Pioneer Day- "No toil nor labor fear"

     "On a fall morning in 1848, President Young drove to where [Ephraim Hanks] was building an adobe house inside the Old Fort. Looking over the completed foundation, he inquired as to the thickness of the rock wall. "Eight inches," replied Eph. "Tear it down and build it twice that thick," suggested Brigham, who then promptly drove away before Eph could answer. To rebuild meant hauling more rock and doing twice the work they thought was necessary. … Nevertheless, they widened the foundation to sixteen inches according to the leader's instruction. Eph was fitting the rafters on the house a month later when a heavy rain began falling, ultimately causing widespread flooding and considerable damage in parts of the valley. Eph's reinforced walls stood firm against the resulting deluge, however, thus preventing a possible collapse of the entire structure. Others were not so fortunate. From then on when Brigham talked, Eph listened...."

 It was perhaps this type of obedience to counsel that prompted the Mormon Church President to later say of Eph that "Here was a man always ready to lay down his life for the authorities of the Church as well as for the cause of Zion and her people."(Richard K. Hanks, "Eph Hanks, Pioneer Scout," unpublished master's thesis, BYU, 1973, pp. 26-27.)

Legend provides the humourous finish to this story: While others were hauling rock to rebuild their foundations,  Ephriam was shingling up the roof of his home, whistling "We thank thee oh, God for a prophet."

I love to see stonework so typical of old pioneer foundations. From the oldest homes in the Salt Lake Avenues to the Logan temple, Stonework is one of the hallmarks of the Pioneer spirit- a beautiful reminder of the early saints unstopable determination that bested every obstacle, and left a framework we still build on today.

SMOFA- Award of Merit painting called "Deeply Psychological"

My entry "Lone Man; The Deep Sleep" won an Award of Merit at the Springville Art Museum's Religious Show!!!

One of the curators has taken to telling people it is, "Deeply Psychological" which has started a firestorm of controversy among those who know me personally and are worried about my psychological state.

It is only as "Deeply Psychological" as the Nicean creed's betrayal of the human family and the subsequent rebellion of educated culture. Truth be told the piece is simply symbolic. And while that does lend it a certain air of Mystery, it reads like the plot for Dan Brown's sequel to Angel's and Demons.

Below is a list of my favorites but meanwhile I am offering your choice of chocolate for anyone who can guess my prize for worst piece of art I have ever seen. Anyone?

My pick for top five at the Religious Show:

1) Bryan Kershisnik

Descent from the Cross You gotta ask: Is it a modern response to the Crucifiction?

2) Ortho Fairbanks

Perfect sculpture of Joseph Smith

3) Walter Rane

(Not the one that won!) He had another of Christ raising Lazrus from the dead, Fabulous! The rythm is unstopable, and the light just comes pouring through! And the texture is so gritty because he uses sand paper and scrapes of the paint down to the underpainting, and the light comes pouring through that gritty texture. Stunning! I bet it glows in the dark. Maybe it should have been my #1.

3) Lynn Griffith's

two peices on the Hole in the Rock

4) Annie Henrie

Savior (Annie won an award of merit and sold the feminine partner to this called "Tender Mercies"- but I am gonna cry all day when I see the sold sign on the Savior)

5) Kristi Ringger sculpture.

It's called Jesus and Yes, you can Touch it! So take your kids, and let'er rip, cause it's fun. And thought provoking.

Pleine Air Festival

I confess, The competition itself was nerve-wracking. And it was hard to find subjects when everything was so manicured. I tried a study in orange and then froze. Jim got after me and gave a lecture about "thumbnail sketches." (He was just as grumpy as Mr. Folland ever was.) So in desparation I called my dear friend Mary McBride (at 6 am) and asked if she had any kids she would let skip out on school. The result was a fun day in the children's garden for Simone and Peter. We took a ton of pictures and truly they were so cute, even Sandra Rast of Deseret Book fame,

joined in and took some pictures of them. I painted all day and night, cropped a wet painting, framed them and drove in a frenzy to the water tower. And was pleasantly surprised to see Sandra Rast of DB fame, had also painted our adorables. She got the fun one, where the kids were feeding the Koi fish. (The Koi fish that Todd Orchard painted. and traded to me. teehe.)

The Daily Universe Highlights my Quick Draw.

The quick draw was completely nerve wracking; But all in all the festival was a great success , partially because I sold 13 paintings, but especially because I went home with so many incredible paintings! Todd Orchard did a trade with me, and Brigitte Bize who won an honorable mention, traded me her Sunflowers for a painting of a shady lane in Kamas, which I will miss, but am thrilled to have begun my own collection. I will try to post a picture of them both. I am still ironing out a trade with my choice for Best of Show- Bruce Martin. Meanwhile I should announce that Dana Robb won a free drawing, and is currently chewing over what she should ask me draw.

And surprise surprise, I ended up with this picture documenting the whole event in an article in the Daily Universe.

Thanksgiving Point Peine Aire Festival

After three days of crash painting in the visual sugar bowl that is Thanksgiving Point, we submitted our paintings and are waiting for the judge's results. I painted in the quick draw competition, and gained a fan-- and eleven year old conesuer, Jonah, who held my pallete, loaded my pen with ink, and gave the initial squirt from the squirtbottle. He was the cutest little guy who dubbed me, " The Quill Artist." Hmm. I can live with that.

Any way here are a few pictures from the beginning of the week-- My subjects for the competition. If you want to see how they turn out, I guess you'll have to come to the show. One of the other Artist Sandra Rast, piggy backed on our set up with Simone and Peter. I suppose we will see those two on the wall at DB sometime soon.

We had a fabulous 2 days painting at Sallie's house, especially climaxing with a visit to Gary Smith's Studio. I want to bite something just saying that.He invited us to come to the plein aire festival at Thanksgiving Point. Apparently he has some hand in pulling it together. He showed us his current Plein aire paintings so rich with Pallet work. I asked him about his furrowed fields; So unique! He said it came from his ancestor paintings, with the ancestors slowly disappearing. But he pulled out paintings before they disappeared, the humans were so suggestive, almost cubist/impressionist! His colors are so vibrant and transition so well. Amazing. I asked him about the Joseph Smith Work and he pulled out a recent portrait made from the Community of Christ photo, and he apparently had worked with Ron Rommig to do the painting. :) But I really meant the red Carthage paintings, and so he pulled that portfolio out and told me BYU studies had just put it on their cover, I said, "that was my husband!" and the fun part was Gary remembered him! Then he brought out the unprinted pieces in the series, and it was so beautiful with lost and found edges, and so much like the forensics one I had tried to paint (and failed,) and I couldn't help crying but felt pretty good about my goal not to sob, (but failed.) To which he said, well if you are going to cry over it, I'll give you one of these, and he passes out prints to everyone in the room, of his sketch of the martyrdom painting. SWEET SWEET MAN!

Ryan S. Brown

For my headpainting class, we do a report on a contemporary artist. Rather than sifting through somebody's marketing on the web, I decided to interview Ryan S. Brown so that I could ask him stuff beyond what we hear in class. He was kind enough to make an appointment with me- which became more and more embarrassing as I surfed through his stuff on line and saw how much his pieces sold for.

He's in galleries from CA to London. Right now he is doing his second one man show in Jackson. He has a list of awards as long as your arm.

None the less, He has a school, The Center for Academic Study & Naturalist Painting (CAS), in Springville So I guess he doesn't mind talking to prospective students so much.

I thought I'd record the interview here in preparation for my report for Newbold's class.

Q:After a Graduating from a University you went to Europe in search of "Academic" training. What's the difference?

A: (Paraphrased) I took headpainting at BYU 8 times. Seegmiller, barret, barksdale Etc. Etc. And looking around me, in that context, I thought I was pretty good. And that's what everyone else told me. I don't remember what took me to Florence the first time; but when I got there I was quite arrogant-- I went into the drawing class thinking I was hot stuff. But after the first three days I was quite frustrated. They were not very impressed with what I was doing, and continued to find problems in my drawing. After three days of this I realized "they want me to be perfect! Can that even be done?" After 1 week I realized, they are using all the same words I have heard before-- value, form, volume etc. But they are talking about something completely else. They wanted me to see, and it was like taking the blinders off, I was learning to see, in the same way that it has been taught since the 19th century. When I came back and taught at BYU, I would take my students to the basement of the MOA to look at 19th century drawings. And they would say, we don't draw that way anymore. It isn't because we don't, It isn't because we choose not to, It's because we can't. We have lost a visual literacy that was there in the past centuries. Now the Met in NY is proud to have 54,000 guest per year in a city of 8 million. Where the Salon des beaux Artes used to have millions attend.

Q:What did you find in Europe that you couldn't find here?

Q:?Do you make multiple studies before you paint?

A: He always does 4-5 different studies for each painting. If I remember right, he starts with a line study, just planning design. Then a Value study, working out all those complications. Then a color study in oil at the site. This is very loose very large and he completes it in an hour. Niki, one of his teachers explained that was so that he could then mix large quantities of the colors in advance of doing the work, and not have to stop the painting process to mix more colors. He also takes a photograph. Then he will get ready to paint, surrounding himself with each of the studies. He says, each study has it's own strength, you have to know the quality of each study and bring it to your finished work in order t have a solid piece of work.

Q:What motivated you choice of lighting? Do you always use cool light?

A: He said he always paints with Natural light. Artificial lights are very harsh and Real skin should be painted in real light. That is why he uses a natural Medium rather than Synthetic. Synthetics always end up making things look sick. (Q:"What's a Natural medium for example?")Maroger or walnut or linseed oil. Maroger is just black something and something else.

A:Portraiture can not be completed in a 3 hour sitting. There is no point in taking a class that meets daily for 3 hours, churning out a new head each day. In such a context, you can not develop any skills that you will use in painting a portrait. Portrait painting is a slow meticulous process. (Pointing to Jenny) I took 11 weeks 5 days a week with the model for that painting. It was very challenging because the head swivels on three axis. Portraiture must be done carefully, meticulously in order to achieve accuracy necessary. That is how Jeremy Lipking, Gotleib John Collins, do it. It is silly to do it otherwise. I paint with these men frequently. There is a literacy to art. In meeting a new artist we can tell if they have studied this way through the way they speak.

He wrote down a couple of things for me to check out:

* ArtRenewal.org

A speach from the president of ARC calling for a return to classical painting.

* A book called, "The practice & Science of Drawing" by Harold Speed

*Grand Central Academy

*Florence Academy of Art

*Angel Academy of Art