ROCKWELL-"The Underside of Innocence"

I've just finished reading a fascinating little book on Norman Rockwell. His name is one that has often come up in connection with my work in critiques. No other artist embodies Americana and nostalgia like Norman Rockwell. For his entire life, he struggled to reconcile his place in the art world and his role as an illustrator. His work was so counter to everything that was happening in the Modern Art establishment that he wasn't even considered a real artist, even though his skills for visual story telling are second to none. Today, there is a new found appreciation for his work and his paintings. In particular, there is a realization that he was a lot smarter than we give him credit for.

case in point: Here's "The Art Critic" from the 1950s. Depicted is a young art student at the museum, closely inspecting a broach on the chest of a baroque woman in a painting, who leers back at him- as do a group of disgusted looking men in another painting. While humorous and innocent in Rockwell's stylistic way, it takes on new meaning when learned that his models for the art student and the woman are his son and his wife. In short, he's illustrated the Oedipus story, right down to the mother's broach that Oedipus gauges his eyes with when he realizes that his wife is his mother. Even the disgusted guys in the other painting can see how wrong the whole thing is. Rockwell loved this kind of subtle jabbing, especially the fact that he could put it on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Rockwell also felt deeply insecure about his place in art. He tackles the subject on numerous occasions, but probably most blatantly in "The Connoisseur". For the painting, he mixes his style with that of a Jackson Pollock rip-off, raising all sorts of questions about modern art. He removes the mans face all together, so we can't see his reaction. Instead, the work is a strange mixing of 2 completely opposite approaches to art and Rockwell's way of working out the deep concerns/insecurities about his life's work.

Here's a line from the back of the book:

In this sure-to-be controversial book, Richard Halpern argues that this sense of innocence arises from our reluctance—and also Rockwell’s—to acknowledge the often disturbing dimensions of his works. Rockwell’s paintings frequently teem with perverse acts of voyeurism and desire but contrive to keep these acts invisible—or rather, hidden in plain sight, available for unacknowledged pleasure but easily denied by the viewer.

Rockwell emerges in this book, then, as a deviously brilliant artist, a remorseless diagnostician of the innocence in which we bathe ourselves, and a continuing, unexpected influence on contemporary artists. Far from a banal painter of the ordinary, Halpern argues, Rockwell is someone we have not yet dared to see for the complex creature he is: a wholesome pervert, a knowing innocent, and a kitschy genius.

UPDATES-

February has been a crazy month-

My search for a mentor artist has been a tough one... I was supposed to have the mentor locked down a week or 2 ago, and am happy to say that today it's finally come together. I'll be working with Tim Tozer, a local professor of painting and drawing at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. He also paints and exhibits at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis. Here's a few of his images:

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We met for the first time this morning and had a great conversation. He's excited to work with me and had some great suggestions. I'm excited to get to work.

Speaking of working, I've already been putting in serious time in the cold basement studio. I have started the underpainting on 7 (that's right 7) new paintings. Many of them are small, thus the amount of started work. I've started work on 8" x 8" little fragments of old photographic imagery that will come together to make a large fragmented work. I'm thinking its a good way for me to take more of an artistic stand on the imagery with selectively cropping, as opposed to simply copying an old photo. I'm continuing to still do that as well with a series of larger paintings. I hope to have some images to post soon.

RESIDENCY 3

I had a great time in Boston at Residency 3. I'll post my most recent paper here for those interested.... more images to come

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Residency Summary 

My 3^rd residency at AIB in January of 2009 was a time of great learning. I received a lot of great feedback and commentary on my paintings, and left feeling encouraged and empowered in my artistic direction. It’s much easier now to see the progression of my work through this program. For me, everything about the 3^rd residency was approached with the end goal of my thesis in mind. I find this task a little daunting, but all in all I feel confident in where I stand now going into my 4^th residency. 

I left AIB last June with a broad range of suggestions and possibilities. It was a tough to sift through all of that information to make the work for residency 3. It’s clear to me now that the body of work from last semester addresses the formal problems rather than conceptual. I feel that the new works are much better paintings in terms of surface, texture, line and color palette. Across the board, everyone seemed to agree. I expected to get harsher criticism this time around (not so much for the work but for being farther along in the program), so I was very surprised to receive 2 nearly flawless critiques to start the week. 

Tony Apesos had great things to say about my work, and was impressed at the quality of the paintings. He was very impressed with the new color palette and application of paint. He felt that the work was on a thesis level, and that I should be confident and keep pressing on. On the idea behind the paintings, Tony made an interesting observation. He noted that my paintings manage to carry no personal commentary whatsoever. The figures are not idealized or criticized. They remain somewhere in the middle in the realm of complete confusion. Tony found them “fascinatingly confusing”, and picked up on many of the small linear adjustments I purposely made to guide the eye throughout the piece. Aside from a few suggestions on painting flesh in high contrast, he had nothing but good things to say about the work. 

My second round of critiques with Laurel Sparks and my peers went equally as well. I felt very encouraged with all the positive feedback, but also wary of feeling any sort of pride. After all, I do have to carry this idea forward for another year. As in the past, Laurel saw a lot of disturbing elements to the themes of my paintings, and came to her own conclusions to the open ended stories portrayed by the figures. She complimented the unknown and detached aspects to the work, and likened the paintings to those Norman Rockwell, but twisted and completely void of Rockwellian charm. It was not my intent to make them this way, but it’s a lot of fun to see them interpreted and appreciated so differently.

My third critique with Jan Avgikos was more of what I expected initially. She too had good things to say about the formal qualities of the paintings, but was puzzled with the imagery. She noticed the same impersonal qualities to the work that Tony did, but she seemed more frustrated with that than interested in it. She wondered why there wasn’t more of myself in the work, whether through using pictures of my own family or confronting specific issues. She saw as detractors everything that I had tried to intentionally accomplish in the work. 

She complimented the “beauty and serenity” in the work, but said it needs to be brought into the now. She also asked the question, “If these represent your parents or grandparents generation, than what will your kids look back to in term of imagery to represent this time period we live in?” This is an interesting question, but much larger than the current work. Eventually, the group ran out of time before we had the chance to talk further about it. After the critique, I felt frustrated. Obviously, her reaction was an indicator that my idea wasn’t coming through clearly enough, and in my reasoning I couldn’t figure out why. It would take a few more critiques and some additional feedback to see that Jan was absolutely right.

Towards the end of the week, I had critiques with John Kramer and Oliver Wasow. They gave me the more or less the same response. John was the one who finally got me to grasp what is missing from my work. He reminded me of a former graduate who made pictures of kitsch cowboys. The problem with his work was not his imagery, but the fact that he couldn’t articulate what his interest in cowboys was beyond, “I like cowboys.” John said that in the end, my thesis defense cannot be, “I like the 50s.” He is completely right. My interest in the period has to go much deeper than even I realize. John said that I need to take ownership of what I’m doing and incorporate at least 1 personal angle.

Oliver added that the very act of trying to be impersonal makes the work an emotional, deliberate act. In making my images impersonal and stripping them of meaning, I’m in effect making them personal. They have to mean something. I have to have a reason. Oliver feels that I walk a dangerous line between irony and nostalgia and need to find the middle ground. His comments made me realize that much of the impersonality in my work is in response to avoiding overt nostalgia. He’s right though, there’s an intellectual problem to my work that has to be solved, and I have to find a way to make them more aggressively located. He said that the work was “almost great”, and that I just need to find something to make them resonate emotionally. 

I never expected that my paintings would lead me to extensive self-psychoanalysis, but it’s clear now that determining my connection to the 50s is key. This question is most upon my mind in leaving the residency. I began referencing 50’s photos a few years back mainly because I was looking to paint, and I happened to have that imagery to work from in old photographs. After the residency, I wrote down all my thoughts concerning the 50s and my paintings. I’ve resolved that my interest in continuing to use these images today is threefold:  

First, I am drawn to these images for aesthetic reasons.

I was initially drawn to the 50s from the colors found in old kodachrome slides. The colors are bright and bold, but also somehow stately and subdued. The figures are often clean cut and awkwardly posed. Everything about the images- the clothes, hairstyles, buildings, and especially the cars which seem to pop up everywhere, lends itself well to the kind of painting I am interested in, a style that utilizes strong areas of positive and negative shapes of color and light. The images are often quite humorous, which is also very appealing to me.

Secondly, these images feed my need as a history buff.

The 1950s are a fascinating time in American history. Post-War America was the greatest time of prosperity any society had ever known. It was a time when consumer capitalism and advertising became a driving force in society. The imagery from the period projects an idealism of happiness, even though America was deep in the nuclear fear of a Cold War and had yet to confront many of its serious problems, such as racism and sexism. Even today, many Americans believe in the idealized myth of the 1950s and advocate for a nostalgic return, as evidenced most recently in speeches during the 2008 election. I see 50s images as relevant reminders of where we came from as a society and how far we have yet to go. As much as I can try to avoid blatant commentary in my painting, there’s no doubt that my interest in the images is in large part sociological and political. Tony noted that his experience of the 50s was one of fear and paranoia, and that I might want to play on that angle. I am certainly interested in this.

Finally, these images relate to my own family upbringing and current place as a husband and father of two small kids.

My parents were born in the 50s to traditional patriarchal families. I was raised in much the same way. My mother has always been a homemaker, and my father the breadwinner. I married a woman who could not be more opposite in her views on women’s domestic roles. Together, we’ve taken interest in observing the generational differences so evident in our families. Our parents chose to maintain that traditional structure, and today we are choosing a new way of family life and determining how to raise our kids.  These issues are apparent in snapshot images from the 50s, both as actual depictions of traditional families and ironic comparisons to today. 

I left the January residency feeling encouraged and challenged. I feel secure in my abilities as a painter to make work that is visually engaging, and proud of the progress that I made from the last residency in finding a style that suits my ideas. The difficulty in this semester will be retaining those aspects to the images that appeal to me while at the same time infusing a personal take. This is a delicate balance that I will have to work hard to find.  If an idea ever comes across too strongly, I immediately lose the quiet strangeness and detachment that I’ve worked hard to arrive at. The paintings themselves will most likely look very similar to the previous work, but will hopefully function on a deeper level. I have huge question marks about how all of this work itself out, but feel empowered and confident to take my work to the next level.

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I'm goin' to Boston....

Well, I'm off this week for MFA residency number 3 of 5. One year from now I'll be preparing to defend my thesis and hang my graduate art show. VERY strange how quickly this first year has gone- This time, I am incredibly excited to go. This last semester was far and away the most difficult in terms of the creative process, and now that I feel a little more confident in my ideas and direction, I am thrilled to get feedback, even if it's a good shredding at the hand of the professors. For me, this whole residency will be about defining my thesis outline and artistic direction. That way, I'll come home with a clear goal in mind. We'll see if that happens- I just want to avoid another prolonged period of experimentation. More updates to come-

New Image- "SUNBATHERS II"

Here's what I've been furiously trying to finish before the holiday- I made this painting much faster without the same under-painting as the others, and it's also the first one that isn't a rectangle. The square is pretty simple- I'm 100% sure that I'll push the shapes of my canvases next semester. Cheers-

New Image- "FULL SERVICE"

Here's my latest.... This picture really caught my eye for the interesting shapes, patterns and bright colors. I'm not 100% on the boys yet but I'll try to retool things a bit before the January residency. As always, feedback is appreciated-

Semester Review Paper

This semester of work has been very challenging. From my reading and writing I
have learned much about the cultural identity of the 1950s. In the studio,
I've had moments of great creativity and moments of unbearable frustration.
The most difficult task for me has been incorporating the feedback I received
from last semester's work into my new paintings. It took me three months to
discover that I was making work to fulfill those suggestions, and in doing so
had lost the joy in making the work I wanted to make. Ultimately, this
difficulty has made me stronger, and though I am not 100% satisfied with the
body of work as a whole, I feel I'm moving in the right direction.

When I left the last residency in June, I had a lot of great feedback to work
with. Sorting through such a wide range of suggestions was hard because they
concerned so many different aspects to my work. The first aspect was the
content itself. My work from the first semester was scattered, using reference
imagery from both advertisement and candid family photos. I knew that the new
work would need more focus, so I made the decision to avoid advertisement and
posed photographs all together. From an idea standpoint, this forced me to
consider the deeper meaning of my subject and to seek images that were
open-ended.

I started by working exclusively from old family photos. At first, I found it
freeing to work in a way that was at least partially autobiographical, since
these photos depict my extended family in the 50s. However, after a month of
working with them I started to get tired of seeing the same people and feeling
a sense of attachment to them. I felt constricted to the photo and found
myself worried that my family would see them merely as portraits. Through
this, I've discovered that its much more beneficial for me to work from an
unknown source, one which can be altered if needed. I've discovered that much
of my work is about the unknown story behind the characters in my paintings.
Knowing the story somehow takes the fun out of making them.

I worked hard to make improvements to the technical application of paint and
surface. My first semester work was very thin and far too transparent. At the
time, I was painting on store-bought stretchers and using a wet on wet
technique my previous mentor suggested. I liked painting with thinned paint.
It allowed me to work quickly and capture energy in my brush strokes. The
finished product though, was very flat and I knew that I had to use much more
paint and add greater texture. I was encouraged to work on gessoed birch
plywood panels, which I did at the beginning of the semester.

As for my palette, my 1st semester paintings relied heavily on ochre to imply
faded color photos and tie the pieces together. I was challenged at the June
residency to avoid the color this time and look closer at the true palettes of
old photographs. This has turned out to be a great suggestion, as my palette
has become dustier and also more vibrant.

My mentor, Patricia Canney, had some good early suggestions. She agreed that
the ochre in my previous work was too strong and that I needed to use much
more paint. She also echoed a lot of what was said at the residency, namely
that my study works from semester 1 were a lot more interesting than my
paintings on canvas. She felt that the under painting on these studies made
the difference, especially the little bits of rough color that show through
other layers.

I decided early on to paint the surface with shapes of color before adding
thicker paint. On my first 2 paintings, I filled in the surface with layers of
underpainting and then used a palette knife to add textured paint. While I was
pleased with the colors I was achieving and the compositions I was making, I
found that working thick changed everything. My natural tendency with thick
paint is to overwork areas of contrast and detail. The problem is that I just
haven't had enough experience with thick paint to know what to do. My mentor
and I came to the same conclusion: I just needed to paint a lot more to learn
how to do it.

After almost 2 months of work, I found myself very frustrated. Among many
failures, I had two 18" x24" paintings that I found mildly successful. The
rest were stiff and simply didn't work at all. My frustration took a toll on
my creativity, and for a while I felt completely lost. I didn't know what I
wanted to do or how to do it- all I knew was that applying all the new
suggestions to my old ways of working wasn't coming together at all.

In the 2 or 3 weeks that I felt unable to work, I went back to notes from the
residency and pondered a roadmap to my thesis. While the thesis is still not
set in stone, this helped me to see what wasn't working and focus on a new
direction. To start with, the birch plywood panels were a source of
frustration. While far superior to pre-made stretchers, they were heavy and
time consuming to prepare. I was spending a lot of time making them, only to
make bad paintings. I decided to use gesso board panels. Though pricey, they
are a beautiful surface and they saved me a lot of time. The birch wood panels
will eventually get reused.

I also decided to approach scale differently. After the June residency, I was
set on the idea of working at least 18" x 24" if not larger. I agree with
others who have noted that my images would work differently if they could be
huge, and I still see this as a possible direction. After feeling blocked in
my work, I realized that the larger scale would have to wait. Larger paintings
aren't any better if the work is poor. Instead, I went smaller, which I
anticipate will bring a strong reaction in January. The new work is 16" x 20",
and one painting is 9" x 12". I fully expect to work larger down the road, but
for now, I need to paint and advance my ideas, and working smaller has allowed
me to do that. I don't regret the decision in the least.

I talked extensively with my mentor about cropping and composing images. She
is quite good at identifying great composition, and she gave me some great
suggestions for zooming in and out to make the images more interesting. I
searched for new images, and from thousands of stock pictures on the internet
and in old books found interesting compositions that worked. Finally, I looked
at a lot of working artists for inspiration. I discovered a painter who primes
his canvas in bright red before painting cityscapes. When he is finished, the
red is almost completely gone, except for small bits that remain in the
outline of shapes. These miniscule areas of red, though almost unnoticeable,
make a big difference.

With these new ideas, I started work on 6 new paintings simultaneously. In the
past, I have often worked each piece to completion before moving on. This
time, I bounced from one to the other, which allowed me to avoid much of the
frustration I had been feeling. A huge discovery from my mentor along the way
has been Galkyd Gel, which increases the lucidity of the paint while allowing
it to retain texture. It also dries much faster than adding oil. Using the gel
allows me make larger easier strokes. This is where my studio work is
currently at. I am enjoying the process of making new work, and had to fail a
few times along the way to understand what I didn't want to do.

In addition to all the work I've been doing in my studio, I've also been
reading and writing for the academic component. I spent most of my first
semester researching contemporary artists that were new to me. This semester,
I was anxious to look at artists I really admire, including Hopper, Beckmann,
Wood, N.C. Wyeth and Rockwell. While I enjoyed reading books and looking
deeper into these artists, it was tough and a little bit of a stretch to apply
their ideas to my work. I learned the most about Rockwell and his way of story
telling.

The best insight came from reading selective essays on 1950's American
consumerism and watching the TV series "Mad Men". Reading "The Man in the Gray
Flannel Suit" was also most helpful. These sources helped me to see the
disconnect of the period; the way consumerism changed people's priorities. All
of a sudden, people in post-war America had money and access to whatever they
wanted. This led to an outward display of contentment and pleasantness that
was at odds with much of life. This disconnect is something I'm very
interested in, not just as part of the American 50s but in how it relates to
our world today. This has added a fresh perspective to my work. I hope that in
some way my future work can speak to this idea in more significant ways.

My work addresses the American myth of the nostalgic 1950s. I'm interested in
comparing reality to that myth and exploring how it appeals to people. I am
not interested in criticism of the period or politics in relation to the idea,
but rather in presenting an image in an appealing yet vague way that begs
viewer interaction. The difficulties I faced in working these last months
have taught me much about the creative process and helped me to further refine
my ideas. I cannot wait to get feedback on these new paintings and start the
process again with a greater understanding of my abilities and intentions.

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