First Friday: September 2023
Inspiration & Updates from Brian Madden Studio
“I am a lucky man, I have had a dream, and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.”
— Sir Edmund Hillary
I’m writing to you from the night sky between Auckland and San Francisco. It’s the final leg of our trip home from Australia, and the super blue moon is floating outside the window beside us like a spotlight on a black curtain, guiding us home.
This month we are celebrating the sixth edition of First Friday! It’s been six months since starting this newsletter, and it feels particularly special because I’ve just received word that artwork from my Six Months in Dogpatch collection has been accepted to The de Young Open 2023 triennial museum exhibition later this month.
Read on for more about The de Young Open and for stories from our last month in the southern hemisphere, for now:
What I’m Seeing: MONA in Hobart, Tasmania
What I’m Showing: Six Months in Dogpatch at The de Young Open
What I’m Reading: Sir Edmund Hillary: An Extraordinary Life
What I’m Hearing: Southern Hemisphere Send-off
You’re receiving First Friday because you’ve supported my artwork, visited my studio exhibitions, or signed up to stay in touch, and I appreciate you for it.
Thank you for being a part of this austral adventure! It’s time to keep building back in the states.
—
WHAT I’M SEEING: MONA in Hobart, Tasmania
The Museum of Old and New Art, or MONA, is set into a promontory point outside Hobart, Tasmania on River Derwent. Part world class art museum, part expression of owner and art collector David Walsh’s obsession with sex and death, and part 007 lair.
Actually, it’s 100% 007 lair. Guests come and go by a set of camouflage catamarans with their own VIP night clubs, and the compound boasts cavernous subterranean galleries, fine dining restaurants, a winery, a recording studio, and even a trampoline.
But theatrics aside, the art is the biggest draw at MONA, created by Walsh to display his personal collection. When I visited Tasmania last month, Jen and I knew we had to make the trip and I loved the art that captured moments in different media, with a sense of ephemeral randomness.
My favorite piece on view was Wind Section Instrumental by Australian artist Cameron Robbins, whose art harnesses the randomness of natural forces. For many years he has made drawings using machines (he calls them ‘instruments’) that transcribe the patterns of the wind. And on this brisk, sunny morning, Robbins’ instrument illustrated the intensity and direction of the wind through beautiful sweeping circles of a pen on paper. Created in 2018, the instrument works in 2-week stints, and museum staff members change the pens when they run out, rolling the paper a bit farther, and then documenting and archiving each completed roll.
I was drawn to this project because it reminds me of the turbulence drawings I’ve been doing on airplanes and boats to capture the ephemeral, unstable feeling of a profound lack of control, but on an expanded timeline and scale.
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Six Months in Dogpatch at The de Young Open
Six Months in Dogpatch is my collection that marked the first half year of artistic practice in my San Francisco studio. Each painting is an unexpected array of water, natural stone, epoxy, and paint thrown from my sculpting tools onto the walls of my spray booth throughout six months of sculpture creation, from June to December 2021. By dismantling and reframing the by-product of my sculptures as the artwork itself, I’m revealing abstract landscapes with their own stories to tell.
I’m honored to share that the Six Months in Dogpatch diptych above was chosen for The de Young Open 2023! The de Young Open 2023 is the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s triennial juried art exhibition featuring artists from the nine Bay Area counties. Designed to celebrate and support our local arts communities, The de Young Open 2023 invites you to see the creativity of the Bay Area under one roof—you might even find an artwork to make your own.
I’ve looked up to preeminent Bay Area Artists like Joan Brown who have participated in Open exhibitions like this one, and I’m looking forward to meeting more of my fellow 2023 artists.
Showing my work in The de Young Open feels especially personal, because when I first moved to San Francisco from Portland, Oregon, I used to spend quiet mornings in the de Young’s Hamon Observation Tower, drawing and journaling as I looked out on my new surroundings.
I invite you to come join me at the members preview days on September 28/29, and the public opening on September 30. If you can’t make it during the opening week, no worries – The de Young Open will be on display through January 2024. And now that I’m back in San Francisco, I’m available to walk through the exhibit with you. Let me know if you’d like to experience it together!
WHAT I’M READING: Sir Edmund Hillary: An Extraordinary Life
We wrapped up the last month of our southern hemisphere adventure with a visit to New Zealand. We made our way from down south in Queenstown on the wintery south island, and ended up in the Bay of Islands about 3 hours north of Auckland in the Northland, roughly the same latitude as Sydney.
As we passed through the Southern Alps, stopping by Aoraki / Mt. Cook, the country’s highest peak, we went for a rainy hike near where iconic New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary trained as a young mountaineer before partnering with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay to become the first duo to summit Mount Everest in 1953.
Climbing Mount Everest has become controversial due to the massive amount of waste generated at its camps, lack of regulations, and frequent loss of life. But in a book I came across while staying in the Far North District of New Zealand, I learned more about how much respect Edmund Hillary had for the natural landscape and the local community surrounding Everest, starting with his early days teaming up with the Sherpa people of Nepal.
Alexa Johnston’s biography of Hillary provided a captivating look into his notebooks, personal telegrams, and written correspondence throughout his life. I learned that the term Sherpa does not actually mean a guide or porter, but represents a broader Nepalese community of people who live in the Everest region, some of whom have partnered with generations of international explorers to achieve new heights. Hillary respected the Sherpa people so much that he devoted the second half of his life to helping build schools and hospitals to support the people of Nepal through his organization, the Himalayan Trust.
Hillary was vulnerable in his communication around the perils and misery of mountaineering, as well as his appreciation and respect for his teammates and the Sherpa people who had helped realize his adventures. His experience exploring both poles and the world’s highest peak inspires me to keep pushing my own limits.
WHAT I’M HEARING: Southern Hemisphere Send-off
This month I compiled a dynamic mix overheard in Sydney, Melbourne, and across Tasmania and New Zealand, as we wrapped up our stay in the Southern Hemisphere. The tone is a blend of summer and winter, and some of the songs also allude to our return to San Francisco.
The First Friday Playlist can only come from songs I’ve heard, received, discovered, and rediscovered out in the world. Songs are overheard at coffee shops, bars, galleries, received from friends IRL and online. And we do take requests, if you’ve got a favorite song you want to see on the list!
I will be playing highlights from this and previous First Friday playlists in my Dogpatch studio during San Francisco Open Studios this fall. I’ll be hosting two weekends, Oct 28-29 and Nov 18-19, and will share more details in the next edition. I would love to see you there!
In the meantime, thanks for joining me here. I’m excited to be writing this story with you, and I invite you to share with whoever you think would find inspiration in this series.
Thank you,
Brian
brian@brianbmadden.com
