throwback miami museum thursday

Last week I went on a trip with volunteers from the Norton Museum of Art to the Perez Art Museum in Miami. It's been a while since I've been in a museum devoted completely to contemporary art and I had a blast. The Perez has an amazing, eco-friendly space, and its collection is equally impressive. The main exhibition, featuring work by Spanish artist Antoni Tàpies, was interesting, but what really caught my fancy were items from the museum's permanent collection.

sketchbook thursday

The kid and I attend Art After Dark events at our local art museum the Norton on Thursday nights. One of our favorites are when they feature art workshops, like Sketchbook Thursday.

The kid took a photo of me hard at work, sketching from a model from the Norton's spiral staircase (I'm at the far right).

This qualifies as a Throwback Thursday post in that it happened last Thursday, and that I am actually sketching and drawing again, which certainly feels like a throwback, albeit a good one, to me.

Playing with different pencils

The kid came up with a drawing game - to close our eyes and draw something, and then the other person tries to guess what it is. This is her rendition of a ... Can you guess?

playing with collage

While the kid worked on a large-scale mural at the museum last week, I had some fun making some smaller-scale collages. It feels good to be making visual art and using pastels again.

all artists have to start somewhere ...

Our local museum has a great Thursday night program that includes tours, music, lectures and other events. But the activity I like the best is usually some sort of studio art - something I haven't had the chance to do in a long time. Sometimes it's sketching, sometimes watercolor. Last week it was landscape, but with a twist. There were some large "drawings' posted on the wall and folks were invited to draw, paint, collage - whatever they wanted to. It was fun and collaborative and the kid loved it. She almost did one of the large-scale wall drawings all by herself. Needless to say, we can't wait to check out what they have going next time.

klara kristalova: childhood dreams and nightmares

I am loving a current exhibit at the Norton Museum of Art so much - Klara Kristalova: Turning into Stone. The Czechoslovakian-born artist, who is based in Sweden, makes clay and porcelain sculptures which conjure the world of fairy tales, childhood, fantasy, and at times, horror films. Her show at the Norton, which is part of the RAW (Recognition of Art by Women) initiative, is both dreamy and creepy. Whimsical animal creatures surround a sleeping girl, which suggests childhood dreams, while other pieces are more nightmarish. Her watercolors, which are also included in the show, are interesting, but it is her work in sculpture that really impresses.

"When you're a child the reality and the fantasy mixes up."

Happily, her work is on exhibit until March 29, 2015, so I will be able to visit and revisit it many times.

back to the museum i go ...

I am currently in the docent training program at our local art museum, the Norton Museum of Art. I have been taking part since October, and have been enjoying it immensely. It's actually quite a rigorous program, but that is one of the things about it that I like the most. We have been learning the collection, and reading lots of articles on museum education.

It's like going back to art school and it couldn't have come at a better time for me in my life right now. I have been a little out to sea since my mother took a fall a year ago. Transitioning from a full-time caretaker who also was trying to work on her own creative writing to a part-time — what, exactly? Between shuttling between my mom at the nursing home and daughter's schedule and my own quest for personal improvement, mentally and physically — I wasn't exactly concentrating on any creative projects.

My first "practice tour stop" was on this exquisite jade carving from the museum's Chinese art collection,  "Figure of Mulan on Horseback."

Adding the Norton to my schedule should have pushed my over the edge, but actually, I think being back in a museum environment and looking at art and talking about it with like-minded people has actually helped my focus even more on my own work and health. At least I hope so. Change is hard, but I have always believed that it is good. And getting to immerse myself in art and ideas for me is beyond good.

more edward gorey — in book form

Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey is the catalogue accompanying the show currently on display at the Norton Museum of Art is the perfect companion piece to the detailed and whimsical world of Gorey. According to the essay by curator and critic Karen Wilkin, Gorey thought of himself as a writer first. Or, he stated on occasion, a person. But artist, no matter the evidence on display at the Norton and in this catalogue, of his terrific talents, was never the first word he used to describe himself.

Untitled, no date. there's a lot going on in this picture ...

The fabulous drawings, full of intricate cross-hatching certainly belie this. The stylized people of a bygone era — its never exactly clear exactly what time zone they inhabit — are always frozen in the midst of something about to happen, or that has just happened, usually conveniently, and possibly violently, just out of the picture. Little details that inhabit the background of a landscape or the shadows of a drawing room are frequently mysterious, but always compelling. The exhibition at the Norton provided magnifying glasses at appropriate intervals, and one would also come in handy while studying the reproductions in the catalogue, as one can spot frequently a small object like a card on the floor, or a face outside a window that demands closer inspection.

Gorey would start with the words first, and the images would come later. He would sometimes use reams of paper to get the words just right, and the catalogue showcases examples of his variations on text and accompanying doodles for many of his books, including The Osbick Bird, which he called alternately a "woshbosh" "jub jub" "scramble" and "fibbul" bird before deciding on "osbick." Gorey adored wordplay and anagrams and even published some of his books using anagrams of his name: Ogdred Wery, Mrs. Regera Dowdy, and Wardore Edgy, to name a few.

Apart from describing Gorey's love of cats and his omnivorous interest in books and popular culture, there isn't too much in the accompanying essay about Gorey the man, or his daily life. He loved ballet with a passion and lived in Massachusetts. His love of Buster Keaton and silent films informs his enigmatic black and white drawings and his intertitle-like text. He may or may not have intended his work to be enjoyed by children. Perhaps appropriately, Gorey the person comes off as ambiguous and cryptic as his drawings.

The man and (some of) his cats

"After it had passed, Lord Wherewithal was found crushed beneath a statue blown down from the parapet."
The Secrets: Volume One, The Other Statue, 1968.

For anyone who is unable to see the touring show, which started at the Brandywine Museum in Pennsylvania and has been making its way across the country, this book is a wonderful introduction to his work. But once one has been introduced to Mr. Earbrass or any of the unfortunate tykes featured in The Gashlycrumb Tinies it will become necessary to check out more of Edward Gorey's work. He did much more than just the clever animation that appears at the beginning of PBS's Mystery series. This book is a good place to start.

edward gorey at the norton

“My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible. I think we should all be as uneasy as possible, because that's what the world is like.”

Currently on view at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL, is Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey, running through Sept. 2. The retrospective show has been touring the country, and includes some 150 drawings by the talented artist. Gorey died in 2000, at the age of 75.

The Blue Aspic, 1968, pen and ink (Check out the ring on her toe!)

The Norton has set up the exhibit to encourage the viewer to take their time and really immerse themselves in Gorey's intricate, frequently morbid, but always amusing drawings. Multiple magnifying glasses are set up at intervals to allow viewers to discover details and get lost in the artist's cross-hatching. There is also a room that includes a wall of Gorey's books to enjoy. Only certain illustrations from some of his best-loved titles, like The Unstrung Harp, The Other Statue, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies appear in the show, so it is nice to be able to sit and flip through the entire book on an overstuffed, over-sized, Victorian pouf. There is also a room where one can pose in a Gorey-esque tableaux and a place for kids (and adults) to try their hand at drawing their own Gorey illustrations.

“The helpful thought for which you look

Is written somewhere in a book.”

Who's that at the window?

Draw your own Gorey, if you dare

Along with Gorey's original pen-and-ink illustrations, are preparatory sketches done in pencil, some watercolor designs he did for a production of The Mikado, and some cleverly illustrated envelopes/letters to his mother. Also included are illustrations he did for other writers' books, like Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, miniature (that is, really tiny) books, and a deck of cards which, when shuffled, tell a story.

Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey is a lot of fun. It's easy to get immersed in Gorey's world. I can't wait to go back and see it, magnifying glass in hand, again.

altered states

A week ago I caught the fun and colorful exhibit, Altered States at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL. I've got to go back and immerse myself in all of the psychedelic details before it closes in ten days.

The exhibition was curated by Cheryl Brutvan, from the Norton. The four artists featured are all masters of color and detail. Before you enter the main exhibition gallery, Jose Alvarez’s "Vibrating Strands of Energy," greets the museum visitors. The lobby wall is full of undulating color in the Fort Lauderdale-based artist’s installation. The other three artists in Altered States are Yayoi Kusama, Fred Tomaselli and Leo Villareal.

Jose Alvarez, born in 1968, creates large scale mixed-media paintings, which incorporate elements such as porcupine quills, feathers, crystals, and bits of mica. The paintings swirl and ripple, as does a video wall piece installed next to one of his paintings, where colors reverberate and change.

Jose Alvarez, "The Progress of Inspiration," 2008

Yayoi Kusama's work plays with repetitive patterns, something she has been doing throughout her long career. The Japanese artist was born in 1929. She has led a turbulent life, surviving child abuse and struggling with mental illness. The artist, by choice, lives in a Tokyo mental hospital and does her work in her nearby studio.

Yayoi Kusama, "Fear of Death," 2008

Fred Tomaselli, born in 1956, creates large-scale works that from a distance seem to be detailed paintings, reminiscent of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, but when one gets close up can see they are quasi-collages. Tomaselli uses multiples of items such as pills, mushrooms, as well as magazine images of flowers, birds, butterflies, and human body parts such as arms and legs, to compose a larger image. They are then covered with a thick layer of epoxy resin to create a flawless surface. As heavy as these panels must be,  they remain somehow light and fun, with the viewer getting to try and separate the details from the overall picture. They call to mind novelty craft tables from the '70s that would have seashells or something else embedded and epoxied into them, as well as Chuck Close's giant fingerprint paintings that dissolve as you get closer to them.

Fred Tomaselli, "Fungi and Flowers, 2002

Leo Villareal, born in 1967, is represented by his installation, "Firmament II." After all of the dots and swirls and repetitive collage items of Alvarez, Kusama, and Tomaselli, the viewer enters a darkened room. There are strategically placed couches where visitors gan look above at a continuous light show overhead. It's still an extremely visual experience, but it also is a palate cleanser.

Leo Villareal, from his installation at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Has my state been altered? Certainly my visual sense has been hyper-stimulated. And I'm looking forward to having that happen again.

Altered States runs through July 17. You can contact The Norton Museum of Art for more information.

Related articles

• Yayoi Kusama: Polka-Dot Visionary (lachristagreco.com)
• From fake psychic to artist: The mystic transformation of Jose Alvarez (pbpulse.com)

no swimming

Between my still-healing recently broken toe, the shark and man-o-war sightings, and the colder weather, I haven't been doing as many beach walks and wading recently. This wooden screen from the Norton Museum of Art reminds me that toes heal, sharks and man-o-wars move on, and it will be warmer soon.

Related articles

• 100,000 sharks mass off Florida's beaches (dailymail.co.uk)