Reflections on Pat Passlof

photo by Alice Sebrell

When Pat Passlof enrolled in a summer painting class at Black Mountain College in 1948 she wasn’t sure who the instructor would be. She was 20 years old and had recently seen an exhibit by the not-yet–known painter Willem de Kooning that had left a profound impact on her. Somehow she had feeling that de Kooning would be teaching that summer, and she was right. Passlof ended up studying with de Kooning at the avant-garde art school and even rode the train back up to NYC with him once the class commenced. This would be only the beginning of her lifelong journey as an artist.

Thoreau

Passlof passed away November 13, 2011 at the age of 83, and due to her affiliation with Black Mountain College, a selection of her life’s work will be exhibited this year at the Black Mountain College Museum and Western Carolina University Fine Arts Museum simultaneously from January 26 – May 27. A committed artist, Passlof left behind an extensive oeuvre of paintings, and the exhibit will contain work she produced throughout her life -- including one of the paintings made at Black Mountain College. “She really wanted to focus on her latest works, “ says Alice Sebrell, program director at BMCM+AC. “She considered them to be the most mature and successful of everything she’s done.”

For more on Passlof, read Portrait of Passlof which appears in the Jan 2012 issue of Verve Magazine.

Hawthorne

On a personal note: The best part about my work as an arts writer is that I get to meet all kinds of interesting people and have great conversations about the creative process, materials, the art world, etc. I always come away with new tidbits of knowledge and fresh perspectives that I can apply to my own work.

Last month when I set out to write the profile article on Passlof for Verve Magazine I didn’t expect the whole experience to be as moving as it turned out to be. I met with Connie Bostic and Alice Sebrell of the BMCM+AC and they shared their personal insights on Passlof and their impressions upon visiting her in her studio in NYC. (“There was paint everywhere. There were coffee cups everywhere. It was just a mess! It was perfect,” Connie recalled.)

After the meeting, Alice sent me home with an envelope stuffed full of newspaper articles, gallery catalogues and Passlof's own writings. I read everything voraciously -- completely enthralled by Passlof’s straightforward statements on painting and art. For example, Passlof once declared that art should contain “no message, no politics, no political correctness, no ideas, no conformity.” Concerning painting, she wrote: "Find ways to ‘listen’ to your painting, and small visual events will occur…”

I was also impressed by how Passlof's life seemed to be as exotic as it was commonplace. She and her husband, (painter Milton Resnick) each renovated synagogues in the Lower East Side as studio spaces; she taught painting at CUNY Community School of Staten Island for 39 years, retiring in 2011, and continued to produce work until her illness would no longer allow it.

As a painter I am greatly anticipating Passlof:Selections. What a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the work of such an impressive woman who made her art her life.

Visit blackmountaincollege.org for more information about Passlof:Selections 1948-2011.

Artist Profile: Marcus Thomas

For twenty-five years Marcus Thomas, 52, has been making paintings one deliberate stroke of paint at a time, using a brush he grasps with his teeth. For Thomas, art is everything. "It is my voice and my method of messaging," he says. "Just the act of painting is critical and important to me. Everything else has become secondary."

The irony is that before the accident that left him nearly completely paralyzed Thomas never thought about art. "I would never have even attempted it," he says. At the time he was freshly out of college and heading towards a career in recreation management. "I think we're pushed away from such things at a very young age and we do things that are more expected of us."

On March 3rd, 1986 at the age of 23, Thomas was skiing with friends in Western North Carolina when he slipped and collided headfirst into a tree, breaking his 3rd and 4th vertebrae. As a result, he lost all ability to move his arms and legs. The accident was devastating and he spent months recovering physically and emotionally. One day his girlfriend, Anne, and his sister, Amanda, bought him a set of watercolors — "a real casual tray of Crayolas" and he made his first painting, which he describes as a "third grade doodle."

Read the full article on Marcus Thomas: The Mind's Eye; BoldLife Magazine December, 2011

MarcusThomasArtist.com

Shout-out to the Piedmont Triad

If you find yourself in the mood for a road trip and craving some good contemporary art, it's worth taking a trip to the Piedmont Triad --referring to the cities of Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point.

First off, stop off in Winston Salem and visit the South East Center for Contemporary Arts (SECCA.) This gem of a center always has some captivating exhibits. Out of Fashion, curated by Steven Matijcio, is one of the current shows and features work by local artists, R. Brooke Priddy (pictured above) and Libby O'Bryan. Admission is free! www.secca.org

The soft sculpture works of Margarita Cabrera are also on display at SECCA. From the website: "Turning crafts and their manufacture into the vehicle for socio-political consideration, she questions con-temporary applications of post-NAFTA Latin American labor. Drawing upon local communities, Cabrera orchestrates the manufacture of soft, vinyl sculptures resembling backpacks, bicycles, potted plants, domestic appliances, pianos, and full-sized automobiles."

Next, visit The Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro. The museum was established to aid the MFA program at UNC Greensboro and houses six galleries. Currently showing in the main gallery is Persona: A Body in Parts, curated by Xandra Eden, which presents the opportunity to see some of Nick Cave's soundsuits among other compelling work. Admission is also free! Hurry, the exhibit comes down December 11th. www.weatherspoon.uncg.edu

In another gallery at The Weatherspoon I positively swooned over the paintings and drawings of Tom Burckhardt.

Visit www.tomburckhardt.com to see more.

Here's a link to his show at The Weatherspoon

Brain Eno's 77 Million Paintings

Photo credit: Brian Eno/lumenlondon.com via LA Times blog

Brian Eno's in town!!!!

It's Moogfest, so there's a lot of synthpop, electronic, krautrock bands playing in Asheville this weekend, and this year Moogfest has expanded its reach by adding an audio visual "act" to the lineup. Brain Eno's 77 Million Paintings, a constantly evolving environment of sound and light based on generative software, will be on display at the YMI through the month of November.

If you have a Moog pass you can go check out the installation all weekend. If you don't, the exhibit opens to the public on Wednesday November 2. Tickets will be $10 and can be purchased at the door.

On Saturday October 29, Eno will give an illustrated lecture at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium at 2pm. Moogers get first bids on seats, and then the general public is allowed admittance for $35. (That's about 7 drinks at Broadways, or a pretty fun dining experience for one at Zambras)

Anyway, the point of this post is to urge you all to get to the YMI during the month of November to experience this "visual music" phenomenon. Allow yourself plenty of time to become fully immersed. It's so hypnotic you might have a hard time leaving.

Here's a description of 77 Million Paintings off the Moogfest website:

http://moogfest.com/brian-eno/77-million-paintings/

At a press conference Thursday October 28, Eno had some enlightening things to say about art and his creative approach. Here are some of my favorites:

(These may not be verbatim because I was writing not recording.)

"I wanted to see where the threshold of eventlessness lies."

"I really like art when it's magic. I don't like it when it's just clever."

"With all the images [in the 77 Million Paintings software banks,] there is something like 100 million cubed [possibilities.] "What you see today you won't see tomorrow. The piece you just really loved will never happen again."

"I'm anti occult in a certain way " (when asked about the spiritualist overtones in his work,) "but very pro playing with your own timing devices."

"We've dignified the act of control, but we have to learn how to surrender to things. If you can't shape them you have to learn to be a part of them."

"We consider it a huge achievement to control nature. It's also a huge achievement to surrender to nature."

"Graffiti is very much like calligraphy."

"I see myself as a gardener more than an architect. I plant some seeds, watch them come up [and then decide whether I like what's happened and how I want to alter them.]

"[I commend them because] it's like trying to reproduce a Jackson Pollack painting" (On Bang on a Can's cover of Eno's Music For Airports.)

"I have strong opinions." (when asked what makes him a good record producer.)

On art mentors in art school: "What mattered is that they had strong opinions, because that forced you to take a stance in relation to their opinions -- [whether you agreed with what they said or not.]"

Podcast of the press conference recorded by Alli Marshall for the MountainXpress: part one, part two

www.lumenlondon.com for more Eno stuff.

Artist Profile: Constance Humphries

One of Constance Humphries paintings is hanging in the Asheville Art Museum's show, Color Study, and she recently had work in the 2nd Annual UNCA Invitational. A formalist at heart, Humphries says “I’m more interested in visual problems than I am visual solutions.”



“I find mess really interesting,” says Humphries. "Whether it’s in nature, or whether it’s crowds, or in the thrift store where everything is just in piles. I’m simultaneously interested and really freaked out by disorganization.”

To make her gestural paintings, Humphries, an Asheville native, begins by creating an “under-painting” using relatively random marks and colors. Then, she paints the dominating marks, which takes hours. “I have to do it slowly and carefully or else I’ll create mud,” she says.

Read more about Humphries: Mess Marks the Spot, Verve Magazine October 2011

www.constancehumphries.com

Lines and Lives of the Face

If you haven't yet been to Tryon, NC, there's at least a one good reason for you to visit this month. Tryon is located about an hour south of Asheville, near the border of South Carolina. It's a lovely little mountain town, slightly warmer in climate than Asheville, with a population of approximately 1,700. It happens to be the town where Nina Simone was born and it is also home of the impressive contemporary art center Upstairs Artspace.

Currently Upstairs Artspace is exhibiting Lines and Lives of the Face, a group show curated by Margaret Curtis and Nancy Holmes. Curtis is an amazing painter who recently took over the role of managing exhibitions at the Upstairs ArtSpace. This is exciting because her knowledge of contemporary art insures some quality exhibitions in the future. Holmes is an art enthusiast who recently supported a new exhibition at The Asheville Art Museum, Homage2.

For LALOTF Curtis initiated a collaboration between NYC artist James Esber and 24 regional artists, "non-artists" and children. For it, Esber provided a drawing of Osama bin Laden to be traced by each participant of the project. The different interpretations that occurred in spite of the standardized form, were astounding. Some artists chose to incorporate literal symbols in their work; others went a more formalized or intuitive route. (The video above does not include the drawings from Upstairs ArtSpace.)

"Pube Patch" and "Brillo Head" paintings by Alli Good

In addition to Esber's project, The gallery contains work by 14 artists -- each presenting their unique approach to the "portrait." There are realist paintings, and stylized interpretations in media ranging from sculpture, paintings, drawings and woodcuts.

"Chill" by Taiyo La Paix. I just love that DQ logo and those faux fur cuffs.

Kindergarten series by David Slone

Drawings by Phillip McGuire


My paintings

Exhibiting artists also include: Kevin Clinton, Mathew Curran, Paul Flint, Dawn Hunter, Francesco Lombardo, Brian Mashburn, Tim Speaker and Bob Trotman

Tuesday, November 1st a panel of artists from the show will discuss traditional vs. contemporary portraits and the appeal of the subject. 7pm

Friday, November 11 Regional writers will read their poetry and prose in the gallery. 7pm.

Line and Lives of the Face hangs until November 19th

Upstairs Artspace

49 South Tryon Street

828.859.2828

The gallery is open Tues - Sat. 11am - 5pm.

SHUCKED: an art show at PUSH Gallery

Paper kudzu by Lisa Nance (photo by Ayana Dusenberry)

Site-specific installation, paintings, drawings and sculpture by six Asheville artists using mixed media and non-traditional approaches to art making.

The artists of SHUCKED utilize methods and materials not only to achieve a final product or object, but as expressive devices that influence the work as it progresses. Here, the artists react to their own procedures of mark-making, cutting, gluing, binding, sewing and sketching.

Also significant are materials like graphite, cardboard, paper, wood and fabric — gleaned from trash piles, free boxes, thrift stores and friends. The result is a collection of work that responds to current social issues, construed of low-cost materials and cast out from the artists' psyches.

Ink drawings by Michael Ohgren

The following is an excerpt from Artists Get Shucked by Kyle Sherard for the Mountain Xpress:

For local artist, writer and now curator Ursula Gullow, oysters, clams and corn are not the only things that can be shucked. Add artists to the list of things that can shed their protective coverings. In Shucked, a group show opening at Push Skate Shop and Gallery this Friday, she brings together six local artists whose paintings, drawings and site-specific installations reveal the process of artistic creation itself.

The array of work in the show includes a painting by Anna Jensen, paintings by Lisa Nance, drawings by Michael Ohgren and pagan ceremonial garb created and worn by textile artist Tara Jensen (no relation to Anna) for a Beltane festival. Installations by Lauren Whitley, Nance and Courtney Chappell are staged in the gallery.

To explore the notions of process and self, Gullow pushed the artists outside of their comfort zones. "The artists are working more intuitively, more directly, rather than only focussing on the final object,” Gullow says, “A precious, commodified object."

SHUCKED will hang until October 22nd at PUSH Skateshop and Gallery on Patton Avenue in Asheville, NC. http://pushtoyproject.com. 225-5509)

Ray Cooper: Looking, Waiting, Doing

Yes, I'm a paint nerd. I love talking about pigments, brushes, mediums, substrates, studios, studio light, palettes, processes -- all of it. I love looking at the way paint drips, and the way it blends, congeals, or cracks.

So I enjoyed meeting Ray Cooper, an artist I wrote about for the September 2011 issue of BoldLife Magazine, who presented an approach to painting I hadn't heard about -- tachisme, where "one carefully made stroke can say it all." Cooper also paints with rollers instead of brushes. Maybe I'll try that out some day.

Here's an excerpt from Looking and Waiting and Doing, BoldLife Magazine September 2011:

When he's in his studio, Ray Cooper is prone to spending long periods of time looking at his work, contemplating the visual problems at hand and what he needs to do to solve them.

These moments of observation are interspersed with bursts of creative activity — mark making and paint dripping — after which the artist is again "looking and looking and waiting." He's spent a lifetime evolving his process. "You have to paint something for at least 5 years before you really begin to understand it and feel relaxed with it," says Cooper. "Ten years in you might hit another plateau."

While Cooper is reticent to categorize his aesthetic style he eventually settles upon the term "lyrical expressionism," saying, "I don't have the angst required to make abstract expressionist paintings."

Learn more about Cooper and his current exhibits in Hendersonville, NC visit raycoopergallery.com

The Battle of Make Believe

painting by Hannah Dansie

Now on display at Satellite Gallery, The Battle of Make Believe includes work by some of Asheville's finest.

Read a full review of the show: In The Battle of Make Believe, adult responsibility overrides juvenile impulse Mountain Xpress

This handsome exhibit will hang until September 29

Satellite Gallery is located at 55 Broadway
Open Tues-Sun. Call 505-2225 for more info.

Galen Frost Bernard Art Reception

The Lexington Avenue Arts festival is this weekend! Be sure to step into Bobo Gallery and Wine bar to see the newest paintings by Galen Frost Bernard.
Standing on Fish is the title of his show, and to celebrate, Bernard will host an artist reception from noon until 10 pm on Sunday September 4th.

Read more about Bernard and his work: Flooding and rebuilding

www.galenfrostbernard.com

Some thoughts on color

At the risk of sounding too general, I’m going to assert that color is the most immediate thing that people respond to when looking at paintings– consciously or subconsciously, and it's often the first thing that gets commented on. (Subject matter and technical ability probably tie for second.) Admittedly, I didn’t do any research that can back this statement up, so I’m open to debate on the topic.

The use of color within a painting is akin to the use of melody in a song. Every painting uses pigment in some way. Every song has some sort of melodic structure.

That being said, I think that to base an exhibition strictly around color is a tough thing to do given it's broad range, but the Asheville Art Museum has taken on the challenge with their newest exhibition, Color Study. The exhibit juxtaposes local artists alongside modern art masters and there some brilliant paintings in this show like Nava Lubelski’s stunning Chance of Flurries and Constance Humphries gestural painting, Swing.

I tend to think the exhibit strays a bit from its initial concept, and it could have offered more challenging explorations of color. It’s surprising that not a single piece by Josef Albers is included in the show given the fact that Albers literally wrote the book on color -- Interaction of Color.

Nevertheless, as I wrote in this article for the Mountain Xpress, Color Study is an excellent primer for those who have never contemplated the use of color in art, and there are some wonderful pieces on display that should not go unseen.

Color Study will be on display at The Asheville Art Museum until November 6th.

www.ashevilleart.org

Strolling

Photo by Anthony Bellemare, courtesy of Verve Magazine

The River Arts District Studio Stroll weekend is upon us! While there are a host of new artists and studios to check out, be sure to pay a visit to Cleaster Cotton at the Pink Dog Creatives building on Depot Street, where she'll be showing her "contemporary primitive" mixed media work.

Though she relatively new to the area, Cotton's been involved in some mighty community work -- like teaching art to economically-disadvantaged kids. She makes her work using found materials saying, "The materials present themselves. they tell me how they want to be treated."

Read more about Cotton in this article written for Verve Magazine: 100 Percent Cotton

I'm also looking forward to seeing Margaret Couch Cogswell's newest project, Tiny Mailbox, a collection of mail art displayed in a mobile gallery at The Cottonmill Studios on Riverside Drive. Cogswell, a mixed media/book artist, put out a call for mail art several months ago in an effort to revive the waning custom of snail mail. I'm anticipating the results, of which, it appears, there were many. Read more about the project on Cogswell's blog.

See you at the stroll!

Current shows in Asheville you might want to see

Travis Medford at PUSH Gallery. Opening Friday April 8th
"The Third Other will be an opportunity for the community to view the first solo exhibition by Medford. Primarily a graphic designer and screen printer, Travis will be showing larger mixed media works on wood, supported by limited edition, silk screened art prints. Taking inspiration from pulp novels, comics, monster magazines, skateboard graphics, and punk flyers, Medford’s work offers the viewer a layered mash-up of image, color and texture."
pushtoyproject.com

Molly Sieburg Courcelle's painterly abstracts at Atelier 24 on Lexington Avenue in downtown Asheville.
Opening Reception Sat. April 9th. 6-9pm
mollycourcelle.com

Molly Rose Freeman's patterned ruminations at Eclipse Salon on Wall Street in downtown Asheville.
Show hangs thru April 18th.
mollyrosefreeman.com


Allen Leper Hampton at FLOOD Gallery in the Phil Mechanic Building in the River Arts District.

Show hangs thru April 28
allenhampton.net

An assortment of photos taken with disposable cameras at the Desoto Lounge in West Asheville.

Scotthubener.com is one of the photographers.

Immersion at The Asheville School

Drawing by Alli Good

It's an unlikely venue for showcasing creative talents, but The Asheville School -- which is tucked away in a scenic West Asheville neighborhood -- has been having some interesting exhibitions this year. Organized by local artist Moni Hill, last month the work of Nava Lubelski, Heather Lewis, and Bridget Conn, was featured.

This month the theme of Immersion is explored by artists Alli Good, Spencer Herr, Angela Eastman, Katie Brooks and myself. Based on what I saw while hanging work this morning, there are wonderful paintings and illustrations by Good that narrate a woman's journey into deep water and large elaborate paper cuts and stencils by Eastman that resemble the scales of a fish.

Immersion will be on display at The Walker Arts Center until May 1st.

An opening reception will be held this Thursday, March 31st 5-7pm

The Walker Arts Center is open to the public Mon-Sat 10am-5pm

Directions: http://www.ashevilleschool.org/about/gettinghere.aspx

More info on the show: http://www.ashevilleschool.org/news/detail.aspx?

Be sure to check out the scenic campus and the Art Deco style Boyd Chapel, which is located right next to the Walker Arts Center.

Ian Brownlee

Elisha Mitchell's Funeral

I've been admiring Asheville painter Ian Brownlee's work for years. His narrative paintings were featured in New American Painters Magazine in 2006, and the piece above is currently in an exhibition in Chapel Hill called Local Histories. Brownlee was also deemed one of WNC's top emerging artists by WNC Magazine in 2009.
Quieter paintings of landscapes and room interiors can be found at Gallery Minerva in downtown Asheville. Check his website for more amazing work: www.ianbrownlee.us
The Local Histories exhibit hangs until April 29th
Location: 523 East Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC, 27514

Call 919-923-4550 for more info

Julie Armbruster's Sudden Bursts

Dilwad the Ugly Unicorn

Nuggler the Vampire Owl

One weeks remains to check out the creative hijinks of Asheville artist Julie Armbruster. Her show, "Sudden Bursts" hangs at The Early Girl Eatery until January 23rd. Armbruster's imagined creatures are like manifestations of our our inner dialogue. Maybe that's why we love them so.

www.juliearmbruster.net

The Early Girl Eatery is located at 8 Wall St. in downtown Asheville

Mariana Templin

Vision in the Desert

Tricky Coyote

The act of play is essential to me.
Sometimes I’m wary when other adults

express such sentiments. But there

are some remnants of childhood that

never leave: a confusion about who

we are, or how to get what we want. I

have a cast of characters in my mind

that I regularly don or consult. Some

are more or less public, more or less

nuanced. But, without them, I would not

create anything of substance.

~ Mariana Acuňa Templin

Paintings by Mariana Templin are currently on display at Tod's Tasties located at 102 Montford Ave.

Jessica Stoddart

Antique tricycle

“A lot of who I am is where I came from,” says Jessica Stoddart, 32, who grew up in rural Tennessee, the daughter of artists. “I was raised in a ‘Little House on the Prairie’ kind of way,” she says, recalling a childhood spent chopping wood and riding horses. “I love tools, but I’m also a girly girl.”

Yellow Dress

Stoddart began incorporating paper dress patterns into her paintings about five years ago as a way to distinguish her work. “I’m constantly drawn to the masculine and the feminine in everything,” she says. “For me, the patterns seem feminine but have a masculine, architectural feel.”

Earlier paintings depict arrangements of old-style dress forms — an artifact Stoddart was compelled to draw because, she muses, “it’s not human and it’s not mechanical.” Two such vintage mannequins from the 1920s hang out in Stoddart’s studio these days; she still uses them in her work.

Excerpted from The Peculiarity of Knowledge, published in Carolina Home and Gardens Winter 2010

www.jessicastoddart.com

Donald Alter and W.P. "Pete" Jennerjahn

As a supplement to the Mountain Xpress article, A Tale of Two Painters about Black Mountain College alumni, Donald Alter and W.P. “Pete” Jennerjahn, I am posting these excerpts from my conversations with each, respectively. The opportunity to speak at length with these two artists was tremendous. Both were incredibly accommodating and very pleasant to chat with.

Donald Alter

Donald Alter lives and works in Newburgh, NY. He was born in 1930 and attended Black Mountain College in 1948-1950. These are some comments Alter made during our telephone conversation November 19, 2010. See more of his work at donaldalterpaintings.com

On Black Mountain College:

"Sometimes I smile at the realities of Black Mountain College, but I think that it is probably one of the main experiences of my life. That was a very very unique experience for me. Specifically there was contact with very exciting people. These were many artists in many areas and they were all accessible. It was very removed from the real world.

"We had a geographical location (Black Mountain) where all these artists could converge. That became a community where any talent could shine and emerge. Nobody would every think that Rauschenburg would be one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. We didn’t realize how unique it was.

"At Black Mountain it was all primarily painting, but I did everything that I could touch. I did sculpture, weaving, all kinds of crazy stuff. Albers encouraged that kind of thing. We did a lot of artwork that required no paint and brush at all.

"In 1948-50 this was a very exciting time for art. Art started to really gel and young people had opportunity. Those are days that I think are gone now. I don’t see that happening today.
This is a lesson I try to impart to young people: they stand in awe of this great place where all of these great artists live but I keep telling these people that there’s great talents all over and you cant recognize it until they develop it and let it emerge.
I’m not particularly excited in the world of academia or how art is taught and what happens to youngsters who get into it.

"[After I left Black Mountain College] I never went back to school. It’s an individual pursuit. Once you learn yellow and red make orange you’re off and running.

On painting and career:

"I went into the textile design field in NY, but I always had a paintbrush in my hand. I was always involved in the arts. At a later age I went back to painting. In my mind I differentiated between the commercial world of art and the fine art world. I opted to go back into the world of painting at the age of 65.

"Back then people needed textiles. There were retails markets that were selling textiles, now that’s all being done in China. The markets have shifted. But that’s a whole other conversation.

"I tried to live my life with integrity as an artist. Being an artist is a very risky endeavor. Really at this stage in the game I feel humble and modest. There’s a lot of nonsense in the world.

"It is a very difficult area to engage in. When I finish a painting I call it a day and that’s all I do. The more arduous the effort the more depressed I can get. So maybe I go back to it later and it becomes alive again.

"There’s a lot of self-doubt and you have to get rid of that -- the self-doubt.

Hudson Valley Weave 2008

On personal creative evolution:

"The subject matter started to change (over the years.) I was no longer painting decorative flowers. If you look at those two paintings, in the gallery next to each other [Transformation 1949 and Hudson Valley Weave 2008]-- I picked up right where I was when I was a student at Black Mountain The biological forms, the colors -- it was uncanny.

"I went back and used the vocabulary I learned at Black Mountain.

On Making a Living:

"Making a living is very difficult. That’s the real test that describes who you are. My neighbors don’t even know what I’m doing but I don’t disrespect them for it. The world is too complicated. You can ask a lot more of it than it’s bound to give you.

"There are people making large sums of money promoting painting. It’s a hard game to play and I don’t play it. I’m an old timer and the world I play in is a lot different.

"When I look at these younger upstarts I get excited, but a lot of it is hype. The art world is a very troublesome place. There are some crazy things going on.

"I figured out a way to make prints and sell them for 4 cents, I call them 4-penny prints. In the market place where art is being sold at Sotheby’s for millions of dollars I’ve been making prints for 4 cents, which I think, is pretty funny.

On criticism:

"It’s very difficult. Sometimes you feel a little bit upset --there’s no question about it. It’s like going to the office and the boss is not respecting your work. Its risky, it takes a lot of self-discipline. You really have to love it to keep up with it.

"Money pressure can get intense. I think that’s part of the real world that no one ever discusses in art school.

----------------------------------------------------------------

W.P “Pete” Jennerjahn and recent paintings

W.P “Pete” Jennerjahn lives near Sedona Arizona. Below are excerpts from our telephone conversation November 19, 2010.

On Black Mountain College and Josef Albers:

"I started life in 1922. I showed up at Black Mountain in 1948.

"I had already been through undergrad and grad programs at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The other schools were traditional as far as the art departments – with regulation of tests and credits. But Black Mountain didn’t deal in credits. You were examined by your faculty involved, I wasn’t there long enough to actually get a degree, but what Black Mountain did was they would solicit from the nation someone who had a reputation in that field and that person would come and examine you and evaluate you if you could graduate or not.

"I was focused on whatever Josef Albers was teaching at the time -- primarily color, painting and design.

"I had it up to here as far as responding to teachers in the grad schools I was at. My wife [Elizabeth Jennerjahn] who had been to BMC, recognized that Albers was someone special beyond any kind of other teacher.

"In previous teachers there were the kind of rote lessons on hue, value and intensity –and you did everything based on that kind of thing.

"I passed thru that period of my education during the Depression days when people we looked up to were doing murals in post offices and we were urged to do work murals. Of course that was a phase I passed on thru as I was encountering my teachers in college.

"At Black Mountain they didn’t deal in that at all. It was not the artistic theme we were working on. We were working in basic themes. Colors. In some of the painting classes we would do still life studies and work from the wonderful scenery on campus. There was actually a lake there and we were very influenced by it.

Contrary Shadows, 1952

On Color:

"What was in effect in the US at the time was that you were realistic about color. And the color did not have an independence or a value other than their literalness so if you wanted a whole other feeling to arise from what you were working on you could feel free to abandon the old rules.

"After my working with Albers I taught a color course. I would have the students answer a questionnaire with questions like, “What are your favorite colors? What colors would you not put together? The idea was to have them declare their attitudes towards color at the time. After some time I would have them take the colors they hate and make them shake off those old rules and work freshly with color to have something happen. I told them, 'I want you to use the colors you hate and put them together so that they support each other.'

"Even in my painting now I’m continually challenging myself. The idea of the subject matter now is not important. I’ll put a color down and think which color I don’t want to see next to that color. So I work with those colors to figure out how to make the colors work together. I might give it some ludicrous type of title. More or less I am still struggling to keep from falling into the same combinations of things.

On the art world now:

"From what I gather from the young people I see submitting to the exhibits – they are much freer than when I was going through art studies back in the 40’s. There are still a number of them caught up in the old attitudes in relation to color so they’re not making full use to what the medium has to offer them.

"I remember in Milwaukee there was a contemporary art exhibit that came through [in the 1940’s] and there were things that came through in collage, that we were just scratching our heads over, and now nobody thinks twice about that kind of thing.

"I don’t subscribe to art magazines so I don’t have a good handle on the current art trends but I would say there is more flowing into the matter of not having things flat on the wall. There’s a lot more collage and layers of things, which was unheard of when I went through as a college level student.

"Many people are doing bulky 3D works that are much more tolerated than my time. It was rare to have things made out of metal and pipes and bent mechanical parts. Artists today are infinitely more adventurous in materials than they were back in those days.

On his own paintings:

"Lately I’ve been working with thin washes of acrylic. I started to give up on oils out of a frustration because I had a studio in the Adirondacks of NY and I would be getting all worked up making paintings and then when it was time to pack up the painting was too wet to ship.

"I began to like the flow of working with acrylics and I didn’t have to worry about drying time.
I enjoy working with acrylics because I can work with them in a way I had been doing with watercolors. I could do more things with liquid acrylics. It felt more on the same territory of expression as watercolor.

On mixing colors:

"It depends on what my need is. If I want a certain color that is opaque and it lies between cadmium orange and an earth color I will mix if I have to. I try to be economical about it -- not to indulge so that it takes me 4 tubes to get around to a color. I feel that I should be able to arrive at a color that I had in mind with no more than two tubes.

"Albers would buy tube color but would only add white. He would only add white. The only indulgence he gave himself was to lighten colors with white. To a certain extent I try to keep that same kind of economy. And at time I try to get a variation.

"I have paintings 4 feet high with slight color variations produced as color stripes. I did 10 years in that phase of horizontal stripes. The shift changes very little from stripe to stripe --like in the sky. On most of those paintings there are no two similar stripes of color.