Nice, surprising start to 2018. Was "salon style" a factor?

Still feeling like quite the art show newbie, adjusting to manufactured environments and scenarios with as many unwritten rules as written... And then, upon inquiry and close inspection, discovering even the written rules don't always apply. But that's just any human endeavor, perhaps.

Recently, I altered the arrangement of my artwork as shown in my 10x10 tent. In some respects, the psychology of picture hanging is poppycock, because we all know good work when we see it, right? We don't require any soft sell, pop-psychology technique to show artistic merit. True enough. But what if you could hang art such that its collective compositional arrangement amplifies the works?

My decision was to lay out my space — which is roughly half of a stop sign, as though a book or magazine spread.

My previous setup strictly looked at each panel as though it was simply unto itself:

My new approach sought to dissolve the boundaries of the panels and inter-relate the rectangles and image content — flesh with flesh, horizon aligned with horizon, earth low, sky high (below), something I've since learned (although I ought to have known) is called "salon style."

For the first show using this approach in New Symrna Beach, the cohesive unity of the images as an ensemble created an illusion of grander scale, and of a more prolific portfolio. The simple psychology of creating "an energy" served to amplify an already-excited eye's perceptions, and even can result in the eye finding what it already naturally is seeking — different for each viewer — in the many snippets and details of the overall strand of images in this contrived, forced relationship.

I paint slow, but am always adding to my display. So the work itself might not deserve the full credit that its arrangement complimented. I was recipient of the George and June Musson Award at Images: A Festival of the Arts in January 2018.

And recently at the Stuart ArtsFest 2018, with a slight tweaking of the composition, I was awarded Best of Show. Was it the psychology of a salon style setup? I have to think it played a subtle role.

In closing, below is a painting of one of my granddaughters, Emerson... I have a couple of days into this, and feel like I'm off to a quick finish. Have to "color it up" and detract from my natural muddiness! Less a "portrait" and more a composition of a more universal human feeling with a cascade of hair. While I love the Pre-Raphaelites and their affinity for beauty, I also appreciate a painter's trait they abhorred — "sloshyness!"

Introducing “Cascade,” 24x30 oil on canvas (unfinished).

So, What Does 2018 Hold?

I'm excited to find out, because in all honesty, I have no idea what I'm going to paint next! Plans are to visit Europe (Scotland, England and the Netherlands) in the fall... I also still have a lot of fallen trees to cut-and-clear still from the 2017 hurricane season, and so you see why I'm "so looking forward" to "other" things!

Art festivals and shows I've been accepted to for 2018:

• Images: A Festival of the Arts 2018
  Riverside Drive and Canal Street
  New Smyrna Beach, Florida
  1/26/18 - 1/28/18
• ArtsFest Stuart 2018
  Memorial Park
  Stuart, Florida
  2/10/18 - 2/11/18
• Lake Wales Arts Festival 2018
  Shores of Lake Wailes
  Lake Wales, Florida
  2/24/18 - 2/25/18
• Gasparilla Festival of the Arts 2018
  Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park
  Tampa, Florida
  3/3/18 - 3/4/18
• Santa Fe College Spring Arts Festival 2018
  Downtown Gainesville (Historic NE 1st Street)
  Gainesville, Florida
  4/7/18 - 4/8/18
• Mainsail Art Festival 2018
  701 Bayshore Dr., NE Vinoy Park
  Saint Petersburg, Florida
  4/21/18 - 4/22/18

Hope to see you at one of these events!

In the meantime, it's been suggested, painting-wise, that I do a few new things: (1) Loosen-up on my realistic style, and, (2) Umm, maybe another subject other than your lovely partner? And, (3) work smaller at a more cash-and-carry scale for art shows.

My most recent paintings of 2018 might justify that second suggestion... Both were from some recent snapshots of my lovely wife's profile; each ever-so-slightly different, but vastly different in application. Here they are.

Salvia & Peony
30x24 oil on canvas
2018

Three Eggs
24x24 oil on canvas
2018

Driven/Not Driven, Discipline/Indiscipline

The more I paint, the more I realize one must be "driven" to some degree in order to progress. Otherwise, much time passes and little gets done. But I'm not.

I've always dodged the concept of "being driven" because I sensed something psychically unhealthy about it, and potentially gravely disappointing as reality smacked me head on. In addition, as I was raised by a military sergeant, I always misinterpreted the word "discipline" as a punitive consequence, rather than a beneficial character trait. Hence, I've always reveled in joyous indiscipline. It's taken me years to change that paradigm. My father's intended lessons are only just now penetrating my consciousness, 50 years after the fact. Do I regret my indiscipline? Well, no. I might be richer financially were it not for it, but instead, I'm richer spiritually because of it.

As I travel and meet many super-talented folks in this world — writers, photographers, painters, craftsmen, singers, songsmiths and players of all ilk of instruments (and sometimes, ALL of the above) — I realize there's a tribe of sorts that I enjoy the company of. And only few are fortunate enough to earn a living, peripherally even, from their skills; most are trading lifetimes for modern sustenance, postponing their natural drive. I was one.

While the economics of stubborn persistence-against-all-odds is never practical for artists, it's just something we do, regardless. But, what is success? In earnest I couldn't say I know at all. I think I personally might measure it piece-by-piece — that great song I spontaneously wrote and recorded on my iPhone last week that only a handful of friends will ever hear... That last painting that will never sell... And, so what? Though I have no problem accepting money for my art, I still have a problem tailoring my next project in pursuit of money, or even approval.

So, I'm not driven, really. I'm still indisciplined. I just have mind's-eye images I like to materialize; I hear tunes I like to pick out on guitar; I spew stream-of-consciousness phrases that become lyrics; and I see the wonder around me and document it somehow.

And you're one of the handful of friends that will ever see it.



Oh, by the way, my latest stuff:

Fairy Ring 
24x24 oil on canvas
One of my granddaughters, Baylor, was laid back on the floor and I took some snapshots. I paired this with many ground images from the woods. When considering how I might contrive a circular halo of sorts, I chanced upon a fungal distribution of mushrooms that formed a circle on the woods floor. I learned it's called a fairy ring. How appropriate!

Broken Angel 
36x36 acrylic on canvas
A profile pose referenced from a Victorian painting, the figure is paired with three yards of inexpensive fabric. The study resulted in an angelic image, though exhausted-looking. Dropping the broken wing and feathers into the foreground took the story a little further down the line.

Art is art and work is work. But artwork is also work.

Yeah, but of all the work I've ever done, I really dig it the most. Exploration, learning, hand in hand with drudgery and error. I love it.

As I transition back into a less computer-centric world, I occasionally lament that there is no Great Undo to withdraw my simple acts of human stupidity. But as I paint more, I also learn there ARE methods to undo error — but they're typically convoluted and require much time and energy to deconstruct and reconstruct. Control-ZZZZZZ.

My latest painting effort began in April, and combines scenes from our visit to the old town near where I lived as a kid. It also steals a Beatles' jacket from the Sgt. Pepper album, throws in my fiddle, a friend's trumpet and a Fender Stratocaster as homage to the gentleman central to the composition, Stewart McDonald.

Stewart's a Scottish photographer and musician I briefly met online discussing HDR photography. He posted a highly stylized self-portrait, and I commented that it would make a really cool painting. He visited my site and saw that I painted, and offered permission to use it. After many iterations of concepts, I went back to my childhood...

I think that's what we must do as we reach a certain point in the aging process. So, here I go! The painting is entitled "Aldeburgh Festival." Commenced in 1948, it's now called the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts. I imagined creating a poster for the event, and this is it...

 

 

The near-finished painting, Aldeburgh Festival. (Click to enlarge and scan the canvas details)

Getting Lucky in a College Town

I attended the Santa Fe College Spring Art Festival in Gainesville April 1–2, 2017 and was really fortunate to both collect an Award of Excellence and sell a painting! It was somewhat redeeming to be acknowledged in this particular judged ranking (top-to-bottom ranking goes: Best of Show; Award of Excellence; Award of Distinction; Award of Merit). Only last month I was in my hometown, and couldn't muster any acknowledgement of the sort. A slight "clash" with the judge from the get-go occurred on what was — and was not — "photorealism" and it was all downhill from there. It's been said, only respond to questions and shut the hell up, otherwise, when it comes to talking to judges...

The painting Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright couldn't have been sold it to a better patron. He's an author and radio host on the topic of dream journaling, dream recall and dream integration.   Originally I sold him a print, but he contacted me online later the first day of the show to say he wanted the original painting. Of course, I've been given the "I'll be back" line before, but we met the next morning before the show began and sealed the deal.

To my own amazement, as much psychic energy as I put into that work, it left me with no pangs of departure whatsoever! It couldn't have gone to a better home, and may all my positive energies pass on to whomever may view it henceforth.

While I am somewhat acutely attuned to my own intuitions and senses, I simply take them for granted as everyday experiences, and don't put much emphasis on their significance, though I note their symbolism. Thanks to Sting's Jungian songwriting, I used to log my dreams, and journal, but I think I put too much emphasis on hoping some cure-all would come of things, and soon. So I trailed off. These days I rarely dream, or at least have recall. And not all dreams are positive — I once awoke from a dream of kicking an attacking alligator in the snout, only to find my wife's feet at the other end... A reason not to dream, perhaps.

Eking Forward (Yes, That's a Word)

I don't typically write about something before it happens, but I'll be in Gainesville this coming Friday setting up for the Sante Fe College Spring Art Festival over the weekend.

Thinking about the limited range of my efforts, we decided that some "spinoffs" as supporting cast to a larger painting would serve to catapult its brethren by collective association. Artist Christopher Still is meticulous in his pre-project studies and I've seen a great niche market he has created by showing and selling these alongside his "master" painting.

Already late into the process, in the short term I simply needed to create smaller, accessible paintings. The buyer of anything large I might sell is already a one-in-one-thousand or greater odd. Smaller paintings are for smaller walls. Let's get real.

So, in a contrived reverse mode, I created alternative spinoff components of a "master." Hung together as a grouping, I feel amplifies the works such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That's Aristotle, by the way. I think he was Jackie O's rich husband or something.

 

Here's some iPhone shots of the 8x8-inch spinoffs...

Still figgerin'. Hope to see you there!

The Sweet Misery of Happiness

My last showing at the Lake Wales Art Festival (February 2017) was nice, in that, again, I met some GREAT folks! I also was selected for an Award of Excellence. There was a very broad range of awards and prize monies at this event, even though it's relatively in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the very small downtown of Lake Wales.

Once again, I dragged a couple of my "completed" paintings just a little further by adding new compositional elements to each. Where I recently added several hummingbirds to the self portrait/figure study (entitled, Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright), I squelched the question finally as to just "why" those birds are flittering around my head — it's because of the flowers emanating from my hands and hidden face! I certainly hope it's at last done!

And for The Moth Eater, I added depth to a studio image by putting a horizon and pastoral scene behind the subject...

 

I wish I was a faster painter... more driven and prolific. But I certainly don't need the baggage of being so wrapped up in my artwork and its "meaning" as to be removed from my real existence —which, by the way — is blissful and beautiful already. Oh the sweet misery of happiness!