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

New Horizons beyond Shimmering Silverpoint I

Silverpoint is a drawing medium which uses silver for mark-making, as I have frequently explained in this blog. It has been known since the 1200s for its subtle, lustrous tonalities and indelible fine lines.

Silverpoint has been undergoing a second renaissance since its rescue from oblivion in the early 19th century. Its latest versions, some of which I have been talking about in the current Evansville Museum of Arts Luster of Silver exhibition, show that it still has a lot of vigour and zest. It was largely forgotten after the discovery of graphite supplanted silver during the late high Renaissance. Silverpoint was rediscovered in the early 1800s when Cennino Cennini's 1390 manuscript of Il Libro dell'Arte was found in the Laurentian Library in Italy. Readers of the first printed edition learned of this drawing medium in 1821. Many artists tried their hand at silverpoint, but the advent of abstract and non-figurative art in the mid-20th century virtually banished the medium.

In recent years, silverpoint is slowly regaining its luster, thanks in large part to Dr. Bruce Weber, presently Director of the National Academy Museum. In 1985, he curated a ground-breaking silverpoint exhibit, The Fine Line. Drawing with Silver in America, at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida. (The catalogue of that exhibit has since acquired a cult following amongst silverpoint aficionados!) with silverpoint back on the map, artists took note. Today, the number of silverpoint artists is increasing. The medium is now being taught and covered by the art print media and Internet, with the important Silverpointweb.com becoming a clearing house for information on the medium.

The first Luster of Silver 2006 survey of contemporary silverpoint, curated by Holly Koons McCullough at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, was testimony to the medium's renewed vigour. While most full-time silverpoint artists often follow the centuries-old techniques (which include using gold, copper, platinum and other metals in addition to silver), they are nonetheless pushing the medium out to new boundaries. Combining different media with silverpoint is technically difficult. But it is happening, and it demonstrates the medium's ability to reflection and respond to today's complex and challenging world.

I frequently combine silverpoint with touches of watercolour, a balancing one-chance act when working on an acrylic ground. But it fun to try these combinations for new effects.

The watercolour can be applied traditionally in liquid form (difficult and not always stable on the acrylic ground). In this example, Marianna's Gift,

the silverpoint drawing is on a tinted ground. The highlights are placed in with white gouache, an opaque form of watercolour. Adding the darkened touches of red watercolour straddled the old and the new forms of silverpoint. Many Renaissance drawings were on tinted grounds.

(I will continue this discussion about New Horizons for Silverpoint tomorrow....)

The Luster of Silver exhibit

Time is marching on towards the survey of contemporary metalpoint drawings that I helped curate for the Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History (http://www.emuseum.org/). The exhibit opens on June 28th, 2009. There is going to be a reception on 27th June, at which I will be speaking, along with my co-curator and marvellous artist friend, Koo Schadler http://www.kooschadler.com/). There will also be a gathering of many of the twenty-seven artists included in the show, which will be great fun as many of these very talented artists do not know each other in person, only through the Web.

To my delight, today, June 15th, on ArtDaily.org (http://www.artdaily.org/), the advance announcement of this exhibition ("Evansville Museum to present a Survey of Contemporary Silverpoint Drawings") has been published, along with one of the images I submitted from different artists. I have to admit that I am pleased - mine was chosen - Creighton Bones (after C. Pissarro). It was a large silverpoint drawing that I did based on a huge cow shin bone that I had picked up on a nearby magical Georgian island, Creighton. Silverpoint is perfect for high key subjects like white flowers, bones, shells...




I had remembered a tiny drawing Pissarro had done of the backside of a cow and it seemed the perfect way to pay homage to Pissarro, one of my favourite artists for his affinity to natural beauty of all types. This drawing is now in the permanent collection of the Evansville Museum.