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