Sunday, January 8, 2017
Watercolor Class Begins this Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Watercolor class begins this Wednesday, January 11 from 6:30 - 9:00 pm at Jack in the Pulpit Studio. For more info and to register: www.jackinthepulpitstudio.com
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Elections, Images and History
The last few months have been home to some stunning events in this country. The results of the presidential election were unexpected and have created a lot of concern and anxiety. There seems to be some possibility a foreign country has tried to unduly influence the election. The Dakota Pipeline protest has pitted peaceful water-protectors against public law enforcement that have decided to protect a large company that does not have permission to dig the land they are on. Sometimes it seems like the world is going, as they used to say, "to Hell in a hand basket." As I sit in my studio painting, I am aware of a world around me crumbling. I am aware of my privilege to be able to sit in my studio and paint while these events unfold.
Part of the craziness that people feel is the way in which words and symbols are now twisted and used to hurt people instead of to help them. Politicians and media take images and words that used to be positive and sow doubt about their meaning, about their value. As I research the early Modernist movement in art, I can't help but think about similarities. After all, it was the greedy and political actions of the upper-class in the late 1800's that eventually led to the Great Depression - much like our recent Great Recession. The early- to mid-1800's, with the rise of the Industrial Age and the middle-class, and the subsequent rise to wealth and power for a few families, were very tumultuous times. The Modernist movement in art, before there was mass media or an internet, was one manner in which the days' problems could be framed and discussed. From its inception, the Modernist movement was a struggle against institutionalized parameters of success which used idiomatic symbols to express a conceited sense of the common. Modernism was seeking something more. The true Modernist sought authenticity through presenting a personal individual view of the world, as opposed to the institutionally accepted view of the world.
We are trying to do the same these days, but those who dictate images and words to the masses seem to have upped their game and gotten ahead of us. It won't be easy to reclaim a societal perspective that is based on the personal experience of millions - after all, how do you do that? There are certainly lessons to be learned from Trump, Clinton and Sanders and how they galvanized large segments of our population. The fight is there -- a fight to make a country that works for all of its citizens, not just a few.
Part of the craziness that people feel is the way in which words and symbols are now twisted and used to hurt people instead of to help them. Politicians and media take images and words that used to be positive and sow doubt about their meaning, about their value. As I research the early Modernist movement in art, I can't help but think about similarities. After all, it was the greedy and political actions of the upper-class in the late 1800's that eventually led to the Great Depression - much like our recent Great Recession. The early- to mid-1800's, with the rise of the Industrial Age and the middle-class, and the subsequent rise to wealth and power for a few families, were very tumultuous times. The Modernist movement in art, before there was mass media or an internet, was one manner in which the days' problems could be framed and discussed. From its inception, the Modernist movement was a struggle against institutionalized parameters of success which used idiomatic symbols to express a conceited sense of the common. Modernism was seeking something more. The true Modernist sought authenticity through presenting a personal individual view of the world, as opposed to the institutionally accepted view of the world.
We are trying to do the same these days, but those who dictate images and words to the masses seem to have upped their game and gotten ahead of us. It won't be easy to reclaim a societal perspective that is based on the personal experience of millions - after all, how do you do that? There are certainly lessons to be learned from Trump, Clinton and Sanders and how they galvanized large segments of our population. The fight is there -- a fight to make a country that works for all of its citizens, not just a few.
A New Year and a New Website
There's a new look to my website: www.markgranlund.com. Easier navigation! Bigger images!
Check it out!
Check it out!
Monday, December 26, 2016
Gull Island Rise: Oil Paint
Gull Island Rise
Oil Paint on Canvas
12" x 14"
$175
$175
Although I have been busy learning my new job, I have also been busy painting in my studio. This painting is of a rocky rise on Gull Island on Rainy Lake. In it I continue to explore early Modernist techniques for expressing nature.
This last summer, while painting at Mallard Island on Rainy Lake, I found myself going back to the same old way I had been painting landscapes for years. I recognized this soon after beginning and then consciously started working in a more geometric manner to represent the water. Although this technique is not about being realistic, it captures the experience of how water reflects many colors and creates many patterns -- capturing the essence and energy of the scene in front of my eyes.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Job Change - Hurray!
My big art news for me is that after twenty-two years working as the Arts and Gardens Coordinator for the City of Saint Paul I have a new job as the Public Art Administrator with Metro Transit. I have been at the new job for about eight weeks and am enjoying it very much. With this big change I decided to put off teaching classes this fall (and generally put off some responsibilities like writing blog entries) until I became comfortable in the new position. I am very excited to work with the new people and new environment at Metro Transit, along with working with more artists and overseeing a growing public art collection. Since you are reading this blog entry, you might assume that I am becoming comfortable in this new position and am starting to begin some art activities again. This is true! I will be posting some new paintings and announcing a couple of shows in 2017 soon. Until then, please check out the watercolor class I am offering in January at Jack-in-the-Pulpit Studio.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
The Journey
Dear Artheads,
Oh god, The Journey. How many times have we heard that a young artist is just beginning their journey or that a mature artist is at a difficult stage in their journey? Yes, we are all on a journey of realizing self and community through our art. Or are we? I do believe that everybody is developing (or at least able to develop if they have half a mind to be open to developing) and that there is no consistency to each person's development. The stages of development I experience most likely will not be in the same order or at the same intensity as you. But there is this unwritten expectation that we all will end in a similar place. I can have experiences A, B, C. D, etc. and you can have experiences D, C, A, B, etc. and when we are both done we will have both experienced the whole alphabet of experiences. My actual life experience is that the further we each go down our own paths the further we get away from each other and that there is not a set of experiences we all get to work our way through. I believe this idea of a set of experiences developed out of the Industrial Revolution in which we began to plasticize and standardize life and all of its aspects.
Of course, artists are on a journey -- or are they? Everybody goes through development. By shear repetition we gain skills and abilities to create art differently than we had before. There are periods wherein we mature to a new level, but often, we don't mature much beyond a level or two over the course of our lives. Often, what seems like a deepening and maturing in the work is simply the fact that the audience is now seeing one hundred and fifty paintings about the same subject matter, whereas before they had only seen twenty. Sometimes the audience is the one that needs to come to see the place where the artist has been living for years.
I think we have some great artists in van Gogh and Gauguin, and others, who struggled to find the great Meaning in their lives and tried to find it through art. Yet, while trying to find this inner state of perfection and expression, came to depend on the opinions of others (art buyers and fellow artists) for their sense of self. Sorry, Vinnie and Paulie, you can't have it both ways. But that seemed to be the way of the world back then: people yearning to have their own personal experiences become the standard for the rest of the world. I think the Western world is moving into a new stage of understanding wherein each individual has a unique experience and using an individual experience to extrapolate across a population or a species just doesn't work. Art cannot save the world, or even individuals. Art is not Christ, and I don't even believe Christ, Bodhisattva, et al. can save us. We will get exactly what we bring about. If there is any Meaning to be found it is in the things that resonate with our own self. For some that is family, faith and community, for others it is an activity, ability and audience. Most people, once discovering these things, develop to one or two stages of resonance and then glide on through life slowly coming to rest at the end.
Is the journey about acceptance of self? Again, that is an end goal to the journey that obviously many people fail. If it is about "being what you will become" then how is that a journey? It just is. You will be what you bring about no matter what you believe. I do not mean this to seem flip about anybody's "journey," it just seems so obvious to me that the metaphor is poor and often creates false expectations.
Alright, enough negative talk, because this week I conversed with the very positive and pleasant Nan Jahnke. Nan has spent many years taking art classes and has considered herself a student of art, but she has recently begun to create and sell her own work identifying herself as an artist. We talk about Nan's pottery and paintings and her journey to identifying herself as an artist.
Enjoy!
Mark
Oh god, The Journey. How many times have we heard that a young artist is just beginning their journey or that a mature artist is at a difficult stage in their journey? Yes, we are all on a journey of realizing self and community through our art. Or are we? I do believe that everybody is developing (or at least able to develop if they have half a mind to be open to developing) and that there is no consistency to each person's development. The stages of development I experience most likely will not be in the same order or at the same intensity as you. But there is this unwritten expectation that we all will end in a similar place. I can have experiences A, B, C. D, etc. and you can have experiences D, C, A, B, etc. and when we are both done we will have both experienced the whole alphabet of experiences. My actual life experience is that the further we each go down our own paths the further we get away from each other and that there is not a set of experiences we all get to work our way through. I believe this idea of a set of experiences developed out of the Industrial Revolution in which we began to plasticize and standardize life and all of its aspects.
Of course, artists are on a journey -- or are they? Everybody goes through development. By shear repetition we gain skills and abilities to create art differently than we had before. There are periods wherein we mature to a new level, but often, we don't mature much beyond a level or two over the course of our lives. Often, what seems like a deepening and maturing in the work is simply the fact that the audience is now seeing one hundred and fifty paintings about the same subject matter, whereas before they had only seen twenty. Sometimes the audience is the one that needs to come to see the place where the artist has been living for years.
I think we have some great artists in van Gogh and Gauguin, and others, who struggled to find the great Meaning in their lives and tried to find it through art. Yet, while trying to find this inner state of perfection and expression, came to depend on the opinions of others (art buyers and fellow artists) for their sense of self. Sorry, Vinnie and Paulie, you can't have it both ways. But that seemed to be the way of the world back then: people yearning to have their own personal experiences become the standard for the rest of the world. I think the Western world is moving into a new stage of understanding wherein each individual has a unique experience and using an individual experience to extrapolate across a population or a species just doesn't work. Art cannot save the world, or even individuals. Art is not Christ, and I don't even believe Christ, Bodhisattva, et al. can save us. We will get exactly what we bring about. If there is any Meaning to be found it is in the things that resonate with our own self. For some that is family, faith and community, for others it is an activity, ability and audience. Most people, once discovering these things, develop to one or two stages of resonance and then glide on through life slowly coming to rest at the end.
Is the journey about acceptance of self? Again, that is an end goal to the journey that obviously many people fail. If it is about "being what you will become" then how is that a journey? It just is. You will be what you bring about no matter what you believe. I do not mean this to seem flip about anybody's "journey," it just seems so obvious to me that the metaphor is poor and often creates false expectations.
Alright, enough negative talk, because this week I conversed with the very positive and pleasant Nan Jahnke. Nan has spent many years taking art classes and has considered herself a student of art, but she has recently begun to create and sell her own work identifying herself as an artist. We talk about Nan's pottery and paintings and her journey to identifying herself as an artist.
Enjoy!
Mark
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