Marilyn Fenn Studio

Painting by Arshile Gorky
The Artist’s Mother, 1926 or 1936
Charcoal on ivory laid paper
630 x 485 mm
Class notes from Advanced drawing studio with Barbara Rossi, SAIC, 1991
Look at Gorky’s portrait of his mother in our collection.
Focus on theme, medium or image of our work – substantial # of drawings – qualitative development of idea through many [...]

Class notes from Advanced drawing studio with Barbara Rossi, SAIC, 1991
Poem – Wallace Stevens: 13 ways of looking at a blackbird.
There are at least 80 ways of painting an ice cream cone.
Bring examples of artist who have used masks as part of their imagery.

Sketch by Marilyn Fenn
Sulka Mask, Melanesia, 1900-1910
Fiber structure covered with pith, feathers and pieces of wood
Drawn at the Field Museum, Chicago
Pencil on paper
7″x5″
1991
Class notes, from Advanced Drawing with Barbara Rossi, SAIC, 1991
Basil, switzerland – Folk Museum – tradition of Carnival prior to Lent; also South Am., Mexico, New Orleans.

Plant form growing out of nose
Animal head-masks
[...]

Sketch by Marilyn Fenn
Copy after Chagall’s “Birth” at the Art Institute of Chicago,
Pencil on paper
7″x5″
1991
Class Notes from Advanced Studio Drawing, taught by Barbara Rossi, Fall 1991
Purpose of class: development of personal resources, more inventive with how you represent things; more significant to you.
Look at modes of representation, both Western & other.
It happens by doing it [...]

Sketch by Marilyn Fenn
Anthropomorphized landscape form
pencil, 1991
Some random class notes from Advanced Drawing with Barbara Rossi, SAIC, 1991
“The creative process lies not in imitating, but in paralleling nature—translating the impulse received from nature into the medium of expression, thus vitalizing this medium. The picture should be alive, the statue should be alive and every work [...]

Class note from Advanced Drawing by Barbara Rossi, SAIC, 1991.
Check out the book, “James and the Giant Peach,” by Dahl – children’s book with lots of cloud-people.  This is related to a series of paintings and drawings I was doing at the time that involved cloud people.