Sunset, Thursday, 6 August 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

So I’m chopping some really potent onions from Integral Yoga, and this doesn’t usually happen but tears are flooding down my face, the sunset (meaning the image I will want to paint) is happening unexpectedly early and is one of the strongest sunsets it seems like we’ve had in weeks, and the iPod has decided to throw down one of Don McLean’s major I’m-killing-you-softly ballads (“Crossroads,” as it happens), but I’m actually laughing because the tears have nothing to do with the beautiful sunset, or the song, or even with the following:

Oh, I’m scared of the middle place
Between light and nowhere.

                        “Hope There’s Someone” – Antony & The Johnsons

The sun goin’ down, boy
Dark gon’ catch me here.

                        “Cross Road Blues” (Take 2) – Robert Johnson

Twilight, Saturday, 27 June 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.

This was only 15 or so minutes after the sunset.

Change happens.

I decided ‘twilight’ was a better description than ‘15 or so minutes after sunset’. Then, as I was painting, the iChing (iPod on shuffle) threw out Antony & The Johnsons, “Twilight.”

I have yet to hear anything by Antony that I haven’t liked. I would say he’s the marriage (?) of Boy George and Roy Orbison, except that fails to do justice, if not to his talent, to something that he expresses. I first encountered him through his soul-shaking performance of “If It Be Your Will” on Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Several of the performances on that soundtrack, while perfectly fine in the context of the film, grow precious on further listening – but not that one. Rufus Wainwright is another notable exception.

Shooting this linen canvas – the photo setup involved – gave me a chance to add a sunset that I really like, involving the Lincoln Memorial, from January 5th.

I’ve also added a new entry – “Looking at the Sunset (Part 5)” – a sketch that I originally thought was bad. In fact, I only ran across it again because I’d sketched this crazy twilight on the back of the same sheet! 

My reversal of opinion about my own sketch – I actually like it a great deal – illustrates something I told my students (Willa, Mohan, and Lakshmi) about a dozen times each, when they’d be discouraged or dismayed by something they’d tried to do – and it’s something that I told them (every time) I have trouble learning myself. Especially in visual art, the quality of what you do can’t be judged by your own immediate emotional reaction. Save your work – save your sketches! If nothing else, days, weeks or years later when you encounter them again, they’ll bring back some part of your life to you.

You may also be surprised how much more promising they seem than they did on the day you were caught up in judging yourself.