The Empty Boat(s)

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'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.