light
Two and a half years ago, I walked up a long flight of stairs in an old, dilapidated building. I entered a classroom, and there were artists hunched over their easels. The windows were covered with heavy black curtains. The room was pitch black. Each easel had a tiny lamp with an energy saver bulb, from which emanated a cold, unearthly light. It looked like a setup for veals.
The next class, I walked up the long flight of stairs in the old, dilapidated building. Entering the classroom, I sullenly looked at the curtains. The room was pitch black, even though it was morning. The students would arrive in just fifteen minutes. Walking over to the curtains, I paused. On the other side of that curtain was light. Real light. Vitamin D. I paused. I thought of how Charles Cecil opened my eyes to the beauty of light, flowing across the human form. I looked at the curtain. I contemplated the fact that I was a hired teacher, and these were not my curtains. I tugged the curtain slightly. Hmm, stapled up. I thought. I tugged a little harder. Hmmm. I gave a ferocious pull, and down they came with a crash. I proceeded on to the next window, and the next, and the next.
I stood in front of the windows, gazing at the light falling in golden squares on the wooden floors. The small dust particles floated across the rays of light, small galaxies in empty space.
The Painting Studio, by Saul Rosenstreich
As the students arrived, they looked like moles, squinting in the sunlight. The spirit of the class changed in an instant. The day flew by, and as the last student trickled out, I climbed a ladder, heavy curtains in one hand, staple gun in the other. As I restapled each cloth, I prayed "God, please give me a studio one day, one with beautiful light."
And the curtains came down, and we laughed, and painted, and sharpened charcoal. And we coughed from the charcoal dust, and we painted, and we observed the light falling across a young ballet dancer's shoulders. And the curtains went back up. And the curtains came down, and we fumbled with the coffee machine, and laughed, and painted a small makeup set, a pipe, and understood that a rainy winter day was as useful to a painter as a sun drenched summer day. And the curtains went up. And loved ones passed away, and the curtains came down, and we comforted, and we were quiet, and we painted the beloved whiskey tumbler of those who passed. And we laughed as we painted a portrait of an older man who wouldn't stop talking. And the curtains went up.
Today, a couple friends came by my studio. They are my students, and have been studying painting with me for two and a half years. They came bearing gifts. They shared with me that all of my students had banded together, and to make a long story short, they have all enabled me to purchase a whole new set of martora kolinsky and bristle brushes. My existing brushes are from Florence, and although well cared for, are falling apart from use. I was speechless. We continued on to lunch, and enjoyed a long conversation about things to come.
When we returned to the studio in my father in law's building, a large truck pulled up. It was the glass. A crane lifted the panels of glass onto the roof. The fifteen by twelve foot skylight will be in place on Wednesday, flooding my studio with light from above.
"You, Lord, keep my lamp burning. My God turns my darkness into light." -a psalm of David
wren day
Today, in Ireland, a bunch of men caught a wren and killed the poor bird. They then took to the streets, and are now running around, going door to door, wearing goofy clothes and playing the fiddle and the tin whistle. They are singing, dancing, and drinking.
In Greece, temples dedicated to Saturn are festooned with decorations. Statues of Saturn, once bound with ropes, are set free.
In Sweden, chosen girls are temporarily renamed "Lucia," dressed in white gowns with a red sash, and adorned with crowns. The Lucia travel door to door, with candles, and hand out pastries to children.
In Kurdistan, families are getting together for feasts, and giving treats to children. They are celebrating the victory of light over darkness, of the longest night of the year giving way to the ever increasing day.
In Egypt, constructed along the solar axis, the temple of Karnak can be seen giving birth to the sun, a womb for light. The temple is gradually roused from its sleep of darkness, as the sun god awakens the earth.
In outerspace, as the earth orbits the sun, the axial tilt of the north pole is at its greatest degree, furthest away from the sun as it will ever be.
In Islip, a young man with a paintbrush, trying desperately to finish a portrait commission by Christmas, is looking out the dark window and muttering angrily beneath his breath. And then he remembers that today is the winter solstice, and that the days will finally get longer so that he can paint more. In the age of incadescent, xenon, halogen, LED, mercury vapor, self ballasted mercury bulbs... it's kind of nice to be a painter, and be so connected to the rhythms of nature.
All solstice things considered, though the Egyptians might have the coolest temple, and the Greeks might have the best statues, and the Swedes might have the best pastries, and the Kurds might have the best hummus... the Irish have the best song. And fittingly, our food is awful.
Click the following to hear The Chieftainsperform:
doak white powder
Wending my truck through the sea of parking lots and factory buildings, I finally found a spot. It was one of those typical, grimy parking lots in Brooklyn, where the employee who takes your keys makes you feel as if you are interrupting his day. "What time ull ya be back" he barked. "Umm, I'm sorry sir?" "Faw da caw" "The caw? I don't understand, sir." "What tommul yewbe back fawda caw. Da caw. DA CAW!" "Oh, oh, the car. I'll uhh, I'll be back in four hours." "Awlright. Hea's ya tigget. Hava nice day."
Enormous buildings, some boarded up, others converted into trendy lofts, were on either side of the narrow streets. Typical of old Brooklyn neighborhoods, the cobblestone and asphalt were having turf wars over the space between the buildings. The cobblestones were winning. I watched a delivery man pass me on a bike, his portly personage responding to the terrain like a jello platter carried up a flight of stairs. A woman walked by, lips pursed, skirt clinging to her gaunt frame, hair over her left eye. She was conspicuously cat walking, though she was completely alone. She was not smoking, which showed the corrupting influence of California on this once genuine area. As these demographic delights distracted me, I reminded myself why I was there: I was in Brooklyn to make a large purchase of some white powder. It's pure stuff that is hard to come by, but I knew a pretty good dealer.
I finally located the address. The building was shabby, the walls were grimy and covered with aged diesel soot, remnants of an era passed, when public buses were not yet squeaky clean, silent hybrids. The door resembled a speakeasy, and I knew full well that if you didn't knock just right, a tommy gun stuck out and mowed you down. I knocked. I waited. I knocked again. I waited. I knocked again, annoyed. Just because this guy is one of the best dealers doesn't mean that he should keep his users waiting. Then I saw that there was a doorbell. I rang it. Somebody came immediately. "Yes," the man inquired. "I'm here to see Doak." The door swung open. As I entered, I felt the thick wad of cash burning in my pocket, conscious of I was about to do.
An old, yet vigorous man made his way across the warehouse. "Kevin, good to see you. You finally made it here. You're always ordering over the phone, but it's better to come in person. Hit any traffic?" "Yeah, there was overturned tractor trailer on the BQE. What a mess." "Well, you made it, and here's your order. You're always buying it in drips and drabs. It's much better to buy a big load of it, to get the job done once and for all." I looked down to the ground, and there it was- fifty pounds of pure white powder. The stuff is worth a fortune on the streets. But I was buying it straight from the source, cutting out the middleman. I use this stuff every day, it helps me work things out, it helps me solve a lot of problems. Some people criticize artists who use it, saying that it's dangerous, saying that there's other things that you can use to get by. But I use this white powder, and all my troubles melt away, I find that there's nothing that works quite like the stuff.
Flake white is a lead white paint which is unmatched by other paints. It's importance is such that nerds will drive clear across the Long Island Expressway to load up on it. While flake's opacity is unmatched, it is also possible to achieve beautiful, translucent effects with it. In my opinion, it is absolutely necessary for flesh tones, creating a palpable, flesh like effect on the canvas. It is ideal for painting the highlight in an eye. For still life painting, it ranges from scintillating white highlights, to whispering tints. It can stand up straight in an impasto, or it can be stretched long. Titanium white, is superior to flake in tinting power, often mixed with zinc, and has been around since 1913. Titanium has its place on the artists palette, much in the same way that every opera company needs a soprano who nears the range of dog whistle. And so titanium white is very white, indeed, but... I use it in moderation. Now, these descriptions of flake white are actually quite generic, in that they all describe what a premixed tube of flake white can do. But my visit to Robert Doak was with the intention of buying fifty pounds of powdered flake white, and to learn how to mix flake myself, so that I could extend the effects of lead white even further.
Robert Doak is an art supplier in Brooklyn, down in Dumbo. He's been there since the city of Manhattan was rearranged in a grid format, since Teddy Roosevelt patrolled the streets as police commissioner, since the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. (See appendix of text for references pertaining to factual biographical content.) Robert Doak is a singular figure in the entire art world, in that all of the oil paint products offered are made on site, in his warehouse. He supplies a full range of the art world, from fantastically famous names like John Currin, to obscure, loquacious anonymi in Islip, Long Island. I would wax eloquent on the quality of his rich ivory black, on the refined linseed oil, the vermillion... but I don't know enough about chemistry to sound smart. All I can say is that I've found him to be one of the most knowledgeable, generous individuals, with a line of art supplies that work wonderfully for me. He's referenced often in the art world, from the New Yorker magazine, to art conservationists, to a certain wildly popular blog that is taking the globe by storm, drawing so many hits per minute that it constantly crashes enormous google and wordpress data centers in the midwest.
Robert set aside a full hour and a half, to show me how to take the flake white powder, and mix it with various vehicles (a word for oils, etc.) Though I mixed my own paint in Florence, I haven't done so in the three years since. I call Robert often with questions, and he always takes time on the phone to thoroughly discuss the craft of painting. This day, demonstrating with a spackling knife and a sheet of sandblasted glass, he showed me how to vary the amounts of cold pressed linseed oil, to achieve different consistencies. Then, he moved onto other additives, to achieve different effects. Marble dust, which turned the flake white into something resembling thick cement. Aluminum stearate, which turned it into whipping cream. Blown glass, which made it fluffy. And more. He then toured me about his facility, showing me shelf after shelf of art supplies, every product made by hand, and neatly labeled. Pastels, acrylics, sanguine, etc.
We cannot display this galleryAnd lastly, I bought a vibrating sander from him, custom fitted with a piece of sanded glass on the bottom. This electric pestel enables me to mix large quantities of lead white, particularly useful for large paintings or for priming canvases. In buying the large amount of fifty pounds, in one shot, I will save hundreds and hundreds of dollars, even thousands. Most importantly, I'll be more in charge of my craft.
Every time I go into Home Depot, I am annoyed by the fact that when I ask an employee what gauge nail should be used in a nail gun when working with oak, the employee inevitably pulls out an iPod and virtually stumbles about for ten minutes before saying "I don't know." It's the same in the big art chains. But, in Brooklyn, at the base of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge, in a dilapidated warehouse, there's an old man who is a treasure to the art world, a face to the very finest art supplies, an artisan with pride of craft.
Robert Doakdynamics
Ten minutesI start with a canvas tinted a few days before, the ground being somewhere between grey, and mildly earth toned. Onto this, I work with very lean paint, with bristle brushes. By lean, that is to say, paint that is mixed with turpentine, not with medium. At this stage, my brushes are bristle, mostly large.
Forty five minutesI focus entirely on the shadows, using Old Holland Light Red, and Zecchi Roman Ochre, mixed with Old Holland Ivory Black. I don't put any of the lights in, at all- just the shadows that I see. I push the painting as far as I feel necessary in this range of shadows, to try and figure out what the canvas is saying.
Forty six minutes"And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Flake white. That is- lead white. I slam it on, thick lead paint slightly tinted with color, with a big bristle brush, to show myself just how much the painting needs to adjust, in order for that light to make sense. I was playing the violin once, attempting Bartok, timidly trying to eke out the complex notes, and producing a rather tepid tune. In short, it sounded wimpy. My violin teacher, Sue Forseth, grabbed the violin, placed it beneath her chin, and slammed the bow against the strings, producing a screaming declaration of the passage of music, with a ferocious vibrato. Then she handed the violin back to me, and quietly said "Catch up." She showed me that dynamics are everything. Placing that thick, lead white rich paint on the canvas is my way of saying "Catch up" to myself.
Close upCatch up.
Three hoursCaught up. Or at least getting there. I'm excited to develop the painting with his hands- for now, it looks like he is sleeping, but with the context of his hands, he is going to be looking at something up close, squinting, one eyebrow raised, as an older man will sometimes do.
You are never painting the thing, you are painting the light falling on the thing. That is the miracle of light: the most beautiful, red sunrise can turn the horrific, oil refinery shoreline of New Jersey into some kind of bizarre Celestial City. (Though I'm not saying his face is like the New Jersey Turnpike.)
ralph
Ralph was sentenced to twenty five years to life. As I painted him, finishing his portrait, I knew that it was possibly the last time I'd ever talk with him. The day after I painted this, he was moved from Riverhead Jail, to a prison upstate New York, somewhere. As we worked on this portrait together, Speedy sat to the side. Words were intruders; we spent four hours in silence, painting.
the catch
My approach to exhibiting paintings is much like chumming, the fishing practice in which one throws fish blood and guts overboard, and waits for other fish to be drawn near. And so, I place my paintings just about anywhere, and simply hope that, eventually, someone will catch a whiff of them. When asked to hang my work in the local Starbucks, I gladly provided them with five or six pieces that I had already created.
A year or so passed, during which I occasionally rotated new paintings onto the walls. One day, I received a call from the Starbucks corporate headquarters in New York City. One fellow who is over construction and design management had seen my work on the Islip Starbucks walls, and enjoyed one particular sketch of a boat. He explained that the Starbucks in Islip was being entirely remodeled, and they were looking for an accent piece to center the coffee shop around. He then asked if I would take my small sketch, and turn it into a four foot wide painting, as a commission for Starbucks. I told him my price, he accepted, and I began painting.
And so, for the past couple of weeks I've been out in the mornings, before dawn, waiting for the first rays of light to hit a boat in the harbor, down here at the working docks at Islip. I would show you the painting in progress, but I think it might be confidential, being as it is a commission for a corporation. However, once the painting is finished, I should be able to post the photos of the work. (I have three portrait commissions running right now, but am unable to post them until I ask permission of the commissioners, once the works are finished.)
But, there's a purpose to my rambling. As I painted away, with super palette faithfully at my side, somebody came up and asked me some questions. The man's face was unusual- his skin was browned and wrinkled by the sun and the sea, but his eyes were light and blue, a hue that, oftentimes, only children have. It was interesting to see the simple eyes beside the weathered skin. The man liked the painting, and explained that he was the captain of the boat I was looking at. "If you come back tomorrow, you can watch us unload her. Just got back from the ocean. It should be good- we got a good tuna, A bunch of others." He smiled and walked off.
I woke early the next morning, and was waiting at the docks as the workers arrived. About twelve people took their stations, and each set to work. One man began shoveling ice, while another set up an enormous cutting block. A short, powerfully built man readied himself on the dock, while another disappeared down into the hull of the ship. A fellow opened an enormous, horizontal hatch on the floor of the ship, activated a crane, and dropped a rope down. Another sharpened knives, and passed them along to a neatly trimmed man, who stood at the base of the chopping block. An enormous scale was set up, cardboard boxes were stationed here and there... and then....
The crane heaved, and the roped began its ascent from the dark hull of the boat. All eyes were fixed on the rope. And suddenly, a tail. And, more tail. A little bit more tail... now the body of the fish... still the body of the fish... more body.... and then the full fish emerged- it was taller than a Danish man, even though the crew had already lobbed the head off. With the help of the crane, they pushed the dangling fish body over the side of the boat, and onto a scale. As they lowered him onto the chopping block, a hush fell over the group. The thing with tuna, I'm told, is that once they are hooked, they must be immediately hoisted onto the boat. If they get the chance to fight the lines for several minutes, then that fight causes them to produce a type of chemical which ruins the meat. All eyes were on the well trimmed fellow, with the sharp knife. He stood over the dinosaur sized fish, cut a small piece off, and tasted it. It was silent. He held it up to the sun. He threw it down on the chopping block. And then he spoke with a few of the others. Apparently, it was of high quality.
I would go on describing all of the other fascinating things in the day, but it would take me hours, and I gotta get up with my two sons at five thirty in the morning, and make them oatmeal. I can sum it up by saying that I've never been more inspired to paint anything, ever, in my life. I think I've found a lifelong calling- not to be a fisherman, but to paint commercial fishermen. Sure, I'll paint other things, but I want to do some large paintings of these amazing people. There is something heroic about them. Sure, that's romanticized, but what am I going to do, paint them as they fill out their tax forms? What I saw was choreographed movement, colors, the lights, the smell of diesel fumes mixed with fish oil, the gargle of the engine, the bite of the shovel digging into the ice, the shush of the ice leaving the shovel, falling onto the new catch. Life on Long Island seems so very removed from all of nature's rhythms and cycles, and the idea of "the harvest" seems somewhat distant, when you are never more than two minutes away from a McDonalds. I stand in front of Sorolla's paintings, his scenes of olive harvests and grape harvests, and I wonder why life has to be so disconnected, here in New York. But here, on a dirty dock in the middle of the Long Island, I witnessed one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Now, I just gotta figure out how to get myself invited on one of those boats. And then, I gotta figure out how to paint them.
"I was led into these thoughts... by the beauty of the morning operating on a sense of Idleness- I have not read any books- the Morning said I was right- I had no idea but of the morning, and the thrush said I was right..." - John Keats
We cannot display this galleryi-beams and scapulas
On the weekend I puttered about my new studio in Islip, as a construction crew lowered I-beams into place, reinforcing the structure for the glass ceiling to come. And this Monday, on the east end, I sketched and taught my figure drawing class about how the skeletal structure of the scapula glides across the posterior portion of the ribcage. Already such a funny week, hopping about like this.
I can't wait, I'm so eager to be in my new studio. It's still in progress, but already looks amazing.
framed
So, after a trip to a metal shop, then a welder, I now have the inmate painting framed. It looks so cool, it's my favorite frame yet. The frame is 16 gauge steel, with the welds unsanded.
Then, last night I dropped the painting off at the Salmagundi Club, for the annual members show.
feet on the piling, head in the clouds
Yesterday evening, I threw my two boys in the back of my bike, and headed down to our local beach on the Great South Bay. As usual, I try and do the strangest thing possible to make them laugh- preferably make them laugh while they are drinking their juice box. And so, seeing a piling set in the shallow end of the water, I scrambled on top. Liam howled with delight, and said "Dad, let me take a picture with your phone." From atop the piling, I demonstrated how to take a picture, then tossed the phone to him. He grabbed the phone, ran twenty feet away, and said "Say Cheese Dad!"
Now, the question is- is this how Liam actually sees his father? Was he just fumbling with the camera? I'm not going to say the image is not merited, but, wow. I knew I was a crazy artist, but goodness, this is just flattering. Somehow, it so perfectly summarizes this stage of life- laughing kids, installing a 10 foot by 15 foot glass ceiling into my new studio, painting inmates in a maximum security jail on Thursday, browsing through Winslow Homer drawings at Addison Museum on Friday, picking halloween candy out of my sons hair on Saturday.
Teddy Roosevelt was known for his famous adage, "Keep your eyes on the stars, and keep your feet on the ground." Sure Teddy, that'll help you do something as easy as build the Panama Canal. But for the much weightier task of being an artist with a family, I think it's far more advisable to keep one's feet on the piling, and head in the clouds.
