2016 | Page 3 of 12 | Carol L. Douglas

November 23, 2016

Holiday multitasking

“The Cliff under Owls Head,” is among six paintings heading to the Kelpie Gallery today.

I have been the assistant to some fine chefs over the years. I usually get fired. “Needs a high degree of supervision,” said one. “Too slow,” said another. So it was with relief that I allowed my ServSafe food service manager certification to expire this year. (Why I had it is a whole ‘nother story, which I shan’t tell you until the rest of the gang are safely rounded up.) It’s of little use to know that potato starch is a potential food allergen when you have no idea what to do with the stuff in the first place.

Nonetheless, as I sometimes huff, I can bake; it’s just straight-up high-school chemistry. I just don’t do it often. This means I get elected to make the pies at Thanksgiving. Well, that and the fact that nobody wants me in the kitchen on the actual day.

I also make cranberry chutney because the recipe came from my mother’s good friend. Nobody admits to actually liking it, but it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it.

I seem to have turned into a matriarch, something I have a hard time reconciling with my youthful sex appeal. Nevertheless, there appear to be some 18 of us gathering in Massachusetts. That means a lot of pies, and I have to make them early.

Paintings waiting on the dining room table.

Paintings rising on the dining room table. No, wait, that’s bread dough that does that.

I also need to deliver some paintings to the Kelpie Gallery in S. Thomaston. Neither pies nor paintings spring fully formed from one’s imagination; they require actual time and effort, darn it. So the question was how to meet both obligations, and the answer was, imperfectly.

By evening, I had six paintings on my dining room table, which were not the complete inventory she asked for. One of them is putting up quite a fight. It’s been sent to time-out until it sees the wisdom of not changing its value structure in mid-painting. The rest look great, and I’m reminded again how a fresh set of eyes see new things in your work.

Pie crusts make me far more nervous than painting. My solution is to become extremely methodical, measuring the lard and butter into individual sets over here, and the flour and salt into individual bowls over there. The trouble is, my bedtime is 7 PM. My ancient food processor knew I was tired and was throwing tantrums. I called in backup: my unflappable husband. He measured while I laid hands on the dough and pronounced it good.

Pie crusts in progress.

Then I went to bed and debated whether eight pies is really enough for 18 people. This is a recessive Italian gene. One can hide it, just as one can straighten one’s hair, but it still surfaces at the least opportune times.

That had better be enough, I told myself grimly. I need to bake those pies, load our car, and head down the road, stopping only to drop off the paintings and the dog (hopefully in the right places). Have a lovely and blessed holiday, my friends.

November 22, 2016

Learn to paint in beautiful Acadia

Now is the time to buy an artist you love—possibly even yourself—a special gift for Christmas. Spend a week painting with Carol L. Douglas in one of the most beautiful venues in America—inspirational, mystical Schoodic in Maine’s Acadia National Park. And if you reserve before January 1, you can save $100!

Far from the hustle and bustle of Bar Harbor, Schoodic has dramatic rock formations, pounding surf, and stunning mountain views that draw visitors from around the world.

At 440 feet above sea level, Schoodic Head offers a panoramic view of crashing surf, windblown pines and enormous granite outcroppings laced with black basalt. Across Frenchman’s Bay, Cadillac Mountain towers over the headlands of Mt. Desert Island.

You might look up from your easel to see dolphins, humpback whales or seals cavorting in the waves. Herring gulls will visit while eiders and cormorants splash about.

A day trip to the harbor at Corea, ME is included. Far off the beaten path, Corea, ME is a village of small frame houses, fishing piers and lobster traps. Its working fleet bustles in and out of the harbor.

Your instructor, nationally known painter and teacher Carol L. Douglas, has taught in Maine, New York, New Mexico and elsewhere, and regularly returns to Acadia.

Concentrate on painting

Meals and accommodations at the beautiful Schoodic Institute are included in your fee. This former navy base is located right at Schoodic Head. It gives workshop students unrivalled access to the park.

All skill levels and media are welcome

Carol Douglas has more than fifteen years’ experience teaching students of all levels in watercolor, oils, acrylics and pastels. Her Acadia workshops are very popular. “This was the best painting instruction I have ever had. Carol’s advice in color mixing was particularly eye-opening. Her explanations are clear and easy to understand. She is very approachable and supportive. I would take this course again in a heartbeat.” (Carol T.)

Easily accessible

It’s easy to get to painting locations on the Schoodic Peninsula. A ring road with frequent pull-offs means you never walk more than a few hundred feet to your painting destination. And Schoodic itself is only 90 minutes from Bangor International Airport.

To register

The one-week workshop is just $1600, including five days’ accommodation in a private room with shared bath, meals, snacks, and instruction. Accommodations for non-painting partners and guests are also available. Your deposit of $300 holds your space, and if you reserve before January 1, you can save $100 off the price.

You can download a registration form here or a brochure here. Complete registration forms should be returned by mail to Carol L. Douglas, PO Box 414, Rockport, ME 04856-0414 with your $300 deposit. Or email the form here and make a credit card payment by phone to 585-201-1558.

Refunds are available up to 60 days prior to start, less a $50 administration fee. Final payment is due 60 days prior to the start of the workshop.

November 21, 2016

Art is history

Photo courtesy of Olesya Lysenko, Russia

In an isolated field in northeastern Finland, a group of one thousand human effigies have stood watch since 1994. They are The Silent People of Suomussalmi, and they were the brainchild of artist Reijo Kela. Although his work is often called “site specific,” his scarecrow army actually wandered around since its birth in 1988—including a tour in Helsinki—before coming to rest in Suomussalmi.

The Silent People were created by Kela as part of performance piece, Ilmarin Kynnös, which documented the life of a farmer in Suomussalmi in the early 20th century. This period included the bloody invasion of Finland by Russian troops in the Winter War of 1939-40 and the subsequent depopulation of farm areas in the post-war period. At the end, Kela’s farmer fades into the people of history, the Silent People.

Photo courtesy of Olesya Lysenko, Russia

This part of Finland has been, until modern times, been called the Land of Hunger. The famine of 1695–1697, for example, killed a third of Finland’s population. The Silent People’s clothes hang from their frames in mute testimony to that.

Scarecrows are ephemeral creatures, made to last a season or two and be replaced. A scarecrow built in 1988 would be, in dog years, quite dead. Yet the Silent People remain meticulously dressed, their peat heads lovingly plumped up. They are maintained by the young people of Suomussalmi through the auspices of the Suomussalmi Youth Workshop.

Kela had initially intended the Silent People in his film to be played by actual humans, but was unable to hire actors. He then commissioned the first 240 stick figures to be made by the Youth Workshop, whose mission is to train local unemployed kids. That number of scarecrows corresponded to the number of unemployed youth in the town, which has fewer than 9000 inhabitants.

Photo courtesy of Timo Newton-Syms, United Kingdom

Each June, a group of kids and adults arrive at the field carrying replacement crosses and trash bags filled with clothing. The figures are stripped, revealing the Silent People to be a field of crosses. Some of the youngsters dig fresh peat heads for the figures (in lieu of straw) while others redress the figures in fresh clothing, which includes pullovers, shirts and undershirts. The old clothes are taken to the dump to be burned. In late September, the same group goes back to the field to dress the figures for winter.

The town works hard to maintain the figures primarily because it has economic benefit: the Silent People have become a tourist attraction. But there’s also identity involved. “To me, these effigies are the people of Kainuu. Life here has been so tough, they have been fighting to earn their living and their daily bread, really. So they are not people who make revolutions. They are humble, but they still, somehow they’re proud in their humility. They are not people who you can crush under your shoe,” a woman told researcher Karen Vedel.

Ours is a very young country in comparison to Finland, and yet I see our ancestors also marching away from us into a misty past. The challenge lies in telling our similar story without merely copying The Silent People of Suomussalmi.

November 18, 2016

What am I grateful for?

There is fantastic depth of field in this landscape by Giles Wood.

November is officially Gratitude Month, according to the internet (so it must be true). I don’t know where it started, but a few years ago, it was popular on Facebook to list something for which you were grateful every day of the month. I liked it, and I have continued playing even as my friends have all moved on to fighting about politics.

It’s very easy to do, once you stop writing obvious lists like, “my husband, my kids, my job, my…” and start thinking about what makes you smile: a shaft of sunlight on your bedroom floor or the susurration of leaves in the wind.

Landscape by Giles Wood.

We all understand that we can always find something to complain about. Therefore the obverse must also be true: there is something for which to be grateful. It may be a small pinprick of light in a dark world, but it’s there.

Paying attention to the happiness-producing things in my life makes me see more of them, which is why I’m so grateful for this Gratitude Month thing.

Gratitude has nothing to do with objective reality. If it did, I’d be swearing right now, since my back has been out all week.

But that allows me more time to read than usual. Indeed, my last gratitude-insight occurred late last night when I read this letter from an artist to agony aunt Mary Killen in The Spectator. Most artists understand the problem of being broke in the company of wealthier people, but that isn’t what made me laugh aloud. It was when Killen suggested that the writer pretend to want to paint nocturnes at supper-time. “You can splodge away while they are out. You never know, you might learn something.”

Interior by Giles Wood. Nice linoleum.

That’s a winning solution, even by Killen’s devilishly clever standards. How does she understand the artist’s mind so well? It turns out that the queen of advice to posh Britons has been married for 28 years to painter Giles Wood. Their house is so run down it’s called “the grottage” by their circle of friends.

And he’s a very good painter. His drawing is lovely, his paint handling is economical, and he seems to be using a half-box easel that’s missing its tray. His website badly needs a redesign and his studio appears to be a mess. Dude, you’re one of us!

November 17, 2016

It’s a fake, darn it!

“Women working in wheat field, Auvers-sur-oise,” 1890, Vincent van Gogh.

I often say I’m not a big believer in an art genius, any more than I’m a believer in a math genius or a language genius. Almost everyone can learn to draw, just as almost everyone can learn to do sums, write or sing. To make this point, I frequently point people to Van Gogh’s drawing. By dint of hard work, his drawing went from pedestrian to splendid in just a few short years.

Vincent van Gogh: the Lost Arles Sketchbook was published simultaneously this week in France, the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. Its author, Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, is a respected Van Gogh scholar from the University of Toronto. “When I opened it up, the first thing I said was, ‘No, unbelievable!’ The first drawing that I took out and held in my hands, it was a moment of total mystical experience: ‘Oh my goodness, this is impossible!’” said Welsh-Ovcharov.

The book is based on a folio purported to contain 65 recently-discovered Van Gogh drawings from his mature period. Van Gogh’s drawings are very instructive. He used a pencil or pen with the same flourish as a brush, creating works with energetic and detailed mark-making using an enormous range of technique. Even at the nosebleed list price of $85, the book was making my credit card hand start to itch.

“Small house on road with pollarded willows,” 1881, Vincent van Gogh.

But wait, there’s more! On Tuesday the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam—the accepted top dogs on the subject—released a statement saying that the drawings are fakes. Among other things, they say that the drawings do not show the rapid development in skill that was the hallmark of this period in his work.

I wouldn’t need anything more to convince me, because that’s the defining characteristic of his drawing career. However, the Museum also notes that the drawings include topographical errors. Van Gogh was a meticulous recorder of reality. It is inconceivable that any painter would forget the details of a place in which he lived and worked. Drawing has a way of deeply imprinting them on your being.

“Vincent’s boarding house In Hackford Road, Brixton, London,” 1873, Vincent van Gogh.

I feel like a kid who just got socks for Christmas instead of the toy I really wanted. This doesn’t, however, negate what Van Gogh’s drawings say to me as an artist and teacher: to paint, you need to be able to draw, and you need to do it as regularly and naturally as you brush your teeth.

November 16, 2016

A question of identity

Self-portrait having surgical stitches removed. I asked to remove one myself, just to see how it was done.

I have survived two different cancers. The first one showed up in my 40th year, but a gastroenterologist dismissed the bleeding as running-related hemorrhoids. (Yes, I once was really that active.) In his mind, I was too young and too vegetarian for it to be colon cancer. By the time it was properly diagnosed, the tumor had breached the bowel wall. What could have been a quick snip ended up being a year of intensive treatment.

My second cancer was much less dramatic. Again it started with internal bleeding, this time from a uterine tumor. Those parts had all been pretty well microwaved during my first treatment, so they just took them all out.

The oddity wasn’t just having two cancers; it was having them younger than the age recommended by the NIH. I was tested for Lynch Syndrome, or hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer, as it used to be called. Unsurprisingly, it came up positive.

I’m pretty larky, so when people asked me if I was journaling about my experiences, I told them I was writing a book called One Hundred Best Things about Having Cancer. (Number one, of course, was getting out of leading Youth Group.) Yeah, I was likely to die of cancer, but we’re all going to die of something. In practical terms, nothing really changed. I was already being screened aggressively, and it didn’t change that.

But deep down it affected my thinking. I’m a carrier of cancer, I told myself. I may have given this to my children. I don’t have an infinite amount of time left. I have to hurry to finish what I’ve set out to do.

This year I decided I was sick of defining myself as a cancer survivor. I know too many people who are entering old age in prisons of health problems to want to build one for myself. It’s not like I can just pretend it never happened, because all that treatment radically changed my body. But I wouldn’t talk or think about it anymore. I no longer needed to see my life through a lens of cancer.

Pastor Alvin Parris of Joy Community Church in Rochester, NY. He’s a talented musician and preacher, and he aims to finish the race strong.

Then, late this summer, I got another letter from my geneticist. It said they’d had another look-see at my profile and decided that my gene mutation wasn’t really Lynch Syndrome after all. Never mind.

Practically speaking, that changes little. I still go regularly to Rochester to be poked and prodded. But it does raise the question asked in Isaiah 53:1: “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”

Pastor Alvin Parris in Rochester, NY has been on dialysis since I met him. He is physically frail, but his inner power just glows. Last week his son commented, “Every time I hear my dad preach, I think about how the doctor told him that by the time he was 50, preaching was one of the many things he would no longer be able to do. He’s 65 now.”

That’s a role model for our generation.

November 15, 2016

A neighbor tells me about Beech Hill

My students, painting the beautiful view from Camden Hills State Park.

You never know what you’re going to learn at the grocery store. Sunday, we ran into a neighbor at Shaw’s. He not only pointed out a coupon we’d missed, but he also told us that his fireplace and chimney were built by Hans O. Heistad, who was the landscape architect who built Beech Nut on top of Beech Hill in Rockport. It’s one of my favorite day walks, but I’d never spared a thought about its history.

Beech Hill is a blueberry barren owned and maintained by the Coastal Mountains Land Trust. At its top, 500 feet above sea level sits a peculiar, lovely stone structure called Beech Nut. It was designed and built in 1917 by Heistad as a picnic hut for a local estate. It affords a fantastic view of Penobscot Bay and the Camden Hills.

Beech Nut at dusk.

A long carriage drive curves up the hilltop. It is designed to slowly reveal the scenic panorama as you climb. At the top, Beech Nut stands a little behind the path. A squat and sturdy stone building, it hints at Heistad’s Norwegian heritage with its sod roof and deep porch.

Heistad also designed the interior furnishings, none of which have survived. The site was rehabilitated and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Hans Heistad was born in Brevik, Norway. He studied landscape gardening and horticulture there and in Denmark and worked in Germany before immigrating to the United States in 1905. Employed by the Olmsted Brothers, he came to Maine to work at Chatwold, the Pulitzer estate in Bar Harbor.

Heistad worked on numerous private estates in Camden and Rockport . When the Depression caused private money to dry up, he began working in the public sector. He worked as staff landscape architect to develop Camden Hills State Park as a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) project.

Camden Hills was a fortuitous meshing of Heistad’s own style and the prevailing ethos of park developers. Heistad liked working with native plants and local stone. At the same time, park services were instructing their employees to respect their sites’ natural character and use local materials and construction techniques. Heistad was primarily responsible for developing the fifty acres along the oceanfront to be accessible to the public. To this end, his CCC workers cleared brush and built roads and structures.

The next time I take someone for a walk up Beech Hill, I’ll know a little more about its history.

November 14, 2016

Shouting into the well

“Untitled,” by Carol L. Douglas.

Sometimes we do work that is very important to us, but the public reception seems lukewarm or nonexistent. It feels like you’re shouting down a well for all the good it does.

That happened to me when I finished my series on misogyny. I felt very bleak when it was closed down after a few days. Now I realize you can’t judge the public’s reaction by the feedback you don’t get. Still, silence is terrible.

Barb Whitten was a tad dispirited on Friday night after her opening for The Usual Suspects. Attendance was very low. I was being my usual annoyingly-positive self, pointing out that there were office buildings along Water Street and people didn’t need to go inside PopUp 265: A Fresh ArtSpace to see the work; the whole installation was visible from the street.

“Untitled,” by Carol L. Douglas.

I told Barb about a workshop student of mine who had commented on my blog post about her show:

“This will be an interesting and thought provoking art opening! Art reflects life, and helps us to empathize and consider the rights and the wrongs that so many in society are experiencing today. I would like to be able to go to this opening, just to talk with and listen to others, and reflect on the issues together. It could be scary and messy but we all need to face the messes our country is experiencing and pray for God’s wisdom as to how to heal our land.”

She couldn’t be at the opening, but she’d told her Facebook friends about it.

Sunday, Barb got a phone call from a perfect stranger, who said:

“I saw the number on the window and just wanted to call and tell whoever was responsible that I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen and a really good way to address and call attention to the things that are going on in our world today.”

And then I got an email from a reader, which said, simply:

“Brilliant work. The whole planet is still in shock, confusion, disbelief.”

“Begger,” by Carol L. Douglas.

This is a three-part message, then.

If you see art that moves you, talk about it. It makes a difference to the artist when the audience is engaged. He spent days, weeks or years creating his or her half of the dialogue, and we’re all cheated if it turns into a monologue.

Art really is more than painting pretty lighthouses for money. I make no apologies about painting landscapes, but there is a subtext to art. It can’t be jammed solely into an economic impact statement.

Don’t assume that if you don’t get immediate feedback to your art, nobody is listening. Because I write this blog, I’m in a position to hear a lot of comments. People are far more engaged than you’ll ever know.

Addendum: The Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle recently interviewed me about figure model Michelle Long. It’s a nice piece and can be read here.

November 11, 2016

Challenge your assumptions

This evening I will stroll over to PopUp 265: A Fresh ArtSpace in Augusta for the opening of Barbra Whitten’s The Usual Suspects. Since I helped her do the two-person part of her installation a few weeks ago, I’m looking forward to the final project.

A graceful old storefront on Water Street, PopUp265’s plate glass windows act like a kind of fish bowl, magnifying the contents. When I last saw the work, it hadn’t spread over the floor yet. How it’s going to work with a crowd is an interesting question.

The figures were painted in an intentionally amorphous way, giving the viewer lots of room to personify them in their own imagination. I immediately identified with one who seemed to be dressed in evening wear. I felt uneasy seeing this figure later with a pentagram on her chest, for a pentagram is anathema to my religious values. Will tonight’s visitors see past the symbols to personalize the figures, or will they be stopped cold by the symbols? Since this question is at the heart of the work, I’m curious to watch the interactions.

Whitten’s earlier piece, now at the Maine Holocaust and Human Rights Center.

Whitten based her figure on a piece she did six years ago as a student at University of Maine at Augusta (UMA). This piece is currently on exhibit at the Maine Holocaust & Human Rights Center at UMA, in Equal Protection of the Laws: America’s Fourteenth Amendment.

The piece has particular resonance with the current crisis in American politics, where we seem to be interacting with labels instead of people. As Whitten’s artist statement says:

This work invites us to…

…EXAMINE important issues;

…REFLECT on our positions;

…IDENTIFY our values;

…CHALLENGE our assumptions;

…ACKNOWLEDGE our prejudices;

…CONFRONT our fears;

…RECOGNIZE our shortcomings;

…ADMIT our failures;

…ACCEPT responsibility for our choices;

…CONSIDER alternative viewpoints;

…ASK difficult questions;

…SHARE our experiences;

…EXPRESS our feelings;

…LISTEN to each other;

…LEARN from each other;

…FIND the good in each other;

…STAND UP for each other;

… APPRECIATE our differences;

…WORK for social justice;

and

…CHANGE our world.

PopUp265 is located at 265 Water Street, Augusta, ME. There are two artist’s receptions: from noon to 1 PM today and 6-7 PM this evening.

November 10, 2016

NEFA needs your input, artists

Small still life by Carol L. Douglas.

I spent a happy half hour completing a survey of creative workers in New England. (The link is here.) This is a well-designed survey that asks real questions about our economic and social life. Since the economic impact of the arts is generally misunderstood by the bean-counters of this world, it behooves us all to answer, and to do so as accurately as possible.

This is the third employment-specific study done by New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) since 1978. Its purpose is to determine which creative occupations are flourishing in New England and how the arts mesh with other economic sectors.

My inner accountant is always leery of studies that are too vague or touchy-feely to be of practical use. This study is not like that at all. It asks specific geographical, economic and behavioral questions. In fact, I found it helpful to have my 2015 income tax return handy. However, they want to hear from you even if you aren’t making enough money to declare your art income as a business, and they want to hear about the parts of your work that are unpaid. If you’re concerned about the security of your financial information, don’t be; the survey itself is blind.

Small still life by Carol L. Douglas.

The story of Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, demonstrates why precise economic information about the arts is important for urban planning. Prior to the millennium, Williamsburg was a low-rent district. Artists began to see its value and moved in. In the early 2000s, it became a hub of contemporary music, visual arts and local hipster culture. Since then, it has steadily gentrified. What could have been a hole in Brooklyn’s side is now a popular neighborhood.

Of course, the same could be said about Rockland, ME, which I recently heard described by a tourist as “the Santa Fe of the East.” Belfast is another town that has changed a great deal since the last NEFA survey in 2007. The only way NEFA is going to be aware of the breadth of these changes is if the artists in our towns tell them.

NEFA defines creative workers as visual artists, dancers, musicians, theater makers, designers, craftspeople, architects, digital media creators, culture bearers, writers, and more. If you’re in doubt, log in and see if you’re meant to be counted.

The survey closes on November 18, so you don’t really have much time. It is restricted to residents of the six New England states.