Tom Forrestall's lithograph print for Beaverbrook Art Gallery's 50th Anniversary

I wanted to share an image of the lithograph print that dad made for the 50th anniversary of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick. An old friend of dad's, Bernard Riordon, is the Director and CEO of this museum and he asked dad to do this commission as a fund raiser.

Beaverbrook Art Gallery Special 50th Anniversary Commemorative Limited Edition Print

By Tom Forrestall, ONS, CM   Title: So Many Look and So Few See (2009)

Size: 20” x 30”     Medium: Lithograph – 5-Colour (Edition of 50)

Master printer: Jacques Arseneault

Price: $1,000 unframed.

In the words of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's Director Bernard Riordon, "This limited edition lithograph is a commemorative print by internationally recognized Canadian artist, Tom Forrestall, ONS, CM, and has been created to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.  The print is titled, So Many Look and So Few See, a reference to Lord Beaverbrook and his vision in establishing a world-class gallery for New Brunswick and Canada in Fredericton.  The artist worked directly for Lord Beaverbrook when the Gallery opening in 1959 and he remembers the effect that this personal contact had on him as an artist.  Tom remembers Beaverbrook’s bushy eyebrows, hair on his face and the impression of his eyes as are now expressed in the lithograph.

     Tom completed a painting of a similar subject from the upper floor of the New Brunswick Legislature facing the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and the Saint John River.  Also, the artist researched archive images of Lord Beaverbrook and viewed many of the 13 portraits that are in the Gallery’s collection including the Jacob Epstein sculpture of Lord Beaverbrook. 

     For many years Forrestall has had affiliations with ‘eyes’ in his drawings, sketches and paintings and the ‘eyes’ are normally many times life-size.  While the artist has had affiliations with other objects such as arrows, balls and spears, the “eye” has always been a consistent motif.  As Tom says in reference to the current lithograph and Lord Beaverbrook, “So many look and so few see”, Tom is expressing the passion that Lord Beaverbrook had for New Brunswick and Canada and his gift of the Gallery and its contents to the people of the Province."

We lived there for the first thirteen years of my life, and Fredericton holds a lot of happy and wonderful family memories for all of us. As one of the the two most important cultural centers in Fredericton, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery was a place we often visited, both as a family and on school trips. I have a particular strong memory of mom and dad and the family going to a black tie opening there of an exhibition of dad's, and mom was wearing a really stylish turquoise 2-piece hot pants (it was the 70's) and a full-length slit-sided skirt outfit with lace up patent leather white sandals, which I deeply coveted. Mom had the opportunity to travel a lot and brought fabulous clothes back from her travels, which she wore to events around town. Natalie LeBlanc Forrestall was a style trend setter in Fredericton, in her day and dad was always proud to have mom there with him on his arm.  

-Monica Forrestall

Tom Forrestall painting video with grandson Max & Monica

With all the American holidays looming (Thanksgiving next week) I'm feeling sentimental about family. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, is one of our dad's (Tom Forrestall) favorite expressions. So I'm re-visiting summer in Nova Scotia, and family whom I love, by sharing a little video, below,  that my husband, Kerry made of our dear dad painting watercolors with Max. Dad started the painting session after lunch one afternoon, at our house in Karsdale. Taken with a vase of purple phlox that my friend Lorraine Beswick gave me after a visit to her gardens, dad pulled out his paint kit. The bouquet was sitting on a windowsill with pretty light behind it. Max watched his grandfather painting for a little while, then announced he wanted to paint too. I had set up a summer studio in the back porch for us, but I moved a small folding table in place with Max's watercolors and brushes. Max created an arrangement of a plastic super power figure scotch taped to the fridge. Undisturbed by the goings on (my dad is impervious to minor distractions once he is painting) which my sister Renee hilariously commented on in an earlier blog. Dad is telling a funny story here about when he was in Rome doing watercolors a couple of years ago. A group of tourists crowded behind him and wanted to photograph the very scene he was sketching believing it must be a truly fine view, if an artist chose to re-create it. Inspired by dad and Max I set up a small table to do a watercolor as well, and soon all three of us were painting. I didn't realise that Kerry had turned on the camera and shot a few minutes of film. He probably realized how much we all miss dad and this was a wonderful way to preserve that moment in time. Here's the link to the short video and some photos Kerry also took below. A little window into a happy family visit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4VMQODCMc

  
Dad starts to paint
and Max is watching him.

Then Max sets himself up and paints with his grandpa.






  An artful shot Kerry took through screened  window (below)

Phlox watercolor dad made in Karsdale.

Max and his cousin Jasmine paint at Annapolis Royal's Paint The Park event in August 2009.

Max and Monica's watercolor pieces for the Paint The Town art show in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.

will's electric car

My brother William has been obsessed with cars since he was a kid. Along with his daughters Rachel and Bess, William built two cars (one electric and one pedal). Bess and Rachel and their cars were invited to participate by the local arts community organizer in the 2009 Canada Day parade arts floats section! 
As William says, "My interest has always  been more on the unique prototype,  one of, homemade hand made small car makers. The Aurora Safety Sedan (one made), Berkeley t60, BSA ( three-wheelers), Bristol, Morgan, Orient (pre 1905), Peel P50,  and one you might like  a make called the  Monica (a  French 4 door sport sedan about 40 "hand" made early 70s). My first car the OPEL GT  featured a hand made body.  My automotive interest is really on the more creative aspect of design - forum and function as well as the  resolutions found within the constraints of the designers frame of reference -  for me this is the most engaging aspect of automotive design and  history."

Here is William's short video of the three of them driving the cars.
                                                                              
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxJLN6A67SU&feature=related

And another video of Bess and Rachel driving the pedal car with Bess giving a tour of the car's interior workings at the end. "It's a three wheel home made car pedal car made from junk -made by Bess , Rachel , William , and others."  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xfkPvdvAWM

     Below from left: William Forrestall, Rachel, Bess, Tom Forrestall, Aunt Monica Forrestall, Anne Forrestall

Artists of Forrestall Studio

Hi all,

My youngest (of 4!!!!) brother Frank is an extraordinarily talented digital animator with a studio
that reps not only his amazing work, but the artwork of several other Nova Scotia artists. He put
together a short video demo reel of images of the artists of Forrestall Studio. 
It's all so varied, from graphic illustration to large scale

painterly work for murals, he has something for every conceivable project!

It's great stuff, take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjqXhYDq0HI

-Monica Forrestall

Poster Art: Designing for Not-for-profit events

I don't have a lot of time to make art these days, although I do have a degree in fine arts and always love it when I am asked by someone to create a design for something that touches me. Twice a year, I take it upon myself to design posters to advertise the children's gardening events I head up in Washington Market Park in our hood, Tribeca. For these occasions I turn a blind eye to technology and make collages with some of my collection of paper scraps. Below is this years design for last week's event. I print the copy out on a colorful piece of paper, then I cut out garden themed shapes and stick them down. My inspiration for this collage work comes from the artist Birdie Lusch, whom my husband Kerry Schuss represents at his gallery, KS Art.

 Birdie was an outsider artist from Columbus, Ohio who made everything in her apartment into a piece of artwork. The books of collages she created in the 70's were particularly wonderful. Birdie turned simple shapes cut from pages torn from magazines into other things. She was one of those amazing characters who didn't create art as careerist activity, but more as a natural impulse that made her days happier. Making these posters, and passing by them on the street as I walk in our neighborhood, leading up to an event makes me happy.  And another poster I just finished below was for a not-for-profit Tribeca Foundry, who are helping to build a library of book for children with Jumpstart.  My good friend, Christine Sciulli who heads up the Tribeca Foundry, asked if I would donate the original poster, so they could frame it for the library. I said of course, what an honor! I'll do anything to inspire kids to read.

R.M. Fischer new sculpture opens at KS Art Gallery

An amazing show of sculpture this week by artist R.M. Fischer. The opening on October 29th was packed with artists of every generation, curators, friends and admirers of his work, who have been waiting to see this body of work which announced a distinctive, fresh direction for the New York based artist. 

To quote from the gallery press release: "Breaking with the functionalism of his earlier industrial assemblages and public sculpture, Fischer's new combinations of soft and hard forms evoke softly armored figures. Organic shapes crafted out of colorful vinyl, felt, and upholstery and sewn together with thread to suggest body parts. These seemingly upbeat, cartoon-inspired figures are tattooed, pierced, and adorned with metal amulets. Fischer's combination of the soft and the hard elements create a replicating army of fleshy machines suggestive of what William S. Burroughs called the human body: namely, "the soft machine". Fischer replaces utilitarian functionality with a Pop palette and playful figures and forms. The inclusion of orifices, tongues and other fetishes pushes the toy-like sensibility to a polymorphous perversity. This turn of the screw, at once mischievous and more menacing, explores the dark mechanics of popular culture and its sexual underbelly."

                  

R.M.Fischer, his daughter Dena and wife, Patti Page.     Tray of RMF initial cookies Patti made.

This is R.M. Fischer's first one-person exhibition here. For the past twenty-five years, Fischer has been blurring the lines between art, architecture and design. Fischer is acclaimed for his monumental site-specific public art commissions and he has had over 30 solo exhibitions, including an exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1984. His work is included in numerous public collections including, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Carnegie Museum of Fine Art.