Lock Screens & Screen Savers

I’m kicking off a new approach to this whole screensaver/lock-screen-digital-offerings thing!

Starting today, August 30, I’m selling digital images of “Calendula” and “Hibiscus” for 4 weeks, concluding on September 27.  The new twist is that after that time period, I’ll be collecting and drawing from the list of names of those who purchased and the prize is the original work of art!  So that means (for example, if you purchase “Calendula,” then you’ll be entered in the drawing for that one and vice versa.

Just to be clear, below are the links to each digital image:

“Calendula”

“Hibiscus”

Once you’ve purchased the image, my ask as well is that you share an image on social media of your phone or computer with that artwork and tag me @pokskape and add the hashtag #pokandsee.

Yes, you can make multiple purchases of the same image and yes, I’ll enter your name in the drawing for that number of times.

Yes, you can purchase both and you will be entered for both!

And yes, if you already purchased one of those images recently prior to this announcement, you will be entered into the drawing!

Thanks, in advance, for your support!

"Knees & Chin"

He has to be on his knees…and chin himself.

Those are the words relayed to me from Andrew Wyeth through one of his biographers, Richard Meryman, back in 1998. As I was finishing college with a broad-based fine art degree, I began to intensely study the life and work of Mr. Wyeth. After graduating I read Meryman’s biography Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life, which led to my writing to the artist himself, the story of which I’ll come back to a bit later…

…In the meantime, I will admit that my interest in Wyeth bordered on an obsession. It started at some point with viewing perhaps his most famous painting, “Christina’s World,” in several books (to this day I’ve yet to see the painting in person) and for all it’s “realism” (for which Wyeth was both praised and criticized by his contemporaries) is as “surreal” a work of art as anything labeled such. In fact, I would contend that it may be more surreal. Because, you see, for all the narrative back-story, the masterful egg tempera techniques, and the lovely yet altogether discomforting pose of the figure, there’s still something “off” about the composition, the work succeeds by transporting the viewer further into the subconscious. I should add, however, that I don’t mean to force his work into that category, but it is how I’ve interacted with it. Perhaps a better way of framing it is as a “concrete surrealism” that draws out the glory of everyday things. Which is why the criticisms leveled against his work as “sentimental” or “photorealist” annoy me. You really must let it interpret you.

Spend any amount of time meditating on Wyeth’s iconic works, and you begin to see this visual-off-ness that pushes the work beyond strict realism for realism’s sake. From his “Winter 1946” to “Marriage" to the haunting “Adrift” or “Pentecost” there’s always a piece of the perspective and the modeling that defies the notion of a pretty picture. And therein lies Andrew Wyeth’s brilliance: he created works that are never flawless but they are perfect. He took that thing that looks real (which it is) and yet invites us to see both that thing or person and something more.

Even if I had never known about the story of Christina Olsen from the books about the painting, “Christina’s World” captivates because as you allow it to simply be and interpret you (the viewer) the not-flawless-yet-perfect visual story unnerves and delights. The contorted figure struggles toward a home, one that may or not feel like a home. The house itself sits awkwardly right on top of the horizon line. The two-track partially hinted at is no where near the lonely figure, which further alienates the subject. The faded pink of Christina’s dress contrasts (flawlessly in this particular case) with the overwhelming earth-tones of the rest of the composition which hints at the presence of life in a place that may be struggling to stay alive. There is more, of course, but the depth of this work would never have been accomplished had the artist sought to paint the scene exactly as it looks in real life.

At this point I ought to get back to the topic of this essay. However, a few words about who Richard Meryman was. The highlights are that he was a longtime journalist for Life magazine whose well known for having published an interview with Marilyn Monroe just two days before she passed away. He interviewed a wide-array of entertainers and celebrities. Should you do a search of his name online, you will find plenty of information about his life and work. From my understanding, he and Andrew Wyeth were considerably close which was apparent to me, at least, as I read his book. To be certain, one’s life isn’t simply a list of bullet points, and I expect there’s so much more that includes joy and sorrow that is Richard Meryman. My tale here certainly demonstrates a legacy of kindness and generosity even to a stranger using him as a “mediator” to someone else.

I wrote this letter to Andrew Wyeth in 1998. Handwritten, no copies, so no archive of it other than (perhaps but most likely not…and that’s okay) in some box buried at the Wyeth estate. All I have are the short notes sent to me from Richard Meryman that will have to suffice. I’m pretty sure I thanked Wyeth for his work and impact on my own life and work. I was particularly fascinated by the lifelong discipline it took to become a master of his craft, a discipline that I can only imagine even in my own practice. For it is clear he was just that, a master. I also celebrated his commitment to “realism” in the face of other abstract expressionist work that had grown in popularity during his lifetime. All those things I’m sure I addressed in my letter.

To be honest, though, I doubted I would ever hear anything back. So it was a surprise to receive the following letter from Mr. Meryman (I had written to him through the HarperCollins address) within a couple weeks! It read:

Dear Edward Traub -

As you see, I have received your letter and your wonderful, (moving) sentiments. I am going down to see Wyeth next week and will deliver your letter by hand. I know he will be very touched and pleased -

Richard Meryman

I was ecstatic, of course, and content with that. I had no expectation of further correspondence. But again, I was mistaken. In a few short days I received another note from Mr. Meryman dated “12 November 1998”:

Dear Mr. Traub,

As promised, I delivered your letter to Andrew Wyeth, and he read it on the spot. His first words were, “interesting,” and he smiled which mean to me that he was pleased. Then looking thoughtful, he said, “I just hope he has the courage.” Then he said something classically AW: “He has to be on his knees…and chin himself.”

He means, I am sure, that you must be on your knees to your art, to your subject matter, while hauling yourself with a mighty effort (as) high (as) possible — chinning yourself on the bar of your loftiest expectations of yourself.

So you should be well satisfied — and I applaud your sentiments.

Warm regards,

Richard Meryman

Years later I still read these letters with delight and with a sense of calling. My wife and I have discussed these words a number of times, and I have yet to find a clearer way to describe my approach to life and work. As an artist, it is with some trepidation that I confess my waywardness in such a commitment to my art. I am a polymath, easily moved from one discipline to the next (something I try to embrace as a strength…which it can be) and my painting style has been at times lacking in focus. Those who know me and my paintings will probably be surprised to associate Wyeth with having impacted my work. However, another friend did describe my work as a cross between Andrew Wyeth and Mark Rothko; a humbling yet somewhat accurate description.

For years I sought to work, and taught others to work, at least as a starting point, from some level of “realism,” which I consider a deep attentiveness to what “is” and then from there an artist can branch out. Until one participates in this deep practice in careful observation, they can never authentically move abstractly. I credit my friend and distant mentor, Makoto Fujimura, for guiding me in my coming to grips with realism and abstraction and so I journey on in waves of productivity and dryness.

He has to be on his knees…and chin himself.

I’m grateful for these words. I’m still amazed that Andrew Wyeth read my letter. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have met him in person; and yet this tale suffices perhaps more powerfully to demonstrate that even the simplest interaction can shape someone’s life for going on twenty years now.

As profound as the words Wyeth spoke are, this essay is also a tribute to Mr. Meryman. He didn’t have to do what he did, and yet he considered it important enough to deliver my letter in person. He encouraged this artist by allowing me an opportunity to encourage another (albeit a “famous” artist). Wyeth’s words echo daily in my work, no matter what or where, as I explore things that are important to me, to kneel down in order to understand my subject, be it cultural and societal issues ranging from racism to farming, to my own art practice and life with my family. There will always be that tension between submission and effort. The work (“chinning”) is the part that can be the most vulnerable. These things are what Andrew Wyeth called out in me.

Postscript: through the (sometimes) wonderful world of social media I have recently reached out to Mr. Wyeth’s only grandchild, Victoria Browning Wyeth, who encouraged me to write this. She is passionate about her family’s work and sharing it with the world. Many thanks to her.

[Thanks for reading. Please feel free to join me here, but also promise to read and engage thoughtfully and with a generative spirit keen on cultivating a better world along the way.]

simplicity

simplicity

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Commoners

““Commoner” isn’t a dirty word here; it is a thing to be proud of. It means you have rights to something of value, that you contribute to the management of the fells, and that you take part in our way of life as an equal with the other farmers. If you farm Herdwick or Swaledale sheep and they are hefted to the common grazing land on the fells, then you, by definition, often belong to an association of commoners. (1)”

James Rebanks (center)

I know little to nothing about sheep or the work of a shepherd.  In fact, I've heard more jokes about the lifestyle than I know the truth.  However, it is one type of agriculture, and my interest in all-things-agricultural compelled me to pick up this incredible book by James Rebanks titled The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape.  Rebanks book is both a detailed peek into the sheep and shepherd culture of what is called the "Lake District" of England as well as the author's memoir of growing up in the ancient lineage of shepherds.  What intrigued me about the book before reading it, was the dust jacket describing Rebanks' story of what it means to be from a particular place and choosing to remain in the place.  It is a story of his ongoing journey to stay.

My interest in the effects, and particularly the benefits, of livestock grazing on our land(s) drives me in many ways to learn from every source at my disposal.  I was looking through the "biography" section at our local independent bookstore, The Bookman, when I found it.  I hadn't heard of Rebanks or his book.  I was looking to purchase one of Michael Perry's books.  If you've not read Perry, you're missing out.  The man's stories make me laugh out loud, a much needed remedy in the face of my seemingly incessant melancholy (if you shuffled through the music on my iPhone you would understand what I mean). Yet, Perry's humor brings with it a dose of grace in truth-telling as the following excerpt demonstrates:

“In the world of the certifiable stoic, the repression of emotion is just the more obvious half of the battle. The rest of your time is consumed with masking even the appearance of the existence of desire. Anyone can hold back a tear or dodge a hug - it takes a real hardcore Norwegian bachelor to pretend you don’t want a cookie. If I were commissioned to design the official crest for the descendants of emotionally muzzled Vikings everywhere, it would begin by looking up the Latin phrase for “No thanks, I’m fine.”

This outgrowth of the neurosis turns the simplest trip to the grocery store into a pulsating gauntlet of dread. Shopping for staples seems benign enough, but when you present your basket a the counter, you are revealing something deeply personal about yourself. Your are approaching a stranger and saying - in public - “this is what I desire.” And not only that, “this is what I desire to put inside me.” If you are buying a battery cable or a snow shovel at Farm & Fleet, there is no shame. These are exogenous needs. Gotta start the car, gotta clear the sidewalk. But with food, there are distressing elements of psychosexuality in play - Appetites! Hungering! Orality! Gimme Twinkies! - coupled with the implication that if you ingest you must surely excrete, and this not a place the stoic wants to, um, go. (3)”

However, the irony of my search for a book by Perry, who lives and works in rural Wisconsin, leading me to A Shepherd's Life is, in retrospect, more than coincidental.  You see, both men now live where they grew up.  Both journeyed for a season into other places, but both somehow knew they would end up "home" and finally have.

To say these authors' stories are alike is helpful, but it would be a disservice to imply that they are identical.  The big picture view, however is that they both address the presence and absolute necessity of the "commoner."  Perry delightfully reminds of the significance of place in talking about small-town watertowers:

““Here we are,” say water towers on behalf of a community, “and this says something about us.”

...More than the houses, more than the streets, more than the small green sign at the outskirts, it has always been the sight of the water tower that has told us, “here you are.” (4)”

I'm thrilled by Rebanks' quote at the beginning of this essay, defining what a true "commoner" is. I think most, especially here in the US, think of the commoner as some kind of lower-life-form of society.  There is the "ruling class" and then there's the "commoner."  What Rebanks is attempting to do is reclaim the term for what it truly is from within the particular context of his own story.  Its akin to Wendell Berry's words in numerous places affirming the interconnectedness (better still, the interdependence) of all of life. In fact, it is this interdependence that pushes our language further than the commoner being simply utilitarian, and instead breathes life into the reality of mutuality among members of any community.  

We are all commoners.

My friend Makoto Fujimura approaches these themes from the perspective of "culture care." (5) Instead of waging culture "wars," we are called to be a generative presence in our communities. Regardless of whether or not we live where we came from is besides the point.  We are all commoners, and therefore we are part of the ecosystem of the culture in which we live.  Most of us, though, haven't taken the time to listen well to the place we live.  Gone are most, if not all, "native" traditions and practices.  Yet we still remain dependent upon each other for everything, even if we have never met the source of our sustenance.  Rebanks, also now a consultant with UNESCO, writes:

“[W]hen local traditional farming systems disappear, communities become more and more reliant upon industrial commodity food products being transported long distances to them, with all the environmental cost (and cultural disconnection from the land) that entails. They begin to lose the traditional skills that made those places habitable in the first place, making them vulnerable in a future that may not be the same as the present. No one who works in this landscape romanticizes it. (6)”

Rebanks, then, affirms the necessity of connection.  Unfortunately our culture has sought to grow and "heal" by becoming more autonomous instead of more connected.  Wendell Berry writes:

“The fashionable cure [for the disease of disconnection]...is ‘autonomy,’ another illusory condition, suggesting that the self can be self-determining and independent without regard for any determining circumstance or any of the obvious dependences...The “cure” thus preserves the disease. (7)”

We cannot live as commoners if we seek to live autonomously.  We can pull our selves up by our bootstraps only so far, we still need someone to craft the boots.  Writing from my own mid-west American context I can say that autonomy is the virtue of virtues.  Craftspeople or carpenters, like me, have to continually defend our work and seek to justify our prices in order to make a viable living.  Sometimes it feels as if it is forgotten that those who have "good" jobs working for larger companies still have to make a profit and that is dependent on others who do the work and those who purchase the goods or services with little concern over the markup for profit. Generally speaking, the larger the company the further the distance becomes between the consumer and the producer.

And for some reason we question less the large company because that's just the way it is and they're too big.  The problem, then, is that as soon as we start to say, "Well that's just the way things are," then we've given in to a sense of powerlessness that will hinder real growth and health within our society.  Our imaginations become limited, and we lay down for the empires around us.  True freedom from empires of unending consumption, ironically, is accomplished through the healthy and porous "boundaries" of the commoner's existence.  For Rebanks, his life on the fells of the Lake District, exemplifies just such a freedom:

“Ours is a rooted and local kind of freedom tied to working common land, the freedom of the commoner, a community-based relationship with land. By remaining in a place, working on it, and paying my dues, I am entitled to a share in the commonwealth. (8)”

And so Mr. Rebanks, along with Michael Perry and others, has propelled me to write about what it means for us to become more "common," not less.  So some of my upcoming posts will deal directly with the ways I see the commoner working itself out today.

I hope you'll check back in and join me.

1. Rebanks, James.  The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape.  New York: Flatiron Books, 2015.  p. 23.  Rebanks regular uses the word "fell" or "fells" as a noun referring to what is known in Northern England as a "hill or stretch of high moorland" (Google search).

2. Perry, Michael.  Truck: A Love Story.  New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.  p. 159.

3. Perry, Michael.  Off Main Street: Barnstormers, Prophets & Gatemouth's Gator.  New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.  p. 72-73.

4. Fujimura, Makoto.  Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for our Common Life.  New York: Fujimura Institute & International Arts Movement, 2015.  Read the whole book, of course, but specifically the chapter titled "Culture Care Defined."  [Kindle Version: location 1422-2146]

5. Rebanks.  p. 218.

6. Berry, Wendell.  "The Body and the Earth."  In The Unsettling of America.  Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2015 edition.  p. 115-116.

7. Rebanks.  p. 286.

"Driftwood: Time" [another old painting] & Understatement of Color

Much like the painting "Substance of Redemption" I wrote about on February 22, my painting "Driftwood: Time" was painted around the same time (exactly the year, again, I'm not sure).  I had found a piece of driftwood near Lake Michigan and kept it around the house for quite a while.  Like many artists, I had been working on numerous works at the same time.  In my case, this particular work didn't start out as a painting of a piece of driftwood at all.  Far from it.  I was painting landscapes, trees, and the like.  But I was looking to step out of my norm a bit and do something different involving multiple human figures in motion on this 8'x2' sheet of OSB or particle board (scrap material from a construction job site).  It was planned to be a dramatic figurative study seeking to reflect both spontaneity (like the energy found in a sketch) and realistic figures.

I began planning to use only a blue hue to create a monochromatic piece.  For whatever reason it didn't work.  So before the oil paint dried I took a cloth and dampened it with linseed oil and some thinner and wiped down the surface.  The effect turned out to be a glorious sky-blue "wash" that can be difficult to achieve with oils.  I let it sit and dry.  My hope was to preserve that wash and then use it as the underpainting for another image.  However, what that image was to be I had no clue.

While working on other paintings, I noticed that piece of driftwood in my workspace.  In real life it was only about a foot long and 4 inches wide in it's cylindrical form.  It had this incredible hole to look through.  I kept looking at it, did a couple charcoal drawings and decided that was the subject meant to be painted on that blue wash.

The result is what you can see in the accompanying image.  Ironically, the imagery "feels" like those figures I had originally envisioned.  I sought to keep a spontaneous feel full of contrast.  What one might notice is the minimal "use" of that blue wash.  I'm still struck by the fact that when I look at this painting I first think of that underpainting.  Some might ask, "Why, then, if you loved that blue so much did you cover most of it up?"

The vibrant orange is certainly a compliment to the blue and so I began there; covering the entire background it seems to dominate.  In fact, the orange does seem to take over.  However, looking a bit longer you begin to focus on the hole in the driftwood and then the eye is drawn in two directions flowing along with the grain in the wood.  In those grains are the slight dashes of blue, and if it isn't clear yet, that's my favorite part.  The title, "Driftwood: Time," tells of my fascination with the amount of time it must take to shape a piece of wood into this gloriously smooth relic.  The elements of wind, water, and sun patiently (albeit sometimes violently) sculpting something so intricate is a great mystery.  

So through the seemingly infinite decisions made while producing work of art, I decided that that blue would be more powerful if it were understated.  It's kind of like a scene of a movie or a section of a song that is so profound that you wish it would go on and on.  At first I wish it would be longer, but then it occurs to me that the profundity would be dampened if the scene had lingered too long.  The coming and going to that feeling is enhanced by it's understatement.

The painting was stored in Michigan with my friends Mike and Brooke Anderson for over a decade.  They love art so much they put up with a heavy and awkwardly long piece of wood (driftwood?) while my family and I lived in Washington and for few years after we moved back to Michigan.  They never complained, but Mike would remind me from time to time that it was there.  Last fall I finally retrieved it and brought it home.  It still hasn't found a good home or a place to be displayed.

The more I write about it, I'm struck by the fact that this painting tells my own story.  I've learned enough to realize that we're always "waiting" for something, that life is constantly at play in the times of drifting.  I feel most times like I'm drifting.  However, true to the ever-popular Gandalfian wisdom, "Not all who wander are lost."  It can feel like being lost at times, but there's motion and play and laughter and tears that are ever present.  Perhaps it's true what I heard Andrew Wyeth say once in a documentary that we ultimately always paint ourselves.  I suppose in one sense that is true: if we're true to out calling we will paint "ourselves," our unique vision for the world; much like a self-portrait.  On the other side of that idea is the prospect of self-absorption.  This is why we must share our work so that it doesn't just become a relic of "me."  We share because we are nothing without others.  The sharing is risky, of course, because some won't "get" it, or in the case of more abstract art some will get lost in trying to "figure it out."  It's a risk worth taking, though, as we wander together in the various directions and delight in the things we discover.

My life and this painting have been cared for by numerous folks intent on enabling me to thrive in and through the drifting.  The particle board has been minimally scuffed and bumped, it shows some wear but the life is still in it.  I'm actually contemplating carefully cutting the painting into several smaller pieces.  I'm not sure of the symbolism of this act, I think it would be intriguing to allow diverse people and homes to be able to encounter a piece of this old painting.

For a piece of driftwood, time is both a medium and a tool for clarity and beauty.

Soil

"This thing of soil conservation involves more than laying out a few terraces and diversion ditches and sowing to grass and legumes, it also involves the heart of the man managing the land. If he loves his soil he will save it."

- Henry Besuden; quoted by Wendell Berry in his essay "A Talent for Necessity"