NEWSLETTER
november 2021
FROM PAINT TO PLAY
Sketches during Rehearsals.
-click on images to enlarge-
I´m not a died-in-the-wool theater person; I´m basically a painter. But when the need to mount a theater piece at the San Miguel Playhouse arose, it was time to do something. (I´ve been on the board of the SMP since before it opened.) So I concocted an evening of four short plays, called it “The Desk Quartet”, recruited some real theater people to help, and the results will open Thursday, November 4 at the Playhouse for a two-week run.
No doubt I´m the first ever to say this, but working in the theater is very far from painting pictures. In his/her studio, the painter--all alone—plans, imagines, fantasizes, and draws, paints, changes, erases, paints over and reworks until he/she is satisfied that the work is as good as can be. Not so in the theater. There, the work is collaborative. The director, actors, stage manager, set designer, producer, and many others work together. At least hopefully, they work together. At times, the work can be a melee. At other times, the work can be a creative back and forth which is inspiring, during which new ideas and better ways to do things emerge. But it ain´t like sitting alone in your studio creating masterpieces.
I think all the four separate pieces in “The Desk Quartet” will stand successfully on their own, but I can also say that, good as I think they will be, not one of them will be the way I first saw them in my head. Not at all worse, just very different, and probably better than I imagined. That´s because the actors brought their own ideas and personalities to their parts.
And why “Desk” in the title? Because all four plays center around a desk.
And by the way, The Playhouse is complying with all rules regarding Covid, and has been certified by the San Miguel Health Department. Half of the theater´s seats have been removed to insure proper distancing, guests should be vaccinated and masks are required.
So---I hope you will come and enjoy! Tickets are at the door or online at BoletoCity.com
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OCTOBER 2021
A WORLD CHAMP IN SMA
'Don’t' pencil drawing
I didn´t know, until last week, that San Miguel is home to a world champion: the world´s fastest accordionist. Who could have guessed? His name is Salomon. You may have heard him, as I have, playing in local restaurants. He has played at some of our art openings at Galeria Izamal. Salomon can play---accurately---forty notes per second. I repeat---forty notes per second. His current nearest competitor is an American who can play 36 notes per second, with an Irishman close on his heels.
I discovered this in a conversation with Salolmon at the gallery last week. This is a serious matter, for sure, so serious that Salomon has given up playing in public so that he can devote full time to improving his speed. He had just returned from a visit with an oculist, who determined that the colored patches he was seeing before his eyes were caused by anxiety and hypertension: too much worry that his rivals might overtake him.
This competition is carried out on the internet, and is sponsored by the Hohner Company of Germany, manufacturers of accordions.
But why go through this strain? Are there prizes, cash, free instruments? Salomon said you gain fame and more work, and he added “Music is not just art and feeling anymore. It´s science.” After he left, I wondered: what about the music, the art and feeling?
2011 Chamber Music Festival in SMA Poster painted by Henry Vermillion
'The Real Sheriff', watercolor
'Abbreviated Figure' ink on paper
'The Round Bar' pastel 35x25 in.
SEPTEMBER 2021
nipples
A few days ago, I read that Facebook is in a battle to forbid users from posting women´s breasts which show nipples. Well! What have we come to? Nipples, indeed! Of course, in contemporary films - even Hollywood films - nude actresses are common, nipples and almost all else. But on Facebook, it´s taboo. Taboos, being the unwritten laws that hold a society together, are important (Imagine a high school girl exposing her breasts in a school yard). Facebook can’t afford to flaunt these kind of rules.
Prints of a watercolor of mine called “Happiness” have been very popular. The print shows a horned whiskery satyr over the shoulder of a buxom laughing nude woman. Not long ago, I commissioned a headboard for our bed featuring a carving in wood of the two figures. It was delivered on time – the spirit of the piece in bas relief. It´s now in place in the bedroom. It was a few days before I noticed that the carver had corrected a detail in the print he worked from: he added nipples where I had left them out.
“ALINA” pencil, 11.5 x 8in., $150 US
“FABIOLA ON FLOOR” 12x9 in., pencil, $150 US
“ FANNY” reproduction, 21x18 in.
“HAPPINESS AFTER CHARLES BRAGG“ pencil, watercolor
TEMPLATE FOR HEADBOARD
‘‘HAPPINESS’’ HEADBOARD ALONE
HENRY AND THE HAPPINESS CARVED HEADBOARD, April 2021
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AUGUST 2021
¨GUITAR MAN¨, acrylic on canvas, 28 x 20 in.
¨GEISHA¨, oil, 48 x 32 in.
A MAXIM
An artist can criticize our consumer society. Many do. Ironically, many of them use commercially derived pop styles to make their point. It´s the only style they know, since that’s what they learned in art school yesterday. There are a few who are able to paint and draw in the more or less obsolete classic styles---which take a lot of hard work and a lot of time. (Warhol, when asked why he re-worked photos instead of painting them, was honest: “It’s too much work.”) Warhol himself was the most trenchant critic of pop culture. He sucked the life out of the potent images of Marilyn and Mao and embalmed them in garish color. Again, the irony is that the sophisticated and affluent collectors of Warhol are comfortable with their pieces because they´re already familiar with the banal originals in their magazines or kitchen cabinets and can feel a bit above the rest of the hoi polloi in appreciating Warhol’s insights.
What is most enduring and valuable is art which most fully reflects our humanity, our energy, our enduring good and less than good nature, our endless struggles. And art as decoration is fine, but as artists, why not do the hard work (and give yourself the freedom) to make it something more?
One of the wisest maxims (remember maxims?) said by an artist is attributed to Da Vinci. It has saved me from a lot of grief over the years. “The greatest misfortune is when theory outstrips performance”. Of course, every artist is influenced greatly by the age in which he/she lives---no getting around it. But when the world of critics and esteemed art impresarios decide and then dictate what contemporary art styles are in and which are out, as they do, it succeeds in making sheep out of many genuinely talented and ambitious artists. We artists are almost universally eager to please and to be praised.
It´s been many years since the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC had no other choice---if they were to remain current and relevant---but to give its benediction to Pop Art, which they did with a controversial show. After all, Pop reflects our consumer society. It´s what we are immersed in: photos, ads, TV, social media, all that. It´s with us eternally.
Bright colors, action, humor, clever sayings that stick in your mind, all of that. It’s not going away. No doubt it´s why we are the richest nation, no?
¨AN ASSEMBLY OF ACTORS¨ oil, 36 x 48 in.
¨CLOSING TIME¨ oil, 42 x 30 in.
¨ELEVEN THIRTY, MARTINI NIGHT¨oil, 36 x 48 in.
ELEVEN THIRTY, MARTINI NIGHT napkin drawings to work from
JULY 2021
“HE DUMPED ME”, oil, 48x36 in.
A good number of the pictures I make are narrative, rather than descriptive. A story is often in (or behind) them. An arrangement of flowers, for example, can be gorgeous: fresh, almost like a miracle--to fresh eyes. Flowers we see, or their ancestors, were painted on the walls of Pompeii, by the old masters, and by the impressionists, and by countless other wonderful painters
But a flower in the hand of a wistful young woman, at least in Victorian times, suggested a story, a “back story”, as they say today, no matter how trite or conventional it may have been. As I write, I´m thinking of a fairly large painting downstairs. A half-nude anguished woman on an improvised stage seems to be pleading her case to an unseen audience. Behind her, a male figure hurries away into the darkness. The whole left side of the painting is filled with the profile of an older man with grey whiskers who dispassionately watches the scene, as from an upper balcony.
What´s going on here? One version could be that the histrionic woman is baring her soul—as well as her upper body—because she has been dumped by her lover. He´s the one scurrying away in the background. The solemn man in profile? An impartial observer? A drama critic? Maybe God? Who knows?
And, are there other ways to read the picture? Most certainly.
“BRIDE´S SURPRISE” 7x11 in.
“AN ASSEMBLY OF ACTORS” oil 36x48 in.
“EL TUPINAMBA”,oil, 36x48 in.
“BIG AL& ASSOCIATES” oil 48x36 in.
“DISCUSSION” oil, 39x32 in.
“THE PRIEST AND HIS LAWYER” 32x24 in.
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JUNE 2021
WHAT I WANT TO DO WHEN I GROW UP
¨GUITAR MAN¨ / Acrylic on canvas / 28 x 20in.
¨ANOTHER NIGHT OF TV¨ / Oil / 48 x 30 in.
¨PRODIGAL SON¨ / Oil / 36 x 36 in.
¨BOYSTOWN SERIES¨ / Oil
At the age of 10, this artist´s art idols were Norman Rockwell and Charles M. Russell, the painter of a Romanticized Old American West. A few years later, Thomas Hart Benton, John Stewart Curry, and Grant Wood were added to the pantheon. As a kid, my cattle rancher cousins and I had contests to see who could make the best drawing of a horse. All perfectly normal for an artist born and raised in West Texas and New Mexico.
Growing up, I got degrees in English, Biology, and Social Work, got married, had a daughter, and had no other idea except to live the life of a responsible, decent citizen and family man, like my father wanted. Without details, I tried for many years to do just that. But - despite some considerable accomplishments - I never felt I was doing what I should be doing. Art – painting and drawing – all along were the most rewarding things. Yes, all along, I had been teaching myself how to paint. At a point, I took the bull by the horns (to invent a phrase), quit my job, packed up a U-Haul and moved with Britt and our two cats to San Miguel de Allende so we both could paint full time. A New Yorker, Britt was stunned by San Miguel, not because of its charm, but by how difficult it was to live in, not just visit, a foreign country. She hated it here, in fact. (Over time, all that has changed.)
My art tastes had by then changed to painters like Jack Levine, George Grosz, Honore Daumier and others with a satirist / humanist expressive talent. Lately, I admire the work of Amy Schutz, Matt Bollinger, and the SMA painter Ray Herrera, who does both figurative and abstract work.
Today´s world is saturated with images ---too many to digest---from TV, social media, etc. etc. My own painting and drawing tends to be figurative or expressionist, I would say, and fairly loosely done. Other than as a technical exercise, there´s certainly no point in trying to compete with a lens. A human figure or face can express most everything that´s important to me, and a good painting or drawing can express those things better than can a lens.
¨MONEY MANAGERS DEMONSTRATE ON WALL STREET¨ / Oil
¨MISS OCTOBER¨/ Pastel on Paper / 25.5 x 20 in.
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MAY 2021
May 5, 2021
Hi All-
Eastland, Texas friends 1952
Day after tomorrow, I´m traveling to Houston to visit an old friend from our joint days in small-town West Texas. He´s the most notable of our class of about 40 students, I would say: successful lawyer, partner of the firm, president of the Houston Bar Association, etc., etc. (His wife also had a fine law career.)
Once back in SMA – two plans. First: our new (old) house is livable now, and Britt generously insisted on hanging my bodega-full of paintings on our walls. So, we will have an open-house/art sale in mid-May or early June. Second: I´ll continue working on the series of “Boystown” paintings and drawings with plans to have a show of them in late summer.
In the meantime, Galeria Izamal is closed for vacation in May, but don’t hesitate to call Britt (415 115 5888) or your favorite gallery member if you´d like a private viewing for yourself or friends.
Boystown series. Oil
Sandino
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Boystown Series. Oil in progress with drawing study.
APRIL 2021
New series: Boystown
In some ways I think more like a writer than as a painter. This has complicated my life. If a new acquaintance asks what I do, my answer is ”I´m a painter”, and so I am.
Through my mind throughout the day, though, I wonder about politics, why people are what they are and not some other kind of person, and how grackles eat our dry dog food. I wonder what makes Mexicans different from Americans. It´s not easy to translate such things into visual images, but I try, especially the human concerns. I appreciate artists who can accurately detail birds, plants and trees, but I´m not good at it. I have to stick with people.
I´m now doing a series of drawings and paintings based on the “Boystowns” on the Mexican border. The photos I´m working from are gritty human documents, funny, sad, and very expressive. (By “Boystown”, think bordello, not Spencer Tracy.)
MARCH 2021
DRAWING NAKED PEOPLE
LIFE DRAWING GROUP AT GALERIA IZAMAL March 2021
The nude is one of the oldest subjects in Western art. But – it´s fallen from grace in the last hundred years in serious art. What happened to nudes in art is a long story, but the key players were ad men using cheap sex to sell soup to nuts. The major hold-outs are amateur drawing groups, which exist in nearly every large city in the West (U.S., Europe, and much of Latin America).
LUZ RECLINING, charcoal, pastel,9 x 13 in
I´ve hosted such a group for nearly thirty-five years. It´s an anchor for me, come what may, every Tuesday evening, to draw from the nude for a couple of hours. When I teach drawing, the nude is the basis of study. “If you can draw the nude competently, you can draw most anything else - animals, flowers, abstracts, whatever.” It´s true. It´s a hard task, but worth the effort.
I wonder why don´t collectors buy paintings with -or of- nudes today. Hmmm.
ALINA, pencil, 11.5 x 8 in..
GUILLERMO ON FLOOR, ink 13 x 8.5 in.
FABIOLA, pencil, 12 x 9 in.
FEBRUARY 2021
HENRY VERMILLION
I will let you in on a fact about artists not known by the general public: they generate piles of work on paper or canvas never seen by the public. When they are no longer around, it falls to family or friends to sell it, give it away, or trash it. It´s a bit sad, I suppose, but almost inevitable. The stuff is practice work, unsuccessful things, and so on.
A plumber practices replacing pipes and repairing leaks, but leaves no detritus behind. Not so visual artists. I suppose many throw out their practice and less successful stuff. Good for them, but many (me included) hate to part with interesting – but not saleable things. It just piles up. To have garage art sales?
*This is a template I did for one of our talented San Miguel wood carvers to make a bed headboard. We´ll see how it turns out.
HEADBOARD TEMPLATE by HENRY VERMILLION after his watercolor HAPPINESS after Charles Bragg.
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