A few weeks ago I went to the Corcoran Gallery of Art to see the Sargent at the Sea exhibit. It was great to see the key painting, En Route pour la peche (Setting out to fish), with many of the supporting paintings that John Singer Sargent did as studies. I've seen most of them in books, but it's just not the same as seeing them in person. As a realist painter, one of the things I struggle with is whether it is okay to paint a composite of different images in one painting and this is an example where it was successful. Another example in this show was the Neapolitan Children Bathing. This is the painting of the four naked boys on the beach, one with water-wings. The show had the separate studies that he did of the boys, so you could see how he put them all together for the final painting. (photo is from the Corcoran web site)

Art saves lives. For Halloween we usually make our own costumes. For my 12 year old daughter we were talking about a tornado with lots of tulle and cows, etc., but it just wasn't feeling right and things were a little tense around the Olson house. So, with about three hours to go I came up with an idea based on some artwork I had just seen at the Arlington Arts Center by Cynthia Hron. Cynthia had these large anamorphic shapes made out of zip ties that were very cool. I explained it to my husband and daughter and they took it from there to create a porcupine-ish costume. It was a big hit and everyone wanted to touch it. Once again, art saves lives.

(Cynthia Hron photo is from the bmoreart.blogspot.com)

In September I attended a Carolyn Anderson workshop in Easton, Maryland. It was held at the Easton Studio and School through the South Street Art Gallery. Carolyn gave several demos throughout the class and of course made it look so easy. This was a good class for me because I have been trying to loosen up and be more painterly. Carolyn said that we need to change our mentality so that instead of painting a painting of a model, we should use the model to create a painting. (Photo is one of Carolyn's demos)

This month the Art League Show was juried by Berthold Schmutzhart who is a professor at the Corcoran School of Art. It was an all-media show and my painting Ellen was accepted.

Trip to Italy

I went to Italy in August with my husband and daughters for about 10 days. We started by staying outside of Florence in the Raffaello Family suite at the Villa Poggo Merili. It was so beautiful. There was a pool right up the hill from our patio that was surrounded by olive trees. We went into Florence usually twice each day and parked outside one of the main walls. We saw the Duomo (see photo of the ceiling), Uffizi, Boboli Gardens and Ponte Vecchio Bridge. I loved seeing the Birth of Venus by Botticelli in the Uffizi.

One day we went to Cinque Terre which is five coastal towns linked by a walking path and a train. We started in Monterosso al Mare and walked to the next town of Vernazza. It was a stunning view. We ate lunch there, swam for a few hours and then took the train back.

We spent the last part of the trip in Rome. We stayed at the Kolbe Hotel in Rome which had a contemporary interior and was located in the heart of ancient Rome. People can tell you about Rome, but you just have to go and see it yourself. There is no way to describe how enriched you feel after seeing all of the history and art. My favorite day was when we went over to the Vatican. In the Vatican musuem we went through the Raphael rooms and saw the School of Athens. Then we saw Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel which was for me the best part of the trip. Afterwards we walked over to St. Peter's Square and then over to the Castel St. Angelo. When we walked across the bridge with all of the angels on it, Ponte S'Angelo, they were filming a movie so we had to walk through all of the paparazzi to get across. On the way back to the hotel we stopped by the Pantheon and we just sat inside for a while.

I went to see the "Paint Made Flesh" show at the Phillips Collection today. I was very excited to see the show because it has paintings by many of my favorite figurative painters..Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Eric Fischl, Michael Borremans and Alice Neel. The show is up until September 13th, 2009. It's always great to see paintings up close that you've only seen in books. (photo is from the Phillips Collection web site of a Jenny Saville painting)

Black and White is the title of the July show at the Art League and the juror was Catriona Fraser, owner and Director of the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, MD. My charcoal drawing of my daughter got in the show and won an honorable mention. At the opening it was fun to see that several of the other award winners brought their children/models with them too. It makes you wonder if thats why artists have kids.