This will be the last blog in a while. I've been writing to you for a year, and this is the 81st entry. I'm not getting a response, even when I ask friends directly for one. So, when something "important" comes to mind, I'll get it down; otherwise, I'll just keep on painting because I'm burnt out talking to myself.
The show at the Art Museum approaches with reasonable speed. I've made a list with four spaces to check for each of the 24 paintings: varnished, signed, labeled, and wired. At this point, I'm not sure they all have names. I've called the show "Images of Thought," because I think thoughts and ideas look like something as they come into our minds, attach to other ideas, and become entrenched in a context. If all this talk about ideas is metaphorical (as it most be), then why not in images as well as words. That's the aim, anyway.
I'm varnishing, signing, labeling, and wiring today, and I will be for the next two weeks. Then I can start worrying about what to wear.
PW
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
February 24, 2010
Remarkably, time has passed since the last entry. I'm down to nine canvases to go in nine weeks. It's the kiss of death to think like this, because almost always one invites a stall or disaster when the gods (or "ill trained labrador") is tempted.
I think the well of ideas needs to refill from time to time. That's why, when I've finished a huge undertaking, I'll declare, "Never again. I'm going to quit painting because I've learned all there is for me to know, said all I have to say...." and then begin to assemble problems to solve again. Things just have to settle before another direction emerges from the dust. I'm fervently hoping this sense of depletion doesn't occur before the last canvas for this show is finished.
The monsters are safely propped up against a far wall and haven't managed to offend me as yet. Of course, I make it a point not to look at them for fear there will be "something else" I "ought" to do to them. Reason tells me that I've done the best I could with them and that any additional effort at correction would not only fail to correct anything but cause problems that weren't there.
It threatens to snow again today, about the sixth event of the season. Crocusses are showing in the garden, perhaps the clouds will see them and move on....
PW
I think the well of ideas needs to refill from time to time. That's why, when I've finished a huge undertaking, I'll declare, "Never again. I'm going to quit painting because I've learned all there is for me to know, said all I have to say...." and then begin to assemble problems to solve again. Things just have to settle before another direction emerges from the dust. I'm fervently hoping this sense of depletion doesn't occur before the last canvas for this show is finished.
The monsters are safely propped up against a far wall and haven't managed to offend me as yet. Of course, I make it a point not to look at them for fear there will be "something else" I "ought" to do to them. Reason tells me that I've done the best I could with them and that any additional effort at correction would not only fail to correct anything but cause problems that weren't there.
It threatens to snow again today, about the sixth event of the season. Crocusses are showing in the garden, perhaps the clouds will see them and move on....
PW
Saturday, February 13, 2010
February 15, 2010
This is to announce to the world (and I'm hearing a fanfare of trumpets) that The Monsters Are Finished!!! The weight of the world has been taken off my back. The buggers just need their edges neatened up and varnish applied, and they're DONE.
Now I can get to the other nine canvases remaining for the Big Show in May.
Last night we had the fourth snowfall of the season. I realize I shouldn't complain, considering the horrible condition of our northeastern neighbors, but I was numb watching it come down. My back can't take much more time behind a snow shovel, at least in one season.
But never mind: The Monsters Are Finished!!! The joy in that overrides everything!
PW
Now I can get to the other nine canvases remaining for the Big Show in May.
Last night we had the fourth snowfall of the season. I realize I shouldn't complain, considering the horrible condition of our northeastern neighbors, but I was numb watching it come down. My back can't take much more time behind a snow shovel, at least in one season.
But never mind: The Monsters Are Finished!!! The joy in that overrides everything!
PW
Saturday, February 6, 2010
February 6, 2010
I was showing my SO the progress I'd made on The Monsters, and she said: "These colors are just beautiful!" I said, I hope so, that's what it's all about for me, and my mind went back to a time many years ago when those words had an unwanted significance.
When I was 12 or 13, my mother had a good friend who happened to be the head of the psychology department at Baylor University. She arranged with him to give me a Rorschach test. I think this was because she wanted me to stop punishing my brother. I guess she thought anyone must be nuts that wouldn't love him, or that she might approach me more effectively through psychology than by the threats that hadn't been working.
(My brother was a poor excuse for a human being, he was his whole life long; and I'm not sorry for any grief I mananged to give him. I hesitate to call him an SOB or a bastard, because both these epithets wind up insulting my mother. As a feminist (and a mother), I am very bothered about that.)
Anyhow, I spent a couple of enjoyable Saturday afternoons in this gentleman's office identifying various blobs and shapes, the most memorable of which were the ones in color. I recall one that looked like a lake in a springtime meadow: It was ringed by a riot of flowers and sparkling insects, and I couldn't say enough about the color. It was truly beautiful. And when the test was done, I was told that I needed to be nicer to my brother. And my mother was told that I was too much in the thrall of my emotions. (Recall that we're talking about a a pubscent female, now.) While both these conclusions may have been accurate, I wonder why the psychologist couldn't have said, "What we have here is a potential artist who will find the joy of her life in working with color." Would that information not have been more helpful? Does all artistic passion boil down to some sort of psychological disorder? Are artists doomed to a wasteland of "Different" because we see the world around us in a way not typical of mainstream observers?
Further, I wonder how much of the arts is sacrificed to some physical/psychological deficit: El Greco had an astygmatism, Van Gogh was crazy, Lautrec was a drunk who hung out in the Moulin Rouge, etc. A better description of art and the passion some of us find for making it is that it is magical and mystical and defies explanation.
That's what I think when I'm just about finished with something and I feel it's turned out well. Other times, I'm afraid I do wonder if I've lost my mind.
PW
When I was 12 or 13, my mother had a good friend who happened to be the head of the psychology department at Baylor University. She arranged with him to give me a Rorschach test. I think this was because she wanted me to stop punishing my brother. I guess she thought anyone must be nuts that wouldn't love him, or that she might approach me more effectively through psychology than by the threats that hadn't been working.
(My brother was a poor excuse for a human being, he was his whole life long; and I'm not sorry for any grief I mananged to give him. I hesitate to call him an SOB or a bastard, because both these epithets wind up insulting my mother. As a feminist (and a mother), I am very bothered about that.)
Anyhow, I spent a couple of enjoyable Saturday afternoons in this gentleman's office identifying various blobs and shapes, the most memorable of which were the ones in color. I recall one that looked like a lake in a springtime meadow: It was ringed by a riot of flowers and sparkling insects, and I couldn't say enough about the color. It was truly beautiful. And when the test was done, I was told that I needed to be nicer to my brother. And my mother was told that I was too much in the thrall of my emotions. (Recall that we're talking about a a pubscent female, now.) While both these conclusions may have been accurate, I wonder why the psychologist couldn't have said, "What we have here is a potential artist who will find the joy of her life in working with color." Would that information not have been more helpful? Does all artistic passion boil down to some sort of psychological disorder? Are artists doomed to a wasteland of "Different" because we see the world around us in a way not typical of mainstream observers?
Further, I wonder how much of the arts is sacrificed to some physical/psychological deficit: El Greco had an astygmatism, Van Gogh was crazy, Lautrec was a drunk who hung out in the Moulin Rouge, etc. A better description of art and the passion some of us find for making it is that it is magical and mystical and defies explanation.
That's what I think when I'm just about finished with something and I feel it's turned out well. Other times, I'm afraid I do wonder if I've lost my mind.
PW
Friday, January 29, 2010
January 29, 2010
When the economy fails, like it has now, I think the arts take the hardest hit. Real Estate and banking caused this disaster, but the results for them amount to a lesser need for real estate personnel and bank activities. There are still people getting married who need a place to live, and banks still do a brisk business in credit cards and household loans. The result for the arts is a total shut down. It's as if the world is saying that we don't need anything connected with the arts at all: not artworks, galleries, museums, or services of designers. The rest of society slows down; the arts disappear.
Here's to those who struggle. They were always my favorite companions, anyway.
PW
Here's to those who struggle. They were always my favorite companions, anyway.
PW
Monday, January 25, 2010
January 25, 2010
It's been a long time, and I'm sorry about that; but I have been busy, and I want to talk about it.
Long time ago, I read that a mother has to "fall in love" with her newborn. There comes a defining moment following delivery when a mother's heart fills with love and happiness at the sight of her baby, when she knows that this little scrap of humanity is truly hers and she's glad.
I think something similar must happen to an artist laboring over a canvas. Sooner or later, I must literally fall in love with the thing, must rejoice in its look, must recognize its turning out the way I'd been hoping after all that time of wondering and doubt.
The monsters look good to me (no matter how they might appear to anyone else at this point--that's not important). I haven't ruined them, nor am I flopping around not knowing what to try next. They make me smile on the inside. It's a good day!
PW
Long time ago, I read that a mother has to "fall in love" with her newborn. There comes a defining moment following delivery when a mother's heart fills with love and happiness at the sight of her baby, when she knows that this little scrap of humanity is truly hers and she's glad.
I think something similar must happen to an artist laboring over a canvas. Sooner or later, I must literally fall in love with the thing, must rejoice in its look, must recognize its turning out the way I'd been hoping after all that time of wondering and doubt.
The monsters look good to me (no matter how they might appear to anyone else at this point--that's not important). I haven't ruined them, nor am I flopping around not knowing what to try next. They make me smile on the inside. It's a good day!
PW
Friday, January 8, 2010
January 8, 2010
I'm thinking there may be more than one way that characterizes one's working style. You hear of a particular method as describing one's typical way of working. But maybe there is more than one.
I know I must make the colossal mess somewhere down the line, ordinarily. But sometimes it doesn't go that way: I'll find myself confronting a simple success. Perhaps I conceptualized the process so exactly (at the threshhold of sleep)--or the materials behaved as I expected them to, or better--that the result was satisfactory. The little gem on the table right now is a case in point.
What this implies is that I'll be soldiering on with the two monsters against the wall for the rest of my life.
PW
I know I must make the colossal mess somewhere down the line, ordinarily. But sometimes it doesn't go that way: I'll find myself confronting a simple success. Perhaps I conceptualized the process so exactly (at the threshhold of sleep)--or the materials behaved as I expected them to, or better--that the result was satisfactory. The little gem on the table right now is a case in point.
What this implies is that I'll be soldiering on with the two monsters against the wall for the rest of my life.
PW
Sunday, January 3, 2010
January 3, 2010
That's the first time I've written "2010." Seems impossible.
Sorry to have been so long getting back. We arrived home on the 28th, and the past week has been full of laundry, thank you notes, and lovely memories.
There is a time when good ideas seem to come in. It's that hazy, dark, quiet phase between wakefulness and sleep when I find myself visualizing the construction of a new painting. Oddly, I either find myself drifting into this, or I can make it happen. It's a very easy time and takes no mental discipline to create like dropping into a trance. (I tried that years ago and realized, sadly, that I'd never develop the skill because it takes too much commitment. I have enough grief just getting my exercise in.)
This is when the gods speak to us, and the message is always novel, fresh, and compelling. I wish the Main God were this personable and clever and easy to find. I'd even go back to church if It were.
PW
Sorry to have been so long getting back. We arrived home on the 28th, and the past week has been full of laundry, thank you notes, and lovely memories.
There is a time when good ideas seem to come in. It's that hazy, dark, quiet phase between wakefulness and sleep when I find myself visualizing the construction of a new painting. Oddly, I either find myself drifting into this, or I can make it happen. It's a very easy time and takes no mental discipline to create like dropping into a trance. (I tried that years ago and realized, sadly, that I'd never develop the skill because it takes too much commitment. I have enough grief just getting my exercise in.)
This is when the gods speak to us, and the message is always novel, fresh, and compelling. I wish the Main God were this personable and clever and easy to find. I'd even go back to church if It were.
PW
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
