{"id":4706,"date":"2013-01-13T18:30:38","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T23:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/?p=4706"},"modified":"2014-12-14T19:17:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T00:17:24","slug":"portraits-of-la-mama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/13\/portraits-of-la-mama\/","title":{"rendered":"Portraits of La MaMa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ellen<\/a>

Ellen Stewart, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club<\/a>, one of the world’s great laboratories for cultivating new talent and exploring new directions in the performing arts, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2011. \u00a0Eric Marciano, an independent filmmaker for whom I have often worked as a videographer, produced some video pieces about the history and future of this great creative hothouse, and he asked me to draw portraits of a few of the key people interviewed or profiled in the clips, and to animate the process of creating the drawings. \u00a0Eric’s company, American Montage<\/a>, recently posted the resulting clips to \u00a0its\u00a0Vimeo page<\/a>, so I can share them here with my blog readers. \u00a0The video is embedded at the bottom of this post (but those who receive the blog by email subscription will have to follow the link to see it on the web).<\/p>\n

These drawings could not be done from life, as I always prefer in portrait drawing, but had to be done from photographs, or, in most cases, freeze-frames from video interviews. \u00a0They also had to be made to fit the wide 16 by 9 aspect ratio used for high-definition video, not the frame I would usually select for a portrait. \u00a0This means much of the frame would be background, so I’d need to develop background designs for each face. \u00a0I set up an easel with a camera on a tripod behind it, and as I worked on the drawings I stopped frequently to snap photographs of the work in progress. \u00a0The photographs were used to make animations of the drawings as they come into being, layer by layer.<\/p>\n

In “Faces of Figureworks<\/a>“, the exhibition featuring self-portraits by fifty artists currently on view (through March 3, 2013) at Brooklyn’s Figurework<\/a>s Gallery, I’m showing a new self-portrait drawing alongside a similar, but slower, animation of that drawing’s evolvement, displayed on a digital photo frame.<\/p>\n

I remember being fascinated as a kid by Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 film Le myst\u00e8re Picasso<\/em><\/a>, in which the famous artist painted on back-lit glass panels so the development and alteration of the works is recorded as it happens in time. \u00a0It made me aware of drawing as a time-based artform. \u00a0While we usually see drawings or paintings only in their finished form, their creation is a process of movement and change. \u00a0Many of the directions I have explored in my own work, including painting as a performance, and many posts here on\u00a0Drawing Life<\/em>, have been my attempts to explore my own process, and to share that process with others.<\/p>\n

In this post I’ll share the drawings I made for the La MaMa video, with stills of each drawing in its finished form, and brief introductions of the subjects, and at the bottom of the post I’ll share the animated clip.<\/p>\n

So many famous writers, performers, directors, designers, and composers have been associated with La MaMa that a small selection of portraits like this is necessarily a somewhat arbitrary sampling, but one name is essential. \u00a0La MaMa was the creation and lifelong project of Ellen Stewart<\/a>, also known as Mama, whose portrait leads this post above. \u00a0Stewart, a fashion designer, started La MaMa as a performance\u00a0caf\u00e9 in 1961, a supportive place for the burgeoning creative experimentation of 1960’s New York and soon a magnet for artists from all over the world who were drawn to its cross-cultural playground of theatrical magic.<\/p>\n

\"Andrei<\/a>

Andrei Serban, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Stage director Andrei Serban<\/a> is known for innovative approaches to classic texts with enveloping theatrical pageantry.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>

John Kelly, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Artist, singer and dancer John Kelly<\/a> transforms his persona to explore the worlds and psyches of Egon Schiele, Joni Mitchell, and Caravaggio, among others.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a>

Peter Brook, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the 1950’s, director Peter Brook<\/a> has been making spectacular, visceral theater and film with an international cast of collaborators.<\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth<\/a>

Elizabeth Swados, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Composer, writer, and director Elizabeth Swados<\/a> makes exciting music and theater, crossing every boundary of style and genre.<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/a>

Christopher Tanner, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Visual artist and performer Christopher Tanner<\/a> approaches everything he does with extravagant maximalism.<\/p>\n

\"Mia<\/a>

Mia Yoo, 2011, by Fred Hatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Mia Yoo<\/a>, a former actress in La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company, is Ellen Stewart’s successor, the Artistic Director of La MaMa ETC since Stewart’s death in early 2011.<\/p>\n

And here’s the film, courtesy of Eric Marciano and American Montage, Inc. \u00a0There is a glitch in the first clip, where Peter Brook’s background disappears and reappears at the end, but this should give you a good look at how my drawing process works. \u00a0I believe the music is an excerpt from an Iggy Pop song. \u00a0If you don’t see the video here, follow this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n