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'Cerebral' and 'expressionist' not appropriate

"Cerebral" is not a word I understand in the context of visual art without some parameters,

Untitled pencil drawing  click image to enlarge

neither is "expressionist." I am not so worried about my genetic inheritance, as I am about a shared vocabulary. Certainly, 'cerebral and expressionist' describe an entire generation of painters from de Kooning to Rothko to Pollack. Making a piece of visual art involves certain ingredients, of which there are eight: Line, Shape, 3-D Form, Value, Color, Texture, Space, and Metaphor. An artist can use some or all of these elements to make a piece of visual art. Other words that one needs to discuss visual art have to do with composition, i.e., how the elements are put together. This involves familiar terms like, Balance, Pattern, Rhythm, Movement, etc. By the way, the elements of art are taught routinely to seventh graders in California public schools.

Find a child

The number one factor that holds us as artists back from experimenting with a new method,

What Dreams May Come? charcoal drawing  click image to enlarge

style, or even a new genre is fear--fear of failure, fear of not having our work accepted, fear of not fitting into the neat little mold others have made for us. Take a lesson from a child: I recently listened to my daughter's incessant pleas to try drawing something out of my imagination rather than just churning out yet another representational painting. The experience was so freeing, scary at first, but freeing just the same. Since then, I've found my 'safe' representational work to be even more expressive and interpretive of my emotions at the time. So my advice is: go find a child, a fearless child, and let them do the talking. Then pick up your tools and go flying. What Dreams May Come?

No need to be an 'art farmer'

'Creativity exists more in the searching than in the finding.' (Stephen Nachmanovich) It's not very creative if you keep tilling the same field over and over. That makes you an art farmer, not a creative artist. By trying new things you come upon ways and means that work for you that you would have never found staying within your comfort zone. Besides, it's more fun which should be reason enough if you happen to be right brained. That's also part of why some of us can easily do a week's research before beginning a painting that only takes 2 days to complete.

Express your experience

If the intent is sincere, the work has integrity. It doesn't matter how it was born,

Crescendo oil painting  click image to enlarge

cerebral or expressive. Both forms are creation, one involves the intellect more, one the gut, another the heart, etc. The goal is to get all of these facilities working together and creating your own unique expression of your experience here. To eliminate any of these impulses is to limit the potential of the painting.

Listen to your intuition

I am half way through the book, The Judgement of Paris by Ross King. He compares the artists Meissonnier and Manet during the decade of the 1860s Paris. Two very different styles and since I had never heard of Meissonnier until I started to read this book, it is obvious whose art became popular. Both artists followed their particular style, but Manet experimented and harkened to the changes in society. A fascinating book that also shows the effects of politics on art, helpful in backhanded ways. Reading about Manet's struggles emboldens me to keep listening to my intuition.

Not all art sells well

There is nothing like an octopus story to shake a person out of the doldrums! It amazes

Monet Plus 4 mixed media tryptich  click image to enlarge

me how otherwise open-minded earth-friendly artists can feel so righteously "right" about their favored type of art, and for that matter, art career path. The two issues are related in that competition-worthy art is not necessarily a popular seller. Hard-wired religious-like fervor makes as much sense as any other reason. Thanks for the new perspective.

Fighting a natural tendency?

My natural inclination as an artist is to see and paint a lot of details to express the

Courtyard on the Grand Canal oil painting, 36 x 24 inches  click image to enlarge

visual elements that caught my eye when the subject first appealed to me. Yet, when I like a painting by someone else, it is nearly always very loosely painted and lacking in excessive detail. Periodically, I challenge myself to paint as quickly as possible and to place the emphasis on a broad statement about color and form rather than on a close representation of what I see. These paintings rarely turn out well, in my eyes, and don't sell. I keep hoping that forcing myself to try this approach will have an effect on all my paintings by adding subtle changes to my painterly vocabulary. It often just seems like wasted time, and sometimes I am not sure whether I'm learning anything new or just fighting my natural tendency towards detail.

Follow your instincts

Every artist at one time or another wonders and frets about are they "with it." I too still think about it, but age and experience is a wonderful thing, through it you realize that the only thing you can do is do what "drives" you at any particular time. In graduate school I saw people experimenting and trying to be "with it" or current or relevant. Most of these efforts were stilted and forced, it seemed to me. I'm not against experimenting, but you can't experiment beyond who you are, and part of making work is finding out what is naturally or innately within you. I've learned that you cannot force change, it has to happen on its own out of doing work. And it will, if you pay attention and follow your instincts and do the best work you know how. Change will take place on its own. Learning to trust that it will takes time and paying attention to what is happening around you and within you, and then, take your best educated guess.

Influences of life and therapies

In therapies such as Feldenkrais and in practices such as yoga we are encouraged to balance

Return To Providence oil painting, 12 x 12 inches  click image to enlarge

our bodies by retraining. We can retrain the body to not be so one-sided as in right-sided tendencies or left-sided. In doing this we also open up new pathways in the brain that open up possibilities and flexibility. This allows us to have the ability to have a wider range of approaches. If we have a habit of doing something that is not healthy, perhaps as simple as how we stand, sit or breath, through awareness we can retrain the body/mind to improve our situations. I think our capacities are far beyond what we know, so when we open up to new ways of being or creating we are tapping into deeper resources and potentialities. I have found that seeing something that inspires me can affect how I feel, perhaps more optimistic and what I paint, perhaps with a sense of liberation the work is more animated. I feel a shift because of awe-inspiring experiences. Life itself awakens the new that exists within us.

Enter the adventure

There is a film about a remarkable man named Leo Breuman who is a

Blue Mussel Wave watercolor painting  click image to enlarge

tiny-in-size-but-not-in-spirit man, crippled harshly by a condition. The film shows his triumph over adversity. A quote from the film: "An action need not alter the course of human events to be heroic. Courage is a factor found in many seemingly insignificant acts." In my art classes, I often tell my students that even changing the kind of brush you use, the type or size of paper, the pigment you're about to reach for, the subject matter you choose - all new choices made demand a certain kind of courage. It may not seem much to others, but we all know how tremulous and excited we can feel when attempting something new. Enter the adventure. Be scared so that you can come out on the other side with a richer sense of who you are.

Art at its best is pure invention

We're not done. We're still evolving as a species. And who better to be on the cutting edge

Charly  click image to enlarge

than the practicing artist. Art at its best, when practiced with its deepest intent is pure invention. The artist, when freed from even his/her own practiced habits, beliefs and influences, becomes by nature an anarchist. In some way we are both a danger, (to the status quo, i.e. rule-breaker) and a savior in that we put our selves up as 'creator' everyday. There's only one hope left for this world and yes it is partnered forever with 'change' but we must remember it comes with the responsibility of awareness, of reflection, review and an acceptance of the 'new'. We are ultimately defined and designed by the artist from within and without. And No, Robert, April fools or not, 'remote-brush' ain't going to help us evolve. We are still tribal by nature: You'z got's to be there Bobby.

Identifying with our archetypes

We all seem to have these sides to us, or different faces, that are different hats. Some of these personalities/ideas are small and petty and others kind of formidable and daring. I think all of us carry within all the ancient gods of the Romans and the Greek and probably all other deities and demons ever created in the image of man. We have smallness and greatness within us. What we do in any given situation seems to depend on which archetype we identify with and act out. I personally am in tune with something that makes me want to experiment. I get tired of doing things the same old way and feel an urge to move on in my art. Right now I seem to be moving towards wanting more texture in my paintings. More 3-D. More something that comes out of the canvas surface. But what really fascinates me about these experiments is that at the same time I am still also working with totally 2-D paintings. Change is gradual and seems to come in waves. It is like taking two steps forward and one step back. But a part of me always wants to experiment with new subject matter and techniques I have not tried before. I cannot stop this. Nor do I try. Stepping into the previously unknown is a reward in itself. It makes you feel very alive.

DNA determines your type of art

I am a firm believer in artistic capabilities being passed down in the genes or DNA. My

Tea House Japanese Garden watercolor painting, 22 x 15 inches  click image to enlarge

paternal Grandfather, Samuel John Ireland (1854 -1915), lost his father when a babe of 4 months. Miraculously he received a stellar art education in England from a Huguenot family of considerable means. After 7 years at what became the Royal College of Art, travels to Europe and postgraduate studies at the Academie Royal des Beaux Arts, Antwerp, he held several teaching positions in England, specializing in architectural and mechanical drawing, plane and solid geometry, culminating in a teaching post at King's College, London. From there he was selected to emigrate to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1886 and the post of Principal of the then Hamilton Art School where J.E.H. MacDonald was one of his pupils.

My affinity for detail is undoubtedly in my genes and those of my brother and some of his children. It is a characteristic of my painting that I have tried to overcome but it quite simply will not go away. Over the years I have reconciled myself to what is "me" and have come to enjoy and cherish the gift.

Evolution of an artist

Over the previous 30 years I had been happily painting in the style that had naturally

Sunset on Isis oil painting  click image to enlarge

evolved. But about four years ago I became increasingly displeased with the way my artwork looked. I was no longer comfortable with viewing my own work. In short, it had become so boring to me that I couldn't stand to do another painting in the same style.

The first thing I had to do was to find out exactly what was bothering me. Was it just boredom or was it something more? I turned inward to ask myself what it was that I appreciated in paintings by others that was lacking in my own paintings. What I discovered was that I didn't appreciate my application techniques; there was no expression in the way the paint was applied to the canvas... no passion came through the technique. I had been successfully rendering paintings that produced a good income for me through the galleries for decades, but I wanted more. I found that I still enjoyed my plein air paintings but not my studio work. I felt the vibrancy of the quick on-location paintings, but not the large format work done in my studio for which I am most noted.

I began experimenting with heavier paint through the use of larger brushes but it hurt my shoulder to work this way. So I began applying paint with a palette knife and combining the brushwork with palette knife until I could merge the two techniques into one unified style. As I began working this way, I found that the paintings were exhibiting the feeling that I was searching for. The process of painting this way is totally different than my previous style, too. I work in layers with a larger variety of colors, creating final colorations through combinations of hues and tints. The work still has my basic concept of appreciating a realistic image, but it is now done through an almost abstract technique. The magic of this illusion is now one of my most coveted enjoyments about my paintings and the process of creating them.

This whole evolution did come with some negative feedback from some of my galleries. Not from the gallery owners so much as from sales staff. Typical comments were: "So and so came into the gallery today looking for another of your paintings to buy, but didn't like the new work." To their credit, the galleries were understanding and did not try to tell me what I should be painting. As one door shuts another opens, and I have found that others are intrigued by the new work as well. There is something to be said for finding a unique avenue of interpretation. Galleries and collectors that would not have appreciated my earlier style are quite interested in the new approach.

There is always an inherent risk in making changes, but I didn't become an artist to get rich, but rather to create. And an artist must evolve to quell the voice within and find new ways to speak unspoken ideas.

April Fool's joke?

Dude, did only a handful of responders to the LongBrush realize it was an April Fool's joke, and a good one too? Things are way too serious!

(RG note) Thanks Katherine. Most people got the joke but we didn't include many of their letters. A few didn't, or partly didn't, and many of those who didn't were able to indicate even more remarkable possibilities for such a machine. Seriously, thanks to all who wrote in response to my April Fool's effort whether they did or they didn't. See previous clickback.

Give some thought to giving the gift of the twice weekly letter. Andrew has set up a special place for this. You can send the letters to one special person or to as many friends as you wish. We will send these new people a card to inform them of your personal gift--and your good wishes. "The best things in life are free."