Ron Kuwahara artist

Feast from Famine

Not So Long Ago

When I was a boy in the 1950’s attractive images were a rarity. I was 9 years old when I watched television for the first time. The grainy black and white images on a 17″ screen seemed amazing.

https://clickamericana.com/topics/science-technology/vintage-television-sets-from-the-1950s

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/7167/photos/298497

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/cameras/overview/stories

https://filmartgallery.com/collections/gardner-ava

https://creativemarket.com/studio2am/6327490-Halftoner-5-Retro-Halftone-Effects?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PPC_GOOG_SmartShopping_US_All&utm_content=558603118314&utm_term&gclid=CjwKCAjw4ayUBhA4EiwATWyBrl7gX3CwOK1xXkn4K3Ogf2PKjtEnlX1Eg-39tJtNQysnVMO4-VOWiBoCNMwQAvD_BwE#fullscreen

Newspapers showed blurry halftone black and white pictures. Good cameras were expensive and hard to use. The Kodak Brownie camera gave affordable but terrible photos and it took weeks to get the 12 snapshots printed. Many of the photos were too dark, too far away or too blurry.

LIFE was the only magazine where I could find wonderful pictures. The few coffee table books we owned provided my first look at famous works of art.

Going to a movie theatre (like the Palace in Calgary) was a special event. I loved to watch the projected images on the big screen.

Air travel was only for the upper classes so the visiting art galleries was not on our family’s holiday plans.

Being a visually oriented person, I hungered to see beautiful pictures. I could not foresee what the future would bring.

Pages from **Life’s Picture History of Western Man**, Simon and Shuster,1951

In the Candy Store

Compared to the 1950’s , today’s digital world is truly like night and day.

We now live in an ocean of colourful dynamic imagery. Millions of images are available anytime, anywhere on any topic. Our homes are full of beautiful prints, posters and photographs. We have computers, wide screen TV, ebooks, magazines all full of images.

My phone is stores a thousand or more photographs, which can be photoedited, cropped and distributed.

WIth Netflix, Crave, Facebook, Pinterest, Google, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. all kinds of imaginary and fantasy worlds are available to download and watch.

Having instant access to an unlimited quantity of colourful imagery is truly incredible. The ability to easily create high definition, photo-shopped photographs and to publish them to the world is equally astonishing.

It feels like I have gone to heaven! I can explore the world’s greatest art from galleries all over the world. I can look up any art genre and be inspired by humdreds of different artists. I can watch UTube videos and take online courses provided by hundreds of artists.

With the latest in computers graphics and animation software, new art forms are being created.

I saw DUNE https://filmyhotspot.com/dune-movie/ at an IMAX theatre and was overwhelmed by the scope, scenery, plot and the fantasy of it all. It was a wonderful visual experience.

The multi-media presentation “Beyond Van Gogh” came to Halifax https://vangoghhalifax.com/. It was a powerful and moving experience for me. The manner in which Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings were animated, projected onto huge screens and set to music amplified the emotional impact of his masterpieces.

Excess

Like the kid in the candy shop I am getting my fiill of treats. Will this lead to a tummy ache if I indulge too much?

This abundance of imagery may have negative consequences. We may succumb to the law of diminishing returns. The first viewing of an expressionist landscape may be breathtaking, but its value will diminish by repetitive viewing. Seeing the landscape printed on a coffee cup may trivialize it too much.

https://www.stashtea.com/products/van-gogh-starry-night-grande-mug-in-gift-box

I will comment on the negatives in a future post.

Present

Moment to Moment

In my last post I wanted my life to feel like a series of moments. What does that imply? How do to live that way?

Remembering the moment means living in the present with full awareness. I often find myself preoccupied with the past or planning the future.

I look at a family photograph from years ago. I can see what a special moment that was, l but did I appreciate it at the time? I was probably preoccupied with future plans.

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”
Attributed to Allen Saunders but made famous by John Lennon

This often rings true for me. I ruin special moments by being focused elsewhere.

Defensive Living

I often live a few seconds in the future, trying to anticipate what might happen beyond now. It’s like defensive driving- scanning the horizon for potential hazards and thinking of ways to avoid an unpleasant situation. While that is a successful safe driving technique, it robs me of spontaneity. I don’t want to remember an experience in retrospect. I want to fully feel the actual moment.

Now and Then

Sometimes I am fully present. When I play ice hockey, I must pay attention to the puck and the other players. I must be in the game. When I am drawing or painting in plein air or with a live model, I am fully present, and time stands still.

Can I bring this level of attention to other aspects of my life? Could I cook the way I paint? Could I hike the way I play hockey? Can I be with people and not be distracted by self consciousness?

It’s a work in progress.

Capturing the Moment

Having souvenirs of a past experience are important.

A photograph freezes a second or two forever and allows us to remember more clearly that moment.

Banff, Sept 3,2021, 12:04 PM

Creating a painting or drawing keeps me living in the present. The artwork itself may represent a moment in time, but the thoughful assembly of brushstrokes and marks evokes a timelessness quality to the image. The portrait may be drawn on an exact time and date, but the drawing feels like it could be a moment anytime or anywhere.

The painting of the kimono clad women evokes the beauty and serenity of my holiday in Japan.

Today is the golden tomorrow that you dreamed of yesterday, So it will be until the end of time. Today is your day of opportunity.”
A quotation on a wall plaque in my parents’ home from the 1950’s.

Birthday Thoughts

Happy Birthday?

My 76 th birthday is at the end of May. I am having a difficult time celebrating. I feel more loss than gain. The year has added a few more wrinkles, increased my alopecia, and blurred my vision. Overhearing my dentist refer to me as that ‘kindly old man’ popped my self-belief that I was still in middle age.

How Long?

The author, Oliver Burkman, recently wrote that we are typically born with 4000 weeks of life. Crap! I have used all of my allotment. How can I give myself another 1000 weeks?

Am I a Statistic?

The internet offers endless advice on how to live longer. While advice is valuable, it also creates stress. Should I be more careful and cautious? Am I walking enough? Too much? Am I eating the best diet? Am I doing the right exercise? On and on and on.

Life expectancy is a statistical estimate. There’s no guarantee how long life may last. And no way to know. While I sometimes feel old, and I foresee infirmity in the future, I rebel at these thoughts. I don’t want to base my life on statistical analysis!

Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)

Hell no! I’m not ready to go. I won’t give in or give up!
I still am healthy so it’s my time to live my dreams and indulge in my passions. I want to do the things I love regardless of consequences (well almost regardless). I want to heed the advice from this popular quote.

If I had my life to live over, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones…If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies. “
Nadine Stair

My birthday wish is to be more carefree and less serious about life. I want to view life as a wonderful sequence of moments across a full spectrum, from hard to easy, from sad to happy. I want to take down the filters of apprehension and experience the thrill of the ride! I will happily take another 1000, 500 or 50 weeks of moment to moment life.

Paintings of Life in the Moment (from NSCAD Studio Sessions)

“Life is what happens while busy with other plans” Oil on Canvas

Why Beauty?

Sunrise, Sunset

Today my thoughts went in a strange direction. I woke to see the sun outside my window. Nowadays sunrises and sunsets seem rather ordinary or ‘ho hum’. The pale pink clouds seemed quite special after a week of overcast and rainy mornings.

This led me to ask two questions. Why can humans be moved to rapture by a sunrise? Who is able to find and appreciate the beauty in a scene?

Sentient Beings

I did at tiny bit of research. Consciousness or sentience is probably a requirement for appreciating beauty. This would eliminate the whole inorganic world of rocks, air or water from beauty awareness. I read that only animals with central nervous systems are capable of consciousness. This would eliminate all plants. A field of daffodils cannot be aware of its beauty. What about primitive animals? Can we suppose that in the Cretaceous Period a Tyrannosaur might stand on a hilltop and enjoy the setting sun?

Appreciating Beauty?https://bgr.com/science/t-rex-population-study/

If Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest has merit, many creatures would be more preoccupied with life and death concerns and would have little desire to enjoy the scenery.

Is Beauty Necessary?

Why did animals evolve the ability to see and appreciate beauty? Does beauty offer an evolutionary advantage? Perhaps it is an offshoot of the reproductive instinct whereby animals select the most beautiful mate. Other attributes such as strength or stamina may be better mating criteria than beauty. Perhaps a beautiful partner increases the urge to procreate.

A sense of beauty may have evolved from the care that animals give their offspring. Love and beauty have much in common. If so, then most mammals and birds are capable of appreciating beauty. Even so, we beauty seekers are in rare company.

Does Beauty Exist?

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if no one hears it? Does beauty exist if no one sees it? So much natural beauty is unseen and unappreciated.

Astronomical Numbers

An imagined star rise in another galaxy
https://www.dreamstime.com/

Consider only sunrises or sunsets. Billions of years of sunsets in a million places were never witnessed because there were no sentient beings in existence. Astronomers inform us that there are millions of galaxies each with billions of stars. This means there are trllions of incredible star rises or star sets on uninhabited worlds that are never witnessed.

Beauty and Art

Beauty and art have a close connection. Beholding something beautiful often inspires the creation process.

How lucky we are to be one of the rare (in geological history terms) sentient beings who can appreciate the sunrise over the ocean, or the colourful leaves of autumn.

Such beauty, created by patterns of light and shadow, inspires my paintings. I mix and splash paint into abstracted colour patches that form recognizable images from afar.

Fall into Winter, Acrylic on Canvas, 30″x 40″

Art School

Reason Over Passion

Although I always loved drawing from early childhood, I always felt pressure to do something ‘serious’ that would lead to a career. I was good, very good, at science and math. I liked learning how the world worked.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space. This was a historic event, and the West came under tremendous pressure to win the ‘space race’. I was strongly encouraged to pursue science and become a physicist. (I never really knew what this meant, but it sounded glamorous.) I worked hard to get an Engineering Physics degree and a PhD in Solid State Physics. By 1972 this early dream was realized as I became a research scientist.

I put off art as significant activity for years, then decades. My artistic desires were not completely buried. I would visit art galleries, design house renovations, and take art classes. Some inner longing was never fully satisfied.

In 2007 as my career as a scientist I was drawing to a close, I wondered what I might do with my retirement years. I could retire in my early 60’s so I had energy, income and time. Could I indulge in a fantasy and take up art seriously? Slowly an idea emerged. What if I went to art school?

Dream vs Reality

Halifax had one of the best art universities in Canada. I felt excited and nervous that an art vocation could become a reality.

My first step was attending an orientation session at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). The lecture hall was filled with high school students. My age, my outlook, and my apparel set me apart. I felt so out of place. I was filled with doubt. Was I too old? Could I learn new subjects? Could I become creative or artistic?

My art aspirations might have ended right there, but the possibility of joining the art world overcame my hesitation. I enrolled in first year of art school. My commitment to attend NSCAD had escape routes. I enrolled one semester at a time and gave myself permission to quit anytime.

Changing Paths

Art school became one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. I loved it! Age did not seem a matter once classes began, and everyone shared in a passion to make art.

**Studios and Class Critiques at NSCAD**

The four years were filled with challenges and learning. I tried everything from print and film making, to sculpture, ceramics, drawing, and painting. I learned how to weld, use a potter’s wheel, paint with oils, cast bronze, and use computer graphics. Best of all almost every course involved working in a studio to create things. I loved art history too: it provided a connection from the old masters to cubism and abstract expressionism.

In 2011 I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting. I feel fortunate that I made the right decision to attend NSCAD.