Sans, Souci.

Sanssouci palace in the winter sun

One year ago I was visiting friends in Berlin and we went out to Potsdam, to see the famous Frederician Rococo palace of Sanssouci (written on its façade as Sans, Souci. I have no idea why.) It was an exceptionally clear and sunny day and the yellow lime-washed stucco was particularly vibrant.  "This is the color of joy" I told my friends. I always associate that bright yellow with a happiness beyond reason.

Today I am working on a color scheme for a building with curséd white vinyl windows,  and have been  looking for examples of white-windowed buildings as reference, and so I am studying at this image I shot in Potsdam: warm grey limestone, pure yellow ochre pigment, black soot, verdigris copper.

One year ago today I heard the news that Japan had been stuck by a terrible earthquake and an even more devastating tsunami.   So today also I am also thinking of my friends in Japan and wishing them no worries.


photo by Lynne Rutter:  Potsdam, Germany,  March 2011
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Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

Exterior Color: Waking up the Neighborhood

Apartment building with color design by Lynne Rutter

Here is a color project from last year, a large building in San Francisco with condominiums and an office on the ground floor. Inside are lovely flats, all quite spacious and nicely finished.  The owners called me wanting the exterior of their building to look more like a nice residence, full of stylish people, like it is on the inside.

Before: Apartment block D

Before: the front door of despair.

Now look at the "before" picture. It looked more like a correctional facility than a nice place to live. Grey stucco and white vinyl windows and no personality whatsoever.  Could  you imagine coming home to this every day? 

The entrances were particularly  sad. You could not  see the addresses, the garage doors were unfinished metal and starting to rust. It was so indifferent as to be downright depressing.  

Because of the scale of the work to be done, the budget was of course an issue, so a lot of things I might suggest to embellish or personalize this facade we could not do here.   So, it all came down to color.  Talk about personal--- color can be so subjective, and people react emotionally to it.  Can you please everyone?  Of course not.  But if you go out of your way to avoid color you can end up with a desolate, if inoffensive, look.  When faced with a choice between "not for everyone"  and "not for anyone"   I choose color!   Can just color make this building look more like home?  Yes!

Entrance to posh homes

White vinyl windows are a curse for a colorist like me.  I think they really cheapen the look of a building and make it really hard to use deep or committed colors. They seem to be a standard in a lot of new construction so I have learned to deal with them.  In this case, with white as a mandatory part of the palette, I countered it by including some black, used on anything made of metal- railings, beams, etc. 

There is no question in my mind that the Homeowners Association putting work into the exterior of the building would not only improve the lives of the residents but improve the value of the building and the potential sale price of every condo inside it.

I was delighted to work with the HOA of this building because  everyone was so willing to try what looked like such a daring color. This took commitment, trust, and teamwork to accomplish.   After seeing the palette sampled on the building, one homeowner remarked "well this ought to wake up the neighborhood!"    The deep curry gold really glows in the sun and is full of life at night.  Accents of green/grey, sage, and mahogany brown call out the entrances which now have a welcoming quality to them. 

 



Color Consulting by Lynne Rutter 415-282-8820
Paint colors by Sherwin-Williams
Painting by Winning Colors

all photos in this post by Lynne Rutter
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Lynne Rutter Studio

The Colorful Frescoes of Rila Monastary

One beautiful and very hot day in June, we visited Rila Monastery, in the mountains 117km south of Sofia, Bulgaria.  And I had my camera with me.

ceiling detail with the baptism of Christ,  Rila Monestary

Rila Monastery was founded in the 10th century  by the hermit St Ivan of Rila, who lived in a tiny cave in the hills above this site. The monastery was built by his students, and over centuries grew to become the largest and most important center for religious and cultural activities in the country.  During the Ottoman Empire rule of Bulgaria 1396-1878, the monastery took on the role of bulwark of the Bulgarian cultural identity in the face of foreign occupation, and a destination for pilgrimages from all over the Balkan region.

The interior courtyard of Rila Monastery and the Cathedral Рождество Богородично

We hired a driver for the day because I heard heard the bus trips don't allow much time to visit before you must to return to Sofia.  When we arrived in Rila our driver offered to come back in one hour to pick us up and take us to another place.   I showed him my camera and shook my head. Just leave me here. Come back tomorrow maybe.  Erling laughed, and offered to call the driver sometime before dark. My Ornamentalist Enabler.

painted doorway in the monastery

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bulgarian culture and identity enjoyed a renaissance during the National Revival.  During this period Rila Monastery was destroyed by a fire, and rebuilt as we see it today, using a design typical of the Revival style of architecture and decoration.

Surrounding the church at the center of the courtyard, is the pleasant, four-story high residence of the monastery, decorated with simple painted designs in black and white and red, in geometric and floral motifs.
  These areas reminded me of the old mission churches in California.

Erling studying a panel on the Sin of False Confession

The domed porch surrounding the church is painted with intensely colorful frescoes, which have been recently cleaned and restored and really glow. I could almost hear and feel the color.   Especially that blue.  Every surface is covered with scenes of stories from the bible painted in pure, vivid hues.

Christ depicted in one of the domes of the porch

Completed in 1846,  the frescoes are the work of the famous Bulgarian muralist Zahari Zograf and his brother, the icon artist Dimitar Zograf, as well as many master artists from the schools of  Bansko, Samokov and Razlog.

In the spaces between domes are illustrations of stories from the Bible

Orthodox art observes a rigid standard of stylistic representation of sacred figures.  In between these iconic scenes however, are moments of decorative brilliance representative of the Bulgarian revival of folk art.

Archangels: detail of a fresco in the Rila porch

The palette is pigment-based and uses some lovely combinations of gold and green, blue and red, rose and brown.  In some places one of the red pigments has turned black, possibly due to exposure, or from a chemical reaction to the fumes from gas lamps that had been in use in the past.

ornamental elements support the architecture

I spent well over two hours studying the porch frescoes before taking a break and enjoying some Bulgarian donuts and a stroll around the rest  of the grounds, visiting the museum and touring the enormous monastery kitchens.  The inside of the cathedral was under restoration but still breathtaking, with an iconostasis [by Athanasios Taladuro of Thessalonica] a spectacular, intricately carved and gilt wall of icons.

Archangel Michael  / Архангел Михаил

Erling and I returned to the porch where I got out my 105mm lens and had another long look the frescoes and discussed their meaning.  Later we reconnected with our friendly driver,  who took us up the mountain to the 1/2 mile trail that leads through the most beautiful woods to the small cave where St Ivan spent his ascetic life.

A priest at Rila Monastery

The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila is UNESCO World Heritage site which receives nearly nine hundred thousand visitors each year. It is still an active  monastery and a pilgrimage site.  
There are volunteers inside the church who will give you a green cloak to wear over your head and shoulders if you are not modestly attired. I always travel with my own scarf  in case I need to cover my head in  the church, mosque, or temple I am visiting.

One of the priests was keeping a dignified watch over the area to make sure the younger tourists  behaved.  I showed him my camera monitor after taking this picture and asked his permission to use this photo.


More from Bulgaria:   Opus Lisatum
Erling Wold:  "Certitude and Joy"   mp3
performed by the Sofia Philharmonic, June 2, 2011

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In this post I wish to express my profound gratitude to my teacher and mentor, Dr. Otto Mower, with whom I traveled to Bulgaria in 1980 on my first visit to Europe, as part of a study tour of art history.    That I became  a decorative artist was in large part due to his influence and encouragement.  Dr. Mower passed away on February 7, 2012.  

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all images in this post by Lynne Rutter, Bulgaria June 2011 
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 Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

Top 5 Policies to Make Your Blog Better

I read somewhere  on a list of top 10 blog tips, that people like numbers and lists.  Post titles such as  "12 tips for faster sewing" or "The top 7 Color Mistakes and How to Avoid Them" will attract more attention and appeal to people needing guidance on your subject. Hence the title of this post.

Self-portrait, Lower Belvedere Palace, Vienna

I have been a bit slow with my blog lately.   In addition to just being very busy with other work, I have to admit a large reason why I have not been posting more often,  is that I am feeling inhibited, after finding a staggering number of my images being used without credit or permission, in many cases being passed off as the work of another.  I found one blog using 15 of my images and claiming the work as their own (it has since been taken down you can be assured). I recently saw some of my work on a blog where the titles of the image files were something like "blogger/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Screen-shot-2010-11-07.png"    The poster rather obviously did a screen grab of the image via an image search, and left the date of the offense right there in the image title for all to see.

It's depressing for a visual artist such as myself, that there are now so many bloggers and Pinterest pinners and Facebook sharers (and splogs!)  out there with really bad manners.  Seems like every time I talk to a photographer they are complaining about blogs and Pinterest and the users of the world wide web's lack of respect for copyright and original content. 

So in a concerted effort not to rant (too much), here is a post on simple policies on sharing content you can enact for your blog, to make it better, more relevant, and ultimately more interesting.

1. Use original content.
What is the purpose of your blog?  Assuming you want people to read  what you are publishing, think about why.   The blogosphere is too full of compiler blogs that just re-post other articles or images or entire blog posts from elsewhere without any comment or editing.  They are boring.  They make their authors look boring. Obvious gimmicks trying to drum up traffic using other people's images or writing is boring.  Please, don't be boring.  Have something to say, put your own mark on what you are doing, reveal a new insight,  say what you think!    Original content will make your blog a valued resource and garner its own, unique  following. Use your blog to express something of yourself.  Otherwise, really, what's the point? 

2. When you post your own images,  mark them.
 Whenever possible if you can add your name or blog address to your image prior to posting it, then it will be clear, wherever else it ends up, where it came from. This can take a little time to do nicely but it's worth it.  I don't think it needs to be stamped across the front obscuring the images, but just noticeable enough.  If you are concerned about not being given proper credit, insist on it, by marking your images.

3. State your sharing policy
A Creative Commons License makes it easy for you to state your policy on sharing and use of your work.  If you are publishing under a Creative Commons License, as I generally am, (see my side bar) your readers will have access to a detailed policy on sharing your work.  

If you want to retain full copyright,  and not have anything pinned or shared or copied, there is a license for that, too, or you can simply say so.  At the wonderful blog  Art and Alfalfa, the copyright notice is posted directly under the header.  I respect Gina's copyright and if I want to share her beautiful and original work with you I can ask her myself, or I can simply repeatedly link to her lovely site so you can go there and see it.

I admit I was pretty flattered to see so much of my work from both my portfolio and my blog being shared at Pinterest.  Note that all of my images are marked and that Pinterest does link back to me.  so we're cool.

4.  Please, give credit where it's due!
I  understand the enthusiastic sharing of beautiful images, but it's just bad manners not to respect a posted policy and in many cases it's also illegal.
Cite sources for images you are posting, and wherever possible the name of the designer, photographer, artist, etc. in the caption or elsewhere in the post.  Do not just swipe images, or do screen captures, to illustrate your blog.   Make some effort to give credit. Your readers might really want to know where those leopard print loafers came from, or who did that beautiful painting.   The original creator of that image was nice enough to share it;  don't be rude by not acknowledging their contribution.
Citing "via Pinterest" is not really giving credit, it's a cop-out that translates to "co-opted from someone else's research."  If you did get an image from Pinterest (or Google or Bing or Wikipedia, etc) you should at least link back to it, or better yet, go to that image and click on it and it will take you to its original site. You won't have to drill down far to find its original source.  Make the small effort to give credit and you appear knowledgeable, trustworthy, and connected.

Before posting this image on Pinterest, I researched its origin using src-img

If you cannot figure out where an image came from, try searching for it using the outstanding reverse image lookup tool called Source Image:   src-img
This is a marvelous free bookmarklet:  put it in your browser toolbar, and when you click on it, it will ask you which image you are looking for-click on the question marks (see above) and it will deliver a Google search of the image or ones similar to it to assist you in finding the original source of it. I have been able to track down the origin of an image in 10 seconds or less. Surely you can spare 10 seconds to find the author or source of an image. Don't you want to know where that wonderful image came from? The above image I traced back to Bruxelles Antiques,  a wonderful site full of gorgeous, original images,  well worth a visit. 

5.  There is no # 5. I just though 5 in the title sounded better than 4. The only no 5 that matters is Chanel No 5.

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

California Mission Decor

detail of the painted reredos at Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad

Driving up Highway 101 along the coast of California, you will see a lot of signs for "El Camino Real"  and often a curved post with a bell attached. These bells indicate the old Mission Trail, which connects  a series of 21 Franciscan missions built in Alta California in the 18th century.
We decided to stop at a couple of these missions on our way back to San Francisco. And I had my camera with me.

Interior of the Soledad chapel

Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
Originally built in  1791, the chapel and one wing of the original quadrangle were completely restored in 1955, and the chapel still has the original title floor.

a simple painted dado and border in the Soledad mission chapel

Painted ornament of the most basic configurations decorate the chapel  at Mission Soledad.  The effect is whimsical, rich, serene. 

Soledad chapel ceiling

geometric border in the Soledad chapel

the lovely corredor porch of Soledad Mission

Growing up in California I took for granted the "Mission Revival" style of architecture which dominated late 19th and early 20th century development.  But when you walk around a real mission,  features like beamed ceilings, corredors, giant iron candle holders, and deep-set windows make a lot more sense. 

The nave of San Juan Bautista, the largest of the California Missions.

San Juan Bautista
Built in 1797 directly above the San Andreas fault, the largest of the California missions has survived a number of earthquakes. Much of the original structure remains,  and the church has been fairly recently restored.

arcade border in the nave, the piers are painted with folksy faux marble panels

The interior was painted originally by Thomas Doak, and American sailor and carpenter who had jumped ship in Monterey, and who decorated the reredos in 1817, in exchange for room and board.

The altar and reredos at San Juan Bautista houses six beautiful santos

A small chapel with wonderful stenciled garlands

The back of the church with its simple trompe l'oeil columns. "This is the House of God, and the Gate to Heaven"

The outer walls collapsed in 1976 and were  rebuilt within a few years. Since the mid-1990's restoration work has been carried out Dr. Ruben Mendoza and the students of CSU-Monterey Bay.  And done rather nicely I have to say!

the bapistry

This simple guilloche border is used throughout the church in different colors.

The simple ornamentation as well as the color schemes I find very inspiring and really quite useful.

A room in the convento painted in deep blue and red borders

I have no idea what the banner over this door is supposed to mean.

Do you live near an old mission? I am reminded now to revisit my local:  Misión San Francisco de Asís.  


all photos in this post by Lynne Rutter December 2011. 
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