Saying yes...

Certain things just shouldn't be dissected

Grizzled, the lamblets and I went to see the Homer/Hopper exhibit yesterday. I have been waiting for this for almost a year. While I respect and love Homer, Hopper was the part of the duo that had me all in a tizzy. I was going to see Hopper upon Hopper upon Hopper all in one small area.

The exhibit started off with Homer. I knew it would. Homer was going to be the vegetable you needed to eat before you got to the dessert. Homer's portion of the exhibit consisted mainly of watercolors. They were fabulous, they were breathtaking, there were many. I really tried to give them my full focus, but was fully conscious of the Hopper carrot that was dangling at the end of the stick. I wanted that carrot. Still, the Homer exhibit was enlightening. I knew some about Homer, but there was still plenty left to glean. There were some oils interspersed with the watercolors and seeing The Herring Net is always a treat. I tried to keep my mind where I was, tried to not get ahead of myself and take it all in... but still... a bounty of Hoppers was a mere room away.

In between the Homer and Hopper exhibits was a vestibule where you could take a break and cleanse your visual palate so to speak. The lamblets wanted to sit on the benches for a bit. Grizzled wanted to check in with work. He had taken the day off, but it was a crazed day and his office was slightly understaffed. I didn't want to wait... I could see the self-portraits of Hopper peaking out through the entryway, but I paced. I looked at the large blow-ups of Hopper and his studio and I waited.

After what seemed like an eternity, I couldn't stand it anymore. I said they could catch up with me, but damn it, I was going in! The entry was filled with many Hopper watercolors, but by the time I hit the first oil done in classic Hopper colors, I was a goner. I did not read anything, having read most of this before. I rarely looked at the titles, having known those too. I merely stood before them and took them in.

I am one of those people who loves Hopper. I know he is far from the best, I know many consider him trite, but there is something in his work that for me, transcends all of that and here I was, standing in the middle of room after room of works I had only seen before on the printed page. Nothing can top seeing an oil painting in person and then to see so many of them. I was speechless. I did not want to talk. I did not want to dissect. I did not care about the method. I just wanted to soak them in. It was an unending display of famous Hopper after famous Hopper... when walking into one room that held 4 of my favorites right next to each other, I gasped. Grizzled asked me what was up and I said I felt like I was watching the finale of a fireworks show, one huge display followed by another followed by another. It was heaven and my insides were singing. I could have stayed there all day. Ideally, I would have been able to stay all night as well with no other people milling about. Frankly, I was surprised there was so much milling. I felt frozen on the outside while my insides were buzzing. It was that beautiful and elusive combo of feeling completely still while also feeling incredibly alive and alert... but I really don't want to dissect it. I just want it to be what it is and what it is, is fabulous.

If anyone is a Hopper fan, I highly suggest seeing trying to see this exhibit as it tours.

ATPCT: make-up edition

Yes, I know I said I was pulling the blinds on the blog for awhile. I'm still up to my neck in work that needs my whole focus, but I couldn't let the day go by without briefly touching on one of those nice surprises that you don't fully expect.

I had painting class again today. It was a make-up from a couple of weeks ago when my youngest lamblet was oh so sick. I was not looking forward to it. I had just gone yesterday and had had my usual struggles with those who say they want to be taught and yet show every sign they don't want to be taught unless you stop teaching... No, I was not looking forward to today, especially since it's really nice out and the snow and ice are melting and the sky was clear, but I went.

It was going to be a small class. Most people had previous commitments or just didn't like the thought of the schedule being changed. That's ok,  I thought. I'll take a small class. I'm not up for more and I was grateful when only 3 out of the possible 4 showed up.

The women ranged in age from late 60's to early 80's and also ranged in abilities. One had been painting longer than I have been alive and one only started this year. They all told me to just sit down and to not set up anything that they would work on their own stuff. So I sat and we talked. We talked and we listened and we opened up.

It was nice to hear their stories and for us to compare where we were at life-wise, etc. One of the women is turning 81 and is going into Senior Living center on Monday. Another woman is 72 and I would swear is no more than 58. She’s confident and adventurous. She does so many things and goes so many places and just seems very young for her age. I also love that she can ask for help and not mind being helped. The last woman, the one just starting painting, is in her late 60’s, she sounds like she's had kind of an odd and hard life, but she is so funny and is just full of insights. She was an accountant before she retired, but when I listen to her, I hear the heart of an artist. She sees things that only an artist can see.

It was a nice class. They worked on various painting projects, but mainly we just talked and even better, people listened. Today there was no one-upping, no passive aggressive tendencies, just a sharing of creativity and stories.

Today people painted, people talked and people listened. 

... and the blinds go back down...

ATPCT: Saying no edition

As most of you know, I started teaching an adult (adult in my class's case being anyone between 67-83) painting class back in September. When I was first offered the class it sounded intriguing. It sounded like another way to get out of the house doing something I love. It was to be a simple once a week thing with other people who love painting, but few things are ever really simple.

As time went on, it became clear that "learning at your own pace with individual instruction" would mean I was going to have to plan 5 different levels of activities. I would also have to set up a still life for those who didn't feel like participating. Of course I'd also have to listen to those who didn't want to participate at all no matter what I had done, but who would let me know all through class that I had let them down.

As time went on not only was I spending lots of extra time trying to come up with the magic plan, I was spending extra amounts of time worrying about their reactions, their contentment, their creative development. Most of all I wanted this class to be a fun place to be where creativity was thriving. Some were very on board, but some had to drag their feet the entire way. I tried to ignore, I tried to thicken my skin, but as time went on, I noticed I didn't even want to be around my own easel. If I were working on something for myself, I felt like I should be using the time for the class. Eventually, enough was enough. This was not how I wanted to spend my time. This was not the point of my journey so... I called the cultural affairs director and told her that after this next session was over, I would be going on my way.

This blog is entitled Saying yes... because that rule was ingrained in me during my couple of years in the Second City training center. You said yes so that forward motion would not be stopped. You said, "Yes and..." and you built on what had come before. Well, sometimes you have to say no in order to move forward. I have approximately 10 more weeks before I am officially through, but at least I have said my official no. I feel like I can look at my easel again.

Yes, it's a rerun, but it's still pertinent

We had some major thunderstorms yesterday. There's nothing better than a thunderstorm after a few solid months of winter. The tension cracks, there is release. If there is not enough rain during the storm or there was too much snow, one other result is less snow, but lots of dirty snow. It's looking rather sad out there. It's looking pretty *squallory* out there and while I am over snow, I'm actually looking forward to the additional inch or two we're supposed to get tonight/tomorrow. It might cover up some of the realities of winter.

I've got my tickets!

I've been waiting for this exhibition since UC was taunting me with the fact that Hopper was going to be in MA first. Well, he's here now, baby and he's not alone. He's with Homer and I've got my tickets. Woo-hoo. March 28th and I will be there.

ATPCT: Sometimes you just show up

I had to go to painting class yesterday. I did not want to go. I really haven't wanted to go for awhile... not totally sure why, but yesterday I had to go. I had taken the previous week off due to illness and I knew that had probably thrown my group into a tizzy. As a matter of fact, I knew it did when I started receiving calls 30 minutes before class was to start as to why I wasn't there. Cancellation calls had been made, a sign had been put up, but that didn't matter. There's a routine and I was messing with it so yesterday, come hell or high water, I had to go.

I had absolutely nothing planned. I still have not found my groove in that respect. There are those who just want to use it as studio time and I am fine with that, but there are a number of others who want an exercise, a demonstration... there are those who are hoping I will tell them how to do what they have not been able to figure out for the past 50+ years. I hope and pray every week that I'll find the magic answer, but I know there isn't one.

I was searching for the magic answer yesterday, wondering what to do since we had gotten off of the schedule and I knew people would not be coming in prepared. I spouted this out to my sister who suggested I just show up and let them know that sometimes showing up is the best you can do. At least if you show up, something can and might happen. It may not be what you expected, but at least the chance is there, so... I showed up.

It was a smaller class yesterday which was nice. The class is too big for anything truly meaningful to happen. Sometimes I think the class is too set in its way for any meaningful thing to happen. I'm not even sure why I feel I am supposed to make something meaningful happen. It's not in the course description. "Explore the world of oil painting! Work with shadows and light! During every class, something meaningful will happen. For an additional $25, you'll get twice as much meaning out of every class!!" And yet I feel the onus of creating meaningfulness. Maybe I just want it for myself.

Yesterday's class wasn't all struggle. I had some good discussions, we had some good laughs. One of the people is moving into an assisted living situation. She doesn't want to, but her children don't want her living alone any longer. The other students keep telling her how she'll love it, how she'll probably meet a lot of men. She said she's done with men. Men to her just make her think of stinky socks. I told her she'd probably find even more men since she wasn't looking. I suggested we start a pool to see who could come the closest to picking the date she met someone and their age. She said although she's not looking, she'd prefer younger.

Yesterday's class was OK. It was neither good nor bad. I doubt anything miraculous happened. No... yesterday, I just showed up.

Palette Procrastination

I have a terrible habit of thinking I'm going to paint every day and therefore I don't clean off my palette as often as I should. Even oil paint will eventually dry even if it's covered. When the urge to paint or the need to paint hits, I then think of the 30+ minutes I will spend scraping my palette clean with a razor blade. I'll start on a corner and eventually, I'll just do what I did before... I'll put another blob of paint on top of the old one. It's getting ridiculous though. My palette is now looking like a 3-dimensional map. But it's also looking awfully pretty.

It means something different to everyone

Last week Blue Girl put up about quick post about George Bush's now infamous painting, "A Charge to Keep". Bush apparently got the wrong message from the painting. Yesterday, Lance Mannion had up a post saying he felt it was ok to take your own meaning from a piece of work. We all have our own myths... I agreed with both posts.

I cringed when I read about Bush’s beliefs about the painting… not so much because he had misinterpreted it, but because I thought he was telling people that was what it was about. I thought he was spouting off again in an area where he was wrong and there was proof that he was wrong, but he didn’t care, or he was the Decider and God had told him what it really meant. 

I have absolutely no problems with works inspiring something in a person that had nothing to do with the original work. That’s what makes the world go round. We can’t know what is going to touch someone and what feelings it will stir.

I bought a painting a number of years ago… a small antique of hound dogs sniffing the ground in front of a large tree trunk. I love dogs. I loved how these dogs were done. I loved the tree and the sky. It so reminded me of a tree that was at the edge of our backyard and the sky, that impossible pinkish/brown/gray, was a late December sky at about 4:30 in the afternoon when you knew it was just going to dump a ton of snow. That is what I think of when I look at that painting. The dogs make me think of my old pound hound, Wilson, and the setting looks like  I could be looking out back of my childhood home, waiting and hoping for snow. 

If you look very closely at this painting, you will also see fox hunters on horses. They are so small and so inconsequential that I didn't even notice them at first. They are by no means the focal point of the painting... but if truth be known, it is a painting of a fox hunt. I hate fox hunting. Hate, hate, hate it, and yet, I love this painting and what it means to me. This painting was painted in 1898 by some obscure English artist named Nelson Browne. I always kind of hoped that he would somehow know that the person he was painting this for wasn't even alive yet and wouldn't be for quite some time, but that she was very glad he had painted it and she would be taking it to the nursing home with her when the time came.

I hate that Bush is so often wrong. I hate that he doesn't seem to care that he is wrong. He'll be wrong again many times I'm sure, but you can't be wrong about what a piece of artwork means to you. It may not be what was intended, it may be 180 degrees off the mark, but that's part of the magic.

You can't please everyone, so you gotta please yourself...

Tomorrow starts the beginning of a new painting class session. I'm feeling ambivalent. Towards the end of the last session I was ready to call it a day. I was ready to move on. While I enjoyed a number of the people in class, I was frustrated with the fact that class really had little to do with painting. Oh sure, people worked on stuff, but class was more about their daily woes and challenges. I have no issues with people of age, I love to hear all of the stories that older people have to share and realize their challenges are a significant part of their life. I mean no disrespect, but this routine was wearing. Towards the end, I didn't want to discuss burial plots, nursing homes or the latest physical ailment. I wanted to talk about painting. That is what I thought I had been hired to do and if I was not going to, well, I seriously had to rethink keeping this job or rethink how I approached it. I can be a social director, but need to know that's what I'll be doing.

On the last day we had an actual class (yes, the last day was used to hold the annual holiday party.) I told them flat out that I was going to be coming in with exercises in January, some probably new, some probably familiar. I was going to come in with more suggestions and input. I told them that no matter how long you've been doing something, you're never too old or too accomplished to learn something new whether about your medium or yourself. Yes, come January, things were going to change... I think I was talking to myself more than any of them.

Well, tomorrow starts our wild ride.

I’ve been thinking about my class plan a lot in recent days, having put it in the back of my mind during break, and have really been trying to silence the inner critic that chimes in whenever I expect revolt. I keep thinking, I can’t please everyone, but in trying to please everyone, I have not pleased myself, or for that matter... everyone. So, I’m going to go in with my plan and am going to tell them that they can do it or not, I am fine, oh so fine, with them doing their own stuff, but if they choose to go along, we’re going to focus on bad painting and not necessarily ending every class with something that’s pretty, but rather something that might enlighten them or move them along on their own path. I know how easy it is to get stuck in what works, but what works is not always inspired and if you’re painting, you do want moments of feeling inspired.

So… I am trying to approach this session as the feel the fear and do it anyway session or the feel the fear, create bad paintings, but move onward session. If they hate it, they don’t have to do it, but I’m thinking they’ll get a more legitimate me and that might be good, for all of us. I know they want simple directions for how to do x, y, and z, but I also know that no matter how much someone shows you or tells you, you have to just dance with the stuff and find your own steps as well. You have to give yourself permission to tank. I have too many people using really small brushes and drawing their paintings when they should be painting their paintings. They feel this gives them control. This is deceptive. You have less room for error when doing something small. I am going to push for slightly larger canvases and larger brushes so they can’t get stuck in one square inch for an hour. And even though I know they're going to hate it, I'm going to have a few classes where we do the same painting over and over, but in a short period of time. And so as not to get stuck in one square inch of teaching, I am going to use bigger techniques and larger ideas. Narrowing my ideas gave me less room for error in teaching. None of us are going to spend the next 9 weeks hanging out in that one square inch safety zone.

Those are my hopes. We’ll see where it ends. If they don’t like it, we can change it. If they don’t like it, I can always move on. And of course I can always distract with discussions of burial plots. 

This session, I’m painting myself a spine.

Sometimes the point of the exercise isn't apparent until it's over

Over the past week or so I had been working on some illustrations where one might hopefully get used in a book that is being published in '08. I nearly missed the opportunity. I had been busy and a site I regularly read fell by the wayside. I was lucky in that Blue Girl is also a fan of 37days and she gave me a heads up that Patti was looking for artwork to go with her book. She was inviting her readers to contribute to her process. How much fun! I signed on. I volunteered to attempt 4 illustrations which were to be assigned on Nov. 20th and were to be finished, scanned and e-mailed yesterday, Nov. 30th. I forgot one small thing... I was going away for Thanksgiving. That would take a serious chunk out of my creative time. Oh well... I've worked on short notice before and I would do it again, or so I thought.

My creative gears felt all jammed and although I did a couple of things I was ok with, I was mad at myself for not giving more, delving more, exploring more, and if that weren't enough, yesterday, one hour before the deadline, I was having scanner issues. My images were looking like crap... these were the images that I was going to be judged on. I felt ill.

One thing I was happy with though was that my eldest lamblet was intrigued with the process. She saw me reading Patti's essays over and over, she saw me drawing roughs and trying to come up with an idea. I asked her if she wanted to join in. She's a very creative soul, I thought she might enjoy trying out the whole submission process. I emailed Patti and let her know that although I had volunteered to attempt 4 illustrations, I would be sending 5 since I asked my daughter to go along for the ride.

Patti, ever gracious and ever kind, welcomed the eldest lamblet's artwork with open arms and an open mind and if that was not enough, she asked if she could post her work on her site. I showed my daughter last night. Needless to say, she went to bed on Cloud 9.

I went to bed, still stewing over the fact that my artwork had not come out like I had planned, and on top of that had scanned poorly. As I lay in bed trying to figure out ways to get the originals to Patti I realized that maybe this assignment wasn't about the artwork. Maybe this was assignment was about making myself realize I need to cut out an even bigger chunk of time for which to complete my work. Maybe this assignment was about realizing that once and for all this is becoming a digital world and even if I prefer to execute my work with brush and paint or pen and ink, I had better at least be able to transfer it to and send it in a digital fashion.

... and last but not least, maybe this assignment was about inviting my daughter along for the artwork submission ride and giving her, without fully knowing it, a soft and most welcome place to land.

Patti, even though I got to many orange flags during this process, I found myself griping that I had not gotten there faster, better, or more brilliantly.  Last night, in a moment of silence, I shut my mind up and I celebrated each and every one.