Year-end Reflections

As the year passes
We speak with snowflakes, not words.
There are no words left.

"At First Glance #7", 5" x 7" ink and watercolor

***

Remembering Now,
Imagining seasons -
Images whisper.

 "Rituals" 8" x 6" watercolor

***

At each gathering,
A misty rain of color
That sometimes we see.
 

"The Gathering" 4" x 6" ink and watercolor

***

Now and then we park
And see passages beyond
The concrete and wire.

Parking Garage, 6" x 6" ink and watercolor

2,760 Miles

"The Friendly Wolf" 10" x 10" acrylic on canvas [Click on the image to enlarge.]

Okay, I hate to brag, but the average wolf does not migrate.  He might trek as far as 70 miles, following migratory prey, before he settles down again to join a pack, or establish his own new territory.

But this wolf has traveled 2,760 miles from Miami to a city north of Los Angeles.  He arrives today at his new home, hopefully in one piece.  He certainly should.  The bubble wrap is so thick that I could have used the wrapped canvas as a pillow and still not damaged it. 

Ah, the anxiety of shipment.

This was a commission, and a joy to do.  There is a lot of layering in this piece, and many colors.  In fact, the wolf had so many colors that at one point I had to put the canvas aside to decide what to do.  It was too much.  Eventually I knew what I needed, a transparent brown.  And lo and behold Winsor & Newton came out with a new color called, appropriately, Transparent Brown.  Voila!  It worked as advertised, to great effect.  And, like a few of my other paintings, I made liberal use of the rubber spatula tool towards the end.  So far, for me, it is much better than a palette knife.


One personal joy in painting this wolf was the knowledge that it is going to hang in the room of an autistic young man.  I hope that it brings him great pleasure.  I'm partial to the unique plight of autistic individuals because, as you may remember, my son is autistic.

And for the record, my son didn't show any interest at all in the wolf.  In fact he has never paid any attention to any of my art.  That is, until recently.   When he did, it was quite a surprise.  He walked to the dinner table carrying an illustration I'd done, saying, "Look! Look!" with a big smile on his face.  This is what he was carrying: 

10" x 13" Ink and watercolor

Sigh. 

From Darkness to Light

Here's a small painting of a lamp, that started out sedate and ordinary, and ended up like this.  Like a writer's character, sometimes the objects in a painting take over.

6" x 6" acrylic on board

As you know, there is so much to see everywhere and in everything.  Lately I've been snapping pictures with my phone at any place that these wonderful scenes emerge.  When I was a boy, I used a camera to snap pictures of trees and the sky and stuff.  Once, I remember, I put a drinking glass over the lens and snapped a shot.  I was told then by the adults around me that I should use the camera to take pictures of posed people instead.  That's when I laid the camera down.

I realize that I haven't changed much despite their best efforts.  Here is my contribution for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Taken during a morning jog

I've been restless with watercolors lately.  But some interesting things have come of it.  Like this:

8" x 10" watercolor on Daler Rowney NOT paper

I've also been discovering some interesting art blogs and podcasts on artists and the art scene.  Often they add fuel to the fire that consumes me.   Maybe you'll enjoy them too and like me, be educated, entertained, bemused, and confounded.  So check them out (but not before leaving a comment here, of course.)

I've been listening to the Modern Art Notes podcast for more than a year I think.  It is excellent.  http://manpodcast.com

A wonderful blog that has links to ever-changing art articles and criticism is Painter's Table at http://painters-table.com

From Painter's Table, I found about the podcast "ahtcast" which is far less polished than Modern Art Notes, but has artist interviews and is fun and interesting.  It is at http://www.ahtcast.com

A wonderful blog called "In the Make" features studio visits with west coast artists at http://inthemake.com

And from "ahtcast" I learned about a blog with videos of artists in their studios called "Gorky's Granddaughter" at http://www.gorkysgranddaughter.com

From there I learned that artists are a quirky bunch.  But you knew that already, didn't you?

My First "Real" Painting

Acrylic on 18" x 18" canvas; Tentative title: "Even if it Looks Blue" Click to enlarge.

1.  The other night I dreamed that I was a muscular super hero fighting powerful villains and everything was going okay until they released the mosquitoes.

*  *  *

I thought about easing back into these posts with some innocuous piece of art so as not to shock you with my latest work.  But I can't.  I cannot because, regardless of its merit or lack thereof, the painting above feels like my first real work.

It is a self-portrait, above, tentatively entitled "Even if it Looks Blue".  [Yes, I have grown a goatee; and yes, it grew in white.  And yes, I kinda like it.]

The painting is not meant to be all encompassing.  I am still cheerful, life-affirming, personable.  I am prone to humor and a smile.  I find wonder in the bark of a tree or the crack of a sidewalk.  I am still the same person you know.

Aren't tree roots beautiful?

But there is more.  This painting captures an unsettling time, and something of what is happening here, both inside and out.  It captures my essence, but not all of who I am, and only at a given moment, which may already have passed. 

*  *  *

2.  I'm in a different place, but I don't know where I am.

*  *  *

You may recall that a few posts ago I was wrestling with some frustration with my art.  I was concerned that by painting a person or an object, I could not capture its essence.  In many ways I was happy, such as with the painting below, when I tried a subject I knew that Diebenkorn painted a few times, a pair of scissors.  In that painting and others, I was able to work on technique and composition.  All of that was wonderful and still is.

But I wondered whether there was a way to show what I could perceive that exists beyond the object.  I wanted to find a reality beyond the simple portrayal of the object itself. That is still a goal of mine.  The self-portrait is my first attempt to do so.

Acrylic on 6" x 6" board

The self-portrait obviously contains some symbolic or abstract elements.  For weeks it was sitting on my easel without the shapes at the bottom of the canvas.  Some artist colleagues told me that the painting looked done to them.  But it seemed incomplete to me.  Weeks later those elements became essential additions.  And now, after an additional week of examining the work, I am satisfied.  I think.

The symbols have surface meanings and deeper meanings, some very personal.  They help to tell the full story.   Some of what I tried to incorporate were a mountain or volcano, and an eclipse or unsteady circle, as harbinger of change.  Those are the most evident elements.  More subtly, there is the curve which bears a resemblance to the ying and yang, though on its side.  They were intended as male and as female/creative elements. There is more that I intended. Of course, you may provide your own interpretation (psychoanalysis), but don't send me the bill.

*  *  *

3.  I sit on the cold bare floor.  I need only walk a few short steps to stand on the well-worn, ugly, blues-speckled rug, as before. 

I see only one other rug, frightfully far, but it reflects the light.  Sometimes it flashes all of the colors of the rainbow. 

I cannot tolerate the floor much longer.  It is much too cold.  And there are only two rugs.

*  *  *

Why would I paint a slice of myself?  It is much more effective in showing where I am, that any full image would have been.

A few weeks after I painted this, Hallie Farber posted an I-pad portrait at her blog with a wavy red line approaching the subject's head.  I commented to let her know that I had done the same thing in a self-portrait a few weeks before and that we were on the "same curvy red wavelength".  I wrote so that she would know that I had come up with the same idea independently.  She responded:

"Uh oh, Dan, not a good wavelength...  I'm seeing your painting in my head--electro shock treatment? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a favorite movie."  

No Hallie, and no, dear reader, I am still sane.  So don't worry.  Dan hasn't lost it.  (Although I am now talking about myself in the third person).  It's nothing like that.  And I am within the normal realm of human behavior (or at least one of my personalities tells me so.)  But I am grateful that I can express in art what's so difficult to say in words.

Despite the lack of posts, I have been doing a bit of art and illustration, none of which is so psychological, or so dark.  There are still sketches in public, cartoony drawings, ink and watercolor,  representational art, and experiments.  And I want to share it all with you.  I need to post far more often, don't I?

I also expect to pursue this other path if the muse allows, but not always to dark places.  There is so much beauty beyond everything, that I hope to uncover that as well.  The only question is how.  That is my challenge and my joy.

The Tale of Budge

"The View Outside" 6" x 6" acrylic on Gessoed Hardboard, SOLD

Mewing.  There was mewing in the vicinity of our back door, a pleading chorus.

Where was it all coming from?  We didn't know.  It was a curiosity, nothing more.

But then we found them - a litter of newborn kittens in the shallow space beneath a cabinet in our garage.  We left the garage door open so that the mother could come and go freely. And eventually, one at a time, the mother removed the kittens from the garage.  The mewing lessened until only one voice remained.

The mewing of the remaining kitten was loud, desperate - needful.  But the mother did not return.

What to do?  My wife was very upset.  She lined a shoebox with papertowels, and then with hand towels.  We didn't know anything about cats.  She tried to feed him.  Nothing.

He was a beautiful black.  She named him Licorice.  He could fit on the palm of her hand.

She called her sister, who rushed over.  She and her niece brought Licorice to the Humane Society, where they were summarily informed that because there were too many strays, if they left him there he would be put down.

So my wife's sister brought Licorice home.  That name wouldn't do.  His name became Budge.  She and her husband brought him to the vet, who told them what they had to do.  He told them there was perhaps a 40% chance that Budge would survive.

But they were determined.  They bought cat supplies galore.

Her husband, my brother-in-law, stepped to the fore.  Around the clock, including all night, for days (weeks?), he had to feed Budge through a dropper every two hours.  But not only that.  He had to rub Budge's belly constantly.  It is not just for affection that a cat licks her kittens.  It teaches them to feed.

It was touch and go for a while.  There were times when Budge wouldn't eat.  There were other times he had to be rushed to the vet.

But against the odds, he survived.  And he lived the pampered life of a favored cat in their household for years.


One day I saw him sitting on the windowsill, and snapped the shot that the above painting is based upon.  I liked his silhouette against the lively background, and the shape of the large palm frond that seemed to shelter him.

And that is the story of Budge.

 

Critics.  There are always critics.

Concerning the Koi

6" x 6" acrylic on board "The Koi" Click HERE to purchase $100.00

Sitting at the edge
of the pond and
contemplating

the koi,

I am captured by
their color,
ensnarled in their
swirling.

I am calmed.

As I sit
in the massive
shopping mall
on the concrete
edge of the koi pond,

I feel frenetic
bodies
all about me:

sallying,
bullying and
stirring the air

Sometimes for gain,
they perform
the unthinkable.

7" x 7" watercolor on 140 lb. NOT paper. Click HERE to purchase $100.00

When koi are released
into the wild,
they lose their
spectacular color within

a few generations

and don the dull cloak
of the carp.

They stir the soil,
making their watery home
muddy and
unattractive
to everyone else.

Undrinkable.

Sometimes for gain,
they perform
the unthinkable.

Captivity
becomes
the koi.

*****************************************

Here's a photo for Shadow Shot Sunday:

Between a Rock and a Hard Place (And a Healthy Dose of Art Philosophy and a Shadow Shot too!)

6" x 6" acrylic on board.  "A Dog's World" Click here to purchase.  $100.00

In "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee", Seinfeld's online series, which is just about the Best Thing Ever ( I like the episode with Michael Richards), Seinfeld asks Chris Rock who it is that he likes, and Rock responds, "I admire people that have breakdowns.  Because once you have a breakdown, you can clear the slate."


Try as I might, I am incapable of having a breakdown.  I can metaphorically break a leg (see the last post) and put my blog into virtual paralysis, but between down periods and angry spells and  confusion, my mood eventually buoys like a beach ball in water.  And that, I suppose, is a good thing.  Despite the fact that I will never have the admiration of Chris Rock.

But there has been this kind of inadvertant virtual summer sabbatical.  The precipitating event is not the worst thing that has ever happened to me, not by a long shot, but it was indeed traumatic and had elements that have called into question perspectives that I have held for nearly half a century.  I am not the same.  I will not write about it directly.  But my soul has been stirred - even my feelings about art.  And I consider this blog to be a reflection of my soul.

From my moleskine this month.

Also in my moleskine - true, isn't it?

Despite the pause in blogging, I have continued painting.  I touched up an older painting, yet to be posted, and have almost completed another series painting.  I have wrestled with another wolf painting - and the wolf appears to be winning.  But I will continue to try to tame the beast. 


And during this virtual absence I decided to emulate the daily painters.  I painted six small acrylic paintings in quick daily succession.  The first, of a dog, is above.  I will post them all as this blog continues.

But all of that is beside the point.

I was pleased with the results of each of these works.  But in a way, surprisingly, I was dissatisfied as well with each and every one of them.  My springboard for these, as with virtually all I have painted before, has been "every day matters" - my fascination with all I see around me.  But I have begun to seriously question the premise.  I think painting what you see may not be enough.  To show the reality of the everyday I am thinking a painting may need to include what lies behind - the unseen.  And how do you depict that?  That is the question.


I am wondering whether this is what modern painters are attempting to show, an internal sense that there is more to the world than what is being observed.

A Shadow shot for "Shadow Shot Sunday" - it's been a long time..

Periodically there have been times - uplifting, invigorating, happy times - that seemed to be of high velocity, but that have come to a sudden, shocking halt.  A human life can be like that when it is tragically cut short.  In a poem I wrote after my daughter's short life and dramatic death, I likened the experience to a "roof unmoored by hurricane winds."  There are also times that the apparent surface events conceals the reality.  And sometimes we are fooled, and shocked when the reality is revealed.  And how do you depict that? 

My drive to draw and paint is as strong as ever, but what and how I paint in the future may change.  I have outlined for myself elements to include in future works, devices for showing the unseen in the observed, the hidden, the profundity, and I have an idea for paintings in this regard.  Will they work? Again, I don't know.  It is a hard place to be in.  And I may not have the skills to do it.

These are my thoughts for what they are worth.  Again, I don't want to be a talker, I want to do.  I am too much of a talker.  In art, my drive is to do.  But I want to share my thoughts, even with the risk that none of it may ever materialize.

Prologue  - [Sigh, I can't stop] but for me, this is the most interesting part:

After I wrote the above, and then saving the post for a week as a draft - wondering if all of the above was premature to say - I was mulling over painting ideas and noted that one image was awfully like a Magritte.  It made me wonder about the philosophy behind his works (beyond that of his famous painting of the pipe).  Lo and behold, when contrasting his art with the pop artist's "mistake" of painting "the world as it is", he contrasted their attention to the passing moment with his concern for portraying "the feeling for the real, insofar as it is permanent."

This led me to the photographer Duane Michals, who was influenced by Magritte.  You can see much of his work here.  In 1987 he gave a lecture which is here.  (It is funny that in that year, because it was recorded by cassette tape, only half of the talk was recorded because they forgot to turn the tape over!).  Key phrases, for me, from this talk are:

When looking at a picture:  "I don't want to know what I know.  I want to know what I don't know!"

"People are not what they seem."  And he said, and it's true, that one can't even know one's own parents.  [Recent events, for me, have called into question the entire premise of my "At First Glance" series.  Fortunately the series is aptly titled, because the idea of capturing someone's soul is a fool's errand.]

And, significantly:

"The most important things in life are invisible."

And how do you portray that?!