Crystallization - Part 2 of 4: Something Has to Give

Lower Herring 
Oil on Panel, 8" x10" 

Crystallization - Part 2 of 4

Actually the solution was . . . to do nothing. Being a long time meditator, I was all too familiar with the phrase “don’t just do something, sit there” to gain clarity on a situation but normally don’t “practice” on vacation because, well, I was on vacation . . . .  . . . from everything. But not today. Grabbing a beach blanket, I walked down to the end of a string of cottages away from the fray, stopping in front of a unit being rented by my brother-in-law. I went inside and grabbed a couple of pillows, placed them on the blanket and settled into a folded leg position on the ground overlooking a lake canopied by a brilliant blue sky and let my mind settle. The wind was gusting with enough force to rock me gently back and forth, with trees rustling white noise and waves beating the shore at the base of a bluff 20 feet or so below me. Dropping my gaze towards the ground I quickly slipped from the sticky bonds of thought, anger evaporating, leaving me in an internal space to contemplate what was actually going on. It is hard to say for those that don’t meditate what happens next, but it is a lot of nothing, demarcated by thoughts and feelings, followed by a larger expanse, followed by more thoughts. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sometimes boring, painful, exhilarating, terrifying but never predictable.

I don’t remember how long I remained in place but I eventually stood up stretching my legs now long fast asleep and walked slowly back to the cottage. As I did so, in the empty space that I had created in my head a pattern started to emerge. I was feeling fear around something, but what? It was something I really wanted to do, but didn’t feel equipped properly to do it. Stopping along the path, I mused further and realized it had to do with drawing, specifically portraiture. I was pretty sure at that point I had uncovered a previously undiagnosed case of fear/joy. If you are not familiar with the concept, think of the name Fear/Joy; it is exactly what it sounds like. A situation where you really, really need/want to do something but there is a larger than normal dollop of fear straddling it, in some cases completely obscuring the fun object. And unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, the only cure is to push through the fear. Crap.

In my case the Fear was approaching people I didn’t know well, or at all, (not normally an issue for me) and asking them questions, taking pictures and then perhaps doing a sketch of them which was the Joy. A sketch that somewhat resembles them to be considered a “success”. I’ve done my share of drawing people but always in a studio setting or capturing someone when they aren’t aware of it; quick sketches on a plane or at a bar or while out somewhere public but nothing where I had to make it look like the person sitting across from me. My Aunt Marilyn, a childhood art inspiration to me, was a master at creating portraits for tourists on Jackson Square in New Orleans for many years.  I have some of her work in a flat file at home, portraits of my grandparents she drew years ago. There is an effortless quality, a sparseness of detail, yet enough is captured to ensure the viewer knows who the person is in a thoroughly authentic and non-caricatured way. This is an extraordinary skill of which I had virtually never practiced.

Being that this was Wednesday morning and the tennis tournament, the predominant activity of the day was getting underway, I decided to take a chance. I threw some drawing supplies into a backpack and headed to the courts to see what might inspire me. First up was baby Eloise, the latest addition to our extended family, all of seven months old - perfect. I could take as many pictures as I needed since she wouldn’t complain, with the added bonus that she wouldn’t know if I drew her poorly. Downside; she was a tough interview subject.

From there I sketched one of the many cousins in the family who was herself drawing and after snapping her picture, went in search of other prey. I pounced on one of the cooks grilling ribs behind the Inn in anticipation of a barbecue that evening. I have to laugh as I think back on the fact that I blurted out that I wanted to do her portrait and she was the one that wanted to “interview” me first. Note to self: modify how you approach your subjects. We spent a fair amount of time talking, after which I took some photos and was on my way. And so it went over the next couple of days, covering a range of guests and one of the carpenter/handyman on staff. All in all not so hard to overcome my initial trepidation and a lot more fun than I had ever imagined.

___________________________________

My last interview was with the waitress that had been serving us all week in the dining room of the resort. She agreed to meet with me between work hours, so we met up Friday morning after the breakfast tasks had been completed and walked out to a picnic table under a couple of shade trees out behind the Inn. While taking a couple of reference photos, she shared a little about who she was, where she was from and a bit about her family. As I struggled with the sketch (I find it hard enough to try to draw someone precisely not to mention carry on a conversation at the same time) we talked about what she wanted to do upon graduation and other future plans, including grad school followed by the possibility of being a museum curator. I continued drawing as I shared a story about a friend that I knew who had curated an art museum in Kohler, WI where I had just visited with my wife a few months before. Over the years, during my time as a science illustrator, I’ve had a number of opportunities to go behind the scenes to conduct research for projects of some sort or another and have always loved museums and research institutions in general. We continued to talk for a bit as I finished the sketch which had a passing resemblance to her.

We parted ways and I watched as she headed back to the kitchen while the idea of museum curation still rattled around in my head. I turned back to the sketch and continued to refine it while I smiled to myself, remembering the smell of moth balls that emanated from the trays of insects in the entomology department at the Field Museum in Chicago so many years ago. “No one goes into something like that these days; how cool. THAT was a Dream with a capitol D”.

A dream . . . . . . .  

In the warm summer haze, my hand sticking to the paper as I drew, I could feel a small piece of awe landing in the supersaturated liquid that was my being. Crystal began racing outward in all directions.

A dream . . . . . . .

Up Next: Transformed

Crystallization - Part 1 of 4

Behind the Johanna
Watercolor 11 x 14, 2014

Have you ever struggled with a decision for a period of time where you were not sure what direction to take but then, in an instant, “knew” what to do? Where confusion and opacity were replaced with a feeling of unity or a clear path to follow? One moment you didn’t know and the next you are certain?

And afterwards did you ever "wonder what just happened?"

While most of my personal decisions of any magnitude are done through careful (some would argue agonizingly obsessive) deliberation, I have also had those “aha” moments where everything snapped into place and, without a doubt, I knew what needed to happen next. Over the next four posts, I’ll share a recent experience characterized by this type of awareness as another example of how the creative process manifests itself.  Hopefully I will be able to provide you some insights on how to prepare for the same type of transformation.

There is a concept in chemistry called “instantaneous crystallization,” which is a rapid state conversion from a liquid to a solid crystalline structure in supersaturated liquids. This takes place when a small particle or “seed” is introduced into a solution that contains a higher concentration of a particular material. An almost instantaneous change takes place in dramatic fashion and reacts much like lightening striking. However, in this case it serves as metaphor with a universal truth: small things can precipitate great change due to incredibly powerful surrounding forces. Think Rosa Parks sitting on the bus refusing to give up her seat in the supersaturated environment of the deeply segregated South in 1955. Rosa is the seed that started a crystallization of the Civil Rights movement and equality rulings across the country for years afterwards.

I can only wish that my actions had the pertinence of a human rights movement. It might strike you as a bit smug or pretentious to assume similarity between such an important historical event and my “state change” but when such a shift occurs internally (and since we are all at the center of our own little universes and experience everything first from the standpoint of YOU*), it can take on similar importance. For some, the change may be so profound that it causes physical effects such as disorientation or taking your breath away. Note: as stated in infomercials - “individual results may vary”.

Supersaturation for me took on the form of many years of delaying gratification of one type for the delivery of another. I had a family to support, kids to help through college, an IT/design career that allowed me to do that and a variety of other things that helped to interfere or refine what it was that I was supposed to be doing with my life. And honestly, those were the things I needed to be doing at the time. No regrets, just backwards observation of the path that had passed beneath my feet while fixing my gaze forward. All the while, I had been learning oil painting skills along with portraiture (see earlier posts for some results) for a number of years, dabbling at it, moving through the process intuitively banging at walls trying to learn skills in a hit or miss fashion on the side. It wasn’t until I was on vacation recently that I had an opportunity to reflect on just how neglected certain aspects of my creative being had become, allowing my internal mix to reach a critical level.

To provide a bit of background, this is a vacation like no other. My daughter described it as “not a vacation but an event,” one from which we all need another vacation to recover. Relatives and friends from around the country converge for one week of get-togethers, parties, organized competitions, and events all set in a gorgeous northern Michigan environment. Introverts beware! It really is a great time for the most part but I’ve found as I’ve gotten older that it all gets to be a bit too much by the end. And since it is everyone's vacation. rather than be a buzz kill, I chose to find other pursuits and stay out of the fray but as the week approached its halfway mark I felt I had reached my tipping point. Waking one morning with an "anger" hangover, I realized this was no longer a vacation but an endurance test. I had to do something . . . .  

          *Thank you David Foster Wallace for this analogy. Kenyon commencement address, 2005.

Up Next: Something Has to Give 

Works in progress

I often find myself jumping between a number of pieces over the course of a few months, finishing them as I go, while looking for inspiration for future pieces. However, there are often some that just come together quickly, often due to it being mulled over subconsciously or something I see inspires me to sit down and complete it in one sitting. Others are portraits completed from live models which I do for the sheer joy of portraiture. 

Here are some of the other pieces I've been working on while the larger ones come together.

MB Oil Study, 9 x 12, from live model

Frank

Oil on panel, 11 x14

Folly Bay, Rockport, MA
Watercolor, 11 x 17

Underwater, There Lies Inspiration

As shared in an earlier post, I renewed by scuba license with my son last summer, in time to go diving off the coast of Monterey, CA. At the surface, sea life was abundant with pods of 50 or more Dolphins cavorting offshore while dining on bait fish, Humpback Whales and Sea Lions swam within 100 yards of the beach in pursuit of the same. Underwater, we experienced a similar bounty of life including a Cormorant swimming past us looking for its next meal, a "fly-by" from a Sea Lion and a variety of bottom life including Metridium, Octopus, nudibranchs and loads of fish and crabs.

While floating peacefully through this amazing forest of kelp that extended above us to the surface, we encountered a Giant Kelpfish suspended motionless upside down trying its best to blend in with the leaves that surrounded it. As we moved closer, it gently swam off, its elongated body undulating in striking yellow waves.

Later that day after my body warmed back up from the chilly 52 degree water, I did a quick watercolor sketch to frame up the event in my mind. The series of sketches and the final painting are a result of that experience.

Many thanks to Scott, my divemaster and the other folks at Aquarius Dive Shop for a great dive experience in Monterey.

At the Bottom of Monterey Bay, 
Watercolor sketch,  5 x 7.  

While flying back on the plane, I did a quick sketch on my iPad to play around with the composition. It was at this point that I decided on the warped perspective, to show the bottom and the surface at the same time. I used the app called Procreate and a Wacom pressure sensitive Bluetooth stylus.

And then when I returned to the studio, refined it further with this oil sketch.

Kelp Forest
oil on panel, 8 x 14"

I then roughed out the painting on a large 24 x 48" birch panel.

Here is the piece as it stands today. I am still adding details to the
bottom and filling out the entire composition.

Kelpfish! - In Progress. Oil on Panel, 36" x 48".

The Completion of Elephant Dreaming

Two years after its inception, I am happy to say that the painting Elephant Dreaming has been completed. Thankfully most of my work doesn't take this long to complete but in this case, I feel the effort was worth it. The final is more interesting and dynamic than where the original piece was headed.

If you are interested, here is a link to the original post where you can see the inspirational sketches and where the work was last left. What follows is an explanation of the piece. If you'd like to download the explanation for easier reading, click here.

Elephant Dreaming, Oil on Canvas, 18 x 36. 

Elephant Dreaming; What Does It Mean?

On the east side of Lake Michigan where my family vacations, thunderstorms make their presence known far in advance of their arrival due to the vast expanse of flat water that lies offshore. Sitting on the beach one evening listening to an approaching storm reminded me that I had once heard that elephants are able to feel subsonic waves from thunder over great distances through the pads of their feet. I mused that if they have these specialized abilities there must be all sorts of these capabilities in other animals and since we were preceded by a variety of life forms prior to becoming human, we must have gained and lost a variety of interesting senses in the process.

So what were we once able to see, hear or feel? Humans had to come from the primordial ooze, with flagella, gills, fins, tails, scales, you name it. Did we too once sense subsonic waves? Or guide ourselves through the early seas by lateral lines along our sides or primitive eye spots? And what still lurks in our cells, waiting to awaken to meet the demands of survival? This painting is a visual exploration of this theme. 

Each of the numbers on the painting corresponds with the descriptions that follow.

1.  The figure in the foreground is dreaming and as she does so, starts to revert back to a more animalistic form, in this case a Zebra, which uses its markings as camouflage in the tall grass of the African plains. Perhaps sometime in the past, we had more elaborate coloring to our hair patterns that allowed us to survive to our current form.  

2.  The elephant uses the pads of its feet to feel for subsonic waves given off by thunderstorms at distances of up to 75 miles to aid in their search for water during the dry season. Subsonic waves can travel great distances through the ground, as well as water, where prior to the appearance of powered ships and the cavitation caused by their propellers, whales were able to communicate over thousands of miles via subsonic waves.

3.  Honey Bees are able to see ultraviolet waves, allowing them to better distinguish certain types of flowers by both color and pattern that we don’t see. In addition, they use a “dance” to communicate these sources of rich pollen with others in the hive, orienting themselves to the sun as they do so.

4.  The Dung Beetle of Africa uses the Milky Way Galaxy (shown in the upper portion of the painting) for navigation. During the day, the beetle’s eyes have photoreceptors that allow it to navigate by a pattern of polarized rays around the sun. But under the dark skies of the Serengeti, the beetles orient themselves by the bright stripe of the galaxy across evening skies.

5.  Several species of jellyfish and marine feather worms have eye spots that allow them to sense light. We often think of the eye as an incredibly complex mechanism available only to higher forms of life but we have since come to realize the breadth of animals that contain some type of “vision” system, however primitive.

6.  Cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays have a network of sensors scattered about their heads called Ampullae of Lorenzini. These sensors give its owner the ability to sense prey by the faint electrical signals given off by their muscle contractions or nervous system. These systems are incredibly fine, with the Scalloped Hammerhead Shark sensing as little as one billionth of a volt, allowing them to find live food buried under the sand. There is also speculation that this system also allows them to navigate by detecting fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field caused by ocean currents.

  

7.  Single-celled animals use a variety of mechanisms for locomotion such as flagella, cilia or pseudopods. We too most likely had some form of locomotion in our single celled forms as our earliest direct chordate ancestor is a worm found in the fossilized mud of the Burgess Shale formation in Canada, which dates back to the Middle Cambrian Era over 500 million years ago.

8.  A sea-going animal is shown making its way to shore, most likely with some combination of gills, skin that absorbs air, lobes instead of feet or fins and a variety of other methods of adaptation that allowed it to survive better than other species and therefore pass its genes along.

9.  The volcano represents the electro-chemical stew which gave rise to all life as we know it. The exact source of the seeds are still unclear, but it is speculated that life either rose from the amino acids present in earth’s early atmosphere or was delivered via extraterrestrial sources which then prospered on our young earth.


Attributions
Since this piece originated with an essay written a number of years ago, the images and facts represented here and in the description have been gathered from a variety of sources during that time frame, none of which are presented directly with the following exceptions. The following are the articles or credit lines for this piece which can be directly correlated to the source:

• Mohamad Itani, Archangel-Images.com - female reference
• National Geographic - Dung Beetles Navigate Via the Milky Way, First Known in Animal Kingdom by Christine Dell'Amore.
• Hammerhead Shark - Wikispaces.
• Ampullae of Lorenzini - many thanks to Oliver on Grand Cayman for our discussion about the Scalloped Hammerhead shark. Wikipedia provided additional reference. 

Catching Up

It has been a while since the last post so I have some catching up to do. No excuses. Just busy doing some other things to provide inspiration, like travel, completing my scuba license in time to dive off the Monterey Peninsula in CA last week (more on that in a later post) and a number of other side projects that are best left for summer.

Back in August while vacationing with my family in northern Michigan at a one time logging camp/now summer resort, there is a tree stump behind a cottage that we rent. It is quite large and very weathered, so I imagine it is an echo of the forest that used to surround the camp before the operation went bankrupt in the late 1800s. Purchased as a music camp after lying dormant for many years, the result is a splendid resort called Watervale, still owned and operated by descendants of the original purchaser. Its natural beauty and the Victorian charm of the original camp structures have been the source of much inspiration for vacationers and artists over the years.

The remains of this tree have always intrigued me as it lies not too far from a path leading from the back of the cottage. Late afternoon shadows cast by the surrounding trees and flowers interplay with the coarseness of the surface of the aged and faded wood allowing for a delightful dance of texture, light and color.

Johanna's Garden
10 x 14, Watercolor on paper

Birch Over Lower Herring 
10 x 14, Watercolor on paper, 2013

Thinking back on the past couple of years of visiting Watervale, I remembered the piece shown above that I completed last year while sitting at the front of the cottage which faces a small lake. The sheer size of the tree, the complexity of its leaves and trunk and the amazing texture of its bark just begged to be painted. 

It is included here as a comparison to the other painting as they capture different views of the same place at similar times of the year, but separated by a year. 

The Lost Art of Just Being

Over the course of life, we all encounter periods where it is difficult to create. Perhaps it starts as a grayness nibbling at the edge of your reality, a slight fog or out-of-focus perspective as if your eyeglass prescription needs updating. It bleeds into your life, tainting everything you touch and eventually the flow of ideas stops. It could be due to the stress from your day job, a relentless hen-pecking of details that keeps a distracted mind even more so, leaving little energy for anything else, especially creativity or just plain "being". Or maybe it is one of a million other little things that occasionally clot together to form a personal thrombosis, from which we are tempted to seek solace through cable TV, the web or the refrigerator; anything but to feel the disconnectedness.

Ah, there it is; a theme. What I'd like to extemporize on today is the "The Lost Art of Just Being". I wasn't sure where this was headed when I sat down at the keyboard this morning but this feels like a good direction so let's see what unfolds.

There is this mantra that we need to have a "reason" that keeps us motivated, gives our lives purpose. But what if we didn't? Let's assume for a minute that we weren't created "on purpose", put here to fulfill some mission but merely "happened". If we cut loose from the ties of expectation, what happens next? Hmmm. This is interesting. There is no one to disappoint, no afterlife to worry about, no expectations to keep us awake at night. No one to impress. Our to-do lists are in flames. This feels great!!

But suddenly with this "freedom", a terror appears; there is no foundation, nothing upon which our feet can stand. Everything is fluid, nothing solid. All that we know is an illusion. Isn't this death, a nothingness without form or end?

As horrifying as the vast unknown can be, isn't facing it required to create something new? Breaking from the old order, the structured ways of seeing things? Sometimes, we just need to sit, watching, listening, thinking, creating an emptiness for no reason other than to create it and see what appears. If there is such a thing as God, and I were "it", this is just the kind of exercise I'd try. Create an emptiness so vast and then just sit and watch what happens next.

So we sit in the darkness, waiting, a dull anxiousness pervading. And then a door opens. Or an explosion occurs. Take your pick. And we follow its tail, or hang on for dear life. Or do nothing and watch the energy/opportunity/life fly away. As Douglas Adams once quipped, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Your choice. And sometimes in the darkness someone taps you on the shoulder to point the way.

I was once a Boy Scout, and not a very good one at that. I joined the organization at about the same time my body commenced poisoning me with an overdose of hormones transforming me into something non-human where everything I met that hinted of authority caused me to subvert the rules and rebel. I cared not for advancing in the ranks or for the structure of the troop but reveled in knowledge and being outdoors and so managed in spite of myself to make it to the rank of First Class.

On a particular camp-out in the evening after dinner, I was sitting alone at the edge of the restless opaque waters of the Kankakee River outside Chicago, my legs drawn to my chest in folded arms, my knees supporting my chin. I was intrigued with the rippling surface manipulated by unseen things, its swirling motion coaxing me to become fully absorbed in its unfolding. Eventually I became aware of someone standing near me and out of the corner of my eye recognized one of our troop's scoutmasters. We had several with widely differing personalities and this one was the sternest with a temper that could be fired in a flash, commanding respect and to my unkempt teen-aged mind, distrust. A silence enveloped us as he stood above me on the bank, his hands casually stuffed in the front pockets of his pressed leader's uniform khakis, looking out to where my eyes gazed. "What are you watching?" he asked gently respecting the solemness and peace of the moment. I thought about it for a bit and then looked up at him and said "The water going by." He nodded as we looked at one another, before turning back to the river. "That's a good thing. You should keep doing it." he said. After a minute or so, without another word from either of us, he turned and walking back to camp.

In the stillness that followed as the dying sun pierced holes through the distant trees, there was no way for me to know the impact those words would have throughout my life. I learned later he was an architect, an eye for the aesthetic as well as order contained he, and perhaps in the midst of my anger and rebellion saw something that I myself couldn't. That in the maelstrom of life we all need a life ring to hang onto. It is only by being ourselves and creating this space, to ponder and to endure while the patterns of life fall into place around us as we blindly lurch do we reconnect to what is important. Whether we sit in stillness alone in a crowd and feel our human-ness or watching the elegant mundanity of a flowing river we need to create a space in our garden for something new to grow.

So what does this have to do with art or creativity?

We've all lost the thread at some point and will continue to do so again. Not just feel it, but live it, under a shroud of mist so dense that we loose our bearings, the details of life smothering us, obscuring little voices inside before they have a chance to be heard. Where the words no longer appear on paper, the canvas repels the brush, the fingers no longer able to stand the thrum of strings. Though there are times to fight back, to rage at the Resistance as Steven Pressfield encourages us to do in the War of Art and to continue the ceaseless struggle of a Type-A society, there are times that we need to stop, to surrender to the moment and let it, let you, be.

And in these soft moments of nothingness, a twinkle of light on a wetted stone, a chord change, a turn of a phrase, a breeze across the cheek and we are instantly in love again. A universe explodes from nothingness. Life screams from our finger tips, pores oozing technicolor so rich as to defy vision. And we wonder briefly looking back how we got here from there, before being swept forward too fast to care. And then we begin anew; to create, to stand in awe of all that is around us and let it move us to create beauty, or perhaps if only to mimic the beauty that already surrounds us and hope that we pay it due homage.

It is with these words that I post the following images; the twinkle of the water's edge, emerald water over rock. And I paint again.

Observatory Point
Plein Air, Oil on Panel, 8 x 10

On The Rocks
Plein Air, Oil on Panel, 8 x 10

Coral Head, Karens Cove
11 x 14, Oil on Panel