Your easel, your altar

Greetings! The American architect and author Anthony Lawlor looks at rooms as containers for the elevation of the human spirit. The kitchen, for example, is a sacred place where raw foods are transformed by the alchemy of heat into sustenance and delicacy. Bedrooms are sanctuaries for the mysterious transformations of sleeping and loving. Bathrooms are closed retreats of personal cleanliness and hygiene. Apart from perhaps the nursery, nothing compares to the remarkable container known as the studio. Here is a sanctuary where mere materials are transformed into objects of beauty. Like the laboratory, the studio is a domain of imaginative possibilities--as near to "creation" as mankind is likely to go. At the center of most studios is a piece of furniture called the easel. Whether simple and humble or complex and magnificent, it is at this unit that the creator sets her forces in motion. You might pause to consider how blessed are we who daily stand or sit before the easel. Ideally, it should be a strong object, so it can be pushed hard against, or be made to hold rock-steady during our more delicate passages. The easel needs to be well lit from above so those born on it can be properly examined, pampered and reconsidered. The easel is an altar to productivity. Traditional altars have been places of worship and sacrifice, and the studio easel is no exception. He who would do well at one must respect and honour the gods of quality, truth, composition, imagination, pattern, perspective, story, drawing, colour, fantasy and flair. To stand or sit at one, even in play, you need to prepare yourself for labour. The easel is also a place of sacrifice. Substandard passages or whole works are summarily struck down at this often troubling altar--but rebirth is its usual fruit. Both honour and responsibility go with your easel, your altar. Best regards, Robert PS: "For thousands of years, much of humankind has believed that only special places are infused with the sacred and that you must get away from the everyday in order to find it. Not so, everything is infused with the holy--from chairs to clothing to kitchen stoves." (Anthony Lawlor) Esoterica: While I've built, bought, worn out, and rejected countless outdoor easels and boxes, my studio easel is home-built and has been with me for a lifetime. My dad and I built it in 1974. I've sometimes looked at more sophisticated cranking and tilting models, but I've always come back to this one. Maybe it's the spirit of Dad in its rugged design, the Luddite way it holds onto my paintings, or the patina from my cigar-smoking days that keeps it in its place. But maybe it's the tradition. I've made a lot of art on it, and rejected a lot as well. It's been a life together--this easel and me. I guess you could say I've fallen in love with it. FYI, we've put a photo of my easel at the top of the current clickback. Current Clickback: "Signing and dating" looks at the best way to sign your work. Your comments will be appreciated.    Read this letter online and share your thoughts on sitting or standing before the easel. Live comments are welcome. Direct, illustratable comments can be made at rgenn@saraphina.com    The Art Show Calendar: If you or your group has a show coming up, put an illustrated announcement on The Painter's Keys site. The longer it's up, the more people will see it. Your announcement will be shown until the last day of your show.    The Workshop Calendar: Here is a selection of workshops and seminars laid out in chronological order that will stimulate, teach, mentor, take you to foreign lands or just down the street. Many of these workshops are recommended by Robert and friends. Incidentally, if you are planning a workshop and have photos of happy people working, feel free to send them to us and we'll include a selection in the workshops feature at no extra charge.    The Painter's Post: Every day new material is going into this feature. Links to art info, ideas, inspiration and all kinds of creative fun can be found in this online arts aggregator.    If a friend is trying to subscribe to the Twice-Weekly Letter via Constant Contact, please let her or him know that confirmation is required and to reply to Constant Contact's confirmation email.    You can also follow Robert's valuable insights and see further feedback on Facebook and Twitter    Featured Responses: Alternative to the instant Live Comments, Featured Responses are illustrated and edited for content. If you would like to submit your own for possible inclusion, please do so. Just click 'reply' on this letter or write to rgenn@saraphina.com

Emilia Castañeda

Mark Chadwick

Beautiful Painting!

Signing and dating

Greetings! Yesterday, Marjorie Moeser of Toronto, ON, Canada, wrote, "I sometimes place my signature to the left at the bottom because it suits the composition better than having it on the right. I try to make the signature inconspicuous. Mostly I sign in black, but sometimes white or a neutral tone. But I've done paintings that seem to say "no" to a signature up front. So, I omit it, opting for signing on the back. What is your advice? Also, what about dating?" Thanks, Marjorie. I'm a member of a party who thinks signatures should be clear, consistent and pretty well always in the same place--lower right. There are times when lower left is okay too. Further, if the style of signature is consistent, the colour of the signature can often be harmonized or integrated into the painting, as you suggest. My advice to most artists is "unobtrusive but clear." While the unique style and painterly quality of your painting is more important than your signature, a good reason for putting a signature on the front is in the interest of the observer. People love to be right. If someone sees a "Joe Bloggs" from across the room and says, "That looks like a Joe Bloggs," and moving closer, sees the signature "Joe Bloggs," then this observer confirms his brilliant connoisseurship by merely recognizing the Bloggsian style. Leaving the signature off the front of a painting may be okay for internationally-famous iconic artists whose style is so recognizable that anyone who didn't know who was responsible for the work might be considered a knuckle-dragging Philistine. Dating is another matter. For artists who regularly exhibit in commercial galleries and switch their work around from time to time, the date needs to be left off both the front and the back. That way the art remains "new." I've had ten-year-old paintings with more exposure than Mitt Romney's dog arrive at a new gallery and quickly find a discriminating collector. If the work had borne a stale date people might think it substandard for being so long an orphan. The exceptions to the no-dating advice are commissioned portraits and work executed at events needing to be memorialized. Similarly, do not sign "dogs." Put them on the roof of the car and take them to the dump.    Best regards, Robert PS: "In those days he was wiser than he is now--he used frequently to take my advice." (Winston Churchill) Esoterica: Signing and dating is not often covered by the "how to" art books. Perhaps that's why these questions come up so frequently. It's valuable to make a note of the date, however. I have this and other info put on a file card and filed alphabetically by title. That way it's always available when people inquire. Since the advent of the Internet, collectors seem to want more provenance. As well, you need to think of the future. What, when, where, why and how may be of interest to latter-day students and researchers. Speaking of books, we're constantly refreshing our oft-visited "Books on Artist's Shelves." Please feel free to add your own current favourites. Current Clickback: "How to give advice" looks at the best way to give advice. Your comments will be appreciated.    Read this letter online and share your thoughts on signing and dating your work. Live comments are welcome. Direct, illustratable comments can be made at rgenn@saraphina.com    The Art Show Calendar: If you or your group has a show coming up, put an illustrated announcement on The Painter's Keys site. The longer it's up, the more people will see it. Your announcement will be shown until the last day of your show.    The Workshop Calendar: Here is a selection of workshops and seminars laid out in chronological order that will stimulate, teach, mentor, take you to foreign lands or just down the street. Many of these workshops are recommended by Robert and friends. Incidentally, if you are planning a workshop and have photos of happy people working, feel free to send them to us and we'll include a selection in the workshops feature at no extra charge.    The Painter's Post: Every day new material is going into this feature. Links to art info, ideas, inspiration and all kinds of creative fun can be found in this online arts aggregator.    If a friend is trying to subscribe to the Twice-Weekly Letter via Constant Contact, please let her or him know that confirmation is required and to reply to Constant Contact's confirmation email.    You can also follow Robert's valuable insights and see further feedback on Facebook and Twitter Marjorie Moeser is at moemar98@hotmail.com     Featured Responses: Alternative to the instant Live Comments, Featured Responses are illustrated and edited for content. If you would like to submit your own for possible inclusion, please do so. Just click 'reply' on this letter or write to rgenn@saraphina.com

Seems obvious?  

Frans Snyders and Peter Paul Rubens, Ceres and Pan, c. 1615

From the Museo del Prado:

As goddess of the Earth and agriculture, Ceres is depicted wearing a bundle of wheat spikes on her head. Beside her, Pan, the god of shepherds and herds, has a crown of oak leaves. Ceres symbolizes cultivated nature and Pan, wild nature. The horn of plenty and basket of fruit in their laps alludes to the fecundity and fertility of the Earth, which is strengthened by the fruit and vegetables strewn around them.

This is one of the many occasions when Rubens and Snyders worked together. The figures are by the former, who left the rendering of the fruit and vegetables to Snyders, a specialist in still life painting.

This work was made in the early teens of the seventeenth century, in the period of maximum collaboration between the two artists. It was brought to Spain by Rubens when he traveled there in 1628, as a present to Felipe IV.

Patti Smith, Chelsea Hotel, 1971, Richard Gahr

Favourite artist of mine!

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Dead Bird, 1800

crochet playground by Toshiko Horiuchi Macadam

Exposure it is one of the larger, more adventurous works by Antony Gormley, a combination of art and engineering. The structure (25.5m and weighing 60 tonnes) has as final destination Lelystad in Holland.