Winter Trees Abstraction #2

Winter Trees Abstraction #2

Mixed Media

20x16  (with 3" painted top and sides)

320.00

What a strange winter in the Northlands, one day it's -0 and the next day it feels more like Spring there has been very little snow, the nights are long. This tranquil yet moody painting reminds us of our long winter night we enjoy in Alaska. Winter is a time to hunker down and read a good book by the fire.

When the midnight sun returns and one is too hyped up to sleep the long days brings its own kind of madness.

Winter Trees Abstraction
Oil
24x24x1
650.00
Judy Vars

Last nights full moon has inspired me with a sense of wonder, awe and gratitude because I live in Alaska one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

This moody abstract painting reflects the winter blues in Alaska also known as Cabin Fever.  Cabin Fever is not necessarily a bad thing, when the days are short and the temperature is below zero it allows time to reflect into a blazing fire, make mulligatawny, bake bread and catch up on the works of Shakespeare.

Who am I kidding, what I really enjoy is some good Netflix binge watching; Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, Sons of Anarchy and my Dead Files and for a lighter fare Downton Abbey. But before I settle in for a long winter's night and while the sun is still bright, I shall take one of the dogs to get the mail and give myself a little vitamin D which keeps SAD Seasonal Affect Disorder at bay. 

But not to despair come June old Sol will be up all night which brings about it's own kind of madness. 

Postage and handling professionally done and is included in this price. If you have any questions please call me @ (907) 355-2219

Butterflies and Elk Mount Vanitas - Memento Mori

Butterflies and Elk Mount Vanitas

20" X 16" X 2"

Oil

Judy Vars

420.00

The pretty butterflies with their ethereal nature float upon the air and seem to enjoy their happiness; they fly about on their gossamer wings dancing around the once proud elk. They both remind us of the paradoxes in life and death and give us a vision of some of mother earths delights.

This is my latest in a series of memento mori paintings (translated to remember that you will die) or vanitas paintings. Vanitas art explores the age old theme of resurrection, transience and transcendence.  Up until recent history death was seen as a motivator to live a good and meaningful life. To help men remember artists created paintings depicting skulls, and other symbols of death. The skulls and skeletons on some grave markers remind the visiting family members to get right with God before they bit the dust.  So quit wasting your time on stupid stuff and start living your life the way you want today.

We acquired this European elk mount at an auction held to raise money for dying friend’s medical expenses.  My husband the carver is going to carve Celtic patterns onto the skull but in the mean time it resides in the corner of my studio, the only problem with this is it is as big as a lazy boy! The antlers have poked me while trying to find a book or get my supplies.  So needless to say I was cussing the elk daily, after spending some time painting this once proud creature we are on better terms.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."  Maya Angelou

"If we catch a glimpse of freedom, we wish to possess it; if we catch a glimpse of death, we want nothing to do with it." One we cannot have, the other we cannot avoid.  Jeremy P. Johnson

A Modern Fayum Portrait

Encaustic Beeswax

20 x 24

720.00

Around the time Cleopatra committed suicide with the asp 100 B.C. to 300 A.D. in the fertile Nile Delta region of Egypt lived a cosmopolitan blend of Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Africans and Europeans. In the practice of the day they built huge necropolis and practiced some of the same spiritual beliefs and used similar funerary practices of the Egyptians. Evidence shows preparing for the afterlife was a huge industry with embalmers, craftsmen, stone masons, mummy wrappers and artisans.

Grave robbers were the first to find the mysterious Fayum portraits thousands were carelessly burned and tossed aside because it was the dried mummy the grave robbers wanted for poultices and potions. Later early archeologists discovered the huge cemetery complexes and with a little more care and skill saved some of these portraits (estimated only about 1,000 in existence today). Some of these portraits were simple and crude and others were rendered with such skill it would have been painted by Leonardo or another such modern day master.

These portraits over 2,000 years old give us a window in which we can look upon the face of an ancient ancestor. The eyes were usually exaggerated to emphasize the spiritual and as a window to the soul. These paints are made more alive because they were rendered in beeswax and attached a human person. Some were painted while the person was still alive and kept in the home in a simple Oxford frame (like this one) until the persons death. In some cases it was a practice to keep the embalmed loved one around for years afterward and dance them out for festivities when later generations didn't care about Uncle Flavius they tossed him carelessly into a grave with others like him.  The artists whose stock and trade was to paint these never signed their name because it was not about the art or the artist it's about the afterworld, the artist hand meticulously tried to depict the likeness and nature of the departed loved one.  I assume also they did not expect them to be dug up someday and placed in hermetically sealed Plexiglas boxes so we could come to museums and stare back at these humans that lived in the time that Jesus walked the earth and performed miracles.  

Halloween Vanitas Painting with Black Bird and Butterfly

Halloween Vanitas Painting with Black Bird and Butterfly

Oil

16 x 20

350.00

A vanitas painting flourished in the Netherlands around 1612-1656. These paintings contain an elaborate pictorial message, which contain moral undertones, such as relinquish earthly pleasures and pursue a meaningful spiritual life. Usually contained in a vanitas painting are skulls, books, clocks, shells, candles and other symbolism, the meaning obviously the impermanence of life, flowers and fruit in a state of dying or decay.

Although vanitas paintings have gone out of style, perhaps because in this modern fast moving world people do not want to be reminded of their mortality.
As an artist I believe it is my obligation, my mission if you will, to ask you to stop for a moment and reflect on the everyday treasures and understand that life is transient, like the butterfly we are born from a supreme struggle and emerge our cocoon live for a beautiful moment and then return to the earth.” Whether or not we join the procession or just let it happen, “life keeps on lifeing” and there is no cheating death. So enjoy the life we have and remember to be kind to all creatures great and small.

The Willow Witch with Grandpa aka Zeus

The Willow Witch and Grandpa

Oil

16 x 20

Judy Vars

$350.00

Rhonda also known as the Willow Witch is sitting pretty sipping absinthe with her familiar and faithful dog “Grandpa.”  The Willow Witch offers intuitive readings and will use her powers of perception and piercing eyes to council you and help guide you down a positive path.

From potent potions, herbs, incense, candles, crystals and oils, stop in and shop with Rhonda for all your witchy needs.

The Willow Witch also offers beautiful Tarot decks, jewelry, staffs, clothes, brooms, the original artwork of local artisans and other beautiful curiosities. For your prurient interests you will be more than satisfied - guaranteed.
62835 South Parks Hwy, Willow, Alaska
mile marker 85.5

8 x 10 Prints
$80.00

Cards
$5.00 Each

Costa Rican Girl With Fruit Basket

Costa Rican Girl With Fruit Basket

20 X 20

Encaustic Beeswax

by

Judy Vars and Gabriela Catarinella

600.00

This painting is a result of a happy happenstance.  We went to the Talentum Art Gallery to meet my bohemian friend Martha Sanchez.  Outside the gallery we noticed chairs placed on the wall in a colorful cavorting way, then we go inside this place is twaneese, twaneese, too nice, too nice. Talentum is located in the historic French district of San Jose, in an old mansion.  Peter and I looked at all the great art upstairs and downstaris and then sat down for some coffee and pie. Gilda (pronounced Hilda) runs the show and makes pies out of tropical fruit we've never tasted anything so deliciouso.  Sebastian the Chef/Artist is divine.  Martha  shows her art here and introduced me to a brilliant woman Gabrela Catarinella, besides being an artist, speaks multiple languages, she is a microbiologist, and the director of this beautiful gallery and bistro.

When she found out I was an encaustic artist she became very interested and asked me to teach her the process. She had already purchased some wax sheets and turpentine, I sent her after a heat gun and some natural bristle brushes. She bought us a gourmet lunch and after closing all of us went to the kitchen downstairs. I demonstrated encaustic painting and Gabriela took over together we painted wax all over her beautiful landscape. We had a blast!

Afterword Gabriela offered to pay me, ridiculous! I said, so she gave me her oil painting of a child and told me to put encaustic wax on top of it.  Well I was so humbled and grateful to be allowed to paint on another’s painting, I hope she approves.  We did not have all the equipment that we needed but it was just enough to get the idea and get her hooked on encaustic painting.  This slide show is for Gabriela.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qOJ4cxlZQw

Winter Morning Birch Trees



Winter Morning Birch Trees

Judy Vars

Original Oil and Cold Wax Painting

60 x 54

4,500.00



As a long time Alaskan, I've noticed that were all obsessed with the sun and with most in the winter there is not enough sunshine to keep my mood up and in the summer there is too much sun, it shines way, way, way  past sleeptime keeping me awake and hyper all night long. Today in January the days have started to get a little longer currently the hours of daylight are a full seven hours and 30 minutes.

This time of year the slanted angle of the sun and the far Northern latitude make for the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets that I have ever witnessed. Sometimes the light is pure lavender in the sky and on the mountains, sometimes the sky in powder blue, sometimes it’s lit up like a campfire, and sometimes it’s every shade of pink God makes. Since I’ve lived here I have seen sundogs, ice halos around the sun and the moon, phantom lights that I can’t explain and northern lights. One thing for sure it’s never ho-hum .

As an artist and nature lover, I have contemplated the sunlight and the atmosphere for decades, and as an artist I have the hubris to attempt to duplicate what I see in nature through my art.

Winter Sunrise and Birch Trees has been a labor of love. At the beginning I applied the Fibonacci sequence and the golden mean to make a pleasing composition (this left brained activity made my head hurt) This painting was developed in stages some areas have up to 10 layers of paint. To pump up the paint and give the birch trees added texture and dimension I used cold wax medium, the effect is one of hyper reality. The kind of experience we Alaskans wish the rest of the world could experience. 



Treat yourself to some serenity take this morning sunrise birch tree painting home today.

Winter Trees

Winter Trees

16 x 20

Encaustic Beeswax

Judy Vars

 

 

This was painted with encaustic beeswax, layers and layers of waxy paint create the luscious snow texture. This technique known as accretion makes this type of encaustic painting a little unstable, so it requires a little extra care, so don't throw it around and bang it up against other things or put it in direct sunlight or anywhere over 160 degrees!

 

The Cave Girl

Cave Girl

Oil

16 X 20

Judy Vars

My “Cave Girl” was reproduced after Alaska’s most renowned artists, Sydney Mortimer Laurence. I was interested in studying his tonalist methods and the overall atmosphere of this painting. Sydney Lawrence has always been somewhat of an enigma with many stories and myths surrounding him. Gold Fever lured him to Alaska in 1903 and in 1912 he resumed painting. 

 “Cave Woman” is a diversion from Sydney’s usual style which is very large landscapes and one of the few paintings which feature the human figure as the main focus. Sydney was a romantic painter in the style of the late 19th century romantic period artists, he is best known for his use of light and the massive scale of his paintings needed to capture Mt. McKinley and the Alaskan landscape. This and many more of his original paintings are displayed at the Alaska Heritage Museum, inside the Wells Fargo Bank, 301 West Northern Lights Blvd, Anchorage, Alaska. The museum manager, Tom D. Bennett was kind enough to allow me to take photographs of this painting; he informed me this was in the home of the President of the Alaska Railroad for years before becoming part of the Rasmuson’s permanent collection and is worth an estimated $150,000.00.

I have been unable to locate any other pictures of this work, however prints were made.

The original painting is large 40 x 60 (approximately) and contained is a grand gold baroque frame with electric candle sconces on each side; this I imagine created a mysterious flickering effect on the painting when turned on. I am on the hunt for a frame for this when I find it I plan to make candle sconces on each side, I will then take a video of this for your viewing pleasure. Or better yet come to Alaska and see it for yourself.

http://www.sydneylaurence.com/biography.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonalist  

The Desert Metaphor or The Tree of Utah and My Desert Metaphor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

         

Metaphor: The Tree of Utah, sometimes called the Tree of Life, is an 87-foot (27 m) sculpture that was created by the Swedish artist Karl Momen in the 1980s and dedicated in 1986. It is located in the desolate Great Salt Lake Desert of Utah on the north side of Interstate 80 about 25 miles east of Wendover. ^]
Inscribed on the plaque are the words from Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schiller;
Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.
Joy, beautiful spark of Gods!,
Daughter of Elysium,
Joy, beautiful spark of Gods!
 My Desert Metaphor

The desert has it's very own mystery and beauty especially at night. My home range is the flat lands of the Great Salt Lake.

In my childhood, I remember my family driving from Salt Lake City to my Grandma Schauers house in  Dublin, California.  Late - late into the night my mother and I go speeding down the straight lonely Interstate 80 our family's ostentatious pink and black Buick.

In the blue velvet sky is the meteor shower of the century occurring right then and there. 

Mom turns off the headlights and we drive for awhile through the blackness by luck and instincts.

Neither of us had never beheld a shower of falling meteors before and probably never witness this phenomenon again in my lifetime.   

What is that old saying? is it: When a star falls an angel loses it's wings? or when you wish upon a falling star your wish will come true?  A shooting star tonight will bring you good luck tomorrow? Mom and I discuss these metaphors, we talk of the wonders of God's universe sharing our heart of hearts.

For a moment in infinity speeding down the lonely desert highway, Mom and I are in complete accord.

The Desert Metaphor

Encaustic Painting

12x24

Judy Vars

$250.00

Trumpeter Swan

 

Swan

Judy Vars

Encaustic Beeswax

12x24

550.00 

 



 

This is a painting of the one of the trumpeter swans that stopped by my dock with their signets.  I got up close and personal with the whole flock they stop by every spring and summer for some bread and a photo opportunity. This one was posing for the camera and giving me cheesy smiles.
They do not make their nest on Beverly Lake because the loons drive them off, this is loon territory!

 In a few days they will be taking off to warmer southern climates. When they take off and fly it is a sight and sound to behold, it’s like a jumbo jet with their large bodies trying to gain enough air speed to fly, they flap and run across the water making a loud trumpeting sound until they are airborne. It’s totally awesome!

Winter is really breathing down our necks, yesterday it hailed which made the lake look like it was boiling there is a winter chill in the air. All too soon it will be frozen solid, the snow will be deep and I’ll be inside cozy by the fire.

 
Peace is with you dear readers.

Día de los Muertos

 

Día de los Muertos

Encaustic/Temporary Tattoos

8x10

120.00

 



The Haunted Fairview Inn - Talkeetna, Alaska

 

The Smoking Room at the Fairview Inn

Talkeetna, Alaska

Original Oil

10x14

125.00

 

 

Talkeetna's Fairview Inn was built in 1923, President Harding stayed there with his mistress and then died shortly thereafter it is no secret it is a very haunted place!  Last weekend I went there with a couple of friends after a long day of meetings and fellowship with the women some of us decided to go to the Fairview Inn. We strolled in to the loud music and hang with the denizens of Talkeetna.  I asked the bartender for a cold near-beer and asked, is this place is haunted? she said; of course it is haunted!

I sarcastically joked, you should have the Ghost Hunters (a television show on the Travel Channel) come for a lock down and they can set up the night vision cameras, ghost recorder, and yell at them all night. She just laughed sardonically and kept busy with the other bar patrons.

Being the curious cat that I am, I wandered upstairs to explore the hotel part of the Fairview Inn.
At the end of a narrow hallway he door was open to a quaint sparsely furnished room, It felt weirdly like I had been there before or seen it in a dream a small old black and white television was on and oddly playing a 1930's Laurel and Hardy movie. When suddenly the room got much colder and goose bumps rose on my arms and my hair began to stand on end like static electricity. My friend followed me up the steep stairway was standing frozen in the hallway flapping her hands, screeching and flipping out! She said she had never felt her hair stand on end like that before. With my camera in hand I got one picture of the room before the batteries completely drained. We ran out into the bar hysterically laughing and freaking out at the same time. In a crazy high voice that sounded to me like I was in shock,I said, "there is a ghost upstairs!!" and the bartender said; "Oh that's just Frank!" Oh-My-God lady you might have warned us! But then where is the fun in that?

For more ghost stories read this book - Ghosts of Talkeetna by Sarah J. Birdsall http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/book/ghosts-of-talkeetna/41985064/

TITLE:Ghosty Girl #2

MEDIUM: Encaustic Collage

ARTIST: Judy Vars

PRICE: 120.00

 

Once Upon a Time I was staying overnight at a retreat the Saint Mary's Art Center formally the old hospital in Virginia City, Nevada. Virginia City was a boom town with something going on 24 hours a day for its nearly 30,000 residents. There were visiting celebrities, Shakespeare plays, opium dens, newspapers, competing fire companies, fraternal organizations, at least five police precincts, a thriving red-light district, and the first Miner's Union in the U.S. The International Hotel was six stories high and boasted the West's first elevator, called a rising room, instant millionaires built ostentatious mansions. Today the town has less than 500 residents. I was a denizn of Virginia City for a time, it drew me there like a magnet. I can tell you from experience the town is haunted! I lived in town but the ladies at the artist retreat invited me to stay overnight. We had some fun getting ready for bed, putting our hair in curlers and telling stories about our family. Soon I fell asleep, then I was awakened by a sound like an old wood screen door banging. I fell back asleep and soon experienced the feeling of someone stroking my neck and running their fingers sensuously down the inside of my arm and palm and talking softly in my ear. I remember how good it felt and then I woke up saying: "Oh shit! this is real!". I rose from my bed to explore the haunted hospital, sometimes I wonder why and where I got the courage to explore the halls of this abandoned hospital alone but I did. The hair on the back my neck was standing up my fear was palpable (it tastes metallic). Out through the window at the end of the hallway was the old cemetery named Our Mother of Sorrows, the full moon was casting tombstone moon shadows on the ground. I took a ghost picture on the grass in front of the hospital which I have since lost. I am haunted still today by the town and the spirits in my dreams. The next morning I asked the ladies if they noticed anything unusual and they said noooooo??? So I kept my nocturnal adventures to myself.

 

The Secret

The Secret

original oil

Judy Vars

16 x 20

650.00

 

Nighttime in my secret garden is not for the faint of heart, but for those brave souls who dare to walk down the moonlit path there are spirits to meet and greet.

One particular night in an old and forgotten cemetery, I took a midnight stroll around the graveyard reading the epitaphs of the long forgotten. When goose bumps raise the hairs on my neck and I can taste copper in my throat alerting me that I am not alone. In the mist I see a beautiful young angel backlit by the moon; a Raven is perched on her shoulder. My mind and body is paralyzed by fear. Then the raven spoke to me in his native tongue - a language that I somehow understood.
 
The Raven said to me:
 
Wise men understand that what the physical eye sees is not necessarily the truth.
I am the harbinger of messages from the cosmos. Nestled in my wings black as midnight I bring messages that are beyond space and time. Listen with the heart so that you might hear the message waiting for you.
 
So I listen:
 
The Raven expounds of life, love, harmony, sacredness, balance, and the great mystery, he went on for what seemed like hours, as I listen and vow to myself to remember every word. Soon the spell is lifted and I am released from my paralysis.  As the Raven finishes up its diatribe I find my voice and say:  “Mister Raven, if it is not asking too much, please carry my love to the others.”

After awhile my mind catches up with this otherworldly scene and I realize it is just a granite angel and a common raven.

Besides,  I rationalize, who would believe my story anyway.
 



The Magic Hours In My Neck of the Woods by Judy Vars

The Midnight Sun

What is your favorite time of the day?

Do you love sunrise surprises? Do you enjoy the noon hours white light?

Or the early evening hours with glorious sunsets?

June 21^st holds the honor of being the longest day of the year. In my neck of the woods (Wasilla, Alaska), that day provides us with twenty hours of daylight. This extravagant length of hours seems to slow time and confuses our understanding of morning, noon, and night.

My tradition is to stay up all night on the Summer Solstice. I’ve heard it said Alaska is an insomniac’s paradise. Suffering from a bit of insomnia myself, I can attest to the difficulty of trying to put oneself to bed when the sun still shines. On the solstice, I don’t even try.

My personal favorite time of the day this time of the year has always been the window of magic hours from 10:30 p.m. to midnight.

The sun goes down slowly, during this period displaying a long and glorious sunset. After sunset the light stays in a suspended state somewhere between day and night.  Old Sol hovers just behind the horizon, casting a filtered light of lavender as a Prussian blue sky and crimson shadows imbue the scene with an otherworldly glow. I often sit quietly in my secret garden next to my lake carefully observing the various elements in my surroundings. As an artist I mentally translate the colors I see into pigments.  Inspired to attempt to capture the essence of what I am experiencing. At these moments I think of something Vincent Van Gough wrote to his brother, Theo: "One of the most beautiful things by the painters of this century has been the painting of darkness that is still color.”  I feel like one of those artists as I sit and contemplate how to capture the essence of the midnight sun onto canvas – how to paint the darkness that still has color.

For now, I am content to enjoy the midnight sun, as soon enough it will be night most of the day.  But the long winter’s night is magical, as well.  Oh the sights you can see:  the Milky Way, the aurora, nighttime so clear and clean you can see planets and galaxies with the naked eye! Sunrises, sunsets and stars “oh my.”  At the Winter Solstice (shortest day of the year) it is my tradition to stay in my new flannel pajamas all day long no matter what. Tradition is a cozy thing.

My passion is art, but whatever your passion is, Alaska’s brings her best to each one, graciously providing heavenly peeks into the world around us that cannot be found anywhere else.

 http://judyvars.com/
http://www.cabinfeverinalaska.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cabin-Fever-In-Alaska/113698755320513

Yes it takes alot of soul to have the balls or ballettes to say "I am an artist"

I love our discussions with our resident art critic Gregg Gusse and am flattered that he makes out conversations into articles. Please read the following comments and critiques are always appreciated, but not always implemented.

Art School: Copycat
by Gregory Gusse

At a recent discussion in my home the question came up as to whether an artist deserved the award she received. The issue was the work was an exact replication even in spirit to what her master had taught her.
I, of course, asked was it a craft competition or an art competition and said, if an art competition then no, never, not at all. Replication, is a craft it does not meet the definition, even the most banal definition found in dictionaries of art.
Here are four from the Free Dictionary:
1. One, such as a painter, sculptor, or writer, who is able by virtue of imagination and talent or skill to create works of aesthetic value, especially in the fine arts.
2. A person whose work shows exceptional creative ability or skill: You are an artist in the kitchen.
3. One, such as an actor or singer, who works in the performing arts.
4. One who is adept at an activity, especially one involving trickery or deceit: a con artist.
It is #4 that Degas was on to...
1. virtue of imagination, 2.exceptional creative ability 3. performing art 4 and all the others like the woman in question CON ARTIST.
Why would I say such a thing when even Picasso said “art is theft”. T.S Eliot said in better words than I will ever wield what I am getting at; “Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal, bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.”
We all learn from route copying. I suspect every poet I know remembers learning to write his letters, with big blocks of dotted outlines we heavily crayoned over that resembled so facsimile of A or B or even C. And when that was mastered, in first grade would come cursive and pencils and then ten or twenty or even fifty years might go by and those learned letters just might have become words and an original assemblage of other peoples ideas might, just might become a poem.
I was listening to some TED talk thirteen year old genius college professor who had been imprisoned by autism when he was young. He said he was saved when he decided to stop learning and start thinking and creating. It was even more compelling because I had suggested the same thing to a young artist. To become an artist she would have to quit copying the brush work and colors of others, stop learning, and steal their thoughts and meanings and merge them with her own and create. I hope she does!
You may be in school painting for the Master with the Masters signature. You may forever make perfect copies and perhaps you should be given awards for such renderings. Grand Champion Copycat for instance. Learning and learning in pursuit of perfect learning. But an artist educates themselves, frees themselves. Slaves learn but seldom see freedom, free folks think for themselves.
Creativity, meaning, imagination, separate the mundane from the artist. These qualities define art not craftiness, as helpful as technical precision may be to the artist. Individualism is another trait. Cezanne, Picasso, Gauguin, van Gogh, Monet, Manet stole from each other like crazy but each stood out as their own soul.
It takes soul to be an artist.

 

An interesting article by my friend Gregg Gusse where he writes about our recent conversation and pulls my covers.

Art School: Rambling
by Gregory Gusse

I was lunching with Judy Vars at the Red Beet when the topic came up about...artists. The issue
was the “it is all about me” attitude of most (actually all successful) artists. She didn’t want to
be like that, she wanted to be sweet and compassionate - but “me, me, me” is required. She
started to realize that when reading her latest Rasmuson rejection letter.

The buddha nature so desired by thinking beings is contrary to artistic expression. Simply put
they are opposite pursuits. Where our little buddha internalizes emotion our little artist demands
emotion be externalized. Where our tiny buddha seeks to be compassionate our leather-winged
artist demands attention and love - inside outside!

For normal people, not budding bodhisattvas or Rembrandts, we try to find balance between
those extremes, or if we are Taoist we try to find harmony with the yin and yang of it all. Artists,
though, are by their very essence extremists. If they are any good, or even bad, but passionate.

I am not saying that abandoning inner peace for the turmoil of art is bad, not at all. Though I
am frequently torn in which direction to go; I see value to both. Apparently I can get pretty nasty
when facing this dilemma, so I can be empathetic to the questioning artist.

There is the necessity to blow one’s own horn, remember the poet, Ali, “float like a butterfly,
sting like a bee”. “I am the greatest”, he reminded us. Or as van Gogh put it, “What am I in the
eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who
has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then —
even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an
eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than
on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I
am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I
see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven
towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”  Yes the dirtiest corners! Apparently he
had a very different vision of himself than he figured most people had of him. In both cases it
was “all about me!”

Another reason artists need to be “all about me” are the damned critics. Since well in excess
of 90% of the work of the very best artist is schlock and the worst artists will tell you over 95%
of their work is the greatest stuff (a word in contention concerning art) the world has ever seen,
there is an obvious disconnect - a  cognitive dissonance  they say these days.

Critics, of course, are needed to keep the pants on the emperor but more so they provide that much
needed attention. As the artist Brendan Behan said “There is no such thing as bad publicity except your
own obituary” So buck up my little friends. And as a critic myself I am reminded,  “Nobody ever
lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.” ― P.T. Barnum

After several years of writing this column I  feel more like Vincent everyday. I’m pretty sure I
write great and meaningful things, like he said “a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one
ever came to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on
their way.” But it really isn’t a way to make friends - sooner or later you piss everyone off.

It isn’t easy being an artist, since an artist has no choice in the matter. Jung pointed out that it is
much more than a simple compulsion, this “me,me,me” stuff. An artist simply has to make art. I
am not so sure our buddhist HAS to meditate. The buddhist seems to have a universe of choice,
the artist none. For the rest of us the truly sad state is so many folks compelled to make art are
really crumby. The rule says an artist must make art. There is no quality clause.

So next time, my enlightened friends, you see an artist rambling on at a million miles a minute
about his or her wonderful art or some whacked concept or even how they have to sling burgers
instead of make art...be compassionate..

Betty - Mother's Day and Sweet Words

 

 

Betty Mae Wash
(photo taken in 1951)
1931-1998

 

M Is for the Many things she gave me,
O Means only that she’s growing Old.
T Is for the Tears she shed to save me,
H Is for her Heart of purest gold.
E Is for her Eyes with love light shining,
R Means Right and Right she’ll always be.

Put them all together, They spell MOTHER.
A word that means the world to me.