Maple, Grass and Maple, Dusk (iPad)

I am so happy. I blogged before about a book close to my heart, Just Kids by Patti Smith. Much to my delight, it just received the National Book Award for non-fiction!

"The judges called her memoir "an evocative work of cultural history" and an "unsentimental elegy for a time that seems both very recent and very long ago." - Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

Smith cried while accepting as she told of working at Scribner's Book Store in New York City when she was starting out. She used to put the National Book Award winners on the shelf and wonder what it would be like to win. She promised Robert Mapplethorpe the day before he died to tell their story. They came from nowhere, committed themselves to art and came out on the other side. She means a lot to me for writing a book that is about art and the artistic struggle, fine literature than can speak to everyone. She opens the door to show people what an artistic life can be like. The book takes place in a particular location, time, and culture (NYC, 1970's bohemia) . This differs from my experience as someone who is just as committed to art but also determined to have a quiet family life avoiding walking the line with a risky, potentially self-destructive environment. I don't believe that that environment is necessary for great art-making but the proximity to other artists and exchange of ideas can generate more. It can lead to recognition as well. I neither celebrate nor criticize Smith and Mapplethorpe for choosing that framework for living; it's a valid path. It isn't for me - art yes, instability, no. I plod on painting dots in quiet.

A note on the above images:

The singular trees are figurative, like self-portraits. They are made colored light occurring at a particular time of day. Key is the loose, energetic line, free yet structured, communicating space and form. I am very free yet structured.

Maple, Green

Maple, Green; 12" x 6", oil on panel, 2010

My family did the annual watching of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I love Schultz's* use of color and his watercolor night sky. His landscapes fascinate me. There is a stage-like, comic strip, panel-to-panel, left to right movement throughout. The cartoon is thoughtful; the pieces of color make us feel, qualities I strive for in painting. The music, story, and visuals make it something to return to. The annual ritual is not unlike the Swedish tradition of watching The Donald Duck Christmas Show. A friend told me the whole country tunes in on Christmas and many people are severely annoyed if phone calls come during the broadcast.

Relationships between actors, the drama, keep us coming back. I'm totally hooked on the show Mad Men. The psychology of the characters is layered and complex. Fashion is stunning as is the color of Joan Holloway's hair (played by Christina Hendricks). Most of all, the animated intro is absolutely brilliant. The black and white ad man/mad man is flat and absent of color as standard newspaper print. He slowly falls through the metropolis, the opposite of superman, past colored moving billboards, the creations of his mind, like Alice down the hole to Wonderland. Distress is communicated in both. There is a 20th century angst as in the American novel The Great Gatsby.

Charlie Brown is known for struggling with identity and his own painful growing pains, striving to fit in with kid society. Every year we watch him gets rocks for Halloween and conned by Lucy in her fall football false promises. Great design holds it all together. My dots serve this purpose. They are the actors taking their place, bouncing your eye around, intermingling while still their own. The painting is the unifier. The rectangle is the parameter, the screen, the viewfinder for studying them and seeing ourselves.

*[Who knew there is a Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA? It's more appealing to me than Disney Land.]