Learning to See Things Accurately

Saturday was one of those days when it was so misty at one point that one could hardly see anything across the marshes at Dunham Farms, Midway, Georgia. Within a couple of hours, however, it was brilliant sunshine and the world was transformed. It all made one stretch as an artist working outdoors!

I thought of a remark that Michael Gormley had written about the artist, Bo Barlett, in an American Artist article in the March-April 2011 issue. He reported about Barlett that, "Like many other artists, he notes that looking and learning to see things for what they really are (my emphasis), rather than seeing a projection of a preconceived mental concept, is key to the development of a visual language."

Barlett's observation is so true for all of us as artists. I found that as I peered through the mist to try and see accurately, it became a series of surprises. What I saw first, in the scene above (Edge of the Creek, Dunham Farms, graphite), were indistinguishable silhouetted lines of distant horizons. I looked harder, and finally began to see individual small islands and different trees edging the marshes.

The same thing later occurred when I wanted to draw the wood storks perched on a dead tree on a distant island. The birds moved constantly, the wind riffled the palmettos and their fronds were a maze of lines and ever-moving shapes. It was a real challenge even to make any sense of the scene, let alone create a drawing. (At left, Dunham Farms, Midway - wood storks, graphite.)

Another effort of intent observation, later in the day when the sun allowed one to see better in the forest, was trying to follow the myriad lines and patterns in a magnificent old dead live oak tree trunk. Time had distilled the upright trunk to rhythmic sinews, an endless maze of movement. Its patterns and rhythms fascinated me, but I found it really challenging to sit and concentrate on following its ways whilst trying to create a sensible drawing. (At right, Live Oak Rhythms, Prismacolor).

Every time that I go out to work plein air, I am reminded of how difficult it actually is to look really hard and see things accurately. It is a siren call to assume one knows what is going on in the scene in front of one. It is so much easier to think one knows. Only when I remind myself to look again and again, with my eyes really open, do I discover that Nature is once again liable to fool one. In other words, a facile, preconceived "visual language" would not necessarily be an accurate one that reflects one's artistic voice.

Changing Vocabularies in Art

Recently, a dear friend and truly wonderful artist, Susan Schwalb, galvanised me into doing something that I had been thinking about since my mother's death: drawing in silver on a black background, versus a white ground.

I had been feeling that perhaps a series of drawings in black might help deal with my mother's absence. So when I was in Spain, I prepared some small pieces of paper and launched myself into a new version of silverpoint. It soon became a fascinating exercise, for in essence, you suddenly change your visual thinking and vocabularly completely. You need not only to reverse everything, but detail of course disappears on the black ground unless you are very careful. So you need to select subject matter very carefully. I am still very much feeling my way, but it is a reinvigorating challenge!

I decided to do a series entitled Apoyos which is "supports" in Spanish. My mother loved trees; they were her literal and metaphorical supports on many occasions.

So I drew the bark of different trees she cherished, from a wild coffee tree grown from a seed from our farm in Africa (on left), to a graceful elm (on right), to a Mediterranean pine she loved and laughed about (at left).I had transplanted it as a seedling, in preparation for a bonsai pine. It is now nearly forty foot high!


Each of these drawings is tiny, only 5 x 3.5 inches, but they helped me center myself and remind myself that there are so many different ways to express oneself in art.

Drawing from Life

In a period that has been over-busy with the other side of art - matting, framing and preparing for exhibitions - life drawing was a welcome break, albeit for only three precious hours.

A fellow artist was talking to me during one of the brief breaks to let the model remember his limbs existed.... We were talking about the humbling but ever-necessary discipline of looking, looking and looking, to teach one's hand to trust one's eye in the drawing process. The conversation then moved on to the ever-interesting necessity often faced in life drawing: reconciling the slight changes in pose that even the best model has during the session.

In short poses, it does not matter. For those, the challenge is more to analyse quickly the pose and sort out how to tackle understanding the arms and legs being - often - in somewhat strange positions and how to depict the figure. that can sometimes be very challenging, particularly if there is a lot of foreshortening on limbs relative to where the artist is placed.

During longer poses, models settle into a position but then may tire, slump, move slightly... Depending where one is in the drawing process, these changes can be hard to reconcile. Nonetheless, as my fellow artist remarked, even the evident changes in the drawing make for a much more vibrant and alive work, as compared with the "perfect" work done when someone is drawing from a photograph. In fact, redrawn lines, correcting and modifying the drawing, are frequently a source of strength and interest in a work.

Silverpoint, of course, is one of the least forgiving drawing media for these modifications and corrections, because every alteration shows and nothing can be erased. Yet here again, it can strengthen the image. Two works from some of the greatest silverpoint draughtsmen during the Renaissance illustrate this point. On the left is a hauntingly beautiful study Leonardo da Vinci drew. Look at the reiteration of lines on the left side of the neck. They strengthen the impression of solid support for the detailed face and head, adding stability and emphasis. Likewise, the right hand drawing, Standing Youth with his hands behind his back, and seated Youth Reading, by Filippino Lippi,(http://www.metmuseum.org/), has many lines which are repeated and altered as he readjusted the contours of both youths' arms, for instance, and even the seated youth's knee is redrawn, with felicitous emphasis.

Such works make me feel much better about corrections I make when I am drawing from life, whether it is from models or from something in nature. Today's emphasis on "perfection" - reaching for the eraser, or copying almost slavishly from a photo, can often vitiate a drawing.
None of us is perfect, so why should we expect works of art to be any different?

Prayers answered - for now - with Georgia Council for the Arts

For this year, at least, the Georgia Council for the Arts exists, albeit in leaner form. The last day of the Georgia legislative session saw the passage of a 2011 budget which included funding for the arts. Hallelujah!

In fairness for having used this blog to inveigh about the dangers to the arts in Georgia, I will quote the open letter that the Head of Georgia Council for the Arts, Susan Weiner, has just sent out.

An Open Letter to Georgia’s Artists, Arts Organizations, and Arts Patrons

Congratulations! Your efforts kept Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) alive. Your exercise of political will is responsible for our state continuing to have a state arts agency. GCA was the recipient of thousands of emails and telephone calls from you and fellow Georgians. And, we received scores more from around this nation.

We know what Georgia would be like without the arts. We must remember to tell others, because the State of Georgia will face at least another year of fiscal constraints due to this recession. Yes, it is possible that GCA could be threatened again next year.

What would Georgia be like without the arts? Here are some of the answers we read in your emails.

Economic Impact
· GCA awards in FY 2009 of $3.9 M returned over $6.1 M to our counties and cities sales tax revenues. GCA grantees made money for Georgia.
· The Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP study showed a $376 M economic impact to the state, with only 98 GCA grantees participating

Community Development
· A nonprofit arts organization is the fifth-largest employer in Miller County; the home of the state’s beloved Swamp Gravy
· Renovation of downtown buildings for the non-profit Averitt Arts Center motivated the private investment of an additional $14 M to that city’s vitality
· Last Sunday, the Morris Museum offered free entrance to 1,000 visitors made possible because by its GCA award

Federal & Regional Dollars
· Some of Georgia’s taxpayers’ dollars going to Washington DC will return to be invested at home
· NEA State Partnership Grant and South Arts regional grants to artists and arts organizations will continue to provide support

Arts Education
· Davidson Arts Magnet School ranked 1st in the state in SAT scores 4 of last 5 years and demonstrates the value of arts education
· Over 30,000 students benefited from in-school and after-school arts education by the Alliance Theatre because of the GCA award; tens of thousands of students across the state enjoyed similar benefit
· Georgia was ranked second in the nation for student participation in the national Poetry Out Loud competition

Arts Industry
· Georgia is ranked third in US for arts employment, almost 90,000 artists
· There are almost 20,000 arts-related businesses Georgia based on Dunn & Bradstreet, Inc. research
· Georgia’s art industry is in the for-profit, not-for-profit, and self-employed sectors of our economy; our state’s artists work in all three sectors

Tourism & Film Industries
· Cultural Heritage Tourism is the fastest growing and most revenue-generating form of tourism
· Georgia has benefited from recognition through the Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, and Tony awards won by Georgia’s artists
· Without Georgia’s artists (ex., actors, graphic designers, lighting and scene painting artists and technicians, film editors, animators, costumiers, writers), would our state have a tourism, film, and digital industry?

We owe a debt of gratitude to those legislators who understand these reasons and one more: it is the arts that cultivate our ingenuity, creativity, and humanity. It is these traits will lead Georgia into a more prosperous future.

Susan

I think the letter makes an eloquent case for the arts, not only here in Georgia but anywhere in the world. We would all be enriched greatly if the arts were regarded more as society's lifeblood and sustainer of civil discourse.

Art and Meditation

I recently read a fascinating review in Art in America (April 2009) by Edward M. Gomez, entitled Altered States. It was a review of the just-closed exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum on "The Third Mind", which examined the influence of Asia on earlier generations of artists. Apparently, many of those artists meditated, a result of their interest in Buddhism. Their ability to pay attention to matters deemed "ordinary" and to be able to "suspend time" derived, it was thought, from their practice of meditation. Artists as diverse as Arthur Dove or John Cage were cited in the article.


Thinking about the role of meditation in my own experience made me realise that although I do indeed meditate, I find that the act of making art is in itself a form of meditation. Most artists I know find that time becomes a very variable affair, since we all lose track of time very easily when creating art. However, I also find that I become much more efficient at using the rest of my time, away from art, to do all the other daily chores when I am working on a painting or drawing. I wonder if that is a common occurrence? It is also easy to pay close attention to whatever art and subject of art I am involved with, although I don't know that I would attribute that aspect of art-making to the practice of meditation.

When I am not able to work as an artist, I find I get really dislocated, and so it is a relief to revert to mediation to make life more serene. Brain circuitry in artists must be predicated on a daily "fix" of art, apparently!


The rhythm of observation and creation, drawing and looking, is indeed addictive. Even when I find myself inside because of bad weather, as happened when I was Artist in Residence once at Wild Acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains, there is a meditative peace and serenity from trying to create harmony and yet accuracy in a silverpoint drawing. Even with the most humble of materials!


This was the result of two days of solid rain and yet I had little realisation of how much time elapsed during the execution of the drawing.

Blue Ridge Mountain Meditation

silverpoint 11 x 15" image
collection of Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History, Evansville, IN

Landscape Painting

Back in March of this year, in The Spectator, Angela Summerfield discussed Peter Frie: Last Summer, an exhibition of landscapes by a Berlin-based Swedish artist, Peter Frie. In view of the fact that tomorrow, I am planning to work plein air on landscape drawings, this statement in Summerfield's article came back to me. ( At right, Peter Frie's "Eliopainting No. 3", oil on canvas, image courtesy of Eskilstuna Konstmuseum.)

I quote, "Landscape painting has not fared well within the dictates of modernist and post-modernist art definitions. It is as if an urban-centric, text-driven and often anti-aesthetic dogma has stifled both alternative discourse and individual human expression. Yet our experience of landscape, and by association Nature, is fundamental to the development of our senses, perceptual vocabulary and cognitive awareness.

This statement resonates for me in a number of ways. Since I live in non-urban environments, I find most of my daily delights and inspiration in Nature, in one way or another. I am also very aware that my tastes are therefore different from those of countless millions of people who live in big cities, where the dragooned green trees along streets and in artificially-constructed parks are the major remnants and reminders of the natural world, apart from weather conditions. The world in which we all live is indeed mostly text-driven, a fact which again contributes, according to this thought-provoking book that I am reading, Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer, to our collective loss of the capacity for memory. Because we can all rely on books, Google, digital files or whatever to recuperate facts, our memories have virtually abdicated, as compared to the memory of Greeks, Romans and medieval notables. In those early times, people could remember vast amounts of knowledge, from all the names of soldiers in an army to long, involved speeches or treatises. After Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1436, our memories took a hit. In the same way, only well-trained artists retained the capacity to remember innumerable details of landscape or human form. Familiarity with landscapes and Nature's ways became the domain of the few in the art world.

Today, that is indeed true. Yet unless we artists somehow learn how Nature "works", an enormous chunk of our personal vocabulary is stunted. It is as if we try to learn French, but never hear how the words are correctly pronounced. We thus never understand the nuances, the cadences and accentuations, let alone the words themselves, that convey a world of meaning.

Ultimately, I fear that Angela Summerfield's rather pessimistic outlook about landscape painting will continue to pertain. I don't see art collectors returning en masse to support landscape painting (and drawing). Nonetheless, for those of us who believe landscapes and Nature in general have much to offer, there is the comfort that personally, we are enriched, and that there are indeed some people with whom landscape painting resonates. Hurray for "alternative discourse and individual human expression"!


Just look at Peter Frie's version of a "Blue Morning" (image courtesy of artfinders.co.uk.) - he should give us all encouragement and hope to follow our own paths vis-a-vis Nature.

Perfumes, sound and light

I have just spent time in my other home in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. There, it is a green and beautiful spring after bountiful rains this year, and the island is celebrating with exuberant growth on mountain slopes and down stony valleys.

I had some time to paint and draw, and once again, my sense of place was expanded and extended. I know that wherever one is working outdoors as an artist, you become conscious of all your surroundings. It seemed to be especially the case this spring in Spain : the perfume of orange blossom, lemon blossom, jasmine and roses floated everywhere on the air. As the sun warmed, each morning, and the sky became brilliant, the perfumes intensified and became intoxicating. The light grew more brilliant - oh, that Mediterranean light! And as I sat quietly, totally enraptured with all this light and drunk on these exquisite perfumes, I was serenaded by blackbirds singing their wondrous melodies, or tiny serins buzzing excitedly high in the trees above.

I was soothed and inspired. As the light changed and the flowers I was depicting opened, moved and faded, I was enveloped in this world in which I was sitting. I felt a bond and a sense of kinship with all the wonderful artists who have worked in the Mediterranean region down the ages - Italian masters like Botticelli or Guercino, Corot, Monet, Renoir, Matisse, Cezanne or Raoul Dufy in France, even Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, just to name one Spanish artist who celebrated so superbly the brilliant light of Spain (www.museosorolla.mcu.es if you speak Spanish or www.the.athenaeum.org/art/by_artist.php?=373). They all responded to the same light, perfumes and sounds. From the flowers painted on the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs to the frescoes on walls of opulent homes in Pompeii, artists have always gloried in the beauties of flowers growing in the Mediterranean world. I felt it was a great privilege to be immersed in this world of brilliant light, intoxicating perfume and liquid bird song, as I celebrated Mallorca's spring flowers in silverpoint and watercolour.

Intersecting Clothes and Art

I recently saw a wonderful production of Sleeping Beauty by the Moscow Ballet in Palma de Mallorca. It was a delight to see, for the quality of dancing was extremely high. One of the most interesting aspects, however, was the brilliant colours of the otherwise traditional costumes. I don't recall ever seeing such "technicolour" dresses and tutus, ranging from the most vivid wisteria mauves to turquoises, blues and citrons. It made for a vivid and arresting mixture with the dancers' skills, the pure lines of arabesques and the sense of movement in space.

I could not help but think that today's omnipresent brilliance of colour in television, on the web and everywhere else has an influence on such choice of colours for the costumes. We have all become accustomed to colours that are accentuated, often far beyond Nature's version of these colours. I find it interesting to see the same influence in art; with the ever-extending palette of colours in oils, acrylics, watercolours..., a dazzling intensity of colour is easy to achieve. And, conversely, art produced in a "lower register" often appears dull and less noteworthy to the average viewer. For the most part, we do not seem to live in an age of subtlety.


While I was thinking about this role of colour in our current world, I fell on a fascinating article in CAM, the Cambridge Alumni Magazine for Lent 2011, entitled "A Sense of Proportion". Dr. Ulinka Rublack, a fellow at St. John's College, has published a book on "Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe" (Oxford University Press). In it, she states that "Clothes to me are no different from art in our contemporary sense of a human assembly of form. Clothes are rich in categories of visual interest and tell us so much about the peculiar sensibilities of an age. Their study can bring a fresh focus to the Renaissance and our own time."

Dr. Rublack talks of how the Renaissance was a time when not only was there an amazing influx to Europe of rich fabrics and furnishing as trade routes opened more and more to the Far East, but also an era when artists were increasingly depicting humans in paintings, sculpture, medals... Mirrors were also more and more available. How a person looked to the outside world became of great concern and interest. The author cites as a wonderful source of insights on this evolving sense of self, an album of watercolour paintings of Matthäus Schwarz, chief accountant for the Augsburg powerhouse Fugger family of merchants and bankers. The image at right was painted in 1517, showing him
with Jakob Fugger. He lived from 1496 until 1564, so he was able to savour of all the energies and fashions in art and self-images that the Renaissance brought to Europe.

In July 1526, at aged 29, Schwarz commissioned the first portrait of himself, nude and slim. He went on to commission 135 more paintings of himself, dressed in many a garb as befitting the overt or subliminal messages he wished to covey to those who saw him or his painted image. They depict himself through his long life.

The images are wonderfully varied and let one savour of everything from his fencing outfit, with differing hose, to his sweeping hats and expensive fur collars. (The image at right is courtesy of the Musée du Louvre.)

In others, Schwarz carried green heart-shaped leather bags when he went out to court a lady - green being the colour of hope.



At aged 41, his courting days were suspended, as he records on this image of himself from the rear. He wrote "20 February 1538, when I took a wife... this coat was made". No mention of his amazing scarlet hosen!

Matthäus Schwarz' Book of Clothes or Klaidungsbüchlein is now held in the museum in Brunswick, Germany. A version of it has been published in French as "Un Banquier mis à nu".

My musings on the brilliant costumes in Sleeping Beauty are just a reminder that colour has long played a key role in our perceptions of the human body, its sartorial role in different cultures and its use for different messages. Art has been an integral part of that conversation.

Prayer for the health of the Arts, Georgia style

It seems that lots of prayers and incantations still need to be offered if the Georgia Council for the Arts is to survive in Georgia. The fate of the arts apparently hangs by a single thread in the review of the budget, and that thread is reportedly Representative Jerry Keen, from St Simons Island, Georgia.

In an area where the arts not only form an integral part of the community (for both local residents and retirees who have made this area home) but are a lifeline to young people who would otherwise be frequently handicapped in terms of art experiences, this is sad and amazing. I find it so strange that politicians deem it "wise" and "responsible" to impoverish the quality of their fellow citizens' lives, particularly at a time when any uplifting experiences that the arts could bring are needed to offset daily economic concerns. How short-sighted!

The fact that Georgia would become the only state in the US without any state arts agency, thus foregoing any federal supporting dollars, would seem to be very poor business sense as well. Bad publicity for Georgia, bad investment policies in terms of attracting tourists to the state, terrible messages to Georgia's youth about elected officials' concerns for their future success. How does one attract investments and new business to come to Georgia when the quality of life is manifestly of no importance whatsoever?

It is time that Representative Jerry Keen and his fellow elected politicians think a little more as statesmen and remember that life in Georgia is more than just the next election cycle. Particularly when the next election for Representative Keen falls due this year...

The Artist's Eye

When I was talking to an artist friend recently, she commented on her diffidence about drawing. She said that she had difficulty perceiving things spatially sufficiently accurately to draw them. I reminded her that each artist's eye is personal, and that each of us perceives things in a different fashion. There is no one correct way to organise space in art, especially today...

As I was talking to her, I kept thinking of the Fauves, and the recent art treasures that are coming to auction as a result of famous art dealer Amboise Vollard's personal art collection being released from its long-held Société Générale safety deposit box, where it lay from World War II until 1979. Sothebys is to auction off famous, brilliantly vibrant paintings such as André Derain's Arbres à Collioure, one of his most emblematic paintings. It is the perfect example of the artist's eye being individual, bold and really unique. Organising space can be highly original, as Derain showed. The trees in this 1905 painting are patterned, with pure colours juxtaposed to convey the pulsating, brilliant Mediterranean light. The landscape is pure energy, the space organised for maximum dynamic impact. Indeed, Derain himself remarked, "Le Fauvisme a été pour nous l'épreuve du feu. Les couleurs devenaient des cartouches de dynamite; elles devaient décharger de la lumière." (Fauvism was the trial by fire for us. Colours became charges of dynamite; they had to explode with light.) The Fauvists needed to have an eye that was radically different, for instance, from that of the Impressionists who had proceeded them.

Perhaps Odilon Redon summed up the "artist's eye" situation the most eloquently. He said, "The artist... will always be a special, isolated, solitary agent with an innate sense of organising matter." That means that each of us, as an artist, basically has license to organise our art as we deem fit on the painting or drawing surface. That is both a luxury and a challenge!

Passionate about your art

Life drawing today made me think about a quote I read at the beginning of the year in Artist's Magazine by T. Allen Lawson, a wonderful sensitive landscape painter.  He was quoted as saying that "the depth of your art is in direct proportion to the love of your subject... If you truly understand your subject, your painting will reflect that."

It is so true.  Every time I find myself trying to paint or draw subjects that don't really "turn me on", I later assess the work as less than good.  Perhaps it is because art is an extension of one's inner self, a voice to express one's passions and interests.  It is frequently an unconscious expression, but nonetheless, the knowledge of your subject matter, the experience you have had with it, all feeds into a more powerful and convincing work, whatever the type of art.

Why I thought of this quote today was that we had a new model posing, a good one, but one with whom I had no connection, as yet.  Her poses were interesting, but somehow I felt outside the necessary dialogue with what I was drawing, not caught up in understanding what I was trying to do.  Of course, I left the session irritated with myself, but I then reflected that sometimes, life drawing does not have to be about "love of your subject".  Instead it is just a very good drawing exercice!  So perhaps I need to regard today as working towards future passion to be translated into a good life drawing...

Artists' Ways of Seeing Things

I am reading a book entitled "Moonwalking with Einstein. The Art and Science of Remembering Everything" by Joshua Foer. The title is self-explanatory, the style is highly readable as Foer is a seasoned writer for such publications as the New York Times, National Geographic, Slate, etc. The content is totally fascinating - about how science is slowly understanding better how the human brain works, especially in terms of memory.

I still have many pages to go, but one page started me thinking about the parallels between artists and the master chess players that Foer was discussing. In the 1940s, Adriaan de Groot, a Dutch psychologist and chess player, decided to investigate what separated a good chess player from a master chess player - what was going on in their heads? Were the top players able to think further ahead in their moves, did they have better mental tools or a more honed intuition for the game? From past high level games,De Groot selected a series of board positions where there was one correct move to make which was not all that obvious. He then asked a group of top flight chess players to ponder these boards and to think aloud as they selected the proper move.

To De Groot's astonishment, the players mostly did not think many moves ahead, nor did they consider more possible moves. What they did was to see the right move, and almost immediately. After analysing the players' commentaries, De Groot realised that the chess experts were reacting, rather than thinking, and they could do this because their long experience of playing had taught them to think about "configurations of pieces like 'pawn structures' and immediately noticed things that were out of sorts, like exposed rooks". They had learned to see the whole chess board and thirty-two chess pieces as systems and groups. Later studies of top players' eye movements confirm that they literally see a different chess board, for they see more edges of the squares, which means they are encompassing whole areas at once. They also move their eyes across greater distances, without lingering for long at any one spot. Those places on which they do focus tend to be the key areas linked to making the right move.

This description of how master chess players function made me think of artists who have honed their skills day after day, year after year. Their eye-hand coordination has been perfected, their senses of composition/design, colour and content are developed. When they draw a nude, for instance, or work on a landscape painting plein air, for instance, they are not looking at just one spot. Rather, they are encompassing the whole so that almost intuitively, they can adjust their composition, their values and colour in the work for the best results. Their powers of observation and concentration are almost unthinking, because they are trained and disciplined.

To me, Winslow Homer is an example of a highly skilled painter, producing amazingly fresh landscapes, frequently plein air, and often in watercolour. One such example is "The Red Canoe" (image courtesy of the Peabody Collection, the Athenaeum).

Foer goes on to comment on the master chess players' amazing memories. I suspect that the great artists, past and present, also intrinsically rely on their memories quickly to understand a subject after a brief moment of studying it, Like the chess players, they can also call upon past experiences to bolster and inform their present work. The saying, "Been there, done that" applies, in a very positive sense, to an artist as well as chess players. Perhaps one should just add, "umpteen times"!

Metalpoint's Voices

Sometimes, when I am working in silverpoint - or metalpoint, when I include gold or copper in the drawings - I find that there is a wonderful parallel to music and musical instruments in these shimmering lines.  Perhaps my imagination runs away with me - who knows!

I find that the pure, simple line produced by silver being passed over a surface prepared with ground reminds me of the ineffable beauty of a boy's soprano voice as it floats out into Gothic vaults and dies away to a whisper.



Perhaps  a drawing like Solitaire, Wild Acres could illustrate what I mean for the silver lines are essentially simple.  As I drew this image, the mountain air was crisp and thin, again a suitable parallel to a soprano voice.

When the silver lines are more sustained and yet their delicacy is evident, silverpoint reminds me of violins.  The range and subtlety of this instrument is echoed in silverpoint's capabilities.  This drawing, Balsam Mountain Beech, shows some of these characteristics and was great fun to "orchestrate" as the leaves curled more and more as they dried out during the time I drew them.

Silverpoint allows for deeper, complex tones, such as those of a violoncello.  Sometimes the choice of ground for the paper surface will allow these darker, more sonorous voices to emerge from the silver lines, just as the cello sings in that wonderful lower register.  A Day at Manassas Bog allowed me to explore this aspect of silverpoint, for the subject matter, all dried plants, seemed to resonate with deep memories of past seasons.

Even the sound of a human whisper has a parallel, I feel, in some ways of using silverpoint.  Often whispers go from soft to loud, or vice versa.  They seem staccato, truncated, random, muffled ... at times.  This  drawing, Mist on the River, made me think of whispered voices carrying on the river Edisto as I sat quietly on the bank, early one fresh spring morning.

Perhaps I am being more fanciful than ever, but a drawing like Grevillea makes me think of a piano playing.  The Grevillea tree is so wonderful in its silver-white to dark green-black and its pulsating energy sets up rhythms and harmonies that seem to echo those one hears so often, with delight, from a piano being skilfully played.  The leaves are sturdy, yet light, and the branches tough and resistant - similar to aspects of the piano, an instrument of such versatility. 

My last "interpretation" of silverpoint's voices: when all the lines are working, some light, some dark, some deep, some quiet, but all in miraculous harmony, then one can perhaps think of the drawing as paralleling an orchestra playing.  Rhythms, pauses, simple passages and complex moments... a drawing can have those aspects that one finds also in an orchestra.  Fallen Palmetto, while I was drawing this complicated pattern, made me think of such an orchestral performance.

Sometimes, drawing can become even more fun to do when one imagines other aspects of the medium.  I love listening to all the voices that silver, gold and copper can produce.  It enriches the whole experience of drawing in metalpoint.

The Arts and Young People

On Sundays, I frequently listen with fascination and pleasure to the NPR programme, "From the Top", hosted by Christopher O'Riley, during which amazingly talented young people play classical music and talk with Christopher. This past Sunday, a delicious young woman, aged nine, was interviewed and then played Franz Liszt's Gromenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes). Her name is Umi Garrett and she is garnering prizes and kudos both in the United States and Europe for her mastery of the piano. What interested me and resonated especially was that her early talent for music was also accompanied, from 2 1/2 years old, by classical ballet. She also loves to paint and is good at maths, science and a host of other things.

In other words, she is a stellar example of what can happen when a young person is exposed to the best in what the arts can offer. It is not just in school that children need to be exposed to the arts, it is in everyday life, in every imaginable sphere. This is one area where it becomes so serious that the Georgia Legislature envisages elimination of the Georgia Council for the Arts, the central state funding mechanism that fosters the arts. When possibilities for young people to attend performances of music, ballet or theatre, to visit art museums, galleries or festivals or learn of new forms of art in the public arena dry up, the general level of culture is diminished.

I know personally how memorable live performances can be to a child. Growing up on a farm in Tanzania, there were few such opportunities. It was thus all the more special that on my first trip to England, my mother made a special effort to ensure that I was able to see the Royal Ballet dancing Swan Lake. I was five years old - it was magical - and I have loved ballet ever since. In the same way, a year or so later, the legendary pianist, Paul Badura-Skoda, came to our nearby town, Arusha, to visit his brother. He was persuaded to give a piano recital, in a small theatre with a tin roof ... it rained during his performance and the din above seemed only to underline the exquisiteness of his interpretations of Chopin or Mozart pieces. That evening was one of the most memorable moments of my life - I was so excited that I was soon learning to play the piano myself, not at all well, I hasten to add. But the whole experience helped make me forever a lover of music. I was lucky - my family made the effort to give me such opportunities. But in Georgia, if opportunities for young people dry up, then we are all the poorer.

Assessing the Year as an Artist

Summer has slipped into autumn all too quickly this year. Only now have I been able to send my art-collector friends a brief newsletter about the year as an artist. I find this yearly exercice an interesting assessment of what I have been trying to do and where my art has been available for viewing.

This has been, in truth, an unusual year, with bereavement and family health problems precluding a lot of artwork being done (and fewer blog posts as well!). Nonetheless, sadness and anxiety have been mixed with great joy and delights.

McIntosh Art Association, Darien, GA, hosted my spotlight solo exhibition, At the Edge of the Marsh, in April and May. I showed watercolours, silverpoints and graphite drawings. In May-June, I exhibited silverpoint drawings alongside Daniel Smith's monoprints in Point and Counterpoint at the Hospice Savannah Gallery. Meanwhile, in April and May, I was part of an invitational exhibition, again with silverpoint drawings, at the Art and Soul Gallery at the Women's Center of Jacksonville, entitled Lasting Impressions. Another national invitational show in which I participated was Luminous Metal: Contemporary Drawings in Metalpoint, at the Clement Art Gallery in Troy, NY. I have also just exhibited my art at a Coastal Wildscapes conference held in early October at Richmond Hill, GA.

Other shows in which my work was selected for exhibit during the year were:

- Brainstorm: Opening Minds, Embracing Change, with Women's Caucus for Art of Georgia.
The first venue was at Atlanta's Central Library and the show then travelled to
Upstairs/Artspace in Tyron, NC.
- I'm in Love with this Idea, also a in Women's Caucus for Art Georgia exhibition, was held at the Georgia Perimeter College, Atlanta.
- Katonah Museum Artists' Association, a large group show at Northern Westchester Hospital, NY.
- Little Things mean a Lot, a holiday show at the Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta.
- Portraits to Pixels: Celebrating 125 Years of Collecting at the Telfair, a selection of work from the permanent collection, at the Telfair Museums, Savannah. One of my silverpoint drawings was included.
- Transformations, an on-line international show sponsored by the Women's Caucus for Art in San Diego, CA, in which I was awarded second place honours for one of my silverpoint drawings.
- New Hall Art Auction 2011, an on-line auction for the New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge, with art produced by those of us with work in their permanent art collection.

Early in the year, I held a silverpoint workshop at the Telfair Museum of Art at their invitation, and was scheduled to hold a watercolour workshop. Alas, I had to cancel that due to my mother's death. Later, I held a plein air workshop for McIntosh Art Association members on Butler's Island, near Darien.

My art was featured in a variety of newspaper articles: the Darien News covered my Darien solo exhibition, as did the Brunswick News. Later, the Savannah Morning News's art critic, Alison Hersh, wrote about the "Dynamic Duo at Hospice Gallery". The Art Connection in Boston featured my art, as did the WCAGA website. My work was also included in websites as varied as Women Environmental Artists, Artist Sites, Wooloo or the Irving Sandler Artist Slide Registry/Artists Space. Of course, my art and updated activities are also featured on my own website at http://www.jeanninecoook.com.

I am already working towards exhibitions which are planned for next year and beyond. I am co-curator with Professor Jeff Lewis of Auburn University of a silverpoint exhibition to be held in 2013 at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn, AL. I shall be participating with a group of artist friends in Celebrating the Coast at Glynn Art Association Gallery in 2012, and joining my friend, Marjett Schille, in an exhibition, Sapelo Island, at Brenau University, Gainesville, GA, in 2013.

My 16th Annual Art Tasting was held last December 4th and once more, for Rundle and me, it was a celebration at our home at Cedar Point. I felt honoured to display my art for my friends. This memory is now a little bittersweet as I realise that this year, I will not be able to invite people to another Art-Tasting. Rundle is facing surgery for an incipient aneurysm in his other leg, and between those uncertainties and our late return from Spain, I sadly concluded that it would unrealistic to organise things in time. Nonetheless, I hope that, deo volente, I can plan a spring art celebration.

Efforts and hopes - but now to getting down to creating art again. That is where the discipline comes in!

Euros - Symbolism on the Bank Notes

Last week, when the Eurozone was hanging on the final "yes" vote in the Slovak Parliament to agree to the proposed EU bailout fund, I could not help thinking about the actual euro currency and its design.

For those who have not seen the bank notes, they are elegant. In clear and distinct colours that are easy to distinguish, they are a welcome change from semi-monochromatic currencies. Their design was thoughtful and symbolic, for this currency is an ambassador for the countries of the European Union. History, ethics, moral values... are all implied by a country's currency, and more so with this new currency that the EU launched in 2002.

On the side illustrated at right, it was decided to use architecture down the ages in Europe, designing it so that it was not specifically that of any one place. Using the symbolic motif of arches and entrances, examples were sought from across Europe and then stylised. The 5€ bill evokes classical architecture, the 10€ Roman architecture and the 20€ alludes to Gothic buildings. The 50€ brings us to Renaissance times, the 100€ refers to Baroque and Rococo architecture, the 200€ evokes the advent of metal in 19th century buildings, while the 500€ brings us to modern architecture. (For many years, in Spain, the 500€ bills were referred to as "Bin Ladens" as they were so seldom seen!)

The reverse side of the bank notes is about bridges, another important symbol for this ever-increasing union of countries that have often been enemies in the past.

Again, the style of architecture follows the
same time frame, from classical to modern.


One of my favourite notes is the 20€ bill, for its limpid, subtle blue and serene design reminds me of the wonderful stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals and the old bridges across the rivers of Northern Europe.

Sometimes, it is at the physical level - that of handling the bank notes and looking at their artistic design and symbolism - that helps bring home the importance of parliamentary decisions. I am glad that the Slovaks decided to help the euro stagger on again. It would be a great shame to abandon such elegant currency!

Negative Spaces

I found an interesting comment recently: "It is the complexity of melody which makes music beautiful, just as negative spaces make a painting work. When next at the easel, remember we are making music for the eyes". Mary Kilbreath, a wonderful artist who paints in oils, made this remark. When you look at her paintings, she does indeed use negative space wonderfully.

I have always been fascinated by the power and necessity of negative space. Perhaps

my childhood spent with Japanese wood cuts hanging on many of the walls of our home had something to do with my love affair with it. For example, this is a wonderful Hokusai study of The Dragon of Smoke emerging from Mt Fujiyama.

Negative space in art is the empty space between delineated objects, the area where the eye can rest. It allows a very strong underlying composition to be woven into a drawing or painting, directing the eye around the art in subtle fashion. It allows a rhythm between the positives and negatives, similar to what Mary Kilbreath was saying about music, the pauses and silences highlighting the melody.

The classic demonstrations of negative space usually use pedestalled urns which also read as silhouetted faces, but I found this Moth (courtesy of Donald Mackay) was an interesting way of showing positive and negative in simple fashion.

One of the aspects of using negative space that I relate to very readily - again thanks to the Japanese influence - is ensuring that the composition reaches to all four sides of the paper or canvas.

Carrying shapes and lines to the edges not only implies more space and continuation of the composition beyond the confines of the paper; it also helps break up the composition into more interesting shapes. Negative space thus becomes easier to incorporate into the composition. This is an example of my working to all four sides of the paper: Recovering from Surgery is a silverpoint I did earlier this year. Negative space is part and parcel of the work.

Island Art-making

Last weekend, bright and early, I set off by boat to a friend's island for a day of art with my artist friend, Marjett Schille. As we stepped onto the dock and walked along the deliciously distinctive boardwalk to the high ground, it was like entering a magic kingdom. Islands always have a strange allure - it is as though time is somehow suspended, and the routines of daily life slip away. Everything becomes possible, fresh and beckoning. In other words, the most wonderful place imaginable to visit as an artist...

We spent a golden, sun-filled day in an incredibly ancient and sacred-feeling place, a vast Indian shell mound dating back thousands of years. All the bleached oysters have created the perfect soil environment for red cedars to grow, with live oaks a little further away from the salt water marsh line.

These trees are huge, gnarled, contorted - each one is a total personality. One could spend years simply doing "portraits" of these trees, survivors of storms, droughts, gales and other adversities.

We worked hard - if you can call it work - as it is always such a privilege and joy to be able to visit this island. Time means nothing. The sun moves around, the tide comes swiftly back to lap at the roots of the cedars and the herons sit silently far above in the tree tops. Only the diminutive pigs, rooting in the dry leaves, make any sound.

Before we could comprehend, the sun was slanting far to the west and it was time to head back to the house to join our wonderful hosts. Soon, in the luminous twilight, we coasted gently home on a full tide to "the hill", the mainland, as the bright moon rose and Venus glowed far above our peaceful boat.

Island art-making is indeed a special affair.

Elimination of the Georgia Council of the Arts, take two

Give artists a few hours to get organised, and the angry buzz rises to a crescendo! It seems that the e-mails are flying around Georgia about the likelihood that the Legislature will "zero" out the Georgia Council for the Arts. My e-mail in-box is filling up fast as everyone tries to contact anyone who is likely to protest this decision to the Senate...

The more one thinks about this choice of "economising" to close the huge budget gap in the State budget, the less impressed one becomes about the arithmetical prowess of the legislators. I understand that the overall return for every dollar invested in the arts in Georgia is threefold and counting. That would suggest a very decent rate of return that anyone would welcome in, say, the stock exchange. In a time when everyone is hoping and praying that the economy revives and people find jobs, it seems sad indeed that a very diffuse but real economical stimulus source be eliminated. The arts are not just one single industry, unlike carpet-making or insurance or many other economical activities. The arts are incredibly diverse, spread out all over the State, even in the most remote corners. They engender the most varied of activities: they bring tourists, fill restaurants and hotels, give business to gas stations, art, clothing and hardware stores... The list is as varied as one's imagination, but all these different transactions and actions help drive the economy.

To use an extreme example: imagine New York without theatres, museums, concert halls. What would that city be like? Each of those jewels in New York's crown exist because there is some form of financial assistance to supplement the direct ticket sales or entrance fees, for these can never cover all costs. Most enlightened places, cities, states or countries, recognise that the hallmark of a civilised society includes support for the many forms of art. This support is not only a good investment financially, but it is also an investment in future generations' successful education. It also ensures citizens' ability to find intellectual stimulation, joy, serenity, fascination, amusement... that can lift them out of their own lives for however brief a moment.

It is hard to understand how Georgia's legislators can be so unaware of the incredibly negative and damaging consequences of kicking out the underpinnings from Georgia's arts. I hope the angry buzz of the arts-appreciating citizens of this State gets through to the Senators and Governor and persuades them not to be utter philistines.

Elimination of Georgia Council for the Arts and related Arts Funding

Eliminating Georgia Council for the Arts is apparently the "enlightened" way in which the Georgia Legislature is closing a budget gap for 2011. The budget for the arts was first slashed almost to nothing and then, yesterday, the vote passed the House to "zero" the Arts. Nothing, nada, niente - Georgia now will lead the way in the nation in NOT HAVING A STATE ARTS AGENCY. Wonderful!

Not only does this mean that the activities usually funded by the Council for the Arts will not now be supported. It means that National Endowment for the Arts funding cannot be received either - perhaps part of the assertion of the anti-Washington ethos? More importantly for the large swaths of Georgia who are not endowed with Atlanta's resources, it means that they will receive no Grassroots Arts Programme funds. These GAP monies have not been huge sums distributed to each county on a per capita basis for the past fifteen or more years, but they have been vital seed money. Countless small arts groups have been able to enrich their communities, young and old, with music, dance and theatre performances, art exhibitions and other visual art activities. The communities devised the programmes and applied for the funding on an annual, competitive basis. The arts funding was thus able to perform a magical multiplier effect at the grass roots of Georgia, and everyone benefited from a small but vital investment of tax dollars. This "cultural fertiliser" especially enriched the younger portion of each county, so important for many rural areas.

How can the level of education be raised for Georgia's youth if music, theatre, art and everything in between are defunded, eliminated and, by implication, made of no importance? Georgia is already lamentably far down the ladder of general academic achievement. In their dubious wisdom, Georgia's legislators are ensuring that not only will Georgia be the laughing stock of the nation in terms of culture; it will also slip further down the ranking of student achievement. Apparently legislators do not understand the vital inter-connectedness of the arts and learning about maths, geometry, literature, science....

The faint remaining hope of reversing this amazingly sad decision basically rests on Governor Perdue's shoulders. Alas, I am not holding my breath.

Welcome to Georgia, y'all! Don't count on finding a thriving cultural scene in Georgia.

Quick or Slow - which is best for Drawing?

The life drawing group in which I participate has a very sensible programme of one session of short poses, and then - normally - the following week, the same model poses for one long pose.

These sessions always get me thinking about the speed at which I draw and how fast or slowly other artists there draw. Some people can produce a very finished drawing in a remarkably short time, while others seem barely to have made many marks in the same time period.

Historically, drawing have always fallen into the categories of quick studies and finished drawings, but history seldom tells us how long each artist actually took to accomplish the drawing. Rembrandt, clearly, had a wonderful ability to draw fast and evocatively; his pen and ink drawings have a breathless immediacy on occasions, blots, drying pens, scribbles and everything in between. His drawing of Jesus and the Adulteress is spare and fast, as if he was thinking, planning, organising. Other drawings evoke a spur-of-the-moment view as he sees someone asleep or sitting in a moment of introspection, a moment that he wants to remember, a scene that he wants to record for the pure joy of drawing. Spare and elegant, his lines are fast and fluid.

Granted, the medium somewhat dictates the speed at which an artist draws. Pen and ink, conte, graphite or charcoal are all relatively fast, and marks can be made expressively with quick results. When you get to silverpoint, things tend to slow down a lot. The time available to make a drawing is therefore important, and subject matter tends often to dictate the medium... if the scene is about to disappear, you chose a quicker, more impressionistic way of capturing it. Each artist also has an individual eye, chosing what is important to record. Some aim mainly to capture the essence of the subject; others get fascinated by the play of light, the spatial composition or other aspects which are more time-consuming to depict. Adolph Menzel, for instance, often used a wonderful technique of drawing a person doing something from multiple poses on the same page. In a way, he was a forerunner to William Kentridge, with his many images being drawn, erased, filmed and then refilmed after changes. Menzel was drawing fast, fluently - he was a master draughtman. Kentridge is a superlative draughtsman too, but his approach, innovative and very much of our era with its mix of media, tends ultimately to be a slow and meticulous process, as each drawing evolves, is recorded and then evolves again until its final concluding version in narrative.

Lots of approaches to drawing - mercifully! It means that each of us can be a tortoise or a hare in our drawing methods. The results are really what count.

Painting the Atlantic Ocean

I have been reading Simon Winchester's book on the Atlantic and found it interesting to read what he wrote about this mighty ocean being the subject of paintings.  It started me thinking of paintings I have seen in museums which depict maritime scenes. Then, of course, there is the distinction to be made of where exactly is the body of water that each artist shows.

Think, for instance, of all the wonderful Impressionist painters' works showing the sea off the Normandy coast of France.  Is one being purist in defining those maritime scenes as of the English Channel, rather than the Atlantic? Eugene Boudin with his base at Honfleur, Monet, Manet, Courbet, Pissarro, Sisley - they all gravitated to the Normandy coast from the 1860s onwards. Their paintings show the sea in its many moods - sparkling, like Monet's wonderful Manneporte Etretat which he painted in February 1883.

(Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Gustave Courbet studied the power of the waves at Etretat too, but his paintings show the darker moods of the sea. In 1869, he did two paintings of The Wave and another, very similar, in 1870.  

(Image courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie)

There was, of course, endless experimentation amongst artists working on the French coast.By 1885, Seurat was treating the sea very differently. This is his English Channel at Grandcamp. 

  

(Image courtesy of Museum of Modern Art, New York)


Gauguin perhaps painted the Atlantic more directly, during his stays in Brittany in the 1880s.  Based in Pont Aven and at Le Pouldu, he painted feverishly, both looking to the green Breton lands and out to sea, the ever-changing Atlantic.

Seascape with cow/At the edge of the cliff, 1888
(Image courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay, Paris)

Coastal Landscape, 188

(Image courtesy of Goteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden)

However, earlier artists had depicted the sea, further north in what is perhaps even less the true Atlantic Ocean and more the North Sea. During the 17th century, when the Dutch were consolidating their mastery of the sea, their artists were celebrating the many moods of ocean and shore.

(‘Fishermen on Shore Hauling in their Nets,’ c.1640, Julius Porcellis, Oil on panel, 393-by-546mm, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK).

Willem van der Velde, both father and son, were also famed both in Holland and England, for their maritime scenes, in which naval engagements were often depicted.  Both showed a knowledge of the Atlantic and the North Sea, but again, it is, I suspect, often hard to distinguish where the divide between Atlantic and adjacent waters exists in the art.
 

Three Ships in a Gale
W. van der Welde, 1673
(Image courtesy of  The National Gallery, London)

 

Small Dutch Vessel close-hauled in a Strong Breeze
W. van der Velde, circa 1672.  
(Image courtesy of  The National Gallery, London)

However, by the 18th century and the era of great voyages of exploration (think Captain James Cook on the HMS Endeavour, with Sidney Parkinson as the official artist on board during the 1768-71 voyage, or the  much later, famous 1831-35 circumnavigation of the globe by the HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin as naturalist and Augustus Earle as artist...), maritime art had widened its scope.  It was not just the Atlantic Ocean that was now well known, but the other great bodies of water around the globe.

Nonetheless, J.M.W. Turner, in some of his great sea paintings, looked back to Williem van der Velde the Younger.  In his amazing use of light, gave the feeling of the ocean new and dazzling interpretations.  In the painting of the Slave Ship, based on anti-slavery poetry, Turner depicted the slavers disposing of dead and dying slaves before an impending storm.  By the mid-19th century, many sailors knew firsthand of the fury of hurricanes and typhoons.

     The Slave Ship - J.M.W. Turner, 1840

(Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

On the Western/American side of the North Atlantic, artists were also beginning to address marine painting.  One of the first was Massachusetts-born Fitz Hugh Lane, (1804-1865), known as a Luminist painter and a most successful exponent of the Atlantic as seen from the New England coast. 



Brace's Rock, Gloucester, MA, circa 1864, Fitz Hugh Lane

(Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art)

Other famed exponents of the Atlantic include Winslow Homer.  His most acclaimed marine paintings date from the 1890s, when he was living some seventy-five feet from the water in Prout's Neck, Maine.  Like so many artists, he was fascinated by the power of waves crashing on rugged coastlines.
 

Sunlight on the Coast, 1890, Winslow Homer

(Image courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art)

Today, we artists have a wonderful heritage to which to refer when we think of paintings of the mighty Atlantic Ocean.  There are countless artists working today along the coastlines of North and South America, Western Europe and Africa, for the power of the ocean summons us all.