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Summer in SoCal
June Newsletter |
Greetings!
 Summer has finally arrived in Southern California - and with it the June Gloom - and that means vacations, cookouts, sailing, surfing, and all manner of great outdoor fun is just around the corner. And with all that comes a lot of precious memories forever memorialized in photos. But! The photos aren't all you can frame. Many people who studiously frame and conserve their artwork and family photos forget to protect the rest of their mementos and memorabilia. Wedding invitations, caps and gowns and tassles from graduation, sports jerseys, and valuable collections can all be preserved and protected via shadowbox framing while also making them beautiful for display! Many of these events and items come around only once in a lifetime and can never be replaced. Protect them for your children and grandchildren now while you still can.
FrameStore has been helping southern Californians take care of their photos, artwork, and mementos correctly for over 35 years.
Stop by one of our stores this week to have one of our Art and Design experts help you to turn those precious memories that will only come once into lasting and lovely art that will bring joy for decades.
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The Getty:
A Revolutionary Project:
Cuba from Walker Evans to Now
May 17, 2011 - October 2, 2011
About
Cuba's attempt to forge an independent state has been a project under development for more than 100 years and a source of fascination for nations, intellectuals, and artists alike.
A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now looks at three critical periods in the nation's history as witnessed by photographers before, during, and after the country's 1959 Revolution. The exhibition juxtaposes Walker Evans's 1933 images from the end of the Machado dictatorship with views by contemporary foreign photographers Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris, and Alexey Titarenko, who have explored Cuba since the withdrawal of Soviet support in the 1990s.
A third section bridging these two eras presents pictures by Cuban photographers who participated in the 1959 Revolution, including Alberto Korda, Perfecto Romero, and Osvaldo Salas.
Walker Evans is one of the photographers most responsible for the way we now imagine American life in the 1930s. His distinctive photographic style, which he declared "transcendent documentary," was nurtured by New York in the late 1920s, but it was fully formed by his experience in another country-Cuba-in 1933.
In the spring of that year, Evans was asked by publisher J. B. Lippincott to produce a body of work about Cuba to accompany a book by the radical journalist Carleton Beals. This book, The Crime of Cuba, would be a scathing indictment of the then-current regime of Cuban President Gerardo Machado. He came into office in 1925, supported by the U.S. government, but became more dictatorial as the full force of the global depression hit Cuba. Evans wrote to a friend that he arrived in May "in the midst of a revolution." After years of civil strife in the country, Machado was forced from office in August, less than two months after Evans departed.
Evans made substantial strides in his photographic practice during the weeks in Cuba. There he worked with different format cameras, creating both close-up and wide, that he could combine in intense sequences to best communicate his response to the poverty, the ferment, and the beauty of his environment.
The photographs that Evans made in Cuba, reveal the influence of the French photographer Eugène Atget. Evans wrote that Atget's photographs of old Paris demonstrated "a lyrical understanding of the street, trained observation to it, special feeling for patina, eye for revealing detail."
Cuban president Gerardo Machado's fall from rule in 1933 resulted in a long power struggle that culminated in the country's 1959 Socialist Revolution to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista. That movement anchored the country to the Soviet bloc for the next 30 years and defined a relationship with the United States that still exists today.
Fidel Castro, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and their new government harnessed photography as a means of keeping the project of the Revolution at the forefront of Cuba's collective memory. Pictures of the Revolution and its aftermath have shaped how both Cubans and Americans understand the significance of that revolutionary moment.
Photographs in this section of the exhibition are drawn from the work of nine Cuban photographers who participated in recording the political context and triumphs of the emerging state in the years surrounding 1959.
Fidel Castro realized the importance of establishing a visual iconography for his movement. Toward that end, he occasionally revisited the important sites of the Revolution, allowing for photo opportunities like the one shown above. The island's mountain terrain, stronghold of Castro's rebel forces, and the lifestyle it demanded became key visual symbols of the new government. Castro's beard, originally grown as a result of his time in the mountains, became part of his public identity.
Soviet troops began to withdraw from Cuba in September of 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union later that year would have dramatic effects on the nation. The island soon found itself isolated and adrift, without political or military anchors and devoid of subsidies. Fidel Castro declared a "Special Period" (período especial), marked by food rationing, energy conservation, and a decline of public services.
In the nearly 20 years since the Soviet withdrawal, Cubans have managed to survive through perseverance, the forging of new political relationships, and the easing of Socialist systems. This period of transition, which continues today with the recent transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl, has attracted the attention of photographers from around the world. This section of the exhibition looks at the work of three photographers with diverse approaches: Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris, and Alexey Titarenko.
In 2001, Virginia Beahan began a multiyear project on Cuba, photographing its topography in search of remnants of the island's diverse past. Beahan's Cuba is a land of contradictions, full of disappointments and hope, decay and rejuvenating beauty, simultaneously anchored to the past while looking beyond the present.
A former student of Walker Evans, Alex Harris made several trips to Cuba following the collapse of the eastern bloc.
Through distinct vantage points, Harris probed the country's propensity for ingenuity as it underwent great transition.
This image is one from Harris's study of the ubiquitous representations of revolutionary hero José Martí, who championed the cause of Cuban independence and died in the war with Spain in 1898. Portrait busts of Martí are still found in public places, as well as homes, throughout Cuba, often with other symbols of the Revolution.
Alexey Titarenko's photographs describe the conditions of life in Cuba, depicting people persevering amid varying states of ruin-collecting food rations, fixing long-outmoded cars, or playing baseball, as here. Born and raised in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russia, Titarenko became fascinated with Cuba in 2003, when he made his first trip to Havana.
Titarenko's photographs, like many others in this exhibition, probe the relationship between Cuba's revolutionary past and its uncertain future. This well-known image above, associated with the Revolution was made shortly after the movement's triumph. The populist fervor for the new state is effectively captured and conveyed here by one of the nations most important photographers, Osvaldo Salas, who framed this patriotic sign amid a celebratory crowd.
Beginning in 1959, mass gatherings at places like the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana were a recurring feature of the revolutionary government's reign and provided ample opportunity for photographers to document its leaders and popular support. |
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La Luz De Jesus Gallery:
Glenn Barr: "Faces"
Solo Exhibition
June 3, 2011 - June 26, 2011
About
"FACES" explores the images that permeate our collective consciousness and define the iconic. Like the painting of a poised face looking out at us, hidden from the light in a dark pub, or the tattered advertisement hanging forgotten in the back of a garage, they've always been there... and not there. We tend not to see things that have lived with us day in and day out. Once these iconic images of the "ideal" are gone, we miss them, as though trying to remember an old friend whose name escapes us.
Glenn Barr felt the paintings for this show needed something other than canvas to rest on, so he used found lumber, scavenged from the Detroit landscape, much as he used to do when he started out in the art world. He's always liked painting on found objects that have history and personality, like tired, sun-bleached panels from some collapsed building, or discarded cabinet doors lying alongside the road. By discovering them and painting on them, he's infusing these wood remnants with new life, which gives his work a natural aesthetic of familiarity and creates a permanent visual of the iconic ideal.
This exhibition will also celebrate the special, advance release of Glenn Barr's new art volume, FACES.
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LACMA:
The Sound of One Hand:
Paintings and Calligraphy
by Zen Master Hakuin
May 22, 2011 - August 14, 2011
About
Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) is widely acknowledged as the most important Zen Buddhist master of the past 500 years. He was also the most influential Zen artist of Edo-period (1615-1868) Japan, but unlike the highly studied monk painters of earlier centuries, he received no formal artistic training beyond the basic skills in handling brush, ink, and paper that were required for everyday writing.
Hakuin's self-taught, spontaneous, yet masterly and inspired painting and calligraphy, just like his teachings and writings, expressed the mind and heart of Zen for monks and lay followers alike. With the aim of reaching out to people of all social and economic classes, rather than just the élite, he invented a new visual language for his religion, depicting everyday subjects and themes from other Buddhist sects, as well as Zen patriarchs and masters.
For this first exhibition in the West devoted to Hakuin, nearly 80 of his scrolls will be gathered from collections in the United States and Japan. Organized in collaboration with New Orleans Museum of Art, and curated by Audrey Yoshiko Seo and Professor Stephen Addiss. The Los Angeles presentation is made possible by LACMA's East Asian Art Council.
Following its premier presentation at the Getty Center, Paris: Life and Luxury travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where it will be on view September 18-December 10, 2011. |
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Article Headline
In The Studio:
Art Theory 101:
Colour, Value and Hue in Art Theory:
Color is one of the most powerful of elements. It has tremendous expressive qualities. Understanding the uses of color is crucial to effective composition in design and the fine arts.
The word color is the general term which applies to the whole subject - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, black and white and all possible combinations thereof. Hue is the correct word to use to refer to just the pure spectrum colors. Any given color can be described in terms of its value and hue. In additon, the various physical phenomena and pyschological effects combine to affect our perceptions of a color.
Hue and Value
Hue also has value. When contrasting hues are made similar in value, the spatial effects are flattened out. The pair of images on the left demonstrate this. In the color image of the fashion model the coat draws our attention through contrast of hue although the skin tones blend with the background(remember the object of the image is to sell the coat, not the model). However, it also seems to be softly blending with a background that seems quite close, and is very similar to the coat in value. The face tends to blend with the background which is similar in both hue and value. In the black and white version, however, the coat virtually disappears, since only value, not hue, are available to distinguish it, and the values are quite similar. However, the strong value contrast of the eyes and hat draw our attention to the face, even though the contours of the face seem to melt into the background. Therefore the black and white version emphasizes the model more than the garment.
To summarize: If values are close, shapes will seem to flatten out, and seem closely connected in space; none will stand out from the others. If values contrast, shapes will appear to separate in space and some will stand out from the others. This works whether the colors are just black, white and gray, or whether hues are involved.
Hue is the term for the pure spectrum colors commonly referred to by the "color names" - red, orange, yellow, blue, green violet - which appear in the hue circle or rainbow. Theoretically all hues can be mixed from three basic hues, known as primaries. When pigment primaries are all mixed together, the theoretical result is black; Therefore pigment mixture is sometimes referred to as subtractive mixture.
The primary colors consist of three hues from which we can theoretically mix all other hues. There are two commonly used definitions of primary colors:
Painters Primaries - red, blue, yellow: This traditional definition of primaries does not in fact mix to clear greens or purples; it is based on 19th century theories.
Printers Primaries - magenta, cyan (turquoise), yellow: This definition of primaries mixes to clear colors across the entire spectrum. It is used as the basis for color printing. The computer screen probably does not give you a true turquoise--the color should be a blue-green-- because of differences between color mixture in pigment and color mixture in light.
In mixing colors hues can be desaturated (reduced in purity, weakened) in one of three ways: mix with white to lighten the value (tint), mix with black to darken the value (shade), or mix with gray or the complement to either lighten or darken the value ( tone).
Light Primaries - red, blue, green. This definition is active when colored light is mixed, as on your computer screen, or when theatrical spotlights overlap on a white wall. Its effects are less familiar than pigment mixture to most people. If all three primaries are mixed, the theoretical result is white light. Therefore Light mixture is sometimes referred to as additive mixture.
Your computer screen mixes color as light, and therefore follows additive color mixture rules. This means that the depiction of subractive mixture shown here is less than ideal, particularly for the cyan (turquoise) and magenta of the printers primaries.
There are many systems for classifying hue, developed so that researchers can measure and define color qualities, and so that designers, industry, and marketing people can communicate color ideas over distance. One example is the Munsell system; another is the Pantone System. However, today the communication of precise color information is mainly done digitally, using spectrophotometers to identify and transmit color information. These digital systems use additive (light) mixture rather than the subtractive (pigment or dye) mixture used in systems like Munsell and Pantone.
Complements are colors that are opposite one another on the hue circle. When complements are mixed with one another in paint, the resuting muted tones desaturate or dull the hues. Such opposite pairs can also be compared in terms of their relative warmth and coolness. Warm-cool contrast of hue can cause images to appear to advance or recede. In this 15th century painting, for example, the warm reds of the man's doublet and his son's cap reinforce the cues of placement to make these figures seem very close. On the other hand, the cool tones of the sea and sky suggest great distance.
Afterimage is another, more specific definition of complements consisting of a stimulus color and its physical opposite generated in the eye by exposure to the stimulus color. Afterimage colors tend to make each other appear more intense, and have vibrating boundaries.
Copyright © 1995 by Charlotte Jirousek
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We here at FrameStore hope you enjoy the warmth and sun of summer while building a lifetime of memories, filled with love, family and lots of colour!
Sincerely,
Chuck Mitchell
FrameStore |
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