Category Archives: joy

work in progress

Process involves time (a gracious given) and developing skill with steps (mine to do). I like quick. That tends to mitigate against process. But, I don’t like junk and that requires better process. Do you catch my working tension?

This is a quick start I’ll example today. I respond to the mark making, the palette, and this idea I’ve been mining of rock faces and what’s on the inside of those cuts. But something stops me from being satisfied that this is “done” visually and maybe even conceptually. It needs some work.

Sometimes Miss Quick needs to slow way down before next steps can complete the visual whole. I want to be done, but I need some careful time. This is partly why: it’s just startling to my reasonably trained eye that I can’t see flaws when they’re staring me in the face sometimes, and can’t see good when I’m ready to toss or cover up something. My judgment, needed and free, has inherent flaws. I bring some unseen filters or blind spots often. A different day sometimes gives a fresher view.

This blog is about the intersection of what is seen visually and what is being referenced from that which is not seen. Both the seen and the unseen are why I work visually. And when I move in to work I bring with me unseen concerns. Sorting out what is precious from what is worthless is part of this tension. That’s really part of the fun too, but it is humbling: for knowing the difference is bigger than my eyes can often see. The hindrances in my vision may at least have to do with a vested expectation or a prejudice which clouds my seeing.

That’s precisely why I need to step away, and come back looking with clearer eyes. One of the tricks of seeing is to divorce, even repent from a settled orientation by rotating the piece while working. I’ll do that here. Another is to hold the piece in a mirror. Either trick forces the evaluator to look for the bones and balance apart from other attachments.

I have a pile of starts waiting for a finish. Some will get covered completely over, some will get interestingly repaired and some will get trashed. Not everything in my stack of un-dones shows promise, but then I’m not sure of that yet, so I keep them around. Time reveals, and time allows for better practice.

a surprising birth

Today I’m highlighting a piece that popped out rather quickly last November. It was like a sudden birth with little pregnancy, and it encourages me with anticipation. I have it propped in my studio right at eye level where I can reference its effect. In fact, this image is the screen saver on my phone (with apologies to my grandkids). The painting might mean little to most except as a pleasing arrangement of color and strokes. But for me to date, it’s one of the best things I’ve done, and an emblem of where I want to go.

Let me explain just a bit:

When things happen quickly and strongly I am alert and curious. The color palette here was unintended, rather more intuitive, and the subtlety of some of the cool and warm hues in the upper section interests me particularly. If you squint, the pinks, grays and warm whites link together into one predominant value mass. Moreover, the unity in the whole of those lighter hues is probably what gave me an immediate sense that this was something to stand back from even as it was so quickly brushed out. It’s the particularity melting into a surprising harmony that intrigues.

There’s direction in the piece as well, though it’s just a still point in time. There’s a lifting going on that speaks personally to me. The image can’t be tied to any certain locale but clearly there is ground and then atmosphere. So it’s a landscape, and the darker hues are limited to the grounded area, which is a theme of concern in a lot of my work. But, by the palette and the mark making there is something new here also which I find entirely refreshing. In other words, there’s no yanking didacticism going on, no forcing of meaning but rather just a sense of a beckoning call. Do you start to get why has my attention? I was in a duet when making this.

I reflect on this simple gestural work and it reminds me of a conversation that happened 2000 years ago. They were talking about a mysterious birth then too. You can read the dialogue in John’s gospel, 3^rd chapter. And after some very pointed words, Jesus adds rather obliquely: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is going…” He was shifting very deliberately from the direct to the abstract. He was talking to a studied theologian when he said this. The man stayed curious “how can these things be?” That man was being invited to step up into another plane of understanding, to enter the birthing beyond the limits of what he knew. So it is with what I sense and somehow referenced here. T.S. Elliot speaks of this same imagined surprise in the first quartet of a poem “where past and future are gathered”. That’s what this feels like to me.

Abstraction done well (and oh may I be able to continue) is how I can begin to picture that. When I was in grad school, this was this kind of work I wanted to do, but my skill level wasn’t there yet. That was all preparatory. It’s been a good long engagement, toward this very quick birthing.

learning from some elders

I recently finished an autobiography of a little known Canadian artist: Emily Carr, entitled: Growing Pains. Emily was Canada’s equivalent of Mary Cassatt, at least in terms of era, European training and singular focus. But Cassatt never left us with such an articulate journaling of her struggle. I learned of Carr when in the Northwest of Canada last year. I’d already loved the amazing modernist landscapers of the Northern wilds called the Canadian Seven; but Carr’s name, or her work, is not usually included in general groupings amongst them.

To have come from the provincial west of Canada, not far removed from pioneering times — to endure the scoffing of family and the pursuit of suitors for her singular desire to study — then to travel to San Francisco, London and Paris so that she could get art training — and to live through Victorian attitudes, poor housing and bad health while working hard is Emily’s life. She was spirited, rebellious, sensitive and diligent and for a good portion of her mid-life she fell back in discouragement, running a boarding house back in British Columbia. It was later in life when she was recognized and included by Lawren Harris. He was one of the Seven, and insisted on including her in some exhibits back in eastern Canada. More important is the record of his thoughtful mentoring of her progress by mail. Her own articulate words tell this tale.

She says early on, having discovered her love of the woods as important to her voice: “sketching outdoors was a fluid process, half looking, half dreaming…as much longing as labour…these space things asked to be felt not with fingertips but with one’s whole self”. Then later after Harris’ encouragement: “…help was a little notebook I carried in my sketch sack and wrote in while intent on my subject. I tried to word in the little book what I wanted to say…I stopped grieving.” Lawren responded: these “represent vital intentions…unusually individual and (are) soaked with what you are after more than you realize…then we approach the precincts of Great Art—timeless—the Soul throughout eternity in essence.”

So, mentored myself by her words and his, I have started easing back into what I’m after in my own onging sketchbook. Here’s one recent entry.

synergy

There is so very often in my own practice what feels like a long incubation period before the bursting out into the open. It always takes longer than I expected to see the fruition. And then I hear this in my head “anything worth doing needs time and thought, planning and prep.” We all kind of get that. But here’s my problem: I’m impatient. I have ‘visions of sugar-plums’ or dreams of resolutions planted deeply. I don’t even know how they got there, but they’re there. Actually, I do know how they got there: lots of Bible reading and then lots of active prayer based on the clear promises I see. I get excited when I sense the glimpses. But then comes another corner to go around, another hindrance, and another disappointment. And these are incubators which take time and thought…I think maybe I just summarized my own internal life. You might see this in my work: for both the good and the bad of it all.

I bring this up for two reasons. The painting here happened quickly last month. It was kind of a surprise as I was working up several panels one day. I stood back and thought “hmmm, I may have just seen this pop to a finish. How did that happen?” The long incubators probably had something to do with it.

I was in Israel this month: a surprise trip, which also happened quickly. It was amazing in so many ways: friendships, learning, sensing the blooming going on there, some puzzles I’ve had suddenly clicking together… it was synergistic. I brought my watercolors, paper pads and brushes. They just took up space in my bag as I had not one minute to sit and use them. But oh my cameras were busy. I caught door frames and the wares of spice sellers. I caught the patterns on ancient marbles, and the blooms on a fig tree. My eyes reveled at the mustard yellows on the close hills and the sweet purply dimness on the far mountains –the planted rows of almond trees and date palms, and then had lunch overlooking the very hills where Abraham grazed his flocks. These things are all incubators. The fruition follows.

tangibility

8 pieces from the image collection on this website were selected by some alert curators-in-training out of our University Art Department. The show they’ve put together is up and open at the Reece Museum on campus. You can read about it here.

My work is placed there within a stable of other regional artists working to make tangible/observable that which is of the spirit. This is ephemeral work, solitary. So, when it gets some further articulation, broader visibility, each one of us is gratified. The range is diverse.

There will be a panel discussion in one of the two openings for this extensive and thoughtful show on Jan.31st and another opening of more work at the Tipton Gallery downtown on Feb.1st. The essay composed from the thoughts of each artist will be as worth your time as viewing the work, for the images are rooted in thought and practice.

merry Christmas

The brilliant fall cover has given way to a quieter landscape, as the sun dips lower and lower in our sky. It was only last year that I realized that winter landscapes “send me”. And so I started painting them in large and small ways. Here’s one of the biggest ones I did in January, and it is no longer mine: sold for some guy’s Christmas, bought by his wife as a surprise. I’m not stealing the show here, as they likely won’t be looking in this space (and you don’t know who it is :). But this painting is a gift that keeps giving, for now I have the room in my studio to make more. And you get an early peek at this glorious moment when the snow was melting over the hills.

The great American painter Andrew Wyeth said “I prefer winter and fall when you can feel the bone structure in the landscape—the loneliness of it—the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it—the whole story doesn’t show.”

I like that. I sense that. Merry Christmas!

the practice of digging in

I was in three short workshops this past weekend at a big art ‘Palooza’ and trade show in Raleigh. The downtown Hilton had taped plastic over all their 1^st floor meeting room carpets (!) and all the conference tables were covered with plastic, converting many spaces into studio workrooms. Some of these rooms had 30 or more learners staking out places at tables and unpacking their tools with anticipation.

You should have seen the crowd in this fine hotel: scraggly characters walking around in their paint spattered clothes.

The costs, especially for the supply store, were LOW compared to any discount house, so the gatherings were jammed. About 34 teaching artists, from all over the country, held court in each of these many rooms. Speed dating meets art class I suppose.

Each teacher had to discipline his presentation, highlight tools, gather the crowd for demos, and then let the students do practice sets. I learned some tricks. I bought a lot: new colors, supports to work on etc. But mostly I’m taking this home: practice what you already know and have. Dig in and keep at it. Keep your body moving toward what your heart is after. And don’t take partial as the finish.

What I mean is there were dabblers here at this conference, but also lots of examples from persevere-ers too. You can see the difference. The ones making progress are holding on alertly, curious, and active.

In one class there were so many folks that the teacher really couldn’t take much time beyond the basics, so I stayed in the back, one ear listening while I just worked and worked, turning out 5 pieces in 3 hours. The results were good. Here is one of them. What was the difference then for me compared to staying home and working? I am still thinking about that.

But here’s maybe an illustration that cuts to the chase. Eugene Peterson tells the story: the theologian Karl Barth was on a bus in his Swiss town, when a tourist came and sat next to him. Barth struck up a conversation. “You are a visitor, yes? And what do you want to see in our city?” The man said, “I would like to see the great theologian Karl Barth. Do you know him?” “Oh yes, I shave him every morning.” The man went away satisfied, telling his friends that he had met Barth’s barber.

There is joy here in this illustration for me, for I have sitting next to me, whether here or on the road, the One I really want to see and learn from. I just have to keep asking as I work.

public/private/public/private

Some recent discussions in our town have highlighted the strategic importance of public and private partnerships. The potential result (after the hard work of collaboration) can be synergistic, meaning, the combined effect can be greater than the sum of the agencies involved. That’s creativity. And I’m reminded of something I witnessed this summer from another place and time that exhibited just this.

Barcelona’s National Museum of Catalonia has a collection of Romanesque murals that is unmatched by any museum in the world! Room after room gives one almost a time-machine opportunity to enter spaces that were situated in humble towns in the Pyrenees Mountains of Eastern Spain. These murals and sculptural pieces were then carefully removed to be preserved in the museum (imagine the public and private involvement to carry that feat out). Arranged in chronological (therefore stylistic) order, the spaces reveal the emerging imagery from small churches of the medieval period (11^th-13^thcenturies). What’s available then is a visualization of homegrown private conviction which was developed then displayed for public engagement. What was once internal became publically shared and what was then public becomes privately better understood. And this then down thru centuries for others to consider. Past into present. Imagine that ripple effect.

Here is a wooden altar panel I especially loved for its graphic punch, simplicity, and pattern. It’s a typical example of Byzantine flatness. Yet the abstraction of forms were rendered with human differentiation and quirkiness. The viewer of the time would have been able to relate. And the viewer now is carried into another world’s way of seeing, even if just catching a glimpse. What was private conviction of the artist became embedded in his public context, what simmered inwardly became visible for others to be able to look and see.

Here is an excerpted contemporary example (from a long but wonderful poem) I just came across from our own time. A. Underwood wrote “A Weight on Each Shoulder” after listening/learning/being in a church space in NYC:

It’s been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind’s full plight
And as high as its glories

It’s the “veiled in plain sight” out-calling that keeps me looking/listening/working.

visual learning

“First I have the picture” Einstein reportedly said, “then I come up with the math”. Before any of us knew how to decode language, our little eyes trained on images. Even the cones on our retinae respond to color before form is understood. We begin from image impression, but then sometimes the more we “know” what’s in front of us, the less we can wholly grasp.

Educational theory has typed learners into all kinds of styles. Yet painter David Dunlop insists “We’re all visual learners”. He’s done a lot of reading on cognitive studies, some pattern theory, interest in pictographs, and he knows his art history. So, I was entirely engaged in a workshop he led this month. He mentioned that many painters (like Turner, Whistler, Manet, Monet) became more abstract, with distilled and simplified imagery as they grew older (and that later work was more universally evocative). Dunlop’s own work is quite literal and beautifully detailed, but I wasn’t there to copy him.

“We always ‘push off’ from an image in the head, a simple schema that gets us started”, then the magic happens after that as we work out from that impression.

What you see above is a thumbnail sketch out of my notebook. I quickly mapped the shapes, darks and lights from a photo of a magnolia blossom. What was important in translating this into paint was not “this is a magnolia’ but rather more than that, and I needed to take time to consider how. My oil color is carefully selected. But what excites me is the emergent shine, and the impasto lending toward a sense of exuberance. The cropping too was a choice, as if I am just teasing the viewer into only a glimpse. Glimpses for me are key, for if I try to tell the whole story, we’ll all get lost in words. There’s an energy in this translation into color that springs off the canvas. Usually I dive into work from an idea in my head, but to take the time to map it first, if even so simply, is important, and more than I knew. I’ve heard about the necessity of sketchbook planning, but since I’m not much of a draftsman and am also impatient, I’ve often skipped that part. “I see said the blind man”. So this mapping process was a win for me, and it’s informing further practice.

eager longing

The little ones around us this week are learning to wait. “Can we have Daddy’s cake now that you have come in the door?” “Nini, can I play (bang) on the piano now?!’ “Are you done resting?” “Are you awake?” “Can you tell that story again Pop? Let’s go back in my room and pretend you’re putting me to bed! Tell it to me again, Pop!”

Observing these two teaches my heart much about love and longing and strangely how much time it takes for those things (that I think I know) to sink in. For, I am waiting too. The Bridegroom has made a promise that He is coming back– and soon. He’s given hints about this, some specifically clear, from Genesis through to Revelation. And He put a 3-act in the middle of the book that dramatizes the love story, the longing and the consummation. He’s coming! And as soon as He comes in the door, let’s have the cake!

standing O

I got a standing ovation this week. First ever. I forgot to say thank-you. I just watched, stunned: in relief that the talk was over. The whole room of some 50 people stood up in spontaneous applause. This was a group of courageous folks involved in recovery from addictions and I was asked to speak to them about the meaning in my work and how I came to it. It was clear to me that their thanks was for the One who was really shining through, and that was my prayer. It was so sweet! And, I sold every one of my books that I brought along that night.

The emphasis I’d planned was how my own life was changed by the same God who can change them. I am used to more hardened audiences. I prepare for skeptics and others who “have to be there” like the kid in a University class last month who asked in the Q&A “how old ARE you?”

But this group of hurting folks was the most loving and alert large group I’ve ever encountered. I heard a verse from a song by Chris Rice this morning that summarized the experience “Raise your head for love is passing by”. That’s the way I felt when with these earnest recover-ers. They are raising their heads, and with them we all got to see Love in the room.

I showed them some pieces like this one, “Time and Mercy” where the chaos is falling down all around the inner life. But there on the inside is the mark of a heartbeat, and the recording of time. There’s a history that is undeniable, part of the fabric that cannot be changed. There’s a span ahead yet unknown. But in this present moment I can breathe and pause. This is the potential moment where beauty is born. For right now I can lift my head because the evidence of love is still shining through for those who are eager for it.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape