About Painting, Babies, and Endangered Leatherback Turtles

     Our third baby, Elias Sterling Johnson was born July 8 in Montana. He is completely perfect and I can hardly stand to not be holding him, so he's spending a lot of time strapped to my back or front. He seems happy with the arrangement, too. I just want to take a minute to write some of my feelings about being a mom.

     I'm sure you've seen the evidence, like I have, that our society is no longer as interested in parenting as it used to be. Parenting isn't cheap, or convenient. It's not always a picnic and it's a steep education without an explicitly detailed textbook. So why do it? Or at least, why not keep it minimal?

      I believe it's a major part of the reason I'm alive. As in, I believe God gave me life, in large part because he wanted and expected me to have children.  I believe He expects me to teach them about Him, to teach them His laws and commandments, which are a direct road map to the fullest and most rewarding kinds of joy, happiness, pleasure, and love a person can experience in this life and the next.

   
      In a different vein, Painting is VERY important to me. I dream about it at night, wake up determined to fix yesterday's mistakes, and drool over the paintings other people post that are full of beautiful elements and things I want to try. After I've been painting for a while and really get focused, the thoughts about where to do what next come so fast it takes my whole brain to keep up. Maybe like a video game where you're trying to dodge some things and catch others. (I don't know- I don't play video games).  At some point, though, it goes beyond that to a level, a "high" that a video game could never have. At this point the hair stands up on the back of my neck as the sensation of complete peace settles over me. My mind blocks out all sound, and I feel like I'm actually in the painting. I know that sounds trite, but if you can create an illusion so lifelike that you start to believe it yourself, then when you use your brush to round the corner of a rock, it might as well have been a grinder that did it. Or as you adjust the value of the corner of an eye, you feel the need to be gentle and careful so it doesn't hurt.

     When it's finished, even though it's only an illusion, you still get a taste of the same kind of satisfaction, I think, that you might have if you'd created the actual object. And I believe the reason creating is satisfying and fulfilling to me, or anyone, is that our spirits, our souls, are actually the children of God, the Creator. It's a trait we've inherited from Him, so in our natures to want to create things that didn't exist before, whether they're purely artistic, or purely functional, or a combination of both. So the point of this tangent is that the desire to create never leaves me alone, and a bit of successful painting time gives me peace, energy, and satisfaction that I think spills over into my parenting efforts. (I'm soooo grateful for a generous, understanding husband who is also a great dad and helps make that time possible!)

     So some people might ask, " What if the purpose of your life is to be a painter, or a runner, or a whatever, but not a parent?" I realize that some people are unable to have kids... right now...in this life. And I'm sorry for them. But I believe that everything God created on this earth was and is for the sole purpose of helping His children learn to emulate Him and thereby achieve a divine level of happiness. Everything else was created for us. Not the other way around. As cool as the spotted owl and the leatherback turtle are, their existence is not more important than human life. Please don't think I don't care about animals. If I ever hit a bird on the highway I have to stop and bury the poor thing and pray he'll be happy flying around with his friends in the spirit world. But I think people are confused about how important human life is, in relation to everything else. I recently saw a picture on facebook of a dog. The caption read something like, " In a life or death situation, would you give your last meal to your dog?" I readily admit that though I'd be sad about it, the meal in that situation would probably be my dog. And I wouldn't feel an ounce of guilt about it, because of my understanding of my relationship to God, and my dog's relationship to me. And what does this have to do with painting? Okay, so there's a hierarchy here. The Creator is at the top. Then His children- humankind. Then the animals. Then other life forms (trees and other plants). Then rocks and water, etc. I paint on wood panels with hogs hair bristle brushes and paint made out of crushed rocks. So my paintings are going to fit somewhere into the last three categories. I hope they will take on more value by providing some kind of positive emotion or thought to the people who look at them, but there again, they exist only to benefit and compliment human lives. So what could be more important for any of us to do than participate in the creation and development of a human life? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!

     I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be an artist, and am happy that for me, painting is such a helpful complement to my real purpose in life.

Art for Art's Sake

     I came across another great Harvey Dunn quote today. I really like this guy. He said,

“We still hear some talk of ‘art for art’s sake.” The expression is about as sensible as 

‘beefsteak for beefsteak’s sake.’ The artist who falls back upon any such refuge in 

explanation of poor work might just as well be shown the door.”

     Haha! Love it. In undergrad Drawing class, I heard it this way from Leon Parson: "If it don't communicate, it ain't art. Any fool can make a mark." Please don't misunderstand my sharing these quotes- I can appreciate a piece of art that is completely abstract or non-representational, provided it is well- thought out and designed. The idea I find ridiculous is that an artwork can exist without a purpose. If you create an artwork to prove that art doesn't have to have a purpose, then you've disproved yourself already by having a purpose to your puposelessness. If you're one of those people who doesn't believe in absolute truth, or accidentally mistakes a toilet for a museum-worthy sculpture, then please pardon my post and go on back to your curious life. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then please read on. Early in America's history, American artists produced some widely-acclaimed and impressive artworks, from John Singleton Copley to pieces painted by artists of the Hudson river School. Beginning seriously before and around the start of the 20th century, a counter-culture movement began in the art field worldwide. "Artists" started springing up who claimed that anything could be art, that nothing was art, that everything was art. They encouraged the profane, the hideous, the vulgar, the nonexistent. They put random utilitarian objects in fine art shows as art, and convinced the public to the extent that viewers walked around oohhing and aahhing at urinals and bicycle handlebars while the great paintings and sculptures behind them went unnoticed. This movement spread, and those who subscribed to it decided that any artwork bearing the resemblance of reality was definitely not art. This, of course, included illustration in all its forms, from a portrait of a Quaker on an oatmeal box, to an expertly designed painting in the book Treasure Island. Not only the illustrators were ostracized, though. Any painter who gained the skill to be able to paint a likeness of anything realistic and then actually had the gumption to use that skill was immediately blacklisted. By that I mean, excluded from art shows, slandered, denied recognition and reward, etc.  But the traditional skills of painting and design survived, albeit "underground" until a new counter-culture movement sprang up. (Artists like John Singer Sargent and later the western artists were among those who ignored the rejection of reality and meaning in art). This movement has grown increasingly in the past few decades to encourage the "renewal" and "preservation" of representational art. Some of the main centers for this movement are in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and areas of California where collectors seeking representational art go to pay sometimes over a million dollars for a realistic contemporary masterpiece. Pockets of interest in representational art are thriving throughout the country. There you have my biased, non-politically-correct, narrow and condensed version of Art History in America. 

The Deep Woods

 Here are a couple more plein-air studies from earlier this summer. This first one was part of a multi-painting experiment replacing Ultramarine Blue with Prussian Blue on my palette. I learned that even though I LOVE Prussian Blue (because it mixes really well with Transparent Red Iron Oxide and it's also transparent), when I didn't have a cool blue on my palette then my paintings always turned out looking like aged photos or something you see through rose-colored glasses. This painting feels scorched and dehydrated to me- I really want to put some Ultramarine Blue into it but then I'd have to repaint the whole thing or the blue would be out of harmony with the rest of the painting.

The second one was the first painting I'd done outside in months, and it was a warm-up painting and turned out tighter than I like, but I had fun with all of the opportunities for designing shapes in this scene. This was in Jewel Basin...in the top of the mountain range wall bordering Kalispell, MT on the eastern side. I painted it from a camp chair in our camping site while my toddlers "cooked" gravel and snow with all of my cooking utensils. :)

Down in the Valley

From a stretch of the Flathead river where I was fishing with Grandpa in his driftboats... Well, he was fishing. I was a little distracted. It was so interesting to see the cool pink grazing the trees and grass right next to the blazing hot orange of the sky. I was trying to figure out what pigments to use in which places, since the instant you snap the photo the camera makes it either all warm or all cool, or some muddy combination. Congrats to Angela and Josh Erickson! This was their wedding present. ;)

Home Again

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From the top of the big meadow on the Oftedahl Ranch, I painted this familiar scene. A doe wandered around through my Dad’s log decks behind me, inching closer and closer out of curiosity. Finally she came right up onto the hill in front of my easel, and pawed at the ground, challenging my right to paint there. I wondered how I would describe the sound a deer makes. I think I’d say it’s a cross between the word “shoo” and “chew,” whispered as loudly as possible. There’s never any end to the distractions when you’re painting, pleasant as they may be. But at least I have a supportive husband who takes turns with the kids and lets me go paint and talk to deer. 

Great Grandpa’s Garages

When I was a kid, I spent a whole summer in these sheds catching rabbits with my sisters and cousins, and  they provided a maze of good hiding places for the rabbits. Dusty, greasy, full of rusty iron tools and filthy old tires… Great grandpa filled them up with his treasures. But that's not why I painted them. I painted them because as Harvey Dunn says it, they “reflect... the glorious light of heaven.” 

 

James at Work

James found this nice little runoff spot and did a vertical piece that I think turned out great. Eden (our 2-year old) wanted to hang out with her dad while he worked.

Storing Paint for Plein Air Painting

It drives James nuts how fast the oil paint dries out in a Soltek easel (since it's not airtight), and what really gets to me is how it all slides down to one side of the palette when you're hiking if any of the pigments have some extra oil in them, so when you open it you get this big mess of paint soup to deal with. So... my latest attempt to solve this problem has worked out quite nicely so far: Airtight pillboxes.

I just set this, open, between my palette and painting on the Soltek when I'm working and scoop paint out as I need it. No need to put piles of every color on the palette, and that way there's more room to mix paint. I'm liking this a lot.

Paint Camp Week One: Barretts, MT

We weren't really sure where we'd camp that night, but the first day on the road landed us in this gorgeous spot on the Beaverhead river. We were grateful to find a free campsite, a fire pit, an old fashioned hand pump with clean well water, and a few friendly neighbors. So we set up camp and stayed here for a week. With plenty of organizing and logistical problems still to solve, painting time this week was less than the place deserved, but still gratifying. James and I have long faced the problem of how we can both paint with two little kids without neglecting them. Here it's an easy fix... one of us paints while the other plays with the kids. :) One week he paints mornings and I paint afternoons, and then the next week we switch. The awesome thing about painting all week in the same location is that you can do a finished (and even large) painting without being rushed so long as you get several days of similar weather throughout the week. I did one painting multiple days from 8:00- 10:00, and then another (multiple days) from 10:00- 12:00 of a different scene. That way I didn't get frustrated with the changing lighting since I'm not that fast yet. It's working great so far.

Breaking in a new Dutch Oven

Breakfast with Daddy

The best ready-made composition was from right in our campsite. :)

Free entertainment...

Highlight of the Flathead

This is a miniature painting- 4"x 6" - a teenie weenie little hard to make your brush touch right where you want it to painting. But a good challenge, I suppose. This one is for the Hockaday Museum of Art benefit auction, and the proceeds of the sale will go to the museum.

Prints for Sale

I now have  prints available here:

Crystal Oftedahl Johnson Prints

Study in Oranges

This was done a while ago but I just came across it and thought I would share.