BLOG

There’s an engaging story about American painter David Hockney on the cover of “Smithsonian” magazine this month (August, 2006).

The Family of the Duke of Osuna By Francisco de Goya

The article focuses on Hockney’s work as a portrait painter and makes a strong case for the elevation of portraiture over other genres of painting. Here’s a brief excerpt from the article containing one of Hockney’s favorite quotes by the poet W. H. Auden:

“Art’s subject is the human clay,” W. H. Auden wrote in his long “Letter to Lord Byron.” Hockney loves the passage and quotes it often: “To me Art’s subject is the human clay, / And landscape but a background to a torso; / All Cézanne’s apples I would give away / For one small Goya or a Daumier.”

This is a challenging statement. Although I love Goya’s melancholy fantasies as much as the next girl I can’t say I’d choose one over a Cezanne. In my experience, all paintings evoke the human form and human experience, even if human bodies are absent from the scene. Cezanne’s paintings of fruit which depict clusters of spheres on a table might as well be family portraits. Each apple, unique but related to the others on the table (possibly from the same tree) pulsating with self-possession.

Still Life by Paul Cezanne

The most powerful art viewing experience I’ve had in the last ten years took place in front of an an abstract painting by Robert Motherwell at the Denver Art Museum. I don’t remember the name of the show, or even the details of the painting. Just its inexorable pull, its massivity, the infinite quality of its surface (inky, velvety, black). And of course, the way I felt when I encountered it… speechless.

Portraits, landscapes, abstractions – they’re all beautiful. But abstract painting has a way of invoking the unknown or the spiritual in a way that’s especially appealing to me. Although I can’t say whether I’d choose a Goya over a Cezanne I can say with confidence I’d choose an abstract painting by Mark Rothko over a portrait by David Hockney any day of the week. And I don’t mean to disparage Mr. Hockney’s interesting portraits. They’ve got depth and charm in abundance. It’s just that those pictures of individual people set against the backgrounds of their particular lives don’t evoke the universal in the same way Rothko’s epic abstractions do for me.

Andy and I have this great thing. It’s a solar wax melter. If you put a frame of honeybee comb inside it gets melted by the sun.

The wax that emerges from the solar wax melter is chock-full of debris (honey, bee parts, propolis, the papery linings of honeybee brood cells) and must be filtered before it can be used to make encaustic paint. Second and third meltings takes place in the house on the stove. Here are some pictures of Andy melting and and pouring wax through multiple layers of nylon mesh.

After three filterings the beeswax is ready to be made into candles or poured into one ounce bars. Beeswax comes in a variety of grades and colors from lemon yellow to golden brown. I use only cappings wax (the clearest lightest wax used to seal honey in the comb) to make encaustic medium. The wax you see here is medium yellow in color and will be used to make beautiful, honey scented candles which we’ll sell at our booth at the Boulder County Farmers’ Market this fall.

My secret (and probably foolish) wish as an artist is to be able to control the pacing of events in my life. Does everyone wish this?

This year we’re doing our honey harvest and I’ve got the IFP Market and Open Studios all happening in a one-month span. Yikes! That’s a lot to prepare for between now and October. Still, these are all potentially fun events and I’m thankful for the opportunity to participate in all of them. (And as a friend gently pointed out, at least they’re not literally happening all on the same day.)

I wonder what would happen if I COULD control the pacing of events in my life. Would I like it? Not sure. I think I’d miss the sense of freedom that comes from letting go of control.

Don’t you love driving at night? I do. It’s an eerie pleasure. Here in Boulder a night drive brings one into contact with the dark presence of the foothills to the west. The blur of deer near the road. Animal eyes. The smells of wet grass, a skunk, some smoke.

Last night Andy and I moved two honeybee colonies from a rural area north of Boulder to a small farm closer to town. This is a task we can only at night after the field bees return home from foraging.

The first hive we picked up was on a grassy hill bordered by cottonwoods near an irrigation ditch. It was buggy there so we worked quickly to strap down the colony and lift it into the truck. Dogs barked. A pair of coyotes howled in reply. One sounded like a woman screaming.

The second colony (about a half a mile down the road) was jam-packed and bubbling over with bees. I taped a perforated board in front of the entrance like we usually do when we’re moving bees but was unable to nudge them all inside so we ended up carrying the box to the truck with a bee beard clinging to its front.

It took 20 minutes to get to the new location and unload the truck. I pulled the board off the entrance to the #2 hive. Hundreds of bees poured out and crawled en masse up the front of the hive. Beautiful to see by moonlight.

I love the heightened sense of mystery that comes from being outside at night. The sense that there’s a rich and fascinating world that exists just beyond my perception (the world of grass, the world of coyotes, the nightime world of the honeybees). This is why I paint. To invoke and explore these mysteries.

What’s the nighttime world like where you live?

I’m reading “The Book of the Courtesans” by Susan Griffin. You’d love it. It’s a sparkling history of courtesans jam-packed with tales of gumption, wit and style. AND they’re accompanied by some highly readable art criticism too. In other words, great fodder for artists. Here’s a quote on beauty.

“Although conventional wisdom tells us that courtesans made themselves beautiful in order to attract wealthy men, the reverse was also true. Many sought wealth precisely because they wanted to create and possess beauty. Given the profundity of the experience, it is no wonder that regardless of circumstance, whether female or male, educated or not, we all seek what is beautiful.” – Susan Griffin

I want to create and possess beauty too.