Payne's Grey

November has a particular palette. The payne's grey of barren trees and sky, the ochre of fields soon to be covered in snow, the golden apricot of daylight fading into evening. It is the time of year in New England where you bundle in sweaters and remark at how early the sun goes down and you can see your breathe in tendrils. The stars always seems especially clear in the inky depths of the night sky.

November makes me think of home and family and warm meals and all that I am grateful for.

And this last day of November happens to be the birthday of fellow artist and one of the best friends you could ask for-- Amanda. Happy Birthday darling!

Currently listening to:
I have been obsessed with Oracular Spectacular by MGMT. The aforementioned Amanda introduced me to them. Their song "Electric Feel" will always remind me of London. The album is quite a trip, but a good one.

These Days - Nico
Needle in the Hay - Elliott Smith
Songbird - Oasis
Fly - Nick Drake
Midnight Rambler - The Rolling Stones
Kids - MGMT
Shelter from the Storm - Bob Dylan
Ooh La La - The Faces

566 (home)
gouache, ink, and stencil with hand-stitching on vintage Winnie-the-Pooh book page
5 x 7.5"

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

The burden of Art History

The documentary the Rape of Europa is fascinating, terrifying, and humbling.

Hitler's systematic looting and destruction of the art of Europe is matched only by his systematic annihilation of life. War is brutal, and the brutality of World War II is unfathomable. But there is a sadistic brutality in the desire to not only erase life, but erase an entire culture. Hitler sought to void Western culture and rewrite it in his own hand.

Fortunately for history, there were civilians and soldiers who waged a war to save the art of Europe. To say it was a monumental task, would be an epic understatement. They are quiet saviors whose acts of heroism hang in gilded frames.

All things beautiful and mortal pass, but not art.
Cosa bella e mortal passa e non d'arte.
(Leonardo da Vinci)

I don't believe art is more valuable than a human life. I believe art is a dialogue, a conversation to be had with the past and the present. It allows us to engage in a fundamental part of our humanity. I have stood before Vermeer's "Astronomer" in the Louvre and cried over the 340 year old canvas. Why? I don't know. I was moved to tears by something I cannot properly articulate. That is why art is necessary, to remind us that we are part of something greater than ourselves.

We can survive without art, but we cannot live without it.

Knowing when to stop

How do you know when something is finished?

As an artist, this question can only be answered by personal intuition. Sometimes you just know. Unfortunately this knowledge is only gained by pushing many previous pieces too far. During the creative process there is always the danger of ruining a good thing. It is a fine line. Casualties happen. But so do strokes of genius and happy accidents.

Knowing when to stop, to walk away, to sleep on it. It grows out of a greater understanding of your own artistic process.

It took me a long time to let go of the idea that every piece I work on is precious. This allows me to push and pull and experiment. I have a very organic way of working that generally involves a lot of fragments of nothing that eventually become something. I spread out everywhere, I turn up the music, I get messy, I rip things.

Letting go of the sacredness of each piece allows me to tear up something that isn’t working. The same intuition that grants me the ability to know when something is done, also allows me to realize when something isn’t working. This is not necessarily a death sentence for a piece. I have also learned to sleep on things. Revisit them in the morning with new eyes. Hit pause. Take a step back.

How do you know when to stop? You learn.


(above)
Happy Accident
ink on paper
5 x 10"
This was meant to be something else. But I like it just the way it is.

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Kate Castelli @ Wall Blank: Great art for a Great Cause!

I'm very pleased to announce that I have partnered with Wall Blank to produce a limited edition print benefiting One Home Many Hopes. 100% of the proceeds benefit the girls of the Mudzini Kwetu home in Mtwapa, Kenya.

"Sixty-three (Adoration)" is available in an edition of 100 for $25.

This is a wonderful opportunity to purchase great art for a great cause.

But hurry! The print is only on sale until November 21st!

To purchase the print please visit:
http://www.wallblank.com/

To learn more about One Home Many Hopes please visit:
http://onehomemanyhopes.org/

One of those days...

It's been one of those days...weeks...months...really.

Everyone tells me it is going to be okay. Forgive me if I don't believe you. I'm young, and perhaps foolish. And feeling very pessimistic tonight. But I thought of this childhood classic and it made me smile.

And apparently they've made it into a play. I don't know why.

Magpie in Morocco

I had a dream last night that I was wandering a crowded street bazaar in Morocco on a blindingly white day. I have never been to Morocco, it merely exists as a construct of literary and visual fragments in my mind. I suppose it doesn't really matter in dreams.

But this dream had two of the most recurrent threads of my unconsciousness-- traveling, and my frustration at not being able to record what I see. In this case, I did not have any film.

I am almost always traveling in my dreams. Both to places I have been before in real life, and places I have only tread in my unconscious.

I frequently have dreams where I lack the necessary tools to record or preserve what I am seeing or experiencing. Sometimes I don't have a sketchbook or a pen. Less often, I don't have a camera or film. I am a magpie of sorts-- trying to collect that which is fleeting. The spaces in between the big pictures.

And I woke up wishing I had a talisman from the street bazaar.

(this is one of the most beautiful stamps from a collection I inherited from my biological grandfather, who died long before I was a glimmer in the universe.)

July

July
ink and bleach on vintage paper with hand-stitching
7.75 x 3.75 "

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Wednesday

I spent the night listening to Wayne Shorter and Dave Brubeck, drinking copious amounts of Earl Grey tea, and drawing sunflowers.

Sixty-three (Adoration)
ink and bleach on vintage paper with hand-stitching
3.5 x 5 "

copyright Kate Castelli 2008

Rachel Whiteread "Place (Village)"

A black velvet curtain shrouds the entrance to British born Rachel Whiteread’s new installation piece at the MFA. The curtain opens to quite a different reality than the one that bustles outside. Step through the curtain and you find yourself in tomb-like silence, surrounded by fainted illuminated darkness. As your eyes and ears adjust to the room, you suddenly find yourself amidst a village constructed of over 200 dollhouses.

The meticulously arranged houses are empty of any furniture or decoration. A proverbial ghost town. This is unsettling to the viewer, even though the houses are merely playthings of children. In Whiteread’s “Village” they become something more. They are shells, empty surrogates to the outside world. A void.

The only source of illumination comes from within the dimly lit little rooms. The installation space is aglow with small patches of light from tiny windows. It reminded me of passing through cities and towns, watching the lights fly by in a blur as I speed anonymously through by car or train or plane. There is a voyeuristic disconnect, we are merely looking into empty rooms and empty lives. We are not visitors, we are trespassers.

Why are these small empty rooms so unsettling to us? We expect the rooms to be furnished, to have signs of life, to be inhabited. We expect a small, mirrored reflection of the real world. Instead, we are met with emptiness. No tiny chairs to marvel at or furnishings to compare to our own. Instead we must confront the emptiness, the void. And fill it will our own experiences of home and rooms and the lives lived in them, and the lives left behind, and put in storage. We find ourselves dwelling, not in those dimly lit tiny houses, but in the dimly lit recesses of our own memories.

Rachel Whiteread's "Place (Village)" 2006-8, is on view now at the Foster Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through January 25, 2009.

Just breathe

Why do art museums always feel like home?

No matter where I am in the world, I feel unconditionally at home in an art museum. I went to the MFA this afternoon and for the first time in weeks I could finally breathe.