Why bridges are a classical attraction?

You know the Sistine Chapel and those iconic hands of God reaching towards man? I arrived at the melting stage of this piece full of overwhelm of these last few weeks, indecision, doubt, a desire to take two steps back as opposed to one step forward. And then the lamp in my hands changed me. 

I looked at my main element - the bridge, and that bridge wanted to curve, so I intuitively took the canvas off the easel and directed the drips in a more rounded fashion. And my mind wandered to that world-famous painting and it wanted to repeat this tentative touch of Michelangelo, this desire to support the other side, so I flipped the piece again and created another hand of drips.

It struck me that this is why I'm so fascinated with these medieval towns - it's because they create a bridge between man-made and organic. They strive to have this ability to co-exist, to fit in with one another, to belong together. The buildings reaching for the trees, the busyness seeking the void, the light searching out the darks, and a bridge where they greet each other with a meek touching of drips. What does that tell me about my life, my doubts and indecision? 

It nudges me to not be afraid of me, of the different warring sides of me, of my need to steer clear off the beaten path, and strive for a bridge of my own, if only I dare to act...

Do we need to let it go in order to succeed?

I think this is a good ending point for the book. I'm done with about half of it by now and am thinking more and more about the main theme, and the sub-themes.

My drips are for emptiness. They’re an antidote to the busy world I try to populate in each new piece. They create the much needed reprieve from the craziness. They introduce abstraction, they move me from my regular status quo. 

They’re an answer to my traditional upbringing, to my fears of rejecting the mold, of letting go. If I completely give into them, they will be me letting go completely. 

But I can’t give up the line. Its piercing musicality is very important to me, its contrast is absolutely key. I don’t know if I figured out form yet, but the line is certainly there to stay. I still can’t tell which forms speak to me and which I’m able to forego. Is it a triangle shape or a semi-circle that is my favorite? A combo of various sized cubes? Do I absolutely need a horizon line? I’ve already gathered that less is more when it comes to color: maximum of two different juxtapositions plus an accent color. But I don’t want to stick to the same palette, do I? I know I need to break it down to get to complete abstraction, which would mean something to me. But how? And do I need to get to abstraction? Maybe this is a constant conversation - a chat between inner and outer reality, between abstract thoughts and practical sides of me?

How do you deal with anger?

I'm angry. There needs to be contrast and darkness. Something inside me craves the play of opposites. I want to destroy my stupid mistakes, and enforce the vibrating texture of the main character and the background. Who cares what remains in focus: what's in the front and what recedes to the shadows? That is absolutely secondary.

I can't stand rejection. We all know we should not take it personally but every single time it's a knife that pierces straight to my heart and soul. I start hating everything I do.  I minimize all my accomplishments. This gnawing feeling that I'm worthless and utterly ungifted makes me want to slash it all, cut it up, and trash all these degenerate half-baked creations.Where is the darkness? I want it to be visible, to conquer the light, to penetrate my hopes and dreams. I need it to co-exist with the light and enclose it, and shape it.

Then, suddenly, this hatred passes and now there's too much contrast. My little inner child awakens and tells me that it's time to move on. It's time to balance it out and add some dimension. I'm that person that plows through. I don't dwell on the negative. I push myself to find new solutions. In these dark moments lies my strength. I find them disturbingly invigorating. They push me to new boundaries.

These nuances in mood and color bring depth and uncover the many dimensions of my life. I could be reveling in these contrasting color combinations forever. I love that it takes me four or five sessions to bring my paintings to completion. There is a span of all kinds of emotions, priorities, struggles captured with each piece. These feelings might not translate to the viewer, but they're apparent to me because I lived them all. These are little pieces of me, my true inner life away from the hustle and bustle of daily pressures.

Each canvas is a battered creation, attacked from all kinds of angles, yet made stronger because of its multiple mini-victories. I wonder what would happen if I could devote my sole attention to painting. Would these get somewhere faster, like they did while I was in college? Could my quest be solidified if I had all the time in the world - no work, no kids, no monetary concerns? Or are these paintings so incredibly deep because they reflect all of me: all my perturbations and the hundreds of existential questions I ask myself while I paint. One never knows. A fairy does not flicker her magic wand granting me a new life - so I make due with what's given me - n'est-ce pas?

For the painting that this process has produced, and more insights into life's existential questions sign on to my newsletter at www.dianastelin.com

My Favorite Artists on Instagram

As I explore Instagram as an outlet for my art, and as part of #taaigchallenge, I'm seeing some really great work, and I feel it's important to share it as means of inspiration.
I thought once in a while everyone needs some inspiration, so here are some of my favorites:

I love patches of harmonious color like #UweKowski
I love scraped off surfaces a la #Gerhard Richter
I love ghost trees in the style of #WolfKahn
I'd love my line to be as piercing as Hiroshige Fukuhara
I think the saturated scenes of Stevnn Hall are amazing
The color harmonies are simply perfect in Julia Powell's work:
and I'd love my symbols to be as spiritual as #Wassily Kandinsky, whose birthday is today incidentally...

But god damn it, I want it to be my language that combines all those and transforms into something new, blended seamlessly, yet making a contrasting statement. It'll stem from nature but be taken to an imaginary paradise: where borders are barely visible, where sky falls onto earth, and sand can rise to meet crashing waves. It's where trees can spread their curious branches far into the amplified skies, and they can separate the landscape into mini-icons where one's eyes rest while taking a break from the whole spectacle. It's now my color theory and not Quiller's or Kandinsky's. It'll be my melted, scratched, layered world where I can fit in all my hopes and aspirations, my struggles and disappointments.

 

Do you see recurring symbols?

There're forms that want to come back time and again, symbols that allow me to uncover certain truths, highlight what hides beneath.

An arched stone bridge - what is the significance of its recurring draw for me? Is it the playful texture of the stones, with enigmatic treasures reflecting in the water below? Is it the contrast of manmade patterns, so carefully assembled, against the smooth reflections of the trees, their branches haphazardly yet gorgeously striking the void?

If I am indeed always painting how I feel about myself, then is it that struggle of contrasts that draws me in? To be agreeable, yet enigmatic, and ambitious but understood, daring, provocative but feminine, delicate, beautiful, balanced, in harmony? Yes, quite a few contradictions to stuff into one painting, with the hope that they will all be apparent to the viewer, that they will all be accepted. What if just some of them are apparent? Or what if the onlooker only sees what he/she wants to see, irrelevant of my struggles and intent?

These symbols which might mean one thing to me, and something entirely different to someone else, they're still elements of a pictorial language through which we communicate. And communication is never easy, even if we all speak the same tongue. We always miss nuances, refuse to see what's just below the surface. Do you see a woman hiding in this painting?

Do you ever wish for a Do-over?

This is the first time I painted over one of my old canvases. Typically, it's very tough for me to let go of even my most disliked pieces, but I wanted this challenge of working on top of something already formed. I thought it would be so wonderful to already have a textured work from the get go, so that I wouldn't have to spend the time establishing texture from the ground up. How fundamentally wrong was I!

All the lines and grooves are formed in all the wrong places for this current piece, and every new layer is going against the grain of what's already established. It's like you're trying to change someone whose personality has been formed long ago.

At some point, however, you realize that old scars won't go away. All you can do is simply work with them, bring a new light to them, a brighter life. Yes, it is typically escapism that I'm after in my work, but it doesn't have to erase all notions of my reality. It can bring me to a new place by building on top of what's there.

 It comes out as an antiqued Instagram photo, with patches of seemingly forgotten white space open for interpretation. Some layers are scratched off to the very core of my original marks, with a new mask seemingly hiding all wounds. However, the more you add to an existing patch of texture, the more sophisticated it becomes...

Do all your problems need constant attention?

Foreground and background - what is important first and what needs to recede back - that was the overlaying message of this piece. I want this shift between voids and built up areas. At the same time, however, I want things to melt into one another. Yet, I keep on insisting that something sticks out.

Problems can't all be important at the same time. We're all constantly shifting our priorities but every time it's a struggle as everything seems equally important. Yet, if you treat all elements the same, then they're all flat - there's a lack of focus. It doesn't take a lot - numb one area with a duller hue and that instantly highlights another. Darken the background to contrast it with the foreground. Scrape away unwanted brightness and everything will become more subdued. Create and outline and things will adjust to their new forms and shapes.

And then it doesn't all have to be solved. Some areas can be left alone, remain as they are - not all issues are worth fighting for. Not all problems need our constant attention. There's a point when you simply learn to let it go. Perhaps a solution comes to you in another painting or life situation. Perhaps, it's simply not an issue after all.

Do you ever want to turn into a tree?

What's the significance of a girl turning into a tree? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Why is it that every time she looks more human in this painting I get annoyed and every time she turns too unrecognizable I get equally frustrated?

If I am that girl - what am I gaining by this transformation? Is it oneness with nature, complete solitude from humankind, true expression? Why is it so scary? Is it because I'm losing myself: my softness, my uniqueness? I'm losing my limbs, my curviness, the features that make me - me. I have body sensations as a hand turns into a branch; it wants to unstick itself from this hardened mess. It feels as if I'm losing a battle to crazy glue... But then I'm gaining perpetuity, aren't I? No. Trees are as prone to dying, getting sick, suffering from cold and heat as we are, if not more.

So I'm sitting here marking pluses and minuses and figuring out which outweighs the other. But the main issue is that I'm still drawn to this idea, in love with this idea of a human turning into a tree. I even made a larger than life painting of Daphne in college that was stolen from the studio. What is there that keeps my attention? Perhaps this struggle I'm going through is actually my living through this transformation? In order to gain immortality of sorts you become hard-skinned, you lose bits of your genuine self. You don't know where to strike the balance.

I'd like to watch my kids quietly, yet be ready to step in at a moment's notice, not be paralyzed like a tree. This paralysis is really a paralysis of thought. I get stuck in this idea of fame, recognition, money making that I lose my genuine, original self. My limbs go one by one. Hands are so stuck in tree puss that they can no longer perform.

No, I want to be Daphne who hides in a shape of a tree, but not forever. She uses it as a temporary asylum but she's able to quietly come out of that masked existence and return to humanity. She should be able to do that. Trees are people that lost their way...

Embrace all your different realities!

You start painting an object and move it into an abstract composition of shapes. It seems to lack depth so you add light and shade, you construct believable grooves and folds. Then this something starts to look like another recognizable subject. You run with it and add more elements that will turn it into a fish, or a person, or a hilltop. Once you're past this layer, all you see is that central shape of a physical being and it annoys you tremendously that this is no longer just an abstract painting that is free to be anything. Does our eye always seek something recognizable to hold onto? Do I as a painter and in my real life need to steady myself with reality?

You turn the piece upside down and tell yourself that you'll start from scratch. You can simply see lines and shapes and colors, without needing to go anywhere else. Yet, within ten seconds your eye begins to search out recognizable imagery - formal elements of a painting aren't enough for it to chew on.

Perhaps it's the nature of shapes and lines to be suggestive. With one stroke Japanese calligraphers evoke a mountain top because they know our eyes will complete the scene on their own. So why should I try to run away from suggestive imagery? Why not embrace as many realities as come to mind? When the landscape is full of incomplete spaces, our eyes are able to take it in and add to it in just the same way they see things in an abstract shape. It's about doing more with less. Wouldn't that be a nice life motto?

Stop projecting yourself onto others!

Last semester has been quite difficult. I kept seeing lack of progress in my students, instead noticing their repetitive mistakes. It seemed to me that some get stuck in certain areas at the expense of the whole painting. Others use way too many colors. Yet another bunch never has enough time, and most don't trust in their creativity and inner voice. These problems kept me up at night and made me rethink time and again why I'm bothering to teach at all if I see no progress in my pupils.

It's when I started this painting, which differs greatly from my typical way of thinking, when all these issues hit me all at once like a ton of bricks. As I typically paint from life, and with this endeavor I was attempting to unblock my dream painting practice, I was facing a myriad of problems all at once. How do I bring out images from within, somehow convincingly connect them, and trust myself while doing it? I had to choose colors randomly, knowing they will have a different feel when placed next to other colors. I had to properly employ perspective, and hold a palette knife just so to achieve lines of desired thickness. I had to fight with contrasts, toning and vibrancy of almost every stroke. Throughout this turmoil, my own words of encouragement kept coming back to me.

I then suddenly realized that every single problem with which I struggled was an exact flaw that I saw in others' works. Essentially, I was projecting my own fears and insecurities onto my students.

Hearing this teaching voice with its practical suggestions made it come back full circle. What I need is to experience all these problems in order to be able to teach them. I need to learn to trust my inner voice as I'm teaching. Finally, I need to go through the quest of teaching to guide my own road to painting.

This semester started on this high note! :)

Everything needs its individual attention

The question of giving every student different treatment and a varied set of tasks based on his/her personality has been haunting me for a while. Time and time again I see that inevitably one or two students in each class need a lot more time on each project than others. I feel awful hurrying them along, as typically these are the students who truly pay attention to details, are quite the perfectionists and want every one of their pieces to truly become a work of art. But then what do I do with the rest of the group? I can't constantly split up, on occasion into three separate corners - where each student is doing something different based on his/her skill set and interests. It makes me crazy, I'm feeling like my head is about to explode in all these different directions.

This painting has been attempting to give me answers to that question. I went into it with my typical expressive approach, covering the canvas at once with slashes of my favorite palette knife. It all somewhat worked, but all the elements seemed to lack their own personality. And it occurred to me that I can't treat the surface of the water in a completely identical way in which I'm handling the tree growth, or the clouds floating along. They each move in their separate way: trees reaching up, clouds circling along, water drifting in horizontal lines. I need to copy their movement with my lines, being mindful of each and every personality, so that it could be a valid form in the composition, so that all these actors can have a dialogue with each other.

And yet, these are all parts of one whole painting, and all these personalities have to coexist in it. Trees and sky reflect in the water, merging and balancing out colors, shapes and lines of the final piece. It's just like all people ultimately coexist in one society, somehow learning along the way their ways to cope with that society's demands. So then even though a conversation with each student can be slightly different - should my final goal be to teach them integration into their group? That would ultimately give them an important life lesson, correct?

How do you set your priorities?

This painting has been haunting me in its purpose because it's a sudden internal shift from trees and all their symbolism to a cityscape. Did I need to do that for more people to understand me, or was it something inside of me that wanted a new or rather re-visited challenge? The answer to this question I don't know even now after the painting is finished.

What I do know is that it was a true lesson in setting priorities. What is more important to me - the infinite sky, the haunting water, or this magical town highlighted by rays of sunshine? It was a constant adjustment of what hides and what comes out. Especially fascinating was how the darkening of one element brought out another. 

One day my friend and teacher, Andrey Tamarchenko, came to visit, and said that textures can be varied throughout - treatment of water and sky should be softer than the rough outlines of a city with its decaying walls. I ended up making the sky and water more pale, and suddenly the city became clearer, as if coming out of a mist. But it bothered me because the city wasn't my focal point. It was actually the opposite - what I loved was the cityscape's complete integration into the landscape, how it effortlessly coexisted with the cloudy sky and the murky water. I changed it yet again to level out the planes, and that made me happy. So is the lesson to take away from this process the opposite of what I'd initially thought, and in fact you can really have it all? Or that perhaps you always need to make a list of priorities?

Traps

This painting has been a torture. It was attempting to come to life amidst declines from juried shows and galleries. I was in a particularly foul mood for weeks. Yet, it has been moving along despite it all and in a very strange way. I've been noticing that the drips don't just come down, (laws of physics and all), - they follow certain ridges and roads that I had left previously. Every time I would come back to paint, I'd be afraid that things would progress too fast. Yet, my barriers created intriguing little turns and twists for paint to follow.

At first, those closed gates seemed to play along with my depressive tune - 'you can't jump over your head', 'you can't go beyond your pre-set limitations' - little mean voice inside my head kept saying...

And then I returned one last time and suddenly thought - 'But wait, I am the one who creates these closed gates. It's completely up to me to open some and close others. It's my choice to direct the flow slightly. I set my own traps.

Just like in life, I can always walk into those pre-designed lived-in scenarios. Or, I can make a conscious decision to behave differently - not sacrifice myself, my time, my energy, but create more meaningful satisfying relationships.

It was truly brought home when I would stand as usual with one arm melting the paint, and the other holding a palette knife, ready to place another automatic mark in another section of the painting. But something inside of me kept saying time and again - 'no, put down the knife, use this arm to consciously turn the canvas and create new paths'...and I did.

Controlled Impulses

I'm very impulsive by nature. Something comes over me and I follow the urge, I trust it to lead me to a good place. Most often than not it does. Yet, sometimes, I lose momentum, things start falling apart, and I blame it on the initial impulsive decision. Should I? Or is it that loss of faith in my intuition that dooms the task at hand?

I've just read a great NY Times article about restoration being done on Jackson Pollock's 'Alchemy', one of my favorite paintings of all times. Everyone always talks about automatic techniques Pollock had used, the pure happy accidents that followed, his constant drunken state. I never thought his pieces to be accidental, and I'm happy the article shows scientific support of this belief. Every drip area, every color combination was premeditated, even in very large works. Surely, his intuitive senses played a huge part, but so did his formal education, his analysis of how an onlooker's eye should move in a piece to make it lively and compositionally sound.

I just finished a piece that I was told differs greatly from all my other work: it feels larger, it's light is coming from within, it breathes. I'm thrilled with it, and I believe it's my trust and follow through on intuition that brought it to this state. Sure, I used my traditional melted drips, but they were carefully controlled, adjusted in certain areas, intensified in others. Layers kept piling on, yet each uncovered nuances underneath. The palette was limited: colors with which I had never experimented before were carefully juxtaposed. Finally, I left a lot of empty room for it to breathe. It's simply marvelous: it feels like a breath of crisp air. Intuition is certainly a force to reckon with yet nurture...

How we all need a breather once in a while

Yet again an act of painting acting as life coach. I've been following my own mantra while painting - striving for balance of color and line throughout, the lights and darks, the thin and thick. It was all moving along just fine but it was somehow off.

Only six or seven hours into it, nearing the end of my energy reserve - it hit me. The painting was too cluttered. I piled up too many things into this one creation and each area was fighting for attention, unable to sit still.  I wasn't letting it breathe. I was pushing and pushing more elements into this poor thing and it wasn't letting my eyes rest. So I added emptiness, big neutral, peaceful puddles. All of a sudden, the painting came to life - it had its ying and yang. It was full of energy, captivating but not overwhelming.

And it immediately struck me that this is a direct mirror of my everyday life. I never let myself take a breather. I run at full speed, my task organizer bursting at the seams, like a hamster on its little wheel. And I set the same schedules for the kids, because I feel this pressure to keep up. And everyone is irritated, exhausted, struggling.

So as a result of this conversation with my painting, and in order to not burn out, I decided I'll take a nice long coffee break once in a while. I'll allow myself to have a relaxed lunch. I'll find time for yoga and sauna in my schedule, and I'll ease off the kids. I won't rush to sign them up for more activities so that I feel on par with other involved parents. I'll let them play and relax whenever possible. That's truly my wish for everyone this Holiday season - please take the time to breathe. Even a half hour a day helps. Invariably relaxing brings you to new solutions to old problems.

The need to RTFM

My husband is an engineer and his favorite saying when something isn't going right is: RTFM (read the .... manual).

I'm often asked to teach according to a step by step, or follow along manual, and I always refuse. It just seems to me that instructions of that sort kill any individual creativity, or ability to think outside the box and come to an unexpected, yet original solution. My motto has been to demonstrate the use of materials, give some background art history on the project, and see where imagination can take one as an artist.

Yet, with this latest painting I feel like I did what I preach against, and I can't say I'm happy with the outcome. I took an old watercolor from 1999 as inspiration, from the time when I loved the combination of nature and architecture. I thought that even if a rigid structure is there, I can let myself get to a point where I use it sufficiently, and then be able to let it go by melting it away.

But apparently this need for a manual has a strong hold even on me, not just on the engineer types. Every time I tried to lose a column or a window, or have the trees or grass spill over onto the existing planes- something within me rebelled. No matter how hard I tried, I proceeded as I'd been taught with as correct a perspective as possible, the shapes of the original building in the watercolor, and the forms of the initial trees.

So the question I guess is perhaps we as humans are programmed to follow instructions and I'm wrong to confuse myself and others with too much freedom? Perhaps creativity can succeed even within the confines of a manual?


 

The relationships between

The more I delve into abstraction, the more I realize that objects themselves matter so much less than their relationships with other elements adjacent to them. What's truly beautiful is an object that is able to extend beyond itself, to influence others with its luminosity, to reflect and uncover their hidden beauty.

When you are around someone for a long time and you truly make an effort to relish the relationship - you melt into that someone. Yes, you compromise something of yours, but that makes you that much richer.

And then, just like you never know how exactly paint will behave in a given moment, you don't ever know when a relationship will take another turn. You might attempt to comprehend someone for years, and after all this trial and error realize you don't complement each other. With people this shifting of gears only causes tremendous stress and fear, and most times a certain end, good in the grand scheme of a life that constantly moves...but terrible in the day to day emotional well-being. It'd be so wonderful to approach these turns philosophically, even enjoy them like I do with paint's uncertainty, its wonderful element of surprise. You never know what new wonderful encounters will materialize tomorrow.

A Life of Contrast

It's been a few months that this post has been brooding in my head. I've finally realized that the quest for contrast is what I constantly look for in life - things lacking hard edges simply don't interest me.

I recently came back from an Antique art fair, where tons of soft 18th-19th century paintings graced red felt walls of many booths. I was so incredibly bored with them. They didn't have the punch of hard lines or complimentary colors juxtaposed next to each other, no delineated lights and darks. I couldn't sink into these paintings, couldn't dissolve.



I also incidentally spent a few days with an atmospheric abstract painter, and what I thought was always lacking in her work - a grounding of sorts - she noticed was overly prevalent in mine. She hated my rendering of trees for instance - saying they create a grid which interrupts the flow of the painting....After that critique I attempted to do without my typical hard branches and all I see is mud and chaos.

I guess we each seek and value key features of our personalities in our works and the works of others. It's never the opposites attract phenomenon. OCD'd like myself find order amidst chaos. A Buddhist finds a calm meditative space.

But then...I used to love radical people - those with a strong personality and unwavering opinions. Maybe it's because I'm too mainstream and blah? But now I see that these people are simply not tuned in to the world around them, they don't see shades of grey, don't see any nuances in human relationships. And I get to thinking that perhaps that is what's supposed to happen to my art - more nuances and less expression? That is what growing into your own means?

Melting away...all masks

As much as I try, I can't get away from reality. I can't reach within and call forth images sitting deep in some innermost layer.

So my new answer to all this representation is melt the reality...melt it away like the Wicked Witch of the West, remove all those built up textures, all these layers of masks.

The process is really difficult on me as it requires so much patience. It's the antidote to my fierce piercings with a palette knife.

What it does is slowly bring out all these unexpected nuances in color relationships, plays of textures that are so different from what I typically employ. Drips fall like tiny tears, so difficult to extract, always from unpredictable little caves, opening newer hideaway places, shifting priorities. It's like reliving a dream, peeling its meaning bit by bit, the unwilling truths. Bubbles of bile all of a sudden explode into fireworks of new answers. If all masks could shed like this, leaving room for brutal honesty with self and with the world.
This is a work in progress...the tricky thing is knowing where to stop...The media is oil paint and wax, which is then melted down with a heat lamp.

Brushstrokes - it's not what we say, it's how we say it...

I've spent some time with a friend art therapist this past week analyzing my work. I doubt I'd take up art therapy as even she stopped painting once she got deeply into the analyzing part. You begin overthinking your every move, every compositional element and color that goes onto your canvas.

However, what she said to me as part of her insights was truly simple and dumbfounding - "How about you play with your brushstrokes?"

When I thought of the perfect formula for a successful painting, I forgot this crucial ingredient. Yes, there's composition and line, and color, but it's this element that adds movement, forms depth and instills a personal style into the piece. Without paying attention to it, a painting is too polished, too void of emotion.

It's like a conversation that leads nowhere, or offends, or discloses too much. Perhaps certain intentions were there but the execution was lacking. So my goal for the next 'green' painting is to focus not so much on the content, but on the way of delivering it.