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LEANING INTO YOUR ART LIFE
My grandfather Crouse was a lobsterman who fished out of Rockland, Maine back in the day. My mother would always describe the amazing lobster feasts he had at this time of year that would always include a lobster bake for the whole family to enjoy. She also shared with me his love for Monhegan Island, an island of fisherman, that I admit also, is my favorite out-to-sea island community. In fact there is a lot of lessons we can learn from lobsters, this bottom dwelling ocean crustacean, and how we can lean into our own art life to grow and be better plein air painters. I shared the following facts with my Rangeley Plein Air Watercolor workshop students sponsored by the Rangeley Friends of the Arts and SoJO's in downtown Rangeley, Maine. I am so proud of the success my students had this past week.
Any Lobster Captain will tell you that we are now in the shedder season when the lobster gets its new shell. In fact, a lobster can only grow if it sheds their old hard shell and develops a new soft shell. They grow a new shell about 1/4 of an inch larger, once every year. And in this season they get more uncomfortable in their old crowded shell. So it pumps more and more water into its body until it cracks that old hard shell. Lobsterman often come across lobsters half shed in their traps that are squeezing themselves out of their shells as they pull their traps. Sometimes there is an old empty shell laying next to this lobster that looks more like a jellyfish. In fact the lobsterman call it a "Dish Rag." And there it lies, seemingly dead and lifeless in the hand of the lobsterman, completely vulnerable until it is placed back into the water. Once it is submerged into the cool ocean water, it comes to life and quickly swims deep to the depths of the sea and hides itself under rock crevices to be safe from predators. And it stays hidden until it has grown enough harden shell to defend itself.
That is why lobsters are labeled New Shell and Old Shell lobsters even though most of us are accustomed to the Soft and Hard shell lobster. Even the lobstermnen's crates and cars on the water are often labeled "NA" For new shell and "OS" for old shell. Shedding is an ongoing process for the lobster who starts life very small.
My plein air workshop in Rangeley was a lot like this process, especially for the plein air painters participants. Since we grow all of our life in experiences, it is true that we simply can't grow unless we shed our old shell of old ways of producing paintings. Some of us just need to get uncomfortable in the hard shell we have made around ourself so we can break free and be open enough to learn a new way of making art on location. For the most inspired and original artist, shedding is an ongoing process of experimentation and adventure. These plein air painters never seem to get to a place where they say, "This is the way I paint" or "my style will never change" as if they have arrived and have no need to change or to take risks anymore. In other words, they never seem to own their hard shell, but are willing to break out, sometimes described as 4 high state of creativities sited by art educator Elliot Eisner, known as "Boundary Breaking"; Boundary Pushing, esthetic organizing, or synthesizing.
So in this workshop I challenged my students to shed their academically trained performances and usual way of painting for a deeper encounter with nature. Robert Henri in his book, "The Art Spirit" describes it this way:
A man possessed of an idea, working like fury to hold onto his grip on it and to fix it on canvas may not stop to see just how he is doing the work; nor may he consider what might be any outsider's opinion of it. He must hold his grip on the meaning he has caught from nature, and he cannot group for ways of expression. He is immediate. The idea is fleeting. He must have technique - but he can now use only what he actually knows. At other times he has studied technique, tried this and that, experimented, and hunted for the right phrase. But now he is not in the hour of research. He is in the hour of expression. The only thing he has in mind is the idea. As to the expression, he cannot think of it, it is the idea, and the idea alone which possesses him, and because it must be expressed, because he has need to express it, he makes a great draft on his memory, on all the store of knowledge and past experiences, if there was brilliant technique, still he was not aware of it at the time of its accomplishment. It is only a result of the high state of order to which he has raised himself. - Robert Henri
When taking a workshop as effective as this one was, the students had to begin by realizing that academic processes and formulas have their place in art learning, but they can create a hard shell that keeps us from having original encounteris with nature. These ideas from nature warrant taking risks to experiment with the unexpected. In many of the workshops I have taught, Students will too often want to know wha the steps are that they need to take to become a better plein air painter. They want me to tell them how to perform, listing the steps that will help them reach a deeper passion in their painting. And I will demonstrate these steps that involve composition and technique, and even conceptual approaches. But eventually, they will need to realize that they must at some point be willing to put aside rules and formulas in favor of engaging with nature and trying new methods that grow their creativity.
More than once I would remind students to ask the landscape how to proceed, visually receiving what ideas and adjustments that nature would suggest in make the painting more effective. Personally, I don't think it matters how much knowledge you have obtained, how many awards you have received or how many paintings sold, or even quality materials you just have to have. What matters most when painting on location is what is coming between you and the influential relationship of the artistic spirit found in the landscape, that natural voice, our greatest teacher. Responding to varities of visual experiences and capturing ideas from nature as they happen is a "higher state of order" than performing for an instructor with a set of steps set before them or the obligation of sticking to what you or others expect or want you to paint. I have always known that great plein air involves vulnerability in being willing to open ones self up and let go of perceived limitations in order to truly experience growth.
The truth is, we all have artistic talent or we wouldn't be in a plein air workshop in the first place.Workshops are the perfect place to grow. Participants who come to a workshop are uncomfortable in their shell and a little tired of painting the same painting. They are looking for change and inspiration. This goes for the instructor as well, believe it or not. We all need to trust that talent within us, make a great draft on what we can learn from our instructors, then just get on with it and let it happen. Simply, it's the surrender of following your own personal inspiration as if these ideas were waiting for you to find on the landscape. The artist trades performing for an instructor to win validation or approval, for the more genuine art life that becomes a joyful process of paying attention visually, in a stimulating outdoor environment that speaks powerfully to them.
We get into trouble as visual communicators when we allow ourselves to pass judgements on ourselves or if we respond by hardening our shell when people pass judgement on us or our paintings. I don't condemn my students or their work, but I do challenge them to break free from all of that criticism and disapproval they have experienced in their past and lean into their future of plein air painting experiences.
During my residency on Monhegan Island in 1999 as I met for 5 weeks each day to have conversations with island matriarch Ann Hubert. She personally knew the modern painter James Fitzgerald when he was alive. They were kindred spirits to each other and often completed each other's sentences.. She told me a great story that I loved hearing, and she love telling again and again.
It seems James Fitzgerald use to sit in the lobby near the the door of the dining room of the Island Inn on Monhegan Island, as people would check in and wait to be seated for dinner. His painting would be on the wall in plain view as you waited in line for the waitress to seat you. On one particular day he hung a very bold watercolor of surf reaching up Black Head, the highest headland on the island. A man saw it and turned to Jim and asked, "did you paint that painting of Black Head?" and Jim responded, "yes I painted that painting." Then the man said with a critical disgust in his voice, "well, I don't see Black Head Like that!" and Jim responded, "But don't you wish you did?"
I love that response, because when Jim's art was attacked like that, he didn't pass judgement on himself, engage with that person in a philosophical defense, or even respond to the critic's ignorance of what was an acceptable watercolor. He simply addressed the man's deficit and inability to see what he saw in his powerful encounter with Black Head. Anne Hubert never elaborated as to whether or not the man was an academic critic or a painter himself, but she did say that he responded by silently moved on without a word into the dining hall. Jim's painting of Black Head lives on in the James Fitzgerald artist legacy, Monhegan Museum, at (https://www.jamesfitzgerald.org). Eventually all our critics are silenced.
All great artists have taken many risks, made many mistakes in their art for what they encounter in plein air painting. The ideas they receive on location stir a passion in them. They even have had a colorful past. But none of them ever acted as though they needed to pay from their mistakes, like they deserved what they got for criticism, and carried that around like a chip on their shoulder. On the contrary, they learned from their mistakes, respected the ideas given them on location, shedding their hard shell of self condemnation. They were willing to be just a little vulnerable and uncomfortable to dare to try something new and a little over their head in approach, to establish something original. As artists we need to shed past hurts and comments that have cause unforgiveness and hardened our shell, not allowed us to grow. When we accept the poison of another's comments and hold that person in contempt for saying it, it is like drinking poison hoping that the other person we're offended by will die! Forgiving ourselves and others is as difficult as a lobster backing out of its shell. But if we don't get rid of the wounds of the past, if we don't break free, we will never grow into a more accomplished artist.
The workshop was simply extraordinary like that. I saw many transformations both in the artists and in their work. They grew close and became painters who were able to make significant breakthroughs in their art. They risked being vulnerable, owned their own emerging style, and basically freed themselves of all crippling self condemnation, creating beautiful paintings that I'm sure will someday become their legacy.
I will end with my favorite Spartan Race quote for all those who have said to themselves, "what's the use!" and feel like giving up.
"If I quit now, I'll quickly be back to where I started, when I wanted to be where I am right now."
We are all running an artistic race that sometimes seems a painterly marathon. We often don't see or consider just how far we have come and the growth we have already experienced in our lives as artists. This week, I am personally thankful that I had students who never took on an attitude that they have arrived, but pressed on and leaned in towards the landscape in the mountains of Rangeley, and on the famed "Artists Trail". They broke through the tape of their own finish line. indeed, We all leaned in just a little more together than before, into our "NS" Art Life!
May the spirit and beauty of the landscape, Spring up before your eyes this week, may you see it and have the courage to paint the unexpected and extraordinary,
Michael E. Vermette
There is still time to register for the RANGELEY Plein Air Oil Workshop from August 9th to August 11th, 2023!
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