Painting Weir

This little painting will be included in the Weir Farm National Historic Site 25th anniversary exhibition. The show, I think, includes only past artists-in-residence, although certainly not all one hundred and fifty of them!

An artist friend of mine recently suggested I always lean toward beauty. Now beauty is a complex subject, particularly for artists, but I will say I was leaning toward my kind of beautiful in this work, a collapsing of distance and intimacy, the mood suggested by the light. Artists tend to be suspicious of the concept of beauty. In a nutshell, because it suggests convention, formal entrapment, taken farther -even patriarchy. If you've ever wondered why much heralded contemporary art is so often visually, um, vomitous, it is often because the artist wants to escape the beauty trap. Of course, I work within the landscape form, have always dealt with hard line reactions to it, and find navigating convention and discovery quite challenging.

If you happen to be in the Wilton or Ridgefield, Connecticut area after May first, consider dropping by to see the exhibit. The studio and house of J.A. Weir will be open as well as the grounds and walking trails. Visit the Weir Farm NHS site for more info (although nothing there about the exhibit).

Gettysburg

I visited Gettysburg for a new project. Below are some images from the first two days.

I arrived in the evening on Saturday, van camping at a state park in the hills to the west. In the morning, I opened my eyes to this.

The map, marked up as I explored, indicating forest or field.

Everything Thereafter

If you've ever wondered what it is I am painting about in the park, give this a read. Do you paint? Or are you in college looking for a beautiful way to earn summer credits? My one week intensive painting studio course  'Landscape and Meaning' is this summer in Bennington, VT at Art New England -registration is now live.  Your perspective is guaranteed to change. Also, if you haven't checked out the Museum of the City of New York's exhibit Rising Waters, I've got a shot in there, in the 2.0 section. The exhibit, at 103rd and 5th Ave, is up until March 31.

I'm also starting a new page, linked on the top bar that will consolidate my writing on art and issues relevant to art. This will be entirely its own site, all I have to do is come up with a name that is available and just as catchy as NYCGARDEN (wink). School starts today (thank you snow storm) instead of yesterday, a new class to put together, applications to things, craziness in our lab, and a new studio that is still insanely disorganized thanks to our record time in Minnesota. And the apartment is colder than it is outside.

So I like to look at this:

But Not Before....

I finish this winter.

The Art Of Patience

Paintings may take years.

Much work, but little progress.

But then, this is there, complete, essentially realized.

The muddy spot, long dry, demanded a plank bridge.

I started it, someone else finished it. Patient, then impatient. I am detail oriented, straight lines should be straight, take the time to get them that way -even on dumb, back trail planks. Not everyone thinks this way, most think in terms of getting it done. Then, shamefully, I become aware -volunteering is not about me. I got paintings, gardens, even blogs for that.

A Pea Grows In Brooklyn

It is well too soon to say for sure, but it is quite possible that sometime in mid to late May I will be speaking with Amy Eddings, host of WNYC's All Things Considered, in a segment which I believe runs regularly under the title "Last Chance Foods" -produced by Joy Wang. It was Joy who had contacted me after visiting this here blog. It's possible we will talk about growing peas and pea shoots, and now I'm thinking of growing every pea seed I have in my seed box. What is it about being interviewed that makes you wish you were an expert?

Speaking of peas, I noticed this pea growing not far from our stoop, sharing the nasty, nasty space with the utility poles. A pea grows in Brooklyn -indeed, but from where did it's seed hail?

These are the tomatoes, their growth stunted somewhat by sending them outside on sunny days. Some are beginning to yellow, cotyledons shriveled, and roots extending below their bond tube pots. Now they begin to demand potting up and whisper to hell with your peas.

I recently watered with more fish fertilizer, which I think instigated this bout with fungus at the pots' bottoms. I rubbed it off, filled the plastic containers with some soil, and shrug it off. Still a month before tomato planting time at the beach farm.

A painting I have been working on, with which I am finally hitting my stride. When it's time to plant the tomatoes, the park will look like this, and when the tomatoes are planted, this painting ought to be finished.

Start Dancing

The broccoli and leek starts are dancing in the warmer than expected weather.

The snap peas are up in the cut bond paper tubes. The roots come way out the bottoms.

Alright, just one, amongst the black mesh that keeps the cats from doing their business.

It's hard for me not to want to stop right here.

Freedom Coach

I was in the studio the other day, working on some unfinished paintings. On the radio was Fresh Air. Terry Gross was interviewing Jonathan Franzen. I had read his book The Corrections and, after the interview, am considering his new book Freedom. I was interested in something he had to say on adulthood:

"And the key moment of becoming an adult, the difference, one of the defining differences between an adult and a kid is that adults relinquish a certain kind of freedom. You can't lie around on your bed all afternoon, and you can't be possibly any number of things. You have to only be one thing, or a couple of things (my italics)."

I am haunted by this. What does one want to do with one's life? Fumble along with the impulsively formed ideas of a teenager? What of making money? The notion of being "one thing" has been going on a tear in my mind the last few years, growing in strength as I approached 40. What is it that keeps me from painting every free moment? How much time should my garden activities be taking? Should I be making a living in the landscape, instead of my current job? It's like I have been living a life visible through a kaleidoscope, looking in there are all these pieces of me spinning around, somehow not whole or resolved, but you know there is a whole person there.

When I was in residence at Weir Farm last year, I spent much more time exploring the landscape than painting. I read books, I photographed, I blogged. Why paint when I can communicate in such a rapid manner? Why paint the fleeting light, the shifting values? Why paint at all?

I've been working on a small group of Prospect Park images. Each includes people -this is unusual for me. The colors are insanely green, toxic green. My colors are not to everyone's taste, but then what is?

Neither of these is near done yet, although this one is a little further along. Space, atmosphere, distance is important. People get hooked on technique, but that's just a means to the desired end.

_________________________________

I left the studio to do a garden coaching session. I had been considering removing this service from the blog, and was about to, until I was contacted by Aimee last week. She moved to a new place, had a history of gardening, and just needed some advice. I was a little early, so I walked around the block.

Pokeweed allowed to grow ornamentally.

Those berries look so good -don't!

The session went well -jeez, like it should! She had giant fig trees and some old shrubs (hibiscus, privet, forsythia) in the yard, decent, but dry, soil and an amenable landlord. An amazing yard, actually, with plenty of opportunity for growing. And lots of figs -a squirrel chowed down on them while we talked.

Afterward, I thought about making a living in gardens or landscapes. I thought about my dead end job. I thought about my mother in Florida trying to live on social security alone. I thought about painting. I thought about being 66 years old without much feeling of security. I thought about Jonathan Franzen writing a book called Freedom.

Finished.

Landscape (Minnesota)

Well, 97%.

A Night Radio

I was listening to Studio 360 this morning while at the studio. I actually got off the internet, out of the house and to the studio by 10 am. Hard to imagine on a Saturday.  I heard this poem on the program, by Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, called A Night Radio:

I am holding a soldering iron

tinkering with a '49 Philco

Despite warm tubes, the radio is stubbornly silent

but its odor still fresh, mesmerizes me

Why do ears wish to hear beyond their capacity?

I think we hear much too much nowadays

and I feel nostalgic over this broken radio's silence

I can't say which is the more important to me,

tinkering with the radio or writing a poem

I long for the days when I'd nothing to do with poems

and walk those dusty childhood roads

But I've forgotten about women and friends 

as though time did not exist

I just wanted to hear, should have heard something more

My breath held, my ear cocked in every summer's towering clouds

In the muttering of family get-togethers in an untidy room

Refusing to compress living into a story

This is how I feel, often enough when I am working on a painting -particularly a stubborn painting. I long for the days when I'd nothing to do with paintings and walk those dusty childhood roads. It was comforting to hear someone with as much achievement as Tanikawa express this feeling. And to bring back that childhood feeling -a warm evening, focused intensely on some activity, some doing and all time is lost. Nothing exists but the warm, now cooling, envelope of air, a dimming light, your hands and mind. The intensity of love of life in that moment.

This painting has been kicking my butt for too long