In the Studio: Precisionism
[In the Studio, September 1, 2011 /Image & Artwork: designslinger studio]
Last week I wrote about inspiration and where I've found some of mine. One discovery I've made along the way is a period in art history called precisionism. I'm not sure if I'm inspired by the artists grouped into the precisionist movement, or just have a special affinity with them because their work is similar to mine in style and expression.
The artists who came to be called precisionists were clumped together not because they formally organized themselves into a group or movement, but because of the way they treated their subject matter. Whether it was a painting, a print, or a photograph, reduction was the key. Simple shapes, minimal detail, flat planes of color, sharp contrasts, these were the themes the precisionists explored and what made them so appealing to me.
Some of the artists are well known in popular culture, some are more obscure perhaps, but a few of them, and certain works of theirs, are favorites of mine. So here are links to some of these personally inspiring images: Charles Sheeler's Ballardvale; Georgia O'Keeffe's White Canadian Barn II; Charles DeMuth's Buildings, Lancaster; Paul Strand's Abstraction, Twin Lakes, Connecticut; Ralston Crawford's Maitland Bridge 2; Louis Lozowick's New York; and Niles Spencer's Riverhead.
That's a good-looking image all by itself and most of those names are on my short list as well. I had a Charles Sheeler reproduction hanging above my bed when I was a kid, and Danville, Illinois, where I grew up, boasted of having not only the world's largest brick factory but also the world's largest grain elevator, so it was probably inevitable that I'd be drawn to industrial imagery. My friends all dreamed of going either to Disneyland or the Indy 500, but what I wanted to see was the room full of massive dynamos at Hoover Dam. In those days, my dream job was to work at the streamlined Coca-Cola bottling plant out on Main Street, where gleaming machines filled bottles behind plate glass windows. I had it all figured out.
Of course, Danville's brick yards were torn down years ago, the grain elevator blew up up when I was in high school and the last time I was in town the old Coke plant was empty, but Hoover Dam is still there and the plan is still to get to Hoover Dam in all its streamlined beauty, and one of these days, I'll get there. In the meantime, I can't wait to see what you've been working on all summer.
After living in LA for 10 years, we finally made it out to Las Vegas one April and took a drive out to Hoover. It wasn't too packed with tourists and the Dam was awesome! Glad you found the peak at one of the blocks intriguing. Hope to have the website ready by mid-October when you'll be able to see the finished print and a whole lot more.