What came to mind is ‘das Unvollendigte’, translated into English as ‘the Unfinished’. Below are three paintings that I worked on off and on since the spring.
The first one is a view from a Pierce Stocking Drive dune.
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12×16, oil on board.
The second one is the classic motif of the Sleeping Bear seen from Empire (named after a shipwreck off shore).
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12×16 oil on board.
These two pictures will not be finished simply because Troels fancies them. The first one, he thinks that I may not be able to improve on much further with my current level of competence. The second one, he simply likes the abstractness of the shapes of the underpainting.
Happily, this view of the Empire Bluff did not catch his fancy and I am free to play with it.
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12X12, oil on board.
From now on, I will enjoy his comments but not let them inhibit me from pursuing my adventures in painting. Do you feel inhibited from proceeding with your ideas if someone likes your ouvre?
Troels has good taste.
I’m not allowed to cut my hair — both husband and daughter look so woebegone when I mention it that I’ve finally resigned myself to its tangles.
Occasionally, I allow someone to persuade me that what I’ve done shouldn’t be overpainted. But I try to keep the bad ones out of sight, so no one can talk me out of getting rid of those that irritate me.
Of course, one can always proceed on a new canvas, an exercise that might actually be good as a comparative process. But that would require a kind of discipline that I seem to lack. So I muddle along.
By the way, I like the subtlety of blue in the second painting. It’s very unlike the first and third, but very successful in its own mode.
I also like the phrase ‘das Unvollendigte” I didn’t know it until now, but there are some ideas that are best expressed in language other than English. There’s seems to be something more definitive (pun intended) about “das” for me. “Verstinken” may be the German word I use about my worse efforts — and I’m not even sure it’s German. I come from Pennsylvania Dutch country where the German is often not.
June,
Not getting your hair cut, you miss out on hair stylists. I finally found one that I love.. It helps that Rick, though young, is completely bald and thus does not serve as advertisement for his work. We talk about art and he tells me about his partner in Chicago.
Good old verstinken. I don’t think that I used it in its past tense but rather, ” You ‘verstinkts’ this for us.
Where to go in terms of color, detail and motif? I started walking on some path, who knows where it will lead me.
I like the frankness of the second image as well. Bold. Maybe Troels is right and it is complete unto itself [would that be “fertig”?]. If my monitor is at all accurate (it’s pretty close with my own work when I compare) your colors are wonderful. That little splash of white about a third of the way in from the right makes everything else seem monumental.
I may start writing again. Now that my mother has passed, I won’t ever again have to hear “And what are you going to do with that?” A question I should long ago have outgrown being affected by, but somehow never did. I pulled out an old fledgling manuscript this weekend and spent several very contented hours working through it and seeing that it really could grow into something given time and attention.
Melanie,
‘Fertig’ is a difficult matter to learn and the colors of the second picture are growing on me.
Thank you for sharing about your life. Spending a weekend with my mother and daughter, I feel that I have so much to learn how to be or not to be with my daughter.
Melanie,
Perhaps the question that will replace your mother’s voice is “what am I going to do with the rest of my life?” It’s a recurring theme, maybe in everyone’s life. And it’s more scarey when the one asking is the one who is supposed to answer. But I think that making art, of whatever sort, is a good way to beging — and end.
I just saw “Julia and Julie” last night and while it’s a pretty OK movie, with some good scenes, it’s definitely to the point: cooking isn’t my art, but it became the two women’s and was the rest of Child’s life; the younger woman’s life is still to be decided. As are ours……
Birgit
I love, your paintings,they are strong very beautifull!
Hi, and thanks for your expressions of concern and encouragement. I didn’t mean to divert the conversation to my situation, but it is true that with loss come certain freedoms and that aspect of it seemed on point.
On a related point (more directly related to the point of A&P) — did anyone else see the article in ARTnews (June 2009) about the “Skyspaces” series that James Turrell is doing? Among the many things and people I’d never before heard of, but Turrell’s description of the work, as quoted, is: “We award the sky its color. We learn to perceive — we create what we perceive. And so by extension we shape our reality. This learned perception is something we all share, has always intrigued me. It is what I try capture.” And also: “I want people to treasure the light the way we treasure gold. It happens slowly. The space is made to arrest the light, to apprehend the light. You enter it and remain alert, but you also enter a contemplative state.”
A caption says “Lights inside the domed Building change the colors of the walls and the way the sky, seen through a circular aperture in the roof, is perceived.” Way cool, is all I can say.
Google for “James Turrell skyspace” — a bunch of links open up.
Way cool is right, Melanie. I was in a Turrell Skyscrape in a Seattle Museum. It’s a “minor” work, but still magical.