Finally- some new images

Here are 2 pieces I've been working on for a month now.... I've been making lots of studies as well. I'll include a picture of the studies here so that you can see my thought process a little better. It's hard to tell by the photos, but I've been using much more paint- these are quite thick and almost sloppy in areas. I'm still pushing the stylization of the figures, and to be honest, I'm not there yet. I've been as blocked as I've ever been and I'm hoping these are the start of something. I'm trying to stick with old family photos instead of those from advertisement. Notice too that with the advice of professors, I've banished ochre completely. I must say I do miss it, but its absence has forced me to make all of my colors dustier and think about colors in a very deliberate way. The palette is still progressing. I'm still playing with large shapes of flat color, only now the red and green are taking place of the ochre. I've got 2 new ones to start this weekend and many more studies to make. 

"Marty" and "The Wild One"

I just finished watching 2 iconic 50's films, both of which show a 1950s perspective in characterization that makes you ponder how much things have changed. 

"Marty" won the Oscar for best picture in 1955 and was the most popular picture in America. It's a very simple love story about a lovable 34 year old loser finally finding love. It's filled with old-fashioned politeness, and you can't help but pull for Marty. It's great to watch the way the characters relate and socialize, so different than today. It's such a simple movie- but it works really well. 

I also watched "The Wild One" with Marlon Brando from 

1953. This movie was highly controversial at the time for depicting the antics of an outlaw biker gang. It was even banished in the UK. I found the movie hilarious. These bikers are supposed to be dangerous (in 1953 they were), yet they joke around and use phrases like daddy-o. They wear silly leather jackets and act juvenile. It's impossible to watch the film and not see the absurdity in it. Still, it shows what "outlaw" meant to the 1950s. The film was so popular that Brando started the fashion trend of black biker jackets and created an iconic image of the "rebel without a cause", even though the movie by that name was made 2 years later. 

I have 2 paintings at about 80% complete- I will post those images soon (hopefully).

Plays adapted to Film

I've been using these last few weeks until I resume teaching to work as much as possible. I've also resumed my viewing of films from the 50s. I recently watched 2 classic films adapted from popular stage plays: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor and Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder". The staging of the actors is very theatrical, and the scenes of dialogue are often long and uncut. Both stand out as quite counter-cultural in 2008. "Cat" takes place on a southern plantation with happy black servants, while "Dial M" portrays female characters as week and needy. Still- these were good films to watch....

Both movies have a great 50s look to them in the costuming and sets. "Dial M" is a far superior film with some great Hitchcockian suspense and some great camera angles. "Cat" is interesting as a 50s film because its all about a disfunctional family coming to grips with the their problems. New images to be posted soon...

Residency Summary

Here's my residency summary paper from Aug. 1st. I should have new images to post soon.

My second residency at AIB was a very informative time. I received a lot of great feedback and criticism, and left with many possible ideas for artistic direction. Those ideas are scattered across the spectrum of possibility, so my current challenge lies in determining a route towards my thesis work a year from now. In general, most suggestions I received concerned one common question: what is my personal take on the subject matter and imagery? I need to push that issue further to take my work to the next level.

 My first semester work derives from photographic reference from the 1950s. I presented 2 bodies of work. The first was a series of smaller study paintings on paper, and the second was a group of 5 larger oils on canvas. The consensus from critiques seemed to be that there was an energy and an awkwardness to the study paintings that advanced the image, whereas the oil paintings looked too refined and smoothed. John Kramer told me that the oils were dead to him, and suggested that I refer back to the studies as I make my next work. Instantly I knew he was correct. The oils are more polished, and they do loose something that the studies have.

 

Hannah Barrett commented that stylistically my work is stuck between being a social critique of the 50s and participating in it. How do I make a 50s images mine in 2008? What’s the distance from the period and does that visually translate to a change in surface or a more graphic image? These are good questions that I’ll be asking myself. I also need to cater more to my strengths to a painter. Tony Apesos correctly pointed out that I am better at painting objects and surroundings than faces. I realized that while I have embraced the role of a figure painter, I have much more skill and interest in painting areas of stuff. Some people asked if I intended to paint the faces awkwardly or if I just wasn’t there yet as a painter, and I think the answer is yes and yes. I had no intention of painting photorealistic faces and I am still learning a lot about painting flesh. This was an important realization for me. It opened my mind to many ideas aside from the figure.

I also realized that I need to advance the image much more. The works either need to be more realistic or more stylized, and now they are somewhere in between. I can safely say that I do not want to make them realistic, so I plan on experimenting with different levels of stylization. Hannah went so far as to suggest the work of John Baldisari, who removes faces all together with colored dots. While some level of simplification might come into play, I do not plan on going this far. Still, it’s helpful to understand that an image can speak through what is left out as much as what is depicted.

 

Hannah noted that my paintings are unpredictable because they don’t play to viewer expectation. She encouraged me to capitalize on that, or take that as a cue to radically crop, fragment areas and make the composition go off the page. I am very interested in this idea. I have worked hard to avoid obvious meaning and interpretation in my work, so this came as a great compliment. I am very interested in the idea of cropping and will certainly approach reference imagery differently. As a photographer rather than a painter, I found Oliver Wasow’s take on my work very insightful. He asked me how I engage nostalgia without going down the slippery slope of kitsch. To him, that’s an interesting question and he feels that so far I’m doing it successfully.

 

This is an essential question to my work. Because the imagery predates my life and thus can never be my personal experience, I am re-representing a corporate American nostalgia. It’s a subject matter that can turn kitsch very easily. Oliver noted that I could throw the 1940s, 60s and 70s at this idea because it’s about period as defined by photography and media. What I’m saying through a family portrait is that family is family, not a specific family. That means the works are generic, and I find great interest in the idea that a work can speak to a wide range of viewer sensibility.

 

Another option is to turn autobiographical in my work. John Kramer called me on my use of the imagery, and tried to get at the heart of my interest in it. Because I absolutely see a connection with the 50s through my family and the continued questioning of domestic roles, these images do have the potential to be much more personal through the use of family photographs. Currently I’m wresting with this idea. I am open to the use of any image that will make an interesting painting, and until now have not looked to create meaning through the subject matter. I would rather, as Oliver noted, explore American nostalgia from a distance and let the viewer derive meaning.

 

I received a lot of feedback and suggestion concerning the technical aspects to my work. My work from semester 1 was in large part experimental. I played around with areas of flat color vs. rendered objects in my compositions, and I made the backgrounds simple and complex across the work to see how it would change the figure. The only variable that stayed the same was my palette, which contains a lot of yellow ochre. The palette came out of my desire to find a group of colors resembling faded color film. Hannah and Tony found the ochre overwhelming and encouraged me to change the palette. Both John and Oliver said that they didn’t pick up on the colors of faded film at all, but Oliver added that the brightness of the palette made it something else, which he found interesting. This semester I will look to scale back the brightness of my work through including more subtle browns, but I won’t all together banish the ochre. I consider my palette as a work in progress.

 

As for the surface of my paintings, comments across the critiques were more or less the same. I need to use a lot more paint and take more time preparing the surface with layers of gesso. I also need to paint on portrait linen or birch plywood. I’m considering now how to make the best use of my time this semester. I plan on using panel, but will probably make many more compositional and color studies on paper for each image. Some professors suggested working on a much larger scale, even life size. Having done large murals, I am intrigued with the idea. I think that my paintings would be much more effective on a large scale, but for logistical reasons I am pushing that idea to the back burner for now. Perhaps I’ll concentrate on making a large work for my thesis. Right now I still have too many other questions to resolve in my work.

 

My biggest challenge for future work will be finding a level of stylization to the figures and composing my images with detail and flatness. These were areas of extensive discussion in critiques, and while the comments I received contradicted each other, I have a better idea now of where I need to go with things. In trying to make my work more painterly, I’ve discovered a fondness for negative shape and areas of flat color. In my canvases from semester 1, these negative shapes became areas of ochre. Hannah noted those areas of great detail and areas of flatness. She suggested that I go either way with it or do both and push the contrast much further. This is what I want to do, and I think it will be an ongoing issue in my work for some time.

 

As for the level of stylization, I have many ideas. There are many artists that work with stylized figure, and I will be looking closer at their methods. I was often asked in crits about the artists I wish to emulate. I’ve long been fascinated with the work of the German New Objectivity painters and specifically the work of Max Beckmann. The professors agreed that these would be great artists to look at, and suggested others. Among them, a closer look at the work of Norman Rockwell was a common suggestion. Rockwell’s work encapsulates American nostalgia better than anyone. He has often been dismissed as being an illustrator over a fine artist, but his use of storytelling and figure stylization is remarkable. I certainly don’t wish to create Rockwells, but I will absolutely look closer at his work this semester.  Tony suggested that I compare and contrast the form and content of Rockwell and Beckmann. To me, this sounds like a fascinating paper topic. 

 

The broad range of comments I received from my second residency called into question my intentions for everything in my work. I left the residency with a lot more questions than answers, and many possible and often conflicting directions to take my idea. Having sorted through that, I have a renewed understanding that everything I do has to be intentional and thought out.  It’s easy for me to feel stressed by the huge task of creating this next work. Tony asked me, “What do you want to see? If you went into a gallery and wanted to see something that speaks to your vision, what would it be?” This encourages me to think less about the process and more about the end, and makes me want to get back to work. This semester will be about progressing the idea of American nostalgia while trying to arrive at a look of stylization that compliments the idea.

 

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Some Serious Blockage/New Mentor

I've been working hard to pull together all my thoughts from this last residency for the last few weeks, all in hope of arriving at some point of departure for the next semester. I left Boston with many good ideas, but have yet to decide a course of action. It's been very frustrating to feel that I need to be moving ahead with something now and I don't know what that is. To stay creative I've been filling up a sketchbook with little watercolor/ink drawings, studies for bigger paintings. I feel light years away from where I should be and that's pretty scary. I can't remember feeling so blocked before... 

On the positive side, I have decided on a mentor and things should work out great. Patricia Canney is a Twin Cities oil painter whose work I've seen around town at galleries and the Minneapolis Art-A-Whirl. In her recent work, she has concentrated a lot on groupings of objects with interesting shape and light. She also manages to harness a feel of past time, which of course is something I'm more than a little interested in. I'm questioning my route as a figure painter and I think working with her will be very beneficial. We'll hopefully have our first meeting soon. Here's a few of her images: 

     

                                          

BOSTON residency 2

Residency 2 is in the books and it was a great time. As expected, It was 10 days of art overload filled with critiques and conversations. I now have at least 12 possible artistic directions, so my main task in the next few weeks is to collect and sort through all of those ideas and choose a course of action. My first paper of the next semester is a semester summary due in a few weeks, so I'll wait till then to post those ideas. I can say with confidence now that I will still be working in the same vein, but I'll be pushing the idea and the stylization quite a bit further to make it more unique to Nate Stromberg style, whatever that may turn out to be... thats a little scary to think about now. In only 6 months I'll be back in Boston again with a whole new set of work. I've still got a long way to go. I didn't have a lot of time to enjoy Boston, but I did get a morning to walk the city. It's a great place and this time it did feel like returning home a little bit. AIB is right by Fenway Park, so I got to experience the crazy Red Sox fans. One of these times I'd like to go to a game... I also missed the Celtics victory parade by a day, oh well.  It's good to be home and I have lots to do.... As usual I'll post my thoughts and pictures of my work here.

      

Semester wrap up

So it's been a little while since my last post-

The end of the teaching year was very stressful and time was difficult to find. I have still been working, but mainly on some additional study paintings on paper. It's been strange to step away from polished pieces on canvas, but here's a few reasons why:

1. I still have many more ideas than time will allow. I went to my wife's grandparents place in South Dakota for Memorial Day weekend and found some incredible photo albums from the 50's. The photos are exactly what I'm looking for. I have even more material to work from now...

2. I'm really still trying to learn about compositional possibilities, so there's still experimentation going on.

and 3. I have had major problems with drying time and I'm starting to worry about transporting them. It's been a cold wet spring and a cool summer so far (that Al Gore is full of it man) and my canvases won't dry! Pieces I made in March were still tacky last week. I took them outside to sun-dry and the wind blew all sorts of dirt, dandelion seeds, dust and little bugs into them... I spent an afternoon meticulously cleaning them off. Since then I've been running fans and lights 24 hours a day to get them dry and it seems to be working. The paper studies are made with thicker paint and they seem to dry faster. 

I'm also working on all of the readings for this upcoming residency. Most are quite difficult. It's a lot of artsy philosophy that I can't get my head around. I'm going to push hard to get through it this next week and hopefully absorb the main points.

I'll post my semester summary here for your reading pleasure-

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Semester Summary

 When I began my first residency, I knew that I wanted to use vintage imagery from the 50s. I was also aware that those images contained a power to speak in a variety of ways to different people. My biggest challenge in starting a new body of work was to clarify that idea, both with the subject matter and the method of painting. I’ve learned important lessons, and I’m still very much trying to figure things out.

When I began, I had a large pile of reference imagery. I had too many painting ideas, and I had to consider a practical way of working that would allow me to discover new ways of realizing them without taking too much time. I knew at the outset that working exclusively with oil on canvas would be time consuming and keep me from experimenting. I decided to start with smaller study paintings on paper. These were intended to be quick and somewhat spontaneous. I felt confident in my color palette from previous work, so I used the studies mainly as a way to explore composition and shape.

I started each with the random application of acrylic yellow ochre. I worked quick and scraped the surface with a putty knife, leaving subtle streaks. This idea came from analysis of discolored old photos, which often are due to poor film. After sketching the main shapes, I used a dark neutralized violet for areas of darkest contrast. I also used light washes of rusty red to balance the color scheme. From there, I used undiluted oils to fill out the picture. I would consider the result to be quick and sketchy. Usually my work would be much more refined, and these studies helped me to work through compositional challenges.

Two of the studies revealed something unexpected. The first is called “Dishwasher”, and was an early attempt to harness the feeling of 50s imagery. I’m very proud of the piece, and went to great lengths adding areas of detail, down to individual floor tiles. My mentor suggested that it was simply too busy, that I didn’t need to add so much detail to imply that that detail was there. Since then I have been conscious of my tendency to work things to death, and I’ve tried hard to hold back on the unimportant aspects of the picture. The second image to surprise me is called “Orbit”. It was an attempt to bypass the figure and focus on shape as the vehicle for nostalgia. The image shows a corny 50’s carnival ride with large areas of color. At the time, it was pure experimentation. Since then, I’ve learned that the figure doesn’t have to be center. Many fellow students have said it is their favorite of my images. Before making it, I was focused solely on the figure, and now I look closer at the entire image.

In April I began a series of 24” x 20” oil paintings. About the time I started working on canvas, my mentor suggested I try my hand with a wet on wet technique. I tried it and it was a real disaster. It proved to be very frustrating and a total failure. However, failing at wet on wet led me to experiment with more viscosity to my paint. In the past, I worked primarily with thick undiluted paint, which meant smaller brushstrokes and a greater attention to minute detail. Adding more oil to loosen the paint has allowed me to work quick and with bigger brushes while concentrating on shape and composition. I’ve been very deliberate in treating the negative shapes around figures with ochre and tan.

A common suggestion from the first residency concerned the infusion of greater meaning into the paintings. I received a lot of feedback about using allegory to tell more of a story or make a statement through the work. I’ve long been resistant to this, because I can sense that the work could easily become trite. I enjoy the distance between the viewer and my subject matter, and I like the way vintage images can seem unresolved or vague. However, I have looked for subtle ways to say more, and my painting “the New Pastime” is the farthest I pushed the idea. In the picture, a family sits staring at the television, while above the TV a clichéd painting of a praying man on the wall is all but ignored. The painting, TV and family create a triangle of movement. As a 50’s image, the family has shifted their collective gaze from each other and their faith to unnatural green glow of the TV, which is not so much a statement about TV being evil as it is a statement about family life today. Kids are raised in front of the TV and people plan their lives around their shows. It’s changed everything. I’m pleased with the way the image turned out and am anxious to see if people can pick up on the meaning at the residency. I would be thrilled if people don’t notice it.

 Another major development has been the use of violet lines to define the picture. The bright line can make the picture very vibrant, and it also can flatten the image and make it feel a little like a coloring book. Part of me likes the artificial flatness and plasticy feel of the finished works with the violet line, but I anticipate that this is an aspect to my work I will be wrestling with for a while. I do not want to achieve realism, and at the same time I do not want to draw cartoons. Somewhere in between lies the level of stylization I am after. For now, I am embracing the flatness and considering ways to minimize it in the future with deeper shadows and brighter areas of light.

My mentor Michael Carson has been a great help to me. He is very good at implying information with simple brushstrokes instead of adding unnecessary detail. His figures are fleshy and elegant and exist in another time. He had some great suggestions about minimizing detail and picking reference imagery (He turned me onto the Library of Congress photography source, which is vast and free). He has shown great interest in my current work on canvas, and I feel like one semester is not enough time to learn what I can from him.

Viewing the work of other artists this semester has been helpful in understanding my place. Edward Hopper has been a huge influence for his use of light and composition. His palette is bright and his figures often awkward, but they occupy a space where light is coming from somewhere else and the context of the image is unknown. In this way, he turns buildings, landscapes, and people into fascinating shapes. I went to Chicago to see his show at the Art Institute. His images explode when first seen walking into a room, but upon closer look appear quick and sometimes messy in the application of paint. This was surprising and a reminder that I need to be conscious of how my works read at a distance as well as up close.

In researching working artists I discovered painters who make the idea of reproducing source imagery their idea and their art. This was something I hadn’t considered. Of these artists, Micheal Borremans was most impressive to me, his paintings haunting and beautiful. He manages to reproduce an image with alterations that change the way the viewer perceives. Since viewing his work I have looked for subtle ways to alter my reference imagery.

Reading Mary Caputi’s “A Kinder, Gentler America: Melancholia and the Mythical 50s” opened my eyes to all that 50s imagery can mean and say. I realized that my work cannot help but be political, no matter how much I resist it. I also learned that in dealing with nostalgic imagery, what is left out of the picture can say just as much as what is included. To get a real flavor for the period and further understand the look, I used the semester to view 14 classic films from the 50s. It was a real treat to watch these films and analyze them for their artistic content, camera placement and directorial brilliance.

Films like “The Searchers” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” perfectly captured the American identity of the time, one of subtle paranoia that outside forces might destroy all that is good in life. The best of these movies, “Rear Window”, “Ace in the Hole” and “A Face in the Crowd” used the artistry of film to speak on issues way ahead of their time. These directors understood the ways television and consumerism where changing American culture, and it’s impossible to watch the films and deny their prophetic nature. I hope to watch many more period films in the coming semester.

Maintaining a working blog and a studio schedule has been very helpful. I have regularly posted images and thoughts on the web and the feedback of other graduate students has been great. Working throughout the week and often late into the night has been a challenge with all of my other responsibilities, but it has changed the way I view my work. I am constantly thinking about my work and what I want to do next, and this has been huge. The pressure of getting this work done and writing about it has ultimately been great. I am working and developing my ideas and have learned so much. I cannot wait to be bombarded with ideas and feedback once again at the next residency.

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