Pastels!

Window, Twilight

Early Morning Fog

oil pastel

12" x 18" paper size

Marks can be very important elements in pastel drawings. Pastel paper usually comes with a tooth; the colored sticks drag across the surface in a particular way, clinging mainly to the raised surface. I don't like too bumpy a tooth, in fact, the paper I use is fairly smooth. I tend to have a heavy hand, layering the material thickly, but not completely evenly throughout the picture. Some areas have less, allowing for density changes expressing weight, air, the edges/solidity of things. The scale of these marks, their delivery, and the decision of what to make solid are some of the issues in this medium.

I never use chalk pastels because some of the pigments are carcinogens and the dust makes for easy exposure. Oil pastels bind the pigments tightly; gloves are all that's needed. I prefer Holbein oil pastels. Sennelier are beautiful, but they positively melt (not quite as much as R&F paintsticks, though, yummy as they are). Holbein are buttery, precious (vibrant, rich colors don't come cheap), but hold their form. I like them more than jewelry. Odion Redon probably thought his chalk pastels were jewel-like. He is much admired for his "crushed color".

This post is fairly techie for me, so let me say something about the works in particular. Window, Twilight is the view from my studio, tree tops as the sun is almost down. Early Morning Fog is my reward for excercising before the birds are awake. The blue fog and surrounding sky are quite remarkable here, and I don't think I fully captured them. I hope to try again in a painting. I like the boldness of these two pictures; they're not shy. They are energetic and unapologetically settled into themselves. Window and nature are one, a single view like an instant captured by a snapping shutter. Look closer and the material, the bits of pigment clinging to the paper and to itself, reveals the artist's hand, cement left by the mason.

Earth, Sky-Window

8" x 8"

oil on canvas

First impression: Anselm Keifer. The converging marks in this angsty landscape make use of perspective, creating a vast space. It has the scale of Keifer, but the actual size is a fraction of his enormous canvases. This 8" x 8" is small for me, but everything I do is small compared to his. Women artists in the past were told to "paint like a man" in attitude as well as scale. I'd like to think we're past that. I'm not a miniature painter and would never describe my small paintings as such, because it sounds diminutive, like they are supposed to be a small version of something else, when they really are themselves. Keifer's paintings are heroic and approach the size of theater scenery, although unwilling to leave center stage. I love his big paintings and I am glad they are the way they are, but I am happy with what I have.



I respond most to art with intensity, no matter the type of emotion. Keifer's work focuses on post-war Germany and it is nothing if not intense. Often people will hate a piece of art (this goes for any art form) not because it is poorly done, but because they hate what it expresses or because it makes them uncomfortable. As discomfort is a necessary part of challenging preconceptions, which a lot of artists like to do, a great deal of art thus makes people uncomfortable. During the Mapplethorpe controversy I wore a pin that said "Fear No Art". It was to the point; when people become afraid censorship isn't far behind.
Earth, Sky-Window isn't controversial, but it is intense. It is specific, but in a way that isn't easy to pin down, not easily named, which I like. I seem to be painting out of that place now, almost an anti-narrative. Still, the stage is set, implying there is a story after all.

Fall V, & Fall VI

both are 20" x 16", oil on panel

While tending to my show I took time to go to the MoMA to see Van Gogh, and the Colors of the Night, up through January 9th. His blues bite like dark chocolate, luscious with an edge. For the first time ever I stared at a painting (The Sower) so intently that my eyes began burning and my nose started running. I love the timelessness of art or the timefullness of it, that a painting made over a hundred years ago can enter my immediate experience and make me feel so much. Van Gogh layered strokes, weaving color, making land/light/substance, yet still of that paste, passionately applied. So much sensation, so much meaning was packed into that material.

I recently saw the BBC production about the paintings of the child artist, Marla Olmstead, from Binghamton, NY. The director of the gallery representing her, Anthony Brunelli, is a photo-realist painter who admitted to not fully appreciating the work of famous abstract artists such as Jackson Pollock. It is funny to me that he could appreciate Marla's but not the critically acclaimed artists, commenting that their fame was mostly due to marketing.

The absence of a recognizable subject is often a stumbling block for many viewers and often they will try to pull out forms like looking for pictures in clouds thinking they have unlocked the big mystery. A buyer of Marla's work observing a brushstroke of rectangular blue paint, insisted she had painted a picture of a door. I have to tell you that this line of thinking makes painters' eyes roll.

While I'm not about to claim that Marla's work is on par with Van Gogh and Pollock (I have never seen it in real life), my point is that people responded to her work because of its clarity, spontaneity, and evident joy in handling the material. This can be said of all three artists, Van Gogh using the form of a landscape and Pollock using color, viscosity, scale, speed, etc.

I have worked in both manners, abstract and figurative, and often find myself with a foot in each. I believe have made a comfortable synthesis. Not verbose (despite this blog!), I like the way abstraction conveys the essence of something. This week I met an older woman who would like to take watercolor classes but is afraid her tremor from her medication would interfere. She didn't want to work on something for a long time and then make a mistake, ruining it. I told her that there are other ways of working with watercolor, that it can be fluid and not so tight. The images of what she thought watercolor paintings should look like held her back and I don' t think she could see another way.

Artists become visionary when they can see beyond the cliches. Like all children, Marla is too young to know about the cliches and that may be where the freshness comes in her work. It is why Picasso said artists should draw like children. When she is older she will become more self-conscious. If she pursues painting, she will have to learn to unlearn, i.e. learn to see for herself. That is why painting can be so hard. That is why we celebrate the achievements of mature artists.

Reception

The opening reception for Images of Optimism, my current show at the Bowery Gallery in New York was a lot of fun; thank you to all who attended. I made sure not to over-hang the show and felt good about the work. You can take a virtual tour here beginning at the entrance.




After the opening I went to the cd release party for my cool brother-in-law, musician Andreas Sahar. I love his new cd, Crossing Over, & he is so passionate that to me he seems like a musical Van Gogh. He's in ITunes if you'd like to look him up.

My friend, the writer Rob Staeger, had some observations of the show. Of particular interest to me is how he notes the difference between my work and landscapes done on site.

http://robstaeger.blogspot.com/2008/11/oasis.html

Barbara Grossman, a painter, friend, and former professor of mine had this to say, "I love the way you have found strength in the summarizing of your view. They are not plein air paintings in the traditional sense but you take us there." To me it parallels what Rob said.

Once while in grad school at Penn, Barbara saw what I was working on and said, "Don't do that again!" among other constructive things. Uncompromising and visually brilliant, I can always count on her to tell me the truth and bring insight as well. She is a great teacher.

President Obama

"Senator Obama Will Win Presidency" - http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

Optimistic but afraid to hope, I am now thrilled.

Butterflies (for the book) & artist's statement

etchings

4" x 3" image size

Note: The butterflies are bursting above the box, like Pandora in spring.

Nicole Maynard
Artist's Statement
September 2008

I make paintings, prints, and drawings. Imagery varies but may include landscape, other natural forms, and geometry. Form and color are combined with expressionist paint handling. Expressionism comes from the search for truth and the acknowledgement that growth comes from change and sometimes trauma. If glossing things over is a lie (think of magazines and advertising), then Expressionism is the antithesis. It is not cold; paint is infused with feeling. Some of my images are Minimalist, focusing more on large areas of color and light rather than on marks. Paint handling and surface are still important to these works, but are subdued in favor of sublime tranquility.
I am interested in getting closer to the mystery in non-verbal experiences. I am after what is intrinsic to the human condition, what can be sensed but is difficult to grasp. I am seeking the temporal and the eternal. I want my paintings to function like poetry and prayer, without words; to be objects for spiritual reflection and experience. The essence of something is conveyed through their substance, through their materiality, through the paint (there is nothing like paint, but paint can be like so much). Optimism is present, but there is an underlying toughness, backbone that keeps these images from being overly romantic, offering credibility to redemption. This intense presence is the unifying factor in everything I do. They are objects embodying sensual and spiritual experience, icons of renewal.

A note on The Butterfly Book:

The Butterfly Book is a collection of hand-pulled intaglio prints made in an edition of ten. The first five pulls of each image will be kept as folios or books, while the remaining five pulls will be sold individually. All the images are butterfly related, 8" x 6" paper size (Arches) and are made using 5" x 3" plates. Inspired by Goya's Los Caprichos, especially the print, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. In place of the monsters (or owls, bats, whatever they are) flying around the slumped figure in Goya's print, I made my self-portrait in Intellect and Optimism Create Butterflies with raised arms, interacting with the butterflies.