Art is a refuge from the busy hive of activity…and I’m lifted.
Sometimes I even float.
A fleeting instant, the diver coming up for air.
Posted in art, Art Journaling, art,poetry,writing, Digital Drawing, Ink, poetry, Quotes, sketchbook, sketching on January 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Art is a refuge from the busy hive of activity…and I’m lifted.
Sometimes I even float.
A fleeting instant, the diver coming up for air.
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Digital Drawing, Drawing, Experiments, History of Architecture, Making on January 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Maybe Istanbul was the city in the sky where the people who were our reflections lived.
Burhan Sönmez
A quick trip to Ahmet Square in Istanbul on my way back from Italy, to visit Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. You can see my photos and a video on @sketchbloom
These are my first architectural sketches using my new Ipad and the SKETCHES app.
( I had previously used drawing apps on my phone to sort-of draw a portrait, experiment with digital watercolor and collage).
Learning the tools and the limits of the app was really interesting, as was experimenting with all the different tools and lineweights. I completed these few days ago on the plane ride from Istanbul to Los Angeles- looking at photos i took. The first one took me 15 minutes, the second one three hours. No ruler was used, tracing or overlaying – just a stylus with different tips and a brush.
Posted in Architectural Photography, architecture, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Graphite, Lectures, Photography, Poetry, sketchbook, visual journal, wanderlust, tagged city, new york, poem, Poetry, rainer maria rilke on April 27, 2019| 3 Comments »
Rainer Maria Rilke writes:
Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.
This above all — ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.
[…]
A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgment of it: there is no other.
In this spirit I offer you, Reader, this poem and these images, stemming from one brief November visit to the city than never sleeps – and several months of correspondence.
In a New York Minute [Glissando]
“If you can receive it at the wavelength is is playing at, you may love it.”
From a review of the series “Forever”
We existed
in the ellipses between
words appearing on screen
and giving up
Suspended above the city
you loved how I used the word luscious
We kissed with our souls
on the tip of our tongue
this is from Spoon River Anthology
You are morse code
and I need continuity
–when I asked if we were ships in the night
and you said yes did you notice me wiping the water
on my cheeks? I barely noticed too.
But then you said : “Body and heart.”
Body and heart.
You spoke of fire between our souls,
as if you knew about souls.
You only know about fire.
My tears don’t fall
I do
every single time
— how many goodbyes did it take?
So elegant in your detachment, like it was an art form.
Precise in your choice of words,
I fell in love with your philosopher brain.
I still fall in love with it every time — liminal.
A New York minute.
You were the space separating
Love and reason
I was addicted to a city
giddy at the thought of walking her streets beside you
how do you fly and walk
at the same time?
Even if you don’t see her torn feet
the effortless dance of the ballerina
is a flower bloomed out of pain.
Take each sentence, rearrange as you wish.
This is not to scale.
The timeline is not linear.
To hear you whisper, half-asleep: “When?”
Zero things better.
I heard that New York is the heartbeat of the world.
In that heartbeat a part of me is marked by your passage.
We will never go to Tokyo.
Posted in art, art workshops, art,poetry,writing, Collage, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Pastel, Watercolor, Way Art Yonder, Writing, tagged art journal, background pages, collage, mixed media arts, sketchbook, Texture, visual journal on October 20, 2018| 1 Comment »
Today was a beautiful day of art and comraderie!
I attended the first day of Roxanne Evans Stouts’ workshop at Way Art Yonder in Jamul, California. This was my second workshop in this wonderful art studio – and another opportunity to spend a day fully with my art, exploring mixed media and collaging.
Today’s workshop involved learning foundations and advanced tools for making an art/visual journal. I learned countless new ways of using acrylic matte medium along with pastel, plaster of Paris, Golden high flow acrylic, distress stain and different papers/ glazing uses to achieve translucent effects.
Then there were demonstrations on how to use plaster of Paris with stencils and ink pads.
We made the background pages of what is going to be a visual journal based on the concept of windows and daydreams.
This was the official workshop prompt.
“Daydreams and Window Light”
A book of expressions in mixed media and collage about the changing seasons with Roxanne Evans Stout
Imagine creating a handcrafted artist book in which every page is a window into the story of you… either symbolically, or perhaps even a literal window that we will make out of metal, plastic or cardboard. Our covers will be made of plexiglass, that we will sand, texture and glaze. Our inside pages will include vintage photo frames, mica and distressed metal sheets, all of which I will provide. Join Roxanne and she will guide you in creating beautiful books with pages that are rich in color and texture, and pages that sing of the light and magic that is uniquely you!
Some of the keywords of the days were texture ( of course), story, China marker, gesso,wax paper, deli paper, parchment, distressed, embossed, awl, hole punching, tacky glue, gloss and matte medium, layer, pan pastels, high flow , tracery, filigree, aluminum, gold and copper foil paper, plexiglass, sandpaper, etching, unfinished/open, assemblage, vignettes, patterns, glazing, negative space, russett and burnish.
It was really interesting to know that my professor was a botanical artist before coming into the world of mixed media/collage- she used to draw photorealistic flora and fauna for publication, but found mixed media and it re-lit the fire of art in her soul, a fire that was lost in the technical precision required of her former profession.
These are some of the background pages I produced today- tomorrow we will work with collaging and creating our windows.
And finally, some observations around the studio: photographing a a stack of stencils, and a single well-burnished ones. Washing the stencil, stenciling water on concrete.
The last three pieces are from my talented and formidable art-friend Carla Bange 🙂
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Collage, Cures for the Nothing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Graphite, Ink, Poetry, Quotes, sketchbook, writing, tagged Coffee, Drawing, Love, poem, Poetry, romanticism, sketch, Tree, william wordsworth on September 29, 2018| 1 Comment »
The belief that women talk too much is rooted in the understanding that women should be silent. “The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence,” is how well-known feminist Dale Spender explained her reasoning in her book Man Made Language written decades ago. “Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.”
Emily Peck
This is another novella.
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
William Wordsworth
…
Angel comes from the Greek angelos, the messenger, the sent one.
Who more than the poets can speak about love?
-she said I contain worlds-
after six days his kisses stopped
he who told me all my no’s became yes’s
he who brought the wind
he who said I talked too much
-but could not spell-
and taught me to stay
by being the one who left.
“Never gift a book to someone who doesn’t understand vowels.”
I’m just removing the pebbles I’ve had in my shoes for two months, yes tonight- yes he was sweet, boiling ice. Yes he was heartless.
It’s the light in your eyes I cling on to save me
-or distract me-
my fallacy
the shine of yet another city – and i am the magpie with butterfly wings.
Of eyes i like when they tighten to focus like the lens of a camera
a mind is sometimes a beautiful forest, and layered people
a cosmos
he was my mirror, but you are on the other side of this screen
I have been running for seven years
but i was never more beautiful than the night we first went out – that glow was hope.
Seven years is what it takes for all cells in the body to renew
therefore in November I am, molecularly, a whole different person than the one she knew.
In July the old woman asked me why I was not married.
“God has to send me an an angel.” I replied. “An angel.”
We made fire in August. Consume.
We were southern blood, I was like sea.
To suffer for love is the greatest privilege.
In the morning the sun would wake me up by warming my feet; at one the vendors made their way back from the beach. We passed black bodies picking tomatoes in the fields of Sardinia.
They started pulling the umbrellas from the sand in the clubs in September. The light in the house was always crepuscular, like Tara in Gone With The Wind.
I guess it boils down to a lack of belief, a lack of patience
I am impetuous, and impulsive – female like guerra
if two pieces in a puzzle are too much alike, they don’t lock
I never thought your tattoos could cut me
I followed their path : they taught me the root of the word “seduction”
your eyes stopped seeing me, and it felt like violence.
Poetry is making pain elegant, and writing with broken hands.
Cruelty is not giving the beautiful words you say you have- to someone who lives by them. Mercy is never knowing when the last time comes.
“What we initially fall in love with is what hurts us the most in the end; he dressed really well, he was early, and his hair spelled trouble.”
I ran away to the ease of palmtrees and terracotta tiles (a cop-out)
because you cannot heal where you got sick – and I know you take yourself wherever you go, but 7,000 miles in between help.
They say it’s enough if only one of the two loves
and we know that i’m in love with the feeling,
the person is just an excuse.
it is not you who i missed- but what came with you;
I belong to freedom, and my art.
I steal words from my travels.
I can tell you in real life (IRL) men do not come in the middle of the night to tell you they don’t want to lose you- no matter how pretty or intelligent you are. nothing is fought for any more, and stories end for a nothing, for fear, on cloudy mondays.
Poets are one soul in the end, share one collective heart
the only ones who are not ashamed of being publicly immolated
but on the contrary, they show their wounds to the sun
they never explain them
– and that’s how they heal.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Collage, Graphite, Ink, sketchbook, tagged Calabria, dolcevita, home, Italia, Italy, Love, summer on September 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Travel and tell no one,
live a true love story and tell no one,
live happily and tell no one,
people ruin beautiful things.
Kahlil Gibran
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Graphic Design, Graphite, Ink, Los Angeles Diaries, Music, Painting, Quotes, school, sketchbook, sketching, wanderlust, Watercolor, tagged Drawing, experiments, ink art, napkin sketches, sketches, Sketches App, Tayasui, watercolor markers, Yann Tiersen on June 30, 2018| 1 Comment »
One more post before the month is done.
This Spring was filled with intensity in and outside of my University.. the final stretch of the school year. Accelerated timelines, accelerated heartbeat. Stealing time between deadlines to go up to LA once more for a life-changing Yann Tiersen concert ( of Amelie fame), participate to sketching and art+Jazz events and jot down few lines to be shared later (after all, poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity).
Stealing time from time… to be and to feel alive. Sketching (almost) everyday is doing wonders for my spirit- and glow!
Single reader, I hope you have time to disconnect and renew. Happy Summer.
Posted in architecture, art,poetry,writing, Books, Drawing, Le flâneur, sketching, tagged books on New York, flaneur, new york, New York bookstores, sketching on January 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
Three hours in New York City in December. Some flânerie and a visit to one excellent bookstore. A dose of “cityness”.
New York has been called the capital of the twentieth century and an architectural battleground. Here are some of the stories I found at Rizzoli.
The playful books of architectural sketches (i also found this and this at the Museum of Contemporary Art store in the airport) reminded me that flawless execution is not as important as
1) discovering your own graphic “voice”
and
2) developing the trust, consistency and playfulness needed to making it heard.
Other books looked as delicious as desserts in a literature bakery.
That’s what a book is, a single serving of story and ideas you can carry with you and devote yourself to, like listening with intention to one speaker. Attention is, after all, the best form of generosity.
Sometimes the tabs of my internet browser become a cacophony. Sure all of the books of Rizzoli, William Stout and Hennessey + Ingalls too, could be contained in a thumb drive. But what those people that consider bookstores obsolete don’t understand that bookstores are not just purveyor of books: they curate selection, there is a mind at work.. one that reads and knows about books. Perusing books on Amazon versus holding these portable maps in our hands is the difference between buying produce at a Walmart superstore or handpicking heirloom tomatoes in a farmers’ market. Bookstore owners are the farmers of knowledge. Once bookstores are gone from a city, soon will civitas and intellectual discourse [see San Diego. the only one of the major 6 cities in US without a bookstore… panem ( or rather vinum) et circensis is what fuels downtown.. when it should be the arts and local businesses.]Books like these in your satchel could make the difference between being a tourist or being a pilgrim, and inspire to sketch the city playfully.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Ink, Quotes, sketching, The Situationist Internationale, tagged cafe chloe, cafe', journal, san diego, sketching on December 5, 2017| 3 Comments »
One has to start somewhere…
After finishing my sketch I ran into two dear friends who had come to the cafe.
Perhaps the cafés can be the new piazzettas somehow.
Here’s to spontaneous gathering and holiday cheers.
Posted in Architectural Photography, Architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Design, Drawing, Ink, Mexico Lindo y Querido, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, sketchbook, Traveling, wanderlust, writing, tagged Ciudad de México, Cuernavaca, DF, Drawing, Hablo De La Ciudad, Jardines De Mexico, mexico, Mexico City, Octavio Paz on November 28, 2017| 2 Comments »
The French poet Paul Valéry said that all things are generated from an interruption. I learned this from my favorite Italian thinker, Alessandro Baricco, here in en español, whose lectures – to be found only in Italian – I listen to to learn about literature, writing, and life.
There were many interruptions this year, and not just personal. I can think of the devastating Hurricane Irma in my beloved, beautiful Puerto Rico, or the September 19 earthquake in my favorite city this side of the Atlantic, Ciudad De México – which occurred on the 32nd Anniversary of an earthquake that killed more that 10.000 people.
My personal earthquake and hurricane happened on August 21 of this year, when my dad passed away. I can now finally begin to write this sentence, and about it, without being swallowed up in the chasm that this loss left in my life. I know his spirit went back to his sea, where he returned, and I feel he is near, both inside my heart and dancing around in freedom and light. I like to think I can take him with me wherever I go now, and share my life in a more immediate way. I like to think his energy was transformed into waves of the sea. The sea can hug you, yet you can’t hug the sea, his immensity. I like to think he is in a butterfly, sometimes in a song. A friend of mine wrote “I heard your dad went back to the Universe”. I like that.
My dad loved the Old Man and The Sea, drawing boats and fish, Jonathan Seagull, reading, Venice, watching documentaries on nature, fishing, and working on his boat. He loved his friends and he loved me. He is the reason art is in my life. He is the reason I read One Hundred Years of Solitude in middle school (I used to raid the books of his youth unbeknownst to both my parents). It became my favorite book, it still is, and magical realism, anarchy and arcane literary worlds shaped who I am.
I thought about coming back to SketchBloom with a post on Van Gogh, and the film Loving Vincent, which I saw this month. The movie reminded me of my dad, of his love of painting, his simple bedroom , and his fisherman shack on the beach, La Baracca Del Bucaniere, which he lovely composed for the last ten years of his life here on the Earth school.
That post is in the pipeline, and I took new photos of his sculpture when I was last in Calabria – but I wanted to return with a sketch, a return to art.
I just got back from Mexico (that is how the locals call it, Mexico…no need to use “Ciudad de”) yesterday, where I finally got over my protracted artist’s block.
Here, a simple sketch (above) and some photos/vignettes/stories I bring back from my trip.
Walking in Coyoacán – Frida’s neighborhood:
Scenes from Roma, one of the neighborhoods of DF:
Ꮬ
This is Barba Azul, a cabaret from another era, where salsa is danced from midnight till dawn, where there is an altar upstairs (I have seen them in parking lots, too) and where the exit is a tiny rectangle carved into a decorated garage door- something out Pinocchio’s Paese dei Balocchi (toyland)…or a circus in a Fellini movie. One of the many surreal vignettes of this metropolis.
Unfortunately I could not take a better photo of it (with the usher emerging!) but it is on my list for next time. I also learned about the ficheras , the ladies of the establishment who sell a dance for a token (and more, at their discretion).
The obligatory photo of the Palacio De Bellas Artes, November 2017 version:
Where I had the chance to see Diego Rivera’s murals…
…and learn about the Rojo Mexicano (the red pigment from cochinilla bugs found inside the cactus fruits in Oaxaca, which was utilized in paintings around the world from the XV Century to the XIX) and see Van Gogh’s Bedroom At Arles with my own eyes (!!!).
Ꮬ
I also visited Cuernavaca, La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera (The City of the Eternal Spring), where i completed my yearly self-evaluation for #work in a garden within Jardines de Mexico, surrounded by butterflies. Talk about INSPIRING.
Italian Garden at Jardines De Mexico (my favorite, obv)
In Cuernavaca, I stayed in a copy of Unité d’Habitacion (but if you follow me on Instagram you already know this).
Ꮝ
I want to close with a poem by Octavio Paz — who is considered the greatest Mexican poet and thinker — and, of course, was a native of Mexico City.
This is his poem Hablo de la Ciudad | I Speak of the City. Below the text in the original Spanish and the translation in English.
This poem perfectly encapsulates what Mexico City is. I have more posts on La Ciudad to craft, from my previous visits, and more poetry- but this shall suffice for tonight.
Here is to more gentle earthquakes and hurricanes in 2018, inner ones to bring soul renewals, and to a kinder year.
For the Aztecs, this was the bellybutton of the Moon.
Nos vemos pronto, Tenochtitlán.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Graphite, Ink, sketchbook, tagged california, Drawing, Little Italy, Piazza Basilone, Plen air sketching, Rendering, san diego on November 7, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Experiments, Graphite, Photography, San Diego, sketching, wanderlust, tagged heart, lotus, mandala, moon, sketch, sketchbook, solstice, strawberry moon on June 21, 2016| 5 Comments »
Northern Hemisphere,
June 19 and June 20, 2016.
Strawberry Moon and Solstice, an event that occurs every seventy years.
Full moon as the Sun stops to take Her in; the union of the masculine and the feminine. I hope you have been casting spells, and were looking skyward.
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Books, Coffee, Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Digital Manipulation, Experiments, Ink, Mexico Lindo y Querido, Photography, Poetry, San Diego, sketching, Tijuana Diaries, tagged café bassam, cafe lulu, cafe', collages, poem to tijuana, Reading, rose, san diego, sketches on June 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »
A Mi Tijuana
Milton Ríos
Spanish | English
La olvidada, la 100 por ciento criticada!..
A la que puedes dar mil opiniones sobre ella
La única que es coherente con su equilibrio
Entre las cosas buenas y malas!
La ciudad malvada… la maravillada,
La llena de narcos!
Artistas, multicolores y muchos tantos…
Esta ciudad… ciudad de paso
Y paso a ser mía,
Mi ciudad! Mi metrópoli confundida
Ayer la mas violenta
Hoy el ejemplo de paz!
Pero solo en mi Tijuana se puede vivir esto!
Balazos, teatro… buena música, cineastas en acción
El party el revolución! La que ya no es nada
Por que nació la calle 6ta.
Donde se junta lo subterráneo,
Las culturas urbanas, donde no ahí negros ni blancos!
Ni mexicanos ni gringos…
lo que importa es la noche bohemia,
algo de baile y alcohol
que viva la diversión…
la ciudad de segunda!
De segundas oportunidades
Donde caen los deportados
Donde comen y duermen los emigrados,
Donde se respira libertad
Donde ahí policías buenos y malos!
Y aquí te preguntas? Para que ir al otro lado…
Si acaso nomas de compras,
a conocer lo bien planeado.
Pero para dormir a gusto! Para respirar a diario…
Con la adrenalina constante,
De Tijuana ahí que ser amante.
Y así a donde vallas al decir soy de Tijuana
Obtendrás ese silencio! Que es un silencio ganado
De respeto por que para criticar Tijuana
Solo nosotros los que la vivimos
Los que la hemos hecho nuestra
Y ser tijuanense, claro que satisface
Pero también pesa y cuesta!…
Posted in Architectural Photography, Architecture, art, Art Gallery, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Mexico Lindo y Querido, photography, School Work, sketching, Traveling, Watercolor on April 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Berkeley Diaries, Books, Collage, Design, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Essay, Graphic Design, Graphite, Ink, Jewelry, Jewelry and Accessory Design, Le flâneur, Lectures, Photography, Portfolio of Work, Research, San Diego, School Work, sketching, Traveling, Urban Design, Writing, tagged Abstract, architecture academic research, documentation, Faculty Board, faculty portfolio, narrative, Pedagogy, publishing, storage cities, teaching on March 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Hello Stranger!
In case you are wondering what happened to me and why I’ve gone M.I.A during the month of February and most of March, the board above is one of the reasons. As it happened in 2010,
our school underwent an enormous accreditation visit, which meant preparing for months collecting, documenting and providing evidences.
One of the best things to come out of the work leading to the Accreditation was that Faculty was once more asked to prepare a record of what we have been doing – outside of teaching- the past five years.
It is a monumental task to audit, select and curate five years of life, work, art – yet I welcome the chance to take stock of where I have been, for it points to where I want to go. This process of self-evaluation is a privilege not afforded to many professions, and I was thankful for the challenge.
We were also asked to write a brief narrative. I worked on this more hours than I care to admit and I am happy to now share this with you: words, drawings and travel photography — some of which hasn’t been seen here yet! Hope you enjoy it.
“The French writer Daniel Pennac describes the notion of the passeur, of the ‘transmitter’, as intimately connected to the ownership of culture. He considers pedagogy as a branch of dramaturgy: a great teacher is a playwright, a vector of knowledge who instills curiosity, personifies her subject, and communicates passion. As an academic, designer, artist, and poet , storytelling is central to my work.
When I was six years old, fascinated by a book of folktales of Northern Europe, I decided I wanted to be a collector of legends. Though my path took me to Architecture and Fine Arts, teaching History of Architecture brought me to travel to Latin America, the American Southwest and the Caribbeans where I began to record the history of place through the stories of its native people, These ‘stories of architecture’ become the framework of my courses. Through drawing, urban sketching, collages, photography, and writing, my preoccupation has been with collecting, documenting, processing and communicating narratives – while letting the spontaneous unfold.”
Miti Aiello, San Diego, March 2016
Writer Update:
My abstract on my research on Storage Cities has been accepted by one of the two main Architecture academic bodies here in the U.S for presentation at their International Conference! They are sending me to Santiago, Chile in June, and will publish my academic paper. Too excited for words. If you want to get a sneak peek and read my abstract check out my academia.edu page.
This is likely a hello/byefornow.
I wanted to update my blog now that classes have ended for the quarter, and before once again leaving for Mexico, this time in Baja California Sur for a week of volunteering. Faculty and students of my school are going to help build a healing center using natural architecture in a location that is three hours away by car from the closest road. It will be very remote, challenging and, I am sure, transforming. I will document everything.
Few weeks ago I wrote that, sometimes, we don’t have time to do art because we are too busy living a life that is art itself.
That is a true blessing, amidst the inherent challenges.
Although I have not posted here, I have not stopped taking photographs, seeing, collecting, thinking. My hope of hopes is to get caught up with my posts this summer…Promises we have heard before…
“You don’t need motivation.
What you need is discipline, young lady!”Joe
Posted in Architecture, art, Art Gallery, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Graphite, San Diego, school, School Work, sketchbook, sketching, tagged architectural drawing, art at night, Balboa Park, Drawing, graphite, Museum of Man, san diego on January 18, 2016| 3 Comments »
You might remember this drawing from November.
I finally finished at the beginning of January, on a cold (for San Diego) night, sitting in front of this 100-yearY building, under a portico.
Balboa Park always takes me back home. This entire drawing was done plen air and took me few sessions over several months to complete.
It will be on its way to San José, Costa Rica soon.
This is a quick photo, but i have a piecemeal scanned version ( sheet too large for my scanner, and the wide format at work is not very kind to graphite).I will try to compose the image and sub for it soon – but it has already been a whole week since this post languished in the draft purgatory and i want to get to my next night photography post.
Clouds make nocturnal old San Diego heartbreakingly beautiful.
By the way, i hope you all had a fantastic Holiday Break.
I just got back from another trip to México, and i have Mayan pyramids,cenotes, colonial towns and caribbean waters to share. I cannot believe i haven’t had the chance to share my two trips to Ciudad de México D.F from last July and November (¡Frida!) ..yet.
So next there will be a series of posts on México “lindo y querido”.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Graphite, History of Architecture, San Diego, tagged Architecture, Balboa Park, Drawing, graphite, History of San Diego, Museum of Man, Panama California Exposition, pencil, san diego on November 11, 2015| 1 Comment »
A commissioned work in progress.
One more plen air session and lineweight application and this baby is traveling to Costa Rica.
[Gracias por la Pura Vida]
I was asked to draw something that, to me, was intrinsically San Diego.
I love this building, and Balboa Park.
This is my neighborhood, my California home.
The buildings in Balboa park were chimeras, they were not supposed to last. They were stuccoed renditions, built for the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition.
It was San Diego dreaming of a past it did not possess, recreating its version of Spain, a classical city of porticoes, fountains and piazzas. Balboa Park represents both a stage and utopia.
My mind knows i am looking at façade architecture, in some cases as authentic as a movie set. It also knows none of the hundreds of plants and trees in the park are native. Yet, i am seduced. I indulge in a state ‘suspension of disbelief’, as Wordsworth asked of his reader.
This is my Romantic ruin.
Balboa Park today enchants as a beautiful urban park, the cultural heart of San Diego with more than twenty museums, gardens, landscaped vistas and hikes through the natural canyons (and, always, street artists).
When I see the blue-tiled dome and its storied tower, emerge like a hazy dream across a bridge that translates in elegant modern forms a Roman aqueduct, i escape.
No. This photo was not ‘shopped. The sky really looks like this all year-round here.
And you should see the sunsets.
Don’t hate. We pay for this in other ways.
Posted in Art Gallery, Drawing, Graphite, Life Drawing, Paris Diaries, tagged graphite on paper, judith, klimt, live modeling, nude, pencil, the lady in gold on July 23, 2015| 2 Comments »
Here is my Judith, a stunning model with a stare that would make anyone burn.
Perhaps influenced by the book I am in love with reading, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
Posted in art, Art Gallery, Drawing, Ink, Life Drawing, Pastel, Poetry, sketchbook, wanderlust, Watercolor, Writing, writing, tagged art, balboa part, Drawing, graphite, ink, Monday nights, nude, nude modeling, pastel, san diego, san diego arts institute, sketchbook, sketching on July 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Another month of quickening days, of white skies, of scorching heat, of California monsoons has gone by.
The weather in San Diego has been positively schizophrenic. Life has been full (I dislike the word “busy”), heartbreaking and healing at turns, magic, adventurous, challenging and with an overall trend of daily progress towards balance, harmony and mindfullness. Things are good.
I have been blessed to have crossed paths with soulful fellow travelers.
Since the beginning of 2015, the posts here at Sketchbloom have been so sparse…it’s embarassing. I miss my days before my professorship where I had the luxury of being an artist full time. Yet there were, of course, different struggles at the time. I always heard that with privileges come responsibilities, and I felt those, so much, this past school year. Although the school year ended, culminating with Graduation at the end of June, I feel I am only (sort-of) beginning to breath now.
I completed my six-week five-credit Arabic course yesterday. I signed up for the class on what must have been an adrenaline rush from the tough Spring I had. The course started during Finals week at my University, which meant a seamless, yet intense/insane transition! I have some calligraphy to share from the course, and I am happy to say I can finally read and write in Arabic!
This month also saw me in Ciudad de Mexico DF for few days. I will post soon some photographs and recollections from that city of thousand faces. Alas, no drawings. (no time)
How to sum up a whole year? Only through recollection in tranquility. I am finally on break, and I plan to catch up with all the posts from my travels. I have notebooks full of thoughts and words, that might become verses, once distilled. Yet, this is also the time to make. I read that, a year from now, you will wish you had started today. SO I am starting, again, today. Every time I post here it feels like a new beginning. For those of you who have been following this blog (more than a thousand!), thank you for your patience and for the kind forgetfulness, and forgiveness, of promises not (yet) kept. I started running behind in 2013….no comment. My art and this blog can hardly catch up with my life and travels. I guess that is a good problem to have. Maybe you want to wander here, and see why time flies.
Annnyyyyhow…..Here are the rest of this spring’s nudes from Monday nights at the San Diego Arts Institute.
I noticed, going through the various drawings done there, that I tend to experiment with a different medium and paper each time. I guess I really miss my collages. I had the time to scan these drawings (i always feel quick and dirty when I post shots from my phone), and, well, what a difference.
One good piece of news is that I will get back my art studio in the Fall. I was part of the Brokers’ Building Artist Colony from 2003-2008 and I cannot wait to have a special place for my art again.
This summer – this year, really – feels like the long backward run, the gathering momentum
overdue
of the pole jumper.
Posted in art, Art Gallery, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Collage, Ink, Life Drawing, Pastel, Poetry, Quotes, San Diego, sketchbook, sketching, Watercolor, Writing, tagged artists, Drawing, Life Drawing, Mondays in Balboa Park, nude modeling, painting, san diego, San Diego Art Institute, Watercolor on June 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Two months to the day of my last post, I return.
Like a lover who walks into the door surreptitiously, I offer no explanations.
Just Kidding.
This quarter saw me teaching three courses with a total of 120 students, so, dear Single Reader, the reason for my hiatus is self-evident. It was a ten-week long journey into different periods of History of Architecture and Urban Design, Urban Issues and so. much. more.
Here are snapshots of my bimonthly art dates. I have quite a few drawings, but could not conjure up the time and mental space to scan and post them. Ideally, these will be scanned version soon..but here they are.
I embarked on an Arabic adventure as of Monday, and this will be a spectacular summer, I feel and know.
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
Anne Bradstreet
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Experiments, Research, San Diego, sketching, tagged animal instinct, art, costume, Dr.Sketchy Anti-Art School San Diego, Drawing, Friends, fun, getting my hands dirty again, graphite, Life Drawing, Markers, model, Sitting on the floor on March 23, 2015| Leave a Comment »
On Saturday, I participated to Dr. Sketchy San Diego, a fun artistic encounter involving life drawing.
This month’s event was centered around ‘Animal Instinct’ :).
We had a very fun model.
I realized I need these ‘art dates’ to keep me engaged with making art as I find my way back… back to my art studio.
Also, I may just, finally, have found my tribe.
Posted in Competitions and Collaborations, Drawing, Milano Diaries, Watercolor, tagged collaborative work, Drawing, family., moleskine watercolor paper, Piazza, sketch, Watercolor on January 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Posted in digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Ink, Poetry, sketchbook, sketching, tagged coffee shop, Drawing, light, light fixtures, lounge, luminaires, Noelle Kocot, on being an artist, poem-a-day, red, sketch, sketch every day on May 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »
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Posted in art,poetry,writing, Competitions and Collaborations, Drawing, Ink, Painting, San Francisco Diaries, sketchbook, sketching, Traveling, wanderlust, Watercolor, tagged Drawing, sketchbook, Watercolor on April 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Pastel, Poetry, Writing, writing, tagged art, manuscript, new year, Poetry, poetry and art book, purpose, retreat, self realizatio fellowship, visualization on January 20, 2014| 1 Comment »
I went to my Sunday practice at the Self Realization Fellowship yesterday, and during the retreat we did some visualization exercises – which was perfect because one of my goals for this long weekend was to do art and post here…since…ehm… we are almost at the end of the month (yikes!).
Below, a project I (finally) completed yesterday…the manuscript for my second book of art and poetry.
Here is the first…planning to put both on blurb.com after some design decisions are made.
Off to a good start …happy, vibrant and loving 2014.
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Collage, Drawing, Ink, Link Love, Poetry, Thinking with my hands, tagged ascii heart, asciiart, black and white art, collage, Drawing, figure, found objects, graphite, journal, Watercolor, writing on December 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »
These collages are starting to need a change of byline for SketchBloom: Art Therapy. Oh well;)
Above, a work in progress (and, darling aren’t we all?)..not sure which way it will go.
In the midst of nude painting to be done from memory (and I have started sketching, too bad the final product won’t be posted here), there’s been art and feelings on fire.
…
In the quest for ASCII hearts ( yes, lots of hearts are needed ) I found these lovely images.
This is a program called ASCIIART – which goes beyond recreating images in characters to delving into typography…and…this had me at hello.
I cannot wait to experiment with some black and white art.
…
Also, a return to poetry, literature and tender music. Maybe a new poem will blossom soon…the ingredients are there once again.
Some quotes from a book I am finally finishing (quotes that became a poem): The Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.
Freedom and loneliness overlap, look in the mirror, my face, these words reversed.
Hearing his name caused him to turn back again
looking into her eyes was like standing by a door slightly ajar
how could you not push open the door
see what lay inside?
…
And that door seemed to open a little.
and the glimpse he had beyond the door tortured him
he wanted to say more, to say everything on his mind, but he couldn’t.
It wasn’t a question of language.
He doubted the words existed in any language.
…
He forced himself to look away from her then.
It was like prying a magnet off steel.
…
It was as though, outside of that room, there could be such a thing as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
And then there was her.
Posted in art, Calabria Diaries, Drawing, Painting, Poetry, Watercolor, Writing, tagged birthday flowers, charcoal, Drawing, graphite, Grumbacher all-purpose paper., mom, Watercolor on September 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Today is my mom’s birthday, she didn’t want me to buy flowers, so I painted her some…
Posted in art, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Ernest Hemingway, Poetry, Writing, tagged digital manipulation, Drawing, Hemingway, honesty, ink on paper, mea culpa, photoshop, portrait, sketch, tradigital drawing, writing on September 2, 2013| 4 Comments »
Sometimes it takes finding a portrait you do not remember drawing….a sketch you do not immediately recognize as your own- yet find intriguing and technically correct, to remind you you are an artist, you can do these things.
You, in fact, do these things- it is your work, a beloved toil- your ink on paper is like rubber on the road for others.
Days with no art are never complete, nor true – or honest, as Papa Hemingway would say.
I can’t help but thinking one should not need such reminders….
Posted in Drawing, Ink, San Diego, tagged Drawing, fountain ink pen, heart, ink, parker, sketch, time, woman on May 22, 2013| 2 Comments »
Posted in art, Collage, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, school, School Work, Spontaneous Constructs, tagged collage, Love, mixed media, San Diego museum.of art catalog on May 20, 2013| 2 Comments »
The process…
The story behind the collage base :
When starting a new collage, I find I always need a catalyst, an incipit.
In order to tell the visual narratives of my collage I always like to continue an imaginary dialogue started by another artist, graphic designer etc.
The base of this latest collage is the very sparse cover of current San Diego Museum of Art Magazine. I knew the wooden carving was of a monk of sorts and I was immediately drawn to the work’s piety and devotion. I only found out the identity and the story behind the sculpture once I was ready to post the collage…it held unexpected surprises and even reinforced in my mind some of the creative choices I made while composing the collage ( the heart held in the sculpture’s hands).
Excerpts from the San Diego Museum of Art Membership magazine:
The sculpture depicts San Diego de Alcala’, otherwise known as Saint Didacus, who was born around 1400 near Seville.
He became a lay brother in the Franciscan order and worked at monasteries in the Canary Islands, Spain, and Rome, before finally.settling at the Convento de Santa Maria de Jesus in Alcala’, where he lived until 1463. He worked in the infirmaries of these monasteries and is said to have brought about miraculous cures to those in his care. Accordingly, the earliest depictions of San Diego following his canonization in 1588 show his healing miracles.
The San Diego Museum of Art has acquired this remarkable sculpture by Pedro De Mena (1628-1688). Mena worked in his native Granada and in Malaga, and from there produced works that were sent to.patrons around Spain, including the Royal family in Madrid.
Although relatively little known today outside of spain, Mena was the most prominent sculptor of his day. It has been said that he is unsurpassed both in the beauty of his woodcarving and in his ability to capture the expressions of religious emotions.
Mena’ sculpture depicts a miracle that came to be the standard form of the saint’s iconography. Diego was devoted to the poor and often took them bread from the monastery table. During a shortage of food at the monastery, Diego was forbidden to do so, but continued to take bread to the poor, hiding it in the folds of his monastic habit.
On one occasion, the superior of the monastery caught Diego in the act of taking bread and challenged him to show what he was carrying in the bundled robes. When Diego looked down, the bread was transformed into roses, a miraculous confirmation of his charitable works. As was often the case for sculptures depicting this miracle, the roses are not carved, for the faithful would place real or silk flowers in the lap of the sculpture.
Posted in architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Collage, Drawing, Ink, sketchbook, sketching, Spontaneous Constructs, Thinking with my hands, Watercolor, tagged Buffalo, cafe', coffee watercolor, collage, Ny, painting with espresso coffee, sketchbook, SOciety of Architectural Historians COnference on April 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art, Drawing, History of Architecture, Poetry, sketchbook, sketching, Writing, tagged Drawing, Egypt, ink, Nefertiti, Paris time, sphinx on November 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, Art Show, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Graphic Design, Ink, Lectures, Paper Goods, Research, school, School Work, Watercolor, writing, tagged Architecture, Drawing, History of Architecture, paper abstract, research, visual notes on November 2, 2012| 1 Comment »
I am posting the first of a series of samples of student work from the exhibit History of Architecture: Analysis and Synthesis Through Visual Notes. Moving chronologically, today we start with the Beginnings of Architecture. This body work was completed for the Graduate History of Architecture sequence, comprising of three courses, which i taught during the 2011-2012 school year.
I will also post some photos from the Exhibit.
These visual notes are by Jackie McDowell.
And here is the paper abstract summarizing the project objectives and research purpose. The full paper will be presented and published next Spring.
Posted in art, Art Show, Drawing, Painting, sketching, tagged art studio, charcoal outiline, cover, horizontal canvas, painting, pastel drawing, princeton architectural press ctalog, sketch on August 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »
On my way to Roma but wanted to share my latest project.These are the prep sketches and the charcoal outline on the final canvas, which measures 5.5’X2.5′.
This painting was commissioned and I am lucky to have a very lovely client : )
The last photo is from the Princeton Architectural Press catalog, which just came in my office.
I would love my studio to be like that one day…
Ciao!
Posted in art, Artuesdays, Coffee, Drawing, Featured Artists, Link Love, Photography, Poetry, San Diego, sketchbook, Writing, tagged artist, painting, photo, Watercolor on August 21, 2012| 2 Comments »
This photo was taken by my dear friend and photographer/artist extraordinaire Maha Comianos.
She is currently exploring the creative side of architects in her Archi * Artist Series, among many other artistic endeavors.
Check out her inspired work at:
http://www.studiomaha.com
Posted in art, Drawing, Ink, Painting, sketchbook, Watercolor, tagged ink, portrait, sketchbook, Watercolor on July 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, art, Drawing, Film, Habana Diaries, History of Architecture, Ink, Music, Poetry, Quotes, sketchbook, sketching, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Before Sunrise, cuba, Drawing, Havana, History of Architecture, ink, La Habana, Moorish Architecture, Movie, Mudejar, Neoclassical Architecture, sketchbook, sketching on April 26, 2012| 2 Comments »
….
“Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.”
Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Berkeley Diaries, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Ink, Music, tagged Drawing, la caminada loca, Mana Daddy, Music event, Oakland, oakland art scene, Sjetch on February 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, art, Books, Drawing, Photography, Poetry, San Francisco Diaries, sketchbook, sketching, Traveling, Writing, tagged berkeley sign, Drawing, Photography, san francisco, sketches on February 19, 2012| 2 Comments »
Posted in Architecture, art, Art Gallery, Ink, Jewelry, Pastel, Poetry, Sketchbook Exchange, Spontaneous Constructs, Writing, tagged Architecture, Bramante, city, Drawing, duomo milano, ink drawing, Milano, milano cafe, Milano Diaries, pio albergo trivulzio, santa maria presso san satiro, sketchbook, sketches, urban moments, Urban Sketchers, Watercolor, window on January 1, 2012| 7 Comments »
Posted in art, Calabria Diaries, Drawing, F R A G M E N T S, Ink, Poetry, Quotes, sketching, Writing, tagged Dali, Drawing, fisherman, fragments, Lao Tzu. Wisdom, pescatore, poem, poems about a cashmere wrap, Quotes, Saul Bellow, visual poetry on December 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The cashmere wrap finally arrived in the mail
so much weighs on this stole
‘opportunity a thief makes’
he said before giving me homework
“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep”
A lot weighs on this stole:
conversation is rippled with diamonds
they tumble , heavy, they are words, quotes
…out of the mundane…
a pearl – grasp it and keep it.
Wisdom is the only jewelry I wear this season
and my greediness awaits
He who grasps more than he can hold, would be better without any.
If a house is crammed with treasures of gold and jade,
it will be impossible to guard them all.
Did you hear the sound of wisdom, Heart?
The message you sought.
My only wealth is my memory.
Like a mendicant I gather precious words,
fragments of light that I bring back,
puzzles I spend days composing.
– You, collector of spirit, feeder of souls.
Everyone wants to go to Heaven, no-one wants to die.
The falcon, scarred wing, alighted the sill.
– the magpies, once they have caught the prey,
lose interest
and look around for the next creature to pursue-
grasp their message
Catch leaves in the wind
Heaven is simple:
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Ink, NaBloPoMo, tagged balloon, child, Drawing, ink on November 19, 2011| 2 Comments »
Posted in art, Collage, Design, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Poetry, Writing, tagged collage, delayed bag, Drawing, essay, madrid, manana llovera, markable folding umbrella, michele foyer, muji, my orange, orange, stolen umbrella, umbrella, Watercolor on November 16, 2011| 2 Comments »
I was recently reunited with luggage lost 45 days ago.
Three items were missing: a bottle of Cinema Eau De Parfum by Yves Saint Laurent, a beloved collaged orange umbrella bought in Barcelona and a pair of Sketchers shoes. Go figure.
Immediately i set out to substitute my lost umbrella. As said in one Law and Order episode (I paraphrase): “Hardheaded Calabrese: the people there are very stubborn… once something is taken away from them, they don’t rest until …they get it back.”
My mind went back to the orange umbrella I bought for my mom in Milano last Christmas (probably with her money;)), from one of my favorite stores: Muji.
In my quest, I ran into this glorious essay on a particular shade of orange.
I have a box of orange objects in my house that I have been meaning to combine into a series.
Tomorrow seems like a good day for it, and orange thoughts are perfect for winter-short days and too much yin.
Before you read, keep this in mind:
Fire in Arabic is ‘Nar’.
………….
My Orange
by Michele Foyer
If we lived during the time of the Dutch West Indies Company, I would tell you that the color that so captured me was the child of paprika and chocolate. The world no longer swoons over spice willing to risk a sail beyond the end of the known. And yes, sadly rape and pillage in its desperate greed. I had only to pass the window of the Muji store in Manhattan’s Chelsea to discover this color in an umbrella.
What is it that grabbed me? Is it a vibration for which the color is only a foil? Or is it something about the color itself lodged between memory and desire? This redder orange infused with luxurious chocolate yielded a strangely jazzier yet muter tone than orange. But if we are mapping out its terrain inevitably the orange relation comes up.
My “Muji Orange” is a distant relative of the neon orange of warning, as well as a “tangerine streamlined baby” of sixties psychedelic abandon. Its crazy older paternal cousin might be the Tang of astronauts or maybe the impossible orange of orange Crush soda, or possibly even Blake’s Tyger burning bright, but its doting grandmother, is definitely — yes, most definitely — a bittersweet French marmalade.
There is some mystery to orange. Orange is the only color in the seven-color spectrum besides violet that originates as a noun, naming a particular thing. It refers to the berry fruit of the orange tree, something very concrete and specific and not as abstract as the other colors. Was the experience of the orange fruit so strong that it came to stand for the orange experience?
The Old English Dictionary (OED) states that in Medieval Latin “the forms ‘arangia’, ‘arantia’ (Du Cange) whence ‘aurantia’ have “popular association with ‘aurum’ gold from the colour.” Perhaps, the OED postulates, there is an etymological relationship between the Old French “orenge” for “arauge” after “or” gold. The OED traces the “loss of the initial ‘n‘ in French, English and Italian” as “ascribed to its absorption into the indefinite article” resulting in “narange” absorbing “une” and “narancia” absorbing ”una.”
Also from the OED we understand that the “native country of orange appears to have been the northern frontier of India, where wild oranges are still found and the name may have originated there.” In Late Sankrit the word for orange is “naranga;” in Hindi it is “narangi” (OED, p. 2001)
Is “orange” related to the color of the fruit and/or to gold and the word “ore” (OED, p. 2001)? Are both these not only things, but also perhaps experiences of light? More questions arise as we consider other correspondences that I call “rhymes and ricochets.”
In Persian the world for pomegranate is “nar” (OED, p.2001) which echoes the nar of narange. Is this coincidence or relationship? The OED states it is not certain. Was the “nar” / pomegranate the fateful fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden myth? It is possible because the pomegranate rather than the apple was the indigenous fruit. If the pomegranate was the tree of knowledge, what was the knowledge that this golden ball embodied? Might it have reflected a relationship of light to dark?
Is there anything other than coincidence to the resonance of the pomegranate which also figures in the myth of Persephone who spends half her days in a descent into Hades when the earth experiences the dark of winter and the other half above ground when the earth experiences the light of spring – alternations or gradients of light and dark?
In one narrative color is dependent upon history and culture. The OED by definition is a history of the English language, tracing the history and values of the western world with its migrations and roots to the East. Today we think oranges are synonymous with the warm climates of Florida and California. We often believe they are indigenous to North America. However, they were planted by conquistador sailors who needed to create supplies of vitamin C to take with them to guard against scurvy on their long sea journeys.
What is orange in cultures outside of the European? In other cultures closed off to our own for so long by the migration and exchange of trade, say the Japanese or Chinese, what is the etymology of the word orange? In Cantonese Chinese (but not in Mandarin), the word for orange is related by sound to the word for gold. At New Year’s the Mandarin orange embodies good wishes for prosperity. Are “gold” and “orange” a conflation of all these color experiences of light?
What about other earlier societies? I wonder whether orange might “rhyme” with “fire.” Fire had the life-giving power that made a large difference to a culture. If gold wasn’t the commodity of value, it might make sense for the word for this experience to be “fire.” Might gold be in part only an imitation of the light of fire?
These richoceting ruminations about gold and fire are vital, because it is precisely the light of gold or fire that starts to go missing in “my” Muji Orange. It is that chocolate brown in addition to the red of the orange that makes the color “step back” toward the shade. Muji Orange recedes from the saturation and almost clear brilliance of an ordinary orange that lags just behind the brilliance of yellow—whether the origin is the light of sun, gold or fire.
Muji is a Japanese company and that perhaps contributes and infuses a measure of its aesthetic into that of the west. The store’s name is related to “mujo” which evokes “transience” in Japanese. I once heard about Japanese “killed colors.” These colors had a little bit of death in them, fading from their original brilliance and glory. I couldn’t find reference to them again but only to the rikuyu colors made from graying. In Muji Orange the quality of orange steps away from the brilliance of the sunny orange into the shade, holding a note of something that is darker. It is not a sinister dark to be avoided but one to be savored like a fine chocolate.
Is my “Muji Orange” so beautiful to me because it captures the life of light and its brilliance — and the life of dark and its recession? To me “Muji Orange” is a kumquat color par excellence. First like the sweet rind of the kumquat there is a “taste” of brilliance and then immediately, almost simultaneously, just as the fruit yields a sour taste, my Muji orange bursts with another very different moody, darker earthy “taste.” Does Muji Orange with its paprika jazzy zest want to dance the tarantula? Is it death or lack of light that gives my Muji color its kick?
I have questioned whether it was the vibration of the color that pulled me into the Chelsea store — the umbrella an extraneous element. But I wonder if the precise color of orange might also be a “rhyme” with the function of “umbrella”? Are the form and the vibration related in the poetry of memory?
Recently I recalled an earlier encounter with umbrellas. When I studied in Madrid in my 20s, I would often take the subway to go downtown to the Turner bookshop. I’d climb the stairs of the appropriately named Sol subway stop that spilled out onto Jose Antonio, emerging more often than not into a scorching sun.
On my way to the bookshop I would pass outside the window of a store that made confectionaries of violets sold in white and purple miniature hatboxes. But my favorite was the neighboring shop entirely devoted to umbrellas with a placard handwritten in a swirly old-fashioned cursive script in the window that read “Manana llovera.” Both its whimsy and its sales-minded craft were not lost in the English translation — “tomorrow it will rain.”
Last December, many years after my sunny Spanish sojourn, when to me it is now irrefutable that night and day, death and life are folded into one another and that Persephone must braid both dark and light — the Muji Orange color caught my eye. Manana llovera. Tomorrow it will rain. Dear Reader, I bought the umbrella.
Bibliographic Note The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Volume I, AO, (Oxford University Press, United States, 1982).
Copyright Michele Foyer. Web: http://michelefoyer.com/news.html
Posted in architecture, art,poetry,writing, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Ink, Poetry, Quotes, Thinking with my hands, tagged art, bell jar, Drawing, Murmurations, Poetry, Quote, starlings, Sylvia Plath, thinking with one's hands, visual poetry on November 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »
I have to thank my colleague Alan Rosenblum for sharing the concept of thinking with one’s hands and the visual poetry of The Mystery of a Murmuration. His advice is to watch this in silence.
Posted in Drawing, Ink, NaBloPoMo, Poetry, Writing, tagged art, Bassam, Ilyas Abu Shabaku, Lebanese poet, literary cafe, modern arabic poetry an anthology, Poetry, san diego, sketching on November 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
I want to share these two poems by Ilyas Abu Shabaku, which were given to me as a gift. Poetry is a candle in a dark room: our job in this life may just be to burn as bright as torches, as bright and as alive and loud as we can, for each glorious day we have left.
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened,
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha
By Ilyas Abu Shabaku, Lebanese poet (1903-1947)
This beauty, is it yours or mine?
In you I see a person beautiful in love
Like me. And which of us has given me life?
Is it your shape or mine that i love so?
When in my dream I see love’s images
Is it your shadow in my soul or mine?
Love, all of love, dwells in all I see
Whence all this light? Your universal soul?
Did I create you in the world of fancy
Or are you my creator?
Am I the first whom inspiration blessed
Or was it you? Who writes this verse?
Did I write it for you or you for me?
And who in love can be dictated to
And who dictates? Our imaginations blend,
Your soul within my soul, your mind in mine
When things appear obscure to me I see
A doubting shadow dawning in your eyes
When we met first I found my beginning
As if you were a lost part of my being.
I LOVE YOU
By Ilyas Abu Shabaku, Lebanese poet (1903-1947)
I love you more than human heart can bear
More than a poet dreams or lover feels
You are the perfumed cloud from heaven sent
To rain upon me your enchanted dew;
I feel your heart, your veins flow into mine,
No gap to let the impure world creep in;
My heart confronts your heart, finding its twin,
As two cups meet in one eternal vow;
In us when wine is made to mix with wine,
A blend of perfume, breeze, and dew combine;
My inspiration dwells within your eyes,
And swells when lip on lip instructs my art;
For us the fire rages, though unfed,
Though we are calm, a storm erupts within.
Posted in Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Ink, tagged art, comic, Drawing, figure drawing, ghdah alkandari, ink, inner dialogue, kafka, line art, the trial on November 3, 2011| 2 Comments »
This drawing was inspired by this one , by my blogsister Ghadah Alkandari.
Posted in art, Drawing, Ink, tagged art, halloween, ink drawing, line drawing, masks, mirrors on October 31, 2011| 2 Comments »
Halloween: A day of rest for those who wear a mask all the time.
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Ink, tagged bassam cafe, crochet, knitting, literary cafe, literary coffee shop, san diego, smoking wine on October 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art, Collage, Drawing, Ink, Poetry, Writing, tagged art, collage, Drawing, forgiveness, ink, mending wall, mending walls, Poetry, Robert Frost, yoga on October 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »
MENDING WALL
Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Posted in art, Calabria Diaries, Drawing, Ink, tagged dog, Drawing, ink, miquelrius paper on October 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, Drawing, Ink, Paris Diaries, Photography, photography, tagged art, ink drawing, le Petit Palais, Paris, Photography on October 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Drawing, Ink, tagged Calabria, Drawing, ink, terrazza on September 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Someday, somewhere — anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.
Pablo Neruda
Posted in Drawing, Ink, sketchbook, Spontaneous Constructs, Thought in the Alley, Thoughts in the alley, tagged art, Drawing, inexistent, ink, letters, mailbox, unanswered, unopened on September 20, 2011| 2 Comments »
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Ink, sketchbook, tagged amy winehouse, art, Art and ANarchy, Baudelaire, Edgar WInd, Excess or Atrophy, forces of the Imagination, Goethe, ink drawing on August 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Poetry, Writing, tagged ink drawing, la tua voce sonora, our song, silvia signorelli, tu voz sonora, waiting on August 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Il Nostro Canto
by Silvia Signorelli
il tuo passo a Milano
di cento stagioni
presso di me ha colorato l’aria
di silenziosa neve
d’inverno il calore
dell’estate abbracciata
di luce loquace
gazzelle
azzurre di mitezza
nostro canto
di bene grande
Nuestro Canto
tu paso por Milan
de ciento estaciones
junto a mi ha llenado de color el aire
de silenciosa nieve
de invierno el calor
del verano abrazada
de luz locuaz
gacelas
azules de masadumbre
nuestro canto
de amor grande
Our Song
your stride in Milano
of a hundred seasons
colored the air around me
with silent snow
warmth in winter
beheld by summer
by loquacious light
gazelles
blue with gentleness
our song
of a great love
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Experiments, Jewelry, Spontaneous Constructs, tagged 100%polypropylene, beads, collages, construct, dancing dresses, fabric map, hands. collaborative work, jewelry design, kisses, la gitane, maps, model, mylar, new york, patchwork, Watercolor, yupo watercolor paper on June 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The Fabric City is finally finished! Yay! Back to collages and sketches now.
From this…
…to a process of cutting and puzzle-making…
to this:
Tomorrow the ‘city’ will be cut and applied to a presently plain backpack and signed.
I also want to share this impromptu jewelry design, my second, kindly modeled!
Finally, work inspired by New York in form of a guest post:
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Ink, Photography, tagged Drawing, les demoiselles d'avignon, moma, museum of modern art, new york, new york city, New York Diaries, Photography, Picasso, sketch, subway on June 23, 2011| 1 Comment »
Presently and present in New York City.
Conference sessions, museums, walking walking walking. Design, Architecture, Art.
The energy of the City. Ideas like kites move slower than the city moves. Slower than pedestrians at a busy intersection, slower than subway trains with their human cargoes.
A musical: Death Takes a Vacation.
Absorbing and consuming the city, which becomes a commodity. Getting lost in the city, a bus to New Jersey, a ride to the Bronx.
Will post few dispatches, I have been absent with no written excuses.
………………………….
My fabric city map is almost done, it took almost a month. I have the utmost respect for seamstresses.
Until next time, with a summer-light heart, looking forward to sharing more experiments.
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Collage, Design, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Ink, Poetry, San Diego, Thoughts in the alley, Writing, writing, tagged a story that could be true, agata and the storm, agata e la tempesta, Digital Collage, frogs, poem, Poetry, rain, william stafford on May 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Where can I run?
You fill the world.
The only place to run is within you.From Agata e la Tempesta| Agata and the Storm
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
William Stafford
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Berkeley Diaries, Books, Coffee, Drawing, Ink, San Francisco Diaries, sketchbook, sketching on April 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, art, Artuesdays, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Collage, Drawing, Essay, History of Architecture, Ink, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, Research, school, School Work, sketching, Theory and Criticism, Writing, tagged 'spiro kostof, ability to visualize, architect: chapters in the history of the profession, architects, architecture academia, architecture curriculum, artist, balboa park san diego, communication for architects, criticism, curricula, designers, downcast eyes: the denigration of vision in twentieth-century french thought, draw it, Drawing, drawn, essay, eth switzerland, importance of literature, inchoate, ink, intellectual dialogue, literature, mandatory poetry, marc angelil, meditating, pen, Poetry, poetry humanities in architecture curriculum, powerpoint, read in the park, read outdoors, resolutions 2011, sketching, the picture is worth a thousands words syndrome, tyranny of the visual, visual people, visualization techniques, war, writing, writing for architects on March 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »
As designers, architects, artists, we use the ability to first visualize then communicate a desired outcome. Implementation means having the courage, discipline and perseverance to bring that vision into the physical realm. I love to write, and to write lists, but this year I am doing something different with my 2011 resolutions. I am drawing them. It sems to be working. On good days, and they are abundant here in San Diego, you can find me in the park, chasing the sun and reading. An old-school physical book. The previous specifications is now necessary due to the variety of reading options we have (what is your pleasure, or rather, your poison: smartphone, kindle, ipad, TMZ on your laptop?). These are my immediate, must-finish charges:
Books:
Inchoate: An Experiment in Architectural Education. Angelil, Marc and Liat Uziyel, eds.
The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession by Spiro Kostof
Sketching and meditating. Two resolutions, perhaps one and the same.
Pondering on drawing, as opposed to writing, resolutions led me to think about visual vs. written and oral communication.
While drawing-or diagramming-a goal may help provide us with clues, visual or other, that help us actualize it, I don’t buy the argument that ‘visual’ people can only best communicate their intent through images. This is also known as ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ syndrome. By the same token, I refuse to accept that ‘visual’ people only understand material if it’s accompanied by images and therefore should be excused if they are poor readers or listeners. That is plain laziness. There are notions and topics in this world that cannot be boiled down to neat Powerpoints (even though, heaven knows, we have tried to even run wars through the ubiquitous slide application), but require flight of the imagination, suspension of disbelief, and the ability to follow (picture-less) complex arguments. In trying to explain critical thinking, images run the risk of appearing like obtrusive clip-arts, obfuscating rather than enlightening.
The tyranny of the visual often lets us get away with having inferior written and oral communication skills. I don’t buy the ‘visual’ doctrine (or fallacy) with my students or my architecture colleagues. Maybe it’s because I come from a linguistic lycaeum, was an English Minor, and come from Italy, but the way a person speaks or writes is more important to me, or revealing of their character, than any imagery or composition she or he can conjure up on a board. And here I need to say that, lest I behave like a whitened sepulcher, I know I have failings when trying to communicate: typos due to late night writing, listitis (I make too many lists), lectures that tend to go on a tangent and probably what is called mild A.D.D in this country (or severe A.D.D…depending on what day you ask my students;)). Lastly the fact that, no matter how many years I live here, my soul is Italian and so is the way to express myself, and we do use lot of what here are called ‘run-ons’ in writing, and perhaps even talking. We are peripatetic, scenic-route communicators.
Ok, so I am not perfect: let the flawed still admire and aim at beauty.
I ask the person I listen to to paint a convincing, even seductive picture with their words, to evoke the sense and meaning of their process. Of course exact,clear words go well with exact, clear drawings and diagrams, but seductive images without substantive explanations or clear, logical statements leave me dry. The literary arts are for the most part lost to modern architecture students, beyond the required ‘humanities’ and enticing (but seldom frequented) advanced elective courses. The result is professionals who are literate in CAD, codes, building, or even ‘architecture’, but illiterate in the sense of the global collective written word, and therefore culture. Shouldn’t the designers of shelters for the human race understand its most lyrical expressions? Shouldn’t they design for man and woman’s highest aspiration, rather than the lowest common denominator? We ask architects to create places of Beauty, places that inspire, to design poetic aedifices. Without knowing what poetry is, without at least having been exposed to it, that is an impossible feat. If architecture is the Mother of all the Arts, should it not contain them? Literature, philosophy, liberal arts, music…Where are you Muses in our curricula? We have modified –and are moving towards transforming–the academic requirements for the make-up of the future architect based on the needs (vocational at best ) of field practice, a large number made up by corporate building farms, where architecture is just a sign on the door. Of course we aim for graduates ready to enter the profession, but hopefully we are also aiming for critical thinkers, whole individuals who can inspire, not just perform. What should lead, follows. The trend can only go downward. I am talking about cad monkeys, or people who are paid ‘to draw, not think’ –I was actually told that many years ago. Call me irrational, but I call for mandatory poetry courses (mandatory poetry! an oximoron). Call me utopian, but world literature should be as much part of an architecture curriculum as world architecture. When you know, you cannot unknow. I always say that. When you are exposed to possibilities and ‘big questions’ you cannot accept passively that things are just the way they are because they have always been. Poetry and literature are democratic expressions, highly dangerous to the status quo. And therefore highly desirable.
In my quest, I ran into this book. I am collecting a body of critical readings (for myself!) and this book will definitely be included.
Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in 20th Century French Thought, by Martin Jay
Posted in Architecture, art, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Digital Collage, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Featured Architects, Lectures, Museum WOWs, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, San Diego, school, School Work, sketchbook, sketching, Theory and Criticism, Writing, tagged 2011, AIAS NSAD, Allen Ghaida, Autograph, BIG, bjarke ingels, california, danish architect, Drawing, february "%, Hybrid notes, lecture notes, museum of natural history, newschool, NewSchool Arts Foundation, newschool of architecture and design, notes from the lecture, NSAD, NSAF, Review, san diego, sketches, visual notes, yes is more on February 28, 2011| 2 Comments »
Bjarke Ingels came to speak to our school Friday night.
The venue was the Museum of Natural History in scenic Balboa Park.
I am still blown away by the lecture and, more importantly, the message.
It was truly (r)evolutionary. The fact that BIG’s insanely brilliant concepts not only get built but a) give back to the community in terms of urban interaction b) are socially and ecologically responsible and c) are giving him fame and making him a household name is galvanizing.
Expanding the collective idea of what is possible through architecture: this is the optimism we need after years of gloom, in face of all the naysayers and ‘pie-in-the-sky’ disablers. Something is blooming in the state of Denmark.
What an event. My friend Alan Rosenblum told me it would be as if ‘Lady Gaga came to San Diego’.
And. It. Was. The students loved it. Three days later, and we are all still giddy.
I could not agree more. Thank you Mr. Ingels.
You intensified the dialogue between students and educators, and showed us how the ‘crazy’ ideas that are developed in studio and propose new typologies for the city are not only possible but timely and welcome. This creates a better learning environment, where pragmatism actually means being part of the solution, not propagating the problem.
I had the same dilemma when working in traditional, corporate offices and found refuge in academia. BIG showed us that there is a third way, the ‘Bigamy’ way. You can have it all. You can be good and successful. You can be extremely famous
and not be arrogant. He spoke of pragmatic idealism, and hedonistic sustainability. He demonstrated how to create building that are fun to experience as inhabitants and city neighbors and yet are sustainable. He showed us the intellectual approach and use of hybridization of traditional typologies to achieve new functions and forms. To wit: the Garbage to Energy plant in the middle of Copenhagen, which will be the city’s tallest structure and will house a ski slope (!) and blow smoke rings each time one ton of CO2 is burned. These are usually ‘crazy’ projects that we see coming from the upper studio division, when we ask the students to ‘dream big’ (pun intended) and question the drab, anti-interactive reality of center cities such as San Diego. The students, deep inside, try to dream but are conditioned to think that projects such as the one we saw in the lecture could never be built due to various factors such as financial interests or politics of control, or even lack of relevance of our role as architects.
We have been liberated from all of this because we can now point to BIG’s projects. Here it was demonstrated that the only limits we have as architects and human beings are those self-imposed, or those we feel ‘reality’ has burdened us with. I know that as faculty we felt validated by BIG’s successes ( does it make sense?). The music and videos, the whole presentation and BIG’s infectious enthusiasm, warmth and positive energy were, in the words of a student ‘AWESOME’. Another student told me he learned a lot about diagrams from the lecture.
The lecture also was a model for engaging presentations. I have been toying with the idea, but now I am committed to use music and pop references in my History of Architecture classes; I ran the idea with few students and they were all for it. 🙂 I will quote Ingels when he says that we need to ‘cease to consider the building as objects but focus on what they do for the city’ : this informs and generates a new approach to ‘sacred architectural monsters’ and teaching history of architecture (or as I like to think, architectural stories).
A big thank you to Allen Ghaida, the AIAS and all my colleagues at the NewSchool Arts Foundation for making this dream of an event a reality.
I sketched feverishly- and took down all the provocative quotes. Here are my hybrid/computer-augmented notes.
I will add all of the proper building names and location as soon as possible.
click to enlarge
…..and this was my present 🙂
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Ink, Quotes, sketchbook, sketching, tagged airhead, big hair, chicken, Drawing, dumb chick, gallina, high heels, ink, oca, pen, the chick who thought she found a worm, vain, woman on February 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Cures for the Nothing, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Experiments, Link Love, Quotes, sketchbook, sketching, Tutorial, tagged 7ways to spark creativity, abbey ryan, abbeyryan.com, Anna Rabinowicz, art, atercolor, book, cappuccino, Coffee, creative assignments, creativity, daily inspiration, daily oil painting, danny gregory, dedication to the arts, Design, double shot, download, Drawing, ebook, february 2011 issue, february creativity challenge, filmmaker Miranda July and artist Harrell Fletcher, ghadah alkandari, illy, ink, latte macchiato, learning to love you more, Link Love, literature, Maurice Ronnet Le feu Follet - Luis Malle (1963), micheal nobbs, o, oprah magazine, Oprah on Ipad, pen drawing, philadelphia painter, Poetry, pretygreenbullet, sketchbook, Sketchbook O, sketches, sketching, st.loup secrets and lies, start to draw your life, the creative license, unquiz on February 10, 2011| 4 Comments »
Everywhere I turn these days i see the word Creativity..could this be a sign …cause I have not been posting that much???
This post is more like…four…but so be it.
A dear student let me borrow this fantastic book: The Creative License: Giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are. What a wonderful title. So this post, like the book is dedicated….
I believe in the energy of art, and through the use of that energy, the artist’s ability to transform his or her life and, by example, the lives of others.
Audrey Flack
2. Abbey Ryan @ abbeyryan.com
3. St. Loup and his Secrets and Lies
Always thought-provoking…my virtual literary cafe’.
Posted in Architecture, art, Artuesdays, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Collage, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, History of Architecture, Paper Goods, Photography, Poetry, sketchbook, sketching, Writing, tagged Bramante, card making, digital manipulation, Drawing, hand book sketchbook, Harry Seidler, horizontal sketchbook, Milano, penholder, recipe for sketching, sketches, sketching, sketching in cold weather, tea, The Grand Tour: Travelling the World with an Architect's Eye, travel sketches on January 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »
In the monastery adjacent this church, just a few minutes’ stroll from my house, one can find Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’. The apse (widely attributed to Donato Bramante, and dated around 1490) is significant as it signals a crucial transition from the Late Gothic style of the nave to a splendid Northern Italian Renaissance in the apse, the choir and cupola.
MITI’S RECIPE FOR SKETCHING:
Day One: Look. (First Encounter)
Day Two: See. (Visual Analysis;walkaround…resist the urge to take photos. Training your eyes will not only lead to better sketches, better lessons learned from the Architecture itself, it will lead to–if you are so inclined–even better photography in the end. Notice, examine and mentally record -on the exterior- connections, details, rhythms, proportions, materials; on the interior: spaces, rituals, light, sequences, apertures, passages…)
Day Three: Sketch. (even quickly…by now you learned the lessons, you acquainted yourself with the building. You begin to understand.) Use the verb ‘to draw’ as in drawing water from a well, draw information (this last advice comes from Travelling the World with an Architect’s Eye)
Tips for cold-weather sketching: stop when your legs fall asleep. Wear half (I call them ‘homeless-style’) gloves to keep the hands free. Listen to warm music on your ipod. Bring a thermos or mug with hot, organic, unsweetened english breakfast tea.
And…
for impromptu urban sketching, carry your pens with the very handy penholder by Muji (did I mention before that I love Muji?)
Posted in art, art,poetry,writing, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Manipulation, Drawing, Photography, tagged diagram, Drawing, multiplication, open culture, think better, visual math on December 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Collage, Design, Digital Collage, Drawing, Painting, Photography, Portfolio of Work, school, School Work, Watercolor, tagged Architecture, art, faculty work, Pedagogy, portfolio of work, Practice on October 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
My second board for the faculty display wall. I now have a list of new art to add to my portfolio tabs, as this was a great opportunity to curate my artwork.
It feels great to be done (for now). Happy Halloween!
Posted in Architecture, architecture, art, art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, F R A G M E N T S, school, School Work, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Archigram, Architect, Architecture, art, collage, Drawing, Kiasma Contemporary ArtMuseum(1992-1998), Knut Hamsen Museum(1994-2009), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1999-2002), Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture (2002-2009), photocollage, Simmons Hall, sketch, sketchbook, Steven Holl, Watercolor, watercolorist, written in water, written on water on October 13, 2010| 3 Comments »
All images are from a research project completed by my student, Mariam Thomas, on Architects as Artists and their rendering/design techniques.
The relationship between architecture and art, and the study of practitioners who are also artists (with the mindframe of artists), whose design process transcends design practices and pragmatism to include enlightment, discoveries and art- wonderings is of immense interest to me. Not only because I come from Italy , where the greatest architects of ‘our’ Rinascimento where first and foremost artists, but because I believe Architecture (with the capital A) is meant to embody Art and , in the best cases, become visual poetry (or frozen music). The relationship between the word and the built, i.e, literature and architecture, and architects/artists who are poets and writers…all these are dynamics that not only fascinate me, but give me hope and recharge me. I would love to one day explore these themes through one of more courses.
It’s fantastic to see the relationship between Steven Holl’s initial sketches and watercolors and his buildings, which preserve intact the spirit of their inception. I saw one of his works on the water in Amsterdam: it was similar to an e. e cummings poem, minimal and undeniable.
The line is so thin between his grayscale watercolors (an obsession of mine lately) and his white-grey walls. Holl’s book ‘Written on Water’ is one of my favorite books in our library, I steal it often.
Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful. I need to complete some collages soon, semi-architectural, archigram-style.
I have only been collecting ‘collage material’ for eight years. I hold on to fragments that could one day be part of a piece, it is time to justify these attachments.
I can hear the words in my future memoir:
At the end of the aughts, beginning of the twenties, there was no work. We were all doing collages….they were beautiful. We had time to think, sometimes not, but we still had books, and paper, and ink.
Posted in art, Design, Drawing, Poetry, Quotes, San Francisco Diaries, Writing, tagged cocktail ring, Drawing, gift, ink, Love, ring, san francisco, sketching on October 1, 2010| 1 Comment »
Today was the one year anniversary of the official launch of SketchBloom!
Let’s drink a cup of tea to that:)
Posted in art, Berkeley Diaries, Design, Drawing, Painting, Poetry, Watercolor, Writing, tagged cashmere scarf, Drawing, sketch, Watercolor on September 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Ink and Watercolor on paper. September 30,2010.
Posted in Architecture, art, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Digital Collage, Drawing, Experiments, Featured Artists, Painting, Photography, Poetry, Quotes, Thoughts in the alley, Tutorial, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Architecture, black and white, Black Hair, Blue Eyes, book, book cover, Capelli Neri, chiaroscuro, ciao.it, critica letteraria, Drawing, durasian, Grayscale, grayscale watercolor, hands, Indochine, interior architecture, Italian, jane eyre, L'Amante, literary critic, literary review, literature, loneliness, longing, Love, Marguerite Duras, millenovecentosettantatre, modernism, new french novel, Occhi Blu, patterns, Philosophy, Poetry, prose, shades of gray, sri chimoy quote, stockings, The Lover, Truth on September 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The measure of a good book is its ability to haunt us. I have been delinquent; the past few days’ in-between moments, usually dedicated to art and this blog, stolen away by a classic charmer of a book, Jane Eyre.
Yet I have been thinking, almost pining, for another book –and the time and the place of its reading. This particular story begun for me on a train to Nice, on my way to Provence, during a fall where everything changed.
A book, unlike anything read online, is forever tied to its place of discovery and unfolding. This alone speaks to the mindfulness of reading books.
The images, feelings before words, that keep coming back to me like a calling are from an exquisite, excruciating novel by Marguerite Dumas (of ‘The Lover’ fame- if you have not read the book or watched the movie, you are in for a ride) called, simply, Blue Eyes, Black Hair. In Italian though, it does sound better, more poetic, and less like a description of a convicted felon: Occhi blu, Capelli Neri.
The story, and premise of the book are meant to be forgotten, but not the feeling, the soul state (stato d’anima). The book is filled by silent presences and vocal absences; the words, the dialogues take place in the mind of the two main characters, but alas, they are never uttered.
Occhi Blu, Capelli Neri is about longing, isolation, deprivation and a love/passion/dependence that is meant to be measured out and sipped slowly (the italian word I am thinking of is centellinare); each moment, each degree of ‘closeness’, each kindness, must be begged for. The object of this liason is the breaking down of any vestige of pride till all is left is naked, raw need.
At least this is my interpretation of the book: while I do not remember all the particulars, I see ‘shots’ of the book as if, in reading it, I was already seeing the movie. If this ever became a film, it would be one of those French movies where the waiting replaces the action, where the climax is anticlimatic but intense. It would be a difficult, anxious, art house movie that would no doubt not work for the majority of the moviegoing audience in this country (hard to eat popcorn to this, Eddie Izzard docet). But it would be a poignant, bittersweet movie that would leave a beautiful lingering sadness. Well, beautiful if you happen to believe that there is something arresting about sadness.
I read this review of the book, and have translated some sentences from the original Italian. I found the words used to describe the book intoxicating. Is it possible to get drunk on prose?
I enjoyed the nod to Dumas’ architectural awareness, I enjoyed finding in this essay a communion of feeling for the book, which became for me a shared human experience. It is surprisingly comforting to discover that I am not alone in the feelings elicited by this strange novel, and that there are people walking about, being haunted by the same imagery, poetry, longing.
I owe this post to St Loup, a literary inspiration. Thank you, flâneur . And to these word I accompany some grayscale objects from my life, some recent watercolors (wanting chiaroscuro).
Here are some excerpts from the excellent review of Occhi Blu, Capelli Neri {Blue Eyes, Black Hair} by millenovecentosettantatre on ciao.it.
..Libro d’arte. Espressione vera di capacità e sensibilità, oscillanti tra le tre stoffe di prima. Una pièce, più che un romanzo
Arthouse book. True expression of ability and sensitivity, fluctuating between the swaths of fabric aforementioned. A pièce , rather than a novel.
Una concentrazione di parole fluide e belle, strutturate con la parola del narratore ad interferire e le intenzioni espresse a chiarire, spiegare, provocare.
A concentration of words, beautiful and fluid, structured with the narrator’s voice to interfere, and expressed intentions to clarify, explain, provoke.
Finta sceneggiatura di qualcosa, tra teatro e recitazione astratta e pensata con personaggi predefiniti, semplici nelle iconografie, fortissimi, tremendi, assurdamente complessi nelle logiche individuali.
Fake scenography of a something, between theatre or abstract acting with predefined characters in mind, simple in their iconographies, powerful, tremendous, absurdly complex in their individual logic.
L’amore è il Nuovo Romanzo francese, di cui l’autrice è figlia legittima. Quella struttura che in Alain Robbe-Grillet vede il fautore della nuova comunicazione scritta, che passa negli oggetti, nelle fantasie degli oggetti, nelle descrizioni paranoiche e reiterate, nell’immobilità e arriva al marchio finale, provato anche dal lettore alla chiusura del libro.
Love is the New French Novel, and the author is its legitimate daughter. That structure which, in Alain Robbe-Grillet witnesses the proponent of the new written communication, which traverses objects, fantasies of objects, paranoid, reiterated descriptions, stillness, and reaches the final stage, the selfsame felt by the reader at the closing of the book.
E’ l’amore mio per esso e per quel senso di configurazione deciso che prescinde dalla trama del racconto per lasciare un’orma, un’impronta, come se il libro fosse un album di foto personali, che non si riapre più ma che impolvera nel diritto di essere stato e avere dato.
It is the love I have for [this book] and for that impression of deliberate configuration which transcends the plot of the novel and leaves a footprint, a fingerprint, as if the book was an album of personal photos, which is meant to be open no more, yet gets covered in dust with the right of having been, and having given.
Località di mare. Non è nuova l’Autrice a parlarne. Spazia dall’Indocina alla cittadina francese dal mare freddo e bianco, tra architetture nate apposta per essere fuori stagione e spiagge testimoni di passeggiate silenti.
Seaside resort. Nothing new to the author. She ranges from Indochine to the French town endowed by a white,cold sea, to architectures born to be out-of-season, and beaches witness of silent walks.
Pareti, finestre, pensieri, silenzi, pensieri mentre l’altro o l’altra dorme. Nuovo romanzo puro. Silenzi. Dovrebbe essere pieno di pagine bianche, un libro come questo. Ne rimango sempre tramortito. Sempre.
Walls, windows, thoughts,silences, thoughts while the other (woman or man) sleeps. A New pure Novel. Silences. A book like this should be full of blank pages. I always end up stunned. Always.
Le pagine scorrono mentre montano le storie. Il distacco iniziale si fonde in una miscela densa che prende corpo e dona il sapore della trama, senza in realtà che ci sia mai stata.
The pages run as the stories mount. The initial detachment coalesce into a thick mixture which takes form and lends the flavour of a plot, without a plot actually ever having been there.
Grande la Duras, in questo. Il romanzo corre via e sembra accompagnato da una musica di piano, leggero, struggente, assolutamente non enfatico o retorico. Neanche Chopin, forse Mahler per quel che ne so io.
Duras is great in this work. The novel spirits away and seems to be accompanied by the notes of a piano, light, poignant, absolutely not emphatic or rethorical. Not even Chopin; for all I know it could be Mahler.
Sembra accompagnato da balli senza senso, modello maliarda, tra effluvi e movimenti di veli di seta, come nella descrizione della ragazza, spesso si legge. Un tourbillon di dorsi di mano e lacrime e sonni precari, tra “ieri ero lì” e “ieri era lì…” e così via con ogni coniugazione e meditazione possibile. Senza dolcezza sprecata, assolutamente.
[The novel] seems accompanied by senseless dances, as if by sorceress, betwixt efflusion and movements of silk veils, as we often read in the descriptions made by the girl. A tourbillon of backs of hands and tears and precarious sleeps, between “yesterday I was there” and “yesterday [he/she was there] and so on with every variant of conjugation and meditation possible. No wasted sweetness, whatsoever.
Un giorno di nubi diventato libro, con la stagione presumibilmente in decadenza e la noia che abbraccia e bacia le ore, una per una, come fossero tutte figlie sue, conosciute per quel che possono dare e odiate per quel che danno.
A cloudy day which becomes book, with the high season presumably decaying and boredom embracing and kissing the hours, each by each, as if they were all her own daughters, known by what they can give and hated for what they do give.
Il romanzo è complesso, intollerante di distrazioni o scivolate inerti. È un libro per persone sveglie e zitte, leste di emozioni nel torpore di un dolore qualunque.
The novel is complex, intolerant of distractions or inert slides. It is a book for those alert and quiet, quick of emotions in the torpor of any given sorrow.
È un cortometraggio breve di vita e di proibito di essa, girato e concepito dentro i privilegi tipici delle realtà durasiane, senza ipocrisie.
It is a short-lived, forbidding short, filmed and conceived within typical privileges of Durasian realities, without hypocrisies.
Un attacco ai piani alti dell’esistenza, condensati nelle bramosità e nelle ovvietà più inconfessabili. Condito ad arte dentro le attenzioni meravigliosamente femminili che l’Autrice dispone con senso teatrale, quasi da architetto d’interni oserei dire, che dispongono negli occhi blu a pelle chiara e capelli scuri, il fenotipo perfetto per la rappresentazione così disagiata di sentimenti forti e originalità estreme.
[It is] an attack to the lofty spheres of existence, condensed in the most inconfessable longing and obviousness. Artfully seasoned with wonderfully feminine attentions arranged by the author with theatrical sensibility, almost as an architect of interiors I dare say, which display in the blue eyes with fair skin and dark hair, the perfect phenotype for a most uneasy portrayal of strong feelings and extreme originality.
La passione, unico motore in un contesto straordinario dipinto d’arte, come è il libro, frutto di enorme talento. Se ne prova distacco e attrazione insieme. Antipatia per il fulgore di quei caratteri somatici così caldi e freddi insieme, tanto da far innamorare o incazzare senza vie di compromesso. Il titolo ne enfatizza l’antitetica possibilità contenuta.
Passion, sole engine within an expertly painted, extraordinary context is, as the book, fruit of enourmous talent. One feels detachment and attraction at the same time. Antipathy for the blinding light of those somatic traits together so hot and cold, such as could make one fall in love or in a fit of rage without any way of compromising.
The title [of the book] underscores the antiethical possibility contained therein.
Niente di scomodo. Niente di decisamente scostante. Le pieghe scomode sono nell’essenza stessa semmai. Nella cerchia ristretta degli identificanti possibili: personaggi a parte, il mondo durasiano è fastidiosamente elitario a volte. Di quell’élite da sturbo, ideologica e strutturata nei salotti, di cui mi lamento ovunque. Una selva di cose belle per persone belle che ad una lettura profonda si immaginano poi neanche così belle. Alla francese più che altro.
Nothing uncomfortable here. Nothing decidedly unsettled. The uncomfortable folds are, if anything, the very essence of the story. Within the narrow circle of the possible identifiers: aside from the characters, the Durasian world is bothersome in its elitarianism at times. That self-numbing elite, ideological and designed around parlours, which I complain about everywhere. A moltitude of beautiful things for beautiful people who, upon further analysis, we imagine, are not even that beautiful. In French fashion, more than anything.
Il libro avanza, si srotola e finisce. Passando per la Duras, va letto assolutamente. Non passandoci, si può anche regalare e basta.
Un libro da donna non più giovane ma lontana comunque da tutte le donne possibili.
The book advances, unravels, then comes to an end. A must read, if your literary wanderings traverse Duras. In case they don’t, this book can be given as a gift. A book suited for a woman no longer young, yet invariably far from all possible women.’
…
The intricacies of the human heart, the complex workings of our minds are the true subject of Occhi Blu, Capelli Neri.
Catharsis: intense hatred must invariably stem from intense love; they are but two sides of the selfsame coin. I am humbled.
‘Never worry
About things
That you are unable
To change
Change your own way
Of looking at truth.’
Sri Chinmoy
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Design, Desk Crit, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, F R A G M E N T S, school, School Work, tagged Adding and Subtracting, Addition, Architect, Architectural Construct, Architectural Design, Architecture, Architecture Model, Architecture Studio, artist, Composition, Cone, Cylinder, Design, Design Composition, desk crits, Drawing, Explorations, Felt Tip Pen, First Year Design studio, Foam Models, ink, ink drawing, Interpenetration, Marker, Materials, Miti Aiello, newschool of architecture and design, Orthographic Design, pathways, Platonic solids, Platonic Solids Exercises, san diego, Scale, Schematic Design, Shadow Calculation, Shadows, Sharpie, sketchbook, sketches, Sphere, Subtraction, Texture, Utopia, Volumetrics, White Model on September 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Desk Crit, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Lectures, Quotes, school, School Work, Writing, tagged Abstraction, Architecture, Being then Doing, Drawing, Drawing and Sketching as Tools for Design, First Year Design studio, John Ruskin Quote, light, Light Angle, Philosophy, Platonic solids, Quotes, Reduction, Reductive process, Shadows in Axonometric, Truth on September 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Happy September. Post coming late today, but it is a new month and I hope this, my birthday month (yay) will be better than the last- and all summer for that matter. Lots of challenges and growth but…they don’t call them growing pains for nothing.
In my classes today we shared links on artists, visual notes, wonderful quotes, and great books. I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Things are getting really exciting and we are all growing by leaps and bounds. Good stuff and a great feeling of accomplishment at the end of this intense summer quarter.
Few unrelated topics that I have been mulling over lately:
1. Working out shadows in axonometric settings, like solving algebraic equations, helps to solve ourselves and gives us mathematical certainties (certainties that cannot be so cleanly and clearly found in real life). I always heard math is not an opinion, and I am appreciating its impartiality, its justice even. I know now its compassion.
Still, a solution is relative to the light angle we construct a priori, a philosophical question if there ever was one.
Shadows, like math, are either ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ relative to the established angle of light; no room for fuzzyness, approximation, guessing. How refreshing. How pure the solution. These (platonic) objects exists in an utopian airtight chamber or world, and the light is absolute, the light of truth.
The ‘real’ world (and ‘real’ shadows), like all matters of architecture and design and their ‘solutions’, are much more subtle, nuanced, grayscale— as opposed to black and white.
And so even truth is relative in our confounded orb.
2. I am thinking of ways to design the freehand drawing classes to transcend drawing as transposing what we ‘see’ and help it become a design tool (depicting what may be, or possible scenarios).
It is a challenge, because the basic drawing techniques still need to be mastered, but the course could be imbued with and define a research path, becoming not only a stronger vehicle for learning, but generating material for publication. Exciting stuff, now it’s just a matter of tightening up my interest areas and plan for action.
The Freehand Drawing and Rendering and Delineation classes will meet again next summer, and I have held some meetings to design its contents(more on this on coming posts) . Some words buzzing in my head are collages/assemblages, words, poetry, architecture, grayscale abstracts, visual notes/sketchnotes, inventories, data gathering quests, urban scavenging, pattern and in-formation.
3. The more I grow as a passive designer- passive because I have been in an observing, absorbing mode for a while now…just storing information until the right moment comes- the more drawings i do, I am realizing that the challenges of design are not additive ones, but subtractive.
Learning what to remove, what to take away, leaving just the essential, is the challenge. Architecture is a matter of reduction, not addition. Let me try to explain myself better. During our architectural education and pedestrian work experiences we are taught to include so many details, turn in complete drawings, complete construction documents sets etc. All of this is techniciams’ stuff. It is the drafter’s realm, or the CAD operator’s realm. It is not the Architect’s or designer’s province, which should aspire to loftier expressions. Design is abstraction of thought and ideas. It is reducing your concept to your most pure expression, cutting away all the fat and the unnecessary. Even the best art, I am finding, is painfully created by reducing your concept, feelings, ideas, to the most clear image, the prime number, the denominator. Significant work is created through ruthlessly leaving out all unnecessary data, information. Including too much is just self-indulgence; the disciplined designer pursues truth as she or he defines it and does not or cannot have time for self-indulgence. The purity of the idea is what one needs to be faithful to, everything else is interference by bureaucrats, technicians, pencil pushers.
Am I sounding like Howard Roark? WellI am in the process of defining a design philosophy and given the person that I am, this definition comes first in words , which will guide the action. As my dear friend Lamees said, one is not to do without being first. Be first–then do– then have…it all happens spontaneously.
Part of being an architect is accepting an elitist role, necessary not to set apart one from the rest of humanity, but to preserve the purity of the design idea, its drive and execution. Part of being an architect and an artist is learning to let go of many things once thought necessary and just rendering our work in the most pure, direct, potent way.
Finally, a quote that is driving my days, these days:
“What we think or what we know or what
we believe is, in the end, of little
consequence.
The only consequence is what we do.”
John Ruskin
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, NaBloPoMo, Quotes, Writing, tagged breaking and entering, idra, Marguerite Yourcenar, sei un rettile, St. Loup's Secrets and Lies, Words are Swords on August 28, 2010| 1 Comment »
…manier les mots, les soupeser, en explorer le sens, es une manière de faire l’amour, surtout lorsque ce qu’on écrit est inspiré par quelqu’un, ou promis à quelqu’un.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Quoi? L’Éternité, Paris, Gallimard, 1988, p. 147
[“…manipular las palabras, sopesarlas, explorar su sentido, es una manera de hacer el amor, sobre todo cuando lo que se escribe está inspirado en alguien, o está prometido a alguien.”]
[ “…to manipulate words, weigh them, to explore their meaning, is a way of making love, especially when what is written is inspired by someone, or promised to someone”]
I am so tired of this language, English, where you can ‘love’ McDonalds, ‘love’ tennis, ‘love’ a dog and ‘love’ your soulmate.
We need a new word, like Ti Amo.
In the same [unfortunate] series:
Words…Words…Words…..Swords May 9, 2010
Jealousy Ouvertures May 19, 2010
Sections of the Brokenhearted [Find another Sun] June 7, 2010
Mango (della gelosia) June 9, 2010
Fading to Cheshire: An Art Exorcise July 30, 2010
Here’s to hydra-free days.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Featured Artists, Graphic Design, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, San Diego, school, School Work, Tutorial, Watercolor, tagged An open sketchbook, Architecture, Botanical Garden, Color Drawing by Doyle, Color rendering, Drawing, Escondido, fabric, Furniture, hand rendering, illustration, ink, Interior rendering, Kit Carson Park, Markers, Niki St. Phalle, Prismacolor Pencil, Queen Califia's Magical Garden, san diego, Suzanne Cabrera, Texture, Tutorial, Urban Sketchers, Watercolor on August 18, 2010| 1 Comment »
Lately, I’ve favored the watercolor and pencil technique, but want to get back to working with markers.
I found these two great tutorials on marker renderings from my blog friend and Urban Sketcher extraordinaire Suzanne Cabrera at An [Open] Sketchbook: can’t wait to share them with my students!
{ Tutorial 1: Furniture/Fabric }
{ Tutorial 2: Interior Rendering }
As usual, the wonderful Color Drawing book by Doyle will provide a lifetime’s worth of lessons.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Design, Drawing, Experiments, Graphic Design, NaBloPoMo, San Diego, school, School Work, Tutorial, Watercolor, tagged Architecture, Botanical Garden, Color Drawing by Doyle, Color rendering, Drawing, Escondido, fabric, Furniture, hand rendering, illustration, ink, ink drawing, Kit Carson Park, loose rendering, loose sketch, marker rag paper, Markers, Niki St. Phalle, Prismacolor Pencil, Queen Califia's Magical Garden, san diego, Texture, trace paper, tracing, transfering, Tutorial, Urban Sketchers, Watercolor on August 16, 2010| 3 Comments »
Do you remember Niki St. Phalle’s ‘Queen Califia’s Magical Garden’?
Well, I went back with my students for some loose watercolor and pencil renderings.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Design, Drawing, Music, tagged 100 Beats Arabica, Amoeba Records, Andalusia, Arab design, Arab lamp, Arab Music, Arabesque, Arabic, Cheb Khaled, Haight Ashbury, Islamic Architecture, Kan Zaman, lucernaire, Maghreb Musiqa, moorish, North African Music, Radio Tarifa, san francisco, Spirit of Rai, World Music on August 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Design, Desk Crit, Digital Collage, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Featured Artists, Graphic Design, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, Paper Goods, Pastel, Photography, school, tagged Albert Frey, Alberto Kalach, Alfredo Melly, Andrea Benavides, Archigram, Architectural Collage, Architecture, california, Case Study Homes, Charles and Ray Eames, Charles Santamaria, Christine & Russell Forester, collage, Coop Himmelblau, Craig Ellwood, Culver City, Daly Genik Architects, Del Mar, Don Wexler, Ed Killingsworth, Eric Owen Moss, Estudio Teddy Cruz, Frank Gehry, Gehry Technologies, Greene and Greene, Hector Perez, Henry Palomino, Kathy McCormick & Ted Smith, La Jolla, Los Angeles, Luce Et Studio, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Morphosis, Nancy Tariga, newschool of architecture and design, Palm Springs, pasadena, Residential Design, Richard NeutraRudolph Schindler, san diego, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Monica, Sebastian Mariscal, Sebastian Mariscal Studio, Smith and Others, SoCal Exploratory Design Workshop, Southern California Design and Architecture, Superstudio, Ted Smith, venice on August 6, 2010| 1 Comment »
Something eye-opening occurred at my school yesterday.
I attended the exhibit for SoCal -Ex : Exploratory Design Workshop, completed by Professor Hector Perez and his students.
Here are the specific of the Workshop:
6 Explorers
Andrea Benavides/Alfredo Melly/Henry Palomino/Charles Santamaria/Nancy Tariga
25 Days
July 12-August 5
10 Field Trips
San Diego/La Jolla/Del Mar/San Juan Capistrano/Los Angeles/Santa Monica/Culver City/Venice/Pasadena/Palm Springs
9 Progressive Practices
Daly Genik Architects/Eric Owen Moss/Estudio Teddy Cruz/Gehry Technologies/Luce Et Studio/Michael Maltzan Architecture/Morphosis/Sebastian Mariscal Studio/Smith and Others
15 Extraordinary Residences
Charles and Ray Eames/Craig Ellwood/Christine & Russell Forester/Albert Frey/Frank Gehry/Greene and Greene/Coop Himmelblau/Alberto Kalach/Ed Killingsworth/Sebastian Mariscal/Kathy McCormick & Ted Smith/Richard NeutraRudolph Schindler/Don Wexler
I spoke with Professor Perez and he told me that the analysis of the case study residences and projects were concentrated on the ‘crown’, ‘body’ and ‘feet’ of the aedifices.
Through collages, reminiscent of Superstudio and Archigram, the field trips become a venue for envisioning alternative architectural and urban scenarios (Design Workshops). I hope you’ll enjoy these images just as much as I did; each collage read like a miniature work of art, and the juxtaposition of architectural drawings and bold hand-drawn colors created fantastic, detailed, abstract constructs. What a wonderful way to illustrate architectural drawings, and bring to life photographs. The collages, done by hand, using cutouts, colored pencils and paint had a physical presence, a texture that a purely digital (photoshopped) images invariably lack.
I am inspired to create some more collages of my own and…can’t wait for the book 😉
Click on an image to enlarge.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Design, Desk Crit, Drawing, Graphic Design, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, Painting, school, School Work, Watercolor, tagged Betty Edwards, Chairs, Class Experiment, Coffee, Figure Ground, How to Draw on the right Side of the Brain, Miti Aiello, Picasso, Stravinsky, Talent, Upside Down Drawing on August 5, 2010| 1 Comment »
Another exercise with ‘Drawing on the Righ Side of the Brain’. By drawing the space, not the chair, the proportions were incredibly accurate in all drawings. The drawings can be read as Nolli Maps of imaginary cities, we can see piazzas, palazzi…we can see perspective, spatial configurations/plans, abstract paintings… I love the ambivalent water medium, the subtle, duplicitous, always multilayered sepia tone.
From Page 54:
Look at the drawings on the right-hand side of Figure 4-11. Studens 1 and 2 copied Picasso’s drawing right side up. As you can see, their drawings did not improve, and they use the same stereotypic, symbolic forms in their copies of the Picasso Stravinsky as they used in their Draw-a-Person drawings. In the drawings done by Student 2, you can see the confusion caused by the foreshortened chair and Stravinsky crossed legs.
In contrast, the second two students, starting out at about the same level of skill, copied the Picasso upside down, just as you did. The Student 3 and the Student 4 drawings show the results. Surprisingly, the drawings done upside down reflect much greater accuracy of perception and appear to be much more skillfully drawn.
How can we explain this?
The results run counter to common sense. You simply would not expect that a figure observed and drawn upside down could possibly be easier to draw, with superior results, than one viewed and drawn in the normal right-side-up way. The lines, after all, are the same lines. Turning the Picasso drawing upside down doesn’t in any way rearrange the lines or make them easier to draw. And the students did not suddenly acquire “talent”.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Drawing, Link Love, NaBloPoMo, Paper Goods, Poetry, School Work, tagged Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Exercise, Ghadah Alkandary, Jonathan Wells, Miti Aiello, Nablopomo, Ode to Pens, Office Supplies, pens, pilot pen, Pilot Precise, Poetry, Pretty Green Bullet, sketch daily, The Man with Many Pens, The New Yorker, V7 on August 3, 2010| 6 Comments »
With one he wrote a number so beautiful
it lasted forever in the legends of numbers. With another
he described the martyrs’ feet as they marched
past the weeping stones and cypresses, watched
by their fathers. He used one as a silver wand to lift
a trout from its spawning bed to more fruitful waters
and set it back down, its mouth facing upstream.
He wrote Time has no other river but this one in us,
no other use but this turn in us from mountain lakes
of late desires to confusions passed through
with every gate open. Let’s not say he didn’t take us
with him in the long current of his letters, his calligraphy
and craft, moving from port to port, his hand stopping
near his heart, the hand that smudged and graced the page,
asking, asking, his fingers a beggar’s lucent black,
for the word that gave each of us away.
More poetry from the New Yorker
I confess: I am weak for love pens and other writing instruments.
I have had a fascination with pens (and office supplies) since I was 4, when I would help organize my mother’s supply center at work. I was very scrupolous 🙂 In college, buying pens at the Varsity Store on Campus, or better yet, at Mathison’s, was therapy. Above you see my sine qua non pen.
And, one more thing for today: my blogsister Ghadah at PrettyGreenBullet gets an A.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Experiments, Film, Link Love, Music, NaBloPoMo, San Diego, school, School Work, tagged david grann, Drawing on the right side of the brain, film noir, gilda, ink drawing, le corbusier, movies balboa park, movies under the stars, new yorker, pacific beach, peter paul biro, san diego, San Diego Reader, screen in the green 2010, sketchbook, teleportation, the mark of a masterpiece on August 2, 2010| 2 Comments »
I hope everyone’s having a fabulous beginning of August.
I am really trying.
I plan to go to some movie under the stars, or at the park, or on a roof, like Cinema Paradiso. A good black and white movie, preferably a noir Hitchcock, would be the cat’s meow.
I am officially suffering from wanderlust. If I could be in five places at once I would be home in Calabria (Southern Italy), in Cuba, Ibiza and Greece and of course right where I am, having a Summer of Art with my students. They really need to get this teleportation thing going, so I could just zip away for the weekend, or we could just do three days of plein air sketching in Florence!
Le Corbusier said that we need to see with new eyes. How true; in Architecture, drawing, and, most of all, in life. Looking is not seeing. SO part of the renewal is to give your eyes something different to contemplate (i.e. do something new!). I pledge to pick up my local weekly and get out of my comfort zone (even my beloved neighborhood! I know, hard to believe). Yesterday, to start the month right, I trekked couple of hours to the beach (with my sketchbook, of course!)
To develop new eyes, and to stretch different parts of the brain, we have been working in class from “Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain.” One of its famous exercises is to draw an object without looking at the paper, preferably without lifting your pen or pencil. I tried it out with my hand.
The fingerprint/pattern was inspired by a) this fascinating article on The NewYorker on fingerprints, art and forensic science and b) paying attention to things we don’t even see anymore, or take for granted. Here is our uniqueness. We are all snowflakes, and just as fragile.
Draw your hand without looking at the paper, take a photo and send it to me (sketchbloom at gmail dot com) or linkback.
I am curious.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, Poetry, Spontaneous Constructs, Thoughts in the alley, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged Alice in Wonderland, Art Exorcises, Cheshire, Christmas in July, Hauntings, Lewis Carroll, Obsessions on July 30, 2010| 2 Comments »
From Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951).
Cheshire Cat: Oh, by the way, if you’d really like to know, he went that way.
Alice: Who did?
Cheshire Cat: The White Rabbit.
Alice: He did?
Cheshire Cat: He did what?
Alice: Went that way.
Cheshire Cat: Who did?
Alice: The White Rabbit.
Cheshire Cat: What rabbit?
Alice: But didn’t you just say – I mean – Oh, dear.
Cheshire Cat: Can you stand on your head?
Alice: Oh!
It must be Halloween in July (seriously, wasn’t it Christmas?).
I have material for three new posts and some serious retroactive editing to do; have been drawing, reading short fiction, poetry, and fascinating stories about forensic art curating- all of which I will share with related art. But let me start with saying that at times intense reading (input) for the ambitious –or obsession-prone– designer/visual artist can be considered a passive-aggressive behavior, when so much needs to be in output mode, expressed, exorcised. Indeed, Julia Cameron in her Artist’s Way asks us to refrain from reading for one week, as we need to temporarily pause others’ voices and opinions to recognize and strengthen our own.
Lately my work, alas, has been hindered: I had to hunt (and was haunted[1] by) a ghost with sixty-four teeth. The wheels of karma turned and I , who once called someone-undeservedly- a ghost, have had to suffer one.
Hello, setbacks.
So for today’s art, folks, this page is my canvas and my collage. This is where the work is done.
Let me tell you about the Cheshire cat. He appears to di-sappear only to re-appear!
All this to say (and yes, Art is process, it is a filter, it exorcises…it is a strainer, a sieve. She is a savior):
I have been walking under a black cloud for three months
Holding my breath
Only it was not a cloud
-though it hung like a pale, hungry moon-
It was the Cheshire smile of a ghost
Useless, hideous ghost that would not go away
Spoke maddening riddles, multiplied hydra-like,
Says I…. I….I….
That single grin is fading again
Waning
And I, tethered, am starting to exhale.
Thank you. How about how good it feels to finally forget forgive you.
[1] Definitions from The Free Dictionary:
haunt // (hônt, hnt)
v. haunt·ed, haunt·ing, haunts
v.tr. 1. To inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form of a ghost or other supernatural being.
2. To visit often; frequent: haunted the movie theaters.3. To come to the mind of continually; obsess: a riddle that haunted me all morning.4. To be continually present in; pervade: the melancholy that haunts the composer’s music.
v.intr. To recur or visit often, especially as a ghost.
haunt
vb 1. (Myth & Legend / European Myth & Legend) to visit (a person or place) in the form of a ghost
2. (tr) to intrude upon or recur to (the memory, thoughts, etc.) he was haunted by the fear of insanity3. to visit (a place) frequently4. to associate with (someone) frequently
n 1. (often plural) a place visited frequently an old haunt of hers.
Posted in Architecture, Coffee, Drawing, Photography, Writing, tagged art, Bohemian Cafes, Gipsy Den Los Angeles, sketches, the anti mall, the LAB Anti-Mall on July 22, 2010| 3 Comments »
Posting from the road, The Gipsy Cafe’ in Los Angeles. The surrealist drawing is by Amina Alkandari, part of her series ‘Love behind the Seen’. This bohemian cafe’ is located within the alternative Anti Mall in Costa Mesa.. a place uniting local businesses, local artists and designers and clever public space. Love at first sight- and more on this soon.
Here are some shots. I could go back everyday.
Lastly, drawing my students drawing.
Posted in Architecture, Drawing, Quotes, tagged Graduation, June 2010, La Jolla, newschool of architecture and design, Salk Institute, san diego on June 23, 2010| 1 Comment »
There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.
John Donne
As quoted by Dean Gil Cooke in his keynote address.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, NaBloPoMo, Poetry, Quotes, Writing, tagged Child's pose, Ephiphanies, Gratitude, Il Postino Soundtrack, ink drawing, Nablopomo, Pablo Neruda, Poetry, Quotes, Thankfulness, yoga on June 17, 2010| 2 Comments »
Yoga is moving meditation. Feel your body melt on the ground. Feel your muscles, your bones dissolving into the ground. Be thankful for this time. The gratitude you feel spreads from your heart to your entire being, and radiates towards everyone around you.
Mercedes, Yoga instructor and, apparently, Rockstar in a band- I attended her class for the first time today.
I went to yoga today to plug out: I have been spending too many hours tethered to my computer and needed a retreat. The gym worked for that today, but I am hoping to spend some times, soon, away from technology in places like Yosemite, Sequoia National Park and, perhaps, Napa Valley. It is apparent that I failed at the NaBloPoMo self-challenge, missed too many days -like this weekend- and yet realize that blogging everyday is not my style, and have come to accept the fact that pauses result in epiphanies which can push inspiration forward. Nevertheless I do like to post aoften to show up to my day, art, intellect, just as I would like to make a habit of yoga to practice the mindfulness of the body. The solitude after yoga practice makes me realize many things, for example how infinitely precious moments with loved ones are, moments we take for granted. As I walked home tonight, looking at the night sky I thought about Pablo Neruda, and his lines :
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars;
my heart broke loose on the open sky.
From ‘Poetry’
How the sky would be with no stars, because that is how life is without the love of the people we care about….
So i frightened myself, and I can hear my friend Lamees that ‘frightening’ ourselves is good, for it wakes us up. Awake means aware. I resolve every day, like most of us, I’m sure, to be a better person, yet fail and sometimes lose myself in petty feelings. A friend of mine told me that he heard from a wise, humble man to ‘just do one thing better today than you did yesterday’. So today I went to Yoga, my way to tune in, because I am not there yet as far as daily meditation. Tuning in means more sun, but, sometimes, more rain.
I chanced upon a quote I like very much (I am kind of ashamed to say where I got it)
I hear the music, do you?
Posted in Acrylic, art,poetry,writing, Design, Drawing, Graphic Design, Painting, Pastel, tagged asian-inspired floral design, butterfly, Drawing, Graphic Design, painting, wynn design on June 16, 2010| 5 Comments »
My client gave me this card and asked me to create a composition based on the flower/butterfly graphics.
I first mixed in the colors for the purple background my client wanted, then drew the graphic motifs with black grease pencil, went over with white pastels, only to realize that the black was not going to be easily cleaned at the end. So I had to wash away all the black lines, and lost most of the white drawing. I used the second drawing as a basis for the painting.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Books, Desk Crit, Drawing, Featured Artists, NaBloPoMo, Quotes, tagged Architecture, Compositions in Architecture, Design, Don Hanlon, download e-book, Drawing, Frederick Franck, Marc Auge', michael nobbs, Non-Places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, sketch, sketch everyday. draw everyday, start to draw your life, the importance of drawing, the importance of sketching, Zen Seeing Zen Drawing on June 11, 2010| 5 Comments »
Drawing is thinking. Hand-eye coordination is essential not only to accurately render what you see, but to bring forth and execute what you see in your mind’s eye, i.e designing. I read once that we should use the word ‘draw’ as in ‘drawing information’, as from a well. To draw a building or space is to understand it, to make it our own –to impress it on our brain’s matrix. Photography, while wonderful and an art form in itself, leaves the lessons of buildings on the camera’s hard drive, not on ours.
Not to mention the warmth and ‘tactability’ , as my friend Luisa says, of a sketch or a vignette, the volumes it adds to a presentation, the process it unveils. Revit has the capability to render photorealistic imagery, with incredible texture and lighting. But it is in the process that a project is appreciated in all its nuances, that poetry can happen, that the design and the architect eye, mind and hand can be sipped, like fine, expensive wine. Without process architecture becomes a shot of cheap wiskey, vulgar. Design, like diamonds, has no mercy… “They will show up the wearer if they can,” says one character in The Sandcastle, an early novel by the famous British author, Iris Murdoch. (I borrowed this bit on diamonds here).
Drawing is analysis. It is a deliberate act of interpretation, and abstraction (as in capturing the essential). In the book ‘Compositions in Architecture’, Dan Hanlon says:
A drawing can be tuned to reveal and emphasize certain characteristics, and not others. It is a process of selection, of sharpening the way our brain takes notes of details. It is never alienating, never mindless, never automatic (unless as automatic art/ flow of consciousness), never repetitive, never listless as drawing on a computer can be.
In the introduction of book Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Marc Augé mentions the many devices that, by keeping us ‘connected’ at all times, alienate and separate us from the place we physically occupy. Drawing keeps us grounded (in the here and now?), and is an exercise in fully experiencing our surroundings, of mindfulness.
And after the alarming The Shallows: This is Your Brain Online , on the ability to train our brain (and affect its physical make-up) by our daily habits, anything that can help with the collective scattered focus we are ‘learning’ from too much technology should be a worthwhile endeavor.
So yes, the Zen of Drawing, or drawing as meditation (architectural therapy not just art?). Like yoga, unplugging and plugging in at the same time. By drawing we fully inhabit this place, this body, as architect and artists.
My blogfriend Suzanne Cabrera at [An] Open Sketchbook turned me onto Michael Nobbs, a Blogger/Artist into time management,who advocates drawing everyday. Here is his free, fun and inspiring e-book.
I already started drawing loved objects before I ‘release’ them.
And here, the first part on the importance of drawing.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Books, Drawing, Lectures, NaBloPoMo, Spontaneous Constructs, Watercolor, tagged Architect, book, diane Y. Welch, Indipendent Women in Architecture, lillian rice, mango, san diego, Sincerely Yours, sketchbook, Watercolor on June 9, 2010| 15 Comments »
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Spontaneous Constructs, Watercolor, tagged Birthday, Camel, Dubai, mosaic camel on June 3, 2010| 3 Comments »
Posted in Architecture, Drawing, Graphic Design, Music, NaBloPoMo, Poetry, tagged Aerial Headphones, Architecture Studio, gipsy ballads, Ionian sea, Poetry, Tank headphones on June 2, 2010| 2 Comments »
NaBloPoMo writing prompt of today:
What is your favorite poem?
You pick fresh fruit and seeds
From orchard and underwood nearby
I fetch seashells
Starshaped
For you
I build a nest of leaves–
We spend warm nights with street artists
Flame-eaters and sages
Fall asleep with fire
Yours and mine
Gipsy ballads
I wrote this in 1999.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Cures for the Nothing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Photography, tagged 5 megapixel camera, cigarettes, crutch, Drawing, grrrrl, htc hd2, Photography, rose, yellow rose on May 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Here is a flower for you from my new phone.
I usually would not mention such details, except for the fact that I will be able to post from the road now and the 5 megapix camera is spectacular. You can say that I am happy today.
There are huge, full-bodied roses around the corner, yellow in yesterday’s moonlight.Their scent was a a promise of a life untroubled, full of beauty, and grace. I wanted to show them to you, but today they were gone. And the finality of life hit me.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Graphic Design, School Work, tagged Architecture, AutoCAD, breathe, CAD, contour, diagram, diagramming, diagrams, exhalation, graphic thinking for architects and designers, human Landscape, Joe Nicholson, paul leseau, profile, site section, what is a diagram, yoga, yoga poses, yoga position on May 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »
1. a simple drawing showing the basic shape, lay-out, or workings of something
2. a chart or graph that illustrates something such as a statistical trend
3. a line drawing that presents mathematical information
The link? The day after my landscape /yoga explorations, Joe showed the above slide on a presentation. Serendipity.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Thoughts in the alley, tagged a case of the mondays, aeroplane, Coffee, coffee is my aeroplane, les miserables, red hot chilli peppers on May 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I too am having one of those days weeks. Monday with Les Misérables. Something about the number 17, a confounded number that brings misfortune and mishaps in Italian lore.
Coffee is one of those rituals that encourages pondering, aids concentration–perhaps even mindfulness– and never fails, at least for this aficionada, to lift the spirit.
Sometimes, some days, a trusty coffee travel mug may just be your aeroplane.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Poetry, Quotes, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Amal Moussa, bone, butterfly, david noriega, Drawing, five hours of sleep, in which we were all situationists once, ink, Koa wood, rainer maria rilke, the Situationist Internationale, this recording, thoughts by the sea, Tracing Paper, urban bedouin, Watercolor, wood jewelry on May 16, 2010| 2 Comments »
We wander at night and are consumed by fire
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Translated by Dana Gioia
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Design, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Graphic Design, Painting, Uncategorized, tagged “I have a strong will to love you for eternity.”, body art, eucalyptus oil, henna, Milan Kundera quotes, tattoo on May 10, 2010| 1 Comment »
Posted in art,poetry,writing, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, F R A G M E N T S, Poetry, Quotes, Spontaneous Constructs, Thoughts in the alley, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged blood, bombs, chi di spada ferisce di spada perisce, Digital Collage, gospel, hamlet, he who lives by the sword dies by the swords, ink, keyboard, machine guns, the scene of the crime, thoughts in the alley, words, words as swords, words as weapons on May 9, 2010| 5 Comments »
It is said that the tragedy of Hamlet is consumed between ‘words’ and ‘swords’. Words, words, words murmur the duelling characters…
Some may say words are swords, of the most insidious kind, and that that which is uttered – or written- has a potential for far more damage than a weapon meant to plunge in an enemy’s body. In Italian there is a saying, its origins in the Gospel, ‘ Chi di spada ferisce, di spada perisce’ [Qui gladio ferit gladio perit] . In English it is translated as ‘He who lives by the sword, perishes by the sword’. As for those who live by the words, we also (must) suffer by words.
As a writer, a wordsmith, a poet – and more importantly, as a sentient human being – I have pondered today the reach of words, their lasting impact as means of communication in the analog and digital age.
Wounds are healed yet words remain. It is a theme that I will continue to explore, as more images are conjured up on the topic as I am posting this.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Film, Poetry, Quotes, tagged Carl Sandburg, Ernest Hemingway, Frost, O Captain My Captain, Poetry, ralph waldo emerson, school, Thoreau, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Yeats on May 8, 2010| 2 Comments »
I wish I could watch that movie with my students, at the beginning of each quarter: it is veiled under architecture, and art, and history…but the meaning and the message is always poetry, always life.
I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Writing, tagged Artist Dilemma, bone jewelry, condo, Hillcrest, koa wood jewelry, Majestic/Agrestic, Mediterrenean style, Mission Hills, san diego, sketches, tuscan, weeds, wood and bone jewelry on May 5, 2010| 3 Comments »
Still thinking about the versatility of wood, building material and jeweler’s materia prima.
This is the drawing (soon watercolor) I mentioned, long time coming, but, also, lots of slanted plumerias…I had to keep at this drawing , for some reason I kept leaving it and coming back to it, and carrying this wooden artifacts in my messenger bag everywhere, looking to finish the work. Perhaps I felt it like an ‘assignment’ and part of me rebelled to it, working on other drawings and ideas instead (which I am happy to say gave me material to now go back and post more regularly.) Perhaps it was the repetition that disturbed me, or it taking longer than i thought. Do you ever give yourself artistic assignment you regret but complete out of discipline–or stubbornness? It is very strange how art is a dichotomy between what is enjoyable and what is necessary, or what we arbitrarily consider necessary. I guess it is a way to give some sense of structure to our work.
I did not allow myself to post anything until I finished this blessed necklace, so you might see a series of plumerias, but I see a struggle XD.
Some say you should not do it once it ceases being fun. I think I would like to set a record for finishing what I started, and this is just an outward offering.
Speaking of flowers, here is walking around Mission Hills in San Diego, with my friend Theresa. Beautiful homes, canyons (we do live in an enchanted land- afternoon light through leaves-shimmering like a blessing), juxtaposed to sceneries right out of the incorporated town of Majestic/Agrestic. Passing by an It’s a Grind at the bottom of a horrific ‘Mediterrenean-Style’ condo on the way to Hillcrest made me chuckle and made me sad at the same time. I am sure the name contains the word ‘Tuscan’ somewhere.
The walk was a spontaneous one, not one of my photo expeditions, so here some unorthodox shots from my cell.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Drawing, Link Love, Watercolor, tagged architectural rendering, architecture rendering, Artuesdays, legos and art, Link Love, urban homes, Watercolor, watercolor techniques on March 16, 2010| 2 Comments »
I finished my Third Street Homes ‘portraits’ (thankyou Planetary Folklore for the great quote).
Since the last iteration I refined ground and sky, went over the watercolor with Prismacolor pencils to give the homes some texture, bumped up the contrast, pushed the darks a bit and, finally, worked on the vegetation and added the framing branches. You can see the first and second step here. C’est fini.
Speaking of buildings, here is an artist who goes around the world fixing crumbling buildings with Legos. (!)
The topic of these first three Artuesdays has been watercolor, and I would like to share the work of some very talented folks who are inspiring me for future paintings, in subject matter or technique:
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Drawing, Experiments, Fruit, Watercolor, Writing, tagged Artist's Way, beach, Raspberry, Value of Education, water, Watercolor on March 13, 2010| 4 Comments »
This is a mental recollection of an exquisite painting, smaller than 8 X 10, that I once saw in my friend Sophia’s place. It was an oil painting, varnished, and the raspberry on the beach looked so large, lustrous and luminous. You could tell the translucent quality of the skin. This is my humble attemp at recreating that piece in watercolor: oil paint allows for more luster, and maybe one day I will try that as well, even though most of my painting are done in acrylic .
What symbolism this piece recalls, and what do you see, I wonder…
I had a wonderful art session with my favorite artistes today, a lunch at my favorite French Bistro and a stroll through Little Italy’s Farmer’s Market, where we picked up fruit and vegetables (our models). A good, full day, not untouched by worries ( hard times to be had by all) rather, a respite…and realizing that, in the words of a fellow New York Times reader:
‘A good academic degree pays for itself in a flexible mind and an ability to adapt as well as the richness of inner resources to survive hard times without despair.’
Sitting in Cafe’ Italia, with my watercolors, and my ‘model’ perched on a napkin, envisioning faraway beaches and the quality of the water in Calabria– and feeling glances from patrons–I realize Art is a wonderful privilege, an ability to lose one’s self and a giving of kind, compassionate time to one’s self. Like every privilege, to me at least, art is also a responsibility. Of course the endless list of chores awaits, yet I felt what art offers is more than escapism or absorbing creativity produced by others , as in savoring a book or basking in a glorious movie ( I love both): with art we create our own narrative, as in writing a book vs. reading one. Does it make sense to be then a bit exhausted after a creative session? Perhaps it is all about resistance…learning to teach the wrist and mind to embody ‘effortlessness’.
Not to mention the refinement of the medium. This was the fourth serious attemp/experiment with watercolor I have done.
I will never forget, while following ‘The Artist’s Way’, one was to go for a week without reading. Reading has been in the past a way to procrastinate creating in the first person, a way to be vicariously creative . We must watch that.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Coffee, Design, Drawing, Graphic Design, tagged Brugo Travel Mug, Coffee, Coffee Travel Mug, Espresso Cups, Pantone Mugs, Raya Cofee Travel Mug, Starbucks DoubleShot, Trudeau Cool DOwn Water Bottle, Water Bottle on March 9, 2010| 4 Comments »
I wanted to share some of the things that make life better:
1. A water bottle that makes you happy and keeps you cool for hours.
2. a coffee mug that offers you coffee at ideal temperature with new technology
… or just looks thermally good (mine is orange)
3. Beautiful Pantone Mugs to brighten your day.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Books, Cures for the Nothing, Design, Drawing, Lectures, Writing, tagged adobe construction, conductive coolingwater featurs, Earth to Spirit.In search of Natural Architecture, eveporative cooling, gardens, green sustainable architecture, Iran, James Brown, le corbusier, Leed, MSA Architecture, Passive Solar Design and Archtecture, Persian Vernacular Architecture, Public Architecture and Planning San Diego, Simi Razavian, Tabas, The Nothing, Thermal Delight in Architecture, wind towers on March 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Last week I had the privilege to attend two remarkable lectures. The first, on Vernacular Architecture in Persia by the Architect Simi Razavian of MSA&Associates, Inc. Architecture, was a guest lecture part of my Non-Western Traditions seminar class. Simi masterfully shared with us passive-solar techniques used in her native Iran, the lyrical wind towers of Tabas and the use of natural elements in residential design, such as adobe for construction, wet straw and water for convective cooling (in conjunction with wind towers) and gardens and fountains as evaporative cooling channels and elements of sensorial delight.
I wonder how Leed points would work for buildings that seek to return to Nature, since Simi commented that , in all the Leed lectures she attended, Passive Solar was not even mentioned (but the lates triple glazed glass was, along with ways to maneuver the artificially calculated Leed ‘points’).
Through this lecture I was reminded of of my interest in school in adobe and Pueblo construction, and of two of my favorite books, Thermal Delight in Architecture (which incidentally contains an incredible description of a Persian hanging garden) and Earth to Spirit : In Search of Natural Architecture. Notions such as these, plus genius loci and architecture as humanities-based discipline is what initially drew me to Architecture (this and Antoni Gaudi). Yet I found in practice, with very few precious exceptions, what Le Corbusier calls ‘Construction. Not Architecture’ .
Where is the poetry?
Which brings me to the other lecture I attended later that day: James Brown of Public, one of the most ‘soulful’ architecture firms in San Diego ( I have been aware of the reputation of Public for years, and James had me at hello with his phrase on ‘spirituality of material‘, his graceful demeanor and humble approach to defining architecture and process). The courage of design conviction, the dedication to values such as meaning and pushing, nay, nudging boundaries is the best cure for the Nothing (yes, as in Neverending Story) that is swallowing the practice here in the US.
Posted in Architecture, Artuesdays, Drawing, Watercolor on February 27, 2010| 3 Comments »
Well, here is the finished (first) watercolor layer. One more iteration is needed, as much as I am ready to move on to the next project.
Contrast and shade and shadow, ink and lineweight, and perhaps a layer of color pencil for texture. What I am looking for is for these homes to ‘pop’, and come alive – just as the first house on the left begins to do; perhaps one more targeted watercolor wash is needed (just on the areas of shade and shadow), perhaps just going over with ink. Perhaps more art, less architecture. I am proceeding with caution as there is a hair of a difference between a watercolor and a muddy mess. Somewhere in between there is a rendering that satisfies. I will keep you tuned.
Speaking about the Impressionists in class last Thursday, we discussed how they believed that an object, painted in a different light, becomes a different object altogether, imbued with a changing feeling, a changing ‘impression’.
Perhaps we, as viewers become different people too.
As I was completing the watercolor I met Wanda, a neighbor, who kept me company for my plen-air session. I told her how Monet painted the same cathedral and haystacks about a hundred times, and we pondered how much persistence and dedication it would take. Would familiarity become comfort after a while, a sort of therapeutic, zen-like activity?
Posted in Architecture, Artuesdays, Drawing, Watercolor on February 25, 2010| 2 Comments »
I have been squeezing some plein air drawing/watercolor-ing in between classes, lectures and sketchbook exchanges.
This is the continuation of the project started last week. I inked the pencil drawing to use for a future marker rendering, and started to give it some lineweight, while I continued with some washes on the original- now finished- pencil drawing. Hope to finish to the watercolor tomorrow.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, tagged Artists drawing, faces, hands, Portraits, self-portrait on February 21, 2010| 1 Comment »
I spent Saturday afternoon drawing with my favorite artist buddies|budding artists, Meghann and Sean. We drew each other, they drew me (see below) and did self-portraits of our hands.
Posted in Architecture, art,poetry,writing, Artuesdays, Blogging Artist Tutorial, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Quotes, Watercolor, tagged Architectural Sketch, Architecture, buildblog, Derwent Sketching, Drawing, ergonomic sketching pencil, Faber Castell Grip Matic, graphite, guiding lines, kneading eraser, mechanical pencil, san diego homes, sketchbook, sketching step-by-step for architecture students, sketching tutorial, Staedler eraser, the important of sketching, townhomes, tyranny of the straight line, Watercolor on February 16, 2010| 7 Comments »
Happy Tuesday. Throughout my four years of teaching Tuesday has always been my ‘work at home’ day, the one costant in the changing tides of quarters, classes and schedules. Today I thought I’d start a special Tuesday section, when I have more time to start new projects. So here is the first artuesday: this is the view I wake up everyday to, small happy townhomes in earth colors. I always wanted to do a watercolor of these homes on the edge of urbanity and nature (they sit on a canyon in uptown San Diego). Yup, I live near a canyon, yet in the city, more on this later. So here is my progress, I started with some guiding lines and this is as far as I got today. The watercolor will be a simple wash.
[click to enlarge. Unfortunately, soft graphite drawings are infamous for not scanning well]
Drawing and leaning on car, then sitting on the curb or grass in front of each house in my neighborhood was fun, and different cause I *never* hang out near my house. I even met a neighbor who was an artist! Doing art outdoors can tell you so much about where you live, and I am so glad no paranoid people called neighborhood watch on me (:P)
I used a Derwent Sketching for roughing in the proportions, the (only) tree and the tree shadows. You can see my new Faber Castell mechanical pencil, bought in Kuwait. What a dream drawing tool, see how ergonomic it is? (ok I will stop showing off now).
Sometimes I see my students sketching from photos, and it breaks my heart: there is nothing like the training of the hand to succeed as a designer and architect. I like to tell them to use the verb ‘draw’ as in ‘drawing information’.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a dinosaur. I love Sketchup, as a 3D modeler use 3D Max, have done my fair share of CAD and Revit and Photoshop is my religion, but, as this article says, if you don’t know how to draw and sketch, and quickly convey your ideas through hand-eye coordination, your role as an architect will be very limited. Thank you to Andrew Duncan for sending me this.
Should rulers be outlawed when sketching? I believe in training your hand to be a plumb weight, creating straight yet ‘human’ lines.
Ah, the ‘Tyranny of the Straight Line’!
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Experiments, Kuwaiti Diaries, tagged Bukhoor, charcoal drawing, incense, mubkhar on February 6, 2010| 1 Comment »
I received a container of bokhoor, the rare scented wood whose fragrance is used in Arab tradition to perfume rooms, clothes, and hair.
One evening, while listening to Gipsy Kings, I thought of using the bokhoor charcoal left in the mubkhar to draw. Actual charcoal is more challenging yet has a smokey, tactile, fragrant quality that I really enjoyed.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Coffee, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Kuwaiti Diaries, Spontaneous Constructs, tagged Casper & Gambini, Censorship, Coffee, collage, graphite, Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait malls, Low-tech, The Avenues, Tracing Paper on February 1, 2010| 1 Comment »
This was my small parting gift to my art-sister Ghadah. I went to Kuwait without a proper gift for her, so I thought I would leave her with a low-tech collage, on tracing paper, of my trip. In keeping with the theme of censorship, which fascinated me- and was the basis for a project of a good friend of Ghada’s-I smudged the personal writing. Censorship frustrates me, and in some cases, puzzles me (especially the haphazard application of it); in other it surprises me- when the censor shows some obvious artistic abilities and inclinations- and I wanted to explore this in something I made. Seeing blurred information makes me feel denied.
(Mis)Using the name of a british band, Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Design, digital collage, photography, writing, architecture, Drawing, Experiments, Graphic Design, Paper Goods, Photography, Portfolio of Work, tagged antique, collage, death in venice, ecrivoire, gondola, graphite, lead holder, leap year, letter writing, old school drawing, old time photography, photo collage, scrittoio, sepia, stove, thomas mann, typewriter, venice on December 9, 2009| 4 Comments »
Do you remember this, my sketchbook exchange with Jennifer of Habit of Design?
I actually completed my ‘project’ last week, but wanted to wait till Jennifer received my sketchbook by mail so not to spoil the surprise!
The cover, before and after….. (yes I was not authorized to operate on the sketchbook cover…I did it anyway):
And who knows what it might turn thanks to this. (More on Renga)
SO my assigment was Typewriters… Yes, these are all my drawings and photos! What do you think?
This was a wonderful experience- to be soon repeated.
Thank you Jennifer for the Brilliant idea!
I have to thank Professor Booker…Back in my Undergraduate days @ NDSU, he introduced us to Renga Arts and the stunning, surreal, Moorish-inspired “Forgetting Room’ by Nick Bantock.
About Renga and Renga art…[and here it’s to future Renga poetry and art collaborations]
Renga Platform Contemporary forms of Renga in the UK
Renga Arts Functional Art.
Renga @ Wordshop.com (love the name! and yes, it does take two to renga)
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Drawing, Graphic Design, tagged Coffee, collage, Drawing, gift card holder, ink drawing, knit, pouch, sewing, starbucks gift card on December 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I stole took this beautiful knitted giftcard holder from Starbucks the other day.
The cards are also art objects in themselves- i love the micro-cards and their micro-holders.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Books, Design, Drawing, Paper Goods, Quotes, Writing, tagged art, creativity, Drawing, fellini, how to be an explorer to the world, keri smith, wish jar on December 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »
This book awoke all senses in me.
Keri smith possesses a truly remarkable voice; she embodies that Fellini quote:
Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your way.
Federico Fellini
Take a peak of the book here and check out Wish Jar, the blog of Keri Smith.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Design, Digital Collage, Drawing, Experiments, Graphic Design, Paper Goods, Writing, tagged amy winehouse, applied arts, australian post, bleublancrouge, chewing gum, coach, color experiments, creative, crochet, dose.ca, Graphic Design, insane milk spots, lego, letter writing, paper, paris hilton, photoshop, purse, rethinkcommunication, saatchi and saatchi, tom cruise on December 5, 2009| 4 Comments »
Influenced by my new find, Applied Arts – Canada’s Visual Communication Magazine I wanted to try my hand at product placing, color iterations and offsetting, a great Photoshop tool that I am sure all of you in Graphic and Interior Design know and love, but that is seldom used in Architecture applications (we specialize in skies, people and -yawn- cars).
The issue I perused was all about the winners of Canadian print, media and radio ads. This territory is completely new to me, but was fun to explore, in a sort of ‘provocative foreign art gallery’ kind of way. The creativity and innovation out there is astounding. Some of these advert are pure genius. Go Canada!
So here are some things that definitely piqued my interest:
1. Insane Spots (for you yankees, ads) for Milk:
These are short (sometimes micro), irreverent and bizarre videos on the virtues of milk, each shot with a different animation technique and visual style. You can find them here and here.
Personally, i prefer soy milk, but wanted to share the artistic innovation.
2. Provocative campaigns
I looove these ads:
I loathe thee, carpet!
For a great commentary on this campaign, read here
And lastly, this ad which I stumbled upon- a very dear message to me –as a lover of letters, books and all things paper.
It says “If you really want to touch someone, send them a letter.”
I am actually sending a letter to my mamma sunday, with some of my art, since she never saw my blog – and probably never will. She doesn’t have a computer and loathes the internet. She does however, prefer texts to phone calls. Please, Santa Web, come to my mother’s house!
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Poetry, Spontaneous Constructs, tagged attendance sheet, fish, ink, la razza, newschool of architecture and design, ray fish, sketch, sketches on November 30, 2009| 2 Comments »
an X-ray fish to its heart.
We are just as transparent
so be true, gentle, honest, just. . . .
From :
By Jeffrey Yang
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Coffee, Drawing, Poetry, tagged cafe de la presse, cafe', Coffee, coffee & culture, culture, Futo Coffee, graphite, ink, masking letters, moments of urbanity, newschool of architecture and design, pilot pen, san francisco, urban moments on November 19, 2009| 2 Comments »
San Francisco – Cafe’ De La Presse
Legendary Literary Cafe’ a stone’s throw from the French Embassy. The staff’s uniforms were très French, the atmosphere European, and the cappuccino was ….flawless.
All photographs taken with Lumix (Panasonic) camera, Leica wide lens.
San Diego: Newschool of Architecture and Design – Cafe’ A la Carte
Bringing coffee, culture and ‘moments of urbanity ‘, as Francisco Sanin, a dear professor in Syracuse|Florence, used to say.
The passage/hallway is transformed in a piazzetta; Adam, the owner, strums his guitar, chats with customers.
Brings book such as ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’, and Russian lit.
Arabic Coffee
Naomi Shihab Nye
It was never too strong for us:
make it blacker, Papa,
thick in the bottom,
tell again how the years will gather
in small white cups,
how luck lives in a spot of grounds.
Leaning over the stove, he let it
boil to the top, and down again.
Two times. No sugar in his pot.
And the place where men and women
break off from one another
was not present in that room.
The hundred disappointments,
fire swallowing olive-wood beads
at the warehouse, and the dreams
tucked like pocket handkerchiefs
into each day, took their places
on the table, near the half-empty
dish of corn. And none was
more important than the others,
and all were guests. When
he carried the tray into the room,
high and balanced in his hands,
it was an offering to all of them,
stay, be seated, follow the talk
wherever it goes. The coffee was
the center of the flower.
Like clothes on a line saying
You will live long enough to wear me,
a motion of faith. There is this,
and there is more.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Portfolio of Work, Quotes on November 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there’s the rub.”
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Quotes, Writing on November 13, 2009| 4 Comments »
Yesterday I attended Leon Krier’s lecture at NewSchool of Architecture and Design.
I thought it was very interesting when he said the ruins of the World Trade Center resembled a Frank Gehry building (! things that make me go mmm…), so here is my 30 second Frank Gehry assignment, given to me by a student.
I really wanted to ask Mr. Krier about Seaside and the Truman Show, but decided not to.
Thought-provoking concepts in the lecture, even though not fully demonstrated in practice.
Architects are members of an elite. Otherwise, we have no raison d’etre.
Leon Krier, November 12, 2009
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Fruit, Painting, Pastel, Poetry, Watercolor, Writing on November 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I have a wonderful book on pastels bought when I used to have a studio, but no time to do art:/ Time to dig it up, experiment, and get messy.
I have been on a ‘fruit’ roll lately, and here is a poem on vegetables. I have been toying with the idea of making this blog into an (almost) daily offering of art, accompanied by a poem or quote (art and poetry being ‘my thing’, as they say), along with the occasional writing and random posts. What do you think? Is consistency inherently good, and does a ‘theme’ make a blog stronger? The poems would be the ‘dream’ part of SketchBloom. Are poems dreams? Oh My, I am starting to sound like the Log Lady form Twin Peaks!
Anyways, few months ago ‘Writers’ Almanac’ , on NPR , featured a poem titled ‘ Vegetable Love’.
I ran into ‘ Vegetable Love in Texas‘, which contains some lines resonating with my current state of mind.
So here is for serendipity.
Vegetable Love in Texas
by Carol Coffee Reposa
Texas Poetry Calendar: 2008
Farmers say
There are two things
Money can’t buy:
Love and homegrown tomatoes.
I pick them carefully.
They glow in my hands, shimmer
Beneath their patina of warm dust
Like talismen.
Perhaps they are.
Summer here is a crucible
That melts us down
Each day,
The sky a sheet of metal
Baking cars, houses, streets.
Out in the country
Water-starved maize
Shrivels into artifacts.
A desiccated cache
Of shredded life.
Farmers study archeology
In limp straw hats.
But still I have
This feeble harvest,
Serendipity in red:
Red like a favorite dress,
Warm like a dance,
Lush like a kiss long desired,
Firm like a vow, the hope of rain.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Paper Goods on November 9, 2009| 7 Comments »
I‘m back.
I have been asked to write a post on my sketching tools, and it took a while to organize my ‘shooting session’.
Also, less than ten days ago, the unthinkable happened: my artist pouch went missing. This was followed by a period of ‘mourning’ and this drawing to put on a sign (yes, I am crazy like this- especially about my art instruments).
Thanks be to God I found my art pouch, but only after compiling a detailed list of its contents and extensive research to replace everything (yes, I know, very OCD of me). I also found out I am carrying quite a treasure.
So here is my post on my art pouch and its contents, and a celebration for things found! Yay!
I found this perfect pouch/pencilcase at Whole Foods (of all places). It is made by Livity Outernational. You can find it in their store (it is the Rip-Tide, Hemp Organic Cotton Canvas Pencil Case).
So here all my instruments, ink, graphite, brushes for spontaneous coffee watercolors and scissors/glue for impromptu collages. And yes, they all fit in the pouch pictured above.
As for sketchbook(s), here is what I carry with me everywhere I go (one tucked inside the other):
I try to use the notebook for lists and to-do’s, and keep the sketchbook for sketches (all that you have seen lately here in the blog) writings and quotes. It has not quite worked that way, and I am almost done with the sketchbook. We’ll see with the next one.
As it usually happens, while composing this post, i stumbled upon fascinating websites for fellow lovers of writing instruments and cases.
Here they are:
Leadholder– if you love drafting pencils, you have to see this.
Eco-friendly hipster laptop bags
Well enjoy, hope this inspired you to go out and do Art ! Oh, more on this and on my favorite book soon!
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Writing on November 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »
On Sunday November 1, I was graciously invited by students from my school to join in a field trip to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
On the way there, we watched a video about the design and construction of the museum, and the controversy between the architect, Richard Meier, and the artist, Robert Irwin. I had already been to to the Getty couple of times, but I was not fully aware of the ‘creative’ conflict which embroiled Meier, who thought he would have complete control of the design of the museum buidings and the entire site, and Irwin, who was engaged to create a sculpture for the site but then went on to propose – and be assigned- the design of the area now known as the garden. Of course it was not just about the ‘architect’ and ‘the artist’, but all the key decision makers, from the Getty board, to the Museum curator. Through an exhaustive architectural tour and key insights on the project– by none other than Andy Spurlock, the landscape architect of Robert Irwin’s garden– I came home with many thoughts on the ramification of the Meier-Irwin, Architecture/Art diatribe.
Here are some of them:
1. Perception
The project does seem to have a split personality. Obviously the linear axis was important, nay, fundamental for Meier. Robert Irwin had an approach that, he said, would give importance to all of the views of and from the building, not just the main axis. So we see a difference of approach between a ‘ritual’ on the architect side (by no means indicative of all architects’ approach) and a ‘sculpture in the round’ approach on the artist side (not necessarily a typical or expected’ reading’ of a site from an artist’s point of view). Are both approaches equally valid?
2. Here’s looking (back) at you, kid.
Both projects are self-referential. Perhaps Irwin is more so, as it ends looking back at itself. Meier’s ‘triumph’ would have celebrated the view, but also, of course, the museum. I wonder how much ego figures in the equation , and, not knowing the artist and the architect personally, I can only speculate.
3. Letting Go.
The issue of control (or lack-of- thereof) was very painful to see, on the architect side. The ‘plaza’ or ‘triumph’ that Meier envisioned (albeit a very short one due to site configuration), can be seen as a period to his exclamation point, and Irwin stole that thunder. Did the project benefit from the diversity of Irwin approach? And–sounding like a reader’s guide– how so? Are we married to ‘unity of design’?
3.5 The spiral.
People who know me know that I am very partial to spirals. It struck me as really beautiful , and convincing, that Meier at the opening of the video mentioned how he wanted to create a spiral because that is a shape ‘which embraces’ the site. Irwin too used a spiral. When I asked Mr. Spurlock about it , he said that, in fact, the spiral shape Meier used was limited to a central stairway. I liked to think the two were more similar than they let on. On an unrelated note, Meier also said something really poetic about the color white. White reflects, contains, and becomes all of the colors around it. So in this setting the buildings change hue with the light of the day. It is a magnificent sight, one which makes you realize that white, so beloved by the Modernists, is, after all, a lot more organic and sensual that one may think. Not cold at all.
4. Ambivalence, and Art/Architecture
I can see myself playing devil’s advocate (and his devil’s advocate), because I still have not decided what I think of the project, whether I ‘like’ it, or ‘buy’ it. It is a great, real example of the art /architecture dychotomy, of different design approaches, and of the challenges in trying to define artists or architects. Meier does have an art backgrounad and considers himself (also) an artist. My experience is that architects are artists when they want to be, but more often than not, they are proud to be architects. So don’t go calling them artists. As for me, as they say, it is an entirely different story.
Is Architecture art? I thought so. But Architects can be artists, whereas the opposite is not true. Artists do not have the responsibility of creating a human habitat, as Andy Spurlock said. But what about artists like Robert Irwin , who created sculptures which become part of the built environment, or urban landscape –to use a trendy term? His responsibility is not – and cannot be- just aesthetic. So here the lines between art and architecture are blurred.
When I was in college, with an architecture degree almost under my belt and taking art classes to complete a fine arts degree, I composed a collage ‘Everyone can be an artist Not everyone can be an architect’. Perhaps that explains some of it.
5. I am probably adding to the mythology, or myth-building of the Getty controversy by these suppositions of mine. Andy Spurlock really needs to write his own version of the story:). He said something that still resonates with me, the idea, or the perception that ‘Gardens are about change, landscape design is about predictability’.
This time around I did not have much time for drawing or photography, just the quick sketch above. Feel free to see my previous Getty work under the ‘Photography’ tab.
What I did have time for, though, was a wonderful, leisurely luncheon al fresco, lively conversation and a background of lavender mountains.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Digital Collage, Drawing, Fruit, Spontaneous Constructs, Watercolor on November 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Design, Drawing, Paper Goods, Spontaneous Constructs on October 23, 2009| 1 Comment »
So , I have been busy doing some art here
This the bounty I received by mail this week!
1. A wonderful watercolor postcard from my blog/artsister Ghadah, especially made for me!
2. A new sketchbook (and drawing project) from Jennifer at habitofdesign.blogspot.com.
Jennifer has started a wonderful project called ‘ A Study In…’ This is a sketchbook exchange where two artist pick a topic for each other -to fill few pages of the sketchbook, and send the work back and forth. Jennifer started with ‘Trees” and below you see what she chose for me (so excited!)
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Berkeley Diaries, Drawing, Writing on October 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »
This post started (two weeks ago) as a celebration of my favorite library, the CED library in Berkeley. I was just going to show you the sketch of Mies’ Barcelona chairs and tell you how much I liked there– and how conducive the environment is to getting things done and eating your frog, and call it a day. I then found a very interesting brief history of the building this Library is housed in, which actually embodies the creation of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley: it was so fascinating and full of great quotes, I wanted to share with you.
The ongoing debate about the relevance of libraries and printed matter begged to be included, since this was a post on libraries. As it happened once before, the Times published great material on the topic as I was crafting this post. I hope you ejoy it and will join in the discussion.
During a recent quiet (read: my internet was down) evening I pulled out a paper I brought home with me from Berkeley, a brief history of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley and the building it is housed in: Wurster Hall. The paper was originally written in 1984 by Sally B. Woodbridge to mark the 20th anniversary of the building, and the following is a summary of its contents (read I am paraphrasing, not all ‘flour from my bag’ as we say in Italy).
As William Wilson Wurster said in 1964:
I wanted [future Wurster Hall] to look like a ruin that no regent would like…It’s absolutely unfinished, uncouth, and brilliantly strong…The Ark [previous Architecture building], for instance, is a ripe building; it has been lived in; it’s been used; it’s been beaten up…It’s arrived.
Our building will take twenty years to arrive.Oral History, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library.
In 1984, the twenty years had passed, and, as Woodbridge says, they had left the building lived in, used, and beaten up. The crisp mountain of concrete did not age gracefully, mainly because the university judged the building to be maintenance free: weak points such as the caulking were never redone or checked when necessary.
Woodbridge’s paper was reissued in 2009, with a new introduction, this time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the building and the college. For, in fact, the building embodies the college, and the struggles to find unity in a name ( I had no idea that Environmental Design was a term fraught with so much political meaning) and in differences in design visions.
The issue of the name is important, because the CED was not just another college at U.C Berkeley, it was the world’s first institution dedicated to the study of Environmental Design (Woodbridge, 2).
The new building was going to be housing the City and Regional Planning, the Landscape Architecture, and Architecture Departments. In reading the essay, one realizes the power in a name, for there was a waryness of the other departments of being subordinated to the older and larger field of architecture.
Wurster, the Dean of the School of Architecture from 1950 to 1963 ,started working on the unification of the departments shortly after he assumed his academic duties, and formed a committee which met for four years, but the disapproval of the college names and disagreements over the new college led to a very poliically fraught atmosphere. Wuster disbanded the committee, and when the legislation finally approved the creation of the new building (prophetically without a name) in 1956-7, he assembled a team of unlikely-mind architects to design the new building.
It is very telling that the administration disapproved of choosing three faculty members to design a major building, but Wurster argued successfully that not choosing Architecture faculty would be a vote of disapproval. Wurster abhorred Avant Garde Design, ‘I want you to design a ruin”, he said, pounding the table for emphasis. He was concerned with consistencies of use of forms and materials. Some say he had a Brutalist approach, à la Kahn. Unfortunately, as Esherick, one of the architects, said, the funds at their disposal did not allow them to do the fantastically controlled concrete work that Kahn used at the Salk Institute in LaJolla.
Wurster got his wish, no regent liked the building, in fact, one of them remarked: ‘They should have not disguised the building with trees’, referring to the elegant renderings made to ‘sell’ the new design. If, as many think, the building did not age gracefully, it was and is certainly appreciated for its capacity to withstand neglect and intense use. Wurster was of the opinion that a school should be a rough place with many cracks in it. If, as many think, the building did not age well, it was certainly appreciated for its capacity to withstand neglect and intensive use . While it took a beating, it kept the uncouth character that Wurster so admired. Perpetually unfinished, Wurster Hall was an pen ended and provocative environment for teaching and questioning.
Right up to the exposed ductwork (sounds familiar?)
As J.B Jackson wrote: Where beauty has to be sought out and extracted from a reluctant environment, the arts often seem to flourish best. wherever it exists in profusion and variety it is likely to be accepted as a condition of daily existence, a kind of birthright calling for no special acknowledgement. American Space 1972
Extracting beauty from the environment is what the College of Environmental Design is all about.
A summary of: Sally B. Woodbridge ‘The College of Environmental Design in Wurster Hall: A History”, 1984, 2009
And now, for fun, or as my German teacher used to say, ‘zum spiel’, I would like to talk about that ‘brilliantly strong’ character, and what it reminds me of.
……..
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Portfolio of Work, Quotes, Writing on October 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Today the whole school attended Convocation, to kick off the new school year and Fall semester.
The venue was spectacular: Copley Symphony Hall, built in 1929. I took some liberty with the size of the coffers, and the left side was a little too ‘spanish rococo curlicue nonsense’ for my taste.
As the sandiegosymphony.com site explains:
The theather was surrounded by the new redevelopment that took place in the site (the Syphony Towers Office Building, Sheraton Suites Hotel and a parking garage). A very important point: none of those structures is in direct contact with the walls of the theatre, and so no sound or vibration disturbance from any of the surrounding structures will ever interfere with the sound of the music played inside.This is one of the few venues in the world that belongs to the orchestra playing in it. It has proved to be a gem and a pleasure to sit in to hear great music performed superbly.
Symphony Towers was also the first building I worked in when I moved to San Diego seven years ago, and Symphony Hall where I saw Ani di Franco play in 2002 0r 2003. It was very surreal being there tonight but…
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
Heraclitus
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Berkeley Diaries, Drawing, Painting on September 22, 2009| 1 Comment »
These orchids smelled like bakhoor .
I had to get them down in my sketchbook before they wilted away.
Caffe’ Strada in Berkeley has- in my humble opinion- the best cappuccino this side of Firenze. The foam (crema, really) is so thick it actually lifts up from the glass Strada baristas serve their famous cappuccino in. On a whim, I strayed from my usual cappuccino habit and ordered their regular coffee. Well, they do not serve drip coffee, so I got an Americano. You might ask what prompted me to ask for drip, or ‘Regular American’ Coffee….well, it is my recent obsession with Twin Peaks and Agent Cooper.
‘That’s a damn good cup of Joe’!
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Berkeley Diaries, Drawing, Painting on September 20, 2009| 3 Comments »
The respite from teaching means more time to dedicate to looking around and showing up daily to my sketchbook. I have been experimenting with watercolor, a medium that I am enjoying more and more since my Rendering and Delineation class, and the coffee paintings. I have been visiting Ghadah’s website daily and leaving what probably are too many comments ;). Seeing her work inspired me to compose art as in a journal, and I did always enjoy words and illustrations. So here it is, my first in the ‘Berkeley Diaries’ series. I love leaving San Diego and visiting San Francisco when we are in between quarters, and this time of year is perfect for sailing and for long plen air painting sessions.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Photography, Writing on September 3, 2009| 6 Comments »
Recently I had the chance to revisit one of my favorite places in Southern California, Queen Califia’s Magical Garden by Niki St. Phalle, which is located in the Kit Carson Park in Escondido.
The sculptures and the garden are breathtaking and the setting -within Escondido’s botanical park- makes finding the garden a bit of a treasure hunt. And what a treasure it is.
Niki, who recently passed away, was a French American artist famous for her Nanas, voluptuous, gigantic female figures reminiscent of earth goddesses. Her application of mortar and tiles in organic mosaic patterns reminds me of Antoni Gaudi, and his benches in Park de Guell. Few of Niki’s works can be found in San Diego: nanas in Balboa Park and a monumental piece by the Convention Center. Niki came to La Jolla to recover her health, which was poor due to years of exposition to toxic art materials. Rejuvenated by the balmy ocean breezes, she fell in love with California, her oceans and her deserts. She dedicated Queen Califia’s Garden to California and to children. The garden is a place where the public is encouraged to interact with the art, and the inspiration -and craftmanship- are incredible. Niki did not live to see the Garden completed.
During this visit I was able to do a rendering of one of the sculptures, part of a series of marker and pencils exploration. I would like to eventually draw each ‘totem’ and put them together in a poster, postcard, or stationery set:)
Below are some photographs – part of a shoot from a previous visit. The ones in the gallery can be clicked and enlarged. You will see that some of these photos are by Amina Alkandari…Thanks go to her for letting me borrow some of her beautiful work.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Digital Collage, Drawing, Writing, tagged casa del fascio, Digital Collage, digital manipulation, Drawing, Italian Rationalism, mussolini, rationalism, Rationalist Architecture, terragni, Watercolor on August 26, 2009| 1 Comment »
As part of the exploration in coloring with coffee, I wanted to experiment with overlaying digital sepia tones to previously drawn sketches. The building above is Terragni’s Casa Del Fascio. Terragni is often overlooked as one of the pre-eminent modern architects in Italy, mainly because it has been hard to separate his architecture from the political regime of the time. Taken on its own, though, this building is single-handedly one of the most fascinating works of architecture in Italy –and the most illuminating example of Italian Rationalist architecture– due to its play of extruded volumes, transparencies and honest use of materials.
In 2003 none other than Peter Eisenman published an opus forty years in the making, Giuseppe Terragni: Transformations, Decompositions, Critiques, a thorough analysis of this and another work by Terragni, Villa Frigerio. Thanks go to Raul Diaz, AIA, for telling me about this book. Surprisingly (or should I say, not surprisingly, the author being the controversial Eisenman), the book garnered very mixed reviews by readers on Amazon. Nonetheless, the fact that Eisenman spent forty years focusing on the Casa Del Fascio speaks volumes (pardon the pun) on the work, mind and intellectual acuity of this Italian Rationalist.
I had the fortune to visit this building in the Spring of 2007, on the same day that I saw the Mausoleum of Antonio Sant’Elia (Architect of the Italian Futurist group). The sketch below is an example of what happens when graphite drawings are scanned: the original had much more contrast and much of it-along with the ‘life’ of the drawing- was lost in the digital translation.
I therefore bumped up the contrast in Photoshop and played with sepia tones and shadows. A great way to make a sketch presentation-ready. Another way to gain some layering would be to layer via-cut the body of the building, and subtract the volumes on the upper floors (the indoor-outdoor spaces). By playing with the blending options of this new layer, new shadows could be cast, which would give a three-dimensionality to the sketch.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Painting, Portfolio of Work on August 24, 2009| 3 Comments »
I have been experimenting with sepia tones done using espresso and with watercolors.
I am teaching a Rendering and Delineation class and the work done as demonstration for the students was great inspiration to continue sketching and using different ways to color the initial drawing. I suggested to my students a technique that I found of great help: instead of applying color directly to the original drawing, make multiple copies and experiment with different media. This is especially useful if the original drawing is done in graphite, or if one wants to keep the original version.
The experiment with Espresso was most revealing: by using regular American coffee I was only able to get couple of values/hues, but when I used an Italian Espresso-expertly made by Adam, our new coffee-cart owner here at the school (who was taught how by a professional Italian Barista :))- I was able to obtain a full scale of values, and even use the grounds for textures.
Watercolors are a fantastic rendering tools, for they can easily be augmented by pastels or pencils for more texture. I like to keep three or four fine watercolor brushes in different sizes in the sketching satchel I carry with me. I told my students to think of these different sizes as different lineweights for technical pens.
The sketches/drawings above were done during a tour of Downtown San Diego. I found out that, even using plain copier paper the results obtained are fairly good, and, what was even more exciting, once I made color copies of my renderings, the results looked really polished and professional. Nevertheless, I am posting here the originals rendering to show the process. I actually like the rough quality of the results, but I cannot help but wonder what kind of fantastic effects one could obtain by manipulating these images in Photoshop and turning them into photocollages. I found out that the most successful photocollages are those done starting with solid, traditional work, whether in original, scanned or photocopied form. Ah! The possibilities!
We also went to visit the brand new San Elijo Nature Center, and I will post the sketches from that site visit, where I experimented with a series of ‘watercolorable’ Graphitint pencils, which come in natural, landscape colors.
Next I want to further explore markers and pencils, and again use the Color Drawing book by Doyle as a guide. Rendering is a combination of Art and Architecture and I have to thank my former Professor Milt Yergens for supplying very inspiring watercolor renderings from his travels sketchbook. When using watercolor to give life to loose architectural sketches and drawings, the most important thing is not to be afraid of making mistakes and remebering to keep the brush ‘loose’. After all, in these preliminary experiments with watercolor, the object is not sheer perfection, but playing with ‘splashes’ of color and learning about different effects and applications.
Other tools I really love is the Faber Castell artist pens: I have the sepia and landscape series. These markers come in Small, Medium, and Bold size. The Bold size is shaped like a brush and is Great for quick, Venturi-like sketches, forcing one to get down the proportions quickly. I remember all those 10 seconds quick sketches in Drawing classes, and it is all about training the hand to get down on paper the greatest amount of information in the shortest time. Wonderful training for traveling artists, fans of the Moleskine.Speaking of Moleskines, I made great discoveries online about the beloved notebook, and will post my findings.
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, Poetry on February 27, 2009| 1 Comment »
You can find my little book
here
Let me know if you want a copy.
Once I have enough funds, I will start distributing it in local coffee houses.
Love and Light
Posted in art,poetry,writing, Drawing, tagged charcoal, Drawing, model, nude, san diego art academy on February 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »