Saturday, March 23, 2024

A Crack in the Wall

 



A Crack in the Wall

Oil on canvas, 45"x45"


This is a new and very different sort of painting for me.  Rather than just post it and say "new work, here ya go", I think it needs some discussion.

Several years ago, I was doing a photo session with one of my regular models.  We had been having fun, making photos that I could use for artworks, going through a variety of themes for her to play with, when I suggested "how about something defensive?"  She got down on the floor and curled up into this ball.  It hit me like a gut punch: she wasn't imagining what it was like, she was reliving something that had already happened to her.  It was unnerving and I changed the theme to something lighter.  

She didn't explain what had happened to her, but some time later, I learned something about it.  Yes, it was bad.  I couldn't just walk away from this raw experience, though.  I did a charcoal and pastel work from it and it has been in a few exhibitions.  It has always gotten strong responses from women.  And I have wanted to make it a much larger painting ever since.

What held me back?  Maybe the fear of not doing justice to it.  What she showed me was her response to a very personal infliction of violence.  And what the viewers of the pastel artwork who talked to me later showed me was that this was a very wide-spread experience.  Way too many women have been subjected to physical, mental, and sexual violence.  I wanted to honor those experiences in a way that helps others to see that they're not alone.  

Finally, I realized that if this painting was ever going to get made, I had to get off my ass and make it.  So I got busy.  I made a small study in oil on paper and worked out the composition and color scheme, then stretched the canvas and dove in.  It took several weeks, much experiementation, and many layers to get it to where it said what it needed to say.  

The next step is to get it exhibited.  Don't know where that will be yet.  Will let you know.

And the title, "A Crack in the Wall"?  I'm not so sure about that one.  I'm not very good at titles.  Got a better suggestion?



Friday, March 15, 2024

Wedding Painting Equipment


 Every artist develops a unique set of tools to get the job done.  Wedding painters typically go for a minimalist approach - just the basics.  An easel, a light, a canvas, and some paint, and they're ready to go.  This setup is lightweight and easy to get in and out of the venue.

Yeah, not me.

My setup is a direct outgrowth of my studio way of working.  I paint in oils and need a lot of equipment, and it seems to grow a little bit every year.  The photo shows my setup at The Farm at Old Edwards Inn in Highlands, NC, last weekend.  Let's talk about what's there and why.

First, the easel.  It's a wooden full-size French easel.  It's very efficient: it's a box that holds my paint tubes, has three telescoping legs, a support for the canvas, a place to mount my light, and a tray that I can clamp my palette to, and hang my roll of paper towels from.  The drawback?  It's fairly heavy.  I usually don't have to lug it very far, though, so I'll take the weight penalty for the convenience.

See that tall table just to the right of the easel?  That's mine, too.  I take a lot of photos and load them into a laptop.  The laptop needs to be up where I can see it.  Many wedding artists use their phones or iPads for reference photos, then wind up painting with one hand while holding the phone in the other.  No, I need a stable and larger screen so I can see the reference photos.  Having a place to hold my Coke and business cards is a bonus.  When I first started at events, I asked the venue for a tall table, but soon learned that I can't rely on them.  So I don't.

The mat on the floor is part of the setup.  It's there to protect the venue.  I've never actually spilled anything or had a wet painting do a face-plant on the floor, but if that ever happens, we're safe.

I've got a plastic trash can under the easel.  Because trash.  It's something else that I can't rely on the venue to provide, and it looks a lot better than hanging a plastic bag from the grocery store off the easel.

You can't see it here, but I also bring an extension cord to power the light and computer.  Again, something I can't rely on the venue to provide.

You can barely see it here, but under that black cloth between the easel and tall table is a big rolling toolbox from Lowe's.  This is to haul all the stuff that doesn't fit into the easel.  That includes the light, computer, computer power cord, iPad, paint brushes, palette, painting mediums, roll of paper towels, various tools, gaffer tape, extension cord, apron, business cards, granola bars, sketchbook, DSLR camera, straight edges, spare batteries for the camera and computer mouse, and various other bits.  

Does that sound like a lot of stuff?  It does to me, but it's all necessary for my way of working.  It also means that I don't fly to do weddings.  I load my car and drive, and I only go to events that are within one day's drive of Asheville.  Events in Miami or southern California?  Sorry!  But I have done weddings as far off as far western Kentucky, Atlanta, and the Washington, DC area.  

So that's my wedding painting equipment loadout.  It may not work for you, but it does for me.  

Monday, March 04, 2024

Andy

 


This is a portrait of Andy, the brother of a friend.  Andy's a great guy, very smart, very accomplished, and one of the nicest people I've met.  This is a fairly small painting, 16"x12", in oil on panel.  It's one that I'm really glad I did.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Me at 21


There's a challenge going around on Instagram and Facebook to show a selfie from when you were 21.  Most of this is coming from people in their 30's or 40's, and to be honest, their "21" photos don't look that different from their "current age" photos.  Then there's me.  I've got quite a few decades in between the time I was 21 and now.  So here I am, age 21, a very long time ago, doing my best Napoleon Dynamite look, long before there ever was a Napoleon Dynamite.  You may laugh now.  I don't miss that big hair, but I do miss being able to fit into those 30" waist jeans! 

Friday, January 26, 2024

Now and Then

 


"Now and Then" is an older painting of mine, done in about 1995, before many of y'all were born.  It has a very important place in my growth and I thought I'd discuss it here.

In '95, I was still in the Navy and stationed in Maryland.  I was taking a night painting class at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  The teacher gave us a homework assignment of painting a still life.  Since I'd been painting for many years at that point, I didn't think it would be very challenging.  Actually creating the painting wasn't difficult.  I piled a bunch of things onto a table, moved things around, tossed things out, added something every now and then, and kept whittling away until the only things left were my Navy hat and my ancient teddy bear.  The contrast in colors, values, and textures appealed to me: lots of harsh blacks and whites and hard-edge lines in the hat, compared with soft textures and warm colors in the bear.  

At the next class, we set our homework assignments up against the wall and everybody critiqued everybody else's work.  When they got to mine, it got a lot of emotional response.  One of the students said it was about a father who had gone off to war and wasn't coming back and the kid was going to grow up without a father.  I was looking at them thinking "umm ... it's just a still life ...".  I was really taken aback.

However, the big lesson at the time was that I can't control the story the viewers see in my work.  They come to it with their own background, history, mental associations, prejudices, likes, and dislikes, all of which have nothing to do with me.  All I can do is tell my story as best I can.  Maybe suggest a particular line of thought, but that's about it.  They'll see what they're going to see.

There was another lesson quite some time later.  Eventually, I realized that my choice of the hat and teddy bear wasn't random.  Something in me specifically chose those two items.  It's a self-portait done with two of my possessions.

These two lessons have affected every piece of art I look at now, and every piece of art I make.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Sema's Shadow

 "Sema's Shadow" is a new figurative artwork that I recently finished.  It's in charcoal and pastel on toned paper, size 25"x19".  I thought I'd share a bit of background on how it developed.



This started as a drawing from one of our life sessions. It was an okay drawing but that's about it. Not much life to it and it was a standard life drawing pose. I wanted to see if I could take it up a few notches, giving it character and more interest. So I began drawing over it, covering things, erasing things, but keeping the same basic pose. I wanted it to be more evocative and less descriptive. After working on it intermittently for several weeks, in between other works, here's how it turned out:


So what do you think? Is it better? Worse? Neither, just different?


#figurativeart #figuredrawing #artistmodel #lifedrawing #charcoaldrawing #pastelfiguredrawing #contemporaryfigurativeart #ashevilleartist #ashevilleart #skiprohde

Monday, January 08, 2024

New Exhibition at Mars Hill University

 One of the things I do besides create artworks is to show artworks.  I manage the art gallery at Mars Hill University.  We just finished installing the first show of the spring semester.  It's a series of prose and poetry printed in letterpress, along with line etchings, all made with exquisite quality.  I'm not exaggerating: it's some of the best I've ever seen.  And the story that the artist is telling is extremely powerful. 


Click on the image to see a larger version.  Then zoom in on it even more.  Take your time - the more you look, the more you're going to see.

Artist koreloy mcwhirter has created this collection of works titled "redhanded: a songe forre the loste". She doesn't capitalize names or titles, and deliberately uses spelling that evokes olde English.  It's essentially a book of prose, poetry, and imagery, each page of which is individually mounted, framed, and presented.  They're arranged such that you enter the gallery and follow the "book" around the wall, one page at a time, in order.

redhanded is based on her own experiences of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, both as a very young child and continuing into adulthood.  This is not a happy story.  It's not a hopeless story, either, and you'll find humor, love, mourning, forgiveness, anger, and much more.

You'll find it, that is, if you take the time to read the prose and poetry, and to study the prints.  It's not an exhibition that you can pop in, get a quick look, and say you've "seen" it.  But if you take the time, you will be profoundly moved.

Weizenblatt Gallery is in the Moore Fine Art building on the Mars Hill University campus in Mars Hill, North Carolina, about 20 miles north of Asheville.  Hours are 10-4 MWF.  We're having a reception for the artist on Tuesday, Jan 16, from 5-7 pm.  I hear from koreloy that there will be music, singing, and maybe some dancing as well.  

Be there.