For those fortunate enough to be able to make a living in the arts sometimes we need take a step back and realize how blessed we are. As I heared Richard Schmid say once, "it is like being paid to eat ice cream".  Who would disagree.

This is not to say, at least for me. that this is always fun because it isn't always fun. Sometimes it isn't fun at all. It is not relaxing either unless your shrink suggested that you take it up. To be completely honest it is damn hard work, no way around it. In fact if you are having too much fun you probably aren't paying attention. It is however satisfying and fulfilling especially after an honest effort.

I just spent the last 5 days in the Canadian Rockies with a couple of painter friends from BC and Alberta, Jerry Markham and Doug Swinton a couple of talented young painters you'll be hearing great things from, in the near future. There really is nothing as enjoyable as spending a few days painting with friends but it is still hard as hell.

To set your easel up in front of the majesty of the untouched virgin wilderness is so humbling that it is hard to believe that you've been given the honor of trying to express your reaction to what you are witnessing. You work there the entire day and produce 2 or 3 studies, working as fast as you can laying in the large forms and light patterns, pushing, pulling, comparing values, temperature, drawing, redrawing, scraping the whole thing off, starting over, correcting mistakes. Finally you've run out of time and you take your sketches back to the motel. Realizing immediately that you've come in second to mother nature. You accept the small victory that even in defeat you've done the best you can, and tomorrow we'll do better. And so it goes day after day. 

You wonder sometimes if you will ever win. At times you wonder if you are ever going to get any closer to honoring the scene before you, until one day you turn back and look over your shoulder and you realize you've come much farther than you thought, in fact you now know you've come too far to turn back. So you go on and try again and again and eventually the satisfaction gets greater with each effort. 

The last night we set all the paintings up in the motel room and critiqued each effort. One more plate of humble pie, however even that is satisfying to know we have each learned a few things that will push us a little higher tomorrow. As difficult as painting outdoors is there is no where else I'd rather work all the answers stand right before you. You may need to move some things around but it is still all right there in front of you. A bit like taking an open book test.

It is not until you look at your efforts a few months later and realize you've brought more home in a few studies than all of your photographs, this is when you know the true value of painting on the spot.

We also find comfort in knowing that if this were easy the streets would be lined with Rembrandts.

Wm. F. Reese

It seems to me the goals of most beginning painters center more on absolute reality than on the poetic essential. Probably because that is what seems the most difficult and maybe at one time it was and people always admire what looks difficult. The looser styles look easy to the entrained eye so I suppose it is only natural that they would be drawn to the tighter work because that is what they would try to paint if they could paint. The other reason is more likely because of our left brained educational systen leaving us only to recognize absolute reality. Back in the days when there were no computers and cameras, it would seem that this would be very difficult and there fore admirable. In those days grid frames placed between the model and the artist with their complicated string grid lines as well as the Camera Lucida among other tools were used to capture this heightened sense of realism. Three to five hundred years ago art had a different function especially painting is was really more a craft with a more utilitarian function, portraiture and storytelling to be exact.

Today we have so many tools at hand that exact likenesses are much easier in fact so much easier that most of the artists that I know aren't really interested in it. To reach the level that the old masters, achieved is still dificult don't get me wrong, but to reach the level that is called realism today is very easy and can be mastered in short order. Witness the flood of 25 and 30 year old "geniuses" we see in the magazines that paint so tight that you can almost see the dandruff on the collar. Then ask your self why the more mature artists are painting in a looser fashion. Often times they may look tight but look closer and you will see most of the detail is implied and not painted at all.

What is difficult and will take a life time to perfect is a painting or sculpture that rings like a bell or sings like a song. To make art that is more like music we need to start thinking of ways to capture more of the essence of what we see. Taking a hair census or capturing the glimmering highlight of a million seed beads on a pair of moccasins does not seem essential to me. The old saying, "can't see the forest for the trees", furnishes a clue if you can't see the forest for the trees; you are not seeing the essential. The forest is essential the trees incidental. The forest is the shape of form and the trees are only the variegation or sub shapes within the form and the leaves are the texture. The pattern the beads are making is the essential the beads are the incidental, or texture if you will. Now this represents a relationship you can paint as loose or as tight as you wish but this relationship must remain, from the dominance of the essential to the sub dominance of the incidental to the sub ordinance of the texture. No matter to what degree you carry the detail it should always be secondary to the pattern. The form is what is important not the story.

It only makes sense to me that the art should have enough integrity to allow the medium used do what it does best In other words using oil to be a second rate photograph or oil paint to be used to replicate a mediocre watercolor serves no purpose other than to be seen as a gimmick.

I do however feel every painter should be able to paint tight if for no other reason than to know in their own mind that what they are leaving out is by choice and not because it is expediant.

Wm. F. Reese

It seems to me that people are a lot more reticent about expressing their opinion than they used to be. I was always taught that an opinion was the product of a thorough thought process. After you looked at both sides and thought something through what you end up with is an opinion. Once you have an opinion you should be free to express it with out being called opionated. So when one is asked to give a critique or opinion of someones work we should fell free to do so honestly and freely. To do so honestly and freely as well as intelligently should then be accepted as a gift. A gift like this is the kindest thing one can do for another artist. Now if you can't do it intelligently and out of kindness then you probably deserve to be called opionated.

When I was in my early forties I was walking through the Grand Central Galleries with Sergei Bongart when I told him how much I liked the still life he had in the show. He said, "so what is wrong with other painting, yeh?" I got very defensive and immediately told him I didn't say anything was wrong with the other piece. I was 20 years his junior and as good a friends as we were I wasn't about to be caught being judgemental about his work in any  way. Even though he had just critiqued my painting a few minutes earlier.

Sergei squared himself up in front of me stepped forward and stuck his right index finger almost on my nose and said, "So Beel, that is what is wrong with American artists, yeh, you don't talk to each other. When someone asks for your opinion about their painting you must tell truth?"

Suddenly I realized just how serious he was so I looked at his painting of two Russian peasant women with floral scarves on their heads, and said, "I feel like I've received a half dozen invitations to a party and when I arrive I find it's all over." He asked what I meant by that and I told him that my eye was driven from several areas in the painting each time to the faces and each time I was disappointed that the faces were no more finished than the rest of the painting.

"So thank you, I knew something was wrong." From that day on I realized how important an opinion is and above all what a great gift it is. A gift for all to who ask that is, you don't just hand them out at will.

Normally I beg off giving critiques when a piece is in a show or a sculpture is cast in bronze because how are you going to fix it? However if pressed I will because it is for the future of art that we do it in the first place.

Quite often I will ask laymen their opinion of my work, their thoughts are valid too, just consider where they may be coming from and know that their opinion will be colored by their specific background. Many times I have gone out of my way to have jockeys look at my horses, or a vet, or the horse shoer. They all see through their own lenses. At the same time do not necessarily change everything to suit them you have to reach a balance to find your own truth. Remember to a hammer salesmen everything looks like a nail.

Wm. F. Reese

So many times I have heard artists, singers, musicians, and others referred to as gifted. In some ways I think this is true but a bigger truth is they have been given a huge responsibility as well. For anyone to accept the gift as it is will probably end up with nothing but an undeveloped talent. The gift must be accepted as a responsiblity one that must be developed and nurtured through out a life time, maybe with some reward but maybe not, if you learn to enjoy the process this will be your pay.

Should this gift be given to someone without a great deal of drive and a burning love of the process of learning, it will be totally wasted. When I was a kid in school I remember a lot of kids that were more talented than I was but were not driven and didn't believe they could become exceptional at drawing and painting. On the other hand this was all I ever wanted to do and it consumed all of my thoughts and my spare time, and I never doubted for a moment that this would be my life's work. How I knew this I don't know, since I really didn't know what an artist did for a living. I suppose I thought they all did magazine covers and story illustrations. At any rate I knew at the age of 5 what I wanted to do.

After raising a son and a daughter I discovered that I was a bit of an odd ball. The reality I found, was most people finish college and still don't know what their life's work will be. To many times it depends on the direction their first job offering takes them. This I find very sad because I believe many more people are gifted in ways that know one recognizes. I think talent is more readily recognized in the arts because we are a left brain society so anyone gifted in the right hemishere of the brain have been given a special gift. This is a way for the public to explain why they can't do it. They were left out. The left brain seems to find pride in pointing out that they can't draw a straight line. How hard could this be you place the chalk on the chalk board and drop your hand. Gravity works it's magic and you have a straight verticle line. But they are proud they can't do this.

In any case people grow into middle age and discover they are gifted in some way. Maybe this gift is nothing more than a strong desire to do something. An interest you just can't shake. Well today there is no good reason not to pursue this interest. The computor via the internet gives us access to worlds we have only imagined.

To try something new that you are interested in doesn't mean you have to ever reach a professional proficiency. Most activities people do as a hobby, were mean't to be done as a hobby. Only the very best become professionals, but if it weren't for those who do it as a hobby we wouldn't have professionals. Bowling, golf, and other sports, if this wasn't true then we would only need 28 stadiums and 28 gymnasiums for the whole United States. One golf course would take care of all the professional golfers and one bowling alley would be more than sufficient.

To take up painting late in life is admirable because it is probably the most difficult thing you'll ever try. It will consume the rest of your life. Myself I took up the guitar and more recently I have begun to carve leather. I have absolutely no desire to ever make ten cents from either pursuit. To attempt to earn an income from either one would only be a distraction from the learning process as well as eat into the time I have to do them. Plus I hold out no hope that I will ever reach a professional level at either one. What I have found exciting is the wealth of information and help in the form of professionals out there to help you teach yourself.

The same is true of painting there are so many books and classes available that didn't exist when I was young. So go for it, work hard, and above all learn to enjoy the process because that is your true reward.

Wm. F. Reese

I received an email from "Kaye" with an interesting question. She also sent an illustration by Howard Pyle and another by Edgar Degas. Her question is as follows, "I don't know how clearly this illustration of Howard Pyle will come across, but note the figure on the far right, only a sliver of him is visible. This is called 'cropping', a technique introduced by the impressionists over a century ago. the purpose is to give the impression of a larger reality than the canvas, and to make the composition more interesting and intriguing. Since I was rejected from a show recently for employing 'cropping' I wonder if we are going backwards in art. Or if the gallery 'experts' are even aware?"
 
Kaye, I've always thought that the impressionists were probably influenced by the camera in this regard because as one looks through the view finder this larger reality becomes pretty apparent, so this was new to them. As I look at the Degas example I feel like it may have been cropped by an editor, I'm not saying it was, just that it makes me feel that way because of all the annoying tagent points of the first figure's foot to the frame and well as hand, shoulder, and foot of the secondary figure. If this was done on purpose it did more to distract my eye than any good it might have done. The Howard Pyle example seems very crowded to me so if anything the cropping is to close. The negative spaces seem very tight to me. Cropping can be used successfully just as you've stated, but when it is used one has to watch very closely the negative shapes you are affecting in the process. The French and others after them did use this very effectively and sometimes not so effectively. So judge this for your self. Each change in the composition makes a larger change on the rest of the painting, and if that change isn't for the good of the whole then it will be unsuccessful. Remember a trick isn't magic until it works.

It may have been, that you were successful and that the gallery person or judge may have just finished reading the Official Art Rulebook, and decide to write you up in violation of art code #43798b or you have some how inadvertantly drawn her attention to it. The rule book that I use has only one page in it and on that page are the words, There are no rules in art. All one has to do is make it work. 

Don't use pure white, don't use white it will make your color chaulky, never use black, don't put anything in the middle of the canvas, don't run anything off the canvas, never use white in watercolor, never use an orange in a still life, we need to do away with the legislative branch of the art police. For evey one of these rules I can think of thousands of examples where each was broken sussessfully.

There are laws however, such as the laws of light, color, value, perspective, etc., and even they can be broken given a good enough reason. When they are however, be careful not to raise more issues than you can answer to.

The art police would have given Picasso and Braque 20 to life for shattering the laws of light and perspective as they did.
 
Wm. F. Reese

Thirty thousand years ago the art world was confined to a few walls inside a few dark caves in Europe. It was simple in scope and belonged to a single school, and probably had only a handful of practictioners throughtout the whole world. Today the art world is so emmence in scope, and the definition of art seems to be only limited to the number of people using the word, art. The word has been used, overused, and misused so much that it really no longer has any meaning. In order to have a discussion about art today we have grown into small tribal associations of moderists, impressionists, realists, butchers, bakers, and candle stick makers. It seems everything has become some sort of an art form, in somebodies eyes.

The modernists look down on the realists because everything is based on meaningless skills and no concept. The natural realists look down on the modernists for lack of basic skills and only dealing with concept. Each group has surrounded itself with meaningless peramitters and rules.

So I was thinking wouldn't it be great if there was a chat room/blog where we could begin to have a discussion about all of this. I believe that great art could become greater with the cross pollination from one group to another. The modernists could benifit through learning better skills, the natural realists might benifit from developing bigger and more dynamic concepts. We all get caught up in our own traps so to speak. I believe this could benefit artists from all levels by bringing a discussion on studio and painting procedures.

Eventually I could see giving solid constructive critiques and instruction through this website and who knows what else this could lead to. So let me know what you think.
 
Wm. F. Reese

Russian Impressionism

You can hardly turn around today without hearing the words Russian Impressionist being bandied about. Even American painters often refer to themselves as Russian Impressionists this seems to me to be an oxymoron. To do this also seems to be an attempt to commercially profit on the label.

In the Frye Museum in Seattle Wa. there is a self portrait by Nicolai Fechin painted in 1952. Who knows what the value might be today clearly it would be in six figures. While at the same time on the back of the painting it says $500. Since the craze in Russian Impression in America, started with Fechin, it apparently had not yet begun. I first became aware of Fechin while attending Art Center School in Los Angeles in the early sixties from one of my instructors. Fechin lived his last years and died in Santa Monica so he was at that time recognized as a favorite son but as yet relatively unknown. I began to gather slides from people in the area who had studied with him. I also searched for books on him with no luck. The Hammer Galleries in New York had actually published a hard bound catalog only a few years earlier but none were anymore available. I am saying all of this to point up the fact that this interest in Russian Impressionism is relatively new.

The Russian Impressionists as we call them, were referrred to as the Itinerants or Wanderers in Russia, were interested in large part, the world and life of the peasant which I am sure found little interest from the buying public. They did however still paint portraits and such for the upper crust to provide themselves with some substinence, but what America has become enraptured with is the everyday life and landscape. So we don't need to worry about them being accused of commecial pandering. They painted from a clean and honest artistic soul, they were answering to no one. These painters were highly trained by one of the greatest teachers in history, Ilya Repin; they could draw as well as the greatest masters in history. Find me a greater draftsman than Nicolai Fechin. They were painting what they and only they wanted to paint. This sounds like the perfect recipe for great work to me. It was only a matter of time before they would be recognized for their efforts. And recognized thery were, but for all the wrong reasons by us at least.

We fell in love with their color, the freedom of brushwork and the seemingly everyday subject matter. Some how we failed to recognize their great sense of integrity and reverence for poetry that the Russians had. I remember when my friend Sergei Bongart passed away all of his close friends met after the funeral at someones home and we listened the whole evening to the recitation of poems, some of which Sergei had written. Painting to the Russians is just another form of poetry and it should be to us as well.

Today there is so much art done by Americans labeled Russian Impressionism painted only for the market and for totally commercial reasons. This is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog compared to what the "interants" were doing. We are allowing the market place to dictate what we paint, and the louder their money talks the lower our own voice bercomes. As artists we are supposed to be leaders not followers. I know that many feel they have to repeat what has already been said in order to be heard. If that is the case maybe they have nothing really to say in the first place. Now there is a place to start, seaching for our own voice and subject matter.

Nicolai Fechin and Sergei Bongart were two of the greatest Russian painters to have ever lived and worked in America and their work can never be repeated or matched. So any attempt repeat their style or subject matter is sure to fall short of the mark. So we should search for the big lessons they left for us, which I believe to the integrity of motive and subject matter that has personal meaning to the painter, and to let your artist response come directly from the heart. To much of what is being done is like copying another's diary just because their own might be uninteresting. Like it or not our own diary is the only one that has any chance of being interesting.

In short share with the world your own world and your view of it. You may be surprised just how unique and interesting each of us can be to those around us.

Bill

This website was built almost a year ago complete with a blogsite I chose to call Musings. I would imagine may of you must have been wondering when I was going to report for work. I can only tell you one thing for sure, and that is this. The longer you live the longer the learning curve becomes. The good news is I think I am finally up to speed, at least lets hope so.

Welcome to my new website including this blog. I will begin entering new topics, thoughts and ideas very soon. I hope they will spark interest among artists, collectors and anyone else interested in art. I look forward to the topics of discussion this generates. Please check back soon for entries.

To the left you can subscribe to my blog by entering your email address, so that you will receive a copy of any new blog entries.

William F. Reese