The boy in the middle of the picture above is my Grandpa Richard, who went to meet the Lord this October 6, 2016. He loved horses and cowboy culture. He religiously watched western movies on the weekends. And although we lived nowhere near Texas (where I live now), for many years his Sunday best consisted of a bolo tie and a large belt buckle. Growing up he would take us to Rodeos and Indian Festivals. My Grandpa was a Cowboy at heart. His inner disposition was a wild and free spirit that he balanced with the tameness of being a committed father of 10 children and husband of 62 years. I think it was the spirit of this little boy at the ranch that made him continue to tick so vibrantly until 86 years of age. On the inside, he had continued to be, simply, a boy who loved learning to ride, who strove to master himself and to be present to the ride and everyone on it with him. Thank you, Grandpa, for being you and for sharing your amazing spirit with us. You are greatly missed.
I have to thank Twyla Tharps Chapter 4 entitled “Harness Your Memory” (The Creative Habit) for letting me indulge in my own personal memories here. In this chapter, she encourages artists to look back to create. She suggests looking back in your own memories, looking back to other Masters of the arts, and looking back into Art History for inspiration and skill. She warns, in a way, about getting stuck in a rut by trying to re-create the wheel. Most of what will be done, has already been done in some shape or form. What she challenges the artist to do, is to do what has already been done but to do it again with your own voice in your own time and cultural setting.
For example, my landscape painting teacher had us all take out our burnt sienna and cover our canvases with it (refer to image 1 below). Just as master painters have been doing for centuries, so the brightness of the underpainting can shine through all the layers on the canvas. She had printed out a copy of a landscape painting from the PleinAir magazine. She wanted us to imitate the painting but she did not want us to focus on creating a replica. The point of the exercise was to learn how to break down a complex image and how to build it with your acrylics one layer at a time.
I might have grunted when I saw that the image was a complex rocky facade. After struggling to create a single rock during the previous class, I had made a secret vow to avoid rocks at all costs for the rest of this course. I was so curmudgeon while painting this because of my own intellectual inability to understand the concept of creating rocks that I hummed under my breath a tune I made up called “I hate rocks.”
Oddly enough, my little tune, helped me get passed my own fear of failing and as I hummed and I had convinced myself that I didn’t care at all about it, I began making strokes with bolder colors. Somehow, I was finding my way. I kept going for a while without calling the teachers attention to me, hoping she wouldn’t see me in the midst of my turmoil. Finally, she came back to the corner I was sitting in. She looked at my painting (see image 4). Then threw her head back and turned to me and put out her hand to give me a handshake. Then she said “congratulations.” Man, that was a great moment, or to put it how my 10 year old Grandpa would’ve put it, ‘that’s the berries isn’t it?’ I think it was the colors that she liked. “It’s pretty” she said. “Now work on this dark rock area here.” So I did.
I didn’t like what I was doing but I kept doing it. I was trying to create the complex edges of the steep mountain. I thought I would just keep painting boldly until I liked what I saw. But…the teacher came back before I was out of the rut. She immediately asked me to get out of my chair. “That looks like birds” she said. “I was going to paint a purple wash over it,” I said. “No, that won’t work. You need to completely erase it.” Huhhh. And she painted over my painting with a dark ugly maroon that I had mixed (see image 5 below).
Warning, harnessing my memory again! Back in high school, my art teacher, Mr. Lombardo, once scolded me for painting on my friend’s artwork while trying to help her fix a problem, by saying “never paint on anyone’s art!” Then he said, “Maybe one day you will be an art teacher.” I love this memory because it took an art teacher to recognize an art teacher. No-one besides him ever guessed what my career path would be. Every time my landscape painter paints on my painting I have to forgive her because Mr. Lombardo said it was wrong.
In high school, Mr. Lombardo chose my landscape painting of a winter scene to be painted as one of 4 large murals of the seasons to be painted by the art classes in the school cafeteria. I did not have many stand-out scholastic achievements to speak of in High School but when I came back to visit the school for over a decade, there was my winter scene of a tree in the snow with purple shadows, immortalized for a time on the wall. I guess you could say, that was my most famous landscape painting! The memory makes me laugh and smile a warm smile. It also reminds me of the power art teachers have to encourage students and have eyes to see their talents past the student’s own weaknesses. It’s a wonderful thing to believe in somebody else, and it’s a powerful thing to be believed in.
In a couple of weeks, I will be casting for “The Wizard of Oz” middle school production that I am directing. I have a feeling that I will be giving certain kids better roles than other people would give them. I have one student who has been to almost every single club meeting so far this year. He is fun, outlandish, but thinks he is a bad student and struggles with memorization. However, his physical ability to move like a scarecrow on a daily basis but with acrobatic skill is launching me into pushing him for the role of the scarecrow. I am going to fight for him to get that role and I hope my believing in his abilities will pay off for him and for the production.
In the end, I painted an ocean where the rocks had been (see image 7 below). It is problematic because now the painting in the bottom left hand was thick and not inline with the feel of the rest of the painting. The teacher said she liked the choice of the water but that I should go back to the painting and “brighten” the rest of it up with more paint, which I haven’t gotten to do yet. I think if I painted rocks a few more times, I might actually like doing it. I enjoy looking at this painting on the wall of my living room. It reminds me of a time when I tried and had some success.
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