The Gathering

Bad photos of somewhat interesting Artist Trading Cards
I made last week. More description below.

I was pleased at last week’s Artist Trading Cards (trade ‘em, make ‘em, and trade ‘em, a monthly fourth Thursday meeting) to be seated between Bill, a long-time ATC maker and Mylan, a youngster in about fourth grade, two very able artists in their own rights. It was especially fun to sit beside the young lady who was this meeting making ribbon cards inspired by a card she’d received from another card maker Sue, who was seated across the large table from where we were working. To be surrounded by artists is always a thrill for me, an inspiration to my own artwork and sense of being an artist hard at work! To be surrounded by artists of all ages seems especially fine.

I traded cards at the beginning of our session, new ones I’d made even though I didn’t know what the theme of the opening trade was. That’s always okay with group members. The given topic was cereal images. I made black Christmas trees—sparkly trees on a black ground. After that I gathered some pre-cut grounds pre-printed in light blue and light green, glue, scissors, a knife, a black fine-point pen, and several magazines. And I went to work. I had no idea doing what, but a folded cloth photo caught my eye, a simple flower design in black and white. In another magazine I found some photos of broken sticks with bark still attached. I tore them out and then looked at what I had.

As I worked I became aware of the girl’s frustration. She asked me advice on how to integrate a ribbon she’d just glued on that didn’t easily go with the rest of her design. I gave her a suggestion that she liked and watched as she improvised on it to nice effect. Still she was not satisfied, so I gave her another suggestion and found that we were both searching for the right string to make it. Eventually she found the perfect string to glue in place. I gave her advice what glue to use and how to get it started so it wouldn’t be too much. She showed me her other pieces as they developed and asked me my opinion of a thing or two. I gave her advice on cutting off the edges of the ribbon so they’d cut easily and neatly and watched and complemented her on her work.

Milan’s mother watched and commented. She seemed to be getting a kick out of our interactions. There were a few exchanges. I said I’d worked with children for many years, especially planning art projects. Milan’s younger sister said with surprise, “You worked with children?”

“Yes, I assured her for many years and I had two children and quite a few foster children at home as well.” Children often seem amazed at the long pasts of older adults! Milan’s project was quite successful. Another adult at the end when we present our cards for viewing and swapping said of them, “These are really beautiful.” I agreed.

The evening was wonderful in many respects: working with a child, Beating snacks (especially snacks made by Bill), some white wine, Bill’s cards that are always neat (his combination of images and colors in collage), and the rest of the artists that night.

I also liked what I was doing, the combination of torn images and finishing them off with ink drawings. Sue and Bill and Jerry liked them as well. The girls did too. Mostly, though, just being there talking with and working alongside other artists, seemed right, meaningful, wonderful—a great Christmas week event for me.

Hope your holiday also has been merry and bright.

Denver, 2014

Christmas Present

My Christmas card a few years ago when I was
into Punk Rock Angels.
Block print by Phillip Hoyle

For the next few days I’ll be looking at and working on designs, simplifications, and abstract of things seen and felt this year in order to get my next year's Christmas card underway. I want to do this while the spirit of Christmas is still strong in me. Actually the sentiment of Peace on Earth is at the core of the Christmas vision. It works all year long. for me, the spirit of Christmas is the festive feeling fostered by all the decorations, brisk winter air, seasonal music, parties, and so forth. Oh, I didn’t mean to leave out shopping for gifts.

I’m hoping in the next three days to make something of that! I think I’ll experiment with my designs by making Artist Trading Cards that I will make today and tomorrow and trade on Tuesday night. Of course, I’ll make copies of them for reference! Guess I’ll also post them next Monday—on the fifth day of Christmas as in the old liturgical calendar and the current Christmas popular song.

We’re keeping the tree and decorations up a few extra days due to out-of-town visitors and the Denver tradition to keep holiday lights burning through the National Western Stock Show. Maybe I’ll get these things done after all. It’s my hope but certainly not an old year’s resolution.

Hope your holiday is bright and artful.

Denver, 2014

At the Museum, part three

Someone was there! Hand and footprint petroglyphs at the
Shavano site have always got my attention.
Acrylic washes on paper by Phillip Hoyle.

For a year and 9 months I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I enjoyed the Philbrook Museum and the Gilcrease Museum. I made many trips to these two while living in there. I liked seeing the art and studied it with rapt attention for I was at the time also studying with working artists at the Oklahoma Art Workshops. 

Now I live in the shadow of the first art museum I ever visited, the Denver Art Museum. I’ve held a membership there for over fifteen years and make monthly trips to look at some special display or simply to walk the halls of my favorite parts of the collection.

What are those favorites? Did someone ask? I’ll tell anyway.

I always visit the western art display, the two floors of contemporary art, the Native American collection, and some traveling show. Often I visit the rather new and greatly expanded fabric arts displays, the photographic displays, and some part of the Asian collection. I like to go alone or with one other person (at a time). When with others I watch their reactions in order to gain new perspectives related to my favorite pieces. I sometimes walk through the displays in order to enjoy the architecture of the buildings. Occasionally I sit in one of the small libraries to page through books, watch a video, or simply to read my own books. I people watch at times, play with children in special interactive displays, or sit in the gift shop sipping coffee.

My approach to the place is always varied slightly and I have never been disappointed in a visit there. It’s not like being at church, but the experience satisfies something deep within. I do feel a kind of reverence and awe there. And I always like to see new pieces on display whether they are recently added or presented from the huge collection most people have never imagined the museum curates.

I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world when I’m at the museum and come away refreshed, intrigued, full of ideas, inspired to continue in my own art work.

Denver, 2014

At the Art Museum, part 2

"Wild Things" after two Ute petroglyphs in Shavano Valley
Acrylic washes on watercolor paper
by Phillip Hoyle
I appreciate this weasel? and wild paw print and that the
Native artist who chipped it into the boulder approached
the images creatively. A seven-toed whatever it is? I know
from an old Cherokee petroglyph that the story may be about
some now unknown mythological creature. Who knows?

After I moved to Missouri in 1981, I visited the Nelson-Atkins Galleries and the St. Louis Art Museum. Sometimes I went just to experience the places. On other trips to the museums I was researching visual images to use in various curriculum resources. I was especially interested in the artwork of primal cultures to modify into art projects for children, but I saw much more.

Later, in the 1980s, I visited a friend in Los Angeles and got to see The Huntington (with its art collection and botanic gardens), LA County Museum of Art (where I was mightily impressed with the ancient collection, especially a gateway from Persia or Babylonia), and the Norton Simon Museum (where I first experienced a positive emotional response to Hindu sculpture). The experience at the Norton Simon surprised me. I had seen plenty of such sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins Galleries but finally realized that the lighting at this new museum had made possible a deep affective response from me. I found myself ready to join Shiva in a dance of affirmation or destruction—which one I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I was learning more about art due to my visits. Certainly I was learning more about myself.

When in 1990 I moved to New Mexico, I discovered a new world of art. There I visited the Albuquerque Art Museum near where I lived. I also made many trips to the New Mexico Museum of Art and while there also saw many, many galleries. There were more museums of folk art, American Indian art, on and on. In fact, the whole state seemed to me like an art and history museum! Favorite galleries kept me abreast contemporary and traditional Native American art. A friendship with a gallery curator introduced me into a world I had never imagined. I grew in my understanding and got really hooked!

Since those days I have always been ready to make another trip to the museum, any museum, but especially the art museum.

Denver, 2014

The Art Museum

The Coyote has got my attention as in this piece after a Ute
petroglyph. Acrylic washes on paper by Phillip Hoyle.
Native American art still influences the way I see things.

The first art museum I visited in my early teens (early 1960s) was the Denver Art Museum, the American Indian displays that back then were housed in an old mansion, the Chappell House, located along Grant Avenue on Denver’s Capitol Hill. I viewed the place as an Indian Culture museum since it seemed similar to the pieces I knew from the Kansas State Historical Museum. I also realized it was called an art museum and knew there was much more art elsewhere (but didn’t see the other displays for many years. In Denver I also visited the Denver Natural History museum and really liked its Native American collection. All these American Indian things seemed like art to me, beautiful hand-made items that I might easily desire to hang on the walls of my room, yet ones I’d never be able to have due to their rarity. I liked that I could view them free or for a modest fee. And I determined to make similar items of such rare beauty.

Finally as a young adult I visited the Wichita Art Museum with curiosity. I enjoyed my visit but recall that I couldn’t fathom why people acted so excited by it. I had read somewhere back then that the art museum had replaced the cathedral as a place of worship, but perhaps because I was not Catholic, I didn’t relate to the writer’s evaluation. For me, the museum didn’t compare with the art galleries at Wichita State University. I wondered why. Was I just undereducated? Would such places grow on me as I matured? I had no real idea. Still, at the Wichita museum I realized the museum was more than simply its displays. It was also a membership organization.

Over the years I added more art museums to my experience. For instance, while attending graduate seminary at TCU in Fort Worth, TX, I often visited the Kimbel Art Museum (a collection of European and Asian art), the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (meaning largely cowboys and Indians), and occasionally the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum (post WWII art). In these places I saw paintings and sculptures that sometimes connected with my personal interests and that often pushed me to look more deeply at the pieces themselves in search for understanding or simply to see. An offshoot of this activity was that I began going into commercial art galleries as well. The world of fine art was expanding for me.

Since those years I’ve visited many other art museums and have come to feel a special relationship with them, now as a working artist. My appreciation has grown, my insight amplified by education and experience and the insights of friends with whom I visit these places that sometimes thrill, cause me to laugh, or open my eyes to another person’s vision of the world. Maybe that’s why they serve a kind of religious visionary role. I stand in awe before some of the most beautiful or most horrifying. I now understand why one influential scholar created a methodology in which he claimed the Arts raise the questions that philosophy and theology seek to answer. That’s the large picture. For me, the painters, sculptors, and others ask me to think anew about my own work and my life. I go to art museums with regularity and need, something indeed akin to religion.

Denver, 2014