Painters On Painting is an ongoing interview project gathering artist's feelings and ideas about their work into a visible, accessible space.
If you'd like to participate, please email us at florenceschoolofthearts@gmail.com!
If you'd like to participate, please email us at florenceschoolofthearts@gmail.com!
Tinder, graphite on paper, 2016
|
James Servais
http://jamieservais.tumblr.com/ PH- What's your favorite part of making a picture? JS- The way I make a drawing or painting is very uniform from start to finish, so it’s hard to pinpoint a favorite part part of the process. I pile small marks, figure drawings, and doodles, until the work is good, the page is filled, or the surface of the canvas is too cruddy to keep working on. PH- How do you know if it's good/ when it's finished? JS - If I can get totally engaged as a viewer I think that’s enough to call something good. Usually this happens at the point when certain elements of the piece get out of the artist's control, become alien and strange and start making connections by themselves. From a behavioralist perspective, this is my favorite part of making art as well. The moment when I become engaged as a viewer, and feel a sense of accomplishment and ego satisfaction. In this model, the studio is a skinner’s box: each mark the artist makes is a pull on a slot machine, hoping for the jackpot payout of thinking their work is pretty good. Of course, the worst part is that you can hit the jackpot, feel extremely satisfied with and interested by what you’re working on, and then wake up the next morning and be disappointed and embarrassed. I don’t know if I can explain that. Maybe for something to be good it needs to totally engage a viewer more than once. I will also say that a more humanistic model than behavioralism is probably better for choosing favorites. I hope that someday my favorite part of making will be when I become so engaged in the work that I forget about my ego altogether. |
Your Lips Taste Like Heaven
Acrylic, Flashe and Sand on Canvas Variable Dimensions 2015 |
Lauren Britton
http://www.lauren-britton.com/ I think my favorite part of making a painting is when I am the most frustrated. This is true because I know at this point that the painting has me. It now has its own personality and I have to work with or against what it wants and that struggle is exhilarating for me. I know I've made a good painting when the elements of the painting gel together and lock into place. There is a deeply satisfying feeling that I have when this happens. When I spend time looking at the work and I am consistently surprised - that is when I know the painting is good. |
Blindfold II, oil on canvas, 2015
|
Kristine Moran http://www.kristinemoran.com/ This is a hard question to answer. Sometimes I don't know . Other times I think I've made a good painting, and the following day or sometimes years later, I will look at that painting again and think it's not so good. I would say out of all of the paintings I make every year, only a very few stand out as truly good and I think this is true of most artists, historically and contemporary alike. It takes many bad paintings to get to the one good painting. I know I've made a good painting when 2 or 3 years later I can revisit an old painting and it still feels strong in terms of composition, form and subject and it makes me want to get into the studio. |
Moose In Town, oil on canvas, 30"x36", 2014
|
Morgan Bulkeley
http://www.morganbulkeley.com/ There are many pieces to put together for me to make a painting. Thinking of an idea that seems new and important, when the canvas is just a white rectangle, is the hardest. It often seems hopeless to begin. But once ideas begin to fit together and I feel convinced, once the first marks and colors are made, then the fun begins. Seeing the piece grow, bit by bit, feels like building a new, unseen world. The ending is often really difficult, as suddenly the last choices have to tie into all the rest of the painting, colors, shapes, motions, all settling into a whole. So all in all I'd say the middle, the growth and act of painting are my favorite part. When I'm finished, I have to get some distance or time away from the painting. If, after a few days, I need to make some changes, I do, but suddenly it becomes separate from me, perhaps like having a baby, and I know it is done and out of my hands. Time, and how it settles into my feeling about life, let's me see how relevant, new, or good the painting is. |
Intending to Grasp The Nettle, Oil on linen on board, 48 x 40 inches, 2014
|
Jason Jägel
http://www.jasonjagel.com/ I really love the beginnings of paintings. Many of my paintings are spontaneously improvised on paper using gouache (opaque watercolor) mixed in jars. With the paint pre-mixed and ready to go, and a supply of paper right there in the drawer, it’s very easy to start 10 paintings in one day, switching off between each. Without any pre-conceived idea of what I will paint, the ideas begin to flow during the process of mixing colors, dipping brush in paint, and applying it to paper. Each decision of color, shape and mark leads to further feelings and ideas. The openness of the early stages of a piece is rich with possibility, one painting can follow one path while another can follow another, different or related road. I don’t always know [if I've made a good painting]. Certainly, in the process of making a painting I act as both maker and viewer to determine whether the piece –all or part(s)– are evocative or feel forced. With improvised paintings, in part I am looking to make something that feels new to me, something I couldn’t have preconceived. More than once, I have made a series of improvised paintings where the works that I initially wasn’t as drawn to, later became the ones I considered the most successful. Perceptions change. |
|