Monday, March 31, 2014

DC: Zoo and National Gallery of Art

It was gloriously sunny on Monday, so I walked to the zoo, where these lizards posed for me.



Highlights from NGA:






Imitation by John Haberle. It looked like pasted in money and stamps but it was a trompe d'oeil. 
beautiful, insightful portrait.
Matthias Grunwald Crucifiction








Sunday, March 30, 2014

DC: National Portrait Gallery


Where Francis and I went to Mass.
Perníl de cerdo, arroz con gandules, frijoles, y plátano maduro. Delicioso.



Saturday, March 29, 2014

DC: the Corcoran





Rockwell Kent. One of my favorites
classic John Singer Sargeant

We got to play Apples to Bananas with the Bananagram tiles. Each player gets 12 tiles to create the best rapper name, Children's book title, stripper name or best new restaurant. Then the players vote for the best creative title. Fun.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Washington DC

On the prompting of Robbie, I asked Francis & Kirsten if I could spend five days with them in DC. Hospitality. Yummy Food. Good taste. And down time. What a lovely time.








Sunday, March 23, 2014

Georgia O'Keefe and Lake George


 For some individuals, there are pivotal places and persons that have such an impact on the work they do, that they are forever changed in the work subsequent to the encounter. For Georgia O’Keefe, place was Lake George and the person was Alfred Stieglitz. The exhibit Georgia O’Keefe and Lake George demonstrates the artist’s seminal work of using nature as inspiration, her work straddling between representational and abstract. In one of her quotes, she states “nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.” This insightful statement is worth exploring the way human focusing their vision among the myriad of things before their eyes, selectively hearing the voice or tune from the noise of life.

“I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had not words for.”

“It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because is it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definitive form of the intangible thin in myself that I can only clarify in paint.”

“I said to myself—I’ll paint what I see—what the flower is to me, but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it –I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.”
 “I made you take time to look at what I saw, and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower, and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see—and I don’t.”

“I have painted portraits that to me are almost photographic. I remember hesitating to show the paintings, they looked so real to me. But they have passed into the world as abstractions—no one seeing what they are.” –Gray Green Abstraction, 1931.
"I believe It was the work that kept me with him though I loved him as a human being…. I put up with what seemed to me a good deal of nonsense because of what seemed clear and bright and wonderful.”  Dark & Lavender Leaves 1931, on why O’Keefe remained married with Stielglitz even though he had been unfaithful.
“If people were trees…I might like them better.”

Saturday, March 22, 2014

au plein aire again in Glen Canyon


© Hector V. Lee, 2014
© Hector V. Lee, 2014

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

cliff house

© Hector Lee, 2014
HaPpY BiRtHdAy MaRiAh! LoVe YoU!

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Our soul waits for the Lord

© Hector Lee, 2014
Congratulations Kara. Let the Spirit guide and move you.

Monday, March 10, 2014

happy birthday Nikky

© Hector Lee, 2014
 i love you.