I will be rolling out the new paintings here on the blog beginning next week, but the one featured above is a sneak peak at one of my favorites…
I’m calling this, Swan Song – An Abstract Chilmark Aria
I’ve gotten the approval of the dear diva herself, Skip Peterson, to show this now to the world. She modeled for me last October. Among her many talents and gifts, Skip is a painter, and among her many requests and suggestions for how I should capture her portrait, she thought it would be sorta fun to have an actual painting of hers in it.
Locating it some place in Chilmark was a must… as it is for her, like so many others, a treasured place held dearly in her soul…and when I took her to my sacred place, Camp Sunrise, she fell in love instantly.
We knew, when I painted this that the house was slated for demolition. And I had been meaning to capture it from this angle because the meadow in the foreground is where they were planning, and now have built, the new home. When, back in my mid-winter studio, I needed something to carry the energy of Skip’s song, I chose those wonderful swans which were soaring on their way to nearby Squibnocket pond.
But it wasn’t until a few months later, when someone sent me a photo of the empty horizon…when it became sadly real to me that the house was finally gone…that the title came to me.
It usually takes me a while to look back and see the workings of the muses.
With this painting, on so many levels, they have been leading me here for a lifetime.
What is the roll of creativity in an angry chaotic world.
To echo
to mirror
to distract
to remind
to transport
to speak truth
to provide haven
My response, when the tension tipping point is reached,
is to grab my cape, in a wild, Severus like fury,
and circle it as armor and take my soul to refuge in the studio,
there to tease apart the angers from the truths and sit with where they both intersect and where there might be something of meaning to be found.
I have a keen sense of the stairway that leads to that chamber of secrets in my artistic soul. It is a well traveled road and the passage way is woven deep into how I chose to live on the planet. As I walk that path now, the intensity of the emotions informs the process, and there are familiar touchstones left on the stair treads as I wind my way down and deep.
I am not afraid to go there, only fearful I won’t go far enough.
In carrying along this dialogue I am having with myself, and a few other artists, about what it means to be a Mature Artist, I am pondering this part of the creative process, where we go to understand the profound tragedies in our world, in ourselves. How do we, as artists, make some sense of the pain and loss and fear and find the balancing beauty… both in that darkness, and in the light. And how, as artists who have been swirling their capes for half a century or more, do we recognize that pathway differently than we did when the brushes were new.
What you focus on expands, and for me, at least for now, the channels are wide open.
It is my day job, my all consuming career, to push paint around on a panel until it sings. When I started this full time, 16 years ago, I was well into middle age, but I had been dabbling since high school and there are some scraps of drawings left to remind me of the innocence of those early strokes.
This week I have been looking back at the portfolio on my website, which begins in 2000. It surprises me how autobiographical the paintings have been. No viewer will ever see it, but I can remember when, and why each of those compositions were chosen, and, upon review, how much has evolved in the ensuing light years…both technically and personally.
With each painting I have insisted on raising the bar. Sometimes that is noticeable, sometimes I slid back in a heap. It was always a conscious decision to work harder at the craft of painting, but what strikes me today is the unconscious way that the depths of the narrative seemed to drag my wayward soul into a different place.
Some wise woman along the way said that, as we grow older, it was easier to recognize what one doesn’t want, or need, and after jettisoning that…there is more room for the mystery. I made that last part up, about the mystery, but, as the years creep up on me, I am so much better at letting go of the noise. I’m finding much more to satisfy my curiosity in the silent spaces. I crave silence. That is what I need of the swirling cape of escape now.
The subject came up this morning, Herself and I talked about the cliche of artists needing angst and turmoil to plum creative depths.She had read of some artists who go to great length to fabricate a self destructive atmosphere of a narrative in order to tap into their genius.
Now, this topic may have, in some way been tweaked into her consciousness after she had hurried across the icy path from cabin to studio…in her slippers… to see why I had not answered her phone calls, only to find me furiously wielding the vacuum in the kitchen seeking out and attacking the tiny evidence of a most unwanted creature who has chosen to do battle with me…now…in the middle of our already most challenging winter.
I was indeed awash in drama…albeit achingly justified.
But…
searching around to create some artificial angst…Not me.
Been there, got the T-shirt..s, and can tap into those dragons in a flash as needed.
But, as I was saying about the silence…that source is currently the cauldron of creative juices.
There now, I have gone on a ramble, again.
Among the slurry of emotions this season,
I’m working through my feelings about the loss of the Langmuir’s Camp Sunrise.
I received a photo taken from Squibnocket Beach, just a couple weeks ago, and the top of that dear sweet roof line no longer peeks above the horizon of cliffs.
Of course, I knew it was coming.
What I didn’t know is how the actuality of the void would choke my soul.
So, I’ve been reviewing my portfolio. Lining up all the paintings I have done of that camp. The count is well over fifty. Almost one for each of my “oh so mature” years.
My job now, the challenge I am setting before the easel, is to tell the last chapter of her story.
Sitting in the silence.
Listening,
for where the story of the life of that old chicken coop, intersects with the lives of her caretakers, and artist squatters, and with the island itself.
In July, when we were on the island of Martha’s Vineyard for the Granary Gallery show, I gave blog readers a teaser which may have left some of you wondering, why is a world famous photographer, David Fokos, following HN around with his camera ?
And why were his Emmy winning wife, Barbarella, and Herself in such gleeful moods down at the dock in Menemsha ?
Well, their award winning selves are executive producers for a new art venture,
the Artist’s Odyssey They describe it as, “A Netflix for Art”, with an emphasis on educating and inspiring. Click Here for Barb’s better explanation.
A successful Kickstarter campaign launched them into the production phase where they have begun to film and interview artists. These documentaries will be featured on the network site.
I agreed to be one of their flagship projects and the fun began in earnest on MV in July.
David Fokos and I have been paired for the same group show week in the Granary’s summer schedule for a few years now, so we have come to know each other after long respecting each other’s work. He creates breathtaking, large format black and white photographs, like this…Eight Rocks and a Stone, Chilmark, Massachusetts, 2000.
Barbarella is, well…a Diva.
I’ve linked the image below to the bio page on her website, and, while there, you can click around and find out a bucket full of interesting, humorous, artsy and eyebrow raising tidbits about Barb, her juicy creative mind, and her many projects.
Together, these two are a force for creative good, and, after two days of being tethered to them, (Literally, my pocket was full of wires and my every word…heard by a studio full of machines.)…and trying to keep up with their production energy…Pat and I fell into heaps of old lady exhaustion.
In between takes, and camera set ups, and retakes, and hours of listening to myself ramble about…myself…we had a few breaks to get to know each other better. Oh the laughter, the stories, the entertainment quotient was stellar, and we agreed that we live in exciting times.
Here are a few behind the scenes snaps from the first “shoot” on Martha’s Vineyard, and the last two days of frivolity, here in the studio. Click on thumbnails to view photos.
Docksiders
A bite at The Bite
Bluffing
Tea Cup Glam Shot
Herself as apprentice
The Artiste ?
A bit of bubbly Barb
Poised
Tree Top Tripod
Still Life
The case for support
Blue door
Blues fortell
Mediums collide
Production
Himself subjected
The Interviewer
Lofty
Composed
Togetherness
The Fugitive
Going out…take three
Gear
Leaning in to listen
The Apprentice inspects…
and approves.
Microphone on…and on….
It’s a wrap !
I’m in awe of the amount of work they managed to accomplish in this small and densely packed studio, and I’m in a stupor thinking back to my bumbling responses to their thought provoking questions. I have no idea what documentary worthy words they will be able to tease out of the mess that was my commentary…but I am confident in their abilities to make the visuals stunning.
I’ll keep you posted on the progress and let you know when they deem it launchable.
Now, it’s travel time for us…a weekend of wedding celebrations, then back to the island for some working R and R.
Here’s to the autumnal equinox and clear cooler days to come…Stay frosty out there, HN
After the big summer shows I usually come home and crash…
for a week…
then get right back to the easel.
Well, this year I’m taking it slooooow.
We have been blessed with a new studio apprentice, Alex.
Here he is with his Dad, splitting away the mountain of wood that arose
after the two great, but sadly decaying, pin oaks came down last month.
Alex is one strong, enthusiastic, and smart worker, and he is making it possible for this old artist to cross off a long list of chores that have been put on hold…for a decade…while all focus has been on painting.
He has begun to learn the art of panel making and is teaching me a thing or two about snakes, and we’ve both enjoyed some spoon carving on the back porch after the mornings of hard work.
Pat and I feel like we have won the lottery as far as good neighbors go. Every which way we turn, we find kindness and generosity. Believe me it is appreciated.
And, after all that fun morning work…the garden beckons.
Those straw bales are producing, and though I have had an attack of storm trooper squash bugs, there has been progress…
We have returned safely to the studio, and the GG2015 show moves into the exhibition stage. Every two weeks, during the summer, a new show opens and the granary elves play musical paintings and shift the artwork to make way for the new works. I took some photos, after the crowds dispersed, so you can see what a masterful job the gallery staff does in hanging the show.
It has been a terrific start to the summer show season, with a satisfying double handful of red dots filling the walls. We return home to a triple digit heat wave and one very happy puppy to greet us. I had promised myself a week of uninterrupted gardening days, but with this weather I’ve turned up the A/C and brought out the quilting bag. The creative soul needs some rest but the hands…never.
Stay frosty out there and thank you all for your support.
Wolsey…
this is one hysterical muse.
I had a momentary respite, from her staccato background tapping. You’ll read below, that as the last Painter’s Notes were written, the studio fell silent. I took it as a sign. After years of Wolsey’s bombarding, every window through which I can be seen, and both wing mirrors on the truck, I thought maybe she/Ted/my father/whomsoever is driving that bird’s bus…was finally satisfied that I had received whatever message she was laying down.
Yesterday was a major clean up and trailer repair, so I was outside most of the day, but when I was inside…quiet.
Today was a marathon of making the garden secure for the gardener to be away for a while. And now, I’m cooling down and crossing off the last things on the list. The second I sat here at the computer to log in the last of the new paintings…tap. TAP TAP TAP.
She’s back. Ya know, I was sort of afraid that the wandering cat, or a predator bird might have eaten her. So, I have to confess, after all this time and in spite of all the myriad levels of annoyance…I guess I sorta missed her.
Well, we are at the end now. These last three paintings complete the 2015 Granary Gallery Show. I hope to see some of you at the opening this coming Sunday, and, for those of you who won’t be able to make it, I thank you for all your support and kind words of appreciation.
And now…
I give you…Cardinal Wolsey…
Wolsey – 10 x 12
The following is an excerpt from November 2014. The bird had been pecking, steadily, at that point, for over a year. It is now June…2015…and if I could figure out how to put an audio recording on this site…you could hear her now.
Cardinal Wolsey. The ever present window slammer of a bird, is still with me. I now believe she is more than just a disturbed bird. Pat and Finn met a woman at the park last week who, after hearing the story of the intrepid one, immediately suggested that she was someone who I had known who had “passed on” and did I know anyone in the clergy. Well I sat back in my chair at that one. Seriously, my father, the Presbyterian minister, returned as the slammer ?
Possibly ?
I’m still pondering that one.
But this bird is definitely trying to tell me something. She now follows me from window to window and watches me all day long. The hurling Herself at the panes behavior seems to diminish when I settle in at the easel. Then she just flies up and stares at me…the rubbernecker.
Well, ok, that part could be Ted. He is definitely nudging me to focus on painting…probably as I write this…which is taking time away from what I began this blog with…
that perfect painting day.
Well, the dreary rain has turned to our first snowfall of the season. The promise of a winter wonderland, a bird in the oven, one at the window, and two dozen at the feeders…that’s all I need of Thanksgiving.
And, this…to all my friends and patrons, whose support allows me to do the work that is so meaningful to my soul…
Thank you.
Post Script – June 2015
After painting those eyebrows…I do believe it is Ted. He would wear the cappa magna with panache.
The Cardinal – 10 x 12
If you read the other notes on this little gal
you understand the determination behind this gaze
the relentless dementia of the tapping behavior
the persistence of the muse
but you know what ?
ever since I finished these bird series paintings
as I have been sitting here in the office
for almost a week
working on the computer to get these files up on the website
and composing painters notes
it’s been….quiet.
Not a single tap.
The only other time that happened
was when Zoe was here in the studio
painting along side of me.
Now what do you make of that ?
Himself – 14 x 12
This is Ted’s teacup.
(Thank you Terry)
And an old coin silver spoon
with which Ted gifted to us a long time ago.
But that bird…
she’s all mine.
Cardinal Wolsey.
Each time I painted her,
I fell deeper into those eyes.
There’s a thing about birds.
You can never get close enough
in person
to really look into their eyes.
I have dozens of good photos now of Wolsey,
but there are hundreds of blurry rejects
that were snapped just before
and just after she smashed into the window.
The split second of the camera lens
has given me a gift.
For all her racket,
and by that I mean
demented
torturous
unrelenting
eternal-faucet-dripping
madness of the tapping…
I love it when people say, ya know what you outta paint ?
So, David says, ya know,
I just stopped over at Mermaid Farm,
and I think it would be great
to paint that pedestrians and bicyclists
quote thingy that they have, written in magic marker over the vegetables.
We have stopped there of course.
It’s a gem on middle road.
I often wish I knew the farmers,
because they have a really groovy thing going on there.
So I gathered reference shots, and sketches,
from several different times of the day, and year
and, when I was sorting through them, I saw
the chickens.
Bam, I’m in.
Bird series here we come.
But I had an editorial decision to make.
Half of the detail shots were from July
and half from October.
The light was different in both but I can handle that.
It was the produce.
Dahlia’s catching the warm afternoon light,
a bag of papery dry onions,
and an autumn tapestry of leaves,
or…
those luscious purple onions,
bunches of thick leaved dinosaur kale,
potatoes and beans, and summer hot green leaves.
And someone WILL notice if I mixed them together.
You can see I went with summer,
but I figured I could pick and choose
among the two versions of tables and tin cans,
rows of seed packets inside the shack,boxes and buckets,
and the fifty different positions in which I caught light cascading on the scale.
But among all those changing details,
one thing stayed the same…
the red bicycle pump.
Did you find it yet ?
And that little lizardy thing…missed that one didn’t ya.
It took an illegal neighborhood fireworks display, which I had to duck and cover from on my walk home from the studio last night, to remind me that here we are at the 4th of July already. Whew, and I’m still framing.
I was distracted this week by the crew who were waterproofing our basement, but it was quite a wonderful feeling to actually “enjoy” listening to the sound of the rain falling on our roof as we nodded off to sleep. And not just because it put out the giant sparklers across the creek. That rain is still around this morning, and the sky is a rich umber grey.
So today’s painting is a good fit.
Head north from here, hang a sharp right just above the Rhode Island border, watch the trees get shorter and shorter as you head east, go round about and round about and slow way down, then get in a long line of cars with bikes and kayaks on the roof, bump your way over the steel plates and onto a ferry. Doesn’t matter which one, they will all get you to the same place. The island of Martha’s Vineyard. If, after floating by the first light house you see, the boat starts to take a wide turn to the right, you will be coming into this port, Vineyard Haven. We’ll be doing just that in a few days…geez, I better get back to work…
Wharf Company – 24 x 38
I knew this was going to be a long stretch at the easel.
I started a new detective series.
12 plus hours of audible per book.
20 books.
Then I switched back to my favorite author, Laurie R. King,and reread most of her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series
in advance of listening to the newest addition.
Looking back at it now,
I can hear the Scottish brogues of both narrators.
The perfect soundtrack to this stormy wind blown sea.
And, for one more note of synesthesia…
I give you…
Holmes Hole.
In the “Confessions of the Artist” department…
I borrowed the crow from another composition
which I am working on, that features the great big tug boats
anchored over by the gas station.
And I moved the pallet of chains a bit to the right…
boy were they heavy.
But everything else is completely honest and authentic…
right down to the tiny light on top of the pole on the ferry.
I’m munching on my own breakfast of granola, and berries picked from the garden, as I write. It’s Uncle Barney’s birthday, so I added some flax seed in his honor. Go Barn. There’s a lot more of everything to do today, so I’m getting a jump on the blog post. If we cross two more off today that will leave five.
I give you…
Breakfast with Nancy Luce – 24 x 20
Gallery owner cum muse.
I had this painting in mind from the beginning
but somehow it got saved until the end.
So, it had a lot of time to percolate
on the back burner of the creative mind.
Which was fortunate because
the first scarf was red and I really like that vintage blue check.
The wooden chickens were originally supposed to be feathersbefore the box of my father’s remnants arrived.
The eggs were always going to be Homer’s
but he added a few more colors to the coop for the spring layers.
And then there was Mr. Morse.
I had been texting him images of the paintings as they were finished.
It’s always nice to get feedback, and in the early stages, my fragile ego
can only handle positive comments, which…he knows and respects.
But, when he saw that I was working on this homage to Nancy Luce
he told me he had just purchased one of her original pamphlets of poetry.
I had him send me a photo and just like that…
the piece came together.
It’s a wonderful life.
Scare Crow – 12 x 29
You should have seen Pat modeling for this.
I dressed her in my plaid shirt
found just the left glove so that decided which hand to hold up
the straw was…everywhere…from my straw bale garden
that pitchfork is the one we bought back from cousin Eddie’s estate sale
and the crow…flew in just for a guest appearance
My model fees vary
I got away easy with the crow
she needed the straw
and was satisfied with the handful from the sleeve
Herself…
well let’s just say
she doesn’t work for peanuts.
