Artist Gillie Schattner: Dog Art from Down Under

About a week ago I saw a comment on Twitter by artist Gillie Schattner that made me want to check out her profile. As it turns out Gillie is the other half of the Gillie and Marc painting team that has produced a lot of those famous dog paintings some of us have seen. I asked for an interview and she consented, but instead of talking (she is half a globe away) we tried an experiment and used Twitter. I'm not sure I recommend Twitter as a vehicle for extensive interviews, but once we had the ball rolling, we stuck with it.
Marc and Gillie Schattner have had over 30 solo exhibitions with works that have been hung in galleries all over the world. They've also published some gift books and seem to be having the time of their lives.

Ennyman: First question, to get us started: What are your earliest memories of your interest in art.
Gillie: From around the age of 8 I 'd sit in my room for hours on end painting with watercolours. I copied flowers and photographs that I had taken.

Enny: When did you begin to find that you were interested in getting serious about art as vocation? What were the trigger events?
Gillie: I knew art was to be a part of my life in some way from the age of 12. I wasn't sure at that point exactly which direction it would be in, however, I painted every day and exhibited from the age of 15. I don't even know what triggered the passion, it was just there right from the start and still is. I am a registered nurse (qualified in 1985) but self taught in the arts. Marc studied Graphic Design at Swinburne, Melbourne.

Enny: How did you meet Marc?
Gillie: I met Marc in HongKong when I was travelling around Asia. I was 23, we married a week later in Nepal and have painted together ever since.

Enny: How much of your work is collaborative, and in what ways do you each contribute?
Gillie: We do everything together, brainstorm, then sketch ideas, paint on the same canvas, sometimes we do dyptichs.

Enny: How long have you been married? And how long have you been painting the dogs?
Gillie: Married for 19 years, and painting dogs for about 5 years. For our 20th years we would like to get remarried in Italy, it's a dream!

Enny: I assume you know it is unusual to marry someone so quickly after you meet them. How did that happen?
Gillie: Sounds corny maybe, but love at first site! Nothing has changed since the day we met, Marc is my soul mate!

Enny: Why did you leave New York and move to Sydney?
Gillie: Marc is Australian, so we finally moved home I suppose. It's wonderful here, and our children are Aussies!

Enny: So the dogs have been only the last five years. They seem pretty famous... that is, I have seen them around. Did that surprise you?
Gillie: Yes, our doggies have been extremely popular, I suppose everyone just loves dogs!! So now it looks like we may be painting them for a while!

Enny: What were you painting the first fifteen years you were married? Who does what in the collaborations?
Gillie: We had joint shows but painted separately. I have my own graphic design company and Marc his own advertising company as well.

Enny: Whose idea was the theme of your new show, yours or Marc? The opening image is provocative.
Marc: It is called 'Returning to the Animal Within' and is all about appreciating the simple things in life and not being so materialistic.

Enny: What media are the dog/human sculptures made of? That in itself looks like a bit of skill involved.
Gillie: They are made out of Fibreglass and then finished with a 2Pak car spray, we design them and then a technician makes them for us.

Enny: Last Q, maybe: Who are your favorite artists? What other artists have inspired you personally?
Gillie: Contemporary artists such as Banksy, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Patricia Piccinini, to name a few

Thanks, Gillie, for your time.

Is modern art going to the dogs? You can see more of Marc and Gillie's work a http://www.gillieandmarc.com/. Their current show, Returning to the Animal Within opens October 7 at the Nexus Modern Art at 123 Cecil Street in South Melbourne and will be on display through the 21st.

Contact info@nexusmodernart.com.au for more information.

She and Him

Friday I mentioned an art opening called She and Him that featured a pair of local artists, Jessica Turtle and Adam Swanson, at the Washington Studios Artist's Co-op. At my blog Friday I mentioned Turtle's work which I had written about before, and commented on Adam's art featuring bicycles, windmills and penguins.

So imagine my surprise when we arrive at the show and see no windmills, no bicycles, no penguins. In fact, there is no Adam Swanson at all, because -- duh! -- the show featured Turtle and Andrew Swanson. Turtle's Facebook invitation read something like this: Featuring all original artwork by Andrew Swanson and myself. Please come and celebrate with delicious food, great wine, and local music by the Batteries.

O.K.... so this is a quick acknowledgement of my faux pas so that anyone who wishes to see the artwork is better prepared. The paintings and sculptures include many new works by both artists. I had not seen Jessica's sculptures before and found them intriguing. Both artists show that they have talent, inventiveneness, and something of a dark side.

The opening was well attended with a number of other artists on hand. I finally met Jeredt Runions, whom I heard about recently for his performance painting... that is, painting while live music is performing, something I have recently been invited to do.

As for the show, it runs through the month. So if you're in the neighborhood, check it out.

Jesus Sells

Years ago I came across an insightful article in Reason magazine about the commercial side of Christian goods-making and selling. It made an impression on me as I had been striving at one time to get a book published through a Christian publishing house. I had also seen the decline Christian bookstores from conduits of content to strip mall spaces devoted to hawking kitsch and "Christian" knick knacks.

Once, when I was very young, I answered a classified ad in the newspaper to apply for a job that (I did not know till I got there) was making these Christian knick knacks. They would buy cheap lamps, then glue the Bible verse "I am the light of the world" on them. I specifically remember a globe in which they glued John 3:16 around the equator. A font was selected so that it fit perfectly.

All this is lead in to a journalistic snapshot of the Christian Booksellers Association convention in 2003, the annual trade show for publishers and others associated with the industry of selling goods and services into the Christian sub-culture. The title of the article by Jeremy Lott was, Jesus Sells: What the Christian culture industry tells us about secular society.*

Here's an excerpt.

The CBA may be the only trade show that sets off spasms of conscience among its own participants. Several editors and publishers told me, under condition of anonymity, that they were appalled at some of the products on the floor -- and they weren't necessarily sparing their own titles. The Rev. R.C. Sproul Jr., son of a famous Calvinist polemicist, published a brief Internet commentary that considered the possibility of driving out the moneychangers, though he finally concluded that it is, after all, a trade show. Christianity Today review editor Doug LeBlanc complained to me about the "buffoonery" of such crass gimmicks as the money booth. The promoter with the inflatable sharks sent me a note that made fun of the fish-shaped mints ("Mmmm, minty fresh Scripture").

Nor is this discomfort a new development. In his 1997 book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America, Columbia University professor of religion Randall Balmer tells of his trip to the 1988 CBA convention. He describes a gathering similar to, if slightly smaller than, the one I attended, including wild promotions, a cornucopia of products, and, of course, fretting by evangelicals over how commercial and gaudy the industry had become. John Pott, an editor at Eerdmans, confessed to finding the whole scene "utterly demoralizing." Publisher Lisa Shaw admitted that she had gotten "so fed up with the whole thing that I went...to my hotel and cried for two hours." If blatant commercialization is cause for tears, it's a wonder that Shaw stopped after only two hours.

Various thoughts come to mind. How did Jesus deal with the money-changers in the temple? Or is all this commercialization a necessary evil, because how else will we get our Sunday School materials?

I strongly recommend the rest of the article.

*Reason magazine, February 2003.

Turkeys and Eagles

Yesterday I was at the annual Labor Day Weekend gathering at my wife's cousin Dean's rural home. In addition to an extensive vegetable garden, Dean and Sarah have turkeys. What I found interesting was that there were two bald eagles flying in circles over the trees on the other side of the garden and I couldn't help but think of Ben Franklin who thought the turkey, rather than the bald eagle, should be our national symbol.

One of my most memorable childhood memories is the train ride I took across the country when I was eight years old with my grandparents. I didn't know then how much of a kick grandparents get from being with their grandchildren. We were visiting my cousins (their daughter's family) near Reno, Nevada. A highlight of the trip was a visit to some property my Uncle Dale and Aunt Ellen were considering to purchase in eastern California. On that visit we went to a turkey farm.

As I watched the turkeys yesterday, they seemed like the silliest creatures, not only in their colorfully odd features but also strange in their behavior, including the distinctive warble/gobble they emit from time to time, especially when startled. Dean's turkeys brought back memories.

Ben Franklin, on the other hand, must have seen a measure of nobility in these funny birds. In a letter to his daughter, Franklin shows where he was coming from when he disparaged the eagle. In my opinion, however, the wise old man was just little off in this one.

"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

"With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country....

"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

For more visit
http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/turkey.html

McCartney Memories

Yesterday I learned about a newly released (in North America) DVD titled PAUL McCARTNEY REALLY IS DEAD, The Last Testament of George Harrison. Based on my readings of various commentators it's both interesting and discredited. We will, naturally, have many who find the conspiracy's details fascinating and indisputable.

 

For me personally, Paul McCartney was more than just another rock star, and I'd like to share here some of my own connections to this singer/songwriter who achieved megafame and fortune as a member of the Fab Four.

In the beginning, as a young teen I was not a superfan of the Beatles. That is to say, I was put off by the Beatlemaniac hysteria I saw in the girls in my junior high school during the Ed Sullivan/Hard Day's Night/Help period. Yes, I had some of their records, and I did like the music, but I found the fawning girl-fan teeny-bopper excesses just a bit much. So I got into the Stones, had their first albums, attracted to their bad boy image.

Everyone had to have a favorite Beatle, of course, and I somewhat identified with George, the quieter guy who didn't make a fuss about being the front man. I didn't relate so much to Paul and John, with their magnetic smiles and pretty boy antics. Then, one day, everything changed.

I'd gone to a dance at Hunterdon High School with a girl I liked from there named Donna. At one point during the evening she had her girl friends all look at me from a certain angle. I couldn't tell what all the fuss was about. Their eyes would light up and they laugh and be like silly girls get sometimes, and I had no clue what was going on. Finally, after they all agreed, I learned that Donna had a poster of Paul McCartney in her room, and I looked just like Paul McCartney.

By this time my opinion of the Beatles had already shifted somewhat, now that Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour and the White Album were in circulation. But the big shift that evening was in my self-image. I must not have been as homely as I imagined, I thus concluded. O.K., so I had some acne issues to still deal with, but....

Over the next ten years I must have been asked a hundred times, "Has anyone ever told you... you look like Paul McCartney?" It was always amusing. Years later, when my son was five years old, there was a McCartney solo album cover on the piano where one would put their sheet music. Micah looked up, pointed at the album and said, "Daddy!"

All this is setup to my two favorite McCartney stories. Here's the first.

Around 1975 when I was attending First Christian Assembly in New Jersey, there was a married couple in our youth group who had gone through a terrible crisis. He had a nervous breakdown of sorts and shot his wife several times in the back with a gun. She went to the hospital, he was sent to the state mental hospital. After she recovered, about four months later, she asked me to visit her husband at the state mental hospital. She wanted me to tell him that she understood what he was going through, that she still loved him and that she had forgiven him. I agreed to go there and convey her message to him.

The New Jersey State Mental Institution at that time was a dreary, sprawling facility and when I entered I was led to a spacious, somewhat dark room with couches and chairs and no one around. The receptionist went down a long hall to fetch the fellow I was there to see. While I was waiting, a young man in his late twenties wandered in, strumming an out of tune guitar, a vacant expression on his face. As he neared where I was standing, his eyes lit up and he approached me.
 
"Are you... Paul McCartney?" I dismissed his remark, but then went with it and said, "Please don't say anything to anyone."

"Can you play me a song?" he asked.

I don't play guitar, but I know how to tune one. I allowed him to give me his guitar and I proceeded to tune it for him. (The strings were all loose and it needed tuning.) Once I had everything tuned, I looked at him and said, "I noticed a piano in the room as we walked by. Maybe I should play a couple songs for you," whereupon we went to a somewhat sunnier room where there was a piano.

I played Hey Jude, and a couple songs from an early McCartney solo album. He was thrilled and pulled out a scrap of paper. "Can I get your autograph?" I did my best to write in the free flowing manner I recalled of Paul's hand, and guiltily wondered afterwards what his therapist would be thinking when he shared all these things.

The second story is of more recent vintage. I have performed a half dozen times with De Elliot Bros. jug band at Amazing Grace. The night before the annual Battle of the Jugbands, we did a couple sets, and a young gal from Twin Cities, who was to perform the following day and joined us for a couple songs, was seated in the front row with her boy friend, small dog and accordion. When we finished the second set, I went and chatted with her for a few minutes. After a brief exchange, she finally got a somewhat hushed tone as if to ask something confidential.

She said, "You've probably heard this before, but I was wondering.... has anyone ever told you... you look like George Harrison?"

I laughed.

The photo montage wat the top of the page was assembled by Susie a couple years ago to show friends. Click to enlarge.

Things to Do This Labor Day Weekend

Miscellaneous notes as we enter Labor Day weekend...

The Bob Dylan "Brazil Series" art exhibition opens at the National Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark tomorrow. The four pieces I've seen (online) looked interesting, two barrio scenes, another of a nightclub singer (titled Songbird) and a third of what appears to be a magician doing a card trick. The 40 paintings and eight drawings will be on display through January 30, 2011. I'm sure the other national galleries in Europe are green with envy.

Tonight is an art opening called She and Him, featuring the work of Jessica Turtle and Adam Swanson, at the Washington Galleries in Duluth' Central Hillside. Adam is a relative newcomer to the Twin Ports art scene. I have no idea what themes he is currently presenting in tonight's show but in the past he's done a lot of interesting paintings of bicycles and windmills. Penguins also show up in his paintings. A few of the bicycle paintings can be seen at Carlton Bike Rental and the Art Dimensions Gallery at Hobo Junction.

Jessica Turtle is a young artist whose work is original, conveys emotion and holds interest both aesthetically and intellectually, and because of her fine draftsmanship. I have interviewed Jessica Turtle in the past and purchased one of her works called The Butcher's Wife. The art opening begins at 6:00 p.m. with music at 8:00 till 10:00 p.m.

In other news, Carlton Bike Rental has announced that they are now offering local Bike Tours on both Fridays and Saturdays, in arrangement with Green Pastures Dairy. Area residents and visitors can bike ride to an organic dairy farm.

Green Pastures Dairy is a locally owned and operated all organic dairy farm. Minnesota Farmstead Cheese is made on Friday mornings, and a viewing window is located in the store for those interested in watching the process. Bike riders will then be served lunch, and a beverage. On Saturdays, tours leave Carlton Bike Rental at 10:30 a.m., ride the beautiful Munger Trail to Green Pastures Dairy (GPD) and receive a full tour of the farm. GPD milks in the spring, summer, and fall using intensive rotational grazing, which means the cows are moved to fresh green pastures daily. Turkeys, pigs, hens, and other farm animals are all part of the experience. Lunch will be served as well as a beverage. It's a three hour tour with stress-free living and an Ice Cream Treat upon your return to Carlton Bike Rental. $25.00 per person.

Right now would be an especially nice time for biking since the leaves are changing... a most beautiful time of the year hear in the Northland.

And as grandpa would say, that's all she wrote. Have a nice weekend.

Oscar Wilde, Epigram King

Yesterday I began listening to Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, one of Wilde's several plays written to critique British society at the end of the nineteenth century. The story is immensely relevant today, and his pointed observations equally timeless.

With Wilde, naturally, it can be sometimes challenging to determine when and where he is serious and what is just playfulness. He had a clever wit, occasionally indecent and frequently insightful, as you can see from these excerpts from his writings. The situations he creates and banter between characters is much like the best of Monty Python.

A key to Wilde's effectiveness is his use of the epigram. Sparknotes explains the epigram in this manner.

Wilde's plays are often read for their witty epigrams; indeed, these epigrams are what make his plays "subversive." "Wit" is defined here as the quality of speech that consists in apt associations that surprise and delight or the utterance of brilliant things in an amusing fashion; the epigram is a brief, pointed, and often antithetical saying that contains an unexpected change of thought or biting comment.

Delivered in a social intercourse that consists of rapid-fire repartee, the tone of Wilde's epigrams are often "half-serious," playing on the potential for the listener's misunderstanding—for example, taking a phrase literally, too seriously, or not seriously enough. Rhetorically, they tend to involve a combination of devices: the reversal of conventionally paired terms, irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, and paradox. Take then, for example, Lord Goring's rejoinder to his father, Lord Caversham, when the latter accuses him of talking about nothing: "I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about." At one level, Goring's epigram is clearly sarcastic; at another, it is paradoxical, as in a sense one cannot know anything about nothing. The epigram also shifts between conventionally valorized terms: whereas most people would hope to have something substantive to talk about, Goring loves to talk about nothing.

As one might imagine, the "threat" in these games of rhetoric is the concomitant shift in the values—aesthetic, ethical, philosophical, or otherwise—taken up in conversation. Consequently, the apparently frivolous epigram becomes the primary vehicle by which the play mocks the values and mores of the contemporary popular stage.

More examples of his use of this style of speech here follow, some from his plays and the latter from his life.

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."
An Ideal Husband

"Ah! Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong."
The Critic as Artist

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."
The Picture of Dorian Gray

"The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life."
The Importance of Being Earnest

"All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life."
Intentions

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
An Ideal Husband

"Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess."
A Woman of No Importance

"It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true."

"Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much."

"Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a fat missionary."

"It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one's enemies. It is the successes of one's friends that are hard to bear."

"I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed."

And finally, his last words...
"One of us must go."
Oscar Wilde