Are my insides really ugly? (Don't answer that!)

In the spirit of continuing to explore my insides and share it with others, I'm sharing what I wrote in class the other day.  I was hesitant to read this in class, but I noticed when I did that, no one was unkind.  I don't know how they felt hearing it, but they listened with acute attention which made me think they wanted to hear it.  It was strange for me to share so deeply with virtual strangers.  And now I'm sharing with you.  Where will this lead????

The prompt in class was "What I want to write about".  The answer that spurted out was the following:

the ugly stuff that shoves my cranium into tightness and makes me suffer because letting it out might set it free.

So afraid, almost always, to release the ugly, to let it into thin air because I know with deep abiding uncertainty that it's simply too much for anyone to deal with.

Who will they think I am if they know all the pain and suffering and doubt and attempts for perfection I've been through?

Who will they think I am if they see my canvases torn and shredded and warped with heavy paint, brutally applied?  Instead of gently, beautifully, dutifully caressed into being?

Which one is me?  Why do I try to be so perfect?  Why so good?  What if what's underneath is bad and ugly and, gasp, evil?  I don't really think it could be evil.  I actually believe I'm good through to my core - so why the fear of what wants to come out?

Some of it is perhaps ugly.  It is certainly intense.  I've had plenty of feedback that people want me to shut up and stop or clean it up or lessen the intensity or back off or change what I say and how I say it.

Why do you have to paint naked women?  Some of them are so fat.  Do you really think they're beautiful?  Come on.  Really?  I don't believe you.  If you think they're beautiful, if you can accept them, maybe you could accept me and that would be too much to handle.  I can't take complete acceptance.  It's actually painful to have the right to exist exactly how I am.  Who am I kidding?  The pain is intolerable.  Full being?  Full explosion of self? Full undenied expression?

What would it look like?

Hopefully not like the horrific gesticulations of Picasso's women - how could he have such disdain and so little respect?   Is that what unbridled looks like?  Or does it look like me?  Does it look beautiful?  I want to prove it is beautiful, but I'm afraid it's ugly as sin so that's why I'm afraid to go there.

Maybe what's inside of me is so wretchedly ugly and horrific I won't be able to stand it.

But I've been there before - I've been all the way inside and no, it wasn't ugly, it was just painful.  Not ugly.  It hurt.  I cried.  I wept.  I felt the agony.  But even that wasn't ugly - except to people who are more afraid that I was to go there - those are the people I fear - the ones with less courage than I have because they have the words, the powerful enough defenses to down me in a single breath.  One volley and I die.

No.  Not true.  No.  My insides are not evil or ugly or harmful.

Not real writing, that last bit - that's the fake stuff I want it to say.  I don't know what's real at this point - this is where I haven't gone before, or that's how it feels - past the fear and the depths - what's all the way inside?

Joy?  Tears?  ME?  God?  I hope.

Is she real or synthetic?

I was just looking on Amazon for the book by Arianna Huffington about Picasso and his many women (her quote was at the bottom of my blog yesterday) and saw this ad:

I assumed it was for a Barbie Doll.  When I looked more closely, I saw it might possibly be a real woman.  Sort of.  I can't quite tell.  She looks plastic or porcelain, but she has bubbles coming out of her mouth and her hair is swirling sort of realistically.  Her gaze is a mix between real and synthetic.

Is this what we're coming to?  A society where we can't tell real people from fake ones?

Chris and I were talking the other day about fantasy machines which we'll be able to enter one day, get squished and transformed into the "perfect" shape, then come out the other side a carbon copy of everyone else, except our height.  Perfect for the rest of our lives.  Except that, oh yeah, "perfect" would change each season, so you'd have to go back in every few months to get the updated look.  How else would the company make its money?  The more I see, the more cynical I get, and the clearer I am about the importance of the work I'm doing.

I watched a documentary last night called Bigger, Stronger, Faster.  It was about men who have chosen to take steroids to get a physical advantage in their competitive sports.  The director seems to be honestly trying to answer for himself whether using them is moral or immoral, healthy or deadly, acceptable or unacceptable.  It gives good insight into what men are beginning to experience in terms of expectations of six-pack abs and pumped muscles.  It seems similar to what women have been going through for years.  I hope it doesn't take hold for men.  These societal expectations are simply not helpful for anyone except for the companies who sell the products.

Picasso the misogynist

This may not get me many fans, but I'm going to tell you how I really feel about Picasso.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts here in Richmond currently (through May 22) has the only East Coast showing of an exhibit of Picasso's work from the Musee de Picasso in Paris which is being renovated right now. There are approximately 175 works by this man most people call the world's most important artist.  Don't get me wrong - it is an impressive show.  It is beautifully displayed.  The museum has done a fantastic job with the works, and Richmond is very fortunate to have them here.

That said, the exhibit has re-affirmed for me that I do not like Picasso's work.

When I was 21 and living in Freiburg, Germany, I learned there was an exhibit of his paintings of women in Basel, Switzerland, so I took the train an hour or so to go see it.  It felt like the opportunity of a life time, and I didn't want to miss it.  I wasn't an artist at the time, but, still, it called to me strongly.  When I got to the museum, I got out my journal, as was my wont, and began to look at the paintings.  I liked to write about art as I was looking at it so I could build up my opinions about it or sketch something I saw which I particularly liked.  After I'd looked at about 20 pictures, I noticed I was feeling pissed off.  It had occurred to me that Picasso hated women.  I didn't have any biographical data to back up that hunch, but it felt clear as day to me.  Occasionally he painted women realistically, but generally he fragmented them.  I didn't have a problem with cubism, per se, rather, it was the consistency with which he did it to women as well as the expressions he would put on their faces.

In the intervening years, I have read more about Picasso, and none of it has helped me revise my opinion more positively.  I have learned that he was almost never without a woman and, though he aged, the ages of the women didn't increase.  He had two wives, four children by three women, and several of his women died by their own hand.  In almost every case, he left the woman he was with for another woman.  The guy was a jerk.

What I've noticed is that the first paintings he would do of his woman would be realistic and relatively beautiful, then, the longer he was with them, the more fragmented the pieces would become. (The pictures on this page are all of the same woman, Dora Maar and are in chronological order.)   One speaker I listened to said that he didn't care what he painted - subject matter was irrelevant - he would just use it as an opportunity for him to get out his feelings.  I understand that well, but it seems to me like he was incredibly insensitive and boorish towards these women in the ways he painted them.

When I saw this current exhibit, I noticed that it is difficult to get a sense of the women's personalities from the paintings.  They have vacant stares (if they aren't horrifyingly grotesque).  Yet when I look at the men he painted, I have a sense of who they might have been.  I can make up a story about their personalities.  It is usually positive. 

I don't like feeling this way about Picasso because I want to admire him and think he's fantastic, but I just don't.  Looking at his art still leaves me feeling like I've watched films of women being abused and disrespected and disregarded - very skillfully.

(Below is a link to a very interesting website which outlines the many relationships Picasso had and which children he had with whom.  It'll give you more information about what a cad he was.)

http://www.sapergalleries.com/PicassoWomen.html


And here's an article about the then-17-year-old young woman he had a 2 year affair with after Francoise had the sense to dump him.  Yikes!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/8259674/ns/today-entertainment/

And a review of a book by Arianne Huffington about Picasso and his loves.  I'm definitely not the first person to see him as a misogynist!

http://www.epinions.com/review/Picasso_by_Arianna_Stassinopoulos_Huffington_and_narrated_by_Natascha_McElhone/content_42773220996

The last ten days have been BUSY!

Sorry, folks!  It's been a long time since I last blogged - in fact, I think this is the longest I've gone without submitting an entry.

I've been a bit overwhelmed.  I quit my tutoring job December 18 to begin doing art full time, and since then I haven't stopped running!  I've been working about 16 hours/day, if not directly doing art, at the very least thinking about it and planning what to do next.  I didn't realize just how tired I was until I finally took inventory.  I just couldn't push any harder.  So I stopped - sort of - for a bit!  My definition of "stopping" probably is many people's definition of "going", but it was at a slower pace than usual.  I even gave myself a couple of evenings off and spent a day with my son while he was on Spring Break.  Lovely!

So what's been happening since my last entry?

I'm taking a writing class with Valley Haggard, Creative Nonfiction.  Valley is a phenomenal teacher, and the class is opening up my veins.  It's the perfect practice for writing my book.  (By the way, Valley and I are teaching a class together called Body Shop this coming Friday from 2-5.  You can learn more on my website.  Please sign up immediately if you're interested.)

I've organized my book into chapters and created folders for each topic and put all the materials I've gathered thus far into said folders.  It looks very impressive so far!  Now all I have to do is write the darn thing!  I've also contacted my models to ask them to contribute if they're interested.  And I posted a survey on this blog in case any of you might be interested in having your thoughts/experiences/feelings in my book.  I'd love for you to take part if you'd be willing.  Feel free to answer anonymously or with your name - whatever works for you is perfect.

I went to see the Picasso exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts - lots to say about that, but I'll save it for another blog.  Suffice it to say that he is one may who did NOT treat women well, and it shows in his art!

I went to another Red Tent Evening which Khalima, a local belly dancer extraordinaire, organized.  We gathered as women for a fabulous vegan potluck then spent the evening talking about Beauty and the pressure we feel as women to be beautiful, how we define beauty, what is now considered beautiful which wasn't in the past.  One of the most interesting parts of the conversation for me was talking about tattoos. I'll blog about that another time.  It was a wonderful evening, rich with conversation and intimacy and burgeoning friendship.

On Friday March 4, I gave a talk about nudity and what it is about it that makes people react so strongly.  There was a small and supportive group there for the conversation.  We made some good headway into the questions.  I'll blog about that another time too!

I began teaching a new class called Drawing and Color at my studio.  We're spending three sessions working on developing drawing skills - form, value, and facial features, and three working with color.  It's a terrific class with wonderfully diligent students.  They're learning so much!  It's very exciting to me to watch students learn and apply new skills.  It's delightful to see their progress and excitement at their own increasing skill.

Last night a couple of former students of mine invited me to an art opening they had at one of their houses.  It was so lovely!  They had framed their artwork and labeled and hung it beautifully all around the house.  They invited their friends over to show them what they'd been doing the last 2-3 years.  I absolutely LOVED seeing all the work they'd done and how beautifully they'd displayed it.  It is so gratifying to see students doing so much with their art.

In addition to those and many other activities, I also did a bit of painting - finally!  I finished a commission I'd been working on for a few weeks.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  I also worked on the picture I'm calling "The Goddess."  I'll post pictures of it shortly.  And I've begun a new piece called "Lady and her Hat."  It's a very playful, coy image of a beautiful woman who chose to wear hats for her session because her employer has a morals clause which she interprets to mean she shouldn't be caught posing nude for me except anonymously!

It's been a busy time.  Hopefully I'll have a bit more time to write this week.  See you then!

And if you're so inclined, please consider answering some of the questions in the survey - don't feel like you have to answer all - that's way too overwhelming!  Just answering even one or two would be a tremendous gift to this Women's Body Image Project!  Thanks!

The Three Graces

I spent about 5 hours today researching paintings to use in a workshop I'll be giving at the Quaker Women's Retreat the end of January.  I'll be talking about Women's Body Image and showing images of how women have been portrayed down through the ages.  I plan to include slides of my paintings in the mix.  I'm looking forward to learning from the participants as we explore together this fascinating topic.

One thing I did today was to find paintings of The Three Graces by many different artists.  It's interesting to see how they chose to portray these women at different times in history.  The Three Graces are goddesses of such things as charm, beauty, and creativity.  It's fascinating to see all the different versions that have come down over the years and how women are portrayed in each.

Pompei, 1100

Corregio, The Three Graces, 1519

Raphael 1504

Rubens, 1620, with his voluptuous nudes - definitely not flat-bellied and tight-tushed.  Below is a fascinating quote from a medical website about this picture.  Amazing what you can find on the internet!

Rubens was one of main baroque painters who practices realism, which means that he painted whatever his eyes capture. That fact has helped us with the visual aspect and the circumstances where such paintings were painted. This has allowed us to discover alterations in the breast of the models he painted, which suggest breast cancer. Such painting are 'The three Graces', 'Diana and her nymphs pursued by satires', 'Orpheus and Euridice'. In 'The three Graces' we can see that the model on the right has an open ulcer with reddening of the skin, nipple retraction, reduction of breast volume as well as axilar lymph nodes. This is a visual aspect of a locally advanced breast cancer. In Diana and her nymphs pursued by satires and in Orpheus and Euridice we can see a breast retraction in the same place as in 'The three Graces', which suggest breast cancer indirectly. The analysis of the tumor mass in the models of these pictures allow us to know more on the works, the social environment and the diseases happened in the years this painter lived.

Another Rubens, 1620

Tintoretto, 1577

Dali and his surrealistic representation, 1938

Picasso from his blue period.  Not very compassionate views of these women, nor joyful as in the other pictures.

Tessa Nunn, contemporary

Michael Seewald, A humorous modern version

Leonard Nimoy's take on it.  He did a whole series of pictures with obese women.  They're quite wonderful!  Full of joy and playfulness and beauty.

mid 20th Century bronze plaque

Maria Figueroa Kupcu

And one of the strangest, not quite the totally feminine depiction.  Joel-Peter Witkin, 1988

Artists certainly do find a lot of different ways to express the same idea!  The individual artist's interpretations vary almost as much as they do through the ages.  I have my own version I'll be painting in the next few months from photos I took of a great sister-sister-daughter group.  Can't wait to start them now that I've gotten so inspired by all of these!

Rembrandt

I'm currently reading a book about Rembrandt called, illuminatingly, Rembrandt!  It's by D.M. Field.  It's a huge, thick book with wonderful illustrations and a good biography of the painter.  I love Rembrandt's work because of his honest portrayals of people.  He didn't try to make them pretty.  He just tried to paint them how they were.  (Or at least that's how it looks to me.)

Here are some quotes about him which resonate for me as I do my paintings:

"The background of a Rembrandt painting may appear as a solid, dark brown.  In fact... it is made up of a mixture of closely associated browns, greens and greys, which acquire life and atmosphere from reflected light.  ....The background is never just packaging, it is an integral, functioning part of the design."

My backgrounds are generally very plain.  They have several colors in them, but that isn't evident unless one looks closely.  I prefer to keep the backgrounds clean and simple so that the empasis is on the figure, not the surroundings.  I use intuition to guide me as I decide where to crop a painting/photograph and leave much space around the figure if I like how the composition looks.  In Sleek Back, Saucy Shadow the negative space and the shadow play as big a part in the composition as the body itself does, though the empasis is on the figure.

"But the basis of Rembrandt's art is not so much color as tone - the effects of light and shadow known by the term chiaroscuro.  It is this that decides the scheme or composition of the picture."

When I choose my subjects to paint, I always think about the light and shadows.  I find that the form is described well by them, and having strong darks and lights makes the picture more dramatic.  Woman in a Chair is the piece I've done which exemplifies this idea best. 

About Rembrandt's composition, Field writes:

"...his paintings have a 'center', and they hardly ever contain different, self-contained areas of interest.  His compositions are quite simple, but strong and unerring....there is little movement.  Rembrandt's figures, seen against them, have an impact that does not spring exclusively from his intellect or his unique psychological insight.  Design and technique are also responsible."

Rembrandt's paintings are amazing for that.  Out of the dismal dark, there shines a face with so much humanity in it.  This image is a great example both of chiaroscuro and of the compositional elements Field wrote about above.  It's a self-portrait of Rembrandt when he was a young man.

I am trying to have the same sort of affect in The Dancer at 89 - simple composition, no movement - giving the viewer a chance to experience the interior life of the subject.

"Although he seldom paints a real room or a real landscape background, his art does not aspire to rise above nature, but shows us the essence, the true reality, of it.  As a modern biographer says, 'He was driven by a passion to set down every shape, area, tone and colour exactly as he saw it.' ...  Rembrandt does not paint the ideal, he paints the reality."

"Once Rembrandt's naturalistic style and sympathy for the poor, the old and the ugly, were deplored.  ...But our feelings on this score are precisely the contrary....  According to early biographies, Rembrandt is supposed to have said that an artist ought to be guided by nature and not by any other rules."

I am trying for that sense of reality as well.  I paint my models as realistically as I possibly can.  I find them so beautiful already that I have no need to enhance that beauty or to modify it in any way.  It may not be beauty in the conventional sense, but is it exquisite in its authenticity.

And a stimulating quote from Picasso to end this blog entry...

"Art is never pure, we should keep it far away from the innocent ignorant. We should never let people approach. Yes, art is dangerous. If it is pure it is not art."

(Pablo Picasso)