Art and Inspiration

The Artist has the masters in his eyes.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

ART AS NOUN AND VERB

If you look up “art” in the dictionary, you will likely discover that it is described as a noun, such as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power” (Oxford Languages, “world’s leading dictionary publisher” used by Google). Just wondering what happened to music and photography and any other art form.

As I read this definition, I agreed and disagreed in part. As a lover of words, I wondered about art as a verb, reflecting the process or act of doing and creating. Lo and behold, I found someone else who was pondering the same thing. I found Christine Nishiyama of Might Could Studios who lives and “arts” in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains and her essay, “Art as a Verb.” I encourage you to click the link and read her thoughts, which echo mine. “Art is about more than just the thing you create … Art is not what you made, but how you made it. Art is a process. An Action. A verb.” Big, fat ditto! Thank you, Christine! So, art is both a noun and a verb. The noun (the work) does not exist without the verb (the process, the doing by the artist).

Abstract of Nets with Motion

If I, as a photographer or writer, do not go out with my camera and “do” or set down with pen and paper, nothing exists to share. The camera, lenses, pens and paper are my tools. If I do not use them, no art is created. No matter what our art genre is, if we don’t use the materials, we create no art. We must DO the work – first for ourselves, then for the sharing. Because I am a photographer, writer and educator, it is important for me to flex the creative muscles as much as possible. To be honest, I don’t use my camera (the big one) every day. Nor do I write something “creative” every day. I do, however, walk everywhere I go with my cell phone (camera) and take pictures of things I find interesting most every day. That doing involves observing and noticing. Similarly, most mornings I do sit and write three personal pages in a journal during my quiet time (See more in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way).

In addition, nearly every day I am reading something from a variety of books in my home or articles online. I love the visual-tactile experience of the paper books – holding them in my hands, turning the pages, hearing the sounds the spine and pages make, feeling the paper and, sometimes, even smelling the ink and paper of the books.

Old books and a broken pencil – inspiration tools

EXPANDING THE BLANK CANVAS – GROWTH

I have learned, and continue to learn, that it is important to continually feed on the art of others (in and out of our preferred or primary genres) in order to grow in our own art. Doing so influences what we notice and how we see. We hear the phrase, “life-long learner”, often, and it really does make a difference to embrace the concept.

I remember how hungry I was to learn when I first began my photography journey. As a blank slate, knowing nothing about the craft of photography at all other than pushing the button to take the picture, there were many, many things I needed to learn and skills in great need of development (not refining). I attended many workshops and seminars and acquired many books on “how to” that I still have and that were important to my “skills” growth. The images I viewed in those books were indeed valuable in the process, which I began in my mid-thirties.

Where I began to grow artistically was when I viewed the images and paid more attention to how they affected me on an “emotional” level and tried to ferret out why they resonated with me. I discovered that the small stories, macro, close-up, the intimate details grabbed me more than the grand landscapes and big pictures. For the longest time all anyone thought of when they thought of my photography was the macro and close-up images, even though I did much more than that. During the “film days,” it was harder to share images on a wider scale unless one printed and exhibited or if one’s images were published in magazines. Sharing images in slide presentations was limited to the live audience. Once the lights were turned on, show was over.

With the advent of digital photography, the internet, websites and social media, sharing images and seeing the work of others became far easier. Sharing the range and depth of one’s work is not nearly as challenging. In the same way, exploring the work of others is far more accessible. One question for me has been, “how can I continue a path of growth as a visual artist?” Over the last five or six years I’ve done things a bit differently, and I see how I important it is for me to feed myself art in order to grow. The art intake goes well beyond looking at other photographers’ work. It involves intentional acts of going below the surface and outside of photography. It has made a difference in ways that go beyond my work “output”.

Reminiscent of Wassily Kandinsky

FEEDING THE INSPIRATION WELL

In order to be inspired, we must go beyond ourselves and push out of our comfort zones. We must work to learn new things that might be hard or even “not our thing.” Pushing outside our comfort zones is how we grow, and I have been pushing harder for a while now. I have been working harder to fill my inspiration well. You might ask how, and I’ll share some of the work.

Filling my well begins with looking outside of myself. So, exploring new areas within photography is a good start. However, I am learning that I need more. I need other art and need to go deeper than knowing of and having a few favorite painters (Van Gogh, O’Keeffe, Monet, for starters). It means learning more about them, going behind what my first thought is about them and others. Consider some first thoughts like Van Gogh and Starry, Starry Night, O’Keeffe and the floral abstracts, or Monet and the water lilies. They are all so much more than those works or styles. Exploration by way of books, websites and, even more impactful, standing before the paintings and seeing them in person. Art museum exhibitions are great facilitators for those experiences, and have often been surprising in terms of what I have discovered about art in general and specific artists. (I have said more than once, “wow, I didn’t know he/she did that kind of work.”)

Where my mind first went with Georgia O’Keeffe until I knew more

Imagining Monet’s garden and water lilies

In recent years I have visited the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Brandywine Museum of Art a number of times for specific exhibitions and also for general intake of inspiration. Even more recently, I have visited the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum in Blowing Rock, NC, and discovered an amazing North Carolina ceramic trompe l’oeil artist, Eric Serritella. He works with clay in a most incredible way – transforming it into realistic pieces that look like wood (paper birch, drift wood and more). There is no paint involved. The color comes from ceramic stains and oxide and is then fired on. The exhibit, Abscission, struck me profoundly in part because of how mindbogglingly “real” the pieces look, but also because of my own love of trees, details and the concept of wabi sabi. His work inspired me to explore and photograph a piece of birch I had gathered from the forest floor in Pennsylvania last fall. On top of that, I learned a new word and concept: Abscission – “In botany, abscission is the natural process by which trees shed what they no longer need—such as leaves, dead bark, or spent blossoms—allowing them to conserve energy and foster new growth.” How awesome is that!?

The visits to the other museums allowed me to explore works of Andrew Wyeth, Georgia O’Keeffe, Van Gogh, Monet, Jackson Pollock and so many more. These visits made me realize how little I really know about their artistic paths. A visit to my local art museum, Greenville Museum of Art, surprised me when I discovered that we have a Ken Noland piece I had forgotten about. The NC Museum of Art has given me opportunities to explore a much wider range of art genres beyond painting. While I might not be drawn to all of it (no need for that expectation), the exposure helps me grow and draw from what is seen, absorbed and what surprisingly inspires me when I least expect it. I may not ever paint or draw or sculpt with even the slightest degree of proficiency, but what I absorb on a conscious and unconscious level at some point will bubble up and influence the way I see or notice a subject and how I photograph and interpret it.

“Remnants” from the Abscission exhibit by Eric Serritella

Exploring my Pennsylvania birch bark

Going deeper into my Pennsylvania birch bark

Because of my visiting the Brandywine Museum of Art, I have met Karl Kuerner, another painter/artist/teacher. It was on the Kuerner Farm in Chadds Ford that Andrew Wyeth painted extensively. Karl continues painting in his own style, one that resonated with me the first time I saw it at his exhibit at the museum. I have been able to visit a part of the farm the last two Aprils for a few hours while Karl leads a workshop. Each of his students were working on something different, subject and style-wise. I have been able to walk throughout the house and grounds, knowing that I was walking in footsteps far beyond me. While I have not located a painting that matches the stairwell images I made there, I cannot imagine that it doesn’t exist. Another painting made by Wyeth of the Kuerner kitchen does (“Home Kitchen” watercolor, 1976). I am thankful for these unique opportunities to be in the place where art was and is being made and look forward to more in Chadds Ford and beyond. It is hard to explain the feelings that surface and swirl in those moments, but I know I will look forward to expanding my explorations and to “be” in places that other artists have walked and worked.

A Kuerner farmhouse stairwell

A different view of the stairwell

In the Kuerner farmhouse kitchen with Wyeth print on ledge. Image is a blend of the kitchen and the wallpaper.

My inspiration well receives deposits on a regular basis from nature. God’s art is everywhere in the great and small. I cannot imagine a time when nature is not one of my primary muses. Even when I walk in my neighborhood, the trees, flowers, bushes, birds, squirrels and even rocks and shells call for my attention. The plants and flower sin my own small garden, especially the intrepid survivor perennials, provide inspiration regularly.

Courtesy of God, the Master Artist

THE NEED TO KNOW MORE

However much I think I know or learn, there is so much more that I need to know. The stack of unopened and unread art and photography books on my shelves and in piles tells me so.

Currently, I am participating in an Artist Book Study led by Mary Presson Roberts, my friend and photo workshop co-leader. Mary grew up entrenched in art in every way – her mother was an artist, and her home and habits exuded that life. I did not. I grew up wandering trails in woods and camping and being told to “go outside and find something to do,” which I invariably did. This book study is forcing me to open some art books and fill my well in a different way.

The first book I chose from my “library” is about Georgia O’Keeffe. It is big and includes many images of her work, but the size of the text in the written pieces is exceedingly small and challenging, even with reading glasses. I’ve seen and learned more about Georgia’s work and her life, and that she is about more than abstract florals and New Mexico landscapes. That said, I’ve learned about something she and many other artists had (and have) that I don’t – a circle or community of fellow artists who gather together and provide interaction, input, influence and inspiration. I have ways to learn and invite inspiration, but my circle is quite small and not regular in terms of when the gathering happens. I need to widen my circle in order to grow. This might mean that I engage more in art events locally and regionally, that I tap into or “curate” a small group of visual artists to simply share and “talk” art and photography. Surprisingly, the groups of photographers I know who gather at least monthly are nearly an hour or more from my home and meet at less-than-convenient times for my schedule. Perhaps, I can persuade my friend, Mary, to pick up where we left off in our monthly Zoom meetings where we shared current work and talked “art”. I look forward to re-engaging and to expanding my circle of interactions beyond observations and reading.

How I just happen to have a skull with which to try this is serendipity.

A spin on Mark Rothko made with blurred trees and the end of a guardrail

LESSONS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

There is more to each of us than what meets the surface. Where I started in my photography is not where I am now. I have grown and changed and learned from others and from my own life experiences. They have changed me, my vision and my work. Perhaps, if I were able to compile my own retrospective, I would learn even more about myself and grow more. I would probably be surprised at what I discover in looking back. Surely, thirty plus years have charted an evolution of my own work as it has that of all the artists I know and don’t know of. There is always something new to learn. I look forward to expanding my circle, deepening connections within and without, tapping into any opportunity to know more about other art genres and artists, and to push myself a little harder in the growing and doing of the work. It will take a bit of time to establish better and more consistent habits and to remove excuses, but I want my art to be a noun AND a verb, with the creating and learning to be the higher priority in the time to come.

I will seek to continually fill my inspiration well by slowing down and going deeper. When we hear ourselves saying, “this reminds me of (fill in the blank with an artist name),” it confirms that at some point we chose to deposit it in our well, whether we did so consciously or unconsciously. We must be present to win and to continue the learning. Keep the tap open at all times.

It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.

—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart