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THE PLEIN AIR CONNECTION NEWSLETTER March 1st, 2014


"Winter Surf at Washer Women, Monhegan Island" an oil on solid oak gypsum panel 8 x 10 inches by Michael E. Vermette

We began our discussion of the Letter of Criticism of Robert Henri's book, "The Art Spirit" on page 159, by discussing how paintings are ruined in the process of their making by the critical comments and judgements of others. Sometimes we value the judgements of juries and the advice about marketing much more than they are worth. The real attainment in painting is of a state of being as an artist, a high functioning, an extra ordinary moment of revealed possibilities of greater existence. It is a "state of being" where we make clearest discoveries in our technical research and personal vision. It is our main goal as artists is to be ready in a heightened expectation that will evoke flight into this higher state of being. In all great painting, living in this timeless creative zone is the thing that inspires living. The object is never to simply make art to sell or win awards, but to live in this creative state to gain the greater life of the moment and to have an effect on the spirit, mind and body which is lasting. If we are to be considered a painter, than a pure freedom must exist at the time of our painting. Robert Henri puts it best this way:

Things being as they are, the life of an artist is a battle wherein great economy must be exercised. The kind of economy which will result in moments of the purest freedom in spite of the world's exactions. - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit p.162.

If we have the sense of our images in our state of creating, we will always have the will and desire for creating it. If we paint with the idea to sell or please the Judges we lose our desire for creating, We must be willing to paint like a "fiend' as Henri describes it, when the idea of a painting possesses us. We must use that ability over and over again until it develops into an important truth. It isn't so much as a process of holding on to truths by way of compositional formulas, hints or tricks, but a matter of saying something that is an important truth as if discovering a revelation. It is harder to be simple than it is to be complex. We long for that day when we see a dark purple on the dark  February waters on Monhegan Island and dare to paint it with that freedom totally unashamed of its originality, even though that decision may not be the popular or acceptable style of the day. 

We discussed how there truly needs to come a time in plein air painting process when we must come to the point where we have what we want to know from the landscape. Where the subject is no longer needed and you turn your back from the subject to focus on the painting. Since all great artwork that is worth while has to be memory work, it is also true that if you don't do this the work will never get below the surface. How sad it is when an artist's vision is clouded by the judgements and comments of another. How awful it is to not recognize the miracle on the canvas , panel or page when it happens because someone else has shamed you out of seeing it. There is no greater adventure than to be present to the painting while exclaiming the wonders of your own time. We need to give ourselves plenty of paint room on our canvases without a worry about originality, and set ourselves as free as we can so that originality will happen for us. It is so important to watch your work closely and make sure that it is your voice that comes from within that speaks through your art work and not the voice of an outside educated person. 

We all agreed that there is weakness in a person when they pretend to know more than you know or in stating less than you know. This is why we should never be ashamed to share our work or even keep our bad stuff. Not only did we do it but it is our history that is worth studying. We should study our technique that must be solid, positive, flexible and not fall into a formula. It must support our ideas and adapt to new inventions that express that idea and no other, thus narrowing our focus. It must be valuable to you and worth the effort of expression because it comes from your understanding of life and the thing you greatly desire to say.  The group thought that the following statement by Robert Henri summed up everything we shared today in the group discussion. And since we couldn't have said it better we will quote Robert Henri from page 177-172:

I think you can have a wonderful time. It is really a wonderful time I am wishing you. Art is after all, only a trace - like a footprint which shows one has walked bravely and in great happiness. Those who live in full play of their faculties become master economists, they understand the relative value of things. Freedom can only be obtained through an understanding of basic order. Basic order is underlying all life. it is not to be found in the institutions men have made. Those who have lived and grown at least to some degree in the spirit of freedom are our creative artists. They have a wonderful time. They keep the world going. They must leave their trace in some way, paint, stone, machinery, whatever. The importance of what they do is greater than anyone estimates at the time. In fact in a commercial world there are thousands of lives wasted doing things not worth doing. Human spirit is sacrificed. More and more things are produced without a will in the creation, and are consumed or "used" without a will in the consumption or the using. These things are dead. They pass, masquerading as important while they are before us, but they pass utterly. There is nothing so important as art in the world, nothing so constructive, so life sustaining. I would like you to go to your work with a consciousness that it is more important than any other thing you might do. It may have no great commercial value, but it has an inestimable and lasting life value. People are often so affected by outside opinion that they go to their most important work half-hearted or half ashamed.
"What's the use of it if you are not making money out of it?" is a too common question. To what distinction an artist's labors are raised the moment he does happen to make money out of them! Very false values. I say this and I know as well as any the difficulties of making sufficient money and the necessity of making it in order to live and go on.
Go to your work because it is the most important living to you. Make great things - as great as you are. Work always as if you were a master, expect from yourself a masterpiece.
It's a wrong idea that a master is a finished person. Masters are very faulty, they haven't learned everything and they know it. Finished persons are very common - people who are closed up, quite satisfied that there is little or nothing more to learn. A small boy can be a master. I have met masters now and again, some in studios, others anywhere, working on a railroad, running a boat, playing a game, selling things. Masters of such as they had. They are wonderful people to meet. Have you never felt yourself "in the presence" when with a carpenter or a gardener? When they are the right kind they do not say "  I an only a carpenter or a gardener, therefore not much can be expected from me." They say or they seem to say, "I am a Carpenter!" "I am a Gardener!" These are masters, what more could anyone be!
I like your work and have only to ask you to go on your own interesting way with all the courage you can muster.

-Robert Henri, The Art Spirit P177-172.

The next Plein Air discussion meeting will be at Colby College on March 22nd. Many of us are coming down to enter our artwork into the Maine Open Juried Art Show in Waterville at the Waterville Public Library between 9:30 - 11 am on 77 Elm street. There is a jurying process that takes about three hours. So we will have our meeting at Colby College's Museum of Art to view the Lunder Collection. We hope to get a room for our discussion of The Letter of Criticism on page 180 to The Letter of Criticism on page 200 of Robert Henri's book, "The Art Spirit." We will also tour the exhibit as a group and view a Robert Henri Portrait that is on display there amongst other beautiful works. Then we will go to lunch on campus after which we will go back to the library to see if our works were accepted into the show. We hope to meet up with many of our southern fellow artists who live in that region. It should be lots of fun!

We will also meet next Tuesday March 4th at the old Aubauchon's parking lot at 8:30 to car-pool to Mount Desert Island for our weekly paint-out. We plan on painting Great Head which is basically located between Schooner Head and Sand Beach. There will be a bit of a hike involved. So please bring appropriate clothing and foot wear and a lunch. The high temperatures are predicted to be 19 degrees.  We will be stopping to meet artists at Dunkin Donuts in Ellsworth by 9:00 am and after the paint-out we will go to a restaurant and share a meal together and a supportive critique. We hope all who might be able to make it can come to this adventure.

May you muster up your courage this week and be the master you know you can be,

Michael E. Vermette
Coordinator of the Plein Air Connection


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