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Tag: sense of place

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Our place in space

Fort Rinella, part of the ancient fortifications at Valletta’s harbor.

My watercolor kit is safely stowed in my backpack, but the idea that our Grand Master would allow me time to paint is a chivalric fantasy. I’m up at 6, out at 8, perambulating until 7, and safely stowed away in my monastic cell at 10.

To be fair, my friend Kenny is far more easy-going than the Grand Masters of the old Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitaller), whose footsteps we are following on these ancient dusty hillsides. About the only preparation for this trip that I did was to read about the history of the Knights Hospitaller before the great Siege of Malta in 1565, in which they maintained a truly heroic defense against overwhelming forces.

Malta is a very Catholic country, and at night is lighted by many crosses.

The shadows of the Knights Hospitaller are visible in Valletta and the ring of defensive towers that surround the islands. The Knights may have been the most colorful part of Malta’s history, but they were really only a short part of it. Malta was settled sometime around 5900 BC, by Neolithic people floating over from Europe. It’s been occupied by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Christians, Arabs, and Christians again. Its modern people are a polyglot mixture from all over the Mediterranean.

The Dingli Cliffs.

The valleys of Malta are obviously fertile, supporting much market gardening. Above them rise steep, rocky, fallow slopes. These are shaped by ancient agricultural terracing that dates from the Arab conquest of 827-1091 AD. (Since chattel slavery was a significant part of the medieval Muslim economy, I shudder to think these terraces were built and maintained involuntarily.)

It’s spring in Malta and the wildflowers are blooming.

No photos can relate our place in space

I didn’t do much reading about Malta, but I did look at a lot of photos online. I was still ill-prepared for the reality.

Photos never capture our place in space. That’s a multisensory experience, coming from our balance, our eyesight, our hearing, and of course our binocular vision. Even the breeze plays a part.

There’s where plein air painting has the advantage, because it captures the impression of the place, rather than its mere physical details. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to paint before the week is out, but if not, I’m still having a lovely time.

Sometimes you wander on trails, and sometimes on city streets…

This spring’s painting classes

Zoom Class: Advance your painting skills (whoops, the link was wrong in last week’s posts)

Mondays, 6 PM – 9 PM EST
April 28 to June 9

Advance your skills in oils, watercolor, gouache, acrylics and pastels with guided exercises in design, composition and execution.

This Zoom class not only has tailored instruction, it provides a supportive community where students share work and get positive feedback in an encouraging and collaborative space. 

Zoom class: Signature series

Tuesdays, 6 PM – 9 PM EST
April 29-June 10

This is a combination painting/critique class where students will take deep dives into finding their unique voices as artists, in an encouraging and collaborative space. The goal is to develop a nucleus of work as a springboard for further development.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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How does your sense of place influence your artwork?

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

My hometown of Buffalo, NY, is a great place to be from. I often mention it, especially when it’s snowing.

Buffalo is paradoxical: blue-collar and yet elegant, blighted but historic, crime-ridden and yet pastoral. There’s nature everywhere, from the Olmsted-designed parks to the urban prairie that has replaced the immigrant neighborhoods of the 19th and 20th century. (Since my own people came through those streets, I have mixed feelings about this.)

The grain elevator was born in Buffalo. Grain elevators made Buffalo the largest grain-shipping port in the world in just 15 short years. Those elevators also died there, when the opening of the Welland Canal rendered grain cross-docking obsolete. Finding an adaptive reuse for these buildings has been a chronic challenge. It’s like keeping Grandma’s giant harmonium in your living room—historically important, but taking up a lot of space that could have had more practical use.

My home city spent the second half of the twentieth century on its uppers. That’s when I lived there, so that’s the Buffalo that’s shaped me.

Main Street, Owl’s Head, oil on archival canvasboard, $1623 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Direct and indirect

In some ways, that influence was direct, as in the art I saw at the former Albright-Knox Art Museum and the Canadian Group of Seven painters from just over the river. With two Great Lakes in my backyard, I couldn’t help but love all things nautical. In other ways the influences were indirect. My hometown is multicultural, street-smart, feisty and frugal. I am too.

Inevitably, there were also negative influences. After fifty years of economic contraction, there was an expectation of failure; that’s one big reason the Bills have always been so beloved. There were strong cultural, religious, and familial expectations that kept people in place. We left because there were no jobs, but I would probably never have become a professional painter had I stayed.

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

I live on the Maine coast now, where there are many professional artists. As we all know, iron sharpens iron. The color is clearer and brighter, the light is sublime, but, alas, there’s little cultural diversity. Maine is the whitest state in the nation.

What are the cultural expectations of the place you currently live? The place you’re from? How are they expressed in your work?

Interpretation

Of course, everything I wrote above is my interpretation. I have friends and family who would loudly disagree with my characterization, if they read this blog.

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

Personal connection

I’ve never found it difficult to paint grain elevators or urban clutter. They’re part of my cultural heritage. I can paint my own kids and grandkids; they’re unalloyed joy. But I started a painting last year, as yet unfinished, that I thought would be a sentimental look at my childhood. Instead, it dredged up some difficult, long-suppressed memories. That’s probably why it isn’t finished.

Have you ever been ambushed by a painting? Have you been able to work your visceral response into the canvas, or as with me, has it foxed you? To a lesser degree, how do your emotions color the less-fraught things you paint? That’s a question I can’t really answer, so I’m looking for inspiration here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: