Blog by Joan Gold

About Nostalgia

2012-02-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure that’s the word for it. It is a deep sense of loss with some sadness attached to it. For a time, a place and for the people that were part of it. We were young and kind of confused. Maybe that is part and parcel of being eighteen, nineteen and twenty years old. Going to school to study art was, in retrospect, dreamlike. It seemed to become history very quickly and was forever cemented into the core of my life.

Other experiences, the family that was mine until I lost my mother, my twenty-four year marriage, the years when my children were children — they all bring on nostalgia (or whatever the feeling is). But those years at school are somehow more redolent of loss. Some treasure or value that escaped perception while it was happening. Was it that we were too busy with our lives to know that we were young? Or that most of the people who were actors on that stage are gone? Even the school has been transformed: a renovated interior (bless them for leaving the outside of the structure intact). There’s a second building now and even a dormitory building. And, of course, the El is gone.

A few years ago as I rode down in the elevator (pity they changed that wonderful old elevator car*), there was a student riding with me. I said: “Good school, huh?” He said with seriousness: “Oh, yes!”. I was glad to know that the appreciation is still intact. The education has been tuition free since the beginning. The school has now run into financial difficulties so that may soon change.

I know why it is with me now. I am reading a biography of painter Joan Mitchell. When she lived and worked in NYC she was on Tenth Street on the east side at the time the elevated train ran close and noisily by on Third Avenue. She was in her thirties then and I was at school on Eighth Street and my first real love was on Tenth. The first housing of the Whitney Museum was down the street; this was in the fifties and abstract expressionism was in full bloom. It is only now, so many years later, that I know where I was then. So young and so absorbed by it all, I wasn’t able to stand back to look at where I was and what was happening. I suppose we never get the full picture of any piece of our lives until we gain some distance and look back with less involvement in the details.

*From a NYTimes article: COOPER UNION -- At the time Otis was perfecting his safety elevator, Peter Cooper was making plans for an academy on Astor Place. Cooper was smart enough to know that elevators were in the future, but he was a little too smart for his own good. Having calculated that a cylinder would hold more passengers than a cube, and so would naturally be the cab shape of the future, he put a cylindrical shaft into his building.

His geometry may have been right but his assumption was wrong, and for more than 100 years a box-shaped cab ran in Cooper's shaft, a square peg in a round hole.

Actress Jeanne Moreau: My life is very exciting now. Nostalgia for what? It's like climbing a staircase. I'm on the top of the staircase, I look behind and see the steps. That's where I was. We're here right now. Tomorrow, we'll be someplace else. So why nostalgia?

About Validation

2012-02-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Do we know if we’re funny or smart or appropriate if we are not bouncing off another person? Doesn’t most of our sense of who we are and how we fit into our world depend greatly on how others respond to us? A salary, being fairly paid for our labor is warranted reward. Being told you look good is better than your mirror. Being remembered on your birthday, very pleasant. Receiving a grant is validation with cash; how nice!

Long ago I read an interview with Eva Hesse, the German painter who died young in New York City in 1970. She said something about being strengthened by the attention she received. Art critic Arthur Danto mentioned she always felt she was fighting for recognition in a male dominated art world. That was back in the sixties but given the self-doubt she suffered I imagine it would not have been much different at a later time. I am sure that every pat on the back that came her way was much appreciated.

Another long ago article that I clipped told of how winning an Oscar helps you to live longer. Evidently an average of four more years. Hmm…that wasn’t cosmetic surgery? The writer goes on to say multiple winners average about six years longer than their peers. He quotes Dr. Donald Redelmeier of the University of Toronto: “Once you get the Oscar, it gives you an inner sense of peace and accomplishment that can last your entire life. That alters the way your body deals with stress.”

Now since most of us are more likely to watch the Oscar event this month than we are to win one, we need to find our validation through other routes. After all, we don’t want to miss out on the possibility of adding a few more years to our stay. Something I have done a couple of times is call my own phone number while I’m out and leave a warm message for myself. Fun to do but I doubt it will increase my longevity. The experience of exhibiting paintings is a two edged sword. The admiring comments that come from friends and family are great, we want their support, but there could be some bias there. While it might sound crass, the most gratifying response comes from making sales. If somebody likes your work enough to want to pay for it and live with it, that’s very real validation. And when there are no sales it doesn’t matter much that the previous show sold out. The success needs to happen with some constancy. Whereas winning an Oscar or two seems to suffice.

From Joseph Campbell: “Any life career that you choose in following your bliss should be chosen with that sense – that nobody can frighten me off this thing. And no matter what happens, this is the validation of my life and action.”

The image above is like the one of last week of some of the collage material that I put together on my computer. It is part of what I will be doing while I wait to have a complete studio again.

About a Fresh Life

2012-02-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

From a recent interview in Time of poet John Ashberry:

You're 84. Do you think about death?

I've never not thought about it. There are not that many things to write poetry about. There's love and there's death and time passing and the weather outside, which is horrible today.

I think about death too. It’s hard not to as one grows old. But now I’m thinking more about change. Maybe not as likely to summon the muse as are death and time and the weather, but certainly grist for this mill. I’ve experienced some: change from single to married to single again. Big ones those. Change of country and language. Becoming a parent four times over. Some losses of people to be forever mourned. Change from well-salaried university professor (an impostor at that) to living close to the bone as a painter. All difficult, all doable.

I remember something from a book by humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, in which he compared the human spirit to some seaweed he observed from the shore at Mendocino. It was an upright weed that was flattened by every wave and then sprang erect again. He was speaking of trials far more hellish than those of ordinary lives mentioned above. I believe it is that same core of tenacity that keeps most of us plunging into our next chapters.

I notice now the upside of change as I recuperate from the tiredness brought on by the physical, emotional and every other kind of depletion caused by moving home and studio. It is the joy of a new start. Not death-like to inspire poetry, but life-like to inspire this blog. Out with the old! I am sending loads of collected-over-time objects for just-in-case moments to the Rescue Mission or the dump or Craig’s list. Some things have been given away. I don’t have to feel responsible for it all now. And I can, with a clear and free conscious, set out on fresh projects. My new studio will have storage solutions that will allow me easy access to the big boards I used to use to make large works. Once these boards started piling up, one atop the other, it became too difficult to get at them and smaller work ensued. And my kitchen will be less crowded in spite of being smaller than its previous incarnation. My entire operation will become simpler. How lovely.

The downside, and I experienced this painfully when I moved back to this country, is that I will reach for things I was used to and that I no longer own. Can you believe that occasionally I seek my wonderful wooden handled ice cream server? More than thirty years gone? There were several possessions that were the perfect examples of form serving function that I never again owned.

From novelist Arnold Bennet: Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. And, I will add, maybe some sadness.

The image above is of some of the collage material that is waiting for me to have a studio again. It will eventually find a home within one of the larger paintings that are happening in my fantasies at the moment.

About Disorder

2012-01-27T06:33:00.000-08:00

Writer Anais Nin said: "When I cannot bear outer pressures anymore, I begin to put order in my belongings…As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects."

As I create chaos in the process of moving home and studio, I fantasize about the moment when I will look at the piles of boxes and the general disorder we have created at the new home — and at the contents of my studio which are now housed in a storage unit. I look forward to making order from that awful jumble.

I believe that is what art is about. One takes control and makes something to one’s own notion of order or beauty or whatever it is that satisfies and rewards the mind and/or the senses.

I expect to be in that mode again soon. In the meantime I will spend as much time in my fantasies of the future as the reality of today will allow.

The images above are of my studio in the past when everything was in place.

About Missing the Muse

2012-01-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

I miss my muse. Oh, how I miss my muse. I miss the comfort of doing something I really want to do. I miss the peace of being focused and working. I miss the satisfaction of seeing something get done. I miss being able to plan a day and living it.

I am submerged in chaos. I am without the safety of my routine within the refuge of the home I built around me. I want my studio back and my blesséd routine.

Ordinarily I start my day by reviewing the world within my walls and putting everything in order. I had a dear friend who once said that she and I needed to have everything at right angles to everything else. Well, sure ‘nuff. When the dishes are washed, the bed is made, and the bills are paid, my world is in place and I go to work. I can walk away from it all and into that place in myself that paints. I can forget everything for a while knowing that my reading chair and refrigerator will be waiting when I need them again. The phone is there too; I can temper the loneliness by dialing one of my kids. I can rest so that I can do the same next day. Is that a lot to ask?

Yes, of course it is. It is the never promised rose garden. Experiencing a minor bump in the road like moving one’s domicile, demonstrates yet again just how good a life this is. No tornados here. No major earthquake, no disaster nor tragedy of any kind. I’m moving from one very comfortable space to another that will be even better. Who would ever even think of complaining? Just a mega-kvetch, that’s who. Well, okay, a very, very tired mega-kvetch.

The half-price moving sale of paintings dated prior to 2007 and that I am not currently marketing will continue until the studio is packed, sometime in the the week of the twenty-third. The final move is scheduled for the last weekend of this month. Email me at joangold@humboldt1.com for images and prices or for information or a studio appointment. The image above is Allegro ©2000, 10" x 26.5” . It is hanging in my studio and included in the sale.

About Possessions

2012-01-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

I have tried not to get attached to things. It just doesn’t work for me. When I left the home I had put together in Caracas, I had to leave everything behind except for my children and what we brought in our suitcases. Actually, I did pack a few things and have them shipped: albums of photos and a few other items that would be irreplaceable. And then, because there was a minimum to be paid which entitled us to a certain amount of weight, I threw in a small teak table and an artisan-made chair. Not a bit more as this was 1979 and five dollars a pound to move to the US was daunting.

Now, many years later, I still miss the cookbook collection, and dream sometimes that I am back in that house running my hands over the surface of the dining room table. I would not change the life I have now for a return to that time. But I was attached to the home that was the site of our history as a family.

Now my home is in a state of total chaos as I am sorting through it all and with the help of my girls and my son, packing and beginning to get a home assembled yet again. I don’t have the lovely furniture I had before but it’s still hard to do the getting-rid-of part. I have a lot of stuff that I have kept just-in-case. I am a child of the great depression, have trouble throwing away food and tend to keep too much of anything that could possibly serve some useful purpose. But now it’s push come to shove. Trash or pack. The choice is easy to make.

According to my not very trustworthy memory, I have moved from dwelling to dwelling twelve times, the first few parent-powered, then on my own, later married with children and now with the assistance of these. This time it’s forever. Never again. Absolutely, never again. I plan to croak in my new digs and will be very careful to keep only what is unarguably useful. Says I.

The half-price moving sale of paintings dated prior to 2007 and that I am not currently marketing will continue until the studio is packed, sometime in the the week of the twenty-third. The final move is scheduled for the last weekend of this month. Email me at joangold@humboldt1.com for images and prices or for information or a studio appointment. The image above is Flourish ©2001, 23” x 60” (framed). It is hanging in my studio and included in the sale.

About Home

2012-01-06T11:01:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Bowen wrote in Death of the Heart:

"After inside upheavals, it is important to fix on imperturbable things. Their imperturbableness, their air that nothing has happened renews our guarantee. Pictures would not be hung plumb over the centers of fireplaces or wallpapers pasted on with such precision that their seams make no break in the pattern if life were really not possible to adjudicate for. These things are what we mean when we speak of civilization: they remind us how exceedingly seldom the unseemly or unforeseeable rears its head. In this sense, the destruction of buildings and furniture is more palpably dreadful to the spirit than the destruction of human life."

Well, I’m not sure I would agree with the last two lines. I experienced a strong earthquake years ago in Venezuela and remember beseeching whatever powers might be listening: “Just leave me my children and my husband”. Looking back I’m inclined to think that was selfish. What about all the other precious children and husbands? But selfishness is not my topic today. Maybe another time. Now in the throes of moving from my dwelling of sixteen years, I am thinking about home.

I have painted little houses since kindergarten. They are safe places. Drawing or painting them puts me in a safe place. This is not a conscious act. It’s like reaching for chocolate when chocolate is the right thing. Moving is like being unsafe until the new home is made. This home will be made when everything (or almost everything) is in place and the house loses its strangeness. Putting familiar things, those that have been with me for the longer haul, in their places will be good. Hanging my paintings, which is the last thing I will do, should bring home into the house. But the interim, which has started as I take this home apart, is life on quicksand. The feeling is one of un-ease.

I know people who take their houses with them wherever they go. They are like snails except that their homes are within themselves. They are good travelers, willing to be transported at the drop of a hat. I wonder if they grew up feeling safe and just assume that the force will be with them (to coin a phrase). I am not so trusting, and while I envy that serenity, I prefer to watch my back at all times when away from my own confines. But I have made homes before and will do it again now. I know how. Just wish I could get from here to there with no in-between.

From Robert Montgomery: Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

Below we have an ode written by my friend Mike Yanke in response to About Napping. Behold, I’m a muse!

RECTANGLES ABOUND

Rectangles abound

This side of town.

They’re green and they’re blue

With varying hue.

Orange ones have dots

Reds have white spots.

Different as they may be

They’re all fun to go see.

Some with white borders

Others borderless in their orders.

Rectangles standing alone

Rectangles with an accompanying clone.

There’s multiples and more

There’s rectangles galore.

The creator of all these

Is so easy to please.

An afternoon bed

To rest her sweet head.

And what time of day

Does she want to go lay?

From one until three

It’s her life’s luxury.

She calls it her nap

To avoid the over-worked trap.

A nap ‘til she rises

She vehemently prizes.

There’s no need for it to be said

The shape of her bed.

It’s always rectangular

Not square, circular or triangular.

Rectangles abound

this side of town.

About Napping

2011-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

Moving hearth and workspace gives rise to a sea of stress that would drown me if I didn’t have a reliable life raft. Last week I griped about how I allowed my life to get crowded. This week I will pat myself on the back for taking naps.

I married into a family that played solitaire, spent long hours talking at the table over wine or coffee and got to work at ten o’clock in the morning at the earliest. My assessment of this behavior, oft voiced to my Spanish husband, was that my country’s work ethics got us to the moon. He seemed to prefer to live in the glory of Spain’s past and enjoy all the leisure he could get away with. I learned to nap from this family I married into, in addition to a number of other customs that have enriched my life, but napping is far and away the one I most value. Friends and family know that I don’t answer the phone between from about one to three (lunch and a bit of reading get factored in there) and I know that anyone who calls at that time is no friend of mine.

The effort I have been making to tie up the loose ends of my marketing projects and to walk away from those that have been my reason to live in my studio, and to dealing with the learning that goes into a house purchase and renovation — believe me, honoring my nap time, my splendid, blesséd indulgence, has enabled me to pick up and return to the fray every morning. Well, almost every. There has been a day here and there (this is the closest thing you will get to a confession from me), that I have gotten up at six (usual), sucked up a big cup of coffee, read the local paper, (all usual) and then, very quietly, I slip back into my bedroom and curl into my easy chair with my pillows and take a morning snooze. After coffee? Yup, napping is something I do exceedingly well. I can find that place in myself that connects me to sweet oblivion. The day I reach my one hundred and tenth birthday and am interviewed for my advice about how to keep going at such a pace for so long and so well, you will know the answer. Slumber. Often. More is better.

Bob Hope: I don't feel old. I don't feel anything till noon. That's when it's time for my nap.

Remember that to ease the transition, all work from 2007 and earlier that I am not currently marketing is on sale at a 50% reduction in price. The image above, Small Town, is included in this group. It is acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, ©1993, framed and hanging in my studio. Email me for images and prices or call for information or a studio appointment.

About a Full Life

2011-12-23T12:13:00.000-08:00

I like to have something to do. I don’t like to have a lot to do. It’s lovely to be focused on a task to the exclusion of everything else. Days like today, when there was so much that seemed important and urgent, everything vying with everything else for my attention, make me want to walk away from all of it.

Sometimes life gets too full. A good solution would be to get myself cloned — several times over. Then one part of me would be writing this blog, another would be in the kitchen baking the cake that I promised my daughter for her party and another would be paying the bills that are in danger of coming overdue. One of me would be working happily in the studio while another putters mindlessly about the house. One could be on the phone with a friend and an additional version could be reading quietly or (oh, joy!) taking a nap. None of me would be cleaning house. No sense in wasting any of this bounty.

And now all of me wishes all of you a joyful holiday with many happy returns.

The photo above is what the space that will become my studio looked like the day I saw it for the first time. If you stay tuned for updates you will see it become my ideal of a workspace: the well-illuminated inside of a white box. Hard to imagine, huh? Well, have faith.

Here’s an update on the moving story: I have the keys to the new quarters now. The plans for the renovation to what will be my studio are out for bids. The move is planned for the very end of January and it is my hope that the studio will be ready then. That is probably wishful thinking, but life has been so good to me lately, I’m going to assume this will just fall into place well. Or if not, I’ll adjust. Do not want to seem ungrateful to whatever angels have been seeing to my well-being.

Remember that to ease the transition, all work from 2007 and earlier that I am not currently marketing is on sale at a 50% reduction in price. Email me for images and prices or call for information or a studio appointment.

About the Loss of Selfhood

2011-12-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a note that I ended with: “Imagine how many interesting people there are in the world, who have much to offer us, that we will never know”. Then I realized that is what books are for. And they are blessedly low maintenance. Joan Didion’s Blue Nights was a generous gift. I had read The Year of Magical Thinking which dealt with the death of her husband. Her daughter died not long afterwards and led to the writing of Blue Nights.

What surprised me about both books was that death caught her unawares. In spite of there having been several untimely and tragic departures amongst family and friends, she was totally unprepared for its assault on her. While the pain of loss would be whatever it was, death has always been visible in my picture of life’s probabilities at any moment. But what do I know? I hope to experience my own demise before that of any who are in the foreground of that picture.

Where Didion focused most meaningfully to me was on the loss of her self, of the person she was. As she experienced those disappearances she aged (or seemed to) more quickly than before. She had been fragile; now she saw herself failing and fading. Perhaps it is because she and I were born in the same year that her experience gripped me. I have not yet been drawn into the downward spiral she describes so affectingly but do not expect to be forever invulnerable. I think a lot about aging; it seems to happen far more quickly and causing more change than anticipated. Didion says: “Aging and its evidence remain one of life’s most predictable events, yet they also remain matters we prefer to leave unmentioned, unexplored”. I would recommend that everyone, at whatever age, give some thought to it. Best not to let it catch you unprepared. Think about death too. No matter what you think or how smart you are, it will get you, too.

I quoted here once Isabel Allende (who also lost her daughter) who said in an interview: “Life is about loss”. Didion says it differently: “ 'You have your wonderful memories,' people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are (school) uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to weddings of people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.” She talks about “staying alive”. That is not the same as being alive. Big difference. I think in pictures: staying alive looks like someone who has fallen over the edge of the cliff and is hanging on to a tree branch by her fingernails. Being alive looks more like somebody dancing or busy at work.

I did a poor job recently of attempting to explain to my son-in-law why old photos make me feel sad. Recently taken photos don’t do that. Old photos are about the times that will never be again. I cannot ever again have the family whole and together as it was. Or be with my school friends feeling our futures in the palms of our hands, thinking we could do whatever we wanted with our lives. Didion’s take on this time: "Ask anyone who was a child during the supposedly idyllic decade advertised to us at the time as the reward for World War Two. New cars. New appliances. Women in high heels and aprons removing cookie sheets from ovens… This was as safe as it got, except it wasn’t: ask any child who was exposed during this postwar… fantasy to the photographs from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ask any child who saw the photographs from the death camps.” Two sides to this coin.

Life is good now. I am more and have more in many ways. But that does not change the fact that I can’t have my kids as little children again nor my friends young, healthy and alive. I can’t introduce my children to the grandmother they never met. A reviewer in The Guardian said something about the artist’s ability to create order out of chaos. Sometimes it can’t be done. What was is gone. Forever.

From a recent interview in Time of poet John Ashberry:

You're 84. Do you think about death?

I've never not thought about it. There are not that many things to write poetry about. There's love and there's death and time passing and the weather outside, which is horrible today.

Please check out the poem that my friend Mike Yanke was inspired to write after reading about my slovenly housekeeping. Just click on “Comments” below last week’s blog post.

About Art as Business

2011-12-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

I have tried, heaven knows I have tried, to think of what I do as a business. I have even taken courses and did an almost one year workshop about art business. And I’ve read the books and done the online research. But the truth is that I would (and do) do it whether or not there is anything that resembles a profit. Now how can you call something a business if profit is not at the top of the priority list? Could you stay in business while the prime concern is the quality of the product, hang the cost? I have no limits when it comes to what I will spend on materials. I challenge anybody to have a greater variety of paintbrushes or pastel colors than I. I shop for food and clothing at the local discount stores but my studio materials are top of the line, state of the art. No expense spared. Frugality at home but in the studio I scrimp only when it comes to framing - which can always be upgraded by the purchaser, while the end product must be immutable.

Interesting, isn’t it? How one changes over a lifetime? There was a time when I had a salary which provided discretionary income; this I chose to spend mostly on furnishing the house we lived in as a family and some other happy indulgences. I had every pot and pan Le Creuset made and loved to spend time in the kitchen. I entertained cheerfully and spent a lot of time on the phone with dear friends. I sewed, loved making my clothing. At the same time I had a full time job, dealt with a demanding husband and raised the four who went on to support the conversion of the mother they knew into the person I am now. I don’t think they will ever understand how much I owe them. And a good thing that is too. No repayment possible.

I am now candidate for worst housekeeper by anyone’s standards, laziest cook and am an all around shiftless and unproductive individual in most areas outside my studio. And happier than ever. Who knew?

The image above is Orange-Violet, a new acrylic collage on paper, 23" x 17", framed and hanging at Piante gallery in the Abstractions 2011 exhibition.

Erma Bombeck: “Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”

About a Meaningful Life

2011-12-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

I was ready a few days ago to write about what “home” means to me but the inspiration waned when I didn’t set to it right away. I don’t remember what I was feeling about it then. That’s the key. I need to have some sense of the topic, otherwise I’ll bore myself and my readers. Painting is like that too. One needs to catch it before it passes by.

Something that stirs me now and again is the expression “a meaningful life”. I quoted here before the words of writer-psychiatrist Irvin Yalom who speaks of life’s “givens”: death, isolation, groundlessness, and meaninglessness. He offers a choice of certain stances: to be “resolute” or “engaged," or courageously defiant, or stoically accepting, or to relinquish rationality and, in awe and mystery to place one’s trust in the providence of the Divine.” And then, elsewhere, he says: “The question of the meaning of life is, as the Buddha taught, not edifying. One must immerse oneself in the river of life and let the question drift away.”

A meaningful life is not, I think, easily defined as a happy one or a morally good one. Most of us (and I speak of this western culture) make consequential choices while very young, choices that inform our entire lives — about schooling, career or vocation, spouses, having children or not, about where to live and work. We might make big changes later, but it all adds up; it is our story. Some of us make such big mistakes in our youth that the potential for a fulfilling life is lost. Looking back at my own life it seems I made most choices as I floated along on that “river of life” and operated partly as I thought was expected of me and partly provoked by some romantic appeal, responding to life’s questions as they appeared. There was no general plan. So there was marriage, children and a teaching job and life away from the US. All very rewarding and enriching. It was not until I was in my mid-forties that I stopped one day and said (to myself) “Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t my life.” I suppose that maturity, responsibility and the beginning of self-awareness begin when we realize how fast our lives are happening. There just isn’t as much time as we thought there was.

Dostoevsky said: “It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.” A life altering decision or crisis in mid-life might be far better than to reach old age and feel that one missed out somehow. How sad that would be.

Is it this time of year when I read of the wackiness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday that my thoughts turn to meaning in life?

The image above is Red-Blue. It is a new, small (17" x 11") acrylic collage now hanging at the Piante Gallery in Eureka in the Abstractions 2011 exhibition.

About Gratitude

2011-11-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

Today is one of those days when I need to search for a topic to write about. I have been racing to get some of the new work ready to frame for a Christmas group show at our local Piante gallery. I have to deliver right after Thanksgiving and will do my best to have it all ready before the family convenes and happy chaos reigns. There hasn’t been a lot of time to think.

Behold! I knew if I just started to write the topic would declare itself. What better than to focus on gratitude for this good life? When I am about to spend time with the family I think about the miracle it is to have raised four children who have become responsible adults. The world seems to me so full of threat, tragedy lurking around every corner, that the fact that all four have reached middle age free of major illnesses or accidents, or a life of crime or addiction, seems nothing short of wonderful.

I didn’t know I wanted children. It was the fifties and I took for granted that was how my life was to play out. And so they came and I’m glad now that I didn’t know I could make a decision about it. I might have opted to devote myself to painting and not give away all the time and energy a family requires. I could make a list of women artists who followed that path starting with Mary Cassat, Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’ Keefe, and including writers Joyce Carol Oates, Gertrude Stein, Flannery O’Connor, Virginia Woolf and many others in all disciplines. Of course the list of famous artist mothers might be much longer but I can’t seem to find that list on the web. There is a good documentary about the artist/mother: Who Does She Think She Is ?, but none of these are household names. There are many in the movie business, but as in the film I just mentioned, the marriages are not often long-lived and there are endless accounts of neglected children.

To paraphrase writer Susan Rubein Suleiman, perhaps the greatest struggle for a woman artist who has or desires children is the struggle against herself. No amount of money, no amount of structural change, can entirely resolve the fundamental dilemma for the artist–mother: the seeming incompatibility of her two greatest passions. The effect is a divided heart; a split self; the fear that to succeed at one means to fail at the other. I might have reached greater heights career-wise had I remained in New York after graduation and stayed with painting to the exclusion of most else. Who knows? I might even have become a better painter. Maybe our psychology (or biology) somehow protects us from regret; I have none. If I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now (and modern means of contraception) I would again bring these four into the world. There’s nothing selfless about doing art or about procreating; both are selfish activities. The world certainly has enough paintings and more than enough lives. But no apologies for either indulgence. They are what make my life so good.

My children might argue now about where my priorities really are. But hear this, dearly beloved ingrates: the only reason I don’t turn off the telephone in my studio is that one of you might need me for something. Though very often that something is a recipe. A friend remarked that for this chapter of my life: “All you have to do is show up.” Not completely true as I am still in charge of turkey, stuffing and gravy. But no complaints. Cooking feels like time off for me now.

No blog post next week: Happy Thanksgiving to all.

P.S. Now that moving is a sure thing, I am selling earlier work that I am not actively marketing at a 50% reduction in price. This includes some of my personal collection. Just call or email to set up a time to visit the studio or for any questions.

About Inspiration

2011-11-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

I write the original draft of this blog essay on Thursday mornings, come rain or fog (not much shine where I live). Today I have an MD appointment (nothing critical) at 9:30 and hope to get something substantial written before I have to abandon the project for a while. Sometimes there is something I’m full of and I’m eager to write before the excitement wanes. And at other times, I have nothing in mind and am hoping to find inspiration in my own thought processes as I confront the blank face of my computer or else I look at notes made in the past about possible topics. Unless there is something that I find appealing, the outcome is of doubtful interest to my readers and unsatisfying to me. On most occasions, however, there is something that I can get into. As anyone who knows me can attest, I am rarely at a loss for words. Or opinions.

The question is: “Why do it at all?”. When I started this blog in October of 2009 (It’s been two years!), my intention was to use it for marketing my work. It soon morphed into me just talking as I am not fond of marketing but found the writing a pleasing self-indulgence. Not very different from painting. So why not just paint which I believe I do a better job of?

One of the several answers I came up with is about growing old, which can be scary. It’s not just about its being the last chapter. It’s about losing the person one was. We joke about the memory loss. It is funny, sometimes. But mostly it is an impoverishment. And the noticeable diminishing other strengths follow along, gradually if you are lucky. So the blog is like the exercise video, the careful choice of foods, the vitamins, and the MD check-ups. Keeping a grip on the powers we still have. To stay vitally alive for this precious piece of life that remains. None of us really believes that we will come to our end. But at the same time as we refuse to lend it credence, we struggle against it and make an effort to hide the symptoms of our decline lest somebody believe that we really are old.

Wherefore I am about to design and renovate an almost 1000 square foot studio, a bit larger that the one I am in now. Me downsize? Why ever would I do that? Time marches on and so do I. Damn it.

After Thanksgiving I will start preparing the move. I think the first part will be to start tossing anything that I really don’t need. I have trouble getting rid of stuff so I will need to steel myself for that operation. Maybe I need to ask myself about the why of that.

From music critic Ernest Newman: Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

The images above are more of the current mixed media project. These are the smallest, measuring 8” x 11” each, and still untitled and unfinished.

About Transitions

2011-11-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

Summer is definitely gone. No doubt about that. People seem surprised that I still say that in November; I do have some difficulty with transitions. I rather like to keep what Is familiar and good and am not really comfortable about what is ahead. I’ve seen some of the forecast for our winter weather. Looks like lots of storms. So? I have experienced thirty winters in Humboldt County. Storms? What else is new? I still love this place.

It’s change that unsettles me. Feels for a while like walking on quicksand (even though I’ve never done that). When my children were small I thought I would like to keep them that way. They were mine then and one day they would be their own people. My father looked around at my family back then, and said: “Enjoy this now. It’s the best.” He was right. But they grew up; they got smart, and I still like them. And this is still the best. I read history; I read biographies and life still surprises me. People have been watching their kids grow up (if they’re lucky) since our beginnings, but life is new in every life.

And now the change and transition that I am heading into is keeping me awake at night. A new home, a new studio. I’ve been where I am now for sixteen years; it is home. My studio has grown in its contents and the work has evolved and it is still the place I want to be. The place I submerge into where time stops, the world doesn’t turn and I am totally in charge. The radio is silent except when I want some music, not often. I love silence. I jump when the phone rings but don’t turn the ringer off because too much isolation is scary. I know I can recreate this space. Even better. And I can make a home again. I have done it before. The change from Brooklyn to Caracas, from single to married to unmarried, from Venezuela to Humboldt County, California. Always these were the right moves. Or maybe I have just been a good adapter. Still I wish I could fast forward to being settled into my new digs.

The work is going well. Probably in part because there was the “now or never” feeling about resolving this series before is got disrupted. It is resolved now. What remains to be done is to mount these paintings on sturdy surfaces (on some kind of lightweight board or on canvas) as they are each composed of several parts. After that they will need to be studied carefully for color to be adjusted, design element added (or not). There are sixty in process so it will be a long lasting and gratifying project. One that I am loathe to put aside but will be happy to get back to later.

I think about those to whom change comes in the form of great loss: catastrophes of weather, war, epidemics, fire. I imagine the aftermath of a tornado and surviving to see everything that was your home and community blown away. Somehow people deal with it. Nothing short of amazing.

William Ralph Inge, writer and priest said: “When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve: "My dear, we live in an age of transition."”

The image above measures 23” x 17” and is still unfinished, unmounted and untitled.

About Friends

2011-10-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

I was twenty years old when I left the US for Venezuela and forty-five when I came back with my four teenage children. I left good friends behind here and went on to make deep and lasting friendships there.

The newer friends were mostly the people I worked with at the university, two single men and the rest of us women married to non-American men. We all had friends outside this group but this one was essential; we spent time together at work and away from it. The two women I became closest to were, one a Brit, the other Venezuelan. Before I left Caracas, Pat left with her husband to eventually settle in the Basque country where Juan had roots. Carmen died a short while later from a brain tumor.

After I settled back in I was able to see two of my original old school friends a little more often even though they lived on the other side of the country. Then Susan was lost to lung cancer. I painted what I called “Little Houses” then and at times of grief afterwards. They were safe places for me when my mother left me behind in kindergarten and now I painted them for my friends. I painted prettily colored tombs for them. No need for places of the hereafter to be dark and grey and cheerless.

One by one my ex-patriot friends drifted back to this country. I don’t think many of us had intended to come back. It just happened. And a good thing it was since Venezuela does not now offer the good life it did (at least for its middle class and above; poverty was and is rampant). We keep in touch, some of us better at it than others, and have since met a number of times to have sweet reunions.

My homecoming plan was to devote myself obsessively, passionately and solely to painting. No time, thank you very much, for socializing. This piece of life I would do on my own. Friendships take time and energy that I couldn’t spare any more. I dedicated myself to making a solitary and productive life. In the meantime my kids became adults (miracles happen) and they became my friends, my support and good company. And after a while I let myself be lured out of my studio. Loneliness won out. Without making any special effort, the friendships happened. I wasn’t aware of how real and strong they were until recently when I started talking about moving. So many sincere offers of help. People willing to give me the time and energy and whatever else they could to ease the transition. I have been grateful for a lot of the gifts that have come my way. This one is huge. How could I ever have imagined that I could survive without friends?

Albert Schweitzer: In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

About Transitions

2011-10-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

We’ve made an offer on a little house with a big space for a studio. I am envisioning myself in this new space, set up cozily with everything in place and happily at work.

What comes between my well organized present situation and that rosy future, is daunting. I am by nature orderly. I hate to be focused on the task at hand and suddenly find that the tool I need is not where it should be. My experience with moving is that however well you organize it, some thing(s) always go missing, some things get broken and it is a time of converting order to mayhem and then putting it all back together. What comforts me now is the vision of a far better and more functional studio than the one I’m in now. This is one of many times in my life that I have wished for a magic wand.

The situation is complicated by the need to keep the business part of my operation unhampered. I will have a print in the Artful Home Christmas catalogue and need to be prepared to ship within three days. I am committed to twelve linear feet of wall at a fine local gallery (the Piante) for a Christmas group show, the work in progress now. I will have to stay connected to the people that I have consigned work to; there was an emergency last week when a painting arrived in Boston damaged, but that sot of thing is rare. What is not rare is that someone needs images for a presentation ASAP. Which means that I need to stay connected. All of this is doable. My friend Richard used to say: “Nothing to it, just a lot of hard work.” And in this case, a lot of thought given to the logistics, not where my aptitudes lie.

There is also on my list a grant I should apply for, deadline coming right up; I need to upload the new quartet to my web site and send the images to consultants who make the sales. And more.

But by far the most awful part of this is that the studio process will be disrupted. I am trying to put off feeling that grief. The work is going so well that most of the business stuff I mentioned above has been delayed anyhow. This morning I planned to get this post done early but I went first to the studio to complete a small task and was seduced by a collage painting that wanted attention.

I have always thought that one day I would smell the roses. They will fade and bloom many times before I am ready to do that.

The image above is of the front room of the studio, taken a while ago. The work on the wall is different now, the rest about the same.

Below is the collage painting that grabbed me this morning, on the left. To the right are color “sketches”.

About Death in Life

2011-10-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

I count amongst my friends people with all levels of education and of life experience. But I cannot think of any that would readily enter into a discussion of death. It’s easier to converse about sex, money or the skeletons in the closet.

I want to know more about how people regard it and their feelings about it. I think if I could get used to talking of it and hearing others on the topic, I might find myself a little more comfortable and resigned to what undoubtedly will be my fate. The two people who have entered into the topic with me were helpful and I turn to the memory of those talks sometimes. My late ex-husband spoke of his return to the earth as if that were a good place to be. He grew up on a farm and was known to embrace trees. I grew up in Brooklyn; we went to Prospect Park or the Botanical Gardens to see trees. A therapist spoke to me of death as sleep — without dreams. Their untroubled acceptance of the inevitable was helpful but not quite enough.

Since I was ten years old and saw photos taken in the extermination camps of the second world war, I have walked hand in hand with death. Not threatened; I have always expected to die a natural death. But always aware of the limited time I would have. My appreciation of that reality has influenced every choice I have made and every risk I have taken. While it was an early and traumatic awakening, I am grateful for it. Every moment of my life, difficult or comfortable, has been okay. Every person I have loved has been cherished. I am endlessly grateful for this life and plan to leave it only against my better judgment. Maybe even kicking and screaming as I go.

In his commencement remarks to Stanford graduates in 2005, Steve Jobs said this:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

In his last piece of life, Jobs opted to spend the time he had left with his family. When his biographer asked why he wanted his story written, he said he wanted his children to know him, “I wasn’t always there for them, and I want them to know why and to understand what I did”. Maybe if he had his life to live over he would spend more time with them. Then again, maybe not.

Life in the studio is good. I usually need to squelch the monster that looks over my shoulder and derides my efforts saying something like: “You think anybody is going to believe that’s a painting?”. I do need to sell the work so the monster is always ready to pounce. But somehow, maybe because I’ve been thinking along the lines of the comments above, he has not made an appearance for this project. I’m moving along smoothly and with greater than ever freedom. It’s that what-the-hell attitude that supports dicey choices.

In the image above are two examples of the series in progress now. It’s about small painted panels adhered to larger painted panels, 23” x 17”, mixed media. I am doing about forty of them to be mounted on archival board. There are some bigger ones that will be adhered to canvas. I will present them here as they come together.

Alice Walker – “Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.”

About Brilliant Minds

2011-10-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

I marvel at how if you set a group of people to draw or even photograph an object, everybody’s results would be different. But what is more interesting and often hard to believe is how two people separated by great distances and sometimes language also, having no contact with each other, come up with the same invention or discovery at about the same time.

A few days ago, as I followed a link to a blog I saw photos of an installation that could only have been produced by my friend Lori Goodman. But wouldn’t I have known if she was exhibiting in a museum in Massachusetts? Sure, I would. I wasn’t informed because these little hanging pods were by a different Lorrie (Lorrie Fredette). And while they looked very similar to me, the mediums were different. Lori works with paper and Lorrie uses brass, cotton and an encaustic medium. Isn’t creativity about our individuality? As it turns out, they knew nothing of each other.

I had a similar experience some years ago. I was walking in Houston and saw my painting in the window of a bank. I was startled, drew close and saw that it was not mine. But could’ve been. “Curiouser and curiouser!” said Alice.

I suppose this phenomenon is simply about the fact that we are now more than ever exposed to similar influences. We see the same movies and hear the same music the world over. Books are translated into almost every language. And in our separate fields we learn from those who came before us. How else would you explain the multiple simultaneous discoveries in science? Nobel laureates who have independently made the same discovery. The minds of great thinkers are primed with the results of previous efforts.

There used to be a great distinction in the arts from country to country, even regions within a country. There was the voice of southern writers in this country. A Japanese cellist playing Bach or a Bulgarian jazz pianist still surprise me. I suppose something is lost just as something is gained as we homogenize more and more.

The variety of influences on food have certainly made restaurant eating far more adventurous than it was in my father’s time. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we chose from Chinese, Italian or seafood. We did have a great place for pizza right across the street from our house so no complaints. When I remember that pizza I always recall the day that I entered my brother’s room to wake him for school and almost fell over backwards. He had eaten a garlic pizza (raw garlic) the night before and the fumes were thick.

I will never understand how anyone can ever be bored. It’s a very interesting world.

The image above is of a wall in my office. Those are some of the painted “pieces” I am using now in a new collage operation.

Below is a table in my studio with small collage elements taking shape.

About What I See

2011-09-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

Does anyone see what I see? Does anyone care? Should they? You can’t eat it or use it to clothe or shelter yourself. How can anyone in her right mind make it the reason to get up everyday?

When I had my first solo show, thirty-three years ago in Caracas, the gallery owner would stop by my little studio occasionally to check on me. He was giving over his beautiful exhibition space to me for a month and I suppose he thought he needed to crack his whip now and then. Actually, he taught painting at the Universidad Central and was the best teacher I ever had. He was able to put aside whatever his own aesthetic preferences were and help me to move ahead in my own direction. I always greeted him with questions somewhat in the vein of those above. And he always repeated these words as he left: “Now stop thinking and paint!”

I’ve just come from the studio where I dove into my red painting again. As I worked I knew exactly what color to put where, how thick or thin, how transparent or opaque and how short or long the stroke. But César was right, when I really know what I’m doing, I’m not thinking. I see and I act. Very strange.

I wind up feeling very pleased with myself, very complete after a session like the one I just described. And then I wonder if anyone really cares about whether or not that red comes alive. Maybe nobody sees there what I see. And, of course it could happen that nobody will ever see it. Over my dead body.

The response that I get when a viewer says something to me that means he delights in the color that I have manufactured means a great deal to me. So what is that about? I think it’s a kind of communication. It’s not too much different from preparing some wonderful food and then waiting on the edge of your chair as your guest(s) or family taste, and then tell you how good it is. Makes that time in the kitchen worth every second. There’s a movie about that called Babette’s Feast. Babette was a totally whacky artist whose medium was food.

I have finished the quartet. I will leave it hanging in place for a while in case I see something more it needs. I have already started the next project which is about assembling paper that I painted some months ago. I will adhere it to canvas to make collage paintings. I had a lot of this material on the walls of my office for a long time and not the slightest notion of what to do with it. And then after two days of playing with the stuff I got very clear about how I want the new work to look. Which made me very happy. I am committed to eleven or twelve linear feet of wall in a group exhibition in December and there is a chance that I will be moving home and studio soon. I need to get ready now for that show, just in case.

A long time ago, somebody who did his utmost to discourage me from the path I chose to follow said to me: “You’ll see, you will get tired of painting and then you will see what a mistake this plan of yours is.” I couldn’t know what lay ahead and those words scared me. But the mistake was his.

The image above is of some of the material I am using for my collage operation now. Each color panel measure 17” x 11”. They are usually cut up into separate sections, but not always.

From Douglas Adams author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”: “He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”

About the Challenges

2011-09-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

I think I have raised the red painting from its grave. Red is hard for me. Every time I set out with red as my goal, as the predominant color in a painting, it’s as if I have never done it before. This one started well (they all do) and then I turned it to mud (not unusual). Then I worked and re-worked it and it went from okay to not okay and back again. Very frustrating. The panel must weigh twenty pounds now with all the layers of paint on it.

This morning I was determined to breathe life back into it but really didn’t know where to start. I dawdled and imagined the different routes I could take, looked carefully at some successful reds in a couple of older pieces and then advanced, brush in hand. And voila! I did it! But it is not finished. It has gotten its lights back and now I need to heighten the red. I plan to move ahead this afternoon with great caution. But first I took a photo. Here ’tis:

It is still not ready. I intensified the red too much. Now I have to backtrack a bit and up the lights again. I am hoping to have it finished next week. It is still a challenge but I’m no longer flummoxed by it. This is its current incarnation:

The other three members of this group are close to finished. They are far less a battle than the red.

I was more aware then ever last week as I turned the pages of Time magazine of the hardship and trouble all over the world. Page after page about the economy, more memories of 9/11, a hideous fire that took lives in Kenya, a malaria epidemic, and so much more that is awful and sad. A small section of the magazine at the end is given to “Culture”. There we have books, movies, music, the visual arts and more. This issue had an admiring review of an autobiography by film critic Roger Ebert. Ebert lost his jaw to cancer and with it his ability to eat, drink, and speak. He does, however, continue to write, very well it seems. He states his mission:”We must try to contribute joy to the world”.

Time magazine might begin by devoting more pages to it. I hope there is enough human creative energy to keep pace with the blights and maybe provide some kind of equilibrium in our world.

From writer Lois McMaster Bujold: Its important that someone celebrate our existence… People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in.

Please note that I very much appreciate the comments I get about this blog and I always respond them.

About Exhibiting

2011-09-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend I will review a proposal I have been writing for an exhibition I am planning. I will polish it, choose the images to include with it and then submit the packet to the gallery I have chosen. And then I will try to forget it during the wait for the jury to meet and then to let me know if this plan will become a reality. If you have been following this blog for a while you might remember that a while back I decided to abstain from exhibiting — except for maybe participating in an occasional group show. Exhibitions are expensive, disruptive and unnerving.

So why this change of heart? Well, I don’t always know why I do what I do, but the truth here is that I will be very disappointed if I don’t get this one. I guess it’s mainly about constructing a script to make sense of this life of mine. I get up in the morning, take care of some of the chores and then go out to my studio to work on the current quartet until I tire. I incorporate a lunch and a nap into the plan and it works well. My spirit rises and falls with how well or poorly the work goes. Right now I am happy with three of the panels (see the image below) but the red one is not right yet. I am contemplating a radical intervention.

My usual procedure is to photograph paintings when I finish them and then store them away and market them from the photos. I almost never get to see them after they are finally sold and hung in place, usually in some building on the East coast. That’s mostly okay, but with this project, (and the current quartet is only the beginning), I want the paintings to be seen, and to see them myself in a clean and uncluttered, well lighted space. Otherwise this will be a story with no conclusion. My last big show was in 2008 and it was as I said before, expensive, disruptive and unnerving. And also wonderfully rewarding.

This current series, barely begun, is very close to my heart; I want to expose it to criticism or praise and to take pride in the achievement — assuming I can pull it off fairly close to the vision. I want to know how far I can move in the direction of minimalism and still maintain the interest of those who follow my work. While I cannot adjust to the tastes of my audience the response to my work is important to me. I can survive censure and applause delights me. I need to mention here that the views on this topic amongst my artist friends varies widely, from those who refuse to exhibit at all, considering it “going commercial” to those who take every possible opportunity to get their work before an audience.

I thought I could be content and make my life easier by forgoing the labor and stress of exhibiting. It hasn’t worked. I have begun to feel invisible. I need to bolster the faith that I feel when I walk through a museum. The respect paid to art, old and new, helps dispel the doubts about what often seems to me to be a selfish and strange path. For after all, I do this for my own pleasure. Maybe the effort of producing a big show is the price I need to pay.

Brendan Gill: Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.

The images above are from a show I had with Humboldt State University’s First Street Gallery in 2008

The image below is the current state of the quartet in progress.

About Changing One's Ways

2011-09-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

The image above (Gift ©2000) is a past foray into building a quartet of single-color panels. It is small (8” x 6” each panel) and was assembled from my stock of painted paper. I chose the colors for their capacity to enhance each other. Far easier to do than the current project (see below), which is larger (35” x25” each) and the colors pre-ordained.

My usual approach when I paint is to barge ahead responding to what the painting seems to ask for. But with this new quartet, because I have destined each piece to be a specific color, and for the four panels to work together as a whole, I am forced to modify my operation. I have in mind a specific color for each and cannot let the work lead the way. Ordinarily the outcome I seek is more a quality or a “feel” and is not pre-determined. I rather think I have done my entire life that way, often horrifying and worrying some of my more pragmatic and probably wiser friends and family. I don’t mean to say that I have operated spontaneously, no, not my style. I have been slow and careful about choosing which fork in the road to follow. But my choices have been sort of romantic and impractical, and often with no real consideration of what the future might bring. The truth is that I haven’t always believed that one can count on having a future. Sacrificing today for a secure tomorrow never suited me. I have felt regret at times for some of those choices.

My style of painting has, however, always been impulsive. So much so that it has often happened that a work that started off well has been sent to Hell by a leap in the wrong direction. I have a sad memory of doing that when I was about nineteen years old. Some second year painting students were awarded a two week stay at the school’s camp in the mountains of northern New Jersey. It was my first experience of painting outdoors and I jumped right in with a landscape that was quickly done and full of my young energy. Even I knew it was special. A visiting artist of certain repute and our instructor both praised it. The next time my instructor saw the same landscape, a little further along, his comment was: “Oh my, what have you done?” What I had done was, in my neophyte innocence, thinking it couldn’t have any value as a painting because it was so hastily produced, I overworked it and eradicated its sparkle. That experience left its mark, obviously, as I still lament it all these many years later. And while spontaneity continues to be basic to my work, I have since been a bit more cautious. Which is not to say that I haven’t ruined many a promising beginning. Fortunately, acrylic paint is forgiving. While you can’t “revert to saved”, you can restart on the same canvas.

There is a story Elmer Bischoff told of the time when he shared a studio with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park. It seems that Park would often overwork his paintings and come up with a something his studio-mates called his “shit surface”. This description so angered Park that he would close himself in the small studio bathroom and emerge some time later with the same painting, reborn and shimmeringly beautiful. And that was before the advent of acrylic paint.

I started to say when I began this post that for the quartet pictured below, I am thinking through each step carefully before laying hand to brush. It was far easier the other way. It was play. Now it’s work.

Oscar Wilde: “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”

The image below is the current state of the quartet in progress, 35” x 25” each, mixed media on heavy etching paper.

About Making Plans

2011-09-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Life got in my way again last week. My plan was to put a transparent layer of yellow on the painting that is destined to be yellow (third from left in the photo below), to inject some lighter areas into the orange one, and to think through what it will take to make the far right one more red without totally losing the interest it has now. The green piece on the left will have to wait a while. It needs to be made more uniform in color and could use some lights. Working on these was my projected immediate future.

But on Friday I got a request for four paintings to be consigned to a consultant in Boston. This is what brings home the bacon and therefor takes priority. My son came to help on Saturday. One of the paintings was a six footer and hard to handle, plus putting four large canvases into a ten inch diameter, six foot tube designed for concrete tubing made a heavy, clumsy package. I needed assistance of the unpaid variety. Because my studio storage system is far less than ideal, unearthing these paintings and then packing them converted my orderly workspace into a shambles. On Monday, when I finally had the energy and courage to face the mess, I realized that I knew what was in the assorted piles of raw materials, half finished work, and collage components, at least in part, because of where I had them placed them on my tables. (The finished paintings lay flat, covered and protected under these masses of matter.) Two days later I had everything in shape and in far better order then before. Today (Thursday) I write the blog and go to the library, farmer’s market and do the errands of the week. Tomorrow, I will work at the business of marketing art and on the weekend, I will do some of the computer work on the collage material I make, one of my favorite activities. And I’ll take some time off, another favorite pursuit. Good week, not completely as planned. Only a little frustrating.

Still, I go on making plans. Adding the time of anticipation expands, extends and enhances something one looks forward to. Care must be taken not to overdo, for there is always the risk of overestimating the success of the plan. Especially if one is fond of scripting the future. Hard to keep in check though. I buy a lottery ticket now and then which gives me permission to fantasize about the studio I would design — with lots of convenient storage space. But when the day comes to check on the winning number, I put it off. It would upset the plan of the day to have to suddenly deal with all that money. Sound crazy? Then you don’t understand that most fantasies are best as fantasies. Reality, in this case, would mean taking my studio apart and then putting it back together again. Don’t even like to think about that (though I may have to soon). Another downside of a win would be the disruption of the painting projects that I am so much involved in now. I hate when that happens because if the pause is a long one the project loses its appeal and must be set aside. That is the history of most of the unfinished work in my studio. Most of it gets done eventually but there is always a sense of loss that is integral to the experience.

On Monday I will paint.

Andre Maurois: The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions.

And Lewis Mumford: Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.

The image above is an example of the collage material I make: my own painting, scanned and manipulated and then printed to later embed in the paintings.

The image below is the current state of the quartet in progress, 35” x 25” each, mixed media on heavy etching paper.

About Retiring

2011-08-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

Recently my policeman son brought a group of his friends to my studio for a visit. None of these people have had much experience with the kind of art I do and probably little of any other variety. This small crowd had brought a couple of bottles of wine and some munchies and as we sat and chattered afterwards, one of my guests surprised me with: "Your paintings make me happy."

After my last blog post I got a number of appreciative comments. (I love getting those and always reply to them, by the way.) And then this note from a person dear to me: “I read every word of every blog and value your perspective. I'm grateful that you take the time to share your thoughts and I have much respect for them. Thanks for taking the time to reply.”

I can’t give up painting; I need it in too many ways, but I was considering resigning from the blog. I write a first draft on Thursday (about an hour) and polish it on Friday (two, sometimes more, hours) A lot of time for a few paragraphs of unremunerated work. The switch from painting to writing is hard, especially on those days when I have no topic in mind. Then I get into it and it becomes something and it's okay. Other times I feel like I haven't quite said anything real and it's not okay. I am uncomfortable putting something out for all to see when it’s not everything I’d like it to be. But I have been committed to publishing every Friday come rain (often in Humboldt County) or shine (seldom and treasured).

Life would be easier if I just gave up blog writing. Then I get comments like those above. What I can't give up is that connection that comes through the painting and the writing. I have wondered since childhood if anyone sees as I see. So this operation, at least in part, is a quest for that response. There’s an encounter at a non-rational level, one I don’t understand well enough to describe, but which brings a warm feeling of contentment. I used to put on one of Beethoven’s most dramatic orchestral works at good volume and stomped about saying: “You and me, Ludvig, you and me!”. It’s about connecting, about being appreciated and being heard. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like being appreciated but some of us are suckers for applause. Maybe it’s a kind of gateway drug. Get a little and soon the need escalates and you go on writing the damn blog ad infinitum. And complaining every step of the way, which is how I do a lot of things. While I am actually having a very good time.

The image above is Quartet Six, 6" x 16, Pigment Print on Acid-Free Paper, ©2010. It is more or less what I am attempting to do now in a much larger size. The quartet in progress in the studio is coming along slowly but should be at a highly photographable stage for next weeks blog post.

About the Artist's Unexceptional Life

2011-08-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve been wondering what my topic would be this week. Many of my readers are artists. Many are not. I want to capture the interest of all (in spite of what Honest Abe said about pleasing all of the people …). I had to think about what I know enough about to be able to speak of. And am I writing for my artist audience or my non-artist readers? Who am I anyway? Am I not both?

This has been a typical week: a lot of painting which is going well. Some grocery shopping, a little cooking, no housecleaning (only gets done when there’s a dire need for it), some laundry, and much time on the phone with my kids. This morning I will write this blog, do some business stuff, (I’m uploading images of my pigment prints to Visual Art Source and will include a link to that new gallery page when I have it ready). In the evenings I usually watch an hour of something I get from Netflix and then settle into my cherished armchair with the book of the moment. I have thought a lot about what’s happening in Somalia and been horrified on a daily basis by much of what I see in our local newspaper. I will spend some of the weekend scanning and printing small paintings that I plan to use as collage material in current and future studio projects. And I will take some time off to read and probably spend some with the family. On the agenda for next week: painting, and a proposal for an exhibition I would like to have in the year 2014. Plus a repeat of most of the usual.

There are a number of things I’ve neglected to mention but I think I’ve got the bulk of it. That’s it, the fairly ordinary life of a self-employed person. I think it entitles me to write about art or anything that is ordinary. Oh, and I forgot. I do the (minimal) obligatory exercise three times a week with Jane Fonda. Into every life some rain must fall.

In a recent newsletter from painter Robert Genn, he uses these expressions when speaking of the generic artist: a higher calling, a higher path, the sensitive ones who struggle alone, a creative life and a life well lived, the most privileged of all.

I have included a link to Genn because I have taken him quite out of context. But I have heard and read those terms applied to my ilk and find them unreal. So maybe there are those of us that live on a higher plane than most (Beethoven and Michelangelo?) but mostly we are working for a living and grateful for our ordinary lives.

All of this is my personal bias. Blogging can be wonderfully self-indulgent.

The image above is one of the little (17" x 11") pieces that I’ve scanned for use as collage material. The image below is the current state of the quartet I’m working on. Click on it for a better view. I’m using a variety of materials, mostly acrylic on 35” x 25” panels of heavy etching paper. Stay tuned for further developments.

About a Teacher

2011-08-12T11:58:00.000-07:00

The image above is of some of the color samples I use in the studio to help me stay on track. And below is photo of a studio wall today. The quartet in the center of the wall is the major focus. Surrounding it are exercises to play with when the mood strikes. As I move on with the monochromatic paintings, I remember my first painting teacher. It was my second year at Cooper Union and I was eighteen years old. In our first year we did a lot of design: two dimensional, three dimensional and architectural, along with life drawing, sculpture, calligraphy, drawing, aesthetics and history of art. A fairly traditional line-up during the time that we were emulating and revering the abstract expressionists of the fifties. The instructor was John Ferren, a romantic figure just back from a long time in Europe. He had hobnobbed with Picasso, Miro, Kandinsky and Mondrian amongst other stars. We knew nothing of this history; he was our teacher.

He gave us a series of assignments that I am still working on half a century later. After allowing us to get used to the feel of painting in a shared studio environment and instructing those of us new to oil paints (we had used tempera and gouache in first year) he asked us to do a series of paintings, each one based on a primary color: a blue, a red and a yellow. We could push these colors to their limits of variation but no other color was allowed on our canvases. My attachment to the man began one day when totally frustrated with trying to make my red painting sing as I wanted it to, I took a bit of green paper and stuck it into the wet oil painting. Ferren spied this insurgence from the other side of the great studio room and sped towards me ready pour out his wrath. When he saw my prank he said: “Very funny, Gold, take it off.” Our friendship was cemented one day when a large canvas I was engrossed in toppled from its easel onto my head. John Ferren gave me a turpentine shampoo along with advice about keeping my wits about me even when I painted. It was he who wrote the recommendation that was a strong part of the fellowship application that sent me to Latin America and set me on the course my life would take.

That's us, ever so long ago. I still think of him with great affection; he is one of those people that I would like to meet again and share a bottle of wine with. I would tell him about how that long ago assignment so intrigued me because I never got it quite right. This time I will put a bit of green into my red painting. I don’t have to follow the rules any more. And from what I read about him now, he never did.

About Beautiful

2011-08-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

I am at the beginning of a new series of paintings and am deliberating about how to do them. I plan to make panels of color that will be hung together in groups of three, four or five. There will be a red panel and a blue panel and an orange panel, the whole rainbow. As many and as different as I have the time and energy to paint. The challenge is to keep them as simple as I envision them and lusciously beautiful at the same time. Their reason to be must be only their ravishing presence.

Beauty comes in an infinite variety of forms and has much to do with time and place and person. I remember as a youngster seeing some of the lingerie of my mother’s trousseau and thinking it unattractive. I found it very lovely some years later. Beauty can be delicate or brash, moving and tender, or heartbreakingly sad. It can be serene and bring peace. Music can evoke all that and more. I want to do it with color. Mark Rothko did it in his way; Pierre Bonnard in his. I have been looking at the work of artists (too many to name here) who have used color in some magnificent way, everyone different and lovely. Now I will do mine.

I have been warming to the project by making the small color panels seen in the photo above. I must have made a hundred in the last week. They take lots of layers, several different materials in addition to the acrylic paint and require a kind of “back and forth” process. They are for practice and I am using them as interim work and will go back to them when I get too serious about the larger pieces.

These are the beginnings:

I will upload photos now and then as they progress, maybe even including the times that they look awful and I am stumbling in my path. There are thirty-one of these panels in four different fairly large sizes.

As I said in a recent note to a friend, I never quite reach my objective in terms of drop-dead gorgeous color, but it doesn’t matter. This is more about the quest itself than it is about reaching goals. What matters is doing it. In the long run it doesn’t matter how successful the work is by anybody’s lights. There is, however, a reward in the paintings themselves. When finally hung together in carefully orchestrated groups, they will have some of the joy that I felt while making them. And that will be enough. Until the next round.

John Kenneth Galbraith: There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.

About a Brain

2011-07-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

Last week I said: “I am an idiot when it comes to numbers”. I need to enlarge on that to get to what I want to say today about how a brain works and sometimes doesn’t.

Back in grade school a teacher asked me to explain the perfect score I got on a test as she could not see any evidence of the path I took. I know now, because I still do it, that I visualize numbers and move them about in a way that does not follow the steps I was taught. I have used this kind of thinking all my life but when I was the age I was then (somewhere between six and eight years old) I wasn’t aware of how I operated. I got a shameful zero on that test and was accused of cheating. I don’t know if that experience was the deciding factor and caused my lifelong antipathy toward numbers. It certainly didn’t ease the way.

This morning I came across this: “I often hear artists say that they are too right-brained to do left-brained business tasks.” It goes on to explain how that is a mistake. I had been painting but returned to doing business in response to some requests for information about my work. I was struck again by the change in how I felt about my life, myself and the world around me when dealing with pricing, computer glitches and time spent on the phone. I enjoy meeting the people who appreciate my work and sales make me very happy. But self-promotion, pricing, databases and mailings are not my cuppatea.

In my studio, I am untroubled and competent. I don’t mean that the work is easy. It is a constant series of choices, decisions and problem solving. I screw up on a regular basis and have to back-track and make right what went wrong because I chose the wrong color or texture or paint viscosity. But mostly, at the end of the day, I feel a serene satisfaction and a well-earned right to rest. After a day spent doing business, even when everything is going smoothly, no glitches anywhere, I come away feeling as if I have been unproductive and what little I have accomplished is meaningless. I am baffled by stuff about right brain, left brain. My brain has been with me for a long time. It has served me well but there are some areas of extreme non-expertise that will never get any better. Who am I trying to fool?

Sculptor Louise Nevelson: “In my studio I'm as happy as a cow in her stall. That's the only place where everything is all right.”

The 50% sale at Artful Home has ended but will continue in my studio. My moving sale of pre-2006 work continues until we find that elusive perfect space. Email for information and appointment.

About the March of Time

2011-07-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of this year and for several months thereafter, I worked in my studio at assembling thirty-two collage paintings in a series I named “The Structures”. I described some of that process here and included some images. That took a few months and then for a few weeks I devoted myself to contacting those people who sell my work and attempted to add to that list. I had to put the new work out in order to exchange it for the money I require to continue with this operation. I interrupted to get ready in a hurry to open my studio for two weekends and do my own selling. I hadn’t left enough time to do it all: the framing, printing, making the space visitor-friendly, taking down half-finished work to make room for the studio-expo, sending out announcements and such. Fortunately my unpaid help, daughter Laura, was on hand to do much of the labor at my side. And the event was, as usual, thoroughly enjoyable.

There was some more marketing after that and then one day I started fantasizing about painting. I kept myself lashed to the computer and imagined the different ways I could apply paint to a surface. I was contemplating a kind of intense color different from what I had done before. I made a deal with myself. I would do an hour or two at the computer every morning before going out to the studio, to update business stuff, still only about half done. I had photographed the new work, spiffed up the images, put all the new pieces into my database, and uploaded them onto my web site. I had titled and priced and written descriptions of everything. I need to say here that while this sounds like it might be a smooth-flowing operation, it is not. I am slow to make decisions; I type with two or three fingers and I am an idiot when it comes to numbers. So okay, it takes me a while but I do a fairly good job of it finally. Except there has been no finally. After failing to keep the bargain of those pre-studio morning hours, I made a different deal. Alrighty, then — paint for as many days as it takes for you to be ready to stop for a while, a week, two weeks, whatever it takes. But, by God, if you don’t get to the marketing, the sky is going to fall in.

So I have been painting. This is real painting, with a brush and paint, not assembling collage elements or preparing paper or canvas, or using other media to embellish the final surface or varnishing completed work. No, this is painting and it is satisfying and addictive. I’ve been at it for several weeks and it only gets better. At the beginning I was cold. I forget how paint works and how to get the effects I’m after when I’ve been away from it for a while. And now I wanted to bring another kind of vibrancy to it.

I unearthed some large old unfinished works on very heavy paper. I often put work aside because I see a potential that I don’t know how to make visible. When I looked these pieces over and I saw exactly what they needed and felt completely clear about how to make it happen, I laid out paint and went to work. And after a few days I was right on track, the work moving along almost effortlessly. I am so happy with it. I know what I am doing. There is so much to do that I want to do. There is so little time. The marketing will get done. I wonder who will do it.

Writer Isaac Asimov said “If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I’d type a little faster”.

The painting above is Partition, ©2011, acrylic & mixed media on etching paper, 26” x 16”. My 50% moving sale (still haven’t found a place) continues at Artful Home until the 28th. The image above was in their newsletter with this note from the CEO:

And then there's Joan Gold. I first saw and purchased Gold's paintings in Seattle a few decades ago, and have admired her work ever since. Imagine my thrill when she became one of the newest artists represented by Artful Home! Take a close look at her paintings; Gold's obvious love of paint, her strong lines reminiscent of both Diebenkorn and Navajo blankets, and her juicy color sense cause my heart to skip a beat.
Feel free to fall in love over and over again.

About the Elusive Muse

2011-07-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

I’m going to meet with some artist friends next week to talk about a concern common to the trade: What to do when the muse departs? I’ve been rolling it around in my brain to come up with my own take on this oft experienced plight. My first thought is that there is no muse. Art is work and workers get tired and depleted. “Burned out” we say now. We don’t get any more scorched than the office worker or the executive, but we all get tired. Body and brain tired.

If one thinks of oneself as an artist, there’s that sudden “uh oh, it’s gone”. Who am I now? What am I without that identity? My answer (funny how I have an answer for everything.) is that person is exactly who she has always been. Maybe a bit older. I do not mean to take this lightly. I have known and still do all the anxieties that come with the calling. But do we not take ourselves a bit too seriously? Do we not exalt our practice above and beyond the simple labor that producing art is? There, I’ve gotten on my soapbox; this issue is dear to me. What we do is honest work. We used to belong to guilds, the forerunners of labor unions. We took on apprentices. No aptitude tests required. It’s easier if we give up trying to be MichaelAngelo. If we have that light within ourselves, it will shine.

My friends are talented women, dedicated to their craft. No slouches they. Two are preparing for shows and feeling uninspired. Where is that muse that I said doesn’t exist? Well, if you ask me (I’ll ask myself, thank you), that muse resides within. She does not descend all misty and lovely and generous, bearing visions and zeal from above. She is who we are, artist or human of any line of work. And that part of ourselves that creates can no more go on undernourished and overworked than can we run a marathon with no training. (God help me if I were to run one under any circumstances.) No, the muse needs care. Give her a rest, feed her with whatever it takes to revive her (a new medium, a visit to a museum, a vacation, anything). Maybe one just needs to tire of not working.

There is another possible explanation for the lost muse syndrome. That is a kind of performance anxiety that can afflict artists of all genres, often even after having the experience many times over. It can cause a severe case of painters’ paralysis. I have dealt with that and needed help and got it. While the process has to be repeated in its entirety each time it appears, the artist usually survives intact and the show goes on.

Also mentioned as a topic for the scheduled meeting was “being invisible”. I’m not sure what that’s about. My guess is it’s about being an older female in this culture. It could also be about not getting the attention one wants for the art one produces. Or maybe it’s more like not getting it in any of life’s situations. These women are not shrinking violets. I doubt that they have any trouble making their presence known anywhere. But getting the response that would satisfy, whether as aging females or artists of any gender requires that we make some noise. As an artist, talent alone does not do it. It takes a lot of work to make even a small splash. There are a great many artists producing fine work; those that profit by it are few. I long ago decided that whatever benefits I reaped apart from the joy inherent in the task, was gravy. If I could support getting up and going to my studio every day, what more could I ask for? Well, as it happens, quite a lot. But I am also fine without it. I can pay the rent and buy the food and the paint. And as for dealing with being invisible as an aging female, as long as I can call attention to my presence, I’ll do just that.

Singer Tom Glazer: For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.

My pre-2006 paintings, reduced by 50% for the moving sale, are available now online at Artful Home. The painting above, included in the sale, is Silence, ©1996, acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 17” x 44”.

About Being Civilized

2011-07-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

My manner of writing requires that I spiral into myself, somewhat like a corkscrew, to reach that place within where I really reside. Only when I get there can I write anything that feels true.

I have to be careful about what I take from that place as I am naturally opinionated and critical. How then to be really truthful and not cause offense? Well, it means choosing my words thoughtfully and considering with care the possibility of irritating my audience, or worse, alienating them. If I want to keep my reading public, and I do, I need to be honest and at the same time, prudent. Sometimes the beast escapes for a moment. My guess is that most of us harbor a wretch who poses no danger to anyone but ourselves. There’s a difficult balance to keep; sometimes I succeed and sometimes I’m not brave enough. I’m getting there.

I find that the most honest of writers, those that bare themselves bravely and dare say it all, are poets. There is more pain, fear, anger and love in poetry than in prose as a general rule. Some times, as was the case when I read Anne Sexton I become afraid for the writer. How could she dare to become so visible?

Painting, like writing, is grateful for the time you devote to it. I went to school; I read about it; I learned from other painters, but mostly I have learned by watching what paint does when I use it and by staying with it through the highs and lows. The highs have been rewarding and during low times, the painting itself has been the reward.

I speak here often on subjects that I do not completely understand. The creative operation puzzles and surprises me, but always, always, I am grateful for it.

For those who have been waiting to buy a painting, now’s the time. I am planning to move, as soon as I find the right space. To ease the ordeal, I am selling pre-2006 inventory online at Artful Home, at a 50% discount. The sale begins next week on July 13th; I will send out an email announcement as a reminder. The painting above is Interlude, ©2001, Acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 9”x 26.5”.

About Not Having It All

2011-07-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

The words of Nobel laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini (from her auto-biography):

“Without a pre-established plan and guided at every turn rather by my inclinations and by chance, I have tried — as will be clear from a reading of this sort of balance-sheet or final account of my life — to reconcile two aspirations that the Irish poet William Butler Yeats deemed to be irreconcilable: perfection of life and perfection of the work. By doing so, and in accordance with his predictions, I have achieved what might be termed “imperfection of the life and the work”. The fact that the activities that I have carried out in such imperfect ways have been and still are a source of inexhaustible joy, leads me to believe that imperfection, rather then perfection, in the execution of our assigned or elected tasks is more in keeping with human nature.”

I saw recently a documentary called “Who Does She Think She Is?”, which begins with a narrator reeling off a list women who remained childless: Amelia Earhart, Georgia O’Keefe, Tallulah Bankhead, Edith Wharton, Emily Dickinson, Janis Joplin, Eudora Welty, and Lillian Hellman. The movie presumes to demonstrate that having a family and developing as an artist can be done simultaneously. It fails miserably. Five women artists who married and had children are portrayed. If you were watching carefully you would see broken marriages for three of the five, angry children for the fourth. The fifth might have pulled it off but that was not clear. Sculptor Louise Nevelson left her son with her parents and went off to Germany to continue her art studies. The boy was estranged from his mother most of his life. I am sure that there are women who have succeeded at both (concurrently), but I am also sure they counted on unusually supportive partners. Levi-Montalcini, from an Italian-Jewish patriarchal family got only discouragement as she chose her path, having to overcome the objections of her father who believed "a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother”. She chose to avoid marriage and children altogether and to pursue her career in science, because during her generation, it "wasn't done" for a woman to be a professional and also have a family life.

I think now and then of the choices I made and the roads not taken. I would have liked to have an enduring marriage and also the rewards that might have accrued had I stayed in New York from a young age and given painting my all. Instead I got Levi-Montalcinis “imperfection of the life and the work”. And the “inexhaustible joy”. Not too bad.

About Being Alive

2011-06-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, while I was still in my forties, I convinced myself that I had lung cancer and was on my way to see an M.D. to get my fears confirmed. I was a heavy smoker at the time and had good reason to believe that I had done myself in. Add to that that I had recently lost a very dear friend, and the person who had been the head of my department at the university, plus two others who had populated my landscape over the years. All smokers taken by cancer. There was also the idea that I would die at the age my mother did; she was forty-seven. Her mother was thirty-three. Cancer took both.

I had recently arrived in California and didn’t have a car yet. I waited at a bus stop observing two elderly women enjoying a conversation and thought about being robbed of the old age that could have been mine. Those old ladies were probably younger than I am now.

In the days prior to the clean bill of health that I finally got from the doctor, I became increasingly aware of those moments of life that I didn’t want to give up. It wasn’t the people in my world I was focused on; that would have been far too painful, and not the world around me that I would no longer inhabit. No, it was the momentary pleasures, like the fragrance of printing ink that is released when the newspaper is opened in the morning. Sitting in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn waiting for the show to begin is another of those repeated moments that has never lost its luster. Snuggling into the big soft chair in my room to steal a nap and the time when I slip into my warm bed as the house cools at night. How sad to think there would be no more.

This line of thinking came back last weekend when I strolled on a sunny Saturday at our local farmer’s market. I was with my daughter and a dear friend and was taking great pleasure in some of the best strawberries I had ever put in my mouth.

I think what is special about those bits of life is that being alive is enough. Pain does something quite different, sometimes causing us to wish our lives away. I wonder about those people whose worlds were taken from them recently by way of tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados, floods and other disasters of old testament dimensions. How fortunate those of us that continue to delight in that first cup of coffee in our kitchens in the morning.

I took an unplanned detour there. I meant to end this discourse with something about how the arts (music and the visual arts, movies, books and such) were part of the picture. Oh well, maybe next time.

Poet Emily Dickinson: “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

About Hope

2011-06-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

This is an extension of last week’s text on optimism. According to my dictionary one definition of hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen”. For optimism we get “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something”. Pretty close, don’t you think?

Personally, and the advice I tend to give to my children (over and over again) is expect the best, prepare for the worst. Of course, that’s hard to do. Most of us slip from one mode to the other according to our mood of the day or to repercussions from recent experience. Surely we feel better when hope and optimism reign. And, as I mentioned last week, what risks could we venture into without the hope of a favorable outcome? And, let’s face it, no risks would make for a dull life.

Every time I prepare for an exhibition or plan an open studio, I need to arm myself with the expectation of success in the form of lots of visitors, a lot of appreciation for the work and sales enough to make it possible for me to go on painting. It hasn’t always come together like that with all the elements in place. Several times during this history I have taken part-time jobs, and a few times have been bailed out by the family. Mostly, though, it has been a fairly smooth ride, with occasional bouts of anxiety. But obviously, since I am still at it, that irrational optimism about the future kicks in and the march continues. I guess that’s the reason for writing again on the subject. It’s the optimism based on nothing more than the desire to have this life, that has fueled the walk. I need to keep it operating.

Even writing this essay requires optimism, or maybe in this instance it’s more like faith. When I start writing with nothing more than a sentence in mind, I need to believe I will come up with something I can maintain my own interest in. If I don’t get involved, I surely won’t engage my readers. And miraculously, this old brain heats up and takes over. After a number of repetitions the confidence is born. The truth is that without that confidence, or hope, or optimism, or expectation or maybe just plain thoughtless plunging ahead, nothing would be created that wasn’t done before. Who would pick up pen or brush or camera or test tube if there was no hope? Who would buy a lottery ticket and fantasize about the studio she would design? How silly would that be?

Winston Churchill: For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

About Optimism

2011-06-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

A recent Time cover article was about how optimism is an integral part of our human operation. Well, of course. How else would we sell lottery tickets, have reality shows or even plan a vacation? I need all the optimism I can muster to get myself on an airplane. The article went on to say that we do a far better job of imagining our sunny future than we do at remembering our real history.

All my life I have had vivid fantasies about how I wanted the story of my life to proceed. When I was very young the next chapters were essentially romantic and adventurous. Later they became more about life becoming easy and comfortable although the romance and desire for excitement didn’t completely abate. And then, in my mid forties, I opted to live the vision entirely and put rationality aside to dedicate myself wholly to painting.

As I recount in my recent video interview (available for viewing here), if I had known what lay ahead for me I would have been far more scared than I was. I know now that it was that crazy optimism that resides within the frontal cortex of my brain that made the decision doable. But certainly not less crazy. As Warren Buffet said: “Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.” In my case, no knowing was a blessing. Now, many years later, I marvel at how good it has been. I have been fortunate in my art-business dealings and have benefited greatly from the support, moral and practical, from family and friends.

According to the research the outcomes of the choices you make and the tests you take are more likely to be positive if you expect them to be so. It is not so easy to imagine a bright future as the years accumulate. The time ahead does not stretch endlessly as it did before. The realities of old age keep breaking through as the script is written. But how about these apples: Claude Monet didn’t even start his water lily series until he was in his seventies; Goethe finished Faust in his eighties; Pablo Casals was still performing in his nineties? (Thanks to Peter Spellman, Berklee College of Music) Looks like there’s reason to be hopeful, doesn’t it?

Writer Anais Nin said: And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

The image above is from the August Quintet, ©2011. An archival print of it will be available this weekend for the second round of our North Coast Open Studios. For directions or inquiries please click here to email me.

About the Test

2011-06-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend many of the artists of Humboldt County, California will be opening our studios to the public. While I have raced to get ready, I have been feeling the kind of anxiety that always comes on when I am about to show new work.

Getting ready means setting up to show new work while at the same time giving visitors a look into the reality of life in the workspace. Making my crowded studio visitor friendly is a challenge and I am fortunate to have an engineer daughter who takes on the chores thwarted by my right-brained mode.

The anxiety about showing the work and meeting the public is history that recurs again and again and is probably a bit milder than it was in the beginning. I have delved into my psyche in an attempt to understand it. The hope is that understanding what it’s about would help to diminish its power over me.

What came to mind today was that TV show I used to watch called “Inside The Actors’ Studio”. Towards the end of the interview there were some questions that were the same every week. One was (paraphrased) “What would you like God to say to you when you meet him in heaven?” My response to that would be that I would want him to pat me on the back and say: “You did good”. As if life were a test. We are born into circumstances that we don’t elect for ourselves and our lives require constant choices and decisions. So if there is some deity who is going to review how we did with the hand we were dealt, I don’t want to hear him say: “This is what you did with what I gave you?”

The reality for most of us living in this culture, is that we are free to make our lives as we will. That said, I am fully aware that many of us are born into conditions that are close to impossible to overcome. And in the poorer countries the proportions of those who struggle to survive in the face of insurmountable obstacles is huge.

I suppose that luck can play a part too, though I have never counted on it. Fantasized, yes, but expected, no. We do love stories about those people who defy the odds and come out winners. We cheer on the underdog in a competition if we know how much it means to him and how hard he has worked for it. I wonder if prevailing over difficulties is becoming less common as the world changes. I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Allan Sherman: Grandma cheated whenever she could. She cheated because it was a much more scientific and surer way of winning than trusting to luck.

The image above is Dusk One, ©2011, archival ink on acid free paper, size varies. It is one of the new prints that will be available this weekend and next at my open studio. For more information go to North Coast Open Studios 2011 -- Humboldt County, California or email me at joangold@humblodt1.com.

About What We See

2011-05-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

There are people who look at a painting I have made and see a horse or a house or a face. I wonder about that need to see a “thing”. Which no matter how much it reminds one of a three dimensional solid object, is still an illusion. For some of us color and shape or pattern don’t make a painting. The kind of painting I do, which aims to be about joy, serenity, harmony and whatever else I want for myself at the moment, is not about the world. It’s about the person within the world. Maybe about the world within the person.

I do often remind the viewer who sees the face in my painting that it wasn’t me who put it there. I suppose what this is about is that we want the world to be consistent with the picture we have formed of it. When you look at a painting, read a book, watch a movie, you are looking through someone else’s eyes and/or brain. It’s not easy to enter into another’s head but the artist can put you there and sometimes we don’t like it. I find that in general I am more comfortable with books written by women (which doesn’t mean that I eschew all the great books by men). But there are some writers, painters, moviemakers and such who do fine work and are much respected, who place one in a world I am not happy in. I don’t often leave a novel unfinished or walk out of a movie. But I do resent the experience of spending a piece of my life in discomfort. I will suffer the experience if I think there is something to be gained by it. For those who are curious I’ll mention a few of the artists whose worlds I have found inhospitable: Jonathan Franzen, John Updike, Lucien Freud, Ingmar Bergman (though I’ve seen most of his films). There are many more but fortunately for me they are a small part of the offerings I can choose from.

I think we would like to be characters in our own movies, writing our plots to suit ourselves. It’s irritating when others don’t follow our scripts. This is not how I wanted this to go! Don’t you get it? There’s something wrong with this picture!

When I was a little girl I entertained myself with fantasies about what my life would be as an adult. I was well prepared to write my story as I was an avid reader of fairy tales and later delighted in the happily ended romance movies of the forties and fifties. They always ended before real life began.

Anais Nin: We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are.

I invite my readers who live close by to visit my studio during our North Coast Open Studios event. It will take place during the first two weekends of June, the fourth, fifth, eleventh and twelfth. I will have new paintings on the walls along with some new giclées. This year I have had some larger prints made for me by Joseph Wilhelm of Meridian Fine Art. I’ll be picking them up tomorrow and am very excited about seeing them. I look forward to visits with old friends and new faces during this, my eighth turn at this event which gets to be more fun every year. For directions, email me at joangold@humboldt1.com.

About What We Take

2011-05-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

I am reminded often of how much I have taken from those people who have tossed something into the mix that became who I am. There are too many to remember, too many to write about and, of course, a great many forgotten, their gifts absorbed and unidentified.

There was a friend that my older brother met at a summer job. George M. was the son of Mexican immigrants; he was becoming an engineer back then. He brought classical music to us. And a look at our lives through a more elastic window. I was seventeen and unhappy about not being able to afford an art school education. He told me of Cooper Union (his school), where if you passed the exam, you were admitted to the tuition-free school of art. My life as my choice began that summer.

Later there were boyfriends who added to my store: Loring was/is biracial, the son of a black mother and Chinese father. A very different heritage from mine. But he was from the next high school district and since I met him at art school he was more like me than anyone I had gone to school with before. Lots of learning there. George L., another boyfriend of that era, was just back from the war in Korea, older by ten years and full of Asian culture. I was introduced to zen in the early fifties. I was a Jewish girl dating a guy whose brother was a priest and sister a nun.

Then there was total immersion in another culture by way of the husband whom I met in Venezuela when he had just emigrated from Spain. From him I took some of those elements of myself that are most precious to me: a command of a second language, an appreciation of baroque music (Bach is still tops), learning so rich and varied and well integrated that it’s hard to separate out who I was before him.

From my friend Susan, I learned to shop. And to discern fine quality in clothing. Might have more in the bank now but for that. From Carmen about dignity and responsibility; she was as much mentor as friend, never feared to hold up a mirror to me. My friend Patricia might not remember that I ceased all contact with her when I learned that she was moving back to Europe. She called one day and said: “I’m not dead, you know!” And I learned that how I dealt with painful separation was to obliterate the person from memory. Thank you, Patricia.

From my children, apart from augmenting my vocabulary with expressions that would make my mother blush (in two languages), I have learned about how love can fill to the brim and warm a life. Whoever thought that those uncivilized little beings would add so much? Great returns on that investment.

These were (and in some cases still are) relationships based on deep affection and the pleasure of each others’ company. I have spoken of some of the gifts that have enriched my life. The reality is that they form the very fabric of my being.

John Donne said: "No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main." Women, too.

About the Spark

2011-05-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

I have finished refurbishing my web site (see it here) and am now sending announcements thereof to those people who make the sales for me. The last couple of years have been dismal business-wise but this year has begun well and I’m feeling optimistic.

My next task, to be started forthwith, will be to get ready for our annual county-wide open studio event. Today I made the list of the details involved, which are many. I am fortunate to have the help of two of my offspring for the preparations. These include some tasks for which I have little or no aptitude like matting, framing and hanging.

There are some other items on my marketing to-do list but they will have to wait. I have been too long away from the studio, have had my nose in the computer for weeks getting images of new work readied and the marketing updated. Returning to the real work after a sojourn like this will be a vacation.

I invariably have a lot to do. Too much most of the time. I have come to understand now in my dotage, that it is not life that busies me but it is how I do life. I like to be occupied. If I arrive at the dentist’s waiting room without some reading matter of my own, I will gaze unhappily at the assortment of golfing magazines and those that advise about investments and chide myself for being absent-minded. (Isn’t that a nice term? The mind absent? How like so many of my moments.) I am not good at hanging out. If I can be fairly sure that I won’t offend my hosts, I take my sewing with me. I hem pieces of fabric to make scarves; my scarf collection has grown to be an embarrassment.

I don’t understand boredom. There is so much that not only wants doing but would make for a good time. And meditation puzzles me. Why would one want to quiet one’s mind? I enjoy my thoughts. I even make myself laugh sometimes. It will be quiet enough after I croak.

I was once assaulted and did the right thing and got rid of my attacker. Afterwards it seemed as if my brain operated without me. It was over before it happened, no time to size up the situation and make a decision. My brain saved me.

And writing surprises me. I start with some topic and then this unquiet mind takes off in directions unplanned and unexpected. Painting is like that. It grows from itself. One just has to allow whatever this human spark is to take the lead. I am as grateful for still having it after all these years as I am for life itself. I encourage all of you youngsters who don’t yet qualify as elderly, to take courage and take care of yourselves. Old age isn’t as bad as it looks. Though it would be nice if it looked better.

About the Big Picture

2011-05-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

I woke up last night thinking of a talk I’d had earlier with a new friend. He spoke of growing up in a family deeply entrenched in right wing values and becoming himself a “flaming liberal” at a relatively young age. I can attest to his self-description. How does that happen, I wonder? I have known so many who inherit the worlds of their parents along with most of the belief system. How does it happen that some of us are able to stand back, see the big picture, and think for ourselves?

I thought it was the domain of the artist to filter the facts through him/herself, sort them out, and then present them either in words or pictures for the eyes and ears of his audience. Would we really know what poverty looks like without photos like those of Dorothea Lange? I have lived far away from the horrors of war but the photos I saw of the death camps of WW ll changed my life. Picasso’s Guernica, and Goya’s Tres de Mayo are images that once seen, are hard to forget. The “Okies” of John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” are equally unforgettable as are the images that formed in my mind as I read John Hersey’s Hiroshima. The pictures of poverty and war granted an education I might have otherwise escaped. The photos being published now of children with facial deformities, in need of surgery, are heart wrenching. A more complete view of the world is not only about hardship. Nor is it as we would like it to be. But we need to know it or, as I believe, we risk having incomplete lives.

For a long time I was close to a man who never outgrew the learning of his early years. There was a time when he was in his fifties, that he was distraught and feeling terrible guilt for doing something his grandmother would have taken a dim view of. Never mind that it was a situation in a culture and at a time that his forbears had not known.

My theory (feel free to stop reading here) is that if, as an adult, you think of completely revising your perception of the world, you have to blow up the foundations you built your life on. Not easy to do. It is a painful process that some people take on in psychotherapy. The book “Love's Executioner” by Irvin Yalom describes ten people at the end of their lives attempting major changes. Brave souls.

So back to my question. Some of us don’t take on the views that we are handed. We may need some time to sort it out but we can think without bias. For me, this has been tough going. I am still struggling to rid myself of prejudices inherited and the conclusions I reached before my experience had widened. I hope to have enough time on earth to really get to see the big picture.

The friend I mentioned earlier is not an artist; he is, in his own words, “Trained as a scientist with degrees in physics, math and engineering …”. I think the truth here is that he stirred the mind of the artist who had come to some conclusions that needed to be reviewed.

I know, I know. I said I’d be briefer. I tried.

The image above is another painting from the past, long gone. 48” x 36”, circa 1985, acrylic paint and pastel on etching paper. It is from before the time that I started keeping careful records so I don’t remember the title.

About Missing Everything

2011-04-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

When I think about exiting this life, I think about the losses. There are the great ones, like all the people I love and can’t imagine parting from, and the beautiful and terrible world itself. Then there is everything I haven’t experienced: the countries not visited, the books not read, movies not seen; I could go on to an ever-expanding list. How wonderful and amazing that there is far more to do and see and learn than we can encompass in a lifetime. And how sad. I particularly regret the paintings I won’t get to make. I have more unfinished work and collage materials than I could get to in two lifetimes. I like having all that waiting in patient silence for me. I lament that I won’t ever get to feel that it is done. To feel that my work here on this earth has come to an end and I am ready to lay down my brushes. No, I can hear myself screaming: Wait! Wait! Not ready to go! Food I haven’t tasted! Streets I haven’t walked on! Flowering trees that will bloom! Oh, dear, I am going to miss all that?

Time marches on and I continue to grow in the power and knowledge I need in order to paint the vision. I think about how nice it would be to go on like Methuselah. Imagine what paintings I could make after another hundred years or so of experience and learning. I would produce miracles. I take more pleasure in my days now and appreciate my world more and more. Nope, not prepared to give up any of it.

The awful reality is that I will soon have to think of reducing my operation. My memory used to be better, but except for that I am still a fully functioning human being. Yet I am thinking ahead to the curtailed abilities that will perforce present within the next years. It behooves me to accept the truth of diminished capacity and to assume a simpler and reduced workload. How hard it is to accept these facts. And the facts are that I need to stop working to pay the high rent I pay now and to move to a smaller living space and a necessarily smaller studio. Damn, damn.

If there is a life after this one, I am putting in some requests right now. I want to be drop-dead gorgeous, brilliantly intelligent, enormously talented and filthy rich. And to be able to add to that list as the whim takes me. Some superficiality there, you say? Well, that would depend on what I do with those gifts, I say.

About Being Personal

2011-04-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

I have posted a new video interview which you can see by clicking on the photo to your right (if you are at my blog site) or right here if you are reading an emailed version of this post.

This interview is more personal than the first (also on my blog page, lower down on the right) and there is more biography. I was hesitant about making it public as it seems that the more one allows oneself to be visible, the more vulnerable one becomes. The feeling is not much different from making paintings available for public scrutiny. And what, I ask myself is this reluctance to be visible about? What is the risk? My brain answers loudly: judgement! And so what? I have committed no crime. Wherein lies the peril in facing the opinion of others? Are we made of such fragile stuff that criticism can cause us damage? Can it distort or disturb the perception we have formed of ourselves? It certainly could that to me when I was a teenager.

I fell in love when I was seventeen years old and was dating the object of my affections. After a few dates and seeing each other every day during breaks at school, he ended our short lived relationship. He told me he was bored because I barely spoke to him. Well, not only was I devastated, heartbroken and mega-miserable, but I took his comments to be an accurate description of who I was. I had not yet grown into myself; I did not understand that I was painfully shy and new to romantic adventure. God help me, I was boring! It took a while to heal from that blow. Coming to terms with who I am has taken a lifetime.

I have also taken rejection as a painter. Early on in my career some paintings I had consigned to a gallery in San Diego were returned to me with a note: “No luck with these, please send new work”. I could not find the strength to send anything to them or anybody else for a while after that. I have a history of sending images to galleries and being ignored or receiving a “no thanks” letter. Success isn’t easy either. After a couple of sell-out shows, a gallery director told me that there was a waiting list for the paintings that I had not even imagined yet. That caused immediate paralysis that required therapy to remedy. And after all these years the vulnerability remains and I still don’t really know what the fear is about.

I have said here before that I relish praise for my work. I see artists as performers of sorts in need of audience approval. Some form of applause is desired. Several artists I know have tougher skins. They can plough on in spite of being spurned repeatedly. Maybe they’re just faking it. A few blessed souls can work in total isolation. I envy them.

About Happy Endings

2011-04-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched the last episode of a TV series that ended with the guy not getting the girl. I’ve been feeling a vague dissatisfaction, a kind of disquiet since. Happy endings don’t happen in our lives. When the guy gets the girl (or she gets him) their lives don’t finalize with that onscreen kiss. It goes on to whatever lies ahead for them. In real life it happens that serial killers reenact their crimes many time over before they are apprehended, if ever. And, sorry to say, good guys go to prison for crimes they haven’t committed.

So in fiction, at least, I want justice for all, bad guys and gals to get their just deserts and for Clint Eastwood to disappear over the horizon in a glowing sunset to continue to pursue horse thieves until he dies a geezer.

Now especially, after the natural and unnatural disasters that seem abundant lately, I want a place of refuge to rest my psyche and my heart. Give me stories that are real enough for me to sink into as I watch or read, and fictional enough to provide me with diversion. I want music that captures me and visual art that brightens my days.

And what about sadness? I appreciate music and movies and stories that awaken feelings of sorrow. Women (and many of the men I have known) will voluntarily choose to experience gloom in a book, movie or whatever. What is that about? My guess is that we all carry some of that within us and keep it at bay. Letting it surface sometimes in certain situations provides the comfort that weeping can bring. In the ancient plays I read at school there were choruses of mourners to accompany the tragedies on stage. They cried for us or with us.

So sad or glad, I want the unreal. I have a hard time dealing with every day’s news. There was a time that I gave up newspapers and newscasts but after a while that seemed irresponsible. One does need to be part of the big picture, to take it all in and deal with it because otherwise you get too disconnected from what everyone else is thinking and talking about. But we need time out; art, be it the written word, color on canvas, or the lovely form of a bowl can provide the respite, if only for a moment.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ~Twyla Tharp, American dancer

About the Similarities

2011-04-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

After my slide show and talk on Tuesday, Amy, our facilitator, tackled the subject of my last blog About the Differences. Except that, being Amy, who is a totally positive thinker, she turned it around and asked the crowd to describe some of the ways that artists are similar to each other. I thought of a few qualities we might conceivably have in common that would have gotten me booed off the stage, but this audience was more respectful.

Amongst the characteristics mentioned were that we make magic. Like stone soup, give us the materials and we will give you a painting, a book, a song. There was a comment about commitment. I don’t know that we have cornered the market on that, but I know that without it, we wouldn’t go very far. There was discipline also. I sometimes think I’d like to lose some of that. I am a very demanding self-supervisor and have difficulty in taking time off. Too much of a good thing, maybe. Peggy, our fine potter, spoke of how we hone our skills. People in other professions must do that too, but we can make it visible (or audible). Especially when we are doing a retrospective slide show. Becky said we are curious. Now there’s a trait that we might have a corner on except that we share it with children. This might be one of the few ways of life in which it serves us well to use all the child there is within ourselves as we give ourselves over to our task. Someone said we learn from each other. We have that in common with every one on this planet and with the animals too. I used to return to my studio after seeing a new painting by my friend Richard, eager to use what I had learned while looking closely at his work. He did the same to me and we thought we were very clever as we ripped each other off.

Somebody mentioned our being supportive of each other. I thought at first that was about this small pond we call home. And then I remembered something I wrote of recently. I had emailed a number of artists I had never met to ask what their experience had been with a certain online gallery I was considering. Every one responded with a thoughtful, caring and warm note. That might well happen within other groups but it was, for me a unique experience of the kindness of strangers.

There were other adjectives applied to us: compulsive, obsessive, honest. I don’t think we have a monopoly on any of those but we might just have those qualities in strange proportions. My personal opinion (I use my self-given right to express it here) is that we crave an audience: viewers, readers, listeners — tasters if you are a cook. And we come in all sizes and shapes and colors. The drive and the need to work are crazy-making and helpful. And we don’t retire.

About the Differences

2011-04-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

I mentioned last week that I am taking part in a series in which six artists show slides and talk about their work. Next week I will be the last of them. What has impressed me most about these presentations is how different we are.

When I was at school, during a class called “History of Aesthetics”, I asked how we could be shown examples of a work from an era in history as representative of its time. Isn’t there a great variety in the look of work by different artists who live at the same time in the same place? Well, no, was the answer. There are many more similarities than differences. The art historian can identify the time and place that a sculpture or painting was produced.

I had a very dear Venezuelan friend during the years I lived in her country. We were contemporaries and we loved each other and we held in common most of the values of the western world of our time. But there were some disparities. She was born and raised in the Andes and partly schooled in Switzerland. Her family was well off. I grew up in Brooklyn, daughter of a cop and a bookkeeper. She was used to a home kept in order by several live-in maids. I employed maids while I lived in Maracaibo and Caracas but was always uncomfortable with being part of the system that I considered inequitable. I suffered guilt for it but was glad to be able to have a job while my children were small. Carmen did not understand my discomfort. And I was amazed that she, who was one of the most decent and honest of women, would encourage her children and mine to copy from their neighbors when they didn’t know an answer on an exam. In Venezuela, cheating on tests was okay, getting caught was not. These disparities of value systems are minor compared to what they can be when you consider greater geographical distances and all the possible variations in cultures and histories.

But what about us? We are six more or less contemporaries; all born and raised in the same country, whose thinking and approach to art is totally different. Are we more alike than I can discern? Or is it that we live at a time when the influences on us come from many more sources? I will continue to puzzle over this until an answer appears or another question replaces it as my current obsession.

The image above is of two of the new mixed media pieces from the Exposure series, 26” x 20” each, on etching paper.

About Mellowing

2011-03-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

I got some comeuppance recently when a friend handed me a copy of a statement about my work that I had written more than twenty years ago. I expected to find it wanting. After all, I am older and wiser now. I would like to think I can do everything better now. But no, I liked it. It wasn’t bad at all. I could use it now with minimal revision. There was a photo of a much younger me in a newspaper clipping along with the statement. No way do I look better now.

I discuss this experience of aging with my peers and usually get an upbeat or at least a serene acceptance of reality as a response. Does anything get better as we grow older? Well, for one thing, I am more accepting of my own foibles. I figure that I’ve gotten away with being who I am for all these years, no need to fret over making improvements now. Am I a better painter? Well, I certainly know a lot more about making a painting look as I want it to. I remind my self of Titian and my old friend Richard, painting with power almost twenty years beyond the age I am at now.

I have just finished selecting slides to do a presentation and talk as part of a series of six artists doing the same. I will be the last. It was clear that there was development and learning and major advances in each of the retrospective slide shows already presented. What I see as I look at my own selection of images, past and current, is that there is a coolness now that wasn’t present when I was younger. A clarity and definition that wasn’t there before. The earliest work looks a little vague. Then it becomes very much alive and a little out of control. Kind of impassioned and unstructured. Maybe a little confused but quite vital. And coming to the present a richness and serenity set in.

I no longer struggle with a painting. The enjoyment of the process is greater. I know what I want and how to go for it. I am closer to the unattainable perfection I want and happy not to reach it. The work parallels the life. So alright, old age ain’t so bad. What I saw when I looked at those early paintings was that, yes, I can do better now.

About Business as Usual

2011-03-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

At this time while we are aware of the horrific events in Japan, I and people I know and many that I don’t know are in our studios focusing on a line, a shape, a color, a texture.

Isn’t there always some horror somewhere? Of the natural kind, or blood shed for political upheaval or famine taking children’s lives or AIDS decimating a population? How then do we go about business as usual? I was celebrating a birthday, grateful for all the love in my life as others were attempting to cope with unimaginable loss. I remember clearly walking out of the house where my best friend lay dying and being surprised and offended by the world looking so normal. I was on my way to do some grocery shopping.

We form a picture of the world when we are young which is constantly under revision. The experiences that darkened my world were about death: I was ten years old when I lost a beloved aunt and a dear cousin, my puppy was run over and died, and I saw some horrific wartime photos. These experiences influenced the choices I made ever after. I wonder about the survivors of the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and of devastating earthquakes and other catastrophes. How did their lives go on?

Only recently have I understood how that sudden first experience of death shaped my life. At some unthinking level, I chose to make my life about life. To this day I am reluctant to miss anything that life offers with the result that I have made many very unrealistic decisions. Supporting myself by painting is amongst the silliest of these. A totally romantic decision, but it was the right choice.

Writer E.B. White said: “All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” I do too. In spite of the fact that our lives can be taken with no regard for the plans we make. Edna Saint Vincent Millay ended a poem about loss with these words: Life must go on; I forget just why.

The image above is Lament ©1996, acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 22" x 68.

About the ColorWalls

2011-03-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

While I am making a painting, I live within the limits of that rectangular flat surface. If I am painting for a gallery show, I am aware of the look of the exhibition space. I want the work to be appropriate in size and strength to its surroundings.

Lately I have been thinking that I would rather not do any more gallery shows. Exhibitions are disruptive, expensive and sometimes disappointing in terms of the response I am hoping for. What has been a more practical and rewarding operation for me has been working with consultants who place the work and send me a check in the mail. (More about that in Blog by Joan Gold: About Marketing)

So I’ve been thinking about where I would like my paintings to hang because it’s nice to have that vision in mind as I work. It kind of helps me to get clear about the work itself and pushes it to resolution. If the work is not destined for gallery shows, where will I imagine it coming to rest? The answer is on the walls of any interiors that can accommodate them easily where people live, work or just pass through. With that picture in mind I know how I want to proceed with the next series I am planning. I am going to make colors for walls and maybe I’ll call them ColorWalls. I am going to make the paintings on heavy paper (thick, velvety, luscious etching paper), that will each focus on a color. There will be a panel about red, one about green, and one about every color that I can find a name for. The important condition that goes with these pieces is that they must be displayed in groups of three or more. More being better. Color is most interesting when juxtaposed with other colors.

This could turn into such a big project, given the possible variations in approach, in materials and in scale, that I imagine it will keep me happy and focused until I croak. And just so that doesn’t happen too soon, I have invested in the new Jane Fonda workout video and a new set of hand weights. I’ll need to endure for at least another twenty years.

The image above is the project of the moment, a precursor to those described above. They measure 50” x 25” each and for the moment are made of acrylic on etching paper. They will soon be adorned with some collage elements (already taped in place) and then embellished with pastels to illuminate them. They were started at Yaddo (see About Yaddo) more than twenty years ago and will be finished now.

About the Vision

2011-03-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing very accomplished potter Peggy Louden, DesignCraft Heroine: Peggy Loudon | handful of salt , speak of her work and show slides of the beautiful objects she creates. What was special for me was to hear her become animated as she spoke of the curve between the wider, lower part of a bottle and its neck. That vision, attention to a curve, a shape, or a line is the kind of nuttiness that makes a work of art spring from ordinary to extraordinary. It is out of balance with the rest of life. As my friend Richard used to comment (somewhat paraphrased), what nonsense is this that we spend our time making marks on canvas? When all hell is breaking loose in several parts of the world, people getting shot at as they struggle for better lives, we sequester ourselves in the safety of our studios and close out the world as we struggle to get the right color or texture. The only way I can see this as any kind of reasonable operation is to remember the images on cave walls and the amazing fact that prisoners in the death camps of WWII made drawings with whatever materials they could scrounge together. The explanation, for me, is that it’s just something we do. It's built into our humanity.

Peggy’s operation as a potter is much like mine as a painter and probably like that of artists in all kinds of disciplines. It is the focusing on a vision, fine tuning, varying, embellishing, and working with it not totally formed in the mind, until it becomes real. Towards the end of her talk, Peggy spoke of simplifying her creations. What that means to me, if I understand her through my own work, is to remove from the object, the vase, bowl, bottle, painting, novel, or sonata, everything that is extraneous. Purification and cleanliness is the goal. Yves Klein’s monochromatic paintings are clean and pure and to the point. Most of us want something more from a work of art but there is something very satisfying in seeing how far simplifying can take us and some of us need to go that route even though it has been done before by others.

Many years ago when I was just beginning to exhibit my work I imagined walking into a gallery at some point in the future and seeing my own work on the walls. The idea was to raise a picture in my mind of how I wanted it to look. Well, here I am, after all this time and still I haven’t painted what I envisioned back then. What I saw in my future was a large canvas, just one, that was variations on one color. It was a deep and misty violet. Sort of smokey.

I am getting on in years. I am going to get to work on that painting. I do not want to leave it undone.

About Love

2011-02-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of love. As I bumble along in life, lusting after luxuries that I don’t have (or need), yearning for the things that I want (a larger studio with well designed storage space) and lamenting about whatever I want to kvetch about at the moment, I remind myself of the love in my life. And I get a lot of support (emotional and practical) for my less than sensible lifestyle. This comes at certain cost (also emotional and practical) to some of those who are already generous with their love.

This love is what I hang on to and search out when I need its comfort; heaven knows I am expert at locating it. It is in the cherished people who populate my world and make it safe for me. They provide the good times; they share the sorrows. They put up with me.

I am mindful of what I have taken from some of those that now I miss. From my mother, who died a long time ago, I took (along with much else) superstition. She inherited it from the old country that her parents came from. She wouldn’t let a knife lie diagonally across another because there would be a fight, and she would not count on good things happening; they’d get jinxed. I am still careful with knives. No need for added risks. My brain knows better but those old beliefs connect me to her. She was the source of unbounded love in my life.

Writing this blog is rather like painting in that it takes unexpected detours, a process self-indulgent and sweet. This one started on Valentine’s Day as I wondered about the holiday and how it has changed from being about lovers to being the day that people send messages of love to all and sundry.

The image above is Neighborhood, sixteen little houses in one frame. I wrote of the little houses in a post titled Memoir some time ago. I have been doing them on and off since I was in kindergarten. Neighborhood is one the most recent, done in 2008 along with three others along the same line. I don’t consider them my best work; they are done with more emotion than brain but they are the ones I have tender feelings for. They have served as memorials and safe places, tombs for people I have loved and sites of refuge for me. Two of this series are in Boston being considered for purchase by the new Boston Medical Center. I have a number of paintings placed in hospitals and it pleases me to think that some of the comfort I find in them is available to those who walk past them or maybe even gaze at them in a waiting room or a treatment room.

About the Technology of Art

2011-02-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

When a painter begins a work with a vision in mind he/she will usually reach for the materials he has been using and which have served him well. But it often happens that the vision evolves into something else or for some other reason the artist needs to vary the materials. This situation will engender a search for whatever it is that will make the updated vision a reality. The research can take many forms; in my experience it has consisted of questions asked in the right places, books, and the blesséd internet. Then comes the testing. Putting together the vision, the materials and the experience is the challenge. The quest and discovery are part of what keeps this life endlessly engaging.

I have been corresponding this week with a friend that I graduated with long ago from The Cooper Union School of Art; we both continue to learn about the craft of art. I hope it will never end. Here is some of our exchange:

Joyce: I've started working with acrylics because the work I was doing with pastels/collage was costing too much to frame (I often work large 5-6Ft.) but I am not feeling comfortable with the acrylics and am miserable because I'm not having the pleasure and the work looks amateurish. I felt so free with the pastels.

Joan: I love pastels too and use them over acrylic (which has collage layers embedded in it) to get the intensity or color variation that I want. If you are interested in experimenting with that mixture of media, you'll need to put a transparent layer that has some tooth in it over the acrylic. Then you can use powder pastel, oil pastel, charcoal, pencil, colored pencil; the choices are many. Golden makes several mediums that might be good for the purpose. I'm using a transparent gesso (lots of tooth) by Liquitex at the moment.

P.S. I don't believe you could ever look amateurish.

Joyce: Your suggestion helps free me up from the tightness I'm feeling working with the acrylic. What do you do to hold the pastel that you've put on top of the acrylic? I don't want to have to glass the work — that's what makes the framing so expensive.

Joan: I don't think you have much of a choice there, Joyce. Even if you use a fixative (which will alter your color), the pastel surface is not strong enough to be left uncovered. I couldn't find on your web site what surface you work on, but if it's paper, that's another reason to need the frame (for support). If you want to mount without framing, you would need to mount the paper on a rigid surface or else on canvas and then on stretchers. And you still need a strong surface which would have to be covered with a removable varnish to protect it. I have done that on large pieces and they have held up well.

I am not the last word on any of the above. Our own answers might not support another’s vision. One of the best sources for answers are the technical support people at Golden Paints. They are wonderfully generous and knowledgeable and have helped me through many a quandary. I look forward to reading that Joyce has found her way happily. If any of the artists who read this blog have found solutions to the dilemmas described above, we would be grateful for your input.

You can see Joyce’s work at Joyce Silver :: Artist

About Marketing

2011-02-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

I depend on selling my work in order to pay the rent and buy the groceries. I have no problem with that. I see no reason that I should not have to work for a living. I like work. Work of my choosing, that is. And I don’t mind that the galleries and consultants that sell my work take fifty per cent of the retail price. They earn it; they do the hard part. I get to stay in my studio with the ringer on the phone turned off while they pound the pavement and deal with clients whose requirements can be difficult to satisfy. If I can forget, at least while I am in the studio, all of this background noise about survival and such, I get my little bit of heaven on a regular basis.

Because a lot of the time there is some anxiety about the foul-smelling, hairy wolf at the door, I have been putting more time and energy into marketing than is worth said time and energy. In these last thirty or so years since I resigned from a salaried job, the galleries and consultants that I have worked with have provided income. I have of late been attempting to incorporate into my daily routine (or weekly or whatever) the use of every other conceivable route to sales and notoriety. Let me count the ways: Ebay, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, two kinds of blogs (have been trying to get started on Wordpress in addition to Blogger), Etsy, younameit. And then, one day recently, it came to me: This is not good.

For those not familiar with the term, the art consultant is somebody, or a corporation or company or a group of somebodies, who sell art without doing gallery exhibitions. There is no expense or hassle for me about publicity, announcements, framing, or travel. The purchasers might be residential customers, or as happens often in my case, corporations, or healthcare facilities or something along that line. The consultants and their clients have brought home the bacon in the shape of checks in the mail. Except for this blog which is a joy to me, the other routes mentioned above have failed to bring returns in proportion to the time invested.

I no longer feel compelled to follow all the advice and directions I have heard and read about marketing art. That is obviously impossible as anyone in her right mind would have realized a long time ago. I am a slow learner.

What brought the message home to me was my own response to a friend’s comment to my last post: “Amazing how much there is to do in a life so short.” Looks like I can’t do it all. I will stay with the consultants and continue with this blog (which has me hooked). And most importantly, I will give back to the studio and to myself the time and energy that I was squandering. That is where the real rewards are.

The image above (click on it for a close-up) is of the same twelve collage paintings as in my post of January 7: About Structure. The 32 pieces in the series are finished. I will photograph them today and send the images to the consultants I have worked with in the past. And a few new ones. I am happy with these paintings and expect them to bring many happy returns. Stay tuned.

About Frivolity

2011-02-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

At lunch this week a dear friend encouraged me to relax some of the restraints I was applying to the more frivolous vein in which I am tempted to work. I am fond of the lavish work of people like Gustav Klimt, William Morris, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I like Liberty prints and small paisleys and small flowery design on wall paper. Illuminated manuscripts, Islamic design, all these are complex, highly detailed and decorative arts. I delight in them. And if I just give in to the inclination, that kind of decorative pattern making will flow into my painting.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum was housed in my alma mater, The Cooper Union. I looked at fabrics and wallpaper and whatever artifacts were displayed there during breaks from class. Then I went back to being a budding abstract expressionist because that is what were trying to be back then. And long after that I became the person who loves and respects the art of minimalists like Ellsworth Kelly and the beautiful and rich simplicity of Sean Scully. No wonder it gets confusing.

I don’t need art to have “meaning”. My choice in reading is mostly fiction which I read for the pleasure of it. It doesn’t matter that this reading is sometimes about tragic lives; the enjoyment of the experience is that it that transports you to a place outside yourself. I will leave to people who know more of human psychology than I to explain why we take that trip watching the small screen or large, by reading of others’ lives, real or imagined, or any of the other ways we find to rest away from our own routines or cares for a moment. Goodbye reality, enough for now. May blessings rain on Netflix and my local library. What luxuries they are.

But I have digressed. I went to my studio after the above mentioned lunch conversation and back to work on a painting that had gone wrong and lost its promise. I decorated it freely and it began to resurrect. Then I gave it some structure (it needed discipline) and it came alive. After that I finished (almost) the two I have posted above. They and the one I just described (at left) are mavericks, far less structured than the others in this series of thirty-two pieces I am focused on now.

I try to keep this blog from becoming personal; I would prefer to keep it about art and life, and I would like to keep it short. A losing battle, both.

These three paintings are still untitled, not yet finished and included in the Structures series currently in progress, mixed media works, 26” x 20” each.

About Working in Series

2011-01-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

I have spoken before about working in “series” and that is what I am doing now. I have seen this operation apparent in the work of other visual artists and in artists of other disciplines. I believe that the impetus behind this repeated reach for the same or similar vision is born of never quite succeeding. It’s about reaching that peak after pushing the boulder up the side of the mountain only to have to start the trek again. That’s a dismal picture of a quest that is often actually a good hike. The boulder only occasionally rolls all the way back down to the foothills. Those are the days when we ask ourselves “What for? Why am I doing this? What makes me think I am a painter?” Or some variation of the above. We have our resident demons. And then there are those delicious moments when something looks just right and we see ourselves as ten feet tall and capable of miracles (until the next day when we become critical again).

I know this experience is shared because artists speak of it and write about it. Self doubt is ever present, more for some than for others but evidently it belongs with the creative effort and may be an essential part of it. Some humility might be a good thing.

That is what I see in the “series” operation. It is the tangible result of the quest for the impossible vision, the miraculous realization, the creative dream come true. But, luckily for us, when the whole of a series is together and finished, the producer is usually sated and ready to go on to the next push. Never completely satisfied but somehow that’s just fine. Wouldn’t want it any other way.

In the words of T. S. Eliot: Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.

The above image of a quartet is part of the “Structures” series currently being pushed up the side of the mountain within my studio. This body of 32 paintings is moving along well, not quite ready to be called “finished” and not quite perfect. But the next group will be.

About Truth

2011-01-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I answered questions put to me by an astute interviewer. Before writing this week’s blog post, I went to my computer to look at what topics I had written about in the past. Repeating oneself becomes even more of a danger as we grow older.

I read over some of my old posts and saw that some of the questions that I answered during yesterday’s interview, I had regarded differently as little as a year ago. I aspired to honesty in all instances but the responses were not consistent. Since not much time has passed I can’t attribute the changes to newly acquired wisdom; I have to think that they are about the moment and the mood. And sometimes whether or not I have had a glass of wine to loosen my thought processes. (En vino veritas.) I’d rather not consider myself flakey since I often speak of issues or subjects I hold dear and give serious thought to. No, it’s more like looking from a different angle. Maybe even stepping into other shoes at times. In conversation, it is often the first thing that my brain lights on.

A question posed to me yesterday was “What is art?”. It takes some arrogance to answer that one and I have done it publicly now twice. (Not counting the intemperate comments made in party situations which I hope nobody remembers.) My carefully worded response would be that art is what connects us to our humanity. Yesterday I said it was a response to a human need. I suppose that truth can take many forms depending on who is expressing it, and where and when he/she is at in history and geography. Truths can be in conflict with each other and still they are truths — at least for the speakers. I have at times convinced myself of something that was in accordance with my perception of the world and of how everything works (or should). That kind of self-deception usually leads to a sorrowful enlightenment when reality sets in.

When responding to an interviewer, I will say whatever comes to mind that seems right at the moment. If I am writing, I will contemplate and go back to the issue in question and fine tune the wording and the thinking. Which is closer to true? Damned if I know. What is true is that it matters. Honesty matters but truth is an abstraction.

Frank Lloyd Wright said: The truth is more important than the facts”.

The image above is Nocturne, ©1997, Acrylic on Paper mounted on Canvas, 23" x 70". It is a particular favorite of mine.

About the Time It Takes

2011-01-14T12:51:00.000-08:00

I have been asked many times about the time it takes to make a painting. The answer is that it varies a great deal and another answer is that I really don’t know. I have written a couple of times about work started twenty or so years ago which I am finishing now. I have had that experience before, of putting something aside because I am not sure of where I want to go with it and it’s usually about not feeling capable of fulfilling what I see as its potential. And then one day, kind of miraculously, I look at the work and know exactly what it needs. I feel able of carrying the work to a satisfying resolution. My guess is that the learning that happens as one plods on plus some clarity that comes with time make the magic. I also wonder if at some level the brain is just doing its work while one is at other tasks. That would be nice.

These works that are coming together now are still not easy but they are clear. I know what I want from them and feel sure of the path I am taking. But there is always that shadow of uncertainty, that question that hovers behind the vision. I believe I will forever be haunted by the desire to create something that will be universally embraced, so perfect in its appearance (remember, visual art is about appearances), so strong and effective, that it will bring my viewers to rain abundant praise on me. And of course these masterpieces would be best-sellers.

Okay, got a little carried away there; fantasy has always been my preferred leisure activity. To get back to the original question of the time it takes, I would have to say it takes a long time and a lot of determination and maybe a little bit of madness to produce a work of art worthy to be called such. A lifetime of trial and effort and one after another of works that are not quite the miracles that one is after. It’s a really nice lifetime.

The image above is of more of the current works in progress. These have had some of their final embellishments, but not all. They measure 26” x 20” each and are painted and collaged on a heavy etching paper.

About Structure

2011-01-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

I am totally engrossed in the project I am working on now in my studio. While I like writing this blog, it is hard for me today. To stay focused where my interest is, I will write about it.

This project is the one I spoke of in the blog post About Yaddo; I am finishing some pieces started more than twenty years ago. I spent several days making a working studio of what had become a kind of exhibition space for my December open studio event. I then sorted these twenty-seven 26” x 20” promising beginnings into cohesive groups and hung them to look carefully at what I had. In the week just past I added collage elements to all of the originally painted pieces. What comes next is some illumination which is about brightening the lights and deepening the dark areas. And then, and this is most important, providing these pieces with some structure; I don’t like “floaty” elements in my work.

That leads me to contemplate the need for structure in my life. Putting it into a painting, which I do by means of lines which anchor the separate elements into a two-dimensional asymmetrical network, leads to an image in which the separate elements are connected and supported. The structure of my days, my beloved routine, brings a sense of calm. If my quest for inner and outer peace is always a challenge, I can make it happen in my work. A significant blessing.

The image above is a partial view of these works in progress. I have coated them with a transparent medium which is receptive to pencil and pastel and these will be the final materials used on what will have to be called “mixed media” works. They started with acrylic paint, were given some collage components and now will be polished with line and light. Julia Childs, before she entered into health consciousness, often gave her recipes a final embellishment of heavy cream or butter. I will do something similar here.

About Time Off

2010-12-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

I have taken time off, away from my usual and beloved routine, to spend with family and friends during these holidays. It is not easy for me to do that as I love to work and feel safest when I am taking care of the business of life. My parents each had small shops in Brooklyn at a time when it was against the law to open a business on Sundays. The cop on the beat would turn the doorknob on the front door to make sure you weren’t trying to fool anybody and doing business on this day of rest. My father locked his door and worked in the back part of his cabinet shop. My mother would try to get him out to a movie and sometimes succeeded. I understand my father’s need to work. It feels like the right thing to be doing most of the time.

The biggest painting I have done is named Time Off (see also About Scale) because I did it for fun in intermittent bursts between what I considered more serious pursuits. The other projects that were in progress were well thought out and I had plans for them. Time Off was about putting colors together to please myself with no thought about any kind of outcome; I thought I would play with it and then take it apart. I put twelve inch squares of color painted on paper into groups on a twenty foot wall in my studio. I started with one group of five rows, four panels in each and went on to make three groups of that format. At that point I thought I might mount each of these groups separately as I did later with Structures and some others in 2008. But then I filled in the gaps and it became one painting. After that came a big job. I had to think of it differently. It was one thing to compose groups of sixteen or twenty pieces and keep each color panel close to those others that most enhanced it, and at the same time have the color distributed through the entire piece in a way that made some visual sense. I had never attempted to do that on such scale as had come together here. It could look like total chaos, which is not my inclination ever, or it could be harmonious and serene and coherent.

While that took a lot of time it never became tedious or laborious. It was always time off for me and a joy to work on from inception to completion. If I ever were to win a to week of all paid vacation on a beach in a tropical paradise I would give it away. I would rather have time off at work or with my family any place on this earth.

I use Time Off (with me in it for scale) at my web site. The image above was taken at the show I had with The University of California, Humboldt Division, two years ago. The details are ©2002, Mixed Media Collage on Canvas, image 62” x 198” on canvas 84” x 255” .

About Yaddo

2010-12-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Some years ago I had the great good fortune of a month’s residency at Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Upstate New York. The memory is with me now as I finally finish, after twenty years, work that was begun there. The process was interrupted when I left Yaddo and did some museum-ing and family visiting. The vision I was working with was lost. It took this long to feel ready to go back to these paintings and feel confident that I would be able to finish what I started without turning them into something entirely different.

I did take the largest of those works to a very satisfying resolution a couple of years ago — but it became who I am now with no respect for the vision that originally gave rise it. And that was okay because it wasn’t really very far along and not much was lost. As a matter of fact, it had gotten itself painted into a corner and I was happy to make it into something totally different.

The other, somewhat smaller works, were a different story. They were pretty close to being what they could be and at the same time some distance from complete. I needed to respect what I had there because I liked them so much. What I had to deal with was that in the intervening years I had learned and changed. But I guess there is something within us that in spite of growth and learning remains a constant, solid core. I wanted to respect what they were and bring them to their full promise. I have now given them my all and they are complete. I will wait a few days and then hang them in my studio and look them over. I am a harsh and demanding critic and I usually ask of myself something more than I am capable of. But I will be gentle with these works as they are from somebody I used to be and I am kind of attached to her.

The image at the top of this post is the Yaddo studio where composer Aaron Copland worked during his residency. The image below is of the studio I was in during my stay with some beginnings on the wall.

More About Painting

2010-12-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Painting is the concern of this blog though admittedly I do stray often. My readers will discover, if they haven’t already, that there are certain themes I will go back to and never finish with. Aging is one of those and that will continue to be of interest to me until I croak, assuming that I remain in writing fitness until my day comes. Art in general is another; today, it will be the visual, two-dimensional variety that inspires the words.

Abstract expressionist painter Robert Motherwell said: “Painting consists of pieces of cloth tacked to some boards and then defaced by means of colored grease applied with a stick with hairs tied to its end”. Wikipedia is more respectful and less narrow of definition: “Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface.”

An article in a recent Art in America stated: “Many contemporary artists are more interested in making arguments than delighting the eye.” That is not what I’m talking about here as that is not my cup of tea. The article goes on to say: “Visual attributes aren’t intended to be the works’ prime considerations, let alone their exclusive reason for being”. Well, I don’t know about the exclusive part, but remove the negatives and you will have my bias. I would leave the arguments to those who use words. Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that there are some works engraved in my memory cells that are spirited statements about our human history. But the paintings I have in mind, Goya’s Tres de Mayo, for example, are so well painted that they could be about birthday parties and still be great. Well, okay, maybe not so memorable.

Some painters pursue a vision, others let their process lead the way. The artist’s “style” will develop as he/she struggles with the intent or the medium. We’re different from each other; a painting by one person’s hand can usually be distinguished from that of another (unless we are consciously imitating or copying). Just as we can recognize composers by their sound. Amazing isn’t it? So many unique looks and sounds? Humans are like snowflakes, no two alike. And if you ask a dog, we don’t smell alike either.

What heightens these differences for painters are the choices they make. Some of the non-tangible tools the artist might employ to project her vision onto a surface are line or drawing and color, which may or may not be an important factor. Then there is the composition which, when I was at school, was about having a “center of interest” and being sure to repeat certain elements and absolutely avoiding tangential lines or shapes that just touch at their edges. I hope that sort of teaching is passé now. The painter might also use texture, as did Van Gogh, or pattern, as did Bonnard and Matisse. There’s a lot to choose from. And now there is the advent of technology in art which has me hooked.

I could go on. And on. And I will. I have been told that you, dear reader, will balk at a long essay. My friend Richard said something like “We spend our time alone making marks on canvas or paper. What nonsense.” I too have some doubts. Life is short. And now I’m spending some of it at writing this blog.

The image above is Eden, 2009, 50 x 38" Acrylic & Mixed Media Collage on Etching Paper. For information about any of the paintings seen on this site please email Joan.

About Cruelty

2010-12-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

As I replied to Gordon Inkeles’ comment to last week’s blog post (see it below) I thought of how different we are from each other and how much alike. What came to mind for differences was that some of us are capable of inflicting great cruelty on others. My recent reading about the reign of King Henry VIII included vivid descriptions of persons, men and women, young and old, being burned at the stake before a crowd of witnesses. I like to think that the arts reside at the other end of the spectrum of human behavior. For there we divulge who we are, how we think, feel, see, and in general make ourselves visible and vulnerable. I wonder about some of the poetry I have read in which a most personal and hidden interior place or vision is exposed to the scrutiny of strangers.

I had an experience once, long ago, in which my life was threatened by somebody who looked as if he didn’t understand my reaction to him. How could he not know I was terrified? I was screaming bloody murder. I later cast about for an understanding of this lack of empathy. I had struggled with that question from the time I saw photos taken in the camps of the Holocaust when I was ten years old. A Vietnam veteran answered the question for me in a way that I could understand. He explained that those who are severely mistreated have to numb themselves to their own pain and thus are lacking in compassion. How sad.

The why of art for the artist must be to provide the self with balance or harmony as he or she has control over words, or lines and colors, or the shadows in a photo. When I hear speak of the agony suffered during a creative undertaking, I think: “Uh,oh. There’s somebody who wants perfection.” Well, why not? Surely it’s worth a try. How very many ways we have found to make things to satisfy the compulsion to produce something to our own design. The very act of creating something can be sublime because there, at least there, it can be just how it should be, just how we want it. Often it’s as close to perfection as one can get to in the moment. A real blessing.

The image above is Seasons, made and sold in 1996. Mixed media on paper mounted on canvas, 23” x 68”. For inquiries or to purchase a painting shown on this site, please email Joan. Remember you can also purchase a print at my Etsy site with ease.

About Being Critical

2010-12-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

Alexander Pope famously said, in his Essay on Criticism, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”.

Well, as wise as that advice is, my thoughts have turned critical. This was provoked yesterday when I delivered a work of mine to a local group show and was sorely dismayed by the quality of work that I saw leaning against the wall of the exhibition room. The spectacle caused me a moment of concern as in art as everywhere else, we are judged by the company we keep. If this sounds shallow and superficial, remember that visual art is totally about appearances.

Art does not suffer mediocrity well. While I have definite and clear preferences, even prejudices, when it comes to painting, I respect a job well done in any mode. The vision may vary, the medium can be any, but the craft must be finely honed. (Here I have paraphrased friend and fine painter, Tina Rousselot.)

I have entered into this topic with some trepidation as I live amongst people who are careful to be discreet about panning an artist’s work. I don’t know if this is true for all of the rural areas of California but it was not so when I lived in big cities. Those populations seem to be more willing to reject a poorly made work. Here I have remained seated while an audience around me has stood to give an ovation to a theater production that was shamefully bad. The defense of this approbation is “they worked so hard!”. Well, too bad. That’s not enough to make me want to pay for that sort of performance and then have to sit through it. No, thank you.

The aforementioned exhibition was juried, a detail I had forgotten. The juror, who obviously had some preferences of his own (and possibly a few prejudices) made his selection. From what I know of the work of those on the list of the accepted, this show will look good. I would not discourage the budding artist but I believe we do him/her a disservice by applauding a poor effort. As the French satiric moralist Jean de La Bruyere said: “There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence.”

The image above is History 004, 2010, digital painting, size varies. It is a work in progress as I still haven't gotten the green area on the left quite right. To read about the giclée process and this series, or to purchase an original digital print, CLICK HERE.

About Choices

2010-11-26T12:46:00.000-08:00

Last week I mentioned Nicole Krausse, author of Great House. In an interview on NPR, she speaks of the willful uncertainty she struggles to maintain as she writes, and which she instills in her characters. “I think the characters in this book are struggling,” she says — “and yet, it is their efforts to escape their solitude that makes them most alive.”

M. Scott Peck declares “life is difficult” in The Road Less Traveled. Why then choose a life in the arts? We already know that only a small percentage of those who do actually rise above poverty level with their art. Most have to surrender to a day job, teaching if they’re prepared for it and lucky, or something totally unrelated to their natural inclinations. My own experience of that evolved into feelings of self-betrayal. That sounds rather dramatic, even to me as I write, but I’ll stay with it. I was living a life that wasn’t mine. More drama there, I know. Krause says of her characters: "All of them are dissatisfied with that alienation or that isolation that they feel. They all quite desperately would like to be known, would like to be seen and understood, would like to communicate themselves. I feel the litheness and exhilaration of their effort. The effort to be known and go beyond solitude."

She’s even more dramatic than I am. I don’t think so much of “being known” but more about being who one is, comfortable in the self. I walked out of the life that I was living and took with me only my children. I left the country I had lived in for twenty-four years, an equally long marriage, a good job (I was offered chairmanship of the department when I tendered my resignation), and came back to this country in mid-life, full of fantasies and fears about the choice I was making. There is still some sadness about the comforts abandoned and (hard to admit this) the things I owned. But never anything even remotely like regret. This life I have is replete with uncertainty and struggle. And overflowing with the “litheness and exhilaration” Krausse speaks of.

I try not to get this personal here; I start writing without intending to spiral inward in this way. I wish I were writing fiction because then I would speak of a character that I could design to my specifications. About painting, I wonder: “Does anyone see what I see?” And about the roads we take, “What reasons are there for choosing the more arduous one?”

The image above is Pulse, ©2008, Acrylic and Mixed Media Collage on Museum Board. For those who missed my open studio, remember that it is easy to purchase a fine print at my Etsy site, or if you are in the area, call to make an appointment for a studio visit.

About Aging

2010-11-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

Growing old is never far from my thoughts. I touched on the subject before in About the Aging Artist. I continue to observe the process with curiosity, some grief and very little resignation.

Aging is about losing the person one was, trying to rise above it and at the same time conceal it. Concealing it is necessary because we don’t want to be treated as less than before. As a female, and now an elderly one in this culture, I find I have to make an effort to stand taller and speak louder to be sure that my presence is noted. Aging with dignity is the goal. And keeping as much of oneself as can be preserved without too much effort. There’s a lot of instruction available for the upkeep of brain and body. I have never been fond of crossword puzzles and I abhor exercise. Always have. The half hour exercise video that I force myself to do is like taking the cod liver oil that was popular in my childhood.

I am grateful beyond measure that the part of me that paints doesn’t deteriorate. It flourishes and brings me more joy and solace than ever. Would that my memory were surviving in similar fashion. I’ve never been good with numbers and now I bless my little calculator, for without it my checkbook would be a hellish mess. I don’t even want to think about enduring only to experience a loss of independence. I scrutinize with great interest the lifestyles of those who grow old with grace and with their faculties intact. The trouble with that is that everyone does it differently which brings in the question of genetic heritage. Well, we do the best we can. Golden age, my foot.

I think my reason for examining this chapter of life so closely is that it provides some vague sense of control. That’s all, just a vague sense. Time marches on, do what we will. I still remember seeing Lost Horizons, the Ronald Colman version, made in 1937. When he takes the woman he loves away from Shangri La, where nobody grows old, she fades away in an instant. Very sad.

The Image above, Sunlight Factored, is one of a series made and sold in 1992. Mixed Media on Paper Mounted on Board, 54” x 38”. For inquiries or to purchase a painting shown on this site, please email Joan. Remember you can also purchase a print at my Etsy site with ease.

About Abstraction Again

2010-11-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

"To abstract is to trade a loss of reality for a gain in control."

James Moffett, The author of the quote, a teacher and scholar, is speaking of abstraction as less than real. My dictionary defines abstraction thusly: “existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence”. That led me to thinking that abstraction in visual art is in fact real, not an abstraction at all. It is usually made of solid materials that can be seen, photographed, touched (not in a museum of course; my daughter once caused alarms to go off at the Metropolitan). Abstract thought is a horse of a different color. But, of course, it can usually be written. Along with most other kinds of thought.

The kind of work I do, abstract, minimal, color-field — call it what you will, has far fewer fans than landscape, still life or other forms of representational art. It is for that reason that I write about it. I believe that we, myself included, form an idea early on, of what a painting looks like. It was difficult for me to break away from those confines. The later learning about “foreground and background” and “negative space” were obstacles in the path I needed to take to be able to make a painting about — here I have to stop and think. A painting about what? My paintings or those of other artists whose work I love, what are they about? Shape, color, paint, texture: not particularly interesting. Put them together to realize some intention of the mind’s eye and, voila! an object that can move us to tears of joy or sadness, or delight our senses. How does that happen? Damned if I know. But it is the artist that we meet when we hear or read or see the results of his/her labors.

I am reading Great House now by Nicole Krauss. There’s a monologue of an aging father imagining himself speaking to his alienated middle-aged son; it puts emotional pain into words that can be felt intensely. When my children were small, we had on the dining room wall Little Girl in Blue, a sad-faced child by painter Amadeo Modigliani . When I was away for a teachers’ conference Barbara was heard to say, wistfully: “Her mother is in MIami.” I don't know why we choose to feel all that. Maybe because feeling anything is how we know that we are alive.

Well, there, I did it again. Just got carried away. I apologize to those who prefer shorter readings. I will mend my ways. In the meantime feel free to stop anywhere. And to those of you who stay with me, much obliged. I enjoy the company.

To close, here’s Garrison Keillor: “I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.”

The image above is History 001, 2010, giclée print, size varies. To read about the giclée process and this series, or to purchase an original giclée print, CLICK HERE.

About the Materials of Art

2010-11-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

Last week a reader left this question for me: "If you create a work like this on paper, why do you then mount it on canvas (rather than some kind of board)? Or: if you mount paper on canvas and then create the artwork, why do you bother with the paper?"

The answer is that I like to work with paper and do not like canvas. Paper is responsive, it lends its character to the mediums applied to it. I find canvas inert and devoid of personality. But adhering the finished work on paper to canvas makes the final version more durable and gives the flimsy papers I prefer to use a certain dignity and presence. I work mostly in collage fashion and need a support on which I can assemble the separate elements. For small works I use some non-flexible paper boards or masonite type surfaces. But larger works are best rolled for shipping to galleries or to the consultants who sell for me. They can then be stretched and framed without glass or plexiglass as the finished work has a strong acrylic surface that does not need cover. In short, the reasons are both aesthetic and practical.

Once, at a gallery reception, the director called me over to meet a couple who had just purchased a large painting. As we chatted, the lady who was staring at the painting, gasped and asked: “What’s that?” In the seconds that it took for me to locate the source of her horror, I had nightmarish visions of the many ways a painting could self-destruct. What I saw was a hair from a paintbrush embedded in the paint, which I quickly explained and the lady was greatly relieved. Let me tell you, I do everything in my power to avoid the embarrassment of learning that a work of mine has failed to pass the test of time. I would have betrayed the gallery that sold it, the collector who bought it, and most of all, myself.

The image above was made from the same group of works made in the seventies using inks of fugitive color described in About Memory. It is History-019, ©1976-2010 giclée print, size varies. For information or to purchase any of the images on this site, please email Joan.

About the Kindness of Strangers

2010-10-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

“Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. …” — Blanche DuBois’ words in Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire.The phrase has been floating in my head for a while.

I recently had occasion to communicate with strangers. I was tempted to join an online gallery which requires an upfront fee from the artists it represents. I am, in principle, opposed to such charges. Galleries usually take fifty per cent of the sale price of the art they sell. The artist accepts that contract for many reasons, mostly because most of us do not want to engage in the business of selling art. And most of us have little ability as salespersons. The gallery, if it is doing its job, promotes our work and exhibits it. They often take care of designing, printing and mailing announcements and doing the framing. The director of the gallery I worked with in Seattle spent hours on the phone, calling clients to invite them personally to the opening reception, advising them that “the artist” would be present. The artist had only to dress up and appear to find wine being served, hors d’oeuvres set out and a crowd assembling. The gallery has employee salaries to pay and overhead. Good galleries do all this and more. They earn their commission.

The online gallery in question seemed to do a good job of promotion but I knew little else about it. I reviewed the site to find artists whose vision was akin to mine and whose prices were in line with my own. Then I sent a number of these strangers an email inquiry about what their experience had been with this company. Of sixteen emailed inquiries, I received sixteen responses telling me more than I needed to know and in many cases wishing me well with the venture. Many had visited my web site and included nice words about my work. How lovely. I was regaled with the kindness of strangers.

The general opinion was to recommend the site. Most had good things to say about it, a few hadn’t had much luck but nobody was critical. I will go for it.

About Artist Prints

2010-10-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

The tradition of artists making prints: etchings, woodcuts, lithographs, silk-screen and such, reaches far back into art history and up to the twenty-first century. Goya’s Caprichos, made in the eighteenth century, are aquatints, a process in use from about 1650. Albrecht Durer was an engraver in the fifteenth century. We also have drypoint, mezzotint and monotypes. And now we have the phenomenal advent of print by inkjet. I have a vested interest in promoting this process as, I might have mentioned before, I am hooked on it. But I have seen that it does not yet get the respect that I would like it to inspire.

Today I will describe the process which produced the image above, an original print. Original because it exists (as do some of the other giclées I have exhibited here) only as a print. It is a lengthy, meticulous and expensive (the archival inks) operation which I revel in. So, in a rather large nutshell, I started with three of the Memory series that I described a blog or two ago. I took the flower shape from one; it was red in the original scan. The large red area came from another of these scanned old works, originally a flat opaque red on the top part of the scan. The pale pink area came from a finished piece in which I had achieved the desired degree of light. I made adjustments for contrast and scale, placement, saturation and color balance. The separate elements are arranged collage fashion, an operation for which Photoshop is well qualified. I have been working on this image for several days and will now start printing, making “proofs”, until I get the color and visible texture and interest as I want them.

I learned at school that editions were limited and each print numbered because the metal plate or wood block, or silk or whatever the print was made from deteriorated with use, making the first prints of finest quality. It seems that limiting prints done by the giclée or photographic method is about valuation or pricing. A case in point: Condé Nast is publishing a great old photo from Vogue magazine for $2050, edition of ten. And this: Recent auctions of giclee prints have fetched $10,800 for Annie Leibovitz, $9,600 for Chuck Close, and $22,800 for Wolfgang Tillmans. April, 2004, Photographs, at Phillips de Pury & Company, New York. Limiting the editions in these cases keeps the price up and resale more profitable. My editions are limited because I want to go on to the next work when one has become all it can be. I print more on request but since even my collectors are interested in the next newer work, editions remain small. Numbering is an artificial embellishment; kind of silly, don’t you think? There is no deterioration of the giclée and the number printed is small by the very nature of the process.

I tried to keep this short, but got carried away again. Thanks for reading.

The image above is Red Blue Memory, 2010, giclée print, size varies. For information or to purchase any of the images on this site, please email Joan.

More information and an explanation of the term “giclée” can be found at: About Giclee Prints

Descriptions of the print processes mentioned above can be found at can be found at "P" | Subject Index | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

About the Ivory Tower

2010-10-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

A recent email brought this query: I am interested in your opinion on selling art commercially. That is such a touchy subject for me because I was always led to believe that marketing your work and promoting yourself in any kind of a commercial way was not "really how it was supposed to happen".

Why not? What begets this sort of thinking? Is art-making not an honest trade? Painting, writing, composing not honest work? Is the artist so above ordinary mortals that she has none of the basic human needs? Not the artists I know. Most have healthy appetites, like to be warm in winter and usually even want to own some kind of vehicle. Are these needs filled by some manna streaming down from the heavens? Somebody on a yacht in the Mediterranean who sends this note: “Paint; be happy”? (My personal fantasy.)

The Ivory Tower does not come replete with bed and board or money for the purchase of materials. Franz Schubert couldn’t afford a piano. Vincent Van Gogh needed his supportive brother. I replied to my friend: “not selling art is wholly unrealistic. Certain luminaries of the arts, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Beethoven, Mozart, amongst many, many others, sold their work and supported themselves that way”. They exchanged their work for the cold, hard cash that would enable them to go on doing what they did. If I put myself in their shoes (maybe have to stretch a bit), I know the issue is about how continue with the work one wants to do. Besides, if you are a visual artist, you might find yourself with a storage problem. Your friends and relatives might refuse to take any more of your gifts. Now wouldn’t that be disheartening? Let’s not forget the validation inherent in a total stranger whipping out his checkbook to buy a very personal vision, one that you were not comfortable exhibiting. It hurts to be ignored. It does not hurt to get paid for one’s efforts.

Well, I guess I have said what I think. Thanks for reading.

The image above is from a series created in 2002 called “Birthdays”. Mixed Media/Digital Image Collage on Tyvek, 8.25" x 33”. For information or to purchase any of the images on this site, please email Joan.

About the Blesssings

2010-10-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

I don’t need to be reminded to count my blessings. It seems miraculous to have raised four children who developed into good people in good health with good lives. To have never experienced real hunger, or war at first hand. My life as the lives of most of those I know has been free of major tragedy. I just knocked on wood. Learned that from my mother whose beliefs must have come from her mother and the "old country". I don’t believe any of it but I knock, just in case.

I’m coming to the end of Wolf Hall, a historical novel that tracks the life of Thomas Cromwell in the time of King Henry the Eighth. The brutality of that reign and age is stupefying. The book is well researched; as I read I go to the web to investigate the characters and events and nothing in documented history has been embroidered on. I have had to skip over pages where another person was being burned at the stake or subjected to an even more horrifying ultimate agony. Too well written, too much information. One wonders how such cruelty could or can be countenanced.

We can choose not to believe what we see in a movie; it’s a movie. But this is our history. So I am grateful to have been born in this time, in this place, grateful for modern medicine (they bled sick people back then), and happy to have a computer and the internet. And let me not forget painting, a major blessing which provides solace and balance in this good life.

The image above is from a series created in 2002 called “Blessings”. Mixed Media/Digital Image Collage on Tyvek, 10.75" x 33”. For information or to purchase any of the images on this site, please email Joan.

Please note that at your right, on this blog, is the door to my new Etsy shop. I have five of my new giclées there and will be adding more as I make them. I invite you to click and visit, and if so inspired, leave me a comment here. I really like hearing from my readers.

About Enhancement

2010-09-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

The image on the left is a fine scan of an original, painted more than thirty years ago. It is completely faithful in color and detail. The image on the right is the giclée I am making of it using Photoshop as my tool.

I started using Photoshop ten years ago; reluctantly, I might add. A friend insisted that I see it demonstrated in a classroom. And so I fell, head over heels. Now it seems that my studio materials, paint, pastels, pencils and such, take me only partway to the vision I hold. Photoshop takes it further. It is a huge application and while I have dedicated many hours to learning it, much more remains to be digested. It endlessly fascinating and rewarding, an artist’s tool deluxe. There are other applications for painting using computer technology; they all have their devotees.

The visual artist often clings to a vision far beyond her capacity to realize. The vision may evolve; in my case it has become simpler in format and more complex in color. It is still beyond my grasp but I am grateful to have the tools technology has provided.

By the way, the image on the right is unfinished; it might appear here again when it comes up to snuff.

Go to Media Arts and Technology to see what comes of marrying the arts to technology at University of California, Santa Barbara.

About Memory

2010-09-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

Interesting, isn’t it, the ways in which scenes from the past can be brought to mind? They can be revisited suddenly and surprisingly because of a bit of music or an odor or maybe a picture. Recently, I heard again the voice of my late ex-husband when I encountered some lines of a love poem he recited to me on occasion. He has been gone these many years but might have been speaking in the same room.

I came across the image above when I looked into an ancient leather portfolio of mine, thinking I might use it to take some work to the next town for an exhibit. The image was, or rather is, part of a group of paintings I made more than thirty-two years ago. That was one year before I returned to this country after living away for twenty-four years. They are small paintings, done on watercolor paper with intensely colored inks. The inks were a pleasure to use; they had a glow to them that came from some sort of shellac. Unfortunately, in spite of being made by a very reputable manufacturer, the colors were and still are, fugitive. So the little paintings have resided in the portfolio to keep them from fading. I realized yesterday, when I rediscovered them, that now I have powers unknown to me when I made them. I can scan them and print them. Not only that, I have learned enough in the intervening years that I can upgrade and refine them as I take them through my computer.

The memory that came with them was of sitting in that dining room, working on the table. I had no studio then and took advantage of the quiet while the kids were at school. I saw again the furniture, felt my feet on the rug, and looked from there into my kitchen. It was another life; the family was whole, together. That past that is gone and always present.

Isabel Allende, who suffered some immense losses, said: “I finally understood what life is about; it is about losing everything. Losing the baby who becomes a child, the child who becomes an adult, like the trees lose their leaves. So every morning we must celebrate what we have.”

The image above is History-002, ©1976-2010 giclée print, size varies. For information or to purchase any of the images on this site, please email Joan.

Please note that at your right, on this blog, is the door to my new Etsy shop. I have five of my new giclées there and will be adding more as I make them. I invite you to click and visit, and if so inspired, leave me a comment here. I really like hearing from my readers.