The Secret Garden

Last night I went to dinner with two girlfriends at a Chinese restaurant in East Van. Afterwards, since it was still sunny and nice out, we went for a walk around the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood we were in is a slightly sketchy combination of businesses and down-at-the-heels houses, but fine in the daytime. We wandered past the security-bar clad windows and cracking pavement when our attention was drawn by a garden in progress.

The yard of former mechanic shop was being transformed with new rich soil and a variety of tropical plants. A water feature was being dug in, and once the plants fill out and blossom, the garden will be very beautiful. We peeked inside the open garage door to see who was performing this botanical miracle and saw a man talking on his cell. I recognized him immediately as a well-known Vancouver artist. Inside the shop were canvases pinned to wall and a variety of intriguing paintings in various stages of completion. Obviously the garden reno required a lot of hard physical labour, and I wondered what was motivating the artist. A desire to create a tropical paradise to transport him or inspire his art? A hope to make the neighbourhood more beautiful?

One of the plants in the new garden is appropriately called  Black Magic

Although I am notorious for envisioning artist studios in every empty building I see (Old schools! Deserted warehouses! Garden sheds!) I was especially happy to see this conversion of garage to studio. This plain brick building, transformed into a place of creativity and energy was inspiring. Like the budding garden outside, an artist plants the seeds of his imagination and they can transform the neighbourhood.

Obviously you don’t have to be an artist to plant a lovely garden, repaint a front door or just pick up some garbage off the street. Everything we do to make public spaces more beautiful and  interesting can be appreciated by all.

The Graduate

Although I paint abstract work, I make the occasional foray into representation. Usually there is some event, like an art show for children in which I am participating. And of course at an earlier stage of my practice, I made only representational work.

A series of dresses from 2004.

I used to do a lot of tiny dress paintings on 3" x 5" pieces of wood. There is something about the swish of fifties dresses which has always appealed to me. Add in the bright colours I love to use, and I found myself able to paint tiny dresses for hours. It's something fun and stress-less. I've sold a lot of these dresses to young girls, and their moms, and toyed with the idea of putting them on etsy.

Recently I attended the grad banquet for my son's high school. (As an aside, I am not a creeper mom, in Vancouver attending your child's grad is completely normal and required. Personally I would rather have not attended than had my parents at my prom, but those were more carefree times.) The girls at the banquet looked lovely. Bright vibrant colours are in style this spring and they looked like a flock of tropical birds in lovely plumage. I felt inspired to paint the whole kaleidoscope.

Luckily this inspiration carried through for a grad gift for my son's girlfriend. Emma is a wonderful girl:  intelligent, beautiful and confident. When Sam first started going out with her, we teased him about how lucky he was and wondering what she saw in him!  Fortunately for me, he never reads my blog, or I would be in real trouble right now. Anyway back to the art, I decided that I'd like to do a little painting for Emma, of the gorgeous red dress she wore to the banquet. Thanks to Facebook, I snagged a good photo and went to work. Using a 5" x 7" board, I began with a subtly patterned tissue over multiple layers of silver and pearl paint.  Then I did a complementary green underpainting and then a final painting with reds, oranges, and pinks. I poured resin on the final product and then bought the perfect silver frame. And here it is:

"Emma" 2011

Will she like it? Stay tuned, their ceremony is tonight and the dress is wrapped and ready to go.

The Lows

Since I’ve already written about the highs of being an artist, I thought it only fair that I should write about the lows as well.  Recently a couple of incidents brought me down to a new low.

First off, I finished all the calculations for my tax return. Yes, I do realize that if I was on top of my income and expenses on a monthly basis, the final tally would not be a shock. However, that would require a personality operation to remove the procrastination gene, a nice idea but highly unlikely.

For the seventh consecutive year, my gross sales of artwork have risen (hooray!), but at the same time, my expenses have been steadily rising as well. Studio rental, photography, website management, promotion, gallery commissions and raw material costs were all higher this year. The final calculation showed that I was still making a profit, but if you divide that profit by the hours I spend in the studio…let’s just say that sweatshop workers might turn their nose up at my hourly wage. So that was a painful realization that had me feeling discouraged.

Then the second blow. I received an email from one of my galleries telling me that due to the economy, they would be returning all my paintings and severing the relationship.  This took me completely by surprise since in the past ten months they had sold five paintings, which I thought was pretty good.  But I have no idea what gallery standards are.  

This dismissal felt to me a lot like when someone breaks up with you. Immediately I felt stunned and upset, that punched-in-the-gut feeling.  After the initial shock, the self-doubt takes over. I started thinking about all the ways I should have managed the relationship better, with more frequent contact and communication.  And ironically, I had just ordered new panels, since I was planning to create some new artworks and offer to exchange them for the old ones that my galleries had in inventory.  When I went to pick up the order I felt depressed instead of the anticipation I usually feel when I get fresh new panels. Here I was spending so much money on panels and what would I do with them?

This depressed state has lasted for a while. The worst part is that it limits my creativity. When I’m low, I can't do the normal things that inspire me. Seeing art shows or even chatting with artist friends makes me feel jealousy at the successes of other artists, which in turn makes me feel petty.  Usually painting is a great solace for me, but when I'm down I begin to second-guess myself in the studio, wondering about my worth as a painter.  Then creating satisfying new work becomes difficult. It’s a horrible circle of negativity.

Okay, it's not depressing art, but since I usually do happy, that's all  I've got.

My only answer to the lows is to keep going to the studio. I worry about creating new work in a negative frame of mind, so that limits me. What I can do is to keep putting in the time and working. Some months ago, I had gotten feedback from another gallery that a client did not like the sides of my painting. Resin dripping is pretty unavoidable, and I feel it shows the process of the work in an interesting way. But apparently not everyone agrees, so spent several days sanding and refinishing the sides of some finished paintings. Other days were spent cleaning the studio, organizing my paper supplies and trashing unused materials.

Eventually, I know that feeling sad and doing mindless work will clear the way for some brave new art.