Category: Thoughts

Things I’m learning in Artworld.

Random Thoughts

Random is a good word for unrelated items piling up in my head.

Thank you for visiting my other blog this week. I hope you poked around and discovered things that interested and entertained you a bit while over there.
Most of my sunflowers escaped the ravages of the voracious deer in the neighborhood.
The same flower looks different at different times of day. I think there may be 2 paintings in this flower.
I looked out the living room window and saw this:
i looked more closely and saw this:
My herb garden is a source of inspiration and a place of solace:
I am in need of inspiration and solace these days while we navigate rough waters as a family. Here is a link to a video of my brother-in-law talking about his future: Neighborhood Church Facebook.

Steve made the video around August 1, but I have been taking refuge in drawing and gardening rather than talking about reality. (If you know him, you probably already saw the video.) Thank you to all who have been praying and expressing your kind concern.

Lost

Sometimes I refer to myself as a “loser” in the true sense of the word. My mom used to tell me that I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached. As usual, Mom was right.

The Mural Gallery and Gift Shop in Exeter sells my oil paintings. We’ve had a good run lately, so I took another batch of paintings to them. I forgot to include something of oranges, so planned to take one down on my next trip. The sweet lady who works there said, “Bring them all – they sell!”

So, I went into the overheated and underused workshop (too hot to paint there in the summer) to retrieve some oranges. Found two oil paintings of oranges.

Funny. I have three. Where is the 11×14″?

1433 Blooming oranges

Blooming Oranges, 11×14″, oil on wrapped canvas, $175, available here

Lost.

Did I sell it and not write it down? Did I take it to a gallery and not write it down?

AHA! It was part of the show at the Visalia Convention Center this spring! It is sitting in someone’s office in Visalia, someone whose hours do not coincide with my trips down the hill!

Found! I wrote it somewhere, but obviously the list is lost.

Plein Air Painting

In reference to plein air painting, a friend who is a watercolorist emailed me and said, “I thought as a oil painter you would be into it.”

That is a common assumption about oil painters.

(My friend is more artistically adventuresome than I am. She goes out in an atmosphere where sometimes the watercolors evaporate before they are fully blended!)

When I took a studio painting class, specifically called “photo-realism for studio painters”, the teacher asked how many of us wanted just studio painting and how many wanted the photo-realism aspect. Very few were in my camp, and he told the class that it is just a matter of tricks that anyone can master. (He never did address nor explain or demonstrate those so called “tricks”.) Then he set up still life arrangements and made plans for us to go out plein air painting. I signed up to specifically learn to be a photo-realist studio painter, so after half a semester, I dropped the class.

Sigh.

So, here is the progression of my own weak attempts at plein air painting. It is a Three Rivers scene, which you probably figured out all by yourself.

Block it in from photos while in the studio

Set up on location and make a few stabs at improving it. More was revealed in real life than from the photos – that was helpful.

plein air painting

Finish it up in the studio.

The finished piece is spoken for, but the “buyer” doesn’t want it yet. Hmmm, any other offers? Until money exchanges hands, it is simply conversation.

Random Thoughts from a Chaotic Mind

We are having an extreme family emergency, and it is causing me great distress and lack of focus. If I don’t go into detail, perhaps I can live in denial. If you are interested, you may read about it here. (my brother-in-law) Meanwhile, random thoughts from a chaotic mind. . . If I dabble in this and that, it has to add up to productivity eventually, dontcha think?

This is what it looks like to drive in the countryside of Tulare County in Central California. Doesn’t it just make you wonder why anyone lives here? Or how an artist can persevere to find things to draw and paint?

This is the place where the Orange Cove Lions meet weekly. Their scheduled speaker cancelled, so they called me. Sure, I’ll speak to your group! What a great group of guys – I felt right at home. Citrus farmers, rural Central California folks – my kind of peeps.

And this is what my drawing table looks like right now. 2 drawings in progress, working from many photos, adding a little colored pencil, all because it was too overcast to see to paint. The sun came out, so I took this photo, moved into the workshop to paint, and then, bye-bye sunshine. What’s a Central California artist to do?

In other news, I messed with this painting a little more. A bit more light on the water and brighter colors in the flowers.

Is it finished yet? Will I finish anything – a drawing? a thought? a task? Can’t think, can draw.

Fake Painting on a Garden Tour

“Fake painting”? What means this?

It means that I was supposed to be painting plein air, and although I was painting plein air (which means on location), I have no intention of considering those paintings completed. I am a studio painter, and painting on location is a special skill for someone else.

It is sort of like handing a ukele to a violin player and saying, “Here! You’re a musician! Play this and have fun!”

It might have been more fun if it wasn’t 90º. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t productive either.

I set up on the porch in hopes of seeing and completing this view.

I’m in the shade, squinting out into the light, wondering what colors I’m really mixing.

Okay, never mind. I’ll finish this in the studio. Let’s try another location. If I’m out in the sun, maybe I’ll be able to see my colors better. So what if it is hot? I’m a Central California artist, and we can take the heat. Otherwise, we’d move to a more sensible location in the state.

Never mind. Let’s take a break and listen to some music in the shade where there is a breeze. I can finish this in my studio later.

There were some beautiful flowers. Maybe I should become a plein air photographer.

Guess I need to spend some time in the studio cleaning up those messy paintings. Someone else can play the ukele and stand in the heat and do plein air messy stuff because I have a studio and am not afraid to use it.

Spring on the Farm Photos For Inspiration

When we visited Cowboy Bert and Mrs. Cowboy Bert, the animals were all vying for my attention.

Remember this little Baby Cakes?

Look at her now:

Here: look at her where you can get a better sense of scale:

Still a bottle baby, along with the white one who is a bit younger and smaller.

There is also a short horse and a couple of tall dogs. Gets a person a bit confused about proportion and perspective. (short horse = pony?)

They wouldn’t pose for me so that I can show you the 2 over/undersized critters together.

New Hampshire Reds are beautiful chickens. This is a hen, not a rooster.

When the sheep all talk, they sound like people imitating sheep. There are bass, tenor, alto and soprano, and they make really funny sounds.

Scooter is my favorite of all 4 cats. Cats are my favorite of all the animals. The kind of farm I grew up on had trees, a dog or two, and always cats. No sheep talking like people, no short horses, and certainly no hens imitating roosters. Makes me feel like a city girl! I’ve often thought that growing up on the kind of farm I did only meant that everything was inconvenient, I got used to wide spaces without buildings, I learned to plan ahead for shopping trips (oh how I hated going to town unless it included a stop at the library), we were not dependent on neighbor kids for fun, we learned to drive young (ever driven a spray rig that has only a clutch and a brake, no accelerator?) and we ate as many oranges, olives, plums and walnuts as we wanted. Hmmm, maybe there was a pig on that farm who looked a lot like me.

P.S. I wrote this blog with my sweet kitty Perkins by my side. We weren’t allowed to have animals in the house growing up. Guess I’ve kicked over the traces of my raising in that aspect, but I still eat as many oranges as I want.

Is white a color or an absence of color?

In December and January, I was struck by the number of white things in my yard. Is white a color or the absence of color? If I am drawing, white is paper color, and I draw around the white things. In painting, I use more white than any other tube of paint.

Notice I said “tube” rather than “color”. This is because my question remains, “Is white a color or an absence of color?”

Forget it. Let’s look at pictures of white things.

White must be a color. If it wasn’t, these things would be clear, transparent, see-through.

There. Glad that got settled!

P.S. Yes, this is how December and January look in Three Rivers. Payback time is in July, August and September when other parts of the country are green and we are crunchy brown, gray, a bit of yellow, and just plain dusty.

Does Art Have A Purpose?

This is a reprint of an article that I wrote for LinkedIn.

1441 MK Trail

Mineral King Trail, 11 x 14″, oil on wrapped canvas, $175

In the art world, one can always find a discussion about the purpose of art. Is it to decorate? To enhance? To inspire? Or, is its purpose to disrupt, to cause one to examine one’s life, or simply to disturb?

The latest news flash disrupts. The top of the hour news causes one to examine one’s life. The all-news-all-the-time reiteration of gross events in the world is disturbing.

Be honest now: is this what you want on the walls in your life? In my humble opinion, disruption, self-examination and disturbances are more the purview of news than art.

I live in a poor rural county in the center of California. Art is a strange way to earn a living here, and it is a hard haul at times. No matter how difficult it is, I am motivated, nay, DRIVEN to find and show the beauty of this place I’ve always called home. Sure, I could make art about stolen vehicles, meth, teen pregnancy, poverty, diabetes, obesity or bad air, but who wants to look at that??

Artists are told by professors, publications, websites, seminars, workshops and other artists that we must convey a message, tell a story, incite people to think.

As an artist, my response to this “must” is two-fold: first, an automatic internal reaction that I may not have anything worth saying other than “Ooh, how beautiful”, and second, perhaps that message of beauty is irrelevant.

Recently, I became aware of a transcript of a talk given by philosopher and writer Roger Scruton, called “Why Beauty Matters”. (http://www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au/a-fading-beauty/) He points out that beauty is a value, one that is as important as truth or goodness.

Scruton quotes Oscar Wilde, who said, “All art is absolutely useless”, and he opines that Wilde intended this as praise. How can uselessness be viewed as a compliment? He actually viewed beauty as having a higher value than usefulness.

What a contrary concept in this age of edgy brashness, outrageous trendiness, and ever-increasing audaciousness, all for shock value.

Once again, I admonish you to be honest: do you want to be shocked as you pass down your hallway? Disturbed while waiting for your coffee? Upset as you settle in for the evening?

Beautiful art can bring grace to your home and peace to your life. We all know that life can be hard. Have you ever considered that beauty soothes the troubled soul and takes the edge off the difficult times? It can momentarily transport us away from our daily harsh realities, and it is an immeasurably great quality that we cannot overdose on.

I’ll take soothing over shocking every day. Art serves in that capacity for me, both in its creation and in its display. Like goodness and truth, I need beauty in my life. Art helps to fulfill that need.

Mineral King oil paintings

THE CABINS OF WILSONIA BOOK SIGNING

The books, The Cabins of Wilsonia, are supposed to arrive today. This may mean they arrive at some truck depot in Fresno where they sit over the weekend or it may mean a big rig comes to the hardware store in Three Rivers. (Bless Mike McCoy and the Three Rivers Mercantile for making their turn-around space and fork lift available to me!)

No matter when they arrive in Three Rivers, I will be bringing them (not all 1529, but a reasonable transportable amount) to Exeter’s Courthouse Gallery on Tuesday, December 16.

Here. Let’s make this easy:

The Cabins of Wilsonia

BOOK SIGNING

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16

12:30 – 5:30

125 SOUTH B STREET, EXETER, CALIFORNIA

IF YOU PRE-ORDERED:

If the books come on today, I will begin shipping to those who live far away on Monday. LET ME KNOW IF YOU PLAN TO PICK THE BOOK UP IN PERSON SO I DON’T MAIL IT FIRST!!
If the books come on Monday, I’ll try to ship (Ahem. Most likely I will send Trail Guy to the Post Office!) on Tuesday a.m. before the book signing.
If you paid for shipping and would rather not wait, come to the book signing and bring your receipt. I will refund your $5 mailing.
If you didn’t pay for shipping, bring your receipt and retrieve your copy.
If you live far away or can’t come on Tuesday, I will be there again the following Tuesday, same time.

DETAILS FOR THOSE WHO DIDN’T PRE-ORDER:

The price is $81, which includes tax BUT NOT SHIPPING.
If you want a book shipped to someone, the price is $86. (Yes, I know it is a weird amount – I often specialize in weird.)
If you want to order the book, you may do so using Paypal (the send money option) or through the mail (I accept checks) to P.O. Box 311, Three Rivers, CA 93271

I do NOT accept credit cards – bring cash or checks if you plan to buy a book.

(This is because I don’t have a smart phone or a Square, because I don’t get cell phone service where I live – unbelievable, I know. Yes, I have AT&T. No, it doesn’t work at my address. Yes, I am sort of glad about that.)

While I Wait

This post was written on December 8.

As the arrival of the book The Cabins of Wilsonia gets closer, my anxiety mounts. This is due to several factors: the printer hasn’t been very forthcoming with information, and the closer to Christmas it gets, the more difficult I know it will be to get it signed, sealed and delivered.

It isn’t as if I have nothing to do. Look at this list:

Figure out how to do some computer baloney (You don’t want to know – expensive, difficult and time-consuming while the company tries to sell me new computery stuff, and nothing makes sense and I have to call the company and be on hold forever to get any assistance while the chirpy voice tells me to just check the (non-working) website!)
Send yet another email to the printer to ask if they know when the book shipped (last info was Dec. 5)
More computer baloney with another irritating company
Check email to see if the printer has answered.
Begin cleaning up studio from slamming in and out for various weekend shows
Check email to see that printer said book shipped Dec. 8, and think cynical thoughts about any info from printer.
Sit in the sunshine with my sweet kitty and knitting to think uncharitable thoughts toward the printer and contemplate how to productively use the rest of the day.
Vacuum the studio, hang paintings.
Take inventory on pencil reproduction prints and find things to throw away, a very satisfying activity.
Scan reproduction prints for the upcoming rebuilt website.
Work on the blog
Gather for another secret oil painting workshop
Remember I have a commission drawing job and finally sit at the drawing table to do work as an ARTIST, for heaven’s sake!

I thought about telling you how really irritating the whole internet/domain/hosting baloney was, but I don’t want you to feel as irritated and stressed as I do.

So, let’s just have a look at the sweet Mr. Perkins and feel better.