the eyes
The eyes are the climax. In fact, everything else can go wrong on the canvas, but if the eyes are true...
I once heard Odd Nerdrum say that the reason Rembrandt's eyes were so good, is because Rembrandt's hands were so bad. Odd was, of course, being facetious, but he was also hitting on a real truth. The composer of a song knows the same thing, so does the author of a novel. You find the climax, and everything else must be subordinate.
This is why so many people are disillusioned with photo realism and classical realism- the absence of climax, and the universal presence of razor sharp perfection. Perfection is fitting for scientists constructing atomic clocks, but accuracy is for artists. And accuracy is nothing more than human intuition, and human intuition is infinitely more complex than any atomic clock.
allen
I am enjoying this portrait so much. Today is day three of the portrait. I'll talk about my sitter, Allen, at a later point. For now, I can briefly say that it is such a joy to be in his company.
People are grapes, with age they can go only one of two directions- either they become mushy and sour and attract flies, or they mellow and evolve into splendid wine, a better flavor than they've ever been before. I want to be like Allen when I grow up.
carl fardig
I sat in the cafeteria, sipping a juicebox, waiting for the right moment. The lunch aid turned her head for a moment, to help some student or other. I bolted out the door, sneaking behind her back, and after a few rushed moments of sprinting through the school halls, I was safe in the dark confines of the auditorium. The piano bench squeaked, as I placed my heavy books down to the side. Grunting a bit, I lifted the heavy lid of the grand piano up, allowing for the full sound of the instrument to resonate through the auditorium. I sat down, and began to play.
A half an hour went by, stumbling through passages of Chopin, botching phrases by Rachmaninov, and improvising themes from Harry Connick, Jr. Suddenly, a voice bellowed out "Lovely." I looked up. I recognized him by his voice. There, in the dark, in the back right corner of the auditorium, was Mr. Fardig. His son, Steven, was in my class. Mr. Fardig had stolen through the door, and had been standing and listening for quite some time. He opened the door, and left. I felt sheepish, I was an awkward thirteen year old, and I knew that plenty of unbridled teenage angst had gushed from my fingers. But, the way Mr. Fardig phrased those words, I knew that he enjoyed listening.
Mr. Fardig, or Carl, had no official job or title, at Smithtown Christian School. And yet, Carl and his wife, Kathy, were part of the backbone of the school. The school was wonderful, but the school was always on a lean budget, and so it limped and wheezed it's way through each academic year. Through the many years, Carl and Kathy came and propped the school up. They organized various fundraisers, they cooked in the cafeteria, they prepared feasts for the teachers and administration, they hosted various events and outdoor festivals. They were always on the other side of the counter, pouring your soup, filling out your form, running the dunk tank at the spring fair. And as they served, they laughed- Carl was always joking, always ribbing, always making the room glow with a raucous sense of humor. Alone, in a room, Carl was quiet and softspoken, with a timely bit of insightful advice that always cut to the quick. Kathy regularly organized wrapping paper drives, where sales of wrapping paper and other items would contribute towards some big purchase on behalf of the school. When the big day arrived, and the sums were tallied, and the school announced that the new computers could now be purchased for the computer department, Kathy and Carl were nohwere to be found. They were not there for the spotlight.
After watching Kathy and Carl pour out their lives, selflessly, for years and years on end, one day the politics shifted at Smithtown Christian School. Carl and Kathy were somehow squeezed out by forces which, still to this day, I can not understand. Way high up in administration, someone had grabbed the tiller, and had directed the school towards a purging. In a shocking move, Carl and Kathy's sons, Steven and Peter, were kicked out of the school. The purging continued- just days later, my younger brother was kicked out, as well. The school was filled with so many wonderful teachers and administrators, so many kindhearted people, that it was very difficult to imagine where this had come from. At night, I heard my mother crying, in her bedroom, and I knew that Carl and Kathy had to be doing the same. The halls seemed hollow, as we quietly shuttled back and forth to class.
Steven and I were still friends, and we hung out with the same group of friends, on the weekends. One day, Steven said his mother was at the hospital. That's all he would say. And at the age of seventeen or so, I stood in the living room of Carl and Kathy's home. Kathy's body was thin, worn down by her long battle with cancer. And yet, even though her frame was weak, she exuded a strength. She spoke softly and quietly to me, asking me how my parents were, how my brother was. Her countenance was vibrant, determined. She asked me what I wanted to go to college for. Her eyes were so beautiful and warm, and I bit my lip and held back tears.
This weekend is the WetPaints Festival of Gallery North, in Setauket. It's a time when artists from all over Long Island come out to paint various landscapes and what not, in the Setauket area. The public is encouraged to stop by and watch the artists at work. My designated spot for painting is the front the porch of Gallery North. My portrait sitter is Carl Fardig. A full twelve years or so has passed since I have enjoyed a good clip of time in Carl's company. And yesterday, he was funnier than ever, pleasant, his humor lifting every person who came through our space. He smiled, and told stories to me about the time he spent living in Sweden. He was quiet, and softspoken, and spoke tenderly about the passing of his wife, Kathy. We exchanged wonderful stories about Smithtown Christian school. I described the soccer teams that, despite small numbers to draw from, had some impressive wins against bigger schools. I shared that, twelve years after graduating, I still count one of my closest friends to be my former teacher from Smithtown Christian School; this teacher has been a friend to me since I was in eighth grade, and continues to lead me by example. There was so much good that we could reflect on, in all that we continue to love about that school. The conversation continued to ramble on. Carl was a lover of folk culture, sharing historical tidbits about Australian ballads. Best of all, Carl couples together a sincere devotion to God, with a delightfully irreverent sense of humor- he loves to laugh about life. His company is wonderful.
You know, while I watched Carl laugh and talk, some difficult, long standing questions were satisfied, for me. I do not know why good people suffer. I really don't understand. But, I know that, in spite of suffering, there is the willful act of joy in living. Carl's animated face is a mixture of laughter and sadness, of pain and joy. He couldn't control the lot he had received, but he responded to it by sifting. He sifts out the pain and heartache, continually, and in conversation he retains the substance and joy of memories, and things that are, and things that are to be. That's how I want to be. As I reflected on all these things, Carl and I quietly looked out on a fellow artist, painting away pleasantly on a patch of green grass across the street from our spot. The artist had plopped down on the front lawn of the Setauket Historical Society. And, as the young artist relished the splendor of the front lawn, and the cedar clad buildings, and the magnificent, towering elms around her, a few big trucks pulled up to the curb. Numerous town employees emerged with hulking lawnmowers, weedwackers, and leaf blowers, engulfing the aspiring artist in a sea of grass clippings, dust, and loud, belching engine fumes. Easels were lifted, paintings fumbled, brushes and paletts hastily relocated in frantic flight. As I listened to Carl's deep belly laugh, and watched him howl with delight at the Rockwellian absurdity of the scene, I thought to myself- that's it! Carl embodies Proverbs 17:22, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."
Feel free to stop by on Saturday and Sunday, as well. I'll be working on the painting, with Carl, on the front porch of Gallery North, from 1 til 7. Afterwards, we're going to go next door, and grab a pint of Guinness from the Checkmate Inn. You're welcome too.
If...
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling
getting ready
So, as the Washington Square Show approaches, in one month, I'm just seeing where I'm at. After an incredibly busy fall and winter, getting my studio set up, and my school started, this is about two thirds of the paintings I'll be bringing to the show. Setting up all of the paintings, sitting and taking it all in... I feel good.
melodies
Heard melodious are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
- Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats
spring
I began work early this morning, and focused on the violin in my painting. Loading on ribbons of paint, I admired how the colors were all intensified in the wood, bringing singing yellows and dark wine reds to the body of the violin. As the lights became a bit lighter, the darks a bit darker, I saw the flow of light broken, as the bridge half way across cast its dark shadow over the waist of the violin.
But as the day wore on, accompanying my brush strokes were thoughts that always come round this time of year, the thoughts of the upcoming Washington Square Show. After all of this work, will this painting sell? Will somebody walk up to my booth, and be unable to go home without this painting? Will this painting pay my property taxes? What if nobody buys it- ever? Of course, these thoughts are necessary, for an artist with a family. But, if left unchecked, these thoughts can multiply like gremlins, and take over my day. Worry chokes out the air needed for the seed of creativity to breathe and grow. Most every artist has faced this two sided coin of reality, that of the act of creation, and the sale of the act of creation- from John Keats, to Bill Watterson, to John Singer Sargent, to a garrulous brush wielder from Islip with an alarmingly expanding litter of children.
Obviously, worry is not confined to artists alone. Everyone succumbs to the wearying pattern of worry. A farmer, in his field on a beautiful spring morning, must have the fall harvest already in mind. Which is why I love this poem, from the rolling farmland of New England.
A Prayer in Spring
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid-air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.
-Robert Frost
And, the violin glowed, by the end of today.
hoeing, and john updike
Margaret went away for five days this past week, to visit an old friend. I stayed home with my little boys, my four and two year old, and passed the first four days in a rather scattered fashion: surreptitiously sipping coffee while perusing the New Yorker in our town library, as the boys contentedly played with the library toy trains; running frantically between babysitters and painting studio; running frenetically between preschool and the painting classes at my studio.
On day five, I woke up early, and pulled out my garden tools. I placed them on the dewy lawn, and set to work. The boys woke up, and joined me in the front yard. I weeded, and dug, hoed, trimmed, and pruned. Right beside me, my sons weeded, and dug, hoed, trimmed, and didn’t prune (too sharp.) The sun beat down on us, and we laughed at the odd shapes of spiders, sang songs about the sharp holly leaves, learned that bees aren't bad but are good, and learned how to stack a short stone wall. We then took several flats of flowers out of my truck, and arranged them throughout the garden. Once we found the perfect spot for each, we set to digging. Liam dug with a hand trowel, Evan pulled the plants out, Liam loosened up the roots a bit, and I placed them into the soil. And as the side of the house turned gold in the setting sun, we covered the ground with mulch, and called it a day.
So, in making myself look like a wonderfully attentive father, and a considerate husband, I intentionally failed to mention that I began the morning quite differently. I put a DVD into the player, so that the second the boys awoke I could shove food in their mouths, and stick them in front of the tv. I wanted them out of my hair, I wanted time to myself. I was just going to sit down on the couch, sleep til nine, and just while the rest of the day away. And then, I remembered a favorite poem. In fact, it came as a sort of rebuke to me. In my mind, I rehearsed it. The poem stayed in my mind the next day, after Margaret had returned home, and as I painted away at my easel, admiring the deep shadows in the laces of my boots.
Hoeing
I sometimes fear the younger generation
will be deprived
of the pleasures of hoeing;
there is no knowing
how many souls have been formed by this
simple exercise.
The dry earth like a great scab breaks,
revealing
moist-dark loam--
the pea-root's home,
a fertile wound perpetually healing.
How neatly the great weeds go under!
The blade chops the earth new.
Ignorant the wise boy who
has never rendered thus the world
fecunder.
-John Updike
the piano
In 1788, composers were weaving complex, polyphonic melodies on the instrument called the harpsichord. There was a very limited dynamic range of the harpsichord- twangy high notes, amber deep notes- and yet the peaks and valleys were not so high nor deep. To my ear, Mozart's brilliant compositions on the harpsichord always sound somewhat stunted by an instrument that couldn't keep up with his brilliance. And so, by 1788, it seems like the harpsichord was a rag that had been wrung to the last drop, and could do nothing more.
It's 1800- enter the piano. Fat, dramatic chords, in all of their deep, resonant might; scintillating high notes, sparkling with clarity; soft, whispering middle tones melting into eachother. Beethoven was ecstatic in the full register of this new, astounding range. Rachmaninov would eventually have temper tantrums on it. The piano arrived, and society never looked back.
So it is with painting. If we painters are emulating light, with all of its brilliant highlights, and all of its mysterious dark shadows, then we can't be doing so on a harpsichord. Pull out your piano- let whispers of thin, turpentine washes lay beside fat, brilliant, crisp, shining, extroverted impastoes; let dark, oily shadows mingle with quiet, lean mid tones. Grab your palette knife, and trowel on lead white paint, and allow the climax of light to be raised in beads off the canvas. Grab a brush with a single hair, and place the tiniest bead of lead white in the upper corner of the eye, and impart a soul into your sitter.
Leave the boring, glass like finish of canvas to French Academy harpsichordists. The Spanish baroque, in all of it's glorious globs of gunky impastoes, in all of its whispering washes, is the piano.
- technical note: Music historians- I know this harpsichord to piano historical evolution is overly simplistic, and that I left out the clavicord, the desirable timbre of the harpsichord, and a billion other things. It is so, for narrative purposes.
commonplace
"The commonplace is the thing, but it's hard to find. Then, if you believe in it, have a love for it, this specific thing will become a universal."
-Andrew Wyeth
busy work
Today, I'm burning cd's with images of my art work, sending them off to various portrait competitions, what not. I'm setting up class schedules, meeting with individuals interested in portrait commissions, sending images of random paintings via email to interested parties. Then I'm racing across Long Island, to drop off this cd of images here, that painting there, pick up another painting from another place. After this is all done, I'm jumping up on scaffolding, and my father in law is helping me to install a system of louvers, in the ceiling of my studio.
It struck me, at first, that this is not blogworthy. I thought I should not write about such boring things. But then, I reconsidered, and realized that it is worthy of a blog, in that so much of being an artist is busy work. It's not miserable. It doesn't put me in a bad mood. It is vital to do this busy work. If I didn't, I couldn't make money. The quicker I get this work done, the sooner I can get back to painting.
And so, my cd is finished burning. My images are ready. And now, I head out.
