Thrown out of better places

Very unfinished sketch across to Cold Storage Road in Port Clyde.

Very unfinished sketch across to Cold Storage Road in Port Clyde. Yes, the light was pretty dismal.
The Maine waterfront works for a living, and that’s one of the reasons it’s so interesting. The lobster traps and buoys stacked on piers, and the dories and dinghies tied to floating docks are the tools of someone’s trade. In general, I’ve found that I get along fine with working fishermen as long as I don’t trespass on their property.
PAPME’s northern chapter met at Port Clyde yesterday. This place is a special case. Parking is restricted because property owners understandably don’t want the Monhegan Boat Line’s customers leaving their cars parked all over the village.
This would probably have been my subject off Horse Point Road.

This would probably have been my subject off Horse Point Road.
Marshall Point Lighthouse has visitor parking, but it’s too far from the village to paint the harbor. I arranged to meet Bobbi Heath and Renee Lammers on the co-op’s road instead, where we planned to paint on the verge.
Renee knew another site, off Horse Point Road, which had a fine view of Raspberry Island. This spot was just magical. While Renee photographed a dory, Bobbi and I looked at an outstanding fleet of wooden lobster boats. We were about to start painting when a lobsterman came ashore. “Ladies,” he started, and the next minute we were leaving.
There's a beautiful fleet of wooden lobster boats out of Port Clyde.

There’s a beautiful fleet of wooden lobster boats out of Port Clyde.
We drove back to our first site and our first ideas. Cars were parked on this road because there is a community playground at the corner. I figured we were safe enough in joining them.
By this time it was raining fitfully. The wind was too high for umbrellas, so we just took cover during the wet times.  Bobbi took a compass reading for me and I calculated where the light would be if it ever came up. I guessed wrong. When the sky briefly cleared in the afternoon, I realized I had built the light patterns backwards.
Yes, there were interruptions.

Yes, there were interruptions. (Photo courtesy of Bobbi Heath)
Meanwhile, our friends had been driven off Marshall Point by the wind, and a few of them joined us. I wasn’t paying that much attention until the property owner drove by. “How would you like it if I came to your house and painted all over your front lawn?” he asked. His driveway was completely parked in.
No summer squash to be had anywhere.

No summer squash to be had anywhere.
Well, in fact, I wouldn’t mind, but I did see his point. He couldn’t use his own driveway. Painters are generally polite people, so my pals quickly folded up and left.
Neither Bobbi nor I were in fact on his lawn, so I felt fine staying where I was. However, any magic there had been had faded in the ringing of his words. I took a few more swipes at my unfinished canvas. Then I too folded my tent and headed home.

Asian with a twist

Carpentry with one's brother involves lots of second-guessing. (Photo by Sandy Quang)

Carpentry with one’s brother involves lots of second-guessing. (Photo by Sandy Quang)
My studio is in a retail area on Route 1, but I’m also less than three miles away from Camden Falls Gallery. To sell from my studio would violate my non-compete agreement.
A few weeks ago, Howard Gallagher, CFG’s owner, told me he thought it would be a good idea for me to keep hours in my studio. That opened the door to a mini-gallery of sorts.
Unfortunately, my studio is too beautiful to convert to a store. It has natural-finish shiplap walls, large sliding glass doors, and radiant heat in the poured concrete floor. I don’t want to damage the woodwork, and I don’t want permanent display walls. These are almost insurmountable limitations in designing a display system.
Practicing my "open" sign.

Somehow, my “open” sign looks backwards.
For those few areas where there are uninterrupted walls, I ordered a STAS cliprail system. This will let me rearrange paintings without constantly pounding nails into the woodwork. There are only about 20 running feet of wall space in the studio however. That means I will need additional display walls. However, I want to take them away when the season ends, so I don’t want to attach them permanently to the room.
I had an idea for the panels, but no way to attach them to the open beams. Then my brother Robert showed up. We toddled down to the lumber yard together. Between us, we figured out how to make a false moulding set off from the beam with spacers. It required just six wood screws set into the beam, and it is solid as a rock.
It will be interesting to see if this works.

It will be interesting to see if this works.
Both of us are decent craftsmen, but neither of us totally trusts the other. I surreptitiously checked his angle measurement on the ceiling. After I set the spacing for the screws, I noticed he came back and double-checked them.
“Measure twice and cut once,” I told my son.
“Measure once and re-check everything your sister does,” my brother told him.
What is particularly painful about this is that I had a set of booth walls that I finally got rid of last December, after having stored them in my garage for years. They served me well, but I just didn’t need them anymore.
The panels hanging in place. They're pegged at the top, and can come down and be stored.

The panels hanging in place. They’re pegged at the top, and can come down and be stored.
We finished before dinner and the panels actually looked better than I expected.
“It looks kind of Asian,” I mused.
“In a Home Depot kind of way,” responded my nephew.
True, but really not that bad.

Road with a view

A million quiet moments of beauty are in every vista. (Photo by Sandy Quang)

A million quiet moments of beauty are in every vista. (Photo by Sandy Quang)
One of the tasks of a plein air painting teacher is to locate painting sites. Not only must they have good subject matter, but they must be safe, have sufficient parking, and give access to a bathroom or a quiet stretch of shrubbery. They should be easily accessible to people coming from a wide range of places. Some of my favorites are on the St. George Peninsula.
After being surprised by the overgrowth at Glen Cove a few weeks ago, I decided I should reconnoiter more. Even that doesn’t always work. When I got to Spruce Head yesterday, a bucket truck was parked where I’d hoped to teach, doing something to the power lines. No matter. A little farther along there was ample parking and a different view.
Yesterday's view from the causeway at Spruce Head. (Photo by Sandy Quang)

Yesterday’s view from the causeway at Spruce Head. (Photo by Sandy Quang)
Back in the day, studios at the Art Students League were jammed full of students, to a degree non-New Yorkers would never accept. Needless to say, not everyone had a “good view.” We were expected to make the most of what we had. It was very good training in finding the sublime anywhere.
In general, if you can’t find something to paint, it’s your mind that need adjusting, not the view. That’s not to say that it’s not easier in Maine, where every twist in the road brings something new. But there are many levels of beauty in every scene.
Yesterday, my students all painted variations of a dinghy at rest on the mud flats. It was an easily accessible composition, and it’s what I would have painted. But sometimes when you’re sitting quietly in nature, other things begin to vie with your attention—a rock formation, the shadows formed by a dock. For me, that usually happens about halfway through a painting, when I realize I’m actually more interested in something completely different from where I started.
A heron flew in to fish in the shallows. He spent the whole morning with us.
I currently have three students painting in water-based media. For the teacher, having both oils and watercolor in your class requires turning your brain inside out repeatedly, for the basic way you see and work—light vs. dark—is reversed between them.
Sheryl Cassibry and I did this little watercolor sketch together, as a way of exploring how the medium works.

Sheryl Cassibry and I did this little watercolor sketch together, as a way of exploring how the medium works.
Sheryl Cassibry and I did a joint watercolor painting in my sketchbook last week. We took turns painting on it. It was a fun way to explore how the medium works.
My Southern readers will laugh, but even out on Spruce Head, it was just too hot to paint. My car thermometer read 79° F. as I drove back to Rockport. I’m not acclimated to any kind of heat, and standing out in the blazing sun with a strong on-shore breeze, I got a terrific headache.
It wasn’t just me, either. Renee Lammers told me later that it was too hot to paint in Stonington, too. “I think I need a cooling vest,” she said. Maybe she’ll invent one.

Looking backward

"Delaware Water Gap," 12X9, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas

“Delaware Water Gap,” 12X9, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas
I used to commute from Rochester to New York City once a week, a round trip of about 700 miles. The fastest route between the two ends of New York is actually through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This takes you through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
A water gap is where an old river cuts through a mountain ridge. My college-age kid tells me that about 400 million years ago, a microcontinent called Avalonia collided with proto-North America. This heated and cracked the quartz in the Shawangunk Ridge, which allowed the Delaware River to slowly cut its path through the mountains as they rose. Or something like that.
“Lower Falls at Letchworth,” 18×24, oil on canvas. It took me a whole summer to finish two paintings but at the end I understood how I wanted to simplify the rock forms.

“Lower Falls at Letchworth,” 18×24, oil on canvas. It took me a whole summer to finish two paintings but at the end I understood how I wanted to simplify the rock forms.
The whole idea sounds about as plausible to me as fairies, but there is no question that the Delaware Water Gap is a beautiful jumble of massive rock folds and towering greenery through which the river glides in cool, reserved majesty.
I frequently stopped there to rest; occasionally I painted. One of those paintings, above, is on my website, but I haven’t thought about it for years. Sunday I received an email inquiry about it. Yesterday a woman from Minnesota purchased it. I don’t know her attachment to the Water Gap, but I hope she has the joy of owning it that I had in painting it.
“Upper Falls at Letchworth,” 18×24, oil on canvas.

“Upper Falls at Letchworth,” 18×24, oil on canvas.
We all end up with good work in our storerooms that we’ve moved beyond. I think particularly of a pair of paintings of Letchworth Gorge that I spent nearly a whole summer on. I consider them among my best landscape paintings. It was in painting them that I learned how to abstract the natural form. However, they are very different from my current work and thus difficult to show.
“Buffalo Grain Elevators,” oil and cold wax medium. This was the culmination of a period of tinkering with surfaces to imply the decay of cities like Buffalo.

“Buffalo Grain Elevators,” oil and cold wax medium. This was the culmination of a period of tinkering with surfaces to describe the age of cities like Buffalo.
There is no expiration date on good work. But we frequently set it aside because its problems no longer interest us. That is a mistake, I think. Old work deserves to be revisited.
Sometimes its strength surprises me. At other times, it’s actually more consistent with my current work than I remembered. But beyond that, what no longer occupies your thoughts on a technical level may still bring great joy to others.

The chattering classes

"War and intimations of war," by Carol L. Douglas, 2001

“War and intimations of war,” by Carol L. Douglas, 2001
Lack of solitude has interrupted my work over the last week. Creativity is a singular process, and too much interaction—even when you love your visitors—is hard on your work. My Mainer friends tell me this is an occupational hazard of living on the coast. After two seasons I understand. But social encroachment takes many forms. Physical contact is only one.
Auberon Waugh coined the phrase “chattering classes” to refer to the politically active, highly-educated urban middle class. While the term is peculiarly British, the concept is not.
Social media has been a very useful invention in my line of work, which one could describe as “self-appointed expert.” In the past, we had to convince an editor of our brilliance and relevance before they would let us opine in print. Now their role as arbiters has withered away. In some ways it’s a pity, since a good editor stops a person from looking like a damn fool.
Older people like me are still daily readers of news. This is an engrained habit. The newspaper was in the kitchen at breakfast and the television wasn’t. Growing up, my local paper (the Buffalo Evening News) was dignified, measured, literate and informative. It shaped my understanding of writing, certainly, but also of reading.
Concurrent with the decline of newspapering has come a rise in public cynicism.Almost nobody believes that the Fourth Estate is independent or accurate. I’m not innocent of this; I too have media sources I don’t trust. But I’m not sure where a culture goes when it can no longer rely on facts.
It was this past weekend’s horrible violence that finally tipped me into paralysis. No responsible citizen can watch a series of public executions and not be moved by them. However, the hardest part was looking at Facebook. Crisis exposes social media’s fatal flaw, as the chattering classes rush to judgment and normally-intelligent people engage in the blame game.
A number of my friends have pointed out the similarities between the Current Crisis and 1968. Let me point out a few of the differences. In 1968, we were a nation of middle-class values. These acted like a giant counterweight to extremism. In 1968, we hadn’t become as profoundly cynical about the ruling classes.
We live in perilous times. When you’re sitting on a tinderbox, it behooves you to speak peace, not war.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. The wheels of public opinion jump to conclusions and then warp the facts to meet their preconceived ideas. I need social media, but at times it drives me nuts.

The Sketchbook Wars

Pastor Alvin Parris listening to the sermon.

Pastor Alvin Parris listening to a sermon.
This week my student noticed that she seemed to be seeing things differently since she started to draw. That is because drawing changes how the brain works, as surely as studying music or language does. This is neuroplasticity in action, and it’s a power you can use for good or evil. Only you control whether you make good choices, like art, or bad ones, like using drugs.
Before the invention of the camera, people in many different fields were expected to understand how to draw. The visual image was almost as important for communication as were words. Nobody had the luxury of saying, “I can’t draw a straight line,” or “I’m not talented.” Drawing was too important to leave to a few anointed geniuses.
An ear of someone sitting nearby. Most of my sketches are pretty fast, since people shift around in church.

Most of my sketches are pretty fast, since people shift around in church.
That’s why I love this recent story in Scientific American. Dr. Jennifer Landin of North Carolina State University expects and gets beautiful drawings from her biology students. “Drawing is merely making lines and dots on paper. If you can write your name, you can draw,” she wrote. “But we all take shortcuts when we see; often our brains fool us, and we skip over most visual details.”
As I noted Wednesday, kids draw all the way through childhood until they reach adolescence. Personally, I think art is how they process the amazing changes their young brains are experiencing. Why most kids quit drawing is not well-studied, but cultural factors play a part. Not only do we devalue the arts in our culture, but we believe that only people with talent (whatever that is) can do them. As Dr. Landin so wonderfully demonstrated, talent is mostly about doing the work.
Coat thrown over a chair.

Coat thrown over a chair. You get to draw this a lot in the Northeast.
I always encourage people—and especially children—to carry sketchbooks around with them. Ten minutes in the doctor’s waiting room is far more productive when you surreptitiously draw the person across from you than when you leaf through last year’s People magazine.
I sketch in church because I’m someone who processes words better when my hands are busy. I’m not alone in that; it’s why so many people knit.
But try applying that principle to ADHD kids in school and you get into major trouble. My son needed the distraction of drawing when asked to sit for hours on end. His school absolutely forbade it. Letting him draw would break down discipline in the classroom. Their answer was drugs or a special school for troubled kids. As you can imagine, his school career was one long, unpleasant skirmish.
Don't ask me what those words mean.

Don’t ask me what those words mean.
He graduated by the skin of his teeth. Now that he’s in college, where he is in charge of his own actions, he’s on the Honor Roll.
An art teacher friend of mine told me that the only time her kid ever got in trouble was for drawing in class. It was one of the issues that motivated her to move to another district. If she, a respected professional, couldn’t get the administration to understand the value of drawing, who could?
“Real life isn’t neatly divided by subject,” wrote Dr. Landin. Educators would do well to remember that.

Frog weather

I have decided to repost my BDN blog here so that my non-Maine friends who object to the survey can see it.

Class at Schoodic Point.

Class at Schoodic Point.
My pal is a righteous church-going grandmother from Allegheny County, PA. Yesterday, she was offered $50 to perform an immoral act. We were both a little confused about the economics. If that’s the going rate, prostitution really doesn’t pay well.
In reality, she’s a residential advisor at a center for adults with developmental disabilities. This is empowering and important work. I teach painting, which isn’t as immediately beneficial to society, but is probably equally important in the bigger picture.
A happy student

A happy student
I’ve been painting since many of you were in short pants, and teaching since you were angst-ridden teenagers. You could read my long and boring CV here, or you can cut to the main point: lots of people have become better artists by studying with me.
I understand from my pals that it’s hotter than blue blazes in my birth state of New York. I was dismayed to see photos from last weekend’s Battle of Fort Niagara reenactment in Youngstown, NY. The parade grounds appear as parched, brown and dusty as the ancient walls of the fort itself. It’s been hot, humid and hazy downstate, too, where there’s been an air quality advisory for metropolitan New York. In fact, that’s the way it’s been going for much of America so far this summer.
Concentrating.

Concentrating.
Here in Rockport, Maine, it is hitting the 70s, but there is a cool breeze. In Acadia, it might even be a few degrees cooler. That’s one reason you should consider joining me in Acadia’s Schoodic Institute for this year’s Sea & Sky workshop from August 7 to 12.
The Schoodic Institute isn’t open to the public. To stay there, you need to be part of an educational program. That makes it quiet and secluded. I’ve watched its transition from a former navy base to its current incarnation as an educational institution. Someday we will all brag about having been there.
Me, demoing.

Me, demoing.
Some of the best painting on the East Coast is there. High granite cliffs drop down to the misty green depths of Frenchmen’s Bay. Atlantic surf roars onto Schoodic point in the clear light of Maine, which is like no other light in the northeast.
If you’re a history buff, you know that this is Acadia’s centennial year. That makes our workshop part of an amazing run of history.
Our lobster bake.

Our lobster bake.
The cost for this whole shindig including instruction, meals, accommodation, and a lobster feast is just $1600. Compare that to other workshops and you’ll realize it’s a great deal.
Yes, I have a few openings left. I believe that the people who go are those who are meant to go. Perhaps that’s you. If so, email me soon so you can snag one of these last spots.