A Little Bird Told Me
Charlie “Bird” Parker, the legendary jazz saxophonist and bebop giant, famously said, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn”. Assuming that’s true, I could play a hell of a song right now about modeling for art classes. I have no clue what a song like that would sound like, but it would be authentic that’s for sure! Indeed, I have lived it.
Whew, I’m tired. I worked all week, Saturday and Sunday, and today. Now I’m home and ready to do absolutely nothing but relax. In 1946, Bird suffered a nervous breakdown in a hotel in Los Angeles. He had been drinking heavily, caused a disturbance in the hotel lobby, and accidentally set his mattress on fire, allegedly caused by an errant cigarette. Parker was arrested and committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital where he received six months of treatment for heroin and alcohol abuse. The stay at Camarillo proved to be a successful one. Bird got clean and sober, played with the hospital band, slept, relaxed, and even tended to the vegetable garden on the facility grounds which he enjoyed a great deal.
Parker knew that his confinement at Camarillo was one of the best things to happen to him. He left the hospital with a feeling of renewal, rejuvenation, and a new lease on life. Before he returned to New York, Parker wrote a song in honor of his recovery called Relaxin’ at Camarillo. And why not? Bird himself had “lived it”, so it came out of his horn. And what a surprisingly upbeat, optimistic little tune it is. Charlie Parker may be one of the few addicts in history to have actually LIKED rehab! This is Music Monday:
Fortunately, my need for relaxation is not due to addiction or substance abuse. Mine is just a plain old fatigue and a sore body. Still, listening to Bird’s version will do just fine. Catch you later, friends 
Finding Composure
I have neither the will nor the energy right now to discuss at length the unhinged madness of the world in which we live. Who am I kidding using the word “discuss”? There is no discussion. There’s only hysteria, fear-mongering, verbal abuse, and the insidious effects of groupthink. In my lifetime, I can’t recall a period in our culture of more overheated rhetoric, more histrionics, or more twisted priorities than the times we are in now. What’s most disheartening to me are the sheer numbers of people who refuse to analyze anything in depth and can thus be tricked into believing they are supporting a noble cause, when really they are just being manipulated as pawns. I guess they’re naive. Or perhaps they enjoy that feeling of “righteousness”, however misguided it may be. Still, I would say to those people: you are being played.
Enough of that. Given that Twitter and the social media scene has been an absolute trainwreck of late, I am delighted to be in the midst of a busy modeling week. Thank you Jesus! The past few Thursdays I’ve been posing privately for the wonderful figurative artist Sigmund Abeles. In our sessions he is teaching one student and doing a little art himself. Here’s a lovely pastel drawing Sigmund created during a 20 minute pose. I was fairly crunched up here and leaning to my left. Sigmund captured the gestures and shapes very nicely:
Golden Jam
For today’s Music Monday, I am posting a video that I have fallen so in love with I can’t even estimate how many times I’ve watched it. With over five million views on YouTube, this is musician Drew Arcoleo jamming with his friend’s dog, a golden retriever who clearly digs the music.
If this video doesn’t make you smile, then you must have a defect or deficiency in your personality. So watch and enjoy as an adorable Golden Retriever gets its groove on Thanks to Jonah Goldberg of the National Review for posting this on his Twitter.
Saturday Stuff
Happy Saturday y’all! May I ask that you take a brief break from your weekend football viewing preparations to read Museworthy? You can buy beer and chips later, ok? 
Just passing on word that I’ve been hearing from several folks in my art modeling travels, that the Renaissance Portrait exhibition at the Met is a must-see. A must MUST see. I’m due for a visit to the Met myself, so I’ll be checking it out soon hopefully. Busy modeling schedule in the next few weeks but the show is up until March 18th. So plenty of time.
Time is running out, however, for London-area Museworthy readers, for Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery. That’s closing on February 5th. Wish I could see it. And it seems that art lovers are getting up at the crack of dawn for Leonardo. The sold-out record breaking show is turning away latecomers.
Southern California folks might want to see Images of the Artist at the Getty Center before it closes on February 12th. An exploration of portraits and self-portraits of artists over five centuries. Looks fascinating.
These portrait events are quite apropos since I’m immersed in portraiture these days. I’ve been sitting for a portrait class on Friday mornings, and am posing again for a pastel portrait workshop taught by my friend Sam Goodsell. We did it back in September, and now we’re doing a sequel! That will be next weekend and I’m really looking forward to it.
From the year 1450, this is Portrait of a Lady, by Paolo Uccello:
That’s all for now friends. Enjoy the weekend. Go Giants!!
At the Theater with Everett Shinn
Hello friends. This post was supposed to go up yesterday for Music Monday. I planned to write it when I got home from work but something came up that put me in a crummy, unsettled mood. It’s not a big deal, I just have a sensitivity to old unwelcome emotions being stirred up. So I sulked most of the night and neglected my blog 
I wanted to share these images of Everett Shinn paintings. Shinn was a member of the Ashcan School, a talented group of American realist painters who explored urban subjects and daily life in New York City. Although not an organized group in any official way, the Ashcan artists shared an interest in city life and the social conditions of the time. Portrayals of gritty, unvarnished realism was the driving focus for most of the Ashcan artists. Subjects such as tenement buildings, beggars, drunks, and street scenes were prevalent.
Although the great Robert Henri is considered the “founder” of the Ashcan school, its other members, many of whom studied under Henri, produced works of great atmospheric impact, authenticity, and skillful execution. Everett Shinn, the youngest of the group, was an impressive figure. Handsome, well-trained, and visually astute, he worked at various times as an illustrator, theater set designer, fine artist, and even an actor and playwright. It was Shinn’s extensive experience in the theater that allowed him to create marvelously vivid works of vaudeville scenes and downtown theater performances, all of which were thriving in New York City in the early 1900s. Shinn’s depictions really transport you into the seats, crowds, and intimate, informal atmosphere of colorful theater life.
This is one of my favorite Shinn paintings. Spanish Music Hall from 1902, oil on canvasboard. See the entry for this work at the Metropolitan Museum website for some nice zoom-in details. Love that dress!
The Orchestra Pit, Old Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theater, from 1906. Interesting angle and perspective. It should come as no surprise that Shinn was a great admirer of Edgar Degas. Read more background about this painting at the Yale University site.
This is Revue, from 1908. Shin captured the performer’s gesture perfectly and gave the white costume, ornate hat, and woman’s face all the light and attention, yet his background darks are not so dark to appear muddy or dingy. It’s all beautifully done.
Check out this great platinum print of Everett Shinn. Kind of sexy 
Here’s another informative page and a terrific blog post on Everett Shinn. Very interesting guy in many ways. I think we’ll be seeing more of him, and his Ashcan buddies, on Museworthy again in the future.
2011 in Review, and an Art World Rumble
Hey gang! I was just chatting on the phone with my Mom and I casually mentioned that I’m due for a new blog post. When I told her I would procrastinate and do it Friday night, she suggested I get it up now. Oh snap! My Mom doesn’t mess around. So, under extreme pressure from my momma, I’m posting now. Ok, maybe not “extreme” pressure, but enough to make me comply. She is my Mom, after all.
This has been my first week back to modeling after the holiday break. I’m happy to report that it’s off to a splendid start. Feels great to working again and to see my calendar filling up. Will post work from my modeling jobs as it comes in. Also, I thought I’d take a cue from other WordPress bloggers, namely my dear friend Doug Rogers, who shared with his readers the “year in review” stat roundup given us by our WordPress custodians at the end of every year. It’s fun to check out, so thought I’d share. And I’d like to say thank you to the United States, Great Britain, and Canada!
“The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog:”
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 200,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 9 days for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
The next item is really cool. I love a good art world brawl, don’t you? Well, British artist David Hockney has offered up a well-deserved smackdown of notorious “conceptualist”, hack, and dead animal exploiter Damien Hirst. Hockney, who was recently honored by the Queen with the Order of Merit, criticized Hirst for his use of assistants to produce art that bears his name. The British arts press is having a field day with this story. Here’s the Daily Mail article, and here it is in The Guardian. I say we take this further. How about a WWF-style match between the two men? I put my money on Hockney, not only because I agree with him, but because he smokes and doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it. Very badass.
Here’s some great David Hockney:
And of course check out Hockney’s website for more images.
Alright friends. I’ll be back very soon. I have a portrait class in the morning, so I need my beauty sleep Fun stuff coming up in the new year for Museworthy. Hope you all stay along for the ride.
What Lies Ahead
2012 has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Look at it written out: twenty-twelve. It sounds really fresh and sharp, but also has a tone of valor and assuredness, optimism and resolve. The alliteration and concise rhythm add to that tone. Twenty-twelve. Of course neither I nor anyone else knows if this year will unfold with such attributes. We’ll see.
Because I was just in Boston last week, I thought I’d post a New Year’s poem by a Boston native: the one and only Sylvia Plath. She found the inspiration for “New Year on Dartmoor” as she was taking a walk with her young daughter. While the child sees the end-of-year surroundings with wonder and “newness”, the mother’s voice – the cynical and apprehensive adult – points out the superficiality of it all, knowing that challenges and uncertainty lie ahead. Plath presents it like only Sylvia Plath can.
New Year on Dartmoor, by Sylvia Plath
This is newness: every little tawdry
Obstacle glass-wrapped and peculiar,
Glinting and clinking in a saint’s falsetto. Only you
Don’t know what to make of the sudden slippiness,
The blind, white, awful, inaccessible slant.
There’s no getting up to it by the words you know.
No getting up by elephant or wheel or shoe.
We have only come to look. You are too new
To want the world in a glass hat.
You can read a superb analysis of this poem here.
Happy 2012 to all of my readers. Let’s hope for peace, prosperity, love, and strength in the New Year. Looking forward into the future, we all have much to think about.
A beauty from Frederic Lord Leighton, this is Solitude:
Off to the MFA
Hellooo my darlings! Quickie post here. My mama and I are leaving early in the morning for Boston to see the Degas show at the Museum of Fine Arts and to visit a dear family friend, Karla. We’re staying at Karla’s just one overnight and will be back in NYC late Thursday. It’s a short little trip but I’m really looking forward to it.
Also want to mention, although I’m sure you’ve all heard, that the wonderful Helen Frankenthaler has passed away. I was a huge fan. She was one of the few prominent female artists in the overwhelming male-dominated world of abstract expressionism. And one of the best, in my opinion. Many great articles and obituaries on Frankenthaler on the web. I recommend checking them out.
Here is one paragraph from the Times article I linked to above. I think it describes Helen Frankenthaler’s work perfectly:
Her staining method emphasized the flat surface over illusory depth, and it called attention to the very nature of paint on canvas, a concern of artists and critics at the time. It also brought a new, open airiness to the painted surface and was credited with releasing color from the gestural approach and romantic rhetoric of Abstract Expressionism.
Hope everyone is well. I will most likely be tweeting my visit to Boston so you can always read me there should you desire a little distraction . . and a little Degas
See you all soon!
“For Olivia, Love Auntie Claudie”
Remember when you were nine years old and your cool, awesome Aunt gave you a harmonica for Christmas? Well, my niece does. It happened yesterday at Grandma’s house:
She’s a Hajian through and through. Brava!
Birdseed, and the Birth of Christ
So I thought I had planned my pre-Christmas 48 hours thoroughly and methodically. The goal was to have ALL shopping and errands done so I wouldn’t have to leave the house today. I wanted to avoid the stores, the streets, the crowds and just stay home so I could wrap presents, prepare food to bring to my Mom’s house tomorrow, call friends, and generally chill out listening to Christmas music on the radio. But like all best laid plans, something unexpected came up.
In mid-afternoon I noticed that my backyard birdfeeder was empty. NOOOOO!!!!! I hate that. My normally crowded, chaotic birdfeeder, frequented by cardinals, blue jays, finches and a host of feathered friends, was now empty and abandoned. And of course, I was all out of birdseed. This was unacceptable. The birds won’t have anything to eat on Christmas morning!! <—– yes, I’m a wacko. So I got in my my car and drove to one of the two garden centers in my neighborhood, hoping that it would still be open at 4:30 on the day before Christmas. When I got there, they started making hand gestures shooing me out the door the minuted I walked in. “We’re closed, ma’am! Sorry.” Yeah I bet you are, you evil bird-hater. So I jumped back in my car and drove like a lunatic to the next garden center. I walked in there and all signs indicated “closing”- gates coming down, lights turning off. But I asked anyway, “Are you officially closed?”. A really cute guy who works there responded, “Why? What do you need?”. So I asked, in my best coquettish flirt-voice, “How about a ten pound bag of birdseed??”. And then, like music to my ears, he smiled and said, “Sure. Ok. Make it quick.” YAAAAYYYY!!!!
You all think I’m weird, don’t you? Well, maybe I am, but I’m a weirdo who will wake up Christmas morning to the sounds of happy feasting birds chirping outside my bedroom window. It is one of life’s wonderful, simple joys. It comforts me.
Have a warm and blessed Christmas, dear friends. Rejoice in the spirit of the season. Peace unto you and all God’s creatures . . . especially the birds
From the fresco of Scrovengi Chapel in Padua, this is the nativity scene by Giotto:
Praise Winter’s Glory
The great Bill Veeck famously said, “There are only two seasons – winter and Baseball.”
As a baseball fan myself I can somewhat relate to the sentiment. Winter. Ugh, winter. That bleak dormant interval between the last out of the World Series and the first pitch of opening day. Winter gets such a bad rap from so many corners. The short days and limited sunlight dampen our mood. The cold weather forces us to put on uncomfortable restricting layers of clothing (my personal pet peeve). Fanatical baseball fans lament winter. Beach bums lament winter. Folks who suffer from “seasonal affective disorder” lament winter. Even hibernating bears lament winter so much that they curl up and sleep through the whole damn thing
I think we could all learn a lesson from pagans, who know how to extol winter’s significance through their sacred celebrations of the solstice. From Stonehenge to Guatemala to Morningside Heights, it’s a hell of a party. Here in NYC, the Paul Winter Consort has been commemorating the winter solstice for the past 16 years with a glorious annual concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in upper Manhattan.
For those who haven’t been to St. John the Divine you are missing one of the most spectacular, spiritual, and magical places in New York City, if not the world. It has been under construction in perpetuity for 100 years and will likely remain forever unfinished. That’s part of cathedral’s charm, believe it or not. You often hear in conversations, “Have they finished St. John the Divine yet?”. Answer: “Nope. Still working on it.”
The solstice is arriving today in the Northern Hemisphere. Last year saw a rare winter solstice event – the miraculous coinciding with a lunar eclipse . To celebrate today here is a great video, also from last year, of the Paul Winter concert at St. John the Divine. Absolutely worth watching not just for the music, costumes, and dance, but to chase away the winter blues. Everyone, rejoice! Remember, the sun will be re-born and the light will return. And so will baseball
Holiday Hiatus
This past Saturday at the National Academy was my last day of art modeling before the Christmas break. My next job isn’t until January 2nd, and I’m feeling a little bummed. I’ve been enjoying modeling so much lately, and posing really well, if I do say so myself. But the art schools are closing, the private groups are suspended until the new year, which makes me an artist’s model without a gig. Boo hoo. Now what am I supposed to do with myself? Christmas shopping?
I thought I’d share a drawing that was done at the National Academy. The class was anatomy drawing, taught by Eric March who is a great guy and I really like working with. First we had an informative demo focusing on the muscles in the neck and shoulders, during which I offered up my clavicle, trapezius, and something called the “sternocleidomastoid”. Then, with strategically placed lighting to help bring out the forms, Eric and I set up a pose where my head was turned sharply enough to fire up those neck muscles. The class worked on their drawings for a little over two hours. They were all wonderful, but this one by Eun Young Yun was a particular standout in my opinion. She used delicate, hatching-like pencil strokes, the effects of which I hope translate well enough in this photo I took.
Eun included more of my figure than did the other students, who limited their drawings to the neck and just vague suggestions of my head, hair, etc. The result with Eun’s piece is gauzy and gossamer. It has much more elegance and sensitivity than the stiff, studied academic anatomy drawings you usually see. Rather than generic, isolated body parts, there is clearly a human life subject present on Eun’s paper, sternocleidomastoid and all!
Paint it Black
Artist’s models are expected to pose nude. This is a given. If I had to put a percentage on it, I’d say that 90% of my posing is done in the nude, while the remaining 10% is clothed. I don’t include portrait sitting in the 10% because even though the model is clothed, it’s not a clothed pose per se. The artists are only painting the head and maybe the shoulders so the clothing is incidental and not a significant element of the composition. Models can show up for a portrait session and simply sit in their street clothes. But there are occasions when an actual clothed pose is expected.
I can’t speak for other models but I personally don’t enjoy clothed posing. This is not because I’m such a compulsive exhibitionist who must have my nude body gazed upon at all times. It’s because my wardrobe is apparently lacking in artist approved colors. I wear a lot of dark colors. If you were to look through my closet you’d see lots of black, dark blues, charcoal greys, and chocolatey browns. With my coloring these darker tones are most flattering on me. Even my bathing suit, which has been requested for modeling, is black. Hey, I like yellows and pinks as much as the next person. I just can’t wear them. Even red, a color I love, only looks right on me if it’s like cranberry or deep crimson. Orangey reds not so much. But I digress.
I pose weekly for a private art group that prefers clothed poses for painting. We recently finished a pose and have started making plans for a new one that we will begin in the new year. The lady who runs the group asked that I bring in clothing from my wardrobe so we could make a selection. Here’s the problem. I know these people. They like colors. Big, bold swathes of color, a la Matisse. Frankly, I don’t have anything like that except for a pair of purple sweatpants So the lady and I were discussing this and I wanted very much to provide an appropriate outfit to please the group. She said to me, “We want it to be YOU, Claudia! Wear your favorite nice outfit, something you would wear to a special event or on a date.” A very nice sentiment and I appreciated it. However, with that description, the chosen outfit would be a black Calvin Klein cocktail dress. Friends, I love this dress. It rocks, and I rock in it. It’s a dress I splurged on at Bloomingdale’s. So I told her about it and she responded, “No, no, no, nothing black. We don’t want black.” See the dilemma? My second choice, in accordance with her description, would then be a dark grey silk dress. It’s very pretty with simple, elegant lines. Her response to that one was, “Eh.” I was O for 2.
So you see that clothed pose requests are, for me, a bit of a nuisance. I want to satisfy artists’ needs, but my wardrobe is my personal wardrobe. What am I supposed to do? Nude is sooo much easier. I take my clothes off and we’re good to go. It’s great. But my question for artists is this: what is wrong with painting black? John Singer Sargent used tons of black. Madame X is a notable example. And here’s another from Sargent, Mrs. John Chapman, from 1893:
It’s not just this art group which has caused me this wardrobe problem. I once showed up for a job that was supposed to be nude but at the last minute they decided to do clothed. Since I was given no prior notice, all I had was the clothes on my back. Guess what I was wearing? A black sweater. And predictably the group wasn’t thrilled. “Don’t you have anything else?” they asked, as if I travel around with a fuschia tutu on a regular basis.
The Birds, by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes:
I have a theory about this. I’ve observed that black, and darks in general, appear all over artworks from past eras. It seems that bright palettes came into popularity with the Picasso/Matisse Modernist period. Then abstract expressionists took color to an extremely prominent level. Something has changed with the collective eyes of painters in that they can’t find visual stimulation anymore without the presence of blatant in-your-face colors or patterns. Would anyone today create a painting like Whistler’s Mother? I wonder.
It’s a most bizarre phenomenon. One time, on my break, I was chatting with an artist at her easel. As I sipped my coffee I looked down at her well-organized palette and asked, “Where’s your black?”. She made an incredulous expression and replied, “I don’t use black!”, as if I was crazy to even ask such a question.
In this piece, James Tissot took on a black dress AND a black umbrella. A Widow, from 1868:
If someone can explain to me this black-aversion among painters today I’d really appreciate it. I hope it’s just a phase because I can’t afford a whole new wardrobe! Or else, I may have to stipulate that, as a professional model, I am “nude only”.
That Time of Year
Hi everyone! Just a quick post to say hi and let you know that I’ll be quite busy the next few days. Working a modeling double today, modeling double tomorrow, and then family day on Sunday, which will be brunch and a holiday concert! Really looking forward to that. On top of all this I can’t seem to kick this darn cold. I went to a Christmas party last night and felt good, so assumed I was all better. But never assume. Woke up this morning and it was back. Ugh. Pesky thing. It is that time of year.
So no Museworthy posts until next week. But remember, you can always follow me on Twitter! Be well my friends. Gotta run now, but see you all very soon!
Woman Sleeping Under a Tree, Odilon Redon, 1901:
Little Dylan Drummer Boy
I”m a big fan of Christmas music. I’m also a big fan of Bob Dylan. That doesn’t necessarily mean I would enjoy those two things combined. Or would I? Hmm. Since the holiday season is here and it is Music Monday, I say we go for it.
Bob Dylan recorded a Christmas album in 2009 titled Christmas in the Heart. He gave all the royalties to the charities Feeding America and the World Food Programme. While the idea of Bob Dylan singing Christmas songs was initially, and perhaps understandably, met with skepticism, the album received generally favorable reviews.
This video for the track “Little Drummer Boy” is a unique piece of art. The work of New York based filmmaker and animator Jeff Scher, the video is a visual treat. Scher used a process called “rotoscoping” (I had to look that one up) in which animation is traced over live-action images. For this video, Scher used crayons and watercolors to trace over heartwarming scenes from classic films. The result is pretty fantastic.
As for Dylan’s vocal rendition of the song, well, what can you say? I don’t mind it. Again, I am a Dylan fan and I give him all the credit in the world for attempting to sing beloved Christmas songs, and especially for the altruism of the project. Sure, his voice sounds like that of an aged burnout folk singer. But there’s something quite touching about the whole thing, and Jeff Scher’s marvelous video animation has a lot to do with it.
