NOTES ON THE ARTWALK; FREE ADVICE FOR ALL PAINTERS ON THE DOOR TO THE STUDIO...IN CASE YOU CAN'T READ IT (THE TAPE HOLDING THE PANTS UP) IT SAYS "NEVER LEAVE YOUR PALETTE ON A CHAIR"
I've been noticing a new theme sneaking into my painting lately...I could sum it up with one sentence ; "Behind every great mom is a magic refrigerator" Details from "Venus of Mayberry and All That Glitters" C. Valle
o3ct 3
CMSA NOTES FROM LEFT FIELD; my old tyler classmate, Tim Barr is a wonderful painter who has this to say about painting...i couldn't agree more; "I think as painters we are programmed from birth to be constantly after a look of our own creation. We don't know exactly what it looks like because we haven't reached it yet but we will know it when we see it. And that's the journey. I doubt we will ever get there but it always seems to get closer which is comforting" and here's his paintng; yyes, it's a painting
sept 30
A few days before i finished my current painting (venus of mayberry), i took a nap. I dreamed i woke up and looked at my painting ( in real life it was right where i would see it when i woke up). In the dream the checkered floor in the lower right corner of the painting was glowing with an ultraviolet light..i dreamed this dream 4 or 5 times, always exactly the same; woke up, saw the blue light, repeat...when i finallly woke up for real i used my dream as the "reference" and painted it exactly as i dreamed it...This was one of those incredible instances where i felt like the medium not the author of my work...what a gift;
sept 30
Done...(for now). "Venus of Mayberry" oil on linen 52x42 c valle
sept 16
do not be married to the idea that got you started...with any luck, the painting will take on a direction all it's own and lead you to places far more interesting than where you began..."earth fire and water" c valle
sept 17
MANY LAYERED GLAZED PAINTINGS; have you experienced "drift" ? it's that tendency for the features in a figurative, many layered oil painting to grow (outward usually) more with each pass, as you very quickly loose any guiding lines you may have had in the first layer, you don't notice how far off your proportions are in subsequent ones, until all of a sudden the subject of your portrait looks slightly demented.. common "drift" problems; eyes too big, too far apart,eyes "crooked" or asymmetrical, nose too long, area between nose and upper lip too short, nose too wide, mouth too wide and too long..i have my own personal problems with drift atleast once , and usually more with every painting. keep re confirming your proportions as you go...in the excitement of paintng it's easy to forget.
sept 14
NOTES FROM LEFT FIELD...My students hear me say it often; NBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!; "Not Beautiful Enough"; it doesn't mean a bad painting, it means a painting that is as yet not done; lacking as it does that little something so unique that only YOU can think of it...we (the critique/viewers) can't anticipate what that may be, but when we see it we love it and it finishes the painting making it " beautiful enough" You will come to this "finish " in the painting's own time; which means you may have to be patient and wait...or try 20 of the wrong things til you find it at last
sep 13
My students hear me say it often; NBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!; "Not Beautiful Enough"; it doesn't mean a bad painting, it means a painting that is as yet not done; lacking as it does that little something so unique that only YOU can think of it...we (the critique/viewers) can't anticipate what that may be, but when we see it we love it and it finishes the painting making it " beautiful enough" You will come to this "finish " in the painting's own time; which means you may have to be patient and wait...or try 20 of the wrong things til you find it at last
sep 3
CMSA; Here's a little something for my students that describes the recent workshop i taught called; Painting from the Heart; "A dram of anxiety, a pinch of wonderment, and a keg of determination is the recipe for invention....The revelations you seek arise from the violent copulation of opposing thoughts, the mix of CONTRARY materials and moods..." from a novel about a 19th century inventor called "A Case of Curiosities" by Allen Kurzweil with
sept 1
CMSA; NOTES FROM LEFT FIELD; just finished a workshop for painters and non painters alike, and , as usually happens, i expected alot of "push back" and resistance as i tried to nudge each participant into un preconceived , intuitive, painting...these painters surprised me though, as they all were quite willing to jump into unchartered waters (without a life jacket)...all participants were 60 plus so i wondered if their unusual willingness to experiment and take chances came from being of an age where we have come to the conclusion that there is much beyond what we already know (unlike adolescence where you feel like you "know it all")...and we might also feel a bit of time pressure cuz the end of life seems closer; not alot of time to "resist" anything, more willingness to jump right in!...maybe the wisdom of age is found in the willingness to be as open, experimental and perceptive as a child...
aug 30
CMSA NOTES FROM LEFT FIELD;i had an amazing time conducting a workshop called "painting from the heart" during Artstay 1 at Emandal...two of our group had NO painting experience at all... We used acrylic so there'd be no wait time; the idea was to become the medium not the author of your work...to let the painting paint itself..The process was amazing and the participants remarkably couragous to do it. i think insights were had by all, INCLUDING ME!!!!!!!!! If you don't know Emandal , you gotta check it out; it is a self-sustaining organic farm attached to a kitchen that cranks out 4 meals a day of the CLEANEST ,FRESHEST, MOST DELICIOUS food i have ever eaten..i had never even tasted milk, fresh from the cow (the best!)..there was a river and swimming holes and hikes and no electronic devices!!!!!!!!!!!!!thanks everyone for making this one of the most satisfying teaching experience i've ever had. Pal Elizabeth Raybee did grout camp at the same time; along wiht the amazing pictorial quilter; Laura Fog and a poet...you gotta come next year!!! i loved it!
aug 24
CMSA; notes from left field; i was talking to another 60ish girlfriend and she pointed out an interesting irony about our generation of women: We were raised with a conventional, traditional bias as to what it is to be a woman...Then, in the 60's 70's we learned a more autonomous, egocentric ideal about womanhood...yet most of us were still attached to a hormonal rollicoaster and all the traditional trappings ; kids and husband and housekeeping etc eetc etc. We desire the latter but somehow got stuck in the former...making it all work together has been my challenge. I love that i'm seeing many young women today that are totally reinventing femaleness to fit whatever their unique makeup desires. BRAVA GIRLS!!!!!
aug 18
in the last 500(+) years humans have been working with oil paint; there exists a wealth of information on the subject. each generation absorbs existing knowledge and THAN GOES ON TO ADD THEIR OWN UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE...That lovely chain (from knowledge to creative insight) was broken around 1940 and only recently have artists been interested in learning from it again. I'm glad of that; "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" : In this age that prizes original thought more than anything.."repeating history" sounds like the antithesis of the creative insights we seek...
aug 7
In a glazed painting you only see the top layer; here's a few underpaintings showing the value study underneath...i think the trick is to make the whites on the underpainting strong enough to serve their intended purpose; to reflect light back into the eye of the viewer...for my white here i'm using Gamblin Artists Colors, fastmatte titanium white(it's a fast drying oil with the properties of egg tempera (opaque)
Featured
aug 6
;Here's a little karl benjamin quote about teaching kids, lovely karl, rip. Art and People: The Rainbow Lesson. Explain?
One more thing with those kids you’d asked the question before about, how art related to people. After they were past the mountains and things, I could give them an assignments, and they could all do it their own way. I could pass out paper, and say, “Fill your paper with a rainbow.” What’s a rainbow in your mind—you think of yellow, green? But you’d get greens and purples, you’d get browns and grays, and of course you’d get a regular, honest to God rainbow. But just to show you the different innate [difference]—they’re happy with their rainbow. There’s no conflict in their mind about that. There are a lot of lessons in that.
aug 5
Those who feel themselves to be artists often find their own perspective to be one that is not shared or well understood by many of their family and friends. Many may not understand what compels artists to pursue a career that demands the majority of the artists’ time while providing few if any opportunities in return. The general viewing public often under appreciates the artist’s work, particularly as it diverges from what the public would consider a “pretty picture”. Probably most daunting of all is the fact that the practical necessities of earning a living and raising families leave artists with little time or energy to pursue their art making. Life generally conspires to cause the vast majority of artists to stop making art at all.
And yet there are those few, who, despite these obstacles, persist in their art making. I think Diego Rivera explained the phenomenon well; Frida Kahlo came to him as a young, fledgling painter and asked if he thought her paintings were good enough to sell, as she needed an occupation that would contribute to the family coffers. Rivera scoffed at the idea that one might paint in order to sell, and told her that artists painted not because they were “good enough to sell” but simply because they had to. This compulsion seems to have its root in the deepest part of the artists’ own psyche. Into what shadowy world it leads the artist, and what it dictates the artists paint, does not seem controlled or directed by our conscious mind, but the creation of a deeper subliminal level whose dictates we follow, never knowing but always curious to see where they will lead us. Like Don Quixote tilting windmills, what we do seems to serve no practical purpose, and yet it is as necessary to our wellbeing as food and sleep.
Given this Quixotic and solitary occupation it is a delight to find others of like mind. To work in community with them produces a tangible energy that inspires us all. To observe others struggling to follow their own spirits’ direction validates my own explorations. We comfort, criticize and offer another pair of eyes when the artists’ own are weary or confused. And so, with the fuel offered by pursuing our “heart’s desire” and the support of like minds, we persist….here's a pic of the students from the emandal artstay...they really helped each other
Those who feel themselves to be artists often find their own perspective to be one that is not shared or well understood by many of their family and friends. Many may not understand what compels artists to pursue a career that demands the majority of the artists’ time while providing few if any opportunities in return. The general viewing public often under appreciates the artist’s work, particularly as it diverges from what the public would consider a “pretty picture”. Probably most daunting of all is the fact that the practical necessities of earning a living and raising families leave artists with little time or energy to pursue their art making. Life generally conspires to cause the vast majority of artists to stop making art at all.
And yet there are those few, who, despite these obstacles, persist in their art making. I think Diego Rivera explained the phenomenon well; Frida Kahlo came to him as a young, fledgling painter and asked if he thought her paintings were good enough to sell, as she needed an occupation that would contribute to the family coffers. Rivera scoffed at the idea that one might paint in order to sell, and told her that artists painted not because they were “good enough to sell” but simply because they had to. This compulsion seems to have its root in the deepest part of the artists’ own psyche. Into what shadowy world it leads the artist, and what it dictates the artists paint, does not seem controlled or directed by our conscious mind, but the creation of a deeper subliminal level whose dictates we follow, never knowing but always curious to see where they will lead us. Like Don Quixote tilting windmills, what we do seems to serve no practical purpose, and yet it is as necessary to our wellbeing as food and sleep.
Given this Quixotic and solitary occupation it is a delight to find others of like mind. To work in community with them produces a tangible energy that inspires us all. To observe others struggling to follow their own spirits’ direction validates my own explorations. We comfort, criticize and offer another pair of eyes when the artists’ own are weary or confused. And so, with the fuel offered by pursuing our “heart’s desire” and the support of like minds, we persist….
aug 4
THANK YOU Stephen Wright for posting article by amazing artist Inka Essenhigh...i couldn't agree more and it's really gratifying to feel this shift away from the art worlds infatuation with vacuous psuedo art...HERE'S A PARAGRAPH FROM HER ARTICLE WHICH SAYS IT ALL;
Art—and sincerity—open a door into another dimension, a threshold to a magical realm that, once contacted, informs and transforms mundane reality. By contrast, to create art from an intellectual pose, or to be worried about what’s hot in the art world, seems arid and devoid of life. I believe that art can be a spiritual experience, which invites the soul to grow. YEAH!!! WHAT SHE SAID...
aug 3
AIN'T WE HAD FUN????!!GRADUATION NIGHT AT THE WILLITS ART CENTER, WHERE I LOVE THE ENTIRE STUDENT BODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...CONGRATULATIONS RACHEL SCHROEDER AND MARTA CANILAR ALONSO; WE WENT OUT WITH A BANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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