Monday

Églomisé Cephalopod

églomisé mural (~5 feet high) by Lynne Rutter. photo by David Papas

Allow me to introduce you to Nolan.
Commissioned for a home in Hawaii, Nolan is a very large octopus, gilt, etched, and painted on the reverse of a 5 foot high slab of glass using a set of techniques known as verre églomisé.
The body of the octopus is gilt with aluminum leaf arranged in a random broken pattern to create the texture of the cephalopod's skin. The thickness of this metal allowed me to etch the details through it using a cross-hatching pattern very much like etching a printing plate. The suckers of the tentacles are gilt with 22 karat gold.

work in progress, Nolan slinking over a cart in the studio

During the process I asked our client if she'd like to give this noble creature a name, and she immediately wrote back: "Nolan came blazing through the ether like a shot…I was completely powerless to do anything else. I believe he's just been waiting for his opportunity to let us know who he is…what else could I do?"

detail showing the etching and paua shell eye

The surface of the octopus reflects the color of whatever is near it, much like the way the octopus camouflages itself in the water. A final touch, the eye is a piece of abalone shell from New Zealand.

Nolan was packed into a very large crate last week and is now en route to a beautiful house on Oahu. We dearly miss him in the studio and wish him well in his new home.

Lynne Rutter Studio

Tuesday

In Memoriam: Garth Benton

Mural by Garth Benton in the Outer Peristyle at the Getty Villa, Malibu CA. via Flickr

Garth Benton in 1994

This week I was saddened to learn of the passing of a great muralist, Mr. Garth Benton, an internationally recognized artist who was well known for his stylish first-century style trompe l'oeil decoration of the magnificent Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

Mr. Benton "died a after with battle cancer" in May of 2012. I am surprised I did not see it reported anywhere and I only figured it out after I noticed that his website had gone down and began making inquiries. Being a pre-internet personality Mr. Benton was not widely mentioned on the web, but his work was nevertheless world-class, and very well-known in its day.

trompe l'oeil bas-relief painted by Garth Benton

I had the pleasure of working on a project with Garth Benton many years ago when he came to San Francisco to paint some spectacular Chinoiserie murals in a private residence here. He had arrived in town with inexplicably blank wallpaper apparently intending to paint the murals on site, but with no help and nowhere near enough time. I got a desperate call from the wallpaper hanger (who knew I also paint in this style) and rather than ask what the heck had gone wrong, out of respect for this great master painter I put my nearly entire studio at Mr. Benton's disposal - scaffolding, buckets, tarps, ladders, brushes, and as many assistants as I could round up - and we all learned a lot from him while helping him complete his commission, some of the crew often working until 3 AM or even all night, trying to meet the deadline. While we painted, we were regaled with entertaining stories about his many celebrity clients and amazing jobs he'd done over the years. It was exhausting and exciting and the job was truly beautiful.

Ballroom mural by Garth Benton in the Getty Residence, San Francisco

A couple of years later Mr. Benton made headlines for suing his clients, Ann and Gordon Getty, for having painted over one of his older murals in their San Francisco home, which he had hoped to photograph for a glossy catalogue raisonné of his work. The mural had been painted on canvas and could easily have been removed, but the Gettys had not realized this when they redecorated, and had to settle a large amount of money on him for the error. While I felt deeply over the heartbreaking loss of the artwork, the case made me cringe: suing an otherwise supportive client likely didn't help his future business. The mural is still gone and the book was never published.