How To Learn

Out of the Dark, Watercolor on Paper, 2017

About twenty years ago, I attended an information session about the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Hamline University in Saint Paul. The program was well attended. The group consisted largely of  well-educated professional people, including physicians and attorneys. I left the room essentially repulsed. Something like this: Oh my gosh, we can’t get out of school and live.

Okay, I’ve been to Hamline. But, right now, I’m anti-school again. I’ve been told how to write, how to paint, how to cook Chinese, how to do yoga, how to pronounce Senor Your Teeth, what to think about God; I am clearly over-taught.

So, for the past year or more, I’ve been trying to figure out new things on my own (and with Zane). I’ve been having a really good time. You can see my most recent adventure above, part of one particular rose.

I have a lot of trouble painting shadows. I scrubbed and repainted the center of that rose so many times I ruined the paper. Finally, I looked online about how to mix the color burgundy. Part of the equation is brown. I like to make my own brown paint. So, first I mixed the brown, then I added more red to make burgundy. I used both mixtures in the center of the rose. Then, I had to make the light spots with gouache.

Last Thursday, in order to clear our minds of Manchester By the Sea, Jim and I drove straight from the theater to Barnes and Noble, where I bought a new painting book about creating light in your watercolors. Instead of starting my next painting, one I want to glow with golden light, I’ve been practicing the exercises in the book. Blah! Boring, boring, boring.

Boy, just try to tell me what to do these days. Well, I don’t know. Maybe that never was easy.

Martin Luther at MIA

I don’t know what the crowds were like throughout the MIA’s recent Martin Luther exhibit, but when we went on Saturday, the day before the show ended, I felt like I was trying to push through the crowd during the big parade at the Minnesota State Fair. Volumes of people; volumes of displays. I don’t actually remember ever being in a more crowded space, not in Rome at St. Peter’s, not in the Louvre, not in Grand Central Station in New York. Masses of people, and seemingly thousands of items on display.

Jim and I were treated to this experience by our friends, John and Laurie. I lost track of all three of them as soon as we entered the exhibit hall, and I never glimpsed anyone I knew until I left the exhibit on the other side. How much can a person absorb in the presence of such a wealth of opportunity? The answer is always personal, and only a small portion of what’s in front of you.

But, interestingly, now that I’ve gone back to read some of what has been written about the exhibit, the items I found particularly interesting or moving have largely been the ones highlighted in the writing about the exhibit, satirical posters advertising controversial subjects during the Reformation, a drawing by Albrecht Durer, the Disputation Lectern from the University of Wittenberg with The Name of God written in Hebrew, a few simple symbols that I cannot read, and wouldn’t completely understand if I could, as it should be, the pulpit from which Luther preached his last sermon two days before he died.

In 1564 the heavily indebted sons of Martin Luther sold the house that he had lived in to the University of Wittenberg. The lectern was created more than 100 years later in the large auditorium in the upper storey of the house. It was used for lectures and scientific disputes – the disputations. Executed entirely in the baroque style of the times, it is a reminder of the phase of the 16th century, which was so important for Wittenberg University and for the role of the university in the early phase of the Reformation.

This pulpit was dismantled, analyzed, preserved and shipped to Minnesota. It will return to St. Andrew’s Church in Eisleben, Germany, when the exhibit closes Jan. 15. (Evangelical Church of St. Andreas-Nicolai-Petri, Eisleben)

A headline from the Star Tribune reads, Martin Luther comes alive in a powerful show at MIA. Martin Luther’s words, hymns, and teachings have been so much a part of my life that I think he’s really always been alive. Obviously, I’m not alone. Thank you, John and Laurie. What an awesome experience.

 

 

Letting Go

“When you make a thing, part of you goes into it. It’s no small event to let one of your creations go out into the world…” Karen, last week.

Recently friends have inquired about buying my paintings. I was completely unprepared for this idea, and for my possessive feelings that followed. Olivia expressed an interest in the sunflower I painted last winter. I’m very attached to that painting, one of the first I made that felt like a real painting, my first attempt at painting pottery. I felt the same way I used to feel back in the day when one of our little boys wanted to ride his bike to the swimming pool alone for the first time. First thought: No.

One thing about thinking is that it’s almost always, if not always, a good idea to keep doing it even after I think I know what I think.

A few months ago Pat texted me a copy of the Call for Submissions to The Northfield Senior Center Members Art Show. She said, “You should submit.” I felt like some of my clothes had just fallen off. But, I knew I wanted to do it. Patsy helped me choose a painting to submit, and I enjoyed seeing my bird hanging alongside works by other artists. It was the first painting I signed, and now it’s the first one I’ve had framed.

I’ve continued to imagine some of my paintings hanging on walls out there in the world, away from me. Idea: I’ll make another sunflower painting. If Olivia likes that one, then I will let her have that one.

Watercolor on Paper 12/2016

Wrong. I painted the center of the big flower first because I decided there was no point in continuing if I couldn’t get that part right. As soon as I put one yellow petal next to that brown center, I knew that painting wasn’t going anywhere. But interestingly, I thought maybe the first one could go…maybe.

In the end, or at least currently, when I imagine a painting I made going off somewhere, off out into the world, it seems like a small part of me went on to be free, went on to live.

 

 

 

 

 

Portraits, Courtney and Byron

For seven or eight years now, Courtney’s been creating a themed card with Byron for the holidays. Portraits painted by Byron this year. In Byron’s self-portrait, he is wearing his Grandpa Lowell’s Buffalo plaid jacket, which he has had refurbished and resized to fit. It captures a moment in time, and expresses meaning and so many memories contained in that physical possession.

Courtney’s portrait marks a certain lovely time very early in their relationship. I don’t remember for sure if Jim and I met Courtney first, or if we met her portrait first. The painting accurately captures her beauty and lively nature. I love it. I love the way her eyes are so deeply in the shadows, but still clearly show her expression. I love the set of her mouth, the way its set and matches the expression in her eyes. That portrait is gone from our family now. It belongs to someone else, somebody I don’t care about. I think Courtney wishes she owned that painting. I know that’s what I wish.

Byron and Courtney, paintings Byron Anway

Recently, I wrote about the bonfire Byron hosted last fall, when he burned so many of his old paintings. I’m buying a photograph that records that event. When you make a thing, part of you goes into it. It’s no small event to let one of your creations go out into the world, or in the case of the bonfire, out into the ether. Except for hats, jackets, shoes, and boots, Byron is not a hoarder. He wanted to make a fresh start in his painting life. Fire is a cleansing agent. He’s starting to think about painting fire.