Reconciling Naturalism and Abstraction

Dead Tree Along Kankakee River. Lithograph by Ken Januski.

The recent sale of an older abstract work, Chesnut Park Number 16, along with the completion of a watercolor sketch of a juvenile Purple Finch based on a sighting last week reminded me of how much my art has often fluctuated between abstraction and naturalism and/or realism.

In looking for a very old etching I did that married abstraction and naturalism to some extent I ran across the lithograph pictured above. I've never formally studied woodblock or linoleum block printing, my current printing media. My first actual study of printmaking was in the basement of the UC Berkeley Student Union, thus the name of my etsy store berkeleySU, and the subject was lithography.

Since I did strictly abstract art for so many years after getting my MA from Berkeley and only recently turned to naturalism I'm always a but surprised to see something like the print above. Obviously there is a realistic subject but I tried to hide it pretty well, concentrating instead of both composition and the process of lithography, experimenting to see what types of marks I could get. Still I did like the idea of combining the two. I hope that perhaps this explains a bit why I continue to stay away from naturalism that is particularly straightforward.

Chestnut Park Number 16. Charcoal Drawing by Ken Januski.

When I moved to Philadelphia around 30 years ago my first works were abstract charcoal drawings like the one pictured above. It's 23x29 inches and titled Chestnut Park Number 16. The entire series was called Chestnut Park, Chestnut because my studio was on Chestnut Street almost next door to the Ben Franklin Hotel, and park because I felt that my shapes were getting more organic, like critters you might see in a park.

I've always liked this work even though I no longer work in this style. Because I'm still quite fond of it and think that it is of high quality I also have some of it for sale on a separate etsy store, OldAndAbstract. I was happily surprised to sell my first work from that store just recently.

Juvenile Purple Finch in Dogwood. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

As I've said here more than once before when I got disgusted with the contemporary art world and could no longer see a viable place for myself in it I eventually turned to naturalism, first insects found in the garden and drawn while viewed under a dissecting microscope and finally birds, in about 2006. I quickly realized how little I knew about birds, even though I'd been birding for 10 years or so at that point. It has been a long struggle to be able to understand them and to be able to draw or paint them successfully.

Soon after I started I realized I'd get nowhere working from photos and that I needed to work from life in order to truly understand birds. Easier said than done but I can say that today I'm at least somewhat comfortable working from life. And because of that I'm also more comfortable working from my own photos when there's a compelling need. The small watercolor sketch above is such an instance. We rarely see Purple Finches in Philadelphia. But last Sunday we saw four at the Andorra Natural Area, an adult male and female and two juveniles. I have to assume that they were a migrating family but that could easily be wrong. I wanted to be certain of their ID so I spent most of my time taking photos and one sketching. But the image stuck with me.

I particularly was struck by the scruffy plumage of the juvenile above. So yesterday and today I did this watercolor and pencil sketch based on one of the photos. I'd like to do something that combines both adults and juvenile but that is a bit ambitious so I'm not sure when I'll actually take it up.

When I do though, most likely once again I'll try to reconcile abstraction and naturalism. Who knows what might turn up?

The Value of History, and Sales

It's been a long time since I skipped an image with a post. But outside of some recent photos of a backyard Cooper's Hawk and a seemingly odd-looking Hairy Woodpecker at Andorra natural area I have no images to show. So we draw a blank.

But apropos of my last post on the 100th anniversary of abstract painting I'm currently rereading David J. Wagner's wonderful book American Wildlife Art. Most readers I think should enjoy it for the beautiful reproductions, but many may not like the amount of writing in it. As I reread it though I realize that the writing is actually the most striking part of it.

The reason for this as with much history is that it helps to put our own seemingly unique world into perspective. It's not often that you find anything new under the sun, the internet and social networking notwithstanding. For me it's fascinating that in the early 1800s there was the same dichotomy between painterliness and versimilitude in art that used wildlife as subject. Certainly in American art today I think it's taken for granted that verisimilitude is primary. I certainly don't think it should be. And it's interesting to see that it wasn't always.

This is just one of many  insights that the author gives into art, nature, nature sports and in particular wildlife art. One of the more surprising topics was Currier and Ives. I had no idea that in the 1800s almost 75% of images in Amercan homes came from them. Their exceptionally cheap prints made it very difficult for wildlife artists. How could they compete in price with the cheap price allowed my mechanical production of wildlife prints estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands per print? This reminds me of the extreme difficulty print journalism has today in the face of the internet. Of course Currier and Ives had to get their subject matter from artists just as online news today is often just a rehash or outright repetition of what a print journalist investigated and published. In either case it shows how culture changes, almost like a flooding river, changing everything in its path.

I enjoy reading history, of wildife art or anything else, because it seems impossible to read it without reflectiong on what it says about current life. Often it says more than all the talking heads in pundit land.

As  far as the sales in the  title I just wanted to let anyone who might be interested that all of my work for sale on etsy, both naturalistic and abstract is 10 % off throughout 2012. I realize that there may be few if any interested readers that are interested in this, especially after the huge sums that some people spend at Christmas. But just in case there are you should  visit the sites in next few days. Type in TENPERCENTOFF in coupon area when checking out. to have the discount applied My  naturalistoc work is at berkeleySU.  Some of my  older abstract work is at OldAndAbstract.

I hope that there's some chance I'll finish that long-lingering heron reduction print before the new  year. If so I'll post it here. If not, Happy New Year to all!

Housekeeping and Such

Over the last four or five years I've given a couple of web hosts my dollars and loyalty. One hosted my primary web site. The other was the host of my primary online store. I don't want to single either out for criticism. But over time my disappointment in each has grown. The main web site host has double-biiled me each of the last 4-5 years, each time assuring me it won't happen again. But it does and so I've been looking for a replacement. Having to use WordPress at another site I administer has convinced me to explore Wordpress as an alternative. A screenshot from my first experimentation is above. There is really nothing there yet. But eventually the new WordPress site should have something interesting. I am using it as a Content Management System rather than as a blog, even though it is primarily used for blogging just like blogger.
The online store host has always catered to bulk item sellers who didn't seem to have the need so show viewers a good, detailed look at their products. I realized when I started that it wasn't intended for art sales but I thought maybe I could get it to work for me. I really didn't like any of the group art marketplaces that I saw and so I didn't want to sign up with any of them. There were some good aspects to my online store host but I just hated the fact that it only allowed very small photos.
My experimentation with Etsy over the last two years has convinced me that it shouldn't be difficult to offer template pages that show a detailed photo of the artwork for sale. There is also the bonus of the little bit of code that can be inserted on any page to show a selection from Etsy. Below is an example from my main etsy store -'berkeleySU - Art and Prints from Nature.'
I'm very fond of both the large size and the ability to show work from Etsy on other web sites. In fact I was so fond of it that I decided I needed to start another Etsy site for abstract work. The abstract work is old and not much related to what I cover on this blog. But I'm still very fond of my strictly abstract work and it has always been fairly popular on the site of the now defunct store. Below is an example of some of the work from it on esty.

So not much art or nature news here. Just some biz talk. And I'm afraid I need to spend some more time framing works for another show so I may delay that even further. But the weather is getting a bit cooler and the outdoors calls. One of these days.............