Are we going backwards?

     I'm currently reading a book from "The Unheralded Artists of B.C." series on "The Life and Art of  Ina D.D. Uhthoff" - which is one of the reasons I was thinking about Emily Carr again as Ina was a contemporary of Emily Carr. In fact, it is fairly certain that Ina was the artist supporting two young children and an invalid husband mentioned in Emily's Journal. We also know that Ina took some painting classes from Mark Tobey at Emily's studio.
    Ina ran an art school and was also a main force in the establishment of the Art Gallery of Victoria.
In 1953, Ina agreed to write exhibition reviews for the Victoria Daily Times in order to promote the Gallery and its programs. There was a wide  variety of exhibits - 20th Century American paintings including Winslow Homer, Japanese Wood Block Prints, Northwest Coast Indian carvings, eastern Canadian painters (David Milne and Tom Thomson), and Latin American Paintings including Diego Rivera - were some. Interestingly however, there was strong support for B.C. artists- including Emily Carr, Bruno and Molly Lamb Bobak, Herbert Siebner and Myfanwy Pavelic.  "By featuring local artists, the Gallery built rapport with the community. One exhibition that limited the subject matter to Victoria's Inner Harbour drew 80 paintings from a variety of artists."..."Ina always gave attention to student art from the Gallery and the school; with the newly formed Studio Artists of B.C., she was truthful yet encouraging when she wrote, 'Some of the work is not up to exhibition standard, but it is a movement in the right direction, and we wish them success in their venture.' "  I wish that local art galleries still had this interest in supporting local artists and concern about rapport with the community. I wonder how many artists would have managed to establish careers - and that includes Emily Carr- if opportunities to enter shows and exhibits had not existed?  Even the fact that these shows were all reviewed would have added to the name-recognition of the artists. We seem to be going backwards with public galleries increasingly limited to a narrow group of artists who are working in what is currently "in". There is no recognition of a range of styles and approaches. One prime example is that Robert Bateman has never made it into a public gallery as his work has been deemed "commercial". If exhibits in the 1950's could show everything from realism through impressionism to abstraction, why are exhibits limited now? As in the past. some of the currently highly praised artists may fall into disregard in the future. A lot of the artists  currently snubbed by public galleries may well become popular.  Reading "The Unheralded Artists of B.C." is certainly food for thought.
    The painting is an early evening view of Steveston Landing with reflections in the Fraser.

      

Happy New Year

     Here is Digby in formal attire to lend a touch of class to the greetings. He actually was very good about wearing this collar but is now back in his regular "BirdsBeSafe" collar. This would hardly do for squeezing through a fence anyway!
     I'll be drawing at Adrienne's  tomorrow and doing studio painting with the Men in Hats on Tuesday, Life Drawing Wednesday night - so back in the full swing of things. I'm waiting to do my newsletter until I know for sure that we, Richmond Artists Guild, have our display up in the Gulf of Georgia Cannery. It should be going up on the 8th and then will be there through the Farmer's Market on the 18th when there is free admission to the Cannery. Then it is planned to change the display for February. This may then become an ongoing - albeit changing- display. It is another opportunity to let people see some of the good work that is being  done by local artists.
     Tuesday I want some opinions on the almost finished painting of a fish-boat loading on the seine net. I've finished and just varnished one of the Britannia Shipyards waterfront so I will photograph it. Then I'm starting one of Bob as a fisherman as a painting. I used him on last month's newsletter in the  pastel on paper version that I did in Life Drawing. The start is now on canvas and I'll work on it Tuesday. Maybe I will finally finish the set of matreshkas I started *months* ago!

End of the Year-

As promised, last blog, here is the Poppy Path.  I used this on my Christmas card as it is cheerful. Interestingly, a friend in England commented that is was especially suitable as this is the 100th Anniversary of WWI. England had a tremendous poppy commemoration of WWI and the lives lost with artificial poppies "planted" all around the Tower of London. I would have loved to have seen it in person but the Google shots were terrific and a good substitute. My father fought in WWI and fortunately was invalided out before a couple of other horrific battles - or else I wouldn't be here. These poppies are not on a battlefield but are part of Richmond's beautification project- wildflowers planted along the bike path down Railway Avenue. Three of us went out pleinaire painting and I also took some photographs. I've since sold the one painted on the spot but the experience helped when doing this studio painting - which is three feet by four feet and took much longer than a three-hour pleinaire session!  It will be interesting to see if the poppies come up as well next year or if they get crowded out by other plants.

sort of seasonal greetings-

Here is the rest of the image that got cropped for my December Newsletter. Not such a seasonal picture - although it is a recent one. I was going to put the Poppy Path on the newsletter and then realized that I had already used that one for the September Newsletter!  I'll have to check and see if I used it on a blog - if not, I'll use it next blog. It is the one I used as the main picture on my Christmas card as the poppies are cheerful. Bob is a model - we got him dressed up as a fisherman for this long pose night at Life Drawing. He allowed photographs so I may use both this and my photographs as reference and do an acrylic of Bob - just for fun. He has a really interesting character face and the lighting showed his features well. I like to use pastels for the studio poses as I am not a super-fast painter and I feel I get more done with the pastels. ( This is about two and a half hours work. ) Plus, thin sheets of paper take up less storage room- but I still have the fun and experience of working from a live model. I would love to be a portrait painter. I spray the pastels with fixative before storing them.

Thinking about Emily Carr

I've been thinking about Emily Carr lately- for a number of reasons. There are a couple of new books out about Emily - one is for children ages 5 and up called "When Emily Carr met Woo"  by Monica Kulling with illustrations by Dean Griffins. I haven't seen the actual book but the picture in the advertising folder looks like fun. The choice of a monkey for a pet was an unusual one - but then she had a rat pet too- and she certainly was a person who marched to her own drum.  Another new book is "Emily Carr in England " by Kathryn Bridge who "takes a fresh look at the years that Emily Carr spent in England from 1899 to 1904,learning to become an artist" There are humorous illustrations and verses  as well as sketches by Emily herself and photographs. I'll be looking to see this as some of the time spent in England was far from humorous since she had a breakdown and ended up in a sanatorium. I read a novel based on Emily Carr's life - the love for art was captured but the book lost me when a sort-of love interest was added. There was no way that a person of her upbringing and outlook would have been visiting a bit of a vagabond on a boat in Coal Harbour!  I have her own books - Hundreds and Thousands- the Journals of an Artist and Growing Pains: An Autobiogaphy and I've been re-reading them. I had forgotten the bit where  a young Delisle Parker, newly returned from Paris, visited her studio. Later in his life, he was an art critic for a Vancouver newspaper and also taught at Saturday morning classes at the Vancouver Art Gallery. One year, he was my teacher and I remember him as a very dapper man who did not want to get chalk from children's art work on his clothes. We would gather around him as he would point, with his polished shoe, at art work spread on the floor. By that time, paintings by Emily Carr were on the Art Gallery walls.  Her own books really show her dedication to her art. It is really interesting to see the renewed interest in her and the attention  gained by the exhibition of her work at Dulwich Gallery in London.

Untangling Zen

I have been playing in a new book for a week or so... I have been quite fascinated by "zentangles" drawings where people make very complicated and organized doodles. My doodles are usually not  terribly uniform and organized . I thought this book might lead me into more intricate doodling since every page contains a prompt (or starting point) such as the one illustrated above. Each page also has a thoughtful quote that can be thought about while working on the page - sort of a jump-off point for meditating. The example I'm showing here has the hand outline - but whether a person fills it in with patterned doodling or heads in another direction is up to the individual. We are told" It's important to remember there is no proper way to complete each drawing; the prompts are merely guides facilitating your creativity and mind's quiet" The quote on this page is "All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.- Swami Vivekananda". Research tells us that looking at screens- computer or television- before we go to bed is not a good idea as then it is harder for the body to turn to sleep mode. I have found doodling a page (and there are 365- enough for a whole year)  quite relaxing and the quotes are gentle but thought-provoking. However, I must confess that my pages often are more like cartoons or sketches than zen designs. For example, I turned a cat outline into Isabella with her collar on, walking through tall grasses through which birds were peeking.This inspiring quote- "Self-deception often arises because you are afraid of your own intelligence and afraid you won't be able to deal properly with your life. You are unable to acknowledge your own innate wisdom. Instead, you see wisdom as some monumental thing outside of yourself. That attitude has to be overcome- Chogyam Trungpa" inspired me to make one curving line become a mountain for a pilgrim seeking a guru in a cave!  Nevertheless, it is interesting to work on and I find I have moved from just doing black and white with a soft-tip pen to using coloured ballpoint pens - but that is for now. I'm taking it one page at a time and enjoying thinking about the quotes while doodling or drawing and unwinding. It is a nice meditative thing to do.

Who's looking?

Here are the Burrowing Owls from this year's GuessWho?  Last year I did 22 Owls - this year only three. I wonder if I should do a different owl one next year- or should I go off on a different tangent? These owls were done with added texture  from heavy gel and also molding paste- and a bit of string gel in the grasses. Some gel can help with acrylics. I recall acrylics as holding the thickness and texture of brushstrokes more when they were newer on the market. Now they are more of the self-leveling type and gel is needed to get a feel of paint texture. I took a workshop from someone who is really into texture that is all applied at the beginning. Then he works in layers of transparent paint. It works for him but I like mixing colours and I also like to add gel either part way  through separately or with the paint as the layers are built up. I think I will choose to adapt some of the ideas from the workshop but also to use texture in my own way. I think this 10x10 benefited from the added texture. I've also added some texture to a painting I am working on that has pilings in the water. The texture is helping to separate the pilings from their reflections. You'll see the results later.