Reaching for the Sky

Reaching for the Sky

29 x 12 Mixed Media on Canvas

Of the three paintings I was trying to finish before the art fair this weekend I managed to get one done. Everyone always asks if artists have a favorite painting. Maybe temporarily and because that painting represents a new pinnacle for us: a merging of techniques or emergence of a new command that seems to gel. But the answer is really that we have favorite subjects to paint. Or a subject we never quite feel we have translated to canvas so we keep attempting it like Monet and his waterlilies or Degas and his ballerinas.

Reaching for the Sky above is a redo of Dawn on Wallstreet/Bryce below. Both are from a photograph I took in 2004 while touring the Utah canyon lands with my sister. The earlier version is still in my collection because I kept it unconsciously. I displayed it at a minor show or two and then hung it on my wall. An old social network friend mentioned it recently as one of her all time favorites of mine.

Dawn on Wallstreet/Bryce 2005

19 x 7

Watercolor on paper

A lot has transpired artistically in five years. I have switched from traditional watercolors to liquid ones. I now paint on watercolor canvas or cradled board as opposed to paper. And I have gone from the rather daring proportions of Dawn to classic proportions of prepared canvas and back to different sizes when I started stretching my own canvas. The conditions were perfect for a redo of this subject. So when Sharon mentioned it as a favorite I dug through my old sketches and came up with the original and redrew it to the larger proportions so that I could repaint this favorite of mine in my new palette.

I am inclined to say, "You've come a long way, Baby." Dawn is a fairly adequate artistic rendering of a segment of the photograph. But Reaching is the light and the emotion I felt at the bottom of those walls of hoodoos looking up at this tree that reached the sky in spite of all the odds against it.

Show Prep

There was a time between art fairs when I just kept my work boxed up. That was the time before the studio. There was not enough room to hang my work. And I did not have to consider people dropping by the studio to look at my art work. The boxed art work in the tiny room I had to paint in got in the way of doing any more new work between shows too.

The studio has changed things. I can now paint up until almost the last day before a fair. Nothing has to get boxed up to go to the fair until Thursday afternoon. And I seem driven to get at least one or two new pieces done before that happens. Ergo my studio table this morning still cluttered with paint and brushes and three uncompleted works.

And not everything goes to the fair these days, which is a good reason to visit my studio. Given my creative drive of late, and my new minimal approach to displays at fairs a lot of work will be left behind on the walls. Maybe even these three I am working so hard to complete.

It is nice to be able to pick and choose whether it is for a fair or a competitive exhibit. Nice to also be able to look around the studio and see how I handled the sky in that painting or the effect of a wash technique in another. It is nice not to have my creative life in boxes all summer long.

Every artist should have a studio with lots of wall space to get their work out of the closet.

Stop and Look at the Skies

Life has been too busy lately. So busy I have not been looking at the skies outside my studio as I usually do. Or so I thought until I grabbed my camera to take a picture, and quickly checking the remaining images on the scandisc noticed I had taken quite a few pictures I had not downloaded: Stress, senility or Alzheimers?

Imagine my pleasant surprise when downloading this morning to find that even with my busy schedule I had been picking up the camera and recording the world outside my window remembering it or not. We are in a strange atmospheric condition here in the mountains. The heat of the day has been causing rising warm air up the side of the mountains mingling with moisture drifting in from cut off storm systems creating interesting cloud patterns. I post these for my artist friend, Jennifer, who has been away from our valley too much.

You can definitely see the "foot print" of the winds in this dawn image.

This "ghost" cloud sort of swept in, grew and then vanished as the sun evaporated it.

I took this yesterday evening right after a severe storm warning was issued. I had been so involved in the petty issues of the day I had totally missed any clouds outside.

I think we should never be too busy to notice the world around us.

Portrait, portraiture, self-portraits

Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale

I have some friends debating what exactly a portrait is. Wiki defines a portrait as a painting, photograph or sculpture or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.

Before the advent of photography portraiture was one of the mainstays of an artist's income. People wanted accurate and life like representations of  their loved ones. However it proved that even confined to black and white the camera could do this better.

Thomas Dilward by Matthew Brady

So with the impressionists painters began going a different direction with portraiture. It became less about an exact physical representation of the figure being painted and more about the personality or life force of the individual.

Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso

Martel Chapman by Pablo Picasso

The goal of some artists with a portrait or self-portrait became to tell whole stories as in Freda Kahlo's self-portrait Roots.

Salvador Dali got even further out with his famous Portrait of Picasso where he tried through surrealism to represent the complex personality of his friend and subject.

Andrew Wyeth in his famous Cristina's World does not show us the face of his subject but what her life is about.

All of which raised the issue among artists and even photographers if any representation of the actual physical person had to be in the image of a portrait. Could you in fact say as much about your subject by taking a photograph of their studio?

It is not all about painting

Being an artist in this day and age is not all about painting unfortunately. Oh, but that it were. Frequent readers of this blog will know that in the past month it was all about getting enough paintings done of the right sort for the Red River Fine Arts and Wine Festival. By right sort I mean for the customers AND for the judges.

As an artist I do want to sell paintings but I also want to win awards to advance my reputation and I want to not disappoint the promoters of a fair or festival. We sign contracts and if you don't live up to that you don't get asked back.

Fairs are just part of the picture. Exhibitions are another. I have two I want to submit entries for in the next month (one in just two weeks) and by choosing paintings to submit I am also pulling them out of the next fair. Be very embarrassing to have a piece you sold be accepted. So what pieces to submit becomes a complex issue especially when the possibility of a work of yours winning a state exhibition is in the offing. Such list of awards looks good on the art vita which needs amended after the last Best of Show.

That is where my head has been the last week. Today I am going to pull it out of that and do some painting.

Best of Show

When I first won a ribbon at an art show I was rather embarrassed. It reminded me of dog shows. I have had dogs with lots of ribbons. Now my art work has lots of ribbons. Added two to the growing collection this last weekend. That's them there on the far right of the photograph of my booth. It was a nice way to kick off the fair season.

The first fair is always a testing ground for your new work and new ideas on how to set up your booth. I was going for the minimalist which is being touted by several artist publications. Supposedly the biggest mistake artists make at shows is crowd too much work into too little a space. I had some real doubts when I hung the last piece up Saturday morning. OMG I don't have ENOUGH. And there were moments when I thought I should have brought this painting or that. But the response to the booth and the art in the booth soon calmed my fears of change. It was a stunning presentation if I do say so myself.

The question now is how to translate this look to the next fair where there will be strict adherence to 10' x 10' box. Outdoor fairs always allow more "spread" with chairs and business desks allowed outside your booth. Inside fairs with limited aisle space can be sticklers about nothing being outside that space. And it is wise to know which fair allows what. Some you can put your chair outside but no extension of your display like print racks. Others not even the chair siting fire code restrictions for not impeding traffic.

Course some theories on art promotion and sales maintain you should not even have a chair. You lose sales if you sit down. I think it is to be noted the writers of these articles are sitting in plush office chairs and not standing on hard slab floors for six to eight hours. After all weekend even well manicured park grass feels hard and unyielding.

First Fair of the Season

I always do this thing of trying to paint up until the last minute. Stupid. Why do I year after year forget the work involved with preparation for the first fair of the season? Part of it is just re-checking all the boxes that have been in the storage shed with the stuff needed like tent stakes and bungees, duck tape and zip locks. Then there is updating title cards and inventory (OMG didn't get to that last one).

In point of fact as I was packing paintings yesterday I took Bridge of Enchantments down off the wall and realized up to that moment I had even forgotten I had done it. It appeared no where on the title cards or inventory or list of updates or even on my Facebook Fan Page. I was sure I did not have enough work for this first fair but now I wonder if I have enough room in the van.

This can be a bit problematic with the Red River Fine Arts and Wine Festival because I will set up the tent and display panels today and not bring over the art until tomorrow morning. Ergo it does not all have to be in the van at once until time to return on Sunday night. Hopefully I sell a lot so there is less to pack up.

My friend, Jennifer Cavan, just posted on Facebook that she is doing seven shows in the next nine weeks. She has a boy (codeword for husband) to help. And at least with fairs that close you probably never unpack. But still she will have missed summer in the mountains. I already feel as if I have neglected my garden and pets and house repairs just to prep for three shows in the neighborhood as it were.

So why do we do this? Good question. It certainly isn't for the money in this depressing economy. But I do have to sell some work so I can paint some more. And as an artist I always want to paint some more. In fact I have this great idea for a new painting I want to do before Artsfest. Guess I will pop the sketch book in the van tomorrow for those quiet moments at the fair while hoping there aren't any.