Chuck Close

Since I haven't made any amazing art lately I thought I'd highlight an artist I really admire, Chuck Close.

Chuck Close has an interesting perception disorder called Prosopagnosia, also known as "face blindness" in which the ability to recognize faces and make sense of them is impaired, while the ability to recognize other objects isn't affected. Chuck Close has a fairly severe form of the disorder in which he can't differentiate one face from another at all. People with this disorder learn to tell people apart by the sound of their voices or the way they walk or some other detail that many other people may not pay much attention to. Chuck Close began making photo realistic paintings of people's faces as a way to make sense of them.

He didn't just make paintings, he made enormous paintings. Pretty impressive.

In 1988 Close had a seizure that left him paralyzed from the neck down. In response, he devised a new way to continue his work of painting faces. He now paints faces in a grid format. His finished paintings look a lot like pixelated computer images.

Want to know where you sit on the face blindness scale? Take this test:

http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/index.php

Recent Sketchbook Entries

Still life done with my Drawing 1 class.

5 drawings of my hand drawn in continuous line.

A continuous line drawing of Aven.

Inspired by "Tree of Life" by Klimt

An illustration of Angels and Airwaves song lyrics.

Street Art

Aven enjoying some street art in Park City last weekend:

Mr. Brainwash

I happened to see an episode of "A Day in the Life" by Morgan Spurlock on Hulu a couple days ago. The person featured was an LA based artist, Thierry Guetta, who is known as Mr. Brainwash. He is known as a street artist but has also had gallery shows. I Googled him and apparently there is a controversy about whether he is a genuine artist or some kind of real-life caricature created by the controversial street artists Banksy and Shepard Fairey. There are dozens of articles about the controversy and I have found it pretty interesting. Here is an excerpt from the L.A. Times about the supposed artist:

The details of Guetta's unlikely biography are broadly supported by a review of public records, which trace his life in Los Angeles from his arrival as a teenager in the early 1980s. They are also consistent with the accounts of friends, former business associates and employees over those years.

Of course, it is impossible to prove whether his latest incarnation, Mr. Brainwash, is sincere. The film suggests that Guetta's artistic alter ego is largely a creation of Banksy, a notion Guetta doesn't refute.

"Banksy captured me becoming an artist," the paint-splattered Guetta said, surrounded by the stacks of art books and pop-culture clutter from which his work is derived — or ripped off, depending on your view. "In the end, I became his biggest work of art."

Whether he is a real guy or a guy portraying a character as part of another artist's agenda I think that the work attributed to him is pretty fascinating and fun.

Draw a City on Another Planet

I asked my 9th graders to spend the period drawing what they think a city on another planet would look like. This was my favorite, it's just so cheerful:

Pish Posh

Aven is getting to the age where she really loves being read to. We've done story time since she was a baby, but it's only been the last few months that she actually wants to sit in my lap instead of playing during story time. One of her current favorites (much to my delight) is Pish, Posh, said Hieronymous Bosch, a charming story about the artist Hieronymous Bosch and all of the crazy creatures he painted. It's made me realize that I don't know much about Hieronymous Bosch as the art history program at Westminster College was seriously lacking at the time I was a student there. After spending some time with his paintings I've decided to post one of my favorites:

This is a detail from "The Garden of Earthly Delights" otherwise known as "Tree Man". I think it's fascinating considering that Bosch lived in the late 1400's and early 1500's and the Surrealist movement didn't get started until the 1920's. This type of imagery seems incredibly advanced especially when you compare it side by side with other paintings from this era. I've enjoyed looking at his paintings, especially the triptychs. Each one is a world of it's own full of so much detail you could get lost in it for a long time.

If you have some spare time Google Hieronymous Bosch and enjoy!

Duck and Cover or Log

We went up to Silver Lake at Brighton ski resort 2 weekends ago, to get out of the hot weather down in the valley. It was really nice up in the canyon. Cool weather and the sun was out for most of the trip. We found some ducks on the lake that were very photogenic.