.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}
   Welcome to my blog! I'll be posting thoughts about art, photos, happenings, and other things that strike me--and hopefully my readers--as interesting. And please visit my website by clicking the link to the right--thanks!

   Also please check out my second blog, The Painting Archives to see older (pre-2004) paintings for sale.


Sunday, September 20, 2015
  visual vocabulary
Soon I'll be leaving again for my last journey of the year, returning for the 3rd time in as many years to beautiful County Mayo, Ireland, for time at Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle.  For the next week and a half, I'm at home, enjoying early fall in Wisconsin, and thinking over the past few months of travel and teaching. Time in Sweden, Italy, and travel here in the US...a total of six workshops and fifty-five students since May...it's a lot. My plan to slow down next year makes more and more sense. Yet I treasure all of this experience.

I wonder, going forward, if each place I've been will remain distinct and compelling in its own way, This is how it is now, with the summer's journeys fresh in my mind. I'm influenced by the sublime starkness of Sweden in certain paintings, and the warm colors and textures of Italy in others. Below, a recent painting done in response to the colors and textures of old walls in Verona:

Verona, 18"x45"

Now I have a new place in mind with big impact, though I was only there for an hour or so. The photo below was taken when I was in North Carolina a few days ago, on a path that goes behind a waterfall. (Abstractions of rushing water, as yet unexplored, have been on my mind since last year in the bogs of Mayo.)

Dry Falls, near Highlands, NC.

In my recent workshops, a big theme has been developing personal visual vocabulary that arises from experience, thought, and emotion. I suggest that artists contemplate specific qualities they desire in their work, and what they believe to be their strengths. During class we focus on the concept of alignment of form and content, which helps students see how best to express what they intend.

Exploring form (including materials, techniques, and the way the various elements of art are handled) may lead to discoveries about content (what thoughts and emotions the painting conveys.) Or, just as validly, the reverse can happen, with an idea or intention leading the way into finding the best form for its expression. For many artists, including myself, balancing form and content is a complex, back and forth conversation, with intention and process influencing one another as a body of work evolves. Eventually, particular ways of handling line, color, value, composition and so on emerge as feeling "right" and true to the individual artist. These become aspects of visual vocabulary, to be explored, perfected and developed over time. The ideas of "what do I want to say" and "how do I say it" are often intriguingly intertwined, and the sources of ideas are limitless..

For me, travel is a major catalyst for my own evolving vocabulary, just as artists over the centuries have experienced breakthroughs as the result of spending time in a new environment. When travel is very fresh in recent memory, I notice that content leads the way in my work; I look for ways of expressing what I've experienced. When I paint during travel, and in the immediate aftermath, there is a direct (though very intuitve) connection to what I've seen and felt.  As time goes by, this content starts to become more generalized and my focus shifts to aspects of form such as texture, color and shape. In other words I acquire, through travel, new ideas about form that eventually become part of my visual vocabulary. This vocabulary is flexible enough that it can play a role in work that follows.

Below are some examples of an evolving interest in shape, starting with a small work on paper done in Ireland in 2013, and inspired by the coastal rock formations near Ballycastle. The next one down is a large painting from 2014 in response to the shaggy earth shapes of the Mayo boglands, and the last is the most recent painting, influenced by small islands I noticed in Sweden. All are done using cold wax medium with oils, which I find most expressive for texture and rich color. But before the first painting in this sequence, shape had played only a minor role in my work. Now it's become a bit of visual vocabulary that I use in changing ways. In the intriguing loop of the interaction of form and content, I believe I'm also paying more attention to shape in the landscape along with learning to use it as a visual element.


Carrowteige #2, 10"x8" 


Ceide #1, 36"48"


Sad Island, 18"x14"


I wonder if there will be some synthesis that happens of my travels this year once I can work fulltime in the studio again, and what new aspects of form and content will show up. I'm about to add one last injection of experience, as I leave for Ireland on the 29th. This time, I plan to visit Cork as well as the Giant's causeway in Northern Ireland--places I have not yet seen. As well, I will re-experience the majestic coastline near Ballycastle in Mayo, and the lovely autumn colors of the bogs.As I near the end of my travels for the year, I feel incredibly blessed with what has come my way, and I look forward to digging deeper into my responses in paint.


 

       www.rebeccacrowell.com




     September 2005 /      October 2005 /      November 2005 /      December 2005 /      January 2006 /      February 2006 /      March 2006 /      April 2006 /      May 2006 /      June 2006 /      July 2006 /      August 2006 /      September 2006 /      October 2006 /      November 2006 /      December 2006 /      January 2007 /      February 2007 /      March 2007 /      April 2007 /      May 2007 /      June 2007 /      July 2007 /      August 2007 /      September 2007 /      October 2007 /      November 2007 /      December 2007 /      January 2008 /      February 2008 /      March 2008 /      April 2008 /      May 2008 /      June 2008 /      July 2008 /      August 2008 /      September 2008 /      October 2008 /      November 2008 /      December 2008 /      January 2009 /      February 2009 /      March 2009 /      April 2009 /      May 2009 /      June 2009 /      July 2009 /      August 2009 /      September 2009 /      October 2009 /      November 2009 /      December 2009 /      January 2010 /      February 2010 /      March 2010 /      April 2010 /      May 2010 /      June 2010 /      July 2010 /      August 2010 /      September 2010 /      October 2010 /      November 2010 /      December 2010 /      January 2011 /      February 2011 /      March 2011 /      April 2011 /      May 2011 /      June 2011 /      July 2011 /      August 2011 /      September 2011 /      October 2011 /      November 2011 /      December 2011 /      January 2012 /      February 2012 /      March 2012 /      April 2012 /      May 2012 /      June 2012 /      July 2012 /      August 2012 /      September 2012 /      October 2012 /      November 2012 /      December 2012 /      January 2013 /      February 2013 /      March 2013 /      April 2013 /      May 2013 /      June 2013 /      July 2013 /      August 2013 /      September 2013 /      October 2013 /      November 2013 /      December 2013 /      January 2014 /      February 2014 /      March 2014 /      April 2014 /      May 2014 /      June 2014 /      July 2014 /      August 2014 /      September 2014 /      October 2014 /      November 2014 /      December 2014 /      January 2015 /      February 2015 /      March 2015 /      April 2015 /      May 2015 /      June 2015 /      July 2015 /      August 2015 /      September 2015 /      October 2015 /      November 2015 /      December 2015 /      January 2016 /      February 2016 /      March 2016 /      April 2016 /      June 2016 /      July 2016 /      August 2016 /      September 2016 /      October 2016 /      November 2016 /      December 2016 /      January 2017 /      February 2017 /      March 2017 /      May 2017 /      June 2017 /      July 2017 /      August 2017 /      September 2017 /      October 2017 /      November 2017 /      December 2017 /      January 2018 /      March 2018 /      April 2018 /      May 2018 /      June 2018 /      August 2018 /      September 2018 /      October 2018 /      November 2018 /      December 2018 /      February 2019 /      April 2019 /      May 2019 /      June 2019 /      July 2019 /      August 2019 /      September 2019 /      October 2019 /      December 2019 /      January 2020 /      March 2020 /      April 2020 /      May 2020 /      June 2020 /      August 2020 /      October 2020 /      January 2021 /      March 2021 /      May 2021 /      September 2021 /

       Rebecca Crowell