Praeterita

Deborah Doering talking about a show of her own work at Finestra Art Space What's it like to be a working artist, and also to run your own gallery? I posed this and other questions to Chicago artist Deborah Adams Doering. In addition to having an impressive exhibition record, Deborah has run a highly-regarded gallery out of the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, for a few years. This is the first in a series of interviews with artists and gallery owners who reflect on what makes them tick. Philip : Tell us a little about yourself. You're an artist who runs a gallery, yes? Deborah : Yes, first and foremost I consider myself a visual artist. I create three-dimensional installations, based on my two-dimensional drawings, paintings and prints. In the past few years, I have used a "core language of form," which I also call "Code" as a point of departure for both 2D works and the installations. My installations evolved from having rente...

I just finished making a new artist's book. It's a project book to accompany the two-person exhibition  I did with Patty last year, based on her missionary-grandfather's letters and photos from the early 1900s. It's 4 inches high x 11 inches wide, covered in brown book cloth, Japanese stab binding with beaded side tail: The pages inside contain images of the source material, plus the prints that I made out of that material: I've been making more of these artist's books in the last few months, and I might post images of a few more.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

This week's meditation is on a medieval painting by the anonymous Master of Vyssi Brod, which is in the modern-day Czech Republic:   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

As I said in my first post on the subject, Patty and I started this class after seeing how certain artists and writers used another medium – a writer who drew, or an artist who wrote. There are some writers whose drawings and paintings are well known – the nineteenth century English writer of nonsense verse, Edward Lear; Winston Churchill; D. H. Lawrence. After doing further research, we turned up some names that really surprised us. A lot of authors from the nineteenth century left behind paintings and drawings in their notebooks and archives. Some of them, like a competent watercolour by Charlotte Bronte, probably came about because middle class women of the time were expected to be able to paint a little, play music a little, sew a little, instead of getting a formal education. Now that time has raised Bronte far beyond the intellectual level of her male peers, we can look at the painting not as a genteel diversion for a Sunday afternoon, but as a form of expression that was relat...

What do you mean, you don’t know what a love spoon is? A love spoon is a gift given between lovers that originates in the middle ages in Wales. Patty and I found about this during our research for a travel article in Wales (see previous post). Designs representing love, such as intertwined braids, are carved into the handle. The couple is supposed to hang it from a nail to bring them future happiness. They come in many different designs: And many different sizes. While we were in Cardiff at Christmas 2007, a chap was just finishing the largest carved love spoon in the world. He was doing it with a chainsaw on the grass in front of Cardiff Castle: I think he was responsible for carving the previous ‘largest love spoon in the world.’ I recalled this because of the Richard Burton anecdote that came back to me last weekend. But also because it shows how the loony obsessiveness of art-making is not confined to addicts of gigantism such as Richard Serra or Anselm Kiefer...

                                                    People at eisteddfod, isn't it? Thinking again about Wales made me try to recall all the things in life that connect me to the land of sheep and nice singing: My father’s mother was born of Welsh parents, which makes me, er, one eighth Welsh? Because my father’s family all lived in Liverpool, we often took day trips across the border into north Wales whenever we visited our Scouse ‘rellies’. When I was about fourteen, we spent a summer holiday in Llangollen. I remember visiting an eisteddfod, and thinking how weird and beautiful it was. I once learned to say (with a bad accent), the longest place name in the UK (it’s in Anglesey):  Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwy rndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch . At a wedding party in the 1980s, I nearly got into a fight with a red-headed Welshman after...

Thinking about my post the other day about Albee et al , I dug out this information which is closer to the usual subjects of this blog: Q: What do these ten artists have in common? Rembrandt van Rijn. Frans Hals. Edgar Degas. Claude Monet. Auguste Renoir. Vincent Van Gogh. Paul Cezanne. Henri Matisse. Pablo Picasso. Amadeo Modigliani. A: Paintings by these artists are owned or have been owned by Elizabeth Taylor.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader