March 15, 2017 – Getting Personal

The succulent in Adrienne’s garden.

In January I took this picture of a succulent growing in our neighbor Adrienne’s front planting bed.  It was moist with dew with the light catching the edges just so.  I cropped it square and posted it on Instagram.  Two different artists who I know and love saw the picture and said they wanted to paint it. I’m not particularly interested in painting succulents, so I said “sure!”  Last week as Bo and I were walking up the last stretch of street on our way to the dirt fire road we hike on, I glanced down at that same cluster of succulents and had this thought:  “if Robin and/or Sue make a painting from the photo I took, it would be fun for me to have them visit so I could show them the very succulent they painted.”  In my next thought I noticed how personal I’m inclined to be – even with a succulent that someone else may paint!

It’s not just any succulent that they’d paint;  it is this one – growing right here in Adrienne’s garden.  It’s not anonymous to me;  of all the succulents in the world, I know specifically which one it is.  Romance languages have two words for “to know” – one pertains to facts, to knowledge – this one is “savoir” in French.  The other is used for people and places;  it means “to be familiar with” – to know as family.  The French word for this is “connaitre” – though I’ve read it is not the word’s actual root, I see it broken apart as con-naitre, “born-with” – which is just how it occurs to me.  I know the things I paint in this way.

Reverence – (the finished painting)

I don’t paint from random images – say those I might find on the internet.  Besides there being copyright issues, there’s no way I can have a relationship with the subjects in these images – I can’t know what I’m painting.  In the 13 or so years that I’ve been painting in earnest, I’ve painted from someone else’s image only a few times – mostly commissions.  However, I just recently painted “Reverence” from an image taken by Paulette, an artist in our Thursday group.  I think this worked for me because I know Paulette very well and I have visited her garden – so there is the familiarity I need. Plus she captured the light and a sense of intimacy in that image that just seduced me.  Apart from this, I work strictly from my own images.  I need to have experienced the flower or fruit or whatever I am painting, in its surroundings – in that moment.  The camera saves the visual information, but I have the direct experience in my body.

When I was preparing for my first Marin Open Studios in 2007, I put together a scrapbook – in an old-school, sticky page photo album – of the images I used to make my paintings from, along with a little story I wrote about each one.  I have no idea what compelled me to write these first stories, but it’s become a thing – I write a story for each painting as it goes up on my website.  This has further become a test for whether or not I paint something.  If there’s no story I can tell about it, I can’t imagine painting it.

Robert Genn’s post on The Painter’s Key’s yesterday added another piece to this.  He wrote of the two spirits in each painting – that of the subject, the mountains, the person, the plant – “Nature’s spirit” he called it.  And then there’s the spirit of the artist and the artist’s interpretation of the subject.  We must be present with our subjects – have a feeling about them – in order to paint them with impact.  This speaks exactly to my experience.  I have had direct contact with my subjects, some kind of spark arose – the “paint me” I hear them say to me.  And then there’s my own inclinations that come in – I crop it a certain way, accentuate the color, paint in large scale.  I bring it through as a painting in my way.

There is a third spirit that Robert Genn didn’t identify – that of our materials.  We also have a relationship with our medium, our paints, brushes, and the surfaces we paint on.  I love watercolor paper – specifically Arches 300 lb. cold press.  I’ve tried another brand but it’s not the same.  And I love this medium – fluid, transparent, textured – watercolor has me.  I’ve heard similarly about artists’ love of oil painting and chalk pastel artists who need the directness of holding the color in their hand. Certainly, there are artists who experiment and even create regularly in several media – but it’s got to be just fine to be happily devoted to one medium.  Regardless, our materials have an essence that comes into play as we create.

Almost done. Look for the finished painting next week.

After spending a certain amount of time painting, what I’m up to – and how I’m up to it – has been revealed.  I sit solidly in the center of my work – I paint from images I take of colorful growing things – mostly flowers and fruit, where there is some emotional resonance – both in my desire to paint it, and as a result in the finished painting – for those it is meant for.  This is – at least so far – how art is made through me.  Though your way may be similar, it won’t be exactly like mine.  On Sunday I was speaking to someone who had never made art before.  He wondered if art students would all end up painting exactly like their teacher.  When I told him that how we put paint down onto watercolor paper is akin to our handwriting, he got how this isn’t possible.  No one else can make the art that is in us.

My sense is that coming home to who we are as artists is a process.  As we are learning we experiment and try on a variety of subjects and materials.  The thing to notice is what sparks your imagination, where your curiosity is, where your motivation to take action is.  This is the discipline to adhere to – in heeding your desires and preferences for your subjects and materials.  Over time we develop a greater capacity for intimacy with these things – when we can really see them, when we come to really know – in that familiar-with way – our subjects, our colors and materials.

In an email I read this morning, Cynthia Bourgeault used the metaphor of a braid for how three things come together to make a forth thing in a new dimension.  Our paintings are this fourth thing – the result of the intertwining of the spirits of our subjects, our materials and ourselves.  When we allow ourselves to touch and be touched – to get very, very personal with our subjects and materials, we make art.  This art moves and inspires and has its own spirit as it goes into the world.  Whether or not we realize it, we are participating in making new life.  Here’s the thing – getting personal means we have to sit down and do it – we must paint!  Simply being in possession of a bunch of images and art supplies does not make art!  Devoting the time is an ongoing struggle that I’m familiar with too.  One way that supports me to sit and paint is by supporting you – let me know how I can.

To your art!

Cara