blake's exhibit

the past saturday, we ventured up to lowell, mass. to see our good friend's exhibit. the curator (?) at the exhibit was very nice and patient as our whole family looked at his paintings (or rather after a cursory look, the kids ran around outside while pat and i took turns looking more closely). anyhoo, here's a quote from blake that i think describes his art as well as life:

“Each painting contains many possible associations, making the point that meaning is always in play, constantly rearranged by our own thoughts and associations. The paintings, as in life, contain moments of clarity, if only fleeting, while resounding of uncertainty.”

his paintings all had simple titles, often not more than three words (i.e. one was named "punch"). at first, i thought my camera did a pretty good job capturing the paintings. but looking at it now, i realize how poor these pics are. they do nothing to capture the texture, color and detail. oh well, at least it gives you a feel for his art.

without further adieu, here are the paintings (posted with permission):

i believe this is one of his "wall follower" paintings. i didn't get a pic of the other one that had a clear part of cubicles in it.

you gotta love the tartan print in this painting. i seem to remember every painting having a small (much smaller than that tartan print) detail of bold color.

this was called "wednesday".

he had a funky stop motion movie too. the best part was when this "man like" thing walking around with an "animated" photograph for a face rips out of the background until just an outline of face remains (hope that made sense). i also liked when he pinned a fly on a string to the wall, but not sure why i liked that part.

i also learned that blake is very prolific - only one painting was completed when U of MASS decided to display his work - all other paintings were new. his work has changed a lot in recent years (according to the curator); his early work was very "representational." unfortunately, i missed one large painting that was on the back of a wall. i found out about it at lunch when lily told me it was her favorite; she also liked the painting "with blocks."

blake & jennah: feel free to correct me on any mistakes. thanks.