Leon put together the portfolio for the Denver Art Students League class back in Feb., and he did a very nice job. He included a copy of the class schedule, everyone’s name and address, a nice cover for the set of prints . . .

My friend Chess and I were talking of the disaster in Japan. It is just so shocking to hear and see of such destruction and suffering. It is mind numbing to think of the implications of what happened, to watch video footage of the water washing away buildings, ships, cars, bodies. It is a nightmare to imagine the impending troubles with the nuclear plants that loom.

I shared with Chess an image that has kept coming into my mind: Hokusai’s Great Wave of Kanagawa. I told her the print was one of the most recognized Japanese prints ever made, and that it was likely an image of a tsunami wave. I told her it kind of worked for me in making sense of the event. I said something about its description of patterns in the natural world, of its depiction of the awesome force of water that dwarves our human lives, of its offering of a beauty in the dynamic shapes of the water. Even in the tsunami’s destruction we might keep our awareness that the dynamic forces of the earth are our life and survival, they are how we got here in the first place. The image of Mt.Fuji, a symbol of a volcanic dynamo of the earth turned stable, I believe holds its beauty and meaning in great part because it is both stable and everlasting and is also evidence of a hugely devastating and awesome event, for its creation must have been a particularly destructive volcanic event eons ago.

Well I hope my friend will forgive me, for in part I lied. The fact that “The Great Wave” is perhaps the most famous ukiyo-e print of all might be true, but the second statement, that it is an image of a tsunami wave, is not . . . necessarily. It is most likely an okinami wave, a great open ocean wave. But it has been associated with the idea of a tsunami wave, and I am not the first to make the connection.

When I mentionned the print image to another friend while talking of the disaster she jumped to the idea of it as a prophecy of the March 11 disaster. Hmmm, there have been other tsunamis, and Kanagawa is considerably south of Sendai, for it is south of Tokyo. But in the way the print juxtaposes the great force of the waters of the ocean and our small human scale and effort, and in the way the instantaneous moment of a breaking wave juxtaposes with the timeless idea of Mt. Fuji, I think this image could be thought of as prophecy if it helps in coping with the emotional impact of the most recent disaster in Japan. It is helping me.

And it is so beautiful . . .

My prayer is that this image, along with other images and acts of beauty, begin quickly the process of healing from Japan’s most recent disaster.

P.S. I am not the only woodblock printmaker to reflect on this disaster. Please consider reading Dave Bull’s recent post of how things look from his point of view, as he works along from his studio outside Tokyo.

My friend Liz Shepherd recommended I do it . . . “you’ve never submitted work to the Boston Printmakers Biennial? Oh you should do it this year, Jim Dine is the juror. It’ll be a big deal if you get in.”

I went with my friend Chess to the opening. We were happy to run into Dale Evans and his wife Marjorie. We met up with the woodblock printmaker Don Gourvette who I hadn’t seen in years, and I met Bill Cass, who teaches printmaking at the NH Institute of Art. It was interesting to hear one or two stories, to hear of a young printmaker who submitted online and flew from Calgary, Alberta to see his carved woodblock (his was one of the pieces that was definitely not a print) hanging in the show.

After we left Chess asked me if I was pleased. I told her I liked how my prints were hung, and I liked the multiple red dots and “patron’s choice” stickers I saw below my prints, but actually I was a bit disappointed. She asked me why, but beyond the fact that the show seemed to include some things that I wouldn’t even have classified as prints, I had a hard time explaining . . .

until the next morning when I turned on my e-mail. Coincidently, my friend and neighbor Chris Jackson had posted a you-tube link he encouraged people to watch. He subject-lined his e-mail “Art is Beauty”, and the video, by an Englishman named Roger Scruton, is titled “Why Beauty Matters”.

The video put flesh to my feeling about the print show, that there was in much of the work in the show more emphasis on idea than on worked out beauty, or art. I wished there had been more entries that had me thinking “oh look at that!”. Much of the imagery seemed to be self-conscious, and more about statement rather than about the developed, intriguing, or beautiful. I had noticed this in contemporary art before. When I am working with shapes and colors I am always trying to make things work, trying to get relationships of shape and color to “sing”, and to be as beautiful as I can make them. But some artists today don’t seem to be trying to do anything like this. This is what Roger Scruton is concerned about.

It might explain also why I got an e-mail that same next morning from Sturdy Waterman, who runs the Page-Waterman Gallery in nearby Wellesley, MA. A few hours later Chess and I stopped by the gallery, and I really liked what I saw there. There was work by some Japanese artists, and Sturdy had hanging two beautifully framed small caran-d’ache pieces by my friend (and former student) Sandy Wadlington that I recognized right away. Sturdy bought 8 of my prints outright for his gallery, and I was pleased to be initiating a gallery relationship without having to do any framing!

Hmmm, if you get interested in the Page-Waterman Gallery, I might mention something about the link posted above. Their web-site has the essential info, such as gallery hours, location, etc., but it seems that to get a taste of the work they are involved with you can find out more by visiting their facebook page. Lots to look at there.

On the Tuesday morning after finishing the class I picked up a rental car and drove out in the tail end of a snowstorm to meet my son Asher at the Denver airport. Right away we headed west and by dinner time were settled in at the home of folks in Breckenridge. The next day opened up cold but sunny. Here is the look of things from the breakfast table:

We had a great first day of skiing. Asher headed off with Alex, who at 17 skiis and trains year round (he is skiing out at Mt. Hood during the summer months). I skied with my friend Chess and her friend Jan (our host in Breckenridge), but we all met for lunch and for a group photo.

Thursday Asher and I headed up with our skis to Arapahoe Basin, whose base lodge is the highest of any in Colorado. (Did we decide to do this because we were suffering from symptoms of altitude sickness?) Here’s a photo of Asher on the way up.

The skiing that day was great, and I think A-Basin may be my favorite lift area place to ski I have encountered yet.

Friday took us to Copper Mtn, where I put on skins and went up into the powder while Asher did some indoor trick training. Here’s a video of him doing the half pipe at Breckenridge and the indoor trick training at what is the first place set-up for this sort of thing: Woodward at Copper.

Closest to where I was staying is a Martin Luther King Memorial. Leona, director of the Art Students’ League of Denver, told me this newly made installation to Martin Luther King replaced an earlier one that was quite awful. I thought this was quite fine, and spent time contemplating as I walked round and round the sculpture.

I have always enjoyed outdoor art, which I define as visual expression in either 2 or 3 dimensions that has as its main function the communication of ideas or forms while being buffeted by the effects of sun, wind, rain, snow, or, . . . whatever the outside world is cooking up. Is a billboard by an interstate outdoor art? Well I feel that it is. It is of course commercial art, but it is outdoor art all the same.

Not far from the downtown area of Denver, CO is a large park. At 330 acres (it was obviously felt there was plenty of space to work with when things were laid out back in the 1870’s) it involves curving drives, a lake, beautiful trees, and quite a bit of outdoor art. A wikipedia look-up found that its layout was significantly inspired by Central Park in NYC. The pictures I am posting show a WWI memorial, an involved memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr, a statue of Scottish poet Robert Burns, and two other ’surprises’.

This past weekend I led a workshop in hanga printmaking in an old (and very beautiful) school building, the lodation of the Art Students League of Denver. The class went great, particularly thanks to the great group of folks who had signed up and the help of Mark Lunning, of Open Press Ltd. of Denver.

I plan to update this posting with more details of the class, but for now am eager to share the following snapshots from the last day, when everyone finished what is I think a particularly beautiful group of prints.

Am this weekend out in Denver, Colorado, teaching a class at the Arts Students League of Denver. Part of the deal, aside from their flying me out here, buying me dinners, and generally being nice (the concept I imagine is simple: treat the teacher well and he’ll be in a good mood and this will make for happier students, and that in turn . . . ), is they are arranging a place for me to stay.

On my first morning I headed out from the suite to explore City Park, and right off I could tell I was finding Denver a beautiful city. I hope to get a few minutes to post pics of some of the sculptures I found out in the park. In the meantime am sharing a link to a little video about the place where they put me up, “The Pinnacle”. It is kind of humorous in the way it portrays an idyllic city life.

My weekend residence in Denver, CO.

Though I don’t plan to use the pool or invite the students up for a barbecue on the patio, the stuff about the entertainment room and the grand entrance . . .
for a guy living on a dirt road who heats with wood, being greeted by a concierge every time you come back into the building is kind of a hoot. Actually I can see always having someone at the door to greet you when you get home could be pretty nice, and Isaac gave me a little tour, and is good at giving directions to the Starbucks a few blocks away as well!

Deb Rosenbaum took the class out at Anderson Ranch in Colorado in June of 2009. She is a high school art teacher, and both for the development of her own work and in the interest of creating a program to introduce moku-hanga printing to her students, she applied for and received a grant to come do an advanced study with me at the shop this past July. I had done this sort of thing once before with my friend Jennifer Worsley and felt it might work.

As it was the project went great. Twice a day we would check in together on her progress and make sure things were on track with what she hoped to accomplish. It was just as though her working was just another task being undertaken in the shop.

It was so nice to have her here, to share meals, to talk art, color woodblock, life, to watch another project going on in the shop with someone else’s ideas, etc. . . . I hope someone else may wish to do this kind of study. If you are a student who has taken one of my classes, or feel in some way you might have an “advanced student” ability, and would like to try a similar study (Deb did a five day thing), feel free to get in touch with me!

This photo shows a bit more of what Deb got into, and what it might have been like for her working in my shop.

There were some perks to the project. I go to a yoga class at the Congregational Church in town Tues and Thurs mornings, and Deb enjoyed joining that (I even gave her a tour of the church). On Saturday her boyfriend came up to stay and the two of them went hiking. We had a dinner together out in the backyard.

On Sunday she and her friend went kayaking on the river, after getting another taste of my teaching by coming to a worship service at Lyme’s Baptist Church that I was leading. The sermon message I gave that Sunday was titled “Who Is My Neighbor”. A piece of the idea was that we are all neighbors to each other, so perhaps it makes sense that Deb and I could be fine neighbors for a time here at 23 Washburn Hill Road.

This year I am set up at the Sunapee Fair in a Sales Demo tent. I am very much in debt to my friend Parker Potter for suggesting I do this, and helping me out with it as full time sales assistant! I have set up this kind of display before, but it has never seemed to come together as well as this year. We are very pleased with the display. Our sales so far this year (of course it has been only 3 days and we have 6 to go) have been resoundingly record-breaking. This seems to indicate the reaction has been very positive.

If you are curious to visit us find us in Tent F, and find the Sunapee Fair in Newbury, NH, every day 10 -5 through Sunday the 15th of August.