in real life 4
Don't Give Up Your Day Job

review by Bob Angilly

I don't suppose Vincent Van Gogh ever went on a job interview. His resume was kind of slim. The only two things he was really good at were drinking and painting, and he wasn’t able to make much money doing either--and there was always the ear to explain--self-mutilation is always such a turn off for potential employers. Fortunately, brother Theo was willing to support the drinking and try to sell the paintings as best he could, with little success--that is until Vincent died, then they were selling like hotcakes, and no more 60/40 split.

Those of us in the world of Real Life must work to support our art, not to mention our drinking. It’s not so easy, given the demands of twentieth century, to live for art alone.

There’s the kids to clothe, the dog to feed, plus the rent on the garret. However, living in the heady neo-Renaissance charm of modern Cantabrigia rekindles the creative spark in all of us. Hey, it's not the left bank of Paris but we have better ice cream! We work in an environment surrounded by some of the more creative people of our time, and we are very much products of our environment. It shows in the work we do and carries on into our personal lives and manifesting itself in many interesting and often beautiful ways.

In short: "Art Happens" (by the way this slogan will appear on the T-shirts for next years show). Once again, as in the last three years, we collect our artistic product and plaster the walls of the Gund Hall exhibition area. Most of us, although not all, are amateur artists, not subject to the whims of the artistic marketplace (and unlike certain amateur athletes much in the news in recent weeks, not making a killing in product endorsements). Our creations are products of our own souls, and it takes more than a little courage to hang your soul in a public gallery--especially when you know it will be subjected to the rambling musings of an amateur art critic.

So, without further abuse this year's dream team is:

Anthony Cate who wrote a short prose piece in ink on graph paper. “32nd Street” is about a Manhattan neighborhood of Korean shops and a hardware store called Whitey’s. It is written in English and then translated into Korean (or vice-versa).

Sarah Travis explained to me how lithographs work. First you paint everything on a rock and then make the prints from the wet rock--kind of like silly putty and comic strips only much harder. She has created a number of lithographs based on architectural renderings by a GSD student. Some are washed with color in a process called monoprint (which she didn’t explain). There are two more abstract pieces in lithograph and water color.

Mimi Truslow has contributed three new watercolors, “Distance”, “Morning Fog” and “Islands”--smaller than in previous years but no less impressive. There’s islands on a blue bay, forests and distant hills, and sunset breaking through the clouds all with the same dreamy mix of water, land, sunlight and fog.

Ann Whiteside makes blank greeting cards from a collage of various colors and textures of paper, cloth and ribbons. She has exhibited a number of examples in a variety of styles from subdued to brilliantly gaudy. All come with envelopes.

My parents have an enormous collection of color slides dating back to the 1950’s which they haul out on occasion to frighten off the neighbors. Scott Kehoe has taken color transparencies (used to call them slides) in such far flung places as Eastham, Cape Ann, Sakonnet Point, Indiana, Wisconsin, New York, and this year Paris. All show his unique perspective of both familiar and unfamiliar objects and places and his ability to make the ordinary interesting. And none of them as scary as my Aunt Ethyl in a one piece.

Christine LaFleur has exhibited two black & white portraits. “Andrea--Seated” outdoors, near some trees looking very thoughtful. “Andrea-- Woodpile” with Andrea brightly lit face contrasted against a background of cut logs, slightly out of focus to create a dreamy effect.

Tenbroeck Patterson’s “Saving Daylight Time: Pictures, Poems, and Songs from a Texas Border Town” is an integrated concept piece with photographs, a book of poems, and sheet music from a piece composed with her husband David, which will be performed sometime in February. It’s all about life in her former home town of Brownsville, Texas.

Jim Reid-Cunningham has displayed four examples of custom bookbinding. “Le Musee Imaginaire” that has kind of a retro-modernistic look, kind of a recreation of what folks in the thirties would have thought was really futuristic. “Pope’s Works” is very traditional in style with ribs and gold trim, and beautiful swirled endpapers. “Ash Clocks & Fog Bones” is more modern in style with metallic looking paper and a collage of images on the cover. “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a miniature with delicate detailing and a tiny box to put it in.

Minerva Smith has created eight pictures in a variety of medium. “Man of Steel No More” and “Hidden Paradise” in acrylic paint, “Gentle Speculation” and “Pondering Knight” in acrylic and water color, “El Hijo” and “Mi Flor Mi Corazon” in Charcoal Pencil and Water Color, “Beginnings” in acrylic & color pencil, and “Cat Woman” in acrylic & charcoal pencil. There are a variety of styles and themes from comic books to portraits and from subdued watercolors to brilliantly colored acrylics.

Nicholas Dechman’s “Battle Armor” is an intricately woven chain mail tunic hand made from a couple of miles of steel wire cut and bent into thousands of interlocking steel links in two layers. While Karen Dechman’s “Festival Dress” is a pink and green period costume with puffed sleeves and delicate brocade and embroidered trim.

Desirée Goodwin has contributed six humorous poems she wrote between seven and ten years ago. “O Turkey Bird” is a holiday carol about the main course. “Inside Don Juan” is an ode to male callousness. “Candy Cane Addition” is about the consequences of candy. The trilogy of poems “I Was A Raindrop”, “I Was A Snowflake”, “I Was A Sunbeam” is largely about cause and effect, and what they were all thinking about as they fell. There is also another collection of “Desirée’s Design’s”, 10 sets of beaded earrings in a variety of styles and colors.

Barbara Butler has contributed another collection of “Barbara’s Beaded Beauties”, a wide variety of earrings, necklaces, broaches, and a sheet metal Elvis. There are jeweled elephants, rope necklaces and a lot of different styles all exhibiting a clever and whimsical use of materials.

Kathleen Sterling has created “In Real Life 4: The Home Page”, chock full of information about the current show, and photographs from last year’s exhibition, including people in silly glasses. If you have a web browser and want to try this at home the page is located at:

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/~web-adms/staffart.html.

This years list of latecomers--those who think they can avoid the reviewer by putting their stuff out after the party are:

Wade Hokoda, who is creating a Digital Interactive Work to be accessible on the World Wide Web. The could be “Wade’s Virtual Sushi Parlor” an interactive Japanese restaurant (30 minutes later you are ready to download again) or it could be something else but if it’s something else it ain’t out yet, so I have to talk about what I found on his home page. It’s new, it’s way cool, and if he shows up at the party with the raw octopus I ordered boy will I be sorry I messed with it.

Margaret Moore De Chicojay will exhibit a collection of photographs taken last fall in Kenya.

Jose Rivera will be exhibiting a collection of watercolors inspired by Mimi Truslow’s work. I’m expecting water, fog and lots of trees and rocks.

And last but not lost, is the humble reviewer (if I had any humility whatsoever I wouldn’t be doing this), and his seemingly endless struggle to assemble four pages of coherent prose in time for the folks at OIT to make a hundred or so copies before the party. As always, it’s a labor of love, something I look forward to every year. When it’s all over I’ll send a copy of the review, the brochure and the postcard to my mom, who puts all my stuff (and my brother’s and sister's stuff) in the bathroom for the family to read. Art has its purpose. Bye for now.

Bob Angilly will be back in “In Real Life 5: Don’t Make a Career Out of It” coming next fall to an exhibition hall near you.

The “In Real Life” reviews, movie reviews and articles for Design Lines can be seen on Bob’s web page at: http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/~staffba3/bobpage.html.