Thirty Years

The 30th anniversary portrait of Charlotte Harwell, 2009, 24x30 inches, acrylic on canvas, actual painting title pending. Click on image to enlarge.

Early in the evening of 29 October 1979, a Sears Silvertone stereo is playing a borrowed 1967 first recording of the beautiful Pachelbel Canon in D. I am drawing a picture of a young lady in riding habit looking off to the side. It doesn't take very long to do and at the time I am unusually pleased with the results.....

The original 1979 drawing of Charlotte Harwell, 9x12 inches, graphite on paper.
We were all a lot younger then! Click on image to enlarge

It is hard to believe that 30 years have gone by since I drew the first picture of Charlotte Harwell. At the time, there was no way I could explain why I knew this but even then I was thinking about what a picture of Charlotte would look like 30 years later or to my later surprise that I would somehow still possess the Pedigree Stenographer's pencil used to draw the original image among my oldest art supplies. The link below is to the blog I wrote about her last year that gets a bit at why she had such an effect on me as an artist and as a person.

http://beautifulpast.blogspot.com/2008/10/charlottes-birthday.html

However, there is not a continuous stream of pictures of Charlotte across that span of time. There are some gaps around 1982-84 and between 2004-2006. There are four sketchbooks from 1987 to present and the paintings begin in 1980. Whenever I tried to learn something new about painting or drawing it was to Charlotte I turned. Given the amount of work I had done, I felt very vindicated when Andrew Wyeth's Helga pictures came to light in 1987.

In this portrait, I borrowed a pose from a lovely 1890's cabinet card photograph of a full length portrait of a lady sitting in a wicker chair wearing a striped dress. I retained only the upper body pose and the striped dress. The wicker becomes a cast metal. I had thought about retaining also the photographer's studio backdrop but after some consideration decided to go with a sky background with clouds near the top. Charlotte's long hair was just too beautiful to put up so I left it down in the flowing Pre-Raphaelite manner. Charlotte was a thoughtful person and given to moments of reverie. Reverie sadly became a terribly overdone subject for painters of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Frankly, I didn't care.

As Valerie described it, Charlotte looks as though she is participating in a conversation and is listening to someone that she finds interesting. Or perhaps Charlotte is listening to a favourite gramophone record....

Valerie and I have much to be grateful to Charlotte for as it was her face Valerie recognised when she first found my website six years ago. Valerie remembered her from our time in college and regarded her with much fondness. As we see it, Charlotte bridged the gap between our college years and the present day only to discover we picked up right where we left off as though no time had passed. Charlotte's birthday is a day of thanks for us.

Happy birthday, Charlotte where ever you are....

detail of Charlotte Harwell, click on image to enlarge.

Creative Harvest opening pictures

Valerie with Amor Aeterna

The opening last Friday for the Creative Harvest 2009 exhibit sponsored by Stoner Creek Arts was as delightful as last year's. There were 33 artists participating including Cliff Sullivan, Rebecca Chamberlain (of the Ladies Historical Tea blog) and Sylvia Zingg (a fellow Berea College graduate). It was a delight to see to see them at the opening. As you can see in the photo below, the event was well attended.


In the photo below, a view of Cliff Sullivan's Morning of Reflection. Click to enlarge.

When artist bloggers meet: In this photo, Valerie and I are with Rebecca Chamberlain of the Ladies Historical Tea blog and the Bluegrass Drawing Society. We have a dear friend Polly Singer in common and we all have a great love of Pre-Raphaelite art in common as well. It was a lot of fun chatting with a fellow Dark Shadows fan. Rebecca's Ladies Historical Tea Society blog can be seen here: http://ladieshistorictea.blogspot.com/

Valerie, Patrick and Rebecca Chamberlain
(photo by Beth Hensel)

If you missed the opening, fear not. The Creative Harvest exhibit runs from 2 October to 19 December 2009, so there is plenty of time to see it yet. Not only are there some very lovely paintings on display but also some bronze sculptures and other 3D work. While there, be sure to have a look at the permanent Bourbon County exhibit in the front part of the Hopewell Museum and catch a glimpse of the rich history of Paris and the surrounding communities of Bourbon County.

It's Creative Harvest time again!

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since the last Creative Harvest exhibit at the Hopewell Museum in Paris, KY. Each year, the Stoner Creek Arts group in Paris puts on an exhibit through the auspices of the Hopewell Museum to showcase work by Paris area artists. I submitted Amor Aeterna and My Heart Dreams In A Sea of Stars as my two entries.

Amor Aeterna, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 20x24 inches

My Heart Dreams In A Sea of Stars, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 24x30 inches

Last year's event was a lot of fun, and I hope the same for this year. The opening will be Friday, October 2nd from 6-9 p.m. If you can make it to the opening, I'd love to see you there. Click on the link below for directions.

Link to Yahoo Map directions for Hopewell Museum

Hopewell Museum website link

The Block Party at Failte in Lexington on September 18th was also a lot of fun. Liza Hendley-Betz had the Lexington Irish Dancers there and we got some pretty good turnout, though not as much as the previous block party. The block party was a way to build awareness that the very unique businesses caught up in all the Limestone construction that runs from Euclid all the way to Vine are still open. Failte was a great place to show my paintings and collages and I'm very happy for the opportunity to have shown there for the evening. I'd put up some pictures but I have got to remember to seriously carry extra batteries for my digital camera. I flew out the door without spares. I'll not make that mistake again.

I'm no longer working at the Paris-Bourbon County Library part time and it has felt weird not going to work Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Had to make myself remember not to turn left on 7th Street or that I no longer have to drive at warp speed to get there from Lexington. I miss my friends there but the time I have gotten back has been spent working on my next painting which is a 30th anniversary portrait of Charlotte Harwell. If any of my Paris library friends are reading this, I'd love to see you at the Creative Harvest opening Friday.

I've also been working on a blog posting for my current round of collages from The Penny Dreadful series but I'm not satisfied with the photography of one of the pieces. It's time I set up a new place to photograph my work that is more evenly lit.

Missed an opportunity to show work at the Courthouse Square Art Guild in Carlisle if I remember the name of the group correctly. I was interested in showing with them but it didn't quite work out this year. Hopefully in a future exhibit. I understand they had 190 entries for their current show which is impressive for a fairly new art guild in a small town off the usual beaten path. Valerie and I recently drove through Carlisle for the first time and found it architecturally much like Paris in that their Victorian era downtown is very intact and as alive as any small downtown can be in these trying economic times.

As I said earlier, if you can make it to the Creative Harvest opening, I'll be glad to see you.

Here's hoping for a very creative autumn!

Amor Aeterna

"Next day the memories of these things,
Like leaves through which a bird has flown,
Still vibrated with Love's warm wings;
Till I must make them all my own
And paint this picture.
So, 'twixt ease
Of talk and sweet long silences,
She stood among the plants in bloom
At windows of a summer room,
To feign the shadow of the trees."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1870

The Rossetti quote is from an unpublished poem I found on the Rossetti Archive. It fits perfectly how I feel about the subject of this painting, Valerie. I started this painting last November and through the intensely over scheduled months finally finished it last Sunday. I had promised to tell the story of how it all came to be but I don't think I'm going to keep that promise as I first envisioned it. In this day and age, I don't think anyone would want to read such unashamedly over the top recountings of how Valerie and I met, got separated and found again. It started in the freshman registration line at college, becoming fast friends, developing feelings that we were too shy to tell for whatever reasons, ending up with other people down the road. Years of separation follow and we live surprisingly parallel lives never forgetting the other until one day Valerie recognises Charlotte Harwell's portrait on my website and signs my guestbook. It took many more years until we were finally together again but in all that time our love was never forgotten and grew all the while. We need never be parted again.

I wanted to celebrate that journey with this painting.

The background is a little place called Cushendall in Country Antrim in Ireland circa 1899. It was in a Victorian coffee table book called Pictures of Ireland published in 1899. Because Valerie is a huge fan of the Pre-Raphaelites, I wanted to paint her in that style as much as possible. My work has kind of split off in two directions both still Victorian but I enjoyed very much revisiting my older Pre-Raph style and seeing how it looks years later.

Yes, Valerie has been mentioned a lot in the blog of late but that cannot really be helped as she and Charlotte have had a lot of impact on who I am as an artist over the years. My next painting is the 30th anniversary of the first time I made an image of Charlotte Harwell and there are a number of collages in progress in what I now think of as The Penny Dreadful series. More about that in the coming days. Paintings that I've mentioned in recent blogs are still coming along slowly. Next Tuesday will be my last day working at the Paris-Bourbon County Public Library and I will have more time to catch up on painting etc. I will be sad at leaving such a cool group of people but I can't keep up the pace and still have the time and energy to paint.

A friend of mine has been talking to me lately about legacies and I hope mine is that the paintings outlast me and that it could be seen that the subject in each one was loved.

Showing at Failte-the Irish Shop

I have the distinct honour of showing at Failte-the Irish Shop on North Limestone in Lexington, KY during the Gallery Hop, 18 September from 5-8 p.m. It is a delightful shop that can use all the support it can get during the street construction that is currently going on. For directions click on the website link at right, Failte Irish Imports

The website includes a map and parking directions.

Below is the announcement from the Failte newsletter. Come and show your support for local art and local business. It's well worth the trip downtown!

BLOCK PARTY

On September Friday 18th we are having a block party from 5pm -8pm.
It's the same night as the gallery hop and We are having Our very own Artist.
Patrick Lynch will be displaying and selling His lovely pieces of art. check out His website:
http://www.beautifulpast.net/

We are are also very excited to announce that the Lexington Irish Dancers will also be there doing a jig or two for Us:
http://www.lexirishdance.com/

And now for something a bit different

To Recall the Life That Arose Before My Eyes, 2009, collage, 18x24 inches.
Click on image to enlarge

I Now Know What I Must Do, 2009, collage, 16x20 inches
Click on image to enlarge.

In late 1997, during a terrible painting block, I took up making collages as a way of looking at what I was doing through a somewhat different filter. I'm not in a painting block now because Amor Aeterna is very close to completion but I thought I would revisit the collage. There are a couple of different schools of collage that are incorporating Victorian imagery into their work. The current school is what I think of as the Somerset Studio school of collage which uses not only images but also text, small objects and may also extended to multiple movable panels etc.

An older school of collage is the kind where the image maker has a stack of Dover clip art books filled with wonderful Victorian images and from other sources they've saved of a similar type. Later practitioners of this school make use of computer scans to arrange their compositions etc while others still use photocopiers, scissors and Mod Podge (tm) to create their collages. I decided to be of the old Mod Podge school.

The first two of my collages are posted here. I've saved a lot of material over the years and started looking at it again recently. Instead of mounting my collages to a sheet of cold press watercolour paper as I did in 1997, I decided to mount them to canvas panels using the different sized panels allowed greater freedom of composition. This necessitated making enlargements of my backgrounds and then piecing them together onto the canvas panel. I cut out all of the elements I wish to place on the background and rather than just rough cut and slap them down, I cut out everything very carefully including negative spaces in say the crook of a figure's arm or some part where when cut out would reveal the background.

I also looked at the particular line quality of each element with a view towards matching it. I wanted the collage to have a visual logic to it so that each part would be believable as a whole. One of the developments of the modern photocopier is that you can print images in reverse if desired. In the closeup of the collage below, the lady in the middle ground has been reversed so that her shadowing matches the troubled gentleman in the foreground as well as the lighting of the ruins behind them. The composition is being treated exactly the same as though I were doing a paintings.

I Now Know What I Must Do, detail
Click on image to enlarge

The use of colour is designed to stand out from the sepia toned collages I see so much of which is to say the collage is meant to be brand new rather than a weathered and aged object found in an attic somewhere. The colours also are tied to my normal painting palette but in the case of collage I use transparent glazes so as not to obscure the underlying original detail. My colours are described as jewel toned in my paintings, I wanted to maintain this quality in the collages.

I also want the collages to suggest their own stories in the viewer's mind. Fans of the writing of Wilkie Collins and J. Sheridan LeFanu and other Victorian writers of the mysterious and the fantastic will have no trouble conjuring up narratives in their minds. However, I found that viewers completely unfamiliar with the conventions of the Victorian novel easily came up with universal narrative to describe what they thought the collages were about. Steampunk is a fascination of mine and some of my 1997 era collages were definitely steampunk and some of the 2009 images will revisit some of that territory with a new eye. In the end, the themes of my paintings and my collages are not all that far apart if at all.

Your experience may vary.

The Moody Blues-music for a desert island, a lifetime, the soundtrack for so many paintings and a dream that came true.

The Moody Blues 1969: Mike Pinder, Justin Hayward, Ray Thomas, Graeme Edge and
John Lodge.

This has been a summer of dreams come true and last night was yet another one. Valerie and I travelled to the Palace Theatre in Louisville to see The Moody Blues play live. I loved their music ever since I heard Nights in White Satin on a little AM radio when I was a child in the late 1960's. Okay, to be six or seven years old and love a very intense song about love is a pretty strange thing, but true nonetheless. Anytime the song came over the radio I was completely entranced and I treasured it so much that it was easy to call the song up in my mind whenever I wanted or needed to hear it.

By the end of the 1970's, I had found a couple copies of the 45 rpm single of their biggest hit Nights In White Satin with the song Cities on the flip side. The single got heavy play on my Sears Silvertone stereo. While I was in college in the early 1980's, I started saving up money to buy their albums and ordering from some long forgotten place that still had original 1960's and 70's records still in the shrink wrap. Hearing the entire Days of Future Past album was quite a revelation. Soon, I had everything from 1967-1981 and completely immersed myself in the world of their music.

Over the years, those records got me through both the good and bad years of my life, a touchstone that never failed to resonate. A lot of paintings were done with the Moody Blues playing in the background. I ended up buying duplicate or more accurately, replacement copies of favourite records that I had worn out. I have five copies of Days of Future Past, two of To Our Children's Children, Seventh Sojourn and On The Threshold of a Dream etc. I have some of the solo Justin Hayward/John Lodge records too.

The Moody Blues sang a lot about lost love, that one love that was never forgotten which tied nicely to the themes of my own paintings. They sang about Camelot and knights and to my mind that made them a rather Pre-Raphaelite band at times. They also sang a lot about hope and joy and they were fearless in being true to themselves even when the musical tide turned more cynical and base.

The Palace Theatre in downtown Louisville, Kentucky where they played last night is this incredible restored 1920's Spanish Baroque Revival place where nearly every square inch is pure eye candy. The ceiling of the entrance hall is covered in portrait busts of composers and writers and occasional statesmen of the last two or three hundred years, The performance hall is rich in statuary and the Spanish revival architectural style.

The Moody Blues 2009: Graeme Edge, John Lodge, Justin Hayward

When the room lights went down and the spotlights went up, The Moody Blues took the audience on an amazing musical trip through the decades. The band is down to three original members, Justin Hayward, John Lodge and Graeme Edge with Ray Thomas having recently retired. They added some new members for the tour to cover the flute and keyboards and had a second drummer on the riser. Without going into a huge review of the show, I'll say that The Moody Blues were as good or better than ever losing none of what made them great and having the experience and the good fortune to carry that into a fourth decade. At the end of the show, they thanked the audience for keeping the faith. I, in turn, thank them right back.

In the autumn of 1980, I was pining for a young lady for whom I was too shy to tell her how I really felt and the Moody Blues were spinning on that Garrard turntable singing songs that seemed to know exactly how I much I loved her.

Near the end of the summer of 2009, I sat in the theatre hand in hand with that very same lady I pined for all those years ago. We have a song we consider "our" song, it's from one of the more recent albums and it's called Bless The Wings That Bring You Back. After all the years of songs filled with longing and of lost love, the Moody Blues still sing about the love that was never forgotten. Only now it is the love that is found again.

The Moody Blues have a website with lots of interesting tidbits and information about what they're currently doing. You can rest assured that if I'm not listening to hundred year old records on my gramophone, I'm probably listening to these timeless musicians.

Thank you Justin, John and Graeme for the continuing journey....

http://www.moodyblues.co.uk/index_main.html