Today's postings

  1. [Baren 38753] Re: Dale Phelps, Political Art (Annie Bissett)
  2. [Baren 38754] sign-up updates ("Maria Arango")
  3. [Baren 38755] Re: sign-up updates (Graham Scholes)
  4. [Baren 38756] dale phelps (Linden Langdon)
  5. [Baren 38757] R: New Baren Digest (Text) V47 #4793 (Apr 23, 2009) (Colleen Corradi Brannigan)
  6. [Baren 38758] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification (Blog Manager)
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Message 1
From: Annie Bissett
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:34:03 GMT
Subject: [Baren 38753] Re: Dale Phelps, Political Art
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Hello Baren Forum,

I'm so saddened to hear of Dale Phelps' passing. Sending warm regards
to Larry, Dianne and all of Dale's family and friends. I know Dale
only through his prints, which I've loved since the moment I saw
them, especially his cancer-related work. I've always been most fond
of the five portraits of the "Inner Advisors" who helped Dale fight
his cancer. They're powerful images full of love and strength and
devotion. Here's a link if you haven't seen these prints:
http://www.phelpsprints.com/gallery/1669/Cancer%20Imaging/

I've been silent during the discussion of "political" prints and
whether or not politics is a suitable topic for making art.
Obviously, since a lot of my work could be construed as political, I
do think it's a suitable topic for art. I also think it's hard to
make good political art that doesn't just scream it's tagline in your
face ("War is bad" "I Want My Guns" "Such-and-such world leader is
evil"). That's a whole other discussion, what makes good political
art. But I think that beyond politics being suitable, *everything* is
a suitable topic for art. I think that the only way an artist can
make meaningful art is to work with the things that matter deeply to
her/him. What matters deeply can run the full range, from concerns of
pure form/color/composition to technical explorations of a given
medium to more figurative or narrative telling of story or human
events to decorative work. Whatever the content, when the artist's
intention and the artist's abilities align, interesting art is bound
to develop. Sometimes we just don't like a certain type of art.
Hardly anybody likes every kind of art.

For example, I tend to not like "illness" art. But then along comes
Dale Phelps. Dale's work is a perfect example of an artist's deeply
held concerns shining through his technique and even his topic and
reaching beyond his personal world into a larger world. Or reaching
me, at least! Case in point, Confucius is not a person who I identify
with or know much about, but when I see Dale's portrait of Confucius
I can feel Dale's connection to Confucius -- I can feel respect,
dignity, kindness in that print -- and I want to look and look and
look at it.

I thank Dale for introducing me to Confucius and for breaking my
preconception that art about another person's illness has nothing to
offer me. I hope Dale is meeting right now with his five great
Advisors, talking things over.

my best,
Annie
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Message 2
From: "Maria Arango"
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:51:02 GMT
Subject: [Baren 38754] sign-up updates
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Dear Baren members,

I am unable for the moment to update the website but I have received sign
ups from three additional people since the page for Exchange #41 was last
updated. As soon as I can access my computer again, I will update the list.
One more week until the official launch of the Exchange, at which time I
will choose a coordinator.

In case you wonder, my computer is undergoing major surgery: installing new
power supply, migrating to larger hard drive(s), upgrading memory (I forgot
to buy some last time), adding a built in coffee maker, and some
retro-mag-wheels so I can just drive it around like a golf-cart. Really,
much more fun than it sounds.

For those of you in Exchange #40, you have exactly approximately one week
until the deadline.

I forgot that I had to upload Exchange #39 before dismantling my little
darling, so it will be a few more days before I can upload it but it is all
ready to go.well, it WAS before I migrated my hard drive. We'll just have to
wait and see (don't worry, I have backups, or hiccups, one of the two).

Now, where WAS that power cable.

Maria
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Message 3
From: Graham Scholes
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:28:07 GMT
Subject: [Baren 38755] Re: sign-up updates
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Hi Maria.... oh and don’t forget....
It should become a part of your update... :>o
www.apple.com/ca/getamac/ads/

Enjoy.... (
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Message 4
From: Linden Langdon
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:13:43 GMT
Subject: [Baren 38756] dale phelps
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Larry, sincere condolences for your loss -always a heavy load to bear. Thanks you for the links - they were very warm and inspiring and wonderful to see his range of work that focussed on his battle with humour and humanity.
with warm thoughts
linden
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Message 5
From: Colleen Corradi Brannigan
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:35:03 GMT
Subject: [Baren 38757] R: New Baren Digest (Text) V47 #4793 (Apr 23, 2009)
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Hello Baren members,

I have just seen an email from Bette Wappner who
was checking on me to see if I was safe after the devastating
earthquake in Abruzzo where I live. My current email address is
colleenco@gmail.com - the other one colleen@tin.it is an old one which
I don't frequently check.
As for the earthquake we were all safe, and
the art center I have which is very close to the epicenter is ok too.
Some friends were caught in the quake in the epicenter in L'aquila but
luckily everyone was safe - very horrifying stories
The news might be
old for you now but we keep getting quakes nearly on a daily basis,
although not as intense as the one we had early this month...
Thousands of people have lost their houses and we have about 20.000
more people here in Pescara located in hotels and tents around here in
Pescara which is safe enough.
Everytime there is a new quake other
houses which were already damaged collapse.
In castiglione where I have
my country house , where I opened the art center, something collapsed,
other houses are damaged, while mine has no structural damage.. just a
few bottles broken and some glass coming from frames.. so I was lucky.
The people in the village do not sleep in houses but they all bought
tents and they spend the night there - just in case.
They still fear
mote quakes might happen.
In my village the beautiful abbey of san
clemente had major damage having part of its roof collapse and is now
closed... in l'aquila instead we lost several churches some of which
entirely collapsed. All of the artwork in museums and churches damaged
have been brought to museums in Pescara - which are now obviously
closed to the public.
So this is the situation here, it seems like
being in wartime-

sorry for this offtopic post, but for those of you
who know me personally I just wanted to let you know I am safe and
sound!

Colleen

Digest Appendix

Postings made on [Baren] members' blogs
over the past 24 hours ...

Subject: [River in Spring - 8] : She's done!
Posted by: Dave Bull

Continued from [River in Spring - 7] | Starting point of the thread is [River in Spring - 1]

The next impression is the kind of thing that Hiroshi Yoshida called the nezumi block. (Nezumi being 'mouse', and thus a shorthand word for 'grey'). Although grey is commonly used for this block - which adds 'shadows' and deeper tones to various areas over an image - in this case I repeated the dull blue/purple mix.

And that's almost it; all we need is one final block, a 'beta-ban' ('flat block') which covers the entire sheet, printing it with a faint red tone. I did this with very light pressure on the baren, leaving a faint mottled appearance over the whole thing (click it for an enlargement):

And that's it. Unless I'm overlooking something, eight impressions is the fewest we have had in this series so far.

***

Now that she's done, the more I look at this one, the more I like it. It's not going to be everybody's favourite, but I think that there can certainly be room in the set for a 'not-quite-straight-ahead' print like this.

I'll be interested in seeing what people think of it ...


This item is taken from the blog Woodblock RoundTable.
'Reply' to Baren about this item.


Subject: Carved Block in Heritage Historical Museum

In the early 1990?s Scott Savage, the editor of PLAIN magazine (which was described as "The Magazine of Life, Land, and the Spirit") asked me to carve a woodcut for the fourth issue of the publication. A portion of my print was used for the cover, and the entire print was used for the centerfold. The yellow color of the carriage was not a separate color block carved by me, but was added later by the publishers when the magazine was being put together. A couple years after publication, Mr. Savage asked if I would be interested in donating my carved block to the museum which was archiving the magazine. It took a while for me to want to part with the block as it was a particular favorite of mine. When I felt ready, I packed it up and mailed it to the Heritage Cultural Museum in Aylers, Ontario Canada. Recently educators Nancy and Dieter Huth traveled to Canada and made a stop at the museum. The director, David Luthy, kindly set up the block along with the open magazine so they could photograph it. I thank all of them.



Photo by Nancy Huth, © 2009
Woodblock and woodcut in photo © Gayle Wohlken

[This was a summary of the original entry. The full entry can be viewed here]

This item is taken from the blog Gayle?s Woodblock Blog.
'Reply' to Baren about this item.