Late Summer Hills

  oil on canvas  20" x 30"  

A well known painter of his time called out, upon recognizing Degas on the street, " Monsieur Degas, you must come and see our latest exhibition of watercolors!" Then he gave a sudden glance at the worn mackintosh Degas was wearing and added, "You may find our frames and carpets a little too fancy for you, but art is always a luxury, isn't it?"

"Yours perhaps," retorted Degas, "but mine is an absolute necessity."

Today I am 63 and while, in my mind I always seem to feel about 28, certain realities do begin intrude. The french easel is just too damned heavy to lug around; it seems to take me forever to settle in to the poetry of the moment and get set up and make decisions to put a brush to work. Then I walk over to the studio and these difficulties all melt away as I survey the work emerging and anticipate the ones I will find my next walk outside - and I consider my happy days with Dustin and Paula, I understand that years don't matter except for what joy one extracts from them. Absolute necessities.

  Courtyard Sycamore

   oil on panel  

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." 

 Claude Monet

"Paint the essential character of things. 

When you do a thing with your whole soul and 

everything that is noble within you, you will 

always find that essence."

Camille Pissaro

This was done later on an afternoon and late in the week. My arthritic back pain was kicking in pretty good and so I parked my backpack kit and sat on the steps there in the courtyard at la Madelene. The courtyard is dominated by a beautiful, big sycamore tree that had been radically pruned back. These are the trees that line the main streets of all the small villages all through that part of the world and when they are pruned back like this one, they appear to be huge, complex sculptural forms. This tree had been on my mind all week - how to paint the big monster - what was its essential character?  Then I found myself sitting and looking, right up under that tree, and I determined to paint it, then and there. I set up and went to work simply engrossed with the light and shadow defining the smooth large trunks and branches, as they split and diverged near the center of the tree. The complex structure suddenly became a simple problem in shadow and light, form and the space cut up by that form. In 30 minutes I had it - I stopped. I could do no more to advance the idea of the essence of that big tree. Someone had been watching me and asked how I could have done it. My reply has to be, "by deciding to discover the simple, essential character of the tree.

La Madelene, Afternoon

  oil on panel  

This excerpt from a poem by May Swenson seems to me to have been written for a painter as a wondrous list of how to live - at the same time the first part of the poem describes as closely as anyone who has ever been immersed in a place while trying to paint that place, possibly could.  

The poem does what the best painting does; reveal, evoke, and surprise one about something known that thereby,  becomes new.

Earth Your Dancing Place

by May Swenson

Beneath Heaven's vault

remember always walking

through halls of cloud

down aisles of sunlight

or through high hedges

of the green rain

walk in the world

highheeled with swirl of cape

hand at the swordhilt

of your pride

Keep a tall throat

Remain aghast at life

I intend to do my best to 'remain aghast at life' and in my excitement try to catch hold of at least a small piece of it - and endeavor to enjoy every moment of the effort.  May Swenson closes with another bit of marvelous instruction.

Take earth for your own large room

and the floor of the earth

carpeted with sunlight

and hung round with silver wind

for your dancing place

Hope to see some of you out there in the "silver wind" painting at "your dancing place".

Poppie Fields, Provence

  oil on panel  

"It is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of one's gratitude for the gift of life."

Stanley Kunitz 

The artist, Stanley Kunitz was speaking of what the essence of the creative act might be, where its origins could be found. I agree whole-heartedly. Making paintings is for me a sacred act of sorts and definitely a celebration. This why competitions at these ever popular 'paint-outs' puzzle me - how is it we can reduce something so deeply elemental to a contest without devaluing the whole idea? I have recently lived among a group of painters who, rather than compete with each other, banded together to assist and support each other. Perhaps this sort of feeling emerges at the paint-outs, but I spent time with a group of folks who each improved their awareness and process steadily and had a great and rollicking time doing it!  A large part of this magic was the setting, another larger part were the sponsors, Julian and Ruth. Credit also must go to the make-up of the group of painters during that week - a funnier, friendlier, better group could not have been imagined. Seemed to me they were all attuned to the above statement.

Trees Behind la Madelene

  oil on panel  7" x 10"   

"We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have.
Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."  Henry James

 The best days are when one has an intuitive visual connection with an arrangement of shadow and light, space and form, color and tone. The key is then to begin to explore the setting without judgement or reserve - just allow one's eye and brush to construct form from the core of massed shapes out - without concern for edges or definition - within the structured discipline of true, accurate seeing. When it all comes together the lucky painter sees the poetry of the moment and place emerge as if by magic. All that is required is a balance of opposites - freedom and control; care and abandon; understanding and unknowing - all at once. 
Hence the 'madness of art'.

Pathway to la Madelene

  oil on panel  7.5" x 10"   

"People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love."

Claude Monet

"Mystery is significant."  ee cummings

My paintings assume anyone who comes across one and looks with any interest will be interested in investing something of themselves, allowing the imagination to fill in the place, the time, the space. If you need everything spelled out in detail, I'd just as soon that you walk on by and not look. In my mind, art has to live in the territory between intent and reception - and they have form a balance. Too much control by the artist is a dictatorship - I'd rather live with a bit of anarchy!  Mystery is significant (as my favorite poet says), because it allows space for contemplation and imagination. The trick for the artist is to hold onto the truth of the moment without bludgeoning it into submission.

Sunrise Over la Madelene

  oil on panel  6" x 8"  

"For me, the landscape does not exist in its own right,

since its appearance changes at any moment."

"I care nothing for the motif, only for what transpires between myself and the motif."

Claude Monet

Well, there are few subjects that change as rapidly as a sunrise and trying to paint one is complete madness. The one factor that even begins to make it possible however, is that same rapid change going on in the sky and the land. The rapid change will not allow one to think at all, just react to the sky, mix color and slap it on - make decisions on the fly and remain open to movement and pattern. 

Early Sunrise, la Madelene

  oil on panel  8" x 6"  

Both of these paintings were made on the same morning, within minutes of each other. This horizontal aligned work came first. That morning I had headed out for a walk from our inn at about 5:45, on the farm trail that ran toward some cherry orchards beyond. As I walked I was looking up and back and realized the cloud structure and the light in the dawn were rapidly coalescing into magic. I rushed back to get my painting kit and ran back to the same spot. Setting up quickly, I hurriedly squeezed out some paint and began at about 6:15 or so. With brush dropping abandon I furiously mixed and painted barely looking down at my dark palette - primarily focused on the sky. It was wondrous! As I put the last touches on this first one, the sky was morphing into a new glorious stage, so I dropped the first (face up) on the grass and grabbed a second panel. This time I painted the vertical one above, with the same kind of manic energy and absorbed-ness. The small size of the panels made it possible - I might have tested my luck with a third but I had only those two panels with me - and then the sunrise was finished.

Thinking of it all now, I know something more was afoot, something more than just small panels made these paintings and the experience of making them, happen. It was the opportunity to be in a place where only going out to make paintings mattered, nothing else to distract. It was a place so special and populated with like minded folks who were supportive and funny and good hearted - a particular painter who warmed up to sharing and talking about making painting in a self depreciating and dryly clever Brit accent I could not hear or understand; and even a little boy who climbed and jumped and ran about, exploring everything (and that's what art-making supposed to be isn't it) - these are all the things that led to a couple of little pieces of a morning's dawn come to be - and that was the magic and I was so glad to be there.

Poplar Trunks in Provence

 oil on panel  7" x 10"

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane 
by those who could not hear the music."

Friedrich Nietzsche

When Persistence Wrests

When persistence wrests

some small victory

from frustration,

a tentative space

is chipped angrily

out of the brutal cliff face.

Sweet rest is stolen.

suspended above calamity'

before climbing on.

I wrote this poem several years ago while thinking about paintings that were giving me fits as far as getting my work where I thought it should be. Later I realized that 'should' isn't a concept compatible with making paintings - one has to banish 'should' or any preconceived ideas about end product - one has to be a little bit crazy and just allow the painting to happen, each in its own way. However, the poem is right on the money at the end - one must keep climbing or the calamity of falling back and losing ground will certainly follow. I think of all this as I sit here numb brained from jet lag, eagerly wishing to get my feet steady and back at the painting.

Poppies at la Madelene

Poppies at la Madelene

 oil on board  6" x 8"

"Art is an experience, not an object."

Robert Motherwell

The experience of making a painting can result in both the most basic and the most complex form of communication. Basic because it is simply a pleasing arrangement of colored marks on a flat surface - complex because it can evoke memory of place, time, space, form, and atmosphere. The nature of how this comes about is wrapped up in choices made at the outset based on what might be called the artist's 'expressive intent' - the poetry of the moment, the space, the light. The expressive intent is then tempered by the exploration of the motif and the evolving process of putting the paint on the panel - allowing new discoveries to influence the arc of the experience. In the end, the final work should be joyful evidence of what it meant to be alive in that moment, in that place, thereby allowing the viewer to enter in and experience the same.

Hills Above la Madelene, Provence

 oil on panel  6" x 10"  

"It is the nature of poetry (painting) to determine or affirm one's relation to the incomprehensible condition of existence".  Mary Ruefle

"Beauty is only the edge of a knowing we could not endure". R. M. Rilke

Pretty heavy quotes there but if one takes a moment to consider why it is we (or anyone) goes about making paintings, these sorts of things crop up. When a painter stands before an easel and begins to wrestle with capturing an image, the work being done is really just a struggle to come to grips with a small slice of reality. Reality in a visual sense can be a complicated beast. If that painter is giving full measure in the attempt, they will discover nuance and phenomena that were unexpected at the outset. Like juggling knives, each discovery and element will require attention while the memory of the initial visual trigger - the one thing that brought about the attempt - has to be nursed. After all this the result may be pleasing, even gratifying and well received. A best it is a small sliver of the beauty Rilke refers to, a kind of evidence of a pathway momentarily cleared into the incomprehensible whole. And that small victory can be addictive.

"I do not know if I work to make something of what I find, or in order to find what I cannot make".

Giacometti

The edge of knowing or ability,  which we try and push further out with each painting is really just the new discovery of what we cannot yet make - and the desire to push against that limitation is the addictive quality of painting. 

So take heart as you stand before your easel - you are boldly going where few venture, behind the lines of chaos to bring back evidence of form, of understanding. What a sweet addiction it is.

Summer Tangle

Summer Tangle

  oil on canvas  30" x 40"

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes 

but in having new eyes”.    Marcel Proust

Rather than conform to cultural notions of beauty, it is far more rewarding to allow oneself to wander freely in the visual chaos and struggle to find form or understanding. In this pursuit beauty will appear as if by magic. This place is in a wooded spot near a creek, not a mile from my home. Ordinary and overgrown, most likely a pathway cut by deer going down to the creek, it just attracted my attention and I can't really say why. That's how it works best, almost an unconscious selecting - 

I guess just my way of going about "having new eyes".

August Farm

August Farm

  oil on canvas 

"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable."                                                                                           Robert Henri

The last thing on earth I want to do is go around making pretty pictures. There are hundreds of skilled technicians out there making paintings suitable for living rooms and dining rooms and some even specialize in office lobbies and bank anterooms (usually larger versions of pretty views). This kind of work sometimes tells a story or is concerned with subjects rural and picturesque.  I've noticed many of its practitioners have been trained as illustrators and this is what they still practice, illustration. 

I am not saying such pretty paintings are bad or wrong-headed - just that they bore me with their calculated attractiveness. I seek out the awkward note in a painting that seems to point the way to a more immediate involvement with what is discovered rather than what is being imitated. Once I find a visual trigger in some set of visual opposites; shadow and light, warmth and coolness, mass and space - once I find a small piece of visual poetry - then I can immerse myself in the viscous quality of the paint and the battle of focusing on truly seeing what is before me and not what I think is before me.

The love of the paint, the color, the abstracted vision are my touchstones and abandoning the resulting image to those ideas is my joy. Now, if a barn happens to appear as a functioning part of my work - two rectangles holding sa space through color and placement - well it just as well could be a cheeseburger or a naked lady - it doesn't mean I have morphed into a 'painter of barns', simply that it was part of a place , a time, a visual exploration.