Whys and Whatnots and Talking to Dogs

I was talking with another artist recently about artist statements; why we do the work we do, and how we articulate the reasons why we do the work we do.  The artist statement is the bane of our existence.  Never-ending, we are constantly re-examining iuand tweaking, editing it for every gallery we contact and each show we submit to, but never truly satisfied with it, and always readying for the next rewrite.

She had just re-written hers, and she read it to me.  It was inspiring and eloquent, and made me think about my paltry little paragraph where I say that there is no deep meaning in my paintings – just dogs being dogs and people being people.  She questioned that, pushing me to be more honest with myself.  Really, you just paint dogs because you like them?  Paintings are the outlet of the psyche, after all; surely there’s more to it.

 

It got me thinking about anthropomorphizing and IMG_2300how much I enjoy it.  It tickles me to see dogs in bow ties or bowler hats (or both!).  What’s up with that, anyway?  (I mean, sure, I’m a woman in her mid-50s with no kids, but can’t I just love being a spinster?)  Walking dogs in the afternoons, I see other dog walkers out there with dogs, and it occurred to me a year or so ago that they’re never talking to them.  Other dog walkers don’t talk to their dogs.  They just walk, in silence.  I realized then how odd my conversiveness (which should be a word) must seem to other functioning adults, out in the world.  Or kids, even.  I was walking Barney and Frankie through a cleared path in a snowy sidewalk one day last week, explaining something to them (probably about the laws of physics and that they need to move over to let people pass) when a kid heading home from school, slouched under the weight of his backpack, stopped and straightened up and turned to me, saying “You know they don’t understand what you’re saying, right?”  I immediately started laughing, and assured him that yes, I did realize that; but it also made me realize that there I was, out talking to dogs in public, again.

Lately, I’ve been making coats for my walkers.  I set up a sewing corner in my studio, with a table, and cubbies for fabric and buttons and velcro and snaps, and on the cork board wall next to it I tack up the patterns I design for each, their names and measurements written clearly across them in pencil.  I often think that I really should utilize the leftover fabric from each one.  Is it obnoxious to make matching poop bag dispensers?  But that soon leads to well, maybe a little hat or scarf… 

No, no.  Of course not.  That’s a terrible idea.  But it does bring me back to that question of what is in the depths of my subconscious that has me fascinated with painting dog faces — and in the same manner that I paint people faces.  The various expressions, the humor, the sparkling eyes.  Like they’re people, or something.  Like there’s so much going on inside that noggin.

Well, there is.  And tapping into it is truly fascinating.  I still don’t have ten dollar words to explain in my artist statement why I paint dogs so much, but I’ll keep thinking about it.  And talking to my walkers about it.

 

He’s in a Good Place

IMG_0613After having my work hung at Christopher’s in Cambridge, I was contacted by a local veterinary clinic interested in exhibiting my dog paintings on a rotating basis.  They were fairly new to their address and the walls were bare.  I met with them and we hit it off; nice people with a vision compatible with mine, and we moved forward.

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Shortly afterward, they emailed that they would like to buy a painting for their permanent collection.  Great!  They weren’t sure which one, and I was in no rush, so I imagined in my own mind which they may like.  Link, catching the ball, is large and framed, and portrays a dog in a happy and healthful state, joyful anticipation on his face as the ball descends.  The Jack Russell jumping straight out of the canvas is visually simplistic and tends to generate a smile for all that know Jacks.  Hydrocodone is probably the best brushwork…  though I guess a vet’s office may not want to display an overly drugged dog…

They emailed after a while to announce that they had decided, and would like Rupert.  Rupert?  Well, Rupert is my own dog.  It never occurred to me, in the center of my own universe, that they would want to buy my dog.  There were all of those other dogs that surely they would be interested in.  But, sure, OK.

As artists, we approach our subjects from our own place of knowing, and we bring with that all of the joy or baggage that our psyche wants to pack up with it.  After painting so many commissions, I had decided to paint my own dog while he was still alive.  And so, my psyche approached it from that place of sheer intimacy that we have with our dogs.  That all-knowing and unconditional love.  I painted him laying in the studio, his front paws crossed in that “I’m content now” pose, probably wanting to go home or for a walk or to eat, but content to be where I was, together.

And so I brought Rupert when I went to do an initial planning session.  Later, when I IMG_0654brought the other paintings, I was happy to see that they had hung Rupert on the narrow wall in the waiting area.  Its long shape fits the wall perfectly, and it faces the door as you enter.  We went through the paintings I had brought and agreed on placement, and we hung them in various rooms.

Last week, Rupert died suddenly but peacefully at home.  He was 12 1/2 (when you’re a 12 year old Swissy, that half year is worth mentioning!), but had no obvious health issues and his bloodwork was always on target.  He was just old and slowing down.  As usual, he ate like a viking the night before.  He went outside, pooped, and after inspecting the yard for a while, hopped back up on the porch to come back in.  He settled into his bed and he died.  Couldn’t ask for a better way to go.  It was a Sunday, so I went and got some flowers and sangria, and some friends and I waked him, celebrating his life and laughing over funny stories about him.

We are so used to managing our pets through end-of-life health conditions and planning euthanasia, and it was truly a gift to have a dog die naturally in his own home, in his own bed, on his own terms, and with his own person.  It has had a huge impact on my response to his death; no gloomy sadness, doubts, or regrets.

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In life, he was a very happy and — aside from his fear of shiny flooring — a very relaxed, go-with-the-flow kind of guy.  He always came to work with me, whether it was at a dog wash on Broadway in Southie, hiking the woods at the Fells, or walking dogs on the sidewalks of Cambridge and Somerville; but he was always calm and helped the other dogs to be calm.  It was his superpower.  It’s especially meaningful to me now that he watches over the door at the veterinary clinic, in his calm and content posture, reassuring those who enter.

Rupert and several other paintings are hanging with the super staff at Heal Veterinary Clinic, at 150 Belmont St in Watertown.  You won’t find shelves of Science Diet; just some happy faces.

Furbo, in process

Whoopsiedaisy – I’ve been forgetting to post updates on Furbo’s progress. I’ve spent the morning working on hair brush strokes; the interplay of hair growth direction and the shadows it creates. I can get lost in that process, it’s almost meditative. This is why I love working with smaller brushes; they allow for that prolonged detailed, zen-state zone. 

So, undershadowing is done and just have to add white hairs on his chest (I think chin is done). Then ears and ball and grass!

Furbo, started

Some dogs I like better than others.  Beagles definitely fall into the ‘better’ category.  They’re funny little dogs, with IMG_0581
their quirky little habits and insistence on doing them.

Furbo’s humans chose to have him portrayed in all his glorious joy – in the grass with his ball at his feet, letting out a big beagle bay to the sky.  I love the image they decided to go with.  It doesn’t show his eyes (or even his face, for that matter) — but it captures more about what makes him Furbo than any head-on perspective.

 

 

Home at Last

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She said that they had the perfect wall to hang this painting.

His mom (I never know what to call the people who share their lives with dogs.  They’re not parents, but they’re not owners.  “Guardian” is so proper, and “companion” is so contrived.  OK, so his mom) wanted to have it before Thanksgiving, as they were having the family over, and this wall with the track lighting facing the front door entrance could really have used a painting of a Swissy.  That’s fine.  It was hanging at Christopher’s in Cambridge, but I could replace it there with another that I had just finished.

When I painted this from a photo posted to a Swissy group on Facebook, I had never met the dog, and I wasn’t even painting his face.  So, when I drove to drop it off, I was thrilled to finally meet Clay.  I worked on this painting for quite a while (with my little brushes), and there was a familiarity that I gained with him (well, with his paws, and his chin, and his belly…) and so when I met him, I kind of felt like I knew him, already.  Weird how that is.

Anyway, I love it when I receive pictures of paintings once they are finally hung in their homes!

 

The Side Eye (almost finished)

I’ve been avoiding the studio (or, going to the studio but not really accomplishing anything). I have this commission that must be finished tonight so that I can hang it at Christopher’s in the morning, to replace one there that is being delivered to its home in NY. As I’ve written before, the music from Hamilton is my savior in these moments, propelling me along, keeping me moving and focused on the painting in front of me rather than drawn toward my phone to check an email or text or social media. 
Back when I worked in a cubicle, I would listen to music all day (I think it was my only way of coping with an environment so counter to my core). I would keep it low so as not to bother my neighbors, but Natalie Merchant, Dead Can Dance, Morrissey, and the Smiths would offer some solace in a world of inboxes and fluorescent lighting. One day, a friend who worked in a cube next to me said something about all that gloomy music I listen to, and I was like “…you think it’s gloomy?” It honestly never occurred to me that it was sad. (Or that she could hear it. I suppose it’s good that I’d lost all of my goth stuff by that point.)

When I was much younger, I was a bookkeeper for a region of stores for a large corporation. (How in the hell I was ever entrusted to balance anyone’s books is beyond me.) I would sit at my desk with my earplugs in (they weren’t buds, yet) and R.E.M. cranked. The earlier stuff. Over and over and over, day after day after day. Sometimes I’d throw in some Church just to shake things up, but old Stipe & co. allowed me to function in such a hollow existence. 

There’s a lot that I don’t like about NPR, but there are a few shows that have some pretty good content, and when I heard that Stipe & Bill Berry would be on, I made a mental note. Realizing that this week marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Life’s Rich Pageant made me want to go out and buy some arch supports and denture creme, but this was a good and insightful interview about each song on an album that was all pretty much about death. 

And it spawned a blog post (for my canvasmajor site), so I sat and typed this out instead of painting. 

Welp, looks like I’ll be back tonight. Hamilton is cued up. 

The Side Eye, on the Easel

IMG_9484A bit of a departure from my usual type of subject, but her expression made me laugh.  Sometimes with commissions, it takes a while to find (or take) just the right photo; but not so, with Lucy.  The side-eye is an expression that she is known and loved for.

Just need to do all that hair which falls between the black shadows and the lighter highlights, which is most of it (she’s black, so it will get darker).  I may also need to emphasize the other eye a bit, but hoping to finish this up by the end of the week.

Clay and the Swissy Snooze

Christopher’s on Mass Ave in Cambridge is one of my favorite restaurants; not just because the food is always local and great, but because the artwork they exhibit on the walls is always local and great.  So, I was happy to have my work among those accepted for a 6-week stint, there.
36 x 48"
I needed to focus on creating larger work to fill the spaces on the brick walls.  I had a couple of larger Swissy paintings off to the side in limbo while I finished some commissions.  Many people don’t have the wall space for a 36 x 48″ painting, and I find myself painting a lot of smaller pieces that leaves me yearning for a larger canvas to cover.  So, needing to fill the walls at Christopher’s gave me the permission to put the smaller canvases aside while I finished Clay and then Osa.

I ended up spending so much time on Clay and his couch-zonked slumber that I didn’t quite get to Osa, but Clay is done.

 

Knock Knock

IMG_6840When I received the email inviting me to participate in a show at Blue Mountain Gallery in NYC, I was a little perplexed.  I work almost exclusively on canvases sized 36″ and up, and here was an invitation to a small works show with a maximum size of 12 x 12 inches.  To be perfectly honest, I would have dismissed it immediately if it wasn’t in Chelsea.

I had been thinking about doing some large, close-up faces on old wooden window frames, appearing as giants peering into the room, but was still working out the logistics.  I thought a smaller prototype of this concept may be a fun idea for this show, but I wasn’t sure how to find a window a foot wide or smaller.  So, I made one using a shadow box, a hardwood panel, a saw, a dremel, and some stain.

I still needed the face, though, and was asking visitors during Somerville Open Studios to submit their best shot, when a friend came bounding in to my studio with a postcard made by a friend of a friend of his face —  a super close-up of a wide-eyed, creepy, mustachioed smile —  which he plastered all over his friend’s house while he was out of town.  Man humor.  It was perfect, and I was grateful to her for thinking of me and my project.

And so, my little window face was started.  The title “Knock Knock” refers not only to the obvious, but to the dichotomy that.often exists in the interpretation of many (most?) of my human faces. The joking face becomes a creepy one, the expression of fun becomes one of shock, of fear; and children are drawn to paintings which repel adults. Which is it? That depends on the viewer; which serves as a reminder that there exists in us all a range from lightness to darkness which goes so much deeper than mere lighting and shading

It’s now hanging in the Invitational Small Works show at Blue Mountain Gallery on West 25th Street in New York, through July 29th.  Delivering it, I had the opportunity to see the other work being exhibited and I am thrilled to have it hanging among such quality.