On the Easel

A Walk in the Woods

2010-06-08T23:13:00.005-04:00

I live in Vermont halfway up a hill. Being an artist is a quiet life and mostly I like it that way because inside my mind and imagination things are anything but quiet. I have more ideas for paintings than I could get through in three lifetimes. Sometimes I don't leave the hill for a few days in a row and don't even notice: I'm busy, I'm thinking, I'm painting. And also I'm walking the dog. Up the hill from me, near the top but not quite at the top lives my friend Jasmine. She is an herbalist/nutritionist/energy healer/plant spirit medicine practitioner, you name it. Jasmine's house has an incredible view, much bigger than mine, and I like to think that that is because she is a seer. Practically every day we leave whatever it is that absorbs us, yield to the "big brown eyes" of our respective pets, and go outdoors to pace the familiar paths of our little world. There is a patch of woods at the very top of the hill; one of the exquisite pleasures of spring is walking that path and watching the fresh greens emerge: first from the ground, then from the trees, step by step, as the snow melts, the brook swells and the birches leaf out.

This year spring came early. In late February I felt the light and the air shift and knew that spring was on the move. One unusually balmy day in early March I went up to the orchard, pruned the apple trees, and cut a bunch of forsythia. I brought a huge pile of these bare cuttings into the studio and propped them up in a bucket. It was like having a tree indoors. I took a birch log from the woodpile and made it my model, standing it on end in a shadow box draped with midnight blue velvet. Then I grabbed a 6' x 4' canvas and for the next six weeks as spring unfolded outside and the forced buds bloomed in my studio I painted what it feels like to walk in the woods.

The Empty Boat(s)

2010-03-06T21:10:00.018-05:00

“This notion of Emptiness thus...concludes that all known realities are constructed realities whose identities are merely intellectual conveniences used to order the world so that it can be understood.”
from Buddhism by Kevin Trainor

Last summer an old friend commissioned me to do a painting as a birthday present for her husband. She wanted a painting of her husband's favorite story, a Buddhist fable known as The Empty Boat Story - a story I had never heard despite the fact that my brother was a Buddhist monk and my mother is a practicing Buddhist. There are various versions of the tale but the consensus is that a man is out in a boat; it is either dark or foggy- depending on the version - but basically there is no visibility. All is peaceful until suddenly the man's boat is rammed by another boat and he becomes quite angry until the clearing fog (or emerging moon) reveal that the offending boat is empty; his anger collapses in the face of this revelation.

Like all great stories this one can be read in many ways. Possible readings range from advice on anger management to a meditation on the nature of reality. At its essence I believe it is a story that questions whether we can know what is real.

At first I was quite daunted at the prospect of this commission: the story was interesting but not really a painter's story. But I really like this friend of mine and I didn't want to disappoint her. Plus I needed the money. So I brushed up my Buddhist chops, thought deeply about the tale, and even spent a day out drawing boats. Then I did what we all do - threw it aside and just painted. And once I started I couldn't stop and, instead of one painting, did two.

In the first a boat emerges from the mist and appears to move towards the viewer with the force of intention but the shifting atmosphere reveals that it is, in fact, empty. The empty boat is like an angry emotion that rises up unbidden during meditation. When the meditator gains the awareness that that emotion is an illusion his consciousness expands. The second painting shows tis hieghtened state: here the scene has shifted to a moonlit night and the illusion of logical reality falls away like torn paper, revealing a luminous center – or is that too an illusion?

I gave my friend the option to choose either painting and she chose the first one, the realistic one. I was left with the semi-abstraction and after awhile I copied it and did a larger version.

The experience left me thinking about how painting, like Buddhism, deals with "constructed realities" and how paintings are used to order the world so it can be understood. And from this began a new artistic journey...

Tougue; Cheek

2009-02-28T08:47:00.003-05:00

Emphasis on cheek, or rather cheekiness.

This is a study for The Feast of Venus and properly belongs on my other blog, but I've gotten in the habit of posting here.

I'm thinking of calling it The Joy of Sex.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea

2009-02-06T15:31:00.007-05:00

No, this is not one of my fellow AOA refuseés after getting The Call. It is a drawing from this week's life drawing session.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea is the motto of the Art Students League. It translates roughly as "No Day Without a Line" but it means "You should be drawing every day you schlmiel! Get out that sketch pad!"

é=alt 130 yesssss!

Free at Last

2009-02-03T23:04:00.008-05:00

So. 12 hours of tears* followed by 12 hours of just feeling bad, and now I feel...great!

Though I didn't make the final cut for AOA I think I raised my profile in the arts community in this state and I know I made a lot of wonderful and talented new friends. And while I won’t get the money or the great publicity I am getting something I value even more highly – time to work on my own most cherished ideas. I put aside a big project at the beginning of January ’08 to do a show at Tilting at Windmills Gallery; before the wine glasses from the opening were dry I was working on the Art of Action. Now I am free. And I am happy.

But it was hard to go to the fire meeting last night and tell the guys the news. They were incredibly nice. Of course they were.

*not literally

Moonrise, revisited

2009-01-21T12:57:00.004-05:00

Pastel is not my medium, but every now and then I grab it when I need to think in color and don't want to get out the oils. This is a study for "Moonrise, Fire in the Valley". I like the dimensions better than the previous study in oil.

Blog Ambition

2009-01-17T23:31:00.008-05:00

Last night I spent three hours writing a blog post.

The post was meant to be a little philosophical gem about the Art of the Future. I sat down at the computer, flipped through my mental notes, cleared my throat, vocalized a few phrases, and mounted this virtual soap box to begin what was meant to be a masterful declamation of Ideas.

Masterful perhaps it was - sadly it was also quite long and not entirely coherent.

No problem. I got out the scissors and trimmed a little off the top. Unfortunately that made the argument uneven and I was forced to cut some points from the other end. Three hours later, at 1AM (considered late in Vermont), I had whittled the manifesto down to two very short paragraphs which may or may not have had any logical connection. Determined to post or die, I scrapped both, wrote one brilliantly condensed paragraph in their stead and went to bed - only to awake four hours later seriously doubting the brilliance of said paragraph. Throwing on a robe, I scurried down to the computer only to have my worst fears realized...let's just say that post has been remanded to rewrite.

Thank God I didn't quit the day job. Here is a sketch for a figure at the Game Supper.

Life in Vermont

2009-01-07T15:31:00.008-05:00

Some studies I've been working on for the Game Supper: an African American woman at a table; a couple of figures in conversation; a farmer taking a break from pouring coffee.

Here is something I love about Vermont: This drawing of a farmer holding a coffee pot was done from life and the man who posed for it is our Representative to the state legislature, John Malcolm. John has a beautiful dairy farm in Pawlet. A few years ago, like so many farmers, he needed a hip replacement and realized it was time to sell the cows. A year or so later Perry Waite our longtime rep. decided he had had enough of politics; John ran and won the seat.

When Tom and I first moved to Pawlet and shortly thereafter attended our first Game Supper one of the many things that amazed us was that the guy running around pouring coffee was our state rep. Perry Waite. I lived in New York city for fifteen years and never laid eyes on my state rep., let alone drank from a cup of coffee that he poured. That kind of thing just doesn't happen in Queens.

When John took over the seat representing Pawlet, Rupert, Wells and Middletown Springs he also took over the post of pouring coffee at the Pawlet Game Supper; apparently it's a package deal. Naturally I want him prominently featured in my painting but with the legislature about to go into session I had no time to lose. A few weeks ago I summoned my courage and asked him to come to my studio and pose. He readily agreed, posed for two hours with barely a break (farmers really are tough) and would accept no payment (whew). You gotta love this state.

Moonrise

2008-12-26T20:36:00.002-05:00

On December 12, 2008 the full moon was supposed to be the largest in decades (don't ask me why or how - maybe Dana Wigdor knows)

I'd been nursing an idea for a painting of the Mettowee valley flooded with moonlight and dotted with fire as part of my AOA proposal so when George Bouret (of Game Supper photography fame) e-mailed me the news about the December 12th moon and asked if I wanted to join a group hike to the top of Mt. Haystack to see it I jumped at the chance.

We decided to start early enough to catch the last of the sunset. It was pretty cold at the top - less than 10 degrees - but we stayed for an hour and took in the sunset, the after glow, and the rising of the largest and yellowest moon I have ever seen. My hair filled with icicles but it was worth it. Today I painted this little study (6" x 9") from memory and a touch of imagination...

Another Life

2008-12-18T08:29:00.003-05:00

Last night I took a break from Art of Action Madness and went to my local life drawing group.

The Pawlet drawing group is something that Tom and I started about ten years ago. We meet at the library and - with shades heavily drawn - draw from the model every Wednesday night from October through April. It is a lot of work to run the group (among other things we have to assemble and disassemble the model stand every week) and with Tom now teaching twice a week at the Art Students League in New York, we finally decided to give it up. To our surprise and delight, other members of the group stepped in; the group continues and is better than ever. Plus I get to waltz in at 7, waltz out at 9, and enjoy the title of Drawing Group Leader Emeritus.

Number Crunching

2008-12-15T23:07:00.007-05:00

With the clock ticking on the AOA proposal I finally sat down today to some hard paper work - and I don't mean drawing. In fact my mantra is "no fun drawing or painting until the bloody thing is finished"

I sketched out the narrative section a few days ago and, while it needs major rewriting, the ideas are coming together and it is burbling along. I figured it would be a snap to write down the specifics of the proposal - sizes of paintings and such - pop some numbers in and tie the whole thing up in a neat parcel.

Here is a question: will I ever get it that the fact that something seems clear in my imagination doesn't mean that the translation to reality will be simple? You would think a lifetime of painting would have taught me that but, no, harsh reality comes as a complete surprise to me time after time - like one of those cartoon characters that never realize they are never going to catch the bird, or the wabbit, or whatever.

As soon as I started to attach numbers two things happened: 1)the whole structure began to wobble as I tried to figure out how to make each of the three proposals seem reasonable (but, of course, the 40k, the most reasonable...)

and

2) It struck me in a new and thoroughly unpleasant way just how little money I make for the work I do. This disagreeable fact is usually hidden from me since I don't routinely calculate expenses for each painting. In real life, my husband, who is also a painter, and I spend money on art materials and frames in bulk (huge bulk) and collect money (um, much less bulk) when they sell. When I sell a painting I rejoice in the income and don't stop to contemplate how little of the cash is profit; since Tom does the bookkeeping I never have to put two and two together and find they make three.

Tom and I have been scraping by on painting sales alone for fourteen years. Every now and then we think it is all over; that one of us is going to have to bite the bullet and find a job, but somehow we always manage to pull through. It seems like yesterday that we were young folk just out of art school living in our studio and thinking about nothing but painting. Now we are twenty-odd years older, have a house attached to the studio, and still think mostly about painting. Despite a lifetime of tight budgets, we count ourselves incredibly lucky to be painting every day. Which brings me back to Vermont. One of the things that makes me feel at home here is the presence of the farmers. I don't know many of them - they work all the time, and so do I - but I am comfortable in the knowledge that there are people around as ridiculous as I am, people who spend their whole lives doing something that doesn't pay well just because they can't give it up; it is the life they love.

"It's not all about you" - or is it?

2008-12-13T19:44:00.006-05:00

This figure will be in the foreground of The Game Supper

One of the overlooked aspects of this project is that it is not just about the future of Vermont as it relates to social issues, it is also about the future of Vermont art and redefining what it means to be a Vermont artist.

Way back at the beginning of this odyssey, when I was thrashing around for an idea for a project, I read most of Paul Searls' "Two Vermonts". He says that practically since its inception Vermont has been idealized as a place where the pre-modern and the progressive world live in harmonic balance and that this image of Vermont really gained traction in the late 19th century as Americans began to feel uneasy with their increasingly industrialized existence.

When I read that I finally understood why I live in Vermont and why I am a Vermont artist: I have always had "an uneasy relationship with modernity", to quote Searls; in my work I continually try to find a balance between the pre-modern and the modern. Like a 19th century Vermont tourist I want to believe that these opposing forces can be reconciled.

When I first looked at the other finalists' work (about ten seconds after finding out I was a finalist) I was struck by the fact that virtually everybody was a realist and had a narrative aspect to their work - yet the work looked contemporary and modern - the Vermont balance.

"It's not all about you" is a phrase I hear often these days; usually it is a sound reminder not to take myself too seriously - but I think the finalists might want to consider that a significant part of this project is indeed about them.

Oil on linen

2008-12-12T20:59:00.005-05:00

I love to draw...but after awhile I get antsy and need to swing a brush, so a couple of days ago I prepared a small canvas and decided to start an oil study of the Game Supper. If all goes well I'll do this 3' x 6'; the study is 18" x 36".

My 'canvas' is actually Belgian linen. Tom (husband and fabulous artist, check his blog Dammi i colori) and I spend 3 weeks every summer preparing our linen for the year. We stretch the linen, size it with three coats of rabbit skin glue, and put on two coats of white lead with a palette knife; when we are ready to use a canvas we sand the surface lightly (wearing a mask!) and tone it with dry color brushed into another thin coat of glue.

I was happy to be painting again but things did not go well: I had trouble with the figure on the left and ended up wiping it out; the figures on the right are way too small. Kind of happy with the initial statement of the central figures though.

The truth is I jumped the gun. For a painting this complex I need to draw more. The drawings give me necessary information - does the figure's head tilt the head this way or that- but, just as importantly, the act of drawing gets the action of the of the figures and the rhythm of the painting into my mind and hands. It is like practicing a piece of music. Next time I pick up the oil study I want to have practiced enough to be free to move and flow and improvise and still be on the beat.

Back to the drawing board.

On Drawing

2008-12-07T09:44:00.010-05:00

Studies of a couple of boys at Game Supper.

I love to draw. If painting, for me, is all about passion: the loaded brush, the waiting canvas - drawing is all about tenderness, about intimacy. I set the drawing board on my lap and curl around my work; I caress the paper with chalks, gently rubbing in middle tones with a chamois; with a soft eraser I dab away the lights.

I tell my students that everything an artist knows is in their draughtsmanship; if you know what you are doing you can read an artist's work in their drawing without ever seeing a canvas - it is all there in black and white (or red and white as the case may be...)

It's true - drawing is the foundation of the painting structure: the design, the form, the light and the shade. Drawing is the Alpha of painting (and when I find out what the Omega is I'll let you know).

Apparently nature, too, starts by drawing:

From an article by Oliver Sacks in the New York Review of Books:

"While most of the flowers in the garden had rich scents and colors, we also had two magnolia trees, with huge but pale and scentless flowers. The Magnolia flowers, when ripe, would be crawling with tiny insects, little beetles. Magnolias, my mother explained, were among the most ancient of flowering plants and had appeared nearly a hundred million years ago, at a time when "modern" insects like bees had not yet evolved, so they had to rely on a more ancient insect, a beetle, for pollination. Bees and butterflies, flowers with colors and scents...would develop...in infinitesimal stages, over millions of years. The idea of a world without...color affected me with a sense of awe."

Me too.

That the world of black and white preceded the world of color, as drawing precedes painting, overwhelms me. Think of it: every time an artist does a preparatory drawing and develops it into a painting they mimic the evolution of life on the planet...

Fire Meeting

2008-12-06T10:04:00.001-05:00

The Pawlet Volunteer Fire Department meets the first Tuesday of every month; this week I joined them. Five men, including the fire chief, one woman, and a lad of 14 were present. I talked about the Art of Action and my desire to use my project to highlight the fire department and its importance to the community; I gave them a sketch (no pun intended) of my proposal. I said that, if successful, I'd like to make a giclee of one or two of the images and donate the profits to the fire department - but cautioned that that is getting way ahead of myself! The firemen were thrilled and offered any and all help I might need. I spent the rest of the meeting sketching and listening. Afterwards half the group hung around for an extra hour talking about the challenges the department faces and regaling me with stories of Pawlet Fires Past. Plus I scored a video of them actually putting out a structure fire (new jargon) at night. Heaven.

There were a couple of things that took place at the meeting that went to my heart - and the heart of this project. The first was the fire chief's recommendation that the department cut out the October fund-raising breakfast. Not enough people come and it is not worth their effort. The June Chicken Barbecue is already gone. One by one, community events are slipping away. My stomach tightens. I want to stop the erosion; I want the rhythm of community life restored.

The second was about gas money. One of the fire fighters not present at the meeting has embarked on the basic fire-training course. This course is 180 hours - a lot of time, much more than it used to be when the older guys took it. Added to that, he must drive a considerable distance for the training. The issue under discussion was whether the man should be compensated for gas money. Ultimately the decision was to do so, but this conclusion was painful to all - not because they begrudge him the money, but because this decision means the thin edge of financial compensation has penetrated the fire house walls.

The firemen hold dear the principle of volunteerism. Everyone takes deep pride in receiving no compensation whatever for their many hours of service. This fact is a crucial part of their identity, their independence, their code. I encounter the attitude a lot in Vermont, the "don't insult me by offering money" attitude, and I love it. It is as refreshing and wholesome as a drink of cold water from a mountain spring. I'm hoping my project helps protect this crucial part of Vermont's environment.

What Can a Painting Do? A Response

2008-12-05T09:30:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Clair Dunn I got to listen in on what sounds like a fascinating conversation she had with Dana Wigdor and Susan Abbott while they were all up at the webinar in Montpelier. Apparently they discussed the question: what can a painting do. I highly recommend reading Clair's post before continuing with this one: Vermont Directions

Back? Okay. Here is my contribution to the conversation.

I have become addicted to a site that displays a picture from the Hubble telescope every day from now until Christmas as a kind of virtual Advent calendar. Disclaimer: I am deeply troubled by the weird linkage between Christian practice and hard science. However, the images are astounding and the "image a day" concept just works, however it is packaged.

Looking at the images this morning I became completely mesmerized. When I returned to earth (so to speak) I realized that my visual and imaginative journey into space had stretched and shifted my consciousness: my sense of the proportions of existence was different - permanently and profoundly altered. And I realized immediately that this how a great painting acts on the mind and what it can do - it takes you to a different place and brings you back a different person with a new perspective.

On Photography

2008-12-02T13:37:00.013-05:00

I ran into George Bouret this morning and he asked me if I'd done anything with the photographs he and Karin DiChiara took (see Game Supper, a few posts back). Oh m'god - have I been that self-centered (yes). The photographs were crucial and here is the story of what I did with them.

George gave me the 473 (count 'em - 473) images on a disk (two disks actually but that's a detail...). I decided that the thing to do was to go through them on the computer, choose the ones I wanted to use, and print them out. This got the total down to 250 or so - too many to print. Back I went, this time limiting myself to the bare minimum, and got it down to 50. These I printed out and pinned up on the big wall in my studio. The process took two full days but I had a wonderful, multi-faceted, photographic portrait of the Game Supper.

I had asked George and Karin to get there early so as to document the food preparation and as a result there were many shots of firemen slicing meat and ladies cutting pie as well as images of all kinds of people going through the line and of course a huge variety of shots of people eating, talking, toasting. I was overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin. For a while I just stared; gradually I began to sort the photos by subject: pie-slicers together, serving line shots together, etc. My own sketches were vital as they were notes of the kinds of rhythms and groupings that I wanted. On a few occasions I had a scribble of a figure that the camera missed; sometimes I had both photographs and drawings of the same figure, or group of figures.

The hardest part was selection - I wanted to do it all. For the umpteenth time I cursed the short amount of time available - this project is being formulated at what is, for me, warp speed.

Finally I did what always works best for me - I followed my gut. There was one fireman in particular that I had found compelling. He worked the food line all night ladling gravy and serving up squash. Hugely tall, he towered over the others on the line, yet spooned gravy as if he were laying a baby to rest - a gentle giant. I had done a sketch of his head from life; there were many photos of him as well. I wanted to draw this man and that is what I did. Or rather, started to do, because as soon as I began I found I needed a ladlee - someone for whom he was ladling gravy and I combed my photos for a likely candidate - showering internal blessings on George and Karin for providing me with this wealth of material. I found an image of a young girl with a big winter jacket falling off her shoulders and bunching around her arms. Between the jacket and her long wavy hair she looked like an updated sitter for a Titian portrait. Bingo. I sat happily for a few hours making a sketch of the two of them and when it was finished I knew they would be the emotional center of the painting.

The rest of the composition formed (almost) effortlessly around them as I drew from my notes and the photos to find likely figures and ideas. I went back to the photo disks looking now with purpose and specificity. I found 50 more photos, including four of my young girl, printed those out and pinned them up. taking down others that were not needed; I was on my way.

Thanks George, thanks Karin.

Work Day

2008-12-01T21:11:00.004-05:00

Spent the day drawing. This is a study for an old man in line at the game supper. When I do a figure painting I do lots and lots of preparatory studies. Some of the studies are drawings and some are small oil paintings. My working method is to start with broad compositional ideas, like the big horizontal study from the last post, then start making more detailed drawings for the principle figures. When I feel ready I do a study in oil using the drawings.

But what about all those photographs? I don't use the photographs directly. Rather, I comb through them looking for faces and poses that fit my vision and then draw from the ones I want. I often combine many photos into one image as I did with this drawing.

Game Supper

2008-11-26T18:49:00.010-05:00

The Pawlet Volunteer Fire Department Annual Wild Game Supper is a major community ritual. Traditionally held the first Saturday of hunting season it is an important fund-raiser for the fire department, frequently drawing over 300 people. Everyone - I mean everyone - participates. A couple of weeks ahead of the Great Event you get a card in the mail with your cooking assignment and a pointed reference to a number to call in case of fire (as far as I know this is not meant as a reflection on anyone's cooking skills...). My first year in town I drew "chopped salad". Sigh. Fourteen years later I have clawed my way up the culinary ladder and am now trusted to contribute "two pies".

The line forms early and stretches halfway to the church. Although Game Supper night usually coincides with the first bitter cold of the year, the mood is festive. People tend to come in groups; the savvy ones tote bottles of red wine and a corkscrew. Inside the hall you see an astonishing sight: hunters, hippies, people who grew up in Pawlet and people who grew up on the east side of Manhattan all crowding together as the disparate groups that make up the Pawlet community come together to share a feast.

That was the inspiration - but how to gather enough notes to make a painting in the short window of opportunity. I like to work from life but no one could sketch fast enough to take everything in - and I had students coming for a weekend workshop scheduled months before. Workshops generally last until 5:00; Game Supper starts at 4:30. Rescue arrived in the form of my friend George Bouret, a wonderful photographer who runs the PAC gallery in town. A week or so earlier he had volunteered to help with the Art of Action project saying that he and fellow photographer Karin DiChiara wanted to do something purposeful with their photography. They thought my Art of Action project might be a place their work could be of service to the community (!). Wow. I told them I needed the Game Supper photographed from A to Z and they cheerfully agreed to do so. The next step was to talk to the fire chief, explain my project, and ask if it would be alright for my photographers to be in their way documenting the supper (I'm feeling like a big movie producer at this point). We had a great conversation. I learned a lot about the department and its challenges and told him I am planning to be their shadow for the next few months...that I may be needing models...

Game Supper night I grabbed my sketch pad as soon as the last student was out the door and zoomed to the fire hall. There I found George and Karin hard at work and immediately joined them, sketching furiously and pointing out interesting faces for them to snap. At the end of the night we collapsed in front of heaping plates of game supper fare, but the haul was worth it: 473 invaluable photographs and four precious pages of sketches.

On Fire

2008-11-21T22:59:00.007-05:00

My project is going to be about the community of Vermonters. It was my friend Eric Mach who inadvertently pushed me in this direction. He was the guy who told me he was optimistic about the future of Vermont because of the people. That really stuck with me and ultimately changed my focus - I had been leaning towards doing something about preserving the landscape.

From the idea of focussing on the community and its future it was but a short step to focussing on the institution at the heart of our community - the Pawlet Volunteer Fire Department. The firemen are at the center of Pawlet life. We rely on them not only to provide help and protection in case of natural disaster, but to provide a steady stream of rituals that bind our community together: pancake breakfasts on Mother's Day and New Year's Day, at the height of summer the Fireman's Auction (chance to get rid of your old stuff and buy someone else's), and, grandest event of all, the Annual Wild Game Supper in November.

These days the fire department is under stress. Every year at town meeting the fire chief rises to plead for volunteers. Everyone is busy and fire training takes many hours of commitment - not to mention time spent flipping pancakes. Our community grows richer and grayer by the year - that's fine for the library, but no help for the fire department. We need young people and, increasingly, they can't afford to live in Pawlet or, if they can, must work so many hours there is no time to volunteer. I want to do a series of paintings about the fire department, highlighting their role from fire-fighting to providing the means for people to reinforce their bonds as a community. The fire department's indirect work is to bring home the awareness that ultimately we depend on each other for our survival and our identity: "No man is an I-land..." The immediacy of this awareness is, I believe, one of the unique aspects of life in Vermont and one that I very much want to see continue into the future. Perhaps my paintings will inspire a couple of young folk to join the fire department or, at the least, spark serious consideration of how we are going to cope with our fire department's dwindling population.

And the idea of painting that Game Supper really gets my artistic juices flowing.

And Now for Something Completely Different

2008-11-13T12:25:00.005-05:00

'Bout time I posted some actual art work on this blog. The first image is a recent page from my sketch book. The other two images are from the life drawing group I attend in Pawlet. Click on the images to make them larger.

Breakthrough

2008-11-11T21:48:00.004-05:00

I've decided on a project for Art of Action and I'm very excited about it. Too soon to write about it though, I need to get some sketches going first - images before words. If all goes well I should have some preliminary drawings by next week. Took the whole stack of Vermont books back to library and heaved a sigh of relief...

The Inventory of Ideas

2008-11-07T22:12:00.009-05:00

Though my fellow finalists are no doubt half way through their proposals by now I am still sorting out ideas. I've had quite a few since my search for a subject began so I thought I would list them.

In order of appearance:

1) Adam and Eve. Vermont as Paradise; Paradise Lost (work in something here about eating the Apple of Over-Development); Paradise Regained = land conserved; good public transit and infrastructure; alternative fuels. Tom [husband, fellow artist, best friend] liked this idea. I saw Eve as a sturdy young farm girl and Adam as a hardworking young farmer (he doubled as an allegory for the Working Landscape). Somehow I couldn't move this idea to the sketch stage so I moved on...

2) Inspired by the phrase "We are all living in someone else's future" which I found in one of the panel discussions (part of the information supplied by the Council on the Future of Vermont) I decided to do a series of paintings of various stages of Vermont's history showing how one era gives birth to another. The design was inspired by Ghiberti's Florence Baptistry Doors. I started an oil sketch of the first one and managed to pack Ethan Allen's conquest of Fort Ticonderoga, the primeval Vermont Forest and the beginning of husbandry into a 10" x 12" canvas. But it wasn't what I wanted to say at all.

As I read through the packets of information it became clear to me that of all the things that needed fixing in Vermont the first one, to my mind, was infrastructure. Good roads, excellent public transportation for both goods and people, and a state of the art cyber-network would boost the economy, create jobs, and save energy all at the same time - but go try and make a painting out of that. I decided that Land Use and the preservation of the working landscape would be my issue. It is after all something I care deeply about. And that decision led to my first really good idea...

3) A recreation of Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" in which the feast being consumed would be a farm, not a turkey. I was in heaven - I had it! This idea had everything: ironic bite, an opportunity to paint figures, a reference to another artist and a famous work of art. Sadly, what it lacked was a couple of companion pieces. Looked everywhere, couldn't find 'em. Not that I didn't come up with any ideas that would fit with this one, but rather that the ones I thought of were awful -really, awful - so bad that I am embarrassed to write about them on this blog. And there was something else wrong, something deeper, and that is that I am not really a satiric artist. It just isn't natural to me: there is something in this approach that is too juvenile for what is, to me, the noble art of painting.

I tried to think harder about land use and the working landscape. Which led to...

4) Two wild fanciful ideas. The first was an image of a skyscraper that looks like a barn. It sits in the Vermont landscape; cows and sheep pour from its open doors; trees grow on the roof... The other was a landscape supported underneath with rotting supports like an old covered bridge. This bridge/landscape spans a deep chasm that takes the shape of a "V"...

I went to the Farmer's Market to sketch and search for information and struck up a conversation with a cheese maker. I explained the AOA and inquired into every detail of how she is able to live on her cheese-making. Then I asked if I might visit her farm and if she would consider posing for me - she cheerfully agreed. On election day I chatted up friends who were working the polls and got their views on Vermont's future. I told them about AOA and asked if they would pose for me -they cheerfully agreed. One, a native Vermonter, surprised me: he said he is optimistic about the future of Vermont because of "the resilience of the people". It turned out he is on the Regional Planning Commission. I learned a lot about land use and development that day but what stuck in my mind was what he said about the people. I realized that while I did not yet have a proposal at least I finally knew for sure what I wanted at the center of my project: the people.

5) Not allegory, not satire - metaphor - that is my real voice; everything else is forced. I'll do a painting of the farmer's market: the potato man, the cheese-maker, the guy who sells samosas. The metaphors will come as I work; they always do. There is a metaphor there about the land feeding us - the potatoes are roots...get it? And what about the scene at Mach's Market, the country store at the center of Pawlet. All day long it buzzes like a hive as all types of Vermonters come and go: farmers, carpenters, hippies, summer people ("summer people" as we all know designates a type, not someone who is in Vermont during the summer months...) the young, the old, and those of us in between. In summer a group sits on the bench outside, but if your family hasn't been here for a couple of generations don't try to sit down - be pleased you get a wave and an acknowledgement. Winters the conclave is on the bench by the deli counter. This group endures. Winter, spring, summer, fall, they are always there; to my flatlander eye they are always the same. Like rocks in the river they are our sign and our landmark. The river flows around them, ever changing, ever the same, life in Pawlet, Vermont.

This is better. I really am happiest painting figures and if I manage to get a commission it has to be for something I really want to paint. I crack open Paul Searls's "Two Vermonts" which I had ordered from inter-library loan. Searls was one of the panelists that the Council on the Future of Vermont consulted; I had been struck by his presentation enough to order the book. Bingo. The book is a revelation. It leads to idea #6 ...

2008-11-02T22:28:00.005-05:00

If this project does nothing else it has certainly changed my relationship with the state of Vermont and - for the moment - my relationship with everyone in it. Suddenly everyone looks like material, everyone potentially has something to tell me about Vermont, something that might clarify my thinking and help me with this project. I remember that in my book group I have a friend who used to work for the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (at least that is what I think VINS stands for); I'm thinking I should take her to lunch - find out what she thinks about the future of our forests. I remember that the guy who delivers our firewood has a degree in forestry; I'm betting his perspective is different from that of my VINS friend - better call him too. Come to think of it, our State rep. lives in our town, has been a farmer all his life and is the gentleman friend of another book group buddy...this is starting to look like a dinner party. I send an e-mail to a friend and student, a watercolorist: she and her husband live on a 400 acre dairy farm that has been in her husband's family for generations; she grew up on a farm nearby. I remember she once told me that when she and Bob took over the farm, 25 (or was it 30?), years ago it was a "disaster farm". Now it is stunning, a treasure. We have always talked about art, now I want to talk about Vermont. I want to know what it was like to turn a farm around, what they think will happen to it and what they think will happen to Vermont - what they think should happen. They have two beautiful, talented daughters. One plays the cello, the other the violin. The violinist is in her second year at McGill where she is an academic star; she is passionate about anthropology. The younger one is graduating from high school this year. She is imaginative and artistic like her mother. Do either of them want to take over the farm, I wonder. Do their parents want that for them? I don't know Bob well; he seems like an incredibly kind man. Once I remarked that the farm was so beautiful; how amazing that it was his and had been in his family so long. "Yes", he said, "the land" then added "it's a burden". And as I looked at his beautiful valley and felt a pang at the thought of my immigrant, landless, family history I knew that he looked at me and felt a reciprocal pang for my freedom.

Artistic Hell

2008-10-31T09:04:00.004-04:00

I had planned to write about how great the Art of Action Orientation day was but, sadly, that fabulous experience is now a memory - it was pretty great though: met amazing people; got to sit in the legislative chamber (how cool is that! Now I know why people go into politics - for the architecture). Quote of the Day from one of my fellow artists as we were ambling out and heading home "Their enthusiasm is contagious".

That was then, this is now: Artistic Hell is where I am. I can't believe I thought this would be easy. It is the hardest thing I've ever done.

Number one problem I am overwhelmed with material but none of it is visual. I read panel presentations from industries, foundations, politicians, and academics from all over the state; they are fascinating. I want to cover everything that has ever happened or could happen in the State of Vermont: this is completely insane. I move on to reading transcripts of forums conducted by the Council on the Future of Vermont on how Vermonters see the state and, of course, their lives - and I ache for pictures to put with the information: I need visuals, I need to be there, to feel the way people sit, the way they turn their heads, their presence; I need to see their stories in their faces. I look at the photos Sarah Waring has so thoughtfully posted on the Council on the Future of Vermont website; nothing jumps out. I go to the Pawlet library and come back with piles of books about Vermont and finally learn about the Green Mountain Boys, Governor Benning Wentworth's land grants (that's how Bennington got its name!!) and the dispute with New York. I am embarrassed that I have lived in this state for 14 years and know so little about its history. Now I want to paint that history but that idea doesn't really fit the project. Sigh.

I cover the walls of my studio with words, thoughts, ideas - but where are the pictures? I am having a hard time finding the visual metaphor that will summarize and express my thoughts. The good news is that I now have an answer to the third question they asked when we were being filmed for the AOA video, the one that goes "how does this kind of project change your creative approach?" Answer: it is completely different - backwards and upside down. Usually my inspiration comes from within and instantly and is pure joy - the painful fleshing out comes afterwards. The beginning is always pictures, always a vision; verbalization comes later. Now I am part of someone else's inspiration - I am the paint as much as I am the painter and it all starts with words.

Somehow, I need the words to become pictures. I have started off in many different directions; none of them seems completely right. The time is so short. I think with envy of my fellow artists - I am certain that ideas are falling into their hands like ripe fruit.

Art of Action, continued

2008-10-28T19:54:00.005-04:00

Where was I? Oh yes, the more I thought about the Art of Action the more I thought that perhaps I should apply...it would be a chance to try out some new artistic ideas: a separate and more experimental place, away from my usual market. And as the economic clouds continued to gather, the idea of locking in some income for next year looked more and more appealing. I still had reservations about some aspects of what was required but I pushed those thoughts into the "deal with it when the time comes" category and wafted my hat into the ring.

Once I was in I wanted to win. The idea that this was just the project for me, that it was the chance I'd been looking for to spread my wings grew day by day; when I was chosen to be one of the 20 finalists I was completely delighted.

All along I thought that carrying out the project, for an artist of my vast talent and experience, would be fun and exciting but, ultimately, a breeze. I figured I could bat something out while spending the greater part of the year working on my figure composition "The Feast of Venus"; I assumed I would get the commission and I certainly did not imagine that any of the other finalists could possibly give me a run for my money.

That was then, this is now. The first reality check came when I looked up the work of the other finalists. Yikes. These guys look good, really good. I was tremendously impressed with both their work and their accomplishments and a strange new feeling dawned...I was proud to be among them; pleased to think that this is a group in which I belong. On the down side, my estimation of my chances went swiftly from certain win to 50-50 chance (there are twenty of us and ten will receive commissions). But it's an odd thing, I think I am happier with my new view of the situation - I guess you could say that what I've lost in arrogance, I've gained in self-esteem. Good luck, guys.

Art of Action

2008-10-26T12:27:00.002-04:00

In late August an email from the Vermont Arts council about something called the Art of Action passed through my mailbox; I gave it a cursory look and reflexively hit 'delete' . Alas, just as it slipped into cyber-oblivion I realized that something on it had glittered. Oops. I quickly fished the piece out of the digital wastebasket and saw there was indeed something sparkling there: 10 commissions ranging from $10,000 to $40,000 and averaging $25,000 were to be awarded. Yikes. For an artist this qualifies as serious money - very serious. I read through the prospectus carefully and...concluded that this project was not for me. Art about issues - no! I never do topical work. Involve the community in the creation or presentation of the work - groan. I like to do my own work and do it alone. Demonstrate that the work has had an impact - um, I'm an artist, not a sociologist. Back into the trash it went where it sat for three days while my thoughts went something like this...

...to be continued

Catching Up

2008-10-26T11:47:00.006-04:00

A whole lot has happened since last I posted on this blog. For starters, I painted an entire show and had an opening at Tilting at Windmills Gallery in Vermont. The stock market dropped 20% (or was it 40%) in the two weeks before the opening so the timing was really, really bad. Nevertheless I managed to sell four paintings of decent size and price. Normally I would have been disappointed with this outcome but under the circumstances I was relieved and happy. One of these days I'll get around to posting some of the images from my show but meanwhile you can get a taste of it here http://www.tilting.com/our_artists/artist_work.php?id=19

2008-02-27T10:43:00.003-05:00

News: I will be teaching a still life workshop in my new studio on March 15th and 16th. Class size is limited to five students. The class will run from 10-4 Saturday and Sunday. Cost is $75 for one day or $130 for both days. Oils or drawing materials only - sorry no acrylics or watercolor. Anyone interested should contact me through the comments section or go to my website and send me an e-mail.

This is 99.99% finished (the front sleeve needs a smoother transition from light to dark). More on this piece later...

2008-02-09T12:05:00.000-05:00

A great model who can hold a one minute pose for five; a piece of soft charcoal with just the right amount of grab; I love to draw.

2008-02-06T10:24:00.000-05:00

Finished it. This one really sunk in on me in places (the whole blue-black velvet cloth and the area under the table); I will have to wait until I can varnish it to see the full effect. I am pleased with this piece and think it came out reasonably well. It is fairly large, 30" x 36", and is a satisfying addition to the pile for my fall show - feels good to have a big one in my back pocket.

I changed the way I think about finish with this painting. Instead of thinking about finish as a separate stage I tried to incorporate the finish into the painting from the beginning; rather than ask myself the question "what more can I do?" I asked "what does it need to be finished?" Readers of this blog know that for the past two years I have struggled to finish paintings. I would launch into a painting with purpose only to wander endlessly within: I kept seeing new paths, new vistas, new ideas and felt I had to explore every one of them. The 30" x 36" still life I did for my last show took me two months to finish. With a new show coming up, I am trying to cut the Gordian knot, to move straight through a painting like an arrow launched from a bow (very Zen and the Art of Archery, not I have ever read it...) This one took about a month. Better.

Vissi D'Arte, Vissi D'Amore

2008-02-03T16:37:00.002-05:00

This is not a new painting. I painted this when Tom and I were still living in New York City, about 15 years ago. We lived in our 500 sq. ft. studio then; I did this painting standing in the kitchen. Tom was occupying the middle of the studio working on a still life and he was taking forever with it. For a few weeks I fiddled with landscapes in a corner while I waited...finally I decided to just paint him painting.

I am glad I did: this is one of my favorite paintings and one of the few we have kept over the years. I gave it to him on our tenth wedding anniversary, a few months after we moved to Vermont, in memory of our first decade togther in our little studio.

We both love opera and Tom is particularly fond of Tosca (I think because the hero is a painter). In the middle of the opera the soprano sings a great aria "Vissi D'Arte, Vissi D'Amore" which means, roughly, "I lived for art, I lived for love" For years I told Tom I was going to put that on his tombstone. One Sunday afternoon in Vermont I went for a long walk; when I came home opera was blaring from the studio. I peeked in, only to see Tom, up on a ladder, lettering a beam with the motto "Vissi D'Arte, Vissi D'Amore".

He has his own blog now, Dammi i colori (guess what opera that is from), the link is on the left, check it out.

2008-01-30T09:12:00.000-05:00

This is where I was at the end of last week; Sunday, to be exact. I worked both Saturday and Sunday hoping to finish this piece.

Usually I take Sundays off, but I love to paint on Saturdays. Last Saturday, Rossini's Barber of Seville was on the radio. I listened to the bright, skipping voice of Rosina while I painted the shimmering gold fabric; when the basses and baritones came on I found myself touching up the rich velvet...

I did not finish the painting but I did bring the piece to a good stopping point: gold cloth completely stated and just needing a final floating polish; pewter pitcher virtually finished, looking both crisp and subtle; pears, background, etc. going well; the only area that needs major construction is the front of the table. I wanted the surface nice and dry for the final assault so I let the painting marinate for two days while I caught up on computer work and played with the dog. Today I pick up my brushes again.

2008-01-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

Here is the still life I am currently working on. As I say in the comments section of the last post the grapes I was working from were not black but pink-gold since I couldn't find any black grapes at the store. I worked from the pink-gold grapes transposing the color and values as I went along - a surprisingly easy trick.

2008-01-14T22:13:00.000-05:00

The still life is finished; the ladies are still in progress.

The painting of the two ladies was inspired by a photograph by Chester Higgins, Jr., thanks Chester.

2007-12-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

2007-11-18T22:23:00.000-05:00

I've been working on this on and off over the past month. I painted the grape leaves in two days because they were dying fast and then put in the apples - perishables first! After that I took an hiatus to work on some figure paintings (posts to come soon) and the Feast of Venus (check Creative Process); also I've been on jury duty.

2007-10-30T09:24:00.000-04:00

2007-10-28T21:26:00.000-04:00

By popular demand, here are a few shots of the new studio. The big window is a cheap patio sliding door. This is what we use in the old studio and it works beautifully. I can't remember the exact dimensions but it is something like 7' x 6'. When we got the big window in we realized it wasn't enough light so we added two small windows on either side. Although we could have fit another large panel -half of a sliding door- on the right side, Tom wanted to keep the light symmetrical and so, since only a small window would fit under the roof on the left side, we put a small one on each side. The argument for symmetry in the light source is to be sure that the light on a very large canvas will be even.

The windows are on the north wall so the light is cool and stays consistent throughout the day; the really great thing is that they start at about 9 1/2 feet and go up from there.

Something I have always wanted: a big wall to put my sketches on so I can see all of my ideas at once. I find that I can actually tape a piece of canvas to the wall and use it as a big easel. There are inset lights the ledge above so that I can work at night.

2007-10-25T23:31:00.000-04:00

I did this in horrible conditions: high wind and, eventually, rain. My whole set up almost fell over twice - classic plein air misery. I slogged home in a very foul mood certain I was going to wipe out the whole mess but too tired to do it right away. Then something funny happened - the sketch looked pretty good from a distance. I worked on it for a few hours in the studio and went out and did a drawing from the same spot. One day I'll fix it up; shouldn't take much.

2007-10-23T19:42:00.000-04:00

I'm back. Actually I've been painting for a few weeks but am just now getting back online. The studio is finished and is amazing - everything I have dreamed of in a studio and more. My only problem is having too many things I want to do: I want to be in the studio taking the new light out for a spin with a couple of still lifes; I built up quite a backlog of ideas for figures during the months of construction and am anxious to dig into them; we are having a spectacular fall in Vermont and I find myself wanting to do plein air for the first time in years. Everywhere I turn there is something to paint and I want to do it all at once. So...I've been doing a little bit of everything.

This is an plein air study from last week.

2007-08-15T21:00:00.000-04:00

I got to work on this for about two hours last week though it has taken me until tonight to post: it is hard to face this blog when I am not painting and I haven't painted - really painted not just grabbed a odd hour in the studio - for two weeks or more. The reason for this drought is that Tom and I are finally biting the bullet and converting our garage into a studio: for the first time in our twenty-plus years together we will each have our own space to paint (more on this momentous change another time). For the past two weeks my days have been consumed with issues like what kind of heat to use (wood? pellet? gas?), where to put the window (as high up as possible and yet stay centered), etc., etc. I thought I would be able to work while the construction was going on or at the end of the day after the crew has gone home, but I find that while they are here I am too distracted to concentrate and that after they leave I just fall asleep.

This week one member of the two man crew went on vacation; instead of hoping a replacement could be found I asked if I could replace the missing man. To my surprise my contractor agreed to show me what to do so I could help out (I know absolutely nothing about construction). As a result I have been helping lay the new floor for the past two days and although completely exhausted (it turns out construction is hard work) I'm having fun pretending to be a construction worker and also learning a great deal (no one nails with a hammer anymore, everyone uses an air compressor and just shoots the nails in).

And in my waking dreams I'm still painting, thinking, working out some new ideas...

This painting was inspired by a photograph by Chester Higgins Jr.

2007-07-29T13:45:00.000-04:00

This painting was inspired by a photograph by Chester Higgins Jr.

2007-07-20T09:36:00.000-04:00

I think this is finished - maybe a few color washes when it is completely dry.

2007-07-18T21:31:00.000-04:00

"Metamorphosis" 32" x 36" 1999
About 14 years ago, back when I first started doing figure compositions out of my head, I had the idea of doing a hair cut painting. I worked on the idea for a long time: did a nice wash study and two or three versions in oil about 16" x 18". Sold the last of them a few years ago. A few years later I went back to the subject and did a large version, 32" x 36" or thereabouts, and called it "Metamorphosis" - that one I still have. Apparently not a whole lot of people want a 32" x 36" painting in the house of someone having their hair cut.

"Metamorphosis" is on very heavy linen and when I did it I was still painting quite thinly. Tom keeps telling me I could fix it up easily now that I paint with so much more authority and paint. A few months ago I took off the varnish and tried to fix it up. Um...impossible. The situation is similar to the problem with the French Fry Eaters: the gap between the artist I was then and the artist I am now is just too big. To make it what I want it to be I would have to take it completely apart and put it back together again, like a car engine. Forget it; it would be easier to just do a new one. I wiped out, put the varnish back on and pushed the whole project to the back of my mind.

The Haircut" 16" x 18" 1994

Then, yesterday, I got a hair cut. The woman who has been cutting my hair for the past fourteen years moved away recently; I've been forced to find someone new. When I arrived at the salon to meet my new hairdresser you could have knocked me over with a feather - Hell, you could have knocked me over with half a feather: she was the spitting image of the hairdresser in "Metamorphosis" whom I had made up out of my head- with the exception that she looked about fourteen years older. Same features, limbs and figure, even had her hair in the same style and was wearing almost the same outfit though the color was different. "Hi" I said, stunned, "I feel like we've met before". As she cut my hair I drank in everything about her: the way she danced around my head as though conjuring a shape out of clay; the way she held herself as loftily as a statue; her strong arms and delicate, accurate, hands. I watched in the mirror as, under her hands, my old silhouette melted away and the new me emerged.

When I got home I got out my sketch book and made a few scribbles from memory: I have some new ideas for the composition and I definitely need to change the colors.

2007-07-16T21:43:00.000-04:00

2007-07-15T08:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a good day.

For some time now I've been toying with the idea of putting the guy whacking the ketchup bottle in a hoodie. If you scroll down you can see it in the drawings. Early on I tried to translate the idea into paint but couldn't get it right and had to wipe out. Yesterday I finally caught a wave and the hoodie just seemed to flow onto the canvas. It was so easy: just saddled up the tiger and went for a ride.

2007-07-12T23:49:00.000-04:00

This 10" x 12" painting (still in progress obviously) is the most recent manifestation of "The French Fry Eaters".

I first painted 'the boys' (as I call them) in 1999. That version was 30" x 36" and took three 10" x 12" oil studies and a stack of drawings just to prepare for. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Internet there is a picture of one of the studies on a blog, posted there by the guys who bought it from a gallery in Alexandria, VA. Every now and then I go and look at it. I love that a couple of guys who could be French Fry Eaters themselves bought it. The other studies sold too as well as the final version but that is one I visit in the middle of the night: I know where to find it and I can be alone with my picture.

I always loved 'the boys' with its feeling of being young and male and ready to grab anything. I send the image around quite a bit to show off my skill and imagination in figure painting. Over the years as those skills have grown the I-could-do-it much-better-now feeling has grown as well. A few months ago I took my own dare, printed off a copy of the finished piece and decided to try again. I figured it would be a piece of cake. After all, the impossible drawing problems had all been solved. All I would have to do to have a little tour de force would be to copy the original with more unity, better blocking, a more confident brush. To make the project even simpler I decided to do a 10" x 12". I would dash off an exquisite painting; couldn't take more than a couple of days.

Ha. First of all, the thing is more intricate than a walnut: densely packed with intricate rhythms and mind-twisting drawing problems. After a few humiliating days spent painting and wiping out I went back to the drawing board - literally. Once I started drawing I realized some of the errors in the original, and then I got some better ideas so I had to rethink the poses...well, you get the idea.

Here are a few of the drawings. They are very rough working sketches - just hammering out ideas -but they have sufficient information for me to be able to work from them.

And here is the original.

2007-07-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

I finished this yesterday, toying to the end with the balance between subtlety, clarity, and open-endedness in the final surface. I think a lot lately about the play between the face of the painting, where the brush leaves its final kiss, and its bones and flesh: the composition, the harmonic structure, the color, etc. It seems a shame not to let the surface have its own voice.

Here the brushwork varies depending on what it describes. In some places the only difference between water and mist is the action of the brush. Not that I planned it that way. It was an emotional reaction: like a piece of charcoal, my brush followed the characteristic action of water, cloud, mist, rock.

Today I gave myself the traditional day off after finishing a painting. This is my ritual; I use the day to celebrate, relax, and put some psychic and emotional space between paintings.

2007-07-09T09:17:00.001-04:00

It's getting there - one more day.

2007-07-05T22:37:00.000-04:00

I think I have developed a psychological tic that makes it almost impossible for me to finish a painting. As I get towards the end of piece I start to feel like I am experiencing the scene from Alice Through the Looking Glass where whenever she tries to walk into the house the path "gives a sort of leap and shakes itself" and she finds herself walking in the other direction: right back into the garden. Each time I start down the back-stretch with this piece I see another path out of the corner of my eye. Screech, turn, let's just see what's down this road before we go home...and before you know it another priceless week of time is gone and I have a bigger problem on my hands than I had before since each new addition to the piece has to be synthesized into the whole. There is always the nagging question - am I making it better: giving it greater and deeper dimension, more resonant color, images, rhythms - or am I making it (shudder) worse? And - am I really driven by artistic ambition of the highest kind: the kind that wants and needs to make every piece that comes off the brush glorious - or is it vanity - or...is this another instance of the human need to deny limitation? I generally feel horrible when I conclude a painting since it means my living connection to the work is gone (I think I 've talked about that before on this blog) As I come to the end of a piece I feel the umbilical cord start to shrivel; perhaps these endless efforts to forestall the end are just that: another human spirit dodging, twisting, weaving, denying the inevitability of death. Or maybe I should just get my butt out to the studio and finish the damn thing.

The day before yesterday:

This is the original study. I painted this on location twenty years ago -almost to the day.

2007-07-03T19:51:00.000-04:00

This is almost finished. It is not from Monhegan but is based on an oil study I did the first time I went painting in Maine twenty years ago. From that sketch I did a painting that hung in my Grandmother's apartment for many years; I got it back when she died a few years ago. I've been copying the painting that was Grandma's: http://etorak.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-am-copying-seascape-i-painted-years.html and just today dug up the original plein air study; maybe I'll post it tomorrow. Truthfully, I was never too wild about Grandma's painting but I loved the study and would never sell it though I had several offers. There is something about the image that really grabs me and I keep coming back to it.

The spot is in Acadia National Park. I think it is Otter Cliffs, but I'm not positive; it was so long ago. I've painted there a couple of times and every time it affects me in the same way: I get a huge rush of fire in the belly and the all-consuming need to paint - now. There is something about the mist alternately shrouding and revealing the rocks, the water pouring into the womb-like circle of stone, the almost seamless transition from water to fog to cloud to sky that completely sends me: it is so loaded with metaphor and those metaphors act on me like a physical sensation.

Reminds me of the time I saw a rare Taoist scroll at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They had the entire thing unfurled; to view it I walked very slowly alongside. The scroll opened first on a mountainous landscape with little figures moving in the valleys. As I walked the figures began to climb the mountains; as they did so they got smaller. Gradually they ascended the peaks; then disappeared altogether. Then the mountains disappeared and there was only cloud. The experience was so transcending that I felt I had begun the scroll as one person and at the end was a different one. What I want to do with this piece is express what was in that 20-ft scroll in a single oil painting. Not too ambitious.

2007-07-02T11:55:00.000-04:00

Just in case anyone is here via the Boston Globe article (thanks Daniel Grant!, Globe!, my mother!, my high school art teacher!, my dog....) here are links to the posts mentioned. This one is to the still life Fruits and Flowers...

http://etorak.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html

and this link goes to the post on my other blog, Creative Process, that mentions the arm-stirring-the soup issue:

http://elizabethtorak.blogspot.com/2005/10/i-spent-my-first-hour-of-work-today.html

The painting you see here is the final state of a painting that I started outdoors on a recent painting trip to Monhegan Island. I've been developing the Monhegan pieces in my studio for the past few weeks and am finally satisfied with this one. I think I achieved a prismatic feeling of light breaking apart as it moves through the water-soaked air (a very, very subtle effect) contrasting with the powerful yet mysterious energy of the ocean.

Scroll down a few posts to the painting in its original state along with other works from Monhegan.

2007-06-26T11:37:00.000-04:00

2007-06-19T11:06:00.000-04:00

2007-06-17T21:09:00.000-04:00

2007-06-15T09:31:00.000-04:00

So now I am fixing them up. The first one went well - at least I thought it did before I looked at this before-and-after blog post. This is a small painting, 6" x 9" or so, of a back-lit wave. The sun was low on the horizon and so intense that I had to squint the whole time I was painting; eventually my eyes started to sting and I had to keep one of them closed it was tearing so badly. When I got the painting inside I thought it looked washed out - not surprising when you are painting in such strong light (makes it hard to see the values). Karen had the same wave in her painting and she had a much better underplane on the bottom of the wave -it really looked like it was coming out over the rock - and a better silouette of the shadow side of the wave aginst the ocean. When I saw hers I made an immediate mental note to fix mine as soon as I got home and it was the first one I pulled out to rework in the studio.

And I do think I did well with it, but, but, but...something is always lost. Looking at the two images side by side I think I lost a little of the joie de vivre that was in the original sketch and I see that I could have gone in a completely different direction - I could have kept it in a very high impressionist value range, moving and singing in atmosphere, water, and light - Turner and Monet linking arms and dancing. Must fix it - next time.

2007-06-14T08:41:00.000-04:00

This was the last painting I did on this trip. I hadn't intended to paint at all. I was tired, having just spent a couple of hours painting cliffs on the other side of the island (see the previous post). Karen and Ann and I had been joined at the hip all week all painting together in the same spots with amazing unanimity. But that last morning they wanted to paint in town and I didn't. They were eager to paint charm: houses and gardens and peaceful pathways, but I was hungry for wildness and went in search of a cliff and a wave to smash against it. I only found the cliff but it satisfied a part of me and I painted happily for hours enjoying being alone for the first time in a week. When I returned I went looking for Karen and Ann and found them working on their second painting of the day at Fish Pier in town. There was barely an hour to go before dinner (5:45 sharp at The Trailing Yew) and the scene looked pretty boring to me: a flat late-day light on a calm harbor, but I wanted to be with them - painting together again after my solo adventure so I rushed back to the hotel for my gear and set up with about 45 minutes to paint. And then it caught me - the quiet shimmering light, the massive blue cloud on the horizon with a low light at my back, the gentle wave affectionately licking the shore, a solitary oarsman coming home.

2007-06-14T08:36:00.000-04:00

Well this is all pretty frustrating. I guess I need a course in Blogger - or Blogger needs a course in photo-posting. Needless to say not all of my images made it on the last post including the last two that I did. I'm going to try to post them here and then move on. Apologies to anyone who is able to see all the images and wonders what the fuss is about.

2007-06-13T22:15:00.000-04:00

I've been having trouble with blogger. It doesn't seem to be posting all of the images I load. So I'm going to try to post all of the Monhegan sketches on this post instead of two at a time as I have been doing (or rather trying to do). Hope it works. If you don't see twelve images on this post something went wrong.

2007-06-12T21:30:00.000-04:00

Day 2: We (my friends Karen and Ann and I ) got up to paint the harbor at dawn.

In the late afternoon we returned to the same spot (it was close to the hotel and we didn't want to miss dinner) This time I looked in the other direction and painted a late day light on the waves.

2007-06-12T10:52:00.000-04:00

Monhegan Day 1: Incredible fog, atmosphere and waves. Painting the ocean was like painting pure energy. It doesn't get better than this for seascape painting.

2007-06-09T09:06:00.000-04:00

(by guest blogger Thomas Torak)

When I teach still life classes I encourage the students to bring in things that they want to paint. One night someone showed up with a Russian figurine of a laughing rabbit (I thought it looked more like a pig) and some lettuce and carrots from her garden. “Okay” I thought “let’s not be judgmental. This is what she wants to paint.” Only one other person showed up that night. He loved the fauves so we set up a still life for him with very brightly colored objects and a contrasting brightly colored background. Neither of them really wanted a critique, they just wanted to do what they do and have me give them a pat on the back from time to time. So there I was with 3 hours to kill (back patting doesn’t take very long). Luckily I had my paint box and a good canvas. I thought I might paint alongside them as a demonstration, though I knew they could care less. It was a tough choice but I went for the pig-rabbit. I painted freely and rather effortlessly knowing that I would wipe it out at the end of the class. It looked ridiculous as a figurine so I tried to breathe some life into it. To my great surprise I painted so well that I didn’t want to wipe it out. I showed it to Elizabeth when I got home and she just laughed and laughed…..

2007-06-08T21:57:00.000-04:00

(by guest blogger Thomas Torak)

Sometimes I go off in odd directions. Often I find myself revisiting what I call the sins of my youth. Although I claim to have been bored by childhood I must have had some fun because all of my “sin” paintings are cheerful and lively. Twinkies and Superheroes is pretty typical. How can you not love a painting with Spiderman flying through the middle of the piece?
I wonder what art historians will have to say about this piece. “I see the influence of Warhol and the pop art movement. The comic books were obviously inspired by Lichtenstein and the cupcakes by Thiebaud. Of course Koons had a tremendous effect on his work.” Actually none of those things are true, although those artists have made such subject matter acceptable to those viewing my work. My work is indebted to the old Dutch still life painters, Claesz and de Heem; and to Hals and Titian and Velazquez and Van Dyck…..

2007-06-07T08:56:00.000-04:00

(by guest blogger Thomas Torak)

I’ve always loved peonies. I grew up with them. My mother had them in the backyard. Pink and white, beautiful. She would cut them and bring them, and their delightful fragrance, into the house. It is one of my favorite childhood memories.
When we moved to Vermont there were peonies, pink Sarah Bernhardt peonies, on the property. I painted them and showed it to my mother, telling her it made me think of her and how much she loved peonies. “Peonies!” she replied “Blah! I hated those things. Every time I cut them the house was full of black ants!” …..

2007-06-05T15:44:00.000-04:00

(by guest blogger Thomas Torak)

On the Easel went on the road and out to sea yesterday. Elizabeth took the ferry to Monhegan Island for a week of seascape painting and I hit the road delivering paintings to exhibitions at the Salmagundi Club and the National Arts Club. Testing the Water went to the NAC. It was painted in the studio from a plein air sketch done on a 6 week painting trip to northern England. The combination of grandeur and intimacy fascinated me as did the subtle appearance and disappearance of sunlight.
Ah, back to the studio today. A day to finish nearly completed paintings. It was a bit like playing scales and etudes for the first hour or so. Then, as my palette warmed up, the finishing glazes began to materialize. My palate took over, adding a little salt and pepper, perhaps a touch of cinnamon.....

2007-06-03T11:57:00.000-04:00

I'm leaving for Maine today; Tom has volunteered to guest blog for the week I'm gone. He won't be following the same format, i.e., posting what he is working on at the moment, because I am taking the digital camera to Monhegan with me - but I don't think that format suits his temperament anyway. He will be posting his finished work and talking about it - at least that's what I think he is going to do...can't wait to read it when I get home!

This painting is called "Harbor Rain"; It is one of the results of my last trip to Maine.

2007-06-01T14:38:00.000-04:00

This is my landscape palette. I take this out when I paint landscapes (it has a lid) and hang it on my easel below the painting and above the palette where I mix my paint. It looks odd - in a beautiful sort of way - but it allows me to paint much, much faster than I would if I had to stop and mix all those values on the spot. And when you are out of doors you want to paint fast because what you are painting is changing by the minute - and also because you are generally hot or cold or wet or being devoured by bugs or you just knocked over your brush cleaner with the last drop of turps in the county or you recently realized that the serene chomping sound nearby was in fact a cow licking off the only good painting you have done in a week (this actually happened to me once).

The reason I have posted a picture of my palette box instead of a painting is that the painting I did yesterday, which I did en plein air in order to break in my new landscape easel before the trip, was so horrific that I wiped it out. As soon as I got home I dissolved it back into simple chemical compounds, returning it to nature: R.I.P.

2007-05-30T22:54:00.000-04:00

I haven't been painting for the past few days so here is a sketch from life drawing (20 minutes; a very tricky pose).

The reason I haven't been painting is that I am getting ready to go to Monhegan Island to paint seascapes next week. I haven't been on a landscape painting trip in years, not since September 2001 when Tom and I went to Maine for two weeks. Towards the end of that trip I went out at dawn as usual to paint the harbor across from our little cabin while Tom slept in. As I remember I painted quite well that day. When I got back around 9:00 we had breakfast, then I took a shower. Tom flipped on the TV and as I emerged from the shower I asked if there was any news and, well, you know the rest. We didn't get much painting done after that.

This time I am going with two of my female artist friends and Tom is staying home for some quiet time. I suspect he will enjoy having the studio to himself for a while. BTW I think I have persuaded him to guest blog while I am gone. That should be interesting.

Note: Tom says he did not sleep in that day and has the painting to prove it!

2007-05-27T10:46:00.000-04:00

I often wonder if someone following this blog can see the difference in a given work from one day to the next. As I mentioned in an earlier post, even Tom sometimes can't tell what I've done.

A few posts back, when I was writing about the spider mum still life, I talked about there being three stages of a painting. I was then working on finishing. With this piece I am in the middle stage. Emotionally I'm past the first big rush of inspiration. On the canvas, the painting has been thoroughly stated: there aren't going to be any big compositional changes at this point. Now the painting feels like a piece of clay. One day I push it in one direction, the next day I push it another, coaxing it into essential form.

Last time I worked on the rocks in the foreground. This takes skilled painting. It's all close values and color triads: one step up, one step down, a half step cross, and red, blue, yellow, an intricate dance. Do that long enough and your head spins but if you do it right the beautiful abstractions of value progression and color prism start to coalesce into an illusion of concrete reality: rock.

Today I went in the other direction: luminosity, atmosphere, vibrations of light in water-soaked air. I let my mind melt into the vast swimming space and listened to the big pulsing circular rhythms. I dipped my brush in a fluid soup of medium tinged with color and traced what I heard on the canvas.

2007-05-24T21:45:00.000-04:00

Today was one of those days when being an artist is pretty much like being a regular working stiff. I spent the day modeling the rocks in the lower right hand corner - and let me just say that it is quite difficult to make a rock look like anything other than a misshapen potato let alone a work of "intuition and delight" as Gulley Jimson would say.

Who is Gulley Jimson? He is the artist hero of my very favorite book, "The Horse's Mouth" by Joyce Cary.

2007-05-22T11:37:00.000-04:00

I am copying a seascape I painted years ago - years and years ago. The original, seen here, was a painting I retrieved from my Grandmother's apartment when she died; it had hung over the mantel in her living room. It is a very reserved painting but not, I think, a dull one: there is a mystery and presence in its quietude. The copy is coming out quite differently - as if the thin serene shell of the painting's surface burst open and all the vitality underneath has come surging through dancing and shaking maracas.

What I ultimately want for this painting is to have it all: I want a sense that a veil of calm mystery barely contains the dynamic forces beneath and I want realism that barely contains abstraction.

Realism/Abstraction and Lisa

2007-05-19T10:03:00.001-04:00

I thought I'd give myself a mini-exhibit called Realism/Abstraction. Is Gerhard Richter the only artist who can get away with this? Because I really had fun doing the abstract.

I had my dealer over for dinner last night. I suppose she isn't technically my dealer because she doesn't own the gallery, but she is the Gallery Director and, next to Tom, one of the most important people in my life. We met ten years ago when I first took my work into the gallery. I had been in a few times and had an impression of her as a very tough, intense, somewhat scary person. At that time the gallery was a couple of notches above the places I had been showing, but I thought I would give it a shot. The owner wasn't very excited about me or my work (he has since changed that view) but Lisa seemed to connect with my work immediately and morphed into the picture of gentleness and sweetness as we sat and talked and looked over the paintings I had brought with me. That was a whole decade ago. Since then she has sold more work for me than I would have thought possible and tripled my prices along the way. And we have formed a very deep bond - the more unusual because although we are women of almost the same age (I am a year or two older) we are almost complete opposites. Had we gone to the same high school we would never have met: I was an artistic intellectual, she was a super jock; if we had somehow become acquainted I am sure we would have found each other utterly baffling. When we were both young women living in New York City we actually lived within blocks of each other in alphabet city, we probably passed each other on the street. I was going to the Art Students League: drawing my skeleton in the morning, painting in the afternoon, working in the Carnegie Hall coatroom at night (I still shudder to think how many expensive hats and coats I ruined...) thinking and dreaming about painting all day and all night. Lisa was working in the fashion industry setting sales records and dancing at Studio 54 'til the sun came up (she is a fabulous dancer). We live near each other again here in Vermont. I live with Tom and our dog and a lot of quiet; I think and dream about painting all day and all night. Lisa lives with her husband, three teenage boys (her son and two stepsons), lots of animals and lots of noise. And she gets my work like no one but Tom and makes a place for it in the world.

I really wondered what she would think of the abstract. The gallery is very, very conservative and shows nothing but realism - tight realism. I set it out casually in the living room, leaning against a bookshelf, and waited to see if she would notice. She did. She loved it, loved it, loved it, wants it in the gallery, wants to sell it. Thanks Lisa.

2007-05-17T19:43:00.000-04:00

2007-05-16T18:18:00.000-04:00

Picked up the seascape today...thoughts later.

Water Matrix

2007-05-15T11:06:00.001-04:00

This is the first abstract painting I have done since I was 12 years old, when I used to do quite a lot of them. There was a moment back then - I remember I was walking to school - when I had a vision of doing a painting of Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the ten commandments: a painting of someone having an epiphany. I tried hard to carry out my vision but I just couldn't realize it. It became clear to me that the problem was that I didn't have the necessary skills. I began to study life drawing, became hooked on representational painting and never looked back - until now (BTW I never did do that Moses painting).

And now it all seems so different. I just don't see the huge difference between abstraction and realism that I used to - I was very, very dogmatic in my youth - now abstraction and representation just seem like different points on a continuum, or flip sides of the same carpet.

This is an abstraction of the same still life set-up that I used to paint the big still life a few posts back and it feels like a variation on the same theme. When I paint representationaly a large part of my attention is on abstraction anyway; this time I just allowed the abstract elements to float to the top and let the subject matter rinse away. I call it Water Matrix.

2007-05-11T11:58:00.000-04:00

This is a five-minute pose from a few weeks ago. I thought it captured that "I just finished a big painting and I feel so free" feeling. I'm spending a few days catching up on my life and doing things way to boring to post.

But meanwhile I'm thinking what to work on next:
Should I finish the abstract?

the new version of the French Fry Eaters?

the ladies?

the seascape?

Maybe I will take my new landscape easel for a test drive, or....will I follow my heart of hearts and get back to the Feast of Venus?

2007-05-08T21:15:00.000-04:00

Finally, finished. By the way double-clicking makes the image larger. There are about three days' work between this post and the last as I am not posting every single change anymore. For one thing, it got too depressing - I discovered that sometimes I really do work hard all day and make the painting worse. Also I thought the blog was getting too repetitive, that perhaps not everyone could discern the huge changes I thought I was making each day.

Tom and I often have this conversation:

Me (after working all day): do you think I improved it????

Tom: I can't tell what you did.

Keep in mind that Tom is a fabulous artist himself (check out his website!) and often comes into the studio when I have nothing more than an incomprehensible scribble going and says "Wow, that's great!" (In this conversation I say: "All I have is an incomprehensible mess, how can you say it's great?" - by which I mean 'please, please, please tell me it's as great as I think it is' - and he says 'I can tell what you are doing and where you are going with it and it's fabulous') So it is not like he doesn't have an amazing eye but, still, he can't always see the particular brushstroke that I attach so much importance to, so perhaps others can't either.

I worked until I dropped on Saturday: from 1:00 until 7:00. Sunday I worked all day in my garden and by Monday (yesterday) I was stupified with exhaustion. But I felt I just had to get the painting done. There wasn't much left to do at that point, mostly putting in the design on the tablecloth, and I just stumbled through it. I wiped out the whole first hour's work and it didn't get very much better after that but I just muscled through and did what I had to do.

My usual practice is to be well rested for the last day working on a painting so I can take it all in and reach for just a little more. This time I was tired, very tired. I saw all the new doors opening in the painting; heard the sirens sing of new rhythms and avenues to explore and...ignored them. I had a very new thought. Usually I go through those doors: the two hours the last day should take stretch to six. I try to get it all it and I am always left disappointed and empty. My new thought was that maybe if I don't try to play out each possibility but leave the painting in such a state that when I look at it I still hear all those calls and see all those larger possibilities the painting will stay more alive and I will be less disappointed when I'm done. That is either great wisdom or the rationalizing voice of an overworked artist who needs rest. Time will tell.

2007-05-03T08:12:00.000-04:00

This is really coming together now. I didn't think I had the psychic energy to finish this painting until I spent a day doing the semi-abstraction from the previous post. Somehow the discharge of half-formed thoughts completely refreshed my inner mind. Giving myself permission to break long standing internal rules brought me a sense of freedom and lightness; when I picked this up again it was with a completely new attitude: I was ready to finish.

The process of making a painting has, for me, three stages: beginning, middle and end, or, as I call it, finishing. Each stage calls on a different part of the creative faculty and requires a different mental and imaginative posture. Of the first two I'll write another time, my concern now is finishing. It is in finishing that all the disparate ideas: color harmony, rhythm, light, form are brought together and merged into an aesthetic and poetic whole. I float around sharpening an edge here, floating a color wash there, sometimes - screech - I stop and rework an entire passage. It is as if I am painting a separate, almost invisible painting: a scrim that overlays the painting on the canvas subtly, magically transforming the image, bringing it to completeness.

2007-05-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

"Who ordered that?" is what my grandfather, a prominent physiscist, said when quarks were first discovered. And it is a bit the way I feel about this painting. It looks like a radical departure from what I have been doing for the last 25 years but it feels like a completely natural development.

Here is how it happened: I am alone in the studio, really alone, for two days a week now because Tom is teaching at the Art Students League substituting for our former instructor Frank Mason. On Mondays and Thursdays he makes an "extreme commute" driving 5 hours down to the city, teaching for the afternoon, and driving back again. This leaves me alone for a very long time and I miss him painfully. On the other hand I have the studio, the house and all the space around completely to myself twice a week. The privacy and solitude have given me a freedom to tap some very deep roots. Yesterday was one of Tom's teaching days. I had planned to finish the big still life I've been working on but instead grabbed another canvas and just painted. I had been thinking about how to draw out the poetic layers of the big still life in a more abstract way but in the event what I put down had nothing to do with all the thoughts and sketches I had toyed with. I painted like I did when I was a child: completely spontaneously, charting the changing shapes of my thoughts and feelings as they came.

This isn't finished, but today I really must work on that big still life.

2007-04-28T13:13:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't written anything about this one. At first I thought that I was not inspired to write anything because I am painting this piece in a non-verbal mode: I keep telling myself 'don't think, paint' I don't want to get caught in a maze of thought, I just want to move through this piece: feel it, paint it, don't slow down. For the most part I've been successful with this strategy: the piece is moving along nicely and is pretty close to being finished. But thought will enter in. No matter how firmly I try to close the door on thinking, imagining, trying to push to a new piece of artistic territory, those seductive thoughts find a way to reach me; barring the door only forces them in the windows and up through the floor boards. And those thoughts (in revenge?) are more powerful and insidious than ever. "Why are you content to paint what is front of you ?" they ask. "Fine so you can do a beautiful still life - but what about painting what is unseen? You know there are other dimensions, you know you see more than this, that the poetry isn't fully realized - can't you get all this in? Can't you find a better language - while retaining this one of course - why don't you reach further?

2007-04-24T09:38:00.000-04:00

2007-04-18T12:10:00.000-04:00

2007-04-10T11:15:00.000-04:00

Still Life Day 1. Painted for six hours yesterday and then collapsed. I probably pushed myself too hard but when you are painting flowers you have to move quickly. I'm keeping the studio cool so that they last as long as possible. This is a shame as I prefer to be toasty when I'm working; and also the paint moves better when the studio is hot - too bad, the longevity of the flowers has top priority!

2007-04-08T22:32:00.000-04:00

This is a figure drawing from a few weeks ago. It isn't the subject of this post, which is the big still life I spent Friday and Saturday setting up and plan to start working on tomorrow, but I couldn't imagine a post without an image so I dug this one up and I think it looks pretty good for a 20 minute pose.

About the still life. You would think that an artist with four paintings already in the works would finish at least one of those pieces before starting a new one and indeed I wish I had done so, but the still life impulse came and I knew I had to go with it. The figure ideas will still be fresh when I get back to them in a few weeks: figure ideas keep forever. The seascape needs to marinate anyway. I'm not sure how to continue with it and just have to wait until I know what to do. Still life inspiration, on the other hand, doesn't last: it perishes just like fruit or flowers - though not as quickly, thank God!

I notice that I get the urge to do a still life when the seasons change. The last time I did a big still life was last fall; now it is spring. The change in the season must cause a shift in some internal tectonic plate - Aristotle would probably call this a Movement of the Soul - and the result is an eruption of artistic energy for still life: the desire to paint something immediate and physical and part of the changing natural world.

2007-03-31T10:21:00.000-04:00

I'm very excited about this piece. It is based on a photo from the New York Times by Chester Higgins Jr. about an Ihop in Harlem and the big crowds that it draws on Sundays. Accompanying the article was a photograph of two ladies; I fell in love. They looked like two of the figures from my "Maenads" grown old, yet retaining their inimitable sense of style. It took a full week of drawing to rework the photo into a painting. I nabbed some condiments from the local diner (the waitress still gives me funny looks when I go in there now) got out my stash of diner china and set up the still life elements in my studio (the photo doesn't include the still life)

It took me a week of drawing to get all the sketches I needed. I hate to have to stop and work out drawing questions when I am painting so my recipe is this: solve as many problems as possible ahead of time, post the drawings by the easel for reference; paint freely.

2007-03-29T14:53:00.000-04:00

Figure drawing last night; here are a few of the results.

2007-03-27T09:11:00.000-04:00

This is post is part of what seems to be spring cleaning on this blog - an admittedly incongruous metaphor for a post about a winter moonlight! A few posts back I posted an image of this painting in a half-finished state with no comment along with an image of the half-finished "Maenads" which were also on the easel at the time. Aware that legions of people have gone to bed each night ever since asking themselves the question "What became of that painting???" I thought I had better finish the story.

The story of the moonlight is that it used to be a winter sunset. I did the sunset some years ago. It was an okay painting, I liked it, but it didn't sell and after making the rounds of my galleries it eventually came home to roost on my walls. I should explain that I have an uncomfortable relationship with my own paintings: I love them, but I'm critical of them. Fortunately, most of my paintings are sold, or at least away at a gallery, so I actually have very little of my own work around. What is here is mostly very old work from the period after my student days (I didn't sell a lot then) The best of the oldies get saved to remind me of my youth and to give me all sorts of ego-supporting feelings such as "wow, how talented and sensitive I was, but just think how much better I am today" The ones that fail to deliver that message get stashed in a closet and eventually scraped down so the canvas can be reused (that stuff costs money) And then there are the in-betweens, paintings that aren't that old but have somehow failed to sell. These are good enough to hang on the wall, but once they are there they irritate me: I look at them and see how much better they could be until inevitably I repaint them. Which is all by way of saying that one day I looked at the winter landscape and said - "that would be so much better as a moonlight".

So what I have here is the original winter sunset, an in-between state as I started to repaint it and the finished painting as it is today "Winter Moonlight"

2007-03-26T19:46:00.000-04:00

When I saw my friend Gabrielle at our life drawing group the other week she came up to me privately and with a look of gentle concern said "Elizabeth, are you alright? I've been checking your blog and I don't see any new work, so I was worried that you aren't painting" That's Gabrielle: the soul of gentle concern and also someone who knows that if I'm not painting than something is really, really wrong. Before you take out your pocket handkerchiefs, be assured, as I told her, that I am perfectly fine and have been painting up a storm, it's just that I have been involved with a computer project that has taken up all the time I have to sit in front of a computer each day (two hours, tops) In fact I put myself on a blog diet until I finished the damn thing. Well, today I learned how foolish that attitude was and I'm back to my blog despite the fact that the computer project from hell isn't even close to finished.

I didn't know exactly how to jump back in, but I thought this image of what I call my "work board" would be a good starting point. This is where I tack up working sketches for figure paintings and if you look closely (hint: double-click the image) you might be able to tell that I have three of them going at the moment (and a seascape too, but it doesn't need a drawing)

2007-01-04T20:56:00.000-05:00

2007-01-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

2006-12-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

This is a copy, or rather a new version, of "The Maenads" a 6' x 4" painting I did a couple of years ago (check my website to see the original) This version is smaller, 36" x 24", and I am very excited about it. I love the image and feel I still have alot to say with it. The red background is the ground of the painting; it isn't going to stay red!

This is the only good drawing I did at figure drawing last night. I was really having a terrible night, everything I drew looked smashed with a hammer - all in pieces. When this pose came up it was so exciting that I just forced myself to draw well and I think it is not bad for twenty minutes.

2006-12-27T09:56:00.000-05:00

I have been painting, I just haven't been blogging. This is the most recent still life.

2006-07-13T07:09:00.000-04:00

2006-07-04T12:45:00.000-04:00

I finished this yesterday. I'm posting the accumulated photos of this piece's development with apologies because I've actually been working on it for about a month. Also the initial stages are missing. I neglected to photograph the beginning because after carefully documenting the early stages of the piece before this one I ended up wiping out. It is not often these days that I wipe out a painting but everything was wrong with that piece and it had to go. It was a great feeling to get rid of it. As soon as I started pouring the turps I knew I was doing the right thing. But when I started this piece immediately afterwards it seemed like a jinx to go through the documentation again. I let the first few days of work pass and only when I knew the painting was going to live did I start the photography.

So here's what you missed: there is a bright red underpainting under the black background.

2006-06-27T10:30:00.000-04:00

Last week I picked up this half-finished sketch of Gabrielle's beaver pond which has been sitting on a ledge in my studio since last June when I gave her a private landscape class. For our first lesson we agreed to meet at 6:00 AM at her place to paint. Gabrielle lives in a beautiful valley here in Vermont; just below the house there is a big beaver dam and pond. On that first morning I painted for about 45 minutes and then gave her a lesson. It was the first time I had painted outdoors in a few years and I was pleased that the painting was not a complete mess but when I got it home I saw it was thin and a bit tentative. Still, there was something I liked about it. I stuck it on a shelf and there it sat until last week.

After working on the sketch for a day in the studio I am much more pleased with the piece though it is still unfinished. At the end of the day Tom came into the studio and said "How did you do that?" "Do what?", I asked, "Put light in it" he replied.

2006-06-21T10:53:00.000-04:00

Still working on this one; actually this photo is from last month when I pulled the piece out and worked on it for a day. The good news is I think I saved it and will be able to make a decent painting.

As readers of this blog know, I have a difficult relationship with this painting. I am attracted to it; there is something big in this image. When I am massing in the circles of motion, light, and color I see it, I feel it, I grasp it; I'm going to heaven and Van Dyke is of the company. Then I try to bring my prize to the surface, to make the vision manifest itself in the rendering of light filtering through leaves onto the forest floor - and it slips off the hook and is gone, leaving me with a pile of meaningless brush strokes.

I keep trying though.

2006-05-17T10:26:00.000-04:00

2006-04-25T20:18:00.000-04:00

2006-04-17T16:21:00.000-04:00