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Posted on 6/30/2017
By Donald Fox
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Tabula Colorum
Back in the sixties and seventies, a lot of Op art and Pop art were brightly colored, highly saturated, and unequivocal with respect to intensity. Traditional painters continued to work with nuanced color choices since in the real world, the observed world, colors are revealed within a range of potential from bright to subdued. Artists, however, have always had the luxury of choosing color as an expression of craft and observational skill. The skill for the most part has to be learned, but just as in every other discipline, there are those few who intuitively grasp and express subtlety and nuance and utilize those in their natural expression. Mastering color for most of us is a lifelong adventure.
Young artists often do not grasp the subtleties of color and often make mistakes when combining colors on the palette. The fundamental concept that warm colors modulate cool colors and vice-versa takes study and practice to utilize effectively. Students gradually learn that colors that clash (usually the complements) can be tamed and brought closer together, or at least within harmonious proximity, by adding one to the other. Beautiful gradations can be created by adding increasing amounts of one complement to another. This is especially useful in a landscape painting as the muted tones make bright colors seem brighter, which can intensify lighting effects. Muted tones can also make ambient light appear more natural, create subtle shading effects, and make overall color interactions more pleasing to the eye.
I remember as a novice student making numerous color charts with gradations from light to dark and bright to dull. Sometimes these were mechanical exercises, but they did train the eye to see subtle shifts in value and intensity. It wasn’t until doing applications of these rather mundane activities with more challenging tasks that the concepts took root. For example, taking a well-known painting and repainting it using three values, then making another version using five values, then another using seven values, it became obvious how important values are to a composition. Even so, light and dark contrast is one of several tools available to the artist. Add to that warm-cool contrast, which now brings in the neutrals created from intermixing warm and cool colors (complementary mixtures) and the painter is beginning to emulate the effects of light in the natural world. The real magic of color flows from the combination of temperature (warm-cool), intensity (bright-dull), and value (light-dark), color qualities that are distinct from but totally connected to each other. As I said, the study of color is a lifelong adventure, and what an adventure it is.
Posted on 6/29/2017 6:30:50 PM
By Donald Fox
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Fantasy Window 1 is an experimental sketch incorporating several ideas developed in recent paintings but brought together into one image. Other variations are forthcoming to see where this concept will go. For now, this pushes oil painting and digital imaging into a merged format similar to collaged paintings recently executed.
Posted on 6/28/2017
By Donald Fox
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The making of a painting is an adventure in thought, in feeling, and in imaginative play. The latter should not suggest that the process is a simple pastime, for it is anything but that. The thought includes rational thinking, reasoning, deciding whether some combination of colors or shapes or linear elements work together or not. In some instances, thinking will shift to feeling. There is no rational explanation behind a particular color choice (though one could be made up). The choice is based on feeling. The combination feels right or the placement feels right. So, is this intuitive choice or is the choice based on experience? Is it the trained eye of the artist that lets the painter know when something feels right? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter – at least not to me – as long as I feel good about the end result. It is my set of choices that has created the image although usually I am very much aware of how I come to certain conclusions. I know when association is at play, or when memory of some previous choice affects a current one, or when a strong feeling (an urge) prompts me to make a stroke or alter a color. I am also very aware that I enjoy this thinking/feeling process that accompanies the physical act of painting.
It is interesting and engaging to contemplate how the creative process unfolds, how the painted image emerges over time, how elements relate to previous elements almost as if a story is written into that chronological development – I suppose on one level there actually is a story though not one with a plot and characters for there is only the painter and the product of his actions (the marks are the traces of the chronological development although portions are hidden and the full narrative disrupted). Once the process is complete, the study of the finished work is also instructive, for this is where new ideas begin to develop in relation to visual rimes and interconnected parts that were not previously recognized. Many artists will say when asked by a viewer whether a certain idea or interpretation was intended that the thought had not occurred to them or that they had not conceived the image with that in mind. This is the subjective power of art, not that any work can mean anything anyone wants it to, but that works have multi-leveled meanings, are ambiguous, and within reason are open to interpretation. Art is symbolic and metaphorical and by its very nature is equivocal, but I also like to think of it as precise, concrete, and mysterious. It certainly is enchanting and very often seductive.
Posted on 6/27/2017 6:46:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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This new painting is executed in oil on prepared and mounted watercolor paper. Its one-quarter sheet size is 11.5" by 15".
Posted on 6/26/2017
By Donald Fox
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Art is expressed in many ways and for many reasons. Historically, art has captured the essence of particular civilizations, and for many ancient ones it is through their art that we know about them. Their art was often public and sometimes used as an expression of power and dominance as in Ancient Egypt or in many of the Mesopotamian cultures.
Today in Western cultures, art covers a wide range of uses and forms. Rarely do we find art that is by and for the state – the last major manifestation was in Soviet Russia through Social Realism. Mostly art has become much more personal. For some, art is spontaneous and improvisational. It is a spur of the moment creative activity with no particular connection to anything preceding it or following it. The creator may call him or herself and artist or not. The point is in the creative act and may or may not become publicly known.
Other artists work consciously as artists. They may think of themselves as following a long historical tradition of individual creative expression. Being an artist is a kind of calling, and they interface with the historical stream whether as realists (following the Renaissance mode of artistic thinking) or abstractionists (modern and contemporary thinking) or some new statement that expands the concept of what art is or can be (film, multi-media, video, digital). These artists may sometimes work spontaneously, but they also think of art within a larger context beyond what is created in the moment. Many of these artists conceive their work within philosophical frameworks. They work intellectually as much as or more so than intuitively. Art may be a calling, but it is also serious work rather than a playful pastime.
Here we could separate Art with a capital “A” from that with lower case. This could, however, quickly become misleading, for, paradoxically, many modern artists (modern beginning about the middle of the nineteenth century) drew inspiration from low-brow art, so-called primitive art by some. Impressionists and realists of the mid to late nineteenth century began to look seriously at Japanese and Chinese art and other Oriental forms just as Renaissance artists had looked back to Classical Greece and Rome. Early modernists like Picasso, Braque, and Matisse looked to African art, Middle Eastern art, and prehistoric art, the latter having preceded every other form even if it was unknown for thousands of years while civilizations developed, declined, and fell.
Some may question whether artists can be original anymore given so much history and plethora of work. If, however, art springs from the inner self, does it matter how that self has been formed? Personally, I find it exciting to continuously study art history, ancient to present, and to see how my contemporaries spin the past while expanding the present. Even in painting, a form that has been counted out time and again for over a hundred years, artists continue to find new expression, for art is in the vision of the creator rather than the specific form through which that vision is expressed.
Posted on 6/25/2017 6:36:16 PM
By Donald Fox
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A new drawing in the Windows and Doors series.
Fenêtre, Colored pencil on paper, 14” x 11”.
Posted on 6/24/2017 8:04:16 PM
By Donald Fox
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I have often thought of the painting process as one where there is a give and take between me as the painter and the painting itself. Sometimes I describe the process as a dialog between the work and me. I have an idea that is transmitted to the canvas, and then in a sense the painting tells me what needs to be done next. I take that action, make that statement, and the painting responds with a new request. Obviously, the painting does not literally speak, but there is a kind of conversation in that whatever I do requires an additional response. This back and forth continues until the painting is complete. I could say until the painting tells me that it is finished.
In communication theory, one model is called the transactional model where two parties engaged in communication are both sender and receiver simultaneously. Rather than one person speaking (the sender) and the other listening (the receiver), both are communication as sender and receiver at the same time. This makes sense when considering that conversations involve both verbal and nonverbal cues. The sender of a verbal message is also receiving the nonverbal communications of the receiver as well as verbal responses of agreement or disagreement. This model matches my idea of the painting process where I receive the immediate feedback from the painting as I am painting it.
This new work reflects this transactional concept, which is why I’ve titled it Transactional Frame.
Transactional Frame oil with collage on canvas 24" x 36"
Posted on 6/22/2017
By Donald Fox
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The history of western painting has its roots in prehistory with those magnificent cave paintings discovered in central Europe (France and Spain) but also in other parts of the world including China, Australia, Indonesia, and other locations. We can say, therefore, that the origins of western and eastern painting share the same sources. In actuality, though, these ancient works had little influence until their discovery in modern times. They did not affect the development of either painting tradition (except as evidence of humanity’s innate desire to create). Modern historical research can leave a false impression of a continuous arc especially when reading art historical texts but obvious limitations in travel and technology would have made for limited access to information prior to the Renaissance. Cave paintings were unknown at that time.
During the Renaissance, however, the concept of the painting as a window on the world became prominent. Some portraits also included a window behind a sitter that depicted a landscape, which allowed the outside world, the world of nature, to connect with the inner space wherein the sitter dwelled. The viewer could see God’s world (creation) and man’s world simultaneously. The frame of the canvas or panel also served as a window frame for whatever realistic space was represented. Thus, the window on reality became a strong aesthetic concept that dominated western painting for centuries.
In modern times, the idea of the window was less appealing for some artists as a representation of something (illusionistic space) but more interesting as metaphor and symbol. Noted abstract expressionist Robert Mothewell created a series of mural-sized paintings he referred to as the open series that included a monochromatic field of color onto which were painted black lines that could represent a door frame when the closure appeared at the top or a window frame when the closure was at the bottom. These works are very reductive, more minimal painting rather than expressionist painting, and as such introduce an idea that would have been foreign to Renaissance painters. Motherwell spoke of his attempt to make the outside and the inside the same. In other words, there was no representation of an indoor space of a room nor the outdoor space of a landscape. There was only the space of the painted surface upon which dark lines acted as accents rather than as indications of changes in spatial location.
Any artistic expression has a philosophical underpinning whether it is acknowledged or not. There is some reasoning behind the work and its development, a reason why the artist created it (even spontaneous expression has a philosophical frame), and a goal for which the artist reaches. Since art is itself an act of creation and we as living beings are the result of the creative act performed by our parents, and we have made spiritual explanations for the whole of creation, it is understandable that art encompasses spirituality, philosophy, metaphysics, and sexuality, all forms through which we explain or understand the mysteries surrounding creative expression. All of these ways of thinking also utilize metaphor and symbol, other fundamental ways of expression that derive from language. Art is always tied to a form of language whether verbal, visual, rhythmical, or emotional. The possibilities any of these may hold are what keep artists continually engaged with the inner and outer world and how either or both may be imagined.
Posted on 6/21/2017 6:13:19 PM
By Donald Fox
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This third and final stage of the painting now entitled Pane Division because it reminds me of something organic that is dividing like a cell might divide to create two entities from one. The process of a painting developing over time is as mysterious as any creative process in nature. We might dismiss that idea thinking that there is a certain logic to the way an artist proceeds in creating his/her work, but that only allows for the logical part of the process to be explained. There also is the initial inspiration and the inspiration that follows that as the artist is continually inspired stroke after stroke, each adjustment and change laying the basis for the next decision and the next. A work of art may end at a place significantly different from that first envisioned within the mind’s eye. Or, the work may be fully conceived, and the constructive process moves step after step until the vision is realized. There is no right or wrong here; works may proceed and grow either way.
As I said yesterday, this is the sixth painting so far in this variation on the windows and doors theme. Other paintings besides these have incorporated autobiographical elements in the form of previously worked pieces: drawings, paintings, discarded experiments, color swatches or other preliminary study pieces. In fact, over the past three years, more paintings than not have included elements from earlier work. I’m also incorporating visual ideas from work created from the late seventies through the early nineties, a period when I explored many abstract concepts in a variety of media. Symbolically this also makes these works windows on the past much like overlaying present time perceptions with previous memories.
Pane Division oil with collage on linen 24" x 30"
Posted on 6/20/2017
By Donald Fox
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I began working on a painting yesterday that includes collaged paper from print experiments I did almost twenty years ago. Drawing paper was painted with acrylic in light blue and light green. When this was dry I used a fabric mesh placed on a copy machine glass as the image to be copied onto the painted paper that was passed through the machine. This made a print of black mesh punctuated as though by the shapes of leaves on top of the painted ground. During a two-year period I made hundreds of experimental prints on various kinds of papers that had been painted on, drawn on, or otherwise manipulated and then Xeroxed images on top of them. Some of these were incorporated into collages or paintings or handmade paper works, and many of them have subsequently been destroyed. This one, however, I collaged the paper torn into unequal halves onto linen canvas and taped the edges to ensure they stayed flat while drying. The remainder of the canvas I painted with black acrylic gesso covering the tape so that its imprint would remain as negative lines after the tape was removed. After the gesso and glue had dried, I began working oil with brushes and knives for textural effects.
This is the sixth painting so far in this variation on the windows and doors theme. Other paintings besides these have incorporated autobiographical elements in the form of previously worked pieces: drawings, paintings, discarded experiments, color swatches or other preliminary study pieces. Symbolically this also makes them windows on the past much like overlaying present time perceptions with past memories. These first stages will be further developed, and the process will be documented as it progresses. So far there are two stages as illustrated below. Once set into motion, these kinds of paintings grow organically as I perceive the process.
Stage 1 Stage 2
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 6/17/2017 7:21:45 PM
By Donald Fox
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I completed this painting today, which included changing from its working title to Swinging Door. From yesterday’s blog:
Working today on a painting that follows the direction of the last four paintings. It’s still within the Windows and Doors framework but is utilizing an angled compositional structure rather than vertical/horizontal. In the second season of one of my favorite dramas, Longmire, a story is titled “Tell It Slant,” and one of its themes is approaching life events and what we call truth from a slanted perspective. In other words, from a less than direct and possibly even opposite view from normal. Truth takes many forms, and one perspective may not hold the complete truth.
The space of a canvas expresses only the truth of its height and width and flatness, but the artist transforms that by seeing unlimited possibility. Here is the beginning of another exploration within the picture space. The working title is Broken Door although I’m also considering Broken Ladder. The work is still in process. (Stop)
Now that the piece is finished, a more appropriate title felt in order. The painting is celebratory rather than contrarian, not tilting at windmills but tilting with the wind as a sail would to propel a craft across water.
Swinging Door oil with collage on canvas 36" x 24"
Posted on 6/16/2017 7:30:16 PM
By Donald Fox
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Working today on a painting that follows the direction of the last four paintings. It’s still within the Windows and Doors framework but is utilizing an angled compositional structure rather than vertical/horizontal. In the second season of one of my favorite dramas, Longmire, a story is titled “Tell It Slant,” and one of its themes is approaching life events and what we call truth from a slanted perspective. In other words, from a less than direct and possibly even opposite view from normal. Truth takes many forms, and one perspective may not hold the complete truth.
The space of a canvas expresses only the truth of its height and width and flatness, but the artist transforms that by seeing unlimited possibility. Here is the beginning of another exploration within the picture space. The working title is Broken Door although I’m also considering Broken Ladder. The work is still in process.
Posted on 6/15/2017 3:20:07 PM
By Donald Fox
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When I was in junior high school, several friends and I spent many hours exploring the miles of undeveloped woods north of the neighborhoods in which we lived. A set of railroad tracks was the dividing line between the orderly rows of homes so neatly blocked off and the undisturbed pristine wilderness of near coastal pine forests in our part of Southeastern North Carolina.
We loved those woods. Just past the railroad tracks lay a buffer of hip-high grasses from which hunters enjoyed flushing quail. The grasses ran for about a mile adjacent to the tracks before reaching thickets of oak, poplar, and sycamore on eastern and western borders. Away from the tracks and our neighborhood, the grasses extended several hundred yards or so before scrub oaks and other deciduous trees created another buffer zone. A few trails had been carved into this thicket, which led to pine forest that extended several miles before being cut through by Smith Creek. All of this afforded a vast playground for inquisitive boys intent on distracting themselves from the prying eyes of parents and neighbors. We experienced a sense of freedom not afforded to many kids growing up these days.
Some sojourns into these woods would take us to familiar places to hang out where we could discuss the immediate challenges of school, parents, and girls or the long term challenge of that distant unknowable future. Other times we, or occasionally as solo explorer, I might venture into some unexplored portion of what seemed like a vast, never-ending forest. One such trek, a poorly planned camping trip, that found us crashing in the dark through dense underbrush in search of a clearing, usually comes to mind when I hear the term chaos. The idea suggests something formless, incomprehensible, and uncontrollable, even impenetrable. I have that sense first hand from that experience of pressing through a thicket of branches, brambles, vines, and weeds in the dark.
In a way artists are continually challenged to give form to formlessness. All painters begin with a blank canvas, formless except for the edges that define its limits. Yet, within the confined space nearly limitless space can be suggested. Even when painting objects of known (observable) size and shape, the artist must also create relationships between the object and its space, or between one object and another that serve the composition. Since artists work by design, they present themselves as the arbiters of order by creating order from disorder, order from chaos. Whether we consider the limited space of the still life or interior or the vaster space of the landscape, it doesn’t matter. Some elements are included while others are diminished or eliminated to achieve order.
Many painters when working en plein air, choose a scenic view with select elements that help to suggest space and spatial relationships. A road, line of trees, or other known objects of proportionate size recede into the distance. What if the setting is within a forest, a more closed-in setting that might consist of a tangle of colors, shapes, and intervals with no deep space and no real sense of observed order? The painter must look more carefully, pick and choose among shapes and textures, darks and lights for some sense of pattern or rhythm that will reveal substance and order amid seeming chaos. This kind of subject is intriguing and challenging to approach, and, for me, is often the most interesting. Visually, this subject shares much with the all-over images of abstract expressionism where form and formlessness are in flux. The acuity of the painter as observer and intelligence behind the design is of utmost importance for resolving the visual issues by imposing order where there is none.
Posted on 6/14/2017 5:38:01 PM
By Donald Fox
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Off Kilter acrylic with collage 40" x 30"
The question often comes up among students, how do you know when a painting is finished? It would seem that this is an easy question to answer, perhaps even one with obvious answers like everything has been filled in or there are no more blank spaces on the canvas, but those suggest completing a painting is like mowing the yard (all the grass has been cut) or wrapping a present (it’s all covered up). A painter might state that there’s nothing more to say visually. Many experienced painters have responded that the painting feels complete or possibly that nothing draws attention to itself (and therefore nothing would need to be fixed).
Painting is a complex process, and though young painters are in a hurry to complete a painting, they often stop too soon largely because they lack critical judgment. This skill is one that usually develops slowly from many hours of painting (more like years), or as some have expressed it, it takes lots of brush mileage. There is no shortcut here, for all the tasks that painters do require heightened concentration and artistic awareness: creating balance, color harmony, right design, expressiveness, and the merging of visual idea with manipulation of the medium. Hand, eye, and mind work together for effective resolutions in painting. The task is by no means the product of luck and rarely is it a start to finish without interruption race to completion. Many experienced painters have second or third or fourth thoughts about paintings before they are considered complete. Some paintings get reworked more than once before being determined finished.
Today I had an insight about a recently completed painting, and with a few minor adjustments I made subtle changes in composition that added depth and meaning not present in the previously thought completed stage. When I showed the result to my wife, she identified the two areas of change but also noted areas she had not noticed before. The additions had actually strengthened other parts of the work. I wasn’t displeased with the earlier version, but I felt that if I lived with it for a few days, I would find something else to adjust. That voice of experience paid off. Here’s the completed version.
Posted on 6/13/2017
By Donald Fox
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Perception is based on the senses, or more accurately on sensory data provided by the senses, funneled to the brain where that data is interpreted into whatever the conscious mind recognizes. Some experiences are beyond the level of perception, out of range so to speak, above or below the level of perception and thus not recognized. Through ingenuity and the development of various machines or advanced sensory devices (infrared cameras, sonograms, electron microscopes, photoscopes, radio telescopes, etc.), humans have the ability to detect and to “see” things otherwise not perceivable. We can see further into space, the macrocosm, and further into the microcosm than ever before. Science and art have expanded through the power of imagination.
It has been said that art makes the unknowable known. Through imagination, wit, and insight, artists can reveal things before unimagined or perhaps thought to be magical, supernatural, or other worldly and make them known. Artists can also take ordinary things and charge them with life, make them into fantastical things that do exist within magical realms, or at least appear to do so. It is as though art comprises countless multiverses that intersect with the so-called real world and like virtual reality are always there – they only need the appropriate medium as the access point to the aesthetic dimension. For these and other reasons artists have been called seers, prophets, shamans, and visionaries, arbiters of the spiritual, the metaphysical, and the physical.
Posted on 6/12/2017 6:45:58 PM
By Donald Fox
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Crisscross
Every now and then I think about giving art away, not because I discount its value in any way, in fact precisely the opposite – it is so valuable that pricing it makes no sense. Can you price a sunrise or a sunset? But these things are there for everyone all the time you may protest. Art is hand-made. It is a powerful expression that as the best of gifts keeps on giving for generations to come. Isn’t that worth millions? Shouldn’t I, the artist – or any artist for that matter – reap the reward of that expression? Should I receive nothing and later someone else make thousands or millions on the sale of my creative labors?
This is the dilemma of the creative artist. He or she may receive a fixed amount for a one-time purchase or barter work for goods or services and later receive no royalty for subsequent re-purchase. That is the nature of the market place, fair or not depending on one’s perspective. Artists deserve to make a living, perhaps even deserve to be richly rewarded for their creative endeavors. Aren’t they adding beauty and positive energy to the planet? Aren’t they lifting up those who recognize beauty and truth and value? As many have said, any work is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it, but that argument always holds art at some specific value, a value that is agreed upon by the parties involved – a second but, the value of the moment may not at all reflect the deeper value of that work as a timeless expression rather than as a fixed commodity.
Within that fickle market place, the value of some work steadily increases year by year. An artist or two may even gain by those increases. Other works may jump in value after an artist’s demise, and the estate along with some lucky owners may benefit from that. There can be all manner of variations on these scenarios. The best instance, however, will be when the living artist is richly rewarded for that creativity even if there are relatively few who receive such reward. The work remains though the artist does not for that is the nature of human expression.
Posted on 6/11/2017 5:28:14 PM
By Donald Fox
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Off Kilter acrylic with collage on canvas 40" x 30"
Posted on 6/9/2017 11:44:38 PM
By Donald Fox
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In the social world as represented by the political arena, there is much discussion, sometimes in the form of criticism, barbs, and traded accusations of who did what, regarding balance in expression. The subject is free expression of ideas as guaranteed by the constitution. The balance should mean that no one side has the upper hand or control over the other, yet institutions being imperfect as the people who run them or utilize them, we see dissension and restriction rather than equal expression. Balance is difficult to achieve.
In the visual arts we might say the same when discussing ideas, but what about within individual art works? As I see it, there are basically two kinds of balance: either symmetrical or asymmetrical. The first can easily be illustrated by mirror image where one side of something is the reverse and therefore equal to the other. Symmetry is essentially the epitome of balance, but symmetry is less represented in nature, for that which at first might appear symmetrical like the human body contains many elements that counter that symmetry. A skeleton may appear symmetrical from anterior or posterior view, but as soon as it encases the organs it is designed to protect, that subsurface is asymmetrical. Add in the factor of dominance and we find muscle mass, bone thickness, or other characteristics that subvert the symmetry.
Some of this may be nitpicking for the asymmetry is seen only when carefully observed or measured. A plant that grows with a central stem will appear symmetrical as branches emerge from all sides more or less equally unless space or light inhibits growth. Just as humans are not perfectly symmetrical, neither are most plants regardless of whatever mathematical model their genes may express. Are these subtle deviations in nature what motivate behavior in social settings to lean one direction or the other? Is there an innate sense of fairness that gets subverted by an overblown organ, an excess of certain nutrients, or exposure to too much or not enough light?
Asymmetry in art works is usually more interesting that symmetry since we also find tension and dynamic interplay, which is absent from the more stable symmetrical object. A large shape can be balanced within a space by a smaller shape given appropriate placement of the two, a design element in oriental painting sometimes referred to as Big Brother-Little Sister arrangement. In fact, at the core of much Chinese art is the concept of universal energetic flow, the Yin and Yang energies that are constantly in motion – as one ascends the other descends, and each contains the seed of the other. This powerful abstraction of the forces of nature is a brilliant representation of what we often experience in day to day life. Given the complexity of the world, however, we rarely find such simplified expression that fits so neatly a philosophical concept. Most art will express asymmetry rather than symmetry because artists understand the importance of tension among shapes just as a plot needs conflict to move it forward. Balance, then, is intuitive, which adds to art’s intrigue.
Posted on 6/8/2017
By Donald Fox
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Across, over, beside are tangible, but under is illusion. Figure and ground, figure or ground – reversal of roles is another illusion like the cube that opens front, top, or side yet is only a collection of lines, some of which are parallel and some cross over others. Illusion, we can say, is not real, but the experience of illusion is as real as any other experience. what exists in the imagination is an inner projection, a virtual perception that catches attention fully as much as anything perceived that is external – the so-called real tree or flower or blue sky.
Art singles out the intersection between what is believed to be real and that believed to be imagined. Idea and emotion coalesce into the physical object or act that generates new idea (metaphor or symbol) and emotion (catharsis). It is better than a hall of mirrors for what is reflected is unpredictable and ever-changing.
Posted on 6/7/2017
By Donald Fox
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Is the secret motivation of every artist to create something that outlasts him or her? The work of art is idea and feeling made manifest. It is given concrete form even when that form is temporal like a dance or play or piece of music. These things are made physical by the performer, and once performed, exist as potential for the next time. A painting still remains a painting when hung on the wall even after the viewer has exited the room. It will remain until the next viewer chooses to take a look. Art, then, is a record of the artist’s creativity, which may inspire its audience to thought, to action, or to some correlative creative act. Each of these responses has given the artist extended life even if as a memory. Unlike the lover who inspires the beloved and generates all manner of memory, the artistic expression inspires the stranger and woos him or her with all manner of seductive sensuality. The artist lives again in the passion of the viewer.
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 6/4/2017 6:16:48 PM
By Donald Fox
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Archive Entrance
Everything changes and we adapt accordingly. Survival threats bring us to focus on the moment. I can remember the fifties when I was a child and the Cold War was in full flower. Nuclear war was not so far from possibility. Television ads for bomb shelters were common, infomercials about surviving nuclear holocaust followed, images of atomic tests popped up on screens with regularity, air raid sirens announced the noon hour, emergency broadcast drills plied the radio and television, and Radio Free Europe spots informed us that democratic messages were reaching beyond the iron curtain. Later we survived the Cuban missile crisis.
All of those images were superseded by Viet Nam day after day on the nightly news. Arch-conservative Jessie Helms ran for the U.S. Senate, was elected, and left his commentator post at WRAL television in Raleigh, N.C. where he had blasted the liberalism of UNC, the National Council of Churches, and everyone suspected of being left-handed. The old saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same rang true again and again.
There are constant battles within the political arena. The Left or the Right gets the upper hand, rails against the opposition, and then gets blindsided by some new threat that illuminates the pettiness of political infighting. I think of Big Daddy’s comment in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, “There’s a whole lot of mendacity going on around here.”
The art world is no stranger to this kind of rancor. Most artists just want to make their art and avoid all the social strife, but politics is tied to social order and social order to economics and economics to politics and on and on. We would like to think of there being normalcy, but as I look back over my lifetime, I see very few times where there was something called normalcy (or maybe all of it was). I lost family in the Second World War and the Korean War, friends in Viet Nam and during the Civil Rights struggle, friends to psychedelics and to AIDS, other friends or family or students somewhere in the Middle East or Asia. Yet, I continue to make paintings and to do artistic things that have nothing to do with politics or war or civil issues – all these things that do affect my life every day even when they seem so far away. In truth, it is only a few degrees of separation, and inevitably metaphor and meaning converge in art that contains even that which it pretends to ignore. So – Open Door Policy, Double Paned, Tabula Colorum, Alternate Windows, Pillars of Wisdom, or Shuttered to name just a few painting titles could suggest more than meets the eye.
Posted on 6/3/2017 10:58:23 PM
By Donald Fox
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Pyramid Window oil with collage on canvas 24" x 36"
Posted on 6/2/2017
By Donald Fox
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National Geographic channel is currently running a series titled Genius that dramatizes the life of Albert Einstein. As in any dramatic account of history or someone’s life, inevitable questions arise regarding dramatic settings, dialog, and supporting characters – what is really true and what is narrative fabrication? Nevertheless, the imaginative characterization fleshes out possibilities – in this instance the focus on such an imaginative scientist as Einstein who gave us relativity, the bending of light waves, and paved the way for quantum mechanics and multiverses – the imagined narrative can be seen as one possible universe that Einstein may have inhabited.
In a scene where Einstein is explaining his idea that light waves are affected by gravity, he tells a colleague to imagine that space is filled with a massive three-dimensional grid much like the steel mesh that reinforces concrete walls. Then imagine that the grid is flexible like woven fabric. Large bodies like stars will “bend” the fabric by their gravitational force, and this will affect light waves as well as smaller bodies near to the larger ones. It is an elegant idea though familiar to those who have read or heard from Stephen Hawking and other contemporary scientists about black holes and dark matter. The first encounter with such ideas often evokes strong reaction, from those who grasp it right away to those who dismiss it as preposterous.
In other realms, visionary artists have shown us how to see what was not seen before. Often they too were criticized or vilified or sometimes lauded, but gradually the ideas prevailed (or not). Some have become mainstream and some have been lost in history, but like Einstein’s flexible fabric, history has woven its own fabric that is multi-colored, multi-textured, and multi-dimensional. It flows and bends with the motion of those who create it (us), and sometimes the smallest part can affect the greater whole. I often think of art as a kind of hologram that encompasses the whole of that which contains it. That is, art represents something far greater than itself. It is one small fragment of that greater thing, and yet it brings that larger entity into clearer focus than can be perceived from multiple vantage points. Art is the portal through which vision expands exponentially. Artists are the seers who reveal the greatest dimensions that dwell within ourselves.
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!
