Lessons from Lucy: What's Your Shoestring?

This week, like most of my weeks, has been full of the kind of amazing adventures which only belong to little girls. For them, everything has the potential to be something else!

Lucy had read the shoe book and threaded the holes with the purple string until it became a dull game. So, she just pulled it out and began to experiment. Within just minutes, she had folded it in half, tucked the ends over her ears and pulled it over to "listen" to my chest. She had stretched it out and "measured" me. She had tucked it under her chin and "played" a violin. She had threaded through it her belt loops like a sash . . . . She thought up more things than I can remember. Imagination at work!

Later, after attending an afternoon concert of baroque music at the Morris Museum of Art, older daughter and I passed by an exhibit of photographs of local things. She said, "Mom, he takes pictures like you do. These just remind me of your photographs." I could see her point. I was complimented by her comment and agreed that they did "feel" the same and some were the same views! I was just a little intimidated to realize that these simple, yet powerful, photos were taken by Robert Rauschenberg! Oh, my!

Lucy is not limited by what a purple shoestring is supposed to be. Neither was Rauschenberg. He took ordinary, uninspiring bits of daily life and let his imagination go. This week, the Morris will reinstall his work "August Allegory (Anagrams)" and I will go for the unveiling and look more carefully at the piece to spot the influence from those photographs of familiar things. I will look at how he used his "purple shoestring!"

And when my work is ordinary and boring and uninspiring, I will look at whether I saw some new possibilities in a sketch or photo, played with paint and texture, used the idea as a starting point or whether I only used the shoestring as a shoestring. I will try to be inspired by Lucy and Robert.

Good question. I just need good answers to "What's your shoestring?"




BushStrokes (c) AAB

An Elephant's Toes

The circus is in town! I remember the excitement of the 100th Anniversary Year of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. We had tickets for our three and six year old. Imagine our surprise when we spent most of the performance with a crying toddler who was frightened by the clowns.

So this year, almost 35 years later, we have taken the circus in tiny bites for the little ones at our house -- reading at the library with the clowns last month and, during our walks in the neighborhood this month, standing on the sidewalk just twenty feet away to watch the tigers, zebras and elephants.

The white tigers slept, paced and purred, the zebras pranced, and the elephants got a bath.

As we watched the big elephant's bath, we could almost see a smile when the spray of water tickled his ears and squirted between his toes. And that surely was a sigh when he lifted his giant legs for a tummy wash. It has been a lovely way to erase the fear from such an exciting adventure.


I wish it were as easy to introduce the great adventure of painting. The truth is that, like the circus, it can be scary to face -- all at one time -- those squiggly tubes of new color and expensive paper and "try this brush" and other people watching who surely understand what to do and . . . maybe hiding under the seat is good!

Why then do most first timers want to come away from their first exposure to pigment and brush with a full-blown, three-ring masterpiece? Ah. The nuances they miss. The possibilities they don't understand. The fright of just being a part of what's happening all around. Overwhelming.

Learning to paint and going to the circus for the first time. Great adventures when you are ready. Like the circus, painting deserves an introduction in tiny satisfying bites.

By the way, we'll always have a new perspective on an elephant's toes.

@AAB

All the Proper Parts

After last weekend's family wedding, I decided that a 'successful' wedding is very much like a 'successful' painting. All the proper parts are there, carefully selected for their particular contributions, yet when things go awry, as they often do in the church or the studio, few need to know about struggles, mishaps or changes in the plan. It's the results that count.

Like his sister earlier in the summer, my nephew wanted his wedding to be very personal. Like his sister, he and his bride chose a place which has had a long time family connection. Like his sister, they planned for the simplicity of a very old place of worship in the country (a place I've mentioned before.) Like his sister, he asked if I would 'direct' the day.

I came prepared with my lists. What time everything needed to occur. When everyone needed to arrive. Who would be seated when and where. What the order of the processional and recessional would be. What not to do (don't chew gum, turn off cell phones, don't jingle change in your pockets.) The minister gave a few instructions, we rehearsed and we were ready!

The next day, I dressed in black as did the bridesmaids, wrapped my favorite pink scarf -- an impulse purchase in France last year -- around my shoulders and slipped on my bright pink Crocs. I walked from my little house in the bright fall air (a glorious day), tucked my 'real' shoes on a back pew, gave last minute instructions to the groomsmen, stopped to check on the bride's attendants to see that dressing was going well (lovely), hugged my favorite flower girl (the little red-head, of course), and headed across the grounds (the reason for the Crocs) to the open air, rustic tabernacle . Things were going well -- predictably well.

It was then that I realized that the musician was not present; she showed up just as I wondered how much wedding music I could remember how to play. The mothers' corsages would not stay on with the magnets supplied; I raced to the nearby reception hall to retrieve some straight pins. As I signaled for the first bridesmaid to begin the processional, I realized I had not sent the groomsmen down; I signaled to them after half the girls were in place hoping no one would notice. The flower girls and the ring bearer were perfect until they started down the white aisle runner toward the altar; all three stopped in their tracks with puckering faces and I gave up as they raced toward their mothers.

Finally, everyone was in place except the bride who had begun her processional with her father under an orange and gold canopy of crepe myrtle trees. I turned and spotted her as she floated through the sun and shadows of the old trees and the wind lifted her veil. I knew my job was finished and I took my place among the guests in my 'good' shoes.

A memorable wedding.
An unforgettable painting.

They happen when All the Proper Parts are in place and are sprinkled with an unexplainable and unique magic.


AAB

Street Talk -- A Lady Among Many

When we take our walks down the street, Lucy and I never quite know what we will discover. One day this week, we were surprised to see a large mirror leaning against a tree. I was especially interested in getting some photos of the nearby monument to finish up my ''street talks," but we stopped to take a photo and ponder about its presence.



We continued our stroll and approached the four delicate columns from the rear.


I haven't counted the number of monuments on the street, but I do know that all are dedicated to men, except this one. Its axis sits on a perpendicular line with the altar of one (visible behind Lucy in the mirror) of several churches in Tennessee and Georgia which were funded by Emily Harris Tubman. It recognizes her concern for education and her founding of schools for girls. It acknowledges her firm stand on colonization of freed slaves who carried the Tubman name back to Africa and the country of Liberia. It acknowledges her life as a gentlewoman.

In 1993, I was approached about painting the proposed monument to raise money for its construction. The committee did not want an architectural rendering; they wanted a painting and they wanted one of mine. I struggled. Finally, on the 199th anniversary of Mrs. Tubman's birth, I stood beside our mayor to unveil the painting. A burst of wind blew the framed watercolor off the easel. Everyone gasped until they discovered that I had removed the glass for the photos. Then everyone smiled. It was exactly like they thought it should look!

As the year progressed, reproductions of the painting were sold and changes were made in the original plans which I had used to develop my painting. The flower bowl is much larger with a flat-sided base for engraved acknowledgments. The capitals are not as defined. There are no benches now (or in my painting) even though they were part of the initial design -- no one could agree on exactly where they should be.

The monument to Emily Tubman was dedicated on what would have been her two hundredth birthday. I don't mind that it doesn't match my painting. It feels exactly right.

And it's on my street . . . . That's something to talk about.

AAB

The Lives in a Painting

On Friday night, the little redhead in the painting graduated from high school. She and her sister often visited me when they were small and I took them to the playground at the River (the same one which Lucy now loves.) I took photos and made sketches just as I do now.

On this particular day, the light on the blues of the girls' shirts and the pretend paddle wheel of the ship shaped playground equipment seemed to need a brush. I combined several photos into a composite sketch to get just the right lines and tackled a 22"x30" sheet of watercolor paper. I had no thought of making portraits, only the idea of patterns of light and the interesting shapes. Well, duh! There they were -- Lily and Savannah! It's what I routinely drill into painting students -- Don't paint "things." Paint light and shadows in interesting shapes and the "things" will say what you want them to say.

The girls have always loved their painting and for some reason it simply never found a home. It hangs at the top of my stairs just outside my bedroom door. It makes me happy and it is a fun reminder of my nieces as children. Lily will go away to college with the three honors she was awarded at graduation. Savannah is taking medical classes while working and being mother to one year old Ben. (Their younger sister, Hayley, is enjoying HER 'trip to NYC' with her mother this week.)


I wish for them many days in the sunlight with enough shadows to shape their lives well.

The Color Between the Lines: True Value.

A couple of years ago, Georges Rouault was the subject of my BioGem on his birthday, May 27th. There is something about Rouault's work which speaks to me and today, I was able to see another of his paintings at an area museum. I am reminded of my grandmother and hours with coloring books. I get the feeling of the "orgy of colors" through church windows. I sense the honesty in simple shapes of ordinary things. In my short essay, I wrote that he used

arbitrary color choices, distortions of form, and off-kilter perspective with a little more. He chose religious themes in keeping with his deep Christian faith and social themes which reflected the human conditions near his studio in Paris. He gave his ordinary subjects a soul and expressed profound emotions about them which required a personal response from the viewer. He used confining, harsh black outlines and bold shapes of luminous, thick color which gave his work a monumental, yet child-like, quality.

This week, one of Michael Kimmelman's columns in the NYTimes was about Rouault. Whenever I read Kimmerman's writing, I learn something new, gain a new perspective or realize that "Hey, I knew that!" This week in Revisiting Rouault's Stained Glass World, he gave us more than just a review of the gallery show, "Georges Rouault: Judges, Clowns and Whores." He gave us a little lyrical prose. His phrases sing as he discusses the work while mine stodgily march across the page. He wrote about "the luminosity of his (Rouault's) palette and the awkward elegance of his line" and that Rouault. . .

never denied the obvious connection between the thick black outlines in his paintings and the leaded church windows of medieval stained glass that he helped to restore. Those outlines flattened and broke up his work into fissures and shards of glowing color (deep purples, reds and blues) against a generally gloomy background.

Kimmelman related the disastrous results of Rouault's relationship with his dealer Vollard, the court decision on artists' property rights, and his burning of over 300 unfinished paintings.

And in the end, Kimmelman displayed an awkward elegance of line as well. He closed his column with "The market puts a price tag on art, but its true value has nothing to do with money: that was Rouault’s lesson.

It’s not a bad one for today."

The color between the lines: True Value.

The Big Word is "WOW!"

It's been a while since my colors haven't come in professional quality and paintings were not properly framed, but now this finger painted watercolor has been on my refrigerator for two months. There are crayons and baby kittens under the dining table, stickers on the French doors to the living room and finger prints 'hugged' onto my knees. If you've been reading along, you know that there is a not quite two-year old in residence.

Recently both Martha and Nita wrote about the little artists in their families. Nita mentioned the unexpected directions a four-year old takes -- not always what you think. Martha wrote about the inspiration found in a four-year old's painting and that the "four-year old" is now headed to college for a design career. My little artist and her Mamma used fingers on semi-moist glitter-filled watercolor pans for this painting -- an exploration which included feeling, tasting and smelling.

So, I thought about the effect of little children on artists' observations, thought processes and studios. I decided it is the freedom, the excitement and the discovery. It's the freedom to play, to be joyous, to be silly and child-like. It's the excitement of new powers of observation so that suddenly directions are different. It's the discovery of color, dirt, bugs, light, big trucks, ants, texture, flowers, water, water, and what can be done with water . . . all of which leads to exploration of new processes, new subjects, new points of view. It's the WOW! of every minute of the day.

When I left the house this morning, there was a painting session going on in the dining room. I wondered whether there would be a new "masterpiece" at the end of the day. When I returned, it was on the mantel. WOW!

I recommend that artists occasionally borrow a two year old or maybe a four year old.

Judy. Judy. Ju - oops, Annette.

Later today, I'll be taking a break from sorting and shifting things in the studio in preparation for moving in day over the weekend. I'll be meeting some members of my high school class ('59) for an evening of fun at the annual Cutting Horse Futurity -- an event which to some is exciting and to others is like watching the grass grow. We will be guests of a classmate who is director of the event and knowing Pete we can expect some fun. Maybe I'll make a report!



Today's photo is from the barbecue in the fall when Classes of the 50s gathered on a sun-swept hillside. Judy in the purple and gold t-shirt was a part of the committee, Judy in the purple western shirt was hostess and I have a tiny bit of purple mixed with blue in my scarf. The booklet under my arm includes my painting on the inside back cover

The three of us were friends in 8th grade and I introduced the first Judy to her future hubby in 10th grade. With the three of us there tonight, I think we will have a great time. What do you think?