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.  

Actual Developments

 I have a website.  This is it.  https://www.barbarafieldpaints.com

I may move my blogging over the FASO platform too, although I feel some fondness and pangs of nostalgia for this old thing.  

We are months into the Covid-19 pandemic, which has put a hold on meeting with my Saturday outdoor painting group.  I've continued to stay in touch with the painting group, because I want to know how to find them when it's time to go out and paint again with them.  Also the best way not to get resentful about missing out on stuff is to try to compensate with other stuff you can do.  I've been setting weekly challenges for myself and the group so that I keep painting on Saturdays and sharing paintings with other painters.  So anyway, if you happen by here and are interested in joining the Saturday painting group, you are no longer constrained by geography or discomfort about public painting.  Let me know.  You know how to find me.  

Coasters

 Since absolutely everybody reads this blog faithfully and remembers everything I say here, you will of course know that my dearest dream once was to make art for record album covers.  Record album covers (that is cardboard covers for collections of music recorded on large vinyl disks,) have gone largely the way of my dreams.  They haven't vanished, but have become much more rare, and are cherished out of proportion to their value or content.  

Many years later, as I may or may not have mentioned here, I settled on a new dream of doing art for beer packaging.  I quite like beer, and I have observed that beer labeling and packaging often displays art that is  delightfully colorful, whimsical and evocative.  I read stories of amateur artist friends of microbreweries designing beer packaging.  I even imagined names for beer which I might illustrate.  All amounting to naught, at least so far.  There are also coasters for beer.  One of my sons started collecting beer coasters, and I learned that traveling firefighters also liked to collect them.  Beer coasters became free souvenirs of my travels and drinks.  

I eventually learned that there is an art show that features art done exclusively on coasters; I believe it has given rise to a few other such shows.  Starting last year, I participated in the coaster show.  I will do so again next month.  What is very cool about the show is that it's this kind of no-holds-barred show, with art of every ilk - cute, raunchy, figurative, abstract expressionist, what have you.  The only thing the pieces have in common is that they are the size and shape of beer coasters.  And there is a ton of them.  I mean, when ever can you see a gallery show with between 700 and 1000 individual pieces of art?

A plug for Gallery 30 South, 30 S Wilson Ave, Pasadena, CA 91106, Coaster Show 2020, running October 5–30, 2020, to coincide more or less with Oktoberfest.  

Encouragement

If you make art and it's halfway decent to look at,  you're going to get some embarrassing praise.  "I love your art.  You're so talented."  Soon after, you will be treated to tales of personal failure.  "I have no talent.  I can't draw a straight line (or my way out of a box.)"  You might hear stories from the same people about how they loved to draw and paint and make things when they were little kids, and then someone ruined it for them.  The someone was probably a perfectly well-meaning parent or teacher.  Perhaps the art was compared unfavorably to some else's or was misunderstood.  Perhaps the youths were rebuffed for using things not intended as art supplies.  Or for wasting time.

I don't want to be that person who ruins art for someone else.  What I want to do here, in fact, is to give my reader tools not to be that person either.  I have taken plenty of art classes as a child and an adult from a wide range of instructors.  I've weathered a lot of criticism of my work, some very valuable and some entirely unwelcome.  I have done many hours of artwork along side many children of widely varying interest and capability.  This is where I have collected my ideas.  This is intended primarily for people speaking to children about their art, but I find it works with adults as well.  It may also work for areas of human endeavor other than art.

Do not give unsolicited critiques or opinions.  If someone shows you their work, you may assume they are soliciting your opinion.  Never assume someone is seeking criticism or suggestions unless they explicitly ask.

When you give your opinion of a work of art, be sure that it is your opinion, and not a value judgement. Do not say it is "good" or "not good."  If you like it, say so.  Elaborate on what you like.  "I love your colors. . . I admire your bold lines. . . Unicorns are my favorite things."  You can talk about how it makes you feel, whether a picture feels peaceful or has a lot of energy.

Feel free to ask questions, except "what is it supposed to be?"  You can say, "Tell me about what you painted" or say, "it looks like buildings to me.  Where is your scene taking place?  Is it from your imagination or something you have seen?  Who are the people and what are they doing? Does it express something you are feeling?"   I think it's okay to ask, "How do you like it?  Are you happy with it?"

Acknowledge effort.  If it looks like someone is very skilled, acknowledge that it is clear they have put a lot of practice and effort into honing their abilities.  Saying people are talented not only discounts the effort they have put into their art, but can be discouraging to others in the same space.  Efforts  in a particular piece of art might be speed  or it might be the considerable amount of time that was put into it.  You might note the looseness and freedom of the technique or the precision and detail.

Do not tell any artist, particularly a small child, that they have to sign their work, unless you are paying for it, or it is to be handed in to a teacher.  Whether or not an artist signs a work is entirely up to them, and a signature is an element which they may or may not wish to add.  It is like telling the artist to add clouds or the color red, which you also shouldn't do, unless the artist asks you, "what else do you think I should add?"


Discourage frustration and feelings of failure.  You can quote Bob Ross, "There are no mistakes; only happy accidents."  Discourage people from wadding up drawings and throwing them out.  Point out that mistakes are part of practice, and practice is how you build skill.  You may suggest they try to rework the rejected piece into something they are happier with. Or that they keep it for a while to see their progress and improvement.

Acknowledge choices.  Creating at all is a choice.  As is what you create - the size, shape, color, medium, composition, subject, abstraction.  Every single element of a work of art is the artist's choice.  If you tell a young artist, "I like how you grouped the bright colors and oriented the paper lengthwise," you are also letting them know that they have power and agency, at least in this place, and that their possibilities for creation are infinite.

This post is delightfully illustrated with pictures made for me by Ruby, Chris, Nayeen, Angie and Anonymous.

Anything Can Happen

I'm sitting here on the cusp of a new year and a new decade.  I'm as willing as the next person to infuse this moment with meaning.  I haven't been in these parts for a good long while.  So the last day or two, I've seen a lot of stuff posted on social media and heard some right from the mouths of humans that 2019 was a hard year, and let's hope 2020 will be kinder.  Yeah, I could echo that sentiment, but 2019 coughed up some really nice moments too.  On a personal level, I experienced two lovely weddings of family members, traveled to Iceland and Tulsa, Oklahoma and points in between.  I read good books and did good works and made art.  A few friends have made it through some big health challenges.  In some of my favorite bits of news, new baby tortoises were born in the Galapagos, and AI is being developed into prosthetics for little kids who otherwise couldn't walk.  And I've remembered that anything can happen.  Which is both good news and bad news.  I've passed the middle of my life, and my expectations trend toward the reasonable.  You know, it's nice just to be here.  But it is solidly within the realm of possibility that 2020, or some other year that hasn't yet happened, could be my best year ever.  It could even be all our best year ever.  However it shapes up, let's pull some good things out of it.  

On Time

This is the only painting I have of Union Station in Los Angeles which was not previously posted.  Which tells me, among other things, that I should schedule painting at Union Station soon.  It's a pretty good place to paint in all weather, because you can be inside, outside under shelter, or in one of two or more courtyard gardens.  Like rail travel 20 or 30 years ago, Union Station practically went out of business.  Then came a boom in light rail and commuter train construction and travel.  So Union Station too has made a big comeback.  It is a busy bustling place now, as a train station should be.  And in addition to an infusion of humanity, a whole bunch of money has been pumped into Union Station's revival.  It has always been beautiful, but now it is restored to its original shiny glory.  The downside (because isn't there always one?) is that you now require an actual train ticket to sit in one of the leather upholstered art deco seats in the waiting area.  Those seats used to be free for the taking.  There is a piano inside the station, which is available for the use of all.  I have heard some really wonderful musicians there; it's worth pausing to listen. I think this is only painting I've made of the clock tower, although it is always in view while I wait outside for my train or bus.

Grinding

This is a picture of San Marino's Old Mill - El Molino Viejo in Spanish.  I've painted this old mill several times before and since.  Some of my efforts were posted here.  I think I've previously said most everything I have to say about the Old Mill, except this.  When I was a kid I visited someplace far from home, and there was an old mill there.  Which I found quite surprising.  I thought we had the only one.  But in reality, they are all over the county.  Flour is something that an awful lot of people use, but it takes a lot of power to mill it.  There are real economies of scale to employing a source of power greater than elbow grease - such as water or large animals - and to making a bunch of flour at a time.  I'm guessing that since there was kind of a public interest in mills anyhow, it was easy to transition them to museums and interpretive sights when the means of production advanced technologically.

If our civilization hangs around for another hundred years, I wonder what enterprises we will celebrate with museums and interpretive sights.  I believe video stores have already vanished.  Maybe there will be convenience store museums, demonstrating the old methods of cold beverage delivery.

In order to catch up my blogging to my painting, which matters not at all, I'm aggregating a few images of the same subject.  I think it makes more sense then combining unrelated images that happened to be painted around the same time.   Although it will be harder to keep track of.  The last picture is the most recent one, but a different view.  The picture with the chuppah set up for a wedding is the oldest; it was taken before the vines were taken off the building.  I thought the Old Mill might look much less interesting without vines, but it doesn't look too bad and it's easier to paint in the bargain.

Not Counting

I'm a little obsessive compulsive.  I know better than to talk lightly of mental illness. I can handle a reasonable amount of mess, clutter and dirt, but sometimes I just need things to be straight.  Pictures must hang level and yoga mats must align.  I count.  When I'm waiting for someone, I count cars or people that pass.  I count to fall asleep sometimes.  I count while I water my plants.  I've intentionally lost count of somethings, like how many lovers I had.  How much I ate.

I've been going out and painting for a few years now.  Since early 2010.  Almost every week.  So?  More than 400 paint outs?  A lot of painters.  A lot of places.  Not too many miles.  Less than 10,000 hours.  No regrets.  Some paintings.

Span

I'm still posting paintings that I painted a year ago, because I slowed way down on posting to the blog, and meanwhile I've picked up my painting pace.  The reality is that I may never catch up, even if (as I have,) I skip some of the paintings. I thought the next painting up was a different painting of the Colorado Bridge.  I've painted said bridge two or more times since I painted the image shown here.  Catch up?  Who am I fooling?  There is no obligation here, and not even much of a method.  Since I had whole other ideas about what I was going to say about the other view of the bridge, I have nothing planned to say.  

In that vacuum, I'll offer my most important life observations.  Here.  The most important decision you make is choosing who you listen to.  It's a noisy world with 7.6 million opinions.  The people you listen to will guide your values, your beliefs, your tastes, your actions and your experience. Your parents, your news sources, your friends, your teachers, your spiritual leaders - those people.  Your choice.  The other observation is that things pass.  Some of the most precious and rare things and people and moments you encounter in your life may seem quite ordinary.  And they may seem like they will always be around and always be the same.  It's okay that things change and pass.  That's just the way of time.  What I would suggest as a hedge against time is only to live deeply and completely in the present.  Capture those moments in all their vividness with all your senses.  That's what I know.  

Here are photos of a scruffy mockingbird and a prickly heart.  

Lotus Flowers

Lotus flowers have been important symbols to many cultures.  They show up in Egyptian art and depictions of Buddha and Hindu gods.  The thing that is special about lotus flowers is the way they grow in the muckiest of mud.  They rise anew from the mud and water in the morning and open their petals.  Their seeds, which are edible, have been known to germinate after 2000 years.

This painting is of the lotus flowers in Echo Park and of the sky reflected in the water.

Oaklawn

This painting is a part of the Oaklawn Bridge in South Pasadena.  The Oaklawn bridge is designated a National Historic Landmark.  It stands in some great company, with such bridges as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Edmund Pettus Bridge, several Bridges of Madison County, and the Natural Bridge in Virginia.  The Oaklawn Bridge leads in and out of an elegant planned neighborhood of the early 1900s.  The bridge spans train tracks and a tiny waterway.  It is presently used only by pedestrians.  The bridge, along with other Oaklawn features, was designed by Pasadena architects Charles and Henry Greene.  It is Greene & Green's only bridge and their only concrete structure.  It was among the first reinforced concrete bridges built in the United States, and the very first in the West.  So here is a drawing of the bridge, presumably by the Greenes.

It does and doesn't look like this today.  There is a lot of stuff in front and around it, including trees, power poles, buildings, and cars.  The residents of Oaklawn resisted the placement of a marker, and the designation as a significant site on old route 66.  You kind of can't blame them. Tourists and sightseers are only really welcome when they are spending money.  A newer resident is looking at the upside of Oaklawn's monument status, and attempting to replace a large oak tree that presumably once gave Oaklawn its name.

I cannot help thinking of the Florida International University pedestrian bridge that collapsed on March 15, and killed six people.  My heart goes out to those who were injured and those who lost loved ones.  Life is so fragile and precious.

Challenged

One of the things I like best about the world is that there are many little worlds within the world.  There are worlds that are very familiar to me, and many more I don't even know.  The worlds I dwell in include painters, dog-owners, and people who blog.  We have our own language, tools, ways of meeting, and things other people just wouldn't get.  I once was a band parent and a folk-dancer.  There are wine-drinkers, golfers, bingo-players, sailors, motorcyclists, swap meet people, runners, bookclubs and birdwatchers.  Families are little worlds, as are religious communities, schools and neighborhoods.  There are millions of online communities surrounding games and other interests or shared experience.  There are groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Weight Watchers that come together to support their members.  

When you do things alone, you can challenge yourself and set goals, but you can't compete with yourself, and, even if you could, you could still cheat with impunity.  You can affirm yourself and encourage yourself, but when you need encouragement and affirmation the very most, you will find it the hardest to deliver.  So in the online art world, there are challenges.  The challenges foster community and competition.  There are a few different challenges I've participated in and shared here.  One is the Every Day in May challenge, where we receive 31 drawing subject prompts, one for each day, and each day we prepare and post a sketch.  These are some of my favorites from 2016.

I am aware of challenges for writers and fitness buffs and beer drinkers.  I've no doubt that every stripe of community has (or could have) challenges to encourage greater levels of experience or accomplishment.  I checked, because I was curious, and found all sorts of challenges.  Typically, challenges last for a set duration of time, often 30 days.  I found this collection of 30 challenges  and this collection of 100 challenges.  The latter also references a book with 500 challenges.  I think if you wanted to do them all, you would have to overlap significantly, or you just wouldn't have time.  I think I could use a good challenge.  Anybody out there want to make a challenge?  I'll  take it, but you have to try it too.  

 

Wrigley's

This is a less recognizable view of the Tournament of Roses House, or Wrigley Mansion, on Orange Grove in Pasadena.  The mansion was designed by architect G. Lawrence Stimson for his parents and built starting in 1906.  The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 brought about an unexpected shortage of building materials, and the construction wasn't complete until 1914 - the same year Wrigley's Doublemint Gum debuted.  William Wrigley Jr. and his wife Ada then bought the home in 1916, adding to their already significant collection of mansions.  The Rose Parade was already a thing, and the Wrigleys enjoyed a fine view of it.  The Wrigleys bought and razed the house next door on Orange Grove, and made room for the roses in the foreground of this painting.  In 1958, the Wrigley family gifted the mansion to the Tournament of Roses.  Rose Queens are crowned here.  Many months out of the year, there isn't too much going on at the Tournament House; during those months the roses are at their best.  There is an enormous front lawn, and I think if I had power or sway or organizational skills, I would found a bocce tournament at the Tournament House lawn.
This was painted slightly less than two years ago, so don't be tempted to draw any conclusions about current trends in my paintings.

Nothingness

Teachers hear so many things from children that it is difficult to surprise them.  But every so often a student says something so remarkably insightful or so incredibly stupid that a teacher’s face shows palpable amazement.  I put that look on a teacher’s face once with a statement that was not really clever or silly.  My seventh grade history teacher Mrs. Eddas (I think) had just finished a lesson.  There was some time left before class was over.  Mrs. Eddas asked the class what we should do next.  I don’t remember what our likely choices were.  There might have been some kind of history trivia we played.  Maybe quiet study time; maybe a quick film; maybe a preview of the next chapter.  I said, “let’s do nothing.”  Mrs. Eddas claimed she had never heard of a child wanting to do nothing.  Apparently children were constantly in states of motion, noise and need.  I probably didn’t mean literally nothing, which is basically impossible to do.  And while I recall Mrs. Eddas’s reaction, I don’t recall exactly my motivation.  Was it just my laziness?  Or was my mindfulness advanced far beyond my years?   Now that my time is all my own, I think I spend far too much time doing nearly nothing. 

I think nothing is one of those totally illusive things.  Where you think there is nothing, there is a vacuum, or space, or a back hole.  There is silence or inactivity.  There is a secret or something you forgot. 

There are all kinds of rules about composition, applying to photographs as well as drawings and paintings.  One must have a focal point.  The focal point can’t be dead-center, and it can’t be falling off the edge of the page.  There will also be visual elements of secondary interest.  There must be contrast, particularly in values, but also in shapes and edges.  The composition must lead your eyes back into the picture.  Artists, however, are rule-breakers.  Furthermore, there aren’t really art police.   There are only other artists and observers of art.  So you will see works of art that depict nothing identifiable, works of art that are as minimal as a single dot or line, and pure White Paintings.  Paintings of nothingness.

 A picture need not be a picture of something.  When I stare into space, and someone asks me what I’m looking at, I respond “nothing.”  Much as you might catch me thinking of nothing.  But of course there’s something in front of me and my eyes are open and the image on my retina sends signals to my brain.  I think this painting is a little of the nothingness I might look into.  Not to say I don’t think it’s beautiful; I do.  It follows rules of composition, I think; the focal point is an empty space.  Honestly I didn’t even remember where it was, although I do remember sitting on a slope beneath a tree.  I think it was Deukmajian Park, but it might be Devil’s Gate Dam.  The sky looks like any kind of weather could happen, and the grass could be tall or minute, the hill slope steep or tiny.  I think I know why I painted it, but there’s nothing that you would guess at.  

The Russians

Early in the existence of this blog, I installed a free version of Site Meter, which enabled me to track some pretty specific information about visitors to the blog.  Then at some point I could no longer see or link to Site Meter.  I explored a little on the internet, and learned that there were concerns about the security of Site Meter, and i made no effort to recover it.  Recent internet research informs me that Site Meter now is no more.  

Blogger is the host of the blog.   Along with design and other nice assistance for a non-programmer like me, Blogger provides some statistics about page visits.  I’m able to find out approximately how many page visits the blog receives, and how visitors are referred - whether by another website or by a search, and what search terms brought visitors.  Back in the days when the internet was a smaller place, the blog was much higher on search results.  I am able to tell what proportion of blog visitors use what operating system.  I can tell where blog visitors are located, although not with very much specificity.  There is world map where countries housing blog visitors show up in green.  

There aren’t a lot of surprises.  The blog has a small audience, which includes me, mostly but not exclusively located in the United States.  But you know where else?  Russia.  I sometimes look at Russian blogs, but not significantly often. I draw some limited conclusions here, about just how busy and thorough someone in Russia is on the internet.  I am curious to see the statistical results for this post, and whether it brings about any change.  Here is the map showing all time page views, and the numbers.

Entry            Pageviews

United States         39720

Russia                    8907

China                     2571

France                   1322

Germany                1188

Ukraine                   767

United Kingdom      719

Poland                    523

South Korea           500

Brazil                      409

The chickens up at the top have nothing to do with Russians, at least as far as I know.  They belong to one of the painters I paint with and his wife.  Despite appearances, there were only two chickens.  Each chicken appears more than once.  I have thought that I would do better to sketch people with the same dispassionate observation I sketch chickens.  People seem more complicated to me.  But probably not to the chickens.  

The Provenance of Plants

The appropriate painting to go with this title finally came around.  But then I took a photograph to lead.  In my teens, as now, I had a pretty great fondness for plants.   My friend told me that another friend’s mother said that if you received a plant as a gift, the plant would thrive or struggle the same as your relationship with the giver.  I’ve not proven that, but I do try to keep a close watch over plants that were gifts.  I no longer keep plants indoors.  They can be a little messy; my cat is wont to mess with them, and besides I have a yard and a front porch and a gentle climate. 

All my potted plants have come to me at some place and time for some reason.  Some were gifts. Several I’ve selected at plant sales and nurseries.  There is a local garden club plant swap; relatives and friends have provided cuttings from their own plants.  None of my plants dates back to those years in my teens, and there is at least one reason for that  The last place I lived was a townhouse.  I kept my potted plants along a wall by my front door.  Some of the plants were really lovely specimen palms and cacti I’d had for years.  I had to move them when waterproofing work was done, and deep trenches were dug outside all the exterior walls.  I moved the plants under a big pine tree along side the driveway close to the street.  The waterproofing work took a few months.  I remember it was 1991.  My second son was born and my father died.  One day I came home and my potted plants were gone.  Presumably taken; unquestionably gone.  

Two more times, since I moved to my current home, I’ve had plants stolen.  One time two or three small young bonsai trees were taken; I think it must have been in May, because I remember a friend of mine opined that it was kids looking for presents to give their mothers.  Made me wonder how my friend used to acquire his Mothers’ Day gifts.  The other time was soon after this painting was painted on my front porch on a rainy day.  The two small plants in the center of the painting were taken.  They were nice little plants in nice little pots.  They might have been nice gifts for someone.    

I have some remaining plants with interesting origin stories.  Once in this blog, I mentioned that an old guy at the Joshua Tree Motel gave me beavertail cactus.  That cactus grew and still lives in a pot.  Several pieces of it grew in other pots.  One pot fell over and the cactus grew up in my rose garden.  That is the cactus in the photograph.  I’ve also learned that it isn’t a beavertail cactus, but some other kind of opuntia.  I have a kalanchoe with orange flowers, along with several of its offspring.  I gave the kalanchoe to my husband on the occasion of his vasectomy.  I have string of hearts plants that came from a plant my parents told me came from a plant that they admired when they were shopping for a home.  As far as know, I don’t possess any stolen plants.  

Control

There are many classes, books, and YouTube tutorials addressing how to control watercolor paint.  On that topic, I have a couple of thoughts.  You can definitely learn how to control watercolors.  And, why would you want to?  The strength (as well as the challenge) of watercolor is that the paint behaves like water; it flows and it runs.  Some surfaces resist it, and other surfaces suck it up like a sponge.  It is subject to the whimsey of the weather.  It dries and disappears, and only the color remains in two dimensions.  Some of the nicest parts of this painting happened because I let watercolor act like itself.  Two different colors were mixed for the tree trunk, and you can see how the pigments started separating themselves on the paper in the moments before the paint dried.  There is a mid ground patch of amorphous foliage that is pink at the top fading downward to green;  I didn't actually paint that lovely transition, I just let color bleed into wet paint.  There are a few areas on the left side - the largest one in green - with efflorescent edges.  I didn't paint those edges; they occurred because I added wet paint to less wet paint.

People often comment that watercolor is difficult.  Probably they are noting that watercolor paint is sometimes difficult to control, and that once you paint something in watercolor, you will not be able to scrape it off or hide it under more paint.  You can't just wipe out your mistakes or changes of heart.  Things will stay pretty much as you painted them.  Yeah.  Life is hard too.  

This was painted at the Pasadena Museum of History, and depicts a building that is not open to visitors.  It is for administration or something.  Pink azaleas were in bloom and I painted them too.

Speaking of Love

Since last year I've been volunteering at Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court, with the Free Arts program.  We serve children who are dependents of the court by providing arts and crafts activities in the waiting area.  Our objective is just to engage the children and distract them from crappy stuff that is going on in their lives.  We provide them with an opportunity to be creative and express themselves.  We are not art therapists, but some of our projects are designed by art therapists, and all the projects are deemed to have potential therapeutic value.  One of the projects is a "Things I Love" collage.  We start conversations with the children about love, including how loving things is different from loving people.  You may love your sibling, your friend, a celebrity, your pet, french fries, your shoes, your video games, and doing art.  This is probably as far as the conversation with the children goes.

But really it isn't just a difference between loving people and things; we have a completely distinct feeling of love for every person and thing we love, and those feelings are subject to change.  The Greeks had two different words for love, but I don't think either of them would specifically capture many of the ways most of us love.  There are other words we use that are equally uncommunicative, such as thing, amazing and hate.  We could limit our use of these words, but I think love is a nice word and we should not hesitate to use it.  We can just add more information.  I could say to my children: I love you, and not a day goes by that your existence doesn't give me joy; my heart bursts with pride in you and the people you are, and you enrich my life by being good, kind, smart, responsible, hardworking, interesting and fun.  (And that is about my children collectively, rather than how I specifically and differently love each of them.)  About coffee, I could say: I love coffee because I am enticed by its aroma and distinctive flavor; it gives shape to my mornings, gives me a boost in the afternoon, and I am reasonably certain it makes me smarter.  Of this painting, I could say I love this painting; it is one of my very favorites that I have painted; it is big and has great colors, values, and calligraphy.  There is nothing I would change - not even the crooked windows; I am proud and happy that I painted this.  It was painted at California Institute of Technology in 2016.

Flowers

When I paint out in the world, I need to first pick a subject.  If I don't see something on the horizon to make a picture, I draw my gaze closer - from the forest to a tree, from a cityscape to a doorway.  I am nearsighted anyhow.  In this  instance, I visually plucked some flowers from an abundant garden.

A handful of people tell me with some frequency that I should paint flowers more often.  Generally, though, I don't feel like it.  I am forever grateful that Cezanne,Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, and Merian painted flowers.    But I can't get past the feeling that my own paintings aren't nearly as nice as living (or cut) flowers.  They do at least last longer.