Artistic Heritage

I made a pilgrimage to the Maine coast to visit the places where David Lund, my painting teacher extraordinaire from 1967, and Marvin Bileck, my mentor from Queens College in 1968, spent summers for over 40 years. David still goes there; Marvin died several years ago. Marvin's partner Emily Nelligan still goes there to draw, and is the local heroine.
We flew to Portland and drove up to Stonington on Deer Isle. The light is so brilliant and the air so clear. Stimulating. You want to breathe in all you can store up. Great lobster too. Photos....

The next morning we went by David Lund's house in Stonington and I saw the view which inspired him so long ago. Still there, the water, the rocks, the craggy look, the trees.

Onward to our longer stay on Great Cranberry Island. The ferry rides were my favorite part - the mountains of Mount Desert Island, the sky, the fog that surrounds everything, the water, the waves, the sunlight, the pointy trees that must be balsam firs. Ahhh. Maybe we'll return next summer and I will have a residency at LaHotan and Carl will rent the same lovely house with the out of tune piano and porch swing and feeling of warmth everywhere.

Home in Takoma Park now, trying to adjust, having missed the earthquake here by one day, and avoided the electrical outage. We review the photos in slide show format, trying to get more of that air, that light, that space.

Wait, there is more to this post. All those painters - Marin, Hartley, Lund ..... even Hopper and tons more you've seen - they all soaked up and worked from that Maine landscape. No wonder I needed to go there, and no wonder I loved it too.

Content

After my recent gallery visits and a workshop on artist's liberation and creativity - I am thinking about society's definition of "success" as an artist, and about the truth telling function of art.
There is pretty art, beautiful art, disturbing art, highly crafted and craft focused art. All kinds. Humorous, gigantic, miniature. All kinds of characteristics, and motivations, and functions. Decorating one's pricey home with colorful abstraction seems to be in vogue in this area. Is that too sarcastic? Or is it just the truth?
The danger for some of us who sell art (sometimes) is in thinking that our art is "to sell." As if that is it's motivation and function.
So I'm thinking back to the work I did several years ago - the work that didn't "fit easily" into anyone's home. I will upload a couple of those pieces here, and no doubt more in the future.

This one is called "Prague Cemetery. It is from my series called "Still With Us", done after visiting Terezin, a concentration camp near Prague, in 1998.

This is "Imprisoned." When I was 5 years old my relatives told me about a sign at a swimming pool in nearby Clayton Missouri that said No Jews or Dogs Allowed.

Art in Chevy Chase

Last night I attended the opening of a group show in the DC area. My artist neighbor was in the show, which was my reason for going. I wanted to support her, and give my blessing to this gallery/money making venture.
I'd never clicked with that particular gallery in it's previous incarnation - I and my work just didn't fit there. This was no different in those ways - and it was even clearer to me.
There was a ton of work on the walls and a ton of people at the opening. The work didn't look like me or reflect me on a deep level - though I had hoped I'd see something that would even make me jealous, if you can understand that. My favorites were my friend's soothing and beautiful landscapes, and another painter's big energetic colorful landscapes and portrait.
The people didn't look like me either. I am seriously looking at and getting some distance on what I call "this class thing." I'd say 90-95% of the visitors were dressed in a way that was supposed to be glamorous. Maybe it was. To me it was not. Something about the costume/uniform of "looking good" - guess I will speak more on that in another post, if I can relate it cleanly to ART.
Amazingly one woman appeared at the door to the gallery dressed in black and looking totally unpretentious. I was sure she was an artist, and close to me in age. She stood out, all in black like that.
Eventually I approached her and we had a real conversation and a real connection. What a lift!
The net result though was that I woke up feeling ill, and only recovered when I saw the work of Felix Angel at a gallery this morning. Complex collages that satisfied the mind and spirit, deep, thought provoking, nourishing.
Whew!

Cape Cod land

Ahhhh, Cape Cod land and sea. The marsh looks different now - no surprise. The horizon and environs captivate me. I know water is my next "thing."

More photos

Here is Joanne Mattera, artist, originator of the international encaustic conference, and artist supporter extraordinaire, speaking at the recent conference in Provincetown, Mass. She sets a tone of mutual support, respect, and help among the artists who attend- really quite amazing. She continues that attitude all year long at her informative blog:  joannemattera.blogspot.com/

Joanne Mattera

"Black and White" is a painting of one of the cows who live across the road from the VCCA in Amherst, Virginia. Someone recently said I should show my cow paintings in Vermont because they love cows there. I answered that there must be hundreds of cow paintings and they surely don't need more. She said, "But this one has so much soul."

Black and White, encaustic on wood, 6x6"

Work by Sondra Arkin at Longview Gallery.

openings

 Me with Betsy Damon and Sue Collier at my Ceres show

Woah, I've been to a few lately, just a few. My own at Ceres April 28, several in Provincetown during the Encaustic Conference (I had a piece in the Beeline show at Kobalt), and one at Longview Gallery in DC, just the other night. Each is its own scene. Some openings make me ill, and I'm determined to attend enough to figure this out. Maybe if you're in the "in crowd" it's fun, and if you're not, it's not.

A tiny part of the crowd at the Beeline show at Kobalt Gallery in Provincetown

View from the tip of Cape Cod, near the conference site. Yum.

Longview Gallery owner and admirer

I am a romantic

Here is a link to a youtube video. It's short and gorgeous, to me. I took the footage with my little canon sure shot camera, up in Cape Cod several months ago. My husband is at the piano.
The violinist looks like my painting mentor from NYC, and when he closes his eyes and plays - ahh, he reminds me so much of my violin teacher from grade school, Mr. Lang.
I did a painting once called Maybe. I wrote on it - can I remember? - "Mr. Lang was my first music teacher. He played with all his heart and soul. Maybe I had a soul too."
I wonder if feeling is out of style now, or if hectic perfectionistic technique passes for art. Art is the middle of things. Comes from the middle, goes TO the middle. Well, that is too simple sounding. If people really responded to blog posts, this would make an interesting conversation. I guess I believe that "technique" has to be in the service of the heart, the soul, the spirit, not just the head, and certainly not of fashion!