Ya Gotta Have Art

Girl In The Mirror by Pablo Picasso

2008-09-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

Facts & Arguments: THE ESSAY

The girl before the mirror is me

Thirty-six years after Picasso painted the Girl, I painted my own self-portrait

MARIE WILSON

submissions: facts@globeandmail.com

September 5, 2008

After our parents' divorce, our mother moved her bedroom to the den and my brother took over the old conjugal quarters.

Like a 1960s version of Tom Sawyer, he sloshed a purple wash over a beige wall, then got his teenybopper little sister to finish the job. I was only too happy to turn the whole room into nighttime for his new black light.

I was a skinny girl of 14, limbs flying loose from oversized wooly sweaters and miniskirts, flailing in this direction and that; legs dancing, leaping, flying, just as free as all those answers blowin' in the wind Bob Dylan sang about. But when the school buzzer sounded its mechanical call I stifled the wild child and filed into the drab hallways and classrooms of Como Lake junior high, an institution where I was about as far from free as my hem was from the grey linoleum floors.

Forced to sit still in a little prison they called a desk, I clenched my fists and dug my nails into the palms of my hands while my hormones raced to the beat of some wild symphony only I could hear. While the teacher's voice droned on in the stale air, I sought salvation in daydreams. If I was called back to answer questions, I had to confess I hadn't been listening and I didn't know the answers; they were blowing in the wind.

What is the square root of free?

My creative and theatrical impulses made themselves evident even in school. When I had to sneeze I made the loudest "aaa-choo" in the land, making kids laugh and teachers scowl - except for my English teacher, who encouraged that sort of bold expression. "Bravo!" he would say after a volcanic sneeze punctured the sedate pen-scratching soundtrack of his classroom. He was also an art teacher, although not mine, and when he found out how much I liked to paint, he lent me a handsome volume with page after page of colourful plates of great works of art.

I decided to copy one of the paintings onto a canvas board in my brother's studio. Every day after school, I rushed home to my very own Girl Before a Mirror in progress. With a kind of ecstatic concentration I endeavoured to mix the same blues Picasso had once mixed. I squeezed and stirred the oozy colours: rust red, spring green, tar black. The smell of the oil paints as I slathered them on was as fragrant to me as the hyacinths that grew in our rockery.

On the closet door that used to hold our father's tie rack, my brother painted three fluorescent hearts. In one he inscribed "Sonny and Cher," in another I put "Romeo and Juliet," and in the last he wrote "Mom and Dad." Since our mother and father's marriage had ended in nasty betrayals and terrible battles, this neon-pink inscription made us smile ironically beneath the black light, glowing teeth concealing pain, confusion, fear.

One day while I stood before my easel in breathless abandon, a blob of turquoise paint landed on the book my teacher had given me, right next to the Girl, on a border as smooth and white as virgin snow. I was mortified and hurried to wipe it off, but the pigment had seeped in and left a vivid blue stain. I had deflowered the Girl, and the repercussions I imagined for this deed gave me nightmares.

When my masterpiece was done, I took it to school to show my teacher. Appraising the two-foot by three-foot canvas he smiled thoughtfully, and in a voice full of warm approval said, "Call it 'After Picasso.' " He told me to enter it in the school art show. I scrawled its title on the back and entered it that day.

Then, mustering all my courage, I gave my teacher his book back. Quivering in my white go-go boots, I opened it to the blue blemish and apologized. He eyed the blotch with the same critical eye he had given my painting. Then he looked at me and said, "I am honoured."

My painting won a prize. I was awarded a sketchbook.

Thirty-six years after Picasso painted the Girl, I laid eyes on her for the first time in my teacher's book. Thirty-nine years after that, I finally saw the original at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That was last year, and as I gazed at the painting, so large, vibrant and colourful, I became intensely aware of something about the Girl's face. One side of her face is a soft lavender pink, the innocent child; the other side is bright yellow accented with rouge, lipstick and eye shadow, the emerging sexual woman. I realized then that I had painted a self-portrait.

I had come a long way since tying my blonde Twiggy hair up and wearing bell bottoms. As the seventies kicked in, so did my sun-yellow woman, but I was still the lavender girl, too. Picasso painted the Girl's future as contorted and anxious in her reflection in the mirror. I too was destined to know the dark night of my soul.

Violet, ochre, rust, black, verdigris, they're all me. But mostly, I am that renegade splotch of turquoise paint that landed in my teacher's book so long ago, that dash of joyful colour that didn't go where it was supposed to, that runaway blob that made its worthy mark. And to be all those colours, I am honoured.

Marie Wilson lives in Toronto. PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE WRITER

Motivators for Me!

2008-09-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit:Petrina Bainard

As I resume teaching once a week to secondary students this September,
I am thankful to my grandchildren and family who encourage me always.
They might call it "Boppa Art"

Wine Festival - "Q" Commission

2008-08-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

After my second exhibition at the Rollin Art Centre from June 7 to July 8, 2008 I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to take on a Commission by the Arrowsmith Rotary for Port Alberni. They have sponsored The Alberni Valley Wine Festival for about 8 or nine years as I understand. For the last 4 years or so they have asked a local artist to represent their cause by creating a Commissioned Painting which they put up for auction at the Wine Festival which is held at the Echo Recreation Centre in Port Alberni. It is a three hour festival where they have area and international Vintners attend to showcase their wines and the general public is invited to attend. I was pleased to take on the commission. During the Month of August I worked on fulfilling my commission by thinking, planning,designing and ultimately completing a painting entitled "Q".

Theresa Kingston, Festival Co-ordinator, was kind enough to simply say that I had no strict limitations on creating the work. Her words were to the effect that they very much liked the work in my recent Rollin Art Centre Event and that I should do what I do best. So, here it is.

Lou Dorfsman and The CBS Wall

2009-09-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Kara Pecknold is the family expert on typography. She and this video from youtube and "Neu Black" will be shared with those of a certain type.

Neu Black comments:
"In honor of the late Lou Dorfsman, we’ve posted a clip which is a tribute to his work. As CBS’s director of design, Dorfsman designed every aspect of CBS’s image from his own version of the Didot typeface to the CBS wall. For who want to see more of Lou’s work, a book on dating back twenty years, was recently republished."

Why Educate - Sir Ken Robinson

2009-08-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Ted.Com offers so much inspiration. This is worth the time if you care about kids and yourself!

Twyla Tharp - More on The Creative Act

2009-04-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Online Video is Set to Transform the Performing Arts and Twyla Tharp Will be Major Force

I spent this past week with the celebrated choreographer Twyla Tharp in her Manhattan studio.

We taped a performance, reviewed archival materials and spent time about talking about video, the Internet and creativity.

She is one of the most celebrated artists of our time -- a pioneering choreographer and dancer. She has created scores of dances and performed around the globe since the sixties. She has become more popularly known in recent years from her Tony Award-winning "Movin' Out" show.

This year, her ballets will be performed by the Bolshoi, the ABT, the Miami Ballet and Seattle Ballet.

She has written an inspiring book about creativity titled the Creative Habit -- and speaks with businesses people about how to apply discipline to the creative process.

She has so much insight, inspiration and artistry to share with us.

In our first segment, Tharp shares a fascinating story and unseen footage of her use of a reel-to-reel video camera some 35 years ago. The taping was done in the attic of her farmhouse. She taped herself, pregnant at the time. She created elements that would be later used in one of her most celebrated dances, the "Baker's Dozen." Video can evoke unexplored memories. (She frames this in a literary metaphor about cookies from Proust.)

She has long believed that video and dance are essential partners. She sees the utility of video for many things -- as workbook, art medium and a notation system for choreography. She is now exploring the impact of of dance through online video.

She and her son Jesse Huot have digitized a vast archives of dance archives from rehearsals to performances. Our cultural lives will be in richer as more of this material becomes available. I am pleased to share some of these archives publicly, on Beet.TV, for the first time.

The appreciation of the performing arts will explode with Internet video. It's already starting to happen. YouTube, Google, Revver and other video sites are hosting wonderful ballet, opera, jazz, independent cinema and world music and dance of a vast variety.

See this video on Beet.TV:
http://www.beet.tv/2007/01/twyla_thar...

One of My Muses - Author of The Creative Habit

2009-04-11T09:12:00.000-07:00

Beware of Hype and Stay Focused and Learn to Be Creative, Says Dance Great Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp is the most celebrated choreographers of her generation. She happens to be a very compelling writer on the subject of motivation and creativity.

Her book The Creative Habit is handbook in personal discipline and creative growth. Twyla is evangelist for her body of work. In addition to choreographing new ballets, she is motivational speaker at organizations including NASA and GE.

She told me that creativity must be a personal undertaking -- and it can't be constructed for fame and fortune -- it needs to done as serious and honest work -- and if it succeeds, the money and accolades will come.

Watch This!

2009-04-11T07:30:00.001-07:00

Radical Jesters directed by Tim Jackson profiles and interviews 11 hoaxers, culture jammers, performers, Situationists, and Interventionists who find entertaining ways to provoke thinking and discussion on a range of important cultural issues from the use of public space to feminism to advertising and celebrity. Click READ MORE below for annotated information on all the subjects of the film.
TRAILER at YouTube

Thomas Nozkowski - New York Painter

2009-04-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

A New Muse for Lynn Kenneth Pecknold

Cyril Pecknold's Coach - The Fisher Body Corporation Contest

2008-10-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

My mother and father divorced sometime after Dad (Cyril) had returned from serving in WW 2. He, as I understand it came back with a lady friend, named Dorothy, the same name as my mother. I still try to understand my past. More later. Here is a coach that my Dad built when he lived in Esquimalt, B.C. I understand that he and his brothers had quite a bit of success with a Fisher Body "Build a Coach" contest when they were young. I only remember living with my Dad, Dorothy (My stepmother), and my brother Wayne for one year of my life.

Recaptured youth: A reunion of the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild

2008-10-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

Recaptured youth: A reunion of the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild
Steve Purdy
From 1930 to 1968, the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild design competition tested the creative imaginations and practical skills of automotively attuned boys from around the U.S. Last June, for the first time, participants from throughout the program's history gathered for a reunion in the Detroit area. They posed for this group portrait on the design-display patio at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. [More]

Letterpress Documentary

2008-10-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

Wine Festival Commission 2008

2008-09-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

Alberni Valley Wine Festival Commission for Rotary at Echo Centre

"Q" will be part of the silent auction. Rotary uses funds raised by the wine festival to support items such as community projects and bursaries. Rotary very kindly allowed me to display some of my work during the event and have access to about 15 feet of wall space in the Cedar Rooms. Thanks to Theresa Kingston and Cheryl Hamilton, two members of the committee for their valuable assistance. Also a big thank you to Vaughn Chase who permitted me to do some research at the Chase & Warren Vineyard.

Two Slabs Working Together

2008-09-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

I shot this on Bridgeport in Richmond. A Marble company appears to have a great sense of design and advertising. Trip was to IKEA for a "Billy" for Kara - What did I just say?

Inquring Mind Magazine Feature - Nicholas DiGenova

2008-09-09T08:07:00.000-07:00