Why do I paint?

My art supplies have been delivered: hooray! And now that I have figured out what I want to do with them, it’s time to dig in.

Part of the “soul-searching” I’ve been referring to in recent blog entries has been my wondering if I should continue to paint paintings like I have been.

Not that I believe painting is dead, by any means. But I was wondering if it’s too “been there, done that” for me personally. Are paintings really saying what I want to say?

I have been interested in and inspired by the installation that a friend is currently working on. What she’s done with this installation is take what she has done in the past and present it on a grander scale.

With that in mind, when I had some time to myself during a class last week while my students were at the “just starting out/nothing to comment on” stage with a project, my mind started to wander. I imagined that I had an unlimited space to present an installation in, and pretty soon I got an idea for one. I got so excited, I even made a mock-up drawing and cut out a miniature prototype. I thought, this is IT! I’ll start making installations, and my resume will soon be bulging with lists of my many shows at prestigious venues.

A day later, I looked at what I had designed and started to laugh. It looked ridiculous! Totally “un-me.” It was like I had borrowed someone else’s dress and tried to fit in with a style that had nothing to do with me.

OK, I admit it: it’s old-fashioned to pull and staple canvas over four strips of wood and paint on it. So what? Maybe I’m not changing art history. But I really don’t care. Painting is what I really want to do, it’s what I really enjoy.

Installations and conceptual pieces and animation and a million other types of visual communication are much more trendy than what I’m doing. But who am I kidding? They don't interest me. Well, as a viewer, yes. But as a maker, no.

As my husband pointed out: my younger brother has autism, and if I created an installation on what it’s like to have a sibling with autism, I would probably have more exhibition offers than I could fit on my calendar. Autism is ever-present in the news and in the public mind these days, as determined parents search for ways to help their children, and health officials, researchers, drug companies, etc., weigh in on the subject of causes and cures.

Likely there are many galleries and exhibition spaces that would be interested in showing art related to such a controversial topic for the purposes of raising consciousness. Many more than would be interested in showing abstract paintings, for sure. And members of the general public would likely be interested in viewing artwork on a socially pertinent topic like this one, probably many more than would be interested in looking at a bunch of shapes and colors.

To continue my husband’s point: If my only goal was to get my work noticed, I could turn to my personal experiences with autism and find many options for art-making and exhibitions. But frankly, that ISN’T what I’m about as an artist, and it wouldn’t be authentic or realistic for me to pretend that it is.

I like to paint, and that’s it. That's all I need to know. The sooner I stop wondering if that’s OK, and get on with it, the better off I’ll be. Soul-searching over!

Studio update

I am gearing up to get back to painting, after a soul-searching hiatus of considering what kind of art I want to make now. (More about my realizations on that subject in a future blog post.)

Today, while I am awaiting shipments of supplies from Utrecht and Dick Blick, I have decided to move my studio around, to reflect my updated intentions.

I have four large tables to work on (not an easel person), and I used to have them placed together in the studio, so that it seemed like I had a larger work space.

But I've realized that, when they are clumped like that, I can’t really get close to my large paintings while I’m working on them; if I have to get to the far side, I either have to lean over the entire table (which means I tend to get more paint concentrated on one side of the piece), or turn the painting, which in my excitement usually results in two big thumb prints on either side (!).

Also I am now tending to make large, “free-for-all” paintings sometimes, and smaller collages other times. A reflection of my Gemini brain; sometimes I want to fling paint, and other times I want to work small and precise.

So I decided to move the tables into two separate configurations, in two separate parts of the room, one for my “let the paint go where it may” side:


And one for my “let’s carefully compose” side.


This way, I don’t have to clean up entirely when I’m ready to switch modes; I can just move to the other side of the room.

We’ll see if this makes it easier to listen to exactly how I want to work, at what times, which is my real goal. Beyond sales and critical attention and everything else: to paint honestly.

Getting untangled

I am continuing on in this mode of -- what do I call it? Nothing as extreme as deprivation or isolation. It simply seems natural right now that I let go of a lot of the "shoulds" and routines of my life, do less or do nothing, and see what happens. I'm usually such a driven goal-setter/go-getter, that this is a welcome change of pace to correspond to the lighter work load I have during the month of July.

It seems that when you clear out, your brain and body come into balance. When you release the old outdated habits, the new needs and wants present themselves clearly.

I've let all my art supplies run out, and now it seems clear what I need to buy to replenish. I returned all the books, DVDs and CDs to the library, and now I'm getting ideas on what books, movies and music I want to move on to. I've cut out all the foods I usually eat and am consuming just enough healthy basics -- brown rice and lentils, oatmeal with rice milk, fruits and vegetables -- to keep from feeling hungry, and my system is clearing itself and asking for new and different foods. I'm also taking vitamin supplements, sitting out in the sun for safe periods, and gently exercising daily.

Just a bit of puttering in the studio (made the painting above over the last few days), but I'm trying to make only things I feel like making, not anything in particular for any particular reason.

It's taken me until age 47 to realize that it's both reasonable and possible to live life my way, even though that lifestyle seems to have no relationship to how we're "supposed" to live (i.e., hectic pace, hyper social life, extravagant possessions).

Remember Ferdinand the Bull, who wanted to just sit quietly and smell the flowers, even though all the bulls around him were snorting and butting heads? That's my goal, too.

Ideas trickling in

As I wrote in my last post, I've put my art-making on hold, for as long as it takes to: 1. give my brain and body a rest, and/or 2. realize what might be a new direction for my paintings.

I feel like I've done so much with pure line and I don't want to redo former styles or techniques. Yet there's a commercially minded part of me that's afraid of shedding previous directions altogether, since an artist is "supposed" to maintain an identity. This part of me is concerned that I'll appear inconsistent if I try something too different.

But none of this means that my creative valve has been shut off completely. I have a notebook beside my bed that I'm filling with sketches of spontaneous ideas for new painting possibilities. These ideas seem to be inspired by a wide variety of sources, which are not necessarily specifically art sources.

For instance, yesterday I was watching one of those travel shows on TV, an episode on Ireland, in which the host described the many stone walls there. The cameraman shot one of the stone walls almost completely from the side, with only a bit of sky showing over the top of the wall, so that the light from the open field behind streamed through the interesting irregularly shaped spaces between the stones.

I thought, what a great idea for a painting -- lots of odd shapes crammed together across the picture plane (I wouldn't have any space across the top), so that the work became all about the negative spaces. This could be reminiscent of a painting I made some years back (shown at the top of this post), only with different-sized shapes that were more irregularly placed.

Also, yesterday my husband showed me a wonderful blog entry with extreme examples of decalomania, which seemed like it had great possibilities. It sounds basically like a form of monoprint, but these particular examples used TONS of paint in a small space, so that the suction when you pull the paper off creates ridge-like gatherings of the paint.

I have worked like this before (see image at left), but when I saw that example I thought, what about doing this with huge BLOBS of paint, not thin lines? The paints would fill the page and be forced to interact in an undirected, unpredictable way, which could be very fun.

So these little ideas keep trickling in. I still don't feel the call to actually grab a bottle of paint and start playing. I'm still so fried from all the effort I poured in to my teaching during the last school year, which only ended on Saturday (not to mention that I just started a new semester yesterday, which includes a five-week class in July and three separate week-long classes in August). So I think I still need a break from the studio.

Part of my non-art time is helping my body to heal itself and figuring out how to take care of it better as I head toward my 50s. This includes vitamin supplements, regular exercise, a healthy diet, plenty of sleep, ongoing reiki treatments, and planned time in the sun and outdoors in nature. I want to build up my immune system, to make sure I never get as sick again as I did last winter (8 straight weeks of the flu).

My mother said to me recently, "Remember that your two greatest assets are your health and your art. Choices you make to expend time and energy need to honor those two assets first and foremost." I believe these are very wise words, and I'm trying to take her advice.

Phew, project finished!

WOW! It took me ALL DAY yesterday, and about five hours this morning, to take a complete inventory of all the work in my studio and record it on the computer! And that doesn't even include all the works on paper; there must be at least 50 of them that are good enough to be mounted on canvas.

Now I have a complete set of pages detailing titles, dimensions, materials, sizes, years completed, retail prices, and images ... for each piece.

You learn a lot about yourself by "taking stock" like this. I tried to be impartial and business-like while I was doing it, because if I had lingered too long in my memories of each individual piece, I never would have finished.

What have I learned from the experience? I think I need to get out of the studio for a while. I know that sounds strange for an artist to say. We're supposed to WORK, WORK, WORK, right? Produce, get the work out there, make a name for ourselves, sell sell sell?

Well, my best works are reflections of those moments in time when I was digging deep down inside and using the art materials to honestly communicate what I found. I've been getting a little "commercial" in my inspirations lately, a little repetitive of what I know works, and I need to spend some time "on the mountaintop" and re-evaluate who I am as an artist and how to best express myself.

Or maybe not think about art at all ... forget the whole thing for a while.

But it feels good to have put in this effort. Now I know exactly what I have in those storage racks! Honestly, though, I had no idea it was going to take this long or be this labor-intensive ... if I had realized what I was getting into, I might have procrastinated!

The painting at the top of this blog is one of the best paintings I've ever made. It's from 1997, when I was in graduate school. It's acrylic and oil stick on fabric on canvas, 64 inches high by 44 inches wide, called "Niche." It's one of the ones that was hiding downstairs in storage!

Where am I now?

The sorting and organizing continue!

I have to emphasize, to those who don't know me personally, that I am super-organized (maybe even to the point of fanaticism!) and I have an absolute phobia of accumulated STUFF. But even with those natural tendencies, I am finding it absolutely essential to go through my shelves, cabinets and closets on a regular basis and get rid of things I no longer need.

So this morning I'm tackling the "art career" drawer of my filing cabinet. The last time I did anything with it beyond just throwing papers into files (which was February), I had just taken a big step in my ongoing "get the work out there" campaign. That was when I sent a mailing to four local art consultants and nine local galleries. But then I got so busy with teaching and fighting the flu that I haven't touched the project since.

This morning I had a chance to review where I stood four months after the mailing: one scheduled show, two "will keep you in mind" responses, two paintings placed with an art consultant, and one extremely polite and professional rejection letter. Not bad, considering the economic times and the odds in general.

I threw out a lot of paperwork that no longer applies and updated my lists. Now that I know what's what, I can plan my next steps (toward a national mailing), something I couldn't do when I had a drawer stuffed with papers and a vague memory of the various emails and letters I received in response to my mailings.

My point is, even if you're generally organized from day to day, it is my realization that you MUST schedule a "where am I now, where do I want to go, what must I do to get there, what are my next steps" session for yourself at least twice a year if you want your career and life to progress.

Now I am heading downstairs to my studio to update my inventory list, something I haven't done since last fall. A lot of pieces have been placed, sold, painted over, or created since that time.

I'll be honest with you. I wish I could reward myself with a giant hunk of chocolate cake for all of these heroic organizing efforts. But since that's not possible (hello, scale), I'll have to make due with my favorite lentil casserole, carrots, and a baked potato with Bragg's sprinkled liberally on top.

Next stop: my clothes closet!

Happy Father's Day!

Meant to post this yesterday for Father's Day.

It was taken just after my Christening. Obviously a big day, and I was ready for a nap after all the excitement!

My Dad was 33 at the time; I was 4 months old. Happy Father's Day, Daddy! (He is a faithful reader of my blog.)

Inner and outer cleaning

I have a little time to myself this-coming week, and I'm going into "letting go" mode. Not in the mood to create, I'm in the mood to moderate, alter or chuck what I've made in the past. I honestly don't feel that I can move forward as an artist until I take this step.

As a start, I went through all of my old works of paper this morning. Some are beautiful, and ready to be mounted on canvas for exhibition and sale (one at the top of this post). Some are horrible and I've made a pile of them to use to "blot up" excess paint on future paintings. Some aren't satisfactory as individual pieces, but they contain some nice marks here and there that could be cut out and incorporated into some of the small collages I've been making. I've also been planning to make some greeting cards, and this last batch of papers could serve that purpose also.

As if to echo what's going on in the studio, I had a reiki treatment this afternoon. A little inner house-cleaning, to go along with the outer.

When all is weeded, neatened and organized -- my book cases, my clothes closet, my filing cabinet, my teaching supply shelves, and my studio -- my next creative direction will be clear. Now if I can just get it all done within the next 5 days!

Green series

Here's a new grouping of three, acrylic on canvas, 10 inches square:

Spell-binding tales

I am reading a fascinating book titled "The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century."

I love Sherlock Holmes, scientific experiments, human psychology, and of course art, and they're all wrapped up in these pages.

Among the interesting anecdotes:

One art forger borrowed a Durer self-portrait, painted on a wood panel, from a museum with permission to make a copy. He sawed it in half (parallel to the picture plane, like slicing a loaf of bread), then on the half that had the museum's seals on the back, he painted a copy. He "returned" his forgery to the museum, then sold the original Durer for a small fortune to an unsuspecting collector.

Another forger, the one highlighted in the book's title, whose grand-scale hoax is the focus of the book, spent a small sum on an old painting from a thrift shop in its original stretcher bars and nails. He sanded off the paint and repainted on the old canvas with paint he'd created from PLASTIC, baked it in an oven to create a cracked finish, and passed it off as a "long lost" Vermeer, which he sold in a frantic bidding war that earned him millions. He did this FIVE more times, earning millions more from each forgery. Unsure of what to do with his fortune, he bought house after house in Amsterdam and stashed giant bundles of paper money under the staircases. Among his "best" customers were Hitler and Goering. When questioned, he claimed to have won the French lottery ... twice.

And finally ... a literary take on forgery ... in the late '70s, as an experiment, a "prankster" (I would say performance artist) typed up copies of the manuscript of an award-winning, best-selling novel and mailed them out to fifteen publishers. All 15 rejected them, including the publishing house that had originally printed the book!

Let's face it ... truth is stranger than fiction!