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Growth and change

How does one find oneā€™s purpose as an artist? Should we build that into how we think about our work?

Ravening Wolves, 24X30, oil on canvas, is as close as I get to didacticism these days.

ā€œHow have you grown as a painter in the last ten years?ā€ a student asked me.

My drawing and brushwork arenā€™t much different, but my color choices have certainly changed, as has my ability to relax into abstraction. That doesnā€™t seem like much growth for a decadeā€™s work.

In intangible ways, however, Iā€™ve changed a lotā€”Iā€™m far less anxious about the outcome, and less didactic in my subject matter. Iā€™ll never focus on figure as I was doing a decade ago. Although Iā€™m proud of the work I did about womenā€™s issues, Iā€™ll never paint that subject again. Which reminds me: this is the last weekend youā€™ll see Censored and Poetic at the Rye Arts Center; it ends Saturday night.

Main Street, Owlā€™s Head, 16X20, oil on archival gessoboard

Ten years ago, I was still wrestling with the legitimacy of my calling. Those of you who were raised thinking that art wasnā€™t a ā€˜realā€™ career understand that. Today, I barely remember the question. Iā€™m an artist because itā€™s all I know how to do.

Which leads me to the second question I received this week: ā€œHow does one find purpose? How have artists done it over time? Should we build that into how we think about our work?

ā€œI see people at figure sessions banging out the exact same thing over and over. I get the impression, from talking to them, that they have been doing that, or variations of that, for years on end. And they aren’t that good. Why do these people show up? Something to do?ā€

Spring Greens, 8×10, oil on canvasboard

Iā€™m the last person to denigrate regular practice, and figure is one area where that is particularly important. If I had the time right now, Iā€™d go to my local life drawing class myself. Itā€™s good exercise and I like the people who attend.

But I have known people who never progress past that. They were taking classes 25 years ago and are still doing that today. Some are stuck because they have day jobs. Some arenā€™t that skilled but enjoy the process. Some are excellent painters, but uninterested in making it a career. Amateur status is nothing to be sneezed at.

Iā€™ve also had students whoā€™ve just gone through a major traumaā€”an unwanted divorce or job separation. They were floundering and it gave them an anchor. Creativity is cheaper than therapy and for many it serves as well. When they worked out their next step, they moved on from art.

Midnight at the Wood Lot, 12X16, oil on canvasboard

But there are always that few who want to make art their lifeā€™s work. For them, the question of artistic purpose is critical. Itā€™s inextricably bound up in oneā€™s life purpose. Your work ought to be an expression of your thoughts or feelings, or itā€™s meaningless.

When I was younger, I thought that my purpose was didactic. Today, Iā€™d be hard-pressed to put my mission statement into words, but it has something to do with glorifying Creation and helping people feel connected to it. Thatā€™s tied to my faith, but I donā€™t feel a need to preach through my paintings.

That, too, may change as I get older. Oneā€™s mission and calling in life is fluid. The important thing is to have the tools at our disposal to answer whatever comes up. And thatā€™s where all those weeks and years in art class come in.

A friend challenges me to go deeper.

Paintings arenā€™t made in grand gestures; theyā€™re made with brushes, one stroke at a time.

Morning Fog over Whiteface Mountain, by Carol L. Douglas. Available.

When I was younger, I did a lot of work that told a story and had deeper meaning. Today, much of it seems sophomoric. I prefer to concentrate on simple landscape.

In one sense, Iā€™ve been resting. My childhood wasnā€™t easy, and I carried psychic wounds for a long time. Iā€™ve no interest in poking at the scabs. Moreover, I donā€™t know where to start. While the Bible is my own personal source text, all the reasons to paint Bible stories are obsolete now. Film and the written word are far better at communicating sermons.

That doesnā€™t mean there arenā€™t great modern painters whoā€™ve told Bible stories. Sir Stanley Spencerā€™s The Resurrection, Cookham, manages to wonderfully humanize a difficult idea, with its blinking villagers awakening from their long sleep.

Snowfall, by Carol L. Douglas, available.

Story-telling is intimately tied with figure painting, for the obvious reason that our stories are based on people. This week I came across a cache of figure sketches. ā€œThese are not bad,ā€ I told Adam Levi, who is the Executive Director of Rye Arts Center. Theyā€™ll be mounting a show of my figure work in 2021, and I thought the sketches would make a good counterpoint to the framed work.

But landscape painting also has meaning. A Turner maelstrom, a Constable sky, or a Rockwell Kent sea convey as much about our anxieties, fears and hopes as any figure painting. Which conveys isolation better: Edward Hopperā€™s Nighthawksor Winslow Homerā€™s Weatherbeaten?Tough call.

The ideas conveyed by landscape painting are largely non-verbal. When Iā€™m asked for an artistā€™s statement, I try to put them into words, and I canā€™t. ā€œThe heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,ā€ wrote King David. Itā€™s hard to improve on that.

Beaver Dam on Quebec Brook, by Carol L. Douglas, available.

This week, John Nicholson sent me a quote that stopped me cold. Johnā€™s a Southern Baptist pastor from Marion, Alabama. Heā€™ll undermine every stereotype you ever had about southern preachers.

ā€œThe allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.ā€ 

The writer of this terrible challenge was the famous Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky was, like me, a rotten student, a troublemaker in school, and had trouble settling down to a career. After booting around as a prospector in the taiga, he decided to study film. It was the one thing that held his interest.

The Late Bus, by Carol L. Douglas, available.

Tarkovsky remained a devout Orthodox Christian during a time when religion in Russia was actively suppressed. In the end, like so many other Russian intellectuals, he was forced to defect. ā€œThe Soviet authorities left me no other choice,ā€ he said. Theyā€™d allowed him to make only six films in a quarter of a century. They considered him a ā€œdead soul, a zero.ā€

In 1966, Tarkovsky made a three-hour epic film about an icon painter, which was immediately suppressed. Ivan Rublevis at once a loose biography of a 15th-century monk, a portrait of medieval Russia, and a self-portrait of the struggles of a modern Russian artist. It won an award at Cannes and today itā€™s considered a masterpiece.

In the face of such depth, I feel like I have very little to say with my happy little landscapes. I donā€™t even know if Iā€™m capable of rising to the challenge. But paintings arenā€™t made in grand gestures; theyā€™re made with brushes, one stroke at a time. Iā€™m thinking about it, John.

Two old-timers debate the future

ā€œBarge Haulers on the Volga (Burlaki), 1870ā€“73, Ilya Repin

ā€œBarge Haulers on the Volga (Burlaki), 1870ā€“73, Ilya Repin
Last night I heard from an old friend. I met him through his kids, who are of an age with mine. Heā€™s 57 years old and leaving next week for Puerto Rico to start graduate school. ā€œIt depends on my mother and my kids,ā€ he said, ā€œbut my intention is to leave the country to teach English.ā€
My home town of Buffalo has been clinically depressed since the middle of the last century. This makes it a great place to be from. Either you left at 18 or you slog it out until retirement, at which time you escape the snow and taxes by moving to Florida, the Carolinas, or Arizona. (Sound familiar?)
Portrait of the Artist's Mother at 63," 1514, Albrecht DĆ¼rer

Portrait of the Artistā€™s Mother at 63,ā€ 1514, Albrecht DĆ¼rer
In 1917, George Eastman built the Eastman Dental Dispensary to provide dental care to indigent children. Itā€™s been closed for a while, but is now being converted to low-cost housing for seniors. ā€œDo you realize I qualify to live in that place?ā€ my friend asked. I myself canā€™t imagine a more depressing place to end my years, since there isnā€™t a decent store in miles. It would be day after day of hobbling painfully through slushy downtown streets to oneā€™s bus stop while impatient New Yorkers sound their horns.  Give me the village almshouse any day.
When America was still a rural Arcadia, old timers lived with their kids. As a personā€™s capacity for hard physical labor slowly declined, they were assigned less onerous tasks, like child care, sewing, cooking and gardening.
ā€œOld man sleeping,ā€ 1872, Nikolaos Gyzis

ā€œOld man sleeping,ā€ 1872, Nikolaos Gyzis
The Industrial Revolution really messed this up. There is no room for Grandma or Grandpa in urban America. Our kids live in very small flats, if theyā€™re not working in Hong Kong. There are no fireplaces, and no babies to dandle on oneā€™s knee.
It was actually the Great Depression that rang the death knell for multi-generational families. Faced with a choice of providing for children or parents, the only solution for Americaā€™s poorest families was to send Granny to the poorhouse. These locally-financed institutions wereā€”as were a lot of things thenā€”overburdened and meager. The terrible condition of Americaā€™s elderly in the 1930s is why we ended up with our current Social Security system.
ā€œOld Woman Dozing,ā€ 1656, Nicolaes Maes

ā€œOld Woman Dozing,ā€ 1656, Nicolaes Maes
The problem is, weā€™re living longer and longer, and weā€™re healthier while we do it. According to the nifty Social Security life expectancy calculator, I should live until 86; my friend until 83 (someone ought to do something about that actuarial gender bias, by the way). Assuming we retain our marbles, thereā€™s time for a whole second career there.
Thatā€™s especially true in a society which is making its workers redundant not at 65, but at 50 or 55. By delaying our Social Security benefits until 66 and 10 months, the government has told my age cohort that it wants us working longer. It hasnā€™t, however, given us any means of forcing someone to keep employing us.
On the other hand, twenty, thirty or forty years is just way too long to spend playing golf. So whatā€™s a poor rebellious Son of Toil to do? Head elsewhere. Reinvent oneself. Do something meaningful.
Take up painting, obviously.