Right now I’m working on a larger-scale (that is, roughly life-sized) figure-portrait in oil on canvas. This is a throw-back to the kind of paintings I was making prior to coming out to Philadelphia for graduate school at the Academy. The fact that actually I made it into the studio yesterday when all I wanted to do was sit out on the benches next to Christ Church and read is a testimony to how beneficial it is for artists of my temperament to work with live models.
I hate to admit it but I’m actually pretty undisciplined. Sometimes I can drift into a lethargy that keeps me unproductive for weeks and even months at a time. I eventually get so depressed trying to be anything but an artist that I finally drag myself back into the studio to see if I can still do it. I wish I could make you believe that I’m the type that can’t wait to get to the studio and would rather die painting or something like that. Its just not true. I make art despite myself, really. I just keep going back to it.
I remember once reading in The Art Spirit by Robert Henri (years before I attended the Academy where he taught), that Henri too got himself into a bit of a slump from time to time. I remember him saying in one of his letters that knowing he has an appointment with a ‘sitter’ that day is sometimes the only thing that would get him moving. That he often would feel entirely discouraged and uninterested in making work, but not wanting to break the social appointment with the model he would show up and paint, and that within a short time he would feel so happy and so interested in his work again that his depression was totally forgotten. This has usually been true in my case.
But then, an unusual thing happened yesterday while working on the portrait. About halfway through the four-hour session, I started to feel, well, sluggish again. It was like something was telling me to stop. So I stopped. I thought perhaps it was just the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything in a while, so with her permission, I left the girl sitting there while I got myself a snack and cup of coffee at the gas station down the street. I felt a bit better. I was well enough to keep plodding along. But there was something bothering me about the work that I was doing. I was grateful to get a call from a visitor and to allow them to come up for a chat and cut our session short. As I said, this is an unusual reaction for me. Normally, I have as much difficulty stopping myself from working once I’ve started as I do getting started once I’ve stopped. But yesterday, I just wanted to keep the painting from going any further before I’ve reflected on it more carefully.
I believe I need to put some more effort into finding out what this piece is really about. Like I said, its the first time I’ve worked on a large painting in several years, and I do feel a bit exposed – just as my subject is exposed. There is certainly a very reflexive relationship between myself and the model that I have sitting for this portrait right now. Its quite psychologically charged, I think.
And there is one little detail that bothers me. You see, I’ve done a funny thing with her: I’ve made her look as if her head was shaved. Well, its not a big deal, except that I’m not sure how she’ll feel being portrayed that way. You see there is a social dynamic here. She is an unpaid model. A collaborator. That’s part of it you know. That’ what makes our relationship an important element of the piece. It affects the decisions that are being made. This is the truth about portraiture: it’s social.
In real life she has longish hair. But the girl in the painting is bald. That’s just one thing. You see, I’m not really sure if I’m painting a portrait of this person, or if I’m using this person as a model to paint someone that exists only in the painting – like a fictional character. What am I doing anymore? Do I really even need this model here?
Well, it does seem especially helpful to have her – I mean, if anything the painting is based on her has a subject. You know, I remember reading that Paula Rego always used certain models in her paintings and they weren’t necessarily portraits – they were characters she was creating. The model would help her see the character she was trying to picture. She used the same girl over and over again because they had a lot of trust between them, and she said in the interview (it was in that big Phaidon book about her that came out like ten years ago) that she had ‘short limbs’ and sort of looked like girls she would see growing up in Portugal, and they were like herself, and so the paintings of this model were sort of self-portraits in that way.
I think this model is a bit like that for me. She looks like figures I have already imagined in some of my drawings and doodles and things. She fits right into my stage-play and seems perfectly cast. This is all well and good. So do I allow myself to modify her as much as I wish, to use her for spare parts? I feel some real reticence about that. Would it still be a portrait if I did? What then would it be a portrait of? How would that effect our relationship to eachother?
Tags: art practice, Art Spirit, figurative painting, figure modeling, Fine Art, models, oil painting, Paula Rego, portrait painting, portraits, Robert Henri, studio art
June 20, 2009 at 12:38 am |
I think you need to post some images of your work here as well as at your website. If the works-in-progress seem too personal at the moment, you could post other works. That way people see them — I didn’t notice the link to your website at first. I’m glad I looked a second time to find it.
Also, you say about your model and this process:”In real life she has longish hair. But the girl in the painting is bald. That’s just one thing. You see, I’m not really sure if I’m painting a portrait of this person, or if I’m using this person as a model to paint someone that exists only in the painting – like a fictional character.”
Perhaps though working on this picture you have indeed discovered a new image, one that involves a fictional person. The two kinds of working don’t have to be mutually exclusive. One way to get around whatever obstacles are created by this feeling is to re-do the same motif several times. If the model has long hair, why not also do some drawings focusing on her hair. They can be preludes, perhaps to other works, future works. In any case, you would have both ideas standing side by side.
I hope you can work your way through your reluctances. If it’s any help, I used to have such a hard time getting myself to work. I thought I was undisciplined, but in my case I was over-critical. Now, though, I love to work. Today I was prevented from being in my studio because I had some errands I had to attend to — things I had postponed for as long as they could be postponed — and even though it’s just one day, I miss my studio so much!
I’m going to draw later tonight probably, after the kid’s asleep, and I’ve found now that for me sometimes even just working 15 minutes is very appealing — just getting in that time where I can and enjoying it. I’m not working from a model so my circumstances are a bit different. But there too, you can make drawings from imagination, or copy masters, during periods of down time, and they will later have beneficial effect upon studio time.
If you get a chance, hunt down a copy of the Catalog raisonné des dessins du Musée de Montauban that has the drawings from Ingres’s estate. It would seem that whenever Ingres had a visual idea, he committed it to paper. And there’s such tremendous freedom in the drawings. Such a probing delight in everything visual.
I’m familiar with your school’s style and that’s one reason I mention the Ingres. A good art library might have a copy, though obviously it’s not a book you find everywhere. And opposite Ingres, I’d recommend taking a look at Jennifer Bartlett’s “In the Garden” drawings which were reproduced as a book about 20+ years ago. Bartlett is not like Ingres, and I don’t know whether you like her work. Also there’s hardly any figure in her imagery. But she is inventive with images in an interesting way that follows from Matisse and others. Her taking one motif and exploring it so variously contains a lesson that I think many artists could profit from. Her book is out of print, but again some libraries have copies.
Best of luck to you and hope that your large painting welcomes you into a desire for work. Your paintings are very sensitive and beautiful.
June 22, 2009 at 3:03 am |
Aletha,
Thank you so much for your generous comments. If you haven’t guessed, I’m a bit new to ‘blogging’ and was genuinely surprised and delighted to see such a thoughtful response from a real person come to me so quickly! I will consider adding some images in with my posts as you said – the header is a passage from one of my paintings, but I guess it doesn’t exactly give you a clear view of what I’m talking about. So thanks for the advise. Also, your comments about my work were very helpful:
“Perhaps though working on this picture you have indeed discovered a new image, one that involves a fictional person. The two kinds of working don’t have to be mutually exclusive. One way to get around whatever obstacles are created by this feeling is to re-do the same motif several times. If the model has long hair, why not also do some drawings focusing on her hair. They can be preludes, perhaps to other works, future works. In any case, you would have both ideas standing side by side.”
I always forget about working in series unless someone reminds me that I can do that – it definitely makes sense to take this approach when I’m feeling so ambivalent about which direction to go with a piece.
What generally happens (this is how grad school went for me) is that at least one and sometimes several entirely new strains of work develop out of the original, which is an exciting thing and also a challenge. The great thing is that you really have to strive to keep up with all the ideas that issue forth from the original, so there’s no lack of work to show! On the other hand, keeping up with all of the very different bodies of work can be almost impossible. I’ve even been faced with the gut-wrenching necessity of abandoning, or at least – setting aside – a couple of bodies of work that I simply cannot maintain given the limited time and resources that I have to work with. Even sorting these things out on my website has been tricky because at that level, the level of public view, when galleries and juries and other arts-professionals are able to look at my work, showing work that goes in too many different directions can be a deterrent. I mean, appearing too ‘eclectic’ may show lack of commitment from the point of view of anyone that might be considering promoting or investing in an emerging artist’s career. This is what worries me. There are so many things to do, but what is the main thing that I should be doing? I’m probably like you were, just too damn self-critical. Or maybe its because I’m just afraid of running out of time.
Ultimately, it is probably more beneficial to our development to explore all the possibilities that occur to us in the studio, and let the whole process take whatever it takes. After all, to be an artist is to put the needs of the work first. One of my mentors at the Academy, Renee Foulks said something to me about that, she said “for some people it takes twenty years for them to really figure out what they’re going for in their work; some people, they lock onto it while they’re still in undergraduate. For me it was definitely sometime after grad school, maybe five years of experimenting after grad school, before I really knew what I was after.” That gives me hope. So I’m definitely going to try that suggestion and see about making some studies of this model when she comes in on Thursday.
I’m really enjoying your lovely weblog and your work. Your playfulness and enthusiasm are contagious and I thank you for sharing your words and your work with me!
see you around,
Michael
June 26, 2009 at 9:43 pm |
I was thinking about what you said in reply to my comment, especially this:
“… keeping up with all of the very different bodies of work can be almost impossible. I’ve even been faced with … setting aside – a couple of bodies of work that I simply cannot maintain given the limited time and resources that I have to work with. Even sorting these things out on my website has been tricky because … when galleries and juries and other arts-professionals are able to look at my work, showing work that goes in too many different directions can be a deterrent.”
I know what you mean on both scores. As to the first, having to set aside projects, I wonder if you ever experience this — sometimes I find myself “stuck” and I eventually stop working that subject and turn my attention elsewhere, sometimes to projects that seem very different, only to discover later that the new project bore strong similarities to the abandoned project (underneath the surface) and that changing gears actually helped me solve the problem that had originally gotten me stuck. So, sometimes the meandering through different projects is really a very creative, if indirect, form of visual problem solving.
Secondly, like you I wonder what various people might think seeing my work posted willy nilly on my blog. I’m giving out my card all the time, and I never know what will be at the top of the blog when somebody happens to “click.” Will it be a strong painting that I think is impressive? Or will it be a little sketch that I shot off so that I could write a cute piece that keeps my stats humming?
I decided not to worry about it, though. When I look at galleries, I see — I’ll be blunt — plenty of junk on their walls. If the junk they sell doesn’t deter me from trying them as a venue then why should my whimsical sketches deter them from discovering my strong paintings?
Even museums have junk. Most often it’s hip and trendy au courrant junk, but sometimes you find the less than sterling 17th century portrait hanging in a corner by an “old master” who’s not a house-hold name even among specialists.
One has to get one’s stuff out there. One way or another. And I find that I cannot knock out “masterpieces” as frequently as my stats require! So I just put images out there (I do edit — not “everything” goes up.) The traffic, the give and take (I’m often surprised by what appeals to people — not always the things I expect) is instructive.
The internet is a wonderful new tool, and it challenges us to rethink what are is and does for artist and spectator alike. Anyway, I’m glad I could be among the first to welcome you. If your experience is anything like mine, I think you’ll find blogging very rewarding.
Best, Aletha