These two are about wonder and fun and imagination.
To Scale – 16 x 20
Menemsha is a magical place.
In, of, and surrounded by the sea.
Imagine what a young child feels,
standing in the shadow,
of the behemoth swordfishing hulls
that line the wooden docks.
The mysteries that await them
in the swirl of eddies behind the jetty,
running full tilt across the crescent of sandy beach,
or wading slowly, slowly, with net in hand,
as a tiny creature wiggles under the nearby stone.
Tales, both tall and terrifying
can be overheard sitting on the bench at squid row.
Sloppy sided rubber boots
drip salty puddles.
Floppy brimmed canvas hats
get tossed on coils of rusted ropes and chains.
Whip thin rods and lines cast delicate wakes,
and listen…
to all the sounds that water can make…
it’s the definition of childhood.
Two, such curious and adventure bound children,
were walking along the new pier,
built in the wake of that dreadful fire which razed the Coast Guard boathouse.
I don’t remember if it was before
or after the ice cream cones,
but the energy was high and the sun was shining.
The boy ran ahead.
He had spotted this fish,
laying so perfectly, and with nary a fisherman in sight,
as if it had just leapt out of the sea.
His sister remarked on the brilliance of the colors,
and he reached into his pocket
and layed the three bottle caps he had collected
in a neat row alongside.
All of this
and more
is dancing
in that shadow.
Solo – 18 x 24
Now take yourself to the other end of the island.
The long grassy strip of heath
that leads, over the line of dunes,
to South Beach and then…the ocean.
You are at the Katama Airfield.
Actually, you are in the Right Fork Diner
which is in the field next to the tiny airport.
It’s a Wright Brothers era kind of a place.
With all the wooden propellers and greasy rags,
it can easily fool the 21st century visitor
into thinking they saw their great grandfather, sitting on the old ladderback,
in the shadowed corner of the hanger.
My great-grandfather actually did work for the Wright Brothers.
Which must have been what drew my attention to the bits of fabric
hanging from index cards, which were thumb tacked in a neat line,
all around the ceiling’s edge of the dining room.
The gentleman next to me noticed my curiosity
and told me that when a student pilot flies their first solo flight,
the instructor ceremonially tears off a piece of her or his shirt.
Each of the cards had the pilots’ name and date of flight
and the word, “Solo” written in block letters
with a ratty bit of shirt tail attached…
here and there a button or a cuff.
The earliest ones I could see were from the 60’s.
I don’t think the place would have looked much different back then.
A little less rust maybe, but isn’t that true for most of us.
The Supreme Court of the United States made big news yesterday, and it is fitting to unveil this painting today.
The Massachusetts Drawing Act of 1870 – 24×24
Last week a thirteen year old art student, who is also studying music, wrote to ask for some advice on how to make a career out of art. She had seen my work at the Granary Gallery and Adam and David P. Wallis, two of my Gallaristas, encouraged her to share her thoughts. I got a bit long winded, but here is a portion of my response…
I do have some advice, actually.
Draw
Draw
Draw.
You are beginning to learn how to express yourself, your thoughts, your feelings and the world as you have come to know it, in many different creative ways. Just like you are finding with musical instruments, there are skills that you need to learn in order to play the notes and make the music you want.
Same is true in art.
There are basic skills that you need to learn.
Tools and techniques that you will need to master in order to use them to make your art.
And just as in music, while you are learning how to play those instruments, your musical tools, you probably are also being taught to listen. Listening to the music but also to yourself. Where does it come from in you, and what is it you want to say with the music you make.
Same with art.
So you practice. Any good teacher will be able to show you how to use pencils and brushes and paints, even digitally. As you get more serious, there is plenty of color theory and art history out there that will fill out your understanding of how to do the craft behind your work and how others before you have chosen to express their practiced talents.
I believe the foundation for all of that is drawing. You need to train you hands to see what your eyes are seeing.
I’ll tell you a story about one of my grandsons, Ben.
Ben came to visit when he was about 15. He had an art project to do for school so I cleared a corner of the studio and he worked along side my easel. His homework was to take a photograph, which his teacher had given him, and make a drawing of it.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled with that concept, and I’ll explain that a bit later.
So, Ben worked for a while and seemed to be struggling, and asked me to look at it.
In the art world this is called a critique. But you probably already know that.
I could see right away what his problem was. It was a photograph of a leaf. Not a leaf.
I made him put down his pencil and put on his coat and walk outside with me.
It was autumn, we have lots of big trees, the ground was covered with…you guessed it… leaves.
I told him to get out the rake and make a pile of them and then pick out half a dozen.
Then I had him really study each one and pick the one which felt the most beautiful to him.
We brought it inside and I asked him what made him choose that one.
OK, now Ben, describe the qualities which made it beautiful.
Then we talked about all the curves and lines and textures in that leaf.
You know how they curl in on themselves as they dry and fall off the branches.
We talked about those curls as gestures. What other forms in nature echo those same gestures.
The challenge was to get Ben to “see” that leaf with all his senses.
To make a personal connection between himself and the beauty he initially saw in it.
To get deep down inside of the living thing which that leaf had been, what it spent it’s life doing and why. You get the idea…become one with the leaf.
Then, after teaching his eye to see, I gave him back his pencil.
It was time to teach his hands to replicate what he now saw, much more deeply, with his eyes.
Here’s where I explain my concerns about the photograph.
Don’t get me wrong, I use photographs all the time as references. When there are things I paint which can’t be right in front of me, say the ocean…because I live in Pennsylvania, a landlocked state…or…birds, which is my theme for this year’s show. They tend not to stand still.
Well, then, I rely heavily on photos I have taken. Hundreds of them sometimes.
I call my camera my backup hard drive. It is both a memory tool and a detail tool.
You might have seen that I like detail. My camera allows me to collect all the information I need to get up close and personal with the scenes and objects I want to paint and to bring them back, via the photos, to the studio to study in depth and then to render.
But…and here’s the important bit…
the camera is only a tool, and the photograph only a reference.
Most of the actual work of painting is about all the years of hard studying and practice I have put in to learn how to use the tools.
The first tool to master is the pencil. Go ahead and play with paints and brushes and computers. Explore and get your hands and clothes covered in color and clay and whatever else interests you.
But don’t let go of that pencil until it does exactly what you want it to do.
Take your sketchbook everywhere. (I even took a fun detour for a while and taught myself bookbinding so I could make my own sketchbooks. As my friend Ted, the art teacher on the Vineyard, used to say…that was sorta fun.)
Draw, Draw, Draw.
Ask other people, teachers, friends, to critique your drawings.
Ask them to be honest but nice.
Listen to what they say and how they respond and see if it matches what you were trying to tell your hands to do.
And, at this beginning stage, draw from life. What was frustrating Ben about his leaf was having to look at a flat, one dimensional image of a leaf. He didn’t even take the photo. So he never even held the leaf. He couldn’t follow the curve on one edge to see where and how it ended up on the back side. He was being asked to draw a form without enough information to really understand that form.
So yes, I use photographs. But, I only use ones which I have taken. To take a photo means I have to be standing in the presence of the subject. When I am in front of that object I am using all my senses to learn about it. I rely heavily on my sketchbook. I take lots of notes and do sketches on scene which also helps me back in the studio.
After many years of practicing, I have a good understanding of how to use my tools, the nature of my subjects, what to leave out and what to leave in…my art teacher, Jim Gainor, used to say, ‘’”Paint the air and not the chair”…and I work really hard.
My partner Pat likes to remind me, “what you focus on expands”.
I have been focusing on art all my life.
I study feathers to better understand birds. I stare at the ocean to learn how the light changes on the water. I read about weather to help explain the clouds…you get the idea. A curious person will be learning new things every single day.
I’m always studying and trying out new techniques. Your new pal David P and I were just sharing some technical ideas a couple weeks ago. I learn tons from listening to other artists talk about their process.
My pencil sees pretty well now, but I still draw. When I want to really understand an object, I draw it.
Wow, I just read back what I’ve written. Geez that was long winded. That’s what is called, “warming to ones theme”. I should have warned you at the beginning to at least grab a snack to get you through. But, if you are reading these words, then you made it to the end.
Almost.
I hope that someday years from now,
on a day when you are working hard in your studio,
you get a note from a thirteen year old just like the one you wrote to me.
Then you will know how good it makes me feel that you took the time to write,
to express an interest in my work, to share some of your dreams for the future,
and to ask for some advice.
The work of a painter is mostly done alone, by yourself at the easel. It is meaningful but often very hard work. It’s really nice to hear from someone, out there in the big world, who reaches into the studio to tell you they “get” it.
Thank you for that.
I’m attaching a sneak peek at one of the new paintings which will be headed up to the Vineyard next week for my Granary show. It’s title is, The Massachusetts Drawing Act of 1870. Your assignment is to go look that up. I’ll give you a clue, it was the first time that art classes were legislated to be taught in schools.
In it you will see a feather, a quill, which is what was used to hold ink and, like a pen, to draw or write…way back in the day. See how I made this fit the bird theme ?
Alongside, on the desk, is also a pencil.
That particular one was a gift from Ted.
Remember Ted…kinda sorta.
Look closely.
See what is written on the pen…Beginners.
There’s your foundation…
now grab your sketchbook and a pencil
and get to work.
Draw me a leaf.
A humongous box arrived at my studio door.
It held some things from my father’s house.
Way down at the bottom was a little zip lock bag.
Inside were six carved wooden figures.
Hmmm.
I’d never seen them before.
After my father’s death a few years ago, I uncovered many items and stories,
some of which were familiar history, and some of which were mysteries.
I found photos and writings about his grandparents
and knew that at least one of his grandfathers tinkered with wood.
So, I thought that maybe these were saved from his childhood.
Then the muses struck.
I called Pat, can you come over…now.
She threw on her coat and boots and slodged over to the studio from the log cabin.
I love writing log cabin.
Anyway, I bade her to lie down on the daybed…and take a nap.
I found the paper bag, filled with chicken feathers,
which Homer had collected for me last summer,
and I dumped them on her head.
Then I laboriously positioned the little chickens
and the little goose around her sleeping head.
Tucked in her red snuggy blanket,
Herself was content to model as long as I liked.
Until the feathers started…to tickle.
I managed to capture this image
just before…the sneeze.
When I was finished,
and the model was back in the log cabin,
and the feathers were corralled back into their paper nest,
I arranged the dear ones along the window sill next to my easel.
Finnegan came over to give me an eagle hug
and her tail swept the smallest bird onto the floor.
When I picked it up I noticed some writing on the underside…
Made in Indonesia.
With a sigh,
I put her back on a higher shelf…
and began to reinvent her past.
That’s the note I found this morning, on the studio kitchen table, written on a scrap of cardboard, with a sharpie, found beneath the pile of framing tools, which were left untidied, after a long day of framing, and print making, and general mayhem making.
The Follansbee arrived just after I put out the lanterns last night, stopping for a pallet on the studio floor, as he made his way home from a week of teaching woody things down at Roy Underhill’s place in NC. So, the note was all we got to see of him this time, but we had a good visit on his way down south last weekend.
His hair is long enough now to tie in the back and a good bit whiter. But the sparkle is still there in those eyes. Gonna catch up with him and the family in the fall, so that’s ok then.
The day dawns, a little later for my own self than the master carver, and Herself has left to ship two new paintings out to the Sugarman Peterson Gallery. There is an opening for that show on July 3rd, in Santa Fe, so today you get the first peek at them…
All Her Eggs – 16 x 20
Scape – 12 x 13
From the sharply pointed pen of Mark Twain…
“Put all your eggs in one basket. And watch that basket.”
Eggs courtesy of Dru and Homer, who farm a CSA just over the hill. They are as delicious to eat as they are to paint. The eggs.
And just out that window and a little to the right is the little wren. Always.
When Zoe is here, she relies on the wren’s first trill of the morning to signal that it is ok to get her giggly self out of bed and start her day.
In the early summer she has a different job.
This summer she has built her nest in the birdhouse just above the garlic bed.
I wait with lusty anticipation all year for the garlic to send forth those gorgeously delectable curly scapes, and this season, her babies hatched on the very same day they appeared.
She spends her busy days now bouncing from Ted and Polly’s wind chime, to dancing from scape to scape.
So, there ya go. Ted is having a blast, directing the muses every which way I turn around here.
Look for these two garden graces to be winging their way out west this week. And if you are in Santa Fe, please stop by to visit Michael and Christie Sugarman and say hey for me.
Now it’s on to more framing…
stay frosty out there.
Finally !!!
It’s been a very long haul since I began painting for this summer’s season of shows. Way Way back…in November…the theme for this year’s work snuck up on me. I just looked back at a blog entry near the end of that month and it was full of feathers. And Wolsey. My pal, the ever tapping cardinal, who is out there now, right now, slamming into the big window over my shoulder.
No wonder my studio is now full of paintings of…birds. Many many birds. And feathers. And Eggs. I put the last brush stroke on the last of these paintings just an hour ago.
Thought I would jump right into framing because two of these have to make a very speedy path to Santa Fe, for the opening of a group show at Sugarman Peterson Gallery. But I’m too tired to do that tonight, and it feels good to sit in the comfy chair in the office, by the air conditioning vent.
Some of the bird paintings will make there way out to Santa Fe, and my garden has been wanting equal time. There is a nice little feature in American Art Collector Magazine this month about the SPG show, and they included my thoughts on the muses this year…
” Where the focus drifts, the muses follow, and they are encouraging me to dig around in the dirt and out in the greenhouse and among the weeds to find inspiration for painting ideas. So, I will be adding to my series Garden Graces and building on the figurative work that has been whispering over my shoulder…just as soon as I plant the tomatoes.”
I got them in… last week. But, as the new little “look how healthy you are…not” app reveals, the arc of my “steps taken each day” has flatlined for the last three weeks. No wonder, since it is exactly 50 steps from cabin to studio. Double that and then spend 12 -14 hours at the easel and you have…100 steps. I’ll make up for it now though. My garden beckons and I can hear the weeds singing my name.
Here’s a few pics of my straw bale gardening experiment.
And the way back bales, two similar beds of bales are two the right with strawberries in them and this one has a steady crop of chard and beets which I use daily now.
So…there’s that.
Then…inside the studio…the shift is on. Frames and paintings are now stacked in every room and the Corcoran shuffle keeps Pat jumping as she delivers and picks up paintings from John at his photography studio. My job. Frame ’em up. Then write painters notes and pack everything up for our trip to Martha’s Vineyard for the biggest show of the year at the Granary Gallery.
That’s right…I know your calendars are marked… July 12th is the opening. Incredibly only three weeks from tomorrow. Geez…
So, I’m not sure if the whole reveal thing will happen with the new works this year but I will unveil them as the files come in and you will get the sneak peeks that my readers have come to expect.
First up…way up… is
Updraft – 12 x 16
Yep, that’s really how close the house is to the edge now…or at least “was” back when we stayed there last July. And just over those rocks is a 30 foot drop to the beach.
Ahhhh…the bluff.
On this, the 40th anniversary of JAWS…I think I’ll keep my toes out of the water and flying in the sky chair which is where I’m headed right now. This will be my view, for tonight at least…
I am not looking at the calendar.But, un-like the light bulb in the refrigerator which may or may not be on when the door is closed…I know that the days are definitely still being crossed off…and the march towards the summer shows has become a sprint.
As mentioned in an earlier blog, when the snow was still falling, the Granary Gallery show is two weeks earlier this year, JULY 12th. Seemed like a doable time frame back in December but whoa Nellie here we are and it’s almost J-J-J-J-June. And, just to keep the old heart ticking…the Sugarman Peterson Gallery has added a special group show for the first week in July out in that art mecca of Santa Fe. Nellie needs another gear !
You will be getting the details on those venues, as well as a block buster of a show at Gallery 1261 coming this fall, but in the meantime…I’ve got to double down on the brushwork.
The 20 or so finished pieces are now working their way through the production pipeline. Fully dried, they now can be varnished, then Herself hauls them up to John to photograph, then I order frames and the folks at Artworks join them up, then we haul them back here to the studio and I turn me on some Suede tunes and pop them into frames and wrap for transport to MV or SF and beyond.
Just to let you know that I have actually been pushing some paint around for the last few months, I’ll give you a sneak peak at one of the new works.
