A Little More on Lines

As so often happens, no sooner had I posted my blog on "Lines" than I read about Pat Steir's latest exhibit at Sue Scott Gallery in New York that ended last month. Entitled The Nearly Endless Line, it was a roughly brushed line that wended its way around corners and out of sight in a room, only to reappear, sometimes looping and squiggling to take on a life of its own.

My thanks to the Sue Scott Gallery for the image of Steir's installation.

Sometime emphasised by a slightly darker second line, it stood out from walls painted a deep royal blue that apparently was incredibly densely painted. The other magical ingredient was light, mysterious and other worldly. The immersion in this space, following this line around the room, could signify the passage of time in an almost hallucinogenic setting. Pat Steir, well known for her waterfall, drippy paintings, has also been creating wall drawings and installations for a number of years - I wrote a little about her work when she was showing Pat Steir: Drawing out of Line at the Neuberger Museum in New York at the end of 2010.

The power of a simple line is fascinating, particularly when it is large-scale, against a resonating colour and with appropriate lighting. Steir did Another Nearly Endless Line at the Whitney last year as well - not as powerful as the one at Sue Scott, but still one conveying a questing, thoughtful message.

I can't help thinking too of the power of a single sumi-e ink brush stroke in Chinese or Japanese brush drawings. These marks of beautifully nuanced tone can be a symphony of simplicity, yet make such an impact.

Look at these questing lines of calligraphy, Daruma, by Japanese poet and calligrapher, Ota Nampo Shokusanjin (1749-1823).

Shokusanjin - Ota Nampo - Daruma

This brush painting of Two Birds is by Bada Shanren (c. 1625-1705), one of the masters of Chinese calligraphy.

Two Birds, Bada Shanren, 1705

Hakuin Ekaku (January 19, 1686 - January 18, 1768) was one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism and  one of the greatest Japanese Zen painters.

Blind Men crossing a Bridge, Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768)

Death, Hakuin Ekaku

Each of these works rely on the same sureness of hand that modern draughtsmen and women need to achieve powerful lines, whether on paper, scrolls or walls. The implicit message in all these memorable works is - for an artist - practice, practice, practice. As well, of course, as inspiration.

Lines

When you think about it, life is full of lines. Power lines, phone lines, railway lines, the lines that define buildings and streets, cobwebs and even the veins of leaves. For an artist, however, using lines in drawings can give rise to many different philosophies and approaches.

For instance, Paul Klee famously and deliciously said, "A drawing is simply a line going for a walk". That statement goes along with his whimsy and imaginative approach to creating art. Just like his statement that "a line is a dot that went for a walk".

Paul Klee "Lines, Dots and Circles"

This is beautifully illustrated by one of his numerous drawings. It shows that whilst Klee was clearly drawing very intelligently, and often with deliberate wit and parody, particularly as the Nazis rose to power, nonetheless intuition and pure creativity flowed happily.

Another artist who allows the line simply to flow from her, without premeditation, is Christine Hiebert. Very widely exhibited and heralded for her inventive approach to drawing with media ranging from blue tape to charcoal, she investigates the nature and language of line. She starts a drawing on a blank wall empty of ideas, not using a pre-drawn sketch. She says, "The final outcome is always something I didn't anticipate. The process can be unsettling, but that is how I prefer to work. For me, drawing starts with the problem of the line, how to form it and how to follow it. In a way, it ends with the line too. The line remains independent, searching, never completely absorbed by the community of its fellows." (Except from her Davis Museum brochure for Reconnaissance, August 2009.)

Untitled, charcoal and rabbit skin glue on paper, 2000, Christine Hiebert, (Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York)

I find her approach of visual thinking through drawing fascinating, because there is also another, more traditional approach to drawing. That is based upon seeing or conceiving of an image which the artist then proceeds to translate, through line, into an permanent image. This has been an accepted way of creating line drawings in Western art since the monks began to delineate their illuminations on vellum and parchment and their heirs, during the Renaissance, brought the art of drawing to great heights. Not only were the lines then used to explore ideas and make studies in preparation for paintings, but the artists also made finished drawings, line after careful line. Indeed, for many centuries, skill in drawing was almost predicated on little erasure, in silverpoint (that permanent line won't budge!), but also in red chalk (the bravura medium), black chalk, pen and ink and even charcoal.

Today, many artists are pushing the definitions of using line or making drawings far beyond those traditional approaches. Perhaps it is only fitting in a world where man made lines - the power grids, the computer chips, or whatever - predominate.

Wiki.Picture by Drawing Machine 2

When a beautiful drawing can be produced by Drawing Machine 2, using a mathematical model, the lines indeed go for their walk. Paul Klee would certainly approve, I am sure. It is good to remember that any approach to lines is possible, as long as we artists allow ourselves to be creative and free. That is my definition of fun!

The Gift of Happiness

Happiness, with all its definitions, often comes quietly into one's life from a direction least expected. Precious, often fugitive, and always a gift, it spreads through one's life in subtle ways. My - our - most recent gift was a diminuitive black kitten whom we found abandoned when we returned last summer from Europe. Rescued, christened Chutzpah - for obvious reasons - and installed, she soon transformed our life with her jaunty golden-eyed insoucience and ultimate absolute trust.

However, we soon discovered that she had been bitten by heart-worm-carrying mosquitoes and was the youngest cat our vets had ever seen to have heart worm – a death sentence deemed to be two years ahead, for there is no treatment for cats.

We decided that her time with us was a gift, that she should live as joyous a life as possible with us - and so it was. Last night, from being a vital, purring, beautiful little cat, within ten minutes, she was dead. Seemingly the heart worms were exacting their toll, not at two years but at ten months.

Now, amid our tears, I begin to measure, as an artist, how the happiness I experienced with her in our home has even filtered into my art. As I sat drawing at the table, she would sit on the next chair, peeping up at me, always happy to have a conversation of purrs and churrs and soft squeaks. Her repose and elegant slumber were a delight to look at when I needed to rest my eyes from the drawing. Her intense interest and curiosity when I was working on matting and framing art helped alleviate the tedium of the tasks. She threaded herself into our life as a golden strand of happiness, incredibly fragile, appallingly brief, but such a gift.

Christmas Cactus, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

White Christmas Cactus, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Resquiesce in pace et in amore, Chutzpah. I owe these two drawings of Christmas cactus flowers to you.

Touches of Nature in our Daily Lives

Nature, in the form of winter weather, seems to have loomed over-large in many people's lives in recent weeks, whether in North America or even in normally sun-filled Palma de Mallorca. Two weeks there of often rather chilly weather left me indoors more than I would wish, but all is relative! It meant that I began to think about other aspects of nature that show up in our daily lives.

The world of art and design is still amazingly dependent on inspiration from nature. I was reminded of this as I looked at illustrations of products on display at the current International Gift and Jewellry fair, IFEMA (Semana Internacional del Regalo, Joyería y Bisutería), being held this week in Madrid. The articles covering the show in El País newspaper were full of photos of jewellry, furnishings, wallpaper, ornaments or clothing inspired by flowers, leaves, animals and birds. Perhaps as the world grows more urban, we all need more reminders of the nature we are forsaking and often destroying?

I started looking at touches of nature that show up on buildings in terms of adornment. Think, for instance, of Antonio Gaudi's Sagrada Familia full of concrete evocations of the natural world, an amazing ensemble still rising in Barcelona. Look at a turtle holds up a column at the Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia Turtle column base

Look up inside in the Sagrada Familia nave at wonderful columns that evoke sunflowers, daisies, whatever.

Detail of the roof in the nave. Gaudí designed the columns to mirror trees and branches. Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Even the wonderful soaring new El Prat airport in Barcelona, a magnificently quiet and well-conceived building, is made more restful and welcoming by its subtle evocation of sea and serenity; a foam green/aquamarine glass is used throughout the building inside and out.

Inside Barcelona airport

Some of the most enduringly successful furnishings that have come down the centuries in France and elsewhere are full of evocations of elegant pastoral scenes, birds, animals and flowers.

Fabrics and wallpapers with such scenes abound -

Bamboo Indigo Katagami Fabric

19th century Katagrami-inspired carpetting

William Morris-inspired wallpaper

Silver objects frequently evoke nature, in their stylised shapes on teapots, urns, trays, dishes. This is just one example, a wonderful George IV English silver urn, full of echoes of nature.

A George IV silver Tea Urn , 1823 , United Kingdom

Furniture, too, has long hinted at animals' feet in the legs and finials of tables, chairs and other pieces. Marquetery has long evoked flowers in great richness. Inlaid stone tables have been an Italian speciality that can be wondered at in the Prado or V & A Museums, for instance.

Charles Cressent (French, Amiens 1685–1768 Paris), Commode, ca. 1745–49 (Image courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

(Image courtesy of The Wallace Collection, London)

An Italian scagliola table top, Florentine, second half 17th century.

The Japanese, Koreans and Chinese have always been famed for their extraordinary evocations of nature in the objects with which they have surrounded themselves in daily life. Kimonos and netsuke, lacquer objects painted and carved, basketry and furniture, ceramics - the list is endless, but eloquent of the respect in which Nature has been traditionally held. The same can be said for most cultures and countries around the world.

Flowers and Grasses with a Praying Mantis, attributed to Ryūsa (Japanese, active late 18th century), Edo period (1615–1868), late 18th century

Sadly, most of us are so often busy and preoccupied that we don't notice many of the beauties of nature that are present in our world, in art and architecture, jewellry, furnishing, adornments or whatever. I am often fascinated to watch people walking - say, in an airport like Atlanta - on the beautiful granite polished slabs that now form the floors in many of the concourses. Most people never even really look at this marvellous touch of nature underfoot.

As an artist, I keep trying to remind myself simply to keep my eyes open and registering. Since I love to try to depict things in the natural world, I tend to gravitate to the touches of nature I find in my daily life. I find them uplifting and serene-making in many instances, and at the least, interesting, because they are also, often, interpretations of how other people have perceived that aspect of nature. Always fun, many times inspiring and enhancing.

Training more than the Eye

I was thinking further about examples in the art world of kindness and courtesy, after blogging about West Fraser's Painting in a Tree programme. There is a further dimension, I decided, to being being an artist, and Vassily Kandinsky said it beautifully.

Kandinsky remarked that "the artist must train not only his eye, but also his soul". It is a succinct statement about the whole frame of mind in which an artist must live and work, one which again can contribute, or not, to the general well being of the community.

Kandinsky's wonderful paintings in the Composition series he did periodically; Composition VII of 1913, (image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.)

It is not just visual artists like Kandinsky with belief systems about how art can convey spiritual values but creative people in general who can make a huge, positive difference. Think of poetry, music, theatre, literature in general. Granted, many claim that the public and the marketplace demand works that are sometimes less than uplifting. There are indeed all tastes, but I do believe that each of us can contribute something that gladdens, interests, amuses, sustains.

Kindness is contagious, pass it on.

Watching the national news this past week, ever since death and desolation came to a "Safeway" in Tuscon (how unfortunately ironic a location!), I have found the public discourse to be interesting. After the President's speech, I found myself hoping fervently that for once, the rancour dies down for a considerable time. Everyone is diminished if there is ugly dissent in the public square. No country can thrive under such circumstances.

I remembered what a wonderful, enlightened Charleston artist did not so long ago. West Fraser, a consummate landscape artist who celebrates the Low Country as no other artist does, started a project called, "A Painting in a Tree". He has been hiding small oil paintings in trees, on Cumberland Island, in Charleston and elsewhere - places he loves dearly and where he paints on location. When someone finds the painting, he or she also finds a message from West Fraser. He says to the finder of a painting hanging in a tree, "I ask you, the recipient, to make a donation to a favorite charity, perhaps your High school art program, art organisation, art museum or a talented artist in need. I hope that with my gift found, the discoverer will give as well, and perhaps encourage others to make random acts of giving and kindness. As a catalyst to perpetuate gift-giving in the community, I hope that my Painting in the Tree project can make a difference."

Such acts of kindness are indeed contagious. Everyone who has found these hidden pictures has donated to worthy projects. In Charleston, for instance, twelve-year-old Kenner Carmody learned there was a painting hidden somewhere in the city centre from her father, Michael.

This is the photograph on West's website (thanks to him for the image) of Ms. Carmody holding her trophy, next to her father on the left and West Fraser, the artist, on the right. And what was the result of West's kindness? The Carmodys made a generous donation to the Gibbes Museum in Charleston.

Perhaps if politicians and citizens in general took a leaf out of West Fraser's book, and started spreading acts of kindness and generosity around - kindness of thought, word and action - we would all be richer in spirit and much more constructively at peace.

Lost and found edges

Yesterday I spent time again at the Telfair Academy in Savannah, looking at Dennis Martin's amazing metalpoint drawings, in preparation for a silverpoint workshop I am giving there today.

One of the aspects that has fascinates me about Martin's approach to drawing is his superb use of lost and found edges. By this, I mean his method of making a transition from a contour line to shadows and ill-defined edges of an object. The defining line gets lost, then reappears again, and the overall effect allows for a very satisfying, yet often mysterious integration of subject matter into a background, for instance. He uses a mixture of goldpoint, platinumpoint and graphite, all media that do not change colour (unlike silver which tarnishes eventually in the marks on paper), and thus they can be used as three different values that can seamlessly move from very light to much darker, even extreme darks of graphite.

Dennis J. Martin - Deanna XXVI (1995), 24k gold and platinum on paper, Metalpoint

Lost and found edges can add greatly to the interest of a piece of art, not only in drawing. Many wonderful artworks are strengthened in this manner. Rembrandt, for instance, frequently used this method to anchor and enhance the atmosphere in a drawing, often in pen and ink and ink washes. These are just a few examples of his superb sense of darks and lights and their use and placement in the drawing.

Self-Portrait Etching at a Window , Rembrandt, (Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Saskia Sleeping, Rembrandt

From a self-portrait to a small quick drawing of his wife, Saskia, sleeping, one of his wonderful lion drawings to studies of Women and Children, they all show his ability to merge the subject with the background in darks that anchor, meld and ground the subject.

Lion resting, turned to the Left, Rembrandt, c. 1650-52 .Louvre, Paris

A child being taught to walk; two girls, seen from behind, supporting the child on either side, a figure seated on the ground at left encouraging the child, a woman standing behind with a pail. c.1656, Pen and brown ink on brownish-cream paper., Rembrandt (Image courtesy of the British Museum)

Rembrandt - Saskia (”Woman Leaning on a Window Sill”)., between 1634 and 1635

Seurat was another artist whose consummate skill with atmospheric transitions from dark to light often involved the use of lost and found edges. His charcoals were especially famous for this. These are examples of a lady embroidering and another reading - intimate, shadowy drawings that evoke the dim light of a Parisian apartment, where edges are ill-defined and light falls fitfully (courtesy of the Fogg, Cambridge).

Embroidery, George Seurat, charcoal

"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.

Courtesy

Having lived in many countries and been exposed to different cultures, I am always keenly aware of how courtesy and consideration to others are valuable passports in life. In the art world, I believe it is vitally important, basically to say "please" and "thank you".

I thought about this again with a short exchangeof e-mails I have just had with Jason Horejs, owner of Xanadu Gallery, a brick-and-mortar gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, and also a website representing juried artists on the Web. I had requested consideration for inclusion on the website (part of the New Year energy and resolutions to try new ventures!), and in very short order, I had a charming letter back from him. My page is now up on the Xanadu site.  There was an exchange of "thank yous", and I assume he felt as I did, that it had been a constructive and pleasant transaction.

Even if an artist does not succeed initially in some endeavour, there is no guarantee that life will swirl around again and offer another opportunity from an unexpected quarter. If the artist has been polite, businesslike and pleasant generally, that overall positive impression certainly cannot harm in any future consideration. Added to which, a professional artist, like any other professional, ideally has some savoir faire, French for knowing how to behave in a civilised fashion.

Etiquette is the general term for social behaviour, a huge and fascinating subject. One of the early, stellar examples of an artist who was gracious and noted for his courtesy was Raphael Sainzo of Urbino, the Renaissance artist who was famed both for his paintings and his drawings. Raphael was endowed by "nature with the goodness and modesty to be found in all those exceptional men whose gentle humanity is enhanced by an affable and pleasing manner, expressing itself in courteous behaviour at all times and towards all persons" (History of Art: the Western Tradition. Horst WoldenmarJanson, Anthony F. Janson).

Raffaello Sanzio (b. 1483, Urbino - d. 1520, Rome) The Phrygian Sibyl (1511-1512) Drawing,  Department of Prints and Drawings, (Image courtesy of the British Museum)

Giorgio Vasari noted that Raphael was very skilled in running a harmonious and efficient workshop full of apprentices and was extremely diplomatic in relationships with both his patrons and his assistants. Clearly Raphael was an artist with whom people enjoyed working and who was esteemed for his skill and his pleasant demeanour. He gave every artist a wonderful example to follow.

Thoughts on Life Drawing

The New Year is really getting going again in my art world, with talk of exhibits which are happening and planned. The more important aspect of art, however, is starting seriously to work again after the holidays - does one actually call it "work"? It is more joyful, more absorbing.

Life drawing started again too, with that wonderful silence of concentration of a dozen artists grappling with this discipline. I thought back to a piece I read of some while ago in ArtDaily.org about an exhibition held at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, CA, of work by Frank Lobdell. He is a highly imaginative, often playful but very sophisticated abstract artist, painting in oils. Lobdell started participating in weekly life drawing sessions very early on, back in the late 1950s, with his friends Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bishoff and David Park. He continued the practice when he moved to Stanford in 1966.

Even though one can detect the trace of life drawing's effects in some of his early work, it is a very far leap from life drawing to his colourful and very abstract work. Described as "essentially a non-figurative artist", Lobell apparently regarded these life drawing sessions as an important source of ideas, a "springboard to develop a vocabulary of abstraction (my emphasis) that was informed by a study of the human body and grounded in the formal issues of expressionist gesture and line".

I have always found it most interesting to watch my fellow artists drawing in our life drawing sessions and then see what kind of art they produce. Like Lobdell, each of us can follow very individualistic paths, seemingly far removed from the human bodies we draw, and yet, all of us benefit enormously from life drawing in ways obvious and not-so-obvious.