Look at the Canoe!

Kids seem to gravitate to Dzunuk'wa when they enter the Native American collection, they often think she's a canoe, but then they notice the feet and the smaller bowls inside her, and they start to question the canoe idea.
The story goes that Dzunuk'wa lives like a bear in the woods, eating children that wander off. Not unlike the witch in the Hansel and Gretel story, only this tale has no evil stepmother. The story is a warning to children not to wander away from home. On the feast bowl Dzunuk'wa's shown with whistling lips, she whistles like the wind so the wind will be a constant reminder of her.
In one version of the story I've heard there are two brothers who get captured and taken away by Dzunuk'wa. Their mother is so heartbroken that she cries and cries, and her tears and her snot roll in the soil at her feet and the blob she creates turns into a baby boy who grows up very quickly and becomes a hero who rescues her sons from Dzunuk'wa.
Just above the feast bowl are two Thunder Bird masks, the whole room is alive with masks of Wolf, Frog, Orca and Eagle Woman. This is one of the most spectacular pages of the museum's story book.

A Feast of a Different Kind

Whenever I see Dzunuk'wa, I am reminded of how different the communal meals of the Native Americans were from those depicted in the art of the modern western world. Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass) by Édouard Manet was rejected by the Salon in 1863. The jury was horrified that Manet had painted a nude woman with two clothed men on a picnic. Not always noticed is the nude bathing in the background. Some say this painting was originally called The Bath. With either title the communal food of the western world seems far more sedate even with naked women juxtaposed with clothed men. About this time while I was thinking about food and its presentation, Alfred Maurer chimed in that he hopes to visit the Portland Art Museum so that he can see the feast bowl. He's not convinced that it's as long as I have been telling him it is. He also wants to show me some paintings at the museums here in New York that depict communal eating.

Dzunuk'wa

Dzunuk'wa Feast Dish is the first piece most people see when they vixit the Portland Art Museum's Native American Art of the Northwest Coast collection. Amy mentions in her post on April Poetry challenge yesterday that "It is a potlatch bowl of the Kwakwaka'wakw, made around 1900, of Cedar, and painted. The legend goes that there is a monster, she looks like this bowl, large and open mouthed. She eats children she finds in the woods, far from their mothers."

Dzunuk'wa is also the featured work of art for Fifty Two Pieces sister site April Poetry Challenge. With a visit there you'll be able to read poetry it has inspired. If a few lines come to you, post them there for all of us to feast on.

The Artist and The Enemy

My mom says artists' need critics. She remembers the man who said "that's a waste of a fiddle" as she played on stage. I remember when she was learning that fiddle, it screeched like cats in spring. But now she plays and sings and gets paid for it. It doesn't matter how good you get, you never forget the harsh part.
Grenon says his critics aren't sensitive. They are prejudice, they don't see what a guy like him is doing making art like that. John Singer Sargeant said every time he painted a portrait he lost a friend. Well join the club. When you use someone as a subject you are going to suffer the consequences. We don't want to see ourselves, that's why we look at art, we'd rather see that. That part of you coming out with all it's nasty little imperfections, that part of you is what we want to see, not that part of us, that part of us is a secret. If you uncover that, well, there it is.
Every time I write I put a filter on it, because I don't need all that stuff getting out, messing with my life, like coffee grounds in an otherwise perfect cup of joe. Who wants to deal with that?
Grenon does, Sargeant did too. I don't buy it for a second, never wants to paint another portrait-ha! And I never want to write another story. It's part of the process. Insensitive critics, hacks like me writing about other people's art, afraid to put my own neck on the line. The critic knows he is only a critic, and will remain so until he becomes the criticized- and don't we hate that.

Gregory Grenon - Alfred Maurer Wishes He Had Known You

Alfred Maurer (remember him from week 7) caught up with me at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday. Thousands of people were there since it was a Monday and the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as many other museums are closed on Monday. As we walked through the galleries, it seemed as if half of Europe and everyone else who wanted to escape the rain was there. Maurer appeared much as Joan Kirsch, a docent from the Portland Art Museum, did on MoMA's sixth floor outside the Martin Kippenberger exhibit. 

Color and a different style of painting that's what Maurer likes about Gregory Grenon. He's been reading about Grenon all week. He's fascinated with the women and even more intrigued with the concept of painting on glass -- "If only I had thought to do this." He also understands Amy's comment about perhaps not wanting her portrait painted by Grenon. A number of Maurer's sitters were curious about how they could possibly look like what he and other modernists created from their beautiful faces (One of Maurer's portraits is on the left.). It took a special person to sit for Modigliani, Giacometti or Picasso. Even artists such as John Singer Sargeant who were known for their portraits were not immune from criticism when the final products might not have all of the features "air brushed". Lucien Freud (mentioned in week 5) paints his subjects with all of their blemishes as well as insights into who they are. So much so that Bernard Breslauer secretly destroyed the portrait Freud did of him because his double chin was predominant. Maurer continued to chuckle when he thought about Sir Winston Churchill's widow, Clementine, burning Graham Sutherland's portrait of her husband because she disliked it so much. Perhaps this is the reason John Singer Sargeant grew to dislike portrait painting so much. He is known to have said:  "Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend." "I hate to paint portraits!  I hope never to paint another portrait in my life." 

Maurer decided he wanted to watch me search on the internet and so tagged along while I worked on this post. Although he loves all of Grenon's women, he asked that I use "Making Me Think", today's lead image. Much like most of Grenon's other paintings we have no idea of the identity of this man. We do know he is relatively unique though since almost all of the images of Grenon's work available on the internet are of women. There are a few animals, but the number totals less than five. Maurer also asked that I include a link to an OPB video of Grenon. Oregon Art Beat provides more insight into Grenon and how he paints. Towards the end of the video there's a short sequence showing Grenon finishing a painting so we can see a little of his technique in action. Maurer just wishes he had known Grenon. Click here to watch the video.

Moth Girl Personality

A few months ago there was a sketching class in the gallery, they were in 6th and 7th grade. One little girl with long braids stood in front of Moth Girl and drew away. After a few minutes I asked her if I could see what she had drawn. It was a girl that looked a lot like her, wearing her too-short jeans and button up white collar shirt, with glasses and two long braids. The girl in the drawing was standing in the center of the paper, the piano was all along the bottom of the sheet, the entire foreground was piano keys. There was a rainbow above her. Of course, I loved the drawing, and told her so. She lit up like a lightbulb.

My favorite alternate "Moth Girl" is by Alex Kirwan, cartoonist and art director of Johnny Bravo and My Life As A Teenage Robot. She sits in the green room, like the movie star that she is, Betty Davis style, with a lit cigarette and silky robe. In her little bug hand she holds the lighter, which she is mesmerized by.

The Moth Girl holds her own light. She gravitates to what makes her happy. For Grenon's Moth Girl that is the piano, Diane Wakoski is a moth girl, with her beautiful poetry and even more beautiful memory of her mother. My encounter with the 6th grade sketcher was my introduction to another moth girl.

Gregory Grenon - Moth Girl "Her Fingers Reach for the Keyboard"

Moth Girl seems compelled to play the piano, much like a moth must fly to lights at night. Playing the piano is such a gift and for some it was a gift that came from much hard work. Today's poem by Diane Wakoski can be read in its entirety at Poetry Foundation.

Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons

BY DIANE WAKOSKI

The relief of putting your fingers on the keyboard, 

as if you were walking on the beach 

and found a diamond 

as big as a shoe; 

as if 

you had just built a wooden table 

and the smell of sawdust was in the air, 

your hands dry and woody; 

as if 

you had eluded 

the man in the dark hat who had been following you 

all week; 

the relief 

of putting your fingers on the keyboard, 

playing the chords of 

Beethoven, 

Bach, 

Chopin

...

More of the poem at Poetry Foundation.