Rahsaan

Rahsaan Roland Kirk
20" x 16"
oil on canvas, 2011

The lions disappeared altogether from May's Rahsaan painting. But June came and the lion is back in the newest painting of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It returned bigger and stronger and it plays the saxophone. Rahsaan looks on. Palm trees appear in a horizon that is vertical. A rainbow is black and white and Rahsaan said:  "I don't give a damn". God wanted there to be jazz, and Rahsaan played Three for the Festival. All in all it's a bad painting, the technique is lousy, too many ideas and none resolved, but I too say: "I don't give a damn". I just made a jazz painting.

Improvisation: not to reject any idea but to explore its possibilities.
"Heraldry is both a science and an art form". (Heraldic Dictionary)

Swing Street

Thelonious Monk
5.5" x 8.5"
watercolor and pen on paper, 1995

Saturday is the last day before Hopkins Hall Gallery closes their doors. The long lasting gallery serving the arts at the Ohio State University ceases to exist and will morph into a smaller space off campus. It's name will be Swing Space but I will not be a part of it. I've worked 12 years at Hopkins Hall Gallery and I put in my resignation this week. I will seek part time teaching opportunities in my new home town of Fort Myers but no more exhausting gallery jobs for me. Painting is what I want to do more of. Of the shows that have passed through the gallery over the years one was called Swing Street, all about jazz: jazz paintings on the wall, live jazz music, and when there was nobody performing, sounds from the radio show Just Jazz with Ed Beach was heard over the speakers. Packing up the Hopkins Hall Gallery archive these tapes with Ed Beach's Chicago based radio show popped up. I copied one, somewhat randomly from the stack of ten: Thelonious Monk 1947 – 57, Pt. 2. So nice to hear all these great Monk tunes again. I hadn't listened much to his music for a long time and it was certainly enjoyable to pick it up again. What a genius! One exciting track after the other, and the one to top the top 10 list this week is an old favorite of mine called Blue Monk. While packing up the archives at work I also started to pack up my own archive of Top 100 materials. And what pops up? A reproduction of my illustration for Blue Monk done in 1995! I can't pass up the opportunity to score with the goal wide open, can I? Keep throwing me those bones, please.

Art 570: Figure Drawing

Amy Alwood (The Alwood Sisters)
8.5" x 6"
pen and pencil on paper, 2011
(signed by Amy Alwood)

I took my drawing class out on a field trip to Woodland's Tavern in Columbus last week. Several bands played that night to benefit WCBE, the Columbus' public radio station. Teaching figure drawing has been my favorite pastime at Ohio State University and in my final weeks at the job I decided it was time to let the students see what I do and do what I do too. This quarter I didn't give a whole lot of instruction but tried to make it a fun experience and I did some figure drawing in the class myself. As an experiment I had the model that was assigned to me for the Thursday evening sessions, be fully dressed. The idea was to achieve intimate figure drawings that were about the sitter's personality (her name is Darrilyn) rather than about the formal properties of a nude model. I'm not sure how well my intentions came across or were understood but I believe it was important enough to stick with it all quarter.  My students have made some fine drawings nevertheless. One student made a very nice drawing of the Alwood Sisters that night at Woodland's. I didn't think my own (the one above) was very successful and I spent a few hours the next day touching it up which (as usual) didn't make it any better. I wanted to go to the Alwood Sisters mainly because a friend told me they were good and I really ought to see them before I left Columbus and this was my chance. Besides that I have known Jovan, the drummer for the Alwood Sisters, for a long time so it was good to see him perform again too. He used to play in Gaunt, a band I really liked. I talked to Jovan and Amy for a little while after the concert and they gave me their cd Black Falcon & the Forest Spirit. It was a lovely concert and ditto cd. I've played it many times and therefor the song Summer Winds will become a part of the list of my hundred favorite songs of 2011. I'm not sure if the drawing above will be the illustration for the song or if I will do a painting later on. Their website features gorgeous paintings of all four band members and I'm gonna have to ask Jovan who is responsible for these. It will be hard to make a painting of them that can live up to such high standards. The drawing certainly doesn't but Amy was nice enough to sign it anyway. Now I'm going to have to grade my student's portfolio that may contain more drawings of the Alwood Sisters. I think I might have to give out some A's tonight.

p.s: The performance of Whoa Nellie later that night at Woodland's was awesome too!