Q: What more would you wish to bring to your work?
Tile worker in South India
A: I tend to follow wherever the work leads, rather than directing it. I have never been able to predict where it will lead or what more might be added.
Travel is essential for inspiration. Besides many Mexican sojourns, I have been to Bali, Sri Lanka, South India, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, and other places. A second trip to India is upcoming, to Gujarat and Rajistan this time.
Last year I had the opportunity to go to Bolivia. In La Paz I visited the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, where a stunning mask exhibition was taking place. As soon as I saw it, I knew this would be the inspiration for my next series, “Bolivianos.” So far I have completed six “Bolivianos” pastel paintings with two more in progress now. This work is getting a lot of press and several critics have declared it to be my strongest series yet.
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Pearls from artists* # 322
Barbara’s studio
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Think, dear sir, of the world you carry within you, and call this thinking what you will: whether it be remembering your own childhood or yearning toward your own future – only be attentive to that which rises up in you and set it above everything that you observe about you. What goes on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love; you must somehow keep working at it and not lose too much time and too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Translation by M.D. Herter Norton
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Travel photo of the month*
Near Santa Cruz, Bolivia
*Favorite travel photographs that have not yet appeared in this blog
Travel in Peru and Bolivia is life-altering. One takeaway: I adore clear, cool, crisp Andean light!
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Pearls from artists* # 321
Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
This is Bolivia, a country rich in cultural expressions. Here many great civilizations have flourished, all of which, fundamentally, are bound to the soil from which both fruits and gods emerged.
As part of the expression of these cultures, masks are not mere accessories to conceal the face or represent a character for an artistic performance. Neither are they simply for diversion.
Their roles as objects of art and diversion make sense only as part of a ceremonial act. Then, masks can be understood as the remembrance of history and myth, the externalization of collective life. They are seen within the context of a religious or social ceremony whose meaning is embedded in the past as well as present of a people.
These collective acts, without being set apart from daily life, are special celebrations where many distinct elements must be taken into account: music, dance, costume, mask, food, drink, theatrical representation, work, history…
Masked Dances of the Altiplano, by Manuel Vargas in Masks of the Bolivian Andes, Photographs: Peter McFarren, Sixto Choque, Editorial Quipos and BancoMercantil
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What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: This is my fourth day working on a small (26”x 20”) pastel painting. All of these colors are going to change over the next few months.
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Pearls from artists* # 320
“Offering,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 20″ x 26″
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
As soon as I use words and actions to convey an emotion, I engage with the world, pitting my feelings against fate in hopes of a desired outcome. If I am angry, my anger is directed at someone or something. If I am in love, my love is for another. Feelings are purposive in ordinary reality, our emotional states tangled in the processes of life. This is what we mean when we refer to ourselves as subjects. But if, instead of acting on a feeling, I make it the basis of a song or a film or a dance, something strange happens. My purposive feeling leaves the closed circle of my personal existence, almost as though I had taken it out of historical time altogether. Transposed into the work of art, it becomes nonpurposive, undirected. It disassociates from its original focus, and from my self as subject, acquires a kind of autonomy. Artistic creation allows for the subjective aspect of our lives normally locked inside our skulls to exist outside us, which is to say that in art, the subjective becomes objective.
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
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Q: What was the first folk art figure you brought back from Mexico?
Mask from Oaxaca
A: In Oaxaca I bought a large carved wooden dragon mask with a Conquistador’s face carved and painted on its back. My intent was to depict the dragon in a subsequent “Domestic Threats” painting (the series I was working on at the time). The dragon still hangs in my living room in Alexandria, VA.
This first trip in 1992 was a revelation and marked the start of my on-going love of Mexico: its people, landscapes, ancient cultures, archaeology, history, art, cuisine, etc. There would be many subsequent trips to Mexico to learn as much as I can about this endlessly interesting cradle of civilization.
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Pearls from artists* # 319
“She Embraced It and Grew Stronger,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Ultimately, whether we judge an artistic work to be enjoyable or not may be immaterial when we consider the effect it has on us. A film might affect us in profound ways even though we found it difficult to watch or failed to grasp the point, if any, that the filmmakers were trying to get across. Most people have experienced artistic works that, although their own egos may have found them lacking in certain respects, continued to work on them long afterward, subtly altering them whether they wished it or not. The crucial factor isn’t whether we have been amused or delighted by a work but whether we have let the forces within it penetrate the closed perimeter of our lives and expand our horizons. True sensibility, real good taste, involves the ability to recognize when such forces are present, and to distinguish between superficial reactions and the deeper affects these forces elicit.
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
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Q: Does your attraction to Mexican folk art have anything to do with the way you see life or your taste for color?
Studio corner
A: Initially, it was the fact that these folk-art figures opened up an entire new world to me. I had learned almost nothing about Mexico in school, a fact I found mystifying, considering Mexico is the United States’ southern neighbor.
When I started collecting, I was launched on a rich intellectual adventure with seemingly no end. The folk art figures had so much to teach and prompted many questions. Most were unanswerable, but still, I was curious: who made them, why, how, what did they represent, what did they reveal about the maker’s worldview, how did they fit in with historical and contemporary forces, etc.
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Pearls from artists* # 318
“Conundrum,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
We tend to see our “personal tastes” as positive personality traits, whereas they could just as well indicate limitations that we might overcome given the right opportunity, the appropriate context, and a little courage. Each person’s unique take on reality will no doubt favor certain aesthetic experiences over others, but it may be that the world is filled with potential aesthetic experiences that our “tastes” prevent us from having for no good reason.
J.F. Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
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