Praeterita

I just got back to Chicago from teaching a two-day workshop at the Interlochen College of Creative Arts. That's the adult programs part of the renowned Interlochen Arts Academy, the high school for gifted kids. I always start this class by handing out small pieces of matboard and asking people to create five small collages, with only five minutes for each one. Some great results: For the rest of the class, we work on building up larger pieces: And finally, before everyone goes their separate ways, we have a small show-and-tell: If you live withint driving distance of Traverse City, look out for this class on their website in 2019.

I recently watched a documentary about the Danish painter Per Kirkeby, Man Falling . It's available on Amazon's Prime Video streaming service (for members). It documents his attempts to continue painting after he suffered a fall down a flight of stairs and landed on his head, that left him partially paralysed and with occluded vision. The film is a moving testament to the difficulties endured both by the patient in these cases, and the people around him. It's also one of the best films I've seen about the process of painting itself. Because even though Kirkeby talks about the fact that he can't really see the left side of anything he's working on, nevertheless with the guidance of assistants he adds marks on those areas of the canvas or paper, too. And the mark-making is just as intricate and beautiful, seemingly, as the work he produced when he was able-bodied. This suggest to me that for artists who have been working for a long time, particularly