July 29, 2013

City Lights (Finished at Last)


...after many breaks. (It could also be named My Muse and I -- haven't decided yet.) Nevertheless, these two figures add a humane aspect...

 
...to this adequately surreal and confusing image; oil, 16x12 in. on paper w. special coating.

 
 
I think my favourite detail is the broken car (broken in two, in fact...)

 

Perhaps the rooftops were inspired by the kind of chimneys they have in Paris. 

 

And the accordionist... No, I don't really know. Now the thing 'll have to dry for a couple of weeks. Cheers :)

July 22, 2013

The More We Get Together...

...the happier we shall be. It's good to get out once in a while. The kind of person that can spend hours and days perfecting a square inch on canvas isn't necessarily Society's Pet, and this hermitage is ultimately Bad for Business and your mental curriculum in general. I've found that cultural workers dream the same kind of dreams. But our lives and conditions become very different depending on what we do; if we're painters, writers, or (my antipode) the restlessly touring musician who has to play Everywhere, meeting Everyone in the process. Woof!

Anyhow: Your painter was a little tired of playing solo. So this was made in cooperation with poet Peter Palm...


...who has written summer, surfs and sunshine into twelve very short verses; they're ordered into groups of three, which we found would make four very neat little posters. Here is the first, with spaces from top left to lower right for the stanzas.

The poems are very open-ended and so are my works. That's a happy marriage, and the resulting posters will be for sale during my two exhibitions this Fall (or -- of course -- if you ask me, which you're very welcome to do...) And during these exhibitions Life will be a little more social and musical, and I'll sing your friends are my friends 
And my friends are your friends 
The more we get together
the happier we shall be...
     -- etc.

(A resized detail.)

July 15, 2013

The Measureless Pride of an Autodidact


I originally intended this to be something bitter, but decided to save the self-poisoning to another week, if any. Instead I’ll tell you about the joy, the light that one feels as a well educated autodidact. Instead of telling you about doors that are shut and barred, this should be on other doors that I’ve opened myself, through work and study.  

Click/tap to resize.

I took a little art at College, without much theory at all but a lot of practice – coal on paper, mostly. I had this wonderful teacher who really only gave me one advice – To Be Daring – and it has been the best advice that I ever had, lasting unto this day.

Already in the words themselves one sees the difference between teaching oneself and needing a teacher. Those who went to Art Schools came to Art as pupils, per definition. Pupil, says the dictionary, is Latin for a little boy, a pupillus. The pupil is someone that needs constant care and supervision; sit still, learn this, shut up. But Art really hit me when I was a Student. (I already was a perpetual student of History and Philosophy, thus well prepared for autodidactics.) Studere – I don’t need the dictionary for this – means to study something actively, perfectly voluntarily and rather independently. The student needs a certain kind of zeal, she regards dusty old truths with at least three fiercely hypercritical eyes; she needs endurance, imagination and a mental flexibility to the point of yoga… I love students.



I took up practice, hard practice again. That’s the best thing one can do. I also found good books on the subject: I recommend the thoroughly methodical John Wilkinson and parts of Betty Edwards’ classic, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – some of her exercises are silly and some very educating. (Go through them all.)  

I also took care to visit a few exhibitions and museums, notepad in hand. Photographs rarely tell you how the brushstrokes wander and flow, you seldom get to see details enough. (It was particularly enlightening to find a few unfinished masterpieces at various stages of incompletion.) I enjoy talking to other artists, giving and receiving opinions and hints. There’s always something new to learn. But above all, I had to steal Time, practising time, when Society thought that I was studying something “useful” or at least marginally so or searching for a job that I didn’t want and didn’t know how to do. True freedom always has to be stolen. 


As an autodidact, there are many things that I don’t do by the book. I could’ve been more methodical at times. But one also has the strength to say No when the books and schools are entirely in up the blue, No to theories worth doodley-squat. Everything that I’ve learned, through experiments, endless hours with pens, brushes and whatnot, works. A certain strength emanates from the fact and feeling that it was you who went through all this and endured all that and persisted in order to get to your present level. You own your skill. 


I am allied to no posh art school, and consequently no gallerist owns me. It is an economical weakness and a moral strength. Thus there has been nothing to inflate my name or worth. My customers are mine, they came to me on their own accord and I’ve never had to talk them into buying – I don’t know how to do that. (I’ve kept to amoeba level marketing; sending out cards prior to Vernissage to the regulars, bothering to keep a homepage etc.) You can’t maintain gallery prices when you sell to ordinary people – but when they buy, that’s proof enough that the works were worth every penny. To be an autodidact is to be true.





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July 08, 2013

Poppies


A bit of art pour l'art, art for its own sake between my ramblings: My usual inquarelle on paper.
 

 (Tap/click to resize.)
 
The reddish orange, shimmering effect is attained by adding splashes of red or yellow, wait and let dry. Then add the other colour, wait, then the first again. And so on. Every layer is visible through the others. You don't get this effect with one readily mixed hue -- or without patience.  


July 01, 2013

Busy Feeding the Lions.

Spent last Monday & Tuesday sailing with my nutshell to the heart of Stockholm & back again to these outskirts -- took twelve hours only and I was quite exhausted afterwards. The rest of the week was slightly athletic too because of good friends and the fine weather, and the painter wishes that one could write blogs monthly instead of weekly so that one could do any progress worth writing about. -- It’s not possible. You must write frequently if you're to have frequent readers. -- But works of art are made on another timescale. Rome wasn’t built in one day. Rome is a work of art. Now imagine the Roman centurion ordered to blog about this slow process:

Day 54. Today, we started to build the Coliseum.
Day 55. We’re still building on the Coliseum.
Day 56. Rome is beginning to look fine now.
Day 57. No progress today as we had a meeting about the slow progress. The Emperor wanted to know why Rome wasn’t built in one day.
Day 58. Coliseum, and some bits on the Forum Romanum that we forgot earlier.
Day 59. Coliseum.    
Day 60. Coliseum.
Day 61. Today I’ll be thrown to the lions because people don’t read this blog anymore.
Day 62. ************

Yum. As our centurion found out, the modern rhythm of blogs and digital impatience is out of synch with Art and Artists. I deliberately say that it’s the rest of the world that’s out of synch (and possible out of tune, too). In everything electronic, there’s something tiny and ticking and tearing and shearing; pulsating our lives away. One wants these little watches to melt, until Time flows freely as melting camembert from dawn to dusk, divided by Light and Seasons rather than cracking up into minutes, seconds and impossible plans.

Day 64. Hello. I am the new webmaster, taking over from poor Septimus.
Day 65. Coliseum, Coliseum, Coliseum.

When all progress is measured, no true progress can be done. I feel that it’s about time to get proper lives and times back. I feel that it’s time… to feed the lions. I hope that I am tasty.