Loving the City of Brotherly Love.

Now that we're finally having decent weather here in the Northeast (i.e. not 100-degree days with full-on humidity), we've had some occasions in which to enjoy that which spring has to offer here in the City of Brotherly Love. We took some time to enjoy the outdoors a bit this past weekend while Gus – my father-in-law and a talented photographer – was in town, with a little jaunt toward the northwesterly region of the city. A lovely ride along Kelly Drive, right up against the Schuylkill River, led us out to historic Laurel Hill cemetery; below is a view from the heights of the cemetery overlooking the river:

We then ventured out toward the Chestnut Hill region of Philadelphia, driving through the lush overgrowth of Fairmount Park along the way. I love that you don't have to leave city limits to get a great amount of tree exposure. Yay for Fairmount Park! Anyway, in Chestnut Hill we lunched at the French Bakery, grabbed some treats for later from the Night Kitchen, and spent the afternoon wandering the grounds of the lovely Morris Arboretum. Here are some shots:

Identity crisis.

Given all of the recent creepy hoaxes involving bloggers faking their online identities, I just wanted to assure you, dear reader, that I am who I say I am! No fakes! Just as the header to this blog proclaims, I am Diane Feissel, an artist living and painting stuff in Philadelphia. Why, just the other day I had someone take a picture in the studio while I painted our cats, just so I could prove the veracity of my claims, behold:

 A wholly accurate* record of the happenings in the Feissel studio - June 13, 2011.

 *However, I don't usually wear a beret.

Go Fisher!

I can't believe it has taken me more than year and a half since returning to live in Philadelphia once again to discover the fabulous Fisher Fine Arts Library out in West Philadelphia, at the University of Pennsylvania. Besides being housed in a fantastically lovely Furness building, the library has also wooed me considerably with its plethora of monographs on some of my 19th-century favorites: Carolus-Duran, Eugène Carrière, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Gustave Caillebotte, Wilhelm Leibl, Franz von Lenbach, Max Liebermann, John Everett Millais, Gwen John, and oh, so many more. It's like heaven. And it's pretty - check it out:

Sans titre.

Hola Internet, all is pretty busy - and therefore currently pretty sleepy - chez Feissel... but before I turn it in for the night, I just wanted to share a little piece I'm working on currently (amongst many others) - more posts soon, once I get caught up on some sleep and everything else:

as-of-yet untitled painting, 12"x9", oil on linen, by Yours Truly, Diane Feissel.



ACOPAL.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I may have witnessed the most impressive gathering in one single location of the artwork of more living, talented representational artists than I have seen in a heck of a long time. Though it is on view only very briefly (May 17-28), if you’re near NYC you have this great opportunity to view the inaugural exhibition of the American artists who were invited to exhibit as a part of ACOPAL (America China Oil Painting Artists League) at the National Arts Club, plus the work of the three winners of an international painting competition held by this newly-formed organization. It was definitely an extravaganza of awesomeness… it’s difficult to even start mentioning the names of participants whose work was included, because I know I’ll leave out someone else’s work which was equally amazing. I’ll still highlight a few things, though - including the following, one of my favorite pieces in the show:

Portrait of the Artist's Wife, by Joshua LaRock

Also: there were paintings by Daniel Sprick and Michael Grimaldi, both amazing artists – and YAY, I will be taking workshops with both gentlemen this coming summer. Yipeee!! Speaking of workshops, one of the 3 winners in the ACOPAL competition was the fabulous Michelle Tully of Studio Escalier, where I was fortunate to study for month-long stints in 2007 and 2008. She’s an amazing painter and an amazing teacher, and a truly great person – I was so happy to see her painting get some props, and to see how great it looked in person! Even though online images don’t completely do justice to the original, I will still post it, below:

JMP2 by Nicole Michelle Tully



Also: A shout-out to my former home state of North Carolina, home to the dynamic duo of Scott Burdick and Sue Lyon, who were represented in the show! Here’s an image of Sue’s painting:

Painting by Susan Lyon

Also: A shout-out to my current home state of Pennsylvania, and the amazing Anthony Waichulis of Ani Art Academy. Here I am with Anthony and his painting, with a look of “OMG AMAZING PAINTING RIGHT HERE” on my face. He’s a super-great guy with crazy-amazing painting skills:

Me and Anthony Waichulis

In short: ACOPAL! = GREAT!

Rejection.

A couple of paintings of mine were not accepted (in other words: rejected!) for an upcoming portrait and figurative show (insert sad face here)... so I guess I'll just exhibit them here! Sigh. One of them is a painting I posted in an earlier draft-y form in this post; I worked on it some more since then, and here it is:

leaving California (1), oil on linen, 12"x9", 2011 by me, Diane Feissel

The second is a painting of one of my favorite people to paint, fellow painter and friend Juliette Lemontey:

leaving California (2), oil on linen, 12"x9", 2011, by me, Diane Feissel



Alas, you can't win them all. But you can keep painting! Painting until your hand falls off... or until you finish the 8,000 paintings you have in progress (I may be speaking for myself here).

PAFA ASE!

Last Friday evening a friend and I went to check out the Annual Student Exhibition (or "ASE") at the venerable Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (or "PAFA") right here in Philadelphia. This event constitutes a Big Deal here in our fair city of brotherly love, as this represents the work of the best and brightest products of the institution known far and wide as this nation's oldest fine art museum and school. Pomp! Publicity! Prizes! And, hopefullly most importantly, Art.

While there was a great amount of work on display, from not only the 3rd and 4th year certificate program and BFA students but also the MFA student body - therefore making for an interesting but slightly overwhelming viewing session - I have selected out a few of the pieces which grabbed me upon first viewing to mention here. First off was Alabama native Christina Weaver, whose wall of work centered on paintings and charcoal drawings of bridal gowns. While bridal gowns wouldn't normally strike me as a compelling subject, the artist's superior painting and drawing skills, paint handling, use of composition all conbined with spooky atmospheric effect of the works made her wall immediately eye-catching. Here's one of the paintings:

Brides and Accessories, 49"x35", oil on canvas, by Christina Weaver

Another series of pieces which stood out for me were a series of eye paintings (how curious that I would be drawn to eye paintings, ha) by artist Mark B. Goodson. The idea behind the paintings is that they are "The Critical Eye of PAFA," in other words, close-ups of the eyes of all of the faculty critics in the MFA program. See them all at this link on Mark B. Goodson's website or see this one below as an example:

The Critical eye of PAFA 2010 - a series of 12 paintings

(this one above is of Tom Csaszar)

2010, oil on canvas, each panel (as above) 6"x 12"

by Mark B. Goodson

The last series of pieces which struck me as memorable were graphite drawings on illustration board by Karen David, an MFA student for whom I can unfortunately find no website (so I'll have to post my crappy photos from my crappy camera). They were delicately rendered and utterly disturbing in a kind of 1920s Dada-ist vein, but wonderfully so - here are photos of her work taken by me, a terrible photographer with a terrible camera:

Drawings by artist Karen David



There was, of course, much more to the show... this guy's work, and this guy, for example, etc. etc., but, as I mentioned, so much work quickly became visual overload. And I don't want to have blog post overload either! So that's all I'm posting. If you're in the Philadelphia area, go check out the show yourself, it's up until June 8th. Check out http://www.pafa.org/.

Time to go get some painting of my own done, people! Peace out.