Time Piece is another of my print explorations from December 2011.  It is a monotype print with trace monotype and collage elements integrated into the composition.  Today I shared this piece and four others with members of our print exchange at Circling the Square Fine Art Press in Gardiner.  Seeing the previews of work by other printmakers was inspiring.   While our work is not fully collaborative–each individual is creating work in response to a piece by another artist–we are creating a web of creative community.

CTS Press has been my studio away from home since April of 2010.

Please keep in touch and Happy 2012!

Robin E. Brooks

http://www.theartdogs.com/2/Circling_the_Square/Home.html

PS You can now find me on twitter@robin_brooksart and facebook.com/robinbrooksart

Introduction: I am taking part in a printmaking adventure with at least eleven other artists.  The “One of a Kind” monotype group I showed with in September of 2010 joined with some members of the Circling the Square Press community.  We all agreed to be paired in random fashion with another printmaker and we drew names out of a hat.  Our plan was to create a print to give to our partner who would then create a visual response.

Our print format is 15″ x15″ but the approach to imagery and technique is wide open.  We held our first meeting in October to exchange a print with our partner.  In the first image, you can see Diana McFarland’s yellow and maroon etching of a small mechanical gizmo to the left of my blue green beach-inspired collagraph print.

Initial Response: I have been working on my response to Diana McFarland’s intaglio print.  As I looked Her image, with it’s soft yellow and maroon delicately drawn gears and mechanical parts, brought to mind mechanical things we no longer use in this digital and highly technological age–objects that are now considered antiques.

I live with a 1910 Seth Thomas mantle clock.  It was a gift from my father when I first left home in the 1970’s.  I always loved his collection of clocks with the sound of the pendulum ticking the time and various melodic chimes sounding.

Making Connections: The rich red-brown wooden case of my mantle clock reminded me of the color Diana  had used to ink the gears and mechanical parts of her print. Next, I decided to look inside my clock.  Even though I’d looked before, the gears and other mechanical elements gave visual delight! They included a  spiral spring, a mallet to strike the bell, and the all-important pendulum  The brassy gold metal of the clock works once again reminded me of Diana’s color palette.

Printing Process: I began by sketching the clock works with the door ajar.  I brought my 9″x12″ sketch to the studio at Circling the Square Press in Gardiner and, using acetate film, a sharpie, and an Exacto knife, I traced and cut various elements of the clock to use as printmaking plates.  Since Diana had used three separate intaglio plates to complete her print, it made sense for my interpretation to include multiple plates.  The process I used involved inking the plates separately, applying color with a brayer.  I made several small trace monotypes on rice paper, one of which I pasted into the print.  I also used elements of painted paper which I glued into the print.  Adding these details and collage elements served to integrate the diverse parts of the image into a more cohesive whole.

The delicately drawn gears and slightly anthropomorphic nature of Diana’s intaglio print brought the clock works to mind along with the Swiss artist Paul Klee.  In particular, I thought of his piece entitled The Twittering Machine. In my first Time Piece print I repeated varied key elements such as the pendulum, creating a dynamic and playful composition that might be seen as Klee-like in it’s whimsy and slightly surreal nature.

Next steps: The next meeting of our group will be on January 7, 2012 with another print exchange scheduled for February.  This print exchange has pushed me into new visual territory.  I have taken this opportunity  to dig deeper into the works of a 20th century master whose work continues to offer inspiration and visual surprise.  Indeed, Paul Klee often used transfer drawings as a starting point for his small-scale mixed media works.  The delight of his playful yet serious approach to imagery and technique has long fascinated me.

I find it enriching to engage in this rich conversation with the works of other artists and look forward to the unknown places this journey will take me.

Robin Brooks, December 23, 2011

Works on Paper 2011 opens on Monday November 7 at the Gallery Hair Studio and Spa at 10 Main Street in Topsham and will remain on display through December 31st.  Gallery Hair is located on Main Street diagonally across from the Bowdoin Mill and just over the Frank Wood Memorial Bridge, a short walk from Maine Street Brunswick.  Ever since Ruth Reglin and her talented colleagues opened Gallery Hair, their intent has been to showcase the work of local artists.  I am delighted to be showing my art work on their lovely walls for the months of November and December.

The works of art in this show are a varied assortment of recent works on paper.  Paper is a lightweight and flexible support for painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking.  You will see examples of all of these varied processes in the pieces on display.  I have enjoyed working in plein air (Yellow Mill by the River) as well as in the studio (www.circlingthesquare.org) to develop a variety of images in response to the landscape, both external and internal.  Works such as Memory Purse speak more to the internal landscape and how we form associations with objects that can trigger powerful memories while the woods series is my response to the experience of being in the filtered light of the pine woods.

Please contact me if you would like a private tour of the exhibit or if you would like more information about any of the works on display.  You may reach me by email at robin@robinbrooksart.com

All the best,

Robin Brooks

Organized by Abby Shahn, the globes show was an open and participatory exhbit for artists to create their view of the world, seen or unseen.  After much planning, Abby received permission from business owners in downtown Skowhegan to allow us to install our globes in empty storefronts on the main street of town.  The artists converged on downtown Skowhegan in early August and began the installation, which took viewers up and down the main street to a variety of windows and to a wide range of interpretations of the concept of “worlds.”  I worked with Kenny Cole to hang my two contributions to the show, both constructed of paper mache layers over toy balls. It was exciting to watch as artists continued to arrive, bringing their contributions to the show.  After taking the work down from the Skowhegan venues, Abby arranged to travel the majority of pieces to the storefront window of Space Gallery on Congress Street where they were on view through the October art walk.

Thanks to all the artists who contributed their energy, imagination, and vision of “worlds seen and unseen” to the 2011 globes show, and especially to Abby Shahn for her creative vision and persistence.

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Lewis Carroll

The Hunting of the Snark

Fit the First - The Landing (excerpt)

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“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What i tell you three times is true.”

The crew was complete: it included a Boots–
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods–
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes–
And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-maker, whose skill was immense,
Might perhaps have won more than his share–
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
Though none of the sailors knew how.”

How I came to produce these illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark”:

When I was a graduate student at Parsons School of Design, our entire painting program took one humanities course for each of our four semesters in the program.  In the spring of 1983, that course was called “Narrative and Structure.”  I wish I could retrieve the name of the teacher, but his name is long gone from memory (and does not appear on my transcript…)

In the same semester, I took one of my only art electives: “Monoprints: One of a Kind,” an evening course that took me out of our big painting studio loft on Union Square into the print studio, an altogether different environment.  The printmaking course was exciting and direct, something I needed after the long days of laboring over figurative oil studies and still life compositions.

When our final assignment was given–to make a series of art works illustrating a piece of literature–short story, novel, or poem–I decided to use the new process of monotype printmaking to generate my series of works.  What I also don’t recall is how I chose the poem, “The Hunting of the Snark.”  In retrospect, I see that it expressed my playful side as well as offering some subtle but potent commentary on human foibles.  The imagery was rich and allowed me to delve into character and scenery in a manner most playful and expressive.

Each of the four monoprint illustrations was created in a single session in the Parsons print shop.  I used an 18″x24″ plexiglass plate with the black etching ink available in the print shop and my own oil colors.  The paper, Arches Cover, was soaked, blotted, and centered carefully over the plate before being run through the etching press.  Because I knew the result I was after, I did not pull a ghost, or second image off the plate.

I have not yet shown these works in public, so please enjoy this preview.  I will let you know if I have the opportunity to display them in the near future.

Robin Brooks, October 13, 2011

http://www.literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/the-hunting-of-the-snark/index.html

On Saturday September 16 the annual Family Arts Festival was held on the Mall in Brunswick.  The grassy Mall was teeming with children and families who came downtown to celebrate creativity and to make art under the big white tents.  The cool morning air gave way to clear skies and sunshine, with temps in the high 60’s.  There were many activities to choose from–everything from inflatable art to large group murals to a design-your-own crown workshop using craft foam and lots more.

This year I designed a printmaking workshop for the Festival called “Bubble and Stamp.”   The children were mesmerized by the process: blowing through a straw into watered down dish soap mixed with paint to create colorful bubbles.  I overheard comments such as this one.  “Look!  It’s a mountain of bubbles, a volcano!”  For these young artists, the experience was the thing.  Other children chose stamp printing, using using recycled materials such as cork stoppers, egg carton pieces, and wooden shapes as the stampers and tempera paint for “ink” to stamp a picture or a book mark.  The technique was simple–dip your stamper in the “ink”, place it on the paper, press, lift, and repeat.

My artist friends Donna Parkinson and Sarah Vosmus from Circling the Square Fine Art Press in Gardiner joined me in all phases, from the planning stage, to prepping materials, to the workshop itself.  Sarah had the brilliant idea to pour some of the bubble paint mixture in a small paper cup rather than a tray, allowing the bubbles to cascade over the cup’s rim onto the paper below.  A parent offered the suggestion that adding glycerine to the bubble paint mixture might help form stronger bubbles.  I am grateful to my friends Donna and Sarah for doing this workshop with me.  It was a very busy workshop so having six hands was definitely a plus.  I think we all had fun and it was so much more fun to work together!

In my experience, the most valuable art activities are the ones where children can bring their own ideas to the process.  Both bubble and stamp printing engaged children in a process of discovery and invention.  As an added benefit, “Bubble and Stamp” provided the parents with some inexpensive and fun ways to support their children’s creativity at home.

PS. The Family Arts Festival is sponsored by Five Rivers Arts Alliance, our local community arts non-profit.  If you aren’t already a member of Five Rivers, I encourage you to lend your financial support at whatever level you can.  Please let them know how much you value their work in bringing the arts to children and families in mid-coast Maine.

Robin Brooks, September 17, 2011

This photo gallery shows student work completed in the last six weeks.  With three snow days to interrupt our flow, students nonetheless have shown great focus and persistence in creating original works in a variety of media.  My students are working hard to prepare work for our annual art show on March 31 in the school gymnasium.  I am starting to receive artist statements from some of the fourth through sixth grade students which reveal more about their thought process and intentions.

The architecture block center is popular with select children, primarily but not exclusively boys.  With the addition of animals, the blocks can be transformed into a zoo or animal world.  Built structures from our oak unit blocks have included long roadways with ramps, towers, bridges, tall buildings, fortified houses, zoos and other enclosures.  The line drawings students complete after building help them to see the structure in a new way, interpreting it in lines and shapes.

Easel painting is a popular choice for painters.  The easel functions as a “space of one’s own” (to borrow loosely from Virginia Woolf,) which allows children to screen out distractions and focus on their own work.  I have a few children who choose to draw at the easel.

Our focus for demos and five minute museums in February is the element of color.   We are exploring how color can be an expressive force in artworks and a powerful presence in our world.   The first thing I asked my classes to do is to look at the colors of their clothing.   We looked at the color wheel and reviewed color relationships–triads, opposites, and color families.  Now we are looking at the work of Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters as well as student work to examine how artists use color for expression and to enhance their imagery.  The reproduction of Marc Chagall’s blue house sparked conversation about color vibration when opposites, or complimentary colors, are placed together.  The blue house and yellow grass in Chagall’s painting make a vivid example of this phenomenon.

The collage and construction center is going strong.  Mixed media construction occupies many children with the challenge of combining materials effectively to express an idea.  Many children request cardboard boxes to build small dioramas, houses, and other worlds.  When I am out of small boxes, I encourage students to use a cardboard base and build it up with construction paper, oak tag, and other materials from the construction center.  It is more work this way but children need to practice paper construction skills.  The plain truth is I simply cannot keep up with all the requests for boxes.

Students like to furnish their constructed environments with elements made of clay or model magic.  For the first time I am allowing children to paint recently formed wet clay (it is the Mexo White air hardening clay.)  Thus far, the tempera paint is adhering to the wet clay surface and staying there when the clay dries out.  So often, students are in a hurry to get things made.  I usually ask them to slow down a little with clay, but I’ve been a bit more flexible these days.

I have exhibited two versions of this coat–one drawn in pastel and another interpretation in collograph, a type of print.  Here is the pastel drawing, “Her Good Coat” which recently received the Juror’s Prize in Art 2011, the annual juried exhibition at the Harlow Gallery in Hallowell, Maine.

When asked to explain why I am drawn to objects such as this coat, sometimes I find that words escape me.  The objects I choose seem to have a poetic resonance based on their materiality, form, and history in the world.  My study of these objects becomes a meditation of sorts.  My approach to graphic interpretation is partly sensory and partly poetic–I am fascinated by the tactile qualities of the objects I study but I am willing to go beyond surface impressions to a more layered and complex interpretation.  I am interested, too, in the memories that surface when viewers encounter these still life images.

Another surprise gem I found is a passage where the author reflects on the childhood images he retains of his grandparents.  Describing his grandmother, Mr. Doty recalls,

“Her ensemble is completed by the pocketbook; the word seems as capacious and black as the thing it represents, which is square, shiny, carried by a double strap, and closed with an irresistible pair of prongs that  must be snapped one over the other, so that the pocketbook opens and closes with a satisfying click; slight reverberation of metal, the nice feel of fingers firm against patent leather.” (p.11)

Mr. Doty goes on to describe the things carried inside the pocketbook, everything from a plastic rain bonnet of see-through vinyl that folds up to a little change purse, and finally to the little red, pinwheeled peppermints he was so fond of as a boy. (p.12)  He could easily have been describing the little black purse I found at the Goodwill store that has been my inspiration for a series of still life “Purse” images.

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon is an eloquent meditation on the art of the still life. I thank Mr. Doty for sharing his passion for still life with us in this beautifully written book.  In it, he speaks to my love of the object as a container of memory which is perhaps the primary reason I include still life in my repertoire.

I recently completed these two pastel drawings as commissioned works.   Both pieces are intended as gifts to the parents of a couple who are marrying this June.  The bride and groom wished to give something special to their parents to thank them for their help in planning the wedding and chose to commission me to create two landscape images.  Each image has a special meaning for their families.  The bride’s parents have a view of Mt. Mansfield from their home in Vermont.  The groom chose his family homestead and discreetly photographed views of the fields, gardens, and house for me to work from.

Working from several photographs, I created each composition to reflect the spirit of these two distinct and  different places.  The intimacy of the Brunswick homestead, with it’s white trellis, open field, and traditional cape farmhouse, contrasts with the majestic view of Mt. Mansfield in Vermont surrounded by pines and birch woods.

A few technical notes about the medium of pastel:  It is quite versatile and immediate, combining the best of drawing and painting.  I have enjoyed using pastel in plein air, out on Mackworth Island in November and recently at the Giant Steps in Harpswell, a rocky promontory by the sea.  I can work in layers, building the planes of color and layering textural elements and details to refine and clarify the elements of the landscape.

Robin Brooks

May 28, 2011

“The show is titled, “A sense of place” and Robins works put me there. Energetic perspectives of trees and light, shapes and colors, textures and lines. Her recent black and white images with broad lines and balance, appear kinetic and monumental. Though the trees tower, they do not intimidate – they are majestic and dancing.”  Suzanne Goulet