The de Young Museum Residency

One of the hundreds of digital portraits drawn during the residency

The de Young Museum residency was in the Kimball Education Gallery.
The intention of the residency was to teach the public, the museum staff and docents how to draw and paint digitally.
I was given five iPads and I taught five interns how to use the digital app. The interns, under my supervision, taught the museum guests while I drew other museum guests.
I had a couch where I drew 96 people. I talk with the people who sit for me. Because of this, I can get an internal portrait as well.

While taking the subway between Oakland and San Francisco, I draw people digitally on the iPod touch. I draw them between the stop when they get on until the stop when they get off. That is how my blog betweenstops started. I consistently notice and appreciate how people’s sixth sense know they are being drawn even though they can’t see the draughtsman.

Therefore, I created a situation at The de Young with 8 double sided mirror walls on wheels so images could bounce around maze-like and people could draw each other incognito as I did on the subway. Immediately after the digital portraits were made, the museum printed them and we put all the portraits, both mine and the guests, on the walls.

Digital portraits and people drawing inside the moving mirrored walls.

Myself and 244 people did portraits. We held a closing exhibition where everyone enjoyed the portraits and the guests got to take the portraits they drew home after the party.

The 24 x 68′ gallery has three floor to ceiling glass panels and a wall of windows facing the park. I had tech help which projected my portraits as slideshows onto the huge glass panels. The portrait slideshows could be seen all night through the big windows. In keeping with the glass walls and the mirrors, I installed some of my illuminated glass and mixed media sculpture. It was a magical place.

Floor to ceiling glass walls on which my portraits are projected.

Illuminated glass sculpture with portraits and glass screens.

Glass box sculptures in front of the glass window wall

Jeremiah Jenkins, Delfina Piretti, Linda Trunzo and (in front) Carol Brewer

It was a fun place to hang out for the month of January 2012.
The David Hockney “Bigger Exhibition” was at The de Young Museum a few years later. I was a featured artist drawing people at the Friday night parties throughout the duration of the David Hockney Exhibition.