Art Inspired by Music

Kathy Rees Johnson, Bagatelles, mixed media on board

The Harstad Fine Arts Series is pleased to present an exhibit of art inspired by music through the month of January. This brings together two of the featured disciplines of the series--music and art! It is also a favorite pairing for me, as this is my third such exhibit. In this exhibit, the artists were inspired by specific pieces of music.

Mary Louise Dean, Swan Lake, oil on canvas

Mary Louise Dean has been a co-exhibitor in each of these exhibits. Here, she offers our exhibition a series of abstract paintings based on her favorite classical music. A common theme is the melodic and mournful minor key of each piece. She listens to the music allowing the 'dance' of the brush on the canvas to inspire the composition and colors. She has been an active plein air painter for the past ten years, and has participated in group shows in Louisville, Lexington and Paris, Ky. Mary Louise and her husband have recently moved to Milwaukee, WI, where she can be closer to family.

Don't miss this chance to see the work of Mary Louise Dean!

Judy Hower, My 'blue boat home', acrylic and ink on canvas

Judy Hower's painting is inspired by the folk song Blue Boat Home by Peter Mayer, folk singer/songwriter.

Blue Boat Home

Though below me, I feel no motion

Standing on these mountains and plains

Far away from the rolling ocean

Still my dry land heart can say

I've been sailing all my life now

Never harbor or port have I known

The wide universe is the ocean I travel

And the Earth is my blue boat home

Sun, my sail, and moon, my rudder,

As I ply the starry sea

Leaning over the edge in wonder

Casting questions into the deep

Drifting here with my ship's companions

All we kindred pilgrim souls

Making our way by the lights of the heavens

In our beautiful blue boat home

I give thanks to the waves upholding me

Hail the great winds urging me on

Greet the infinite sea before me

Sing the sky my sailor's song

I was born upon the fathom's

Never harbor or port have I known

The wide universe is the ocean I travel

And the Earth is my blue boat home

       --Peter Mayer

Kathy Rees Johnson, Adagio, acrylic on board

My passions of Art, Earth and Music come together in my paintings. A deep love for music and creating art meet with celebrating the beauty of the Earth. When listening to music, I often envision landscapes and experience the underlying emotion revealed in the music. My abiding affection for a wide variety of music and landscapes are, hopefully, evident in the exhibited paintings.
I have eight paintings in this exhibit, but I would like to single out Adagio (see image above) because it was inspired by a concert in which Benjamin Karp, cellist, performed. I've written about this in my blog Good, if you would like to explore that further.  Experiencing music live opens up a world of inspiration. This is is your reminder to come to our HFAS concert, Karp & Co. 2, January 26th (more information below) and start planning your new artwork!

Helen Powell, Night on Bald Mountain, oil on canvas

Helen Powell states that 'storms provide color, sound, texture, and movement. These physical attributes are translated by Mussorgsky into an emotional, vibrant piece of music'.  Helen is a perceptive painter of landscapes. She will be the featured artist at the First Presbyterian gallery in March/April with an exhibit titled, Water, Earth, and Sky.

I hope that this has whetted your appetite to see this exhibit in person. Harstad will hold an Open House on Sunday, January 19th, from 3 - 4:30 pm. Our host venue is Faith Lutheran Church, 1000 Tates Creek Road, Lexington, KY. We will have recordings of the music along with simple refreshments. This is a prime opportunity to view the art and chat with artists.

Karp & Co. 2 is the following Sunday, January 26th, 3 pm, also taking place at Faith Lutheran Church, 1000 Tates Creek Road, Lexington, KY.  The Karp & Co trio is created by violinist, Margaret Karp, cellist Benjamin Karp, and pianist Jacob Coleman. Please join us! Tickets available at www.harstadarts.com.

Interludes

Gallery hours: Tuesday - Friday noon - 5 pm, Saturdays 1 - 4 pm

Read more about the Interludes artists:

Patrick McNeese

Mary Louise Dean

Chris Brannock

Kathy Rees Johnson

Enchanting April

Enchanting April, watercolor on Arches paper

April is a most welcome month, especially this year. The drabness of winter is at its peak, as all the green things have given up after blast after blast of arctic air. Even the ivy has had it this year. Then, all of a sudden, green happens anew. I love how the daffodils burst forth energetically, even as the trees are bare. Hope returns.
     I've always liked April, but infinitely more so for the past twenty five years after a very special person arrived. She is rather like April herself, full of enchantment. She can play the Waltz of the Flowers cadenza on the harp and run a marathon. She arrived in France and got on the phone to arrange for renting La Maison Rose and made Thanksgiving for twenty in that same house's tiny kitchen (the meal  included 4 pies!) She cares about the huddled masses and was the only one who knew how to firmly, yet lovingly, train Carly. What a gift she has been and she was given to us in April!
   

1-4-14 Weekly Watercolor

Injured Hawk, watercolor, 7 x 5"

My weekly has been rather weakly--but here is my first watercolor of 2014. My number one resolution for this new year is to focus on working in the studio and putting in the time. Making small watercolor paintings is a good way to settle into a new rhythm.
     This hawk appeared in our backyard in December. Our neighbor told David that he had called the experts in to check on this wounded creature, but the hawk had departed before they arrived. David spotted the hawk the next day in our apple tree. This past summer we had a small flock of what we figured to be sharp shinned hawks. We are crediting their presence with our preserving our apple crop--they kept the smaller songbirds away. I believe that this is a Cooper's hawk from the markings, eyes and squared off tail. Painting the hawk has helped me to appreciate its beauty.
    There is always something interesting to see and I hope to spend 2014 immersed in seeing and painting!

My Most Maddening Painting

It started before Halloween. I was going to make a painting recycling the bottom of a cupboard drawer for the support. The painting would be a celebratory remembrance of a wonderful French dinner under my favorite tree in Strasbourg, France; a massive and ancient plane tree, full of knobs from decades (centuries?) of pollarding. The first layer was a sort of "staining" layer in acrylic. I wanted the grain of the wood to show through. I chalked in drawings of David and Mary.  So far, so good...

 Then, I began working on the visages of Mary and David.  Mary's eyes came out fairly convincingly. The goal was to have a cursory go over with acrylic and then add oil (from oilsticks) for detail and richness. I was very happy with the shorthand description of the tree.

Working along, Mary and David both off to a good start, or so I thought. David was not happy with his open mouth. To me, it looked like he was in the middle of a Francophile rhapsody, but the customer is always right (even though he is not a customer!)  I should have stuck with Mary as she is right now!







I took a photo of David with his mouth shut and used it to adjust his image. David was happy with the results and proclaimed the representation obituary worthy (!) I guess he can die happy... I thought Mary was reasonable, too. But, David felt her representation to be off. And so started an intense period of revisionism.

This was an interesting exercise, because, although I was quite frustrated in not being able to get it right, the work was exhilarating. I had endless energy to work and scrape, work and scrape. Still, it was not coming together.







One has to be able to both see the image accurately, and yet translate the visual information into abbreviations that read well from a distance. Too much information looks cartoonish and off from a distance.



I remember what I have told students, to always return to looking. Get your first hand knowledge and use it. Don't make assumptions, don't figure you know something before you know it! I made a drawing of Mary to see what I've been overlooking and/or over-emphasizing. I like the drawing, but it didn't help. I stayed up until 3:30 am working on Mary, but she was playing hard to get! So, I gave up and figured what I learned from this exercise was worth enough. I did not have to have it end exactly like I had planned.




So, I put myself in the painting. It was an evening I wanted to remember: sitting under this beautiful tree, having my third goat cheese salad of the trip (this one made with phyllo dough) drinking a red Alsacian wine in my favorite little Alsacian glasses. This is the first time I've included myself in a painting. Painting myself was fairly easy. We know we have preconceived ideas about our own likeness, so we have to be particularly careful and objective; really focusing on abstracting out the image. I was in the picture in no time at all! Or maybe, David just figured he shouldn't say anything about it...!

David even made the frame for the painting. I'm going to hang it where the old cupboard used to be. We can remember a fine trip to France and a wonderful evening. Though this was a maddening exercise, it also reminded me that I love the challenge of looking and thinking; translating what I see to the surface of a painting, being objective and subjective to make a convincing representation. I think I'll keep painting.
Happy New Year!

Resist Temptation

Thanksgiving Day 2013, 7 x 5"
oil pastel/watercolor

We are in the holiday season and there are a lot of temptations. It is the season to give in to those temptations. I'm giving in to the temptation of resist: where a medium is used that repels another medium that is laid over. My dominant mix of media are watercolor and pastel. I've been intrigued by oil pastel and its added quality of resisting water based media. I thought it would be fun to make a watercolor/oil pastel painting, starting with the oil pastel. This scene, with a canopy of pear tree leaves worked well, because I could use the oil pastel to create the spaces where light shines through. It was also useful in rendering the light layer of snow on the grass and on the hedge. The leaves were then created by rich layers of watercolor. The most striking thing about this setting was the intense color of the leaves: red and green with highlights of golden ochre. After a good bit of paint had been put down, I went for a walk to let things dry. When I came back, I added more layers and finished detailing with watercolor. Since I can, I added oil pastel on top. This made for a nice little painting finished in an afternoon.  Thanksgiving Day 2013 will be for sale at MS Rezny Studio/Gallery for Holiday Revels, and it can be found in the drawers at the back of the gallery. If you buy the work during Holiday Revels 40% of the price will go to Hospice of the Bluegrass and their art fund. You can buy gifts of art and help an important local institution at the same time!

Holiday Revels

MS Rezny Studio/Gallery

903 Manchester Street, Distillery District

Thursday, December 5th

4 - 7 pm

40% of purchase price will go to

Hospice of the Bluegrass fund for art

10-2-13 Weekly Watercolor

Morning Work, 7 x 5",  watercolor

I'm home after a trip to visit my daughter in France. It is appropriate to feature a horse for my weekly watercolor. My sister, Jennie Rees, covers horse racing for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Sometimes I accompany her to the track or training center as she goes on her rounds. The easy demeanor of the riders always impresses me. They are coaxing these large animals to be calm, focused and energized all at once.
Gray/roan horses are my favorites.

9-12-13 Weekly Watercolor

Trio of Birch Trees, Cadillac Mountain
watercolor on paper, 5 x 7"

I knew the subject of this week's watercolor as soon as I spotted a trio of truncated birch trees on top of Mount Cadillac. The vegetation was quite striking at the top; the bronzy greens being set off by the pink marble rock. The stark white of the birch bark shone brightly, making up for the short stature of these birches. The dancing, playful quality of this trio was particularly alluring!

9-4-13 Weekly Watercolor

First Fruit, 7x5" watercolor on paper

Once again, I went only as far as my backyard to locate subject matter for my weekly watercolor. I particularly liked the way the shadows are playing in this image. The hosta blooms were an interesting challenge.
     As it turned out, I had to make an unexpected trip out to our lake place and watercolor proved its portability. I simply took the watercolor in progress and used all the "premixed" palettes (left from classes I teach, etc.) at Clover Slope Studio. There was a Copenhagen Blue which was pretty interesting for the shadows. Coming back to Lexington and Fourth Leaf Studio, this blue was diluted with premixed Prussian and French Ultra Marine Blue. All in all, this was a fun exercise.
     Something that came up in my last workshop; one of the participants insisted on using only 3 watercolors, a blue, yellow and red. She mixed all her colors from that. That is a challenge I will try soon with my weekly watercolors.
     This watercolor will be headed for the drawers in the back of MS Rezny Studio/Gallery. You can own it!

8-27-13 Weekly Watercolor

Sycamore along US 68

This tree is a favorite one that I look for every time I travel on US 68 from Lexington to Nicholas County. I take photos when I get the chance. They are expanding US 68 between Paris and Carlisle and the new lanes will be quite close to this magnificent tree. I hope the roots won't be bothered!
       I chose this scene to work on to practice a technique that I developed while working with participants in my Experimenting with Watercolor & Pastel class. You start with the lightest color (as always with watercolor) and after letting that dry to fill in the darker value background, but start with a lighter value and drop in the color.
      I love the way sycamore shine against a blue, or even gray sky!

8-20-13 Weekly Watercolor

Scene from the back window

As a discipline, I am aiming to make at least one watercolor a week. The reasons behind this goal are two-fold: 1) to make sure I make a painting a week and 2) to create work that go in the drawers at MS Rezny Studio/Gallery (where smaller work is stored.)
      I enjoy the contemplative mode of working with watercolor and the smaller scale, 7 x 5", will keep me from getting too fussy. There is a lot to be learned from quick work and constant work.
     This sketch was fun because I did it directly, while looking out the back window at our garden with bronze fennel, butterfly bush and a sand cherry tree.
      Please watch for upcoming Weekly Watercolors.

Sweet Spot Ecology

Zacchaeus's Perch
acrylic on panel

   
      Several months ago, I was madly preparing for my exhibit OF the EARTH. I  had to write an artist's statement early so that it could be used in publicity blurbs. In that statement I wrote: "...there is a sweet intersection between nature and human influence that fuels my passion." The statement (which is included in my last post OF the EARTH, August 15, 2013) truly reflects my modus operandi as an artist.

      As August and the opening of the show approached, I was a little anxious about things. At night, I would select calming books to read. One that I reach for often over the years is Thomas Moore's, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. A chapter caught my eye: Ecology's Home; where Moore says the following: "Enchantment arises on the threshold between human activity and Nature's presence." That struck me. Moore is describing the sweet intersection that feeds my art. He elaborates: "It is always a liminal phenomenon, a momentary relationship, made of the right arrangement of stars and planets and elaborated with art by human consciousness.  Enchantment is nature's song heard by a sensitive human ear, and it is the crafted work of human hands reflecting their admiration of nature's geometries." 

      Moore provides an etymological break down of ecology; eco meaning home, in the broadest sense; and logy denoting mystery and even the divine. Putting those together, he suggests that ecology is "an infinitely deep and mysterious notion of home." This is also a way that I would like to think about my artwork.

Coming up next: Rich Ecology

 "Ecology's Home"  Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997) pp. 44, 45.

      

     

OF the EARTH

   My exhibit of landscape paintings, OF the EARTH is on display at MS Rezny Studio/Gallery during the month of August, 2013.  MS Rezny Studio/Gallery is located at 903 Manchester Street, Lexington, KY, in the Distillery District. Gallery hours are 11 am - 4 pm, Tuesday through Friday and noon to 3 pm on Saturday.  There is a mix of media represented in this exhibit: acrylic, watercolor and pastel, and (of course!) mixed media.  I will be in the gallery on Saturdays, come see me!

   To give you a taste of what my work is about, I will include my Artist's Statement here:

     Spending time outdoors is essential to who I am as an artist. In fact, it was necessary for me to take a walk so that I might gather some thoughts for this artist's statement.  While walking, I naturally observed that most of my images for painting are collected on such walks. (I passed several redbud trees with dark leaves of deep red and green. When I turned around for another look, the wind has exposed a delicious purple underside.) The Earth provides me with my artistic inspiration as well as serving as an antidote to some of our man-made problems.  Still, there is a sweet intersection between nature and human influence that fuels my passion.  This sweet spot can be found at my favorite places, such as: Blue Licks State Park, the Arboretum, the Henry Clay Estate and Lake Carnico.  I hope that these paintings allow for an interval of enjoyment for the beauty that surrounds us.

     Coming up next, I am going to talk about the sweet intersection between nature and human influence.
   

The Home Path

Autumn Greens/Blue Licks

My life has been greatly enhanced by a road. Because of this road, David and I have joined a wonderful community of faith at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Paris. I have found a place of simple wonder at Blue Licks State Resort Park which I can return to whenever I need to just stand in the woods or walk a path. I have experienced the serendipity of making music in Mozart Hall, housed in the Neal Building in Carlisle, KY. It is easy to imagine the scene in that hall with touring spectacles coming through town; and the acoustics and atmosphere are amazing! With a mighty throng, I enter the unique world of MaysLick, KY during the Asparagus Festival in May. I taught my first workshop in Flemingsburg, because of connections made along this road. This road extends all the way up to Maysville and continues up into Ohio, all the way to Findlay, where my father spent an important part of his childhood. And, actually, the road heads southwest from Lexington all the way to western Kentucky going by another favorite spot, Land Between the Lakes. By now, if you are a Central Kentuckian, you know which road I am writing about: US Highway 68.

     Of course, I wouldn't have so much experience with this road if David and I had not acquired a retreat on a beautiful little lake in Nicholas County. We bought our place on Lake Carnico in 2000. This was when the Paris Pike expansion began, thus, we were able to see the landscape from a multitude of perspectives as new road was built. Paris Pike is the most beautiful road in the world! I was so enchanted by this road that I used two scenes from this stretch to paint my 2010 Horse Mania horse, Paris Pike. Now the highway is being expanded from Paris to Carlisle, and we can again see the rolling hills from a fresh angle. This is an ever-evolving road, which began with buffalo crossing at a low point in the Ohio River (what would become Maysville) and roaming from salt lick to salt lick, creating traces. There is quite a story to tell and fortunately, now there is a book which thoroughly delves into this story. That book is Kentucky's Frontier Highway: Historical Landscapes along the Maysville Road by Karl Raitz and Nancy O'Malley.  The launching party for this book is a wonderful exhibit at the beautiful Hopewell Museum in Paris, KY: Road Life: Sites and Scenes along Kentucky's First Highway. This exhibit is up through June 2, 2013.

     I am very pleased that I will be the Hopewell Museum's artist for the April 12, 2013 Artwalk. From 5 - 8 pm, I will be nestled within the Road Life exhibit with small paintings, cards and prints. All will feature scenes from along US 68.  I hope that you can stop by to see this wonderful exhibit at the Hopewell along with a sampling of my work!  For more information please check out the Hopewell's website: www.hopewellmuseum.org.

My Clover Year

I

Four Leaf Studio with clover and Klee-inspired paintings

Last year was my juste milieu year and this year must be my clover year. I've already talked about this (Seeing Four Leaf Clover, 7-23-11) but the unfolding year has only intensified this idea. I have found four leaf clovers in every month of the year. Usually, the clover has dried up by August. This past year the clover has grown as if on steroids. So if you live around here, it has been your clover year as well!

     Last summer I worked on an unusual project. I made a painting of a molecular structure (MetNI)that my brother Doug had studied. The painting was in the style of Paul Klee. (Please see my September 5, 2011 blog and Now for Something Completely Different!) Learning about Klee was an affirming exercise because he believed in his own guidance and his circumstances (often far from ideal) never hindered his ability to create. What is the clover connection? Klee is the German word for clover.

Some of the clover spotted this year

     I also moved my main working studio from Clover Slope to Jacob's former room (the floors are pre-distressed.) This is working out well. In honor of the abundance of clover this year, I named the new space Four Leaf Studio.  


     Mary went to France in September and in preparation started a blog:   trefle a cinq feuilles (the five leaf clover). She has had a wonderful year full of affection (in the sense that Wendell Berry expresses) learning Breton and teaching little French children English, along with simply being in France.


      It has been a sweet year, apparently, too sweet as my fasting blood glucose level is too high. So,  I have a new project for my new year. Perhaps I shall reach perfection! No need to worry about that!  But, I will enjoy tweaking my perspective. Maybe I will look up...