Anticipation, Anticipa-a-tion

I'm pretty sure he was referring to his love life and not the details of an art career when he sang "the waiting is the hardest part," but Tom Petty certainly was voicing how I'm feeling these days.

Maybe because it's spring, with all that energy and anticipation in the air. But I feel like I've been doing nothing but wait, wait, wait, all winter long and right into the warm weather! I have the possibility of sales to 2 major collections, but I've been waiting to hear about their decisions for many months. And I have a possible sale and a possible reproduction arrangement pending with 2 art consultants, which I've been waiting to hear about for a month.

I know, calm down, calm down. Patience is a virtue. Waiting is part of being an artist. I keep telling myself that. I've tried to distract and redirect my attention and efforts by focusing on making a series of new paintings I'm excited about (latest one, see above). I have even entered 2 juried shows, even though I had vowed to stop doing that (hangs head in embarrassment).

And I'm preparing to send out a series of applications, 1 for an artist-in-residence program, 1 for a publication opportunity, and 3 separate grants, with 2 more possible grants to investigate.

Still, I feel like, come ON! Let's get this show on the road!! Waiting is indeed the hardest part, as Tom says ...

Next one in series

Latest series continues (acrylic on canvas, 44" H x 30" W), finished last night:



After creating 7 of these, I'm planning 3 more, with the same limited palette (1 yellow, 1 orange, 1 brown) to see where it will take me color-wise, then I plan to re-evaluate where I'm at. I might either try a similarly composed series using 3 cool colors, or continue with these colors on a larger format (56" H x 40" W are the stretcher bar sizes I have on hand).

BTW, this is why I could/would never be a photographer, and why I admire photographers so much. I noticed this wonderful view in my house, a grouping of clip lights and the shadows they cast, and thought, "Doesn't that look interesting!" So I took a photo ... and it's a big YAWN. Maybe the camera flattens out the image somehow, or the lighting comes out differently in a photo from the way it looks in real life ...



Anyway, my hat is off to anyone who can take great (even barely decent) pictures!

The positive power of negativity

I grew up with parents who were extremely kind and encouraging to me. So it came as somewhat of a shock when I left home at 18 and realized that the rest of the world wasn’t quite so warm and fuzzy. As a young woman living in the city (Boston), some of the verbal zingers I was hit with – at school, at work, or just out in public in general – stunned me. Sometimes a hurtful remark, either directed toward me personally or simply at me because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, would take me days to get over.

Yet as I look back on my younger years, certain negative remarks or experiences actually produced a positive change, providing me with an insight that provoked a productive action in response. (Besides my learning to give a Bronx cheer or flip the bird.)

There was the co-worker who told me she didn’t want to hang around with me any more because I was so negative (which caused me to re-examine and finally cease what was then my constant gossiping, and that made me a far more contented person and sought-after companion). There was the professor who told me I would never get into graduate school (who steeled my resolve, and ultimately I earned an M.F.A. with a 3.88 G.P.A.). There was the boss who was so critical and rude that I decided to leave what was otherwise a wonderful job (which caused me to discover an entirely new and ultimately far more satisfying career in teaching).

Being criticized has even helped me with my self-confidence, if you can believe that. I have always been uncomfortable about my appearance. Even though I love clothes, I’ve often felt shy about standing out, and so I’ve tended to wear muted or dark colors and simple, body-covering styles.

All that changed when I got up the nerve to buy a hot-pink skirt about a year ago. The color just called to me, and I couldn’t resist. I was so excited to wear it! But when I did, one of my co-workers made a negative remark about how the color was too bright.

At first I thought, “She’s right, maybe it’s a little too garish.” And I contemplated taking the skirt to the Goodwill bin.

But over the course of several days, it dawned on me. The person who said this to me had no sense of style. She was NOT someone I want to look like. Why would I want to take her fashion advice? And furthermore, why would I want to assign her any credibility at all?

Since then, I’ve made it my business to find as many bright colors and mix as many prints and patterns as I can. And I’m loving it! Every day is an adventure, as I open my closet door and try to figure out what new and unexpected combinations I can come up with.

Case in point, I found this wonderful blouse (below) at a thrift store yesterday. I tried it on, and I felt like a wild bird. The brilliant colors and snazzy trimmed hem brought a smile to my face. I would never have had the nerve to wear something like this before my shrew co-worker made that ignorant remark. Now, I can’t wait to wear it! Not only because I think it’s beautiful and I want to bring beauty into the world, but also because it’s like an “f--- you” to that co-worker and any other critical, joyless people lurking out there.



I wish every lesson I learned could be like my childhood, the good old days, when my parents would tell me how well I was doing and only if absolutely necessary make gentle corrections to my behavior. But even if the world doesn’t always work like that, it’s instructive to me to realize that there are lessons even in adverse situations.

My review of the MFA Thesis Show 2011 at UMass Dartmouth

My review of the MFA Thesis Show 2011 at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth appears in today's edition of the New Bedford Standard-Times:

Please click here to read.

Rolling along

Hitting my stride with this ongoing series. You can see the origins of these particular canvases here, in this post from a few weeks ago. So happy with these three, and the three in the series that preceded them, that I'm going to go on with more in this size with these colors. Let's keep exploring how much further we can go in this direction!

Bridging two worlds

Somewhere along the line, in my development as an artist, I got the idea that precision was wrong.

I always had a facility for drawing tight details, which I developed throughout high school with carefully rendered fashion illustrations. I continued to work this way as I went on to earn a diploma in fashion design, creating drawings like the one below, with each fleck of the tweed a tap of the marker tip on the page. These drawings took hours and hours, even days, and I loved making them.



Perhaps the trouble started when I decided I wanted to study fine art. I still remember the horrified look on the admissions counselor’s face at the Art Institute of Boston when she saw my fashion drawings. (That was what I included in the application for my interview, since I had just graduated from fashion school and had worked very hard on my portfolio.) I think she thought I was drawing in that style because I didn’t know how to draw realistic figures, rather than the truth, which was that I had been intentionally aiming for a stylized “fashion figure.”

“You won’t be able to transfer any credits,” she said gravely as she continued to flip through my portfolio and shake her head.

Being young and impressionable, I absorbed her opinion that there must be something non-artistic, not valid about these drawings. Rather than question her, I decided that this program was just what I needed, and threw myself into my fine art studies.

As I went through art school, I tried very hard never to work tightly and with detail in my artwork. I figured that had to be “wrong.” What was “right” was working loosely, intuitively, with flowing gestures and generalized shapes. And since working this way seemed to come as naturally to me as working in tight detail had, I just went with it.

I was further steered in the “fine art and illustration don’t mix” direction when I had this interview after graduate school.

But I had an epiphany when I was making a demonstration painting a few weeks ago for one of my watercolor classes. I had been teaching watercolor for years, and always approached it with my art school “loose is good” training. I got frustrated when doing demonstrations for my students because my watercolors always lacked finesse; in fact, they just looked like a mess. I figured I just wasn’t a good watercolorist.

For this recent class, though, I wanted my students to learn to follow intricate nooks and crannies, so I had each of them paint a closeup of a spinach leaf. Since it was a new project idea and I didn’t have an example to show the students, I worked on the project along with them during class.

I instinctively grabbed a tiny pointed brush -- the kind I would have avoided like the plague in art school -- and proceeded to go back in time to reconnect with that ability to describe fine detail that had been my forte since high school. And I came up with this wonderful painting, the best watercolor I’d ever done.



I am happy to say that this acceptance of detail has spilled over into my “real” painting in my studio. I have been able to combine the loose, flowing quality I’ve been working with since graduate school, with the tiny brush details I’ve recently rediscovered. The contrast of loose and tight has made for a new and exciting direction for me, as evidenced in my newest artworks (like the one below, just completed).



I have to say, growing older is turning out to be a wonderful experience for me. As each day and month and year passes, I throw away more and more of the assumptions of my youth, the misconceptions I gleaned from others, either their wrong-thinking or my misinterpretation of what they meant. Either way, it’s very freeing, and is revealing the true me, what I honestly believe and what I am capable of.

Professional shots of Frosty Series

Some lovely finished shots of my Frosty series, fresh from the photographer's. These works are acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 30" H x 20" W. Top to bottom, "Lemon Frost," "Mint Frost," "Strawberry Frost."

A sublime moment in the studio

I admit; sometimes, I get fed up with a life devoted to making art.

My friends’ kids right out of college make twice as much money a year as I do, and they get a pension and health insurance.

I save every penny I earn to buy art supplies. Things that others buy because they want them or because they need them -- a car, a couch, a washing machine, a trip -- are off my list, since that's the only way I can afford the materials to make my art.

I don’t even tell new people I meet – at a party or when I go to the dentist – that I’m a painter, because they either think I mean that I paint houses, or else they think I make landscape paintings to sell at gift shops. Instead I tell them I teach art, even though that’s what I do for a living, but it’s not my “real” career.

Sometimes I get frustrated and wish I was a plumber or an accountant. Something normal and average and easy to define.

But then I have moments in the studio, like I did just now, and I thank God that I am an artist.

I just had a sublime couple of hours of painting. Yes, I had to check the clock to see how long I’d actually been in the studio, because time had ceased to exist.

It was just me and the paint and the canvas. I knew generally what I wanted to say, and of course my years of training and practice came into play for technical issues such as how to mix certain colors or how thickly to apply the paint. But the painting itself was telling me clearly how to deviate from what I already knew, telling me exactly what to do, and I followed.

Reach for a bigger brush. More of this color here. Blend here. OK, now stop. Touch up the bottom edge. Now that section is dry; go back over it with this color.

It was a magical experience that no amount of money, adulation, or anything else of this earth could touch.

When I was finished, I knew I had made something Important and Valuable (at least, to me). It was a painting that only I could have made, that only someone with my exact experience and ability could have assembled. My own personal muse was with me, and it all came together.

It’s nice to have a cool-looking piece of canvas wrapped around four wooden stretcher bars as something tangible to show that I had this experience. But what really matters is that in my mind and heart, I know I had the experience. I felt it.

It’s times like these that make every minute of sacrifice in the rest of my life worthwhile. My lifestyle, while perhaps weird or Spartan to the rest of the world, makes it possible for me to have these gifts of creativity in the studio.

A good start

Had a productive evening in the studio last night. These are the first stages of making 3 additional paintings in my Desert Series (three of the older paintings in the series, made in July 2010, appear in the background).






Here's a full shot of one of the older paintings; each one is acrylic on canvas, 44" H x 30" W: