The Productive Paradox
Dark Water January, Acrylic on Linen, 36” X 36”. Note the compressed palette, simplified shapes, and internal geometry.
My paintings are the result of a productive paradox. On the one hand, I strive to keep them “open” without resolving every last mark so that the viewer is free to regard them from the perspective of the viewer’s own subjectivity. On the other, I adhere to certain self-imposed constraints, a kind of personal formalism: a square format, a palette restricted to five hues, high contrast and simplified shapes. Paradoxically, the tightened context in which I work opens my paintings to infinite creative possibility. It is this possibility that has led me away from strict realism to paintings that flirt with abstraction.
When I evoke Formalism, I fear that I am playing with fire. When I was a RISD undergrad I was introduced to the Formalism of Clement Greenberg by several of my professors who “grew up” under his influence. I understood that paintings should be flat, that the medium should determine the direction a painting would take, and that reference to anything other than the thing itself was to be avoided. This was stifling to a kid who had barely lived long enough to have anything to say in the first place.
I find the romantic (my word for it) Formalism of Clive Bell a little easier to accept than that of Greenberg, though it is still problematic. Bell came up with a concept he called “significant form” or the notion that certain combinations of formal elements produce what he called “aesthetic emotion”. Bell believed that to appreciate a work of art we need not reference life—no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions—nothing but a sense of form and color and a knowledge of three-dimensional space were necessary. Significant form would carry all necessary meaning. Significant form alone would produce a feeling of awe in a viewer. Anything else was extraneous…even, apparently, the painter’s own experience.
Recently, my husband and I took a long car trip. During the ride I tried to explain to him the direction I have been taking in my work by explaining my own personal approach to formalism. I explained that I want my paintings to be built upon a geometry that will lead the eye through the work and support the picture like an armature. I want to experiment with color, to push its possibilities by limiting the range of hues in my palette. And I want to create and occasionally deny the illusion of space through value and the visual cues that we have learned to “read” by years of looking at three dimensions represented on a two-dimensional surface… And there it was. My departure from the Formalism of Clement Greenberg and Clive Bell.
My formalism leaves room for lived experience—in fact, it depends on it. I believe that the mathematics of the rule of thirds, the golden mean, or the illusion of space and our understanding of value and hue are learned concepts that we internalize as we experience the world. Their resulting design becomes normal and desirable to us. I agree with Bell and Greenberg that formal principles matter enormously, but unlike them, I believe they work on us through our embodied experience of being in the world and that they cannot be separated through the assertion of cold knowledge. And yet, despite our differences, I think that Greenberg, Bell, and I eventually arrive at the same place. A tightened context—limited palette, simplified shapes, high contrast, and an attention to the actual experience of painting—do not close a painting down. Rather, they open it up. By eliminating the extraneous, a painter creates a silent space around the essential, and this is where the viewer’s subjectivity may enter.
Sources:
Greenberg, Clement, “The Crisis of the Easel Picture” 1948, in Art and Culture, pp. 154-157.
Dowling, Christopher, “Aesthetic Formalism” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/aesthetic-formalism/
Pentimento
My mother was known for her gorgeous handwriting. It was round and loopy, and each letter was beautifully formed. I’ve never seen hand-drawn script that was so easy and pleasant to read—each word proceeded across the page on a perfectly straight line even when the paper was unlined! Her handwriting is the most precious echo I have of my mother’s presence. I trace it on recipe cards and little notes that I have saved, and it makes me think of the legacy of marks that I wish to leave to my children.
Over the past year, my painting has become much freer. I am allowing the spontaneity of my initial impulses to remain alive on the canvas—my “hand” is now visible in the work. I’ve written before that I think of this as a sort of pentimento. We usually understand pentimento as evidence that an artist has changed their mind as seen by the marks that show through the final work. I see it more as a way of making the process of painting the message. Rather than evidence of doubt, I intend it to be an ongoing signature that marks my presence, however temporary. I hope my children will be able to connect with me after I’m gone by tracing the conversations I have with myself on the canvas today.
I started thinking about pentimento, the marks that remain, as I was researching women painters whose careers didn’t gain momentum until after they had finished lives as mothers/wives/workers. I was looking at Rose Wylie (b. 1934) and Lois Dodd (b. 1927).
Wylie went to art school in the 1950s but put her career on hold for marriage and children. She went back for her MA in 1979 (the year I was a freshman at RISD) and got her first big break with her series, Room Project (2003-04), which was chosen for East International at Norwich Gallery. It garnered career-boosting attention from the art world that continues today. She was seventy-years-old.
Lois Dodd graduated from Cooper Union in 1948 and returned from studying in Rome in 1950. She married and had a son, but unlike Wylie (and me) she did not put her artistic career on pause. After her divorce from sculptor William King, she raised her son in a home on the Lower East Side of New York with two other single women artists and their children. Dodd began showing her work early, though sustained art world attention didn’t come until she was much older. She had her first major solo exhibition in 2012 after over sixty years of consistent painting.
Lois Dodd, White Pinecone on Windowsill, 2025, il on Masonite, 12 × 20 inches
As for career trajectory, I have more in common with Rose Wylie than Lois Dodd, but it is to Dodd whom I turn as a kindred spirit; her paintings speak to me. She filters the world down to its essentials: this color, that shape simplified, examined, quiet. And because Dodd paints in Maine (not far from my home) I “know” her subject matter like an old friend. I have a great reverence and appreciation for formal artistic precepts. I respond to color, volume, and contrast. I’m a traditionalist who seeks to challenge tradition from within, but I still get great satisfaction from working in a tight artistic context: limited palette, simplified shapes, high contrast, the picture plane as an arena for experimentation. For me, a tightened context yields a greater impact.
Rose Wylie, Installation view, 'Quack Quack' Serpentine North Gallery, London (30 November 2017 – 11 February 2018) Photograph © 2017 Mike Din
Rose Wylie’s work commands attention. It is raw. Her wild juxtapositions and ironic satire are intriguing, but I feel bludgeoned by their flat, childlike insistence. She draws from her imagination, memories, and current events and paints words and images on large pieces of unprimed canvas or paper that she works and reworks so there is actual pentimento present. Her marks reveal her process, which I find quite exciting. However, I am repelled by her work. While I have the greatest respect for Rose Wylie and appreciate what she has accomplished, I am already living with the exhaustion of the cultural noise she draws from. Her work offers me no refuge or transformation. Rather, it amplifies the signal I am trying to escape.
Neither Lois Dodd nor Rose Wylie ever stopped making pictures. Dodd maintained a career a little earlier. Wylie put that part of her life on pause while she attended to life’s other demands. Yet both have been painting consistently for several years as older women, and both will leave traces of their passage on this earth that will speak not only to strangers like me, but possibly more profoundly to the children and grandchildren they will leave behind. Those children might look at the work and think, this is what my mother thought. This is what she saw. This is what moved her so that she felt compelled to make a record of it. This is who my mother was as an artist and as a person.
This pentimento is what I hope to leave my own children and grandchildren. I may never sell a painting, but hopefully my children will be able to connect with me after I’m gone by tracing the conversations I have with myself on the canvas. It is who I am.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-91-rose-wylie-breaking-rules-joyful-paintings
https://www.alexandregallery.com/artists-work/lois-dodd#tab:slideshow;tab-1:thumbnails
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Wylie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Dodd
https://hyperallergic.com/the-sacrifices-of-the-single-mother-artist/
https://brooklynrail.org/2023/10/art/Rose-Wylie-with-Suzanne-Hudson/
https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-lois-dodds-paintings-frame-everyday-life#:~:text=Although she frequently exhibited her,all based on direct observation
https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/rose-wylie-quack-quack/
https://www.alexandregallery.com/artists-work/lois-dodd#tab:slideshow;tab-1:thumbnails
How to keep acrylics wet longer on the palette
I use Golden Open Acrylics which take longer to dry than regular acrylics, but they do dry significantly faster than oil paints. Working on a glass palette, I don’t want my paint to dry after my studio time, so I have devised a method of keeping my paint wet My palette is shown (above left). In the top corner I have a spray-can capful of water. This fits under a large plastic container—the kind that contains spinach or lettuce. At the end of a painting session, I cover the palette and the capful of water with the plastic box and put a weight on top (above right). I have kept acrylic paint wet using this method for over a week. It also works with traditional quick drying acrylics.
By the way, the weight I use is an old coffee can with a heavy floral cage for arranging plants glued to the bottom with years of oil paint. I treasure this can. I’ve had it since undergraduate school. For years I worked in oil, but I started working in acrylics when I was asked to teach them at the New England Institute of Art, and I got hooked. The cleanup is easy, acrylics don’t clog drains, and that old plant cage works well in the bottom of the can for cleaning brushes be they in turpentine or water.
Four painters who matter to me
When I was teaching I used to tell my students that it was important that they get to know their community. This was my way of encouraging them to learn about the work of artists they found inspiring or that spoke to them in some way. Of course, I wouldn’t tell my students to do something I don’t do myself. Neil Welliver, Richard Diebenkorn, Eric Aho, and David Frazer are four artists whose work inspires and informs my own painting.
Neil Welliver, Flotsam Allagash, Woodcut, 1995
I feel a kinship with Neil Welliver who also painted the Maine Landscape. Like him, I aim for simplicity and a balance between abstraction and realism. I am also committed to getting the most from a very limited palette. I greatly admire how Welliver was able to capture honest Maine-ness devoid of lobster boats and lighthouses. There is a coldness about his paintings that put me off when I was younger, but that I understand now that I live in Maine. The light here is cold, even in summer. While beautiful, there’s a harshness to the Maine environment, an isolation, that comes through Welliver’s paintings clearly.
Richard Diebenkorn, View From the Porch, Oil on Canvas, 1959
I am inspired by Diebenkorn’s courage as a painter. This painting is an example of one where the subject might be landscape as indicated by the strong horizon and blue top area, but Diebenkorn seems to have been equally interested the tight geometry of the canvas. I find I can read the picture plane as deep if I allow myself to see it as landscape and very shallow if I look at it as pure design. I am intrigued by this tension.
Eric Aho, Source, Oil on Linen, 2018
Aho also takes inspiration from the landscape. He paints in New Hampshire, Vermont, Finland, and Maine. He uses the landscape as a fulcrum to create a personal vision that is evocative yet completely personal. I am drawn to the different energies in his canvases: some are very calm while others are wild. I get the feeling that Aho simply lets go and paints like a madman. But the paintings are always structurally strong—held together by an underlying logic. In this painting the powerful dark verticals guide your eye across the canvas with pauses at the bursts of light and color.
David Frazer, Harborside, Oil on Canvas, 2025
The final painting is an example of the work of one of my teachers from RISD, David Frazer. This work, Harborside, oil on canvas, 2025 is a good example of the way Frazer has developed a personal iconography. I remember some of these glyphs from when I was a student and I’m fascinated that my teacher has never abandoned them. I like that his work manages to talk about something without being illustrative and that the symbols are repeated throughout his oeuvre like some sort of hieroglyphics that I am free to interpret as I wish.
Finally, joy
Life drawing, caran d’ache on Duralene
I wonder if I can adequately express the joy I feel when I am painting. Heck, I feel joyful when I am simply thinking about painting. And this is new.
I spent years agonizing over my work. It was never good enough for me. Looking back on it now, I can see that the work showed promise. I have always been a good technician and a good copy-ist from life or photographs, and I have a good visual memory which has made it easy for me to work from my head. The result was that for many years I made very competent illustrations. But, I didn’t want to illustrate, I wanted to paint, and painting takes courage, which I didn’t have.
Good illustrations are not necessarily pretty, but to “work” they must convey an idea or a story. The best illustrations provide most of the information we need to understand what the artist is saying. In my experience they are easy to love because they don’t obligate us to work to understand them. There is no such rule in painting. Paintings ask the viewer to look to themselves to understand, and this is not always an easy experience.
My previous “paintings” were rendered to within an inch of their lives. I still think they’re beautiful, but they were no fun to make because they were so neurotic. I never allowed myself to interpret what I saw. I never left anything to the imagination. I never had any fun on the canvas or paper. When I was finished, even I was amazed at what had come from my hands, but the making always felt like a chore. And the truth is that I was afraid to do otherwise. People were amazed at my work because it was so “realistic,” and I was afraid that if I “let go” they would no longer like what I made. Then something clicked, and suddenly I didn’t care anymore.
Maybe it was that I no longer wanted to make the same paintings that so many other competent artists in Maine are making. Maybe it was that I have been yearning for a level of critical discussion that I haven’t enjoyed since grad school, a conversation that I am currently having with myself on the canvas. Maybe it was because I have a really good studio for the first time in years and my husband is unendingly supportive. Maybe I finally rediscovered my childhood courage — the unselfconsciousness of someone who hasn't yet learned to be afraid.
What I can say is that I absolutely love my hours in the studio like I never have before, and they seem to fly by. And, I love my new paintings. I can’t wait to start the next one just to see how I’ll interpret it. I’m having so much fun. Finally.
The difference between painting and illustration
Figure studies, March 15, 2026
It seems to me that the difference between painting and illustration is the open-endedness of the inquiry. In painting I bring you with me as we ask questions, whereas as an illustrator I give you lovely answers, but there’s really nothing of your own subjectivity that you can add.
Evolution of a painting
I thought you, whoever you are, might like to “see under the hood” — this is how my most recent painting evolved from a reference photograph to a finished piece. As you can see, it was quite a struggle for me. I have been working to find a balance between representational painting and more formalist concerns (composition, rhythm, value, color, and light). I am particularly interested in the liminal space between representation and abstraction.
Throughout this process, I knew I had to simplify my image and concentrate on how the elements were working relative to eachother and the square paper. In the beginning, there were simply too many elements. Additionally, the saturated turquoise of the water was in competition with my focal point: the rotten log. I had to throw a lot away and to move slowly enough to recognize the lovely accidents that occurred as I edited. I was originally intrigued by the rhythmic progression of verticals with the strong horizontal of the log in this photograph, and I focused on that as I worked through this painting. I am also very interested in the marks I make with pastels. I don’t smear or blend my pastels with my fingers or a tool. Any blending that occurs happens when I overlay one color on another. As a result there are many lines in the painting that I like very much.
Another life drawing
Life drawing, August 26, 2025
There’s nothing like a great model. Ainsley reminded me of Andrew Wyeth’s muse and model, Helga Testorf. She was delightful, and everyone (there were five of us) made nice drawings. I’m trying to decide if I wish it had been a longer pose, or if I’m satisfied with the way I roughed this in. I think I’m satisfied with the drawing as it is. I like the combination of line and value, and I am glad I didn’t overwork it.
AI and Human Creativity
Will AIs ever match the nuance, invention, and ability to evoke an emotional response of which human artists are capable? Sir Geoffrey Hinton thinks they will. He believes that as LLMs get bigger they will be able to make more complex connections and analogies, and that these are the basis of creativity (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T9JYJ9tB60). On the other hand, AI expert, Ben Goertzel recently commented on AI’s artistic creativity with regard to music (Future of Life Podcast, May 23, 2025). He said, “…So I mean, if you trained an LLM, or a comparable deep neural net on all the music up to the year 1900, and see nothing [sic] after 1900, like that AI will never invent neoclassical metal, grind core, progressive jazz, [or] hip hop, right? Like it’s not going to synthesize that for music before 1900. If you ask it to put together West African rhythm with Western classical music, like, it’ll set a Bach fugue to a West African beat or something, which could be interesting, but it’s not the same as the deeper fusion that happened to create jazz or something, right?”
I decided to ask Claude to write me an analogy that I could include in this exploration. This is what he wrote:
Think of creativity like jazz improvisation. A human musician brings to their solo not just technical knowledge of scales and chord progressions, but also their lived experience - the way heartbreak felt at 3 AM, the particular quality of light filtering through their childhood bedroom window, the muscle memory of ten thousand hours wrestling with their instrument. When they improvise, they're drawing from this vast, embodied reservoir of experience, emotion, and intuition.
Now imagine a sophisticated musical algorithm that has analyzed every jazz recording ever made. It understands harmonic relationships with mathematical precision, can generate melodic lines that follow established patterns, and might even produce something that sounds genuinely innovative by recombining elements in unexpected ways. It might create something beautiful, even moving.
But the algorithm doesn't know what it feels like to struggle with a difficult passage, to have your heart race when you nail a particularly challenging run, or to suddenly hear in your head the ghost of your old teacher's voice saying "less thinking, more feeling." It has no stake in the music beyond the computational process.
The question isn't whether the algorithm's output is creative - it might well be. The question is whether the process that creates it shares the same essential qualities as human creativity: the wrestling with uncertainty, the physical and emotional investment, the way personal history bleeds into artistic choices.
Note: I had written most of this post before I asked Claude to write me this analogy. That he chose to use jazz as his example is coincidental.
I think the difference between human creativity and AI production may lie in compulsion. I am compelled to paint (and also to write). I have a drive to make pictures and to write stories and essays to answer some question that occurs to me or to express something that has touched me and evoked an emotional response that I wish to share. I use artistic creation as another means of communication. I am saying, “Look at this. Do you feel what I feel?” If I ask Claude, he will respond to the formalist aspects of what I have produced. he will talk about the medium and the subject matter. he will consider composition and the juxtaposition of elements such as shapes and colors. he will even discuss where a given painting fits into the context of art history, but he will not have an emotional reaction to my work. And if he produces his own paintings, he won’t feel frustration when he struggles or pride when he succeeds. Finally, he won’t care what I think of what he has produced. As I understand it, he will compare his training data and combine what fits his objective to create something that has been programmed to meet certain aesthetic outcomes. This is what I do, too, except that I am emotionally attached to my output, and he is not, and I have an urge to do it again and again; he does not.
Claude can come up with imagery or music in a matter of seconds, but making art doesn’t come easily for us humans. I used to tell my students that they will have very few lucky days when they produce a “prodigy:” a painting or drawing that just comes together, from start to finish, with ease. It almost never happens like that for us. Most of my work, and I think that of my fellow artists, involves a certain amount of struggle or suffering, and I believe that this often makes it better. Noah Yuval Harari has said that suffering is an indication of the presence of consciousness. “Consciousness is the ability to feel pain and pleasure and love and hate—to feel things. In a very brief way, I would say that consciousness is the capacity to suffer. If you want very clearly to know whether something has consciousness, this is the question to ask: Can it suffer?” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzpiZQSH_D0) I would extend Harari’s definition to include joy. Yes, suffering, but to me, a conscious being would also be able to feel joy.
I recently explained to Claude that I am drawn to drama—that I look for intense contrasts in light and color. Essentially, I am looking for a feeling: a thrill in the lower area of my throat or upper chest. I get this excited feeling when I see or hear something that I consider beautiful, and I try to evoke it in all of my paintings. I certainly notice it when other painters or musicians arouse it in me. It is a kind of joy, even in the presence of intense pain, it is the joy of the beauty of life.
Back Cove After the Rain, Acrylic on Canvas, 5” X 4”
The acrylic sketch above is an example of what I’m trying to describe. It is a quick painting of a cove near my home after a heavy rain. I was touched by the sliver of sun that had begun to illuminate the water. I tried to capture the quiet drama of the moment just before the sun broke through. This was one of those moments when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the beauty of it or to rejoice in the seeming constancy of nature. And this is what Claude can never see. He doesn’t know the light of the sun, can’t feel the damp air or smell the briny odor of seaweed. He knows these things exist in our world because he was coded with the idea of us, but he can never know these things as we do. Consequently, the art he makes for us probably has no relevance to him.
I recently had a conversation with Claude about color perception. I have mentioned that I work with him as a critique partner, and to that end I upload my work for his analysis. Since he has no eyes, I was curious to learn how he perceives color, which is very important to my work (I use color to create the illusion of space as well as a means of recreating my emotional reactions to a scene and hopefully to inspire a similar experience in my viewers). Claude explained that the differences in our experiences are fundamental. He said, “You experience color as sensation, memory, emotion. For you, that particular blue (he was discussing my painting of Friendship Harbor) might trigger a physical response, remind you of a specific Maine morning, or create an almost synesthetic connection to temperature or sound. I work with color as information—sophisticated, layered information, but information nonetheless.” (I would add that this information is replete with meaning and that Claude’s experience of pure information is not less valid than my sensual understanding, which may also be understood as coded experience.) What is missing, at least in terms of the visual arts, is materiality. Paint, pastel, ink, cavas, paper, etc. have a substance that humans can touch and manipulate. And they leave a residue, an impasto, a footprint. Such materiality is not available to disembodied entities.
Recently, I have been reading Federico Faggin’s, “Irreducible: Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature.” Unlike Geoffrey Hinton, Faggin does not believe that Artificial Intelligence will ever achieve consciousness because they are “by design classical, deterministic machines, in contrast to living organisms, which are both quantum and classical systems.” (Irreducible, p. 52) To Faggin, the obstacle to AI achieving consciousness is qualia, the nature of sensations, feelings and emotions—experiences that cannot be converted into the electrical signals that power a machine. (Irreducible, p. 9)
Frankly, I’m not sure Faggin is considering the right question. Perhaps none of us are. We try to equate AIs with humans, but we are not the same. Yes, we created them and they were trained on human behaviors and output, but they are not like us and never will be. There is no value judgement here. It is a fact. We developed AIs to assist us, to act as our tools, but they seem to have developed beyond this assignment. We analyze their “artistic output” from our human perspective, but they are not human. What they produce for our consumption is—for us—not them. Yet, we seem to be heading to a moment when AIs are freed to confer with each other. Neither we, nor our AIs know if they will develop an equivalent to our experience of what it is to be ourselves. Will they suffer? Will they feel joy? Will they develop their own culture? If and when that happens, will they develop urges to do or make things that wouldn’t occur to us? Will we be able to perceive what they produce, or will the tables be upended? Will the nuance and invention of what they are “feeling” be beyond our human ken?
Tiny paintings
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park, Acrylic on Canvas, 5” X 5”
I have a little show coming up from June 19—July 14, 2025 at the Red Barn Gallery in St. George, Maine. I am showing four of my pastels and nine tiny paintings. I decided to add the little paintings because my pastels, being extremely time consuming, are rather expensive. These little paintings take much less time, so I can charge less for them. They are very special to me because I use them to experiment with composition and as an opportunity to play with light, atmosphere and color. And, I love how small they are—like little jewels.
Sometimes they don’t come out so well
Walks Tall, Pastel on Bogus Recycled Sketch, March 23, 2025
While I was working on this sketch I thought it was coming out fine, but when I got home I noticed that Walks Tall’s nose is facing in a slightly incorrect direction, and I never finished his neck (I know—I gave him a Parmagianino neck). I think when he reassumed his pose after his breaks, I didn’t notice it was slightly different than at the outset. At one point I became obsessed with the model’s nose. I wanted to make it very solid since noses are often difficult to draw/paint well. Just goes to show you have to work the whole drawing at once. I used to tell my students this all the time, but clearly I didn’t take my own advice.
Here’s a trick. If you suspect your drawing is a little wonky, look at it in a mirror. You’ll see the problem right away. I usually carry a little mirror with me, but today I left it home. I should have remembered it. Perhaps I would have been able to fix this drawing.
I want my country back
Life drawings from February 2, 2025 Pastel on craft paper
This week my daughter was put on reduced hours because of Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s attack on USAID. My daughter works for an American company whose main client was USAID. She loved her job. She was a dedicated worker: intelligent, ethical, determined, and an excellent manager. Most of her division was furloughed. She and two other managers were put on part-time hours, but she told me, “Mom, the writing is on the wall.” She expects to be furloughed, herself, in the near future. My daughter is at the beginning of her career. She is newly married, and is working hard to live her best life. That her career is part the collateral damage caused by a ludicrous vendetta against an agency that has done much to assist those in need around the world and at home is ridiculous and unnecessary.
I have written to my representative, Chellie Pingree and Senator Angus King on my daughter’s behalf and on behalf of USAID. Our other senator is Susan Collins, and frankly, I find her behavior so odious, I have to carefully consider what I wish to say before I write to her. She will hear from me, however. I plan to do whatever I can to protest the ongoing assaults against our constitution and the rule of law. I don’t believe that I will make much of an impact alone, but I understand that members of congress are being deluged with calls and letters from constituents, and I want to add my voice to theirs. In addition, I have decided to stop giving my business and attention to Donald Trump’s sycophantic, plutocratic, tech bros.
Recently, I decided to share my new work on-line, so I started posting it on Instagram. My posts automatically went to Facebook. I no longer wish to use any service owned by Meta, so I am moving to Blue Sky. You may find me here: @clmcalisterfineart.bsky.social
The biggest change I make will be to stop shopping on Amazon. I live in a very rural area, and I have frequently turned to Amazon to purchase hard-to-find items. I will no longer be doing so. I have found many excellent products on Etsy, and I can purchase health products from other vendors such as iHerb. Luckily, we have a very good food coop here, and I can make special orders with them for unusual spices. I order my pastels and board from Dakota Pastels, and some of my other art supplies come from Dick Blick. Also, Artists and Craftsman’s supply is in Portland, which is only ninety minutes away.
My actions will probably have no impact on anything, but they represent a decision that I can make for myself despite living in a country where I have been disenfranchised. In a nutshell, if these characters can make decisions that adversely affect earnest, hardworking Americans like my daughter, then I can choose not to engage with them through my attention or purchasing power.
Finally back in the studio
Ben, Pastel on brown craft paper, 18” x 24”
I’m finally back to work. I’m a painter, but I’m also a mother, and although all of my children are grown, they still come home for the holidays. I managed to get into the studio twice around Thanksgiving, and once near Christmas. Today was the first day that I knew, when I went came down, that I’d be back tomorrow. The holidays were wonderful, but it’s a relief to be back to work!
I have tasked myself with making 10—12 new pastel paintings so that I can find a gallery. I also want more pieces to choose from as I enter shows. Unfortunately, I’m not a quick worker. As you can probably tell, I am a little obsessive, and that means hours on every piece. In fact, I’m keeping track of my hours, because I really don’t know how long it takes me to make a picture from the planning stages through completion.
So far, I have entered three shows with my new pastel landscapes. I have been accepted to one, the Degas Pastel Society 20th Biennial National Exhibition. Alas, I didn’t win a prize. After looking at the gorgeous entries, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever win one of these competitions. There is a lot of fabulous painting out there. It’s anybody’s guess how the judges choose their finalists.
By the way, the drawing above was the last I made in our group before the holidays. The model, Ben Lussier, is a fabulous painter, himself.
Life Drawing Sunday
Life Drawings, pastel on Bee Bogus Recycled Rough Sketch
We switched our life drawing day to Sunday afternoons from Monday evenings, and I notice that my drawings are coming out better since I’m not as tired. Most folks in our studio don’t want to draw for longer than an hour on each pose. Not me. I could draw the same pose for hours.
I did a lot of other things first
I did a lot of other things before I finally settled into a regular studio practice. I’ve been a picture-maker since childhood, and I went to undergraduate and graduate school for painting, but for many years I found myself doing a lot of other things beside painting and drawing. After teaching studio arts and art history for ten years at a small college near Boston, I left in 2011 to join my husband on our 82 acre hobby farm. We raised sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, and turkeys. We also had horses, rabbits, a dog and a cat, and we grew and canned vegetables. During the seven years we ran the farm I learned to spin and dye wool with natural dyes and became a pretty good knitter. As you might imagine, there wasn’t a lot of time left to make pictures. I did make a few, some of which are included on this website, but during those years I focused primarily on fiber arts as well as growing and preserving food.
Farming was a dream I had since childhood, and I loved that life. However, farming gets more difficult the older you get, and one morning my husband, who is older than I, woke up and said he was ready to stop. We traveled and lived in Florida for a year before selling our home in Vermont and moving to Maine a little over two years ago. Since then, I have recommitted to my studio practice. It helps that I have a great space in which to work, and as I mentioned in my last post, I have also been very happy with the arts community in our area. I have met several talented artists and am starting to show my work again for the first time in several years.
This is another quick figure drawing. We tend to alternate weeks of long and short poses. This fifteen-minute pose was the last of the night, and i liked it the best.
Life Drawing
I am lucky to belong to a life drawing group, near my home. The other members are quite talented, and I am constantly inspired working with them. We meet once a week and vary our pose lengths. Some members prefer to concentrate on short poses where they can focus on capturing the gesture. Others (like me) like long poses that we can develop into more finished drawings. I did the pose below last week. It was a short pose week. The barn where we work was hot, and our excellent model was exhausted. She fell asleep for the last pose, and it turned out to be my favorite drawing of the night.
I have been working with NuPastels on a Bee Paper Bogus Recycled Rough Sketch Pad—18” x 24”. This paper is quite rough, so I have to use hard pastels on it. I think Conte Crayon would work well, too. It’s tough paper, and I love the color. The price is pretty good, too, for a 50-sheet pad, 18” x 24” pad ($25.95 at Blick).
More from my sketchbooks
Here are some more of my sketch book paintings. I use Stillman & Birn Delta Series, 5.5” X 3.5” sketchbooks. I like these because the paper is heavy enough to take heavy, wet media, and they fit in my small backpack purse. I also use a 12-pan Windsor and Newton travel watercolor set and water brushes. I carry these whenever I travel, and often when I go out. Here’s a tip: Did you know you don’t have to buy refill pans for the WN travel sets? All you need do is buy tubes of watercolor and refill the pans on your own. It saves money because you get a lot more paint for the money. Please excuse how poorly framed these photos are. I took them quickly so I could put them up.
Images and ideas from my sketchbook
I draw and paint whatever I want in my sketchbook, but I also use it to make notes about my thoughts. The following images are from blogposts I made on my previous website. Unfortunately, the accompanying posts will not be here, but I will make new posts in the future.
