What is a civilized nation?

Jean Jacques Rousseau has been one of my most favorite writers if not the One. I am happy to be reminded of his thoughts on nature and the human spirit. I am a French native. He was telling his countryman to go back toward nature, as to keep going in the direction the world was going was detrimental to the soul. He also said that he felt that it might be too late for the country. What does it mean to be civilized? What is a civilized nation? I came to the conclusion that the most civilized people in the world might very well be the ones a lot of people believe live without our "civilized comfort".

Other aspects of landscape

My quest has been to represent humanity as a part of nature. It is a part, I believe, of

Crescent Moon Giclee on canvas  click image to enlarge

our total landscape here on Earth. Yet somehow when "landscape" is mentioned, we expect vistas, trees, mountains, grasses and not much more. What about the landscape of the face? The spirit? The universe?

The hard road back

Though I personally studied everything I could get my hands on, art for me was put into a special place in my heart to draw out later. How I yearned for that time… later, later. It was not a choice I wanted to make--for my hands longed to paint the voice of my heart. However, those years of not painting were not wasted years. They were spent healing a little girl's spirit from an invasion that threatened to destroy her very being. At the age of three, I, along with my two brothers were kidnapped at gunpoint and threatened with our lives. So began the long hard road back. I have loved my journey, and though traumatic and painful at times, it taught me to look deeply at things, to see the beauty beneath the surface. To feel compassion and to have faith in the fortitude of the human condition and spirit.

Art and sisterhood

I'm a writer committed to promote traditional and contemporary African arts. At the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), held last month, there was one corner that was sizzling with feminine energy. The ZIFF Women's Panorama, through its array of activities - film screenings of movies on women, by women, or for women, workshops and stage performances - aimed to increase awareness of gender equity and associated issues, giving agency to women as doers rather than as victims or objects. One of the strongest deliveries of these messages was through an art exhibition titled Look into my Soul, a commentary on sisterhood compiled with input from women artists from all over the world. ZIFF had made a call for artistic works that portrayed spiritualism, feminism and culture. Questions arose: Are women all over the world that closely connected? Do the geographical distances, different political and social systems, politics, religious beliefs and even colour, dissimilarize women's view of specific issues? Can art transgress these borders?

How do you begin?

I walk and I see signs of my four-footed and winged neighbors, their footprints crisscrossing with mine. The unseen talk to me through the corn-tassels rattling and the waters rushing. How do I paint this? The constant travels of clouds across the great dome, ever changing. Their shadows defining the sleeping dragons of the hills that ring my valley. I particularly love the slanting rays at the beginning and end of the day, and also the contrast of rush of color against utilitarian farm structures. But how do I define all of this in paint? Is it by the picture frame of my window? Is it by the random collision/confinement of rural expanse on to four sides of a canvas? How in the world does one collate the cone of vision with what I feel about this landscape, how it molds to my boots and grates beneath my feet and caresses my very skin, its ever changing moods? How do you begin to paint landscape?

Good for the soul

We were lucky enough to purchase some farmland in the middle of nowhere (the

Quantity Time character design by David Tierney-Kanning  click image to enlarge

closest town is 7 miles away with a population of about 200). My oldest son, who was about 13 at the time, asked me why in the world would we buy a chunk of raw land with "nothing to do" anywhere nearby. My response seemed a bit corny at the time. I replied that there's something about standing on the crest of a hill, looking to the horizon, feeling the wind on your face and smelling the sweet smell of freshly turned ground that refreshes your soul. He, of course, looked at me as if I had been drinking heavily.

A few years later we were driving out there—he was driving—and he said: "There's just something about coming out here that's good for my soul." If I can, in some small way, create a painting that would capture even a fragment of that experience - I'd say that's more than enough reason to paint a landscape.

No souvenir?

I am always suspicious of vanity as motivation, especially in art. As a practitioner of

Descanso Garden - Suiseki Show  click image to enlarge

natural stone appreciation, I generate no souvenir to leave behind "for the world" as Van Gogh and others apparently wished to do. An affable pack rat, I merely sift, shift and borrow from Mother Nature's strewn field of prefab wonders. Anonymously I share with the passing parade these remarkable artifacts, that their balm for psyche and soul be freely absorbed--albeit through a rather lengthy 'time release', I suspect - but always in the hope that a viewer's initial discovery eventually will be turned to practice, and thus transmitted to others by habit and example. After all, it's not really the Doors of Perception that artists constantly recreate, but only variations of the welcome mat. Is there greater privilege and legacy than that?

(RG note) I know how you feel. My rationalization is that we creators might just have a little obligation to make our inadequate and peripheral attempts to add more of our own touch to the remarkable environment that we have so generously and mysteriously been given. Is that vanity? Or worship?

Is Romanticism good?

I would only add that a new essay should be open to the question: Has Romanticism been good for humanity? I would say no, and that Romanticism is at the root of Western inertia and narcissism. Isaiah Berlin delivered a series of lectures on Romanticism, that was later transcribed and printed. It is top-notch stuff, as is all of Berlin.

(RG note) Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) was a defender of liberalism and a distinguished practitioner of the history of ideas. One of his best-known essays, The Hedgehog and The Fox, focused on the tension between monist and pluralist visions. The Greek poet Archilochus said: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." The hedgehog needs only one principle, that which directs its life. The fox, a pluralist, travels many roads, according to the idea that there can be different, equally valid but mutually incompatible concepts of how to live. The roads sometimes do not have much connection. In Tolstoy, whose view of history inspired Berlin to write the essay, he saw a fox who believed in being a hedgehog. Berlin was sometimes accused of extreme individualism. A good overview of the thinking of Isaiah Berlin is at The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library

Pursuing her dream

I truly look forward to your letters as my hand to hold, your words, the words of a great father and friend. I chanced upon reading that you are giving away free copies of your book -- please share with me this gift. Two years ago I finally decided to pursue my dream to be a painter, to accept and to develop the gift. I've always known as a child that I wanted to be an artist. And there is that typical story that my wish was not supported. I will not blame. Everything happens the way it should. I admire your website, the way you reach out, your sense of humor, your wisdom and your soul in all that I have read from you. Just a week ago was my first "major" group exhibit wherein I showcased 5 of my works. I say "major" because there was more of an involvement in the preparation on my part. I have joined other group exhibits that showcased 1 or 2 of my paintings. I'm just sharing my milestones and my growth. I want to grow and to learn more. I don't know what else to say but write in hope that I did read correctly about your book and wish for it to be a dream come true that I can obtain a copy from you.

(RG note) Thanks Jennifer. My plan was to give a copy of the book to subscribers' favorite protégés to aid in their development and progress. Several hundred artists have written to make the request on behalf of themselves. As I have the strongest feeling that artists need this book, your copy of The Painter's Keys is in the mail. Thank you for your friendship. I sincerely hope you get something out of it.

Motorcycle en plein air

I can put my pochade box and all the needed stuff into the saddlebags on my

Triumph in the Highlands Oil on canvas, 18 x 36 inches  click image to enlarge

motorcycle and zoom off for an episode of in vivo painting and great fun. The human encounters are so "out there" and fun, too. Anyway, there is another good and fellow lunatic who practices the fine art of motorcycling / plein air painting, Donald Neff whom I met through this web site. Thank you very much! He lives in California and I in Pennsylvania. We joke about being the founding fathers of the Motorcycling Plein Air Society of America and being the only two members! Joke's on us, but we know the great joys of being in vivo paintbrush in hand.

Parallel universe

For me nature is a perfect parallel to the universe inside me. It is layered and ever changing. There are the overt and the subtle qualities that I experience within and out there in the landscape. It is sensual and spiritual. Nature grounds as well as elevates me. It brings me to a stillness inside as I acknowledge it with reverence. The variations of shapes, colors, mood, tone and feeling that nature reveals surfaces in my creativity when I paint. I am not literally painting nature, but I am painting my human relationship with it. One amazing and cherished byproduct of painting with basic elements in the abstract is when I step outside after painting I see the world with fresh eyes. The beauty of nature around me is seen and experienced anew. Painting reinforces and heightens my awareness of the presence of nature. It is a gift to be a perceptive--every moment holds the potential for the miraculous.

Can't get started

I just cannot tell you how glad I am that I found your website and letters. I have been at a stalemate for a very long time and cannot seem to get that brush onto the paper. If you have any ideas to help me I would so very much appreciate them. My goal is to be a 'wilderness painter'. I have lots of wilderness around me, living in the UP of Michigan. I have lots of supplies, a very nice studio, but still cannot get started. Sometimes it seems as if my art is calling to me, but something is always in the way.

(RG note) I hereby absolve you of all guilt and obligation. Go forth for three hours into the UP of Michigan and commit thy brush to thy paper. Don't worry, be happy. There's nothing to it but to do it.

Winter solution

I paint watercolor landscapes, always on location, which becomes difficult in winter. Winter in New Hampshire is a serious thing! Yesterday I set up my Golf Studio: I drive a VW Golf. By setting the passenger seat far back, and opening the glove compartment, I nestle in a very large sheet of thick fiberboard. It's big enough to hold a table easel, my big palette and a water container. I live in the country, and my subjects are all around me. Yesterday I drove to various places by our river, which is roaring after a recent rainstorm, and painted waterfalls and flooding river from my warm car, while listening to public radio. It worked very well. This will be my plein air studio for the next few months. Winter is not going to lock me indoors, forced to paint from photos!

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