Friday, November 24, 2017

Sardine art


[Maudie (dir. Aisling Walsh, 2016).]

The Canadian artist Maud Lewis used sardine cans to hold her paints. Here, look. Notice the Campbell’s Soup can too, put to un-Warholian use.

Today is National Sardines Day. Let us, each in our own way, honor the small oily fish.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

comments: 8

The Crow said...

Yes, I noticed that, too. I've been saving sardine and tuna cans for my paintings for some time now. Perhaps it's time to do a sardine painting and put those cans to use!

Michael Leddy said...

I think you should take this post as a sign. :)

Frex said...

CROW: I sooooo want one of your sardine paintings to hang on my wall, and I haven't even seen one yet (since they don't exist yet).
Please paint some!!!
--Fresca

MICHAEL: I hope you don't mind me hijacking your comments here... :)

Michael Leddy said...

Not at all!

I’d prefer skinless and boneless, but full-fledged sardines would be funner to paint.

Fresca said...

Yes, à la Marsden Hartley.

Michael Leddy said...

Huh! The one piece of sardine art I know is Michael Goldberg’s Sardines (referenced in Frank O’Hara’s “Why I Am Not a Painter”), an abstraction, with traces of the word SARDINES on the canvas.

Frex said...

Well, I guess Hartley's are mackerel--hefty silvery rocket-shaped fish that remind me of sardines.
But there must be more art about sardines, surely? No?

Michael Leddy said...

There’s a wild one by Goya, The Burial of the Sardine, but it doesn’t show the sardine. I haven’t seen anything else by a Famous Artist.