December 10, 2009

This is what happened: The gallery owner in Charlotte was complimentary about my work and I went into orbit planning two giant 3'x5' canvases. I have the base work completed on one, and I'm starting to do that on the other.

They take up a serious volume of space in the studio, and I'm feeling the initial rush of energy dwindling. I look at the one more finished and see it as a boring--a BORING--a really BORING --monster taking up the whole visual field of the studio where it sits, and the old, familiar doubt has begun to creep in. Not so much fear, but more like why-am-I-doing-this, or what-makes-me-think-I-can-do-this.

In a week's time I go home to a son's wedding. I'll be gone 10 days. Maybe by the time I get back I'll have a renewal of spirit, a new understanding of why these two monsters exist and how they need to look.

PW

November 30. 2009

A friend said recently that she thought artists created what they individually liked, or were compelled to, and if anyone else liked it so much the better. I've thought about that quite a bit, and I'm reminded of what others have said about making art. Jeane Dixon, famed psychic and mystic who ran off the rails in the end, said, "Your talent is your communication with God." Someone else--I wish I could remember who--said, "Your talent is your communication with others." I find both notions true at the same time, the artist connecting with her gods and bringing others along through her work. Really, I must communicate with others in my painting or I will find I am communicating only with myself.

Take a would-be concert pianist who sits at the piano banging the keys with both fists. He says this is his interpretation of Chopin. One stops by, listens for five seconds, and walks on. This "interpretation" of Chopin does not speak to this listener or, as it turns out, to any other listener that comes along. The pianist is passionate about his playing, but just the pianist. So he is communicating only with himself.

When you gaze upon my work, you enter my dream. If no one else does, then I communicated at least with you, and I hope you brought your checkbook. If you smile and tell me you just love my work, you might mean it; if you write me a check, I know you mean it.

My friend went on to comment on the number of starving artists we seem to have in society, and this could be the result of a couple of possibilities: One, she is communicating with too few people who can write checks (her work could just be that bad), or our society does not value Fine Art and would not think it important to have hanging around a painting of any stripe.

I guess I tipped my hand: I'm afraid I do hold to an objective rightness in Fine Art, and God knows that's a can of worms for another sitting!

Back to my ill-trained Labrador Retriever!

PW

November 28, 2009

I've been dragging my feet where this blog is concerned, and I can talk a little about that: This has happened since we got home from Ireland and it parallels the foot dragging I've done with the painting. It's ridiculous how a break in routine--whether it's daily exercise, diet, meditation, or whatever else is good for me on a regular basis--makes picking up the habit again so agonizingly hard to do.

The painting sits there, taking up a huge amount of space, waiting for me to return to the scene of the crime. We've just endured Thanksgiving, with the assistance of a kindly neighbor who invited us for dinner and for leftovers the following day, and now the trip to Texas looms large. That's in three weeks. The sane thing would be to work up a storm--even to the point of completion, for God's sake--before we leave so I can return to an energized studio. So I'll aim for that.

It's really not bad, this big thing sitting in the middle of the room, and perhaps my reluctance to attack it again reflects my hovering fear of the inevitable mess inherent in the process, waiting for me somewhere. Like, if it hasn't jammed up so far, it's sure to do so, soon.

When I get home from WeightWatchers today, I'm going to put on my old shirt and get with it! What platitude did they used to shove in our timid faces as children? "Can't never did anything?" I fear that "Busting one's ass to do something" didn't do much, either.

Well. Ever onward!

PW

November 24, 2009

Well, fate intervened and I took the Big Plunge defiling a big white surface. I'm likin' it well enough so far.

Saw a great quote that says it all: "Art is like an ill-trained Labrador Retriever that drags you out into traffic." Annie Dillard.

Later!

PW

November 20, 2009

Okay, so I'll just have to admit it: I've been afraid to tackle this except for the headbusting bit. But that isn't always a bad thing, because, while I've been chewing my lip over it, I've thought out exactly what I need to do next to get me going, to lay the foundation for what comes next. And I find some of my pieces to be the result of lots of this thinking and others not so much. Probably the degree of angst is key.

Today is full of energy and excitement because I'm in the process of doing something I think is right: At least I'm making a hands-on beginning with some sort of plan. It's a good phase of the painting--the outset--in that no huge mistakes have been made. The Great Mess is yet to come!

More Will Be Revealed!

PW

November 13, 2009

It's Friday the 13th.

The reason I've not been writing for these past five days is that I don't know what to say. I'm faced with these two huge canvases that I've given a beginning color patch, and I'm stuck. I'm afraid I'm going to make a failure of it, and it will be Big Failure. It's a familiar place, this; I think of burning my side of the studio and all its contents, never to think of art or collage or painting again. God knows, if the occasional success didn't catch up with me, that's exactly what I would do.

I must find the energy to dive into this, because the time I can spend at the edge, inert, is limitless and I can't face a winter like last year.

My music is playing, the temperature is pleasant, I have my coffee beside me, and I have the day to myself. What more is there? Maybe this: Is there a patron saint of painters? I need to make appropriate prayers and promises and bribes: "Let me do this and I'll..............." (Fill in the blank.)

Let the day be productive and I'll get back with you.

PW

November 8, 2009

I think I'm beginning to understand the reason for attending art openings locally. The content of the show, or its overall quality, is far secondary to the people one runs into: all one's friends, particularly one's friends who share a love of art and are themselves artists. We attended two openings Friday night, and though it was painful to drive off the mountain and be away from home a long time, it was valuable to me as a member of the artists' community. We complain that we don't have one. This is inaccurate, but I would not know that had I not stirred my stumps into attending both the events.

If the work is ordinary, there is still one piece everywhere that I'd steal if I could get away with it. (I realized that I, too, could be tempted to walk away with somebody's prized possession if a fabulous painting were just hanging there, unattended, waiting.....)

So I will go again. I'll meet some of the folks I saw last Friday and vowed to call but never did. And I'll see lots of mediocre work and fall in love with one piece I can't afford. And then I'll go home and apply renewed energy to my own work so that, when they come to my show in May, they'll have something to see and talk about, and I'll have been another link in the continuous chain.

PW

November 3, 2009

Since I'm doing a couple of big ones (3'x5'), I'm thinking about big vs. small and all points in between. I'm anxious to plan as carefully as possible because, as I make mistakes on these canvases, I make big mistakes and I want to avoid them. But good planning can go only so far.

Strangely, something can look good in a small format and look bad when enlarged, even though the dimensions are accurate. An interesting area can go from being a novel little bit to a big, ugly blob. (This phenomenon may relate to something in music. My mother, who was a violinist with perfect pitch, said she believed that a piece written in a particular key does not sound so good when it is played in another key. Sometimes there is just no easy translation.)

Nevertheless, I'm off and running, leaping into my first colossal mess with both feet: I can't get a large curve right, and I've painted and painted out three lines so far. What looks fine on the 3"x5" sketch turns out to be clumsy and misshapen at 3'x5.' Oh, well: one more time!

At least.

PW

PW

November 1, 2009

I still don't undestand why people want to paint pictures of things. Things have been so beautifully painted, I can just about lay my life on our never being able to do them as well, let alone better. Take Michaelangelo and his figures. Do you really think you'll ever paint or draw them as well as he did, or better? If there is even a fleeting hestitation in answering, let me assure you that you will not. Even if you did, what would be gained by doing so? In an age of photography and nuclear imaging, the human body cannot possibly be presented more accurately by an artist. Same with all other objects, I'm afraid.

What we do have to offer is our point(s) of view. So paint that. Paint colors in personally loved combinations, paint shapes that grow out of your knowledge of the world, make the line to sing with your energy. Then you will have given the world yourself. They can go to photography for the other.

PW

October 29, 2009

Actually, what I'm trying to do is make something splashy for this show. I have a couple of 3'x5' canvases that I want to hang side by side, vertically, that present as a pair. I've been thinking about shape and color, but the details are hazy as yet.

What intrigues me is contemplating the mysterious slight-of-hand that will--must--appear at the end of the day to pull it all together and make it work. From this point in the planning, I don't know what will occur, but something always does for the painting to be successful.

Maybe it is precisely the hidden miracle that leads us ever on, both through the painting on the table and the next one taking shape in our heads. This, for sure: Painting wouldn't exercise its powerful tugging at me if I weren't chasing a miracle.

PW

October 28, 2009

I'm thinking about what drawing is, and if you can learn to draw.

One thing it is not: and that's a trick of the fingers or even of the hand. It's an energy originating in the solar plexus that gains momentum in the chest, traveling through the arm and out, making the charcoal or pencil or pen an extension of the arm. That's why you might not be able to learn it. One dances with the line and feels its lyricism, a pulsing flow of energy from the heart. The line should look like this, and I think that's why we fall in love with it.

Maybe you can learn to do this, not by instruction, but by lots of practice. You can try to call up the energy in your body, recognize it, and encourage more of it. Soft brown butcher paper with anything that makes a mark will serve you well, especially if you don't focus on trying to draw something. Which brings us to this:

Why do we represent objects by using line, when there are no lines around anything in nature(except the "edge of a shadowed plane," as I was told in classes)? If you set out to draw a face or a tree or a Bartlett pear, you drag the pencil around to enclose a shape. Then you put in smudges for shadows and depth. We might do this because we were brought up to draw this way; we might do it because we are really in love with line and don't know. Artists know it. Artists know it well.

PW

October 27, 2009

It's hard for me to believe that a month ago I was sitting in a B&B on the west coast of Ireland contemplating the mystery of it all and wishing I had more time for chasing down the haunts of Granule, their Lady Pirate. I think of Ireland often: It comes to mind as an image flying by the window of a Dublin tour bus, or that all-over sense of being surrounded by mountains up close, or the surprise of seals sunning themselves on a rock in the bay. Or it can come as a return of Granule. When our national news reported that Ireland had voted to accept the "Lisbon Treaty," I thought of the conversation I'd had with the curator of the tiny Granule Museum, why she was opposed to it, what Granule would have thought of it, and then of the myriad other things that confront other countries that we know nothing about.

It is a magical place, Ireland. It doesn't leave you. No wonder these people believe in leprechauns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows!

I must harness my thoughts and get back to my latest project, my latest mess. But Ireland will not go away for good, I know that.

PW

October 23, 2009

We went to Charlotte Wednesday. There is a sum total of two galleries in the North Davidson district still on their feet, and one of those features "high end" crafts. The one remaining is owned and operated by a smart, brisk, business-savvy woman who has a file of clients, many of whom are corporations.

Upshot: She loved my work Katherine showed her!

It's like the clouds have parted and salvation pours down!! Now I have ideas for much more work and all the energy it summons at the outset to begin.

The beloved loves me after all!

PW

October 20, 2009

The longer I ponder the notion, the more I believe that one's relationship with art--or one particular piece--is like a marriage: To keep on working with it, you must fall in love with it. You have to be interested enough in it to stay with it through the bad times to see how it turns out. There has to be some sort of sticking power that links the artist to her work.

You can break up, vow never to see each other again, throw away all reminders of the relationship; but you can't get rid of the connection or the whispering in your inner ear....

So, renew your vows, renew your vision of the beloved, and try something else, one more time. It's all you can do. It's all I can do, for sure.

PW

October 17, 2009

The weather is changing prematurely from a colorful promise of autumn to a miserable wet, windy, overcast winter. It's been this way all week, getting colder with each passing day, and more forecasted. Aside from hating winter anyway, I'm frightened that there is a return of the situation of last year that socked me in to a coma in front of the fireplace. I just need to keep working.

Additionally, I have stacked a few pieces of emotional furniture in my mental space that may make this winter somewhat different: I'm going to the gallery twice a month, I've met some other artists who react the way I do to the doldrums, and we've promised to be a support for each other, I'm getting to WeightWatchers every week, and I have the spectre of my show in just seven months spurring me on.

I do wonder if I should be trying to make paintings in the first place. What inner voice is it that whispers in our ears that we must be doing this, as both an identity and a life's mission. Maybe it came from some peculiar flight of imagination as children and we've become so used to it that we think it relates a Real part of us. On the other hand, I've denied it for years on end and it didn't go away, just hid in a corner. One of those "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" deals. An artist friend of mine says, "It just isn't easy being an artist."

We need a Godess of Artists to whom we might offer prayers and gifts (bribes) with the plea that we might stay on the ball and enjoy a happy life.

More to come!

PW

October 5, 2009

Saturday I went to WeightWatchers--the first meeting since our return from Ireland. We talked about the causes for our individual eating disorders and what we do about them. I said that I was able to become absorbed in making art and then didn't think about eating badly.

Immediately I could tell that the others dismissed what I was saying, because I am an artist and they are not. The leader asked, "Is your art like a hobby or like a job?" Here was my big chance to lay it out well, and I didn't because it caught me on the run and I didn't have a prepared answer. What I did say is this: We are all artists when we enjoy making something beautiful. I can't think of a woman who doesn't love some sort of "artistic" pursuit: gardening, sewing, quilting, cooking, applying make-up, whatever. But our society doesn't honor this in us. Quite the reverse! These activities are put down as "women's work," and the artist is some incomprehensible character who operates on a hidden, mysterious level. Even doing something well is not labeled as artistic, though there is no reason that it couldn't be.

But defining what painting is to me is still a bafflement: like a hobby because it is motivated by love, like a job because it is demanding and consuming. It is the Grand Passion that walks with us throughout our lives.

PW

September 27, 2009

I was wrong about one thing: I didn't really think of this Blog at all. In fact, I'm thinking about it now because a friend said she'd logged on and found I'd been long remiss in contributing. Can't have that!

When I was quite young, I left central Texas and went to Yellowstone Park as a cabin maid. I was most interested in sending home pictures, as I'd never seen anything like the Rockies in my life and felt sure that nobody in my family had, either. I took a camera to the edge of the lake, at just about sunset, and squinted into the frame.... and decided against that shot. It didn't include the mountain crest to the left. I aimed left and thought better of that one as well, because it didn't bring in the color reflected on the water. I turned all around the panorama, pointing the camera and rejecting one shot after another because I just didn't know what to isolate in a picture.

And that's where I am with a report on the holy places in England and the west coast of Ireland. What parts of them will I isolate with a descriptor? And what descriptor might that be? We should all be exposed to the varieties of that beauty and just hope that something of it will remain in the memory of our mind's eye when we're back to real life: the colors grouped together in the rocks and wildflowers and sheep, the patterns in the mountainsides, and the immortal souls of pirates and saints who will always hover over the sea, its shores, and its mudflats.

I'm home now, but probably not totally. I think that if you go to Ireland, you'll never really go home again.

PW

September 6, 2009

This is Sunday morning. On Tuesday, I'm winging my way across the Atlantic to England and Ireland for seventeen days. How I happened to be a part of this odyssey is still a mystery to me. A long time ago, I must have said, "I've always wanted to see Ireland," and been overheard by my Significant Other and friend. Life hasn't been the same since.

Over the last eighteen months, we've met to swap our "must-see" lists, plan the itenerary, watch videos on the Celts, and then plan again. We've discussed the amount of money we'll access and take, and the amount we'll spend. We've lamented the requirements of WeightWatchers juxtaposed against pub meals. We've fretted over packing for a different climate and the whims of nature. But mostly we've worried about the limitations of our bodies as we shlep suitcases from cars through train depots, airports, and up staircases.

So has a knee replacement that is on the brink of collapse, our friend has come down with some sort of hip-knee-and ankle malady, and I have a temporary crown that will likely fall off when the glue gives out. This is why you don't see too many old people on serious trips.

Truly, I want to go because I need to be on the trail of the Celts once more. I'll see traces of St. Hilda in York, Saint Aiden at Holy Island, the pre-Christian establishment of New Grange, about 30 miles north of Dublin, the Book of Kells at Trinity University. All this will remind me that there was once a very different way of looking at the world, and that I might share in it now as I did before.

I think there is something to the notion of reincarnation. Long ago, I was there. Part of me is still there, so I feel the tuggings of home. The newer part of me will return and I'll be sitting here, once again, thinking and writing about what I learned, this trip, of my home and my family. Blog, I'll be thinking of you til then.

PW

September 4, 2009

...Speaking of materials (and I was, back there, going on about my brush fetish), I've long pondered the peculiar effect of good stuff vs. cheap stuff on the quality of the artwork in progress. Buy an expensive canvas or watercolor paper, and you can suffer a paralysis, sitting before it figuring where to defile its purity with your first mark. Set up newsprint, brown paper, or the back of something, and the work will flow. When you've finished, there will be a fine piece that will surely yellow and disintegrate over time, or one whose backside must be disguised. (People who buy paintings seem to be less interested in one that occupies the reverse of a loser.)

The answer? Put a ban on all cheap materials for students. That way, we'll practice on the good stuff so much that it will hold no terror for us.

...And have you noticed that our pen-and-ink drawings can be stiff and labored? This is because most of us doodled in the margins of our notebook paper with number two pencils for years, and now we're faced with the unforgiving ink pen on expensive paper.

The answer? Bring back the pen-and-ink system for students and require that all doodles in margins be executed by the same. With years of this kind of practice, we would be able to knock out a pen-and-ink drawing with confidence and ease.

You never know when you'll create a winner. Let's broaden the odds as best we can!

PW

September 1, 2009

Artists are remarkably unplugged from the practicalities of life, to the point of total incompetance. We are disabled when it comes to getting the drift and making arrangements. (Best example: Emile Nolde, my favorite German Expressionist, was among the painters whom Hitler called together for the mission of making propaganda art for the Nazis. He listened, then shrugged, thought he'd continue with his beautiful watercolors of poppies blowing on a hillside. So, one night, the SS came calling, dragged him from his bed, and he was never seen again.)

Robert Rauschenberg was the only artist in modern times who'd go to Washington and advocate for the rights of artists, no matter how obvious the cause.

It should be no surprise that, here in Morganton, NC, the artists can't get together and make some well-thought-out, long-needed plans that would benefit us in the world we live in. If we do get along socially--and this is no guarantee--we can't organize what the English call "a piss-up in a brewery." Any occurance to the contrary is unusual to the point of freakish.

Whatever happend here will likely not be the result of my tender ministrations.

PW

August 30, 2009

Last night we went to Hickory for our co-op's (Full Circle Arts) long awaited live auction. All in all, it was a surprisingly successful time. We even made a buck or two. But the best of it was meeting other artists whose work I have loved from first sighting. There is nothing like pursuing these contacts: Instantly, issues and discoveries near and dear to the heart are the focus of rapidly moving conversations. I have missed that and have forgotten its value, buried down here in the studio, mulling over questions asked and answered by myself.

In other news....

On the eve of our Irish trip, when access to money is at a premium, I've just ordered about $150-worth of brushes. Do I already have brushes? Why, indeed, yes. But to you, Dear Blog, I have a confession to make: I have a fetish for brushes. I buy brushes when I have no specified use for them because they are exquisitely made (by nuns in Brittany, for example) or because some rare, soon-to-be-extinct red martin fox in Siberia sacrificed a tip of his tail to be bound in a seamless nickle-plated ferrule for my tabletop. Some of them come in elegant packaging, sunk cunningly in slots of felt-lined boxes. Brushes are beautiful. I clean them lovingly with Ivory soap and brush cleaner after each use, and they remain in good shape for years. This does not mean that I needn't add to my collection: I buy brushes the way gourmet cooks buy kitchenware, poring over catalogues of shiny, silver-chromed implements the rest of us have hardly heard of, let alone felt a need for.

Now I'm waiting for them to arrive. The anticipation builds. This is exciting, and I'll tell you more tomorrow!

PW

August 26, 2009

I stepped outside on a fresh, foggy morning last week and felt that undeniable hint of fall weather, though I'm hard put to identify just what the markers are. Nevertheless, it's coming. This is the inevitable truth that haunts every summer's day, every balmy, open windowed night of crickets and cicadas, every full flowered garden: Fall is coming. While, in early summer, I can chase the threat away, that's harder to do at the end of August.

Last winter I just about perished from the sad-and-fat syndrome, and I dread the onset of those short, dark, cold days when the shroud of it hovers before dropping again.

The disabling characteristics came in a group: inability to create, inability to move, inability to shake the overarching sadness, inability to eat sensibly. One subsists on a diet of television and chocolate. I'm going to apply every bit of imagination I can muster to fend off the blahs, but the prospect of the campaign make me tired at the outset.

Actually, so far, so good. But tomorrow waits in the wings.....

PW

August 25, 2009

I've about had it with arts and crafts fairs. I went to one known around the state as "high end," and it was extremely tiresome. Quantity is not quality and, after a long haul past one booth after another in full summer sun in the midst of people's kids, everything begins to look the same: one jewelry display looks like every other jewelry display, one woodturners' beautiful wares look like every other woodturner's wares, one shelf of ceramic coffee cups looks like every shelf of coffee cups. What's worse, the whole craft fair looks like all the other craft fairs one has attended since the beginning of time. The tents are the same, the amplified music is the same, the sno-cones are the same, the presence of religious handiwork is the same.

I think entries should be juried (which defeats the purpose of the local arts and crafts fair, I'm sure), so that you see less but better stuff. That way, though you'd be tired after winding through it, but you'd be able to see and make sense of more. I'll bet they'd sell more. The planners could say, "We're going to have three (or four, whatever) bead jewelry booths." All beaders who want to show would present samples of work and the three best, whose jewelry demonstrated the greatest variety in bead jewelry, would be selected for show. So it would go for all media. There'd be no booth rental but a percentage of sales.

I have, also, formulated plans for world peace. I've no doubt they'll be just as easy to implement as this reorganization of the arts and crafts fair.

Always glad to help.

PW

August 18, 2009

I think the earlier disaster has been redeemed. I still haven't found the nerve to put varnish over it. Time will tell soon enough.

We took the trip to West Jefferson, where they have all sorts of amenities for artists, and I'm left with two questions: What, exactly is meant by "amenities," and Is there a danger in expecting the Arts Council to do everything for us as artists?

By amenities, I mean first of all an atmosphere that is welcoming to artists, in which artists are appreciated and our artworks are respected. Perhaps the city would like municipal places and objects adorned; perhaps the city coould purchase one painting a year from an artist and rotate the honor. Then come the shows, festivals, and projects--some of which are coordinated with the performing arts..

Should we want the Arts Council to do everything for us? It's tempting, because the one in Ashe County is so successful and has so many projects in the works. But a still, small voice tells me that, if we are to thrive, we need to be fully responsible for our own marketing and exposure.

There won't be any easy answers, no matter what ball we can get rolling.

PW

August 13, 2009

Some of my stuff seems to be snake bit from the beginning. All I wanted for this one was a smooth gray background, minimal figuration, and a varnish. The first thing that went wrong was the gray field: It was streaked and not one color, even after three coats. Then it was the figuration, so I ripped it off with pliers and rather liked the remains, thinking I'd keep the design. I needed to bring the gray up to the new edge of the figuration, which now did not match the gray of the background. That meant a new gray background. I'd forgotten the specific formula for that gray, so the background was becoming a different (wrong) color.

Finally it seemed to be finished, and I applied picture varnish to the whole thing, feeling that I'd put infinitely more effort into this "simple" piece than I ever dreamed necessary--only to find that it had dried milky and full of tiny bubbles like acne. Worse than that, the whole gray background was again multicolored and smeared. I threw that bottle of varnish in the trash.

I sanded the acne and mixed a new batch of gray and began the process all over again. It looks fine. All that's needed is the final application of picture varnish. Should I or shouldn't I?

Am I willing to screw this up for the hope of a final coat? There's no reason it should go wrong--except that everything else connected to this piece has--and I'm a great believer in the chance-taking facet of artmaking. Besides. Life's a gamble.

PW

August 12, 2009

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, I don't think a woman can be a dedicated anything (artist, academic, scientist, etc.) and be a decent mother at the same time, in the same life. Denying this is wishful thinking, if I'm to look at myself, my friends, and our domestic situations.

Elizabet Ney was an unparalleled sculptress of the 19th century, and one of my favorite characters of all time. She and her husband, a Dr. Montgomery, came to east Texas from Germany (I think) to create a social utopia. Obviously, they failed in this, so he plied his craft as a horse and buggy doctor, and she pursued her own interests. The locals found her "odd." She lived in a large, Victorian home near Hempstead, Texas, wore "trousers, bobbed her hair, and smoked cigars." Worst of all, she herself cremated the body of her infant son. She moved to Austin, now the state's capital, and lived in a hovel on the outskirts of town for the rest of her life, sculpting.


It is her statues of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston that live in Washington's Hall of Statuary as Texas' "favorite sons." She is featured and exhibited in the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio, clearly the most notable of all Texas artists until that time.

Referring to her move away from east Texas to the capital city, the narrative in her exhibit says, "Having failed miserably as a mother, by her own reckoning, she shifted her focus to sculpting..." She knew, even back then, that each was a calling of totality in time, effort, and commitment.

No one could be a more ardent feminist than I, but none of us is Superwoman. We can't have it all, do it all, or be all of it: They lied to us. We still must choose, and there will be a price. If we refuse to do that, the choice will be made for us by others and by circumstance.

PW

August 9, 2009

This coming weekend, several artists in the county are traveling together to the mountains to see some successful art programs there. The Arts Council is expecting us, we'll be royally treated, and we'll come home wondering what it would take to have these amenities in our little redneck corner of the Western Piedmont.

What it will take is the fervor of many local artists who are willing to make the sacrifices in time, effort, and any useful personal resources to see it happen. Since I am the one who has beat the drum the loudest, I fear it will land on me to be the sustained inspiration for all this. I see a problem here: I have enough trouble trying to sustain my own inspiration. Being the driving force behind a Cause, Movement, or Vision really is a bridge too far.

I've agreed with myself to just see what happens. If it takes off, it was an idea appearing at the right time and place. If it doesn't, the time for the idea was wrong. In that case, it must be carrried forward by younger artists of willing spirits....

PW

August 8, 2009

I saw a special on television not long ago about a young painter in California (where else?) who'd had a stroke. She was a pretty good painter before the stroke, but not terrific; she desperately wanted to be. She was spending her life very focused on trying to get better.

After the stroke, she was quite impaired: Her speech was affected, her gait, her coordination. Additionally--somehow--she had become a fantastic painter overnight. It was more than just a new quirkiness in brush handling or "style." Her work had achieved another level of accomplishment altogether.

I can tell you as I sit here that this would not have been my outcome. Following a stroke, I would be forever in a wheelchair without a clue as to my name, let alone what painting is.

I guess we should be grateful for whatever it is we have.

PW

August 6, 2009

It's interesting that Plato didn't like art of any sort--vilified theater strongly--because he thought its purpose was to create a mere appearance of physical Reality, which was already "one removed" from Truth. Art was dishonest.

This attitude of Plato can exist only where there is an Absolute Truth to be perceived by everyone, not "your" truth, or "my" truth, or differing but equally weighted points of view. It was the same in the USSR and Nazi Germany, where artists hungered for the opportunity to do what they could do and share it with the world. The Hermitage is filled with Impressionists' paintings not available for local viewing because the artists were demonstrating that perception was individual, fleeting, and valuable in itself. (Only Western guests were allowed in to see the collection.)

My favorite Expressionist, Nolde, created lovely landscapes. He was told by the Nazis to paint propaganda pictures, and he shrugged off the invitation, preferring his poppies blowing on a hillside. The SS broke into his home and dragged him out by the heels, and no one ever saw him again. Fortunately some of his works survived.

We love Plato's organized mind, and he deserves his towering place in history; but his opposition to art is very telling about his philosophy: There is One truth and our job is to learn it as best we can. That has precipitated the eternal carnage of all human history.

PW

August 5, 2009

Another strange turn of events in artmaking is stumbling across the quickie that works. This is the flip side of the laborious turkey: the happy accident that lays itself on the canvas with a minimum of effort in the shortest period of time, a one-shot deal that gets it right on the first try.

I've mulled this over for the Blog in the past. I'm just reminding myself to take it in stride, because it's happening again. I must remember to keep a level perspective on what I make and the way I have to make it: It's never a sign of successes to come, but rather an unexpected, unearned treat to be enjoyed as one can.

As they say, "Even an old, blind hog finds an acorn once in awhile."

Ever onward!!

PW

August 4, 2009

There is a serendipidous aspect to making art, but I don't know how significant a part of the process it is. In collage, it is huge: Should I make a lopsided shape with an extension to go here? Should I not? Rather, should I use the piece I dug up from the bottom of the scrap box simply because I already have it saved from time gone by, and it's my own scrap?

Think of this question presented to a sculptor: How hard do I press here with my thumbs? Do I want a serious hole, or just a subtle one? What is my natural impulse?

What do I need to do that results in something uniquely mine and, if possible, successful?

There is a quote from a Japanese Sumi painter that I included in a piece I did last year: "There are no mistakes. Where my brush goes, there am I today. And I am dancing in my own landscape."

Today, I vow to go where my brush leads and just try to dance in my own landscape!

PW

August 2, 2009

Sorry about not having written. Yesterday was my birthday, and tomorrow is my dental surgery. On this day in between, I just feel older and feebler.

Last night my friends surprised me with a celebration. In the course of it, one remarked that she was not in the least creative. When I hear something like this, I try to put another thought on the table, but it doesn't change anyone's mind. I think that we, as artists, have done a number on people and have succeeded very well. We've convinced them that, unless the Art Fairy flitted over their cradles and touched them with their wands, or unless they completed a university degree in Fine Art, they cannot claim to be "creative," or choose wallpaper with any degree of confidence.

Thomas Aquinas defined Art as, "Right reason about that which is to be made." Made is the significant word, here. Have you tried to influence your children to become good people? Do you take pride in your garden? The quilt you made? The flowers you placed on the table? The golf swing you practiced a milliion times? Your excellent moves on a skateboard? The pot of stew your mother taught you how to make? The efficient system you designed and put into place for organizing the office? The kind of person you've turned out to be? (And that's the most important.) Well, these are the earmarks of creativity, in my book. And if you dress with an eye for color and style, you're artistic.

Maybe because we were afraid that our art was unimportant, we hid it in mystery. There is something off-putting about "specialized" knowledge. We convinced the world that we were the only ones who knew, and then we wondered why the other people claim ignorance. I, who have devoted much of her life to fine art, deliberately and with force, refer to myself as an "artist," wondering if the listener/reader will think me presumptuous and pompous.

Tomorrow I face my crucible. I hope I make a good job of it. I hope I do it artistically.

PW

July 30, 2009

There is a load of housekeeping chores necessary to the creative process, I believe, no matter what process that might be, or what tools you use. If you create beautiful meals, you'll have to wash dishes and clean the kitchen. If you paint, you'll have to wash brushes and keep the work surface clear. If you don't, the mess you'd ordinarily make will be worse and you won't be able to find things.

A friend was in the studio the other day and said, "Are you always this organized?" I glanced around, noting the clutter and soaking brushes, and said, "I guess I am. I don't have time to stop what I'm doing and hunt for a pair of scissors or a color." (I have learned to forego the temptation to point out my own foibles, thereby insulting the person trying to compliment me or my work by saying something like, "What? This mess? You call this organized?")

Additionally, brushwashing and straightening up can be terrifically therapeutic. When I hit a rough patch and just don't know what to do next, I can always grab the soaking brushes and spend several reflective minutes at the sink caring for them.

(This is what God did on the seventh day. What He did on the eighth, I don't know; from the look of things, not much. Must have been a week's gig, and this is what we got.)

PW

July 29, 2009

My 14-year-old grandson e-mails me that the one thing he wants to do with his life is skateboard. Having prepared myself well, I didn't say One Word to the contrary. But I've been thinking about this and what my most helpful response should be. (And while we might think our moldy opinions don't count for anything with this generation, I believe they do. I believe they really influence how we count with them.)



Last summer, when I went to New York for the purpose of seeing fine art, I remember thinking longingly of lost years and the better choice I might have following high school--to set out for a charming loft in the City, endless conversations with Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Rauschenberg, and a lifetime devoted to painting--and what my mother would have said and done in reply. Texas girls in my generation did not even conceptualize such plans, let alone voice them. The choice just wasn't available. At least, not to me.

This past May I went home to a class reunion. I was pleased to meet (again) our star quarterback from the ninth grade, heartthrob of all females in junior high. He's a physician these days and talks about his only regret in life being that he didn't play professional ball. Here he is in a lovely house, surrounded by a beautiful family and all the blessings wealth can provide, and a dreamy look comes into his eyes when he talks about his youth--on the football field. I know he would have been a terrific pro quarterback, just like he is a terrific doctor. But he would be happier today, maybe, and pleased that he did what he wanted to do and not what he should have done.



So I cheered my grandson on. Years from now, I don't want him to watch an Olympic skateboarder and think: "That could have been me if anyone in my family had really listened and respected my passion for skating. I could have been a champion and known the happiness of someone who fulfills his destiny by following his bliss."



Skateboarding, like golf or quarterbacking or problemsolving or painting, is an art, too: It is making something beautiful. I could wish no greater happiness for him than that.



PW

July 28, 2009

It could be that an image has an identity, or integrity, of its own; that it shares itself with us as the painting goes along, like Michaelangelo "freeing" a sculpture from a stone. It is when we say, "I want it to look like thus and so," that creating it becomes a struggle. Imposing one's will on an emerging artwork just doesn't work very well. When it's finished, the piece is overembellished and exhausted. These are the remains of war: bits and pieces lying around that are perhaps in tact, having missed the devastation somehow.... but in a dismal context.

Maybe we should communicate with the image in front of us that is trying to be born, to proclaim itself, and help it do so. Then it wouldn't be a struggle at all. So much of life demands that we abandon our notions of domination, and listen to the voices around and within us. Maybe imagemaking is the same. Once more, our challenge is to listen and work with rather than over.

I don't think I'll be able to live long enough to learn all the things life wants to teach me.

PW

July 27, 2009

Mistakes are a peculiar phenomenon. If they always turned out for the worse, they would not be peculiar. I'd just see them as a bad thing--and sometimes they certainly are--and begin a remedy as soon as possible. Other times, though, they provide a very nice situation in my work and are welcomed as a pleasant surprise.

There is probably a profound lesson, here, about life and charting one's course, but I don't know what it is. It reminds me of the description of the Fiddler on the Roof: someone trying to scratch out a tune without breaking his neck.

On to a good week!

PW

July 26, 2009

It's early morning here, and the best time of day. I love the sunrise from our mountain, looking east across the Catawba Valley. Just the fact that the sun is rising again seems to be an affirmation of faith from the night before; and now, as first light brings shapes out of darkness, the day stretches before us full of mystery and promise. Nothing that will happen has happened: Like runners at the line, we are poised in one long moment waiting for the starting gun.

The garden is still and quiet. Even the bugs are still asleep. In a few minutes, I'll finish my coffee and put in my half hour walking. But for now, I am still and quiet and peaceful, too.

This is when art is born, I think. The unworkable from yesterday can be fixed; questions can be asked and answered; the insurmountable has a ready solution. We, and all our paintings, are babies born to greet the dawn.

PW

July 24, 2009

Here it is, the end of July, already. I was up at 6:00 this morning and realized that the sunrise was barely beginning to happen, meaning that fall approaches with its inevitably shorter days and whisperings of winter. I wish I didn't hate it so much.

The uppermost thought I have, while messing around in the studio, is the show in May. Can I possibly put out enough pieces by then that I really like--enough pieces to choose from--that will group well for an exhibition? In the wee small hours, when I wake up in the dark worring about this, I feel like the character in the fairy tale who was confined in the tower to make straw into gold. (She called on Rumplestiltskin who did the trick, you remember, and saved her hide.)

Agreeing to an exhibition is really stepping into the void and trusting that you will get firm footing and keep it. It's a great act of faith, or it's a most arrogant show of bravado imaginable.

We'll see. Sigh.

PW

July 20, 2009

Where I am today: I have two things on the table top, one a turkey that needs redeeming, and the other a turkey being born.

I'm interested in achieving full membership in the Society of Layerists, but I'm discouraged by the requirements of the application. They want 10 pieces submitted (no problem, there), accompanied by a statement of intent about each. I have no intent; or, if I do, I don't know what it is.

While it is useful for the artist to step back and analyze his or her purpose in making art, I can't help but think that it matters little what I tried or wanted to do. The whole thing is what I did do. This is why we're told that a piece should speak for itself--at least, that's what the art historians say, those folks whose careers are made on speaking about art, and always somebody else's art at that. But there is a point, here: If a poet followed each poem with an explanation of what the poem meant, it wouldn't be a very good poem. Again, the piece should speak for itself. Of all the arts, poetry bubbles up from the experiences of an entire culture. If its meaning is cloudy and resonates with no one, can it be a poem?

Well, so much for that. I'm going to think about this application further and see if I can come up with an intent for each of the rescued turkeys. Dear Blog, there is more on this coming.

PW

July 19, 2009

Something to add something about the phenomenon of getting good ideas or, more specifically, an unexpected good idea:

It may be related to a definition I heard once of magic: "A human being's change of mind." In other words, for whatever reason, we hear someone expressing a thought quite vigorously one day, and then hear the same person expressing the opposite thought the next. What brought him or her to a new consciousness, or point of view, when the person him/herself can't identify its cause? The ability to identify does not disturb me (as it might disturb a totally left-brained individual), but rather gives life extra excitement; such as, we will continue to be surprised by new understandings, new ideas, our whole lives long.

It makes living an art, not a science.

This is very good news for us right-brained types!

PW

July 18, 2009

I have neglected you, Dear Blog, because I've been in the clutches of dental angst. I think that the most courage I have ever mustered to meet the greatest challenges I've ever faced has centered around my teeth: Stop, What You Are Doing Hurts and The Thought of What You're Doing Is Making Me Sick; and, How Am I Ever Going To Pay For This?

I spent yesterday gallery sitting, and two thoughts come to mind about our work and preferences: first, as exhibiting artists, we tend to improve. We need to encourage each other because, if we don't, that growth and improvement will never happen. It is good to remember that, despite general opinion, Michaelangelo wasn't born knowing how to sculpt and paint. He had to learn like everybody else. Would we have the Pieta today if his early mentors had said, "This piece is terrible. Go back outside and pick grapes!"

The other thing about galleries (an eclectic one, like ours) is that one is constantly exposed to a variety of media, styles, and genres. Every time I've said, "Oh, I just don't like that period or type," I'll encounter something in that very period or type that absolutely thrills me. I've learned not to say such things before I've seen a lot of it, if then.

Our gallery is planning an auction, both silent and live. I'll submit something for the silent part, but I don't know if I have the courage to put something up for out loud bidding. I was flattered enough when the Board Chairperson asked me to help organize and hang the show.

More later, always....

PW

July 16, 2009

A couple of tricks from art school that are good to remember: When you're not certain about a painting, turn it upside down and stare at it for awhile. Then give it a quarter turn and stare it that way. The weaknesses of composition will become apparent. If you still aren't convinced, put it in the living room and prop it up on something and glance at it from time to time. The downside of this is that you will have a turkey in your living space, your turkey, haunting your comings and goings, surprising your eye with its unhappy, unfinished image.

If you're doing a portrait or some other representational piece, look at it in a mirror. The image will tell you if this is really what you want to convey. It will not tell you how to change it so that it will be.

This has been a crazy time. When I have to leave the house more than twice in one week, I resent it and feel harassed. It's the dentist this afternoon; after tomorrow, things should calm down. The operant word is should.

PW

July 13, 2009

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who will answer the phone every time it rings, and those who glance at the read-out, determine that they don't know anyone named, say, C U Later, and decline to pick up the call. While the first category is dwindling in number, I happen to live with one of its last, dedicated members; my home is visited by wrong numbers, panhandling police and firemen, and both political parties--none of which I have much interest in chatting with.

One of the few groups I readily belong to is that bunch of people who don't like to communicate by phone, especially with people we don't know. This renders us incompatible with the values of this electronic society. Take the "Twitter" question: "What are you doing?" Why would that be of interest to you, unless I've promised you I'd do this or that at this particular moment, and I failed to show. Moreover, why would it be of interest to me that you know what I'm doing, especially on some casual level? My privacy seems to be linked to my independence: What am I doiong? I'm doing what I want to do.

With several of the arts--perhaps all--there is the paradox of engagement: the purpose of communicating with others frustrating its method of solitary artmaking. I hope I live long enough to see what effect the current electronic frenzy has on writing and painting.

PW

July 12, 2009

For a long time, I've heard that we get great, novel ideas when we're dreaming, or when we're still in a half-sleep-half-wake state, and that we should keep pad and pencil on our nightstands so we can record them. I gave this up when I couldn't do it. Trying to recapture ideas that come from the edge of sleep is like chasing smoke with a butterfly net.

Once in awhile, good ideas come to me when I'm actually awake and cognitively focused on a problem. These are the ones I have to write down, because they'll for sure go the way of unsubstantiated trivia. (Of course, there's always the problem of remembering that an idea has been recorded, resides in one's jeans pocket, and should be logged somewhere. I have often found a scrap of paper in the dryer that reads something like, "Wedgewood blue and tomato red." At least I still have enough smarts to know what that means.) So it came to me while I was putting away dishes that the background of the current turkey needs a raw sienna background.

And that brings me to this morning's task. We'll see how good an idea it was!

PW

July 11, 2009

I didn't write a blog yesterday, so now I feel guilty about it. (God forbid I run out of things to feel guilty about.) I see that I have written 26 blogs: Imagine that! I had 26 things to say, or 26 ways of saying the same thing, which is the more likely.

I have turned out three decent paintings and have something else on the table as we speak. So far, it follows in the footsteps of the other turkeys, and I'm about to decide that this is the way I work. First, I have to make a mess. Then, I begin pulling myself out of the mess, or rectifying it. With luck, the thing can be redeemed with not-so-much effort; more than likely, it will take considerable effort.

There is much angst in this process, and varying degrees of fear, from mild concern to sheer terror. At this point, the current canvas occupies a holding pattern, waiting to be brought alive.

MORE WILL BE REVEALED!!

PW

July 9, 2007

Yesterday was an art field trip: We went to Charlotte to buy a painting, and then to Davidson to give one away.

The gallery in Charlotte is named, "Center of the Earth," and it's located in the Art District known as "NoDa," or North Davidson Street. It is a class act. First thing you notice is that the range of painting styles and techniques is quite broad; secondly, you notice that all of it is good. I had seen a painting there last October and had fallen in love with it, wistful that I didn't have the money to buy it. Since it hadn't sold by July, Ruth Lyons, the owner, e-mailed us that it was still available. I realized that I couldn't live without it....so it now rests on the bed in the guest room as I decide where to hang it.

It is called "Little Red Tree," by Scott Hill, an Atlanta artist. It is beautiful! I woke up this morning thinking about it, and how smart I was to bring something so lovely into my home.

What kind of world would it be without the beauty in our lives, and without the capability of making our lives beautiful?

PW

July 8, 2009

Following our meeting, I am curious about those communities that support vital art programs and those that don't. What makes the difference? Further, how do we get from being in the one category to being in the other?

We note that those communities with strong support for the arts are not necessarily in big cities, are not funded by federal grants, have not been created by some Big Name. This leads us to wonder if we, in the western piedmont of North Carolina, might oneday achieve a comparable atmosphere for those who make art and those who buy it (these groups are not mutually exclusive).

We are a charming little town at the foot of the Blue Ridge whose public celebrations center around automotive collections (the antique car show) and what you can eat in your hands (funnel cakes). But there are some human impulses that seem to be hard wired into all of us: the hunger for beautiful things in our lives, the drive to make them, the need to talk about them. This is true for the privileged residents of River Oaks, Houston, as well as the not-so-privileged on the outskirts of Mexico City.

I think we should be able to enjoy the antique car show and a gallery reception. These are not mutually exclusive, either, thank God. There are a few of us just waiting for the good idea that will move us toward the creation of the larger dream.

PW

July 7, 2009

This is the day when four of us call on a friend for advice for local artists. As I've said, there is nothing about Burke Couonty that could be interpreted as "artist friendly." We see the need to change this, as there are as many artists in these hills as there are anywhere. Our friend is a businesswoman who has worked for the city for years. She is also someone who supports the arts on a personal level and thinks they are important.

She's going to have us articulate our short term goals and our long term goals and then advise us on how to go about meeting them in, for, and with the help of this community. Since she's kind enough to have us in her home, we're bringing salad.

Maybe we can get something together and maybe we can't. We've been talking about doing this for years--if it doesn't go anywhere, it'll sit on a back burner for another 10-12 years until someone else wants to bring it forward and try again. There's something to be said for an idea whose time has come.

PW

July 6, 2009

This is a good day! The latter turkey has come round to a point that even I like it.

I was saying something about being "in denial." At some functional level, the meaning of this is pretty clear, but in time it has become overrated and hazier for me.

A friend once told me that her mother had just been diagnosed with cancer followed by a list of precedures that would make her well. I repeated all this to a mutual friend, ending with, "They're in denial."

She said, "So what? She will die of it no matter what they think." While this flies in the face of New Age principles, that's exactly what happened. At least her disease was met with an energetic and spirited commitment to life and she was able to die in peace, knowing she had done all she could do.

So I wonder: What has been denied? My reality, my take on the world. This week it happened again. Someone came into the studio and said, of the previous turkey I've already lamented, "I love this one! It's the best!" The painting is a mess, and she's "in denial." Right?

May we always have this denial of others' attitudes, others' truth. That's what following our own star means.

PW

July 5, 2009

I remember my earliest art experiences. My father was someone who'd bring home an antique when there was no milk in the refrigerator, and he'd seen to it that I had books with prints of paintings by the time I was four or five. But in the second grade, some sort of travelling collection made it to our elementary school, and all the kids went to see it in the auditorium, class by class.

The lighting was terribly dim, so the room was too dark, and we were just marched by with no time to stop and ponder. But I thought it was the most magical experience possible: Huge, life-sized reproductions of famous paintings--Pinky and Blue Boy were two of them, I remember--rose before us in splendor. I didn't behold them, they beheld me. Life would never be the same.

Despite the explosion in technology, children--human beings--have not evolved from such early dawnings of discovery. Seemingly simple encounters still have powerful results. There is a passage in scripture that warns us about entertaining angels unaware, and I know that something was riding my shoulder that day.

PW

July 4, 2009

I read a piece some years ago about the lives of the signers of the Declaration of Independence following that first fateful Fourth of July. I wish I could remember where it came from, because it was remarkable: It spoke of the hard times--and some deaths--that befell all these men so that a break from England could happen and this new nation would be born.

Never has a country such as ours come to be, before or since. It is my most profound piece of good fortune to have been born an American and to have enjoyed a lifetime of all the good things that means.

That can and does affect our art. We have such freedom of expression here and are so accustomed to it that we forget to be grateful. We need a Fourth to bring it back to mind and to be thankful to all of those who won it and laid it in our laps.

Happy Fourth of July!

PW

July 3, 2009

For some reason, my mind has drifted to a professor I had once, years ago. His name was Gibbs Milliken, and he was in the Art Department faculty at UT Austin. He was just cute, first of all: slender, medium-to-long hair, usually dressed in chinos or fatigues and rubber tire-soled sandals. He painted rocks: portraits of rocks. He had been selected to paint the first group of rocks brought back from the moon. He made many trips through the wilds of South America photographing flora and fauna. He was quite accomplished, especially for someone who presented himself so casually, for someone who could not take himself seriously. He was a free spirit that wouldn't be trapped, though he was married to a woman he loved and respected; in all the time I knew him, I never heard that he had fooled around with students. I admired him for that then, and I admire him for it today.

One thing he said that I never forgot: He was talking about the years of diligence it takes to make a good painter, and how so few people understand this. He recalled one of his jungle excursions when a fellow "explorer" asked him if he'd paint a butterfly. So Gibbs went into his tent and reemerged later with his painting of a butterfly, and the friend was ecstatic.

"That's absolutely wonderful!" he gushed. "How long did it take you to paint this?"

Gibbs said, "Oh, about 20 years.... and 20 minutes."

I figure that until 20 years go by, nobody can tell if he or she is an artist or not, whether the ensuing 20 minutes will amount to anything. Personally, I have a few to go, and I just hope I live so long!

By the way, Gibbs died about 18 months ago with cancer.

PW

July 1, 2009

....just an added note about avoidance behavior: It can be a wonderful thing! Say you're looking at an unfinished piece, like my current turkey, and your window screens need doing. Both of these are unwelcome jobs, so you back away from the more dreadful and begin doing the slightly less dreadful. After a bit, your back hurts and you think maybe you were too hasty in taking on the windows. So you approach the turkey and put in an hour wrestling with it until you want to run from it. So you back away from that and return to the window screen project, putting in another dismal hour there. Then, after another hour, the painting seems to be a more attractive project, and you pick it up again. And what is the outcome of this alternation of miserable tasks? After a day or two, you have a finished painting and a houseful of clean windows!!! It's win-win.

Being "in denial" is another possibly good idea that has fallen into disrepute, but that's a story for another day.

I'm happy with the window screens and have a twinkling of hope for the painting!

PW

July 28, 2009

For every single piece I turn out, there has been a period of angst preceding it, varying only by intensity or length of duration. Do other artists have to work this way, too? True enough, there is the one-off that seems to assemble itself: no pivotal mistakes, no brick walls, no loss of direction. But that phenomonon is so rare as to be half forgotten.



In the throes of it, I'm reminded of a couple of thoughts: One [paraphrasing], by Emily Dickinson, from one of her poems about pain ("Pain is a world of its own," meaning that one in the grip of pain cannot even remember what it was like not to be, it is so all-encompassing), and the other a book by Bayles and Orland entitled, Art and Fear. The latter does a fair job telling what is wrong with us as artists and what we need to do about it if we're going to live our lives making art.

The turkey inches slowly forward, though I have been messing around with avoidance behavior by reconditioning brushes and cleaning screens and windows. This afternoon I'm back at the gallery for three hours, and then I'm going to really plunge into finishing this would-be painting.

I promise.

PW

June 26, 2009

The turkey limps along and I am guardedly optimistic. I've learned, over time, that there is limitless opportunity to screw up a painting: at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. At present, we're dragging ourselves out of the disastrous middle. But at least it's limping along.

Reflecting back on the winter doldrums, I'm struck by the realization that being productive with one's art is simply part of a larger package, one bit of a gestalt. There is a chicken-or-the-egg question, I realize: Does depression cause creative paralysis, or does creative paralysis cause depression? But never mind. One part of this phenomenon seems to be that a recovery in any one part reflects a recovery in all the others. Of course, you have to start somewhere.

Being creatively productive seems to be a function of personality, active when other aspects of it are going well, too. I still don't know how to effect recovery.

It's Friday, and I think I might be going into Charlotte to see if any galleries are still in business despite the dismal trend to fold.

PW

June 23, 2009

I have just returned from the artists' co-op I belong to after gallery-sitting for three hours this afternoon. There was not a solitary soul that dropped by, but I met my obligation to put in time, and I read quite a bit of Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. I stretched my legs every hour or so and browsed the inventory. Again.

This is what I'm thinking: I'll bet I've seen more bad art than anyone I've ever known. Than anyone in the whole world, maybe. This is both good and bad: good, because it means more and more people are getting involved with art and dreaming Big by putting it out there in the public space. It's bad because, predictably, it's so damned depressing to look at.

My mother was a violinist. She believed there were two kinds of violinists: one was either fantastic or terrible. There was no in-between. She would say there was "fine art," or no art; that "bad" art was an oxymoron. She was not one to suffer fools gladly. If you weren't a competant violinist, you should repair to the privacy of a soundproof room and practice scales until you were fit for the human ear.

I think of her and wonder if I'm as getting as bad as she was. I started off encouraging people, and now I'm just much less enthusiastic. I think I've just reached a saturation point with effort and would welcome some accomplishment. Even from myself. Especially from myself.

Maybe thinking Big is overrated. Maybe doing a small thing well would not nauseate others in the way that rendering a big thing badly does.

I'm still trying to reorganize the turkey.

PW

June 21, 2009

The reason I'm posting all these blogs has nothing to do with my willingness to impart knowledge like Lady Bountiful distributing largesse among the poor. I have a "webmistress"--would that be right?--who understands the electronic age with a terrifying thoroughness. It was she who shamed me into this, saying that, if I didn't keep up with this blog, people wouldn't know that I'm living and breathing and painting. (What she didn't say is that they probably won't know that even if I am blogging.)

So, on this bright Monday morning, I'm toasting my webmistress with a cup of coffee, typing up my trivia, and marching forward to redeem this turkey on the worktable.

Cheers!

PW

June 21, 2009

Since, by my reckoning, I've turned out two winners, it would be expected that this third effort would look as though it had been "whupped with a ugly stick." Sometimes the simplest plan can derail inexplicably, leaving me with a mess to redeem. Better to leave this idea alone, I figure. As long as I can keep pulling them from total failure, I guess I ought to be satisfied. But then the pleasant surprise of a winner will come along without any angst at all, and it spoils me to think that now I have a handle on things and won't be turning out any more turkeys.

Life's a gamble!

PW

June 19, 2009

A few of my friends are trying to get together a nucleus of artists in Burke County so that some nice things for artists might be put into place here. There are communities that give space (and the operative word, here, is give) to artists for everything from studio areas to galleries as a draw to tourists and passersby to the downtown area. I don't live in one of those communities, and I think we're going to have to get very creative to have even a few amenities.

I really believe that everyone will want to buy a piece of fine art at some point in his or her life. God knows that those of us who turn out the stuff are driven by some inner imperative to do so, despite all other considerations, whether the economy is brisk or flagging. It is a constant demand. Then, since there is a market for it and an abundance of merchandise, why is it so hard to get the two together?

There will be much more on this as time goes by.

June 17, 2009

Lately I've been weighing the phenomena of the performing arts and the visual arts, one against the other, and wondering where they are rooted in human nature. This occurs to me as I've been fortunate to engage in conversation with Jennifer Foster, a director, producer, and public personality with WDAV, 89.9 FM, our "classical" music station. (I've been listening to it--and her--for years.) Her life's work is supporting musicians, but she relates to paintings and collage like the rest of us.

For me, the performing arts represent the extroverted part of our nature: an overt effort for connection, usually in community with others. The visual arts represent the introverted part of us: a whispered call to look within for meaning. This would be a personal, or private, thing. The danger of this paradigm lies in creating an either-or situation, when there is certainly a whole spectrum of combinations. We are all both extroverted and introverted at the same time.

This is what I love about the notion of the dialectic. As two seemingly opposite concepts, or methods, or people, interact over time, each begins to change. Each becomes somewhat like the other.

It's the same principle inderlying an appreciation of many different kinds of art and many kinds of music within the same heart. And thank God for it!

June 15, 2009

No matter how bizarre "new" styles of expression tend to be, we--everyday viewers and buyers of art--seem to revert back to representational styles. When the Impressionists, and then the Abstract Expressionists came along, photographic realism took a hit that would forever change the prevailing notion of what a painting was. But predictions that Modern Art would no longer include realism have simply not borne out.

Why is this so? While there are innumerable artists in New York lofts turning out "new" forms, paintings bought by the rank and file are 1) beautiful landscapes, 2) portraits of kids and pets, and 3) still lifes. As an artist working with color, shape, and composition, I've wondered about this; and, whether or not our friends are just ignorant or stuck in a past century, it seems to be that their comfort level is settled in realistic presentation of recognizable objects.

Now we're down to what we expect to see when we look into a painting--what we think a painting should look like. I believe we search for some part of ourselves: what we are familiar with, what we love or have loved in the past, where we yearn to go. A painting pulls us in, and there we make meaning.

While the fashion runways in Paris are crowded with outlandishly strange and pricey garments, we still pull cotton shirts over our heads and drag up our levis on most days for meeting the world. Personally, I'm always on the alert for a better pair of levis as well as something trendy for special occasions. Accepting the one doesn't exclude the other. I can love a beautiful landscape, portrait, or still life, too.

June 14, 2009

There seems to be a mysterious, negative force working against an artist trying her best to get to the studio. It reminds me of the way those little scottie magnets behaved when I'd put the opposing ends of the magnets toward each other. No amount of my pushing would overcome the tendency to push each other away.

So it is with my coming down here. A million things intervene between us to make an entrance possible, even if things went well the last time I was here and I know what I need to do this time.

Now, the magnets would work again when I'd twist one around to approach the other differently. I need to know how to apply this principle to physically placing myself in this setting: opening the door, walking into the room, standing before the unfinished work, and deciding what I'll do next.

I'll have to work on that.

PW

June 13, 2009

A long time ago I learned never to contradict someone complimenting my art. Whereas I am just before snatching it off the wall and hurling it toward the dumpster--or telling the person next to me that I think it stinks--someone else will say, "That is absolutely your best yet!" If I follow this with a self-deprecating remark, like, "I think it's terrible!" I have insulted the speaker's taste. More to the point, I just shot down a sale.

A wise woman once said, "If somebody resonates so deeply with a piece of your art that he will pay good money for it, take it home, and live with it the rest of his life, who cares what you think about it?" I know she was right.

I'm telling this to myself again because I'm looking at my latest effort and wondering about it....

PW

June 12, 2009

Finishing up this last piece, I'm aware of the intrusion a signature is. Here I spend all my energies creating an environment to get lost in...and finish it by writing my name on its face, as much to say, "It has all been bogus. Don't go in depth; stay on the surface." So I'm going to start putting my name on the backs of everything. If I use a permanent Sharpie, isn't that the same on the back or the front? I wonder if this gives an unfinished look.

PW

June 11, 2009

New resolution: I'm going to blog everyday. This doesn't mean that I have something to say everyday, but that never stopped me before!



I'm considering that I've come to the gluing phase of my latest effort and that I don't like the feel of it. This is too bad, as the meaning of the word "collage" is "to glue."



More later.



PW

What Makes It Not Happen?

Well, I'm back. It's been a long time, but I think I can explain:

Since the middle of last October, I've been adrift in a creative wasteland. I think it was about the time that the economy tanked, and three places that show my work went out of business. I crawled into my own head and thought: Forget it. Why mess with this? I couldn't pull myself out of depression and torment even by contemplating the show I have scheduled in May of '10.

Then something happened to break me out, but I don't know exactly what that was, looking back..... But never mind: I seem to be on the mend and working again.

What is this that shuts us down? Maybe it's related to the silent, nagging fear hovering at the edge of our work that our success is a mistake, and oneday we'll wake up and it will have disappeared. Or just maybe it's a good and natural remission when our direction is undergoing a shift and needs to collect energy. If that's so, I'd like to encounter it without the depression and torment, knowing that oneday, in its own time, it will give way to productivity again.

So I'll begin again, both with the painting and the blogging. I hope someone out there will look and read and respond.....