What Trees tell me

I realise that I am extremely lucky often to be surrounded by very beautiful trees, of very different types according to where I am in the world. I can quite understand why people worshipped trees and why today, there are so-called tree-huggers.

There is a majesty and serenity inherent in a large tree, something that dwarfs human presumptions and quiets one's fears. Their trunks tell of their capacity for endurance, adaptation and survival; their shapes tell of past influences of weather, treatment by man or animal, drought or abundance of rain and nutrients. This huge beech, growing in Givhans Ferry State Park in South Carolina, spoke to me insistently, in the cold spring light. Before long, as I was drawing this in graphite, I was totally at peace, unaware of anything save the tree.

Every time I find myself drawing or painting a tree, I remember s remark that Paul Cezanne apparently made: "Art is a harmony parallel with nature". In the case of trees, as wonderful representatives of nature, they help me achieve a degree of harmony and serenity that is a huge gift. When I perched uncomfortably on a very hard rock to draw this Aleppo Pine on Palma de Mallorca's outskirts, I was oblivious of the curious looks given me by people walking their dogs. I was somehow in harmony with this luminous tree that spoke of times when Palma was not such a sea of concrete.Drawing in silverpoint seemed appropriate for it had the same wonderful luster.



This is another silverpoint drawing of an Aleppo pine, growing far up on the mountains above the city of Palma, where the view takes one far over the sea to the neighbouring island of Ibiza. The driving winds are shaping this pine, as it clings to the rocky mountainside. But it somehow seemed timeless.



These rugged pine trees, growing on a windswept ridge in Brittany, were equally "eternal" in feel, as I sat in a ploughed, muddy field to draw them. Farmers were passing with huge trailers full of manure to fertilise their fields, and they gave me some very curious looks. The crows were calling far overhead in the soft luminously grey sky. It was a time when my art did indeed provide me a passport to a "harmony parallel with Nature".

This quiet that comes to one as one works outside en plein air is especially magical. Nothing else seems temporarily to matter - just the dialogue between what one is trying to depict and one's hand working on the surface of the paper. Yet one hears bird song, the sound of the wind, different calls of humans or animals - but as a backdrop only. It is somehow a different experience to when one is deep in work in the studio, perhaps because of the vagaries of the weather and surroundings. Another aspect also comes into play when trees are the subject matter: they are intensely, logically complicated in their form and growth, and somehow one has to sort that all out, without depicting every single branch or leaf. Each type of tree is totally individualistic, and I liken drawing each one to doing a portrait of a person.

Perhaps, however, one is more likely to be in harmony with trees than with a fellow human being that one is drawing or painting? Who knows!

Using Women in Publicity Images - illustated

When I was in Palma de Mallorca a couple of weeks ago, I blogged about my indignation at seeing beautiful women used to "sell" a new hospital, Son Espases. I still feel it is a completely inappropriate way to publicise the hospital, although I was fascinated to note that various Spanish men I talked to about it were surprised and amused at my reaction!!

Now, thanks to a dear friend's kindness, I can at least illustrate what I was talking about. I will be interested to hear what other people think.

These billboards are all over the city and beyond, telling of the fact that Son Espases is (already) one of the best hospitals in Europe. The fact that the hospital has only just started admitting patients in limited numbers last week is apparently beside the point.

These photos were taken by Claudia Davanzo on a sunny autumn day. I am most grateful to her.

Another museum worth visiting in Mallorca

There is another small museum which has recently opened in Mallorca which offers a delightful focus to a visit to the town of Soller, nestled in a grandiose valley beneath towering mountain ranges, to the north of the island.  Can Prunera is a small museum of modern art, housed in a refurbished Modernist building built between 1909 and 1911, in the era when Antoni Gaudi's influence was paramount.  Many of the restored details of the house are delightfully typical of that time. Gaudi had indeed been working in Palma, restoring and improving the interior of the Seu, the wonderful Gothic Cathedral overlooking the sea.  He had started work there in 1902 but by 1914, he had fallen out with the ecclesiastical authorities and stopped the work.  His influence, however, showed up in many Mallorcan Modernist buildings, and especially in Soller.

Can Prunera houses part of the art collection of newpapers owner, Pedro Serra, who has been instrumental in the refurbishment and launching of the museum through his Fundacion Tren de l'Art and Fundacion d'Art Serra.  His father apparently worked for the Soller-Palma train company for a time, and his son has completed this circle in time.

The day I  visited the Museum, only a few rooms were open.  Miró acquatints gladdened three galleries, and a collection of Picasso ceramics was exhibited in two other galleries.  The connections between Picasso and Miró were underlined by big photo reproductions of the two of them together on different occasions.  Apparently, most of the art planned for exhibition will have some connection with Mallorca. 

Using Women in Publicity Images

In Palma de Mallorca, my home happens to be adjacent to the major regional hospital. The big event at present is that this hospital, Son Dureta, is being phased out and all activity is now transferring to a huge new hospital on the outskirts of Palma. Son Espases, this hospital city, is nearly complete, and consequently, as patients transfer and the staff sorts through the complicated geography and activities, there is a major advertising campaign underway about its launch.

One of the most promient hoarding advertisements about ¨Son Espases - one of the best hospitals in Europe¨ shows a very beautiful woman, her head covered with a surgical cap and a mask over her nose and mouth. Ready for the surgeon to start wielding the knife, in other words. She has wonderfully beautiful eyes. Behind her is a fainter silhouette of a similarly garbed woman.

My reaction initially was, what on earth has a beautiful woman got to do with the quality of a hospital and its services? My second reaction was irritation. Only in a male-dominated situation could it be concluded that a beautiful woman was the best way to sell a hospital! Really!

Images of women are of course habitually the choice way to advertise watches, clothes, accessories, even cars, and alcohol... in Spain ... but somehow it seems to me that it is time that women start protesting at some uses of their images. I wonder what other people think of using beautiful women to sell hospitals?

Interpreting passions

Passions, in my optic, are all those interests and loves and energies that make life sing for each of us. For an artist, sooner or later, passions show up in what one is trying to create. In my case, my love of flowers, trees, birds and nature in general, dictate to a great degree what I will be drawing or painting. My sense of place, be it for coastal Georgia, Africa or Spain, also comes into play in my art-making.

An artist about whose work I have been thinking a lot recently in this context is Miquel Barcelo, the hugely successful Spanish artist who was born in Mallorca in Felanitx in 1957 (www.miquelbarcelo.info). Ironically, he has just been written about in ArtDaily.org of yesterday, 9th April, where his latest opus magnum at the United Nations Palace in Geneva was inaugurated last November. The sea is a bedrock passion for Miquel Barcelo, and it informs a great deal of his art, it seems. I keep thinking back to his huge work in the Capilla del Santisimo in Palma de Mallorca's Gothic Cathedral. It was finished in 2007, and along with thousands of Mallorcans, I saw it on the day the King and Queen of Spain inaugurated it.

What stays in my mind, over and above the wonderful three-dimensional ceramic friezes down the walls of fishes, sponges and other denizens of the sea, is the highly evocative effect Barcelo achieved with subtle grey-blue simple stained glass windows. I recall reading that he was influenced for this whole ensemble by the memories of how the Mediterranean seabed looked, with the light filtering down, as he dived off the coast of Mallorca. His use of the grey plain windows caught exactly the undersea light so typical of Mallorca. Barcelo's passion for the sea made him wonderfully creative in this vast chapel , where Biblical passages married with his own knowledge and love of the sea, its inhabitants and historical treasures deposited there over time.

Again, apparently, in the United Nations Palace in Geneva, Barcelo has returned to his passion for the sea to find a highly innovative way to interpret the continuous motion of the sea. The vast dome of the Human Rights & Alliance of Civilisations Room now represents brightly coloured sea and surf, serene and yet full of movement depending on the light and space in which it is viewed, a metaphor for the union and dialogue needed to face the 21st century challenges. Only an artist deeply passionate about the sea and all its moods could conceive of such vast works of art as Miquel Barcelo has done. A dramatic example for every artist to emulate, using individual passions as sources of creativity.

Celebrating Art in the Teeth of "the Crisis"

In Spain, everyone knows exactly what you mean when you talk of "la crisis". Town halls, autonomous governments, the national government - they are all pretty well broke and red ink drips in all directions. One of the first areas of government expenditure in the Balearics to feel the effects of this fiscal crisis was the cultural scene. The sixteen years of autumn-winter internationally celebrated ballet company visits - gone. The opera season - decimated. The theatre season - hacked. And so it goes at present.

Nonetheless, there are wonderful bright stars in the cultural scene - private groups fighting back and ensuring that there are events that uplift and delight. Last week, there was a week of celebrating the visual arts and music in a small, jewel-like town, Santanyi, in Mallorca. The first weekend showed off the many local artists, while the second week's musical offerings ranged from popular to zarzuela to the single, wonderful performance of Mozart's Le Nozze de Figaro. Under a full moon, a huge courteous crowd of all nationalities sat in the open to be delighted by a beautifully presented and sung version of this delicious opera. It was so clever - the Teatro Principal's stage gets "reversed" for these outdoor performances so that everyone can sit in the open air; the orchestra is at the back of the stage and the singers' stage projects out against the glowing golden stone walls of the theatre. The quality of the singing was impressive and the whole performance was a reaffirmation of what can be done, in spite of "the crisis".

Yesterday showed the same spirit of joy and defiance for the reigning pessimism. In Palma de Mallorca, thirty-one galleries and museums opened their doors at seven p.m. for a wonderful Nit de l'Art. This annual event is sponsored by the Independent Association of Art Galleries in the Baleares (AIGAB) and the Art Palma Contemporani Association of Galleries, in conjunction with the museums and non-profit art spaces in town.

There was art for all tastes - from late 19th and early 20th century painters famed for their depictions of the natural beauty of the Balearics to the most allusive and fleeting performance art, with all manner of art in between. Interesting techniques, challenging concepts, humour and joie de vivre - it was all there to enjoy as you strolled through the historic narrow streets of Palma on a warm summer evening. Restored 17th, 18th or 19th century buildings, high-ceilinged and quirkily elegant, imaginatively adapted as permanent or temporary art galleries, floodlit golden monuments, strains of music floating down the streets beneath the tree canopy, smartly dressed people of all ages strolling, laughing, studying art intently...

It was a kalidescope of scenes that reaffirmed that the arts need to be part of all our lives, no matter what the economic situation.

Fragility in Time - an exhibit of antique glass

In Palma de Mallorca, at the Sa Nostra Savings Bank Foundation headquarters, there is the most exquisite and fascinating exhibition currently on display of antique glass from collections in Catalonia and from Sa Nostra's own collection. Diminutive, elaborate or simple vessels, of great variety and elegance, they spoke to one of an enormous span of time, made all the more eloquent by their fragility. Looking at these diverse pieces of glass, it seems nothing short of miraculous that such artistry could endure so long in pristine form.

As I find so often the case when looking at such an exhibition, this span of time brings one up short in salutary fashion about the so-called importance and skills of our own times. Glass was one of the very first materials that man elaborated - from earth, fire, air and water, the four basic natural elements. Not only does glass possess beauty, but it has certain unique characteristics - it is odourless, it does not confer any taste whatsoever, it is reusable and frequently can be recycled. The fact that glass was probably discovered, by chance, about 5000 BC and has not really changed at all, in its diverse possibilities of use, is an astonishing fact.

Pliny (AD 23-79) recounts that Phoenician merchants transporting stone were the first to discover glass, when they would go ashore and cook their food on circles of stones. The nitrate stones would melt in the fire's heat, mix with the beach sand and water to form an opaque liquid, the first glass. Stone Age man was also using natural glass or obsidian for his arrow heads. In the Book of Job, chrystal and gold are mentioned in the same verse (Job 28.17) as of great value. Cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia also talk precisely about how to make glass.

Certainly the first beautiful beads in the Sa Nostra exhibit were indicative of the luxury and value of these opaque small beads, made in Egypt and East Mesopotamia by 3.500 BC. Slowly, the glass makers developed hollow glass, and pieces from 1,600-1,500 BC have been found in North Syria and Mesopotamia, often using blue glass, with coloured glass strands applied, in their vases and other small pieces that imitated the shape of clay vessels. Apparently, there was already an example of the coincidence of discovery, so often seen since in many disciplines: hollow glass was independently being produced in Mesopotamia, Mycenae, China and the North Tyrol about 1.600 BC.

History does indeed repeat itself : Thoutmosis III, Pharaoh of Egypt (1504-1450 BC), brought Asian glass makers to Egypt as prisoners to develop the glass industry. His seal has been found on glass pieces. Glass remained a luxury item, however; it was regarded as important enough a commodity to have a glass making manual included in Assyrian King Ashurbanipal's magnificent library in 650 BC. From the archaeological finds and these documents, we know that the Eastern Mediterranean, was a major glass making centre, but that until about the first century BC, vessels were formed by rolling molten glass onto a clay/dung core. Despite that laborious process, the results are just as delicate and elegant as the later versions of blown glass. Glass blowing was developed in Syria and Babylonia during the period 27 BC - 14 AD, with glass blown through a tube, as today, but also blown into a mould. Sa Nostra's examples of both methods were memorable, mostly small but wonderfully diverse in colour and form.

The Romans of course were the magnificent propagators of the glass industry, spreading glass and glass making knowledge far and wide though their empire. Many of the pieces in the Sa Nostra collection came from finds in the neighbouring Balearic island of Ibiza, as well from the Spanish mainland. Sidon and Alexandria remained important glass centers and many of the pieces in the exhibition came from those cities. Blown glass permits more diversity of shape and thus allows glass to compete much more directly with metal and ceramic vessels, heretofore the only ones widely used in daily life. Glass became less of a luxury item, more useful for all, diverse yet standardised, and rapidly produced. As the Roman Empire waned, glass manufacture became more utilitarian and less diverse, whilst elsewhere, its elaborate manufacture continued, eventually to flower again in the Muslim world. The 13th and 14th century saw the apogee of Muslim glass manufacture and then glass making skills declined to the utilitarian once more. Later centuries brought more peaks and valleys in glass manufacture, until the revival of recent centuries. Today's wonderful glass artists, from Murano to Mallorca itself to individuals like Dale Chilhuly, William Morris and many others, have become the new alchemists of the glass world, fantastic heirs to those long-ago Mesopotamian and Egyptian artists of the small, the exquisite and the fragile. Go and see this exhibition at Sa Nostra if you are in Palma de Mallorca before August 26th. You will be entranced.

As we move into 2010 in the art world

Happy New Year to everyone! May 2010 be a wonderful year for all.

As I watched the New Year come in under a brilliant full moon shining over Palma de Mallorca, I could not help but think that this decade would probably be as full of radical changes in the art world as in all the other domains, be they financial, technological or environmental.

Each of us, as artists, is constantly trying to think of new and better ways to approach the creation of art. However, one of the most interesting - and metaphorically eloquent, perhaps - ways of creating art has been flowering in the United States and and further afield: the framed reproduction of your personal DNA. On sale on the Net, adorned with jewels or other items to your taste, the DNA picture seems to me to be emblematic of our lifestyle tastes of today. Good or bad - who knows? It is certainly a very personal piece of art that you can put on your walls.

I was looking at an example of this art in an illustration I saw in the Diario de Mallorca last week, and could not help thinking of Josef Albers and his use of colour theory. Perhaps the DNA pictures could be allied to his sense of colour... The history of colour theory is enough to make any artist dizzy, but it does reward by study! Not only the history of the use of colour, but the history of paint pigments themselves make for the most fascinating reading. Having wandered into the world of pigments, artists often then get totally hooked on learning more of the dramatic stories behind the pigments' productions and discoveries. An enthralling book which I read when it came out in 2001 is Bright Earth. Art and the Invention of Color by Philip Ball, published by the University of Chicago Press. Having learned about pigments' histories, I had a far better appreciation not only of the paints I use when I am painting in watercolours, but every painting I view in a museum has an additional layer of interest as I look at the pigments the artist used.

I wonder if that will be said, ten years hence, of the DNA pictures that are increasingly adorning people's walls. Any bets on this aspect of the future art world?

Sunlight and Shadows

Today is a day of heavy flat light, laden with humidity and heat, here on the Georgia coast. All contours are softened, distances are blurred and somehow the scene is flat and almost featureless. It is a day that makes me long for the bright sharp sunlight of the Mediterranean. It also makes me realise how much landscape artists are influenced by the ambient light.

Think, for instance, of Japanese artists. Down the ages, in their nature-based art, the Japanese have been very aware of the play of light on rocks, trees, architecture. Shadows, the corollary of sunlight, are a natural function of their architecture, for example, with the broad eaves on buildings casting wonderful angled shadows. The ultimate interpretation of the beauty of light can be seen in their black lacquer ware, flecked with gold or silver. Viewed by lantern or candlelight, this lacquer ware evokes their northern, sea-influenced light in haunting fashion.

At the other extreme are Western artists who work in the brilliance of Mediterranean light. Take, for example, two of Spain's artists, Joaquin Sorolla from Valencia and Joaquin Mir from Barcelona. Sorolla (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Sorolla_y_Bastida) was multi-faceted in his art, ranging from wonderful luminous portraits to vast historical paintings and, my favourites, landscapes flooded with light. In fact, a quote by Edmund Peel from James Gibbons Huneker, in the book, The Painter, Joaquin Sorolla, says it all: Sorolla..."the painter of vibrating sunshine without equal..." It is interesting to study Sorolla's paintings: many of his landscapes which include figures have dramatically bold, abstract shadows (such as his paintings of Valencian fisher women). Yet landscapes done in Javea, Valencia or Malaga, in mainland Spain's Mediterranean coast, are often painted in a very narrow range of values, without dramatic shadows. Even more deliriously high key are some of his depictions of the almost incandescent cliffs and headlands in Mallorca, especially the sun-drenched scenes of Cala San Vicente in the north-east of the island.

Interestingly, Mallorca, with its amazing light, was also the springboard for Joaquin Mir's greatest successes. A contemporary of Sorolla (who lived from 1863-1923), Mir was born in Barcelona in 1873 and lived until 1940. Colour and light were the keys to his art : "All I want is for my works to lighten the heart and flood the eyes and the soul with light", he said in 1928. He forged his own path to celebrating the Mediterranean sunlight and shadows, sometimes veering to realism, other times towards abstraction, but always seeking to interpret the beauty he saw in a delirium of colour and light. He borrowed the Impressionists' palette of colours, eschewing black, but he used the colours in his own highly original fashion. When you see Mir's works done in Mallorca, you can feel the wonderfully clear light pulsating over everything - the Es Baluard Museum has a number of these canvases (http://www.esbaluard.org).

Perhaps evoking the clarity of Mediterranean light will help banish the Georgian grey skies of humid heat.... I can but hope!