Back to oils

Three weeks ago, I turned 66, and acted on a decision I've been making over the past couple of months: I started painting in oils again. 

Even though we have this spacious and light-filled studio here in Montreal, for some reason I stopped working in oils after we moved back in 2006, turning instead to media that were complementary to my newly-established publishing business -- like linocut -- and doing more daily sketching and drawing. When I painted, it tended to be in watercolor or acrylic, or else I worked in pastel or charcoal -- all works on paper that took up less storage space and were odorless. My mother's big easel, made by my dad, has been set up here the entire time, but I haven't used it very much; I tend to work standing up at my large, adjustable drawing table.

In Vermont, I had a small painting studio in a room in the back of our garage; it looked out on the garden and functioned as both studio and a meditation/quiet space for me. I missed that space a lot when we moved here, and it wasn't easy for me to learn to share a big open space with my husband, or to find the concentrated, solitary focus that painting -- so I always thought -- requires. But I've changed over these years; we work here together quite happily now, with the room somewhat divided in half but without barriers or partitions, each quietly doing our own thing.

Clementine and Mexican ceramics, A recent watercolor, 9" x 6" (detail).

Oil painting used to be my main medium, and it's what matters to me the most. I'm not sure why -- perhaps I think it has a better chance of lasting, but I think it's mostly because it presents the greatest challenges. Watercolor is notoriously difficult and unforgiving, it's true, and I love it and will always work in it. But for some reason, I've experienced greater highs and deeper lows with oil, and I think that struggle has taught me the most about myself. 

Getting back to oils has been in my mind over the past year or so -- a kind of nagging little voice in the back of my head. When we lost our friend and fellow artist, Jenny, at the end of the summer, and I thought about my own upcoming birthday, I realized a decision had already been made, almost without consciously realizing it. Jenny had also worked in many different media over her lifetime, but in recent years she had turned to ceramics and was making fantastic, often whimsical objects and sculptures that were a reflection of her personality and spirit -- and she loved it, she had really found her perfect medium. At the musical wake the day after Jenny's memorial service, I sat on the couch in their apartment, singing and listening to music being played, talking to old friends, while looking at Jenny's ceramics arrayed on a long window shelf, the towers of Manhattan rising behind them. On a perpendicular wall, over the piano, was an oil painting of mine that I gave Jenny and Bill a long time ago, accompanied by one of Jonathan's photographs, and a portrait in oils of Jenny's mother by a well-known New York artist. It made me think. To some extent, my desire to start again in this medium is a way to remember and honor our friend, and acknowledge that time is passing. If not now, when?

Rocks and Cacti at Cefalu. Oil on canvas, 10" x 12". September 2018.

Of course, the decision to start again with something I'd left off more than a decade ago came with some questions. I'm not the same person I was then, and I've changed as an artist too; it's not a resumption, it's more of a new beginning. First off, did it have to be oils? I had bought new acrylics over the past years. Though I'm not a snob about it, acrylics have never completely satisfied me for painting on canvas, and I like using them on paper, but they didn't call to me. I have a lovely French box easel, too, that is portable and folds up into a small space; I took it apart and set it up; my paints were stored in the drawer. I did an inventory of my paints, which were not in great shape or abundance: to my surprise, some old pigments in lead tubes had weathered the intervening years much better than newer paints in aluminum. In the studio, I do have a number of blank canvases: beautiful Belgian linen that I had stretched, covered with rabbit-skin glue, and oil-primed before we ever moved here. I got out a small one, squeezed some oil paint onto a palette, poured some odorless medium into a cup. I took up a brush. With the first stroke came a rush of sensory impressions, followed by strong memories. It felt not just OK, but very good.

 

View of Cefalu. Oil on canvas, 12" x 10". October 2018.

The second question was, and still is, where do I want to go with it? In the last two weeks I did two small paintings to get back my feel for the medium and how to handle it, and although neither feels like an indication of direction, they were both helpful and I enjoyed doing them. I've been looking at a lot of work in books and online; I've been thinking both about the places we've traveled -- the light in the Mediterranean and in Mexico -- and also about the still lives I've drawn steadily for a long while. I've been doing some color tests; another thing that's changed is that I'm more analytical now and more willing to put in the effort to learn more about my tools. I'm not going to try to force anything, but I have some ideas; we'll see what happens and what grows naturally out of the process of doing. One big change is that I know that whatever I paint now will be greatly supported by all the drawing I've done since 2010. Drawing is always the foundation, even when the work is abstract.

Toward the sea, Agrigento. 9" x 6", charcoal and graphite on toned paper. A just-finished drawing for a new painting.

It makes me happy to be doing this. Painting always feels like a miracle to me, as do all the arts: beginning from blankness and silence, then creating and building something that grows out of what felt empty, but was always actually filled with potential. What could be more hopeful and life-affirming than that? And yet it's so easy to get caught in the destructive and doubting void, particularly now, when the world often feels hopeless and negative, and so many are despairing and angry. I don't want to be like that; I want to work, as long as I'm able, to see and express something better and more beautiful about our world and my small place in it. That's the real decision that was made.

Comments

[Dale Favier]

Oh, excellent!

[Duchesse]

From what I've seen of your work, one medium supports another, but there is always a reverent embrace of the natural world (even when you draw a still life of objects. I especially like the translucent quality of watercolour and paused for a while to think of your term "unforgiving".

The awareness of time left calls us both to new forms and to the return of old ones; if we are lucky we bring a lifetime of experience to the old.

[Roderick Robinson]

I know nothing about painting. On top of this I suffered from an incapacity to pick and relate colours when this was required for graphic arts projects associated with the magazines I edited. Thus I am free to play the innocent.

I'm guessing but aren't a majority of the world's painting masterpieces done in oils? And if so, might this be a contributory reason for your switch back?

When I took up singing lessons nearly three years ago the first work I was presented with (at my first lesson, too!) was O Isis und Osiris from Magic Flute. Luckily I'd heard the opera several times and I wasn't starting entirely from scratch. Even so, after two or three attempts I broke down in tears. To be taking instruction from a score directly attributable to Mozart changed my whole attitude towards music: a sense of privilege (with concomitant obligations) awaited and I've applied myself as best I can ever since. Progress, however miniscule, has been a recurring celebration

Your paintings will, of course, copy no one's. They will be your own. But oil is a tradition as well as a medium. On this demanding substance huge, influential achievements have been founded. Faced with encompassing the nose on a subject's face might you remind youself of how a certain Dutchman tackled this same feature - over and over, in fact, and using the same medium - with spectacular results? Or is this mere fancy on my part?

My ignorance isn't entirely all-embracing. The texture of the hilll (mountain?) dominating the View of Cefalu is familiar to me. It's a style you've made your own. And that's another thing...

[Pascale Parinda]

So happy for you! Returning to something you love is a marvelous feeling.

[Beth]

Thanks, Dale.

Duchesse, thanks for commenting, and yes, you're right, one medium does inform another and I've always felt it was good to move around in them. Watercolor *is* unforgiving: you have one shot, you can't erase or correct, and overworking results in a muddy mess. The luminous transparency we both like in finished works is a product of speed, deftness, skill, experience, confidence, high-quality paper and pigments, and a large dose of good luck! The thing is, a failed watercolor represents a few hours at most and the investment of a sheet of paper, while a failed oil painting means days and weeks of work and much greater investment in materials. But because oil is more forgiving, and allows reworking and built-up layers, I'm less likely to abandon a painting, but to try to bring it to completion: hence the struggle I alluded to. Maybe I'll write more about this in a subsequent post!

Robbie, that Dutchman's nose is a touchstone, so to speak! Thanks for your comments here. Yes, most of the world's masterpieces historically were done in oil, but that isn't necessarily the case now, since high-quality acrylics have been available. I'm just a purist and I really enjoy both the feeling of painting in oils and the quality of the surface and colors one can achieve with them - I still don't feel this is equaled by any other medium. What you say about being part of a tradition also matters to me - and that tradition of excellence and striving spurs me on to try my best, just as you pursue music. I feel infinitely fortunate to be able to be an artist in my later years; I worked hard to be able to have time now to devote to it and I want to be serious about it.

[Beth]

Thanks, Pascale! So true.

[maria]

Yes! I always loved your work in every medium, but here, even on the computer screen, I can feel the power of life-giving joy in your brush strokes, the way rock and sea cradle the city.

[Jean]

Dear Beth, I'm moved and excited for you and longing to see what you direction your work moves in.

[Beth]

Thanks, Maria! I'm glad if some of the emotion comes across in these little images on the screen!

Jean, thank you. I'm anxious to see what happens too, and I know I'm often inspired by the works of female artists that you post. I try to hold onto that inspiration rather than being angry at how underrepresented and unrecognized women artists have been throughout history -- it's awful, and a deliberate erasure, frankly. I'm glad we're living at a time when this is less the case, and where at least sharing work and encouraging our fellow artists, female and male, can take place across all borders

[Lorianne]

Wonderful. I'm glad you're painting again. These images are vivid and alive, testament to the contentment you describe here.

[Mike]

Looking forward to seeing more!

[Rachel Barenblat]

Beautiful, Beth. You inspire me, now as always.

[Natalie]

I love the painting of Cefalu rocks and cacti, full of light, a limited palette, silvery, intense and focused. Very happy that you're recapturimg enthusiasm for painting, Beth. Oils, acrylics, watercolour, drawings, prints, clay, ceramic, fabric etc. all the media have their idiosyncracies, their rules, histories and challenges, but what matters is how one feels when using a specificr medium, whether it suits what one is trying to convey via an art form. I think of media like musical instruments or languages. Is painting in oil more like speaking French than English? Playing piano or flute? Not taking metaphors too far, my concern at present is to eliminate, narrow down the choics, of media as well as style and content.
Wish you weren't so far away! Sorry I missed your birthday, my warmest thoughts floating out to you.

[Vivian]

Love this whole conversation—you put the mediums in the balance with mind and heart and will and time as the counterweights and Natalie adds purpose. Which is why you blog as well as paint. Oh yes. And I rad. Love this morning!

[Vivian]

Read.

[marly youmans]

If not now, when is always a good question. Loved this post.

[Beth]

Natalie, thank you so much, I agree with your sentiments about narrowing down the choices, it feels necessary to me too. And thank you for liking the Cefalu rocks and cacti painting - I like it much better than the other one, there's something about its intensity and sense of enclosure, surrounded by the sea, that conveys how I felt about that particular place. I too wish we could just meet up for coffee!

Vivian, thanks -- you do much more than read.

Marly, well, yes, it is the perennial question but becomes rather more urgent with each year! Thanks.