Jeannine Cook's Blog

What is Invisible to others

2012-01-31T15:31:00.011-05:00

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others". This was an interesting remark, made by Roberto Polo, artist and founder of Citibank's Fine Art Investment Services, and quoted in the 19th November, 2011, edition of The Spectator by Bevis Hillier.

I found the idea thought-provoking, and was reminded of it in an unusual context. Tomorrow morning, at about 7.30 a.m. in Palma de Mallorca's magnificant Gothic cathedral, La Seu, there is a moment of pure magic.

At that time (and again in November) every year, the giant rose window lines up with the rising sun, and a perfect glowing circle is projected across the vast cathedral to the opposite wall, where another rose window joins in the celebration.

This huge rose window, one of the largest in the world, was created in the 14th century, in the Royal Chapel, using a Levantine design for its more than two thousand pieces of stained glass.

Its fleeting echo, twice a year, on the golden Mallorcan stone wall opposite, is an event that is anticipated eagerly for its amazing beauty.

These two images are courtesy of the website, Mallorcaquality.com, with my thanks.

The design and alignment, let alone actual construction, of this huge rose window is, to me, a perfect example of seeing, in one's mind's eye, what is as yet invisible to others. Its concept implied knowledge of the movement of the sun, the necessary geometrical siting in relation to the rising sun on the requisite days of the year, and an ability to calculate all these parameters and ally them with the actual building dimensions and orientation as it was being built. No computers, no cameras, no lasers... Just vision and skill.

Perhaps that ability to envision something that no one else sees and then to create something that renders the invisible visible is the ultimate hallmark of an artist, whatever the discipline. It is certainly an ability to cultivate.

Seeing the Marvellous

2012-01-27T15:41:00.005-05:00

Flying high above Georgia's hinterland in the dusk, I was watching all details of the land below disappear into soft evening haze. Suddenly, a marvellous swirled flash of silver and golden glints leapt from the darkness below. I gazed enthralled, for it was truly beautiful in its sinuous elegance. Then it was gone - the light and our position in the sky had changed. I later deduced that it must have been the Oconee River in its middle reaches.

The magical image stayed in my mind's eye, and I have finally tried to translate it into a silverpoint drawing... as yet unscanned. But I keep feeliing that glimpse of the silvered world far below me was a wonderful,, fleeting gift.

The episode made me think of a quote made by the extraordinary French poet, Charles Baudelaire. He said, "We are envelopped and drenched in the marvellous, but we do not see." He is so often correct - we live in a world of haste and stress, rushing from one thing to the next, a life style that often precludes our stopping to savour of something simple, beautiful, uplifting. Yet those moments, when we can perceive the marvellous around us, enrich and anchor our lives.

The Financial Rewards of Art and Culture

2012-01-25T13:48:00.002-05:00

It is not an easy time to be a member of the arts community, no matter what role each of us plays in it. On a personal level, one's colleagues all talk of funding difficulties, slow art sales, diminished public support. In the press, there are frequent reports of slashed funding for the arts and culture; today, I was reading that the Prado Museum in Madrid, flagship of Spain's museums, has had its Government support cut by six million euros and counting. Hard times... but at least the Prado is fighting back. They are now going to open seven days a week, something to celebrate.

Yet at the same time, I stumbled on a report on today's HuffPost Detroit of a report released about the impact of the arts and culture on Michigan's economy which makes one think. Some 221 arts organisations in Michigan shared their economic data to help formulate the Michigan Cultural Data Project, which analyses, on an on-going and ever-wider basis, what effect the arts have on this American state's economy. The figures are eloquent - for every dollar spent by the Michigan State on arts and culture, five-one ($51) dollars are returned to the state economy. That is quite a return.

That is the sort of message that all governments need to hear. Europeans seem more receptive to such information because they have always been keenly aware of tourist returns on investment in their cultural riches. Americans, on the whole, seem a little less aware of the huge impact that a vibrant arts scene can have - hence the importance of such information as that generated in Michigan. Even in today's less than cheery financial news coming out of Davos, Switzerland, there are ways to enhance the quality of our lives in terms of arts and culture.

Artists' Egos

2012-01-23T15:24:00.004-05:00

An aspect of the art world that the general public often talks about is an artist's ego - it is part of the domain of artistic myths and legends. Everyone, at one point or another, has heard about an artist seemingly behaving like a prima donna. It makes good copy for a reporter or writer and interests many readers.

Nonetheless, artists themselves seldom think specifically about ego or how they might be perceived as having a large ego. Usually we are all too involved with our artwork and artistic endeavours, and anxious to ensure its visibility, success and survival. There is usually such a clamour in the public space that it is hard to get viewed, heard, understood...

Marina Abramovic, a very successful artist whose reputation is coupled with a sense of serious dedication to her work, talked in an interesting way about artists' egos. She was interviewed in May 2009 by David Ebony in Art in America, and described how she had gained humility during a month-long yoga retreat in which she had participated. To achieve complete emptiness in her thinking, she talked of retraining herself to work from the top downwards, thus achieving an absence of ego. She remarked, "Our culture is so much about building up the ego of the artist. But it's not you who is important, it's the work. The ego is actually an obstacle to the work." (The image above is courtesy of the Guardian, UK, from an article by James Westcott about Abramovic's 2010 exhibition at MOMA, The Artist is Present.)

Thinking about her statement made me measure its truth. If you have envisaged a work of art and launch into making it, there is frequently an insistent little voice in your head talking about those preconceived ideas, how the work might be perceived, what effect the work might have on a viewer, etc.... Emptying your mind of all expectations and simply flowing, almost instinctively, with the development of the work is a totally different affair. Things happen that you do not know consciously about, perceptions that only become obvious after coming out of the creative phase, conversations that develop in spite of or despite the ego. Making art becomes a voyage into the unknown, a voyage unaccompanied by preconceptions and that looming sense of self.

After all, at the end of any creation process, the work has to stand on its own feet, away from any reference to the artist, in many senses. This situation was driven home to me a couple of days ago when I walked into the beautiful home of a new friend. On her walls hung a number of interesting pieces of art, some of which I recognised instantly, but many of which were created by artists I did not know. Their work was just that - artwork - and each piece transmitted its messages to me. The ensuing dialogue was, of course, coloured by my life experience and perceptions, but nevertheless, the paint on canvas or drawing marks on paper had to "make their own sale" to me. The artist's ego, in each case, was a moot point. No longer were there a gallery owner or the artist at my elbow to explain and validate the work.

It seems to me that Ms. Abramovic spoke wisely about ensuring that the ego should not get in the way of creating art. Letting art guide one in its making and then in its dialogue with the world is, in truth, very complicated and yet, very simple.

Abstract Organisation

2012-01-12T22:45:00.007-05:00

Thinking further about composition and the fact that the path to achieving a successful painting or drawing often takes one into abstraction reminded me of a quote that I had found by British painter, Royal Academician and art professor at St. Martins, Frederick Gore. He was writing about abstract art back in the mid-fifties, rather against the tide of art in England at the time. He remarked, "The meaning of a figurative work of art lies in its abstract organisation."

During his long and productive life, Gore produced a huge body of work, often working en plein air, and frequently travelling to different parts of the Mediterranean region. It is interesting to look at examples of his work to see how he used abstract organisation to compose his paintings, and thus allow their meaning and impact to be strengthened. At left, Late Evening Looking towards the Crau shows this abstract underpinning: wedge shapes are counterbalanced by thrusting mounds that echo each other through the painting, each shape linking in subtle fashion with the next.

Paysage du Luberon, another painting done in France (image courtesy of Charlotte Bowskill Fine Art), shows the same strong abstract organisation. Gore used not only the different shapes to form an abstract pattern but he used colour to lead the eye through the picture. This painting is a wonderful example of what American watercolour artist and teacher, Edgar Whitney, always talked about, namely, that a strong shape in a painting is "irregular, unpredictable and oblique".

Another painting, done in Mallorca of Puig Mayor from Fornalutx, near Soller, (image courtesy of the British Government Art Collection), uses the shapes of the olive trees to organise the painting, with the distant mountains echoing the clumps of trees. As a counterbalance, Gore used the wonderful orange-yellow-russet fields to pull one through the whole composition.

In an even more brilliant depiction of Mallorca, also done in 1958, Frederick Gore painted this Landscape near Deya (image courtesy of the British Government Art Collection). He organised the canvas into four main abstract forms and one smaller one, always a powerful way of dealing with a composition. The olive trees again lead one into and around the painting. The abstraction allows total coherency in what Gore was meaning to say about this hot, sunlit Mediterranean mountainside.

On a more personal note, I always love seeing how other artists respond to the landscapes of Mallorca, an island I know and love deeply. Despite the more than fifty years since these two paintings were done, this part of Mallorca is not that dramatically changed, something to be celebrated.

Frederick Gore certainly put into personal practice what he advocated. It is good to remind oneself of how to organise an eloquent, powerful work of art through abstraction.

Today's Realities in the Art World - as per Mat Gleason

2012-01-11T21:44:00.003-05:00

Once in a while, thanks to all those links that artists post on Facebook, one stumbles on an interesting article that is a tonic to read. Today's art article by Mat Gleason of the Coagula Art Journal - " Twelve Art World Habits to Ditch in 2012" - is worth a read in the Huffington Post.

Lots of what Gleason said is pretty obvious, but it is worth having a robust reality check.

The Whole Composition

2012-01-10T21:40:00.008-05:00

A visual artist always has a set of decisions to make at the beginning of a work - how to compose the picture, what to emphasise, what to convey by the way the picture is composed. That is in part why so many people advocate doing thumbnail sketches before embarking on a painting or drawing; one needs to work out a sensible road map, a composition that works.

Henri Matisse once remarked, "I don't paint things. I only paint between things." He paid close attention to the relationships between objects and how they relate to the whole composition. In a way, he was, in essence, creating an abstract web and underpinning to the composition by looking at the negative spaces, versus focusing on the "things".

Look, for instance, at this Still Life with Geraniums which Matisse painted in 1910 (image courtesy of the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich). There is a wonderful, energetic structure going on thanks to the contrasts between the horizontals and verticals and the organically curvaceous objects and flowers. Half-closing your eyes and looking at the negative spaces in the painting leads to a really strong, dynamic underpinning to the work. Yet there is also a sense of space and airiness that was one of Matisse's great skills. His paintings looked out, not inwards in a hermetic fashion.

In the same way, the 1912 painting, The Window at Tanger, relies heavily on the relationships between the sense of space and spaciousness and the "things". (The image is courtesy of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.)

The deep blue knits everything together, but flattens the space into a near-abstract image. Matisse visited Morocco in 1912 and again in 1913, and the bright colours and flat perspective show the influence that Islamic art was having on Matisse. He had already brightened his palette considerably with his Fauve period, so it was a logical development to embrace the brilliance of the Moroccan world. He used the "differences" in this scene from his hotel window to knit together an enormously evocative and energetic composition.

Another very different approach to the concept of composing a picture by concentrating on the spaces between objects can be seen in Rembrandt's prints. When he was working on his etchings, he was so technically skilled that he could fade out the contours of objects he was depicting and allow the "differences between things" to evoke the desired effect. Seventeenth century Italian art historian and connoisseur, Filippo Baldinucci, remarked, "that which is truly noteworthy of this artist (Rembrandt) was his remarkable style that he invented to etch in copper - that is, loose hatching and irregular lines and without contours he succeed in making profound contrasts."

Rembrandt's 1654 etching, The Descent from the Cross, is one example. Few contours, wonderful spaces between "things" and an arresting composition all are rendered more powerful by this technique that Baldinucci described.

In the same way, the spaces between, so expertly depicted and so vital to the composition, are masterfully achieved in this 1658 etching, The Woman before a Dutch Stove.

For every artist working now, it is always rewarding to go back and study attentively what has been done by the great artists of the past. The Internet helps greatly in allowing us to see these images, but there is, even now, a huge difference between these digital images and the actual artwork. That is when seeing how Matisse actually applied paint to the canvas as he evoked those relationships between things, or peering at Rembrandt's etchings, with their amazing hatching, through a magnifying glass, allow us to see the artist's hand and deft, skilled touch. Those details allow the ultimate consolidation and achievement of the composition, the relationships of things one to the other and thus to the whole work.

Getting down to work in art...

2012-01-05T19:53:00.004-05:00

I wonder if everyone else has a hard time getting down to work again after the holiday period? As an artist, I find it is so easy just to let the days slip by, to think about what I am going to do, do office work, drift and dream...

Then I reread a quote I had noted some time ago from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. She remarked crisply, "Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down." Ho - ho! Time to get doing... to stop devising the way to do something new and different, and just get down to trying to do it.

It is, in essence, putting into practise what I was drawing - namely getting the fire going again... like this silverpoint drawing I did, which I entitled Flames of Oak.

What to do and how to do it are perpetual questions that each artist asks of him or herself. Even beyond those questions, there are other considerations, such as one that was evoked by a thoughtful friend recently. She was describing walking along a beach and collecting sharks' teeth with delight. She remarked that she tended to disdain shells for most of them had some imperfection. She then questioned her own judgement - who was she to judge of the merit of a shell, its state and level of beauty? And how did one know when something was beautiful? What are the criteria that the definition of beauty should meet?

These are all questions every creative person grapples with at one point or another. I replied that I thought the definition of beauty was, to a great degree, dependent upon the life experience one brought to the consideration, and was a very personal affair. Nonetheless, personally, there is a still, small voice in my head - or my heart, who knows - which says insistently - that is beautiful, that is worthy of intense scrutiny and appreciation. Stop and look - hard.

That is when, for me, the process of "getting something down" in art begins. Something magical has gone "clic" and then it is simply the nitty gritty of getting myself organised, out of my holiday optic... and getting down to work. Mañana!

Drawing

2012-01-03T21:42:00.005-05:00

One of the nice aspects of the contemporary art world is how drawing is thriving.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when I started seriously learning of the American art world, draughtsmen and women seemed to have a rather thin time. It was a very rare connoisseur, especially in the United States, who either knew much about drawing media or appreciated drawings for the sake of drawings. The Drawing Center in New York, for example, was founded in 1977. Interestingly, it claims in its mission statement still to be the only not-for-profit fine arts institution in the country to focus solely on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary.

Few young artists were taught to draw - it was not really considered necessary, it seemed. Life drawing was the domain of the few, and eye-hand coordination skills were seldom talked about. The Natural Way to Draw, Nicolaides' now-famous book, completed after his death by a friend and student,Mamie Harnon, was little known, I learned. Silverpoint drawing was virtually unknown - there were very few artists using this medium.

Slowly, slowly, there has been a groundswell in the drawing world. A few exhibitions here and there, more and more institutions, like the Arkansas Arts Center, seriously collecting contemporary works on paper which were mostly drawings in different media... more courses taught. For silverpoint, there was the seminal exhibition in 1985, curated by Dr. Bruce Weber, at the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach, Fl, called The Fine Line: Drawing with Silver in America.

Now, there is a wonderful change. Not only are there regularly Master Drawing exhibits around the country, but there is a great deal of interest generated by the institutions famed for their drawing collections, ranging from the National Gallery or the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Morgan Library in New York. Courses are widely offered, magazines devoted to draughtsmanship. Galleries are more willing to show contemporary drawings. You know there is wide acceptance of an art form when art fairs begin to focus on it. For instance, this is the sixth year that the fair, "Master Drawings New York", is being held across twenty blocks of New York's' Upper East Side, for nine days , as of 20th January. Its co-founder, Crispian Riley-Smith, is quoted in this month's Art+Auction magazine, as saying, "Drawings are quite intimate, and people need to take their time to look at them."

Another indication of how widespread is the acceptance and practice of the many drawing media are now is to glance through one the the art catalogues that land in one's mail box (surprisingly in today's on-line commercial world!). Jerry's Artarama, for example, has 51 pages in its "Drawing" section, and that does not include any of the pages devoted to Paper (which constitutes another 48-odd pages....). The total catalogue has some 560 pages for everything, from paint to frames... so you can judge how important drawing has become to the purveyors of art materials.

As with every skill that becomes more widespread and more accepted, there is a flowering of ideas, of innovations and approaches. New materials used, fresh combinations of media, different ways to express oneself - the state of drawing is vibrant and healthy. What fun and how wonderful to see this happen. A good omen for 2012.

Art as a Mirror

2012-01-03T21:03:00.004-05:00

As we enter a year of elections, not only in the United States, but elsewhere in Europe and beyond, minds turn inevitably to all the contentious issues of left, right, roles of government, the place of religion in society, jobs and the economy and how to improve life for people. There is, nevertheless, an interesting aspect to national discourse as Jawaharlal Nehru once sagely remarked, "The art of a people is the true mirror to their minds".

I don't believe I have heard a politician, in recent years, ever talk about how the mood and ethos of his or her nation can be read by looking at the art produced. Yet, if you think about it, it is a very good indicator of a lot of things. Even the size of art that is being produced is often tied, to some extent, to the state of the economy! The content and styles of art produced reflect or herald issues and attitudes prevalent in the country. Artists are often barometers of society but also, having to earn their living, they try, to some extent, to produce art that is saleable because it provokes a favourable response amongst the viewing public. In recent times of bubble-affluence, quite different art was being heralded as marvellous to what is now "in fashion".

If one thinks back to pre-Renaissance times, for instance, when the Roman Catholic Church was pre-eminent in society, artists were far more likely to achieve success by securing commissions to paint altar pieces or works that celebrated religion and their patrons' religious devotion. As religious diversity spread through Europe, artists adapted and many more genres of art - from floral ebullience to landscapes to portraits and beyond - became the norm. People became more worldly, and their tastes were mirrored in their support and choice of art.

Whether it is Western art, Japanese art, that of Iran, India or elsewhere, down the ages, art helps us understand the evolution of that country's society. Art is the mirror by which today's historians, architects, fashion designers, interior designers and others can learn of what previous generations deemed important, how they lived, dressed and behaved, even what political and religious attitudes they espoused.

I am left wondering what future generations will deduce from today's art about the state of our societies, country by country. I have a nasty feeling that it will not be a pretty picture shown in many of the mirrors left by artists as the creative representatives of their nation. But, in the spirit of a New Year promising better days, I hope I am wrong!

Play

2011-12-28T22:52:00.008-05:00

As the old year wanes and there are these few final days during which to think about the incoming New Year, I suddenly remembered a little statment that I had caught during the fascinating PBS film, A Murder of Crows. It seems something important to remember - for me, at least - as 2012 dawns.

"Play allows the mind to develop and thus the crows become more creative." I think that pertains to us all, corvids, humans, and everyone in between.

As artists, it is so important to play, to revert in a way to a childlike mental state, to relax... Every time I remember to do this, I find that the art I am trying to create seems to flow better.

Think of some of Henri Matisse's dancers; here, he seems to have distilled his art to a marvellous sense of joyous play. This is a second version of Dance that Matisse did in 1909-1910, the version now in the State Hermitage Museum . But then fast forward to 1947, when Matisse had to ressort to paper cut-outs, papiers coupes, because his infirmities precluded him from painting. He still retained a sense of play, and his creativity was undimmed.

This is Icarus (Jazz)

(image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). How more eloquent an example of play allowing creativity to flow can one get!

The crows can certainly teach us a lot. So can Matisse!

Happy New Year to all, and joyful play.

The Sistine Chapel

2011-12-25T11:15:00.003-05:00

By way of sending good wishes for a wonderful day today to all my friends, I thought I would add a link sent to me that is amazing in its beauty and technological wonder as well.

It is views of the Sistine Chapel that none of us would really have, in today's crowded world, if we were physically craning our necks to see Michelangelo's masterpieces above.

Go to the Sistine Chapel. To view every part of the Chapel, simply click and drag your mouse arrow slowly in any direction you want. You can see every nook and cranny of the place. To zoom in very close, use the plus sign at the bottom left of the screen, and of course, the minus sign to zoom out. The music is a lovely bonus.

Happy viewing and happy holidays to all!

Black in Art

2011-12-23T19:28:00.010-05:00

I remember being firmly told, when I was being taught how to paint in watercolours at school, that black was not something to use straight out of a tube. You achieved a huge spectrum of blacks by mixing other colours, such as reds and greens. Along the way, when learning of oil painters, there seemed to be some who historically used black in generous amounts, while others avoided its use in their work.

One of the most famous artists to be associated with black is perhaps Francisco Goya. His "Black Paintings" are somber indeed in their generous use of black, but, in this case, the subject matter is also associated with very dark themes. Goya painted this series of 14 paintings on the walls of his house, the Quinta del Sordo, outside Madrid when he lived there from 1819-1823. He was deaf by this time, he was afraid of going mad, and he had a very bleak view of humanity, having lived through the savage Napoleonic Wars and having watched the disasters of Spanish government. He painted these works without title, and by painting them directly on the walls, he clearly did not intend others to see them. This image, transferred to canvas from the wall of the house, was later titled Two Old Men eating Soup.

Edouard Manet comes to mind immediately when I think of later 19th century artists who began to use black very effectively. He turned away from subtle modelling and simplified, even flattened, the images he portrayed. Not only did he outline in black, but in such paintings as the "scandalous" Olympia - a painting which seemed to shock everyone when it was first exhibited in 1863, his use of black was extensive. (Image below courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay). Like other contemporaries in France, Manet also was influenced by Japanese woodcuts, where the use of black was widespread and powerful.

He continued his use of black even after he became close to many of the Impressionist painters.

This is one of his three paintings of The Execution of Emperor Maximilian, painted in 1867. Again, his use of black is striking. (Image at left courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum, Boston)

When one thinks of artists in the 20th century who are noted for their use of black, Pierre Soulages is one artist who stands out. He began to concentrate on the use of black after 1979, and pushed the possibilities of black by manipulating the surface of the paint to enhance texture, reflectivity, character... In fact, Soulages remarked that, "There are people who refuse to accept that you can create light on a black canvas." He calls his use of black outrenoir, ultra-black. He talks of black as being like another country, and has commented, "I like the authority of black. It is an uncompromising colour. A violent colour, but one that encourages internalisation. Both a colour and a non-colour. When light reflects on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field of its own." At 92, Soulages is one of France's most noted artists, now linked inextricably to his huge opus of black paintings, none of which have titles. These are two illustrations courtesy of his website.

Perhaps I have become more interested recently in the use of black in art because of my increasing use of black as a ground for silverpoint drawings. It is certainly a colour that arrests the gaze and transforms - I feel as though I too am straying into a totally different country with my silverpoints on black.

Simplicity in Art

2011-12-19T16:21:00.008-05:00

It is thought-provoking for every artist to see Albrecht Durer's statement that "Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art". In some ways, it is a bit ironic for Durer was perfectly capable of making complex, crowded works of art, especially his woodcuts.

Nonetheless, the image that of course comes first to mind when I read his remark is his super-famous Hands of an Apostle, a grey and white drawing on his favourite blue paper (image courtesy of Graphische Sammlung Albertina). This drawing was done in preparation for the Frankfurt church altarpiece that Jakob Heller commissioned him to paint in 1508. This is indeed a devastatingly simple drawing in one sense, but look at the rendering of the skin texture, the way Durer conveys the gentle meeting and touching of the finger tips, as well as the effort of keeping the hands together, despite their weight. The blue paper used, "carta azzurra", was a new enthusiasm for Durer; he learned about it when he went in 1507-08 to Venice. Artists in Northern Italy had been using it since 1389, and Venetian artists favoured it because it allowed them to use wonderful chiaroscuro effects.

He was using this paper again for this study of the Twelve-year Old Christ, an extraordinary, sensitive and yet very straightforward drawing (image at right courtesy of the Graphische Sammlung Albertina).

Durer continued to use this paper and took a goodly supply of it back home to Northern Europe. I remember reading somewhere that when he ran out of it, he went to great lengths to find alternative blue papers. This drawing on the left (image courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art) of the Arm of Eve was again, a very simple, powerful drawing Durer did on blue paper in 1507.

I think that it is a real discipline for each of us, as an artist, to try to simplify our work, to distill it to its essence, not to dilute and maybe obscure the message. There is always the temptation to add in more detail, more complexity... When you think of it, however, that a simple study, drawn 503 years ago on a small piece of blue paper, can remain so memorable, so vivid, so powerful is a total confirmation of Durer's statement about simplicity being the greatest "adornment of art".

Artists' Antennae

2011-12-15T19:33:00.011-05:00

While listening to the BBC World Service on the radio today, I heard an interesting interview on The Strand programme with South African composer Kevin Volans. He was discussing the multiple influences on him and sources of inspiration for his compositions.

He made the remark that a musician needs to have his ears open at all times to all the sounds around him, because he is thus "fed" and inspired - I am paraphrasing. I thought it was the perfect reminder to me, as a visual artist, that artists' antennae should be up at all times, our eyes open and registering actively and our senses receptive to the world around. No one ever really knows what will stimulate some new creative idea.. that is perhaps what makes being an artist so endlessly interesting and exciting. Volans was talking of living in South Africa and listening to Zulu being spoken on the street all around him. When he went to Germany and heard German being spoken, it made him very aware of the differences in sound and in fact, drove home to him his links to Africa.

I relate to that statement, because I grew up with melodic Kiswahili being spoken all around me, and somehow those sounds still mingle with brilliant African light and tropical colour in my mind. Antennae, for artists, don't just register visually; rather, we all should be aware of sounds, light, colour, motion or stillness... the world around us in multi-dimensional form. Sharpening one's powers of observation always brings rewards, because whatever the artist is seeking to create comes across more powerfully and authentically when there is knowledge behind the creation.

Thinking about artists' antennae being up and registering actively makes me think of those wonderful examples of Albrecht Durer's work, the watercolour studies of humble aspects of nature that became great art because of Durer's keen attentiveness. Perhaps my favourite example of this is his Great Piece of Turf, on the right (image courtesy of the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna), done in watercolour and gouache on paper. How many artists, then - in 1503 - or now - would think of painting a small sample of the grasses in a field, let alone be so aware of the exquisite details in the turf? In the same way, Durer's awareness of the beauty and intricacy of this Muzzle of a Bull is amazing. (Image courtesy of The British Museum.)

Durer painted this study in watercolour in 1523, many years after he painted the turf, but he was still looking very carefully at nature. In fact, Albrecht Durer was so noted for his studies of plants and animals that in the years after his death in 1528, those were the aspects of his art that were most admired and emulated by fellow artists and subsequent generations of artists.

Perhaps part of being an artist, in any discipline, is to have one's eyes and ears really working. Certainly all the great artists confirm the need for these well-honed antennae.

Leonora Carrington

2011-12-12T20:51:00.013-05:00

A really wonderful book on Leonora Carrington has just helped me fill in all sorts of blanks in my knowledge about this high-voltage Surrealist painter, who died earlier this year at the age of 94. The book, in Spanish, is simply entitled "Leonora", in the form of a novel, but clearly hewing very close to reality, because the authoress, Elena Poniatowska, knew Leonora well in Mexico City.

A rebel from the very start, Leonora Carrington spent her privileged youth in Britain in a series of acts of defiance against her father, Harold Carrington, the then powerful and very wealthy head of Imperial Chemical Industries. She soon developed a very lively imagination and fascination with Celtic folklore, as well as a deep love of horses, a motif that appeared frequently in her paintings.

Her love of art helped sweep her into a world where she met Max Ernst, the Dada and Surrealist German painter. Ernst influenced her way of painting, hardly surprising for they had a passionate love affair in Paris and the South of France until Ernst was arrested and interned after the Germans invaded France. Their circle of friends included most of the artists and celebrities of pre-World War II who spent time in Paris, from Picasso to Andre Breton, Dali, Paul Eluard and Miro.

After Ernst was arrested, Leonora suffered a horrific nervous breakdown. She escaped to New York after so-called treatment for the breakdown at an expensive clinic in Spain, an escape from war-ravaged Europe that was only possible because she married Renato Leduc, working at that time in the Mexican Embassy. Peggy Guggenheim was also awaiting passage to New York and the whole group of Surrealist authors, artists and their entourage continued to see each other in New York, where Peggy Guggenheim helped secure exhibits for the Surrealists.

Leonora painted but she also wrote a large number of books that garnered her a loyal following, especially after she moved with Leduc to Mexico City. There, she and Leduc separated and she married the Hungarian refugee Surrealist photographer, "Chiki" Weisz who had been the darkroom manager for his friend, the photographer Robert Capa.

The painting on the right is entitled Chiki Ton Pays.

Leonora's life in Mexico City was enriched by friendships with other artists, such as Remedios Varo, as they explored Mexican folklore, pre-Columbian art, alchemy, Jungian and Freudian thinking, Gudjieff's writings... in wonderfully diverse intellectual questings. All these strands showed up in some form or another in Carrington's paintings, and she became one of the most celebrated artists in Mexico. The mythical worlds she created on canvas (and in sculptures) wove magical beings and animals together, literally (for she would turn cobras into goats or transform blind crows into trees...) and metaphorically.

The painting on the left is from an untitled series done in 1969, whilst the painting on the right is done the previous year, 1968, and is entitled Lepidoptera.

Leonora Carrington's life is an inspiration to us all as artists. She dared defy traditions and pre-conceptions. She drew on such diverse sources for inspiration, from childhood, from fairy stories and folk art, from religions.... She was endlessly creative and inventive, in her writing, in her art and in her relationships with friends and acquaintances.

When Elena Poniatowska's book, "Leonora", is translated into English, as it surely will be, I highly recommend it. It is a fascinating way to learn more about this remarkable Surrealist artist.

Trees

2011-12-07T20:39:00.015-05:00

It's funny - when you are scrolling though masses of art images, there is sometimes one that stops you, grabs you and makes you investigate carefully. This happened to me the other day when I was trying to find out more about the Iranian poet and artist, Sohrab Sepehri, who lived from 1928 to 1980. His poems are beautiful, but it was his paintings that interested me.

He apparently had a love affair with trees all his life and did the most wonderful renditions of their trunks. (At left, Trees, 1970, image courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection.) He spent time in the early 1960s in Japan and was very much influenced by Japanese art, especially woodcuts, and Japanese haikus. He later had a very successful international career in art, and spent time working on a series that he called The Tree Trunk Series.

Apparently shy and retiring, Sepehri found a means of expression, as a painter, in his renditions of trees and landscapes, using soft brush strokes and a restrained palette to create these semi-abstracted portraits of trees that are very arresting, yet somehow very specific to place and implying great space beyond the canvas. On the right is a huge canvas, painted in 1978-79, is called House of Kashan and on the left, below, is an earlier work in the Tree Series. As was commented in an auction catalogue on Arcadja, "To him the tree was a symbol of benevolence and stability in a world corrupted by ignorance and malice, his majestic portrayals capture absolutely the quiet grandeur of ancient forests and harbour an undeniable mystical quality." Painting trees kept him anchored in a world in which he felt very comfortable, particularly when he had to deal with places like Manhattan, in which he felt very alien.

I suppose these paintings and the commentaries I have been able to read about Sepehri's optic on trees, both in his writings and in his art, all resonate with me, because I too love depicting trees. I find each one to be utterly individual, powerful and very much worth of a portrait. I realised that I keep returning to trees as subject matter, especially for my drawings in graphite and especially silverpoint, because I was selecting work to put up on another website to which I was invited this week. Since one travels in hope in life, this site is apparently aimed at designers and decorators - who knows! Nonetheless, my making a selection of art led me to posting a series of tree images.

What is always so interesting is to see how each artist approaches interpretation of trees. Since we all bring our life experience to the art-making, that is logical. The main point is to celebrate trees!

Silverpoint Drawing

2011-12-05T18:53:00.008-05:00

At times, there is a wonderful bonus to being an artist and specialising in a medium - it brings together a community of like-minded artists. It becomes, in essence, a celebration.

This happened to me this weekend in the silverpoint drawing world. A friend of mine, whom I had met first by Internet and then in person at The Luster of Silver survey of contemporary silverpoint drawing at the Evansville Museum of Art, Evansville, IN, came to visit me with her charming husband. Marjorie Williams-Smith, an exquisite silverpoint draughtswoman, drove from Little Rock, Arkansas, with her equally talented, master printer husband, AJ. The main purpose of the visit was to see the work I am doing, more and more, in silverpoint on a black ground versus a white or tinted ground. Marjorie obtained a grant to explore this dimension of the medium of silverpoint/metalpoint, and chose me as one of her "subjects" A huge compliment.

For me, as an artist very much working on my own in a rural part of the world, sharing ideas and "talking shop" with other artists, particularly in this rarified medium of silverpoint, is a real event. This weekend visit was indeed fascinating, as each of us has a different approach to drawing in silver on a black ground. We agree that one needs to have one's head go into reverse, as it were, since lights become darks, and the silver marks on the black ground are scintillating but very subtle. Choice of subject matter is different from the usual luminous versions of things in traditional silverpoint on a white ground. The few other artists we know who are working on black tend to work abstractly because it is such a challenge to make the delicate silver line visible. In real life, you can see the shimmer; in digital form, that is lost.

For instance, this drawing of "Posidonia", a wonderful Mediterranean sea grass, has much more of the feel of undulating fronds in real life as you look at the drawing.

However, there are also other aspects of this silverpoint on a black ground that are really interesting to learn about. I have found that because, apparently, the silver and copper (as in this drawing, "Life Forces") react chemically in a different fashion from when you are working with a white ground, there are other effects that appear. It depends, evidently, upon the chemical formulation of the actual ground. Presumably each manufacturer's formulation for black gesso might be different, to some degree, and this would also change the reaction of the silver and copper. Lots to learn!

It was fun, too, with Marjorie and AJ, to ponder the other conundrum to do with these black silverpoint drawings: how to frame them! I have been struggling with this aspect of these drawings for some time now and have not really found a true solution, because there is such subtlety and mystery to the drawings that they need a different framing approach.

It was really such a celebratory day together with these two wonderful artists. I was so appreciative of the fact that silverpoint drawing brought us all together. It was a wonderful bonus.

What Trees tell me

2011-11-30T19:53:00.010-05:00

I realise that I am extremely lucky often to be surrounded by very beautiful trees, of very different types according to where I am in the world. I can quite understand why people worshipped trees and why today, there are so-called tree-huggers.

There is a majesty and serenity inherent in a large tree, something that dwarfs human presumptions and quiets one's fears. Their trunks tell of their capacity for endurance, adaptation and survival; their shapes tell of past influences of weather, treatment by man or animal, drought or abundance of rain and nutrients. This huge beech, growing in Givhans Ferry State Park in South Carolina, spoke to me insistently, in the cold spring light. Before long, as I was drawing this in graphite, I was totally at peace, unaware of anything save the tree.

Every time I find myself drawing or painting a tree, I remember s remark that Paul Cezanne apparently made: "Art is a harmony parallel with nature". In the case of trees, as wonderful representatives of nature, they help me achieve a degree of harmony and serenity that is a huge gift. When I perched uncomfortably on a very hard rock to draw this Aleppo Pine on Palma de Mallorca's outskirts, I was oblivious of the curious looks given me by people walking their dogs. I was somehow in harmony with this luminous tree that spoke of times when Palma was not such a sea of concrete.Drawing in silverpoint seemed appropriate for it had the same wonderful luster.

This is another silverpoint drawing of an Aleppo pine, growing far up on the mountains above the city of Palma, where the view takes one far over the sea to the neighbouring island of Ibiza. The driving winds are shaping this pine, as it clings to the rocky mountainside. But it somehow seemed timeless.

These rugged pine trees, growing on a windswept ridge in Brittany, were equally "eternal" in feel, as I sat in a ploughed, muddy field to draw them. Farmers were passing with huge trailers full of manure to fertilise their fields, and they gave me some very curious looks. The crows were calling far overhead in the soft luminously grey sky. It was a time when my art did indeed provide me a passport to a "harmony parallel with Nature".

This quiet that comes to one as one works outside en plein air is especially magical. Nothing else seems temporarily to matter - just the dialogue between what one is trying to depict and one's hand working on the surface of the paper. Yet one hears bird song, the sound of the wind, different calls of humans or animals - but as a backdrop only. It is somehow a different experience to when one is deep in work in the studio, perhaps because of the vagaries of the weather and surroundings. Another aspect also comes into play when trees are the subject matter: they are intensely, logically complicated in their form and growth, and somehow one has to sort that all out, without depicting every single branch or leaf. Each type of tree is totally individualistic, and I liken drawing each one to doing a portrait of a person.

Perhaps, however, one is more likely to be in harmony with trees than with a fellow human being that one is drawing or painting? Who knows!

Gratitude

2011-11-27T13:31:00.003-05:00

I love it when life decides to underline things... I was busy digesting a thought-provoking and timely article on "Gratitude" in that excellent publication, The Christian Science Monitor (November 21 issue), when I got news that delighted me and made me feel distinctly grateful.

I had found a listing for Art Residencies in Neopoli, South Italy, in one of the bulletins sent out by the Fulton Council Arts Council; it sounded totally alluring. So I applied, outlining ideas for the work I might do during a two-week residency. To my delight, I have been accepted for this Residency at Palazzo Rinaldi.

So when I read in the CSM article on "Gratitude" this quote from Albert Einstein: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle", I can only echo - Amen.

Painters' Heritage

2011-11-24T16:56:00.007-05:00

Just in time for Thanksgiving, I learn from Science News of a reason to thank our ancestors again for artistic ventures.

Apparently, in that amazing archaeological treasure trove of very early man's life, Blombos Cave, along South Africa's coast, yet another indication of man's early artistic interests has been excavated. The engraved pieces of ochre, dating from some 80,000 years ago, have already been celebrated, and in fact, I blogged about them in August, 2010. Now, Dr. Christopher Henshilwood of Norway's University of Bergen has found a pair of tool kits which show that man, some 100,000 years ago, was already deliberately mixing chemicals to produce a pigment. Dr. Henshilwood and his colleagues have shown that these early inhabitants of South Africa were taking ochre chips, treated animal bones charcoal, quartz in granular form and some unidentifiable liquid and producing a form of paint. They were planning ahead, preparing pigment for a specific purppose, just as artists do today.

Among their finds, the archaeologists found this abalone shell which held this "paint", and an animal bone that had traces of red on it and which was spatula-shaped, perhaps to stir the paint and apply it. (Image courtesy of Science News.)

100,000 years is a long stretch back in time. To know that artistic activities - i.e. mark-making by deliberate pigment preparation - were already underway makes my mind really stretch. But it is a good stretch! And a reason to give thanks.

Making Others See

2011-11-22T19:15:00.007-05:00

Every artist knows the excitement of seeing something, discovering something or thinking of something that can then be translated into a work of art. The greater the excitement, the more impassioned the work and frequently, the better the results. Yet those results are then out in the wide world for each viewer to interpret and understand. And the path to achieving memorable art for viewers can be long and arduous.

Edgar Degas remarked, "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." This wise and oh so experienced artist knew that that transformative alchemy needs somehow to come into play amidst the excitement of creation. His skill and innovative methods in choice of composition - often daring indeed for the time with their nod to Japanese woodcuts - allowed him to direct the viewer's gaze in almost unconscious fashion. He also commented, "No art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament I know nothing." As he grew older, he would work and rework compositions, trying out parts and juxtaposing them in different fashion, seeking to express movement, psychological impact, social distinctions, but always mindful of what he wished the viewer to appreciate. Chance was not in his methodology of art making.

Look at these two works with their bold, unusual compositions. On the left is an 1886 pastel, Woman Bathing (image courtesy of the Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT).

On the right is a circa 1888 oil painting, Dancers at the Barre, belonging to the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. In each case, Degas is playing with the viewer, directing the eye like an orchestra director conducts the musicians. If you pull the works apart and analyse each one, there are all sorts of odd shapes of limbs, strange angles of bodies, tipped lines. He is using almost hieroglyphic forms to convey what he wants us to see. Part of the influence in later works is also photography, a medium that Degas embraced from the 1870s onwards. The camera's eye allows even more radical cropping and organisation of space than did the Japanese woodcut tradition, and Degas used these possibilities to full advantage, often in multi-layered compositions.

Part of his way of creating art, especially as he grew older, was to rely on his memory or on the small working sculptures he created of ballerinas, refining and refining the marks and gestures, in the same way that ballet dancers practise and practise movements. I read that he once said that were he to set up an art school, he would house it all under one roof, a building with six floors. On the top floor, he would put the novices to start drawing from the model. As the students progressed, he would move them downstairs, floor by floor. When they were at their most proficient, they would be on the ground floor, and that meant that in order to see the original model, they would actually have to clamber back up the stairs to the sixth floor. By this, he implied that memory is critical to an artist. Until you have practised, practised and re-practised until your art-making has become indelibly part of your inner being, you cannot then devote your attention to organising your artwork in seeming spontaneity but in very purposeful fashion for the maximum effect on viewers.

There are, coincidentally, a number of interesting exhibitions currently on display about Edgar Degas and different aspects of his artistic endeavours. Perhaps the most unusual sounds to be that of Degas and the Nude, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. At the Phillips Collection, there is Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint, while at the Royal Academy, London, Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement. Lucky viewers can savour of being skilfully "made to see" what Degas wanted them to see.

Parables of Creation

2011-11-14T19:17:00.009-05:00

The celebrated art dealer and collector, Ernst Beyeler, who died in Basel, Switzerland, last year, remarked, "I have always perceived works of art as parables of creation - analogous to nature, as Cezanne once said - an expression of joie de vivre". That perception and keenness of eye made him famous for his choices in art.

Art as a parable of creation is an interesting concept. In a literal sense, there has long been art which illustrates and teaches aspects of religion, particularly when the Catholic Church was, de facto, the sponsor of some of the world's greatest artists during the Renaissance time and beyond. One of the most celebrated examples is, of course, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.

This is one of the most iconic parts of that vast series of paintings, when God gives Adam the gift of life.

Artists explored every way they could conceive of conveying interpretations of creation, as written in the Bible. Some of this art also spoke of joie de vivre, of sensuous love, of beauty and of life. Nature came once more into prominence, as it had been in earlier Medieval art, when depictions of flowers, birds, landscapes... had symbolised holy matters. As the 16th century moved on in Italy, for instance, more and more artists were combining the richness of the new technique of oil painting with their draughting skills. Their subjects expanded to landscapes, cityscapes, everyday scenes... art where creation could have a much wider meaning. The same movement was happening in Northern Europe.

Rembrandt, for instance, was magisterial in his ability to create art that evoked deep meaning about creation, about man's condition, and - sometimes - joie de vivre. Interestingly, as highlighted by an exhibition this year at the Louvre and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rembrandt broke with artistic tradition by using Jewish models to depict Christ and made his Christ a living person, not an icon due great reverence. Indeed, by the 17th century, the artistic vocabulary had become much more elastic; it could allude to many more emotions that were not so dictated by religious concept.

As art - and Western society - moved on through the centuries to our own, both the definitions of creation and joie de vivre have evolved hugely. Art became less and less "coded" and straightforward, so that knowledge of symbols, especially religious, became unnecessary. There can of course be many layers of meaning, but most paintings can be read to some degree, with consequent enjoyment. (Think of people's reactions to Impressionist paintings, or those of 20th century artists...) Nature has always contributed greatly to the joie de vivre of viewers, from flower paintings onwards. Now the parables of creation are more about general celebrations of life, our world in general.

Meanwhile, other civilisations' art (China, Japan, Korea, India, Islamic art, etc.) have been equally eloquent spokesmen for parables of creation - just in totally different fashion. In truth, personally, I have always found Japanese art totally intoxicating in its beauty and thus, joie de vivre. (At left, Hasogawa Tohaku's six folded screens on paper, Pine Trees, courtesy of the Tokoyo National Museum.)

In the same way, exquisite Koranic calligraphy is sacred art and in a way, a very real parable of creation. Look at this Maghribi script version of a Koran Sura, done in North Africa in the 13th century (image courtesy of the Smithsonian Museum.)

I have strayed far from Ernst Beyeler's opinion, but I think his criteria of how to delight in beautiful art, of all descriptions, are very accurate. When a work of art rings true, is "analogous to Nature", then a viewer can indeed fall in love with that art at first glance - in other words, have a coup de foudre. What fun!

A Gift of Colour and Light

2011-11-10T20:14:00.019-05:00

The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, is a place of such contrasts. Dread and hope, anxiety and tranquility, fears and laughter... Yet it is often a vessel of transformations and healing alchemy.

There are sculptures gracing the lawns, fountains play in the different lakes, live oak trees shade camellias in bloom - all help calm and center the visitors to the Clinic.

There is, however, an even more beautiful gift of colour and light at the moment, in the Mayo building, en route to the hospital. It is a small exhibition of work by the Scottish Colourists, owned and lent by the major Mayo benefactors, Isabelle and Robert Davis.

I have always loved the bold, elegant work of the Scottish Colourists, a small group of artists who included Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935), John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961), Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) and George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931). They achieved a wonderful fusion of French artistic influences that ranged from Manet to Cezanne and Gauguin, in composition, brushwork, colour and their choice of humble everyday objects that became monumental. Post Impressionist in their approach, they all worked together, often travelling to different locations to work as companions. Fergusson and Hunter were essentially self-taught, while the Academie Julian in Paris played an important role in their collective development, along with the artistic ferment of early 20th century France, where Matisse, Picasso or the Fauves were supplanting the Impressionists.

Whilst he painted many landscapes, Peploe loved to paint still lifes, such as this Peonies and Fruit, one of his many carefully arranged compositions. "There is so much in mere objects, flowers, leaves, jugs, what not - colours, forms, relations" he said. "I can never see mystery coming to an end."

Fergusson was also very much influenced by Manet and even Velazquez. He was a pivotal figure amongst the Scottish quartet of artists, and he in turn influenced other artists such as the young American artist, Anne Estelle Rice, (1877-1959), who had been trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, before coming to Paris.

Fergusson painted some fine portraits of Rice; this is a drawing he did of her in preparation for a painting. She too produced some wonderfully strong and simple still lifes, such as the one displayed at the Mayo, Still Life with Dahlias.

Her friend, Fergusson, produced a huge body of work: at a 1961 memorial exhibition, his artist friend, Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac, wrote, ""His art is a deep and pure expression of his immense love of life. Endowed with a rare plastic feeling, almost sculptural in its quality. he joined with it an exceptional sense of colour, outspoken, ringing colours, rich and splendid in their very substance." This late painting is a perfect example of his love of life.

Frank "Bunty" Cadell studied in Paris and became noted for his portraits of glamorous women. He returned to Scotland, where he discovered the island of Iona, an important turning point in his development as an artist. He served in world War I, as did his fellow Scottish Colourists, and he reacted to the horrors of war with optimism and heightened joie de vivre, both of which were reflected in his subjects and the joy with which he painted them. He returned often, after the War, to his utopia, Iona, where he summered, alone or with Peploe in 1920. A fellow artist noted, "It seems to me more than ever clear that your forte lies in a gift of colour and light." The joyous mid-1920s painting above of Iona would bear out that statement.

George Leslie Hunter moved from Scotland to California with his family as a young boy, but as an adult, he spent time in Scotland, France, Italy and America. He was recognised early on as a skilled draughtsman and drawing remained one of his great strengths.

Like Cadell with Iona, Hunter found Largo, in Scotland, to be a place of great inspiration, as is shown in this painting. He was also noted for his treatment of light and sense of colour.

The Davis collection of Scottish Colourists being shown at the Mayo is also rounded out beautifully by exquisite canvases by three artists who had links to the Scottish Colourists - Anne Estelle Rice, the American artist whom Fergusson both encouraged and celebrated in portraits.

This is a still life with fruit and flowers that Rice painted and which was recently sold at Sotherbys.

Another Scottish artist, Anne Redpath (1895-1965), was a student of the Scottish Colourists while she was studying in Edinburgh. She later moved to the South of France with her husband where they became part of the Scottish Colourists circle. In her work, she was, to an extent, one of their heirs, being especially influenced by Peploe and Cadell.

Her celebration of familiar household objects in her still lifes and her use of colour harmonies of cool contrasting with warmer hues were hallmarks of her work. This wonderful flower study, Flowers on a white tablecloth, was in her collection at her death (image courtesy of the Portland Gallery).

The last artist represented in the Mayo exhibition was a British artist, Robert Bevan (1865-1925). The link with the other Scottish artists was that he too studied at the Academie Julian in Paris. He also spent time in Brittany and was linked to the Pont-Aven school of artists who were experimenting with the use of colour and form. During his life, his work was considered controversial and too avant-garde, with one critic labelling his use of colour "garish". However, by the time he died in 1925, he was celebrated in art circles and hailed for his "modernist powers".

By the time I had finished savouring of the beautiful and interesting exhibition in the Mayo building, I had become sadly aware of how many preoccupied people had hastened past this gift of colour and light. All I can hope is that they will find a moment of peace and delight the next time they pass that way. They would be rewarded.

The Process of Discovery

2011-11-09T22:01:00.011-05:00

When artists embark on a creative venture, particularly one that uses Nature as its springboard, a process of discovery is often necessary.

Take, for example, a tree that may be inspiring a sculptor, a photographer, a draughtsman or a painter. Unless the artist already knows that tree very well, he or she will need to study the tree to learn of its characteristics. Height, form of growth, girth, type of leaf and bark, its flowers and seeds, its general look that identifies it as an oak, a cherry tree, or a poinciana.... Only after learning about that particular tree can the artist move on to creating art that evokes it, in some form. By finding out about the tree, you can then decide what to depict, what to emphasise, what to eliminate, how to weave the fruit of your discoveries into a composition, a work of art. In essence, the process of discovery allows one to distill some order out of the seeming chaos in front of one's eyes.

For a painter or draughtsman/woman, small thumbnail sketches are one passport to imposing some order on one's discoveries. Frequently, when one is working en plein air, there is such an abundance of information pouring into one's brain that it is overwhelming. Translating all those discoveries of form, light, pattern, whatever... into a coherent composition is daunting. So small, quick studies, trying out compositions, seeking to simplify shapes and strengthen light patterns and passages. introducing repetitions and contrasts, are a way to further the process of discovery. These studies don't take very long, one can try out lots of versions, in any medium, and each one helps further to refine what one is trying to say. They are also a form of shorthand note-taking, helping to catch fleeting light or shapes, or sorting out complex aspects. I find that they are especially valuable before I launch into a silverpoint drawing, because they can save me lots of troubles, given that silverpoint precludes any alterations or erasures.

Since I have never scanned any of the thumbnail sketches from my drawing books, I am indebted to other artists for allowing me to illustrate ways of using thumbnail sketches. At left is an example of small exploratory drawing/paintings which use knowledge already absorbed from the landscape to determine which is the best way to proceed.
This image is courtesy of Marion Boddy-Evans. (Licensed to About.com, Inc.)

These thumbnail drawings are done by George Bumann, a noted wildlife sculptor living in wild and beautiful Montana. The studies were apparently done on a visit in 2009 to Yellowstone National Park. Eloquent shorthand, they show how his knowledge of those landscapes, born of multiple discoveries and observations, helps define his art. I am grateful to him for such illustrations.

Because an artist has taken the time and made the effort to discover what it is that makes a subject notable, beautiful, interesting, relevant... the resultant distilled knowledge becomes a passport to making good art, art that rings true without having to be a faithful reproduction of what is being viewed. As the French poet, Charles Baudelaire, once remarked, "All good and genuine draughtsmen draw according to the picture inscribed in their minds, and not according to nature."

For that picture to be inscribed in the mind, there needs first to be a process of discovery.

"Deliberate Practice"

2011-11-02T19:36:00.004-04:00

I am still reading the fascinating book, Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer - it rewards with lots of ideas. One that I found thought-provoking today is one about hitting a wall when you are trying to achieve proficiency in some activity, from golf to music or memory-training.

According to Foer, this limiting plateau is know to psychologists are the "OK plateau". When we learn a skill, we go through phases - the beginning "cognitive stage" when you are learning the ropes and finding out the best ways to accomplish the task. Then comes the "associative stage", when things are becoming more automatic and fewer errors happen. Finally, the "autonomous stage" is reached, when you are no longer really conscious of exactly what you are doing when performing the task. Being on autopilot allows us then to concentrate on other, less familiar things whilst still getting the job done, but there is a drawback. You no longer improve your particular skill.

I think that happens easily to all of us as artists. We work and work, practise and practise, and believe that the more we spend time doing art, the better we will become. But apparently, there is a remedy to the walls we all hit in our art. Thank goodness!

Professor K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University's Human Performance Laboratory, Department of Psychology, in Tallahassee has apparently studied the top experts in many different fields and analysed their methods of working and improving skills. They all adopt similar strategies: they find ways consciously to keep their "autopilot" state from turning on when they practise. They pay close attention to their technique, they remain very clear about their goals, and they rely on lots of feedback that is frequent and immediate.

Applying this wisdom to making art seems to be very relevant. It makes the case for being flexible and inventive in the techniques we use for art-making, using new media, trying a different approach to media we already use... I think any successful artist knows that realistically-defined but very clear goals are vital ... and need updating and "nourishing" frequently. The feedback aspects are terribly important too, but harder for those of us who tend to work alone. It is a wonderful gift of the gods when one has a group of trusted and respected fellow artists, or even a friend, to whom one can show one's efforts and get reactions and feedback. Every time I am lucky enough to have a critique session with artist friends, I know that I learn and grow a great deal.

I find it so interesting to have these foundations for artist growth confirmed so elegantly in a book on enhancing memory.... It is logical, but unexpected!

Learning to See Things Accurately

2011-10-31T20:52:00.007-04:00

Saturday was one of those days when it was so misty at one point that one could hardly see anything across the marshes at Dunham Farms, Midway, Georgia. Within a couple of hours, however, it was brilliant sunshine and the world was transformed. It all made one stretch as an artist working outdoors!

I thought of a remark that Michael Gormley had written about the artist, Bo Barlett, in an American Artist article in the March-April 2011 issue. He reported about Barlett that, "Like many other artists, he notes that looking and learning to see things for what they really are (my emphasis), rather than seeing a projection of a preconceived mental concept, is key to the development of a visual language."

Barlett's observation is so true for all of us as artists. I found that as I peered through the mist to try and see accurately, it became a series of surprises. What I saw first, in the scene above (Edge of the Creek, Dunham Farms, graphite), were indistinguishable silhouetted lines of distant horizons. I looked harder, and finally began to see individual small islands and different trees edging the marshes.

The same thing later occurred when I wanted to draw the wood storks perched on a dead tree on a distant island. The birds moved constantly, the wind riffled the palmettos and their fronds were a maze of lines and ever-moving shapes. It was a real challenge even to make any sense of the scene, let alone create a drawing. (At left, Dunham Farms, Midway - wood storks, graphite.)

Another effort of intent observation, later in the day when the sun allowed one to see better in the forest, was trying to follow the myriad lines and patterns in a magnificent old dead live oak tree trunk. Time had distilled the upright trunk to rhythmic sinews, an endless maze of movement. Its patterns and rhythms fascinated me, but I found it really challenging to sit and concentrate on following its ways whilst trying to create a sensible drawing. (At right, Live Oak Rhythms, Prismacolor).

Every time that I go out to work plein air, I am reminded of how difficult it actually is to look really hard and see things accurately. It is a siren call to assume one knows what is going on in the scene in front of one. It is so much easier to think one knows. Only when I remind myself to look again and again, with my eyes really open, do I discover that Nature is once again liable to fool one. In other words, a facile, preconceived "visual language" would not necessarily be an accurate one that reflects one's artistic voice.

Landscape Painting

2011-10-28T21:17:00.005-04:00

Back in March of this year, in The Spectator, Angela Summerfield discussed Peter Frie: Last Summer, an exhibition of landscapes by a Berlin-based Swedish artist, Peter Frie. In view of the fact that tomorrow, I am planning to work plein air on landscape drawings, this statement in Summerfield's article came back to me. ( At right, Peter Frie's "Eliopainting No. 3", oil on canvas, image courtesy of Eskilstuna Konstmuseum.)

I quote, "Landscape painting has not fared well within the dictates of modernist and post-modernist art definitions. It is as if an urban-centric, text-driven and often anti-aesthetic dogma has stifled both alternative discourse and individual human expression. Yet our experience of landscape, and by association Nature, is fundamental to the development of our senses, perceptual vocabulary and cognitive awareness.

This statement resonates for me in a number of ways. Since I live in non-urban environments, I find most of my daily delights and inspiration in Nature, in one way or another. I am also very aware that my tastes are therefore different from those of countless millions of people who live in big cities, where the dragooned green trees along streets and in artificially-constructed parks are the major remnants and reminders of the natural world, apart from weather conditions. The world in which we all live is indeed mostly text-driven, a fact which again contributes, according to this thought-provoking book that I am reading, Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer, to our collective loss of the capacity for memory. Because we can all rely on books, Google, digital files or whatever to recuperate facts, our memories have virtually abdicated, as compared to the memory of Greeks, Romans and medieval notables. In those early times, people could remember vast amounts of knowledge, from all the names of soldiers in an army to long, involved speeches or treatises. After Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436, our memories took a hit. In the same way, only well-trained artists retained the capacity to remember innumerable details of landscape or human form. Familiarity with landscapes and Nature's ways became the domain of the few in the art world.

Today, that is indeed true. Yet unless we artists somehow learn how Nature "works", an enormous chunk of our personal vocabulary is stunted. It is as if we try to learn French, but never hear how the words are correctly pronounced. We thus never understand the nuances, the cadences and accentuations, let alone the words themselves, that convey a world of meaning.

Ultimately, I fear that Angela Summerfield's rather pessimistic outlook about landscape painting will continue to pertain. I don't see art collectors returning en masse to support landscape painting (and drawing). Nonetheless, for those of us who believe landscapes and Nature in general have much to offer, there is the comfort that personally, we are enriched, and that there are indeed some people with whom landscape painting resonates. Hurray for "alternative discourse and individual human expression"!

Just look at Peter Frie's version of a "Blue Morning" (image courtesy of artfinders.co.uk.) - he should give us all encouragement and hope to follow our own paths vis-a-vis Nature.

Artists' Ways of Seeing Things

2011-10-23T19:00:00.005-04:00

I am reading a book entitled "Moonwalking with Einstein. The Art and Science of Remembering Everything" by Joshua Foer. The title is self-explanatory, the style is highly readable as Foer is a seasoned writer for such publications as the New York Times, National Geographic, Slate, etc. The content is totally fascinating - about how science is slowly understanding better how the human brain works, especially in terms of memory.

I still have many pages to go, but one page started me thinking about the parallels between artists and the master chess players that Foer was discussing. In the 1940s, Adriaan de Groot, a Dutch psychologist and chess player, decided to investigate what separated a good chess player from a master chess player - what was going on in their heads? Were the top players able to think further ahead in their moves, did they have better mental tools or a more honed intuition for the game? From past high level games,De Groot selected a series of board positions where there was one correct move to make which was not all that obvious. He then asked a group of top flight chess players to ponder these boards and to think aloud as they selected the proper move.

To De Groot's astonishment, the players mostly did not think many moves ahead, nor did they consider more possible moves. What they did was to see the right move, and almost immediately. After analysing the players' commentaries, De Groot realised that the chess experts were reacting, rather than thinking, and they could do this because their long experience of playing had taught them to think about "configurations of pieces like 'pawn structures' and immediately noticed things that were out of sorts, like exposed rooks". They had learned to see the whole chess board and thirty-two chess pieces as systems and groups. Later studies of top players' eye movements confirm that they literally see a different chess board, for they see more edges of the squares, which means they are encompassing whole areas at once. They also move their eyes across greater distances, without lingering for long at any one spot. Those places on which they do focus tend to be the key areas linked to making the right move.

This description of how master chess players function made me think of artists who have honed their skills day after day, year after year. Their eye-hand coordination has been perfected, their senses of composition/design, colour and content are developed. When they draw a nude, for instance, or work on a landscape painting plein air, for instance, they are not looking at just one spot. Rather, they are encompassing the whole so that almost intuitively, they can adjust their composition, their values and colour in the work for the best results. Their powers of observation and concentration are almost unthinking, because they are trained and disciplined.

To me, Winslow Homer is an example of a highly skilled painter, producing amazingly fresh landscapes, frequently plein air, and often in watercolour. One such example is "The Red Canoe" (image courtesy of the Peabody Collection, the Athenaeum).

Foer goes on to comment on the master chess players' amazing memories. I suspect that the great artists, past and present, also intrinsically rely on their memories quickly to understand a subject after a brief moment of studying it, Like the chess players, they can also call upon past experiences to bolster and inform their present work. The saying, "Been there, done that" applies, in a very positive sense, to an artist as well as chess players. Perhaps one should just add, "umpteen times"!

Assessing the Year as an Artist

2011-10-19T18:49:00.003-04:00

Summer has slipped into autumn all too quickly this year. Only now have I been able to send my art-collector friends a brief newsletter about the year as an artist. I find this yearly exercice an interesting assessment of what I have been trying to do and where my art has been available for viewing.

This has been, in truth, an unusual year, with bereavement and family health problems precluding a lot of artwork being done (and fewer blog posts as well!). Nonetheless, sadness and anxiety have been mixed with great joy and delights.

McIntosh Art Association, Darien, GA, hosted my spotlight solo exhibition, At the Edge of the Marsh, in April and May. I showed watercolours, silverpoints and graphite drawings. In May-June, I exhibited silverpoint drawings alongside Daniel Smith's monoprints in Point and Counterpoint at the Hospice Savannah Gallery. Meanwhile, in April and May, I was part of an invitational exhibition, again with silverpoint drawings, at the Art and Soul Gallery at the Women's Center of Jacksonville, entitled Lasting Impressions. Another national invitational show in which I participated was Luminous Metal: Contemporary Drawings in Metalpoint, at the Clement Art Gallery in Troy, NY. I have also just exhibited my art at a Coastal Wildscapes conference held in early October at Richmond Hill, GA.

Other shows in which my work was selected for exhibit during the year were:

- Brainstorm: Opening Minds, Embracing Change, with Women's Caucus for Art of Georgia.
The first venue was at Atlanta's Central Library and the show then travelled to
Upstairs/Artspace in Tyron, NC.
- I'm in Love with this Idea, also a in Women's Caucus for Art Georgia exhibition, was held at the Georgia Perimeter College, Atlanta.
- Katonah Museum Artists' Association, a large group show at Northern Westchester Hospital, NY.
- Little Things mean a Lot, a holiday show at the Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta.
- Portraits to Pixels: Celebrating 125 Years of Collecting at the Telfair, a selection of work from the permanent collection, at the Telfair Museums, Savannah. One of my silverpoint drawings was included.
- Transformations, an on-line international show sponsored by the Women's Caucus for Art in San Diego, CA, in which I was awarded second place honours for one of my silverpoint drawings.
- New Hall Art Auction 2011, an on-line auction for the New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge, with art produced by those of us with work in their permanent art collection.

Early in the year, I held a silverpoint workshop at the Telfair Museum of Art at their invitation, and was scheduled to hold a watercolour workshop. Alas, I had to cancel that due to my mother's death. Later, I held a plein air workshop for McIntosh Art Association members on Butler's Island, near Darien.

My art was featured in a variety of newspaper articles: the Darien News covered my Darien solo exhibition, as did the Brunswick News. Later, the Savannah Morning News's art critic, Alison Hersh, wrote about the "Dynamic Duo at Hospice Gallery". The Art Connection in Boston featured my art, as did the WCAGA website. My work was also included in websites as varied as Women Environmental Artists, Artist Sites, Wooloo or the Irving Sandler Artist Slide Registry/Artists Space. Of course, my art and updated activities are also featured on my own website at http://www.jeanninecoook.com.

I am already working towards exhibitions which are planned for next year and beyond. I am co-curator with Professor Jeff Lewis of Auburn University of a silverpoint exhibition to be held in 2013 at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn, AL. I shall be participating with a group of artist friends in Celebrating the Coast at Glynn Art Association Gallery in 2012, and joining my friend, Marjett Schille, in an exhibition, Sapelo Island, at Brenau University, Gainesville, GA, in 2013.

My 16th Annual Art Tasting was held last December 4th and once more, for Rundle and me, it was a celebration at our home at Cedar Point. I felt honoured to display my art for my friends. This memory is now a little bittersweet as I realise that this year, I will not be able to invite people to another Art-Tasting. Rundle is facing surgery for an incipient aneurysm in his other leg, and between those uncertainties and our late return from Spain, I sadly concluded that it would unrealistic to organise things in time. Nonetheless, I hope that, deo volente, I can plan a spring art celebration.

Efforts and hopes - but now to getting down to creating art again. That is where the discipline comes in!

Euros - Symbolism on the Bank Notes

2011-10-19T17:38:00.009-04:00

Last week, when the Eurozone was hanging on the final "yes" vote in the Slovak Parliament to agree to the proposed EU bailout fund, I could not help thinking about the actual euro currency and its design.

For those who have not seen the bank notes, they are elegant. In clear and distinct colours that are easy to distinguish, they are a welcome change from semi-monochromatic currencies. Their design was thoughtful and symbolic, for this currency is an ambassador for the countries of the European Union. History, ethics, moral values... are all implied by a country's currency, and more so with this new currency that the EU launched in 2002.

On the side illustrated at right, it was decided to use architecture down the ages in Europe, designing it so that it was not specifically that of any one place. Using the symbolic motif of arches and entrances, examples were sought from across Europe and then stylised. The 5€ bill evokes classical architecture, the 10€ Roman architecture and the 20€ alludes to Gothic buildings. The 50€ brings us to Renaissance times, the 100€ refers to Baroque and Rococo architecture, the 200€ evokes the advent of metal in 19th century buildings, while the 500€ brings us to modern architecture. (For many years, in Spain, the 500€ bills were referred to as "Bin Ladens" as they were so seldom seen!)

The reverse side of the bank notes is about bridges, another important symbol for this ever-increasing union of countries that have often been enemies in the past.

Again, the style of architecture follows the
same time frame, from classical to modern.

One of my favourite notes is the 20€ bill, for its limpid, subtle blue and serene design reminds me of the wonderful stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals and the old bridges across the rivers of Northern Europe.

Sometimes, it is at the physical level - that of handling the bank notes and looking at their artistic design and symbolism - that helps bring home the importance of parliamentary decisions. I am glad that the Slovaks decided to help the euro stagger on again. It would be a great shame to abandon such elegant currency!

The Shock of Recognition

2011-10-02T13:47:00.004-04:00

You enter an exhibition, perhaps almost by chance. You see the title of the show, and you are trying to orient yourself as to what it is about.

Then you round the first corner in the exhibit room, and boom, you get a jolt. Straight in front of you, out of the blue, you see a piece of art that you know well, something that has resonated with you before. And there it is again, quietly hanging on the wall. This shock of recognition, a thrill of interest and delight, are what makes me realise how much art means to me in daily life.

This reunion with pieces of art that I admire happened a little while ago when I strayed into the lovely CaixaForum exhibition hall in Palma, in the elegantly restored modernist Gran Hotel. I saw that there was an exhibition of etchings entitled, "From Durer to Morandi. Engravings from the William Cuendet Foundation and the Atelier Saint-Pret". It was a large Swiss collection of very fine editions of work by innumerable artists from Durer to Rembrandt, Canneletto, Piranesi, Goya, Degas and many others.

One of my first delights was a Rembrandt work - The Holy Family with a Cat, from 1654 - a work that always enchanted me with the inclusion of the cat. I had not seen it for a while, and so lingered to savour of the composition, the feeling conveyed by the whole harmonious order of the etching.

Another happy reunion amongst the other one hundred and thirty works was this deliciously memorable work by Edgar Degas, At the Louvre, Painting, Mary Cassatt, 1879-1880. I have always loved its daring composition and essentially late 19th century French atmosphere. Both these images are courtesy of the Jenisch Museum, Vevey, Switzerland.

My impulsive choice to walk into this exhibition, as I hastened through a list of errands, was such a bonus. The shock of recognition jolted me again and again. I came out exhilarated and grateful for the serendipitious gifts of art.

"Suite dans les idees" - is it important in art?

2011-09-25T16:39:00.003-04:00

I have always been fascinated by a consistency of thought in people as they develop an idea or a work. It seems often to be important to have a logical progression, an evolution of ideas that allow others to follow what is being done. Nonetheless, it seems often to be a challenge for artists to produce a consistent body of work, and I wonder more and more if it is that important.

In the art market, for instance, it is often considered desirable that an artist work in a coherent and understandably sequential fashion - think of Andy Warhol's series of silkscreen prints that have been so wildly successful from their creation. Art galleries are often reported to be less than enthusiastic if an artist suddenly changes and goes off in a very different direction in the work.

Personally, I realise that there are two warring tendencies in my art-making. I find it often to be rewarding to work in series, trying to explore aspects of a subject in a sequence of pieces. Yet I also love to go off in a totally different direction, trying another medium, another approach that has nothing to do with anything else I have done. So I was interested to find a quote about Joan Miro, who told an interviwer in 1928, that "when I've finished something... I've got to take off from there in the opposite direction" (from "A Conversation with Joan Miro", Francesc Tribal, La Publicite, 14 July 1928).

This observation is an insight into how an artist works - where the inspiration comes from, the wellspring of ideas and general artistic discipline. I think that many artists relate to Miro's way of working - variety is stimulating. They may later circle back to a previous theme, but with the subtle changes that time can impose.

This "suite dans les idees" - a coherency and consistency of ideas - can lead to the definition of an artist's style and hallmark. But it can also lead to repetition and even staleness... Perhaps Miro was wise to find reasons to renew his energies by challenge and change. The diversity of his oeuvre certainly makes a good case for going off in "the opposite direction".

Artists' Dedication

2011-09-24T10:01:00.013-04:00

The other day, a friend remarked to me that in these lean economic times, we will see important works of art and literature being produced. In other words, artists, almost in spite of themselves, will be working away, and the challenges they face will be a stimulus to go further, do things differently and make progress.

This dedication to art-making was, for instance, an early characteristic of Joan Miro. As early in his career as 1915, he quoted Goethe's statement that, "He who always looks ahead may sometimes falter, but he then returns with new strength to his task". At that time, Miro was principally dedicated to landscape painting, and was soon to produce some of his early masterpieces about life at Mont-roig, his family home in the Tarragona countryside, near Barcelona.

"The Farm" (at left, image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC),"House with Palm Trees", "The Rut" or "Vegetable Garden and Donkey" are all results of what Miro regarded as trial and error work. He admitted to stumbling as he tried to deal with his depiction of the countryside, but he always got "to his feet again". This determination to "return with new strength to his task" remained with him during his long and artistically very inventive life, despite the difficulties he experienced personally or because of his opposition to Franco and his regime in Spain. (A marvellous celebration of Miro's dedication to art, "The Ladder of Escape", can be seen in Barcelona at the Fundacio Joan Miro from 13th October, 2011 to 25th March next year. It has just closed at the Tate Modern, London.)

Every single artist hesitates, stumbles, doubts and abandons one path for another. Only those who have enough inner fortitude, a strong enough conviction that they must continue with their endeavours, are people whose creativity leaves a mark in our world. When there are really difficult times, economically, politically or personally, it becomes a real test of an artist's dedication that he or she continues to work and produce. We are living in such times. It will be interesting to see - in a few years' time - whether my friend's prediction about stellar work being produced in today's world is accurate.

Celebrating Art in the Teeth of "the Crisis"

2011-09-16T11:22:00.004-04:00

In Spain, everyone knows exactly what you mean when you talk of "la crisis". Town halls, autonomous governments, the national government - they are all pretty well broke and red ink drips in all directions. One of the first areas of government expenditure in the Balearics to feel the effects of this fiscal crisis was the cultural scene. The sixteen years of autumn-winter internationally celebrated ballet company visits - gone. The opera season - decimated. The theatre season - hacked. And so it goes at present.

Nonetheless, there are wonderful bright stars in the cultural scene - private groups fighting back and ensuring that there are events that uplift and delight. Last week, there was a week of celebrating the visual arts and music in a small, jewel-like town, Santanyi, in Mallorca. The first weekend showed off the many local artists, while the second week's musical offerings ranged from popular to zarzuela to the single, wonderful performance of Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro. Under a full moon, a huge courteous crowd of all nationalities sat in the open to be delighted by a beautifully presented and sung version of this delicious opera. It was so clever - the Teatro Principal's stage gets "reversed" for these outdoor performances so that everyone can sit in the open air; the orchestra is at the back of the stage and the singers' stage projects out against the glowing golden stone walls of the theatre. The quality of the singing was impressive and the whole performance was a reaffirmation of what can be done, in spite of "the crisis".

Yesterday showed the same spirit of joy and defiance for the reigning pessimism. In Palma de Mallorca, thirty-one galleries and museums opened their doors at seven p.m. for a wonderful Nit de l'Art. This annual event is sponsored by the Independent Association of Art Galleries in the Baleares (AIGAB) and the Art Palma Contemporani Association of Galleries, in conjunction with the museums and non-profit art spaces in town.

There was art for all tastes - from late 19th and early 20th century painters famed for their depictions of the natural beauty of the Balearics to the most allusive and fleeting performance art, with all manner of art in between. Interesting techniques, challenging concepts, humour and joie de vivre - it was all there to enjoy as you strolled through the historic narrow streets of Palma on a warm summer evening. Restored 17th, 18th or 19th century buildings, high-ceilinged and quirkily elegant, imaginatively adapted as permanent or temporary art galleries, floodlit golden monuments, strains of music floating down the streets beneath the tree canopy, smartly dressed people of all ages strolling, laughing, studying art intently...

It was a kalidescope of scenes that reaffirmed that the arts need to be part of all our lives, no matter what the economic situation.

Landscape Painting and Politics

2011-09-04T14:43:00.022-04:00

There has been a small but fascinating exhibition tucked into the National Gallery rooms in London. "Forest, Rocks, Torrents. Norwegian and Swiss Landscape Paintings from the Lunde Collection" had just opened when I saw it in late June but it runs until the 18th September.

Two rooms, but expansive views of Norwegian and Swiss mountains, rivers and dramatic natural scenery that take one far away from the tourist-filled Trafalgar Square outside. It was a collection of small and beautiful paintings assembled by Asbjorn Lunde, a major art collector/lawyer from New York. Not only did this exhibition of art delight and inform, but it made me think about the role of landscape painting in national politics and national identity. This was mainly because of a fascinating and informative piece, "Two Traditions", in the catalogue written by Christopher Riopelle. Curator of post-1800 Painting at the National Gallery.

Ancient Rome celebrated its landscapes in frescoes, such as those which survived from Pompeii. However, in the Western art tradition, basically relgious motifs and classical narratives provided the major impetus for painting themes and subjects until the 17th century. At that time, the Dutch begain to celebrate their flat, luminous countryside, where the northern light and ever-present sea predominated. They had regained control of their land (and church) from the Spanish and by the 17th century, Holland was linking political identity with the Dutch landscape. In fact, the very word landscape, used in relation to painting, comes from the Dutch language, where landschap first meant a cultivated patch of land and then an image.

Jacob van Ruisdael was a major protagonist of Holland's land and wide skies in his art in the 17th century, as one can judge in this "View of Harlem", on the left. Much of this landscape art was produced in studio after plein air studies had first been done.

Salomon van Ruysdael specialised more in maritime scenes, but he too represented the Dutch landscape in remarkable fashion. This scene is "the River", and the image is courtesy of the National Gallery.

These and many other artists were projecting the new self-confidence of a successful maritime nation whose trading stretched across the globe and brought home great wealth. These relatively small landscape paintings were bought by the affluent burghers as part of this new national celebration.

The same phenomenon occurred in Britain in the 18th century as the landed gentry and newly-affluent townspeople started to identify with their green, gentle island whose power was spreading far abroad. There were many great landscape artists working then, and even those more famous for portraiture, such as Thomas Gainsborough, were meeting this demand for landscapes. His 1748 "Landscape in Suffolk", (courtesy of the Kunsthistorisches Museum), is one such example. In subsequent decades, John Constable and J.M.W.Turner, amongst other artists, also allowed the English to be proud of their island, its landscapes, people and history, through their paintings.

Constable painted this canvas of "Harwich Lighthouse" about 1820 (image courtesy of the Tate). His renditions of skies and clouds show the results of his many, many wonderful cloud studies and knowledge of Britain's climatic conditions.

Turner was equally attentive to light and climate as he painted, as can be judged by this astonishing canvas from 1816, "Chichester Canal". Apparently, the Indonesian volcano, Mt. Tambora, had erupted very violently in 1815, and the ash travelled around the world, causing dramatic atmospheric conditions. The 3rd Earl of Egremont commissioned the painting, which is now in the Tate Collection.

While the British, the Russians, the Swiss, the Norwegians and other Europeans were identifying increasingly with their nations, thanks in large part to artists' depictions of the natural wonders and characteristics, the Americans were doing the same. As the Hudson River School, the Romantic and Luminist schools of landscape painters developed in the United States, the paintings of the country's natural splendours helped fuel the sense of nationhood and drive towards development of the West. Even the eventual creation of National Parks was made easier by the depictions of the marvels of Yosemite and Yellowstone. Manifest destiny was implicit in much of the 19th century landscape painting in America, where discovery, exploration and settlement were all driving forces in society.

British-born American artist Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School; he introduced the beauties of the Hudson River Valley, the Catskill Mountains and upper New York/New England to an audience of appreciative fellow Americans. "The Oxbow. View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Mass. after a Thunderstorm" is a 1836 painting of Cole that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Second generation American landscape painters who continued to shape the political framework of America included such artists as Luminist John Frederick Kennsett.

His work centered on the North East, but included work depicting the Mississippi and further afield. This painting of "Lake George", New York, was done in the 1860s (image courtesy of the Thyssen Museum, Madrid).

Thomas Mo ran, meanwhile, was celebrating the wonders of the West. His depictions of Yellowstone were hugely instrumental in the National Park being created. His dramatic canvases were complemented by watercolours of many natural phenonmena, such as this 1873-74 watercolour of the "Shoshone Falls, Idaho" (image courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art).

All these landscape artists, European, Russian, American... were part of an ever-swelling political discourse about national identity and aspirations. The 18th and 19th centuries were era of great social upheavals and changes, with the Industrial Revolution shaping new societies. With increasing urbanisation, the role of landscape underwent a subtle change: it was no longer such an important defining factor in perception of nation. Artists themselves were often urban dwellers who had to make trips to the countryside to paint landscapes. The French Impressionists built on this tendancy that the previous generation of artists had begun - from Daubigny to Millet and Rousseau. Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, and their companions all made trips out from Paris in their early times as artists. But they also found increasing inspiration in urban scenes - railway stations, the French boulevards, the Seine river. As the artistic trends evolved, Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris, Matisse and countless others began to turn away from landscape painting. There were, of course, others - Cezanne, the Fauves, Miro... - who still used the vocabulary of landscape to explore the role of man in society.

Nonetheless, I can't help wondering how much the influence of urban landscapes - concrete and stone boxes and towers, streets vanishing in distant perspectives, the geometry of man's creations - overwhelmed the artistic eye as the trend accelerated towards abstraction and away from organic natural shapes and scenes. With such a different artistic vocabulary, has our societal identification of land and nation altered? Even though today's world is saturated with high definition images of amazing landscapes, do we identify with our lands in the same way as people did in previous centuries with their artists' depictions of land/nation? Do we find it easier to airbursh/Photoshop ourselves out of involvement with the landscapes we are filling up and polluting and exhausting today? Easier than when we were being shown the beauties of our lands by artists who were, in essence, pictoral ambassadors for those splendors? Indeed, basically, the majority of today's populations live in some form of urban setting, where concrete obliterates the natural world and where political perceptions have been altered by those surroundings.

Today's landscape artists have a very different role, I suspect, from the nation-building one of the Dutch artists onwards. Now, perhaps, it is almost a rearguard action or one of recording natural beauties before they disappear. However, I have grave doubts as to whether any of today's landscape artists, seldom ones who make the headlines in the art world, have much sway amongst our politicians. Perhaps it would make society better if they did?

From Reading about Art to a Metalpoint Show

2011-09-01T14:52:00.004-04:00

Threading my way between matters of health, matters of daily life and delights ranging from markets that are a visual and sensual feast of fresh produce to turquoise-sapphire seas sparkling enticingly, I keep trying to remember I am supposed to be an artist!

A reminder of this came this week with the opening of "Luminous Metal: Contemporary Drawings in Metalpoint" at the Clement Art Gallery in Troy, New York. Despite Hurricane Irene being in evidence in the area, apparently there was a goodly number of people at the reception. Photos of the show can be seen on Facebook. I was one of ten artists invited to exhibit in this show, something I was delighted about. We each had to submit three pieces for the show, and judging by the photos and sneak preview, we are all as diverse as possible... which of course makes for a fascinating exhibition when it comes to savouring of the wide range of possibilities even within this relatively narrow medium of silverpoint/metalpoint.

Meanwhile, threading though my daily life, I keep dipping into a truly interesting book which I found recently. Entitled "Artists' Techniques and Materials", it was written by Antonella Fuga, translated into English by Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia, and published by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2006. One of the simple reasons I looked at it originally in the Royal Academy bookshop in London was that it was one of the few books dealing with artistic techniques and media which talked of silverpoint. (I found some seemingly definitive and weightly tomes on drawing there, which did not even mention the words "silverpoint" or "metalpoint" - shame on the authors, for they did not do their homework.)

I soon realised, however, that the book I did buy by Ms. Fuga is a gem. It is teaching me, in succinct and clear fashion, with wonderful, annotated illustrations, about media in a way that has me enthralled. Not only are drawing media talked of, but all manner of other media - printmaking, painting, sculpture, mosaic and intarsia, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellry, as well as contemporary techniques. Within each discipline, there are a myriad techniques explained, many of which are new to me ... filigree glass, reticello work in glass, scagliola intarsia.. for instance. There is a page of text for each, so that you learn enough about each technique to be at least sensible about it - and it is a door opened to further exploration if you want. Such fun!

It certainly keeps reminding me of the privilege of belonging to this great band of incredibly diverse artists, one that has existed since time immemorial in such intensity, imagination and skill.

The Test of Time

2011-08-06T14:28:00.008-04:00

How often do images of artwork remain with one long after going to the exhibition? I always find it to be a good test of how much I like a piece of art, how much it has spoken to me, and how it has become embedded in my mind.

I was thinking about this aspect of viewing art in relation, for instance, to the Summer Exhibition 2011 at the Royal Academy in London. I went to see this huge show in early June - it stays up until 15th August. Now, nearly six weeks after I saw the exhibition, I find that there are only a few of the thousand-plus works of art that remain fresh in my mind and still interest me. Naturally, as I invariably find, the art I like is seldom illustrated in any catalogue (let alone postcards in a museum)! So it is even more an acid test that I need to remember the artwork entirely without prompts, save for any notes or quick drawings I might have made at the time.

The RA Summer Exhibition, a selling exhibition, is a giant affair, with eminent Academicians in charge of hanging different rooms. Christopher Le Brun was the show's main co-ordinator; he operated under the thesis, "There are two ways of showing paintings. One is the classic orthodox hang with lots of space around every single piece. But here it's like a battle of the paintings - forty big pictures on one wall alone!" By contrast, Michael Craig-Martin, who curated another room, went in another direction. He explained, "Normally, the Royal Academicians are hidden among everyone else. I wanted to show their range and quality by focusing for the first time on RAs only, because there are lots of new ones and nobody quite realises that they have all arrived here."

Photographs, paintings, etchings and other prints, artist's books, architectural renderings and models, sculpture, drawings - the 1117 works gave everyone a taste of today's art. You need a few hours or several visits properly to absorb the diversity, quite apart from having to navigate the crowds which ebb and flow according to the hour. It makes the test of time even more demanding, in fact. But as I remember back, some works remain to delight me.

Frederick Cuming's large oils were a delight of subtle atmospherics, whose titles, "Crescent Moon and Sea" "Clouds Evening, Camber", "Clouds and Reflections" or "Dawn Garden, Frost" tell of his interest and skills in conveying almost abstractions that evoked northern climes. Later, I found his silkscreens, "Etna" and "Thaw", and promptly fell for them! At the other end of the spectrum, a warm evocative abstraction in reds, "Window Screen Ajanta" took one far to the tropics - it was an oil by the late William Baillie. I have to say it was positively miserably hung, and almost impossible to view - shame on the RA for such a disservice to the artist.

In between, of course, there were the large and dramatic, the small and delightful, the ugly and strident, but more importantly, the gems. One, for me, was Edmund de Waal's "Untitled, 2011" white lacquered cabinet, hung on the wall, with clear laminated glass, containing 70 diminuitive celadon and white vessels. Discreet and elegant, interesting and evocative of so much history eastern and western in the ceramics world, I was not surprised that it was already sold. The other reason for my pleasure at seeing it was that the artist is also the author of one of the best books I have read for ages, "The Hare with Amber Eyes".

Another series of eight drawings, "Marks on the Edge of Space" were a fascinating use of conte, graphite and mylar by Ann Christopher RA. Layers, stainless steel rivets to attach them, use of shadows to evoke water, fields of grass, trees... so many plays of tone and shape to delight. Very sophisticated, lovely work. There was another delight in the drawing section - a silverpoint. Small and quiet in its faintness, it was a lovely portrait, "Dulcie" by Dylan Waldron. Marvellous to find another silverpoint artist!

Of course there were many other stimulating or beautiful works of art at the RA. Nonetheless, the artworks which have stood the test of time for me and that come first to mind are, as I have mentioned above, but a handful. Of course, that is just my personal selection: vive la difference is definitely the operative phrase at a show like the RA Summer Exhibition. It is worth going to the exhibition if you are in London, for it is a good way of testing the pulse of a wide selection of British artists.

Art sustaining daily life - it works!

2011-07-30T16:34:00.003-04:00

Many a week has flashed past since I last blogged here, weeks that began with a wonderful kalidescope of art exhibitions in London for five days (of which more in future days) but then became a succession of shocks and anxieties as my beloved Rundle was found to have a ruptured aneurysm in his leg. Art obviously took very much a back seat as I robed and unrobed on my visits to the ICU in a local hospital, where Rundle lay fighting to beat the high odds of losing his leg.

For the next weeks, Rundle was in a hospital room overlooking the azure Mediterranean, with the view framed by beautiful umbrella pines and buildings that perfectly complemented the scene with luminous ocres and cream facades. Expansive and beautiful - I finally was able to do some quick drawings, but the wonderful variety of moods and lights was harder to capture. Nonetheless, even the act of picking up a pencil to draw helped to ground me again in this strange world in which both of us were living. Showing Rundle the drawings seemed to help him too, despite the grinding pain and discomfort.

Now the days back at home are far more interlinked with art. It helps at every turn - distraction for Rundle as he recuperates, centering for me when I can slip away for a few minutes to start drawing tiny silverpoints - a series on black ground (again!) which I found myself referring to as Ariadne's Thread. She provided the thread that helped Thesus wend his way out of the Labyrinth after he had killed the Minotaur. It seems art is helping us out of our labyrinth, towards sustaining a more normal life.

Meanwhile, my earlier gambles with an artist's eye in decisions on reorganising a house are paying off. By now, furniture is moved, paintings hung in different places, lighting improved, and everything is indeed becoming serene. Beautiful things can now breath and be seen, with remarkably few major changes. It confirms the fun and huge importance of being an artist, even in daily life when one is not wielding a paint brush! Art does sustain.

Art concepts in daily life

2011-06-19T10:59:00.002-04:00

The past two or more weeks have been a maelstrom of activity, none of it involved with the actual creation of any art. Nonetheless, I have been very busy as an artist!

I have been working to create a serene, uncluttered home from one that was lovely but full, oh so full, of furniture, ornaments and other things that are in daily use. As I studied the rooms, trying to work out what changes could be made without major building ventures, I realised that I was calling on everything I know in art-making about balance, composition, colour harmony, variety... Even the exercise of being able to visualise how things would look if I made a specific change was valuable, and comes dirctly from all the visualisation I do when I am trying to work out how to approach a painting or drawing. Having visualised things, then a tape measure helped confirm the viability of the plan.

It became an interesting exercice, and one that required different stages. The first critical move was to get rid of one piece of furniture, only - the lynch pin of the whole venture. That allowed all sorts of other furniture to be moved around, and all of a sudden, space and serenity "happened", where everyone can circulate easily. Amazing! A spacious, coherent living room and a functional diningroom were the results.

Next came colour decisions for a huge reupholstering effort of all the chairs and sofa, a bewildering exericise, of course! The fabric samples are always so alluring, and then you have to extrapolate from that small piece of fabric to how the whole sofa will look, once recovered! Again, my role as an artist was distinctly helpful. Trying to harmonise colours of tiled floors, carpets and the seating was a full day's chopping and changing ideas about fabric selections. But it was finally done, the upholsterer carried off the first item, and now comes the waiting period whilst I wonder if the "artist's eye" has carried me through alright!

One of these days, soon, soon, I promise myself: I will be able to get back to drawing and painting and not just be dependent on my art to reorganise a house.

Going for a Walk in Manassas Bog

2011-06-05T19:40:00.007-04:00

Several weeks ago, I went with Coastal Wildscapes organisation to a deceptively ordinary-looking place near Bellville, Georgia, called Manassas Bog. It was a hot day in an area that is showing the effects of drought, and the group of us followed each other down dusty, sandy roads to a fenced off area beneath power lines.

Soon, however, the enthusiasm of our hosts had us all excited and fascinated. This seemingly featureless area is home to a multiplicity of plants, rare and more common, many of which were in full, glorious bloom. As we walked along the rolling hill terrain, people were photographing left, right and center. But I suddenly knew that here was a source of many potential silverpoint drawings, although I was not yet at all clear how or even, really, why. Instinctively, I began selecting dried seeds, grasses and dead flowers when one of them "spoke" to me. By the end of the long and interesting morning's walks, I had a handful of "trophies" that I carefully put in the car to bring home. I had no idea what I would do with them; I just knew they promised..

The results of this wonderful walk in Manassas Bog were two silverpoint drawings, one of which I am donating to Coastal Wildscapes to use for fund-raising. I spent time allowing the subconscious dialogue I had had with these dried materials to float up to my conscious mind. I then started trying out arrangements of the different pieces, until it seemed a possible mix and composition. A loose graphite study helped me in deciding how to position things on the page. Finally, I settled down to the often slow development of each silverpoint drawing. Each one brought out a different reaction in me, but both gave me fascination and delight.

The silverpoint on the left is Seen at Manassas Bog. The drawing on the right, A Day at Manassas Bog, is the drawing I have donated to Coastal Wildscapes. I did enjoy my walk in Manassas Bog!

More about Self-portraits

2011-06-01T22:43:00.006-04:00

When I was writing recently about art being a form of self-portrait, a record of where each artist is in time and space and outlook in life, I remembered another statement, this time by Leonardo da Vinci. He said, "Every painter paints himself. Painters seem to paint their own faces and make paintings that seem directly involved with their own life. " Indeed, there has been much speculation about many of Leonardo's portraits using his own features, such as this video of Siegfried Woldhek talking about his search for Leonardo's self-portraits. This image is the most famed, done between 1512-15 in red chalk, when Leonardo was in his sixties, a drawing in the Royal Library of Turin.

The urge to record one's own existence, one's presence, has been with us humans since time immemorial. This form of saying "I exist, I am present", in visual fashion, is testimony to mankind's sense of community, of shared characteristics that are more important than their differences, at least at some moments in our history. One of the most amazing collections of human representations is apparently becoming better known and understood in recent years - the Gwion Gwion rock paintings in the Kimberly area in N.W. Australia. Not only are these rock paintings probably more than 40,000 years old, but they tell of human life and adventures in stunning, elegant fashion.

As examples of artwork that reveals the artist's own experience, in "self-portraiture" style, there is a red rock painting of a boat, the earliest known in history, that tells of man's migration to Australia via a four-man canoe (on the left, courtesy of the Bradshaw Foundation). There is also another long panorama of four-legged, antlered animals that the artist had evidently seen during the migration from SE Asia. There are no such animals, now or in early times, in Australia.

This huge collection of rock paintings, in hostile, difficult and remote terrain is an astounding example of man recording existence, beliefs, ceremonies... from very early times that one author, Jo Lennan, describes as "a forgotten Eden". The name, Gwion Gwion, comes from a bird's name. The Aboriginal people recount that this bird pecked the rock with such force that its blood sprang forth and it used its bloodied beak and feather to delineate the elegant, dainty figures. Indeed, it is thought by today's experts that these long-ago artists actually used quills to make the fine lines on the rocks. The actual dates of these early artists' work are still being determined, because the pigments used to draw have become part of the rocks themselves, and carbon dating doesn't work, especially in the tropics where its limits of dating go back +-40,000 years. Nonetheless, apparently on top of one drawing, there is a fossilised mud wasp's nest, and optical luminescence (which dates when something last saw the light of the sun...) allowed a date of about 17,500 years for the drawing. This means that these artists were telling of themselves and their world at the same time as their long-distant colleagues were painting the wonderful images of their immediate universe on the cave walls in Lascaux, France.

What marvels we all inherit when such artists create "self-portraits" of their personal worlds.

Art as Self-Portraits

2011-05-29T21:39:00.002-04:00

Allison Malafronte, writing in October 2010 in American Artist, quoted the late wonderful artist, Timothy R. Thies, as saying, "The interesting thing is that I can go back to an image and remember exactly how I was feeling at the moment I painted it... In fact, every painting I do is a self-portrait, because they are all about where I am in my life at that specific moment..."

I think that is such an accurate statement. I was storing away art that had returned from an exhibition this evening and moved some old drawing books to make space. I leafed though them quickly, and memories came flooding back. They were of different trips to parts of Europe - quick drawings of places, things that interested me, light effects - a myriad evocative scenes. In essence, each drawing was part of the continuous record of my being, my evolution through life, my interests and excitements.

Perhaps this continuous self-portraiture - de facto - is one of the most compelling reasons to be disciplined enough to keep a drawing journal. Writers keep written journals - and in fact, so do many artists. But the act of drawing is somehow different, and for an artist, immensely powerful as an aide-mémoire in its unadorned directness. Not only is one recording images that can perhaps serve later on for more sustained paintings or drawings, but each drawing tells of that particular moment in one's existence. Taking photographs is not quite the same - perhaps the mechanical click of the button to record the image is too quick and too easy to imprint the scene on one's mind in the same way as actually executing a drawing.

In fact, in one of the drawing books I was looking at this evening, I found some photographs that - very unusually - I had taken with my husband's camera. They were of some marvellous handmade wooden big reels of fishing line, lying on a quay in the Azores. I had drawn the reels a couple of times, but evidently wanted the colour images as well. My drawings brought back a flood of sensations - I could hear the sounds of the boatmen working on their vessels, the sound of the wind lapping the waves on the concrete harbour wall, the cool shade where I was standing. But the photographs conveyed none of those remembered sensations... they seemed "dead" and impersonal.

I am glad that I inadvertently had a trip down memory lane today. It validated the effort always to carry a drawing book with me when I travel.

Small Incidental Images

2011-05-23T21:53:00.010-04:00

I think I have always been attracted to the small and intimate, rather than the large and often grandiose in art. When I spent many hours in the Louvre as a young, homesick girl in Paris, I found myself constantly returning to the galleries where drawings, or small sculptures and other three-dimensional objects were displayed. Things that you could, in theory, hold in your hands, things that were proportioned to the human body, that could be studied close up and very attentively...

There is a discipline and orderliness required in small artwork for the close scrutiny required means that incoherence or mistakes show up more readily. Think of the rather extreme example of miniature portraits, that marvellous subset of likenesses on ivory, vellum or other delicate surfaces.

This is a dashing miniature portrait of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, done about 1606 by Isaac Oliver (1558/68-1617), a pre-eminent miniaturist. It was saved from export by the ArtFund and is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (on the right).

On the left is another Isaac Oliver miniature, done in 1615. It is a portrait of Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles I). This is in the Berger Collection, Denver, Colorado.

Such small images fascinate and delight. But there are plenty of other versions of diminutive artwork that can be arresting. Lea Coli Wight , a highly acclaimed artist from New Jersey, writing in American Artist in November 2009, was quite correct when she observed, "The beauty of small incidental images can be as profound as those that are grand and orchestrated."

Perhaps the incidental aspect of life, when one is living amidst great natural beauty, is easier to see. A walk beneath wonderful trees, a stroll through a garden dancing with flowers, or even a bird-watching session ... can suddenly yield images that one translates later into artwork. The initial excitement can stay with one more easily if the resultant art is on a smaller scale. Perhaps that is why I love working in small scale silverpoint drawings - the passion can still burn brightly.

I think it also helps artists to keep fresh if they work on a scale that does not require enormous investments of time. I know that there are many times when context and commission require large work, but I sometimes wonder if the excitement can be sustained very easily in such cases. Perhaps, in the end, it is a matter of taste. I'll keep gravitating to the "small incidental images", I suspect!

Nature in our Lives

2011-05-18T20:10:00.005-04:00

It has been a week of dealing with consumer goods - to put it generically - that all seem to be falling apart in very short order after they are bought and installed. The antithesis of the natural world, these are man made objects that horrify by the implications of their impact on the planet's future health, during their manufacture and also during their disposal. Alas, they all seem to be necessary in our life - things like refrigerators, computers, even plastic nuts for bolts.

A welcome break from these concerns came today when I was present during a visit to my Darien exhibition by a group of charming ladies from a St Simons Island Garden Club. This exhibition, At the Edge of the Marsh, continues at the McIntosh Art Association Gallery until 27th May.

As I stood in the gallery, explaining to these visitors about silverpoint and how you create these silver drawings, I was forcibly reminded of a remark I read some while ago. Julie Lohmann, a German designer, said, "There is a paradox at work. On one hand we are distancing ourselves from nature as far as humanly possible, creating our own artificial world, but the more we do that, the more we long to be a part of nature and bring it back into our lives..." (my emphasis).

The reaction of many of the visitors to my art today showed how eagerly they related to the depictions of flowers, of marsh scenes.. in other words, of nature. It was as though I was drawing and painting a world with which they felt very comfortable, a world that they welcomed in their lives as a very important ingredient of well-being. Their comments made me feel that there is a very necessary counter-balance to our consumer-driven society: nature and the magical, infinite manifestations of its diversity.

Keeping Eyes Fresh

2011-05-15T19:41:00.009-04:00

I must have walked the sandy lanes of our neighbourhood thousands of times in the past years. I know the area well enough to feel comfortable walking in the dark, knowing which protruding roots to avoid in the road, where the overhanging branches almost touch one's head...

Yet I am constantly amazed and delighted at how different the familiar scenes look each time I venture forth. Yes, the light and temperature change, depending on the weather and the season. Yes, the seasons bring forth different stages of vegetation and thus variations in colours of leaves, subtle changes in the marsh grasses. But there is something else that happens.

If each of us sets forth, consciously with eyes open and aware of surroundings, a walk yields wonderful rewards. An artist, especially, needs to keep eyes fresh and alert. You never know what will suddenly hit you as being special, worthy of exploration as an ingredient in art-making. No matter how well you know your surroundings, they can suddenly appear in a totally different way, given a willingness to look. Perhaps it depends too on one's frame of mind, what is happening subconsciously in terms of art...

This past week, I was rewarded with a whole new, exciting series of subjects to draw. Trees which I love and know well began to "talk" to me, not as I usually see them in terms of mighty, elegant structures with green canopies far above. My eyes were riveted to their barks, the ways this outer casing rippled and cracked, swirled and split, peeled and shredded. Every tree is different, even within the same type of tree. And one side of the tree is different, in many cases, from the other side of the same tree trunk. Totally fascinating.

This is just one example, courtesy of Valdosta University, GA, of the bark of the wondrous Live Oak (Quercus virginiana).

Needless to say, my walks have been slowed down a great deal, as I use my fresh eyes to explore these new terrains!

Connecting the Dots - again!

2011-05-11T17:50:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I read the dense and absolutely fascinating book, "The Discovery of France" (with the additional title in the States of "A Historical Geography") by Professor Graham Robb of Oxford University. It is the most amazing work - the result of many years of research and some 14,000 miles cycled through France on his voyages of discovery. Graham Robb shows how the cohesive nation of today, "la belle France", was far from being either cohesive or civilised until very recently, really until the 19th century. Paris was an island of learning, culture and enterprise in a sea of very primitive, divided groups of people who had little concept of belonging to a nation and who, for the most part, did not even speak French until well after the French Revolution.

One of these groups, the Savoyards from Savoie, a beautiful area to the east of France, in the Alps region of Lake Geneva, had such trouble surviving in their inhospitable and highly taxed lands, that they would send their very young children to Paris for survival, of sorts. This had been going on for centuries, and these young children, virtually in servitude in many cases, would walk to Paris and there, they organised themselves into groups. They were especially famed as chimney sweeps because, being skinny small children, they could clamber up the narrow Parisian chimneys to clean them out. Graham Robb tells a lot about these impoverished Savoyards, with their sense of solidarity, and their importance to their families back in Savoie to whom they would send money every year. Balzac and Victor Hugo wrote about the Savoyards, with their heroic attempts to survive, turning their hand to any job deemed unfit for others. Eventually, some 150 years ago, they progressed from chimney sweeping to another tightly knit category, the "collets rouges", the official porters at Hôtel Drouot, the most famous and oldest auction house in Paris. 110 porters, all Savoyards, have the right to transport, sort, store and carry all the auction items in the Drouot precincts. Recently, there have been some "irregularities" discovered and porters have been investigated for serious wrong doing, something the French do not seem surprised about!

But the wonderful connecting of dots that happened again for me was when I was reading about the clearly fabulous exhibition currently on at the Royal Academy, London, of Jean Antoine Watteau's drawings. I had known that Watteau drew all sorts of contemporary scenes in Paris, not just the "fêtes galantes" of the Royal Court and 18th century French society. But I had forgotten about his drawings of the Savoyards. The Royal Academy exhibition apparently has eighty-eight drawings, divided into five themes, of which one deals with the Savoyards.

These two drawings of elderly Savoyards, impoverished and marked by hardship, date from 1715. The Old Savoyard, on the left, done in red and black chalk with stumping, is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (with thanks for the image). The right hand drawing, The Savoyarde, is done in red and black chalk (image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum). The old lady carries a marmot box, for the Savoyards would train marmots and use them for street entertainment in their quest for survival. Watteau apparently executed about a dozen drawings of the Savoyards in total.

Only such a master draughtsman as Watteau could so vividly illustrate the dire straits of the Savoyards that Graham Robb describes.

Another Beautiful Art Form

2011-05-08T15:06:00.011-04:00

Circuses and high-flying trapeze artists are part of every child's education, I suspect. Those moments of delighted amazement that accompany feats of grace and daring on slender ropes and bars high above the ground are the stuff of circus legend. Circuses have long been the subject of artists too - think of Toulouse-Lautrec's penetrating and ultimately sad and solitary depictions of circus performers, Chagall's vibrant versions of circus life and of course, Pablo Picasso's Rose Period paintings of circus harlequins. James Tissot, an accomplished French painter from Nantes, who lived from 1836-1902. painted Women of Paris, the Circus Lover, (above left), showing the fascination audiences had with the high bars. Above right is the famous - but unfinished - Georges Seurat pointillist painting from 1890-91, The Circus (image courtesy of the Museé d'Orsay).

Perhaps one of the most wonderful images of circus grace and skill is Edgar Degas' Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, a mastery of draftsmanship. This oil painting, in the National Gallery, London (with thanks for the image), was painted in 1879 from four preparatory drawings Degas did at the Circus.

The same sense of wonder at seemingly effortless soaring and beauty, high above one, was what I experienced last night at a performance of Canopy Studio at the Ashantilly Center in Darien, GA. As the sun set and the swallows called high above the wide lawn in the evening sky, the lights came up slowly beneath an ancient, graceful live oak. Rigged carefully from its limbs were different harnesses, scarlet "ropes" and other lines.

These were for a performance of the "Royal Sequined Aerial Circus", with solo and duo aerial ballets that were diverse and beautiful. A wide selection of music allowed the young, beautifully trained women (and one delicious small girl) to move in ways that were true ballet, yet ballet that almost defied gravity. Against the backdrop of the mighty oak tree, it was magical.

I kept feeling that I should be trying to draw all the flowing, elegant movements, but the other half of me just wanted to sit there and savour of the pure beauty.

It did make me all the more aware of those 19th century artists who, long before cell phone cameras or other means of capturing images instantly, caught the essence of the aerial ballets they watched under circus tops.
Trapeze Artists in Circus, 1890, Calvert Lithography Co. (image courtesy of The Library of Congress)

The Awareness of Time

2011-05-05T20:12:00.003-04:00

While I was out drawing in the glorious sun we had today, I suddenly remembered an interesting statement I read last year in a March 31st entry on ArtDaily.org. It was made by artist and film-maker Lutz Becker, then Curatorial Fellow at Kettle's Yard in the United Kingdom. He curated a major exhibition at the De la Warr Pavilion in 2010, including 20th century experimental films, drawings and prints, that underscored two major trends in drawing, the gestural and the geometric.

Writing about his curatorial choices, he said, "It is the awareness of time as the measure of the distance between thought and realisation, of the value of the transient and sense of the fragility of the inspirational moment, that made me decide to show predominantly works on paper, drawing... no longer about the recording of appearances,, but as a language reflecting its own becoming, often daring and experimental."

He was describing, in probing terms, the way I have been feeling as I explore the new vocabulary of drawing in silverpoint on a black surface. Since it is a version of silverpoint that seems to lend itself to more abstract drawings, more experimental ventures, I have been seeking subjects that talk to me in this language. Today, I was drawing a favourite dead cedar stump, a sprawling amazing sculpture that changes constantly as the light moves around it.

The awareness of time has always been a source of fascination and amazement to me as soon as one starts to draw or paint. Time becomes meaningless. But the fact that time could be "the measure of the distance between thought and realisation" is very perceptive, particularly when one is working plein air. Today's silverpoint needed to be done instinctively, basically without the time for any conscious thought. There would be time, later, for evaluation. It was more important simply to draw, to make marks that mattered. To listen to "inspiration" rather than any reason...

Silverpoint, in a way, is always such a leap of faith. You have to start somewhere, and then just go with whatever happens, fleeting and fragile as the moment may be. Since you cannot erase anything, the notion of time has to disappear, except in one respect. Since you cannot achieve real darks immediately, as you can with graphite, for instance, you have to wait for the silver mark to oxidise, and then you can go back in to emphasise more that dark. But that perception of time is more a pause in the rhythm of drawing, of mark-making, than any real awareness of a clock ticking away.

Silverpoint, to my mind, fits perfectly Lutz Becker's description of drawing "no longer about the recording of appearances, but as a language reflecting its own becoming....", when time has little meaning.

Hanging an Art Show

2011-05-02T20:12:00.015-04:00

At least it was not pouring with rain today, but nonetheless, it is one thing to deliver art to a museum or gallery and leave. It is quite another thing to have to hang the art yourself for an exhibition! And today was a case of the latter.

Actually, I was very fortunate, as this was for the exhibition, Point and Counterpoint, at Savannah Hospice Art Gallery, with monoprints by Daniel E. Smith and my silverpoints as a total counterpoint. So Dan and I spent nearly three hours sorting, hanging, adjusting and measuring to get the show looking respectable.

These are just two of his monoprints, with Still Morning on the left, and Coastal Meditation on the right.

As counterpoint to Dan's work, these are two of my silverpoint drawings - on the left, Come into my Garden! On the right, High Point Dance.

Mounting an exhibition is an every-challenging and interesting process. There is first the selection process - what art to exhibit? When there is a curator, obviously that person makes the decisions and "composes" the balance of art for his or her objectives. Themes, juxtapositions, contexts, styles and many other conscious or subconscious considerations operate in those choices to create the show. When it is the artist's choice on what to exhibit, it again is a series of choices that need to be made: firstly the title will be the overall guide. Then the coherence of the general body of work, with balance and variety, but nonetheless unity in the overall look.

When it is a two-artist exhibit, ideally the two artists need to have some feel for each other's work, so that there can be an interesting dialogue between the works. Playing off each other's styles, media, content, optic can lead to interesting effects that can enliven, albeit often subliminally, the resultant exhibition. When it is a group show, with many artists' works, things can get a little scattershot, but then there is an energy in a huge diversity of approaches.

Today, Dan and I decided to intersperse our work, rather than segregate our work into two sections. So colour and silverpoints are mingled, each contrasting well one with the other. Within that, there is a quiet pairing of similar (but not obvious) subject matter. Since Dan 's wonderful monoprints are in essence abstract, it is only through his "springboard inspiration" that the links can be made with my realistic silverpoint subject matter. Beyond that choice, there is then the rhythm along the wall to consider, especially when the display wall is a long one. We broke up the wall into all different shapes and sizes of work, trying to weave together a lively but diverse conversation of art.

The last and least fun part of the whole endeavour is ensuring that the art all hangs at levels that are coherent, given all the different sizes of frames, and that each piece hangs straight. Not always an easy achievement! The final step back to assess the whole exhibition is always a good moment. By that time, weariness has set in, as it is quite a physical workout too! The last touch: labels on the wall besides each work of art, and then the job is done. It was time for a rest! Now the show is launched and - one hopes - the dialogues begin between viewers and the works of art.

The exhibition will run from today until the end of June. The opening reception, to which all are invited, is on Thursday, 12th May, from 5.30 - 7.30 p.m. Come and assess the results of today's Point and Counterpoint.

Changing Vocabularies in Art

2011-04-30T18:20:00.011-04:00

Recently, a dear friend and truly wonderful artist, Susan Schwalb, galvanised me into doing something that I had been thinking about since my mother's death: drawing in silver on a black background, versus a white ground.

I had been feeling that perhaps a series of drawings in black might help deal with my mother's absence. So when I was in Spain, I prepared some small pieces of paper and launched myself into a new version of silverpoint. It soon became a fascinating exercise, for in essence, you suddenly change your visual thinking and vocabularly completely. You need not only to reverse everything, but detail of course disappears on the black ground unless you are very careful. So you need to select subject matter very carefully. I am still very much feeling my way, but it is a reinvigorating challenge!

I decided to do a series entitled Apoyos which is "supports" in Spanish. My mother loved trees; they were her literal and metaphorical supports on many occasions.

So I drew the bark of different trees she cherished, from a wild coffee tree grown from a seed from our farm in Africa (on left), to a graceful elm (on right), to a Mediterranean pine she loved and laughed about (at left).I had transplanted it as a seedling, in preparation for a bonsai pine. It is now nearly forty foot high!

Each of these drawings is tiny, only 5 x 3.5 inches, but they helped me center myself and remind myself that there are so many different ways to express oneself in art.

Intersecting Clothes and Art

2011-04-27T19:05:00.018-04:00

I recently saw a wonderful production of Sleeping Beauty by the Moscow Ballet in Palma de Mallorca. It was a delight to see, for the quality of dancing was extremely high. One of the most interesting aspects, however, was the brilliant colours of the otherwise traditional costumes. I don't recall ever seeing such "technicolour" dresses and tutus, ranging from the most vivid wisteria mauves to turquoises, blues and citrons. It made for a vivid and arresting mixture with the dancers' skills, the pure lines of arabesques and the sense of movement in space.

I could not help but think that today's omnipresent brilliance of colour in television, on the web and everywhere else has an influence on such choice of colours for the costumes. We have all become accustomed to colours that are accentuated, often far beyond Nature's version of these colours. I find it interesting to see the same influence in art; with the ever-extending palette of colours in oils, acrylics, watercolours..., a dazzling intensity of colour is easy to achieve. And, conversely, art produced in a "lower register" often appears dull and less noteworthy to the average viewer. For the most part, we do not seem to live in an age of subtlety.

While I was thinking about this role of colour in our current world, I fell on a fascinating article in CAM, the Cambridge Alumni Magazine for Lent 2011, entitled "A Sense of Proportion". Dr. Ulinka Rublack, a fellow at St. John's College, has published a book on "Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe" (Oxford University Press). In it, she states that "Clothes to me are no different from art in our contemporary sense of a human assembly of form. Clothes are rich in categories of visual interest and tell us so much about the peculiar sensibilities of an age. Their study can bring a fresh focus to the Renaissance and our own time."

Dr. Rublack talks of how the Renaissance was a time when not only was there an amazing influx to Europe of rich fabrics and furnishing as trade routes opened more and more to the Far East, but also an era when artists were increasingly depicting humans in paintings, sculpture, medals... Mirrors were also more and more available. How a person looked to the outside world became of great concern and interest. The author cites as a wonderful source of insights on this evolving sense of self, an album of watercolour paintings of Matthäus Schwarz, chief accountant for the Augsburg powerhouse Fugger family of merchants and bankers. The image at right was painted in 1517, showing him
with Jakob Fugger. He lived from 1496 until 1564, so he was able to savour of all the energies and fashions in art and self-images that the Renaissance brought to Europe.

In July 1526, at aged 29, Schwarz commissioned the first portrait of himself, nude and slim. He went on to commission 135 more paintings of himself, dressed in many a garb as befitting the overt or subliminal messages he wished to covey to those who saw him or his painted image. They depict himself through his long life.

The images are wonderfully varied and let one savour of everything from his fencing outfit, with differing hose, to his sweeping hats and expensive fur collars. (The image at right is courtesy of the Musée du Louvre.)

In others, Schwarz carried green heart-shaped leather bags when he went out to court a lady - green being the colour of hope.

At aged 41, his courting days were suspended, as he records on this image of himself from the rear. He wrote "20 February 1538, when I took a wife... this coat was made". No mention of his amazing scarlet hosen!

Matthäus Schwarz' Book of Clothes or Klaidungsbüchlein is now held in the museum in Brunswick, Germany. A version of it has been published in French as "Un Banquier mis à nu".

My musings on the brilliant costumes in Sleeping Beauty are just a reminder that colour has long played a key role in our perceptions of the human body, its sartorial role in different cultures and its use for different messages. Art has been an integral part of that conversation.

Moments of Drought for Artists

2011-04-08T19:21:00.009-04:00

Every artist, no matter what the discipline or form of art, has times when artistic "drought" prevails. Pressures of daily life, illness, travel... there are many reasons which dictate that it is very hard to get down to creating work.

I was thinking about this situation recently, because I seem to be more wedded to driving and logistics than creating work at present. Yet there is a quiet little voice at the back of my head that says that when life slows down a little, the drought period will allow floating ideas to rise to the surface again.

I remember how Francisco Goya produced an amazing body of work during a long illness in Cadiz, around 1792-94. He was freed from the pressure of commissioned work, and perhaps too, his deafness during his illness made him a much keener observer of people for the portraits he executed. At any rate, as he recuperated, he experimented in his paintings, drawings and even the aquatint etchings which would become known, when published in 1799, as the Caprichos. His self-portrait, on the right, done in 1790-95, shows a self-scrutiny that is solemn and lonely. This work hangs in the Museum of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.

Other works from this period of crucial artistic development are very sobering, for Goya developed a much more critical and introspective eye, producing profoundly penetrating psychological and social commentaries on his world. The image at right is no. 79 of the Caprichos, entitled Nadie nos ha visto (No one has seen us).

Frida Kahlo is another artist who famously suffered periods of illness and difficulty, but she learned to use these times as springboards for her work. So as one goes along in life, trying to get through periods when art seems from another world, how does one keep in touch with that small inner voice?

I find, personally, that in order to keep at bay the gnawing feeling of emptiness that I experience when I cannot get to drawing, let alone painting, I need to keep thinking about art projects. Whenever I have a moment of quiet, I try to summon an idea that I might have had, and I try to explore it in my mind's eye. The imagination is a far more adaptable "computer" screen than a real screen. No need for any image programme as you mentally try out a composition, move it around, add elements, change colours, explore ways to do something. Then I will leave the image alone, and move on with life. But later, I will come back to the image and try further to refine the whole concept and composition. Eventually, my "drought" period will end, and then I know that I have something that at least can start me back into the process of being an artist creating something. It is a form of bridge, but very helpful, I find.

Interestingly when this situation has happened in the past, and yes, it can happen quite often... that's life! ... I later can look at the work I created, and know exactly what was happening in my life at that time. The work is a form of self-portrait, a moment in time, and it brings back vividly the emotions and thoughts of that period. In essence, these works of art that allow one back into the normal rhythm of being an artist can be the eloquent equivalent of entries in a private journal or memoir.

Meeting Artists

2011-04-03T20:55:00.004-04:00

The delightful bonus of judging an art festival is that you meet a variety of talented artists, working in any number of different media. I certainly found that to be the case yesterday when I judged the Art in the Park for McIntosh Art Association, Darien, Georgia.

My score sheets for judging that I had prepared served me well. There were indeed a variety of media and I found that having to answer criteria questions made it much easier to assess work. It was so interesting to talk to each artist that I was quickly losing track of time, to the slight dismay of those who were in charge of the award side of things! Nonetheless, it was important to learn from each artist about their work - they had spent a great deal of time creating work, bringing it to Darien and setting it up in display. The least I could do was to spend time understanding and looking.

There were some wonderful two and three dimensional pieces, but some stood out - as is always the case. Once I had officially acquitted myself as judge, and the awards and ribbons were distributed, I could then take off my badge and become an artist like all the others - a relief! One of the booths to which I then headed was that of an elegant set-up by a South Carolina-based artist, Kim Keats, whose work is entitled "Interlacements". She uses driftwood, wood and other natural found objects and weaves or binds them together to form the most wonderful pieces, often with a very Japanese feel to them. Small treasures and larger ones - elegant, imaginative and restrained. A delight to see.

There were several artists whose passion for nature and environmental concerns informed their work wonderfully. Lydia Thompson is a consummate expert on birds and uses that knowledge to depict birds in delicate prints that are elegant and most appealing. She is even using "green" ink in her printing processes. Another artist who is highlighting the environment's fragility is Nancy Adams, with a very different voice. She is using gourds as fine art - cutting them into the shapes of different species, painting them and then reassembling the pieces into sculptures of complexity and beauty. Hers is a voice that is memorable by its difference and passion.

As Vernon Square began to fill with people strolling and enjoying the art and music, the sun finally emerged from the clouds, and the day became a celebration of talents. It was a lovely way to mark the Blessing of the Fleet for Darien.

Judging an Art Festival

2011-04-01T19:42:00.008-04:00

It has been a rather crazy week, first delivering silverpoint drawings to a forthcoming show, "Lasting Impressions", in Jacksonville, FL, at the Women's Center on Colcord Avenue. Then I hung a solo show, "At the Edge of the Marsh", at the McIntosh County Art Association gallery at the Old Jail in Darien, GA, on Friday. Rain storms on both days made art delivery interesting.

Now the sun has reappeared in time for the big weekend in Darien - the Blessing of the Fleet, to celebrate the shrimping tradition and start of the new season.

As part of the activities, in Vernon Square, one of the gracious oak-shaded squares laid out in 1736 by Georgia's founder, General James Oglethorpe, there is an art festival, Art in the Park. (The photo of the Park is courtesy of the City of Darien while the photo of the 2009 Blessing of the Shrimp boat Fleet is courtesy of Gateway to the Golden Isles.) This year, as in on previous occasions, I have been asked to judge the entrants to the festival.

This started me reflecting on all the aspects of judging. As an artist, I have frequently been on the other side of the equation, with my entries to juried art exhibitions and the occasional festival being considered by one or more jurors or judges. Very soon, as one goes along in life, every artist learns that, given a level of competency and proficiency, the outcome of such judging is very much a matter of luck. Considerations of an overall exhibit's theme, space requirements and other aspects play a role in the final outcome, and being passed over is not necessarily any reflection on the quality of one's own work. Nonetheless, I always wish more judges would give more specific feedback on work submitted. I suppose, realistically, that now there is such a large number of submissions to most art competitions that feed back would be too onerous. Such information would, however, help one grow and improve as an artist.

For artists who teach, there is another aspect to judging art competitions and festivals. Katie Lee, a wonderful botanical artist, teacher and judge (as well as being Kenya-born as I was!), writes eloquently about her desire for her students to succeed and be recognised. Her concern for their well-being is a very real consideration of any juror/judge; crushing talent and aspirations is always a great tragedy and waste.

Once an artist has been given the honour of judging his or her peers' work, it is a serious matter, where competency, fairness and clarity are all very necessary. Since each artist, no matter what the medium, has invested time, passion and money, in creating a work, it is only fitting that a judge/juror treat the work with respect and attention. I am, in truth, often left wondering when one reads of some shows where there are thousands and thousands of entries, and perhaps three seconds are accorded to each piece, usually now in digital image form. Need must... I recognise, that that is hardly a way to select work that might be magnificent, but done in a low key, subtle fashion which has trouble competing with the "high voltage", "hit-you-in-the-eye" works.

Judging an art show is frequently a little different from judging an art festival, insofar as the festival usually has many media. The line between fine art and crafts is also frequently blurred. For an art show, grosso modo, the judge is assessing visual design, technical competence and, above all, the highly personal consideration: does this work convey a clear, powerful message and does the work stop me in my tracks? Details of value (organisation of darks and lights into a good composition), colour (its use for harmony, feeling, repetition and pattern), shapes (their variation or repetition for interest, harmony and content), line (variation and use of lines) and organisation of a focal point all contribute to the unity and success of a work of art. Does the piece hold together and work to convey content and feeling?

Assessing the diverse work exhibited in booths in an art festival is perhaps more complex in some senses. I have found that scoring the artists' presentations according to a set of criteria, on paper, is helpful. It also means that the artists can later see how the judge scored things, which could perhaps provide some useful feedback. Since, de facto, a judge is working with apples and oranges, so as to speak - two and three dimensional work, crafts of different types, etc. - there has to be some coherence in the judging approach.

I tend to divide the score card into two sections - artistic merit and booth presentation. Under artistic merit, I score creativity and originality, quality of composition and design, clarity of theme/communication, technique and skill of creation and, finally, overall impression. Booth presentation looks at professional presentation, is the booth inviting to enter and does the booth set-up enhance/compliment/complement the work?

Suffice to say that if there are a large number of entrants in the Art in the Park festival tomorrow, I shall be busy for a while! I just hope that the award winners are happy and that everyone else has a really good festival!

Inate Artistry

2011-03-27T19:42:00.008-04:00

We have just been to a most beautiful concert at the Telfair Museum, in the Savannah Music Festival series of chamber music concerts with Daniel Hope and Friends, Accompanied and punctuated by huge claps of thunder from a dramatic storm, the musicians, playing Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, created beauty and elegance that was soul-moving.

Yet, in the midst of all their amazing skill and the thrumming on the roof of the pelting rain, I could not help but marvel at their obvious delight and seriousness of enjoyment of making beautiful music. I was reminded of Picasso's statement that "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Whether in visual arts, ballet, music, singing, or whatever art form, the hallmark of a successful artist, it seems, is that the person remains childlike at some level. That sense of delight, of inquiry, of inquisitiveness and openness... seems so necessary. It goes along with a sense of humour and an ability not to take oneself too seriously. Picasso, of course, embodied the impish and playful aspects of art amongst his many characteristics. Certainly his art bespeaks a childlike delight in the simple, the direct and the playful aspects of life.

The quiet camaraderie and sense of humourous enjoyment that showed in flashes between the musicians we heard today spoke to the same ability. Patrick Messina, the wonderful French clarinetist, or the cellist, Eric Kim, Daniel Hope with his extraordinary ability on the violin, or pianist Sebastian Knauer... all combine musicality with an obvious delight that Picasso would approve of. They have remained artists from childhood onwards. We all, in today's audience, were the richer for such artistry.

Hurray for Plein Air Days

2011-03-25T21:43:00.006-04:00

For a multiplicity of reasons, I have not been able to draw for the past few weeks. This means a feeling of serious "withdrawal" is beginning to prevail: I need to get back to creating art.

So it is with delight that I prepared my paper and pencils for a plein air session tomorrow, a workshop I am giving for local McIntosh Art Association members. The weather holds promise, I trust the insects will be blown away and that the local Georgia Wildlife Refuge at Butler Island, (an erstwhile rice plantation of considerable fame) in the mighty Altamaha River delta, will be in its full spring loveliness.

There is always the excitement of recognising that you have absolutely no idea what will strike you as subject matter, for drawing or painting, when you set off on a plein air session. You just have to let your subconscious mind tell you what matters, and then hope that whatever you create can be allied with your technical experience and personal identity... to make something worth while.

Henry Moore had it right - again! - when he remarked, "The observation of nature is part of an artist's life. It enlarges his form (and) knowledge, keeps him fresh and from working only by formula, and feeds inspiration." (This is "Tree Trunks II", a drawing Moore did in 1982 - image courtesy of the Henry Moore Foundation).

A suitable thought to carry with me as I set off to Butler's Island in the morning!

Visual Communication

2011-03-23T19:48:00.010-04:00

As I yield to the siren calls of spring bursting forth in the garden, I find myself thinking about how plants communicate their needs. They grow lustily if they like where they are and have all their needs met. If they are in the wrong place in terms of light or moisture, the gardener soon knows that they are not happy - leaves yellow or droop - or worse! The same visual communications often leave me laughing when you watch a cat or do tell you, the "subservient" human, what they want, or don't want.

In the same way, visual communication in art is vital. Every artist realises, sooner or later, that it is not just enough to be able to execute technically perfect paintings, drawings or other works. Pretty pictures are ten a penny in the world. But, just as in the advertising world, visual images need to carry weight and impact. In advertising, the messages are deliberate, planned and directed at certain audiences.

Usually in art, the situation is more diffuse. For a start, the communications are dependent on the times in which the artist lives. In early Christian times, for instance, there was an extensive vocabulary of symbols used to convey specific messages. In just one arbitrary example, take an anchor. It could symbolise hope in Jesus Christ, and represent sanctuary and commitment. It could convey safe arrival of a ship to harbour and thus mean faithfulness, shelter and hope. It also symbolised St. Clement, the poor unfortunate martyred 4th Bishop of Rome who was tossed into the sea with an anchor around his neck, one hundred years after Christ's death. (My thanks to the History of Painting website for this information.) By extension, the anchor was a sign used for the hidden Christian burial chambers, the Catacombs in Rome, possibly because Hebrews 6 19-20 says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure..." It was frequently used in conjunction with fishes, an obvious reference to Jesus telling Peter he would make them "fishers of men".

This image, courtesy of Heather, a moderator on art subjects in Good Reads, is found in the St. Domitillia catacomb in Rome, the epitaph for one Antonia. Sts. Domitillia, Priscilla, Calixtus and Coemetarium majus catacomb cemeteries are full of images of anchors.

This is another image from the tomb of Atimetus, from the St. Sebastian catacombs on the Via Appia. Again, fishes and anchors are simple, powerful visual communications.

As the Renaissance artists developed an increasingly sophisticated vocabulary of symbols for their visual communication, their public understood the messages. Today, we might need to learn the interpretations of those works of art to understand fully what the artists were communicating.

One of the most wondrous examples of that time is Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel. The whole work is a visual metaphor for mankind's need - and desire - for a covenant with God. Michelangelo uses images and symbols from the Book of Genesis as the main vehicles to convey man's need for salvation; every part of the work is as eloquent to us today as it was to the contemporary viewers. However, his contemporaries would probably have understood nuances more readily than many viewers of the ceiling do today.

Each era has developed a specific set of symbols to communicate messages visually, but in today's world, the vocabulary is more diffuse, in that we all have different optics on things, our belief systems are more diverse and the world is a much more universal and complex place. For an artist, it becomes perhaps a much more personal affair: what to communicate as a human being, tapping - hopefully - into universal values and beliefs that can resonate with others.

As Robert Henri observed, "Art cannot be separated from life... we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience." As artists, we need to live life in awareness and thoughtfulness. Ultimately, I believe, we need to have enough self-confidence and honesty to try to draw on our own souls and innermost core, to understand who we are and what we are trying to do and say. Only then can we develop a clear voice that is our way to communicate visually to others. Some people may hear that voice, others won't. That is the beauty of our diversity. But at least, an artist who dares to reveal his or her life experiences in artwork will be a unique person, conveying images that ring true. That is quite an ambitious goal.

Exquisite Timing

2011-03-20T18:15:00.003-04:00

The joy of coincidences and exquisite timing - there has to be a law about such matters! - has visited me again.

I returned from a lightening trip to Spain for a week: my gracious, beautiful and utterly lucid mother of nearly 93 years old had died. Today, I was listening to a programme I often find most rewarding, Krista Tippett's "On Being", on American Public Media. She was interviewing Joanna Macy, a lady of considerable talents, experiences and wisdom, with particular emphasis on her translations of the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke.

I listened with fresh appreciation to the allusively beautiful poetry, some of which I had read many years ago. And then came the gift to me, entitled "The Great Secret of Death", in a letter to Countess Margot Sizzo-Noris-Crouty on January 23rd, 1924. Rilke wrote, (in Joanna Macy's and Anita Barrows' translation), "The great secret of death, and perhaps its deepest connection with us, is this: that, in taking from us a being we have loved and venerated, death does not wound us without, at the same time, lifting us toward a more perfect understanding of this being and of ourselves."

How appropriate a thought for me at this moment. What exquisite timing!

Stumbling on Beauty

2011-03-08T21:40:00.002-05:00

Once in a while, in one of the art newsletters that I receive, I read something that really piques my interest. That happened today in a newsletter that I get periodically from Australia, ArtHIVES. There was an announcement about an artist now living in Brisbane who is short-listed for an art prize in Albany, Western Australia - Nicola Moss.

Looking at her website, and reading her comments about creating some of this beautiful art was rewarding. Not only does she create very sophisticated and compelling paintings, but her observations about the intricacies and fascinations of the natural world in which she works really resonate with me. Her concern for the viability of the natural environment in its tug of war with urban construction seems to underlie a lot of what she does. In her blog, "Layers of Life", she talks too of the time she spends working plein air. All artists seem to deal with the same elations and difficulties when working outdoors, no matter in what country. Nicola clearly has an eye for the small, subtle and elegant as she explores the amazing Australian biodiversity. Nonetheless, her resultant paintings are universal in their appeal.

It is worth going through the links to her website and clicking on the galleries to see her work. (Unfortunately, none of her images can be reproduced here because of copyright.) Nonetheless, thanks to Nicola Moss, I stumbled on a series of beautiful paintings today.

"Enchantment"

2011-03-07T20:11:00.007-05:00

Some while ago, I received an e-mail from Guy Kawasaki, of Alltop.com, asking if I would like to review his latest book, "Enchantment", prior to its launch on March 8th, 2011. I agreed to do so, because, as an artist, I was interested to see what I might learn from the book, given that its subtitle is "The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions".

As I read through this relatively slender and very accessible book, replete with lists of suggested actions and real life stories to illustrate Guy's points, I had to chuckle. At one point in the book, in the chapter on "How to launch", Guy discusses the virtues of planting "many seeds". Given that the Internet has changed the traditional approaches to marketing upside down, he advises that one should "embrace the nobodies", because ... "anyone who understands and embraces your cause and wants to spread the word is worthy of your attention". He was carrying out his own modus operandi exactly when he asked me to review the book!

Nonetheless, I think this book, "Enchantment" can teach - or remind - every artist about a number of important aspects of his/her profession. As in many other ventures, art is ultimately about a conversation, a mutual acceptance and understanding, a shared passion about work that an artist creates in some medium. The more that artist can reach out to find a receptive, appreciative audience, the more successful he or she can be, not only in financial terms but in personal fulfillment. Accepting others, meeting people and maintaining frequent personal contact are pathways Guy advocates in this book. Achieving trustworthiness through what is know as noblesse oblige or a "Mensch" in the full Yiddish sense of the word, along with honesty, integrity and generosity, is another of the chapters in "Enchantment": vital conduct for a successful artist.

There are some examples of how to connect with one's potential audience/public which illustrate how memorably to explain why one creates a piece of art, and how it can connect with the viewer. Let's face it - most people love learning the "back story" about any piece of art and the artist's reasons for making it. Early in the book, Guy quotes Vincent van Gogh saying "You have first to experience what you want to express." If you can communicate your passion and knowledge about your artwork, people are far more receptive to it because they have embraced, to a degree, that creative act.

Guy also makes a wonderful case for how to get a potential collector first to acquire a small piece of art, which often leads to later sales of bigger work. As he later says, "Enchanters don't sell products, services or companies... Enchanters sell their dreams for a better future - cooler social interactions, a cleaner environment, a heart-stirring driving experience, or the future of publishing..." Art is quintessentially about selling dreams. Guy elaborates cogently on how to sell those dreams.

The last major portion of "Enchantment" is a very useful commentary on the merits of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the Web in general in terms of using this technology to achieve successful enchantment. Any artist would find useful comments in this section. Guy's Facebook page for the book carries out his own advice. Indeed, he is offering his previous book for free with "Enchantment" until midnight tonight as another "enchanting" action.

Guy Kawasaki enthusiastically makes a case for walking a path to success - professionally and personally - that is honourable, proactive, imaginative but above all that contributes to making our world a better place. He even provides interest and delight - indeed enchantment - when he creates an origami butterfly to put on the book's cover.

It takes Dedicated People to Achieve Things...

2011-03-06T13:45:00.009-05:00

Today is a day of sad remembrance for a wonderful friend who has just slipped away - Lillian Schaitberger, late of McIntosh County.

Rundle, my husband, and I met Lil, as she was affectionately called, through the local historical society, the Lower Altamaha Historical Society, soon after we moved to Georgia. She was the meticulous, dedicated treasurer of the society's funds, amongst many other virtues.

When Rundle was asked to spearhead an effort to get a replica of the 1721 blockhouse built at Fort King George Historical Site, in Darien, he accepted on one condition: that Lil Schaitberger be the treasurer of any fund-raising effort. She accepted... and the odyssey of the next two years of fund-raising meant that Lil became a very close friend and ally. Her dedication kept us all going. The funds were raised, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources kept their part of the bargain and the replica blockhouse was built according to the original blue prints drawn up in the early 18th century by John Barnwell. The dedication and opening of the Fort at Fort King George in autumn 1988 meant that Lil Schaitberger, Rundle Cook and many others could heave a sigh of relief.

Lil did much more, however, for her two British friends, in terms of dedication. I had written the draft of a book, "Fort King George: Step One to Statehood", potentially to help with the fund-raising. I had put it away in a drawer, until the Mills B. Lane Foundation generously underwrote its publication in 1990. When the pallets of books were delivered, it was to Lil's garage that they had to go for storage... she was doing far more than being treasurer for the venture. I was desperate to free up her garage and eventually "sold" the books to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. With those monies, I was able to pay for the first of the replica cannon that are now fired out across the marshes to help recreate for today's visitors what life was like during the brief existence of the Fort in the 18th century. I requested that the cannon be dedicated to Howard J. Morrison, Jr. whose grant, through the Mills B. Lane Foundation, had been the seed money that validated the original fund-drive to build the blockhouse. Lil could at last park her car again in her garage!

Her wonderful friendship and dedication allowed another venture to succeed. In 1992, for the Quincentennial, under the aegis of a number of historical societies and universities, the book, seminar, video and relevant map, "Columbus and the Land of Ayllón" became reality in Darien, Georgia. This huge venture, which eventually spanned a number of years, sought to highlight Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's ill-fated 1526 settlement, San Miguel de Gualdape, possibly in or near Sapelo Sound, McIntosh County. Lil was again my treasurer for this complex, Hydra-headed endeavour and without her hard work and dedication, it would have been infinitely more complicated. After the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia requested to take over the Ayllón project so that it could be taught in Georgia schools, I accepted with alacrity, mainly because I could thus stop imposing on Lil's kindness and patience.

Lil was active in many, many other ventures in the County. Her courage and dedication were always a source of great admiration for us, and her sense of humour a joy. She epitomised the American "can do" attitude; her achievements, large and small, leave the County infinitely richer. Most of all, she was a true-blue friend to us.

Mark-making - Playing with Fire

2011-03-04T20:40:00.012-05:00

My artist friends in the silverpoint world are always guaranteed to surprise and delight with their creative inventiveness. I have just had a fresh reminder of this when Jane Masters, a fellow British/French import to the Northeast, sent me a notice about a show which she has just had at the Miller Block Gallery in Boston. She is a most successful artist with a wonderful resume of achievements to her name.

Entitled "Playing with Fire", this was clearly a most unusual exhibition and very well reviewed in the Boston Globe. This is an installation view of the exhibition she sent me.

Jane has, in addition to her wonderful silverpoint drawings, been extending her vocabulary to include mark-making by burning hand-forged steel brands on heavy-weight Arches watercolour paper. The resultant burnt drawings are wonderfully eloquent and energetic: the richly-hued burned marks and remaining smoke marks combine to form complex, sophisticated dances on the paper.

The images below are examples of this work.

The works on left (Playing with Fire - circle) and right (Playing with Fire - Curve) are full 22 x 30" sheets of watercolour, while the centre image is a panel of four full watercolour sheets, or what is left of them after the creative and elemental forces are done. I am left awestruck, not only at the sheer dedication and skill of making such drawings, but also by the fact that beforehand, Jane makes the steel brands by hand-forging them. That is a labour of love and passion.

Jane shows the same passion (which I had seen in her silverpoints) when she also uses heated needles to pierce holes through the paper to create pinhole drawings that make me think of Victorian samplers, albeit with a lovely sense of humour in the messages she includes.

Jane Masters reminds me that there is such a multiplicity of ways to make marks on paper that become wondrous drawings. All it takes is creativity and passion. Bravo, Jane!

Private Art, Public Response

2011-03-01T11:23:00.005-05:00

Every artist is sometimes impelled to create art that is not really intended for the big wide world. It is art that is perhaps made in reaction to a situation, a response to something that is joyful, troubling or passion-stirring. Often, that work is put away and not displayed in public.

This has happened to me several times, and my flat file drawers can attest to these drawings and paintings. However, once in a while, there is a situation where I suddenly remember one that seems to answer the parameters of some juried exhibition, and I think, well, it is worth a try.

The San Diego chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art has started running an on-line series of juried shows. One of them, "Transformation", seemed an appropriate place to enter one of my "private art" silverpoint drawings, Vertebral Distractions. I had created it from a small print out that my husband had been given at the Mayo Clinic after a portion of his spine had been examined. This small image was eloquent proof of why he suffers so much from chronic pain. I was so dismayed for him that I tried to think of all the every day joys surrounding us that could distract him - perhaps! - from his pain. It was a moment when we had a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron who had adopted a shallow bird bath on our front deck as his personal pond for the summer. Meanwhile, the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were flying their marvellous looping displays, butterflies flittered and the phalaenopsis orchids were a-bloom.

I was thus delighted to learn that I had won a prize for this silverpoint drawing, Vertebral Distractions, in the SD-WCA show. It was a double validation from the Judge, Hazel Ross, because, as I have said, this was a very private work, not intended for public viewing. It makes me realise afresh that no matter what one's original intentions, if an artist creates something born of deep feelings, it will resonate with someone, somewhere... the eternal conversations of human creativity.

Backroom aspects of being an Artist

2011-02-25T19:48:00.004-05:00

Whenever I paint a watercolour, I then record it in digital fashion and, frequently, I continue to use up my stock of Kodak ASA25 35mm slide film as I am still straddling the two systems. I far prefer the Kodak version because the slide film is superior for colour rendition on most watercolour paintings. As long as I use a grey card, a tripod and a decent camera, I can pretty well ensure decent photographs - the old-fashioned way.

Photographing digitally is another subject altogether and I know reams have been written about how to take good digital photographs of paintings. My personal experience is that the surface of most cold pressed watercolour papers bounces the light all over the place and consequently, photos come out pallid and with very unimpressive colour fidelity. I usually only photograph big watercolours, and then resign myself to a long session in Adobe Photoshop, with the painting beside me to guide me back to colour accuracy.

For smaller works, both watercolours and silverpoint drawings, I have been using a flatbed scanner for ages. I had a really good Epson scanner (courtesy of my husband's careful choice), but alas, it gave up the ghost and I had to replace it. Now I have a large format Mustek scanner installed, and it does help that I don't have to knit so many images together from several scans.

Nonetheless, I conclude that I am into the same unbelievably time-consuming colour adjustments that I endure with digital photographs. Somehow, even with the best settings possible, the scanner does not like that slightly rough paper surface and all sorts of odd colours appear. Pulling the work back to what it really looks like is almost a question of luck versus skill. It seems almost as labour-intensive as actually painting a watercolour, which is ironic. The image is a recent watercolour, The Bend in the Creek. It cost me too many hours of scanning adjustments!

I wonder if other watercolour artists have the same problems? These backroom aspects to art are definitely not my favourite pastimes, but are necessary in the business of art. Back to the old adage of there being "no such thing as a free lunch"!

"Singing" of Spring

2011-02-24T19:40:00.008-05:00

These days of warm springlike weather are absolutely irresistible! I should be doing all sorts of other things, but I find myself rushing out to paint - for the sheer joy of being outdoors as an artist!

Of course, it is then instant humbleness as I struggle to accomplish what I hope to paint. The wind blows, the gnats arrive and I can't believe that what I deemed to be straightforward has suddenly become complicated. But underlying the whole experience is harmony, of "singing true" and almost a sense of completeness: I am privileged to be doing what I love to do, in a beautiful spring world.

I think Ingres knew about this sense of plenitude and harmony, in his paintings but also when he was drawing his astonishing graphite pencil portraits or his landscape drawings in Rome. He wrote, "Everything in nature is harmony; a little too much, or else too little, disturbs the scale and makes a false note. One must teach the point of singing true with the pencil or with brush as much as with the voice; rightness of forms is like rightness of sounds."

At the left is Ingres' drawing of Ursin Jules Vatinelle and at left, is his drawing of The View of the Villa Medici. Both images are courtesy of the website, The Complete Works of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.

Somehow, the close observation of one's surroundings and an effort to create a harmonious composition and luminous painting help to make one grow as an artist. That always helps make life more fulfilling.

Artists' Evolution

2011-02-21T20:16:00.006-05:00

As the years pass and an artist continues to work and create art, it is often interesting to follow the evolution of what the artist creates. Sometimes an artist is "cursed with success" at an early age and is tempted to continue producing art in the winning formula, without much incentive to try new things and push for growth.

Every great artist shows change and development during his or her career - one only has to remember Vincent Van Gogh or Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet or Pablo Picasso, to name some artists rather at random. It should be axiomatic that artists evolve in their art for as human beings, we all change and develop as the years pass. Nonetheless, some artists are more dramatic in their evolution than others.

I was reminded about these potential huge leaps and changes that artists can make when I was reading about an exhibition running until 20th March at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Entitled Bridget Riley: From Life, it is a selection of the drawings that Riley did as a student at Goldsmiths College, London, in 1949-52. Most people think of Bridget Riley's work as the vibrant, brilliantly coloured, rhythmic compositions that dance and swoop in patterns in almost strobe-like fashion. An exhibition of such paintings, energetic and elegant, is also on view until May 22nd at the National Gallery, London.

Nonetheless, the drawings shown at the Portrait Gallery remind us that she started out very much involved and passionate about drawing from life, as well as closely studying the works of great artists - Raphael, Rembrandt, Ingres, Seurat, etc. - in the print room at the British Museum. Her drawings, such as this one on the right, Older Woman looking down, 1950 (image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery), underscore the value she places on keen observation. She catches the sense of the body in space, how the head feels as the woman tilts her head reflectively, the resigned expression in the eyes. Riley's drawing practice helped her refine her immaculate sense of structure and taught her that there is a continuity in art's concerns down the ages. Her own drawing and her study of the Old Masters, she explains, "gave me the means to embark on my own work with confidence, and to this day this particular knowledge forms the basis of everything I do in the studio." As Andrew Lambirth also remarks in an article in the 5th February edition of The Spectator, "drawing gave her the necessary exercise in looking and organising information, and the means of bringing eye, hand and mind into fruitful relationship."

It is inspiring to measure the trajectory of such an artist: the serious art student carefully observing her portrait model at Goldsmiths evolves into a richly inventive, energetically wonderful painter, creating memorable abstract art, yet still closely linked to the great painters of the past.

Lines and Swirls, Dots and Spashes

2011-02-18T19:58:00.008-05:00

I am always fascinated to see the work of fellow artists in any group to which I belong in some fashion. The annual exhibitions of groups into which one has to be juried in some (often stringent) fashion are one example. The catalogues of shows by the National Association of Women Artists, the American Artists Professional League, Catherine Lorilliard Wolfe Art Club, the Pen and Brush or Georgia Watercolor Society, for instance, are wonderfully diverse, frequently of very high quality, and decidedly interesting overall.

Another group whose work I viewed today on the Web is formed by very distinguished artists whose work is in the New Hall Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, England. This is the pre-eminent collection of women's artworks in Great Britain. Artists in the collection were sent a small piece of paper and asked to create original art for auction on line to raise money for maintenance of the collection. I did a silverpoint drawing of an old cedar tree base, Cedar Lace.

Looking at the work now offered for auction on the New Hall website reminded me, once again, of the wonderful diversity of approach we all have as artists. Since each one of us had the same size piece of paper on which to work, it makes it even more interesting to see what each person has done. Lines and swirls, dots and splashes are indeed in evidence, with celebrations of so many different voices and ways of expression. New Hall has very sensibly made the initial bid very modest - £20 or $32.50 - and then you can bid in £5/$8 increments. Not bad at all as a way to own some of the top British artists' work.

I am reminded of the French exclamation: Vive la différence! It all makes for such an interesting world.