Art in my environment
The last time I took art in an actual class was 8th grade. We had a trimester in junior high, and I showed no great gift, but I enjoyed it.
I grew up with art in my environment, as my father was an art dealer. He was the American agent for modern Aubusson (French) tapestry artists, so right there I had exposure that no one else had, and our home was his working office, so the walls filled up with oils, tapestries, watercolors, serigraphs, and gouaches. (Most people couldn't even define those last two--they are a form of multilayer silkscreen and a form of watercolor paint with a binding agent to make it opaque, like egg does for tempera paints.)
I invited my art teacher to visit, and she walked through the house with interest, and turned to my father and said, "Now I understand why Marian isn't afraid to try anything we're doing." Thirteen is such a self-conscious age, and a lot of kids, challenged with something they don't think they know how to do, shrink back and resist. I was game, but I wasn't any great talent, either.
Our local museum had a parent and child Saturday class series, and Carole and I did two of them. They brought in a young artist each time, working around specific exhibits. One was a print-making class, which was fun, but the first was done around a Chinese modern installation, with a Chinese-American artist leading us through various media. We would make something and leave it to dry on the racks, which would be set behind locked doors in the vault till next week. Once I came in and, taking claim on my sheet from the previous week, the teacher said, "I knew that was yours, I could spot it immediately." I guess I was comfortable in swirling colors and textures, in a sense of composition without literal figures of any kind. I could play around, I could find intriguing juxtapositions of color and line.
But I couldn't draw. I could look at a subject still life, and see shape and angle and color subtleties, but I could not translate them to paper from my own brain. I would try, not very hopefully, and give it up because I just 'wasn't an artist.' I have seen teachers who said that anyone can learn to draw if they keep at it with the right direction, and I believe it, but the time, practice, and that kind of teacher just didn't happen. I didn't really pursue the question.
So here I am taking a beginning drawing class at the YMCA because a friend asked me to do it with her. Since this is a friend who is really hard to line up time with, largely because she has serious health problems and disappears off the radar without warning, I was willing. I was also intrigued to take a stab at it, I figured that it couldn't be a major humiliation if everyone was in the same boat. (Turns out some of them have some talent, but that's been fine.)
The second session started yesterday. Eight weeks, and I missed the last two weeks of the previous session because I was away. I spent the beginning of the last round feeling frustrated, and wanting color. How do you show the difference between lighter shades of orange (fake pumpkins) and the glints of light from the high-intensity lamp with only a pencil? I was trying to faithfully and literally reproduce what I saw on the table.
With various subjects, I was inadequate in translating from sight to paper, but I saw details, I saw composition, I saw light and shadow that had to be pointed out to some of the first-timers. I found one real difference from previous half-hearted attempts to 'draw something.' I no longer felt self-conscious about the process or my lack of intrinsic talent. Giving up before you learn anything is a sure way to not gain a new skill, and that's about where I used to be. Middle age is freeing, in terms of letting go of concern for looking or feeling foolish for a moment, of apprehension over the small stuff. I looked at one sketch last summer, and said, "Well, it's not terrible." That's progress.
I described to the teacher yesterday, that I just wanted a little bit of color, some pastels, to make this work. He said I was nowhere near ready for pastels, and I agreed that I understood, but described my exposure growing up and that color was the framework I was immersed in, and I didn't know how to make this work without it. He has talked about shading and going dark without being afraid of it, and I try. I'm doing better. What he said yesterday, though, struck me.
"You have to stop thinking about color, and see just light and shadow. Your brain will skip right past what you're trying to see and plug in what you're used to seeing, what you've been 'trained' to see, whether it's helpful or accurate or not. Learn to shift gears before you go to anything beyond light and dark."
You have to learn to see with a different eye. That's a valuable principle, it applies spiritually in so many things. I am going to keep working on this, mindful that it does take practice, and patience, and trust that there is more to see and try out than comes in an instant. And that's okay.
I grew up with art in my environment, as my father was an art dealer. He was the American agent for modern Aubusson (French) tapestry artists, so right there I had exposure that no one else had, and our home was his working office, so the walls filled up with oils, tapestries, watercolors, serigraphs, and gouaches. (Most people couldn't even define those last two--they are a form of multilayer silkscreen and a form of watercolor paint with a binding agent to make it opaque, like egg does for tempera paints.)
I invited my art teacher to visit, and she walked through the house with interest, and turned to my father and said, "Now I understand why Marian isn't afraid to try anything we're doing." Thirteen is such a self-conscious age, and a lot of kids, challenged with something they don't think they know how to do, shrink back and resist. I was game, but I wasn't any great talent, either.
Our local museum had a parent and child Saturday class series, and Carole and I did two of them. They brought in a young artist each time, working around specific exhibits. One was a print-making class, which was fun, but the first was done around a Chinese modern installation, with a Chinese-American artist leading us through various media. We would make something and leave it to dry on the racks, which would be set behind locked doors in the vault till next week. Once I came in and, taking claim on my sheet from the previous week, the teacher said, "I knew that was yours, I could spot it immediately." I guess I was comfortable in swirling colors and textures, in a sense of composition without literal figures of any kind. I could play around, I could find intriguing juxtapositions of color and line.
But I couldn't draw. I could look at a subject still life, and see shape and angle and color subtleties, but I could not translate them to paper from my own brain. I would try, not very hopefully, and give it up because I just 'wasn't an artist.' I have seen teachers who said that anyone can learn to draw if they keep at it with the right direction, and I believe it, but the time, practice, and that kind of teacher just didn't happen. I didn't really pursue the question.
So here I am taking a beginning drawing class at the YMCA because a friend asked me to do it with her. Since this is a friend who is really hard to line up time with, largely because she has serious health problems and disappears off the radar without warning, I was willing. I was also intrigued to take a stab at it, I figured that it couldn't be a major humiliation if everyone was in the same boat. (Turns out some of them have some talent, but that's been fine.)
The second session started yesterday. Eight weeks, and I missed the last two weeks of the previous session because I was away. I spent the beginning of the last round feeling frustrated, and wanting color. How do you show the difference between lighter shades of orange (fake pumpkins) and the glints of light from the high-intensity lamp with only a pencil? I was trying to faithfully and literally reproduce what I saw on the table.
With various subjects, I was inadequate in translating from sight to paper, but I saw details, I saw composition, I saw light and shadow that had to be pointed out to some of the first-timers. I found one real difference from previous half-hearted attempts to 'draw something.' I no longer felt self-conscious about the process or my lack of intrinsic talent. Giving up before you learn anything is a sure way to not gain a new skill, and that's about where I used to be. Middle age is freeing, in terms of letting go of concern for looking or feeling foolish for a moment, of apprehension over the small stuff. I looked at one sketch last summer, and said, "Well, it's not terrible." That's progress.
I described to the teacher yesterday, that I just wanted a little bit of color, some pastels, to make this work. He said I was nowhere near ready for pastels, and I agreed that I understood, but described my exposure growing up and that color was the framework I was immersed in, and I didn't know how to make this work without it. He has talked about shading and going dark without being afraid of it, and I try. I'm doing better. What he said yesterday, though, struck me.
"You have to stop thinking about color, and see just light and shadow. Your brain will skip right past what you're trying to see and plug in what you're used to seeing, what you've been 'trained' to see, whether it's helpful or accurate or not. Learn to shift gears before you go to anything beyond light and dark."
You have to learn to see with a different eye. That's a valuable principle, it applies spiritually in so many things. I am going to keep working on this, mindful that it does take practice, and patience, and trust that there is more to see and try out than comes in an instant. And that's okay.
Good for you! At least you try. I have about as much artistic talent as an ant. But that reminds me of a joke.
ReplyDeleteA young woman enters a museum of modern art. She knows very little about such art, but feels she should look around. What she sees is intriguing, and then she enters another gallery that she finds to be horrifying -- weird combinations of color, some that look like the artist just hurled paint at the canvas, strange combinations of lines and dots. She is rather put off, but notices a man sitting off to the side. He turns out to be the artist. She says to him "I really don't understand your paintings." He stands, draws himself up to his full height and says haughtily, "Madam, I paint what I feel."
Her response: "Have you tried Alka Seltzer?"
Go Marian! (Me, I'd be sneaking out to the art store and buying those colors. Maybe.)
ReplyDeleteI remember M. Leeb telling me you have to study for ten, draw for one. Study again for ten, draw for one. He actually tried to coach me to learn to really draw, at least at one restaurant one day I forget where on our trip with the Leebs around the country.
ps And now I do with yarn...
ReplyDelete