New Year, Same Me?
Welcome to this first post of the new year where I'm talking about art "goals," self-portrait experiments, and my recent Winslow Homer reading.
Hello friends,
Welcome to this latest installment of my monthly art newsletter. My objective with this newsletter is to show you art that I’ve made and other art that I’ve seen and am inspired by.
Read on for my thoughts about the close of 2023 and start-up to 2024, my experiments with self-portraits, and a recap of reading I’ve done about Winslow Homer.
RECAPPING 2023 + ASPIRATIONS FOR 2024
I’ve never taken a very formal approach to setting New Year’s resolutions. It often feels like a lot of pressure, and a fair amount of disappointment. At the same time, I get it: there’s value in writing down intentions to aim for while also remaining open to changing priorities and new opportunities.
I had a great year in 2023, even if I didn’t have a super specific list of goals at the outset. I mostly remained open to new ideas and pursued what I felt like I could, in terms of time, energy, money, creativity, etc.
Here are some of my 2023 outcomes:
Showed and sold my work in my driveway and in my living room during May and August Somerville Arts Council events.
Showed my work in four local exhibitions sponsored by the Somerville Arts Council and North Cambridge Arts Association.
Participated in my first plein air workshop in October with Amy Brnger and Slow River Studio.
Participated in three live figure drawing/painting workshops.
Participated in SEVERAL weekly Drawing is Free sessions online.
Completed two 30-day painting challenges (Erin Spencer’s Spring Sky Challenge in May, and the Strada Easel challenge in September).
Completed my own 30-day collage practice in May/June.
Made 45 sales of my work at a combination of in-person events and my website.
Traveled and painted outdoors in Massachusetts, Vermont, Idaho, Utah, Louisiana, Florida, Spain, and Israel.
Visited museums and galleries in Boston, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Asheville, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Helena, Tel Aviv, Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Provincetown, Boise, Rochester, and Sarasota.
The past year was packed full of good things, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity to see new places and practice new creative skills.
As for 2024, I have some ideas in mind that partially overlap with what I did last year. But I also want to continue to grow in new directions, and seek out new opportunities for feedback on my work. For example, I’d like to continue selling work on my website, increase my number of newsletter subscribers, show my work publicly at a gallery or coffee shop (or something similar), submit my work to a juried exhibit (actually did that for the first time recently!), and continue to travel and paint in new locations around the United States and beyond. Keep following along to see where all of this may lead. It’s an experiment, and a work in progress.
SELF-PORTRAITS
I’m not sure if I’m ready to call it a New Year’s resolution (see hesitation above), but I get excited about lively, playful portraits of people and want to draw and paint in this style more often. One source of inspiration at the top of my list is Provincetown-based artist Jo Hay, who creates large-scale paintings featuring a variety of subjects including well-known, influential women. But I also like smaller, gestural figure drawings. One example I’m thinking about it Drawing is Free founder Chloe Briggs.
Here is a sampling of my own self-portraits from the past year created in a variety of mediums. Three out of the four were actually done in the past few weeks. With just a small hand mirror, I can use my own face to study shadows and shapes and try to depict them in paint. I’m going for “loose” and want to avoid “cartoonish.” In the new year I’m interested in painting more faces and I will continue to practice on myself for now, because it’s the most convenient.
WINSLOW HOMER READING
Several months ago I bought the 2022 biography, Winslow Homer: American Passage, by William R. Cross. I have at least one other printed catalog of Homer’s watercolor paintings, but this is the first time I’ve read a biography that includes so many additional details about this artist’s life and the world around him. Homer’s life span, 1836 until 1910, touches several important eras and topics within American history, such as the final days of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the economic panic of 1837, the abolition movement, evolving newspaper and printing technology, the events of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the expanding nineteenth century art market, and the evolution of art making with new tools like metal paint tubes and photography.
Cross’s book spans Homer’s entire life and career, including his origins as a printer’s apprentice in Boston, and his career as a newspaper illustrator and print-maker in New York City. Famously, Harper’s Weekly hired Homer to create illustrations from the frontlines of the Civil War, which were printed and distributed nationwide. After the war’s end in 1865, Homer turned more specifically to painting, and continued to work in oil and watercolor until his death in 1910.
You can read more about lithograph printing here.
Printmaking remained a part of Homer’s work as a painter, even if he became reluctant about it. One example in particular from Cross’s book stayed with me. During the Civil War, Homer had befriended Boston lithographer Louis Prang, whose firm had become known for printing war maps and other images printed in newspapers. About thirty years later, in 1893, and after Homer had become well-known as a painter, Prang was eager to produce a new Homer lithograph. Homer was slow to agree, and over the course of three years (!) developed an image that he eventually transferred to a lithography stone. The image is a seascape that he painted first in watercolor, Sea and Rocks During a Storm, 1894, then in oil, High Cliff, Coast of Maine, 1894, and was eventually printed on paper as Sea and Rocks During a Storm, 1896. Whether intentional or not, this was Homer’s last lithograph, and only a few impressions were ever made.
Homer considered the oil version to be the most valuable of the three works, and he priced it accordingly. For many years, however, the painting traveled around the country and did not sell. A frustrated Homer wrote, “If it will not sell, there is little use in my putting out any more things.” At some point between 1903 and 1909, the painting landed in the collection of William Thomas Evans, an Irish immigrant and wealthy businessman/art collector. This painting, and much of Evans’s collection, was donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1909.
Here are the three images that Homer created, starting with the original watercolor painting showing a scene near his home later in life at Prouts Neck, located in southern Maine:
I have thought about this example from Homer’s life and work, and how it may relate to my own. Here are a few of my takeaways thus far:
Nearly all great artists work in a variety of mediums and formats and styles over the course of a lifetime. Perhaps I’m looking for permission to do this myself as I dabble in drawing, oil and watercolor painting, collage, etc.
Printmaking can serve a purpose to make artistic work available to more audiences at lower prices than originals. While I won’t be making lithographs, I am curious about selling prints on demand, via some website somewhere. Still thinking through those logistics.
Creativity takes time, especially with multiple projects going on simultaneously. I appreciated that Homer did not let his persistent friend Louis Prang set the timeline. Homer worked on his own schedule, and in fact relied on the changing seasons (melting snow) as he created each new version of his rocky, coastal scene.
THANK YOU!
Thanks for reading this far! And thanks for subscribing to my newsletter. I’ll send out another post in mid-February.
Love the auto portraits!
Not sure why there are no cars though 🤣