From Facebook posters, this 1934 painting by Paul Klee (Swiss artist alert!):
(#1) The Path Into the Blue — is, evidently, through a Z
Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
Grease is the word, but Z is the way
November 16, 2021
Briefs: the chromatic landscape of life and death
November 7, 2021(Note: no men’s underwear was abused in the preparation of this posting.)
From Kyle Wohlmut on Facebook this morning:
(#1) Available by the gallon
What is the color of immortality? A flat grayish off-white, extending to infinity. Mortality, on the other hand, is a transparent blue, filling all the space around you; swatches available from the Derek Jarman company.
The artist known as Zack Zwicky, and three Zachs
November 6, 2021From Google Alerts this morning, a link to the site (zzwicky.com) of artist Zack Zwicky in Houston TX. A (small) photo of him from LiveJournal, and his earnest and good-hearted, but not very informative,”About” statement on his site:
(#1) Zachary “Zack” Zwicky: ZZwicky![About:] Aspiring to educate and influence students has been my focus for nearly two decades. Listening, understanding, and crafting a plan for their success is the best way to guide them. This is my personal endeavor: to inspire the diverse student body and community in my care with a passion for art – helping them to make sense of the world around them and exceed their wildest dreams.
He’s now an art teacher in the Alief Independent School District in southwest Houston, teaching primary / secondary students who are predominantly “economically disadvantaged”. (The moral taint of poor has become so grievous that many people are reluctant to use it at all, opting to use the ponderous economically disadvantaged instead.)
Before Alief, Zack Z was an Associate Professor at the Art Institute of Houston for nearly 10 years. And he’s done a lot of commercial work of one kind or another, so that we find on LiveJournal:
[About:] Results-oriented Marketing Communications professional with a passion for crafting compelling messages. Extensive project management skills, expert knowledge of print and digital marketing, and a history of teaching others to become creative problem solvers.
Jordan Zwicky of Glow City Candles
November 4, 2021Thanks to Google Alerts at the Halloween season, the Insider posting “Carving wax reveals monster candles” (in its entirety) by Kiki Sideris on 11/3, with this seasonal news (plus a YouTube video of the making of a Halloween candle):
Wax artist Jordan Zwicky of Glow City Candles and her apprentice, Clerisca Ribourg, create handmade Halloween candles. They dip each candle to create 30 to 50 layers of wax and carve them by hand. The candles take the form of eyeballs, zombies, skeletons, jack-o’-lanterns, and more. They are made to last forever and glow from the inside out when the wick is lit.
Bearing the face for our era
October 30, 2021In every era, in every milieu, there arises one man with the Face of Humane Wisdom.
Seven faces
October 29, 2021Seven portraits of men (from 1875 through 1910) by John Singer Sargent, evoking character and state of mind, or celebrating male beauty, or both. Spurred by the appearance on Pinterest of this extraordinary charcoal sketch (from 1900-1910) of the young Italian man Olimpio Fusco (with his address on it!):
(#1) Fusco appears in at least one other drawing of Sargent’s — more explicitly sensuous — in which he’s lying, naked, on his back in bed; these two drawings have led critics, with great caution, to describe Fusco as perhaps a “romantic interest” of Sargent’s
Put that aside for a moment, while I add that Sargent can fairly be described as having been a compulsive artist — always ready to dash off a sketch or draft of pretty much anything he saw that caught his eye: colorful flowers, children playing, women’s clothing, faces (all kinds of faces, but especially men’s), street scenes, landscapes and seascapes, whatever. He did this sometimes with an eye to developing the sketches into works that could be exhibited or sold, but often just for his own pleasure. Sometimes for his very private pleasure, as in a large body of male nudes (many quite sensuous) created over the years, a selection of which were published finally in 1999, in this volume of John Esten’s:
Men in the air
October 23, 2021… with showers, gusty winds, and some concomitant masculine property damage, between 2 and 3 p.m., likely tapering off within an hour or two. Then this Karl Stevens cartoon from the 10/25 New Yorker:
(#1) “It’s raining men, every specimen / Tall, blonde, dark and lean / Rough and tough and strong and mean”
Formicavore home cooking
October 19, 2021Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro strip (Wayno’s title: “Dietary Restrictions”), with a culinary misstep:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)
There’s a lot to talk about here: the gendering of the two characters in #1; the Bizarro theme of anteaters and food; fire ants; hot and spicy food; the art of anteaters (it’s not just Bizarro).
Masculinity comics 4
October 7, 2021The One Big Happy comic strip from 8/3, a horse and monkey show:
(#1) It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a horse and a monkey, must have no need of a wife.
Ruthie and her brother Joe agree that having a horse and a monkey would be wonderful: a horse to ride, a monkey to entertain you with its hijinks. But Joe thinks that that should be enough for a full and happy life.
Carnival for catamites
September 27, 2021(As you should be able to guess from the title, this posting is going to discourse on men’s bodies and sex between men, and then mostly in street language — this is the last time you’ll see the learnèd catamite (though I note that the etymology is from Ganymede, which is certainly relevant) — so this posting is very much not for kids or the sexually modest.)
I’ll start by looking at an image from an ad for gay porn from the Titan studio, posted on 9/25 as an exercise in interpreting images. The image is of course specially posed for p.r., not a still shot from porn, so it might bear only a glancing relationship to the actual porn. Bear this in mind when I rehearse yesterday’s comments.
That took me, thanks to a crucial clue from Richard Vytniorgu, to the specific porn scene that image was advertising, which then led to a complex world of gay male identities, personas, and sexual practices.