News and Terroir

Hay bales at Castelbon, Betchat, France 11 x 14 oil on board.

Sitting in a park in Paris, France, reading the news and it sure looks bad. They won’t give peace a chance, that was just a dream some of us had. - Joni Mitchell, from Blue

The news is bad lately, especially from France; my heart hurts from the atrocities and suffering. Following another horrific attack, a U.S. presidential nominee tweeted that “France is no longer France.” I am back on the blog to report that this is not true. France is very much still France.

I recently returned from a sojourn in France to visit my friend Noelle at her lovely artist residency, Bordeneuve. Each year she welcomes painters, composers, writers, film makers and other artists to stay and create in a spectacularly peaceful and enriching environment. I’ve been painting in France since 2001, and this was my 5th year at Bordeneuve. Arriving there is like coming home.

Trout before dinner - caught fresh from the river near
Niaux by my friend and wine expert Jerome Garcia.

The scenery – the greenery, coming from drought-stricken Southern California – is gorgeous, the rain delightful, even when it keeps me from painting en plein air. Bordeneuve is surrounded by forest and field; bird song in the morning is loud enough to be irritating, especially pre-dawn. Being there is transformative, as I become the painter I need to be, free of external distractions, nourished by the surroundings and the people I’ve come to know, and the local cheeses, produce, meats and wines.

A  perfect melon, 14 x 11" oil on board.

The French have a term, terroir, familiar to wine connoisseurs, to describe the environmental and climate conditions specific to a place that influence what grows or is produced there. For me, a painting is a product of terroir as well, influenced by the place it is created. What I learn when I paint there accompanies me home and continues to influence my work and my life. Many of my favorite painters were French – Monet, Manet, Matisse, Cezanne, Chardin, Fantin la Tour; others, like Sargent and Van Gogh, spent many years there. Over the years I have stood in their studios, wandered through the places they lived and painted, tried to soak up the essence of places that spoke to them.

At the Saturday market in St. Girons, I select produce based on beauty so I can paint it before I eat it. I believe that people are also part of terroir. The farmer asks which day you plan to eat a melon, so she can select one that will be perfectly ripe on that day. I buy chèvre from the cheese monger I first met 5 years ago, and the same goes for the pâté and saucisson. Running into friends, we exchange bises (kisses on both cheeks) and conversation (this year, much on Brexit). Every day I read, walk, paint, nap, do yoga; eat, sleep, repeat. C’est parfait.

Quick 6 x 8" oil on canvas sketch at
Niaux, in the Pyrenees.

Ann Raver, the former garden writer at the New York Times, once wrote that when the ancients were sick, they walked among trees and plants and breathed the fresh air to soothe their pain. For me, travel is a balm for the soul as well, and visiting Bordeneuve is a restorative antidote to bad news in the world.

I read this week that fewer tourists are travelling to France out of fear. I think about it every time I board a plane; perhaps it will be my last trip. But the thought of not going is far more dreadful; and beyond that, the thought of allowing other horrible people to succeed in making me afraid is anathema. That includes one current U.S. presidential nominee.

Girolles et Artichauds (chanterelles & artichokes)
11 x 14" oil on board, as delicious as it was beautiful!

Joni Mitchell sings that France is “too old, and cold, and settled in its ways,” as she longed for her home in California. I long for France from my home in California, so coming home I have to ask: “Will you take me as I am, strung out on another man? California, I'm coming home.” 


Here I am, home again, but with France in my heart, hoping for better news, looking forward to the next time. Vive la France. 

When Life Gives You Lemons

When life gives you lemons, say Aloha
6x8" oil on canvas panel Jan 1 2015

It's the first day of a new year, and the first day of the Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days challenge from painter Leslie Saeta. I'm in.
I am not sorry to see 2014 disappear into the fading twilight. It was a difficult year for me. My marriage of nearly 20 years ended; the slope of my father's dementia took a sharp turn toward darkness; and my best release seemed to vaporize, as I found myself uninspired and painting less and less, and less satisfied when I did paint.

As we launch into the new year, I'm hopeful that I can navigate these new shoals and find the lightness that exists, like when a flash of sunlight enters the ocean and illuminates the neon, rainbow-colored tropical fish against the dull hues of Hawaiian rocks and reefs.

Kapalua trail hike, north shore.

To celebrate the passing of 2014, my daughter and I spent the last week of the year on the island of Kauai. Braving what could have been the worst weather there, we were completely lucky to find plenty of sunshine and temperatures that were not too hot and not too cool (unless you're actually from Hawaii, in which case it was, according to some of the locals, "freezing").
We swam and snorkeled, ziplined, kayaked, hiked, flew off rope swings into chilly freshwater pools in old lava tubes, watched sunrises and sunsets, and cruised around the whole island in our convertible Mustang with "TOURIST" emblazoned on the side (not really, but it might as well have had), singing out loud to a private playlist. We saw rainbows, and more rainbows. We watched 5 straight hours of NCIS one night. We ate a lot of Kalua pork, BBQ ribs, and teriyaki beef (her) and fresh, fresh fish (ono, ahi, mahi mahi) and good local IPAs (me) and roughly 2 pounds of super sweet, fresh pineapple a day. It was a great way to end a not-so-great year.

National Tropical Botanical Garden

On our last day, we headed up to the Kilauea lighthouse and wildlife sanctuary for spectacular views toward Na Pali across the phthalo and turquoise waters of Hanalei Bay, along with some gorgeous bird spottings (red footed booby, nene, Hawaiian cardinal, albatross). By the time we reached the Hanalei pier a short while later, the winds picked up and within 10 minutes we were completely drenched, holding hands as we ran off the pier so we wouldn't get blown off the side (I should note that at 16, my daughter doesn't hold my hand very often, so this too was a treat). It was a fitting end to a perfect week on Kauai, even though we had to put the roof up on the Mustang. We saw a double rainbow and had lunch in a tin-roofed bistro, listening to the rain wail down in sheets.

Storm approaching across Hanalei Bay

So now we're back and it's cold here in Southern California (no, really! we had to put extra quilts and blankets on the beds last night, it was in the 30s! I'm about to light a fire in the woodstove). But we're ready to tackle the new year, and as proof, my first painting of the 30-day challenge: When life gives you lemons, say Aloha, which means many things (hello, goodbye, I love you) but is more the embodiment of the spirit of Hawaii. I hope to keep it in my heart all year.
With that in mind, I would like to say thank you to my friends and family who have provided me with so much love, patience, and support this past year. To you I say Aloha, and I am extremely grateful for you all. Bring on the new year, and keep an eye out for lots of new paintings.

Our final sunset in Kapa'a

A Life in Art: Paying It Forward

I love to paint paths.

I love to paint, and I love to write, and I love to teach. And like all of us, there are many things I don't love so much, but which take up a lot of the waking hours of our lives (did I mention that I also love to sleep? And I love to dream, which I do vividly most nights).

They invite our minds to wander.

There are so many things we don't love to do but we do them anyway, because they have to be done. Sometimes we get feedback - appreciation, gratitude, or disapprobation, and hopefully this feedback enables us to improve our work. All of this is a longwinded way of saying that I have undertaken the not-so-fun chore of updating my website (which I should do more frequently, I know). I would love for you to take a look at www.rebeccastebbins.com and let me know what you think.

And to wonder what might
be around that curve,

It is an up-to-date compilation of my paintings, presented in a way that I hope is easy to see.  It is a work in progress, as I move forward with paintings and move backward with cataloging, marketing, blogging, etc. So it's not all fun and games, but in the end, it's the feedback that feeds the soul: the collector whose life is enriched by the art created; the student whose life is pushed forward by the skills, knowledge, and promise that my tutelage has provided. My own fulfillment is living in the  moment of creativity, my own and that of other people.

or what might be over that hill. (from the top,
Carpintera Bluffs; Fields near Angles sur l'Anglin;
Along the Tracks to Rincon; & Rincon Hill from the Bluffs.

The creative life may not be lucrative, but it pays dividends that are beyond calculation, as I pass on the skills, techniques, concepts, and ideas that will allow a whole gang of young people to experience and explore their own worlds - and their own minds - in ways that will enrich their lives as well. I try to pay it forward, and I know that my students will do the same.

Tangerines

Photograph by Laura Hindle.

A friend in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, just posted this beautiful photo of the pond in her backyard on Facebook. I am feeling nostalgic for a real winter, for the snows and snowmen of my childhood, cross-country skiing through the woods, and playing ice hockey.

Then she posted that it was -15 degrees Fahrenheit, without the wind chill. This is not something I recall from childhood. I remember outdoor hockey games in high school, when the temperature dipped low enough that it hurt to breathe, and our sweaty hair would freeze instantly when we took our helmets off. I am pretty sure I’ve never experienced -15˚F, but unusual weather is not so abnormal these days.

Now I live in California, some sort of paradise. Yesterday I took a long walk on the beach, wading in the ocean as the tide came up. Today I picked tangerines and painted them, and then ate them.

Tangerines, 6x8" oil on birch, by Rebecca Stebbins.

Lest you think the grass is always greener, though, you should understand this: in a “normal” year, we have something like 17 inches of rain. In the past 16 months or so, we’ve had less than 4. My grass is not green. Almost everything in my garden is scraping by with minimal water. In Los Angeles, not far from here, this is the driest year on record, on the heels of several years of drought. The Colorado River, which supplies water to a number of competing interests – cities, farmers, golf courses, and of course the wild species which depend upon it for survival – is more besieged each year. There is no "normal" anymore, as far as I can tell.

We live in an arid climate out here in the West, but we don’t respect it and we don’t value our most precious resource. My neighbor next door regularly hoses down his bright  concrete driveway and his automatic sprinklers come on even when it does rain, helping to wash all the chemical pesticides he uses on his perfect lawn right down into the ocean. Even Oprah, who lives a few miles from me, is reported to pay $124,000 per year to keep her spacious lawns green. I guess if you can afford it, it’s ok, right? Well, no. Not in my opinion.

Clearly “global warming” is a misnomer; but I honestly don’t understand how anyone can still believe that our climate isn’t changing at a dramatic pace, on a global scale. And the only input that could be generating such a rapid change is the output of our unthinking human endeavors. As much as I love to paint tangerines in my studio, I feel I should be outside painting the landscape as well, because it’s possible that within a generation it won’t look anything like it does now.  

The Color of Snow

Watercolor study of the Huron
River in winter, Ann Arbor,
Michigan.

As an art teacher, I try to teach my students to see the world, to become careful observers. So many people travel through life unaware of this incredible world we share, and if we are to raise our children to be thoughtful stewards of the earth and all its inhabitants, first they have to appreciate and be grateful for it. For me, gratitude for this life begins with appreciation of beauty and nature, and that appreciation begins with seeing and experiencing.
 



Snowy woods in Ann Arbor,
Michigan (watercolor).

This winter storm blasting friends and family across the northeastern United States and Western Europe brought to mind one of my favorite paintings by one of my favorite painters, Claude Monet. His painting, La Pie (The Magpie), painted around 1868, is in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and several years ago traveled to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Even though I’d seen it in Paris, I traveled to San Francisco to see it again; and later when I was in Paris, I went to see it again. I am a bit of a Monet junkie, I suppose, but there is no comparison to seeing his paintings in person. 

The painting depicts a black bird in a snow-covered landscape near Etretat and was painted on location. It was rejected by the jury of the famed Salon in 1869, according to the Musée d’Orsay, because Monet was more interested in perception than description, as was the custom of the respected painters of the day. What I love about the painting is that Monet captured that perception – you can feel the air, the cold, still tranquility of the winter’s day that Monet experienced. It’s all there, almost 150 years later.  



La Pie, Claude Monet, 1868, courtesy of the Musee d'Orsay.

As for my students, this painting is a way to get them to observe subtlety in the world. When I ask my students “What color is snow?” they unanimously answer “White!” (in spite of the fact that we are in Southern California, we occasionally get snow on the  mountains behind our town and most of my students have travelled to places where snow actually happens).


Yet when we take piece of bright white paper and place it over Monet’s snow-covered landscape, we find all kinds of colors – blues, pinks, purples, yellows. My students love this discovery – such a surprise! Snow is purple! When we really look at a snow-covered landscape we will discover the same thing, but only if we look carefully. The best feedback an art teacher can receive is from a parent who says “My kid showed me that snow can be purple – who knew?”

We also have wonderful discussions about the color of water, but I’ll save that for a rainy day (not forecast anytime soon around here, sadly).

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.

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

Plum Process

Here are some plums, my third in the "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Back to School Challenge. I realize it's the 6th, and this is my third, but it does say 30 paintings, not a painting a day, so I will be catching up over the weekend and hopefully be back on track next week.
Recently I mentioned one method I use when building a painting using a cadmium red underpainting (http://rebeccastebbins.blogspot.com/2013/08/spiderboy-future-artist.html). So I thought I would  illustrate the process - especially because process is paramount for so many painters, particularly when the goal is to create 30 paintings in a month.
For this little gem, it began at the Thursday afternoon farmers market, where I perused the offerings and selected a few choice pieces. People - vendors, friends I run into, strangers - always seem to think it's a little odd that I'm picking fruit for its good looks, not necessarily for freshness or flavor. I was hoping for peaches, but there were very few left. I did buy a few, though, so they might get painted yet, as they're still hard as rocks. Very pretty, though.
The plums, with their dusty blue skin, were more appealing, and I do like the little farmer who brings them to market from his Carpinteria orchard. He assures me they are delicious as well.

The cad red underpainting.

Laying in color - first the darks - and giving form.



Three plums - 5x5" oil on
cradled gessoboard - $125.

Tips on Finding an Artist Residency

I can’t say enough about getting away from normal routines to focus on one’s art. It can be an opportunity to delve more deeply into one’s work, a chance to experiment in new directions, an invitation to expand horizons and to gain fresh perspectives on work, the world, and oneself.



My residence at Bordeneuve in southern France.
 

Many people who travel from the United States flit from place to place and return home with a medley of experiences, in need of a vacation. An artist retreat is different: you stay in one place and go deep, returning home refreshed and ready to tackle new challenges. I may eventually seek a residency in another place, but for now, France keeps calling me back, as it has since 2001.  

You don’t need to go far away. My cousin, a writer in Chicago, goes to Ragdale (www.ragdale.org) , which is a short drive from her home but a world away. Ragdale’s motto: “we believe that time and space are not luxuries but necessary elements for creating important new work.” I agree, and her best-selling novels are also proof.

 There are different types of residencies. You can pursue a solitary retreat or share the company of other creative people. Some are for one type of artist, while others mix writers, artists, composers, choreographers, screenwriters. Many are in quiet, rural areas, some more urban. You might not be within walking distance of town, so you will need to hire a car or make sure that transportation is available; sometimes there are bicycles  to borrow. Do you need a city or will you thrive in an isolated environment? Make sure you know whether you will have access to the supplies or equipment you need.


Fields at St. Martin de Redon near Atelier de la Rose.

One excellent resource is www.resartis.org, listing 400 residencies in 70 countries. You can select from many categories on their website: location, setting (rural, urban), visual arts/writing/music/choreography, type of accommodations, length of stay, and more. For example, if I search for France, visual arts in a rural setting, I will see those that most appeal to me. There is also www.transartists.org, which reports 1,200 residencies on their list, but the search facility is limited only to country and type of art. Another useful site is http://www.artistcommunities.org/, the Alliance of Artists Communities, which lists residencies and also provides useful tips and information about choosing a residency that matches your needs.

On the high wire above my yurt.

Perhaps the most helpful information I have gleaned is from other artists. I google artists who have visited places I am interested in, and I have received very useful information. In one case I spent an hour on the phone with a ceramic artist in Vermont who warned me against applying to the place she stayed; I later heard from a second artist who had a similar miserable experience, and I felt badly that both of them, and no doubt others, had spent time and money traveling to France only to have a negative experience. I am grateful I knew enough to not apply there.

My experiences have been very positive, one in a group setting, once with a writer, and twice in solitude, in which I thrive. The solitary work ends with the day, though, getting to know my gracious and interesting hosts over dinner. Some offer visits to local sites, markets, museums, artist studios. At Atelier de la Rose, www.french-rose.com, the lovely Sally Gaucheron gave us a very informed and personal tour of the ancient cave paintings of Pech Merle and the surrounding area. With Noelle Thompson www.bordeneuveretreat.com  I have visited fabulous gardens, the weekly market of St. Girons, an interesting modern art exhibition in the ruins of a medieval monastery, and other delightful places. At Mas Pinet www.maspinet.com where I stayed in my own Mongolian yurt, I was given a ‘baptisme funambule,’ a daunting lesson on the highwire by the world-renowned circus artists Jade Kindar-Martin and Karine Mauffrey.

Artists were here 25,000 before I was.

I sketch and paint every day, and I read, nap, eat, and exercise daily as well, all of which provide benefits to my painting. I find that my work resonates with the landscape and the experience of being away. For me, a love of France is inspirational, but there is also great freedom in having the time to dive deep.

A few places of interest:
www.pechmerle.com with 25,000 year old cave paintings
www.les-jardins-de-la-poterie-hillen.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-visit-our-garden.html
http://www.frenchentree.com/france-lot-quercy-towns-villages/displayarticle.asp?id=38780
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_d'Aurignac

Leaving Bordeneuve (Some thoughts on an artist residency)

Fields at Bordeneuve by Rebecca Stebbins

Bordeneuve is a place that is hard to come to and harder to leave. It’s hard to come because of what you have to leave behind: basically, everything that isn’t in that small space where creativity resides. Spouses, children, friends, and all the accoutrements: laundry, for example, or cooking, cleaning, yard work. Animals to be fed and walked and loved. Bills to be paid and paperwork that piles up and supplies that need to be restocked and messes to be cleaned up and is there gas in the car? And do I have everything? You travel.

You arrive at Boussens on the crowded little train and step out into the Midi and voilà. There you are, with just your bag, your baggage, and yourself. And there is Noelle, who grabs your very heavy bag and heaves it into the back of her trusty Peugeot and you are off through the winding roads of the Ariège.

You pass farm fields and tiny villages, some with stately little homes and others with crumbly old barns, up hills and around pastures with sheep or goats, or little herds of cows in all of the colors that cows come. She turns in to a rocky track, and if you look back you’ll see the snow on the Pyrénées in the distance. You bounce down a luminous green tunnel of trees and vines and finally you pull in to a clearing with a house to the left and a barn to the right. That place on the right hardly qualifies as a barn: it is lovely, spacious, and filled with just what you need. Food, silence, books, a deep bath and a wide balcony, places to sit, to draw, to paint, to play, to dance – yes, even enough room to dance. Indoor space and outdoor space. And no clutter. You make a mental note: less clutter.



Blanchette & Edith, by Rebecca Stebbins

The first evening is jovial and calm – a lovely meal, a nice bottle of rosé, conversation that isn’t dull but isn’t deep – not yet. Later in the week the topics will grow weightier, perhaps. Tonight you are still shedding the old skin. Tomorrow you will wake up in a new skin, bright and shiny like the green garden snakes I’ve never seen there. 

The first day you will still be decelerating. You will wander and sketch, flip through books of poetry, unpack. But then something funny happens: just as you begin to accept the slowness, and the quiet, you start to hear all the noise there. For Bordeneuve can be a very noisy place, especially between the birds and the insects and the very loud cow a few fields away who bellows from time to time, and the distance village bells you catch once in a while. And that small space where creativity resides? Like the heart of the Grinch, it grows. And grows, until it takes up all the space of all the other stuff you left behind.

View from the end of the track by Rebecca Stebbins

And as you slow down, matching your speed to the rhythms of real life, you realize you have hit your stride, and you work. With a passion, until you are tired and have to stop, and then it’s time for a nap, or a meal, or a walk, or a bath. The choices are few, and so they are easy to make. Easy choices reserve brain space for your creative pursuits, you think. You’re not wasting precious time on TV, or idle chitchat, or wondering what to tackle next. Your time feels more pure.

You wake up, and it happens again: simplicity. Except now there’s a complication: oh! There are chickens outside the door, and perhaps they would like a little treat. You go to look at all the different flowers in the garden and you see dinner there too, ready for picking. You come back inside and there’s a cat – and somehow, not by the markings but more by the attitude, you know which cat of the four has come to visit. You are settling in.

And one day it happens: you have to leave. And it is hard, and you are already starting to think about arriving on the train in Boussens and the long drive down that rocky track to come back.

http://bordeneuveretreat.com/

 

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

The Language of Art: Value

The language of art often includes words that convey another meaning in real life, as I tell my art students (ages 5 through 14). We are studying “value” this week.

Student drawing of a cone

They will tell you that it means how dark or how light something is. I remind them that it includes all the shades of grey in between. We create value scales in pencil, crayon, and charcoal, which most of them love because it is very messy (one 6^th grader won’t touch it because it gets his hands dirty). 


Student drawing of a sphere

I try to impress upon them that without value, there would be no picture. With no black, you can’t see white. And all the shades of grey are what create form, or as they like to say, “3-D!” We draw cones and spheres under bright lights and ask ourselves “is this part lighter or darker than that part?” Forms begin to appear.

Differences in value lead us to contrast, which has similar meanings in art and in real life. I like this one, from Collins English Dictionary: “distinction or emphasis of difference by comparison of opposite or dissimilar things, qualities, etc.”



©2013 Rebecca Stebbins

Altering contrast can improve a picture. The calla lilies on the left and right are identical, but the contrasting background makes them appear differently.

©2013 Rebecca Stebbins



In life as in art, paying attention to contrasts can be helpful too: cool, cloudy days help us appreciate warm, sunny days; without sadness, happiness would feel empty. Perhaps we wouldn’t appreciate eloquence as much if we weren’t exposed to so much daily drivel.

For a more eloquent explication, here’s what Emily Dickinson had to say:

Contrast

A door just opened on a street --
I, lost, was passing by --
An instant's width of warmth disclosed,
And wealth, and company.

The door as sudden shut, and I,
I, lost, was passing by, --
Lost doubly, but by contrast most,
Enlightening misery.