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Low on memory

 

Actor Guy Pearce starred in “Memento,” a quirky film about a man who survived a horrific personal loss.  The trauma of the loss prevented him from forming new memories, so he used a Polaroid camera to record people and events, otherwise he’d forget them almost immediately afterward. 

 

Polaroid eventually went out of business, so Guy bought a digital camera.  One day while he was busy taking pictures the camera stopped working.  The LED read “Out of Memory.”  Guy couldn’t get a break.

 

If we are what we have, when we lose what we have, what are we then?  If we are what we remember, as long as we remember then at least we still are.  But if all we have is memories, when we lose those, what we have then is lost and so are we.

 

Wait, hold the phone!  Where’s this going?  I thought I knew, but now I’m lost.  Must be low on memory.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

Shooting fish in a barrel of jokes made of clay

 

Houston artists went bobbing for apples in tubs of wet plaster.  If you like loopy performance art, it doesn't get any sillier.

 

The artists dunked their heads in a creamy clay mixture called "slip."  As the clay warmed and dried, the objective was to experience the thrill of a ceramic piece baking in a kiln.  But as Jay Leno says, "Where's the joke?"

 

Art strives to promote response:  laughter, fear, embarrassment or thoughtful-ness.  Admittedly, “What the F?” qualifies as a response, and at least WTF? is better than silence or a shrug.  But the problem with art that relies on the WTF? factor is this:  in the final analysis it panders to the lowest common denominator.

 

As a genre, performance art is heavily invested in WTF?. 

 

Andy Warhol made a film titled “Sleep.”  Yes, an 8-hour film of a sleeping man.  Warhol, concerned that sleep was becoming obsolete, decided the film would make an important statement.  And it did.  If his objective was to lull his audience into deep sleep, he succeeded.  Like shooting fish in a barrel.  WTF?

 

Art – whether painting, music, comedy, dance or writing – uses a variety of devices to pull off its magic: color, shape, texture, timing, rhythm and pacing.  And when these are seasoned with measured amounts of irony or contradiction, a work emerges that engages on many levels.

 

For an art project, I recall a classmate lay inside a coffin to experience death and burial.  In his critique, our instructor noted with a straight face the project could have been more compelling if my friend "put a little more life” into it.  My friend retorted he couldn't do that, because life was at cross-purposes to death.  

 

Now there’s the joke.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Anatomy of a tickler

 

In earlier posts, we've spotlighted female models and their assets.  Nadia's jiggly tushy...Rachel’s steamy cleavage...Heather’s dreamy gaze.  Yet artists don't learn anatomy gazing on woman’s form alone.  If that's so, where to start with men?

 

Culture has a clue.  It conditions us to visualize rippling delts and taught abs.  And it goes farther:  with a wink and a nudge, culture goads us to peel away the wrapping for a peek at the forbidden.  Forbidden is allure.  Allure sells.  Culture does that.

 

Let’s follow that thread.  Here's an excerpt from the catalogue of male models we’ve drawn and the equipment they’ve brought to the stage:

 

Robbie was an electrician and handyman.  Silver-haired, wiry and opinionated.  Couldn’t keep from talking.  One evening he used Viagra and couldn’t keep his equipment quiet, either. 

 

Bernardo was from Panama on a student visa. Young, rock-hard and ambitious. Held a pose with reflective serenity.  Always wondered what he was thinking while his drawbridge raised and lowered with the regularity of a swiss clock.

 

Clint was tattooed and goth.  Managed a piercing parlor by day, BDSM parties at night.  Two dozen silver rings pierced the underside of his plumage.  For a shower curtain?  "No," he said, "it's to make the ladies go wild."

 

The anatomy of a French tickler, of course!  Who would've guessed? 

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Drawing Banana Splits from memory

 

Hundreds of models have posed in front of our drawing pads.  Some were costumed, others were tattooed, scarred, bearded, bald, waxed, shaved, tie-dyed, ripped, dipped and whipped…but they had one thing in common...we could always count on seeing their bones.

 

Bones are roadmaps to human anatomy.  When artists learn the geography of bones, they learn anatomy inside and out.  With practice, artists can draw the human figure with the barest of information.  Show them one bone and they’ll find the rest.  Muscle memory guides the hand.

 

Occasionally something unexpected occurs that catches artists off-guard.

 

Models with a plethora of poundage have bones.  Yet theirs are buried beneath frollicking layers of tissue which leaves artists no familiar surface features with which to execute drawings. The results are perplexing landscapes, other-worldly and amorphous, and any resemblance to a banana split is not accidental.  

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Models – why they leave us, let’s count the ways

 

We love our models but nothing puts ardor to greater tests than when they’re late for work.  Or worse, when they break modeling appointments at the last minute or stop showing up altogether.

 

The excuses range from lame to implausible, but the common denominator of the most frequently-used explanation for tardiness or absence involves – ready for this? – a guy.  A few examples:

 

Gabriela, from Manila, anointed model stands with sultry grace.  She fell under the spell of another artist who barred her from disrobing before anyone else ever again.  Henceforth her steamy Philipino torso was branded for his eyes only.

 

Linh, from 'Nam, delighted artists with a mons pubis shaved as if it were her chin.  She worked for a law firm whose senior partner was a high-sheriff in Houston’s social circuitry.  Linh’s modeling endeavors did not fit the firm's profile.  Yep, she was forced to choose.

 

Olga, an émigré from the Ukraine, had more hair color alterations than swatches in a color wheel.  A new day, a new color, a new pose – all was good with Olga.  Then she met Sergio who fed her head with fantastic visions of success in real estate, and off to Dallas they sped.

 

Leticia, whose life experience was limited to the squalor of second ward Hispanic culture, wanted to expand her options and try modeling.  A possessive boyfriend presented her with his own option and soon her mid-region expanded with child and her aspirations were derailed.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Drawing is like a good joke - you have to be there to get it

 

The “Artery” is a local focal point near the museum district where artists gather to socialize, lap some suds, and – most important – draw and sketch.  An evening at the Artery is a sumptuous tableau of models of all colors, shapes and sizes, posing solo or in tandem, amidst stunning, theatrical lighting – a smorgasbord of irresistible visual delights.

 

One of the Artery regulars was Tranh, someone who could resist such delights.  He was from the school that never drew a model without painstaking, photorealistic accuracy.  His drawings were perversely loyal to detail, but bereft of nuance and deftness.  If artistic license was a guide, it was only to govern the number of hairs he applied to a model’s eyelashes.

 

Some artists study a model and ask “What can I leave out?” Tranh asks “What did I leave out?” as if the absence of a single molecule from his work condemned it to failure.  In fact, Tranh’s unwavering subservience to see only what is, was a condemnation to a failure to see what else there was, or could've been.

 

One evening at the Artery, a tall brunette named Heather sat on the model stand in a dreamy, playful pose.  The lighting flirted with her sinuous contours and swathed them with doting penumbras and backlights.  Ambers, magentas and turquoises danced over her limbs in a game of hide-and-seek with indigos and earth tones to see which would best define shape, mood and form.

 

I chased colors and shapes across my drawing pad in a frenetic 30-minute free-for-all, while to my right, a yard away but in a different world, Tranh slowly applied careful, measured strokes of sienna conte crayon on newsprint, methodically nailing down every freckle, dimple and birthmark. 

 

After Heather finished the pose, I studied my drawing to see if it struck a balance between the rambunctious elements.  Tranh’s voice interrupted my thoughts:  “Why did you use those colors?”  He didn’t sound confrontational, but confused, and I’ve always been glad to oblige someone who asked for direction. “Well, Tranh, drawing is like hearing a good joke – you really have to be there to understand it.  That help?"

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

 

Show up and draw!

 

There’s more to figure drawing than reproducing human anatomy.  Figure drawing is a springboard into alternate visual dimensions, a tool to explore the limits of imagination.  There are hundreds of schools of figure drawing.  

 

One is where the model is the artist’s only focus.  No background or foreground, just the model and the artist’s fastidious replication of detail, down to the tiny drops of sweat on the hairs of the model’s mons pubis. This school goes by the acronym GGUAC, or "Good grief use a camera!"

 

Another is where the artist explores everything within the four corners of the paper, to create a skillful composition of shapes, line, color and balance.  Here the model is integrated into the drawing because she was standing in front of the artist’s view.  Acronym is PIROOT, or "Phooey I'm running out of time!

 

Then there's a school for times when an artist has no juices in the creative well.  Or the model is uninspired.  This school gives the artist a venue for honing discipline.  Acronym is JDIASWSU, or "Just draw it and see what shows up!"

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist and critic

 

 

The disrobing of Rachel

It was Rachel's debut at anatomical figure modeling.  She gazed uncertainly at the artists seated before her podium.  "Do I hafta take off my clothes?"

 

Six artists waited, charcoal in hand, ready to draw.  Four were diligent regulars who were there to hone their craft.  The other two were hacks, bottom feeders who came to ogle supple female anatomy.

 

“Alright, wear the bathing suit, if you must...”

 

She began with a nervous energy, eager to please and responsive to any cue that improved a pose.  The clock ticked and Rachel loosened up.  Her steamy cleavage warmed the room and fogged the windows.  She was a fast study and finished strong.  Good job!  We asked her to return.

 

Next time she posed for us in the raw.  Months later she was disrobing at art studios all over town.  We tutored her too well.  She inspired energetic work and became much in demand.  After awhile we saw our protégé less and less.

 

Rachel always returned calls.  One day a call to her was answered by an out-of-service recording.  Then she vanished – all trace of her erased except for her image on paper and canvas, a shy vulnerability that left a lasting impression.

         

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

A tushy by any other name...

 

“Bootylicious” is 21st century jargon for what ancient Greece called "callipygian" - a description of a woman's curvaceously ample buttocks.

 

Art classes that feature models with exceptional posteriors draw a crowd.  Nadia was such a model.  Her dorsal region had glutes that giggled and dimples that winked.

 

Much like Aphrodite’s, Nadia’s tushy was the quintessence of development.  Some things lose their juiciness as they evolve.  Other things are as delicious now as they ever were.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

 

The Theta Paradox - Chapter 1

 

Meet “Delta Ray,”  robotic escort at the "Pleasure Pier," an erotically themed amusement park. 

 

Delta Ray and Pleasure Pier share a common bond:  they exist in the mind of their creator, Ernst Von Hornyus.  Von Hornyus is the madcap owner of “Xcapades,” an R-rated virtual reality empire.

 

Pleasure Pier is Von Hornyus’ brain-child.  The project details include players “Voluptua Lipzenhips,” “Hardonis Adonis” and "The Tostada sisters,” who're locked in Hornyus' neo-cortex.  All await the realization of his grand vision.  Realization is the key to release.  For some it will be soon.  For others?