Lines and Swirls, Dots and Spashes

I am always fascinated to see the work of fellow artists in any group to which I belong in some fashion. The annual exhibitions of groups into which one has to be juried in some (often stringent) fashion are one example. The catalogues of shows by the National Association of Women Artists, the American Artists Professional League, Catherine Lorilliard Wolfe Art Club, the Pen and Brush or Georgia Watercolor Society, for instance, are wonderfully diverse, frequently of very high quality, and decidedly interesting overall.

Another group whose work I viewed today on the Web is formed by very distinguished artists whose work is in the New Hall Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, England. This is the pre-eminent collection of women's artworks in Great Britain. Artists in the collection were sent a small piece of paper and asked to create original art for auction on line to raise money for maintenance of the collection. I did a silverpoint drawing of an old cedar tree base, Cedar Lace.

Cedar Lace. silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist, private collection

Looking at the work now offered for auction on the New Hall website reminded me, once again, of the wonderful diversity of approach we all have as artists. Since each one of us had the same size piece of paper on which to work, it makes it even more interesting to see what each person has done. Lines and swirls, dots and splashes are indeed in evidence, with celebrations of so many different voices and ways of expression. New Hall has very sensibly made the initial bid very modest - £20 or $32.50 - and then you can bid in £5/$8 increments. Not bad at all as a way to own some of the top British artists' work.

I am reminded of the French exclamation: Vive la différence! It all makes for such an interesting world.

"Art – in every lane"

It is always fascinating to discover the wellspring of artists' sources and inspiration. John Constable once remarked, "My limited and abstracted art is to be found under every hedge and in every lane, and therefore nobody thinks it worth picking up."

Plants by a Wall, 1825, John Constable  - Not even "under a hedge"!

It is somewhat amazing to realise that he described his art as "limited and abstracted". If you look at a wide array of his paintings in oil and watercolour and his drawings, on a site such as John Constable.org , the overwhelming impression is his close, detailed attention to the flat, wide world of East Anglia and even beyond to the sea when he was staying at Brighton.  His studies, when working en plein air, are wonderful in their atmospheric evocation and detailed information.

Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, 1824, John Constable

Barges on the Stour, with Dedham Church in the Distance, 1811, John Constable

Suffolk, where he was born and mostly lived, is open to the blustery winds off the North Sea, with clouds banks shadowing the wide fields, tree-lined lanes and stretches of water (such as the Water Meadows near Salisbury). Constable never forgot his rural surroundings, but he certainly did not show them to be limited. Abstracted, maybe, but not in the sense we tend to use "abstraction" today.

Water-meadows near Salisbury, Oil painting, 1820 or 1829 (Image courtesy of the V & A Museum, London)

I find that it is indeed rewarding to go for a walk in our quiet neighbourhood along the riverside and by the marshes. Here too, there are always sources of ideas for drawings and paintings, and even though I know the area very well, the changes of season and light make everything fresh each time. And whilst it may be something that no one else notices, I find myself getting all excited about different things and views.

Along our sandy lane is an endless fascination for me: the remains of a cedar tree, clearly once a mighty seer, but now sinews and lace that become a myriad abstractions.

Cedar Remains, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

I keep drawing different portions of it in silverpoint . At left is one version of my "art – in the lane" abstraction, "Cedar Remains". Below is a smaller drawing I have done from the same cedar skeleton of "Cedar Lace", also in silverpoint which I am donating to the Newhall Art Collection, at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, England, for their fund-raising auction in February-March. It should be up on their website in February.

Cedar Lace, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Constable was indeed wise when he went seeking his art "under every hedge and in every lane". We have all benefited ever since.