What Goes Around

Egg in French cup, 6x8" oil on board, 2014.

Late on New Year's Eve I flew home to California from a trip to wintry Michigan to visit my parents. This morning, January 1st, I was grateful to discover a new year's gift from my chickens, who have started laying eggs again as the days grow longer.

It seemed appropriate to paint this little egg today, as it represents all the potential of a new beginning. But new beginnings are not without a past, and in this painting I placed a silver spoon inherited from my great-grandmother and a French saucer and egg cup to represent my love of France and my gratitude for being able to spend time there. The Quimper saucer is the same china that my great-aunt brought back from her overseas adventures in the mid-twentieth century to furnish the cottage in northern Michigan, built by my great-grandfather, where I spent many summers and learned to swim, among other things. The egg cup is one that I purchased myself on a trip to France.

As a member of the so-called sandwich generation, I am a baby boomer caught between worrying about elderly parents while nurturing a child (in my case, a teenager), in addition to other 'normal' challenges of midlife - marital, physical, emotional, psychological. I am facing an uncertain future, like so many of my peers.

At the same time, we are the beneficiaries of an unavoidable, constant stream of wisdom via social media, much of which shares a similar message. Slow down. Be grateful. Take care of yourself. Forgive. The list goes on, but it's fairly easy to find justification for taking pleasure in small things, for digging deep, and for challenging ourselves to stretch beyond our comfort zones to achieve real meaning in life, whether by reaching out to friends, traveling, creating, volunteering, or even just taking time to nap or to read a good book.

Mimi, demonstrating how to nap.

My wish for the new year is to grow in ways I can't now imagine, but in ways that will increase my positive contributions during my time on this planet. I send good wishes for a bountiful year full of love and hope for all of you who may be reading this, and I hope our paths will cross in some way in 2014.

Back in the USSR

Outside the Winter Palace (aka Hermitage)

I knew when I set out on the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge that it would be a . . . well, a challenge. For me, the biggest challenge was a trip to the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and St. Petersburg, which my octogenarian mother invited me to accompany her on as part of her bucket list tour. Who could say no?

Optimistic as I am, I brought along art supplies, not accounting for the cold, rainy weather, which was not conducive to painting outside. Inside was not a good option either, as we were quite busy.
However, we saw fabulous art and architecture and contemplated deep history and culture. As much as I love watching football, nothing surpasses the thrill of standing in front of an incredible work of art and sensing firsthand what the artist saw as he or she stood in front of it, whether recently or 1,000 years ago. Masterpieces are undeniable in their execution, their composition, their color, their bravura – qualities that define them. For me, it is a sensation of awe, of desire, a visceral experience that defines a masterpiece.

Matisse's Dance, larger than life.

The pinnacle of the trip (from an art perspective) was the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. There can never be enough time there, what with 3,000,000 works in the collection, but our small group had the good fortune to be admitted two hours before opening time. We were alone in those great galleries, having a tête-à-tête with Rembrandt’s soulful portraits and Matisse’s giant, joyful dancers. From Caravaggio to Rubens to Picasso we wandered through brilliance and it was exhilarating.



I always love Cezanne's
still life & landscapes.

I studied in what was then Leningrad for a summer in the USSR as a student in 1985. To quote Paul McCartney, “Been away so long I hardly knew the place,” and it was remarkable to see the changes in the post-Soviet era. As a reminder of how powerful art can be, Wikipedia reports that the Beatles were labeled in the 1960s as the "belch of Western culture," and the Soviets denied permission in the 1980s (!) for Paul McCartney to play there.


My favorite floral painter, Henri Fantin-Latour.

Of course there were far more serious ramifications for displeasing the Soviets, including torture, murder, and exile to Siberia. Unfortunately, it seems as if the current Russian administration has not fallen far enough from that tree, in spite of significant improvements in daily life for many (but definitely not all) the Russian people. Still, the art alone was worth the visit, not to mention being with my intrepid and ever-curious mother, from whom I have inherited a deep love of travel and art, among other things.

 

 

With Mom at Peterhof, the Summer Palace on the Baltic.

 

 

A Little Bit of Everything (almost)

I met an abstract painter last week who was encouraging me to make a foray into abstract painting, as opposed to my comfortable zone of realism/impressionism. I told him I felt like I could spend a lifetime trying to master what I already do, and that working abstract would pull me away from that. He suggested that abstract work might enhance what I do, and my intuition tells me he might be right.
That being said, I am still playing catch up with 30 paintings in 30 days, and today I touched on the three genres I paint with some regularity - still life, landscape, and figure. Almost caught up!

Canteloupe & Grapes, 5x7" oil on gessoboard, $125

Tarpits Rocks, 8x10" oil on linen on board, $200

Lori Sketching on the Beach, 5x7" oil on gessoboard

On Monhegan

Monhegan Island Morning, Rebecca Stebbins, 2013

I was asked by a modern sculptor who saw my work online, “What’s the point of doing things that have already been done?” It came off like an affront, but I believe his point was that ‘real’ artists should push forward, seek new forms of expression, reinvent genres and challenge the status quo. I respect his point, for without it we could never have opened the door to a Vincent Van Gogh or Maya Lin. There are also artists whose attempts to shock the world seem more like self-indulgent fodder for a therapy couch than seeds for a new movement in art, but even the art world has its Betamaxes and New Coke.

My artwork is impressionistic, representational, or as a friend says, I paint things that look like things. It is what I love to do and to look at, whether a Monet landscape or a Chardin still life. I leave it to others to shock, repel, or disgust their audiences, or to confront them with difficult challenges. There is room enough in the art locker for all of us.

Edward Hopper, High Noon, 1949

I am painting for a few days on Monhegan Island, 10 miles off the coast of Maine. The 50 or so local residents call it “the rock,” and it is: a giant, rugged rock topped by pine forests and surrounded by the cold, swirling riptides and currents of the Atlantic Ocean. Monhegan has Maine’s highest cliffs, dropping 168 feet into the sea.

This place  has drawn people for thousands of years for its rich fishing; there is still a working harbor, primarily lobster boats. For 150 years the island has also called to artists, and many iconic American painters have painted here.

Everywhere here I see a Hopper painting. Edward Hopper was a distinctive American artist who forged a unique style that was sparse and clean. He often painted New York and Paris, and here, where his eye was drawn to the crisp lines of the dormered houses against the profoundly blue sky, or rusty rocks in a deep teal ocean.


Edward Hopper, Blackhead, Monhegan 1919

The current exhibition at the Monhegan Art Museum in the lighthouse features Monhegan artists who were affiliated with the New York Armory show in 1913, a watershed moment in American art history. Most of the paintings, by Robert Henri, Leon Kroll and others, are bold, modern landscapes. One would expect Hopper’s stark houses or rugged rocks here, but instead we find his still life painting of a jug and copper bowl, in tonal shades that look very much like Chardin.


Jean-Siméon Chardin, Still Life, c.1732



Edward Hopper, Jug & Copper Bowl
1903

French painter Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin was a master of the beautiful, painterly still life works he created in the 18^th century. So here was Hopper in 1903, considered modern, ground-breaking and unique in his approach to his subjects, painting in the style of a Frenchman who had “done it already” centuries earlier. I wonder if anyone ever asked him, “What’s the point -- it’s been done before?” The piece was lovely, if a little out of place amongst modernist landscapes. I like to believe that Hopper found value in still life painting in the way that I do: as an opportunity to take a fresh look at old forms, a study in relationships, an exercise in seeing things as they are.   



 

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My Sweet Cherries, Rebecca Stebbins 2013

 

 

 

 

For more about the 1913 Armory Show, see http://www.boothbayregister.com/article/monhegan-artists-and-1913-armory-show/16938