SLOW ART DAY, LAGUNA ART MUSEUM

(Thanks to Marlan Globerson for this image!)

We enjoyed a great “Slow Art Day” at Laguna Art Museum.  This event differs from my “One Hour/One Painting” series (now “Slow Looking: The Art of Looking at Art”) in several respects.  First, it takes place at more than two hundred venues in locations throughout the globe—museums, galleries, art centers, studios…  Then its basic premise is to take in five works of art in the space of an hour—ten minutes each, unlike the single work we sit with at a “Slow Looking” session.  And it concludes with a convivial discussion session over lunch or coffee at a local café.   But the principle is the same: spend some good, concentrated time with the art work, rather than rushing past it at the usual museum/gallery trot.  So, pay attention.  Think about what you’re looking at, and about the looking process.

My co-host for the Laguna Art Museum event was the painter, Hedy Buzan...

(here she is, center...)

... whose approach is very different from my own; she talks participants through the compositional aspects of the painting—line and shape, color and value, texture, and so on, offering an artist’s education in how it’s all put together, how it works as a structural entity.  My approach is based in the time-tested skills of meditation and contemplation, applying them to the process of looking; it attempts to engage the perceiving mind, settling it into a state of pure stillness and receptivity and demanding from the eyes the hard work of registering every detail of the work.  I act as guide to the process.

I did not do a head count of our Slow Art Day participants.  I believe there were up to sixteen at any given moment—“up to”, because one or two of our number tended to wander off and follow their own inclinations.  Which was fine.  But we had reliably a dozen people at each stop along the way.  Our original plan was for Hedy and myself to introduce our different approaches and invite group members to choose between the two.  But then… we thought, well, we can start together and see where we go from there; and things turned out differently from what we’d planned.

First stop was a Millard Sheets painting, “Night of the Dead”, a complex work evoking the presence of both living and dead in a Mexican graveyard.  Here, Hedy did such an excellent job of guiding the group through her structural approach that I thought, why not let’s alternate?  Let’s encourage the whole group to experience both approaches.  So we all went on to a landing on the museum’s stairway, where a group of small, dazzling Frank Cuprien sunset/seascapes was installed--quite typical of this California Impressionist's magical play with light and space.  There was enough continuity between each of the paintings to allow group members to select of their choice; and I realized, as I led the process, that my vision—and presumably theirs too—had already been much enriched by Hedy’s analytical approach.  We brought that along with us into contemplation.

So we decided to alternate, keeping the group together for all five of the paintings, and derived enormous benefit from the way the two approaches fed into each other, enriching both our skills and the experience as we went.  From Cuprien, we moved on to a beautiful William Wendt landscape--again typical, with its rich interplay of greens; and from there to a small Wayne Thiebaud painting of a cigar, still burning, laid across an ashtray; and to a remarkable, large-scale drawing by the contemporary artist Dana Harel, “Gatekeeper,” with its skillful juxtaposition of grey graphite values evoking three partial images--a chair, and a seated figure holding an indeterminate animal.  Our final two minutes with this work were spent in silent contemplation.

Across the street, we settled down to coffee—and, some of us, lunch—in a shady garden corner set aside for us at Madison’s.  Here we enjoyed the opportunity to compare notes about the experience and get to know a little more about each other.  From feedback, it appeared that all our guests had been as happy with the “Slow Art Day” experience as were Hedy and I.  A great day, and one which I hope will lead to better art-viewing habits for us all.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

It's a haunting, daunting question.  We usually use it to challenge someone's overly inflated ego, their high opinion of themselves, when they're "getting too big for their boots."  Do I remember it from a John Lennon song?   (Yes, it's Instant Karma... "Who on Earth do you think you are?  A superstar? Well, right you are.  And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun...")

And of course that's all we are, stardust, accumulating moment by moment into the constantly shifting forms we assume for the journey through our lives.  As to the rest, we are who we think we are--no more than the fabrication of our minds, a projected image on the screen of who we want to be, or alternatively fear we might be.  The flesh and blood part of us is transitory, no matter how long it lasts, the reality of at most a hundred years or so--or, in the thirteen point something billion-year history of the universe, by a factor millions of millions less than the blink of an eye.  A fast fleeting reality, then; and as such, the illusion of an illusion.

Still, the question popped unbidden into my head as I woke this morning.  Who do you think you are?  The context?  With my assistant, Maggie's help I have been sending out emails to museums and colleges, some on the East Coast, some on the West, hoping to attract interest in the presentation I have devised for a public lecture/demonstration, based on the One Hour/One Painting experience.  The latter, for those unfamiliar, is an hour-long exploration of single painting, combining the time-tested skills of meditation (closed-eye) and contemplation (open-eye) skills.

I have been offering these sessions for years now, in museums and galleries, mostly in the Southern California area.  I think--there I go!--that it's a great teaching piece, something I have learned for myself and am eager to pass on to others.  It's not only a great way to look at art, it's also a great way to learn the value of paying that kind of mindful attention to everything else in one's life.  Those who come to a session invariably have good things to say about the experience, and it's gratifying to know that I have managed to open a door for them.

But "One Hour/One Painting" works best only for relatively small groups.  How many people can sit in front of a single painting on the gallery wall, with the kind of sight lines needed to explore its surfaces as exhaustively as I intend?  The maximum, I've found, is a couple of dozen participants, give or take.  So something in me (ego? altruist? teacher? attention-getter?) wants to take this visual adventure further, to reach more people, and expand my reach to the East Coast, particularly New York, still the epicenter of the art world...

Call it ambition, call it intention, I don't know.  It's just something I have in heart and mind to do.  So I have devised a way of bringing the "One Hour/One Painting" experience to larger audiences, in this lecture/demonstration called "Slow Looking: The Art of Looking at Art."  As I envision it, it will allow me to use the technology of power point and a big screen to project images, rather than an original painting.  Pixels, I know, lack the substance of oil or acrylic paint, so the experience will necessarily involve more preaching than practice, more teaching than experience; but at least I should be able to convey something of the benefits of slowing down and paying attention (in this case to art) in a culture that seems too often to value speed and surface.  I believe it's wanted and it's needed.

But here's where the "who do you think you are?" conundrum sneaks in.  I think I have something of great value to offer and put out the offer into the world, and in response receive... silence.  I encounter the great, echoing void.  Though I have been writing articles and reviews for national magazines for decades, I can't pretend to have the "name" that generates instant--or even slowly dawning!--recognition.  Even in my own small corner of the art world, where I have somewhat greater name recognition, eliciting a response is problematic at best.

People everywhere are busy, naturally, with their own preoccupations and priorities.  And in part, of course, it's the competition.  There are so many brilliant minds out there in the public speaking market who have something of real value to offer.  Then there are the financial contingencies to be reckoned with: everyone is strapped for funds in the cultural world--schools, college galleries, museums... The steady withdrawal of public funds from the arts since the 1970s, has let to an increasing reliance on other than public resources--private patrons and supporters whose priorities must now include world poverty and hunger, medical research, and other pressing issues.

In which broad and increasingly urgent context, of course, I am brought face to face with that question: Who do you think you are?  So this was what I was wondering about this morning as I lay in bed, after waking with those words echoing in my mind.  Who do I think I am?  Which brings me back--my mind keeps coming back to this--to the question raised not long ago in my exchange with Ken McLeod: "When you say you see Peter, what exactly do you see?"  First thought: I see an image of what I imagine myself to be.  Second thought: well, actually, nothing.

Here's an invitation: try it for yourself.  Who do you (really) think you are?

SLOW PAINTING!

Today's entry comes from my friend Cynda Valle Rogers, a fine painter, in response to her reading of Slow Looking.  It's a marvelous description of her painting process, and one that I think many artists share.  It echoes my own writing process which, as I often say, honors this familiar adage: How do I know what I think 'till I see what I say.  Since Cynda wrote this as a comment to be published on TBD, I'm assuming she won't mind to see it featured on the blog itself.  Here she is:

Dear Peter, 

I recently got my copy of “Slow Looking” and was surprised and delighted to hear you describe a process that is very like the way many painters see.

Everyday, when I am done painting I bring the current painting home and spend hours looking at it. My family has often teased me about my “infatuation” with my paintings, not realizing how important it is to spend time looking rather than actively painting, …. Ideally this “slow looking” evolves into a painting that tells me something about myself that I didn’t already know and moves me in directions much more interesting then where I THOUGHT I was going... When this starts to happen I experience the most wonderful sensation of becoming the medium, rather than the author of the work. The painting starts to direct me, rather than the other way around. This is a truly heady sensation, one that, more than any other, feeds my soul and gives me the reason to paint. In order to be willing to spend the time “just looking” I have had to develop faith that the process will work, and that faith gives me the tenacity and patience I need to sit and simply look, no matter how long it takes for the “Muse” to speak.

The process reminds me of those old lava lamps from the 60’s; The subliminal (unconscious) mind bubbles at the base of the lamp. Given time and a quiet mind, (“unhindered,by preconceptions or mind sets”) and influenced only by the colors, shapes, textures, and images in the painting in front of me, a bubble of an idea will detach from the base of the lamp (subliminal mind) and slowly rise through the viscous liquid to pop into the conscious mind (top of the lamp) complete and fully formed and presenting such an obvious and simple direction for the painting to move that I am always surprised that it took so much time looking to discover it. I get that magical sensation that I didn’t think it up myself, merely grabbed it when it popped into my consciousness. 

The Quakers too, understand this phenomenon. “The still small voice within” requires the quieting of your conscious mind and sufficient time to focus in and hear the voice. Even so we often try to deny the voice, it is so subtle, and we can easily drown it out… But over time it will bubble up again and again, quietly burst ing into our consciousness until we “see.” 

Thanks to Cynda for this wise, insightful piece!

GRATITUDE

Just an update on Slow Looking, for TBD readers.  As you know I have been much preoccupied in recent days with putting out word about my new book and this is a good moment to acknowledge the help you've given me, some in very significant ways.  Just yesterday, my friend and fellow-blogger, the painter Gregg Chadwick, wrote a lengthy entry about the book on Speed of Life.  Thanks, Gregg!  I'm grateful, too, for the long and thoughtful article by Liz Goldner , the Orange County-based writer and art critic, on her blog, Contemporary Art Dialogue.  And then, quite unexpectedly, there was a fine article in Slow Muse, a blog authored by the east coast painter Deborah Barlow.  Thanks, Deborah!  How about a "One Hour/One Painting" session in your studio one day?  The paintings you post on your blog look like excellent subjects!  And thanks, too, for Facebook postings by Fiona Robyn, Robin Chan, Morrie Warshawski, Pat Riley,  and others--as well as to all those who "liked," forwarded and tweeted links.

This has been my first experience with POD (publish on demand) self-publishing, so I'm more than ever aware that it's this kind of support that's needed if a book is to rise above the horizon line in today's saturated market--and I hope it goes without saying that it's the ideas I'm interested in spreading, not the commerce!  One thing that's puzzling to me is the stats on CreateSpace. As I've noted before, there have been annoying glitches in the ordering process--now hopefully ironed out.  I'm also told that there's a time lag in CreateSpace's reporting.  But I still would have expected more of a spike that I've noticed to date and I'm concerned by what seems like a discrepancy between the stats and the feedback I've been getting.  But I don't have my own numbers, not even bare estimates.  So you'd be doing me a great favor if you'd simply drop a line to my email address (peterclothier@mac.com) to let me know 1) if you placed an order and received a copy; or 2) if you tried to place an order and gave up in despair.  That information would be very useful as I persist in my efforts, so my best thanks in advance if you have it in your heart to help.

I'd also love to hear from you if you have a readership with whom you'd like to share some thoughts about Slow Looking.  I still have a (rather limited!) number of review copies to send out, so please feel free to ask.

I have often expressed my gratitude for your readership when posting on The Buddha Diaries, but it bears repeating.  I have been writing for many years and have published in many different arenas, but it gives me more pleasure than I can say to know that there are hundreds of people throughout the world who check in on these pages, whether regularly or only on occasion.  To know that I can actually publish what I write on any given day and that what I have written will be read on seven continents still seems miraculous, and continues to provide me with a somewhat incredulous thrill.  I send out metta to all, along with my gratitude...

 

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