RAUSCHENBERG, A HUGE INFLUENCE ON THE ART WORLD AND ME TOO!

Robert Rauschenberg 

The University of South Florida drew some of the finest art professors from across the United States and we also attracted many wonderful guest speakers.  I had the opportunity to personally meet Josef Albers and Carl Sandberg.  The art department was all about what was happening in New York in the art scene, trying to stay as current and up to date as possible.  AND RAUSCHENBERG WAS HAPPENING! Also Jasper Johns, Roy Litchenstein and many, many others. New York was the center of the art world and an exciting creative place. The end of the 60's and the beginning of the 70's were formative years in the art world in the New York. And our professor's were trying their best to keep us abreast of the latest in NYC art world.

Robert Rauschenberg first pursued being a minister, then a pharmacist, but it wasn't until 1947 when in the Marines he found he had a skill for drawing and an artistic representation of the everyday.  He studied in Paris on the G.I. bill, but later left Europe for Black Mountain, North Carolina where there was an beginning art movement just in its embryonic stages.  The country's most visionary thinkers were teaching at Black Mountain College.  There Merce Cunningham(Dance), and John Cage( Music) and Rauschenberg(Art) began what would be an artistic revolution.  But, North Carolina life was soon to small for Rauschenberg who left for NYC.  And it was there he would find amid the excitement of city life, the full extent of what he would bring to the art world through his paintings.

Popular culture became an emphasis for him, as he moved away form the angst of the abstract expressionist world.  He found a new way of painting, by using materials traditionally outside of the artists reach.  He would use house paint, use a car wheel to make a print, or used found objects in his work. He created what he called his COMBINES which were meant to show the finding and forming of combinations in three dimensional collage.  These works cemented his place in art history.

Popular culture became an emphasis for him, as he moved away form the angst of the abstract expressionist world.  He found a new way of painting, by using materials traditionally outside of the artists reach.  He would use house paint, use a car wheel to make a print, or used found objects in his work. He created what he called his COMBINES which were meant to show the finding and forming of combinations in three dimensional collage.  These works cemented his place in art history.

NAME YOUR FAVORITE ARTISTS OR ART WORK

Lets start the new year naming our favorite artists or art work. 
 I will go first, then you can add yours.

Charles Demuth       Engine Number 5

Rauschenberg  Monogram
Claus Oldenburg  French Fries
Van Gogh        Starry Night
Calder             Circus
Cornell            Everything he did
Monet             Water lilles 
Duchamp         Re Mutt
Dali                 Psychedelic Toreado 
Picasso           Bull with Bicycle Handlebars
Demuth          Engine Number 5
Johns              Orange and Green American Flag

Jasper Johns/American Flag/A Study of Color

Many of you are already well versed with Jasper Johns who gained prominence during the Pop Art era, but not all of you may have experienced his study of color in the green and orange version of his American Flag series.  There is a little white dot in the center of the painting, stare without blinking for a minute or so, the immediately look at a blank white wall.  You will be amazed at what you see. The American flag in red, white and blue will appear! It is based on color opposites and that you eye will see the other.  If you don't get it the first time, just try again. 

I worked with John's orange and green American flag in a traveling art museum we had for elementary students, and the students were just awe struck.  They were won over to modern art by Jasper Johns and Claus Oldenburg's soft sculpture of French Fries. 

Joseph Albers was another artist is who studied how colors effect one another as they are next to each other.

Collage/Pieces of our Lives

Collage

Is oft thought of as a sub class to painting, drawing and sculpture. It is truly interesting that part of the art world has taken that position with its wonderful rich history. I have loved collage most of my life. I think it actually started with watching my Mother put together family photo's with clipping out bits of embroidery or lace to enhance the presentation. I can remember how carefully she would set aside pieces of her favorite bits of material and thoughtfully arrange each vignette. I watched with awe, and remember thinking I didn't know you were allowed to combine photographs with other things. I had not seen it done in anyone else's home or other place. It was unique to me and seemed to allow me to think differently.

Africa is not always given its due to the history of collage. Picasso is given credit and Braque, but it is not always mentioned that Picasso drew many of his influences came from African art. Rauschenberg, Johns, Cornell were artist who brought collage into the modern art world. Now it is a mainstay trending over to assemblage and all types of mixed media and found object collage. Curators and judges no longer cast an eye of disdain, as in the past, but have accept video artists, installations and other innovations.

The history of art is change, innovation, and exploration. Bright colors were thought to be a horror is certain periods of art, impressionism was thought unskilled art, and Van Gogh's work was not accepted in his life time. So art is meant to be in constant evolution and more that the realistic representation of a scene or object. Art is meant to challenge us, make us think, and to inspire discovery and exploration.

For me collage and assemblage are the archeology of the present and future. There will be a time when people study our objects for hints of how we lived as a civilization. I love old, worn, used, touched, lived with objects: they speak to be of times just past and times present that are moving into the past. It is the visual poetry of our lives, our beings journey in time. We leave a mark, we leave evidence we were here, we worked, we lived, and we existed on this earth at this time.

Test Tiles for Transfers on Ceramics

Test Tiles for Mixed Media Art Project

These are not decals, this an actual printing on clay using a ceramic ink on raw clay, then fired. It has taken us much practice and experiments to get this to work. In these pictures you will note the image looks pixilated, it is due to the canvas the clay was rolled out on. There are many variables that effect the look of the image.

I am working on a project that will use images and thoughts from my Mothers life, as a type of portrait and honor to her, but in general to all women of my Mothers generation who survived two wars and a great depression-they are made of stern stuff, but who also wore there badges with grace and compassion. My Mother was beyond a sewer, she was a seamstress, a tailor, and artist with cloth and needle. She also was a science teacher majoring in biology and chemistry. Her love of nature and science was passed on with great love to myself and my brother, and like a stone dropped the ripple effects go on to our whole family. Now her grandsons hunt fossils and points with great glee...a gift given from another generation. At almost 99 she still is a presence in my life, even with the effects of a massive stroke 9 years ago, she can still communicate love, grace, compassion and determination. I am always in awe of her being and thankful for the gifts she has given me and others. So it will be in an art piece, perhaps many, that I will honor her as Mother, as Earth Mother, as life giver, as woman, as love....it will be a theme in my art to honor these gifts. As Dali, Jasper Johns, and many other artists develop a symbology of language that reappears in their art, my art is developing its own language, its own alphabet. So these test tiles are the beginning of a mixed media piece in the making. As the piece progresses I will share it with you.