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Posted on 7/29/2026 7:37:18 PM
By Donald Fox
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Containment
Recently, my friend Scott, a Jungian therapist and longtime guitar player, posted an interesting quote from acclaimed mystery writer Raymond Chandler:
There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art, science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous. (from The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler)
During the Renaissance, art and science were closely aligned even though art was probably at a higher level of achievement than science at that time. We have the paintings of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt as well as sculpture and architecture of Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, and others to prove that assertion. Science was still limited by interference from religion, especially the Catholic church where charges of heresy were severely intimidating and sometimes life-threatening. In medicine leeches were commonly used to treat a variety of ailments, surgery was crude and done without anesthesia, and sepsis was a common cause of death.
This reminds me of the political climate today in America, where science denial, from vaccines to climate change, is rampant not only on the political right but also in a large portion of the general populace who are swayed by self-serving politicians who understand neither science nor art. Religion is still the basis for much cultural division and continues to be used to justify war and oppression. Nationalistic fervor is part of the mix and even rivals religious fanaticism sometimes, but when the two are aligned, the results are truly frightening. Neither science nor art has much chance against the combined potency of the fervent fanatic. Still, artists continue to create and send their beautiful thoughts and objects surrounded by love and blessings into the chaotic arena. Scientists do their best in the classroom, the laboratory, or the field to test their hypotheses and advance knowledge in spite of funding cuts and political hysteria. I am grateful to be part of the artistic community and do my best to support science however I can.
Posted on 6/6/2026 8:32:33 PM
By Donald Fox
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Arise
Today is June 6 and marks the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, the highly coordinated landing of Allied forces in Normandy that was the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. My dad was in the Army Air Corps and not part of that battle, but my late mother-in-law was an Army nurse on one of numerous hospital ships in the English Channel that attended to the great number of wounded. General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, exhibited great leadership that day as he did throughout the war and later served as the one Republican president that I still admire. Before that invasion, he wrote a letter that was never sent in which he took sole responsibility for any possible failures that might occur and gave credit to all other military commanders and soldiers rather than himself. We have not seen leaders like him since that time, and he certainly deserves credit and praise as we move toward the 250th anniversary of this nation.
I am not particularly political but definitely opinionated about social issues especially when greed and corruption among leaders, conservative and liberal, overshadow the basic good from which this country grew. I am not ignorant nor blind to the very mixed history of our nation, for there is much shame in almost any historical era as we were attempting to fulfill the promise of liberty and justice for all. With every generation we have seen progress as well as setbacks. In my own lifetime, I have seen assassinations of promising leaders, unnecessary and wasteful wars, amazing medical discoveries, the expansion (and more recent contraction) of civil rights, the rise of computer science, the possibilities and threats of AI, space exploration, the eradication of disease and the recent return of some long vanquished, and an explosion of artistic and cultural expression (we have always been a melting pot). At times it seems as though more people are concerned with the right to bear arms than the right to tranquility and justice, or more are concerned with the accumulation of wealth and influence than equality and brotherhood. What is often missing from the claims for personal freedoms is the necessity of personal responsibility that ensures those freedoms.
As an artist and free-thinking American, I abhor censorship. I believe in education and lifelong learning. I believe in the promise of this country for everyone and not just for some self-selected group or philosophical or religious perspective. I believe in the study of history so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. With that in mind, I also believe in acknowledging the past, not rewriting history into something that never was. There is a biblical story about a golden calf that was nearly the downfall of a growing nation. It took a strong leader to avert disaster. Most of our leaders today see only the gilded castles and give lip service to democratic principles while gaming the system for all they can. It takes a strong heart and perseverance to live according to the principles guaranteed by our constitution. There is no guaranteed right to lie, to abuse, to take advantage of, or to cheat for the sake of power or wealth. The struggle for freedom is ongoing, and for me the creation of art is a continuous act of proclaiming freedom.
Posted on 5/27/2026 7:39:47 PM
By Donald Fox
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Portal
I have jotted down thoughts in notebooks for many decades. Some of those thoughts are silly or limited, but on occasion there is an interesting insight. I ran across this excerpt today (from 2012) that bears posting.
In Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhist philosophy, emphasis is on the present. The past is gone and the future not yet come. There is only now. A lot of self-styled success gurus have picked up on this concept and use it like a mantra for success.
The basis for focusing on the present is to create awareness in the moment. Obviously, one cannot change the past although attempts are made to re-write it or alter one’s perception or interpretation of it. Revisionism is found in many areas particularly when there is some political, economic, or moral advantage in it. The Buddhist admonition is simply to be present in the moment, to be mindful, and ultimately not to be attached to one’s feelings or thoughts, or memories of things that no longer are. There only is now.
If one were living a simple existence where immediate need was the only consideration, this philosophy might be a good one to follow. We live, however, in a complex world – perhaps too complex at times – and there are many demands some of which proceed from past actions and others from future expectations. (Some thinkers would argue that we chose to be here and that we co-created this illusion of complexity, but that is another issue and another discussion.)
Life is a continuum, and the culture we create is reflective of that continuum. We all share the same present moment, but we meet in that moment at different points in our own personal life continuum. A parent shares the moment with his or her partner, provides for and nurtures the child created from the partnership, and serves as a guardian within the family unit. Within this one framework, the parent functions on several simultaneous levels as does the child. They build experiences through mutual interaction, but their perspectives are very different. Expand this to multiple families, individuals within families entering and exiting the continuum at different points, experiencing it, perceiving it, learning of what came before and working to create new experiences – all this quickly makes the notion that there is only the present seem either naively trite or inexplicably profound.
One could become a hermit and simply meditate continuously on the present moment. As humans, though, most of us find joy in sharing the moment with others. We could say, as many do, using the ancient buzzwords, that we are tribal, and we connect with our tribe. That’s just a new spin on an old idea – the creation of and expression of culture. Artists express their joy (and sometimes pain) in the moment through their work. We have a very long history of this expression that brings past joy into the present moment, and for that we are joyfully grateful.
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 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 4/18/2025 11:40:53 AM
By Donald Fox
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I remember being outside a Vietnamese restaurant three weeks before Christmas years ago. A covered white pick-up was parked outside. On one side window someone had air-brushed a death’s head hovering above a surf board. A tall, lanky man in a baseball cap asked me if the food at the restaurant was any good. Had I actually eaten there before? He was painting imaginary oriental Christmas scenes on the restaurant windows. He had already painted a Chinese foot bridge over a green flowing river. Red linear mountains and small huts lingered in the distance. He told me he planned to put Mt. Fuji on one window like he remembered from school. I looked without commenting at his drawn face from which a cigarette bobbed as he spoke. Let’s see – Christmas, Vietnamese restaurant, Chinese footbridge, Mount Fuji – oriental polyglot, mixed cultural metaphors including a Middle-eastern birthday become a Western European tradition.
There are many possible directions in life, and so often we remain narrowly focused on what’s at hand. When I was a kid, my neighborhood was filled with promise and pleasure. Already though, the outside world encroached in ways I could not fathom at the time. At noon a siren signaled the hour, but this was also part of an alarm system for emergency situations – this translated into threats of nuclear war though I didn’t fully understand that then.
Television broadcasted only in black and white. Color was several years into the future, but the local station broadcasted emergency warnings. That was the beginning of the Emergency Broadcast System. A test pattern would come on the small screen while an announcer gave advice on what to do in an emergency. We had air raid drills at school where we crouched under our desks or against the walls in hallways. It was the early fifties: advertisements for bomb shelters, fears of communist takeovers, scenes of atomic bomb tests, television dramas about Soviet spies like I Led Three Lives, Radio Free Europe, the Iron Curtain, McCarthyism, blacklists, and the end of the Korean conflict.
I discovered Afghanistan in the first volume of a family encyclopedia that my mother bought one volume at a time from the grocery store. There was no mention yet of Vietnam in the news although the French were there – the area was part of French Indo-China. Some years later I would lose high school friends in South Vietnam, and I would become politically radicalized largely because I was from the South and had seen discrimination firsthand, some even committed by family members. It felt important to do something positive.
The world of the imagination that I fed from my school library began to absorb realities that I had known only as fictions. All those alien invasion sci-fi movies of the fifties were simply metaphors for communists and any kind of ‘other’ cultural group infiltrating and taking control.
Art has a way of mirroring our concerns and fears, our doubts and our prejudices. It also gives us ways to distance ourselves from those burdens to be able to consider them through other eyes and other voices. This enables us to see more clearly into ourselves and possibly learn from our own experience as it is mirrored back through that filter of art. History allows us hindsight, and art gives us insight, but for both we have to be willing to engage and to be open to whatever we may find.
Posted on 11/7/2022 5:24:14 PM
By Donald Fox
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Day before yesterday, my wife and I visited the MFAH for a lecture on the new exhibit, “Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe of Indigenous Colombia.” The exhibit includes over four hundred examples of gold decorative items (actually tumbaga, an alloy of copper and gold), pottery, and textiles, most pre-Columbian, but a few more recent items to show the continuation of indigenous people’s traditions were also included. The work is stunning, and the lecturer was also visibly taken by the beautiful craftsmanship of these ancient creators, especially since they often used simple stone tools to intricately work the precious metal. In addition to the skillful craftsmanship, the pieces also expressed a complex cosmology and spiritually sophisticated view of humans, nature, and the universe as they perceived it.
Artists often appreciate the artistic expressions of other cultures including those considered by many to be primitive or not fully civilized. Most likely, though, any culture can be criticized for its philosophical or moral shortcomings regardless of the sophistication of its technological achievements. Some of these ancient cultures were quite brutal and were seen by early western explorers, including Columbus and others who followed, as savages who needed to be conquered, converted, enslaved, or destroyed. Of course, the irony of explorers in search of gold, treasures, new lands, and converts to their faith lies in their ruthlessness, thievery, debauchery, and inadvertent devastation by disease inflicted on those who sometimes, but not always, greeted them peacefully and with curiosity, if not awe.
Some of the greatest ancient civilizations were quite brutal in dispatching enemies as they built their empires. Socially, these empires also were usually hierarchical and included an elite that existed on the backs of those who served them. Some of the elites were proclaimed to be gods. Much of the wealth supported the elite and whatever spiritual group served to keep them in power. Artisans crafted works to adorn, to amplify, and to enhance the power of those who stood above. In some cases, the art was outright propaganda used either to cower enemies or the larger populace. Sadly, many of these ideas play out in modern times socially, politically, and religiously. In spite of this, art can bring so much joy when not used as a tool or a weapon.
Posted on 8/4/2022 6:38:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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NHC International
A recent article titled “Art as an Excuse” by Kevin Kelly published in FASO Member Newsletter (originally published on the author’s website) stimulated a number of reactive thoughts that differ from those espoused by the author. Primarily, using the word excuse to denote an act of making art may apply to him, but I doubt that it applies to any serious artist. An excuse is often either an apology for something or a rationalization why something was done or not done. Artists, more often than not, work from choice even though some may say that they are compelled to do what they do. Being compelled to me suggests one has little control. I am compelled to use the bathroom several times a day because my body demands that I do so. I readily comply as a way to maintain good health. I feel a sense of physical relief when the call of nature is satisfied and a sense of psychological relief knowing that my physical body is functioning properly. In certain settings I may even excuse myself to follow this calling.
The calling to make art is very different, however. Whatever initial curiosity led me to first pick up a pencil or brush many years ago in order to make some kind of image grew within me over years and urged me towards learning, practicing, and honing skills that would enable me to use art making as a way of being productive within the world. Kelly does say that humans are naturally productive and inevitably build things, create things that previously did not exist. Some of these things are utilitarian and provide us shelter and sustenance. Some of these things are not utilitarian (but not without purpose) and provide us distraction, pleasure, or ineffable boosts to wellbeing. Some of these latter things we call Art. Personally, I do not see art making as an excuse for not doing something else although I will frequently excuse myself from other tasks in order to engage in art making. Art is always a choice and a disciplined one at that.
To be fair to Mr. Kelly, I do not think he means to say that art making is in any way inconsequential or frivolous or is what people resort to when they have nothing better to do. There is the larger societal perception, though, that art making is a non-essential activity and one of little practicality when set beside medicine, construction, agriculture, and other fields of human endeavor including religion. Art and religion have often been linked, the former used as a means to visualize aspects of the latter or to express spiritual concepts, but it is interesting to note that no one has gone to war over art. Sometimes, however, art has been among the spoils of war, even those waged in the name of religion. Whether the practice of religion is any more practical than the practice of art, is another question, but certainly practitioners of each will vigorously defend that practice. Both can certainly be big business. To say that either is an excuse, however, is highly prejudicial at best.
Posted on 1/13/2022 4:00:23 PM
By Donald Fox
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Blue Streak
When I was a kid, we often visited my dad’s relatives in South Carolina near Charleston where I was born. One of my uncles worked as a caretaker on several plantations for different absentee owners. He and my aunt lived several years on each no-longer producing farm (I remember three that were visited more than once and even celebrated more than one Christmas at several of them). I loved the remoteness of these locations, all of them abutting rivers. On one of the plantations, my aunt and uncle lived in the original manor house, a large two-story brick home furnished with late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century furnishings, heated by fireplaces in all major rooms including bedrooms with canopied beds and chifforobes, and adorned with period paintings and portraits of former owners. I always felt as though I had stepped into some historical past, mysterious and haunting.
What I didn’t understand or appreciate at the time was the darker underside of that history. There was no longer evidence of slave quarters on any of these plantations, and the once abundant rice fields had become pastures or thickets of young trees. I paid little attention to the occasional small graveyard or the remaining foundation of one manor house that had some time ago burned to the ground. I never heard any stories from any relative about the history of any of the plantations or how they came to be. These places remained isolated in time far off the main highways and down lightly or unpaved roads lined with oak trees whose long branches created moss-laden archways into the past.
Only one of these plantations had a notable recent history as it was owned at the time I was three or four years old by Clare Boothe Luce and her husband Henry. The Luces had lost their twenty-year-old daughter in a car accident in 1944. The inconsolable Mrs. Luce, a Republican member of the House of Representatives and acknowledged writer, was inconsolable and converted to Catholicism while seeking solace. She allowed a group of Trappist Monks to live on part of the plantation while my uncle still worked there. Later she ceded the entire plantation to the Monks, they eventually forced my uncle out, and they established Mepkin Abbey, which has become a self-sustaining farm and retreat center. Perhaps the land with darkened past has been re-consecrated by its devotees to contemplation and prayer and peaceful existence.
Ironically, these and other plantations in South Carolina have been declared historical sites while many of them have been acquired by wealthy retirees and updated with guest houses, new greenhouses, and other accoutrements that landed them in the pages of Architectural Digest or Southern Living after designers ‘conserved’ their traditional looks and blended them with modern updates. At least they have avoided threats of becoming subdivisions and golf courses. The voices, chants, and haunting tales of former slaves who once made these plantations prosperous have long faded into distant memory replaced by a picturesque landscape that has pushed the value of these properties into many millions of dollars. It is a typical story of American enterprise and appropriation.
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 8/25/2019 4:01:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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Presidential portraits have become a tradition since the very first one was created for George Washington in the late 1700s. Most of the official portraits are housed in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, and some of these also have copies in various government buildings or are loaned to the White House to incumbent presidents who might request a portrait of a past favorite predecessor. Gilbert Stuart painted several portraits of Washington including the head and shoulders version that is often reproduced as well as the life-sized portrait known as the Lansdowne portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. He also painted three copies of this portrait one of which hangs permanently in the White House.
The original painting, like many other official portraits, has a decidedly political story. It was commissioned by Senator William Bingham and was given as a gift to Lord Lansdowne (William Petty), the British Prime Minister at the end of the Revolutionary War. He helped negotiate an end to that conflict and honored Washington for his leadership and integrity. Washington supported a treaty that resolved claims against England from the war, and the portrait supposedly represents Washington’s position. The portrait resided in England, was later sold after Lansdowne’s death, was loaned to a Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876, was returned to England, went through several owners, was loaned permanently to the National Portrait Gallery in 1968, and was purchased for the Gallery in 2001.
The painting is roughly eight feet tall and five feet wide. Washington stands in the pose of an orator, he holds a sheathed dress sword in his left hand, and he extends his right arm in a gesture as though making a point. He is formally dressed in black and stands within a setting that looks like a corner of a Roman building with large columns behind him. Draped curtains reveal blue sky and storm clouds on the left and a rainbow on the right. Furnishings and books represent governmental power, democracy, the American Revolution, Constitutional law, and Washington’s leadership. These historical references make this a strong political statement of both Washington’s place as a war hero and as the new republic’s elected leader as well as the underpinnings of the new republic’s democratic freedom. It is like a painted essay honoring the relatively new nation and one of its primary founders.
By contrast, President Barack Obama’s official portrait seems decidedly apolitical. It was painted by African American painter Kehinde Wiley, known for his large-scale portraits incorporating ethnic references into highly colorful, hyper realistic portrayals of his subjects. This painting is seven feet high by four and a half feet wide. What is most interesting is the presentation of the president (who was recently out of office at the time of the painting’s completion). [As a side note, Bill Clinton’s official portrait was the first painted by an African American artist, Simmie Knox.]
President Obama is seated in a formal side chair. Roughly one third of the official presidential portraits portray the president seated. Another half dozen portraits are bust poses against a dark background where it’s impossible to tell if the figure is seated or standing. With only a few exceptions, the poses are quite formal – notable exceptions are Reagan, who is partly seated against a column base in a relaxed pose, and Clinton, who stands with one hand resting on a table, the other in his pocket, and his legs, though not fully shown, are crossed (almost like a GQ pose). President Obama is dressed in a suit with white shirt but no necktie. He is leaning forward with lower arms crossed and resting on his thighs. He looks out at the viewer as if in earnest conversation with him or her. His facial expression is serious, relaxed, but focused on the audience. What is most unusual is the surrounding ground, an allover design of leaves with three type of flowers (chrysanthemums, the official flower of Chicago; jasmine representing Hawaii; and Africa blue lilies that reference Obama’s Kenyan father). There is no ground plane; it is suggested only by the perspective of the chair legs and Obama’s feet. But, there is no distinction between any floor and background space. The flowers and leaves create an allover pattern with some leaves overlapping parts of the chair and the figure. The overall image is photo-realistically painted, but the image is almost surreal compared to the Washington portrait. President Obama is very environmentally aware and supported environmental policies while in office (and continues to do so) unlike his successor.
The contrast between these two portraits illustrates the huge changes between the nation’s early years and the often enigmatic circumstances of modern times. There is nothing ambivalent in Washington’s stance or gesture, and the setting is rife with symbolic meaning. The Obama portrait, intriguing as it is in its unconventionality, still does not detract from the president’s charismatic presence nor the strength and grace with which he faced the most daunting challenges. Perhaps there is an underlying message from the artist that we should all pay more attention to surrounding nature rather than continuously wall ourselves off from it – or from each other.
The Lansdowne Portrait by Gilbert Stuart President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley
Posted on 3/12/2019
By Donald Fox
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Night Window oil on canvas 24" x 36"
Just over a year ago I was contacted by Jim Wunderlich (see his LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-wunderlich-ascap-68414525) via my website about a potential collaboration utilizing an image of one of my paintings as the floorpiece/backdrop for a high school performance percussion group. As a longtime educator, I was intrigued by the opportunity to support creative expression by young students. After viewing a few videos of performances (link for past performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi8wO3iIlJQ ), I was enrolled in the project. Jim is a musical director and composer and provides music for several groups in different states, and though the performances don’t draw a huge audience compared to rock concerts, they are spectacular and engage students at their creative best.
Eventually, my painting Night Window was selected, and it became the stimulus for the Broken Arrow High School (from Broken Arrow, OK), a national award-winning group, performance of “Waiting for the Night” that includes music based on rock band Depeche Mode and classical composer Erik Satie along with poetry by Dylan Thomas (“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”). The show was performed last week in Indianapolis with future shows in Tulsa and the Dallas area. If the timing works, I hope to attend the latter. Seeing my 24” x 36” painting blown up to the size of a basketball court was a real trip. I look forward to future collaborations.
Set for "Waiting for the Night"
Broken Arrow, OK
Posted on 1/17/2019
By Donald Fox
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Whether I begin a blog in a notebook or writing pad, I will transfer it at some point to a Word document which is then uploaded to my website. I always begin with a blank document, change the default 11 point font to 12 point, set for first line indent, single space, and check the box that says “Do not add space between paragraphs of the same style.” These actions set my document to desired format, something that could be done after the document is completely typed. In a way, though, these preparatory actions are similar to prepping a canvas for painting or assembling materials to be able to draw or paint unfettered by interruption by having to search for the proper tool. Inspiration and creative expression can flow without hindrance. These small rituals also help me prepare my mind for that creative flow.
Many artists follow rituals of preparation much like athletes and performers warm and loosen muscles or vocal cords so that their physical instruments are fully prepared to meet the demands and potential stressors of their chosen activity. Additionally, practices and rehearsals keep those instruments attuned for longevity. The physical body is as much a part of the painter’s expression as that of the athlete or dancer, but the body is always powered by the mind. Whatever actions prepare the body also affect the mind, and exercising the mind is fundamental to wellbeing and creativity.
When I was a kid, I learned from my granddad about priming the pump, an expression that many young people would not understand today. Though his house had indoor plumbing, there was a well between the house and the barn with a hand pump that had to be primed by pouring a small amount of water into the top while pumping the handle. These actions created suction to draw water up from the well. That water was always cool and clear with a taste superior to that of treated tap water. The small priming action reaped a great reward. The climactic scene in the film The Miracle Worker when teacher Anne Sullivan forces young Helen Keller’s hands under water pumped from a well while signing the word for water was especially poignant for me because of my granddad. Helen makes the connection between the water and the sign for water tapped into her hand by her teacher. This one action opened a new path to learning that lasted the rest of her life. She transcended her afflictions (deaf, blind, and dumb) to become world renowned as an advocate for the disabled and underprivileged and a voice for social justice (she literally learned to speak and lectured widely). She wrote about this priming event in her autobiography, a pleasurable and inspiring read.
As a painter and artist, there are many actions I perform by way of preparation. I don’t discount the smallest of these for I understand the priming action and its multiplying effects. I make notes often. I doodle and sketch in notebooks and drawing pads. I clean my brushes, my palette, and my work space. I pay attention to as much around me as I possibly can. I give myself time to think and to daydream. I read and research frequently. I study the history of art and muse about early attempts at creative expression. I paint often and without reserve. I never cease to marvel at the richness of the world or the varieties of creative insight. In short, I do everything possible to prime the pump.
Posted on 9/23/2018 6:21:21 PM
By Donald Fox
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PBS is currently airing a program titled The Great American Read. Part of this is a contest where anyone can vote for his or her favorite novel to determine which books are most popular and which one might be the most popular. What’s more interesting and valuable, though, is that a variety of people – educators, writers, and ordinary people – speak about their experiences with a particular book, and most importantly, how that book changed their lives.
Often, these stories show that individuals came upon a book by accident – they were not actively seeking out an important book. That book was recommended to them, given to them, or they just found it and started reading. Every person, however he or she came upon that find, said that once he or she began reading, the book totally captured attention – even those who were not strong readers. They spoke of identifying with characters and situations – cross-cultural, cross-gender, cross-racial, cross-generational. None of that seemed to matter. Something in each work captivated each reader and spurred that reader into thinking about life and issues in ways not previously considered.
In a nutshell, this is the power and beauty of art. Anyone can access it and can be profoundly affected by it. Some make art an important part of their lives regularly. Others come to art by accident and often unawares. Unfortunately, there also are some who never experience art’s transformative power and live their lives as Thoreau observed “in quiet desperation.”
Pick up a book, look at a painting, listen to music, or perform your own artistic expression in whatever way seems right. Art is all around us from centuries past to the latest online post. It’s there for the experiencing.
Posted on 6/27/2018 6:55:28 PM
By Donald Fox
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Working with students can be rewarding and frustrating. Teachers often get harshly criticized for not explaining enough, not being attentive enough, not being understanding enough, ignoring questions (especially when redirecting a question with another question), being too arrogant (a know it all), expecting too much, and many other sins of omission or commission. The aforementioned are the frustrating parts, but in truth many students are ill-prepared when they come out of high school, and not only academically. Frequently they lack social skills – basic politeness, attentive listening, and clear communication. It is not uncommon for some of them when given an assignment to ask, “Is this for a grade?” or “Do we get extra credit?” What happened to understanding that learning is a process that not only requires diligence and perseverance but also mindfulness and motivation, particularly self-motivation?
On the plus side, there is the rewarding part. Those students who genuinely seek out help when needed, ask appropriate questions, and volunteer input in group settings are a pleasure to work with. When a student says, “Oh, I get now” or “I see what you mean” or “I never thought about that before,” any teacher will derive great pleasure. There also are instances where students begin to help each other, ask and answer their own questions, or pose alternatives to certain processes or problems. The teacher is then a coach or facilitator for growth and learning, and that fosters an amazing feeling.
Every subject contains specialized knowledge, a specific language, if you will, that has to be learned in order for someone to begin to converse in that discipline. Many subjects also require certain skills that must be mastered to operate at a level of competence. Combining these two (knowledge and skill) enables a student to move forward with confidence even when future challenges may arise, as often is the case. The mindful student will understand what may be lacking and how to go about obtaining it. Somewhere in the learning process, this student has understood that he or she has been learning how to learn.
There was a time in my own life when I attended many different personal growth workshops and seminars. The various acronyms from these events had more letters than those found in any alphabet soup. I met a lot of people and learned a lot about relationships and about myself. I could sum up all that realization in the words of a friend, a noted seminar leader, who once said for practical advice, “Pay attention to everything all the time.” This was a decidedly western way of paraphrasing the eastern, particularly Buddhist, practice of being mindful.
Many of the things that I have learned in life were actually reminders of what I already knew. Like most people, however, I have tended to distract myself with stuff that in the moment seemed important. Thus, what I knew was often set aside by whatever sparkly confection waved itself before me be it mineral, vegetable, or female. This is the challenge for all of us, but today, perhaps, with so much technology beckoning and being the norm for young people from their earliest age of awareness, it is important that we pay attention to paying attention. Those tasked with being educators regardless of discipline must be examples for their charges. We must be mindful of who we are and what we do so that we demonstrate as we attempt to educate.
Posted on 5/23/2018
By Donald Fox
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In the history of art, some artists were considered revolutionary by their peers or by those who came after them. Some artists consciously chose to be revolutionary and to create a new form of art or a new way of visualizing through art. Either way, the revolutionary artist affected both audience and other artists.
Caravaggio, for example, gave new depth to realism through his radical use of chiaroscuro. Strong light in an otherwise dark setting created powerful, dramatic effects and strengthened the spatial quality of three-dimensional forms. Unfortunately, the drama of his painting spilled into his life and led to a dramatic early death.
Rembrandt was revolutionary in his paint handling, which often created highly textured images, paintings frequently bathed in golden light. His sense of realism is equally as stunning as a more polished and in many ways more modest painter like Jan Vermeer. Rembrandt’s work, though, exerts a power and immediacy unique in the painting of his time, and there were many incredible painters during the Dutch Golden Age.
For several hundred years, painters in Europe followed established principles and produced consistent works that reflected their time but remained mainstream. Eventually a group of painters later referred to as Impressionists opted for a more direct, almost sketchy rendering of the world using everyday scenes and the people surrounding them. They did not paint Classical themes or Biblical stories. Their work was seen as revolutionary, but these were not revolutionary individuals. Most were very much a part of the social order, and many of them were aristocratic by birth. They just chose to be serious artists, yet their vision revolutionized what was considered art.
Paralleling them, in fact a painter who knew many of them but tended to go his own way and did not adopt their methods of attempting to catch fleeting impressions, was a painter who quietly plodded along with his work. He re-thought painting from a basic perspective and worked consistently without the flourishes or prettiness or bravura of some of his contemporaries. He experimented with how an image was depicted, sometimes showing distortions created by altering his viewpoint when he tilted his head or leaned to one side to better see part of an object. This sometimes gave his paintings slightly odd perspectives. Interestingly, he wrote about the desire to make of Impressionism “something solid and lasting like the art of the museums.” The work of Paul Cézanne set the stage for many new perspectives in painting in the early twentieth century.
The revolutionary power of Cézanne’s work impacted numerous younger artists but especially influenced two painters: Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Matisse, the elder of the two, freed color from its traditional constraints and made it a powerful, expressive tool. Picasso took Cézanne’s planar approach to nature and created Cubism as a new way of utilizing the picture plane. Temperamentally, Matisse was more like Cézanne in consistently exploring the possibilities of seeing. His revolution came through consistent effort. Picasso was personally driven to create something new, a new vision – he was the self-conscious revolutionary restlessly moving through stage after stage of unique interpretations of the world but always with an eye to the past especially Velazquez and Cézanne.
There were other revolutions in art during the twentieth century, but even the greatest revolutionaries were also great assimilators. They understood history and used it to their advantage and by so doing they contributed to that history in important ways. Most of them looked to nature as much as to museums, and they understood that revolution is more about reaching for than reacting against.
Posted on 5/17/2018
By Donald Fox
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Picasso - Family of Saltimbanques
National Geographic channel is running several miniseries titled Genius. The first that aired earlier this year focused on Einstein and presented his life story with several actors portraying him at different times in his life. The story unfolded somewhat like a soap opera and moved forwards and backwards in time rather than in simple chronological narrative. I didn’t mind this so much since I (and we) have been trained by film narrative to expect jump cuts and leaps in time as well as time compression to deal with complex stories with multiple characters and locations. What a director chooses to depict, however, often displays prejudicial interpretation of any particular character’s circumstances and mindset. With these biographical interpretations, the basic facts can be verified, but conversations and motivations of characters are pure fiction. This will happen with any dramatization. Even so, the story can be made compelling given a good script, dedicated and skilled actors, and a wise director along with adequate research of whatever time period is portrayed. Such was the case with Einstein.
The second miniseries currently underway focuses on Pablo Picasso, the Spanish modernist artist who lived and worked much of his life in France. Picasso was born in 1881, just two years after Einstein, but he outlived the latter by nearly twenty years. Much of their lives were greatly influenced by the same major events, one of them notably the Second World War. Einstein left Europe for America and remained there during and after the war. Picasso remained in France during the war and was at odds with the Nazis who considered his work depraved. In 1937 Picasso painted perhaps his greatest work, Guernica, which protested the Franco-German (Nazi) bombing of the eponymous Spanish village during the Spanish Civil War. He was at odds with the Germans on several levels including their persecution of his Jewish artist friends.
My main criticism with this narrative four episodes into Picasso’s life is that there is little depiction of how his work developed into the ever-renewing and exploratory painting that he created. I don’t question his genius nor his prolific output, his eventual success and tremendous wealth. What is not yet shown is how he absorbed and appropriated the art of others in his quest for his own stylistic expression. That is a huge part of his genius. He re-invented work by Degas and Cézanne; he drew upon Classical influences; he re-imagined primitive African art and orientalism; he absorbed El Greco and Velazquez and the Spanish tradition. Obviously women were of great importance in his life and in his art, but everything was absorbed and regurgitated in new forms that made what he did so revolutionary. In one scene from the series, for example, a young Picasso shows a painting of two emaciated figures (from his early Blue Period) to a dealer who rejects it because it is not the pretty kind of painting that he says clients desire. An astute dealer would have known the precursors by Manet (Chez la Père Lathuille and The Plum), Degas (The Absinthe Drinker and Women Ironing), or Toulouse Lautrec (his many Left Bank denizens), most of which were in museums or galleries and Picasso would have seen.
There is no doubt that life around him was constantly incorporated into his art. Nonetheless, Picasso was also very aware of the work of others, those who came before and his contemporaries. He was especially intrigued by Matisse and the arbitrary coloration of the Fauve period, which around 1905 was the most revolutionary work being created in France. As portrayed in the miniseries, Picasso withdraws his painting from the Salon d’Automne after seeing Matisse’s Woman with a Hat, a much smaller but richly colored canvas. Picasso’s submitted (but withdrawn) painting, Family of Saltimbanques, is a large (7’ x 7.5’), mysterious, almost surreal depiction of harlequins in a bare landscape with a blue sky. It was revolutionary in its own right and has become one of the most beloved of his paintings from his Rose period. This was a few years before his creation of cubism.
My hope is that the miniseries will encourage those less familiar with Picasso’s work, let alone his stature in twentieth century art, to move beyond the myths behind the painter as philanderer to some understanding of his staggering achievement and uniqueness in art history. Though the term genius has almost become clichéd, it is not misplaced attached to Picasso’s name. I just hope that the rest of the series will illustrate the depth of that genius rather than dwelling on the personal foibles that were part of the individual and perhaps fed some of that creative energy. The universal spirit that Picasso tapped and channeled through his art is what remains for us to ponder.
Posted on 4/26/2018
By Donald Fox
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Once some years ago, I had been laid off from a construction job. I wasn’t too concerned because I knew I could get another one through my contacts. It was not unusual in construction to work jobs that were counted in months rather than years, but others always followed and many workers went from job to job as normal for their careers. One evening I drove over to a Seven-Eleven to pick up something and was accosted by a man asking for money. He launched into his tale of having just lost his job and… but I stopped him there and said that I, too, had just lost my job. “Yeah,” he said, “but you’ve got a car. If I had a car, I’d get me another job.”
I’ve owned a car since I was in college and had ready access to one from the time I was old enough to drive. A car quickly became an extension of my being in the world. It took me most any place I wanted to go including several cross-country trips. The dependency on a car in an urban environment is such that it is not conceived as a dependency. A car is a necessity, for it not only represents freedom and mobility; it is the tool of that freedom and mobility. Access to a car is assumed as much as anything else I may do expressively. It is a tool, and it is seen as essential.
Today there is much discourse about technology, especially electronic technology, and its power over our lives. But we humans have always assimilated some form of technology into who we are (and what we do). Language enabled us to build complex societies; writing expanded our thinking, communicating with each other and with our past, record-keeping enabled expansive trade and business. The wheel, ceramics, metals, and all the gradual improvements through one technological advancement or another moved us through the world and beyond the world in ways never before imagined. Are we addicted to technology or is the possibility of distraction just a side-effect of not understanding its potential for expression, learning, and growth?
Like others, sometimes I may succumb to a so-called mindless activity like game-playing on a computer or watching a television program or movie. Though these activities may be considered pastimes by many, for me they more often are challenges of mental exercise or critical thinking. The reasoning skills I developed through the study of math, the critical thinking skills developed through literary and artistic criticism combined with philosophical inquiry can elevate a walk in the park from simple physical exercise to intellectual enlightenment. Interaction with the creative expression of others also elevates my spirit and, as some would say, gets the creative juices flowing. For me, using my critical and creative faculties has solidified through many years of training and practice. This is not everyone’s response, and I can see the possibility of most any activity becoming a kind of addictive behavior. I was a smoker in the past and remember challenges with quitting.
I’ve also seen how someone not informed by knowledge or experience will take something as normal that may be relatively novel and with little historical relevance. I remember what it was like when radio was the only entertainment. The first television was an amazing leap into a new realm. But for me it was through television that I developed a life-long love of film. I learned American culture of the twenties, thirties, and forties through films shown on television when programming was sparse and those films filled the airways. This was combined with books and periodicals in both school and public libraries that gave me deeper understanding of the world my parents (and their parents) had lived through. History was fascinating, first by learning about those near generations but that led to previous ones and on to ancient times. I don’t see that kind of curiosity so much today among students, which is quite sad. Though technology has had its entertainment side (and potential downside), it has primarily been a tool for learning in my experience. Fortunately, I didn’t grow up with computers by which I mean that they are tools for me first and foremost. The game is how to use any technological instrument for expression and learning just as that car can take me into the mountains, to a museum, to places unseen, or to a party with friends.
Posted on 3/22/2018
By Donald Fox
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One of my early teachers and primary mentor as an artist, Claude Howell, was not academically trained as I was. He worked with a local artist when he was young, spent a short time at the Art Students League in New York after he graduated high school, and then traveled through Europe and Africa where he experienced firsthand much of the greatest of world art. Later, after he founded the Art Department at Wilmington College (later UNC-W), he brought his art history classes to life with personal stories about nearly every monument or significant work covered in various texts. Claude had a small but adequate studio at school where he worked continuously when he wasn’t in class, a demonstration to everyone, but especially students, of the dedication to art and craft that is possible. In the large adjacent art room, he also kept numerous examples of his work neatly stacked in bins that his work/study student assistant was responsible for organizing and cataloging (along with the extensive collection of art slides for the history classes). Additionally, Claude kept a logbook at his home with each paper and canvas work he’d ever created carefully described by size, medium, location, and exhibition history. All of this was before the computer age, and it served as a great example for those students who were serious about their own work and development.
During my time at school in Wilmington, I often spent late night hours in the art studio where I could work undisturbed after evening classes were complete and everyone else had gone. Rarely did anyone else stay around or show up, not even a security guard who must have been around somewhere. I did the same as a graduate student in Greensboro (UNC-G). Who knows where other students were, but I had space to work without any interruption. I relished that time alone and feel certain that Claude’s example was somewhere in the back of my mind.
A decade or more after I had left school and had been through graduate school, I crossed paths with a friend from my home town, a man several years older than me who interestingly I reconnected with at different times in Chapel Hill and in California. He also had worked with Claude, although briefly, and had become a potter rather than a painter. Claude came up in conversation and my friend spoke of how much he admired him. He reminisced about a time when late one night he was at school alone (somewhat inebriated) and spent hours pulling out Claude’s work, spreading it around the art room in chronological order, and appreciating the movements through time that Claude had made on his personal art journey. Very likely Claude would have been mortified that a drunk student was going through his art, but I think he would have appreciated the curiosity and brashness of the adulation. Few today would have such ready access to work that would be locked in vaults or hidden from public view in special collections.
When appropriate, I use Claude as an example to students who today have more virtual access that real-life access to examples of working artists. Videos of various quality abound on YouTube, but these also include professional videos about significant artists some of which actually show them at work. This can create a taste for what an artist may do day by day, but this is not the same as seeing that happen regularly while also being able to interact with both the artist and the physical work. Perhaps the student artists from hundreds of years ago had the better idea by apprenticing with a master artist, but I suspect that many today would be too impatient for that lengthy process of learning.
Posted on 3/12/2018
By Donald Fox
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Merriam-Webster publishes a daily word definition via email that is a useful tool for vocabulary building. Sometimes these e-mails contain specialized information and a recent one focused on specific art terminology that knowledgeable people should be familiar with. General knowledge can help anyone gain a greater appreciation of everyday situations especially in this time of specialization and growing dependency on technical tools. One might argue that smart phone access means internet access and therefore availability of information by quickly looking up something unfamiliar. I don’t disagree since I use the internet often for exploration and research, but I can also appreciate literary references and allusions in film, in written text, in the news, or in conversation without having to look up something and especially when looking something up might not be an option. I learned early in my educational process that learning how to learn was a useful skill to develop. That skill has served me well for many years and continues to do so.
A reference publication like a Dictionary of Cultural Literacy may be helpful to someone desiring to improve general knowledge. This kind of dictionary is more like a one volume encyclopedia of current events, people, and ideas. Its effectiveness depends on its editors, but like online Wikipedia is a good starting place for information. Books still do have a place in the learning community and hopefully always will. What is sad, however, is that general courses for learning like history or geography and other humanities disciplines are becoming less frequent in schools or are taught in such ways that students do not learn. It was something of a high school cliché when I was in school decades ago that history courses were taught by coaches. Even in a college prep program like the one I was in, I had two history courses that were taught by coaches. These were not bad men, but they were not inspired teachers. Fortunately, I had other teachers who did inspire learning and made history alive with the stories of people not all that different from ones I knew except those historical figures lived at a different time and faced somewhat different issues. What I learned, though, was a continuous stream of human activity and experience reaching back thousands of years that flowed right into my current life.
I read recently about a group of people who had lived hundreds of years in isolation, and when they encountered white filmmakers, they believed them to be gods. This happened more than once in Central and South America centuries ago, but this particular incident occurred in the twentieth century. These people were not stupid, just ignorant in their isolation, and thus could easily be manipulated by outsiders. In a sense, many young people today are nearly as ignorant of their past and how they fit into the larger world. Thus, they are swayed by their peers, entranced by technology or social media, or manipulated by a charismatic or otherwise powerful person. Limited vision leads to fragmentation and that fragmentation to unnecessary conflict and discord. More often than not what manifests is a lack of empathy with others. Guillermo del Toro’s recent film The Shape of Water examines similar themes within context of a magical tale. It’s very interesting that he set the story in 1962 America, a time when science fiction films about space invaders and monsters begun the previous decade (War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, Creature from the Black Lagoon) paralleled fears of communist take-overs and nuclear holocaust, and 1962 was the year of the Cuban missile crisis. The paranoia driving many of the main characters is very time specific.
Any current conflict does not manifest from nothing. There always is precedence, something that may have been suppressed and festered for some time. Understanding the past is important to understanding the present. History is far more than a few names and dates.
Posted on 2/4/2018 7:15:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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I learned how to read and write before I went to school. My older brother taught me what he had learned, and since he was just under three years older than me, I was learning the rudiments of writing by the age of four. I didn’t always understand what I read, and since most of that reading material for me consisted of horror comics and superhero stories there grew a bas toward the bizarre. I also sent away for all sorts of free offers advertised in the backs of those comics. My favorites were postage stamps, for these were colorful and pictorial. I was entranced by their diminutive size that often contained expansive views of exotic scenes especially ones from many small island countries. I learned geography and bits of history and politics from those stamps. Though I never became a serious collector, I still have thousands of stamps in boxes and old albums and find them equally fascinating today for color, variety, ad for what they say about a changing world.
Some of those small island countries, for example, created stamps to 1) raise money and 2) to advertise themselves to the world. Colorful stamp sets from Barbados were dedicated to Elvis Presley or to Disney character like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. One might expect images of these American cultural icons on U.S. postage stamps, but Barbados or the Maldives? Those stamps targeted collectors and tourists rather than general postage use.
Stamps often signified important historical events. These stamps are referred to as commemoratives since they commemorate a significant person, place, or event. The famous national park commemoratives published by U.S. Postmaster James Farley who served under Franklin Roosevelt (and avid stamp collector) are a case in point. Farley made perforate and imperforate singles, multiples, and souvenir sheets to appeal to his boss and to American collectors. So many special variations have not been produced since.
During World War II, German occupied countries had local stamps over-marked with swastikas and other symbols of Nazi Germany, an easier and more economical process than designing and printing new stamps. Politically, this was also a powerful message to the occupied that they were under another’s control. This was not an uncommon practice in other regions during military occupations. The British Empire exerted its sovereignty over colonies in a slightly less heavy-handed manner with stamps picturing King George and later Queen Elizabeth.
Eventually, though, postage stamps will become a thing of the past as machine stamping and declining use of mail services are replaced by private delivery companies, email, and social networking. Many have lamented the lost art of letter writing, and the loss can be easily verified by reading published correspondence of prominent individuals, historical figures, writers, and artists. Think of the beautifully expressed letters read as part of the narrative for Ken Burns’ magnificent series The Civil War.
For me, stamps were an early introduction to one form of artistic expression, albeit a commercial and utilitarian one. Reading enabled a deeper understanding of the history behind stamps and their use. Reading also became a pathway to writing. The discovery of making images through pictures and with words was life-changing, far more so than technological advances in subsequent years. I count myself fortunate to have developed a solid base in image-making and writing long before the seductive powers of technology took hold.
Posted on 10/27/2017
By Donald Fox
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The German-American artist Hans Hoffman was a noted teacher in the United States after emigrating from Germany in early thirties. He has influenced several generations of artists worldwide as well as making a major impact on American abstract art in the forties, fifties, and sixties. Noted for his theory of “push and pull,” Hoffman suggested that the artist manipulated the picture plane by pushing colors and shapes into the picture surface and pulling them from that surface. This is similar to the idea that cool colors recede and warm colors advance to establish spatial relationships on a flat surface. Rather than being a rigid systematic approach to painting, however, he suggested that the painting process is more intuitive, but the push-pull idea is one of the artist’s main tools.
Another way of thinking about this is to contrast the idea with linear perspective, which creates the illusion of space by lines and shapes angled into the distance (edges of a road that appear to converge at the horizon, for example). Hoffman’s idea can create dynamism and tension with blocks of color since the color and size variation of the blocks also powerfully suggest space. Rather than angles and diagonals creating movement, tension, and space as in most Renaissance paintings, color and shape serve similar purposes. The first-glance apparent static quality of Hoffman’s colored rectangular compositions, often stacked like bricks on a wall, is offset by the dynamic rhythm and tension created by juxtaposition of warm and cool colored shapes.
One could also think of this idea as tension expressed in life and nature. Even though Hoffman worked abstractly and emphasized abstract or non-objective approach to painting, the visual ideas contained within compositions are largely derived from observation of nature and the world around us. Opposition or polarity underlies much life expression: life-death, soft-hard, warm-cool, light-dark, proximity-distance. Other art forms also draw on these contrasts. Tension and dramatic conflict fuel the literary arts or rhythm, intervals, and high-low pitch and volume in music. Contrasts can create conflict and discord, but they also can create interest and harmony.
Artists often find themselves experiencing push-pull in their own lives. What they do is not always recognized or valued by society at large. They sometimes are seen as outsiders, at odds with the mainstream, or as shirkers of responsibility (practicality). Visual artists may be pushed to create work that sells fitted to a particular market niche. In a sense, the artist is urged to conform to something socially and economically acceptable. We can easily see this at work in popular culture with respect to art (commercial and Fine Art), music (pop and classical), cinema (movies and film), theater (Broadway and drama), and writing (pop fiction and literature).
Sometimes there are successful crossovers – serious artists who become popular or popular ‘artists’ who do something serious – but more frequently we find artists misunderstood or unrecognized or outright vilified. There is always the possibility for this to change, which will largely be the result of better education. Major museums contribute with blockbuster exhibitions and community outreach. Public television produces spectacular educational, historical, and Fine art entertainment. Cable channels and streaming services like Netflix create original programming far superior to anything on network television. Hopefully this will be a continuing trend in spite of clueless and even repressive governmental interference. Push and pull is everyday drama.
Posted on 9/26/2017 6:15:37 PM
By Donald Fox
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Next week the Guggenheim museum in New York opens an exhibit entitled “Art and China after 1989.” Many of the works are videos of installation pieces executed some years ago, and a few of these Western viewers will likely find disturbing. For example, artists Peng Yu and Sun Yuan tied four pairs of American pit bulls to eight wooden treadmills where the dogs were faced off and ran at each other but could not touch. Often used for fighting, the dogs were stressed and frustrated by their inability to actually engage in fighting. The dogs grew tired, their muscles became more prominent, and their mouths increasingly salivated. The 7-minute video from the live 2003 performance piece in China includes close-up shots of the dogs' frantic, foaming faces. American viewers will feel for the plight of the animals if not turn away in disgust.
Another enclosed exhibit containing reptiles, amphibians, and insects will see some of the inhabitants devoured by others and those consumed will need to be replaced periodically. The suggested and inherent violence of these and other exhibits may not phase some youthful Americans, but the older generation will not like them. Personally, I find some of the pieces offensive for the cruelty inflicted upon the animals. There are other ways to make statements about violence and cruelty without resorting to what is being protested.
Unlike my Chinese counterparts, I don’t live in an autocratic state, but we still experience our share of violence and discord in America. Since the last presidential election, we’ve continued to see police brutality, twitter rage, and incidents of racial slurs seemingly supported by an ultraconservative government. There is less clarity in the face-off between citizen and state, and among citizens, for our disagreements cross many lines of confusion.
Most artists in America are more concerned with art that expresses truth that creates beauty or entertainment than they are with social consciousness and political statement. The latter is more often expressed by other means since the freedom to do so is a cultural given. The underlying question here is what makes art important, vital, and of value to society? Museum attendance for the major exhibits, the so-called blockbuster shows, increases year after year. It is obvious that there is much interest in art especially art that has celebrity cachet. Art at major auction houses by old and recent masters continues to sell for exorbitant prices, so the big money has not gone away for things nonessential. And, accessibility to art online has made art far more available to a greater audience than ever before – and this includes increasing challenges to those regimes that attempt to censor and control critical expression.
We are still at a relatively early stage of global communication, and the influence of the internet, though obviously powerful, continues to unfold. That artists in China are exploring what artists in the West did during the sixties and seventies vis-à-vis themselves and the power structure is not so much a time lag as it is opportunity of the moment for them. Artistic culture is not yet so global that national cultural distinctions have disappeared. The language of art may be universal, but context remains a major part of artistic expression and concern. The old adage of walking a mile in another’s shoes still holds meaning as well. I (or anyone) may not like what I see in certain work, but I need to step into different shoes if I want to understand what I’m seeing. The willingness to take that step is entirely up to each individual, and if art can prod us in that direction, so much the better.
Posted on 7/21/2017 5:51:14 PM
By Donald Fox
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Recently I visited my home town for the main purpose of helping clear things from my late dad’s house. Older and younger siblings and I removed personal items and sorted through the plethora of things left by my dad but also many things that remained from my mother who had passed more than a decade ago. To say that many memories were stirred is a gross understatement.
I had lived in that house from my junior year in high school through my first two years at the local community college and then only part time after I transferred to the state university. After graduation, I lived elsewhere on my own and was an occasional visitor to that house. My sister found several old photos of our family taken before she and my younger brother were born. My parents and their two sons sat on the steps of the small house I mostly grew up in that was across town from that later house my parents occupied for the rest of their lives.
As I headed to the airport on my last day in Wilmington, I drove by that little house and briefly through that old neighborhood. The house has been painted bright yellow whereas I remember it part white-painted siding and part brown-stained wood. The breezeway that connects the kitchen to the two-car garage has been enclosed and white-framed windows added to give the flat-roofed house a contemporary look. The oak tree my dad had transplanted in the front yard and that grew to huge proportions no longer existed. The front trellis on which grew honeysuckle and was frequented by hummingbirds in the summer was also gone. Still, the house looked good, and I could easily picture its interior as I remembered from childhood. Lots of transitions and lessons learned occurred in that house. I frequently filled it with childhood fantasies. I do regret not having created time to visit and ask the current occupants questions about what might have happened since we moved from there in 1962 although I have no idea when they might have acquired the property.
The old neighborhood, part of what is known as Princess Place, looks very much the same except that trees have grown much larger and there are more parked cars on the streets that when I was a boy. I knew many square miles that I traveled and explored on my bicycle and about which I have written elsewhere. Those seemingly idyllic years before Kennedy’s assassination are still clear in my mind. The ten years spent there (’52 to ’62) made a deep impression and have colored my life since. The weekend bus rides into town that included learning to swim at the Y and developing a love for movies, fishing in Smith Creek, delivering newspapers in the heat and the cold, spending early Sunday mornings in the Hideaway Club (later Jim’s Supper Club) with fellow carriers before picking up our papers, browsing for hours in the local public library where I discovered literature and art, and puzzling over the separate facilities for whites and blacks were all part of experiences that molded my inquisitiveness, desire to learn, and curiosity about the ways of the world and the social and racial paradoxes of Southeastern North Carolina.
Less important in some ways and more important in others were the years spent in Lincoln Forest where the second and last home my parents owned was located. My older brother married a girl who moved in several doors down and across the street. I dated a girl who lived several blocks away, and I lost my virginity during those years. I developed a cynical world view and left my home town with no desire to return. But I did. I worked through the cynicism and used art as a means for healing and regeneration. I learned to see that town as a treasury for insight and growth. We may not be able to go home again, but we can certainly learn from the time and place.
Posted on 7/13/2017 3:51:17 PM
By Donald Fox
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Window of Memory
I’ve been offline, so to speak, for the past five days while in my home town working on clearing and cleaning my late dad’s house. Some progress was made since I did pack up all the art work I had left there, some of it work of which I wasn’t very proud. I photographed the pieces I knew would get trashed, but I also plan to use portions of others in new paintings as collaged elements. This is part of my idea for making work that is autobiographical in a physically literal way.
Sometimes looking into the past can be painful, upsetting, or disappointing. The younger self can be harshly judged but perhaps not faulted for its ignorance, more so for stupidity or hubris. I think of the time when I was visiting with a friend who served as the administrator for a small gallery. I was there when someone showed up unannounced to talk about his work. Being very gracious since the person was from out of town, my friend offered to look if I could sit in. We all agreed, and the young artist began to discuss his work as he showed us pictures of many pieces he said were all commissioned ones, quite a few portraits and then landscapes and pieces with rural images. The work was rather primitive, flat, uninspired, and monotonous in its lack of awareness of basic design principles.
My friend was quite tactful and explained the work wouldn’t fit the concept of the gallery. The artist then turned to me and asked my opinion. I told him flatly that he wasn’t ready to show work publicly. He should focus on a period of intense study to master the fundamentals before venturing into the public arena. In its current state, his work would be crucified if not ridiculed. Such was my feeling as I viewed many of the pieces created more than forty years ago. Some were embarrassments. Some I destroyed; some I disassembled to create new and improved pieces; some I scavenged for components to utilize in new pieces.
I remember years ago hearing an artist say that sometimes the best thing to do is to scrape it all down and start over. A variation on that thought is that the best (and kindest) thing to do is to destroy the evidence. It is not necessary to document every failure on the way to success, but an occasional look backwards can show how far we have come.
Posted on 7/5/2017
By Donald Fox
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Vintage Window
Yesterday was the 4th of July, an important date for Americans regardless of political persuasion. I feel enormously grateful to live in a country that is founded upon the principle of freedom even if we have sometimes not lived up to that principle. Our history, unfortunately, is sprinkled with mistakes although these are not always taught in the sanitized versions we tend to get in schools. This is too bad, for we need to see mistakes in order to correct them and guard against their future occurrence. Many will say it unpatriotic to admit the errors or to criticize failures, but this is how we grow and stay strong. Our founding fathers recognized this and allowed for a system of amendments to the original constitution. They also recognized that differences of opinion and belief would create discourse, and this would be a continuous test of our generational resolve. In those early days, the discourse was not always polite, was sometimes vindictive, and even led to brutality and death among some of the leaders (note Alexander Hamilton killed by Aaron Burr in a duel). Some lessons we still need to learn.
As an artist I feel privileged to have free expression. This I take seriously and have never intentionally used my artistic platform as a way to demean, insult, or alienate others. People are free to criticize what I do whether they understand it or not, but no one has the right to limit my expression nor to censor it. I feel saddened by those who attempt to control the speech of others or to intimidate others through speech or force or both. This lingers on today within the political arena. What is important to remember is that we have created a safe environment where everyone has a voice.
Last evening as some neighbors chose to celebrate using fireworks, which within the city are illegal, the idea of exceptionalism was evident, i.e. the law does not apply to me (as some would think of themselves). A string of firecrackers set off close at hand sent several of my cats racing through the pet door from outside, their normally sweet faces contorted in terror. I was grateful that they also had a safe place to be and knew where to find it. This is part of the challenge in a free society – people do not always make the wisest choices. Fortunately, none of the cats were injured, but sometimes the innocent pay for the misjudgments of others.
This is another great lesson of our country, and that is personal responsibility. Yes, we have many freedoms, but those freedoms require the active participation, the lawful participation of the citizenry. We are what makes the government effective through our expressed voices. Those voices are not heard only at the ballot box. They also are heard through letters, emails, conversations, articles, and news reports in the public and private arenas. Action is not a single vote in a singular election, but it is daily activity as a free citizen with the right to express freely. It is also the act of listening to the voices of others, disagreeing where appropriate, but not demeaning, belittling, or attempting to silence or to otherwise infringe on their free expression. This is a lesson we all would do well to heed.
Posted on 7/3/2017
By Donald Fox
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Words are symbols that name things or convey meaning that has been learned. Words are made from letters that also are symbols of individual sounds, and when grouped according to guidelines make those same words. In the development of written language, we find that many word symbols were simplified pictures that over time became abstracted into standardized symbols that make up the alphabet of a given language. This idea seems simple enough, but who made those first images and why? Was someone trying to remember a sighting or previous experience? Was someone attempting to convey a message to another? What flash of insight led to those images and eventually to those words?
Some people struggle with language and writing for various reasons, but as a society we have learned the importance of communication. In spite of our impatience as adolescents with the adults around us, so much so that we create secret words and special meanings, we gradually mature into understanding that communication is about inclusion rather than exclusion. Something deep within yearns for that connection, and when we have access to enough information, we find that regardless of language or custom or circumstance, we all share qualities that are binding. One of these qualities is imagination, and through that we create many forms of expression.
We make art from language and from any material or tool that through imagination can be transformed as if by magic just as those first images must have seemed magical to their maker(s). That symbols on a page, whether word or image – spoken, sung, danced, or painted, can make a world come to life again and again, reveal subtleties of emotion and thought, and transport us to realms far beyond that of ordinary sensory experience is indeed miraculous and worthy of praise and preservation.
Posted on 6/18/2017 5:08:49 PM
By Donald Fox
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My earliest forays into the world of art were attempts at illustration. I made images of things that interested me like fish or flowers or people. I had no idea, really, what art was. I saw many pictures of diverse kinds in books and magazines, in advertisements, or on the walls of homes, and these all illustrated something in some way. I may have scribbled or doodled or played with colors and created abstract images but had no idea that these signified anything at all. I was often taken by colors and textures and shadows seen everywhere indoors and out, but again these were not conceived as things to be isolated inside a picture frame or as similar to any of those pictures that had been made for whatever purpose and held apart as things to observe again and again for particular pleasure or to impart some message. Eventually the idea that pictures were a code of sorts, that they conveyed meaning in the form of a story or part of a story, were intended to convince, enthrall, or entertain, or simply to give pleasure – eventually that concept became clear along with the idea that a picture could mean several things at once.
Even so, it took me much longer to begin making pictures for the purpose of communicating something other than what it represented as an image. That a tree or flower or landscape (or anything) could be an artistic symbol was not an idea easily assimilated. I learned that the American flag represented the country and its history, that its stars and bars stood for historical ideas and democratic principles, but that flag was always a flag that embodied those ideas. Its purpose was to be that symbol that always reminded us of that part of who we were as Americans. I also began to see paintings and sculptures that represented or illustrated other aspects of the country’s history. Other kinds of images and monuments illustrated other historical traditions all of which I learned in school. The idea of art objects became synonymous in my mind with the history of countries and civilizations, but art as a field to be explored for personal expression and to voice ideas, concepts, and feelings that connected to questions regarding life and the meaning of existence, questions that came as naturally as breathing, did not become apparent until one day in the local public library where I spent many weekend hours browsing through books on various subjects I found that art had potentially deeper meaning.
I discovered there were artists and had been artists who for centuries had asked those questions and attempted to answer them in whatever medium they had been drawn to. In their individual quests, they pursued perfection, excellence, beauty, mystery, transcendence, spirituality, sparked by awe experienced in the natural world and within their own restless imaginations and whatever sense drove them to ecstasy or dissolution. Art was deeper and richer and more complex and afforded more possibility than anything I had ever imagined. And thus, my own imagination was opened like a many-leaved book whose blank pages awaited the record of my wanderings. That was when I began to explore the making of something resembling art.
Posted on 6/6/2017
By Donald Fox
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John Ruskin was the most prominent art critic in Victorian England. He was less a critic in the sense of critics that we may think of today but more an aesthetician or philosopher of art. Some of his work is very period oriented as to be expected though he did strongly defend Turner against a critical Academy while later having a famous public feud with James Whistler, a feud that ended up in court. Technically Whistler won (the argument was over Whistler’s infamous Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket, a radical painting at the time), and he was awarded an ignominious sum of one farthing, a public humiliation.
Quite a lot of Ruskin’s writings to my taste are rather dense and often flowery, but there are gems of wisdom that transcend the period if one persists in looking. One of these Ruskin wrote in 1877 when he said, “Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art.”
In today’s contentious world, we may look far and wide to identify a great nation. There are many with potential in the East and the West, but few that are consistent with their dedication to any one book much less all three. Classical Greece comes readily to mind as a country that succeeded for a time in deed, word, and art, but that was not to last except in influence as an ideal for subsequent civilizations. The Greeks were not perfect, however, as no culture has ever been, but they did strive towards right action, learning, and artistic expression.
The period known as the Renaissance in Northern and Southern Europe modeled itself to some degree after the Greeks, but great as the artistic expression was, that could not surmount the struggles within the spiritual community and the rampant social inequality. Governance moved one direction, religion in another, and art in a different one altogether though from time to time each might appear to overlap the others.
To a large degree, current Western society is heir to the Renaissance’s multiple personality disorder. We have those suspicious of the learned, we have an excess of fundamentalist spirituality that is short on forgiveness, we have a corrupt body politic, we have competing groups of elitists, and we have rampant greed that places money and power over all else no matter how it is represented on the surface. We may have quelled some superstitions but replaced them with others. Science has risen to unforeseen heights, religion has fractured and competes for displaced souls, and art is restlessly seeking purpose and direction. We have learned to communicate in unprecedented ways yet cannot bridge the most basic of human gaps in spite of so much cross-cultural influence. In the words of another noted Victorian, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” and it is our time.
Posted on 6/5/2017
By Donald Fox
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Baseball great and humorist Yogi Berra is noted for his one-liner Yogi-isms, which often are paradoxical statements and occasional non sequiturs. Most people have probably heard “It ain’t over till it’s over” and “You can observe a lot by watching.” Of the two mentioned here, the latter is my favorite, for it contains a powerful truth when we consider what he has meant to say.
Often when we make observations, we mean that we comment on something. We don’t simply observe to gather information, but we observe for the purpose of commentary. We even use the word observe to mean to express an idea about something. Having commented, we think that we know something that previously we did not. Watching, on the other hand, is more a passive activity (note that paradox). We pay attention to what is out there or to what is around us. Again, we may be gathering information, but that information is building a knowledge base rather than a set of opinions. So, my idea is that Yogi Berra meant that we can learn a lot by watching, which, for the patient person, is profound advice. In fact, perhaps Mr. Berra is even suggesting that practicing patience is an admirable trait.
Students of visual art in their training spend many hours observing and recording information by practicing drawing. They are training hand-eye coordination, but they also are learning to see more fully and accurately what is there before them. It is not simply a matter of making a picture of something with drawing or painting tools – what the hasty student hurries to do and thereby short circuits the process – the student artist is learning to see, to discern, to note similarities and contrasts, to understand form and space, and how to notate these on a flat surface. The process is not too different from the student writer learning to use words descriptively by again observing (watching closely) and making notes on what is seen. One has to do a lot of watching – or observing (I do prefer that word) with suspended judgment.
Gradually the student absorbs important information from training the eye to see nuances of form, changes of direction, subtleties of light grazing a surface, intervals between objects, and positions in space. The student learns to see masses and to understand structure. The watchful eye learns to penetrate to the essence of something, to understand the simplicity that underlies the complexity. These are all powerful insights that come from the watchful eye, the active eye that seeks truth rather than opinion and learns to observe while being ever watchful.
Posted on 6/1/2017
By Donald Fox
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One of the amazing things about the human mind – and there are many amazing attributes – is its ability to focus. Because of the enormous amount of sensory input the mind has to process, it is very easy for any one of us to be constantly distracted by this or that, whatever sensation may command the most attention. We can, however, train our minds to ignore the distractions and to focus on any particular task or thing we find most intriguing. Athletes work earnestly to focus on the game or physical activity for which they constantly train. They learn to use visualization techniques, meditation to quiet mind chatter, or other focusing techniques to zero in on what is there in the moment be it in the midst of a game, a training session, or strategy session. Concentration is often the key to success.
Students often tell me that they are good at multi-tasking. When I test them on that simply by asking what we talked about yesterday in class, inevitably they show poor results. They do honestly think that they can work on one assignment while listening to a lecture or to music or to some YouTube presentation, do well on the assignment and remember what was discussed in the lecture. Yet they also readily admit that they often have difficulty reading because they find that after a few pages they don’t remember what was on the first page or even what the main idea of the reading actually is. In short, they lack focus when they need it. Sure, most of them can focus on a computer game or follow along with their favorite song or send text messages quickly (though not always accurately). However, they simply haven’t learned how to focus when necessary as with reading or listening or other doing any other task that requires extended concentration.
We could discuss the influence of television, music, computers, or cell phones (or other electronic gadgets) for the short attention span as many experts have for a number of years now. We could show how studies indicate that multi-tasking actually reduces one’s ability to perform at peak levels. We could also demonstrate how athletes and other peak performers use their brains and the ability to focus as much or more as their physical prowess in the amazing feats they may perform when “in the zone.” Sometimes it is as simple as keeping one’s eye on the ball.
What is more important, though, is how to improve the ability (or activate that ability) to focus. The short answer is through repeated practice. Learning to do anything well, from running to playing basketball to reading to martial arts to painting – any of it and all of it improve through practice. Some activities naturally motivate us to practice, and we may not even think of what we are doing as practice while we do it. The more challenging tasks are those that require extra motivation to do them – for some people that might be exercising as an example. A partner, a coach, or someone else to keep us accountable and on track may be required. For the best results that motivation eventually needs to move from external to internal. Once that is tapped, it may be surprising how quickly that ability to focus strengthens and grows. Some professional motivators call it finding one’s passion, for the intrinsic motivation truly keeps one going because that (whatever it may be) is what the individual wants most to do. For those that want to paint, it is the act of painting that encourages more of the same. Focus comes from the act of painting just as it does through drawing. Yes, one is also learning a skill, but what makes that skill really work is the focus required to do it. As the saying goes – just do it!
Posted on 5/23/2017 5:16:00 PM
By Donald Fox
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There are many things in life that call for consistency. Many other things have no such restriction, and these one may approach with variety and creative flair. Some people chafe when tasked with following rules while others may actually feel liberated by having specific guidelines and parameters within which to work. In the sciences and in medicine, it is obvious that consistency is important; it can actually save a life. As consumers, we would expect when buying certain types of products for them to be the same every time we purchase them. We’d certainly expect that of pharmaceuticals. We’d also like for the quality of foods to be maintained just as we’d expect of most services. These examples may seem obvious, but I’m sure any of us could think of dozens of examples of items or activities that we’d want to be consistent each time we make use of them. I want my computer to work the same each time I use it, and I want easy and quick access to the internet whenever I need to search for information.
I approach the making of art in a similar manner. Each time I expect to perform at the highest level of creative expression, to work skillfully, and to create a superior product. Making drawings or paintings is much different from doodling or other mindless activity or the sporadic intuitive expression. Paradoxically, making art is also an endeavor where I want to have no restrictions on what I can or can’t do. I don’t want anything inhibiting that creative expression. I understand, however, that I am also performing much like a concert pianist or other musician or performance artist. I have trained for many years to be able to do what I do, and even when experimenting, I utilize skills, knowledge, and insight. These things give me more possibility rather than function as restrictions. What would be restrictive (as I have found in the past) is to not have the necessary knowledge or skill to be able to create something new and exciting and have it be the best possible expression of whatever emotion, idea, or inspiration I might experience in the moment. There certainly were many years of frustration when my ideas far exceeded my ability to implement them.
Multitudinous stories exist in various disciplines of the student eventually becoming the master. The process of attainment is often a long and arduous one with the student expressing impatience, arrogance, humility, frustration, anger, depression, or a host of other non-productive emotional responses, justifiable or not, during that learning process. It is different for every student, of course, in terms of process and level of attainment. Whatever that experience for the individual, consistency is one of the key factors of success. And, as is usually found, consistency leads to liberation of both imaginative and expressive power.
Posted on 5/18/2017
By Donald Fox
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Through the Door
I’ve written before about the uncle that worked for many years as caretaker on various plantations in rural South Carolina. The ones I remember are Poco Sabo, Mepkin, and Mulberry plantations all located west of Charleston. Mostly the plantations were owned by absentee owners the most famous of which were Henry and Claire Booth Luce, owners of Mepkin Plantation that my uncle worked for in the early to mid-fifties when I was a little kid. I well remember the massive oak trees with their low-hanging serpentine limbs heavy with Spanish moss that at night were ghostly and intimidating. I also remember the group of Trappist monks who lived at the abbey that had been given them by Claire Booth Luce after the death of her daughter. Eventually the entire plantation was ceded to the monks and my uncle was forced out of his job.
At the time I knew very little of the history behind such relics of the Old South, what we now call the Ante-bellum South. My father’s family had lived in this area for generations, but they were never the plantation owners though some did fight for the Confederacy. Yet I do have many historical images of the grounds, the rice or cotton fields, and the late seventeen to early eighteen hundred-style buildings seared into my mind. The interiors of some were filled with period pieces including four-poster canopied beds, chifferobes, swords and muskets, stuffed animals that had been shot a hundred years ago, paintings and portraits of previous residents, and other admirable furnishings. Hardwood floors would creak at night as if former occupants were restlessly walking the halls or climbing the stairs. These old farms set my boyish mind aflame with imaginative tales and mysteries well beyond my childish understanding. These were scenes literally from another era replete with my uncle’s rifles and shotguns leaning in the corner of the kitchen, hanging above a fireplace, or behind a hallway door. He always carried a shotgun when he traveled by jeep or on horseback around the extensive acreage of whatever plantation he was overseeing (none of which were operational – he served primarily as a security guard of sorts although he might coordinate groundskeepers when necessary).
Still, those visits were like living history lessons for me, and in school when later we studied American history, I drew heavily on those images and memories from my family’s visits to my aunt and uncle. I suppose I was fortunate as a child because history always seemed very real to me rather than something from a remote past. It felt tangible and intriguing, and it is what motivated me to spend many hours in the school library pouring over back issues of Look, Life, and National Geographic, for I felt like was seeing visions of my parents’ early life, their parents’ lives, and so on back into time. Their stories were my stories too.
Posted on 5/10/2017 6:00:17 PM
By Donald Fox
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Blog Window
One of the reasons I blog about art and related topics is that the entries serve as a kind of journal of thoughts. I find myself from time to time returning to certain topics with variant ideas and sometimes a completely different opinion. Hopefully, we all learn from experience and as such should reserve the right to change thoughts or attitudes, even ones that may have been held for extended periods of time. Otherwise, we may find ourselves stuck within a mindset that is either stagnant or corrosive rather than affirmative and growth-promoting. Art is such a complex of ideas, emotions, and possibilities that allegiance to one set of unbendable principles, for me at least, would be destructive rather than creative. Certain historical periods reflected narrow and restrictive opinions about art (and the world) that stifled innovation and advancement. There is a reason that the Dark Ages were named as they are.
As a longtime educator, I often hear and read about how today’s students are different from those of the past. They have short attention spans because of exposure to television, computer games, the abbreviations of email and texting, and the general high speed world of the internet. I see the results of these influences daily, but I’ve also observed that many students are lacking fundamental knowledge and skills from which to build a solid base of education. Certainly, they can move around the internet and manage a variety of electronic devices. However, they often exhibit a narrow world view. They are generally ignorant of the past and the process by which things have come to be as they are. Often, they are deficient in critical thinking and problem solving skills, and they have difficulty reading and comprehending what they read. Consequently, they are challenged by written instructions. In short, they have not been taught how to learn. They tend to rely on short term memorization, which means that what they learn does not stay with them for very long. At the same time, many are well versed in life experience though often of a negative kind – they have kids early, some are using drugs or recovering from years of use, many are single parents, and quite a few do not know how to develop supportive relationships. One of my students, a young single mother not yet thirty years old, had five children by five different fathers.
These are significant challenges in any one category, but just from the educational side the lack of being able to focus on reading material is a huge detriment. The accessibility to information today is staggering compared to pre-computer and pre-internet days when one had to physically go to a library. Reading was the primary way of learning. Even longer ago, many school curricula were built around the classics. An educated person was well versed in literature and philosophy from past ages and often read texts in the original Latin or Greek. We still can learn much from our predecessors, and it is best if we go to the source material rather than someone else’s version of that like what is so readily available online through Wikipedia and similar condensed encyclopedic versions. The learning opportunities for a young person today are abundant but so are the pitfalls and challenges.
In my experience, the arts are filled with hands-on learning situations, what many educators prize above all else. Students are often mentored by those with experience, and from them students learn processes, but more importantly, they learn how to approach challenges critically. In fields where so much expression is subjective, being critical and learning to evaluate, make judgments, and apply those to one’s own creative process are fundamental to success. Hopefully, the student is also inspired to supplement the direct experience with reading that helps build a broader context for the work. Most of our knowledge of the past is still in written form though new artist educators like Ken Burns are combining written text with powerful photographic documentary films that create a visual narrative of our past. We are all still learning.
Posted on 3/28/2017 5:31:30 PM
By Donald Fox
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It has been said that art is something that heals, that enlivens and uplifts, that enlightens and inspires, and that brings people together. I suspect that if someone did a random survey of people exiting a theater production, that person would find an interesting cross section of individuals based on sex, age, and political persuasion. There would likely be less difference in economic and educational backgrounds. Why might this be?
This is a projection, perhaps, of my own bias for I have no real evidence here. I would guess that audience members are solidly middle to upper middle class with some being very well off. They are most likely college educated, and many also are working professionals. They tend to see art as an enhancement rather than solely entertainment (like going to the movies, for example). I can do a mental poll among my friends, and that result would look very much like what I would expect from the exit survey. Most of my friends are college educated. Most of them have an interest in the arts although this interest may vary among the different kinds of arts, and I do think that mostly these friends see art as an enhancement to life, to emotional health, and to the intellect. This also reaches across any political divide since I do have friends on both sides of the political aisle, some even being far right and some far left. Interestingly, art is a meeting place that transcends any political or other cultural divisions.
What’s also interesting about this latter observation is that within the larger political arena, conservatives typically want to remove the arts from a budget arguing that the arts should not be publicly funded. Granted many corporations do contribute to arts funding, and people who buy the products or services of those corporations are, in effect, publicly funding the arts whether they utilize them or not. That seems no different than tax dollars contributing as well. The arts are, after all, educational as well as all the other positive things said above. Why shouldn’t the government fund the arts like any other public venture including safety, health, transportation, or environmental concerns? Recognition of and support of the arts make powerful statements about who we are as a people. Taking care of ourselves includes taking care of our emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual needs, which is a primary function of the arts generally. I readily admit the bias in favor of the arts because I firmly believe the arts can heal many of the afflictions that divide us.
Posted on 3/26/2017 5:53:04 PM
By Donald Fox
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Shuttered
In today’s Houston Chronicle an opinion piece by Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, offers strong reasoning for not defunding educational agencies like the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. This could easily extend to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting System, other groups that Republicans have targeted for years while also promoting tax breaks for the super rich. Take away from the majority (all these agencies benefit everyone) and give to the minority (the wealthy and powerful). The argument against these organizations is not that they use massive amounts of public dollars; it is that they are seen as non-essential. In other words, they are not understood for what they represent and do.
All these organizations represent American culture at its best. They fund, support, and promote research, education, and expression of who we are as a people and a nation. As Walker so eloquently points out, these groups have the power to “open our hearts and minds, to help us imagine new possibilities for ourselves and our world. In a time of divisive political discourse – of competing, conflicting ideas about our future – the arts can build empathy and reconnect us with the human experience we all share.” Reflect on the recent theatrical phenomenon Hamilton as an example.
The current political leadership came into power promoting fear, antagonism, and separatism, and has continued to pound those drums in its effort to promote its agenda. This in itself shows a profound lack of imagination and a misplaced trust in short-sighted financial savings though a kind of shell game that will leave us morally and culturally bankrupt. Walker goes on to say that at “this moment in our nation’s history, the arts and their power to inspire empathy have never been a more necessary and worthy investment.” Consider, for example, the potential negative effects of the recent attempt at health care reform – the poor would have been shafted (where there is no empathy, there is no assistance) and the wealthy would have benefitted once again. We see it with so-called immigration reform – no empathy for families torn apart or for the brain trust provided by immigrants that have fueled this nation, its creative and innovative culture and economy for over two hundred years. And never mind that our very institutions and way of life were cobbled together initially by those who themselves largely were immigrants.
Walker rightly points out that the imaginative community annually adds $750 billion to the gross domestic product, supports millions of American (not off-shore manufacturing) jobs, and creates trade surplus. He emphasizes, however, that the enrichment from the arts reaches into the far corners of rural America, assists veterans, and enlivens our experience of ourselves because much of the focus is centered within communities large and small and provides access to growth possibilities for all ages and political persuasion – education, creative expression, and who we are as human beings. He concludes with “we owe it to ourselves not to retreat from our national commitment to our unique cultural inheritance, but to renew it for an America in transition, and in need of every ounce of our creative energy.”
Walker, Darren. “The Arts Are Fuel for American Dream.” Houston Chronicle. March 26, 2017. A31-32.
Posted on 3/9/2017
By Donald Fox
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Young art students often find themselves in a double bind, a kind of catch-22 situation. They earnestly desire to express themselves creatively and make art that matters (at least to them). The double bind is that they have nothing important to say (yet), and they have few skills with which to say anything. What they do have is an abundance of youthful enthusiasm along with a dearth of experience. I can easily remember when I was one of those fresh-faced excited young artists who had yet to pay the necessary dues. Granted that sometimes there is the rare individual with gifted intelligence, prescience, and wisdom beyond years who will make a big splash at a young age. Most of us, however, have to put in long hours of study and practice, make lots of mistakes, and gradually find our way to both what we want to say and how to say it effectively. This process will also be different from person to person, and that personal art journey is an interesting story as it develops over time. All one has to do is to look at the history of art and see how widely the life narratives of artists varies.
I also remember how impatient I was to do something significant. The vast majority of the early work (if it can even be called that) was embarrassing, and I saw that within a few years of its making. The overall process was frustrating largely because of the impatience but also because that critical facility was lacking as much as anything else. I couldn’t even judge how far short of the mark that work fell. It was a simple matter of not knowing that I didn’t know. When I finally met the first few of my wisest teachers, they quickly disabused me of my misplaced idealism and unrecognized ignorance. I began the process of learning how to learn.
One of the most powerful lessons was discovering how to self-critique, something that every artist needs so as not to continuously repeat the same mistakes. Part of this is in realizing that continuous, never-ending improvement (borrowed from Japanese kaizen and applied to business and commerce activities) for the artist only comes from continuous, never-ending practice. The making of art is not just about creating any singular art work; it is about committing to the practice of art and to living an artistic life. Being and doing become one and the same.
Posted on 3/1/2017 4:42:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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There are a great many things I remember experiencing in my lifetime. I promise, though, that this is not one of those ‘you never had it so good’ lectures that some of us have heard in the past. I’m more interested in considering changes that have occurred that have impacted my expressive work.
As a boy I was ignorant of many things in the world and learned of others decades after they had occurred. The Second World War, for example, was something my parents had lived through, and I learned much about it in the school and public libraries I had access to as a young student. Among friends we told each other stories of what we knew about our fathers and their war experiences. Back issues of Life and Look magazines helped me piece together those war years along with books, especially books of photographs, that showed me the brutality of war that didn’t quite fit with the films of the forties that glorified and romanticized the American war effort. These were my first experiences with propaganda.
During the fifties there was the cold war, atom bomb tests shown on TV, advertisements for bomb shelters, the silly and useless air raid exercises we did at school, the air raid siren that announced the noon hour, emergency broadcast tests on television when the abstract test patterns would interrupt regularly scheduled programs, the popular TV series I Led Three Lives where Richard Carlson played a double agent to infiltrate communist groups, the McCarthy hearings and some of my folk music heroes who testified (or refused to testify) before HUAC, and all this coincided with my initiation into racism and segregation, civil rights, activism on the part of the local Klan, the horrors of Viet Nam, Buddhist monks self-immolating, strung-out soldiers committing atrocities, government corruption and misinformation, and my ultimately becoming a conscientious objector.
The space race, Sputnik, cosmonauts, the birth of NASA, landing on the moon, assassinations and a world turned upside down, idealism and cynicism, early computers, Pac Man, cpu’s and rapidly expanding chips, the internet, global community, faster and faster processors, Earth Day, Silent Spring, pesticides, mutually assured destruction, red tides, satellites in space, Voyager, the Space Shuttle, more assassinations, Cambodia, Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, riots in the streets, gas shortages – and so much more… all the while art was undergoing its own transformation from naturalism to impressionism to cubism to social realism to Pop to Abstract Expressionism, cool and hot, performance art, environmental sculpture, happenings, combines, multi-media, drug-induced fantasies and anger-fomented protests, the Great Society, corporate greed, religious fundamentalism, suicide bombers, Scud missiles, cultic fantasies, and terrorism. All of this on that blue marble spinning continuously, no borders, no boundaries, but so many degrees of separation, one eye to the distant quasars and one eye to the nano-sphere, no time it seems for self-reflection in spite of multiple genuflections. Concrete, arcane, mysterious, ambiguous, and ambivalent.
Posted on 2/18/2017 6:00:26 PM
By Donald Fox
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I’ve wondered for years where my interest in art came from. There never was any mention of art or things creative in my family when I was growing up. We never went to a museum or art exhibit. We did sometimes go to movies, but that was the extent of our cultural exposure. I did read a lot and spent quite a bit of time in libraries where I learned some things about art that supplemented the very slight mention of things artistic in school. My understanding of art history by the time I graduated high school was quite piecemeal, and I probably knew the names of maybe a dozen artists. From that point forward, though, I began to educate myself through reading, through classes, and through seeking out the few artists in my local community.
Years later I did learn that a cousin had developed an interest in ceramics and created a small business with that skill. Through all those years, however, I had more interaction with musicians than with any other people interested in the arts. Not having a positive model to follow or learn from and not having support for my artistic interests certainly affected my development as an artist since what I did for a long time was more like a hobby or side interest. Once something clicked, though, I began to seek information and experience in earnest.
Even now I’m not sure there is a right way to train to become an artist. I know the history and stories of artists from the past, the apprenticeships, the rise of the academy, and later, art schools and art centers. I’ve encountered dozens of artists each of whom has a personal experience different from the others. I know artists within the academic tradition, within the college and university art school system (different from traditional academies), those who have trained with one or more successful artists, those who follow the workshop method of learning, and some who have plugged along on their own and forged their own path. There certainly is no one right way nor one way more efficacious than another although some artists may be convinced that they know the true way to artistic learning. What has mostly been true for me was to follow my interests, my instincts and intuition, and to question whatever has come my way.
I think of Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure wherein the main character is motivated to learn but cannot afford a classical education. Therefore, he reads and educates himself but finds roadblocks and put-downs from those traditionally educated who criticize his “desultory” reading. Jude remains the outsider though he is bright and learned but without the ties and bonds that come along with the school pedigree. Thus, Hardy critiques English society through the character Jude.
Social criticism is only one means of expression and reason behind the arts. Many artists choose art because they don’t want to do anything else. Exploring creative expression is considered by them the highest of callings whether it can be demonstrated to have practical value or not. Those that get it, will, and those that don’t, won’t, while others open to learning will grow and be better for it. Personally, I like the learning model from business of continuous, never-ending improvement for this can be applied to anything.
Posted on 1/17/2017 7:25:01 PM
By Donald Fox
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Stories have been around since long before the development of writing. This, of course, is an assumption since there is no record to back up the statement. Common sense would tell us that like anything else the telling of stories had to develop over time. It would have begun with some ancient person acting out the presence of animals, the events of a hunt, or some other significant thing that occurred that would impact others of a group. It is natural to communicate something of importance to others. We do this all the time. We narrate the events of our weekends, our vacations, what we did at school or work or during some absence from others. We do this to inform, to persuade, or to entertain, and sometimes for all three purposes. This is Storytelling 101, so to speak.
We also know that primitive cultures without writing will have strong oral traditions, and these are largely in the form of stories that communicate the history of the tribe or group to carry forward to succeeding generations. It is part of the cohesion of the group. That word history is four-fifths the word story, for again, what is history but the narration of a series of events that describes what took place at a particular time? The majority of world literature is in the form of stories, and most of these have developed to a high level of artistry.
It is not surprising, then, that a large amount of painting is narrative in nature. It is also not surprising that this form of painting has built-in limitations, for unless the narrative is stretched out in episodic manner like around the circumference of a vase or in a frieze or mural, the story will be truncated. Only so much can be shown in a single picture. Many narrative paintings illustrate only a significant or dramatic moment – part of a story – rather than the entire story, which would have to be a linear narrative to be conclusive. What the form did do for visual artists, however, was to allow the opportunity to realize imaginatively what a story might have looked like (again, part of it) for those lacking imagination themselves.
I would argue that from this depiction artists learned the importance of all those elements of design that are studied so assiduously today in art programs everywhere. In other words, artists discovered those design elements in order to more effectively tell a story with images. The images themselves became more effective from study of the observable world. Again this seems logical and also understandable that it would have taken time for development of all these elements. Think of a child telling a personal story as he or she struggles with limited vocabulary and limited self-awareness and limited understanding of what is important for his or her audience to know. Compare this to an adult narrating an event. The latter will contain more detail, generally be more logically ordered, and have clearer description. From this, as in other fields of endeavor, has developed the higher art of storytelling.
Art, like most areas of human inquiry, is based on order and organization. It may contain a large area of emotional content and elicit emotional response (unlike the sciences, for example), but the effectiveness of emotional communication depends on the organization of the artistic elements. Whether in the form of a narrative or some other organizational pattern, in order for the emotional content to engage and enlighten the audience, the structure has to be sound. It is the evolution of structure that has made the arts what they are today, and it is also what distinguishes the most effective art of the past. We look to the Renaissance as a high water mark in the development of artistic structure – and it was indeed that – but we’ve also learned that human perception is attuned to many levels of sophistication. Narrative has been and will continue to be a powerful part of that development. The story of art, though, continues to unfold.
