Our Bodies, Our Bikes: Part One

Ms. Elly Blue, femininst bicycle zinester and awesome small-press publisher, invited me to create the cover for her upcoming book, Our Bodies, Our Bikes. (Just a few days left to fund the project!)

We agreed that it would be inspired by the awesome tricks that bike dance groups like the Sprockettes and the Derailleurs perform.

Having a team of people engaged in the same pose was a great opportunity to allude to diversity of experiences in the book.

Not to mention the themes of interdependence and the importance of supporting each other.

Progress! But wait, is this looking to static? Too well-balanced? Do we need more dramatic tension?

I suggested a twist of Nude Descending a Staircase. Elly suggested a dose of Laocoön. Oh hey, says I, there's this neat French statue of Hercules wrestling a giant snake at the Portland Art Museum right now. Field trip!

Sketched while the baby was awake...

...and then sketched when the baby finally fell asleep.

With that inspiration, the bicycle acrobats are revisited.

Feather boa stands in for the snake, of course. Better! A future post will have the color version--stay tuned.

Perspective

Lois Reynolds Mead, one of my wonderful aunties, just installed an art exhibit in her hometown of Orinda, California. The show features not only Lois' wide range of lovely artwork--ceramics, bookmaking, photography, collage--but also a sampling of drawings and paintings by my grandfather, Chang Reynolds.

Collages and travel journal by Lois Reynolds Mead.

Now, I need to confess something--I can get frustrated with my old artwork. Sometimes I just want to take all my old drawings and paintings that are stuffed into boxes and folders all over the house, and just chuck them out the window. Why they heck do I keep this stuff around?

Sketchbook by Chang Reynolds. Photo by Lois Reynolds Mead.

But looking through Lois' photos of her art show reminded me that preserving my old work really is a wonderful investment. Even if I am not working in a certain medium any more. Even if I'm not convinced that it turned out quite how I wanted it too. Despite any doubts that I may have, being able to lay out decades of adventures in art and see how it all builds on itself is a magical process. And the way I'm reacting to these photos--"Man, I just LOVE that!"--may well be how other folks react to some of my stuff, too. (It's hard to remember that, sometimes.)

Photo by Lois Reynolds Mead

I also realized that seeing artwork that is done by family members has a unique layer of wonderfulness built into it. It's not just a question of thinking, "That is beautiful." There is also the thrilling additional dynamic of thinking, "That is part of who I am."

Sketchbook by Chang Reynolds. Photo by Lois Reynolds Mead.

Big thanks to Aunt Lois for putting this show together, and being a delightful inspiration in so many ways. If you're in the Bay Area, I'd encourage you to swing by the Orinda Public Library and see the show in person! It's up through the end of January 2013, and the artist’s reception is on Sunday, January 27, 2013, from 2:00-4:00.

Sankofa Cafe

When we visited Washington DC last month, the place we were staying was near a little community bookstore and cafe called Sankofa. They make some of the best tofu breakfast sandwiches we've ever eaten. Wow. * Durante nuestra visita a Washington DC en noviembre, visitamos un café comunitario y tienda de libros llamado Sakofa. Hacen las tortas vegetarianas de tofu más ricos que he probado, y desayunamos ahí varias veces.

Our first visit, we watched the election returns on TV while eating breakfast. Our second visit, we took advantage of the sunny morning to eat on the patio, and I painted the big "justice" artwork on the porch. The real colors were much better than my watercolor sketch. * Durante la primera visita, miramos los resultados de la elección en el televisor. En la segunda visita, aprovechamos el sol y nos sentamos en el patio. Bosquejé una obra de arte sobre el tema de justicia--los colores originales son más bonitos que lo que capturé con mis aquarelas.

I also liked the fragments of mural on the wall next to the patio--a woman's face, and three tree trunks, hovering in the blankness of the bricks. A work in progress, or an old work fading away? (Or perhaps it's perfect how it is right now.) * También admiré los fragmentos de un mural cerca del patio. La cara de una mujer y tres arboles, supendios en los ladrillos vacios. No sé si faltan algunas detalles, o si es simplemente perfecto así....

National Portrait Gallery

We didn't have a lot of time to visit the National Portrait Gallery during my visit to Washington DC, so at first I didn't do any drawing while there. But two of the paintings stuck with me so much that I went back the next day and got quick sketches of them.

On the left, a portrait of architect H. H. Richardson by artist Hubert von Herkomer. This painting wins my "Best Smile" award--though I completely failed to capture the charm of the original painting in this fast sketch, even though I tried twice. (With the giant beard, the warm smile comes through all in the eyes...)

On the right, the portrait of abolitionist John Brown won my "Crazy Eyes" award. Not to mention the crazy hair. It was fun listening to people comment on the painting as they walked by.

300 Years of Mark Catesby

My recent trip to Washington DC was triggered by an interesting day of free lectures. Mark Catesby was a scientist and an artist who published one of the first books about plants and animals of North America, Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, starting in 1729. As it turns out, he was heavily influenced by another favorite illustrator of mine, Maria Sybilla Merian--no wonder I like his work so much.

I met up with my wonderful friend Ikumi Kayama for the day of lectures at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The topics included techniques for drawing, printing, bookbinding, and self-publishing in the 18th century, as well as the science behind the plants and animals depicted in Catesby's amazing two-volume work.

It was eye-opening to learn that after 4 years of gathering research, the book itself took 20 years for Catesby to produce. He didn't have funds to hire a professional engraver, so he engraved all the plates and hand-painted them each afterwards.

We were entertained by some of the strange myths that other science books of the time were publishing about wildlife in North America: the idea that turtles can hunt by slamming shut their carapaces on neck of a snake to chop its head off; or the idea that rattlesnakes can hypnotize a squirrel and make it run down a tree right into the snake's mouth, for example.

We were thrilled to look at an actual copy of one of the original books after the lectures wrapped up. A very exciting day for me, all told!

Brown Paper Thumbnails

I bought a new sketchbook, and I love the pale brown color of the paper. Tonight I went to the art museum with a friend. The paper was perfect for doing thumbnail sketches, little studies of the composition, the lights and shadows, while browsing through the paintings and sculptures. * He comprado un nuevo libro de dibujar y me encanta el papel de color café claro. Visité al museo de arte esta noche con una amiga. Este papel fue perfectito para hacer dibujos pequeños, estudios muy simples de composición, de luz y sombra, mirando las pinturas y esculturas. 

Lines, lines, lines

I'm working on the Wildflower Festival poster, developing the delightfully complex layers of leaves and stalks and flowers that make up the lupine shrub. I'm at the stage where most of the line-work is done, but I need to look it over and tidy things up: cleaning up any wobbles, adjusting line weights, and making sure that things are overlapping correctly--none of the leaves that are in the back should be drawn on top of a stem or a flower that should be in the front, of course.

Which makes me remember a book that I enjoyed as a child: The Borrowers, by Mary Norton. I enjoyed the story as a child, but I also remember being startled by the illustrations. They are lovely line drawings by Beth and Joe Krush. The illustrators use what, to me, was a totally startling and even rebellious approach: they didn't fuss with planning out the foreground/background relationships too much, so that you can see the lines of stuff in the background right through the stuff in the foreground.

See how you can see the edge of the table right through the tiny man's legs? And you can see the edge of the bed right through the table? And you can see the lines of the bedsheet, as well as the chamber-pot, right through the cane?

Scandal! Or perhaps a clever way to hint that this is all in one's imagination? Or perhaps just a really fun, anti-uptight approach to line drawings? Hats off the to Krushes for being starting and delightful in a way that has stuck in my head since elementary school.

(More images from The Borrowers. Seriously, it's worth a pop by the library to revisit this one.)

All right, back to work for me.

Wooden Sculptures

Visited the Portland Art Museum recently, and was impressed by the carved wooden figurines by John Frame. Originally designed as stop-motion figurines for a film, they are astoundingly intricate objects independently of the film project.

The magic, for me, is in the details. The figures are fairly small--maybe a foot high?--but they have astonishingly detailed joints carved in the wooden hands. The facial expressions carved into the wood are also astonishing in their subtlety and power. I gawked, I really did.

But these beautiful and distinctly surreal figures are even more amazing when you catch a glimpse of how they are animated for Frame's film. Tiny glass eyeballs, like you would see in dolls or taxidermy projects, are already pretty fascinating when they are sewed into this character's overcoat. (I was torn when I saw this--I simultaneously really want to make myself a coat covered with glass eyes, and really don't want to, because it's just too creepy!)

But, in the film, not only do the long thin wooden dowels sticking out of this character's head give its own eyeballs the power to move...but the eyes sewn into the cloth of its coat will nonchalantly blink throughout the scene. Yes. It is the most beautiful, and also the most deeply unnerving, thing I've seen in a long time.

There's a snippet of the blinking eyeball coat here. All I can say is, wow. (And, isn't it interesting that both of my recent visits to PAM have left me obsessed with the sewing technique wherein you slash open the outer layer of a jacket so the lining can show through?)

Kitties, from the master

Working on an amusing sewing project, thought it would be fun to add a cat silhouette to the project. Who could be a better reference for expressive cat postures than Theophile Steinlen? That man knows knew cats!

Old Masters, and fashion notes

A few weeks back I went to the Portland Art Museum to see the traveling masterpiece by Titian that is now on display. There are billboards of "La Bella" up all over town, and newspaper articles have claimed that she is the "elusive ideal of beauty." OK, that sounds worth checking out, no?

My impressions are as follows:

• The museum did an amazing job of setting the tone of "this is a very important painting" with the signage and other related pomp. It was really fun watching folks walk into the special alcove where La Bella is displayed--wide-eyed, unsure what to do with their hands, unsure how to react to what is clearly supposed to be a Big Deal Painting. 
• La Bella is a nice portrait. It doesn't strike me as especially superior to the other portraits in the European Art collection that are already on exhibit, though.   
• All of the promos you see of La Bella in the billboard promos and the newspaper articles zoom in on her face--the pale skin, delicate arch of eyebrows, youthful smoothness of the face. But what those photos don't reveal to you is her outfit. La Bella is a cute young woman who is entirely overshadowed by her enormous poofy sleeves. Oh my goodness. We're talking the height of Renaissance decadence here: blue and gold wagon-wheels at the shoulder, that transform into extraordinary oxblood arms that are slashed open at regular intervals with glorious meringue-like poofs of the white silk lining pulled through to the surface. The girl herself is like a pale, soft-focus afterthought tacked on to an extraordinary riot of gleaming gold embroidery on mediculously-rendered velvets and silks that catch the light in beautiful ways with every wrinkle and crease. 

See the full glorious outfit! Granted, this is after the painting has had a good cleaning; the dissonance between La Bella's face and dress seems less jarring when she had hundreds of years of soot to balance the composition out.

Today is the last day to see La Bella at the Portland Art Museum. I might have to go back and get a better look at those amazing sleeves today, just because.

Oregon Live has a good article where you can read more about the history and context of La Bella. (They're less snarky than I am, hee hee.)

Library Nerd

Took myself to the Portland State University library for the first time this week. I was looking up books on the philosophy of biology for work, but of course had to wander through the illustration section of the stacks as well. Was captivated by a book of posters by Maurice Sendak--man, that fellow can blend cross-hatching with delicate watercolors like a dream. Found this illustration from his interpretation of Ozma of Oz: look at Dorothy's oversize shoes with no laces, and how she almost looks sad-eyed in his rendition. Captivating.

I also came across a book from the 1600s that was full of home remedies for various ailments. It wasn't illustrated, but I loved the crazy archaic fonts and the spellings of common words. (Ah, the "long s" always makes me nostalgic for my Renaissance Faire days!)

I suppose that's one benefit to visiting libraries where you don't have borrowing privileges; it makes you take good visual notes on what you are excited about. (Or, in the case of the biology of philosophy articles, it lets you spend quality time with the photocopy machine.)