Variations on Landscape

Life is strange sometimes. One moment you're complaining that you are bored and need something more; the next moment your wish is granted and now it's too, too much. The new job is keeping me hopping and at night I'm too tired to even contemplate lifting a brush. Come the weekend there's too many chores to catch up on.

But it's been several weeks now, and I finally am feeling a bit more relaxed, able to focus on something other than work. In fact, it is an absolute necessity -- otherwise, one could go crazy.

Right now I'm sitting in my studio surrounded by chaos. Over the weeks I've dumped things here and there, stashed half-finished works on the floor or on the work table. I think I've even lost a batch of brushes as the turps dried up and now they're hard as bricks.

Nevertheless, some small quick works have been done in an attempt to keep my hand in, to keep the creative flow trickling along --

Breaking Light

acrylic, 12" x 12" panel

A view of the CT River in late winter -- a sense of a spring thaw perhaps, colors muted, early morning light breaking along the opposite shoreline

Farm Fields

acrylic on paper; 3.5" x 5.5"

Altogether different, a petite view of an autumn farm field, harrows of fresh-mown hay resting in the late afternoon sun --

Desert Moon

acrylic on 12" x 12" panel

the last landscape, dream-like, of a place not familiar to me in reality but perhaps internally;  a vast, open space, somewhere that I would like to be, cradled in a tapestried arroyo under moonlight?

Not sure.  Perhaps . . .

Whether working in a large, orderly studio or cramped in the front seat of a car, sketching on a scrap of paper -- that is the studio, that is the space, the moment in which one must do the thing itself despite setbacks, lack of time, lack of confidence. 

It just is . . .

The aim of art is to represent

not the outward appearance of things,

but their inward significance. 

Aristotle

Working Quick, Working Small

It's been so long since my last posting!  I just took on a new position and have been wrapped up in learning a new environment, a new staff and new communities. But today on a quiet, chilly gray Sunday, I decided I needed to do some catching up --

Is this my "Blue" phase? Not sure but this winter seemed to bring out blues in a variety of hues and values. For Wassily Kandinsky, blue was the color of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakened human desire for the eternal (On the Spiritual in Art).  Kandinsky also developed a theory of geometric figures and their relationships, claiming that the circle was the most peaceful shape and represented the human soul.

Circular Thinking

acrylic on paper, 6" x 8" 

 mat opening of 3.5" x 5.5"; 8"x10"

Perhaps that helps explain the prevalence of blue -- the need to keep calm, to focus on serenity amidst a chaotic period of life.  I found I had to work quickly, sometimes just on a smaller scale; otherwise, I'd never had done anything. When going through interviews and waiting to hear the results, it was hard to concentrate on anything else. The creative life was shoved off to the side; not a good thing, but I had no choice. So these mini-works were about all I could handle.

Racing the Storms

oil pastel on bristol paper

3" x 5"

And I find that as I look back over these paintings and sketches, I like what came through -- nothing belabored, heavy and dull -- at least, in my opinion. The funny thing is that I have so many more that I unearthed from the piles stacked on the shelves or in portfolio bags -- pieces of larger paintings that just didn't make the grade, that I salvaged by cutting up and matting.

Ghost Barn

watercolor and pastel on Cartiera Magnani paper

6" x  6"

Why do larger paintings sometimes not work while the smaller bits do?   I'm not sure -- perhaps the brain can only take in and register pieces of a whole. Or is it that the artist is truly working on several paintings within the larger one?  Is it the push-pull between the right-brain and left-brain processes that seem to create this phenomenon?

Waterfall

6" x 8", acrylic on Yupo paper

matted to 8"x10" with 3.5"x5.5" opening

And then there is the color, again pushing through, insisting on a presence whether you want it there or not. Working quickly, working smaller -- spontaneity, process over detail -- swift movements that evoke a kinetic energy that inevitably calms . . .

Variations on a Theme

How does one envision an image? How does one interpret that vision?

I love the coastline and spent many summers on the beaches of Long Island, NY where I grew up. Not only summers but every season really and in all types of weather. Actually, Long Island is like one giant sandbar, as my Dad used to joke!

I'm not sure if it was the wide open spaces of the beaches or the vast skies or that thin scrim of a horizon line between ocean and sky that I loved the most. Or perhaps the dunes and the waves. In the midst of February, all these images and smells and sounds fill my head.  These two works seem to evoke some aspect of those memories, yet in very different ways and methods --

Coastal Haze

This is a fairly small work done on Wallis pumiced paper with acrylics and touches of pastel, done quickly with large mop brushes.

And this one was painted with oils on a thick heavy 200lbs. acrylic paper by Strathmore, which sold a few months ago at the Hartford Open Studio weekend.

Wetlands, Orleans MA

Different mediums, different approaches -- and yet both seem to capture a sense of the coast and surrounding wetlands. And I suppose that's the best one can hope for --

In summer, the song sings itself.

~William Carlos Williams