Here are the words of Ian Thal, regarding the cartoon linked in the Vermonters for a Just Peace website in my August 14th post. He added them as a comment, but many readers may not see them there, so I am pulling them up into my post for today:
“While there are mountains of evidence for the murdered Jews, there is no evidence for “six million Palestinians ethnically cleansed, dispossessed, mudered, and humiliated. ” The official U.N. refugee count is about 711,000 and their refugee status is generally agreed upon to be caused primarily by the Arab invasion of Israel, and not out of an ethnic cleansing campaign, and only about 40,000 were deported by Israel.

There are real statistics and real facts that people who are truly sympathetic with the Palestinians could and should cite, but people who cite lies care more about creating anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiment than actually improving the plight of the Palestinians.” The bottom image is layer four on the still life which has been evolving this week, based on Tad’s comments of yesterday. Today I’ll work more on the background to make this “true to life.” The edges of the flower were lost yesterday because of background work. I’ll regain these this afternoon.

So… I continued on last night breaking up the background and foreground with color spots and attempting to get the color and value on the right track. Tad sent more feedback on the image you see here. His words are below. I will continue today with them in mind. Stay tuned for layer 4!! Tad:

Hi Mike –

Congratulations on the next step.  Hope it was fun to get further acquainted with the broken color process. It looks from the photo like some of the gradations could be smoother, more blended. You might want to darken the upper right corner a bit from the artistic viewpoint, and keep the interest more on the flowers. Similarly, the darkest shadows should be in the can, so the left side might want to come up in value just a bit. In the photo it also looks a bit warm. The can itself is fine except for the bottom, where both sides come in a bit before meeting the ellipse. I’d also consider taking the flower shadow off the page, connecting to the left edge. As you progress, try to find the ways in which the background color is influencing the flower shadows. You are much more into a game of increments now, as I’m sure you’re finding. These increments can get pretty small but just let them take their time, let it dry a bit, then come back to it.

What are we to make of the image below, which is linked on the website of Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel, the sponsors of a program at the upcoming Art Hop titled: “An open discussion of how art and artists reveal injustice and raise social awareness.” This image, like the one I posted on August 8 from their site, again tries to equate the holocaust with the plight of the Palestinians, ignoring history, context, and current reality on the ground. It is a clear example of antisemitism as defined under the State Department Definition of Antisemitism, as is the image of the Israeli security barrier bearing the image of a WWII concentration camp. What these images tell us is that Israel is like Nazi Germany.

I don’t believe Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel represents the liberal/left in Vermont. But as Ian Thal has pointed out, they use rhetoric that sounds like something liberals value (i.e. “peace” and “justice”) and talk about revealing injustice and raising social awareness. In this way they are able to get their agenda into Art Hop, where it doesn’t belong. I believe, as does Ian Thal, that the sort of propaganda that the VTJP exhibits and the talks they sponsor are unhelpful in promoting a solution to the plight of Israelis and Palestinians. In addition they can intimidate liberals from speaking up against antisemitism.
http://www.vtjp.org/images/Blind-Spot.gif

Tad visited my studio today and painted so I could see how to begin to focus just on color, color mixing and getting the color spots just right. Breaking up the color in the background and getting the value exactly correct is a lot of work for the uneducated eye (mine). The painting is one I’ve been working on, and I had the basic composition and a first layer. Tad added more to the background and flower (the broken purple tones and the yellows, grays and orange tones respectively). I kept working on the flower after he left and began to work on the can a bit. This is a journey of 1000 miles. If I don’t get to a destination I like, I can say I had a good ride. More layers will go on in weeks to come. I’m moving SLOWLY! To see the first layer of this painting, look below in a previous post.  Thanks to Tad for coming by. We went to the Asian Bistro in Winooski after painting. A good lunch.

For additional thoughts about the upcoming Art Hop program at the Flynndog check out the comments left by Ian Thal at the end of my August 8th post.

We had a good drawing session at the North Hero Library yesterday morning. Starting with gesture drawing, we moved to an examination of the style (Dodson’s “handwriting”) of master artists, and tried to emulate these in an attempt to stretch our own boundries of personal style. Artists included Rembrandt, Schiele, Monet, and many others. Members in our group are quite accomplished in their ability to see and record from life. This may be the last session. Below are a few images of both art and artists.

The top image is a second still life underpainting of white flowers in a can using a mixture of manganese blue, indian yellow and marble dust/linseed oil.  The flower and leaves are a bit too symmetrical and this will change and the painting evolves.   The second image is of yellow flowers in a similar can.  This has two layers on it.  It’s two tight right now and I’ll need to loosen it up and lose the drawing a bit before moving on.  The last image is a layer on an earlier still life that I sanded down to bring the range of values closer.  I want to extand the value scale and color in coming layers.

While I’ve kept this blog (News), for the most part, about art and personal issues related to my own learning, what may be coming up in the SEABA (South East Business Association) Art Hop prompts me to comment briefly on possible art which may be displayed in September, as well as about political talks and their sponsors. The image below tells much:

Abdullah Dourkawi’s winning entry in the Holocaust Cartoon contest at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

The above image is linked at the top of the cartoon page web site listing of “Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel” (8/8/08). This organization is a sponsor of both art and political talks at the Flynndog in September (why political talks are happening in the context of Art Hop is as questionable this year as last). The image implies that the separation barrier Israel has built to stop suicide bombers and terrorists from killing innocent men, women and children in Israel, is, for the Palestinians, the equivalent of the Nazi gas chambers in WW II.

This is NOT art of social consciousness, which can importantly raise social awareness and reveal injustice.  It is art which lies. It creates injustice and decreases real knowledge and understanding.  Like Peter Schumann’s art on “The Wall” last year, which equates the separation barrier in Israel with the Warsaw Ghetto, it is “soft-core Holocaust denial”, an attempt to trivialize or minimize the Holocaust, often with the aim of hurting or maligning the Jewish community.

The agenda of Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel, in supporting this work from Tehran, as well as Schumann’s work last year, is clear. Under the new State Department definition of anti-Semitism in the recent summary on Contemporary Global anti-Semitism, this is clearly an example: The use of Nazi symbols to characterize Israel and the Jews, often with the aim of hurting or maligning the Jewish community.

This is the first layer of a redone flower and can. This painting has no white in it (the white you see is just the canvas). It was done only with a marble dust putty made with linseed oil. The tint is a mixture of permanent rose, manganese blue and indian yellow which I mixed into the putty. It is in essence a value study which I did, recomposed based on Tad’s comments to me about the first trial I made. Here are his comments to me about that first effort, shown below::

“I think it’s fine to start, a good image to learn about three colors and light from. You have great darks in the can in the set-up, they need to come into play. The can might well get bigger, to the left and down, the foreground shadow mass of the flowers is darker than the background, and comes further into the lower left corner, that would help. The background is darker in the upper left; this actually helps the composition, forms a subliminal diagonal that balances the shadow motion on the table. A very nice composition, edgy, but not too uncomfortable. Remember to make the flowers anything but white until the end. This will help. Keep the titanium cut with putty so you have to make the shifts with color rather than value. You might try a color of yellow that is a little more neutral for the next layer, mix the indian yellow with something cooler maybe. “