Art with Alexander

I never feel age...If you have creative work, you don't have age or time.

--Louise Nevelson

I have been reading a (rather pedantic, I'm sorry to say) life of Louise Nevelson, the sculptor who worked most of the 20th century on large constructive walls you can find in museums and public spaces, and while you may look askance at those installations (for her work, the perfect word), they are impressive not only in their scale but in the straightforward lines, shapes, and blackness.  In them seem embedded her immigrant background, her upbringing in a family caught in the first generation dichotomy between old country ways and new social adaptations, not to mention the fierceness of her intentions for art.  She made her place among other modernists (I'm sure the art history people would categorize it as something else, but it is so evocative of what we think of in ordinary life as modern, so I use that term deliberately)...Albers and Calder, Frankenthaler and deKooning...and was known to be as flamboyant and extravagant in her personal style as any wild rock star, not that that's the point here.  She made her mark, pulling people into her endeavors, crises, complications, and mostly her work.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post:  Alexander and I at work at art.

Like Nevelson (and me), Alexander is a builder with found materials:  outside he chooses sticks and branches, which become, with a little tape and glue, sculptures on their own.  This one is the tree he made at my sister's house last weekend; it began with a load of yard trash from her neighbor's fire pit and though he wanted to make the wood into a fort, little by little its inherent intention became clear...it might be a totem (he'd been admiring my brother-in-law's miniature American Indian set from his childhood), but eventually it got to be a tree...a tree made out of leftover tree parts.  He wanted to bring the graceful twig art home with him, but I convinced him we would make another when we got back here, and besides, his favorite great-aunt went gratifyingly crazy over it.  So, apparently, did her flowering vine, which you see clings charmingly to it.

Inside, he scours the studio for interesting scraps...clock parts, copper shavings, rusted wire and tools...and invents new life for them.  Last week, Alexander came over for a long afternoon and evening, and so we had plenty of time to do lots of creative things.  After we shopped, made cookies (of course), invited our neighbor Louie over for a session with Legos on the porch, had snacks and supper, we settled down to painting.  Though up to now, his art work has been mostly lines and geometric shapes, you can see that these days he is into picasso-like images, with stories behind them.  He likes colored paper and watercolor, and talks nearly the whole time he is working.  It's a lot of fun to engage in art with him, and even moreso to learn all kinds of things, including inspirations for more art.

For instance, as the painting (of palm trees) last week went on, the paintbox got pretty much drowned with the excess water he had been lavishly dipping into it, and so I placed a paper towel over the box to soak it up.  Pulling up the towel, I showed him the imprint it made...two rows of color blinking back at him.  He was excited..."Let's make more!"  So I got some white paper, and an enameled pan, and squirted some paint on it...or rather he did...in blobs.  We put sheets of paper over it, rolled them with a brayer, and saw what designs ensued.

Yes, yes, we know everyone knows this simple trick of printing; we'd done it on a previous visit with a pan of gelatin, too.  But through Alexander's eyes and hands, old hat becomes new again.  He found stories in it and shapes...see the turtle? And the designs were so interesting, I decided to use them for cards.  Here are four that became of his impressions, enhanced with handmade paper scraps, a bit more paint, pen and imagination.  I have to say I'm pretty proud of them, and him.

So nice to work at art with a kindred spirit!