Home unaware that it's home

Home unaware that it's home, after Marina Tsvetaeva. 12"×24" (30.5×61cm). Oil on canvas. December 2012. 

Joseph Brodsky once said that writing poems is addictive because it involves a different thinking process, an increased speed of thinking; the language you are serving helps you along, and you arrive at thoughts you would never have come across in any other way. Or that's how I remember it anyway... 

The process of painting this painting wasn't swift by any stretch of imagination, but it did, ultimately, help me realize a very fundamental thing, which I might not have understood otherwise; about myself, and the world, and my place in this world. Or rather: about the non-existence of such a place in the conventional, material sense of the world. 

See, ever since I've started representing myself as a painter, I kept experiencing a momentary, fleeting discomfort whenever I had to name the place where I am located, or "based", as the usual phrase in artists' introductions happens to go. It is, indeed, conventional, to start such introductions with the name of a place. And I understood all along how it might be relevant: after all, paintings should be viewed "in real life", right? And that's easier if the painter's studio is close to where you are. And I wrote an honest, plain truth about where I am; so, wherefore the discomfort, this momentary pain of misalignment between what I am saying and what I am feeling? 

Although I've never given this feeling a second thought (or so I imagined), this question, or rather its somewhat deeper version is the one that got gradually answered in this particular process of painting, which had spanned more than three years.  

An old barn. 8"×16", Oil on canvas panel, July 2009

The long road to this painting had three visible, documented steps. The first one (sold long ago) was done en plein air, in the nearby Picchetti winery; here it is, on the left. What attracted me to the scene in the first place was a pure visual enjoyment in the natural rhythm of long, swift diagonals, which connected together the areas of light and shadow on the ground, the roof of the barn, and the upper edge of the trees. 

An old barn. 12"x24". Oil on canvas, August 2009 

But the initial plein air study was inevitably richer in real-life details and color variations: in the studio work on a somewhat larger canvas, I've made an attempt to simplify the scene and strengthen its major rhythms. This attempt, successful to some extent in its own terms, left the painting in the state of emptiness: the material richness of real-life impression was gone, as though in a memory, but a memory devoid of any emotional meaning, almost a pure exercise in geometry.

The idea for the latest rework came more than three years later, one early December morning, while we were driving through the town of Fremont where we now happen to live. The December light in this area can be quite magical, almost otherworldly – especially contrasted with its very pragmatic, and often downright ugly, architecture. The strangeness of it, the fleeting of awareness of somewhat surrealistic randomness of this moment in time and place, overwhelmed me: what is it that we are actually doing, on the eve of 2013, in Fremont of all places, as though that's where and when we are supposed to be; as though that's where we belong. It's not our time, it's not our place, and yet here we are, rather cozy, on a random domestic errand.

There is a poem to go with this particular feeling, the feeling of an uprooted human being, who, most of the time, finds this state of rootlessness quite fitting, in harmony of their inner state of mind; the feeling of momentary disruption of this harmony, the hint of a vanished, unrealized life. A poem by probably the most tragic Russian poet, Marina Tsvetaeva, who had spent much of her adult life in emigration (and then came back to Russia, to an even more tragic experience, and, ultimately, a suicide). The poem defies translation, I believe, but the title of this painting contains a slightly hidden reference to it. And this is what this painting is now about, with its contrast between the original pastoral scene and the way it's being seen.

That's how many of my paintings come to be: a visual impression pulls out of my mind a memory of a poem, or a poem triggers a memory of my own visual impression, innocently stored in the brain or even painted en plein air at some point; this creates a spark of energy which transforms into a painting. But this one has given me something more than this: I understood not only why I am feeling this discomfort while naming Fremont as my location, but also why I am here.  

You see, there is an expiration date on things in our life that we can  honestly attribute to randomness, or childhood influences, or any other external circumstances. There comes a time when one can safely assume that everything in their life is, in one way or another, chosen or even "made" by oneself: neither good luck nor bad fortune, just one's very own self. Although the reasons for our living in Fremont were disguised by a thin veil of "circumstances" which had lead us here (although there is a variety of places in this world that we would have preferred), it was we, ourselves, who had brought us here, however random and strange this place might seem.   

It's not the first time in this post that I use the word "random", and that's not an accident. Because the very randomness of this place, its arbitrariness, its lack of pull on my imagination, which might have tempted me to feel "rooted" here: these are the very reasons I am here. It might have been another, equally random, town; it doesn't really matter. If the place where I live did matter, it would be another place entirely. A grand metropolis with a thriving cultural life; a beautiful beach or a mountain range; a medieval town soaked in rich layers of history: all these might have tempted me to feel rooted again, to become attached to a place, to feel as though it were home, my place in the universe and, in the end, to distract me from my genuinely real life, which happens inside my head and within my studio. 

As it is, I am both here and nowhere; I am a passerby with a studio, still, as ever, a rootless cosmopolitan, in love with many places, but not really with either. My place in the universe is not geographical at all, it's defined in other dimensions.      

Insomnia. Homer. Taut sails.

Insomnia. Homer. Taut sails (after Osip Mandelstam). 16"×20", Oil on canvas panel, February 2013

The original plein air study from a nearby Pacific beach has been reworked to the rhythms and rhymes of this poem by Osip Mandelstam (the translation below is from the Northwestern Russian poetry site).

Insomnia. Homer. Taut sails.
I've read through half the list of ships:
This spun-out brood, this train of cranes
That once ascended over Hellas.  

A wedge of cranes to foreign shores,-
Your kings' heads wreathed in spray,-
Where are you sailing? Were it not for Helen,
Achaeans, what would Troy have been to you?  

The sea and Homer - love moves all.
Where should I turn? Here Homer is silent,
While the Black Sea clamors oratorically
And reaches my pillow with a heavy roar. 

In case you'd like to hear some music behind the poem, here is the original Russian text sung by Elena Frolova:


That's not how I would hear it, but, I suppose, the way I paint it is also not like everyone sees it, so that's all right: the point is, after all, to keep great texts alive and breathing by sharing as many ways to hear and see them as possible. 

For me, the poem's essence is in listening to, and giving voice, to the eternal interaction which defines our lives, the interaction between a mind filled with stories and the sound and colours of the world outside us. The interaction which can momentarily dissolve the ego in its powerful waves. Moved by love, what else? It's always love, in the end of the day, isn't it? And beauty: the face that launched a thousand ships // and burnt the topless towers of Ilium...

Studio news: here Homer is silent

Insomnia. Homer. Sea. Love (after Osip Mandelstam). 16"x20".
Oil on canvas panel . February 2013

It might well be that my studio news updates are pointless, because there are, strictly speaking, no "events" in my practice: no openings, no fairs, no shows nothing like that. Nor do I want them, really, although it has taken a remarkably long time for me to get it: I have long suspected that I just pretend that I don't want them, because of all the fuss and hassle involved in their organization and preparation. 

But that's the plain truth: my meaningful events happen right here in the studio, erasing, layer by layer, slowly but surely, sometimes with difficulties and pain, but with increasing clarity of purpose, the noise and randomness from the core of what I am trying to do and how I understand it. And this isn't so easy to put into words. "External" events can but slow down this process, and, frankly, I don't feel like I have enough time left in this world for that. This may change, of course, but that's how it is for now. And that understanding is my main "studio news".  

So here is just a recent painting (not even a proper photo yet), my take on a poem by Osip Mandelstam, which brings into focus essentially the same combination of stimuli that defines my life. For him, it's Homer and the roaring sound of sea waves, both moved by love. For me, it's Shakespeare and the overwhelming sight of ocean waves (both moved by love, of course). 

Pacific impressionism

Pacifica. 16"x8". Oil on canvas panel. 2010

I have two other bits of essential writing to complete, so I've missed the yesterday's post on this blog, and I am only here today to tell you that this piece of unabashed, direct, straightforward impressionism, which has been a favorite with many of my G+ friends, and has spent the last year on my own wall, is now released on Daily Paintworks, so you can bid here. 

This was done fully en plein air, without a single bit of studio rework. It was so windy that I hid myself and my easel within a little cleft in the rocks, which opened for me this unusual vertical view of the Pacific Ocean.  

Impressions and memories

Sunny mountaintops. 16"x20". Oil on canvas panel. 2012

I have just returned from a week-long trip to Chicago and NYC, so this blog, as well, returns from its week-long hiatus. 

I used to envy people who carefully write down their travels in minute details, preserving their impressions and memories in words and even special travel books. I tended to believe that, when I grow up, I'll acquire this habit as well. Maybe I still do, occasionally. But I've come to love living my life as it happens, without recording it, not to wrap the immediacy of impressions into stories, not to mix impressions and memories: so that the memory of each moment is preserved as I lived it, not as I written it down, flattened and trivialized. Maybe I just don't believe in my ability to write with richness of life. I sometimes tell stories of my life later on, when the memory has already been crystallized and is in no danger of dissolving into words.

I pulled out this painting as the illustration to this post because painting en plein air is the closest I come to recording my life. And often, like here, I overlay these impressions later, in studio re-work, drawing from the essence of crystallized memories. This particular motive of sunny mountaintops -- I've repeated it many times, in different sizes and formats; but this version is special, because its first, now nearly hidden, layer has been done from life. Nearly hidden in reworks and remembrances, but still visible and alive, the original source of energy and color. The studio rework has made it somewhat more abstract, fuzzier, yet more straightforwardly rhythmical. Isn't that what memory does with our immediate impressions of life?    


 

Plein air and beyond

Howard Creek Ranch Plein Air. 16"x12".
Oil on linen panel. July 2012

Many a book about plein air painting, and many a teacher, will tell you that you have to figure out, for yourself, what attracts you in the view you have chosen, what is interesting about it, before you start painting, or even before making preliminary compositional sketches. I agree that it is generally a good idea; all in all, it's better to think before doing something, on most occasions. For me, though, it doesn't always work like this; often, I have to work on a painting, both en plein air and afterwards in the studio, before I even begin to understand what this painting is all about. 

This post begins with a plein air study done while we were staying at Howard Creek Ranch: the hills behind the farm house, with a forest running down to its rose garden, with the ocean behind the viewer. What I thought attracted me to this view were two technical challenges: compositional, with the hill dominating both the sky above and the garden and the roof below; and coloristic, with dominant greens and their subtle variety (by the way, no green pigments have been used in the making of this painting). 

The native hue of resolution. 24"×18"Oil on linen, August 2012

Back in the studio, though, this motive began unravelling in two slightly different directions. The first one took place on another, larger canvas: the original peaceful, inert greens splitting into contrasting blues and yellows. The eternal fight between three primary hues replaced the green-dominated color harmony, only slightly punctuated by reds. It's the same landscape, but with its latent energy unleashed in outburst of primary colors. The same landscape, but viewed by another person (inasmuch as one human being can be different persons at different times and places and contexts).

I remember a garden. 16"x12".
Oil on linen panel. September 2012

The second reinterpretation of the original motive took place on the same panel, as a studio re-work of the plein air study. It is now called "I remember a garden", a slightly hidden quote from "The English Patient". If you recall, the man who says this has never actually seen the garden he remembers; he only heard about it in a moment of extreme heightening of emotions: a peaceful garden, running down to the sea, the garden of his beloved's childhood home recalled in a time of pain and mortal danger. 

So this was, as it turned out, what attracted me to this view in the first place: the initially unrecognized hint of shared remembrances of things past, the ever-present contrast between peaceful harmony of nature and painful energies of human emotions attached to it. 

Howard Creek Ranch: a perfect week

Mendocino sunrise. 11"×14", Oil on linen panel

It's been nearly a month since we returned from our impromptu week-long getaway at Howard Creek Ranch Inn on the Mendocino Coast, and I finally have good photos of what I did there (some of the works retouched later). So, it's about time that I told you about this extraordinarily beautiful and friendly place and our charmed week there (please click on any image to see a larger version).

The painting above is a quick plein air study of the Pacific Ocean, done early on our very first morning there, from a little wooden platform above the beach. Since the sun was rising behind me, the sky in the west, above the ocean, is still dark, but the first beams already reach the sand and the foam of the waves rolling towards the beach. I find that overall rhythms of paintings done near the ocean is very much defined by the rhythmic sounds of the waves, as they come towards you and then gracefully roll back. My breath and my arm movements align themselves with this rhythm, and this determines the overall pattern of brushstrokes. 

Highway 1 across Howard Creek. 16"x12". Oil on linen panel.

This spot, with a wide view of the coast and the ocean, is about three minutes walk away from the farm – so we returned to it every day and never grew tired of it. On the left is what you see if you turn away from the ocean and  towards Howard Creek Ranch on the midday of a sunny day of late July: Highway 1 crosses Howard Creek here, but one can walk under the bridge towards the farm: down to the buildings on the left, behind the trees, or up the hill for a walk in the forest.


At this spot, and on this day, everything seems to have both rhyme and reason: the curves of the green trees follow the grander curve of the rolling hill, and the bridge bearing gracefully repeats the shapes of tree trunks. Even though the day was really sunny and clear, the color of the sky changed repeatedly as I was painting, turning from deep blue to blinding yellow-whites, with occasional hints of greyish-purple fog, and back to the depths of the blue. Since my overarching memory of this day is its burning sunniness, I've strengthened and connected the yellows and reds later in the studio, bringing back the day's bright harmony with the large circle of hot colors.

Carriage House. 20"×16", Oil on linen panel

This is a view of the room we stayed in, called "Walden", in the old carriage house, overshadowed by tall trees under high skies. 

If it looks somewhat shabby in the painting, it's because it is – on the outside. You don't get the impression of staying in a modern bed-and-breakfast; it's almost as though you are really staying at a ranch. Inside, though, everything is beautifully handcrafted, with overwhelming attention to every minute detail – a genuine style and the high art of woodwork you would be unlikely to find in the priciest hotels. To add to this charming duality of overall impression, upstairs there is a large living room, complete with a diverse library and a jacuzzi, contrasting with a garage (containing a very old and merrily green tractor) combined with Sunny Grigg's (the owner's) workshop downstairs.

Beach Cabin. 20"×16", Oil on linen panel

Here is a view of another little building, called "Beach Cabin". This study remains as I've brought it home from the trip, untouched in the studio – and I am still not quite sure whether it is complete or not. 

Here, one of the most charming features of the place comes across even more directly than in the previous one: the tall trees raising to the sky high above the buildings, seeming, from the lawn, even higher than the hills behind them. With the Pacific Ocean quietly rolling its waves on the other side, this gives one this ever-present feel of seclusion, distance from the outside world with its hectic noise, the impression of a charmed place filled with peaceful magic. 

Mendocino Sunset. 16"×12", Oil on linen panel.

The last work I want to show you today is a study of sunset, from the same spot as the first study of sunrise. 
 
The first sunset we saw there was absolutely stunning – even Eugene, who generally doesn't appreciate southern sunsets (when the sun doesn't color the whole sky in all shades from orange to violet, but just drops itself behind the horizon, like an egg yolk onto a frying pan), was amazed. But it was too late to run for the easel, so we've decided to come back next day to the same spot.

But here is the thing about planning to catch a sunset – you are totally dependent on weather, and the next three days were more foggy and cloudy, so the sun remained nearly invisible. Finally, two days before the end of our vacation, the sky cleared (or almost cleared), so I've decided to try. But it was nothing like the first day – the sky was colored in very subtle shades, which were changing every half a minute, but the sun remained invisible. That's when I started the painting above.

The next day, it was sunny at last – so sunny that the sun burned my arms and hands during our morning walk (and I don't even want to talk about my face...). In the evening, I was nowhere near a state in which I could seriously paint, and – isn't it always so? – the sunset was brilliant again. I was standing there, on this same spot, trying to capture it in my memory, while Eugene was merrily clicking away with his camera.

And so, this work is not only the end of the day, and the end of our charmed vacation, but also a memory: a later studio attempt to unload whatever of the two brilliant sunsets, the first one and the last one, I did manage to commit to my memory...

If I have overused the word "charmed" in this post, that's because it is really the overall impression of this place, and of our week there, that I've brought home with me, that I tried to capture in these paintings, and that, I hope, will remain with me as long as possible.

Painting ... poetry

Where is this sea? -- you will ask. 16"x20" (40.6 x 50.8 cm). Oil on canvas. June 2012.

If you have followed my work for a while, you certainly know that I love painting poems – going to the undiscovered country where all art forms are one, and searching for the painting counterpart of a poem there, and, hopefully, coming back with a painting. If there is a paradise, I believe, it's there, in this undiscovered country.

I learn from poets their rhythms, their ability to merge the music of language and the imagery invoked, their compositional structures. It is intimately related, in my mind, to a painter's greatest challenge – that is, to harmonize the abstract structure of a painting and its "representational" content, so that they act together to touch the viewers' conscious minds, on the one hand, and their emotions and senses, on the other (something the abstractionism doesn't have to deal with, circumventing, as it does, the consciousness, the "rational" boundaries the viewers might build around themselves to protect themselves from unwanted influences). 

The landscape above is a painting of a poem, or rather, a song, by a Russian poet Novella Matveeva. This song, "Traces", invokes an image of "a youthful, green bay, neither a wrinkle nor a hint of grayness". No one knows, except the poet (and maybe not even she) where this mysterious place, with lots of other wonderful things, rhythms, and people, exists. I believe it might be that same place where all art forms are one; the land that I keep finding and losing my way to. Since this is a song, not just a poem, its recording by the author, with her uniquely child-like voice, might have a more universal appeal than just words, so here is a link to it  (just hit the "Play" button on the gray bar).

I know that she was there, in this land, and left her traces there, because she was the one who gave me the first hint that this land exists, many, many years ago, via her large poem, "Peter Bruegel the Elder", where she says: 

...but always (line after line), invariably (page after page), I will remain a star-crossed pupil of Peter Bruegel.  

The image of a poet studying with a painter, and a painter from a time long past to add to the mystery of the process, has remained with me all these years, and, I believe, might have been the first seed of the idea that a painter can learn from poets, as I do now.  

Plein Air Vacation!

Anchor Bay (a study from Whale Watch inn)

12"×16", Oil on linen panel, July 2011

The blog goes on a plein air vacation.

The next post will appear on July 30, 2012.

This is a study from the last year's journey to a nearby place, as a preview of a bunch of plein air paintings I hope to bring home with me.

June Studio News: Swift-footed time

Fremont Hills from Quarry Lakes. 20"x16" (51x41). Oil on panel. 2012

Sometimes, Time seems to flow slowly and meditatively; but more often it feels really swift-footed (as mentioned by Shakespeare in one of the sonnets I was painting this month, Sonnet 19). A single moment – and another month has gone to eternity.

The most noteworthy Studio event of the month was, of course, my Open Studio – a memorable and meaningful day spent in conversations with wonderful people. The catalog of the show is now available in printable PDF form, and will soon be available as a book. Here is one of the recent plein air landscapes that sold during the Open Studio, "Fremont Hills from Quarry Lakes".

Nothingness: peaches. 12"x12 (30.5x30.5). Oil on panel. 2012

For me, the Open Studio was, most importantly, an occasion to look back at the work and progress of the last three years, to think about what I've learned, how I have changed (or rather -- have been changed by my work), and where I am now.

One result of this brief pause is a new series of paintings, which I call "Nothingness" and have already introduced in my May Studio News post. Here is another one from this series: "Nothingness: Peaches". Most of the paintings in this series are "revisions" of older works, acts of dissolving more straightforwardly representational still lifes into colours and brushstrokes.

I'll be adding them to my portfolio website over the next days.

Color study of lily buds, 30"x24". Oil on canvas. 2010

I have added four new paintings, with accompanying background stories, to my "Shakespeare in colour" blog. I am very happy to say that, thanks to the brilliant new e-book/app by Touchpress I am now able to add links to Shakespeare sonnets read by some of the best British actors (I am gradually updating older posts, and I'll make sure to include links in all future posts). If you happen to have an iPad, and are interested in Shakespeare at all, I highly recommend buying this book.

In July, I will be participating in the exhibition of Russian Artists of Bay area in JCC Palo Alto. The opening reception of this show will be on July 14, 2012 (6PM-10PM). Please stop by if you are in the area and have time. I have three paintings in this show, here is one of them, "Color study of lily buds".

Pacifica

Pacifica. 20"×16", oil on canvas panel, 2010

This painting has been competed en plein air, at the beautiful Pacifica beach in the vicinity of San Francisco. In the morning, it tends to be foggy, but then, if you are lucky, the fog gradually disappears and the sun brightens up the ocean, warms the stones of the beach, and colors the foam of the waves.

Painting ocean waves en plein air, from life, is a very special kind of experience. Each wave comes to the shore with crushing solidity and power, yet its life time is too brief, and its movement too fast, for a painter to capture it, to "freeze" the moment. And however you try, you cannot really commit to memory and keep there intact one moment in one wave's life – because new ones come with their new beauty and energy – and overflow, almost literally, the fading memory of their predecessors.

And there you stand, your vision focused on these endless improvisations on the same motive defined and shaped by the gracious curve of the bay shore, unable to capture any single one, almost transfixed by this embodiment of interplay between mortality and eternity.

The waves in the painting, then, represent neither any particular individual waves nor the "prototypical", idealized waves revoked from memory and from the general knowledge of how they "should" look like. Rather, they are yet another improvisation, in another domain, at the intersection of mind and brushstrokes, inspired and empowered by the waves formed by the Pacific ocean on that particular afternoon.

Fremont Hills from Quarry Lakes, 12"x12", oil on canvas panel.

This is a compositional study based on a plein air landscape done in a more usual landscape format.

The structure I began to explore here relies on dividing a square at two golden sections, once vertically and once horizontally. My study of this design idea is a part of my ongoing series of painting Shakespeare sonnets: it is used as the geometric counterpart of the classical structure of a sonnet.  

Here, the horizontal division separates the narrower top rectangle, filled with the village, and trees, and background hills, and the foreground "golden rectangle". The vertical division is supported by the edge between the light and dark parts of the right-hand background tree, and the vertical then continues, slightly interrupted and shifted, through the foreground bushes and their reflection in the lake. The focal yellow bush finds itself within the borders of a smaller vertical golden rectangle.      

This painting is available for this week only on the terms of "ten a penny" experiment; the suggested minimum for the piece is $40.00 (including shipping). Please click on the image to see a larger view and leave a comment or contact me through my website if you are interested.