Photography

At a certain point in my career as an artist I wanted to paint landscapes in a more or less impressionistic style.  From an artist's perspective I've always enjoyed observing nature, but I've never enjoyed setting up outside to paint the interesting landscape scenes that I found.  I tried painting from photographic references for a short time, but found that rendering visual representations caused me a lot of anxiety - that is, I cussed a lot.   I found that I enjoyed photographing nature much more than painting it.  At about the same time that I stopped using visual first-hand and photographic references in my painting process, I began seriously taking photographs.

This is a very old (40 years) plein air drawing:

Florida Scrub Oaks, circa 1971

charcoal, pen & ink on paper

These are older paintings from photographic references:

Valley Overlook, circa 2003

acrylic on stretched canvas, 22"X28"

The Marsh at Veteran's Park, circa 2004

acrylic on stretched canvas, 22"X26"

Up until a couple of years ago I was taking snapshots with a point and shoot camera.  When I retired from my job in June of 2009 I decided to move up to a DSLR camera.  At the time the Nikon D5000 was relatively new and being promoted heavily, so that's what I bought.   I've found that the learning curve for the camera and photography in general is pretty steep.  I shot in auto mode for at least the first year and a half.  I found this web site, Digital Photography School (DPS), and it has become particularly helpful as a tutorial and reference tool.

Early examples from the Nikon D5000:

Winter Tree, circa 2010

Valley Farm, circa 2010

I'm finding photography to be much more demanding technically - that is, I find it to be much less intuitive than other visual art mediums.  Most of the process of photography seems to be in the "getting-ready-to-make-the-picture" and once you're ready to shoot, if you're lucky, you'll still have a subject to shoot.  The natural world slips in and out of moods with the blink of an eye.   At some point I would like to be technically proficient enough to be able to focus more on the subject than the camera and not be so dependent on post-production software to save a poorly shot picture.

Whereas my painting method is almost totally right-brained, I find that photography is a close harmony between the left and the right brain.   I've also found that what I do with a camera and what I do with paint are almost completely opposite in terms of subject and style.  The camera is filling a hollow space in my creativity.  It allows me the contact with the external natural world that is lacking in my current painting process.

These two images illustrate the vast difference between my photography and painting styles:

Shenandoah River, circa 2011
HDR photograph

Stream of Mixed Feelings, circa 2011

acrylic on stretched canvas, 12"X12"

I hope, one day, to be able to confidently call myself a photographer as well as a painter.   Bear with me while I grope my way to that goal.

Slideshow

A slideshow of some of my artwork on Fine Art America (FAA):

Process

I hear so many people say, "It's all about the process", "The process matters most.", "To understand the artist's work you must understand their process." - REALLY?  I like to watch other artists at work.  I watch a lot of Youtube videos that show artists demonstrating thier painting process.  But, these usually only demonstrate the actual act of painting - usually nothing at all to do with the preliminary thinking processes and preparation.  Process includes a miriad of tangible and intangible elements that lead the individual artist to a resulting artwork.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the "process" is only important to the artist.  What might be more important to the observer is how the artwork communicates the artist's intention.  But, even at that, the artwork may not necessarily be, and often isn't, the artist's true intention, in which case it may be completely acceptable to just enjoy looking at it.  Whatever the case, there is likely something of the artist's psyche present in the artwork that simply can't be easily defined or understood.

To have a more insightful understanding of an artist's work, I like to know something about the artist's motivation.  That is, what life experiences might have moved them toward a certain result.  For instance, knowing something of Picasso's female muses, Van Gogh's intimacy with the natural world and his reverence toward the toil of his peasant subjects, or even knowing something of how Pollock came to use his unique painting techniques and his psychological state of mind.  It's all a matter of respect for artistic integrity.  Work ethic may have the most to do with the success or failure of the outcome.  An old artist, whose name elludes me, once said something to the effect, "a painter's artistic success may be measured in yards of canvas painted.".

How an artist makes art is often as great an abstraction as the artwork itself.  Process is meaningless if the artwork doesn't communicate something to the viewer.  This is why I say that the process is only important to the artist.  What the artist brings to the process is his/her creative motivation which is the language of the finished artwork and, I believe, the true measure of its success.  But first, the artist must put in the time and at some magic moment transcend technique to deliver artwork that speaks in a clear voice.

This has been a difficult piece to write.  I may have even contradicted myself at times.  I apologize if I've led anyone down a more confusing path.  But hey, if you're confused, it means you're at least thinking about it.

Art Class

My family moved from Gaffney, SC to Cape Canaveral, FL when I was 14 years old. We moved away two months into my first year of high school. To a 14 year old boy the cultural chasm between the two places was expansive. In Gaffney a new student entering my classes was a rarity experienced only a couple of times during my 8+ years of school there. In Florida I attended Cocoa Beach High School during the heyday of the NASA space boom. As rare as it was in Gaffney to have a new classmate, it was just as rare in my Florida high school to find a native of the area. The central Florida area was extremely cosmopolitan in its demographic make up and students moving in and out of the area was commonplace.

My first years of high school were filled with tumult and anxiety. I became withdrawn and self conscious of what I believed (at the time) to be my backwardness – that is, my southern dialect and my cultural ways. My freshman and sophomore years of high school were spent trying to cover up and suppress who I was. I didn't know what it was at the time, but have since learned that I was experiencing “culture shock”. I was somewhat reclusive at home and spent hours in my room drawing pictures from photos I found on album covers and in magazines. To this day it saddens me to think about this period of my life. Mostly regretting the missed opportunities.

Some things happened in my junior year that began to slowly lift me from my self-imposed malaise. The first semester of eleventh grade I registered for an art class. It was a waste. The teacher was uninspired, my classmates were uninspired, and the classroom setting was not at all conducive to making art. I don't remember a damned thing I did in that class. But, I could see out the door window across the commons to the OTHER art classroom that was actually designed to function as an art class. It was windowed from floor to ceiling all across the front and I could see the teacher moving from one art table to another, smiling with encouragement. The students actually appeared to be happy with what they were doing. My second semester I made a point of signing up for that class.

As I sat on a bench in the common area of the art department waiting for the first day of my new art class to begin, a thin, very animated guy walked up to me and began speaking in an excited heavy French accent. He was insisting that, if the subject should ever come up, I was to be sure to request that Liquitex paints be purchased for use in the class. I remember this because of the way he said “Leek-wee-tex” - if you can imagine the French accent. I later learned that he was French-Canadian from Montreal and both parents were French immigrants. His name was Robert and he and I became “friends-in-art” for the next year and a half of high school. Robert possessed a rare innate creative ability and desire as an artist. After knowing him for a short time, I knew with certainty that he would either be a homeless artist scratching pictures with a rock on the sidewalk, or he would be a tremendously successful artist. Over the past few years I've learned from newspaper and magazine articles that he is the latter. His commitment to his artistry was then and is now unwavering and uncompromising. To this day I am still inspired by his dogged persistence and love for art.

I came to be friends with several other students in that class and subsequent classes. A few of us were together for most of our junior and senior years of high school. We fed each other with enthusiasm and inspiration. Art became my social savior and I came to realize what it meant to be an artist.

Ms. Edgar was my mentor and teacher in those high school art classes. She entered us into community art exhibits and took us on field trips to such places as a pottery studio where an older gentleman produced pottery and his wife sculpted in clay. We spent a day at a university theater watching a production of Shakespeare's “Henry IV” which was preceded by a very avant-garde performance piece set to Beatles music. We also attended several sidewalk art shows which were very popular events in central Florida during that period of time.

One of my proudest moments in high school was winning two gold key awards at a regional scholastic art exhibit in Miami that Ms. Edgar had, unknowing to me, entered my artwork. My parents and I drove down for the awards ceremony which took place in the banquet room of the Burdine's department store in downtown Miami.

Upon my graduation from high school, Ms. Edgar continued to teach her art classes. My younger brother (six years my junior) was also her student. My friends and I went our separate ways and I bumped into just a couple of them for a few years after that. I never saw Robert again after graduation. He has since published several well received photography books and exhibited his work in highly respected galleries and museums in the US and abroad.

My acceptance as an artist in Ms. Edgar's classes pulled me through a period of anguish and insecurity. I look back at those years as being the most formative in my life as an artist. Our lives take turns – sometimes very sharp turns. You may be left dazed and bewildered, but if you keep your senses, you may right yourself and find a truer course.