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 20th 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).
