Zentangles & Optical Art

This kind of art is about all I’m doing right now.  I have lots of paintings I need to finish, but keep putting them off.  Terrible.  Everything I paint, I keep seeing things I want to add to it or do differently.  I have lots of ideas for paintings, but I no longer get ideas for writing anything longer than a Tweet.

Marker pen & acrylic on 12″ x 24″ canvas.

I hope to progress beyond these decorative kinds of paintings which can be classified as zentangles and/or optical art.  They are so easy to do while watching TV.  I love the English mysteries they have on PBS, like Grantchester, my very favorite right now.  I’m 74 now and am starting to physically slow down.   I figure that I can learn from doing these kinds of paintings and move on.  I grow very fast.

 

Decorative Art

A few things I have done to contribute to the world of the Decorative Arts.  Things like these help brighten up a room.  Markers on 12″ x 12″ canvas.  In this “Age of Trump,” a person needs an outlet to get their mind off of politics, at least for a few minutes.

City of Tomorrow

 

Haven’t been on WordPress for so long, because I’m so consumed with vilifying Trump on Twitter.  A new drawing I did. Hope to get reinterested in blogging soon.

City of Tomorrow by Gayle 7/2017

Weekly Photo Challenge: Now

This looks like a man standing on top of the Flatiron building on 23rd St. and Broadway in NYC, but it’s actually a statue by Antony Gormley. People on the ground looking up at it thought it was a man about to jump.

Since I live alone–but, I have a cat, who claws up my furniture–in a building for seniors only, in Staten Island, yet, my life may not be too adventurous.  Like many things I say off the top of my head, that’s not true at all.  My life now is more adventurous as it’s ever been.  I’m doing more art now than ever before, and making art is the greatest adventure of all.  Also living in Staten Island, I’m less than an hour’s bus ride from Manhattan, The Big Apple, the greatest city on earth, which I still find as exciting as when I first moved to New York, 31 years ago.  I feel as though I have Manhattan at my feet without having to pay the high prices.  Staten Island is so much less expensive than Manhattan it’s ridiculous, but a person can still partake of all that Manhattan has to offer.

My latest hangout in Manhattan. The New Whitney Museum of American Art. Opened 5/1/2015. Member since 5/1/2015.

New York City is so gigantic that I’m still exploring it and finding new places all the time.  I seem to go through different periods, switching from an absorption in nature and the rural part of New York, where there are deer and the like, and the opposite, taking in the big city.  NOW, my fascination is with the urban side of New York City, and especially the art world.  My first attraction to NYC came when a teenager in Los Angeles, when on my lunch hour, I would go to my highschool library and read about the New York Art Scene in the New York Times.

Check this out:  The 50 Coolest Places in New York City Right Now.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Gathering–Opening Night at Photo Gallery

In response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge:  Gathering

I took photo at the opening night of a Richard Avedon photo exhibit in San Francisco in 1980.  The photos were of the British artist Francis Bacon as seen on left.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ornate

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Ornate.”

These are 3 zentangle drawings I did, which could possibly be considered “ornate.”

Colored pencil on paper. Gayle Alstrom 2015

Colored pencil on paper. Gayle Alstrom 2015

Senior Citizens Getting it On in the Art World

Seniors in Lisbon meet Street Art

Photo taken from Twitter

Below:  Frank Stella (age 79) Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (Oct. 30, 2015-Feb. 7, 2016)

Frank Stella

Photo: Gayle Alstrom

Photo:  Gayle Alstrom

Photo:  Gayle Alstrom

Fedallah, 1988, Mixed Media on Aluminum
(Photo:  Gayle Alstrom)

[You might want to read my post entitled “The Frank Stella Retrospective at the Whitney,” on my other blog “One American Mind.”]

This is a very short video about Stella that really helps tremendously in understanding his work:

https://youtu.be/lgaPuHDV8v0
Richard Serra turns 76 on November 2, 2015

Richard Serra, The Matter of Time (2005).
Image: Guggenhiem Bilbao Museoa 2015, Richard Serra Arts Rights Society (ARS) New York.

Serra’s monumental sculpture, Sequence (2006), is already installed in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s (SFMOMA)  new building.