Kitchen Table Series

As long as we are going to consider Saunders' Assemblage to reference a kitchen table, lets not forget Carrie Mae Weems and her kitchen table series. These shots were taken in 1990, just a year before Assemblage was made. We talked about Weems' work here in week nine of 52 pieces. In this photograph I see an incredibly beautiful and powerful woman who owns her space. In Saunders' piece I see a similar woman coming through. I'm guessing a mother who encouraged playfulness, by the brightly colored chair. Who kept milk and cereal on the table, and games in the house. Games that puzzled the brain and worked the mind, like Chinese Checkers. I see fruit and flowers and a big black heart. The kitchen table belongs to mom, look at Carrie Mae Weems.

Raymond Saunders, Assemblage - Links with Kiki Smith and Louise Nevelson

Take a look at this image of Assemblage. That red rectangle on the left is a piece of oilcloth. There's a Chinese checkers board. There's a chair. There's an article about the Tuskegee airmen. There are two oil paintings. There's a little of this and a little of that. Raymond Saunders collected much of this from the streets on his walks. Two other artists here at Fifty Two Pieces have also collected detritus from the streets. Most recently Kiki Smith in Week 25. And in week 24, we saw the queen of detritus, Louise Nevelson. There are any number of people who pick up "stuff" from the streets -- not all of them make works of art from those little bits and pieces though.

Here's a quote from Raymond Saunders about this method of making art. Each of the objects “finds you; you find it. You become visually receptive, attuned. You take something off the street, not knowing if you’ll use it, or how. I’ll see a sign on a phone pole, walk three blocks thinking about it, go back and get it, take it home and later discard it. Then I ask myself, Why did I ever bother carrying this across town?” So don't think yourself foolish if you pick up "stuff" off the street. You, too, could make art from all of those pieces you bring home. It seems that it's the intention of your act when you're creating that makes it art.

Assemblage by Raymond Saunders

Raymond Saunders was born in 1934, He did this piece in 1991. It is individual daily pieces of life laid out on a big flat surface next to a chair. Does that make it a table? he made this piece the same year he did a show at the Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco called Flowers From a Black Garden. A title that could fit his autobiography.

Gwynn Murrill ~ Coyote VI and Karl Hofer ~ Early Hour

Usually I don't think of Coyote VI when I'm looking at Karl Hofer's Early Hour from Week 15 here at Fifty Two Pieces. But as I walked down the corridor where Early Hour hangs, the image of the dog looked so much like a coyote that I stopped in my tracks to look again at Hofer's painting. The dog is very stylized. Your mind makes it a dog probably because it's lying in bed with the couple early in the morning. But look again and perhaps it's not really a dog, perhaps it's a coyote and a metaphor for something else.

Gwynn Murrill's animals are all highly stylized. She looks to the positive and negative space. The next time you're in the plaza area of the Portland Art Museum you should definitely take a close look at the surface of the sculpture. The skin of Coyote VI is an amazing combination of gold, brown and red. Then compare the surface as it reflects the light of the sun and compare it to the darker under belly that is in the cooler shaded area. Different surfaces, different effects. Spend a few moments with Coyote VI at different times of the day. You'll come away with a different impression each time.

Gwynn's Cats in Carmel

A show of Gwynn Murrill's "selected cats" at the Winfield Gallery in Carmel California, ended yesterday. I was in Carmel last week. I didn't make it to the show, I didn't know Murrill's coyote would be our next piece because when I was in Carmel Hank was still alive.
Coyote was clearly the right choice. These choices make themselves.
In Carmel the galleries are everywhere. John took pictures of all the houses. We walked on the beach. When we got home LaValle came over, she said we need to get a cat. John is allergic to cats, but probably not great big sculptural ones, like the ones Murrill showed at Winfield.

Coyote

Coyote, it's one of those words if you look too long or say it over and over it begins to sound nonsensical. I like the legend of She Who Watches. Coyote came to a village nestled on a cliff. All the people were doing well, eating well, living the good life. He consulted their female chief, he had the hard job of explaining he would have to turn her into stone so she could watch over the land and the people. Society would soon change, becoming a patriarchy. This legend shows how powerful Coyote is, to have known the future, and to have had the power to change the chief to stone. To have had the foresight to know how different life would be for a society led by men.
Wasco Native artist Lillian Pitt made Coyote mask in ceramic, in 2005.
I like to think about the She Who Watches legend when I see the mask, because I can go around the corner and see a She Who Watches inspired piece by Pitt, Wasco Totem.

She Who Watches is a petraglyph near Horse Thief Lake, out the Columbia Gorge, about an hour past Hood River. You can only go by reservation. I haven't seen it myself, and I grew up here. I heard yesterday that the average american knows over a hundred brand names by sight but fewer than ten plants. She Who Watches needs eyelids.

Gwynn Murrill ~ Coyote VI and others

Looking at Coyote Vi as it sits in the plaza and in the photo as it sat on the grass, I'm struck by what Gwynn Murrill has said about where she would prefer to see her sculptures.

You’re supposed to put them on the 24th floor of a building in the city. That’s where they should be because that’s where they would have industrial or straight lines around them – a minimalist environment. You have to look at the positive and negative form around them, and then it becomes real sculpture.

For me, Coyote VI is much more approachable as a sculpture when it sits in the plaza. If it were in the lawn as it was seen this photo, it would definitely look more like a lawn ornament.

As a side note, Coyote VI is joined on internet searches of "Portland coyote" by this creature. Back in 2002 this young coyote was chased off the tarmac at Portland International Airport. Tri-Met's Red Line to Beaverton seemed like a good place to take refuge. Evidently the fare checkers decided to enlist the help of some wildlife refuge workers and the wiley coyote was removed from the train and taken to the far reaches of the Port Authority property. His story about being new to town just didn't make the grade, busted for no ticket.