Grasses Going to Seed

I painted all over yesterday's painting spreading matte medium- undiluted. Then plastic card squeegees have become like a palette on which I put dobs of Golden Acrylic colors. I mix the colors with a smaller credit card. A little water spray here and there softens the wet landscape atmosphere.

The painting is on stretched canvas 28" x 22"

Oregon Spring, 2010

Acrylic on canvas
28" x 22"
Painting without a brush, with Oregon rain wetting my canvas, the paint is poured and then spread with a 4" x 5" plastic card larger than a credit card.

Clay and earth rich in making community in Moche and Chimu cultures.

The wonderful property of clay is the slightest touch is recorded making individuality inevitable. The early Moche wall repeating the Decapitator God made each face an individual with slightly different features.

The Moche Temple of the Moon, so named by the Spanish has a tapestry-like appeal. The temple was for the nobles and the priests but also for the artisans who built it because working on a grand scale with clay brings together people into a shared process. The process becomes valued more than the material temple. The journey in making the temple resulted in repeating the process six times. Every hundred years the old temple was sealed off and a new one built on top.

The later, 850 A. D. - 1470, Chimu culture used a fish net motif on this administrative building. The Chimu continued the tapastery symbolism of the earlier culture. community is the tapestry that unifies people and in the Moche and Chimu cultures art and life was valued over the material as evidence shows there wasn't any looting of their own temples during their times. Later the Incas attempted to loot the Sun temple but after removing several layers they gave up. Later the Spanish tried to find valubles but gave up also. Clay is a humble medium but very strong for building strong commendable civilizations.

Visiting Truijillo ruins has made me think about the place of artists and my own art work in community.

Chan Chan at Trujillo, Peru was amazing.

Without the wheel, or a written language artists must have been highly valued as keepers of their cultural wisdom. The artists lived in the citadel with the nobles and the priests. Between 100 B. C. and 750 A. D. most human sacrifice was replaced with ceramic vessels for making offerings to the Gods. April 5, 2010 Chan chan was awarded a million United States dollars to continue efforts to preserve the archaeology site.

Millions of adobe bricks at the Temple of the Sun Trujillo

The makers of the many adobe bricks left their mark on each brick. Each was handmade. Working in clay unified the people into a community.

Clays of the Moche Valley, Peru and Power Point

Making a slide show is more than I ever anticipated. I am not only learning Power Point but the structure of the program is excellent in developing ideas. Paste a too big slide or one with too many subjects is no problem. It is easy to crop and make any correction in picture tools. Also there is an outline of the text so the whole show can be read without the pictures to make sure it flows.
As much as it is an enthralling creative process, I have a few problems. I don't know how to put Power Point on my blog yet. The slide shows are also too big for my computer to e-mail them.
Of the five slide shows, the one about the "Mother of all Inventions" involves the most far out thinking inwhich several applications of the grid and the hook-up and line are illustrated from our trip. In my conclusion neither basic invention is given the possition of "Mother of All Inventions." What do you artists know is the fundamental one.
Sometimes I take a break and paint.

Patricia Villalobos at the Ortiz Gurdian Art Gallery in Leon, Nicaragua

In February I first saw Patricia Villalobos' "Glucosa" at the Ortiz Gurdian Art Gallery in Leon Nigaragua. I was thrilled to see Patricia's and other women artists' work represented in a prestigious museum setting.
I was amazed because in March 1994 at the Rallie Museum in Caesaria, Israel, I viewed South American artists' work. There was only one woman represented. South American women must have much to express in visual arts. Maria Luisa Manassero's "El Prorietario" of 1980 depicted an older, unfeeling, well-to-do male holding a cigar in the face of a baby face girl.

Patricia Villalobos' "Convergencia", Artist Accordion Folded Book dated 2008.

In 2008 hurricane Mitch caused a volcanic mud slide in Nicaragua.

Patricia Villalobos grew up in Managua, Nicaragua surrounded by 27 volcanic cone shaped mountains. Nicaragua is often shook by earthquakes. I relate to Patricia's expression of the instability of our existence and feeling powerless. I have felt mildly traumatized by earthquakes and cyclones that I experienced growing up in Berkeley, California.

Patricia says of her own work: "My work is a hybrid practice of prints, photos, videos, multiples and installations. I am primarily interested in how reproducible forms of representation can alter our notions of singularity. My installations play with the tension between the three-dimensional physicality of sculpture/architecture and the ephemeral nature of video and sound. In this way my work questions our sense of stability; I am intrigued by how time can seem to be suspended as we enter and exit spaces in a state of flux – some geographical, others virtual, pointing to a concurrent state of dissolution (dissociation) and hyper-embodiment."

Patricia's web site has emotional images in picture form, videos and her installations.http://www.patriciavillalobos.com/

APES, Albany Painting Enthusiasts and Albany Arts Commision Exhibit at Guistina Gallery, LaSells Stewart Center, Corvallis Oregon

The APES hung their juried show this morning and it is on exhibit in the entry to the Austin Auditorium and La Selles Convention Center on the Oregon State University Campus. The show begins May1st and lasts the entire month of May.
The reception is Friday May 7, 6:30 - 8:30 PM.