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What Makes An Artist?

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I’ll begin tonight with a definition. I of course have my own theory, but I will give you one I googled, and found on The Free Dictionary.

Artist

1. One, such as a painter, sculptor, or writer, who is able by virtue of imagination and talent or skill to create works of aesthetic value, especially in the fine arts.
2. A person whose work shows exceptional creative ability or skill: You are an artist in the kitchen.
3. One, such as an actor or singer, who works in the performing arts.Nov 17th (4)

If you are curious about the food photo, the explanation lies ahead, and at the end of this paragraph a photo of our bedroom, all in an effort to prove a point. I bring this up because of the conversation that I wrote about the other evening, (OK, I’m obsessing. It’s a problem of mine) but I also had an encounter a few months back that stuck with me. I was having coffee with a friend at Starbucks, we ran into two women, one of whom I had met before. I was introduced to the other woman as an artist. I didn’t bring it up, I usually don’t unless asked what I do. Many people, including family, refer to me as a “housewife”. Let me begin by saying I have no problem with the housewife label, I don’t work outside the home except for occasional odd artistic jobs. But I am first and foremost an artist. My entire home is a work of art. There isn’t a single square inch that hasn’t been creatively transformed by me, including my garden. I work hard every single day, and every day I do something artistic. For me creativity is as natural as breathing. If I’m not working on an art project, I’m photographing something, or I’m cooking a meal that would knock your socks off, and that meal would be very artistically arranged on a plate, a particular plate since I have way too many plates, all white, in an effort to display my food in the most beautiful manner possible, and more than likely taking a photo of that meal. Whew! Long sentence, but all true. (So that’s why the food photo) When I was introduced as an artist to this woman I was meeting for the first time, she turned and said, “An artist? Are you a real artist, I mean do you sell your work?” Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that unless I turn a profit I’m not a real artist. She apparently never heard of all of the great artists whose work was worth zip until they were six feet under. The conversation of the other night was headed in that same direction. No, I don’t have training, and yes, I have nothing hanging in a gallery for sale, but I am an artist, just one without a profit sheet.Master (2)

For tonight I revisited another orphan tucked away in the studio. I chose this one in particular because tomorrow is Father’s Day. My father-in-law passed away five years ago in July. He was a really lovely man who I liked very, very much. Last year I decided to paint a vignette of some of his belongings as a gift for my husband. Like so many other paintings before it, I gave up. I have felt bad about not finishing it, but I wanted Dan to love it, and I didn’t feel like I was good enough to paint this painting. I was at times sorry that I started the project because for me, (and I never told him this) I thought that the fact that it was unfinished only proved to Dan that I wasn’t good enough to do so. He has never shown anything but complete support for me, I was putting my crap on him. So much of the world around me has not given me the respect I deserve for my work. No schooling, no paintings currently for sale, but I have more talent than many of the “professionals” can claim ownership of. I don’t care for a great deal of modern art. I am entitled to that opinion, but I would never dare to say that the people who paint them are not artists because I dislike the work. When I spoke to Dan about this subject earlier this evening he said, “A baseball player is a baseball player, not just because he plays in the major leagues.” To use his analogy, I have “major league” talent, but I skipped spring training, much of the season is past, but I think I’m beginning to realize that I might just play in the all-star game and possibly the world series. I am feeling more confident in my painting daily. Dare I say it? Even a little fearless.
Oil on canvas, and I am proud to say it is almost finished. (Only because the Hawk’s are in the Stanley Cup, and we went out to watch the game. Maybe I should have used a hockey analogy instead)
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Beginning The Adoption Process

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I mentioned all the “orphans” in my studio, those half done works of art left waiting for my attention. There are also a few “finished” works. Paintings that qualify as finished only because paint covers the entire a surface of the canvas. They are pieces that I felt were not representative of the kind of artist I want to be.  One of the biggest issues, one that I have mentioned before is that the work is flat, dimensionless, lacking in texture, (can I think of any more adjectives?) work that I felt wouldn’t evoke feeling when looked at. I have seen a number of works of art in my life that make me feel, make me want to be in a place, or make me want to rush home and pick up a brush and paint. That is the kind of work I want to create, work that inspires feeling, or more than that, work that would want someone else to follow their creative dream. When I went into my studio today to decide what to do,I chose painting. I enjoyed the exercise yesterday, and my favorite critic/fan (Dan), loved the result. I wanted to use a smaller canvas, I still wasn’t sure of the subject matter, so I grabbed an 8×10 from the shelf.  It was an orphan, a finished one. A canvas that I had painted and then shoved back on the shelf to paint over. If there’s a benefit to painting too flat, it’s that it is that much easier to cover. The painting was a simple one, just a sky and water scene. It had some texture, but it was boring, no movement, nothing. Instead of covering it up I decided to give it new life by using a style similar to yesterday. I changed the color just a touch, using the paint that was still on my palette from yesterday. I didn’t take my glasses off this time, although I wasn’t working in the best light possible. I’ve posted both, a before and after. I see the difference, and better yet this time I feel a difference. It is only the first of many, many half done, or hidden works of art. Now I just need to prepare myself when I’m ready to let some of my finished work go, when I do my first show.

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Up To My Old Tricks

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When I began this blog I wrote about how shy I was as a child. There is still a lot of that inside me. I think it is why I enjoy solitude so much, and that more often than not my paintings, and photography reflect that. People who know me now are often surprised when I claim to be shy. I work really hard at being friendly. When you are a shy child, and particularly one who is the brunt of all the grade school jokes, you learn compassion. Dan knows that if we go to a party I will find the loner in the corner and stay there for the night. I cannot stand to see anyone lonely, or to sense that someone else is struggling, I need to help them. When I was in high school I was forced to take a speech class. I dreaded it. Speaking in front of a single person can be difficult enough, put me in front of a crowd and I’m terrified. At the end of the semester we were required to stand on the stage in the school auditorium and make a speech. The subject matter could be anything we wanted, the only restriction was the amount of time. For weeks leading up to it my stomach was in knots. I didn’t know how I was going to get through it. I came up with a plan. The first thing to do was to pick a subject for my speech that I was familiar with. I chose Wicca. It was an interesting choice, considering that I was at an all girl Catholic high school run by Benedictine nuns. I  had an interest in witchcraft, nothing to speak of, I think for the most part it had to do with my childhood fascination with Bewitched, and my all-time favorite movie, “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Fortunately, the speech teacher was a lay teacher, a man, and he didn’t seem all that upset with my choice. I knew we would be required to look up as we spoke and not check our notes too often. That part was easy, I knew my subject well. I talked off the top of my head for the entire speech. The hardest part was facing the crowd, well a crowd of about twenty-four. On the few previous occasion when I spoke in class, my classmates had to critique me. Every single time they pointed out that as I stood there choking out words the podium was shaking. The night before the speech I was really nervous, and of course like most kids, trying to figure out what disease I could possibly come up with on a moments notice so that I wouldn’t have to go to school the next day. Nothing worked and the moment was at hand. Then a brainstorm. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was thirteen. Blind as a bat. All I had to do was to take off my glasses, from the auditorium stage I couldn’t see my audience. I big blob of color. I was still nervous, and I did shake a little. The speech went well. My teacher said it was good, just a little unorganized. Not bad since I didn’t really write one.

That brings me to today’s painting. I have mentioned before that I love Impressionism. Strangely enough since I have the perfection issue. The thought occurred to me that all I need to do is to take my glasses off. Trust me, the world at large is one giant Impressionistic scene when my glasses are off, and as long as I’m going down this road I am doing my own waterlilies. A photo taken in Giverny in 2009. I have to admit I’m struggling as I look at it. I do believe I may be revisiting this one. Image Do you think it’s possible that there would have been no Impressionism if eye care were better in Monet’s day?

Following Through

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6 7 (3)I spent the day working on following through on projects that I had already begun. Part of my artistic history that I am working to change is to finish things. So much unfinished work hiding in the studio avoiding judgement. So many years that I hid behind the words “I’m not finished”. That way when anyone saw my “not good enough work”, I had an out. I no longer want and need the out. I’ve walked through art fairs, museums and paged through art magazines and seen work that I love. So much of it is simple, uncomplicated, without the kind of perfection that I expect of myself. I see color that I am in awe of, or works that evoke feeling, it’s what I want to get to in my own work. To free myself of the weight of my own expectation. To learn to just let the creativity flow and watch what happens. To stop sitting in judgement of myself and create for the sheer pleasure of it. In a few days I will reach the two month mark with this project. I am seeing and feeling a difference in my work. I have not however, learned to put my work first. I am still on many a night scrambling at the end of the day for a project. It took far too many years for me to begin this journey, and I know I can’t expect everything to change over night. I told my son not long ago that I didn’t want to be “mad” at anyone anymore. Life is too short. I think I need to take that to heart for myself, to be a little kinder to me. I also need to make myself and my work a priority.

I did more work on the Iris box. It still isn’t complete, I’m waiting for some antique stain on the top to dry. I am also experimenting with something I read about on Pinterest. It is a technique to turn regular printer paper copies of my work into canvas prints. I am posting one of a painting I did based on a very old botanical drawing. I had some success with this first one, but I tried three others that were not quite as successful. I wasted a lot of time and materials. I’m not giving up. I like the first one, so I’ll have to try again tomorrow.6 7 (16)

Letting Go Of Perfection

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I never know from day-to-day what I am going to create, much less what I will blog about. Both projects are discovering themselves as my day goes on. I will have to be very honest here, both the art and the writing are on the top of my daily “to do” list, but both are the last things I do at the end of the day most of the time. Why? I’m still struggling with putting myself first and letting go of my duties as wife/mother. I’m still making sure the kitchen gets cleaned in the morning, and that there are meals on the table, and every other thing I can think of in between. I’m working on it, but without much success. I will continue to figure this out, and at some point (hopefully) I’ll learn to ignore that the floor needs to be swept. (Disclosure: I can’t eat at those restaurants where they have rude wait staff and peanut shells on the floor. I cannot stand rudeness, and absolutely cannot eat in a place that has a dirty floor. I don’t know why I feel the need to share this, except that maybe it lets you know me just a little better. One might think by reading that, that I am a neat freak. Far from the truth. My house is clean, very clean, well at least as clean as a house with three cats and a twenty-two year old male can be, but I’m messy. I think I mentioned that before, I mean the me being messy part, again for no particular reason…)

I brought all of the above up because I (as regular readers might know by now) am struggling with not being good enough or perfect in my art. Tonight I had a little breakthrough. I didn’t work earlier today because of anything more than it was really hot here today, and unusually humid. Hot plus humid equal lethargic for me. I just wasn’t in the mood. Not that I didn’t try. I made a few pathetic attempts at something with clay, and although I promised to put up all work, warts and all, I didn’t even come up with something I could photograph even as an attempt. So at the magic hour of seven p.m., which seems to be turning into my starting time, I began a watercolor painting. My breakthrough was that I didn’t sweat it at all. When I do a rough sketch for a painting I worry over every little detail. I measure and fuss over the drawing being just right. I didn’t measure tonight. I just sketched, and then I just painted. In a moment I had the thought that the reality is, unless I am painting a well-known monument, the people who see my work are more than likely to never see the photo I use as inspiration, or into my brain to see where ideas spring from there (God forbid!). I started out tonight feeling like I was doing homework again, but then I relaxed, I let the process and my enjoyment of it take over. The finished project, a watercolor and ink inspired by a photo I took in Carmel, California, isn’t perfect. The perspective isn’t perfect. I am not perfect, and I’m learning to be content with all of it.

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No Surrender!

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Tonight’s project is a small oil painting, but before I get into that I want to be really honest here about my struggle today. I’m actually working on several projects, most of them have to do with refurbishing flea market finds. I’ve been putting those projects ahead of this one, thus the late night art work and posting. I’m fine with that because it isn’t about avoiding my art, it’s about earning a living. My struggle today was with the very same issues I addressed last night. I almost did it today, I almost walked away from this painting. Oil painting is my biggest obstacle. It is the art I am most drawn to, and the one I have the biggest issues with. To begin with I really am an “instant gratification” artist, when I want something done, I want it yesterday. I’m also a bit of a control freak, (A bit? I don’t like to fly, I hate it actually, but as I have told Dan repeatedly, if I could fly the plane there would be no issue) anyway, oil is not a medium for control freaks. It directs the time line. Things were not coming out the way I wanted and the canvas only had paint on half of it. I put it down and went in search of my watercolors. I decided what to paint, but then I stopped. I made myself go back to the oils. The struggle continued right on to the end. I won’t give in to it. I have to keep pushing. No Surrender!

Whew! Got that out. The painting…

Struggle Part Deux

My other problem, I have no style. Not personally of course, that is if you consider jeans and a shirt of some form roughly three hundred fifty days a year a style, but a painting style. Again the lack of lessons has left me clueless in the use of materials. Just before I started writing I told Dan that my paintings are flat. My Dad was a house painter by trade, it’s sort of how I used to paint. No dimension, like painting with a brush on a wall. When I go to art museums I am as close as legally allowed to paintings, always studying the strokes and texture of the paint. My paintings looked for the most part lifeless. The other issue (there’s more?), is that I can’t decide how I want to paint. Realism? Yes and no, too much precision. Impressionism? More yes than no, love Impressionism, first place we went to in Paris was the Musee d’Orsay, the Impressionist museum. It’s a difficult style for me because I’m still a little hung up on the “it has to look like it’s supposed to look” issue. I love Grant Wood, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. Particularly Hopper. I’m just not sure who I am as a painter. I just decided to post two pictures tonight. The one I did earlier this evening, and another older one. In my efforts to get over myself I figured out a little trick. I had put a soft focus filter on a photograph to blur the lines. It helped me get past the “has to” nonsense. I only needed to do it one or twice, but it really helped. Once I realized that my “not exactly as it really looks” paintings were something I liked, I was able to move past some of the crap in my head. (The older painting was actually in part a photo from Gourmet magazine. Just want to make sure I give credit.)

So tonight I was playing with style and texture. I didn’t work from my actual photograph, which was from a sunrise I photographed in Virginia Beach, but from what I saw in my mind from looking at it earlier in the day. Not entirely pleased with the results, but happy I didn’t give up.

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Lost Day

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It would be nice if I were posting early because I finally took the time for myself, but that isn’t the case at all. For the first time in more than a month I will have no new artwork to post. I will instead post a photo of something a little older. I promised myself that not a day would go by without doing something artistic. What I failed to consider was that there might be a day when I had no choice. I went to bed last night feeling perfectly fine but woke at some point not well at all, I’ll spare the gory details, but I was very ill. Suffice it to say that my bathroom floor and I have a new-found relationship. I’ve spent the day sleeping on and off, and at this point still don’t feel great. So tonight there is no artistic accomplishment to unveil. I will instead attach an older work of art but one of my favorites. I hope tomorrow to be back working once again.

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This is an oil I did based on a photo that I took in Santa Barbara, California. I call it My Secret Garden.

Climbing Hills

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My post from last night was pretty short, and I was right I was playing it safe, but life really does get in the way.  Looking back I’m surprised I actually got anything done. We did go hiking yesterday, we hiked for three hours, and climbed to a height of more than twelve hundred feet. I believe I’ve mentioned my bad knees before, I’ve had five surgeries on one knee, and one surgery on the other, I also have a bad Achilles tendon, and scar tissue in my back and neck from a car accident. I’m not talking about this for reasons of sympathy. I’m of the “is what it is” ilk, but the truth is there isn’t a pain-free day in my life. That can really get in the way of creativity. I was really exhausted last night but still managed to turn out a halfway decent piece of art. I think the writing was actually the harder part last night. I really bring up the injuries because as hard as it was to hike up that hillside yesterday, and even more excruciating coming back down (no ACL (alias anterior cruciate ligament) can be torture) but I did it. When Dan checked with me on both the way up and the way down to see if I was doing OK, I said “I’m not going to give in to this.” I thought about that today. I was in real pain yesterday, we’re talking a ten out of ten here, but I am already planning our next hike. I refuse to sit down and let my bad knees, bad ankle and so on get the best of me. So why can’t I have that same attitude with my art? Step after step hurt, but I never gave up, I never said stop, and that’s what I need to do here. Some of the paths were a little more steep than others, some were more rocky, and on the way down more than a few were a little slippery. That is how I need to approach art. Push through the emotional pain, push through the insecurities, refuse to give in.  So today with my tired, aching and creaky bones I made the decision to really look for a project that I am not comfortable with, a painting of a full figure. I’ve never painted a full figure, or even drawn one for that matter. My husband has generously volunteered to pose for me to do some free form figure sketching, but I have yet to take him up on it. I’m diving right in to a 24×48 oil painting.  My subject is my beautiful daughter from a photo that I took. There is a movie called Big Fish that came out several years ago. I saw a still photo from that movie of a girl standing in a blue dress that I just loved. My daughter has a blue vintage dress, so a few years back I asked her to pose in the dress. My intention at the time was of course to paint the photo. Of course that was back in the years of lots of intention for art but no actual work. I looked for that photo today and found it. I sketched it out on the canvas and blocked in a little color for the background. My intention is to have her standing before a blue sky and in a field of grass, and possibly adding a spot of bright color in the form of a flower somewhere.  I won’t show the photo yet as I have not yet spoken to my daughter to gain her permission. I will post the painting as it stands right now. One other little note about my work. I love instant gratification in my work, oil obviously does not allow for that. I usually end up frustrated because I’ve muddied my colors. Not this time. What you see tonight is all that will be done for now. I won’t be working on it again until I can touch the background in a couple of days. I will work on some other things as I wait, maybe even work with my in-house model.Jessica painting (4)

Jessica painting (3)

Jigsaw Puzzle Art

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Like the title of today’s blog? I called it that because that is what I feel like I produced yesterday. I decided to go with oils, and also to try something new. Many of my paintings appear flat to me. Again, without lessons I’m not really sure if I do things the way they should be done. I did a small 9×12 painting based on a photograph I took in central California farm country. I am very drawn to old barns, abandoned buildings, old doors and windows, essentially anything that looks lonely, speaks of solitude, and seem left behind. I haven’t mentioned it before but I am also quite a good photographer. My photography is much the same, lonely; there are never people in my photographs. I was a very shy child and sometimes quite lonely. Alone is a place I’m comfortable in. (I’m sure at this point arm-chair psychologists eyebrows are raised.)…back to my painting saga…

I tried to use a palette knife to lay the paint on thickly. My knife was too big for the small canvas, so it quickly became a mucky mess. I scraped it off and tried again. Same issue. At that point I was feeling defeated, I felt like things just weren’t going to go right. My artistic mojo had abandoned me. I almost gave up, but the blog was calling. I kept thinking that I had to do something. My “not good enough” voice was whispering in my ear, “You have other work you can use.” Do you think it’s possible to get Catholic guilt from a blog? I believe it is, because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t use an old painting, or another piece of art, I couldn’t break my promise to myself. I told my “not good enough” voice to shut up, and I tried again. This time I used a small brush and dabbed the paint on the canvas thickly. It seemed to be working; at least the piece had texture. My husband came in the room and said he liked what I was doing. That gave me the confidence to continue. All in all it took about two hours. When I was finished my husband said he loved it, me not too much. There are particular areas that I like very much, where the paint has a vibrancy that I love, but quite frankly, in the end I don’t like it very much. I wrestled once again with the thought of not posting it, but this blog is about discovering who I am as an artist, so I guess that means warts and all. Even if I think it’s garbage, it will be here. Things will get better, of that I am sure. I have not consistently produced art or painted in years. So I have decided to give myself a break and tell “not good enough” to shut up more often, maybe at some point it may go away.

Oh, the title of today’s blog? When I looked at the painting and told my husband I didn’t like it he said, “I love it”. To which I replied,”You know what it looks like? It looks like one of those awful paintings they turn into a jigsaw puzzle.”

Anyone need a thousand pieces?Image