Here and there.

Last Thursday night was the opening of the "Weather Report" show in Petaluma, and I got a chance to meet three more artists whose work I really like.  For a long time I've been pretty reluctant to try and meet other artists, but now that I'm actually producing a bit more work and showing it, connecting with other people has become a bit less intimidating.  Amazing what getting off your ass can do.

Two paintings in the show really stood out to me (in that sort of "damn!  that's what I want to do" way), and it turns out they were both done by the same artist, Kathryn St. Clair.  She really knows her stuff. A great sense of color, light and form, and technically her work is captivating to look at, as pretty much everyone in attendance could attest to.  I got a chance to briefly talk/gush to her, and was pleasantly surprised to find out we seemed share a couple of similar ideas about landscape and metaphor.  

And, it turns out she made up some postcards like I did, announcing the group show(s) she was in.  When I did it, I didn't know if it made sense to put out your own media, the same way you would if you were having a solo show, but, there you go.  Turns out, it does.

Later, Tony Spiers and his wife, Lisa Beerntsen introduced themselves and said very nice things about my painting.   This meant a lot, as I've been fans of both their work for some time now.  We first encountered Tony's paintings all around Graton, and thought his way of combining nostalgia and humor with a lovely whiff of malice was really interesting.  Lisa does beautiful things with layered organic shapes that seem to create a calm out of chaos.

Though their work is dramatically different visually, all three of these artists have a solid foundation in the fundamentals of art-making: drawing skills, a real understanding of light, color, form and design, but most of all discipline.  They have painted a lot.   And, not surprisingly, have gotten good in the process.

I remember my time in art school as spent in serious distrust of notions of craft, technique and proficiency.  Infatuated with the aura of mechanical and electronic production processes, and juiced up on theories of Walter Benjamin and John Berger, not to mention the work of Robert Heinecken, I was much more interested in what these modern mediums did to and for the nature of art as communication.    I loved the graphic quality of image degradation, the layers of meaning inherent in such, and what could be said about culture and politics using the current processes.  

Sure I loved to draw.  I loved color, and what paint looked like on various surfaces.  I had a great appreciation for painters like El Greco, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Turner, and DeKooning, but any attempt to "emulate" them seemed like a total waste of time.  Painting and drawing classes were quickly abandoned for video, photography, printmaking and a number of independent studies in sculpture and event production.  Fast and cheap was the order of my day.  Saying something about perception, experience and media was what was important, and  even if exactly what couldn't always be deciphered, the work was rooted in improvisation, immediacy,  chance and fun.  I associated myself with various groups and individuals with similar ideas, and by the end of my time in college, I had taken part in enough exhibitions, events and publications, and received just enough encouragement to believe I was on the right track.

Thirty years later the belief in content over ability had somewhat played itself out.  Combined with self-doubt and a lousy work ethic, I found myself at something of a dead-end.  Having made video that looked like photographs, photographs that looked like xeroxes (and in many cases, were xeroxes), paintings that looked like cartoons, and drawings that looked like mistakes, there was nowhere to go but up.

Having spent the last few years attempting to re-learn painting has been the jump-start for a lot of things, not the least of which is a return to regular art-making.  My attitude towards the work is that I'd like it to be more contemplative than eyeball-gouging.  A sign of advanced age, I suppose, but also the recognition that there are plenty of artists out there using the techniques of illustration, shock and spectacle with better results that I could.  Or did.

That's why its such a pleasure to see artists right here in my area who are able to convey personal, complex ideas about themselves and the world in interesting, seductive ways.  They are extremely accomplished, passionate and determined, if not household names, and they make me very happy.