Looking East from my attic window, over the rooftops of Hochspeyer to the edge of the state forest beyond. Hochspeyer is surrounded by the northern end of the Naturpark Pfälzer Wald (Nature Park Rhineland-Palatinate Forest). I do not have a clue about the purple tree. A nice couple lives across the street and I will ask them about their tree as soon as I speak German a little better.
but first, New colors. New media. New studio.
Colors: I love black as a background color, but… I am trying on white for awhile, ugh. It is a bit more readable, and reading online is difficult compared to paper. Trust me, I’ve done the research. I still prefer black frames for my paintings, so I will continue to frame them with black.
Media: I am making more of an effort to draw on my iPad. It’s quite handy and goes almost everywhere I go. I use Sketchbook Pro and I draw with a Boxwave stylus. The software will take some getting used to, but I am learning to adapt it to my style.
Studio: I have enough room in my new apartment for a studio! That is unless I decide to get a roommate. It will take awhile to gear up for studio paintings as most of my supplies and equipment are still in the States, but there are things I can do in the meantime. I have lots of small sketches and paintings from my travels that are waiting to “grow up”.
“Stillleben Küche” I will post titles in German as it is where I am living. Please pardon my German translations. I am in the process of learning.
Nice sunny day today. A brief rain in the morning and that was it. I could not resist the nice shadows on the nearby homes. Drawn with Sketchbook Pro on my iPad.
I’m finally back in the drawing and painting mode.
Saturday was a beautiful day so I hiked to Frankenstein Castle. It’s an easy, but all uphill walk to the castle (burg in German). It’s worth the walk. There are not many 12th century castles one can walk around, on, and into without a guide or admission. There are two trailheads, but I have only explored one so far, the main one by the church in the center of town (see my photo in the previous post). The painting is the view you see as the main trail comes upon the castle.
To get there if you are in the area: There is a small parking lot on the main road (hauptstrasse) through the town of Frankenstein. It’s by the church at the base of the castle hill. It’s easy to miss if you drive into town from Kaiserslautern. If you reach the end of the town, just turn around, drive back, and you will see it. There is limited street parking across the street, too. Parking is free. Do not drive under the train tracks. It’s a dead end and parking there is for residents only.
The trail more or less begins at the parking lot. You walk on the road under the train tracks and continue straight ahead. Walk between the big church, on the right, and the little church and cemetary, on the left. There is a small arrow-shaped sign on the foundation wall on the right that says “Zum burg” (to castle). The big church has a small, cool cemetary above the trail/road. There are a few old and very weathered gravemarkers and a memorial monument to the Frankenstein men who died in World War I. There were quite a few names considering that Frankenstein is a very small town, even today. There is a goat farm behind the big church. It’s fence comes close to the trail in a few places, and it’s electric!
Once you get past the cemetary on the left, the road ends and the castle trail turns left. There is a sign at the turn that says “Bitte nicht füttern die Ziegen” (Please do not feed the goats). For the next 200meters there are signs, in German, in front of most of the trees and shrubs, The signs give the common name, latin name, and a brief description of the plant. It’s a nice touch. There is also a large sign that shows a map of the trail. The trail is wide, clear, and easily followed. I walked slowly, stopped, and still made it to the castle in about 10 minutes.
Iconic Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s the highest peak in the Phoenix Mountain range. It’s also proof that people, even the early settlers to this land, cannot resist the temptation to give names to familiar shapes. Clouds look like puppies, bears and pigs and mountains look like cathedrals, bells, and camels.
March is Women’s History Month in 2011. I am doing a series of brief posts about women artists who were born in March. This is the last in the series. I hope you have enjoyed the posts.
Today’s March-born American artist is Grace Hartigan. Previous artists in this series were Rosa Bonheur, from France, and Americans Diane Arbus, Melissa Miller, and Jennifer Bartlett.
Grace Hartigan was born on March 28th. She is recognized as one of the Abstract Expressionists and an early Pop Artist. Her work sold very well in New York throughout the 1950s. She was the only female artist in the Museum of Modern Art‘s exhibition, The New American Painting, which toured Europe in 1958-1959.
She married for the fourth time in 1960 and moved to Baltimore. She spent over forty years at the Maryland Institute College of Art where she was director of the graduate program at the Hoffberger School of Painting.
Hartigan was distained by the New York art world when she moved to Baltimore and dissed Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art by saying they were not painting because they lacked content and emotion. She also refused to join other feminists against male chauvinism. She is reported to have said: “I find that the subject of discrimination is only ever brought up by inferior talents to excuse their own inadequacy as artists.”.
For more information, see:
Esaak, S. (2011). Artists in 60 Seconds: Grace Hartigan. http://arthistory.about.com/od/nameshh/p/hartigan_grace.htm.
Charles Darwent, C. (Monday, 8 December, 2008). Grace Hartigan: New York School painter who later rejected Abstract Expressionism. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/grace-hartigan-new-york-school-painter-who-later-rejected-abstract-expressionism-1056668.html
