Dharma Bums, On The Road Again...

The phrase "Dharma Bum" was coined by the Beat* writer, Jack Kerouac. Dharma is one of the most important words in the Hindu and Buddhist religions. Narrowly defined it means "your spiritual duty," or "your place in the universe." A Dharma Bum is a wanderer and a truth seeker, and in the case of Kerouac’s novel these divine vagabonds were bohemians, writers and artists who shunned the confines of society. This blog is about the sacred joys of painting and travel. 

A restless spirit, I've always found it difficult to work in a cubicle from 9-5. One of my most memorable jobs was with the DPW in the summer of '72. My days were spent riding around town in the back of a dump truck with 5 other teenagers, picking up trash in the local parks. Today most people would consider this court mandated, community service but for me it represented freedom.

Love Street Surf Shop by Eli Cedrone ©

Kerouac’s notion of the Dharma Bum could easily describe today’s generation of artists who travel the country participating in Plein Air events and teaching workshops. To outsiders this lifestyle may be viewed as eccentric but these painters are highly trained, well-organized professional artists. For many, this way of life can be creatively and financially rewarding.

St. Edwards, Palm Beach

So I’m boarding my Jet Blue flight for Palm Beach (with excruciating delay given the advanced age of most of the passengers). I’ll be gone for nearly a month; painting and teaching with a residency thrown in the middle so I can catch my breath. If like me, you've had days where you’re feeling old and travel seems best suited for the obscenely young, you’ll understand the need for the residency.

Painting on Worth Avenue, Palm Beach

My wall at the Plein Air Festival, Tequesta

First stop Tequesta, for the 4th Annual Plein Air Festival at the Lighthouse Art Center. This is my second invitation to the event so I see a lot of familiar faces - and some very talented painters. I’m in good company. The camaraderie amongst artists is historic and important for a number of reasons; a sharing of ideas, a competitive spirit and a chance to get out of the studio. These events also offer opportunities to get your work in front of new collectors and publishers. I sold a bunch of paintings and was awarded First Place by juror George Van Hook in the Quick Draw (artists must complete a painting on location in 2 hours.) A pretty blissful way way to end the week.

First Prize in the Quick Draw

My winning painting "Harborside" by Eli Cedrone

I was fortunate to have a week-long residency in Palm Beach and I had some time to do a little painting on my own. I love using small 6x8 panels for quick, field studies.

Painting at the Society of the 4 Arts, Palm Beach

Color study "Bougainvillea" by Eli Cedrone

Following my residency, I taught a 2-day workshop at the Lighthouse Art Center. The focus was on the fundamentals of figure drawing. We started with a lot of quick, gesture studies and I introduced a technique to simplify the figure in order to integrate them into landscape paintings. It was an amazing group of painters, many of whom had studied with me last year. Check out my website for workshops there in 2018.

The gang at the Lighthouse Art Center workshop

I’m traveling across Alligator Alley which coming from Boston, is a disturbing name for a highway. I have visions of being devoured by one of these prehistoric creatures. I’m also a bit unnerved by the fact that there are 20 people enrolled in my workshop at the Bonita Springs Center for the Arts, but that’s okay… I’ve totally got this.

I thought it would be brilliant to present a workshop on the techniques and methods of a variety of painters throughout history. In theory "Lesson’s from the Masters" was a great idea but it required a lot of “moving parts” in order to set up each day. The staff at the art center was heroic in this regard. I swear there are tiny elves on the payroll; each morning everything was in order... model stands, lighting, even hot coffee and pastries!

My demo at left, is a copy of a painting by Anders Zorn. The palette is limited to 3 greyscale values. I begin with the mid range value, eventually adding darks and lastly, the lights. The focus of this lesson is to paint correct value relationships and seeing in terms of "pixels" in order to render the fall of light and modeling of form.

The wonderful students at Art Center Bonita Springs

For me, the sacred joys of travel and painting are an act of self-actualization. Becoming your true potential is pretty rare in society. I guess that’s why there’s always this feeling that the daily grind police will catch up with me, and I’ll have to get a "real" job. But for now, I feel the pull of the north wind so I’m heading to Portugal to teach a week-long workshop in Casais and Sintra. Want to follow along? Just subscribe to my Art & Soul blog!

Some tips on how to begin your own creative journey…
Get a change of scenery with a quick, overnight painting trip to a new destination.
Visit the studio of other artists and explore a new medium or technique.
Take a course or workshop close to home without the cost of flights and hotels.

Indulge in some armchair travel with one of these great books…

- Art + Travel Europe: Museyon Guides, Step into the Lives of Five Famous Painters

- The Last Nude: Ellis Avery, Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka

- Kiki’s Paris: Billy Kluver, Artists & Lovers 1900’s
- Strapless: Deborah Davis, John Singer Sargent's Madame X
- The Moon and Sixpence: W. Somerset Maugham, Paul Gauguin in Tahiti
- And last but not least…
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac

*Beat (Beatitude): a state of utmost bliss

Musings on a winter day…

“Even the strongest blizzard begins with a single snowflake.”

- Sara Raasch

And so it is with painting; the first stroke on a blank canvas is like that single snowflake. The tabula rasa... the promise it holds, is built on the premise that all knowledge comes from experience or perception.

Art is the external expression of the intuition. As artists we are constructing an imagined thing. Each stroke building upon the last until form and content are in correct relation to each other and the idea is clearly expressed. 

"Mere copying of nature is not an expression of emotion. 

Raw emotion, without rules of academic correctness to govern its output, 

just produces nonsense. Great art, can only come when creativity

is tempered by taste, when the design is conscious, and when the form 

is uniquely suited to the ideas presented.” 

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. Yet if the making of art was limited to just copying, then nature would surely eclipse any effort of the artist. The artist's interpretive vision would be lost in the cold reflection and recording of external facts. Reality is obtained not by copying but by interpreting. Even in painting the portrait, the artist must fix in his mind the quality, the character, the very soul of the person before him.

The transcending of art above nature is an age old discussion. Aristotle with his idealistic view, was likely the first to claim that true art is an improvement upon nature and that man must be depicted not as he is but as he ought to be. Realists believed that only common depictions of life offered an enlightened view of reality. But even this belief doesn't destroy the presence of artistic quality in their work. An internal vision along with the external, skill of execution is required for all true Art.

"Seek first for absolute truth of value and color, 

and paint this truth in the simplest and most direct way.”

The mechanics of picture-making, require a mastery of the basic principles. There are no great secrets, simply a commitment to careful observation and mindful, sincere rendering. Painting is a fusion of the external; skill of execution and the internal; vision or intuition. It requires an understanding of who we are and who we are becoming. An unfolding of the mind with each new experience.

Mysticism teaches that everything in the physical world has a parallel in the spiritual. Baltus said; "A spiritual stroke, correctly placed is beyond calculation.” This belief resonates with me; it suggests that something outside of our unique experience and knowledge is at work. That the hand of the artist is guided by the mind as well as the spirit. 

As with snowflakes; we all have our unique experiences. But maybe the accumulation of human experience is like a blizzard, resulting in what Jung called the collective unconscious. When a painting transcends or inspires, perhaps it has struck that universal chord.

Quotes: Carolus Duran

References: Orestes A. Brownson

One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.

I’ve had a love affair with Bermuda for over 40 years and just returned from a week long art festival on island. A big part of Bermuda’s charm is its natural beauty and as an artist it represents a dramatic change of scenery from what I’m familiar with in Boston. Plein Air painting celebrates the making of art in the great outdoors. Visiting new places allows us to experience the world with a fresh eye and revitalizes our spirits. I’ve found that a radical change of scenery shakes up old ways of working and forces a reconsideration of seeing and interpreting the landscape.

"The purpose of the painter is simply to reproduce in other minds the impression which a scene has made upon him. A work of art does not appeal to the intellect. It does not appeal to the moral sense. Its aim is not to instruct, not to edify, but to awaken an emotion.” George Inness

Local and visiting festival artists

Painting in Somerset Bermuda

The ultimate moveable studio!

National Gallery with Bill Hanbury (CEO of Tourism) and wife Valerie

The gala reception was held at the Bermuda National Gallery. Each artist had the opportunity to enter up to 6 paintings for the final exhibition. I have no idea how the committee managed to hang so many paintings in such a short time but they did a fantastic job! I'm very pleased that several of my paintings sold and I'm looking forward to exhibiting some of my work later this year on island. To read more about the festival visit:

http://www.bermudapleinair.com/plein-air-festival/meet-our-2015-winners/

Castle Point 11x14 Oil on linen

Ely's Harbour, 9x12 Oil on linen

Stalking My Art Heroes

"I do not judge, I only chronicle. Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend." J.S.S 

I recently visited the Metropolitan Museum to view the exhibit Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends. The exhibition brings together paintings that have seldom been shown together. This collection of diverse and often unfinished portraits allows for an in-depth exploration of Sargent’s extraordinary talent. Every painting was a revelation, each displaying the effortless, virtuosity for which Sargent is most notably recognized.

“La Duse" While in London in 1893 Sargent managed to persuade Eleonora Duse to pose for him, but for barely an hour. In that brief sitting he was able to capture the essence of her enigmatic personality.

“In art, all that is not indispensable is unnecessary” 

From Velasquez he had learnt to simplify. Sargent worked with an economy of effort in every way, the sharpest self-control, the fewest strokes possible to express the truth. 

“George Henschel" This portrait was painted in approximately five sittings during which Henschel was required to stand on a platform and sing for Sargent. When Henschel’s wife saw the portrait for the first time, she remarked, "How beautiful! It’s George having arrived in heaven."

I suspect from reading notes on Sargent’s technique that he began by laying in a middle flesh tone, light on one side and dark on the shadow side, carefully sweeping the flesh into the background while maintaining the accuracy of the drawing. Every head is painted as a sculptor models, alway with an eye for the great masses.

“Painting is an interpretation of tone through the medium of color drawn with the brush."

Sargent strove to achieve a balance of shape and color as he developed the image, ever mindful of the relationship of figure to background. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the way in which he painted a forehead, expertly expressing the receding planes of the head. I was in awe of the subtle drawing of the mouth and eyes, fusing tone into tone, until carefully applying highlights and accents. Above all maintaining the principle of oneness.

“The thicker you paint, the more color flows.”

Sargent’s interior scenes were rich with ambient light, beautiful form and incredibly well designed. From Duran he learned that “objects in nature relieve one against each other by the relative values of light and shade which accompany and are a part of each local color, an outline or contour is a pure convention.”

Sargent believed that a sketch must not be merely a pattern of pleasant shapes, pleasing to the eyes, or a mere fancy but that It must be a very possible thing, a definite arrangement. He drew with his brush as readily and as unconsciously as with a pencil. Carolus Duran (Sargent’s mentor) stressed how important it was “to capture the envelope of the figure” and the dynamic relationships between the model’s contours and it’s surroundings. 

Hanging it up, showing it off.

This past month I felt as though I was in the business of moving rather than making art. The season is in full swing on Cape Cod. I have a lot of new paintings on view at Gallery Antonia (Chatham), Sosebee Gallery (Nantucket ) and Willoughby Fine Art (Martha's Vineyard).

A really nice crowd showed up on June 5th for the opening reception of an exhibition of my paintings at The Marion Art Center along with pastels by Kim Morin Weineck. Art in Bloom was a special part of the exhibit and floral arrangements were created expressly for each painting. The show runs till July 11th. 

Speaking of “Portable Studios” I’ll be doing a demonstration this Saturday, June 27th from 10:00am to 2:00pm MAC. Marion, MA is a really cool town to visit (it's like Cape Cod without the hassle of crossing the canal) I hope to see you there!

Marion Art Center

Main & Pleasant St, Marion, MA (508) 748-1266 

Why must all good things come to an end?

"Shimmer" by Eli Cedrone 2014

As autumn approaches I feel as though I'm about to go over the cliff’s edge. This isn’t quite as ominous as it sounds – I like autumn, I just despise winter. Nothing endures quite like the seasons in New England, so once I accept the inevitable I embrace what lies ahead. 

I'm honored to have been chosen for the Artist in Residence by The Cape Ann Museum of Art and the Copley Society, Boston. I'll be spending the month of September painting and studying in the Rocky Nect area where my studio and apartment is located. 

The Cape Ann Museum tells multiple stories, from its earliest days as a fishing and shipping port to its mid-19th century role in the granite industry, to its charms of light and sea that have attracted countless artists from the 19th century to the present, Cape Ann boasts a rich and varied culture of historical and artistic achievement.

On the heels of my residency is my workshop in Tuscany, October 13-20, 2014. Believe it or not there is still time to join us if you happen to be the spontaneous type! The weeklong workshop includes villa accommodations, breakfasts and dinners, airport transfers, ground transportation, instruction and food, all for the cost of  $2850, double occupancy. The single supplement is $600. Airfare and lunches are not included. A detailed, but tentative itinerary will be sent to you upon registration.  

Visit Tuscany Arts Vacations or contact Joan Hill at 508-255-7907 for details.

Tuscany: http://www.tuscanyartsvacation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65&Itemid=38

If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air...

So go the lyrics to the Patty Page song, "Old Cape Cod". As the years go by I grow to love this place more and more. On July 12th my solo show "Outside the Lines" opened at Gallery Antonia in the heart of historic Chatham village. About two months before the show, I was driving back from painting in CT and I got a call from the owner, Domonic Boreffi. Apparently my work was going to be featured in the July issue of American Art Collector magazine (that was the good news) and I had about 3 weeks to get images to the publisher (that was the bad). So my emotions went something like this... excitement, apprehension, fear, dread, and sheer panic.

I thought, "I can handle this". So I hit the studio bright and early and made a bold start with some new work only to find that painting on demand is a sure path to failure. I wasted yards of canvas and piles of paint. After a few days of feeling like a complete failure I began to revisit paintings that I had allowed to languish thinking I'd had all the time in the world to finish. In the end I managed to meet my deadline. Maybe not in the way I'd intended but more importantly I had a revelation about ambition, failure and the meaning of success. "In creating, the only hard thing is to begin; a grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak." - James Russel Lowell