Cezanne and the Apples

I love the work of Paul Cezanne. His landscapes are so vivid, his colors so vibrant. It's frightening to know that in this man's lifetime, he was misunderstood and rejected from exhibitions and even art schools for being without merit and talent (this was in part due to his early works being much darker and more somber than those with which we are most familiar). The man was a visionary and way ahead of his time in terms of technique. He was already halfway through his life before he developed the style that he is now known for and during his lifetime he was always the outsider, never accepted, and garnered very little success while he was alive.

As someone who has an obsession with painting apples, how could I not love a man who also spent a great deal of his time composing still lifes of apples and oranges (more than 200), and who said he wanted to "conquer Paris with an apple."? There's a guy after my own heart. I could paint nothing but apples and be happy for the rest of my life (even if I bored the shit out of everyone else with my work). He enjoyed painting them for the same reasons that I do: they are the one of the most basic and complete geometric shapes of nature, the circle. Apples are small little objects of perfection. They are all the same as one another, and yet they are all different. There is a world of color to be found within them. They are at once vivid and soft, plain and dramatic. They have character and personality. They are little embodiments of our harvests, our abundance. Simply put, they're beautiful.

Like so many artists who went before him and those who came after, he never knew his own genius and I wish that he had known in his lifetime the talent he possessed and the joy that it still brings to others. It's such a shame that so many brilliant people die broken and in pain thinking they were worth nothing. Cezanne was an amazing artist and I adore both him and his work. Picasso said that Cezanne was his "one and only master, that Cezanne was like the father of us all." I think that says it all.

Consider Poor I

About seven or eight years ago, my husband gave me as a gift a book that was equally both charming and heartbreak-ing at the same time. Called Consider Poor I, it was about the life and works of a woman named Nancy Luce, who lived in the nineteenth century. She lived on Martha's Vineyard and self-published books of her own poetry and stories, mostly about her precious chickens, all hand written and colored and beautifully primitive. In her day she was mocked and abused by those who knew her (and by strangers who thought they knew her), but her work stands today, nearly two hundred years since her birth, as a noble and incredibly heartfelt body of work. And it was because of this beautiful little book, that I decided to make my own chicken book, but with the benefit of modern art tools (and the ever trusty photoshop), rather than just pen and paper. As the years have passed, that one book has morphed into multiple volumes that also include my ducks, and still I continue to make them as my own birds live their lives and pass on.

I've included in my books many of the same elements that Nancy Luce did in hers: photographs of my birds (her tintypes taken at her home must have cost her a small fortune in her day), stories I have written about them, remembrances of special days, anecdotes, and the often-times compulsive habit of "collecting" hen names for future use and listing them throughout each of the books (this can get out of hand as the names begin to number well into the hundreds. Nancy's names were quite odd). And while she would in her writing detail the sorrowful deaths of her beloved birds, I am not so inclined to do go so far as to dwell quite so intently on the morbid, although I do acknowledge the passing of my little friends when it happens.

The books make for a charming little outlet that combines my love of birds with my love of art. It also makes for a nice break (as do my art journals) from the more serious work of painting. Like my journals, the chicken books are an endeavor that is almost childlike in its simplicity. What could be more fun than colored pens, fancy papers and glue sticks? It also touches a place in my heart as I work, a place that makes me think of Nancy Luce and all the other women like her who were so grossly misunderstood in their time, who had they been born far into the future would have been lauded for their originality, for their abilities, and for their enormous heart and soul, rather than be beaten and attacked for their uniqueness in an era when woman were to keep quiet and disappear into the background behind their men and children and never venture into uncharted territory.

Long after I had begun my own modern versions of Nancy Luce's chicken books, I took a trip over to the Vineyard and while there, decided to pay a visit to her grave in one of the local cemeteries. I expected a grave as neglected as her unhappy life and as such I thought I might have to return home unable to locate her final resting place. So you can only imagine how amazed I was to see, from clear across the cemetery a headstone that stood vibrantly out from every other one. Dozens and dozens of plastic and glass chickens artfully arranged and placed there lovingly by countless admirers of her work, fresh flowers, even letters and photographs of people's pet chickens gracing not only the earth around her headstone, but atop the headstone itself. It was a magical and loving shrine to a quiet, lonely woman who poured out her tattered soul in words and pictures.

I like to think she's up there somewhere, looking down and feeling the love that's being poured out to her now, so many, many years after she walked this earth with very little love. And each and every time I sit down to add a page or two to my latest volume, I say a little thank you to Nancy for having inspired me to follow her lead and forever immortalize my own beloved little pets and the person who loves them with all her heart.

Thank you Nancy Luce.

To School or Not to School?

I've been mulling over the idea of going back to school. I don't think I can swing the whole college experience again right now (perhaps in the next couple of years though), but freelance studying at a museum school would be more than doable (for the most part). The trouble is, those pesky prerequisites. If I decide to take studio classes at the local art museum, I'm required to begin with drawing and only when I have taken the mandatory drawing classes would I be allowed to move up through the disciplines and the various levels within each. It may be the case that when they see my portfolio they'll realize that taking basic classes would be a waste of my time and money (but certainly not their tuition dollars earned), but I doubt it very much. The course schedules are very clear about there being no exceptions made. So would it really be a waste of my time and money? I suppose it couldn't hurt to undergo a "back to basics" education and to spend time with a teacher I could very well learn something new from. After all, everything is a learning experience when you look at it the proper way (and the social interaction with artists I've never met would be great as well). I'm concerned though, that if this were to prove to be a big, expensive waste, then I'm stuck. I'll either have to suffer through the remainder of the first courses, working well below my ability and being perpetually bored or I'll simply have to eat it money-wise and not attend at all (there's a no refund policy as well). Neither is particularly appealing to me. I more than understand all these strict rules the museum has set forth because by making it so rigid in the prerequisite field and leaving no "emergency exits" as it were, it ensures that their student body is comprised of only those art students who are very serious about their art and are hardworking and thus the studios are not full of a bunch of flibberty-jibberts who just want to mess with some paints. But regardless, frankly I'm stumped as to what I should do. The only thing I'm absolutely clear about is that I really, really want to go back to school in some form or other, and preferably sooner rather than later. Guess I'll ruminate on this one a little longer before I make any hard and fast (and expensive) decisions.

Bitchy Starving Artist and Son

Griffin and I popped into the MFA last week for a quickie visit en route to Dick Blick's for a replenishment of our supplies. Things to do while at the museum:

1. Check out the Impressionist Collection of Scott M. Black in the Rabb Gallery (which I really wanted to see, but had somehow managed to forget to see for some bizarre reason the last time I was there)

2. Visit my beloved Sargents (which I didn't do the last time I was there because, frankly, my family can only take so much of my endless cycles through the 19th c American wing)

3. Pay a quick visit to a Van Gogh that I hate but had just read about in detail in a new book and now wanted to see once again up close and personal, if only to follow up on the history I so recently learned about this painting and much like the proverbial bear, see what I could see, and

4. In the Torf Gallery, give a 15c Italian Renaissance exhibit a chance after having loudly poo-pooed it for looking utterly crass a couple of weeks prior as I had peeked my head into that gallery (I read arts and entertainment reviews on the radio for the Massachusetts Disabilities Commission and after reading a wonderful article about the glories of this exhibit, decided to give it a chance after all, even though the initial pieces just inside the gallery door reminded me of the artwork typical to cliched Italian restaurants, but still far short of the chianti bottles with the melty candles in them).

The Black collection was nice, though a bit heavy on the Pisarros (not one of my favorites). The Sargents, as always, had me swooning in my boots, the Italian Renaissance exhibit mostly sucked, just as I thought it would (so much for the glowing reviews), though I'm not sure if it was more to do with the fact that it simply wasn't an exciting collection of work (perhaps there's a reason why these pieces had been shunted into storage for more than 50 years at the museum?) or because reliefs of Jesus being crucified and Mary holding Him as a baby just aren't my cuppa. I don't know. And, of course, as it wouldn't be a trip to the museum without me forgetting something I had planned to do, I completely forgot to check out the Van Gogh.

Perhaps if we had hung around a bit longer than an hour, or perhaps if I had even a smidgen of self control, I might have remembered to do everything I went there to do. Perhaps not. I do have a question, though. While I was wandering through the Impressionist exhibit, Griffin (who hates virtually all Impressionist works, every last Sargent, as well as the Dutch Masters. God help anyone who gets him started on that subject) decided to check out the gallery next door which currently has on display an exhibit of contemporary installations. Moments later, he stormed back into the Rabb Gallery and loudly announced that it wasn't fair that while his work wasn't selected last month for a fine art competition, submissions he had worked long and hard on, there was an artist in the next room who had been chosen by the MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS Boston, no less, for an installation of old paint cans, coffee tins, bread crumb canisters and used kentucky fried chicken buckets, all turned upside down, punched through with holes and strung with lights that ran on electric toothbrush motors. Where was the justice, he wondered? And what exactly was it about this ugly pile of shit that made the grade? And what about his did not? He had, I confess, interrupted my own silent rant as I studied several of the Impressionist works and wondered how these particular pieces, by rather unknown artists, came to be worth many millions of dollars and hanging in a museum, when they truly weren't very good specimens of art? I was thinking (and I don't mean to sound arrogant here, I'm merely making an observation) that my own paintings are, as a general rule, better executed and more alive than these select pieces, so why is there no interest in my work and why am I not selling buttloads of work, for any price (I'd be happy with a couple hundred bucks for godssakes)? And how exactly does one become an investment as an artist? Who gets to decide what is good art and what is not? What's worth the money, what's worthy of a spot on a respected museum's walls and what gets ignored and passed over? Griffin and I both spent the rest of our visit at the MFA grousing endlessly and sometimes probably a bit too loudly for the museum's comfort about the unfairness of it all in the world of art and how as artists we are all either shit on and abused or completely ignored. I have to say, he's definitely my child (except for that whole Sargent-hating thing. I can't imagine what the hell he's thinking there). Actually, come to think of it, it was probably my tirade through the many galleries that obliterated from my mind the thought of visiting that Van Gogh I so wanted to see. Serves me right.

Fashion Forward

I went to see the Paris Collections 2007 last month at the MFA and while some of the clothing was ho-hum boring, and some of it was just plain dumb, the majority of it was amazing. As someone who has been sewing since childhood, I was more than interested to get a really close look at what a $200,000+, one-off piece of couture clothing looks like, and what it looks like beyond it's overall beauty. (I have never in my life looked up the skirts of that many dresses before!) Gotta tell ya, in a great many instances, I wasn't all that impressed. Beautiful to look at, yes, some stains from the models being jostled around in the changing areas (champagne spills? make-up splotches? who knows?), but shoddy stitching and straight pins sewn in by accident? Hmm. Makes you think.

True, there were some pieces that were absolutely exquisite and from which I simply was unable to tear myself away. John Galliano for Christian Dior: his ode to a punk/goth French Revolution and Marie Antoinette collection in reds, pinks, leathers and liberally hand painted was amazing. And the Rochas collection of pantsuits and dresses reminiscent of Edwardian England and utilizing the colors of London's chimney sweeps of the day: dove grays, blacks, browns, subdued gray-purples and gray-blues just blew me away. This was far and away my favorite of the entire exhibit. Bustled and corseted gowns, yet surprisingly still modern in their lines. Moody appliques of dozens of crows sitting on tiny lines criss-crossing the skirt of a dress.

I wish I were wealthy enough to be able to have one of these creations made for me and sitting in my very own closet. The show was definitely an eye opener and I not only learned just about everything I would want to know about the exclusive world of couture clothing, but also the fact that, with the exception of a few very, very complicated pieces that were clearly well beyond my expertise in sewing, even with a hefty price tag, a fancy name and a heady week at Paris runway shows that only people who are Somebody get to attend, the majority of these frighteningly expensive pieces were things that were I so inclined I could easily sew for myself. I suppose I really shouldn't have been surprised by this fact, but I was. Does this mean that like all the other fashion sheep, I bought into the myth and mystique of the designer mind? That's a scary thought.

And last but not least, just to be sure I'm legally in the clear and not in line to be gifted with a "hey, you stole my photo!" law suit, this photo of Galliano's magnificent dresses is courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Credit where credit is due. Thanks, guys.

Good Books

I really love reading a good book about an artist or multiple artists. One of my all time favorites that I think I may have mentioned here before is Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis, though that just may have been given a run for its "top of my list" money with The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles by Martin Gayford. I especially love a book that details the minutiae of an artist's life: the stretching of canvasses and the mixing of paint. What others might consider tedious reading, I revel in. Not so long ago I also read a wonderful book about Klimt, though oddly enough, I can't for the life of me remember the title nor the author (go figure). I have as well just read several books that can be considered to be on the fringes of fine art, and a couple of them are: The Quilts of Gee's Bend, edited by a whole buttload of different folks, and a remarkably intriguing book about fashion as both an art form and as serious political machination, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber. This was a riveting read and full of an immense amount of information about not only the political demise of Marie Antoinette but the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries' fashion trends and textile industries. For older books, Edie: An American Biography by Jean Stein is great for getting the insider's take on Andy Warhol (who I met in 1984). I read the book for the first of countless times when it was first released back in 1982. And for sheer staying power after all these years, you can't go wrong with Off the Wall by Calvin Trillin. I wish I had been old enough in the 60's to have capped on that period in art and culture while it was happening.

I'd Rather Be Me

How can someone for whom the basis of their entire life is art, art, art be spawned from someone who not only doesn't understand art, but doesn't even like it all that much? How does this happen? My father was an extraordinarily artistic man, yet my mother is a complete art philistine. I used to think there was something lacking in my abilities when she would tell me that my work wasn't very interesting or that she didn't "get" it (what's to "get" in a landscape? how much more basic can that be?) and couldn't for the life of her understand why I was "doing that". These are comments I have heard countless times within my life and still hear on a fairly regular basis. With all due respect to Charles Schulz, how can a picture of Snoopy sleeping on his doghouse be superior to a Paul Klee? In my mother's world, it is. I no longer bring her to museums or galleries with me, because while she thinks she's going to enjoy the day ahead, she is really only looking forward to the day in theory. Once we arrive and begin to actually look at art, she's so far out of her element she becomes, very quickly, tired and bored. Not to mention often rather embarrassing in her uncensored comments, especially when it comes to modern art. While many would think this may be due to her age and the era in which she was raised, it is in fact due far more to her ignorance of the subtleties of art and the beauty within it than that she's simply old. Using her age is a cop out. In our last visit to the Museum of Fine Arts together, after she had spent an hour or so looking irritated and bored within an exhibit of Cezannes and Picassos, I found her sitting on a bench conversing with a man who clearly was cut from the same cloth as my mother. Both were loudly denigrating the work opposite their seat, demanding to know how the artist could possibly call that mess art. After all, where was the supposed cathedral in the piece they were viewing? How can a bunch of blobs and mismatched shapes be anything real? I found myself getting irritated enough to have to walk away. But after giving it some thought I have decided it isn't so much irritating as it is sad. I have tried to imagine what life would be like for me without art and I can't even express how miserable it would be. For me to live a life with little or no beauty, no art, no joy, wouldn't be living at all. How tedious and depressing would such a life be. I'm thankful that I am who I am, because to be like my mother would just be devastating to my soul.

When is an Artist REALLY an Artist?

I've been thinking lately about what constitutes being an artist and by association, what constitutes art itself. The definition of an artist is: 1. one skilled or versed in learned arts and 2. one who professes and practices an imaginative art (with the subsequent definition of art being: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects). Okay, that covers quite a bit of ground there, so where does one draw the line? I know people who aren't particularly art snobs, yet consider quilting, weaving, and the textile arts in general to not be art at all, but merely crafts. If this were the case, then why would museums all over the world be clamoring to exhibit the stunningly beautiful quilts created through the years by the women of one of the poorest towns in the American South, Gee's Bend? And are popsicle sticks, glitter and an old shoe art outside of a Brownie Troop meeting? They are at the Institute of Contemporary Art. And what about the gallery exhibiting a rotting side of beef that hangs from a ceiling hook and relentlessly drips blood into an old metal pan on the floor beneath it? Is a slab of stinking meat art?

Is an artist only truly an artist if they have earned a degree in some area of the fine arts through an institution of higher learning? If that's the case, then Tramp Art can't be art at all, as not only did those artists who created it not have college degrees, but many of them couldn't even read or write. And does art only have merit or value when presented to us on a traditional support such as canvas, fine paper or board? What about art created on a piece torn from an old cardboard box, or a matchbook cover, or even a paper napkin? Is sculpture only sculpture when it's formed from marble, bronze or stone? What about papier mache, old wire coat hangers, or even chewed fat spat at a piece of plywood? Isn't that sculpture too?

I'm of the belief that an artist is an artist when they can't not create something, because it is that need to create that keeps them alive, that is second only to the need to breathe. If they aren't creating something, then they are thinking of what they will next create and how they will create it. You are an artist because you are born one. An artist is not made at a school. Being an artist comes from your heart, your head, your hands, your soul. And it matters not one whit if not one other person likes your work. It doesn't even matter if anyone else ever even sees your work. Most people agree that art is a very subjective thing, so why isn't this also granted to the artists who make the work?

The Perfect Crazy Dead Man For Me

The other day I filled out an online dating questionnaire to see who's my dead soulmate. As I answered all the questions as seriously as I was able, and naturally was expecting someone who at least dabbled in the arts, who I ended up with surprised me. I'm not sure if I should consider the results quirky and cool, or if I should be very concerned for my own mental well-being. My three potential mystery dates? Edgar Allen Poe, Vincent Van Gogh, and the enigmatic Leonardo Da Vinci. Now, don't get me wrong, I consider these all to be great men in the arts and sciences, and would love to have had the chance to meet any of them in their lifetimes, but let's be honest here if I may. All three of them were loonies, plain and simple.

Bachelor #1: an alcoholic, bi-polar, clinically depressed writer consumed with death in general and who had an obsessively morbid fascination for his dead beloved
Bachelor #2: a poverty-stricken, unsuccessful (in his lifetime) artist with schizophrenia, psychosis and OCD
Bachelor #3: another bi-polar with narcissistic tendencies who had great difficulty finishing anything he started and who also was gay with a penchant for very young, effeminate teenage boys

I thought perhaps if I went back and re-answered the questionnaire again more carefully, I might fare better with my choices of potential sweethearts, but no such luck. There were the same three gentlemen awaiting my decision. Apparently I am who I am and this is my destiny, so how hard could this be? An outrageously arrogant gay pedophile isn't my thing (and I obviously would not be his, which wouldn't be any fun for either of us), nor is a psychotic self-mutilator (and since I like to talk so much, I need a man with both ears in working order), so I chose Bachelor #1.

Perhaps had I not been quite so honest in my answers, or at least left out the part about my liking the idea of seeing visions (that would be so cool), or dating a man who saw visions (still cool) I might have ended up with a more mundane choice of men, but isn't honesty supposed to be the best policy? And for a dead guy, our date rocked, so who can complain?

Heaven On Earth

My father was an executive chef. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means he was not only the head chef at the various restaurants where he was employed, but he also did all the ordering from the butchers, the fishmongers, the vegetable dealers, dairy farmers, and so forth. It means he wrote the menus and set the prices of each dish. And while my father was a brilliant chef who was very well-known, highly respected and much-loved, he was also an amazing artist, though not in any of the traditional mediums. He was an artist with food. His dishes were not only delicious, but beautiful to behold, a play of both texture and color. A balance of all that is perfect. And although his devoted clients didn't know this, to those in the industry he was also known for his beautiful ice sculptures, sculptures for which he won many awards. In my dreams I am the proprietor of a small tearoom where I serve little pastries, cakes and pies. I think it would be a wonderful way to honor my father who I miss very much and who I admired- and admire still- with all my heart and soul. I try to carry on the culinary traditions he set within our family, and as I nurture with food I feel him here with me still. I can think of nothing more fulfilling than a sumptuous meal shared with those I love. Even those who join me at table in spirit only, you will always have a place set for you.