Seeing the Light

Venice Beach Laundry © Taylor Barnes 2014

"Seeing the Light" may refer to the many levels that "light" is experienced when creating a piece of art. This recent painting posed the challenge of rendering a dramatically lit nighttime scene (alá Edward Hopper). In some ways, dramatic lighting is a cheap trick because if you do it at all well the result is a magical and dramatic work. Lighting used to portray a story within a story is something photographers and filmmakers understand only too well. A scene filled with dramatic lights and darks just screams to be interesting. Think, film noir.

I have passed this laundry for years and watched life play out in front of these well-lit windows. Some nights there is a line around the corner for the homeless to do free laundry, compliments of the management. Every night there is a congregation of homeless hanging on the steps trading information and hitting up the well-healed patrons of the Whole Foods Market next door. This laundry represents a true class intersection that is practically symptomatic of the entire economic displacement of people happening in Venice Beach. 

Through these windows, the light reveals a whole society of people normally hidden from view. "Seeing the Light" refers to the technical aspects of how this work is painted as well as the story it reveals. The emptiness is probably the future of this place. As wealthier families move into the area, they won't need a laundry. In the past, this was where neighbors gathered to meet neighbors, exchange information, or find a helping hand. Local artists painted the walls and there was a sense of an extension of home. The landscape is changing and some of the soul of Venice is leaching away with that change.

Of course, it is only a laundry mat but it is also a symbol - if we look, we can see the light.  The final part of the journey of this painting revolves around communication. In my effort to communicate clearly what I was seeing I rendered the white letters of "Venice Beach Laundry" with the precision of a sign painter. I failed to see the painting that was the engine to the image – until I showed it to both my mother and my daughter. Each, independently of the other, said the letters were too dominant and should be pushed back. Their critique helped me to "see the light." I realized that the danger of leaving the painting and the world it creates in favor or the literal world is to loose track of the dynamic of painting. By being too literal, I was loosing the spontaneity of the brush and what set my work aside from a photograph. Texture, depth of color and – lighting – were my tools. I pushed the letters back to a rougher form and the work was complete. 

In the end, I find each painting is a psychological journey into some aspect of my thinking that has yet to be revealed to me. This painting was about seeing the light, literally and spiritually. It is a little like playing God in your own personal universe, “… on the seventh day God said, 'let there be light' and there was light."

Good Beginnings and Good Endings

Convergence, Jackson Pollock, 1952

When I start a painting, I want to lay down a great base to work from but when I finish a painting, I want to recognize the perfect moment when I should walk away from the canvas. It is similar to a love affair – in the beginning; you are on your perfect behavior, trying to create a great impression for your lover. As the affair starts to lose steam, you still remember when everything was a beautiful event making it difficult to recognize the moment to say enough and walk away. You don’t want to destroy the gorgeous memories you have already made with one bad memory of the end. Beautiful beginnings leading to graceful endings are the ideal.

The start and the finish are the big moments in life and in art – everything else is just getting to or from one of those points. The ability to see these two moments is what separates the experienced artist from the student. Looking at the Jackson Pollock painting above, you have to ask yourself how he knew when to stop. How did he know when he had the perfect amount of paint on the canvas? Yet some artists never see an ending - Claude Monet was rumored to travel to museums with a small paint set in his coat and when visiting one of his paintings, he would pull out the set and touch up his work. I suppose you could call that a series of revised small endings.

There is energy in life and art imitates it through process. Embarking upon the journey starts with the first step (to paraphrase the famous Chinese proverb.) Ending the journey requires either knowing where you are headed or at the very least, recognizing it when you arrive.

So here is to the journey, which starts with the energetic and hopeful first step but ends with an elegant final step and a look backward to view the progress that was made.

Painting to Remember...

Ara Bevacqua © Taylor Barnes 2014

This is one of my recent works on a series about the people and places that are disappearing from Venice Beach. It is easy to try and create a more layered and symbolic back story for a series of paintings but the truth is this was born out of a very simple observation.

One afternoon I was in the French Impressionist rooms of the Los Angeles County Art Museum and decided to sit and sketch a Pierre Bonnard painting of rural life in France. I sat there looking closely at these works and realized these painters were simply painting the life around them but the pieces had become invaluable because of their historical context. They chronicled a life that had disappeared. Upon reflection, I saw the same thing currently happening in my city of Venice Beach. The subjects of my paintings may be simplistic to the current observer but I hope that someday they will stand as a historic record of a life that disappeared here as well. I can never totally escape my journalistic tendencies.

Painting has a unique way of capturing the artist and the emotion of the subject. The evidence of the artist's hand in the work lends another level of emotional interpretation. As I work my way through this series I hope that each piece, when finally shown collectively, will offer a summary of palpable emotion for the loss of a way of life. Venice lives in a tenuous state of gentrification which is wiping out a once seemingly indomitable creative spirit.

In the tradition of the Impressionist painters, who ventured out into a Paris of another era, they painted their city because they loved what they saw - I am doing the same with my Abbot Kinney Blvd., the Ocean Front Boardwalk, and the rapidly disappearing Rose Ave. I can't seem to shoot my reference photos fast enough. But these paintings will be the record of my emotional connection to Venice. And then it will be time to move on because the Venice I know and love will be gone - except for within my paintings.

Space... The Final Frontier

Both images by Mark Rothko, American painter 1903 - 1970

S  P  A  C  E 

It       is       

                               Intriguing...

                                                   Informative (even in the absence of information)

            b  e  g  u  i  l  i  n  g

... it is an artist's most understated tool for expressing message and emotion. Space in the mind and on the canvas is pregnant with possibility. It is the promise of something more. Space is the hidden but implied message that is defined by the surrounding elements. 

Many years ago, I went to a retrospective show of Mark Rothko's color field paintings. In most circumstances, these paintings are shown individually but for this particular show, they were hung chronologically. The very theory of color and space and shape conveying the powerful emotions of Rothko's torment were so available in this setting. It was the hidden message in the space between the works that was compelling – the empty wall space that led you to the next work and the next revelation of the inner conversation within the painter’s mind. 

Lately I have been listening to a lot of music on my headphones in an effort to create a free space in my mind. The music occupies an image free area but generates it’s own image. My painter's brain solves the problem by combining the random images with the design on which I am currently working. This is one part of the creative process. Throughout the process my mind needs the S P A C E to think, to breathe, to sigh it's way into a relaxed state of inspiration. Similar to dreaming while awake (not to be confused with daydreaming.)

Emotion is another element that takes up space in my work and my mind. It needs to be directed or I find it difficult to creatively problem solve. Emotion expands and creeps into space even when you think it is not there. Rothko's paintings are a good example of harnessing powerful emotion and infusing it into the creative decisions he made as a painter. The work grabs you and insists that you feel as you view. It is undeniable what emotions are being conveyed because of the impeccable use of the space, color, and emotion along with a cultural and psychological reference. Through it all, space is the container – it gives room for the color to expand and enfold you into it’s spell. It is in a word, "beguiling."

Space to think. Space to create. Space to process artistic challenge. I am trying to be conscious of the spaces in my mind and what I fill them with because eventually it will all find a path into my work.

Cat People

Cat People © Taylor Barnes

I love the felt hats with cat ears and they are the inspiration for this illustration. 

While working on this piece I visualized a story in which, the hats were being worn by actual cat people. They needed those little pockets to put their ears into and keep them warm - human earmuffs wouldn't hide or fit their little cat ears. Even though they walked among us unnoticed the predator in them would surface from time to time. On those occasions the pupils of their eyes would contract to look like cat eyes and they would freeze and become fascinated by their prey.  

I am still not certain if they are dangerous. This character is cute and cuddly like your typical house cat but looks can be deceptive because she does have claws hidden under that window sill...

  

FAIL U R

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1853 - 1890

“Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Failure - to fail, the act of failing, to royally mess up! Why are we so afraid of making a mistake? I wrote the title "Fail U R" to demonstrate, in type, how personal failure is when you are making a creative effort in a public arena. I did not say "Fail I M" because to fail as a designer is usually very public. We are judged first by our own standards, then by our client's and finally by the customer/public.

Within this process our egos as designers tangle with our need to creatively experiment. Without experimentation we lose the opportunity to benefit from the happy accident.

I illustrated this post with two paintings by Vincent van Gogh because during his lifetime he sold only one painting and that was to his brother. He was unappreciated and probably considered a failure. Despite this he never stopped producing art that was important to him. In the end his work succeeded brilliantly - how do you analyze the irony of such success?

I once had a painting professor who taught me to not value the part of the painting that I found perfect. He said that if I found one area too precious I would paint around it and not respect the work as a whole. I learned technique from painting that one small part perfectly but I learned far more from painting over it and retaining the memory of painting it perfectly. I gained confidence every time I destroyed my "perfect" work that I would be able to paint that way again and again. It was one of the cornerstone's of my artistic evolution.

"Fail U R" means you are only a failure if you allow other people to define you as a failure. Failing is part of the process that helps us grow - if we learn from it. How we define failure is subjective, one person's failure is another's personal best. If the standards are so arbitrary why do they matter?

Why?... because in the end we do the work because it makes us happy and doing the work to the best of our abilities makes us even happier!