Here is a photo of Renoir to go with yesterday's blog

Renoir, old, crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, unable even to pick up the paintbrush, so it has to be wedged between his fingers.  He wrote: "The pain passes, but the beauty endures."

Artwork --- yes, it is work

One of my favorite artists, Kathe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945).  Here is one of her lithographs, "Widows and Orphans".  

And, now:

Non-artists think that art just effortlessly flows from your hand, thru the brush, the charcoal, the pencil and onto the canvas, the board, the paper.  They think it must be such a relaxing activity and that you must leave the easel, the drawing board, feeling so calm and renewed.  I do feel that way at the end of a yoga class.  But after a long session of drawing or painting?  My neck hurts, my shoulder hurts, my back hurts. I try to remember to sit up straight, but I get into the "zone" and start slumping.  I try to remember to take stretch breaks.  But I am focusing so intently, I forget.   My pointer finger hurts because I'm so darn aggressive with the charcoal.  In fact, it's been swollen for over a year, and it never gets better because I don't give it a month off, like I should.  After a long session, I look around in a dazed state.  Sometimes I leave feeling totally frustrated, because it just isn't coming together.  Tranquil?  No, sometimes I'm upset and worried.  Will it be done in time for a deadline?  Sometimes, I leave with a feeling of accomplishment.  Maybe it isn't all there yet, but it's coming together.  And, once in a while, I stand back, look at what I did, and I think, "Wow.  That turned out well!"

Censorship on MySpace

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I have a MySpace account (under the nom de plume prettytexasgal).  I post artwork and drawings and thoughts.  It's somewhat different than this blog.  MySpace doesn't allow any nudity, period the end.  Doesn't matter if the pics are made private.  I think Michelangelo's David would get pulled.    They can't have enough staff to look over the millions of pics that  get posted every day.  They must have a fuzzy logic program.  The software guys give the program parameters, it scans all incoming pics, and rejects the ones that fit the parameters.  They apparently made it more sophisticated recently.  It used to be that my life drawings would pass muster if they weren't full frontal or side view obvious.  Well, I posted these two, and they were pulled immediately.  The software jockeys still can't write a program that can differentiate between porn and Art.  Sooner or later, they could make a grand leap in artificial intelligence.  It will be a while.  For now, since they never answer my emails to customer support crying "foul", Meanwhile I shall try to be sneakier.  

The painting that gets the most comments

This is the painting of mine that consistently gets the most positive responses.  Well, not enough to motivate people to actually buy it.  You know how that goes.

I painted this after Hurricane Katrina and titled it: "The Three Graces".  I wanted a feeling of richness, color, and decay, which I associated with New Orleans.  The fur pieces imply both richness and decay.  Nothing is yummier to the touch than real fur.  Yet, it is part of a dead animal.  I remember the first time, as a child, that I saw one of those small mink stoles -- the ones that are the bodies of the minks, sewn together, with the heads and feet and tails still attached.  I was perhaps 10 years old, at church, and I saw a woman wearing one.  I thought, "She has a dog around her neck."  When I got closer to her I realized, "It's a dead animal!"  I though it was completely bizarre.

Hurricane Katrina was sad to me in two ways.  First, the the terrible destruction, dislocation and death.  Second, and more personally, a friend, a dear friend, emailed me her opinion of the residents of New Orleans.  Specifically, the poor, black residents of New Orleans.  I knew this friend had become more and more conservative over the years.  But, I had not yet accepted that she had tipped over into being a reactionary.  Her words were racist and classist.  I felt sick to my stomach when I read them.  I confronted her thru email.  Her reply boiled down to: "you need to figure out why you hate middle-class white people."  Considering I am a middle-class white person, that seemed strange.  I emailed back that, if I were poor and black, that would be the community that I would critique and try to make better.  But, I am white and middle-class, so that is the community I see up and personal.  That is the community I am qualified to critique.  Then I said, let's just let it be.  

Alas, the arrogance of the middle-class.  We have nothing to learn from others, we think.  They have everything to learn from us, we assume.  The middle-class sees the splinter in the eye of the poor and misses the plank of wood in its own. 

Gestures

In life drawing, we normally start with one-minute "gesture poses".  The model chooses more difficult poses that are doable for one minute, but not much longer.  Because we only have a minute to draw, the gesture drawings are free, loose.  I like the word loose.  Think of: breaking loose, cutting loose, letting loose, on the loose, and turning loose.  The best thing about a gesture drawing?  You can't overwork it!

I consider gesture drawings to be calligraphic.  The master calligrapher creates the forms very quickly.  It looks so easy.  But, backing it up?  Years of practice bring mastery.  In the same way, the experienced artist creates a gesture drawing.

I showed my gesture drawings to a gallery owner.  She said they were great for practice, but not something one would frame and hang in a gallery.  I disagree.  I consider them my best work.  

Life drawing

Which of these images is more pornographic?  Let's explore the question. 

 The best way to learn to draw is by drawing the human figure.  I live in Texas.  Texans like to say that Texas is not part of "The South".  So,  I was shocked when a friend rebuked me for life drawing.  She called it a sin. To many people, particularly in the South, the human body is inherently pornographic.  Our culture has so hyper-sexualized the human body, some people cannot see it any other way.  

 I believe we are hardwired to pay close attention to other human beings.  We notice their faces, their body language: is this one friendly, is this one threatening? Therefore, for the artist, the human figure provides a compelling subject.  Truly, the best way to learn how to draw is by drawing the human figure.  The atmosphere in a life drawing session is one of quiet concentration.  The lurid imaginings of non-artists do not exist in the real studio. 

 I am the studio monitor for a life drawing group that meets twice a week.  I book the model.  Drop-in fee is $5.00.  There is no commitment.  An artist could come once or a hundred times.  We have all skill levels.  The person drawing for the first time is as welcome as the artist who has drawn for fifty years.  No instruction, no group critiques.  How freeing it is to simply draw, with others who find it both challenging and fulfilling.  No grades.  No customer to please.  Just the model, the artist, and the sheet of paper.

So, I will ask you, the reader....which of the images above might qualify as pornography?