11 thoughts from Mitchell Johnson

While on vacation my painter friend Amanda Millis and I got the chance to meet one of my all time favorite artists in person: Mitchell Johnson.

Some of the things he said have really stuck with me and I wanted to share them with you: (I didn’t record our conversation so with his permission I’ll paraphrase)

- Illusion is a convention and perhaps a side effect- not the end goal

- Take a look at Fairfield Porter’s paintings— look at the color in the shadows!

- Don’t pay attention to mark making too much. Mark making is like breathing- it happens naturally. You may, however, pay attention to your marks in the same way one might follow one’s breath during a yoga practice. It’s the sort of attention one uses to become centered but not self conscious.

- Don’t pursue being good, because you might arrive.

- Wanting to be good can get in the way of paying attention

- Some goals: to feel a sense of fortunate grace in your practice, to know moments of elation, and to know something intimately

- Each new painting one makes is like another room where you can keep exploring.

- The correct color is the color that says “something special is going on here”- the color that you feel is right

- There is not one correct color, there are only moments

- There is not one harmony or rightness to reach towards, but infinite possibilities
-“Ninth Street Women” by Mary Gabriel is a great book about key female players in the art world- a worthwhile read!

I just got my copy of Ninth Street Women in the mail- so psyched to read it!

Emil Robinson's Madonna

Emil Robinson is a painter and professor- he is super accomplished — you can see his CV here.

So I asked Emil about what he’s been working on recently. Above is an image of one of his latest pieces. With his permission, here is his response:

Hi Laura! Thanks for asking. I am working on a series of still life paintings that balance different kinds of precision. The precise color of an environment that requires the mind to accommodate and summarize particular facts- with the precise drawing of an object seen in detail a certain distance from my eye. I utilize direct observation to try and calibrate color relationships at a small and large scale. At the larger scale I want my paintings to function like an Albers homage to the square painting- one simple colored place in harmony or discord with other colored places. I say place because direct observation challenges me to find the particular sense of an environment I am existing in and examining. My current studio is a small airy room with large west facing windows. The quality of light is transformational, it is strong and glowing. My room feels like the interior of a lighthouse turned on low. It is a domestic space, and the features of it are the features of common interiors. My still life arrangements are all set on a large white fireplace mantle that is a little lower than shoulder height for me. After making non-objective paintings for a number of years I take the environmental constraints of my particular studio to be one framework that gives my work consistency. 

I think that my time working with abstraction has given my still life paintings surprising new life. I also recently discovered Jacques Lacan's theory of the Objet Petit A. Lacan equates the qualities of an object person or environment to a wordless geometry of desire. The gap between a constructed (linguistic) adult identity and the physical appetites of the body is the motivating force for choosing a particular object, person etc. This is a pretty common sense idea for representational painters, but it feels like permission to trust completely in my impulses for one still life object over another... These choices of object have felt increasingly inevitable to me in these paintings. I think it takes a long time to construct a mechanism inside yourself where the feelings and experiences of your life naturally translate into paintings, but in some small way I feel like it has happened for me. Even a small victory is worth celebrating... 

My art journey of the last decade has been a search to understand how various kinds of traditional painting create meaning. It was never my intention to work in such diverse styles, however my questions began to necessitate that approach. The deepest love for me in painting has always been illusion and nuanced response to real space, but when I was first painting seriously that language was an inheritance not a choice. Even though my initial career was taking off- I began to see fault lines in my approach. 

At this point I am choosing every facet of my work with intention, it is exhilarating. Now perhaps the career will follow!

Notes from a Portrait Drawing Demonstration with Elana Hagler

So Elana is my teacher and mentor and friend. She is really accomplished. You can see her CV here and listen to an excellent interview with her at Savvy Painter podcast here.

Last week she did a portrait drawing demonstration live hosted by Savvy Painter. I tuned in and took some notes. Elana said some real gems that I want to share with you here:

- Understand the whole shadow of the head
- indulge yourself
- delay gratification
- keep things moveable
- get the correct height to width ratio of the head at the start
- measure out anchor points
- don't rely too heavily on rules
- create an envelope for the head and face
- I will definitely make mistakes, and I will react to them.
- don't look too deeply into the shadows
- help the shadow hold together as a mass
- ask detailed questions of drawings by masters
- live in the tension between school knowledge and self knowledge
- each move is an opportunity to follow and experience and really observe
- straight lines act as a scaffold

Notes

Hi ya’ll! Here’s a little bit on my process these days.

I tape a sheet of primed linen to a drawing board along with another smaller piece of linen. I call the smaller piece of linen my “notes.” Below you can see an up close photo of the notes in the video.

Notes

The name “notes” holds a double meaning for me: musical notes and writing notes (like with a pen in a notebook).

I had a teacher who compared colors to musical notes. He said that when the colors are in harmony, the picture “sings.” Sometimes when I’m refining a color mixture, I imagine I’m tuning a guitar. The goal is to make a painting with perfect pitch (Corot was a painter with perfect pitch).

The notes also feel like a sort of writing to me. When I became a parent, I realized that I wouldn’t get much done without making lists. Now I’m addicted to making lists. I think these notes are an expression of my obsession with list making.

Now I’ll talk about the actual process. Art nerd alert!

When I mix up a color I start by mixing up my first best guess. Then I place it on the canvas in the appropriate spot. I also make a mark with the color on my notes with a palette knife.

Then I ask the color what it needs and then adjust the color. I scrape off the first best guess on the painting and replace it with the adjusted color. I also make another mark beside the first on my notes.

I do this process 4 times for every color I mix. You can see in the photo of my notes there are four marks for each color.

I make the notes because they help me stay on track— it’s a record of my process and a sort of color map/sheet music for the developing painting.

Thanks for reading! <3

Waste

In a conversation with an artist, I got to talking about waste.

I said something like:

I wasted so much time on that painting! Hours and hours of many days devoted to this picture that fell flat on its face and died. I wasted so much paint and linen making that huge painting that failed! How depressing!

And he said something like:

It’s really not about wasting. You can’t really be economical. It’s about the dream.

Now I’m left with questions like: what is the dream? What is that exciting vision I saw before starting a picture? What is the big question? What is the force behind my work?

In the face of these questions, wasting paint and time does sort of lose relevancy. The investigation of the dream seems a more important focus.

Israel Hershberg Notes from Master Class Critiques

I got to spend 6 weeks in Civita Castellana during the summer of 2017 plein air painting and studying under Israel Hershberg in his master class. These are some of my favorite take aways from that time:

1. Avoid facts in favor of a large experience.

2. Measure while seeing the whole picture

3. The sky starts at the tip of your nose

4. Create a composite experience that is beyond reporting.

5. How is more important than what

6. Don't explain too much

7. You must be able to discern if any given mark or note makes either a light or shadow, we don't need to know what the thing is.

8. Run a make-up brush, sandpaper, or a razor blade across your painting to open it up again

9. Feelings must be contained by the intellect

10. In contemplating a motif: Don’t bleed… admire...

11. See the geometry of light

12. Satisfy yourself from the principles you're working out of, then stop

13. No amount of drawing can save you from bad color

14. Unnecessary pieces of a painting are malignant

15. Don't plop it down, weave it in

16. Make pure form that belongs to no time

17. Sentimentality is a failure of feeling

18. Get the mountain into the sky

16 Takeaways from a Scott Noel drawing demo

In the winter of 2016, Scott Noel was the juror for the UNC Asheville Drawing Discourse art show. He did a pastel drawing demo as part of the weekend's events. I attended and took notes and I still use them! Here are 16 takeaways from that day:

1. Start with large masses- then eventually develop small units of detail
2. Have an appetite for sculptural form.
3. High contrast to low contrast makes space.
4. Use experience and intuition at the same time.
5. Get the spatial event to resonate with the size of the paper.
6. The wall behind the figure (the background) is an actor in the drawing.
7. Resist the urge to rush into something that comforts you (details).
8. Don't go straight for the jugular- likeness of the model
9. Create a cloud.
10. Cross contour lines are a symbolic language like longitude and latitude.
11. Drawing is a matrix not a copy.
12. Never show fear- keep a straight face when dealing with frightening energy.
13. Turn the terrain of the knee into an event.
14. Not good to copy light and shadow to make planes. You must have form underneath the shadow
15. Get a feeling for the terrain like a blind man.
16. Court disaster.

6 Reasons to Become an Art Patron

Ever thought about becoming an art patron?

What is an art patron?

An art patron is defined by Merriam- Webster’s as: “a person chosen, named, or honored as a special guardian, protector, or supporter/ a patron of the arts.”

The good news is, you don’t have to be a Pope or a wealthy aristocrat to support the arts! Just $1 a month through a Patreon page or through a private paypal donate button (like mine!) can make a big difference.

So here are 6 Reasons to become an Art Patron:

1. As an art patron you get to support the kinds of images you want to see in the world. I have to quote Gandhi here “ Be the change you want to see in the world.”

2. Becoming an art patron can give you increased access to an artist. You get to see behind the scenes to the underground of the art world.

3. Supporting the arts is like providing nutrients to your culture. What would a place look like without any art? What would it feel like without art?

4. Supporting art is supporting the healing of our civilization, as writer Toni Morrison says:

   “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

5. Financially supporting the arts helps develop international language. English is a verbal and written language. Visual artists work with the visual language. I like to think of the visual art world as a huge think tank where ideas that cannot be discussed in words are worked out in images. Manifest gallery’s motto says this:

   “It is the function of art to carry us beyond speech to experience.”

   So perhaps art at its best is the language of experience. You can help fund the language of experience.

6. It feels really good. Giving and investing in another person’s dream can be a real buzz. You are making the fulfillment of visions and dreams into realities.

So! What do you think?

If you want to become an art patron I suggest checking out the works on Patreon or the projects on Kickstarter. There are loads of creators on those sites with wonderful ideas that just need that support to get off the ground.

If you would like to support my work you can find my paypal donate button here.

Thanks for reading!

On Color: A Conversation with John Lee

John Lee is a graduate of the certificate program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, holds a BFA from the University of Penn, and received his MFA from the University of Indiana in Bloomington. John is an Assistant Professor of Painting at the College of William and Mary, where he has been teaching since 2008.

His show "Arm's Length Intimacy" will be on view this fall at First Street Gallery from October 29-November 23.

LV: I’m curious about how you mix your colors, do you make them as true to life as you can? Or do you have other strategies?

JL: Hi Laura. Not quite sure how to answer the question, but its one that I think is put out there a lot in regards to looking at color. What is...'true to life', etc etc? I try to paint what I see. I do know that I am informed by colorists who work from life: Walter Sickert, Catherine Kehoe, Wolf Kahn, F. Porter, Bloomsbury Group painters, Matisse early on, Uglow, Gwen John, many others. The Arthur Stern How to See Color and Paint It book (original version 1984(6?)) was influential as well, and I use it often when teaching.

I don't think of 'lights', 'darks', 'my midtones'. I think in terms of Hue, Intensity, Value, Temperature. I strive to see the Hue Identity in every color that I see, that the color is not a neutral, a grey or brown, but is a primary, secondary, or tertiary at heart. I dull with complements, more or less. There is a focus on cad orange, permanent green, and mars violet that I have been using as the basis for my palette, but that has changed often over the years.

Do I 'exaggerate' the color? I do and I do not. It does and does not look like that in nature...the color in the reflection is -not- that pronounced. however, I see it as being a truth and sincerely based on what I see at the same time.

Harold Gilman is another painter that I like, British. I think of trying to tie the hues that I see into a value structure, getting the color (hue) to conform to the value structure. I suppose with the Stern book the ideas were:

1. mix neutrals/neutral-leaning colors using complements.

2. analyze in terms of color relationships, using the color properties: hue, intensity, value, temperature. Ask: what hue do I see (color wheel identity)? how warm, how cool, how dull, how bright (intense), how light, how dark?? Look at the relationships.

3. Try to think in terms of Hue or 'color' and 'forget value', just let the value 'happen'. I think that is the inverse of normal thinking, in that painters may let the color 'be' once the value is correct. I have a love/hate thing with color, I always think that it -could- be something else, each color...that shadow could be actually warmer, or greener, or something. Whereas value to me can be largely absolute and measurable in a sense.

LV: This is a lot to think about! Colors are so complicated. I was just doing some plein air painting today. I remember Israel Hershberg saying it was good to mix for value and hue at the same time. I find I sort of go back and forth checking for each. I haven’t read the Arthur stern book, I’ll check it out. I’ve been reading Hawthorne on painting lately. What do you think of his color spot theory? Would you say it’s similar to Stern’s book? Also what kind of paint do you use? I’m interested in looking for those three colors you mentioned I’ve never used any of them.

JL: Yes, the Stern book is based on Hawthorne's ideas. It is in some way like an illustrated version of Hawthorne (some people would not agree with that!). I was taught painting in the vein of color spots, using Stern, the Hawthorne book, and other examples.

Do you know of the Henry Hensche school? I use Utrecht and Williamsburg mostly.

LV: I have heard of the Henry Hensche School. Would you say Hensche exaggerated his colors?

JL: I like the color in his demos. I think its true color, seen through color vision....

The Leland bell book, by Nicholas Fox Weber, has long been important to me. Bell is not about 'the light' or responding to what one sees- but the movements, the rhythms, the tensions. Looking at Bell helped me to understand a lot of painting, matisse, baroque painting, Cezanne in a way.

LV: What do you mean by true color and color vision? Do you mean seeing like a painter where the visual world is abstracted?

JL: I am not exactly sure what I mean. It might have to do with knowing painters who work in terms of contour and drawing, and the paint is used to describe form using contour, value, local color (more or less), 'shading', etc. All of which would not be seeing in terms of the color, "color vision".

So I suppose I mean painting that deals with a truth to the color, letting color do the work, composing with color, and letting the color be the truth, rather than the form, the description, the object, the subject, the thing....its the color that is the goal, the concentration, even though truth to the color may obscure the identity of the subject matter. Color investigation. 'Just' looking at the color. Looking for something meaningful and true/truer in the color. "what is the true nature of the colors that I am seeing?" as one paints.

LV: You’re saying that color vision makes color the first consideration. Is that right?

JL: I suppose that my description with contour, people who maybe put contour or surface first, etc....my point is that they want something different. Gregory Gillespie for example. Very very good work, and color is I suppose important on some level, but he is about the sculptural aspects of the form, the texture, the edges, etc. One tries to put several aspects together in most cases. But I think that a lot of people may not even be desiring or even responsive to color. However, I think that when one uses color one should think of hue, intensity, value, and temperature all at once. The fact that these elements of color are somewhat contradictory, that they sort of attempt to defeat each other, is part of the beauty and tension inherent to color expression.

If you try to get those very dark colors in the shadow, or those very light colors in the light, you are easily in danger of losing the strength of the hue, or/and the intensity. For me, intensity and value are 'at war' with each other. They need each other at the same time. They work with -and- against each other. Not unlike the way that the shadows destroy the lights (and vice versa), but we need shadow in order to express light (and vice versa).

LV: Yes! I went out painting yesterday and I was thinking about Henry Hensche and getting the hue. It was pretty frustrating because I’m also really trying to get the value right. I’m not sure what you mean by the shadows destroying the lights. Do you mean that you emphasize one or the other so they don’t compete?

JL: Shadows destroying the light. Destroying may be too harsh a word. I am speaking to the idea that everything visual is a force, and is 'pushing' on the other thing...the space pushes on the form, vice versa. Horizontal to vertical, straight to curve, warm to cool. They are interdependent but also are oppositional. 'destroying' = oppositional.

Art at King's Oaks

Last weekend I headed north to Newtown, PA to the Art at King’s Oaks show. Arriving there the sun was almost gone from the sky and the farm had this wonderful powerful twilight feeling. I drove around the barn and parked in a field with all the other cars. There were lots of and lots of people there for the opening. The moon sat above the field and everything smelled crisply of autumn.

I walked into the barn and saw Ben King’s invented landscapes towering above my head. They looked majestic and celebratory. The barn was divided into compartments that succeeded in feeling both intimate and open. Along one wall I saw the work of Younghee Choi Martin. Her pictures reminded me of paintings by Titian and Poussin while still being very modern and I felt sort of windswept looking at them. There was so much beautiful work in the barn it would take pages to write about it all. I felt like I had stepped into a little piece of art heaven.

Speaking of heaven, the other exhibit space at King’s Oaks was an old stone chapel. The work shimmered and there was a quietness in the room even thought there were lots of people visiting. Paintings by Alex Cohen hanging on the stone walls made me think of portals to subconscious worlds and the egg sculptures of Wells Vissar had a sort of holiness that brought to mind the book of Genesis. It was quite something to be surrounded by so much excellence.

The exhibit is open through October 20, 2019- it’s worth the trip!

The Artist-Mother on Summer Vacation

An Essay by Lauren Kindle

“After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life…Art is a result.”

--Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

When school ended for my kids back in early June, I had a lot of expectations about how I was going to maintain my painting practice during the summer vacation. Although I did manage to paint a decent amount, it was nowhere near what I had planned. Our family was constantly going places: camping, the beach, visiting loved ones, etc. It was fun, but also chaotic and exhausting. When I did manage to sneak off for a few hours of painting, here and there, I felt guilty afterwards, and worried that I came across as anti-social or selfish. More frequently, though, I found I was too worn out, mentally and physically, to set up my easel, even when the opportunity presented itself.

We can have such high expectations of how things should be. Then, when those things don’t happen, we feel guilty. Or maybe they do happen, and then we feel guilty anyway. For me, motherhood is like continually living in this state of friction, where expectations collide with reality all day long.

My advice to other artist-parents on vacation is: Let go of expectations and embrace your sketchbook! Vacations are ideal for sketching! You can bring a sketchbook anywhere; I have a small sketchbook that fits in my handbag, and an old altoid tin that contains a bit of an eraser, a pencil stub (4B is my absolute favorite pencil,) and a little metal sharpener, and that’s all I need. The stakes are low, because it’s only paper! There’s no set-up, or clean-up; sketching is the height of elegant simplicity. Also, sketches can be truly beautiful works of art, just as wonderful as paintings. You can express so much just by changing the pressure of the pencil on the paper, and by the way you move your hand across the page, with sensitivity and awareness.

By using my sketchbook, I was able to connect with the people around me, to sketch the moments I saw: my cousin holding her sleeping baby, my nephew watching me from his stroller, my son eating a melting ice cream cone. I could sketch quickly and freely, and I felt like I was part of It all. And the children loved watching me draw. Sometimes they would ask to draw too, and I would happily share paper and pencil with them. It brought up one of my earliest memories, drawing with my great-grandmother when I was four years old. I clearly remember her sitting at her desk, her long white hair drawn up into a bun, drawing carefully with a pencil. And I was right beside her with my own pencil, feeling happy about drawing, and safe in her loving presence.

Approached in this way, art is a way of communing with others. And after all, isn’t that one of the main purposes of taking a summer vacation anyway? Relationships, love, connection, these are truly the things that matter most in life. When you let go of your ego and your ambitions, and you bend your head reverently towards the blank sketchbook page, as if in prayer, you begin the holy work of being.

Reynolds Opening: For the White Bird

On September 6 I drove from Roanoke to downtown Richmond to attend the Reynolds Gallery opening for three artists including Alison Hall’s show “for the white bird.”

I lived in Richmond briefly about ten years ago and it was so cool to drive through the downtown fan again. Richmond is really hip! There were beautiful eccentric people walking on the sidewalks and there were murals painted on almost every building.

So I approached Reynolds Gallery- it looked like a nice townhouse turned into a gallery. I walked in the front door and was warmly greeted by Alice Livingston, the director of the gallery.

Of the three artists showing I was especially taken with Alison Hall’s pieces. Her pictures (with the exception of one white floor piece) are so dark and soft- they gave me the feeling of being almost asleep or in the middle of a deep meditation. She works with paint and plaster and graphite. The graphite drawn on top of the dark paint shimmers in a really magical way.

John Yau of Hyperallergic reviewed a different show of Alison Hall’s work. His words helped me wrap my mind around what I was seeing when standing in front of one of Alison’s pieces. Yau writes that Hall paints “as a form of liturgical enactment” and that she and some others like her are “invested in an exalted state of seeing and weren’t put off by the idea of infinity.”

I liked her work as it is shown on her website but seeing them in person is an experience that really cannot be had online. I highly recommend an in-person visit.

How are you right now?

When I have some time in the studio I feel compelled by all sorts of obligations to do the thing on the list that I “should” do. But what is it that my heart craves to make? What direction is the wind blowing?

I’m a person with responsibilities of many kinds so I can get sort of married to my to do list.

Lists are great! And spending time with loved ones is great! And staying centered is great! How does one organize and balance all this greatness?

I think the answer lies in staying in the present moment. I ask myself- what is the temperature in the room? What does the floor feel like? Am I breathing deeply? Shallowly? How do I feel right now? And then listen without judgement. Once I feel located and wholly in the place where I am, then I can proceed with a connection to my center and a truer direction towards what’s next.

Right now in this very moment it’s sort of chilly in my studio and the floor is hardwood. I can feel how the floor has warmed up underneath my bare feet. My breath becomes more steady the more I pay attention to it and I’m feeling calm and glad to be writing to you. How are you doing in this very moment?

Conversation with Ken Kewley

When I first wrote about collage on social media I referenced one of my favorite artists, Ken Kewley. I tagged him in the post and then I got to talk with him. With his permission I copy and pasted our conversation here:

LV: Ken Kewley what would you say is the difference between a shape and a spot?

KK: A spot is an undefined shape. What shape is the spot?
I think of a spot as being made by a daub of a brush without much regard to edge. By a painter observing a spot of color and putting down a spot of color, attempting to match a particular color.
One would be better to see a shape and put down a shape. In one go. Why start in the middle? One value, the color being less important, that will stand for several colors/values.
The more definite the shape the easier it can be compared and contrasted to other shapes. Painting without concern with definite edges, without clear decisions, too often results in mussiness.
Your collage is beautifully clear partly because it began with clear shapes that were then carefully placed as if on a stage.

LV: Thanks for your thoughts. I think when I learned about spots of color I was taught (by Elana Hagler) to pay close attention to the edges of the spot. That each spot has a very specific shape. So maybe by my definition shapes and spots are the same. What do you think Elana?

What I mean by start in the middle is that I think about the space a spot occupies in its middle. I find that if I concentrate too much on the line going around the shape, then the overall character of the shape can get lost.
I really like what you say about clarity. I remember artist Chris Gallego saying “clarify, clarify” in his blog almost as a mantra.
And a painting being a stage. Do you think all paintings are theatrical performances? A sort of podium for visual thoughts?

EH: I think it all depends on how you define your terms. Hawthorne definitely thought of color spots as having a particular shape. It is up to the individual painter whether to then be super fastidious about the edge quality, or to be looser and more painterly, and while still being conscious of the overall shape of the color spot, letting the edges have a more organic, chancy quality. By calling them shapes instead of spots, Ken emphasizes the need to be aware of the particularity of shape. He’s right about the danger of lack of clarity that can result from a more cavalier attitude towards shape. I like “color spot” because it, for me, stresses the primacy of hue/value/saturation relationships between neighboring spots as well as keeping a painting open, moving, and breathing by not locking down harsh edges too early in the process.

KK: A stage is not quite right. It works in the middle but not as well at the edges. A stage depends too much on where one is sitting. Visual thoughts are too poetic for me. A podium too three dimensional. The problem is where three dimensional things hit the painting’s, or the stage’s, two dimensional edge. This is why in painting three dimensional things must be made up of two dimensional shapes. As far as shapes, defining shape is hard to do with words. Though it seems best not to concentrate on edge or middle, and not even on the shape. Instead a side glance of all the shapes within the edges of the work seems sufficient to get a sense of the composition and its strength.

LV: I remember from your notes on color you talked about the place where a picture is torn from the world. Elana talked to me about peripheral vision. So this may be a weird question but from which side do you look? The top bottom left right and diagonals all seem to make for a different image to me. What I end of up doing is some sort of wonky combination of comparisons from some of the sides but I’m curious about what you do.

KK: I was talking about that place where three dimensional things hit the two dimensional edge of the painting. Life has things, painting has shapes. There is a point, while painting things, when perception becomes conceptual. Where looking and thinking must work together. Don’t look too closely or think too much. Life is not art. It must be composed to become art. This is the jump the painter makes. One looks from all directions searching for shapes to connect, to compare, to contrast, to arrange, to compose. To fix your gaze to one side or another limits the possibilities. Like working from a photograph that does not change no matter how you look at it. When working from life relationships of shapes change with every shift of viewpoint. So one has infinite relationships to play with. But one cannot just accept one of these sets and record that; shapes, lines, values, color, all must be pushed and nudged into a composition. There is no need to put up with peripheral vision; turn your head, look for what the composition needs. Then nudge these shapes into shape. The distortions in Cezanne's work is what happens when one is nudging shapes into a composition.

LV: Ken Kewley brilliant! You make so much sense. It looks like you are saying that composing is the thing - more so than the motif or the theories.

KK: Laura Vahlberg Exactly, you summed it up perfectly.
If you (I’m just writing generally) are out in the landscape painting trees, and the branches and leaves are making dark shapes, and the bits of sky, seen through the leaves, are making light shapes, all you have to do is compose those shapes, the dark shapes and the light shapes. And while you are doing so, you shape the shapes. There is no need to measure, to make anything the right size, in the right proportion, the right color. You can push the values, change colors, move things, change shapes. But you are out there, you want to be faithful, to believe you are going for a likeness. Likely there will be a likeness; it’s very hard to lose a landscape, or a still life, or a person. But you are composing not copying. All his long life Picasso was just rearranging shapes no matter what the subject matter. Abstraction is infinite.

LV: Ken Kewley wow no need to measure or to make the right size or the right color. I definitely feel a need to do those things. I’m not sure what it would look like to totally let go of those notions. Are you saying to let the motif influence oneself but not be ruled by it?

KK: If you are composing, it is important that things stay adjustable while doing so. Measuring tends to glue things together. If you are painting a house and against the house there is a small bush, instead of measuring, find a shape for the bush (not a bush shape, but a shape that one could also find elsewhere, possibly in the trees, or in the roof shape, or in a person standing near-by) and a shape for the house and move these two shapes around till they excite.
Attempting to mimic the exact color of the bush and the exact color of the house also tends to glue those things together, where as pushing the colors and values of those things one could get closer to the excitement of life. One should not worry about over-exaggerating. Too often going for exactness results in under-exaggeration. If you want to show someone something you need to do more than show them everything. Some things have to be strengthened (and straightened; as soon as you nudge a wavy line into something straighter it becomes easier to relate, to compare and contrast, to another straightened line). Other things can be weakened or removed.
Look at a photograph of a landscape painted by Cezanne and compare it to his painting. Cezanne was quite faithful to the landscape but he greatly strengthened the abstraction by nudging the angles of roads, and roofs, and trees, sometimes into ninety degree angles that he then could relate to similar angles found elsewhere. Something more difficult to do with too much measuring.

LV: It’s taken me a while to reply because this is so much to think about! Do you agree with the ideas in Hawthorne on Painting? Would you say that gluing things together is different from a unified picture plane? A lot of what you say goes counter to what I’ve been trying to do, but is also very exciting to think about. Sometimes I feel obligated to put an element into a picture. Would you say it’s better to not include something if you have that feeling?

KK: Not sure about Hawthorne. I would need to reread; it’s been close to forty years.
Working from life there are inconvenient truths. The one thing to avoid is an element that has not been considered abstractly. Get the abstraction right, and don’t worry, if in doing so, you have to alter and rearrange some things. It’s not like observational painters are that honest.
Don’t worry about unifying the picture plane, get rid of anything that a role cannot be found for, and it will be alright.

LV: Ken Kewley thank you for your thoughts you have given me a lot to think/paint about.

If you want to read more of Ken Kewley’s ideas check out his Notes on Color on Larry Groff’s blog Painting Perceptions. Ken Kewley is also in the process of writing a book based on his Notes on Color so stay tuned!

The Kitchen Window

For this picture I sat at my kitchen table and focused on the overall effect of the light coming through the window. I asked myself about the infinite abstraction available to me. I asked myself not to conceptually glue things together too much.

The picture took several sessions before I realized that I had two stars of the show instead of one. One half of the picture spoke as loudly as the other half of the picture which created an uneasy tension in the composition.

So I cut the picture in half! This is the half that felt the most right.

It reminds me of daily moments in front of the kitchen sink washing the dishes, wiping countertops, cleaning vegetables, and taking care of the little things.

Mary Oliver’s poem “Mindful” comes to mind:

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

“Mindful” by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005.

Sun Umbrella: Pay Attention

I want to tell two stories. One is about this collage. The other is about 2 artist talks in Staunton, VA. Maybe I can tie them together in the end.

Story #1

In Massachusetts I brought out my box of collage stuff and set up on the kids’ table- an old wood picnic table in the back yard. My nieces and nephews came over to ask me what I was doing. They sat with me and gave me ideas as I pinned pieces of painted paper together. The sky was a pearly blue and the air smelled like salt and pine needles roasting in the sun. One nephew informed me that I wasn’t using sewing pins but dissection pins. Very cool. I thought about keeping the value structure in tact and Diebenkorn’s 10 rules especially #8: “keep thinking about Polyanna.” That’s how this picture came about.

Story #2

A few weeks after coming home from Massachusetts I got to attend an art show in Staunton, VA. Elizabeth Geiger and her son Martin Geiger were showing a collection of works at the Beverly Street Studio School Gallery and each gave an artist talk- lots of artist food for thought here.

Elizabeth Geiger talked about looking at the work of other artists. She said that looking at lots of art helps artists to become authentic— which is distinctly different from original. I figure that authentic work is couched in art history, informed by many other works. Original, on the other hand, may be something closer to reinventing the wheel. I think I would rather be authentic- but do I have to choose? I don’t know.

I’ve always been interested in the the goals of an artist- what are they aiming for? Elizabeth Geiger said that she most admires the works that transport you- take you to a memory or another place. She said that this sort of movement transcends skill sets - she called it a connection trigger.

Martin Geiger spoke about his process. He said that painting is a way of organizing what he sees. (That made a lot of sense to me- sometimes I feel like the visual world is a big pile of laundry and I can only fold it by painting it.) One of my favorite things he said about painting is that being a painter gives one license to pay attention. By painting the world and paying attention to it he said that maybe other people will also pay attention. He said there is a sort of eternity to paying attention- you’re never done.

Tie- In:

So how do I tie these two stories together? I don’t think I can. I made a picture on vacation and then went to an art show and got inspired. Thank you Liz and Martin. Ciao!

Prayer Flags

I started making this collage on a weekend afternoon while my husband was reading aloud Carlos Casteneda’s Journey to Ixtlan. I guess I was thinking about the magic of the everyday when I was piecing this one together.

One of the many things Don Juan talks about in Journey to Ixtlan is the necessity of action. He says “more doing, less thinking.” My analytical mind can sometimes get carried away when I’m making art. My friend calls it “analysis paralysis.” In thinking less and doing more I hope to trust that what I know about art is sufficient. Doing without thinking feels kind of like flying or walking blind. It’s fun, exhilarating and risky.

Speaking of risky, I’m reminded of one of the scenes in Journey to Ixtlan where Don Juan has taken his apprentice Carlos Casteneda into the desert. They walk all day and into the night. Casteneda describes the night as so dark that he cannot see his hand in front of his face. Don Juan tells Carlos to run barefoot in the night following the sound of Don Juan running ahead of him. Carlos is really frightened by this concept. There are all sorts of dangers in the desert at night for a person with no shoes. But Don Juan encourages him to see with his spirit since his eyes were of no use in the dark night. Don Juan calls running in the desert at night the “gait of power.”

Making art can feel like running through the dark in the desert. There is no clear path towards success. For me it’s a sideways spiritual muscle that involves instinct, trust, faith, and stubborn hard work. Have you experienced something like the “gait of power?”

Two Vessels

It was a sunny afternoon and I decided to make a picture of the pile of half-folded laundry staring at me on the dining room table. I worked on it for a while shifting the shapes around to find a pleasing image. Still unsatisfied I decided to sleep on it.

I put the picture away and brought it out the next day in the studio. I took it apart piece by piece until only the table and the space behind was left. I went back to the dining room table for some new ideas.

On the table I noticed the fruit bowl and a white bag. Then I noticed the little empty sake cup that rested in the shadow of the bowl. I found a little bit of a narrative and worked with it.

The bowl and the sake cup remind me of me and my baby girl. A mother bowl protecting her baby cup. I am amazed at how personal this arrangement feels to me- the empty cup, the white bag, the soft gray afternoon light on the table. The still life was a random selection of observations and then it transformed into a story about two people.

Has this ever happened to you? Something random and everyday can somehow become steeped in meaning? I’d love to read your story.

Back Door

It was a hot Saturday afternoon and my husband and I had just put the baby down for her nap. He settled into a comfortable chair and I spread out my collage materials on the dining room table. He was reading aloud a novel by one of my favorite authors: Haruki Murakami. The A/C made the room cool and our dog curled up peacefully under the table for a nap.

I could feel the lonely mood of the “Norwegian Wood” novel relaxing the analytical voices in my head. There’s something comforting about having another artist in the room- whether it’s recorded music, or a book read aloud, or a painting on the wall.

Caught up in the rhythm of the story, I found myself arranging and rearranging the picture plane.

I’m now reminded of when I was growing up and my Mom liked to move furniture around. She would have a vision for the living room and my brothers and I would join her in pushing tables and chairs and rugs around until the space felt new and right.

Making collages feels a little like rearranging a room. The pieces of painted paper become building blocks for two dimensional rooms. When the composition feels good it’s like being in a room with good feng shui.

For this particular picture I was looking at the back door of our house leading out to the back porch. The hot summer sun pierced through the window panes making the inside of the house appear very cool in comparison. Looking at the picture now I imagine the window muntins are strings on a guitar singing the melancholy of the afternoon and the red, blue and turquoise color blocks are stomping out a beat on the bass guitar and the drums.