Entry - 6.8.19

“Works of art often last forever, or nearly so.  But exhibitions themselves, especially gallery exhibitions, are like flowers; they bloom and then they die, then exist only as memories, or pressed in magazines and books.”

-          Jerry Saltz

So my wife and I took down my art show on June 2^nd, and I believe that a brief follow-up to my last entry addressing my then impending exhibit is warranted.  I show only very rarely, so the experience is anything but routine for me.  It certainly makes sense at this time to document the work shown and offer a few observations.

As I stated in my last entry, I’ve been attending weekly life drawing sessions at the Unison Arts Center in New Paltz for over a year and really enjoy the atmosphere there.  The sessions are informal, friendly and relaxed, and the vast majority of participating artists are quite talented.  Their gallery space is intimate but sizeable enough to permit the display of a significant selection of work.  Since the life drawing sessions are held in the gallery space, I saw a good number of exhibits come and go and eventually began to entertain the idea of showing there myself in the future.  I conferred with the individual who oversees the drawing sessions, and, though positively inclined, he advised me that I would have to put forward a proposal to the organization’s management team.  As is my norm, I then lost steam and months passed.  Eventually (I really can’t explain why) I decided to move on this inclination.  I gathered together a sampling of digital photos of my work, updated my resume, wrote a succinct proposal laying out my intentions for an exhibit and submitted them for consideration.  To my surprise, I received a quick reply and was slated to show in the near future.

Originally, I intended to exhibit only my oil paintings but, as a concession to Unison, agreed to include a selection of works on paper – which offered the slim possibility of generating sales.  So in the weeks before the show, I was reprinting linocuts, purchasing frames and having mats prepared professionally.  I began surveying my work to determine which paintings and prints would be included in the exhibit.  I dusted off the paintings and thoroughly cleaned up a good number of existing prints that could be displayed as already framed - often many years ago.   I prepared a list of works for Unison which should have been an effortless job except I realized a little late that, while my paintings were thoroughly documented, the prints were not.  Dating the prints and determining their dimensions after they were already out of my possession proved a daunting undertaking.  I found a nearby rental location and reserved a truck in which to transport the work.  And finally I put together the obligatory Artist’s Statement, a document in which the artist, hopelessly, attempts in an extremely abbreviated format to explain what his work is all about.  Any regular reader of this blog should know that I’m anything but concise.  Of course, I wrote an unusable long and wordy statement that I include below:

             For many years now, I have primarily explored within my multi-figure compositions what I call “charged moments”.  These charged moments arise when something critical might occur - when the ordinary course of daily activity might be disrupted, resulting in commotion and upheaval.  The potential for disruption is suggested only; it is equally possible that nothing significant is at play – that if I chose to present the same scene just a few seconds later these activities might be concluded customarily, leaving the depicted players unscathed and impassive.

             Even when painting a portrait, a nude, a landscape or still-life, I try to defy conventions, to present my subject in a way that will not satisfy a viewer’s expectations, imparting a vague feeling of frustration or distress.  Usually this dissonance is somewhat subtle.

 It is my belief that this approach to subject matter offers my audience immediate access to my imagery and encourages, as well, a more engaged exploration of the themes that I address – hopefully promoting within the viewer a personal dialogue extending beyond the scope of anything I could have imagined.  Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, my imagery reflects my worldview.  While it seems to me that today, more so than I can ever recall, people are compelled to interpret individuals and actions in strokes of black and white, I see only shades of gray.  I maintain an inherent suspicion of absolutes and an impatience with all dogmas.  Duality, ambiguity and contradiction intrigue me greatly as phenomena of contemporary existence.

After reviewing my statement, Unison returned a thoroughly pared-down version of it for my consideration.  The words were still mine, but now the statement favored heavily the “what” I was doing and ignored the “why” I was doing it.  Nothing irritates me more than when an artist describes his or her process as resulting from nothing more substantial than a whim.  (“I wanted to paint a green painting, so I did.” or “I had a lot of bottle caps lying around and thought wouldn’t it be cool to construct a landscape out of them.”)  If the artist cannot provide an explanation of motivation and purpose, it’s usually indicative that he or she is just treading water.  So I took another shot at the statement, trying to retain its original substance while doing so in much fewer words.  My attempt left Unison still dissatisfied, and now they returned to me a new statement written in the third person that was almost comically meaningless.  At that point, I implored them to use their original edited version which they graciously agreed to do.  Another hurdle surmounted!

Hanging the show was unexpectedly challenging.  I won’t go into detail but will just say that all of the strife and commotion endured that day was totally unnecessary and a bit outlandish.  With my wife’s and son’s assistance, I successfully installed the exhibition without suffering any casualties and felt that, once on the wall, my work would be secure until it was time to be removed.

Hanging Day

Beside the request that I include some prints and paintings on paper, Unison gave me free rein to determine what works I would include in the show, and I feel confident that I ended up with an extremely solid and representative sampling of my oeuvre – probably the best I’ve ever put together.  The show consisted of twelve oil paintings, ten prints and two gouache paintings.  I believe the exhibit benefited from the inclusion of the works on paper.  They added some diversity to the show and permitted me for the first time to display a sizeable array of the linocuts and woodcuts that I’ve generated intermittently over the last few decades.  Printing is a process that I have explored seriously, but the prints always seemed to play second fiddle to the oil paintings and never got shown.  It was very rewarding to see them on display together, holding their own, in my opinion, to the more ostentatious work.  The show was called “A Matter of Time”, alluding to how my paintings often capture an isolated instant of activity when the imminent potential for substantive change exists.  It was only after selecting the name that I recognized that it had a second meaning in that this show included work produced over a long period of time.  Many years of working fulltime and commuting into NYC on a daily basis had restricted the number of hours I could devote to my artwork and certainly reduced my output.  To put together enough work to fill Unison’s gallery space meant gleaning paintings and prints from decades of production; the oil paintings were generated between 1996 and 2018, and the earliest print included was completed in 1986.  The vast majority of the images documented the people and places that defined my life at these times.  This exhibition truly represented the results of “a matter of time”.

Personally, I dreaded most the opening celebration.  I was concerned that there might be some ceremony involved and I might be required to make a speech.  I abhor ceremony, not just because I’m less than an exhibitionist but because ceremony reeks of the artificial and the moribund.  In spite of my reservations, just in case, I had a vague oration constructed in my brain that I hoped would never be put to use.  My fears were completely unfounded.  Unison generously provided their space and an assortment of provisions for the opening without imposing expectations or restrictions of any kind.  The event, which beforehand I thought of as something that would have to be endured, proved in reality to be extremely enjoyable and rewarding.  A sizeable crowd assembled in the gallery space over the opening’s two hour duration.  Of course, my wife and children attended, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of my siblings, their spouses and many of their children came – a rare gathering that only seems to happen these days for weddings and funerals.  Many representatives of the local home schooling community were there.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law heavily promoted the show with their book club, and my boys coerced their workmates to attend.  A few old friends were there as well as a selection of Unison members who proved to be both very receptive to my work and knowledgeable about art in general.

That's me among my paintings.

The opening crowd conservatively estimated to be ten thousand.

New Hamburg Reading Society

New Hamburg Reading Society

The Spirits and Cheeses Crew

Great to see a few old friends I hadn't gotten together with in years.

Many of the individuals who modeled for the artwork were able to attend.

The opening flew by, and I savored a brief moment of feeling relevant.  I appreciated greatly the show of support from friends and family.  It’s not easy to haul oneself off to a Sunday evening art show – especially when an episode of the final season of Game of Thrones is scheduled to air that same night.

So with the hanging of the show and the opening out of the way, I could relax, put my feet up and relish the thought that my work was currently on display.  Well, not quite.

One of the benefits of showing at Unison is that the location is used for Dance, Tai Chi and Qigong classes, Writing Workshops and Life Drawing Sessions during the week and concerts and other performances on weekends.  This means that throughout the duration of the show, a regular stream of educated folk with an interest in the arts will see your work.  This is certainly not the norm for most smaller venues.

The downside soon became apparent. As a promotional tool, Unison shares snippets of their weekend performances on social media, and my wife and I were shocked to see on facebook the first weekend the show was up a long line of singers squeezed onto their undersized portable stage, the gyrating posterior of one singer apparently lapping regularly against one of my paintings.  We were aghast, but hopefully it was a onetime occurrence.  Not quite.  In the weeks ahead, usually just before going to bed, my wife would be making a final tour of sites on her tablet and she’d let out a gasp.  I’d turn to her quickly.  “Oh no!  What are they doing now?”  She’d reluctantly turn the screen of her tablet to me to reveal some new outrage that would leave me hours later lying in bed wide-eyed and anxious.  During the exhibit, we witnessed drum kits positioned immediately before paintings, upright bass players strumming away contentedly oblivious to the artwork inches away and flamenco dancers strutting about energetically amidst the exhibit.  Though we were spared the visuals, a high school chamber orchestra was somehow wedged into the space, a movie screen for a student film festival was installed above the paintings and a fundraiser dinner was hosted at the location.  I was just waiting to hear that a Beijing acrobatic troupe would be performing there or maybe a Liverpool dart throwing competition would be held in the space.  As it were, at every Saturday life drawing session I attended, I began by repositioning many of my paintings and prints that had evidently been jostled about since my last visit and would painfully endure watching one participant in the sessions splashing away in oil paints, her easel abutting one of my canvases.  Obviously exhibiting at Unison was not for the faint of heart.

On the other hand, a very positive event occurred along with this show.  Ever since relocating out of NYC about twenty five years ago, I have been impressed with a local magazine, Chronogram, which is dedicated to promoting the cultural life of the Hudson Valley.  In particular, I’ve enjoyed the high quality reproductions of remarkable artwork featured on the cover and within the pages of the magazine.  Very early on, I determined, somewhat irrationally, that one day my own work would be represented there.  Seven years ago when showing at another location, I presented a selection of images to the magazine; but though we had several productive communications, we were unable to successfully arrange to have my work included in the publication concurrent with the exhibit.  With this go-round we achieved better results, and in Chronogram’s May edition, my painting, Aloft, was featured on the magazine “parting shot” page.

Chronogram - May 2019

Parting Shot

I had a few email communications and one long phone interview with Chronogram’s Shrien Alshabasy during which I rambled on incoherently about my life and artwork.  Somehow from that she managed to put together a concise and elegant article.  If you would like to read her piece, I include a link below:

https://www.chronogram.com/hudsonvalley/gerard-wickhams-solo-show-at-unison-arts-center/Content?oid=8268947

Finally, it’s important that I make clear that it is not my intention to disparage Unison.  I still consider the organization to be an essential and successful promoter of art, music, dance, film and performance in the Hudson Valley and hope to maintain a rewarding relationship with them for many years to come.  And I certainly appreciate all of the time and effort the Unison staff contributed to make this show a possibility.  For all my travails, I would have to say that the experience of exhibiting there was an overall positive one.  But I also recognize that as a neurotic, exacting, overprotective artist it would probably be best for me in the future to only exhibit in locations specifically dedicated to solely displaying artwork.

Special thanks to my wife and children for their help in transporting, installing and taking down the show and preparing for the opening.   

As always, I encourage readers to comment here.  If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.

Entry - 5.4.19

I looked up “showing” in the on-line Cambridge Dictionary, and one of its definitions was “an opportunity for the public to see something”.

That seems pretty simple and straightforward, deceptively so for an activity that inspires many conflicting emotions in me.  You see I’m someone who abhors having myself or any of my creations become the object of public attention.  I am a middle child, having been preceded in the birth order by both a boy and a girl, and discovered very early on that attention would be lavished on my older siblings, who were achieving great things in the big world, while I could stand idly by, slack-jawed and silent.  I learned that I could disappear in the mob if I kept quiet and pursued my devilry outside the compass of adult scrutiny.  I never felt that being ignored was being neglected.  Instead, I grew up running wild in our suburban community, fleeing the house whenever the opportunity presented itself and returning exhausted and dirt-covered in the evening.  When restricted to the house, I would retreat to the basement to construct models of antique cars, WWII fighter planes and historic ships, perform experiments with my kids’ chemistry set or fry up some zoofie goofies.

Never enough Plastigoop!

Later on, I found that solitary pursuits suited me perfectly.  I would spend hours in my room reading books or in the basement honing my rudimentary painting skills at my rickety easel or writing short stories on an old manual typewriter with an extremely parched ribbon.  I did not feel myself an outcast.  No.  Though I was never the center of attention (nor did I desire to be such for that matter), I thought of myself, perhaps delusionally so, as somewhat popular, enjoying the loose support of a wide network of affable classmates and more significant relations with a smaller, more intimate circle of friends.  Though rather limited in scope, I participated in sports and clubs and even voluntarily acted in two school dramatic productions.  But, all the same, I came to believe that my most valuable achievements and contributions would result from private, solitary exertions, that being a team player was akin to being hobbled and that self-validation could not be attained through the praise of others.

After my schooling was over and I found employment, my interest in group activities, both professionally and personally, diminished further.  At work, I would shoulder almost exclusively the responsibility for tackling a project, only reluctantly relegating small portions of labor to my staff or coworkers – not exactly the ideal employee by today’s standards.  Socially, my significant outlets were my wife and family and a very restricted group of friends.  I’ll relate a characteristic event that occurred after several years on the job.  When requested to dress more formally by our unit head, I purchased five gray suits along with a stack of solid white dress shirts.  I had very little interest in my appearance, my only concerns being making coordinating my outfit each morning a simple matter and a desire that my appearance would be so bland that I could navigate the streets, the subways and the halls of my office virtually unnoticed.  I wasn’t antisocial.  No, I would say asocial is more accurate.  Hey, but everyone can’t be a leader and a star.  If you’re putting on an opera, you still need folk to be in the chorus… or better yet offstage pulling the rope to raise the curtain.

So after subjecting you to that bit of self-analysis, I don’t think you should be too surprised to learn that I became a visual artist.  Art was a solitary pursuit, something I could explore in private without the support, cooperation or interference of my parents or others.  Initially, I worked with standard pencils on lined legal pads, only upgrading to oil and acrylic paints on canvas once I earned a small stipend from my paper route.  As I made progress, becoming more accomplished and facile over time, my satisfaction was personal.  Suffering perhaps from a mild case of tunnel vision, I never thought of art as a public activity or considered displaying my work for others to see.  For me, it was all about developing a skill set while engaging in intellectual exploration.  I admit this was truly shortsighted of me, but, let’s face it, often people initiate a course of action without considering where it will lead.  (Ever hear of the medical student who quits the program after discovering he or she can’t stand the sight of blood?)

In college, art students did have to display their work for public critique, but the discussions were very informal and extemporaneous and did not cause me much discomfit.  I recall actually enjoying examining the work of my classmates and hearing what they had to say about the images we presented for consideration.  In truth, I could have gone through my entire undergraduate schooling without ever having displayed my work in any venue larger than those small classroom critiques.

But, during my last year of undergraduate study, I took a great course with Howardena Pindell in which the students would only paint on large scale canvases that we constructed ourselves.  Also taking that class was Christina Carlson, a talented artist who I had seen around the art department for years but didn’t know very well.  Every now and then, Christina would approach me and suggest that I should have a solo show at the students’ union.  I always responded in the same positive manner: the possibility of showing sounded interesting and I would try to look into it.  Actually, I wasn’t against showing my work, but, between keeping up with my schoolwork, fulfilling my work-study obligations and squeezing in time to see my girlfriend, I wasn’t motivated to seek out additional commitments.  At that time, I felt pretty confidant about my art, having established a personal style of painting that reflected my individual outlook and produced fairly reliable results, but I really wasn’t too sure why I would want to exhibit my work.  Making sales wasn’t a real possibility, and I couldn’t see a show at the students’ union as a stepping stone in my future career.  So whenever Christina encountered me, I would do what I do best: deflect.  Finally, one day she had had enough of my prevaricating.  Christina, who was definitely a force to be reckoned with, informed me that after class that day I was going to the students’ union to schedule my show.  Not only that, but she actually escorted me to the location, introduced me to the individual in charge and observed our interaction.  Thank you, Christina.  I’m still in awe.

So I was having a solo show and, naturally, would be hosting an “opening” to kick it off.  For those of you who are not in the know, an opening is a brief event of a couple of hours duration held in an exhibition space at which the artist-on-display lures friends, relatives and even complete strangers to come see his or her work with an offering of free food and drink.  At the university, the approach to these student openings varied greatly, ranging from the very proper to the wildly bohemian.  I envisioned something very informal, maybe stationing myself in the gallery space with a couple of bottles of cheap wine and a sleeve of plastic cups while an odd assortment of student passers-by would stop in to share a drink with me and grunt at my paintings – you know, low-key and kind of hip.

Well, it didn’t go that way.  While I tacked lattice strip frames onto my paintings and wired them for hanging, others were working secretly behind the scenes.  My girlfriend, who was really very sweet, organized a large spread of food and drink, complete with a tremendous sheet cake inscribed in icing with a congratulatory message and the image of a paintbrush and palette, while my mother reached out to relatives both near and far to inform them of the upcoming event.  At the opening, unbeknownst to me, relatives streamed into the gallery space.  Friends from my home neighborhood appeared.  Finally, my parents arrived accompanied by my 85 year old grandmother inching along on her cane.  Friends from school joined the throng, supplemented by a random sampling of students pleased simply to secure a few morsels of free sustenance.  I was a bit overwhelmed by this generous show of support and, I must admit, a little taken aback.  The evening ended with my girlfriend’s sister and her boyfriend engaging in a food fight, handfuls of cake whizzing by amongst the paintings.  The following week a lukewarm and perplexing review of my show appeared in The Statesman, our campus newspaper, but, more importantly, a large blowup of one of my paintings filled the front page of their arts section.  I was unaware that such exposure was unusual, but a few professors from the Art Department stopped me in the days ahead to express their satisfaction.  My first shot at exhibiting my work didn’t go according to my plans, but, all the same, I was grateful to all who had labored to help me put the show together and was satisfied at the reception my work had received.  Looking back now many years later, I see this event as a quintessential rite of passage, one that was shared with the family members and friends who had populated my youth.  I couldn’t imagine a better send off to the transformative experience, both intellectually and emotionally, that my years of undergraduate study had proven to be.

In truth, exhibiting work is absolutely necessary.  I’m sure that curators would assert that exhibitions allow for the selection and organization of artwork in such a manner as to present a conceptual interpretation of the material, and I would agree with that.  In fact, attending a very successful show can be a revelatory experience.

But, more importantly, artwork cannot be fully experienced in reproduction, regardless of the quality of the image.  Detail is lost.  Texture cannot be communicated.  There is no sense of scale; a 10 X 12 inch watercolor occupies the same space on the page as a 10 foot long mural.  The problem with photography is that choices have to be made before a picture is taken.  In what light will the photo be taken?  Will the photo stress warm or cool tones?  How should the image be exposed?  How sharp should the focus be?  If you’ve ever performed a search for a specific painting on the internet and been presented with a screen of multiple images of the work, you will know what I’m talking about.  Every image looks different, sometimes so different that it’s hard to believe they are actually of the same work.  Years ago, the standard method of recording artwork was on tungsten film transparencies, and, strangely enough, I usually felt that in that format the reproductions actually enhanced my own artwork.  I guess that whatever distortion was taking place was working in my favor.  Today, it’s expected that artists will provide high resolution digital photographs of their artwork for examination or publication.  Though digital SLR cameras allow for an almost unlimited array of image settings and photo editors permit users to make substantial adjustments to pictures once downloaded to a computer, I find that current reproductions of my artwork never satisfy me.  Regardless of my own personal travails, trust me when I assert that no reproduction can accurately convey the complexities and nuances of an original artwork.  So I hope we can all agree that it’s essential to view art firsthand.  Otherwise we may as well raze all the world’s museums.

Openings are another matter altogether.  Having given this subject some thought of late, I recognize that some art forms are necessarily public.  Dance, music and theater, for instance, are about performance and customarily require an audience.  The dancer, musician or actor receives an immediate reaction to his or her efforts, hopefully enjoying a moment of enthusiastic applause – maybe even a standing ovation.  The inherent communion between artist and spectator is unavoidable.  For other disciplines, the relationship between artist and audience is more tenuous.  Authors, poets, painters and sculptors perform their “magic” offstage, often devoting many hours of solitary labor to their creations, and the appreciation of their art is not dependent on their presence.  Imagine if, to truly experience The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky had to be present, sitting perhaps at our bedsides while we read in the dim glow of a nightstand light.  We’d nod gratefully at him from time to time.  “Nice touch there, Fyodor.  Nice touch.”  No.  Obviously, the presence of the non-performing artist is completely unnecessary to the comprehension and enjoyment of his or her work.

But I suppose that many a non-performing artist felt a bit jealous of his or her more demonstrative brethren and desired a platform at which to experience immersion in the soothing balm of public admiration.  So writers do public readings and artists have openings.  And I would have to be a complete innocent not to recognize that these events also have the very commercial purpose of gathering a large number of receptive supporters to encourage sales.  I guess, if you’re looking for a little attention, you’re going to have to provide a bit of fanfare.

So why would I, a retiring man who withers under the scrutiny of the public gaze and enjoys no commercial potential, pack up the accumulated creations of years of solitary labor in a truck, transport them to a location for public display and invite a community of family, friends and associates to join me in celebrating them?  Even I would have to question my motives.  It comes down to this.  For many, many years I have persisted without interruption in the pursuit of my artistic vision.  My own exertions and the cost of materials and other incidentals could be dismissed (though the hours I’ve spent cloistered in my studio away from my family do represent a more substantial sacrifice).  But, I suppose, I have no choice but to file all of that away under the general heading: “Water under the Bridge”.  No, there’s something else.  I don’t know how to state this without sounding very egotistical, so I’ll just blurt it out.  The work itself asserts its own mandate.  I can’t say that my paintings are groundbreaking masterpieces that will change the course of art history, but, whatever the small victories I’ve accomplished on canvas, I feel a responsibility to the work to let it be seen.  I’ve never talked to any fellow artist about this feeling, but I suspect it may be a fairly common consideration.

I see “exhibiting” as a sort of necessary repercussion of creation.  In grad school, studio art majors were actually required to participate in three semester-end reviews at which students presented recent work to the department’s professors and student body for public consideration. There you were, standing before a large assembly of people, attempting to defend your work against observations and criticism – that, I must admit, were often quite eccentric.  That was certainly a baptism by fire.  Since then, intermittently over the years, I’ve felt compelled to submit images of my work for inclusion in publications, participate in group shows and on rare occasion put my paintings on display in a solo show – regardless of my personal reservations.  The last time I exhibited my work alone I opted to forego an opening - much to the chagrin of the show’s organizers. I just didn’t feel up to it.

So, all of this talk about showing must be leading somewhere.  And, yes, for the first time in seven years, I will be having a solo exhibition of my work.  This time, my show will be at the Unison Arts Center and Sculpture Garden, a location at which I’ve been attending life drawing sessions for about a year.  The friendly and nurturing atmosphere that the Unison organization fosters encouraged me to take the dive once again.  I feel that this present show and my first at the students’ union could be “bookends” to my artistic career.  A major difference now is that it is I who am using word of mouth and every available form of social media to promote, rather shamelessly, the exhibition.  (I had visions of myself, standing alone in the exhibition space filled with my paintings, sheepishly explaining to the Unison organizers that I’ve only lived in the Hudson Valley for a quarter century, not nearly enough time to establish extensive roots.)  This time, the Arts Center is providing and readying the provisions for the opening.  The sheet cake may be missing, but we do expect to offer up some palatable wines and cheeses to show our gratitude to attendees.  And instead of a write-up in The Statesman, Chronogram, a local magazine dedicated to stimulating and supporting the arts in the Hudson Valley, will be featuring my work in the “parting shot” section of their May edition.  Seems like I’ve come full circle.  Only wish that my parents and grandmother, now long gone, could attend the opening; however, this time, my wife and children are ushering me through the event and, owing to the truly astounding efforts of family and friends, a new cast of kindly supporters will be there.

Oh and by the way, I'm pretty sure, perhaps a tinge regretfully so, that this opening will not conclude in a food fight.

Just to whet your appetite...

Unison Arts Center and Sculpture Garden is located at 68 Mountain Rest Road, New Paltz, NY 12561.  The opening is on Sunday, May 5, 2019 from 4 to 6 pm, and all are invited to attend.  Viewing hours are from 10 am to 2 pm, Mon., Tues., Thurs., and Fri. or by appointment.  The show will run through May 29^th.

As always, I encourage readers to comment here.  If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.

Entry - 1.26.19

                             At its best, life is completely unpredictable.

                                                                                           -Christopher Walken

So, as I stated earlier, with the arrival of warmer weather last spring, I intended to get outdoors and paint some landscapes.  I had spent the prior winter painting a series of not very successful self-portraits in gouache and looked forward to continuing my experimentation addressing a new subject matter under open skies.  I am almost exclusively a figurative painter, only on rare occasions venturing into other genres such as landscape or still life.  During my years of employment, I would usually attempt some plein air painting during my vacations, my inexperience with the subject matter bringing about some fairly inconsistent results.

Birches - Moosehead Lake, Maine - Oil on Canvas - 1987

Greece - Watercolor - 1988

Searsport, Maine - Oil on Canvas - 1991

Switzerland - Watercolor - 1992

Manomet, Massachusetts - Oil on Canvas - 1994

Narragansett, Rhode Island - Pen and Ink with Watercolor - 2002

Horseneck Beach, Massachusetts - Oil on Canvas - 2003

Lake Taghkanic, New York - Watercolor - 2006

East Sandwich, Cape Cod - Watercolor - 2007

Union Vale, New York - Watercolor - 2007

Lake Minnewaska, New York - Pen and Ink with Watercolor - 2009

Gertrude's Nose, New York - Watercolor - 2011

Cabin Interior - Gilbert Lake, New York - Watercolor - 2017

But now, being newly retired, I imagined myself driving or biking to various locales near my home, rambling into the “wilderness” with a backpack full of supplies and a picnic lunch to spend the day drawing and painting.  I was really quite excited at the prospect.

Of course, with the spring thaw, the ground became sodden and muddy.  Happens every year, and I anticipated that in a week or two the earth would firm up making some fantastic locations accessible.  It was definitely a wet spring but, in my opinion, nothing extraordinary.  However, by the start of summer, my mood was changing.  I was tired of the regular rains, the wet grass and the puddling of water throughout my yard and was eagerly awaiting some hot, dry weather.

It never materialized.  Well, to be honest, we did have a brief spell of a few days in early July when the rains abated and we actually had to water our flower gardens.  But it was a very brief spell.  Normally, during the summer months, the gardens must be watered every evening.  Occasionally, out of sheer laziness, we might skip a day, and the next morning the plants will look like hell, their fragile blossoms contracted into raggedy fists, their leaves brown edged and drooping like flags on a windless day.  Abstain from watering a second day and most of the plants, except for a few hardy succulents, will die.  This summer we stopped watering around Independence Day and never did so again - not through the summer months or the entire autumn.  Bare spots in the lawn which would usually turn an ashy tan stayed a rich, chocolaty brown throughout the season.  My knee high rubber boots, purchased mainly to keep the yard accessible in deep snows, were heaved on for routine outdoor chores.  I’d take the dog up the property for a few minutes, and we’d both return covered in mud.  Many times, I cooked out in the rain, stationed at the barbecue in waterproof gear, my boots sloshing in an ever-present puddle.  And there were always a couple inches of water in our basement’s boiler room, forestalling some critical repair work that needed to be done before the next heating season began.  I’m not exaggerating.  There was some precipitation most days, a major downpour coming on in about three day intervals.  By mid-autumn, hiking on natural trails became so unpleasant that I’d opted to get my exercise making half mile laps on the paved path around the perimeter of a nearby pond, and eventually even that artificial and manicured location became threatened as the pond’s waters spilled over its banks and crept ever closer to the walkway*.  By December’s end, the TV weathermen were excitedly informing us that 2018 would fall into the top ten wettest years for New York since such statistics were recorded.  Appropriately, rain was still coming down in torrents as revelers gathered in Times Square to celebrate the ushering in of a new year, and I’m still not sure if we ultimately ended up setting the record for the fourth or fifth wettest year.

*Note: As of this writing, the walkway is still traversable, but the waters are higher than I’ve ever seen them and will spill over the pavement shortly in several spots if current rainfall trends remain consistent.

And, during the summer months, when it wasn’t raining, it was very hot, very humid and, subsequently, very buggy, making outdoor activity far from appealing.  But I was determined to get out and paint as I had planned.  I would conscientiously study the week’s weather forecasts and select the optimal days on which to make my forays into nature, yet, even then, something inevitably went wrong.  On one occasion, I persuaded my wife and son to join me in a day of painting at a lake located about twenty miles from our home.  The day I selected turned out to be one of the hottest of the year, and little did I realize that the walk from the parking area to the lake would involve hiking through miles of rolling, mosquito infested woods.  Each of us bore a heavy backpack loaded with art supplies and water, and, as our hike proceeded without any sign of a lake, we were surprised at how far we were required to walk.  Every now and then, we’d stop along the trail, convinced that we must have made a wrong turn, only to come across some fellow hikers who assured us that we were on the right path.  Eventually, my companions were griping vociferously, demanding that we turn back at once, when a lone wayfarer appeared out of the brush and assured us that the lake was just minutes away.  Sure enough, a little further exertion brought us to the edge of a scenic lake, its serene waters providing a mirror image of the sky and surrounding forest.  It would probably have been an ideal location at which to paint, except that by then we were exhausted, overheated, drenched in sweat and covered with mosquito bites.  After studying the view of the lake for a few minutes, a consensus was reached with barely a word between us; we pulled our backpacks on again and began the long hike back to the car.

Nuclear Lake - Pawling, New York

On another occasion, after securing an exceptionally rosy forecast from my favorite weather sites, I left my home on a beautiful, sunny day and made a twenty minute drive to a nearby park.  When I exited my car, I immediately recognized that the weather had undergone a change.  The sky had grayed a bit, and a steady breeze was blowing from the northwest.  Thinking that the front would pass quickly, I loaded my supplies on my back and headed out to the spot at which I had chosen to paint that day.  During the fifteen minute walk there, conditions worsened, but I persisted, hoping still for a quick recovery.  However, by the time I arrived at my intended location and had to decide if I should construct my easel and prepare my paints, the clouds had thickened considerably and the sky had darkened to such an extent that I felt like I was experiencing a total eclipse of the sun.  I sat down a while, peering into the murky heavens and considering my options. Reluctantly, I called it a day and retreated.  A minute or two after arriving back at my car, the downpour hit.

In early July, I had planned for my youngest son and me a ten mile bike ride on a nearby rail trail to a spot I thought would be perfect for painting.  We set off at midmorning, our supplies and lunch stowed in our backpacks.  About halfway to our destination, my son let out an anguished cry and I turned back to see him far off in the distance, standing beside his bike.  Unbeknownst to me, he had been struggling with his gear settings since we started out, causing him regularly to fall behind me.  Now his pedal had fallen off.  Not a problem, I thought, I’ll have the bike fixed in a minute or two.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to thread the pedal back onto the crank arm.  Frustrated that a task so apparently simple could not be accomplished, my son and I alternately went at it to no avail.  Of course, it was a sweltering day, and the prospect of walking our bikes home wasn’t very appetizing.  As we sat on the pavement beside our bikes, two sheriffs on ATVs pulled up beside us and inquired if we needed help.  I asked if they happened to have any tools in their vehicles, which prompted a fruitless search of each ATV’s cargo trunk.  One of the sheriffs was kind enough to attempt to thread the pedal himself, but after numerous attacks he had no better luck than we had had.  Finally, he threw in the towel and advised me that he believed there was a bike rental location in a small shopping center off the trail about a mile back.  I thanked him gratefully before we started back, our bikes beside us.  The officer’s information was offered with many caveats and ambiguities, so I wasn’t particularly optimistic of our chances of success as we started out; but, at least, we were heading toward home.  In about a half hour, we found to my surprise the bike rental shop exactly as described.  I entered the store, explained to a worker our situation and asked if I could borrow a wrench.  He didn’t answer me, just picked up a number of tools and lumbered toward the door, his foot swaddled in a compression cast.  He examined the bike, shook his head and declared that the crank arm was stripped.  Well, that’s that, I thought and steeled myself for the long walk home.  But he was undeterred.  He forced the pedal into the opening and, using a bizarre looking tool, began to feed it into the damaged grooves.  Progress was so slow and he was obviously exerting himself so strenuously, sweat literally beading up on his brow, that I encouraged him to quit several times. However, he persevered and ultimately reattached the pedal to the bike.  I insisted on paying him for his efforts, but he refused, stating, “If I wasn’t doing that, I’d just be doing something else.”  I thanked this second Good Samaritan appreciatively, and my son and I continued on our way.  We did arrive at our destination, which proved to be not nearly as scenic as it appeared from high on the rail trail, and, after a late lunch, we determined that we were rather exhausted, the day was pretty much shot and painting really wasn’t in the cards.  We pedaled home, stopping to convalesce several times along the way.

Why, when things go wrong, is the father always the one who gets the blame?

Feeling dissatisfied with the small number of outdoor sessions I was able to realize, I continued my plein air painting late into the autumn, clearly recognizing at times that conditions were less than perfect.  Once I went out in early November, hoping to capture the reflection of the intensely pigmented foliage on the water of a nearby pond.  Temperatures were brisk, but the air was completely still.  I’m sure that my reader can already predict that, once I was set up to paint, the winds picked up.  At first this wasn’t too challenging a problem; I simply steadied my easel whenever a gust broke upon me.  But soon the winds became constant.  Now, I’ve painted in high winds before with a weighted easel and a carefully secured canvas, but I had left the house completely unprepared for these conditions.  So now I was painting with my right hand holding a brush and the other gripping the leg of my easel.  I know this sounds extremely wimpy, but eventually my left hand grew numb and painfully cold.  I still painted on, hoping to complete the work before conditions became untenable.  Only after the wind had torn the pad off my easel and sent it tumbling into the lakeside brush several times did I concede that further effort was impossible and yielded my ground.

These are just a few examples of some of the many hindrances that thwarted my efforts to paint outdoors during the warmer weather.  I particularly recall being forestalled from an afternoon’s activity by a dead car battery and squandering two perfect days waiting at home for the oil burner repairmen to arrive.  Another time, I was on a remote rocky ledge, preparing to get my painting supplies out, when a hiker startled the hell out of me, pretty much appearing out of nowhere.  He informed me that he was an avid hiker, and he told me how important it was for him to get away now and then from his girlfriend and kid, escape into the wilderness and spend some alone time communing with nature.  I would say that he certainly wasn’t “communing” much that day because an hour and a half later he was still blathering away, even though I would only respond to his discourses with a few polite words or mere grunts.  Soon I recognized that my window had passed and opted to spend the day hiking and taking photographs.  By autumn, this weird pattern had played out so many times that I felt something uncanny was going on and would sullenly grumble each time my plans to paint fell through.  When I started to whine about being jinxed, an unsettling assertion to be put forth in a pragmatic household of skeptics, my wife’s brow furrowed with concern.  But she bore my grousing stoically, and shortly, to her relief, the change of seasons rendered all thought of outdoor painting impossible. 

Well, in spite of any supernatural influences, I did manage to get out for some painting on several occasions in 2018.  A couple of times, I admit I did concede defeat and submitted to painting in the backyard.  But there were also days when the weather cooperated and I could set up my easel in some secluded location, fill my palette with a small array of gouache colors and paint for hours.  While in that hyperfocused trance that comes with hours of undisturbed effort, I’d find that distractions would evaporate, minor discomfits like heat, bug bites or the strain of an awkward perch could easily be ignored and the day would slip into evening in the blink of an eye.  At those times when everything worked out, I’d be filled with a sense of wellbeing, feeling grateful to be so privileged as to pursue, without the restrictions of employment, my personal inclinations.

Me, Painting at Poets' Walk - Red Hook, New York

Below you’ll find the artwork that resulted from those sporadic occasions when all the stars aligned for me.

Backyard Gazebo - Sharpie and Gouache - 2018

Poets' Walk - Red Hook, New York - Charcoal and Gouache - 2018

Lake Minnewaska, New York - Charcoal and Gouache - 2018

Backyard Picnic Table and Pergola - Charcoal and Gouache - 2018

Keith's Pond - Gouache - 2018

Keith's Pond - Graphite and Gouache - 2018

Tymor in Autumn - Gouache - 2018

So, after hearing of my many trials and tribulations, you should not be surprised to learn that my experiences have helped me understand a little better what artists before me have suffered in the pursuit of their craft.  Now I can more fully appreciate the tremendous physical torture Michelangelo must have withstood while painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling… or the frustration a marriage with the unfaithful Diego Rivera had inflicted upon Frida Kahlo… or the anguish Vincent Van Gogh endured struggling to establish his artistic vision while contending with severe mental illness.  Well… maybe not.   

No. But I have gained a profound respect for those artists who chose to paint landscapes on location.  I’m particularly impressed with those who opted to record winter scenes.  Claude Monet, Ferdinand Hodler and Harald Sohlberg come readily to mind, though I am sure there are many others.  After my brief foray into plein air painting during the most clement months of the year, I can’t fathom how they pulled it off.

As always, I encourage readers to comment here.  If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.