Swan's Island + Albers + Friends

Swan's Island was just perfect. And, we did use a few Josef Albers paintings as inspiration to get our creativity flowing. It was amazing just how much we saw our chosen Alber's palette on Swan's—even the pinks in the glow of the sunset and subtle shades of it in the sand. The coast of Maine is rich with light and texture. The water is salty and divine. The air is clear and crisp. Spending time with best friends who all have creative spirits is just the best. We are easily content and happy in this incredible place. It's as sweet as the years we've all spent together.

Of course, there are many things to stop and see along the way to Swan's Island. I traditionally stop in antique book barns. This time, I found an interesting book by Walter Sorell called The Duality of Vision about the urge of writer's to paint, and painter's to write, etc. The book includes a poem written by Josef Albers:

More -- or Less
Easy -- to know
that diamonds -- are expensive
good -- to learn
that rubies -- have depth
but more -- to see
that pebbles -- are miraculous

I love this little poem by Albers and found many miraculous pebbles and rocks on Swan's Island.

We gather all of our food on the mainland before we meet at the ferry in Bass Harbor, and then fill-in as we go at the small Carrying Place Market on the island. My favorite and a must stop on the way to Bass Harbor is Chase's Daily {vegetarian restaurant + farmer's market + café} in Belfast, Maine. The produce is brought in daily from the farm at 11 am and it's good to get there soon after that unless you have time to get there for a delicious breakfast or lunch. The mesclun mix is exotic, the chard and kale have the deepest hues of goodness, the purslane and arugula is fresh and crisp, and the charming buckets of flowers and baskets of herbs are full of beauty, and earthly love.

Wishing you a beautiful summer and I hope that you too, find a little time to get away from it all! oxo

Photos: My Dog-Eared Pages
Chase's Daily storefront photo, courtesy of a great blog about Maine called 2bnmaine

JOSEF ALBERS AND SUMMER ART

Josef Albers | Growing, Oil on Masonite 1940

This summer it's Josef Albers. Last summer it was mussel shells and fisherman's knots, the summer before that it was Alex Katz. In the summer, I try to find a couple of weeks where my pace of life slows down. In fact, I force it. And, this usually happens when I head to Maine to visit friends. Swan's Island is small and perfect. No shopping excursions, no fancy restaurants or bustling beaches. It's all about woodland walks to soft sandy coves, combing the rocks, picking blueberries and wildflowers, bike rides, cooking, and the major thing—aside from Scrabble or Bananagrams—is creating. Whether it's painting, sculpture, collecting, sketching, or photography, everyone has their thing.

Josef Albers | Homage to the Square {left to right} 1950, 1951 and 1955

In a completely organic way, I decide what might be my inspiration each year. Albers is it this year. And, the reason is simply color + shape. Swan's Island itself and all that I adventure to see on it, holds more of an organic shape—perhaps not as architectural as Alber's Homage to The Square series—but I will see islands of color, indeed.


Josef Albers | Related A. Oil on Canvas 1937 and Josef Albers | In Open Air. Oil on Masonite 1936



Last summer, we collected large bins of knots on the rocky shore and sorted them by color. We also participated in creating art from the burned pages of books salvaged from the Swan's Island Library fire that became part of a rebuilding, benefit exhibition called New Pages.



We were inspired by the large, sun-washed mussel shells that cover the rocky beach. Shown here glued to an interesting piece of driftwood... and below that, blocks of wood being assembled by my friend Jane in a Louise Nevelson sort of way.







The summer before that, I was inspired by an Alex Katz show at The Farnsworth and the loss of my oldest friend's mother. I made this little Katz-inspired collage titled, Nan.



The beach we comb is covered with perfectly smooth rocks from the pounding surf, and we paint a lot of them. It's a simple meditation to mix paint and cover a rock, and a summer tradition from as far back as I can remember. I will celebrate these days with my best friends and perhaps pay homage to Albers... a rock, a collage—we'll see!

All Josef Albers work is from the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1988.

FRITZ BULTMAN | THE MISSING IRASCIBLE

Collage: Fritz Bultman, Red Lap Barrier 1971 [paper & gouache] In the Irascibles photo: Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, James C. Brooks, Hedda Sterne, Jimmy Ernst, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Richard Pousette-Dart, Barnett Newman, Theodoros Stamos, William Baziotes, Mark Rothko. Irascibles Photo, Nina Leen/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Over the years, my godfather George talked about his friends, Fritz and Jeanne Bultman. Though he had not seen Jeanne for quite some time, he stayed in touch with her until her death in 2008. Her husband, Fritz Bultman who was part of the abstract expressionist group of painters in the 1940s, had died in 1985. My godfather spent summer days with the Bultmans in Provincetown—along with Tennessee Williams, Donald Windham, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and the Hofmanns. Born in 1919 into a prominent New Orleans family, Fritz Bultman studied abroad where he met Maria and Hans Hofmann. In 1937, after a year of study at Chicago's New Bauhaus School [a school he thought was "anti-painting"]—he left and spent four years studying under Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown.

Bultman collages: Explorer: Sky and Water, 1968 | Rooting, 1975 | Sky Harp, 1977

[paper, gouache, crayon]

In 1950, Bultman started showing at the Samuel Kootz Gallery—prominent dealer of abstract expressionist paintings. On May 22, 1950 the New York Times published a front-page article with the headline "18 Painters Boycott Metropolitan Museum: Charge Hostility to Advanced Art."  The article was in response to an open letter to the newspaper protesting the organizations and the juries responsible for selecting the work for the Metropolitan Museum's American Art Exhibition, to be held in December of the same year. The group of artists responsible for the letter, became known as the Irascibles. A photo of the group was published in the January 15, 1951 issue of Life magazine—containing a who's who of the abstract expressionist movement.

The Way Up and the Way Down, 1975 | November Wave, 1978 | Mardi Gras, 1978 [paper and gouache]

Fritz Bultman was not present for the Irascibles photo. He was studying sculpture at the time in Italy and missed the most important photo opportunity of his life. I asked art scholar and curator of Fritz Bultman, Collages [1997 exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia], Evan R. Firestone—if he thought Bultman's absence from the famous Irascibles photo, affected his success as an artist. "I think Fritz would have been somewhat better known in the 50s if he was in the Irascible photo, but he would not have attained the fame of most of the others in the photo. Much of Fritz's painting in the 40s was strong and tough, but not particularly ingratiating. There was a hiatus in his production in the early to mid-50s, and afterwards his work became increasingly Matissean, especially the collages—which I greatly admire—but the art world had moved on [Minimalism, Pop, Post-Minimalism, etc.]."

Other, 1981 | Daphne I, 1984 | Floating II, 1980 [paper and gouache]

Like his good friend, writer Donald Windham, Bultman never quite attained the name-recognition achieved by his contemporaries. In a letter from Butlman to Windham, Fritz writes: "I have long realized that your position, like mine, was untenable in the face of worldly acceptance and that the price of independence was obscurity. You must realize that character-wise you cannot make any other choice. Also there is no redemption thru time like in the 19th cent. It is only thru work that pleasure/reward will come to us, to make work the be all and the end all in itself."

I think the work of Fritz Bultman deserves another close look. And, once again... it's my godfather George who is leading me there.


Reap, 1981 | Interrupted, 1984 [paper and gouache]
Collage images from: Fritz Bultman Collages, 1997 exhibition catalogue, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia

A thank you to scholar: Evan R. Firestone

Update on 4/19/13 - I have just learned that Edelman Arts has recently become the exclusive New York representation for the Bultman estate and is currently presenting a solo exhibition of his work. Visit here to learn more.