A Kind of Prison

I'm always interested in hearing folks talk about their style whether painting, music or writing. 

Recently, on a well-respected blog, there was an article on how to develop ones style of painting.  Okay, I thought, here we go again--and I was right.  This self-imposing sage suggested that the best way to develop a  style is to try out different existing styles by studying and imitating artists of the past who, themselves, had created a style we can unmistakeably read.  For example, I can see an Andrew Wyeth painting from a distance and recognize it as belonging to Wyeth, even before reading his signature. The assumption in the article is that should Wyeth's style fit, then I as the searching artist should adopt it. 

Here's where I part company with this attitude:  your style is like your handwriting--it either evolves or you fake it.  Like learning to form letters as a child, artists learn basic skills for creating images.  In the beginning those images look generic, but under the hand of their maker, while they are being practiced,  they take on a personality of their maker.  Over time that handwriting becomes recognizable.  (You look at the handwriting of a note and recognize who the sender is.)

To fake handwriting or a painting style or a writing style is to camouflage the communication of who I am, is to take on an identity other than my on, is to create a self-imposed prison whose walls become more secure each time they are reinforced.

Enjoy your Wednesday.
Dianne

A Hero

I've always liked Richard Schmid.  Richard was the luckiest among us boomers-turned-artists--lucky, because he lived in a town where a painter could actually develop ones craft.  Growing up in Chicago, when a teenager he studied with a real plein air painter (decades before plein air became la chose à faire), and later, at the American Academy of Art.  Another way to say it is that during his formative years, rather than have his head stuffed with avant-garde clap trap, Richard got the skills and knowledge to enable him to grow into a painter whose unique individuality could evolve.

But what makes Richard special, what keeps bringing me back to his work is its essence--every painting being more than itself, every subject translated with marriage of mastery of skill and fullness of spirit.

Rebellion

I remember my early days as an art student in the sixties when artists, critics and historians no longer valued art accessible to the person on the street.  In fact, an art student whose painting showed any signs of realism was scoffed at.   Our predecessors and our heroes had broken through the realistic image, fragmented it and cast it aside as an interference in the creative process.  Drawing and painting students were commanded to be inventive without being descriptive.   So what were they teaching us?

Rebellion breeds more rebellion.  Decades before us artists had rebelled against academic training, against the academies that shut them out when their work failed to follow criteria of those in control of exhibitions, of the public's attitude.  And just like today, public attitude reinforced whatever trend had been settled on as progress.  Artists who rebelled against those attitudes formed their own followings, sometimes strong enough for mainstream critics to morph their standards to fit into whatever they saw as the new art direction.

So without knowing it in the sixties--the era of rebellion--our art schools were, by default, teaching us to rebel.  A few of us unhappy with how we had been taught to think slowly--over the decades to follow-- took our rebellion as our mission and found ways to train ourselves in techniques and composition and an appreciation for what our eyes see. 

Enjoy your Tuesday.
Dianne

As In Another Language

It's an exhilarating thing to think about how we translate what we see as in another language. Each artist speaks with a unique voice, a unique history of experiences, a unique genetic make-up, all translated through a chosen medium into a presentation.  Then the language gets perceived by an audience of individuals, each with unique experiences and genetic stuff and what comes of it all is response.

The artist becomes a sort of filter through which images and ideas pass as they are being translated into a work.  So if each artist is responding uniquely, how can a painting be a cliché?

Have a happy Friday.
Dianne

Quiddity

In writing and in talking, Howard often used the word "quiddity."  For years I have used the word "essence" in the same spirit, but I'm beginning to prefer "quiddity" because the word encompasses the intrinsic, inherent and fundamental nature of its referent.

There is the quiddity of the subject and the quiddity of the artist.  The marriage of the two make the art work.  And that includes a lot of stuff going on.

I spend hours sitting on my deck, surrounded by our woods.  When it's not overcast in the mornings and late afternoons, I witness the most incredible light show as the sun bathes and dances over tree trunks, earth and foliage.  And no matter how many times I attend this production, it always leaves me in a sense of awe.  Sometimes I zoom in on a piece of it and draw.

Quiddity...

Have a lovely Tuesday.
Dianne