Monthly Archives: June 2017

Pears

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The pear is a celebrated fruit for many artists. Pears symbolize fertility and bear a resemblance to the classical female form. Artists claim much to love about pears: their variety of color, their subtle and curvaceous shape, how they lean toward or away. And those stems! Words cannot describe the pert salute of a jaunty stem atop a luscious pear.

“24Kgold Pear” (2017)
by Barbara Kacicek (1957-)
5 x 7 in., goldpoint on prepared panel
Coppola Collection

“Abate Fetal Pair on a Wood Block” (2016)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 5 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Asian Pear & Blue Jay Feather” (2012)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
4 x 5 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pear in Last Light” (2017)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
4 x 5 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pear In Morning Light  (Winter Solstice 12/22/15)” (2015)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 4 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pear In North Light” (2015)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 4 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pear (The Green Stripe – La Raie Verte)” (2014)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
8 x 10 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pear on a Wood Block” (2013)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 5 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pear” (2013)
by Barbara Kacicek (1957-)
6 x 6 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection

“Bosc Pears Together” (2013)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
4 x 5 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Dream Sequence” (2015)
by Barbara Kacicek (1957-)
8 x 8 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Golden Series Two Pears and Four Strawberries” (2014)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
4 x 6 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Pear No. 9” (2014)
by Neil Carroll (1966-)
6 x 6 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection


“Pear One” (2015)
by Lucile Chaurin Ablanedo (1970-)
7 x 5 in., oil on board
Coppola Collection

“Pear Two” (2015)
by Lucile Chaurin Ablanedo (1970-)
7 x 5 in., oil on board
Coppola Collection

“Pear with Water Drop” (2014)
by Barbara Kacicek (1957-)
6 x 6 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection


“Pear Wrapped in Green Tissue Paper” (2012)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
5 x 6 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Pears & Pomegrantes” (2015)
by Lucile Chaurin Ablanedo (1970-)
11 x 20 in., oil on board
Coppola Collection

“Red & Green Pear” (2014)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
5 x 4 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Red Pear & Holly” (2013)
by Oriana Kacicek (1986-)
6 x 6 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection


“Red Pear & Wrapped Red Pear (Yin & Yang)” (2012)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
5 x 6 in., oil on linen on panel
Coppola Collection

“Red Pear with Leaf 2015” (2015)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 5 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Red Pear with Leaf” (2015)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 5 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Red Pear (Yang)” (2015)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 5 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Red Pear, Green Stripe” (2015)
by Barbara Kacicek (1957-)
5 x 7 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection

“Sidereus Nuncius” (2015)
by Barbara Kacicek (1957-)
9 x 12 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection

“Still Life Pear” (2017)
by Neil Carroll (1966-)
6 x 6 in., oil on panel
Coppola Collection

“Three Asian Pears in Late Afternoon Light” (2014)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
5 x 6 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Three Seckel Pears” (2012)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
4 x 6 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Two Local Bosc Pears” (2011)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 7 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

“Yellow Pear in Green Tissue Paper No. 2” (2012)
by Abbey Ryan (1979-)
6 x 4 in., oil on linen panel
Coppola Collection

Five “Avengers 41” pages by John Buscema

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Fifty Years Ago!

Avengers 41 begins John Buscema’s truly iconic run as artist for this title, and it was his first work at Marvel. He was the regular Avengers artist through Avengers 62. I am just.so.damned.happy to have picked up five of the 22 pages from this first issue (rubs hands together, mumbling ‘mine all mine’).

Compared with the highly stylized artistic approaches used by Kirby, Heck, Ditko, et al., Buscema brought a photo-realist sensibility to the page, and this was quite the revolutionary move at the time. Alter Ego #9 (p 42) contains John Buscema’s unpublished character sketches for the 5 active male Avengers. Notes indicate that the Avengers were being compared/rendered as several prominent actors of the day. For example: Hercules=Steve Reeves, Quicksilver=Fred Astaire, Captain America=Burt Lancaster, Hawkeye=Anthony Quinn, and Goliath=Roger Culp.

The Black Widow reaches the East with the plane. There she meets Colonel Ying and Dr. Yen. He shows her his new invention, the Psychotron, which can trap enemies and fight them with their greatest fears. They trap Black Widow in it, believing she is still traitorous to them. Meanwhile, Goliath is sent the Dragon Man, a golem, to conduct tests on it. Diablo lures the Avengers away from Dragon Man long enough to reactivate him. The Avengers go into battle with them, and eventually beat them (naturally), but Diablo escapes with the Dragon Man.

Avengers 41 p 6 (June 1967)
John Buscema (1927-2002) and George Bell (Roussos) (1915-2000)
12.5 x 18.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

Avengers 41 p 10 (June 1967)
John Buscema (1927-2002) and George Bell (Roussos) (1915-2000)
12.5 x 18.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

 

Avengers 41 p 13 (June 1967)
John Buscema (1927-2002) and George Bell (Roussos) (1915-2000)
12.5 x 18.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection


Avengers 41 p 14 (June 1967)
John Buscema (1927-2002) and George Bell (Roussos) (1915-2000)
12.5 x 18.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

 

Avengers 41 p 16 (June 1967)
John Buscema (1927-2002) and George Bell (Roussos) (1915-2000)
12.5 x 18.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

Clean Air

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Flying back from China, I was struck by just how significantly behaviors have changed on the practice of smoking in shared public spaces.

Both of my parents smoked pretty heavily as young adults. I was in second grade when the first Surgeon General’s report on the ills of smoking was released (about a month after the JFK assassination), and certainly, within two to three years, the level of consciousness about this was raised. My dad quit outright when I was 10-11, and my mom was on-again, off-again over the years – and later in life both of them ended up with cancers that are highly correlated with smoking.

People such as me will be interesting test cases to see the real effects of second-hand smoke. Not just at home, where I spend lots (and lots) of time fanning the fowl fumes away, but also, in what seems unimaginable, locked up in tight spaces.

I have distinctive memories of …

… being in movie theaters where, by the end of the film, the light beam cutting through the haze from the projector to the screen was completely visible. It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s when smoking was prohibited in theaters.

… being in airplanes filled with rancid smoke. Smoking on domestic (US) flights, for instance, was banned on trips with a duration of two hours or less beginning in 1988, with all planes being smoke-free not until the end of the 1990s.

… restaurants and other public spaces: starting in about 2002 (seems like yesterday), states started enacting Clean Indoor Air Acts, which banned smoking statewide in all enclosed workplaces, including restaurants and bars (bars, cafes, and bowling alleys were sometimes exempt for a while). There are no Federal bans, and public smoking is still prevalent in many of the “red states.”