I visited the Smith College Museum of Art this fall.There were many great paintings and Northhampton, MA. is a terrific town. But the funnest part was their restrooms, which are beautifully decorated by two artists who did residencies at the Kohler plant in Wisconsin, Ellen Driscoll and Sandy Skoglund. Skoglund is responsible for the black tilework and Driscoll the blue.
The SCMA restrooms are underwritten by a grant from the Kohler Trust for Arts and Education. The fixtures and fittings for the entire Brown Fine Arts Center were donated by Kohler Company.
Here is a post of some of the oil paintings and drawings I have done in Thailand , Cambodia, Laos ,and Malaysia. I posted these last year, but recently I worked on these in the studio and got them all finished and signed and took new photos. These were made during a wonderful and interesting painting and exploration trip I made in January through May, 2010.
Boats Docked on The Mekong River, Luang Prabang, Laos
A River In Laos
Mekong River Boats In Luang Prabang, Laos
These are all small single session sketches starting at about 5 x 7 in. and up. The drawing is 11 x 14 in. I am working on some larger pieces and hope to mount an exhibit sometime soon. I would welcome proposals from galleries and I would like to use some of the proceeds to help fund de-mining activities in Laos. To get more written info about my trip click here or click on the SE Asia category on the right.
Ruins At Angkor, Cambodia
Here is a map of my trip :
My Travel Route in Indochina
Carved Reliefs of Dancing Apsaras, Preah Khan, Angkor, Cambodia
Interior of the Old South Church showing trompe l'oiel murals._Photo:C. Bonelli
This past spring I spent 6 weeks working on beautiful Nantucket Island helping restore the Old South Church in Nantucket Island. Today it is the oldest of the large church buildings still standing in the town. Nantucket is about 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts and was the setting for the whalers from Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”. Off course the whaling economy is long gone, but now Nantucket is a wealthy vacation resort.
View of the Old South Church from the Waterfront
It is full of bike trails, old cobblestone streets, cedar shingled houses, and lots of windswept natural beauty. This project was with Evergreene Architectural Arts. Terry Brackenbury was the project manager. Also on the job were Chris Bonelli,Faizulla Khamraev, Kalina Pavlova and Victor Doudkin, and a female British restoration plasterer named Pen (whose last name I don’t have).
Built in 1809 and updated in the 1840s, the Meeting House is home to Carl Wendtes’ trompe l’oeil paintings, the 1831 Goodrich organ, the massive Portuguese bell, as well as a collection of historic artifacts. It is a Unitarian church, which coincidentally was the faith I was raised in.
Above: Detail of the PaintedTrompel’oiel Mural on the Cieling
The project was the re-creation of the 160 year old trompe l’ oiel paintings originally created by Swiss artist Carl Wendte. There had been at least three restoration campaigns, the last of which was done in the 1980′s that was unfortunately de-laminating, probably because of the damp on Nantucket.
Keep in mind when looking at these photos that there is very little ornamental plaster work in the building. It is all paint. Some distortion is evident in the shots. These were either changes we made so things would look correct from the floor, or sometimes the walls were distorted.
Detail of the Trompe L'oiel Painting in the Altar Area
The process was for Evergreene to carefully document the old work, including exposure windows. Then the plaster was repaired in the entire church , and the walls were repainted. We used Kiem brand paint, which is a very flat, breathable paint, which should avoid the moisture problems in the future. We used about 7 different values of gray paint to create the trompe l’oeil, which gave it a really realistic effect.
Thanks to Chris Bonneli for some after scaffold photos. Below is an image gallery. Click on the thumbnails for bigger images.
Terry Brackenbury, Project Foreman
Faizulla Khamraev, Kalina Pavlova
Victor Doudkin, Painting
Penelope,The Plasterer
Detail of the PaintedTrompel’oiel Mural on the Cieling
Kalina Pavlova
Kalina Pavlova on the day of our freezing bike ride and breakdown.
Last week I installed the two finished saint panels at St. Francis de Sales church in Paducah, Kentucky. This was a commission to do two paintings of saints for a side altar or “Remebrance Niche.”The basic idea was created by Friar Mark Joseph Costello, a Chicago based Capuchin Friar who serves as a liturgical consultant for many churches.
St Francis de Sales was a swiss bishop and prolific author. He is the catholic patron saint of writers , journalists and also the deaf. He shouldn’t be confused with St. Francis de Assisi. St. Jane de Chantal was influenced by St. Francis de Sales and they co-founded the Order of the Visitation of Mary.She is the patron of widows, forgotten people, in-law problems, loss of parents, and parents separated from children.
Some Explanation of the designs in the Trompe l’ oiel frame may be interesting. Both panels in the upper corners have a Goldenrod and a Cardinal. These represent the state of Kentucky, being the state flower and the State bird.
St. Francis de Sales: In the center of this panel we have a scroll, quill pen, and ink-pot. These represent his prolific writing as well as his being patron of writers and journalists. St. Francis de Sales most well-known book is “An Introduction to the Devout Life”.
In the bottom medallion area we have a Crown of Thorns :
From Wikipedia: “The crown of thorns is also an allegory of the episcopal (episcopal = by bishop) governance of the church. Contrasted to a kingly crown, the crown of thorns signifies the difference between episcopal governance, and kingly governance of state. It serves as a reminder of the humility required of all bishops.” For Example St. Francis de Sales was offered a rich diocese in France, but did not abandon the poor and troubling one in Geneva where he was at.
St.Jane de Chantel: In the center of this panel we have a scene of the Visitation. St. Jane founded the Congregation of the Visitation. The Visitation is the visit of Mary with Elizabeth as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, 1:39–56.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“The Congregation of the Visitation was established on 6 June, 1610. Its aim was to receive, with a view to their spiritual advancement, young girls and even widows who had not the desire or strength to subject themselves to the austere ascetical practices in force in all the religious orders at that time.
The design is based on a Fra Angelica Painting:
"Visitation" By Fra Angelico
At the bottom in the Medallion area we have a The Sacred Heart. St. Jane de Chantel is often represented holding a Sacred Heart.
From Wikipedia: “The Sacred Heart (also known as Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus’ physical heart as the representation of His divine love for Humanity.
This summer I have been working on a church restoration at St. Francis de Sales Catholic church in Paducah, Kentucky. The funny photo-montage below is me posing for reference for one of two paintings I have been commissioned to paint for a small altar in the church.
Me posing as St. Francis De Sales - through the magic of Photoshop
I was lucky and surprised to find a great costume shop in town, Creatures of Habit, which was able to put together something resembling a Bishops vestments for me. I’m also doing another one of Saint Jane de Chantel. I am going to hire a model and a nuns habit and do a similar photo-montage and then create both paintings.
I’m working with Tony Kartsonas of Historic Surfaces on this job. We have done a lot of art in the church and still have much to do. I’ll do a more complete post when it is done. Below are some images from two stained glass windows I touched up.
In the fall of 2009 I had a pleasant visit to San Francisco after attending a wedding in northern California. I had never visited the city before, and I specifically wanted to take a look at some of the many murals there. I will do another post about the other murals in S.F., but here I want to talk about Mona Caron, one of my favorite mural painters.
Noe Valley Mural (detail)
Firstly, for me personally, it was really inspiring when I saw her mural creations how much thought and attention to detail she puts into her public art. You can really feel the passion and pure hard work she has lavished on them. Her murals are often about the local social history and feature a vision of a “do it yourself utopian future.” She often shows how communities can transform themselves into better places. Her particular focus is on suggesting that public space should also be a social and convivial space as opposed to an area intended just for shopping and traffic.
I support her vision, which seems to involve a lot of bicycles, public transportation and social justice. She often uses ribbons or streams to represent time or change and to carry her narrative forward.
Ribbons used to contain narrative, Noe Valley Mural
Also apparent is her frequent use of a a slight bird’s eye to great advantage to pack narrative in. Likewise, she regularly includes little points of humor in her murals, which really add to the viewing experience.These playful elements might be a little elephant walking around, or a jibe at a corporate practice. Caron says that these small elements are conceived to encourage and reward passerbies for slowing down. To create that space for socializing that she desires to see in our collective future.
Dubocet Bikeway Mural (detail)
Ms.Caron says that often the act of creating a mural begins to form that community she is trying to encourage. People stop by and talk with her, contributing feedback and ideas, and really participating in the process. In her Tenderloin mural especially she often added the locals to the mural, letting them choose where they preferred to be. In my personal experience I have also found that when I have created murals, people absolutely are thrilled that I am there. It’s the process that makes it a wonderful experience.
Tangentially, that is something that I too have noticed and enjoy while landscape painting, especially in an urban setting. That interaction with people makes it more fun and meaningful. I spoke briefly with Ms.Caron while she was working on her Tenderloin neighborhood mural. She seemed pleasant, charismatic, and happy to talk. I wish I had stayed longer!
Tenderloin Mura (detail)
Ms. Caron, who is from the Italian language canton of Tocino in Switzerland, came to San Francisco in 1992 and studied (and later taught) art and illustration there. After school, she was involved in illustration work, and did her first mural in 1998 on the side of a Safeway Grocery store in San Francisco. It is a bicycle themed mural, and I especially enjoyed that because I had rented a bike for my visit there, and I in fact rode to many of the areas depicted in the mural. If possible I always use a bicycle when visiting a new place because I love the pace and intimacy that it provides.
Ms. Caron seems to often have a progressive political viewpoint with her her murals. One interesting political mural she created was “La Lucha Por El Agua Continúa” – a mural in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about the water issues there and resistance to the privatization of water supplies. This was a commemorative mural, celebrating a moment of political action in a community. Caron’s true gift seems to me to be to be able to fuse political thought with aesthetic quality within her murals.
Of course she is doing this mostly in San Francisco where most viewers probably share her politics. I think the real trick for other progressive muralists to ponder is communicating these ideas in areas where such viewpoints might not be so welcome.
La Lucha Por El Agua Continúa - mural in Cochabamba, Bolivia
Caron has a community approach to her work, meeting and planning with locals and garnering and using feedback from neighborhood passerbies on the street. Her murals often deal with social history. In her “Market Street Railroad Mural”, she has shown the history as well as a utopian future of Market street.
The mural is divided into historical parts, which also change color. Again here we see a slight birds eye view and also a spatial bubble distortion in the interest of packing narrative in. In this work, Ms. Caron has so much going on that I’m reminded of a convention in many renaissance paintings, where every usable space was filled. On the far right we see the “Utopian future” section of the mural where she has shown the possibility of the area changing into a more socially friendly environment. In a lecture Caron talks about using these past/future juxtapositions as “an argument for radical change in the future.”
The Market St. mural is located on a nondescript wall on a slightly seedy section of Market Street. I almost missed it. But it goes to show Ms. Caron’s hypothesis (expressed in a quote below) that by her act of giving so much attention and time to a spot, that locals come to perceive that spot differently.
As far as her process goes I don’t have much information. The media is acrylic. I have seen some early images and it appears that Caron starts of with line drawings which she later paints in. I get the feeling that there is a basic ( perhaps comprehensive) design, but that it may change as the process continues. As far as funding goes, it seems that Caron often works with a client organization that applies for grants to fund the process. Often the city of San Francisco is the patron, taking the funds from a voluntary business tax for city beautification.
“I work very, very, very slowly. More slowly than not just people but society as a whole expects. We live in a society that is really sped up. Everything keeps getting quicker and quicker and we all are getting shorter and shorter attention spans. There is an expectation to produce things quickly and move on. By contrast, my murals are almost like super slow-motion performance art, and it is meant to stand in opposition to this trend.
“When I start a mural, people expect to see me there for days, but it ends up being months. I definitely do put an unexpected amount of life energy into something that people, as you were saying, expect to be ephemeral. But it’s precisely when people in the street realize my commitment to a spot that they themselves start changing their attitude towards it, start slowing down too, start looking and appreciating more closely the very place I’m working in, which they share with me. In that moment of pause, that’s when the conversations get really interesting.”
Tenderloin Mural (Detail)
And on her political agenda:
“Of course I take sides, but I try not to beat people over their head with a political position. I try to be a little slyer than that…. I fabricate Trojan horses with an appealing, even soothing first impact. My work is on the street, people see it everyday. I want to provide a respite, some pleasure at first impact. Which is also a way for me to draw more viewers in for a closer look, less of a self-selected audience.
“Then, once people are close and at ease, that’s when the rest of the message unfolds. And the way it unfolds is, I hope, not in a preachy, slogan-like way. Rather, I just lay out all the things I want you to consider, calmly and matter-of-factly, and allow you, the viewer, to wander from one thing to the next and make causal and comparative connections amongst things.”
There is lots of info about Mona Caron on the web and many images at her website. Paige Bierma has made a film documentary about Ms. Caron titled “A Brush With the Tenderloin,” which hopefully will make the rounds someday.
Below is a Leading@Google video lecture titled “Mona Caron on Harnessing the Creative Power of Art to Build Social Networks.” Ms. Caron talks about her intentions and community interactions. Within it is a little sub-video of her street interactions focused on how she includes locals in her murals.
Large murals are hard to do justice to photographically but here are more images of Mona Caron’s work. These are details, but at her website you can see well done edited photo-montages of entire murals. Please take a look at those larger images if you want a real idea of what her murals look like. Also check out her Facebook Artists Page, where you can see what she is up to most recently. She has done at least one major mural since I was in San Francisco.
Violet Oakley in front of "Unity", a mural later installed at the Pennsylvania State Capital
I just finished reading a terrific book on the story of the Red Rose girls, three female students of Howard Pyle who ended up establishing a communal house and studio called the Red Rose Inn. They collaborated and were living together for many years and became very succesful. There are whisperings of love and intimacy to spice up the story.
Drawing By Violet Oakley
The book is called “the Red Rose Girls”, by Alice A Carter, and I couldn’t put it down. I was most interested in Violet Oakley, whose murals I had seen in Harrisburg, PA. at the state capital there. Ms. Oakley, besides being an artist, was a committed Christian Scientist.
Murals by Violet Oakley at the Pennsylvania State Capital
The two other woman, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith were very succesful illustrators. You can find many images and more information by doing a web search.
I visited the Smith College Museum of Art this fall.There were many great paintings and Northhampton, MA. is a terrific town. But the funnest part was their restrooms, which are beautifully decorated by two artists who did residencies at the Kohler plant in Wisconsin, Ellen Driscoll and Sandy Skoglund. Skoglund is responsible for the black tilework and Driscoll the blue.
The SCMA restrooms are underwritten by a grant from the Kohler Trust for Arts and Education. The fixtures and fittings for the entire Brown Fine Arts Center were donated by Kohler Company.
