Alison McMahon Johnson's Archived Paintings

on exhibit 19 October 1997 - 14 November 1997 Pacific Coast Club Gouache, ŠAlison McMahon 1992

I went to a party in the little white house in the right of the picture around 1990. I kept looking at a vacant construction site next door and wondering what was going on. I mentioned the house--a marvelous piece of wooden cliff house architecture from the first quarter of the twentieth century--to a friend who said, "Oh, next to where the old Pacific Coast Club used to be?" I gasped in horror that time and space had erased it from my memory. I got out an old photograph I had taken before leaving Long Beach in 1979 and did this painting. This painting, along with two others, "The Immortals Visit Alishan" and "Redondo Beach Flying Eaves" were exercises in gouache painting after a particularly thick student asserted that her final exam looked the way it did because gouache paints "Don't blend." If you take the time to learn to work with your materials, they do.

on exhibit 14 November 1997 - 8 December 1997 The Job Interview or Pearls Before Swine Graphite, ŠAlison McMahon 1993

Did I really have to explain that?: "Well, it is one way to internalize the concept of pi--it accounts for how, no matter how tight your compass, you always wind up with a little bit left over between the last bisecting mark and the first, not to mention that it gives students enthusiasm for geometry and the beauty of mathematical structure in the natural world." Children understand it.

Quotes of the month:

"Remain resolute and unwavering when shirking your duty."

"Never insult an artist: he might make you immortal." --Evelyn Waugh (?) "...or a web page builder: he might give you your fifteen minutes of fame." --Punjab Hillstein, Occultist with a Mission

Whispering Pines Inn Angelus Oaks, California, March 1990 Graphite, c. 10" x 13", © Alison McMahon 1991 added to the archives 3 January 1997

It's quite a luxury to be able to live in a place where you work part-time and it snows part-time and when it snows, you're either off work or you take off work because the road's closed, and when you do, you can walk around and just enjoy it, like I did here in Angelus Oaks. I took photographs of this unusual bunch of snow everywhere, brilliant warm white and lightest cerulean shadow everywhere, high snow walls along the roads and driveways. It took me two hours to dig my Volkswagen out to get to work that winter. I did this drawing the following winter, or perhaps the winter after, depending on which end of 1991 I did this in; I'll have to check back. This year, I've opted for the luxury of spending the winter in a place where it's warm most of the time, and I work most of the time, and I can be back in the mountains in time for the whee-whee-tee-whee-tee birds (are they Mountain Whipporwills? I think so, but don't remember the name exactly).

Mark February 1996

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