Lots of working this week...

I have spent the last few weeks working on marbling my canvasses through collage, working primarily with natural colored papers full of fibers and occlusions. The canvas begins to look like marble after the fourth of fifth layer, where the paint splatters begin to peek out of the torn collage like veins of a rock and the natural colors blend into each other and form an interesting background. As usual, while the tree shapes and landscapes continue to dominate my best work, I still work on abstractions and figure studies, practicing as Alex Powers taught, using my eyes and sketching as much as possible. It is hard to keep the effort up as the demands of every day life continue and one does need to keep commitments to home and work. It is an interesting time for the amateur artist. Recently there was a story on NPR detailing the exhibit in the Getty Museum comparing Rembrandt van Rijn’s drawings to his students, and the key indicator of student work is the “over-worked” quality of the image, where the master captured the expression and nuance of the subject in a clean drawing, with little re-work, re-drawing or erasure. This subtle freshness is one of the fundamental differentiations between the student and one in command of their medium. So, the best work is clean, defines and smartly executed in a single pass.

Quotes for the day!

“Real Freedom cannot exist without Discipline. By Discipline I mean all those things that are synthesized in a mature personality: understanding and love, honesty, control and order, self criticism and above all the ability to see reality without fear…” Maricio Lasansky, born 1914, Argentine-American print maker

“Less is a bore.” Robert Venturi

“There is no right way to do anything.” Raoul Duffy

“Shape is a chord, line is the melody.” Gerald Brommer

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our attitudes.” Chuck Swindoll

Painting and Spirituality

Unless you are painting ambiguous abstractions, all paintings are symbols, or a collection of symbols. In my work I have been trying to synthesize texture, rhythm and color into symbols of nature, to imbue a transcendent landscape with symbolic significance. It is my desire as my work progresses and my skills grow, that I begin to capture a calm sense of spirituality in the images, despite the heavy collage and calligraphic marks that are clear upon close examination. This focus on a transcendent symbolism and spirituality is of importance to me as an individual and artist.

Famous artists such as Mark Rothko devoted an entire body of work to capturing Spirituality. The famous monochrome painter Robert Ryman, when asked what a painting should communicate to the viewer stated “An experience of…enlightenment. An experience of delight and well being, and rightness.” While these artists focused on large color fields and the treatment of edges, they both grasped the fundamental experience of a painting as a spiritual symbol.

So why paint landscapes to symbolize spirituality? Properly captured, an idealized image can transport a viewer and reflect a calm, inner beauty that resides in all. Pictorially, the Tree has symbolized Nature with a capital “N,” strength, growth, ecological commitment, sometimes a barrier, and the obvious Christian symbolism. As an image, it can be manipulated to present mood, humor and intent, and therefore it provides a solid symbolic reference for a landscape.

I am not alone is seeking to portray a spirituality through my painting, and in the future I will highlight some of my favorite fellow artists who strive to paint the spiritual, whether abstract or concrete, realistic or through personal imagery.

The past month my spare time has been devoted to actually painting, so I have had little time for this journal. I completed 4 paintings and started 4 more, which gives me a sense of accomplishment. The four finished works were “Sentinels,” “Autumn 3,” “Spring Morning,” and “Storm Cloud,” all of which will be posted on the site as soon as possible. These recent works depict a broadening of the symbols to include new shapes and landscapes. I hope you enjoy them. Happy New Year!

A Gallery Crawl in Newburyport MA

Newburyport, the Birthplace of the US Coast Guard, home of the Customs House Nautical Museum and the Rear Range Light where one can have a romantic dinner at the top of the light tower (contact me for details). On a rainy Saturday afternoon we went on a shopping trawl and gallery crawl, sorting through the 13 various art stops on the city council’s artwalk promotional tour.
OK, I can recommend a wander in historic Newburyport as a great way to spend a day. Park in the municipal lot and pick up an information packet from the welcome center, then start with a breakfast in the locally loved “Angie’s” diner. There are a number of great restaurants for all tastes, and the galleries run the gamut from (as my wife describes) “Women’s Gifts” to a few professional galleries with solid international work and tiny studio/store fronts with earnest, hard working artists eager to discuss their art.
Rather than promote commercial establishments, let me just highlight a few key sightings: One of the professional galleries was featuring actual painting by Liz Gribon, who we have seen before in a gallery in Boston. Working in mixed media, Liz has a distinctive style and works primarily with figurative studies in strong designs and mutes colors. You can find her work on the web—I agree with the critics that promote her—the images are lasting and unique. A tiny shop behind the Tannery featured Encaustics and monotypes, the work mostly in small format and available as prints too—the artists in this shop were warm and inviting and their images were interesting abstracted landscapes and quirky little personal images. The rebirth of encaustic as a medium is fascinating—images can be made misty and “foggy” rather than murky as one gets with paint on paint techniques. This little store should not be missed.
Of course, bad art abounds in Newburyport as well; including the local coffee shop hanging glitter covered, patterned and “illuminated” canvases that were just a mess of gaudy color. It is interesting to me to find so many artists adopting the aboriginal Australian patterning as their basic style, but it doesn’t make the work any more viable and while I keep my opinions to myself, people close to me can tell when I am being disingenuous. Yes, I realize that some artist cherishes these works and my wife says I am being an “art snob,” but I would encourage them to study a bit more before showing…maybe that would be a good idea for a blog series, the art snob and his controversial pronouncements! :-)
The final stop on the Newburyport call is the Firehouse Gallery/Restaurant/Playhouse. It is a fabulous space and the artist currently showing was a photographer who works color flower portraits into double exposure “mandala” images, with their reference to religious iconography and Jung’s psychoanalytical theories. Wrap up the day along the quay side in the park, where the water and the lighthouses and the old brick buildings make a picturesque backdrop to the boats, wharfs and setting sun.

For Fun: 6 Year old Sophia interviews Jackson Pollock!

Sophie and Bella interview lots of famous artists...here is the Jackson Pollock interview!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVXh_oTcep0

Enjoy!

Artists in our Modern World

This past weekend I participated in an open studio event with many different artists, just the most recent in a series of events, shows, courses, classes and seminars that place one in context with artists in our modern society. To the uninitiated, the label artist conjures up images of the starving waif, wearing tattered clothes and suffering for Beauty with a capital B, the myth of Van Gogh and his contemporaries, but that was always a myth—Whistler, Sargent and Picasso never starved--and the modern reality is broad, wide and deep as any part of our society. As an observer of people, it is fascinating to arrange portraits of the artist types in categories and evaluate them as a group.

What if we were going to write a situation comedy based on a group of artists in our modern (or is it Postmodern) world? We would start with broad strokes! So, I won’t address the quirks of individuals, the extrovert versus the introvert, or the people person versus the materialist, but instead let’s look at some of the varying and overarching types of personalities that are drawn to the “ARTS.” This can become the basis for entertainment, especially when I am stuck on a plane and can’t paint!

The Truly Talented: Sometimes native talent is a blessing. The motivated, focused individuals soar—their work is recognized early, they quickly grasp their mediums, they have quick and able minds, they are sought by agents and galleries, promoted by good publicists and guided into a life in the arts. These are the people you find with established portraiture businesses, solid gallery shows, or consistent product output and sales, and they really do make a living as an artist in our modern world. But True Talent can also be a curse--the dabblers are also truly talented…The corollary to this group is almost a mirror image, the people who are easily bored with their native talent, the ones who easily master a style or a medium, work in it for a while, then move to another and another and another, never creating a body of work, and ultimately leaving artistic endeavors behind. These show up at a gallery or a show and soon disappear to try something new. An excellent teacher of mine once pointed out to the class that a hard working amateur often surpasses the truly talented in skill and accomplishments simply because they recognize that hard work and efforts will be needed and excellence can be learned.

The Seeker: This is most often a young person (although not always), either a recent college graduate or a earnestly studying student who is genuinely attracted to Art as a career or maybe its a pastime… and just as genuinely seeks to find a voice, dabbling in various mediums, not yet committed to a course and essentially rudderless on the river of life. Sometimes they are truly talented and are dabbling…sometimes they are just full of “sound and fury signifying nothing.” They fervently discuss goals, art movements, styles, graduate school and may have had a good mentor who has provided some direction. They are slightly contradictory in their opinions, deeply invested in their slightly better than amateur work and full of passion and vigor, but unsure where to point their efforts. They sometimes adopt strong political beliefs, or seriously avoid adapting to life in modern society, and they often have an affected aloofness, especially with their elders, a trait that is quaint when recognized as emblematic of their youth. They gravitate toward photography as a medium for its immediacy and topical nature, and for the fact that in a relatively short period one can master basic composition and take some fascinating pictures that will show well. It would be an interesting social experiment to follow these seekers as they “find themselves” and track how many actually stick with their artistic leanings. There is a sub-genre of this group, the “posers,” for me a much more fascinating group of youthful people who wear art like a fashion, as a tool for attracting the opposite sex and invested in creating an “aura.” This group genuinely commits to the effort required in maintaining the image as well as the image itself. They are often enjoyable characters and their art is merely an extension of their personality.

The “I am more than just a _______(Fill in the blank):” This is where I squarely fall as a type--whether it is a housewife, businessperson, draftsman, engineer, teacher, or administrator, this is the group who have grown beyond the “seeking” stage and recognize that creativity is a fundamental source of satisfaction in for their lives, so they find spare moments and toil away at a chosen medium, building up a closet full of work that is shared a few times each year at local events or little galleries. This is the mid-life crisis group, the people who suddenly stop “seeking” and devote themselves to a style and realize that it will take their lifetime to master their work. This is the group of small victories, the people who make up the backbone of civil arts organizations, writer’s critique meetings and art societies. For the most part, one can find some excellent accomplishments in their collected works. Then, when the kids are grown and the pressures of successful modern life are slowing they become…This type would be the best for the lead in our sit-com, as they are easiest to relate to the audience, and they can be our “straight guy” to take the brunt of jokes or provide the emotional center to the ensemble…

The Creative Retired: As a group, this is the most attractive—fun, spirited and full of history, you’ll find them at seminars or classes, especially at places like the Spring Maid Beach Seminars in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where the venue and the professional atmosphere attracts a highly talented and world renown set of instructors. These are the folks who travel to the regional art shows and enjoy hanging their work, sipping coffee and swapping stories. 90% of the seminar attendees are women, many quite talented in their own right, and very encouraging as class mates. And their subgroup, which we can refer to as The Bored Husbands Club, despite the fact that the group always seems to include a few wives, the gang who golf and play cards while their spouses splash paint and draw. There is no better group to have to dinner! I am convinced this is why many great professional artists teach, just to be around these non-pretentious, inspiring people. In our show, this is the source of the best comedy relief, sarcasm, slap-stick and quick wit!

The Self Employed: These are the working artists, not necessarily the Truly Talented, but clearly beyond the journeymen stage in their craft and focused in a most business like way on their annual production, venues for sales and marketing opportunities. These are the people who have decided that it is a living, and they have often found a particular “style” and a set of salable images that they recreate and take on the road. They are to be admired, as they often supplant the posters and prints of today’s mass producing society with real works of handmade art, even if much of it is duplicative and caters to mass tastes. This is the group most impacted by a recession in the economy, the working artists.

The “Fabulous Marketeer:” These artists prove that old WC Field’s adage, “there’s a sucker born every minute….” Consummate name dropper extraordinaire, personally promoting and ego driven, these are never introverted artists, and their work may or may not display talent, but it will always have intellectual thrust and be thought-provoking. This is the group who fights over grants, schmooze at the receptions and openings, seem to know everybody, and like the social butterfly, make pompous pronouncements and carry their own conversations…they connect and prompt and network. Now, there is really nothing wrong with some of these artists, and the very best have always been flamboyant and rampant in their promotion—just look at Dali! Frankly, many of my artist friends hate that certain trademarked “Light” painter, but I have seen a number of his early works before the coffee mugs and puzzles, and the man actually has a great talent and skill. But even schlock artists can market themselves into a successful career. This label is for the artists who spend more time marketing than perfecting a craft—and what a great foil for our situation comedy’s more stable personalities!

The Myth Embracing, “Life Style” focused: These are the aging beatniks or hippies or dreadlocked, tattooed and pierced artists who frequent coffeehouses and regional shows, who’s work is just above the amateur grade and year after year it stays right on the verge of actual success. These are the people who hold artistic myths as a fundamental psychological truth—for them, artists can’t be middle class, or well dressed, or of a particular political persuasion. Have you ever wandered a tent show a few years later and found the same bearded man showing the same pictures and describing his deep connection to the images that didn’t sell years ago (and probably won’t sell today…)? Don’t confuse these with the iconoclastic (or downright odd) artist with True Talent—these are a different group, related by a desire to avoid the trappings of modern society and, let’s be honest, hard work. They are iconoclastic by desire and affectation; they hearken back to the Woodstock Nation, or a basic misunderstanding of an Island religion, but for the most part they fall into two categories, either “angry” or “happy.” Personally, I prefer the “happy” sort, as they are less strident in their politics and less demanding as acquaintances. They are great to have over for tea, and full of interesting ideas. This group of artists is not the most reliable, so while they volunteer for committees, it is often better to find a “self employed” artist to run the show.

And finally, The Teachers—Teaching is an art in itself, and not many are good at it. Teaching artists are to be respected and encouraged, despite their methodology or style. Some enforce their particular style and manners, creating an army of duplication that honors and spreads their vision. Others quickly provide a long list of techniques, while still others simply critique and try not to demonstrate and influence. Having a teacher in our midst always provides the lesson and the “voice of maturity” while occasionally getting the best laughs!

Next, for this idea to be successful, we need to pick a few repeat settings where the group gatherings…we’ll save that for another long airplane ride….
:-)

Billings Forge and discussing the Postmodern Movement

There is a studio and a set of workshops at Billings Forge on Broad Street, a mixed use re-development in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford. It includes a Restaurant/Bar and housing units, and it is an attempt to reclaim an old brick mill building. The Studio is open for classes and exhibits, but the workshops are 5 apartments that are available under a grant for three month periods. Joyce, the director of the project, explained that each artist in residence is expected to teach a class to the local children and supply artwork for sale with 25% of the proceeds returning to the Foundation. One of the residents was a long established artist, Rob Hudson, a sculptor and painter with works in museums and corporate offices around the world—the other four residents describe themselves as recent graduates from art schools around the nation, just starting their careers and working as photographers and painters. The grants are for 3 months at a time. Every Wednesday evening is an open studio night where visitors can meet the residents and discuss their particular works and current projects.

I was able to spend some time with Kimberly Gill, a photographer who had moved back to the Hartford area after matriculating from the Pratt Institute in New York. Her work was intensely personal in content, but offered the viewer solid composition and interesting images. Recently from the New York art scene, Kim shared her opinions on the current artistic movement, “Post Modernism” which has left individuals like herself disillusioned with the state of Modern Art, seeking a direction to embrace, or rebel, or study—as she framed it, the post modernist movement can be summed up as a belief that internally focused, personal images are more relevant as modern statements than anything that is based on the past or craft. Kim had unique perspectives on this issue. Is the post modern artistic movement viable? Is it a synthesis of the previous movements, or a fragmentation? Is it a path that can be studied or followed, or is it a fad?

The issue intrigued me, so I turned to the Web:

Wikipedia defined Postmodern art as “a term used to describe an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of Modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as Intermedia, Installation art, Conceptual Art and Multimedia, particularly involving video are described as postmodern. The traits associated with the use of the term postmodern in art include bricolage, use of words prominently as the central artistic element, collage, simplification, appropriation, depiction of consumer or popular culture and Performance art.”

So, according to this definition, my collage work as well as the work by most of my artist friends can be currently classified as “Postmodern.”
The on-line encyclopedia goes on to say that “Postmodern Art is the predominant term for art produced since the 1950s… (also known as) ‘Contemporary art.’ Not all art labeled as contemporary art is postmodern, and the broader term encompasses both artists who continue to work in modernist and late modernist traditions, as well as artists who reject postmodernism for other reasons. Some postmodern artists have made a more distinctive break from the ideas of modern art and there is no consensus as to what is ‘late-modern’ and what is ‘post-modern.’”
Now here is an interesting point from the article: “Ideas rejected by the modern aesthetic have been reestablished. In painting, postmodernism reintroduced representation. Traditional techniques and subject matter have returned in art.” This definition should encourage my friends and acquaintances working in art today…“It has even been argued that much of what is called postmodern today, the latest avant-gardism, should still be classified as modern art….As well as describing certain tendencies of contemporary art, postmodern has also been used to denote a phase of modern art. Many critics hold that postmodern art emerges out of modern art. Suggested dates for the shift from modern to postmodern include 1914 in Europe, and 1962 or 1968 in America….(While some critics believe we are still in the Postmodern era) the close of the period of postmodern art has been dated (by some critics) to the end of the 1980s, when the word postmodernism lost much of its critical resonance, and art practices began to address the impact of globalization and new media.”
Here is the issue that Kim and her student friends seem to be struggling to adapt or adopt: “Postmodernism describes movements which both arise from, and react against or reject, trends in modernism. Specific trends of modernism that are generally cited are formal purity, medium specificity, art for art's sake, authenticity, universality, originality and revolutionary or reactionary tendency, i.e. the avant-garde. However, paradox is probably the most important modernist idea against which postmodernism reacts. Paradox was central to the modernist enterprise, having been introduced by Manet. Manet's various violations of representational art brought to prominence the supposed mutual exclusiveness of reality and representation, design and representation, abstraction and reality, and so on. The incorporation of paradox was highly stimulating from Manet to the conceptualists….The status of the avant-garde is particularly controversial: many institutions argue that being visionary, forward-looking, cutting-edge, and progressive are crucial to the mission of art in the present, and therefore postmodern art contradicts the value of "art of our times". Postmodernism rejects the notion of advancement or progress in art per se, and thus aims to overturn the "myth of the avant-garde.”
“One characteristic of postmodern art is its conflation of high and low culture through the use of industrial materials and pop culture imagery (such as Warhol and Lichtenstein)….(Others) suggest that postmodern works abjure any claim to spontaneity and directness of expression, making use instead of pastiche and discontinuity.” Of course, there are other critics who take the opposite positions and argue forcefully, using Picasso and Manet as examples. Postmodernism rejects modernism's grand artistic narratives, embracing and celebrating both high and low forms of art, and playfully upturning all conventions with collision, collage, and fragmentation. "Diversity" is a fundamental theme of our times, even as it is enforced in an ironic “politically correct” manner. The author of the Wikipedia entry held that “Postmodern art holds that all stances are unstable and insincere, and therefore irony, parody, and humor are the only positions that cannot be overturned by critique or revision.”
So, it is the contradictions in the movement and the critical voices taking so many positions in opposition to each other that provide fodder for on-going debate. The young artist who discussed this issue with me was clearly framing a student’s dilemma, where various voices of authority contradict each other and no clarity can be gained through debate or analysis. The idea of growing beyond or creating a new art movement becomes an impossible quest if the current movement embraces and rejects, celebrates and denies. The idea of working as a Postmodern artist becomes an intellectual conundrum, fueled by well meaning professors and intellectual analysis.

Enough of this! Let’s go paint!