Granny Magic

My Maternal Grandmother, Cora Lee Whitfield, was a major part of my life. My brother and I called her Mawmaw. All her grandchildren were important to her, but she and I had a special bond. I was asthmatic as a child and she'd help my Mom take care of me.  She knew just how to hold me so I could breathe a bit easier and made soft French fries for me to eat.  I have a distinct memory of the rocking chair creaking as she rocked me as a young child.   She was praying as we rocked, talking with her ancestors.

I have picture of her as a beautiful 19-year old with long dark hair in my living room.  When my daughter was an infant she woke up crying.  I took her to the living room and I was rocking her in a rocking chair.  She continued to be fussy, but stopped.  I looked down at her and she was leaning back a little, staring at the picture of my grandmother. I firmly believe Mawmaw was soothing my daughter.  Her spirit was alive in that photo.

My wife's grandmother was an artist.  I never got to meet her as she passed away in 1985.  When my wife and I got married I was given her old easel and one of her old stretched canvases that had been stored. I put away the canvas for the right idea, but set to work using that easel since it was taller than the one I was using. Some of my better paintings were done on her easel.

This past weekend I had an idea for a painting so I decided to use her old canvas. I thought the time and the subject were right.   This canvas is 24 X 20 and close to 50 years old.  It was hand stretched, used tacks instead of staples and looks to have been gesso'd with what looks like a palette knife. The back had been aged yellow and had a few water stains.   Lets say it's got some personality.

I set to work using a style I'm not quite used to.  My normal work is small, technical and precise.  Here I used jabs and smears of color using my hands, an older brush, and even paint slung from a brush handle for a splatter effect.  The central subject was a Great Blue Heron, a bird as always, but it was done quick with less thought, more feel. Before I knew it I was done.  I kinda thought Alex's Grandmother might've guided me or at least helped me shut out my monkey mind to let it happen. 

Yep, Granny Magic.

Catch of the Day

I'm slowly working my way through In the Company of Crows and Ravens by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell.  One of the Corvids outlined was the New Caledonian Crow.  This crow is capable of tool use as well as solving multi-step puzzles to get to tasty morsel.  Its passed a number of sophisticated cognitive tests which suggest it's particularly intelligent.

The New Caledonian Crow isn't the only one.  The Green Heron is also a tool user.  The Green Heron is an accomplished fisherman, perching motionless on the bank or a branch, ready to grab a fish by striking out with their long necks.   You can imagine it much like a snake strike.  What makes them amazing fisherman is their use of bait as a tool.  They'll put the bait (food or an object) in the water and wait for a fish to appear.  They won't wait too long, they'll reposition the bait much like someone casting his line over and over again.

So my most recently completed piece was of a Green Heron.  It's called "Spying the Catch of the Day" and you can image he's just placed the bait and is patiently waiting for his catch of the day.  It's acrylic on a 6 X 8 canvas panel.  It's available for purchase using my available gallery gadget at the upper right.

Learning to Fly

I sometimes feel I in a running battle with time.  Maybe "battle" is not the right word since there's nothing you can do about the passage of time.  It just is. George Harrison said "time is a very misleading thing.  All there is ever, is the now.  We can gain experience from the past, but can't relive it; and we can hope for the future but we don't know if there is one."  Maybe that's it, having reached that point in my life where there's less road ahead and more behind and the world situation increasingly fragile. The "now" is more important.

I think that's why I'm really enjoying painting small works (less than 8 X 10) as a preparatory study.
They are as highly detailed as their sibling just smaller and I finish them sooner. I can complete a small piece in a day; two at best and get that endorphin dump of accomplishment.   Even small,  each piece gets the same amount of attention to detail.  The only difference is the small piece is done on a canvas panel instead of the smooth birch of the final piece.  Both are unique due to variation in brush stroke and lessons learning from color choice or layout decisions.

The most recent one I've completed is one called "Leaning to Fly" and was based on a photo of two fledgling swallows perched upon a concrete fence post.  You can imagine the pair debating the conditions.  "I'll go with the bit of  breeze"  or "I'll try it if you go first."   It's on a 6 X 6 canvas panel. 

Would I do anything differently?  The only thing differently for the final piece is include a small retaining wire that folds over the front of  the concrete post and wraps around the fence wire on the right. It'll look perfect on its larger relative since it'll cast a faint shadow on the post and won't compete visually with the swallows.

That Land...

In June 2016 I went to my 30^th High School reunion in Defuniak Springs, Florida.  It’s the first time I’ve been able to spent any appreciable time there since 1992 and it was good to be home.  The first night of the reunion we had a bonfire on the beach.  Driving to it (Defuniak is 40 miles from the Gulf of Mexico…) I noticed all the development that had taken place; some good, some bad.  There was a public beach access spot near the bonfire location nestled amongst condominiums to the left and right.   In the 1970’s as kid, I remember going with my parents to see my grandparents.  We’d drive along Highway 98 and from the point we left Destin to nearly Panama City we could travel miles and miles without seeing any development; just coast grasslands, scrubby flatwoods and pine forest.  Now it is nearly all concrete and metal, car horns and mini-marts. 

Prior to the trip I had just finished reading “The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise.”  As a misplaced Floridian I keep up with the politics, history and goings-on of the State.  The book detailed the effects of development on South Florida (and Florida as a whole) and the attempt to drain the Everglades. The damage done to nature by Florida’s development engine really became apparent on my journey home.  Places I used to surf; I couldn’t get to.  Fields I remember seeing were gone; built over or paved.  What we are seeing is a universal tale; the struggle between man and nature, the power of pride and the price of hubris.

I had been invited to take part in a group show with a theme of "prohibited" before I left. With the changes I'd seen an idea started to germinate.   A bird had to be in it as that’s my “thang.”  I needed the right bird to capture what I’d read about and seen.   The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is one of the most endangered birds in the US and has been left isolated around the Everglades.   It’s been prohibited from its natural habitat by development and its effect upon the Everglades.

Along with the coastal development there have arisen disputes over who owns the beach.   I saw it epitomized by signs...no trespassing, no public beach access, etc.  I’m of the opinion the beach should be public domain from the high tide line to the water, but honestly it should be public domain for nearly 1000 yards from the water to preserve the beach ecosystem.   I decided to use a “No Public Beach Access” sign.  It's something my 16-year old, beachcomber self would readily ignore.

I recently started using old maps as a background for my paintings and paring them with the right birds in a series I’m calling Maps & Legends.  This one is anchored by a map of Florida. Maps trigger the memory of a place long lost but still crystal clear; a grandfather's yarn beginning with "I remember when my Daddy and I used to go…"

Birds have ingrained memory being able to return to their breeding grounds or winter ranges year after year. Due to habitat loss they are experiencing more and more of what would be our version of "remember when there used to be…" As the climate changes and unmanaged development continues, wildlife is pushed to margins of existence.  These paintings might mark an unfortunate place on the map for "remember when we used to see..."

The piece is named “That Side Was Made for You and Me.”   It’s from “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie.   The song has the following stanza that sums it up:

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, 
That land was made for you and me.

Low Ebb, High Tide

I'm a member of the local art's council and earlier this year a new Director was hired.  She's making huge strides pushing the organization forward.  One new twist is quarterly artist challenges.  The first one is a call for member artwork that invokes the idea, feeling, meaning or experience of the word GREEN. It will be used to open a new gallery space.

The obvious thought was to use recycled or "upscaled" materials.   Initially I wanted to use some of the wood and panel scraps I've accumulated as part of my painting and framing process.  I had a rough idea for an oddly shaped piece using footprints and silhouettes of birds, but didn't really take off when I played scrap wood layout Tetris.  It just seemed overly simplistic.

I'd been hanging onto a reference photo of a Great Egret for quite a while.  I have memories fishing with my grandparents on Wetappo Creek as a kid.  The surroundings would be all manner of tropical greens with moss swaying in the trees as the breeze blew.  In the middle of all this would be a large, white bird perched on an overhang.  An interesting fact about the Great Egret is the lore (the skin between the eyes and beak)  becomes neon green during mating season and long plumes called aigrettes grow from its back.  These plumes were why it was hunted to near extinction during the 19th century.

I was reluctant to paint it partly because I wanted it to be a large size and my confidence is tested when it comes to large paintings.  My comfortable working size is around 11 X 14.  With this challenge I thought the risk might be low enough to give it a shot.  I like the wood scrap idea so it was time to harvest!

The planks I used were actually recycled from a homemade compost bin I made 12 years ago from pallets I got from a local business.  So essentially they've been recycled twice!   I tried to select planks that had similar texture and interesting personality; splits, knot holes and nail heads.  I was lucky to find four that had a faint green stain over parts.  The boards also forced me outside a comfort zone of uniform smoothness.

I sketched out the Egret and transferred the image to the boards.  I applied sealant to just the interior portions of the sketch so as not effect the natural coloration of the unpainted areas.   Its the same polymer sealant I use on the birch panels I normally paint upon.   The sealant prevents any extraneous color contained in the wood from staining any part of the painting especially the white of the Egret. I used Windsor & Newton professional grade acrylic to complete the painting.   I also utilized sterilized Spanish moss as decoration to complete the piece.   Spanish moss is essentially a recycler.  It has permeable scales it uses to "catch" moisture and nutrients from the air.  Where I grew up it decorated all the trees.

I named the piece "Low Ebb, High Tide" and it has it's own "green" relationship.    The piece has a remembrance aspect so I was drawn to the song "I Remember California" which has various stanzas starting with "I remember..."  and one of the lyrics is "Low ebb, high tide."   The song is off an album by REM called GREEN.  REM provided the soundtrack for most of my teenage years.

Traveler Upon The Hill

I decided after a bit of thought to name the painting Traveler Upon The Hill and it deserved a blog posting. The series is called Maps & Legends and each piece should have some sort of narrative.
Maps trigger the memory of a place long lost, but still crystal clear; a grandfather's yarn beginning with "I remember when my Daddy and I used to go...."

I've toyed with the idea of putting verse, phrases or word oddities in a painting and the time seemed right.  After I thought the painting was finished it seemed slightly off balance and it nagged me.  Every time I looked it seemed off.   I had an idea for a phrase (more about that later) and  thought of painting it directly on the piece.  After 20 years of painting I've learned to take it slow so I printed it out as a test for proper sizing.    The mockup phrase looked good just laying across the panel so instead of painting it on, I affixed it using matte medium.  I had used medium on the map to adhere it to panel.   A note about that since it borrows from collage techniques... I use custom cut birch panels and seal them using a polymer sealant followed by multiple iterations of gesso and sanding.  In combination with this and the multiple coats of matte medium to affix and seal the maps,  I apply a final coat of gloss medium once the painting is complete.   I can insure the piece to have a life expectancy exceeding 100 years with proper care.

Why the map of DeFuniak and the Mockingbird?  The property we had south of DeFuniak was on a bit of hill with a great view of Rock Hill to the south.  Dad always referred to it as "the hill."  It was his piece of heaven on earth and where he was most happy; Zen and the art of hobby farming.   We always had a family or two of Mockingbirds and our cat Max learned to give them a wide berth.  Of all the critters Max grappled with over the years, Mockingbirds were ones he could never catch. Whenever I see 'em  today I'm reminded of that time.  If Dad has an avian familiar surely it's a Mockingbird; steely grey, stately and protective of family.

2016 was my 30th high school reunion.  A long trail has been traveled so far and there's a significant fault line across that landscape in 1987 with my Dad's death.  It's defining and I wouldn't be the man I am today without it, but sometimes I wish that kid back there would've had some warning to the snakes and arrows he's heir to.  Perhaps the phrase (borrowed from a R.E.M. lyric and changed to fit my use for the painting) is meant to be something like that; a veiled admonition and a statement of purpose to my 1986 self.   Down the way the road's divided, Paint me the places you will see.

Click for a larger view

The obligatory artist statement...

This exhibit is called In Fine Feather, but it was almost called Swan Swan Hummingbird after a song by R.E.M. from the Lifes Rich Pageant* album.   Each summer I’m compelled to obsessively play Lifes Rich Pageant.  It came out in July 1986.   I had not only the vinyl LP, but also a cassette.  During the summer of '86, I worked in the southern end of Walton County, Florida for Rivard Realty.  I started work two days after I graduated from Walton Senior High in Defuniak Springs.  I painted signs, cut brush from around larger highway signs, and maintained the odd property or two.   At the end of the day I'd swing out to the beach for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico.  It was an idyllic town and period before the events of life got carried away.   The cassette was always in my Walkman while I worked and as a result it is now ingrained with the sights, the smells and the promise of summer.

The song (Swan Swan H) is full of obtuse imagery about the South.   Growing up in the rural South you develop a different set of natural rhythms since there are only two seasons....three if you count love bug season.   For some the cycle is centered on farming while others it’s when the mullet run, but for me it seemed to be the birds.  They are fragments of the absorbed minutiae of the region and are part of the tapestry of "me."  It sets a time and place; the diving swoosh of the Common Nighthawk (my Dad called them Bull Bats) late in the evening right at sundown before the heat of the day breaks, the call of the Blue Jay after a thunderstorm with leaves still dripping, the sight of egrets in the pasture as a tractor cut hay, and the ever present chatter of the Mockingbird at dawn.  Even now birds lead the natural patterns I notice and they became the focus of my art in 2012 and will be going forward.

I present my birds on a complementary or neutral background while drastically simplifying its environment.  This isolates the bird and puts the viewer eye to eye on equal footing; a portrait of sorts.   Part of the simplification process extends to the animals themselves.  There aren’t represented photo realistically, but enough hints of feather pattern, color and highlight are given to form the gestalt.     

The medium I use is acrylic, sometimes called synthetic polymer.  It’s considered a water-based media and dries quickly.  I’ve developed a method to store my paints and mixtures using wax paper over moist paper towels.  This allows me to work at a varying pace and not waste paint.

Whenever possible I’ve used reclaimed wood, grape vine trimmings, or cane for the frames.  I only stain or paint the frame when necessary or if dictated by the composition. This provides a more natural, sustainable and attractive frame.

*Note:  the apostrophe was deliberately left of the album title by the band.  R.E.M. did this with nearly all contractions, though this case is a possessive.