Section LC19

Tuesday, Nov. [  ] , 2009 —> I can’t remember the date

1:00 PM

Gallery Tour: Mercedes Matters

Sidney Mishkin

This workshop was based on a gallery tour of paintings done by a woman named Mercedes Matters. She was born in 1913 and had great talent at a young age. Matters had already completed her first three paintings by the time she was nine years old.

So when I walked around and examined these paintings I really felt bored. I’m not really into art and the paintings looked kinda boring to me. However, I learned that Matters’ paintings focused on visual concepts rather than realistic concepts. In today’s society we have digital cameras which makes the job of capturing an image much more easier and faster. Mercedes Matters was unique; she painted her paintings in such a way that she showed her own personal view of the world. During the tour, I noticed that Matters’ paintings had a lot of bright and bold colors. They definitely caught my attention since I like bright colors myself.

An interesting painting that I examined was the table tilting. Matters painted the table in such an angle that made it seem very complicated. It would have been hard for a camera to take a picture of the table in this view, which seems kinda weird. If the camera had captured the painting in motion at the right moment, the fruits that were piled onto the table would have fallen and the picture would have been weird looking. However, her painting made the fruits look like they were still; she used some interesting shapes and colors to depict this. I really did admire Matters’ skills in this painting. The perspective was great. 🙂

Overall, the tour was very short but interesting.

This workshop was the most different of all the workshops I went to all semester.  The reason for this was that this was just a tour and not an instructional or advisory workshop.

What wasn’t different about this workshop was the long line and half hour waiting period it took before I could enter. Throughout the Vertical campus building there are photographs hung all over hallways and I always wondered about them because many of the photographs seemed particularly interesting. Although this workshop didn’t exactly answer why the photographs were the way they were, the gallery also had photographs.

Art is definitely not one of my primary interests and I didn’t really see the message of the photographs and the reason behind the various angles and perspectives the artists used. However, I still found the photographs creative and overall I liked the workshop because it was much more laid back than the other workshops.

Going to an Art workshop was totally different from going to other workshops. I regret not eating lunch before going because the line was extremely long. I literally had to wait about 30 minutes to get in the gallery. Although the wait was painful, I really enjoyed this workshop because one of my hobbies is photography. I was really pleased to find out that this art workshop focused mainly on photography.

The different perspectives that were showcased in this workshop were very interesting. I have to admit that I am not good at photography. This workshop inspired and helped me to become a step closer to a better photographer. Out of all the workshops, I felt that this workshop had the greatest effect on my life. The best part was that I was able to meet some pretty girls with the same hobby!

The paintings at the workshop were done by Mercedes Matter. She was born on 1913 and had completed her first 3 paintings at the age of 9. At first glance, these paintings look like they were scribbles and it didn’t look like art pieces to me. However as she grew older, her paintings became clearer to me. Unlike several other artists of her time period, her paintings focus mainly on visual ideas rather than realistic pictures. Ever since the invention of cameras, pictures can be taken within a click. Matters didn’t want the camera to capture pictures from a specific angle so she created her own vision of the world.

Matter enjoys painting still life objects. Her paintings were done by using bold and bright colors to attract attention. She also used different shapes, lines, textures, and shadings to tell a story just like musicians who use tunes to compose a song. One interesting painting was the table tilting piece. She painted the table in such a way that it’s nearly impossible for the camera to capture. On the titled table were fruits of all sorts. In reality, if a camera was to capture this picture, everything on the table would fall off, but from her painting, she used shapes such as triangles in such a unique way that one wouldn’t think that the objects are going to fall off.

I learned a lot from this workshop. Even though I’m a person that’s not really into art, I have to admit that the art gallery workshop was really interesting. One would find her paintings difficult to understand because they’re not simple looking, but that’s what makes her style different from other artists. Every painter’s artwork holds different stories of their own of the world and Matters made hers through 2-D painting.

This workshop took place at a gallery which is different from our usual workshops. There was an extremely long line of people but we finally got in. The workshop consisted of artworks focusing on photography. This was actually interesting for me because i am taking art history and will soon start learning about photography. It reminded me about how Professor George mentioned perspective as part of art. These photos were taken through different perspectives, changing my view of regular daily images. It was great to see these normal objects through the view of artists and other people. Honestly, I did enjoy the art gallery and the different views of landscape that it gave me. It will definitely come into use when we learn about photography in our art history class.