Bobbi Heath Archives | Page 3 of 7

March 1, 2019

Finding your audience

Marketing art is about being as visible and transparent as you can tolerate.

Electric Glide, by Carol L. Douglas

“Any thoughts you ever have on who might be interested in what I do, either gallery-wise, or direct buyer-wise, I’m all ears,” a reader commented on a recent post about finding your audience. I know this painter, but she lives in Colorado and I don’t know her market. I do know she’s already taking the first step I’d recommend: applying to plein airevents to get herself noticed.

What does ‘marketing’ mean?

Getting your paintings seen by an audience;
Keeping that audience engaged with your process via regular communication;
Inviting them to your events.

Put that way, it’s not so daunting, is it? But expect to work half your workday at this marketing gig—first by studying how it works, and then by implementing what you’ve learned.

Dry Wash, by Carol L. Douglas

For example, although I’ve had an Instagram account for several years, I only recently figured out how it actually works. I learned that by listening to webinars and my friend Bobbi Heath.

An artist can’t have too many friends. Often, the sale is less about what you know than who you know.

Still, can you talk comfortably about specific pieces of your work? Your inspiration and process? This self-knowledge is critical to selling your own work. Here’s a test: ask your best friend about what it is that you do all day. If he or she can’t answer, then maybe you need to start talking about your process more.

Cape Elizabeth Cliffs, by Carol L. Douglas

Everyone has an audience, and it started with your family. Just as your social circle grew in concentric circles from them, so too does your audience start with close friends and family. Your friends on Facebook and your followers on Instagram are your first audience. You need to connect with them regularly about your art. From that, your audience will grow as naturally as your circle of friends did when you were a child.

Your posts in all media should be designed to show a ‘whole’ you—not just your finished paintings. Your studio, your town, your brushes, your gaffes all combine for a total picture of you as an artist. Be as transparent as you have the nerve to be.

Tricky Mary in a Pea Soup Fog, by Carol L. Douglas

And update your website, or make one if you don’t already have one. That’s your business-card to the Web, and it must be as beautiful and inviting as you can make it. It doesn’t have to be exhaustive. It should include a bio/CV, artist statement, images of your work, and contact information.

Only then are you ready to approach a bricks-and-mortar gallery, because the first thing they’re going to do is look up who you are on the Internet.

As for what galleries you should approach, that requires legwork. Make a habit of visiting galleries in your area to check out the work they sell. Get to know the gallerists. Approach only those that seem like a good fit. And don’t be afraid of rejection; there are many reasons galleries won’t take you that have nothing to do with your work.

Tom Sawyer’s Fence, by Carol L. Douglas

At the beginning, I said that my reader is already applying for plein air shows. They’re a great way to be seen by a wider audience. So too are art festivals and juried shows. Apply to as many as you can tolerate.

Here’s a final bit of advice from my pal Bruce McMillan: “I tell my students in my children’s book class that the way to deal with rejection when submitting a manuscript is to assume it’s going to be rejected. That way you’re never disappointed. And while it’s away, get the next place lined up that will reject it.”

January 29, 2019

Business realism

If a tire-kicker like me will buy a snowblower online, it’s time to retire my arguments against internet stores.

Breaking Storm, by Carol L. Douglas

This is the week when I hole up with my fellow painter Bobbi Heath and talk about our business plans for the coming year. The question I’m asking myself has been niggling at my planning for at least three years: do I want to invest significant resources into setting up online marketing? Or a bricks-and-mortar gallery in my Rockport studio?

My arguments for not doing so have been:

It takes a lot of time to set up an e-commerce-enabled website;
People won’t buy expensive things sight unseen;
All painting sales are relational;
Conflict with my current gallery representation;
I’d rather be painting.

Cape Elizabeth Cliffs, by Carol L. Douglas

Ten days ago, I was lying in bed whining about an upcoming winter storm. We’ve always shoveled snow rather than hire a plowman. But I’ll be sixty years old next month. While snow never gets old, I sure am. “Let’s buy a snowblower,” I said to my husband.

I pulled out my cell phone and texted my gearhead son-in-law to ask what brands he thought were most reliable. “My uncle has an Ariens,” he said. That was enough for me. Said uncle always buys quality equipment.

Fifteen minutes later I’d charged an $1100 snowblower on my credit card on an online site attached to a bricks-and-mortar store nearby. it was in our garage, ready to use, by dinnertime.

That’s anecdotal, but my own metrics tell the same story. In 2018, my family placed 115 orders on Amazon alone. The total value was nearly $10,000.

Parrsboro Sunrise, by Carol L. Douglas

If frugal, older, careful tire-kickers like me are doing that much business online, that can only mean our arguments against selling art on the internet are out of date. This year, I go into this planning session not with a generalized idea, but with a firm goal.

The problem will be implementing something so far outside my skill set. There are only two ways to do this. The first is to pay someone to do it for me, and the second is to suck it up and learn how myself.

Dry Wash, by Carol L. Douglas

Then there’s the question of the brick-and-mortar gallery. I spent yesterday morning looking at spaces where there are galleries, spaces where I know there will be galleries, and comparing the shopping districts of area tourist towns. I walked away thinking there may be marginally better retail spaces than the one I already own, but none with such great advantages that they’re worth the extra cost.

Note: before you can start specifically planning a retail business, you need a basic strategic plan. If you don’t understand your customers, the work you like to do, your strengths and your weaknesses, you’re more likely to fail.

December 10, 2018

Monday Morning Art School: accurate lines in oils

It may seem like a fine brush is better, but that’s not always true in wet-on-wet painting.

Sea Fog on Main Street, by Carol L. Douglas. When painting plein air, you don’t have time to wait for the painting to dry to draw lines.

I’m working on a commission that has a lot of architectural detail. I don’t want the end result to be fussy. I’m not a clean renderer like Frank Costantino. He can drop a fine line with a rigger and it falls into the painting, cool and elegant.

Watercolor loves fine lines. Alla prima oil painting doesn’t. It tends to be looser and rougher. A fine line added with a rigger can lie on the surface looking silly, or it can melt into the bottom layers and look like mush.

Working backwards allows you to make clean edges without being overly fussy.

My solution is to paint edges and lines in reverse. I lay down the line and then back the color up to meet it.

Lines should be happening on an already-wet surface, because they aren’t important in the big-shape phase. That means you need a technique for removing excess paint before you draw. For large erasures, I take off excess paint with a palette knife. For lines, I use a wipe-out tool. I had a very old one made by Loew-Cornell that I lost this summer. I replaced it with a terrible one I picked up on the road. But Bobbi Heath assures me this is the best one currently available.

Start by getting rid of excess paint.

Getting rid of that schmearof excess paint is an important first step. You can’t draw into soup.

Lay the line in before the surrounding background. With architecture, this often means a line of light-colored paint before its dark surround. Don’t worry that you’ve broken the dark-to-light rule. Lines are usually added toward the middle or end of a painting, so you should be past that point anyway.

In oils, the side of a flat brush always works better than a tiny round for straight lines. Flats are more stable and tends to track in the right direction. Go ahead and use a ruler if you want.

The line going on with a bright.

This line should be made of fairly thin paint, with just enough medium to carry it smoothly. Too much oil and it will blend into its surround.

It’s easier to paint a line with a flat on its side than with a small round.

Next paint the surrounding area, pushing up against the line with the background color. Use enough paint and be bold. It’s best to do this edging in a single stroke, but that takes practice. However, as a general rule, the more you touch the surface, the muddier the edges will get.

Then push the background color right up against the line.

In my examples, I use two different brushes. The fine flat, made by Rosemary & Co., was a gift this summer. It is very precise, but as with all synthetic fibers, it doesn’t carry much paint. The bright is old and clunkier, but it carries enough paint for a good, finished line. It may seem like finer is better, but that’s actually not true. What’s most important is getting enough paint on the canvas, evenly, so that your line doesn’t look anemic. I find that with alla prima painting, hog bristles are almost always better.

After two flags, a chair, and a lot of white trim, I was so cramped up by precision that I had to do this fast surf exercise to wash out my mind (and loosen up my hand).

I enjoyed painting with the Rosemary & Co. flat, but it was no good for surface work. Eventually, I realized I didn’t like my painting at all. I set it aside and did a fast exercise with big brushes that got rid of the stiffness that had crept into my painting from using the wrong brush.

November 6, 2018

Hoaxes, frauds, and ancient artifacts?

An ancient Scottish Templar lies in state in eastern Massachusetts.

Who needs to go to Britain to see a knight lying in state on his coffin lid?

Yesterday I stopped to paint in the marshes of Westford, Massachusetts with my pal Bobbi Heath. This is low country with oaks, spruces and pines, and the foliage this week is a perfect blend of russets, golds and cool greens.

My husband was flying to Boston from a week potting around England with two of our kids. I’d skipped the trip for Plein Air Brandywine Valley. I’ve seen enough knights reposing on their coffin lids that I wasn’t concerned.

A rubbing of the Westford boulder. It may be slightly enhanced. Courtesy of the Clan Sinclair Association (USA)

We would paint until dusk and I’d collect Doug at the airport on the way home. Of course, that wasn’t what happened. Bobbi is still hobbling from her Lisfranc fracture. What started as a spattering mist developed into the cold, full-throated pissing of a late autumn rain. That’s pneumonia weather.

So, we did what artists love even better than painting: driving around looking at stuff we might paint sometime. And then Bobbi casually mentioned the Westford Knight. We have a fine St. George battling a dragon here in Maine, and I figured it was something like that.

The best photo I could get of the boulder on a dark and stormy night.

Instead, it was a large hunk of granite under a Plexiglas cover, with something unmistakably carved into its surface. Carbon dating it would be impossible, since that only works with organic material. But granite is hard, and it couldn’t have been carved without tempered steel implements. That makes the rock either a hoax like Piltdown man, or a genuine relic of pre-Columbian exploration in the New World.

The rock was first mentioned in print in 1873. At the time, it was attributed to Native Americans. By the middle of the twentieth century, it had been identified as a medieval knight complete with sword and shield.

A rubbing of the Westford Boat Rock. Courtesy of the Clan Sinclair Association (USA)

This was in part due to the influence of TC Lethbridge, English archaeologist, parapsychologist, explorer, and all-around crank—in short, just the sort of man we should have over to dinner. Lethbridge, while classically trained, came to believe that the archaeological establishment wouldn’t countenance any thinking outside the usual academic platitudes.

Lethbridge was consulted about the Westford carving, and he suggested that it represented a 14^th century hand-and-a-half wheel pommel sword.

Enter the Clan Sinclair Association (USA). They believe their ancestor, Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, discovered the New World around the year 1400. Sinclair apparently landed in Nova Scotia and then potted down the coast to Massachusetts, where he wandered inland.

My last evening at Plein Air Brandywine Valley. Courtesy of Bruce McMillan.

They believe that the rock commemorates a fallen member of Sinclair’s party, Sir James Gunn, a Knight Templar. Historians counter that the Order of the Knights Templar had been publicly disbanded ninety years earlier. This presents no particular historical challenge to readers of dime-store fiction. We know that Knights Templar popped up everywhere for hundreds of years after they were banned.

There’s also a matching oval-shaped boulder in Westford’s library. It has a sailing ship and an arrow carved into its surface. “Archaeological evidence indicates this was probably carved at the same time as the Westford Knight carving,” the Sinclairs wrote. There is, of course, no archaeological evidence anywhere, because of that pesky carbon-dating problem.

There are relics all over the northeast that defy categorization, including the Spirit Pond runestones found in Phippsburg, Maine. We have proof that Vikings visited the New World. Are all these old stones fakes, or are some of them real artifacts?

October 11, 2018

Is that your final answer?

Plans change, but I’m absolutely certain that something wonderful is going to happen if I just show up. It’s never failed yet.

Hedgerow in Paradise, by Carol L. Douglas. It’s so old it seems like a different artist.

My pal Bobbi Heathstepped wrong and rolled her foot. Being in France at the time, she bandaged it and carried on, assuming it was a sprain. Yesterday, she went to her own doctor in Massachusetts and learned that she has a Lisfranc fracture. That’s a complex, multiple-bone dislocation where the metatarsal bones affix to the arch of the foot. That means the end of the painting season for Bobbi. No driving or standing for the next month.

I feel awful for her, of course. I’m also feeling a bit dislocated myself. She was coming here to paint next week. Then we were planning to travel together to Brandywine Plein Air at the end of the month. I’d happily drive and carry her gear, but Bobbi knows she can’t paint on crutches. Having tried it myself earlier this year, I know she’s right.

Crabbers on the Eastern Shore, by Carol L. Douglas, pastel.

Meanwhile, it’s a nine-hour drive from here to Wilmington, DE, and it suddenly got much more boring. But it’s a matter of professionalism, so I’ll crank up the music and head south on my own.

Emily Post was the doyenne of good manners in my youth. She said that once an invitation is accepted, it was inviolable. You were going unless you were injured, ill, or had a death in the family. The only ‘better offer’ that got you off the hook was an invitation to the White House or to meet the Queen.

She added that last-minute cancellations were a good way to make yourself unpopular with hostesses. It never pays to be unreliable.

Campbell’s Field, by Carol L. Douglas. Equally old, done in Eastern PA, but more like my work today.

Artists are like the AKC-registered purebreds at the dog show. Our work is actually the smaller part of the whole event, but it’s the part people see. Meanwhile, there are organizers who have been hard at it for an entire year. If possible, we should honor that.

I like doing plein airevents with my friends, but this has been a year in which my plans have been repeatedly upended. Each time, something has happened to stop them, so I’ve traveled to Parrsboro, Santa Fe, and the ADK alone. And, every time, there’s been some compelling, wonderful result that’s more than justified the trip. Furthermore, I always seem to know someone who’s there, ours being a small community of painters.

Storm at the mouth of the Chesapeake, by Carol L. Douglas, pastel.

My philosophy of life is based on my faith, of course—I am not the master of my fate, the captain of my soul. I’m more of a jellyfish washed along by time and tide. Fighting the ocean is a useless, painful exercise in futility. I’ve committed to this event, so I’ll go, with or without my buddy. I’m absolutely certain that something wonderful is going to happen if I just show up. It’s never failed yet.

September 20, 2018

They like what they see

If you paint in your studio, you miss some marvelous conversations—with animals as well as people.

Working Dock, oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas.

I’m using this residency to explore ideas I might otherwise skip over, because they’re not particularly marketable. Yesterday, for example, I managed to channel David Hockney’speculiar perspective and flat planes onto a grey working lobster dock in Maine. I was surprised when a lobsterman asked me how much I wanted for the painting.

I don’t want to sell any of this work before I’ve shown it as a series. But I looked up my price and told him how much it will eventually be.

He repeated it back to me awestruck, and asked, “Are you famous?”

A lobster pound at Tenants Harbor, by Carol L. Douglas, courtesy the Kelpie Gallery. Working docks are fascinating to paint.

Well, not unfamous. But that’s not really the point. It’s like lobstering, I said. Both lobstermen and plein air artists have high operating costs and significant business risk. (We also work outside in all kinds of weather, but their job is far more dangerous than mine.)

“It’s a lot more than lobster,” he laughed. Well, if you price it by the pound, yeah.

My intention for this residency has been to do each locale first in oils and then in watercolor, but that’s been shaken up some by the recent rain. Today’s painting is the mate to Monday’s watercolor. I hope I get it straight before I head home at the end of next week.

Little Giant, by Carol L. Douglas, courtesy of Camden Falls Gallery.

The other day, Bobbi Heath and I were hit on—very politely, mind you. Bobbi and I are both, erm, grandmotherly, and neither of us were remotely chic. Heck, I never even combed my hair that morning. Then again, I never do.

“Are either of you ladies single?” he asked. Bobbi thought that line needed work, but we were polite in kind.

Later, he came back and asked me, “But are you happily married?”

Pilings, by Carol L. Douglas.

A couple from Pennsylvania stopped to chat. A ruckus erupted in front of us.

“A kingfisher!” the husband exclaimed. After a moment his face fell. “A chipmunk.” Chipmunks are my most steadfast painting companions. They’re always chattering at me.

I’ve seen so many turkeys this year that I’m almost inspired to them (in my studio, in the winter). I’ve also seen a lot of deer mice in unnatural poses. They like to visit the pantry at the end of summer, and they pay for it with their lives.

I’ve met a lot of surprising creatures over the years. I’m basically silent, except for the swish-swish of my brush, and animals get curious. Here in Jefferson, it’s been the usual woodland creatures. A few days ago, I had to stamp my feet at a squirrel who was coming too close. “I’ll make a brush out of your tail!” I told him.

Working Dock in its Hockney phase. There are elements of this abstraction that I’d like to recapture.

Working Dock, above, spent a long time looking as if the far wharf had erupted in flames. I wanted to maintain a separation between the trees. Passers-by avoided it when it was in that stage, particularly the guys who work on the dock. Perhaps they know something they’re not telling.

A studio painter told me that when he paints outside, he’s thrown by the public commentary. I understand how that can happen, particularly if you’re not confident in your skills. But most people are kind, even to the rawest, newest student. They genuinely like what they see: the miracle of that scene over there being translated into this picture, right here.

If you work in a studio, or you work outside with headphones on, you miss some wonderful interactions. Yes, the public can be a distraction, but they’re also a joy.

September 18, 2018

A sense of place

I can’t get a painting out of my mind. That means the artist did an unusually good job.

Lobster dock, by Carol L. Douglas, watercolor on Yupo paper.

In September, our days often start with fog, as the cooler, longer nights of autumn dance with the warm ocean. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” John Keats called it. It’s exquisitely cool on the skin and a delight to paint. But I was having none of that joy on Sunday. In fact, I was miserable.

As the sky cleared, the day emerged perfect. There is a limpid, golden light from now until March in this latitude. Still, it’s not cold; a warm, gentle breeze floated across Damariscotta Lake. September is the most glorious month in Maine, and the knowledgeable holiday-makers know it.

They were out in force, zipping along the water on their jet skies, in power and pontoon boats. I like boats, and don’t generally begrudge them their fun on the water, but the engine sounds were drilling neat holes in my temples. After six hours, I capitulated to my awful headache and packed up my brushes.

I’m not a crank, I have hay fever. Really.

Yesterday morning I noticed that my eyes were swollen. The penny dropped. I used to have fierce autumn allergies when I lived along the Lake Plains. Here, my bedroom overlooks a hundred-acre hayfield. I have hayfever again.

I’d planned on meeting Bobbi Heath to paint in the pickerelweed above Damariscotta Mills. When I showed her my eyes, she suggested that we go, instead, to the shore, where the ocean breezes could clear my sinuses. That is how we ended up at Round Pond, and it suited me to a T.

Private Island, definitely unfinished, by Carol L. Douglas

I’m having fun with Yupo, and doing some interesting work with it, but the medium is driving my painting, rather than being subservient to any sense of place. That’s shifting, but it’s a slow process.

“Sense of place” is difficult to define. Most geographic places have strong identities, although some (like shopping malls) are interchangeable. But sense of place isn’t merely geographical. It’s also perception, based on history and feelings.

A sense of place needn’t be positive. Charles Dickens opened Great Expectations in a miasma of graveyard, swamp, and convict hulks on the river. Charles Burchfieldhas a tremendous sense of his adopted hometown of Buffalo, and it’s threatening. But in painting, sense of place is generally a positive thing.

In the national imagination, Maine has a strong place identity. That is why gazillions of ceramic lighthouses are flogged here every year. But a sense of place is deeper than simple media coverage and souvenir shopping. Digging to its essence is one of the trickiest jobs in landscape painting.

View from Mount Pisgah, by Deborah Lazar, has a tremendous sense of place. It comes from the brushwork as much as from the forms.

I’ve thought a lot about a painting I saw last month at Adirondack Plein Air that has a stellar sense of place. It was a tiny gem, almost unnoticed in the crush, but it’s resonated with me ever since. I asked its painter, Deborah Lazar, if I could share it with you.

Deborah has captured the Adirondacks’ essential color and form in simple terms. I can practically feel the wind in the looseness of her brushwork. She couldn’t have done that had she focused on style rather than content, because her mark-making would have overridden the movement of the wind.

Style is often what’s rewarded by jurors. But this painting has stuck with me long after the prize-winners have faded from my memory.

July 12, 2018

SRSLY time to watch us paint

Three opportunities to watch well known plein air painters at work on Maine’s rugged coast.

Rachel Carson Sunset, Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvasboard, was painted at Ocean Park.

I had so much fun with Bobbi Heath’s Gloucester easel in Cape Elizabeth that I dragged my old one out of the garage. (It’s such junk compared to hers!) I won’t go as big as I did last week, but I do plan on doing some larger works over the next two weeks.

I’m also packing my super-lightweight pochade box because I’ll be painting on the beach as well. I can’t haul that Gloucester easel over sand. We’re entering the gladdest, maddest weeks of summer and it’s good to be prepared.

Anthony, Russ and Ed painting on the beach at Ocean Park.

Art in the Park starts on Sunday, July 15 at Ocean Park, ME. This is as much a band of happy brothers as it is a paint-out. Ed Buonvecchio, Russel Whitten, Christine Tullson Mathieu, Mary Byrom, Anthony Watkins and I have done it as an ensemble for several years now. There’s no jurying and no awards—just excellent painting in an historic seaside community.

As relaxed as Art in the Park is, I’ve painted some very good things there, because Ocean Park has sand, rocks, marshes, architecture and, above all, ice cream. There are lots of hotels, motels and B&Bs in the area, so if you’ve ever wanted to come see a plein air event in action, this would be a good one to catch.

Jonathan submarining, Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvasboard, was painted at Castine Plein Air. This remains one of my all-time favorite paintings.

Anthony and I then drive straight to Castine for the sixth annual Castine Plein Air Festival. It opens on the village green on Thursday at the absurd hour of 6 AM. I’ve done this event since its inception, and it’s attracting top-flight artists. This year my old pal Laura Martinez-Bianco of New York and my new pal Alison Menke of Maryland will be there for the first time. Alison just earned first place/artist choice at Telluride, so she’s definitely a force to reckon with. And, of course, I’ll see many of my old friends there as well.

Castine is the home of Maine Maritime Academy, which is why the Arctic schooner Bowdoin hangs out in its harbor. It’s out on a neck on the far side of Penobscot Bay, making it a kind of Brigadoon, forgotten by time. Main Street slopes down towards the sea, with just enough shops and restaurants to make it fun to visit, but not so many as to distract from its white-picket-fence charm.

The plein airfestival wraps up with an open reception on Saturday July 21, from 4 to 6 pm. Wandering around and watching the artists is a great way to get to know this postcard-perfect town. If you can’t get a room in the village, Bucksport is not far away.

Before the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta, Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvasboard, was painted at Camden harbor.

The next week, I’ll be painting in Camden Harbor during the Camden Classics Cup. This event brings about 70 sailboats into Camden Harbor to race for the weekend, right before the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. Camden Falls Gallery is the sponsor, and the event will feature their represented artists. I can’t tell you which ones will show up, but Ken DeWaard, Dan Corey, Renee Lammers, Olena Babekand Peter Yesis are all local, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them—and others.

Camden is accustomed to visitors, so you’ll have no trouble finding a room.

Since I live just down the road and love to paint wooden boats, I’ve blocked out my schedule from Wednesday, July 26 through the weekend. Boat lovers are welcome to walk out on the floating docks to see the boats in harbor, but if I’m lucky, I’ll have found someone to take me out to a float.

June 28, 2018

An easel solution to an oversize problem

I saw a great retrofit of a Guerrilla Painter Flex Easel last year and have been meaning to try it. No time like the present!

A hacksaw and a file will achieve a lot.

The organizers at Cape Elizabeth Paint for Preservation give us 2.5 days to do one painting. In return, they want us to paint big. I like painting big, so I’m happy to oblige. The trouble is, with the exception of the Gloucester easel, most plein airsetups are meant for fairly small work. I have a Gloucester easel, but it is missing a part. I can balance a 20X24 board on my pochade box using clips, but that’s the absolute limit. And canvases need better support than do boards.

I’ve narrowed it down to three possible sizes, depending on how intrepid I feel and how the weather looks—36X36, 24X30, or 20X24. I’ve packed my big brushes and lots of extra paint. The only issue was working up a field easel that could accommodate big panels without blowing away.

My easel before I hacked at it. That’s an en plein air pro shelf on the tripod. Very useful.

Tara Will is a fantastic pastel painter from Maryland. She works large and loose in the field, using a modified Guerrilla Painter 3001 No.17 Flex Easel. This is basically an aluminum head that fits on a camera tripod. I have one, and it’s a good piece of equipment, but it is limited. It only extends to 20”. Like all Guerrilla Painter tools, though, it’s rock solid.

Hacksawing the easel apart.

Tara sawed hers in half, inserted a piece of steel strip metal in the gap and locked the whole thing down with set screws. Genius! I’ve wanted to do something similar ever since I saw it. The only issue was to find a mending plate or metal strip to fit.

I stopped at two hardware stores, a marine store and a shipyard, with no luck. I went home, discouraged. My husband suggested one more trip, to Rockport Steel, which fabricates huge things like lobster boats and dock ramps. A fellow named Tim took time off and milled me a ½”X24” flat plate while I waited. It turns out that he is a darned good artist, judging by his work hanging in the office.

The steel flat strip fit perfectly.

From there it was a simple matter of cutting the aluminum stem in half with a hacksaw. Two extra screws from a Testrite easel easily locked the flat bar down. The screws were slightly too long to clear the canvas, so I cut them down with a bolt cutter. I think Tara’s might lock from the back, but no longer remember.

It’s a mite wobbly when fully extended, and I don’t know yet how difficult it will be to adjust the set screws on the fly. Only field testing will tell me if it will work.

I have spare screws on hand for my Testrite classroom easels. They fit perfectly in the groove and locked the steel flat strip down securely.

Solid enough for field painting? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, Bobbi Heathtexted me, “Do you want to use my Gloucester easel?” Well, I thought, I just spent half a day tinkering with this thing and I’d love to see if it actually works…

And then, on second thought, I answered, “heck, yeah!” When the pressure’s on, I’d rather use an old reliable tool than a new contraption.

May 3, 2018

The excruciating pain of choosing

What paintings make the final cut? How about choosing by committee?

El camino hacia el pueblo, by Carol L. Douglas

Keith Linwood Stover once asked me why artists seek criticism in the first place. “We’re not the best judges of our own work,” I told him. (This is why gallerists and curators are such important players in the art process.) That’s especially true when you’ve just painted for a week in an alien environment. Whatever judgment you have goes to pieces.

I’m not alone in finding this difficult. Last night I sat around the table at Jane Chapin’s house with a group of artists, debating what we’ll submit. Richard Abraham and I are in the same position: our strongest works are in a sense, redundant. They’re each of the same subject. This makes us both a little nervous.

Dry wash, by Carol L. Douglas

I looked at his three top contenders and gave an opinion; he looked at my three and gave an opinion, and it was unsettling, because he counted back in a painting (Dry Wash) that I’d already eliminated. Men and women approach paintings differently, and understanding how the male mind works might be helpful in jurying.

My opinion is that any of Richard’s three contenders will win him a prize. His options are all good. That makes me wonder if I’m dithering over equally inconsequential differences. Still, the choice of submissions is the most difficult job of the week, and it behooves us to take it seriously.

La casa de los abuelitos, by Carol L. Douglas

A painting should be—as the old saw goes—compelling at 300 feet, 30 feet, and three feet. The first question, then, is what will draw someone from the other side of the room. To answer that definitively, I’d have to be inside the head of the juror (Stephen Day) and I’m not. Looking at his work only tells me so much. I can’t know what his goals are, how his day is going, or any of the other myriad thoughts that go into his decision.

Hoodoos in training, by Carol L. Douglas

Why do I distrust my judgment? I’m always most intrigued by the paintings that are terrifically difficult to master. That’s why I love Jonathan Submarining, from Castine 2016. The viewer may just see a Castine Class sailing school bobbing around on the waves, but I see a tough painting done knee deep in the surf and executed well.

This is true too with Dry Wash. The only reason I might change my mind at the last minute is that the dappled light and rocks are well-executed. But the other two better meet the 300-feet challenge.

Castigando del caballo muerto, by Carol L. Douglas

That puts me in a quandary. I’ve written before about who I trust to critique my work. I messaged images to two people yesterday: my husband and Bobbi Heath. Their opinion was consistent (and it matched, for the record, Jane Chapin’s).

But in the end the decision rests with me, and it’s no fun.