Aleta Wynn Yarrow's 'Guardians'

Aleta Wynn Yarrow, Guardians
Acrylic; 18" x 36"

I’ve always enjoyed learning about other artists’ processes. Whatever the media, something nearly always translates, becomes useful, inspires. Recently, I talked with my friend Aleta Wynn Yarrow about her painting Guardians. Here’s some of what she had to say.

Guardians is an intuitive piece that had its genesis in fairy tales and archetypes. I have always loved stories, especially the old stories. There are themes and images that recur, like the number three, a key, a castle, and animals such as the owl, fox and horse. What I set out to do is to paint a narrative painting, not in the sense that it has implied action, but in the sense that it contains archetypes from fairy tales for place, character, and object.

So, there is the night, the cloud, the constellation, the tree and the seed to represent "place." All these symbols have deep layers and resonate in many directions, many dimensions. Night, for instance, is a symbol for refuge, sleep and dreams, for magic and the awakening of the fairy realm, for romance, for mystery, but also for evil and dark forces. Now each of those is just skimming the surface of possibility. One could write a book about the meaning and symbolism of the night. The same is true of the other symbols, particulary "tree."

The "characters" are the birds. Three is the "magic" number: man, woman, child originally, but well adopted by religions over the millenia. In fairy tales, there are always three brothers, or events transpire three times. An artist's magic 3 is, of course, the primary pallette: red, yellow, blue. The "characters" in the painting are a scarlet tanager, a goldfinch, and an indigo bunting. The owl is the guardian, keeper of the key, and symbol of wisdom, intuition, and vision: a sort of artist's muse.

The key is the key to the painting. It is the "object," and the clue that the artist intends more than decoration. In fairy tales, keys open doors to horrors, doors to treasures, and doors to lost loved ones.

You have the pieces and the symbols, but you have no action. That is what you, the viewer must supply. From the vast storehouse of tales in your common memory, from the vast possibility of symbolic meanings, what meaning, what story can you create with the beginning given here? This is what I intended: an illustration for a story yet to be written.

Guardians was painted with matte acrylics on paper mounted onto stretched canvas; size is 18” x 36”.

Aleta is currently working with illustrator Johanna van der Sterre to offer "Nature's Story" wall tiles. These tiles are designed primarily for schools and libraries, and are nature-inspired, combining picture, narrative elements, and words. The project includes both stand-alone murals and series: “Like a picture book,” Aleta says, “on the wall. Children will be able to walk down the hall, reading and touching.”

Aleta’s work will be showcased at West End Gallery, Corning, September 4- October 8. Opening reception is Friday, September 4, 5-7:30. For more, visit westendgallery.net and Aleta’s website, aletayarrow.com.

Simon's Cat

If you're a cat person, or if you just like funny, you need to check out Simon's Cat, a series of short films by English animator Simon Tofield. Tofield creates his films with Adobe Flash, and draws each frame- up to 25 per second are required- with a Wacom pen and tablet. Here's his most recent, Fly Guy.

A Walk In The Moonlight

A Walk In The Moonlight
Ink, Graphite, Charcoal; 2 1/4" x 4 3/4"

Yesterday I gave this drawing to a friend. I’d decided some time ago that I wouldn’t sell this one, and it’s hung over my computer since. But selling and giving are two very different things, and I’ll always be glad I gave it to him. John, if ever you read this- Well, you’re just the best, that’s all.

What Are The Odds

It's a small thing, really. We're in Borders, in Ithaca, at the newsstand. La Petit Chou thumbing disinterestedly through remarkably samish glossy artsmagazines, me I'm reading up on New Wave Of Traditional Heavy Metal bands and mentally crossing off those I already know need to work on their chops some. No names mind you, sure I'm a metalhead but no unkind. And then I see this pencil on the floor. It's black and about half-used up, and looks something like the water-soluble Aquarelles I used to like. But when I pick it up, it's a promo pencil from a long-closed Elmira frame shop where La Petit Chou worked fifteen years ago or so. A small thing, but it makes you wonder. How many of these are still around, and why here where we'd find it, etc. Nowhere much to go with all that- Makes you take notice, but of what exactly? Does provide though a fine satisfying opportunity to say, just like Judi Dench at the end of that Vin Diesel movie, Now what are the odds of that.

New to the links list: Ithaca artist Christi Sobel's blog The Tree With The Lights In It. We've admired Christi's work for awhile, and her blog is a good one too.

Pics from the 2009 West End Gallery picnic up on my fb, more on La Petit Chou's.

Catharine Valley Trail

Along a half-mile spur of the Catharine Valley Trail, south of the Mountour trailhead.


This spur crosses Catharine Marsh before rejoining the main trail along the hillside.


Approaching the trailhead at South Genesee Street. A plaque inset in the opposite side of this sign honors trail founder Ed Hoffman of Elmira; I haven't yet learned the significance of the W on the sign's north face. But I like it.

Edit: My thanks to the commenter who explained that the 'W' indicates that the trainman needed to blow the whistle for an upcoming crossing.

Two More From The 'Tage

Sometimes when I haven't listened to these guys for awhile, I forget just how good Savatage was. The Gutter Ballet video, from 1989.



The Somewhere In Time/Believe medley from the Criss Oliva Memorial Concert, with Jon Oliva on vocals.

Abandoned Quarry

Abandoned Quarry
Charcoal; 6 1/2" x 5 1/2"

I began this drawing at La Petit Chou's Studio 1201 a few weeks ago, set it aside to work on other things; each time I've returned to it since, I found myself not wanting to do much. To bring this kind of drawing to the more or less uniform level of detail, finish, etc of most of the pieces I show usually requires sacrificing some unfinished-ness I like a lot- And I don't want to give up anything here. So- Done. Click to view at actual size at most browser settings.

Sometimes To Stand

Maybe it was looking at Gary’s work, or Bill’s, or some of my own from back in Those Days- Whatever, this week I got the urge to get out my pens, do some stippling. Couldn’t find a black Sakura Pigma Micron .005 that was both worn to a suitably fine point and still functional, so I abused a fresh one badly with an emeryboard. Don’t tell Sakura.

1. Inked stippling over a light graphite pencil sketch. The paper is Strathmore’s 300 Series Bristol.

2. Stippling the foreground reminded me of a couple things. For one, why I stopped working this way. But I’d forgotten too how appropriate this kind of work can feel. Those sessions when you aren’t into Big Creative Decisions much, filling in a field of very small marks seems a productive use of the time. Or maybe that’s just the OCD kicking in again.

When the ink was dry- if you’re working on clean paper, this happens very quickly, the Pigmas are great that way- I evened things up a little with 2B & HB charcoal pencils, kneaded erasers. A Pen & Ink purist, I ain’t. Whatever works.

3. The sky began with a light rubbing of charcoal dust. I developed the mist and moon with graphite pencils (Dixon Ticonderogas, Numbers 1-4) and kneaded erasers, working soft to hard. Last, I tightened and warmed the tree a bit with a Number 3 graphite pencil.

Sometimes To Stand
Ink, Graphite, Charcoal; 3 ¾” x 2 3/8”

The title comes from something I found myself saying in the parking lot of an Elmira Heights church twenty years ago: Sometimes just to stand is to move forward. Some things you forget, some things stay with you. There were good people at that place, putting their backs into it. They knew faith, and work, and that they’re not different.

Sometimes To Stand is a small, simple drawing, nothing extraordinary, no new ground broken. But it felt good to revisit this kind of work, and I hope my enjoyment of the process is reflected in the result. The scans should load at about actual size at most browser settings.

Gathering

Gathering
Ink, Graphite; 5" x 8"

Another from the archives. Like Edge Of Thorns, Gathering was done with Marvy LePlume colored pens. Dunno if they're still available, but at that time their line included four or five shades of gray that lent themselves well to stippled light-dark gradations. I began using them, I think, after trying a friend's set of grayscale photo-retouching pens (in those days, we weren't all yet Photoshoppers). It's a little startling sometimes to be reminded how much my process and technique have evolved over the years.

Remembering Criss Oliva

Edge Of Thorns
Ink, Graphite; 6" x 3 1/2"

Looking this morning through files of older work, I found this drawing, inspired by and in tribute to Savatage guitarist Criss Oliva. For those not familiar with his playing, here're a couple tastes.

G C Myers at WEG

G C Myers, Dispatches
Acrylic; 6" x 18"

Now showing at West End Gallery, G C Myers’ exhibition Dispatches. La Petit Chou and I have both been fans of Gary’s work for some fifteen years now, and we each have our early favorites; at the moment, mine is the title piece, above. Gary’s posted comments on this and several other paintings on his blog redtree times- And while you’re there, check out his very kind words about my own work, here. Blushing still, I am, and doubtful of deservingness- Thanks, Gary. Means a lot. Opening reception for Dispatches is Friday, July 24, 5 - 7:30; preview the show on the gallery's website.

Arboretum 2

Another from last weekend, at Cornell's Arboretum.

At The Arboretum

Cornell's Arboretum, on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The distant rages of the Shakespeareans echo faintly across the ponds. Up at the Overlook, someone takes hammer to bell.

From Phil McCray's blog Ulysses' Friezes:

At the end of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, the pugnacious urchin Linda rejects the promise of treasures she has inherited (stultification in a grim boarding school, and the possible flushing of the liberty of her own life down into the sewers of social respectability and security) and instead walks off into a more dangerous unknown, in the company of an even more pugnacious girl... let us say to rough out the years remaining to her in rowdy cities, with alcohol, jazz music, petty crimes, and a beat trail to Hollywood, where she writes stories and scripts for movies that will not be published or produced until their visionary truth is recognized, many years after she succumbs to the various ravages of life lived as misadventure.

Which is to say: independence. So difficult to muster.

The Nightingale's Garden

The Nightingale’s Garden
Charcoal, Graphite; 5” x 9”

No scanner handy over the weekend, so this scan represents two sessions, about eight hours’ work. Trying to follow, flesh out the bones of the trees I’d sketched earlier seemed an almost certainly dissatisfying path: I wanted to get out of their way and my own, let these trees to be a product of this session, today’s energy and direction. So I began again, fast and loose– Q-Tips loaded with soft charcoal dust, initial shapes and highlights lifted out with kneaded erasers. Details developed with 6B charcoal pencils, softened & sharpened with more kneaded eraser, Dixon Ticonderoga graphite pencils, grades 1-4.

The last session was a Fussing Day– Cleaning up, smoothing out background and mist with a gazillion or minute adjustments. Kneaded erasers shaped to a very fine point, and a Staedtler Mars Lumograph 6H graphite pencil. The Nightingale’s Garden was done in several sessions over 12 days; total working time was about 22 hours.

Contrast & Consistency

A brief session, with more values brought into line. I look for distractions, too-brights, too-darks, make adjustments with erasers, graphite pencils, Q-Tips. Get carried away, and softly-lit becomes muddy. I’m always looking for that ideal balance between contrast and consistency. Elusive, that one.

Where The Fun Waits

Last night I began with the remaining unfinished area above the middle pool, developing detail, bringing values into line. In these sessions when I’m resuming work on a drawing in progress, I look for the obvious, the first thing I see that clearly needs doing. A way of warming up, maybe: Small decisions before bigger.

The top pool was also unplanned. I’d do a few obvious, then see about the tree– Next thing I knew, there was another pool, and getting bigger, and and.

As usual, there are elements I’m not satisfied with- maybe never will be, not entirely, but I need to remember to leave well enough alone, sometimes- and that’s just what I can see, what seems obvious. What I can’t see yet, though, that’s where the fun waits.

Quick & Dirty

Last night, more cleanup: Brightly lit surfaces, reflections, mist, fades smoothed with graphite pencils, kneaded erasers; and a quick-and-dirty tree roughed in with one of my most indispensible tools, a Sanford Tuff Stuff Eraser Stick. I sharpen the point with a utility knife, emery board or sandpaper to draw out fine lines or refine highlights. If you work in charcoal or graphite, you need one.

Abandoned Flights

Not a lot to show for last night’s drawing time. Tried some things that went nowhere, but at least took awhile- Long day, or maybe I just wasn’t ready. Sometimes you know you’ve approached a new edge, something new, something. You don’t know what, exactly. A half-glimpsed dream you reach after, can’t grasp: The pools at the bottom of this drawing dissolving into a shuffle of architect’s sketches, layered transparencies, possibilities. Fragmented notes you intuit rather than read: Unresolved arcs. No conjoined returns. Eventually, you resign yourself that none of those will happen tonight, you don’t have the energy, clarity to allow them, and you clean up their thinning traces, contrails of those abandoned flights.

No Planning

The drawing went well last night. Hadn’t planned on the pool, or getting all vertical, or much of anything else that happened. Never do, really. Planning’s overrated. If there were a universally recognized symbol for planning I’d get a T-shirt made, a big red slashed-circle NO PLANNING.

What I had thought might happen, sorta, was more of a ruin, emerging from still water, mist. Seemed a good way to go. But I guess I’ve gone there enough for now, because that seemed old news, safe, no fun. And why make art unless it’s fun.

Sure, saleable is good- And for some of us, necessary. But trying to hit that mark… If you’ve got those kinds of chops, that’s a good thing. Me, I've learned to draw what I love, and then think about sales. Because if my heart’s not in it… Well, that’s really all we have to offer, isn’t it: Ourselves, and our best.

For me, a lot of that’s about pushing aside preconceptions, refusing that intellectual overlay- mmn, this element doesn’t really make sense, how can I make it work with the others, that kind of overthinking- that often clouds rather than clears. Usually, if I leave well enough alone, the drawing will move forward in a way that’s satisfying and efficient. So far, so good.

So only a couple things, or at least their beginnings- not a lot, compared to the epic revisings some drawings have suffered- went the way of the Mayans. Who probably didn’t build any of this, even the oldest parts, not their style. You never know though. Maybe some rebellious Mayan princess went rogue on ‘em, blew her inheritance on a second year art student full of revolutionary new ideas, and this got half-built before the money ran out.

Half-hearted sucks. Half-built, though- That’s good. Leaves room for all kinds of possibilities.

Emboldened

I don't post WIPs much. Don't take the time to make in-progress scans, usually; and of course on those occasions when I say hey look what I'm working on, it's gonna be so freaking cool and then the next day I mess up and trash it and people say dude what happened, it's embarrassing. But summer's here- admittedly, that's a statement of faith, but I'm sticking to it- and today I'm feeling emboldened.