Nurture — Day 8
Prompt: “Describe a time when you had to push yourself creatively. What was the result, and how did you feel about the final product?
I’ve experienced this too many times to count, over the years. I think this is a cross that all creative persons carry. At first, we experiment, and flounder, with a wide variety of genres, media, influences, and styles. Over time, we find what works for us, and what doesn’t; then, we tend to get…stuck…in what has become comfortable for us to work with. We develop a pattern / habit to being creative, which can sometimes (not always) become a self-imposed limit on that very creativity that we are expressing. Pushing ourselves creatively means different things to each of us. One specific experience—or series of them—comes to mind, for me.
Autumn of 1996 was my first semester of University that included studio courses. If I recall correctly, I had both Drawing 101 and Painting 101 (both “introductory” courses) that assumed students had a basic understanding of the mechanics of drawing and painting, respectively. I don’t know whether it was a college-wide approach, but these two course had instructors that were more interested in challenging how we see / perceive objects and communicate that through art—rather than concentrating on emulating “the Masters”. Each course challenged me in different ways:
Drawing forced me to discard “perfection” in every stroke in favour of allowing my marks to be a record of the progress of any piece.
Painting encouraged me to see…beyond, beneath, and behind my “subject”, and then to paint what I see.
In some ways, the lessons of my drawing classes were harder to put into practice. I had been raised to believe “If it’s not done Right, it’s not worth doing…”, “Anything less than Perfect is unacceptable…”, and “Perfection is Godly!” from one parent, and the influences of living in the Mormon faith until I was 18. It’s something that I continue to struggle with a good 40 years after leaving that congregation. However, even though these lessons were subjectively “harder” to put into practice, it was my painting classes that pushed me creatively.
As a child, I was willing to draw almost anything: figures, portraits, landscapes, still lifes, etc.. As a teen, I was “taught” to paint in a way that was accessible to the widest possible audience; Realism was preferred over—what the teacher deemed—more experimental approaches to art. As my grade was dependent on whether I “produced” what was asked of me, I painted (and struggled with) realistic images. I can’t tell you about a single piece of art that I created in my teen years. Why? Because they didn’t register with my memory as there was nothing of me in any of them. On the other had, I still have many of my childhood pieces—lovingly saved by Marm—that I can clearly remember creating when I pick them up. Along the way, from child to teen, I learned to stifle my creativity.
You can imagine my shock when my first assignment painting in university received a “C” grade. It was a self portrait, which I rendered in the most realistic style I could. I had spent hours graphing and sketching in pencil, followed by further hours ensuring that each colour on the canvas matched the source pic, followed by yet more hours attempting to get my hair and eyes to look “perfect”. I had spent considerable time out of class (not to mention the cost of supplies) on what I thought was a decent self-portrait…and the prof had the temerity to give me a “C”?!? I was confused, hurt, and inscenced. After class, I approached the prof to ask where I had gone wrong and what I could do in future to please him and get a better grade. He told me that although the piece was technically above average, it didn’t register as the “me” that he saw in his class; all the attempted perfection had erased any traces of myself. We had a discussion about how perfection often erases personality in art; he explained that had he wanted a “realistic” image of me, he could have easily taken a picture. Although my piece didn’t even come close to the photo-realism that is all the rage currently, it had the same effect as a poorly staged photo has. I didn’t understand what he meant; more correctly, I couldn’t imagine a way of painting any differently, at the time.
Our next important assignment (we were given one every two weeks) was a landscape that we began in-class with a field trip. This was in the mid 90s, well before plein-air painting, pochades, and travel palettes became as common as they are now. Just imagine a crowd of student artists dragging tool boxes of supplies, foldable easels, and canvasses around campus looking for the “perfect” scene to reproduce in a landscape. I was ready; I had picked appropriate paints (acrylic), a “serene setting”, and a medium size canvas. “Bring it on!!!”, thought I…
My grade was another “C”…
Where had I gone wrong this time? I thought I had “loosened up” by choosing not to be photo-realistic. I thought I had picked enough colours to do the setting justice. I thought that I had put enough of myself in the final piece. Nope. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to release myself from the bonds of expecting perfection from my art (and myself). In trying to please my prof, I had missed his central message: I was missing from my art.
It wasn’t until the third important assignment that I finally broke through my own wall. The genre was figure painting—complete with live nude models for two weeks in-class. Additionally, we were forbidden (in class) from using skin tones in the studies that we produced (to be later used as sketches for our final piece). We were encouraged to concentrate on a single aspect of composition, and then play with that aspect in various sketches: e.g. light v shadow, sizes of general shapes, colour temperature, etc.. I was excited and terrified in equal measure by this assignment. Although I had (as a gay man) certainly seen my share of naked bodies, I didn’t know how to proceed when a live model was posing for us. How would I interact with the models without objectifying them…while, at the same time, needing them to be an “object” devoid of any subjective value? The models’ sole purpose was to provide us with live bodies because photos tend to flatten the subject (there is, in fact, a noticeable difference in how we see / interact with live models vs photos of them). Complicating this was the directive not to use skin tones. I must admit that my in-class sketches were very difficult to produce, at first. Somehow, I still wasn’t able to see beyond what was in front of me. Thankfully, my prof noticed me struggling and made one of his “suggestions”; he challenged me to use only two complimentary colours and white in my sketches. The colours that were complimentary (opposite) to each other were red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. I was willing to try anything at this point…
It was if the clouds had parted!!!
Suddenly, I was able to see the interplay of “skin” tones in ways that I hadn’t before. I made use of small plastic gel filters—the kind used in pre-digital stage lights—to let me see the model through different colours. For the first time, I could see the temperature of areas where light was reflected vs those areas that were in shadow. I could clearly see the larger shapes that are obscured by how we perceive figures.
For the rest of the in-class sessions, I was like a man possessed! I pulled out one A2 (40 x 56cm) foam-core paper-board after another, dividing each into four quadrants, using a different pair of complimentary colours on each. I discovered that some complimentary pairs created dull greys, others made the most delicate browns, while others became almost black. The combinations seemed endless!! By the end of each in-class session, I was no longer worried about translating the figure model “accurately” onto my boards; I was enthralled by this new language of shape, tone, hue, and temperature. When I took my work home (as studies for the project piece), I used my bed as my workspace (I was renting a room in a house closer to campus at the time). Suddenly, everything became inspiration for colour play: my bedsheets, the curtains, the stained carpet on the floor. Nothing was off-limits! I must have painted an additional dozen studies at home before settling on a composition that combined the shapes I found most interesting.
For the next week, I continued to paint in my home “studio” (each assignment was due a full week after that last in-class session). I didn’t concern myself with the final product. I, rather forcefully, silenced my inner critics. I just painted a new figure from all the studies I had completed. I chose an ultramarine-blue that barely kissed Payne’s grey and a vibrant orange, thinking that the blues would work well for shadows and orange would reflect light in a dramatic way. I gave myself fully to the process I had been experimenting with for the past few weeks. At the end of that week, I displayed my piece for in-class discussion; the final session of every two weeks was reserved for in-class grading, where classmates were encouraged to give their own feedback of everyone’s pieces. In all my…abandoned creation…I had forgotten about this.
I was terrified.
I can’t tell you any of what my classmates had to say about my final submission. I can’t even tell you if I offered my own reactions to my classmates’ pieces. I only remember feeling very…exposed. It will come as no surprise that my inner critics were very loud during that class. They could be relentless. I couldn’t wait until the end of the class; I just wanted everything to end so I could go home.
The prof must have noticed my disquiet because he asked me to hang back and speak to him after class. Here it comes…thought I. “I just wanted to have a quick chat with you about your process over the past few weeks,” he began, “I’m very pleased to see that you’ve final broken through your own blinders, but I wanted to know what happened.” WHAT? What had he just said? I asked him to repeat myself, which he did. “My own blinders…” echoed around in my mind for what seemed like an eternity. Before I knew it, we had spent over half an hour discussing how he could feel the light bouncing off the figure’s thigh, how some of the colours seemed to vibrate of the page, how the shadows seemed to hide further secrets…we talked about everything. I had communicated a fully realized narrative with this (fairly) simple figure painting. I had forgotten, through the haze of perfection, colour theory, and technical details, that the very best images tell a story. This was the first time I had allowed the story to shine through one of my paintings; I exposed myself. Hence, my obvious disquiet.
Since then, I’ve tried very hard to remember that “Every picture is worth 1000 words”. Sometimes, this means having a clear story in my mind before I even begin sketching. Sometimes, this means letting my materials, environment, and mood create the story over time. In all cases, I’m surprised by my final piece because the very act of painting…illustrating…recording the story effects the final piece. At the end of the day, I’m a story-teller, an archivist, collecting answers to be unlocked by undiscovered questions.
Oh…my assignment? I got my first “A” with that piece. That led to further highly marked pieces, which resulted in a final mark of “A-”.
Be well, Gentle Reader,
Gryph
