Do Paintings Talk to Each Other When No One Is Around?

-

 



Paintings are inanimate objects I know. But sometimes lying in bed at  night I think I almost hear some whispering downstairs in my studio.

Making paintings is like nurturing your houseplants as it can't be rushed. You have to take as long as needed to complete a painting. 

Above is my studio this morning with the two easels I always have 
side by side. On the right is Turret House, Nyack, oil on panel, 9 x 12 inches. It was begun in 2015. I worked on it on and off until summer of 2020 when I was finally satisfied it was saying what it needed to say. The painting's sort of a proud veteran who went through lots of changes before it was done. 

On the left is a new oil that's just getting started. It has an even longer history- it's based on a tiny oil I painted on the coast of Maine in 2009. Still in its infancy this new oil faces growing pains and uncertainties before it comes into its own. I know I'm projecting but I imagine a painting at this stage would be feeling uncertain and tentative. 

I originally placed the Turret House up on the easel just so I could enjoy looking at it. But then I felt like leaving it there for awhile.

Having that finished oil up there  puts some extra wind in my sails. It reminds me I had patiently navigated its path to becoming a very successful painting. You have to work your way forward with each new piece, earning the confidence that your vision is true and insightful. 

I have this fantasy that late at night the finished painting is like a kindly aunt or uncle who quietly reassures and encourages the painting that's in progress. If that's what the whispering is about I'm all for it.



Popular posts from this blog

Edward Hopper- Looking Out

-
Image
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning,   oil on canvas, 1950,  Smithsonian American Art Museum Above is a painting I've loved for some forty years. I'm fortunate to be able to see it often as it lives in the SAAM in Washington, D.C. . This painting contains a real clue to Hopper's art. I visit there often as it helps me learn how to see better. Often writers will talk about the loneliness of Hopper's paintings or how his figures feel isolated and rarely interact with one another. While there is some of that in Hopper's painting, it begs a question- why is Hopper's art so widely loved? I'd offer a couple of answers. First, he's one of the most talented painters and was able to invent visual equivalents for strong emotions we humans experience as we live our lives.  He saw color combining in unexpected ways and offered up generous servings of the most delicious color combinations. Yum. Usually, as in the SAAM's Cape Cod Morning above, when he paints
Read more

Ever Wonder What's in the Next Room in Hopper's Rooms by the Sea?

-
Image
Edward Hopper, Rooms by the Sea , oil on canvas, 1951, Yale University Art Gallery One of Edward Hopper's best known paintings is Rooms by the Sea that was based on his studio in Truro, MA. Its mysterious doorway leading to the ocean captivates our eye.  Did you ever wonder what the room through the painting's other doorway looked like? Last week a collector asked to see some of the drawings I made during my residencies in the historic studio so I photographed this drawing. Philip Koch,  Edward Hopper's Truro Bedroom: Afternoon  Sunlight , vine charcoal, 9 x 12 inches, 2012. To make the drawing I set up my French easel in the bedroom Hopper shared with his wife Jo for the three decades they lived in the studio. One of the room's two small closets centers the drawing. At the right is the doorway leading into Hopper's big painting room with his studio easel in the distance.  What inspired me to make the drawing were the intense patterns the afternoon sunlight made ove
Read more

Edward Hopper's Poetry of Empty Rooms

-
Image
I've just been invited by Rachael Solomon who is the Program Director of the  Edward Hopper House Art Center in Nyack, NY to have a mini solo show in one of their galleries.. We'll be showing some of my paintings of the interior of Edward Hopper's Cape Cod studio where I've had the great pleasure of enjoying 13 residencies since 1983. The Edward Hopper House Art Center is the boyhood home of the famous American realist artist. So much of what Hopper became stemmed from his early years there. So I'm excited to do the exhibit. It will be coming up in March through May of 2012.   Hopper didn't teach. Yet I learned more about how to become a good painter by studying his work than by any other single thing. Art after all is visual. Words, even beautifully and aptly spoken can get in the way. And Hopper was legendarily tactiturn. I suspect had someone asked Hopper how to paint an empty room, his terse reply would have been "Don't!".  Above is one of h
Read more