Art's Search for Meaning

 

I make a certain kind of art: flat figurative art, painted in watercolor on location, depicting places mostly without people in a simplified somewhat graphic style. I can and sometimes do make other kinds of art, but this is mostly what I make because I love the act of making it. I love being out in the world surrounded by life, experiencing a place as I paint it, often in the company of other artists.  i like working fairly quickly and solving problems on the fly, rather than obsessing over a work during multiple sessions.  I chose my locations and my particular subjects almost entirely because I like how they look. Pleasing to my eyes, interesting, beautiful.  

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. And yet, museums and galleries include verbal descriptions, and art marketing experts suggest that art consumers respond to a story, which extends beyond the edges of the painting and includes the artist's life and words as well.  Part of me thinks art should (and does) speak for itself. But honestly, there's a lot of damned complicated art made by some absolute geniuses that I would never understand on my own.  

I sometimes wish I could figure out how to make art that expressed important messages in a compelling and urgent way. I think anybody with a voice and an audience ought to speak up and say what is important.  BE KIND, BE GRATEFUL, DON'T MESS UP THE WORLD, HELP AND DON'T HURT, BE HUMBLE, BE TOLERANT, BE UNDERSTANDING, CONDEMN HATE AND CRUELTY, SPREAD LOVE AND JOY.  

People have occasionally told me that my art gives them a sense of calm and I know a couple of times my art has brought people comfort - or at least the images depicted by my art brought comfort.  I'm afraid though that I'm not making soul-wrenching, life changing art. Which I kind of wish I were.  I will say though I really appreciate (in fact prefer) a good entertaining movie - something not too deep, like a nice little comedy.  I painted this morning at Echo Park. Although the lotus flowers were blooming, I painted some cars and residences across the street, with a palm tree in the foreground. 

Memory and Canada Geese

 Memory is a strange thing. It is entirely your own. People who experienced things with you in the same time and space sometimes don't have the same memories at all. You can hear them tell an entirely different story. Which perhaps isn't so strange, because we know we don't even have the same perceptions and understanding while things are going down. But after the fact, who's to say? Memories, like feelings, belong to you and have a truth and validity beyond verifiable facts. 

Of course, now that I'm old (ish), memories take on a whole other complex dimension. First, there are TONs of them. Second, my brain is getting a little leaky.  Finally, I keep more and more memories for (with and about) people who aren't around any longer.  Old person's game: "Remember when _____" Thanks to the internet, we sometimes get to validate our memories. For a while, I couldn't find anybody else who remembered that diet Dr. Pepper used to come in a blue can. Well? The internet agrees, and there are even pictures. I remember those cans. Blue is my favorite color, and a young man I loved who had diabetes drank diet Dr. Pepper. 

So what does all that have to do my painting of Canada geese? Well. potentially almost anything. The site of this painting's creation is a park in Alhambra called Almansor Park. Named for a street which was named by the same imaginative Washington Irving fan as the city.  I think I remember that there used to be a trash dump on the site. I know that there was a trash dump somewhere in Alhambra (or at least super-close to Alhambra) where I took photographs in 1976 or 1977. The photographs featured a chimney silhouetted against the setting sun. I still have the prints. (I think, somewhere.)  It's not easy (for me at least) to find much information at all about former trash dumps on the internet. Sensitive topic maybe. You can find reference to the fact that Alhambra Park and the adjacent golf course were built on a landfill.  But they were built in the mid-1950s, possibly before I was born and definitely before I engaged in photography. 

Who knows? I like Canada geese, except that their droppings are ubiquitous and messy. I understand, perhaps because I was told, that they originally migrated between cold climates and temperate climates, but migration is difficult, and some of them have permanently settled in more temperate climates. At least for now.