gertrude Abercrombie, one of the magical realist painters Cozzolino featured in a show at Chazen Art Museum in 2005. (An essay on the "With Friends" show at Chazen appears in February's Art in America.)

"Chicago" includes some Hairy Who documentation, such as comic book catalogs from their 1960s exhibitions. On loan from the Roger Brown Study Collection at the SAIC, the catalogs are bold, graphically groundbreaking and zinelike-and they cost 50 cents or $1.

Cozzolino says Hairy Who members discovered Chicago outsider artist Joseph Yoakum and collected and championed his work. Several of Yoakum's drawings-and works by Chicago outsider Lee Godie-are in the show (on loan from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz collection).

Heated interest in figurative art nowadays makes "Chicago" a must-see. The show will be a revelation to many young Philadelphia artists who unknowingly walk the maverick figuration path.

"Art in Chicago: Resisting Regionalism, Transforming Modernism"
Fri., Feb. 3, 6-8:30pm. $10. Through April 2. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Fisher Brooks Gallery, Samuel M.V. Hamilton Bldg., 128 N. Broad St. 215.972.7600.

permanent link   roberta 8:42 PM
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Posted by libby

We just got an alert from regular contributor Rob Matthews that the Pa. Council on the Arts grants were announced. Here are the Philadelphia region's fellows in visual and media arts. More details, plus info in other categories, other parts of the state, award sizes, etc., here.

Joan Wadleigh Curran
Carolyn Healy
Cheryl Hess
Melissa Ho
Albo Jeavons
Alex Kanevsky
Enid Mark
Joe Naujokas
Rita F. Newberry
Pepon Osorio
John Phillips
Matthew Pruden
Peter Rose
Rebecca Rutstein
William Smith
Eva Wylie
Mauro Zamora
Morgan Craig
LeAnne Erickson
Margaret L. Saligman

Congratulations!!! We know so many of you, so we're sending you hugs.

permanent link   libby 5:43 PM
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Posted by libby

detail from a Fred Tomaselli piece,
photo by Aaron Igler

Artist Fred Tomaselli, who makes intricate images from materials embedded in resin, will speak Friday, 6 p.m. at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. For more information about his talk and about the "Swarm" exhibit, visit the Fab site.


Nick Lenker's
"Mother and Bear"

Image is one of Nick Lenker's stuffed seating arrangements for the travelling British video festival coming to Nexus this Friday. Nick is a local.


Kathy Butterly piece
shown at Carnegie International


Clay artist Kathy Butterly, whose work we adored at the last Carnegie International, is talking Friday, Feb. 10, 2006, 6:30 p.m., University of Pennsylvania Chemistry Building, Room 102, 231 S. 34th Street. For more fees and more info go to the Clay Studio web site.

permanent link   libby 5:02 PM
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Posted by roberta

contitwotrees
Originally uploaded by sokref1.

Give some people a coloring book and they WILL color!

I did a little art project this holiday season like I do most years. It's something to get me through what is perhaps my least-favorite time of the year.

This being my flickr year where I actually started to consider the camera one of my art tools, I decided to make something based on my flickr images -- a coloring book. I ran the images through Photoshop and laid it out in iPhoto and hallelujah there it was, a cyber book which I then printed out on paper, thank you Kinkos. My distribution chain is always hit or miss and if I missed you I'm sorry. Hit me up and I'll send you one.

One recipient was my SF blogger buddy, Anna Conti, and Anna surprised me by actually coloring a page and returning the beautiful thing to me in the mail. It's one of my favorite images, "Two Trees," a shot of Santa Monica beach looking like a desert mirage with a concrete bunker restroom in the foreground and just the hint of the ocean (or desert) in the background. And it just shows you how art can triumph over the coloring book, a genre of book I love but also have some problems with, because it teaches that you should stay within the lines.

Conti's non-crayon coloring, which she called "an unauthorized collaboration" is a triumph of art over "stay in the line-dom." She turned a simple scene into a beauty. And the idea that a coloring book is, at its heart, a collaboration, is a fantastic thought. Puts a whole new spin on the genre for me. Here's my flickr set with the original photos and my machinations with them. And because I'm a blogger, I put them into a blog, night before xmas (named for what I am usually doing on that night -- some project or other).

Check out Anna's new blog look, by the way. She's migrated to a mac host and has podcasting capability -- I'm so jealous!

permanent link   roberta 9:08 AM
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