The Potter and the Painter

Miranda Thomas came to mind when I was asked to put together a commemorative piece for a minister in New Jersey. The church, St. George's By the River in Rumson, New Jersey has a striking stained glass window at its apse of the goddess Sophia. An unlikely reference, it seems, for an Episcopal Church, I found out from Miranda that the Sophists were keen on referencing the intelligence of humanity. Sophia is sometimes considered "the Mother of God." Her image became the thing I wanted to share on the piece.

First, I thought of a quilt, but the quilters I knew had no interest in something so complicated. That is when Miranda came to mind. I hoped she would be willing to paint the image on some piece of pottery. When I went to visit her in her studio in Bridgewater, Vermont she said, "Oh, why don't you do it? I don't usually do people." I tried to convince her that it was a window she was painting, not a person, but she encouraged me to try. "Glazing is just like watercolor."

Maybe to her, but to me it was like painting with very small brushes in sugar. I felt completely paralyzed by the 16" white platter and nearly gave up. I tried a small sample plate first and began to trust the results. The part that was similar to watercolor was that I could dilute the glaze enough to have it sit on top in a variety of values. I waited until the last minute to complete it, only due to fear and uncertainty. Or perhaps because I work well under pressure? But it was a success. I want to share it with you here.

Collaborating with another artist in a field apart from my own builds confidence and allows me to become inspired by new media. How have you collaborated in your work recently?

Painting a Portrait

Today, I painted in three big chunks of time. The family that I'm doing a portrait for is coming by tomorrow to see it. They loved it the last time and had just a few minor changes. As I started making those small adjustments yesterday, I started seeing all the things wrong with it. By this afternoon, I had completely painted out both faces and started again.

By 5:30, I felt suicidal. Not that I wanted to kill myself entirely, just the grandiose part of me that ever thought I could be a portrait painter. I wanted to take her out back and throttle her for her stupid notion that she could actually paint! From a month ago when I had a painting that the family rather liked, I had taken the thing apart to the point that the girl had eyes the size of one of those pound puppies usually painted on velvet. Her brother looked like Liberace on Valium. Who did I think I was anyway saying yes to this commission a year ago?

Thank God I have a dog. He began to bark having not been out for nearly 8 hours because I had become the self-absorbed, obsessed painter I can be. And now I was a suicidal, obsessed painter. With every change I made, the painting continued to fall apart. So doing the only thing I could think of worth doing, I got my biggest brush and lots of tinted white and painted over her face...again.

Why is it that painting is often fifty percent scraping away or painting over? Why is it that at least half a tube of paint dries on the palette or ends up in the turp bucket? No wonder Vermeer only has 16 extant paintings hanging around for a lifetime of work. Painting is often about repainting—especially when trying to get a likeness.

So this is what the session after dinner resulted in. It was like the self-assured portrait painter was murdered during supper at the White Cottage. A veggie burger and fried mushrooms nourished the humble self. I walked in the studio at 9 PM and by 11 had something I feel comfortable showing these people tomorrow. It is not perfect, but it has a bit of the Dutch Masters like Franz Hals who I fell in love with at the Rijksmuseum in 1977. And it has enough David Hockney colors and Edvard Munch psychology to satisfy me. I got out of the way, cleaned my brushes and went to work doing my honest best.

Oddly, after what felt like a complete break down six hours ago where I was sure I would never paint again, tonight I'm wondering who I might know who would like to sit for my next portrait? Van Gogh might have lived a longer life had he just gone to the White Cottage and ordered a veggie burger.

Painting Space

I had a conversation today with a Unitarian Universalist minister about public transportation. He said, "The difficulty is to overcome people's resistance to waiting for a bus. If it takes ten minutes for the bus to arrive, people will say take their own car because they believe that waiting is a waste of time. But it is an opportunity to read a book, look around or even talk to a person who is also waiting.

The image here is a small painting of the parking area near Elizabeth, New Jersey with New York City in the distance. I painted it in gouache during the last class on Highway Culture. I like the odd pastel palette I achieved with my new Acryla Gouache from Holbein. I wanted to explore how abstract brush marks can transfer the banality of a parking lot into something more beautiful than it is in "real" life.

Barnett Newman said in his essay, "The Sublime is Now," in 1948—"The impulse of modern art was this desire to destroy beauty." I would suggest that sixty-two years later my impulse as an artist is to look at what may be ugly and to find beauty in it through the medium of paint. Painting space—parking spaces, air over a landscape is the challenge.

Speaking of space, the studio I work in has not been painted since 1995. Today, I embarked on that journey, around the four walls of this room with its 10 foot ceilings. I'm told the room was once a barber shop. The building was built somewhere in the 1850's, the walls are easily a foot thick and the windows have deep sills in them so that I can sit and look out at the street. The walls are getting painted "Featherdown White" because the paintings are colorful enough. I like to think I'm painting space on which objects can sit.

By the time I am finished the painting space will be painted and classes will commence again. The space will become a place in which to paint. Waiting can provide much needed space to create.

Highway Culture

In preparation for the final class in Abstraction in Watercolor today (before new classes start next week), I read Lawrence Alloway's book, "Topics in American Art Since 1945". He says, "Highway culture is the hardware and sociology generated by automotive transport and the road system...Highway culture is invisible because it's taken for granted, except by those who don't like it."

I think about Monet and Pissarro–their facination with all things in the landscape that pointed to the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century. Trains, roads to train stations, "gares" all point to a new wave of motion for humans. The gray tone of "Sunrise, Rouen" by Pissaro from 1895 shares his fascination with engineering and this curiosity about the ant-like work of humans. Smoke stacks and rippled water imply action and time passing. We know between the specs of paint, daubed on the surface, life is going on in Rouen. Commerce is bustling.

Last night, I drove to Lebanon, NH to take some photos for the class. I have always liked neon, growing up in New Jersey. And night time offers a whole new look at a magic world of lights against the dark. Glows in watercolor should be easy to achieve, with a patient hand and a wet-in-wet technique. I like how text from signs become shapes or meaning. Logos become compositional conundrums for the artist, because they can be read without the context of the setting.

In class today, we're going to take the theories of abstraction we've begun to study and use them in a painting of "highway culture." The American landscape is a ripe resource for imagery. We are too quick to dismiss the "ugly" or "banal." At the hand of the artist, all could become beautiful.

Archiving Photos

I walked by my shelf today with photos on it. I'm pretty organized. Its just the volume of photos that's killing me. I have boxes dating back to 1991 on my shelf and in my mother's basement, I can show you photos from my childhood. Last week, my mother came to me with photos of my great grandmother from 1875. I should be glad. How many people have access to this kind of information?

The problem is, I don't have access either. I need to sort through them. I need to catalog and identify them and mostly I need to throw out and edit. I just put 45 digital images from this weekend's ski trip on my iPhone. I stored them in iPhoto. Shall I put them on Facebook? I have over 7000 images in iPhoto right now, dating back to 2005. I like that I can't see the piles of albums, but they're all still there, taking up space in my computer, like dust mites–clutter that's almost imperceptible to the human eye.

Where do I start? I'm scanning images from family history for my mother. I'm taking pictures for my class I'm teaching tomorrow. Tell me what you think.