Hope you're having a joyous holiday season. For many reasons I find it to be the most wonderful time of the year. Lately I've found myself "reflecting" on my earliest recollections of this time of the year. Read on!
Jeff Koons, "Balloon Dog"
Model Porshe 928
Model Porshe 928 With Other Entries
Reflections of Christmas Past
My earliest and most cherished memories are of Christmas and the Christmas tree in our living room, which was centered in front of the largest window in the house. During my first Christmas I was only a month and a half old, but I know for sure the next one made an enduring impression on my psyche. In only the way a child can perceive, I was enthralled with reflective spheres hanging from that tree, reflecting me and the room behind me. They were red and green and gold and silver, precisely reflecting adjacent lights and branches. As more and more holiday seasons passed these memories were amplified with many recollections of family, friends and good cheer. I realize not everyone has these same memories and some may associate the season with something entirely different, perhaps not as cheerful. But for me they are wonderful and I believe they have influenced my aesthetic in a powerful way. I came to a more profound awareness of this recently when first sights of this year's holiday season triggered feelings about something that happened earlier in the summer.
In the final days of summer I traveled to Michigan where I taught a workshop at the Franciscan Life Process Center in Lowell. As I'm prone to do during workshops, I talked about other artists and their work. One of the artists mentioned in a conversation was Jeff Koons. The mere mention of his name sparked an immediate reaction from one of the students. She felt he was only about money. I tried to defend Mr. Koons to no avail. I told her if you didn't like his work your inner child was suppressed. She didn't budge. Over the weeks following the workshop I thought about it a lot and sent her links to videos related to Jeff and his art. Her reply was I should watch, "The Price of Everything." I believe it's only available on HBO, which I don't have. I'd like to watch it but not for the price of HBO. Here's a video anyone can watch at no cost. I highly recommend it.
During the months following the workshop I pondered my liking of Jeff Koons' work and realized I don't care how much he makes, who executes the work or who buys it. Those things don't make or break its aesthetic value to me. I simply like what he creates and I'm certain most children would too, given the chance to see it. If you look at it and can't see that, you've lost all childlike sensitivity to sensory stimuli. Well, I'm no longer a child but I like his work. Why do I like it so much? Is it the conceptual aspect or subject matter? Maybe it's scale? ...NO!... It's none of these. My affinity for Jeff Koons' work is the highly polished reflective finishes on stainless steel and other substrates. Aspects like concept, subject matter and scale come into play once my attention has been caught. I admire those aspects of his work too. As far as money is concerned, he has earned and deserves every bit of it.
I attribute this attraction to his work and those highly polished surfaces to Christmas in 1950 when I was one year old and significantly fascinated with reflective spheres hanging on a tree. When I look at my life, I see my love for it over and over again. In fifth grade, I started building model cars. The most exciting part of model building was painting them. I honed my model painting skills over time using spray paint, which produced a much smoother surface than a brush. The spray paints I used were enamel and lacquer candy colors, requiring an undercoat of metallic, usually silver or gold and then one or more coats of a transparent color. I was pretty much finished with model building by the time I started college. However, I briefly came out of model building retirement almost forty years ago when a group of artists from the studio I worked at decided to have a competition with the art director as judge. We all had model building pasts and one is still modeling today. My entry (pictured above) was the winner and the last I've built. It was painted with gold undercoating and then multiple layers of transparent blue. I've also used the same manner of undercoating and subsequent transparent coatings in some of my recent paintings as you can see in Windowpane No.17 below (gold and transparent red).
So, this concludes a story of reflections on Christmas reflections observed by a young child over seventy years ago. Whether you love, hate or are impartial to the work of Jeff Koons, have a blessed holiday season!
Jeff Koons, "Tulips"
Windowpane No.17 - 24 X 24 inches - Mixed Media/Collage on Canvas
Windowpane No.17 - Detail
Recent Painting
Windowpane No.60 - 36 X 36 inches - Mixed Media/Collage on Canvas
Current Exhibitions
Arizona Artists Guild
Winter Exhibition
December 5, 2021-February 5, 2022
18411 N. 7th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ, 85023
Intuitive Sketches
These sketches are created with ink, watercolor and gouache. They are roughly 8 X 8 inches square on a 12 X 9 inch sheet in a Canson 90 lb. Mixed Media sketchbook, signed and dated right below the square as depicted in the image below. If you would like one please contact me at stan.kurth@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter. At the time this newsletter was sent all of those shown here were available. ($60 shipped anywhere in the continental U.S.)
If you're interested in learning the intuitive process I use to create these sketches my only online workshop to date is available. In the workshop there is a start-to-finish painting demonstration of my intuitive process for these sketches. You can also download the supply list and two documents with descriptions of the elements and principles of design. The workshop shouldn't take more than a day to complete, but you can take as much time as you like. You can enroll in the workshop here:
8 X 8 inches square on a 12 X 9 inch Canson Watercolor Sketchbook page
10.12.2021
10.20.2021
10.24.2021
10.27.2021
10.30.2021
11.17.2021
11.18.2021
11.21.2021
11.23.2021
11.25.2021
11.28.2021
11.30.2021
12.7.2021
12.8.2021
Workshops
Terravita Art League Workshop coming up February 2022
Terravita Art Leauge - 2 Day Workshop - February 9th and 16th, 2022
Acrylic on Canvas
Desert Pavilion Community Center
Terravita Golf and Country Club, Scottsdale, Arizona Registration
Art Center Sarasota - March 14 - 16, 2022
Ink, Watercolor and Gouache
Sarasota, Florida Registration
Kanuga Watemedia Workshops - March 26 - April 1, 2022
Ink, Watercolor and Gouache
Kanuga Conference Center, North Carolina Registration
Chicago Workshop - September 26 - 25, 2022
Ink, Watercolor and Gouache
INGRID ORIGINALS INC. Studio
Chicago, Illinois Registration
Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society - October 18 - 22, 2022
Watercolor and Gouache
Buffalo, New York Registration
Northwest Watercolor Society - October 24 - 27, 2022
Seattle, WA Registration
Freedom in Watermedia
The Freedom in Watermedia Workshop is designed to help all levels of students paint intuitively, starting without preconceived notions or outcome. There will be no preliminary planning or drawing. Process will dictate direction as students use a variety of techniques to implement elements and principles of design. Instruction will start with random mark making and color application, working transparent to opaque creating a library of design elements using a variety of mark making tools, watercolor, gesso and acrylic. There will be regular comments and evaluation of work in progress concerning relationships between elements and principles. It is entirely possible finished work may be representational, but the goal is work which is compositionally pleasing and aligned with the artist's personal aesthetic.
Mixed Media/Collage on Canvas
Participants in the Mix It Up on Canvas workshop will create mixed media/collage paintings on canvas using an intuitive process, starting with no preconceived notions or outcome. Process will dictate direction as students use a variety of techniques to implement elements and principles of design. Instruction will start with semi-arbitrary application of collage materials in combination with acrylic, gesso, acrylic mediums and assorted mark-making tools. There will be regular comments and evaluation of work in progress concerning relationships between elements and principles. It is entirely possible finished work may be representational, but the goal is work which is compositionally pleasing and aligned with the artist's personal aesthetic.
Ink, Watercolor and Gouache
This workshop is designed to help all levels of students paint intuitively, starting without preconceived notions or outcome. There will be no preliminary planning or drawing. Process will dictate direction as students use ink, watercolor and gouache to implement elements and principles of design. Instruction will start with random ink marks, then color using a mixture of watercolor, gouache and titanium white gouache to create a library of design elements. There will be regular comments and evaluation of work in progress concerning relationships between elements and principles. It is entirely possible finished work may be representational, but the goal is work which is compositionally pleasing and aligned with the artist's personal aesthetic.
If you or your group would like to sponsor a workshop in your area and would like more information about workshop costs, please reply to this email or inquire here.
