Heart of Stone Studio Blog

Thoughts for 2007

Well, we are crossing into a New Year, and my dear, long-time friend Gracie sent me these words, which I think are worth passing along as we close out 2006 and segue into 2007:

There's some mighty fine advice in these words.

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, "I love you," mean it.

FIVE. When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way

to live life completely.

TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

TWENTY-ONE. Spend some time alone.

I would add a few of my own:

Try to discover a little beauty in every day. If you don't find it, try introducing it yourself.

Every now and then, when you have a choice between being right and being kind, try just letting go of being right, in order to be kind.

In situations where you said "Yes" to doing something that you really didn't want to and later resented it, try saying, "No" up front instead.

Every week, try to carve out some time to nourish your spirit.

Keep in mind that there are people who might be smarter, wealthier, and more talented than you in some things, but NO ONE has the unique combination of gifts that you do, to offer to the world.

Anyone else have any words of wisdom for us to consider as we head into the New Year?

Let's talk strategy: the unique idea

   OK, let's pause for a moment and think about this whirlwind painting strategy of Monet's. To my mind, it contains components that should be considered by every jewelry and glass artist. I'll go through them one by one, and maybe we can talk about them a bit:

1. He came up with a unique idea. Monet wasn't your run-of-the-mill artist. He wasn't strictly a portait painter, or a landscape painter. He wasn't a religious painter, nor a political one. I think that his goal was to focus on, to capture and freeze onto his canvases, light in all its evanescent permutations. Before him, the Dutch and Flemish masters illustrated their command of light, but to me, it was an effect caught in certain portions of their paintings, such as the shimmer of silk, or the single beam of daylight pouring through a high window. Their use and control of light was part of a larger goal, while for Monet, light became his focus, his true subject, his very reason for painting. He took something and forced us all to look at it differently--he presented us with a vision, a new idea.

  Coming up with a new, unique idea is perhaps the greatest challenge for beginning artists, maybe for all artists. For example, I've been in stained glass classes where students invest in books of patterns that they can trace and copy. That's a great way to start. I remember seeing art students at the Art Institute, with either easels or drawing pads, carefully copying the Masters. They were undoubtedly told that before developing their own style and vision, they needed to learn the techniques of those who went before them. In metalsmithing classes, students are taught the same basic techniques for setting cabochons, drilling holes, soldering and sawing metal.

   The challenge is finding just the right place to "jump off" from the stock designs and start creating your own. Many stained glass people never do that...They become highly skilled in making decorative objects, even large windows and doors for their homes, but beyond selecting glass colors, they breathe little if any of themselves into their works. 

    Glass fusing is a bit different, because it adds the often unpredictable alchemy of the glass reacting to the heat of the kiln. Plus, students are often urged to use smaller pieces of scrap glass first, so from the very beginning they are creating their own, albeit experimental, designs. In my Surefire Handbook, I urge readers to do a lot of experimentation, with color, with types and thicknesses of glass, with layering sequences. Quite often, the glass provides serendipitous results, and the savvy glass fuser will try to replicate that effect and deliberately incorporate it into their own designs. But even in glass fusing, there are folks who stick to the safe patterns that others have drawn.

    In jewelry-making courses, there are those students whose work is technically correct, but it's very similar to the jewelry they're already familiar with. It's very difficult for some people to "get out of the rut" of the familiar, of what's been done before and done to death.  

   So during the next few days, I'd like to take a closer look at the concept of the unique idea. I see this as being different than the concept of a unique style. To me, a person's distinctive artistic style is composed of both unique ideas, original designs, and often, a special technique or combination of techniques.  Monet's style, for example, was composed of his unique ideas of capturing light and painting the same subject in a series of differing light conditions. He used the impressionist technique that made the outline or form of an object subservient to the light falling on it and reflecting off of it.

  So what are your thoughts on this? First, I'd like you to think about how you made the leap from run-of-the-mill ways of doing things and began developing your own unique designs, and perhaps share that with the rest of us. What was the hardest part about doing that, and how did you get over the hump?    I think if we talked about that a bit, it would really help people who are struggling to break away from copying other people's patterns and get started on their own. I think that this initial break is essential in order to start exploring and building your own unique style. Please take a moment to send in a comment on this, thanks!

Light, part 2

  What I didn't know about Monet and his capturing of light on canvas, but learned as I was doing research for this post, was that he developed a brilliant strategy for the efficient painting of light. Think about it: If you could only witness your subject directly--say, pre-dawn light--for ten minutes on average a day, up to 20 or 30 minutes max, what would you do for the other 11.5 hours the sun was out? Wait around cooling your heels until the next morning?

   No, Monet's answer was brilliant: He created several series of paintings that featured the light at different times of the day during the current season in which he was working. As the light changed during the course of the day, he would work only on those paintings that matched the light at that particular time.

  So, for example, he would rise before dawn and set up one to several paintings that were all dawn scenes. He would move from painting to painting, adding and refining the lights and shadows in each, based on the colors of the sky and light around him. Then he would probably take a break and set up his afternoon paintings, and perhaps another set at twilight, so by the end of the day he would have worked on up to a dozen paintings. The next day he would repeat the process, probably always keeping an eye on the weather and the slow shift of the seasons, until he finished. With the start of a new season, he would begin a new series reflecting the landscape characteristics of that season, such as snow in the winter.

    Wickipedia, where I found this information, says that Monet worked on several painting series this way, including his Water LIlies, Poplars, Rouen Cathedral, The Houses of Parliament, and, of course, his haystacks. While it is not clear in the article, my assumption is that he did part of his work plein aire (out in the field), and then refined the paintings as described above, in his studio. (To read more about Monet and also to see good images of all his haystack paintings, click here.) What is also satisfying to learn is that the series of fifteen haystack paintings all sold for excellent prices, and from that income Monet was able to finance the purchase of his house and land at Giverny.

   Next, more thoughts on Monet and how his approach can be useful to us as artists...

 

Light, part 1

  So far, I've been ruminating about great paintings that have influenced me, and I've touched upon the subjects of Nature, of layering and change, and on Light. The subject of light is a dominant one in my artistic life--After all, I chose to work with glass, and glass, probably more than most other media just loves light. I think it would be safe to say that most glass needs light to really "shine." My dichroic glass pieces are at their best in sunlight, or in strong direct light like halogen light. {It's interesting to note that these are the same lights that seem to be the most flattering for gemstones, as well}. As I mentioned in an earlier post, an early goal of mine was to become a "connoiseur of light."

    So it comes as no surprise that one of my favorite painters is Claude Monet. Most people are familiar with his giant water lily scenes, but in the Impressionist gallery at the Art Institute are a series of paintings of a single subject, haystacks.  He calls them "wheat stacks" and they look a little different from the rolled or rounded piles we are familiar with in the American farmscape. These look a bit like muffins with sloping tops--not a glorious subject, but that wasn't the point.

   What Monet was trying to do in his paintings was exactly capture on canvas the light on these piles of hay at a particular time of day, in a particular type of weather, during a particular season. Considering that he also had to capture the light in the sky, the way the light fell on the grasses of the haystacks and was reflected off them, as well as the colors of the shadows--well, let's say it made for some furious efforts while painting, because, of course, the light was constantly changing. I remember someone told me about Monet shouting with frustration that it changed so fast he had a hard time keeping up. (To see some poor reproductions---not a criticism, really, it's just so hard for a computer image to convey the beauty and impact of the real thing--click here ).

   What a ballsy thing to do! Unlike my life in the city, where in winter I came to work in the dark and went home in the dark, here in Arizona I spend a lot of time noticing the sun move across the sky, and the light change over the course of a day. I usually get to see both a sunrise and a sunset every day, plus the view from my studio goes twenty miles across a valley. I can tell what time it is pretty well without a watch--I'm usually not more than ten minutes off, and I've developed a pretty good weather sense. But to take a bunch of oil paints in tubes and use them to perfectly capture late afternoon twilight in winter, or the light just before dawn in spring---lights that hold their maximum impact for often less than ten minutes before grading into something else, to try and capture that on canvas, well, that takes true courage. more on this tomorrow...

Layers

    Continuing with artistic influences...Anyone feel free to jump in here and add your own story...

     The Art Institute of Chicago has a proud collection of Impressionist paintings rivaling that of any other major museum in the world, and they became the highlight of every visit of mine. Even when I came for big shows and special exhibits, I would never leave without stopping by to walk through the galleries and say hi. They are friends.

    Right in there next to the Impressionists, Picasso and the cubists thunder through the galleries with their magnificent ways of turning space on its ear. As a young person however, I was surprised and pleased to see that Picasso once painted "normally,"  with lyrical renditions of jugglers, clowns, mother and child, and other subjects. The one painting I seemed to connect with best was called "The Old Guitarist."  (Click here to see a picture of the painting).  It was painted during Picasso's "blue period,"  and it depicts a long, lean figure sitting cross-legged and playing a guitar.

   Something in my teenaged psyche was drawn to the sadness, the poignancy, the almost romantic loneliness of the painting. One day I happened to be in the gallery when a tour group went through. The docent paused in front of the The Old Guitarist and pointed out the fact that the barely discernable brushstrokes of another painting lay underneath the one we could see! Apparently Picasso was short on canvas, and painted over earlier images.  The tour group moved off, and I immediately homed in on the painting to peer at the area above the guitarist's left shoulder....Sure enough, there was the faint outline of part of a face...

   I was enchanted. To an already intriguing image, add layers of mystery. What was it that the young Picasso painted under there? Why did he give up on it? Did he change subject, position, aspect, color scheme?

  And it brought to mind other symbolism, perhaps not intended by the artist: The idea of each person containing layers within layers, of family background, childhood upbringing, experiences, traumas, personality traits, private tragedies and yearnings, the public face, the "at home" face, the hidden face...

   One way of picturing those layers that exist within each person is to see them being separated by, and simultaneously united by, the moments in which we live. The person we once were, for better or worse, is not the person we are now. As we approach, then move through and past each moment, our experiences shape us, just as our choices shape our experience. We are forever changing, learning, growing, just as parts of us deepen and solidify. The ultimate challenge becomes accepting and forgiving the persons we were in the past while we focus on improving the people we are in this given moment, and the future.

    As I ponder on these questions and why they fascinate me, I realized that layering is what I do in my own art. I love to layer dichroic glass pieces four and five layers deep. Each layer has a different color and pattern of metallic coating on clear and colored transparent glass. When fused together, the resulting piece shimmers with depth and dimension, much richer, in my opinion, than a single layer or two.

    The coolest thing that I learned in researching The Old Guitarist for this posting is that the Art Institute recently submitted the painting to the newest technological analysis, including x-rays and infrared light, to probe the mysteries of the underlying layers. For the first time, I was able to actually see beneath the surface to the person underneath (actually, there are two hidden layers). If you'd like to see what the secret layers look like, click here.

Life, Nature, Art

  It's not as though I have placed the painting Song of the Lark front and center in my lifetime of thinking about art...In fact, only now as I am writing this, do I begin to realize how integral it has been in my experience of Life, Nature, and Art.

    My love of Nature has been part of me since I can remember, a strange thing for a kid brought up in a big city. Once again, though, my father was instrumental in setting the course of my passions in life...He loved Nature himself and set the stage for my future by bringing our whole family out to Lisle, Illinois to walk the paths of the Morton Arboretum.

   The Arboretum is a 1400-acre spread of woods, small lakes, grasslands, a marsh and a river. It was originally the estate of Morton Salt Company owner Joy Sterling Morton, and boasts living collections of trees from around the world and a research and education function as well. To a child growing up in a tract house with a bus stop in front and a lilac bush in a backyard of crabgrass, the Arboretum was heaven. To see a flock of Canada geese grazing on grass next to a pond, to behold a spring meadow strewn with daffodils, to walk under giant contorted pine trees or through a hemlock forest, were thrills that I couldn't get in the city. Being at the Arboretum became an adventure, and I quickly developed a desire to explore that is still part of me today--What is around the next bend, over the next hill, down the other path? I knew wherever the path would take me, there would be some wonder or delight waiting to surprise me, if only I could learn to notice, to see, to listen.

    So here is where Art and Nature converged in my life: As I spent more time outdoors, the gift of the lark's song in the painting became a gift that I could experience in reality. The hunger for beauty, the delight of seeing wildlife in their natural element, the urge to explore--as I grew up, these things became part and parcel of who I am. And so in a way I became the girl in that painting--a common person, gifted with uncommon moments, brought to me by Nature. I came to believe that we are put on this earth to see, so by the time I was in high school, I decided I wanted to become what I termed "a connoiseur of light."  I wanted to experience, to remember, all the possible permutations of light the sky could offer. I wanted to know the behavior of clouds, the dance of wind, the music of trees. I wanted to witness the secret world of wild animals, to follow the curl of wavelets in a brook, to be astounded by the thousand wonders that a walk in the natural world can bring. I wanted to live my life open to being amazed, astonished, and delighted by Nature. The "song of the lark" became the sound in my life that I would always be listening for.

       

Second Big Painting

    I've been musing upon the artistic influences I've been exposed to as a kid...

The other great painting whose influence still touches me today is called "Song of the Lark," by Jules Adolpe Breton. I remember it as a gigantic painting, about four by six feet, but it probably is smaller. It certainly looms large in my memory. It didn't hang on a flat wall or in the middle of a niche; rather, it hung on the side of a niche so that you saw it ahead of you as you walked down one of the Art Institute's wide halls. At least, that's how I remember it. It probably has been moved since my childhood, and the last time I visited several years ago, it wasn't even up on display. I sorely missed it.

  The scene it depicts is the countryside at sunset. A young woman, a farm laborer, is walking wearily home after toiling in the fields. She wears a scarf on her head and carries her scythe in one hand, and she is barefoot. Behind her and to the left across the tilled expanse of fields, the orange orb of the departing sun is halved by the horizon.

   When I first beheld the painting, I didn't read the title, so I was puzzled by the rapturous look on the girl's face. Then I sought out the title, and it all fell into place: Song of the Lark. Of course, I thought. She hears the musical notes of a bird song so beautiful she is immediately uplifted, transported, and the weariness of the day falls away. She is surprised by this gift, and you can see how suddenly she is removed from her mundane world and lifted into the sublime. She listens intently, head up, and as you take all this in, you realize that you are listening, too, and hearing in your mind the fluid notes of the lark's song.

   It is so wonderful, this painting, telling you in silence about something that you cannot hear. The brushstrokes, the twilight colors, the images, are all mute, but they are so skillfully assembled that they are able to depict a moment that is piercingly beautiful because of a sound that you can only hear in your imagination. This quiet painting can draw that sound out of the depths of you so that you can hear it and, like the girl, be moved by its beauty.

   I was awestruck by this painting when I first saw it, and though it is by far not the most important or valuable or influential piece of art at that museum, it has never failed to move me.

 

My earliest memory of art

   I've been thinking back on early influences of art in my life and I have to say that the biggest impact came from living in Chicago and being taken to the Art Institute by my parents. Even today, walking into its echoing entryway and seeing those marble staircases makes me feel as though I'm coming home. In retrospect, I realize how lucky I was that my parents were willing to make the trip from the Southwest side all the way downtown so many times, even to the point of bringing my sister and me to summer classes at the young people's school there.

  My favorite rooms at the Art Institute belonged to the Impressionists, but I'll talk more about those later. I've been trying to remember my really early art memories, and what comes to mind are two paintings. I don't remember the title of the first, or even who painted it, but it's the earliest one I can remember. I was with my father, and I couldn't have been more than about five years old, because at my request, he picked me up so I could see it better.

   I think the way it happened was he might have mentioned that my name--Judith-- was in the title. I was immediately interested, and wanted to see the painting better. I think he realized he was getting into trouble, because he must have hesitated. But he picked me up and showed me, and of course, seeing the painting (which was not large), I wanted to know what it was all about. Cornered by his inquistive child,  he took the leap and explained that it was a painting of my namesake, Judith, who lived in Biblical times. I recall the scene was a lavishly appointed desert tent, where Judith stood triumphantly holding aloft the head of the enemy general, Holofernes (whose body, as I recall, lay in the background).

  My dad explained how Holofernes was holding Judith's people in seige, and they were desperate. So Judith made a decision: She dressed in her finery and bravely walked into the general's camp one night with dinner and wine, and a knife hidden in her robes. Thinking she was the evening's entertainment for their leader, the general's men let her pass. She wined and dined Holofernes, and when he finally fell asleep drunk, she cut off his head, put it in a bag, and carried it out of the camp. When she returned to her demoralized people, she pulled out Holofernes' head and showed them what she had done. When the enemy army saw their leader's severed head, they lost the will to fight and withdrew. Judith was a glorious heroine.  Quite the story, especially for a little girl to hear.

  As I look back on that painting and the story it told, I wonder if any of Judith's fearlessness rubbed off on me. There are all kinds of layers of possible meanings, from how art can influence us at an early age, to the role of art in passing down (and intepreting, possibly misrepresenting) cultural and historical information, to its religious role in inspiring the faithful.

  An ironically amusing postscript to this incident is that I later, as an adult, wondered why Judith's story was not more in the forefront of religious lore and celebration, why she wasn't recognized and lauded for her heroism, perhaps even given sainthood and her own special day...And someone, I can't remember who, postulated that most likely her act of lopping off a man's head created a subliminal castration anxiety in the church fathers, so her story got buried and neglected. But, that's my first memory of art!!

If anyone has any memories of their first encounter with art, please share them, I'd love to hear them.

   

Starting Out

I'd like to have this blog be open to anyone interested in jewelry making, glass fusing, design, the arts, Nature, etc. The first thing I'd like to talk about a bit is exploring how people's design styles came about. In other words, what do you think are your most important influences? What were your most memorable experiences that affected how you do art? Was it a favorite teacher, a course in school, a program outside of school, or something totally different? Did it involve visits to museums, viewing architecture, listening to music, walking in gardens or the mountains...or ???? What do you feel were your most valuable learning or training experiences--the main things that enable you to do what you do best? And lastly, how, when and where did you split off from the pack and start developing your own unique style, your own individual vision?

I think that everybody's story is different, and instructive, and valuable. By sharing those stories, we get to see the distance covered and obstacles overcome by different people on their artistic journeys, and perhaps see that our path is not so different, after all.

Welcome!

Welcome everyone to my Heart of Stone weblog. I'm brand-new at this web-log thing, so I'll do my best but ask your understanding and even help when it comes to making this blog more effective.

I'd like this category of the blog to be devoted to the Heart of Stone Studio community--those customers and friends who are familiar with my website, who have made purchases from it, and who have used its bench tips sections. I figure if we share our ideas, our concerns, and maybe even some of our professional history, we might begin to serve as resource and support for one another as we strive to create beautiful things.