Getting my ducks in a row

 

Into serious countdown mode now, as we wait for the year to renew itself.  For me, as for many others, these weeks at year's end are traditionally a time for wrapping up the old year and looking ahead to the new.  This year, though, recent months have often found me paddling around in circles, feeling more than a little daunted by world events.

 

The week after the U.S. election, though, I witnessed a hopeful sign.  Amidst the seemingly endless rain, there was a semi-clear early morning when rosy dawn began to touch the mountains I see to the north.

 

I felt so heartened by this crack of dawn, and there immediately came flooding back to me Leonard Cohen's phrase, "…that's how the light gets in."  His 2008 version now on YouTube gives the context, and many accompanying comments observe that the message is still relevant.

 

Well – here was the theme of my end-of-year painting, already rendered un-mailable in card form with no thanks to Canada Post's job action.  The starting point was easiest:

 

After that, it was a lot of back and forth:-- Lighter, then darker, then lighter, then pinker, then whiter.  This is slipping into a very bad rhyme and not the greatest painting, but enough to share for now:  "Crack of Dawn – That's How the Light Gets In" (copyright 2024).

 

Now on to the final days of celebration, remembrance, reflection – and gratitude.  Did you catch the last post's small photo of my table lamp?

 

 

Look what's taken centre stage now, with its own overhead light – a lovely little terrarium with an air plant in its own seasonal setting.  (Thank you, friend L)

 

And friend P – not only did you present me with a pomegranate but clued me in to the fact that many cultures consider pomegranates to be lucky, and the gift of a pomegranate even more so.  How did I miss all of this?  I had to take it to the studio one morning for a quick splash.

 

And while I was theoretically doing a year-end clean-up there, I couldn't resist trying another "Crack of Dawn" with a wider view than the first.

 

Hmmm.  I'd meant to place an even greater distance between mountaintops and viewer but there's no point in trying again.  That was then, this is now. 

 

By the way, if these two mini-sketches seem a little, er, corrugated – they are, having come from an old stash maintained by the Cardboard Club.  There are corrugated clouds, you know, and also corrugated mountains.

 

And corrugated pomegranates?  I guess not –just a mouth-watering bundle.

 

 

So let's move on to the words of 20^th century Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke – whose phrase I quote almost every year.  This time I've found his full long sentence.

"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it, without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things."

Dreams and foretellings

 

What a storm we've had here for the past two days! But at last today, the skies were mostly clear and I could get back to the tasks at hand – my to-do lists and planning grids till the end of the year and on into the next one.

 

When I found the title image in my photo file, I thought….hmm…I know in the classical world, they read the oracles from various signs.  Maybe there was a process for reading the future by interpreting storms and the direction of winds.  Well…..here's more than you ever wanted to know about that – having to do with the flight of birds.  And in the season's spirit of good will, this saves you from wending through a lot of very weird stuff on the internet.

 

Something else I'm doing with this post is breaking it gently to the Commedia characters that they won't have quite the starring roles they enjoyed in 2023-24.  Still, they've managed to have their last word.

 

This autumn, as I looked through old sketchbooks and journals, I came repeatedly on references to dreams.  Somehow (hello, Commedia clowns?!) a Watteau painting "Dream of the Artist" made international headlines with a UK ban on its export.

 

 It was a sign, right?  I've been wanting to get back to figures and faces so I decided to work on copying this segment:

 

 

As I've found before, it can be very instructive to try to copy a masterwork.  From a preliminary small colour note in my sketchbook, I realized the dance of these figures would present a tricky challenge.

 

At first I thought I might do a careful layout on newsprint paper, then cut out the figures and trace them onto the canvas.  That, too, became quickly confusing – so I reverted to a grid layout and preliminary pastel line drawing – nothing like Harriet Shorr recommended!

 

Just trying to equate the colours and dark-light tones made for many mornings' efforts.

 

The final outcome wasn't completely successful, but here it is – "Dancers' Dream – After Watteau" (copyright 2024).

 

There's another lesson here, too.  Sometimes at first try, a plan doesn't materialize in the way I'd hoped – such as "Up from the Earth" from this year's Summer Camp:--

 

But then it comes around bigger and better at just the right time.  Greetings from the Seasonal Seal -- barking from the comfort of swirling seas and his moss-covered rock.

 

 

 

 

 

The familiar cycle

 

Despite rain and hint of snow and dark of late afternoons, I've managed to put almost all my spring-flowering bulbs in the ground.  I have more than ever this year, many saved from previous years with another dozen or so new acquisitions, for reliability.  In the coming year, I might forego the new purchases and be more selective about the oldies that I save.  Applied to daily life, this is exactly what six of my friends are doing – critically weeding through decades of stuff, moving things along, and getting down to what they really, really want on hand.

 

I started this, too, over a year ago, but I've bogged down in a good 45 years of sketchbooks – and of course, I'm not going to triage my art books.  Instead, I'm deliberately reviewing them one by one.  And so, I came across one of my early loves, one of my first painting books, "The Artist's Eye" by Harriet Shorr, a 20^th century American painter of extraordinary still lifes.

 

 

On first sight, I loved her vibrant colours, her eye for pattern, and often her wit – as in "The Carp Sings the Blues" – which, by the way, measures almost 5 feet x 7 feet.

 

About this same time, a painting by Watteau showed up in an art newsletter, and I mentally wandered off again into Commedia dell'Arte territory.  Here is Watteau's famous "Pierrot", related to the Commedia's Pulcinella.

 

The ribbons on this clown's shoes were a great enticement to me when I made one of my first paintings in the early 1980s.  ("The White Clown," c. 1982) 

 

 Maybe this was the reason I'd saved some ample ribbons over the years, just waiting for – the right shoe?  And maybe a selection I'd noted from Harriet Shorr's book would guide a new experiment.

 

"For many painters, drawing is the first step in painting; the structure…is worked out first in a drawing and the color is applied within the boundaries of that drawing.  I found…(this)..did not help me organize a painting.  It has been my observation that beginning with a contour results in a smaller form than beginning with a color and working out to the edge where that color meets another." (-Harriet Shorr)

 

I'm still not sure what this means in practice – I would love to have seen her at work.  But I decided to give it a try, setting up shoes and ribbons and playing with the arrangement.

 

Eventually, I dispensed with the red ribbon and repositioned the lighter shoe.  Then I plunged in, starting with only the faintest lines to guide their placement on the canvas, and starting with only one colour and "working out to the edge where that color meets another."

 

This was a very different way of working and required intense concentration – especially with the different tones and highlights within a shape.

 

Here's the final version of "Out of Step" (c. 2025).  It's an odd outcome, and you'll be glad to know it is not 5 ft x 7 ft, but only 12 x 16 inches.  I'm not sure what I learned from this that might be of lasting value. I'll have to see, as times goes on.

 

Meanwhile, some of you have inquired about the Darth Vader persona that saw me through the recent atmospheric river.  I'll take this opportunity to report that Darth has gone upscale (if Levi's brand can be considered upscale).

 

 

Murky waters, lost pathways

 

 

What a topsy-turvy week it's been – in a topsy-turvy world.  As a small example, assume the "creature" pictured above is facing left.  A fish, yes?  Now assume it's racing to the right—looks like a turtle. 

 

Are we coming or going?  The usual pathways are so obscured.

 

I remember a passage from Dante that was quoted in a long-ago self-development book:

 

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was…"  (- from The Divine Comedy) 

Underfoot, there are features half strange and half familiar:  (Red lava? – who knew??)

 

And then come unexpected objects in our path, tempest-tossed:

 

 

 

I've felt unsettled for most of this year, and it's scarcely a time now to figure out where I am and what I'm doing in my art.  A big project I've tried to focus on has been slow in materializing – and so much, everywhere, is unsettled, difficult to understand. 

 

 

What can we do but take a brief break (or a nap!) – and go forward?  ("Where Are We?" – copyright 2024).  No, I hadn't intended the deer-in-headlights sitter to be a self-portrait.

 

Witch's brew or sweet treats?

 

Let's not use the stunning white-dotted Amanita muscaria for either brews or treats. The familiar fairy-tale illustrations don't provide ample warning for its toxic and hallucinogenic properties.  Besides, neighbourhood walks offer ample innocuous inedibles as feasts for the eyes.

 

Thinking of how I might brew up my own sweet treats for this fun and eerie time of year, I thought of a black canvas I created when I covered up a stale painting.  (Hmmm – is that what's called "deaccessioning"?   Sounds a little classier but my action doesn't fit the official definition)

 

On the black canvas, I planned to rearrange two slightly obscure master drawings that have always tantalized me.  Together, their monotones yield their own sweet treat.

 

The first is an intriguing drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder titled "The Beekeepers" (and Birdcatcher -- Be assured that a Catch and Release policy is in effect here).  

 

 Bruegel, by the way, is the painter of one of my top ten favourite paintings, "Hunters in the Snow."

 

The second is a drawing that surfaced in my Commedia dell'Arte research:-- "Punchinellos Cooking and Tasting Gnocchi" by Giambattista Tiepolo.

 

Not sure what gnocchi is?  For most of us, the store-bought version of this potato dumpling will have to do, but it's rumoured that ordinary mortals actually create their own -- if they have a magic kitchen to work in.

 

Put these two drawings (or parts of them) together and what do you get?  "Gnocchi with Honey."  Let's get cookin' –

 

Start adding a pinch of colour – not much is needed.

 

Push paint around to taste, and here it is – final version fresh from the honey shack:

 

 And if you've really missed the vibrant colours of autumn, here from the archives is "Cucurbit Immersive"(copyright 2021).

 

 

With the blink of an eye -- it's Harvest Season!

 

The frost is on the pumpkin – or at least it's been on the neighbourhood rooftops a few mornings; the Summer Camp "merch" has mostly been distributed; and the "Seven Views of Grouse Mountain" series is now installed to cover part of a patched-up basement wall.

 

Riding the bus one day, I was showered with a big bag of homegrown kale by a fellow rider.  It was the same week that my friend L. delivered Galiano Island apples and cherry tomatoes to my door, and….I couldn't resist.   I decided I'd use some of this abundance as props for a harvest-themed portrait in the manner of Arcimboldo.

 

When I first saw examples of his work, I thought he was an early 20^th-century surrealist.  But no. Although he was celebrated by artists like Salvador Dali, he was a 16^th century Italian Renaissance painter – and a court artist to boot.  His painting titled "Vertumnus" is a salute to both a Roman god and to the Holy Roman Emperor!  If you have the stomach for more politics, read here.

 

 

Okay – with some additions from the local grocery store, I splashed down my own version:--

 

Thinking of my cultured friends P and R, I at least had the grace not to try for Arcimboldo's "The Librarian"  -- although as retired specialized librarians, they just might find interesting the debate about the message of this painting.

 

In retrospect, I've wondered if Arcimboldo's weird vibes weren't responsible for the upheaval in my week – when my smoke/CO alarms went off in manic beeping and exclamations.  The Fire Department came and gave the all-clear, and the next day the alarm company replaced a defective unit – but I was a bit rattled.

 

Luckily this upset didn't interfere with a long-planned art tour north to Whistler, BC, for a fabulous exhibit of the works of Canadian artist Tom Thomson.  After that soothing (though exhilarating) experience, I decided to bring my week to a calm close with a small 8" x 10" study – not quite to Thomson's standards! – he made at least 150 in small size, leading in some cases, to his larger works.

 

Here's my little commemoration of a busy flock of white-crowned sparrows near West Van's Ambleside Beach where I waited for the tour group to convene.

 

At another gallery we visited on the Whistler trip, a bubbly artist named Jane Appleby showed us what real artists' "merch" looks like.  At the end of her talk, she gave each of us a pen with its small patterned swatch taken from one of her own paintings.