The Two Most Important Things an Artist Needs

Southern Comfort 10 x 8 oil Available here

This week Heather Horton @Heather_Horton shared on twitter that the two most important things an artist needs are peace and time. Ahh  . . . quietness, stillness, serenity and the time to breathe it in.  But life doesn’t always serve up that kind of day or year.

This year has been a year for commotion.  Watching the decline of elderly parents puts aside peace. Participating in decisions for their care--time evaporates. Fortunately, the joy and excitement of a grandchild brings renewal and a sense of forward motion.  But even without turbulent life changes, an artist has many distractions to deal with.  I long to sit on a porch like the one pictured above and take time to reflect (more information here). Each day brings an assault of phone solicitations, advertisements, and tragic world news. I suppose it has always been the same down through the ages for artists.

I realized this past week during a short illness that I had let distractions destroy my peace and squander my time. I wasn’t painting, the very activity that keeps me truly emotionally, (and, I think, physically) healthy and connected to the world. I had gotten myself into a vicious cycle of not feeling peaceful because I wasn’t being creative, and not painting because I wasn’t peaceful!  After painting two paintings in a day at a plein air event in Wilmington this past weekend, I felt rejuvenated.

How are artists to have the peace and time to create?

In my April blog “4 Ways to Restart Your Engine” I listed some suggestions for getting over a “block” (see, I told you this has been a problem this year), but to that list I can now add:

• SCHEDULE or PAY for an event or class.  If you’re as cheap as I am, you won’t skip it.  You’ll have committed yourself to the TIME. I am thankful I sign-up for the plein air event.  What I dreaded because of low energy, lifted me up.
• Change your creative place. Set up where you work in a new location, even if it’s just in a different place in the house or yard.  It seems like a fresh start.
• Prepare your creative materials the day ahead, so all the analytical part is over.  For painters, that may mean do your sketches or thumbnails and materials setup the night before. Start the creative day fresh with no barriers.  Start with excitement!
• Absolutely shut off the phone, commuter and television for the entire day-don’t even think about those for the tiniest little bit! 

 

Sea Lion Lounge 16 x 20 oil Available here

I’ll leave you with a peaceful painting of sea lions lounging on a rock overlooking an ocean view (more information here). Lounge and breathe!

May you have a peaceful day!

A portion of my sales go to support bee/pollinator conservation.  Why?  Because I add beeswax to my oil paints, paint and consume the beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables those bees and other pollinators provide.

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Why'd the Artist Cross the Road?

"Reaching for the River" 8 x 8 oil Available. Painted outdoors below the John Dunn Bridge

Whirr, whirr. We saw and felt the sickening sight of flashing trooper lights behind us on 64W, the same 64 near our home in Cary.  We had just come back onto Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, aka 64W, from viewing the big Rio Grande Bridge.  I determined that painting there would be difficult because of wind. How could this be, going only 55 on the open, flat, clear road outside Taos? The officer approached our car, and seeing we were a tourist couple in a rental car, warned us we were doing 55 in a 45, but kindly only directed us to our next destination, the John Dunn Bridge in the smaller Rio Grande Gorge. 

Relieved we were on our way.  To the right we viewed the Pueblo Peak of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range.  

Pueblo Peak area

The road soon dropped down into a deep arroyo, a small stream bed, that ran left to the Rio Grande.  We turned left at an old hippie colony from the 1970s and followed a small paved road until it turned to dirt.  Bump, bump, bump.  Up the hill we drove to the mesa trailing more dust and dirt, then we dropped down steeply into a ravine to a one lane bridge.  More dust and bumping over rocks.  I was losing faith there was a John Dunn Bridge.  “Let’s turn back!  I’m not inspired!  Only sagebrush and rocks in sight”, I yelled at Walt in anguish.  Just then a car approached in the opposite direction.  “You’re there.  Just round the next bend.” 

One view from the John Dunn Bridge

We did.  A beautiful site.  A wide running river sparkling in the western sun, high cliffs, a wood plank and metal truss bridge, flat sand beaches, and toilets.  A plein air painter’s paradise!  And a place of community to walk the road to fish, to picnic and to drive across to work.

Thank you John Dunn for opening this “road”.

Long John Dunn (1857 – 1953) was a saloon keeper and gambler who owned the only bridge and stage coach into Taos.  He was a former cattle driver from Texas who escaped a 40 year prison sentence for murdering his brother-in-law by sawing through the bars and floating down river.  He was wise and resourceful, however, in understanding that roads, rivers, and mail opened up land all through the expanding continent and he made it possible in northern New Mexico.  His obituary quotes him as saying, “Transportation made the West, not blazing guns as is so often preached - although I know the guns played a big part. It was those sweat-stained horses and tireless mules, those worn saddles and creaking wagons and the men and women who were riding them across muddy rivers, rocky ridges and up those long dusty trails."  For more on John Dunn, see John Dunn’s Story

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My paintings are available at Cary Gallery of Artists 200 S. Academy St. in downtown Cary in Ashworth Village. 919-462-2035 Mon-Sat 11 am - 5:30 pm.

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Out of the Comfort Zone

"Morning with a Treasured Tree" oil 12 x 12 Available at Cary Gallery of Artists through Oct 22

What is my comfort zone?  The studio−everything I need, quiet, being undisturbed to plan and organize, time to complete a painting on my schedule.

So when I was given the opportunity to participate in Historic Southport’s Plein Air Paint Out and Wet Paint Sale, my reaction was:  Ugh, Paint Outs!  I’ve avoided them like the plague.  Pressure.  Jockey for position at the most interesting sites.  Quick decisions. Compose-Paint-Frame! Not the meditative and “sinking into the place” experience that is so enjoyable about painting outdoors.  And during the start of hurricane season, I thought.  Oh, yea.  And scheduled right before I’m preparing for three exhibits.  The date, September 14, was picked to coordinate with the International Plein Air Painters Organization Worldwide Paint Out.  Who knew there was an International WORLD WIDE paint out? 

In my mind there were plenty of reasons not to participate.  But I overcame all the internal nay-saying because one of the organizers was Jim McIntosh.  We wanted to see him again and the ever-so-lovely coastal town of Southport, NC.  We had visited Southport the year before and stayed in the heart of the downtown at the Southport Inn B and B. Southport has been the location to many movies for its historic buildings, small parks, walkable waterfronts, docked boats and yachts, and charming merchant and tree-lined residential streets.  For these same reasons, it’s a delightful location for outdoor painting. If there was ever going to be a fun paint out, Jim, a lively and easy-going watercolorist, would make it so.

The problem is—I’m not easy-going!  So, being a former arts administrator, I went into planning mode.  I spent weeks agonizing over gathering an assortment of frames and painting panels so Walt and I would have a variety of size and orientation choices –6 x 8, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, 9 x 12 (horizontal and vertical) for all the subjects we’d want to paint.  In the final week, I came to my senses and realized neither of us would paint more than two paintings in the morning hours before we’d want lunch and need to pack up for the viewing area.  We ended up packing only a few prepared 12 x 12 frames --one nice square orientation!—prewired with backer boards and identified with business cards.  That decision done! 

Next—map out our desired locations. I’ve been doing a series of trees, so I was particularly interested in painting the estimated 800 year old Indian Trail tree, also known as Treasure Tree.  So that was to be our first stop, followed by either the old yacht basin or a residential scene or downtown business.  We would let our energy and interest of the day guide us.  The evening before we took a leisurely stroll around the town to consider distances (for hauling equipment between sites) and to estimate the sun’s location in the morning—here Walt is of incalculable help as I’ve never figured out the seasonal movement of the planets! Where the heck is that sun going to be?!  Is there an app for this? (Turns out there is, Sun Seeker, but Walt’s a better companion.)

"Bunting and 'Brella" oil 12x12. Available. At Cary Cafe through Oct 27

In the middle of the afternoon, all the participating artists congregated at the Fort Johnson-Southport Museum & Visitors Center lawn.  The assortment of styles and quality was top quality.  This event will surely grow.  We ended the day with a seafood dinner with good friends Paulette and Hank Wright.  Paulette, a photographer and painter, participated with her acrylic work.  

Walt’s paintings have already migrated to his office at Armor Investment Advisors, but I can tell you his acrylic work was very popular. The tree pictured above was the first painting we each worked on in Kezia Park.  Next I chose to paint a portion of the Christmas Shop and, the next day, a boat in the Old Yacht Basin. 
 

"Calm in the Basin" oil 12x12 Available. At Cary Gallery of Artists through Oct 22

How do I feel about the experience?  Ebullient!  By leaving my comfort zone I learned I could make quick and good decisions, that years of workshop and daily painting training would buoy me up, and that, by being approachable, the good nature of the public and fellow artists would encourage me.  Where I had been struggling with painting in the weeks prior, the experience of going out of my comfort zone was what I needed to rejuvenate my confidence and painting. 

Challenge met!

In addition to Jim McIntosh, thanks to Cindy Brochure of Tourism and Economic Development, Film Liaison City of Southport, for organizing this event.  We’ll be b-a-a-a-ck!

In Cary, my paintings are available at Cary Gallery of Artists 200 S. Academy St. in downtown Cary Ashworth Village. 919-462-2035 Mon-Sat 11 am - 5:30 pm. 

On the coast, my works are available at Figments Gallery, 1319 Military Cutoff, Landfall Shopping Center, Wilmington, NC 28405 910-509-4289

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