to San Juan Island and Back

In Widening Circles, oil on canvas, 18x18 in

Yesterday I took the ferry to Friday Harbor with my children and a good friend--who also collects my work. We went for the ride, and lunch, and to look at some galleries and art.  Before I had a chance to tell one of the gallery owners about my work, she opined about how done she was with landscapes. Said she's embracing abstracts now--everything's about surface tension, texture and such.  From what I could see in the gallery it was about the suggestion of landscape albeit with stenciled numbers/ ship markings on some and heavily varnished collage on others. The landscape was still there, however--and I told her so.   A friend says the shift toward abstract is because all the television shows are staging their sets with abstract works which is influencing what people want to decorate their homes. What happened to artistic intent?  and meaningful expression? Ultimately, is it really all about decoration? 

So, today, in tribute to that ferry ride and all the glory of the San Juan Islands and the poetry of Rilke, I painted this--a landscape--or is it?  

From Rilke:
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Living the Questions

Living the Questions, 30 x 30, oil on canvas

I created this painting last Fall.  It has been at a Seattle gallery for the past few months and I'll be bringing it and another 6 paintings back to my studio this weekend.  The Seattle gallery was not a good fit for my work.   But as an emerging artist, I guess this experience had to be lived so that I would understand what is important to me as I move forward with entrusting others to represent my work.

The Rilke writing that inspired this painting is a favorite of mine. I have found myself returning to these words often, and consequently created two paintings inspired by them.  As an artist, I am continually struggling to manifest on canvas through globs of paint  the "something" inside me.  And as I do, I inevitably unearth another unknown, so that the process continues--questions unfolding onto new questions.  I believe that the beauty of being immersed in your craft and living a mindful life--and the true advantage of working on a creative endeavor.  These words also serve to remind me to carry on.  It is through the work and the living that meaning is revealed. 

I want to ask you, as clearly as I can, to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were rooms yet to enter or books written in a foreign language.  Don’t dig for answers that can’t be given you yet, you cannot live them now.  For everything must be lived.  Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answers.   Rainer Maria Rilke

Here are the other paintings that will be back in my studio (and at artwalk this month).

What you cannot Hold, 24x30

The Far Places Within Me, 30 x 30

Like Mist from Unhurried Clouds, 30 x 30

Too Vast to be Contained, 30 x 40 in

Nimbus Grey, 50 x 70

Like Mist from Unhurried Clouds, 30 x 30

Finished

When the Knowing Comes II, 18 x 18 in, oil on canvas

I've been teaching a bit of art to elementary age students this summer (well, I've been doing that for many years now) and didn't have much time in the studio this week.  But I did manage to add a glaze to this painting (shown in my previous post) and frame it up.  I'm really thrilled with how the orange warmed up the painting and made it feel even more connected to the sentiment of the poem.