Category: Art

Discouraged by Snow

It’s mid March and Nova Scotia is once again enveloped with snow. Yesterday was sunny and glimpses of tiny green shoots could be seen in the bare brown garden. Now it is all buried in snow and the sky is a dull weary grey. My winter of discontent is prolonged awhile longer.

How I wish it were May with the warmth of spring well in hand and the garden full of colour and new growth. Just 2 more months from now I will feel so much better. But will I?

I can’t waste those 2 months waiting for happiness. As each year passes I hear the clock ticking too fast already. I really want time to slow down, or stop.

My step mother-in-law has been in the hospital for several weeks awaiting tests. She’s not much older than me. Only a few weeks ago she was enjoying life, and now her life is on hold, with possibly an uncertain future. How quickly circumstances can change.

A friend departed to a Caribbean island for an escape to sun and warmth. I feel a certain envy, but I am still here.

I need to take today for what it is, not for what I want. My disappointment with the weather slowly changed during my morning walk. I felt content in the muffled silence of a snowy day.

Painting Snow Scenes

Snow creates interesting painting opportunities. The trees are transformed into rhythmicly beautiful shapes. White is such a pure and special colour that can unify a composition.

Contentment

I have my health, and I have my sanity. I can be content to be who I am today, right now. Today is a good as it is ever going to be, if I make it so. So I will.

Over-abundant Rarity

I am in my studio working on a new painting, a portrait of my son who is now a young man. I realize that my studio is cramed with paintings. In this large room there is a storage area stacked to the brim with large 30″ x 40″ and larger canvases. There are half a dozen large landscape abstracts in shipping bags stacked by the wall. There are 30 or more 16″x 20″ figure paintings and equally as many plein aire landscape paintings balanced above the storage cupboards. I have drawers full of pastel and charcoal figure drawings, sorted and labelled. I have computer files full of images of paintings and drawing that have sold and photos of paintings that were painted over when the canvas was reused. Almost every wall in our house has a painting or drawing framed and displayed.

There was a time when a painting was treasured because of its rarity. So few of the works I started were worrthy of keeping. Most of my so-called artworks were destined for the waste basket or recycling bin. It seemed so fortuitous that I could produce something worthy of display.

Over the years slowly but surely, my technique improved and my success rate increased. I learned to evaluate the work in progress and to find ways to repair and change the ugly parts. I could recover and transform bad works into better ones. I don’t throw so many works away anymore, but my inventory is starting to overwhelm me.

Despite the wonderfull array of past works, I am compelled to get in the studio and create more. It’s addictive and compulsive. The most important art for me is the one I am working on now. The full experience of painting is so fulfilling it cannot be thwarted. There is joy, frustration, comtemplation, “ah ha”,perserverance, discouragement. Ultimately there is a often a deep satisfaction that comes from all the struggling, puzzling and energy required to fill a canvas.

Even after the completion there is the desire to improve. I want to create that elusive image that is closer to perfection than currently possible. I want to paint another one. That is the addiction.

Here is my portrait of a young man, the newest work on my easel.

For an artist, vision is essential. In my younger years, I took my vision for granted. Now in my 70’s, I can no longer count on my eyes to provide the vision I want.

Over my life I have had difficulties with my eyesight.

Nearsightedness (Myopia)

My first encounter with eye failure was at school in grade 2 . I was unaware that I was very near-sighted. The world was a fog beyond 10 feet. When I got my first pair of glasses, I was so surprised that I could actually see the words in the blackboard that were previously just blurry shapes. Over the years my daily life depended on my glasses. I relied on them for sports, reading, driving, traveling, and became part of my identity.

The nearsightedness was occasionally useful as an artist. In a complex visual scene like a forest or city, the complexity simplified to a blur of blended colours without my glasses.

The scene on the left is an actual scene, and the right image is what I would see without glasses. Sometimes I did paint without glasses. This created a new problem- being able to see my canvas, paints and brush with enough clarity to paint. In retrospect it may have been better to paint without actually seeing where the brush marks were placed such that the painting could be more loose and spontaneous.

I have heard theories that the French Impressionists painted the way they did because they suffered from poor eyesight, and they painted what they saw. I doubt if that were true, but I can understand that imperfect vision may offer unexpected benefits or opportunities.

Later in life I developed cataracts which literally clouds one’s vision. I feel fortunate to live at a time when modern surgery makes lens implants an easy and affordable removal of cataracts. A wonderful side benefit of cataract surgery is that my vision had been corrected back to 20/20. I have found not needing glasses or contact lens to see well outdoors to be amazing and life changing.

Blind Spots (Glaucoma)

I discovered in my forties that the so called ‘blind spot’ in my eyes was abnormal. Indeed the usually small blind spot in both eyes (where the optic nerve attaches to the eye) were much much bigger than they should be. I suffer from glaucoma, whereby damage to the optic nerve creates blindspots in the retina that cannot be recovered once they are lost. As a consequence I have lost vision in the peripheral regions of my eye. These blind areas differ for each eye. The brain does a magnificent job to assemble a complete picture of the scene based on what the eyes provide.

Unfortunately it cannot provide information to the scene where nothing is available. This is particularly noticeable when the brain is providing a 3 dimensional display of the scene before my eyes. There are both blind spots where the blank areas of each eye overlap, and missing 3 dimensionality in areas where only one eye sees. When an object is moving across my field of view it can disappear for a moment and its location in space can be lost.

The greatest frustation is playing sports like badminton or pickleball where I have to track the bird or ball. Inevitably the ball disappears into a blind spot or its position becomes confusing and my racquet swishes by in the wrong place. Difficulty seeing small objects with my peripheral vision requires doing more scanning back and forth with my eyes to compensate. My eyes tire quickly when I encounter a visually stimulationg situation.

So far I have not found a benefit from glaucoma. Knowing I have glaucoma makes me appreciate the vision I have rather than regret the vision I am missing. I also appreciate the value of peripheral vision in the act of seeing, and consequently have created paintings that emphasize the value of seeing scenes on our periphery. I am also more appreciative of calmer visual scenes.

January is a hard month for me. Seeing the calendar move to 2022 is a hard to miss sign that time is passing and another year has gone by. I was barely adjusted to 2021 when the clock chimed midnight Dec 31. I am just one day older, but he old man in me has other ideas. He concludes that soon I will be 77 and 60 seems so long ago.

The boy in me I doesn’t feel so old. He still wants to play, explore and try new things. That tug-o-war between these parts is a daily inner dialogue. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is unable” is becoming more apparent.

To cope with this slow deterioration, I have developed daily regimens to keep the flesh healthier. A morning workout is now necessary, as is a dedicated hour of physical activity. I ignore my inner complaints so walking or biking are daily routines- rain or shine. I do my exercises regardless of mood and motivation. Often starting tired and resentful, the workout transforms my feelings and my spirits and mood are uplifted. The scenery and physical movement generate creative and inspired thoughts and ideas.

Morning walks or rides free the afternoon hours for picking up a pencil to draw, using woodworking tools to carve, or checking out the pantry to cook.

If I can just focus on today and the moments that come to me, the worry of aging diminishes and the magic of ‘now’ appears.