Week of Acronyms

This is an unusual week for me. For a few days I'll have works in two shows at the same time. And both shows have acronyms. The first is MRAC, the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center. I've mentioned this show earlier. It will end this weekend.

Above are two works both watercolors, a kildeer seen at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia, and the pond at Freeman Road Tract of the Canaan Valley NWR in West Virginia. We vacationed there just over a year ago.

My friend Gabrielle at The Inner Artist asked if I would show any in situ photos. I'd like to but rules about not taking photos of other works limits me to cropping these photos so that only my own work is shown. Above is another watercolor of some greater yellowlegs seen at Heislerville WMA in New Jersey a year or two ago. It's in a slightly more abstract style.

And finally my newest acrylic painting which I documented extensively here. I'm not thrilled with either the painting or the frame. But both were the first in a long time. I have to give MRAC credit for finding a way to display the oddly sized frame.

As I've mentioned before MRAC is a cooperative gallery only a few blocks from my home. It's over 50 years old and included some very talented local artists among its founders. One of them Walter Speight used the local neighborhood and landscape as the subject of many of his paintings.

The other show with an acronym is scheduled to open tomorrow, not a few blocks but another continent away. More on that later.

Blackwater River Beaver Ponds

Our trip to Canaan Valley didn't bring us many birds, but it did bring beautiful weather, sunny skies, and a really magnificent setting. We visited Canaan Valley State Park, Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, punctuated by 100s of warblers at the banding station and a roadside Ruffed Grouse, and Canaan Valley NWR. Though we enjoyed each we probably most enjoyed our visits to the many tracts of the National Wildlife Refuge.

There are extensive high-altitude wetlands here, most connected in one way or another to the Blackwater River which flows through the valley. The scene above is based on a photo taken toward the end of the Camp 70 Road trail, as it looks over a beaver pond.

Most of the time we were there the clouds were magnificent and dominated everything we looked at. So when I took this photo, with a future painting in mind, I tilted the camera to get more sky than land.

I'm new to watercolor and really haven't studied its history as I have with other media. Still I think most people would say watercolor was just made for painting sky and clouds. Vegetation and foliage may be another story. But clouds and watercolors go together.

However they've never gone together in my paintings. I've rarely if ever done landscapes or cloudscapes. But these views were just irresistible. So I'm continuing to work with them.

Eventually I'll probably turn back to abstracting them. For now it's interesting to try to paint them as they appeared, at least in photos and my mind's eye, using the medium just made for them.

My First Landscape

I suppose it's fitting after my post about heading more definitely toward abstract work that I should do my first standalone landscape in many, many years. I don't find anything odd about this.

I'm doing this painting because I was struck day after day by the beauty of Canaan Valley in West Virginia a few weeks ago. It's a high mountain valley and the habitat, as residents say, is more like Canada than West Virginia. Yes I know some might say, 'Umm. Canada's pretty big you know.' But I think you get the idea. Probably the most beautiful area we saw was the Freeland Rd. Tract of the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The rich yellows, orange, reds of the foliage complemented the deep green conifers, bluish mountains and rich blue sky, which was then reflected in the ponds. A closeup photo of some of the foliage looked like a Jackson Pollock painting but with Matisse's colors.

In the face of such beauty an artist can't but help want to portray it. I did one quick felt-tip pen drawing on site. I think I've already shown it here. But I also wanted to do something more developed. So this is my first landscape in I'm pretty sure at least 25 years. Certainly it's my only developed landscape in 25 years.

But this is just the first. In my mind the purpose of art is to express the artist's view of the world. He can be struck by the beauty of the world and want to portray is like a photograph. I don't say 'realistically' because it's too difficult to say just what that really is. The idea anyway is to portray what he sees. But what I saw was brilliant color. I wish this painting showed that but it doesn't.

So I'll probably do some more landscapes of this area. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them become abstract, because that may just seem like the best way to express the whole experience of being there.