Art and Oxygen

Yesterday, I was listening to a doctor talk about the value of oxygen for someone who is suffering from heart problems and resultant breathing difficulties, even if it is just creating a "bubble" of enriched oxygen around the mouth and nose of the patient. Better breathing, a heart that feels more functional and thus an increased feeling of well-being – a simple, but important path to an improved quality of life. But of course, in order to have the supply of this extra oxygen, you have to set up either a tank or machine, and take the time to get the oxygen treatment.

Today, I was reading the December edition of ARTNews, with a feature article on Marina Abramovic and her upcoming presence at MOMA, New York. She was quoted as saying, "Artists have to serve as oxygen to society." Her objective is to get people to stop and gain a sense of time through her performance art, and thereby alter their perspective and perception of their surroundings, world and life in general. In essence, she becomes the oxygen tank.

Marina Abramovic

I think that just about every form of art - visual, performance, musical, whatever - can have this intrinsic value of causing people to stop, even momentarily, and thus alter their perception of the world around them. Perhaps that is why people have created "cabinets de curiosités" and then museums full of wonders – they provide the oxygen to allow societies to breathe deeply, reflect, learn and enrich life. A beautiful photograph, a wonderful painting, a drawing, a piece of music - I know that my life has been made rich beyond belief by seeing or hearing such art, and that frequently the image or the sound has stayed with me long after.

No wonder Ms. Abramovic used such a metaphor of how to maintain or engender a healthy life or a healthy society.

Another health benefit from art

Not so long ago, I was writing about the different ways art could help heal people. I was therefore fascinated to read in yesterday's ArtDaily.org about a programme at Britain's National Gallery called Ageing Creatively. It is designed to involved people who may be isolated, unable to get out much and generally in need of mental stimulation and companionship, including - at present - people suffering from aphasia, difficulties in communicating in any form, a situation often brought on by suffering a stroke.

By learning ways of painting that, for instance 17th century artists used, the participants are creating art work, and then turning to more modern art to do the same sort of thing. Apparently, all these sorts of activities are hugely helpful and the art is the pathway to a lot of healing.

National Gallery Innovative Art Project For Stroke Suvivors to Restore Creativity

Alzheimer's art therapy tours at National Gallery of Australia boost dementia sufferers' wellbeing

The National Gallery Outreach Officer, Emma Rehm, describes the many faceted Ageing Creatively programme thus: “Participatory projects which use art as their starting point bring clear benefits for people with disabilities in terms of physical stimulation, sociability, creativity and enjoyment, and this can have a positive effect on health and general well-being. Participants will be able to share their thoughts and use the National Gallery paintings as inspiration for their own work.” Newham Council’s Executive Member for Health, Councillor Clive Furness, said: “When people suffer a serious or debilitating condition, there is the fear that their useful and creative life is at an end. Projects like this enable people to discover and develop new skills, and to do so in the company of a group of friends."

I can't think of a more constructive endorsement for the role of art in daily life for everyone, no matter what the situation.

Brittany Plein Air for Artist Gourmets - an Art and Gastronomy Workshop, Dinan, France

I have been sending out the first copies of my newly-completed brochure about this Art and Gastronomy Workshop in Brittany, France, planned for May 3rd-12th, 2010. Ten days of plein air work during the day and in the evening, the participants will be welcomed with gourmet meals celebrating the superb local seafood and fresh produce. The text of this brochure is posted on the News Page of my website.

The iconic image of this area of Brittany is, of course, Mont Saint Michel.

Mont St. Michel, Brittany, Rundle Cook photographer

This is a map of Brittany, a wonderful part of France. The area for the workshop is in North Brittany. Rennes is the main rail link with Paris, with a direct train from the Charles deGaulle Airport.

Map of Brittany

The Workshop will be based at Le Clos Saint Cadreuc, a 1633 farmhouse with elegant long grey stone buildings, which has been converted to a beautifully appointed bed and breakfast establishment. Its location on the map below is in blue. Highly recommended by many guidebooks, it was listed in Britain's travel "bible" written by Alastair Sawday. It is located amid wonderful farmland, just a few minutes inland from spectacular coastal scenery, ranging from golden sweeps of beach to plunging cliffs and vast oyster and mussel beds in long reaches fingering into the land.

St. Malo area, Brittany, showing the location of Le Clos Saint Cadreuc

Brigitte and Patrick Noël are the hosts of Le Clos Saint Cadreuc and they will facilitate this workshop and provide the wonderful meals. Patrick is not only an artist himself but his deep knowledge of the area, from architecture to botanical gardens or coastal gems, will enable the artists to go to wonderful places to create art. Non-painting partners will have plenty to do as well. Meanwhile, Brigitte is the perfect chef and host of this most comfortable establishment. This is a photo of us dining out one night at Eric and Pascale Lemale's wonderful  Restaurant Du Colle on the water, in Saint-Lunaire. (Brigitte is on the right, Patrick centre and I am on the left.)

Du Colle Restaurant, with Jeannine Cook, left, Patrick at centre and Britgitte on the right, Rundle Cook photograpiher

I will be the leader for this plein air group, having spent many a fascinated and humbled hour working outside in all weather conditions, in Europe and all around North America. Not only have I loved doing this sort of work but I have been lucky enough to be awarded a number of Artist Residencies to work in this fashion. The month I was awarded as Artist in Residence at Les Amis de la Grande Vigne in Dinan in late 2008 led me to plan this workshop for 2010.

The beauty of the area is unforgettable, and May is the best month of spring in Brittany.

Here are some photographs to give you a flavour of this wonderful area. These photographs were all taken by my husband, Rundle Cook, who was with me in Dinan.

If you are interested in learning more about this workshop, log on to my website, www.jeanninecook.com and check out the details on the News page. Or e-mail me directly at jeanninecook1@cs.com for a complete brochure and application form.

My Art-Tasting open studio - December 5th

Well, the house is turned upside down and has become an airy, spacious studio in which my artwork is out on display. The windows are clean, the floors scrubbed, the flood lights placed outside to turn the oak trees into wondrous night-time cathedrals. The guest list is filling fast and the caterers primed. All these are the rituals of preparing for my Art-Tasting, the fifteenth year I am doing this open studio and wine-tasting, now a tradition for many faithful friends and collectors.

I am sure that every artist experiences the same moments of surprise, sometimes irritation, and general feeling of being able more dispassionately to assess the art hung at an exhibition. I find it an interesting experience every time my art is exhibited, for of course, each piece has a different conversation, depending in part on its neighbours and the general context. Displaying watercolours, silverpoint and graphite drawings together seems to work, thank goodness, and they are definitely the ying and yang of each other. However, a unity in matting and framing help pull everything together. The art of displaying is just as much a skill as the creation of any artwork - and one can constantly learn about placement, context, lighting, labelling.

Now to hope that the weather gods will be kind for tomorrow - Cedar Point is always more beautiful in the soft December afternoon sunlight. Greeting guests and friends is a delight, however, no matter what the weather.

The Marshes at Cedar Point, Georgia

Art to lift the Spirits of the Sick

I have known for many a long year how important it is to have art along the walls of hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices, but just recently, on a personal basis, I have had that theoretical knowledge made vividly real. Walking along the corridors of the local Hospice, it was indeed uplifting and calming to see art on the wall, of all types but all powerful enough to be appreciated.

Art Tour - Mayo Clinic Patient Video Guide - Florida

Many years ago, I was advocating at our local hospital that their building enlargement process should include original artwork on the walls, a message initially received with reticence. However, artwork was soon to be seen throughout the large facilities, and I was lucky enough to have my work purchased as well. I had a vivid affirmation of what art could do because, soon after, a friend phoned me to say that he had had to make a 3 a.m. emergency visit to the ICU, where one of my paintings was hanging on the wall opposite the elevator door on the ICU floor. "I can't tell you," he continued", how calming and helpful it was to see your work on that wall, in the midst of my anxiety." It was one of the best compliments I have ever received.

Now, there are countless studies which clearly demonstrate how valuable art can be in medical environments. Last year, Dr. Lee Eliot Major was writing in the UK Daily Telegraph about work done in Italy and in the wonderful children's hospital at Great Ormond Street, London. This autumn, a long article in the Chicago Tribune by Joanna Broder addressed the help given by getting sick children immersed in creating art through the Snow City Foundation. The Dallas Morning News ran a long article in October this year about all the research done, since the 1960s, on what kinds of art help people heal better in a hospital situation - no surprise that more easily "understandable" art, like reasonably realistic landscapes, for instance, was more accepted than abstract art which required perhaps an effort for a sick person to relate to.

Extrapolating from medical environments to one's daily environment, it would seem that the message for us all is - have art on your walls that lifts your spirits, calms you, interests you and, in general, enhances your daily life. Not such a bad prescription!

Nature and a Sense of Time

Between preparing for my Art-Tasting open studio on December 5th and attending to family health matters, I am itching to get back to creating art. However, as I wrote in a previous blog (Daily Delights of November 26th), the natural world around me is sustaining and nurturing.

I was reminded of an article I had read in El Pais back in June, where journalist Isabel Lafont was interviewing Marina Abramovic. Whilst discussing her performance art, Ms. Abramovic talked of her upcoming MOMA retrospective that will last three months, with her performing day in, day out, all day in front of the public. The resultant mental and physical changes in her would thus be perceptible to the viewing public. She went on to remark, "We live in times that are so fleeting that we need to stop and become aware of the present moment. Artists need to do this and ensure that people stop for a moment and come to a sense of the here and now." (My translation from Spanish).

For me, nature provides that passport to the sense of here and now. When I am painting or drawing subjects from the natural world, that I hope will convey my messages to the viewing public about the healing, centering power of nature, I find that time stands still. One's sense of time is always relative, anyway, (haven't we all wondered when, oh when, something important will finally happen, or when something horrid will just end and go away?), but when I get involved in art, time has absolutely no meaning.

Calla Lilies, Palma, silverpoint Jeannine Cook artist

If people viewing my silverpoint drawings or watercolour pause and lose track of time for a moment or more, then I feel that perhaps I have been able to convey something of the timelessness and healing power of nature.

Daily delights

Since I have been involved with hanging an art exhibition for my upcoming open studio/wine-tasting event, my 15th Annual Art-Tasting, on December 5th, the business side of my brain has had to dominate in the past days.

Nonetheless, there are daily delights that feed the right brain and give me such joy as I busy myself in the studio. Looking out of the windows onto the salt water creek in front of the house, for instance, I caught sight of huge swirls of water along the edge of the creek. Curious, I grabbed the binoculars, so that I could see more clearly beyond the overhanging tree branches. Lo and behold, about fifteen white ibis were down on the bank, having the most wonderful, vigourous baths in the salt water. Once drenched, they flew up into the trees above. There, they shook out their feathers, poked and preened, stretched and fluffed. Such a production. The final stage in the grey early morning was a concerted flight up to the roof of our house, one wet ibis after another. It must have been the best source of heat around, in their estimation. In due course, looking up, I saw a V formation of pearly white-breasted ibis taking off from the roof - all dry and clean, ready for breakfast!

White Ibis in the Marshes

Other moments that give a wonderful moment of respite come from watching four brown pelicans glide in wondrous formation just above the water, seemingly effortless in their aerial ballet as they patrolled the creek for a likely meal of small fish.

Brown Pelicans (Image courtesy of Phil Lanoue Photography)

Or glimpsing a gathering of wood storks sailing higher and higher above the marshes on a thermal, soaring so effortlessly on their wide-spread wings, the essence of elegance that always makes me think of Japanese brush paintings of storks. Some while ago, I did a big watercolour painting of the wood storks, for I find them so magical.

Soaring above Creighton, watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

Autumn brings its own share of sounds on the water too. Suddenly, we can hear the wonderful growling call of mergansers as they bob in unison far down the creek, fishing and preening in a mass of vibrant black dots on the water. The best sounds, however, are those of the dolphins blowing as they surface to breath, before diving again to fish and play. These sounds are a daily delight that are an enormous privilege to hear.

Somehow, preparing an art exhibition gets done, between these delicious distractions!

The Pope and his invocation of "beauty"

I am sure that a considerable number of members of the general art community around the world must have read with interest about the Pope's invitation to artists to a gathering at the Sistine Chapel this past 21st Nov. Whatever one's thoughts about such a invitation, the mere fact that one could sit, peacefully, and look at Michelangelo's ceiling in its brilliantly coloured restoration would make the invitation worth accepting, I suspect. About 250 artists of all disciplines did accept, apparently - from Placido Domingo to Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid.

The Sistine Chapel

Since the Pope and the Vatican have quite a lot of fence-mending to do with the art world, in many ways, this was an interesting development. (Check out Edward Winkleman's comments too on the Pope's speech.) Whilst the Pope's announcement that the Vatican will participate in the 2011 Venice Biennale is a clear signal of involvement in the contemporary art scene, his speech seemed to dwell more on "beauty" and its potential pathway to the "transcendent". In some ways, his words resonate when he said, "In a world lacking in hope, with increasing signs of aggression and despair, there is an ever greater need for a return to spirituality in art."

Benedict XVI also said, "What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - if not beauty?" Moreover, "the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful."

Wonderful words, hard to define really, let alone put into practice. Especially when the Pope also talked of "the beauty thrust on us is (too often) illusory and deceitful. It imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy." Frankly, that is a passage that leaves me wondering who defines the Vatican's version of beauty. I don't know enough of present Vatican cultural politics. Does anyone else who is reading this ?

Nonetheless, I find it refreshing to see such a figure as the Pope talking of beauty and its central role in life, spiritually and culturally. Not so very long ago, particularly in the United States, the word, "beauty" was very much out of fashion in the art world. We are all impoverished when beauty, in its many, many forms and versions, is not part of our daily lives.

More Thoughts on Creative Passion

I was fascinated to listen, this morning, to Krista Tippett's programme, Speaking of Faith, during which she was interviewing Adele Diamond, a cognitive developmental neuroscientist who currently teaches at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

During the wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Diamond alluded to passages of various books which she had assembled in a book to present to the Dalai Lama whom she saw at Dharamsala, India, during a Mind and Life Institute dialogue. She cited one that made me reflect on what I had been saying in my blog yesterday about passion driving artists in particular. She quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from his book, "God and Man" and whilst the passage talks of a poet or a musician, the excerpt applies absolutely to visual artists too.

"Deeds set upon ideal goals, deeds performed not with careless ease and routine but in exertion and submission to their ends are stronger than the surprise and attack of caprice. Serving sacred goals may change mean motives. For such deeds are exacting. Whatever our motive may have been prior to the act, the act itself demands undivided attention. Thus the desire for reward is not the driving force of the poet in his creative moments, and the pursuit of pleasure or profit is not the essence of a religious or moral act. (My emphasis.)

At the moment in which an artist is absorbed in playing a concerto the thought of applause, fame or remuneration is far from his mind. His complete attention, his whole being is involved in the music. Should any extraneous thought enter his mind, it would arrest his concentration and mar the purity of his playing. The reward may have been on his mind when he negotiated with his agent, but during the performance it is the music that claims his complete concentration. (My emphasis again.) Man’s situation in carrying out a religious or moral deed is similar. Left alone, the soul is subject to caprice. Yet there is power in the deed that purifies desires. It is the act, life itself, that educates the will. The good motive comes into being while doing the good.”

What caught my attention was the issue of being totally involved in the act of creation, and not thinking of anything else like monetary reward, for instance.

Self-Portrait, 1659, Rembrandt (Image courtesy of the National Gallery)

Self-Portrait at the age of 63, Rembrandt.1669, (Image courtesy of the National Gallery)

So often one hears of artists caught up in having to paint in a certain fashion because previous versions of the painting/drawing or whatever have sold well, and pretty soon, the art being created ceases to have the same impact and nears the situation of "pot boiler". Yes, of course, there are definitely economic considerations, especially now, but nonetheless, there is always this danger lurking of "arresting concentration and marring purity". In other words, the passion for creation has been dissipated.

Branding, images and self-promotion

Just recently, it seems that every programme I listen to on National Public Radio or any magazine I read alludes to the necessity of branding in these times of high unemployment and economic woes. Very understandable, but as an artist, this is a topic that comes up, right from the moment one starts being an artist.

Listening carefully to the advice proffered and stratagems advised, I am often left thinking that the one thing I don't hear much talked about is passion. And yet, in the art world, without the passion to dream, plan, create and - frequently - promote, it is very hard and difficult sledding. So often, too, the passion that an artist feels is the best platform for other people to connect with the art created, making the artist the best sales person for him or herself. "You exist only in what you do" is a true observation when it comes to branding yourself in the economic and creative marketplaces. Federico Fellini, the wonderful Italian film maker, was very accurate in this observation.

Frederico Fellini in the 19560s

Being true to a vision and belief in oneself means that there has to be a dialogue with that small inner voice that each of us has. The magic of any creative venture is that since each of us is different, responding to different experiences and environments, the art produced will most likely be individual and distinctive. That art can become a branding vehicle to make that artist's work recognisable, a vehicle to promotion if need be. In some strange way, too, an artist who is passionate and committed about making art creates work that rings true to the viewer, no matter what the type of art. Passion is one of the most fabulous attributes of a human being, it seems to me – in every realm of life – the essence of being alive. As Fellini also remarked, "There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life."