Study The Studier [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 16, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I study the studier. She kneels, excited to capture the winter face of plants along the trail. It’s as if they call to her.

Where does it start? An idea. Broad and generic. Spontaneous. Studied.

For months I watched her take photos of the train through the trees. “Here it comes!” she’d laugh and pull her phone from her pocket, running to get the best spot on the trail. Each time as excited as the first. I took photos of her taking photos of the train snaking just beyond the trees.

Mostly she shoots close-up photographs. Spontaneous. She has an eye for detail. She helps me see what I overlook. I have an eye for the big picture, the metaphoric. I study. Pie-in-the-sky.

I think she would have been great pals with Georgia O’Keeffe. They’d have compared notes on the magic world of minutia. The dried flowers, the pattern in the petal. The amazing textures and vibrant winter colors. Some people see only brown. Kerri sees subtle changes, ochre, cream and an array of umber. A universe full of color. Just like Georgia.

This is where my studied painting started:

underpainting: train through trees.

Originally I intended to use a long canvas. The composition-in-my-mind was different, more spatially accommodating of the train. I was going to paint over something I didn’t like but she flung herself between me and the doomed painting, like the angel rescuing Isaac from Abraham’s knife. Needless to say, I shifted my composition. I had another canvas. Large and almost square.

It had been awhile since I attempted a larger painting so I made one rule: I had to have fun. Master Miller sent some cool tools for me to try. They are like large rubber scrappers and brushes. After a hiatus I have a tendency to go to detail too soon so I used his gifts to keep my strokes broad and light hearted.

Okay, I made two rules: I painted in 45 minute sessions. I generally have a 3 hour necessity but the realities of our circumstance make that dedication of time difficult. I start Dan Fogelberg’s album, Captured Angel, and when the last note is sung, I stop. I clean my brushes. It was a great way to stir my process-pot. It was frustrating and liberating at the same time.

This is where it may end. This painting has traveled a long way. Soon, I’ll turn it to the wall. I need to forget about it and will someday see it with fresh eyes. Right now, in a festival of irony, all I can see is the detail so I asked Kerri to come into the studio. Blinded by minutia I needed her wise eyes to tell me what she sees. Globally. The studier becomes the study. A perfect circle.

Train Through Trees, 48x49IN, mixed media

I’m slow-stepping into my new site. The construction continues…

read Kerri’s blogpost about DETAIL

train through trees © 2023 david robinson

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Let It Rain [on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 5, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We are reading Raynor Winn’s new book, Landlines. It is terrific. We make a cup of tea, get under a blanket on the old couch in the sitting room, Dogga asleep at our feet, and Kerri reads to me. Life does not get better than this.

A theme in the book is to put yourself in the way of hope. It has become my mantra for the turn of the year. Hope is coming through; stand in its path.

I started a new painting. I’ve been making sketches for a few weeks. It is the theme I snagged on when broken wrists and lost jobs stopped all artistic motion.: train through trees. As David Bayles and Ted Orland write, there is a difference between stopping and quitting. I stopped for a spell. Putting on my painter-clothes and descending into the studio felt like coming back into myself. Embodiment. As I lay out the composition and layered in some under tones, I felt as if air rushed into my lungs after holding my breath for too long.

We mimicked our smack-dab cartoon and took a midnight walk along Lake Michigan to bring in the new year. “Star dust is raining down on us,” Kerri said, in the first minute of 2023.

Stardust. Standing in the path of hope. A deep full breath. A good book and a warm blanket. A cup of tea. The excitement of rushing to photograph a train racing through the trees – and all things that inspire a painter to paint, a composer to compose, and two writers sitting side-by-side to capture their thoughts as the ritual beginning of each new day.

Life does not get better than this.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUFFALO PLAID

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Be Held In Grace

Posted on April 3, 2016 by davidrobinsoncreative

Grace (noun): 1. Simple elegance or refinement of movement. 2. Unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification.

The first time it happened Kathleen, my landlady, stepped between me and the canvas shouting, “You can’t do it!” I was about to wipe off the image and start anew. “I love this one!” she said. “I love it.” Baffled by Kathleen’s wild-eyed heroics I granted the painting a stay of execution. I let it live. I faced the canvas to the wall so I couldn’t see it. After a few days I put it back on the easel. I saw it anew. I saw what Kathleen saw. It was a good painting and ultimately birthed an entire series of paintings.

One of the great paradoxes of being a visual artist is to lose sight en route to seeing. Becoming mired in the thoughts of the painting blinds an artist to the painting. Stare at anything long enough and you will stop seeing it (you will only see what you think about it). The only antidote is to turn it around. Forget about it so you can see it anew.

A few weeks ago it happened again. Kerri was coming down the stairs to the studio just as I was about the wipe an image off the canvas. It wasn’t working for me. Like Kathleen a decade earlier, Kerri threw herself over the painting and pleaded for its life. This time I asked her to tell me what she saw that I clearly was not seeing. I asked her to make a case for clemency. She saw something new. She saw Grace. And, she convinced me that I was blind to the painting. I took it off the easel and turned it to face the wall.

I’m learning again lessons that were pounded into me when I was younger but am now finding deeper levels. Step away. Forget. Clear your vision by looking away. Tom called this “closing the building for a spell.” Understand that seeing and thinking are intertwined. It is a sword with two edges that can illuminate or limit. The skill is never found in the thinking, the interpretation. The great skill is to see beyond the thinking. To see. Artistry happens when thought serves sight and not the other way around. The mastery of art and the mastery of life are, after all, one and the same thing.

When I turned the painting around I saw it anew. And, like the reprieved painting of a decade ago, this one, too, is inspiring a series. In a fit of intentional spontaneity (one of my new favorite descriptions of artistry), the second in the series jumped off my brush. I’m preparing surfaces for the third, fourth, and fifth. They are asking me to follow them – no thought required. They are asking me to take a walk with Grace.

 

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Gratitude, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

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  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com