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.

Objectified?

I've heard it said before, that Grenon objectifies women. That though he says he is inspired by them, he is really just obsessed. So maybe his sexual impulses are satisfied to produce these images. In the video he claims women are the more emotional sex ,and that his portraits of them are meant to show the importance of their existance. He also says he wants to save time, so he can make more and more of these....
I don't have a strong opinion. I can't tell after watching the video if he means what he is saying. Not that he lacks sincerity any more than his images lack realism. Here's a guy who accidently found his medium back in Detroit in the early 1970's when he was broke and ran out of materials and used a pile of old junk windows. This is what I like. Here's a guy who uses crayons to outline his subjects. who scratches into the glass to get some of his feelings out.
I guess I don't care why he paints women, though I wouldn't want my own portrait done.

Gregory Grenon - Moth Girl the One Who Must Play

Moth Girl, the woman with the wings not of an angel or a butterfly but of a moth. The blue/green background enhances those wings as her fingers dance at the piano keys. She flutters in her yellow dress, not seated but hovering. Like a light bulb, the piano draws her to it. She cannot help herself. She must play that piano, much like Gregory Grenon must paint and paint in color. Grenon is a local Portland artist who came here from his hometown Detroit, Michigan via Chicago, Illinois. Laura Russo Gallery has shown his work and in the video below he talks about himself and his work.

Moth Girl, by Gregory Grenon

Moth Girl, by Gregory Grenon, hangs in the Northwest Gallery. It is made of oil on plexiglass, and is one of a number of pieces he's made of women, to me they all look like they could be related. As if they are one type, like a family of prehistoric girls, almost neanderthals, in the way they are crudely primitive. The reverse glass painting method he uses isn't new, it is revived from the Bavarian technique from the 15th century. Always interested in painting women, Grenon says he has moved from the face, to the figure to the hands. He also says he paints women because they have a beauty and power that men do not have...I have to agree with him there.