The artist's hand, the artist's eye

One of my great mentors (a "virtual mentor," I suppose, since the relationship is a literary one) is contemporary artist Harriet Shorr. I accidentally came across her insightful book THE ARTIST`S EYE almost 20 years ago, and I've continued to be inspired by her beautiful paintings and her observations about the process of painting and about being an artist.


She describes her interest in painting objects, not for what they are or what they represent, but for their form and colour -- a bias for abstraction through the lens of representation. About the content and style that tend to "choose" an artist (as children are said to choose their parents!), she writes:

Certain objects call to the painter because they resonate with the painter's sensibility -- an attraction to particular kinds of forms, to particular kinds of space. These attractions are formed by the innate visual sensibility of the artist and, perhaps of equal importance, the art that, as a young person, the artist first saw and loved. These primary influences, which together help to form an aesthetic sensibility, are what lead the artist to her subjects.

In my childhood home, there was no art to speak of, and it was many a year before I set foot in an art museum (and such a museum -- The Art Institute of Chicago!). But what my family home provided, and its female line nurtured, was a calm enthusiasm for interesting old things. Still in my possession are many second-hand finds (whether or not they are actually "antiques") brought home by my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother -- a pitcher, a jar, candlesticks, a figurine, baskets, some pieces of jewellery.

I expect my own eye, my own choices as an artist, have been informed by these objects and, as well, by a reflected interest in the human hand and mind -- sometimes a remote hand and mind in the past -- that made the choices that led to their creation. Several years ago, re-reading Harriet Shorr's book and the quote above, I made a painting on these twin themes and titled it in explanation: "The Artist's Hand, the Artist's Eye" (copyright 2007).

I learned a lot from this painting -- working in a limited colour scheme, with the objects just at eye level and the shadows cast by an upfacing light. Working with intensity, one becomes very acquainted with the individual things themselves.

Dipping into Shorr's website last week, I saw that one of her more recent paintings is called "Things of Use to Me." It's another of her characteristic huge still lifes (measured in feet rather than inches), and she has assembled perhaps two dozen objects that I recognized immediately -- they each played a role in at least one of her gorgeous paintings of the 70's and 80's, reproduced in her book. Wow. What a concept. The familiar objects, the close acquaintances, are gathered together as if at a family reunion. Already I see the temptation...!