Nancy Anderson

What Exactly Do I Do?

As Somerville artists ramp up to Somerville Open Studios, promotions go out, studios are scrubbed, and websites are updated. Aaaah, Spring in Somerville.

It was an email from my studio building that got me thinking. Building maps are going in for their annual update, and we need to make sure our info is correct, including “a VERY SHORT description of WHAT kind of work you do.” Given the examples provided, “very short” is assumed to be a max of three words.

One of the very best talks on artist marketing that I attended had us think about three words that best describe our work. My notes are, of course, filed in some undetermined location, so I’ll take a new stab at it. I paint big faces. Oops, that’s four. And not just faces. Some have no faces at all. Mostly, they are expressions. In oils. Unfortunately, ‘expressionism’ has already cornered the market on any artistic phrases using the word “expression.” And I definitely have nothing in common with Expressionism.

“Portraits in oils” doesn’t convey that I do both people and dogs — never mind that I don’t want them to be seen as portraits so much as paintings. Paintings of expressions. Then again, to anyone who has known a Jack Russell terrier, the painting to the right is truly a portrait of a Jack.

OK, so portraits without heads, faces that are not portraits; some human, some canine, some a little of both. The only thing they all have in common is that they are paintings (rather than sculptures or photos or encaustics or fabric or…). In oils. But “Oil Paintings” doesn’t tell you anything at all about what I do, does it?

Portrayals. In oils. Portroils.

Oh, fine. Portrayals in Oils.

Red, White, and Blue

FullSizeRender This is not what it was supposed to look like. I was having fun with an expression of lightheartedness. Mapping out the lines & colors, it took on a more serious expression of shock, but I thought that when I started in on the more refined brushwork, the true spirit of it would emerge. Wrinkles in the forehead, the curl of a lip corner. But it never did.

Honestly, I can’t quite tell if I never painted the true expression or if I did but just can’t see it here. I look at it and I just see the state of America 2017. I examine eye corners, looking for a hidden wry smile. Nope, not there. A diligent artist would go back and fix it. OK, what lines and shading did I get wrong? Let’s correct that. But no, I must get back to Baxter in the snow. He must be finished by Sunday.

Look what I’ve done. I’ve projected my disgust with my country onto a perfectly good face. Complete with red, white, and blue.

On Vulnerability

Last week, I attended a conversation between Krista Tippett (many know her from NPR’s On Being) and poet David Whyte which centered around the theme of vulnerability. With Tippett’s recent Civil Conversations project, vulnerability was approached more as an experience of engaging in political discussions with those whose choice we don’t understand, but the word itself casts a wide net. I don’t know that they had planned to keep coming back around to it (it wasn’t advertised as such), but that theme just kept circling and landing, which says a lot about where we are as people who long to understand. Perhaps those who don’t wish to understand don’t experience such vulnerability. Or just refuse to expose themselves to it.

Artists don’t necessarily have any special claim on vulnerability; we all know it well. But artists must repeatedly expose ourselves to it, as we pull things from our own subconscious to create something unique and then put it out there for all to see. And judge. Not only are we revealing our soft white underbelly, but talent is such an objective concept. Some will see our work and, regardless of its quality, cock their heads, scrunch their noses, and think Oh. Well, that’s… interesting.

I’ve always been a hypersensitive sort, but oddly not so about my work. Wait. Let’s make that “but oddly not so about my finished work.” Some of the in-process stuff is enough to make your eyes water, and you would forever think me a crude artist. More specifically, once I get the black / darks done and start mapping out color placement, it’s not well-crafted, by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve had some classical training in painting with oils, and so I was taught the process of applying the opaque underpainting, putting in the darks, and building layer upon layer over that until you get to the highlights, balancing solvents carefully so as not to allow a layer to dry more quickly than one below it. But rules are for schmucks, and so I just do what I want to do (which changes with each painting). I have a decades-old clipped quote from a Boston Globe, yellowed and taped to the top of my oldest easel, which reads “Paint as you like and die happy.” Words of wisdom from Henry Miller and that, I obey.

Doing commissions, I text progress pics to the client, and at this stage, where I’ve just mapped out colors but haven’t gotten to any real brush work, yet, I’m just apologetic, promising that it will get better. Certainly, this stage is best contained to a private text than exposing my soft white underbelly to public nose-scrunching. But, my optimist self started this blog to allow the viewer/ client / future buyer a window on my process, and so I need to be true to that. Here is what I have accomplished, this week:

It will get better. I promise.

Baxter, sketch

Once a painting of Baxter was commissioned, I started following his goofy and lovable expressions online, to get a better feel for his personality. A true snow dog, he is happiest when surrounded by the white stuff, and this painting will show him in his true glory, snow capping his head and muzzle. Now that the basic outline is done, I can’t wait to get the paint going.

He is absolutely a dog after my own heart.

Newman, done

One of the things I love most about painting time in the studio is the aural input. I’m a podcast person because it offers an endless supply of options for someone with many different — OK, scattered — interests, allowing my brain to receive all kinds of information while my eyes and hands are busy with productive matters. I can listen to a class on updates to herbal approaches to Lyme disease, or literary short fiction, or interviews with great thinkers, or the intricacies of distinctions between different personality types. After the election, my go-to became Stuart McLean’s stories from the Vinyl Cafe on CBC. Having spent much time in my childhood in the eastern provinces (and adult vacations returning to ancestral territories of Nova Scotia / Cape Breton), it became a respite from the cruel reality I heard all day on news radio. Ban on muslims? At night I would chuckle as a small neighborhood in a Canadian village welcomed a dark-skinned family from across the globe and slowly realized their erroneous misperceptions in hilarious ways.

After exhausting the episodes, I transitioned back over to political reporting (especially the deeply informative ones like Intercepted). In a couple of hours, though, I’d find myself craving something different, and so I downloaded the cast recording of Hamilton. Remember that theory I had recently where I found that I had to work for a couple of hours before hitting my groove? Yeah, a couple of hours is about the time each night that I switched from shady conflicts of interest in the White House and the deconstruction of our democracy to Hamilton. At the opening beats, my foot would tap and I’d be off, bopping and singing at the easel as Hamilton meets Burr and forms relationships with Lafayette and others (yelling “Hercules Mulligan” on cue — how do I not remember him from history class?) and gets married and joins General Washington and defeats the British and writes the Federalist Papers and and…

I find it interesting that in these times, as we witness mocking disregard of the Constitution and the attempt to deconstruct our government, and wonder if the Great Experiment could in fact fail, I turn to the times of its inception; the hopefulness of its creation and the revolution that was the catalyst of it all.

Anyway, in the meantime, Newman was completed.

Newman, on the Easel

Newman is one of the funniest dogs that I know. He’s got that dopey complacency that I so love in the big, houndy boys. Newman is the type of dog that doesn’t understand the physics of leashes and legs, and will get himself completely tangled up, but just keep walking, anyway, unfazed. So, when his human requested a painting, I was thrilled… but unsure which expression to capture. Like me, his dad enjoys the dopey humor in some of his expressions, but he’s also a very proud dad, hanging pictures at the office and all, so maybe we should stick with something a little more flattering? Newman shares the trait with almost all other hounds of extreme focus on food, and while I was baiting a lab mix with a morsel of stinky tripe, I caught Newman in my peripheral vision with the most dreamlike expression. So I snapped a quick pic and went “Aha! That’s the one!” His dad agreed.

Many more layers to be added and blended, but he’s off to an OK start.

Tory, on the Easel

I have a queue of dog paintings that will keep me busy through the summer, so I’m taking a little break to get some human faces done. Tory is 36 x 48″ and this is whipping up somewhat quickly — to my surprise. I was in the studio over the weekend for hours, mostly putzing around with a series of distractions which serve to keep me from ruining it (Which podcast should I listen to? I think I’ll make tea. Should I rearrange the paintings on the walls?), but eventually I settled into it. After a couple of hours, I got into the flow and just kept going, until I had painted the face. I didn’t touch the mouth or the cap, just focused on mixing skin tone hues with siennas and umbers and blacks, and brushing it on. (It’s not done, by any means – but it’s almost there.) As I realized that I worked for a couple of hours before hitting my stride, it occurred to me that maybe this is how I work, but I just never saw it — that I have to work for a couple of hours before anything substantial gets done. Good god, I hope not.

Identity Crisis at Rafius Fane

I like to support local, independent businesses, and give a shout out, occasionally. My local bookstore has a superb staff that knows their stuff and always has the book I’m looking for (or can get it seemingly overnight for no extra charge), the local Indian restaurant was making me these delicious special meals without telling me that the dish I was requesting wasn’t on the menu, and my car guys never try to rook me into unnecessary work on my old dogmobile. So, I figured I should do this with artists, too.

Thing is, as a studio artist, I tend to focus on my own painting and neglect that aspect of the work that requires us to actually go out and see other work. It’s not that I don’t want to expand my horizons and expose myself to new inspiration and build rapport with galleries and support other artists; it’s just that I haven’t been researching shows and scheduling the time. (Yeah, I should work on that.)

But when Rafius Fane Gallery in the South End showed Percy Fortini Wright’s show “Identity Crisis,” I went. I had been a fan of Percy’s work on social media since a friend suggested his style as being somewhat compatible with my own in perspective, and I was blown away by it. So, I hopped on a train and popped in to the opening.

As soon as I walked into the gallery, my glasses fogged up. This was not a buttoned-up, white-bread art opening, but a dance party. Hip-hop was blasting and people were dancing. A woman stood facing a wall-sized abstract piece while the artist spray-painted a portrait on the back of her coat. I gravitated over to the urban landscapes, bypassing the faces altogether, and just stood there, taking them in. When I started painting again, several years ago, I thought that I would paint urban scenes — streets, subways, alleys, things like that. But then faces just started happening and I went with it. Now, standing at this wall, I stopped breathing for a moment. Yes. Why am I not painting city scenes? No, I need to focus on faces, Wait. Do I? So, yeah, I was inspired.

Moving along to the next wall, the streets started to blend toward faces, until it became a wall of “Children from Beyond,” and I recognized the work I had seen online. Percy blends oils with spray paint in a way that makes you wonder why this hasn’t been popularized. Graffiti meets classically painted brick wall, and it just fits. In the faces, there is an ease with which the features are applied (or, sprayed) that reveals such familiarity that you wonder if he just whips them up in three minutes. I think of myself laboring over a 48” portrait with my #6 brushes, and am puzzled by the ability he seemingly has of just spraying the same sized face with such quick and effortless strokes.

Anyway, at the risk of sounding like a blathering fangirl, I’ll just wrap it up here by saying that you should go and see this work, for yourself. There is so much more than the few I’ve posted, and the artist’s ability to blend urban graffiti with classical style is worth a peek. Rafius Fane Gallery is at 460C Harrison Ave in Boston, and the show is up through Feb 17.

Truth is Enough to Cause Anger

When my friend Kimbo posted this selfie to Facebook a couple of years ago, it was accompanied by the text “Writing new songs. Feeling inspired and angry. Grateful to be in the present emotionally. Living fearlessly with truth, love and as always Solidarity!”

I looked at the picture again and I just didn’t see the anger. When someone asked “Angry?” she replied “You know… the habitual violence and abuse in the world, The destruction of the environment. I have written songs lately with those feelings of disdain and discouragement but also when I write angry music, it is almost a way of staying productive, causing my mind to think what else? How can I change this? How can I spread awareness? Starting the healing and opening a dialogue of ways to change and better ourselves and the world. I’m angry and want to do what I can with my music to help this world. I want to continue to see the real truth. I feel truth is enough to cause anger. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. In my music it inspires me. Anyway, I’m rambling but YES I’m angry and proud of it.”

I was compelled by the image to try to capture the expression. I dabbled at it over time, putting it aside to work on commissions, but I was never happy with how the face turned out. I’m good with the hair, the sweatshirt, the ribbing on the hat and the puke-green wall of the fluorescent-lit public restroom. But the face was horribly insufficient; too smoothed out, and definitely not angry enough.

As I struggle to avoid the stigma of painting dogs (i.e., paintings vs “pet portraits”), I feel a strong need to steal a little bit of time to generate some meaningful work to be taken seriously as an artist. I knew this image of anger had potential, so I put it back up on the easel to rework the face.

Kimbo is a folk-punk artist and I listened to her songs in the studio to access that anger. I took larger brushes than I’m used to, and dabbed on darker swathes of color, trying to resist the urge to blend it in, perfectly. Harder colors — more Ivory Black and Raw Umber. Shadows (not just as metaphor). I widened the eyes and mouth and jaw. I realized that when I first painted this, well over a year ago, I was existing in a bubble of optimism and happy dogs. But now, as we begin to witness the results of the 2016 election, access to that anger is becoming easier for me.

Shadowboxing

“Narcissism.” “Ignorance & apathy.” “Lack of empathy.”

My box sat on a pedestal in Somerville’s Nave Gallery, quietly soliciting slips of paper with the anonymous confessions of visitors scribbled across them. What disturbs you most in others? I asked. Then below it, in smaller writing, Oh, go on. No one’s looking. Jot it onto a scrap of paper and slip it into the box…

“When people don’t listen! Drives me NUTS.” “Hateful ignorance.” “Lack of attention to history and civic duty.”

When the call went out for the “boXed” show, curated by Susan Berstler and Jesa Damora, we hadn’t yet elected a new president, but we were deeply submerged in the swamp. The theme of the show was, of course, things in boxes. What do we box? Well, we certainly box those parts of ourselves that we don’t wish to acknowledge; that inner swamp best kept tucked away. That which is suppressed by our conscious self doesn’t disappear, but becomes what Jung called the shadow.

“Nearly nobody says what they mean.”

Although (or, because) we don’t recognize it in ourselves, we see it in others, and it scratches at our surface.

“Anything that reminds me too much of myself.” “Today, it’s hypocrisy.”

screen-shot-2017-01-17-at-9-47-16-am What else goes in boxes? Ballots. Maybe not so much, anymore, technically; but the ballot box was definitely on people’s minds. It’s not like they’re unrelated, these shadows and ballot boxes. If we each have a shadow, then collectively we must have a humdinger. The Collective Unconscious can be a powerful force once triggered and expressed. Although I can’t find the source, I had read that “when people would ask Jung, who met Hitler, how he manipulated the psyche of the German people, Jung replied ‘Hitler didn’t manipulate the psyche of the German people, he was the psyche of the German people.’”

“Coldness. Cold eyes, cold voice.” “Giving up.” “They’re in my way! Get out of my way! Go away!”

When creating the box, I didn’t realize that Trump would actually be elected; I was merely disgusted that he had gained enough support to propel him to the GOP nomination. By the time the show opened, he had been elected and my little progressive corner of the world (sometimes Somerville can even make Cambridge look stodgy) was in a state of dark disbelief. I was looking forward to seeing what people would slip into my box.

“THEY’RE MORONS.”

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls, said Jung. And so I put it on the box. Whoever wrote “Their ego and sense of superiority, especially when they don’t realize who I am” deserves a hat tip for cleverness; but the one that truly captured it all was “Their inability to sit down & have a cup of tea with their own darkness.”

Yes, that.

I had put a little hole on the far side of the box with a tempting Look inside! and arrow, then attached a mirror inside the hole. This displeased some. I have heard that art can sometimes provoke an emotional reaction, but I am not sorry for stirring that in you.