Selfie as a Rainy Day

I have been focusing on painting landscapes for the last several years. Until recently, I have been painting still-lifes now and again. I am now starting to paint portraits and figures. It is a slow start - making a few self-portraits - but I am hoping to increase this activity once the new studio is completed. In graduate school, and for a time afterward, I painted nothing but people. I have been missing the psychological aspect of a painting with a person in it and am seeing where this goes. Stay tuned.
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Featured Painting: Receding Wood

 

Receding Wood Oil Paint on Canvas 72” x 24” $2,500

This is a large landscape painting of a lightly wooded area in Northern Wisconsin. This is a painting whose colors got away from me. I used the same paint colors as all the rest of my recent paintings, but something in the mixing went in a different direction. Bright and electric, the colors capture a canopy changing with the seasons. The ground cover is in a charged dialog with the canopy while tree trunks create a rhythm of strong verticals across the picture plane. The whole composition is anchored by the receding purple of the understory that moves into the distance.

What's Cooking in the Studio

New studio - I have been working hard on trying to complete the new studio by the end of the summer. To that end, I have been tiling the bathroom. Other than building the landings at the front and back doors, this is the most time consuming part of finishing the studio. Once the tiling is done the electricians and the plumbers can finish what they need to do. My hope is to have the plumbing and electrical completed and passing inspection by the end of this month.

I cleaned - It doesn’t look it, but I spent quite a bit of time this month cleaning my studio. It really hasn’t been cleaned and organized since last year when I had several exhibits in a row and fell behind. I also have been putting things off, waiting until I move to the new studio. But, I couldn’t wait any longer. I was tripping over things, and when you make large paintings you need a lot of room to move them around. So I cleaned up the studio…and within a week it was back to where it was before. I really do need a new studio to help organize all of this.

Painting on DIsplay at Gallery 360

 

Gallery 360
August 21 - September 26, 2021

Gallery 360 has been opting for the large landscapes lately. Up next is Lowland. Although I am not the main exhibit at the gallery, my paintings are in heavy rotation as they keep selling. This beautiful painting of a lowland area in Northern Wisconsin is 74” x 48” with frame. It is a stunning painting to see in-person. If you have a large wall needing a show-piece, head on down to the gallery and check it out.

Landscapes at Dow Art Gallery, Saint Paul, MN

 

Dow Art Gallery
I have several still life paintings on display at Dow Gallery in St. Paul on University Avenue near Hwy 280. If you are in the area, check them out. There are a lot of other artist studios and a clay studio in the building with many restaurants and coffee shops nearby. The neighborhood has also been infused with a lot of murals over the last three summers. It is a hopping little arts neighborhood.

Website Changes

 

I have added a new Blog-Info-FAQ section to my website to organize all of my writing over the years. This new page has several sections including my regular Blog and Updates (entries going back to 2007!), articles about Art Care and Collecting, FAQ about purchasing my art and how I make it, some old podcast type interviews I did with other artists a few years ago, and a link to my Book of Bartholomew project. I have been wrangling with this for years and have parked a lot of this information for periods of time. I am happy to finally have figured this out so you can read all kinds of articles that include drawing lessons and other art info. I’m still filling in parts of it and will add new articles, especially to the Art Collecting section. Announcements about new items will be made here in the newsletter, or just check it out regularly: Blog-Info-FAQ

2021 Trip to Ober's Island

I just spent a week up on Mallard Island near International Falls, MN. It was a beautiful week of weather with Jeff Ryan as we worked on our documentary about Ernest Oberholtzer - and other projects.

Of course, this area of Rainy Lake is the inspiration of many of my paintings. Many photos and video were taken as future sources for paintings. It was a partial rest week for the island, a chance to recover from the use throughout the summer. Then on Thursday evening some people arrived who were rebuilding a 1940’s tool shed that had fallen into disrepair. It was fun to have additional people there for a few days before we left.

While there, we interviewed several people who knew Ober and had a story or two to share. It was fun to hear their stories and record them. And it was fun to eat a lot of cake and brownies, as everyone we interviewed felt a need to be host to us during our visits. One interview even involved a full dinner with four people. The documentary project leapt forward a great deal while at the island. There is still no timeline for completion, but we have a direction for sharing a very unique and multi-faceted man’s story.

As always, more than anything, the island, for me, is about beauty. It is about an existence that is more in rhythm with all living things. Although there is much discussion these days about the concept of “wilderness” and about different cultural views of the relationship between humans and the rest of the earth, all of that falls away for me when I am simply open to nature, aligning my patterns and rhythms with the life around me. Our society is grating and, at times, insufferable. The broader context our society creates, our culture, is combative and about winners and losers. Individually, you have an identity, or one is given you, and then it seems the goal is to yell with fellow identifiers as loud as you can, hopefully being louder than the people of other identities. It is a cacophony of self-branding and self-marketing. It reminds me of the old adage that you only have to put a lid on the crab bucket when you have caught one crab. Once you have caught two crabs, they pull each other down as they both try to escape so no lid is needed. On this small island in a very large lake on the edge of a very powerful and noisy country a man from the last century found joy in nature, people and culture. He wove his interests together with remarkable consistency throughout his life, a life that was supposed to be cut short by a heart condition. He not only enchanted many with his stories, his music and his charm, but he also worked hard to protect and share the good things in his life. Though small in stature, he was large in personality and knowledge, and desire, and perseverance. His openness to all people and his commitment to preserving the spiritual and beautiful things in life has been a role model for me. Studying him more closely I am seeing that he is a role model for our times.

Commission Completed

 

These are the happy owners with their new painting they commissioned me to paint. The painting is of a family cabin in Wisconsin. I got to spend a weekend at the cabin to gather my source material. It is a very beautiful spot and I enjoyed exploring a new painting technique for making the water with the reflection.

If you are interested in a commission, please contact me directly at mark@markgranlund.com.

Switching to Help the Environment

 

I recently discovered the Artist’s Guide to Eco-Friendly Art. Making paintings about the earth is leading me to want to make paintings that are not damaging the earth. In the Guide, I learned that the cotton canvas needed to make one of my large-scale paintings can easily take 500+ gallons of water to produce. There also is the high use of pesticides and fertilizers that are a mainstay of the cotton industry. But linen that is flax or hemp based uses much less fertilizers, pesticides and water. Linen also is stronger and more mildew resistant than canvas and has been painted on for centuries. So, once my current role of canvas is used up, I will be switching over to linen for my paintings. As I work my way through the guide, being mindful of my use of materials, I will share with you what I am doing to make my work as sustainable as possible.

Farewell

 

My best friend and studio companion, Delilah, passed away on June 26, 2021. Her loss is immense. She had such a sweet and friendly personality that many people, and dogs, fell in love with her. I, for one, was over the moon. Her communicative and interactive spirit made living with her like living with another human. Kidney damage began in late May. I was told she had only a couple days to live, yet, she survived a whole month. But, as happens with kidney damage, she eventually refused to eat any food. Even the morning she died, she wanted to go out for a walk. She only walked three houses before laying down, unable to go further. I carried her the rest of the way around the block for one last look. Although I never painted her, she is in my art - literally. She shed like five dogs and I would occasionally find her fur in my paint. My studio is much lonelier without her laying on the stoop standing guard and then coming in at dark to lay on the bed. She is greatly missed.

Davenport, Iowa Trip

 

I recently spent a week in Iowa. It was a fun trip after over a year of not traveling except for my exhibits. This trip mixed the personal and art parts of my life.

The impetus for the trip was to deliver two paintings to friends who purchased them a few months ago. We decided to wait until I could deliver them in person and make a little visit of it. Steve is a friend of mine from high school. Alyce is a friend of mine from college. I introduced them and was best-man at their wedding. The picture above is of a painting they previously purchased and have hanging in their living room. It was soooo nice to travel and see friends again! Thanks, Steve and Alyce for being such good friends and hosts! While in Des Moines, I also got together with my friend Mary Holmes who I know from Mallard Island on Rainy Lake. We had a wonderful lunch on a nice patio at Ceviche in downtown Des Moines. We laughed a lot, which is what happens when you get together with Mary. We talked life and Oberholtzer and art and food. Very much fun!

I took a little time out of my trip to go paint along the Mississippi River just south of Rock Island, Illinois. The painting, itself, wasn’t great but it was really enjoyable to discover a new part of this great river and to see how different it is from the section near my home in the Twin Cities.In my travels I even came across a young snapping turtle in a backwater area.

The second half of my trip was with Jeffrey Ryan, an author I am working with on a project about Ernest Oberholtzer, who was born in Davenport, Iowa. But in our travels Jeff convinced me to stop at the house where President Hoover was born and grew up. This picture is of the two room house where he was born. His dad was a blacksmith and conditions were certainly not extravagant. It was also interesting to learn that President Eisenhower tapped Hoover, despite his previous troubles as president, to lead The United States’ role in the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.

Much of my trip was spent in Davenport, Iowa taking pictures and film of the town where Ernest Oberholtzer grew up. It is a fascinating little town on the Mississippi. The pandemic has obviously been hard on the Quad Cities (Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa and Moline and Rock Island, Illinois). It seems that perhaps they were experiencing some tough times prior to the pandemic, as well. But there were some signs of life and a brighter future. The pic is looking from the river’s edge back toward downtown Davenport. In the forefront is a giant enclosed footbridge to connect downtown with the riverfront, which has a park running along it. As I drove home along the Mississippi, back to Saint Paul, I marveled at the landscape that looked so much like a Grant Wood painting. The Upper Mississippi is truly an amazing river. It is a working river, a recreational river and a beautiful river with lots of wildlife.

Excitement versus Passion

I've been thinking a lot this week about the difference between excitement and passion. My whole life I have had a tendency to get very excited about upcoming projects and the possibilities of things to come. My anticipation level gets very high when trying out new and exciting things. But as I'm getting older and I start having problems with blood pressure, and other physical ailments, I'm starting to rethink about how I have previously used my excitement, and my emotions, to press forward and drive myself toward a project and its completion. In a sense, getting excited is wearing me out. I don't want to stop caring about things, about projects and about causes, but I am having to approach it differently now..

I realize that I'm still passionate about things, but what is that dividing line between excitement and passion? For me, when I get excited about a project it becomes all consuming. I think about it as I lay in bed. I think about it as I make my meals. I think about it at the quiet moments of the day and while I'm painting in my studio. I'm finding, at this point in my life, the all consuming quality of excitement needs to change. I need to switch my gears and let passion be that driving force. The difference between excitement and passion, to me, is that excitement has to do with a lot of energy, movement and activity. But the point of excitement is that it's not necessarily focused. In the past I would hype myself up about a project and it didn't matter whether I was focused or not - if there was enough energy it would move me forward. To me, passion is much more focused. It is not about wildness, or ecstatic-ness. It is much more deep-seated than that. Passion is not something that you have to think about all the time. It is there, when it is needed. I don't have to build an environment of energy when something is coming from my heart. I am moving forward now because of my passions, not because of my excitement for something. Each painting is becoming more focused on it’s meaning and expression.

Oftentimes, the painting that I'm most excited about, as I start a new series of paintings, is usually the one that I like the least at the end. In my excitement I forget to think about certain aspects of the painting. Maybe in my haste the composition wasn't plotted out right. Maybe the energy patterns didn't quite capture what I was experiencing in the landscape. Maybe the coloring wasn't deeply felt enough for the harmonies to resonate and to express their relationships. But with passion it seems that there is more time to think about my art, more time to feel about my art, and time to make decisions to come to a successful completion - even if the clock doesn’t indicate that the process has been any longer.

I feel like the four paintings that I delivered to Gallery 360 in April (one which is featured in this newsletter above) we're just that. I didn't get hyped-up going into the studio to paint these paintings. I was happy to go paint them, and happy to spend time on them. My passion for the subject matter and for the process of painting made it easier to commit to my decisions and it was a much more satisfying process.

2021 Partnership - Jeffrey Ryan, Author

 

2020 was such an isolating year that I decided to try to partner with a couple people on projects this year. Throughout this year I will be working with Jeffrey Ryan, author and filmmaker, on a book and film about Ernest C. Oberholtzer. Jeff has been writing books about the Wilderness Society and it’s founding members. Ober was one of them. Jeff and I met up on Ober’s island, Mallard Island, a few years ago. He spent a week on the island researching Ober while I was a caretaker. We kept in touch over the years and decided last year to work on a project together. Soon, the idea of a book and short film about Ober emerged and, with the help of Beth Waterhouse the Oberholtzer Foundation ED, we submitted a grant to fund the endeavor. Sadly, we didn’t get the grant. Happily, we have decided to move ahead anyway. This summer, Jeff and I will be making another trip to Ober’s beloved Mallard to spend a week researching for the project. There also will be a trip to Ober’s childhood home of Davenport, Iowa and maybe another trip or two to the Superior National Forest, Voyageurs National Park and elsewhere. Why Ober? Ernest C. Oberholtzer was the person most responsible for setting aside the land in Northern Minnesota to become national parks and the Boundary Water Canoe Wilderness Area. This project will focus on the development of Oberholtzer's own views on nature and how that led to his interactions with others and, eventually, his legacy of establishing parks along the Minnesota/Canada border. In this era of climate change and threats to the BWCWA there is a need for recognizing Minnesota's own effective visionaries for preserving the earth, to be guides as we try to move forward into this unknown future. Ernest C. Oberholtzer is that Minnesota visionary. Although Oberholtzer canoed thousands of miles throughout northern Minnesota and Canada, taught many people to live off and respect the land, integrated with the local Ojibway communities, lobbied Congress, worked with high-profile law firms and was a founding member of the Wilderness Society, the general public knows little about him. This project will introduce many in the general public to Ober, his vision and his legacy and provide an example of how to move forward in relationship to nature. My role will be focused on the visual aspects of the project. From doing research in the foundation's archives to creating art that supports the narrative, I will help craft the integration of Ober's love of the arts into the project while using the imagery to move the viewer through the journey shared.

Fr-fr-freezing

 

I am in a quandary about the direction of my art activities. I have too many things to do. Too many opportunities.

It has been a strange year in that there has been a world-wide pandemic, people have stayed home and the economy shut down. I, at first, enjoyed the isolation and got to work on my art. I continued to have exhibits, even if few viewed them. But lately, the isolation has been felt and I have been looking for opportunities to reach out to others. And now here I am with too much on my plate.

I have two galleries where I hang my work. The one gallery seems to sell just about anything I give them (Gallery 360) and I am busy trying to keep them supplied.

To counter the isolation of the pandemic, I have tried to partner on projects with a few people and now have a film and book project to work on that will take the whole year.

Although I have done little to nothing advertising art lessons, I now have five real people wanting classes and about one new person a week inquiring.

I am presently working on a commission and have two potential commissions in the pipeline.

Then there are new directions I want to go with my art, like start to paint figures, have an online auction of small works and start to figure out a new method for making large-scale block prints.

All this while having a full time job that is starting to interact more with other artists and, as a result, is becoming more fun and engaging.

But this is too much. I don’t have the time or energy to do all of this. Each opportunity has, at its core, something that I am interested in.

I can’t complain because I know there are many who have had opportunities dry up in the last year. But, sometimes in these types of situations I freeze up, I end up procrastinating as a form of rebellion against my need to make decisions. If I pursue any of these avenues, my mind sees them as potentially being profitable for the next five to ten years. That is a commitment. In the negative, its a prison. In the positive, they all are good opportunities that can lead to even better things.

So much to do, yet I haven’t painted anything in a week. I have been making stretchers, which is a pretty good excuse to spend a little time in the studio and then leave because of the smell of the oil ground. The cold weather also makes it easy to snuggle up in my house and not walk out to the studio, which isn’t heated quite well enough to take off the chill when it is below 0⁰.

So, I freeze. I stop moving. In actuality, I stop being in the present with my self. Sometimes people comment on my productivity, but the actual thing is that I spend a lot of time in the present with myself. I just do naturally what seems innate and that results in something. Others see those results and call that productivity. I just see it as being. I do understand the need to rest, relax, and focus on other aspects of life. But at times like this, those things all start seeming like a pile of activities on top of everything else. I start to lose myself in the avalanche of possibilities. My muscles start to tighten. I freeze. I freeze like a Minnesota February night.

A CALL TO ARMS -- AND LEGS AND PEN AND BRUSH AND CAMERA

I thought all the bad news would be behind us in 2021. But here I am writing again about what is going on in our country from an artist's perspective, instead of writing about color-mixing, or collecting art, or... anything else. This is now becoming a long slog through a dark night. The pandemic has become the ever-threatening background crisis to the ongoing chaos of a political crisis -- there is no place to rest.

As an artist, I have my viewpoint about what is happening within our country and it has to do with culture. Over the length of the Trump presidency there has been a an ever-growing list of complaints from his followers. It started with Colin Kaepernick's kneeling during the national anthem. People claimed that he was disrespecting the flag. These same people then complained that others didn't support the police. They complained that others weren't patriotic for this reason and that reason. They concluded that everyone else was a Socialist wanting to give all their money away to undeserving people. But, eventually, they flipped on all of these complaints. They gave away billions of dollars to people who didn't need it. Since Keapernick, they have introduced all kinds of flags that represent them: Blue Line, Confederate, 3%, and on and on. When the police have tried to create peace and stop or redirect them, they have turned on the them.

There has been one complaint they haven't flipped on. The only consistent complaint has been about a culture of plurality that is taking over the country. They have not flipped and suddenly embraced people of color or people of a different sexual orientation, or even the diverse experiences of women. As our country's population continues to become more diverse, it is only natural that our culture would diversify. It is only natural to expect that the rights and privileges written in our nation's defining documents should apply to all citizens of this nation. But it hasn't always been this way for all citizens. One group of citizens has benefited more than others, have had their rights upheld and opportunities extended beyond those of others, often through threat of violence. They have come to believe that their culture is the true American culture. But the lie to that assumption is becoming obvious. America is not about any one culture but is about the idea of the equity of rights and responsibilities.

As an artist, I welcome a diversity of cultures. I enjoy that our cities and rural areas represent different cultures, become known for those cultures and provide opportunities for education, entertainment and engagement in a variety of forms. I want diverse restaurants. I want diverse theaters. I want every person to have an opportunity to share their story and be heard. I am happy to get to know my neighbors and my fellow citizens. We all deserve to build our culture in peace and security.

There has been much written about the emotional make-up of those who view themselves as victims while bullying others. There has been much written about the toxic mix of men, guns and God, those who justify acting on their anger and greed while blaming others. But I still can't help but believe that most people can be called to a culture that lifts up and values everyone. Right now, that is drowned out in these people's lives by the lies of manipulators and those who are devoid of compassion. Art can be the means to share a different message -- it always has been. It can be a message of hope but also a message of a practical openness, of observing one's environment without prejudgement. Good art shares a view of people without the filters and facades. I truly do believe that art can change the world within a person, which means it can change the world of our broader community.

But this doesn't come easy. For the artist to reach that tipping-point of humanity in others, the artist has to do hard internal work and log years of practicing their craft. The best make our humanity easy to feel and understand, as if it is simple for them to do. But it is not easy. As artists, the time is here to up our game, to focus even harder on reaching people through our work. A time to make people cry, make them gasp, make their hearts swell from beauty, and put a lump of recognition in their throats. It is art that captures the universal in the mundane, that holds a mirror to our soul that reflects all souls. Art makes individuals experience intimacy as a group revealing the small internal moments that can cascade across a nation. It is art that inspires us to be better, to love more, to care more, to be as fully human and humane as we can possibly be. This is a call to arms...and legs, and pen and brush and camera and brain and heart. A call to work together to be better more effective artists. For in the act of coming together to become better artists, society becomes a better place for all.