Thursday, January 8, 2015

Should we all expect never to be offended?

It has been a terrible year, and thank goodness it's finally over. No new year could equal that last, so I'm very happy to move on to 2015.

This new year is beginning with some very important issues that need to be discussed by all of us.

The shooting in Paris of the Charlie Hebdo staff due to their publication of satire that has offended some people raises the issue of free speech to one of urgency. We can all - at least all of us who believe in the rule of law and the need for peaceful societies - abhor the violence used by terrorists to impose their will.

But beyond that issue is the very real one of the boundaries of civilized discourse should lie.

Good manners are essential to a society of free citizens. But is self-censorship appropriate or even healthy?

Let's face it - we all fear offending anyone through ignorance or passionate debate. And that fear has obviously infected our entire society, from each one of us up to and including the so-called 'free' media.

Should offense be taken in an genuine debate over anything? Or should religions be off-limits for discussion? How about politics? We have seen the depths of ugly speech here in our own country during these last elections. Offense is given purposefully in order to arouse the passions of everyone on both sides of the issues.

But passions lead to actions.
Is there any way to have a passionate debate without causing offense?
Should the threat of causing offense keep us silent?
Should the threat of violence silence us?

Weighty issues for a new year's debate.
Here's something to rest your eyes on:

Land Where the Palm Tree Grows


Made of Light


All the Necessary




Wednesday, June 4, 2014

I hate rejection!

To renew or not to renew, that is the question.

This past year has been completely frustrating for me at The Art League in Alexandria. Month after month my best offers have been rejected. Most of the time, the final chosen show has been filled with very good art, and usually that is enough to make me swallow my pride and appreciate the show. But this past year has had a few other elements to it: no impressionism!; many, many white matts and framed pieces; and one theme after another. The themes have not been in subject matter. They have been for style.

So answer me this. As an artist who has spent years working to develop a particular style (even when that style changes occasionally it is still my own as much as I can make it) why and how should I be involved with an outfit that apparently doesn't want the expertise I have developed? I cannot make myself produce to their themed styles because that's not the way I paint!

In addition, although I term my style 'expressive', it has elements of impressionism to it. And for a long time now The Art League show has been virtually impressionism-free territory.

So has my style gone out of fashion? For those who think there is only 'good' art and 'not so good' art, I hate to disillusion you, but the art world is just as prone to fads and prejudice as any other field of human endeavor.

One last point: I really hate that I am such a sour grapes, sore loser person! Yet month after month, that is what I have to face up to here…

The Singer 30 x 40

Banyan Mystique 36 x 36

Rise and Shine 36 x 48


Seated Woman 30 x 40



Thursday, March 27, 2014

How about some privacy?

What ever happened to courtesy?

Just because it is now possible for us to know everything about each other, is that desirable or justified? It's so easy to judge others based upon one's own values, but if you had to live someone else's life, perhaps the judgments wouldn't be so easy.

How about giving each other the courtesy of privacy?

Let's not insist upon knowing just what medical procedure everyone is undergoing, or what books they are reading, or what movies they are downloading. Let's allow others the right to determine their own paths in life, as we pursue ours.









Sunday, March 9, 2014

The Subjective Nature of Time

So, it's theoretically counting down to Spring, and I am due to drive paintings down to the Outer Banks on the 21st of March which is - hold on - JUST ELEVEN DAYS AWAY!!!
How did that happen?
So I have 8 paintings ready to go for Duck, and must have 5 or 6 for Salvo.
So what about the show I am hanging in Vienna on April 2nd?
Can anyone spell organized?
Obviously not I.

And I just noticed that half my paragraphs start with 'so'. Well, so what?





Friday, January 31, 2014

So many topics it's hard to begin…but I'll start with Van Gogh

Yes, in fact, there are so many things I would like to write about here - too many. Before I manage to sit down and begin, I find myself side-tracked by another good idea, which leads to something else. Before I know it, I am off on errands or going to the studio to paint, or have just plain forgotten what I had in mind.

So I'm just going to jump right in. I will start by typing a couple of paragraphs I found in a 1979 book entitled "Van Gogh" by Rene Huyghe, translated by Helen C. Slonim.

To set the stage, I was at the dentist's, waiting for an appointment that turned out to be scheduled for a week later (sigh!) and found this book. With time on my hands, I took it up and began to read. The two opening paragraphs captured me instantly:

"We are awed before we even start writing about Van Gogh: it is not of a painter, but of a soul, that we are about to speak. This is the story of a soul fighting against the supreme problems of destiny. Van Gogh lived these problems in the core of the tragedy which makes the modern world – our tragedy – with its outbursts, its unlimited yearning, its failures, its desperation. However present, however much a symbol of our times, his work cannot only be considered, in its paroxysm, as an image of contemporary soul; it also unveils, in its deepest expression, the soul of eternal man. Few writers, few artists, have felt and expressed, as Van Gogh did, the pathetic situation of human condition.

"This tragedy, into which he threw himself until he could but die, is the tragedy of going beyond, the tragedy of the absolute which burns out the purest and most exacting souls. They all suffer from man’s duality; man hanging, torn, between two poles: one still in contact with the beast, the other already reaching up to God. This is man’s unsolvable paradox. Being of the flesh, he is deeply etched in the physical world and its sorrows; he bears the brand of all that is matter; he is an accident which happened in space and time; accidentally appearing in a universe which he does not understand but which he suffers, his fate is to disappear with the second which carries him; decay is his only short reprieve from nothingness. But man is also a being of the soul and, as such, has a yearning for absolute; if he can neither achieve it nor live it, he can at least conceive it and be obsessed by it. He perceives a conscience of which he is only the infinitely small and caricatural image, which would break loose from the particular, from the transitory, from the uncertain: he calls it God. There he lies, miserable and awed, hanging between abjection and glory. Different from all other living creatures of this world, he is conscious of this abjection and cannot stand it; he is conscious of this glory and cannot reach it. He understands what he would like to be and cannot understand what he actually is. His only reaction facing this unsolvable contradiction is a total numbness or a moral tearing apart and accompanying cries."

What a poetic statement of the conscious human's deepest angst!

And yet I think we are all susceptible to these thoughts and this tragedy when we allow ourselves to plunge that deeply into our own thoughts about life and the world and even the universe. Our ability to survive these wrenching feelings is what separates us from Van Gogh. He must have been like one raw nerve constantly grating against that anguish.

But from that agony came the paintings we love and connect with on such a visceral level.

Can anyone who is not so exposed produce statements as compelling?

Below, inspired by Van Gogh, and especially the "Green Wheatfields" at the National Gallery.









Friday, January 17, 2014

Some old, old paintings and a new strategy...

So this week I have been taking down my very oldest saved paintings from their perch just beneath the ceiling of my studio. I'm doing this because I plan to install an additional shelf that will act as a brace for the wooden rack I use to stack my paintings vertically. The rack has been leaning over at the top from the pressure those old paintings exert when they lean against the wall (get it? Sort of like a parallelogram.) and I've been getting very worried about a catastrophic collapse that would damage some of my newer paintings - the ones I still have hopes of selling.

These really old paintings have accumulated throughout the years I worked in oils, from the time I began to paint as a profession (and some even before that).

Since that time I have worked hard at learning my chosen métier. I've perfected a style and changed media to acrylics. I've shopped my work around to numerous galleries and have sold really hundreds (!) of paintings.

And when I look back at these really old paintings I am horrified to find that I still like them and think they are good paintings!

Why horrified? Because wouldn't you think that all those years of dedication would have resulted in some really significant progression of my style and technique? But here I find so many of those old paintings still appeal to me. And I would still be happy to be producing those works now.

Leading to the epiphany: perhaps an artist comes to the profession with a particular and individual vision. Then the best paintings of the beginning years are those that best display that vision - beginner's luck so to speak. And all the years spent thereafter are, if successful, spent learning how to reproduce that vision more consistently, so that perhaps the percentage of successful paintings becomes higher the longer the artist works.

Very old paintings:

 
    


So if you have followed along here and are reading this sentence, I have also decided to use this blog primarily to record my own ideas on any subject, art included, and maybe even current affairs, if I can get over my fear of attracting the wrong kind of attention - from some of those people who think it's OK to name call and threaten those who hold opinions that differ from their own. So - maybe…



Friday, October 4, 2013

A Week in Paradise with an old friend

Hey everyone, Guess where I am!

I'm sitting by the pool in my friend's house in Miami and I'm here for five more days. ML has a great sense of style and an eye for color, and it sure shows in her house. She collects all kinds of art and carvings and knickknacks and puts them everywhere - everywhere!

I'll get back to that.

AND she runs a B&B through AirBnB.com! For $50 per night (shared bath) you can book a stay right in Miami, central to everything and on a bus/metro line! Check it out: The Library Room at Maria-Luisa's.

I'm in the room called Welcome to Paradise. And you can't have that room until I'm gone!

AND she can serve the best coffee in the morning that I've ever had! (She's trying to teach me so I can take it home with me - more on that later, too.)

For now, just check this out: