Today Harry and I were invited to a friends for a New Years Eve party. Neither Harry or I are into big groups of people or parties but we thought it would be fun. But at the last minute I wasn't feeling so hot and Harry was having some tooth pain so we decided to stay home and celebrate the new year with just the two of us and Daisy. It was a quiet but nice night.
Today I started working on editing together some of the video from our wonderful three trip to Long Beach for Star Trek The Tour back in February 08. We took over three hours of video and watching it now brings back such great memories. Harry and I are such geeks.. we had such a wonderful time. If you want to see the videos you can go to my You tube video page and watch them there.. I have a few up now but plan on putting up more as I get them done...
It's the last day of the year, time to take stock of the year gone by. What an exciting year it has been!
I created a number of artworks I'm proud of. I drove across and around the country with my wife, something I've wanted to do for many years. And I continued to immerse myself in painting and sculpture by visiting museums around the country and really enjoying many of the works I saw. I don't know which one to show on today's post, but I guess it will come to me before I finish the post. The museums I visited this year include:
Aside from creating art and visiting museums, I also read Hilary Spurling's extensive 2 volume biography of Henri Matisse which I thoroughly enjoyed, Matisse's essay Notes of a Painter, Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, an illuminating collection of essays and letters called Writings on Art - Mark Rothko, and The Writings of Robert Motherwell. And now I've embarked on John Richardson's 3 volume biography A Life of Picasso! I also read several national art magazines each month.
I've finally selected not one but two images to go with this post, both colorful although created 500 years apart, and both from the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft Worth TX, our first scheduled art museum stop on our cross country trip (I visited all the art museums from the Kimbell to the end of the list on our summer cross country trip). Fra Angelico's 1429-1430 small painting The Apostle Saint James the Greater Freeing the Magician Hermogenes, and a late Henri Matisse from 1946, Asia.
I didn't know I'd done so much this year! No wonder I feel like I've been busy. A review really is very valuable for appreciating all one has accomplished. I hope you've had a great year too. Thanks for reading my blog.
I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!
You can view some of my 3-D paintings and mixed media works on my website, www.jayrolfe.com/.
Today I got my Dr. Horrible Sing Along Blog DVD and CD from Amazon.. I can't wait to sit down and watch/listen to Commentary the Musical and watch all the extras.. The Hammer is my Penis...
Again I invite you to take advantage of the time, the I invite you to look in the mirror, open your eyes to the world and stretch their hands to touch. I invite you to awaken and renew, to begin to change the world and try to be masters of what they are. This year again I call you LIVE!.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
the tradition of previous years, the doors to the dinner tonight will remain open and the invitation is for everyone.
They posted The Guild episode 4 and a gag reel from the first three episode up on MS Video. http://is.gd/9Zjj . I did a BT S piece for this episode but I'm not sure when they are going to post that.. I'll keep you all updated.
My friend Chris sent me this link. It's a photo campaign for folks to post pictures of you, your spouse, husband, wife, kids, family holding signs asking "people" not to divorce my mom's or dad's. There are some amazing pictures and my heart swells with pride to be part of such a loving community. Check it out here.
Today for TV night we watched The Tales of Despereaux. I had gotten the DVD screener that day. This movie is based on a best selling Children's novel.
Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry, an actress who appeared in numerous "Star Trek" TV shows and movies, died Thursday of leukemia at her home in Bel-Air, Calif.
What else did Leo and Gertrude Stein hang in their apartment?
In 1906 they also acquired and hung the 7 feet tall Picasso, "Boy Leading a Horse." While not as avant garde as Matisse's two paintings featured in my most recent posts, it was not traditional. Leo Stein showed Picasso both Matisse's and Picasso's own paintings hanging in his apartment, encouraging a rivalry. When Picasso saw the three paintings side-by-side, Hilary Spurling in The Unknown Matisse says, "Picasso had been shaken by 'Woman in a Hat', and seriously perturbed by 'Le Bonheur de Vivre'." The rest, as they say, is history, art history!
Today Picasso's "Boy Leading a Horse" hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Here's a link to the web page about it. http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79994
You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.
Shortly after the 1905 Salon d'Automne at which he debuted "Woman in a Hat," featured in my most recent two posts, Matisse painted the large "Le Bonheur de Vivre" ("The Joy of Life") over the winter of 1905-1906. Rosa Arpino, an Italian woman who modelled for art schools in Paris, was the female model for all the female figures in the almost 6 feet by 8 feet painting.
"Le Bonheur de Vivre" was exhibited in April 1906 at the Salon d'Independants in Paris, and at the end of the exhibit on April 30, Leo Stein bought "Le Bonheur de Vivre." It's a beautiful painting, one I've seen many times at the Barnes Foundation in Merion PA. Although it hung in the living room of the Steins, it hangs above the landing of the staircase from the first to the second floor at the Barnes Foundation. It's interesting that there is a small circle of dancing women in "Le Bonheur de Vivre" and Matisse would produce "The Dancers" three years later in 1909 for Sergei Shchukin, the Moscow textile magnate, which was to hang in the staircase of his mansion. The second version of "The Dancers" now hangs above the staircase landing in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. What's with all these staircase paintings?
So the Steins had Matisse's "Woman in a Hat" and Matisse's "Le Bonheur de Vivre" on their walls. What fabulous paintings to have hanging in your home, although in that day they were considered scandalous.
You can view some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.
Today was all about The Guild. First of all The Guild released it's 2008 Christmas special which was FANTASTIC. Not only did I capture a tone of BTS footage I was also set decorator and helped with setting up the Christmas stuff behind the actors.. it was a lot of fun.
Henri Matisse's "Woman in a Hat", which was the subject of my post yesterday, was sold from its original showing at the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris to some American collectors. Leo and Gertrude Stein, brother and sister, telegraphed Matisse of their desire to buy it. Leo was actually buying it for his brother and sister-in-law Michael and Sarah Stein.
"Woman in a Hat" is now in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. You may see it on the museum's website. http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/213
There is no substitute for seeing an original painting as opposed to a print. It's amazing the difference in reproductions. Today's image is taken from the SFMOMA website, while yesterday's image is from the Matisse biography, The Unknown Matisse.
You can see some of my 3-D paintings at www.jayrolfe.com/.
Last weekend we saw a play written by American comedian Steve Martin at the Delaware Theatre Company called Picasso at the Lapin Agile. It's a fictional story of Picasso meeting Einstein at a local Parisian cafe in 1904, before either was famous. In the dialogue, Picasso took a few swipes at his rival Matisse. It was hilarious and we really enjoyed it.
I've been reading a two volume biography of Henri Matisse, who gave up law to be an artist, written by Hilary Spurling. Volume one is The Unknown Matisse, A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908. Volume two is Matisse The Master, A Life of Henri Matisse, The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954.
After spending the summer of 1905 painting in Collioure on the French Mediterranean near the border with Spain, Matisse submitted several paintings the the Salon d'Automne in Paris, notably "Woman in a Hat" and "The Open Window, Collioure." Matisse and his experimental friends Derain, Vlaminck, Marquet, Manguin, and Camoin, had their paintings shown in what became known as the notorious room or gallery Salle VII. Spurling writes that while Matisse was inspecting the installation of the paintings before the opening with writer Louis Vauxcelles, "Vauxcelles noticed a couple of academic sculptures placed incongruously in the middle of Salle VII and made what became a famous wisecrack to Matisse: 'a Donatello among the wild beasts [fauves].'" Vauxcelles then published his quip in a magazine article and Matisse's group got its name, Fauves.
The critics had little good to say about the Fauves at the time of the Salon d'Automne. Spurling reports, "Even young artists eager to identify themselves with everything that was new and forward-looking found this latest work [Matisse's "Woman in a Hat"] hard to take. One of them was the writer Francis Carco, a friend of the twenty-four-year-old Pablo Picasso, whose reputation was already gaining ground in Montmartre in spite of the fact that hardly anyone had seen his work. Carco, hanging out at Picasso's local, the Lapin Agile, could make no sense at all of the Spaniard's pronouncements on modern art: 'And I was starting to ask myself if, in spite of his astonishing powers of persuasion, Picasso was not getting more pleasure from mystifying us than he was from actually painting, when the notorious "Woman in a Hat" [by Matisse] taught me more in an instant than all his [Picasso's] paradoxes.... there emanated from this singular work ... such an evidently conscious fixity of purpose that, after an interval of more than thirty years, I still have not forgotten it.'"
Spurling continues, "Certainly, the regulars at the Lapin Agile, like Francis Carco, were powerfully impressed. Picasso (who had not yet met Matisse) felt he had been decisively outflanked."
| For the twelve days of Christmas, your true love will send you: |
 drumming Eleven Twelve robots carolers a-caroling Ten midgets a-leaping Nine ladies baking cookies Eight alpacas a-milking Seven fruitcakes a-festering Santas a-hohohoing Six Five golden necklaces booty calls calling Four Three Two French Tourists bottles of whiskey And a crazy homeless person in an apple tree |
Well since my first set of photos of cast and crew with the large can of Tuna went over so well I took more photos of the crew with the big can of Tuna on the final shoot day for The Guild second season. Here is the link to the photos.
Well today our Big Screen 60" TV was delivered. Of course I couldn't wait to get home and open it up. Though it is a Xmas gift for Harry and I from Harry and I there was no way we were going to wait till Christmas to open it.
Tonight The Guild cast and crew went out to Dimples (Karaoke Bar) to celebrate the end of the The Guild season two shoot. They are planning a bigger and final wrap party in January when we are actually done with all the editing. But for tonight we all went out for drinks and singing. It was a blast, it's funny seeing folks who you work with let their hair down and rock on with the singing. Everyone had a great time and I have video to prove it. Felicia is going to post some of the video on The Guild You Tube channel soon. And I even got up there twice and sang with several others.. and I didn't have a drop of alcohol, because I was driving. it was a fun night.
While on this weekends shoot with The Guild we found this 4 1/2 pound can of Tuna. So of course me being me I had to take a photo of everyone holding the giant can of tuna.. above is Felicia Day. I took tons of pictures of cast and crew with the giant can of tuna.. you can see them on my facebook page. Click Her
Well we haven't had much luck with Big Screen TV's. My first 45" TV my brother sold to me for $200 and all it needed was a new screen but it cracked while they were moving it. I was assured that it would be easy to find.. well it wasn't and come to find out they don't make that TV or screens anymore so it became a great big piece of plastic.
On my last day of my four-day weekend I was able to put up our Christmas lights on our house. I got up early around 8am and started to sort through the stands of lights. I was amazed at how many of the strands were half-out and unusable. Luckily we bought some a few days after Christmas last year so I had some back up lights. So I climbed onto the roof and started to hang lights. Last year I wanted to write Merry Christmas on the roof but didn't have enough lights but this year I had plenty. I am happy with the results and I think I'm going to add a few more lights to the garage and front door area but for the most part it's very Christmasy at our place.
Well as tradition with me it's the day after Thanksgiving so now I have permission to decorate my house. Today I did the living room and dining room. This is my favorite time of the year and I love putting up as much stuff as I can. Next up are the lights on the house.
Today is the premiere of the Second Season of The Guild.
Afterward, we were full but not stuffed--at least not too stuffed for frozen dessert. We went around the corner to Mr. Yogato, one in a smattering of recent yogurt joint openings that still doesn't rival the burger explosion of 2008. You can get original soft, original tangy, or a rotation of yogurt flavors at Mr. Yogato, and then there are a zillion toppings. Including olive oil. I had original tangy with bananas, mini Eggo wafflse, and honey. It was AWESOME. Standard chocolate toppings abound, for the traditional folks. The best part about MY of course are the games. Besides the standards, including answering a trivia question (like "Name 7 countries that start and end with the same letter"--Jeff's question!), the night we were there your yogurt was 100% free if you could stand on one foot on your tippy toes (not quite ballet style, but raised up) for 15 seconds with YOUR EYES CLOSED. The eyes closed part is the kicker, people. Try it. Right now. As J said, you go to Mr. Yogato when you're with friends but Tangysweet when you're alone. 
Today I was finally able to work on the notes that Felicia and Kim gave me and cut in the directors interview as well. After a few hours I am very pleased with the results. I can't really talk about what it is as it's all very top secret but I do know it's a companion piece for Episode 4 of season two.. it will also be an extra on the Season two DVD. Now I get to send it off to Felicia and Kim for final notes.
