A Valentine for Everyone

Posted on February 14, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

Why do love messages get so Valentine Scan © Catherine Rutgersgloomy? They say, “True love never dies.” But it does, a million times! It swoops and soars, dips, wavers, curls up like it’s asleep, and pops back out smiling.

It’s an experiment. Changeable, shifting, and charged. It’s at once temperamental and rock solid. In other words, true love is alive.

Tbyrd once said that my art is “retro from the future.” And it’s true, I want to dredge into the past, scoop up the best things, and skip on into a more delicious future. Bringing everyone along with me, of course.

When you were very young, did you celebrate a collective Valentine’s Day in school? In second grade, third grade, around the single-digit years, we each brought cards for every kid in the class. That’s one thing I’d like to bring back: a valentine for everyone.

So, while I don’t have cute little cards, sporting “be mine,” tucked into tiny envelopes – or even those vaguely heart-shaped, chalky-tasting candies that actually do appear to have a permanent shelf life ­– here are seven variations. Happy Valentines, to all the loves in our lives. Rock on with one sock on!

Radar Love Experiment © Catherine RutgersSwift on the Wings © Catherine RutgersCreative Future © Catherine RutgersKiss My Brain © Catherine RutgersBlush and Bloom © Catherine RutgersSea of Joy © Catherine Rutgers

Images and text by Catherine Rutgers © 2012

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Random Image

Posted on January 26, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

Filling a lacuna till there’s time for the new Untitled piece, simmering away (somewhat anxiously). The full-size makes a deep and soothing background screen.
Enjoy and see you soon!

Random Image © Catherine Rutgers 2012

Artwork by Catherine Rutgers © 2012

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One Love

Posted on January 14, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

Opening Move © Catherine RutgersIt started with a snapshot of deep-orange-red lilies. Flipping to the negative really set it off. Simultaneously, I have been breaking on the waves of inventory.

Part one: Born in the ’50s and now in mine. I want, not merely to make my thoughts clear to another, but to surrender to him at the same time my whole soul, and to influence his sensuous powers as well as his intellectual. Is growing up still wacky?

I am writing about painting produced in what may be the last decades of a society dominated by the visual sense. I spend most of my day experiencing pictures. Like an underdeveloped country, smell has been ignored.

They talk endlessly of the creativity that comes from love. Over and over the pain hits me, the manic frustrated energy hits me.

I regret not having done it myself. Edible objects are prolific in Surrealist works. I have written from inside the literature of Dada and Surrealism. It is often impossible to classify an object as strictly Dadaist or Surrealist. An orange and an apple walked into my head and took opposing sides in the arena.

Was the intellectual chess player father of the body-mutilation school? I can refine my own writing by examining the effects of sex-exclusive language. Whereas Surrealism evokes the eternal nightmare sleep, Dada is blankness wide awake, the machine eye open.

One image. Eight variations. Wave on.

Where Do We Go © Catherine RutgersDeep into View © Catherine RutgersThe Luxury of Civilization © Catherine RutgersGypsy Grid © Catherine RutgersHold that Color and Do Not Let © Catherine RutgersStunned and Amazed © Catherine RutgersEmerging Sound © Catherine Rutgers

Quote from Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man, 1794-1795.
Artwork and the rest of the text by Catherine Rutgers © 2012.

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Street Smart

Posted on January 6, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

Church Avenue is one of those all-time Street Smart 2012 © Catherine Rutgersgreat streets full of every kind of commerce going on. Fresh fruit, flip flops, flowers, fajitas. Fabulous. And that’s a short list.

But when you move west toward Coney Island Avenue, the streetscape changes. And despite the fact that there are many cool business venues, several storefronts are empty.

In the fall of 2011, the Church Avenue Business Improvement District launched a plan to do something about this: a mural competition open to all artists, age 16 or older, who live, work, or go to school in New York City. Great idea.

There are five storefront security gates just waiting to be painted. The artists have responded to the call, contributing a beautiful array of ideas and styles. Now the community gets to vote on their favorites.

Artwork by Areta Buk and Abbsynian Carto_Uncover Church Avenue Exhibit 2012And there’s an exhibit opening Tuesday, January 17, on view through February 24, 2012, at the Flatbush Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The topic, by the way, is “Church Avenue is …”

My design proposal for Uncover Church Avenue is based on the spectrum, minus red and indigo. Here’s the text, followed by the images:

Church Avenue is home. I’ve been tremendously lucky to live just around the corner from this amazing street since 1988. Truly a rainbow of the world: delightful, exciting, unmatched in diversity of people, buildings, and landscape, one block away from the Parade Ground and Prospect Park.

The mural sites are unusual in that only one side of the avenue is commercial and the other homes, which are part of the Prospect Park South national historic district. My proposal is a very simple design that offers substantial areas of color where each store owner could add written information, a logo, or other graphics. My goal is to bring an eye-catching, refreshing brightness to these storefronts, with a coherent vision that will enhance this complex environment.

Update!  Number two will become art for the street. This is amazing and wonderful!!
And it was a great experience to have an interview with Mary Bakija, editor of
the Ditmas Park Corner.

Children's Corner by Catherine RutgersFarm on Adderly Annex and Drive Time Radio by Catherine RutgersIglesia Pentecostal by Catherine RutgersRichie Rich Caribbean Taste by Catherine RutgersThe Bonnie Youth Club by Catherine Rutgers Original photographs of the storefronts by Melissa Skolnick, Program Coordinator, Church Avenue BID. Variations on the theme by Catherine Rutgers.

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New Year’s Eve 2011

Posted on December 31, 2011 by CatRutgers4Art

New Year's Eve 2011 © Catherine RutgersAs so beautifully phrased by the good folks at home remedies for acne, “Somebody necessarily lend a hand to make severely posts I would state. That is the first time I frequented your web page and to this point? I amazed with the analysis you made to make this actual publish extraordinary. Excellent task!”

This is post 54 and every one has been a thrill to create. The lineup for 2012 is already in the works. Revelations on the art of composting. Photos from the archives as well as freshly snapped. And for the thesis book-in-progress, two more posts for the Rauschenberg analysis, then on to the poetic and very personal conclusion.

A hearty shout-out to the Guest Spot artists for sharing their work: Tom Burnett, Samm Cohen, Jamie Kelty, Brian Olewnick, Kristen Terrana, Ellena Rutsch, and Carolyn Rutgers Clark. You light up the screen (and my life).

Thank you, one and all, for your comments, support, and all around love. Even you wild and crazy spammers. All best wishes for a fabulous 2012!!

So Super from Word © Catherine Rutgers 31 December 2011

Images by Catherine Rutgers © 31 December 2011

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