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And the Winner is AKA Who's on First

 by Jill Peckelun on 6/20/2010 10:21:37 AM
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The Grange Tree

I've won a couple of awards lately.  First place in Kutztown's Alfresco! plein air festival, fifth place in the Lehigh Art Alliance 75th Anniversary exhibition at Muhlenberg College.  I was very surprised at the Kutztown show, especially because its the second year in a row that I've won first place there.  The Big Cheese.  I felt very happy and grateful for both the recognition and the monetary benefits.  I wondered if I should have also felt a little embarrassed at the abundance of riches- I'm still unsure about that.  But, I needed that award as much as anyone and am very grateful for it.  As for the LAA show, I was just happy to get in the exhibition.  The level of work there is so high, and the historic nature of the show meant a lot to me.  Looking at the other work, I was surprised I got the award I did; there are so many pieces of varied styles and techniques and such excellent quality.  It must have been very difficult to judge it.  And, it is always difficult for me to compare my own work with others.  Again, I was delighted to get the recognition and the monetary benefit of an award.

I was reading something somewhere on Facebook the other week and someone commented on another person's post as being "shameless self promotion".  But, isn't that what marketing is?  We work so hard, putting everything we have into a piece.  If we're trying to make a living with our art, it doesn't do any good to not talk it up.  And, I think we owe it to the piece itself.  I love it when one of my works finds a good home.  And I love it when the income from sales lets me continue to paint another day.

And, so accordingly when I get awards, I talk it up.  I send out e-mail newsletters, post a comment on Facebook, tell my parents (because it makes them happy, not for marketing!).  But, its really just another tool in the resume.  An award reassures collectors that the piece they bought is not a fluke.  The more I promote my work, the more my work is noticed, the more I get to paint and find good homes for my pieces.  

It's easy for anyone to get caught up in the competition of it all.  But, neither art, nor life is about competition.  All artists have an obligation to support each others' creative efforts, to encourage each other, to share opportunities.  What happens to one of us, happens to all of us.  If we get caught up in painting a piece in a particular style for a particular show's judge, then we lose something- we lose the passion of why we are painting in the first place.  We should paint what we really want to paint- it will show in the work and viewers will respond to that.  Philosopher Howard Thurman says it well:

"Ask not what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive...then go do it.  Because the world needs people who have come alive."

Back to the awards.  I'm proud of the awards- I'm pleased when my work is recognized by a respected juror and grateful because that recognition brings a second look from others.  But, of course it doesn't define who I am. 

I'll tell you what I'm really proud of:  I'm proud of my efforts. 
I work at my art. 
I work at trying to be the best person I can be. 

I put in the time, the practice, the focus, the energy.  

Some of my favorite pieces get rejected from exhibitions. 
Sometimes my best attempts to be friendly are misunderstood. 

That's when its important to know that its enough that I gave it my best effort.  I take it seriously.  I also take it all lightheartedly.  It is important to simply celebrate the grace of this life.  Every day is a vacation day; every day is a work day.  Great happiness is bone deep.

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Self Portrait in Stars AKA When Dreams Come True

 by Jill Peckelun on 5/17/2010 10:39:12 AM
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Self Portrait in Stars

I had a painting simmering in my head for months about a figurative portrait somehow done in stars.  Then one morning I was standing in front of the mirror in my underwear and I thought, "Free model!"  And got my camera.

I'm a vivid dreamer with, if I do say so myself, remarkable recall of my dreams and have kept a dream journal for decades.  In one dream I was sprawled on my back at the family farm looking up at the starry sky.  Suddenly all the stars started to swirl around and some of them became people made up of stars and they were flying around the sky, some coming down toward the ground before swooping up again.  I thought, "I'm not missing out on this" and held up my hands so they could touch my fingers as they swooshed by and reached down toward me.  It was wonderful and I woke up happy.  I've never forgotten that dream and always wanted to paint an aspect of it in some way.  Then this spring I read a fabulous poem by William Wordworth from his Ode, Intimations of Immortality and I got really motivated.


 “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God who is our home…”

Isn't it lovely when you find someone else who thinks like you do?  But, I needed to work out both the concept and the technical aspects of it.  I've always admired Gustav Klimt's work and his use of gold leaf in paintings.  Somehow I wanted to use gold leaf to help represent the stars.  I've played around with acrylic metalic gold paint, but never used any actual leaf work in a painting so I was taking the entire process slowly.  I figured it was going to really work well, or be a complete flop.

What I ended up doing was first an acrylic underpainting of my own figure in some detail.  Then using acrylic medium as glue I applied gold leaf here and there.  I used a clear acrylic medium to seal the entire painting.  Then painted over it in oil paint, pretty much covering the figure until only the illusion of someone coming out of the stars was apparent.  Because I was making it up as I was going along, I kept the whole thing pretty small.  (Small painting, small problems my teacher used to say.)  I'm pretty happy with it.  Because it was a new technique for me and an inventive kind of painting there were more than the usual number of surprises along the way.  I liked that. 

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm thinking of doing some more dream paintings.  I do a lot of flying in my dreams...

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I Hear Voices in my Head AKA Speak Up!

 by Jill Peckelun on 4/19/2010 9:44:30 AM
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Spring Bluebells
I was in a good mood driving to an art reception the other week and as I set out I thought- "Tunes!" and flipped on the car radio only to hear the opening whiny chorus of the Rolling Stones'  "You can't always get what you wa-ant" and I said a bad word.

You see, I can pretty much know how I'm going to do at a show by the music that I inadvertently hear.  Every single freaking time I hear that cursed Rolling Stones' song I get nothing- no sales, no awards, nothing.  Just the work of delivery, pickup, attendance, and whatever expenses I incur to be in the show, etc.  Every. Single. Time.  I hate that song.  This has been going on for years.  And there's no escaping it.  Once I deliberately avoided all radios so I couldn't accidently hear it, but nope- got the song stuck in my head and there it was anyway.  No sales.  No awards.  Nothing.

On the other hand every time I hear a song with the word "faith" in it- I'm golden.  George Michael's "You've Got to Have Faith" is a good one.  Also John Hiatt's "Have a Little Faith in Me".  Sales.  Awards.  Collectors.  Yowza.

I try and use my intuitive connection when I apply to exhibitions.  Should I apply or not?  Is this the best piece for the show?  I speak to my paintings and ask them what they'd like to do.  Sometimes they say take me take me take me and I see the stars align.  Sometimes they stick out their tongue at me.

My DNA says I'm a mutt of several countries' ancestors.  But my soul family is primarily Irish and French.  They get pretty wound up when they're working around me and I'll see/hear dozens of French and Irish references.  Lots of stars too.  This doesn't predict outcome of any kind, but its more like a nice hug and a reassurance that I'm balanced and aligned rather than fighting upstream.

My birth family is quite tolerant of my point of view, at least to my face.  I'm pretty sure they think I'm an idiot, but I'm ok with that.  Relieves any stress of having to live up to expectations.  Besides, I completely understand how odd this sounds to anyone who isn't personally experiencing it.  It can sound odd to me too, but feels completely natural in the moment.  It's such a personally wacky thing that I can't believe I'm writing about it, but what's a blog for if I don't talk the walk?

So I'm writing this because last month I lost my mojo.  Went out to paint four times and they all stank.  This never happens to me.  I get the occasional whoopsie that I have to wipe off to save the painting panel, but never four in a row.  Plus, everyone was silent.  Didn't hear a thing, see any stars.  Life was so normal, it was surreal.  I was worried, I admit.  Every artist's nightmare- had it finally happened?  Had I forgotten everything I'd ever learned?  Did I have no more paintings left in me?  There was no joy in Mudville.

I went out by myself the beginning of the next week with steely determination.  I took my time.  Picked my spot.  Saw a natural composition and made it better.  Applied everything I'd learned and loved to do over the winter with snow to a meadow of bluebells.  And, I did it four days in a row.  What a relief.  I heard "Celebrate" on the radio.  Saw stars everywhere I looked.  Heard Irish accents and fell over French Fleur de Lis.  Life was back to normal. 

Great happiness.








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The Big Melt AKA Kaputski

 by Jill Peckelun on 3/19/2010 1:14:52 PM
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White Barn in Snow

It's been 60 degrees or more every day this week- I suppose that winter is over. 

Phooey.

I was hoping for one more snow.  I've had a lovely time painting such beautiful things.  With all due respect to the man, I am not an Andrew Wyeth kind of painter.  He was a superb tonalist.  I'm a _______ colorist.  (I'll let you supply the adjective.)  I love love love the creamy white covering of snow over stark fields and lawns.  And those blue and violet shadows!  Well, you know how I feel about cast shadows.  (See January 2010 blog.)  And even on an overcast day with no shadows it's so much fun to do a piece that is mostly negative space.  (Negative space is the area of a drawing or painting that is around the subject/object, not the subject/object itself.)  I like a bit of abstract composition in my realistic paintings and so this was working really well for me. 

And, now its all melted away.  Kaputski, as my husband Ed would say.

Phooey. 

Spring brings warm weather which is very nice indeed, of course.  But it'll be weeks and weeks before we get any leaves on those trees and things look anything other than well, like a stark, Andrew Wyeth tonalist painting.  Thank goodness for pine trees.  I don't know what I'd do to anchor a composition's darks without them in such a season.  Everyone thinks, "Spring!  Flowers and colors and fluffy clouds in bright blue skies!"  They're wrong I tell you.  Early spring is T.S. Eliot's "April is the cruelist month..." because everything feels warm and fresh but looks bleak and grim.  Oh, the irony. 

On the other hand, if kaputski with weather is anything like Ed's kaputski when referencing that this one, this one is the very last, yes! the very very very last cigarette he'll ever ever EVER have...well then, maybe we'll have another flurry or two before its all over.  Old habits are so very hard to break.

But, then again its always been difficult for me to say goodbye to one season before settling into the next one and the challenging motifs it will bring me.  I like change.  I'll enjoy the spring season.  Ed is nearly perfectly kaputski with cigarettes.  We'll get through this together...

Oh, what the heck: Happy Spring!

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Unseen Paintings AKA Thank you Dick Francis

 by Jill Peckelun on 2/24/2010 9:51:59 AM
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(I'm) Just a Man

I really enjoy reading fiction.  It's my preferred way to end each day.  And, naturally, being an artist, I always enjoy reading an author's take on characters who are artists.  It's impressive when the author gets the technical stuff right, funny when they don't.

Many authors give their artist characters superhuman artistic abilities.  It's annoying.  Who can compete with that?  If they are a portrait painter, why their portraits are epiphanies of illumination into a sitter's soul.  Overcome with emotion and stunned with the shock of such incisive character revelation, people weep when they view these paintings.  Right.  If the artist is a landscape painter, why then every other piece gets accepted into the National Gallery.  Of course.  They are forever prettily getting smudges of paint on their dainty noses.  Their hair is artfully tousled with their efforts.  What they can do with a cheap piece of charcoal and some inexpensive paper is amazing- having only had a glimpse of a dastardly criminal, they can dash off a portrait that gives no hiding place to the wanted for he is now known to everyone.

Obviously, fictional characters have a tremendous advantage over real life artists in that no one will ever see their work.  The books aren't illustrated with their paintings, no reader can judge for themselves what these pieces look like.  I can only hope that readers aren't disappointed when they look at real artwork by real artists and find themselves less than gobsmacked.  (Of course, real paintings can move a viewer to tears.  I confess that I did weep when I saw Bastien LePage's Joan of Arc at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time.  It is such a painting... I can't even describe its presence.)

Mystery author Dick Francis died this past week.  I will miss his presence on this earth.  And, I want to say for the record that I think he got it right.  He wrote two books with artist characters.  To the Hilt about an acrylic painter, and In the Frame about an equine painter.  Mr. Francis's artists were solid working artists with full lives who in the course of the novels did have a peak painting experience that was completely believable.  And inspiring for those of us who are artists. 

I'll think I'll re-read these both to celebrate his life and his life's work.  Thanks, Mr. Francis.

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Steering Clear AKA Warning: Artist on Board

 by Jill Peckelun on 1/25/2010 1:39:03 PM
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Cast Shadows

Now I like to think of myself as a responsible, cautious driver.  I'm not at all aggressive.  I refrain from talking on the phone.  I keep my mind on the matter.  But I admit that when I'm driving long stretches of highway when nothing much is happening except the turning of wheels, that I get distracted.  I was driving to visit my folks this past weekend- 75 miles of mostly straight highway- and the traffic was fairly light as I studied the lovely hues of reflected warm and cool colors on the back of the shiny tractor trailer truck in front of me.   For miles I watched the shape of the truck's cast shadow as it sloped away from the road and the constant changes as it curled around the embankments' brush at 65 miles per hour.  You can learn a lot about cast shadows by studying the vehicles in front of you.

I've talked to other artists about their driving.  From all reports, we're a pretty easily distracted group.  Thank goodness the insurance companies haven't caught on to us.  We've all taken photographs of sunrises and sunsets from the wheel of the car- well, they're so fleeting.  And we're all drawn to either the shapes or colors or natural compositions of the landscape as we zoom or crawl by yet another scene that we wish we could stop and paint.  

"Look how the red violet of that mountain ridge fade to blue on the horizon.  I love the shape of that tree's arc in the wind.  Did you see the stones in that creek and the sunlight dancing on the water?"  And when there's nothing (but there's usually something) there is always the sky.  The pale warm color near the horizon that's never a cool blue, the little sparks of light that shimmer through the depth of the sky if you look at it for a long time.  I used to be afraid I'd fall into it, it looked so deep.  OK, I still am.  Clouds, clouds, clouds- especially storm clouds.  I've painted in really windy conditions that was just nuts, frankly for the sake of those wonderful clouds.  I have a friend who sat at home looking out his window painting clouds day after day.  His wife told him to get out of the house and make some new friends. 

It's not just when we're driving that we're distracted either.  I was at a party, a very nice party- we were all sitting around talking at the table.  Well, other people were talking.  I was caught staring out the window at the lovely shape and color of a shrub's cast shadow on the back of a shed.  It was beautiful.  And, its not like they were talking about art.

I changed my mind.  It's not that we're easily distracted by art.  No, not at all.  Everything else is distracting us from our art.  So there.  Now you understand.




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Words to Live by aka Sez you

 by Jill Peckelun on 12/29/2009 6:06:28 PM
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Dancing with Clouds

The new year is upon us.  A time for making resolutions, reviewing this year's work, considering the new year's goals.  Do you think as humans we have a sense of yearning that makes us want to set goals?    How could anyone answer that.  I only know that I do.  It seems I no sooner resolve one issue and am content but for a brief spell before I start to dwell on something else to change, improve upon, relinquish entirely, move forward.  Pick any one of the aforementioned.  It can be annoying, this restless yearning.  Nevertheless...

I thought I'd take a moment here and share some of my favorite quotes to inspire us for the upcoming year.  My parents had a 3 inch thick volume of Barlett's Familiar Quotations that I used to read when I was growing up.  Good quotes inspire me because they concisely say things that I think about but aren't able to express.  Sometimes they say things I'd never thought of at all.  I am ever hopeful that the next good quote will be just the words I need to hear, just the words to give me a purpose for all that yearning energy.

Its grand to always have a sense of purpose.  I want to clarify that I try to focus on the process, not the end result.  It is my intentions that are the goal, not so much a particular outcome.  I never, and I really do mean never, believe that I know what the best resolution to any circumstance should be.  My focus is purely on having the most positive thoughts and actions I can in every situation.  (Side note:  I am not entirely successful in every situation.)   What is down is sometimes up, what is up, could be down.  Things are not always what they appear to be.  Life is a mystery; get used to it. 

But I digress.  Back to those quotations that give me clarity and occasionally, a kick in the pants.  Here are some of my favorites:



What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
-Mary Oliver


No guts, no glory. 
-Sir Francis Drake


When choosing wallpaper- if given a choice between one that's pretty and one that has character, always choose the one with character. 
-My grandmother Lilian as told to her daughter Ethel


Painting.  Its goals are undefined, the means are inefficient and the results are uncertain.  I like that.
-Alex Kanevsky


Leave it as it is.  You cannot improve upon it, not a bit.  The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.
-Theodore Roosevelt


On living on less as an alternative lifestyle:
I'm not sacrificing.  I live like a king.
-Jim Merkel


I make myself rich by making my wants few.
-Henry Thoreau


Its important to have an appetite for life.  It shows in your face as you live longer.
-Sean Connery


Live Strong.
-Lance Armstrong


Live contented.
-Paul Revere


This above all:  To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet


Its nice to be important.  Its more important to be nice.
-Sarah Hughes


Do all that you can, with all that you have, in the time that you have, in the place where you are.
 -Nkosi Johnson, a South African boy born HIV positive who died at age twelve


God first served.
-Joan of Arc


When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all the growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.
-Hasidic saying


To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake


All of us insist upon our illusions, upon substituting dreams and distorted memories for the real thing. Delusion is the most natural of human states. Honesty is the aberration.
-Erin Hart, Lake of Sorrows


Life must be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.
-Soren Kierkegaard


Barn's burnt down...now I can see the moon.
-Masahide


Life is too precious to be upset.
-Walter Anderson


This will be your lucky day.
-Chinese fortune cookie


Sez you.
-Henry Lawson


Love love.
-Jill Peckelun









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My Vork Eet Ees Fabulous aka You should take eet all

 by Jill Peckelun on 11/5/2009 12:29:38 PM
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Pine Trees

In the past couple of years the 5 galleries that displayed my work regularly have closed for business.  I'm sad about that.  Both for the business owners' relationships that have ended and for the gallery sales we've enjoyed.  I've let a little time pass for everyone to adjust and adapt to the free market.  Now I'm ready to begin again actively searching for galleries nationwide. 

Its all about getting the right fit.  I think in today's market the strongest and most likely to survive galleries will be those with both a vibrant internet presence and a steady glossy art magazine print profile to increase traffic and promote their gallery exhibition space.  The web is here to stay and is an amazing promotional tool to pique the interests of those who enjoy art.  Shiny-paged art magazines promote exciting exhibitions.  Galleries that are knowledgeable use these tools to their advantage.  The web page promotes the magazine article/ad.  The magazine article/ad promotes the web page and both lead everyone to the gallery's knowledgeable staff and exhibition space itself. 

This isn't anything new or profound- its obvious.  But galleries- I'm letting you know now that I'm looking for you and hoping to find a good fit that will be to the advantage of both of us.  I'm the artist who is the reponsible, reliable one.  I'm always on time.  I give every professional courtesy.  I'm polite, friendly, organized, and honorable.  I'm here to support you and help your business thrive because to do so helps me and my business.  And, because its simply the right thing to do.  I respect your professional expertise and acumen and hope to enjoy your support and guidance as we work together to find good homes for my paintings. 

I applied once to a very competitive juried group exhibition.  I placed my half a dozen pieces on the wall of the room and then left it while the jury looked it over.  Afterwards, they opened the doors, I took my work and went home.  I smiled, but said very little- my goal was to appear intelligent, responsible, and friendly and I didn't want to mess that up with too many words.  But on the inside I said in my best Boris and Natasha Badunov accent:  "My vork eet ees fabulous.  You should take eet all."  And they did.

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Fame aka Don't Fence Me In

 by Jill Peckelun on 9/9/2009 2:53:06 PM
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Springhouse
Fame, fame, fame.  Every artist wants it.  Or, do we?

I have some experience with fame.  No, not me, personally but in some circles my Dad is a famous person, an icon, a hero for a time that needs heroes.  Dad acquired his public stature late in life long after I was grown.  

After Dad got popular in a big way it soon became apparent to me that the public who read about Dad or saw a portrayal of him on television or even himself in one of his public appearances came to believe that they really knew him intimately.  Having observed a portrayal of a small portion of a peak life experience they extracted that they understood the entirety of him.  No one is that one dimensional.   (I remember one photographer rushing over to me and giddily asking, "So tell me, is he really just like a big teddy bear on the inside?"  I replied, "No." while I thought, "You must be insane.")

Dad's well respected and deservedly so.  We as a people need heroes to inspire us.  On a personal level though- I think it would be a burden to try to live up to a public persona.  We are all human, and we need to be allowed to express the entirety of our complex and often contradictory natures.  We need to be allowed to explore, to experiment, to evolve. And that is an ongoing lifelong experience that is the very best of life itself. 

I'm writing about this because while shooting the breeze with other artists and other people about artists we invariably come to the point in conversation where we measure the success of ourselves as artists.  To many, that means fame.  Fame after they're dead.  Fame while they are alive.  Fame that brings financial success and personal accolades. 

The trouble with fame is that its so constricting.  Would we still feel free enough to experiment with new ideas knowing that to do so we're likely to fall down a few times?  And that the people who think we're famous might not like what we do?  What a fix.  It's tough enough not to get boxed in while I'm distinctly un-famous.  As a plein air painter I often paint with other folks, or I draw from life with other artists.  I've heard a number of times: "That (piece) doesn't look like you.  You don't paint that way."   

And yet, obviously, I do paint that way. 

I like to experiment.  I like to play.  I like to look at things with a fresh eye so that it never becomes formulaic.  I don't ever want to get bored doing what I love best to do.  And that means that as I continue to work, my work will continue to change, continue to evolve.  I suppose what I'd really like is for my work to be well known, but not particularly myself.

Fame ain't all it's cracked up to be.  This is good news for all of us who are unlikely to achieve fame.  Most of us don't have the grand moment of public recognition in life.  That's not a failure.  Most of us have thousands of small moments wherein we make choices that affect others around us and ourselves.  We make someone smile.  Give encouragement.  Reach out.  Try something new.  Laugh at ourselves.  Work hard.  Work well.  Work better than the day before.

It was the end of a long day and my friend's husband was tired and clearly wishing all of us would just go home.  Someone asked him about his plans for the future.  It's been years, but I still remember his reply:  "I just do the best I can today and tomorrow will take care of itself." 

Doing the best we can is all we can do.  And its enough.  Because its all we can do. 

And that is how I measure success.

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Life Drawing aka Get Real

 by Jill Peckelun on 8/25/2009 4:28:40 PM



Bob's Bridge

I was painting in the park by a fishing stream yesterday.  The view was downhill of a little bridge over the stream, a house, some trees and a full figured man leaning over the bridge.  (It was a very steep incline and I had to place a thick stick under my toes so my feet would be level for the 3 hours or so I planned to stand there.  Then the stick started to roll and I got a little rug remnant from my car trunk to wrap around it and my engineering feat was complete.)  The man- I talked to him later, his name is "Bob"- stood musing there a good ten minutes giving me an opportunity to quickly draw his gesture and estimate his relative height on my sketchpad so I could include him in my painting.  He had his own agenda, of course, but I appreciated his presence.  He was long gone as I was painting him later and I mentally talked myself through the set of his shoulders, the incline of his hipbones as he'd planted his weight on one leg.  It was a small figure, loosely painted within the thick paint of the bridge and background, but I wanted it to have as much life as I could give it.

Later on as I was packing up my stuff a young fisherman came rushing up and asked to see my work.  So we both admired it and I asked him if he painted too.  He said no, but he liked to draw.  I told him that you can't paint unless you can draw and that he was taking things in the right order.  Then I pointed him towards a couple of my artist friends and told him to go talk to them as they were very skilled at drawing.  (I do that a lot when I'm with other artists and someone comes up to look at my painting.  "Hey, great talking to you.  Did you know there's some more artists right over there?  You might want to see what they're doing!")  Which isn't to say that it isn't a pleasure to talk to people.  It is.  I just like to bug my friends.

My point is though, that drawing, particularly life drawing is like going to the gym for an artist.  Gotta work out to maintain those subject/eye/hand muscle connections or else you lose it and lose it fast.  I find that even just carefully studying excellent life drawings or anatomy books on a daily basis (my bedtime reading ritual) makes a tremendous difference in my ability to see and draw the figure and accordingly, anything else. 

In September, I have four pieces in a show at the Sidetracks Gallery in New Hope, PA.  Their annual "Naked in New Hope" exhibition of nude figures is wildly popular and I am delighted to be a part of it.  It is a pleasure to be in the company of other artists who appreciate working from life.  If you're in the area, I hope you have the time to take in the view.

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