Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 211
Machu Picchu
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
There is an ancient view that beauty is the object of a sensory rather than an intellectual delight, and that the senses must always be involved in appreciating it. Hence, when the philosophy of art became conscious of itself at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it called itself ‘aesthetics,’ after the Greek aesthesis, sensation. When Kant wrote that the beautiful is that which pleases immediately, and without concepts, he was providing a rich philosophical embellishment to this tradition of thinking. Aquinas too seems to have endorsed the idea, defining the beautiful in the first part of the Summa as that which is pleasing to sight (pulchra sunt quae visa placent). However, he modifies this statement in the second part, writing that ‘the beautiful relates only to sight and hearing of all the senses, since these are the most cognitive (maxime cognoscitive) among them.’ And this suggests, not only that he did not confine the study of beauty to the sense of sight, but that he was less concerned with the sensory impact of the beautiful than with its intellectual significance – even if it is a significance that can be appreciated only through seeing or hearing.
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, by Roger Scruton
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Q: How many pastel paintings do you have in progress now?
Work in progress
A: Making pastel-on-sandpaper paintings is a slow and meticulous process. I work full-time in my studio so that in a good year I can produce five finished pieces. Typically two are in progress at a time so that I can switch off when problems develop.
A downside to looking at a painting for months is that there comes a point when I can’t see the flaws any more. Then it’s definitely time to take a break.
When I put a painting that has been resting back onto my easel, I see it with fresh eyes again. Areas that need work immediately stand out. Problem areas become easily resolvable because I have continued to think about them while the painting was out of my sight.
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Pearls from artists* # 175
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.
I know this is a sentimental cliché, but I do feel toward my books very much as a parent must toward his children. As soon as someone says, “I did like your short stories, but I don’t like your novels,” or, “Of course, you only really came into your own with Anglo-Saxon Attitudes” – then immediately I want to defend all my other books. I feel this especially about Hemlock and Anglo-Saxon Attitudes – one child a bit odd but exciting, the other competent but not really so interesting. If people say they like one book and not the other, then I feel they can’t have understood the one they don’t like.
Angus Wilson in The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work 1st Series, edited and with an introduction by Malcolm Cowley
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Q: Your pastel paintings are immediately recognizable as yours alone. Did you consciously try to develop a signature style in your work?
Barbara’s studio
A: I don’t believe that is even possible. An artist’s style is something that evolves with plain hard work and experience, over many years of trial and error, as one finds what techniques work best and discards those that don’t. It is a process of continually experimenting, refining, and clarifying. In other words, style is something that emerges naturally as you gradually strive to improve your art-making.
Style develops in close connection to what an artist is saying as she undergoes a very personal and idiosyncratic journey. Again, it would seem improbable for an artist to strive for any particular style, since style is not something over which an artist can exert much conscious control.
I would even say that each artist’s unique style is inevitable. It would be nearly impossible now to make a pastel painting or photograph that does NOT look like a Rachko.
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Q: What do you think are the most important qualities in an artist?
“Big Deal,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″
A: Two essentials immediately come to mind. I believe imagination and curiosity are very important qualities, not only for artists, but for anyone who hopes to look back on a well-lived life. As Lauren Bacall famously said, “Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.”
It is curiosity that keeps people laser-focused on a lifetime journey of learning. I’d venture to say that curiosity is the not-so-secret quality of accomplished people in every profession. We humans can never know enough!
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Q: What do you do when you are between paintings?
Work in progress
A: I would be at loose ends if I finished a pastel painting and didn’t have another one immediately available to work on. It’s one reason I always have two paintings in progress. Another is that when I get stuck on some technical problem, I can switch to the other painting. Works in progress tend to interact and play off of each other. As I am working on a second painting, solutions to problems I had on the first quickly become apparent.
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Q: All artists go through periods when they wonder what it’s all for. What do you do during times like that?
Barbara’s studio
A: Fortunately, that doesn’t happen very often. I love and enjoy all the varied facets involved in being an artist, even (usually) the business aspects, which are just another puzzle to be solved. I have vivid memories of being stuck in a job that I hated, one I couldn’t immediately leave because I was an officer in the US Navy. Life is so much better as a visual artist!
I appreciate the freedom that comes with being a self-employed artist. The words of Louise Bourgeois often come to mind: “It is a PRIVILEGE to be an artist.”
Still, with very valid reasons, no one ever said that an artist’s life is easy. It is difficult at every phase.
Books offer sustenance, especially ones written by artists who have endured all sorts of terrible hardships beyond anything artists today are likely to experience. I just pick up a favorite book. My Wednesday blog posts, “Pearls from artists,” give some idea of the sorts of inspiration I find. I read the wise words of a fellow artist, then I get back to work. As I quickly become intrigued with the problems at hand in a painting, all doubt usually dissolves.
I try to remember: Artists are extremely fortunate to be doing what we love and what we are meant to do with our short time on earth. What more could a person ask?
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Pearls from artists* # 73
Sri Lanka
* 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 primary tool in a creative process is interest. To be true to one’s interest, to pursue it successfully, one’s body is the best barometer. The heart races. The pulse soars. Interest can be your guide. It always points you in the right direction. It defines the quality, energy, and content of your work. You cannot feign or fake interest or choose to be interested in something because it is prescribed. It is never prescribed. It is discovered. When you sense this quickening you must act immediately. You must follow that interest and hold on tight.
Anne Bogart in A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theater
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Pearls from artists* # 62
“The Sovereign,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 58″ x 38″
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Yes, I’m formalistically obsessed. I see in a picture what I see in nature – everything has its place and is integrated. Like a tree or a human body, the image is put together for a greater whole. If you chop off something, you immediately destroy the organism. Form is crucial to what I do, and I believe that the form, in a way, creates the content. If you don’t have the form, you don’t get the content. If you get the maximum formal relationships in a precise, organic, metaphoric methodology, then you have a better chance of bringing out the content to its full degree. Of course, a picture doesn’t stand alone by its form. You can have forms that relate but offer no meaning. Ultimately, a picture is judged by its meaning, and I think that’s what a lot of people lose sight of.
Interview with Roger Ballen in Lines, Marks, and Drawings: Through the Lens of Roger Ballen, Craig Allen Subler and Christine Mullen Kreamer
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