Category Archives: An Artist’s Life
Pearls from artists* # 562
“Shadow,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26” x 20,” in progress
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Jung observed that complexes could affect groups of people en masse. He saw that certain moments seemed to be expressions of a collective shadow, a bursting forth of a mass psychosis; the repressed side of a whole group coming alive; a tribal Mr. Hyde. He saw this madness first-hand in Germany in the 1930s and wrote about it. But every era carries some measure of collective shadow.
One could argue that no moment in time has seen more of the reality of human darkness than ours. Having witnessed the Holocaust and faced the threat of nuclear war in the twentieth century, and now facing the environmental impact of fossil fuels and plastics in the twenty-first century, we are undoubtedly aware of more of humanity’s potential for destruction than any of our ancestors ever were. Such a view does not come from a moralizing stance. Our era has made forced witnesses of us all.
The shadow is about where we put the Devil – where do we allow darkness to be housed? Racism and bigotry offer the relief of foisting our group’s shadow onto another whom we view as lesser. Doing so enables us not to look at or feel our shadow, and not see our own worst selves. But this collective shadow of our modern culture is also bigger and wider than group-to-group projections. There are culture-wide or civilization expressions of the collective shadow.
Jung saw the widespread loss of connection to the inner life and to a lived spirituality as one of the primary illnesses of our time. He observed that people were no longer animated by the traditional religions… For Jung, this meant that we’ve lost the old way but not yet found the new, and are sitting in a spiritual vacuum.
Into that vacuum, without our awareness, has slipped our fascination with human technology. Observe people closely today and you’ll notice that we have an almost magical faith in our devices. People see their computers and phones as all-knowing and expect them to function perfectly all the time, and view pharmaceuticals as magic cure-alls. Where we used to put God, we now have put technology. Where spirit was, we have unconsciously placed human genius.
Gary Bobroff in Carl Jung: Knowledge in a Nutshell
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Q: How has the use of photography in your work changed over the decades?
New York, NY
A: From the beginning in the mid-1980s I used photographs as reference material. My late husband, Bryan, would shoot 4” x 5” negatives of my elaborate setups using his Toyo-Omega view camera. In this respect Bryan was an integral part of my creative process as I developed the “Domestic Threats” pastel paintings. At that time I rarely picked up a camera, except to capture memories of our travels.
After Bryan was killed on 9/11, I inherited his extensive camera collection – old Nikons, Leicas, Graphlex cameras, and more. I wanted and needed to learn how to use them. Starting in 2002 I enrolled in a series of photography courses (about 10 over 4 years) at the International Center of Photography in New York. I learned how to use all of Bryan’s cameras and how to make my own big chromogenic prints in the darkroom.
Along the way I discovered that the sense of composition and color I had developed over many years as a painter translated well into photography. The camera was just another medium with which to express my ideas. Surprisingly, in 2009 I had my first solo photography exhibition at a gallery in New York. Bryan would have been so proud!
For several years now my camera of choice has been a 12.9” iPad Pro. It’s main advantage is that the large screen let’s me see every detail as I compose my photographs. I think of it as a portable, lightweight, and easy-to-use 8 x 10 view camera. My iPad is always with me when I travel and as I walk around exploring New York City.
It is a wonderful thing to be both a painter and a photographer! While pastel painting will always be my first love, photography has distinct advantages over my studio practice. Pastel paintings are labor-intensive, requiring months of painstaking work. Photography’s main advantage is speed. Photographs – from the initial impulse to hanging a print on a wall – can be made in minutes. Photography is instant gratification, allowing me to explore ideas much easier and faster than I ever could as a painter. Perhaps most importantly, composing photographs keeps my eye sharp whenever I am away from the studio. I credit photography as an important factor in the overall evolution of my work.
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Pearls from artists* # 558
Alexandria, VA
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
One of the main differences between the young girl who drew a line in chalk from the Metropolitan Museum all the way to her home on Park Avenue and the young woman who drew lines on canvas and paper twenty years later was that the latter understood the willfulness that drove the child. She was facing “the monster,” the consuming need to create, which was beyond her control but no longer beyond her comprehension. Helen [Frankenthaler] had long understood that her gift set her apart, and that it would be nearly impossible to describe how and why without sounding arrogant or cruel. “It’s saying I’m different, I’m special, consider me differently,” she explained years later. “And it’s also on the other side, a recognition that one is lonely, that one is not run of the mill, that the values are different, and yet we all go into the same supermarkets… and we all are moved one way or the other by children and seasons, and dreams. So the art separates you.”
The separation she described was not merely the result of what one did, whether it be painting or sculpting or writing poetry. Helen said the distance between an artist and society was due to a quality both tangible and intangible and intrinsic, a “spiritual” or “magical” aspect that nonartists did not always understand and were sometimes frightened by. “They want you to behave a certain way. They want you to explain what you do and why you do it. Or they want you removed, either put on a pedestal or victimized. They can’t handle it.” Helen concluded that existing outside so-called normal life was simply the price an artist paid to create.
Mary Gabriel in Ninth Street Women
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Travel photo of the month*
*favorite travel photos that have not yet appeared in this blog
Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
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Pearls from artists* # 557
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
It is true that art, while indebted to tradition, is usually at odds with it; art is about the thrill of mutiny. Young painters and sculptors are particularly unwilling to be hampered by the past, especially if that past is encased in the cement shoes of gender. But familiarity with tradition can be liberating for an artist because it provides a map illustrating the route other people have taken, which is especially valuable at the start of such a perilous journey. Male artists can inspire and instruct, surely. Artistic concerns are gender neutral. But there are social and personal issues a woman artist faces that cannot be found in the stories of men; these are the obstacles confronted and obstacles overcome. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “For spiritual values and a creative tradition to continue unbroken we need concrete artifacts, the work of hands, written words to read, images to look at, a dialogue with brave and imaginative women who came before us.” It’s instructive as well as comforting to know how other women have managed and what other women have dared. It’s also gratifying to find in their stories an occasional energizing dose of inspiration.
Mary Gabriel in Ninth Street Women
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Pearls from artists* # 556
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.
The painter Paul Klee exclaimed in his diary, “Am I God? I have accumulated so many great things in me!” But we also remember these other words of Klee… “He who strives will never enjoy this life peacefully.” The lucky artist may be the one who, while in human measure a god, has nevertheless found satisfactory ways of escaping the relentless firing of his synapses.
Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists
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Q: What is your best advice for new artists?
Recent pastel paintings in progress
A: I would say to remember that artists work from our hearts. Well-meaning people will give you unsolicited, contradictory, and confusing advice about what to paint, how to paint, etc. Artists must learn to ignore most of it and listen to our hearts. Continue working from a place deep inside you and you will always stay on the right track.
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Pearls from artists* # 555
Studio view showing some tools of the trade
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Rembrandt and Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Gauguin, possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not powerful wills. They loved the range of material they used, the work’s possibilities excited them; the field’s complexities fired their imaginations. The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules. They learned their fields and then loved them. They worked, respectfully, out of their love and knowledge, and they produced complex bodies of work that endure. Then, and only then, the world maybe flapped at them
some sort of hat, which, if they were still living, they ignored as well as they could, to keep at their tasks.
Annie Dillard in The Abundance, quoted in The Marginalian by Maria Popova, November 23, 2022
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Q: It must be tricky moving pastel paintings from your New York studio to your framer in Virginia. Can you explain what’s involved? (Question from Ni Zhu via Instagram)
“Impresario” partially boxed for transport to Virginia
A: Well, I have been working with the same framer for three decades so I am used to the process.
Once my photographer photographs a finished, unframed piece, I carefully remove it from the 60” x 40” piece of foam core to which it has been attached (with bulldog clips) during the months I worked on it. I carefully slide the painting into a large covered box for transport. Sometimes I photograph it in the box before I put the cover on (see above).
My studio is in a busy part of Manhattan where only commercial vehicles are allowed to park, except on Sundays. Early on a Sunday morning, I pick up my 1993 Ford F-150 truck from Pier 40 (a parking garage on the Hudson River at the end of Houston Street) and drive to my building’s freight elevator. I try to park relatively close by. On Sundays the gate to the freight elevator is closed and locked so I enter the building around the corner via the main entrance. I unlock my studio, retrieve the boxed painting, bring it to the freight elevator, and buzz for the operator. He answers and I bring the painting down to my truck. Then I load it into the back of my truck for transport to my apartment.
I drive downtown to the West Village, where I live, and double park my truck. (It’s generally impossible to park on my block). I hurry to unload the painting, bring it into my building, and up to my apartment, all the while hoping I do not get a parking ticket. The painting will be stored in my apartment, away from extreme cold or heat, until I’m ready to drive to Virginia. On the day I go to Virginia, I load it back into my truck. Then I make the roughly 5-hour drive south.
Who ever said being an artist is easy was lying!
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Pearls from artists* # 554
Explaining my work. Photo: David De Hannay
*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’ve all taken advantage of the unlimited instant access that the wired world claims to provide. So it’s not surprising that many artists are reluctant to contemplate, much less accept, any self-imposed limitations. Painters and sculptors who remain in their studios grapple with the fundamentals and fine points of representation or abstraction – worrying about Renaissance theories of perspective or Klee’s or Kandinsky’s ideas about plane geometry – can be accused of having their heads in the sand. But there comes a time when certain questions must be asked. What are the artistic traditions that mean the most to you? What is your artistic heritage? Where do you stand?
Between Abstraction and Representation by Jed Perl in The New York Review of Books, November 24, 2022
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