Not Loafing, and Not at SWLA Annual Exhibit 2014

Baltimore Oriole at Tent Caterpillar Nest and Black Skimmers. Thumbnail Pencil Sketches by Ken Januski

Black-throated Blue and Green Warblers and Bonaparte's and Laughing Gulls with Forsters Terns. Thumbnail Pencil Sketches by Ken Januski.

 

First things first: I'm never much bothered by not getting into the Birds in Art Show in Wisconsin each year. Sour grapes you might say but you'd be wrong. At this point it's hard to even want to get in. The catalog, which is all I've seen since the museum was closed the one day I tried to see the show, is so disappointing year after year after year that I've lost my enthusiasm for either applying or being accepted.

However I have been in two of the Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Exhibition in London, UK, in 2011 and 2012. Those shows I was excited to be in and would have been sorry not to have been in if I'd not been chosen. In fact I had no expectation whatever of actually being accepted. When I saw the video of last year's show, including the talk by David Attenborough I was doubly sorry that I hadn't applied for the 2013 show. There was only one reason that I didn't apply - the approximately $500 I paid in 2012 to have the works stored when they arrived in the UK until the official drop off days and then transported there and picked up again if they didn't sell. This did not include the shipping costs of about $100 each way that I decided I could live with. But a total bill nearing $1000 and no sales was just too much to pay for the prestige, and to me it surely was prestige, of showing at the annual exhibit.

But this year I decided to try again. The reason is simple: there is nowhere in the US that I know of where I'd like to show my work. Birds in Art unfortunately is not the place for me. I wish it well but my reaction to the catalog year after year tells me how foolish it is to apply. On the other hand every time I see works from SWLA members and from the annual exhibit it's like a breath of fresh air. This is a show worth getting rejected from. It is a show worth trying harder to produce work that will be accepted. I don't at all feel that about Birds in Art.

So to end this tangent I decided this year I would pay the extravagant prices to try to get in. That is until I learned that I now needed to have a Tax Representative in the UK in order to apply. I don't blame anyone for this. It is probably a necessary complexity of international trade and international exhibiting. But for someone like me it is just too much, in both monetary and bureaucratic costs.

Today I got an email from the Mall Galleries where the show takes place. That included two links to the upcoming show for this year. SWLA Browse and Buy shows work that can be bought online. In addition the SWLA 2014 Online Catalog can be seen at the second link. This is what wildlife art can and should be, at least to me. I wouldn't mind getting rejected from a show like this. The director of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, which inaugurated and has hosted Birds in Art for years, recently suggested that artists who didn't get in needed to just work and try harder. I think this advice was well meant but I think it's just wrong. Some types of art will never get in and I wouldn't be surprised if many of the artists who do show in Birds in Art would not be accepted into the SWLA or their annual exhibit. Unfortunately for me the type of show I aspire to be in is thousands of mile and thousands of dollars away, though I'm sure the reverse is also true and there are some European artists who'd be much more comfortable with Birds in Art than with the SWLA Annual Exhibit. It is a sad truth.

Now to my loafing. It might seem like I'm just not doing much artwork these days. I am spending a lot of time birding and in doing so looking for subjects for new prints and paintings. I've really enjoyed all the sparrows I've seen recently and in particular all the Purple Finches. But I've also been looking through photos and sketchbooks for new subjects. I always do this and it's a time-intensive process, one where even I think I might be loafing.

After you've done art for awhile I think that for many it is a constant change from contemplation and thought to work and back and forth again. Just working without much thought may work when you're younger but at some point I think that many artists don't want to repeat themselves and end up thinking about what they want to do next. But too much thought is bad as well, probably even worse, in that it can totally shut down an artist, like a deer in the headlights scared to go this way or that.

Recently I've realized that doing small thumbnail sketches of ideas that pop up as I look through my photos and sketches is a good way to not get lost in thinking, to work while also deliberating. That is what I'm showing at the top. None are finished works and weren't at all intended to be. But they are me working my way towards my next painting or print, the one that will be showing with SWLA in 2015. Well maybe........................

The More Work The Better the Art, Not

Mallard Ducklings on Tire in Manayunk Canal. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

During my many years as an abstract artist my goal was often to 'get into a groove', 'get in the zone', etc., etc. To a non-artist this may sound precious and pretentious. But I think many people understand what it means through their own experience, be it as a second baseman on the baseball field, a computer programmer, a composer, a visual artist or many other occupations.

It means I think that you're able to move effortlessly from one step to the next in accomplishing your task, generally without even thinking about it. The process almost seems automatic. Occasionally of course, at least for artists, the next day shows that though you thought you were in the zone, you in fact were in left field and what you did makes no sense. But most of the time I think it's a valid explanation of a creative state. And it's one that many people to aspire to, not as some out of body experience but just because it means you're being successful at your job. It's being creative without work or bouts of doubt. There is no writer's block . Everything flows.

Because I experienced that often as an abstract artist, even though I didn't get quite the critical recognition I thought the work deserved, it still remains my goal as a naturalist artist. It may explain partially why I tire so quickly of much wildlife art.

So much wildlife art seems to be considered successful based on the amount of work involved. What a horrible, horrible thought. What a sad, Puritanical way to evaluate art. I mainly thought of this theme because of the watercolor above, one that obviously doesn't have a lot of work in it. In I've tried to make it look effortless, not so much because it means it's easier for me, in fact the opposite, but because I think the best art seems effortless. Artists may understand the amount of work that goes into making something seem effortless but my guess is most of the audience doesn't. But they do enjoy it.

In any case every once in awhile I try to make my watercolors seem effortless. This generally fails. They look more like the morning after in the zone paintings that are really deep in left field instead. But it's a worthy goal I think. In fact for me there's no other reason to use watercolor as a medium except to get that sense of effortless beauty that the best watercolorists, like Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent have.

So that is the origin of the 7x10 watercolor on Arches 140# rough watercolor paper above.  The rough texture is very hard to deal with and seems to make clean strokes quite difficult. But still I like to occasionally attempt this type of watercolor on it. I believe that if I pursue this method I will eventually be able to really get in the zone with watercolor. I already do that with prints but I'd also like to be able to do it with a painting medium.

As I thought about this idea of effortlessness I also realized that to many, if not most, people who view this watercolor it will seem like a failure, one where I didn't put any work into it. But work is the sum of all your experience. If a major league pitcher strikes out batter after batter it rarely looks like he's working hard. But there was many years of work earlier in his career. It's when athletes look like they're working that they generally are being unsuccessful, not just in appearance but in fact. I remember seeing muscle-bound male swimmers flailing with all their might in the outdoor pool at UC Berkeley when I was a student there while women half their size flew by them, seemingly without effort. They understood how to swim. The muscle-bound men didn't. Their muscles just got in the way. They worked too hard.

The best example of the work behind effortless-looking results I think is Oriental brush painting. But outside of taking a class in the practice of it years ago in San Francisco I've never really studied it. What I do know though is that there are often very few brushstrokes involved. But they have to be deft and work in relation to one another. All the work is in the years of practice, of trial and error. You can't see it in the final painting, which in fact to many will look insubstantial. But to the more observant it's the seemingly effortless beauty that is the most important aspect of the art.

I was reminded of this perverse notion of work making art better when I read the new Birds In Art catalog. One artist mentioned doing 'monks work' as he did a very detailed background. Another mentioned painting every feather of a Great Blue Heron. Artists should have every right to do what they want. Perhaps this type of work in tremendously rewarding to the artists involved. But I can't at all give it any extra value for the 'work' involved. I'd much prefer that work be invisible. I prefer the graceful swimmers to the muscle-bound ones whose effort is concentrated on the down-stroke rather than the stroke that moves you forward.

Female Common Yellowthroat. Field Sketch and Watercolor Sketch.

Enough on the subject of work and art! I did want to show a couple recent sketches as well. Above is a field sketch of a female Common Yellowthroat, one of many that I saw at Houston Meadows this morning. Below it a quick watercolor sketch that I did when I got home, based mainly on the field sketch above. I'm continuing with this practice of trying to do something a bit more detailed and in color of whatever I've sketched in the field.

Marsh Wrens. Watercolor Wash Sketches by Ken Januski.

A few days ago I did these brush drawings from some photos I took of Marsh Wrens at Jake's Landing in New Jersey this June. As soon as I did I recalled the bird sketches of JA Shepherd in John Busby's book Drawing Birds. Unfortunately I can't find any online links to the drawing. But I did find it interesting how I, and my guess most artists, have an encyclopedia of images in their memory of birds, bird art, and other art that they've seen throughout their lives.

More Warblers, and Birds In Art 2014

Chestnut-sided Warbler and Veery. Field Sketches and Watercolor Sketches by Ken Januski.

There has been a flurry of migrant activity in the last few days, much of it centered around the berries of Devil's Walkingstick. On Wednesday thrushes, mainly Veeries and American Robins, but also one Wood Thrush dominated the early part of mywalk, while warblers and vireos dominated the last part.

Today I started an hour later than usual and found fewer thrushes. But the warblers and vireos were still manically feeding,  some on Devil's Walkingstick but others elsewhere, including a Red-eyed Vireo in the huge and bright red fruit of the Umbrella Magnolia. If  you're alert and doing more than just checking species off a list, now is the time when you can find a lot of interest in what the migrant birds are eating. Spicebush fruit are also popular, as are of course all of the insects on them and other plants.

As I said in last post I really do have enough photos of most species. So I tried to concentrate on looking and sketching today. It was hard as both warblers and vireos were hyperactive. Finally I'd seen enough Chestnut-sided Warblers that I thought I could risk a field sketch from memory as seen at the top of photo above. It was alright but seemed off in ways. So after getting home I looked very briefly at one of my field guides then did the very small watercolor sketch on the bottom of page above.

It's very small but I'm happy with it, though I did mistakenly paint olive green where the white throat should be. I know artists who often do slightly more developed works as soon as they can after getting back from sketching birds in the field. It seems like a good idea, especially if you can use the field sketches as the basis of it and not rely much on photos and guides. I think that help keeps it simple, unified and fresh.  (A day latter and I saw a Veery while out walking. I added a field sketch of it above and then a quick watercolor based on it when I got home, as seen on right hand page above).

Speaking of simple, unified and fresh I received the catalog from Birds in Art today, a show I've been rejected from for about 10 years now. I'm not even sure why I apply any more. And I always have to steel myself to open up the catalog and look at it. I know my reaction will be immediate dislike at the timidity and formulaic quality of much of the work, and stronger dislike at the photographic origins of even more.

I wasn't quite as apprehensive today because I knew that the featured artist, and Master Artist for 2014, is Barry Van Dusen. His  work is simple, unified and fresh, in the best sense of all of those words. And I wasn't disappointed. Such refreshing work and a refreshing essay on his work by artist Darren Rees. I wouldn't be surprised even if a little bit of influence of those watercolors didn't make it into the tiny sketch of the Chestnut-sided Warbler above.

I go nuts when I look at BIA catalogs, wishing that just once I'd find a happy surprise in one of them. I almost never do. There were one or two today, though none that just knocked me over as happened the first time I saw work from The Society of Wildlife Artists. But the work and the essay on the work of Barry Van Dusen certainly brightened my day.

As I've written before I'll continue to look at the catalog and eventually find in looking at the work and in reading what artists have written about their work that I can appreciate far more than I can at first, second and third glance. But I do wish that one day I'd open it up and be knocked off my feet.  I'm definitely not holding my breath.

After I'd finished this I realized that I can sound extremely negative about bird art and Birds in Art. So I thought it made sense to add a bit more about this catalog. There is much competent art in it. That itself is an accomplishment. And I suppose that's why, over time, I find that I can find much to appreciate in each catalog, even if I don't really like it.

But I do like some work and I decided to name artists who struck me right off the bat:

John Busby
James Coe
Peter Elfman
Anne Senechal Faust
Andrew Haslen
Lars Jonssson
Johannes Nevala
Andrea Rich

I should add that I was already fond of all of the above artists with the exception of Johannes Nevala. I was newly struck by him. If I wasn't already familiar with the others I'm sure at least some of them would have knocked me over. The Andrea Rich woodcut was the opposite in that it grows on me each time I look at it. Some of this is very rich work.

There were some others who are not as much to my taste perhaps but whose qualities I can't and wouldn't want to deny. They are striking in their own way:

William Althier
Robert Bateman
Jim Bortz
Kathleen Dunphy
Cindy House
James Morgan
Sean Murtha
Peter Nilsson
Thomas Quinn
Maynard Reece(pretty bold for 94!)
Chirag V. Thumbar
Sherrie York

I haven't mentioned sculpture mainly because I'm not as familiar with it. In general though I find that  I like it more than much of the two dimensional art. I'm not sure why that is but I wouldn't be surprised if it's because it seems more direct and less mediated by the numbness of photography. Certainly there is far more abstraction in the sculpture than in the two dimensional work and this seems true year after year.

In naming names like this I know that anyone who reads this and happens to be in the show might be disappointed especially if I don't mention them, though most will have no idea who I am, nor care. As I said most of the work is competent. And in a week I'm sure I could add many more artists to the second group. Perhaps even in 15 minutes after posting this.

Perhaps this year's show is better than average.  I do find that I seem to like more and am pulling my hair out about less. But I do wish I'd find more exciting work. Perhaps that is asking too much, particularly given the stranglehold that photography has had on American wildlife art for so long.

Rescued by Rembrandt

Solitary Sandpiper at Morris Arboretum. Conte sketch by KenJanuski

I haven't been showing much here recently mainly because I'm of two minds about it, or more likely three or forur or five. In other words I've got too much thinking and second-guessing going on.

I first experienced this as a graduate student in studio art at the University of California at Berkeley. One advisor would come in, talk about my work, and often suggest certain changes. Within 24 hours another advisor would come in and do the same. Almost inevitably some of it was directly contradictory.

The end result was that I had to think for myself, sift through all the information and decide what I wanted to do. This wasn't too difficult because I've rarely painted to please others. I paint what I want. Still when you get opinions on your work they always continue to rattle around in  the back of your mind, like nagging little voices.

This isn't necessarily bad. It probably helps to confirm me or anyone else in their own decisions. Years ago I  think I startled some of my friends by saying that artists and CEOs were similar: they both had to listen to others but eventually  make their own decisions, and  live with the consequences. I'm not sure how many  CEOs would agree, thinking I assume that what they do is far more significant. But for good, serious art I think the decision making is similar.

In any  case I've had a lot of thoughts rattling around in my head recently. This was compounded when I got two emails within a 10 day period regarding  my work. One was from a well-known  artists organization. It offered a critique of my work,  very complimentary toward some of my linocuts, and fairly critical about others. All of this was done with the best of intentions and was overall quite complimentary. But the words hurried and pay more attention to anatomy still are in the forefront of my mind.

On the other hand I also received a completely unsolicited email from someone who'd seen my work online and very  much  liked it, especially the warbler portrayals. She normally didn't like wildlife art but to her my work seemed an exception. Since I entered the world of wildlife art with great foreboding, not liking much of it myself, this truly rang a bell. It was very appreciated.

Unfortunately now I think of both of these every time I touch pen,  pencil or brush to the surface. Should I worry about anatomy or not? When does anatomical accuracy, especially that of surface rather than underlying structure,  hurt rather than help the artisitic quality of the work?  Just as in graduate school both views are valid and valuable. I just have to decide what's true and what's important to me.

Another factor in my indecisiveness,  though to a lesser degree, was another rejection from Birds in Art. Yesterday I happened upon two blog posts alro regarding rejection in BIA: Sandra Blair and Susan Fox. I'm getting used to being rejected there. The one difference I think with me is that I expect it. And I also don't mind it all that much.

Why? Well unfortunately I'm never really all that thrilled with what I see in the catalogs. I know that it's heresy to say this. And I'd prefer not to say it. I've been included in the last two Society of Wildlife Artists shows in London. I won't this year because I just can't afford all of the costs involved. So I won't apply. But if I'd been rejected there I think it would bother me much more. Some of the artists I most admire are members of the SWLA. It would bother me not to be in. But I'd also see it as something to strive for, a prod to get my work good enough to show with artists I admire so much. Sadly this is never the case when I look through a BIA catalog. I never feel the same desire to work harder. Instead I feel it's best not to apply, that I'm wasting my time and money. Only working in a style not true to myself will ever have a chance of success there.

Some of those SWLA members, and other artists I very much admire,  also show in Birds in Art. But for whatever reason the catalog just always leaves me cold, even though it's a very high quality production.  Every year I flip through the catalog, not reading anything, just looking at pictures  to see what strikes me. It's the same way that I view big museum shows. First I want to see my immediate reaction. Later I can see what my  reaction is after being filtered through the text, ancillary information, etc. Almost without exception I'm not moved by anything I see in the BIA catalog. Only afterwards as I look at it for the second, third, or fourth time,  perhaps after reading the text as well, do I see the worthiness of the work. And I really do. I can eventually find much to admire in most of what I see. But every year I wish it would just hit me the first time through. I'm afraid I'm just on the very periphery of the type of art shown in BIA. This in turn reminds me of the recent appreciative email about my warbler works. Perhaps I have a very, very small audience, one that also would often be left cold by the BIA catalog. (One day later there is something I should add about the catalog. I've always very much enjoyed the essays that introduce the catalog when there is a Master Artist that is featured for the year. Whether it's artists I already like or ones that I'm fairly lukewarm too I almost always end up with a greater appreciation for the artist and their work when I'm finished reading it. In some ways this makes the entire catalog worthwhile even when I'm disappointed in the work that is actually in the show.)

With all of this in the back of my mind I've done various studies recently, most for possible linocuts. And I've looked through my  photos and sketches,  over and over and over, looking for a new subject. None have led anywhere. Too many voices rattling around. How can I do the type of wildlife art I want to do? Should I continue to do what I want to do, or should I try to go more in the direction of what I think someone else wants? This always seems like a mistake to me to I continue to work towards doing what I want to do, towards what looks good and fresh to me.

Then for whatever reason, possibly this recent post at The Best Artists, I got out Volume One of The Drawings of Rembrandt by Seymour Slive.What a breath of fresh air!! Though I admire all of Rembrandt's sketches it was the animals that struck  me most this time. Who has done better sketches of lions? Who has captured the feeling of a lion like this? The same is true of people. If you  look at a Rembrandt sketch you often see that just one line functions as a nose. A hand might almost seem to be a blob. BUT it reads as though it is a hand,  with real weight, attached to a  real moving body. Sometimes that hand will seem heavy as a five pound sack of flour. At other times it will seem as light as a  feather,  ready to waft off in the breeze. This is what Rembrandt captures with just a few lines.

Out of curiosity I also got out the only other Rembrandt book  I own, called The World of Rembrandt, from  Time-Life books. Both of these are very old by the way. Though I've studied Art History at both Berkeley and Cornell Rembrandt always escaped my attention. I have no idea why especially  as  I bought both of these  books long before I attended  either school. I can only guess that I saw his drawings somewhere when I was  very  young and decided I needed to see more of them. In any case the Time-Life book also includes paintings and in them too  you can see his incredible ability to capture the life of what he paints. He seems to have a physical empathy for everything he sees.

I think what really  hit me over the head in  looking at his work was how different it was from  work based on photos, particularly that of so much wildlife art. I did find one sketch of a Bird of Paradise, the only bird in the book as far as I could tell. It's not my favorite but still I like it. Today though  most artists would render every  feather. They wouldn't capture the entire bird. So much wildlife art crops out the full figure of a bird and instead focuses on the surface details of just one part of the bird. I prefer to see the whole bird, to see it as a living thing. I can of course only make the wildest guess as to what a contemporary Rembrandt would look like. But my guess is that it would show the same sense of liveliness and empathy for the subject portrayed, not in a cute, endearing way, but in a way that seems to actually feel the physical pose of each subject portrayed.

Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Watercolor sketch by Ken Januski

To make a long story short, well more or less at this late stage of the game, I've tried a couple of broader works since looking at Rembrandt. One is a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak, done from a photo of a bird seen at Magee Marsh about a month ago. I deliberately avoided using a pencil sketch and forced myself to work  more broadly, more like Rembrandt. I also tried the large Conte drawing of a Solitary Sandpiper at top of post, also based on a photo of a bird seen at Morris Arboretum earlier this year. It was incredibly refreshing to force myself to avoid sketching in all the information that was shown in the photo.

Great Blue Heron and Singing Acadian Flycatcher. Field sketch by Ken Januski

It has been non-stop rain here for the last few days so I've done little outside work outside of this sketch of a Great Blue Heron and singing Acadian Flycatcher, done in between storms. But when I next head out I think my Conte crayons will be with me, and Rembrandt rattling around in the back of my head.