Only way off Vancouver Island is by boat, airplane, helicopter, transcendental meditation aka astral travel, alien abduction (spaceship or transporter optional). I guess you could swim, but that takes way to much effort and Vaseline (for insulation people, keep it clean). http://www.kenmoreair.com/

Kenmore Air Float Plane terminal

Check In: Yes, you were scheduled to fly yesterday, and were posted as a no show.
Me: Stink eye directed at my travel companion.
Check In: But, we’ve got room today, and you’re on your way to Seattle.
http://www.kenmoreair.com/

Our mission: Rembrandt, Van Dyke and Gainsbourough, The Treasures of Kenwood House, London at the Seattle Art Museum until May 19, 2013

Within the neoclassical Kenwood House at Hampstead Heath on the outskirts of London, resides a magnificent painting collection known as the Iveagh Bequest. Kenwood is home to an exceptional collection of Old Master paintings, including major works by Gainsborough, Hals, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Romney, Turner, Van Dyck, and many others. The Iveagh Bequest was donated to Great Britain by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847–1927) and heir to the world’s most successful brewery.Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: Treasures of Kenwood House, London, a selection of approximately 50 masterpieces from the collection, will tour American museums for the first time. Among other treasures, the exhibition provides a rare opportunity to see Rembrandt’s late Portrait of the Artist (ca. 1665), which has never left Europe before.

The Earl of Iveagh’s personal collection was shaped by the tastes of the Belle Époque—Europe’s equivalent to America’s Gilded Age. His purchases reveal a preference for the portraiture, landscape, and seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings that could typically be found in English aristocratic collections. Since the earl was a newcomer to London emigrating from his native Ireland, he may have selected works that would help him fit in with his peers and elevate his social standing.

The exhibition from Kenwood House will be complemented by a companion exhibition, European Masters: Treasures of Seattle. Featuring about 30 works from local collections, the show traces the burgeoning enthusiasm for Old Master paintings in Seattle over the last 20 years.

–Chiyo Ishikawa, Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture

Mrs. Tollemache as Miranda by Joshua Reynolds

KENWOOD, THE IVEAGH BEQUEST “Mary Countess Howe” c.1760 by Thomas GAINSBOROUGH (1727-88)

KENWOOD, THE IVEAGH BEQUEST Self Portrait, c.1665 by REMBRANDT, VAN RIJN

KENWOOD THE IVEAGH BEQUEST “Mrs Musters” (Sophia Catherine Heywood) 1779-80 by ROMNEY George (1734-1802)

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel: Fifty Works for Fifty States

Leonardo, 1977, Collage of oil on wood, Llyn Foulkes (Vogel Collection)

Frank Stella

So you think I’d be basking in the florescent glow and power of the giant Frank Stella painting, but really I’m thinking, “You betta not be “stella-ing” my box of chocolates on the ground behind me.”

Wolfeboro III, 1966, Flourescent alkyd paint on canvas + Sabra I, Acrylic on shaped canvas, Frank Stella.

Will Cotton

Candy House, 1998, Oil on Canvas, Will Cotton

Behind the Scenes photos: Jen Steele Photography
Masks from: Archie McPhee
Model: Chris Wylie, Owner, Searles Auto

Banksy Squirrel, 24 x 35, Oil on Board, Carollyne Yardley, 2013

Meme generated using memegenerator.net by Devereau Wood, April 29, 2013.

I had to share cause it was funny at the time.  I was all excited because Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic; New York Magazine followed me on Twitter, and I immortalized it with a screen capture. Then he favourited the tweet, to which I posted at my Facebook page tagging my friend Devereux Wood that I thought this small token of acknowledgement meant perhaps we were dating. Following up on one of our previous laughs, I told Dev that I need him to have Jerry’s babies ASAP.

And this was Dev’s response via memegenerator.net.

And we laughed, and then I shared it with everyone in multiple forms of media.
Cause it this thing goes viral, I want to be known as patient zero.

BACKGROUND STORY HERE:

I’ve been working on this painting since early January 2013. There have been several distractions, art shows, and other production tasks keeping me away from the easel. But finally, it is complete.

In between starting and finishing this piece, I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, there was the Sotheby’s sale of ‘stolen’ Banksy mural cancelled at the 11th hour, a book was published called Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall by Will Ellsworth-Jones, and subsequent book reviews.

Banksy Squirrel, 24 x 35, Oil on Board, Carollyne Yardley, 2013

Since it took me so long to finish this piece, I was praying the entity known as Banksy didn’t pull a reveal in the meantime.  It would’ve ruined the idea of him being a Secret Squirrel.

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.

My thoughts behind this piece started from the basic idea, that Bansky qualifies as a Secret Squirrel. Totally covert operations.

Then I started thinking about how many people must know who he is. And to rent city blocks for longs periods of time has to mean he’s got some friends in high places, or he’s way more white collar on the inside than he wants many to believe. So taking from the only things a casual reader like myself could know, or have been led to believe by the Banksy media machine is this:

He’s British, funny and smart as shit, has worn a black hoodie at least once in his lifetime, uses the logo seen here at his website, goes on spray painting holidays to the Separation Barrier, probably hopes for a better world  (little girl with hope balloon), and is anonymous.

And voila, this is Banksy Squirrel.

Read more about Banksy, or visit his website.

MORE ON SOTHEBY’S STORY HERE

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images via Bloomberg

A man takes a mobile phone photo of an artwork attributed to Banksy. The stencilled image depicts a poor child making Union Jack flags on a sewing machine and was located on the wall of a Poundland discount shop in the Wood Green area of north London. The work was later removed and was to be auctioned in Miami. It was withdrawn moments before the auction.

Check out the full list of winners in our eight page feature section hitting the streets tomorrow afternoon and online at http://www.mondaymag.com/eeditions/

Our awards were in the form of customized ukeleles by Long and McQuade.

Carollyne Yardley (l) with living sculpture / body painting artwork by Kristen Urbanheart Grant at Monday Magazine “M” Awards.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Joseph Williams, cartoonist for Monday Magazine. Check out his site at BlobFarm.

Carollyne (l) and Joseph Williams, Artist

Here is coverage by Adam Sawatsky, Your Island Arts and Lifestyle, April 24, 2013.
http://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=912635

Bow-Chicka-Bow-wow.

]]> http://www.carollyne.com/blog/2013/04/jerry-saltz-senior-art-critic-new-york-magazine-follows-me-on-twitter/feed/ 0 http://www.carollyne.com/blog/2013/04/space-hat-squirrel-blast-off-with-coach-house-books/ http://www.carollyne.com/blog/2013/04/space-hat-squirrel-blast-off-with-coach-house-books/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2013 02:34:25 +0000 carollyne http://www.carollyne.com/blog/?p=3675

Coach House Books, Fall 2013 Catalogue

DOWNLOAD CATALOGUE HERE

Space Hat Squirrel has been selected to grace the the cover of Coach House Books Fall 2013 Catalogue.
They are a publishing company located in Toronto, Canada, and print
about 2,500 catalogues and send them to publishers, authors, and bookstores around the world.

“Squirrels have sort of become the unofficial mascot of Coach House,” says Heidi, Publishing Assistant.

Amen Brother.

Even better – the  catalogue lists among its nonfiction titles the latest release by Jeet Heer, In Love With Art, Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman.
I can’t wait to read this book. I love Spiegelman – we’ve been lucky to have the exhibit Art Spiegelman, CO-MIX: A Retospective of Comics, Graphics and Scraps at the Vancouver Art Gallery (February 16 to June 9, 2013).

Coach House Fall 2013 Catalogue: download here
Web: http://www.chbooks.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachhousebooks 

Lineup Facing Left, Carollyne Yardley, April 2013

Photo shoot on April 16th with the best squirrel models; Chris Wylie (Searles Auto Repair), Jen Steele (Jen Steele Photography), and Teresa Lindsay (Vic42.com).

This was at the end of the shoot, and a great sneak peak at behind the scenes material for new work coming soon.

Many thanks to David Wahl, collector and supporter of Squirrealism.
Masks procured through the awesomeness of Seattle’s Archie McPhee’s.

I decided to call this section Writings.  Posts will be fast, short musings, ’cause I have art to create!

I was thinking about my inspirations for art. Many of them are based on childhood story tales, vintage TV shows, toys and nostalgia. Most of them come from memories of the past, and are then rehydrated by a Google search where I watch snippets of old TV shows, etc. I admire the work of Pop Surrealism which by definition takes from relating to popular subcultures like nostalgia.

I love how Brooklyn artist Mickalene Thomas riffs off textiles and style of the 1970’s, and how Australia’s Hazel Dooney is kinda doing 1980′s American artist Patrick Nagel. With the invention of the WWW we can find almost any image at any time, and so this is also that age of appropriating it all like artists, Richard Prince and Shepard Fairey.

Hazel Dooney (from artists website)

Patrick Nagel

I remembered a story I had read online at Vanity Fair magazine posted January 01, 2012 by Kurt Andersen called, You Say You Want a Devolution?

He writes how for most of the last century of America’s cultural landscape – it’s fashion, art, music, design, entertainment – changed dramatically every 20 years of so. But these days, “…even as technological and scientific leaps have continued to revolutionize life, popular style has been stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new.”

And I started to think of all the art that reminds me of something else, or collage art which uses someone else’s something else, or digital collage art that is a collection of everything else, both from history books and contemporary life, how with the invention of the WWW in 1989 we see a rise in appropriation in art and memes, memes, memes.

I think of my own work which is heavily inspired by an era gone by, 1950’s and 60’s fashion, 1970’s kitsch, and folklore of long ago.

Andersen asks us to picture the last 20 years in particular. Rewind the last 20 years, and we’ve replaced Madonna with Gaga, Adele replaced Mariah Carey, and how ambitious fiction from 20 years ago is in no way dated. I was listening to a song by Boney M. and thought it was just released. Lolwut? 

Even punk is finding it’s way onto this nostalgia cruise at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibition “Punk: Chaos to Couture”

Yes, there have been many changes in our communication medium.

Anderson lists a few genuinely new cultural phenomena that aren’t digital phenomena, but the list is short, noting that people have more tattoos and piercings.

We use the word meme like it’s new, although the term was coined by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976.  Memes – these cultural analogues that self replicate themselves, mutate and respond, and spread ideas and cultural phenomena. They too are influenced by stories and figures in history, for example the botched restoration of the Jesus painting at the Santuario de Misericordia in Spain that made it’s way by digital alteration into George W. Bush’s painting of himself in the shower.

Botched Jesus painting

George W. Bush painting turned meme.

We are also in an age of recycling earlier songs; Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Cindy Lauper), Back in Time (Pitbull), upcycling furniture and clothing, remakes of old TV shows and movies; Hawaii Five-O and the Thomas Crown Affair. The year 2013 is said to be the year of comic book movies, remakes and sequels.

So what is going on?  Is it because of the economy that innovation is stagnated, except for information technology, that we are getting lost in nostalgia?
And when will it end?

Noted by Andersen, “…American sociopolitical cycles that tend to last, according to historians, about 30 years. So maybe we are coming to the end of this cultural era of the Same Old Same Old.”

And all of this led me to wonder when we look back at art generated during this period, if it will be catagorized beyond the word Contemporary Art, into its own section called Nostalgia, Age of Nostalgia, Age of Appropriation, or the Age of Meme?

Regardless, let’s just all agree on a new art term called, Squirrealism.

Anyhow, while I muse on the new video a bit, here is the Funny Face Squirrels here.

Posted at Youtube: July 13, 2011. Video by Carollyne Yardley