ArtSpirit7 - Part 56

For the Love of Letterpress

February 11, 2012 by Mary Gow

There’s a letterpress revivial going on! Technology journalist, Glenn Fleishman, covers a brief history of printing and shows how modern technology is assisting in reviving an old art form. This YouTube Video was produced by Boot Strapper Sudios in Seattle.

“It’s real, there’s ink, there’s an impression. . . you have a great experience that’s a physical expression,” said Fleishman.

Letterpress printing is relief printing of text and image using a press with a “type-high bed” printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image. (Wikipedia)

If you take a class in letterpress you may find it’s the perfect panacea for an artist’s tendency to lose focus. In fact every drawer of type is rigorously organized in a specific fashion so every upper and lower case character, has its specific place.

Don’t miss the new movie about letterpress, called Linotype: In Search of the Eighth Wonder of the World. It is playing in San Francisco February 21. Check out whether it is showing showing near you.

For the love of letterpress visit Love Letterpress/, Dolce Press, and Peace Love Letterpress

Happy Valentine’s to the printed word.

3 Ways to See Football as a Creative Practice

February 6, 2012 by Mary Gow

"Creative Play," digitized photogram by Mary Gow

I grew up watching football. It was one of those events my family sat together to watch. Did yours?

The outstanding 2011 season of the San Francisco 49ers was hard to ignore. What was it about the creative artistry of Jim Harbaugh (now NFL Coach of the Year) that resulted in such an extreme makeover?

I’ve come to see that football is a creative art form. Instead of brushes and canvas, it is expressed with a ball, two teams, a hundred yards and a goal post at each end. It’s creatively expressive in many ways. Here’s several that come to mind:

1) Coming up with plays is a creative exercise in imagination which is then manifested with a mindful orchestration of finesse and agility on the field. And isn’t art play?

2) The game is a hero’s journey and every play is like a mini hero’s journey with an opportunity for heroic action. Like a story unfolding, football is a live-action show. It has four quarters and the fourth is the climax. Unlike the story formula, the conflict may be irregular or constant.

3) Like practicing any art form, excellence shines through practice, practice, and more practice. A football player is an artist who works consistently at his art. Victory comes through consistent effort.

Does this creativity apply to tennis, soccer, baseball and virtually every sport? Are you captivated by the creativity expressed in sports? Are you watching games instead of creating your art? I’ve imagined myself catching the winning touchdown more times than I care to disclose : – )

5 Reasons to Get Thee to the Getty Museum

January 31, 2012 by Mary Gow

"Irises," by Vincent Van Gogh

British artist David Hockney’s painting of Mulholland Drive gives you a real sense of the steep streets and thereby hilly neighborhood where the J. Paul Getty Museum, sits atop a ridge like the Parthenon in Greece.

The Getty looks out over the Los Angeles network of freeways that weave between neighborhoods and some enviable perches. The Getty is not on Mulholland Drive though, it’s at 1200 Getty Center Drive (90049).

Walkway at the Getty

When you arrive at the Getty you can’t drive up to the front door of the museum. Instead, there’s a parking garage and there’s a fee (currently $15) for the parking garage. Admission to the museum is free.

Here’s five things that stood out and grabbed me about the Getty:

1) The tram ride. This is like a pause before the punch line or a comma in a sentence.
The first experience not to be missed is this ride up from the parking garage to the museum. It would be hard to avoid this method of arriving anyhow! The tram offers a way to clear your visual palette for a fresh entrée. Arriving at the museum is like arriving in Spartan clean clutter-free Shangri-la.

You’re greeted with the sound of waterfalls with stark white stone and stairwells and as you walk around you’ll see things like a bronze Magritte sculpture of 3 torsos, a large one inside a smaller one, inside a smaller one.

2) The Collections (Especially Photography)
Before you go you can take a brief tour of the Getty collection. The website offers over 100 videos exploring its collection. Though you may want to find out what’s currently on display it’s hard to go wrong.

For a voracious fan of photography this is paradise. Within the current photography show, are a few pieces by one of my favorite photographers, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, which includes one of his photograms. (For an example of a photogram here’s one of mine from a previous post).

A view from inside out

3) The Gardens
Don’t miss this 134,000 square foot environment designed by Robert Irwin. The immaculately groomed gardens provide a space to experience being inside art. You can have a pleasant picnic here, and luxuriate in the spaciousness and attention to every tree and bush. Sit by a running stream and listen to it gurgle. Stare out at the vastness of Los Angeles with skyscrapers in the distance. On a clear day you can see the ocean.

4) Space
There’s an alive energy of affirming abundance that envelops the Getty. It’s apparent in the amount of space allocated for housing art and the way it’s displayed. And plenty of room for the visitor to roam. There’s several places to choose from for eating lunch and an array of spaces to sit out on terraces and sip coffee or tea.

One of the terraces at the Getty Museum

5) Thoughtful Staff
My cell phone battery was low and at coat check I asked where were electrical outlets I could recharge it. The kindly gentleman at coat check offered to charge my phone if I checked it in. I don’t know if this is normal procedure though I hope it is.

The Artsy Merchants of Venice

January 20, 2012 by Mary Gow

(California, that is).

Palm tree-lined Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, Calif.

Palm tree-lined Abbot Kinney Boulevard

To get the full affect of arriving in bohemian Venice, take the magical three mile walk or bike ride along the beach from the Santa Monica pier. You can rent bikes there. Choose the ones with the most comfy looking seats. The terrain is flat so the ride will only take about twenty minutes.

When you get to Venice and mosey inward a few blocks to a street called Abbot Kinney. There’s elegant modern nondescript storefronts next door to crusty houses built 80 years ago, the kind with porches and a swing in the front. And there’s restaurants with customers sitting ear to ear and there’s no sign of the name of the place.

Not a box store you’ve heard of on the street. The Jin Patisserie has an entryway that had an irresistible sensitivity to light.. The website is worth a visit if you can’t physically go there.

"Entry to Jin Patisserie," photo by Mary Gow

I liked the presentation of these two roses.

Inside one of the fashionably retro bungalows you’ll find a charming portable fireplace, the kind you can move from one room to another. The shop owner said it was from Home Depot. I was mesmerized.

Portable fireplace