cottage industry

Wintering: another month to go

It’s in my DNA. Growing up in Western New York imbeds the feeling of cold, ice, and snow into the spirit. I did spend a few years in San Francisco where it never snowed. Tim lived many years in southern places that rarely saw snow, but he has been grandfathered into winter after thirty years here.

It’s been a few months since the last post and we are into another year already.

A couple things happened even before the Winter Solstice. I took out my ice skates with great enthusiasm to brush up on my most very basic skills, imagining myself gliding about with glamour like the skater girl in the vintage photo below. I took a fall on the ice that resulted in a fractured shoulder and the end of my skating diversion for the season. A couple days later, an extended power outage resulted in our basement flooding with water.

As I spent endless hours resting my left arm, I began to use my old ipad as my studio and quite enjoyed the simple paint app to make some drawings.

More examples are posted at (https://www.instagram.com/patpendleton/).

Tim posts a lot there too (https://www.instagram.com/tim_raymond_studio/).

For a while after the flooding incident, the basement studios felt tainted. I attempted to convert my space to a place for physical therapy.

Tim delved into a complex puzzle we picked up at The Nordic Museum in Seattle (https://www.nordicmuseum.org/). Labyrinths are fascinating, but maddening in puzzle form.

He was back in his space soon enough.

Tim finished this small piece recently and it is for sale. Since we do not have push-button sales, please use Contact page with your questions or interest.

My arm is mending, but the art studio on the other side of the curtain is not being used much–the works in progress remain untouched.

There is a certain poetry in all of it–the setbacks, the weather, the blahs. As I have shared in previous posts, I occasionally create these picture and word collages with everyday photos and haiku.

Not entirely housebound by winter, we have one local spot that is frequently open for food and live music.

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Writing the Truth: the inspiration of others

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we would never forget,” wrote Joan Didion (1934-2021). Another important artist has passed on. She started out writing essays in Vogue magazine in the 1960s and her social commentary on the counterculture and society followed. She was the voice of an era. I especially enjoyed her later memoir about loss and grief, The Year of Magical Thinking. Her nephew, Griffin Dunne made a wonderful documentary about her life that is available on Netflix (The Center Will Not Hold).

JOAN DIDION ON WRITING:

“I’M NOT TELLING YOU TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER. I’M JUST TELLING YOU TO LIVE IN IT. TO LOOK AT IT. TO TRY TO GET THE PICTURE. TO MAKE YOUR OWN WORK AND TAKE PRIDE IN IT.”

She was out there doing just that. She embodied “cool.” Look at her in her Corvette Stingray . . .

Since I had included Joan in my Women Writers Series (2018-2020), it is a good time to reflect on the women who inspired the titles for this series of twelve small paintings–each one offered a book that caused me to consider new ideas. I could easily add many others to this dozen.

Rebecca Solnit coined the term “mansplaining” that has entered so many conversations in recent years. Articles by her turn up every week, but I also enjoyed her memoir, Recollections of My Nonexistence.

Anais Nin was introduced to me by a poet who I shared a house with in San Francisco during the mid-1970s. Reading Nin’s diaries when I was fresh out of college set the tone for a kind of romantic creative life I began to aspire to. Her philosophy was simply this:

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

Simone de Beauvoir had become known for her existential feminism by the time I encountered her in an early autobiography of her formative years (1929-1944). The Prime of Life presented another model for a different kind of life than the usual choices I had encountered as a 20-something American woman.

I read Ann Patchett‘s Truth and Beauty in the 1990s about her intense friendship with the poet, Lucy Grealy. I have listened to various interviews with Patchett. She speaks so articulately with humor. I especially enjoyed her comments about her reluctance to marry or have children due to the fact that the writer’s life requires a lot of laying around doing nothing–time for thinking and dreaming.

I found Natalie Goldberg‘s Writing Down the Bones soon after it was published in the late 1980s. I have also read many of her later publications, but that book inspired me to write more seriously and pursue meditation. I was able to attend a writing class with her in 1991 and later facilitated Writing Practice groups based on her approach from this book.

Suzi Gablik is an art historian who caught my attention with the ReEnchantment of Art in 1992 and again with her 2002 memoir, Living the Magical Life.

Pema Chodron‘s early 1990s book, When Things Fall Apart, along with her many books and teachings that followed, bring alive the ideas of Buddhism and mindfulness. She sums it up easily:

“You’re the sky. Everything else –it’s just the weather.”

Patti Smith is known for her poetic songs that she performs with her band, but her books in recent years share so much more with us, especially her 2009 Just Kids, the tribute to her friend, the well-known photographer, Robert Maplethorpe, who died too soon of Aids. Patti lovingly tells of their early days as young creatives in NYC.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the 2007 memoir Eat, Pray, Love. It was later made into a popular film. I enjoyed all that, but even more, her later book, Big Magic focused more on living the creative life.

I encountered Meghan Daum‘s magazine articles before reading her 2019 book, The Problem with Everything (best title ever). I now listen to her weekly on her podcast, The Unspeakable.

Lastly, Cheryl Strayed documented her heroic journey into the memoir, Wild. It was made into a film starring Reese Witherspoon. An inspiration to women, she took that wisdom into the Dear Sugars podcast she hosted with Steve Almond offering answers to tricky questions about love and relationships.

Last year I experimented with the textile design website, Spoonflower, to create patterns from a few of these paintings–Suzi Gablik, Rebecca Solnit, Joan Didion–resulting textile wall hangings:

I have also created four blank greeting cards featuring three of the paintings from the Women Writers Series on each card. These and other cards are available in the Shop page in the menu.

My artistic life is smaller and more contained than the large presence of Joan Didion, but painting, reading, and writing remain central. I agree with her premise:

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”

I suppose it is not too late to move to L.A. and drive a sports car (kidding). My friend Kerry did buy a white Miata for her 40th birthday and posed for a photo (a la Joan Didion). She made the photo into a postcard and mailed it out to her friends. I imagined myself back then driving a powder blue Miata, but at the time, I lived in Colorado where a sturdier vehicle was required.

Last Spring, a visitor to my home let me pose in this sporty convertible–I imagine this may be the closest I’ll get to Joan Didion land . . .

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The Stage: another kind of story

Soooo . . . the other side of the painter is the actor. Before the pandemic put a halt to theater and there were no audiences to support the black box space in the Great Arrow building, Tim performed in several productions with the Subversive Theater Collective. He began with set painting that led to a role in Grapes of Wrath in 2014, followed by another ten productions, including a special holiday season play, Guns of Christmas.

It was a discouraging time when the collective packed up props and costumes for storage, not knowing when and if theater would be viable again anytime soon.

Covid remains with us, but the vaccine makes it possible to resume activities. All these months later, the collective is returning with a Christmas play written by Michael Fanelli.

Miracle at Levittown will be presented at the New Phoenix Theatre on the Park December 3 – 19 (95 Johnson Park, Buffalo, NY). Contact 716-853-1334 or newphnxtheatre@aol.com for details.

Tim’s character in this production speaks of Eleanor Roosevelt now and then. Curiously, we recently visited her statue in Riverside Park while in New York City.

A lot has been written about Eleanor Roosevelt. A diplomat and activist, she was the longest serving first lady from 1933 to 1945 and she is frequently quoted. I especially like this one:

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we do. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

The shape of becoming is what we do everyday, right?

I have nothing to do with the play, except I do run lines at home with Tim as he prepares for his part. I look forward to seeing the result of all this work next month.

We’ve all seen Miracle on 34th Street, the film from 1947 starring a very young Natalie Wood. Miracle at Levittown refers back to the first planned suburban community in the country that was developed after WWII. A fairly turbulent story resides underneath the uniform houses lining the curved, meticulously gardened roads of Levittown. Although 1950s suburbia conjures visions of traditional family life, idyllic domesticity, and stability, the story of the suburbanization of America is also one of exclusion, segregation, and persecution.

Painting is private–making a character in a play is collaborative. As rehearsals and performances move ahead, the studio awaits (on the other side of my curtain) . . .

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Looking Ahead: seeing things afresh

A trip to another place does wonders to clear away the fog of begin stuck. After a visit to the charms, waters and wonder of Seattle, we are back to the actuality of this place.

Autumn is upon us

Studios are ready for new work.

A mishap left my treasured cracked cup with a missing chunk (this cup was mentioned in an earlier post), a reminder of transience.

New influences taped to a wall have a way of inspiring.

New paintings in progress.

Tim’s studio on the other side of the curtain has been busy.

Also . . . New additions to small paintings on canvas, wood, and board available for purchase in SHOP pages (along with unframed prints, cards, and flags). See the menu at the top of the page.

Feel free to inquire about anything you see there using the Contact page. Ask us about gift certificates.

The gift of handmade original art is always a good idea!

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Looking Back: curious things about us

I have always appreciated the phrase “live the mystery.” Art is finding parallels and connections that unravel something more.

It turns out that each of our mothers owned the same set of Desert Rose china, popular in the early 1950s.

Anyone who knows Tim discovers over time that he is drawn to stumps . . . in actual places and as subjects in drawings or paintings.

I found an older mixed media piece of my own featuring stumps painted on a remnant of linen tablecloth.

A few years ago, a friend commissioned me to create a bedroom artwork for each of her two grandsons. One liked Batman and the other liked horses (and pink), I had so much fun creating these and imagined offering a line of children’s art, but that never happened.

A huge part of getting settled in the new studios has been sorting through folders and bins of older art, letters, and memorabilia.

Sometimes photos of “then and now” show us who we are.

Tim Raymond — On the street — 1947 and 2017

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Painting-a-Gogh-Gogh: Beyond little fluffy clouds

Can a post impressionist Dutch painter from the 19th Century be repurposed and to entertain and inspire 21st century techno-savvy and pandemic-weary citizens? Cities around the world have been hosting five different versions of the Van Gogh immersive experiences. I attended the one in Buffalo, New York called Beyond Van Gogh, created and produced by Montreal’s Normal Studio.

I posted some preliminary commentary (here) earlier in the summer when the buzz was beginning. I had listened to a podcast about it on The Art Angle and began to question the entire idea of appropriating this beloved body of work for financial gain.

Large extravaganza museum shows are nothing new. I was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when the early 1980s King Tut exhibition sparked an interest in ancient Egypt as a growing number of museum goers were exposed to something new.

This current “artertainment” offering is orchestrated by a private company, not an art institution. Any kind of experience that takes us away from the small screens and sedentary life is likely useful, although this remains a passive watching experience, despite the heightened sense of things. Will there be renewed interest in viewing actual paintings on a museum wall after seeing such an over-the-top enhanced version?

The immersive event attempts to move the Van Gogh story beyond the myth that most people have heard along the way. True, he did attempt to cut off his ear during a troubled time in the South of France, followed by a lengthy stint in an asylum. He also eventually died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds at age 37. The remarkable part of this story is his prolific production of painting during his fairly short life. He struggled as a human being, but he also created so much.

His signature is iconic, even though it appears in slightly different ways, as shown in this presentation (many others were included in the projections).

Although, tickets appeared to sell out early on back in June when I first heard about the upcoming event, I found that plenty were suddenly available once it was here and happening. A senior ticket with added online ticket fee and taxes was about $40. I think $25 would have been more reasonable. Between social media and and You Tube posts, anybody not willing to pay the price of admission might gather a pretty good idea what the event is all about.

I have been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stood before the most highly regarded Starry Night at the Museum of Modern Art and viewed plenty of others elsewhere. including Albright Knox. I was not going to pass on this experience.

The large tent set up for the purpose of the event has a dark club vibe. The initial educational hall is an installation of hanging text panels, largely taken from the hundreds of letters exchanged between Vincent and brother Theo, as well as some statements about the artist’s life and body of work.

Passage into a larger darker room begins the hour-long animated light show of projected paintings. Of course, the viewing is devoid of the thick impasto application, although suggested in a flattened state. The opticals allow brushstrokes to gradually appear as they might during the painting process. Blossoms flutter about the trees, eyes blink, color drips onto the floor. The beautiful soundtrack adds so much to the visuals and it is available on Spotify.

This is not for purists. One must be willing to leap into the territory of creative license. As with most events now, the camera phone documentation takes over. While some stand attentively taking in the rapidly moving visuals, many others arrange selfies and attempt to video the action. This is popular culture now.

Barbara Kruger’s infamous 1980s truism, I shop therefore I am could be adapted to this moment . . .

I shop and share phone pics therefore I am.

I normally avoid photos including of people who did not agree to be photographed, but they are masked and curiously stand beneath a Van Gogh couple who also appear to be masked due to the appearance of the paint.

As to be expected, the finale of this experience is “exit through the gift shop,” where a selection of choice items are available for purchase. Imagine all the young children begging their parents to buy them this creepy sixty dollar doll!

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Little Fluffy Clouds: when it’s not that simple

The recent documentary about the popular television artist Bob Ross (Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed) reminds viewers of his lush landscapes, happy trees and little fluffy clouds–his love of painting the beauty of nature and teaching others to do it.

An aside related to little fluffy clouds . . .

This summer we took a liking to an old recording by The Orb (Little Fluffy Clouds). The sky and land are a true source of inspiration–living in the country now is a constant reminder. Yet, the realm of contemporary art is fraught with other issues. Still, Tim’s paintings have included a version of clouds on occasion (above: detail from 2017 painting) and he dabbled with plein air painting early in the summer before the heat descended upon us.

However, he eventually returned to the insular place of the studio. I prefer working from that place, as well. Considering a new way forward, he comments . . .

“My work is the opposite of Bob Ross’s happy trees, etc. So much melting glaciers, degraded land, and too much blue. Not so happy. What I need now is a new axel, a new angle, or a new angel.”

Axel, Angle, Angel — Collage of unrelated works (PP)

Reminiscing of another time when he was a young art student at Cooper Union in Manhattan during the Fall of 1972, and just beginning to consider how to proceed as an artist . . .

My friend, Bob, a few years older and already a working downtown painter, insisted that I go see Mrs. Poindexter. She hosted a viewing salon twice a month on a Sunday. He was quite enthusiastic and actually prepared a letter of introduction for me to take to her. I put together a portfolio as best I could in the midst of moving into a Chinatown loft sublet with my wife and child. I made an appointment to attend the salon and nervously rode the uptown subway to her place in the west 80s. Upon arrival, I was offered tea while waiting on a bench in the foyer along with two other students. Mrs. Poindexter finally appeared to invite me into the other room. Elegant, tall and slender, her look was that of a 1920s-style feminist. She spoke roughly like Lauren Bacall—a cigarette never left her hand. After glancing through my portfolio and speaking directly to the work as she looked. I do not recall much of what was said. I was transfixed by the paintings on the walls of her room furnished with dark antique furniture. I knew they must be important, although I recognized none of the landscapes and portraits in the manner of Raoul Dufy and Wolf Kahn. She then motioned for me to return to the foyer. I waited there awhile until her assistant returned my portfolio with a handwritten note and business card for the artist, Helene Aylon. The note suggested I contact the artist about working as her studio assistant. I did just as she suggested and ended up working as assistant to Ms. Aylon at the Westbeth Artists Housing for more than a year while I was attending classes at Cooper Union. That was just the very beginning of entering this vocation.

Perhaps we are left to do as artist Jasper Johns once said:

“Do what you are helpless not to do.”

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Talk Art: what I talk about when I talk about painting

During the last week of the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center Annual Member’s Show, Tim and I each gave a ten-minute art talk, now available on You Tube.

Self-described as an “anthropocene artist” concerned with the human condition and the expedient bargains that have been made to sustain it, his was an on-the-spot talk about his process of arriving at a painting.

ICE BURN, 2021, acrylic and collage on board

I opted to write mine out and present it as a reading.

TRICK MIRROR, 2021 – 48 x 30 inches, acrylic and collage on canvas

A few takeaways from mine . . .

“The point of art is to feel true and conflicted.”

(Mike White, writer and producer)

Paintings seem to have a mind of their own–I consider my approach expressive, but the result is not so much a reflection of me, but a collaboration with this otherness—the painting itself.

There is a reference to mirrors in the circle of text cut from a poem by an ancient Chinese poet, Wang Chang-ling. He writes:

“Our mirrors are bewitched with winter, and they lie…”

I did not set out to make a painting about this quote, though. It is part of the experience of the painting, not a picture of an experience. Painter Mark Rothko made a point of saying something like that. It addresses one of the big misunderstandings about abstract painting. His exact words were:

“A painting is not a picture of an experience, but IS the experience.”

“Psychic abstract gardens” is an ideal description of the kind of non-representational painting I aspire to.

(phrase is borrowed from a recent commentary by art critic Jerry Saltz)

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Artist Memoir: the inside story of lastingness

In a previous post I wrote about lastingness–the idea of carrying on, remaining devoted, tending to the garden (interests, relationships, self-care, creativity) one has planted along the way (and weeding out the unnecessary).

My favorite genre of film and literature is documentary and memoir. I just watched two an excellent ones . . .

Val features the actor Val Kilmer. I know him mostly from his fabulous portrayal of Jim Morrison in the film, The Doors, but his body of work is huge and his post-cancer perseverance as an artist is moving,

Roadrunner looks back over the life of chef, best-selling author, television personality Anthony Bourdain as friends and family puzzle over his tragic suicide in 2019. I had just tuned into him and his engaging television series just months before he was gone.

I have read so many of artist biographies and memoirs from Joan Mitchell to Kim Gordon to Lee Krasner to Patti Smith. It took me a year to get through Ninth Street Women and I am still waiting for that Netflix series based on the book about the women of early abstract expressionism. Sadly, I think the project was axed during the pandemic remix of everything.

I prefer memoirs written by an artist with a precise point-of-view. I picked three off my shelf that are just this sort of book.

Most recently, I picked up a small paperback at the Copper Shop in East Aurora on the Roycroft Campus, the artisan community initiated by Elbert Hubbard in 1895. Charles Clough’s Art Will: A Fifty-year Odyssey from Hallwalls to the Roycroft is taken from 2020 transcripts of his You Tube Journal and a zoom interview (April 2020) with Hallwalls curator John Massier, along with personal history and ideology related to his storied art career and founding member of Buffalo’s Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in 1974. In 2015 he established the Clufffalo Institute, located on the Roycroft Campus, where he has since facilitated community painting experiences. The book features an introduction by well known painter and arts writer, Walter Robinson.

So much of the appeal of an artist memoir is in the personal reflections and ideas about a certain kind of perseverance, I especially enjoyed reading this passage:

“. . . after devoting most of my life to art, I would, at least, like the effort to sustain me through my remaining years. Thus my artworks are souvenirs from my journey for you to acquire, ponder, and share through exhibition and publication–much of the imagery that represents my work is available online for you as “common wealth.”

During the Pandemic lockdown, I also ordered Chris Frantz’s much publicized Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina. As a longtime fan, I was eager to read his commentary on life as an art school dropout / drummer and the details surrounding the formation of Talking Heads and later Tom Tom Club bands along with his longtime partner/wife/bass player, Tina Weymouth. The pair remain in love and married after 40+ years of marriage and have raised two artistic sons, but the memoir centers on how they continued to push their creative work forward in music.

Last year I ordered a copy of The Art Cure after hearing Bridgette Mayer interviewed on a podcast. As a former art therapist, I subscribe to the curative aspect of art. Although, as an artist, I recognize that a big involvement with making art can also become a burden to wrestle with.

The author of this book is a generation younger than Clough and Frantz (peers of Tim and I), but the world of an artist is quite different now than it was back in the 1970s and 80s when they were launching their careers. The book’s subtitle, A Memoir of Abuse and Fortune, tells how the author came out the foster care system into a fortunate life that led her into the arts. After working in Manhattan galleries, she later established herself in Philadelphia as an art dealer/gallerist/coach.

The book is an antidote to dire notions of the starving artist model. Since the book was published, she has positioned herself as the “Tony Robbins” (my analogy) of art business success with her popular online coaching program called Art MBA.

As we move further into the 2000s it appears that lastingness as an artist depends more and more upon financial success–a topic for another post.

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Last Paintings: simply, the end of production

I mentioned in the previous post how moving it is to stand before Elizabeth Murray’s last painting, EVERYBODY KNOWS, 2007.

The need to produce art ebbs and flows throughout an artist’s life. At the time of death, one work is left with the label as “last painting” (sculpture, photograph, print, etc.). While not always the masterpiece of a body of work, the point of stopping one’s life of work is certainly poignant and speaks to the lastingness of the artist’s drive to create, produce, and express.

The following statement by British artist, Ashley Bickerton, recently published in Los Angeles Magazine tells us about a physical ailment that has left him wheelchair bound:

“Since this accident has happened I used to bounce back and forth between surfing and art but my priorities are very, very clear and really spelled out in very graphic detail in where I stand. I have no great sadness knowing that I will probably never surf again, but if you took away my ability to make art, I would probably end it right now, right away, posthaste. I don’t know how I would exist without it. It’s who I am, it’s what I do, it’s how I breathe. I would just see no inspiration to function without it.”

Artists have a vocation that does not hinge on employment–work to last a lifetime, despite disability and old age as long as human energy is vital.

I am sharing a few last paintings here–mostly created during the days or weeks prior to death (for additional works and more in-depth information, refer to article by Sarune Bar on Bored Panda).

Keith Haring, 1990. UNFINISHED PAINTING. Age 31

Pablo Picasso, 1972. LAST SELF-PORTRAIT. Age 91.

Vincent Van Gogh, 1890. TREE ROOTS. Age 37.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1988. RIDING WITH DEATH. Age 28.

Frida Kahlo, 1954. VIVA LA VIDA. Age 47.

Watermelon is a popular Mexican Day of the Dead image meaning “long live life.” Her partner, Diego Rivera died a few years later after completing a commission for another watermelon painting, not a subject he would have chosen.

A few years ago, I published Last Words on another blogsite.

Frida Kahlo is reported to have spoken these last words: ” I hope the exit is joyful and hope to never come back”.

Diego Rivera, 1957. THE WATERMELONS. Age 70.

Edouard Manet, 1882. A BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGERE. Age 53.

Georgia O’Keefe, 1972. THE BEYOND (last unassisted painting as she lost eyesight at age 86).

Died age 98.

Henri Matisse, 1953. LA GERBE (ceramic tile imbedded in plaster). Age 85

Mark Rothko, 1970. UNTITLED. Age 66.

Andy Warhol, 1986. LAST SUPPER. Age 58.

Cy Twombly, 2011. UNTITLED. Age 83.

Author Gertrude Stein’s last words in 1946 continue the inquiry essential to all these endeavors–painting, writing, living.

“What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?”

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