PONDERINGS
This weekend Ted Nuttall, a wonderful portrait artist, was here for a visit. He’s toying with the idea of doing a workshop with CCP. He does not want to film a workshop that is only about technique, but rather something that gets to the HEART of portrait painting. I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out what exactly that ‘HEART’ is. Can it be defined? Can it be conveyed in a film?
I see art as an endeavor wherein true excellence entails several critical elements. The first is a mature relationship and proficiency with a medium. One doesn’t necessarily need to have conquered their medium, but an artist does have to be at the point where working with their materials is almost ’second nature’ and they need to attain confidence enough to permit some risk taking.
Secondly the artist must have ‘a handle’ on design. They must have an understanding, intuitive or otherwise, of the impact altering one part of a painting has on the ‘whole’ of the universe within the frame. (I’ve noticed that knowing design and having an ability to draw seems to help make risk taking less risky.)
And the third element is the most ambiguous part that Ted, Virginia Cobb, John Salminen, George James and many more artists I respect all talked about. ART asks us to know ourselves… and I think that is why it has such power for those who pursue it. Art is a visual expression of the journey. It is a snapshot on the path of an artist meeting themselves. ART is the counter balance to today’s age of electronic clutter where the ’self’ can be quickly lost. In good art we find real human expression.
Cheng-Khee Chee said that every painting is a reflection of the artist. I now more fully understand what he was saying. We all have had the sense of knowing someone through their paintings. We can even know masters long departed by studying their work. It is a glimpse into their personality, struggle, and times.
How DOES a teacher create sign posts on the path of self discovery? Now that’s a question worth asking, and it goes far beyond art.
~Lynn~