The Noog

A few weeks ago Toby and I drove over to Chattanooga - I love that town! I took a pen & ink class at Townsend Atelier from James Courtenay James, and we had some really good meals.

These are some notes from the class and a couple of tiny pies.

Toby!

On Sunday we drove up and all around Signal Mountain because we love it up there. We stopped at a tiny little park on the top of the mountain that has a gorgeous view, but it started to rain as soon as we got out of the car. I jotted down as much information as I could, then added the grey areas later.

This is my work from the class. I really enjoyed the class. It moved slowly at first, but then I realized that was kind of the point. You have to slow down with pen and ink, and slowing down is definitely something I need to do more of.

Working with pen and ink was weird because it was my dad's medium (that and watercolor), but I've never really gotten the hang of it due to my lack of patience. The materials and the ink on my fingers made me think about Dad working when I was little, and it was especially strange to see his lines and marks come out of my hand - much like if your handwriting looks like the handwriting of one of your parent's.

Of course I haven't done any more with pen and ink in the few weeks since, but I plan to - it was fun!

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The Dixon and Some Errands and the Start of a Trip

I took two of my co-workers to Hamlett Dobbins's talk at the Dixon, as part of the Present Tense exhibit. It was a good talk.

Later that day I ran some errands and got a different view of the Clark Tower.

Then I had some fun with mark-making drawing the inside of my car on a trip to Chattanooga (bottom, sideways). I wasn't driving!

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Little A This Little A That

Sketches from January 19 Sketchcrawl

My sketches from Memphis Urban Sketchers' participation in the January 19 World Wide SketchCrawl on South Main.

Hanging Out with the Family

Sketching Lunch and Mary Norman's Paintings

Parking Lot with Winter Trees

The sky was grayer than that, but I like my blue marker.

Sketching Present Tense at the Dixon

The Present Tense exhibit opened at the Dixon today, and began with a discussion about art with a panel of Memphis arts people. It was led by John Weeden, the curator of the exhibit, and was a varied group: Melissa Dunn, Derrick Dent, Anthony Lee, NJ Woods, George Hunt, David McCarthy, Frederic Koeppel, Carissa Hussong and Hamlett Dobbins. I tried sketching them all, but I was pretty far in the back, so mostly we have the heads of audience members.

(click the images for more detail)

Present Tense is a survey of art in Memphis over the last ten years, and I'm thrilled to be in it. I made a lot of art in Memphis over the last ten years, and I helped a lot of other people make a lot of art. I even bought some art! My Tiny Outfits series is featured in the show.

It's a really good show. It looks great, and organizing it chronologically (and I love chronological order!) just adds to the fun of it without detracting from the flow.

The show has been approached with a bit of negativity? skeptisicm?, but that's fine - that's Memphis, that's what we do here, and not having it questioned this way would be weird. I'm all for having a discussion and not just taking the whole thing at face value. I'm actually really curious about how some of the decisions were made, because it seems like it would be a bunch of REALLY HARD DECISIONS. I guess that's why John Weeden originally wanted this show to be about 10 times bigger. For now, this is the show we have and it's really fun so go see it!