Visit to CB1 Gallery–Ardeshir Tabrizi

Paintings and Notes. Work by Ardeshir Tabrizi. The art did not stand out for me. The paintings/drawing are well executed. I do enjoy seeing good drawing skills and art with a lot of patterning. I write about it here because I got to take home a dandy 16 page booklet. It has been sitting on my desk for weeks.

Ardeshir Tabrizi, cover of booklet.

The booklet could also be called a catalog. This week, art coach Alyson B. Stanfield shared a blog post encouraging artists to make catalogs of their work periodically. Read about it here.
 

Should artists share their sketch books in a gallery setting? Ardeshir Tabrizi not only framed some of the pages of his sketchbook, he also printed them in the booklet that was given away to interested patrons of the gallery.

I question if the sketchbook is a "sketch" once it is brought into the gallery. It brings up for me public vs. private domain of art production. Is a sketch for the eyes of the artist and/or fabricators only, or are they also relegated to the gallery setting as: Art? I have no answer to this question. Below are some pictures of the booklet.

Ardeshir Tabrizi

Ardeshir Tabrizi

I like the raw feeling of the sketch pages. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the backroom of this gallery to see other works by this artist. The backroom work was better, I thought. I was and am grateful for the peek behind the scene at CB1 Gallery.

Please consider posting your ideas about:

Do sketches belong in galleries?
Have you considered making a catalog of your own work?

On the edge of Organized and Not

Suzanne Gibbs, 2011. 

I organize my drawings on a magnet board similarly to how I organize my paintings.

Wading Along

Another step in successful fly fishing is to move either up stream or down stream between casts. It's called "covering the pool." On occasion, one might also move forward of backward from the bank of the river - I had to do this often due to my casts not being long enough to reach the other bank. Obviously, a fisherman is not going to stand in one place for several hours at a time - funny how this little detail was not obvious to me at all until I actually saw how much water I would be fishing in Iceland. So, the waders are called waders because one wades along the river to fish and hopefully experience the joy of a "tight line."

Man Fishing

Well, having tried to capture the line in the air and failing, I moved on to catching the man standing in water with a stick - sorry, rod. This is the part were typically in fly fishing the fisherman strips the line. Yes, there are stripping jokes out on the water, but I digress. Stripping the line means that the line is being pulled in one tug at a time at a predetermined speed and a chosen amount of line at a time. The speed and line length to strip-in is dependent on the water speed, wind speed and direction, and size of the fly as far as I can tell.

Left side back cast

When it gets really windy a fly fisherman will cast from their opposite side (usually left). A great deal more effort goes into this cast. The reason for the change is to avoid a "collapsed" line or worse a hook in the back of your head. Actually a true fisherman would say the collapsed line is worse than the hook in the head. Either way, watching a strong cast from the non-dominant side is remarkably beautiful.

Guide

When fishing the HOFSA in Iceland it is common to have a guide climb steep banks over pools of water and search the water for salmon. They have a trained eye and can spot the fish underwater. It was not until my 7th day on the river that I could sight an underwater fish. Then, the fisherman actually casts to the sighted fish. Cheating? No, not in a place were one fishes almost 4 miles of big water for 11 hours in one day. The best fishermen catch 4 - 7 fish a day. Like my father says: "It's called fishing, not catching!"

Wildflowers

I had seen pictures of Iceland Wildflowers before my trip. What amazed me is how tiny the flowers actually are. I was literally laying on the ground to draw them. Wonderfully at this level I could also see the bumble bees hard at work.

Iceland First Impression

I was in Iceland a short 5 hours and I was already suited up in waders and fly fishing with my father. Fortunately, we had a full-time guide that first evening so I was able to take out my sketch pad for a brief moment - remember the focus was fishing not drawing! This house that I captured was bigger than most homes in Napa California but, the vast land of Iceland made it appear to be a doll house. This sketch was done for the banks of Beat 7, Hofsa.