Sundays with Clyfford Still: Some Unexpected Levity (16)

Welcome to Sundays With Clyfford Still. I’m your host, M.K. Hajdin.

This is number 16 in the series. You can read the other posts here.

Our last episode was a bit grim, so here’s a palate cleanser.

Clyfford Still did some realistic sketches of Indian people.  Here they are, looking remarkably more cheery than most of his other work.   And here’s a link to an article in the Denver Post about the new works in the Clyfford Still Museum.  I’m not sure I agree with Rinaldi’s characterization of Still’s later works as a “decline”, or that “pretty” is an unworthy goal in art.  I’ve always felt that to be an elitist opinion, but it would take an entire post of its own to explain why.  Anyway, here comes the bright and cheery:

Sketches by Clyfford Still. Photo: Gary Regester

…And Clyfford Still with his wife Patricia  at a baseball game!  Clyffie is SMILING!

Clyff and Patricia Still at baseball game.

Above pic is from SFMoMA’s Tumblr (they say they got this pic from the Clyfford Still Museum).  I am digging Patricia’s cat-eye sunglasses.  My auntie used to have a pair of those.

Some humorous homages to Clyfford Still:

You can actually buy this sculpture of Clyfford Still made by artist Joe Fig. (photo: Art.net)

Joe Fig likes to make little sculptures of artists in their studios.   He did the one you see above and this one below:

Clyfford Still sculpture by Joe Fig (photo: Joe Fig)

Also check out Joe Fig‘s other sculptures of famous artists.  His version of Jackson Pollock’s cabin studio has to be seen to be believed.

Next up: another artist’s wild and woolly obsession with Clyfford Still.

“Clyfford Still Stole My Boyfriend” by Shay DeGrandis

Artist Shay DeGrandis describes this work thusly:

“Clyfford Still Stole My Boyfriend: Red Field

2005

Embroidery, cloth, a painstaking obsession with someone else’s brushtrokes”

She explains:

“I have taken his humongous brushstrokes and daintily, painstakingly recreated them, stroke by stroke, in tiny embroidered thread, and made them into pillows.”

I abandoned art school before they made me learn how to talk like a MFA-zombie, so I have no idea what she’s talking about.  But I was amused.  Go see the rest of her site.

And this lady was inspired to make a nail-art homage to Clyfford Still:

Clyfford Still-inspired nails at Cutesville

Try not to laugh, Clyffie. You have an cantankerous image to maintain