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Archive for March, 2018

Just Artists/ Alice Neel

Posted in Influences, Opinion, Painting, tagged , , , on March 10, 2018| 1 Comment »

I don’t paint like a woman is supposed to paint. Thank God, art doesn’t bother about things like that.

—Alice Neel

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Thursday was International Women’s Day and I saw an article on social media that asked if you could name five female artists. It wasn’t difficult for me but this is what I do so I am regularly scanning the work of others, past and present. I see a lot of work by women that is incredible and have been directly influenced by many of these women.

But I could imagine for the casual observer it might be a difficult thing to name five female artists. Any honest person that does a quick scan of the history of art can plainly see that this field has long been dominated by males. But this makes it like most other fields of endeavor and reflects a societal bias that has often long placed less importance on the accomplishments and the self-expression of women.

It is something that must and will change. It is changing before our eyes.  I say that because I have had the great fortune to be associated with a number of galleries that feature increasingly large rosters of female artists. This is not by design. It’s just that more and more interesting and wonderful work is being done by female artists who have finally realized that their voice, their expression, should be secondary to no one.

I have seen the numbers grow substantially over the years and am excited by it, mainly because the things that I see in the art that attracts me are usually perspective dependent, not gender dependent. Anything that broadens the field and gives a wider range of viewpoints and more options is a good thing in my opinion.  The gender, or race or nationality, of the artist should not play a role in our perception of their work unless that work deals directly with these subjects.

Hopefully, soon an artist will simply be an artist. Not a female artist or a black artist or a Latino artist or whatever subtitle people choose to attach before the word artist.

One of the artists that jumped to mind for me when I read the question about naming five female artists was Alice Neel (1900-1984) who was famed for her portraiture. She had a very distinct way of using color and always followed her personal muse, never adhering to any particular genre or school. She was a bold painter in a time when the female artist was still very much underappreciated. In the years since her death she has gained great recognition for he work. I urge you to take a closer look at her work and her life.

Alice Neel. Hartley. 1966. oil on canvas. 127 x 91,5cm. gift of Arthur M. Bullowa. National Gallery of Art Washington.

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Obscurity, Revisited

Posted in Favorite Things, Quote, tagged , , , on March 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I came across this blog entry from about seven years back earlier this morning. While the painting remains a favorite of mine for a number of reasons, the thought behind this entry hit a chord with me this morning. It seems that even in 2011, the idea of alternative facts had taken hold and was a dark omen for our current state of affairs. 

This is a new 12″ by 24″ painting that sits in my studio at the moment. It draws a lot of my attention at the moment and I’ve been enjoying it over this time. I find this a very hopeful piece, the whiteness of the house’s reflection of the bright rising light set in contrast to the dark foreground. It’s this contrast that creates the hope I see.  Like many things, hope is relative to the conditions of the situation.

I’ve left the landscape bare of other trees other than those in the foreground which form a stage-like setting for the scene beyond, wanting to create  more focus on the starkness of the house. The path moves from dark to light and also conveys this sense of hope, of moving towards a more illuminated situation.

I’m thinking of calling this Obscurity. I know that this doesn’t convey the hope of which I speak but I have been thinking of a line from John Locke’s An Essay on Human Understanding that has been bouncing around in my head for a week or so. Locke states:

 Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no defense left for absurdity but obscurity.

It sounds wonderful. In a perfect world, the absurdity of obvious falsehoods would only exist in the darkest and most obscure corners of humanity. Unfortunately, we live a most imperfect world, leaving me to wonder if, in fact, the opposite might apply to our times: Untruth being acceptable to the mind of man, there is no defense for rationality but obscurity.

This thought has hung hauntingly on me for some time and maybe I see this house as a refuge of some kind for rational thought in what seems an irrational time.

A place of obscurity.

Or maybe it’s just a house. After all, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

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Hopper- Emotion

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Motivation, Quote, tagged , on March 8, 2018| 2 Comments »

Edward Hopper- Pennsylvania Coal Town

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I believe that the great painters, with their intellect as master, have attempted to force the unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions. I find any digression from this large aim leads me to boredom.

–Edward Hopper

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Emotion is that intangible quality that separates art from craft. Emotion does not have to be at the extremes of rage or depression or giddy elation. It is often subtle and calm or densely introspective. Hopper’s work was imbued with quiet emotional undertones that make his paintings, even those scenes of the most seemingly mundane moments, truly memorable.

Art is, at its foundation, emotion.

 

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The First Happiness

Posted in Poetry, Quote, tagged , , on March 7, 2018| 3 Comments »

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I see the words of James Stephens, an Irish poet who lived from 1882 until 1950, in the painting above, Native Voice.

The sun and sky represents the first condition, Chaos.

The fields represent the first law, Order.

The direct line that runs from the sun and ends at the Red Tree represents the first reflection, Continuity.

The still reflection of the Red Tree is the first happiness, Quietude.

Something to shoot for…

 

 

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Chain of Fools

Posted in Current Events, Music, tagged , , , on March 6, 2018| 2 Comments »

Don’t like to mention my dreams too often here but I woke up this morning from one where I had just put on an album on an old record player and the first song was Frank Sinatra singing the Aretha Franklin classic Chain of Fools, a song I am pretty sure Sinatra never covered. He did a pretty good job with it in my dream.

I didn’t have to think too much about where this dream originated.  Watching the craziness that goes along with this completely dysfunctional White House and everything that is related to it, especially the ongoing Russian investigation, is mind-boggling.  The ineptitude, greediness and sheer ignorance  that reveals itself on a daily basis is totally nuts, especially yesterday’s manic meltdown on national television by Sam Nunberg, a former aide to the person some folks still consider to be the president of these United States.

You can see it all beginning to crumble and fall apart before your eyes. It’s like sitting in a huge stadium where the entire field is filled with standing dominoes. As you watch nothing seems to be happening for the longest time. Nothing is moving. Then at the edge you notice a tiny shift and suddenly dominoes are falling in what seems to be large chunks in every direction.

As all of this is happening, the obnoxious stadium announcer is yelling over and over, “Fake News!”

And in the blink of an eye, it is over.

I have a feeling that is what we are watching at the moment. The tiny shift at the edge of the pattern has taken place.

The dominoes are tumbling.

So, first thing this morning, I  get into the studio and find a version of Aretha’s Chain of Fools with the lyrics shown.  As it plays, I am struck how the words of the song could apply to the people who thought this was a good idea in the first place, those folks who voted to turn this country into the world’s largest dumpster fire. Fools backing a fool and a liar.

The chain of fools- and I think I am being kind to say that they are just fools- has been broken.

Couldn’t find a Sinatra version so give a listen to Aretha and pay attention to the lyrics.

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Fabricating the Truth

Posted in Advice, Motivation, Opinion, Quote, tagged , , on March 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.

—Pablo Picasso

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Many of my favorite artists worked and produced their greatest works in times where the world was under great stress. World wars and– in the case of Picasso’s painting, Guernica, shown above– Civil Wars. The Great Depression. Times of social transformation. Even when the work didn’t overtly deal with the events of the day, much of the work reflected on the collective consciousness of that time.

I think that is so because art is, just as Picasso so succinctly states, a lie that makes us realize the truth.

Artists fabricate, often creating work that is on its surface pure fantasy with little relation to the world as others might observe it. But their fabrication is made up from everything that impacts them– their knowledge, their observations, their opinions and emotions. Artists take in the world and create something that seems like a pure fabrication.

A lie.

But what seems the lie often proves to be built of ultimate truths, just constructed in a manner that allows others to see this truth clearly.

I don’t know that we artists always succeed. I certainly don’t feel that I do as often as I would  like. But so long as we feel deeply and create our lies, we will at some point reveal a truth.

Got to get to work now…

 

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Don’t Give Up

Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Music, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on March 4, 2018| 2 Comments »

Woke up late this morning, at least by my standards. I bolted awake directly coming out one of those weird dreams that seem like something out of a dystopian novel like 1984 or Brave New World.

Or taken from any recent newspaper.

I wanted to go back to sleep just to try again, maybe come out this sleep with something better. Second times a charm, you know.

But I couldn’t so I headed over to the studio for my morning rituals. But that feeling from my dreams lingered, like a foreboding prophetic omen that is always at the edge of my thoughts and my vision.

I have a floater in my right eye that sometimes, when I am looking straight ahead, will dart across the far right periphery of my field of vision. It’s been there a while now but I often still finding myself jerking my head reflexively to see what is there. Of course, there is never anything there yet its continued presence gives me an unsettling feeling as though something could be there when I look the next time.

Uncomfortable dream or terrible omen? I’m rooting for uncomfortable dream but who knows what our subconscious is up to these days.  So much of the info, the indicators, the patterns it selects to process from the outside world enter without our knowledge.

It all reminds me of the image at the top, a painting from back in 1996 or thereabouts. I can’t locate a slide of this piece but came across an old photocopy yesterday and was really taken with it. It’s called Strange Victory II designed as a kind of companion to Strange Victory which was an early painting that I showed here and was based on a favorite poem of mine with that title from Sara Teasdale.

There is a lot that I like in this painting– the subtlety of the colors, the textures and the contrast of the figure and the tree against the backdrop. It is so simply constructed but has a fullness that is often elusive to me as an artist.

I think it’s a great companion piece for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. This week I chose Don’t Give Up, the Peter Gabriel song from back in the 1980’s. This version is from Willie Nelson accompanied by Sinead O’Connor, from his 1996 album, Across the Borderline. I think it’s a first rate cover of the song and I can envision the image of this painting when I listen to it.

Take a listen and have good day and better dreams.

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Finding Lowry, Again

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Quote, tagged , , , on March 3, 2018| 4 Comments »

I came across this post below from back in 2012 about my first encounter with the artist LS Lowry. Since then I’ve looked at a lot more of his work and read more on his life, all of which has made me realize how much I was missing before then. He was an interesting figure, providing me with one of my favorite responses when once asked what he was doing when he wasn’t painting: Thinking about painting.  I know all too well what he was saying.

Anyway, I thought I’d repost this if only to once again play the song about the distinct figures that populate his world, Matchstick Men. Take a look and give a listen.

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I feel sort of embarrassed to admit this but I had never heard of L.S. Lowry until I stumbled across him the other day.  I am most likely not alone in this but would have thought he would have crossed my radar screen at some point, especially given his prominence in the British art world and in British culture. Not that I know a lot about British art or pop culture. But this is a beloved painter there who has sold many works in the multi-million dollar range, one selling for a record $9+ million last last year [2011].  This is not an anonymous artist.

I am still discovering more about this  painter  with a most individual style but here is a very short summation.

He was born in the north of England in 1887 and died in 1976, having spent most of his life as a rent collector for a property company.   Although he is often referred to as a self-taught artist, through much of his working life he studied art in the evenings at various schools. He used this study and the environment around him to find the distinctive style that marked his work, one that is populated with matchstick figures walking through   urban scenes, often heavily filled with images of  the English industrial landscape.

His work has permeated British popular culture as well. His matchstick figures were the basis for a 1967 rock song, Pictures of Matchstick Men, from Status Quo that was later became a hit  here in the States when covered by Camper Van Beethoven in the 80’s. And more recently, the British group Oasis had a video, The Masterplan, featuring the band members as matchstick men walking through animated scenes from Lowry’s paintings. In fact, Noel Gallagher, one of the leaders of  Oasis, has joined a growing chorus of fervent Lowry fans in Britain who have been calling for greater displays and recognition of the late painter’s work there.  As a result, the Tate is mounting a major retrospective of Lowry’s work for 2013.

There’s a lot for me to like about Lowry which makes just finding him now more puzzling. But I have found him and will continue to learn more.  For now, here is the both the Status Quo song and the Oasis video.

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Persist (All That We Know)

Posted in Biographical, Quote, tagged , , on March 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

“Writers remember everything…especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he’ll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.” 

― Stephen King, Misery

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Never thought I’d be quoting Stephen King here but that final sentence above– Art consists of the persistence of memory-– rings so true for my work. Like the writers he references, I depend on my memory of every scar, every failure, every triumph, every moment of lucidity, every small revelation to give my work some meaning, if only for myself.

That’s what the piece at the top is really about. It’s a painting that has never been available for sale and only showed it in my 2012 show at the Fenimore Art Museum. It’s a keeper and hangs in my studio. The title is Persist (All That We Know) and was the winning entry in a contest I held on the blog back in 2010 when it was painted. There were a lot of great titles submitted for that contest but this one, it turns out, was dead on perfect.

At least as I see it.

I can look at that painting now as I write this and it acts as a centering device, at once bringing me back to what I am truly trying to convey in my work– my scars and how they have shaped me.

Time to get to work.

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Introspection

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on March 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I have been living with this painting, Introspection, for several months now in the studio. It’s been in a spot where my eye regularly falls on it and it never fails to make me pause for a second or two to give it some consideration. It fulfills its title very well for me, reminding me to look inward on a regular basis while trying to shut out the noise of the world of man.

It’s leaving the studio today, heading out to California to hang at the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo. I think I am going to truly miss its gentle reminder.

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