Blog

I felt like a deer in the headlights every time I walked into my art studio. The walls had been painted a glaring primer white by our home's previous owners (the effect compounded by the white berber carpet they had installed), and I lived with it for two years. And I cursed it for two years. Cold white is tough to live with, especially if you are in the business of color, and each stroke of paint I put on my canvas contrasted way too much with my pristine surroundings.

Last weekend I decided to change all that. I canvassed artist friends by email and facebook for suggested color choices, and I got a wide range:

Red - I'm thinking this was from a person who has successfully used this color as a background for displaying art, and who did not have to consider how much hot color can bounce off a red wall, affecting color choices for an artist's canvas.

Blue - See above, except the reflecting color would be very cold.

Sage Green - This was a very popular suggestion, and I have two artist friends whose studios are beautifully toned this color. However, since I seem to use a lot of red in my paintings, I thought using a complementary color might overemphasize that color.

Gray - That could have worked, maybe. Again, my bright colors certainly would have been set off against that color.However, I wanted something a bit richer.

Ochre - This was a possibility, if it were not too bright or too warm.

I googled a few artists' forums discussing this topic and had a "Eureka!" moment. One artist (I tried to find her name again to give her credit but was unsuccessful) said she chose brown. At first that did not seem very appealing, but she explained that she chose a brown that was not too light, not too dark, not too warm, but not too cool...in other words, like the Baby Bear's bed in Red Ridinghood...just right. She went on to say that this brown was a paper bag color. I quickly pulled out my roll of brown wrapping paper that I always mean to put on the back of my paintings to make them look clean and professional, held it up to my studio wall, put a small, framed painting up against it, and it was good.

Off to Lowe's with my wrapping paper swatch, I easily found a paint color that was a pretty close match and a nice brown besides. It was called "Sauteed Mushrooms", and I think that says it all. It just sounds warm and cozy and pleasant to be around, exactly the effect I desired. The lighting for the photos above make the color look pretty warm, but it is actually a kind of taupy-brown, neither warm nor cold. My "weekend project" was completed in eight days, and I am very happy.

                                                                                         

I have just finished viewing a very strong series of art lectures by Scott Burdick on Utube, "BeautyPart1-4". Gorgeous photos of paintings, too. He maintains that art is not Art unless there is beauty, and that what has been passing as art - expensive art at that - such as Jackson Pollak's spattered paint offerings, does not have any beauty at all, and therefore is not art. 

I agree with Burdick, but I guess I have a broader definition of art...or maybe a broader definition of beauty. The Bellows paintings of boxers just wow me, even though they are tough and sinewy. So, I guess the well-executed depiction of strength and power is also a type of beauty. But, this is not disagreeing with Burdick, just interpreting. I find the lovely colors in a Mark Rothko painting pleasant to look at, so it is art to me - just maybe not the best art, at least to my eye. Surely skill should come into the picture as well, and painting squares, even without masking tape, is not all that hard...come on! Another bias I have is this: if it has to be explained to be appreciated, maybe it isn't good art anyway. Just saying...

But anyone with any common sense would draw the line at true art atrocities, such as Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain", which plunks a urinal on a stand and calls it "art". And yet I read that in 2004 his "art" was voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals. That is stunning - stunning and scary.
 
So that leads us to wonder just who these "experts" are and how strong is their power. The answer is that their power - what Burdick calls "the power to ignore" - is why many "important" art museums are filled with art that representational artists laugh at, why National Endowment for the Arts funding goes to the most outrageous examples of creation, and why large newspapers such as the New York Times announce through their art critics that the most important works are the ones that are uber-modern, ostentatiously ignoring the wonderful, important works by representational artists, whose works will be around for hundreds of years - long after the urinals of the art world have been laughed at and demolished.

You should watch Burdick's lecture in its entirety, and he ends by saying that today's art critics and curators have The Power to Ignore (representational art, that is) and that they get rich knowing who is going to be promoted by the elite art world, like a Ponzi scheme in an esthetic underground. Wow.

Some time ago a painter friend of mine was describing the work of a well-known figurative oil painter by saying that her paintings of female models are so beautiful and detailed that you can even see the little edges of her fingernails. I will agree that her work is absolutely beautiful and commands an impressive price in the art world. It is indeed great work.

But, you know, the kind of paintings I most admire are those that tell the story with less fuss, fewer details, employing strokes of paint that are bold, obvious, and "out there" for everyone to see, not fudged and smudged and softened to death. Slap the paint down, go for simplicity - like Zorro with his sword! I don't mean sloppy and slap dash. It takes skill and bravery and a willingness to fail to paint like this. But the results are fresh and exciting!

I admire many artists who are amazing in their ability to paint in this manner. Two of them are Michelle Torrez and Kim English - look them up. Meanwhile, I have included an image of a study done awhile back that still pleases me. I think it gets the point across.

Southwest Art Magazine quoted me this month (and I was so honored to see my few words in print) as saying that I like to "emphasize a figure in motion or create a strong mood while using the fewest number of strokes possible." And this is what pleases my eye.