I have chronicled the painting process for versions one and two of "Along the Old Post Road" in a separate page. You will see the link at the top in the right side column.
version one is on the left and
version two is on the right.
Along the Old Post Road 1 @ Sue Favinger Smith
Along the Old Post Road 2 @ Sue Favinger Smith
Invitation to Critique
When I was attending art classes, I dreaded the critique. The experience of trying to master a new concept and then realizing I'd missed the mark completely was definitely depression material. But now I realize an informed critique is vital to artistic growth, and I am inviting you to join in this virtual crit session.
Taking into account that the color will vary according to your monitor, what I am seeing is a fairly accurate representation of the actual painting. My palette consists of violet blue, ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow deep, yellow ocher, Winsor yellow, terra rosa, transparent red oxide, burnt sienna, Quinacridone violet, Naples yellow (French), Naples yellow (Italian), Naples yellow, Naples yellow pale, and zinc white. The greens are mixed. I think the colors in the painting are slightly more saturated than the image I am seeing, but not as saturated as in the earlier versions.
Here are a few questions to start the critique...
Overall structure:
I hope you will participate, if only for the practice of evaluating a painting so that you can develop the skill. I am hoping for some feedback that will help me see things I might have overlooked.
Looking forward to lots of responses in my comments section!
I have not been writing much this week. In fact, I have been torturing myself with thoughts that I must be blocked, or perhaps the "slump" subject that has been moving around from blog to blog has settled down in mine and set up housekeeping for the duration.
"Why are you here?" I've been asking Slump. "Aren't you really depression in disguise?"
I mean, depression is a great excuse. I could whine (or whatever.) I could open that new bottle of wine and drink it by myself, waving my glass to the beat of the jazz CD I always listen to when I'm in that mood. I could stare at some of my recent paintings and wonder aloud why no one is interested in buying them when they really are damn good. I could remember that I've been reading Eckhart Tolle, and when he talks about shedding the egoic nature and returning to the nothingness my head starts to ache, and then my neck.
I guess that's what happens when you get a little information.
And I've been thinking a lot about how a little information can actually send you off on the wrong track. Or around the bend. Off the deep end. Into the...you get my drift. Questions like the reason we're here are too deep for this blog. What I do know, or think I know, is that my internal experience, when I am painting, comes the closest to what I imagine Eckhart Tolle might be talking about when he speaks of the awareness of Being, outside of the ego. I have no idea whether what I experience even comes close to what the spiritual teachers believe. Might I be reckless enough to ask, "Should it matter?"
Artists are very familiar with the experience of being "in the zone." Of finding yourself in a place where there is a connection between canvas, brush, hand, mind, heart, and perhaps something else. Ego is not present in those moments. Ego only comes into the room when the moment is past, when the painting is drying, or the words written in last week's post have been passed around from blog to blog. When the action has been taken and cannot be recalled, and Ego is ready to inject emotion, insecurity, defensiveness, and self-inflicted pain along with his best pals Slump and Depression.
Should it matter that I struggle with ego, when -- in the moment that I complete a painting -- there is great inner peace?
I'm going to need a lot more information.
"So why are you still here?" I ask, watching as Slump hands the bowl of chips over to Depression, who passes because he hasn't been able to eat for days.
I see their mouths moving. Slump can't seem to get comfortable. Ego has launched into what could be a tirade as his face is turning red. But I can't hear them.
I don't know. Maybe I've made a little progress toward Enlightenment.
Maybe I'm going deaf.
Like I said, a little information can really be a dangerous thing.
I spent most of yesterday gathering up the courage to call my photographer and set an appointment to bring in the ten new works on paper that I've been staring at for the past few months. When I finally called, he answered on the first ring.
Yes, he remembered me. And how did those photographs he took a year and a half ago work out for me?
Very well, I politely told him, and could he possibly have some time today or tomorrow.
Yes. He could. So I was stuck, committed. I kept telling myself that all I was doing was getting professional shots taken of pieces that proved too difficult for me to shoot, with their reflective surfaces and subtle colors. It wasn't like I had to follow through on anything else, like sending them off to that juried event with the deadline in two weeks.
I do this to myself on a regular basis, I realize, having no legitimate reason to feel so insecure. But that seems to be the nature of my particular creative beast. Give me a compliment or accept me into some organization and immediately the tiny voice in my head starts crowing over the imminent discovery that I am, yes, an artistic fraud.
But he is expecting me. We have a nice visit, I leave the work with instructions to return today.
What can I say? The meeting today was wonderful. Not because he thought the work was so fantastic that he couldn't breathe -- no. I think it was because he's also an artist, working on his own version of that creative dream. We were two creatives meeting where our paths crossed, and paused to share a moment of encouragement and support. He told me how he had started doing stock photography; his wife called while we were talking to share the news that one of his images had earned a "Flame." (Apparently, when an image has been downloaded 100 times, it earns a flame.) We talked about the art market in general and artists we both knew, how everyone was feeling the slowdown and looking for answers. Then he sat me down in front of his computer and we collaborated on the presentation of my images, while he instructed me on some new tips and tricks in Photoshop, and how to save the files on my desktop.
When I left two hours later I couldn't understand why it had been so difficult for me to make that initial call.
Creating art is often an isolating experience. At times, we might forget that others are feeling equally isolated. Our fears keep us from opening up to the very people who understand exactly where we're coming from, and we miss opportunities to discover our hidden support systems. Yes, there are scary parts to success and to failure that isolation magnifies, but just beyond that studio door there are hundreds of hidden sources of creative support. We are not on this journey alone.
Believe it.
I went back to college when I was 51. I sat in chairs designed for the young, next to my fellow students who were also...well, young. Adding insult to injury, I needed tutoring -- from the young -- to learn the new technology that these kids in their late teens and twenties grew up with and used as casually as I once used the rotary phone.
It was culture shock. But more than that. It was the shock of realizing I was rapidly approaching the gray realm of Old Age. My first small encounters with...ageism.
Ageism is insidious in that it is so acceptable. Logical. It is also based -- at least with regard to late-life creativity -- on scientific research that reinforces traditional views about aging and the mental and physical decline models.
Even when it comes to "creativity" -- something that can't be touched, tested, or accurately measured, let alone understood -- the scientific community still relies on research that is "objective" and "measurable" -- sort of like trying to catch a fish with your hands. The easiest one to grab becomes the archetype for the "Creative Old Guy."
But I recently started reading a book by Martin S. Lindauer, titled AGING, CREATIVITY, AND ART, A Positive Perspective on Late-Life Development.
This is a very recent book, with a copyright date of 2003, and reads like a research paper with numerous citations.
It is still worth the effort.
Because here is the good news. According to Lindauer, new research reveals that over time, creative people increase both the quality of their artistic output, and the quantity, over their lifetimes, with productivity peaking during their 60's, but the quality of the output remaining steady at the lifetime highs well into the 70's.
Even for artists working in their 80's, their quality ratings were higher -- get that, higher! -- than when they were in their 20's and 30's.
How can this be?
According to Lindauer, there are seven characteristics that distinguish "old artists and late art from young artists and youthful efforts."
Further, while discussing the age at which an artist's "Old Age Style" might emerge, Lindauer wrote, "...the 60-year-old artists, and many of the 70-year-olds who were studied, were 'too young' to have an old-age style."
Re-read that last part again: even the 70-year-olds were too young to have an old age style!
Sometimes the challenges of reinventing yourself at mid-life can seem so daunting that you want to give up. I know that for me, discouragement became my constant companion to the point where I nearly gave up on the whole "career" idea, caught up in my fear of having "missed the creative boat."
But knowing that, at 60, I am still decades away from having an "Old Age Style" has renewed my energy, sending me back out into the creative world with rekindled optimism.
I hope to see you all there!
Last week I wrote a post about the slowing art market -- well, Bonnie Luria has a terrific post on her blog, St. Croix-nicity, about her nearly sold-out show held in an alternative venue. Transforming an unused breezeway into an elegant gallery space, providing wonderful, exotic food and a special atmosphere, this show was an overwhelming success - not to mention the "limited tourist season" Bonnie describes on St. Croix.
Bonnie is an extremely talented artist, and it doesn't surprise me at all that her paintings were so well received by her art patrons. She has always been a staunch supporter of the idea that artists should take control of their creative adventure and her success just adds validity to her arguments.
"Read some of the many other suggestions on Creating Artists Space to learn what alternate paths are available. Just as you can’t stop learning new computer programs and re-programming another phone, sitting back and thinking the same old way will get you exactly that."
Get the full story by clicking on over to Bonnie's blog. You won't be disappointed.
Water Carrier @ Bonnie Luria
I stole the title for this post from Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art. I love this little book. I can pick it up, open a random page, and find something to get me back on track laughing at myself.
Right now I could be fairly miserable if I wanted to be. Here's why.
It started about a month ago when I was visiting with a gallery director. She wanted to put up a new abstract show for March and needed several new paintings. This gave me the opportunity to go back into the studio and develop my Ancient Walls series, from which I had been sidetracked for several months -- actually maybe a year, now. I felt energized. Jazzed. Back in the studio again....can't you just hear those words being sung by the cowboy troubadour, to the tune of back in the saddle again? Yeah, I know, now that's going to stick in all of your brains for the next few days and I'll get tons of emails...sorry.
The only place I have to store these rather large paintings is..yep, that's right, the guest bathroom.
It gets worse. Now I have two 40 x 30 canvases, and my daughter and son-in-law have just phoned to say they'll be down for a visit this upcoming weekend. Plus, I've purchased a 40 x 60 inch canvas because the gallery director had specifically requested LARGE.
It's so large it doesn't quite fit on my easel horizontally. The perils of having an inadequate studio, I suppose. But...I'm still jazzed.
And then I get the phone call. The gallery is closing. End of the month. No March venue.
So right now I could be pretty miserable. I just used up two perfectly good canvases, spent $100 on another gigantor canvas that already has the first layers of texture on it so I can't take it back, I have to go pick up all those landscapes and fit them in my car, and I just lost another gallery representation.
But I'm not miserable.
Because there's nothing I would rather do than paint.
So what if these paintings won't hang in March? They're great paintings, the best I've done in this genre so far. The process excites me again, I want to do more, see how far I can take this and then see where that goes.
Mesa Series: Seeds in the Sky as Stars @sue Favinger Smith 2008
Mesa Series: Greeting the Sun @ Sue Favinger Smith 2008
But most importantly, I'm not miserable because I discovered what my work is really about.
It's about taking chances. I like living on the edge between chaos and cultivation, where passion and excitement exist in life. I like trusting my own voice and following a curious heart.
And I like -- I really, really like -- taking chances.
I was sitting in a waiting room the other day, with just enough time to begin reading an article in the September 2007 issue of Oprah. You know the feeling, plenty of time, and in the exact moment when you say to yourself "Oh,...this looks interesting..." that's when they call your name. So all I could do was to read the short blurb, write down the barest amount of information, and I never did get the name of the author.
But this is what caught my eye.
She said that, in Spain, "senior citizen" is "tercere edad" -- meaning "The Third Age." And she went on to talk about how that idea empowered her to think that, if there was a Third Age, there could also be a Fourth and a Fifth.
This idea appealed to the artist and optimist in me, so I was disappointed that I couldn't read the full article. But I did discover that if you do an internet search on Senior Citizen and The Third Age, there is a significant amount of information regarding this terminology. Most of it seems rather dry and boring, so I'm still sad that I didn't get to read the Oprah version; however, I also don't feel quite so bad now about not being able to post that particular author's name here. But enough of that. The real point of this post is that yesterday was my birthday.
Yes, it is official. I am now at the beginning of my seventh decade of life, and it's going to be the best decade ever. I'm starting out The Third Age with a bang!
And no, that was not the sound of the candles on my birthday cake exploding...
PS: If you read this post earlier, you might remember I thought I was starting my sixth decade...since I just turned 60, that's actually the END of the sixth decade and the BEGINNING of the seventh. But I did tell you all that I'm an optimist, didn't I, and that you're only as old as you think...
I was reading the September issue of Art in America and found the Letters section particularly interesting. The discussion revolved around what artists felt they had not learned in art school and why. Normally I don't get past the first few sentences of any article in Art in America, primarily because it seems geared to the East Coast Art Establishment, which feels a bit remote from what I experience in my artistic environment. However, I am always willing to listen to other people complain, if only to get a dose of my own medicine.
There were several opinions about what art schools did teach - how to survive and prosper within the group critique -- and what they didn't teach - how to survive and prosper in the real art world, and I would encourage those of you interested in following the discussion to read the full text of the letters, as well as the original article (I'm looking for my copy) and the various books in the marketplace aimed at filling in the gaps. Two points I found particularly interesting were these: that art schools failed to teach students how to be creative enough to find their personal vision, and that they also failed to teach any realistic business skills. To quote Melany Terranova, of Scottsdale : "And yet many skills, in addition to art skills, are needed to succeed in the arts. These include social skills, computer skills, photography skills, writing skills, marketing skills, negotiating skills and financial skills." Ms. Terranova goes on to describe one of the most enlightening classes she ever attended, where contemporary artists such as Louise Nevelson answered questions: "At the end of the series, my conclusion was that it was the art, be it good art or bad art, coupled with good marketing that made the career!"
My first observation was that students coming from top rated art schools were lamenting that they were taught the "institutional critique" and found themselves caught up in the art historical argument over what should come after post modernism, without seeing how they could operate outside of the established postmodern ideology. Other students described it as a failure to teach creative thinking and the ability to develop a personal vision. As I missed reading the original article that inspired this debate, I can only react to what I read in the text of these letters, but it seems to me that art schools -- whether well-known or the kind in state universities like the one I attended -- can only teach a student theory, basic craftsmanship, and vocabulary. The real art making takes place outside of the classroom, and the careers can represent as many successes or failures as there are artists.
My second observation was that -- only from the nature of the letters, without drawing any overarching conclusions here -- that academics have a completely different idea of what artists should be doing than what artists actually do when caught up in the creative process, and this disconnect is at the root of a lot of the "career" problems.
For example, I have several books on writing the artist statement. In nearly all of them, authors advise describing how your work fits within art historical parameters, how you were influenced by what came before you and how you are either pushing a current art history theory forward or reacting against it. I don't know about you, but when I am in my creative zone the last thing I'm thinking about is how I might be making a response to the psycho-social reactionary influences of urban tensions upon the expressionist-influenced theories of the 60's and 70's that declared painting dead. That's a discussion I save for a few good friends and a really great bottle of Da Vinci Toscana Chianti.
The minute I find myself pondering how my inspiration has to fit into an art history textbook, I come up against resistance, an unwillingness to take the kind of artistic risks that are vital to finding one's personal vision. The work turns into a pale, over-worked version of two decades ago, or worse, totally boring and feeding into the self-doubts that arise whenever I deviate from what I know to be my own artistic truth. So I can't worry about whether my poured paintings relate more to color field, Los Angeles "Look", Conceptual or Process Art. They are what they are. Tomorrow, maybe they'll be something different. My creative vision has grown out of my ability to think and conceptualize and explore outside of the academic box and to go where the paint takes me. Somebody else can give it a label.
I am thrilled that this piece recently sold for $3000. I'm back in the studio pushing the new boundaries to see what else I can create.
