Art & Perception

Jer and I are now at the Montana Artists’ Refuge, Basin, Montana, in the southwest part of the state. I am painting, he is writing and editing, and we are both experiencing the dislocation and joy of a new adventure.

While the residency has all kinds of ins-and-outs, basically I came here to paint. And painting is what I’ve been doing.

Basin lies in a geographical bowl, surrounded by pine-covered mountains. It’s a mining town — still has a functioning gold mine — and seems to have had its moments of prosperity, most of which were in the past.

Basin Street, Basin, Montana. The main drag.

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Karl recently mentioned here that he prefers (and revels) painting in the context of his reaction to his surroundings. He averred to say that a photo of the landscape would not do justice because 

“Photographs record what a place looked like at a particular moment. They don’t record what it felt like to be there” 

My personal experience is a little different. more… »

Sunil’s recent post was most provocative. It’s not often that someone seeks comment about his or her self portrait. Turns out that Sunil may have opened a rich vein.

I appreciate the opportunity to witness a participant, not just through the trajectories of post and comment, but as the individual presents his or herself in an image.

In that spirit I would like to throw my mug in the ring.

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When I first showed these rock formations I’m calling Bones of the Earth, I was quite unsure what to do with them (I still am…). They seemed to invite a number of treatments. In particular, I found myself wishing I could paint them. Since I’d been admiring Sunil’s paintings of late, I naturally wondered how he might handle them: “Sunil, are you out there? Imagine these rocks as a weathered old face, what would you do with it?” I was not thinking that Sunil would actually see a face in them, but rather that considering the rock surface as skin might suggest coloring and brushwork that would give an interesting treatment. That was before my own musings on the power of face recognition. And if anyone has an over-developed fusiform gyrus in his brain, it’s Sunil (I can barely rotate 90 degrees, he easily does 180). Well, as you can guess, Sunil did see a face there — in fact three — and has recently posted on his blog the painting that resulted. It’s reproduced (with permission) below:

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Farmland, 36 x 43, painted cotton

I have lived many places, and in each, I have always had a strong sense of the place itself — the trees and plants, the nature of the cultivated earth, the nature of the uncultivated earth, the sky, winds, air, light — I can describe all these with a fair amount of detail.

But I seldom had to try to recap in art what I know about a place where I no longer live. However, now I am doing so.

“Paint what’s around you,” seems to be a sound admonition, but what is around me is the opposite, environmentally speaking, of what I am painting. more… »

This landscape painting by Tracy Helgeson caught my eye. This work is something of a new departure in Tracy’s work, I think. She often works on the border between abstraction and reality, but in this painting there is a cross-over, albeit a subtle one. The result is almost unsettling, but I like it. A question for her is, does she want to go further with this? There is also a psychological element to this landscape painting, as I see it, which captures my attention.

Tracy’s blog raises interesting questions about what it means to be an artist today. In the past, artists liked to cloak themselves and their work in mystery. Tracy is open about her work (good, bad, unfinished) and her difficulties in the process of creating and selling. There is a refreshing and direct quality to her writing style that makes mysterious 20th century artists seem a bit comic in comparison. Is Tracy a good example of what 21th century artists will be doing, or should she hide her unfinished work and cultivate a more refined public image?