What is it about Bright Colors?

I feel that it's time for a colorful post. I'm going to run my curator's eye over a collection of bright and brilliant art that we have assembled. Bright colors appeal to me. (Is it genetic? inherited from the Mexican side of my family?)

I like these flowers assembled for my mother-in-law's memorial service.

And this rubber Michelin Man clock I got in Paris about 20 years ago.

Our friend Joe Nyiri is a Wisconsin-born but San Diego-loving artist who has had a long relationship with the San Diego Zoo. He paints, sculpts, welds, and plays tennis. Here he is showing his customary attitude towards the world.

We got our first Nyiri artwork by accident - won in a raffle at my wife's school. Joe had donated this piece for the school's annual fundraising campaign. I had no idea what it was about. I wasn't sure I liked it. I tried to give it back.

But we took it home and hung it up in the bedroom. When I get that feeling "I'd rather gouge my eyes out than go to work, or do the dishes, or ..." this painting makes me think twice. "No, eye gouging won't help."

A few years later Joe invited us to his annual painting sale. He does dozens of artsy animal pieces, then sells them out of his back yard on the Friday after Thanksgiving (when real shoppers are at the mall). About 10 years ago I bought this goat with my own money. No raffle, no pressure. Some people think it's a dog, but Joe and I agreed it's a goat, so GOAT it is. I liked the ear assymmetry, and the attitude. I also like the aggressive brush strokes.

The Cat came the following year; chosen for the blue-green-purple color range and its expression (we've had cats for 35 years).

Then the Crow, I think, chosen primarily for the explosive orange-red. I don't really like crows, but lots of visitors to our museum home seem to.

This "Dog" joined us this Fall, although Joe painted it about 10 years ago. Personally, I don't think it looks much like a dog, but I liked the color themes in its hair. I failed to buy it at least 5 times before, but this year it grabbed me, and it complemented my new hanging scheme.

The Berkshire Pig was painted outside a field where the "model" pig resided. This was purchased for the yellow-orange tones, and his thoughtful eyes and set of his mouth and chin.

This Dog is named Iris. It looks like a Dingo to me, and it's not afraid to stare right back at you without giving away a clue as to its thoughts about you.

I like the bright green tones of this Cow and its friendly face.

These are baby Cooper's Hawks. Joe painted a whole series of Cooper's Hawks as a memorial for the parents of a young boy named Cooper who died recently.

These two Crows were our most recent purchase - chosen primarily because we liked the way Joe painted the branches down and over the edge of the picture frame, and secondarily because they would fit nicely at the top of our collection. We're almost scraping the ceiling, but that's ok with us.

The collection looks approximately like this today. We have it in our main hallway so we can enjoy it as we run up and down the hall. It's hard to get a photo of all the pieces together because you can't back away enough, even with a wide lens. (The painting of two birds looking down was taken back and traded in for a new image.)

As you can see, we have a wide range of colors. Since the color tones run freely up and down and across each painting, I have enjoyed the challenge of moving them around in this composition - to get a mix of vertical and landscape formats as I blended the colors and shapes across the whole wall.

Leaving Joe's works beyond us, we move on to the following painting which also came from my wife's school. Painted on butcher paper for a school play, it lay in a cupboard for more than 10 years. The principal found the picture and put it up for auction. I failed to win the auction, but the high bidder let me make a digital photo and we printed a life-size copy.

I used to hang it at my office, but some ladies complained that it was too spooky - glaring at them all day - so we brought it home. It's 20 x 30 inches and has real presence.

My wife found this fish scene in a different closet at school. The upper corner was missing, and kids had inked grafitti on the bottom, but I wanted to keep it. We asked Joe to repair it, and several other painters, but they all said "Not mine, I won't touch it." So I learned something valuable about painters ... and I decided to restore it myself.  I glued some heavy paper into the corner and let it dry. Then using paints left over from my mother's "painting phase" I covered up all the grafitti, and touched up the rest of the scene. Here's the result:

I'm could go on and on, but I will finish now with a piece that I love very much. I bought this in 1988 on our first trip to Europe. It's a Swiss school poster entitled "Dangers of Disorderly Traffic." It was designed to teach kids how to behave safely around crowded intersections.

It shows everything they could do wrong (incentive to fool around, I think). It's been hanging directly across the room from my desk for the last 10 years.

We have another 50 or 60 pieces of art that do not have bright colors. I'll get to them someday soon.