Ok, here is the thing.  I do not spend nearly as much time doing the things I really enjoy as I should if I could.  Yes, it is another shoulda woulda coulda conundrum  but not really.    Time is the missing factor in the equation and that’s not new.  Since the first of 2012, I have been making a major adjustment in my responsibilities at my place of employment.  However, I know that those of you actually reading this know so little about me that going into more detail would only be a bore if we are not already there.

So on to starting over once again.  I always like the bit in the movie City Slickers when the three friends an one of them Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, is talking with Phil and Phil says  “You know you were right, Mitch. My life is a “do-over”. It’s time to get started.”  That’s what I encounter with the things I love that I can do enough of because the stress makers in my life has a death grip on me.   I am forever starting over and writing in this and other blogs I have is one of them.

Each time I do come  back there have been improvement, that’s good.  But the improvements mean I have to learn what the changes are, not always the easiest thing, but I manage and I’m getting used to starting over.   If you “do”  Facebook, you know what I mean because the Facebook gods are incessantly making these little unannounced changes, tweaks.  We have to discover them ourselves or, if they really do announce it, I’ve missed most of them.

In fact, it is my opinion that in our lives every day we are having to start over and relearn something we knew how to do until “they” changed the process or procedure.  I imagine the Facebook Kids (that is what I think of the gang in Palo Alto, CA whose job it is to continually refine and remake Facebook) have some kind of pool or bet going on who many screaming FB users will come to the surface crying because of a particular change.  No need to go through them in detail because if you are a FB user you know what I mean and if you are not…well, that boredom thing again.

Still here?  Good, because I still have one more thought that I have been building to with all of this and the more intrepid will make the connection because they have stuck with me thus far.

How about Pinterest?  Have you been keeping up with the conversation about Pinterest and copyright?  THERE IT IS, the connection that make this discussion relevant to those of us that are artists.   Copyright and the protection of the same is discussed frequently at every art site I am on.  At least it seems to be so.  Pinterest has poses an wide open and easy method for people to “snatch” (they call it PIN, or PINNING) images of other peoples’ work.  I know that it is rare for original work to be on the Internet and most of us have digital images or digital files of the work we have created.  But even the image of one of my paintings can not be used by someone else without my permission.  So when someone comes along, looks at one of my websites and decides to “snatch” a copy and “pin” it on a board in their Pinterest account, can they?  Legally?

I’m being a bit contradictory here because I pin images of my own work onto my boards in my Pinterest account.  I have the right.  But can I pin an image of Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting from an art site or the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum?  If that is all I do, all I am really doing is pining a link to the board because the image never actually gets to my computer and it is where I can enjoy it for a time.  But some artists of all media are objecting to Pinterest users doing this.

Ok, here is my conclusion.  Since this is still allowed, no one has declared this to be Napster I Revisited yet, I push my images out there and let others repin because it spreads my work around.  Some will only see the image and get an idea for their own project and they really can not use it for much except looking at.  Well, maybe there are ways I just haven’t considered yet.

When it come to my primary artist site, Fine Art America, they try to protect people from saving an image by disabling or blocking the “right click” or “double click” or “click and hold” to pop up the option to “Save Image”.  With Pinterest that precaution is null and void.  And once pinned, the Save Image trick work.

I used the word conundrum once in this blog and I’ll used it again now…a third time.  If you can work through this conundrum, I’d love to hear your opinions.

Paul

It has been said:

“Youth is wasted on the young.”
― Oscar Wilde

paul

Here is one that really threw me for a loop.

Analogue or Analog has a specific meaning, and it has to do with electronic stuff.  The dictionary (one anyway) describes the adjective spelled analog as; “of or pertaining to a mechanism that represents data by measurement of a continuous physical variable, as voltage or pressure.“

The dictionary give the other spelling analogue a variety of meanings.  None of them define or describe the process of capturing light for a photograph on film as an analogue process.  However, that is what has happened.

It probably started with the Lomography folks in Austria but I really do not know.  The move back to film and film cameras as a means to create photographs or photo art is now called Analogue or Analog photography as compared to Digital photography.  To be sure this is a GOOD THING because the snap shooters are not using film – they are firmly cemented in digital.  The ones using film are the artists, the image creators and those who capture images of their world.

If these artists choose to call their art analogue art I’m very much willing to join their parade.  It is a challenge – it is many challenges which I will address in future blogs – to create art this way and the options are many.  Gone are the restraints of previous film photography because today, film photography is not for those recording the history of their family or vacation.  The gates are open for wide open opportunities to think way beyond the pixels of a digital image.

More to come…

One of the things that I have puzzled over in my life is the the way people describe how trains, and land-bound vehicles make there way from one place to another.  When I was a young child, we would play a game called “follow the leader.”  Anywhere the leader went we followed and we never knew exactly where the leader was going or what path the leader would take.  In like manner, what ever the leader did, the way he/she walked, jumped, twirled we all followed in action and did the same thing.  If a person flubbed or missed a step, they would sit out until there was one leader and one follower.  The surviving follower would become the new leader for the next round.  It was fun and it made sense.

It does not make so much sense we we use the word follow for how a train travels.  We say the train follows the track, a car follows the road and the three friends with Dorothy follow the yellow brick road.  When we follow a moving object or person by copying the way and path they travel, we get to where they are going.  When we follow the tracks, we get to where the tracks already are.  The track are not actually moving.  They were laid according to the surveyors directions and ended up where the wanted to be.  No matter how often a train follows the tracks it will always end up at the same destination.

We can not stretch an illustration too far or it will break, but I still think about a track, or a path when I think of making my way in my art career.  An artist certainly follows someone or something and has a destination picked out if it is only a small smidgen of an idea or dream about where the artist wants to end up.  Every so often, I get a little lost and feel that I am off track.  I have taken a left when it was supposed to be a right or I’ve gone up when I should have gone down.  I launched a painting that takes no form or shape and I may even get so far off the YBR (yellow brick road) that I get lost in a corn field.  I know when I am lost because the flow of ideas do not get lost with me so I end up without the ideas.  The source of my ideas are back there on the track and I need to find my way back there.

Thankfully, I do not need to backtrack but simply transport myself to that place in my journey that I either should or want to be.  I renew my focus, evaluate my goals and begin again.  Such a restart is always so refreshing because it brings once again the feelings of elation and satisfaction as what is inside forms itself on the canvas.  I went through this process recently and once I was reestablished where I should be, something very significant was revealed to me.   I learned what my body of work was going to be.  I realized what just might be at the end of my YBR if I can discipline myself to stay on it.

For a long time, I have not been the train or even the car but I have been a ship and I have been going here and there experimenting with various ideas that were not from the source – they were what I thought others wanted me to paint.  I was constantly resetting my course over and over but never knowing or deciding just what my heading should be.   Boats and planes follow “roads” but in a much more disciplined way than trains or cars – and it is much easier for them to drift off course.   A train does not need to do anything but take care of its energy source – in order to lose its way, it will have to jump the track and that is what I have been doing.   My results individually have been satisfying but there has not been the development of direction that I’ve wanted to achieve.

Back on track, I believe I see the way now.

==

Sometimes I simply do not understand the frenzy that surrounds the turn from one year to the next.  This year, the big day was a Saturday and the big celebration was Friday night.  But in reality, it was the setting of the sun to the rising of the sun and without our arbitrary calendar (the one most of the world uses to track days, weeks, months and years) there was nothing really different in that change of days from the one before or the one after, was there?

Truth be told, our calendar is completely arbitrary.   I don’t mean it is not based on some system of the earth, moon, sun and stars but when was the last time any significant think tank took up the question of its validity over other calendars that others use?  There are many different calendars in use today and more in antiquity which are no longer used.  So, why is the Gregorian calendar the one?  Why not the Julian calendar?  Actually it is “The Christian Calendar” that is most common and the one we use to calculate our age and distance from our projected but inevitable internment. The “Christian Calendar” is sort of (for lack of a better explanation) a marriage of the best of the Gregorian and Julian calendars.

If you observe Christmas, and if you were doing so in Ethiopia, your friends in the west would most likely have put their decorations away by the time you began your celebration.  Christmas on the Coptic calendar, the calendar in use in Ethiopia, is January 7, this Friday.  That is, unless it is simply a matter of out of sync dates so Jan. 7 on the Coptic was the same actual 24 hours span as Dec. 25 on the Gregorian (or maybe Julian) calendar.

The more systematic we, (the human race) attempt to be in developing systems such as calendars, the more arbitrary is the result.  Some one has to say “Start here, count this many hours in a day and this many days in a month and this many months in a year and you will end here, just to start again.”

And so we take the arbitrary and give it significance by celebrating the END/START point of each year.  We ceremoniously make promises and resolve to do better and more.  To be more true to ourselves and others. To reach new heights and complete more goals.  We Resolve to…keep the resolutions…for about 7 days, if we have any kind of character.   If we do more than that, we are simply one of the over achievers from which will come the genius that give us our next calendar.

If we were discussing instead, the artistic process, it would be another kind of the same thing.

Some of my best friends are artists.

Then, again, some of the artists I know are mostly unbearable to be around without applying several layers of faux personality.   I do not propose this because is is any new discovery – this is the case of human nature.  I expect that the reaction by some to what they read here will be Exhibit A of what I am talking about.

If the circle of people I associate with were mostly petty criminals, I would expect nothing more than what comes natural to thieves, robbers and thugs.  It would be as unusual to encounter a gentleman or lady petty criminal as it would be to encounter a wealthy one.  It is simply not in the mix of their DNA.

There are those however, that I expect much more of than I see.  I expect more from artists than I get in the way of pleasant interaction.  I’m not referring to my closest association of artists where I live who are friends.   Nor am I referring to the times I meet an artist for the first time – those times are pleasant with the rare exception.   I expect more  from all artist because of what I believe is the basic make up of an artist.

Not long ago a couple of art lovers, who are not artists, said to me, “You are really out of the normal for artists, Paul.”  When I asked why they said that the reason was, “Almost all the artists we know are liberals (USA style) and you are quite conservative.”  At least they did not say Democrat / Republican which most assume is the same as liberal / conservative.   They are correct.  I am conservative.  I’m not A conservative, but I am conservative on most issues.  In fact I am so conservative in the area of personal liberties that I venture dangerously close to embracing libertarian views.   But I digress and this blog is getting too long.

Artists, in my mind are creative and more willing to “colour outside the lines” than most other people.  Breaking the established boundaries has been the characteristic shared by every phenomenal artist I can think of.   Even what we consider to be the “old masters” they for their time pushed the envelope and blazed a new trail.  Those artists that adopted their style once it became “the school” are the ones who were technically excellent but contributed little to the world of art except to its inventory.

In order to be able to do this the artists has to be willing to embrace the unembraceable  and let the critics have their ‘sway’.  Because I believe this I believe that tolerance and vision to be essential elements in the make up of an artist.  Notice please that I steer very wide of speaking about creativity and talent – there is no need to include them.   It is mostly tolerance or the lack of it that has me puzzled.

Why does and artist that does not believe in a God or gods speak harshly about those that do?

Why does an artist that works according to their selected system think that is the only system that produces good art?

Why do artists that forever hope to be remember long after they depart from this life, heap tons of criticism upon artists in the past?  Presuming they know well enough how the artists of 10, 20, or 200 years ago should have behaved.

Why do artists confuse their personal taste and judgment on the value and quality of art with the idea that their taste and judgment is the only good option for all.

I suppose if we did not have this, we would not have the lively “discussions” that amount to nothing more than a cluster spewing of personal opinion and very little thoughtful comment.

I want to get over my Artist-self and move forward developing my style and allow it to evolve as it is intended to without carrying the baggage of severe judgment of those that think, believe and work differently than I do.  I learn a great deal even when I look and study art that to me is pitiful work as long as I keep my opinion to myself.  If I speak it, I fail the lesson.

What does my art say about me?  Can others see the kind of personality I have by looking at my art?  It is not an exacting science if it is even a science to divine a person’s demeanor from the body of their work.   But I firmly believe that a connection exists between how an artist relates to the world around them, and the effect of their art on the viewers.  In this, I fancy myself to be free of complaining and criticizing others…but my fancy can let me down.   So, in the interest of full disclosure, I do my share of complaining and criticizing others.

There is one world of my life that I successfully avoid those criticism and complaining and that is the world of  ART.   Even when I do not have an appreciation for another artist’s work, I have an appreciation to the creative process they use to produce the art.  There are styles of painting that I would not hang in my home but I still can see the quality and gift of the artist that makes that kind of art.

I find that the enjoyment and pleasure I want from viewing and experiencing art does not flow if I carry a negative and critical aura into the viewing experience.   I made a decision to exclude negative criticism from my art appreciation experience even when appreciation did not exist.   Some may ask, “how can you do that?”   It’s all a mental exercise I learned to do and it is valuable to me.

Now, I approach every piece of art looking for what I can enjoy, appreciate, interact with, and even speak with.  Sculpture and paintings have much to say if a connection can be made.   Look long, at Rodin’s “Kiss” and see if you can walk away without taking a bit of it with you.   Or how about “Infinity” outside the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.  Stand in one place and watch it rotate (if it is not turning, you need to do the moving around).  Ask it where its beginnings and ends are.  It may tell you.    I first saw “Infinity” in 1968 and it had such an impact on me my thoughts go to it frequently just for refreshment.

Not many days ago I broke this personal rule and I broke it very precisely.  This experience is what this article is about.  I am about to be critical of another artist but I’ll do what I can to keep her identity secret.

For 17 years in my present job I have somehow never met or spoken to a particular artist in the town I live in – I’m going to call her Daville.  Circumstances, or is it something else, came together about three weeks ago and I met Daville for the very first time.  I was aware of her art because I had seen it on display in various places around town.  Her art was uninspiring to me.  As much as I would study various pieces of her work, I felt nothing uplifting, heard nothing, and received no pleasure from the experience.  I did not know why because I generally can appreciate something in every piece of art, even those that might be distasteful to me.  (I have boundaries and I rarely cross them but we will not elaborate what they right now.)

More than nothing, Daville’s work, if it left me with anything at all,  left a negative feeling of confusion.  Last weekend I attended an art walk experience in a nearby town.  As we went from store in the downtown we saw wonderfully talented and inspiring photography and paintings.  In fact the last place we visited was full of pieces done by an artist I just met there.  Wonderful work in the Impressionist’s style.  If a wealthier man I was, I would have purchased one of her pieces.

But…before we made the last stop, we had made a stop a block away.  In this exquisite store with wonderful antiques was Daville’s work.  Several of her larger acrylics, several miniature watercolors and a few acrylics and watercolors in between sizes.  Several I had not seen before so I took some time to look at each piece.  Again, I could not understand much about what she was trying to do or say.  Daville was there and when we spoke, her only subject for conversation was a strong criticism for being put in a store where there were other things beside her work for sale.

This  comment was in the same frame as one I heard her say about the hanging of her work in another gallery.  That gallery owner, according to Daville had done her a disservice by not placing her small water colors in a prime location.

Quickly now back to our last stop on the art walk, as I was speaking with the Impressionist artist, Daville showed up and joined our conversation.  Pretty soon, neither the other artist or myself new what we were talking about…I walked away.

On the way home I realized how profoundly her art reflects her spirit.  I can get nothing from her art because I can get nothing from her.  It made sense.  Now I knew why I was confused.  Until I knew the artist, I could not understand her work.  Her works reflect what she sees in art…in life.  I’m certainly not saying this is applied to all or any other artists who may not be the most cheerful people in town, but I am saying that knowing Daville, the little I have had the chance to know, the more I hear and understand the voice of her work.

And…a word came to me that perfectly described both her and her work because one reflected the other.  As a person, she has a very difficult time relaxing and just taking things as they are.  Everything has something wrong with it and needs to be adjusted to her preference.   The word?  Obstructed.  Her personality and her art are obstructed and the creative energy can not flow. If and artist does not have creative energy or fire, then they have to have technical skills.   Daville is not skilled enough to be a technical artist so she is stuck, or…obstructed.

It seems to me that I spend a great deal of time considering where the concepts for my art start.  I do this because my ending points are not always very closely related to the starting points.

One artist I know, John Karl Claes, is very structured, very organized in his idea development.  He paints landscapes in an expressionistic yet representational way.  In preparation for a flurry of work,  Claes will develop sheets of storyboards with concepts sketched out.   It is from this storyboard that he begins his process of producing paintings that ranges from miniature (3″ x 3″) to very large (70″ x 60″).  It is not evident that size matters to Claes at this point, it is the composition and the elements withing each painting that matter.  Each of his paintings always starts with a drawing.

The starting points for me are not consistent.  Unlike my friend Claes, I am not formally trained.  I do not have the hours of class time studying past masters and art theory.  I do not have the opinions and instructions from art professors as part of my thought process.  Whether this is an advantage or disadvantage is a question left completely for another discussion. It is what it is for me.  I do not have the choice now to be other than what I am, a self taught artist.  I do study past masters, but only those I want to learn from.  I do read art theory, art appreciation and I absorb great amounts of passive instruction from the how and why artists do things.  I study the processes of artists I know.

Within my mind are many ideas which are sparked from just as many sources.  Live experiences, scenes and patterns captured in my memory, paintings by other artists, photographs, or just some crazed concept that formed all by itself outside of my conscious control.

My starting points include drawing out concepts on a sketch pad using graphite and colored pencil.  I have a small satchel that has all the implements I need and it is with me most of the time when I travel.  I use it to sketch out ideas that show up in my mind.  Some of these develop into complete concepts and are used to create a painting.

I will at times use my computer, though not as frequently as I did in the past.  The computer helps me work with colors looking for a pallet for a specific concept that is already well defined.

I will draw directly on the canvas with a pencil or oil stick and develop the concept in that way.

I also develop concepts directly on the canvas with very little thought before hand.  I often start with existing paint that I’ve mixed and is perhaps left over from a completed painting. Looking back over the pas 3 years, the paintings I have created this way, using the least amount of thought before the start, are all sold.  These have been the most appreciated paintings because they have been the paintings I have exchanged for the ever loving and sought after filthy lucre.  (Is there a lesson here for me?)

It does not matter where my concepts start, the end result is more often quite different than the idea I imagined when I started developing it.  Once the paint is on the brush and being applied to the canvas, my control of the end result becomes detached from the first idea very quickly.  It is during this step that the painting is actually made.  Unlike the artists who know exactly what they plan to paint and therefore steer the painting to that end, it is my inner self, my spirit, my emotions, my sense of well being (or not), my view of my world and so forth that take control of the process and steer my decisions throughout the process.

I like it that this is the way I work.  The strictly disciplined and controlled approach that works for so many others would be too confining for me.  My other life where I actually earn filthy lucre, by which I feed and shelter myself and my family, has all the disciplined and controlled elements that I need.  When I am standing with brush in hand loaded with oil paint, I find great release when I can shut off the formal part of my life and escape to where I really want to live and let the energy flow.

Although my starting points vary in kind and process, and though they rarely seem to match up with the ending points, I am convinced that they live in the same time but may well be from different universes and this is the way I travel between them.

I believe in nice.  I believe in nice people.  I believe, unless I know otherwise, that every one is nice.  This is a dangerous way to live.

Before I know it, one of these nice people comes to a point on her or his agenda where it becomes necessary to play me, and I do not mean as a team player.   In order for them to maintain or protect themselves, they have to use other people and I am easy to use.  I don’t see it coming and BAM! I end up off my feet and feeling very foolish or hurt or both.

Yea, I know.  Y’all are out there saying I should easily see this coming and I should not be so naive.   I agree.  But it goes against my nature to start a casual relationship with a list of suspicions to check off.  I married a very smart lady who takes care of all of that.  Problem is, she is not always around and I am not always willing to pay attention to her intuitions.

So, instead I continue to dive into things, begin projects, take on responsibilities, and agree to help without first checking the character of the people I will be involved with.

Thankfully, most of the time, my way of believing nice actually pays off because I am mostly correct.

The rest of the time is marked with rude awakenings.  People I work for, work with, or have some other connection with do fail to fulfill what they say they are.  It is especially tough when it happens after a whole lot of loyal service has been paid.  Suddenly, someone who “has my back” uses that to protect or promote themselves at my expense.   The longer the period of trust, the greater the loss of trust and the greater the adjustment.

Now here is the twist…my art creativity and production is always better during these periods of adjustment.  I find my time painting to be very therapeutic as I mull, stew, rethink, second guess and create long involved “I shoulda” scenarios with full conversations.  Perhaps the burst of creativity is called forth by this drive to establish a mental picture of the way I which I had behaved or hope to behave the “next time”.

Ideas become concepts and concepts start paintings and eventually become whatever they are intended to be.  The flow is smoother and more creative.  My paintings do not actually contain revenge images, they are very much peaceful world images – for the most part.

I even learn a little bit of wisdom as I say to myself that “I’ll not let that happen to me again.”  Well, that is true only so far as the principals involved.  They will never gain that advantage over me again.  I’m no martyr, but, I’m sure there will be another “nice” person I’ll meet down the road and start the process all over again.  I have a stronger desire to start out believing nice than to be guarded and suspicious of another’s word.

Who is the artist you have discovered that has walked or walks in an almost parallel path with you?  Is there an artist that seems to “ooze” (if you permit me to use the word) the feelings and deep thoughts you believe could as easily be yours as theirs?   Do you have an artist that is not a mentor or teacher but is simply an artist that seems to understand what makes up your drive and desire for art?

Mine is Sean Scully.

And I do not know exactly why it has been so appointed.

When I want to recenter my focus or remember why I paint what I paint, I look at the drawings I did as a young and younger person.  All I have to do is pull out one of the note books from my high school days – of which I have very few – or from my time in upper education.  I am very easily bored and can very quickly wander off mentally while listening to a speech,  if I do not semi-occupy my mind with something such as drawing.    The margins along my notebook pages contain abstract geometric concepts I drew while listening to a lecture or lesson.

This resource works as an anchor that helps me realize what is inside.  And long before I ever knew who Sean Scully was, and even before Scully had moved to New York in 1975 or the Metropolitan Museum of Art became the first museum in America to purchase one of his paintings (1985 – Molloy), the subject of my drawings were often squares, rectangles, and other shapes fitted together into a larger image of something. Often I played with the distortion of perception and perspective.

When I began to paint more than one artist remarked that my art had a “sense of Scully.”

So I did my research and found an affinity with the artist I had not felt with any other artist I have admired.   Sean Scully is described and comments on his feelings and thoughts in ways that really resonate.  For instance, from the book published before the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective of Scully’s “Wall of Light“  (2006-2007), the artist is described as knowing “…that being an artist is all about desire, he knows too that active pursuit of the muse is doomed to disappointment.  For this reason, the artist cannot put himself under the pressure to evolve.  He must let questions go unanswered, go about his business, and then, when he least expects it, the muse will come.”  (“Wall of Light”, Rizzoli International Publication, Inc.)

Discovering someone that has not so much influenced me but with whom I have discovered a connection, an artist to artist connection is encouraging to me, an obscure emerging artist.   Am I as good as Scully as an artist?  I don’t know.  I am not as famous or recognized or exhibited or written about or video recorded…that is certain and as the words in the quote above remind me, those things may or may not come my way.  But that does not stop me from pursuing the release of all that is within me to create the art honestly, humanly, emotionally and passionately.

Another quote from the book that I like is, “At a time when abstract painting has become forbidden territory, and are of research so esoteric it could be thought of as intellectually indefensible, Scully romantically pushes forward seeking a quality of  light that is meaningful to himself and, he hopes to us.”

Unabashedly, I seek to study and to learn from Scully and develop a technique that is mine but is also as emotionally powerful as Scully’s.