Stephanie Goldman

The 180 degree picture-An Interview by Joe Nalven

2011-11-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

Stephanie Goldman was explaining her portrait American Woman to me as her husband Ken Goldman listened in. Stephanie made a remark about her 180-degree picture. I was puzzled. So was Ken. An interesting concept.

What is a 180-degree picture?

*SG:" The provenance of a painting is of great interest to me as a source of inspiration and historical inquiry. What 180 degrees refers to is that some of my portrait work, although initially inspired by historical paintings, adds a contemporary twist in content that places them about 180 degrees away from the historical portrait while still maintaining 180 degrees of similarity.

Stephanie Goldman / American Woman / 84" x 50"

What is the idea of your 180-degree from Sargent's Madame X?

SG: When reading about John Singer Sargent's Madame X, you find out she was a wealthy American ex-patriot living in Paris. Madame Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (Madame X) was a famous young, celebrated beauty and high society socialite. Sargent originally painted her with a fallen strap challenging the fashion morals of the times and consequently creating a big scandal.

Everything about my painting titled American Woman is 180 degrees apart from this.

Pam Whidden lives in America; she is a professional artist model wearing an off-the-hangar no-name polyester gown. She is not young, famous, rich, or couture beautiful and she is not part of the high society social club.

She is an average, middle class workingwoman wearing a tiara, hand made by a male artist friend.

Instead of a European antique table, her hand rests on a pair of large handmade metal candlesticks that were given to her by an artist friend who owed her money.

Sargent’s painting created a scandal because of the fallen strap, which he later repainted back up on her shoulder. A woman today is free to wear a strapless gown showing off a large bosom and can lift her hem to reveal an ankle, which was unacceptable at the time of Madame X.

The painting, American Woman, instead of being shown at a professional juried guild, was unveiled at a 2008 Athenaeum Student Exhibition to students, family, friends and invited art appreciators. This method of unveiling created its own scandal and buzz in the art community, where Pam regularly models.

Can you tell me about your teaching classes at the Athenaeum?

SG: The Athenaeum asked me to teach over ten years ago and it has been a very worthwhile experience. The creative people I meet through the class have enriched my life in more ways than I could have imagined and I am grateful that my husband, Ken, always encourages me to teach and share. At present I teach Tuesday mornings to a small, limited size class where artists/students come to learn, practice, explore and create artwork that stretches and strengthens them in new and classic directions all by focusing on the static figure.

Portraiture is a compelling place in art. It is so compelling that some places, like hospital waiting rooms, will make a point of keeping people out of their art up on the walls. And most of us have a sense of what we expect in portraits - at weddings, standing in front of a tourist attraction, family stuff. So there is a challenge for an artist to make something other than what is expected, even if it looks like it is expected. Well, that's only my opinion.

What attracts you to portraiture?

SG: Some of my first memories are from seeing small-reproduced classic portraits and paintings and wanting to create like that. As a young girl, I thought only a person who was chosen by G-D was able to make pictures like that by some kind of magic act. I had no idea of anything regarding talent, process, skill, art school or even what the job of an artist was. In 1986 Ken Goldman took me to the Norton Simon in Pasadena, my very first art museum. There we were walking through the Museum and I was crying like a baby. Poor Ken, we had not known each other that long and although he was my art instructor at the time, he had no idea how much it meant to me and had never seen anyone cry in front of paintings before. Since that first experience, I have traveled all over Europe and the US crying my eyes out awed by the feeling that art, especially portraiture, can move the human spirit.

It is funny in a way that we met each other before I knew you were an artist and that you were married to Ken.

SG: Yes. I first got to know you when I was fencing at the Fencing Academy in North Park. Are you still fencing?

Stephanie Goldman / Fencing Master / 54" x 36"

Fencing is such an awesome sport and I wish it had been part of my youth. As you know, fencing can be hard on the joints. “Foil elbow” forced me to take up saber and then after contracting “saber wrist,” I took up epee. During the summer evenings, I was taking saber lessons from Maestro Buzz and would see him take this classic pose with the blue evening sky framing his silhouette through an open door in the salle. Edwin Hurst (Buzz), is a personality that is unaffected by modern mores and political correctness. Fencers who man-up and take lessons with him know they are in for a ride and will come out the other end not only a better fencer, but also a stronger more solid person.

Sword master paintings have been a recurrent theme in art history, including those light sabers in Star Wars. I felt this was an opportunity to call attention to a stoic personality that required a visual interpretation through a classical portrait.

In painting the Fencing Master, I was inspired by Gari Melcher’s painting of the fencing master garbed for a foil lesson. My painting is the Fencing Master garbed for the Epee lesson where the whole body is target and requires the Master to where more protective leather gear from head to toe. The painting was unveiled to an appreciative clientele at a special 15-year celebration of the Cabrillo Fencing Academy.

How do you go about creating a portrait?

SG: I use a bottom-up style that allows me to freely create with all of the elements of portraiture - who, how, what, where, when and why? This eliminates the compartmentalization that exists in portraiture today and lets the portrait evolve in a zen-like manner of nowness by building one intuition, experience, and exchange upon another without the complexities of formal contracts and the like.
Written by
Joe Nalven

Artists add 'FUN' to Rady Children's MRI Suite

2011-07-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Artists commissioned to add ‘fun’ to MRI room at children’s hospital

By Emily DeRuy

A trip to the hospital can be daunting, but for children, the prospect can be downright scary. To ease their fears, Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego turned to art. In 2009, Aesthetics Inc. commissioned fine artists Ken and Stephanie Goldman to create 18 wall coverings for the newly renovated Rady Children’s Hospital. The husband-and-wife team was charged with transforming patient rooms, corridors, and the neonatal intensive care unit, into whimsical and “fun” spaces. To that end, the pair painted outdoor scenes, featuring everything from tide pools to outer space, using transparent watercolors on Arches watercolor paper and non-water soluble ink pen that were then enlarged seven or eight times.

Stephanie and Ken Goldman. Courtesy

It was not the first time the couple worked together. In the mid-1980s, Stephanie completed an apprenticeship with Ken that then evolved into a marriage and artistic partnership based out of Point Loma. Ken has authored seven instructional books and exhibited across the United States, Europe and Mexico. His work is displayed in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the San Diego Museum of Fine Art, and the San Diego Museum of Natural History.

Stephanie spent time living and studying in Europe, focusing on European and Renaissance art, as well as anthroposophic art therapy. Her child portrait series, “I Am A Child,” originally displayed in the Riverside Art Museum, is now in the permanent collection of the Osteopathic Center for Children and Families in San Diego.

Both Goldmans teach at the Athenaeum School of the Arts in La Jolla. They often collaborate, and have produced multiple large-scale mural projects, including works at the San Diego Humane Society and in private residences.

Reaction to their mural work at Rady has been overwhelmingly positive, and this year, the couple was asked by Sharp and Children’s MRI Center CEO Keith Prince to complete a series of murals and cartoon vignettes in Rady’s new MRI Center.

A child’s toy table with sea animals provided the inspiration for the art.

“When I described the theme and design ideas, they seemed to be very interested in conveying and developing the theme,” said Prince of the Goldmans. “They quickly provided renderings that matched the ideas we discussed. It was impressive how close the renderings were to the concepts.”

The murals are whimsical and upbeat to address children's fears.

Atypical of the art Ken and Stephanie usually produce, the murals feature cartoon images of sea life, and are intended to look like a seascape as viewed from a submarine — in this case, the MRI scanner.

Completed three days early in a total of eight days, the MRI room mural is 9 feet by 19 feet, while the waiting room mural is 4 feet by 8 feet. Featuring colorful fish and scuba-diving children, the murals are upbeat and fun. The pair also painted approximately 30 smaller vignettes throughout the rooms, and four small images directly onto the MRI scanner.

Like the artwork the couple previously completed for the hospital, the studies were originally done in watercolor and then scaled to fit the walls. The final works were done in acrylic, without airbrush or spray guns, due to potential interference with the MRI machine.

When asked why two award-winning artists who have exhibited works internationally would devote time to painting cartoon images at Rady, Ken’s answer was simple: “Being able to bring artwork to kids who are frightened and need brightening up in a sterile environment was a great opportunity.”

MRI machine has artful "distractions."

If the young patients who have seen the murals and vignettes so far are any indication, the Goldman's have succeeded. Children enter the room and immediately investigate the underwater scenes, pronouncing them “cool” and “fun.” Some have even developed stories for the creatures they see on the walls, a perfect distraction from what for many of the kids is a litany of medical procedures and tests.

See more great images from this project by going here.

Woman Peacemaker-Zeinab of the Sudan

2011-02-22T00:22:00.000-08:00

Woman Peacemaker-Zeinab of the Sudan Oil on Canvas 36x24"

I met a courageous woman from the Sudan at the Joan B. Kroc Institute For Peace And Justice who's "Ruya" or "Vision" was to create a sharing environment for women to come together and problem solve issues being fought over in their neighboring war torn villages.

Zeinab Blandia's story "A View Through The Mountains" was so moving to me I painted her portrait as an acknowledgement of how the conscious leadership efforts of one person can make a qualitative difference in the local lives of many people.

The Fencing Master-Maestro Edwin Hurst-Epee Lesson

2010-07-27T23:49:00.000-07:00

"He is serious about teaching his students, reprimanding them when they treat fencing as a sport instead of a combat art."

"The Fencing Master" Oil on Canvas 54x36"

I have painted this portrait of my trenchant Fencing Master wearing the accoutrements for the epee lesson. Maestro Edwin Hurst is the Maidtre d'Armes of Cabrillo Academy Of The Sword, located in what was formerly a Church Sanctuary. Below his Fencing Salle is Lestat's a 24 hour coffee bar featuring live nightly entertainment. The two establishments duel it out five nights a week where upon upstairs you hear the slashing and gnashing of steel and downstairs the whaling and banging of voices, strings and drums. Artists, duels and cafe culture have a grand affinity for one another as related in this interesting story about Manet.

Gary Melchers "The Fencing Master" 1900

This exquisite painting by American impressionist Gary Melchers, depicts a Fencing Master in the accoutrements of the Foil Lesson.
Maestro di Scherma-The Fencing Master-El Maestro de Esgrima Arturo Perez Reverte part 1

The Fencing Master Portrait Unveiling at Cabrillo Academy of the Sword

The Fencing Master-Maestro Edwin Hurst Unveiling February 5, 2011

The new painting Portrait of a Fencing Master-The Epee Lesson was unveiled February 5, 2011 with great fanfare. The full figure standing portrait of Maestro Edwin Hurst was painted in the classical tradition, 4 1/2 ft. x 3 ft. oil on canvas by Stephanie Goldman.

The unveiling took place at Cabrillo Academy of the Sword during the celebration of their 15 year anniversary. A special operatic performance was also given by Victoria Mature singing “The Sword Aria” (que-fais-tu) from Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet and also performing was the San Diego Bag Pipes and Drums with their Scottish Dancers.

In attendance for this very special evening was Cabrillo club members, family, friends and invited guests.

Ahlame-Homage to Sappho

2010-04-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

"Ahlame-Dance of the Poetess" Oil on Canvas 36x24"

On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite,

child of Zeus, weaving wiles--I beg you
not to subdue my spirit, Queen,
with pain or sorrow

but come--if ever before
having heard my voice from far away
you listened, and leaving your father's
golden home you came

in your chariot yoked with swift, lovely
sparrows bringing you over the dark earth
thick-feathered wings swirling down
from the sky through mid-air

arriving quickly--you, Blessed One,
with a smile on your unaging face
asking again what have I suffered
and why am I calling again

and in my wild heart what did I most wish
to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade
back into the harness of your love?
Sappho, who wrongs you?

For if she flees, soon she'll pursue,
she doesn't accept gifts, but she'll give,
if not now loving, soon she'll love
even against her will."

Come to me now again, release me from
this pain, everything my spirit longs
to have fulfilled, fulfill, and you
be my ally

--Translated by Diane Rayor

Who is the mythic poetess Sappho (c.600 BCE) and does the mystery of her voice still resonate with the songs of love and freedom for you? Whether she is translated as the Victorian Sappho or The Complete Poems of Sappho responding to her poetry goes unabated and inspires deeply a poets love of love and words. Sappho is the uninhibited voice of the poetess in love with eternal love as the painter is with ephemeral light.

Sappho by Auguste Charles Mengin (1853-1933)
You can celebrate April the national Month of Poetry by reading about Sappho at N.S. Gill's Ancient History Blog or here at Mythography.

"Sanguine Drawing"

2010-01-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

Sanguine Drawing -Iron oxide pigments on Stonehenge 25x36 in.

This Sanguine Drawing was created with titanium white and iron oxide pigments drawn, smeared, hatched, wiped, erased and painted using an alcohol medium on a half sheet of stonehenge paper while working from the live model. It is an often returned to color for me wether I use it in ink, chalk, powder or oil.

I was first drawn to the allure of Sanguines upon seeing the British Museum's extensive Guercino Drawings from British Collections exhibition in 1991.

The Annunciation by Guercino 1591-1666

In this initial body of work I wanted to capture as closely as possible the line quality and emotional appeal I experienced as a viewer of Guercino's drawings. My study culminated into a body of works on paper, all pen and ink, called Drawings From the Abbey. Using Gillott #1 Nibs and Pebeo Sanguine Ink eventually combining several different brands to make a tone that more closely matched the one in my minds eye.

The Annunciation After Guercino Sanguine Ink on Paper 14"x11"

More information about drawing with sanguine pigment and materials can be found here.

WOMEN PEACEMAKERS-Bearing Exquisite Witness Arts Festival

2009-08-11T07:34:00.001-07:00

USD: KSPS: IPJ: WPM: Fine Art Exhibits

"The Three Furies" Oil on Canvas 40x43"

Exhibit by Stephanie Goldman

Inspired by her recent travels to Morocco, Stephanie Goldman explores issues of gender, culture, religion and identity through exotic images rich with symbolism. The piercing gazes of her subjects ensconced in vivid hues immediately evoke issues of identity, agency, rights and universal humanity. Goldman explains the impetus for this exhibit having sprung from an ardent desire to bear witness, allowing observers an opportunity for personal reflection on the meaning they find in her pieces.

USD : KSPS: IPJ: WPM: BEW Schedule

2009-08-11T07:32:00.001-07:00

Bearing Exquisite Witness Arts Festival

September 24-26, 2009

Presented as part of the 2009

Women PeaceMakers Program

Bearing Exquisite Witness is a three-day event, held in conjunction with the institute's Women PeaceMakers Program, to highlight the ability of the arts to transform individuals and reconcile communities who have suffered conflict and violence. The Festival showcases playwrights, filmmakers, poets, musicians, visual artists and academics from the fields of theater arts and conflict resolution who are using the creative power of art to raise awareness, prevent violence, help communities recover, change policies of exclusion and heal trauma. I have been invited to exhibit my work at this special event.

I Am A Child

2009-05-15T07:39:00.001-07:00

I Am A Child
I am a child,  All the world waits for my coming.  All the earth watches with interest  To see what I shall become.  The future hangs in the balance,   For what I am  The world of tomorrow will be. I am a child,   I have come into your world about which I know nothing.  Why I came I know not.  How I came I know not.  I am curious  I am interested. I am a child,  You hold in your hand my destiny.  You determine, largely,  whether I shall succeed or fail.  Give me, I pray you,   Those things that make for happiness.  Train me, I beg you,  That I may be a blessing to the world.
This statement, written in Chinese and English, appears at the entrance to the Guideposts Kindergarten in Hong Kong.
The Riverside Art Museum proudly exhibited fourteen paintings from the “I AM A CHILD” Series by the artist, Stephanie Goldman. This solo exhibition was presented in our Mezzanine Gallery from January 19 thru March 4, 2006.
"Stephanie Goldman’s approach towards child portrait painting is truly fresh and unique. One could study the history of painting, and not find another contemporary artist that has captured an adult’s perspective or angle of view of children as well as Ms. Goldman. Her painterly technique accurately portrays the innocent and vulnerable qualities of childhood that are universally valued within all communities and cultures. We were specifically impressed by the mezmerizing quality of the “eyes” in the paintings---which follow the viewer as he/she moves around the gallery space." Daniel Foster Executive Director Riverside Art Museum

The "I Am A Child" series was purchased by an anonymous donor for the Osteopathic Center for Children & Families and can be seen there today.
All of the children chosen for these paintings were three years old. Each painting is oil on canvas, 48 x 24 inches.

You may download a catalog from the exhibition for free at: I Am A Child

Portrait of an American Woman-Pam Whidden

2009-05-10T14:23:00.001-07:00

Today's American Woman dares it all against the social mores of yesterday Strapless then and now. She can and will push the boundaries of convention. She is a celebrity in her own social clique, bringing attention to the anonymous fashion designer, artist and sculptor. She partakes in the dangers and curiosities of life and dreams the prognostications of tomorrow. As the iconic mother of America she will risk everything so freedom and justice reigns for all her citizens. Anonymously and with unchecked aging, she works and gives generously for beauty and connectivity to each passing moment.

Portrait of an American Woman oil on canvas 84x50 in.
Last century it was Madame Gautreau aka. Madam X, the well known American woman living a chic ex-patriot Parisian lifestyle portrayed as a model unsettling the status quo. My modern portrait is of Pam Whidden, a known American Woman and real life model living the heart of the American experience and participating as a free citizen in her own country and unsettling the elites.

John Singer Sargent 1884 oil on canvas

Aristotle said, "The aim of Art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their INNER significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes TRUE reality."

Sacred Pathos & Catherine of Siena

2009-05-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

Tiepolo's use of bravura brushstrokes, virtuoso narrative and depiction of Catherine of Siena left a memorable impression on my minds eye. The visual pathos he captured moved me to paint a derivative of the original. I chose to use a limited color palette of raw umber, burnt sienna, carmine, naples yellow, ultramarine blue and flake white, based on my visual memory of the painting.

Catherine of Siena oil on Canvas 24x18 in.

Giambattista Tiepolo Oil on Linen 1746

The Pierced One

2009-04-05T23:33:00.001-07:00

The Pierced One oil on canvas 60 x 36 in.
The painting by Alonso Cano and Yves Klein have influenced me greatly since first viewing them. They are strong, emotional compositions for different reasons making further representation unsurpassable. The two artists used light, color and composition to create an artistic divine sensibility for the visible and invisible.

YVES KLEIN-IKB 79 1959
I combined 17th century baroque pictorial ideas and 60's neo-Dadaists elements to create a picture with transcendental luminescence. Merging corporeality with conceptual freedom to create form that is embodied. Rather than portraying physical light, I use color to represent transcendence.

ALONSO CANO oil on canvas, 1667

Rembrandt Redux-Red

2009-03-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

Rembrandt Redux -mene, mene, tekel, upharsin translated literally as, “It has been counted and counted, weighed and divided.” The story of Belshazzar's Feast ignites artist's imaginations as it vividly illustrates a universal human drama repeating itself by moderns today. I used many flavors and brands of red paint to redux Rembrandt's painting as a story wrought with colorful emotional chaos. Warm and cool red pigments layered in thick and thin crescendos of rising and falling textures and transparent glazes creating a sprezzatura effect.

The Hand Writing on the Wall Oil on Linen 39x59 in.

Rembrandt Belshazzar's Feast Oil on canvas, 168 x 209 cm

Rembrandt Redux

2009-03-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

Saul and David, a story that serves as a reminder to every generation how envy is as corruptible to the human spirit today as in ancient times. Rembrandt used strong chiaroscuro, atmosphere and low intensity earth colors to create his dramatic emotional masterpieces.In Rembrandt Redux-Revisiting Envy, I used high intensity color to create an illuminating light and hundreds of layers of transparent glazes to suggest a rich, deep mysterious dark. The emotional nature of color creates a strong visual drama for "envy" that draws the viewer in to see a familiar picture and story in a new way.

Revisiting Envy Oil on Canvas 36x59 in.

Rembrandt Oil on Canvas 1655-1660

Joan Of Arc-Sovereign

2009-03-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

The artist should paint her spirit -- then he could not fail to paint her body aright. She would rise before us then, a vision to win us, not repel: a lithe young slender figure, instinct with "the unbought grace of youth," dear and bonny and lovable, the face beautiful, and transfigured with the light of that lustrous intellect and the fires of that unquenchable spirit. ......she is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced. Mark Twain

Joan of Arc Oil on Canvas 48x24 in.
Was she Genius or Saint asks Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw in his play Saint Joan or in her seeming insanity did a larger sanity encounter the status quo questions Poet Li-Young Lee. Was Joan of Arc the first Individualist at a time when only acquiescence to the Catholic community counted? Francoise Meltzer writes insightfully on this subject in her book For fear of the fire: Joan of Arc and the limits of subjectivity.

The biography of Joan of Arc continues to be relevant to our modernity that is distant yet similar to her own, mirroring the continued struggle to maintain personal and social liberty. I think Jane Marie Pinzino has gleaned the seminal theme from the life of Joan of Arc: "FREEDOM--freedom in three senses, the political freedom of a people, the spiritual freedom of the individual and the perfect freedom of God." I humbly add my painting along side those of other artists homages offered to the living legacy of Joan of Arc.

"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying." Joan of Arc

Swynnerton, Annie Louise (English, 1844-1933)

Sir John Everett Millais 1865

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1863

Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 1854

Painting Bathsheba

2009-02-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

Bathsheba Oil on Linen 36x24 in.

Limited Color Palette with Robert Doak Paints

Carlo Brulleau

Rembrandt

Willem Drost

Hans Memling
Wanting to more fully understand classic painting and traditional methods as taught by the Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy, I found those same techniques being demonstrated by Adrian Gottlieb in Los Angeles, California. The painting started in LA and was completed over time in my SD studio. Bathsheba has been inspiring Artists for centuries and today is no different. A woman who lived many different roles in her life; she was a daughter, wife, adulteress, widow, royal harem wife, mother and Queen. Her first child from the illicit affair dies and as a beloved wife of King David she has her second child King Solomon known for his wisdom, wealth, writings and the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. A persons life has many twists and turns and often so does a work of art as this paintings provenance continues to unfold.

Retired Palettes

2009-02-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

Color is delicious and inspiring and the palette is where pigment and artist meet to make m a g i c with logic. Like the smells on a chef's chopping block, artist's palettes tell a fabulous story. Studying the palettes of other painters has helped me to create order out of what can easily be chaos. How many pigments an artist uses can vary from colors available at any one time, cost of a pigment or from painting to painting. These are some of my old but favorite retired palettes.

I used to do all of my mixing on the canvas, then I did most of my mixing on the palette and now I do a combination of both. I like to have available the option of lots of color knowing I can always limit my choices. After all, I live in Southern California where the light is bright and the colors are everywhere. Check out this website for analysis of how some of the great masters have inspired us with their palette magic. http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/20/color-inspiration-from-the-masters-of-painting/