Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe always maintained that her paintings of flowers were purely representational, and that associations and symbolism really had nothing to do with it -- were she alive today, maybe her insistence would have finally paid off -- unfortunately, to the not-so-educated viewer, her paintings will continue to stand for colorful vaginas. Anyway, here it is from the horses mouth:

"Well - I made you take the time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't.

"Then when I paint a red hill, because a red hill has no particular association for you like the flower has, you say it is too bad that I don't always paint flowers. A flower touches almost everyone's heart. A red hill doesn't touch everyone's heart as it touches mine and I supposed there is no reason why it should. The red hill is a piece of the badlands where even the grass is gone. Badlands roll away outside my door - hill after hill - red hills of apparently the same sort of earth that you mix with oil to make paint. All the earth colors of the painter's palette are out there in the many miles of badlands. The light Naples yellow through the ochres - orange and red and purple earth - even the soft earth greens.

"You have no associations with those hills - our waste land - I think our most beautiful country. You must not have seen it, so you want me to always to paint flowers...."

-Exhibition Catalogue, An American Place, 1939

While flipping through my new July issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, I came upon this luscious image:



Being that there are already enough associations with peaches, did they really have to slick it all up and make that a-hole extra round and red? Or at least they could have avoided the birds-eye-view angle, or should I say, RED eye view. I'm baffled, yet very amused at how the folks at MSL Omnimedia Inc. let this on slip through.

Anyway, here are some NON orifice-related works by Georgia O'Keefe that I actually prefer to her ubiquitous, and synonymous with her name, floral works. One thing that amazes me about her is that no matter the subject, no matter the size of canvas she almost always has a very strong composition, which makes for, I'd say, about 75% of the painting's success.


"My Last Door", a poster of this hangs in my office, and I really like it.

Three Girls #2, 68" x 98", oil on canvas

Here's my latest work from the Three Girls series. I think I'll put it to bed for a bit, and start a new series, but mostly I'll be getting my show together for November.







and I posted this one a while back, here it is again (now it's an "official" series)

Up now in the Rowan Morrison Gallery

A new solo show by Carl Auge opened up here at Rowan Morrison May 4th. The East Bay Express' Kelly Vance wrote about it here, and The East Bay Monthly's Timothy Buckwalter wrote about it here.


"Between You and Me #1", detail, oil on canvas, 72" x 98" ©Carl Auge

Carl's paintings are up until June 24th. Auge first makes an impression as a disciple of the CCA art star painting teacher, Christopher Brown. But in fact, upon further study, what I find in his work is it's attention to the finesse, line-work, collage and form, much like that of Pop Arist/Painter James Rosenquist. Rosenquist always fascinated me because of his Billboard painting background, and the attention to form one must undertake in order to create smooth and precise large-scale works that actually work. I, personally love the work of James Rosenquist, and until I saw Carl's work hanging in the gallery, I hadn't even thought about him in so long. Thanks for reminding me of this great painter!


"President Elect" (1960-61) by James Rosenquist. 228 x 366 cm. Collection du Musée d'art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

The Oak Tree

Stumbled upon this kick-ass painting by RB Kitaj while in search of some good images of trees. It just may have to go into my favorites bar soon...

roland peterson - b. 1926

WHEW - we made it through our studio sale! Thanks to all who came by to rescue us from our mountain of hoarded "supplies". AND thanks to you, I can now go and purchace a new easle, one that is NOT a tripod easle.

Todd Kerr stopped by Saturday for a bargain and a chat and brought up a painter named Roland Peterson. He was puzzled as to why he wasn't in the Bay Area Figurative Art book, which is in fact a catalogue for the SFMOMA exhibition in 89, and the first publication that officially recognized the movement.

So of course I had to do an image search for Roland Peterson:







Peterson is a disciple of Richard Deibenkorn, and while he may have been overlooked for the 1989 Bay Area Figurative Art exhibition, he certainly fits the bill in a loose sense, but perhaps not in a strict sense. The way I differentiate him from the rest of the first generationers and even second generationers, is in that his work is tighter and strays even farther away from any sense of abstract expressionism, or "flatness" with that pure focus on paint handling itself as the anchor for the movement. His landscape is clearly defined, the composition focused on a vanishing point, and the use of light is, for lack of a better term, "literal" impressionistic, somewhere along the lines of Wayne Theibaud. This is more apparent in the middle painting, "Two Women and Tree", while the top and the bottom ones are my personal selections and are a deviation from his signature style. But clearly there IS a large contigency of B.A.F.esque painters, who to this day remain loyal to their art practice and the purity of modernist painting. Either way, I'm happy, and of course, this opinion of mine is based solely on my web findings.

You can view lots more jpgs of his work at the Hackett-Freedman Gallery website, in addition to some of our more popular figurative painters: David Park, Hans Hoffman and Milton Avery. SWEET! looks like a trip to H-F is in the works!

michele ramirez

Here is a few samples of work from one of my favorite painters, Michele Ramirez of Oakland. I can't help but be influenced by her work, after all, I did inherit her studio at 332 40th Street, we did show her at Rowan Morrison, and she does continue to blow me away. It's True!

"Lot for Sale", Oil on Panel, 12 x 10"

"Behind the Bins", Gouache on Paper, 7.5 x 6"

"Studio Still Life", Charcoal on Paper, 42x34"
All images courtesy of the artist

I wish I had time to write more about her, or showcase more of her work on the blog, but I'll continue to make additions it grows, never you fear.

Richard Diebenkorn in New Mexico

Here is a painter I have come to greatly admire, only to find out ten or so years after the fact, that he did his MFA at University of New Mexico - the very department where I just started out when I was a young lass. Geez, I've combed through his books so many times, those being mostly the ones when I'm wondering what to do next.



His New Mexico period (1950-1952) was when he started to remove the abstraction from his work and imply more representation. He used alot of heavy blacks and contrasts, one thing that is apparent in the New Mexico wintry lanscapes. It's arrid and it's stark and the sun is harsh even though it's freezing. You can see the difference in respect to his observation of light when you look at say, Berkeley no.52, 1955.



Lush... makes you want to use more green in your own work, am I right?

Thanks for letting me ramble on about one of my favorite painters of all time. Such a Master.