I would like to share some art with y'all. This image, entitled Persphone, is by Linda Joyce Franks, an artist from New Orleans. Her website is Nimbvs.com and I highly recommend you giving it a visit sometime. I think her work is beautiful.
The reasons for posting this image are 1) because I like it and 2) because, despite my ramblings about vacuum cleaners and such, this blog is really supposed to be about art. Now, one would immediately jump to the conclusion that this "art" should technically be my art. And yeah, that's a great theory. But I'm not cranking out artwork fast enough right now to keep the blog current with stuff .... thus I ramble on about aforementioned vacuum cleaners and other people's art I am inspired by.
So what about this one???
Well, I've been working on a Kwan Yin. Progress is being made but something (that elusive, mysterious something!) is just not clicking. I suppose I should post a "work in progress" photo. I'm not going to. Still too early in the game. Which, of course, means that what's on the canvas today may very well not be there tomorrow.
Every artist knows the miracle of gesso can cure many a painting dilemma and/or woe.
"You have a woe?"
"Yes, Virginia, I have an artistic woe."
Part of me is resistant to gessoing over what I've already spent lots of hours painting. Despite not being "inspired" by what's developing on the canvas I know if I persist I'll end up with a nice painting. Thus comes the woe ... I don't want just another nice painting. I want a Wow, not a Woe. A wow would require a couple of coats of gesso and a restart. More specifically, a redesign of the whole image. Here is where the featured artwork of Linda Joyce Franks comes into play.
Y'all knew I'd get to that eventually, didn't ya'.
There is something about the layout of this image, the texture on the canvas, the two-part imagery of the concept of Persephone, one part soft and the other almost a vintage technical illustration which appeals to me. It's more than just another painted face on a canvas. There's more going on, visual interest. I like it. I like it a lot. I want to do that, too. I want to do it with my Kwan Yin.
What holds me back from rushing down the hall into the studio and simply having at? Ah, another interesting question with a sadly lame answer. Dread. Yeah, you heard me. Dread.
Whenever I start a painting the husband, or someone else, likes he tends to get fixated on it being Just That Way, no deviation to completion. This is especially true when I'm doing portraiture, as the is case with Kwan Yin. It's as if the reference material I'm working from is a stone tablet straight from the hand of the Divine. I'm not supposed to change anything lest thunderbolts of lightening come raining down from the Heavens and blast me into the abyss.
Even in the process of working, and the painting still very much in the early stages, he's come into the studio, looks over my shoulder, and says stuff like, "Aren't you going to do the hair like that?" or "I thought you said you were going to paint the shirt white ...." Etc., Etc., Etc. It's incredibly stressful and confining to my spontaneity, my creativity. It's the same when he comes into the studio and says, "I don't like collage (or abstract) .....", ending the statement with this big, hanging pause as if he's waiting for me to suddenly stop doing it just because he doesn't like them. It usually happens when he knows that's exactly what I'm painting right then.
I really hate to hear it. I dread the thought of the 20 Questions Game of Why which will most assuredly occur when he comes home Friday as sees I have suddenly and irrationally decided what I was working on just isn't working for me.
I guess the bigger question, Virginia, is why do I let it bother me at all? That's not so easy to answer. It involves self-confidence issues as an artist. It involves feeling second-guessed, as if I have to ask permission to do what I want to do. It involves absolutely despising the feeling of having to explain or justify the work I do for myself to anyone, period. (Commissioned work is another beast altogether and somewhat exempt from harassment by anyone other than a client.) It involves issues of someone being in my space while I'm working. It involves breathing. It gets complicated. It's an artist-mentality thing.
Truth is, I don't care if he likes it or not. I've even told him that several times. It's just that I don't like being "cramped" when I'm working and that, very often, is exactly how I feel when he, or anyone, makes comments such as "Why didn't you ... ?" or "I thought you were going to ... ?"
"Scuze me, but I'm an artist, and I'm female ... I change my mind. As a matter of fact, I think I even have a Divine girly-girl right to do so ...... so leave me alone, Thank You Very Much.
Now, critique I can handle. Bring it on! Love it! Helps me grow as an artist. Too often I can look at the same painting too long and lose perspective on it, so to speak. Having a fresh eye, or two, can - and has many times - helped bring a painting I was struggling with to a good resolution. I learned critique to be valuable way back many moons ago when I was a first-year Graphic Arts student in college. It's not a personal attack, it's meant to help you create better work. If you can accept it as such then it's a great thing.
But the husband's comments, and some others, aren't in the critique category. What I realize is it is somewhat like going to the freezer to get the carton of vanilla ice cream, reaching in to the place where the vanilla ice cream is always kept, has been the routine storage spot of this favored vanilla ice cream for all the time you've had the freezer, but when you reach in some has replaced your vanilla with chocolate. Now, chocolate is pretty good, and you may very well enjoy chocolate, but your taste buds wanted vanilla, they expected vanilla, and the substituted chocolate sort of violates the whole vanilla ice cream experience you were all geared up for.
I understand that, I really do.
I like vanilla, too.
But I like chocolate, strawberry, mint-chocolate chip, peppermint stick and even raspberry sorbet. Sometimes I want vanilla, but when I get to the freezer and see the other flavors I can change my mind and have strawberry instead. And, sometimes I even like more than one flavor in my bowl. I'm radical like that. I can be adventurous and daring with my ice cream.
The husband likes vanilla, stored in the same place, the same spoon and bowl, served the same way, every time. To upset this routine can cause him to not even bother eating the ice cream at all.
Thus, he likes for me to paint portraits of pretty/attractive women, using acrylic, on canvas, exactly as I've planned from my reference materials. This comes from the result of the first one I painted, which he liked, a lot. His theory is this ... If I can paint that, then why would I paint anything else? IE: collage, abstract, watercolor. (I'm sure y'all can guess my response to that theory.) Just this evening while he and I were on the phone and I was talking about how the Kwan Yin wasn't working he says, "Yeah, but that's the way it was when you were working on Preordained and it turned out to be one of your best paintings."
In other words ... "Do it anyway because I want you to because I think it will be like the other one I like and that's what I want you to paint."
Oh really?
When I get home from art class tonight I believe I will be introducing Kwan Yin to gesso.
Namaste y'all ...
No comments:
Post a Comment