Cloud Formations make for GREAT ART + Crepe Suzettes + Tipping Chart

Wheat Fields  |  ca. 1670  |  Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch)  |  Oil on canvas  

ART

CLOUDS

Keith Christiansen, Chairman of European Paintings at Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), loves to lay back and look at clouds. He also has really looked at how clouds are depicted in paintings at the museum.

Keith Christiansen

Wheat Field with Cypresses  |  1889  |  Vincent van Gogh (Dutch)
Oil on canvas

View of Toledo  |  ca. 1597
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) (Greek)
Oil on canvas

The Glorification of the Royal Hungarian Saints  |
ca. 1772  |  Franz Anton Maulbertsch (Austrian)  |
 Oil on canvas  | 

Sunset Sky  |  ca. 1872  |  John Frederick Kensett (American) 
Oil on canvas  |

A Mountainous Landscape with a Waterfallprobably ca. 1600
 Kerstiaen de Keuninck (Flemish)  |  Oil on wood  

Virgin and Child with Angels  |  ca. 1515  |
 Bernard van Orley (Netherlandish)  |  Oil on wood  |  

The Calm Sea  |  1869  |  Gustave Courbet (French)
  Oil on canvas  |  

Watch the Met "Connections" slide show as Keith Christiansen shares his obsession at the following link: http://www.metmuseum.org/connections/clouds/
(Scource: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

FOOD

To help with your math, after a glass of wine this holiday season, here is a simplified tipping chart.

FOOD

A FUN & EXCITING DESSERT

Crepe Suzettes

Flaming the cognac for Crepe Suzettes

Ingredients (about 6 crepes)

1 cup of flour

3/4 cup of milk

3/4 cup of water

2 to 3 whole eggs

2 tbsp. butter

1/4 tsp. of vanilla - optional

Pinch of salt

Orange Butter Sauce

1/2 cup of orange juice - fresh squeezed or carton pasteurized

Zest of 1/2 orange - optional

1/2 cup of sugar

1 stick of butter - OK to use less

airline bottle of cognac (or brandy) - about 1/4 cup

Directions for Crepes

In a large bowl mix together flour, milk, water, salt, eggs and 1 tbsp. of melted or soft butter. Whisk until well blended, about 2 minutes. Heat your medium (about 8 inches) non-stick omelet pan and coat with 1 pat of butter or oil. When butter is melted, add 1/4 cup of crepe batter - enough to just cover the bottom of the pan. Hold up pan and swirl to coat pan evenly. It is better to have too much batter than too little - a thin crepe will tear when turning. Cook crepe for a minute, then loosen around the edges and continue cooking for another minute. Peek before turning to see if crepe is starting to brown. Carefully turn crepe over and cook for another half minute. The first crepe may stick and be unusable. Don't worry, it takes a couple of crepes to get it right. The sweet Orange Butter Sauce will over compensate for problems in the appearance. Set aside your cooked crepes to add to the Orange Butter Sauce.

Directions for Orange Butter Sauce

Use a large enough pan to dip a whole crepe into. Melt butter, then add orange juice, zest and sugar into pan, over a medium/high heat. Cook until sauce is reduced by half and thickened, about 5 minutes.

Reduce heat and add a crepe. Use a spoon and fork to fold crepe into sauce. Fold in half once, then fold one more time and push crepe to the edge of the pan to make room for more. Fit about 3 crepes at a time into pan. Allow crepes to heat through for a minute.

Now the fun part - cognac flambe! 

Have a long handled match ready. This is when you want an audience. Your table should be set and the lights dimmed so you can serve the flaming Crepes Suzettes with a flourish! When sauce and crepes are warm, pour in half the cognac and bring to the table. Place before your dazzled guest and strike a match, lighting the sauce. Be careful: the cognac will flame up, so you don't want flammable items too close (overhead, curtains, paper, or people). Serve this first batch of crepes with a spoonful of sauce. Finish saucing the other crepes, then flambe, and repeat. 

(Source: Julia Child's Cookbook)

Until Later,

Jack 

ARTSnFOOD, All rights reserved. Concept & Original Text © Copyright 2011 Jack A. Atkinson under all International intellectual property and copyright laws. Images © individual artists, fabricators, respective owners or assignees.

Brandon Stanton's "New York" + MoMA's Sculpture Garden + Easy Party Casserole

Happy Thanksgiving America!

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Brandon Stanton's

Humans of 

New York 

Brandon Stanton, a photographer, is trying to take as many portraits of New Yorkers he possibly can (3000 snaps so far) to create a visual census of the city for 2011. His project is called Humans of New York. See his Humans of New York on his facebook page - his wall photos are available for public viewing. http://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork

All photos (above) are © 2011 Brandon Stanton.

ART:

MoMA's Sculpture Garden

(In the US, this week is all about traveling to Granny's house for a huge turkey dinner and for watching football (mostly college football) on the tube. Hopefully this article will give you a casual art walk while you digest the turkey and other great food.) 

Enjoy the peace and serenity of one of the world's most famous sculpture displays as we stroll through MoMA's New York sculpture garden.

East end of the garden looking up.

West end of the garden looking up.

PARTY FOOD:

Easy Enchilada Casserole

Many times Good Morning America's hosts have shared this recipe, it is the most requested food segment they have ever aired. Former GMA host Charlie Gibson was given the recipe by his friend, Mary Corkran. 

If you are invited to an office party this holiday season and you need to bring some food, this dish is fast, easy and has universal appeal. 

(Source: From ABC's Good Morning America website and the kitchens of Mary Corkran and Charlie Gibson. Serves: 8  Cook Time: 1-30 min. Gibson first shared this recipe in 2002.)

Ingredients

Casserole

1 package (13-ounces) of Doritos. Crumbled all except 2 cups (Reserved for casserole topping)

2 tbsp. onion, grated

1 10-ounce can chili with beans

10 to 15 ounce enchilada sauce

1 can tomato sauce (8 ounce)

1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Topping

2 cups Doritos

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 1/4 cups sour cream

Cooking Directions

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Crumble 6 cups Doritos with your hands into a large mixing bowl.

Add the onion, the chili, the enchilada sauce, tomato sauce and 1 cups of cheddar cheese to the crumbled Doritos. Stir with a rubber spatula to combine. Place mixture into an 8½ x 11-inch oven proof casserole dish. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Spread the sour cream over the top of the casserole with a large spoon or rubber spatula. Top with 2 cups of non-crumbled Doritos. Then sprinkle with the other ½ cup of cheddar cheese.

Bake for five minutes to melt top cheese on top. Now, it's ready to take to the party. 

Until later,

Jack

ARTSnFOOD, All rights reserved. Concept & Original Text © Copyright 2011 Jack A. Atkinson under all International intellectual property and copyright laws. Images © individual artists, fabricators, respective owners or assignees.

Clyfford Still Museum Opens + A Holiday Dinner Party for 4

Interior of Clyfford Still Museum (Copyright Clyfford Still Museum)

ART:

The New

Clyfford Still

Museum

Painter Clyfford Still was one of the most important abstract expressionists and ranks with the greats like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Today, 31 years after his passing, he is finally ready to exhibit his work.

 Clyfford Still - 1957-J No. 2 (PH-401) 1957 Oil on Canvas, 113 x 155 in.
Copyright Clyfford Still Museum Photo: Peter Harholdt

The art world is all flying into Denver, Colorado this week to see the new Clyfford Still Museum as it opens its doors to the public. The museum will be reintroducing the life and work of one of America’s most significant yet least viewed and understood artists. This new museum, which houses 94% of Clyfford Still’s total creative output, will allow the public to explore the artist’s 60-year career, including figurative works from the 1930s, paintings from the 1960s and 1970s and hundreds of works on paper that the artist created on a near-daily basis. The museum will house a collection of approximately 2,400 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures all by this one artist. It will be providing an unprecedented opportunity to reflect on the full scope of Still's legacy and influence on abstraction in painting and on subsequent American artists.

Clyfford Still - Self-Portrait (PH-382), 1940
Oil on Canvas, 41 1/2 x 38 in.
Copyright Clyfford Still Museum Photo: Peter Harholdt

After achieving national recognition and prominence for his abstract works in the 1940s, Still, disliking the politics and commercialism of the art world, ended his relationship with all of his galleries and dealers in 1951. He rarely publicly exhibited his work thereafter. Following the artist’s death in 1980, the Still collection was sealed off completely from view. Still’s will stipulated that his estate be given in its entirety to an American city willing to establish “permanent quarters” dedicated solely to his work, ensuring its survival for exhibition and study. In August 2004, the City of Denver, under the leadership of then Mayor John Hickenlooper, was selected by Still’s wife, Patricia Still, to receive the substantial Still collection. In 2005, Patricia Still also bequeathed to the city her own collection, which included select works as well as Still's complete archive. 

Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, Colorado
Photo courtesy of Allied Works Architecture.

The new Clyfford Still Museum building, built diagonally across from Michael Graves' showy postmodern Denver Public Library and in the shadow of Renzo Piano's "Fortress" and the "Ocean Liner" sized and shaped Daniel Libeskind Denver Art Museum buildings, was designed by architect Brad Cloepfil. The exterior is quite understated but pleasant. The galleries of the museum have a striking ceiling and other interesting design details.  The city first raised $7.5 million in private funds to start construction on the $29 million building. Later enough money was raised to completely pay for the construction of the building with private funds. Recently, Sotheby's auctioned four of Patricia Still's collection of paintings, which brought in $114 million. The sale will net $85 million to establish an endowment which will be used to support the new museum. 

Clyfford Still - 1949 No 1 (PH-385) 1949
Oil on Canvas, 105 1/2 in. x 81 in.
Copyright Clyfford Still Museum Photo: Peter Harholdt

The museum’s inaugural exhibition features approximately 110 works drawn from the Still collection, exploring both the artist’s early arrival at complete abstraction as well as the ongoing significance of figuration on his later work. The exhibition includes a number of never-before-displayed paintings, works on paper, and objects from Still’s personal archives, as well as the only three sculptures by Still in existence.

Copyright Clyfford Still 

The vast majority of Clyfford Still's work has never been exhibited or even seen outside of his family and a few art historians. Still's works in the public realm, before the opening of this museum, only represented six percent of the artist’s creative output. 

Copyright Clyfford Still 

This week's opening of The Clyfford Still Museum will provide unprecedented insight into the life and work of a singular great American abstract expressionist artist. 

More information on Clyfford Still's life and career can be found below in the Postscript section. Also check out the photos of the galleries and the opening ceremony in the Postscript section.

(Sources: Clyfford Still Museum press release and various Denver Post articles. Photos courtesy of Clyfford Still Museum and Allied Works Architecture © 2011.)

THE FOOD SECTION:

(Roasted Pork Shoulder 

- A Holiday Dinner Party)

is at the end of this issue.

Postscript Section: 

Photos of the Clyfford Still Museum opening ceremony.

+ More Information on Clyfford Still - His Life and Career

Main staircase to the galleries.

Designed "Grassworks"

are on both of the two Terraces.

Clyfford Still's nephew helped direct

 the collection toward Denver.

Museum Architect: Brad Cloepfil

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock

reads a Clyfford Still Museum proclamation

with the help of Museum District City Council

Representative Jeanne Robb

and other Denver City Council Members.

Clyfford Still Museum Director

Dean Sobel

Director Sobel and Clyfford Still's daughters

unveil the museum - behind the red curtain.

Lobby of Museum

All of Clyfford Still's art

is based on the figure.

One of three sculptures

in the collection.

Still's painting smock

The original group of Abstract Expressionist Artists.

Clyfford Still is in the second row, third from the right.

(Source: All images in the Postscript section were taken at the Clyfford Still Museum. The artworks shown fall under the © copyright of the Clyfford Still Museum. Photos by Jack A. Atkinson © 2011.)

Story of Clyfford Still's life. 

Clyfford Still was a leader in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately following World War II. Still's contemporaries included Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Though the styles and approaches of these artists varied considerably, Abstract Expressionism is marked by abstract forms, expressive brushwork, and monumental scale, all of which were used to convey universal themes about creation, life, struggle, and death ("the human condition"), themes that took on a considerable relevance during and after World War II. Described by many as the most anti-traditional of the Abstract Expressionists, Still is credited with laying the groundwork for the movement. Still's shift from representational painting to abstraction occurred between 1938 and 1942, earlier than his colleagues, who continued to paint in figurative-surrealist styles well into the 1940s.

Still was born in 1904 in Grandin, North Dakota and spent his childhood in Spokane, Washington and Bow Island in southern Alberta, Canada. Although Abstract Expressionism is identified as a New York movement, Still's formative works were created during various teaching posts on the West Coast, first at Washington State University (1935–41). His work of this period is marked by an expressive figurative style used in depictions of the people, buildings, tools and machinery characteristic of farm life. By the late 1930s, he began to simplify his forms as he moved from representational painting toward abstraction. In 1941 Still relocated to the San Francisco Bay area where, following work in various war industries, he became a highly influential professor at the California School of Fine Arts, now known as the San Francisco Art Institute. He taught there from 1946-1950 (with a break in the summer of 1948 when he returned to New York). It was during this time when Still "broke through" to his mature style. Still also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1943-45.

Still visited New York for extended stays in the late 1940s and became associated with two of the galleries that launched the new American art to the world — Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century Gallery and the Betty Parsons Gallery. Rothko introduced him to Peggy Guggenheim, who gave him a solo exhibition at her Art of This Century Gallery in early 1946. Later that year, the artist returned to San Francisco, where he taught for the next four years at the California School of Fine Arts.

He lived in New York for most of the 1950s, the height of Abstract Expressionism, but also a time when he became increasingly critical of the art world. In the early 1950s, Still severed ties with commercial galleries and in 1961 moved to Maryland, removing himself further from the art world. He remained in Maryland with his second wife, Patricia, until his death in 1980. Following his death, all works that had not entered the public domain were sealed off from both public and scholarly view. 

(Source for biography: Wikipedia)

FOOD:

A Holiday 

Dinner Party 

(4-6 people)

Roasted Pork Shoulder

Cocktails: Warm Cheese and Crackers

Wine: Big House Red

Entree: Roasted pork shoulder with apple dressing.

Side Salad: Roasted Tomato with diced roasted red peppers and watercress.

Warm Crusty Bread

Dessert: Rum Cake and Coffee

When guests arrive, fix your favorite mixed drink, then microwave some brie until soft and creamy. Serve with your choice of crackers and a spreader or butter knife.

Recipe for Roasted Pork Shoulder

1 four pound boneless pork shoulder

1 jar of cinnamon apple slices

2 Tbls chopped onion

2 Tbls chopped celery

2 Tbls butter

2 cups whole wheat toasted bread cubes

Pinch of ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

Start with a boneless pork shoulder and allow the meat to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before cooking. Cut a pocket for the dressing through the fatty side of the meat. Saute onion and celery in the butter for 5 minutes. Combine 1/4 cup syrup from apples with toasted bread cubes, salt and a pinch of nutmeg. Stuff the shoulder with this mixture. Pat the meat dry with a paper towel, score the fat with a crisscross pattern, spray all over lightly with cooking oil and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Place the shoulder on a rack in a roasting pan, fat side up. Cook the pork shoulder in a slow oven (325 degrees F.) for 3 hours. Add apple slices to the pan and cook for an additional 15 minutes. Remove and allow meat 10 minutes to rest before carving. Serve meat slices with some dressing. 

Recipe for Roasted Tomato with Roasted Red Peppers and Watercress.

Cut an x in the top of 6 tomatoes. The night before set oven to 150 degrees. Place tomatoes on a baking sheet and roast uncovered overnight  After cooking, cut the top off of the tomato, dress with diced roasted peppers, watercress and dressing (olive oil and white vinegar 3 to 1+ squeeze of lemon juice and a dash of salt & pepper). Serve this tomato salad on a separate salad plate.

Rum Cake

Buy a pound cake and slice it lengthwise into three layers. Spread Rum Custard Cream between the layers. Sprinkle dark rum on top of the cake, then spread with semisweet chocolate frosting. 

 - Recipe for Rum Custard

2 Tbls dark rum

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbls flour

1 egg beaten

2/3 cup light cream

1 cup heavy cream, whipped

In a double boiler add sugar, flour, egg and light cream. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Chill for 1 hour, then fold in whipped cream.

 - Recipe for Chocolate Rum Frosting

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate bits

2 Tbls soft butter

1/2 cup sifted confectioner's sugar

2 Tbls dark rum

Melt chocolate in a sauce pot or double boiler over hot, not boiling, water. Add butter, sugar and rum. Stir until smooth. Let cool 15 minutes or until it thickens some, then spread on cake.

Until later,

Jack

---------------------------------------

ARTSnFOOD All rights reserved. Concept & Original Text © copyright 2011 Jack A. Atkinson under all International intellectual property and copyright laws. Images are ©  copyright individual artists, fabricators, respective owners or assignees.