Teaching and Studio Practice

It has been two months since I have last written. I have noticed in life that creative activities come in waves. Sometimes energy goes into reading and writing, other times drawing and painting, and sometimes just teaching. This winter quarter it has been teaching. I have started teaching a new class, Design and Color. It has required much preparation time.

I ended up resolving the first painting "Duomo, Siena" which I hung in the student exhibition I curated for those who came to Italy with me last summer. I was asked by Naomi, the Program Director to also hang a piece. It is amazing what pressure of an exhibition can do for the work. When the painting felt as if it would never come together, it did a couple days before hanging the show.

I thought I had resolved the second painting, but when I brought the first one home, I realized it did not come close to the first. It lacked the movement and depth of the other. Going back into it now, I have discovered that the foreground is much too dark and neutral compared to the middle and background. I need to bring in some saturated color to the foreground in order to unify the spaces more. In doing so, I see the color vibration intensify which has brought breath to the painting.

It has taken me another three months to work on this painting. It seems the average amount of time is about four months to finish a painting. This means that I am producing about 4-5 paintings a year. This does not feel like very much. I am however also working in some smaller 10" x 10" paintings along with the 24" squares, so I am also putting time into these.

This new direction I am taking with using form and dissolving forms is integrating my teaching practice as well. Because I teach drawing from life mostly, it feels good to be working from my own drawings and having the paintings negotiate painting and drawing, or color and line. This challenge feels much more integrated, than working as an abstract artist and teaching representational work. This always caused a separation for me because it felt like one was just what I did as a job and the other was what I did in my work. Now the two are more unified and help focus and strengthen one another.