at first sight

At First Sight, 22 x 22, acrylic on paper

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,

while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Lao Tzu

Leonard Cohen "Dance Me to the End of Love."

life goes on

Life goes on. I've thought or said those words many times. After a disappointment, life goes on. After a failure, life goes on. And, a few weeks ago, after the death of my father in law ... life goes on for the rest of us.

He died at home, as he wanted. Peacefully. No agitation or crying out. One moment he was awake, and the next asleep, and then he stopped breathing. 

Grief is tricky. Thinking about his life brings up feelings of admiration and delight. Or frustration  and regret. Or a thick blanket of sadness. The thick blanket days are the hardest. Life goes on.

Jan Pieter van Schoonhoven, 1926 -- 2013

Years ago, I was playing the Schubert Impromptus (Opus 90, numbers 1-4). My father in law enjoyed hearing me play, and sometimes he would make comments on various pieces. When I played this one (number 3) he said, "Play that one at my funeral." Here it is. For you, Paps.

Vladimir Horowitz, Schubert Impromptu Opus 90, No 3.

a lifetime and then some

“I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, 

some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness.”
― Anaïs Nin

22 x 22, acrylic on paper

 I am certain that I am not alone in feeling the ebb and flow of these feelings. 

Community and alienation. 

Intimacy and isolation. 

It seems it will take a lifetime, and then some, to figure this out.

Bob Dylan "Things Have Changed."

your own ideas

"We are not here to do what has already been done."
Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

It's all over the internet and in books and newspapers and professional journals. I'm sure you have read something about the subject in the last year. The artist holds copyright on his/her artwork (even after it's sold, unless other arrangements have been made and paid for). When someone copies another artist's work and signs it and tries to sell it or show it as if it is their own original work, IT'S WRONG.

Most of us don't need to be told this. We understand that it is cheating. Immoral. Illegal.

I have read good articles by artists whose work has been copied and used by someone else without permission. It's easy to understand the outrage of the person who is the victim of theft. You will want to read this article, an excellent example of how an artist discovered the theft and what she did about it. "This is a Post About Plagiarism" by Sarah Moon on her blog "Clear Eyes, Full Shelves."

Here's another, by Lori McNee, about an artist who discovered a copycat who stole her work off of her Facebook page.  "How I Stopped a 'Copycat Artist' on Facebook."

My work has not been stolen. But, I still feel passionately about the issue. I believe that artists and art groups have an obligation to hold one another accountable and to hold one another to the highest standards of professional practice and ethics.  From my standpoint, when artists do nothing about a copyist in their group, they are saying, in effect, that it is okay with them. When they hang in art shows with that copyist, they are endorsing that person as a respected peer.

My grandmother used to say, "You are known by the company you keep."

What would you do if you discovered an art friend copying artwork and passing it off as his/her own? Have you had any experience with this issue in a personal way?

Robert Henri got it right. Let's do it right.

not waving

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Stevie Smith

Not Waving, 22 x 22, acrylic on BFK

 Vividly, I recall how the early morning fishermen looked on as I struggled in the cold water. The dock was too high to reach without kicking my feet hard to propel myself up and reach my hands onto the boards. But, with water at about 50 degrees, the cold leached my strength at an alarming rate. I felt my limbs grow numb and weak as my core demanded my heat. Holding on to the dock was too difficult. The ladder was disabled. The fishermen looked at me, in the cold water, and watched.

Four years after that experience, I still think about it. I almost drowned. Without the help of my friend, Angie, and the Coast Guard and other emergency services in Bremerton, I would have died. But, I survived. And I can safely let those memories and my thoughts about the experience rise up for consideration. 

Today, I am thinking about how the fishermen were spectators to my struggle, but were in no way involved in helping me. I wonder if we are becoming more and more comfortable with spectating and less and less involved in what is real and meaningful. Watching life instead of doing. Maybe we get too much practice watching (television, sports, games, movies, computers) and not enough practice doing. 

I love to swim and my experience did not dampen that love. This year, though, I have signed up to take swimming lessons to become a better swimmer. The classes will focus on perfecting my form on various strokes. In the comfort of a pool heated to 80 degrees! I want to face boating season as an even stronger swimmer. And, I hope I won't ever need it!

Tracy Chapman, "Change."

bubbling creative juices

Jamesha, 20 x 8, watercolor and charcoal on BFK

Why not try something new? 

It seems like with all things creative, sure death is accomplished with predictability and doing things the same way. 

At Hipbone Studios this week, during the 30 minute poses, I pulled out a tiny travel set of watercolors and did this little painting. Charcoal drawing made the paint muddy, and next time I may use graphite instead of charcoal, but overall I like how this one turned out.

And I feel my creative juices bubbling again. How do you keep your creative juices going?

arrival

Arrival, 15 x 11, acrylic on BFK

Although I have stopped working on it for now, I am not certain that this piece is finished. It started as a figure sketch from life and then continued to change and shift. Today it reminds me that May is around the corner and the arrival of warmer weather in the Pacific Northwest. Warmer does not necessarily mean sunnier, however, and people joke that "real summer" starts after July 4th. For now I can celebrate the sun, the blooms, and the arrival of longer days and warmer weather.

Sarah McLachlan "Good Enough."

figures and Matisse

I am experimenting with figure painting and how I might turn a sketch from life drawing into a painting. This is a new piece and as I painted it, I was thinking of Matisse and his wild use of color and curved lines for figures.

22 x 30 acrylic on BFK

Here is an inspiring video showing many paintings of Henri Matisse. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have!

steps toward amazing

90 second gestures

90 second gestures

Gesture drawings are fast impressions of a pose or a mood, a quick map of the twist and weight of the pose. I think that these drawings are fun. Whimsical. Charming. Gesture drawings are my favorite kind of figure drawings.

15 minute drawing

20 minute drawing

When drawing the longer poses, I still want to capture the energy of the gesture drawing and then correct the shapes and angles of the drawing to match the model's pose. It's hard to know when enough is enough. In the 20 minute drawing, I was especially concerned to get the right alignment of the head to the shoulders and knees. Somehow, that made the model look more like an old fashioned television antenna! I wonder if she gets good reception...

25 minute drawing

I continue to look at ways to vary my mark making. All of these are done with the same piece of charcoal, the trick is to vary the pressure, to use both the side of the stick and the point to get a different character in the line. In the 25 minute drawing above, the model moved her head as I drew so that it sank lower to her chest. I smudged the old position out and drew in the new position as I saw it. These corrections make this one of my favorite drawings.

Figure drawing feels like jazz to me. It's all about improvising and responding to what's going on in the room and in me.

Chick Corea and Gary Burton "Eleanor Rigby."  The melody is well known (especially to Beatles' fans), but when these two musicians wrap themselves around it, amazing!

doing differently

"Automatic marks are deadly to a painting or a drawing." Bill Park, 2013

These words continue to bounce around in my mind, days after the workshop. They stick with me because they apply so directly and uncomfortably to my work. Both with painting and with drawing, there are times when I stop observing and let my know-it-all rational brain take control. Instead of looking with fresh eyes, concentrating as if I'm completely unfamiliar with the subject, I start thinking things like, "the hip juts out here like this, the calf curves out like so" and my marks look different. Unconsidered. Boring. Deadly.

To hold the focus of mindfulness takes a lot of concentration and determination. And self-awareness.

From start to its current state, this painting has been an exercise in doing differently. I began with an intention to create texture within a blue/green/gold color field. My first orange figure marks started with a monoprint from another painting. I followed what interested me, and kept things moving with energy and excitement. No automatic marks.

One of the most exciting benefits of taking a good workshop is coming away with new ideas. The challenge is to not slip back to old habits and automatic ways of doing things.

Doing differently. I like it!

Melody Gardot does it with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." That's what I'm talking about. I have never seen a cello played like a guitar before this!