L. Joshua Goodman’s Art Blog

May 31, 2009

The Fractalic Nature of the Universe

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: , , , , , , , — Joshua @ 11:49 am

NOTE: This is probably not for everybody. If this discussion bores you, I understand. Check back later for another post. This is just something I think about a lot, so…

About 20 years ago or so I read the book Chaos by New York Times Science writer, James Gleick. Since then I (and many other people) have been seeing many many things in terms of Fractals.

For those who don’t know what fractals are, I’ll paste a Wickipedia definition (quoting Benoit Mandlebrot):

A fractal is generally “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,”

Usual examples are snowflakes and clouds. Always similar, never the same.

I like the example of families. Some of my children are like me, some are like my wife. None are exACTly like either one of us.

Nature is FULL of fractals. Ferns, forests (and the trees in them), and feathers are all fractalic.

I am working on an etching right now (and have been working on it for a while now) that is fractalic. It’s a kind of a triptych; three panels make up one long landscape. Each panel can stand on it’s own, and together they make a whole that (might be) greater than the sum of the parts. It’s a different experience (seeing the whole, rather than just each individual part), but it’s a similar experience.

I don’t know how I am going to be able to show it online. The format is just too small to be much good. But I’ll try it. The worst that can happen is that nobody will get it.

If you see a fractal, let me know. I’m collecting them.

Be well.

J.

May 30, 2009

Ya’akov Dorchin and the Ultimate Insult

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: , , , , , , — Joshua @ 3:52 pm

Ya’akov Dorchin has a reputation. He’s been around long enough and done enough cool stuff that he is a feature on television (which was my first sighting) and is written up in the paper every once in a while. I read one of those  articles recently.

Ya’akov Dorchin is primarily known as a sculptor in iron. I have to admit that I’m a fool for iron and no matter what I think of him and his work (I kind of like his work, but his ego puts me off a bit), the process of big iron seizes me. One of the milestones in Dorchin’s career was when he was robbed of several works by metal thieves. It’s easy to see how this could affect an artist. Anybody who has been burglarized knows what a sense of personal violation it is that somebody just walks in and carries off things dear. And an artist (I don’t care what anybody says about this) has a personal relationship with each piece. An intimate relationship. I think it’s safe to say that the love that an artist has for his work is a big part of what makes it valuable. It’s what separates good art from mere technical proficiency.

But the thieves were not interested in the value of the piece of art. Each piece was worth thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars just in Art value alone. But they weren’t stealing art. They were stealing iron. Scrap iron.

This raises a question. It’s kind of a Warholian question. If there is no assigned value, then there is no value. When Andy Warhol picked a selection of screen prints and left some as unsigned and therefore Not Art, he was confirming his thesis that Art is whatever an artist says is Art.

In the case of Ya’akov Dorchin the Art is whatever the thieves say is Art. If his stolen sculptures end up on the Art Black Market (or is that the Black Art Market), then they are art. More likely they were melted down and used to build kassam rockets or some other kind of  hardware.

See yall soon.

Be well.

Joshua

May 26, 2009

Multiples

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: , — Joshua @ 9:03 pm

I made a series a few years ago. Actually it was one plate with five broad aquatint lines. I printed nine prints and put them together to have one work that used all nine prints. They look different when they are all together. Nine together are not the same as one and one and one times three (9). It makes a pattern.

So the question is, “Do I number an edition of nine works as 1/9, or 1/81?”

Matisse was the son of a textile manufacturer. He grew up with those wonderful repetitive patterns that you find in textiles. Now when I look at a Matisse, I see how he loved those textilic patterns.

And you know, love is contagious.

Be well.

J.

May 19, 2009

A Dissent with Avigdor Arikha on Modernism

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: , , , , , , , — Joshua @ 8:34 pm

I read an interesting article in the HaAretz weekend magazine recently. It was a rare interview with Avigdor Arikha. I know his name and his reputation, but I have not known anything about him. So I was very interested in this interview. I learned a lot in the hour or so I spent with him in his Paris apartment (via the interview).

One thing caught my attention. He said something like, “Israel is too caught up with Modernism; in every room is a print of a Van Gogh.” This is true enough. I can visualize kibbutz kindergartens and dining rooms that are indeed decorated with Van Gogh Sunflowers and such. What strikes me as odd is the implied claim that Modernism is banal, tasteless, and unworthy of serious consideration. Modernism, he seems to claim, is helplessly inelegant.

But I have a different opinion. I think that Modernism is inescapable, and that even Arikha is demonstrably a Modernist. Modernism is the spirit of the times and has been since about 1750. And any artist who has lived since then cannot help but be one. I believe that there have been inelegant artists (as well as patrons) in every age. I believe that Arikha is an elegant Modernist, although it would seem that he would reject the term as an oxymoron!

By Modernism I mean the consideration that less is more. Simplification, reduction to essence, is what Modernism is about. My favorite example of Modernism is in the field of Typography. There began to develop sans serif fonts starting from about 1750 . They were so radical that in time they were as a family actually named “Grotesque”. The main idea was the removing of every element but the essential stroke. They even eliminated the artist’s personality by reducing letter forms to geometric shapes (see Paul Renner’s Futura c. 1925).

This same instinct to reduce can be seen in the paintings of Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian as well as others. Architecture became simple (e.g. Bahuaus). Japanese art institutionalized the idea of the essential gesture as opposed to needless decoration. Van Gogh and many many others were changed forever by Japanese packaging graphics. Everything from toasters, to trains, to automobiles was streamlined, which might be another word for “simplified”.

Hemmingway wrote short sentences. Me too.

Bye.

J.

Perceptual Painting

Filed under: General Discussion — Joshua @ 9:03 am

I was in a group exhibition recently. At the gallery talk one of the other artists said something really stupid. She said something like, “What is outside of me is nothing; what is inside of me is everything.”

Of course I didn’t want to start an argument. Not there anyway. If I did, I would have said something like, “You IDIOT! What’s inside of us is J-U-N-K-! All the color harmonies of nature are perfect. Any sunrise or sunset will prove the point! Nature looks so, so, um, natural! What we paint looks garish, gaudy, amateurish, clumsy by comparison.”

As a student I realized that if I wanted a perfect painting, I would have to paint what I saw in nature. (My teacher, Wilbur Niewald — worth a good Google — was very good at teaching this kind of thing.) Nevertheless, I find that while I am a confirmed Perceptualist, I cheat. I believe that I am being faithful to what I see out there (absolute honesty is absolutely essential), but I find that more and more I am averaging the colors. I can’t paint every little dot to be a tree or bush or whatever, so I take a kind of a general audit of color/value for increasingly large areas of landscape. So it is that my painting is beginning to look a bit more abstract. Hopefully more essential. Certainly more simple.

For the time being I think that is ok.

Be well.

J.

May 10, 2009

Thinking about The Jerusalem Print Workshop

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: , , , — Joshua @ 7:47 pm

I was thinking recently about something a teacher of mine, Sharon Poliakine, once said, “It’s interesting that in etching the plate is often more interesting than the prints pulled from that plate.” More about that statement in a minute, but first this brings to mind fond memories of my years spent getting back into Intaglio printing after a rather long hiatus. Arik Kilemnick has assembled a staff or bright, knowledgeable, and nice people. Sharon has moved on to other things now, but when she was there, she never failed to be understanding and encouraging. She taught from the head and from the heart. Someday I want to be a teacher like that!

In any event this line of thought started because of  a plate that I took out of the bath a few days ago. It made me glad to see those strongly etched lines jutting their chins out at me boldly challenging me to print them. I know this sounds a bit more poetic that even I would like, but there is indeed a certain challenge when one sees the plate after etching and before printing. Like in the old days when we would photograph something and then wait for the negative to be developed and printed. There is hope that all will be well (or better), but the reality is that sometimes it isn’t well. It may need more work, or it may need to be ignored and then more work. Or maybe just ignored…there’s nothing to learn from this one.

Once I did a book cover for somebody and used an etching. I thought I would use an itaglio print, but it turned out much much better to scan the plate and use that image for the cover illustration. A strongly etched line on a brass plate. I added a few hard-edge vector elements and it turned out very satisfactory.

The plate is more beautiful than the print. Nothing wrong with that.

Be well.

May 2, 2009

Texas size landscapes

Filed under: General Discussion — Tags: , , , , , , — Joshua @ 10:34 am

We were in Texas last year. Had a great time. One thing we did was to visit a gallery in Dallas (or maybe Ft. Worth, I never knew exactly where I was). Two brothers shared studio and gallery space in the same building. Among a lot of great painting were several very loooong landscapes. What is so very interesting is that the question immediately arises, “Why so very long??” and the answer equally immediately arises, “that’s the way landscapes are in Texas!!” You stand there looking out on a ton of space and look from side to side 180 degrees and see nothing but landscape. Painting just a standard rectangular landscape might be fine, and pretty, but a painting that is so long that you can’t look at the whole thing at once is giving the same experience as looking at the landscape that you experience in nature.

So I came home and decided I was going to try the same thing. I went out and found a wonderful spot up on a hillside not far from where I live.  I set up two easels (one easel is for the normal-size painting) and put up a two meter (about six foot) gessoed board. I haven’t actually finished the painting. I went out twice. Nevertheless, I decided that I was going to make this into an etching.

So recently I have started a series of three plates. I can’t print a six foot plate on my little three foot long press. So I’ve broken up the landscape into three sections. Each section, not surprisingly, can stand on it’s own. Each section is a complete landscape in itself.  This is in line with my theory of the fractalic nature of the universe (more on that in another blog). And of course they work together as a very long landscape.

Just the way landscapes are in nature. Long. And Lovely.

Be well.

J.

May 1, 2009

Dialoging with Rembrandt

Filed under: 1 — Joshua @ 8:01 am

I was working in the studio this morning. Got up at 5:00 a.m. just to have few minutes of good work. I was cross hatching on a mountainside for this three part loooooooooong landscape I’m working on (more about that later). Suddenly I found myself thinking of Rembrandt. I was wondering if he was having the same problems that I was having. I was thinking he would have been working just like me, making the same little lines as I was making. He would have been thinking (maybe) “How long is it till lunch time”. On the other hand he may have been thinking great thoughts about the universe. I was thinking, “how does Rembrandt do those same little lines so dang GOOD!”

More later. Gotta go to the dentist.

See yall soon.

J.

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