Blame it on Aristotle

 

 

 

Yes, blame it on the man who tried to make sense of the universe, inside and out, including the realm of dreams.  Or perhaps move forward in time to C.G. Jung whose landmark book “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”  was top of my gift list when the paperback came out in 1976.  Or, you might cut to the chase, and blame one of my artist heroes, Giorgio de Chirico, as an early champion of surrealism.

 

They all have to do with my musings about where to go next, with my long-held interest in the face and figure.  My sketchbooks (which I’m trying to glean) have many quick-captures over the years of interesting figures I’ve noted in passing, interesting faces and costumes.  Quite recently, at the familiar bus stop nearest home, I waited along with a young woman in an almost military neutral tan outfit – but with random graffiti-type markings in black, and red accents randomly splashing her black hair.

 

I would love to paint her, but how?  Using up some paint and cardboard, I could catch only a glimpse.

 

Over a few days, I mulled this over and thought of a decades-old aspiration of mine:  To paint figures in their settings.  My memory of her contained, of course, a much fuller jumble of the components of the setting in which I encountered her.  Here's my bus stop, for example, looking in both directions:--

 

And always, the fascinating splashes of graffiti on the central power pole.

 

Okay.  The clarity of the photos is quite different from the jumble of my memory – and it’s that jumble that forms the context.   And so begins my new series of sketch-worthy figures in their remembered context.  Surrealists, take note!

 

The walker from the pedestrian sign strides in to show off for my “real” figure.

 

Moving along, the signs and poles begin to take shape.

 

 

And finally, let’s call it a wrap with “Inverness Bus Stop – Context Series” - copyright 2026.

 

Hard to say where this series will lead, but already I’ve made a fascinating discovery in little known 20^th-century artist Sam Szafran.  Do you think my thought-trains might have mingled with his somehow?  For an utterly fascinating video (French with subtitles), view here.

 

In all of this, of course I've remembered that as I hit “POST”, it’s Halloween.  My neighbours, as usual, have obliged.

 

Should this wait till Halloween?

 

The tale I’ll spin today, inspired jointly by this innocuous backyard arachnid and Henri Matisse, could be left for the end of the month – but I’d rather get on with, tie up the loose ends, and finally launch into a new painting season.

 

A couple weeks ago, my Budapest artist friend Y happened to share a Matisse-like line drawing by her father, a 20^th c. professional artist and graphic designer.  Matisse himself is one of my great heroes and what he could do with a line is – beyond words, as shown in these “simple” self-portraits.

 

 Now, in a wonderful coincidence, as I searched to see if he might have made a spider drawing, I found this in a Tate UK article: 

“Writing to his friend Louis Aragon, he compared himself to a spider who "throws out … its thread to some convenient protuberance and thence to another that it perceives, and from one point to another weaves its web." 

What I’d initially recalled from Y’s reference was something quite different:-- Somewhere I’d read that Matisse was maddening in his inability to consider a work finished.  In fact, he was known for sneaking back into dealers’ display rooms and touching up work that had already been accepted for sale.

 

Would he dress like this, and then slip out from his vest pocket – a loaded paintbrush?  Hmmm….charcoal, more likely.

 

My own approach is to – call it a day.  Do the best I can and then sign off, even if I know the finished piece is one that before very long will be painted over.  Disappointingly, I’ve done a lot of these lately – like the lovely young Fern Gatherer. 

 

I just couldn’t get her face right – the tilt of the head, the shape of the eyes.  So in the spirit of Monsieur Second Chance Matisse, I went back weeks later and re-did her face.

 

Still not right.  Well, there was no dealer looking over my shoulder so I tried a couple more times and again blotted out the whole face.

 

And again.  And again.  

And finally called it “done but still not right.”

 

Anything else I wanted to mess around with?  Sure – I’d known that the silhouetted branches in that island sunset were too thick.  A few quick swipes with the vibrant background colours showed that it could take months to modify the excessive black with lighter colours.

 

Enough of all this!  Meanwhile, I’d brought upstairs the final Summer Camp painting – a riff on the artists of Mount Kisco.  There were definite flaws but I was done. 

 

That is, I was done until my neighbour’s bright-eyed 9-year-old grandnephew stopped in for a visit.  He checked the whole place out, as usual, and then stopped at the artists in the woodland.  “May I say something?” he asked.  “Of course,” I replied.

 

“Most of this is okay, but her neck is too long.”   “Yes,” I sighed.

 

“She looks like a brontosaurus.”   Oh, he had put his finger on it, hadn’t he?  But I can play at that game, and the following week, I had this version waiting for him:

 

He prefers the dinosaur neck to stay in place, but for now (before it’s totally recycled), I’ve made a more conventional revision – wrapping her with a long scarf.

Why was the spider so inspirational in the first place?  Because I saw it first at the centre of a large web, about 3 by 4 feet near my back door.  I tried to respect its turf but one day accidentally brought it down with the end of my rake.  All that work!!! – but the next day, the spider and the web were back in place, carrying on.  Undeterred.  Unstoppable.

 

Soon it will be time to get out the Halloween costumes – brontosaurus anyone?

 

 

 

A view from the studio

Yes, most definitely it’s a view from the studio.  It’s just not my studio, as it happens, but that of a wonderful B.C. artist  whose home and studio I visited on a daytrip tour to the Sunshine Coast. 

The view from my own studio is perhaps not as tourist-worthy, but that’s just as well.  About 30 steps from my studio rooms, through my laundry and furnace room, through the open door – and there’s my piece of domestic heaven, for which I’m so grateful.

 

Officially back from Summer Camp, I’m settling in and mulling general ideas for the new season’s line-up.  I suspect that all artists must have a huge attachment to their own workspace, and I’ve considered doing a few pieces on artists’ studios.  Consider this studio painted by the artist himself, Kalman Deri, of early 20^th century Hungary.

 

A little tidier, but still resonant, here’s the posthumously reconstructed studio of Renoir. 

 

Thinking about my reconnection with home base, I decided to start with a painting to be titled “Artist in Residence.”  Incidentally, I learned from an artist on one of the daytrip art tours that a “residency” is no longer necessarily an honoured, subsidized post.  These days, the prize of a dedicated studio in attractive surroundings is something a competition winner might have to pay for!

 

I started with some quick studies.  This one featured my old studio (c. 2010) for which I still have fond memories.

 

But then I decided to sit on my little front porch, part of my own “residency” set-up, where I can sometimes enjoy a very early morning coffee and a reverie.  So why not centre my residency here?

 

After trying things out with many small drawings, I saw that this could easily get too busy.  Rather than showing off my slippers, I zoomed in for a comparative close-up, starting with a preliminary light teal-grey layer.

 

Something unexpected was already happening around my ear.  Yes, I have big ears, but the problem was that the paint just wasn’t handling things in its usual way.

 

That splotch on the ear couldn’t be corrected.  The more I painted over, the worse things got.  And then there were distinct unpredictable spots, as if bubbles had burst.

 

I wrestled with whether to forget the whole thing, but this was a decent quality canvas.  What could I cover up when I added my hair?

 

Not much!  But it was at this point, that I had a huge revelation:--  The cause of the unpredictable paint behaviour was in my first layer.  I’d thought to use up some aging paint, a professional quality Iridescent White that made a nice optical mix with other colours – but obviously didn’t make a compatible surface blend. 

 

What’s more, I’d been so fixated on the blobs and smears that I hadn’t paid attention to placing the features – and that left eye was not only a miserable blob, but a miserable blob in the wrong place.

 

As time passed and the month-end came into sight, I made another decision.  I wouldn’t scrap this yet, but would play with a stick-on eye and aim for a better placement.

 

And the outcome is as good as it’s gonna get in this incarnation.  (“Artist in Residence,” copyright 2026)

You’ll see this canvas again some day, but it will be collaged and textured with stuff that will stick.  Ooh – maybe Summer Camp 2027?  Keep your eye on this space.

 

And savour your own places for reverie, whether “in residence” or beyond.  (Thank you for being there, VanDusen Garden).

 

Happy Campers, time to head for home!

 

I’ve always loved this vintage photo titled “Artists of Mount Kisco,” which persistently pops up in histories of early 20^th-century artists and the appealing early tourist destinations in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains. But guess what!  Mount Kisco isn’t in the Adirondacks – it’s farther south, in fact only about 20 miles from my birthplace in a suburb of New York City.  All the better!

 

The artist with the most name recognition in this group is Alfred Stieglitz – second from the right with ruffled hair and glasses.  He was a giant in establishing early 20^th-century photography as an art form and, oh by the way, he was the husband of Georgia O’Keeffe.

 

In my years of familiarity with this photo, I’d imagined these folks staying in the modest summer boarding houses for which the Adirondacks were famous.  Diving deeper recently, I found that Stieglitz, for one, stayed in the summer place (palace?) of Eugene Meyer, owner of The Washington Post and, with his wife Agnes, major philanthropists.   Here it is – Seven Springs Farm. 

 

As I stowed away Summer Camp lists and supplies, I thought I’d commemorate my own selection of artists by placing them in the Mt. Kisco spotlight – dressed in the wardrobe of their choosing.  Let’s start up that trail!

 

I’d planned to do this without a map, which might not have been a good idea.

Here’s the final.

 

And just so you can match them to their featured posts in Summer Camp 2026, here’s the big reveal -- labels with identifiers.  I’ll bet Seurat had to fight for that camo jacket.  And isn’t “Easel” the best possible name for the dog?

 

It’s a funny thing about taking a break like this.   You get to know people in a particular context, away from the everyday -- and then it really is time to move on -- but always to something new and promising.

“I think that to one in sympathy with nature, 

 each season, in turn, seems the loveliest.”

― Mark Twain

 

Colour me -- confounded

 

The seasons' change is in the air.  Autumn is almost here, and Summer Camp 2026 is nearing its conclusion.  In this year’s adventures, some of the artists I’ve sought to emulate – or in any case, to be inspired by – are from other eras, other countries.  To the forefront now, at this late date, comes a contemporary Vancouver artist who is greatly admired particularly for his landscape paintings.

 

A practicing medical specialist until his 2017 retirement, he is almost a lifetime artist.  This account from his medical peers tells part of the story that he’s still writing today with great energy and expertise.  I’ve admired his work for years in reproductions and had the luck to meet him on the last day of his Fall 2025 exhibit.  His warm smile suggests the kind of physician he must have been.  He genially spoke with his visitors and generously let me have one each of his rack cards.

 

Meanwhile, as August came into view, I’d been looking at years of photos from my cherished friend L, taken at her beautiful home on Galiano Island.  The sunsets were always spectacular – did I dare give this one a try, even as the colours in nature are overpowering??

 

Looking particularly for examples of sky in DH’s paintings, I found this one from his earlier series on Vancouver’s harbour.

 

His process is so intriguing – are the lines on a tree trunk, for example, painted after and over the trunk’s colour, or is their colour painted first, then painted with the trunk's colour, and then the lines “carved out” from the overlay?  

 

This is no less clear to me now, after finding this description just this morning.  Scroll down about 10 short paragraphs, below the painting titled, “View from the Spit…” and try to match the description to the outcome.

 

Nevertheless, in mid-month, I plunged in:

 

As I continued, the puzzles became more confounding:-- the sequence for the colour application; the lightness or darkness of reflections on the water; the particular quality of yellow.  An interim stage:

 

Big sigh.  One of the givens of colour mixing is that white not only lightens other colours but might at the same time dull them.  Sometimes a touch of yellow is preferred instead…but how could you lighten yellow with yellow?

 

Well – here’s the finale. “Memories of Galiano – Summer Camp series,” copyright 2026.

 

No, I didn’t get the colours right – and its biggest flaw is that I just could not make the “branches” of the centre tree thin enough.  (Hmmm….I feel an urge to repaint coming on).

 

However, another happy surprise from this morning’s online search, is this:

 

Another exhibit this October, and it’s in my calendar now!!

 

Now, is it time to fold the tents on Summer Camp?  ….not quite.