Susanna's Sketchbook

May 9, 2008

Yesterday, I wandered through a deserted amusement park in the parking lot of a half-empty mall along the side of a highway. It felt oddly exciting to walk by the wrapped tents and the still rides, nodding to the roadies, taking photographs of the sights. It was opening night, and in a few hours this pristine, quiet, glitzed-out place would suddenly come to life with flashing lights and blaring music. Families would arrive carrying pink cotton candy wands and fizzy sodas and tickets for rides in their hands. In the meantime, though, I had the place to myself.

May 8, 2008

 

Roadside in Pennsylvania 

May 6, 2008

Did you know, when the painter Claude Monet moved to his house in Giverny, France, and began painting the beautiful landscape in the surrounding area, namely poplar trees and haystacks, that the owner of a certain forest that Monet had been painting told the artist that unless he was paid a fee, he would cut the trees down? Oh yes he did. And once word got out that Monet would pay money to keep his painting's subject matter intact, other wily townsfolk started blackmailing him, too. I suppose in a strange way, the greedy townsfolk should have been thanked because in the end, Monet painted those famous waterlilies from his own gardens.

I didn't know that about Monet until I read artists' houses by Gerard-Georges Lemaire. It's a fascinating book about the homes of several well-known artists, including the Bloomsbury Group, Alphonse Mucha, Andre Derain and Claude Monet. The gorgeous photographs in the book are by Jean-Claude Amiel.

It's so interesting to see what these artists collected over their lives be it rare Japanese prints, grotesque carnival masks, personally-designed furniture or a mishmash of bowls and paintings left by guests and roommates.

One of my favourite rooms is the studio of painter Duncan Grant of the Bloomsbury Group.  I like how every inch of the room seems covered in artwork and that the paint colours on the walls are just a little bit odd. Like that lime-green-yellow on the right. And then look at the wall behind the mirror...it's covered in random dark brushstrokes.

Talk about an interesting read... There were so many affairs and open relationships occurring under these roofs! Well, except for Monet. His wife threatened to move out of the house if he hired a female model. I'm surprised that Hollywood hasn't picked up this. Okay, I'm not really that surprised. Maybe the BBC has...?

May 4, 2008

 

   

May 2, 2008

Thank you for the supportive comments and emails regarding my "winged messenger" project. I really do appreciate it. I would like to tell you how this project came about and I want to point out certain people who have inspired me along the way.

The winged messengers came from a sketch that I drew for J years ago when we were living in two separate countries. My husband had moved to the States months prior for his work while I finished my own contracts up in Canada. During our long distance relationship, I would write him letters and sometimes when there wasn't anything new to say, I'd send him sketches or photographs. One the sketches was of J laying in bed while envelopes with wings flew through his bedroom window.

I began making the winged envelopes a month or so ago for myself. I made six, taped them to my wall, took a photograph of them and then posted the photo on my blog. Then I got the idea to take them out into the field and into the city. It was purely a visual idea. I thought they would look beautiful moving through tall grass in a field or in a gritty urban setting.

Then Maddie of Persisting Stars wrote about her and her children leaving kind, supportive notes to strangers throughout her home town. I loved that idea! Plus, I like the idea of giving free art; that is, anyone can take a "winged messenger" home with them.

Maddie sent me a link to a website called Hope Revolution which is wonderful site encouraging people to start their own "random acts of kindness" projects. Hope Revolution has a link to a flickr site where people from around the world post up photographs of what they are doing in their own neighborhoods. It's encouraging to know that despite the often depressing news on the television or on the radio, little positive ideas for change are taking place throughout the country and in our world.

While at Karen's place last week, I looked through the latest Artful Blogging Magazine. Andrea of Hula Seventy has an interesting piece in the magazine where she describes her family's own experience of leaving kind comments around their town. What a great activity for children!

This is going to be a long term project for me. I get excited imagining where I can leave a winged messenger next. Constance of Rochambeau and her mother left a winged messenger in a Texan town last month and Olga has offered to post a winged messenger or two somewhere in Stockholm. How cool is that?!

April 30, 2008

It's great when ideas come together, when a jumble of thoughts becomes a clear project. And when that clear project leads to an unexpected opportunity to collaborate with another artist, well, that's sure to add an extra skip to your step and put a smile on your face. That's how I felt this morning when Rachel came over with her videocamera. A few shots later, we found ourselves in New Brunswick, New Jersey, taping a winged messenger onto a telephone booth on the train platform. The message reads "call him". Thank you, Rachel, I had fun!

Then it was back home where I found this surprise present from Karen:

 

Karen knows that I have a tendency to talk myself out of purchasing things, which I did with this book during our outing last week, so she sneakily bought it for me while I was rummaging through a box of old photographs. Sneaky sneaky, Karen! I laughed with delight when I opened the parcel. Plus she added that wonderful John Derian tissue paper...

What a lovely day.

April 26, 2008

Today is cool and windy and perfect after the beautiful warm weather we had all week. Today I am feeling thankful for many little things in my life - for the quietness of my apartment, for a dinner that's already made, for J who picked something up for me just because he thought I'd like it. I'm also feeling thankful for all the get-togethers that have happened over this month. For me, April has become The Month of the Bloggergals.

This past Thursday, I hopped a train into New York and met up with my friend Karen and her two wonderful friends, Kathryn and Joy. When I entered the apartment where they were staying, I found a table covered with evidence of creativity gone wild. Old books, paper, scissors, glue, little trinkets and swatches of fabric were all being assembled into beautiful works of art. I was shown treasures in paper bags, collected from unique shops throughout New York. The lovely Maddie (who is just as sweet and poetic in person as she is on her blog) joined us and after a coffee and breakfast, we began our day exploring the city.

I took them to one of my favourite shops - John Derian. It's a little shop of wonders, selling decoupaged glass plates, little paper mache vegetables (my favourite are the radishes), giant grey featherdusters, photographs of 19th C. folk with dog heads and so much more.

Then Karen took us to one of her special NYC finds: New York Central Art Supply. It's a plain-looking store from the outside but on the inside there is an assortment of paints and paper, brushes and (oh my, oh my) sketchbooks that would make any artist's heart skip a beat. Now I am quite fussy about my sketchbooks. I always look for a particular style that will set the mood for what will be inside the book. Well, New York Central Art Supply had the exact books I have been looking for - hooray! And the brushes...they have a wide selection of brushes that go beyond the typical art store variety. We're talking brushes that you could display in a vase...brushes from around the world...in all shapes and sizes and styles...brushes with character and personality...

Later that afternoon, we bid farewell to Joy and Kathryn and Maddie and I caught a ride with Karen to her home in Pennsylvania.

Karen is the hostess with the mostest. Oh yes, she is! Her house is filled with artwork and photographs of her family which really makes you feel as a guest that you are stepping into a house full of creativity and love. We ate chocolate, drank coffee, talked about art and blogging and pretty well chatted away an evening and a morning.

Before Maddie and I returned home, Karen took us to a couple neat shops in Pennsylvania. There was a second hand store called The Barn (sorry, no website) which was literally packed floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with everything imaginable. There was a drawer full of "monsters" and a shelf full of porcelain sugar bowls still containing sugar. After seeing all the assemblage art over the past week, I stepped out of my box and bought three metal door locks. I'll make something out of them, really I will!

Maddie found her dream green typewriter there...

 

We also wandered through a large second hand bookstore that would make any ephemera fan swoon. I bought two little children's books with terrible stories but fabulous illustrations throughout them. This one particularly caught my fancy as it reminds me of my cat's early morning personality:

 

April 23, 2008

Busy as a bee. Tomorrow I will be heading into New York to meet up with two friends for a day of wandering and photography. I've been looking forward to this day for a while now. And what gorgeous weather we've had out here on the east coast - all blue skies and sunshine. Ahhhh! I'll catch up with you this weekend!

April 21, 2008

This past Sunday, fun-loving Michelle Ward and her talented friend and artist Judi Riesch, invited me to spend the day with nine artistic bloggergals and artists at Judi's home. I can't even begin to tell you how inspiring that day was for me. All the women are mixed media artists, creating collage and assemblage pieces. My focus is usually in photography and sometimes in encaustic painting so it was a real treat to be a "fly on the wall" on Sunday, hearing these women describe their creative process and seeing their artwork first hand.

Judi Riesch is an amazing artist with such an open, generous spirit. Her home is filled with her own artwork along with those created by other artists... thick handbound books filled with small objects and beautiful paintings, frames with tintypes, feathers and wires, assemblages in boxes that seemed to tell stories... I think my favourite part was walking through her rooms and seeing all the gorgeous little displays and sigh-inducing vignettes Judi has created through her home. She really has a terrific eye for details and for putting individual pieces together, creating a collection that has feeling and meaning. She had me thinking, Maybe I could do that in my home, too?

   

My friend and bloggergal Karen came to the get-together and brought a group of her friends who are currently visiting her from various parts of the country and in Judy Wilkenfeld's case, from Australia.

Judy Wilkenfeld brought out her incredible handbound book, The Twelve Tribes of Israel, and explained to us the meaning behind each of the pages. I was impressed not only by the beauty of the book was but how much research had gone into creating each page representing an Israelite tribe. Every tiny detail added to a page had a deep symbolic meaning and Judy's explanation of the pages was fascinating.

Judi's friend, Bee Shay, also showed us pages from her own beautiful books. From what I heard, her studio is a treasure trove filled to the brim with finds from Nature.

I finally got to meet Karen's friends Jerri, Joy and Kathryn. Leslie came and brought her camera which makes me smile because we both share a love for photographing our surroundings and our cameras tend to be within hand's reach.

Thank you, Michelle and Judi (and Judi's sweet husband, John) for organizing and inviting me to this bloggergal get-together!

Photos (top to bottom): Michelle holding one of Judi Riesch's assembled books; Kathryn, Joy and Karen admiring the pages of another assembled book by Judi; closeup of Judy Wilkenfeld's book, The 12 Tribes; Judy W. looking through Judi R.'s book; Bee talking with Michelle; Kathryn, Leslie and Joy sharing a peek into Judi's book.   

April 18, 2008