At first this painting seemed like an amusing topic. A little silly.  But then it's really serious isn't it?   We take our incomes and our material possesions so seriously, don't we?  But then in the end, it all becomes a burden, holding us back, what cost us so much is consumed by rust.  Or in our case here in Ramona, consumed by the recent fire.

     In 1976 I read an article in Artforum Magazine Is Painting Dead? 
Young and impressionable I assumed it was true- Artforum said so.  I continued to paint anyway but always wondered why. 
    My academic background at UCSD made me a little different than many contemporary realists. I studied with Eleanor Antin, and along with two other painters, helped with the props for her 1977 performance Florence Nightengale at the Whitney. She was a great mentor and encouraged me to keep painting.  I studied Criticism and Aesthetics with David Antin and Art History with John Clark, who was visiting from Yale that year.  Both encouraged me to keep painting.  (I thought to my self, do they realize that painting is dead?) But I kept painting.
     Susan recently loaned me Barbara Novaks Voyages of the Self.  In it there was a chapter about William James and Winslow Homer. She described Homer as an American Pragmatist - he painted what he saw.
I think that plein air painting today subscribes to that - paint what you see.  I wondered, am I an Pragmatist?  The idea appeals to me. Art as experience...ts kind of minimal and it justifies the act of painting .
I have done quite a bit of plein air painting. I would have to admit though, that I am not a pragmatist- I need more..  My academic background compels me to paint about ideas also.  I have constantly struggled to integrate the two. 

When we reach for the sublime we take on more than we can grasp, yet merely experiencing the world leaves us hungry longing for something more.

 
What is a Vanitas Painting? An image chosen to remind us that life is
fleeting, ultimately all is vanity. It
directs us to contemplate what is important in this world.
Lately I have been returning to the idea of simplicity, in life and in my work.
This Summer I have been reading Carolyn Merchant's "Death of Nature” It has given me pause to think about  the materialism that weighs on our culture.I have always gravitated toward the less is more philosophy. I am sure that is why I latched on to the idea of a limited palette.The limited palette makes using color theory simple and uncluttered. In this painting Terra Cotta Vanitas, I based the color composition on two complements, blue and orange and created most of the grays with a complementary combination of ultramarine and cadmium orange.
As the painting progresses I will expand with warms and cools :ocher, burnt sienna and purple- all mixed from the limited palette of primaries.

When I was in my teens, and an aspiring artist, Georgia O'Keefe was a huge influence.  The photographs that Steiglitz took of her gave me a glimpse of  the life and person of  woman painter, something to emulate. Her skull paintings have been an influence throughout my career.  Untill recently I never would have attempted to paint a skull.  O 'Keefe's paintings of skulls are icons.  Any painting of a skull that I might attempt would be seen as an imitation.  Georgia O' Keefe owns the image .

I am at a point today where  I have my own vision and style   Still life painting has enabled me to create a dialogue about art and the interior that leads me in my own direction. I have a collection of elk skulls that I have been longing to paint, but the shadow of Georgia O Keefe hanging over the image has held me back.

My reasons  now are my own and her influence has become a stumbling block.
I think that its time to step over and do some skull painting of my own.

We had a fabulous day for the plein air workshop at Torrey Pines.  I think that some of us thought that we would be rained out.  It turns out that it was a  perfect day for painting.  It was bright and sunny, there were huge breakers and the wind was blowing spindrift from the tops of the waves.  There was just enough haze to make the bluffs look interesting.  All in all everyone produced a successful painting.  At the critique there were quite a few questions about aerial perspective, adding sky to background is the key to getting the aerial perspective. 

The answer to the question about painting shadows on a overcast day is:  The shadows are warm because the light is so cool.  Shadows are usually the opposite temperature and a complement of the light source. 

Pat