Tableau Vivant

Tableau vivant (plural: tableaux vivants) means "living picture". The term is French and describes a group of costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit to replicate a painting or photograph.

Throughout the duration of the display, the people participating do not speak or move. The approach thus marries the art forms of the stage with those of painting or photography.

The Three Fates Tableau Vivant, by Nele, Eva, Kato of Belgium.

Last year I was contacted by Nele, Eva and Kato, 17 year old art students from Belgium.

"First of all we want to say that we really like your work. That's why we've chosen to imitate 'The three fates'. Our teacher of art at school gave us an assignment: turn a painting into a 'living work' ('tableau vivant' we call it). And that's what we did with 'The Three Fates'.

Wow, I was amazed at what a great job they did capturing the essence of the painting and honored that they'd choose my painting. There is poignancy in the fact that my painting, which is of my artist friends; Diane Feissel, Sadie Valerie and Alia El-Bermani, are founders of the Women Painting Women movement, has inspired young women artists on the other side of the world! Thank you Nele, Eva and Kato for sharing your work with me!

The Three Fates, 30x40, oil on panel 

In 2012, I heard from Tami Ross, 

"I am a film student at SCAD (savannah College of Art and Design) in Savannah, GA.  This quarter I am taking a lighting class and our first project was to take a painting that inspires us and re-create it with a little narrative. I used 'Power Struggle' and wanted to share my short film with you."



Awesome! Her male model even has a cleft chin like Pete. She did a great job creating her own narrative for the painting.

Power Struggle, 30x40, oil on panel

Inspiration for posting this now, is an amazing video of a Night Watch tableau vivant sent to my email inbox this morning.


And here is the painting.

The Night Watch or The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq (Dutch: De Nachtwacht),
1642 by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn.

Enjoy!

Power Struggle Inspires

I received a fun email a couple weeks ago. My painting, Power Struggle, has been used by film student, Tami Ross at Savannah College of Art and Design as inspiration for a classroom assignment.

Tami wrote to me saying, "This quarter I am taking a lighting class and our first project was to take a painting that inspires us and re-create it with a little narrative. I used Power Struggle and wanted to share my short film with you."


I was so humbled to know that one of my painting inspired a student. I thought she did a great job creating her own narrative for the painting and recreating the lighting and casting.

Tami has a blog, My Mixed Media Life. I will try to follow her as she makes her way through the art world.

My daughter, Carly Strickland, wrote a paper when she went to SCAD about one of my paintings I did when I was in college. It was a fun essay for me to read about a painting that had been hanging in our house the entire time Carly was growing up.

In 2010 I was asked to do an interview with SCAD painting student Emily Tenebaum. Her assignment was a process where they analyze a body of work based on "ICU", Intensity, Complexity, and Unity. That is  great way to think about an artist's body of work. Emily was kind enough to let me post her essay when I wrote about the interview.

When I told Carly about the interview, she said, "Hey, I think I know that girl." Turns out she and Emily had a Women's Art Studies class together and they'd been talking about how much they each enjoyed William Bouguereau, not realizing that they also had a connection to me. Small world.

Remember if you are in the Alexandria, VA area stop in and see the Women Painting Women - The Expedition and Beyond at Principle Gallery, on display through mid-May.

You may see my work in Santa Fe at Sugarman-Peterson Gallery, and in Cinncinati, OH at Miller Gallery.

"Story Within" at Peterson-Cody Gallery

The day is finally here!

"Story Within" Peterson-Cody Gallery Opening Tonight.

I'm very excited to be in Santa Fe attending the opening tonight of "Story Within" at Peterson-Cody Gallery. Stop by if you are in town and say hi. 

Peterson-Cody Gallery
130 West Palace Avenue
505-820-0010

The Magazine

Here are images of the work in the show and links to posts about them.

Our Dancing Days, 30x40, oil on panel

The Bribe, 11x14, oil on panel

Ripe Was the Drowsy Hour, 18x24, oil on panel

The Certainty of Youth and the Complexity of Wisdom, 43x49, oil on panel

Ode to Melancholy, 24x36, oil on panel

Power Struggle, 30x40, oil on panel

The above is a screen shot of the Santa Fe Gallery Association coverage of the show. You can read the article on the SFGA Web Site.

Triangle Power

Count Down to "Story Within"- 3 days to go!

One of the large piece created for this show, "Story Within", at Peterson-Cody Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, opening Nov, 4, 2011 is Power Struggle, 30x40, oil on panel.

This is a composition of triangles considered the most stable of design devices. The triangle also has symbolic roots in ancient culture.

In Egypt the triangle was a symbolic representation of a triad related to man, woman and offspring, think pyramids. In Greece a triangle was the door of life; for Pythagoreans a symbol of the goddess of wisdom Athena; in Buddhism a triangle symbolized pure flame and three treasures of Buddha.  In Christianity equilateral triangle signifies the consummation, closure, accomplishment, completion, Trinity.

Just a few trivia tid-bits there. I'm not sure all that had anything to do with the initial design since it's impossible to arm wrestle and not get a few triangles, however when analyzing why a composition works or doesn't, it's an interesting thing to think about.

Here's a previous post I did about Power Struggle where I used pre-varnish images. This piece was very difficult to get a good picture of and I'm still not sure the color is right.

Here are a couple posts about the tricky business of photographing oil paintings, Part 1 and Part 2.

See you tomorrow!

How to Photograph Oil Paintings, Part 2

I have previously shared my method for photographing oil paintings, always a challenge and now I'm adding an addendum.

This week I've been photographing six paintings for my upcoming Peterson-Cody Show, two of which have a very dark background. I was having difficulty getting good pictures because the walls of my studio, the legs of the tripod and the silver on the camera, even my pale mug were reflected in the dark areas of the painting.

This is what I was finally able to get after much fumbling around and experimenting. 

For you the short version - here's what worked.

I wrapped a piece of black fabric around the tripod and camera, I wore a long sleeved back T shirt and I stepped to the side so my face wasn't reflected and used a cable release to take the picture. A cable release is always a good idea.

I also draped a piece of the fabric over a frame made of 1x4's that was clamped to a sawhorse and stood it behind the tripod so that it was reflected in the painting rather than the light colored wall. (luckily the frame was still in the studio from a photo shoot I'd done this weekend, the orange fabric you see is from that shoot).

I suppose I could have covered the wall with a big black sheet. Maybe I should paint that wall a dark color?

Another thing I've added is a Kodak, Q-14 Color Separation Guide. Magazines and printers use these to color correct for publication purposes. I've never used one before but thought it was time to start.

Here's the previous post about my method for photographing oil paintings.

Ode to Melancholy, 24x36, oil on panel

This is a video about the body of work I was documenting and shipping off to Peterson-Cody Gallery this week. (more about the shipping drama and solutions in a couple days!)


The opening is November 4, 130 West Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM. If you're in town stop in and say hi, I'll be in town.

"Power Struggle"

30x40, oil on panel. This piece is fresh off the easel and not yet varnished so I'll have better pictures later.

A profile is tricky business and this intense light situation made this a challenge, it's been on the easel for a couple months now. I hope the photos show the multiple layers.

The shadows were so intensely warm with the light bouncing up from the yellow table that the entire scene was flooded with a warm glow. To keep it from being almost monochromatic I pushed the idea that the highlights were cool.