The Cosmic Heart - It’s Not Personal

 The Cosmic Heart - It’s Not Personal 

Graphite, 22x30”, March 2021

State of the Art Gallery in April

 

Exhibit at State of the Art Gallery

I have been invited to participate in a show with 7 other artists at the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca, in April. These four drawings will be in the exhibit

Family Tree

Thought

Rising Water

Burning Bridges

Follow Up

I quit teaching at Tompkins Cortland at the end of the semester, but I wanted to post work that was inspired by a project that we did in Design II. I have been playing with cubes and was commissioned by a friend to take the idea a step in his direction as a gem cutter. I designed 9 cubes that work together to create new relationships through different arrangements. The base was painted first and the rest of the pieces came from this composition.

Quarantine Love

New Project by Fernando

I think that it was at the end of March that, moved by the COVID 19 tragedy unfolding in China, Europe, and NYC, I made a very quick sketch representing one human being embracing another. That sketch became a formal piece in which the embrace occurs between two stylized figures cut out of painted paper. The title of this piece was "Quarantine Love".

I shared a pic of that piece with Rennie Castelino of Bay Area Faceting in San Mateo who liked it enough to suggest Mark Oros (of Hashnu Stones in T-Burg) and I worked together in the creation of a new piece in which the same design would be transposed to stone using some extraordinarily beautiful Polish flint of his. After a couple of meetings with Mark, I made a new drawing and, on that basis, cut the paper templates needed to transfer the design to slabs of the Polish flint. Since the three rectangles central to the original design could not be carved out of the stone outright, following Mark's instructions I broke the design into eighteen different pieces. Mark then spent many hours cutting and polishing what would be the components of the final stone piece. Phenomenal work, his.

The last stage was the careful assembly and installation of the two figures in a cherry wood shadow box lined with linen. Rennie was very much involved in this last stage helping determine the scale and style of the final set of the piece which was renamed "Reciprocity" to amplify its significance and emotional reach.

Stepping Out

 

I'm announcing my retirement from 34 years of teaching.

The Map is Not the Territory, Stages in a painting

Today I was looking back on some files of paintings in which the grid was a dominant part of the composition. Fernando Llosa documented the development of this painting through 10 stages. The form was made with paper and the folds stiffened with gesso. The first stage captures the light and dimension of the form. Oil paint was then added. The painting was made in 2010.

House of Knowledge

I've been working on a series of graphite drawings for the last couple of years. Yesterday I was at Pioneer Printing in Lodi to see the printing and embossing of the cover for a book of this series. That was a treat in itself as there aren't too many shops like that left. They have both the newest copy machines and traditional machines for letterpress printing. I am happy to say that the book will be ready for me to pick up from the printer next week. There are 76 drawings in the book. If you are interested in having a copy of the book, send me a personal message or e-mail.

Wedding Guestbook

This wedding guestbook, made by Fernando, has Taughannock Creek shale and fossils. It is 7x7" and has 90 sheets of 24 lb. acid free paper. If you're interested, send an e-mail. Price: $150 + tax.

Fernando Llosa at the Bookery - Signs of the Integrity of Life

Fernando is showing hand-made books and paintings at 

The Bookery in Ithaca. The work is up and the opening is 

Gallery Night, May 3, from 5-8 pm.

 The Bookery is in the DeWitt Mall, Ithaca, NY.

Home

Over the years, I have used the house image to show the human desire and need for security, both physically and psychologically.  The house can portray the actual structure that protects us from the elements of nature but the house is also a home, the extension of our personal selves, the place where our family, our memories and values reside. 

The house can call into question our relationship with nature. Other animals seem so integrated into nature, but we survived by building this physical boundary around ourselves. As necessary as a house is, was this need for physical security the first step in forgetting our relationship and dependence on the natural world?

The house image can expose our relationship with others - why do some people have excess padding (even the middle-class have mansions) while others have only the covering of blankets and cardboard?

The house can be a place of protection, but when we find that our safety is compromised, (through war,  gun violence, or drug overdose) we may have to leave our quiet, protected place of security to express our sorrow and concern, as the drawing Taking Our Sorrow to the Streets suggests.

Each of these images deals with an aspect of the human social relationship that needs attending to - homelessness, ecological collapse, social living conditions, human violence, and group identity.

Fragile - Handle With Care

Home Sweet Home 

Security in the Neighborhood

Taking Our Sorrow to the Street

The Human Animal

The Security of Home

Write to Bloom

Do you love to write?

Melissa Hamilton Kolberg has agreed to host a Write to Bloom workshop using my drawings as writing inspiration. 

Sunday, November 11, 2-4 in Melissa's studio, Trumansburg NY.

For more information visit the website: https://www.write2bloom.com/

I'm not sure yet what drawings I will show, but here are a few possibilities.

The Unknowable

Leaving Home

Double Falls, The Past and the Future

Constructing Reality

The Tree of Life

This painting was originally called The Family Tree, 

now I am renaming it The Tree of Life.

 It is the same, isn't it?

Planning a Show

I have a show coming up in October in Ithaca at Mockingbird Paperie. The work includes paintings created in 2015-16 from two series -  The Emergence of Form and The Observer is the Observed.

Time meets Thought

The Observer is the Observed

A Receptacle for Reality

Oblivious to the Universal Mind

Favorites

Uprooted

The World Upside Down

Taking Our Sorrow to the Street

Many Worlds, One Species

The Unknowable