Marilyn Fenn Studio

Wendell Castle
Music Stand (1964)
Oak, Brazilion Rosewood
55.5″ x 25″ x 20″
I just discovered this great blog post about an artist/craftsman named Wendell Castle at Emily Evans Eerdmans’ blog.  Wendell Castle has been creating amazing furniture for over 50 years.  He has ten “Adopted Rules of Thumb” for staying at the top of one’s creative game [...]

I just learned that Ray Yoshida, one of the Chicago Imagists and one of my painting teachers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, passed away this week.
I studied with him in an advanced painting studio for one semester: he once told me my work was “too sentimental.” (Thank goodness!).
I’m sad and [...]

Painting by Matthew Ritchie
“Self-Portrait in 2064″
2003
Oil and marker on canvas
80 x 100 inches
That quote is from an interview with Matthew Ritchie.
Better yet, I found this wonderful post by Vera Mitchell about Matthew Ritchie:
His work takes a basic line and takes it farther in meaning, in space, and in motion. He enlarges the line design to [...]

I like his point of view. 
Painting by
Adam Cvijanovic
See a lot more of Cvijanovic’s colossal spectacular work online at the Bellwether Gallery.

Elevating a motorcycle rally to art by moving it indoors and placing it on a stage.

“You” by Urs Fischer
Today I look at how various artists over recent time have reacted against the idea that developed through the history of art of the gallery as a sacred place, and the art within as items to be worshipped.
A recent installation in New York by Urs Fisher takes place inside a gallery, while [...]

Painting by Karen Jacobs
“Hope Ridge”
mixed media on canvas
30″ x 30″
Here’s another really gorgeous abstract landscape — makes me wish I were there (kind of like Robin Williams in “What Dreams May Come” or that bit in Akira Kurasawa’s movie (I think it may have been called “Dreams”) where Van Gogh wanders through his own paintings.
Anyway, [...]

Painting by Cheryl McClure
“Little Pieces of Land IX”
acrylic on canvas
36 x 36″
Favorite painter of the day: Cheryl McClure, whose beautiful abstract landscapes I found online at the Jezebel Gallery. This is my favorite! Gorgeous colors, and I love how it works as a landscape and also as purely abstract shapes. I’m really led [...]

Painting by Karin Jurick
“An older gentleman viewing an abstract painting in the de Young Museum in San Francisco”
Oil on Masonite
8″x10″
A Painting a Day
I Stumbled Upon this artist’s site today: Karin Jurick — through a ‘painting a day’ blog.  I love her beautiful tiny representational paintings; I especially love her paintings of people looking at [...]

Art by Christian Rohlfs

Aim for the Big Look:

tough
brutal
uncompromising articulation of imagery & idea
extremes of technique, like most sensitive line ever, or thickest body of paint.

The need must find the idea & method.
These notes are from “Notes for a Young Painter”, by Hiram Williams, Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Read some notes on the web from Hiram Williams.