Addiction and Recovery

Quotes from the week in the studio:  “Your use of color is fearless.  I love it!”  “You must be some kind of genius.”  “We wish we could do that!”  These are particular interesting to me this week as I’ve been tracing my career for an upcoming presentation for the Arts Council of Williamson County called ART:  Up Close and Personal. What has run through my mind is the eight year old Deborah telling people “I’m good (as in a good student) at everything but PE and Art.”  So, okay I haven’t become an athlete although I DO know what I’m talking about when it comes to football.  So how did I get from there to here?

The first step of any recovery is recognizing the addiction.  “My name is Deborah Gall and I am a recovering artist.  I am addicted to expressing myself creatively.”   It all began when I was a little girl and longed to let out that which stirred within me.  It would be decades before I recognized this as the need to create.  I searched for my creative voice through crafts and music and ultimately landed in the midst of a pile of fabric and thread.  Quilting became what fed my addiction.   However, in the midst of commissions, teaching, writing, and speaking I could not use the term”artist” to describe myself.  My tongue would get tied in knots and the word simply stuck in my throat.  When a gallery owner used the “A” word and commissioned a piece for her home I began to speak the word, but it felt like sawdust in my mouth and I was certain I was being branded as delusional.

Then, in 1995, someone introduced me to two books:  Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”  and Madeleine L’Engle’s “Walking on Water”.  Voila!  My life changed as I began the 12 step recovery that Cameron outlines for recovering creatives.  She uses the term blocked, but for me it was more than being blocked, it was at the very core of my identity.  Within the pages of those volumes I found my tribe!  I was not alone in the (somewhat strange) way I looked at life or interpreted my surroundings.   Most inprotantly I found value to the very thing I was addicted to…creative expression.  L’Engle’s subtitle “Reflections of faith and art” summarized what I had desperately been trying to put together unsuccessfully in my heart and life.  I was transformed!

As I recovered my sense of safety, identity, power, integrity, possibility, abundance, connection, strength, compassion, self-protection, autonomy, and faith (all chapters/steps in Cameron’s book) I gained the freedom to say without apology or explanation that I was, am, and will always be an artist.   It is not something I do.  It is something I am.  This is recovery that feeds the addiction.  Backwards perhaps, but effective none the less.  With that…think I’ll go paint.

Photo above is part of a triptych I am currently working on.  It will hang in the same office as this pair called “Sara’s Sky”.  Sara purchased the left panel a year ago and commissioned the right panel to continue the design and form a square.  The art plan for her office is coming along nicely don’t ya think?

If you’re in the area I’ll be speaking at Williamson County Public Library on Monday, September 12 6-7:30 p.m.

Click the links above to start your own recovery.  Enjoy the ride!

Hours, Weeks, Decades

On any given Sunday afternoon you will find me in front of the television perusing HGTV, the Cooking Channel, or the Food Network.  Ever watch “Chopped?”  One of my favorites:  four professional chefs, each successful in their own right, compete with unusual (surprise) ingredients, limited time (30 minutes each course), over three courses.  With each course, one of the chefs is “chopped”, and sent home by the panel of expert judges.  I have often watched this show sitting in wonder as these gods of the kitchen create masterpieces out of funky ingredients (leg of goat and trail mix…really?).  How do they create on the spot?  How do they know which ingredients to grab?  How do you know how to make a chocolate cake without a recipe???

This past Sunday however, I decided I sort of know how they do it.  Years and years of training and experience are behind every minute they spend in the kitchen.  “How long does it take you to paint a painting?”  is perhaps the most commonly asked question I hear.  I think most artists would agree it is also one of the most frustrating questions to answer.  The truth is that the best answer will sound sarcastic:  whatever the age of the artist.

I have been painting for 6 years.  I have been a professional artist for 27 years.  I have been artistically expressing myself my whole life.  All of life’s experiences import to my memory base (whether I remember it or not) and will mix with my technical skills, my media, and my current style to export on the canvas. In the case of last week’s adventure at the county fair, it is easy to say “She painted this in one hour!”  However as you my readers are aware, I spent three days preparing for that one hour.  (Believe me my catch up list has been long!) To finish it back at the studio (to my standards of completion) took another 2 hours. However, in reality, it took over 5 decades to complete as all combined for one hour on stage.

The finished painting?  “Take me out to the Fair”  30×24, acrylic on canvas.  It will be auctioned through The Arts Council of Williamson County with 100% of proceeds benefiting the organization.  It is after all the organization that offered me the “experience of a lifetime”.

Speed Painting

You’ve probably heard of speed chess but how about speed painting?  That’s how it felt last night to have one hour to paint a 30″x24″ canvas.  I got home and felt like I’d just run a 5K!  But it was also fun and rewarding to see people respond to the process and painting.  I must say all of my preparation was absolutely worth it.  Even the written guide to know where I needed to go next.  There’s just something about painting before a live audience that makes your brain skip a beat.

Photo to the left is midway through the show when the host checked on the progress.  At that time I knew I had to step it up to get the basic details in.

Photo to the right is the “Reveal” at the end of the show.  The painting isn’t finished by my standards, but there were those who thought it looked complete.  That was my goal.  As an artist I am more particular about the details than anyone else.  That’s when I know a piece is finished.  When I can look at it and not say “Oops need to fix that”  I know I can sign my name as the final stamp of approval. 

Ready, Set, GO!

Today’s assignment was putting together the plan for tonight’s live painting event.  Or from my point of view, painting off site.  I hope I am always alive when I paint!

An hour and a half is not a long time to paint a 30″x24″ painting.  My layer upon layer process usually requires me to put the painting aside, work on another and come back to add the next layer.  For instance I will lay the sky in on a canvas and let it dry often until the next day before I add the background, mid-ground, and foreground.  Each might take at least an overnight before I move to the next design area.

Not so tonight.  So I have written a map of sorts, a sequence of areas to paint, hopefully allowing the background time to dry before adding the next design element.  I have also pre-mixed my paints with the medium I use for my first layer of color.

People often ask how long a painting takes to complete.  The hidden time is amazing:  pondering design elements, process, and specific paint colors can take a relatively huge amount of time.  The perfect color in the perfect spot is after all what makes a great piece of art.  Then there’s the time consumed in selection (as in where exactly is that tube of paint?) and mixing of the first layer, making sure I have the right tools in hand, the easel at the right height, the lighting correct, etc.  All before the first knife of paint has danced across the canvas.

Usually I paint the first layer before I select the detail palette and prepare my tray of paints for finishing.  Not so today.  Anticipating the details is what it’s been about as I have prepared my tray of over 30 hues to develop tonight’s masterpiece.  I am as ready as I can be.  Master plan in writing in case my mind forgets, enough paint to finish at least two pieces I’m sure (don’t want to run out!), palettes prepared, supplies boxed.  I am set.

Now it’s time to GO!

Prototypes and Ferris Wheels

   The assignment:  a painting with a county fair theme to be done on stage in an hour and a half.  What you see here is the prototype and is really just a section of the larger piece I will paint tomorrow night.

The solution:  combining images of our fair with images of our county.  With a little help from a friend who served as a great sounding board and offered the wonderful idea of using the flags from the fair’s logo, I worked out a sketch.

The problem: working through the color scheme and placement enough to be able to simply stand at the easel and paint.  Thus the prototype.  I often use these to work through a color palette or design idea for a commission piece.  Yesterday I contacted the president of the Arts Council who will be auctioning this painting as a fundraiser to approve the sketch.   Having the prototype (which in this case is just about a third of the actual painting) helped to share my vision.  This is another step I often do with my commission clients so that everyone is comfortable with the page I’m working from.

The result:  I discovered the perfect solution for the background behind the Ferris wheel, with a bit of brighter color and a swish of the palette knife the feeling of movement and the excitement of the Midway surfaced. And my “customer” was more than thrilled.  Having stretched my creative envelop, I am more comfortable with the whole idea of creating a painting within the given time.

Tomorrow’s assignment:  The PLAN

 

Comfort Zone

Yesterday I received a phone call from  Meryll Rose, host of the local midday television show “Talk of the Town”.  She asked me to paint live on stage at the Williamson County Fair during the “Talk of the Town Live” portion of the day.  No problem.  Really.  I have appeared on “Talk of the Town” a couple of times and find Ms. Rose to be an excellent host who makes her guests feel comfortable and at ease.  My studio is open to the public so I am accustomed to having people watch as I create.

What is pushing me out of my comfort zone is this:  the assignment is to paint some kind of image of the fair, on a good sized canvas (that can be viewed easily from the audience’s perspective), in an hour and a half.  Start to finish.

Of course I said “Sure!”  Why would I do such a think when it is in fact out of my comfort zone?  I have found that those things that push me beyond my self imposed limitations exhilarate me.  Through the years I have taken on commissions and personal assignments that push the envelop of my creative experience.  What lies beyond the envelop has always been something of value to add to my repertoire which inevitably was brought out again to be used for future projects.  It is why I love doing commission work for clients.  To take my style and force certain parameters is in fact the opposite of limiting to me;  it squeezes out creativity in a new way that I find exacting and fun.

Do you have a special place that requires a made for you painting?  Call me.  I’d love to work with you.  Meanwhile I’ll be at the fair.

Imaginings

Been off to the Smokies for some family R&R which was wonderful.  However it was particularly gratifying to get back into the studio yesterday and go a little crazy painting.  In the process I use, the first layer is the loosest, most free, and really just serves as a jumping off point.  In other words, I really don’t know where most of what I started yesterday will end up.

That’s where imagining comes into play.  There is some thought that goes into selecting the palette, the size of canvas, etc, but the joy of my process comes when staring (some would say blankly) at a canvas with the first layer of paint already applied.  As an abstract painter, this is when I will see images emerge, have a feeling evoked, or see a truth represented thus giving me a path to follow.  Sometimes I just begin to paint and allow the piece to take me on a journey, imagining what it will become as I develop this or that area.

There is a misconception that suggests that as artists we “think up” our art,  like grabbing images or ideas out of the air.  I would suggest that artists carry a deep reservoir of creative thought, ideas, and images.  As I sit at the easel I reach down into that reservoir, stir the waters of creativvity, and pull out that which fits the painting I’m working on.  I do my best work when my mind gets out of the  way and I allow the canvas to communicate directly to my creative spirit.

Which means I may not be aware of you if you are quietly looking over my shoulder or I may have a dazed look on my face when I am.  Take no offense.  I’ve been off on a journey of the imagination; it can take a moment to return.