Stupid remarks about watercolour

In a recent gallery conversation I had with a collector friend whom I had to set

original painting  click image to enlarge

straight, she said: "You know, I really like that piece, but I'd never buy it because it's a watercolor. It isn't as valuable." Where the hell did this rumor start? Are we still living in the dark ages? Of course, we need to consider the source. But people, please educate your friends, family, associates, etc. Are dealers only encouraging the purchase of oils? Has no one ever heard of Sargent, Homer, Wyeth? I don't need to tell you what my primary medium is! I'm doing my part for my watercolor colleagues. Recently, my family has started giving an award to the Currier Museum of Art Show sponsored by the New Hampshire Art Association. The name? Award for Excellence in Watercolor.

Painted the music inside her

I'm a performing musician by trade, but music is ephemeral, and the

original painting  click image to enlarge

performer/interpreter leaves little trace of "soul" once the performance has been processed into some kind of electronic record. Five years ago I started to try and paint the music inside me. I vowed that I would not leave this world without trace. I don't know whether my paintings are any good, but they are original; every stroke of the brush bears witness to my presence in them. My children, friends, etc will know that I have been here. I don't want people to forget me altogether. Sometimes I even think I am a proxy for what my mother did not achieve. That must be my imagination running riot, of course, but who knows? We are all apparently still breathing the air Mozart once inhaled.

Life begins at 55

Over the years we have become friends with Ernest Marza who is still painting at 81,

Evening Light oil on board 20 x 36 inches Ernest Marza  click image to enlarge

using the proceeds to fund his trips and art collecting. How wonderful to be able to do something you love and be paid for it, long into what would be for others retirement. What our friend also told us was that for him, life started getting fun at around 55. He dropped us a note recently saying that he was planning a trip to Paris in the spring--made possible by his continued painting. All I can say to him is "good on you!" That we know him makes it all the more pleasant when we look at his paintings and remember when we bought them.

Still selling?

Being an artist isn't just about painting - in this day and age we have to be marketers

Fairy Bower oil on canvas, 1 x 1 meters  click image to enlarge

of our own work too. Photographing paintings, cataloguing for an updated portfolio, sourcing possible buyers - this all takes an incredible amount of time and energy. It's a bit like asking a barrister "have you been to court lately?" Hello! Most of a barrister's time is spent researching and writing advice. And yet they are known for their fleeting moments in court. Funny heh. Perhaps this whole question about "have you been painting" is more a way to judge and compare - perhaps it really means "are you doing better than me?"

Older and wiser

One of the most important aspects of the 'Aging Artist' is the knowledge and

Beals Island Maine oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches  click image to enlarge

wisdom that the young can learn from the old. I have a very good painter friend and mentor, George Carpenter of Maine, whose stories and advice and criticism are a true blessing. I don't get the chance to visit or paint with George as often as I would like, but a two minute conversation with him on the phone is always a jump start for the artist within. He's been around the block, so to speak, and I find it important to listen. Sometimes I don't agree… until sometime much later when I find that "Ole George certainly was right about that too." As a landscape painter, George is a remarkable and gifted artist. He also has a photographic memory and I've had the pleasure to watch many paintings from start to finish both on location or in the studio from memory. Sitting in a restaurant, I've watched as he makes remarkable sketches on place mats of places he has been with such a precision and feel for the subject. It's a culmination of a truly gifted mind that has been worked hard by the artist who owns it and by the many decades of being productive.

What a way to go

We are all artists and we are all aging, but what a way to go! I find that the older I

Mother Earth watercolor  click image to enlarge

get, the better my art is getting. I think it is the practice. I hope by the time I am 90 to have done something really good. I look forward to the start of each new day. I recently taught a workshop at a new location and during the introductions noticed that almost all of the people there had spent a life doing other things involving technology and intellectual brain activities. They finally now had time to do what they had always wanted to do. I wondered how many artists there are who reach retirement age and then start pursuing a life in computers or science, having put it on a shelf all those years while they carved out a career in art. I want to be like Degas, who said on his deathbed: "Damn, and just when I was starting to get it!" Art makes life great.

Old age security

It was as if it was only yesterday that I was an "emerging" artist and then turned

Hanging Boat metalwork  click image to enlarge

around and suddenly found myself an "established" artist, selling my work across the country, touring kindergarten students through the studio, remitting taxes, paying suppliers. A lot of my non-artist friends are on the verge of retiring, leaving that world of business or teaching behind, concerned about whether they have enough money invested to carry on. I usually have a brief panic attack thinking about my tiny retirement savings, then realize that not only can I keep working, but that I want to keep working until my hands and my eyes don't function any more. My security is in knowing that I have a skill, a vocabulary from my life to communicate my ideas, and just enough business sense to be able to sell what I make.

Worse than suffering?

What is worse than being a suffering artist? Being a successful one! Either way there

Mediterranean Morning acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 inches  click image to enlarge

is judgment! I once was approached by a potential 'business investor' who compared buying art to leasing vehicles. I decided to take a pass. I am left on these days to remember the people who appreciate my art without needing to know anything else about it, other than experiencing their own organic connection to it.

Every day in every way

All I have ever known is that an artist just gets better and is more appreciated and

The Haybales oil, 16 x 20 inches  click image to enlarge

collected as they become elderly--to the point they are considered a community treasure and are helped with physical assistance when needed so they can continue to paint. Gives me a new appreciation for my community. I'm treated so well… to the point I'm stopped often when out by parents with their children wanting to introduce them to the person that painted the picture in their house. Children are in awe--like they have spotted a unicorn. They really relate to something they have lived with all their lives. I have been called numerous times over a battle for one of my paintings in a divorce. I'm 54 and feel I've just started. In fact just signed a lease yesterday to open my own gallery. Retire/stop living? No way.

It's your lobe

It has been interesting for me to read about the "prefrontal lobe cortex" in the brain

Greater Prairie Chicken oil on canvas, 10 x 18 inches  click image to enlarge

that is mostly involved with elaborating thoughts, intelligence, motivation, creativity, philosophy, reasoning, communications skills, sense of morality, concern for others and personality. Artists have a large and fixable prefrontal lobe cortex which contributes to higher mental functions. Also, behind the prefrontal lobe cortex is a strip stretching across the head - the motor cortex which contains billions of neurons that connect with our muscles. Grouping of nucleic acid and protein molecules in these areas contributes to the love of arts. As professor Michael Leyton pointed out: "Art is perhaps the most inexplicable phenomenon of the human species."

Journey to enlightenment

My journey includes a few decades in corporate environments as a person with little

Elbow Falls acrylic on canvas, 36 x 30 inches  click image to enlarge

space for childhood artistic aspirations but constantly yearning for something to pull me away from perpetual depressive moods. Aging for me has been a natural catalyst; it allowed my thoughts to clear, much as if I'd been drinking all night and then found enlightenment in a morning hangover. The spirit of this sobriety is centered in art and my return to childhood aspirations. Life is simply more of the many wonderful things that didn't seem possible when I was younger.

What season is this?

I'm not sure which "season" I'm in. I'm somewhere between "Thanks, we've seen

Jamie enjoys sharing his methods and philosophy.  click image to enlarge

stuff like yours before" to "Now accepting the award for Mankind's Greatest Artist." Recent comments confer upon me the status of "Regional Artist." I'm not sure if that refers to a style, like that of John Stuart Curry, or if they mean I work regionally, or sell regionally, or maybe think regionally. I know one thing for sure, I can't even think locally the day after a 3-day show, like today. There's a definitive response to the aging artist! Shows let the aging artist enjoy the public more; you sort of know what to expect and enjoy the people-watching even more than the other exhibitors. I've learned to write the invoice faster than the patron can say, "I'll be in touch" - write that off to experience in a regionalist's studio! All the shows and exhibits I was in, I always heard, "What do you do--I mean, for a real job?" Now, I get asked how I do it full time. Even other artists, standing there looking at my work, wonder out loud how I possibly can make a living. They leave out the conclusion words… "with this stuff?" Tell me what season I'm in so I can look for the next one!

(RG note) I once personally delivered a commission to a high brow businessman. When his low brow secretary saw the painting coming in the door she exclaimed: "Ten thousand dollars for that thing?" I knew I had entered my "high priced season."

Glorious opportunity

I retired from Lockheed Martin 12/31/04, after 32 1/2 years service. Having the time

Mother and Child original sculpture  click image to enlarge

to spend without the distraction of a 40 hour a week job is glorious. Thoughts and organization seem to work in another realm. The frustration of having a vision and not having the opportunity to "strike while the iron is hot" is counter-productive to say the least. We all have different insights and experiences to draw from and in the sharing we all grow from the experience. "To thine own self be true" will show in your work. How can you know a man or woman's heart otherwise?

Nursing-home artist

I recently lost a friend who was 91 years old, who had to spend the last two years of

original watercolor  click image to enlarge

his life in a nursing home. He figured out how to prop his watercolor board on his walker, and sitting on the edge of his bed, he finished 10 large paintings the last winter of his life. Painting was one of the things that kept him going and interested in life. We can all hope to be so lucky as to be able to continue to paint and enjoy it as long as possible.

(RG note) Thanks Louise. Your friend was the oldest reported artist in response to this particular twice-weekly letter. The youngest (older) artist reported was 32.

The old man mad about drawing

Thanks for The aging artist and the whole series of lovely responses. I expected someone

Katharine Stall

to cite that famous quotation from Hokusai (which always cheers me), but since nobody did, here it is:

"From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create, a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'"

Art therapy

Today I quit my accounting job. I'm not a good accountant. I'm an emotional artist who wants to help others through art. I'm searching for information on "Art Therapy". What better group to help me find a connection than a bunch of artists. Would you have any sources for me? Do you think our clan could help? My Mom always said that it never hurts to ask.

(RG note) Thanks Theresa. I'm sure someone will contact you. For more information regarding Art Therapy, see my letter How art heals. For more related material click below.