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Posted on 10/27/2026 7:47:47 PM
By Donald Fox
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SunSpots
I have been working with abstraction for many decades. Depending on how one thinks about abstract art or abstraction in art, I could say that every artist works abstractly and that every artist works concretely. For ease of discussion, let’s say that we focus on painting. A painting is a concrete, physical object that represents something: an idea, a perception, a picture, an image, a symbol, a metaphor, or various combinations of these concepts. Over many years, my thinking about abstraction has narrowed and expanded simultaneously. As an artist, I spend more time thinking about art – its purpose, its meaning, its importance, its necessity, its history, its source – more than I spend actually making it. This is what I do as an artist, for without that thinking and contemplation, I would have little reason to make art, or whatever I did make might not be called art. It certainly would not have the same creative well from which to draw.
When most artists learn their craft, at some point they learn basic principles about design, expression, and pictorial possibilities. Those principles are abstract ideas that can be interpreted in varieties of ways. Even the briefest look at artistic samples from generations past will illustrate the incredible variety of interpretations of those basic ideas. The visual alphabet may be the same, but the visual words and sentences made from them are unique to individual artists (except when an artist may copy another, but then that copyist is likely not considered an artist). The point, though, is that artists are working with a similar set of principles (abstract ideas) that underlie any resultant art. A representational painter who makes paintings based on observed reality is using the same principles as an abstract painter who is not working from anything seen in the external world. Both artists are concerned about color, shape, form, texture, and other visual tools, but what they do with those tools diverges greatly from the other.
My concerns with abstraction are discovering and exploring congruent elements in work dating back to my earliest dabbling in art. I have discovered a range of design elements in many early works that have continued to evolve through years of expression. One of these is diagonal movement within the picture space. In landscape paintings this may have appeared as the line of a road moving into the distance, a fenceline moving from foreground to background, a line of trees, receding telephone poles or houses, or other linear perspective examples. Brushwork freed from the confines of recognizable shapes has taken on meaning as visual handwriting and expressive gestures that for me embody energy and whimsy. The rectilinear shapes and parallel planes of my Window and Doors series have taken on curvilinear sides and diagonal movement across and into the picture space that create multilayered tension much like that seen in some early cubism.
Compositions are found within linear gestures that intertwine and overlap, and from these a design emerges as shapes begin to reveal themselves in blocked areas of color. Sometimes I will see bird-like or fish-like shapes that I may enhance or disguise as part of a symbolic image or set of images that also suggest a title in line with natural or spiritual thoughts and feelings. Memories and dreams are also conjured by some of these spontaneous expressions. Overall, the process feels intuitive, abstract in that there is no observed subject, and improvisational as there is no intentional concept to be illustrated. What is of particular interest to me, however, is the growing body of interrelated images that emerge from painting to painting.
Posted on 10/5/2026 2:27:04 PM
By Donald Fox
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Clouded Moon
Since about 2013 (earlier if I include sketches in various notebooks), I have worked on a series I titled “Windows and Doors,” a metaphorical title for abstract designs that played with the idea of entrances and exits within a spatial field. I’ve written about this series in the past and won’t further elaborate here except to say that often in those paintings I included curvilinear shapes and lines, sometimes partially obscured, that were spontaneous, energetic gestures contrasting with the geometry door- and window-like rectangular shapes. Those playful elements have now come to the fore as spontaneous gestural brushwork or paint-stick marks from which a composition develops. Both the geometric and freeform abstraction echo brush drawings and paintings from the late 70’s and 80’s that in turn were derived from more traditional landscapes of earlier (and later) periods of my art. A new series, “Archaeology of Thought,” has also been addressed previously, and the following relates to that series as well.
I have a long-standing tendency to contemplate what I do to understand and clarify the general context of my work. I have strong memories of childhood and teenage experiences of playing in the forests close to home. Close observation of seasonal changes was important to me. There are many experiences of flying (my dad was an airline pilot so family often flew on passes), and I loved studying the patchwork of ground patterns seen from the air and the irregular billowing motion of clouds, especially while flying through cumulus cloud formations that created incredible air canyons and spatial architecture like nothing else. I loved spending time at the beach not far from home where I experienced the rhythm of waves on calm, sunny days as well as stormy ones. I also loved exploring tidal pools and the variety of small-scale life found therein. Reflections were a major part of these pools including distortions created by moving water.
A feature in current work is a kind of distorted rectangle that has either convex or concave sides, sometimes both, that for me function on several levels simultaneously. These shapes appear to move within the picture space playfully and rhythmically. I can see them also as whimsical windows like something from a fairy tale or imaginary other-worldly space. To me, they also feel lyrical and poetic and, at times, musical. A thought I frequently have while working is that I am making a visual poem.
A poem is a kind of narrative and in some cases specifically so. A poem is also condensed language, most modern poetry utilizing images, twists of language, juxtapositions, leaps in time and space, and expressive freedom for emotional and intellectual impact. A poem also moves across and down a page similar to the way a written narrative moves in a story or novel. Rime and other devices echo previous statements or images as the poem refers to itself while also connecting with something larger than itself – the writer, the reader, the world outside, the past or the present or the future, the universe – whatever or wherever the poet intends for it to go.
A painting is not linear, and its elements move within the picture space however the painter has designed that movement. The possibilities are many, but important considerations are the center and the edge limits. Each has definite impact on the viewer, but even a small painting can represent nearly infinite space if that is the artist’s intention – a combination of intimacy and expansiveness. Perhaps this is the appeal of abstraction; there is virtually no limitation to imaginative expression.
Posted on 9/28/2026 1:58:17 PM
By Donald Fox
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Containment
A line is direction; it is distance; it is movement across a surface and through space. We tend to think of line as flat, without depth or substance, with only length and whatever direction it seems to move. A line has purpose within a picture space. It may divide one area from another; it may appear to move or have moved; it may activate otherwise undifferentiated space. In geometry, a line is defined as the shortest distance between two points – but that is strictly a straight line. Lines can certainly meander in any direction. A line may have weight being light or dark, thin or broad. It may begin wide and narrow down to a point as the line of a road disappearing into the distance, or similar to receding telephone poles, or receding fenceposts – those many iterations found in numerous landscape paintings and drawings.
However, I am intrigued by abstract line, line just as itself whether curving or straight, angular or geometric. Line interacting with other lines and building shapes or tone, line creating illusory space, a kind of narrative as it moves, parallel to or intersecting other lines, crossing over, cutting through, bisecting or segmenting, defining edges and enclosing space while making shapes. Line can be fluid and soft; line can be direct and harsh. Line is contemplative, and line is emotional and psychological. Study Rembrandt’s use of line in his drawings and brush paintings. He animates figures and creates emotional depth simply with line. His landscape drawings define space and create powerful images with simple, tightly controlled but seemingly improvisational gestural lines that often feel like a fusion between oriental brushwork and western descriptive drawings. They are magical and mysterious.
Numerous past masters, both traditional and modern, have utilized line effectively and uniquely in their work. From the subtlety of Ingres’ line drawings to the simplicity of Mondrian’s geometric drawings, or from the gestural space-defining drawings of Giacometti to the intricate and expressive web-like designs of Pollock, line has a powerful presence in art that communicates with immediacy the thought process of the individual artist. Line may be simple and direct as an artistic tool, but it is endlessly adaptable to every artist’s intention. It is the artist who instills line with numinous power through sleight of hand magic.
Posted on 8/31/2026 8:33:24 PM
By Donald Fox
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Layer Cake
Memory is important to any kind of painting but especially to realistic painting. The painter makes many observations that require working memory to accurately record an image or complex of images. As part of that process, the painter makes many adjustments or corrections to shape, line, color, and value. In outdoor settings under natural light, the painter also must establish the light source and shadows because the sun continues to move, and shadows change position. Memory is necessary to keep the original feeling of the scene since it is literally changing in front of the artist by the second. However, artists learn to incorporate adjustments into their paintings in order to produce a final result that is unified, believable, and effective.
Abstract painters similarly make adjustments as their paintings develop, but the visual feedback comes directly from the surface of the painting unless they are working from a sketch or possibly making a spontaneous work in a dance-like performance. They may also sometimes pull images or ideas from long-term memory to relate a new piece to previous work. I often do this in my work. A few months ago, I wrote a poem about memory that partly relates to the idea of painting although it more generally applies to a variety of remembered experiences.
The past dwells in memory
constructed as it were
by successive moments
like links in a chain
that worn with time and neglect
erode lesser links
that fade to sameness,
lost contrast reads like gaps,
and only isolated moments
shine through,
clearly at first,
but even they
sway and buckle,
photos faded on ragged paper,
a little touch-up necessary,
a bit of fill-in
to restore clarity,
and now an image emerges
that seems real enough
but likely never happened
at least not as remembered.
We inevitably edit our memories while trying to complete a remembered scene or circumstance. We all do this, and this may bring into question whether the past – or more specifically – whether memory is reliable long term insofar as personal experience is concerned. Even so, I use the feeling of memories, the emotion behind memories, as part of the painterly experience. Perhaps that comes from my early training in landscape and figure painting. However flawed it may be, I (and other artists) utilize memory in the making of, in the consideration of, and in the study of paintings. Memory also helps create continuity of artistic approach and philosophy. Mnemonic devices, aids to memory, are useful in personal learning, but we also have many modern ways to record experiences in practical ways that were unavailable in the past. At some point, though, we interpret what we experience or what we think we know, and that is where memory can become creative.
Posted on 5/1/2026 1:53:03 PM
By Donald Fox
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Crossing Over
Recent paintings over the last four or so months contain a lot of hard-edged elements. The Windows and Doors series begun in 2013 used rectangular underlying forms, but the execution was more expressive: dragged paint applied with various tools and brushes; edges lost and found; both visual and actual texture; layered surfaces only partially covering what lay underneath. The name Archaeology of Thought specifically references the building of one shape, idea, construction over another, so my focus has shifted to a different metaphor. The hard-edge elements, though, are in part tributes to Claude Howell, my early teacher, a painter from my home town whom I often think of as a mentor. Claude had an abstract period in the sixties, I think, but most of his work is stylized figurative – especially coastal scenes of the beach, fishermen, drying fishing nets, and later, beach houses in high-key color that often captured the bright light of a coastal summer. The houses were painted as hard-edged reductive geometrical shapes. Yet Claude always connected to something observed; observed and then imaginatively transformed.
Currently, though, I’m re-exploring expressive gestural brushwork with a few hard-edged trapezoids or triangles as compositional elements. These are playful, colorful designs that sometimes relate to early twentieth century abstractionists – some cubism and some free-form Kandinsky-like improvisation. The joy expressed in many of those early abstractions is palpable. By contrast, a lot of twentieth century abstraction became very cerebral and intellectual, leading some artists to eliminate objects and focus on experience, art events, happenings, environments where the viewer would be essentially inside the artwork rather than standing vis-à-vis a painting or sculpture. I still believe that there are many decades (if not centuries) of painting exploration to continue a thousand-year tradition. Like many boastful political slogans, the phrase “painting is dead” died of overuse and misrepresentation. Painting is a living form of artistic expression that has and will continue to outlive its critics.
Posted on 4/14/2026 11:05:44 PM
By Donald Fox
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Steve Suite no. 15, Flight
Pencil lines can be erased. Brush strokes can be painted over or washed out. As a drawing or a painting progresses, erasure and painting over or wiping out are part of the developmental process. Taking away is another form of adding to. The process is incremental. Increase and decrease are equivalent as steps though each can vary by degree. Variance is what we measure and to which we ascribe significance. Negative, positive, neutral – all are measurable. Each is relative to what has come before or what comes after. Is then, everything linear? Is simultaneity an illusion? Can the moment be eternal? Observations are dependent on time, on a succession of moments. When the event is no longer observable, it lingers on in memory like an echo of itself, strong at first but fading over time and distance. Yet we also preserve moments in pictures, paintings, film, and thousands of printed read-outs? Are these not proof of consistency and continuity. Is the long history (by our measure) of humanity as recorded in art objects large and small, written, painted, or sculpted a testament to existence in the moment (of creation)? Is that history the effort to directly state – “I exist,” and thereby, “We exist?” I create art; therefore, I am.
Well, that’s one reason. Don’t we also create because we have the ability to do so? We are naturally expressing our beingness to share that awareness among ourselves. We are the senses of the universe and acknowledge its being as well as ours through our perceptual expressions. Art’s many pathways provide endless areas of exploration, manifestation, and commentary on the mysteries of existence. Art is a powerful way that we can interact with the universe, its external and internal aspects. We are the universe sensing itself, and art is the language for expressing that.
Posted on 2/28/2026 2:00:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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April Seven
My wife and I love the Olympics. Usually we record events during the two-week run both winter and summer and then watch selected parts when we have time. Neither of us follow sports on a regular basis and sometimes are quite critical of many of those popular pastimes because they have become so heavily commercial with some athletes grossly overpaid. There are those, of course, who would say something similar about the Olympics, the cost to put on those spectacles, the huge cost borne by families of young athletes, the endorsements that some amateur athletes receive that makes them seem like paid professionals, the token prize payments for those few athletes who win medals, the inclusion of professionals athletes in some sports, and, more recently, the insertion of politics into this ancient sports tradition. I recognize those issues, but to watch the masterful performances of teenagers and seasoned, mature adults, to learn their stories of sacrifice and dedication to what they love doing – these are inspiring. Beyond that, to also see competitors openly support and embrace those they compete against, to celebrate with them and acknowledge them, and sometimes defend them against outside criticism, these are also inspiring. For us, it is a sign that there is hope for this world and its future.
As an artist, I have many interests that in some way or other are channeled back into my art. I love color, beauty, nature, music, dance, theater, film, painting, sculpture, and many other expressions found in this world. I was reminded of this when Japanese figure skater Ami Nakai used a version of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” for her program. Most of the time Olympic athletes dramatize the wonderfulness of achievement and excellence in what they do in their sports. Admittedly, there are some soap operas played out, but the international cooperation most often displayed is encouraging. To hear an obviously highly talented athlete like Ilia Malinin speak honestly about his failure to fulfill his and everyone else’s expectations for him – not make excuses or blame his skates, the ice, the venue, his coaches, or anyone else but to take responsibility – that was also inspiring and a powerful lesson for other athletes (also for politicians, world leaders, anyone in a position of authority).
Excellence has perhaps been overused in many areas from sports to business to leadership, but even so, excellence is about aspiration and commitment. It generally has a positive connotation, and I would put it in a category with diversity, inclusion, empathy, and a few other positive human traits. Having created art (painting, drawing, sculpture, music, dance) for many decades, I generally learn something from every expression and incorporate that in some way into whatever comes next. I particularly like the phrase “continuous, never-ending improvement” that initially came from the Japanese philosophy Kaizen, something I learned when my wife worked in quality assurance at Texaco. Small changes continuously applied will result in excellence in any endeavor. Certainly the highest level athletes know this and incorporate that into their training. I believe the highest level artists do this as well.
Posted on 2/20/2026 5:35:47 PM
By Donald Fox
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Diamond Mine
February is well underway – Valentine’s is past, the Winter Olympics are ongoing, Presidents Day is Monday, and Sunday is my dad’s 108th birthday (he passed one month shy of ninety-nine). Timing is everything, so many have said, but that still involves matching preparedness with action, and, for the artist, matching resources with expression. A spontaneous action does not come from nothing to suddenly manifest. Even spontaneous combustion requires specific conditions for its occurrence: combustible material, heat, dry atmosphere. And time. Nothing of significance occurs within an instant. There is always a time frame.
Painting requires certain conditions as well. Motivation and purpose, materials, and coordinated action or series of actions that lead from blank canvas to completed work. I, and most artists that I know, spend a lot of time thinking about painting either beforehand as part of preparation or certainly in the process of creating a work. So many choices are made from moment to moment that it is difficult sometimes to isolate steps other than in the most general way. Over time, many of the steps may become or seem to become automatic, but I believe that conscious awareness at each stage enhances the creative experience. As I lay out my palette of colors, for example, I am thinking about and seeing before me the relationship that exists among the various colors. As each layer of paint goes down, the complexity of choice for what comes next increases. Sometimes new variants seem to be required; other times simplifying or reducing colors is required. The process is mysterious and almost mystical.
I sometimes think that the new layer building on the previous layers is like a city built upon the ruins of another. I suppose this is where the phrase archaeology of thought came from, a phrase that has now generated a new series of paintings under that thematic heading. As each painting progresses, new applications of color hide what came before while creating new relationships in terms of shape, color, and from with the parts untouched. Even so, I remember what was there and often record each stage of development for later perusal. I can dig backwards in time while also moving forward in time. I believe this to be parallel to how we remember experiences and create new sets of knowledge and experience through our everyday lives. A painting, then, is a chronicle of its own development while also being testament to the artist’s creatively expressed experience. Perhaps this is from where the numinous merges.
Posted on 1/30/2026 2:23:04 PM
By Donald Fox
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Within a few weeks the Winter Olympics will begin. I am not really a sports fan, but I am a great admirer of athletes, for I appreciate what they do as a form of aesthetic expression that involves creative thinking wedded to physical skills, the body being the vehicle through which creativity is expressed. Even those sports that rely on brute force – American football, boxing, or mixed martial arts as examples – have a creative side though it’s usually caste as competitive. The Olympics, however, have a very long history, include countries from around the world, and the competitors are most often competing to better themselves even though prizes are involved and sometimes long-held rivalries are also at play.
The public performance for the athlete is ultimately a very small part of the athlete’s total experience. There are many hours, days, and years out of the public eye where skills are honed and the body is prepared for the seconds, minutes, or hours of performance. Being an athlete is a lifestyle, and so is being an artist or most any other performer. I don’t know that I can remember ever not being in art mindset. Every experience has some kind of aesthetic aspect to it. Even those activities that most people would not associate with art of any kind – mowing the yard, washing dishes, feeding the cats – actually can be seen with the artist’s eye. When I do some ordinary task, a ‘mindless’ task, I work on artistic problems. I notice something about how the body is functioning or how colors in a room or backyard or pile of papers interact, how sounds overlap and intermingle, how the senses are activated by what a job requires. This, obviously, is a multi-layered experience.
Art is about perception – what the artist perceives that goes into the art and what the viewer/audience perceives in the art. I think of this as layers of experience that all of us perceive all the time whether we do so consciously or not. The layers accumulate, and I as an artist read them, interpret them, and recycle them into a new set of experiences, which are chronicled in the artwork. So, lately, I’ve been thinking about all of those experiences as relics that an archaeologist might study in order to understand whoever made them. This has led me to my current series I call Archaeology of Thought. My paintings and drawings are the relics composed of other relics which are the marks, colors, shapes and textures that are in constant motion relative to each other. Some may object to the idea of parts of a painting being in motion but let me explain my perception.
Paintings, generally, are considered static. The shapes and colors don’t move on the surface, and neither is there physical depth even when deep space may be rendered as in a landscape with distant mountains. However, a viewer can easily perceive movement from one side to another, along a painted road, or in the rustle of leaves on a depicted windy day. Sometimes certain shapes echo other shapes within the composition, much like words echo or rime in lines of poetry. Colors can also physically influence neighboring colors, making them appear lighter or darker, brighter or duller, a phenomenon Joseph Albers called simultaneous contrast. Adjacent complementary colors will appear to vibrate so strong is the effect each has on the other. Lines suggest direction and movement across the surface. All of these create a perceived dynamic quality to well-executed paintings. A painting becomes activated in the mind of the viewer.
As a painter, I consciously think about what is happening as a painting is developed. I see it changing before me with every stroke and every added layer. Sometimes portions of under layers are allowed to show through a top layer, or a cool color painted over a warm color (blue over red, for example) will appear different than that same color by itself. The effects achieved by manipulating paint and color can be dramatic or subtle, but every stroke contributes to the final product. This incremental process is filled with observations, decisions, and actions, alterations and refinements. Each painting is a chronicle of its own development, and I am the archaeological witness to that process.
Posted on 12/23/2025 12:43:15 PM
By Donald Fox
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Big Screen - digital painting
Just a few days before Christmas and less than two weeks before the end of the year. Perception of time and space is often fluid since our minds can conjure the past or take us on an alternate journey beyond the current moment much like quick transitions often occur within dreams. Is this a luxury or a distraction? An engineer focuses on numbers and equations to construct in real time the formula for what will later manifest as a bridge or automobile or washing machine. The artist manipulates various mediums to create art that expresses some emotional response to the outside world, to a memory, or to a feeling or thought – or a combination of these. Isn’t the engineer’s focus on numbers essentially the same as the artist’s focus on chosen medium? Aren’t both creatives tapping into a realm of the mind that is not visible to the outside observer and only becomes perceivable when the end product is produced? Isn’t that internal creative process just another form of dreaming?
People often speak of an artist’s vision, meaning the particular point of view that the artist expresses in his/her art. That vision is similar to that of any other creative: scientist, engineer, politician, religious leader, or… whoever. All results are judged and assigned value by those impacted who may or may not be the intended audience. The vision, or lack of it, of those who judge generally comes from the question, how is this useful to me? An engineer or scientist might think about the usefulness of his/her actions for others. As an artist, however, I rarely think about what my work may mean to others or how they might perceive it. Thus, when someone asks me what a painting might mean or what my intention was in creating it, I usually balk at the question. My response often is another question – “What does it mean to you?” “What do you see in the painting?” “What is your experience as you look at it?”
In my so-called career as a painter, I have moved through many different styles of expression spanning both representational and abstract images, sometimes a combination of both. In my realistic paintings I can see elements of abstraction in colors, shapes, and space. In my abstract paintings I can see elements of realism in colors, shapes, and space. In my current abstract work, I find new representations of ideas I explored thirty or forty years ago, but the current work is different. Ideally, the critical response would suggest that the work is more mature. Personally, I think it is just dreamed differently.
Posted on 11/27/2025 2:22:50 PM
By Donald Fox
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Life Raft oil on canvas 30" x 40"
The following, slightly edited, came from notes written in a small sketchbook sometime in August of 2017, just over eight years ago. I was rummaging today through old sketchbooks and journals (sometimes these also contain impromptu drawings) to find a series of colored pencil drawings from just a few years back. I’m meeting next week with a friend who lives on her family’s homestead in the countryside northwest of Houston. We will be doing drawing together so she can improve her understanding and skills, and I want to show her some samples of what I sometimes call controlled doodling. All she really needs, I think, is a bit of encouragement since she already has done a lot of her own doodling. I know she will appreciate this brief story below.
Zhang Guolau, also known as the bat spirit, was a mythological figure and one of the Eight Immortals in the Taoist pantheon. He was also said to be a real historical figure who lived sometime from the seventh to the eighth century. Among his legends he rode on a magical white mule for thousands of miles within a day. When the mule was not needed, Zhang commanded it to step onto a piece of paper where it transformed into a drawing of a mule. Zhang folded up the paper and carried it in his pocket until he again needed the mule on which he could ride.
A painter expresses his thoughts, his/her feelings, and his/her impressions about a person, place, or experience in his/her paintings. The painting is no more than colored marks that have been skillfully arranged on a surface to illustrate those thoughts or feelings. A viewer brings his/her experience to a painting even upon first viewing. To the perceptive viewer, the painting may speak about something other than person, place, or experience. It is potentially a window to another realm. The painting may hang on a wall within a room and appear to be a decoration, part of the décor, a framed spot of color and shape that echoes other colors and shapes within the room.
The painting may also be a portal that leads far beyond the walls of the room. It is the imagination of the painter connecting with the imagination of the viewer that makes the painting come to life. Whatever is portrayed now exists in a virtual realm, a magical realm, that transcends time, space, the confines of a frame, and the common materials from which it was made. It is a mute testament to human experience, and it is a white mule that can travel thousands of miles within a day.
Posted on 10/24/2025 1:51:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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April Seven - digital painting
The roots of modern art, if there is such a thing, are often located within the nineteenth century and the French explorations of color and form and general thinking about painting especially that moved away from classical influences. Various isms developed in the latter half of that century, Impressionism being the most celebrated of them. Many early twentieth century critics named Paul Cézanne as the father of twentieth century modernism. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were two early innovative modernists who acknowledged Cézanne’s work as influential. Since those groundbreaking cubist experiments, however, modern art has moved in so many directions that it is scarcely definable in any sensible way.
As a painter, I trained in an atelier like setting with emphasis on figure drawing and painting, emphasis on traditional form, and using color to evoke spatial relationships. This also included still life and landscape painting, what many would call realistic painting. When considering art history, teachers used a kind of spin that the traditional held the roots of the avant-garde. Artists were not so much breaking with tradition as they were reassessing the influence of nature on visual expression. Artists became less interested in learning academic painting techniques that followed specific formulas and shifted their focus to personal experience and direct contact with nature as the ultimate teacher. The Impressionists emphasized color interactions to produce the effects of light and illumination (and the subsequent dissolution of form). Cézanne simplified form by focusing on planar relationships and a semi-abstract interpretation of natural forms reduced to cylindrical, spherical, and conical basic shapes. This, of course, led directly to Cubism.
There are more nuances and complexity to painterly development from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, but these ideas laid the basic groundwork for what occurred. Individual artists within a particular movement developed their own recognizable styles while promoting the general principles of that movement. Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne were frequent painting partners, yet their works of the same settings and subjects were quite different. Both lived into the twentieth century – Pissarro died in 1903 at age 73 and Cézanne died in 1906 at age 67. It is interesting to note that early cubist work shows up around 1905.
My painterly journey has wound this way and that. I did some exploratory abstract work before and during graduate school in the early seventies, but I realized I was missing certain fundamental skills. This led me to focus on developing those skills through traditional painting, figurative and landscape. Shortly after I moved to Houston in the late seventies, I encountered a huge Cézanne exhibition at MFAH that set me to thinking about abstraction in a new light, not the hard-edged, large-scale work so prevalent in the sixties and seventies. I worked in this vein for about a year until deciding that color was interfering with form. I then switched to only black and white acrylic and brush and ink works so that I could focus on gesture and expressive movement. Studying Oriental brush painting led me to papermaking and low-relief sculptural abstraction for a time but eventually that led back to landscape painting.
What I did not realize was that lurking underneath all of that were thoughts about cubism and perception that I had not fully understood in my years as a student of painting. Later large exhibitions that I saw by both Picasso and Braque helped make connections that I had missed years earlier. Gesture (physical brush movement), texture, shape, color, space (real and illusionistic), multiple viewpoints (including in the moment and those based on memory), all began to merge for me into new explorations of the picture plane as a stage for spontaneous expression. This has resulted in the Windows and Doors series that has continued since about 2014. Adding newer technology like digital painting has not only resulted in interesting, quickly produced work, but also has opened new possibilities for the ongoing series of easel paintings. Bottom line for me at this point in time is the solid belief that artistic expression Is not only personal but also ever evolving. Every day is an exciting opportunity for discovery.
Posted on 2/28/2025 9:25:49 PM
By Donald Fox
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In life there is what we think we know moment to moment and day by day. We live, perhaps as others have said, as if in a dream only to awaken at some future time to discover that what seemed real was not. Tomorrow has not yet come, but as we may look back from whatever present moment, we might realize that now is that future we dreamed long ago, and the past is composed of many steps that have led to this present moment. That past may also be seen as a different story with a different meaning from what was experienced in those long-ago present moments. Is the aged wine sweeter, is it stronger, or has it become bitter as if plagued by regret? Wisdom, they say, grows with age, for youth is either mindlessly lost in pleasure or foolishly looking away to the future.
In this moment, however, is where inspiration comes, and from that dreams are realized as is art.
Posted on 12/31/2024 2:22:33 PM
By Donald Fox
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Here we are once again on the last day of the year, one that often is mourned as it coincides with the end of a holiday season for many but also celebrated as new possibilities are foreseen for the year to come. Like many of the routines and traditions that we adhere to, the end of year and beginning of the next are arbitrary and simply accepted as true or right by general agreement or by habit. This is the same for the beginning of any week or any month. We have been taught the way things are and have accepted that according to cultural standards. Seasonal changes make sense, for these can be observed and felt according to temperature shifts, alterations in the length of day and night, and other physical phenomena resulting from our journey around the sun. Those changes are gradual just as the ending or beginning of any day is also gradual. Even there, however, we impose our restriction according to the clock, and at a particular hour decide that we have moved from day to night or one day to the next.
I remember from years ago, when I worked in a state hospital, a doctor remarking on a country farmer patient that the man was less intelligent for not being able to specify when exactly certain symptoms had begun. The doctor became very impatient when questioning the man since he, the doctor, was so well programmed by timing governed by the clock, by schedules and dates, and by periods of measurement other than circadian rhythms. The farmer lived by the seasons and was not bound by specific timelines beyond what was needed for the farm. In a sense, the farmer lived according to natural rhythms instead of those imposed by the clock or someone else’s determination.
I imagine, though, that many of us chafe against the time restrictions according to which we live. How often do we speak of the Monday blues, of the mid-week slump, or hump day, of a Friday malaise, or spend time dreaming of the weekend? How many elevate holidays, vacation days, or any days off work as an escape from those tasks that have kept us from what might be more creative pursuits? And how many also will schedule the down time with activities that make that time more exhausting than the regular working hours of an average working day? Some may go so far as to denigrate leisure time as wasteful, so programmed have they become to the idea of productivity, accomplishment, getting ahead, or whatever mythology they have created around the idea of doing rather than being.
In our day-to-day existence, there also is a timelessness, at least in my experience, tied to what is remembered, or fabricated, from the past. Events, people, circumstances, choices, possibilities all reside in that virtual space, and I believe that it is from that space, sometimes nudged by the present, that creativity springs, ideas emerge, which suggests to me that my creative expression may be more about preserving or perhaps recreating some of what is no longer tangible to become tangible in a new form. Some psychologists believe that memories are often fabrications or edited versions of what may have happened in the past, a kind of wishful thinking about earlier experience, a folie a deux of current ego with its former manifestation. Isn’t that creative expression? It could certainly explain why siblings or close friends might have different recollections of a shared experience.
So, this year-end revery of time and space coincides with many cultural versions that draw upon metaphors of death and rebirth, the winter solstice, personification of seasons and the elements, and fanciful tales that both entertain and celebrate human connection with each other, with the earth, and with the cosmos, all within the concept of the past morphing into the future as experienced in the present.
Posted on 11/6/2024 3:29:43 PM
By Donald Fox
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The world of art is simply the world envisioned from a perspective unique to the creative insight of the individual artist. It is the same world that each and every one of us inhabits on a daily basis. Whenever a reader or viewer or listener connects with a particular work of art, I believe it is because that person already has something of the shared vision within him or her. It is that shared vision that makes what the artist has created all the more powerful when experienced by the viewer. I also believe that the person who does not respond to a particular work of art, or to any art, he or she has not found that spark within. I would even venture to say that person is in a kind of denial. There is a missing inner connection to awareness, sensitivity, openness, similar to what oriental health practitioners might call blocked chi, a blocked flow of intrinsic energy. And, some art works can be so powerful that they will blow open such clogged channels to enlighten, enthrall, and uplift the viewer to levels of experience previously unknown.
It is tempting and easy to anthropomorphize art and to speak of it as being something alive with its own life energy. Maybe even most artists do this in some way or other. I heard the novelist Barbara Kingsolver a while back on The Diane Rehm Show speaking about her novel Flight Behavior. She made an interesting comment that I feel certain resonates with many artists. She said, “this thing I do alone in my room has another whole life of its own out in the world.” Like all writers and most visual artists, she creates her work in solitude, but at some point the work leaves the nest and is given to the world. Aside from the dutiful book tours immediately post-publication or reviews that may follow soon after, she may have little feedback about the work, but the work itself is out there making whatever connections with the reading audience. On that radio program, it was interesting to hear appreciative readers acknowledging the author for the contributions she had unknowingly made to individual lives through previously published works.
Similarly, visual artists may connect with viewers at art openings or possibly if clients visit the studio. There may also be lots of instances where the work is seen and appreciated by viewers when the artist is not present. The art will continue to work its magic, but the artist may not know the specific gifts it bestows. If you know an artist, give him or her feedback, praise, acknowledgement, or whatever seems fitting. This is always uplifting and will likely inspire more creations for both to appreciate.
Posted on 8/11/2024 5:21:04 PM
By Fox
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Many courtroom dramas on television play out some variation on the idea of the defense counsel presenting a credible witness or the prosecution attacking the credibility of that witness or of the accuser. Was what was seen actually seen or simply remembered as being a particular way? Are the remembered details enough to establish that something was correctly observed? Is there corroboration by more than one person? Does what was observed mesh with other physical evidence? What was the actual truth of the particular situation?
In a way, a visual artist who paints from nature or observed reality is a witness to the visual experience that becomes the painting. Can that observation actually be objective? Is the painted truth an objective truth that anyone observing the same scene would agree that, yes, that’s the way it was? Artists and spectators alike speak of capturing a scene, but to what extent is the result dependent upon verisimilitude? Is there also wiggle room for the artist to subjectively evaluate and render that scene with truth and validity? What is it that the artist is actually portraying that makes the painted scene truthful or not?
There has been much debate about illusionistic art, be it realism, impressionism, photorealism, or any other ism where observed reality is the basis for the painted experience. Many say that this kind of painting is a visual lie; it’s only deception and trickery. Maybe this charge could be hurled at trompe l’oeil painters since their intention is to fool the eye. I suspect, though, that even these painters would say that their painting is about more than the obvious mimicry.
What is it that a painter sees when observing a scene to be painted? I’m not even sure we can say for certain because different painters would give different answers to the question. Yes, most would allow that the basic design elements come into play – one looks for contrasts in shape, size, position, value, color, spatial movement, light and atmosphere. Unless one is painting under artificially controlled light, the natural light that reveals the elements will actually be constantly changing. This in turn can change the relationship of the elements. Since it is a given that a painting develops over a period of time, hundreds, if not thousands, of observations are made by the painter during this process. In effect, that painted result is a synthesis of observation, repeated applications of paint, adjustments of color and texture, and numerous other variations that are based on moment by moment decisions. After a time, what happens in the painting becomes more important than what is happening in the observed scene. The painter increasingly makes decisions based on the painting rather than the observed reality.
Where, then, is the truth in the observation of the painter? Isn’t what is happening on the painted surface the observation that becomes most important? The painted reality is a new reality in its own right. It no longer depends on that original experience of the observed reality, for that is only a distant memory. The painting is now where the artistic truth resides. If the artist has captured anything, it is his or her experience of the original scene filtered through accumulated knowledge and skill, emotion and sensibility, and whatever artistic intentions are of most concern to that individual. The truth is elusive and subjective rather than objective. It is most relevant to the artistic interpretation of the painter, which is then filtered through the lens of the intelligent viewer.
Posted on 5/13/2023 2:38:08 PM
By Donald Fox
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We live in a culture that is like a big magnifying lens. The pressure exerted on individuals is to make everything bigger, faster, stronger, or better. Some people talk about getting the big idea, the one that will make their reputation or make them rich. Salespeople strive to score the big account. Businesspeople seek to close the big deal. Politicians, unfortunately, often deal in the big lie. Less is said about quality unless it comes as part of advertising hype that will promote a service or product. Little is said about producing quality because it is the right thing to do. Anyone that feels strongly about artistic expression knows that quality is at the core of the process.
For a resolute artist there isn’t just one big painting, one big commission, or one big project. Each work is a big deal in the moment of its creation. The act of being an artist is about creating quality in the moment. It does not matter if it is a single artist working alone in a studio or a performing artist working as part of a performance group. The preparation and the process are as much about the performance as the performance itself. Ultimately there is no separation between the various stages of work, for what may result in a painting, or any other work of art, is another step in a larger process that continues beyond the singular work.
Historians speak about looking at an artist’s entire oeuvre, the complete body of work, but this is not complete until the artist is no longer creating art. It is the creation process that is of most importance to the artist. Individual works may be signposts or snapshots of where an artist is at any moment in time, and no doubt there may be some works that stand out or to which the artist may feel more attached. We recognize when something special happens, but rather than lessen any other work by comparison, it actually heightens the other work by association. Not everyone may agree with this assessment, but that doesn’t really matter. How an artist relates to his or her work is what is important, and I do think that artists fundamentally are interested in quality and pursue it with passion.
Posted on 7/16/2022 7:24:54 PM
By Donald Fox
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A good writer will take the reader on an imaginary journey. The journey can become quite real as a world, characters, and experiences inhabit the reader’s mind as powerfully as any real-world experience he or she may encounter. Sensory experience influenced by details and nuances of language help the reader to attain that altered space of artistic experience wherein logic is determined by the artistry of the writer – even fantasies can seem fully believable provided that enough is given the reader so that any missing parts are easily filled in.
Painting presents itself visually, and any perceived narrative is solely based on depiction through the means of the painter, i.e., line, shape, color, contrast, and similarity to what is known. There is no true narrative, linear movement through time, that the writer builds chronologically. A viewer might scan the surface of a painting, let focus linger on an area of color or shape, but there is no specific starting or ending place. A skilled painter can lead the viewer’s eye by ordering shapes within a composition, but this is a poor equivalent to the writer’s moving his plot via narrative.
I like to think of the appreciation of a painting as a meditative experience. Certain types of paintings might imply narrative, such as Rembrandt’s The Blinding of Sampson, but this and similar action compositions are really snapshots of a scene, a frozen instant from some longer story with implied lead-in and potential conclusion. A viewer must know the story to fully appreciate the moment that is illustrated. A landscape, on the other hand, is less dependent on narrative context and lends itself more readily to contemplation of setting, light, atmosphere, and whatever emotions or comparative memories those illustrated elements may instill in the viewer. The same could be said about a still life painting. A painted portrait may raise questions regarding the illustrated personage with the viewer supplying some self-created narrative about the individual based on clues rendered by the painter.
Once we move to non-objective or abstract painting, there is no external subject that the painting is referencing. I say this generally, for there are some abstract paintings that are derived from an observed or known subject but abstracted to render an essence or experience of the subject rather than a simulated appearance of it (as in realistic painting described above). What some might call pure abstraction references only itself, and it is this kind of painting that I refer to now. The painted image might be geometrical, biomorphic, color field, expressionistic, or whatever other manifestation an artist might conceive.
With no recognizable subject matter, some viewers might feel lost or confused. The viewer is forced to consider what is on the canvas on its own terms, so to speak. Design elements are to be appreciated for their interactive qualities rather than whatever illusion of something represented as “real.” It could be argued that this kind of painting is more real than the most hyper-realism, for it represents only itself. It is a visual statement of itself. Meaning resides in the experience of the perceiver. That experience can be emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or any combination thereof. Ultimately, any painting is read by the viewer, and that viewer determines its meaning or lack thereof according to his or her own understanding and perceptual abilities.
Posted on 7/10/2022 6:49:05 PM
By Donald Fox
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For several months I have been working on a new series of paintings with the primary subject of landscape. The past ten years, my work has been abstract images as I developed my Windows and Doors series of painting and drawings. This series is not finished but is merely on hold while I explore the new work. There are many reasons behind this new series not the least of which is a strong feeling of connection to the planet as I and others experience undeniable changes in weather patterns and climatic shifts.
Landscape as subject matter has a long history in western painting and even longer in oriental art. Western artists initially utilized landscape as a backdrop for human activity with landscape itself as primary focus emerging during the Renaissance. Landscape paintings were enormously popular in Europe during the nineteenth century becoming a hallmark of realism as artists incorporated Renaissance development of linear and atmospheric perspective into their work. French Impressionism had vast influence worldwide, and many current painters continue exploring impressionist ideas with personal twists.
As I develop this new series, I pay tribute to predecessors, but I am not interested in continuing or developing a particular style. I do make occasional reference to my own palette knife landscapes of the late nineties/early 2000’s that eventually led me into non-objective abstraction. In some of those abstract paintings, I still used atmospheric color changes and colored light/illumination to suggest imaginative space and light that, for me, held spiritual significance.
Now, personally, landscape is an ever-present thought as a kind of mother source for imaginative play. Nature shapes our lives in both overt and subtle ways. We often move against natural cycles and rhythms in attempts to extend days and shorten nights. Of course, we protect ourselves from extremes of heat and cold, and some of us even move to temperate climes to avoid those extreme shifts in our old age. Even so, the power of nature can be unexpected and devastating as people all over the world experience on a regular basis. Nature can also be nurturing, enlivening, and stimulating. This contrast between nurture and devastation has profound psychological impact even when we are not consciously aware of that. However, I think most of us look to nature in idyllic ways for stimulation, enjoyment, rejuvenation, and solace. There is much power in these connections.
My current explorations are imaginative responses to landscape. While in the past I painted specific scenes and places, sometimes on site and sometimes in the studio, for now these paintings are studio paintings that originate in imagination or memory or a combination of both. Some will seem to be realistic depictions of observed places, but they are not. Some are design-oriented and become stylized representations that may also incorporate linear abstract elements, unusual color combinations, or flattened planes as well as varieties of textural use of paint. In short, the series thus far is widely varied with landscape being the uniting factor. How far these landscapes will take me remains to be seen.
Posted on 7/1/2022 1:58:04 PM
By Donald Fox
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Red River
The first of July. The solstice has come and gone. Summer has officially begun, and a very hot one it is so far. Today there were several bouts of rain, which has only made it muggy and warm. Steam rises from the roadways, but the parched earth drinks in the water as efficiently as a sponge. Some of the ground cracks will disappear for a while, and the grass will grow quickly and dramatically. By next weekend the yard will need mowing again. At least Monday is a holiday, one created to celebrate the country’s birth as it proclaimed independence as a sovereign nation.
Sadly, the citizens are greatly divided politically, culturally, legally, and religiously. This is not like previous years when power fluctuated from one party to another. Now the system strains under false claims and dysfunction, voter fraud, immigration reform (or lack thereof), legal precedent overthrow by a decidedly conservative Supreme Court, an ongoing pandemic, and a war in Eastern Europe that has reverberated effects throughout the world. Still, I choose to make art.
The making or crafting of artistic expressions usually rises above petty politics unless its intention is political at the outset. Beauty, in the form of art, requires no political affiliation and usually makes no political statement. One could adopt a stringent attitude and insist that everything is political, at least everything man-made, for the cynical will twist logic and symbolism to his/her perspective. Recently, I have been looking for departure from my long-running series of windows and doors.
My seeking has led me back to nature, but nature now is pulled from the imagination and is nature released from constraint and expectation. Thus, my compositions are largely based on memory and spontaneous construction. Color is used according to feeling and design rather than naturalistic atmosphere and light. There may be some unconscious memory of Fauve stylistics, but that is not a specific choice. I did notice that many of the window-themed paintings sometimes leaned slightly cubistic, but that just seemed to flow from the subjects as compositions grew. At present I’m not questioning the why of this process.
Posted on 6/12/2022 5:58:58 PM
By Donald Fox
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Sometimes in the process of making a painting a point is reached when it becomes obvious that the painting is just not working. Numerous alterations have been applied, and these are only compounding previous errors. The basic concept may be viable, but the execution was faulty or became, for want of a better word, too precious. A decision is made, a radical decision, to scrape down the surface and start over.
After scraping away layers of paint, and before wiping down with a rag, I might determine that the ghost image that remains has interesting qualities that can be built upon. Or what is left may call for complete wiping away. The process is instructive, for it allows alteration that often is not afforded in day-to-day life.
Most of us, I suspect, can think of many situations, actions, or decisions for which we would like do-overs. Sadly, we most often don’t get that opportunity. All we can do is learn and resolve to do better in the future. Sometimes we may be able to make amends, but the hope is for growth and change. We are adaptable creatures, but it takes self-awareness and determination to make necessary changes as we choose what is best in any situation.
Posted on 3/31/2022 6:35:28 PM
By Donald Fox
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In the Studio
I often revisit ideas in painting or drawing similar to what many artists do when they might create a series of works that sometimes are called theme and variation. This perhaps first showed up in music and was later translated to visual art. Perhaps for painters the idea came from numerous figure studies to determine the exact position of a hand or arm that would best convey the emotional truth of a gesture. Later, the Impressionists often worked in series to study changing light and its influence on natural forms. Theme and variation became more common among 20th century artists as drawing and printmaking became stand-alone forms of expression oftentimes rivaling painting or sculpture. Consider any artist’ personal style and some might say that all works by any one artist are simply variations on that style. Of course, there is much here to dissect regarding expression, vision, style, intention, and whatever artistic discoveries an artist may make in the process of creating. The artist is always making choices throughout this process.
Not long ago I posted a recent drawing online. A response by a longtime friend was a not-so-subtle critique of the abstract accumulation of lines by comparing its (to her) lack of form and meaning to something she remembered I had drawn as a child. That drawing was a detailed rendering of a building that she considered highly realistic and thus of great achievement. Perhaps it showed my early inclination for observation and attempts to capture what I observed. However, it is not something I would now consider art; it was an exercise or form of practice and an early step in a long process of learning. Since then I have studied the work of many realistic artists, many abstract artists, and many artists whose work falls somewhere between the two. My own work has moved through stages of realism and abstraction, and my current attention focuses on exploring space and form via abstraction and expression that is different from Abstract Expressionism of the nineteen fifties.
Drawings by the Italian sculptor Giacometti are often graphic parallels of his straightforward and reductionist sculptural vocabulary. The lines accumulate like so many strands of wire and create a mass of tone on the page that gives a powerful sense of spatial presence and physicality concentrated within a central figure. Some of Giacometti’s drawings create the sense of exploration as the meandering line wanders through the picture space announcing its (the line’s) presence while simultaneously creating a specifically defined space: the corner of a room with table and chairs, bottles sitting atop a table, a figure sitting in a chair. The delightfully loose and playful drawings belie the seriousness of the observation and thought behind them. His drawings are moving towards pure abstraction while keeping a toehold in the observable world. I love these works, which were instrumental for me by helping me to think about visual space as a kind of playground for suggestion and expression.
The simplicity of gesture wedded to the ability to make the gesture express thought or emotion is at the heart of much artistic creation including my own. This is especially pleasing when the carrier of the gesture is line, as in the case of drawing. But that special line that hovers between its own assertion of power and grace and whatever image or emotion or idea it may represent, that elusive expression of both truth and beauty, that ambiguous arc through space that leaves its trail like some mysterious unseen particle of nature revealed only by its passing – that is a fine line indeed.
Posted on 3/5/2022
By Donald Fox
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Dialogue
Back in April of 2009 I wrote the following thoughts related to painting and art.
“For many years in my painting I have focused on landscape imagery through which I have explored fundamental interactions between color, shape, and form as related to perceived contrast between light and dark. Specific subjects have always included places physically visited: Texas, Arizona, California, North and South Carolina and other southern states, Mexico, and several European countries. More recently I’ve begun a series of paintings investigating the human element within its self-created landscape. I have a longstanding interest in literature, studied literature as an undergraduate and graduate student, and have taught English and writing for a number of years. I’ve also published poems, essays, and stories. This interest, along with concern over the many challenges facing contemporary society, has led me to the new series that overall is called Urban Dwellers. Several sub-series present certain thematic elements that serve as metaphorical representations of contrasting elements. Two of these series, Readers and Street People, are of immediate concern and are represented by examples on this website. Life is contrast; one thing dies to sustain the life of another. Energy is released and recycled in this constant transformational process. We are part of this process and contribute to it consciously and unconsciously every moment of every day, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. We can call this the human condition, the process of life, the way of nature, the state of the universe, or God’s plan. At some level all art touches on this inevitability, embracing it or attempting to deny it. I mention this here because, ultimately, this is what fuels my art. My paintings, whether landscape, figurative, or whatever, metaphorically represent the dynamic, transient, transformational, numinous, ethereal, perplexing, mysterious experience we call life.”
Interest in “fundamental interactions between color, shape, and form and the perceived contrast between light and dark” have remained constant in my work. Visual art obviously is dependent on these interactions for without them there would be nothing to perceive except an undifferentiated field, a blankness as it were. What has shifted for me through the years is imagery content, sometimes representational and sometimes abstract or non-objective. Representational imagery leads many observers to focus too much on the image rather than see the wonder of color or space or form. I suspect that most painters simply enjoy the act of painting, and the imagery is an excuse to do that. The image, however, often dictates certain limitations in the process. Or is it that somehow through intense focus on the image, a painter finds freedom of expression? I think of Picasso’s statement that color is a distraction, a reason that he did so many black and white works. Imagery has sometimes felt like a distraction to me. In truth, painters do what they do, and then explain the process or not either to themselves or others. Painting is, bottom line, a visual experience and exits without words unlike poetry that is word dependent. All art uses metaphor, for metaphor is important to our perception and expression of perception.
Posted on 2/12/2022 6:46:01 PM
By Donald Fox
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Light Breaks
Drawing has become for me an extension of imaginative thinking. There is an improvisational aspect to its execution although ideas may often precede the act of making marks. I work both in color with pencils or chalk and in black and white, usually with pencil and sometimes with chalk or charcoal. A dark lead pencil can be easily manipulated by varied pressure to graduate from light to dark. Erasure is also an important technique as it may obliterate, partially obscure, or smear a form to create a kind of mystique to an otherwise bold, geometric image or an aggressively expressive one. Most recent images are vignette-like in that they hang in ambiguous space rather than hold the frame edge to edge. My current paintings utilize the frame with elements that are internal echoes of the outer edges and play with the idea of windows or doors whereas the drawings are unbounded; I could even say unhinged from the edge. (The accompanying drawing is a kind of transition piece).
I spent many years as a student drawing from observation – nudes, still life, interiors, or landscapes. These drawings taught me perceptive and graphic skills that are now utilized in free expression. Perhaps I have become a jazz-inspired visual artist, for I do sense a rhythmic quality to line and find joy in improvisation. These days, if I do any drawings based on observation, my use of line is to explore the observed space rather than to delineate objects. Two very different artists influenced me in that direction years ago, Cézanne and Giacometti. The former often described planes in space with accumulated parallel lines, and the latter used meandering, continuous lines to create drawn spaces that are similar to wire sculptures.
Recent drawings are also leading me to new images that bear exploration in painting. This will mean translating graphic visual language into that of paint, surface extension, and color. This may be the beginning of the shift from windows and doors to new metaphors that I suspect are actually rooted in the past.
Posted on 11/14/2021 4:34:15 PM
By Donald Fox
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Self Portrait Painting
As a maker of images, I am also a collector of images, moved and inspired by many encountered on a daily basis. Those, too, that exist in the vast catalogue of memory fade in and out seemingly at random although some are readily brought to mind by new encounters. This mingling of present and past is a rich reserve of visual pageantry that leads to areas of exploration blending experience, training, learning, and reflection as questions arise in that delightful imaginary land of ‘what if?’.
Posted on 10/22/2021 1:09:17 PM
By Donald Fox
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Full Moon through Cracked Glass
As an artist, a writer, a teacher, and a lifelong student, I am aware that the accumulation of knowledge, along with the expression of creativity, is a frequently messy process. I have notes, studies, doodles, and bits of information, sometimes neatly organized but often scattered here and there. For example, I’m writing this on a lined notepad with previous pages still attached. These pages contain notes from webinars, notes for ideas to be included in lectures, notes from in-service continuing education meetings, notes from thoughts on art or art and social interaction some of which were expanded into blogs, notes on current policies and procedures a work, and, of course, this current writing. Sometimes I find notes on bits of paper without context of time, place, or circumstance, and these notes may seem foreign and make little sense when I don’t remember their origin. The main point, though, is that all these notes along with many others in different forms become the detritus of activity over days, weeks, months, and years. In a way, these stacks, or piles – some get filed, some incorporated into other works, some discarded, some transformed into something else – are symbols and evidence of creative activity and are like an evolving art piece in themselves.
Many artists have used fragments of materials from their lives to create collages that include these biographical bits as a kind of subtext. In his collages, Robert Motherwell frequently used Gauloises cigarette wrappers along with other paper fragments lying about his studio, and these can be seen as thematic in many of the works even when employed primarily for color or texture. This is not too different from a landscape painter using the experience of being in a particular landscape as the subject – he or she paints the perception of that time and place by organizing multiple observations (visual notes) into one coherent composition. However seamless a finished work may appear, the artist knows the many changes made through various stages of development, one stroke piled into or onto another, so to speak. In the process, the artist has edited and refined, but the many alterations and adjustments will remain in memory, for a time at least, much like little notes piled onto a desk.
Posted on 6/27/2021 3:45:36 PM
By Donald Fox
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For JMM 5/10/1946-8/19/2018
Many people have written about the effects of the pandemic on individuals, families, the work environment, the social environment, the political environment, and international relations among other issues. Many of these areas overlap, of course, since individuals make up all the other categories. Personally, I notice the many ways that different facets of my life, creative expression, and interaction with others mirror to some degree the larger whole, but certain aspects are forefront in my mind. Interestingly, in spite of working from home for over a year, which has required about the same amount of work on a computer, I’ve actually written less than I have for many years. My blogs have dropped off significantly, and I think of the years I posted blogs every day, five or six consecutive years at least, with some awe and just a bit of regret. I love thinking and writing about what I am thinking, and painting and writing about painting. For just over a year, though, I have spent a significant amount of time relearning guitar playing, something that I first started back in the mid-sixties but by the late seventies had let that form of expression go in favor of other endeavors.
High school was a challenging time although outwardly I seemed to excel in academics and social engagement. The details of those years are less important now, but it was during that time that I first became interested in the guitar. Several friends were already into music, and one of these, John, became a teacher and fellow player. He knew fundamentals of music having played coronet in school bands. He had taught himself guitar and passed on to me much of what he had learned. We had been friends since first grade, shared many creative interests, and music was a natural extension of that. Rock and roll was the predominant music of our per group, but we became interested in the nascent folk music movement, which helped us channel our burgeoning social awareness around issues of race, equality, economic disparities, and the very mixed history of America not adequately covered in high school history or literature classes.
I am not interested here in recounting all the permutations of musical expression of the sixties and seventies, which were quite varied but also revolved around a certain social consciousness. We were interested in folk traditions from Europe, especially the British Isles, Africa by way of the rural South that was largely blues oriented, and the alternate blues that came out of the Chicago area. With several other friends, we put together a jug band and did a number of free performances in a variety of venues. All the while we were learning and expanding our repertoire. As we inevitably moved on to different life paths, John and I remained in touch. Whenever we did manage to meet again, there was always music as a means of sharing the narrative of what had been happening in our personal lives. We shared influences from others we had met who also shared our interests in poetry, literature, and music.
It has been two years now since John left this musical plane, and I think that his departure was a strong push to reignite my musical engagement. I like to think that what I have done musically these past few years is largely in honor of his memory. My musical understanding and skill have grown quickly as I have approached my practice methodically, and I have experimented and composed with emphasis on country blues and some bluegrass. So far most compositions are without lyrics although I have been reworking several songs written decades ago.
One recent composition I titled “Homebound Blues,” a reference to the pandemic isolation but also suggesting to me a movement towards home though not yet arrived or the possibility of being caught by or obsessed by the past. Nostalgia, of course, has spurred a lot of art that has risen above the triteness of revisiting a past that likely never existed. Memory may be faulty at times, but remaking memories is a fascinating endeavor that can lead to many possible outcomes. Narrative expression mirrors the linearity of time. Music is a linear expression as it develops over time while engaging the player or listener moment by moment. A painting evolves over time but is sensed, at least initially, all at once. The contemplation of art, however, is where its power is revealed, and that always takes time – time well spent.
Posted on 4/18/2021 6:05:41 PM
By Donald Fox
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Stage Door
We have all been inspired by something in life - a person, an event, an encounter - that moves us to action we might not have otherwise taken. This is what artists do daily. They are inspired by the ordinary and through their sensibility, training, and experience transform that inspiration into something extraordinary. Inspire comes from the Latin inspirare, 'to breathe or blow into,' and was originally used in reference to a divine (supernatural) being imparting a truth or idea to someone (New Oxford English Dictionary). This is not to suggest that artists have a particular lock on truth. I do believe, however, that artists sense truths that others often overlook. Artists also have a unique ability to present those truths in forms that can be seen by those who take the time to look. The longer one looks, the more one sees. This is the magical aspect of art. Often there is more present in the artwork than even the artist may realize is there. This is also why an audience is necessary to complete the work.
Posted on 4/16/2021 7:08:38 PM
By Donald Fox
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Dyptemic - digitally manipulated painting
Resolution is an action that we witness in many ways throughout our lives. We may be presented with a problem that has to be solved. The solution becomes a resolution to that particular challenge. Sixteenth century sonnet writers posed scenarios and questions within the first twelve lines of their poems and then resolved those in the last two lines, the closing couplet. Musicians will create tension or dissonance with notes or chords but then resolve that tension by moving from a minor to a major chord as an example. Storytellers create tension through rising action in a dramatic situation, bring the tension to a climax, and then resolve through falling action and denouement. Painters use shapes and colors and light-dark contrast to resolve pictorial tension and provide viewers a sense of resolution within pictorial space. Art has generally been an arena where artists and audience can experience catharsis that lifts both above the tensions of everyday life.
Recent years have presented many challenges on the world stage with social strife, economic challenge, political turmoil, and, of course, the pandemic. Personally, I have lost a second parent and numerous friends, some of the latter lifelong ones with whom I shared many experiences of growth and learning including creative realizations if not enlightenment. The sadness and challenge of those losses have yet to be resolved. Even so, I find continual solace within the world of art, for the consistent practice of posing written, poetic, musical, or pictorial problems and finding resolutions are natural expressions of the deeper life issues that are part of sentient beings existing in time and space. A word, a phrase, or a color can express homage to those important to me and perhaps give others strength in their own challenges as they experience the process of life and the changes that it brings. Yes, art is often about beauty and truth, but it is also about the mystery from which spring hope and faith and love.
Posted on 1/26/2021 6:03:57 PM
By Donald Fox
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When you think of space, what comes to mind? Some may first think of containment or is there enough space to accommodate a piece of furniture, to hold leftovers in a certain size container, to ease into a parking area comfortably and safely? Others might think of grander visions like a mountain vista or the vast expanse of a starry night sky. Architects, landscapers, and sculptors think about defining space with objects and boundaries to create visual and emotional appeal. Painters may have some of these ideas of physical space in mind while painting, but their actual space is limited to the size of whatever surface they work upon, which could be mural size or as small as a postage stamp. The suggested space, however, can seem limitless like the sky above a landscape or a line stretching to some indeterminant distant point.
How a painter suggests space on a flat surface might seem magical to some, but there are very basic principles utilizing line, shape, and contrast that facilitate what is usually termed illusionistic space since that space cannot be physically traversed. In a lot of modern painting (dated generally from the beginning of the twentieth century), illusionistic space is called a visual lie. To me this is a silly characterization since it is understood that a painting is a depiction of something – either an image or an idea that serves as a mirror or visual sounding board upon which a viewer reflects. It is composed of real materials like canvas and paint, but they are transformed through artistry into something akin to the imaginary space of a poem or story or piece of music. Words properly composed can create the experience of vast space as can music, and these are as illusory as any painting.
For many centuries Western painting used the familiar space of the everyday world to relay ideas about the experience of life. Painting developed from rather crude representations to very sophisticated depictions of the observable world. During different eras, artists focused on spiritual ideas using the real world as a starting place. Angels, cherubs, mythical beings, or transformative light brought heaven to earth or elevated the lowly into the sublime. The manipulation of space by painters was an integral part of this experience. Spiritual beings could float in space whereas ordinary humans could not as one example. Images from classical mythology told one form of spiritual story while biblical characters told another, and the depicted space of the real world contained both.
Eventually painters focused more on the space of nature and responded to nature as a kind of spiritual realm. Light and shadow infused the world with mystical properties, and color was the primary tool with which painters could convey a sense of spiritual space – think about the grand vistas of 19th century American painting by the Hudson River painters or the magnificent western landscapes of that period. It is the treatment of space and light in these paintings that generate such powerful and emotionally affecting responses in viewers. For many painters, despite what aesthetic critics have written, the move into abstraction was less about rejecting objects and the observable world, and more about embracing the effects of natural color and light, which led to visual space that directly connected to imaginary space within the mind of the painter. Inner and outer vision were, and are, often one and the same.
Posted on 11/19/2020
By Donald Fox
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All of us in our daily lives make decisions, perform activities, interact with others, move from place to place, and in the midst of all this feel excited, empowered, purposeful, and productive. And sometimes, we don’t feel these ways because the decisions don’t work out, the activities aren’t completed, the interactions are less than fruitful, or the movement is disrupted. Even so, we plan some more, address the challenges, and do what we do within a framework of how we think and feel overall about life and purpose and meaning. We may call it philosophy or faith or not even give it a name. We just understand that we do what we do because it is expected or this is what we’ve come to know as this thing called life experience. Some of us may step back from time to time in order to reflect on what has transpired. This reflection might result in new understanding, new possibilities, new resolve, or new directions to explore. We might adjust personal perspective to include previously unconsidered thoughts or actions. We also very likely draw upon connections to family and friends for support, for strength, and for comfort when needed.
As we move through time, we create our lives to which we respond in many ways. Being of a particularly reflective mindset, I have learned to use art as a means of expressing graphically how this life activity might appear. And, as one might expect, there are repeated passages or themes that are also continually varied. In some way or other, I suspect all artists use art to express life or their experience of it, and as much as I may admire what other artists do, I can also be inspired by it, learn from it, but ultimately always relate it to my own experience, and frequently reform it into new experience for myself. It was either Picasso or Stravinsky who once said that the highest compliment an artist can give to another is to recompose that artist’s work. Picasso did this with a number of paintings by fellow Spaniards, most notably Velazquez. Unlike detailed student copies done to learn the intricacies of technique, Picasso’s paintings are interpretations in his uniquely abstract style of works originally very realistic. Velazquez was one of a handful of old masters who has influenced generations of artists, but Picasso approached him as an equal. The black and white cubist interpretation of Las Meninas, for example, is an exercise in boldness and bravado. Interestingly, Picasso created more than fifty variations on this one Velazquez painting.
A viewer approaching any of my paintings will do so in whatever fashion he or she may choose. Any particular work may exert its impact in a variety of ways. One suggestion I would make for those less used to looking at abstract art is to begin by thinking of the image as a stage setting. There are lights and darks that suggest ambience and spatial movement. Often there are frames or partial frames that divide the space vertically and horizontally and sometimes diagonally. These are natural movements across a surface that when considered within the metaphorical framework of windows or doors suggest moving into, out of, through, or around that space created by light, dark, and color contrasts. I don’t want to say too much here in specific terms, for then a viewer may become stuck in only considering what I am explicating. Like the experience of life described above, the art is simply a reflection of that, and as I think we may agree, life seems so infinitely varied.
Posted on 11/4/2020 5:04:17 PM
By Donald Fox
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I just listened to an interview with Paul McCartney done by Sean Lennon, John and Yoko Ono’s son, that was recorded in early October of this year. I call it an interview, but it was really a conversation with young Sean asking, on the occasion of his dad’s 80th birthday, questions about some things he wanted to know from John’s longtime friend and musical partner. On one level it’s a wonderful tribute to John Lennon, but it also contains insightful historical information for any Beatle’s fan, and more importantly, insightful thoughts regarding the creative and collaborative process. I was also reminded that art is never produced in a vacuum. There is always a personal element to its creation, and once created, there is a personal element to how it is received in the world.
Perhaps more than previous generations before the invention of recording technology, music has literally become the soundtrack for many people’s lives. Most of us can think of nearly any song and remember the circumstances around the first hearing of it. We remember how music has sustained us through good and bad times. For me, this has also been true about first seeing an important work of art, for these were typically significant occasion in themselves. What I mean is, the art was sought out and not simply stumbled upon. A song or musical piece could be heard on the radio, at a friend’s house, in a restaurant, or in the background of most any scenario. Art, on the other hand, is often a pre-planned experience rather than encountered by accident.
As a painter, I frequently remember the circumstances behind the creation of most paintings. There are some exceptions, especially early works, but as art matures, I suspect most artists also create an internal chronology while their aesthetic expression evolves. Certain pieces will no doubt stand apart, the ones often referred to by critics as seminal pieces, but this latter is an externally imposed perspective that differs from that of the artist. Those pieces will likely have specific meaning to the artist and relate to personal events that aren’t necessarily presented as part of the work. I might, for example, hear or see something in the studio that spurs the creation of a painting although the painting is not about that stimulus. I have often told my wife that there is much of her in my paintings. It may well be that any work is a blend of many experiences, conscious or unconscious, including memories and feelings as well as observations or contemplations.
These incidental tidbits may be intriguing or interesting, but the ultimate experience any viewer may have with any work of art is dependent on the work itself rather than its history. Still, I suppose because we like explanations, there will always be questions that attempt to pin down concrete facts about a work or the artist’s intention behind creating it in the first place.
Posted on 10/31/2020 7:30:10 PM
By Donald Fox
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Of Course It Matters
Today is the last day of October, which means Halloween Day, and also means that this year we are three days from Election Day. The temptation to write about politics is compelling, but that desire will be channeled into another piece, one that will not grace the pages of this blog. It would be easy enough to tie the concept of voting with the act of making art except that this year especially there is so much negativity surrounding the election that I don’t want that to spill into the realm of art making. At least for me, the making of art is not about negative energy output or outcome. Art is a positive and life-affirming activity. We speak about creating art, expressing ourselves creatively, or being creative and not about negating something with artistic expression. Of course, there has been much protest art, propaganda art, art made for the purpose of intimidation, and these forms of art can be negative and certainly are heavily ironic, but they also tend to be more limited in reach as well as in expressive power for the range of ambiguity is quite narrowed by its intended message.
Ambiguity is often one of the most potent characteristics of artistic expression. That a particular piece can express multiple layers of meaning simultaneously enriches that piece almost exponentially. Each time a viewer or reader experiences such a work, he or she will find something new, some different way of relating to it emotionally or intellectually or aesthetically. It is as though the work vibrates and each vibration is a new note in a song that sings itself over time as it evolves into its beingness. If that seems cryptic, then wonderfully so.
As a sentient being, I carry my past with me wherever I go. Thankfully, most of that is not readily visible to others unless I choose it to be. Those who know me or think they know me, of course, will see me through their lens of understanding of who I am. Their past experience of me will overlay my past experience of me, and to my benefit one will sometimes enhance or sometimes negate the other. It is from these interactions, however, with self, with others, with memory, with the world at large, with some small seemingly insignificant sliver of that larger world – from a collision and collusion of perception and memory, that art is created. And even when the art is not about me the artist, it will always express something about me, for it is my choice or series of choices that have manifested into the resultant work. Federico Fellini once said that all art is autobiographical, which could simply be hyperbole, but, then again, how could art not be about the maker?
Posted on 9/20/2020 2:11:43 PM
By Donald Fox
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At It Again
Dreams sometimes occur as narratives that follow a reasonable story arc and as such seem believable until something unusual happens. At that point the dream may continue as an altered narrative with new parameters and many possible conclusions. Or, the dreamer in character or as behind the scenes manipulator rewinds to the last point of feasibility and moves the dream forward again on a different track. This is successful or not. If so, the narrative continues as plausible story. If not, the narrative may repeat the original altered track as that direction is too strong to change. This is a form of lucid dreaming where the dreamer is aware that he is dreaming, takes control of the dream, or cannot, and soon awakens.
My dreams are often like this. Even when changing the dream is unsuccessful, though, the experience of the dream world is powerful and satisfying. Other dreams may only be fragments or just a series of images with no appreciable narrative structure. At least, this is how I remember them. Often I do write my dreams since it has been a long-standing habit to pay attention to what happens in a dream state. I don’t claim that there may be great messages there although some do think so. I simply enjoy my dreams and pay attention to them, but I’m also aware from past study and theories of the unconscious that many symbols often appear in dreams. Jung and others have written about shared symbolism particularly in his theory of the collective unconscious.
The subconscious mind has to be a fascinating world, one that is private and hidden from others, yet also yields tidbits of imaginative constructions that can profoundly affect the world the conscious mind perceives. Art often comes from the subconscious and may emerge full blown like Venus from the sea. Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus is a wonderful representation of this story. Sometimes the subconscious vision is filtered through the conscious mind where it is shaped and polished by emotion and reason. The resultant creation still retains some of the raw energy that the sensitive viewer or reader will connect with through his own hidden self.
Even though many artists will argue for art as a conscious creation, and I too often believe this about my own art, they cannot explain where the urge to make art or the idea of art or the impetus to create originates. There is something very deep within the psyche that compels this creative activity. Whether from a dream state, a waking dream, some similar state of unconscious thought, or other mysterious source that is then crafted into physical manifestation – what does it really matter except as an interesting question upon which to meditate? The end result is the art. It is a human expression that is appreciated on the various levels of the human mind.
Posted on 8/15/2020 3:22:21 PM
By Donald Fox
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Homage to the Square Window
I can remember when I was a kid the times that I used the phrase, “I didn’t mean to do it” or “I didn’t mean it” as immediate responses to something said or done that shouldn’t have been. Either was a ploy not to accept responsibility by proclaiming that some action or utterance was not just a mistake but an accident. Of course, there could have been times when something was a legitimate accident, although, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the times we responded most adamantly with pleas of not meaning it were not really accidental. Not meaning it to the child’s mind meant no reason for punishment. Hopefully I, and we, have grown out of these lame excuses and modified behavior to become responsible adults.
Meaning for an artist has deeper connotations that suggest intention and willful action. A work or expression means something because the artist intended for that meaning and took steps to make that meaning apparent. Because art is a creative act as well as an expressive one, the artist uses his or her toolkit of technique, imagery, viewpoint, emotional input, knowledge, passion, and artistic vocabulary to make statements (in my case visual ones) that may by intention hold more than one meaning. This we call ambiguity, and it is not to confuse or obfuscate meaning; it is to multiply meaning so that a work can exist and work on several levels simultaneously. What do I mean by multiple levels of meaning?
I think it important to acknowledge first that art is not factual statement. A painting may represent something specific and recognizable, which, stylistically we call realism. Is the painting simply a picture of whatever is depicted? Or, are there elements in the work that suggest interpretation? How something is represented, even in a photograph, can give clues to what an image may mean. Suppose I’m walking down the street and I see someone sitting at a bus stop reading a newspaper. I might simply notice that ordinary person in an ordinary setting.
If I choose to photograph that person or paint that scene, the photograph or painting becomes art because of my intention to convey meaning through the chosen medium. I’ve chronicled a specific event that most people would pay little attention to as passersby. As the artist, however, I select the point of view to emphasize the solitary figure absorbed in reading. That individual is having an internal experience rather than relating to the outside world in that moment. We don’t know who the person is although we might make some assumptions based on attire, time of day, location, and intensity of focused activity. We don’t know what is being read, which could be local news, something political, or possibly something inspirational. Interpretations can differ. How much detail is shown in the painting or photograph may also influence how the scene is interpreted. Is everything in clear focus or are certain details blurred? Are facial features emphasized or is focus placed on the hands holding the newspaper? Meaning will become clearer as the viewer notices choices made by the artist as well as the skill of the artistic representation and whether the work has a specific title. What should become clear, however, is that the scene is about more than a person reading.
Most visual artists are storytellers, sometimes poets, and sometimes both. Any picture is not art unless there is intention behind its creation, and this intention conveys meaning to the audience. The creation does not come about by accident although some accidental circumstance might prompt an artist to make a creation (like the sighting of a solitary person reading at a bus stop). An abstract artist might respond to a shadow and the alteration of an object’s color by that shadow. A musician might notice the mingled sounds of traffic on a busy street. The stimulus can be anything. What the artist does with that experience is where meaning begins to emerge.
Posted on 7/28/2020 3:42:45 PM
By Donald Fox
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Red and Blue
Students’ most favorite test questions are multiple choice because those at least give some clues or reminders of potentially correct answers. The second most favorite questions are true-false ones because there is fifty percent chance of success. The least favorite questions require too much thinking and/or remembering. These include fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and, of course, the dreaded essay question. A painter facing a blank canvas is really juggling several visual/semantic problems. There is the blank that must be filled in. Expression could consist of a series of short answers kind of like a collage of various elements assembled or blended together. Or, a composition could be likened to a visual essay where elements support a thoughtful, seasoned statement that extols a particular theme.
Realist painters are sometimes described as copyists since they primarily jot down what they are looking at and make the painting appear as close to the observed experience as possible. Anyone who has seriously considered painting, however, knows that copying and interpreting are quite different expressions. Abstract painters, on the other hand, are often criticized as fantasists, as purveyors of an anything goes attitude towards creative expression. Again, someone who has studied art knows that abstraction is as challenging, and sometimes more so, as reproducing visual sensations. Whatever the form of expression, there is so much more to discover than what lies on the surface.
My artistic journey has explored both forms of expression, and today I think about painting simply as painting. There is a process that when followed with passion and intention produces a desired artistic result (and in my mind there is nothing simple about this process). The end product is a rich visual experience for the observer, and part of that experience may derive from metaphor, symbolism (the creative act itself is a symbolic act), personal mythology, and the interaction of color, shape, and texture, as well as whatever intuitive response the painter experiences in the moment of creation and that is somehow infused into the work.
In short, painting is about life experience although a particular painting may not readily reveal that experience to the observer – not my experience, that is. Ultimately, the painting becomes about whatever the observer experiences while appreciating the object before him or her. There may be emotional feelings conjured from the interplay of colors or textures. There may be spatial experiences evoked by those same colors and textures. A viewer may have some past experience come to mind that I as the artist would have no idea about its content or personal meaning. Possibilities here are nearly endless, and I don’t say this to be glib or trite or obtuse. Art is always a personal experience. The art piece serves as a sounding board or amplifier upon which that experience is projected or by which it is evoked. That is the magic and mystery of art, and it happens regardless of artistic style or surface appearance.
Posted on 6/27/2020 7:35:43 PM
By Donald Fox
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Black Window
A snippet of movie dialog that comes to mind is from a western where one character calls another a bastard to which he replies, “Yes. In my case an accident of birth, but you’re a self-made man.” Quite the retort – witty, with a twist of lemon.
In spite of New Age declarations, I did not choose my parents, my place of birth, where I grew up, or the attendant cultural beliefs into which I was baptized and indoctrinated throughout childhood. My heritage intrigued me, though, since I was told from an early age that I was part Irish, part English, part Dutch, and part American Indian. The latter resonated with me for I somehow felt that the depictions of Indians in western movies were not right, that they were not the savages they were often portrayed to be. History books didn’t help much as they were totally skewed by European bias, and the Southern cause was often presented as noble, slavery notwithstanding.
I well remember the many signs of racism prevalent throughout the community. Segregation was everywhere – in schools, restaurants, restrooms, water fountains, buses, hospitals, libraries, movie theaters, churches, retail stores, extended family conversations – I could see it and hear it though I didn’t understand it. Not until high school did I begin to question this state of affairs, and not until college did I have the real opportunity to interact with other racial groups. I became stunningly aware of the insidious subtlety of racist influence in my cultural bubble.
It was about this time I also learned that the story I had been told about one of my very great ancestors having married an Indian woman (Robert Bolling married to one of Pocahontas’ daughters) was nuanced in a way that removed the likelihood of me being descended from that union. The man had married twice and produced heirs that were called the White Bollings and the Red Bollings. My family was part of the former rather than the latter, much to my disappointment. What I had learned from my experiences, however, is that I could choose my path, my beliefs, and could create a culture that incorporated the best of those experiences. I was not bound by my race (though privileged by it), or family, or place of birth, or politics, or religious persuasion. The questions I raised as a child that made adults uncomfortable and were not answered continued to guide me in finding my own answers. Thankfully, I learned tolerance, critical thinking, and compassion. I learned to love creative expression, diversity, and an eclectic array of architecture, art, comedy, craft, dance, faith, philosophy, film, music, poetry, prose, sport, theater, wisdom, wit – the many hues of the human spirit. I am like you, and I am not like you. We are alike in our not-alikeness. We are many and we are one. We live and breathe and love and express and die. We are alike in our non-alikeness.
Posted on 4/30/2020 3:40:32 PM
By Donald Fox
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These are interesting times as someone once said. Many are beginning to chafe or have been chafing against restrictions on movement, on commerce, on social gathering, and on other activities that appear to impinge on sacrosanct freedom of expression. Too many of these comments are politically motivated or stated from ignorance, or worse, stupidity. There is an old saying that goes something like ‘my freedom to swing my arm stops at the tip of your nose.’ We sometimes do things by accident, of course, that might inflict harm on another and typically feel remorse or regret at having done so. Some might experience guilt depending on their upbringing or religious slant, but fortunately there are few in functional society who will deliberately inflict injury on others. At least, that used to be the case. Nowadays, the righteous seem to feel perfectly justified in forcing others to relent even at the expense of bodily harm. How this has come to be is itself subject to debate, but I doubt that it can all be attributed to the adverse effects of television (there was radio, and reading, and speechifying before boob tubes, computers, social media, or other technology became indispensable). Slander, corruption, moral turpitude, greed, blame – all are in most religious texts and historical records that go back thousands of years. Also, in these texts are admonitions regarding love, respect, self-sacrifice, honor, and, yes, even obedience. There is discussion of one’s neighbor as well as brotherhood and equality.
I assume that if you’re reading this, you consider yourself a reasonable adult and as such can rationally rather than emotionally formulate your opinion. I’ll leave all that, then, and focus on an idea that comes to mind about being an expressive person, a creative person, and one who considers himself an artist.
There is evidence that art precedes politics, possibly language, and very likely even religion although art and spirituality have been linked for a very long time. Looking closely at art and its history and what makes art whatever it is, bottom line is expression. Artists would be the first to champion freedom of expression, for probably most artists consider expression above politics or religion or any constitutional legitimacy. There is a bit of irony here, however, because artists also know that they make art by creating restrictions rather than totally doing away with them. For example, any musician works within the limits of his or her instrument, within a musical structure, and within the limits of his or her physical body. All these potential obstacles, however, are mastered for the artist’s inner expressivity to fully emerge. The artist uses skills learned through constant training and practice, sensitivity gained through personal development, knowledge gained through study, and experience gained through perseverance to form inspiration into creative expression. That expression is given voice musically, visually, verbally, kinesthetically, or through some combination of these or other avenues. The artist, then, works within certain restrictions or imposes restrictions in order to make the creative expression.
Artistic perspective is what makes the difference within the creative mind. For the artist, the edges of a canvas are not limitations; they are possibilities. The notes of a scale are not restrictions; they are the alphabet of sounds to be crafted. Words to the poet or the writer are the building blocks through which ordinary expression becomes the rich tapestry of creative possibility. In effect, for any artist, limitation, again ironically, is the pathway to unlimited imaginative exploration, which becomes unfettered expression. Think of the sculptor liberating the sculpture from the confines of the stone. He or she removes everything that is not sculpture in order to reveal and animate that which artistic imagination could see within. Perhaps, as sages have long suggested, looking within is a good starting place for everyone
Posted on 3/15/2020 1:36:08 PM
By Donald Fox
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Greenspace
I thumb through the small red notebook – that is really a sketchbook repurposed although scattered throughout are a few drawn images, linear thought projected not with words but with lines creating space and distance and transforming a 5.75” by 3.75” page into a diminutive universe of openings and closings, portals and pathways, that contain possibilities via suggestion, juxtaposition, interaction of graphic elements that elevate blank surface to the realm of imaginative fantasy that is ironically a concrete reality expressed in black and white. What if, though, I wrote or drew with a red pen or a blue pen, a combination of hard and soft graphite pencils or colored pencils or chalk? The words, if any, would still express my intended meaning through written syntax, but a visual element would overlay such writing. If a drawing, the color would enhance or detract from the graphic linear expression (Picasso once opined that color is too seductive and therefore a distraction in painting). Any painter knows that color, shape, and form must blend to create a composition much like notes, rhythm, and texture of instrumental sounds make a musical composition.
On a secondary level, this little red book is its own composition of thoughts, feelings, questions, and opinions that reveal an inner universe of evolving thought about art, life – a collage of sorts that may also hold a thread or two of coherence over time. Art is something like that – threads of thought and feelings, insights and questions – repurposed through whatever medium an artist chooses to express in a concrete manner, the concretion being the painting, the composing, the writing – named by gerunds that come from action verbs, action being the key term. A vast amount of art objects are objects symbolic of the actions that created them.
Posted on 2/26/2020 5:24:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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In high school I taught myself the basics of guitar playing, mostly chord progressions in order to play a variety of folk songs – the intersection between poetry, rhythm, and music. The folk movement was just beginning in the sixties, and rock and roll had not yet moved to its adolescent phase of blues-inflected psychedelia. I learned some finger picking and a bit of bluegrass flat picking and also learned a bit of harmonica. Several friends and I shared music together and formed a jug band that lasted a few years. We even played a half dozen live concerts to small audiences who always requested rock and roll. I continued playing through college and grad school, built a sizeable repertoire of songs both traditional and new ones by contemporary singer-songwriters, but gradually I moved away from music until I did not play at all. My guitars, since by then I also had a classical guitar which I studied under a teacher for less than a year until school left little time for practice, thereafter lingered un-played in the closet for more than twenty years.
Last week, though, I bought new strings and re-strung my dreadnought steel string acoustic. Determined to seriously learn, I signed up for an online course that encourages daily practice, intentional focus, and commitment. I’ve almost completed my second week of daily practice, and my left hand fingers are sore but beginning to rebuild the necessary callouses. Playing is awkward. I’ve forgotten a lot of chords and need much practice just to get back to where I was years ago, a state of sporadic technique and limited skill although I knew a lot of songs. My intention now is to learn the instrument and use it for creative composition. Performing is a long way away (if at all), and I recognize there are hurdles to surpass. However, I know I can succeed with consistent practice. It is a worthwhile goal.
My art journey has been even longer, fraught with disruption and setbacks, but I have persevered with that and now have the confidence of having mastered many skills that enable me to express ideas I could barely imagine years ago. Some of the lessons learned through art I can now apply to my renewed musical journey. Persistence is key. Regularity is also important. That old saying about showing up being a major part of the success is very true. Thinking about doing it doesn’t get it done although I am a thinker personality. That kind of thinking, though, is productive thinking where thinking is an active pursuit rather than passive dreaming. I’ve always thought through projects to completion. I’ve used thinking as a problem-solving process. Critical thinking joins with creative thinking to produce powerful and original results. Both of these come from discipline rather than haphazard, do it whenever, which rarely produces valuable results. “If music be the food of love, then play on…” to paraphrase an old saw.
