Pleinair studies of Arcadia NP, Desert Island, ME

We were at the famous Desert Island where Cole, Fredrick Church, and other artists since the early 1800's have painted.
I found a lobsterman's shack, owned by Otter Creek society, in Otter Bay where Church had stood on the opposite shore and painted a scene of Cadillac Mt. I visited this site many times in the next few days. It was on the leeward side of the head and consequently was in shadow most of the day but was out of the wind.
We had a storm that put most of the power out in Maine. The waves were fantastic but hard on the eyes. My eyes got bloodshot, probably from the salt as much as anything. The wind blew across the tops of the waves that were coming in diaganolly causing spray to drift as much as a mile inland. I had to hold my easle in one hand as I painted leaning into the wind. I went to the Thrift store and bought extra clothes and finally ended up wearing goggles.
I'd never been to the east coast. They say you are the first one to greet the sun hitting the N. American continent from the top of 1500' Cadillac Mt. The first inhabitants were Native American of course. A tribe called Abanake's. Called the place the 'sloping land'. The French found 'Sommes Sound' and harried the British who were supporting the Colonies. Then those that propspered from the Civil War located their summer mansions here until there were 229 mansions that later burned in a 10000 acre fire.



Those that cared got around to preserving the place and created the Acadia National Park. The first NP created in the east. All the others were created by congress in the west to guard against the nouveau wealthy from purchasing Yellowstone and Yosemite and loggging them. Artists were important in pursuading Congress to make these parks. Thomas Moran Painted such wonerful paintings that the Congress went the distance and not only made the parks but put his painting in the Hall of Statues, elevating the landscape as a national treasure. Not only does nature nuture artists but artists nurture nature.
Rockelfellers contributed a lot in real estate and built more than 50 miles of horse drawn carriage roads to guard against intrusion by the automobile and the hordes of NY. Oddly enough the Rockefeller's fortune was from Standard Oil and the auto was to be their fortune. They didn't want to see their Eden spoiled and thought they could mandate carriages only. It worked to a point but had to end when the public got a shot at paradise when it was made a park by Congress. Ol' Teddy Roosevelt, blue nose that he was, had to allow that the only way the place could get on the national registry if John Q Public had a share in it.
I have to think that there were some mighty fine rigs with some pretty spiffy horses steaming down the carriage trails, taking in the sights and doing picnics in some pretty awesome scenery. From the sound of it their were some major summers spent by the well healed and their cadre of artists and writers. It must be the earliest American Art Colony.
The storm had not yet abated but sitting in the canyon as Duck Brook cascaded under the Bridge was a little better than standing in a full gale on the headlands. Duck Brook drains the Eagle Lake area. It provides water to the community of Bar Harbor. There's an old riveted wrought iron pipe about 14" in diameter that runs off through the oaks and beech from a large water tower filled from the lake. The place was self sustaining if you didn't have to get along on LOBSTER for heaven's sake. Until recently Lobster has been considered the 'hotdog' of the working class. You wouldn't know it today what with the price of a lobster tail in a restaurant fetching $20. We payed $5 lb and a 'chicken' was about 1 1/4 lbs. We ate an estimated 19 soft shell bugs (that's what the 'down easter' Aaron called 'em. Lobster are soft shell just after they molt. Hardshell afterwards. They come into the shallower warm water to molt and then proceed to deeper water while the logstermen chase them out as far as 20 miles. They used to only put out a trap per buoy but now have 'trawls' that set out as many as 50 buoys. A commercial lobsterman may have a permit for 500 traps. Hard dangerous work. In Gloucester (pronounced Gloster) over 5000 fishermen have died. Each of their names are memorialized in City Hall. I found all this out by reading Mark Williams book "FV, Black Sheep". It's a randy tale of how it really is, no holds barred. Good job, "Mahhhk".

Winter is here. My plan is to hold up in my new studio and work. I've got tons of plein air paintings and water colors. I noticed today that the digital photos I took don't come close to the color my sketching recorded. I guess the studio paintings will be a happy medium between the two methods.

Hope to get back there and maybe drive some horses and do some more sketching.

Maine, the most Awesome Vacation!

I gotta hit the ground running and catch up on things. Got a lot of paintings to do and things to share. I'll be back to fill you in soon.
Thanks to all the good people in Maine that made our vacation such a wonderful thing.
This is the veiw from the cabin in South West Harbor on Desert Island, ME where we stayed for the week and I painted in the Acadia National Park. It was an awesome time!

Off to paint fall colors in Maine

I've been neglecting my blog. This is an Plein Air oil 11x14 on veneer that I did while fishing on the St. Mary's River in BC Canada. My horselogging partner and I chased Rocky Mt Cutthroat in this spectacular landscape. I never took down my easel for four days painting one picture looking at the sunrise and this one looking at the sun setting on the eastern face of the Purcells. It was great fishing until the Kokanee came up from the lake and chased all the cutthroat away. Since the Kokanee were there to spawn they weren't biting but it was a once in a life time experience to watch the green glacial waters turn crimson with Redfish!
I'm off to paint fall colors in Maine as well as eat a lot of lobster and drink champaign. Tough life! but somebodies got to do it.
Betts and I are headed to Bar Harbor, MA and will meet friends Kate and Peter there where we will rent a place for a week. We'll stop off in Boston and take in some of the museums. I'm hungry for some 'good' art. Some masterpieces that will ramp up my aspirations. It's like playing music with another musician that is much better than yourself and makes you better by association.
I've been painting the fall colors in the Sanpoil which are glorious and will be hard to compete with. I just came from a meeting on the coast and the fall colors around Mt. Rainier, especially the big oaks around the cow pastures of Randall were hard to pass up. I did a little sketch of Rainier from Chinook Pass just because it was clear and I wanted the landmark in my journal.

too much going on!

Grandbabies, Kaiden and Cashton
Had to put my grandbabies in the blog. Definately the most important happening in my life as well as son Bradley Paige, who went to college and evidently learned how to make babies. Wonder how many credits that's worth. Thanks Paiger and Crystal. Love you lots and look forward to hearing of the twin's adventures. Paybacks are Great!
Much has been happening although not enough painting. Fall colors are here and I am excited to see what happens. I'm looking forward to pursuing the look that everyone thought was so exceptional at shows this summer. Technique that reflects the energy that nature exerts on temperment. It's my duty as an artist to be open, take risk and push the envelope.

Mobile Marketing

I hit the road with my partner Betty Sue to do some 'Mobile Marketing'. Mobile marketing is simply hitting the road and going to whatever venue fits our product which is artwork and local crafts. Verizon sponsored a trailer and some road funds and our first stop was a trial experience at the Taste of Edmunds street fair. We had 75,000 people go by the tent and paid expenses but learned that food fairs aren't a place for fine art as well as a lot of other marketing lessons. We're off to Chelan, WA which is a small fine arts venue. Lots of new homes and wineries up there. We'll see if folks are in the mood to invest in fine art.

Annual Snow Peak Firewood trip

Son Paige and I packed into the Snow Peak Shelter on Sherman Pass. Most every year we go up and skid firewood for the USFS. It was a hot day 95 degrees. The skids were long and uphill but we managed to put up about 3 cords. It's a great shelter with propane stove and solar powered lights. It seems to be used mostly in the winter by skiers that hike the 3 miles into the shelter.

Deer Park Paintout

Shucks! I sure have been having fun painting. What a great way to make a living.
I met some great folks that love to get together to paint and draw. They have a workshop every thursday that I'm gonna try to make. It's only 100 miles from the studio instead of 150 or whatever to Couer d'Alene, Id. Might not make all of them but I'll try to make a few. I miss figure drawing although I'm always painting horses in the pasture and working.

Robert Stem organized a Paint Out in Deer Park. About 9 or 14 artists showed up that had been invited. Sponsored by the Deer Park Arts Commission we painted in the morning then set up a display in the Park where the last Concert of the Summer was going on. We didn't make any sales that I know of but we had fun and I got to Paint a new landscape.
We went out of town to a young lady's farm. Melda is 90 years old and sharp as a tack. "She's only lived on the place for 43 years."
I went up to a nearby Pioneer cemetary that was a hill in the middle of the valley with a great view of Mt. Spokane. There were some tombstones with dates as early as 1851. I liked how the farm land was laid out in strips. Below me was an old dairy with metal roofs the morning sun glinted off of. Later in the day I introduced myself to those that lived in the old dairy and and did a painting of the old barn and unique silo. The old girl that lived there came out to visit and reminisce of milking 50 cows and packing the milk to the house. Terrible amount of work for little pay. Her grand daughter who must of been 4 yrs old and shy as a church mouse brought out her paints and I set her up with some paper. She didn't like what she had done because she wanted it to look like mine. She ended up out in the barn where I could here her beating on a set of drums.
Robert had this quote of Pablo Picasso. I haven't ever read anything he has ever said. I didn't know he could talk except with his art.
"I myself, since the advent of Cubism, have fed these fellows what they wanted..........Today.Iam rich. But when I am alone I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word: Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown - a montebank. I have understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does have the merit of being honest." Pablo Picasso, 1952

In one regard I believe PP was a little hard on himself. He might have been going through another divorce or love affair or he just might have been depressed towards the end of his productive life. One thing about him, he lived the life of an artist and although he might not be comfortable with himself, his art or his life he changed the world we know.

I like the little painting I did in Deer Park if only because I had fun with it.

I've got more comfortable with working values out of color and now am discovering the relationship of temperature in color and how to work with that. Like Robert Stem said, "Painting is a juggling act, the more you paint the less you have to think about what you are doing which allows you to control what the outcome is." My exception to that is I would hope to "loosen up" and still be able to control the outcome. I like the happy accidents and try to 'see' the possiblilities they present to what I am doing.

Workshop with Glenn Grishkoff

I'm just back from an intense and constructive workshop organized by Outskirts Gallery owner Kally Thurman of master brushmaker and potter, Glenn Grishkoff.
Glenn appears like one of the dwarfs out of the Hobbit but is better described as a dark haired Russian wearing a buddhist's apron sitting behind a potter's wheel pictured with one of his handmade brushes made of exotic hair from an arctic cariboo set in a handle of bamoo inscribing a tea bowl held in his other hand.
A gracious and sensitive soul, Glenn is one of the few people I have had the honor to know that has become his art. He is so focused on his work and his work has so much to do with his daily life that "he is what he eats."
Glenn studied in Japan for a couple of years emmersing himself in the culture and learning the art of brushmaking and calligraphy. "Japan is the land of opposites. We take rocks out of the garden, they put rocks in the garden. Japan is like going to Mars, says Glenn." He suggests visiting Japan is something every artist would be good to do if only to break out of a myopic view of their world. Like Dave Alexander, Glenn is another teacher that has encouraged me to SEE differently. I am grateful for the opportunity to have attended these workshops, I am happy to see that I am still capable of learning from others.
Although Glen is not a pleinair artist he has appreciation for all art and is happy to see others take from him to use his knowledge in their own work. "All artists borrow from each other but it is important to develop your own vocabulary. Anybody can copy, be original" I was pleased to hear Glenn echo a thought I share. I have always felt part of what I have accomplished is a visual vocabulary. Each time you draw or paint the image becomes part of your memory. Even if the image is made up or an abstraction, once it is deliberately established, the image takes on life of its own and can be replicated.
"Part of being an artist is problem solving." I never gave much thought to my tools other than the fact that a round or a flat or a sable or a bristle accomplished what I needed in my work. Glenn is "Bridging what is functional and non-functional." Glenn will build a brush that is a sculpture in its own right, use it to make a mark on cloth and then hang that brush with the work as if the image on cloth is the voice of the brush then elevates the whole process by hanging it together as an artifact of the event. This is an oversimplification of the many levels of concept I haven't expanded on in his work but what is so beautiful is that he can do it in front of you allowing you to see and experience FINE art being made allowing you to take away with you both the pragmatic skills needed to expand your own vocabulary but also inspiring you to take your own work to a new level. Thankyou Glenn and Thankyou Kally for the opportunity. Namaste'.

Seeing

Tearing out an old restaurant to build a studio I took a few digital snaps of the work going on and found this wonderful abstraction. This was an accident. Today I'll look at it deliberately.

Twas thinking about the process of abstraction and how I would treat such a subject as this photo. The effort is congruent with my thoughts regarding the picture as an artifact. This isn't so much a 'new' thought, I am sure this has been the subject of much of modern arts efforts but it hasn't happened with me until now. Should I use materials from the subject itself? Should I see what can be done inside the computer? That's always fun and such immediate gratification.

What does an abstract Plein Air painting look like? Wolf Kahn comes to mind. It is evidently unconventional.
I visit all the pleinair sites that are cropping up and I find a number of tenets. 1. painting outside in front of the subject is the common denominator. 2. there are rules such as a time frame to be finished, usually so the works can be offered to the public. 3. most pleinair work is quite conventional with little interest in abstraction, perhaps this is to celebrate the old value of the artist as the magician that can reflect nature and astound us with the illusion of reality. One of the features or art that I highly regard. Art/artisan/artifice/artificial.............4. there are rules, rules of the event, rules of engagement and rules of authenticity although unlike improptu acting, it's OK (snicker) to work on it a bit in the studio. Whenever I am subject to rules I get in trouble. I've never had to much luck with rules and hoped I could avoid as much of that as possible.
So why am I stuck on conventional Pleinair? It's good and builds skill to try to replicate nature. Like playing a guitar and writing a song whenever an artist is involved the unexpected can happen and takes us out of the ordinary we are so used to. Even a pleinair painting has the ability to be a special artifact. One that relates, projects and elevates the viewer.
Given so much literal rendering, what part of my work should be developed in such a way as to accomplish an abstract plein air painting? Loosen up and use the imagination. Try to SEE.

Painting in Valhalla

After a couple days off from Sandpoint Paintout I was on my way to the Slocan Valley in British Columbia to a workshop put on by the local artist, in particulary an extraordinary person and world traveler, Barbarra Wilson, from Winlock, B.C. Thanks Barbarra and gang for all the preparation and arrangements. It was a perfect retreat.
Held at the Little Slocan Lodge we had the pleasure of sharing the days and evenings with reknown Canadian artist David Alexander who paints BIG and paints his own way.
David didn't tell us how to paint or what to paint or even criticize our work, instead he pushed us to get beyond ourselves and challenge how we are used to working. I have to say it was what I needed at this time although it would be nice to just develop what I thought I was doing. I still will pursue the line of work I was attempting but with new eyes. I'll push technique with the confidence of knowing I can either fix it or start over.
"Paint what you know,
paint what you see,
paint what you can imagine,
but paint all the time."
I've added 'paint what you can imagine after our workshop in Slocan. Painting all the time not only requires all of those thoughts but is an activity that is a resolution of those consideration but only if one keeps open to what is happening on the canvas.
I left the workshop with this painting of a creek in the mountains. It looks like a watercolor but is a wash of oil. David pointed out the neat things that were happening at the bottom of the canvas and try to retain that. I used to paint this way and now do so only as an underpainting but will try to include this in a final piece. I've been stuck on impasto and getting thicker with my paint, exploring the pallet knife and trying to achieve that luscious look that impasto paint illicits.
Thumbing through the books and listening to David makes me more comfortable with abstraction. I think Canadian landscape is a unique relationship with things natural. Canadians live with nature as few countries do. The landscape is in your face and common ground for everyone, especially western Canadians. That's a generallity that has many exceptions but for the purpose of landscape painting, whether plein air or studio work landscape is a natural element for Canadian artists.
I've always maintained that a good location paints itself and we had wonderful location which I will visit as often as possible.
Thanks, everyone! Stay in touch!