A Perfect Storm

A Perfect Storm, 16 x 12 in, oil on canvas

There are moments when conditions are so perfect in the studio--the exact temperature and mix of medium to paint to mineral spirits, the right surface,  the 10,000 hours of practice already applied and the right mindset of the maker--that a painting just happens.  What is most important in these moments is to appreciate the beauty, step back and stop and realize that this particular piece does not need man hours or struggle to validate it--it just is.

“Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life: in understanding as in creating.
There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!”
~Rainer Maria Rilke (from Letters to A Young Poet)

Organs of Sentiment

When I first made the connection between sky and the vast unsayable of Rilke's words, I studied the works and writings of English painter John Constable.  Constable executed hundreds of studies of the sky near his home and frequently recorded the weather conditions that accompanied a particular sketch.  The looseness of the sketches is what attrached me to Constable's work and the statement that he considered the sky the chief organ of sentiment in his paintings. I kept this idea with me over the years as I executed my own sky studies and Reading Rilke paintings.   Sky watchers love to see shapes and objects in clouds--I like to express emotion and the ineffable through clouds.  This everyday object which constantly reshapes itself--the best symbol of impermanence I can find--is also a subject with soft edges and transparency of color which offers me a means to represent space, mass and mood.  I never tire of them.

I've painted clouds when I've wanted to express a particular sentiment--to put into a composition a mood with color and form.  I've painted release and accumulation.  I've painted a letting go.  And so, for an upcoming exhibit I'm going to put together works that reflect the "sentimentality" of the sky, abstracted and painted in my particular way.  Mood paintings of a nature.

Organs of Sentiment will open March 2 at Seattle's Fountainhead Gallery. 

Ornamental Clouds, 48 x 48 in, oil on canvas, 2012  Sharon Kingston  Private Collection

Whatcom Artist Studio Tour

I will be participating for the fourth consecutive year in the Whatcom Artist Studio Tour the first two weekends in October.  This is an opportunity for art appreciators and collectors to see creativity in action and purchase works directly from the artist.  

This series is available exclusively through me and my studio during Whatcom Artist Studio Tour.
The Stimmung series, loosely translated from German as mood picture or atmosphere, is to me  a wonderful homage to the German language of my beloved Rilke and the perfect term to encapsulate my works. 
 

12 x 16 in, oil on canvas

12 x 16 in, oil on canvas

12 x 16 in, oil on canvas

12 x 16 in, oil on canvas

Depth into Depth

Depth into Depth, 50 x 70 inches, oil on canvas, Sharon Kingston 2012

You see, I want a lot.

Maybe I want it all:

the darkness of each endless fall,

the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.

Casual, easy, they move in the world

as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces

of those who know they thirst.

You cherish those

who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it's not too late

to open your depths by plunging into them

and drink in the life

that reveals itself quietly there. 

 

Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Loose and free

In Process, 12 x 16 in, oil on canvas

The weather was fantastic today and so my typical 3-4 hour studio session after work ran about an hour.  I wanted to go kayaking with my daughter and hit a round of badminton with my son.  Sometimes, with this kind of mindset, a studio session can be unproductive (like I should've just skipped it) or it can be loose and free--as it was today.

I'm working on a series of Stimmung paintings--that atmospheric quality that defies borders/definition and allows individual interpretation and response with that left unsaid.  Just the nature of what my intent is with these paintings calls for a certain letting go of what I'm painting.  I guess the process could be equated to a sort of disconnect so that the subconscious takes over--letting the studio fairy in.  Because I had such a short studio session and because these were early stages of the paintings, there was a freedom to my work and a lightness to the application of paint.  I almost always love my paintings at this stage--before they enter into a no-mans-land of not knowing what to do or where they're going.

So glad that I snapped a quick photo of them before I left so that I can enjoy them a bit before they become something else.