Friends through the years

This week I've been sorting through a series of notebooks documenting my art career, and this postcard was the oldest item in the oldest notebook: my very first exhibit! It was a two-person show with an artist who, almost 20 years later, is still a dear friend.

Painter Carol O'Malia and I met as first-year graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's College of Visual and Performing Art in 1995. She is a very friendly and outgoing person, so I felt an instant sympatico during the first day of the graduate seminar class we were both taking, when she introduced herself and reached out to shake my hand.

During our second year of grad school, I invited Carol to join me for a two-person show at the university's student gallery, which was then located at 1213 Purchase Street in New Bedford. It was the first time I had ever displayed my artwork in public, and I was so glad she agreed to share the experience with me. Shown here is the postcard from our exhibit. (Hey, remember when the best deal in town was a pack of 500 postcards for $95 from Modern Postcard?! Times have sure changed ... )

Many years have passed since then, and over that time, Carol and I have kept in touch through each other's ups and downs, both personal and professional. She's one of those people who, no matter how much time goes by between meetings, you always feel like it's only been a few minutes rather than a few years when you see each other in person. Coincidentally, we now find ourselves to be teaching colleagues at Framingham State University. And last fall, we showed our work together for the second time, at the Framingham State gallery, nearly 20 years after our first show together at UMass Dartmouth!

Carol, old buddy, here's hoping for another 20 years of painting and friendship together!

Smiling for the camera

"Throwback Thursdays" have become a regular feature on Facebook, so I thought I'd enter a post on my blog in the same spirit. Below is a portrait of me at age 5, approximately, enacting a scene that has repeated itself many many times over the years: posing against a wall displaying my latest artworks!  These are crayon portraits of my mother, who was (and still is) the most beautiful subject in the world to me. This shot was taken by my grandfather after my grandmother, who was always a great supporter of my artistic aspirations (her father was an artist), had hung my drawings on the wall.

An aspiring artist in 1967

Fast forward 45 years! A few things have changed in that time; I've switched from crayons to acrylic paints, for one. But I'm still making art, and posing alongside it in order to preserve the moment. Here I am in 2012, with several of my artworks on display at a show I curated/participated in at Fountain Street Fine Art.

A professional artist 45 years later

So that's my entry for Throwback Thursday!

Visions of shoes dancing in my head

Yesterday I helped my mother do some sorting in her house, which included the discovery of a pile of books I had as a child. In poking through images I hadn't seen in 40 years, I realized how long and hard I had stared at so many of the pictures in these books! It was like I was intent on memorizing the colors, shapes and designs I saw there.

Case in point: here's an old fairy tale book of mine. My favorite story was "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," not so much because I liked that story but because I LOVED looking at the illustrations of the shoes that accompanied it. I even colored in the black and white drawings with crayon! I knew I wasn't supposed to write in my books, never mind color them in, but I couldn't help myself.

Page from "The Red Fairy Book"

Coming across this page is striking, because it reminds me of the shoe drawings I've made in recent years:

And the black ribbon on the shoe drawing on the page in the fairy tale book ...

... reminds me of the black line paintings I've done this year.

"Scrawl 2," acrylic on canvas, 30 inches square, 2013

 So it seems the visual inspirations experienced during childhood settle in our unconscious minds, and remain with us throughout our lives!

Identity

As you know if you read my blog with any regularity, I am currently in my 49th year, and the anticipation of turning 50 in 11 months is causing me to do a lot of soul-searching.

It interests me to recollect that while my identity today and for the last 17 years has been totally involved in my art, this was not so for a long time during my life. When I was growing up, I loved to draw. But somewhere along the line, I lost my identity as an artist. I took art classes here and there throughout my 20s, but life's responsibilities (particularly financial ones) pushed my creativity to the fringes of my existence, where it languished.

Things got particularly bleak by 1991, when I was 29. I was working full time as a secretary and hadn't done any drawing in years. I had totally lost myself and felt confused and depressed. Then one morning in 1993, the sun came up, the light shone on my path, and suddenly everything made sense. One step at a time, I strode toward my destiny as an artist. I earned a bachelor's degree, I earned a master's degree, I set up a studio and an art-making schedule, and I began to show and sell my work. It was like that gap between being a little girl and playing with my art supplies every day, and being a professional artist working in my studio, had never happened.

But it did happen, and in a way, I'm glad. It was painful to feel so lost for so long, but that fallow period made me more compassionate toward my students, especially my female students. I teach young women in high school or college who know deep down that they want to become artists, but they are afraid to commit to such an unstable career and are tempted to follow their families' urgings to major in something they don't care as much about but that promises a solid living. I teach busy mothers who are frustrated that their art-making has had to take a back seat to family commitments (and often, full-time jobs in addition). And I teach retired women who look back with pride on their lives devoted to their families, communities, and workplaces, but who wonder how to find their inner artist selves which have been denied over the decades of giving to others.

I understand the soul-searching that all of these age groups are going through. But I know that if I can figure it out, so can they.

I've come across a number of portraits that my husband has taken of me over the years, which reveal how literally wrapped up in painting my life has been since I found myself in 1993.

Me at age 5 (taken by my Grandpa, the other portrait photographer in my life):




Me at age 35, finally an artist again after 30 years:




Me at age 42, 7 years later:




Me at age 49, 7 years later (taken last week):

It's not where you start, it's where you end up

I teach art to students of all ages and levels, and they often tell me, at least when I first start to work with them, “My painting stinks,” “I don’t have any talent,” “I’m not creative,” etc. (Yes, even graduate students tell me this.) Whenever I hear this, I threaten to bring my first-ever painting in to class to show them that it isn’t “talent” that’s important, but how you apply yourself to your development as an artist. NO ONE sits down and makes a beautiful painting.

As Twyla Tharp points out in her wonderful book “The Creative Habit,” even Mozart, who had the unique good fortune of hereditary natural ability and early opportunities to compose and perform, didn’t just sit down and write breath-taking music. A major part of what made him a genius was the hours, days, years of constant practicing, listening, comprehending, and allowing himself to create. Tharp says that, by his early 20s, Mozart’s hands were already deformed from having logged in countless hours of playing the keyboard.

So here it is … the first painting I ever made. (It’s in oil.)

It was made during my first semester of painting at the Art Institute of Boston in 1987, an experience that sounds similar to the kind of beginning in art that many of my students describe as having before they get to my class. That is, with 1 or 2 exceptions, the professors gave NO technical information whatsoever, just left me and my classmates on our own to try and figure out how to use the materials and make the image look three-dimensional.

It’s interesting to me, in looking at this painting, to note that the objects are huddled against the background, as if they are terrified. Because that is certainly the way I felt at the time! (The saying goes that all works of art are self-portraits …)

This professor gave no demonstrations or personal advice, but after several sessions with each still-life, she would line all of our paintings up against the wall and tell us which ones were “bad” and which ones were “good.” I guess a general critique of this sort might have been visual training in what worked and what didn’t, but I just remember being frightened and confused the whole time. (I was too young to be indignant that she was being paid for not doing her job!)

I see from this picture that I had some natural inclination of how to suggest value, render objects and use negative space. But I certainly had no idea how to mix colors, record details, or place my objects so as to tell a story. (All things which are relatively easy to learn, with decent instruction.) I didn’t even know how to tell if I was finished or not! Basically, I was lost.

Luckily my love for painting helped me determine to continue beyond this abysmal initial experience. Many students get stuck at this stage and abandon art altogether because they think they aren’t good at it. That isn’t the point: without instruction and practice, one can’t learn how to see and how to use the materials.

Lack of “talent” in drawing or painting is really just lack of experience. Anyone can learn to draw and paint by applying themselves to the task and persistently working at it. This painting, as a harbinger of my current artwork, is proof!

And once you learn the basics, then the real achievement can begin. You can play around with a range of styles and mediums, and finally learn to say what you and you alone can and want to say. What could be more rewarding and enjoyable?

A look in the mirror

Still going through old photos, and I came across this self-portrait I had made as an undergraduate. Funny to look back and remember that I ever painted anything realistically!

Self-portraits were always a favorite subject for me. Not from any narcissistic impulse -- I’m just very comfortable with my face, I know myself well, so I can easily do what you’re supposed to do with portraits – think of the subject as a series of shapes and colors, not as a nose or an eye. We have preconceived notions of what noses and eyes are supposed to look like, and what you know (or think you know) can really trip you up as an artist, especially with representational work. You can only make progress by painting what you don’t know, by following what your subject and your materials have to teach you.

I’m currently preparing to teach a new course at the Danforth Museum School this winter titled “The Self-Portrait: History, Anatomy, Autobiography,” and I’m looking forward to showing my students how much fun and educational self-portraits are to work on. There’s more information about my course here.

Once in graduate school, a professor asked me if I ever felt like going back to representational subject matter again. I didn’t, and I still don’t. It’s fun to paint realistically, it’s certainly challenging … and yet, I get more from my messy paintings of lines that I ever did from copying a subject I could see in front of me. Realism feels like painting from my head, and abstraction feels like painting from my heart. I do a lot of “head” stuff, intellectual work, in other areas of my life … I like connecting with my heart in the studio.

Early portraits

I’ve been going through some childhood photos and I came across this one. According to the date on the back, I was 5 years old here (40 years ago!).

I’m standing next to two pictures I drew of my mother (with Crayola crayons – loved all those colors!). I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world (still do!).

No matter what honors or accolades I receive as a professional artist … nothing can measure up to that excellent feeling that comes when you’re a little girl, and you bring your drawing home from school, and your mother praises it and puts it up on the refrigerator!

Revisiting the fashion world

It seems like eons ago – actually, it was 25 years – when I was attending the School of Fashion Design on Newbury Street in Boston with dreams of becoming a fashion designer.

My career in the fashion industry didn’t fully materialize. I got a plum job right out of design school, working as an assistant to couturier Alfred Fiandaca. That position didn’t quite work out for me, although I truly admired Alfred’s sense of design and the luscious color and textural combinations he worked with. He was a wonderful artist with fabric, and the women he dressed always looked elegant and chic (his clients have included Dionne Warwick and Joan Kennedy).

My employment road led to the retail side of fashion, which was fun until I realized that it wasn’t fun enough to justify working for minimum wage. Many twists and turns later, I have found my dream career – a combination of painting, teaching and writing – but my life today doesn’t involve fashion any more than one of my favorite hobbies, searching for unusual clothing at local thrift shops.

Lately I’ve noticed a number of art schools in the area are offering fashion courses for high school students; perhaps the popularity of this subject has been awakened by Project Runway. But this brought back memories of my dreams of the fashion world, so a month or so ago, I proposed a fashion illustration course to Pat Walker, the director of the Danforth Museum School where I teach.

Pat was open to the idea, so the school is offering a Saturday afternoon fashion illustration course, starting in January 2008. I’m so looking forward to teaching it!

These are pictures I drew while I was a fashion design student. You can see how much fun I had making them!

Family portraits

We're all familiar with that Picasso quote about it taking a lifetime to learn to draw like a child. That's 'cause kids don't agonize over talent, impressing others, failure, success, or any of the other mental pitfalls that plague adults. They just sit down and paint.

Here are two portraits I made of my parents when I was 4. I distinctly remember deciding I was going to do this, asking them to pose for me (which they kindly consented to), and then just sitting down and drawing. It never occurred to me that the drawings might not turn out well; I never wondered whether I was using the right colors, or whether something looked right or wrong. I just decided to do it, and I sat down and did it. And what fun I had!