Again and Again

When I began art making in in 2006, I entertained a short period of thinking each rendering had to be of a different subject.  But I quickly realized how silly that was, having had some exposure to art history in college.  Didn’t Monet do a lot of haystacks?  And lilies?

And how about Degas with his ballerinas?  Winslow Homer at sea?  Not to mention (but I will) Georgia O’Keeffe with her massive flowers and striking New Mexico scenes.  Not that I am placing myself on a level with the above, but rather to simply say it is good to paint favorite subjects again and again.  Each work will differ from its predecessor, and there is infinite variety possible via palette, season, details, mood, and the list goes on.  Again and again.

I like to do waterfalls, ships in peril (I don’t want to BE on one, just to paint it), trees waving in the wind, adobe structures, gardens, bowls of fruit—and pots, pitchers, bottles, and jars often in the setting of a windowsill.  There is something about the bones of structure, even in the evanescent ideas I like to present.

At the top of the page you see what is one of my very first attempts at watercolor.  In a book, I’d found a repro of a painting by Fine Artist Jeanne Dobie, where she portrayed bottles in a window not by painting the bottles themselves but rather through showing the liquid color contents of the bottles surrounded by white paper representing light.  Pretty leaky bottles (mine—Jeanne’s were stunning).  But that was 2006 and it was what it was.

The next one down is a quick colored pencil sketch through the window of a rented condo in Santa Fe NM, where we spent a wonderful Easter week with our son, Karl, and his family in 2008.  The NM scene is followed by three more window bits with stuff in the windows, then followed by an albeit primitive and super child-like rendering of Milwaukee’s South Side as viewed through a lobby window at St Luke’s Hospital where my husband was undergoing cardiac care.  That painting, as odd as it is, is close to my heart because of the stressful time it represents in our family.  Painting IS therapeutic!

The domes of Milwaukee’s South Side, historically Polish and Serbian, are followed by a 2013 window scene—getting just a little bit more presentable.  Then comes a 2016 scene which I like a lot.  The print doesn’t do the painting justice, as in real life the colors and shine are noteworthy—and so is the real life size, which is 20″ x 24″.  I like wet, blurry effect, which was achieved with Gum Arabic.  (I tend to get that name mixed up with what I put in my gluten-free baking:  Xanthum Gum.  I hope I don’t get the gums mixed up in the cookies!))

One more of blurry bottles.  I like the frayed and fringy effect in the yellow/purple on the right side—produced by wet color introduced alongside another, slightly drying paint.  This works best on wet paper, and I love it even though it drives some watercolorists crazy.

And finally, the 12″ x 16″ pictured below is my very latest studio creation.  The wood on the window was textured by dropping Winsor & Newton Texture Medium onto the wet paint with a pipette or medicine dropper—one more tool of the trade available with acrylic ink bottles, or from your local pharmacist.

Since I will probably go on doing window scenes, along with Peril at Sea, etc., I am covering the latest in this series with one name, “Dans la Fenêtre”—because I am besotted with the FRENCH LANGUAGE (in which my proficiency is nearly zero on a scale from one to ten.  🙂

Margaret L. Been — March 18, 2018

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It’s not what it is . . . .

Awhile back I overheard an hilarious comment made by my husband, Joe, when he was on the phone with his cousin, Tom in Minnesota.  Joe was catching Tom up on our lifestyle, and he said:  “Margaret paints a lot but she doesn’t paint what it is.”  Too funny, and so true!

A few days later, a ten year old great-granddaughter, Brynn, was visiting.  She sat at our dining room table, gazed around at the walls, and then remarked to me:  “Your paintings are beautiful.  If someone would tell me what they are I’d think they were even more beautiful!”  Too precious!

Yes, I love abstract art with perhaps just a little hint at “what it is”:  out-of-focus renderings with no consideration of accurate representation or correct perspective.  I’ll share an obvious secret with you: I cannot draw worth a hoot, so the above descriptions of my efforts are accurate and all I can successfully do.  My trump card is COLOR and I am delighted to be able to manage that!

But also, the fuzzy/blurry/far-out kind of art is exactly what I like in our home—with a few exceptions:  my friend, Janet Roberts’s*  large, drop-dead-gorgeous, realistic oil paintings which Joe and I are privileged to own and display; some 19th century tinted family photographs in exquisite antique frames; a slew of wild-west prints culled from antique shops and  yard sales; and plenty of current family photos.

I love it when someone asks me what I had in mind with a specific painting.  Sometimes, not much I’ll admit.  But other times I’m thinking of something in the process.  The above sample incorporates my nostalgia for the campfires we had every April through September when we lived on a lake in the wild Wisconsin northwoods.

I painted the campfire as a raging inferno, with good reason:  I was recalling a friend who visited and insisted on throwing huge fallen branches and loads of birch bark in the fire pit while causing Joe and me to hold our breath in astonishment and a bit of concern.  But we had a hose handy and never needed to use it.  “Thank you, Lord!”

Here are some more “not what it is” paintings: 

1) Outside the small cathedral where our granddaughter, Jamie, and her Leonardo were married on an unbelievably perfect September day in 2013:  For me, the main things to convey were the autumn sunshine, the Norman architecture of St. John’s Northwest Military Academy Cathedral, and the red door which—on Episcopal Churches—symbolizes the shed blood of our Savior on Calvary.  ⇓

2)  An imaginary glimpse at city life at its creative best—with plenty of planting against walls and in courtyards, and many islands of greenery:  Years ago Joe and I toured the countryside in England, Scotland, and Wales—staying on sheep farms and basking in the goodness of it all.  On our last day in Britain, we stayed in the country near Gatwick Airport, and took a train from Dorking to London.  All the way into the city I marveled at back yards viewed from the train—nearly every one with a welcoming little garden and garden shed. 

Such a garden-oriented city culture is wonderful to me!  There may be many in the USA as well, but the only such cities I have visited are San Francisco CA and Bellingham WA.  Maybe due to our local climate, year-around city beauty is hard to find in Midwest USA.  Yet Britain has long been especially known for gardening passion. ⇓

A not-so-obscure image of one of my favorite states, New Mexico—where terra-cotta, turquois, and coral colors predominate and the air is redolent with the fragrance of piñon pines:  ⇓

Here is a collage which I did several years ago, while dreaming of the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco—in line with the previously depicted “creative garden city” rendering:  ⇓

One of my favorite high school memories is that of performing in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore.  Forever, Little Buttercup’s solo, “Things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream . . . .” will ring in my ears.  That’s the case with my art.  It’s not what it is!  🙂

Margaret L. Been — June 3rd, 2017 

*For a treat, you can GOOGLE “Janet Roberts, Fine Artist, Brookfield Wisconsin.

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Featuring Fibers!

Just for fun, I’m planning a brief digression from palette presentations—in order to share some other arts that I’m passionate about.  Painting is a huge part of my life, but there are other huge parts as well.  For starters, FIBER ARTS.

I love to spin wool and knit, and I’ve had wonderful years of weaving countless garments, place mats, and rugs on two looms which are currently up in our Northern home, as there simply is no place to put them in our condo.  (But my two best spinning wheels, Jensen Wheels, are right here beside us in our living room.  They are an indispensable aspect of my lifestyle!)

For eighteen years, when we lived in the Town of Eagle in Southeastern Wisconsin, I raised a spinner’s flock of from two to eight sheep—fine wool breeds.  At that time, I taught Fiber Arts Workshops in our home.  I found a (rather crochetty) gentleman to make a large rustic sign for the entrance to our drive:  FIBER ARTS:  Spinning, Weaving, Knitting . . . .” plus phone info, etc.

But what a struggle, getting that sign custom made.  The sign artist was bent on refusing to make the sign as I directed because, in his rather vehement words, “The is no such thing as ‘Fiber Arts’ “.  Finally I won.  I had cash, and money talks.  But I’ll never forget my shock over someone trying to tell me that “There is no such thing as ‘Fiber Arts’ “.  Yikes!

Anyway, I’m as nutty about fibers, as I am about my paint brushes and tubes of paint.  Recently some friends and I have been knitting prayer shawls for the local Vince Lombardi Cancer Center.  Since a lot of shawls can be produced at a rapid pace I make shawls for family members, friends, and myself as well.  Recently I had a shawl ready for the Center, when I learned that a friend in Seattle has cancer.  So that shawl went to Seattle, instead of to the local Cancer Center.

The shawls are too much fun to make.  If they were any more exciting, I wouldn’t be able to stand it!  Each one is an original, one of a kind, in a variety of colors that might have made Old Testament Joseph weep with envy.   I love color, and I love to make up garments as I go along—incorporating pattern stitches.  If I discover that I’ve inserted a color that doesn’t fit, or a pattern that doesn’t add anything to the mix, I simply rip—sometimes many rows—and start over to get it right.

It’s good to include button holes and buttons—at least one per shawl.  This prevents the slipping and sliding that shawls otherwise tend to do.  The buttons are special, some hand-made clay or fabric creations from art fairs, and others from yarn stores.  Currently I’m working on a Southwestern shawl in New Mexico colors.  It will have two buttons, roses in a brushed gunmetal grey substance resembling pewter—made in France.  Finally I trim edges or interior areas with a double crochet or fringe, or both as in the above example.

Here is one more recent creation:  perfect for our newest family member, great-grandson Leonardo Aguilar II.  His Mexican Daddy says Baby Leo likes to be wrapped up “like a little burrito”.

Margaret L. Been, May 2014

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“Plein air” via literature . . . .

I am greatly blessed with the gift of a visual mind.  When I read, the scenes described in a book loom large before my eyes in living color.  Although I dearly love words, it’s actually the pictures which words evoke that thrill me—or terrify me, whatever the subject of the text may be.  Plot and character development are “biggies” in successful fiction, but for me it is a sense of place and the scenery which rise up larger than life.  I’m perfectly happy with a virtually plot-less novel and one with few characters, if the book abounds in adjectives and adverbs which delineate a scene so vividly that I think I am really there—en plein air!

Visually oriented people are tremendously contented with being “armchair travelers”.  I can take extensive voyages, pilgrimages, and treks anywhere in the world—all from the comfort of my sofa or my “read in bed” 1/2 armchair which serves as a sit-up pillow.  (What an economical way to go!!! 🙂 )

One of my favorite American recent writers is Louis L’Amour.  Yes, Louis was tremendously skillful at plotting, and his characters are amazingly individualistic—never the fare of “canned” formula fiction.  But most of all, I love this author for his painterly writing.  And he is my first assignment in my self-programmed Autumn Painting Agenda of painting en plein air via literature.  With words before me, I can pick up my brush and render my take on the scene described.

The above watercolor on Arches (pronounced “ARSH”—it’s French) 140 lb. cold press paper was inspired by the following description in Louis L’Amour’s SACKETT BRAND:  “The sun was just below the horizon and the red rock cliffs were weirdly lit.  Out of the west a tiny puff of dust lifted, grew, and became a fast running horse.”

I’m very excited about painting passages of literature.  Additional Louis L’Amour scenes may be forthcoming, plus quotes from painterly poems—including my own poems.  From long before I found the courage to pick up a paint brush—in fact for most of my life since early childhood—I have happily painted with words.

Margaret L. Been, 2013

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“The Haunted Mesa . . .”

In the above painting, inspired by one of my favorite novels—THE HAUNTED MESA, by Louis L’Amour—I began with the “dampen the paper/charge the paint/and back off” concept but backing off simply did not work.  Instead, I spent hours letting layers dry, painting new layers, sponging off muddy parts (Arches 140 lb. cold press paper takes a lot of sponging and reworking without falling apart), and much consternation to the point of nearly tossing the whole bit into the waste basket.  Hour after hour and layer upon layer, I just couldn’t seem to make the painting come alive.

Then I accidentally turned the paper (to what I’d thought was) upside down, and voilà—THE HAUNTED MESA materialized before my eyes.  I like this one as much as any I’ve ever done.  I guess my punch line is, in the words of Winston Churchill, “Never give in . . . .”

The painting is large enough that it wouldn’t completely fit into my scanner.  (It will be matted and framed to the outside dimension of 16″ x 20″.)  But I was able to scan aspects which especially appeal to me:  the yellow-green sky and the faded background layers, as well as a good amount of the alizaron crimson/permanent magenta/ultra-marine violet foreground. 

The cloudy areas in the foreground were created by randomly rolling a wadded up facial tissue over the freshly painted, wet surface.  I’m just a bag of funny tricks!!!  🙂

Margaret L. Been, ©2013

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The Places We Love

I have never been able to appreciate the dilemma of individuals who say, “I’d like to write, but don’t know what to write about.”  My answer is, “You have a life!  So write your life!  Write about the people and places you love!”

Over the last six years, since I began painting, I’ve often recalled my own advice!  Although I’d love to paint the people I love, alas.  My skills are inadequate, at least at this point.  But I can, have, and continually do paint the places I love.

You will recognize the above paintings as representative of “Out West”.  That region of our nation is dear to my heart— especially Colorado (my “second home”), plus New Mexico and Northern Arizona (my “adopted second homes”).

Next you will see glimpses of a part of my actual lifelong home, known to most Wisconsinites as “Up North”:

And here is my current home in Southern Wisconsin. ↓ These renderings were inspired by life inside and outdoors in our beloved Nashotah:

So there you have it.  I’ll never run out of excitement over the places I love—past and present!  And “future” is going to be the most exciting of all!  But my finite mind cannot begin to comprehend how to depict the new Heaven and earth!  I’ll just have to wait and see!  🙂

Margaret L. Been, ©2012

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Living Outdoors

Those of you who also visit http://northernreflections.wordpress.com/ know that our patio is, for me, a very special bit of Heaven.  It opens through sliding doors right outside our living room, so it seems like we live outdoors year around.  The patio is beautiful in winter, piled with drifted snow, but it’s especially wonderful in spring, summer, and autumn.  It faces due east, and is sheltered by a roof and the rest of our building from all but the east wind.  We face a park and nature preserve—beyond which is the wild end of Lake Nagawicka—so wildlife abounds in the neighborhood. 

Canada geese, great blue heron, sandhill cranes, turkey vultures, and hawks soar across the open sky over our park every day.  We are surrounded by lakes in our corner of the world, so shorebirds as well as field and meadow flyers are at home here.  Occasionally sea gulls venture inland from Lake Michigan, in search of food.  (I often see gulls at shopping centers where people are apt to drop a potato chip or some pop corn.)  Recently a cormorant cruised over our park—exciting, as in the past I’d only seen that large bird in Wisconsin’s far North wetlands. 

To make bird and cloud watching, reading, and sipping iced tea on the patio complete we needed some funky art—preferably with my beloved Southwest flavor.  A gallery wrapped canvas and some acrylic paints did the job, and now we have art for living outdoors.  I sealed my rendering (“My Santa Fe”) with acrylic gloss medium, so barring blizzards it should be weatherproof.  I’ll bring Santa Fe in late next fall.  Meanwhile, the painting is living outdoors—with me!  🙂

Margaret L. Been, 2012

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A Surrogate Trip

This is the time of year when we’ve occasionally gone to New Mexico in the past.  I am traveling in my mind, and my paintbrush follows—all the way to Santa Fe.

Margaret L. Been, ©2012

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Painting a Theme

One point most artists agree upon is the wisdom of painting a favorite subject again and again—as a series or a lifetime of renderings, as evidenced in Monet’s many water lily paintings.  If the subject is something we dearly love, it will always hold our interest and we can capture this love in a plethora of colors, aspects, viewpoints, and styles. 

From little on, I have been fascinated by the vanished culture of the cliff dwellings in the four corners—Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico—and other parts of the “Grand Circle” surrounding Mesa Verde where these states meet.  The history of the area is fraught with enigma, unanswered questions, and infinite speculation concerning how the people lived and why they abandoned their cities in the cliffs.  The area itself abounds in beauty which borders on the bizarre.

Although the term “Ancients” has been applied to many past cultures around the world, and even to fictional space aliens, the “Ancients” who capture me are those historic people who maintained a working civilization in the Grand Circle from approximately 1200 B.C. to 1300 A.D.—the Anasazi (meaning “ancient”), or Ancient Pueblo Native Americans.  Many sites in the Grand Circle are named after these people, who are generally referred to as “The Ancients”.

I have traveled in the Grand Circle, and I never tire of reading about the area—its history, cultural ruins, and theories as to what life may have been like for the cliff dwellers.  In recent years, my interest in the Southwest USA has intensified from reading many novels by Louis L’Amour set in that locale.  Not only does this author describe the region in painterly paragraphs which virtually pop off the page and into one’s imagination, but he creates an aura of mystery about the people who lived there—and fictionalizes this mystery into “cliff-hanging” plots which have kept me reading far into the night on several occasions.

Given my love for the Southwest, and my love for Louis L’Amour’s books, it is not surprising that aspects (usually dreamed up and fictionalized) tend to fall off my paintbrush onto paper.  The above, “hot off the palette” piece is titled Lost Amethyst Mine of the Ancients.  This is pure fiction.  I have no knowledge that the Ancients did any mining, or that there is amethyst quartz in the area.  Thus far I have found no online documentation that mining may have been part of that ancient culture.  I simply capture what comes to my mind when I think of Western mines and the culture of the Ancients.  I also love the color of amethyst!

I’ve been painting the Southwestern theme for months—and my zeal shows no indication of flagging.  Awhile back I produced a “favorite” which I named Lost Canyon of the Ancients. I may have posted it before, and a cropped version of it appears above in the header, but in any event here it is again:  ↓

This above bit of fantasy is now framed and hanging over our (electric) fireplace. 

Margaret L. Been, ©2012

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My Winter Vacation

For the last two decades, Joe and I have made a pilgrimage West at least once a year—frequently in the Winter or early Spring.  Our destinations were Colorado and New Mexico, and we combined our love for the West with a visit to loved ones who live near Denver.

This year, the trip is not happening—but never mind.  My paintbrush travels to the High Rockies of Colorado, to the adobe houses of Taos and Santa Fe, NM, and to those fascinating Cliff Dwellings on the Four Corners.  Just as I never tired of traveling West, I will always love reading about the West via documentaries, histories, and Louis L’Amour novels.  And likewise, I probably will never tire of painting the West.

My favorites of L’Amour’s novels are those mysterious tales of lost canyons, valleys, and ancient cities in the regions surrounding the Cliff Dwellings.  My mind paints as I read, and eventually the paint materializes on paper.  Hence the above pair—Lost Valley of the Ancients I & II.

The paintings are propped on another passion of mine—my piano.  A collection of Scott Joplin rags peeks over the painting on your right as you view the photo.  Playing a Joplin rag never fails to make me smile!  Such mellow music, with soul! 

To the left of Scott Joplin, sits my venerable book of classics by Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, etc., which are infinitely satisfying to play.  (That’s why they are classics!)  The book was my mother’s, and it dates to the late 1920s or early 30s.  Not only did she gift me with her love for music, and of course the music lessons, but she left me the actual music books to enjoy.  My fingers don’t flow as effortlessly across the keys as hers did, but with practise I can play.  Mom would be pleased! 

Meanwhile, with books, paints, and a piano I really don’t need a “vacation”!  It’s all here, at home!  🙂

Margaret L. Been, ©2012

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