Several excuses

I’ve been very neglectful of my blog lately and my lack of posts is starting to bring me down. Especially because the one-year anniversary of the studio box recently passed.

Several facts have made blogging about painting difficult. For one, I’ve been working on much slower paintings over the past three months. I’ve considered posting some in progress, but I don’t think I’m ready to do that yet. Perhaps because they feel more open-ended and I’m not sure where the work is headed. Instead of painting in the direct manner–that is, all-at-once–I’ve been painting in the indirect manner of building many layers over time. I’m working on a portrait, which I think will end up being one side of a diptych. It’s taken several sittings of glazing to get the skin tone right. I recently thought it was finished, but when I went back to my studio the skin was entirely too orange so I applied a very transparent cobalt blue glaze to correct the color. I’m anxious to go back and see how it looks.

I’m also working on several larger abstract compositions. In many ways, these paintings are taking me back to my college days. But a great deal of uncertainty seems to be inherent in them as well. I’m just not sure what I’m doing, where they are headed, or why I am painting this way again.

This past year has been excellent in terms of productivity for me. And I attribute much of that to this blog. All visual artists need some type of forum to share their work. Something, however small, to stay accountable to. Because I wanted to have a year of many paintings, I also actually taught myself to paint in a different way. I painted smaller canvases in one or two sittings, applying creamy paint opaquely. This new way of working was very fun and enjoyable and I think it will always be a part of my toolkit, even as I return to slower paintings.

And finally, life is just getting in the way. I’ve been in the process of moving and considering my studio space. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be packing up my studio, moving everything, and trying to get started in a new space. This could invigorate my work, or throw a hurdle in the process. I have several half-completed pieces that will just have to wait for a few weeks. I anticipate painting, and posts, will continue at a snail’s pace until early summer.

The Forgotten Painting

The Deluxe, 2006, oil on canvas, 36″ x 36″

This painting, The Deluxe, lives in my bedroom. For some reason, I forgot to ever photograph it and post it here on my blog.

The irony is that The Deluxe was a pivotal painting for me and bridged the work I was doing for many years after college and the body of work I completed this year.

For a long while, my paintings included built up layers of oil paint. At times, I used thin glazey layers. Other times, I spackled paint on like icing. Often I sanded the layers down and revealed layers below and then painted figures or objects on top of the layered paint.

The Deluxe started in the same manner. The first layer was the dark brown you see at the bottom of the canvas. I painted the brown to look like wood grain. Next, I applied a very thin glaze of the palest shade of pink to all but the very bottom of the canvas. This created a surreal landscape effect and it sat in my studio, untouched, for weeks.

One evening, I realized what the composition needed. I knew it needed a rectangular scene painted in the top half of the composition. I imagined it as a projection, as if from a slide projector, onto the pink layer. I also felt intuitively that the final rectangle needed to be painted alla prima, or all-at-once.

As soon as the rectangle was finished, I knew the painting was complete. I also realized how much I enjoyed painting quickly, wet paint on wet paint, and I began to experiment with this way of working more and more.

I’ve never tired of this painting. Usually I can’t live with my own paintings in my living space for very long because they remind me of what I would do differently. This painting, however, reminds me of a shift in my work and in my way of thinking about painting so I suppose I am somewhat sentimental about it.

Gallery Outing

This afternoon, I braved the holiday crowds downtown and ventured over to Nob Hill to check out Sherrie Wolf’s paintings at Laura Russo Gallery.

I’ve long admired Wolf’s work in reproduction, but this was the first time I viewed the paintings in person. These are some incredible paintings from a very prolific and technically accomplished painter.

The work in the show includes all recent paintings, mostly from the past year. Wolf layers intricate still life imagery over equally intricate reproductions of old master paintings. The still life imagery is painted in bold and striking colors, while the background reproductions are more subdued and neutral.

Her juxtaposition of space is striking. The still life objects (flowers, fruit, and animal figurines) are placed on tabletops in all the compositions. By placing the still life on a surface, Wolf clarifies that these objects reside in front of the background. Still, we are left to imagine what worlds both the objects and the backgrounds might inhabit. Are we looking at a carefully arranged tableau in someone’s home, resting on a side table in front of ornate wallpaper? Are we seeing an interior room in front of a window?

In many of the paintings, the landscape of the background imagery recedes into the deep distance while the still life is very near us, in our immediate space. In Parrot Tulips with Rooster, the glass vase reflects the world behind the painter. This places us, the viewer, in the very middle of vast space–between the far horizon of the landscape and the world behind us in the glass reflection.

I especially enjoyed the series of smaller paintings featuring animal figurines placed in front of landscapes that feature live versions of the toy animal. For example, in Sheep in Landscape, a small ceramic lamb faces away from us toward a reproduction of a Durand landscape. The landscape includes a shepherd watching a flock of sheep in a field. In Dogs with Game, an adorable puppy figurine is turned towards a Chardin painting of a hunting dog.

What I enjoy most about Wolf’s work are the juxtapositions of space, of time, and of intimate and vast distances. This particular body of work is playful with a real sense of humor. At the same time, the compositions are perfectly balanced and complex. The paintings are not necessarily easy for a viewer, but they are certainly fun.

You can check out many images of Sherrie Wolf’s paintings on the gallery website.

Ride Connection Gala

Last week I participated in a benefit gala for Ride Connection, an organization here in Portland that provides transportation for people that need a little extra help getting around town.

I attended as a guest artist, displayed my paintings, talked to attendees, and contributed a painting to the auction.

It was a really nice event for a great organization. I also had the pleasure of meeting some other local artists: Tim Combs, Vernon DiPietro, Bret Hostetler, and Katie Grone.

The event was held in the beautiful Gerding theatre in NW Portland. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Many thanks to my good friend Steph H. for sharing these pictures with me!

Painting and poetry as sisters

I’ve written several entries on my love of poetry and the manner in which poetry has taught me so much about the art of painting.  I always enjoy finding other references to the relationship between the two forms.

This post, by painter Laurie Fendrich, concisely summarizes why painting and poetry are kindred spirits.

“Painting’s Edge clarified for me that we live in a time when painting’s true sister is, once again, poetry — not because of any similarity in the mediums (there’s virtually none), but because both have been marginalized and are now loved by a relative few. (I’m talking about living, breathing, current painting and poetry. Francis Bacon pictures selling for zillions at auction, and T.S. Eliot still being prime dissertation fodder, doesn’t change this.)”

For more on poetry, here is my book recommendation for Poets on Painters, by J.D. McClatchy. Here is my May post regarding poetry and painting.

Back from vacation

Please forgive the lack of recent posts. I’ve been away on vacation… vacation from everything… work, painting, blogging. But I’m back, very refreshed and ready to get painting and writing again. In fact, the time I spent at the Maryland seashore was great inspiration for painting. With nothing else to do but sit on the beach, I really recharged my ability to see color and composition quickly. I spent a lot of time with the camera and enjoyed taking lots of pictures with thoughts of the studio in the back of my mind. Taking pictures on the beach was a good exercise in quickly determining composition and finding wonderful moments of synthetic color contrasted with natural colors and landscape neutrals. I have enough colorful, beachy shots to last me through even the grayest Portland winter.

I picked up these huge vintage sunglasses (circa 1974)
at an antiques show that was in town. They make me happy!

The Importance of Painting

I enjoyed this article by Roberta Smith, published in the New York Times on Friday. She quickly gets to the heart of what I sometimes feel, but am unable to articulate, when I look at contemporary conceptual art. Of course, sometimes the purely conceptual works, because the work is not purely conceptual at all. It’s grounded in form and materials in some sense.

Smith criticizes the work in an exhibition entitled “How Soon is Now” at the Bronx Museum of the Arts for being “almost nothing but symptoms reflecting almost nothing but failings.” And a big part of the problem is that, in her words: “an overfamiliarity with Conceptual Art and especially the theories it inspired can leave young artists with no sense of how to make an artwork that holds together as an experience.”

It’s exciting for me as a painter that she isolates the lone paintings in the show as “little oases of personal thought, concentration and effort.”

Her advice to young artists is, “Aspiring artists need to expose themselves to the sheer intensity and variety of art, to learn what they love, what they hate and if they are actually artists at all. Anything is possible when artists set to work knowing they have something they urgently need to say, in a way it hasn’t quite been said before.”

What she proposes is very hard work. But I believe her.

Some Lessons from Poetry

My love of poetry began when I was a student at Bennington College and I heard Frank Bidart speak as part of a lecture series. He talked about how “talent” is such an unnecessary word to use when considering poetry. He said that being a poet has to do with a palpable need to engage with and respond to the world in a particular and sensitive way. I was very touched by his lecture and I immediately realized that his perspective applied to painting as well.

Around the same time, I was introduced to the poem “The Idea of Order at Key West” by Wallace Stevens. This beautiful poem was simultaneously familiar and completely foreign to me. I loved the poem immediately and understood the words intuitively, but I also had a deep desire to ponder it more fully. I hoped that some day, someone might have a similar response to even just one of my paintings.

Since those early discoveries, I’ve always enjoyed poetry in and for itself but I also realized I wanted to immerse myself in poetry in order to understand painting more completely. Over time I gleaned so much about painting from poetry including the importance of considering form, the power of metaphor, and the necessity to engage with subjects outside of myself.

From poetry I learned that the way something is made is as important as the work’s subject. Or, the way something is constructed holds clues to its meaning. The form embodies what the whole thing is. A painting, for example, could be a figurative scene or an abstract composition, but first and foremost it is a painting.

Reading and writing poetry instilled in me an appreciation for strong metaphor. Strong metaphors do not feel trite. They surprise. They are specific and immediate. They challenge us. Metaphors remind us of things we didn’t know that we knew. They happen in successful paintings and successful poems.

When you examine something outside of yourself, the work (a painting, poem or any other form) becomes a conversation between you as the maker, and the world. The object or poem itself also exists outside of the maker and finds its own place in the world.

By looking outside of ourselves, we allow metaphor and form to fully take shape. Our observations and responses do reflect our own thoughts, emotions, and questions because the conversation is embodied in the form.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke tells his young friend, “…seek those themes which your own everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and the belief in some kind of beauty – describe all these with loving, quiet, humble sincerity, and use, to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, and the objects of your memory.”

First Thursday, May

I love being reminded why I live in Portland, not that I often forget. But last night at First Thursday there was no getting around it… Portland is awesome. It’s so fun to go to an art opening and have some totally chill music spinning, drink Two Buck Chuck in a plastic cup, and grab some Cheez Its from a heart shaped baking pan. (Yeah, I’m talking about this great little exhibition space.) Nice work there too.

I started the evening at the Everett Station Lofts and I was loving the vibe. It was really laid back and inclusive. The work on the walls was smaller in scale and very fresh feeling. It was fun. Isn’t that what looking at art is supposed to be? No pretense. Outside, on 6th Avenue, a block or two was closed off to cars and some kind of skate contest was going on. Meanwhile Hillary and Obama canvassers were floating around as well as the usual batch of petition holders among a really decent sized crowd.

The highlights of the evening for me were Dane Wilson’s paintings at Rake Gallery and Laurie Danial’s paintings at Froelick.

Wilson’s exhibition was actually a bit like a mini survey because there was older work hung along side newer work. I really enjoyed seeing the progression of the theme of water over rocks develop over many years. One of my favorite paintings was “The Lake” from 1985. The horizontal composition was very pleasing, and the neutral colors nicely balanced. It had the wonderful quality I love about great landscape painting; it osculates between abstract composition and representational scene. All of his work was very painterly and invested in the subject matter. The more recent work was especially creamy and glossy and had wonderful all-at-onceness.

Laurie Danial’s work was also very refreshing. Just great paintings. Pure and simple. No gimmicks. Many of the pieces were brand new as well. She builds up many layers of oil paint to create abstract narrative scenes. I felt like there was something going on in the small worlds she creates with paint, but I wasn’t sure what the specific story was. I especially loved Sorry Early Man and Fancy Pants, both of which had, what I refer to as, complicated gray (gray mixed from many, many colors) grounds with less organic, more structural over-painting in primary colors.

Of course it is always fun to take a quick wander through the Museum of Contemporary Craft and their awesome gift shop. I’d like to buy one of everything in there.

At the end of the evening, my partner-in-crime and I stopped by Masu for some excellent sushi, a “Maker’s Cup,” and lovely ambiance.

My love affair with Portland is definitely still in its adolescence.

What is a painter’s job?

Pool in Texas, 2008, oil on canvas

Sometimes I get very overwhelmed with everything I decide I am supposed to do and supposed to know as a painter. It all begins to feel like too much to take on. I already have a full time job after all. And painting always gets the rest of the time I can manage to find.

And although I am getting better at making studio time a priority, I often get caught up in responsibilities that are not really part of a painter’s job. For example, sometimes I begin to think that in order to be a decent painter, I have to know everything there is to know about art history, and keep track of all that is going on now as well. I feel guilty if I miss gallery openings I intended to see and wonder if something is wrong with my attention span when I can’t seem to get through an “important” article about some sort of subject on art because I actually find it kind of boring at times

When I start to get particularly overwhelmed, I like to remind myself what a painter’s job actually is: To make paintings.

When I took studio painting in college with Ann Pibal, one of the first assignments she gave us was to start seeing differently. She asked us to notice the temperature of colors. She told us to observe the color of grass in shadow, for example, compared to the color of grass in sunlight. Later, she gave us an assignment to make paintings of fruit set on pieces of Color Aid. What color is a green pear when it is sitting on pink paper? On green paper? On tan? Shifting my mindset to be more observant of color and light was one of the most important lessons I ever learned. And it’s also a part of a painter’s job. That is, to look and really see.

So I need to remind myself from time to time that the most important activities for making paintings are looking, seeing, and actually putting paint on canvas. Then, it begins to feel fun again and I remember why I want to paint in the first place. Because the process is pleasing in and for itself.

It is also important to look at other paintings, sculpture, and installations. Not to study them in a theoretical sense (unless, of course, you really want to), just to look at them a lot. A poetry teacher explained this once to me when she said, “If you are going to write a poem about walking on the beach you need to read other poems about walking on the beach that have already been written.” Just to understand the form better. And to humble yourself a bit.