Guest Blogger - Bill Amundson

Bill with his piece the "Nervous Patriot" at the Denver Art Museum

work in progress (two days in)
Working title-TEEN EXCAVATION

work in progress (two days in)
Working title-TEEN EXCAVATION

A recent review in the Denver Post said this of Bill, "Bill Amundson is such a familiar figure in the Denver art scene that it's easy to take him and his art for granted. " I've posted his work several times on this blog, and I asked him to share a list of thing he's been influenced by or interested in lately. As with his artwork, Bill did not disappoint:

5 Artist's I look at all the time...

1. Peter Bruegel the Elder.

2. Ivan Albright (The first, perhaps only, artist my parents took me to see.)

3. Roger Brown (along with fellow Chicago icon H.C. Westermann)

4. The great draftsman and mama's boy Achilles G Rizolli

5. Illustrator/humorist Bruce McCall

5 artist's I've been looking at a lot recently...

1. Wayne Thiebaud (based on multiple visits to his current show in Loveland.)

2. Peter Saul (cause it's always good to revisit the real King of Bad Taste.)

3. Frank Magnotta (especially his big, BIG imaginary structures.)

4. Mental patient artist extrordinaire Adolf Wolfli.

5. Glen Brown's recent obsessive abstract paintings.

5 musicians that are really important...

1. All Randy Newman (he's my real hero and role model.)

2. Cleveland's Per Ubu (their first 3 recordings from 75-77, DATAPANIK IN THE YEAR 0, THE MODERN DANCE and DUB HOUSING.)

3. Yo La Tengo (I play their noise rave up I HEARD YOU LOOKING at least once a day.)

4. Steve Reich (especially Music For 18 Musicians. It's perfect for repetitive work. repetitive work.)

5. Any and all George Jones.( aka the non Clapton God.)

I'm also currently streaming the great New Jersey free form station WFMU a lot.

10 Movies that I must like cause I've seen them 5 times or more...

1. Jacques Tati's Playtime l967. (The best art film ever made, and one of the great social satires to boot!)

2. Gates of Heaven 1978. (The first, and still the best, of Errol Morris' documentaries. Everyday life is god's weirdest invention.)

3. Robocop 1987. (The original one. The other best social satire. Oh, besides Doctor Strangelove.)

4. Roadhouse 1989. (Swayze teaches us men what it means to be a MAN.)

5. Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory 1957. (Kirk Douglas teaches us how to be men in war!!)

6. Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries l957. (Victor Sjostrom teaches us what men should think about before they die.)

7. Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity 1944. (Fred MacMurray teaches men about women that should really be avoided.)

8. Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr 1928. (Buster teaches us how to survive a hurricane with artistry and aplomb.)

9. Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains 1966. (Male coming of age during war, Czech style.)

10. Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures 1994. (The downside of being creative and imaginative.)

Some Television?

I'm obsessed with AMC's Breaking Bad (The only show I've been obsessed with since Deadwood.)

I also enjoy the Marty Stuart Show on RFD, Johnny Qwest reruns wherever I can find them, and local Fox News broadcasts, especially Libby Weaver's aztec sundial jewelry and Leland Vitter's beloved hair and laptop.

The best novel I've read recently (on Cd, of course) is Jonathan Miles Dear American Airlines, which is really funny and also terribly moving..Non fiction book (not on Cd). Umberto Eco's On Ugliness.

And finally, I also tune in to KHOW radio's Dan Caplis almost every afternoon so I have something to direct my substantial hatred towards. Keeps a fellow young and vital!

Music for Your Studio; Vol. 22

Music from the Reluctant Aquanauts - a now defunct instrumental surf outfit who posted this album called "Aquanauts Can't Swim" on the SurfGuitar101 forum. Here's the link for the album and here's the original forum post and their myspace page if you want to give it a try before downloading it. I'm really glad I stumbled on this and I'm excited to share it. It's perfect summer music. Highly recommended!

Thunderstorm

Image copyright Nathan Abels - all rights reserved.

Image copyright Nathan Abels - all rights reserved.

I took over a hundred photos from our third floor apartment last night. I was hoping to get some good shots of all the lightning and these two nailed it - look at the way the sky lit up on that second one... That storm was crazy.

New Work/Site by Alan Kitchen

Alan Kitchen, "Spirit Extra" (1), Gouache on Paper, 6x6", 2009

I helped my friend Alan put up the framework for a website last night to prepare for his addition to New American Paintings. You can see the site here.

A Minute with David Lynch - on Painting

New Work; Clifford Griffin

Nathan Abels, "Clifford Griffin", Acrylic and Ink on Rag Board, 14x18", 2009

Nathan Abels, "Clifford Griffin" (detail view), Acrylic and Ink on Rag Board, 14x18", 2009

I just finished this painting - in fact, I still have some residual white paint on my finger tips. You're looking at what is probably my first painting with a figure in it since grad school. It's not that I'm against figurative work, but I haven't been inspired to paint figures in some time.

Recently I was asked by local artist Katie Taft to participate in the tentatively titled "Biographic" show at Abecedarian gallery (running from September 18th to October 24th). As the title indicates, the show is related to stories about people. It will be accompanied by a written component (in the works). Some artists are going to approach it as an interview, others as more of a tribute (like mine). I'm actually way ahead of the due date - a rare thing for me.

I've been really interested in Clifford Griffin's story lately so I thought I'd roll with that momentum and do this painting of him. I made a couple of trips up to his memorial a couple of weeks ago - which is located above Silver Plume - the hike was written about on this blog here. I've also done a lot of research about Clifford Griffin at the Denver Public Library Western History department. There aren't many images of Clifford but I did find a couple of really artistic compositions of him sitting on some outcroppings above Silver Plume and for this painting I combined those with my own photos of the site he is buried at:

Photo of the Griffin Memorial by Nathan Abels

I'll have more info closer to the time of the exhibition.

Found Photo - On the Plains

I haven't posted any vintage/antique photos in a while, so here's one from my collection.
The back says,

"Now laugh. Tee hee! Ha! Ha! Those are Mountains yu see 15 miles away."

Art and Film Friday; Vol. 10 - Donnie Darko

Caspar David Friedrich, Sunset, 1830

Chris Johanson @ Art Brussels - photo by flickr member anthonyeykmans

Still from Donnie Darko - more here.

Greg Crewdson

Guest Blogger; Gabriel Liston

Gabriel Liston in the studio

I've asked a few friends to contribute to my blog, and we're going to kick things off with Portland artist Gabriel Liston. My first contact with him was actually a result of this blog - an old post of delft painting. You can find his work at Plus gallery here in Denver, where he currently has several very reasonably priced hand-pulled etchings ($40-$100 - based on size) as well as some rich, beautiful oil paintings. I highly recommend picking up some of his work - they're even better in person. For more pics of the prints, you can check out his studio blog and contact Plus for purchasing information. Gabriel took some time to share a little about his work, his influences and works/projects in the making.

Liston writes, "I've developed a habit of saying, when asked, that I paint pictures of children taking the world apart from the inside out. Whether true or not, it's a good definition to try and live up to. I like working from a mash of drawings and oil sketches. I avoid using photos or wholesale invention."

To better understand his process of painting or what he calls, "domestically picturing a life of domesticity" the folks at OPENWIDEpdx paid a visit to the Liston studio yesterday and snapped some photos of what's currently on the easel:

Studio view of "Moonshiner" (working title), Oil on canvas 36" x 36" 2009 in progress (just about there)

(Working title) "Moonshiner", Oil on canvas 36" x 36" 2009 in progress

"With the rolling of summer I seem to have entirely forgotten what my influences are or who I'm supposed to be looking at. I have one anchor, influence wise, here (Breughel's winter scene). Someday maybe I'll visit it in person. I was in Denver last month and saw Sharks Ink at MCA just before it came down. I loved the Kushner and Grooms and got a much better sense of Chagoya. On the Western Slope, I went to see Jon Rietfors new work. Here in Portland, I'm waiting for Lli Wilburn's show to open at Froelick. Also my thoughts, and our conversations here at home, keep coming back to Brennan Conaway's short film: Trajectory and other work he's been doing with The Center for Land Use Interpretation. "

I asked Gabriel what he's been listening to in the studio lately and he said,

"Audio-wise, I'm in a technologically dysfunctional limbo. When I paint and draw on location, I don't use earphones, so there's just local noise or whatever old song is ear-worming through my head. In the studio, I listen to too much public talk radio, because I can't get KEXP, and the KBOO signal is fuzzy. In Denver, I was tuning to 96.5. Neither computer nor turntable reaches the studio so I've had the Stumptown Printers compilation Pressing Sounds in the little cd player. It's mostly great, but ironically, I lost the track listing. I did buy a Little Wings album for D's ipod to accompany our drive to Colorado. I think what I need is a live band just sort of permanently rehearsing in the living room (got more bands per square block here in Portland already, I know). I like it when my neighbor blasts soul classics on his back porch, which is by the studio window."

"I spent the winter and spring experimenting with etching and monotype as an artist in residence at Atelier Meridian. In June I made odds and ends for John Brodie's The Store for a Month. I also showed some of my recent etchings at a quick Grasshut Corp show to benefit the IPRC, Zine River.

Soon after, the Froelick Gallery showed four small plein air oil paintings as part of their Town and Country: Oregon at 150 show. Though I make those plein air paintings as part of the larger process, I hadn't shown them in a long time. I think I'll keep those a little more visible from here on out, they don't depict children in action, but they always show somewhere playable."

July 2008 plein air watercolor by Gabriel Liston

"My other recent projects include two new glass works I'd made with Spiro-Lyon Glass Studio in Carbondale. I hope to do more on my next visit.

Currently, I'm preparing to install work for the Manor show at Portland's Milepost 5 in August. I went over and picked out a room last weekend. It's an old brick retirement home, not nearly refurbished, so a very interesting place to arrange paintings, open closed doors, whistle, or wander about by yourself. I picked a high corner room with white lace curtains. I'm still working out the context I want to create. I may take part in a plein air show in the Columbia Gorge in August as well.

While in Denver, I met with a friend to collaborate on screening t-shirts from my relief prints, they're looking pretty good, we just need to figure out what brand of shirt to print on. Here's a proof - there may be some at Plus gallery soon..."

"Upcoming? There's a popular bluff here between a residential and industrial neighborhood that I'm trying to make sense of. It functions like culverts do in Colorado suburbs: a not-quite-planned, not-quite-regulated, but incredibly fun greenspace. I'm visiting and sketching it as well as the notions I got on the last trip back to Colorado and our repeated trips to the coast.

I'm also finishing up and trying to title that moonshiner canvas - like the others it's about the visual phenomena of place matched with exactly-what -are-you-doing investigations of young people. Will it give adults and younger a quiet matrix to reckon out their own life challenges upon? I'm not so sure, but I really like making these things. This week, the kids and I will hang out at our favorite grocery store watching Chris Johanson paint a big mural. No firm plans for the fall, just whispers."

Gabriel Liston, "We'll be rich for the rest of our lives", 36" x 48" oil on canvas

Thanks for sharing Gabriel.

Lunch on the Luncheon

Manet's most famous painting
Picnic blanket/tablecloth at Atypyk
100% cotton
Size : 150x200cm

Édouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1862–1863, Oil on canvas, 81.9 in × 104.5 in

An Island for Everything Left

Photo of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone by Nathan Abels

Where We Are

Fog in the morning here
will make some of the world far away
and the near only a hint. But rain
will feel its blind progress along the valley,
tapping to convert one boulder at a time
into a glistening fact. Daylight will
love what came.
Whatever fits will be welcome, whatever
steps back in the fog will disappear
and hardly exist. You hear the river
saying a prayer for all that's gone.

Far over the valley there is an island
for everything left; and our own island
will drift there too, unless we hold on,
unless we tap like this: "Friend,
are you there? Will you touch when
you pass, like the rain?"

William Stafford

Shelby Shadwell

(sorry about the pop-up with this image viewer) Check out these drawings. See also: Shelby Shadwell.com

Melissa Wilkinson

Untitled, ink on mylar, 18"x 24," 2008

Untitled, ink on mylar, 18"x 24," 2008

Untitled, ink on mylar, 18"x 24," 2008

Untitled, ink on mylar, 18"x 24," 2008

Melissa Wilkinson

Sunday Ambiance

According to Wise Owl Records - a netlabel where you can download this for free, "Gorgeous organic ambiance. Go to the park on the sunniest day this summer and take a nap in the grass with these sounds piping through your headphones. Trust me."

Wildness and the Savage Heart

photo by Nathan Abels - taken in Estes Park, Colorado

From Wallace Stegner's The American West as Living Space;

"Why should I stand up for civilization? Thoreau asked a lecture audience. Any burgher or churchwarden would stand up for that. Thoreau chose instead to stand up for wildness and the savage heart."

Photo of the Day

via artversusme

Wheatfield

Agnes Denes, Wheatfield—A Confrontation, Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan, 1982

Wheatfield—A Confrontation (The Harvest), 2 acres of wheat planted and harvested by the artist on a landfill in Manhattan's financial district, summer 1982.

photos from the Chelsea Art Museum.

Greenmuseum.org writes, "In 1982, she carried out what has become one of the best-known environmental art projects when she planted a two-acre field of wheat in a vacant lot in downtown Manhattan. Titled, Wheatfield -- A Confrontation, the artwork yielded 1,000 lbs. of wheat in the middle of New York City to comment on "human values and misplaced priorities". The harvested grain then traveled to 28 cities worldwide in "The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger" and was symbolically planted around the globe. "

Aren't these photos great? I remember learning about this work some time ago, but running into it again at Mount Olympus renewed my excitement about the work and the idea. As it gets more and more expensive to ship food across huge distances (what James Howard Kunstler likes to call the "3,000 mile salad"), it will be more important to grow food nearer to where it is consumed - so I think this work in particular will have increasing relevance over time. There's recently been a boom in urban farming. In fact, Denver's Westword ran a feature on the movement in May called "The Urbavore's Dilemma: Getting down and dirty with Denver's backyard farmers".

See also; this post at Coolhunting about landscape ecologist Eric W. Sanderson's decade-long Mannahatta Project, an exhaustive study and recreation of the Manhattan ecosystem circa 1609 (the year of Henry Hudson's arrival in Mannahatta).

Urban foxes

We went for a walk at Cheesman Park in Denver a few days ago and we saw a city fox hanging out in the park attracting the attention of a lot of the dogs being walked around the park. We both thought someone had let a pet go because the fox looked like a dog on a glance - it was lying down in the grass and we couldn't see its tail. It was being very cautious of the golden retriever barking at it not twenty feet away. It got up after a minute or two and just trotted across the lawn towards the other side of the park, apparently in no hurry. It was my second urban fox spotting within a month. This isn't a photo of the fox we saw, but it's drpaulsen's photo of another Denver resident fox and it looks a lot like the one we witnessed.

Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla

"Tesla's Utopia" by Adam Reker
Acrylic, Spray Paint, Gel Transfer, Gold Leaf on Wood.

Opening at Rule Tonight

Opening @ RULE Gallery, Friday, July 10, 6-9