Posted by June Underwood on December 26th, 2008
In a site called “Hold this Thought” Tom Livingston (Between Silence and Light) quotes architect Louis Kahn:
Architect Louis Kahn’s writings about daylight resonate with me. Here he talks about the nature of a room and its natural light:
“The room is not only the beginning of architecture: it is an extension of self. If you think about it, you realize that you don’t say the same thing in a small room that you say in a large room. If I were to speak in a great hall, I would have to pick one person who smiles at me in order to be able to speak at all.
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Also marvelous in a room is the light that comes through the windows of that room and that belongs to the room. The sun does not realize how wonderful it is until after a room is made. A man’s creation, the making of a room, is nothing short of a miracle. Just think, that a man can claim a slice of the sun.”
http://www.holdthisthought.org/blog/index.cfm/2008/12/23/Between-Silence-and-Light-Tom-Livingston
I’m rather addicted to painting plein air, but the weather in western Oregon is more like eastern Kansas (ie snow, ice, slush, ugh!) right now. So I’ve been painting from my windows, which frame various neighborhood views and foliage. But the Kahn quote also gets me to thinking about the nature of rooms, which I haven’t painted.
This is the unprepossessing set-up in my kitchen. The reason for painting in the kitchen, in spite of the traffic and the high window, is that the best tree in the vicinity faces the sink. It is a continual source of happiness to me — to be cleansing the cutlery while gazing at the ancient face of the huge cherry, with all its anciliary objects — squirrels, hanging plants, pots on the fence that leans against it.
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Posted by June Underwood on November 30th, 2008
Across from my normal sitting place in our dining room (which is really our living/kitchen/common room) are some paintings –Frippery, 36 x 40″ oil on canvas, Condon Library (far left), and Heppner Courthouse, both 12 x 16 inches, oil on board.
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Posted by Jay on November 8th, 2008
Among my recent plastic acquisitions is a substantial mirrored sheet. The grandkids like to see their fun house reflections as it is all bendy. It’s an old notion and applied to exhaustion, but I decided to see what the camera would catch reflected in it.
I’m thinking of hauling a smaller version of the sheet around with me.
Posted by June Underwood on October 31st, 2008
I am continuing to re- and re-read Schmid’s chapter on edges, because I’m not sure I have a decently full grasp of what he’s saying.
The book is Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting by Richard Schmid ($50 USD in soft cover from him; more from Amazon and more in hard cover).
Schmid begins his chapter by saying “Think about edges the way you would think about kissing someone…. Think of edges as exquisite subtleties, as the means to transmit romance, as ways to make your dabs or paint whisper or shout and reach nuances beyond the range of color. Think of them as visual poetry… but especially think of edges as you would the agents of expression in music….pianissimo (very soft), andante (flowing), allegro vivace (fast and lively), maestoso (majestic), fortissimo con sforzando (whamo!).
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Posted by Angela Ferreira on October 13th, 2008
Title: Sorrow
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100×60 cm
Posted by Steve Durbin on August 19th, 2008
To judge from the talks at the opening of a current group exhibit, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a landscape artist working in Montana must deal in some way with the huge volume of imagery and the stereotypical impressions people have of this state. When it comes to notions of what art should be, there may not be much difference between residents and visitors. The standard expectations seem to be of monumental mountainscapes, majestic mammals, or cowboy kitsch.
As a photographer working in black and white–already outside the norm–I am, depending on the photograph, taken to be either just like Ansel Adams or not at all like him. And after that it’s digital or film and do I manipulate the images?
Don’t get me wrong. The questions are not only valid, they’re important ones that I’ve grappled with in my work, as have many others. And I actually enjoy responding to them if I’m talking to someone interested and open-minded. Still, it’s extraordinarily refreshing to discuss with someone free of the usual preconceptions.
Montana and landscape are hardly unique in this regard. What do you have to deal with, either in creating or presenting your art? Is it generally a good or a bad experience for you?
Posted by June Underwood on July 25th, 2008
I’m back from the road trip, muddling about until my body decides it’s home.
Muddling about includes mulling over ideas, thoughts, notions, and niggles that life has handed me. Here’s a set of thoughts that I’ve maundered through in the last few days.
People, making conversation with the plein air worker, often ask “How long have you been painting?” My stock answer is “Oh, about 5 years.”
But I was cleaning up some old piles of stuff today, and ran across a whole covey of watercolors and acrylics that were dated 1999. Now my math is bad, but not that bad. Somehow time, or memory, had gotten short-circuited. I remember the class now; it was “painting the figure in watercolor,” and I stumbled into it by mistake, much, I suspect, to the horror of the very nice instructor.
Rosie, Winter, 1999, watercolor, 15 x 22″
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