Author Archives: CP

Apres la Descente

This is my preliminary drawing in paint of “The musician after the descent.” The canvas is 18×18. I’ve sketched in figures of my Orpheus, Larry, and the tigers in Cadmium Red, because it is easily absorbed into other pigments. It also contributes to an underpainting in warm tones for the shadows of the tunnel entrance. I’ve begun a larger painting of the musician and his girlfriend going spelunking, but set it aside while I took care of several commissions. I’d always intended to use this picture of my model, Larry, from the same photoshoot, in a second, smaller painting. The addition of the tigers became a possibility when Larry told me a friend of his had both a tiger and a lion as pets. Voila! It just fit the myth. So heartbroken was Orpheus, after losing Euridice again — just after he’d nearly regained her — that he plays his harp at the entrance of the Underworld in hopes that he will be given a second chance. Here is an excerpt from Bullfinch’s Mythology:

Seven days he lingered about the brink, without food or sleep; then bitterly accusing of cruelty the powers of Erebus, he sang his complaints to the rocks and mountains, melting the hearts of tigers and moving the oaks from their stations. He held himself aloof from womankind, dwelling constantly on the recollection of his sad mischance.

Fortunately my musician has nothing so dire to lament. It’s quite possible that he and Euridice might have broken-up though.

…I’m heading back to the studio to start adding some color! Au revoir for now.

Orpheus Photoshoot

This past training season at Lands’ End, I serendiptiously ended up training a small group of artists. We thought it was great fun that we were all involved in one aspect or other of the Arts. We had a graphic artist, Gina, who has subsequently done work for me, creating my ads of the Mineral Point Visitors Guide and the Uplands Magazine; Marcus, who is an actor with American Players Theatre and just this past season played Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Larry, who plays with a classic rock band named Reboot, and (I just learned) played trumpet with the Madison Symphony Orchestra for several years.

We’ve just purchased a new computer, which was preventing me from blogging until my daughter figured out why. At last the problem is resolved, so now I can post a few pictures from our photoshoot last Friday for the Orpheus-inspired painting I’m currently working on.

I asked Larry to pose as “Orpheus the Rocker.” My daughter, Iphigeneia, posed as his spelunking girlfriend, Euridice.

See next blog for the painting in progress. Here’s a poem about Orpheus by Sir Robert Sitwell:

ORPHEUS

WHEN Orpheus with his wind-swift fingers

Ripples the strings that gleam like rain,

The wheeling birds fly up and sing,

Hither, thither echoing;

There is a crackling of dry twigs,

A sweeping of leaves along the ground,

Fawny faces and dumb eyes

Peer through the fluttering screens

That mask ferocious teeth and claws

Now tranquil.

As the music sighs up the hill-side,

The young ones hear,

Come skipping, ambling, rolling down,

Their soft ears flapping as they run,

Their fleecy coats catching in the thickets,

Till they lie, listening, round his feet.

Unseen for centuries,

Fabulous creatures creep out of their caves,

The unicorn prances down from his bed of leaves,

His milk-white muzzle still stained green

With the munching, crunching of mountain-herbs.

The griffin, usually so fierce,

Now tame and amiable again,

Has covered the white bones in his secret cavern

With a rustling pall of dank dead leaves,

While the salamander, true lover of art,

Flickers, and creeps out of the flame;

Gently now, and away he goes,

Kindles his proud and blazing track Across the forest,

Lies listening,

Cools his fever in the flowing waters of the lute.

But when the housewife returns,

Carrying her basket,

She will not understand.

She misses nothing,

Hears nothing.

She will only see

That the fire is dead,

The grate cold.

But the child upstairs,

Alone, in the empty cottage,

Heard a strange wind, like music,

In the forest,

Saw something creep out of the fire.

Santa Fe, Second Installment

On the first day, Andrea and spent the day checking out galleries on the Plaza: Joe Wade Fine Art, Sage Creek, where we saw an absolutely stunning painting of Native American horseman by artist, Ed Kucera — I wish I could show it to you, but I can’t find an image online, Manitou Galleries, Wadle Galleries, Peterson-Cody Gallery, where I was most impressed with the landscapes of Peter Holbrook. We took about an hour’s break to spend on an orgy of embroidered-blouse shopping in a wonderful store, Natural Fashions (hint: you can shop online, link provided). Andrea had already bought four and bought two more with my encouragement. I bought a sun dress and two off the shoulder blouses. Andrea was able to sport hers in Santa Fe, but I will have to wait for warmer weather to wear mine. From there we walked to Canyon Rd. and had delicious salads at Cafe des Artistes. A bonus was listening to the proprietor’s French accent — I’m inclined toward things like that — after which, the Gerald Peters Gallery and Nedra Matteucci Gallery. Both of these were more like museums, as their collections were by vintage Southwestern painters, often deceased. The Nedra Mateucci had the most beautiful sculpture garden I’ve ever seen. (Hint: Just click through the views of the garden to see the pool and fountain.) I wish that was my backyard.

On the second day, we took a break from Gallery hopping and went exploring ruined pueblos. Our first stop was Bandelier National Monument in the Frijoles Canyon, dating from the 12th Century. The picture above is a Kiva, a subterranean chamber in which the natives held religious ceremonies and village counsels. The top would have been overlaid with wooden beams and covered with clay. A hole served for a ladder to descend and a flu for smoke to escape, the fire pit being situated on that end of the kiva floor.

The walls of the canyon are composed of basalt and “tuff” — I’m more familiar with the term, “tufa” –rock made of accumulated ash from an ancient volcano. It must be similar to the conical “mounds” of Cappadocia, Turkey, in which a warren of ancient domiciles and churches were carved into the rock in the early centuries (5th and 6th) of the Christian era. You can see the man-made holes in the cliff in the picture above.

A closer look at the cave-rooms, accessed by ladders.

Reading Thoreau, Eau Claire Dells, WI

This picture was my husband, Matt’s, idea. He took me to the Eau Claire Dells as a surprise and suggested that I paint a picture of a person reading Thoreau amidst the rocks and rapids. So, I asked him to pose for it. It’s a beautiful place. I’d never even heard of it, which is incredible considering I’ve lived in Wisconsin for almost forty years. Matt knows all the back roads though.

Here is a selection of what he may be reading:

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

…and my favorite:

“There is no remedy for love, but to love more.”

Reading Thoreau, Eau Claire Dells, WI, oil on canvas, 11×14, Artist’s Collection

Some Touch Ups

As long as I still own a painting, I will return to it and try to improve what I don’t like. I almost completely repainted the head of Bust of a Girl on a Red Chair (see June 5). I also repainted parts of the plate on Soile’s Sinful Chocolate Cake. Here are the results.

I’m working on a large piece right now, a scene inspired by Phantom of the Opera, and actually the most ambitious composition I’ve ever tried. It’s taken two photo-sessions with three models and my so much more camera-savvy photographer friend, Jesse, (who is also possessed of a great eye for emotional nuance and a good picture story), the purchase of a large mirror, the borrowing of a wonderful black-velvet and pearl encrusted dress, an encounter with a Photo Nazi at Walmart which almost caused me to burst a blood-vessel keeping my temper and remedied jointly by a much more rational employee at Walgreens and a vodka tonic to complete the cool down, a lot of consideration over which photos to use as reference and an entire day of drawing and composing the figures to fit the canvas (24×36). I’m about ready to start laying on paint.

…However, the Fall Art Tour, a three day event where hundreds of people — I hope (!) considering the economy — flood the community every year and visit the studios of working artists, is only 2 1/2 weeks away. The sixty hours or so I may need to complete the painting is entirely hypothetical at this point. My loving, duck-hunting hubbie is waiting for me to join him in Eagle River at our cabin for our yearly vacation. I’m trying to figure out how I can transport a large enough easel and lighting equipment to keep painting and be on vacation at the same time. Meantime my car is unfit to drive. Whatever it is that makes the back wheels respond to steering is broken. It will hopefully be repaired by tomorrow.

The Fall Art Tour is my big art event for the year and if the Phantom project even semi-makes it, it will probably be sporting a sign cautioning, “WET PAINT!”

Here’s a poem by Emily Dickinson that expresses (pretty well) what it’s like to be “my” Brain lately:

I felt a cleavage in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,
But sequence raveled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.

Bust of a Girl on a Red Chair, oil on canvas, 12×16, Private Collection

Soile’s Sinful Chocolate Cake, oil on canvas, 5×7, Sold

Hazelnut Torte

Taste by taste and brushstroke by brushstoke, I’m enjoying becoming familiar with he scrumptuous cakes at the Rolling Pin Bakery. This one is called Hazelnut Torte. I’m painting another right now called “Death by Chocolate”, certainly my preference out of the various ways to demise.

Here is a poem by Louis Simpson:

The Unwritten Poem

You will never write the poem about Italy.
What Socrates said about love
is true of poetry — where is it?
Not in beautiful faces and distant scenery
but the one who writes and loves.

In your life here, on this street
where the houses from the outside
are all alike, and so are the people.
Inside, the furniture is dreadful —
flock on the walls, and huge color television.

To love and write unrequited
is the poet’s fate. Here you’ll need
all your ardor and ingenuity.
This is the front and these are the heroes —
a life beginning with “Hi” and ending with “So long!”

You must rise to the sound of the alarm
and march to catch the 6:20 —
watch as they ascend the station platform
and, grasping briefcases, pass beyond your gaze
and hurl themselves into the flames.

Hazelnut Torte, 6×6, oil on canvas, Sold

Soile’s Sinful Chocolate Cake

Another of Taste of Scandinavia’s irresistable desserts is this dense, flourless chocolate cake, topped with chocolate ganache and garnished with chocolate shavings and turtle icing. I did eat this the instant I thought I no longer needed it as a model.

Here is another reason I love Edna St. Vincent Millay. She has such spirit:

Intention to Escape from Him

I think I will learn some beautiful language, useless for commercial
Purposes, work hard at that.
I think I will learn the Latin name of every songbird, not only in
America but wherever they sing.
(Shun meditation, though; invite the controversial;
Is the world flat? Do bats eat cats?) By digging hard I might
deflect that river, my mind, that uncontrollable thing.
Turgid and yellow, strong to overflow its banks in spring, carrying away bridges;
A bed of pebbles now, through which there trickles one clear narrow stream, following a course henceforth nefast —
Dig, dig; and if I come to ledges, blast.

Sinful Chocolate Cake, 5×7, Oil on Canvas, Sold

Princess Torte

First, I’ll tell you about the Torte: This Oh-so-feminine confection is made of “layers of Scandinavian sponge cake, filled with the finest raspberry jam and gourmet pastry creme.” Then it is “wrapped with real almond marzipan and garnished with a marzipan rose.” It is absolutely gorgeous. I may have to paint it again.

I found it on a trip to northern Minnesota last weekend with my friend, Andrea. We were taking an unintentional detour, a typical mishap when I’m driving. In the midst of Starbuck’s withdrawal, we ran across the Taste of Scandinavia Bakery, chock full of the most glorious desserts. What a find! I so wish that it wasn’t five hours away! (For those within range, we found it on Hwy 96 between 35E and 35 W north of the Twin Cities.)

On a more meditative subject, I’ve been enjoying Patricia Hampl’s memoir on perception, art and life as conveyed in European paintings of the Odalisque (harem woman) in her little book, Blue Arabesque. She describes so well the feeling about time we have as innocents ,and how we inevitably take a stunned look backward at how overscheduling has changed and narrowed our faculties:

“But just when did time, that diaphanous material, fray into rush? The way I imagined it, woolly minutes had once streamed across an eternity of spun-silk nanoseconds, piling up into hours that wove themselves into the voluminous yard goods of days that, in turn, got stitched into weeks and months. Wasn’t that how it once was — the heavily embroidered yesteryears folded away in the scented armoires of the seasons and consigned to the vast linen closet of the ages where the first tensile thread of our story on the planet emerged from the bobbin of history? But just when in all this warping and woofing — or maybe how — did time cease to be a treasure and turn, instead, into the fret of the drive time commute?
…Anyway, gone: the long looking of slow days, the world ordered inwardly by seeing, the act of unbroken private attention that was an expression of integrity, clasping imagination, making sense, making “vision.” What happened to this heritage of perception? When did our autobahn existence subvert the inner rhythm beating along the pulse and risk the loss of sensation? When did we forfeit leisure? Even our food is fast.”

So true.

Princess Torte, oil on canvas, 5×7, $110.00 USD