Memories

 A photo essay of the Professor's Home/Studio empty and awaiting new owners by Mary Margaret Hansen.

studio 

Out the studio window

studio

Bedroom

stairs

Office

Down Stairs Bath

Kitchen/Living Room

Down Stairs Deck from Living Room

Deck and Plants

Backyard

Banana Trees After Winter

Harvesting Banana Trees

Lillies

And so The Professor moves on

MRI and More

The Professor saw the bone and joint doctor for the MRI results. He expected the worse. The doctor said "Yes, you have a tear in your arm joint and bicep. Many older folks do." He said he would not recommend an operation. The Professor told the doctor about the pain patches that Jay had given him. The doctor said, "Good.  Use those while your arm heals itself and you probably will not need an operation." He gave The Professor a prescription for physical therapy to help the process along. The Professor will begin physical therapy and will not overwork the arm and will continue to use the patches when needed.

The Professor is actively looking for a studio. He likes the studios at Art Supply on Main Street.  They are private spaces. He is on a waiting list.

Mary Margaret has been telling the Professor about  Box 13 Gallery and its studio spaces on Harrisburg. They went to a benefit auction at Robert Boyd’s suggestion. By the way, Boyd's blog The Great God Pan is Dead is the only independent gallery review art blog in Houston.

The Professor recommends it. He met Robert and was introduced to Elaine Bradford who showed him what studios were available. The Box 13 space is full of energy; a postgraduate school. Open doors and communal vibes. Really good if you are in your 20s or 30’s.

WhenThe Professor was in his early thirties, he was associated with communal spaces with
 Bob Camblin and Joe Tate. Both now deceased. No gallery in our spaces, but we did communal shows at Saint Thomas University. The Professor was Chairperson then. They called themselves the Holding Firm. The first studio was off Montrose behind what is now Zimm’s Wine Bar. An old two story with a garage apartment (now torn down).  The Professor had the top floor and Bob took the garage apt and then Joe appeared teaching with Bob at Rice and built a stair and landing connecting the building and they worked jointly on collaborative and their own work.

They then moved to a large house behind what is now the Blue Bird Circle shop off Alabama. They rearranged the space and built a huge two-story deck and a fenced backyard using recycled lumber. They had no building permit. The interior was open for joint endeavors. The Professor learned to become who he is there. But he had to work on his own without the communal spirit so he left for his own space that he rented on Peveto Street off Waugh Drive near what is now the Printing Museum. It was there he found himself.

The Holding Firm dissipated.

The Processor and Mary Margaret enjoyed the show at Box 13 Gallery. None of the gallery pretense. Just good energy. Small works filled with ideas not fully formed. Having such a place to work and exhibit with like-minded artists keeps the dream alive. There is discourse and sharing.

Looking at the work in the gallery and in the  studios (he admits he did not see them all) there were very few paintings. The Professor is an old school painter. Painting is hard to do and takes a lifetime to understand. It also takes a lifetime to know how to express what there is in one’s life to be expressed. These young artists are making art from a different perspective with new materials. It seems they define art differently and some of it is not easily accessed for someone who is 72 and content with painting.

As for those open doored studios at Box 13, The Professor prefers his own private work space. He is comfortable painting in public in his classroom at Lonestar College-Tomball, but in his private studio space where he builds his own persona, he'd like to be able to close the door.
Here is a painting The Professor calls Aztec which he painted in his classroom. Here are its three stages of creation.

Aztec stage 1

Aztec stage 2

Aztec 30x24 acrylic

He is now resting his arm by doing watercolors which he can paint flat instead of up on an easel.  He is enjoying the change of media. 

Buffalo steak dinner later at Prego's in Rice Village

with Mary Margaret and her brother John and his wife Trish.

Things that are happening

The Professor relates,

"Friday is breakfast with my friends. They were all there. Bill is going to Paris next week to do the Picabia thing. I enjoy talking with him about the BAD Picabia’s that never make the history books. Remindes me of my bad years. First I was a “Bad Painter” and then I was a bad artist and today I am enjoying the fruit of those years. To quote Charley Sheen, " WINNER!"
 I had an MRI today on my right shoulder. I fell in November and thought I was OK but over then next two months the arm began to hurt and I went to the Dr. and he said try therapy and I did and kept on painting because that what I do and used a Tennis elbow brace on my arm and that sort of stopped the pain. After 4 weeks the therapist told me to go back to the Dr. I got a pain patch from my friend who had them for his knees since the arm was not functionimg. It worked within 1 hour. It masks the pain and I am trying not using my right arm. I am painting left-handed WCs and small Acrylics on the table. I receive MRI report next week.

I have 4 paintings hanging in the remolded  Greater East End Management District’s 0ffice on Harrisburg. Mary Margaret was president for seven years. Some of the board came by the warehouse at Mary Margaret’s suggestion to see if any of my work would look good in the remodeled building.

Here they are being transported by my professional art handlers.

 The pictures are from 1973/74  and have never been exhibited. The 4^th was done a couple years ago in Santa Fe as part of a Petrogyph series.

Petroglyph Series 1 36x48 Acrylic/ Mixed media 2010

Black Hawk Trail 1973 72x48 acrylic/mixed media

Landscape with Cactus 48x60 1974 acrylic

Shin-Go-Beek 1973 42x72 acrylic/mixed media

After my MRI I drove down Main to the clump of galleries to see what was up. Not Much. One had collages with photos of rocks and birds and cutouts with words and other clever things…the owner asked if I was an artist and what did I think and I told him that the work was clever and he said it was more than clever and I said it depends on the eye of the beholder. I went next door and saw some Rausenburgesqueness which were assaulting from the noise factor or the cheapness of thought and just the overall Grad-schoolishness baddness of them all. Then the gallery with Nudes…sort of. Clever cartoons of Houston folk with  the concentration on the Large head and small body type. All brought up to the same finished big-eyed facility. I thought clever and very cute. What a good idea to invited this artist to your party. In the other room were very overpriced abstract stuff smelling of institutionalism. That night we went to George Krause’s Sfumato Nudi show on Center St. That’s smoky nude to you who know no Italian. George has been a master for 50 years. These life size photos glow with haunting and` mysterious sensuousness. Nothing clever or cute here, just the real thing, Nude as in Naked.... very sexual, comfortable, totally honest. To such works every viewer brings his or her own prejudice. Me like.

This woman reminded of this picture from Barberini Gallery in Rome by Henric Ter Brugghen

very sexy 17th Century style

 Here is a new picture.

Welcome Island 24x30 2011 acrylic