Lightfast

Sitting at the pc, fooling around. MusicMatch Jukebox was open and some oldies were playing. “Ventura Highway” came on…and I remembered. Not details of my youth, but the sense of it. I came of age during the 60s andsometimes the future held the promise of hope, sometimes of despair. But either way there was an unknowingness, a sense of adventure and mostly dreams of what might be. In that moment of longing for that old feeling I wondered what had happened to it, when it had been lost or buried. Or was it like a petrified tree where organic cells were slowly, gradually, one by one replaced with specks of sand until only hardness is left?

I don’t feel hard. But I don’t feel awe at the wide world either. Maybe it’s the “global village” effect, the world not seeming so wide any more. Maybe it’s the perspective that comes with passing through years, decades of life. A perspective that creates and maintains a more steady view of the future. We know how it’s turned out before so we have a pretty good idea of what tomorrow and the next weeks and years will hold. Or we assume we do, we act like we do.

In the moment of trying to hold on to that old feeling I wonder if all this art stuff is just a mid life crisis. It’s a tempting thought, except that art doesn’t make me feel the way I did in my youth. (I’m not sure anything other than the sense memory of an old song could.) The unknown future was irrevocably entwined with the present back in those days. The future is still unknown, but the mystery of it has long since faded away. And maybe that’s what I miss in these moments of reverie, the mystery of it all.

In a way, (a spiritual way, I admit) I feel that I already know the answer. I may not be consciously living it moment to moment, but I understand it. There have been times, some lasting seconds, some lasting months, when the veil of the ego has thinned and I have lived the experience of what I call the Authentic Self. It wasn’t total, like Eckhart Tolle, for example, but it was real. The apparent world was seen for being the apparent world that it is, oneness was felt, peace, harmony, and joy. A wonderful experience (and no quibbling with the semantics of there really being no one here to experience anything, thank you). And I know that the intense feelings of my youth were partly this same experience, happening in brief flashes.

So where does all this lead art-wise? Does it have purpose and meaning? Or am I just filling time and having some fun while doing so? These are questions I’ve been pondering for a while. I guess in simple terms it comes down to “What’s the point?” And does there even need to be one? Sometimes I look at a painting and, while I may admire it on many levels, I can’t help but wonder why the artist painted it. What’s the point of the picture? Was it just something the artist liked? I’ll be honest, I wonder this a lot when looking at still lifes and painting done in a super-realism style. My mind yells, “Take a picture instead and think how much free time you’ll have to do something else!”

Can the need for purpose and meaning be a plague on one? Am I forever ruined by the dramatic events and sensibilities of my young adult life? Having glimpsed the Divine, am I now doomed to be jaded about “ordinary” life? Are all these musings and questions just so much drivel?

Maybe this is partly the aftermath of the election. I was never sure that I would live long enough to see this day. The dream did not die, but its scent of new car leather and freshly cut grass had faded in my mind. They were replaced with continuity. But I’ve now thrown continuity out the window, quit my job without another one lined up and am spending my limited funds on art supplies. I don’t regret it. I just hope I didn’t throw the car keys out with it. Because if that light of mystery ever shows up on the horizon again, I’m not going to wait for it to grow and develop. I’m going pedal-to-the-metal like a mad woman in its direction!

All my life I have felt the creative urge, and for most of that time there has been no outlet. Finally, several years ago, I began writing, and now I have begun painting. At first I was carried along on the tide of newness and freedom. Those first few months of not going to a job were definitely a thrill ride. But, while I loved all the art classes I was taking, I got a bit frustrated because I never had time to finish pictures begun in class, nor to just paint pictures that I wanted to paint. The freedom of being able to play after 24 years of working was wonderful and my time each week would easily get filled up with thing to “do.” So I decided to take a break from classes and blogging and just play and paint on my own for the month of September.

Of course, as soon as I made this decision I discovered a teacher that I wanted to study with! Still, I did cut back on the classes and blogging. I took a couple of acrylics classes and two classes with the new teacher. Since they were both on Mondays, it left me with lots of free time. And guess what happened! I still didn’t get much painting done! I was busy, busy, busy, then I looked up to see that the whole month had passed. So I realized it was time to re-evaluate. Granted some out of the ordinary things had happened in September, but still….

At this point there was no way to avoid looking at “Why?”

Six month ago I quit my job and for the first time in my live I had the freedom (i.e. time, money, opportunity) to persue/follow those creative urges. I just assumed that for as long as the time, money and opportunity held out, everything else wold fall into place. What I have discovered in reviewing this past month is that my ignoring, repressing and pushing aside those creative urges for the last four or five decades has left a barrier that isn’t going to just fall away like the flakey outside layer on a croissant.

That first blush of freedom obscured just how well I had trained myself to NOT do art. This last month has made it clear that unlearning that way of “being” in the world is going to take some conscious focus.

So here’s the plan: (1) paint every day - even if it’s just doing color charts or such, (2) get and keep the studion set up and ready for painting every day, (3) stop filling up my days with socializing, errands, etc., and (4) take fewer classes.

I realize that these “goals” are rather intangibles, but these are just for the beginning. These are for retraining my way of being in the world as much as they are for creating art. Because, as we all know, doing and being are not the same. If I want my art to com from within, to express what is within me, I must “be” the artist before I can “do” the art. Happily, “being” isn’t a four year degree program to be completed before I can start painting. “Being,” whether it’s an artist, teacher, healer, or whatever, runs simultaneously with “doing.” It begins anew with every day and is self contained in every now moment.

Recently I bought some small canvases, 8×10 down to 2×2 1/2. I have enjoyed viewing the paintings of Jeff Hayes and keeping up with Jennifer Phillips’s recent works and seeing the work they do on small surfaces inspired me to try this.

There is a standing joke in the writing community that someone writes a novel because she doesn’t have enough time to write a short story. While this is meant to be somewhat humorous, it has a basis in truth. In an earlier post I likened brush or pastel strokes to sentences, and in a novel one can get away with some bad or lame sentences. They can be hidden among the great quantity of all the others in a 250 plus page book. But with a short story EVERY sentence counts. And I was pretty certain that the analogy would hold true for painting as well.

I can’t speak for other beginning painters, but one thing I have trouble with is being patient about laying down those strokes. I know I need to slow down and pay attention, but it’s hard. Part of this may come from not yet having the ingrained knowledge about brushwork or pastel layering that makes some aspects of painting almost automatic. Part of it is just that it’s incredibly FUN to throw, splash, dab, etc. paint onto a surface! (Especially when it’s an experience that has been denied for a life time.) Giving this a try, however, pretty much convinces me that working on a small canvas/surface may be the cure for impatience. Or at least a balance for it (I hope I never lose the thrill of splashing paint on a canvas!).

So, I started a landscape on a 2 x 2 1/2 inch canvas using acrylic paints. Oh my! I’m so glad I have a visor with interchangeable magnifiers! But even so it took incredible concentration and focus. And I maybe got half way done. But even though I painted the mountains three or four times and the foreground looks like it has some kind of disease, it was still a great learning experience. And I look forward to working on it again. My one complaint is the brushes. I have little tiny rounds, but am not particularly happy with them. Do they even make flats or filberts in sub zero sizes?!

I don’t know if painting small will translate to larger work brushstroke-wise, but it will most certainly help me develop the ability to focus and concentrate and be patient. And guess what - even with having to be so deliberate, painting is still FUN!

NEWS & UPDATES

For any pastelists out there, check out the new videos offered on ArtistNetwork TV by Deborah Secor. She does amazing work and loves sharing her knowledge. She is a regular participant on the Wet Canvas Forum and I’ve learned a lot from her posts there and the feedback she’s given me on my work.

I’ve added a link to the website of Kathryn Cerasoli who teaches the acrylics class I take. You can view her vineyards and art.

Also, in links and blogroll, check out Chris Beck who is an amazing and award winning SF Bay Area painter.

I’ve made some changes to the sidebars. There’s a new link to the Lightfast Amazon store that will show random books I’ve listed there. So if you are going to be shopping there, or at Dick Blick, I invite you to click on those links and help me feed my art habit! Also I’ve updated the “What I’m Reading” section and moved it up to the top as the “Catagories” wasn’t being used much.

And PLEASE click on the CHILD HEALTH SITE link! It’s FREE TO YOU, I’m not making any money from it, and it only takes a minute to click on all their sites. Your clicks equal sponsor donations. Thank you.

Many years ago I did a fair amount of black and white photography. I would spend at least one chilled, foggy morning each weekend in Golden Gate Park, most often in the botanical gardens. Some of the shots I took turned out great, others completely mundane and boring. It took me a while to figure out why this happened.

Many times I would come on a scene, or group of plants and would think what a wonderful photo it would make. So the tripod went up, the lighting was checked, the Ansel Adams Zone System calculated, the picture snapped. And invariably, once developed, the photograph would turn out deadly dull and uninteresting. But if I saw something that evoked an emotional response and took that picture, doing all the technical bits just as before, it almost always made an interesting photograph.

So what made the difference? I knew the tech aspect well enough to do it correctly in both circumstances. Were the intellectual pictures actually fine, but I just didn’t relate to them on an emotional level any more than I had the original scene? Or was the difference something metaphysical? Something beyond the facts?

In pastel class last week I told my instructor, and of course anyone else in the class who was listening, something I’d never told anyone before. It was about seeing a person on the street, or a house or building or some such and sensing a (or “the”) story there. One of the reasons I began writing was to tell theses stories. But to my dismay I discovered that I could not, because what I sensed was just that: a sense, a feeling. It was the atmosphere and ambiance rather than a plot, the overall feel of a person’s life or the events that happen in and around a building or place. And, like trying to write or talk about Spirit, these “stories” were almost impossible to put into words.

Well, recently I noticed that this sensing of story is also happening with some photographs that I am looking to use as references for painting. The reason why this came up in class was that, though my current painting is one from my imagination rather than a photograph, the instructor said he felt there was a story there. So I told him about my sensing of stories and that, while I could never get them down in writing, I was beginning to believe that I might be able to “tell” the story with painting.

This epiphany had come to me the previous week when the picture I’d been working on took a new direction. I got the idea to change one thing, then someone in class made another suggestion, and there it was: a story. Not in words, but definitely in feeling. It was an “AHA” moment! And in that moment a definite direction for my painting opened before me where before there had been none.

You might think that this would be exciting, and it is. But mostly it’s more like the good feeing of arriving home after a long and tiring trip, a feeling of being able to relax, to release the tension created by waiting to see where my painting would go. Now, of course, I just need to continue to “let go” and follow where it is leading. Because the one great thing I learned from my photography days is that following that intangible, unexplainable Siren Song instead of trying to lead it, will almost always take me to the unfolding of Mystery.

The barn swallows returned this year to the nest they had built in my carport. And when the babies hatched and matured, a pair of them also built a nest there. My cats (indoor cats) got to watch lots of activity this summer as the flight path went right by my bedroom window where they take their morning naps.

After a while the second generation babies hatched. They grew and chirped and slept and eventually they too took flight. But there was one that would not leave the nest. For a few days the babies will return to the nest at night but then leave the next morning. But they could not coax this one out. At first the parents would fly into the carport and try to get the baby to follow them. Then a few other of the neighborhood swallows would do the same. But he wouldn’t budge. Then, on the third day, I was leaving and saw that he was sitting on a shelf there in the carport. He had finally left the nest but hadn’t gone far. One of the parents came swooping in making a ruckus so I hurried back inside, not wanting to add any stress to a delicate situation. I sat on the foot of my bed and watched the parent bird fly in and out, in and out. Finally, I saw two of them fly away. I looked out another window in time to see the baby land on a telephone wire across the road. He came back that night, but the next morning he took off without any coaxing.

By now you may be wondering why this story is on a art blog. Then again, maybe you already know.

This story could be a metaphor for a lot of things (for example, that everyone learns and develops at their own pace).

Now, I am by no stretch of the imagination ready to leave the nest. After all I only really began this art adventure in March. But some recent events have shown me that leaving the nest isn’t necessarily a single act, or that there isn’t just a single nest. Unless we have fully awakened spiritually, and therefore are no longer attached to the personal stories that the ego spins, leaving the nest is something we must do again and again. Why? Because the ego will always build a new nest, create a new comfort zone.

If you have been creating art, you know this. You may have stuffed it and buried it. You may be able to completely ignore it. But somewhere you know it.

Leaving the nest is risky. We may hesitate sometimes, drag our feet about this, give in to fear over that, find ten thousand excuses. But if we want to be true to our Art, true to our innate Artist Nature, then sooner or later we must leave whatever nest we are currently inhabiting - because the innate nature of the artist is to fly!

As the Divine Edna wrote:

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand. Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand. - Edna St. Vincent Millay

When I quit my job a few months ago and decided to start painting, I signed up for a drawing class and an acrylics class and started reading art books. I’d tried several years earlier to teach myself to draw and had a bit of success until it wouldn’t fit into the schedule any more. But other than one or two dabs, I’d never painted in my adult life (and not much in my youth). So the art classes and the books are fine and I’m learning more about drawing and painting and all the attendant things that go along with them. This is pretty much what I expected.

What I had not considered was that I would also have to learn how to “be” as an artist. I figured I would just keep going along as always but would have all this new information and some new skills. I know from my writing that one must open up to creativity. But writing never really changed me in any way, and I never felt the need to “be” different than I had been before I began writing.

Now, however, I am noticing subtle shifts within myself. Part of it is developing the habit of being even more observant of the world around me. Part of it is deeper, more of a “within” thing. In writing, one must write Truth or there is no point. And that Truth must show up in almost every sentence. It doesn’t matter whether one is writing fiction or non fiction, a novel or a blog, it must be Truth. With painting I am learning that the stroke of the brush or the pastel stick is the equivalent of the sentence. Each one must be Truth as I know it, perceive it, feel it and I must express it to the best of my ability in that moment.

The kicker is that it doesn’t stop when I leave the canvas or paper. This is connected to the epiphany about surrender that I wrote about previously. But I am realizing that the surrender, the commitment to Truth, the way of being in the world as an artist includes all the moments of life. I cannot turn it on when I pick up a brush and then turned off when everything is washed and put away. Instead it is flowing wet into wet into all my waking moments.

SITE UPDATES

Now that the site is running pretty smoothly I will be adding to my links and blogroll. The first new items are links to Jennifer Phillips’s web site and blog. Her paintings are beautiful and her blog is delightful and informative so check it out. And if you are a pastelist be sure to visit both of Casey Klahn’s blogs.

I’ve changed the slide show in the sidebar as well. These are pics I took a couple of weeks ago at Goat Rock Beach which is at the mount of the Russian River where it flows into the Pacific Ocean. They were mostly taken at midday but you can still see how beautiful the colors of the water were. For larger images, just click on the slide show and it will take you to that Picasa Web album. If you see a pic you’d like to paint in any of the albums, just let me know and give credit for the photo reference.

I am currently reading - a little each day - Carole Watanabe’s book The Ecstatic Marriage of Life and Art. I realized that art is something I’ve been “doing,” something I’ve been overlaying on to “me.” I read and hear about people who are so devoted, impassioned, etc that they spend hours a day doing art. I spend hours a day putting it off and wishing I had their devotion.

I thought, until now, that it was about commitment and discipline as much as passion. After all I have the passion but seemed to lack the other two.

But I glimpsed, or now sense that my perspective is reversed - or some metaphor like that. It’s not about being committed, nor is it about the will power of discipline. Both of those are, in a sense - or maybe totally - about imposing something (thought, feeling, action) on to something else. The “something else” I guess is time, my life, the day’s schedule, etc.

Now I sense or intuit or feel that delving into art, diving into creating art, submerging my life in this creating, is not about imposing will or commitment. Then what is it about? Is it allowing? Allowing art into my life at a deeper level, a total level? Well, that’s what it looks like. And until just now I thought that that was the point this journal entry was leading to. But just as I was arriving there some other intuitive sense arose. It is, so far, amorphous and undefined. Does it have to do with me flowing art out rather than allowing it in? Is it the spiritual aspect or connection?

I have viewed art as separate but connected from “me,” so it has seemed like an overlay. I was looking at both the processes and products of art as something I do. And claiming “I am an artist” was still just an overlay.

The obvious answer, perhaps the cliche’ answer, is not “I am an artist” but “I Am Art.” This reminds me of that Barry Manilow song “I am Music and I write the song.” There is a Truth in that: Music writes the songs, Art paints the pictures.

I feel this is getting closer to what I am sensing. Perhaps passion, desire, commitment and discipline are not what makes an artist. Perhaps those are just the things that, along with the product, show up or are perceivable in the outer world. What if all those things are by-products? Wonderful, but still by-products?

Here is “a” view of my spirituality: I am not living life. Life is living me. Is Art an aspect of the Life that is living me? Is my sense of disconnection because I am looking at art and creating through, so to speak, the wrong end of the telescope?

I know that the creative urge comes from within. There is nowhere else it could come from. I guess this entry is about the line or transition between inner and outer, between inspiration and creation, and about how I have perceived that demarcation.

Then, is it about allowing? Is it allowing Art to flow through me unimpeded? Yes…but there is still something else. [This is a lot of thinking, but it's how I come to realization, so I continue. And it's as much contemplation as active questioning.]

So all these people who are dedicated, and passionate, and committed and prolific, what is the difference between them and me? Is it just (my) fear that holds back Art? It’s a convenient answer but one that doesn’t feel like Truth.

Is it an unconscious need to/for control? Ahhhhh! Now that feels much closer! And comes as a bit of a surprise. Am I afraid to surrender to Art?

SURRENDER!! And surrender is about FAITH! A signature I’ve been using lately is the Margaret Shepherd quote “Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.” And taking leaps of faith has been a theme in my life these last few years (with wonderful outcomes).

But when it comes to my art work it has been a controlled and constrained leap of faith. A calculated leap of faith. I have not stepped off the cliff. I have superimposed Art on my life, but have not allowed Art to live me.

So…the only question that remains is: Will I continue to “do” art, or will I jump off the cliff?

Carole Watanabe’s web site artfully.com.

If you are not familiar with the Wet Canvas forum, I highly recommend it - especially if you are a beginning artist. There are some amazing artists there and I have found everyone to be kind, supportive and helpful.

Last weekend I participated in the WDE - which I think stands for Weekly Drawing Event though any medium is acceptable. The host for that week will post several pictures and then you pick one, draw or paint it and then post it on the thread. The idea is to post it after two hours. Now I rather freaked out at that but jumped in anyway. As it turns out, you don’t need to have it finished in two hours, you just post where you are at that point. But I have to say, the level of work posted there is very high even at the two hour mark.

The picture I chose was of the Mission Inn down in So Cal. I’m reading that Raw Colour book by Mark Leach and decided to give a try at some raw color and near abstract design. It didn’t turn out exactly as expected. I worked in pastels (for which my love steadily grows) but didn’t have all the colors that I wanted to get the look I had in mind. I had wanted to make the front of the archway darker but had already used the darkest reds I had (my set of 76 NuPastels arrived later that afternoon!). So I went lighter and put some pale violet on instead. The idea was to make some differentiation between the wall and the inside of the arch and the red tile roofs. It’s not perfect but it worked to some degree. It’s also not as abstract as I had intended. Abstracting an image isn’t as easy as I thought it was. The urge to make the painting look more like the building is pretty strong. Also there are touches that need to be added and corrected but, for what I intended, I am pleased with it. It was fun to use ‘raw color’ in a picture for once.

One thing that I learned is that the way a pastel looks when you mark it on, say, watercolor paper can be completely different than it looks on the painting support. I did this on Colorfix that had a burgundy background color. A color that would look dark red when I tested it on the white paper would be a bright neon red on the Colorfix paper. So I guess the answer is to have a scrap sheet of the sanded paper to test on rather than white paper. I don’t think this huge different is because of the color of the paper (though I could be wrong) but rather because of the sand paper aspect. Since pastels granules are multi-sided, maybe these edges don’t get crushed as much on the sand paper as they do on other paper and therefore there are more surfaces to reflect the light. I have read that that is why blending with the fingers or such will dull the color, because it crushed the pastel more which reduces the amount of reflection.

Well, whatever the science is, I did very little blending on this picture so it ended up with a neon 3D kind of look to it. It’s actually a little darker than the photo shows but for the online version you might want to put your sun glasses on. LOL

DRAWING

Drawing outside again today. This time we went to the Luther Burbank Gardens in Santa Rosa. It was overcast and fairly cool for most of the morning. The sun finally came out at noon just as we were finishing up. The overcast eliminated any dramatic shadows so some things seemed (to me) harder to draw. Also, I have to admit that I just don’t do sketching very well. But I enjoy sketching outside so I will persevere. Practicing on my own would probably help too.

One of the members said Garan, our teacher, had done a class on trees once. Since a lot of my interest in painting is landscapes, a lesson in sketching trees would be great.

One of the sketches he advised doing, and I tried, was daisies. They are the white ones with the yellow center and are about five fee tall. There was a large clump of them and he pointed out that one reason they were good practice is that one could find them facing so many different directions. Because of the way their leaves grow it was good practice in drawing something that is foreshortened.

I also tried some small sketches of a grape cluster, cactus, a yew tree.

But I have to ‘fess up that I spent a lot of time taking pictures. It made me see even more the advantages of a digital camera. I took tons of photos without having to reload film. And the macro and super macro functions are pretty cool. You can find the pics here. They are the Drawing Class album.

Next week we will be back at the LB Gardens again. Maybe I’ll take some black paper and tackle the water fountain.

One thing that is changing is that I am using charcoal more and more. The first time I tried it, I just hated it. But then I saw that it came in pencil form with a sharp point. Of course, it doesn’t stay sharp long, but that can be fixed with sand paper. Anyway, the more I use it, the more I like it.

Friday a couple of friends and I went to the Women Impressionists exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It is amazing. I had no idea there were going to be that many works of art shown. There were 7 or 8 rooms holding 140 pieces of art.

Mostly when I think of the late nineteenth century impressionist painting, I think of landscapes. But most of these works featured or focused on people. But when they did paint a landscape or a picture that was set outside, it was wonderful.

I think the most impressive ‘outdoor’ picture was The Lady in White by Marie Bracquemond. It’s a large canvas (around 4′x6′ I think) and is simply stunning.

Alas, the Mary Cassatt picture that I liked best isn’t even in the giganto book that goes along with the exhibit. I guess it’s not one of her popular ones. Or perhaps whomever owns it would not allow it to be photographed. I’ve not been able to find anything on the web either. It was called something like Woman Kissing Her Baby. It was typical Cassatt subject matter, but the way she painted the woman’s white dress really captivated me.

But I absolute favorite in the show was an oil painting by Berthe Morisot called Interior of a Cottage. A girl in a white dress stands at a doorway or large window. There are white curtains on the wall and a table with a white cloth and white crockery.

Are you sensing a pattern here?

I swear I will never look at white the same way again. The Morisot painting literally brought tears to my eyes. The white in this painting and in the Cassatt painting were especially vibrant and full of color. And yet, there was no doubt that these were white fabric. Painting white seems one of the more difficult things to do. I have always admired Georgia O’Keeffe’s talent and artistry in painting white, but these leave her in the dust. (OK, that’s just my opinion based on how much they affected me. I still love Georgia!)

I had intended to write this post yesterday, but I was still too awed. And even today I can’t formulate the words to describe the experience. I’ll just close with this: I’M GOIN’ BACK!