Story-Telling and Art

The last event of my show at Baldwin School was  a meeting with the Third Grade who were studying my paintings; imagine!.  I have taught elementary students a little bit, a long time ago. These students have an outstanding teacher who taught them a lot about looking and about talking about art.  They were fun.

I was a little concerned that too many limitations were being placed on their reactions, so I wrote them a letter:

Dear Third Grade:

It was fun meeting with you a couple of weeks ago.  I would have written sooner, but I got the flu!  While resting though, I have been thinking about our few minutes together.

I am very impressed and honored by the time and care you have each taken to consider and to comment, with great insight, on my artwork.  Mrs. G. has taken her wonderful knowledge skills in art history and appreciation and taught you very well; you are insightful viewers. I apologize for forgetting to point out some of Mrs. G's amazing observations that might have been helpful in your other studies.  My paintings have no people in them.  That is on purpose, as I feel people diminish the vastness and the eternal qualities of the ocean.  The permanence and vital import of the water is the main reason I am attracted to it.  While I love to play in the water, I also feel a full connection to the universe when I am near it.  It is an enormous force of nature and the source of all life.  It’s enormity in every aspect of our lives is immeasurable and I hope to capture that feeling in the images.

Having stated my point of view and having praised your formal art observational skills, I want to go on to encourage a skill that you may not realize you have developed.  As you were lining up to leave, a comment was made by your substitute, that there had been “enough story-telling and it was time to move on.”  There is never, nor there ever be “enough story-telling.”  I delighted in your stories; we were all interacting with the art work.  Your stories were direct reactions to the images.  They were sparked by the images and your stories demonstrated to me what my work brought to your minds.  Some of you were more verbal than others.  Some of you were silent. Silence is also a response to art, whether it is sparked by personal contemplation or by lack of interest, it is a strong response.

Art is an act of sharing.  It is a non verbal story.  Much of the artwork found in churches was made to tell Biblical stories because most of the people in the churches did not read.  Art is thought, ideas  and emotion; story-telling and education in a non-verbal form.  Your storytelling was wonderful and gave me much insight about the effectiveness of my pictures.

I am so glad that you enjoyed my work and I am delighted to have met you and to have heard and seen your interactions with my work, each other and with me.  Keep up your enthusiasm, curiosity and generosity.  You are wonderfully intelligent and joyful people.

I hope that they take my words to heart and know that talking in the presence of art work is a joy. Living with art is a privilege that I wish more people would undertake.  Buy real art, it does not have to be expensive and it brings huge wealth to your life.  

I have a HUGE inventory ;)

Fool For Art

December 2014:
The show is framed.  From here on out it is all fun until the day it gets hung on the walls. Whew.

Way back in August I began the process, now five large paintings, six drawings, four traditional prints, four digital prints are ready.  Everything is new, guess I can still work when I have the space.

The space is the one in my mind and in my being.  Today I started out at home and was interrupted not less than a dozen times.  12X!  How can anybody work when there is not time to put two thoughts and feelings together? Time, not in isolation so much as in safety, of freedom, exploration and expanse.

Since I have had space, my entire life has changed.  The family still begs attention, but I wake up with ideas in my head.  I am happy.  I am whole again.  Artists must not be led down paths of service to the world which do not involve their work; it kills.

February 2015:
Now that I lack the physical space, the metaphysical has vanished as well. Thoughts no longer pop in my head with abandon;  depression and dullness reside there with great spreading wealth.

My entire creative life  from high school to the present day, now lives in a spare bedroom. Every crisis, joy and confusion, visually documented, lies in piles of paper, canvas and pigment.  When I die, what will they do with this debris?  I imagine the same as they will do with my body, burn it.  I have cleaned out the houses of many elderly women who have been forced to downsize.  We pick through the vestiges of their lives, hopes, dreams, joys and sorrows.  No life goes without inspection of detritus, with or without judgement.

Years ago I threw out a self portrait made in my twenties.  In it, I sported a strapless blue bikini top and blue jeans.  I placed the painting outside for the trash men; it was taken from the trash.  I was flattered and oddly embarrassed.  I wonder where I am, half dressed.  Am I dart board?  The painting was mounted on plywood.

The truth is that when paintings leave the studio, I have no control over them and if  I choose to make images of myself then I have no control over that momentary aspect of myself.  When the time comes for me to leave the studio, permanently, I will have no say in the dispersal of my life's work, nor will I care. So do I dispose of work now via the trash or do I try to sell or give it away?  Does that become my life's work?  The walls of my studio, like those of the Death Star's trash compactor, are closing in. I must act or be swallowed by personal history.

As I no longer have an empty, quiet space in which to work, it seems that I have few options. "Growing old is not for sissies;" growing old for artists is not for the weak-stomached nor for the sentimental. Alas I am both.

Drying Out

New items purchased often have small packets of silica gel inside them marked desiccating gel, along with the words "Do Not Eat."  These days I think if I just stand near a new item, I could probably dry it out very nicely.

As we age, we oxidize, and moisture flows from us in all directions.  At this point I should have a small cloud of evaporation following me around.  I swim in lotion, to try (though I am currently failing) to keep my skin from bleeding from the cold weather cracks.  The latest victim of my shriveling humidity; my eyes.

Some of you have seen the photos of my new glasses (which I no longer own). I went to the optometrist to ask her why I do not see sharply and am totally aware of the orbit of my eye. She gave me new prescription for glasses which I had filled;  then I could not see anything farther than five feet away.  Frustrated I went to see the ophthalmologist who cares for my accident prone men (one who had a horrible little group of amoebas take up residency in his eyes and one who had a tennis ball shatter the contact lens in his eye).  This is the doc who said I have dry eyes; I just thought I was middle aged and had become hard-hearted.

He tested my eyes for moisture levels by placing tiny little pieces of watercolor paper inside my lower eyelid, sticking straight up like paper columns.   I waited five minutes in the dark for the paper to absorb my irritation tears;  a weird test, especially for an artist.  One of the strips eventually dropped onto my cheek, the other remained at attention; that eye is the really dry one.  I wanted to try to paint  a teeny little painting in my tears, but they tossed the strips.

Now I use eye drops.

Does this mean I will no longer cry at movies?  I hope so, it has always been so embarrassing.

Average Goodies

The prodigals are starting to roost; mine are simply expanding their domains in healthy, though sometimes stormy ways.  Normal stuff, so the fatted calf is quite safe to become a nice chubby milk cow.  Thank you prodigals, for lavish, constructive exuberance.

Perhaps it is time to invent new ways of celebrating the expected, which is after all the original question of the responsible son in the old story; why him and not me?  He was lost, his brother steady; they both got to chow down, but I understand the question and I comprehend the purpose of the parable.  Still, celebrating those who are steady and trustworthy seems fair.  Their lives may not be dramatic, but their accomplishments are usually remarkable.

We rarely celebrate the incremental.  Barring the tortoise and the hare, we often celebrate the quick, marveling at the young author, singer, medical student....rarely at the mid thirty or forty, center of the pack people who make up the lion share of the population.  Average is disdained.  Why? Lower than average - well, I won't even go there!

When my children started in school, I recall a meeting of parents of the elementary school. They were concerned about helping their children cope if they came in number two in the class; two.  I waited a bit as they voiced further concerns, until I finally mentioned that "ONE person is number one, one is number two and everybody else is in between until we come to number, last.  They are all wonderful children, children being the key word, and they are all of equal value as human beings. I could have chilled a martini with their stares; I could have used a cool one just about then also.

As we gather for the national celebration of dinner, my turkey will be a simple roast, the Cordon Bleu need not fear competition; it will be average.  My stuffing, which I should refer to as dressing, but I hate that word, will be a repetition of the last twenty years.  I will use canned, jellied cranberry sauce and Pillsbury rolls, because we love Grands biscuits.  The pies will be homemade and the crusts' edges will be oddly shaped.  Our wine will be inexpensive and our butter salted.  This will not be
gourmet, but it will feel good.

With any luck our average dinner will follow a tremendously winning Eagles game. Then, our average day will end with  a screening of  "It's A Wonderful Life."  We will be glowing with typical, average, national warmth; prodigiously.

The Runaway

12. The Runaway

(From The Amherst Monthly, June 1918.)

ONCE when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, “Whose colt?” A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head And snorted to us. And then we saw him bolt.         5 We heard the miniature thunder where he fled, And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray, Like a shadow across instead of behind the flakes. The little fellow’s afraid of the falling snow. He never saw it before. It isn’t play         10 With the little fellow at all. He’s running away. He wouldn’t believe when his mother told him, ‘Sakes, It’s only weather.’ He thought she didn’t know! So this is something he has to bear alone And now he comes again with a clatter of stone,         15 He mounts the wall again with whited eyes Dilated nostrils, and tail held straight up straight. He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies. “Whoever it is that leaves him out so late, When all other creatures have gone to stall and bin,         20 Ought to be told to come and take him in.”   Thanks to:  http://www.bartleby.com/155/12.html

Sounds Fishy

Phrases I never, ever thought would emanate from my lips, have become a part of my life. Many ideas may be crossing your mind, none of which are likely to be accurate.  To be sure there are many more strange possibilities, which thank fortune are not a part of my life.  I have taken up hang gliding (I fly only as I fall), I enjoy tight rope walking (my friends can tell you that walking consistently without falling has been a life-long challenge.  I love doing accounting - yeah, no.

So what are the phrases?  I have taken up surf fishing, yup;  I even bait my own hooks. I have caught a couple of young blue fish, which is gratifying, but it is being by the ocean and participating in it in a new way that has been so exciting.  Now, adding to awe and joy, is a cooperation of give and take and a different understanding of the ebb and flow of the waves and the wildlife.  I can sit for hours throwing out a line of hope, with a somewhat evil intent of ending a fish's life.  Bear in mind, I have not kept a fish I have caught, we (I still have a problem taking the fish off the hook) have thrown them back.

Another odd phrase, related to the fishing is:  I am so glad I learned lacrosse.  Now never, ever, in my life has that thought crossed my mind.  I played goalie because I did not understand the rules (I must have been absent that day).  I could not cradle and I hate running.  I could manage to comprehend the concept of - keep the ball out of this small area, backed by a strangely shaped net.  I was not half bad at goal tending.

How does lacrosse relate to surf fishing?  Casting ten foot surf rod with two baited hooks and a sinker is juts like throwing a lacrosse ball out of the crease of the goal; don't rush, focus, aim high and throw far.  The nice thing about the surf is that my target, unlike finding a tiny stick in lacrosse, is very wide; my kind of sport. I have actually mentally thanked my lacrosse coaches - another first - for teaching me how to throw. Finally I am good at it.

Once the line is in the water, I walk back to my chair, my chair, sit down, gently hold the rod and wait for a nice little tug on the line.  I pull sharply to set the hook and then work the fishie into the shore. Sitting, waiting, watching the water, the sky, the birds, I think have I have found my sport.

My husband says I am a natural.

Let The Painting Win

Oh my I have been silent for a while.  I have been involved in a fiasco of visual nonsense.  I knew I could not see as well as I would like and went to the optometrist to see what was wrong.  I described being aware of the orbit of my left eye and my concern that I might have some sort of infection.  She wrote me a new prescription for glasses.  I bought them. Not only were the frames a little scary (people stopped smiling at me in public) but I could not see more than five feet with them on.  At five feet everything was crystal clear, but beyond that - nothing!. Thank goodness my optician is an ethical businessman who refunded me the entire price!

Back to square one, went to the ophthalmologist who have saved the vision of my son and of  my husband. He gets it right with a diagnosis of dry eye; a condition which he said is caused by eighty percent of prescription drugs.  Since I am on many prescription drugs, this was a good bet.  Two drops a few times a day and I can see again and I no longer feel my eye saying hello all the time. What a journey; but the end is happy.

In the meantime, I have been working like crazy trying to get my large canvasses in shape for a show in January.  They are arguing with me.  Today, I finally, in a fit of  rage, gave in to the largest one.  It wants to be something different than I had in mind.

I had to speak to another person in the building, about a small, but important item.  When I walked into her office she said to me "You look mad."  I said 'I am, the painting and I are arguing and it's no use, the paintings always win.  I just have to get used to it and I am mad." At that point, though she looked intrigued, I think the dominant theme in her mind was  - this woman is nuts!  The reality is though, that I can waste hours trying to make it do what I want, with a net result of compliance but not excellence, or I can let it be what it wants and find something new, of which I had never conceived. The duty of the artist is to listen.

Rather than painting right away, in rage, I went out to help a friend with her art, as she prepares for an exhibition that has to be set up tomorrow.  Seeing her beautiful work and spending time with her got me into the right frame of mind to be brave; and loving.  I have reworked the image.  It is better, unusual, but better.  It has a way to go, and it is not what I wanted, but it is better.  In humbling my ego, the painting wins and so we both win.

Art is less inanimate than you might think.