I participated in a paint out event in Roseburg, Oregon and while there, Michael Sullivan, photojournalist at the News Review created this little video profile.
Thanks Mike and check out his work at http://www.michaelsullivanphoto.photoshelter.com
Close to Home
My friend David Rosenak is a landscape painter who found himself working closer and closer and closer to home and realized he had a lifetime of paintings to make without leaving his property. When he first revealed this to me I thought it was a little odd, but perfect for him – see more about him by clicking here. I compared my practice at the time to his and I was attracted to the convenience of it but couldn’t see how it could ever work for me. I tend to want to paint everything I see, all the time, everywhere I go. But I struggle to get things done and finish what I start so, David’s method stayed in the back of my mind.
We got a dog two years ago and started taking her on walks along this ditch trail about half a mile from my house. It’s a wonderful walk. You see close mountains and distant ones, close and distant trees, houses, shacks, weeds, farmland — there are just endless compositions to experiment with. And there are never any other people down there. So I started painting there a lot and have made five paintings I’m pleased with in the last year.
These are the latest paintings are from the ditch trail. Painted last fall and late summer. The evening one was painted when my mom was sick and I didn’t fully realize she was dying, but I was extremely stressed out and painting this was a good way to take my mind off of things. The last one was painted in the month after she died. The reason I bring this up is that when I look at these paintings I travel emotionally to the joyful feeling I had while making them. Writing this post, my mental sequence was, “Wait, when did you make these? Was it before mom got sick?” And I realized it was during her illness and right after she died. It is kind of shocking, but somehow there is life and spark in being outside and making landscape paintings, despite this generally being a terribly tough time. However, I don’t think I would have been able to do it if I didn’t have this comfortable and easy location to go to. Since my mom’s death, I feel like staying home (or closer to home) all the time. I really miss her. I think as the spring comes I’ll feel a little less like a hermit. And I don’t know if I have more paintings to make down on this ditch trail. It’s impossible to commit to something like that. Time will tell. But I do like working where it’s comfortable and safe.
Both measure 20″ x 35″. Painted en plein air over a number of sessions.
In Loving Memory
I still can’t quite believe it, but my mother, Mariah Hegarty passed away at age 61 on September 15, 2016. She had a very aggressive cancer that overtook her very suddenly. She was a model of how to leave the world with grace and I’m so grateful for the time we had and that she was my mom.
My mom has always been such a supporter of me in life and as an artist. She introduced me to art and to making art when I was very young by having a great collection of beautifully illustrated children’s books and by not allowing me to have coloring books or television and providing me lots of paper and crayons to draw as much as I wanted. Both my parents encouraged me to experience and observe nature which is a vital part of being an artist and a student. My mom also taught me, especially at the end to forgive others and yourself, which frees you up to experiment and make mistakes. She always let me take all the art classes I could find and just allowed me to pursue what I was interested in.
She loved beauty and our home was always an amazingly beautiful place. It was never cluttered or crowded, but had old and natural things, nice light, natural fibers. Simple, straightforward beauty. She taught me that beauty is found everywhere and this profoundly affects my choice of subjects when I paint.
Mariah Michele Hegarty — 3/18/55 – 9/15/16
Every Place I Ever Lived
tore my heart with its beauty when I left.
My final week in Florida I steal away
to the beach morning and evening.
At dawn the long smooth waves are bolts
of pewter-colored silk shot with silver
folding and unfolding at my feet.
Dolphins pierce the liquid platinum
like dark needles. The pelicans
–those homely angels–
glide just above the wave caps,
their open-armed wings spread wide.
Splayed across the sand
treasures of the ocean’s generosity*
Each fractured shard, tumbled smooth-
edged and cloudy teaches me
there is nothing broken
that will not be transformed.
* Rumi
– Mariah Hegarty
Art Guide
Laurel at Huckleberry Design Studio created a beautiful ebook highlighting art you can buy through Etsy and she included my shop! She really is a fantastic designer and it’s very inspiring to see what she’s put together.
Check out the Ebook at huckleberrydesignstudio.com and use the code ARTISTGIFTCOPY to receive it free!
Barrel 42, Medford, Oregon
It started with this composition for a smaller panel, but decided to move to the larger panel with more background info, which gave me a chance to play with an idea I’d been kicking around for a while. I had been looking at the “Classical” landscape painting formulas and wanted to make a painting that used these principles.
Classical Landscape by Claude Lorrain – there are a million billion paintings made with this formula in the 18th and even into the 19th century. The Ecole de Beaux Arts clearly taught this was the way you had to do it. Nobody cares now, but it’s interesting how many paintings were made this way.
Google “Classical Landscape” here
The composition spirals to for you to enter the picture on either side, the bottom is always darker value.
They always zig zag with close distance object on one side, going nearly top to bottom, then swing over to the opposite side for middle distance subject and then swing back for the far away view.
The close middle far is obvious in my painting. I elected not to try to make spirals with clouds etc, because after all, my work is more about stark, aging American landscapes instead of fantastical ideal pastorals. I did look for stuff to point to the subject, which was the green building, though, as well as the secondary subject of the far power lines. I don’t always take time to carefully compose a plein air landscape, but it’s pretty satisfying when I do.
The location for this painting has a story too. The green building houses a business called Barrel 42. Brian Gruber and Herb Quady make Rogue Valley wines here, including the fabulous Quady North wines. This is of particular interest to me, a native Southern Oregonian with an agricultural family history, because wine is overturning pears as the dominant agricultural product in Southern Oregon. The big aqua building (so many of the old pear buildings are painted aqua –???) is called SOS – Southern Oregon Storage, or something like that. The walls are super thick and maintain cool temperatures year round, perfect for storing barrels of wine, pears etc. Of course these interesting places are always along railroad tracks because they used to use rails to ship things. Not much anymore, as you see the side track to get close to the building to load up the goods is overgrown with weeds. Time marches on, and it’s nice that the railroad tracks are seldom used, because they offer a quiet place to paint, and the tracks always have nice lines to play with.
Plein Air Trip to the Oregon Coast
My Trip to Paris — Part Two: The Paintings
I had an amazing time painting in Paris. Getting out and painting in this old city, known for centuries of great art, connected me to so many of my heroes and gave me a chance to meet lots of tourists and locals. I cannot wait to go back – there are paintings there I still really want to make!!
They are displayed in the order I made them.
It was rainy and a national holiday, so all the museums were closed, so I bought some hyacinths from the nearby flower market and made a still life in the little apartment I was staying in with my aunt.
I love the Louvre so much, I must go back someday and paint the iconic entrance with the pyramid. When I first arrived, I shied away from making a painting that would be so direct, but after spending two weeks in Paris, where they really embrace beauty directly, I realized it’s just as affected to avoid beauty as it is to seek it exclusively. Best bet is always just paint what moves you. Be real, even if it lands you in a cliche.
Mid Morning looking sort of toward the east.
With a view of the Musee D’Orsay in the background 9 to the left of the statue is the tip of the museum, with it’s massive clock face peeking out a tiny bit behind the trees). I finally had a day where Paris had those impressionist clouds you see in paintings.
My local friend showed me this wonderful little park. Many paintings could be made here.
Here I am, nearing the end of my trip, embracing the obvious beauty and being happy about it. Archway to a view with a grand building? The more the merrier.
My last day painting in Paris, I was under the influence of the Corots I’d seen in the Louvre. I was also recreating the point of view of some impressionist paintings I’d seen.
My Trip to Paris — Part One: The Drawings
I went to Paris for the first two weeks of May this year and my trip was entirely focused on studying art. I went to the Louvre six times – not nearly enough. I also visited the Orsay, Musee Bourdelle, Montmartre, saw Velasquez show at the Grand Palais, popped into the Musee Carnavalet and I know I missed a PILE of other great stuff.
I documented my trip in paintings and drawings. Most of these drawings were made in the Louvre – where I actually was moved to tears a few times; putting this album together brings back a bit of the emotional experience.
Artist David Rosenak
Today I’m going to highlight paintings by my friend David Rosenak. This may be the longest post I’ll ever make. He has four paintings up at the Portland Art Museum this year – 2015 – in the Northwest Contemporary section. GO SEE THEM. While you’re at it, mention to PAM that they should do a better job of pointing out where these paintings are; I’ve been to that museum probably 25 times and I always have to figure out where in the world that particular gallery is.
There are so many things to say about David – first and foremost is that his paintings are absolutely captivating. I happened to stumble across two other pieces at the Portland Art Museum a few years ago. I clearly remember thinking, “who painted these!??” — and life is amazing sometimes, because I actually got to find out who, and become friends with the painter.
I found out because I posted an image on my blog and David vainly googled himself. (Just kidding David, not vanity so much as housekeeping – right? What you can’t see here is that I realized I should google myself to see if anything is interesting there. Not really. It’s only stuff I put on the web myself. So okay.) Anyway, David found my blog, read it, and actually liked my paintings too! At some point, he emailed me and we started talking about painting, art we admire and being an artist.
Over the course of these conversations David has become sort of a mentor or an example of having integrity as an artist. So, to set the stage for how he has been an example, I’m going to share where my head is/was. I felt — and still feel — internal pressure to legitimize my obsession with art by turning it into a business. But I’m not capable of “branding” myself with a style and making pieces that are predictable and popular. I absolutely think art is a noble profession and if people sell their work well enough to put food on the table, I think that’s awesome! It’s great when art can be appreciated widely, but if you’re an artist you also know there’s an icky, slippery slope to fall down when you’re making art mainly for other people. On the other hand, most of us are not simply expressing ourselves for its own sake, but trying to reach out and connect to some unknown viewer in an authentic and sincere way.
Along with that struggle, there is the battle for technical skills, real ideas and the essential but unpredictable spark of magic that makes good pieces work. It can take years to even come close to making something really special. Years of self-examining, persistent, steady work. To be really great, you have to start young and have some successes; many of those successes are self delusions, but that’s no matter, they keep you going, keep you pushing forward. After all that you still may not have achieved something great, or may not get recognition until you’re gone. It can be such a strange and insane undertaking to “be an artist”.
So here I am, needing to justify all this by making it a business and I meet David. The time when I meet him and first see his work is at a point where he has achieved something special through years of trial and error and persistence. His work is desired by collectors, galleries want to sell his work, and David simply says “No, thank you”. He does not sell his work. I repeat — his paintings are not for sale. He has goals for his work, for sure. He doesn’t create it “for himself” – as the corny line goes. He wants it to be seen in the world by as many people as possible. He knows how long they take to make, how hard he worked to make something he is truly proud of and he wants to cast them in a place where they have the best chance to grow.
And he knows they are precious. They take months and months to complete. He puts scores of hours into each piece. Because time stops for no man, his window for making them is pretty small – as it is for us all – but heightened by the fact that ten years ago David discovered he has Parkinson’s disease, which causes tremors, making painting tiny things a challenge. When he first noticed the tremor it was in his right hand, and after three years he trained himself to paint with his left. (This is so typical of David. Persistent.) Now he can only paint on his good days, still with the left hand.
More interesting things about David: he is color blind. When David was young and testing out his influences, he tried a few paintings in the style of Wayne Thiebauld, but since Thiebauld’s thing has a lot to do with color, David realized he was trying on someone else’s shoes (we all do that when we’re young, but some of us never grow out of it). Then he noticed his primary teacher was making some greyscale paintings, and he realized he’d been fighting a battle with color he had no hope of winning, so he switched to greyscale in 1981 and hasn’t looked back.
I’ve seen still lifes, cityscapes and figure drawings by David, and they’re all really good, but the little cityscapes are the best. David has painted cityscapes since the late 80’s; he showed me a few scenes near his house in a medium sized scale. And they were cool. Then he made them small (nothing larger than 20″ and most average 10″ on the long side) and bam! They suddenly really worked. As the scale was becoming more intimate, the subject moved closer and closer to his home. All the views are of his back yard or his view toward downtown Portland. Since he has the subject, scale and approach settled, he is focusing on compositions, and they get more and more mature. He likes to joke that he is essentially making the same painting over and over again in an attempt to improve it. And he has many plans for new paintings within that framework. The adage of freedom coming from limitations is really true, I guess.
Since his subject matter is his yard and what he can see from it, it’s useful to say something about his home. He has a wild, artsy little compound in SE Portland, full of cats and dogs and amazing plants, and all tended to by his neighbor and long time friend, Moe (Maureen). Moe is a gardener and you see in the paintings records of Moe’s work and their friendship. David lives kind of like a cat, moving around his territory, napping, enjoying bits of shade or bits of sun, walking over to his studio a few blocks away to paint, taking the bus across the river to his day job. His paintings are like a cat would record things because they feel so still, yet so full of life. Like a cat they contain long moments of stillness while being ready to spring to action at any second. They’re also neutral like a cat. They’re not saying, “Let’s go do this!” or “Think this!” but, “This is fine as it is. I’ll find a comfortable place here.” They say, “I see it all, and it’s fine.” They’re so documentary and so neutral that they create a deep feeling of calm. It makes me feel like the best times in the world are those times when you take your coffee outside in the sun and sit and soak in the world, with your friends or without. I love the little figures who are doing just this. They’re Moe and David, and they’re just standing there like they’re thinking, trying to decide what to do next. Pondering something, calculating. Trying to decide which thing they could do today. Or if maybe the day is best spent sunning, checking the mail, weeding a bit here. Taking a break in the business of the day to pet the cat.
So anyway, David Rosenak’s work resonates with me deeply and while I actually do really like to sell my work, his example has helped me to relax and focus only on making work I feel really good about, and let the chips fall where they may. It also gives me hope that one day, some stranger will see my paintings in a museum and say, “Who painted these?”
I Heart Kinesiology!
Back to School with Kinesiology at Ashland Institute of Massage!
My ongoing obsession with knowing specifically the origin, insertion, action and shape of muscles has led me to take a rather in-depth kinesiology class. Over 100 class hours, plus out of class study time will keep me busy til April. And, of course I’m translating a lot of this stuff from massage application to artist application. I feel so fantastic when I’m in a class I love.
Sarah F Burns 