Adding some blue

More small works (4 inches high by 8 inches wide), made yesterday. I love putting a few of them together on days when I don't have hours to spend in the studio, but just a bit of time. They are for sale here.

Student projects

I was up early this morning grading student projects, and a number of them were so good that I photographed them for my "portfolio" as a teacher.

My students are second-semester freshmen at Framingham State College who are elementary education majors, and my course gives them their first taste of visual art and ideas on ways to incorporate art projects into their classrooms.

This assignment was to draw from a hat the name of a famous artist. Students were then asked to do extensive biographical research on this artist, analyze one of his/her works of art, write up lesson plan based on this person's artwork, create a prototype of the art project in their lesson plan, and give an oral presentation on their project to the class.

Here are two wonderful pieces that resulted from this assignment. The project pictured at the top of this post was created by Sarah Blake, who painted fabric in a print inspired by Paul Klee's "Flora on the Sand" and then stitched it into a pillow.

The project pictured below was made by Erin Derby, who used Jackson Pollock's drip techniques to embellish a white cotton T-shirt. (Reminiscent of Pollock's workwear as documented by Hans Namuth's filming.) I have a group of talented, imaginative students!

New tiny knots

Spent the morning yesterday grading student projects (spring semester almost finished at one of the schools I teach at), then the afternoon creating more of these small paintings (below). These works are for sale online, here.

New painting

Here's a new work, made of acrylic on paper, 10 inches high by 30 inches wide:

An artist in black and white

I spent some time yesterday with one of the most interesting artists I know, and I was surprised to hear her say during our conversation that sometimes she doesn't believe she's a "real" artist.

Being an artist is a way of seeing, a way of living your life guided by your senses and your intuitive impulses. It has nothing to do with "talent," or what gallery represents you, or how many pieces you've sold. It's the way you are; you can't help yourself.

When I am among folks who are historians, say, or librarians, I can see that I have a lot in common with them as far as interests and ways of thinking, but I'm not quite a natural member of their group. But visual artists ... I ALWAYS feel totally at home with them (writers and teachers, too). Even if I don't share all of their opinions and experiences, there is something inside that we share.

I remember an event in graduate school that helped to certify in my mind that I was an artist. Although I had been making art seriously for years by then, and had been an intensely visual and tactile person since childhood, I hadn't really accepted that I was an artist.

One day, tired of having to scribble down my phone number on a scrap of paper whenever I met someone I wanted to keep in touch with, I decided to have business cards made up for myself. It wasn't even a self-promotional thing (at that point), just a time-saving measure. At the last minute at the printer's, I decided to have the occupation "artist" printed under my name. "Catherine Carter: Artist."

And somehow that simple act made it official! Whenever I felt doubt about what I was up to in the studio, I pulled out one of those business cards and read my occupation. Seeing it in black and white made it real and true! Eventually, the doubts faded away completely, never to return.

If you believe you are an artist, you are an artist.

The student's responsibility

I've written in the past about several of the jerks I've had for teachers in art school, and judging from the feedback I've gotten, many of us have had similar experiences.

But it occurred to me this morning that the student has a great responsibility too.

I was thinking back on the semester when I was a teaching assistant in graduate school. I had never taught before, and this was one of those arrangements in which the T.A. IS the professor, not an assistant.

On the first day of class, I was approached by a student who informed me that he didn't like any of the other teachers on staff (he was a second-semester freshman) and that he was convinced I would be a better teacher for him than any of others. (Lord, I had so many dates tell me that story -- "My old girl-friend doesn't understand me; YOU are the only girl for me" -- you'd think I would have seen the writing on the wall.)

Anyway, it turned out I wasn't the best teacher for him. My style of critique is to emphasize what the student did RIGHT, which tends to make him/her continue to do that and let go of the techniques/habits/etc. that I haven't mentioned that are unsuccessful. Not that I never touch on possible improvements or make specific corrections; I do that often. But I talk far more about what's working in a piece of art than what isn't working.

My methods displeased this particular student. He thought I was babying him and not being straight with him, and he wrote a scathing evaluation of me at semester's end.

By then, I thought he was pretty much a dork, but I could understand his frustration that he felt he hadn't had a good experience in art class, that his teacher had let him down. I had certainly felt that way myself.

But this morning it occurred to me: it is up to the STUDENT as much as the teacher to create the classroom experience. What this guy needed wasn't a teacher to reveal everything to him; he needed to stop complaining and WORK, years and years of painting and drawing, and answering his own questions.

In my case as a student, I needed to insist that my teachers help me. One in particular I've mentioned before on this blog, a painting professor at the Art Institute of Boston, who never helped us as students, never explained anything, just set up a still-life and left the room. I should have insisted on some instruction. It was my education, it was my money, and I let him get away with collecting a paycheck for doing nothing.

Somehow this realization -- that education is a two-way street -- feels liberating to me. I can forgive myself for not having been a perfect student, and I can forgive myself for not being a perfect teacher. We all do our best, and we learn from our experiences.

Mounting works on paper

I've had a lot of luck mounting works on paper onto stretched canvas. A number of students and other artists who have seen my work on display have asked me how I do it, so I thought I would explain my process.

(I used this technique to finish the painting "Cranberry Lines," shown at left, which is acrylic on paper on canvas, 30" H x 20" W.)

I believe there is a general perception of work on paper as less "important" than work on canvas. Also, if you're selling your work, a buyer may be hesitant to invest in an unframed page, or they might not like your taste in frames, yet want to buy something they can put right on the wall as soon as they get home. And once the paper is mounted, you can charge the same price that you would for a work done directly on canvas, because now it is a "real" painting.

This is a neat-looking method of displaying paper without having to place the work under glass, which to me separates it from the viewer (literally and emotionally). It also "seals" the paper in and protects it from abrasion or anything that might mar the surface.

I should point out that I've had a lot of luck doing this with paper that is 30" x 22". Any larger than that, I'm not sure how well it would work.

Start with a stretched canvas. If the paper is white, I paint the sides of the canvas white. If the color of unbleached canvas looks better with the image, I just leave it unpainted. When I mounted the red painting shown above, and I painted the sides the same color red as the work on paper. (I paint the edge and an inch or so onto the front surface; there's no need to paint the whole canvas.)

I apply a layer of Utrecht gel medium (the consistency of mayonnaise) over the entire surface of the canvas, about 1/8" thick or so. The strokes don't have to be perfectly uniform, but there shouldn't be any areas left uncovered.

Then I lay the work on paper against the canvas, and paint over it with a light but complete covering layer of Utrecht matte medium (which is somewhat thinner than gel medium). You could use gloss medium for this step instead if you wanted a shinier finish.

Then just let it sit horizontally and dry. I check it after about half an hour/an hour to see if there are any air bubbles, which I just press lightly down on and/or brush over again so the area sticks back onto the canvas.

This works best if the paper is slightly bigger than the canvas. Then, once everything is dry, you can trim off the edge of the paper to perfectly match the size of the stretcher bars.

The process leaves professional-looking sides, so you don't even have to frame the work if you don't want to.

I have only done this with Utrecht-brand products; I don't know how well it would work with another brand.

I should also add that this technique wouldn't work well on a piece that had a lot of pastel, charcoal or smudgable medium involved, although I have done it successfully with a small amount of pastel in the picture. In this case, you just brush the medium on very carefully.

Hope you too have luck with this method!

Back to the blog

I've been coaxed back to blogging!

I've gotten a lot of encouraging feedback from faithful readers who say they are sorry I stopped blogging, but their kind words weren't enough to convince me to commit to daily writing again.

Finally today I got an email from a wonderful lady who discovered my blog during her day-job at a university library. A painter herself, she says she read my entire blog the other day and was inspired by my writing. She ended her lovely note with the words: "I felt like you should know that what you have written and painted has touched someone."

Hey, I'm not made of stone!!!

And so, I return to blogging.

A lot going on in the studio since I last wrote! I'm making a bunch of small pieces, two four-inch-square cradled boards joined together (one is pictured at the top of this entry), and I've just embarked on a project that will consist of seven long, thin canvases hung beside one another (each 50 inches high by 10 inches wide).

So, continued musings on my life in the studio, comin' right up.