My Kardonne Experience
Original Sketch ©Joe Kardonne
As many of you know, I am the director for the South Jersey Branch of Dr. Sketchy's. We have many talented, and interesting people, attend every month. One of our most loyal monkeys is an artist by the name of Jim Penland.
A whole book could not begin to describe Jim. I won't even attempt too begin too in this blog. What I will say is that he is extremely influential as an artist and having met him has been a highlight of my creative career.
At the beginning of the summer, Jim went around and asked some fellow artists to participate in a retrospective show he is calling "The Kardonne Experience". Joe Kardonne was one of Jim's greatest friends and co-founder of Ocean City's Fine Arts League. It goes without saying that he was one of Ocean City's most prominent artists, but when he died he left all his paintings to the league in an effort to support and sustain the very organization he helped found..
Joe developed his style while working alongside renowned artists at The Art Students League in NY. He studied with greats such as B. Robinson, Thomas H. Benton, Jackson Pollack and numerous others. He was a prolific artist who worked constantly and when he passed away at the age of 94, he left 2 wet paintings in his studio.
Jim's idea was for everyone to take one of Joe's sketches and to reinterpret them in their own way. Feeling JIm's energy and enthusiasm for this project, I picked 3 of Joe's pieces in the hopes I would be able to participate. I was excited to get back to my fine arts roots and had my paints and canvases ready to go. It felt good to freely paint and the sound of the brush against the canvas was meditative.
I really enjoyed myself. Sadly I hated what I had done. It wasn't bad for the first painting in over...well, let's just say, in quite a few years. But, I didn't feel it was worthy of having Joe's name associated with it. Nor did it really reflect my artistic self as much as I would have liked.
Not to be discouraged I sat down and started to research Joe some more. Maybe there was something that I had missed. Something that would speak to me and point me in the direction I should be taking with his work. This is when I discovered that Joe himself had, at one point, formed his own Advertising Agency and found much success in the commercial art field. I now felt that reworking one of his pieces digitally wouldn't be such a bad thing. Actually, it just made sense. I scanned Joe's original, dropped it into photoshop, and away I went!
Upon intial viewing, one might say this is as much an homage to Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge as it is to Joe. But I implore you to research Joe yourself. Look at his works, talk to the people who knew him and you'll understand that everything done has been done for a reason....albeit, maybe tongue in cheek.
But, honestly, in the end, none of that really matters. Both Jim and Joe's purposes have been met. Joe continues to influence fellow artists and Jim opened up a whole new generation to Kardonne's work. My only regret is that I never got to meet Joe in person, but I should had fun learning about him! Besides, working on this project has brought me closer to understanding myself.
I thank Jim for asking me to participate and feel honored that he also asked that my piece be shown in the retrospective that started this past Sunday, the 12th of September. Right now the work can be seen in person at The Artist's Consortium in Millville. And I recently found out that the piece will again be hung during the 2011 Nov/Dec showing at the River Renaissance Center for the Arts.
Enjoy! I know I did.
