Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Aquarelle

We have a great local library that is far more than just books. Far more.  This month and next they have highlighted a local artist of some talent for a watercolor exhibit.  "Travels in Watercolor 10am-5pm Floyd Memorial Library, 539 1st St, Greenport"

So now you can find it and we hope you do. The place is a treasure and if you have children - then go there, do not pass go, do not collect $200 as the old saying goes.

We urge you to go feast your eyes.  Seriously. Watercolors are often thought of as something that comes out of kits when you were a kid. Obviously there is a lot more to it than that and some surface reading on the subject just starts to open the eyes.  What we like about the entire thing is that the particles (pigments)  are suspended in the water and seem to hang above the surface. Some of us got into the entire technique during college and grad school when we looked at illuminations in old texts and music - often drawn there via a watercolor genre. We liked that a  lot because the colors seemed to glow off the page.

There are, in this terrific exhibit, a lot of works that glow and a good space to think about them.  This scene (by Milne - above left) is an example of what you might find...it is as far removed from the photograph as Debussy is removed from Ravel (that might be an obscure reference - sorry) and this isn't impressionistic at all. Not at all.

The suspension of pigments in a medium is just what it is and by the nature of a suspension (physics time), there is no uniformity except for the split second they are mixed - after that chaos ensues and greens suddenly are by degree - at least that is what it is to our untrained eyes and equally untrained mind.

It is, this exhibit we mean, worth a long look.  We don't know about technique and skill level (although compared to us "Sunday painters" this is some pumpkins) but we do know what pleases our eyes and makes us want to know more - particularly on how a painter in watercolors sees what he/she sees and then finds pigments suspended in solution to express her mind's eye.

Curious.

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