RMW Ramblings

  Beth Salem Beth Salem is an allegory of our home of peace. Her halo is a circular reinterpretation of the transom and door windows in our library. She holds her hand out to the dove of peace. Below her is a sweep of family scenes from our early days inside and outside our home. The supporting brackets copy the corbels that edge our roofline. The painting is on a thin wood panel. It, and the black label at the top of the frame, are seasonally exchanged with a Christmas themed wood panel painting and label stored in the back of the frame.

  Three Whimsies Usually when I start a painting I have a plan, or at least, a concept for the compl et ed work.  But on occasion I just make something up on the spot, often something whimsical.  Here are three paintings done on such a whim. Dollie is acrylic on Masonite with a spray painted matte black ground coat.  Is she an angel, a barrister, a cleric? My signature monogram is a stylized angel.   Fluer is also acrylic on a black ground, this time on a wooden craft store plaque.  She is haloed with an arc of flowers also from my imagination. The Gardiner is also acrylic on Masonite, now with a spray painted copper ground.  For The Gardiner I made a frame from scraps of molding from an earlier project.    I spray painted it gold, then added color highlights to the berries and tendrils.  

  Bridges of the Brandywine In my posting last month, The Three Bridges ( https://rmw-ramblings.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-three-bridges.html),  I mentioned that that project lead me to investigating all of the other bridges over the Brandywine in the Delaware section.  I visited and photographed all of them and researched their historic predecessors in the photo collections at the Delaware Historic Society and the Hagley Museum Library.  I painted watercolor views of each of them, then using scans of the individual paintings created a pictorial map of the Brandywine.  I had 18 x 24 inch prints of  Bridges of the Brandywine produced.   The border of the print is modeled on the truss work of some of these bridges.  The legend is modeled on Delaware historic markers.  For display I built a frame overlaid with truss-like metalwork built from pieces of an old Erector set. I have some copies of this print/poster still available.

  Mariposa Mariposa is an  8 x 10 inch Southwestern themed  painting of an imaginary Indian woman.  I painted the frame turquoise and  decorated it with copper tacks.

  Cards of Christmas Past 1987 Three Kings Here is another screen printed card and a collage painting using the same theme.  Three Kings represents the Magi from the Gospel of Matthew who came "from the east" to worship the "king of the Jews" as kings.  This traditional interpretation has its origin from the prophesy of Isaiah, "Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."     In Western Christian tradition there were three kings...   In my painting they are guided by the"star," here a confluence of planets that some claim to be the sign identified by the Wise Men.  I fabricated the frame to fit the spirit of the painting.

  Cards of Christmas Past And a Painting! 1980 Holy Family  his screen printed card design has been one of my favorites.  In 1980 I did a large collage painting based on this image.    The background is a light spray of metallic gold paint on heavy kraftboard.   The figures were cut from Japanese wrapping papers, the halos from metallic gold holiday wrap.  The roses are construction paper.  I built a simple oak frame and painted on the small floral ornament.

  Bridges of the Brandywine Framed For display at a gallery and other exhibitions, I built this frame for the Bridges of the Brandywine pictorial map. I applied metal "bridgework" onto the wood frame that I sized to accommodate a print of the pictomap with a surrounding map.  The metal components are pieces of an incomplete Erector set that I found at an outdoor flea market.  Before applying them to the wood frame I spray painted them with a textured green paint similar to the green paint used by Delaware on many of our bridges.    

  2 August 2021 Blackground Paintings 3 Innovators "Poe Meets Dickens"     In March of 1842 Edgar Allan Poe called on Charles Dickens at the United States Hotel in Philadelphia.   This painting depicts Poe reading from a manuscript to the seated Dickens.   The raven in the upper left connects the two in literature.   Dickens' pet raven, "Grip," was included in his novel Barnaby Grudge in 1841.   The bird died that year and is preserved in a display case in the Rare Books department of the Philadelphia Free Library.   Poe's most famous work, The Raven, appeared in 1845.   Dickens here gestures to the date 1842 Phil ª , the year and place of their meeting, on the book before him.   The gold ornamental bracket partially framing the scene is characteristic of 19th century book binding gilt stamped covers.   I have signed in a monogram I designed in the same spirit. "Saints of Science"   Modern science owes much of its found...