Late last week I returned from my time as an artist-in-residence at Acadia National Park. For three weeks I lived in an apartment on the old U.S. Navy base, now the Schoodic Institute, within the easternmost part of the park at Schoodic Point. But mostly, I was not living in an apartment, I was living outside. The warm fall weather held. I was out there painting watercolors at dawn, and sunset found me attempting oil paintings as the last light of the day waned. I got up early one morning to see the full moon set over Cadillac Mountain, and I walked out at night many times, first to see the moonlight on the ocean, and then again when the moon waned, to sit on a granite ledge and gaze into the vast starfield overhead. During the days, I sat by the shore painting, hiked in the woods, wrote and sketched in my diary, and filled a watercolor album, all while encountering the spectacular landscape of this wild area, not to mention the wildlife living therein. Birds, living there and migrating through, mammals including deer, a porcupine I sketched, an otter family I was lucky enough to see twice, many snowshoe hares with their fur just changing from brown to white, and a coyote, who loped by me one day on her way into the woods - alert, intelligent, fully alive and completely at home in her environment, perfectly connected with her landscape. On my best days at Schoodic, I felt that way myself. I say on my best days, because they can't be all best days. I make room for all the emotions that might arise, not only joy, during the intense and introspective time of a a residency.
Here is how mine unfolded. Week one: general euphoria, an unlimited feeling of spaciousness and possibility, coupled with some rushing around, to try and paint everything I love most, all at once! At the end of week one the hurricane blew through, and the ocean was truly awesome. In fact it was overwhelming, and after attempting to paint the aftermath of the storm I had to retreat into the woods for the rest of the day, to move away from all that raw energy. Week two: the storm did pass, peacefulness returned, and with it a settling in, and still that broad feeling of time being suspended. The wall clock in my apartment didn't work and I didn't need it to, because the time was always now. I made major efforts on large canvases during the mornings, then lighter efforts on smaller canvases in the afternoons. I also took a few days to just work in watercolor, and hiked around with my sketchbook and supplies in a backpack, and stopped wherever I wanted to paint. Week three: nothing lasts, and the wheels start coming off the bus. The pace I was working at was difficult to sustain, and I missed home and my loved ones very much. I also realized that I would not have time to paint everything. I mean, I wanted to paint everything! (I still want to! It's all so good!) But instead I could only choose individual moments - this rock, this tree, this view. And what I was able to paint did not come all that close to the splendor of what I was actually seeing. Over time, this can be upsetting! However. I have made friends with failure and I am in love with trying. Often when beginning a canvas, I say to myself, quietly, Just try. And then I do. For me, it's the only way to move forward as a painter - one canvas at a time. Again, this can be frustrating! By the time week three was finished, I was very tired, and ready to pack my things - all my tries - and return home.
I have no images to share right now, of any of the 34 oil paintings I completed, simply because I haven't photographed them yet. They are unpacked and leaning up in my attic studio, though, and I run upstairs and look at them for a few minutes, then have to leave again. At their worst, they say to me, "All that, for this?" and at their best, they say to me, "All that, for this!" What a difference one punctuation mark makes! Many of them fall flat, in my eyes, but some of them also approach transcendence (again, in my eyes), and they make every attempt worthwhile. What a strange thing painting is - I can't think about it too much or I start to wonder why anybody ever does it in the first place. It echoes and describes pure feeling, pure emotion - in a word, love - in a way that nothing else seems to do. How? What a mystery it is.
Wonderful people at Acadia National Park and the Schoodic Institute hosted me at this residency, and left me alone for the most part, to paint the weeks away in happy solitude. I cannot thank them enough for this great gift. I returned to the home of my youth, went back to the land in the ways that suited me best, learned a lot about myself and my place in that landscape, and will be unraveling and examining the skeins of this amazing experience over the coming months and years. And, needless to say, I'll be returning to paint at Schoodic again, whenever I can. There is more work to be done there, by me, and I can't wait to do it.
Here is how mine unfolded. Week one: general euphoria, an unlimited feeling of spaciousness and possibility, coupled with some rushing around, to try and paint everything I love most, all at once! At the end of week one the hurricane blew through, and the ocean was truly awesome. In fact it was overwhelming, and after attempting to paint the aftermath of the storm I had to retreat into the woods for the rest of the day, to move away from all that raw energy. Week two: the storm did pass, peacefulness returned, and with it a settling in, and still that broad feeling of time being suspended. The wall clock in my apartment didn't work and I didn't need it to, because the time was always now. I made major efforts on large canvases during the mornings, then lighter efforts on smaller canvases in the afternoons. I also took a few days to just work in watercolor, and hiked around with my sketchbook and supplies in a backpack, and stopped wherever I wanted to paint. Week three: nothing lasts, and the wheels start coming off the bus. The pace I was working at was difficult to sustain, and I missed home and my loved ones very much. I also realized that I would not have time to paint everything. I mean, I wanted to paint everything! (I still want to! It's all so good!) But instead I could only choose individual moments - this rock, this tree, this view. And what I was able to paint did not come all that close to the splendor of what I was actually seeing. Over time, this can be upsetting! However. I have made friends with failure and I am in love with trying. Often when beginning a canvas, I say to myself, quietly, Just try. And then I do. For me, it's the only way to move forward as a painter - one canvas at a time. Again, this can be frustrating! By the time week three was finished, I was very tired, and ready to pack my things - all my tries - and return home.
I have no images to share right now, of any of the 34 oil paintings I completed, simply because I haven't photographed them yet. They are unpacked and leaning up in my attic studio, though, and I run upstairs and look at them for a few minutes, then have to leave again. At their worst, they say to me, "All that, for this?" and at their best, they say to me, "All that, for this!" What a difference one punctuation mark makes! Many of them fall flat, in my eyes, but some of them also approach transcendence (again, in my eyes), and they make every attempt worthwhile. What a strange thing painting is - I can't think about it too much or I start to wonder why anybody ever does it in the first place. It echoes and describes pure feeling, pure emotion - in a word, love - in a way that nothing else seems to do. How? What a mystery it is.
Wonderful people at Acadia National Park and the Schoodic Institute hosted me at this residency, and left me alone for the most part, to paint the weeks away in happy solitude. I cannot thank them enough for this great gift. I returned to the home of my youth, went back to the land in the ways that suited me best, learned a lot about myself and my place in that landscape, and will be unraveling and examining the skeins of this amazing experience over the coming months and years. And, needless to say, I'll be returning to paint at Schoodic again, whenever I can. There is more work to be done there, by me, and I can't wait to do it.
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