Pink Roses VII and VIII

20" x 16"

16" x 20"

oil on panel

The obsession continues...here are two more from memory. Whistler always fascinates me for his sense of scale. Take the way he paints the figure in Nocturne in Gold: Old Battersea Bridge (click here for a close-up). It is not how you think a person might be painted, but in this context it completely works. That is how a lot of abstraction is; it seems wrong at first, but when well done, it can be right on the nose.

I decided to zoom out in number seven. I had tried doing it in number four, but I couldn't let go of the huge blossoms yet. I think I must have painted this little bouquet about fifty times over before arriving at the way it looks now, almost singular like one flower. It looks figurative to me, like a parachuting person. Someone thought it looked like flowers on an altar, with that gray rectangle behind it.

Number eight is very fluid, rhythmically winding the eye through the bouquet, stopping to note the particular change in light/color of each rose. Of course it is its own thing. Might remind you of Cy Twombly, mid-career Guston, or Terry Winters.

What next? Stay tuned...

Pink Roses From Carin

Pink Roses From Carin I - VI and Biscuit Smelling Roses (not sure my snapshot qualifies as art, but it is on topic)
oil on panel, 20" x 20" for the first and the rest are 16" x 20" or 20" x 16"

These almost didn't get painted. There are so many pictures of roses that it is hard to escape cliches. In addition, as soon as a painter picks up a brush, she has all of art history on her back. The problem of roses on top of that made it seem something I should side step. They came from my friend, Carin, in celebration of the first jazz aerobics class I taught (artists end up doing all kinds of things, although I don't think Cezanne did aerobics). I probably looked at them more than she thought I might, squeezing six paintings out of the bunch. My beagle, Biscuit, also took time to smell them. I got a little obsessed. Don't get all spoiled now, seeing six paintings up at once. I usually post one at a time so they can be looked at a little longer, but I think these are interesting to compare as a sequence.

From image to image the roses become less fragmented in their color, the pink is seen more as a whole, singular color experience (number V has some variation). The last two are done from memory; the roses wilted and gone, but still occupying my mind's eye. They range from sticky, cotton candy pink to gauzy.

The first painting is the only one showing the flowers from the side. It is the least romantic with some of Philip Guston's bluntness. The second is very intense, almost claustrophobic, pressing. The third is like O'Keefe in its composition and sensuality (she says she was just painting flowers, but everyone knows that was just her conscious intention), and the flowers are more a whole entity. The fourth is the only to include the vase. There is the basic problem of pink roses, green stems, vase, and the air around them all (background color, which is always more than a static background). Manet painted all the bouquets he received from friends while on his death bed. I saw a show of them and read the wonderful book by Andrew Forge. They are something, as he was so involved with life as he painted them, knowing he was going to have to let it all go. The fifth painting reminds me a bit of Soutine (he did several paintings of the same subject such as gladioli)with how the edges are handled, as well as the intensity and winding way the eye travels through it. The last painting is rather fresh. I have painted writing in pictures before, and this text comes from the song by Seal, Amazing. Friendships are wonderful for the companionship in celebrating each other's accomplishments as well as supporting each other through difficult times and gray areas when we don't always feel amazing.

Although I can reference other artists when I look at my work, I didn't set out to paint in anyone's style. Like jazz musicians playing off of each other, creating and creating, I kept wanting to do it again, but differently. I think I am in each one and whatever a "Maynard" is, maybe the word "intense" and "eclectic" could be attached.

Thaw

18" x 24"

oil on panel

Here in Western New York, it is very exciting to see the first bit of ground showing through melting snow (I painted this two weeks ago; I confess). It is on par with the robin and the crocus, and Thaw is a celebration of that moment. The bottom is heavily textured in contrast to the light top; the short, varying brushstrokes owing something to Van Gogh (that link is to a very nice website on Van Gogh, by the way).

The beginning of spring is interesting for the change of substances: snow to water, frozen ground to mud. It calls to attention the alchemist in me. At MassArt, painter Marcia Lloyd took a few students to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and pulled me aside to look at a painting of an An Artist in His Studio by John Singer Sargent. She told me that I am a "Sensualist", meaning that I paint in a way that transforms or translates not just the texture but the essence of material into paint. In the example, Sargent made paint become light reflecting off the artist's bald head, the flesh of ear, blankets, wood, ceramic, the paint on a palette and the paint in a painting. It involves using more senses that pure sight while making art. That is as metaphysical as Art Weekly is going to get.

One other thing I found interesting when looking up "sensualist" is the connection mentioned between indulging in the senses as a means to happiness. It makes one think of the opposite: the way studies have shown that sensory deprivation leads to depression. Relaxation methods often try to awaken senses through fragrance, touch, sound (lotion, massage, candles, music, etc.). Thaw is also about being able to spend more time outdoors (and thus have more sensory experiences = increase in happiness?).

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
SensualistSen"su*al*ist\, n. [CF. F. sensualiste.]
1. One who is sensual; one given to the indulgence of the appetites or senses as the means of happiness.
2. One who holds to the doctrine of sensualism.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Bibliography:

American Psychological Association (APA):
sensualist. (n.d.). Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. Retrieved April 14, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sensualist
Chicago Manual Style (CMS):
sensualist. Dictionary.com. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sensualist (accessed: April 14, 2008).
Modern Language Association (MLA):
"sensualist." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 14 Apr. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sensualist>.
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Field I

18" x 24"


oil on panel

I am always enthralled by aerial views; a teacher from art school always pushed us to vie for the window seat. I am particularly into rural landscape and its design of rectangular, patchwork pieces. Field I is rather singular in its central, brown area. The earth color has many variations and is crossed by undulating, thin, green lines, like a musical staff. While in graduate school I painted a series based on Beethoven's Symphony Number 6, know as the Pastoral Symphony. Nature and art are both rhythmic (design elements in art can bounce your eye around a piece in a tempo which contributes to your interpretation). I recently listened to Johnny Cash's song, Get Rhythm. To quote Wikipedia,"The song is about optimism, centering on a shoeshine boy who "gets rhythm" to cope with the tedious nature of his job." Rhythm and optimism can go hand-in-hand, and I think of the reassurance many people say they feel from the certainty and natural order in math. I think musicians feel it when notes are hit at the right time, dancers when movements are in sync to music, a batter when the bat hits the ball. The painting's subject, a field, is emblematic of growth as well as the labor that goes into cultivating change. Jasper Johns painted the American Flag. He took a symbol that was loaded with content and worked on its surface as a painting, which is different than taking a subject like a field, and painting it into a flag/emblem. Still, Johns made his painting iconic of American Painting and his picture goes beyond being a picture of something to being inseparable from the object that is depicted. In any case, with all the green around it, Field I is my own flag of optimism.

Sky and Grass

18" x 24"

oil on panel

I've always liked the Claritin ads for their blue skies and green grass. I like the still quality of paintings especially because they have their own sense of time. They ask the viewer to wait a minute (or much longer) to look and maybe come back again another time and look some more. Some people say they would like to live with a picture that is like Where's Waldo so that they could always find something new in it. I want to see paintings that don't have a lot of things in them and still have my awareness challenged, heightened, awakened again and again. Painter and professor Susana Jacobson once gave me the advice to "paint the paintings you want to see." I always try to paint as though it is imperative; if I could only paint one last thing, what would it be? It's not always easy to sharpen one's focus. Art is funny because it can seem like nothing until someone says its not, easily dismissible without words to defend itself. In a recent interview with Terri Gross, David Grohl from the Foo Fighters told about Australian miners who got trapped in a collapse. There was a small opening drilled down to them and one asked for an ipod to be sent down with Foo Fighters music. They got out in the end, at least the one who asked for the music, and Grohl arranged for tickets and a flight to his next concert. You just never know how your art, or anything you do, for that matter, may effect someone. If I was trapped in a mine, I would really like to see this blue sky and green grass.