2016 Europe * TrenItalia: en route * September 19

"If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies."

~Author Unknown

I have been fed up with sleepwalking through my life.  What woke me up two years ago?  Another birthday?  Realizing I was living my whole days and years for others?  Who knows how long our days remain healthy and active?  So while I have those things still, I take off.   Off to find MYSELF!  I am still searching, of course, finding bits and pieces of me along the way.

It’s challenging and a bit disconcerting to travel alone in a country where one does not speak the language.  I’ve made a list of Italian words but I have not used many.   Yesterday the man at the train station sold me a Rome-to-San Gimignano ticket (actually to the nearest town: Poggibonsi), but he did not even consider that I would need to go from Civitavecchia to Rome!!  It must have been quite obvious that I was a foreigner and rather lost, but he was absolutely literal with the list of places I was to go.  Thankfully I went to the station a half hour early.  Now I’m on the train and wondering about making the 9am Rome train he assigned me …

A chance to ponder:

I often find myself saying “I travel to paint” or “I travel and paint”, but what I am really doing is moving to EXPERIENCE.  To discover for me, to learn and find more of myself in each place and in each moment.  Finding my now identity, the feeling of me.  The personal joys, the true friendships, the deepest loves.

There are those things that still hook into me and disturb me.  Things like “what my family expects of me” or “my debit cards are not functioning to get cash right how” (while in Spain or Italy!) or “money is limited and I should be producing more”.  But the deep, deep inner me is NOT concerned.  I survive.  I will survive.  Things will work out for me. They have.  They do.  Why do I doubt?

When I do arrive in Rome, I have, of course, missed the 9am train.  Finally, I get help to catch the next train .. well, the two hours later train.  I send a message to my AirBnB host in San Gimignano and he replies.  His sister will meet me at the train station in Poggibonsi and give me a ride to the house.  All is well.   

Meanwhile, I have decided to not explore more of Italy as initially planned, but get to France as soon as I can.  Lyon – where there are friends to talk to, a place and language in which I can abide.

~

~

Encore the Contemplative Artist (March 4)

"Art is your emotions flowing in a river of imagination." 

~Devin, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Enjoying a quiet day in my favorite big city:  Lyon.  Yesterday GORGEOUS so I wandered.  Today overcast so I'm relaxing a bit.  Laundry, shower, catching up on photos and my blog.  This weekend is to be beautiful and I'm sure we will be busy.  I am also getting a bit anxious to get some artwork done .. but all my supplies are back in Périgueux (thanks to RyanAir limitations Valencia to Bologna).  Still I can feel my creative spirit filling to overflowing!  Exciting!

ART THOUGHTS 

(My thoughts after a message from a friend who commented on another artist’s paintings)

He (an artist) does have a few proportion situations but his feeling, the emotions in his paintings are great. I've been working on my thoughts and approaches to being creative (I cannot do any painting right now.  All my supplies are in Périgueux, thanks to the RyanAir luggage limitations from Valencia to Bologna).   I've been working “virtually” – imagining what I’ll do soon - trying to allow myself to be more creative, more free, showing more of my basic feelings toward my artwork process. Letting go of decades of "what will others think" is a tough one. But it's NOW OR NOT .. I want to experience my art, and especially the process of creativity, for ME.  Looser, more light and texture, more color and “brush” strokes. It takes focus to let go of old habits of thinking. But I’m learning that we can train our thinking as well as our body. It is a whole new process of thinking for me in the last five years or so.

I belong to a few art groups online, Maine Artists, Pastel Artists, and others, and it is surprising how many people are not very good and everyone ooohs and aahs.  I know someone who is basically making a living as an artist but the perspective and proportions are so often “off” in the work.  But who am I to judge?  I myself am not a master.  I encourage them to enjoy the process of creation. Artists need encouragement, not more critiquing.  I'm not about to make corrective suggestions unless someone is my student or request it.

I believe more and more that it is more about the PROCESS of CREATION, not the final product. I've actually been revisiting how I exhibit and sell my paintings. For me it's become much more the process. So my joy happens there .. the product is residue.  Traveling, being “away”, gives me time to examine things virtually and emotionally.  A fresh perspective.  A good chance to transform.

"There is in every artist's studio a scrap heap of discarded works 

in which the artist's discipline prevailed against his imagination."

 ~Robert Brault  

OK!  I couldn’t stand it any more.  My creative spirit demanded its fix.  So.  Found an art supply store a few blocks away and purchased a couple of basics.  Tomorrow I have the opportunity to work in pastel!

Color me happy!

The Contemplative Artist (2015 February, France)

The Contemplative Artist

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." ~Henry Ward Beecher

Yes, I am working while in France.   (shown here are bits of works-in-progress)

Daily I work on one or two paintings. The last time I concentrated so much on painting was the last time I was here in Payenché - two and a half years ago.  Since then I have done very little art, truly, being so focused on teaching and all that goes with those responsibilities.  I love teaching and I love my students so much and I dedicated myself totally to them - to the detriment of my personal artwork.  Now it is taking a while to get back into the creative mode. 

Truthfully it was probably the mid-eighties or early-nineties when I felt the most successful and satisfied with my painting, especially in oil.  But then certain familial circumstances caused me to stop oil painting.  Painting which at the time, I feel, had become productive, well planned and accomplished.  There were creative plans and processes:  thumbnail sketches in black and white, then in color, specific and sophisticated color schemes created for each painting, then a quick final over-study in a smaller form, and finally … easily and enjoyably the painting came into being.  It was not for my own situation, but for the discomfort of another, that I had to stop.  

    "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."  ~Edgar Degas

Pastel and watercolor painting I continued.  Soft pastel eventually became my favorite medium.  It was easy to pick up and put down when children were young.  Pastel is a way to keep working when it was so easy to stop completely (as many of my artist friend mothers did).  Soft pastel is the most pure medium being formed from pure pigment with just enough glycerin or other binder to hold the stick together.  It is immediate, exhilarating, gratifying.  Energy, texture, color, emotion - all come together in an intuitive and transient experience to create an exciting work of art.  

At times, the artist within struggles.  Inspiration comes and goes so I must work whether I am enthused or not.   Dreary and frustrating old habits of thinking constantly sit behind me, taking turns criticizing or encouraging.  I concentrate on relaxing and becoming more fluid in my work, trusting the creative spirits within, yet often I am overruled by the meddlesome trained artist who knows “just how something should be done, and then the work becomes stilted and unsatisfying.  Toiling to overcome these old habits is difficult.  Too many years of authoritative strictures trying to control the process today. 

"The artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent. The talent uses the artist it has, wishing it had more artist." ~Robert Brault

 

I do find that pastels still give me the greatest freedom and joy in creating paintings.  I sometimes consider focusing solely on this approach, but then the gallery agent in the back corner of my mind says: “hmm, but will they sell?”  A great artist should not even ever have to consider this!!  However, one must make some sort of income, so there is a tussle there.  If an artist can be free of this consideration, free of whether something will sell or whether anyone else likes it at all, if one can be truly free, then the best art is created.  This I believe.  But to acquire this freedom ... ah ... that is a great challenge! 

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." ~Scott Adams

 

** Artwork Website:  TravelingArtista.com **  

~

2015 FRANCE #2 * Payenché, Marsac-sur-L'Isle (January 25)

The traveler was active;  he went strenuously in search 
of people, of adventure, of experience.  
~Daniel J. Boorstin


 

hoarfrost, Aquitaine

Payenché (south face)

Trying to escape from the frigid New England winter and I land in France during a cold snap.  Frost this morning, on the grass and trees, and every little branch.  Beautiful!  The russets, light purple-greys, and soft greens of the season are tinted with a white-cobalt blue.  I have walked the Payenché circuit a couple times, taking photos and breathing in the fresh country air, re-acquainting myself with this beautiful area.  Deeply absorbing every detail as it is fresh, again, to me.  Drinking, inhaling, devouring the wonders of the countryside, the buildings (and yes, I hugged the ancient stone on the first day), the colors and textures, down to each tiny detail, the smells, the tastes (ah, the tastes of France), the ever-changing light and air.  Such Life!

Payenché (side gate to the orchard)

Payenché nooks

Payenché's timeworn but solid stairs

For those who did not follow me before when I came to Aquitaine in 2012, this beautiful limestone farmhouse which my friends own sits on the crest of the hill Payenché and is surrounded by fields of an old orchard and woodlands.  Newer homes encroach on the hill in small neighborhoods, but there is enough land here to insulate this home from those.  This cream-colored, two-foot thick limestone house was built in the 1600s and maintains a venerable ambiance of that time, yet Denis and Vivi have functionally modernized the home in subtle ways that do not at all interfere with its rustic quality.

Payenché view north from my painting table window

It's a blessing to stay here.  My cherished hosts, my "family" here, Denis and Vivi, are the most generous and comfortable people.  I met them a few years back in Delaware through my college colleague Chanh, whom they had met while living and working in New York City years back.  We became instant friends and they invited me to visit - which I did - in 2012.  They do not "show me around" as a tourist, but involve me in their everyday lives and this is how I come to know this part of France.  The best way to travel, for me, is to live with the people who inhabit a place.  Experience their lives, their tastes, their surroundings, their language.  A truly profound blessing.

I have a room which looks out over the orchard through a large window, in front of which sits the table where I paint.  it's on the north side of the house so should make any artist happy (north light is supposed to be the best light since it is more consistent all day long - however, personally, I prefer the south and full sun with it's constant changes for shadows and color - one just needs to paint quickly.  Great example: Monet with his cathedrals and haystacks.)

Two paintings started, both are soft pastels, of which I am more pleased with the second (below).  I love to work quickly and with energy and intuition, rather than planning a painting to a tightly contained existence.  Set it free!  After getting the artwork not-quite completed, I like to set a painting aside for a few days to live with it and make adjustments as they come to me.  I'm sure with these pastels, I will be making final touches just before framing them at home - since they do have to travel back and will sustain some minor stacking/smudging damage.  The colors are now all amazing russets and greens and the purple-greys of what would be early spring in Maine.  The chilled air literally frosts everything with a pale cobalt-white and accents the deep charcoal blacks of the tree trunks.  Beautiful!

 Hoarfrost, Aquitaine - soft pastel on tinted Canson paper (partially completed) 


* MORE PHOTOS *

**  Artwork Website:  TravelingArtista.com **  

˜