 Observation at Atelier 21, Photo: Souad Belhaj "La nuit des Galeries au Maroc" (Night of Galleries of Morocco) we took two full sedans and visited several galleries in Casablanca. Our group consisted of French, Moroccan, Scottish, Welsh and a gal from Idaho (it is its own country no?) . The night was organized to exhibit art in every major city in the county. Casablanca, Fez, Marrakech Rabat, Tangier, Ouarzazate, and many others.
We set out to see a number of galleries, planning to end at ex Cathédrale du Sacré-Coeur, a decommissioned Catholic church in downtown. We started at Atelier 21 which exhibited its entire stable of artists; about 20, in a magnificent well-lit place. The night was electric as everyone involved with the arts was traversing the town to see as much art as possible. We visited several, then Sacré-Coeur. To my great surprise, here in what I thought to be a very conservative city, twelve artist were exhibiting large and small canvases of nudes. Shock. Some of my Moroccan artist friends were there to gauge the acceptance of their new works. Now it is important to say that I had just completed a 2.8 meters wide (9') canvas of an over-scale nude and was thinking "now what will I do with a canvas like this ... in a country like this?" So, I told one of my painter friends who was on-hand about my latest work. He asked me to bring my work to exhibit with them at Sacre Coeur the very next day. I couldn't argue with this opportunity so got up early, hired a livery and hung the work at 10 AM. My honor was to be accepted into the circle of older (and younger) artists here in Casablanca. A dream come true for me. ~ TR
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 photo credit: Jan Kraushaar Last year in September 2008, the Director of the school asked me to do a large mural during In-Service. This is a week-long session prior to the opening of school. He asked me to do this during the In-Service training "live" while the talks were in session. I did not do well with that, so finally took the whole piece home. The result was acceptable but I was not so pleased. It now hangs to irritate me everyday in the school's multi-purpose room.
This year he asked again but I was ready for him. I suggested that I would use this as a teaching time, invite my students to come and received his OK to bring students to create, plan and produce this years mural. Using facebook and email I invited 15 of my best painting students to join the program. Six took the offer and came every day for the entire week. I had no real idea of what we would do. I felt that if I was to allow the students to really participate I would need to relinquish control of the creative portion to the team. We worked in an atelier method for a full week. We met starting the Friday before the in-service sessions, and continued daily except Sunday. In total, they worked about 30~40 hours each. We worked together to plan the mural to be original yet appropriate to this year's theme "Learning Heart to Heart". The problem was to communicate this idea without using obvious trite images or symbols. No one wanted to use little cutesy hearts. We struggled together with concepts for two full days. The sketches were quite terrible. Finally, somehow, we came up with repeated hand-prints in some kind of pattern. We later established a unifying grid of 5 bands or stripes across the image to hold it in a kind of controlled patterning. The canvas is comprised of three large canvases each 1.33 x 1.9 meters (50 x80") to make an overall piece of 4 Meters wide by 1.9 M tall (160 x 80") First, we all painted sky cloud-like forms and overlaid tints of pinks, light blues and yellows as a kind of field painting. Afterward we masked off five equally divided horizontal sections and mixed up rich full-tone colors on a glass palette, rubbed our hands into the fat paint and all six students and I planted hand-prints on the large mural ... over and over and over. We worked on this for 2 more days laying more and more prints. On Friday, at the in-service closing dinner, we presented the work to the director, the entire staff , and the teachers. We asked everyone to come up and place their own prints on the canvases. The staff were directed as to where to place their hands in the colored paint and where to place their print. We had board members, teachers, teacher-aids, kitchen, janitorial and guardian staff and their spouses and children all waiting in line to place their respective marks. It was very a special time. The work will soon be mounted in the large multi-purpose room where we eat our lunches, and have assemblies, family events, exhibitions and festivals. This years work will hopefully over-shadow last year's cartoony and weak attempt at a meaningful response to the in-service theme. This year was a much more rewarding experience and event; and the result stands well against both the objectives of the Director and yours truly. The students are to be acknowledged. The work communicates its meaning without fail. - T  Stage 1 I have written elsewhere about my admiration for Frank Gehry. In the documentary by Sydney Pollack, it opens with drawings (sqiggles) by Mr. Gehry, while Frank in the underlying audio track says "You think starting is hard? You bet it is." So, I poke and prod my students but "frank" truth, I have the same reluctance to place that first stroke on that white canvas. So, the Saturday before last, I took out the stuff: the l'huille d'lin (linseed oil) and colored oil paints, and my bigger brushes and I started. Swash, splash, and slob it on, I did not care ...it was just a free flow of fat, wet, loose paint on a big surface (1.9 x 1.3 M = 75 x 51") and there is just so much of it, it just did not seem to matter if I made any mistake; it would be recovered in the main. The truth be known, I could not resist and at the same time I had no idea what I was doing, just using everything I know and everything I don't. I got to "step 1" and stopped. ....  Stage 2 Then "step 2" above and after a four day rest "step 3". below... I am sure that I will regret some of my spastic work, but I will remember that it is just "goo" on a surface. Tom  Stage 3  'Dar B Sky II' Acrylic on Wood Panel - 122 x 95 cm (48 x 38') 2008 Prior to May 8, 2008 go to this site: http://trelthmission.blogspot.com/
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