Archive for November, 2010
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international movement and style of art, architecture and applied art that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th Century (1890-1905). The name “Art Nouveau” is French for “New Art”. It is characterized by floral and other planting inspired motifs, as well as highly stylized, flowery curvilinear forms. Art Nouveau is an approach to design in which artists were to work on everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life. Art Nouveau is also a movement of individuals, among which was oil painter Gustav Klimt.
Henry Van de Velde and Victor Horta, two Belgian architects, seem to have invented Art Nouveau which was originally called The Belgian Style. Its peak is most strongly felt throughout Europe, but its influence was global. Although Art Nouveau fell out of favor with the arrival of 20th century modernist styles, it is seen today as an important bridge between Neoclassicism and modernism.
2010 Thanksgiving for Me
My friends, Cassandra and Mark, started a group many years ago which celebrated Thanksgiving together. At that time, all had families elsewhere, so it was good for them to get together for the holiday. For several years the group rotated among their various homes, but at this point one couple has hosted the group for a few years, cooking the turkey, and the others each bring a dish.
We traveled south of Austin to a small town called San Marcos and then out to a country home with its lovely live oak trees and spacious grounds. I so wished I had my easel and paints ready for a landscape painting.
Since Mark is a Botany professor and Cassandra is a landscape painter, their friends were mostly from professional and academic fields. Diane and I enjoyed meeting their friends and enjoying Thanksgiving again with them, as we had last year.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving brings many things to mind: family and friends, football and fireside naps, colorful leaves and cozy sweaters, cranberries and pumpkin pie. All of these touch a warm spot in our heart.
We are also grateful to the leaders of our nation, past and present, who have led us and made our country great, and to our veterans who work to keep it free. We are grateful to our parents and others who have inspired us to become the people we are today. We think of our many teachers who have taught and inspired us to become the artists we are today. And we are grateful. We wish you and yours a relaxing and joyful holiday.
On Being Creative
Robert Genn, Canadian plein air painter, described his morning walk today. With his faithful dog, Dorothy, he walked through the fog and the forest, describing the damp forest floor, the songs of the birds and allowing Dorothy freedom to explore as she chose. He comments that our brains don’t do their best thinking when pressed into service or when called upon to produce. Better times for thinking, especially thinking ahead happens when we are walking, resting, or mildly engaged in something else – something pleasant, routine, distracting. The best ideas come in the second half of the walk.
One of his readers commented that the more he got out and rode his horse, the more productive he was. Even better were the ideas that came while he was cleaning the stalls. Another agreed that walking his dog by the beach each morning set the tone for the day. Another artist walks along the irrigation ditches in her area seeing raccoons, hawks, muskrats and coyotes, as well as beautiful cottonwood trees. I generally walk a mile before breakfast – to get my body in motion before my mind knows it’s awake! According to top psychologists as well as Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost and William Wordsworth, taking time for a walk figures things out and adds joy and efficiency to the day ahead.
Another Expressionist – Franz Marc
At first, Franz Marc (1880-1916) painted less abstractly than his friend, Kandinsky. He felt true spirituality could be achieved by returning to nature, to the primitive. He painted animals because, to him, they represent purity, untainted by society…”an animal’s unadulterated awareness of life made me respond with everything that was good in me”.
The color combinations of the Fauves showed Marc that an artist doesn’t have to use naturalistic colors. He began to paint his famous blue horses, a purple fox, a bright yellow cow. However, from 1913 until his death, he moved toward pure abstraction.
Horse Dreaming, painted in 1913, is a bridge between his more realistic work and his later abstract art. In it the realistic elements are not more and not less important that the abstract ones. To harmonize the representational horses with the abstract circles, cylinders and triangles that surround them, he simplified the horses into geometric units. Both the abstract and representational elements look like geometry problems that can only be solved through the imagination. The mysteriousness of the painting draws you into the horse’s dream so that it becomes your own.
Diane
Diane is a very special friend. She has been painting since 1982. Her first workshop was painting in acrylics with Bill Gerhold in West Virginia, the “Wilderness Painter of West Virginia“. The next several years she painted in watercolors and oils with Bill. Later, she attended Wild Acres in North Carolina, painting in oils with Bob Osborne and watercolors with Herbie Rose, both from Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL. She met Cassandra James in 2004 in a plein air painting class at Wild Acres. Diane and Cassandra have been good friends ever since. I met Diane in one of those plein air classes.
Diane has had a long career in nursing. Just before her retirement in 1984 from Duke University Pediatric Nursing Service, she was supervisor of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Nursery. Diane looks and acts as though she is in her 60s, but this lady is 91 years old!
Off to Austin
Today I leave for Durham, NC. I will spend tomorrow with my friend, Diane, and on Saturday we fly to Austin, Texas, home of my former teacher, Cassandra James.
Diane and I were both students of Cassandra, well-known Austin painter who taught at Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL. for several years. We met her when she was teaching a summer plein air class at Wild Acres, a retreat near Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway, about 40 miles east of Asheville, NC.
Five or more years ago Cassandra began falling. At first, it was occasionally, then more often. It took a long time for the doctors to determine her problem. I can vividly remember when her husband said to me, “We hope it is Parkinson’s”. I was dismayed! I thought, “That’s terrible! But what if it’s not?”
It was worse. When we visited last year, Diane and I helped her everywhere holding her arm or pushing the wheelchair. Today she has care 24/7. I feel better going with Diane because she was a nurse, now retired. Otherwise, I think I would be overwhelmed. Yet I feel close to Cassandra and compelled to go because she is the one who started my art in a new direction.
Turn Vision into Victory – Part II
Continuing from yesterday – three more observations:
Fourth, we need too be aware of how and when we sabotage ourselves. We need to catch ourselves before negative thoughts manifest into destructive behavior (She also has an article 25 Ways to Avoid Career Sabotage in the October 2010 issue of Art Calendar magazine). Fifth, we don’t need to wait until we think we’re ready, but instead believe the right time is now! We don’t need to wait until we have our oil painting finished, a degree, have a gallery representation or a formal studio. Now is the time to act! Sixth, we need to take one step forward today that will validate our commitment to achieving our dream. And then take another step tomorrow and every day hereafter.
The important thing to remember is that the only limits we have are the ones we place on ourselves. The universe truly supports us when we proceed with right action. Joseph Campbell said, “When you follow your bliss, you put yourself on the track that has been there all the time waiting for you”. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), an English clergyman, professor, historian and novelist said, “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about”.
Turn Vision into Victory
This is a continuation of yesterday’s blog spot. What if you have a vision but haven’t been able to start the process of manifesting your vision into reality? When and how do you turn your vision into a victory?
Ms. Phillips says she has learned some basic truths about people. I will mention three of them today and three more tomorrow.
First, we all need affirmations from others from time to time. We need a person whom we respect and who wants the best for us to enthusiastically say, “Yes, you can!” Secondly, we need to make our goals real and tangible. We need to write them down, read them daily and take action steps accordingly. We could even simply write on a calendar in big red letters the date we want to complete our new oil painting or other project, present our first workshop, or publish our new Web site, and take steps that will lead to that wonderful goal. Thirdly, we need to follow our vision with unwavering conviction and passion. We need to step out of our comfort zone and experience our highest potential.. When we feel fearful or insecure, we need to move ahead anyway. We need to trust in the Abundance of Purpose – that belief that at its core, nearly every person‘s life is driven by the urge to express himself fully and completely as a unique individual, and live with meaning and purpose.
Clarify your Goals
This blog spot is taken from an article by Renee Phillips called “Living with an Abundance of Purpose” found in the November 2010 issue of Art calendar. Ms. Phillips calls herself The Artrepreneur Coach, counsels artists world wide and is a motivational speaker.
It is important to check with yourself occasionally and ask, “Am I pursuing my goals now? Do I feel passionate about the kind of oil paintings (or other) I am producing now? Are my life’s mission, core values and creative goals in harmony or in conflict?” We could also add, “Where do you want to be two years from now? If you were to appear on the cover of a major magazine, what would you want the headline to say?”
You may have the passion, but are your desires still out of reach? Are you still feeling powerless? Dare to embrace those big dreams that seem elusive and integrate them into your daily habits. What action could you take right now that would set your dream in motion? The secret weapon is to muster up courage and move forward anyway in spite of fears, anxieties, self doubt and lack of self confidence.
As Eleanor Roosevelt said: “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”