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Volume 16 Number 2, December 2011

Full Circle...

a cyclic meander over the years describes some of my thoughts of late. A news story about the opening of the Clyfford Still Art Museum in Denver caught my eye and brought to mind the huge paintings I saw in various museums on the East Coast as a young adult.

At that time in my life, I had yet to experience the ragged, jagged peaks of the freshly glacier-sculpted west. I had only seen the more rounded tops and deeply water-cut hollows of the ancient Appalachians that surrounded me where I grew up. Now, when I see the art of Clyfford Still, I think arête.

The North Cascade National Park is rich in these knife edge ridges that result when mountain ranges are eaten away by glaciers on either side. The word arête means fishbone in French. Many climbing terms originated in that language as it was often the language in common among the various people climbing in the Alps.

I was blessed with parents who loved to collect and impart knowledge and I suspect that I caught the bug. Therefore our family spent a lot of time in museums. My mother’s favorite was art museums while my father’s was history and natural science.

I remember standing in front of huge canvases by Morris Louis or Clyfford Still as a teenager. Of all the art I saw as a child, it is these painters whose images leap to mind when I remember wandering through the museums as a child, experiencing the newest Abstract Expressionists and Color Field painters.

As I study my recent painting of Dorado Needle, I can see clearly the impact of these early influences. No, I don’t pour paintings, but yes, I do love color and the flowing edges of natural shapes and the flickering jagged edges of the granite in this painting of the McAllister Glacier.

Can an artist avoid influence? I do not believe it is possible or even desirable. I am haunted by visual images for years. Therefore I know they must influence how I see and categorize the world. Thus they affect my selection of subjects and the emotions that I am experiencing as I paint.

I confess that at the time I intensely disliked the Professor who kept pushing me toward Abstract Expressionism and felt more kindly toward the Professor who taught the color and design classes. Now, I see that childish rebellion does not overcome the influence of a persistent teacher. At that time, a love of drawing kept me firmly anchored to the experience of the world of things. So here I hang, suspended between the worlds of abstraction and realism still.

Swinging like a pendulum, my paintings approach the extremes but don’t ever get there. I feel the tugging, but am not satisfied with either extreme. From year to year, my interest and taste change and I produce work that leans more one way or the other.

In some ways, it is easier to meet my goal of releasing emotion in the viewer when I paint more abstractly. The elements of the composition are easier to arrange to purpose without the need for a recognizable subject.

But the challenge of using an actual subject, a particular mountain for example, brings out my resolution to achieve an image rich in metaphor. Viewers often ask if these are particular mountains. Indeed they are, and they are of course mountains that I have climbed and hiked around.

When you have climbed up, crawled in a crevice, slid down snow or scree, it is so much easier to portray these complicated forms. Even so, it has been so many years since I collected my reference materials that I often need to look at topographic maps or Google Earth to verify what I think I remember about the lay of the land.

It was after a visitor to my studio pointed out that the painting I had titled Boxer Ridge was actually Cutthroat Peak, that I had to go to the maps and see where I had gone wrong. It was the similarity in shape of HiBox and Molar that caused me to mis-identify this mountain initially. While doing research, I went through my slides of Cutthroat taken during a climb and decided that I should paint the other side of the mountain as well.

The first view was looking roughly South from Cutthroat Pass and this new painting is looking roughly Northeast from the approach in the meadows above Highway 20. This view shows the empty glacial cirque (another French word meaning arena and describing a bowl shape on the side of a mountain). The Southwest exposure melted the glacier on this side of the mountain first. There are still glacial remnants on the cooler sides of the peak. The approach is through lovely mountain meadows full of wild flowers in season. Which reminds me, I should let all of you who love the mountains know about the book of John Scurlock’s photos of the North Cascades in winter titled Snow and Spire. His photography is superb aerial views of the mountains in varied weather and lighting conditions. This will be the only way most people will be able to see the fantasy land nick-named America’s Alps.

It is unfortunate that these sights are hidden by the foothills and lesser peaks. At least, everyone can drive up to the Artist’s Point at the Mt. Baker Ski Area (usually the road is open in August and September) to see wonderful views of Mt Baker and Mt Shuksan among others. I have been up there often. The view I had of the clouds spilling over Shuksan arm around sunrise in September one year deserved being painted. This is a place I return to again and again, especially now that my knees won’t take me far on a mountain trail.

Artists are lifelong students and must be constantly honing skills. As such, I have deliberately tried some paintings using palette knife and oil paint sticks to focus my mind on color and shape, not detail. I have included a few of these painted etudes above for your enjoyment. Note that these are smaller works, so that I can finish them quickly, similar to a musician practicing etudes and scales.

This has been a good year and I expect that next year will be even better. My recipe for a good life is to ignore the tv news and focus on the beauty around us. I count as blessings all my good friends and patrons, good health and my studio.

In a few days, the sun will be setting as far south as it goes in the winter solstice. I love these brilliant sunsets where the sun backlights the birches and gilds all the surfaces. The rich amber light through my kitchen window seems a special gift to treasure in these darker days.

Soon the days will be growing longer and the sunset traveling north. Again my kitchen view will be ordinary until the fresh greens and flowers of spring.

I am planting a Daphne Odora to welcome the coming spring with sweet scented flowers. A fine thing to look forward to every year in the garden.

I wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Rosemary

Volume 16 Number 1, June 2011

Sleeping Beauty...

is the title of an expansive painting you may remember seeing in my studio. This has been one of the most popular of my recent paintings but at 46” x 60” has been too large for the average collector. I am thrilled to let you know that it has been selected by an art consulting firm for purchase as a part of the art collection for the new Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington.

I really love to paint so large that the viewer is engulfed in the experience of the art, but I must confess that I pay the price in the larger investment of time and money as well as difficulty hanging, shipping and showing these larger pieces. If you have a large wall I would love to have you adopt one of my larger works. Recently, it has been the larger work that has sold the best for me and I am very encouraged by that. As many of you already know, I rent a large studio specifically for the production of larger work.

This year, I spent May and part of June in Trondheim, Norway, which is about at the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska. In contrast, Seattle is about the same latitude as Paris. What a difference this made in the weather. Trondheim was warmer than Seattle during April and early May and the days were very long. So long, in fact that I never saw the stars in Trondheim. “Find those thick black garbage bags and the stapler” I cried. “I need some sleep!”

When I lived in Alaska, I adapted to the summer frenzy of long days and the winter semi-hibernation caused by the extreme variances in day length. Now having lived in Seattle for a while, I am not as adaptable. I find I need my sleep. If I had not been so tired from the cleaning and scrubbing and house painting, I might have stayed awake to record the ethereal shimmer that comes off the fjord at night this time of year. But alas, I had very little time or energy for the landscape. I did manage to get one afternoon of taking photos for use later.

The other real problem this year has been the extreme variability of the weather. Marble sized hail, thunder and lightening with fierce gusts of wind for 5 minutes then 10 minutes of sun, then another 5 minutes of heavy rain, followed by 20 minutes of clear blue sky was the rule of most of the days. The fantastic lighting effects were often just too short lived for me to even grab a camera let alone do a painting on location. I viewed photos on a laptop screen to paint these few small watercolors using a tiny travel watercolor kit.

The sense of illumination in my paintings is the first thing that viewers mention. I attribute this to my extreme sensitivity to light making me more aware of its presence or absence. Every year, in March, the increasing day length and stronger sunlight from a sun higher in the sky have raised my energy levels and increased my urge to paint the world as I experience it. Often, my best painting of the year will be the one I started in March.

I continue to paint in the series of mountain views that I started working on as a result of a week spent in Denali National Park in Alaska, painting the wild scenery in 2003. This rekindled my love of mountains, glaciers and permanent snow fields.

Where did this passion originate? As a child, riding with my family on car trips around the Northeastern United States. To keep us quiet, my father would talk about the geology that we could see along the roadside or at overlooks along the way. My favorite subject was the vast sheets of ice that once crept down the continent from the north, carving u-shaped valleys, leaving moraines and glacial erratics. There were also the rare cup shaped depressions, a hole with no drain outside, caused by the melting of a big buried chunk of ice or the collapse of a cavern in limestone. I competed with my brothers to be the first to identify these features as we drove by.

I have no words to adequately convey the joy I felt on my first trip to Mount Rainier, seeing the glaciers up close. A dream of a lifetime come true, leading to climbing, backpacking and skiing in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska for many years.

I started sketching and painting outdoors as a child and continued it all my life, adding photography, watercolors and oils painted on location to my experiencing the beauty of the wildest places. There is a change that I experience in my relationship to my surroundings when I closely observe and study them. This change of focus occurs either in the process of actually recording them, or when time is short, doing what I call “head painting”. Similar to playing air guitar, I think about how I would paint what I am observing, from the first choice of what compels me to study this scene down to what pigments would I use, depending on the time available.

If you seeing me walking down the sidewalk in a daze, I am probably painting in my head and more or less oblivious to my surroundings. Of course, I am careful not to go off into a painting when I am driving. It is a real treat for me to have someone else drive so that I can indulge in this observational state fully. I did get pulled over once in Alaska for driving too slowly, studying the sunset intently, feeling safe because the road was deserted, I thought. I did not notice the trooper on the side road. Although I passed his sobriety test with flying colors, not having been drinking at all, that experience alerted me to the dangers of head painting while driving and I have refrained from such ever since.

It took a lot of research with Google Earth and John Scurlock’s aerial photography for me to verify the identity of a pass I painted this spring. A visitor to my studio told me it was Triumph Pass and so it was. I had not known it had a name previously. It was just one of many photos I took on a long ago trip into the Picket Range. I really enjoy having visitors who recognize places I have recorded in a painting.

How different it must be to plan a trip with all these resources for route finding and previewing the terrain. To have a sat phone and GPS, does it change the intensity of the experience? I don’t know as my only experience with GPS is in the car “Recalculating” marking my battle with the disembodied voice trying to get me off the back streets and back onto the totally clogged up 405. Thank goodness for the off button.

I finally got up the courage to paint the Terminus of the McAllister Glacier. It is a very complicated scene with all the classic elements of a glacier carving up a mountain and is the headwaters of Thunder Creek. I just wish I had painted it larger, as it is so full of features. But then I would not have had time to paint the one about traversing the glacier which is a partner to an earlier painting titled Inspiration Traverse. As it is, I have two more 40” x 30”drawings completed and waiting to be painted when I can give them my undivided attention.

Of all the places I have been I still think that the North Cascades is the most beautiful. Maybe Arne and I will have time to take the Skagit Tour this summer, so that I can say hi to my favorite peaks.

Wishing you all a gloriously comfortable summer, filled with luscious seasonal fruits shared in good company,

Rosemary

Volume 15 Number 2, December 2010

Shooting Stars...

I painted a view of Cupola Mountain from that trip and a view of the White River in front of Mt. Rainier. It was a long but lovely day, full of beauty and refreshing to my soul. I do not know why but even driving to the top of a ridge causes an exhilaration in me that I cannot explain. I was giddy with joy, not the thinner air. I have climbed Rainier from that side and I know that altitude does not affect me with giddiness. It is the beauty that makes me want to sing and turn exuberant cartwheels. Or just maybe the big dose of Vitamin D from the unfiltered UV?

Fluffy snow the size of quarters quickly piled up to about 4 inches in November. After the storm I was inspired by the light of the low winter sun striping the snow in amber and blue violet as it shone through the trees. It reminded me of all the beauty I studied during the winters in Alaska. The result is a painting of a snow scene of a plowed road in Alaska that had a lot of the same color plus red blueberry bushes beside the road. Sometimes snow is just wonderful with all the reflected colors from bright sunlight.

Of course, while it is actually snowing hard, the light is very soft and flat. Everything is reduced to a monochrome gray, with all the edges soft and blurry. That sort of light is a natural for watercolor, but difficult to capture in oil. I enjoyed sitting in a snug house and gazing at the snow falling on the trees which still had a lot of leaves on them. Fantastic clumps and structures of snow festooned the branches like a fantasy world. When the snow would let up a bit, the birds came flocking for the berries still on the bushes. The finches found it challenging to find a perch in the midst of the inches thick, very soft snow but the robins with their longer legs did better.

I remembered a small painting of finches eating the seeds of a smoke tree. I asked Arne what he could come up with for a suitable frame and he surprised me by milling a rail and stile frame out of some locally salvaged Norway Maple. This unique frame can be either hung on the wall or leaned against a wall and really complements the subject, providing the finishing touch. I am finding myself choosing more natural looking frames for paintings now.

I don't know what has happened to my taste, but it seems to be moving toward the more unusual in presenting my paintings. I find myself repelled by high polishes and shiny things and more in love with pebbles and tree bark. The irregular rough and rugged natural objects are more alluring. I also enjoy being able to use salvaged materials such as the off cut copper that I use for paintings and the tree pruning bits that Arne has made into stands for me. Perhaps it is the fact that each of these is just as unique as the painting within.

Continuing in the bird theme, I painted a view of an eagle in Alaska. I can't remember for certain if this was the Chilkat River Delta. Arne and I had taken a trip there one autumn to view the gathering of eagles for the late salmon run. It is typical to see the eagles perched on any higher point such a bit of driftwood, waiting for an unwary duck or salmon to provide a meal.

In the midst of all this beauty, I became annoyed at my inability to buy shoes that fit well enough for me to walk any distance without discomfort. I found that my toes hurt or my heels hurt, or the shoes rubbed, no matter what the brand or size. I mourn the demise of all the fine shoe manufacturers that we used to have in the USA and Europe. Those shoes fit.

I resolved to learn to make my own shoes. After all, I can make clothes and shoes are just clothes for the feet. No more damaging my feet by wearing ill fitting shoes. I have been watching videos, reading books and searching the Internet for clues on making shoes. I truly do not understand why, with all our sophisticated laser scanners and CAM we cannot get personalized lasts. I think there is a niche that needs filling. The best I could find is a service to scan my feet and select the closest last from a commercial Chinese run and make me a pair of standardized machine made shoes on that last in China. These approximations were quite expensive and limited as to choices so I opted not to try them.

With the help of Arne and many sites found on the Internet, I have learned to make molds of my feet, carve lasts, make patterns from lasts and sew and glue leather and other materials for shoes. I have made 3 pair so far and learned something new with each. Now I am learning how to modify a commercial last to my needs and will make a last-made shoe. Meanwhile, I am wearing Vibram Five Fingers to make my feet happy. They are like gloves for the feet but with a rubber sole. The leather ones really feel good in this weather and I can wear them all day, unlike other shoes. The downside is getting them on in the first place. Arne made me a special toe horn tool (similar in purpose to a shoe horn for the heel) and I also use a chopstick to adjust my toes into the little toe gloves or should that be glove toes? It does get easier every time as my toes learn the new routine. Of course these shoes necessitated a whole new sock wardrobe as the socks must have toes as well.

In August we made a trip to Artists' Point up at Mt. Baker and had a wonderful day with Mounts Shuksan and Baker. The air was so clear, it seemed that we could reach out and touch them. After walking about and taking photos, we noticed on the way down that we could see just the tip of American Border Peak to the North. That reminded me of slides I had taken many years ago from trips into Tomyhoi Lake.

Some friends and I would backpack into the area in the fall, carrying steaks, sweet corn on the cob, instant cheesecake and fishing gear along with other delicacies and delectables and camping gear. There was always plenty of dead and down wood nearby and I could count on catching trout for breakfast. Although the trail had wickedly steep switchbacks, it was short so we could indulge in overloading our packs for a deluxe weekend camp out. We would look across the lake and see mine shafts in the highly mineralized areas there. It was a choice area and quite unspoiled except on the last visit. That time we found goat hunter slums on the lakeshore, complete with whiskey bottles, beer cans and all sorts of tin cans and debris including several hundred square feet of black plastic tied to mangled alpine fir to make shelters. It was the most disgusting sight I have ever seen. We cleaned it up before leaving and packed out as much debris as we could after burning all the black plastic.

The shortest day will soon be here and by the time you receive this, will be past. I am looking forward to the return of the sun to brighten our days and lift our spirits. I wish you all the best for the Holidays and in the year to come. May it be a prosperous and healthy year for all.

Rosemary

Copyright 2001-2010 Rosemary Sylvanus Antel. Email: RAntel@seanet.com
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