Added May 19, 2021
What's on the Easel, January 2021
What’s On The Easel
January 2021, Vol. III, No. 1
A monthly newsletter from Jim Fischer
So, bare with me here…
The muse has struck. There’s this wall. Ever since we moved into the house I have been thinking about what to do on the wall at the back of the garden. It’s 26 feet long and 6 feet high.
Then, the other night we watched an old movie that just came to mind, The Horse’s Mouth starring Alec Guiness as a grouchy old artist perpetually looking for large surfaces to paint and getting into several hilarious encounters as he does so and I was reminded of that wall.
Then another old project came to mind, a re-creation of DaVinci’s Last Supper.
But mine would be different, only the faces and hands (new faces and hands), each on a canvas and arrayed across the 26 feet of the painting (ah, yes, that wall) at varying heights as required. Just the faces and the hands.
Finally, I had an Epiphany. Because the work would be made up of 29 separate smaller canvases, with appropriate layout instructions and measurements, it could be, so to say, a portable Last Supper, set up anywhere there’s 26 running feet of wall! Thus, a major ‘Living With Art’ project is born. This one is going to take a while (like the 48 Views of Brownstone Brooklyn which took,10 years). First job, find 13 faces to paint.
And if that’s not enough...
I have decided to illustrate the last book of the New Testament. Revelations, using the various techniques developed for the Imagination series. I already have The Four Horsemen and War In Heaven. And just added this one:
“I was in the spirit of the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet …”
Now what started out as just finding art in random leftovers has purpose. So, does that make it ‘art’?
A piece to be exhibited …
Difficult as these times make it for in-person art exhibitions (and, in my opinion, the online options just don’t cut it), some are still going on. Such is the case with the Rotunda Gallery in Jersey City Hall. The February theme is, since it is Black History Month, black history. I will have this piece hung in the exhibit:
It’s called They Lynched Women, Too and comes with this tag line, “If you’re not willing to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” Malcolm X
A great bike needs a great helmet, eh.
Last month, if you recall, I featured my new bike, a Van Moof ebike, the Tesla of the ebike world. This month I found a helmet to do it justice, mat black like the bike, it is designed for urban riding, less aerodynamic, more robust and just cool (it even has, on the left, a hole specifically designed for slipping it onto a U lock). I added my personal logo to the front and it’s good to go.
About that ship…
Steph notes that the deck is getting a bit crowded. The captain is to give you a sense of scale.
And, finally, another in the ‘What If…” series…
What if … after supper
That’s all for now. Be well, be safe. And what’s on your easel?
Jim