Author Archives: Jo Ann Brown-Scott

The Creative Epiphany – The Year-Long Canvas Post #3….being underwhelmed

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Gesture #1 and #2 on the Year-Long Canvas – Big F****** Deal, right?

I must say that this Year-Long Canvas Project (see my archives for more explanation) is starting off as a non-event. Knowing how far I have to go on it and anticipating all the many layers of paint ahead of me, it seems irrelevant what my first gestures on the canvas are. I am ALREADY  yawning with it, eager to pick up speed. We all knew that would happen, but so soon?

My first brushstroke was not done with a brush – one of my favorite ways to begin a painting  is with a random swipe of my squeegee over liquid paint. I chose Paynes Gray. Why not a lighter color? Because I felt like being dramatic and I love the possibilities of Paynes Gray; it has more character than jet black. I chose to swipe it in the sort of diagonal direction so that I could  take advantage of the purposeful texture already there from my background color’s application.  Then a second color, Naples Yellow, using a palette knife and spontaneously adding a fling of splatter with it which will undoubtedly not matter one dot by the end of the painting but it got a few of my wiggles out and made me feel good. Not yet a third color. And no blending just yet.

Wow that was fun….sort of. Am I going slow enough? Such a pathetically small offering to the art Buddha.

I have other irons in the fire of course – several other canvases demanding my attention – so the lazy year long canvas ( I am sure it hates that nickname) is just standing over there in the corner now. It is very difficult for it to be a non-participant in the daily hum of things. I would not want it to be a sad painting, so I consciously decide to be joyful when I work on it the next time.

I guess I am predictably engaged in this process. So easy to know me and how I will handle it. So boring in my reaction. SOOO already feeling frustration. I am sure that my instructor knew full well what he was doing in offering this challenge to me. Painting like this is like biting your tongue until it bleeds with things you want to say. It is like knowing you will have a scrumptious dinner but not until next year.

I am silently screaming…..but I was told to make just a few gestures at each meeting of the canvas and me, allowing time between sessions to ponder and think and even meditate, I assume. How long between meetings? I don’t know. Restraint is the key word. It could vary immensely from month to month. It occurs to me that I am too old for a time factor like this. I try to make the most of every single day….because at a certain age you just never know. So I have trained myself to live in the NOW, savoring the moments. And I guess that is actually the point in a project of such long duration. But still, next year seems very far off.

But I can do it. I can restrain myself. Hey – you bet I can.

Here I go, doing nothing on it for awhile.

The Creative Epiphany – Year-Long Canvas Post #2

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Mixed Media Collage by Jo Ann Brown-Scott, copyright 2014

“Having a favourite colour is like having a favourite lung.”  (Sara Genn)

The other day, in my official #1 blog post about the one year-long canvas project I have been challenged to start, I showed you photos of my process of laying down the base coat of paint in preparation for the start of it. (See my Archives for that and also for further explanation of this challenge.) Now I am about ready to make my first gesture of color on the ONE YEAR LONG CANVAS. I think I will save that simple action for Monday’s class, but already I am asking myself what color I will use, and what type of brushstroke. My instructor’s directions ask that I take plenty of time between sessions with the painting, stringing the process out for a year while resisting all temptation to stop at certain places where I believe it could be called a powerful, strong, finished composition and call it done. Instead I need to keep going, obviously sacrificing that good work and morphing it into something else by adding more paint.

Keep in mind that this painting will be an abstract expressionist style, but don’t be of the assumption that since it is not going to be a realistic painting that it is any less difficult to start….you need to understand that abstract art is realism to its artist – it is just not always recognizable as any particular thing.

Now actually, considering the 365-day duration of this project and all of the many layers of paint it will ultimately carry, you might say that the initial gesture is irrelevant. If you look at my mixed media painting above, there is absolutely no way you could identify the first brushstroke. It is buried. From a practical standpoint the first stroke is probably irrelevant, but from an inspirational, emotional and spiritual viewpoint it is monumental in importance. So it seems to me, anyway, being the person expected to be making the gesture.

I once knew an artist who just could not ever bring himself to make the first brushstroke on any pure white sheet of expensive Arches rough watercolor paper. At the time I was a watercolor student and I knew the fear of that moment well – feeling frozen as you stand in front of the paper looking at it, sometimes for 20 minutes or more, waiting for the thaw of your mind and your arm as you talk yourself down from being so intimidated that you cannot speak, think or create. My friend came to a crazy solution to his problem – he took the paper outside and placed it in the driveway and ran over it several times with his car. That was his method for “having his way with it” and showing it who was boss. Then he could begin. It brings to mind the terrifying scene in the film “Captain Phillips” where the Somali pirates have boarded the ship, made it to the Captain’s perch and the scary leader of them says to the Tom Hanks character who is the Captain , “Look at me. Look at me! I am the Captain now!”

You have to take charge at some unexpected and opportune moment and show that paper or canvas who is in charge. I believe even the art Buddha would approve of that action. Once that is done you can lean back a little and loosen up, apologize to it for being so aggressive, and carry on with a gentler touch. Because in the long haul, you have to be friends with your art.

Next installment comes after Monday’s class.

The Creative Epiphany – You Gotta Sorta Like Courtney Love

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

photo courtesy of www.fanpop.com

The internet says that Courtney Love claims to have found the missing  triple 7 Malaysian airliner. You can find a photo of her designated target area on the BING website – follow this link –  http://wonderwall.msn.com/movies/the-shortlist-for-march-18-28535.gallery?photoId=134896&ocid=answw11

Oh good. I feel so much better now.

Geez, I wish we had asked her about it sooner – and a whole bunch of other things we have all been wondering about. Like where the hell is Amelia Earhardt.

Apparently Courtney is tuned into a website that enables people like you and me (and some who are not) to scan vast areas of ocean. She must have put aside her entire personal schedule to search for hours in behalf of all the others who apparently cannot find it, in spite of the technology they have access to.

She claims she has found, and has pinpointed, an area where she thinks she has seen an oil slick and possible debris. Well alrighty then. Full steam ahead. Get there ASAP! Somebody get Shepard Smith in on this….cause I love that guy. I really do.

What in the hell are we waiting for?

And while we are at it, has anyone thought of getting Pamela Anderson in on this search? I am going to have my people text her people…hope she’s not busy.

You just gotta love these girls…don’tcha…?

The Creative Epiphany – The One-Year Painting Challenge, Official Blog #1

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

dasl   room   floor

Denver Art Student’s League – the building, a classroom, the floor – March 17th, 2014    

In review – My esteemed instructor for Advanced Contemporary Painting, Homare Ikeda, has offered me a challenge – to work on a painting for a solid year. Certainly not at the exclusion of other work but parallel with all my other works. The canvas, we have decided, need not be larger than 30×40″ and could in fact be a bit smaller. The task, which of course I accepted, is more about the 365-day journey than the destination – more about having patience and resilience than the amount of time required – more about trusting yourself with the addition of each and every gesture than in asking for constant direction from the instructor. For a person like me who usually works quite fast, it is an exercise in pacing and meditation over the work being done.

**For the first two (unofficial) posts introducing this project, see my archives titled “Art Imitates Life, as they say…” published 3/13/2014 and “Back To The Classroom, Seeing Things Again for the First Time” published 3/11/2014

March 18th, 2014

Today I have begun. I have finally made my decision about the canvas size based upon Homare’s recommendation not to choose an odd-ball size (I was considering a tall narrow size of 20×60″) that would only add unnecessary frustration to this challenge. So the chosen size is 24×30″

It’s almost a blizzard now, where I am, in my second floor home studio south of the Denver metro area, but it won’t last long. It’s SPRING! Great day to paint. The north light in this room is wonderful, especially with lots of snow flying around outside.

I begin by painting the entire canvas with my favorite base color – unbleached titanium. It’s warm, it’s neutral, and it’s friendly with the color palette I usually hang with. I slap it on with a large palette knife because that also adds subtle texture, and I am all about texture, color and pattern.

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Now it has to dry before I can do anything else to it. That doesn’t take long, especially in Colorado’s altitude and low humidity, but you can also use a hair dryer if you are impatient, which I am supposed to NOT BE in this challenge. I am already getting excited to do more. Calm down. I need to watch it a lot, getting to know it. Calm down. Looking for inspiration. I might be hit with a flash of brilliance….something I want to do right away! Color! But I might not touch it again for several days…calm down.

Stay tuned……

The Creative Epiphany – Art Imitates Life, as they say…

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

lrgcanvas

In my previous post I talked about beginning my first art class in decades at Denver Art Students League, and what it felt like to me, finding myself in a bare bones classroom again filled with people dedicated to the pursuit of creating abstract expressionist paintings. Let me just say that it was a thrill. To put it mildly. It was an indication, a life-marker in fact, that I was again going to take my art career seriously. Oh I have taken it seriously long before this, but there has recently been an interval of time when I was teaching art and not progressing much in the level of my own art. I did that for 3 years. Oh yes you do learn from teaching – you learn from your students and you stretch yourself as well because you are always searching for great new techniques to demonstrate. But as for me, I did not paint privately as much as I should have, for juried shows and galleries. I turned out a steady stream of art but none of it was critiqued and judged by anyone who was truly qualified, which is a mistake because an artist needs feedback and constructive criticism.

I also mentioned, in the previous post, the project I was offered – and challenged with – on the first day of class by my instructor. It is the challenge of making a commitment to work on one particular painting for a solid year, not to the exclusion of all other paintings but in addition to them – in other words I begin to do a painting and give it my thoughts and intermittent attention for a year’s worth of my time. I walk up to it, I work on it for however long it feels right, I put it down for a while, giving both me and the painting a refreshing rest to catch our breath. Of course most every artist works on some paintings over a long period of time during which the he/she artist might purposely ignore the piece, leaving it still alive but in a dormant coma in the closet, and then one day the he/she artist decides to pull it out of the closet and look at it again to actually “see it again for the first time”. That practice is highly beneficial, and usually in an instant, the he/she artist has new ideas popping into mind and the painting is conscious again, gasping for oxygen as its life gets moving in a second-chance new direction. I love saving the lives of  forgotten canvases. It is frugal and quite satisfying and it makes the art Buddha happy. The practice has proved effective time and again for me and many others. But not for a solid year…..and not while leaving it out in the studio where it takes up space for a 365 day period of time…. staring at you, screaming for attention, often driving you crazy I would assume. I am sure I will get sick & tired of looking at it sometimes. But I also assume that many learning opportunities will be associated with this challenge, which of course I immediately accepted. It has to be an exercise in patience, perseverance, dedication, determination, love/hate relationships, keeping an open mind, not being discouraged, striving consistently for excellence and not settling for the easiest and most obvious solutions, to name just a few of the ways to learn and mature as an artist from the experience.

Sounds a lot like life, don’t you think? Wow. Art imitates life all the damn time, in case you had not noticed.

I will be blogging about this, from time to time, with pictures of the work in progress. I have already had a small but significant wake-up call observation. This painting must be large. I could not work on a 24×36 for a long and winding, roller-coaster year….I need SPACE for a whole year. But guess what – I can’t fit a huge painting in my car, and I will have to be taking the canvas into my classroom from time to time for critiques. I have worked on very large canvases before but I had a different car then.

One option would be to do a diptych, each piece as large as my car could accommodate. Maybe that will work. I’ll figure it out I am sure.

So how large is your life canvas? Does it fit in your vehicle or are you living large?

The Creative Epiphany – Back to the Classroom; Seeing Things Again for the First Time

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

dasl   room  Art Students League of Denver

This afternoon at 1pm sharp I found myself in a bare-bones art classroom again, awaiting the arrival of my instructor for Advanced Contemporary Painting at the Denver Art Student’s League. I was excited to such a degree that I could not help remember all of my “first days” of school, from kindergarten through college at CU in Boulder, and the many art instructors I have enjoyed (one or two not so much) over a long and winding career in fine art. That I still have such a passion for painting speaks to how powerful the pull of creativity and the artistic process can be, should you choose to surrender yourself completely to it. I am an art slave, owned by and under the spell of art. The smell of the room, the years of dripped paint dried all over the floor, the organic nature of the spattered shirted people struggling through the door carrying all the magical paraphernalia required to nurture each artistic soul – that is what turns me on. It was like being in the legendary Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory only with paint. I was giddy with anticipation and nervous, hoping I was not assuming too much by choosing that class….

One particular relative of mine, although near and dear to my heart, keeps urging, almost demanding me to paint as I did 25 years ago when my subject matter was Colorado landscapes and they were selling like fine art hot cakes. But all of you who pick up brushes to express yourselves know that one must grow and evolve as an artist and that any self-respecting painter who does the same kind of theme all the live-long day through all the live-long years of his life is a boring person indeed. It is like reading and re-reading the same books, watching the same old movies you saw 25 years ago to the exclusion of all the new award-winning films, and it is certainly like living constantly in the past, resting on one’s past accomplishments until they get so raggedy that one is called an arrogant has-been in ridiculous denial of the NOW. Creative people, if nothing at all, must live in the NOW.

I have done that – I have kept current, tried much of the new wiz-bang stuff, produced a huge body of work, taught my skills to other people, showed in gallery situations and private shows and sold a good percentage of what I produced. But still, I need guidance from someone wiser than me – someone who sees my art in a different light. I want to do the best art of my life in this very decade of my life and be remembered for it. If there is ever a retrospective show in my honor, please let there be clearly visible, stunning evolution evident in that body of work.

I am again the student, and it feels so good. My first challenge, from Homare Ikeda my instructor, is to begin a painting and allow a full year to finish it. Obviously this is an exercise in patience, steady progress, resilience, determination and the evolution of working on a project with no pressure. Sounds easier than it will be, I am sure, but I cannot wait to get started. This painting would be done at home, using most class time for other paintings, so it will be picked up and continued at my own pace, then put down again for a rest until I am in the mood to pick it up again and add to it. Periodically I will take it into class for critiques and classroom work. What’s the purpose? To show change – to indicate progress – to evolve – to grow as an artist. To surprise myself! Exactly what I was hoping for.

I am going to keep track of this progress, take photos, and from time to time I will report here in this blog with a photo of my current incarnation of THE YEAR LONG PAINTING, so if you care enough to see what’s going on, please stay tuned. I will be as surprised as you are, I am sure.

The Creative Epiphany – The Proverbial Springtime in the Rockies

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Photos from the south Denver area looking west, March 8, 2014

Here we are just a week from SPRING! and yet it is white everywhere. Yesterday we had a cotton-ball fluffy, white-out blizzard thing blowing up in our faces and our noses here in my south Denver area and today it is melted off in all the right places and the sky is supernaturally blue. The snowmen, so carefully created yesterday afternoon at the height of the  action are now slumped over and dripping sweat from this afternoon’s warm-up to a near 50 degrees. And so it goes in SPRING!

This will be the mother nature of things for the next couple months here in the Rocky Mountain region as SPRING! springs forward and then changes her feminine mind only to retreat and accept another wintry blast from the past. We actually like it, this back & forth, even while we complain about dressing in the morning for coldness and peeling off layers as the day progresses to warm, sunny afternoons. Shorts by afternoon is a not an uncommon thing for us in March and April.

We are almost ready to bid a fond adieu to the snowiest winter in over 20 years. Many of the mountain ski resorts have a base of well over 300 inches of snow and added another 2-3 ft.  in the past few days. There is a long and winding slowly moving line of cars heading up through the canyons into the mountains to the ski areas, and SPRING! break is a perfect time to ski….our lovely neighbor to the west, Lake Tahoe, has not been blessed with the powder this winter. Some years you are the anointed one and some years you are not. We feel your pain; been there too and done that.

We here, however, are on a Rocky Mountain High. We breathe deeply the joy of living in this spectacular setting.

The Creative Epiphany – What Goes Around…….eventually shows up again in abstract form

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

circles  Title  “What Goes Around…”

Mixed media Collage, copyright 2013, by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive and more constructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person. (Frank X Barron)

If I choose abstraction over reality, it is because I consider it the lesser chaos. (Robert Brault)

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for color, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential. (Wassily Kandinsky)

This blog entry is brief, offering some thought provoking quotes, but posted primarily as a test to see if I can post a blog that does not get screwed up by the WordPress process as yesterday’s did! It was not my fault!

Many thanks for the exceptional collection of categorized quotes from the website of Robert Genn – www.painter’skeys.com.

visit:   http://artquotes.robertgenn.com/getquotes.php?catid=2&numcats=372#.UxeKhxTTmpo

The Creative Epiphany – The Life-Support of Art

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Breathe deeply and open your senses to the wonders around you. Be alive!  Live in the now. You are a human being, able to lift yourself up through the joy of imagery. You are an emotional sponge – soak up what you need. Art is to be used – it is a tool for information and life enhancement, available at every turn.

Go to it when you need it. The beating art is your life support.

“The saving of lives, for an artist, is surely a daily act. Artists are resuscitators of dreams, rescuers of the abandoned, lodgers of the unwanted, and keepers of faith. In our lifesaving, we are saved. In polishing the souls of others, the artist polishes her own with her resurrections. She can’t help herself – giving life is the ultimate creative act. ‘As soon as there is life, there is danger,’ said Ralph Waldo Emerson. ‘I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.’ ” 

Written by Sara, excerpted from the March 4th, 2014 Letter of Robert Genn, which I highly recommend for all of you who enjoy being enlightened about the creative life.

Here’s the link: http://clicks.robertgenn.com/save-a-life.php

To be subscribed to the Twice-Weekly Robert Genn Letter, you can find out about it by going to www.painterskeys.com

From that website – Informed and successful artists and other creative folk from more than 115 countries visit this website for information, inspiration, artist advice, friendship and connectivity. Most have signed up to the Twice-Weekly Letters, which is FREE and we strongly encourage you to also subscribe to get the most benefit from this community. It has also been our goal to make this website an online resource of information for artists and a place to share with others what you are doing, such as through the Art Show Calendar, Art Workshop Calendar and Premium Art Listings. One of the most popular pages is the Art Quotes page, and we also share other things like a listing of Art Retreats available to artists, books, videos, and more.

I had to share this brilliant quote from Sara – her quote says so beautifully what is in the heart of every artist. Many people see us creative types as passive, introverted, perhaps even wimp-ish, but we are indeed the gutsy ones who smear our souls across canvas, following that brave effort by asking  for comments from perfect strangers. With our images we offer solace and comfort to the suffering, joy to the truly alive, hope to those who seek it and reassurance that life must go on. People who appreciate the artistic efforts of centuries discover all that and more.

People are moved by the sensuality of color, the fascination of texture and the thrill of a striking composition. That is wonderful. But art is not always pretty, and when it is not gorgeous to look at in the classical sense, you can be sure that especially then, when the image is not necessarily beautiful, it is still thought-provoking and it has a profound message to deliver. My wish is that people would follow that less-traveled visual path more often and care enough to discover the intent of the artist, the bravery required to make such a statement and the value therein. Dipping the pen of that artist and the viewer into the blackest, deepest well, as Ralph Waldo Emerson alludes to in the above quote within Sara’s quote, in other words. Art is so very all-inclusive – there is something for absolutely every one of us whatever mood we are in at the time. There is a time and a place for it all. When you need some life-support you will find it. Take a day trip to your local museum, visit an art class, stop into a gallery, go online to websites like ARTSPAN.com or just visit BING or GOOGLE and ask for images of your choice. You have the world of art at your fingertips, for your viewing pleasure and sustenance – an easy way to take you right out of yourself and into another world.

The Creative Epiphany – Refrigerator Wisdom in the USA

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

mag0   jocrow   bike

I love to entertain, and when I do my guests spend time in the kitchen reading my frig art. I do believe this is an American art form too long overlooked – each and every frig magnet selection is unique and timely and informative…..it  reveals the philosophy of the household and the mood of the decade. It is a barometer of the times, so to speak, unless your magnets and clippings are so old that they should be replaced. You do want your frig art to be timely, for Pete’s sake. It is  a passive-aggressive message board, saying everything you would not or could not say out loud, in a sort of  “ok read it at your own risk” kind of way….”I don’t know how it got up there but….” and then “well of course it’s my house but sometimes other people just…”

And people do give me magnets all the time, and purposely walk in the door, then into the kitchen and boldly post something on my frig. They are too chicken to put it on their own damn frig.  So I am an enabler. I took down some of the more suggestive, but hilarious ones for the noble cause of this blog post.

Are you a neat display freak or do you slap stuff up there all willy-nilly? I am both, depending on the day and what kind of hurry I am in. Sometimes I take it all down and edit it in an attempt to make sense of it all. I am an eclectic frig displayer – I like a frisky assortment of messages.

What’s on your frig?  Are you leaning toward political statements or the literary, wisdom themes or the sexy themes or what?

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Of course Jack Kerouac is always great – and Rumi has certainly stood the test of time. You cannot find a more fascinating author of life’s lessons than Rumi. I wish I could put 100 of his quotes on my frig.

My current favorite by far is the menacing bird, saying “I would sell you to Satan for one corn chip.” Such a great message about life – watch out for those who can be cheaply bought, and be careful of the simple offer disguised as a good deal. You never know who you are dealing with, or who he represents…..are you the corn chip or the devil? All of the bird quotes on my frig are from  www.mincingmockingbirds.com – a website that is crazy and kinda sick – love it. The Satan bird is positioned right in the middle of a group of timeless Matisse images which makes no sense but who cares.

Another one that shows up in the group photo – about the tomato – is a great hit at my house, indicative of a person we all know who shall go nameless and had a legendary tendency to tell everyone what to do about every single teeny little detail of life. My sister gave me the magnet and assertively slapped in on the frig when she came to visit one time…..a not so subtle suggestion that did not actually go over very well but made most of us feel better that we had done something to express our disapproval.

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I think an international art exhibit of frig art is long overdue, and so let’s think about doing that…wouldn’t we all know each other better if we could just walk into kitchens around the world and read everyone’s frig art?