The Challenge of Finishing What One Starts

My studio is full of "starts" -  the beginnings of paintings left unfinished. What can bring me back to them?  

Leslie Saeta has invited artists to join her in a 30 day challenge for the month of September - a painting a day posted on one's blog.  Having just finished the Whole 30 recently I've learned that one really can make a change in one's habits in 30 days.  So, I am going to accept Leslie's challenge to do 30 paintings in 30 days, and to post them on my blog.  That means I also have to write on my blog for 30 days.   Hmmm.  I’m already three days late on this, but we are assured that if we fall behind we can just catch up. 

I have not spilled many beans about my creative process, but let’s just say that the painting I begin is not often the one that ends up being in the frame.   I do a lot of covering and uncovering before I find the painting.  Sometimes that means erasing as much of the original painting, either by trying to remove the paint from the paper or by covering the paper with new layers of paint. 

Since I’m gearing up for a show in October, I think that for me to take on a challenge such as this would be a crazy.  But I do have a lot of “unfinished” paintings, many of them 5” x 7” just waiting to be addressed. So, I’ve decided to accept the challenge of 30 paintings in 30 days by taking the many starts and near finishes I have in my studio and finishing them. One day at a time.   

I will on occasion post the starting point of the painting so you can get a sense of where I begin and where it all ends.   

More of my "starts" ...

Re-Turning Early Work On Loan

"Yellow Roses"
Watercolor - 15" x 11"

                                                              

A number of years ago I lent a painting to a friend who was just starting out in a new apartment.    As the years passed he lived with and loved the painting, but now he was moving to a new city and opening a new business, and establishing a truly minimalist lifestyle, and so he returned the painting to me.  I was happy to see it again – to see it with fresh eyes – and to remember what it was like to paint it.  “Yellow Roses” was the first of a series of five paintings of the same bouquet of yellow roses, capturing the various stages of the bouquet’s life.  I remember noticing that even as I painted the buds in this bouquet they were opening.   So by the time the painting was completed at the end of the session, neither the canvas nor the buds were as they had been hours earlier. But that is to be expected, isn’t it?  Buds open.  The paper gets paint on it.  And I was not attempting to capture a moment on paper; I was just trying to understand the beauty before me.

As I look at the painting now, with the hindsight of the paintings that followed, I am struck by the fact that they are just buds beginning to open.  Now I can see them as an apt metaphor for the creative process. 

An Invitation to Share Art-Love

by Jim Carpenter

Artist Nanci Hersh invited me to be a guest blogger in her “Artist as Collector Series.”  I like the idea of it – inviting another artist to write about another artist.  The gesture is generous, allowing for a rush of gratitude from everyone involved.   I chose to write about one of my favorite artists, Sandra J. Hadley, and one of my favorite paintings by her, seen below.  Here is the link to the blog post.  

Artist: Sandra J. Hadley

Title: It’s All About Me

Medium: Charcoal on Paper

Size: 20” x 16” matted and framed

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall: An Irish & A Polish Blessing

The house renovation and the conversion of the carport into a studio space has taken me from the comfort zone of blogging about my own work, because (I say somewhat guiltily) I haven’t painted since I packed up the “porch – studio.”  But today I re-turn with a beautiful piece of art made by artist Ellen West.    I asked Ellen if she would spin her magic spell on the mirror that came from my mother’s solid pine 1950s dresser.  I planned to hang the mirror over the new vanity in our renovated master bath.   I asked her if she could put the traditional Irish blessing on it and if possible the Polish blessing “Sto lat” which means 100 years.  For this project Ellen used antique embossing letters to spell out the blessing, starting at the top left and working its way around to the top right.  

“Sto lat! Sto lat!” is centered at the top.  

I imagine that whoever looks in the mirror will be blessed with the hearty and joyous Polish blessing “100 years” and the beautiful Irish Blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And rain fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

The Porch Studio

When I landed in Gainesville eight years ago, the little house we bought in the forest had a wonderful enclosed “porch” with 3 walls of windows, the perfect breezy spot for breakfasts accompanied by birdsong, casual dinner parties at dusk with friends, a cozy read on a lazy afternoon, and a magical place for the Christmas tree – all of the windows reflecting the lights transformed one lighted tree into a forest of twinkling lights.  It was also the only place in the house where I could paint.  And so, in short time, the porch also became “my studio.”   As you might imagine, over the years “my studio” grew and eventually took over the entire space with makeshift storage, paint and brushes and boxes and flat files and mats and a mat cutter and books and bins and canvases and papers and, of course, paintings.  Christmas trees, morning breakfasts with the birds and dinner parties overlooking the garden were a thing of the past.

Although I had been aware for a while that the porch was not ideal for a studio space – where, for example, do you hang your paintings when three of the walls in the studio are glass and the fourth wall is punctured with a door and three windows? – I think it was not until I spotted the perfect cedar rocking chair on a porch in Micanopy that I recognized how twisted it was not to let the porch be a porch that my spouse and I could both enjoy year round. 

The next thing I knew I was doing Google searches for “cost of converting carport into studio.”  I ended up on Service Magic and within a few days I met with contractor, Jason “Tug” Huddleston, the owner of Hudd Construction, Inc.  

When relatives visited last week, I began to organize the studio for packing.  The most important thing was to have a place where we could sit and have lunch together.  So here is a picture of a space that is in between; it is neither "all studio" nor "just a porch" and yet it is both.  

And though our guests had their backs up against flat files and a table full of 
Golden Acrylic Gel Mediums, and 
High Gloss Varnish, the view overlooking the garden was great. The butterflies were out in full force that afternoon, and the hummingbird showed up on cue.  

Since then I've packed up most of the stuff that defines a studio.  And now the “porch studio” is nearly “just a porch” again.  We’ve had several breakfasts out there already.  

The big mirror on the table? That's a work in progress by artist Ellen West.  I'll write more about that soon.  

My Artist's Statement

Finally I have found the words.  Here is my artist's statement.  

Artist Statement

I paint because I am in love with the creative process.   The final product may indeed teach me something about myself, about how I view the world, or about what I care deeply about, and as such each painting stands as a statement intended for me, and, I hope, one that will resonate with others.  But the great satisfaction, the great fascination for me, is the “getting there,” going from a blank canvas to the finished product.  Although I am always present in the doing, I am still surprised by the way a painting ends.  

I especially like the experience of starting with just a few things—three tubes of paint and a thought or some music for inspiration—and seeing what can come of it.  I put paint down and lift it off, I scrape, I carve text into it, I spray it with water and rubbing alcohol, add more paint, I make marks with my fingers, with paper towels and with just about anything interesting I can get my hands on.  In other words, I get into the painting.  This is my “start” and from the chaos that results I “find” the painting by adding layers and by lifting layers, by adding lines and by subtracting lines.  It is this repetitive, intuitive, give-and-take process that thrills me, in part because it is so much fun and in part because ultimately it results in a painting.   I know that a work is done when I realize that if I add or subtract one more thing it will be the start of a new painting.  That’s when I sign it.

Various themes and imagery tend to run throughout my work: the theatre, dance, spirituality, and family.  My 12 years of parochial school education, my background in dance, my studies of the theatre and my career as a theatre teacher, my practice of Cosmos Qigong, and my deep love for my family all inform that imagery.  I paint to explore and to celebrate these things that matter to me.  It is my hope that I paint them in a way that reminds the viewers of something that matters deeply to them. 

Chi Filled, The Flowers Re-Turn

When this painting began to appear on the paper, I must admit that I had some resistance to it.  I had pretty much abandoned painting flowers two years ago, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that the flowers abandoned me.   So I was surprised a few months ago when all I could see emerging in the initial abstract start of a painting was flowers - big bold colorful flowers. Did I dare pursue it?  And if I did decide to “go there”  how would my current painting habits and my past topic mix?  Would it be possible to incorporate text into my painting?   Could I make symbols?   Would I be able to justify a re-turn to flowers?   Well, why not try it and find out. 

            I had a great time painting this.  And after a few sessions I stopped working on it and waited about a month or so before finally deciding to sign it.  You know, painting with acrylics on paper opens the way to many layers of paint and endless revisions.  When to stop can become problematic.  Making an adjustment often leads to another and another and another ad infinitum until you end up with a totally different painting.  So it was a great moment for me when I was able to acknowledge that I liked this painting just as it was and that I needed to seal the deal by signing it. 

When it came time to give this painting a title, I thought about the ways this floral was different from those I had done before.  The flowers, though completely imaginary, seem far more robust than any that have appeared in my earlier paintings.   I like to think that, like me with my 3 yrs of Chi Kung practice, “These flowers have been fertilized with Chi!”

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a series of new florals.  We’ll see how things develop!