“Some forms of success are indistinguishable from panic.” — Edgar Degas
If it’s true that every picture tells a story, then it is many times true for this one. For now I’m calling it Mockingbird Lily Lily Rose. Lots of work left to do on this one …..
Mockingbird Lily Lily Rose, in progress 5 April 2024. Cherry Street studio, Jacksonville
About 20 or so years ago I started painting. That was squarely in the Post Modern era, and as a painter of realism I was out of step with the abstract thrust of the period. Many art scholars have begun to describe these interesting times as the Post Truth era, and as such, a focus in realism has resurfaced. The term Post Truth has lots of complexity, but I tend to think of it as this: people used to have their own opinions … now people also have their own facts.
When I started work on Queen Santa almost a year ago I was processing the composition as Post Truth Realism. But I really had no idea how the forces of our era would inform my work. Having always been interested in layers of meaning, the core idea was to render the work with layers of reality … interlocking, interrelated, incongruous yet somehow holding together as a unified whole. When I tried it in the past, the scholars and masters with whom I studied said this was a uniquely bad idea. Guess we will see how it works out.
In this piece, the Queen is rendered with exaggerated color in an energetic style, based on an official photo from her later years. She resides in a golden space, the spirit world. She is contained within the materialism of the Stewart plaid border, and also rises above it as she did in life. Her beloved Corgi, expressing her accessible, playful side is rendered in an anime style, existing in both the spirit and material layers. Consistent with the Santa Knows series construct, we have a Santa hat … but it seemed more respectful to put it on the dog instead of the Queen. The royal medals, of course, are painted realistically and inhabit only the material plane. The artist signature, lower right, is the Cloud Atlas comet I’ve been using for a few years now.
So here she is …. last year’s Santa. After the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ll start on Santa Knows 2023. ‘Good Lord willing and the Creeks don’t rise’, it will be ready by Christmas of This year!
Having a fabulous day in the studio-kitchen working on the design for this year’s Santa. It’s top secret of course. Ok, it’s the Queen. But anybody can figure that part out. The real thing is the design, and I think this is my best ever.
So anyway, I’m working away with my new main man, Simon. How this guy came to be a homeless village cat in Lockhart, South Carolina is beyond me. He is One Cool Customer. Our little Chani is also impressed, but chooses to express her admiration through an endless series of surprise attacks, comically reminiscent of Pink Panther’s Kato. Here’s one I managed to capture just now under the drawing table.
….. will keep you posted on Santa Knows ….
I’m always a bit lost after finishing a painting. The only remedy is to start another one. So THAT is happening today but I can’t talk about it because (the subject) is Top Secret (until after the event) (which is stressfully soon). I’m excited about the project already, and the BIG REVEAL aspect is turning the whole business into performance art! What Joy!
You know how they tell you to leave a notebook beside the bed to help remember your dreams? Well I do that, and often wake to find a note or a drawing with no recollection of creating it. So here is one of those messages:
The joy energy of painting will be codified into the work & experienced as attraction by the viewer.
Hmmmm. I can do that. Enough coffee … let’s get this show on the road!
Here’s the final version of Garden … well, let’s use the word ‘final’ expansively …. safe to say I’ve signed it and I’m putting it away for now.
preliminary photo …. and I’m bound to fiddle with it tomorrow morning … but it’s done. It’s done.
Today, a Sunday as it turns out, I will finish Garden, a painting started (conceptually) about seven years ago. It’s lived with me in seven different studios, and we’ve covered lots of miles. Now mind you, I haven’t worked everyday all day. In fact, years at a time have past without a single brush stroke. But never without attention — never without constant processing of the overarching Eden myth, and applying it to these times, and most of all watching it rework its magic on me as we coevolved.
… but here I am waxing philosophical when I should be finishing the last of the detail work on the hands and apple.
Every apple
is an angel with wings
a moment of choice
and a home on the precipice
of pure potential
Sometimes when I take too long to finish a painting the core idea manages to drift … probably because it wasn’t that well-anchored in the first place. Sweet Chariot is one such project. The original concept was a fuzzy version of geometric wheels on the wallpaper background, a foreground horse in profile … an interesting portrait, aspiring at best to Beauty. Then the wheels of life turned, and the painting took on the emotion of its time. The idealized horse image, no one in particular, individualized day by day into the bearer of our deep, deep pain, ultimately taking the name Elijah. The wheels started spinning a tapestry of life and art — of anguish and hope — of mythological heroes and villains — of cycles within cycles.
Lordy I miss those days of painting without pain.
There’s a tiny bit more to do on Sweet Chariot, but I won’t be able to get back to it for a few days, and I’m just itching to give birth, albeit a premature one. I’ll surely let you know when it is finished and signed.
….so what is going on with this land and this art and all this business we don’t talk about…
The world has stood by in horror for weeks now, watching the grand metaphor — no less than the battle between good and evil — play out minute by minute. Maybe this sickening tale grips us all because we know the potential for darkness that, obscured by an oceanic supply of love, hides sleeping within the human soul. And the utter scale of this shared experience is almost beyond the human intellect to comprehend. It is the feeling of it, not the thinking, that we grasp. These are threshold times, when the door opens for heroes …. and artists …. to do what they do best.
This soul defining place provided the emotional architecture for the portrait of Zelenskyy … to materialize my compulsion to get in the fight! Subsequent to the portrait, the poster project was driven by the drive to expand … to fight bigger!
It’s been a bumpy road actually, but so far all obstacles have been managed. Yesterday Facebook rejected my ad boosting poster sales for being too political. Bummer. But in fairness, everything I’ve posted so far has been really close to the line, so overall I feel pretty lucky.
Today I’ll start packing and shipping posters. Then after that … time to learn new stuff and find other ways to expand the reach of the poster … to keep striving … to fight bigger.
Just finished this dreamy frame for an upcoming portrait.
Today I’m finally getting back to Weeping Sunflowers. Hoping to finish today and offer it for sale … need some seed money for printing and mailing the posters. Planning to post it on FB and explain … it might work out ok.
Funny thing about Facebook — they have adopted me. Well, sort of. The newly created biz page, Studio C Shute performed fairly well right out of the box. I was a bit surprised, but not entirely. There’s a buzz of destiny in the air … for the whole world in our mythological conquest of good over evil. And I’m fully in the flow. FB said I qualify for a “special program” … pretty sure that’s code for “clueless sixty-somethings doing tech” … but hey! … I’ll take it. They spent hours on the phone with me yesterday consulting.
I remember those years studying with Ben Long we’d sweep the studio every morning before work — an act of reverence for the tradition of our Florentine School. Now: sweep the studio … then back to my one true love — painting.
Here is a picture of my studio this morning. I start work about 10:00 when the sun steadies up for the day. It’s not 10 yet so I’m doing this instead. Before I begin, I’ll light the candles in the fireplace. Then I will paint.
I read an opinion piece recently called (I think) “Mike Pence is No Profile in Courage”. I read it for a laugh … duh! … whoever thought he was! But I understand his heroism in a different way now. Yes, he was trump’s lapdog, fully ensconced in the alternate reality of his maga world. But as I examine things this morning, that’s precisely what makes his One Great Act all the greater. Aren’t we ALL fully engaged in the reality of our own world-bubbles? So to shatter, and expand beyond our own world-bubbles — well, that actually sounds like a real, authentic Profile In Courage to me. (Or, as I prefer to think of it, a Profile in Faith.)
So I’ve been painting these Ukraine paintings. I realize now, thinking of time as a landscape instead of a vector, that I’ve been engaged in this work for a while. Circling around it in the dark. Of course, thinking in clock time, I did start the Stripes series way before Putin invaded Ukraine. And as I have written, the little blood spattered Stripe painting was a complete mystery to me at the time. The instant I realized what Putin was planning all the dots connected. The entire landscape emerged from darkness and dust. Of course there was no question what I was supposed to do: the ultimate act — to create. The ultimate act of an artist — to light a candle in a dark room.
So I did these paintings. And as exposure for “Need Ammunition, Not a Ride” rose into the thousands, I decided this light should be brighter. (Plus friends have been asking me for prints.)
Then I got hacked. Russians I’m guessing … not going into the details here. And I started to feel a different kind of fear. When I told friends working with me on the print/poster project, they dropped out. I completely understand, of course. In one (material) reading of reality, they have a lot more to lose than I do.
But every time I leave my house I say a prayer. (There are some extremist in my geographic world, and they have expressed their disfavor with my life.) I pray not that they won’t burn my house down while I’m away … not that. I pray that they will let the pets out first.
So I’ll keep working on this. Lighting candles.
My teacher told me this day was coming.
This unfinished piece is the third in the Stripes series (“Russian Warship” and “I Need Ammunition, Not a Ride” are the first and second). This painting is my prayer for Ukraine, and unsurprisingly, the overarching metaphor is salvation. Like Gauguin’s “Vision After the Sermon”, the picture is divided into two sections — the lower represents the material world, and upper is the realm of the divine. In Weeping Sunflowers the background has yellow and blue stripes, bounded by red. The darkened, blood spattered lower area has two crouching flowers … weeping … and also bowed in prayer. The bottom flower has two very droopy leaves, suggesting the end is near. The vase looks like an urn, earthy and blood-soaked. The lilies, signifying rebirth and regeneration, kind of glow, and illuminate the upper portion of the composition. The central, heavenward facing sunflower is renewed by the light …. its leaning stem has taken a turn upward. The frame, integrated into the composition represents fire. I’ve included my usual Biblical numerology — twelve stripes, seven lilies (two on the cusp of opening), and three sunflowers.
Really hoping I can finish this tomorrow. Not sure what’s next.
A month or so ago I gave in to the inexplicable urge to paint yellow and blue stripes on a small canvas. When those dried, again inexplicably … I dropped blood (red paint) on top of the stripes. It made no sense at all to me then. But it does now. God save Ukraine.
Well, back upstairs to the attic studio for the winter … and the insanely cozy winter bedroom. Why is it that attic apartments feel so …. magically elevated. Just finishing my commissions for this season. The rest of the year is mine … have all sorts of adventures planned for the studio this winter.
One of the first skills one must learn as a researcher and as an artist is to actually see … to observe without bias or judgement. That’s no small task.
I have always assumed that Alia Atredes, alpha-girl, would never welcome a new kitten to the family. Assumptions often harbor biases which can lead us astray. So it is with baby Chani. When I first brought the tiny feral creature home, I was a bit worried about Alia’s reaction. But here’s how it went: when I put the nervous, shaking baby in her kitchen corner sweater-nest, Alia stared at her wide-eyed. I had positioned myself to quickly sweep up the baby if Alia threatened. But she didn’t … I could almost feel her concern for the terrified creature. Alia walked over, encircled the baby with her body, wrapped her arms around Chani’s tiny head, and began to wash her. They purred. I was astonished. Spellbound. This reaction was so unexpected, I could barely catch my breath. Finally Alia looked up at me dismissively and said, “I’ll take it from here.”
