Somedays it’s fun to play. The era is supposed to be c.1936. My mother pinned clothes on a merry-go-round contraption with a center metal pole, stuck in a concrete surrounded hole. The needs-to-be-oiled sounds of a pulley as the clothesline is reeled out with colors, shapes and flags. Whipping around in the breeze, drying in the sun. The smell of a pillowcase on a clean bedsheet that earlier flapped on the line. I bought these at the Hobby Shop. Read about HO scale .
Remembering Christina Radis Murdock
Using an India Ink Artist Pen, I wrote ballet terms in French on the right shoe, and on the left shoe, all the ballets the Pittburgh Ballet Theatre has performed the past 40 years. This pair of pointe shoes is on display at the Benedum this weekend and ballet goers can bid on them in a silent auction. The call was for artists to make an artwork using a pair of used pointe shoes, which you could pick up in the strip where they practice. Just before I turned them in I took a quick photo of them in the car. They are in an acrylic box for display. Update Saturday afternoon: Just got a call that the shoes were selected to be in the top five! Chosen by Eric C Shiner, The Milton Fine Curator of Art at the Warhol Museum! Invited to a Swan Lake Soiree Cast Party tomorrow afternoon. I am excited!
The curb used to be yellow, the losing ticket catches your eye. You lean over the curb,focus, see equal thirds in the composition. Shoot. Texture, line, shape, color, space, form. Art elements are everywhere in the world.
Used as a mailbox now, these silver milk boxes were on everyone’s porch steps. Growing up our dairy was Alderney Farms in New Jersey. Thick glass, with paperboard circle caps. You could get a dozen eggs, some cottage cheese. Leave the empties for the milkman to exchange for fresh cold bottles of milk. We still had delivery in the mid sixties. The delivery truck door had a sound when it’d slide. You can buy an old milkbox on ebay.
Old seltzer bottles, a birdcage, the texture of the wicker, some stained glass at dusk. J’s front porch with the sun sinking behind. Condensation inside the old glass, the metal tops. Artists usually arrange inanimate objects to create a still-life to paint or draw. This was already there, waiting. But then it is an artist’s house.
I wrote and illustrated a little book for the students called You Need to Read. It illustrates reasons you’d need to read–sorting baggage tags for the different destinations at the airport, a firefighter finding a street name on the city map, a chef reading a recipe, a patient reading the medicine label, high voltage and thin ice. Love the exclamation point.
When you are little there are lots of “firsts”. First tooth, first words, first steps, first day of school, first time on skates, first time for any number of things. As we age the number of “firsts” decrease. Everyone cleared the rink. Michael was mesmerized by the “Mighty Machine” (his favorite show) that drove out onto the ice. You see an ice machine the word Zamboni comes to mind. He barely blinked as he watched the man drive the Zamboni around the ice.
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CONTACT INFO If you need a mural artist come Spring email Mark Runco <panzagallery@mac.com>