An Artist's Statement

In my recent readings, I came across an article that discussed the need for an artist to have "an artist's statement."  The author wrote that a statement drives one's art to make sense and it keeps one's art unified.

How do I come up with my artist's statement?  First, I will make a list of my WHYS and HOWS. I also need to list what's important to me in my painting. Those will help me solidify my focus and purpose.

WHY do I paint?

• Because I can - and because I like it
• The process is enjoyable - not in a "Wow! This is fun!" way but in a "Wow! I can see progress!" way.
• I enjoy looking at my artwork on the walls.
• After feeling incapable of decent art for so long, I still feel enormous satisfaction (and surprise!) when I look at a painting I've created that speaks to me - that moves me in some way.
• I like connecting my art with moments and people in my life. The feelings of nostalgia and reminiscing are strong in my art. A painting has to mean something to me.
• I like the challenge of taking classes or watching videos, and then I enjoy taking what I learned and applying it to my own art.
• I remember clearly a moment in April when I was at PACE19 in San Francisco, walking back towards the bus from the ridge at Lands End, looking at the scenery and all the artists scattered around painting and thinking, “I LOVE this!”  

HOW do I paint?

• I take a LOT of photographs. I'm always on the lookout for scenes I want to paint. I use the camera on my iPhone. 
• After I settle on a photograph I like, I print it out in color.
• I use the photograph as a reference as I paint.
• If I'm doing plein air painting, I narrow my focus as much as possible so the painting doesn't become too busy.
• I still take a lot of photos - even with plein air painting.  It lets me capture a moment in time to hold the light for however long it takes to complete the painting. 

What's important to me when I paint?

• I must have a connection to what I'm painting.
• I want my art to be "painterly" - meaning I want it to look like a painting.
• I like a little quirkiness in my art. I want to see brush strokes and layers of paint - texture. I want colors that may surprise and seem out of place at first glance but then bring the scene together. Maybe "quirky nostalgia" would be my buzzword.
• When the connection to the painting is strong, I often deepen that connection via poetry. That has become one of my favorite aspects of my art - joining the visual art with the written art.

My Studio

• I've set up a studio in what was formerly the bonus room in our home.
• Because of back issues (back surgery a few years ago), I sit when I paint. I can walk all day, but I can't stand still for a long time. So I've set up three "stations" in my studio.  I have my oil painting station, my acrylic painting station (used most often by my granddaughters), and I have my framing station. Each station has a desk with a chair. 
• I don't worry about getting paint on the carpet - or the chairs - or the desks.  It's an art studio. When Ron and I are gone, whoever buys our house can replace the carpet and repaint the walls.

It is interesting reading back over what I've written. I've spent a couple hours, thinking through all this and writing it down. I just went back over what I've written and highlighted certain sentences/phrases in green. Those are the key statements about my art. 

My artist's statement is something like this:

I connect my art with the people, experiences, emotions, and places in my life. I strive for my art to evoke a sense of nostalgia and reminiscing - but also contain a little quirkiness.  When people view my art, I want them to feel a connection. My style is "painterly" with visible brush strokes and texture. One of my favorite challenges is to incorporate poetry whenever a painting is particularly meaningful to me. I love combining written art with my visual art.

It’s definitely a work in progress, but it’s a good start. 

A visit to my Mother in Georgia results in two new paintings!

I got home yesterday after spending a few days with my mother in Georgia.  On the drive to my mother's house, I passed many scenes that I could have photographed and possibly painted.  However, one barn in particular was so pretty with the sun shining on it that I pulled over to the side of the road and took a few photos. After I got to my mother's house, I set up my easel in her breakfast room and started painting.

You might wonder why I would paint at my mother's house.  It's because it's a very tender experience! She always comes in and sits next to me and watches me as I paint - asking questions and making comments. To her, I'm a magnificent artist, and she's interested in how I create paintings. It is a pure blessing for me - just a couple months away from the big 7-0 birthday - to have my mother (who is 96) still here to cheer me on as an artist. So whenever I visit my mother - I paint, and I treasure every second of that special time with my mother.

Here is the painting of the barn in Alabama. Since I wasn't very far from Fort Payne, I named it "Sweet Barn Alabama."

"Sweet Barn Alabama" Oil on 11x14 canvas panel  

After I finished the barn painting, I asked my mother what she would like for me to paint. I've already painted a vase of yellow silk roses that she has on a long "camp meeting" table in her family room. And I also painted some of her miniature church collection.  Those two painting are below.

My mother said she'd like to have a painting of a basket that she'd bought for 15 cents when we lived in Kentucky in the early 1950s. That basket has been on display in every single house she has lived in since then. She also mentioned some fresh hydrangeas that one of my sisters had brought her earlier that day. They were a pretty pink color, and my mother loves pink. The next day when my niece was visiting, I asked her to help me set up a still life with the basket and hydrangeas. We set out the basket, put three hydrangeas in the basket, and then, since it needed something more, we added a wooden book stand that my mother's brother had made for her, and on the book stand we put a Greek Bible that belonged to my father, along with a cross-stitched book mark that another sister had made for my mother. We put the whole thing on a table with a blue tablecloth. Here is the painting of that still life. What I like best about this painting is that the basket is immediately recognizable as the basket I've seen all my life.

"The Kentucky Basket"  16x20 oil on linen panel

The background is a pale blue - which doesn't show up well in the above photograph. My mother is already planning where she will put this painting.  I brought it home to let it dry, to varnish it and frame it. Then I will give it to her.

So a few days at my mother's - and two new paintings.

Sunset in Alabama

A high school friend of mine posted a photo the other night of the sunset where she was.  The photo was beautiful with the oranges and yellows of the sunset reflected so beautifully in the lake below.  It reminded me of the trip to Alaska that Ron and I took with Lily and Sophie three years ago. We saw ponds and lakes so still that the snow-capped mountains beyond them were perfectly reflected in the water.

So I messaged my friend and asked if I could use her photo as a reference to paint the scene. She agreed, and I immediately started painting. I finished it earlier today.  Last night, after I'd blocked it in, I went online and researched information about painting water reflections.

At an art show I attended last month, I saw a painting with an interesting textural component that really appealed to me. It wasn't "dotting" with the paintbrush, but it was similar to that - building up the paint by dabbing it onto the canvas.  So I experimented with that technique in the trees for this painting and achieved a similar texture. Not exactly the same, but it created an effect I really like.  This is oil on 9 x 12 linen. And I have to say that I actually like my trees in this painting.  So maybe that new technique will be my lifesaver when it comes to trees!

I haven't given this painting a title yet. I need to ask my friend where she took the photo.  I plan to send the painting to her after it dries and I get it varnished.  

My Monday Plein Air Painting Group

My friend, Sheryl, and I have started plein air painting together every Monday. Each week we've gone to different places and painted. It's great practice, and it gets me actually painting.  

On our first week, we went to the farm of Roy, a friend of ours.  He has a lake in front of his house - with a little covered walking bridge, and then a barn. The location was beautiful, but I am not pleased with this effort at all. I will probably paint over it at some point, or maybe I will try to salvage it. The walking bridge is leaning - and so is the barn. (Carol, get the perspective and basic outlines right before starting to paint!!!!) The banks of the pond are way too "perfect," and don't even get me started on the pitiful trees. However, still it was great practice.

Then we went to the farm of a well known ball player. Ron had met him, and so he gave us permission to paint this log cabin on his farm. He, his wife and kids came by while we were painting and chatted with us for awhile - such nice people!  I like this painting. I would've liked it better if I'd put the house on the other side of the painting or at least not in the bottom corner.  Sheryl was painting the same scene, and I wanted to make mine different. Lesson learned - Paint what you want to paint - two people can paint the same scene from the same perspective - and the results will be different.

The next week we went to Radnor Lake in Nashville.  Several other artists from The Chestnut Group went with us. I had painted this scene last year, but I still painted it again but from a different perspective.  My trees are awful. I'm not happy with this painting at all.  Not sure what I'll do with it.

 After we got home from Radnor, I looked at some of the other photos I'd taken, and I painted this next painting from one of those photos. It's one of the walking trails there, and I like this painting much better. I still need lots of practice painting trees.

Our Monday painting group is growing. It started out as just Sheryl and me. However other people are joining us, and it's a lot of fun.  It's invaluable practice.

At the End of a Road in Tuscany

I've been painting a good bit so far in June. We started off June at Disney World in Orlando. June 1st was our "day off" after visiting all the parks the previous five days. So part of my family spent the day at Universal Studios, another part played Frisbee golf, another part went to shoot sporting clays at a local gun club, and I stayed at the condo and painted.

As I looked through the photographs that I'd printed out to use as references, I decided to paint a scene from our trip to Italy in March. I wanted to paint the little church out in the country with the overgrown steps going up the side, and with a forsythia in full bloom behind a tree. I remember when Ron and I drove down that little road, we saw the old church, and we drove past it, we saw the steps - vines and moss growing over the steps - and the top was obscured.  Then, from the side of the steps, peeping out from behind a tree, was the forsythia. Forsythia has always been one of my favorite flowers. It seemed to be a metaphor for new birth amidst the old and neglected.

Here is the finished painting, and I have the say, this painting is near the top of my all-time favorite paintings that I've done. When I was adding the lighter yellows to the forsythia bush, I realized that the bush is right smack in the middle of the painting - a big no-no in the art world . . . except I like it in this painting. I know the rule - I broke the rule.  When I started painting the scene, I thought of the steps as the focal point - and I had them exactly where I wanted them - off center.  However, as I painted the forsythia bush, I realized that it had become the true focal point rather than the steps. So I'm pleased as I can be with this painting - and I'm happy I broke that rule.  :-)

At the End of a Road in Tuscany, oil on 12x16 linen

And, of course, since I loved this scene so much and since it means so much to me, I wrote a poem to go with it:

 At the End of a Road in Tuscany

At the end of a road in Tuscany

Beside a neglected church made of stone

We found steps leading to an upper room

With tangled vines and moss overgrown

At first they appeared alone and forgotten

Abandoned - as seems often with the old

Yet peeking out from a tree at its side

Forsythia bloomed in yellows and gold

Such is this life as our years increase

We often grow weary and battle worn

But off to the side, we look and we find

A new springtime waiting to be born

~Mary Carol, June 2019~

Being My Own Art Teacher

At one of the demos I attended during the Plein Air Convention in San Francisco in April, the presenter/artist (can't recall her name) talked about how painting the same scene several times can help you become a better painter.  So I chose this photo that I took on the way to the Viansa Winery outside of San Francisco. It was an old boat sitting in a field of flowers. Who knows why it was there.  It was pretty, though, and so I took a bunch of photos of it.

The first photo below was my first attempt. My goal was to paint quickly and without getting bogged down withe details. I had difficulty getting the boat right, and the flowers look exactly like what I did - just dabbed an orangey-white color all over the grass. 

The second try was better.  I actually got the boat name (Edith) on the boat.  The boat shape STILL isn't right, though - although it's not bad.  The flowers look a little better. Still not happy with it - although this is my favorite of the three paintings I eventually did.

After painting the scene twice, I thought I'd do something different - I'd do it entirely with a palette knife. Hmmmmm. Some people can make gorgeous paints using only a palette knife. I don't know if I even want to develop that particular skill. Palette knives use a LOT of paint - and I have a LONG way to go to make it look right. I got this far with it and decided that palette knife painting isn't for me. So I stopped.  It is interesting that the color didn't look right with the palette knife, and I have no idea why since the tool used shouldn't affect the color - and I was using the same palette of colors as I did with the other two paintings.

Looking at these paintings, I know I need to make the boat a little smaller to make it appear further back in the scene. Most of all, it doesn't LOOK like I want my art to look. I am being too literal in some ways and not literal enough in other ways. I'm still working to develop Mary Carol's art.

I decided to stop after these three tries.  I threw away the palette knife version and will probably throw away the first version as well and only keep the second one. I don't have the stamina or desire to paint the scene a fourth time.  LOL!  I don't think painting the same thing more than a couple times is appealing at all to me. It was a helpful practice, though, and I kinda/sorta like the second painting.

Back to the demo from the PACE19 class. The point was that by painting the same scene repeatedly one, in effect, becomes one's own art teacher - seeing more clearly what needs to be worked on and improved.  I probably should paint this scene a fourth time and follow Kevin Menck's mantra of painting the big shapes and values and see how the scene will emerge. 

PACE19 in San Francisco is a wrap, too!

I attended my second Plein Air Convention and Expo last week.  It was held in San Francisco.  I considered canceling the trip because there has been so much negative press about San Francisco lately - trash everywhere, human feces in the streets, hordes of homeless people. I didn't see all of San Francisco - and there WERE lots of homeless people. However, I didn't see piles of trash - and no feces of any kind on the streets. What I saw of San Francisco is beautiful, and the convention was much better than last year.  Last year everything was so crowded that I couldn't see speakers or the huge monitors.  This year the rooms were bigger - and I could always get a good seat - even for the most popular speakers.

Before heading to San Francisco, I had to select the paintings I would take for the Gallery -  a place right inside the expo area where attendees could pay for an easel and display a painting for sale.  Below are the three paintings that I selected to take. I could only display one at a time, but I decided to take three in case one sold. IF one sold, I would have another one to put on the easel in its place.

What I learned is that the Gallery, for me, is a waste of time and money.  I only saw one painting with a sold sign on it.  I saw a couple paintings that I would have liked to buy, but I couldn't justify buying any paintings when I spent so much to ship my paintings there. None of mine sold. So the last night we were there, I boxed them back up and shipped them back home. Thus I spent several hundred dollars in shipping there and back and learned that I won't waste money on renting easel space at PACE again. I didn't expect to sell any paintings, though. I AM a beginner - but I'm glad I at least tried and took that chance.

Ron and I flew to San Francisco - a direct flight from Nashville - on Tuesday,  April 23rd, and we had a direct flight home on Monday, April 29th.  We spent six really wonderful days there! Lots of great food - great scenery - beautiful city.

Although we got there on Tuesday afternoon, the conference didn't officially begin until Wednesday afternoon.  So we had time to do other things.

As soon as we landed that first afternoon, we explored San Francisco a little bit. We headed to Fisherman's Wharf. I loved that area. Had delicious fish and chips, and then we just walked around the area.

We heard a lot of "barking" and walked over to where there was a floating platform covered with seals. They were huge! A lot of people were on the walkway above the platform looking at them. Look closely at the photo below and you'll see dozens (a hundred, at least) of seals flopped out on the platform. Periodically, they'd all start barking, and that was an impressive sound! It was such fun to watch them swim around and then maneuver their big bodies up and onto the platform. 

From Fisherman's Wharf, we could see Alcatraz Island across the water.  We had signed up for a tour on Wednesday morning (the next day).  So Wednesday we went on the Alcatraz tour, which was fascinating. We got lots of pictures, and we ended up buying several books about the different prisoners and different perspectives of Alcatraz. Here are Ron and me with Alcatraz as the backdrop.

The view of Alcatraz Island from the tour boat.

The view from the boat heading back to San Francisco from Alcatraz.  Love the streets going uphill!

 Our hotel was the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.  This was the view from our room.  Just spectacular.  We were on the 37th floor. We kept the curtains open the whole time because the view - morning, day, night - was beautiful.

On the top floor of the hotel (46th floor, I think) was the Cityscape bar - which served drinks and snacks, and it had the following view.  We went up there several times during the week. They made a pretty good Cosmo, which I enjoyed several times during the week.  We also went out to eat each evening - each time selecting a restaurant that was recommended to us.

A restaurant right across the street from our hotel - the Taylor Street Cafe - had a great breakfast that we tried once - and Ron tried a second time later in the week. I, of course, took the opportunity for Eggs Benedict. I took a photo of this sign that was on the wall, which I thought was cute - and true.

Once the conference began, I attended a bunch of painting demos - but only took a few photos here and there. There was a wealth of information available - and great learning from accomplished artists. Some of the artists were better at painting than talking about painting, but, for the most part, the demos were helpful. I learned a lot, and I have a lot to study and practice now that I'm home again. One of the best was about how to be your own art instructor.  Can't remember who led it, but it was super helpful. I feel that I've attended so many workshops, but haven't had the time/motivation afterwards to implement what I learned. That changes now. Two days ago I started a "paint every day" challenge - painting the same scene five days in a row. That was one of the suggestions in the demo.

Eric Rhoads - the "founder" of PACE and Plein Air Magazine was everywhere. I attended all three days of his Marketing Boot Camp - which means I was up, dressed, and in the main conference room by 6:30 three of the mornings. Eric was well prepared - had good interaction and engagement with the audience. I took many pages of notes, and I learned so very much! I'm not really much interested in marketing my painting at this point.  I'm still a novice artist. However, the information was valuable as I improve my art and work towards someday being able to sell my art.

The paintouts were great.  Imagine HUNDREDS of artists set up in the same general area painting. It was inspiring and fun. First Day of painting (Thursday) - the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Crissy Field.  I brought my painting home to finish. The shipped paintings were delivered late yesterday.  So tonight or tomorrow I will try to finish it. That was the coldest day during the conference. When I was packing, at the last minute I packed a jacket, and I'm so glad I did. The day at Crissy field, I needed that jacket! The fog covered the top of the Golden Gate Bridge - which gave it a dreamy look. I hope I can make my painting convey that look well.

Second paint-out day (Friday) - Golden Gate Park.  I chose one of the garden areas.  Again, the painting is unfinished.  I will finish it within the next few days.  This photo shows the scene I painted.

Our third paint-out day (Saturday) - the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Land's End. This was the place that as I walked back to the bus after painting for several hours, I thought to myself, "I LOVE this!"  It was fun!  It was invigorating! I was fascinated walking around and looking at what some of the other artists were painting. Everyone had their own style and way of painting. Truly amazing!  I am really pleased with my work on this one. It will be the first one I finish tonight or tomorrow.  Painting it en plein air, I found that some of the details looked skewed from the photograph.  So I'll work on that, too.

On the final day of the convention (Sunday) - after the expo and gallery and everything else was closed, PACE19 spent the day at the Viansa Vineyard and Winery in Sonoma. Ron spent the day with me, and so I decided not to paint but to sightsee with him. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge twice, and I enjoyed seeing it from this perspective.  

We went by Viansa Vineyard and Winery and took some photos of the other PACE folks painting there. In reviewing the convention, I will make the decision next year to stick with the PACE group on the last day of painting. At the time, there was nothing at the vineyard that really inspired me to paint. However, I missed an opportunity to paint and connect with other painters, and I won't do that again. There were buses to take us to and from the paint-out locations.  I had signed up and paid to ride the bus to all four paint-outs, but when Ron decided not to go out on his own that day, I skipped the bus and rode in the rental car with him instead. We had a good day - sightseeing and seeing some things I wouldn't have seen if I had taken the bus and painted all day at Viansa. So it all balanced out in the end. Here's a photo of some of the PACE19'ers painting at Viansa.

All in all, it was a great six days. Next year's convention is in Colorado - outside of Denver. I've already signed up for it, and I'm looking forward to it. Ron can probably fly his plane to Denver. It will be a long flight in his small Bonanza plane, but do-able in one day. That means I don't have to worry about packing light or shipping things ahead. I can take whatever I want to take without worrying about weight and shipping prices. Plus, in Colorado there will be plenty of things that Ron will enjoy doing on his own while I'm at the convention. It will be fun.

Speaking of Ron - on the days that I was attending demos and riding the bus to paint-outs, he was having a good time on his own.  He spent one day learning to fly a float plane at a place a couple hours outside of San Francisco. He spent another couple days at a gun club about an hour outside of San Francisco. He spent time in China Town with friends he made at the gun club. So he was able to do things he really enjoyed doing while I was "art-ing".  He's been wanting to learn to fly a float plane for years. I was so happy he finally was able to do that.  It was a good mix of each of us spending time doing what we enjoyed during the day - and then being together in the evenings to eat dinner and talk. Good time all around.