Welcome to my blog
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.
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William F. Reese
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
Nice!!! You are always have a couple of words - where are they?! Can't wait...
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Stay tuned.
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Hi Bill,
Recently on a trip to the states I had a chance to go into some galleries in the Jackson Hole WY. As a Canadian painter I always enjoy looking at art south of the border. However, this time I was both awed and somewhat dejected at the paintings I saw. The paintings I saw where quite technically perfect in most ways but lacked the soul and feeling of “art”. Let me explain further if I can. I happened upon a gallery that was getting ready for an auction and had many great living painters’ paintings around as well as deceased artists paintings. As the more recent paintings were great and I enjoyed looking at the pictures I saw a portrait that Fenchin had painted. It was painted with vigor and spirit and I don’t know how to explain except to say that it was imperfectly perfect. It had undone edges and color marks. Hard black paint and pure red lips. It had intensity about it and suggested everything but did not describe everything in mind-numbing details. It was “art”. I also noticed this in the paintings of Frank Tenney Johnson, Carl Rungius and Guy Wiggins and many others. This is not to say that all paintings of our time are boring and not art, I am not trying to say that at all. I am a, relatively, young painter and I find it hard to distinguish the difference between the two when the market seems not to be bothered by this. I often wonder if this does not exist anywhere except in my mind. I would like to get your thoughts on this matter, if you have any.
Thanks in advance,
Artistically confused
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Dear Artistcally Confused
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I understood from class that you are Ann Templeton's favorite artist. If you have pastel paintings that can be viewed on the internet, please tell me where. Thank you.
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Tell Ann I am honored. As far as pastel paintings go, the truth be known I have only painted maybe 25 or 30 pastels until I realized they are very dusty and the dust consists of heavy metals. Since I already have an inherited lung disease I decided I didn't need another. The only pastel on my website would be the one on the cover of my book, "Chiappanecas".
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Great to see you getting out there. You are a very important artist, and the world needs to know what you are thinking.
Share your thoughts, knowledge and the world will be a better place for it.
Love you, Bill
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We met some time ago in Wenatchee at your gallery. We had a pleasant chat. you were looking for a home for a skeleton of a horse. I wish I would have taken you up on the offer but I still don't have the room unless I put it out in the barn with my 6 draft horses. that might plumb them up( :
I have been painting ever since our conversation 3 years ago. The plein air thing has been convenient as after 20 years working horses I prefer to work outside.
I have also discovered http://www.leningradartist.com/index.html
and have been doing a series of small rural towns in winter. While western art was exploring the avant garde, painting in russia was mandated by the state which was 'social realsim'. Like the chinese they are a 'hot item'. guess there is still a place for realism on the collectors wall, something like your 'Cascade Winter' in which you have captured the feeling of many of our small mountain villages. Cle Elum perhaps, Leavenworth or a composite of them all?
I hope your health is holding out and you are still painting. Do you ever allow someone to watch over your shoulder when you are painting?
Look forward to your 'Musings'. Love to hear about your art career.
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Thank you for your comments. My wife bless her soul managed to sell the fully articulated horse skeleton. There are many people in this world who pride them selves on their sales ability selling things you can not possiblly live without like groceries, cars, and homes, well they should try selling a horse skeleton when there may be one real customer in the entire state, Now thats is salesmanship.
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Hi Bill! This website is awesome! When are you going to start your musings? I found out that BLOG is short for Web Log. I hope you will write some things here. You have been a great inspiration to me as I have pursued my love of interior design. I just love that you had a dream and followed it. I can still see you drawing and painting as a kid in Washington when we would come to visit.
I am proud to call you my cousin and friend. The work displayed on this website is beautiful. Thanks for sharing it.
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Bonnie
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Hi Bill
What do you think about the plein air craze that seems to be everywhere. I thought it was the quality of the painting that mattered and not how much time it took or where one was standing when you painted it. I understand that painting outdoors is essential for learning and gathering information but should we made to feel guilty for finishing or changing the painting when you get it back to the studio? Does it make it a lesser painting or artist if your best work does not come in one session? And what about large scale work? Did Payne and Carlson work inside on their big paintings?
Susan and Doug Diehl
Broad Daylight Painters of Arizona
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Dear Susan and Doug
I started painting outdoors on Christmas morning 1950 just after Santa Claus left my first oil paint set under the Christmas tree. I fashioned an easel out of some lumber and set up by the barn and proceeded to paint a row of cottonwood trees down by the creek. The next day it snowed so I painted a pot of poinsettias on the kitched table.I didn't know anything about rules, official certification stamps on the back, official starting times, and the like. By the end of the second day what I did know was I could more successfully draw a row of cottonwoods or a pot of poinsettias from memory than I could have done on Christmas Eve. Above that I realized how enjoyable spending the day studying something could be.
Painting from life whether indoors or outdoors is the quickest track to the information we need to create art so whether it takes 30 minutes or 3 months isn't important to me. Whether you finish it in the field or reassemble it in the studio does not matter either, unless you are unsuccessful.
I don't even care if you use a camera except for the harm it will probably do to your decision making and your work. The camera provides more false information than true and it takes it skilled person to use it successfully without it becoming crippleing. I have thanked God many times for keeping me poor enough to paint without a camera for the first 15 years. The camera has an instant reward to it unfortunately, and that is it allows you to reach the level of average much quicker than painting from life. However the fastest way beyond average or mediocre is to paint from life. So in short I believe there are only two rules that govern painting from life; 1. Do no harm in other words don't do something that will make you less of an artist in the long rung. 2. There are no more rules.
As far as what I think of the plein aire craze? My French to English dictionary translates 'en plein aire' to 'into full surface'. So I guess that is why I have always called it painting from life, indoors or outdoors. I have enough trouble being fluent in English without garnishing it with French phrases I don't understand. The fact that it has gotten people out side to paint the landscape is great but I would like to see more figurative work painted outdoors as well. Remember it is the figure that forces our drawing skills to higher levels.
On the light side of this. I was painting in the Palm Desert area about 10 years ago, I was setting in my car and painting in a lap box a field of desert flowers. When I noticed some one park about 100 feet away, he carried a folding workbench into the middle of my wild flowers and then placed a large studio easel beside it, then came the canvas, palette and a can of brushes. I thought maybe he's heard about how much fun this can be and is going to try it for himself. The next trip from the car he brings a camera and tripod and trains it on the easel and his wife is now serving as a stand in for him as he adjusts the camera. They then trade places and she takes the pictures while he pretends to paint. I know somewhere there is a brochure proclaiming the dedication and talents of some noted Plein Aire painter standing among the beautiful desert flowers he loves to hike into to paint.
As far as Carlson and Payne I can only go by my judgement and that is this, most of the small painting they did had a look of being painted in the field and the large paintings show a lot more control. Besides can you imagine hiking in or packing in large canvases. If you want to know for sure you need to talk to someone a lot older than me.
When the plein aire police start questioning you give only your name, rank, and serial number and admit to nothing, but trying to paint great paintings.
Wm. F. Reese
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HI
I feel like I found a kindred spirit! I have painted portraits of children in pastel for many years, always longing to be free to be more expressive. The money was good though, and people loved it! Two years ago I blew everyone's mind and began doing abstracts. I am loving it and don't give a rip what others think. I've earned it!
I especially liked what you had to say about being loose versus being tight.
Cheri Petri
by the way, the e-mail address is my husbands, who is also an artist.
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Cheri,
Good for you, all paintings should be abstract anyway. My only objection to non objective art is when it becomes a religion designed only to hide poor skills. The abstraction is where we find the music. Learning the skills is like the time the musician spends practicing scales. One is worthless without the other.
If you've been painting pastel portraits you undoubtablly have learned to draw so go for it.
Wm. F. Reese
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Hi Bill,
As I was perusing my new California impressionists book and reading the artists' biographies, I was smacked in the face again with life lesson #46, "You don't grow in a vacuum." Most of the prominent painters in California in the late 1800's and early 1900's knew each other. This seems to be a consistently repeated pattern through history, not only history of art, but of science, technology, and many other fields.
There were the geniuses of the Renaissance in from Leonardo to Galileo, the politically powerful royal families of Europe including the Habsburgs, Windsors, and Romanovs, the French Impressionists, our own founding fathers whose friendships ebbed and were reestablished according to America's and their own political fortunes, and the atomic and rocket scientists of the 40's. More recently, what about Jobs/Woseneac/Gates and Spielburg/Lucas and Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton(maybe)? No strangers to one another there. It goes on and on.
From friends' names you've mentioned, I know that you have had a lot of contact with many, many artists. What impact did these associations have on you and how did they influence you? What lessons can we learn from that experience?
Best,
Susan
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Susan,
This has always interested me too. I don't really think it is entirely a birds of a feather thing because so many times it seems to happen in a very small geographical area like in the case of the French Impressionists. Sometimes you see outstanding athletes from the same high school. So I've often thought it had more to do with the influence each had on the other. My mother used to say, "You will be known by the friends you keep." I believe she meant to take care in choosing friends of good character, but I think friends with great skills would be just as influential. There is another old saying, "If you want to be a better golfer, golf with better golfers."
Another component may be that people of like minds seem to enoy each other's company and while doing so are bound to have a positive effect on each other. In this respect it may be a birds of a feather issue. People like this also seem to have very strong individual personalities. While they are influencing each other in many, many ways they still maintain their own individuality. So even though they influence each other their work has its own signature. Hence they can share information and then each will expand it to the point that once shared again it cross pollinates making for a great explosion of ideas each time it is shared.
Quite often these groups grow out of the influence of a single person, like an exceptional teacher, coach, or mentor of some sort, and this person will have a very strong sense of individuality, as well as great knowledge and skills. Like Ilya Repin for instance he was more or less the common thread in the so called Russian Impressionist movement.
As far as the Royal families of Europe are concerned I don't think much of this applies, I mean since they are all cousins how do they do they not know each other. In the case of our own founding fathers this had to have been devine intervention that brought them together if you ever doubt this just compare them to the 545 politicians that we have selected out of a 300 million population to take their place. Maybe they're all cousins too.
In my case I have been fortunate to have known so many exceptional and talented individuals that have all been a big influence on my life and career that it would be very difficult to try to name them with out leaving someone out. The important thing I think is to remember that everyone you meet has something to teach you. They have some good to teach which you will want to learn to use, and some bad to teach which you will want to learn not to use. Both are worth remembering. The other thing is to always be willing to trade everything you know for what someone is willing to teach you. It may not seem like a fair trade but it will be a good trade for you, because in the end you will have been exposed to everything worth knowing.
My thoughts on this are purely through observation so I would be interested to hear what others would have to say about this. Let me know.
Wm. F. Reese
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