I had been trying to think of what to paint to reflect the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic and my resulting stay-at-home, and then my sister asked me to make art for her based on one of our favorite sayings: “Bloom Where You’re Planted”.
And it turned out that there was one answer to both questions. And I was already doing it.
My art lately has been busy. Collaged paintings and painted collages. Mixed media of all sorts. Paper and canvas and paint and pencils and glue. All at once if possible.
“Bloom” inspires me to think of serenity. And staying at home to avoid disease inspires me to think of spareness and cleanliness. My life and home are serene and clean, but my art is not.
I used to think of my pattern-on-pattern style as the bright colors that hid my sadness. But I am one of those who is truly blooming as I work from home, so now it’s just the bright colors that reflect my happiness. More is more.
All art here is my own. Except for whichever one my sister likes best.
Last year (B.C. – before covid) I went to Paris. It was a magical trip in February during which the weather was gorgeous, my clothes were apparently chic (enough), my college French returned (enough), and the art museums were sublime.
In one corner of the Centre Georges Pompidou gift shop, I found a marked-down Wayne Thibaud jigsaw puzzle, which I bought and lugged home. And I just put it together, with help from a friend who is on my quaranteam.
This is probably the closest I’ll ever come to owning a Thibaud. (Never say never, but still…) But I can still find the hidden strokes of red, the luscious blue and purple shadows and the brush strokes that read like swirls of icing. Delicious!
Pomegranate Jigsaw Puzzle of Wayne Thiebaud’s Cakes and Pies, 1995
This is a picture of the original. Mine’s not bad, right?
Here is a treasure from my visit to the Musee D’Orsay:
Pierre Bonnard, Le Chat Blanc, 1894 – Musee D’Orsay
Best painting of a cat, ever! And you’re thinking to yourself, well, she’s never going to own a Bonnard, and you’d be right, but I can come close!
photo from catscape.com
Just kidding! Not my cat! I don’t have a cat!
Claude Money, Regates a Argenteuil, 1872, – Musee D’Orsay
While wandering around the Musee D’Orsay, I also found one of my favorite Monets.
I have admired this painting for decades. The sky color reflected in the water is not realistic (in life the water would be darker) but is so beautiful. And those sailboats look to be running aground. But representational art is not necessarily about reality. Of course the Musee D’Orsay is not going to sell it to me (as if that were the problem). So – is this as close as I’m going to get?
Not exactly!
Elizabeth Cook, S’Monet, 2001, – Private Collection – mine!
Long before I had any real notion of what to do with a paintbrush, I was in Steven Sheehan’s landscape-painting class. When it was too cold to go outside, we made master copies. I analyzed the brushstrokes, the colors, the lights and the darks and then made a fairly brutish copy. The original Monet is smallish. This painting is BIG. So, maybe I won?
Here is one of Sonia Delaunay’s stunning portraits from the Centre Georges Pompidou. Color as light!
Sonia Delaunay, Jeune Finlandaise, 1907, – Centre Georges Pompidou
Sonia Delaunay lived and worked with her husband, artist Robert Delaunay – or perhaps in his shadow. In fact, if you search the Pompidou’s collection for Sonia Delaunay, you will see that his paintings come up first. But she had a Fauvist aesthetic that reads as hers alone, and strikes me as very modern.
Am I going to own a Sonia Delaunay? Nope. I wish. But she still influences my art.
Elizabeth Cook, Perfect World, 2006, – private collection (mine, again)
You don’t have to have a van Gogh in your house to have a van Gogh in your house. I grew up with van Gogh posters in my family’s dining room. I thought they were real. And they WERE real. All art is real.
Thank you to my parents for showing me art, taking me to museums, and giving me art lessons. Thank you to all of my teachers for helping me make art. I believe that everyone is an artist and all art is real.
Sometimes I have to disabuse myself of the notion that art should be easy. This notion is reinforced by the many YouTube videos on painting that I watch. They make it LOOK easy. Should I stop watching? I don’t know – I’ve learned things.
So here’s the story of my latest painting. It is not a story of success.
If Only I Could Just Make Underpaintings!
I am so optimistic about my beginnings. Excellence is still possible. But then I have to wrestle with color and value. COLOR AND VALUE. Shoot me now.
Just Starting and Yet Somehow Already Going Off the Rails
I have always had trouble painting white objects. So of course I am painting white objects again.
Warm or cool light? Warm or cool shadows? Remember fat over lean. Use bigger brushes. Don’t make changes until the canvas is covered. Don’t add white until you absolutely have to (oops).
Wrong Color!
I am beginning to despair. Can this painting be saved? More paint. Maybe more is more?
Is It Finished, Or Am I?
The painting is finished when my interest in starting something new is stronger than my interest in finishing this one. I want to paint what I’ve just learned. Each painting is a small step forward.
More white objects. More painting and repainting. Never give up.
Thank you all very much for asking me to speak at great length and in excruciatingdetail about my experiences at Lyme Academy and in the greater art world.
Congratulations, Graduates!Artists!
Let me make it clear: it isn’t graduating that makes you artists, it is everything you have done your whole lives, and everything you did to reach THIS POINT in your lives, that makes you artists.
I’m sure you know that people who are NOT artists think artists were born that way.Talented, but also knowing how to handle a brush, or a chisel.You know that’s not true.YOU know it has taken you years of study and practice to become “natural” talents.And it’s been worth it.You have excelled at one of the best art colleges in the country.You have learned from the best teachers.Now you are going to remember everything they taught you, at exactly the same moment that you forget it.It’s time to create your own path.
Other people think artists are magicians.On this I don’t disagree.We ARE magicians.We take mud and rags and create happiness and sorrow.We make thoughts and emotions manifest.We sway public opinion.We create joy out of thin air.We have power.We work hard.We are blessed with work.And sometimes, as we are creating, the magic is in us.
As my father might have said, “we are up to our asses in ice cream.”
So, live an artist’s life.By which I mean, get a day job, plus a night job, and maybe some babysitting on the side – all so that you can make your art.A successful artist is one who makes art.That’s it.A successful artist is one who makes art. Selling art is nice.Public acclamation is probably lovely.I don’t know.But when you get discouraged, think of Vincent van Gogh who made over 900 paintings and sold only one while he was alive.Think of Emily Dickinson who never published a poem in her lifetime.A successful artist is one who makes art.So make art.Don’t stop.Ever.
Surround yourself with an artists’ community wherever you are.You need to create a world in which you can discuss art, and critique art, look at art, think about art, and make art.Stay in touch with your friends.Praise their work.Tip them well if they’re waiting tables.Then go to galleries and museums and cooperatives and grad school and make MORE friends.Steal their ideas and share your own.Collaborate and keep learning.Don’t worry, only YOU can make YOUR art.
You will be afraid.Notice what you’re afraid of and then do that.Sometimes you will stop making art.Notice what you’re thinking and feeling and don’t dismiss it.Use it.Try it.Incorporate it.Don’t just make what you’re already good at.Fail upward.Make more art.The world needs your art, and your opinions.Don’t be stingy!Make more art!
And one more thing.Debt is the enemy of art.Pay cash.
But most importantly, make art.And as you do that, you will make and remake yourself and those around you.
14th century art is all about the plague! And the little Ice Age in Europe. And the ensuing crop failures and famine. The 14th century sucked.
Rottgen Pieta c. 1300-1325
Classical sculptures have little penises for a reason: in ancient Greece and Rome, a small penis was admired as the sign of a rational, logical man. Large penises were considered gross and an indicator of lewdness and poor impulse control. Odes were written to small penises.
Need I say more?
David is a sexy guy. No matter what his penis looks like:
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, women weren’t allowed to apprentice as painters, or join workshops, or study cadavers, or draw from nude models. So almost all of the women who made a place for themselves as artists were self-taught or taught by family. Portraits and still lifes. But not from Artemisia Gentileschi! (Google her!) She channeled plenty of anger into her narrative paintings.
Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Beheading Holofernes c. 1614-1620
Michelangelo stood on scaffolding to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He did not lie down. Nonetheless, he suffered bad health for the rest of his life from inhaling and swallowing paint and plaster dust. He tried to get out of doing the ceiling, by telling the Pope that he was a sculptor, but the Pope was influenced by his architect, Bramante, who was jealous of Michelangelo and hoped he would fail. FYI – he didn’t.
Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam c. 1508-1512
My thanks to Sandra Jeknavorian and Three Rivers Community College for letting me teach Art History Survey II. I am learning many weird art facts. Stay tuned for more!
Did I ever tell you about the time I stole a Franz Kline?
Maybe it was this one?
Long ago, my then-husband came home from grad school and said, “There’s a closet full of junk at school and we can take anything we want. I think there’s a painting.”
So I’m like, “let’s go look!”
We drove to school, walked in and opened the closet door he pointed out. It wasn’t even a big closet, just a janitor’s closet, and it was dark. I think it had junk-shaped objects in it: boxes, cleaning supplies, maybe a bucket and mop? In any case, there was the painting, larger than I expected, leaning against one wall.
Or this one?
We pulled it out and it was beautiful. Mostly white, with black shapes and stripes, almost like calligraphy. We carried it out together, right past other students and the guard at the entrance. No one looked. No one cared.
It was so gorgeous, even hanging in our secondhand-furnished dump of a grad-school house. Challenging, enticing, mesmerizing. But I was not yet art-educated, so I didn’t recognize it.
It could have been this one.
A couple of weeks later, I found the inventory number tag. It was nailed to the back of the wooden supports. Damn! It belonged to someone. Were they looking for it? Or was it really trash? We debated, but the longer it hung over our heads, the more it hung over our heads.
I asked him to take it back, and he did so with only a little grousing. Then he told me that he had walked it back into school, right past the guard and the other students, back into the closet that was still unlocked.
I missed it. A lot. But I felt I had done the right thing. It obviously belonged to the school.
A few years later I saw a Franz Kline painting in a museum, and I knew immediately. My painting had been a Kline. What an idiot I had been! What if I had consigned that painting to the trash? What if the school never recovered it?
Sigh.
I could have kept it. I could have lived with it. I would have donated it, probably, eventually. Or given it to a museum that would have traced the real owner. Clearly, I had done the wrong thing.
I have missed that painting for decades now. And I still feel guilty. But for what? Stealing it? Or giving it back?
I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday for exactly two hours between business meetings.
The Museum was jammed full of people and, quite annoyingly, children.They were told to use their “museum voices”, but they didn’t.It was like looking at art with flocks of chirping birds. And they swarmed in front of the Chuck Close so that I couldn’t take a selfie.
Then there were the French speakers.Do they really need to show off their proficiency in French?Don’t they know that I have tried to speak French since sixth grade and can still barely manage the present tense?They need to understand one thing about America: it’s all about me.
Being at the Met is unlike any other museum experience.One must visit old friends.Always first for me in my youth were the mummies.I remember when I was a kid, they were in cases in the hallway.My brother and I would hang over the cases and nudge each other with our elbows.But yesterday, I couldn’t find them.Plenty of mummies in wrappings.Who wants those?I like the gruesome unwrapped kind.
Second, the Temple of Dendur.It sits surrounded by water, overlooked by huge glass panes – it is a wonderful place for contemplation.As long as you’re there with just a few other like souls.And I wasn’t.
So – off to see Degas’ The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer.I had to shove my way to the front.
Then the Impressionists, the rest of the Europeans, the Americans, and the Moderns.One large group of chickadees immediately recognized a Jackson Pollock, then sat down in front of it to discuss.I tried to hear their teacher, but she was using her museum voice.You’re in my way, small people!
I had lunch in one of the Museum’s cafes.I was at a table for two, facing the window, when I realized that there is too much Mafia in me to stand for that, so I moved around to face the room.I got to watch as the bar seats filled up with single women and there was a silent power struggle over where to put the purses of the left-handers versus the right-handers.My grilled asparagus salad was delicious.
Florine Stettheimer The Cathedrals of Art 1942
There were several galleries that were roped off and the woman I spoke to said there weren’t enough guards to protect them given recent budget cuts.My solution?Cut the docents for children and bring back more guards.I want to get closer to that de Kooning!
At one point, a crabby guard yelled (not just at me, I’m sure, probably) that if I wanted to get a closer picture I should use my zoom.My phone camera has a zoom?
And now I feel like painting children.Flocks of children with their little tiny mouths closed.Les bouches de Botero.(Feel free to correct my French.)
It’s harder than I thought to make art WITHOUT a deadline. Previously, I thought it was hard to make art ON a deadline. Apparently, making art is hard.
Knitting doesn’t count. Baking cookies, no matter how beautifully decorated, doesn’t count. Among other things that don’t count are house cleaning, gardening, reading murder mysteries, going to the movies, grocery shopping, and MY DAY JOB! These are all wonderful things to do, or to have done, but they are not making art.
I was inspired recently when I attended a lecture at Lyme Academy by Professor Emeritus David Dewey, with whom I studied watercolor several years ago. His paintings are glorious, and his book on watercolor technique is a classic, but what really struck me when he spoke was how much preparation work he does for each painting.
David Dewey Marshall Point: Bridge to Light With Compositional Drawing, 2013
Sometimes he does ten or more color studies. Sometimes it takes weeks to prepare and weeks to paint the final picture. Sometimes he works on something for weeks and then doesn’t like it.
David Dewey Marshall Point: Full Moon, 2014
For those of us (me!) who still worry about basic competence and have performance anxiety, David Dewey’s example is wonderful. He doesn’t wait for inspiration to strike, he strikes first. Making art is hard work – emphasis on the “work”.
David Dewey Path to Main, Rockland, 2000
Make sketches, make color studies. Draw with your other hand. Draw with both hands. But keep your hand in so that you don’t let the fear overcome you. (And by you, I mean me.)
David Dewey, Painting, photo by Carol Gillott
Because how can you believe you CAN’T when you ARE?
I am lucky enough that my MFA classmates from the School of Visual Arts got themselves organized and put together a one-year-later show for all of us at the Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn last month. Thanks especially to Art Vidrine, Donna Cleary, and curator Melanie Kress for all of their hard work. There was only one caveat: we had to show work made SINCE GRADUATION. Well, I’ve done a lot of things since graduation, but making real work wasn’t one of them. So I decided to paint.
I decided to paint a self-portrait. Shocker. It’s not that I love the way I look. I don’t. But I like to paint faces and mine seems to be pretty handy. I wanted to make a painting that showed how distracted and fractured I was, between working and teaching and home repairs and family. Here’s the underpainting:
My mother thought only the chin looked like me, but I was satisfied with my beginning. I began to paint it in, but I had no idea what to do with the background. And if you’ve been to art school, you can still hear your teachers in your head telling you that the background is at least as important as the foreground, and must be worked at the same time. I was panicking a little, having only an idea about me and no idea at all about what was behind me.
But hey, nice wicked witch color scheme, right? I eventually went back to my original idea about fracture and distraction and thought I would try to “hide” my face among background shapes and colors, losing edges and making shallow space. I divided the canvas into weird diamond/squares (rhomboids? trapezoids? You tell me!) and painted them in. By this time I was facing a real deadline, not wanting to hang a wet painting in our early July show.
This is all by way of saying: do what I say, not what I do. But also: break the rules sometimes. I’m grateful for the pressure that made me paint. That’s one post-grad picture under my belt. Fingers crossed that the next one doesn’t take a year.
And apologies to my classmates, who made beautiful work that I didn’t show you here. Some days it’s all about me.
I am almost finished with my first semester as an Adjunct Professor of Art History, and I find myself preparing for class in ALL of my spare time, instead of finishing the drawing that’s laying on my worktable, or planning my next painting, or even organizing my studio. Yes, I am only teaching one class, but I still have a full-time job too, and not a lot of leisure time.
So I wonder: if I have effectively stopped making art in order to teach art, can I consider teaching an art form?
Harriet Powers’ Story Quilts
Teaching has brought home to me how hard my own teachers were working all of those years while I took them for granted. And it reminds me how amazing all art is, and how wonderful my dedicated students are when they bravely speak up in class to give their newly-formed opinions about the art at which we’re looking.
During this semester, while I’ve been teaching the History of Women in the Arts, I have been delighted to be able to show Jackie Winsor’s work (lovely, caring, and ground-breaking teacher of mine from SVA), and Yayoi Kusama’s installations (like the Fireflies on the Water which enthralled me at the Whitney).
Yayoi Kusama in the Fireflies
In addition, I learned so much while teaching: about Renaissance artists Artemisia Gentileschi and Sofonisba Anguissola; about Harriet Powers, who started her life as a slave and ended as an acclaimed quilt artist, and Faith Ringgold, who continues quilt story-telling to this day. I learned about Ana Mendieta, who made beautiful and poignant ephemeral art before her untimely death. I learned that Louise Bourgeois is always good for a chuckle AND a serious discussion.
Sofonisba Anguissola
I learned a lot about teaching, too: If my students miss a class, it’s not personal to me. If they don’t laugh at my jokes, it is. I know it is impossible to cover everything I want to talk about. It is difficult to end right on time when I am lecturing and encouraging discussion. When in doubt, ask a question. When in personal crisis, show the PBS Art21 video about Janine Antoni, Kara Walker, or Cindy Sherman.
I am grateful to be able to say that Three Rivers Community College has offered me the same class for next spring. I’m also hoping for a new class to teach this fall. It’s rewarding and addicting. I will miss my students when the term is over.
And I’m planning on making art this summer. Really.
