Relapsing into Realism

I’ve been minding my business drawing and painting abstracts. But I find myself looking at Antonio Lopez Garcia’s, Susan Lichtman’s, Ann Gale’s, and Bernard Chaet’s work late at night when no one can look over my shoulder to witness my backsliding. I’m drawn to the paintings that look frozen mid completion, the ones that appear to be raggedly gelling into place.

Self-portrait, oil on canvas, Ann Gale

I’ve also come across some Philadelphia artists, disciples of Edwin Dickinson, who often leave their landscapes, interiors, figures and still lives in ephemeral states. Lost edges, incomplete forms, and poetic reductions of detail dominate. These painters interpret and synthesize instead of piling up dry, factual bits of visual information. They hint at a world of mystery and hidden knowledge lying just below surface appearances. They’re the anti-photorealists.

Landscapes (in order) Edwin Dickinson, Stuart Shils, and Jeffrey Reed.

I recently decided to try my hand at painting a still life, the first in four years. A cream-colored portrait bust on a studio shelf drew my attention. I liked how it blended in with a plastic bag on its left and a glass on its right. I started developing the nose and added adjacent color shapes. I didn’t keep track of proportions on the first pass but let mistakes stand as long as the paint looked good. I worked on the painting for two more sessions. It looked more realistic by the end, but the brushwork still seemed fairly loose and spontaneous. I wanted it to read more like an improvisation than a detailed report.

Portrait Bust, oil on board, 8×8″

I had a little daylight and energy left after I finished the still life, so I set up a French folding easel at the end of my driveway and began a landscape of houses, cars, bushes and trees.

The painting looks ragged, and the colors are muddy. But I’m looking forward to the next work session. I don’t think that I’ll leave it as unresolved as Shils would but will approach the composition as an arrangement of loosely brushed abstract shapes.

I don’t know how it will turn out, and that’s the best part.

Faculty Show 2021

Judy and I drove to Valencia today to see a faculty show. I have four paintings in the exhibition but hadn’t gotten a chance to see them on site.

Mine hung together on two walls near a corner. When I saw them, I had the usual reaction: pieces I considered somewhat weak looked stronger than previously favored paintings; I wished that I could take them down and rework passages that now looked awkward. Judy reassured me that they looked fine and said that the largest oil appealed to her now that it hung in a larger space.

The show featured a wide range of media including prints, sculpture, conceptual photography, painting, and ceramics. Artists working in the same medium exercised their talents in opposing styles. I saw abstract, semi-abstract, and realistic paintings and drawings.

Some works had a conceptual bent. They featured imagery that repeated with variations in grid compositions.

The ceramicists made bowls and plates decorated by shell forms and nature imagery (a bird, leaves on stems).

Two sculptors exhibited shallow relief wall pieces featuring layered forms. A third showed ceramics that looked like mineralized fossils or the fragmented remnants of geological events.

The arrangement of the show felt harmonious despite the varied styles and media. The curator took time to find formal connections between separate bodies of work. And low-level lighting created a subdued mood throughout the exhibition.

As we walked back to our car, I felt an urge to see more work by individual artists in the show. I’d only gotten quick tastes of each exhibitor’s work. However, one-person shows of a faculty member’s work have rarely graced the gallery. Internal conflicts would ensue if some professors received the opportunity while others did not.

The curator wisely bestows solo shows only to outside artists. If I want to see more, I’ll have to go elsewhere.

Drawings: Unintended Adventures

I started these drawings as an experiment in combining spatial fusions with intentionally misplaced marks. I wanted to see if I could disrupt space and create hybrid forms. I also considered tonal patterns as the drawings progressed: I wanted dynamic arrangements with variety in shapes.

The drawings developed individual moods and characters as I worked on them. I eventually stopped trying to direct the outcomes. Miyoko Ito, a favorite artist, once said that she tried not to think while working on her paintings. She just did. I followed her advice and made instinctual moves that sometimes seemed irrational…

Judy and I watched “Finding Dory” last night. The Blue Tang improvised her way out of tough situations. She didn’t have a plan until something clicked in her head. My best artistic practice follows in Dory’s footsteps (fin sweeps?). The unintended adventures keep me engaged.

Out of Whiskey

Unfinished abstract landscape based on a view of a Chilean Drive.

I had trouble sleeping last night. Didn’t wake until nearly 9 a.m. and got a mosquito bite on the calf while sitting on the edge of the bed. My eyes itched and had a gluey film, so I washed them out at the sink. I looked like I’d been in a fight. Stumbled to the living room and found Judy up-and-at-’em. I told her that I’d run the tax forms to the post office and pick up her prescription before we tackled setting up a new health insurance account for me. I graded for an hour then set out on errands.

Judy’s getting off her employer’s health insurance plan at the end of the month. The associated debit card also extends through April. But the computer at the pharmacy thought otherwise. I had cash on hand. I reported the screw-up to Judy when I returned.

We booted her computer and went to HealthCare.gov. We answered questions about income, dependents, household members, eligibility, etc. Jumped through all the hoops, got approval, then turned to the plans to make a choice. We went to a favorite and discovered that I no longer qualified for a credit. A plan previewed earlier in the week had jumped from $380 to $1,100. Shhhit.

We went back to look over the available forms. I told Judy that it looked like the program wanted me to lose my benefits before letting me apply at a cheaper rate. Judy said, “We must’ve made a mistake.” We tried to go back to the application but couldn’t access it. Deleted the whole application and took a needed break. My neck felt like someone had turned the tension inside to the breaking point.

I made lunch while wondering how fast our checking account would plummet if the monthly payment stuck at $1,100. Doubted whether giving up beer, coffee, and new books would make up much ground. We didn’t linger over the meal and returned to the government site.

After whipping through preliminary questions that had puzzled us earlier, we discovered two places where we’d given wrong answers about the duration of my current coverage and whether my two employers offered health insurance. The computer program had decided, when I first applied, that I had other options. It penalized me for going out-of-bounds, so to speak.

We made the necessary changes, got approval, and scrolled to the plan selection point. The credit counted this time and the expected price showed up once again. Wheww.

I told Judy that I really wanted some whiskey. My nerves still jangled. Neck and shoulders ached. I’d gotten my second Pfizer shot a few days earlier and planned to stay out of public spaces until it kicked in fully. So Judy said, “Well, you can get some in two weeks.”

I picked up my guitar and strummed for a while. Graded some weekly assignments for an on-line class and wandered to my studio. Head throbbed. Did some calisthenics and sat down to meditate. Pressure eased. Painted for a bit, then made supper. Put my head on the table after finishing my soup and bread. Closed my eyes. Judy said, “You tired?” “Yeah. I’m shot.”

What Comes Next?

I’ve been teaching an abstract drawing class called, “Creating Meaningful Abstract Imagery”. The basic idea: overlap words and images related to a specific topic to create hybrid shapes; develop the shapes in color, tone and texture to create an abstract composition that captures the mood or essence of the original subject.

Climb the Stairs, oil/canvas, 40×24″

This technique delivers fragments of readable imagery orchestrated into a semi-abstract arrangement of shapes, colors and textures. The up side: the picture deals with a concrete idea but allows for improvisation during the creative process. The down side: one can feel a bit trapped working within a preconceived idea.

One of my students has taken many classes about abstraction. I wanted to give her a new idea. A thought came to me that it might be interesting to build a composition shape by shape, line by line moving from one side to another. The drawing or painting would be a journey with no set destination except for reaching the other side of the composition. I did two drawings as examples. I called the new technique, “What comes next?”

Wild Goose Chase, colored pencil, 3×4″

I started “Wild Goose Chase” with the head and neck of a duck. Things progressed from there. Images emerged and disappeared as I worked from left to right. Figures, animals, body parts showed up, reconfigured, transformed into other things. The process was open-ended and absorbing.

Bird Sanctuary, colored pencil, 3×4″

I finished “Bird Sanctuary” this morning. The title came from beak, wing, and tail shapes that kept showing up. Leaf and flower forms came along for the ride.

When I compared the two drawings I discovered that similar colors and the same technique led to fairly different results. Both have interlocking shapes and intense patterning but convey different moods and associations.

I still enjoy working with specific subject matter but am finding this new technique intriguing. Sometimes the ideas I eventually adopt in my own work come from new lesson plans.