Singin’ in the Rain

I’m afraid I depressed the hell out of everybody with my last post. Sorry about that! I hope you all let me make it up to you with today’s “Music Monday” and a buoyant scene of pure happiness, brought to us by classic Hollywood

We are having rainy, rainy weather here in NYC. The forecast tells us that it will go on all day and into the night, with thunder and high winds. Fortunately for me, I’ll be holed up for hours in the National Academy, working back to back classes for Gabriela Dellosso. But if I were Gene Kelly and was madly in love with Debbie Reynolds, I’d be having a grand old time in the rain. From the 1952 MGM film “Singin’ in the Rain”, this priceless scene never fails to deliver no matter how many times it’s viewed. I think I love it even more now. Hollywood doesn’t produce stars like Gene Kelly anymore nor does it make musicals like “Singin’ in the Rain” anymore. But it’s wonderful to recall what used to be created with great talent, great music, and the magic of a Hollywood soundstage. Apparently, Gene Kelly was sick with a 101 fever the day this scene was shot, but you sure can’t tell from watching it. Gene Kelly was totally the man. I wanted to take tap lessons because of him.

Enjoy this video everyone. And to my fellow New Yorkers, stay dry today!

Playing Darts

Some people have the capacity to achieve a Zen-like state of calm and equanimity anytime anywhere, regardless of their circumstances. Our President appears to have that ability, perhaps to a fault. I, however, am not one of those people. I come close sometimes. When I do it usually involves Bach and my iPod. But my attempts at stress management or an effective meditation practice are abysmal. The ability to clear my head has never been my strong suit. It’s something that has eluded me my entire life. What I am able to do is remove myself from – or avoid entirely – situations that I know will aggravate my stress. Hell yeah, I can run and hide with the best of them! But that running and hiding strategy offers no long-term benefits, unfortunately. It’s just a stopgap measure.

My grandmother used to say, “There’s always something”. Not the most eloquent of phrases, but it makes the point. In my head, there is always something – an anxiety, a sadness, an ambivalence, a problem with no foreseeable solution. Between my personal life and sensitive tendencies, and the tumultuous, strife-laden world we live in, there is always something – an issue, a circumstance, an injustice, an unexpected development, or an event that will unnerve and confuse. They move through my head like darts. For me, mental calm is tenuous at best. I get there, but it soon gets rattled by something. Anything. An email, a rude remark, a news story, or a persistent, unfulfilled need inside me. A solid, gratifying day of art modeling and artistic collaboration concludes with me reading an article that sends me reeling. I am jolted out of my meager contentment into a state of profound horror and distress. It then leads to a frantic, bleary-eyed, late night Google search, where I punch in the words “Afghan girl” and “adoption” and “bring afghan girl to US”. And as I scroll through the search results, I cry, feeling panicked and helpless, because I know deep down that my incoherent 2AM Googling is a futile exercise.

Then I try to sleep. But I toss and turn all night without a wink because of that harrowing, heartbreaking article, and I have to be at work again in a few hours. And I will be there, as I always am, sitting perfectly still on the modeling stand, displaying a deceptive illusion of equanimity. But my mind races. The darts come to work with me, the little bastards, and they harass me and jab me while I pose. The dart of those abused Afghan girls. The dart of a hugely annoying family dispute that I’m losing patience with. The dart of a guy I was involved with who contacted me recently out of the blue. More emotions stirred up. More questions. More uncertainties. But I manage to hold still because that is what’s expected of me and what I’m paid to do. Luckily, nobody knows about or detects my internal tug-of-wars. Nor should they. All they need be concerned about are their drawings, their anatomical proportions, their shadings and color values.

But now I’ve gone and published this blog post. Duh! Great. The jig is up. Now everyone will know; the model is human . . .

Here I am curled up fetal-like, mental darts and all. Photo by Fred:

Making Guitars With Pablo

My mind has been a little distracted lately. I’m steeped in a state of jumbled contemplation over some personal and professional issues. Nothing to worry about, as I’ve done plenty of issue-wrangling in my life. I’m a pro! But it’s affecting my mental focus these days, and my blogging too. I can’t seem to get into my “groove”. So it was quite fortunate that a topic for “Music Monday” fell into my lap today, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art. Thank you MoMA!

Their new exhibit is called “Picasso Guitars, 1912-1914″, and the exhibition website is fascinating reading and very easy to navigate. You can view rare images of Picasso’s studio, up close details of his experimental guitar project work, and read informative text. It is an amazing glimpse into the creative process which began one day in 1912 when Picasso, with his artistic imagination in high gear, like a young child in kindergarten art class, cobbled together a guitar using only common materials of cardboard, string, paper, wire, and a little glue. In that rudimentary sculpture piece, Picasso saw something. He then created another guitar, this time with sheet metal. Then came drawings, collages, photographs, and eventually, paintings. Picasso was playing with the apparatus for Cubism but searching for a new direction. And it all started with a crudely assembled cardboard guitar he made in his Paris studio one day in 1912.

Here is one of Picasso’s guitar constructions, sheet metal and wire:

“Picasso Guitars” is on view through June 6th. Enjoy the MoMA exhibition site I linked to above, it’s really fascinating. Lots to see and explore. Also check out this article and gallery slideshow on The Daily Beast. I’m going to get my head straightened out. See you soon, friends

The Curatorial Department of Facebook

Gloating is an ugly quality. I’ve promised myself that I would try – TRY – to refrain from gloating or saying “I told you so” in this post. I do admit, however, to positively relishing any chance to whip up anti-Facebook sentiment on this blog. I have done it before, and dammit I’ll do it again! Here’s the situation.

The New York Academy of Art, a school where I model on a regular basis, recently found itself in “violation” of Facebook’s “Terms of Use” rules by uploading an image that contained nudity. You can read the entire story at the New York Times article, “Art School Runs Afoul of Facebook’s Nudity Police”. The offending image was an amazing ink drawing by Steven Assael. Steven is one of the most esteemed figurative artists living today and I am a huge fan of  his work.

And the drama continues. From the Times article:

Days later, when a school administrator was uploading images from a faculty show to Facebook, the school’s account was suddenly blocked from uploading anything for seven days. “They must have decided that we are a repeat offender,” said David Kratz, president of the academy. “We are a graduate school of figurative art. We teach people classical skills and technique.” Mr. Kratz said he and his staff were at a loss for what to do, since “there is no obvious way to contact anyone” at Facebook.

Personally, I’ve had it with these fine art vs obscene nudity “controversies” that pop up every few months. I’m just really tired of it. It’s lame, it’s old, it’s stupid, stale, and retrograde. It’s the same shit over and over again. People can’t discern between fine art and offensive porn? Really? A nude figurative drawing or oil painting created through inspiration, technique, and artistry cannot be distinguished from purely titillating, degrading smut? Really?? It’s become this embarrassing, repetitive nonsense. And now Facebook is involved. Ugh. Colorado artist Daniel Sprick had a similar problem with Facebook’s Terms of Use.

But remember that I am not on Facebook, so I don’t know anything about how it works in terms of image uploads, filters, etc. Maybe some of my readers can inform me? Most of my artist friends have Facebook pages which I obviously cannot view – because I’m not on Facebook. How do you guys get your nude images up? I just wrote in an email to my friend John Wellington that one of the reasons I didn’t start a Facebook page was that I feared problems would arise with posting images of my art modeling work. And that’s why I started this blog instead, over three years ago, so I could post my images without worrying about terms violations.

Speaking of John Wellington, he too has been caught up in this Facebook mess. In fact, he is quoted in the NY Times Article:

“It seems like they have really gone after artists,” said John Wellington, an artist in New York who is a graduate of the academy. “The images they are taking down are clearly paintings.” After one of his paintings was taken down recently, Mr. Wellington said he deleted from Facebook all the images that he had uploaded that showed a nipple, for fear that his account would be disabled.

Here’s John’s awesome painting that was deleted by Facebook. Click to enlarge so you can read his “safety warning”. Thank for the jpeg John! And here is the NYAA blog post which discusses this issue.

A for Anatomy

Whew, I’m tired. Busy week. I just got home from work a little while ago. I’ve kicked off my shoes, taken my vitamins, put my feet up, and am trying to stay awake long enough to write this post. When I’m more alert, I will tell you all about my plans to do a series of blog posts on anatomy. I’ve mentioned it before, and I don’t want you to think I forgot about it! I haven’t. In fact, I’ve been extra inspired lately because I’ve been modeling for a lot of anatomy classes and lectures these past few weeks. It’s been great. Rob Zeller‘s superb anatomy lessons at The Teaching Studios have been especially informative and inspiring. He’s amazing! I’ve been so fortunate in my art modeling career to have worked with some of the best anatomy instructors around. I pose, I demonstrate, I listen, I learn. It’s a first rate education, and the best part is that I get it for free!

My blog posts will come from a model’s perspective of course. I hope I can bring a fresh and slightly different viewpoint to the subject of anatomy. And naturally, I’ll have photos

Robert Beverly Hale is considered one of the great masters of artistic anatomy instruction. Over at the Art Students League here in New York, the guy remains a legend. He taught and lectured there for many years. I found this old video of a Hale lecture on YouTube. The quality isn’t good but it’s still worth watching as it’s quite rare and historic. It was filmed a long time ago, although it doesn’t indicate the year. Check it out. I’m off to bed, friends. I need some serious sleep!

Hobnobbing

Hellooo, helloooooo!!! Greetings my sweet, dear, darling Museworthiers! I’m having one of those out and about weekends, which is my excuse for not blogging since Wednesday. I’ve been attending art openings, receptions, and parties, and it won’t be over until tonight! Whew. This isn’t a typical weekend for me, but for some reason these events often seem to take place during the same three day period.

I’ll blog again as soon as I can. Until then, here’s another great watercolor by my friend Jordan Mejias, created last week at Spring Studio. I didn’t have my camera with me so Jordan took this picture on his Droid. This was a ten minute standing pose with a dramatic arm gesture and difficult one leg/toe balance, because, you know, I’m such a showoff

 

Google Art Project

Most of you have probably heard about Google’s new venture, the Google Art Project, If you haven’t heard about it and you’re an art lover, it’s definitely worth checking out, as it’s generating quite a lot of buzz. In a collaboration with some of the world’s most prestigious art museums, the Google Art Project takes you on a dazzling virtual tour, replete with extremely high resolution images of famous paintings which are remarkable. You can also navigate through the museums themselves, watch videos on the YouTube channel and experience art in the most interactive way available. Only visiting the museums in person, which is not practical for everybody, could bring you closer to the artwork.

Among the eminent museums on board with the Google Art Project are the Hermitage, the Uffizi Gallery, the Tate Britain, the Van Gogh Museum, and New York’s own Metropolitan Museum and MoMA. Notably absent from the list so far are the Louvre in Paris and the Prado in Madrid. But I’m guessing that they will partner with Google Art Project in due time, since the project is still in its infancy.

As to be expected, “art critic” types are already raising concerns and the usual elitist objections. This article in The Telegraph discusses some of those concerns. But H Niyazi, a commenter here on Museworthy, praises the Google Art Project on his superb art history blog Three Pipe Problem. Read his discussion in this post and again in this one.

In my opinion the Google Art Project, while still in its rudimentary stages, has the potential to become a useful and inspiring online art history resource. Right now it lacks some key features like informative text and a search feature. But I’m sure those improvements will come. So far it looks like they’re off to an excellent start.

I’d love to hear what Museworthy readers think of the Google Art Project. If anyone has thoughts or opinions, please share them in comments!

Brava Olivia!

Hello dear Museworthy friends. I do believe that this is going to be the best “Music Monday” post ever!!

Last Friday, the children of PS 166 on New York’s upper west side put on a marvelous vocal concert at the school. Under the instruction of their dedicated voice teacher Katie Stults, PS 166ers showed off their hard work and practice to the delight of parents and family. The After School Enrichment Clubs winter vocal program included the fantastic choir which opened the show, and then featured the individual private voice students who each performed a song of their choosing. My eight year-old niece Olivia was one of those brave solo performers, and she had her family, including grandma and Aunt Claudia, in the audience cheering her on.

My brother Chris (that’s Olivia’s dad) filmed this video of her performance. Her song is ”Castle on a Cloud” from Les Misérables, and can I just say how impressed I am with her poise, her stage presence, and her excellent pitch! Good girl Olivia

Olivia Hajian – Castle On A Cloud

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The students of the choir:

The First Mrs. van Rijn

Sometimes when I write posts about the female subjects of famous art, I find myself disappointed in the lack of information about these women.To be fair, many of them are given substantial biographical treatment. But others not so much. Rembrandt’s first wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh, is one of those shortchanged women.

What we do know is that Saskia was born in 1612 in Leeuwarden, in the Dutch province of Friesland, the youngest of eight children. Their father was a wealthy lawyer, but both he and his wife died by 1624. Orphaned at the age of twelve, young Saskia was raised by her older sister Hiskje. Her cousin, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, was an Amsterdam art dealer with a successful gallery, and it was through him that Saskia met Rembrandt. They married in 1634 when Saskia was 22 years old.

One of Rembrandt’s earliest works of Saskia is this silverpoint drawing from 1633 titled Saskia In A Straw Hat. His astonishing ability to to capture gesture and character, with such proficiency and ease, is evident in this wonderful piece. In it, you can see the gift of observation that made Rembrandt such a brilliant portraitist:

Rembrandt’s portrait of Saskia painted at the time of their marriage:

Life was good for Rembrandt during these years. He enjoyed a successful, lucrative career as a much in demand portrait painter. He had pupils, clients, Hendrick as his art dealer and Saskia as his lovely young wife and model.

Saskia gave birth to three children, all of whom died in early infancy. Their fourth attempt at having a child gave them a boy, named Titus, born in 1641. He would be the only surviving child of Rembrandt and Saskia. Tragically, Saskia died just a year after Titus was born, probably of tuberculosis.

Saskia With a Child, pen sketch, 1636:

Portrait of Saskia from 1643, oil on panel:

Rembrandt did not handle his post-Saskia life very well; mismanaged finances, threatened inheritances, a scorned wet- nurse who sued him for “breach of promise”, and an affair with his housekeeper who would become his second wife. But that’s all drama for another blog post! This one’s for Saskia. I still feel that I don’t really know her, except through Rembrandt’s portrayals. But I suppose if you wanted your life visually immortalized, in the absence of other information, Rembrandt is the guy you’d choose to do it, even if he pulls some crazy scale weirdness like this drawing, Self-Portrait with Saskia. I know Rembrandt is a master and everything, but what the hell is going on here?? Either Saskia was ten feet behind him or Rembrandt had a really giant head