Respect in the Art World

As I listened to the PBS NewsHour  December 5th, 2012 programme this evening, Jeffrey Brown was  interviewing George Wein, founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, about Dave Brubeck who has just died.  One of the final descriptions of this wonderful Jazz musician impressed me greatly.  Mr. Wein said that Dave Brubeck was "the ultimate in elegance and excellence."  He apparently respected everyone, musicians, his family, the promoters and producers that worked with him, and he respected his public.  By communicating respect to everyone, he in turn was respected and loved.

Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012

I began to think about this mutual magic of respect that helped make Brubeck such an icon on the 20th century music world.  It seems to me that we can all learn about respect in the art world, as artists and as participants in every other way.Only this morning, I had a remark made to me at the beginning of a life drawing session about respecting other artists and the model by being on time.  Respect, consideration, courtesy - all aspects of being a professional, civilised human being, an artist.

In other words, Dave Brubeck's example served to remind me about the old adage, "do as you would be done by", part of the Golden Rule.  A good rule for us artists.

Watercolor Magic

Mary Whyte is a watercolourist whom I have long admired, ever since I saw her work at her husband's gallery, Coleman Fine Art, in Charleston, South Carolina.  It was thus a treat to be able to see a large body of her work, Working South, currently on display at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia.

Trap, Crabber, Pinpoint, GA, watercolour on paper, 2008, 30 x 38, image courtesy of Mary Whyte

The exhibition apparently grew out of one of those lucky coincidences and flashes of inspiration: she was painting a portrait of a Greenville banker and they were commenting on the number of lay-offs announced in the local textile mills.  A chance reply to her about the fact that in ten years, all the mills would be gone sparked the idea to record and paint people who were working in the large number of disappearing occupations; from crabbers and textile mill workers to loggers and small hog farmers.  Mary Whyte set out to find and paint workers in these different worlds in the South.  Three years of work produced the exhibition now at the Telfair.

There is a felicitous mixture of large finished watercolour paintings and the small studies and preparatory drawings on display.  It is always good to see how careful preparations and study, learning about the people, the places, the look and feel of a subject, with accompanying journal notes, small drawings and paintings, help ensure a good result in the final work of art.  It is a salient point we all ought to register as artists!

New Year, watercolour painting of a milliner from Atlanta, GA; 2009, 22 1/2 x 29, image courtesy of Mary Whyte

What is also fascinating and impressive about these watercolours is their combination of tight realism in faces, hands and arms for each portrait, and then the fluid, abstract use of watercolour's rich capacity to meld and swirl billows of colour in other parts of the painting.  Underpinning all this skill is, in each case, a sense of dramatic, arresting composition, an arrangement of shapes that goes to the essence of the occupation or industry Whyte is depicting.

Crossing, Ferryboat captain, Valley View, KY, 2009, watercolour, 15 x 30, image courtesy of Mary Whyte

Eclipse, tobacco farmer. Gretna, VA, watercolour, 2009, 22 x 30, image courtesy of Mary Whyte

One of the most interesting of these paintings, for me, was this highly evocative depiction of elderly musicians marching to honour the dead in this Miami, FL, cemetery, a custom that is almost gone.  Whtye's ability to go from tight, detailed realism to the most diaphanous of "mists" of colour, melding bodies and ground, with the mighty banyan tree as abstract counterpoint, was impressive.

Pilgrimage. Funeral band, Miami, FL. watercolour, 2009, 39 x 48, image courtesy of Mary Whyte

Perhaps the most valuable remark - for fellow artists as well as for viewers -  that Mary Whyte makes in the book accompanying the exhibition, Working South; Paintings and Sketches by Mary Whyte, is :  "true art is not about copying. Every painting is an invention.  Each painting we make is about our observation and the feeling about what we are seeing.  Not one painting represented in this book is exactly what I saw, but each is exactly what I felt." (page 8)

This exhibition is well worth visiting - several times!

Patterns of Nature

I am finding that patterns are becoming more and more fascinating to me as I function as an artist.  I suppose I have always had a love of nature's order and patterning - in seed pods, striationson tree bark, flower petals and leaves, in the way shadows fall on surfaces, how rocks are distinctively formed, how sands get ridged and shaped by water or wind. 

Patterns in the Sand

Now, however, I am more and more aware of the amazing power of patterns - in life in general and in art in particular.  Take a look at a fascinating website on the Fibonacci Numbers and see how marvellous all these patterns are.

 Romanesque cross between broccoli and cauliflower

I think my newfound passion for drawing in metalpoint on a black ground has fuelled my interest in patterns, for somehow this medium seems to lend itself readily to the seeming abstraction of patterns.  Living as I do in beautiful natural surroundings also helps me suddenly see new patterns which excite and inspire. Artists of all stripes seem to respond to the diversity of nature's patterns, from draughtsmen to photographers.

M.C. Escher’s 1938 woodcut entitled “Sky and Water 1”

My small drawings of nature's patterns are often of tree bark and wood grains.

Jacaranda bark - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Rings of Time: Wood grains - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Eucalyptus bark - silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

The rewards of looking closely and attentively at nature to see these myriad complex and magical patterns are endless.  History is full of artists who have found patterns to be a wonderful source of creativity - just think of Van Gogh, for a start!

Detail of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, 1889, Image courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Artists' Generosity

When I was hanging my art, alongside my friends, in our joint exhibition, Eight Reflections, today at the Hinesville Area Arts Council Gallery, part of the celebration, for me, was generosity of spirit.

Japanese Kanji symbol for Generosity

As all of us tried to help each other in the art gallery as the work was organised and hung, I kept noting how thoughtful and generous each artist was with the others.  It made for a very nice couple of hours as we worked.

I was reminded of an interesting snippet I read about Michelangelo.  Apparently he frequently lent his artist friends detailed studies that he had drawn to help them with their own paintings.  As David Galloway commented in his ArtNews review of "Michelangelo" the Drawings of a Genius" at the Albertina, this generosity of spirit was testimony to the "generous humanism that so vividly animates his work as a whole."

Study for the Head of Leda," Michelangelo, circa 1530. Red pencil on paper.  Image courtesy of  the Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Italy

Perhaps we all should remember that our character and optic on life in general comes through in our art, whether we like it or not.  I think we can all think of artists whose work sings of a generous spirit, and others who definitely seem to lack that warmth in their work.

Mysteries of Art-making

The mysterious process of creating art never ceases to interest and amaze me.  An artist's adaptability to circumstances is a vital ingredient in this mix, and one that tests the seriousness of resolve to create.  Somehow this self-portrait by Rembrandt expresses some of what I am trying to say.

Self Portrait with a Cap, open-mouthed. 1630. Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn. Image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum

Depending on the circumstances, an artist can find totally different sources of ideas and inspirations for art.  A simple example is when one is working plein air, versus working in one's studio and relying on very different sources than the outside world.

High Point, Sapelo Island, watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

High Point Dance, metalpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

I did both of these pieces of art when I was working on Sapelo Island, one of the magical Georgia barrier islands fronting the Atlantic Ocean.  They were done almost in reaction to that small voice inside my head, saying 'this is a scene which could be the source of a painting or drawing'.  Of course, once that decision is made, then comes the endless actions, reactions and alterations that are part of my art-making.  Working in the wind and sun, with changing conditions, an artist adapts according to the moment, trying to push through on the original idea and inspiration, and yet trying, at the same time, to end up with a respectable piece of art.  Incidentally, both watercolour and metalpoint are rather unforgiving media for changes and alterations, especially when drawing in different metals (silver, gold, copper, etc.).  It makes for interesting, if not challenging moments during the process of art-making!

By contrast to the concepts and reactions to working outdoors, en situ, there is the work in the studio, when an artist can draw inspiration from a myriad sources, in the head, from ideas derived from the wide world outside, from music, from reading, from films or television, from one's family and its history, from politics... an endless reserve of triggers that suddenly spark an idea for a piece of art.  In some ways, the work created in the studio is far more controllable, even if it is complex to execute.  Normally, you don't have to battle the weather, light constraints, travel, insects, etc. that you encounter often outside. 

Perhaps the only "constraint" in the studio is cultivating what Paul Cézanne talked of: "genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience".  You have to keep fresh, alive, thinking and reacting, to find that springboard to a new venture in art creation.  How that trigger comes is often, to me, totally mysterious, but again, I find that that mysterious small voice at the back of the head speaks when one least expects it.  Ironing, day-dreaming, a walk - meditative, repetitive jobs all help. Dare yourself to try another medium, another voice, another subject that you have not embraced before. Even an idea that is not perhaps initially the most inspired can evolve and become something special, something significant.  Whilst sustained hard work can yield results, there are times when other considerations in life - family, illness or whatever - have to be factored in.  In those cases, creating art can go on, even if only in your head, for a while.  Allow yourself to follow different work rhythms at those times, for ultimately, you will get back to inspiration and art-making, perhaps with added depth and ideas.

Basilicata # 2, silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Basilicata #5, silverpoint/goldpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

These were two drawings I created in the studio, long after I had returned from an art residency in South Italy.  The seeds were sown there, the inspiration came later when I was looking back at drawing books and notes I had made there.

Inspiration comes in such magically mysterious ways, often by different routes, but every artist becomes attuned to his or her paths to art-making.  Trusting one's inner voice, believing in oneself and keeping one's antennae up high are all ingredients in these mysteries.

The Dynamics of a Blank Piece of Paper

We artists have all faced the blank sheet of white paper or canvas, time and time again. It can be a daunting moment. Yet it can also be the start of a fascinating balancing act, whose dynamics hark back to the earliest cave drawings, the origins of calligraphy and the vast heritage of both Eastern and Western art-making.

"Tabula rasa"

Some while ago, I found a marvellous statement by the wonderful British artist, Rebecca Salter,about the state of a piece of paper. She talked of an old Chinese saying that "a piece of paper is not empty until you have made the first mark", a saying which underlines the dynamics between a mark that you make on that paper and the blank space around it.  She continued by saying that "the word 'blank' is, however, misleading as the space, instead of becoming a space of nothingness, is 'activated by the presence of the drawn or painted mark".

This concepts seems to go to the very heart of composition, of a sense of balance and fitness of the symbiotic relationship of the marks placed on that surface.  It also ensures that your particular style, your hallmark as an artist, will be evident from the dynamics of your choices of marks made on that blank sheet of paper.

Calligraphy, from all traditions, has been based on this concept of dynamic balance on the page.

Japanese calligraphy

Ottoman tugra of Suleiman the Magnificent,1520, with flowers and saz leaves

Present-day Western calligraphy

These examples from different types of calligraphy are wonderful examples of the dynamics that can be created on a black piece of paper. However, we can all be mindful of those potential relationships that we can work with when we face that sheet of paper.

Creating Art: Staring until your Eyes Pop

Vincent Van Gogh,Self-Portrait, 1889, Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

Author Simon Schamaused this wonderful phrase about Vincent Van Gogh, in his book, "The Power of Art".Schama talked of Van Gogh seeking to create art that was imbued with the "visionary radiance" that previous generations of artists had found in Christianity.  To achieve this source of light and inspiration that could reach out to fellow men, Van Gogh's approach was painting with "blood and blisters and staring until your eyes popped" (my emphasis).

Even though Van Gogh did not necessarily follow the time-honoured rules of perspective, colour usage or subject-matter, he sought to give his art a different, more open view of life that embraced nature in all its aspects.  His pulsating interpretations of trees, fields, and flowers show powers of observation that amaze. Catching the clouds, the light, the motion of the wheat, or, in the Olive Grove below, the silvery dance and form of the olive trees - all that requires great, tenacious powers, first of observation, then of organisation and simplification.

Wheat Field with Cypresses, Van Gogh, 1889, Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Olive Grove, Van Gogh, 1889

Every artist, especially those working with aspects of the world around him or her, knows that observation is key to understanding and thus depicting a subject.  It does not necessarily have to  be a realistic depiction either, just as in Van Gogh's case.  Nonetheless, staring and staring at your subject always brings rewards; you keep noticing fresh aspects, you learn how things interlock, how things work, where the light falls, how shadows shape things. In this month's Artist's Magazine,for instance, in an article on still life artist Eric Wert, he is quoted as spending long hours "trying to get to the reality of a particular element.  'But once all the data are there that makes something look real,' he says, ' I step back and let it become its own creature, develop its own personality.  I'm open to what the subject can start to tell me.' "

Another time one needs to stare, stare and stare some more is during life drawing.  As soon as an artist begins to draw from a live model, the conversation begins between eyes, hand and the model. The subtleties of light on skin, the delicacy of muscles in tension or at rest, the twist of limbs or torso only reinforce the need to look and understand.  Only with that understanding comes the freedom then to simplify, edit and create works that are powerful.  Take but one example - Rembrandt:

Constantijn Daniel van Renesse,, Rembrandt and his Pupils drawing from a Nude Model. c. 1650, Image courtesy of Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt

Rembrandt, Study of Female Nude seen from the Back, 1630-34, Image courtesy of the Courtauld Institute, London

In other words, as the old English saying goes - "Open your peepers"! Your art will thank you.

Art and Cooking

A story in today's NPR All Things Considered about cooking a Tuna Noodle Casserole started with a statement that immediately had me making a parallel with art.  Melissa Gray was citing food editor and author Ellen Brown discussing her recipe for this dish.  She started by quoting Ellen Brown saying that many food professionals claim that we eat with our eyes first. Brown however disputes this claim and thinks that it is not with our senses that we approach food, but with our emotions.

I think that the same order of priorities often comes to play when we approach art.  Long before we start looking at paintings or drawings, for instance, we are in a mood and frame of mind to look at art. In many cases, we make a conscious decision to go to an art museum or an art gallery. So we have already elected to go in a frame of mind that is open to viewing art, for reasons that range from experiencing beauty to learning about an artist's work, or, on occasions, to purchasing a work of art. Of course, there are other times when we round a corner, or just happen on, a work of art that stops us in our tracks.  But bound up with the visual experience always comes a rush of emotion - interest, delight, surprise, incomprehension – a full gamut of reactions or emotions is possible.

Only after that first visceral reaction do we start to use our eyes to study the work of art and understand more about it.  Perhaps then the same effect can happen as occurs when we have a plate of attractively presented food placed in front of us.  Colour, shape, texture, form – all count at that point.

But I think Ellen Brown has a point: just as we associate a certain dish that we know with pleasant past experiences (or the reverse!), so we associate certain artists' works with previously experienced emotions positive or negative.  For most people, "Claude Monet" means beautiful Impressionist landscapes that radiate luminosity and delight the viewer. 

The Manneporte (Etretat), Claude Monet, oil on canvas, image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Antibes vue de la Salis, Claude Monet, 1888, image courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

The name, "Titian", conveys to many viewers a sense of marvel and admiration at extraordinary portraits, long before one's eyes can feast on the skill and virtuosity with which he depicts his subjects. 

Portrait of an Old Man (Pietro Cardinal Bembo), Titian, 1546 ,Image courtesy of  Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)

"Rodin" means wondrous, sensuous, powerful shapes sculpted in plaster, marble or bronze; it is only later that our eyes can tell us exactly how and why we find his work so memorable.

Eternal Springtime, Auguste Rodin, 1880-1901, image courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Emotions and/or senses – basically Ellen Brown is talking about the same important ingredients of life as we all are - enhancing and celebrating life through beauty, interest, taste. Both cooking and art help us get though each day with  enjoyment.

Positive Aspects of Art

I was reading an interview done with designer Rachel Roy, about her collections and designing clothes.  She was visiting Valencia at the time, and was featured in Diario de Mallorca.

One of her remarks rang so true, for any artist.  She said, "The positive thing about art is that you need to know how to tell your own story, always respecting what you are doing and as well, what others are doing."

I thought it was so simple an observation and so accurate.  It goes back to the issue of one's own personal style as a visual artist, how to achieve it by being true unto oneself, and yet being aware of what one is doing, or trying to do, at the same time as keeping one's eyes open to the world, and art in particular, around one. She went on to say in essence that one should also be fair to oneself, and basically not worry about criticism too much.

Certainly, if one is working seriously and thoughtfully, keeping one's focus on what matters personally and what one is trying to say in the art - or letting the art say things for one - then that is telling your own story. As Picasso remarked, "Painting is just another way of keeping a diary."  I think that the "diary entries" and our stories become universal many times without one realising it, and they thus resonate with others, often in ways that the artist cannot foresee.  

Pablo Picasso

In these times of angst, it is interesting to see how many voices are raised about the importance of art - of all kinds - that helps engender curiosity and expansion of the human spirit.  Since each of us is an individual, with individual experiences, those personal stories enrich everyone's life and widen each person's optic on the world around us.

Rachel Roy gave a timely reminder of how positive art can be for us all.

"Crossed Gazes"

Obra Social "La Caixa", the cultural foundationbelonging to the Spanish bank, La Caixa, offers wonderful, often thought-provoking art exhibitions in its different venues throughout Spain.  In CaixaForum Palma, in the Balearic Islands, there is an interesting exhibition currently on display, "Crossed Gazes".

It is a selection of works owned by La Caixa Foundation and the MACBA Foundation from Barcelona. Realistic art from the 1950s and 60s is juxtaposed with abstract work from the 1980s and 90s. Theshow uses paintings, some sculpture and photographs to examine how artists saw the world during those decades and how they chose to express what they felt about their realities. There are works by artists as varied as Sigmund Polke and Anselm Kiefer, Joan Miro, Henri Michaux, Antoni Tapies or Philip Guston, Jean Dubuffet or Edouardo Chillida.Many photographs were included, often black and white (Brassai, Robert Frank or Xavier Miserachs for the earlier decades) and in colour, usually of huge format for the later decades (Andreas Gursky, Hiroshi Sugimoto or Thomas Struth amongst others).

I personally found the title of the exhibition a little ironic, as my reactions to the art, as I walked through the rooms, were those of someone with a personal set of "crossed gazes".  It so happened that the previous day, I had spent a magical day by myself in the countryside, working plein air, drawing and marvelling at the complex, expansive beauty of the countryside and the amazing abstractions within the natural world around me.  Abstractions of form in trees and their bark, the lay of the land, types of stones and their patterns – things which I found fascinating to observe.

Consequently, when I walked into the CaixaForum exhibition the following day and began to look hard at the works of art on display, I found myself getting almost claustrophobic.  The massive paintings of the  80s and 90s, the Kiefer, the Miquel Barcelo or the one by Juan Usle, bore down on me in a way I had not expected - they seemed airless and pretentious.  This surprised me as I usually find that particularly Barcelo's and Anselm Kiefer's work interest and often move me.  My reaction made me realise afresh that large paintings are not my favourite format - I relate far more comfortably to work of "human" size, works that are more intimate and draw one in to a closer look.  I think that we have been, and still are, living in an era when public spaces have required huge works of art, and somehow the intensity of such work is diluted and lost. My personal gaze finds that art on a smaller scale is often a far greater test of quality and veracity - bombast can cover a lot of sins, verbally or in art.

My disappointment - at myself especially - continued when I went on to the rooms covering the 50s and 60s.  There, the art was indeed of a more human scale, often quite small in size.  The photographs were full of impact, and also of historic interest, of course.  Nonetheless, the abstract art seemed a little disassociated from anything that I could relate to today; gone - thankfully - is the angst that the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War generated in artists who were striving to distance themselves from those particular awful realities.  There was, nonetheless, a feeling of almost desperate creativity in the work that seemed almost forced, a "we have got to do something totally different from anything done before" feeling.  In a way, that is always a sub-text of each decade in the art world - we all strive to be different and innovative.  However, the overall effect of my "crossed gazes" was somewhat depressing in that all these talented artists' works were just not "talking to me" that day!  

Philip Guston, Untitled (1968). and Tower (1968)

Philip Guston,

Yet there were truths in some of the work that resonate constantly.  One commentary, of three 1967 ink on paper drawings by Philip Guston - Mark, Edge and Horizon, interested me. They were very minimalist lines on paper, like the ones illustrated above, to some extent. However, the curator's commentary for them ran as follows (in Spanish and a mixture with my English translation):

La materia misma de la pintura - su pigmento y su espacio - se resiste mucho a la voluntad, se siente muy poco inclinado a reafirmar su plano y permanecer inmovil.  La pintura parece una imposibilidad, solamente con un signo de su propria luz de vez en cuando.  Lo cual seguramente se debe al estrecho pasaje entre el diagramar y ese otro estado, la corporeidad.  En este sentido, pintar es poseer, mas que imaginar.

The very essence of painting - its pigment and space - is so resistant to the will, so inclined to assert its plane and remain still.  Painting seems an impossibility, with only a sign now and then of its own light.  Which must be because of the short passage from being a diagram to that other state - taking physical shape. In this sense, to paint is to possess rather than to imagine. 

Concepts to ponder as I sort out my gaze from the "Crossed Gazes" of the exhibition.  Perhaps it means a return visit to the CaixaForum!