Picking Up With September, 2001

Last Fall Jim and I saw the art displayed in Northfield City Hall commemorating the fifteenth Anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place in this country on September 11, 2001. Though the show commemorated tragic terrorist events, I found the work largely appealing. One artist’s work stood out from the others because of its semi-representational but primitive shapes created in beige on a charcoal background. “Yuck,” I thought. I’m still thinking about that show.

I remember lying in bed at nights after the September 11th attacks, listening to the silent night sky; no air flights passing overhead. We Americans had entered a new era in our history. Who knew what that era meant yet? The unknown, the partially known? The beautiful art down at City Hall reminded me of what was lost on that September day. The ugly art reminded me of the generalized sick feelings of that time.

When I was taking classes at Hamline University, we read a collection of the poetry of Paul Celan, whose parents died in a Nazi concentration camp. A thick volume; poem after poem. Mostly that poetry left me feeling the same way those charcoal and beige figures made me feel, somewhat moved but not compelled.

What I really remember from Celan’s work is the poem in the back of the book describing his mother in her flower garden before the war, a lovely woman in a peaceful garden, a specific person, a specific flower, a specific memory.

There’s a place for everything in the world in art in some way. Art, after all, is the communication of our experiences in a world full of a mind-boggling spectrum of possibilities.

 

 

 

New Painting and Preliminary Thought

This is how my weekly blog has been going. I post a new entry every week. But, I don’t necessarily start a new week every seven days. This past week, for example.

I’ve done a new painting, morning light shining through dead leaves on my banana tree. In my photo of the event, the light coming through the leaves closest to the source actually glows. The goal–to make my leaves glow as well; my first attempt at such a thing. Very difficult. If you can paint light, you can make your paintings live.

Bits of the yellow leaves do glow the way I hoped. Some angles are better than others. I’m pretty happy with the result. Not so happy though, that I won’t be trying the same painting again, next time with a little bit different format.

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Back to the Passage of Time: I started that loose relationship a few years ago. I remember when I made it up, about how a day could expand or shrink, depending on what I needed it to do. I told a friend about something I claimed to do every day.

“Wait,” she said. “You actually do that every day?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, “But I don’t always start a new day every twenty-four hours.”

I like it. But, my relationship to time isn’t always loose. I remember exactly when I told my friend about the flexible number of hours in the day. It was early September, 2001. Sometimes events are so important that small details surrounding them remain clear by association.

Portraits and the Human Figure

In his artist statement included in New American Paintings 126, Carlos Daniel Donjuan does not refer to his work as portraits but rather, “masked hybrid characters.” But, he says his work is, “acutely personal, often referencing family and friends.” His theme, “alien,” refers to the immigrant experience.

Doll Face watercolor on paper 30 X 22 inches Carlos Daniel Donjuan

Usama Khalid refers to his paintings, also included in New American Paintings 126, as abstract portraits. Facial features are not representational, even though each portrait is titled by the name of a specific person. According to the artist, “I want to capture their emotional and psychological being as well as their physical selves.”

Portrait by Usama Khalid,   Oil and copic marker, 24 X 18 inches

A couple of months ago, before I received my copy of this publication, Byron told me I would react strongly to the cover: Man Who Can’t Feel by David Raleigh.

What a portrait! That’s what I thought. But, according to David Raleigh’s artist statement, this painting is not a portrait.  “I am interested in the human figure and other humanoid forms as physical representations of, or metaphors for, experiences, feelings, and ideas.”

Back to the measure of art that I learned from Mrs. McDaniel during those long ago drawing lessons I loved so much, the ones that confirmed my sad suspicions, but didn’t apparently douse a flame.

The value of a piece of art is measured by the strength of your reaction, not the strength of your affection. I enjoyed the opportunity to see these works, and to read what the artists wrote about them.

Portraits don’t necessarily have faces, and all faces aren’t necessarily portraits.