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.