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 works.  Sketchbook, also.

Work must grow.

Make a collection of whatever subject or form for our project.

Look at Mona Lisa, other Renaissance portraits.

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 of 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" x 5"
© 1991 Marilyn Fenn

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
• Pig-tail nose
• Skull-mask - design fashion

Masks of Mexico
1. collection of Donald Cordry shown at Smithsonian.
2. Mexican masks in Chicago Collections at SAIC (6-7 yrs. ago)

Types of masks:

• Heads w. spikes/thorns/claws/teeth: all in one form.
• Bird as nose, under eyes. Airplane as nose?
• Masks w/horns, then horns as abacus beads.
• Eyes as eyebrows. Post and lintel for eyebrow.
• Devil masks.
• Snake curled as nose or trunk or anteaters tongue or those things that you blow.
• Skeleton as eyebrows, nose, nostrils, mouth opening.
• Over bull-like face.
• Hair for tongue, cork for nose, antlers for ears (sense of arms).
• Pelvic bones of animal as face.
• Also looks like gas mask.
• Polished wood looks like plastic, like Darth Vader.
• Lizards as eyebrows.
• Crucified Christ as eyebrows, nose and mouth.
• Turtle back mask. Painted red face with real hair - second mask to snake nose area.
• Elephant suggested in huge bead form from Africa.

***
Prepare to do self-portrait substituting one or more features for an analagous form - develop 20-40 ideas, several visualizations for 1-2 final drawings.

Go to Field Museum to look at masks. Draw for analogies & what you respond to.

Portraits of Chicago artists at State of Illinois Center (43 portraits). Patty Carroll.

***

Self as house? Bugs, beetles as eyes?

Retablos - devotional pictures painted on tin. For people who have experienced a miracle cure - how they got healed (in churches after person has gotten healed - story of the cure). In show from Mexico - Fine Arts Center Museum catalog.

Early Ren. narratives.