Art and Gardening by Jeannine Cook

Garden designers and gardeners have always recognised the role that design and art play in the formation of a garden, even - in some cases - a vegetable garden. The Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library (www.rhs.org.uk/learning/library/) is a wonderful collection of wisdom on gardening, its history and garden design. But any of us can have a great deal of fun in a garden when we regard it as a living canvas for our art.

Just as a painting has to be organised, so does a garden. Both really need structural "bones", an underlying structure on which to clad the later work of colour. Trees, foundation shrubs, permanent structures likes pergolas, columns or stone walls, all fall into this category. In the same way, it is often very rewarding to put down a totally abstract, strong under painting on canvas before you start on any image painting. For both garden or painting, it is really about creating an experience. John Dewey described in Art as Experience, "The artist selected, simplified, clarified, abridged and condensed according to his interest". Just as you plan a painting that excites, challenges and stimulates or soothes, calms and welcomes, so you can design a garden that elicits a host of reactions from anyone viewing it. Large or small, every garden soon has its own character and atmosphere.

Only after the initial underlying structure stage of creation can colour be added with success. On a canvas, yes, it is of course paint. In the garden, it is a bewildering array of plants which offer varying colour and shapes from leaves or flowers, annual or perennial, seasonality and size requirements.... all dependent on the micro and macro-climate you have. In other words, endless choices and fun. Nonetheless, in the garden, just as in a painting or drawing, the fewer the elements involved, the stronger they have to be from a visual point of view.

Gardening is in some ways more like some disciplines of contemporary art - the garden does not have to endure for a great length of time, given that you can use annuals or you know that everything will change as the seasons turn. But gardens, ideally, do share a longer term aspect of more traditional art - the trees and shrubs can potentially last for centuries, as an artist hopes his or her work on canvas, paper, clay, etc. will do....

Climbing the Wall, Palma, watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

Climbing the Wall, Palma, watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

Whichever the creation, painting or garden, it can be the source of interest, pleasure and delight to innumerable other people. That compensates for the hours of planning and hard labour that have gone into the work... but at least in painting, you seldom get blisters!

Hidden from Sight by Jeannine Cook

Today, when the art materials industry and art instruction world have hugely increased in size, everyone can easily turn to art, either to create or to support its creation. The statistics abound to show what a beneficial multiplier factor the arts are to an area's economy, and the arts are viewed very positively.

It is, however, still, a rather solitary occupation to be an artist. No matter what the discipline, it remains a discipline requiring a person ultimately to produce something. In painting or drawing, for instance, it is mostly the artist's passion which will keep the creation going. In that dedication to creating a work, there is a lot that goes on "behind the scenes". When I conceive of a drawing or painting, there are initially decisions as to the medium (silverpoint drawing or graphite, for instance, or watercolours or acrylics), the format (horizontal or vertical, large or small), or is it going to be one piece or one in a series. Once those basic choices are made, there are then the decisions as to how to convey the concept, what to say, how to say it, why is it important?

Studies and exploratory drawings help the preparation. And it is at that stage, often, that the essence of the idea - the essence of a person's character for a portrait, or the spirit of the land in a landscape, for example - becomes paramount. What is "hidden from our sense of sight", as art consultant and author Roger H. Boulet wrote on draughtswoman Ann Kipling of British Columbia, is something that each artist needs to tap into, albeit often unconsciously. Paula Rego (see my blog entry of April 1st) was talking of tapping into this when she talked of the excitement of a voyage into the unknown each time she starts drawing. Intensity of observation, vitality of expression, a willingness to push through to evoke life itself - those are pathways to creation that each artist travels willingly, knowing they are important. And each of us, as artists, recognises that those journeys are lonely but rewarding.

Study for 'The Dance', Paula rego (Image courtesy of the Tate)

Study for 'The Dance', Paula rego (Image courtesy of the Tate)

The Dance, oil, Paula Rego, 1986, (Image courtesy of the Tate)

The Dance, oil, Paula Rego, 1986, (Image courtesy of the Tate)

The Excitement of Drawing by Jeannine Cook

I have always admired Paula Rego's capacity to draw really well and also to skewer people in the political art she does so effectively. I was really thrilled when I was accepted into the New Hall Women's Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, (www-art.newhall.cam.ac.uk/gallery/artists) because they have some of Rego's work. Now Paula Rego is having a new museum dedicated to her in Cascais, Portugal, her home country, and she is ever more enthusiastic about drawing. In a recent interview with Andrew Lambirth in The Spectator (http://www.spectator.co.uk/), she talked about the process of creation through just getting on and doing the drawing, mindful of the changes which will probably take place. She explained, ..."when you discover what things look like from drawing them, it's most exciting. You forget everything else because your attention is totally focused on what you are doing ..."

Drawing is indeed a most exciting adventure every time you pick up a drawing instrument. You learn how things are put together and how they work, in space, in differing lights, in time. You have no idea what really will happen on the paper until you have completed the drawing (or, more accurately, when it tells you that you have finished...). The initial concept or inspiration that impelled one to launch on the drawing in the first place is never the whole story. As you look hard, at length and with increased understanding, at what you are drawing, you - the artist - are changing too. Your imagination is being stimulated and all sorts of new connections and thoughts occur. Every time one does even the briefest of drawings, life is enriched.

Pomagne, Paula Rego., 1996 (Image courtesy of the Tate)

Pomagne, Paula Rego., 1996 (Image courtesy of the Tate)

No wonder Paula Rego talks of losing track of time when she is drawing. All acts of creation are miraculous erasers of the sense of time! Just ask the patient companion of any artist who has been assured that "this will just take five minutes to do..." as the artist tries to do a quick drawing or painting; half an hour later, or more, the companion is still probably waiting, less patiently! Being totally focused on drawing or painting is incredibly meditative and often healing too. Frequently I find that my sense of "the world being in balance" is directly related to how much I am painting or drawing. It has little to do with the degree of success of the art you are doing - it is the act of creation that counts. It is back to that excitement of drawing - the next voyage of discovery.

"Seeing with new eyes" by Jeannine Cook

I am still immersed in drawing spring flowers and was thus thinking further about looking at things as if it were for the first time. Change the light that is shining, for instance, on a white azalea, and it instantly becomes a new entity. That is an aspect of working from real life, particularly en plein air, which makes for perpetual challenges and interest. You have to decide to "freeze" light at one stage or another and then try and keep to that consistent light play. Otherwise, your drawing or painting can become rather incoherent if you are hewing to realism. On the other hand, it also means that you can do a completely new work, a new "landscape", without moving from your chosen site.

It is not only in visual art that seeing things in an active way brings rewards. I came upon a statement Professor Alison Richard, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University (www.cantab.org), made in a newsletter about fundraising for Cambridge's 800th Anniversary Campaign. In it, she quoted Marcel Proust saying, " the real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes" and celebrated that the Campaign had brought new eyes to Cambridge. Fresh appraisals of all and everything are often worthwhile - from how the US Government is run, thanks to the Obama Administration's new eyes, to an interpretation by Ian Bostridge (www.ianbostridge.com) at the Savannah Music Festival (http://www.savannahmusicfestival.org) of Schubert's songs, that I have not heard since I listened to a long-ago recital by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. If one is open and curious, new landscapes abound.

Listening to the Schubert songs, I reverted to thinking visually, seeing colours in Ian Bostridge's beautiful sounds and interpretations. Somehow, in some of the Lieder, there were effects that Sonia or Robert Delaunay would have loved to paint, I felt. A capricious thought, possibly, but one I would not have had without metaphorical "new eyes".

Sonia Delaunay, 1914, Prismes électriques, oil on canvas, (Image courtesy of Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris)

Sonia Delaunay, 1914, Prismes électriques, oil on canvas, (Image courtesy of Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris)

Catching up with spring by Jeannine Cook

Spring in coastal Georgia comes with such a rush of beauty and imperatives that there is never enough time to celebrate it all. Suddenly there are a myriad subjects to draw in silverpoint, another vast selection to paint in watercolours - and time never suffices.

Azalea trio, silverpoint, Jeanninie Cook artist

Azalea trio, silverpoint, Jeanninie Cook artist

It is always interesting to return to a subject that one has drawn or painted before; every artist has favourite themes to visit and revisit over time. It is astonishing how a simple flower, such as an azalea, can elicit different reactions and dictate different approaches every time it is drawn or painted. No wonder museums have such diverse collections of paintings and drawings which include and celebrate flowers. Think of the heyday of Dutch flower painting in the 17th century, when so many talented artists followed Jacques de Gheyn II's example. He was one of the earliest artists (1565-1629), who depicted wonderful tulips, roses and other flowers (not all of which bloomed at the same time) to satisfy the demands of the ever-more wealthy Dutch burghers. Since then, Manet, Fatin-Latour, Monet, Renoir, Matisse and so many others have turned to flowers for inspiration again and again.

Perhaps it is because one can see in a flower the basis for realism or pure abstraction - at the same time, really - that it is endlessly interesting as a subject. Added to which, I personally find a serenity and elegant logic to a flower that delight. However, each time, there is a surprise in how the structure works and I am often reminded of Paul Valery's statement: "Until you draw an object, you realise that you have never actually seen it." And so one rushes to catch the fleeting spring glories, to try and "see" them close up and celebrate them - again!

Lines by Jeannine Cook

Lines loom large in all our lives from a very young age. Who hasn't taken a pencil, a pen, even a lipstick, and made energetic, happy scribbles on all sorts of surfaces from early childhood? Those were our drawings, and they often won praise and encouragement.

Later, lines become the underpinning for paintings, the punctuation marks for long columns of additions in arithmetic or the scaffolding for musical notes on a score. So many uses and so many meanings... But for anyone interested in art, a line becomes more and more nuanced and meaningful. Not only does one learn to use line to express oneself in silverpoint, graphite, pen, paint, charcoal or any other medium, but you also see line much more clearly all around you. For me, the contour lines traced out in grassy strips between ploughed fields to prevent erosion on our farm were some of the earliest memories of line. Even an avenue of trees is two parallel lines that speak of time, order, shade, beauty and horticultural skill - another childhood fascination.

When I draw in silverpoint, lines can whisper or speak loudly, in a metaphorical sense. Just like the lines drawn in space by a violin bow as it moves across the instrument, softly, sensuously, vigourously or hesitantly. Or like the traces of an insect when it walks on a sandy surface. I drew this set of tracks on Sapelo Island, Georgia, in the sand dunes.

Sand Dune Colony, Sapelo - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook, artist

Sand Dune Colony, Sapelo - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook, artist

When one looks at lines drawn by Albrecht Durer (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer) in a silverpoint drawing, such as those in his 1520-21 Diary of A Journey to the Netherlands, they run the gamut of effect and message. As he records an amazing variety of people, places and things he sees during his trip north, the silverpoint lines show his questing eye, trying to understand the anatomy of a dog, the pattern of a tiled floor, the bone structure of a woman's face... Lines in a drawing can show how the artist's eye, brain, hand and paper surface are connecting together; that is why drawings are so often considered so immediate and fresh.

Dog resting, silverpoint, from 1520-21 Sketchbook, Albrecht Dürer (Image courtesy of the British Museum)

Dog resting, silverpoint, from 1520-21 Sketchbook, Albrecht Dürer (Image courtesy of the British Museum)

Frequently lines become like a golden orb spider's magnificent web, linking together in complex fashion to become a drawing, a painting, an architect's structure. Every time we start to work with lines, something unique evolves. A simple line, short, long, interrupted or continuous, can be an amazing creation.

What is the value of art? by Jeannine Cook

With the current economic woes affecting people around the world, artists are on the front line of those adversely affected. The value placed on art becomes ever more important, for everyone involved in the artistic world. So a heartening piece of news is yesterday's announcement that TEFAF Maastricht 2009, the most important and prestigious art and antiques fair in the world, has been a successful fair, with sales strong and museums still buying (www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=28int_new=29771).

Paul Gauguin, Nafea Faa Ipoipo? (When Will You Marry?) 1892, oil on canvas (Image courtesy of the Beyeler Foundation)

Paul Gauguin, Nafea Faa Ipoipo? (When Will You Marry?) 1892, oil on canvas (Image courtesy of the Beyeler Foundation)

One still is left with the nagging question : are we into a new era now, where a higher value is placed on a piece of art for its content, its aesthetic, its humanism... rather than just the value placed on it by the market place, with all its fashions, fads and tendency to treat art as a commodity?

It is always said that an individual buyer should buy a piece of art because he or she likes it and wants to live with it. That dialogue with the art can take innumerable forms but the bottom line is that ideally, there should be a genuine positive reaction to the art. Since art can enhance, enlighten, amuse, inspire, calm, instruct, distract..., on a daily basis, the value placed on the art can end up being rather subjective. Nonetheless, in stressful times such as these, it seems that people increasingly turn to art, music, poetry, and other such creative ventures. Thus their value is much more than monetary. The WPA art projects are an eloquent reminder of how valuable art was held to be during the Great Depression.

If there are still buyers willing to pay high prices for art esteemed to be of high quality, it seems that connoisseurship is trumping fads and fancies of the moment. That is good news for those who value art that addresses aesthetic and humanist aspects and what each work is trying to say.

"Art should be a rebellion" by Jeannine Cook

The wonderful Lebanese bard, Marcel Khalife, was interviewed in late February on PBS by Jeffrey Brown during the Newshour (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/02) about his music and life. Khalife evoked the song he sings, Passport, which uses the words of a haunting poem by the late extraordinary Middle Eastern poet, Mahmoud Dawish. The gist of what he said at one point was that art should be a rebellion, and it should not submit to ordinary life.

Perhaps one of the problems people have with the concept of beauty in art, (see my blog entry of 22.2.2009) is that often art implicitly challenges comfortable assumptions we have about our world and our opinions. A large percentage of artwork, in all media, is overtly or covertly rebellious. Politics, social customs, economic situations - a whole host of issues is addressed by artists in their work. If one is even vaguely aware that there are "subversive" messages in the art, one's opinion can thus possibly be coloured as to whether the art is beautiful or not.

An Act of Rebellion

An Act of Rebellion

Not submitting to "ordinary life", challenging the status quo, can take many forms in art. Even using art, as I often do, to draw attention to our collective potential loss when fragile and often beautiful environments are destroyed, is a certain form of resistance. Coastal Georgia is frequently under assault from "development" and so-called "progress"; any challenge to the notion that destroying places for personal enrichment is perfectly acceptable can be seen as rebellion. Every artist finds issues about which passions are stirred - those issues become that artist's personal rebellion. Society needs lots of artists - their rebellions are ultimately our collective conscience.

Concepts of Beauty by Jeannine Cook

It is interesting to follow the often passionate debate in the art world about beauty. Some people almost seem to reject the notion that beauty might be part of the artistic dialogue, while others feel that some form of beauty is an integral part of artistic creation. Even the definition of beauty is fluid, according to different eras and personal concept.

Whilst the art world is seemingly unsure about any hard and fast rules on concepts of beauty, the photographic world and its related media are much more straightforward on the issue. Beautiful photographs, on a myriad subjects, abound and are enthusiastically recognised as such. Perhaps the camera's eye, focusing on something that exists in the world around us, is sufficiently analytical that it allows us, the viewers, to enjoy the image without feeling quite the need for the aesthetic analysis expected of us when viewing a painting or drawing. Whatever the difference, we are all aware that today's photographers are documenting earth's extraordinary beauties in ever more detailed and dramatic fashion. Whether it is animal, bird or plant photography - on a macro or microscopic scale, in colour or black and white - we can sense the power and beauty of the image. Photographs showing glaciers tumbling into the sea, icebergs forming, marine life deep below the sea surface or innumerable other images documenting the world all resonate with us, and no one cavils at their being labelled beautiful.

Photographers can have just as many concepts and messages behind their images as any visual artist. Their profession is just as demanding as that of a painter, often far more so in terms of danger. The difference perhaps lies with us, the viewing public, in our acceptance of what is beautiful, in what form and done by whom. Today, people are more at home with digital images displayed everywhere. Ideally, we should become just as comfortable with forms of visual art being displayed ubiquitously. Perhaps then we can all relax about what is beautiful and just enjoy the enrichment these creations -digital, painted, drawn - bring to our lives.

"Drawing should be like nature" by Jeannine Cook

Charles Baudelaire, in his statement for L'Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, wrote, "A good drawing is not a hard, despotic, motionless line enclosing a form like a straitjacket. Drawing should be like nature, living and reckless... nature shows us an endless series of curved, fleeting, broken lines, according to an uneering law of generation, in which parallels are always undefined and meandering, and concaves and convexes correspond to and pursue each other."

Today, I was celebrating an incredibly beautiful spring day with friends on a wild and unspoiled barrier island. As we walked along its shoreline, the red cedars and live oaks sprawled towards the marshes, their roots tangled and tenacious. Oyster shells lay glistening white, carpeted above high tide levels by the warm golden russet of freshly fallen live oak leaves. Everywhere I looked, there were joyous, ebullient abstract drawings waiting to be done of the roots of these trees as they twisted and clung, embraced and snaked. Baudelaire could have been thinking of such scenes as he described what a good drawing should be. I am not sure I could live up to the "good" part of his definition, but I do know that I need to return soon to do more silverpoint drawings of this amazing area where marshland meets high ground in reckless turbulent celebration of life and survival.

Tenacity amid the Oyster Shells, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Tenacity amid the Oyster Shells, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

In truth,I have always loved these tangles of red cedar roots, oyster banks and sunlight, as shown by these are two silverpoints I did in coastal Georgia several years ago.

Sunlit Fugue, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Sunlit Fugue, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist