Making meaningful art

Have you ever watched as you back up your IPad photos?  I just saw my life over the last four  years flash before my eyes.  My IPad 2 turns 4 in nine days.  It just won't hold its charge any more.  I see parallels with my own life especially with art production.  I am all intention and I quickly dwindle.

But back to the photos.  There were a lot of photos of my work and vacation pics.   As they flitted onto the computer I understood why there is so much blue in my recent work, and why water and sky have begun to dominate my imagery.  Many of the pics were of a Mediterranean cruise out of Venice and various shots from the south of England = sky and water.

Minack Gardens, Cornwall

View from Doc Martin's House, Port Issac, Cornwall

Grand Canal, Venice 

And of course my summer place is always about the scene in front of me, sky and water.


And from those experiences work springs forth.  Some make it to the Leyton Gallery and others are experiments....

 Above and Below 10 x 12 in. 2012 encaustic and paper on cradled panel

Lost fishing nets floating in the vast ocean under a moonlit sky

Experiment...  Water on sun lit pebbles in a shallow pond, encaustic monotype, later chopped into squares and rearranged into a grid

 Experiment (Gulch Duntara), encaustic, just to the left of my house looking down from the road into the water

On the bay, 2012 encaustic monotype applied to hardboard

This work is a direct response to sitting  in my rocking chair looking out the bay for hours over many days.  An artist friend now has it on his wall.  That makes me very happy.  Of course having his work on my wall makes me even happier.  

So my work is becoming more landscape oriented.  I didn't plan this; it just happened. 

Some artists are  very focused and develop a "look" that is recognizable. They strive to achieve this and many buyers like this predictability.   My work is not like that;  I am an intuitive responder to all that is around me.  One of my friends often points out  (not in a negative way) how different my work looks from year to year, but I admit, it makes me feel like a bit of an artistic fraud at times.

 While these land and sea pieces have a coherency, they are very different from my  Remnant series and my Reading a Garden work. But, when I stand back and consider this I realize that to the untrained eye it might appear that way, but woven into everything I do is my response to the passage of time, and no where is it more obvious than in nature.

How about you?  Is there a tight coherency in your art making or does the work evolve without your planned consent?

Interview

Check out the interview I had about my Reading a Garden exhibition. I just discovered it was up on the CBC NL website here.

What's up now?

I woke this morning just in time to hear my interview on Weekend Arts Magazine. After it was taped I couldn't remember one word I had uttered. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I sounded articulate and hopefully interesting to listeners. My artist talk went fairly well today after technology glitches got straightened out. It doesn't seem to matter how much you prepare ahead of time with machines- they get you in the end. It was great to see old friends and new faces for the talk. Jeanette Jobson, fellow blogger showed up and it made me feel very connected to blogland.

That was my last commitment for awhile. I feel fancy free right now. Tomorrow I go to my summer house for two weeks of relaxation and painting. I am in a summer show at the Leyton Gallery at the end of June and I plan to finish two paintings for it. I have some general ideas that will become specific as I start to paint.

My posting decreases greatly in the summer months because the only internet access is by dial up. This summer we've decided we just can't bear the slowness and would rather do without. Email by Blackberry and cell phone will be our connection to the outside world. This will have to do.

All of my work is now up on the Leyton Gallery site for those interested in checking it out. My next post will be in two weeks.

Exhibition opening

Openings are invigorating and tiring at the same time. I left the gallery today with mixed feelings. I enjoyed talking to people about my work, but I certainly enjoyed coming home to a quiet room. Two years out of your life painting, painting, painting, and then suddenly it's all over.

It was a lovely afternoon. Many friends and family as well as other artists showed up. My work always looks so much smaller and brighter in a gallery setting. Much thought was put into how the work would be paired and hung. I liked the overall effect. Next Sunday I'm giving an artist talk about the work and my two week stay in the gardens at Birr Castle.

Looking for a quiet corner to take a shot literally put me in a corner. This shot mimics my compositions. My isolation and the compression of the two walls made my portrait correspond to some of the tight compositions I'd used in the work. An artist friend, and mentor (much younger than I am), noted that this work is the one that is fighting for more space visually. I agreed. This work received much consideration over the last few months. In the end I decided that the scale of the flowers worked for me. Daylilies are bright and sprawling plants that always seek space and attention.

This gives a good idea of the spacing and groupings used to present the work. It was a challenge to hang the show because all the pieces were the same size and format. My intent was to provide slices of a garden as if one was looking through a hedge opening or the bars in a gate. No lush panoramas for me! One of the strategies we used to break the visual sameness of the format was to provide various groupings and uneven spacing between the works.

I hope all his serious discussion is about my work, but I doubt it. Long time friend Helen is talking to my daughter Sara. They hadn't seen each other in years. Sasha is a blurr of movement. It was her first opening and she took it all in. Any reason to wear a party dress is impressive for a three year old.

Oh,Poppa! There's treats on the table. Let's go...

One of the difficult things about hanging this work was trying to provide relief from the obsessive amount of detail in each piece. There were not many works that had visual resting places but we did find ways to break up the detail with larger forms and colour. This grouping of three was one of the solutions we used to calm things down.

These are four of my eight encaustic pieces that focused on the benches on the property where I sat and wrote my reflections over my two week stay. If you enlarge the shot you will see that some of my text has been layered into the work. Small and eloquent, these are some of my favourite works.

It was a great afternoon.

The last piece

Tomorrow my exhibition opens at The Leyton Gallery. Everything is done and up on the gallery walls. I'm just waiting to dress up and appear. I always get last minute jitters. It's putting yourself out there that's the difficult thing. Your art is so much a part of who you are, you laying your soul bare that causes the stress . As my friend says "It is what it is".

This is the last piece I created in the series.

Sunset 10 x 24, mixed media on board

It 's different from the others. There's quite a bit of actual patterning in it and it is definitely decorative in nature rather than realistic. Perhaps it heralds a new style, interest, focus etc. Time will tell.

Just a little history to ground the work.... There's quite a history of plant collecting noticeable as you walk around Birr Castle Demesne. Many trees were collected from China. In the exhibition centre on the grounds you can see some of the correspondence that references this. It was quite prominent in its day, but this practice has waned over the years for many reasons.

Is this piece also the sunset for my Reading a Garden? Maybe, maybe not.

Travelling gal

I'm home! Do I still remember how to write a blog post? I guess I do. Today I have the opposite problem I usually have when I sit down to write. There are too many topics rattling around in my brain and all my reference photos have yet to make the journey from camera to computer.

I plan a series of posts about the highlights of my two week trip to New York, Springfield, Boston, and points in between here and there, but it will be awhile before they are composed because my immediate life dictates time in the studio. I an off to Banff, Alberta for CARFAC's National Conference of Visual Artists on May 12 and then to Kelowna, British Columbia to visit friends before returning home on May 23 .

With just one week in between my two trips I have a short window of opportunity to do all those last minute things to get my work delivered to the gallery on May 25. My heart is beating a little faster these days. I haven't felt this time crunch and the resulting body stress since I left my full time job as a school board consultant nine years ago.

Today I have to revise my artist statement, write a draft press release (this takes me days) and begin to consider titles for 11 works. Then there's repainting the sides of all my cradled panels and varnishing eleven pieces, wiring backs, signing work, and sighing many times as the days progress.

For the regular readers of my blog.... I was very excited to meet Kathy Cartwright and Carolyn Abrams at the Clark Museum during my trip . My friend Carol drove for two hours so I could have this experience. For that I am very grateful. Reading blogs gives you a good idea of what people are like as individuals. I was not disappointed in meeting Kathy and it was also great to meet Carolyn and talk about her independent study with Kathy. When Kathy posted about our meeting, I had a great chuckle at the photo of me. Tip: never stand in front of a beige wall for a photo if you have white hair. I was the great disappearing act and certainly not the center of interest in the photo!

If I could go back

As I come to the end of my series "Reading a Garden" I've been thinking about my whole stay at Birr Castle Demesne which was that experience that prompted the creation of this blog. I wanted to publicly chart my progress as I created the series and to use my writing as an opportunity for personal reflection. As time went by other art work and interests began to creep into my posts. I'm now wondering how the blog will change as a result of this natural conclusion to two years of garden work. I'm at another pivotal point in my career as I wait for the next focus to overtake me. I have a feeling I am not finished with gardens yet.

The Bothy

Blogger Sherwood Harrington and fellow Bothy inhabitant, gets to visit the Demesne again this summer. He asked if I could go again what would I bring back. Now I'm thinking even harder. It's a case of now that I've done it, I know how to do it. I assume he doesn't mean a physical object!

There are many things I would change about how I absorbed the property from a personal and artistic viewpoint. Here goes in no particular order:


I missed the lilacs and poppies, both flowers I love; therefore, I would want to change the time of my visit to correspond to blooming times of my favourite plants . That would mean going before the end of June as I did.


I would document my time in the garden in more detail, especially my personal reflections about what I was feeling and observing. Since I've begun to work on the series I've had many moments of "I wish I had..."


While I took a lot of photographs, I would take different ones on another visit. One area of interest is close up views of textures which is where my new work seems to be headed. Surfaces of rocks, vines, flower petals, earth, moss - the overlooked and intricate.


I've also thought about all the secret spots there are in the garden. Those kinds of places that we would seek out as a child to hide in or place small treasures. I would like to have a photographic reference file for these "hidey holes".



The wildflower meadow was beautiful. On another trip I would hunt down a good wildflowers of Ireland reference book and become better acquainted with the names and descriptions of specific flowers. Comparisons with the flowers in the meadows around my summer house could lead to interesting combined works based on both places.

I would also spend time in the furthest outreaches of the Demesne. I think I missed quite a bit of the wilder side of the property.

One of the greatest aspects of my blogging world is the online friends I've made. I had no idea it would be this way when I made my first post.

Web

Moving right along with another work completed in my Reading a Garden series. You could get lost in the intricacy of this one. I've been painting it for months when the mood hit me. It isn't the kind of painting you can execute in a week. The vines draw you into their maze.

When I came across this vine clinging to the side of a stone wall I was reminded of circuits, wires etc. . The sending of information is part of life in the natural and man made world. Plants have life pathways just as humans do. Sometimes these pathways wither and new ones grow, information is re-routed, the job of growth continues.

When I imagine the world wide web, I conjure up this kind of image of lines going off is all directions, layered and complicated.

Preserved

Preserve:
- to keep alive or in existence;
- make lasting, to protect or spare

- to keep possession of; retain

- to prepare so as to resist decomposition

Plants come to the end of their cycle and decay back to the earth only to resurrect themselves the following spring. Some people are interested in
preserving the beauty of flowers and saving them from their eventual demise.

Pressing is one of the simplest methods of preserving flowers, but the relief is lost and the flower is reduced to flatness. It is questionable if the essence of the flower is maintained. Perfection is difficult to attain and maintain. A walk around any garden is a reminder of this.

Giganteum

One of the huge attractions at Birr Castle Demesne is the Red Tree Trail which is a marked collection of 50 trees of distinction. The small guide book, The Red Tree Trail: 50 Trees of Distinction was kept with me during my reflections and roamings. My rebellious nature didn't allow me to follow the trail sequentially; I liked to come upon a tree by chance and then find out more about it. I missed some, but I believe I found the ones that were important for me to know. After returning home I explored some of the trees in more detail.

One of my followers and fellow Birr Castle Demesne dweller, Sherwood Harrington illustrated the trail in great detail through photography here. This collection of trees is like a globe trotting experience which takes you from Mexico to China in several hours of walking.

I've represented the trail with two very different works in my series. My magnolia painting was posted early in my blogging. My latest is of this tree first sighted during one of my early morning bench reflections.

Where I come from trees don't get this big. For a better sense of it check out Sherwood's Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant redwood) .

Sequoiadendron giganteum which comes from The Sierra Nevada range in California is now efficiently conserved following reduction in the species by the lumbering industry.

It was introduced to Ireland in 1855 and the best specimens have grown to 40 m high. It towers above the vegetation around it and can be seen across fields and hedges. I imagined it as a garden lighthouse. Standing next to it made me feel very insignificant.

After running through many ideas about how to best represent this stately tree, I resorted to this composition. Different I know from the amount of obsessive detail in my other pieces. This is mostly textured collage and acrylic paint. Little painting occurred except for the sign which I've done four times and decided it is now perfect (which it isn't). The piece also references the scientific focus of the Demesne owners who for centuries were involved in the collecting and cultivation of new species of plants and trees.

Breaking rules

You are never really alone in your studio if you have an art blog and pose a question. I find this aspect of blogging so helpful. I appreciate the time my readers take to participate in any discussion that is prompted by my posts. My last post is a perfect example of contemplative input from my readers. I struggled with this painting to move it beyond an ordinary floral painting and provide something new for the viewer to consider. This intent drove me to break rules that are pretty basic in composition. Never lead the eye out of the top of the composition with strong vertical lines.

There's always a but.... I drove the eye up to consider the aspect of daylight and the connection. I added textural elements with organic overtones to connect the daylight with the plant and its growth. My intention was to stop the eye with texture and move it around rather than out.
Don stated it very eloquently...
"I get the sense of the flower starting its day in its infancy growing thru the day into its glorious maturity at which point it suddenly shatters against the ceiling of its short lifespan. My last impression ends there, since nothing takes me back into the composition to show this cycle recurring. We only get one shot at life...

Do I leave it there or do I provide some hope for remaking ourselves? I'm torn.

While one particular daylily has a short life of glorious bloom and withers, they, like most plants, live through cyclical rotations and I love them for this passage of hope. I feel a need to provide a subtle route for the eye back down to begin the cycle of consideration again - through fiddling with the right top side.

I'm still toying with some dark webbing texture at the bottom of the painting.... it content v.s. composition. Time will tell. More hanging in front of my painting table and movement around the house.

Something tells me that this work will get a lot of consideration in the next while. I have a 24 x 36 inch board staring back at me and I'm scared by the 864 square inches of space. My largest painting to date has been 20 x 24. I'm challenging myself. Nothing's happened so far. Gesso would be a safe bet and a wash of yellow. How is that for commitment?

A solution

This particular painting, which no longer exists in this way, was causing me problems. I was dissatisfied with the composition at the top and I could not seem to get it to reflect what originally drew me to the topic - the temporality of the daylily with its one day lifespan. As a painting I found my attempt somewhat boring and it didn't live up to the level of "sophistication" I had achieved in some of the other paintings in the series. When I presented this work in an earlier post, I had several excellent suggestions from my readers, all of which I took under advisement. They helped to get me thinking.








This is what the painting now looks like. It either works or it doesn't work at all. My solutions are usually like that. I reach a point where I just say "Go for it!" As for a title... maybe Daybreak

Comments greatly appreciated especially those of a critical nature...

A special view

It is difficult to roam around a garden and ignore benches. The artful gardener knows just where a bench is needed and why it should be placed there. There is a control element in garden design and benches in particular can be used to order a garden visitor's experiences.

Benches can be beautiful and functional at the same time. There's no limit to the materials used to create them; twigs, metal, wood, stone, tree stumps, ceramic and even more obscure materials make bench construction interesting and a bit of an art form.

Some benches are tucked away, waiting to be discovered, others sit in the open or in wild areas where you would never expect to see one. A garden bench calls out to me to sit and view my surroundings. It's a seated perspective and a long view. Because you take time and you are closer to the ground your observations are keener. Your pace is automatically slowed and your mind follows suit. In this freed state the world around you is ready for your approval. Contemplation and reflection are invited. I had plenty of opportunities for this type of viewing during my two week stay at Birr Castle Demesne. Because I sat and wrote on different benches every day, my journey through the gardens is tied to them.

This bench marks the beginning of my two week reflection .

Early morning, it is cool and quiet and there is dew on the grass. (Believe me not the date and time on the photo!) The gardens are not yet open to the public. I hear the distant hum of a machine and the wood pigeons are sending up their usual chorus. My travelling companions are fast asleep in The Bothy and the world is mine to explore.

Sun's out but it is still cool. We've been out travelling about the countryside but through it all I long for my reflection time.

I can still conjure up how I felt on these benches and now I've begun nine small 8 x 10 encaustic works for my show that will represent this section of my experiences "Reading a Garden". There's much more to come on this topic.

Where am I?

I feel the menace of my solo show in May breathing down my back. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it ties me in knots. Today I am in knots. I'm finally coming to the end of my very detailed visual slices of the garden which focus on an up-close view of many of the things that go unnoticed by visitors. I'll write more about how I came to choose this unusual format for my garden pieces nearer the completion of the work. But here's a little to move us along....

While the work looks extremely realistic it is not real. Each work is constructed from multiple views and angles of the same scene. These constructions are similar to the kind of collapsing that occurs with our memory of experiences as time adds her cloak. I plan to have 16 or 18 painting of this format depending on how severely I cull my work before the show. It's a good thing they are coming to an end because I don't normally work with this much detail and my neck is killing me.

These dainty little rock roses are exquisite with their centre sparkle. They are flowers that give their all and then quickly fizzle into a rain of petals. Their temporary nature appeals to me in the same way that the daylily plant does. They are reminders not to waste too many precious minutes of our lives. The abstracted, organic, root like background at the top references the cyclic nature of the plant kingdom. I don't have a title yet and I think I'm finished the painting.

The works in this series are more about pattern and less about highly realistic rendering. When you size them up closely, I've broken many rules. I'm struggling with providing enough information to form the plants and make them recognizable and realistic. I've constantly played with depth and scale, used limited shadows and take great liberties with point of view to create a more patterned effect.

I've regained my focus after a fall of mostly thinking and writing about art without actually completing any new work for my Reading a Garden series. Why this sudden change? I'm having a solo show of this series at the Leyton Gallery of Fine Art at the end of May, 2010. Deadlines are a great thing!

I need 20 paintings for the show in May. I have 14 almost completed. My problem is that the wildflower meadow, an important part of my experiences at Birr Castle Demesne, is now unrepresented in the series. Both wildflower meadow paintings from the garden series have sold.

The wildflower meadow was my personal link with the Demesne. It was the kind of garden I understood. After I came back from Ireland, I photographed the meadow around my summer house as a point of comparison (see previous post). I've decided to replace the

two meadow paintings with a new one created with reference material from my own wildflower meadow. This new piece will be a bridge from here to Ireland, from my earlier life to my stay at the Demesne. I understand meadows; they are not foreign, structured or inaccessible. Wildflowers are much the same everywhere.



Certainly meadows are not exactly new content for painters. It is the predictability of the imagery that I am attracted to. The first reproduction I ever purchased was Durer's Tall Grasses. The close up view was one I understood and was attracted to. I like the focused examination of things most people ignore. There is no doubt that this little work had a big impact on my later development as an artist.

How have other artists interpreted the meadow?

Meadow, oil on canvas, 74 x 80 in. Michael Brophy, 2007
G. Gibson Gallery


Summer Meadow, oil on canvas, 100 x 130 cm. Beth Wintgens
Carina Haslan Fine Art

Meadow, 2006, oil and gesso
Jo Miller

Meadow, 2008, 24 x 2o in. oil on canvas
Karina Drogowska

Meadow Walk, 11 x 14,
Donna Day Westerman

One subject, many interpretations.
What are your preferences?

The spaces in between

Many people are attracted to the skeletal structure of trees. Trunks and branches have a strong presence that demand attention. But for me the real action happens in the spaces between the branches where the intricate play of leaves produce delicate patterns.

Messenger, 2009, mixed media on board

Messenger is a mixed media painting from my Reading a Garden series. The sun shining through the vines that sheltered this statue in the Millennium Garden reminded me of stained glass. My mind wandered to consider what would happen to this scene over time. Voila! a painting is created.

There are many landscape painters who have interesting ways of rendering "the space in between". Two of my favourites are Canadian artists Jennifer Woodburn and Mandy Budan.

Spring Light (2009) 11 x 14, acrylic, Jennifer Woodburn

Jennifer Woodburn grew up in Saskatchewan and now lives in Ontario. She is primarily a self-taught artist, who has relied on occasional workshops and classes for her education. Working usually in acrylics, emphasizing line, shape and colour Jennifer creates simpler forms from what she sees in the landscape.

Jennifer says:
Mine is a graphic take on life. Through the relative chaos, I find the design in nature and organize it on canvas. Using line and simplifying what I see, I look for interesting shapes and colours, and explore the spaces in between. Rhythm is found, and exaggerated. With an upbeat palette and a bit of whimsy for good measure, I capture Southern Ontario landscapes and rural architecture in acrylic paint on canvas.

I am attracted to Jennifer's work for its lively colour combinations and the rhythm she instills through her use of line and colour. This less is more approach helps the viewer to see the strong rhythms and patterns in nature. Her ability to synthesize the landscape makes me realize how much detail I could delete from my work. Jennifer has many more works on her blog and website.

Fall Again (2009) 12 x 12, acrylic on canvas, Jennifer Woodburn

Mandy Budan paints abstracts of the landscape. She emphasizes and rearranges elements in very unexpected ways. Her colours are strong and she relies on repetition of colour and shapes to create intricate patterns. One of the most amazing aspects of her work is that when you look at it up close it appears to be random, colourful shapes but when you see it at a distance it looks very realistic. How do all those little bits and pieces of bits create realism?

Summer Morning (2008) 24 x 30, acrylic on panel, Mandy Budan

Spring Light (2008) 11 x 14, acrylic on panel, Mandy Budan

I find it quite amazing that Mandy can break each painting down into such patterned parts and then create a realistic painting in the end. Her colour usage is so vibrant and often unexpected when you take a close look. While I've chosen two paintings featuring trees, Mandy paints different aspects of the landscape.

Also check out the paintings of Alison Dunhill, a British artist, who uses colour and fluidity of expression to convey the emotional impact of the landscape. There is a balance in focus between the more obvious structure of trees and the spaces in between in her tree paintings.

Are there other "spaces in between" that have been explored through art?

Birth of a series

Sherwood's response to my last post," I think that body of work has already begun, Margaret -- with this post itself! " was very perceptive. I've already begun to tease out how my interest in trees will evolve form my current work for Reading a Garden. When I start a new focus I have several things I consistently do to immerse myself in the exploration at hand. Some of these processes happen concurrently. How I work is definitely influenced by my past years as a teacher who believed strongly in the development of background knowledge to improve understanding. I know some of you will think this is all very obsessive, but it works well for me.

First, I brainstorm a huge bank of words connected to the topic. I never sensor any word that comes to mind. If it is remotely connected to the topic it goes on the list. Leaving my responses wide open encourages depth and breadth in my thinking. I continue to add to my brainstormed list for many weeks/months as I explore other areas related to the topic.

When I move into the second stage of preparation - wide reading on the topic- I can procrastinate forever. I never feel my understanding is deep enough. Right now I'm looking at the symbolism of trees/forests in art, history and literature. This is usually the stage where I convince myself I need to buy new reference material to expand my understanding. My self control over buying new books is improving. I now try the local library, second handbook stores, friends' collections and on-line used book stores. Every now and then I have a good reference before I start. We'll see how long I stay in this learning stage.

For anyone who has read my blog from the beginning, you know I use my photographs as a way to broaden my understanding of a topic I am interested in. Right now I'm culling all my photographs that reference trees in any way. Once these are placed together, I begin the process of sorting and resorting all the while keeping notes in my Trees journal. This is one of my favourite ways to find my way in my work. I don't know about you but I take photos intuitively. If it speaks to me I never question why. I just shoot and wait for it to become important. The sorting and resorting helps me see the themes I am interested in. I also follow several photography blogs. Looking at other artists' photographs provides me with fresh ideas. I look for ones I am attracted to and then record why. This is not about technique or composition, It's about what content draws me and why.

Concurrently, I begin to look at how other painters, sculptors, instillation artists have explored this topic in their work. I don't do this to copy other artists' work, rather I want to get a sense of where what I am interested in fits with what is being created by contemporary artists.

My focus on trees has really begun in my Reading a Garden series but I expect it to expand beyond this series. I've already created several works that I will re-post here. Several others are in various states of completion. I guess I've already begun to say quite a bit about the trees I came across during my two week stay on the Demesne.

Screen(2009) 24 x 10 in. mixed media on board

Hidden(2009) 24 x 10 in. mixed media on board

Entangled (2009) 24 x 10 in. mixed media on board

I began and ended with a photo of trees from Birr Castle Demense . What do they tell you?