Carol L. Douglas Archives | Page 34 of 75

July 11, 2014

Opening tonight: Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space

The Laborer Resting, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvas, 36X48, $3,750.

Several friends have sent me storiesabout Leena McCall’s oil painting of her friend, Portrait of Ms Ruby May Standing, being removed from a Society for Women Artists show in London because it was deemed to be pornographic. McCall painted her work in the flat style of mid-century English painters, and that’s the best part of the painting. She’s baiting a censorship that vanished decades ago. It’s her great luck (or planning) that she found someone—anyone—to object to it in this day and age.

The painting—although obvious—hardly dings my porn meter. I’m a born-again Christian who sometimes paints on the subject of women’s bondage. The only person who complains is my husband, who blocks them on his newsfeed so they don’t violate his employer’s policy.

The Joker, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvas, 30X40, $2,500.

My nudes, by the way, are on view at RIT-NTID’s Dyer Art Centerthis month. The show, Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space, opens tonight, from 4-7 PM. I hope you’ll come out and say hello. RIT’s campus is lovely, and this would be a fantastic evening to be out there.

Unlike McCall, I’m taking an anti-pornographic stance. I’m painting about the abuse and objectification of women. You would think that a culture that aspires to complete equality for women would see less of this, not more, but these two trends have increased, not decreased, in my lifetime.

Submission, by Carol L. Douglas, oil on canvas, 24X20, $1,500.

I nursed all four of my kids and nobody ever tried to shame me about it. So I’m amazed at the stories my young friends tell about women being harassed for nursing in public. My friend Tim Vail pointed out that there are centuries of images of nursing mothers. “It seems like the more sexualized our culture gets, the more repression there is over what used to be completely normal.”

I’m afraid we’re living at the high-water mark of women’s rights worldwide. And that’s what I’m painting about. The more I paint, the less able I am to explain the material in words, so I hope you come out tonight to see them.

The Dyer Arts Center is in Lyndon Baines Johnson Building at Rochester Institute of Technology, 52 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623. Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space, featuring abstract-expressionist Stu Chait and realist Carol Douglas, is in all three galleries during the month of July.

I’m leaving for Maine next week. Come join me! I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 10, 2014

Medicine’s Michelangelo

Watercolor of arteries of the human head shows Netter’s understanding of the humanity underneath the human anatomy.

Dr. Frank H. Netter was the illustrator of one of my favorite—and most well-thumbed books—the Atlas of Human Anatomy. His is a wonderful cautionary tale for those of you who think you can’t make a living in art.

A native New Yorker, Netter grew up wanting to be an artist. He studied at the National Academy and the Art Students League. It was the tail end of the Golden Age of Illustrating, and he was doing work for the Saturday Evening Post and the New York Times out of high school.

However, Netter’s parents were immigrants, and they had no truck with the idea of their son being an artist. Mama wanted him to get a real job, so he went to medical school.

The most-thumbed page in my copy is his painting of back muscles. It’s saved me from making dumb mistakes countless times.

“This was in 1933—the depths of the Depression—and there was no such thing as medical practice,” he recalled. “If a patient ever wandered into your office by mistake, he didn’t pay.” In a deliciously ironic twist, Netter was forced to fall back on art to supplement his income as a doctor. After an advertising executive paid him $7500 for a series of five illustrations—more than he could earn in a year of practicing—he gave up medicine.

In 1936, Netter did his first commercial work for the Swiss pharmaceutical company CIBA. This fold-up illustration of a heart (to promote digitalis) proved very popular, and grew into a series. Eventually they were distributed as cards wrapped in a folder with advertising content. This ultimately morphed into his Atlas of Human Anatomy.

But today I’m going in to have my digestive tract inspected… parts of it should look about like this, I imagine.

My edition of the Atlasincludes about 600 color plates. This is a fraction of the 4,000 illustrations he did over his lifetime. The bulk of these were owned by CIBA and its successor, Novartis.

Netter’s immigrant parents would have been astonished at the legacy left by their artist son. Wealthy during life, he is remembered today as one of the leading medical educators of his time. His book is faithfully revised by a team of medical experts, and you can now buy a subscription to it online.

While you’re reading this, I’m at Highland Hospital having a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. When I get the all-clear, I’m leaving for Maine. Come join me! I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 9, 2014

This is your brain on art

The artistic hands of Anna Battaglia McDermott.

Rochester’s School of the Arts graduates around 90% of its students. The overall Rochester City School District graduates an astonishingly-bad 43% of its students. Although this has been the subject of much discussion, the idea that art itself influences the mind seems to have escaped both the pundits and the pedagogical establishment.

Hydrangeas, by Sandy Quang, painted last night. Not even a deluge could stop them from painting.

Various studies have shown that making art reduces stress and help us process traumatic events. In itself, that ought to justify art education. But those of us who make art know that it’s an intellectual discipline like mathematics or grammar, and as such, it helps develop the brain. A recent studyvalidates that.

Over 10 weeks, scientists at the University Hospital Erlangen asked elderly men and women to participate in hands-on art classes, while a control group took an art appreciation course. Researchers discovered “a significant improvement in psychological resilience” among those who actually drew and painted.

Birches, by Nina Koski, painted last night.

The fMRI scans of the art-class group also showed improved efficacy in the parts of the brain associated with cognitive processes like introspection, self-monitoring, and memory.

“The participants in our study were required to perform the cognitive tasks of following, understanding, and imitating the visual artist’s introduction. Simultaneously, the participants had to find an individual mode of artistic expression and maintain attention while performing their activity. Although we cannot provide mechanistic explanations, the production of visual art involves more than the mere cognitive and motor processing described. The creation of visual art is a personal integrative experience – an experience of ‘flow,’ – in which the participant is fully emerged in the creative activity,” wrote the authors.

Gate, by Anna McDermott, painted last night.

Art and music education are the first things we cut when school budgets are in trouble. Meanwhile, a 2012 study found that the total spending on ADHD (just one of many forms of maladaptation to modern school) ranges from $143 billion to $266 billion a year. Perhaps more art classes and fewer drugs are in order.

Young Ilse thinks she’s having fun. Please don’t tell her this is good for her.

Come to Maine and learn to paint. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 8, 2014

The sunscreen dilemma

Excessive sun and skin exposure isn’t something we worry about in the northeast. This is Sue Leo painting in Rockport, ME, with me last summer. Cool and damp, which is why we all have such lovely skin.

When I was identified as having a gene for Lynch Syndrome, I resolved to be better about applying sunscreen when outside painting or teaching. After all, if you learned you had a mutation that made you vulnerable to lung cancer, you’d hardly keep on smoking, would you?

The problem is that I just can’t seem to break the sun habit. I live in the far north, where we have two months in which we can shed our layers. And I’m chronically Vitamin D-deficient (which is endemic here in the Great Lakes region). Higher levels of vitamin D are associated with better outcomes for colorectal cancer, which I’ve had once and am at a high risk of having again.

When it’s sunny, we’re often bundled up and exposing very little skin. Here we are painting at Owl’s Head, Maine, last October.

A new study seems to indicate that even high-SPF sunscreen provides insufficient protection against melanomas (the skin cancer that kills) although they provide adequate protection against the less-aggressive squamous-cell carcinomas.

“UV light targets the very genes protecting us from its own damaging effects, showing how dangerous this cancer-causing agent is,” said lead investigator Professor Richard Marais of the University of Manchester’s Cancer Research UK Institute.

His research found that SPF 50 sunscreen did not protect against the development of melanoma with UV sunlight exposure. Although sunscreen protects us against sunburn, it might not protect against skin cancer.

When it all comes together—sun, warmth and subject—it’s hard to remember to stop and put on sunscreen.

Does this mean I can stop worrying about sunscreen when I’m outside painting? Sadly, no. “This work highlights the importance of combining sunscreen with other strategies to protect our skin, including wearing hats and loose fitting clothing, and seeking shade when the sun is at its strongest,” said Professor Marais.

Well, I do wear a hat, and capris instead of shorts. I could add ¾ length sleeves. But no socks. Socks with sandals are ridiculous.

Buy some sunscreen and come to Maine and learn to paint. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 7, 2014

Did you miss your calling?

Dr. Seuss was a successful commercial artist when, at age 34, he wrote his first book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.” It was rejected by publishers dozens of times. He was in his late 40s when he began successfully writing and selling children’s books. He did this advertisement in the 1930s.

This past week I had conversations with two artists about the feasibility of being a full-time artist.

One is a woman with a young family, a mortgage, an MFA and a good (albeit temporary) job. Judging by the work I’ve seen, she has prodigious talent. If given the opportunity for a permanent position, should she take it? Or should she chuck that idea and try to work as a waitress nights and weekends so that she can still make art.

As a working mother, she is already doing two jobs. Adding a third job will be difficult, if not impossible. Until her kids are old enough for school, she’d be smart to do whatever pays best, and save money against the day she drops the day job and takes up painting again. In the meantime, she can carve out a small corner of her house and a few hours a week to nurture her talent, even if it’s by sketching in her spare time.

Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, was the poster girl for late-life career changes, having turned to painting in her seventies. Here, Country Fair, 1950.

In essence, that’s what I did. I worked in the marketplace until I was in my late 30s, when a combination of life events made it possible—mandatory, even—for me to resume painting. (There was a time when our society acknowledged that raising children was valuable work. Now, childrearing is supposed to run silently in the background, taking no time or effort at all.)

One of my painting students has an MBA and work experience in an area of business analysis I won’t pretend to understand. She picked up brushes in response to a life crisis and in the process discovered that she has a real affinity for it.

On Saturday, we discussed what the next step might be for a person who wants to start selling paintings. As so often happens with these things, Life answered her question; she was approached about doing a solo show at a local venue.

Vincent Van Gogh didn’t actually start painting until he was in his late 20s, when he only had a decade left to live. Most of his masterpieces were created in the last two years of his life. Wheat Field with Crows, 1890, is generally accepted to be his last painting.

That’s a tremendous affirmation, but as we old-timers know, a show is just a doorway through which you enter the next phase of your work. She still has a long, hard slog ahead of her, but she has the character to endure it.

Neither of these women will find it an easy road. But in both cases, I think they will find something very valuable comes from it.

Come to Maine and learn to paint before it’s too late. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 3, 2014

The real reason I hate Hobby Lobby (and all those other craft stores)

Coral ranunculus at $9.99 a stem on Hobby Lobby’s website. At that rate, a nice floral arrangement would cost what a month’s worth of painting lessons would run you.

The Census bureau reports that the nation’s international trade deficit in goods and services increased to $47.2 billion in April, as exports decreased and imports increased. (Imported goods and services, by the way, were the highest on record.) The May report will be out at the end of this week, but the news will be depressingly familiar; our trade deficit is about $450 billion a year and it only goes down when Americans are too scared to shop.

I realize that very little of this is from the stuff they sell at craft stores, but what always interests me about these places is how useless most of the stuff they sell is, and how none of it is made in the US.

But why pick on Hobby Lobby? I dutifully put all the stuff necessary to make this Pantone Radiant Orchid Wood Birdhouse in my online Michael’s cart, and it added up to $81.95. That’s about what a factory-reconditioned compound miter saw would cost, and with that you could make something useful.

“Hobby Lobby’s main shoppers are women of all ages. Because of the dependence on disposable income, the company’s stores do best when located in an area with demographics from lower middle class to upper middle class,” reported a shopping center trade rag.

Crafting used to be about saving money: women sewed, we canned, we remade old furniture. Now crafting is a $30 billion entertainment industry. The irony is that none of the stuff in these stores is cheap, and none of it has much to do with either art or craftsmanship.

We are drowning in all the stuff we buy, much of it which will never be used. Many of us then turn to professionals (like Nestle and Bloom, whose photo this is) to put it into some kind of order. That costs even more money.

Meanwhile, crafting’s target demographic carries significant credit-card debt. In 2012, people with incomes of $35,000 or less averaged $5,400 in credit card debt, those making $35,000 to $49,999 averaged $6,700 in credit card debt, those earning $50,000-$74,999 category had $8,900 of credit card debt, while those making more than $75,000 carried $9,200 in debt. And those numbers are down a third from their 2008 highs.

People borrow money they don’t have to buy stuff they don’t need. It clutters up their homes and will eventually be tossed into landfills. It adds to our trade deficit and our dependence on foreign oil. To me, that’s the real moral calculation one has to make before visiting a store like Hobby Lobby.

The heck with that. Come to Maine and learn to paint instead. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 2, 2014

Fifty paintings for a favorite American president

Friar’s Head in Winter, by Michael Chesley Johnson, oil on canvas

2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Roosevelt-Campobello International Park. It is one of my own favorite summer destinations, and I first visited it not long after it was made a park.

Duck Pond Marsh Sunset, by Michael Chesley Johnson, oil on canvas

“I’ve spent several years now painting the cottages and the landscape in the Park, and it has become a significant part of my life as a painter,” wrote Michael Chesley Johnson. To honor the park’s anniversary, Johnson has created a series of fifty paintings featuring scenes from the park. The paintings will be exhibited at the Park’s new restaurant, The Fireside, from July 19-August 16.

The Ice House, by Michael Chesley Johnson, oil on canvas

As a child and young adult, Franklin D. Roosevelt summered on Campobello Island, where he sailed, swam, and otherwise generally confronted nature in a way we wouldn’t dream of allowing our children to do today. After his marriage, he brought his young family. It was here in August 1921 that he was stricken with poliomyelitis. He rarely returned after that, but Eleanor Roosevelt and their children continued to visit.

Snug Cove, by Michael Chesley Johnson, oil on canvas

Although the Roosevelts were a prominent business, social and political dynasty at the beginning of the 20th century, their cottage at Campobello is simple by the standards of the day. It is large (34 rooms), but almost austere; it was a family vacation home, not a mansion.

The park surrounding it is truly an international park, managed jointly by the United States and Canada. Campobello Island is in the Bay of Fundy, which lies between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and touches the state of Maine. Roosevelt’s cottage is the centerpiece of the park, but there are other structures and 3000 acres of beaches, cliffs, meadows and bogs.

Glensevern Road Beach Swamp, by Michael Chesley Johnson, oil on canvas

I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

July 1, 2014

Getting it right

Landscape Remembered, 2010, James Morrison, oil on board

James Morrison, at age 82, seems to break most of the conventional rules for plein airpainting. His work is huge, painted on paper boards, and the paint is so thin that I had to check to be certain it was, indeed, painted in oil.

Having never been to Scotland, I am no judge of whether he is true to the landscape, but his work is romantic and monumental and it speaks to me. In some passages it soars with almost negligent disregard for the paint, in others, the detail is overwhelming. It reminds me most of calligraphy in that the open space is as important as the line itself. And of course his draftsmanship and perspective in the glowering clouds is superb.

Half Demolished Tenements, 1964, James Morrison, oil on canvas

My friend Martha Vail recently sent me a book of his work, Land and Landscape: the Painting of James Morrison. I find his perambulations through the decades of his career to be most heartening. He did monochromatic studies of a blackened Glasgow; he did exquisite studies of beeches in the style of Andrew Wyeth; he experimented with op-art and abstract-expressionism.

Perhaps if I live to 82, I’ll get it right, too.

“For any serious artist it is the next work which is the most important and complacency is the negation of creativity,” wrote Guy Peploe, the Scottish Gallery’s director. “So it is for Jim Morrison at eighty. He is lucky, even blessed, with the energy, vitality and curiosity that are creativity’s handmaidens and in this new body of work we can see new departures as he looks again at his favourite landscapes in all seasons and moods.”

Summer Fields, Balgove, 1987, James Morrison, oil on gesso board

Born in Glasgow in 1932, James Morrison studied at the Glasgow School of Art. In 1957, he founded the Glasgow Group of artists with Anda Paterson and James Spence. He is an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy and a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. He taught at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee for 22 years before retiring in 1987 to paint full-time.

I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

June 30, 2014

Back of beyond

Like it or not, we’re all in this web together. This particular web was at Wahconah Falls in the Berkshires, where I plan to stop to paint on my way to Maine in two weeks.

Non-New Yorkers always seem skeptical when we tell them there are vast tracts of our state that are uninhabited. Hamilton County, for example, sprawls over more than 1800 square miles of land, but its population is fewer than 5,000. That gives it a population density equal to North Dakota.

Since I leave—shortly—for the duration of the summer, I took a short trip this past weekend. I’ll be off-grid for much of the time I’m in Maine. I needed a better sense of what was negotiable with these old bones and what I can’t live without. I haven’t done any back-of-beyond camping in more than a decade.

My 2005 Prius–which went over 200,000 miles on Friday–has a perfect smartphone holder in the door. Amazing, since there were no smartphones when it was built.

Yes, I can still sleep in a tent and get up the next morning and be (relatively) limber, providing I have some kind of air mattress. Yes, it’s still a lot of work to camp, what with pitching a tent, hauling water and food and rolling and rerolling bedding. And although I used to like to cook over a campfire, I find it a pain these days.

Since I almost never paint from photos anyway, there is a declining advantage in hauling around my Panasonic DMC-LX5. If I’m just testing viewpoints for a painting–as here–I might as well use my pocket-sized computing device, a/k/a ‘phone’.

What has changed since I last went back of beyond is the nation’s cell phone network. I was on the top of a hill with no running water, no electricity, no septic, no artificial lighting of any kind—and an absolutely stellar 4G signal.

I’m thinking that will change how I interact with you while I’m on the road. Daily blogging without wi-fi or electricity may be difficult (although there are open wi-fi networks everywhere) but Instagram and Facebook are available everywhere. Does that mean my camera, with its beautiful, fast Leica lens, is obsolete in favor of my cell phone? Perhaps.

Of course, going off-the-grid with a party of youngsters is a little different from going with a party of painters. Mainly, the toys are noisier. (What we have here is a convoy.)

I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

June 27, 2014

I may make rotten frames, but I have a perfect nose

My perfect nose. Eat your heart out, Georgia O’Keeffe.

So, it was another bad day, which I won’t go into, because I’m sick of cataloging failure. But when I finished twelve hours on my feet, I consoled myself with reading the Daily Mail, which has to be both the most ridiculous and most entertaining ‘news’ website out there. And the Daily Mail tells me that the perfect, sexiest nose is tilted at 106°.

So I take a selfie and, lo and behold, my nose is perfect. Never mind the wrinkles, the grey hair, the aching feet and legs… according to the Daily Mail, I am hot.

That certainly makes up for a bad day at work, doesn’t it?

A few other dames with perfect noses.

I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.