{"id":2409,"date":"2009-07-24T00:14:57","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T07:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=2409"},"modified":"2009-07-24T00:14:57","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T07:14:57","slug":"a-case-of-the-human-condition-a-female-painter-named-squeak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-case-of-the-human-condition-a-female-painter-named-squeak\/","title":{"rendered":"Squeak Carnwath — A (Female) Painter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"squeak-carnwath-paintings-at-oakland-museum\"By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/p>\n

Squeak Carnwath’s paintings — now on view at the Oakland Museum — strike me as consummately female. They muse, they introspect, they meander, they talk (lotsa writing on these paintings) — like\u00a0most women I know.<\/p>\n

Which\u00a0makes me wonder how\u00a0Squeak’s work\u00a0might have been received in an earlier era. Probably not at all. Her paintings lack that (male!) power and\u00a0directiveness. They don’t try for (masculine!) authority.<\/p>\n

Instead they explore. A quotation at the entrance of the show puts it nicely:\u00a0“The matter of being alive is something to be investigated.”<\/p>\n

It was my friend Nini Lofstrom who took me\u00a0to see\u00a0Squeak’s show\u00a0the other day, and we lost ourselves in it.\u00a0The Oakland Museum exhibition\u00a0represents the last 15 years of Squeak’s work<\/a>, a period in which Squeak has “come into her own,” according to the docent who explained a few things to us.<\/p>\n

The docent\u00a0also explained those black disks, which I find\u00a0harsh but which Squeak likes the looks of: They represent old-time phonograph records.\u00a0Squeak shows\u00a0only the records’\u00a0Side One. And that,\u00a0she says, is\u00a0just like life:\u00a0You don’t get to see the other side.<\/p>\n

Nini was taken with the shimmering, layered effects of\u00a0Squeak’s\u00a0oil and alkyd <\/em>\u00a0technique. I was too. There is a depth and complexity there that struck me — again —\u00a0as feminine.<\/p>\n

(I love art-viewing with Nini. She has a great eye: Witness the art museum of a\u00a0house she’s built, decorated and rents out\u00a0in San Miguel, Mexico.)<\/p>\n

Squeak is a California artist who’s taught art for three decades. She taught (Nini) at the Univerisity of California-Davis, and is now a tenured professor of art practice at UC-Berkeley. She’s had fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.<\/p>\n

Squeak Carnwath’s show\u00a0was at the Oakland Museum of California\u00a0in 2009.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Squeak Carnwath’s paintings strike me as consumately female. They muse, they introspect, they meander, they talk (lotsa writing on them) — like most women I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[347,348,349,350,351,352,353,354],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-california-painters","tag-female-art","tag-feminist-painting","tag-nini-lofstrom","tag-oakland-museum","tag-squeak-carnwath","tag-uc-berkeley-art","tag-women-painters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}