People used to think me queer when I was a little girl because I saw deep purples and reds and violets in a field of snow.  I used to be hurt over it until I gave up trying to understand people and concentrated on my love and understanding of landscapes.  Then it didn’t make any difference.

 -  Fern Coppedge

 The art of Fern Coppedge (1883-1951) is the most playful and distinctive of the Pennsylvania Impressionists who lived and worked in the art colony surrounding the village of New Hope. Some critics have called Coppedge’s work semi-primitive because her colors were often outlandish, her shapes simplified, her priorities out of whack and her perspective askew.  Curator Brian Peterson has said of her work:

 Sometimes in a single painting there will be yellow, blue, pale green, turquoise, bright red, dark brown, purple, orange.  And these colors usually are not laid on in subtle, delicate daubs.  The whole side of a building might be bright green, while the house next door is dark blue, and just up the street the church is a loud yellow.  In some of her boldest, most characteristic paintings, Coppedge even let go of the need for careful mixing and blending, instead loading her brush with pigment, as she said, “right from the tube.”

 I wondered, when I first encountered her paintings, whether Fern Coppedge had been self-taught and was surprised to learn that she had received one of the finest art educations available, attending six art schools including the high-powered Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and New York’s Art Students League.  Her teachers—among the best—were William Merritt Chase, Frank Vincent Dumond, John Carlson (whose book on landscape painting remains a Bible for plein air painters today), Daniel Garber and Henry Snell. 

 What happened? Did Fern absorb none of the traditional teachings these artists sought to pass on?  Actually, if you look at her earliest works it is clear that she had learned. Her colors were skillfully mixed and muted, her perspective was true, and distant objects receded.  However, in the 1920s, following a trip to Italy where the colors thrilled the child that still lived within her, Fern Coppedge decided to paint, not what she had been taught, but what she felt within her.  She did not overthrow all of her learning, but from that point on never lost touch with her inner child.  It took courage to paint as she did, for most of the critics and collectors around her preferred art that to Fern looked stuffy. 

 Are there any morals to this story?

 Fern’s art suggests that in my own work I would do well to do my best to avoid “stuffy.”  Can art even be art without at least a smidgen of innocence and playfulness?  Dare I not now and then use paint “straight from the tube”?  On the other hand, on the few occasions that I have tried to paint like a child, it hasn’t worked.  Somehow the adult and child in an artist must work together.  I think art is best when the artist’s inner child is evident, but not dominant.  That’s what I will aim for.

 An early answer might be that I paint to keep my retirement from collapsing into wall-to-wall television, detective novels, or naps in my lounge chair.  My wife, Dot, says that retirement is wonderful if you have a project and a plan.  Art has become my project and my plan.  I do something that is art related almost every day.

 That’s surprising to me.  For decades I wanted to be a writer more than anything.  I did some writing in my work as a minister—writing sermons each week, writing one book on worship, and publishing two books of sermons—but eagerly looked forward to the time when writing would be my central focus.  Nevertheless, by the time I retired I found myself growing tired of words.

 Years ago I saw a woodcut in by Robert Hodgill entitled “The Preacher.”  It depicted a man with his mouth wide open and over his image was written “Words, words, words, words, words, words, words!,” the implication being that his words were hollow and that he was hiding the truth with his words.  Through my forty-one years of writing, teaching and speaking I tried to use words responsibly, but when I retired I found that I had lost my need and desire to produce more of them.  It was as though I had already said all I could or needed to say.  I was ready for a season of life that was less verbal.

 At a retirement party, the staff of the church I then served—North United Methodist Church in Indianapolis—presented me with a generous array of art supplies—oil paints and brushes.  I had had an art period in the mid-1970s in which I did drawing and some printmaking, but I had never painted.  I must have indicated an interest to someone or they would not have chosen this gift.

 When I unwrapped those supplies and began to use them, I thought that art might be one of my retirement activities. I did not realized how much there was to learn, how limited were my natural gifts, and how challenging and demanding painting is. Yet, there was and is something freeing about the attempt to create art.  It feels good, and possibly important to me personally to labor to open up those artistic pathways in my brain that were alive and well when I was a child, but have long been clogged with words.

 Why do you paint, if you do?

“As I have been working absolutely alone for years, I imagine that, though I want to and can learn from others, and even adopt some technical things, I shall always see with my own eyes, and render things originally.”

- Vincent Van Gogh

According to most art teachers, a big part of learning to paint is learning to see.  If a person learns to see more accurately and more completely, he or she is likely to paint more convincingly.

The assumption underlying this maxim is that, without effort or training, many people do not see what’s in front of them.  We tend to see what we think is out there.  For example, believing that skies are blue and grass is green, that may be what we see, even when atmospheric or lighting conditions have turned the grass blue and the sky green.  We know that trees in summer are green, but if we look carefully at a line of trees in the distance, we may find that they are purple or blue and not green.  Likewise, if we pay attention, we will often find that the color of the sky at the horizon is quite different from the color of the sky directly overhead.  Becoming aware of such subtleties requires attention and the more we notice, the more able we will be to paint realistically.

Vincent Van Gogh’s words above raise a different issue entirely.  Because he was not surrounded by other artists, but mostly worked alone, he had not been taught by others how to see.  That is a provocative insight.  It suggests that artists do not learn to see by the careful observation of nature alone, but by the close observation of other artists’ paintings.  That is why there is so much similarity between the works of artists within a given movement or group such as the French Impressionists, the Hudson River School or Indiana’s Hoosier Group.  Such artists are influencing each other, not only in their painting, but in their seeing.  Once a particular way of seeing becomes the collective norm, it is very difficult to see differently.

When one has been immersed in the art of many others, it is difficult to minimize external influences.  Nevertheless, the example of Vincent Van Gogh challenges those who would be artists to see and paint with their own eyes.

For those unfamiliar with the medium, “pastels” are an artist grade version of the colored chalks with which you may have drawn on a sidewalk as a child. They are made of the same pure pigment with which oil paints are made and are just as permanent. In oil paints the pigments are mixed with linseed oil and remain soft. In pastels the pigments are mixed with a dry binder and are formed into sticks of varying degrees of hardness. The sticks are generally two to three inches long, although in use they are often broken into shorter pieces, as in the photo above.

Painting with pastels differs from painting with oil paints in several ways. Obviously, the method of application is different. Artists who use them generally enjoy the direct painting that is possible with pastels, which feels more immediate when your hand is holding the pigment and applying it to the surface without the need for a brush. While the end product may be sophisticated, working with pastels can feel as though you are a child with a many-colored box of crayons. For me, oil painting feels more serious and pastel painting tends to be more playful, although I am sure that artists differ on this.

Perhaps the biggest difference between painting with oils and pastels is the fact that with oil paints a few basic tube colors can be used to mix a wide variety of values and hues, while with pastels each color and value may require a separate stick. To a degree, colors can be mixed with pastels. Two colors can be blended by rubbing them together; or colors may be layered by lightly applying one color over another; or the artist can attempt to mix colors in the viewer’s eye by making small marks of different colors side by side in the manner of the French Impressionists. Nevertheless, most pastelists work with a large variety of values and hues at their fingertips.

That raises the question of “How many pastel sticks does it take to make a painting?” The answer is “a few” or “many” depending on the subject and the artist. On the high end, I read recently of an artist who reported having 10,000 pastels of differing hues, values and hardness to ensure that he would have just the right stick for every conceivable situation. That number struck me as excessive in that such a collection would could $30,000 or more and the flat surface needed to display them would be larger than my entire studio. I like Susan Ogilvie’s take on the matter. With about 150 pastel pieces in her travel kit she said, “If I need more than these I have issues.” Nevertheless, another part of me sides with Ann Templeton who says, “I’d really like to have them all.”

* * * *

Artist Ann Templeton tells her students that once a year they will produce a painting that is “five years ahead of its time.” The painting below is a case in point.

I painted the picture above from an old black and white snapshot exactly five years ago, before I knew much about painting or had had any lessons.

I painted the first version on a 16 x 20 inch canvas panel with oil paints that I had received as a gift. There was lots of foreground in the photo that I didn’t know how to handle. After several unsuccessful tries I took a box cutter and trimmed the painting to one-fourth of its original size, eliminating most of the troublesome foreground. Still dissatisfied, I tried to hide my amateurish ways by rubbing much of the dried painting with a stick of white pastel. It was better but not good and I tossed the painting into the back seat of my car where it lingered for several days. While there, the pastel was badly smeared by a jacket I had carelessly thrown on top of it. With a mess on my hands, I decided to clean the painting by running water from the kitchen sink over it. As the water began to wash the pastel away, a new image appeared—the one shown above. I had enough sense to quickly turn off the water, dry the painting in the sun, and put it in a frame. I still enjoy it today.

Was that painting in any way foretelling my future as an artist? Perhaps. It was in large part an accident, yet there have been many paintings between then and now that were not worthy when compared to my early attempt. Here’s another barn, painted five years later, that possibly measures up.

If you are an artist, I’ll add Ann Templeton’s postscript. Yes, every now and then you will produce a painting that is five years ahead of its time. The trick is in deciding which one. Daring to make that decision can guide your future development.

* * * *

It takes a long time to learn to paint like a child.

– Pablo Picasso

I enjoy the story of the kindergartner who asked her mother “What do you do at the university?” “I teach adults to draw and paint,” she answered. Puzzled, the child asked, “Do they forget?” Yes, they do forget, most of them. It’s not that they forget the product of childhood drawing and painting, but the process. They forget the attitudes and inner qualities that generate paintings in childhood. How do children draw and paint? To learn that, you need only watch them. Here’s how one preschooler does it.

She draws with absorption and focus. When she draws, the project before her is her whole world. For those moments, it is what matters most of all.

She draws with purpose. To you, her drawing may look like scribbles, but there is meaning behind each stroke. She says of a yellow streak, “That is light from my flashlight bouncing down the stairs.”

She draws with spontaneity and freedom. There are no visible restraints. No inner critic is holding her back. Nor does she care what the neighbors think.

She draws with energy. Everything is intense. Everything is moving.

She draws with delight. This is not work. She enjoys what she is doing. It gives her energy and does not take energy away.

She draws with confidence. There is boldness. There is no fear.

Stepping back, I see that this child’s drawing and painting are born of enthusiasm and innocence. I do not paint as freely as she does, for adulthood has dampened my enthusiasms and eroded my innocence. But, seeing her freedom and her delight, I vow to try. Perhaps I can remember my own childhood painting a little at a time. Today I will seek to paint with increased energy. Tomorrow I will try to lay down my brushstrokes with more confidence.

* * * *

I am again reading Pastels by Wolf Kahn—a book I like very much. I do not aim to copy Kahn’s style, even though I enjoy his paintings a lot. However, I do try to learn from some of the observations and opinions that are sprinkled throughout this book. In future entries I’ll lift up other of his quotes that I find insightful, but for starters here’s one from early in the book:

I believe that every artist has one medium that determines the way he uses every other one. In Turner’s case, for example, the artist’s oil paintings aspire to the quality of watercolor. Daumier’s use of line and tone in every medium recalls the marks that a lithographic crayon makes on a stone. Van Gogh’s brush marks and palette-knife slashes are the colored equivalents of the lines a quill pen makes on paper. In my work, the determining medium is pastel.

I love Van Gogh’s paintings and have looked at many of them, but never noticed the similarities between his brush and pen strokes until Kahn pointed this out. Vincent began his art career by drawing—often with a quill pen. How natural, then, for him to approach a subject in the same way when using a brush. And, clearly, as Kahn acknowledges, his own oil paintings are heavily influenced by the ways in which he uses pastels.

If you paint in more than one medium, does Kahn’s observation apply to your work? Does one approach shape all that you do?

I have painted in oils for almost five years and with pastels for two. One might then expect my oils to be shaping my pastels, but that doesn’t appear to be so. Right now, my oils and pastels exhibit two distinct approaches. I have decided not to try to force a merger, but will continue down both roads and wait to see what occurs.