Say What?

“Coming to Life” 36×48

Recently I have read a number of articles and blogs that suggest that practice of technique is more important than talent.  In fact some have gone so far as to say that there is really no such thing as talent.  Putting in the hours, they say,  is what matters.  Say what?  I must object!  Being a colorist, I know that there are elements of my painting style that cannot be taught or explained.  It is an innate sense of what to do next, which colors to use, and how to manipulate them to enhance rather than detract from the overall composition.  Comments from other accomplished artists “Your use of color is amazing.”  “I don’t know how you can put those colors together and keep a harmonious and peaceful painting.”  “You have a fearless us of color that is admirable.” confirm my opinion.  

My personal testimony lies in the music world.  I studied piano for 10 years;  by the time I was looking at colleges my instructor encouraged me to pursue piano on the college level with the goal of becoming a concert pianist.  I enjoyed playing piano.  I did it well.  But I could never sit at the keys and create a piece of music which by the way frustrated me to no end because I longed for creative expression from my soul.  So I opted instead for another line of study that ultimately led me to the visual arts.  That longing for expression has been fulfilled now for years. 

Combine an innate longing to create with recognition that (even as an experienced teacher) there are techniques, styles, and colors I use that cannot be taught and I find myself firmly planted on the side that says there IS such a thing as God given talent.  That said, I also will be the first to say that every talented musician still needs to practice, every gifted painter still needs to paint regularly.  Both must study  if they are to progress in that talent.  But to say that practice, no matter how many hours, weeks, or years, can replace being gifted by the Divine?  Let’s just say I “strongly disagree.” 

What do you think?  Where do you land in the push/pull between talent and education?  I’d like to hear your thoughts. 

Changing Scenery

Several months ago I realized my heart’s desire was to paint large.  A short while later I  came to the realization that the small paintings displayed in my studio gallery (shown above) were cluttering my mind and heart as well as the walls.  I grabbed a box and packed up a number of paintings.  Others ended up in baskets.  The freedom was intoxicating as the environment that surrounds me celebrated my heart’s desire.

Today I take another step in the same journey.  I have de-cluttered the studio of “nice” furniture and displays.  The goal is to simplify the space enabling it to serve my artistic exploration to an even greater extent.  Less of a gallery; more of a working studio.

If you want to go where you’ve never gone, you must take the first step in a new direction.  If you want to do what you’ve never done, you must try your hand at something new.  Easier said than done.  Today however, my spirit says “No fear!”.  My heart whispers “Embrace change.”  Today I have made a slight adjustment that feels like a major change to my artist’s heart.  A slight change in navigation can lead to a whole new destination.  I’m counting on it.

All that Glitters…

In the ever constant quest for the “remarkable” (see Seth Godin’s book “Purple Cow”)  the need for wisdom and discernment increases.  Presented with new ideas, new products, and new applications the axiom “All that glitters is not gold”  has become an” ever present companion.  Instructors present artistic uses for household products (steel wool, joint tape and compound, sandpaper).  Product specialists present the latest and greatest in the line of art supplies (transfer paper, spun polyester paper, paints ready for sun printing).  It’s exciting and inspiring.

And confusing.  It is necessary to explore, but always with the question, “Does this fit in my wheelhouse?  My sweet spot?  My artistic voice?”   The purpose of exploration is to refine the search and be selective.

It’s not easy being selective.   It’s time consuming and sometimes frustrating.  It’s not popular to be selective.  The crowd will often run after the next shiny thing that comes along.  If I am to find my unique voice.  If I am to march to the beat of my own drum.  It is necessary however.  I must check and recheck that the glitter IS or IS NOT gold.

 

Long Days and Hard Work

 

I know, I know, nobody said it would be easy.  It’s just amazing to me sometimes just how much hard work and long hours go into this business we call art.  I am in the midst of preparing for a pretty significant show (Penrod Arts Fair in Indianapolis) followed by a presentation of my three decades of being an art professional(Art:  Up Close and Personal sponsored by the Arts Council of Williamson County).  Oh and by the way, delivery of a major commission piece (finished:  see photo).  Most days I thrive on being busy.  After all, I hate being bored.  Lately however it seems I am trying to tell myself not to stress more often than not.

At our last art show, my husband encountered a gentleman (I use the term loosely) who suggested that all of the artists did this kind of thing as a hobby.  Can I just say that nobody but nobody puts themselves through what we professional artists do for the fun of it?  Do I love the gypsy train?  Indeed.  Do I appreciate that I make a living doing something that I’m passionate about?  Absolutely!  Is it grueling at times and mindless at other?  Too true!

Don’t get me wrong.  I wouldn’t trade my profession for another….ever!  As I posted last week (or was that two weeks ago???) I know that I know I was created to express myself artistically.  That said, I think there is a misconception that all we professional artists do is play all day.  Painting is fun;  it is the play part of the job.  Varnishing, wiring, framing…not so much.  Powerpoint presentations, email newsletters, social media marketing….work.

When your passion becomes your profession there will be long days and hard work if you want to succeed.  It goes with the territory.  Business plans, profit and loss statements, marketing strategies are all a part of the business of art.  Dare I say they are the work that balances the play.  But oh the pay off when a customer falls in love and has to have a painting I’ve created.  Then suddenly all of the hours melt away.  All of the hard work seems easy.  In other words it’s all worth the effort.  So to the studio I go to teach and paint and label and load up and…and…and…  Guess I’ll sleep well tonight!

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!

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!

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.

Failure is not an Option

It seems fitting in an ironic sort of way that shortly after I wrote about Success, we (that is the 10 or so artists that I work with) would host an event that truly was an abysmal failure.  No one came.  That was a first.  Live music, wine, cheese,  great art and no one showed up.  So naturally my pondering mind went into hyper drive.

I suppose it could be said that failure is the opposite side of the success coin.  In my musings, however, I have come to believe that failure and success are on opposite ends of a very long continuum.  Being a geometric thinker, I like to see it as two facets to a multifaceted sphere.  So, combining my last post with last week’s post looks something like this:

What if failure was not an option?

What if I gained perspective on one failed painting, event, show and looked at the whole career instead?

What if I learned from this failure and put into place something new and unusual?

What if I allowed this failure to blow the sides off the box I’d placed around myself, my work, or my schedule?

What if I gained enough experience through failure that I could help others emerging on the path behind me?

What if failure at one thing was exactly what propelled me into a new exciting adventure on this road called life?

What if I looked at “failure” not as defeat, but as fine tuning, direction, and motivation?

Then I would have turned the sphere a bit and the facet I’d be looking at would be success.  I’m working on it….

What is Success?

We are in the dog days of summer.  No doubt about it.  Heat index is well in the “dangerous” zone and people are walking around The Factory looking like zombies in search of rest.  Enthusiasm wanes.  Inspiration sags.   A good time to ponder a bit.

This morning my mind wandered to the idea of success.  What does a successful art business look like?  Is it measured in dollars of art sold?  Numbers of paintings purchased?  A schedule of non stop shows and/or speaking engagements?  Galleries?  Exhibits?  Ribbons?  I have found that success in the art biz has many faces.  I have found that success is a moving target.  I have found that success is a loyal partner and a fickle date all at the same time.

Another artist recently asked me how to make a six figure income in the art biz.  I chuckled and said, to “Ask another artist”.  Six figure income is not my goal or motivation.  Success for me is not wrapped up in how much disposable income I make.

When I stand back from a newly completed painting and say “Well done!”  I am successful.  When I hear a testimony of someone comforted through a life storm by the angel I created, I am successful.  When a customer trusts me to create the perfect painting for their home or office, I am successful.  When I can pay my rent, donate to a mission trip,  buy groceries, I am successful.  When I am making a living by pursuing my passion, I am successful

Being in the business of art, it’s good to be reminded that success is in the eyes and heart of the one defining it.  How do you define success?  Ponder and share.  I’d love to hear from you.

 

Treasures of the Heart

Encouragement comes in many shapes, sizes, and faces.  Working in an open studio has brought comments of all kinds over the years.  Not all encouraging to say the least.  I’ve learned to filter the negative (“Susie your work is better than this!”{Susie is a child}), chuckle at the off the wall (“These sure are ‘purty’ pictures.  Are you blind?  I always thought Monet must have been blind.”), and savor the sweetness of a well intended comment in whatever form it comes in.

Saturday was one of those interesting days at the studio.  First thing in the morning, as I chased cyber spooks on the internet,  a little girl walked by the studio, looked at my collection of work  and exclaimed, “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”  Unfortunately I was too preoccupied with the computer to actually hear the comment, but a colleague who was walking by filled me in.  My heart sang.

Minutes later  another child,  a boy of 8-9 began to interact with me while I sat before my easel developing this abstract painting.   He asked what I was painting.  I explained that as I  paint I listen  to hear what the painting wants to be.  Immediately I knew I was speaking to a young boy with an old soul.  He seemed to absorb every word and went on to ask great questions.  When his mom stepped in he explained to her that I painted with a palette knife not a brush,  that I was painting an abstract which could be whatever someone saw in it, and that a good artist paints from the heart.  Wow!  Here was  a boy who opened himself up to the experience of the studio and got it.  A line of harmony was  added to the song in my heart.

Later a conversation, a sale and the following post on Deborah Gall Art on facebook “Wonderful joy meeting you today. I am going to truly enjoy my framed piece. Looking forward to owning many more pieces of your beautiful inspirations.”

I believe that my heart collected more treasures than my bank balance did.  I’m okay with that.  I smiled all the way to a peaceful night’s sleep.

This painting is one of a new series of work I’m creating using multiple layers of medium and paint before I begin to develop the details.  It will be the subject of another blog since it was birthed out of rejection.  Hmmmm maybe I’ll title it Redemption!  It is 36×48 and will retail for $2000.