Redtree Times

The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul, so that it can weigh colours in its own scale and thus become a determinant in artistic creation.

–Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912)

It’s been about a month since I gave a painting demonstration at the Principle Gallery. In the days after, I shared an image of the progress that had been made on the demo painting at the end of the session. I was fairly pleased with how it had emerged but could immediately see that there were changes– additions, subtractions and alterations– that needed to be made before it would truly come into form, at least to my eyes. There were a number of small adjustments and a couple of major changes.

Among the larger changes was altering the shape and color of the distant mountains in the lower right quarter. I simply wasn’t satisfied with the original. There was something in them– or not in them– that just didn’t sit right with me. 

I also changed the shape of the Red Roof house in the upper left. Again, the original just didn’t feel right to me. I depend on my ability to sense rightness in my work, and it was not meeting the mark.

I changed the angle of the roof and extended it a tiny bit, which allowed me to clean up some messiness in the sky behind it. It’s not that I mind a little messiness. The late biophysicist Max Delbruck (1906-1981) had a theory that he called the Principle of Limited Sloppiness. which stated that too much sloppiness was unacceptable in scientific research but allowing a little sloppiness sometimes revealed startling, unexpected results that could then be cleaned up. 

I guess you could say I adhere to Delbruck’s theory. A little sloppiness is fine and sometimes revelatory. However, in my work it’s a problem when the messiness is out of the rhythm of the painting and becomes a distraction, pulling focus from the whole of the painting.

Cleaning up that bit of messiness really honed the feel of the painting for me as did the fine tuning of the colors throughout. The rising road was lightened and a bit of darkness added to the left side of the hill, away from the sun, which, along with its light arrows, was brightened a bit.

It may not seem to the casual observer that the painting was greatly changed but to my eyes it emerged in a much different form., one that truly reaches that sense of rightness that I mentioned. Looking at it now here in the studio, it doesn’t feel like a hurried demo piece. It has its own feel and life now– an extension of the inner world I try to show in my work. It feels like it is truly part of that world now.

I used a Kandinsky quote at the top about an artist needing to train both their eye and their soul. I think of all the hours I have spent alone working in my studio have honed whatever skill I possess– the eye that Kandinsky mentions– as well as the sense of rightness which might well translate as the Kandinsky’s soul. I don’t really know that can express what I am trying to say but I like the idea that an artist is seeking their own soul in their work.

I am pleased I was able to share a little of what seeking looks like with the folks who made it to the demonstration a month ago. Many thanks again to everyone who made it possible.

I have yet to title this piece. A reader suggested the title of an old Cat Stevens song, Road to Find Out, as a title. That might work but I am open to suggestions. Let me know what you think.

Let’s listen to that Cat Stevens song. There’s larger image of the completed painting below. That is, if it is truly completed. Like people, art sometimes needs to change…