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Before I dive into “Discovering Art, Part 5 of 5: Building Community”, a quick reminder that if you are in the PNW / Bremerton area, tomorrow, Saturday Jan 13th is the opening of the Collective Visions Gallery annual show for Washington State Artists. The opening reception is from 4-7pm, at CVG Gallery, 331 Pacific Ave, Bremerton, WA, 98337. See you there! —- Discovering Art, Part 5 of 5: Building Community This is the fifth of a series of emails this week, 5 in total, M-F. You can read parts one through four, here. At the end of that Summer of 2019, I could have done one of two things, one of two directions, and I’d given months of hard, sobering work to assess as best I could the realities and challenges of both. In one direction: to abandon the art project, to get a conventional job, to carry on with art as a hobby, as a background dimension of my life. In the other direction: to double-down on my commitment to becoming an artist, this time, with a plan, asking for help, and without trying to make a career happen alone in a basement. Simply put, this time, what would be different, is I would seek out community - to not have to do this so desperately alone. And so, I returned to Gage Academy, this time both as student and volunteer, helping to set up and break down for classes taught by instructors I admired and befriended, as well as running open figure drawing studios, while taking the extreme pressure off of my own, independent art practice. I was, now, in this not for quick gains, but for the long haul. This was, now, my life, and I had a lifetime to cultivate it. Over the course of 2019 into 2020, as Covid hit and external ways of connecting shut down - I was so much better in touch with my own art practice and my own communities that the lockdown didn’t interrupt my art-making even for a day. I drew and painted what I could, as I could, and enjoyed it. Sure, a few commissioned projects fell through, but others emerged and saved the day. If you are reading this - you know who you are - I am forever grateful. Still, Fall of 2020, into another year of distance, I knew something had to change about the business practice of making my art, and, potentially, the art itself. I could look at the work I was making and sense “mountains beyond mountains”, but could’t see them. In the art business, I had a feeling that it would be so, so much more than just selling paintings that would carry my practice into a sustainable future. A documentary seen at just the right time gave me a much-needed framework for how to move forward - a piece about Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, and the business practices embodied by his company. In the documentary, a few of his executives are giving a talk to new-hires at the Japanese television station that always premiers Ghibli films, on TV, for free. They have no contract signed, but after work, the two heads-of-company meet and talk about anything but work, and have been doing so for years. That friendship, that relationship, led to a family vacation, where Miyazaki observed his business partner’s young daughter experience the mountains and cabins and wild nature for the first time. Out of that experience, he conceived and created the much-beloved and acclaimed film, “Spirited Away”, also my personal favorite of the Ghibli films. The point of their story, to the new hires: “our business practice is built not on sales or profit, but on human relationships.” Is there anything stronger than human relationships? Anything more sustaining, enjoyable, or exciting to be involved in? I think not. As social primates, we are hardwired to develop and sustain meaningful relationships. The second I started applying this practice to my own business, my business and my life changed for the better. Doing so allowed me to shift gears, humble myself, and re-invest in learning how to paint, in oil, on the recommendation of my longtime mentor Tony Ryder, at his school in Santa Fe. I went there in February of 2021, intending to stay for only six weeks, and ended up staying for six months. Seeing the optical light and color of the world and representing them in oil was a permanent shift in my vision and my art. I cannot unsee what I do now, and without that intensive training in Santa Fe (6 hours of painting a day, M-F), I don’t think I could have ever come across that level of awareness on my own. When I came back to Seattle, fall of 2021, it was obvious to me, that the problem with my art wasn’t one of not being able to draw or paint as well as I wanted to - it was a problem of not seeing as much as I knew there even was to see. I’d been looking at the world conceptually, with preconceived notions limiting my visual cognition, words like light and dark, light and shadow, warm and cool. When I looked at the skies and waters of Seattle, I could see them as if for the first time in my life. I still feel this way, every single day, the visual world is to me a complete novelty. I am no longer worried and intimidated when I look at great works of art I love by artists I admire. I look at their work and feel inspired, alive. I just recently bought at a used bookstore (another) book on John Singer Sargent (I have a lot) simply because the reproductions are so large. I love soaking in the details of the brushwork, it is the next best thing to spending time with the paintings themselves. While I used to look at these works and compare them to mine, feeling no small amount of longing to be able to do the things another artist can do - I see his work now as part of a continuum that any artist who has seen his work shares. I am learning from his work, now as then, but without the hangups of racing towards some ultimate end result, or of trying to be recreative of his visions and ways of seeing the world. I am excited by the possibilities in watercolor, or in any media, by what can be done with my own vision, my own sustained, repeated practice, a practice rooted in enjoyment and fulfillment, not insecurity and desperation. I think of the immense amount of work and effort artists before me have put in to be able to share what they have with me, living or dead. I think of all the drawing and painting I’ve done so far, and how inconceivable some of that work was to me when I began down this path, or when I lost my way and almost abandoned completely. I think of how many times I wish I’d had voices around me, people going through similar things at the same time, to just say, “It will be ok, after all, it’s just art/work/whatever. You’re alive and well, and you have so much to be grateful for. You’ll never stop creating - it’s part of you. Take some of the pressure off, and let this be enjoyable for what it is, right now.” While joining a community can be a wonderful experience, where my focus is now, for the present, is on building the kind of community I want to be a part of. If you are reading this email, that community includes you, if you want it to. One of the great losses, I believe, is that we have no record of Sargent’s thoughts, no journal, and so few letters and quotes. I, personally, would read anything he’d written if only he had written it down. Both Gary Faigin and Tony Ryder contributed books to the artistic continuum, wonderful books I’d recommend to anyone. Perhaps, I think, these emails can be contributive, in their own modest way. Thank you for reading this very personal five-part series. As I mentioned in part 1, if you are enjoying these emails, and can think of even just one other person who might enjoy them as well, please feel free to forward this message to them, and ask them to sign up on my website with their email. Cheers, David
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