William M Boot

Love Unlimited

29/5/2014

In early 1975 i was living in Vancouver Canada when i serendipitously discovered Love Unlimited and bought their album "Under The Influence of Love" released in 1973 and was smitten by their silky, delicate vocals. I had already been listening to other black artists for years, in particular Marvin Gaye, Labelle, The Temptations and The Supremes among other Motown talent so was very receptive to their sweet, smooth, feminine sound. I didn't know much about Barry White at the time but a year later i recognised what a creative talent he was in writing for and producing this talented vocal trio.

The sweet, syrupy sound of Love Unlimited provided a part of the musical mosaic of my life as i grew out of my teens. Rock's energy always dominated the foreground but R&B provided the funky groove behind it all and i became aware of this when later Jazz and experimental symphonic music rounded out the musical dimensions of my life.

Love and beautiful black girls singing about love was a big part of my youthful interests. I guess i didn't fully realise at the time how harmonious and timeless this sound was. I was attracted to their hopeful yearning for eternal devotion and the somewhat sentimental promise of love while 'walking in the rain'.

You may well ask what this music has to do with my art and rightly so but i would argue we are what we absorb and the sensitivity and emotional connection i feel for this music somehow links with who i am and how i feel about 'matters of the he(art)'.
Although their creative run lasted only 15 years they left an indelible mark on the soulful end of R&B.

Whatever your musical interests i hope you take time to check out this beautiful blast from the past.

0 Comments

Wayne Thiebaud

24/5/2014

0 Comments

Wayne Thiebaud is an American artist from California who has been painting idiosyncratic signature style pop art paintings for the last 60 years. He started very young as an artist and worked as a cartoonist/illustrator for the US army during his service. He never got the fame and attention that other Pop artists got during the sixties and seventies but i argue that he should have. He is still painting in his eighties and shows no signs of abating soon.

Again, like other artists i admire, there doesn't seem to be much connection between a painter known mostly for his colourful, calm dessert paintings and my abstract work but there is. Wayne manages to successfully capture his subject at a moment in time and freeze it there forever. There is an hallucinatory aura that permeates his pictures of pies, cakes and candies. His subject matter is colour and light and their conjunction on the canvas producing an ethereal sense of mystery. The thing that appeals to me most is that he retains the strong impasto brush strokes in his work whereas Andy Warhol and others of the 'Pop' retinue flattened the surface into the appearance of illustration or mass produced media. Wayne's paintings declare their "handmade" status unabashedly and i like this human quality in his work.

I have no doubt that Wayne Thiebaud's work has influenced many other important artists in very significant ways not yet written about. He is only now in recent times getting the acclaim his work should have received a long time ago but this seems to be the pattern for many artists left out of the 'politically correct' art mainstream.
Check out his work as there are many images of his paintings online. I've included 2 video's here which i found interesting and i hope you do too.

0 Comments

Hollufgard Art Residency Completion

21/5/2014

0 Comments

It's hard to believe how fast 10 weeks can go! A few more days and we'll be heading to Korea. The stay here has been very fruitful with 7 paintings completed, new ideas generated and good friendships established. We've felt so much at home we are sorry to say goodbye to everyone especially as the warmer summer days approach.

Denmark has been a good experience for both of us. We are already planning to stop here for a visit when we travel to Finland next spring. If you are considering travelling to Europe in the future or thinking of doing an art residency then i would recommend Denmark be included in your plans. Details for Gaesteatelier Hollufgard in Odense can be found on the resartis.com website.

0 Comments

Frank Stella Interview

15/5/2014

0 Comments

Frank Stella needs to be included in my list of artistic inspirations more because of his early work rather than his work after the 70's. An iconoclast in his own right and a true innovator, no-one can dispute his tremendous achievements over more than 60 years. He has opened out painting and printmaking in many ways and contributed extensively to cultural knowledge earning himself considerable accolades and awards along the way. He is one of the most successful American artists of his generation still alive and working.

Frank Stella's early paintings were an inspiration to me because of their lack of decoration or ornamentation. The paintings were devoid of ostentation and seemed essentially empty of content. They had become "painted objects" rather then pictures painted of something. I responded to their honest and upfront nature and the image/object dialectic became a big part of what i was doing.

Later, however, Frank began to move in a different direction introducing day glo colours and 3D shapes into his work. When he started moving back to ornamentation and large scale commercial project production my interest in his work began to wan.
Frank Stella was hugely influenced by the Abstract Expressionists but in particular by Barnett Newman whose large austere canvasses resonated with him as a student. Jasper Johns early pop art structures were also a key to understanding why Stella made the decisions he did when innovating his work from 2D to 3D. For Stella, it is simply a working out of core ideas he holds about painted surfaces and scale and what they should or could be.

Nevertheless, like or dislike his art, he succeeded in confounding many of his peers and senior colleagues with the innovative art that he produced while still quite young.
Frank Stella has had a 'stellar' career and his work is found in museums and public places all over the world. I hope you'll take time to look at this artist more carefully as he has stood the test of time.

0 Comments

Jerry Rafferty

11/5/2014

0 Comments

One of my all time favourite musicians is Jerry Rafferty a Scottish singer/songwriter who created an enviable library of great music. He was irascible, ornery, stubborn, melancholic and a force to be dealt with as many of his former colleagues and friends will readily testify. Jerry was also a private, sensitive loving soul who had a long standing battle with alcohol which affected his relationships and health and was to result ultimately in his early death.

I'm not here to judge his character but to point out his creative talent which was and is just short of incredible. I mention his blemishes only to remind the reader that all too often the talented or gifted have their own secret struggles and suffering which seem to be part of the creative package. I can't say why this is but am always amazed at what great things are brought into the world by many gifted people like Jerry in spite of all their personal hurdles and often short lives.

Jerry wrote and produced 17 solo and compilation albums before he passed away and did it more or less on his own terms. His drive for perfection was legendary, his ear for sound impeccable and his battle with record companies legendary. He looked for the best talent to work with and the rest is recorded history. Not driven by markets and record company politics he continually struggled to remain true to the integrity of his vision of what he and the music should be and this i respect greatly. Jerry hated celebrity and performance preferring the quiet life and so never became the huge "star" that he could've been. I admire his decision to avoid the temptation of status and wealth and the 'Pop Hit' treadmill and concentrate instead on his art. The landmark early albums "City to City" and "Night Owl" are mature and very refined and later albums such as "Another World" and "Life Goes On" reveal an artist of ever increasing depth and sensitivity.

Jerry Rafferty has inspired me for a long time with his mellow haunting melodies and soft crooning voice. He's been there in the background for a sizeable chunk of my life and i'd like to honour his memory because he is a rarity in the world of music. Have a listen to his seminal hit "Baker Street" and you'll be awed at his ability to produce such a timeless classic as well as many other great songs. I hope you'll take the time to get acquainted with more of his music which is readily available on You Tube.

0 Comments

Jackson Pollock Painting

8/5/2014

0 Comments

Jackson Pollock aka "Jack the Dripper" as he was known in his time is a legend in more ways than one. There are stories of how the USA, in its attempt to usurp the status of world art centre from Paris, post WW2, covertly developed a new American painting style that would contribute to a heightened sense of cultural nationalism. There are also stories of how a group of painters from diverse backgrounds found themselves drawn to New York during the 20's and 30's where they individually and collectively helped found the movement now known as the New York School and the style loosely termed Abstract Expressionism.

Jackson Pollock developed his now infamous "drip or action" painting where he placed the canvas on the floor and ran around the perimeter dripping paint across the surface. The coloured skeins of paint criss-crossed each other like a web eventually tying the whole surface together. This all-over technique of painting liberated other artists to paint any way they liked. The traditional European easel painting convention and its limitations had been thrust aside in favour of large scale art works. Grand "action" paintings for a new heroic American era of world pre-eminence.

I admire Jackson for his bravado and risk-taking in pursuit of a new path for painting. Aside from all the myths and legends surrounding his life and even his premature death Jackson Pollock was able to change how people view the world, art and the future. He said things like "i am nature" and "i'm in my painting" and these ideas were revolutionary because they signalled the beginning of a new attitude in making art. Even 100 years ago art was governed by strict socio-political conventions and it took a lot of pushing by many artists like Jackson to change the system. I never take this hard won freedom for granted.

I hope you'll take the time to look at Jackson Pollocks amazingly innovative paintings and learn more about his life and ideas. Here's a link to a classic documentary on the artist. http://youtu.be/uy1SXVAlrDI

0 Comments

Donald Judd

3/5/2014

0 Comments

Donald Judd passed away in 1994 a short time before i became aware of his art and its impact on Contemporary art practice. His thinking was singular and iconoclastic about what art is, what it should do and how it should be presented. Donald gradually developed the idea that objects should be created and placed in a set context and not moved around. He wrote an essay titled "Specific Objects" which explains why artworks need to retain integrity to their materiality and context.

Donald grew tired of art world politics in New York and created the Chinati Foundation in order to establish his own art installations on an abandoned military base outside Marfa a small town in Texas. He also continued to maintain a building in New York filled with his art. He sought independence and autonomy to make the art and install it his way. He invited artist friends such as Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain, Roni Horn and Carl Andre among others to also make art for his new and expanding facility in the countryside. Donald's work has been exhibited around the world and its impact on this generation has been profound.

The impeccable symmetry and presence of his installations have had an enormous impact on what i do. Although my work is flat and utilises a 2D plane and is primarily concerned with a pictorial/object dialogue nevertheless the sense of what Donald was doing with composition, colour and form addresses my paintings.

There is no doubt that now, because of Donald's thinking and practice, curators and museum staff in the years since his passing, more carefully consider how artwork is shown and how the site space occupied by the work is allowed to contextualise and reveal the work over time.

I hope you'll take the time to learn more about Donald Judd and his "specific" vision for art. Here is the link to a PDF of Donald's essay "Specific Objects". http://www.juddfoundation.org/_literature_108163/Specific_Objects.

0 Comments

Love Unlimited

Wayne Thiebaud

Hollufgard Art Residency Completion

Frank Stella Interview

Jerry Rafferty

Jackson Pollock Painting

Donald Judd

William M Boot

Archives

Art Blogs

Encaustic Art Blogs
All Things Encaustic
Joanne Mattera Art Blog
Encaustic Links Page

Art Articles

Love Unlimited

Wayne Thiebaud

Hollufgard Art Residency Completion

Frank Stella Interview

Jerry Rafferty

Jackson Pollock Painting

Donald Judd

﻿William M Boot﻿

Archives

Art Blogs

Encaustic Art BlogsAll Things EncausticJoanne Mattera Art BlogEncaustic Links Page

Art Articles

William M Boot

Encaustic Art Blogs
All Things Encaustic
Joanne Mattera Art Blog
Encaustic Links Page