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Category: Carol L. Douglas

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What work are we doing here?

Getting there. It should be done tomorrow, I swear.
I’ve been dogged by illness this whole winter, but by the grace of God something is coming together for my upcoming show at the Davison Gallery at Roberts Wesleyan. I promised the gallery director a postcard image this week, and a postcard image she shall have.
I wish I’d named this show “Blood,” because that’s been the prevailing motif. Blood of the Lamb, hemorrhaging, red underpainting—it’s all been a bloody mess. Cancer has owned my body since November. I’m finally feeling better, but when my doctors demand my presence (which is often) I drop my brush and go. That happened again yesterday.
I am, generally, a pretty neat painter. But when I get close to a deadline, that all falls apart.
If you aren’t in the doctor grind, you don’t realize that every half-hour visit uses up hours of the patient’s time. A pedicure and good hair are talismans against loss of dignity, so they must be attended to before you can go.
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” is erroneously attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who preferred wine. So do I, especially after a long day.
Home by noon, I was in my studio by 1 PM. At 3 PM, a friend stopped by. This friend has tended me through the winter, bringing me dinner, talking me out of my hole, cheering on my work. Yesterday she needed to talk, so I needed to listen. This is the work to which God truly calls us.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! 
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Our inheritance

My great-grandfather’s landscape design portfolio, done in his late teens.

On Friday I learned that I have a genetic mutation. My doctor gave me an assignment: to flesh out my vague family history with real names, dates, and medical diagnoses—in short, to create a pedigree for myself.

Each of us carries two separate copies of our genes. In my case, one copy started off broken. I most likely inherited it from an ancestor, and I’ve got a 50-50 chance of having passed it along to my kids. The goal is to identify relatives with similar cancers so geneticists can trace a pattern.
Fine, except I have always resisted genealogy. As with bouillabaisse, there are no guarantees about what might come up on the spoon.
My husband had the notion that my great-grandmother’s Bible was in a box on the third floor and kindly went up to fetch it. When he came back, he also carried down a folio of drawings that were in the same box.
Decades later, he scrawled a draft of a job application on the back of one of his drawings.
I may not recognize my relatives but I recognized it—a student portfolio of landscape sketches. They could have been drawn by my father in 1942, or by me in 1979, but instead they were done by my paternal great-grandfather in 1862-63.
I’ve been known to do a bit of landscape design myself, here at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Rochester.
I was looking for one trait but found another, shared among three people with vastly different experiences and training. “How could something like that be carried through a protein?” my skeptical husband asked.  It probably can’t, but nevertheless it was strung along two centuries of family. It’s a lovely mystery.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Psychology as art

When I was a teenager, my father would occasionally give young men who came visiting a psychological profile called the House-Tree-Person (HTP). This was slightly less weird than it seemed, since Dad was both a psychologist and an artist.
The results were usually quite prescient. He pointed out the priapism in one guy’s drawings; frustrated sexual desire indeed ended up being his driving force. To my father’s dismay, one young man deftly sidestepped the test; I’ve been married to him for decades and he still can’t be railroaded.
The HTP is a projective test designed to gauge personality, mental development and brain damage. The administrator simply tells the subject to draw a house, a tree, and a person, and then leaves him or her to it. The administrator may or may not ask questions about the drawings when they’re done, although if he knows what he’s doing, the pictures should speak for themselves.
As initially designed by John Buck in 1948, the HTP was meant to be subjective. However, psychology desperately wanted to reinvent itself as a science rather than an art, so it was reformulated by ZoltĂĄn Vass to be somewhat more quantitative.
Some things the HTP measures—such as whether the subject sees differentiated human appendages branching off from the right spots—are in fact straightforward measures of psychological development.  But in terms of more subtle questions, the test is only as good as the insights of the practitioner.
Whether there are skilled practitioners out there who can read the HTP today, it’s certainly true that art reveals things about its creators that the creators never intended. That it does so for a 4-year-old child as certainly as it did for a master painter is an indication of just how universal art is


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Even great painters have bad days

The Harlot of Jericho and the Two Spies, c. 1896-1902, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot
This morning I came across Tissot’s The Harlot of Jericho and the Two Spies, above. Tissot was a fine painter, but one has to wonder what he was thinking to portray Rahab as a man in drag, with a 5 o’clock shadow. (For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Rahab was the original ‘hooker with a heart of gold.’ Joshua sent two spies into Jericho, and Rahab hid them on her roof, in exchange for which her family was spared during the sack of the city.)
Seascape, Calm Weather, 1864-65, Édouard Manet
I’m pretty uncomfortable on the days I share my ‘fails’ with you, but it helps to remember that even great artists have bad days. Consider Édouard Manet, who surely must rank as one of the most incisive painters who ever lived. He was capable of wonderfully complex compositions articulating wonderfully complex commentaries. Yet his seascapes range from mediocre to terrible; still, he painted a lot of them.
Sunset at Montmajour, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh’s Sunset at Montmajour was misattributed for a long time, although it was once owned by Theo Van Gogh. Art historians simply didn’t believe he could have painted something that pretty, that bland. It has taken modern paint analysis to prove that the pigments came from the master’s palette.
I think I’ve mentioned before: there is no secret gnosis to painting. There is only hard work.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Spring is just around the corner

Spring plein air painting of an upstate farm, by little ol’ me.
On this last day of February, when it’s 2° F. and blowing, it’s good to recollect that spring is just a moment away. Officially, it starts in twenty days. Unofficially, here in Rochester the snow pack should be melted by the end of March, and no matter how daft Mother Nature is, we will not see any snow showers after the first week of May.
Just how cold has this winter been? The coldest since the 1970s, according to meteorologists.
Plein air painting of Jamie Grossman’s waterfall, by little ol’ me.
Those same meteorologists warn that the warm-up is going to be very, very slow. Makes sense, considering the Great Lakes are a frozen block of ice (except ours, which is very stingy with its freezing). Nevertheless, in a few weeks the bravest of us plein airpainters will be outside again, stomping our heavy boots against the hard ground, and recording the first breath of spring—the clear, china-blue skies, the rising color in the twigs, the freshets of water everywhere.
Plein air painting of Sea Breeze Amusement park, by little ol’ me.
Which means it’s time to check your brushes, order fresh paint, clean out the pochade box, repack your backpack—in short, do all those tasks you meant to do last autumn but didn’t get around to.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

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Sometimes metaphor is an uphill battle

Winter lambing, underpainting, by little ol’ me.
If you were properly brought up on James Herriot, you know that a late winter blizzard can play havoc with lambing. This is not just an historical oddity; last spring a mid-April blizzard in Northern Ireland killed 17,000 lambs and sheep. Cold is not their only enemy. Weak and stranded sheep are at the mercy of predators. 
I’m apparently in the minority in being a fan of snow, but it’s a great thermal insulator, it supplies us with all the fresh water we need, and it sweeps the world clean. I think it makes a perfect metaphor for grace. As for the lamb, I assume that needs no explanation.
The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, second version, 1854–6.
William Holman Hunt made a similar assumption with The Scapegoat. The painting was deeply meaningful to the artist, who painted two versions following a crisis of faith. The painting identifies the scapegoat of Leviticus 16:22 as a prototype for the Messiah as “suffering servant” as described in Isaiah 53:4.
The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, first version, 1854–5.
After struggling for two years to make something of it, Hunt showed the painting to the Belgian art dealer Gambart:
“What do you call that?”
“The Scapegoat.” 
“Yes, but what is it doing?”
“You will understand by the title, Le bouc expiatoire.”
“But why expiatoire?” he asked.
“Well, there is a book called the Bible, which gives an account of the animal. You will remember.”
“No,” he replied, “I never heard of it.”
“Ah, I forgot, the book is not known in France, but English people read it more or less,” I said, “and they would all understand the story of the beast being driven into the wilderness.”
“You are mistaken. No one would know anything about it, and if I bought the picture it would be left on my hands. Now, we will see,” replied the dealer. “My wife is an English lady, there is a friend of hers, an English girl, in the carriage with her, we will ask them up, you shall tell them the title; we will see. Do not say more.”
The ladies were conducted into the room. “Oh how pretty! What is it?” they asked.
“It is The Scapegoat,” I said.
There was a pause. “Oh yes,” they commented to one another, “it is a peculiar goat, you can see by the ears; they droop so.”
The dealer then, nodding with a smile towards me, said to them, “It is in the wilderness.”
The ladies: “Is that the wilderness now? Are you intending to introduce any others of the flock?”
Sometimes metaphor is an uphill battle.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Abstract-Expressionism bails me out

Underpainting of a hailstorm. That’s painting #6 underpainted; one more to go.

When I had a composition problem on this underpainting of a hailstorm, I reached back to an old friend: the color field painter Clyfford Still.

Living on the Lake Plains as I do, I know that a level field is perfect for growing crops, but not so attractive for painting. It resolves into bands—a border of green at the bottom, an expanse of gold, a distant, straight hedgerow of green, and then the sky. (This is the same problem with painting Lake Ontario, with its regular shoreline.)
1956-D, 1956, by Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still’s compositions—while emphatically non-representational—still carry the whiff of the natural world about them. In part, this comes from their texture: they may be of color fields, but they are gloriously impasto. But in part it comes from the shapes themselves, which are evocative of the real world.
One of Still’s devices was to lay a contrasting band right along the edge of his canvas, which is then elegantly and perfectly balanced against the other shapes in his canvas. So when I find myself at a loss about how to deal with that edge band of grass that always shows up in a flat landscape, I go and potter among Still’s paintings for a while.
1952-A, 1952, by Clyfford Still
Perhaps it is because I grew up with them. Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery owns 33 paintings dated between 1937 and 1963, and they are as familiar to me as my own skin.
That’s small potatoes compared to his oeuvre. The majority of his paintings were never sold in his lifetime and are now on display at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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How many artists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Much better. Underpainting done. Boys remain, rocks have changed.
I decided to take one more look at Friday’s painting before scraping out the boys on the rocks and repainting them. I used Photoshop to analyze the painting; it’s much easier to hit CTRL-Z than spend three hours repainting something you shouldn’t have changed.
Turns out that the problem wasn’t the kids; it was the foreground rocks. I should have realized that, since on Saturday Carol Thiel told me she didn’t think the perspective worked, and she’s almost always right.
Jane Bartlett stopped by at lunchtime yesterday. I kvetched at her that when painting from an office chair (still a temporary necessity) I can’t get far enough back from my painting. Jane suggested that if I turned my easel 30°, I could step out onto the landing and get a better sense of the big picture. Now, why didn’t I think of that?
When I was done beating my head against the wall, Sandy shifted my easel for me. Four artists, one easel, and I’m back in business.
My easel, rotated.
So, back to the original question:
Q. How many artists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Two. One to do it and one to say, “Pfft! My four-year old could’ve done better than that!”
A. Three. One to pile hundreds of light bulbs in the corner and smash them, one to glue light bulbs to an embalmed shark, and one to rail against the darkness.
A. Four. One to change it, and three to reassure him about how good it looks.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Three boys in search of a painting

It’s easier to remove the kids when you haven’t really painted them completely, but, darn, they’re cute!
This is the second time I’ve tried to put these three boys in a painting, and the second time it’s been an awkward fail. It’s hard for me to just excise them, since I’m fond of them. They’re my cousin’s children, and we were rock-climbing together in South Gippsland when I snapped their photo. That they’re all in high school now tells you just how long this has been rattling around my hard drive.
But either they or the spray are messing this painting up. Although all scale in rocks and people is relative, I think they’re twice as big as they should be, so today I will scrape them out and try again.
If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me, “I can’t draw a straight line” I’d be a wealthy woman. The fact is, I can’t draw a straight line, either, and there are lots of times when I rather spectacularly mess up, as I did here.
Underpainting. Sadly, I think it would work just fine without the boys, although my daughter Mary insists the plumes on the left look like rabbit ears. But for my concept, it needs evidence of human existence.
There is no secret gnosis in painting. It’s just a long slog to success. He who doesn’t quit, wins.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Made without hands

Diptych with Saint John the Baptist and St. Veronica, right panel, by Hans Memling, c. 1470.
Nothing divides the Christian world faster than the subject of idols. Protestants generally follow Clement of Alexandria, who wrote, “For we are not to delineate the faces of idols, we who are prohibited to cleave to them; nor a sword, nor a bow, following as we do, peace; nor drinking-cups, being temperate.”
Catholic and Orthodox believers generally follow St. Basil the Great, who asked, “If I point to a statue of Caesar and ask you ‘Who is that?’ your answer would properly be, ‘It is Caesar.’ When you say such you do not mean that the stone itself is Caesar, but rather, the name and honor you ascribe to the statue passes over to the original, the archetype, Caesar himself.”
Icon-painters follow a very strict (and relatively modern) protocol, but there is a small class of them for which no human agency is claimed: the Acheiropoieta, or “Icons Made Without Hands.” These are always images of either the Virgin Mary or Jesus. They are said to have come into existence miraculously or during the life of Christ.
There are more of these than you might suppose. In Orthodoxy, the most famous are the Image of Edessa and the Hodegetria. In Catholicism, they include the Shroud of Turin and the Virgin of Guadalupe, which sprang into existence in 1531 in Mexico.
 Among these should be counted a relic that went missing in the 17th century. In its day, it was one of the most famous wonders of the Christian world, a symbol for the Corporal Works of Mercy. This is the Veronica, a strip of linen veil on which a compassionate bystander wiped Jesus’ face on his way to the Cross.
King Abgar receiving the Image of Edessa. 10th century icon at St Catherine’s monastery, Mount Sinai.
The name Veronica is a conflation of Latin vera (true) and icon (image). It originally referred to the veil itself, but over time was applied to the nameless woman who held it. Veronica became closely identified with the Via Dolorosa and Stations of the Cross, but she is an early-Medieval invention. By the end of the 12th century, pilgrims were recording visits to the veil in Rome. By 1300, the Veronica was one of the Mirabilia Urbis, or wonders of the city, which pilgrims were expected to visit. It had its own chapel in Old St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Veil of Veronica, by Domenico Fetti, c. 1620
As with all icons, the Veronica was extensively copied by free-lancers, until the 17th century when the Church threatened copyists with excommunication and put the Veronica away for safe-keeping. Where it ended up is a mystery. There’s a relic case in the Vatican (and some others scattered throughout Europe) but nobody has seen the actual veil in a few hundred years.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!