Artwala Road

Wonderful news this week. Sally, one of the esteemed members of our Saturday morning drawing class particpated in a group show this weekend. She blew up some small watercolors of eccentric teapots and made giclee prints that were full of great energy. She has a light, playful and energetic style and it was great to see how beautifully a small piece can be enlarged with digital technology. There’s a whole new world of possibility now for making art affordable and available to all.

I asked the class to bring in something they wanted to draw—a photograph or object. This meant we were all working on different things. I wanted everyone to begin to think about what imagery speaks to them most directly, whether its people or plants, landscape or pattern, objects or abstraction even.

For me, it turned out to be a frustrating exercise. I discover, again, that I work best from my mind. Perhaps it was frustrating for others too but that’s part of art—we have to explore and get out of our comfort zones to find ourselves.

But other good news—Maureen was back from Paris. And then, with the class nearly over, Connie arrived from a month away in Columbia. So great to have almost the whole class together again. It’s the people that make it. What I love about this class is that a group of ‘mature’ women are gathering together in both seriousness and fun to march forward as artists. They’re big spirits, up for the challenge, willing to go out on limbs, even willing to drop off a limb from time to time! It’s the supportive energy of the whole that is making our progress so amazing.

And Connie brought back a beautiful series of small paintings she did while away, work that is full of new directions for her. For me, the goal of the class is that each artist sees and gets a chance to develop their own true gift and direction. That’s why we play around with so many things—that direction is going to be different for each of us and will also change for each of us over time.

And, whatever obstacles we encounter—of difficulty, of frustration—are overcome by that greatest of all arts—laughter. I’m giving thanks!

April 30th, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Leave a comment

The art class all did very strong work this weekend and to me it’s interesting to see how artists can leap forward. I do mean leap. In this class, we’re not walking a straight line but darting off the path at odd junctures to see what’s there and bring back a souvenir. It would be nothing without the devotion these artists are bringing to the work. Not to mention their sense of joy and fun.

After we’ve done some work we hang it up and all take a look. We look for the strength in it and uncover surprises—a beautiful line, the juxtaposition of white space and shadow, a wild distortion, a brilliant exaggeration, a bold composition, a chance taken. I’m most interested in the chance taken. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work—something grand will come of it. That’s the way of art.

I saw some things this week that make me truly excited—brave new worlds unfolding. In this class we’re exploring possibilities so we can get closer to our true expression as well as build skills. That’s the fun of the class and the challenge too. We’re getting out of our comfort zones, into our learning zones then directly into awareness and expression. The leap is that we don’t sit on our learning but make art. It’s awfully good for the soul.

April 23rd, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Leave a comment

One of the great benefits of city life is that you can pop out on occasion after dinner to see Alexander McCall Smith or some other author give a talk or a reading. Last night Mr McCall Smith, in a kilt and knee socks, talked and read at a hall on Mass Ave in Cambridge. What I enjoyed as much, if not more, than his summary of his many books was the way he enjoyed his own humor, almost gagging at times and overflowing with laughter. Super.

I love Mma Ramotswe and The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency for its great sense of the kindness and decency of people who know the benefits of conducting their lives with a civilized decorum. He says they’re based on real people he meets in Africa where he goes each year—a truly heartening thought.

It was followed, at some remove, by a comment about California. Everyone there, especially strangers, greets you with a complaint, he says, the idea being that you then utter a complaint and you’re bonded in misery with your new friend. Funny. It’s not just in California, I hope he doesn’t know. I hasten to mention he said this in great good humor.

Here are some fabulous opening sentences from novels that he mentioned in his chat—

‘Hold my camel,’ said my Aunt Dot on her way back from high mass.

And, this from a book written by a nine-year-old in the nineteenth century, still in print apparently—

Mr Saltina was an old man of forty-two who liked to have young ladies come to visit him.

Sorry, I didn’t catch the titles or authors. And some good news—they’ll be filming the first book this summer and are still looking for a traditionally built woman with a warm smile to play Mma Ramotswe. All the other characters are cast. Then, even better news, there’ll be a thirteen episode mini-series for television to follow. Soon, I hope.

April 20th, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (2)

We did monoprinting in class this Saturday. I considered teaching technique but decided to just let everyone play and discover their own way forward. I don’t know that much technique and believe that art is all about exploration anyway. It’s more important to explore than to learn to follow instructions or to get things right. So, I hope I didn’t let the class down but think interesting things emerged.
I didn’t know myself what it was I wanted to get at when we began but just sitting together at a huge table gave me ideas. All any of us had to do was glance over our shoulder at our neighbor’s work and get new visions for our own.

I asked what people’s goals were for the class. One student wants to dive into art so that when she retires she’s in the swim and can live the next chapter of her life as an artist. I love that the next chapter is a vital one. Another wants to overcome the inner critic, a good and necessary goal for us all. Another wants to get more into the abstract.

That got me thinking about what it is that makes the abstract work. For me great abstract work takes me into the realm of meditation like a zen koan or a haiku. It bites off an edge of the mystery and gives us something concrete upon which to reflect. But how to get to the clarity? I don’t have an answer.

I didn’t see much in my monoprints. I had no clear vision of what I wanted to do and I needed one. I just kept playing for the sake of exploration. The image on the left above is one of my monoprints. It said nothing to me but later I found a wee corner of it that held a small gift. I like the intense center in the field of magenta, a color of passion, and the hints of light. I inverted the image in Photoshop and got a brilliant center of light in a field of green, nature’s color, with hints of darkness on the side. This holds possibility for further exploration but I didn’t pick up on them in the moment.

Instead I started painting—pink and yellow stripes, inspired by one of the other students who was doing dots and had spoken of the color pink. I loved the stripes—happy Rothkos. These are small, just nine inches, and I wonder what they’d be like huge. There’s a great group of Rothko images in a room of their own at the Tate Modern and they invoke in me a sense of powerful presence and stillness. I encountered them first when I was about twenty and had a near religious experience. Palpitations and all. Their soberness seems to give strength. It’s stately rather than hopeless.

I wonder what pink and yellow stripes would be like large. What would they invoke? It’s still cold and grey and raining here in Boston and I suspect I’m thinking of tulips. Anyway, I love these little stripes just for being there. Enough for now. More painterly and printerly explorations next week.

April 16th, 2007 | Category: Drawing Life | Leave a comment