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Posted on 4/28/2011 9:44:06 PM
By Donald Fox
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Restaurant
Friedkin Corporate Campus
Gulf States Toyota
1375 Enclave Parkway
Houston, TX 77077
April 30, 2011
Posted on 4/23/2011 8:18:34 PM
By Donald Fox
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Day Off
In the past I’ve worked at numerous jobs in order to pay the bills. An added bonus is that each job afforded me experiences that have in various ways impacted my views on life and my understanding of art. Quite a few of these experiences in some way or other have been absorbed into or directly translated to artistic works. Many I have written about in essay or fictional form. Elements of some of them have been incorporated into paintings or drawings.
Life experience is constant and changing. Even when patterns are established like going to work or various domestic routines such as particular meal times, mowing the yard, going to church, grocery shopping, feeding the cats, caring for children - still there are unexpected encounters and situations that even for moments can break the rhythm (some might say monotony) of day to day life. The repetition and the interruptions can be gifts for the mindful.
With painting, distinctions are made usually between art that represents (landscape, still life, and portrait) and art that is strictly narrative (illustration and commercial representation). The former is classified Fine Art and the latter Commercial Art. At one time much art was religious art that was illustrative and narrative. Classical and Neo-classical painting that drew upon Greek or Roman mythology was also often narrative. Even the iconoclastic Impressionists were frequently narrative in a much more casual way. People were represented at leisure or at formal play. There are many paintings of afternoon or evening gatherings in both formal and informal settings. Yet these impressionistic narratives, because of their everyday and often anonymous subjects, are incomplete stories compared to classical paintings and their depiction of specific personages and events. These stories are more complete as most viewers would also have known the back stories leading to the depicted event as well as the post story that followed.
Any narrative implied in most landscape or still life paintings is very limited. Characters, if any, for the most part are unknown. The intention of the artist, moreover, is not so much to tell a story as to represent a figure or figures within a believable space. Because so many of these painters are observers, like the Impressionists, it is natural that they should portray the life around them. Their primary goal is to represent figures and objects in certain lighting conditions rather than to tell a story or illustrate a particular local scene.
Artists being artists, however, the metaphorical and symbolical side of the painting is never far from the mind. The most ordinary of situations or objects can become, if presented artfully, a metaphor for some shared aspect of life. A smoking candle represented the Holy Spirit in many Renaissance paintings. A vase of flowers may represent the beauty but also the fragility and brevity of life. Manet’s late paintings of cut flowers executed as he was dying are powerful statements of mortality as well as his appreciation of the small miracles that life creates. As a person I look for the beautiful within the ordinary, and as a painter I celebrate that in paint.
Posted on 4/20/2011 8:25:55 PM
By Donald Fox
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Fannin Street Flowers
Many years ago while still an art student, which is to say before I became a student of art, I was hard at work in the communal studio. Another student came in and sat watching as I painted. He didn’t say much at first, but I could tell something was on his mind. We weren’t particularly friends as he was known for being argumentative, sometimes to the point of being disagreeable and annoying. Maybe if I just kept painting, he’d make his observations and leave.
Soon he began to question why I used a particular color. I answered because the surrounding colors called for that. He said that it didn’t matter what surrounded it – I could choose any color I wanted. Ah – now I knew he’d just come from a discussion with one of the instructors who always emphasized the relativity of color. I felt sure the student had been chastised for his arbitrary color choices. Now he thought he could regain some sense of self by bullying another student.
He began to expound on one of his two favorite topics: color is arbitrary. He meant that color choice should be based more on personal feeling than observation. His second theory was that the study of drawing was a waste of time for modern art students. Abstraction, assemblage, collage, constructions, reproductive techniques, mechanical aids, and other technical innovations made the pursuit of drawing pointless. With respect to color, though, he was convinced that all the color theorists were wrong. The real power of color lay in its random application and not in color harmonies, the effect of light on color, or the effect of one color on another (except by contrast).
I have an argumentative streak myself, but I let him talk, thinking, I suppose, that I’d catch him in some obvious inconsistency and shut him up. I should have known better, but I was still young. Once he said that it made no difference what color surrounded another, the surrounded color would not be changed in any way, I knew I had my chance.
“So you’re saying that if I surround a red with orange that same red will still look the same if I then surround it with green or blue or white?” I asked.
“Won’t matter,” he said. “It could be in the middle of a blue pond or a pan of milk, and it’s still the same red.”
“Technically it’s the same red – we haven’t changed the red. But it will look different to the eye if we change the colored ground,” I asserted.
“Nope. Makes no difference. Still the same red.”
“Are you familiar with the work of Joseph Albers?”
“Sure. Paints squares and stuff.”
“He demonstrates the relativity of color. We can make a warm color appear cool or a cool color warm by changing the ground against which it’s seen. His paintings are all about color influences.”
“Color only changes when you mix something with it.”
I happened to have Alber’s book on color in my backpack. I opened to the plates showing how one color can be made to look different by changing the background color. The effects were startlingly clear.
“Look the same to me,” he said.
It then occurred to me that he was probably color blind. He really couldn’t see shifts in color appearance, so it would make no difference what I argued or tried to demonstrate. He simply wouldn’t get it. All that bluster and argument on his part were just diversions.
Thankfully, in the ensuing years, I haven’t had to deal with colorblind students, but I have encountered many that had never noticed the effect of one color on another. Simple demonstrations of warm against cool or light against dark would begin them on a path of discovery that would help them in their own painting as well as their appreciation of paintings by others. Learning to observe color is a major step but only one step in the process of becoming a painter.
Posted on 4/18/2011 4:20:09 PM
By Donald Fox
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Bellfort Evening
Painting, essentially, is a process of refinement or fine-tuning, moving from very general (simplified) to more specific (detailed) imagery. Terminologies like simplification, abstraction, generalizing, blocking in, and large areas or shapes refer to the early stages of the painting. But something else is implied, which is very important to understand.
A good painter is interested in creating more than an image. The process of painting is also a means of understanding for the artist, understanding something about the world he is representing. Partly, the artist questions the nature of what he sees. Why does something appear as it does? What color is a particular area, or how is that affected by the light which illuminates it? How does something look in relation to something else? Is it lighter or darker, warmer or cooler, larger or smaller?
To answer these and other questions, the painter relies on his perception to notice the obvious and then more subtle clues before him. Something else, however, is present within the artist and sometimes within the subject as well. The framework or structure of the objects within the space being observed can be revealed in various ways. Those basic design elements – direction, line, shape, color, light and dark – are part of the framework. Our minds are uniquely programmed to create order by sensing similarities and contrasts. All the painter has to do is focus on those elements and notice how those parts fit together within the observable space. Each of these aspects, though, might be called the mechanics of the scene, much like grammatical components are the mechanics of a sentence.
A poet uses meter and rime, among other devices, to propel the poem and its imagery to a powerful conclusion. Likewise, the visual artist uses (and looks for in the subject) riming shapes, colors, darks and lights. The painter uses spacing and intervals between things much like a poet might use meter, punctuation, or pauses. Like the poet, what the painter sees and feels is communicated through mechanical means, but it is the manipulation of those means that creates the poetry, the magic in the finished work.
Before the artist puts pencil to paper or brush to canvas, an understanding of a given scene has occurred in his mind that enables him to translate the experience of seeing to that of representing what is seen. His knowledge of the principles of design and color enable him to create a new vision from the world in front of him.
Make no mistake though. Even the most detailed rendering of a scene, no matter how photographic it may appear, how real it may seem, is actually filled with approximations, editing, symbols that represent things like rocks, trees, and whatever else. Art is always artifice; it may be great artifice, but it is always less than what is represented – on a mundane level, that is.
Art can also be far more powerful than the ordinary things it may portray. That is what makes it so magical. An artist sees or feels or hears something and through his artistic expression so transforms that initial stimulus that most viewers experience something similar (to the artist) in the presence of the art and may even add their own interpretation to the experience taking the whole process to another level. The art has become a vehicle of communication instead of mere notes on observations.
Posted on 4/15/2011 10:48:57 PM
By Donald Fox
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Docked
A painter friend of mine and his wife recently went through a messy divorce. Their two children are grown, so at least there wasn’t the dilemma for them of which parent to choose. Still, the drama extended over several years – separation, reconciliation, second separation, and finally the divorce. Both I considered good friends, but because the husband (former) and I are both painters, I spent more hours in discussion with him. I’m not a counselor, just a friend who is a good listener. Plus, I’d been the divorce route myself some time ago and later managed to create a second marriage that is the best thing going. I felt for my friends, though, and I could see how the emotional strain affected the work, both the will to work and the work itself.
I also remember a good friend who listened to my travails when I went through the breakup of my first marriage. He kept asking me where was the pain in my art, where the anguish and bitterness and anger? He wanted to see an aesthetic catharsis, which for him would have meant that I was on the way to healing. I do believe art is therapeutic, but I don’t necessarily think that has to show up as catharsis. Sometimes the steadiness of work is consoling, or the ability to psychically move deep into the creative process gives an energy that is ultimately healing. This is what I began to see in my painter friend.
His work underwent no radical change. There were no violent outbursts of shape or color or erratic rhythm. His paintings, which have always evoked a calmness and peacefulness even when swirling with the richest and most vibrant of hues, continued to express that tranquility of mind that we can experience in the presence of inspiring nature. It is as though the deeper currents run steady and strong even though the surface waves are frothy and agitated. Yet I knew that there was hurt and paint within. Subtle shifts in color and tone began to appear almost as though light were breaking through an extended layer of clouds. Areas of a painting that could easily remain a dense thicket of trees began to show hints of possible paths or at least small openings set against deeper shadows.
Sometimes it is tempting to read the psychology of a painter from the painted image. The emotional intensity of Van Gogh’s late paintings is synonymous for many viewers with the mentally tortured artist in his final days. The so-called black paintings of Goya are easily explained as the visions of a painter descending into madness brought on by the isolation of deafness and physical decline. Art can certainly express emotional turmoil when that is the intent of the painter. However, art can also convey spiritual strength and belief in life, its beauty, its power, its determination and strength.
Certainly art is as individual as the artist that creates it. One who is connected with the creative flow and who understands personal motivation, the drive that presses towards creation, will convey the inner feeling as readily as the painted image that is represented for the viewer. The artist doesn’t hide behind the work but expresses through the work. Maybe some do that a bit more obviously than others, but the careful observer can sense the emotional presence even in the supposedly ‘cool’ art of the 1960s.
As I recently stood in my friend’s studio and listened to him talk about the work from the difficult period during the divorce, he said that all he could do then was keep working. It was the work that sustained him. I would add that it was his ability as an artist that made that work as compelling and truthful – successful, if you will – as any work he has done before or since. I am also reminded of the words of one of my teachers to “trust the process.” You don’t have to always think it through; what works comes from who you are.
Posted on 4/13/2011 7:11:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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My Reflection
“We are stardust. We are golden.” - Joni Mitchell
Recently, PBS aired a Nova program that focused on observing the universe through telescopes. Partly the program recounted developments in telescope design and power since the 1930s. Amazing advances have enabled scientists to look backwards in time since deep space is millions of light years away from us. In a way it’s mind-boggling to think that what we may observe in a night sky in reality is no longer there. It’s as though we’re seeing the echo of images. Scientists also have been able to determine the age of the universe even though they cannot see its edges.
When we consider our “pale blue dot” amongst millions (or perhaps billions) of galaxies, what painters do in exploring the space of a canvas seems a trivial pursuit within this grand design. The incredible forces that shape the lives of stars or the mysterious dark energy that is believed to run the engine of the cosmos make a creative gesture done with pigment and paint by a single organism on a minute speck within that vastness less significant than a pebble dropped into a bottomless well. Or, is that really the case? That we can perceive something visually and/or experientially and then transform that sensation into a painted image that then transmits that experience to another and another and another, crossing generations, national borders, language and cultural barriers, oceans, mountains, and the most formidable obstacles imaginable – isn’t that as miraculous as any length of time, depth of space, or number of galaxies that so far we’ve been able to discern?
What humans do as artists, scientists, philosophers, and observers is to become the chroniclers of our experience. We are the eyes and ears and minds of the universe observing and appreciating and attempting to understand the grandness of that which is from moment to moment. Painting enables us to take the time to contemplate that experience and to give back some sense of what is within any given moment. I believe that we are the universe looking out upon our collective self and also inwardly to a different expression of universe that is equally infinite, expanding, and containing all that has come before while creating what is to be.
Posted on 4/10/2011 6:04:37 PM
By Donald Fox
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Metro Stop
“The highest result of education is tolerance.” – Helen Keller
I have had the privilege of meeting many artists over the years, but I have seen far more art than the number of artists I can claim to know. Of those artists I have met, however, about the only thing they have in common is a love of the arts, whether they be visual, musical, kinetic, or literary. Most of them passionately believe in one’s right to express one’s self without restriction or without regard as to how the expression may be received. Quite a few would impose self-restrictions, however, because of personal beliefs that may be colored by spiritual, political, or social ideas and experience. With very few exceptions, I would hesitate to call any of them anything other than artists. Their personal beliefs almost always seep into the work, but these are not what define them as artists.
Lately, especially within the United States, there have been attempts to politicize the arts along with just about everything else. Education, libraries, the internet, religion, books, the media, practically every aspect of society has been pulled into this political maelstrom. Underneath it all lays a single motivation, which is fear: the fear that someone or some group will gain the upper hand and exert control over everyone else. In short, the conspiracy theorists, be they on the right or the left, are in their heyday.
Personally, I’ve been attracted to the arts because in their various forms they give me ways of seeing and understanding the experience and thoughts of others. I can step outside of my own limited understanding and get a glimpse of the world from a different perspective. Literature is perfectly suited for this. For example, I can take real life journeys along with Joan Dideon in The Year of Magical Thinking or Annie Dillard in An American Childhood. I can travel the seas via whaling ship through Herman Melville’s Moby Dick or in a lifeboat with a tiger in Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi. If I go to a good art museum, I can peruse the art of numerous cultures within the space of an afternoon, or I can visit various galleries to see what current artists are doing and displaying. When I engage with the work, I learn something about the artists and about myself. My world is enlarged rather than diminished even if what the artist shows me is limited in range or contrary to my own world view, for that world view has just been altered by the encounter with the art.
Maybe I don’t like what I see or read or hear. I can critique whatever is before me at any given moment. The artist knows this as well as I. No one is forcing me to look, and I choose the moment to engage or disengage. I also have the option to respond in some way limited only by my own imagination. I may become an avid networker promoting artwork or artist or show through word of mouth or by way of some social media platform. I may critique in the same manner. My own experience will always take precedence over what others may think or feel about certain work although I may consider their opinion, especially if it is thoughtfully presented.
Where I personally draw the line, however, is when an artist, viewer, or critic attempts to impose a particular belief or to infringe on my right to experience for myself. Having educated myself in artistic expression and having chosen to continue that process, I am willing to look and listen, but I always reserve the right to judge for myself. That judgment may sometimes be tempered through dialogue, but I trust that it is always, insofar as possible, informed by an educated eye and an openness to learning something new. In my estimation, the best art will support inquiry while also supporting new ways of seeing and understanding. I strive for my own artistic expressions to do as much.
Posted on 4/7/2011 1:08:30 PM
By Donald Fox
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The Painting Class
Many years ago in an art class, I worked slavishly on a painting assignment. The process was slow, and I became self-conscious when I realized the instructor was standing behind me watching what I was doing. I became a bit nervous thinking about whether each decision and stroke I made were ones that he might make. Finally, as I stood looking at the mess before me, he stepped up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Relax,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to cover up what’s already there. If you worry about losing something, you won’t get anything else right. Trust your observation and trust the process.”
I’ve thought about those words many times while working on my own paintings. I also find myself thinking of them as I watch students struggling with their painted images. Novice students often paint as though they want the image to pop out on the first or second stroke. They want to paint everything at once without respect to the demands of the medium. They try to short circuit the process.
Painting is a process. The general approach is to start thin and thicken as you go. Whether the paint becomes very thick or not, the basic idea with oil painting is that it is done in layers. Things do get covered up. They’re supposed to; it’s part of the process. The comfort that some may take in a carefully placed drawing often turns to frustration as a painting progresses. The tyranny of those explicit lines becomes restrictive and results in what might be called coloring book paintings. So much time and care is spent trying to paint inside the lines that color and edges suffer, and harmony is lost. The resultant painting is little more than a colored drawing.
I don’t mean to imply that meticulous painting is not good painting. Certainly, meticulous painters like Durer or Ingres produced masterpieces with regularity. They did so because they understood the painting process and how to make it serve their visions. My guess, though, is that most painters are not meticulous painters (neither are they careless). Their intent has more to do with expressive, impressionistic, or loosely painted images that allow for flexibility, response to changing light conditions, or discoveries that may not have been anticipated at the outset. However, style is not the issue. That a painting proceeds according to certain steps is the issue at hand, and those steps include covering up something that was previously painted.
Oil paint is designed to show its best qualities when applied in successive layers. Artists understood that oils tend towards transparency over time. The idea of underpainting was used by painters for hundreds of years to enhance the appearance of the end product. The warm, glowing light associated with Rembrandt’s painting is the result of warm, light values painted first in areas where illumination was most desired. His paintings often have a luminosity that verges on the magical. Most of the Flemish painters used layering to achieve a wide range of textural effects in complex still life paintings, portraiture, and interior scenes. Only in the 19th century did painters begin to experiment with layering in ways that did not rely so much on traditional thin layers and glazing. Plein air painting required a more direct approach and wet into wet techniques became staples in the painter’s arsenal.
Direct painting as practiced by plein air painters and others doesn’t eliminate layering. The technique is simply modified in various ways. Some painters will tone their boards or canvases ahead of time with warm, cool, or neutral tones so as to be prepared for various conditions. Some will thinly paint an image rather than create an outline drawing, and then work heavier applications of color into the thin paint. Appropriately placed lighter or darker accents may then come on top of this. One friend of mine loosely covers the canvas with medium to dark paint thinned with oil medium rather than turp, and then uses a rag to wipe certain areas that will be lighter in the composition. He then proceeds with thicker applications of color. The variety of possibilities may not be endless with direct painting, but they certainly are sufficient to meet the creative applications of most artists.
One piece of advice that I’ve heard many times from many sources is to get rid of the white background. It is very difficult to see color accurately against white. Even if one weren’t familiar with Josef Albers’ experiments with color, painters do know about color’s relativity. The goal after all is to harmonize colors while creating the image. Toning a canvas in preparation for painting or painting in the big shapes first will both lay down that initial layer of color and set the stage for the great cover-up. What happens next is up to the individual painter.
Posted on 4/4/2011 4:51:54 PM
By Donald Fox
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On the Fence
As I think about painting and read what other artists say, or about what they have done, I come across interesting statements that I jot down. I don’t necessarily agree with everything another artist may say (and certainly not what critics say), but I take an interesting idea as a starting place, as one side of a conversation that I will continue singly or with another at a later time. Here are a few quotes that I re-encountered recently.
“Treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, all in perspective.” - Paul Cezanne in a letter to Emile Bernard. This has been used by many as evidence that Cezanne was moving towards abstraction, and he himself might have arrived at Cubism or some variation of it had he lived long enough. What he seems to be suggesting, though, are simplified principles based on direct observation that a painter would translate to canvas or paper. That he was concerned with the depiction of spatial planes can be seen in his work. Would he have gone beyond that to an abstract/non-objective painting? That seems too much of a stretch.
“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed (in a painting), will set off a revolution.” – in a letter to Joachim Gasquet. I love this Cezanne quote. He certainly created a revolution in painting from his freshly observed and carefully constructed still life paintings to his equally crafted landscapes.
“Nations are destroyed, or flourish, in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish!” – William Blake, Jerusalem. C. 1818. Yes, yes, yes! Inscribe this above the portals of Congress.
“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.” – Vincent van Gogh from a letter to Theo van Gogh. What painter wouldn’t relate to this statement? We can feel that powerful emotional response to a potential subject, but keeping that feeling and then transmitting that to paper or canvas – what a task!
“Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don’t they try to understand the song of the birds? Why do they love a night, a flower, everything which surrounds man, without attempting to understand them?” – Pablo Picasso in an interview with Christian Zervos, 1935. There is a paradox here, but I think Picasso is saying that the emotional response is enough. As rational beings (sometimes), though, we do strive to explain. Some of us do this more than others. Certain spiritual seekers move away from the rational, thinking mind to a state of no mind, away from the conscious ego. I admit I’m somewhat addicted to rational thought and do question frequently. I do also have moments of sensing – meditating, if you will. Some of these moments come while standing before a work of art, especially one that may leave me speechless. Inevitably, though, I begin to question the experience as part of my response to the work. I don’t consider this a failing, simply part of the paradox.
