Martha's Vineyard

20" x 16", oil on canvas, PRIVATE COLLECTION

A main focus, both structuring and informing the meaning of my work, is my interest in open spaces and, alternatively, woven/pixelated color. This can be seen in airy, luminous, large painted areas, Minimalist squares or dot paintings. There has to be an impetus, a spark to draw me to a particular visual situation often lending itself to big spaces or commingled color. Walking up the planked path leading to the ocean on Martha's Vineyard this summer gave me such a spark. The turn from the parking lot to the path brings an initial sun-filled view of the water and sky while the dunes wrap around one. The water is magnetic. I sought to capture this flash, immersion, dazzle and calm. Shapes are painted with enough subtle texture to leave as open areas. Open space is key here. I'm currently preferring this to woods, unlike earlier paintings in which I used the tangled density of trees and thickets.

A recent podcast on NPR concerned itself with a new book on etymology (wish I could remember/find the title) discussing the word "fathom" as coming from the ability of getting one's arms around something. [See The Online Etymology Dictionary definition below.]*. It also means "to get to the bottom of, to understand". These definitions imply the physical experience leading to knowledge. This is my point. I utilize a physical and perceptual experience while I paint and sometimes before I paint in order to create. This true for all artists, I would imagine. I'm just trying to articulate the process, the phenomenon. Many people share experiences but artists make them into art. Artists orchestrate experiences. Life is encapsulated in art. This is why art is valued. Perhaps it could be valued more.

*fathom (n.)

O.E. fæðm "length of the outstretched arm" (a measure of about six feet), also "arms, grasp," and, figuratively "power," from P.Gmc. *fathmaz "embrace" (cf. O.N. faðmr "embrace, bosom," O.S. fathmos "the outstretched arms," Du. vadem "a measure of six feet"), from PIE *pot-/*pet- denoting "stretching out" (cf. Gk. petalon "leaf," L. patere "to be open"). The verb meaning of "take soundings" is c.1600; its figurative sense of "get to the bottom of, understand" is 1620s. Related: Fathomed; fathoming.

Tree and Trees, My House (First Day of Summer)

Tree and Trees, 12" x 9", oil pastel




My House (First Day of Summer), 9" x 12", oil pastel

I recently went to The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City to see the Charles Burchfield exhibition. The Whitney tweets about the show:

Burchfield only did 27 oil paintings but thousands of watercolors. Four of the oils are on view in this exhibition.

In the 1940s Burchfield began taking earlier works & expanding on them. If you get close enough you can see where the pieces of paper join.

Later in life Burchfield suffered many ailments but still got out in nature to paint, sometimes laying on the ground due to a bad back.

Peter Schjeldahl of the @newyorker on Charles Burchfield: http://bit.ly/aGjNW6. Lovely audio slideshow: http://bit.ly/a74zBZ

Whitney Museum
http://bit.ly/PWu4l

The tweets don't mention the scale of the later watercolors, epic at my guess of 4' x 3'. Rather than using a roll of watercolor paper like Arches makes (I'm not sure that was available at the time), the papers he tapes together are smaller than 8" x 10". The color and rhythmic patterns are stunning. The specific places and weather he directly observes spin into fantasy which is the difference compared with his earlier, grayish paintings of American buildings of the time. Permitting himself to let loose, he boldly puts forth an inner vision the general populace may not understand. This is the difficulty of being a visionary, waiting for people to catch up.

The exhibit has old copies of Life and Time magazines opened to feature stories on Burchfield celebrating his depiction of American of American life via common architecture. The paintings capture a gritty feeling of manufacturing at the time, working class environments rather than the monumental achievements of sky scrapers. People saw their lives in these pictures while his assertions of his dreams were less concrete in their minds. Of course, these later watercolors are the best and his place in art history would be be diminished without them. They sometimes focus on a central space like the altar of a cathedral, not unlike the spaces I'm after. Many artists say that art museums are like church to them and even more people say the same of nature. Burchfield's paintings evoke the celebration of the divine on both counts. This interest is an expression vastly differing from the ripples of the industrial revolution. A forward thinker, his work challenges us to stay true to ourselves and to trust our instincts, artists or not.

My pastels open the door to summer day dreaming, allowing you to float away with art as a springboard. Many artists can help get you there.

- Tofu-Powered Art-Chick

Summer #6 Sunrise & Summer #8 The Yellow House

Summer #6 Sunrise, 20" x 26", oil on canvas, 1998-2010

detail Summer #6 Sunrise

Summer #8 The Yellow House, 17" x 21", oil canvas, 2010

This week's post focuses on landscape painter Rackstraw Downes. He's very different from me but he's good. I became aware of his work in 1992. This month while watching my niece and nephews in Ridgefield, Connecticut, I was able to trade off with my husband to run to the Aldrich Museum of Art, conveniently located in the same town. An intimate exhibit of Downes' paintings, drawings, and sketchbooks in cases awaited. [Two other Rackstraw Downes' exhibits are concurrently on view at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York and at the Betty Cunningham Gallery in Chelsea.]

You must click on these links to see examples of his work to follow along.

The paintings are panoramic views of the underneath of the Westside Highway painted from direct observation in 2008-2009. Downes says he likes to be left alone to paint so if you see him, just keep walking. In a sketchbook, Downes writes that he gets annoyed with the changing weather. Light effects everything, after all. Downes isn't after an amplified, enveloping view like I do. He wants to see everything, to put it all into form. He wants to take it all in, process it, be present in it. In doing this he makes use of perspective: arcs and vectors structure the deep space, constructing the construction of the underpass. The horizon is stretched. I look to the left, straight, and right, seeing the other end in peripheral vision. There is a turn of the head in the gaze; the painting demands a slow scan (and then more of your attention). Bikers are painted as whole people, not shirts and pants painted separately. I couldn't care less about painting cars, but it matters to Downes and he makes me look. They aren't as dreamy as my visions, but they are still a dream as the picture is artifice. An angled stop sign becomes oval, striped like a buoy. Bike wheels function like the circles of barbed wire painted in another area. There is a glimpse of a building between trees, a poetic bit of painting; it's all poetry despite being concrete. In fact, he paints pictures of concrete.

Many painters ascribe to this kind of description, a factual world to ground us. What makes Rackstraw Downes more than amateurs who don't paint as well as they think they do? It has to do with the degree of perception, care, patience, skill in translating sight into paint, experience, and discipline.

I have some thoughts on what he does. Change of color temperature and light gives form and distinction to each piece. Orange, plastic construction fence is woven with the spaces in between its holes. The degree of thickness of paint is important - too thin, it would most likely be too dry, less personal, while too thick it would get clogged, loose a degree of legibility that is so much a part of his clear vision.

Treetops are made of small pieces like Vuillard but not as regular a pattern. They are fuller but sometimes fall flat, seemingly intentional. There is more space, more of a rustle, than in Vuillard. Again, as seen in Vuillard and positively delicious to painters, are shiny horizontal colored stripes with lines oily, like I like. There are also light, thin lines defining sections and what's between, simultaneously views and pieces of paint, many of which could be paintings on their own, if larger. I see the framing of spaces between sections of trees and leaves, made central in my hands, in my paintings.

As for the drawings, they are pinned to the walls, unframed. I've drifted away from frames and this is another professional example. Pieces of paper are taped together to make a longer drawing surface for the panoramas. Squiggly fibers in the paper remind one of the leaves in the paintings.

I couldn't stop looking; the pictures are full. My dots are here to fill you.

Summer #3, Sky, Field, Trees & Summer #4, Blue Cloud

8" x 8"

oil on canvas

So far I am more a studio painter than a plein air painter. These paintings are done from memory. I look, look, look and then paint, paint, paint. I was amazed the first time I learned of how the painter William Bailey works. [He served as a guest critic in Tuscany when I studied there for a summer month after my junior year] His still life of simple vessels in monochromatic warm tones are done from the memory of these objects; they aren't directly in front of him as he paints. There is something Grecian about them, the Platonic ideal, perfection. Although executed in earth tones, I wouldn't call their modesty "down to earth".

I think my paintings are approachable. The Blue Cloud has subtle, dark dots in the trees. I like the feeling of heat in these paintings, summer warmth, and the active sky suggesting the day is moving on. We've hit fall now and I confess I am less than inspired to paint the foliage this time around. The leaves are uncharacteristically dull and muted in Rochester this year. I've only seen one lucky house to have a bright red tree glowing in their yard. I like browns but sigh.

Summer #2 Birch Trees

36" x 24"

oil on panel

Here we are. Three triangles, do you see them? If you are a regular at Art Weekly, I should have you eagle-eyed by now. Pressed forward, "in your face" the painting shouts "Look!" Scale, texture, and brightness of the trees provide foreground. They are angled like theatre curtains abruptly, energetically pulling back to reveal color center stage, a reoccurring theme in my work. Landscape is seen afresh. I resist the urge to check my e-mail on my iphone while I'm walking past trees. We're all so twitchy now.

The upper corners of the central triangle of dots allow the viewer to drift back in space away. The mainly red-purple-brown dots represent a maple tree. Lemon-lime grass on the lower right is less dense than the maple; the eye has more room there. The birches themselves are tough, dramatic, and feel akin to Marsden Hartley's paint handling to me. the dots have the preciousness of gems, raw amethyst, particularly due to their conduction of colored light. I don't want to own jewelry. Sometimes tempted by the sparkle, I prefer to paint beyond what it has to offer. Paint itself has a history of containing semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli, replaced in the early 19th century by a synthetic ultramarine blue. A great article on the history of pigments is in Wikipedia. Back to the studio I go, no Tiffany's for me.

Summer Lake Ontario

digital image (iphone)

Gone fishing.

No, flying to Chicago, be back soon.

Hope you get some summer sun too.

Summer #1

6" x 12"

oil on panel

Here is a summer one for you now that it is August. The trees are dense with leaves, bits of color and texture begging for dots. I like the undulation of the tree line, difficult to imagine convincingly without direct observation. Greens range from yellows to blues, light to dark, bright to subdued. Sometimes in winter the contrast seems closer and I miss hitting the different keys. The painting I do isn't isolated but comes out of a cultural context.

I've written a bit about the history of landscape painting in America. Painting the landscape was a matter of pride in the eighteen hundreds, a new territory for painters to conquer like the explorers. Europe has old monuments and a long history, but America has its land. It became a matter of pride, the Grand Canyon acts as our Coloseum. I came across an interesting snippet about President Roosevelt. He initiated conservation plans. Aware that resources will run out (even the Ancient Puebloans of Mesa Verde had that problem), he began initiatives resulting in the preservation of approximately 230,000,000 acres of American land in the form of National Parks and Forests and other preservations. He speaks to Congress:

"To the Senate and House of Representatives:

. . .The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life. . ..As a nation we not only enjoy a wonderful measure of present prosperity but if this prosperity is used aright it is an earnest of future success such as no other nation will have. The reward of foresight for this nation is great and easily foretold. But there must be the look ahead, there must be a realization of the fact that to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. .."

My little painting is a reminder of the beauty of the natural world and the personal revitalization it offers.

June Watercolors

watercolor on paper

5" x 4" and 4" x 5"

The summer is throwing a curve ball in my blogging so don't think that I don't know it's not June anymore. I like these three. The way an artist thinks about abstraction is evident from picture to picture. Reducing, "less is more", simplicity, it's all there but the basic impetus is to capture as much as possible in the fewest means possible. I guess I use the word "means" because its not as easy as it looks and the artist doesn't really know what to do and has to wing it. They are kind of haiku-ish. I start out with the feeling, "Okay, I want to show you everything" (although probably not as intensely as a photo-realist might). After that it is something like, "now that I've gotten all that off my chest, I can show you what else I see with my special x-ray reduction glasses". My son and I are currently listening to A Cricket in Times Square by George Sheldon, and it is like the symphony compared to a cricket and maybe the cricket is John Cage. He realized the importance of listening in relationship to sound and music. The process is like removing layers to reveal what is underneath. Seeing things anew, artists can take the smudges off your glasses (I won't try to take that analogy to sound and the ear).

I hope you enjoy my light, lyrical chirps.