Here are a few images I took. With Gulliver's Travels as a jumping off point, i got interested in playing with scale. My first few pictures were inspired by "The Land of the Giants" when Gulliver is so small he can fit in one of their breast pockets. Then, I switched gears and took photos from the perspective of Gulliver in the land of Lilliput. I ultimately focused on issues of scale, distance, and solitude. I also became interested in the cropping of the image; making decisions about what to include or exclude. Enjoy.

Here are some more images from the Under Cover exhibit. The first few are Singer Sargeant, followed by more skylines by Grosz.

I managed to catch the Under Cover: Artist's Sketchbooks exhibition at the Fogg museum before it closed up shop on the 22nd of October. I was especially taken with the work of George Grosz and John Singer Sargeant. I have always been a fan of Singer Sargeant but Grosz was an artist I was not yet familiar with. His sketches of the Manhattan skyline rang clear and true to me. They seemed so effortlessly and expertly rendered. The deftness of his marks resonated within me. I thought to myself, "I want to do that. I CAN do that."

Seeing the artists' sketchbooks was a wonderful experience. It feels infinitely more intimate to be able to see these private journals like this, even though they are behind glass. You can witness the development of ideas, their thought processes much clearer and evident than in one of their masterful paintings. One can also identify more with these drawings. They are so small, the materials so familiar. You can feel closer to the artist via these miniature works in graphite, ink, or watercolor.
I loved seeing Singer Sargeants sketchbooks. For me, this was truly a privelage. I have always been awestruck by his work. His monumental paintings, his ethereal and celestial frescos in the MFA and Boston Public Library have always held me in rapt, silent awe. To see this master's work scaled down to such a small size evoked a giddiness in me. I felt like I had a VIP pass, like I was seeing something I wasn't supposed to. After years of thinking of him as some sort of demi-god of painting, I was thrilled to see the "behind the scenes" of all of his huge works. Technically speaking, he was beyond capable. His ability to render the human figure with such an economy of line and value is astonishing. He can create the most beautiful, languid, organic forms with what appears to be surgical precision. I am so pleased I was lucky enough to catch this exhibit before it was gone.

Now for phase II. I originally thought I was going to continue my beetle paintings, maybe adapting them into a short illustrated book. But since this is a literary based project I've been looking for a piece of writing as a source of ideas/inspiration. For whatever reason, I have been thinking a lot about Gulliver's Travels by the great Jonathan Swift lately. It must pop into my head at least once a week. Things I see and hear alway trigger images and themes from that book. I just love it as an allegory. So as I proceed into this project I will be swirling the flavors of Mr. Swift's remarkable imagination around on my creative palate. I'm excited to see where this takes me.

Last wednesday I went to an artist's lecture at MassArt. The presenter was New-York based artist Stephen Talasnik, a fascinating and funny man who held me in rapt attention for the full hour and a half. His work is comprised mostly of graphite drawings on paper and some large-scale sculpture. His drawings are entirely black and white, heavily detailed and loaded with visual interest. They have an otherworldy quality about them that I found very compelling. He quoted architecture and black and white photography as sources of inspiration, and presented his work alongside these sources. A strong interest in engineering, architecture and invention was highly evident in his work. I was also very impressed with his capacity for speaking clearly and concisely about his work. He was very articulate and engaing. I didn't take notes but I will list some nuggets that stand out in my memory:
- Let the paper bear some responsibility as a working material in a drawing. It is not always entirely up to the tool to create the drawing. The drawings of George Seurat are an excellent example of this philosophy.
- Black and White can be so much more powerful than color. A black and white image is capable of a timelessness where as an image containg color can pinpoint it in time. Using black and white carries with it a potential for time-travel.
-Intuition and the imagination are as necessary to abstract work as the materials themselves. Technical ability and drawing representationally are always necessary to compelling works of art but the role of one's intuition is paramount in making them distinctive.
I highly recommend checking out his work on his website: www.stephentalasnik.com