John Murray classes week of January 6, 2014

Welcome to my Winter 2014 (!) term classes.
I believe that the form/material  that you choose to explore is all you really need for content.
But since we're stuck here in New England in January let's look around and find a little inspiration in the
bleakness we inhabit.
Take a look at Cy Twombley's paintings and sculpture.
Look up Andy Goldsworthy's snowball/stick drawing.
I took the above picture on a walk in a field near my house on a very cold day.
Is there a personal image there?
I don't know until the materials get involved.
Please bring material to work with to the first class.
See you next week, John.

John Murray classes week of December 9, 2013

Last week's Solstice work was strong, so let's continue on that theme next week.

It is also the last week of the term, so if you have any work that you want to share or have critiqued , please bring it to class.

I enjoyed working with everyone this term and hope you found the class a positive and challenging experience.

The winter term starts January 6, 2014(!).

See you next week, John.

John Murray classes December 2 and 4, 2013

Who is this man?

Find out next week when Dan Elias visits my classes at lunch break Monday and Wednesday...
Stick around after morning class or come a little early for the afternoon class and meet our new director, ask him questions and offer suggestions for his consideration for NAC.
 
In terms of an assignment try thinking visually about the WINTER SOLSTICE and its attendant phenonena in regard to the bleak landscape, the clear cold nights, and the turning of the planet away from the Sun.
See you next week. John

John Murray classes Nov. 18, 20 and 25, 2013

For the next 3 days of classes before the holiday I would like to stay with the scrap photo reference work of last week.
Above is a photo of Francis Bacon in his studio surrounded by scraps of reference that he cut from newspapers, magazines and found in trash cans.
The work the classes did from this assignment on Wed. was fresh and different:
let's stay with for a while longer.
See you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of Nov. 11, 2013

No Monday class due to Veteran's Day.

For Wednesday Supercharged painting:
Next week try working from a newspaper or magazine photo.
Of course the usual deconstruction/manipulation of the image into painterly terms is essential!
Above are 2 examples: Theophilus Brown's (a Bay Area figurative painter) 1956 football painting worked
from a sports photo and below that a painting that I did in the Summer of 2011 from a baseball photo.
Many great modernist and postmodernist painters work from published images.
Francis Bacon did it all the time.
See you next week. John.

John Murray classes week of November 4, 2013

Last week's destruction/collaboration work was very strong.

Next week let's try a painting usinig paint rollers.
A limited method can open a wider vision.

See you next week, John.

John Murray classes week of October 28, 2013

Last week's found object challenge went well; above is what I did around a crushed piece of drain pipe and some burlap fabric.

Friday's Times had a great review by Blake Gopnik of a show at the Hirschorn Museum in DC of the Destruction Movement in art in the 60's and 70's.

I will see the show in November when I go to Washington... but the review mentioned a piece by Robert Rauschenberg, included in the show, that is his famous erased Dekooning drawing. 

This inspired next week assignment: I will setup a still life for you to paint draw or otherwise replicate and then ask you (or your neighbor) to destoy, erase or obscure in an interesting and graphic fashion.

See you next week, John.