Any humble task.....

Over the past few weeks I have been working on some larger works, driven by the inspiration I brought back from my stay in Spain.There are interesting developments, with connections between earlier found softness to newly found looseness in painting.
However, none of what I'm working on I'm ready to share yet, except maybe for the two smaller paintings that just needed to be painted: the short-lived radiant yellows of the garden views that just pushed their existence into my daily view.

Besides all that, new canvases needed to be prepared, because it always constricts me if there is not a new batch ready for the moment when inspiration strikes! Thanks to a tip from a reader of my blog I was now able to order pre-stretched linen canvases (I have been on a crusade for the perfect canvas ever since I moved here)
They arrived and are looking promising, and as they are unprimed linen they needed to be primed before I could start.
I have always embraced every part of the profession of artist and priming linen is one of them. Before, I also used to stretch my own canvases, then Artel aluminum stretcher frames came into existence (in Holland) and they were so great (and I was earning enough then to be able to afford them) that I stopped with all that. In the forementioned crusade here in the US, I started stretching canvases again, and in an attempt to make things easier ordered prepared or sized linen, which turned out to be a little too hard to stretch on larger sizes for me. So now I have these pre-stretched beautiful linens and could concentrate on priming them. As the title of this blog indicates, this may seem a humble task, but it's one I love. First you have these flax colored raw linen surfaces, beautiful in that stage too,and looking at them gives you a real feeling of their size. Then when you start putting on the gesso from the center out and feel the tension from the shrinkage of the linen building up surprisingly fast it's wonderful to see that white surface grow. The first layer is always uneven, needs maybe some sanding before the second goes on, but then you get this pristine white plane, inviting your thoughts on what could become of this (always something else as I imagine!)
Preparing canvases is not just about preparing surfaces, it's also about preparing yourself to paint, to gain intimate knowledge of your materials, the tension of the linen, the texture and the size. It's only later in life that I discovered that doing every humble task as if it is the most important one, is one of the Buddhist principles, it's all about being in the moment and doing what is at hand to the best of your abilities and with full concentration - no multi tasking here!
I live by this credo and it makes life infinitely pleasant!

The Rothko lookalike

This is a painting that I have painted some 2 years ago and somehow I never got around documenting it, I just put it up on the wall of our bedroom to enjoy it in private. Why did this happen? It was not because I was not happy with the painting, I was and I still am. It has everything in it that I'm looking for in a painting, rich yet subtle colors, it's focused, the composition is strong but tranquil. And yet I have never shown it. It's because to me it looks so much like a Rothko. And somehow I have trouble getting my thoughts around that. I shall explain: I come of a school of thought where copying other artists was not considered the way to learn art. You were allowed to look at other art and learn from it, but it was stressed that you had to find your 'own voice' instead of copying other artists works.

Now let's make this clear: I have not copied this from Mark Rothko, this painting started out as one of my abstracts with much looser shapes and lines but halfway it decided to become this and I let it be, being very happy with the way it turned out but at the same time not ready to show it to 'the world'. My Dutch friend and painter Louis always says that everything you paint is something you have seen before, somewhere else, nothing is ever new yet it is always new in the way you make it yours. And I agree with him, being a visual creature by nature as a painter, you're always open to shapes, signs, colors and somehow they float around in your memory waiting to find a place in your work whenever you're ready for them. I have always loved Rothko's paintings, I may have been the only 12 year old in my class with a Rothko poster on the wall, where all the others had the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. And I may not have understood his paintings in full at that age but they certainly spoke to me.

Reaching some form of abstraction has taken me a long, long time and it has been an interesting journey. I still do both, the abstracted landscapes and aspects of nature next to the pure abstracts, sometimes the inspiration comes from this side, sometimes from the other.

An inspired art weekend, part two

The second part of our weekend trip (now already some weeks ago) consisted of delivering some more small paintings to The Commercial in Alma. The first batch was already there but the ones I delivered now had been waiting for their frames.
The paintings, of which you see three here are part of a series of small abstracts in oil/cold wax. It's only over the past few years that I developed a taste for exploring small size paintings, and I like the idea of combining a couple of small paintings to create a collage like art work of its own. As in exhibitions, by arranging art work in different ways, you get a new result every time, which I think is interesting.

The (museum quality)floater frames are from Metropolitan Frames from Minneapolis. I order them unfinished and finish them myself in either a whitewash or tinted wash, depending on what the painting asks for, then they are finished with wax.

The Commercial is one of the most interesting gallery/stores that I know here in Wisconsin. Owner and friend Kristine Kjos is a multi talented artist herself and her space breathes her very unique and individual style throughout, both in the layout of the store as in the choice of artists she represents. Her way of displaying and arranging objects and art invites you on a journey through the whole store,where moods are created from playful to dreamy and from tactile to serene.
This weekend (November 24/25)is Holiday Open House at The Commercial, but all through the remainder of this month and December you will be able to find artful and one of a kind gifts there. Some of Kristine's creations will be part of the Polderland = Wonderland show in my gallery on December 7,8 and 9.