fbpx

Category: Mid-coast Maine

Posted on

Giclée this!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Van Gogh–impasto and all–hanging on your wall? His Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889, for example.
I really love Van Gogh, but never felt like hanging a print of his work on my wall. Paintings which sing through their brushwork tend to look anemic in prints. Printing technology has improved amazingly over my lifetime, but the ability to capture impasto has thus far eluded us.
Dutch researcher Tim Zaman may have broken that barrier. He has developed an image capture technique capable of recording a painting’s surface details. The captured image is then reproduced using OcĂ© high-resolution 3D print technology (brought to us by Canon, of course). The process works like a dye-sublimation printer, with the printing head moving back and forth many times, adding a new textured layer with each pass.
Reproductions with brushwork have existed as long as there has been offset color printing: the texture was simply brushed over the printed image (a slightly-nicer version of decoupage). Marrying this to giclée* printing—with its great color accuracy and fine grain—could give an awfully good imitation of a painting. But not even the best “enhanced” giclée print on the market would ever be confused with an original painting.
Ever since Durer was making wood-block prints of the Passion, there’s been an effort to bring art to the masses. It’s been a losing battle, since art is essentially elitist (which is why museums wax rich selling images of paintings by artists who never earned a penny from their work in their lifetimes).
Now, imagine being able to buy an exact replica of, say, Anselm Kiefer’s Nigredo—with straw and other stuff sticking out of its surface—for, say, five thousand bucks. Sure, it’s an absurd price for a print, but a bare fraction of the cost of the original. If you are interested in disseminating art to the masses, this is a fantastic trend.
And what about being able to see a virtual Mona Lisa up close and personal, instead of from 45 feet away and behind bullet-proof glass? The real painting could be retired to an oxygen-free tank, and its exact copy displayed for the masses. When some idiot attacks it, the copy can be quietly retired and a new one printed to take its place. Or how about having a virtual Mona Lisa in every city art gallery, instead of just at the Louvre?
Anselm Kiefer’s Nigredo, 1984, would look a heckuva lot better in a 3D print than in a flat one.
(If you object to that, you might be mistaken about just how much of the Mona Lisa that we see today was laid down by the hand of Da Vinci. By the time a painting has undergone generations of conservation, it’s more of a collaboration than a masterwork.)
*If the word giclĂ©e bugs you, you’re a smart student of language. It’s an American neologism for high-end inkjet prints. It is based on the French gicleur, or “nozzle.” Rumor has it that it is also modern French slang for ejaculation, so I have to remember to not use it when in France.
One more workshop left this year! Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
Posted on

Rye Painters on Location, 2013

Regatta off Milton Point, 24X20, oil on canvasboard. A terrible photo of a decent painting.
Rye Arts Center’s Painters on Location is back and in fine form. I love this event—I get to see good friends, paint serious plein air, and then attend a swank little reception and auction. In general, Rye Arts Center does as much as is humanly possible to take care of its artists, and we appreciate it.

Brad chatting with another artist.
This year I painted with my pal Brad Marshall. It made for a great time and for better paintings from both of us—I think—since we coached each other over the rough patches. I saw Linda Richichi, Marilyn Fairman, and Kathy Buist, and met some new friends. (If I have any twinges of regret, it’s that Bruce Bundock sat this year out; he’s buried prepping for a portrait show at Vassar.)

Painting with Marilyn Fairman and Brad Marshall. Marilyn was blessed by a seagull shortly after this photo was taken; mercifully, it missed her canvas.
This year, I had an anonymous telephone bidder putting in bids for my auction piece. I can’t say that’s ever happened before, and it lent a fun twist to the evening. Since painters have collectors, I thought I’d guessed who the anonymous bidder was, but it turns out my guess was wrong. Now I’m just baffled. But if you know, don’t tell me; I enjoy the mystery.

Painting with Brad on a luminous autumn day. Perfect!
One more workshop left this year! Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

My painting in its frame.
The bidding public. Rye supports its arts center.
Posted on

A change is as good as a rest

If one can make a pretty photo out of squirrel ectoplasm, one can make anything beautiful!
By the time I’m done doing my five miles and my exercises, I’m usually ready to go back to bed.
Yesterday, I did exactly that. I’m worn out.
In May, a large stack of empty frames clattered to the floor from an overhead shelf. As they fell straight down into an out-of-the-way corner and I was in my usual dither, I ignored them.
It’s been a pretty crazy summer, but I have an even crazier autumn ahead: two trips to Maine, a trip to Rye, and a daughter’s wedding, all happening in the next six weeks. And I have to get my winter supply of canvases in before the snow flies.
To that end, I decided I should use this glorious fall day to straighten my workshop. I picked up the pile of frames only to learn that they had crushed a squirrel to death. Months ago.
I confess: I’m a screamer. After Sandy Quang poked the remains with a stick, she was a screamer too. The IT department is at his day job. His sole contribution was a text that read, “So, meat’s  back on the menu!” It was left to poor Charles Wang to dispose of what was left of the corpse. He was remarkably calm about it, considering that both Sandy and I were pretty well off our respective nuts.
“What are we going to do about this mess on the floor,” I asked Sandy.
“Take a picture,” she responded (like the true artist she is). So I did.
I decided that spraying bleach everywhere would probably work about as well as burning my garage down. By the time I was done explaining to our mailman what the ruckus was about and running to the store for bleach, my energies were quite restored.  As soon as that bleach has burned its way through my floor, I’m ready to make a thousand canvases!

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
Posted on

Wrestling with God

The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel),Paul Gauguin, 1888, Scottish National Gallery.


I asked my trusty assistant, Sandy Quang, to fill in for me today:

I recently watched a documentary about Oswald Chambers. Chambers was essentially Jacob from Genesis 32-22-32. Chambers had experienced failure in his career as an artist, and one night he went alone to pray in a cave. Like Jacob, Chambers wrestled with God. The moment they went to pray and wrestle with God was the moment of their transition. Following the path of God and following their desire’s yielded different results. Following their own desires had left them cornered, but prayer allowed them to have a change of heart.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Gustave Doré, 1855, wood engraving.
As an art historian, I often see images of Jacob wrestling with an angel and not a man. The first painting that comes to mind is Paul Gauguin’s vibrant “Vision after the Sermon”, and the second is a solemn engraving by Gustave DorĂ© entitled “Jacob Wrestling with the Angel”. Gauguin’s painting is brightly colored, depicted as a spectacle. Breton village women are gathered watching the struggle. As for DorĂ©  the story is depicted as a personal struggle on a cliff, heightening the sense of danger that comes with the struggle. DorĂ© seems to be closer to the truth in his depiction: the quietness of the surrounding in which one ought to wrestle with God. Despite the different portrayal of the subjects, the story of struggle and change rings true. For Jacob, his wrestle with God resulted in a new name, Israel. For Chambers, his wrestle with God resulted in a new career path.
(Sandy Quang)

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
Posted on

Answering the artist within you

Beads by Laura Turner

I have taught enough students who waited until retirement to take up painting that I always joke that when I retire, I’m taking up accounting. In fact, I have several accountant friends who do some kind of art on the side—a forensic accountant who draws, a CPA who writes comics, and a small-business accountant who makes beaded jewelry.

The last, Laura Turner, recently bought a small kiln to make fused-glass beads of her own design. What makes someone suddenly feel the urge to make jewelry? “I needed something besides reading to entertain myself while I recovered from major abdominal surgery,” she told me. “With a rectangular plastic cake carrying box, I could sit in bed to do it and lose very few beads in the covers.”
Well, there are lots of things one can do in bed that don’t involve small objects. And how do you go from stringing someone else’s beads to making your own?
Bead by Laura Turner
“Making a piece of jewelry from scratch, not using pre-manufactured focals and findings, is much more satisfying, she said. “It’s also much more time-consuming. So it’s an adventure again, whereas beading alone had begun to be something of a chore.”
As all artists know, new disciplines mean new costs. “There’s always another tool needed.” Considering it’s just baked sand, glass is remarkably expensive, she says. “Because I live out in the sticks, most of my purchases are online, so I incur shipping costs as well. As much as I love buying on the internet, the truth is that sometimes what you get is not what you thought you were getting.”
Of course she’s eyeing a bigger kiln now. She’s an artist.
I asked her what she gets out of the process. “A sense of achievement, a sense of completion. A sense of embracing the colors I’m working with, and the feeling that whatever I make somehow expresses something inside me,” she answered.

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
Posted on

Here’s to you, Dad

Portrait of Ann Douglas, by John P. Douglas, pastel on paper, c. 1969
Last week I wrote, “My father loved Maine, painting, and sailing wooden boats. Several times this week when I signed my paintings I thought of how amazed and happy he would have been to see his daughter getting paid to stand on a dock in Maine, painting wooden boats. Here’s to you, Dad. Thanks for teaching me to paint and draw and sail.”
When a reader responded to the above by asking me to share some of my father’s work, I hesitated.
I have only one piece by my father. This is a posthumous portrait of my sister, who died at age 14. These were very dark days in my family, because just a few years later, my parents also lost a son to a drunk driver. If I had a choice of his work to share, it would not be the piece that reminds me of such sad times.
My sister was a very larky girl. My father caught that, even in his deep grief. Although done from memory, it’s a good likeness. Decades later, I can still see the spark of her personality, which photographs never seemed to capture.
My father was born in 1924. By the time he graduated from high school, he could draw, he could letter, and he could print black-and-white photos as well as most BFA holders today. He intended to go to art school, but that plan was interrupted by WWII.
Can’t imagine why signing my name while painting in Camden (bottom) would put me in mind of my father (top)
I doubt my father taught us to paint and draw because he wanted us to go into the arts—he just saw art as a basic function of a well-rounded personality. And, I’m sure, he also wanted to keep us busy.
Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
Posted on

Seeking beauty in the built environment

Northbound on 10th, 16×22, acrylic, by Patti Mollica
A lot of painters focus on either the natural or the man-made environment; I truly love painting both. In the built environment, I see both the best and worst of mankind. In the landscape I see God’s hand-print. I love the intersection of these two elemental forces.
I recently asked my pals who are doing Rye Art Center’s Painters on Location with me to let me post their silent auction pieces on my blog. Today’s contribution is by Patti Mollica. She captures the excitement of New York’s streets as well as anyone I know.  

Interested in my Where the Sea Meets the Sky Workshops? October 2013—the last session with openings in 2013—is selling out fast. Or, let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information, or email Lakewatch Manor!
Posted on

Desperately seeking the Immaculata (and other things)

Summer Sky, by Marilyn Fairman, oil on linen, 9X12. It’s another entry in Rye Painters on Location’s silent auction, and a darn lovely one, too! If I had more time, I’d see Marilyn more than once a year, right?
A few weeks ago I talked with a wonderful New Hampshire-based painter who is busy raising two daughters, ages 10 and 12. He struggles to have time to advance his career. I sympathize; I have four kids myself. And yet, I told him, I would not change the choices I’d made.
I like to think it’s easier now that my kids are older, but all I need to revise that opinion is to commit myself to reaching a goal by Friday. This week’s goal is in itself parenting-related, since we’re expecting out-of-town company for my daughter’s wedding shower. My family has been outstanding at keeping the house up, but a lot of clutter and grunge accumulates when the mom is gone as much as I am.
I foolishly believed I could devote four hours a day to cleaning and four hours a day to painting. Hah. I haven’t even got the receipts from my summer travels off the dining room table, and I’ve been at it for two days.
Today I met with a gallery director at a local college to finalize plans for a show next spring. The show will be about the relationship between God and man in the natural world, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to do something so dear to me.
The lesson in this is that I do not have the luxury of procrastination. There are so many interruptions in a busy life, one must grab the time one has. March is just around the corner.

Interested in my Where the Sea Meets the Sky Workshops? October 2013—the last session with openings in 2013—is selling out fast. Or, let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information, or email Lakewatch Manor!
Posted on

Wine pairings

Manship Toasting the Angels, by Barry Faulkner, 1923. At the Farnsworth.

My favorite work in the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockport, ME is Manship Toasting the Angels by Barry Faulkner. This 1923 wall screen shows angels coming down from heaven bearing wine. Two couples (Faulkner, his pal Paul Manship, and their wives) raise their glasses in anticipation; meanwhile, Adam and Eve party down in Eden. Note the solid trees-as-Swiss-chard, the traveling coupe, the smiling sun. The names of the great wine-producing regions are inscribed along the borders.

I don’t understand why the Farnsworth doesn’t sell a postcard of this screen; my purchases of it alone would catapult it to top-seller status.
Mankind living in close quarters can do amazing things, but inevitably fouls up the water supply. Until there were water-treatment plants, civilization rested on fermentation. Used responsibly—say, small beer for breakfast and no fortified wines until luncheon—alcoholic spirits are a wonderful boon to humanity. Wine truly is a gift from God.
School has been back in session for almost a week. My favorite sommelier and wine professional, Martha Hoag Schmidt, recently sent me some wine pairings that seem perfect for the busy household with school-age kids. 
“Sauvignon Blanc is excellent with gluten-free Cinnamon Chex. However, I could not find a wine that paired well with Cheetos.
“Pinot Noir and gluten-free cheese goldfish crackers are a classic, good for lunch and dinner.  Pinot is such a versatile grape.
“Classic Bordeaux-style blend and buttered toast are a great combination, but it just can’t stand up to peanut butter.  If you prefer your toast with peanut butter, switch to crisp Chardonnay. It works surprisingly well.
“Popsicles need a fruitier—perhaps rosé—sparkler.”
And there you have it. Since she is also the sommelier who introduced me to my favorite everyday red (in a screw-top bottle), I take her recommendations very seriously.

In addition to this fantastic screen, the Farnsworth is chock full of Wyeths and other Maine painters. We visit it during each of our Where the Sea Meets the Sky Workshops. If you haven’t but want to, know that October 2013—last session with openings in 2013—is selling out fast. Or, let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information, or email Lakewatch Manor!
Posted on

Better than working in a cube farm?

Darn it, I KNOW I took a photo of my easel in the manure pile, but I can’t find it! So you’re stuck with the rather-more-normal wet canvas. Never good when someone decides to blot it out for you, which has happened, of course.
I received an amusing text from a friend this morning that said, “Tough living, this artist stuff. But perhaps less stressful than [a Fortune 500 company at which he works].”
“You really think so?” I responded. Painting for a living has many advantages, but a stress-free life is not among them.
My pal Brad Van Auken is fond of quoting Malcolm Gladwell’s  Outliers: The Story of Success and its 10,000-Hour Rule. This posits that the key to success in any field is a matter of practicing a specific task for around 10,000 hours.
That would be about five years of full-time work, which is indeed about what a person needs to do to be a good painter. Of course, that’s also more or less equivalent to a graduate degree.
However, painting combines a high level of technical training with the brute force of physical labor. That has led to some wonderful snafus. Consider the time I dumped my easel over a wall and into a manure pile. Or the time I dropped my brushes into Braddock Bay.  Or the time my car battery died on a sub-zero day and I had to hike to a farmhouse to cadge a jump.  Or the time my car battery died in the Adirondacks and my friend Marilyn Fairman had to hike to a place in cell phone range to call for help. Or the time I sent my umbrella sailing into the Rio Grande, never to be seen again.

When people comment about how much fun painting is—and it is—they aren’t paying attention to the training, the commuting, or the back-office work. They’re reacting to the sheer physicality of it, about not being stuck in an office or a cube farm. In modern America, everyone really wants to be a manual laborer; some of us have actually figured out how to do it.

If you haven’t registered for my workshops but want to, know that October 2013—last session with openings in 2013—is selling out fast. Or, let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!