How I See It
I’m sitting here typing from my office at home. The window next to my desk overlooks Oso Bay, which is small and somewhat churned up regularly but the sun rises just across and when you catch it in just the perfect light, which can happen several times a day, the view is breathtaking..or better said…makes me feel like I can breathe deeply and easily. I have always appreciated a good view. There is something extremely hopeful about looking out over a seemingly limitless horizon. It gives me a feeling of freedom, hope for the future, and like there is always something more to come. That feeling, that itch of always wanting more..of wanting to discover, is what feeds my creativity.
I believe I have a responsibility as an artist to explore different world views. For me, it’s about expanding my perspective of the world around me. I want to look at things with fresh eyes. This requires asking a lot of questions of myself and the landscape within my view. It means zooming in on previously unnoticed details and contemplating not just the visual aspect of things but the core of their existence and how they work. Once that is done, I try to ‘zoom out’ and look beyond that to imagine other perspectives I may not have been exposed to yet. Although most of this process happens outside the studio, it is an essential part of creating the work.
I Am Not a Landscape: About Me
In the past few months, I finished a small series entitled ‘I Am Not A Landscape’. The title is really a way of poking fun at myself and my own denial about what these paintings really are. This series was born out of an exploration of beauty in nature and my human connection to it. I recently came to the realization that the reason the new paintings have a ‘landscapish’ appearance is that nature is where ideas become clearer to me. It’s where my brain works best. I am more myself there and during the pandemic, specifically, I spent more time connecting with nature than anywhere else because it was one of the few places I could either be alone or with my significant other, avoiding large groups or social interactions. Travel to and within cities and public spaces wasn’t the best option given the situation. It was the barrage of visual images and notes being taken in that caused the look of landscapes to infiltrate my work.
So why don’t I like the idea of admitting that these are landscapes? I think it boils down to a fear of being labeled. I absolutely hate being labeled in any way. I am not a joiner. I don’t want to be ‘called’ anything other than my name and maybe ‘visual artist’ or ‘abstract painter’. Unfortunately, as I have discussed before in previous posts, the art world tends to label people as a certain kind of artist and that is scary because you might get stuck doing work you don’t like because people have decided to label you with something too specific. Knowing that fear exists within me doesn’t change what is happening within the work I’m producing but at least it can help me understand why I feel the way I do about the work that is being produced.
I Am Not a Landscape: About The Work
The pieces created in the series, and influencing other work currently, connote transparency and mystery alike.... They reflect my understanding that although there is much to see, there is still so much more which is unseen and undiscovered.
As with almost all abstract expressions, this work is nothing short of a self-portrait. There is more to the world, more to me than meets the eye. My approach to life is both transparent and mysterious and I find those qualities everywhere.
No, that view is not just a landscape, it is sparkly water teeming with life under its silvery midday shimmer. It abounds with mystery, history, and new birth all at the same time. In the sense of the human condition, it is a nod to individuality and the beauty of aging and self-acceptance. It says..."I am not all I appear to be...there is more to me.... I get to be who and what I want, and my flaws and triumphs are indications of my history, a history which has shaped who I am as a human being and I am richer for it". Nature’s history is as much on display visually as is that of a human being. Every detail is an indication and evolution of what came before. There are layers upon layers of history.
Art as Communication
Bertrand Russell said, “Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal so that bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life”.
One of the things I’ve realized is that looking out over a horizon and zooming in on the landscape and its magnificent details gives me a sense of aww…it’s an aww I would like to have when interacting with human beings, but I think that interaction is less pure because as human beings we process information through our own individual filters. That creates limitless perspectives which is a good thing, but it also leads to less purity in our interactions because we are tainted by our own limitations. We project our own perspectives onto the world we see as I am CLEARLY doing now. This means if we want a more honest interaction with others, we have to work to understand and process their perspectives too.
I was asked to make a video recently for a virtual show and one of the items being addressed in the video was ‘Why are you an artist?’.
The short answer is “because I have to be”. It is an urge which cannot be shaken or quieted. The long answer is a bit more complicated. Painting, for me, really is about communicating my visual interpretation of the world…how I see it. Because it is through my perspective, that vision must go through the filter of my self-analysis, exploration of nature and humanity, and of course all my experiences, good and bad. This is not unique to me; in fact, it is something every human being experiences in their communication with others. Art is, after all, communication. How and what we communicate must first be filtered through the sum of our experiences, hopes, dreams, and discoveries.
For this reason, it should not be a surprise to me (and yet somehow it is), or to anyone who knows me personally, that many of the recent paintings are borderline abstract landscapes. You see, I have always had a fascination with the endless horizon. The horizon, on an ocean, has a certain limitless feeling. It represents freedom, danger, and the courage required to ask questions and expose oneself to failure. The beauty of that, both in nature and in oneself is that the quest could go on and on…it has no limitations.
I feel about the natural landscape the same way a lover of fashion and textiles feels about high-quality items. Every stitch, feeling of the fabric, textural detail is a world of wonders to behold. Nature and the human condition are places where the curious mind can be infinitely fed because so much is still unknown. Throughout this year, that is the most important thing I’ve learned about my work and where it is headed. Active exploration and discovery are the keys to what I do. If I am to communicatie honestly through abstract expression, I must make work a pure extension of self, good and bad. This focus helps me maintain my sense of wonder and I think it conveys feelings of positivity, inquisitiveness, and mystery in the work. I’m hoping that gets transferred to the viewer. There is a richness to viewing the world in this way. It feels really good and I want to inspire others to embrace this mindset. Even though the presentation of a painting isn’t dialogical, there is a visual/emotional dialogue happening between myself and viewer. It’s communication of many ideas and feelings which cannot be put into words…at least not easily.
So, I guess it is time to admit that sometimes I bust out an abstract landscape….or two….or three. The work from the “I Am Not a Landscape” series attempts to poke fun at my efforts to avoid creating abstract landscapes. The reality of the situation is that it is the thing that is most natural to me. Nature is where I feel most like myself. It is where I remember my smallness and that’s a good thing. There is something truly magical in understanding how insignificant I am in this vast Universe…both materially and intellectually. So, when I’m sitting on top of a sand dune looking out over the Laguna Madre and feeling inspired, I need to remember that some of the things I’m recording in my mind are going to end up in a painting somewhere. Right now, the work is more about recording the tiny details and textures I’m zooming in on and exploring those visually. Why? In short, it’s because I am sure there is as much or more happening in one cubic foot of Gulf water as there is in an entire city full of human life….they are different happenings…but they are still happenings.
Moving Into Uncharted Territory
My art has always been a mission of self-discovery. It is, essentially, about observing the world around me and figuring out how I feel about it. That process is three-pronged; it involves taking in visual notes about what I’ve seen, meditating on those details and how I feel/think about them in relation to my place in the world, then pouring them out onto the canvas and allowing that process to also be one of discovery. It’s about being open and welcoming to new things and happy accidents…even to failure. The most recent series I’m working on is about the unknown quality of the process and the good things that can happen there. “Uncharted” seeks to discover new processes in the work while remaining true to self. It is specifically about a love of the unknown and allowing that tide to take over…to have pull….to be drawn in and get lost in there. I try to carry those ideas with me moving forward into creating and in life in general. Part of that, as I’ve discussed before, is knowing what you have which is of value both historically and materially, and applying in new ways. There are few things more exciting or rewarding than working with what's available to you to create something completely new. That skill is part of moving forward in life. It takes ingenuity to review all of your own knowledge, add more, and move forward into the unknown without fear, knowing you can overcome whatever obstacles may be ahead.
