Never enough time to paint

Mexico is a land of genuine wonders, and can be remarkably frustrating if you happen to be an artist with a hungry eye and no time at the moment to paint. Today for instance, our plan was to go from Cuernavaca, where we are currently staying, to Tepoztlan, 15 miles away, to have lunch with Sean's aunt and uncle. The day was crystal-clear, perfect 75 degrees, and the volcano (Popocatepetl) was rising up out of successive layers of fog and clouds in the morning. No time to paint. During breakfast on the terrace, the flowers were all blooming beautifully and birds were fluttering all about... so beautiful it bordered on the absurd. No time to paint. As we drove to Tepoztlan, we crossed the mountains that ring Cuernavaca, and saw the entire valley stretched out below us, towns, farms, rock outcroppings the thrust 1000 feet up off the valley floor. No time to paint. As we crossed the top, we could see that Popocatepetl began erupting, and threw up an ash and steam cloud several thousand feet above the summit. No time to paint.

Tepoztlan is a picture perfect Mexican puebla that is justifiably cashing in on it's tourist appeal, yet get off the main drag, and you're nearly stepping back 200 years in time; narrow streets, adobe houses, old women making tortillas by hand. Sean's aunt and uncle live in a 3-acre walled compound that they share with 2 other families. It's very nearly a slice of heaven. Beautiful green gardens, flowering trees spilling color onto the ground, and a mile away at the edge of the town, sheer cliffs rise up forming nearly a quarter mile high wall of rock, making an unbelievable, dramatic, drop-dead gorgeous scene, of the type that can leave a landscape painter shivering with delight. Of course, there was no time to paint, but all throughout the delicious meal and the lively conversation, I couldn't shake the awareness of those awesome surroundings. Exquisite torment, I suppose.

I assured Sean's aunt I'd return next year to paint there. I think she genuinely liked the idea.

Right when you need one...

So I actually managed to have it both ways today... I painted and I got to the museums. I was off very early to Santa Rosa, which is about 15 miles up into the mountains, the precise geographical center of nowhere. I took a cab, since the bus service is not all that regular. I also knew full well that it was a little risky getting back, since there was NO chance that a cab would be there (I´d asked at the hotel desk).

My risk was well rewarded with several stunning vistas. The town itself is nothing more than a street with buildings on either side that winds a quarter of a mile up the hill. This is hardcore countryside. I had to share the street with donkeys and goats, and had to pick my steps carefully to avoid the small brown packages they were leaving behind. The whole place was a cacophany of animal sounds, and everywhere the smell of things cooking and burning. It was wonderful. I found a little plaza where the shopkeeper said I could paint (I always try to ask permission where possible, which with my awful spanish is kinda fun: I´m looked at as though I have malformed head until it clicks what I´m asking for, and then invariably the person couldn´t be more delighted to give me permission) , and I set up and did 2 sketches. The landscape flows from this point possibly 40 or 50 miles down the valley, and it seems like the earth just vanishes into nothingness. Truly stunning.

I decided to stop at two paintings, packed up my gear, and had just started to walk down the hill to begin asking about when and where the bus came, when the miracle happened. I´m pretty sure that in the 3.5 hours I was working there, 2 or MAYBE 3 cars passed by, one of them the truck from the state public works authority that stopped and wanted to see the paintings (not really speaking the language pretty handily solves the problem of people trying to talk when I´m painting). So... at this most unlikely place, at exactly the moment I need it, and empty cab from Guanajuato just happens to crawl by.

So I hopped in. The cabbie couldn´t have been nicer, and even gave me a spanish lesson.

Getting back to the hotel by 1, I decided I was pretty much out of painting steam (I´ve done 11 in the past 5 days), so I am taking the afternoon off and just wandering. I just saw the Diego Rivera museum, which has some pretty cool things of his one doesn´t normally see... lots of his impressionist and cubist work he did as a 20-something in Paris. The thing I liked best was his set of illustrations of the Popul-Vuh, the Mayan sacred book. It was intriguing, as he adopted all the stereotypical mesoamerican artistic conventions, but it really looked like Diego Rivera too.

For the rest of the afternoon, I don´t know. I´m feeling a little off, so I might just go back to the hotel and rest. I´m trembling at the thought of packing, since it was pretty tight getting here, and I´ve added things to the mix.

But... I have loved being here. This place is one of the gems of the earth, old to its very foundations (it was already old when Boston was still a nasty tidal swamp), and colorful and full of life in ways that just don´t exist north of the border. I´ve done 11 paintings, and of course have only scratched the surface (I would have loved the chance to get down into the valley and paint the views looking up into the mountains), but there may be a next time.

So, Mexico City tomorrow...

More from Guanajuato

Four days here now, and one more full day left.

I´ve had 2 good painting days since the last post, and have completed 5 more paintings, for a total of 9 so far. 3 yesterday were essentially city scenes (one with the mountains in the background). Those are nice to do, but I think I´m finished with those now.

Today, I got up to the top of one of the mountains that ring the city, and did one painting of the landscape below. Guanajuato sits in a low bowl essentially, and on the other side of the far ridge, it just falls off into an enormous valley. Because of the dusty air, visibility died off after maybe 15 miles, and it really looked like the earth just vanished. Pure Magic.

I then spent a good hour visiting the expat american artist I mentioned in my last post. He owns a great gallery dealing in finer arts and crafts from indigenous people in surrounding states. He suggested that rather than taking a cab back down the mountain, I walk the trail that heads back to town. I´m extremely glad I did this. Not only did I see a perfect view of the 16th century church there (which I painted), but I also saw the most remarkable views of the city and surround mountain range.

He also suggested that tomorrow I go up further into the mountains... I might do this and paint. I had been planning to take a day to see the museums in town, but I am here to paint, and I really feel like I should do that. That said, there is of all things, a mummy museum here in town. Apparently the soil conditions are perfect here for mummification, and after less than 10 years in the ground, you´ve got mummy. If the families can´t afford the maintenance fees in the cemetary (which is basically full after 500 years), they just dig the bodies up and put them in the museum. Truly extraordinary.

There is really something of a medieval feeling to this place. Not just the mummy museum, but something more ineffible. This place is old, old, old to its very bones. The streets are tight, twisting, most of them are in fact 4 foot wide alleys. It´s not gloomy, though, it´s in fact remarkable vibrant. It´s nearly 9 now and the streets are FULL of people. And there are street vendors everywhere, selling everything, it seems. It has the sense of many people living in very close and intimate quarters with each other that I think is very alien to people in the US. Possibly New Yorkers might recognise some of it, but even then the scale is so different that the comparison would be lost... I know I´ve mentioned this before, but one of the things I find so intriguing about Mexico is it´s otherworldliness. Real european culture sitting on top of this alien (to me at least) indian culture... both very much alive and intertwined. Much of it seems very familiar, and then turn the corner, and it´s like being on a different planet. I love it.

Well, I really love this city, and have had a good time painting here. Thursday I´m off to Mexico City, where I will meet up with Sean, so I probably won´t post before then...

Hasta luego!

From Mexico

Well, I'm here, and sitting in an internet cafe in Guanajuato.

I spent pretty much most of the day friday travelling. It was really nice to leave a mid-december ice storm that was dumping at least a one-inch layer over everything and head to something a little warmer (I`m guessing it´s in the mid-70´s right now... and perfectly sunny).

The flight was just fine. Actually we were above cloud cover until I was well into Mexico. And that was a real treat... this place is beatiful from the ground and beautiful from 35,000 feet. Even the strip mines are gorgeous... we flew over one operation that was mining something that was the most striking shade of pink. Incredible.

I really didn´t do anything on the first day I was here - since I didn´t get to my hotel until late afternoon, I just walked around the city a bit, grabbed a snack, and then slept. Saturday morning, I got busy. I managed to do three paintings during the day - churches and alleys, and then spent some more time exploring the city. This place is unbelievably gorgeous - unlike any place I´ve ever seen. It was built on silver the spanish were extracting from local mines from the mid-1500s on, and is the most improbable city. It´s apparenly shot through with so many caverns and tunnels underneath, it´s basically like Moria. You can still see evidence of it just by walking some of the side streets that duck into the earth. And then the houses and buildings rise up what are basically steep cliffs above the center of the town. All this is surrounded by these majestic, rounded mountains that loom over every vista in the town.

And then this morning, catastrophe struck. I took a cab up one of the mountains to a 16th century church near the mines, and as I was getting out, I managed to break the tripod I´m using to support my pochade. It was unsalvagable... for about 3 minutes I was ready to cry. However, I decided to try holding the pochade on my lap and did manage to do a quick sketch of the valley. It was physically challenging (among other things, I was seated on a jagged stone wall), and the result was merely ok. After several halting conversations at various electronics stores, I did manage to fine another tripod, so I´m ready for action tomorrow AM. The rest of the day has pretty much been devoted to doing a little sightseeing and shopping. I visited the gallery of an American expat artist who deals in arts and crafts from the further-out regions. Great stuff.

So, now that I´ve had my day for sightseeing, the rest of my stay here should be all action. I have 3 full days, so hopefully I can get some more good work done. Sean´s mother has been urging my to go to San Miguel De Allende, but there are so many things to paint here, that I might just forgo that.

Ted Seth Jacobs

Ted Seth Jacobs is in Boston doing a series of demonstration lectures. He is the teacher of my own teacher, Dennis Cheaney, who organized the series and is hosting them in his studio downtown. Ted is a remarkable painter whose career has spanned 60 years, and is one of the leading lights of realist painting. In addition, he is a born teacher; his school in rural France has attracted hundreds of students, and he's trained a whole generation of some of the best-known realist artists, such as Jacob Collins, Anthony Ryder, and Michael Grimaldi. Among realists, he seems to be the quintessential "Painter's Painter".

Although he has a very kindly and unassuming manner, I was immediately thunderstruck by both the depth and breadth of the knowledge and insight be brings to bear on the practice of painting and drawing. In the space of just a few sentences, he would touch on physics, anatomy, geometry, optics, engineering, art history, pedogogy, physiology, materials, perception, oh, and philosophy to boot. And these were not the abstracted mental meanderings of a scattered intellectual. Rather, all his comments had direct relevance to the subject at hand, which is to say aspects of drawing the human body. It was really a virtuoso performance, indicitive of a lifetime spent deeply pondering the problems of making art.

My upcoming Mexico trip prevents me from seeing all the lectures, but I will get to as many as I can.

BTW, Ted's website has a lot of images, but the reproduction quality is not generally good. The ARC pages for him have fewer paintings, but they are higher quality reproductions.

Let it snow...

The weather outside is frightful... sort of.

Boston is having it's first snowstorm of the season. While driving in this weather is less than fun, and I'm absolutely convinced that nobody will come to my opening tonight, I have to say otherwise I'm ecstatic.

I love what this weather does to the landscape, transforming it into a symphony of subtly modulated greys, with just the barest hints of color, and lines that are normally sharp and crisp in the distance and horizon just fade off into nothingness. Magic. Pure Magic.

While I like most Monet, I have to say his bright splashy paintings don't speak to me as much as his somber, carefully controlled and understated winter scenes.





I wish I had time to get out and paint today...

Fresh Paint: Glass On Blue

Newly Completed Work:

Glass On Blue
Oil on linen on panel
7" x 6"
December, 2005

It's been a little while since I painted glass, so I thought it was time to get my hand back in. Glass is just about one of my favorite things to paint. It's an enormous challenge, but when it's done well, it seems infinitely rewarding. I just love it.

The color of winter skies

As we move into winter, I've been paying attention to changes in the color of the sky. Over the last few weeks, it seems to have warmed noticably, to the point where the sky is tinted with very lovely and delicate oranges, reds, yellows, pinks, and violets at all times of the day, depending on the cloud cover.

While a warmer colored winter sky might seem counter-intuitive (particularly when one sprinting through the parking lot hoping to out-run the next bone chilling arctic blast), there is at least one good explanation, and a couple of other possibilities.

Here in our upper latitudes, the sun will sit a good deal lower in the sky than during the summer, forcing the light to pass through a greater volume of air, and therefore be subject to greater scattering. This is exactly the same effect that causes reddening of the air at sunrise and sunset, although here it happens on a lesser scale.

Another possibility is that any moisture in the air might be freezing, and the crystals might be refracting light in different ways than drops of liquid water. Beyond a certain height (and I don't know which one) the air temperature is always below freezing, so this would be an effect happening closer to the ground.

One other thing that's occurred to me is that during the summer here, a majority of the landmass is covered with green, and that is not the case during the winter. Some percent of the light hitting the ground must be reflected back up into the atmosphere, and would scatter to some degree. If the reflected light is not green (which is a cooler color), but instead is slanted towards the browns/reds or whites, the effect might be to warm up the reflected light to some degree.

I am, of course, neither a physicist or meteorologist, and I am pretty much just speculating wildly, but these lines of thinking are fun, and also I believe very useful for working artists. If nothing else, it's forcing me to pay closer attention to the natural world.

Traveling and Painting in Mexico

Mexico is just about my favorite place on earth. Not the border towns, or the hyper-commercialized resort cities (emblematic was a sign in english I once saw outside a restaurant in Cancun..."Real Mexican Food"). But get into the interior, into the real heart-and-soul places, and it's just wonderful. I think to me the real magic lies in a very familiar european culture which sits on top of a very alien Aztec/Mayan/Etc. culture, strains of which are still very strong and present. And it's full of incredible natural beauty. Hardly a dust-covered desert, go at the right time of year, and it's a lush riot of color. I love it.

And next thursday, I'm going there for three weeks, for painting and pleasure. My first stop will be a week in the old colonial city of Guanajuato. It's filled with 17th and 18th century architecture, and is surrounded by an impressive mountain range. The purpose of this leg is primarily for painting in and around the city. In addition, this is the birthplace of Diego Rivera, a favorite of mine, and I hope to get to the museum there.

We will then be in Mexico City for several days over Christmas. This is mostly to spend time with Sean's family. Painting in the city apparently would create some problems, but I would love it if I could whip off a sketch or two in the Zocolo, or even in the Cathedral or Templo Mayor. Not counting on that though.

Then it's off to Cuernavaca for the remainder of the time. I really love this city... beautiful, gentle, temperate. In addition, we will take some day trips to some of the archeological sites. This is a prime interest of mine, and I may try painting there as well. Last time I was there, we spent the morning at Teotihuacan. We've talked about spending the whole day there, which is really required if you want to do more than just climb the Pyramid Of The Sun. We might also go to Tula, which is a Toltec city I haven't seen, and perhaps Tepoztlan, which is amazing.

My preparations for the painting part of the trip warrant their own post, so I'll save that for later. I'm probably over-thinking and over-worrying, but I want this to go very, very well.

Learning from Muybridge

Charley's comment in a recent post of mine reminded me of a little project I started last year. I asked a friend to give me Muybridge's Human Figure In Motion as a christmas gift.

This is a collection of hundreds of his stop-motion photograph series of humans (he also did animals), engaged in various activities like walking, running, even boxing, amounting to thousands and thousands of images. They are scientifically and technically fascinating, and they also have this haunting artistic quality as well.



It's a good book to have for any reason, but the idea was to copy and sketch the images to get practice doing dynamic poses of the body. I did this for a little while, but found the images terribly small to work with, and I eventually got interested in other things. However, it still seems like a good idea, and I'd like to revisit it eventually.

Lines and Colors

Anybody who enjoys reading this blog and is seriously interested in seeing art on the web should regularly visit Lines And Colors, a blog run by Charley Parker out of Philadelphia. His mission is to select a new arts-related site every weekday, give a quick, thoughtful critique of it, and link on through. In the process, he is building up what is quickly becoming a fantastic catalog of arts resources on the net, with an emphasis on sites by living, working artists. He does this all in a very broad and open-minded way and, although he places an emphasis on realist art, he includes a remarkably large number of strains within that tradition. I've even been surprised by some of the posts. I'd never thought about architecural renderings as solid representational art, and yet one of his posts enlightened me.

Bravo, Charley, keep up the good work.

Naked people and horses

I've always been amazed at the grace and facility with which Old Master artists could render the human figure, particularly in motion. Even the lesser artists seemed to do this well. I wouldn't for a minute knock the output of contemporary realist painters (Jacob Collins, for instance would be a master in any period, Old or New) However, it's interesting that most contemporary nudes are static depictions, at least the ones I see. Relatively few artists seem to attempt the dynamic nudes that were so prevalent in the past.

So what's the deal? Were old artists just better than current ones? I doubt it. Did they just see more naked people? If anything I'd wager the opposite is true. Who knows... I certainly don't. But something occurred to me when looking at some of Leonardo's sketchbooks recently. He produced page after page of sketches of horses in motion. The larger forms of horses and people are obviously pretty different, but the smaller muscular shapes and some of the limb motions can look pretty similar. And particularly with their strongly developed muscles and short hair, the outer anatomy of horses is highly visible.

I'd guess that 500 years ago, animals in general were just a lot more closely integrated part of everybody's life. And this would particularly be true of horses. Unless you were dirt poor and had to walk, getting from Upper Frogmoor to Lower Dullcrest involved a horse in some way. Daily life was full of the opportunities to observe these animals close up, and even if one was not specifically studying them, one would almost certainly subconsciously absorb the characteristic shapes and forms of these magnificent animals in motion. And a good intuitive feeling for shapes and motions of 4-limbed, well muscled animals could only positively feed into one's depiction of humans in motion.

Obviously, few of us now have the opportunity to regularly see horses. Although our Great Dane sometimes seems massive enough (particularly when he tries to sit on my lap), I would have to say that it's been years since I've seen one in person.

So what does this mean... should artists all start spending time at the race track? Well, I'm not advocating gambling, and I have no idea if I'm onto something here; I am just wildly speculating, after all. But it does seem interesting enough to write about, and I'll probably look at pictures of horses more closely from now on.

Building a shadow box

Shadow boxes are extremely useful constructs that artists have employed for centuries to control the light on their still life models. They can range from the very simple to the very complex. The best artist I personally know tapes pieces of foam core together into flimsy tents that look like they're ready to collapse onto the model. It doesn't look like much, but the resulting paintings are drop-dead gorgeous.

Being a born builder, and always looking for any excuse to involve power tools, I opted for a sturdier and more permanent shadow box. I started with an outer frame of 1x2 and 1x3 strips of pine, to which I screwed 24" square sheets of plywood.





The interior cage is painted a flat black. This cuts down on reflected light, as well as obviously providing a deep, deep background from which the objects can emerge.





The bottom has been designed to accomodate another 24" square sheet, so I can easilly drop in any stained or painted piece of wood I like to instantly change the surface. I can also suspend cloths to make a backdrop.




When objects are placed in the box, the resulting effect can be really quite nice. This is a new addition to my studio; I've only done one painting using it so far; one of the tomato pair paintings. It is a lot of fun to use, and I can't wait to do some more.

Artists and personalities

I had an open studio last night, and one of the most honest and welcomed comments of the evening went something like "It's so nice coming in here, you have great art and you're not a pompous jackass". I loved it. It was refreshingly direct and complimentary to me, and it also set me thinking this morning about what seems like a fairly common perception of arrogance among artists.

I know a lot of engineers and technical people, and it's a very different crowd. It's by and large populated by people who's focus is a can-do, "let's make this thing work" approach to solving problems. There definitely can be a flavor of arrogance and intimidation, but the engineering world essentially functions as a meritocracy, and the skills of the people in it are unambiguously evident. Anybody with a high opinion of their own capabilities had better be able to back it up with performance: The bridge they built stays up, or it falls down. Quality in the engineering world is pretty darned obvious, and it breeds a kind of group clear-headedness and general humility that I find very appealing.

Not entirely so in the art world. I once had a conversation with a composition teacher of mine about why there seemed to be so many arrogant composers, when that arrogance didn't always seem to be justified. His insight was a good one: Lacking any objective and irrefutable standard of quality (ie, the bridge doesn't collapse), some composers feel the psychological need to compensate by placing the focus directly on themselves instead of the work; essentially making a small "cult of personality", which quickly degenerates into just plain arrogance. The same can apply to painters. I hasten to add here that I'm only talking in stereotypes, which only contain a grain of the truth. As with all endeavors, the better practitioners are often fairly modest, unassuming people.

The root of the problem is the lack of this objective standard of quality. Place a picture of a bridge in front of 10 people, and you will always get a unanimous answer as to whether it is still standing or not. Ask the same 10 people if they think it's beautiful, and you'll get a range of responses. It's the nature of the beast, and it will never change. Nor should it... aesthetics are often delicious because of their very elusiveness.

BUT... it creates unfortunate problems for all involved. I think we've all had the experience of walking into a gallery and being met with a cursory glance of derisive dismissal delivered by a gaunt, recently minted graduate student of Comparative Art Psycho-Babble or something similar. It's so prevalent that it's a stereotype. A friend of mine calls them "The Black-Clad Children Of The Apocalypse". And they forget the cardinal rule of retail: You Never Know Who's Going To Buy Something From You. It can be even worse when some artists are involved, because then the personality play kicks in ("My Work Is Superior Because I'm So Great").

The real tragedy comes when this attitude breeds among the art audience a sense of uncertainty and lack of confidence in their own taste. I've had a surprising number of people come into my studio and start off a conversation with me by saying in an apologetic tone "I don't know anything about art, but...". I simply cannot imagine the very same people walking into an auto showroom and starting off "I don't know anything about cars, but..."

It's too bad, really. There is a grand body of knowledge surrounding art and art history, and delving into it can be a really wonderful and gratifying experience. However, it's also completely unnecessary to have any sophistication beyond knowing what appeals to you. My response to such people is usually something along the lines of "it's just a matter of looking at a lot of paintings and coming to your own conclusions about what you do and don't like... there's nothing mysterious about it whatsoever...". It's my hope that in doing so, I'm injecting a little bit of sanity, humility, and clear-headedness into the art appreciation process. And, some of these people might just go out and look at a lot of paintings, and they might just decide they'd like one of mine.

You never know...

Leonardo's Notebooks

Some friends recently gave me a book containing many selections from da Vinci's notebooks; both the text and hundreds of image reproductions as well. His notebooks were kind of like a 15th century blog in which he made far-ranging observations about any and every subject that interested him, as well as containing numerous small artistic masterpieces. They serve as the very definition and archetype for what constitutes a "Renaissance Man". For several years, I've owned the text-only publication of the complete notebooks, but reading it was a particularly frustrating excersise: "I have this fascinating idea. It will make everything better. It looks like this [See Figure 1]", and of course being text only, there is no figure 1. Maddening. However, the version I just receive is complete with figures. It's a beautiful book, and I was delighted to receive it.

Reading Leonardo has always been a fairly odd experience to me. He seems to be at the crossroads of so many different ways of looking at the world, and he blends them all together. He's often this hard-headed rationalist applying what is essentially the scientific method to his observations, but he's of course working before this method was fully codified, so it's not as rigorous. He also sometimes echoes many classical ideas (say, talking about the humours of the personality), and there's this strong mystical strain running through it all as well, almost like an alchemist. He makes the whole thing into a melange that has a unique flavor to it.

One of the most striking things about the notebooks is simply their volume. There are something like 7000 pages altogether. I have to think that this represents the vast, vast majority of his effort throughout his career. A lot of the sketches found there certainly were perparatory studies for larger finished works, but I have to think that a LOT of them were never intended to be anything BUT entries in his sketchbook, and probably for nobody else to see, for that matter. At the risk of sounding like I'm moralising, that seems like a distinctly non-modern approach to work. That we live in an intensely commercially oriented world is commonplace, and it can hardly not affect artists to some degree as well. How many of us go about most of our work without having some thoughts about making a sale? Now, I'm all for selling art, and love to do so whenever possible... we do produce a commodity, after all. However, I think there's a real value in also having a sandbox in which we can "just play". I think maybe that's the real magic of Leonardo's notebooks: they were the playground in which a unique brain simply had fun. Maybe we should all do that.