Stendhal's Syndrome Updated

For those who have never heard of the Stendhal Syndrome, here's a brief re-cap:

Back in the early 1800s, Stendhal coined this phrase to describe the violent emotional and physical reaction to great art -- crying, fainting, trembling, fever, even hysteria, of whom Stendhal himself was the most famous example during his tour of Florence in 1817. He described this as a "kind of ecstacy" after viewing Santa Croce.

Over the years many writers, such as Henry James, depicted similar reactions, often for those individuals who were making the Grand European tours so popular in the 19th century. Henry Ward Beecher was another who experienced this "absolute intoxication" at the Palace de Luxembourg.

Then, in 1989 Graziella Magherini, head of the psychiatry department at a major hospital in Florence, wrote an article about the Stendhal Syndrome after treating myriad tourists who had suffered symptoms similar to those described above. Her remedy? Bed rest and spending time away from art.

Where am I going with this? Well, like some fellow bloggers who have written about frustration and the inability to create, I wonder if we are suffering from a cyber version of the Stendhal Syndrome?

After a day's work on the computer with excel spreadsheets, online ordering, staff schedules, budgets, then I go home and after dinner am on the computer surfing blogland, offering comments, following up on comments on my blogs, viewing artworks of all kinds -- and this can go on for hours. Then I try to go to sleep. HA!

My mind is spinning, images are flashing, I'm planning on what I can write/upload next . . . and I find that I'm wandering the house at 2am, 3am.

On a deeper level, I am fearful that my own efforts to create are stymied, mainly because I am spending all this time in cyberland. I am beginning to question my ability to create in my own "voice," of merely becoming a derivative artist who hops from one project to the next.

All the hours I spend online -- I could be painting or writing.

All the hours I spend online -- I could be reading or taking a walk.

All the hours I spend online -- I could be spending time with my family.

The upcoming weeks are a difficult time for many of us. The encroaching darkness and cold is one element we have to deal with; also, the past and memories of family who are no longer with us emerge with greater urgency than at other times in the year. There is little need to add more stress to this season then already exists.

I will be taking a break for some time. I won't be visiting your blogs either -- not because I don't enjoy viewing your work and creative endeavors, but because I don't want to end up convulsing on the floor in sheer ecstasy! :~)

I guess my days of swooning are over -- at least for now. I'm sure I'll be back sometime later in the winter. But I have plans for some workshops and classes -- activities that are tangible and that will make me sweat and work with my hands. No more point & click for awhile.

So, happy winter solstice and adieu, adieu, adieu . . .

As Monty Python would say --

Eclipse
walnut ink, stamping on Canson Mi-Teinte paper
8" x 10"

-- and now for something completely different . . .

My last few entries have been such serious topics, so I thought I would do a more light-hearted entry before the holidays ensue.

One art-making process that I have not tried but find fascinating is monotype. My favorite art book is Helen Frankenthaler Prints by Ruth E. Fine, which I pour over several times a year, especially when feeling frustrated and cluttered in the head. The simplicity of the images, the lack of noise and excess marks I find soothing. Yet the combinations of inks, oils and pastels on various papers speak to a complex process that I know little about.

I went to an open studio in Northampton, Massachusetts last weekend, and on display were various prints by students at a local printmaking center. I bought several and plan to take some workshops myself after the holidays. The next day I tried a few small-scale pieces just to see how the materials work. Suffice it to say, the best of the experiment is the one above, which looks very much like a sad Rorschach inkblot!

Learning new methods and new combinations of materials is a humbling experience. It takes one back to square one, to that cognizant level of total ignorance, of stumbling and making mistakes. And yet, often the little grey cells respond and one feels refreshed and recharged.

It's all about navigating these internal maps of discovery, isn't it? Of feeling one's way through the minefields of our own egos, our assumptions, our prejudices. It's like those ancient maps where the edges were filled with monsters and strange creatures. Of course they were! In those days, edges represented blank areas where scary things lurked -- the threatening unknown, the void. I think that's how art and creativity can be sometimes. Huge voids that stare back at us, daring us to do something, anything.

I often think that Melville's Captain Ahab was an artist -- at one point in the novel he rants, "I want to smash my fist through the face of God!"

Well, Moby Dick was white.

Another blank canvas, another empty paper, another blank screen.

Need I say more . . . ?

Happy Turkey Day to everyone -- peace & joy to all -- !

Art Preservation Redux

As a follow-up to my last posting, which elicited some great responses, I'd like to continue just a bit longer on this theme of art preservation.

Some fellow bloggers despaired at how altered book artists destroy books in the course of their art-making. I'd like to assure people that, as long as these artists utilize discarded library books, nothing valuable is being destroyed. Once a book has been marked up with spine labeling, pockets, identity stamps and barcodes, its' intrinsic value is totally diminished in a collector's eye.

Many libraries desperately need shelf space as the rate of publication has sky-rocketed with the technological advances in publishing. Thus many libraries are at the stage of "new book in, old book out." So altered book artists are doing libraries a favor by buying up these discarded books and actually giving them a new life in another form.

But another cautionary tale for those who create using older materials. Before you buy that book that would make a wonderful platform for your art, do yourself a favor and smell it.

That's right -- smell it!

If it smells "whiffy," then it would be a good idea not to buy it. Smell is one of the first indicators of mold and mildew, which spread rapidly throughout collections, including yours.

Look closely as the book. Does it appear dusty with a fine white powder? That may not be dust but a spore colony. This is dangerous ground for those who have allergies and/or asthma.

Back about 25 years ago, an archivist who worked for a museum was handling materials that had this white dust. Unfortunately, the archivist had a major asthma attack and died. His family sued the board of trustees and won the case. Many museums and libraries around the country installed hi-tech HVAC systems after that disaster.

Well, I think that about does it on preservation/conservation -- from me anyway. I've added several links to various institutions that can help if you have any questions about working with these types of materials.

Art preservation: a cautionary tale

image from the Australian government
preservation projects: mold and mildew

I was just visiting Donna Watson's blog and saw the wonderful objects and materials she brought back from her recent trip to Japan. Several people mentioned that she should scan the more fragile items rather than handling them.

This raises some key issues we need to be aware of, especially in this digital age where now we are dealing with not only ephemera, but also with "cyber-ephemera," for lack of a better phrase.

In my profession we are trained about preservation of historical objects (monographs, maps, photographs, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, etc.), and the same practices can apply to our creative works today. Many of us already know about acid-free papers, not to use plain tape, etc. Did you also know that --

> hand lotion can ruin fragile papers? The oils and fragrances that rub off on these delicate materials can destroy them over time. Wear archival gloves (those simple white cotton gloves that we see at quilt exhibits) to protect your materials.

> archival storage boxes are readily available online or at some art stores. They are museum-quality boxes that are acid-free and lignon-free. Why bother? Direct or bright light can adversely affect papers, textiles and even artwork on canvas. If your artwork is not on display, why not store them in these boxes and prolong their lifespan.

> extreme swings in heat and humidity can destroy. I had a friend whose hand-crafted journals became mildewed because they were stored on a wood shelf in her studio (below ground level). The same is true of extreme heat and dryness, which can cause materials to become brittle and literally break apart. A basic ventilator/air-conditioner can help regulate the environment and prevent that occurring.

> and finally on the "cyber" front -- not only should we all be making back-up CDs of our work and images, but also negatives. Someday the technology may change and suddenly the CD format may not migrate to the new platform -- remember those old 8-track tapes and LP turntables? Many people throw older equipment away, but often these are the only machines that can run those formats. With negatives, a trained photographer/developer would be able to retrieve those images regardless of any changes in automation.

Some tips are available online at the Northeast Documentation Conservation Center in Massachusetts, and there are several conservations centers around the country, including the excellent Smithsonian site.

I hope I haven't sounded too officious on this, but it does bear thinking about.

I will be back another day soon with happier topics!

Invisible landscape conditions the visible one . . .

I think I've entered a brown period in my artistic endeavors. These past weeks mostly everything I touch, whether a painting or a photograph has been tinged by brown, by sepia, sienas and umbers.

Does the season influence one's palette? It must.

I know that by late winter I am hungry for exotic tropical colors. And sounds change, too, the melodies change and gavottes and rondels, maypole dances and young girls skipping double-dutch pervade the air and continue through the warm summer days alongside colors of kiwis, persimmons, mangos, flip-flops and bubble-gum.

But now the pace slows. The rhythms are more pensive as if leading us to that lullaby time of deep winter, a time for adagios and nocturnes, of lullabies and bittersweet love songs. So, too, the colors of November -- subdued tones and hues, the splash and cacaphony of summer have now mellowed to the eye and ear.

This painting marks a departure for me. I usually paint landscape; this is more a land(es)cape.
After weeks of walks in our local woods and along footpaths, of browsing quiet lakesides and beaches, the play of light and shadow seemed to insist itself upon me. And so, Shadowplay evolved.

Shadowplay
acrylic, pastel & oil pastel on canvas
2" gallery edge

I liked working with the layers of acrylics, of daubing and stroking in small skidmarks of color with pastels and oil pastels, of scraping back to a layer beneath, uncovering more patches of light. This is also much larger than I'm used to working with, 24 x 36, with a 2" gallery edge.

I am terribly fond of the Pre-Raphaelites, of their deep umber passages of foliage entwining the edges, of the voluptuous folds of shawls and gowns; also of Julia Margaret Cameron's 19th c. photography. It's interesting when we stop to consider how much we are influenced by other mediums and textures.

So, another brown creation -- Renaissance -- a digital image of a clematis vine that wraps and entwines itself throughout part of my garden:

Renaissance
digital photograph with textured layers

Using various techniques for texturing the original photograph, I tried to bring a certain mood to this image, one of a waning blossom with the tiny promise of a new life nestled beside it.

For within deep autumn is always the promise of a spring yet to come . . .

"Out of this wood do not desire to go . . . "

There comes a time when nothing you can write or say will capture the sheer beauty and solace that one finds unexpectedly. But we endeavor, nonetheless . . .

I stumbled upon this scene on my way to work one morning last week. As I rounded the corner of this quiet country road, a sweep of pale pink coated the woods. I had never seen this before. Apparently, once the taller trees had lost their canopy of leaves, the smaller understory trees now had the sunlight necessary to continue the change in color. Eventually, they will be a bright scarlet. But at this moment the delicacy of the hue was amazing. I felt I had drifted into something from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- a fairyland, a dreamland, a land of reverie where Oberon and Titania reign supreme.

I know that words cannot begin to describe how I felt standing before all this -- acres worth as far as the eye could see -- but I hope these few images convey the wonder of it all.

Out of this wood do not desire to go . . . (Titania, Midsummer's Night Dream)