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Curioser and curioser…

Unraveling, 15 x 15″ Acrylic on Illustration Board

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

– Albert Einstein

I suspect that while we can find all degrees of talent among great beings or great actions, at the heart of each of them is this same passionate curiosity. It’s certainly at the root of all great art.

It’s what makes us continue to try new things, to do better, to explore different approaches, to come up with new ideas about what to paint and how to paint.

If we were not passionately curious, we would be satisfied with good, but never seek great. Curiosity is the fuel – passion is the spark that turns the fuel into energy. Have you ever met a good artist who wasn’t curious about, not just art, but most things in life? And isn’t their curiosity always a passionate one? I think this is one of the qualities that most attracts people to artists – they get to feel the wash of this energy fueled by curiosity as it emanates from the artist in pursuit of their work.

So nurture and develop your curiosity – keep an open mind and don’t label things too quickly, ask questions, enjoy not knowing rather than viewing it as a handicap.

Inner Moonlight

Whorlds, 15 x 15″ Acrylic on Illustration Board

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.”

-Allen Ginsberg

I love the thought of our “inner moonlight” – usually we think of a brighter, sunnier source of illumination for our creativity. But the cool and uniquely intimate way in which moonlight reveals is a nice counterpoint to contemplate. Perhaps it is a better way to expose our madness.

Of course, there is that association between madness and artists. I think this madness exists along a spectrum, from the truly insane to the mildly eccentric.

Can one be a really great artist and not fit somewhere along that line? Can one be completely normal, sane, even boring and still produce art that is rich and exciting? Or maybe no one is really normal, sane or boring – what their inner moonlight reveals is always a bit twisted, no matter the external appearance.

At least with art we have a way to share our madness with others in a fairly harmless way!

Dogs and Cats

Escape, 10 x 10″ Acrylic and Spackle on Ilustration Board

“In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.”

– Dereke Bruce

Praise and blame – occurrences in our daily lives that are certainly not limited only to artists. But as artists we put our efforts out there repeatedly and essentially invite praise or blame. So it’s good to develop some techniques to deal with it.

I suppose one could take the advice given above and become a pet owner. The personalities of dogs and cats definitely capture the dichotomy well!

Usually we focus on how to handle blame – it’s easy to handle praise! But they are two sides of the same coin, and the degree to which you relish praise, you will likely find it hard to withstand blame.

The Buddha had some advice:

“Praise and blame and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a great tree in the midst of them all.”

Think of yourself as a tree, one with deep roots that will protect you from the blowing winds of praise and blame. Treat each with the same (dis)regard.

I’m telling you this as a reminder to myself. I’ve recently submitted this new body of work to our local juried Open Studio art event and will hear in a couple of weeks whether I’ve been accepted. I’ve tried to do this before without success – I’ve tasted the jurors blame. No matter what happens, it will be an opportunity to contemplate my reaction to the praise or blame.

Who knows, I may soon be paying a visit to my local pet store!

What’s Bugging You?

Infernal, 10 x 10″ Acrylic and Spackle on Illustration Board

“You are no bigger than the things that annoy you”

– Jerry Bundsen

I love the efficient wisdom of this quote. What you let bother you defines you. Makes you think twice about to what exactly you are willing to concede that power to.

I’ll admit it – I have issues with patience and tolerance. I’ve been known to complain about this or that. I even recently participated in an experiment with my wife in which we committed to not complaining about anything for 40 days. In these challenging times, I think I lasted 4 days and only because my definition of a complaint was narrower than my wife’s.

What does this have to do with making art?

As artists we’re constantly confronted with challenges and problems – sometimes we call them “failures”. We are frustrated by them, dare I say annoyed. When we adopt this attitude toward these perceived limitations, we allow them to define who we are. We cannot become “bigger” than them, we cannot go beyond them.

I have sometimes thought that my frustration with my current limitations has been the fuel which propels me past them. And perhaps there is some role played by that attitude in my progress, maybe the pot is stirred in a necessary way. But I realize that ultimately I can only move past those limitations when I drop my annoyance with them. I’ve never really fought my way through a creative limit while holding onto these feelings. It’s only when I let them go, that I am able to redfine myself.

A Dancing Star

Dancing Star, 10 x 10″ Acrylic on Illustration Board

“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.”

– Henry Brooks Adams

I like the contrast between “life” and “habit” in this quote. One of the reasons I love non-objective subject matter is that helps me avoid habit, which, for me, equates with boring. When I was painting landscapes years ago, I found that eventually they all started to look the same. There is an order to the objects we see around us, perhaps imposed by how we have created them or at least in how we perceive them. This sense of order imposed its will on me, made me move in certain directions and not in others. I’m not saying that others who paint differently create boring, habitual art – obviously this is not true! I only speak to my own experience.

By not attempting to depict this order, I am free to roam in all directions. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that it’s up to me what I create – the curse is that I have few guideposts to help me know if I’m on the right track.

This series is, in some way, all about that chaos. I’m trying to honor the chaos while offering enough order to connect with the viewer.

Nietzsche said that you need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star – this piece is my homage to that sentiment.

Artful Violence

Cycle, 10 x 10″ acrylic on illustration board

“One never paints violently enough.”

– Eugene Delacroix

Painting and violence are not words commonly juxtaposed. We often think of painting as a refined activity, one in which we connect with our gentle spirit. Painting calms us, allows us to achieve an almost meditative state. So what place has violence in this serene tableau?

I think Delacroix (who was a French Romantic painter) is commenting on passion and abandon in painting. Violence is defined as “swift and intense force”. When we unfetter our passion as we paint, the force is palpable. When it is “swift and intense” we often sit back and look at the result and wonder “where did that come from?”. And often these pieces are our most satisfying, having bypassed our common ways of thought, our conventions and comfortable patterns. Leaving all that behind leads to an exciting place.

It is challenging to paint “violently” – letting go is not something we do often in our daily lives. What is great about art is that it is a safe place to do so. If the word “violent” offends, substitute “passionate”, but be sure that your passion is swift and intense!

Practice Makes Perfect?

Macrocosm, 10 x 10″ acrylic on illustration board

“Artists are notorious for spending more time ‘producing’ paintings and spending little or no time ‘practicing’. “

– Tom Lynch

I will admit it – I am very bad about practicing anything. Making art is no exception. So I am one of the “notorious” members of the non-practicing art crowd mentioned above. Are you also?

I don’t know why this is. I know that practicing specific techniques or subjects would probably produce  better results. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t even be bothered to spend 5 minutes doing a value sketch, much less a full study. Nor can I bear to spend any of my precious, too-little time I dedicated to art working on something that has no chance of being a finished masterpiece because it is just practice. Not that many, if any, or my efforts become finished masterpieces anyway!

This character flaw is very evident in my piano playing – once I reach a stage where I can stumble through a piece in a recognizable fashion, I move on to the next piece. I would much rather learn something new and be less than skilled at it than be a master of one or two pieces.

I prefer to learn by doing rather than practicing. It is probably not as efficient but more fun for me! Maybe it means I’m not serious enough about developing into a better artist.

Have you found for yourself the right balance of practicing and producing?

What’s in a Pattern?

Intersection, 10 x 10″ acrylic on illustration board

“A repeated shape is not actually the same – the more subtle, the more poetic this repeat is, the more we feel that resonant pulse.”

-Suzanne Northcott

In the pursuit of confusing myself, I am working on two series simultaneously which have very different objectives. Recently I’ve been posting work from the series titled Universal Meaning in which I am trying to use a more fluid style with little or no pattern or straight lines. This work is from a different series, as yet untitled, in which am exploring pattern and shape. Maybe a sort of left brain/right brain dichotomy. I like to exercise as many dimensions of my creativity as possible, even at the risk of a hopeless snarl.

I love the quote above because it reveals something about pattern that I truly feel – it’s “resonant pulse”. Pattern creates a rhythm which we unconsciously respond to. By making the patterns more or less subtle we can regulate the pulse of that rhythm in the observer. Paintings without pattern (I’m thinking of the Universal Meaning series) create a feeling of floating or being adrift – perhaps not the right words. But something other than a pulse with its insistent regularity.

Somehow our perceptual system translates these marks into some type of dynamic that we feel, rather than see. All art forms impact us on more than one level. Non-visual art such as music can have color, non-kinetic art such as painting can make us feel movement and temporal art such as dance can have structural permanence.

The more ways in which we respond to the art, the more interested we become in it. Artists who cross over into other art forms benefit greatly from this exploration as it allows them to infuse each with some aspect of the others.

The Spirit of Art

Cosmic Dance, 10 x 10″ Acrylic on Illustration Board

“Being ‘spiritual’ simply means being willing to look into the nature of life, to ask questions and to wonder, and to listen. It also means seeing art everywhere.”

– Quang Ho

I liked the simplicity of this definition of “spiritual” and its connection to art. It means being curious about the important questions, contemplating what you discover and being open to everything that might teach you.

Spirituality becomes more of a mindset than a set of particular beliefs. This mindset keeps us open to possibility at all times and protects us from rigid doctrine. It’s why people who hold widely differing beliefs can all be considered spiritual –  they share this mindset.

When we engage the world with this mindset we see art everywhere. We honor what we find by viewing it as art. We find the beauty and grace in even the smallest thing when we ask questions about it, wonder and listen to what it tells us. The art we find in the world around us serves as the source of inspiration that allows us to create our own art.

Imagine how different you would feel if you did not see the art in the passing clouds,  the bloom of early spring flowers, the joyous bustle of the farmers market or the laughter of children at play. Where would our art come from?

Fact is Stranger than Fiction

Beginnings, 10 x 10″ acrylic

“The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.”

– Tom Clancy

Here is one of the great paradoxes in life.

Most people would agree that art (I think of art as a form of fiction) has to make some sense – if it’s totally random, it crosses the line from art to something else. The artist must have some intention, even if it is obscure to them and others. You make choices about design, color, value, etc in ways that make some sense to you.

Even art that seems random is probably not created randomly. Ask the artist – they weren’t just splashing paint around with their eyes closed (now,  I don’t want to hear from all of you painters who do just that!). You have to have an extraordinarily broad definition of art to include something that makes no sense at all.

Reality, on the other hand, can sometimes be quite random or without apparent sense. Or at least it is so complex as to defy any attempt to make sense of it. And we accept this. Not to say that there are not things in reality that have exquisite design and make total sense. Just that we do not reality to the same “standard” as we do fiction.

In some way, the artist is always trying to make sense of something, whether it be reality or their imagination. The degree to which they are successful at this at least partially defines the success of their art.

In a Land Far, Far Away…

Nova, 10 x 10″ Acrylic, Spackle on Illustration Board

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all sciences.”

– Albert Einstein

Is all beauty mysterious?

What makes something mysterious? Is it just that we don’t understand it? I think there is more to it since I don’t understand many things that I don’t consider mysterious (like why my teenage son won’t get a haircut). In addition to this lack of understanding there is some implied significant meaning to the object in question. There is a sense that if you do figure it out, you will learn something of value. This appeals to our yearning to discover truth in our lives and adds an important dimension to our perception of that mysterious object.

Mystery makes the beautiful more beautiful. It adds a quality of excitement, of greater meaning and potential. It touches our hearts in a way that something beautiful but without mystery does not.

Einstein groups true art and science together in their dependence on mystery. Most of us do not combine science and beauty or art in the same train of thought. And at some level, much of science deals with things without mystery, self-evident facts and processes which seem dry. Consider that there is a lot of art in the world of which the same can be said (I’ve made my fair share!). But at some level, both in art and science, true mystery is encountered from which emerges the true essence of both art and science. Perhaps each are equally capable of teaching us the same truths as we unravel their mystery.

This piece is the second of a series I am working on which I call “Universal Meanings”. In this series I’m exploring form and movement within the void, whether that is external space or our inner consciousness.

Hey, What’s the Story?

Cosmos, 10 x 10″ Acrylic on Illustration Board

“Looking is the end of a painting in my view. If you want a message, go read a novel.”

– Douglas Atwill

First of all, my apologies to those who read my blog for my absence over the last few weeks. I won’t go into the tedious details of the motivation for that truancy – let it suffice to say that many things contributed and not all of them are resolved. But my intention is to saddle back up and rejoin the fray.

The quote above raises the issue of whether a piece of art should tell a story. Much artwork does and many art instructors teach that it must (or at least should). My exploration of non-objective art (such as the example above) has led me to question this view. This type of work doesn’t seem to tell a story or have a message for the viewer. Perhaps the viewer will compose a story in their minds inspired by some aspect of the piece, but I think that in truly non-objective work, this would be pure self-indulgence.

So does a piece like this simply lack some dimension that artwork that tells a story has? Or is it replaced by some other equally compelling quality, perhaps by the very absence of a story? Is the viewer freer to engage with other characteristics of the piece, such as design, color, texture, etc. that may be otherwise secondary to the story?

Are there examples of this dichotomy in other art forms? I think about stream of consciousness novels, such as On the Road [Kerouac] where the story is obscured or not there at all and the focus becomes elements at least one level removed from story or message – emotions, language, character, etc. Or contemporary classical music without a melody or even a recognized tonal scale. Can you think of other examples?

I don’t think that this type art is deficient compared to pieces with storylines or melodies – I think it attempts to elicit a reaction from the viewer (or listener) using different methods and may, in fact, be able to touch us in unique ways.

Goals Anyone?

Bluebells, 8 x 8″ monoprint

“Goals in life as in art should be specific in order to hope to attain them.”

– Raynald Murphy

Do you have goals, specific or otherwise, for your art? What things in life are better served with goals and which are not, or at least do not require them? Which camp does art fall into?

Setting goals as an artist can be a risky business since goal setting is often associated with issues of success/failure and acceptance/rejection. But isn’t setting goals a critical component of making progress and effecting change in anything we do?

It’s possible to have different types of goals, some externally focused and some more internal. For example, if you are trying to have a commerical career as an artist, you will probably be more successful if you identify specific, measurable goals – have a certain number of shows, be in a certain number of galleries, etc. This way you can identify and take the necessary steps to achieve those goals and make appropriate course corrections as needed. You may also have personal goals having nothing to do with the outside world. These might include developing certain skills, finding your unique style, using art to communicate with your inner self, etc. In either case, you are responsible for setting the goal, so you get to define what constitutes success.

Personally I believe that most things in life are more satisfying if done with some goals in mind. Otherwise, I feel that I’m drifting aimlessly and letting the world dictate what happens. The challenge is to manage the process of achieving your goals without allowing what others define as success become your definition. As I discussed in my last posting, thinking of a particular result as an “outcome” instead of a success or failure can help you see each result as just another step. It is important to remain the sole judge of progress in achieving the goals you’ve chosen.

How to Avoid Failure

Meteoric, 8 x 7″ monoprint, ink and pastel

“There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.”

– Anthony Robbins

We are in such a rush to judge. Perhaps artists are even more prone to this pernicious tendency because we are always trying to figure out if what we’re doing is any good. Should we do more of the same, are we on the right track, is this painting better or worse than the last one? If we decide our work isn’t good or isn’t improving, we might conclude that it is (or we are) a failure.

What if we instead simply looked at each piece or art as a “result”? Implied in this is a heavy does of detachment from the success or failure of the piece, regardless of how we measure that. If we could simply look at the work as a result along the way, perhaps we could more objectively assess what we could do differently next time. We could dispense with the useless negative self-judgement that accompanies the concept of “failure” and focus on what we learned, what we could change, what work should be done next. The concept of “result” implies temporary – there will be more results and they may be different than this result. And that alone may prevent us from giving up and allow us to pick up the brush again and face the blank canvas.

I’m not saying that I always take this approach to my own work, though sometimes I am able to achieve this state of mind. It’s so second nature for us to judge our efforts. But when I can suspend judgement, the level of pressure goes down and the level of pleasure goes up.

So Much From So Little

Cosmos, 6 x 6″ monoprint, ink and pastels

“My studio begins at the art supply store. I imagine all the paintings trapped inside those tubes of paint.”

– John Ferrie

One thing that amazes me about art is the variety and complexity of what can be created from the simplest of elements and tools.

I know of some painters who use only 3 colors and white on their palette and yet they can create just about any painting imaginable. A sculptor with a piece of rock, a hammer and a chisel can form any shape the mind can conceive. With 26 letters, a writer of English can write novels, poetry or short stories. A dancer needs nothing but their body to fashion the most elegant of movements, a singer just their voice to sing an opera or a rock-and-roll ballad. The magic elixir that turns these simple tools into a work of art is the creative spirit of the artist.

Sometimes it’s easy for me to get sidetracked by the range of materials available to the artist these days. Especially when I’m feeling stuck, I can delude myself into thinking that if I just had a different color, a different brush or paper, all my problems would vanish. I have found this fascination with the “stuff” of art to be particularly common in the world of photography, where many people are more interested in the latest techno gear than what makes a good photograph. Some of the best photographs of all time were taken with what would be considered antique equipment today.

It is fun to play with new materials and sometimes that newness can actually invite a breakthrough. But it’s not the stuff itself that makes the difference, but rather the way in which it allows us to engage once again with our creative side.

Talking with your Art

Distant Shores, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“All painting is an accident. But it’s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.”

– Francis Bacon

The process of painting is a wonderful play between unexpected results and calculated decisions. Nothing is more pleasing to the artist than to be surprised by what you’ve done. I’m watching an instructional DVD on abstract painting at the moment and I can really relate to the instructors occasional gasps of pleasure at the effect of some brushstroke. Often the results are what we intended, but while those moments can be satisfying, I think more delight is to be had with the unintentional.

But it’s not all accident. As Bacon says, there is also some serious calculation going on as to what  should remain and what should be discarded, covered up, redone. This process of editing is much more analytical but no less important to the success of the piece. Without this discrimination, the work ends up as a mish-mash of interesting little happenings that have little relationship to the whole. This is where you might have to reflect on what your overall purpose in the painting is, to get a little more intentional about it. While it’s fine to let the process itself dictate your path, the dialogue you have with the painting must be a two-way communication. At some point, it’s important to tell the piece what’s on your mind. The final word on the matter is when you declare the piece finished.

Then you are ready to begin a new conversation with a new piece – I could talk like this forever…

Painting Music

Jungle Rhythms, 6 x 6″ monoprint with ink and pastel

“Listening to Mozart when painting can make you believe in God.”

– J.M. Brodrick

I can’t paint without music playing in the background. But I’m very particular about what music it is. The music definitely informs my painting and if the wrong tunes are playing, the painting is easily derailed.

Without question, my favorite music to listen to while painting is by the artist known as Moby. Interestingly enough, my wife, who is also an artist who paints to music, can’t stand to listen to Moby, not even one song, not even a single chorus. Oh well… clearly it’s all personal taste.

I find that some music is too slow and meditative and doesn’t energize me – I like to develop a slight sense of frenzy when I work. Other music, such as some jazz,  can go too far in the opposite direction and interfere with the flow of my painting (a recent experience with Charlie Parker comes to mind). There’s a sweet spot that settles me into the right groove to paint by. Music I love at other times just doesn’t work while I’m painting.

I suspect there’s a lot of you painters out there who rely on music to get your artistic juices flowing. I’ll bet there are even some out there who might be embarrassed to admit which music serves this purpose for you. Or maybe it depends on what type of painting you are working on. In any case, I’d be interested to hear what you like – maybe I can find some new inspiration to paint by!

A New Life

Cattails, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.”

– Anatole France

I’ve been contemplating change a lot lately. Perhaps it’s the time of year to think about what and how you would like to change going forward. I definitely feel like I need to make some fundamental changes in my artwork. I’ve been struggling to figure out how to accomplish this.

So I’ve been thinking about what is holding me back. Is it a lack of technique? Not having thought enough about my artistic vision? Anxiety about failure? Unsure what steps to take? All of the above?

Someone far wiser than me (who I happen to live with) suggested that change only occurs when we become willing to give up what we’ve learned to do. It’s so easy to fall back on these tried and true methods, even if they are not serving your purpose as well as you’d like. At least you’ve made some progress with them, done something you like at least a bit. When you do something entirely new, you may have to go through that rough period where nothing at all satisfies. Then it’s soooo tempting to fall back in with your old habits and methods. Must be like trying to give up smoking…

Obviously what you’ve learned will remain with you and perhaps still make an appearance now and again, but to undergo true transformation, you have to be willing to die to one life in order to enter into another. Yes,  a bit of melancholy there, but also lots of excitement!

What changes are in store for you this year?

A Man with a Plan

Emerging, 6 x 6″ ink, newsprint

“I found that if I planned a picture beforehand, it never surprised me, and surprises are my pleasure in painting.”

– Ives Tanguy

“Without planning, your painting will probably be indecisive and fragmented, and you’ll try to say too much in one picture.”

– Ron Ranson

So which camp do you fall into?

I must admit that I do not plan a painting ahead of time. I don’t do small sketches, value studies, etc. I have occasionally in the past, particularly when I was doing more representational work. I’m a little too impatient to put too much time in up front on a new piece.

These days I find that I like to start by putting some random expressive shapes, textures and colors on the blank paper and and then constantly ask myself, “what does this need next?”. By intuitively trying to determine what is not working, what is missing, what should be added or taken away, the painting itself  communicates its needs to me. This dialogue works because there is a need in me to resolve unresolved qualities of the image. Something isn’t right, it’s unbalanced, lacking harmony, discordant. It’s like a musical phrase needing resolution – the notes move in a direction in which the tension mounts until the composer, with a deft touch, adds just those notes needed to restore order to things.

Of course, some art, both visual and musical, intentionally creates and maintains the tension of unresolved parts. It’s a little uncomfortable to see or listen to this art. The artist may be after this discomfort. Perfect harmony or resolution is not something that I’m really after in a piece. Figuring out just the right amount of resolution or lack thereof to leave in is one of the challenges in finishing a work. My favorite pieces fall short of perfect harmony but each stroke I’ve added has made something whole within the piece. There is, I hope, some method to the madness. Just not enough, I also hope, to get rid of all the madness!

Something New…

red balloon
escapes the child’s grasp
sunrise floats away

New Day, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“Poetry is good for unleashing images.”

– Paula Rego

I am planning on periodically adding short haiku poems I’ve written to my postings, as this is a poetic form I’ve become interested in. Traditionally the pairing of haiku with painting is known as haiga which appeared almost simultaneously with the first recorded haiku. Not surprising, since Japanese painting and haiku are made with the same brush. I’m afraid many of my paintings will not fit the typical character of a haiga painting, which tends to have subdued colors and very simple motifs.

We all know that words, like images, have tremendous power. But writing about a piece of art often seems to drain away some of it’s life. Pairing it with words which themselves aspire to an aesthetic grace can add another dimension to the work, infusing it with more spirit, not less. The way in which the words and the images coexist creates an exciting dynamic.

The juxtaposition will alter your experience of both the painting and the poem. By composing these haiku before, during or after the painting process, I suspect also that the brush will behave differently in my hand.

Doing Beauty

Shoji 1, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

– Rumi

I’ve always loved this quote from Rumi – actually had it on my website homepage for years. What great words for an artist to live by. We “do” beauty, which makes the word more than an empty adjective.

Now beauty is a term which isn’t all that popular in the art world these days. Considered a bit trite. But Rumi gives us some guidance – he talks about the beauty of “what you love”. In other words, when you are passionate about something your expression of it will contain a beauty that flows from that love.  This is why a beautiful painting must have passion behind it which helps to distinguish it from just a pretty picture. And this is why there are so many different paintings and photographs which are beautiful, for they represent the range of human passion.

The next time you encounter a beautiful piece, contemplate for a moment the love that inspired the artist to create it. Share in their passion.

Simple or Complicated

Oriental Grunge, 10 x 15 acrylic, ink

“In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.”

– Thomas Eakins

As artists we are taught that it is better to simplify what we put in our paintings – as Robert Browning said, “less is more”. When we start to paint objects or the landscape our tendency is to paint every last detail. For most of us, this is a strategy bound to fail. We learn to imply a million pine needles with one stroke of the brush. In figurative studies we learn that a simple line can convey as much or more about the human body than a realistic depiction. What isn’t literally there is filled in by the imagination of the viewer and thus offers a fresh dimension to each observer.

Yet many of my paintings are … complicated. I like to put a lot of “stuff” in them, different shapes, textures, colors, mediums, etc. Of course, in these non-representational pieces I’m not trying to make my work look like something else, so perhaps I’m not bound by the same need to avoid too much information which can make a realistic painting lifeless.

I’m sure it is a reflection of my own mind, which loves complexity in almost any form. People looking at work such as this may feel that it’s a bit of a mess, a chaotic jumble. I can’t deny a certain resemblance to my mind. Who knows, maybe if I get enough of this stuff out, I’ll reduce the mental clutter. Bear with me as I sweep out the attic…

Avoiding the Straight and Narrow

Ikebana 1, 10 x 15″ acrylic, inks

“When the snake decided to go straight, he didn’t get anywhere.”

– William Stafford

Our artistic paths have a trajectory that is unique to each of us. About the only thing they have in common is that they are not straight, often to our dismay. It seems like we’d get to where we’re going faster along the proverbial “shortest distance” straight line. But we need to see each twist and turn as the necessary route that is getting us to where we need to be.

A favorite analogy of mine is that of an airplane – it is slightly off course the entire trip and only reaches its destination because the pilot (auto or human) is constantly making small adjustments to its direction. In fact, if you find yourself on a path that feels pretty straight, you minght want to contemplate whether it’s just taking you really off course. Whenever I have been doing something consistently for awhile, I change it up. Usually I do so because I get bored easily so it’s a change born of necessity. But other times I’ll try something new just for the sake of it, to see if that direction feels like it’s moving me forward.

Of course, the airplane analogy breaks down a little bit with artists, because we  don’t know what our final destination is. So our course corrections have less design behind them. But I think it is safe to say that you’ll probably see a greater variety of scenery along the way if you meander purposefully a bit – and, after all, a more interesting journey is what it’s all about!

The Artful Life

Dreamcatcher, 11 x 15″ acrylic, ink

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”

– Robert Henri

Maybe if we focus more on what this state is and how to get ourselves into it and less on making art, more art would get made.

While this state may be different for each person, for me it is one in which I am relaxed, open, curious and interested. I’m full because I’ve been looking, thinking, reflecting, opening my senses. In this condition, if I simply surround myself with art supplies, art does start to happen in a kind  of inevitable way. On the other hand, when I’m contracted or anxious, or haven’t been soaking in new images, ideas and experiences, trying to make art becomes a real strain.

Too much of our time is spent thinking about what art we might make instead of creating the optimal inner environment from which the art can easily flow. I suspect that this very same state makes all things in our lives easier, not just the making of art. So maybe we can become happier and more successful in other ways while we set the stage for making some great art. Maybe we will live more artfully.

Naked Painting

Dreamweaver, 11 x 15″ acrylic, ink

“You must learn […] to manifest the wildness of an artist. This wildness has many faces. It is an amalgam of passion, vitality, rebelliousness, nonconformity, freedom from inhibitions. Think of this wildness as ‘working naked’.”

– Eric Maisel

Maisel recommends taking this literally –  take off your cloths to paint! He mentions a few of the luminaries in painting history who were known to occasionally paint at their easels in such an immodest fasion. Georgia O’Keefe and Marc Chagall were among them. His point is that artists must nurture their creativity through a number of activities, one of them being to connect with their “wild” side. Doing something outrageous is one way to do this and I can’t think of too many things more outrageous than painting naked. It would solve the chronic problem I have of getting splatters of paint on my best clothes.

Some of his recommendations to “get wild” are a little more tame than this one (though I do aim to try this out once my mother-in-law moves out into her new place). One I like is “think big thoughts” – for example, ask yourself “what is the very most that can be done with the color blue?”. Don’t just make a painting with blue in it, but try something outrageous with blue.

Lately I’ve been connecting with my wild side a little each time I paint by “warming up” with starting a bunch of monoprints. This activity is mainly about getting some color, shape and texture down on paper without the intention of finishing them as complete paintings. Once I feel some energy flowing this way, I switch gears and start moving those inks over to larger pieces and adding acrylics to the mix. Later I go back to the monoprints and work more on those that have some potential. I find I’m more productive once I’ve spent some time just playing to loosen up.

The trick is to maintain the same spontaneity when working on “real” paintings as you have when loosening up. Stay wild!

Beginnings and Endings

Graffitix, 9 x 9″ acrylics, ink

“Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.”

– Joseph Joubert

Do you feel excited when finishing a painting? Do you feel like you are in the grip of a creative impulse? How would you compare your feelings, emotions, state of mind at the end of the painting process to what they are when you start a piece?

If you are like me, they tend to be very different. When you start a piece, something has probably inspired you to take a particular direction. There are many possibilities ahead of you, nothing is beyond your reach. You are in the full embrace of your creative potential. By the time you are nearing the end of a piece, so many choices have been made, almost all of the possibilities eliminated. Perhaps the original inspiration has been lost along the way. Maybe you are already thinking about the next piece and don’t feel very motivated to put more time into this one, even though you feel it needs … something else.

It is hard work to finish a piece. Whatever experience you’ve had getting to this point is with you and that may be tinged with disappointment, bewilderment or frustration. And then there is the figuring out of when to stop – it’s so easy to stop short of what is necessary or to continue on well past that point.

As Joubert says, this is where the hard work occurs, often without benefit of the support of the creative spark that got you started. But we must cross that finish line each and every time, if only to be able to start the next piece. There’s always another painting waiting for us.

Anxiously Awaiting You

Urban Sunrise, 9 x 9″ Acrylics & Ink

“But the artist who is more interested in creating deeply than in ridding herself of anxiety will refuse to know too soon.”

– Eric Maisel

In his fascinating book, Fearless Creating, Eric Maisel talks about the necessity for the artist to invite in and deal appropriately with anxiety. While not dealing properly with anxiety at any stage of the creative process can create a block, refusing to allow anxiety in at all dries up the creative juices. You probably know this double-edged sword well – if everything feels too comfortable and familiar, you likely aren’t feeling at your creative peak.

One of the ways that we control our anxiety is through knowledge – when I’m trying to explore new territory with my art, there is a definite feeling of anxiety caused by not knowing what I’m doing. It’s easy to fall back on familiar techniques, styles, mediums, etc. Sometimes at the end of a session I’m confronted by work that isn’t at all what I intended to do and looks alarmingly reminiscent of past work. I fall into the trap of wanting to know too soon what I am doing in order to relieve the anxiety inherent in not knowing.

Albert Camus said in his last published lecture, Create Dangerously:

“On the edge of where the great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure,
an extreme risk. In that risk, however, and only there, lies the freedom of art.”

I’m often aware of the delicious tension I feel inside between the anxiety that pushes my creativity and the anxiety that stalls my creativity. I’m constantly doing things to tap into the former while also avoiding the latter. The space between these two states is where the freedom Camus talks about exists. It’s where I feel the most alive and energized and where I do my best work.

Your Artistic Path

Crimson Angel, 9 x 11″ Acrylic

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”

– Joseph Campbell

How oddly reassuring.

As artists we all struggle with knowing if we’re on the right path. There are usually obstacles looming ahead of us on that path – bumps we stumble over, forks we are stymied by, hills we tire of climbing, forests which block the light of day so we cannot see.

Surely we must eventually reach a point on the path where it is suddenly clear sailing. And, indeed, when someone else looks at our path, they often claim to be able to reach higher ground, from which they can see where our path is leading us with great clarity. They are eager to describe where we should go. I certainly have done so for others.

We can become frustrated with our path and impatient to have it cleared ahead of us. But we have to find our own way – what makes it our path, and thus our art, are the very difficulties we encounter and engage with.

So the next time I run into something on the artistic path that I don’t understand I will know that the next steps I take are surely my own and are taking me where only I can go.

In Defense of Hope

Tropical Deconstruction, 6 x 6″ monoprint

“As artists our job is to keep the faith and help humankind to remember beauty and thus the promise of happiness. Our work defends hope, the most precious homeland for any soul.”

– Todd Plough

I love everything about this quote.

It says that what artists do matters. That notion may be hard to accept, may seem arrogant or self-indulgent. If we don’t believe that what we do matters, however, it is hard to keep the creative juices flowing. It is important to accept that our work matters, not just to us, but to others.

This job we have that matters is to help others “remember beauty”, a simple phrase that reveals that it is not easy to remember beauty all the time, especially in these days of uncertainty. But beauty is one of the harbingers of happiness. When we see something beautiful it inspires happiness in us. Creating beautiful things and sharing them with others keeps the “promise of happiness” alive for them.

Our work defends hope by offering others opportunities to observe beauty and to experience the happiness that arises. As we struggle to understand the meaning of or motivation for our artistic activities, the simple nobility of this offering to others ensures that what we do does matter.

Art – It’s Not What You Think

“The thing made is a work of art made by art, but not itself art. The art remains in the artist and is the knowledge by which things are made.”

– Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy

It’s an intriguing thought to view art as not the work itself but the means by which the work is created. Art becomes something much more complex and interesting – the various internal forces within you that enable you to produce the “work of art”. Even “work of art”  takes on a new meaning – the piece created is the work of the art within you.

This makes the answer to “what is art?” take on a much more personal meaning – instead of looking outward and saying this piece is art and that piece is not, we instead turn inward and look for the measure of the art there. Art becomes much more than technique, composition or style – it is the unique combination of experience, intention, insight and creativity that only you have. Art becomes inseparably intertwined with the life force within you.

“The art remains in the artist” – I can think of no better companion.

What Isn’t There…

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

– Miles Davis

It’s all too easy to play what’s there – to take another photograph, paint a painting, write a story, compose a song, much like the ones you’ve done before. There are lots of reasons to do so – creating a consistent body of work, improving one’s skills through practice, recreating a past success, fear of making a mess.

It takes lots of imagination, courage and discipline to “play what’s not there”. To take the next step and create something new is exciting, seductive, frustrating, uncomfortable – and ultimately very rewarding.

I’ve been focusing lately on some abstract acrylic paintings – my intention to stick with non-representational work makes it a little more difficult to “play what’s there” since I’m not trying to make it look like anything else. During the period when I was doing landscapes in pastels, I found I was focusing on improving technique and much less on being creative. The explicit nature of the subject matter weighed me down. My focus was more outward.

When painting non-representationally I find myself listening to the pieces more. I start a piece and put it aside, come back and sit with it, trying to understand where it wants to go next. Since there are no external landmarks to direct me, the marks I’ve made so far must be my guides. I enjoy these private conversations immensely.

Improvement

“There isn’t any method of improvement inherent in abstract painting. There is no challenge.”

– Daniel E. Greene

As you might expect, I don’t agree at all with the sentiment expressed above. I find it interesting that a prominent artist would make such a statement – Daniel Greene is one of the most respected portrait artists out there. His style is certainly not abstract, but such a “partisan” point of view is surprising.

That said, he does raise an interesting question, which is how does one gauge “improvement”?  First, there is an assumption that, as an artist, we are trying to improve. Is this always true? Is “improvement” just a sly euphemism for “more successful”? We know what a twisted thicket trying to chase success leads us into.

Or does improvement mean that we are better able to express whatever it is we are trying to express in our art? One might argue that there is no need for “improvement”. As long as we’re enjoying making the art, who cares? Do we need to strive for improvement or should we be more concerned about enjoying the process and expressing ourselves freely wherever that leads us? Does trying to “improve” actually hold us back?

I believe what Greene is referring to is probably more technique oriented – as a fairly realistic painter or portraits, he can gauge improvement by the work’s closer and closer resemblance to the subject. Not just how photo-realistic the painting is, but to what degree the character of the subject is captured. For an abstract artist, it is certainly harder to measure improvement because there is no external reference against which the piece can be compared in some way.

But I cannot agree with Greene. I think in abstract art there is room for improvement and there are real challenges we face. The measure of improvement is more internal to the artist and thus more difficult for others to measure. But you probably have had the experience of looking at two abstract pieces and seeing that one is clearly better than the other – if these had both been done by the same artist, one would have to conclude that improvement had occurred (I’m assuming it wasn’t a one-off stroke of luck!). If such a leap in quality can be recognized there must be a method of improvement behind it.

This has been bugging me…

“Specialization is for insects.”

– Robert Anson Heinlein

I’ll admit it, I’ve got an art problem.

My art-making interest far exceeds my capacity to make art. It’s mostly a lack of time – I have a full time job, not to mention two teenagers, a couple of mothers to care for – you get the picture.

But I’m the restless type with lots of curiosity thrown in and I just love to start something new and learn about it. I’m really bad about finishing or perfecting things. I must drive my piano teacher crazy – just when I’m getting a handle on a new piece of music I want to move on to something new. I’m terrible at practicing a piece of music until I’ve mastered it – truth be told, I’ve never practiced a single piece of music to the point where I feel I could comfortably play it for someone else. But I can muddle through a pretty large repertoire!

I’ve spent a lot of time on photography, pastels, monoprints, acrylics and alternative digital printing processes over the years. I feel I might be better served by focusing the little time I have to make art on one, or maybe, two of these (or something new??). But I want to do them all, as well as continue to explore new processes and mediums. This isn’t the most cost-effective model – I’ve spent a lot of money on and accumulated a lot of art supplies over the years, much of which sits in storage now. I could open my own art store!

We’ve discussed before the pros and cons of a consistent style or technique and creating a coherent body or work versus exploring new processes. But usually artists are flailing around within just one medium. I seem to be flailing across a wide range of mediums. Same problem, larger scale.

I’d be interested in hearing how others have dealt with similar promiscuous art tendencies. Success stories welcome…

Painting and Photography

“We are not interested in the unusual, but in the usual seen unusually.”

–  Beaumont Newhall

I have noticed a difference over time between many paintings and photography. Many successful paintings have been created of subjects that are pretty boring. They are scenes that a good photographer would never even bother with. The composition can be mundane, nothing about the objects unusual and the light flat and uninteresting. Such a scene captured as a photograph would be of little interest to anyone. While it may be true that a painting with great composition, content and lighting may be better than the others, it doesn’t seem to be an absolute requirement as it is in photography.

Why is this?

I have a couple of theories. First, many people confer an almost mystical ability on a painter who can use a brush and paints and create anything that looks like something else. It seems to be a talent beyond so many (of course, it’s not!). But there is that self-deprecating belief in many people. So they are amazed when a painting looks like almost anything at all. Secondly, I think sometimes it is that the technique may be interesting. There are so many more ways in which a painting can be uniquely painted than a photograph printed. The photograph has to rely more on it’s content since the technique with which the print is created is much more limited than the myriad ways in which a painting can be painted.

Interestingly enough, I have found that when I paint from a photograph, I get a more interesting painting if I work from a “poor” photograph, one with not that much of interest going on. If it is a great photograph, my tendency is to try to reproduce it too literally, so I end up with something that looks like a not-very-good photograph. I used to manipulate some of my photos to make them worse with less information so when  using them as a reference for a painting I was not tempted to settle for what was in the photo but to go beyond that in the painting.

The Illusionists

“It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.”

– W. Somerset Maugham

I couldn’t resist this quote when I saw it as it is a perfect continuation of the discussion in my last post that started with the topic of talking about our art. The public in general does not really have an idea of what it is like to be an artist – I don’t think this is totally due to some unique quality such a life has. I know I don’t really have any idea what it is like to be a surgeon, lawyer or butcher. In many cases, I also idealize those professions in ways that real practitioners of those trades would roll a cynical eye at. Any career, even the most glamorous, has it’s share of drudgery or downright unpleasant work to do.

It is almost impossible to understand any role unless you have been in it yourself. I remember in a prior career when I moved into management (who had always been the adversary and who it was easy to be critical of), I became aware of the realities of making imperfect decisions in the midst of imperfect information. I realized one should always be wary of assuming insight into what others do, why they behave as they do, etc.

I think there is a real reason, however, to support the “illusion” the public has about being an artist. It may inspire them to explore their own artistic side – less likely to happen if you are moaning about some of the tedium involved. It may allow them greater enjoyment of your art – if you complain about what it took to make something, it casts a pall on the piece itself. And it may just allow them to be happy for you, in their belief that you’ve achieved the “good” life. Why steal that away?

There are too few ways in this world to offer something to others – why not honor the illusion that others take pleasure in? Who knows, maybe it we’ll start believing it ourselves and wouldn’t that be a good thing?

Knowing, Thinking and Looking

“Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.”

– Goethe

An interesting hierarchy.

I agree with the first part – knowing means there are fewer possibilities, and possibility is what keeps our interest. Some people may believe knowing is supreme, but as an artist, I think it leads to stagnation.

The second part is less obvious to me. Which would you prefer to do, think or look? Both contain endless possibilities. Thinking involves our imagination, a realm that has vast potential. Looking is such a rich experience and often we see things we could not imagine.

As an artist, I believe both are crucial and need to be developed. When I want to explore my creativity I will often look at my work and think about how I could change it, what concept I want to explore, what techniques I want to use, what I am trying to express, what should I strive to make different, etc. This thought process usually feels more like a contemplation than thinking, but it is an active use of my mind. At times like these I also pay more attention to what I’m looking at, how I’m looking, where I’m looking, etc. Without focusing on looking in this way, I lack the raw material my new work will need.

I guess I’ll continue to try to be a thoughtful observer in search of a few more pieces of art…

Photography and Painting

“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.

– David Bailey

This is an uncommon viewpoint and, i think, one that can only be understood if you have done a lot of both painting and photography in a serious manner. I believe most people believe painting is a more difficult artistic activity because it takes more pratice before a good piece results than is the case with photography. One can occasionally take a good, or even great, photograph, even with little experience – no one produces a great painting without a lot of practice.

But I tend to agree with David Bailey – the challenge with photography is to take ordinary scenes and do something original and creative with them. In painting, you have such license to add, subtract, change or alter what’s in the painting. The constraints of photography, the “ordinariness” of the subject matter, make it really hard to do something unique. And now there are so many photographic images out there, simply by sheer numbers it has become difficult to differentiate yourself. Finally there are fewer options in photography about the medium used for the final product – there isn’t the range of papers, textures, paint types available as there is with painting that can make paintings so interesting to look at.

Now admittedly both pursuits are very challenging and worthy of our efforts. For me personally, I find that it is easier to be creative with painting than with photography, where I usually feel that my efforts are just not really new and exciting, albeit somewhat competent. And it’s the creative juice we’re all after in the end!

I think, therefore…

“You can’t look at abstract art without thinking.”

– Patricia Cole-Ferullo

Yeah, much of the time you are thinking “What the heck?”…

But seriously, I think this is an interesting and perhaps controversial statement. When looking at something abstract, we start trying to find something familiar or recognizable. We start trying to figure it out, to find some way to relate to it. This is certainly one mode of “thinking”. Since we may not have any familiar forms to look at, we start to pay attention to other aspects of the piece – the colors, design, patterns, shapes, etc. We have to work a little harder to find something about the piece to like (or dislike).

The controversy of the statement is the implication that other types of art do not require thinking. I don’t really agree with that, though I do believe that our minds become engaged in different ways with different types of art. When we see representational art we do not have to work so hard to understand what we’re seeing or what the artist is saying (perhaps). It is given to us more obviously. These images may evoke memories and emotions, or we may become intrigued by the artist’s technique, or the objects may be depicted in new or unusual ways that cause us to consider them more carefully. We may be less likely to examine the piece from the perspective of color, form, etc. since the familiar image itself is so inviting and distracting.

Personally I enjoy the kind of mental engagement abstract art results in. It’s a little like a puzzle that I have to figure out. And I get to make of it what I want. It’s a challenge and it’s liberating, at the same time.

The World is as You See It

“You have to choose where you look, and in making that choice you eliminate entire worlds.”

– Barbara Bloom

Artists crop reality. That’s what makes us artists. We choose what to include and what not to include – this is the biggest and most important decision to be made about each piece. We seek a pleasing arrangement of the objects we include – this is composition. But more fundamental than composition is decisions about what is there and what isn’t.

My personal experience is that this “reality cropping” goes beyond our artwork and actually directs the way we see. We actively filter our visual reality according to our artistic intentions. For example, if I am interested in painting abstracts, I seem to notice more abstract shapes and colors around me. If I’m working on a series of plant and flower images, I notice more blossoms and blooms than before. My eye naturally goes to them – the reality is the same as it’s always been but I’m processing it in a different way. One of the great benefits of being an artist is the way in which our visual sense is sharpened and expanded in a way that alters our experience of the world.

A Day at the Lake

I am an artist who, for forty years
Has stood at the lake edge
Throwing stones in the lake,
Sometimes, very faintly,
I hear a splash.

– Maxwell Bates

We produce so many pieces of art over so many years and, occasionally, we hear the splash. Most importantly, we hear the splash “very faintly”. After all, it’s a very large lake – countless artists have thrown their stones into it.

None of our work is going to make waves in the lake – at best a small splash. But that is as it should be. We are members of an uncommon family, one that has congregated at this special lake for centuries, adding their contributions to the water one at a time. We are members of the family of artists…

The lake is larger than any of us throwing our stones and accepts each throw with equal consent. Not too long after the stone has broken the water’s surface, the lake returns to it’s earlier calm and patiently awaits the next toss. It teaches us that there is no need to hurry, no need to become attached to our stones, no need to take aim when throwing. Listen to the lake…

I, for one, intend to continue to visit this lake. The sound of that faint splash is all I need to know that I am where I belong.

Artistic Courage

“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.”

– Henri Matisse

For the past two or three weeks I’ve been frustrated with my monoprint making. Lots of interesting starts that went nowhere. Either I couldn’t figure out how to finish them, or I tried and ruined them. I felt like I was regressing in my work since for a while I had been happy with a number of my pieces and then, poof! Nothing for quite a while.

But I kept working at it, almost be-mused by what had become of my muse. And then, suddenly, the other night I had a spurt of about 45 minutes where everything I was doing was working. i was able to finish off to my satisfaction a number of pieces – more in that short interval than in the preceding three weeks.

I’m sure this is a common experience for artists but why does it happen? Why do we suddenly stop producing to our own satisfaction when it feels like we’re doing essentially what we had before? I’m not sure we’ll ever know why, but the more often it happens, the easier it becomes to continue working through these fallow periods, because we can trust that they will end. Our repeated experience gives us the courage to continue in the face of our own failures. Of course, they are not failures, but only what is needed to create the current piece!

Identity Crisis

“Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it.”

– Tallulah Bankhead

As an artist, I frequently have to make conscious decisions about the artistic style in which I’m working. Do I attempt to create a “look” that is recognizable as me, or should I continually try to explore new styles and subjects? There are experts that say that you will be more successful in juried shows, galleries and exhibits in general, if there is a consistency to the work that makes it recognizable as your own. A distinct style, as it were. On the other hand, as an artist I want to try new things, experiment in ways that will cause my work to evolve and improve. How do you reconcile these viewpoints?

I suppose that part of the answer lies in what your motivation is in making art, what your goals are and within what range of artistic endeavor you find creative satisfaction. It is probably true that having a body of work with strong consistency makes it more marketable (I’m assuming that the quality of the work is also high – consistency alone isn’t enough!). Too much variation confuses buyers, galleries, collectors, etc. However, doing similar work over and over may feel to constraining for you.

But I think an important factor in this balance is that each artist must decide how much variety is needed for them to feel creatively satisfied. For some of us, we have to use different mediums, styles, techniques, subjects, etc to avoid feeling bored, stultified or stifled. For others, it may be sufficient to explore subtler variations within a more constrained style to get that same satisfaction. I believe we all must feel we’re being creative – it’s just that the requirements for that feeling to exist can be very different for each of us.

I tend to be the type that needs a greater range of variety to feel creative. I guess I have trouble being exactly like me…

Never mind…

Having finished Alan Watts’ wonderful chapter on Zen and the arts in The Way of Zen, I wanted to share a couple of other thoughts.

We’ve talked here before about the need to develop technique to the point of mastery so that you can then abandon, or go beyond, that technique. Watts says,

“The brush must draw by itself. This cannot happen if one does not practice constantly.
But neither can it happen if one makes an effort. Similarly, in swordsmanship one must
not decide upon a certain thrust and then attempt to make it, since by that time it will
be too late. Decision and action must be simultaneous.”

In order to reach a deeper level mastery in any aspect of our lives, it is essential that we get past the mind. It is just so with making art. The freshest, most exciting art we make is when we are not aware consciously of what we are doing. If we have practiced our craft enough, to the point where it has become second nature to us, the mind can let go of trying to control things and then other dimensions of our being can emerge to guide our efforts. Herein lies the true fountainhead of creativity.

Practice is one path to overcoming the mind. My youngest son is learning to drive at the moment. It’s an interesting process. At first, it is fiercely mental – you try to keep aware of every little detail of driving. Paying attention to every road sign, checking the mirrors and blind spots, your speedometer, the other drivers, etc. It is a real struggle to mentally manage all these details at once. At some point, however, you’ve done it enough that it becomes less of a conscious activity and you can relax – you become a better driver because the mind has moved aside.

When I am painting, I am usually happiest with my work only when I suddenly become self-conscious again and stop to consider what I’ve done – if I’ve been self-conscious all along, it’s usually become a muddle.

When the brush draws by itself, good things happen…

Friend or Foe?

At the excellent suggestion of Danu, I am reading a chapter in Alan Watts’ classic “The Way of Zen” entitled “Zen in the Arts”. Watts talks about how in the West artists can have an almost adversarial relationship with their materials. He quotes Malraux who said we strive to “conquer” our medium, much as we’d conquer a mountain. I suspect we have all felt this at some point, particularly when a painting isn’t going as we want. We may feel that if we could just get rid of all these brushes and paints and let our vision shine through, we’d make better art. It can feel as if our materials are our foes in the struggle to make art.

Watts says that in the East this view is not understood at all. He says:

“For when you climb it is the mountain as much as your own legs which lifts
you upwards, and when you paint it is the brush, ink and paper which
determines the result as much as your own hand.”

I love this metaphorical explanation of how the very thing we may view as our adversary plays a crucial role in our endeavors. In fact, without that with which we struggle, we would achieve nothing.

I will remember that the next time my brush, paint or paper seems to have a life of it’s own. They are taking me where I am going…

Fear

I’m re-reading an interesting book that many of you artists may have read – Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It’s a classic survival guide for artists of all backgrounds – if you haven’t read it I highly recommend it. My experience of reading it is a continuous series of exclamations to the effect that “that’s just what I feel!”. Since my recent theme seems to be centering around showing your artwork and the attendant emotional gyrations that entails, I thought another pass through this would be useful.

Here’s one of their observations I found interesting and familiar – there is a common fear among artists that they are “pretending” to be an artist. They are not really an artist, not like all the other “real” artists out there. They cite a couple of reasons for this feeling – you know the accidental nature of much of what ends up in your artwork and you also know what parts of it originated with others. You assume that other “real” artists don’t suffer these same secrets. Hah! Rarely do we feel comfortable admitting to either of these qualities of our work.

I know that in my photography often my favorite shots are totally unexpected and many of my shots I carefully planned out don’t work at all. I do know of photographers who seem to have more control of their craft and can plan shots that work more of the time. Perhaps they do have better technique than me which allows them to do this. But does that make them a better artist, or their art better than mine? Or does it just reflect that they know how to do something specific I don’t (yet)?

Speaking of accidental art, the piece above was taken many years ago of my two young sons. It was one of the first “figures in motion” pieces that I took and it has lead me down a long path, much of which you’ve seen on the blog. At the time, I was just playing around with my camera and liked the unexpected result. Since then, I’ve intentionally used the technique over and over, but it is such that I can’t really predict what will happen anyway. Maybe I’m more comfortable using a technique that is beyond anyone’s control!

I call this piece “Figments of Their Imagination”…

We’re all in this together…

“The creative act is not formed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”

– Marcel Duchamp

This quote I ran across reminded me of the recent discussion we’ve had here about showing your work to others or not.

I know that I am always fascinated to see how different people can look at the same piece and have such different reactions and experiences. It’s not just whether they like it or not, but why they do or don’t, what they see in a piece, what it makes them feel or think about, what experiences they’ve had that it reminds them of. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of being completely surprised at how someone reacts to one of our pieces and that invariably at least slightly changes how we perceive it.

When people react so differently to the same piece the difference obviously is in them. So it makes me wonder exactly what inherent quality or value is in the work without being observed by others. There is, of course, my relationship to the piece. But as it is shared with others, it is evolving, projecting it’s “inner qualifications” into the world, becoming something different than it would have been tucked away in my drawer.

I’ll keep repeating this to myself as I welcome hundreds of people to my studio next month for our Open Studio event…

Art for Art’s Sake?

I’m back from a week in British Columbia helping my college freshman son start his new life in a university – looking forward to getting back to some art-making and art-discussing!

I’ve thought a lot about what the process of making art consists of for me. There seems to be a line that is either crossed or not by each artist – the one I’m talking about is showing your work to others with the intention of selling it.

I know of some artists who practice their art and never cross this line. They are happy to paint, photograph, etc. without ever having a show, putting a price tag on the work, sometimes even putting the work in a frame. Each piece is completed and then put away in storage or tossed or ???

In some ways, I envy folks like this – for some reason, I have always felt that the art-making cycle was incomplete with this approach. For me, sharing the work with others, having them experience it, is required for me to feel that the work is done. Of course, I have a lot of art that I’ve shown and never sold – the sale isn’t the piece that completes the puzzle, it’s the showing of it, the sharing with others, that closes the loop. Of course, there are pieces that aren’t of sufficient quality to show but those are not candidates to close that loop anyway.

This does place an extra burden on the process of making art and showing your work to the public can be a very humbling experience. So I am a little jealous of those who don’t feel the slightest need to take that route – somehow they’re dodging a bullet that I can’t seem to dodge. Perhaps there is a pathological need to acceptance behind all this. I won’t deny it…

When I started playing the piano 4-5 years ago, I made a conscious decision at the beginning that I would never play for anyone else. I don’t even let my family hear me (though they probably do hear something from the other room while I’m practicing). But I wanted to keep this activity to myself, for my own selfish enjoyment. It helps that I’m not good enough at it to be tempted to reverse my earlier decision about this! And this has worked for me so far with the piano.

Perhaps this topic has come up now because I am preparing for a large show next month – nothing like that to stir the pot!

Originality

Why do we value an original piece of art over an imitation? These days, with improvements in reproduction techniques and technology, the reproduction may be as good as (or even better than) the original. I know, I own a fine art printing studio, and it is true that not only can the reproduction look every bit as good as the original but it may also be more archival. I have had nationally renowned artists in my studio comparing the reproduction to their original and worrying that no one will be able to tell the difference. Now, this is not always true and there are definitely ways in which an original painting technique might not reproduce well but it is possible to do so in many cases. And most of us would not place as much value on that reproduction as on the original. Why?

Some believe the value of an art piece comes only from the visual experience we have of it, how it makes us feel upon seeing it, etc. In that case, a “near-perfect” reproduction would be of comparable value because it would give us that same experience. Or consider a painting that is a forgery but is good enough to fool even the experts – the actual visual experience of the forgery is the same as if it were authentic. Once we discover it is a forgery, the painting itself has not changed – only our knowledge of it and it’s relationship to the world has changed.

So it must be true that the value of a work of art is more than just how it looks and what our visual experience of it is. It is partly that, but also its value is based on our knowledge of its relationship to the world. We value it because it is the original, it was created by a specific artist at a specific time, perhaps in response to a particular artistic tradition, etc. It isn’t simply a parasitic forgery of someone else’s work. It isn’t a mechanically produced copy of the original. There is a context in which we see the work which goes above and beyond simply what it looks like.

When I look at a work of art about which I know absolutely nothing, I am basically left only with my own visual experience of it. The more I know about the work the greater the potential for me to place a higher value on it.

As in most things, knowledge leads to greater value.

Simple Things

“In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.”

– Thomas Eakins

I found this quote as I was contemplating simplicity and immediately thought of our friend, Miki. She is that rare union of mathematical and artistic passion in the same person. So this post is dedicated to her…

As I work on these abstract monoprints, I am constantly trying to decide what needs to be included and when I’m done. There is a lot of ability to layer and to remove with this technique, so I can keep going on a piece – often until I’ve made it way too complicated. My favorite pieces are those that have some strong patterns or shapes floating in an interesting field of color and texture. I often reach a stage where I like what I’ve done, but something seems to be missing. This may that “crisis” point in a painting that Danu has talked about, the point of departure for many pieces, where they either head in the direction of “success” or the direction of permanent storage, or worse.

Simple doesn’t necessarily mean fewer elements in the painting. I think that each piece has a natural order that it can handle – some pieces may have more going on in them, but for each there is some point at which it is not longer “simple”, where the fundamental nature of the piece has been exceeded in some way. I know intuitively when that has happened, usually fairly soon after I’ve reached that stage (it’s a disappointing realization!). I don’t think this is a rational process, but one more of feeling, based on the inner motivations, inspirations, intentions and reactions the artist has toward the piece.

In mathematics, reduction of complexity to a simple and elegant proof is described as “beautiful”. So it is in painting…

Inspiration

“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.”

– Henri Mattise

What is inspiration?
How do we find it?
How does it differ from impulse?
Is it necessary to be inspired to make good art?
Is it something that we can create or do we have to wait for it?

Artists want to feel inspired. We don’t always feel we are. Maybe most of the time we feel we aren’t. We look for the telltale signs – we’re excited about something, we feel the need to create, our attention is focused, there is a “quickening of all man’s faculties” (Puccini).

Many of the great artists I’ve read about second the sentiment Matisse expresses above – you have to keep going, keep working, even when you do not feel inspired. Somehow that process invites inspiration, or at least allows it to occur. I find that the more I expose myself to art, whether by doing it or seeing it, the more the opportunity for inspiration occurs. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, humbled or intimidated by the excellence of others, but eventually those contracted emotions subside and I can step into the creative stream whose shore I’ve been standing on.

Inspiration can be initiated from something outside of us, or from inside. My favorite work has been done when I felt inspired – I can’t think of much I like that was done when I was in the inspirational doldrums. Sometimes what I create when inspired doesn’t satisfy me either. I usually don’t doubt the inspiration but rather my ability to process it properly. This is a frustrating feeling, as it feels like an opportunity lost.

Sometimes in retrospect I realize I wasn’t really inspired but rather was acting on impulse. Some new idea intrigued me and I went with it, but these impulses usually die out quickly. It’s clear that it wasn’t true inspiration, it didn’t have “legs” and my poor results weren’t due to lack of technique or execution.

I think true inspiration is a particularly individual event. It’s one which is a result of our efforts and some good luck and, when it occurs, is a current that we should ride for as long as we can. It’s one of the ways in which we can truly feel alive. The chance to feel inspired may be one of the main reasons we seek to create art.

Color is King

“The orgiastic moment is the laying on of the color.”

– Kurt Vonnegut (he says he hung out with a lot of painters…)

I’ve begun reading a new book, “Color Codes” by Charles A. Riley II. The subtitle is “Modern Theories of Color in Philosophy, Painting and Architecture, Literature, Music, and Psychology” – whew! Quite a range of topics to cover. So I’m sure this will generate a few postings in the near future…

One thing that has struck me already is the importance color has had in intellectual thought over time. For example, it turns out that many important philosophers spent a lot of time investigating color. I believe this is due to the fact that color is such a common phenomenon (everyone knows what red is … or do they?) so it provides a rich opportunity to explore a wide range of issues related to how we experience and understand the world around us.

Many books have been written on the subject of color – there was Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgement (1790), Goethe’s Theory of Colors (1801-1810), Hegel’s Aesthetics, Schopenhauer’s Theoria colorum physiologica, and Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Color (1950). That’s a lot of brain power aimed at understanding color (and other items related to aesthetics). In particular, I am impressed that Wittgenstein spent his last days working on the issue of color – he gave it that much priority.

Just to start the ball rolling, here is an interesting question to contemplate – one which as artists we face on a daily basis. Wittgenstein talks about the difficulty of matching or comparing colors since they are so dependent on their surroundings. He asks you to consider a painting cut up into small pieces, so small that each one is essentially a single color. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle it is only when they are put together that they become the sky, or the vase or the figure. So, he asks, do the individual pieces show us the real colors of the parts of the picture? They do make up, by definition, the color elements in the painting, but we only see the real colors in the context of the entire painting.

At a practical level, as painters we all understand that colors take on different qualities in the context of other colors. We use that knowledge intentionally as we paint. But it certainly makes the effective management of color more complex. Take the number of colors we might create and then multiply exponentially to account for the subtle differences created by surrounding colors – it’s a dizzying palette!

I have a feeling that color is a somewhat slippery thing. Maybe that’s why we artists are so fascinated by it!

All Art is Abstract

“All paintings are abstract. Some abstract paintings also have pictorial representation or narrative content, but in essence they are first and foremost abstract because we have only paint.”

– Robert Bissett

I think we do sometimes lose sight of all the ways in which art does not really reflect reality. Sometimes a work of art seems so realistic, you want to reach our and touch it. But in reality, it isn’t realistic – by it’s very nature it is at least one step removed, almost always several steps removed, from reality.

Being an artist requires us to make decisions about how our work will differ from the world around us. First, we choose what piece of reality we’re going to represent. We decide what to include, what to leave out, what colors, shapes and textures to use, etc. This “editing” process is the first and perhaps the most important step we take to define the individual piece we’re creating.

As a photographer I’ve always been amused by people who believe photography literally captures and recreates the world around us. As soon as you point the camera at something, you’ve made a choice as to what to include and exclude. There are all sorts of further ways in which “reality” is altered when taking a photograph – exposure and aperture settings, what kind of film you’re using (does anyone use film anymore?) each of which makes the scene look very different, what time of day you take the shot, etc. And when making a print of the photograph, there are artistic decisions about what paper to use, how large to print it, and many changes you can make to the image in the printing process that further affect the final piece of art. Think of black and white photography – is the world black and white? Yet, we routinely accept these photographs as representing reality.

We create our art, at least in painting and photography, in two dimensions only, unlike the 3 dimensional world around us. The pigments we use, no matter how good they are, cannot recreate every color that exists in the world. Our perceptual system can distinguish tonalities, hues and qualities of light that simply cannot be reproduced using any art form.

So by definition, all art is abstract. The content of the work may be representational or not, but the act of making art is, in essence, an act of abstraction. Maybe this is why it is so seductive a practice. We are recreating the world in a new way – can you imagine a more empowering act?

Where to Draw the Line…

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”

– G.K. Chesterton

I loved this quote when I found it – I’m always up for a good pun.

But, in truth, there is a lot to ponder about in this statement for the artist. It all boils down to how you interpret the word “somewhere”.

Does it imply the non-specific, random “somewhere”, as in “put it somewhere, anywhere for God’s sake!”? When you are 2 years old this is what happens – paintings are a series of random marks. Sometimes, when faced with a blank canvas, putting some random mark “somewhere” can be a good way to get started. It gives you something to work off of.

Or does it mean a more specific placement of the mark in the painting? Once a piece is well under way, we often reach a stage where the painting needs something to progress and we study and study it, looking for the exact “somewhere” that will work. It’s often not easy to decide.

Often with non-representational work it seems that the artist has reverted back to their 2 year old definition of “somewhere”. How often have you overheard the remark “my 2 year old niece could have painted that!”? But I suspect that more often than not, that painter was operating under the second definition, and those seemingly random “somewheres” were actually much more akin to the specific, intentional “somewheres” described above.

I’ve heard that those who observed Jackson Pollack doing his “gestural paintings” (the recipient of many comparisons to 2 year old painters) were struck by how deliberate and considered his application of the paint actually was. I know from my own experience that if I try to do a whole painting “randomly” I get a big mess. Even the most abstract, non-representational pieces need to have some design and intention behind them in order to work.

I guess it’s all in knowing “where to draw the line”…

Some new work…

I’m going to start posting the occasional abstract painting on the blog. Currently my artistic focus is on the figurative photography and monoprinting I’ve been regularly posting. In addition, I’ve been working periodically on some abstract works using Sumi ink, watercolor, acrylic, stamps and pastel. I must admit that I find this work challenging and most of what I end up with doesn’t work for me. Some of this is poor technique and some of it is that it is just darn hard to compose an abstract piece that hangs together. And then there’s the age old question of when to stop. I tend to end up with no paper white left, which almost always means I did way too much.

The good news is that some of the pieces that “don’t work” end up being integrated into the figurative photography where the demands on the painting are perhaps less as it becomes an element that simply has to work with something else.

I think ultimately if I had my druthers, I would concentrate on this type of work but, so far, my success rate with it is not there. So, more hard work trying to get a little more consistent. The usual remedy for an artist when they are struggling.

By the way, just out of curiosity I looked up where the word “druthers” comes from – looks like it is a contraction of the phrase “would rather”. Well, I would rather do this type of art!

Art, Mathematics and Basketball

The word “beautiful” is very complicated and yet we routinely apply it successfully to a wide range of situations. We all know what it means to say a painting is beautiful (though that description has fallen out of favor in the modern art world). Most of us also know what a beautiful smile is. Those of us who watch sports know what the announcer means when they say that a basketball player has a beautiful jump shot. In mathematics or physics, a proof can be described as beautiful. And a contemplation in a spiritual text can be beautiful as well. The list goes on…

Does the word have the same meaning in each of these situations? Why do we all understand each of these uses yet see that the things being described are quite different and may have nothing more in common with each other than their “beauty”?

Ludwig Wittgenstein, arguably the most important philosopher of the 20th century, had an interesting explanation. He believed that we used “language games” to describe the world. He used the word “games” to imply that there are rules and conventions surrounding various subjects that we all understand. We have to evaluate the meaning of words within the language game in which they are being used. So the word “beautiful” in the sports, spiritual, mathematical or art language games is used and understood within the context of each game with its unique set of rules and conventions.

He also said that the use of the word in differing contexts bears a “family resemblance” – it is not identical across language games any more than two members of a family are identical. Yet we usually can tell that two people are members of the same family, just as we implicitly understand that a beautiful jump shot in basketball bears some resemblance to a Mark Rothko painting. We know they are both “beautiful”.

What other kinds of “language games” can you think of in which we routinely use the word beautiful? I think you’ll be amazed at the variety and complexity of this word and the number of “games” in which we use it…

What’s the Point?

My 18 year old son told my wife and I (both professional artists) that he doesn’t have any appreciation for painting or music (other than the lyrics of Bob Dylan). He said he loses interest in any painting after 5 seconds – it’s all derivative, it’s all been done before, he said. What’s the point?

I was taken aback by this statement, as you might imagine. But I thought more about it and wondered. In today’s world, with access to so much information, most of us have seen lots and lots of art. Through books, museums, TV, the internet, magazines, art shows – we’re flooded with every imaginable style, medium, technique, subject matter, etc. So maybe it is hard to find anything truly original. I suspect 100 years ago it was much easier to be amazed by new art since most people weren’t exposed to much of it in their lives.

But even though I’ve seen so much art, I can still look at a piece of work from an artist and enjoy it, sometimes get really excited or inspired by it. Why is this? There must be something other than originality in it that we’re attracted to, though it has to have some level of uniqueness, at least in our own experience. And there must be something that makes us artists want to produce more art, even when we know that what we make is not completely new. Sometimes we even celebrate the influence others have had on us.

So why do you still like to look at art, in spite of the thousands and thousands of images you’ve already seen? What keeps you going? What is the point, for you?

By the way, I let my son know that when I was his age, I didn’t have much appreciation for art and music either and that I suspected there was some seed that had been planted in him that would sprout later in his life around art. I’m not counting him out yet!

The “Bear Trap”

In my last post I had a shot of my wife and her art studio. One of my visitors keenly noted what he referred to as a large “bear trap” in her garden. And, indeed, it did look like one was there ready to spring shut! So I thought I’d alleviate any fears people might have about the safety of our property by showing what that was.

Years ago we made an “art trade” with a local metal sculptor – a painting for a dragon. He resides happily and peacefully in the garden near Susan’s studio, though lately he has been getting a bit overtaken by the plants growing up around him! Next year we may have to relocate him to a new home…

Art Studios

I thought I’d share with you the art studios here at the Cornelis estate – I always like seeing other artist’s studios so thought I’d share our with you.

This is my “new” painting studio – a TV room converted to a higher calling (many thanks to my wife for suggesting it!). I had not had a place for painting for a number of years so this comes as a welcome return to being able to make a mess and leave it there! You can see my table of monoprints in progress – the trick with these is to start a bunch at once and then refine them incrementally, so there is usually quite an array of them lying about. I’m still getting settled in, so it will undoubtedly get messier over time.

Below is my digital printing studio (aka Color Folio). This is where my day job happens – making large format fine art prints for artists all over the country. I’ve been doing this full time for the past 10 years. As you can imagine, I get to see all sorts of artwork during my day, both photography and paintings!

You can see my drum scanner (the monolithic tower in the middle), 60″ Epson printer and a bunch of computers. This is also where (in my spare time) I do my own photographic work, some of which you see on the walls. Lately, as you know, I’ve been taking paintings I’ve made and combining them on the computer with photographic work, mostly figurative.

Later this year my wife and I will be participating in our local open studios art tour in Sonoma County. I will be opening Color Folio (which doubles as a gallery) and my wife will also be showing her work. Here she is standing in front of her art studio:

As you can see, we’ve dedicated a lot of space to producing art!

Mindless Art

“Art has never been made while thinking of art.”

– Niko Stumpo

I’ve been thinking and writing lately about what you might call the artist’s intention in making art. What factors influence them, consciously and unconsciously, during their creativity. When you read about art history, it all sounds so organized and causally clear. This was happening in the world or in one’s life, so that made them think this or believe that, and that lead to them making this kind of art. Sounds logical. You can even read the artist’s words directly sometimes and it can sound as if they had a clear intention or thought when making their art. For some reason, this all fascinates me.

Perhaps because my own experience of making art feels different to me. As the above quote says, when I am actually making art, I’m not thinking about it. In fact my favorite work occurs when I get into that state where the mind actually ceases it’s chatter and you enter the “zone”. You can awaken from this hours later and realize you can’t remember a single thought – time has been suspended. It’s as close an experience as I know to deep meditation, where the same thing can occur. When reading the art history books we may get the impression that Picasso was actively engaged in mentally deconstructing reality and reformulating it while he was painting. Probably more likely he was in this suspended mental state while actually painting, like the rest of us.

Maybe all the thinking about art has to occur at other times, rather than while actually doing it. I’m sure some of that mental activity affects our art. at least unconsciously. It’s like an athlete doing drills, or a pianist doing scales – it’s useful to spend time doing these things, but once you’re actually performing the mind has to step aside. Or at least the logical, left brain mind needs to get out of the way. Many of the times I struggle in my work is when that side of the mind is still engaged.

Making Sense…

“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

– Pablo Picasso

The rate of change in modern life, starting with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, has continued to increase. The world began to be filled with more things, coming at a faster and faster rate, and the things themselves became faster and faster (cars, planes, trains…). A simple experience that we now take for granted, looking out the window of a car moving at 60 mph, must have been a revelation when people first started being able to do that. It is a unique way of seeing our reality, unlike any they could have imagined. Another everyday experience is seeing the world from a high place, the top of a skyscraper, from an airplane, etc. People not too long ago had never seen the world through these eyes, in these ways. A lot of the disruption that occurred in the art world around this time was strongly influenced by the realization that how we had been seeing the world for eons was limited and how we had depicted the world in our art was insufficient to depict the new reality.

Our world today is much more complex than 100 years ago, but I wonder whether we have undergone so radical a transformation in how we see things as occurred then? With the power of images and film and special effects, we are overwhelmed with every conceivable way of looking at our reality as well as other realities. It’s hard to imagine having an experience today that would fundamentally change how we think of reality, except perhaps in the inner spiritual world. We’ve exhausted the external world’s ability to amaze us. Maybe this is why more and more people in the world are pursuing a spiritual path.

I’m not sure how, or if, this will affect trends in the art world. There is a long history of combining religious subject matter and art and I’ve seen a lot of contemporary art that has some spiritual content. All of it seems to be a way to represent religious symbols – none of it that I’ve seen represents a different way of perceiving reality along the lines of the transformations that occurred in the art world a hundred years ago. I’d be interested in knowing about such art…

The Concrete Jungle…

I read something recently about abstract art that intrigued me – it described such work as that which would otherwise exist only in the mind. In other words, it doesn’t contain any element that is recognizable as existing in nature, or the “external” world. This work becomes intensely personal as a result, in some cases perhaps too personal, making it sometimes inaccessible to others. It begs the question of whether the art is being done for the artist or the audience. And there is an educational element involved – with some background or explanation, the work without reference in nature may make sense to the observer. Usually such art is seen, however, without benefit of this information.

Of course, this is an extreme definition and much abstract art contains more or less obvious references to nature. The above piece would fall into the stricter definition, while the following piece would not:

In the first half of the 20th century there was a movement among some abstract artists to use the word “concrete” instead of abstract. Their sort of counter intuitive view was that abstract art without natural reference was more real than work that had a representational aspect. A painting of something else is always a mere “sign” or reference to that object and thus is less “real” in some sense than that object. Since the elements in a strict abstract painting don’t refer to something else, they are the things in themselves. So the artists preferred the term “concrete” to emphasize this direct rather than indirect reality of the piece.

I’m interested in the way in which things we see depict different levels of reality. I suspect it has a lot to do with how we learn and what it is to know. I have a feeling I’m headed down some of these paths in upcoming reading and contemplation.

I’ll end with another piece of “concrete” art. I’m interested in your thoughts about how you both see and make art and how this distinction between paintings that have reference to nature and those that don’t enters into your thinking.

More Monoprinting

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

– Scott Adams

I’ve been continuing to explore my interest in monoprinting. So far, these are all fairly small (6×6″) pieces done using hand tools only (no big presses). One of the things I find most appealing about the process is the way in which so much of the result is unexpected – maybe that changes with more experience but, for now, I’m enjoying the unanticipated nature of it. It seems as if there are no “mistakes” in this process, just images that haven’t found their way to completion yet. Sometimes I even cut up my “mistakes” into pieces to use as collage elements in other work. OK, I admit, I have actually thrown a couple into the trash bin, but that was probably just being lazy instead of considering how they might be used, saved or resurrected.

Another aspect I like is that the best way to work on these is to start a bunch of them all at once – each time the brayer lays down the ink, an impression is created on it’s surface that can then be used on another or a new piece. Often these “ghost” impressions are the most interesting, containing shapes and textures from previous applications. In the past, I’ve sometimes become bored when working on one piece at a time – this lets me feel like I’m working on a dozen pieces all at once!

Here’s another recent effort…

Subjects and Objects

“Every good painter paints what he is.”

– Jackson Pollack

My friend Gayle raised some eloquent and thoughtful points in my last posting so I thought I’d continue the thread a little more. I am most grateful for such contributions as they make me think more about things I do not understand – such as “what is art?”, “why do I do it?”, “how should I place value on it?”. Well, that list goes on and on. And Jerry Dodrill offers another perspective, one in which art isn’t different than what else one does with passion in their life. There are so many vantage points from which to consider these questions.

“Is art a pretty picture or the lived experience of a moment’s exchange with the ground of being, the energy field from which all comes?” Gayle asks. These certainly seem to be on opposite ends of some spectrum, don’t they? Does one have more value than the other? Centuries ago, art was meant to represent or imitate life – it’s ability to do so gave it great power, to the extent that in some cultures (Judaism, Islam, etc) it was forbidden or at least looked at with suspicion. Heck, the 2nd Commandment is about “image making”, giving it priority over activities like murder and aldultery. Over the last 200 years, simple imitation has grown to lack such impact, at least in most Western cultures. Art has become more about expressing what is inside the artist than imitation of the external world.

So how do we today view the work of a representational painter who has most skilfully recreated a still life in tremendous realistic detail? Is this a work of art? Surely it must be – it has been done artfully and is beautiful to look at.

Yet it is also a “pretty picture”. What does the painting say about the experience of the painter or what they are trying to express. It seems hard to see a connection there, we can’t tell much about the artist at all. On the other hand, this artist may be having a profound experience in creating that piece. The intensity with which the objects must be studied, the patience and discipline with which the painting is created, the concentration required may have all led to an almost ecstatic meditation inside. Does the internal experience of the ground of being need to be expressed so that others can see it and perhaps share a little of it, or not? Whose experience is involved in determining the artistic merit of a piece?

Post Workshop Blues…

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.”

– Edgar Degas

Another monoprint from last weekends workshop. I started doing some more of these miniature pieces last night at home and found them somehow less interesting than what I did last weekend. It was frustrating.

Why is it that sometimes are done in a class when just learning can be more satisfying than our own efforts later? Is it beginner’s luck? Is there some energy that exists when doing art as part of a group that isn’t there when flying solo? Maybe one is just more relaxed when away “on vacation” at a workshop rather than trying to steal an hour or two amidst our busy schedules.

Here’s another from the workshop:

So maybe now that I “know how to do monoprints”, the real struggle will begin.

Monoprinting…

“Abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.”

– Al Kapp

Last weekend I went to Mendocino, CA for a 2 day workshop in monoprinting. It was a new and exhilarating experience for me and I found that I took to the medium happily. It satisfies my desires to create textures and shapes and there is a lot of discovery and unexpected results to be had. One thing I like about this type of monoprinting is that it forces you into non-representational spaces. With the tools used, it is difficult to make a picture of something – at best, you are forced into some level of abstraction. This is the area I want to be in anyway, so it’s a natural fit

We ended with color work, an example of which you see above, but we started with just black ink on white paper. I was amazed at how much complexity and depth could be achieved with one color:

This one was an attempt at a sort of abstract landscape.

Then we were allowed to add one color:

One of my instructors commented that my work looked “sooty” – huh? I think she was projecting her own inner qualms about the surrounding fires in Mendocino County (which really didn’t impact the town itself much at all). Sooty, though – sounds like something you’d hear at a high end wine tasting event – “that one has a sooty aftertaste, don’t you think?”. I hope my artwork does linger on the palate for a while…

Intropspection

When I complete a piece that speaks to me, I find a feeling of introspection settles over me. Often the subject matter itself reflects that inner state as well. Is the work a projection of my feelings and thoughts, or does it cause those very ruminations to occur. I thinks when a piece “feels right” it causes a dialogue between itself and it’s creator. The work we make and immediately forget and let go of is not why we pursue art. It’s those pieces that maintain a relationship with us that propel us forward.

I’m still having a conversation with this piece. We’re becoming friends…

This started as an image transfer using gel medium onto watercolor paper. The statue was found in the gardens of Mission Dolores in San Francisco, a wonderful tranquil place. I applied a number of watercolor washes over it and the paper and added some tissue paper collage at the top to create texture and soak up more of the paint. I then made a couple of stamps and used acrylic paint to create the patterns around the statue.

A Little of this, a little of that…

There are a number of wonderful apple orchards nearby (though they’re rapidly being replaced by a better “cash” crop, namely grapes). Apple trees have very different personalities in each season, from the vibrant blossoms of spring to the bare austerity of winter. The latter is a look I particularly like. Trees denuded of their fruit and foliage, patiently waiting for the time to bloom, convey to me a composure found in nature that I envy (and sorely lack!).

In this piece I started with a transfer using gel medium and then created the rest of the “landscape” using watercolor, sumi ink and iridescent pastels. I also used some acrylic stamping to add some geometry to the otherwise organic setting. I guess I got everything in there!

Mixed Media Collage Adventures

In addition to photography, I also have done some painting in recent years, mainly pastels, but also some acrylics. I really like the textural capabilities of both of these mediums.

This piece is a recent effort in mixed media collage. I started with a background made using acrylics, soft and oil pastels and tissue paper. I then took pieces of giclee prints of 2 of my paintings that I did of street scenes in San Francisco and added them to this background.

Collage is very challenging for me because there is so much you can do and knowing when to stop or what is too much for the eye is not always obvious. My plan is to integrate this type of work with some of the experiments I’m doing with image transfers and overprinting with inkjet printers.

Yikes, my wife tells me I’m making all of this too complication and, as usual, she’s right! But it does make it interesting to see what happens.