Went to the gym Friday. I went a little early, so it was a little bit more crowded. Managed to do the regular routine, with Roman Chair curls.
Saturday, after much anxious checking and re-checking of e-mail, I learned that I'd sold a story! I had been indulging in a bit of pre-rejection reject-o-mancy, because my memory of selling to this market before is that they contact folks a few days ahead of the sale -- so when I got the message with its "thank you for submitting your story" opening, I was certain that it was a rejection and had to re-read it several times to be sure I'd read it correctly. More news when it's published in mid-October.
Saturday was also paint scraping day. Last week we had a ton of rain in a half hour, which resulted in some leaks in our garage. Right now it's raining pretty hard -- although not as hard as last week -- and our roof seems to be waterproof. My theory is that roofing gravel got stuck up against the side of the house and some loose siding, which created a mini dam and allowed the inundation of water to work its way over the roof flashing.
Mark, who stays on top of these sorts of things, whereas I would wonder why suddenly the house has half-rotted away, decreed we had to scrape, re-caulk, prime, and re-paint that particular side of the house. So we did. Okay, I'm such an arctic flower that by the time 11:30AM rolled around and the sun had burnt off the morning haze, I was dying from the heat of the roofing. So Mark did the majority of the work (mostly scraping).
Sunday, the forecast rains appeared, which postponed our priming and painting. So we did other things, like laundry. I finally hung a string of LEDs along the bookshelf. I don't know why I didn't do it sooner, because it looks fairly nice, and provides a gentle night-light glow for bed-time.
Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts
Monday, September 16, 2019
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Over-The-Top Art
Over the July Forth weekend we went to the Portland Art Museum and saw the "Gods and Heroes" display of (mostly) paintings from the French Academy.
I liked them because they are over-the-top ("see the drama unfold"). Think of all the hysteria over the Death of Socrates, and add stray arrows, and dancing over severed heads. And fabulous necklaces or scraps of loincloth. Mark thinks the over-the-top parts are stupid, but he likes the technique. I like allegory in general and convoluted allegory especially, and I liked some of the sullen expressions in the paintings. And tableaux: it's true, if I could live my life going from one fabulous tableaux to the next, I'd be... well, maybe not happy all the time, but certainly it would be fun.
The body language of the nymph turning away from Paris was great, and all the outstretched hands in every piece were fun.
I wasn't especially wild about the painting from just before the French Revolution, as these tended to feature children being shot with arrows or stabbed with swords.
I think the most effective part of the display was walking around a corner and being confronted by the anatomy paintings. Mark had warned me about these, and still I was surprised. The most impressive painting was a warrior in a fighter's stance, and the artist had painted the musculature and bones underneath the skin on half of the figure.
Early on in the exhibit there was a statement about how the students of the academy spent much of their time painting or sculpting the male nude. The idea was that the male nude was something God made and therefore a something that was divine and worthy depicting the heroic. Mark thinks this is propaganda, but what I think is interesting is how we went culturally from the nude male body being divine and heroic to it being a subversive statement of (homo) erotic desire.
I missed the cartoon at the end making fun of all the figures holding their arms out, up, or imperiously. So we'll have to go back.
I liked them because they are over-the-top ("see the drama unfold"). Think of all the hysteria over the Death of Socrates, and add stray arrows, and dancing over severed heads. And fabulous necklaces or scraps of loincloth. Mark thinks the over-the-top parts are stupid, but he likes the technique. I like allegory in general and convoluted allegory especially, and I liked some of the sullen expressions in the paintings. And tableaux: it's true, if I could live my life going from one fabulous tableaux to the next, I'd be... well, maybe not happy all the time, but certainly it would be fun.The body language of the nymph turning away from Paris was great, and all the outstretched hands in every piece were fun.
I wasn't especially wild about the painting from just before the French Revolution, as these tended to feature children being shot with arrows or stabbed with swords.
I think the most effective part of the display was walking around a corner and being confronted by the anatomy paintings. Mark had warned me about these, and still I was surprised. The most impressive painting was a warrior in a fighter's stance, and the artist had painted the musculature and bones underneath the skin on half of the figure.
A painting of Icarus and Daedalus reminded me of the funny captions recently given to a slew of Icarus paintings in The Toast (sadly defunct in 2026). The one in this exhibit wasn't particularly buff, but it was easy to imagine him suggesting, "But Dad, these feathers will make me stand out more when I'm up in the sky."
Early on in the exhibit there was a statement about how the students of the academy spent much of their time painting or sculpting the male nude. The idea was that the male nude was something God made and therefore a something that was divine and worthy depicting the heroic. Mark thinks this is propaganda, but what I think is interesting is how we went culturally from the nude male body being divine and heroic to it being a subversive statement of (homo) erotic desire. I missed the cartoon at the end making fun of all the figures holding their arms out, up, or imperiously. So we'll have to go back.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Wes Hempel
I discovered paintings by Wes Hempel the other day. I don't know why I hadn't run across Hempel's work earlier, as he's been painting for about twenty years, and he seems to be exploring a reworking of queer stories and myth in painting. Maybe I hadn't heard about him before because he seems to be working from a Christian foundation, and not so much from a Neo-Pagan one.
Although there is a Judeo-Christian vibe to the paintings, they speak to my sense of being a gay man navigating life and spiritual issues. I like the painting, "Stuck," where a strapping boxer is trying to take off his gloves so he can eat a feast spread out before him. The only problem is that he has to take off his gloves before he can eat. He almost appears to be trying to gnaw his gloves off at the wrist.
One of his paintings, "Reoccurring Dream" has a shirtless man standing in rising water in a white tiled room. When I saw it, I had an aha! moment because it could have come out from one of my dreams.
There was another painting where a strapping shirtless man is posed like a mother. He's surrounded by small children, toys, and soccer balls, and he looks exhausted. It looks exactly like a 1800's painting of a mother on display at the Portland Art Museum. I like Hempel's image of a sexually desirable (but harried looking) father and how the two aspects interact (or don't)
Other paintings similarly feel as if they were telling my stories as a gay man. I particularly like "Book of Shadows."
Hempel manages to paint beefcake that's more than beefcake. The nude or semi-nude male body is a powerful and subversive image, and he manages to make his paintings subversive with erotic overtones, while managing to not stray into explicit or gratuitous images. Well, maybe a little gratuitous.
When I think about images of NeoPagan Deity I usually run across, the gods imagined are oiled up with a strategically placed vines or wolf pelts draped across their loins as they gaze out of the picture with smoldering bedroom eyes. Or they're body builders, tattoed or artfully dirty, holding up animal horns to their brows and pouting like underwear models. Or else they're about to perform The Great Rite with a buxoum, blonde, blue-eyed goddess. And actually, I don't need to see depictions of two men performing The Great Rite because my spirituality is more than just a queer retelling of Heiros Gamos. Hempel's paintings have embodied men navigating questions, they are working through something instead of being merely pleasing objects.
And they're easy on the eyes.
Although there is a Judeo-Christian vibe to the paintings, they speak to my sense of being a gay man navigating life and spiritual issues. I like the painting, "Stuck," where a strapping boxer is trying to take off his gloves so he can eat a feast spread out before him. The only problem is that he has to take off his gloves before he can eat. He almost appears to be trying to gnaw his gloves off at the wrist.
One of his paintings, "Reoccurring Dream" has a shirtless man standing in rising water in a white tiled room. When I saw it, I had an aha! moment because it could have come out from one of my dreams.
There was another painting where a strapping shirtless man is posed like a mother. He's surrounded by small children, toys, and soccer balls, and he looks exhausted. It looks exactly like a 1800's painting of a mother on display at the Portland Art Museum. I like Hempel's image of a sexually desirable (but harried looking) father and how the two aspects interact (or don't)
Other paintings similarly feel as if they were telling my stories as a gay man. I particularly like "Book of Shadows."
Hempel manages to paint beefcake that's more than beefcake. The nude or semi-nude male body is a powerful and subversive image, and he manages to make his paintings subversive with erotic overtones, while managing to not stray into explicit or gratuitous images. Well, maybe a little gratuitous.
When I think about images of NeoPagan Deity I usually run across, the gods imagined are oiled up with a strategically placed vines or wolf pelts draped across their loins as they gaze out of the picture with smoldering bedroom eyes. Or they're body builders, tattoed or artfully dirty, holding up animal horns to their brows and pouting like underwear models. Or else they're about to perform The Great Rite with a buxoum, blonde, blue-eyed goddess. And actually, I don't need to see depictions of two men performing The Great Rite because my spirituality is more than just a queer retelling of Heiros Gamos. Hempel's paintings have embodied men navigating questions, they are working through something instead of being merely pleasing objects.
And they're easy on the eyes.
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