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Making art inaccessible

Winter lambing, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I’m from Buffalo, New York, and I grew up visiting the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. My family lived nearby and I went to high school just a few blocks away. The Albright-Knox is where I came to understand art. No institution had a greater impact on my early art education.

Like all city residents, I knew there was no admission charge, just a plexiglass box into which you could stuff your donation. In my case, that was often small change or nothing.

In late 2019, the gallery started a massive expansion and renovation. Investor Jeffrey Gundlach gave $42.5 million. NYS ponied up another $20 million and the rest of the $125 million tab was expected to be met by ‘businesses, foundations, government groups, and individuals.’  It’s a beloved Buffalo institution, so I’m not surprised at the community support. The museum was also rebranded as Buffalo AKG Art Museum to reflect Mr. Gundlach’s contribution.

Grain elevators, Buffalo, NY, 18X24 in a handmade cherry frame. $2318 includes shipping in continental US.

My brother-in-law took his grandchild there last week. “It cost me $20 with my senior discount, $10 for Nora, and $12 to park,” he said. He can afford that, but a lot of Buffalonians can’t. The community ponied up all that money to make art inaccessible to any but its wealthier citizens.

The last reported salary for its director, Janne Siren, was $468,609 (2023). This is in a city whose median household income at the 2020 census was $24,536. (And, for the record, employees of the gallery voted to unionize in January, 2024, citing unfair labor practices.)

Why are museums so darned expensive?

The fees my brother-in-law paid are not, sadly, outrageous for American fine art museums. The MFA Boston is now $27 for an adult ticket, MoMA is $30, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which has one of the nation’s largest endowment funds) is $30 and the Art Institute of Chicago is $32. I looked this up because my kids wanted to go to the MFA last weekend, but couldn’t afford it. Instead, they went to a nearby college gallery. “I saw a few cool things and I can still buy a house,” my daughter said.

Thunder Bay, 12X16, $1159 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Arts access is important

School groups will still visit the gallery in their strictly-monitored tours, but gone are the days when we could just wander at will to visit our favorite paintings. For my parents and my siblings, an afternoon at the gallery would now cost $104 plus parking.

This is happening at a time when the broader culture is reducing arts education. That makes unfettered access to art even more important.

For kids, art helps develop imagination and cognitive, communication and problem-solving skills. It helps all of us reduce stress. It should not be only for rich people.

Coal Seam, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Community identity

The old Albright-Knox was a great example of how the public loved and cared for museums, and how museums enhanced our quality of life. It was built for the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition, along with its neighbor, the Buffalo History Museum (which is still pay-as-you-wish). They both face Olmstead-designed Delaware Park with its sparkling artificial lake. This whole complex was a source of great civic pride in my youth.  But, honestly, why would a young Buffalonian care if they can’t afford to go inside?

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Monday Morning Art School: human vision and color theory

Rachel’s Garden, ~24×35, watercolor on Yupo, museum-grade plexiglass, $3985 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Is human vision subjective? Absolutely; so are cameras (although they cheat less than our eyes). We don’t perceive things as they really are, and the gap between what we do perceive and what is ‘real’ is probably unmeasurable. It’s no surprise that witnesses often report wildly different events.

Bunker Hill overlook, watercolor on Yupo, approx. 24X36, $3985 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

How our eyes work

No other organ is quite like our eyes; they’re really an extension of our brains. The retina and optic nerve develop from the same tissue as the brain and that direct connection is maintained through life. The eyes are not merely sensors; they’re processing information before sending it up to the brain. They use the same neurotransmitters and signalling mechanisms as the brain. No wonder they’re so good at fooling us!

The primary visual cortex processes and interprets the signals received from the retina. That gives us the interpretive part of vision, where we sort color, motion, and depth. It’s there that we integrate and interpret visual data into coherent images and meaningful information.

Clary Hill Blueberry Barrens, watercolor on Yupo, ~24X36, $3985 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

How our eyes trick us

All humans have tunnel vision, some of us more than others. We focus on what’s in the center of our vision. What’s peripheral falls off, to various degrees depending on the person. One of the great lies of painting and photography is that they smooth out this tunnel vision.

There’s also wide variation in the distribution and density of rods and cones, which affect how we perceive color. Then there’s the condition of our lenses and corneas. (That’s why I keep hoping I’ll qualify for cataract surgery, but it never happens.)

Once the eyes send their signals to our brain, the relationship to ‘reality’ becomes even more tenuous. It appears that different individuals process various aspects of vision differently in their visual cortex. Our interpretation of what we see is also influenced by our experiences, our mood, and the degree to which we’re attending. And of course, lighting affects how we see (and how we fill in what’s missing).

Context affects how we see color

Certain visual patterns can trick our brains into seeing things that are not there or misinterpreting what we think we see. This is the basis of optical illusion, and it’s helpful for the painter to understand. Colors look different depending on what’s around them. Prolonged exposure to a particular color can create afterimages that affect how we see subsequent colors.

Most importantly, our expectations alter our color perception. For example, knowing that a distant roof is red can mislead painters into painting it brilliant scarlet, even when the atmospheric color shift has made it a far softer tone.

Path to the Lake, ~24X36, watercolor on Yupo, framed in museum-grade plexiglass, $2985 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

How do we sort all this out?

If we could separate what we see from what we ‘know,’ we’d be left with simple patches of light and color, because that’s all vision is. It’s very hard to do that, but the more we strive for that, the better our representation is.

After all, in our field of vision, things are not inherently large or small, close or near; our brain sorts the data and makes these comparisons.

Why am I thinking about this stuff?

I’m swotting to teach a new class, Applied Color Theory, on Tuesday evenings, starting on August 20. And it all starts with the brain, so that’s what I’m thinking about first.

There are just a few seats left, so if you’re interested you should enroll as soon as possible.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Should I buy a boat?

Skylarking II, 18×24, oil on linen, $1855, includes shipping in the continental US.

When I row in my local harbor, I always tell the person I’m with, “If you’re looking for something for my birthday…” I love rowing quietly around, lusting after sailboats. My heart’s desire is never a big boat, but it’s always beautiful, sleek and wooden. Something I can sail solo would be best.

Of course, this is pure nonsense. The mooring fee alone would scrap my budget. Add to that the work and expense of hauling and winterizing. I’m not talking through my hat here; we had a beautiful old wooden boat until I was in my late teens. Besides, my yard is already cluttered with a skiff, canoe and dinghy, none of which I have time for.

American Eagle rounding Owls Head, 6×8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 unframed includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

I was reminded of this the other day while listening to the podcast Ridiculous Crime. The hosts were joking that the stupidest thing to do with lottery winnings was to buy a boat. “My father always said it’s a hole in the water into which you pour money,” said host Zaron Burnett. I’ll add two more jokes to his repertoire: “The two best days in a boat owner’s life are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it.” And, “a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.”

Should I buy a boat? I’m afraid not, although writing this post has darn near killed me. But there are other ways to enjoy them.

I have a friend who is a boat

I am buddies with a very big boat, the schooner American Eagle. Not only is she the best looking schooner in the fleet, she was impeccably repurposed by Captain John Foss and maintained by Captain Tyler King.

I get to go sailing on her once a year. Even better, my job isn’t night watches or deck swabbing. Instead, I teach watercolor painting. And if you go with us, you too can sail and paint and give no thought at all to cooking or polishing brightwork.

My daughter made a beautiful short reel for Instagram that catches the essence of this trip (above). Here’s another that captures a foggy day on the water. This isn’t sailing with carbon fiber sails that you can adjust with your key fob while surfing the web on your phone. This is sailing as it’s been done for centuries. It’s a wooden boat with traditional rigging, and the opportunities to sail like that grow fewer and fewer.

Hang a boat on a wall

Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed.

Another way to enjoy sailing is with a painting. I was in an oncologist’s waiting room the other day (for a routine check-up) and noticed that the walls are covered with boat art. They chose boats and the sea because they’re calming, and people in crisis need all the tranquility they can get. But so do you and I, every day.

I paint boats because I love them, and because their journeys are much like our journeys—we go through storms, we have larky bright mornings, and we rest at anchor. I think those are all good reasons to own a boat painting. And as Zaron Burnett would probably tell you, it’ll cost you a lot less to buy a painting of a boat than to keep a real boat. The maintenance is easier, and you’re likely to keep it longer, too.

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What does it mean to be an artist?

Coast Guard Inspection, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Being an artist means you make art, period. It doesn’t mean you’re brilliant at it, or that you make money doing it. It simply means you make art repeatedly, in an iterative process, building from one finished project to the next.

Anyone can be an artist

I have never heard anyone told, ever, that they’re not good at the Three Rs (meaning reading, ’ritin’, and ’rithmatic) so they should just go do something else. We take it for granted that there are bumps in the road in every pursuit, and some aspects of these disciplines will be harder than others. Moreover, we recognize that whether we use our writing skills to analyze Tolstoy or make out a shopping list, they’re useful for everyone. So how did the question of who can be an artist become so narrow?

Beautiful Dream, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I’ve blamed the Cult of Genius for the spurious idea that the artist’s mind is unique. Until the 18th century, artists were craftsmen, and they trained in apprenticeships. After the Enlightenment, the arts were reclassified as an intellectual pursuit. None of my working artist friends are intellectuals in the real sense of that word. Yes, they’re smart, but they’re also pragmatic and hands-on.

Why are we all so specialized?

My daughter told me recently that my grandkids’ peers don’t just try one activity and then another. Sandlot baseball, as we knew it, is nonexistent. Instead, kids choose a discipline almost as soon as they’re up on their pins. They stick with that specialty through high school. The parents, my daughter tells me, are interested in sports scholarships.

Early specialization leaves no time for what making art is all about: experimentation and creativity. And since there aren’t art scholarships the way there are sports scholarships, nobody is pushing little Minnie to stick with her crayons.

We give lip service to the idea of developing creative kids who can “think outside the box.” (Not that I believe that’s what society really wants, but it’s what we say.) Art requires discipline, but it also encourages free-roaming thoughts.

American Eagle in Drydock, 12X16, $1159 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

What’s required to be an artist?

  • The ability to think imaginatively, which requires leisure time for the mind to roam.
  • The capacity to express ideas.
  • Technical proficiency, built over time.
  • Passion, because there are easier ways to spend your time.
  • A unique worldview.
  • Resilience: If you aren’t persistent in the face of failure, criticism and rejection, you will quit.

What I didn’t list

Note that I never mentioned talent, innate ability, or intelligence. The most successful artists are the hardest-working, full stop.

I have a young friend who’s been a journeyman photographer under the tutelage of his father for several years. I have one of his books, and it’s nice but not inspired. Suddenly, this year, he’s on fire. He may look like an instant success or a ‘great talent’ but all that rests on the thousands of photos he’s taken to find his artistic voice.

Camden Harbor, Midsummer, oil on canvas, 24X36 $3188 includes shipping in continental US.

You don’t have to be an artist

Anyone can do it; that doesn’t mean everyone will. The steep learning curve weeds some people out; the exigencies of life limit others. And that’s okay, because art needs viewers. We’re glad you’re here!

But if you feel the call to make art, just do it; do not let someone else’s definition of talent limit what you dream for yourself.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Top ten questions for artists

A Woodlot of her own, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I’ve written about why we do art and about the artists’ statements we all loathe. Targeted questions sometimes help us think through the bigger issues with greater clarity. I hope you can use these questions for artists as a jumping off point for your own thinking.

  1. What inspired you to create this piece?

    The answer for me is always:
  • The idea fascinated me;
  • It was a challenge; or,
  • I thought it was beautiful.

How would you answer that question about one of your paintings?

Best Buds, 11X14, oil on canvasboard, $1087 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

2. What is your creative process?

My painting process is outlined here and here. This is the same process I teach, so it’s straightforward.

For areas outside my discipline, I start by learning the technology. For me, this is hands-on and spatial; for example, I’d rather work with a printmaker than read a book or watch a movie about lithography.

What is your working process?

3. How do you come up with your ideas?

I have more ideas than I could ever execute, and when they’re still rattling around my head, I’m always convinced they’re the best ideas ever. Are you ever short of inspiration? If so, how do you deal with that?

4. What materials or techniques do you use?

I’m conversant with oils, watercolors, acrylics, pastel and gouache—in fact, with most two-dimensional art forms. Drawing is personal for me. I wish I knew more about 3D art, and particularly about building things.

What is your preferred medium? What medium would you like to spend more time with?

In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), 24X30, $3,478 framed, oil on canvas, includes shipping in continental United States.

5. What is the story behind this piece?

There’s sometimes a very simple answer, such as with In Control: Grace and her Unicorn. Sometimes there’s no story at all.

Can you articulate stories for your paintings, or are they less tangible?

6. How long does it take you to finish a painting?

This is the most-commonly asked of all questions for artists. The only proper answer is that made by James McNeill Whistler during court testimony in 1878. Whistler was asked by a lawyer about the stiff price he had set for a painting.

“Oh, two days! The labour of two days, then, is that for which you ask two hundred guineas!”

“No;—I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime.”

The Servant, oil on linen, 36X40, $4042.50 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

7. What are you trying to convey?

I suppose if you must ask that, I’ve failed, but if it’s in an artist’s statement, I’d just say my work is a pale imitation of the glories of God’s creation.

What are you trying to say in your work? Can it be reduced to words?

8. Do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions?

It’s good to have something in your future. I’ll be at an opening in Camden on Tuesday, and then there is Camden Art Walk for August-October. Meanwhile I have three workshops remaining this season. And I’ll be at Sedona Plein Air in October. There are also a few one-day plein air events scattered in there.

If your calendar is overbooked, you’ll burn yourself out, but if you aren’t working toward a goal, you may not be working hard enough. If you’re not yet advanced enough to be showing regularly, a class or workshop is a good way to hold yourself accountable.

9. Why are you an artist?

I’ve been an artist since I was old enough to sit up. I’ve been lucky enough to be a professional artist for the past 28 years. I tell people it’s either that or greeting at Walmart, but in fact I do it because I have a pressing need to communicate. How about you?

10. How do you handle criticism or feedback about your work?

In that it’s morally wrong to crush the skulls of your enemies, I’m forced to be philosophical about rejection. The more it happens the better I deal with it, but at times, I admit it’s painful.

Usually I just kvetch. How about you?

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Two seascape paintings, some flowers and an opening

On Tuesday of next week, Lone Pine Real Estate is having its long-awaited grand opening. It’s from 4-7, at 19 Elm St., Camden, ME. You’ll find me there, but not precisely at 4 PM, as I have a prior appointment. There are many forms of creativity, and I’m in awe of the kind of mind that can create a business from nothing. Congratulations, Rachael, Gregg, Nichole, and Ann.

I just moved these three paintings to Lone Pine to replace paintings that have been sold. Two of these are seascape paintings. The ocean and its harbors are my favorite subject. One is a flower painting, and it’s grown on me steadily since I finished it last week.

Belfast Harbor, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1,275 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Belfast harbor

Belfast’s most iconic view is the three red tugboats docked at the foot of Main Street. They’re the property of the Penobscot Bay Tractor Tug Company, and they’re not meant to be merely pretty; they’re working tugs that help move cargo around the bay.

Belfast harbor is muscular compared to many other modern coastal towns here in midcoast Maine. Front Street Shipyard is a very large shipbuilder that always has something interesting in its yard; Belfast’s Harbor Walk snakes along the waterfront directly in front of it. It was from this location that I painted the tugs.

My goal was to reduce the tugs and the boat sheds to shapes, rather than paint them in detail.

Camden Harbor from Curtis Island, oil on canvas, $2782 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Camden harbor from Curtis Island

I rowed out to Curtis Island in Colin Page’s dinghy to paint Camden harbor. There are often camp kids out on the island beachcombing and I drew the stooping child from life. However, back in my studio I realized that a solitary child just didn’t make sense. I added a second one, which is a self-portrait of me as a child.

I’m blaming this painting on the Words + Pictures Zoom class I just finished teaching. It got me thinking in whimsical terms.

On the return trip, I carefully bungeed my painting to the front thwart. It wasn’t until I was bumping against the dock that I realized I couldn’t reach around my painting to grab the painter. (That’s the line from the bow you use to tie up.) I bumped along merrily in the surf until a nice gentleman grabbed the line for me and helped me unload my gear.

Lacecap and Daylilies, 11X14, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States

Lace-cap hydrangea and daylilies, Merryspring Nature Center

Merryspring Nature Center is a 66-acre preserve near the Camden-Rockport town line. It has a fantastic daylily garden with varieties I’ve never seen before. I didn’t want to address this planting directly, since it must be fifty feet across and is absolutely horizontal. Instead, I wanted to make it a line of light in the back of an otherwise shady painting.

I don’t paint gardens, as a general rule, but this painting has made me reconsider that.

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Two color theory books I own (and one I just ordered)

Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $652 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I’m prepping to teach my next session of Zoom color classes, Applied Color Theory, and consulting my library for ideas. Here are two color theory books I recommend without hesitation, and one I just ordered. After all, even an old dog can learn new tricks.

I’ve taught lots of color theory, but this class is a different. It’s about applying theoretical constructs to the practical business of painting. So, it’s back to the books for this teacher.

Home Farm, 20X24, oil on canvas, $2898 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Josef Albers

When my grandchild was born, I said something about nursing while the hospital lactation consultant was in the room. “A lot has changed in thirty years,” she said. As far as I know, lactation still works about the same way as it did when mammals first appeared about 200 million years ago, or when I was a young mother.

I mention this preemptively, before someone points out that Interaction of Color is a very old book. It’s inexpensive and straightforward. Read the text, do the exercises, ponder the concepts, and you’ll learn lots.

Having said that, the reprint is a better deal than an older edition. Printing technology is much advanced since 1963, and the plates in this edition are clean and beautiful.

Albers believed that color was best studied through experience. He demonstrated that certain colors affect their neighbors. Color exercises are the way to understand this. “Every perception of color is an illusion, he wrote. “We do not see colors as they really are. In our perception they alter one another.”

Blueberry barrens, Clary Hill, oil on canvas, 24X36, $3985 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color, by Philip Ball

I’ve read a lot of ‘history of color’ books and this was by far the best. Philip Ball is a science writer who trained as a chemist. He may be a science geek, but he writes for a lay audience.

Every painter should think of paints first in terms of pigments. For example, we like to think of Impressionism as a cultural movement, with the Salon des RefusĂŠs and the rejection of academic art. But Impressionism was driven, first and foremost, by rapid developments in modern chemistry. None of it was possible without the pigments created for commercial applications.

Ostensibly a detailed historical account of how colors were discovered, manufactured, and used, the book also discusses the scientific principles behind pigment chemistry and the physics of light and color perception.

You might not think this should be filed under ‘color theory books,’ but pigment largely defines our place in the continuum of art history, and it’s good to understand exactly where we are.

The Surf is Cranking Up, 8×16, $903 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

Here’s the book I ordered to prepare for this class:

Artists’ Master Series: Color and Light, by Charlie Pickard et al

This newish (2022) book covers the traditional material of color theory but reviewers say it’s very in-depth in terms of both the science of color and the process of applying color to painting. I bought it because there is more than one author, which means there’s more than one approach to color problems.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: which painting should I choose?

Sea Street, 24X30, oil on canvas, private collection.

I started writing this in the shade at the Camden Public Library, in the short interstice between delivering paintings and the start of this year’s Camden on Canvas auction. By the time you read this it will be all over but the shouting, but at this moment I don’t know whether I made the right choice.

My two paintings are both indirect views of Camden Harbor. On Friday, I rowed out to Curtis Island, intending to paint Colin Page’s dinghy, but I was sidetracked by kids playing in the surf. On Saturday, I painted on Sea Street from the bed of my pickup truck. Only one painting is allowed in this auction. Although I was inclined to choose Sea Street, I brought both paintings to the amphitheater so I could pother until the last possible minute.

BjĂśrn Runquist simplified matters by doing only one piece in the 2.5 days we had to paint. Ken DeWaard made it extremely difficult on himself by painting four. Two or three is more typical, and then the artist has to narrow it down to one.

Throwing rocks, 24X30, $2782 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

This weekend I introduced Ken to the word dithering, about which I wrote on Friday. “So, it’s just like complaining, right?” he countered. No, it’s when the general confusion in your mind starts bubbling out your mouth, I said. In fact, it means to vacillate indecisively. And it’s so easy to do when you choose a painting for an auction, online jurying, or any other situation where the stakes are high.

There is a difference in how artists and non-artists see paintings

Artists make judgments about color, composition and draftsmanship (and we all have our own hobby-horses). We don’t necessarily care as much about subject as our buyers do. For collectors, sentiment, color and the painting’s place in their home are real considerations.

Why don’t you just ask a lot of non-painters then?

It’s tempting to start polling people, and they can give you insights into your work. However, the more people you ask, the less consensus you’ll have. And whatever the last person said, is what will stick in your mind. That’s no way to decide.

Painting from the back of my pickup truck on Sea Street. Sometimes I just have too much fun. (Photo courtesy Camden Public Library)

The one on which you worked the hardest isn’t always the best

I’m always enamored of the tough ones, because I have the greatest investment of time, thought and emotion in them. But these, paradoxically, can move the audience the least. And it’s simply not true that the ones you whip off are worth less; they’re the sum of all the work in every painting that’s gone before.

We’re not always the best judges of our own work

I can analyze my own work using formal criticism, but that doesn’t take into account the audience’s emotional response to my work, or my own emotional blind spots.

There is no right answer

In the end, neither of my paintings were ‘bad.’ I can speculate on what the other painting might have netted at auction, but nobody ever really knows. The auction is now over; I was satisfied with the price my painting netted, and I’ll put the other one in my own gallery as soon as I get a frame on it.

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Daylilies and lace-cap hydrangea

Daylilies and lace-cap hydrangea, 11X14, $869 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

When Colin Page asked me if I’d paint for the 76th annual Camden Garden Tour, I said, “sure, why not?” Don’t ever tell him I said this, but Colin is such a nice guy that he makes one want to do nice things too.

I’m not a painter of gardens. They’re one of the few landscape subjects I avoid. The painter can’t generally improve on what the skilled gardener hath wrought. Great gardens (as Merryspring Nature Center’s are) are beautiful, but they’re also neat. My natural inclination in landscape paintings is toward the scruffy, like me.

The contrast between the intense color in the foreground and the airy lightness of the great daylily bed at Merryspring appealed to me, even as I realized it would be a compositional bear and equally difficult to paint.

“Never proceed to paint until you have a drawing you love,” I tell my students. My problem was, I kept jabbering with passers-by. It’s a small town and I’m blessed with many wonderful friends. I didn’t finish my sketch until noon. Since I had to leave at 3 PM to get ready for the Camden Art Walk, it was time to fish or cut bait.

The featured artist for this year’s Garden Tour is Cassie Sano, who has studied landscape painting with me on and off for several years now. My students are passing me left and right in their Cadillacs.

This canvas is certainly not overworked, since I finished it at warp speed. It was a good warm up for Camden on Canvas, which starts this morning.

I wonder where I could find some musicians to play for the Camden Art Walk?

As we do every year, BjĂśrn Runquist, Ken DeWaard, Eric Jacobsen and I started a last-minute text string debating where we should paint. Dithering is an important part of the plein air landscape painting process; after all, there might be something brilliant right around the corner.

But here in Camden there’s not a single intersection or overlook that wouldn’t make the bones of a good painting. I know what I’m doing, and I suspect the Three Musketeers do too. The good lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I’m rowing out to Curtis Island on Friday and painting on Sea Street on Saturday. But double-check at the information kiosk on Atlantic Avenue just to make sure.

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Things that are real

American Eagle, painted from the deck during one of my schooner watercolor workshops.

For a certified geriatric, I’m pretty good at the internet, but it is demanding. There’s a constant encroachment of synthetic experience, in the form of AI and enhanced photographs. There are scammers. Moreover, I feel obliged to read the news, which has become yet another virtual experience. Meanwhile, the sun is shining and the soft ocean breezes are blowing, but too many of us are in our air-conditioned rooms experiencing life vicariously.

I see a steady shrinking of real, physical, authentic experiences. Sometimes I worry that reality is downright endangered.

A painting student from an Adirondack workshop, with her perspective drawing carefully at hand. She’s coming to my Schoodic workshop next month.

Some of the things you can’t get from AI

Paintings They’re tangible, tactile, dimensional, handmade objects, which is why they don’t lend themselves to being made into NFTs.

Nature. My photos have been viewed on Google more than 66,000 times. I think 90% of them were taken on Beech Hill. As many pictures as I take, I know my plein air workshop students experience it in a way no photo can recreate. It is never the same two days running.

The ocean. Penobscot Bay is a constantly-changing sensory delight, with cool breezes, the tang of saltwater, and a smattering of offshore islands that sparkle in the sun. Even the best photo can only capture the visual, and then incompletely. Those other sensations are not reproducible.

You can see the beauty in this photo, but you can’t experience the moment except by being there.

This boat, which has been sailing the Gulf of Maine for close to a century. It’s ecotourism at its best, and you don’t experience the ocean as fully in any other vessel. For one thing, it’s quiet.

Little villages. Yes, Maine villages are photogenic, but they’re also communities. Painting them from a picture is one thing; painting them in real life means you learn about the place. For example, on Thursday, Jeanne-Marie and I learned who owned that magnificent yellow house she was painting and the likelihood it would go on the market. We also learned who’s doing what at the Camden Garden Club Tour tomorrow. Then she walked downtown and got coffee at Zoot, which is almost next door to where my paintings are hanging at Lone Pine Realty. You feel the difference in a small town.

Students in my watercolor workshop aboard schooner American Eagle.

Real time. That’s sometimes fast, and sometimes slow, but it’s dictated by reality, not video. Plein air painting can challenge you to work quickly and decisively or it can allow you to relax into the place. It’s simply less structured than virtual reality.

A sense of place. Every time I say goodbye to a plein air workshop group, I find myself telling them to move to midcoast Maine. We’ve developed deep relationships in the week we’ve painted together, and I want them all to be my neighbors.

Myriad viewpoints. There’s never just one view; there are multiple compositions at almost every place. That and the constantly-changing light are inspiring in a way that AI or photographs can never be. They force you to think in a way that copying a photo never can.

We were painting at Owl’s Head and suddenly the fog dropped and everything in the world changed.

Know what’s real? Plein air workshops.

I love teaching on Zoom for many reasons, but the most important is that my Zoom students make very fast progress. However, I also need to teach plein air workshops too; that’s a soul call, not a financial one.

Even though I have very close friendships in cyberspace, the human connection in a workshop is different. I saw Sharon of right-angle fame yesterday. We had a brief, warm and charming conversation that made me smile all day.

A note: I have a few openings for Sea & Sky at Acadia National Park, but if you want to take that workshop and stay at the Schoodic Institute, the drop-dead deadline is this coming Monday. I have a little more flexibility for commuters, but I don’t know how likely it is that you’ll find a rental this late in the season.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: