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.....