December 2020 Year-end Newsletter/Life and Art in the Time of Coronavirus
What a year.
Let me begin with a little gratitude journaling.
While I know a number of people who have suffered and died from the Coronavirus, my immediate family members remain healthy.
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We had a lovely summer, during which my yard grew and bloomed like crazy. My husband made repairs on and painted my studio and much of the exterior of the house. A series of breakdowns (plumbing, washing machine, car, I can’t even remember what else) forced upgrades and interior renovations as well. Also a huge amount of sorting, divesting of stuff, and organizing of those things that made the cut, projects that had been needed for years, maybe even decades.
I have zoomed and zoomed, teaching yoga and painting and hanging out with family. In August we arranged the very open corner of our front porch into an outdoor living space and had folks over at a safe distance while numbers were low in NYS and the weather held, catching up on each other’s Covid-era lives.
I am grateful to our governor for governing, and being an innovator in dealing with the Covid crisis. I have never much liked Cuomo in the past and may go back to disliking him in the future, but he stepped up and kept us as safe as he could. And I felt safer for it.
Also on my gratitude list is the greatly raised awareness created by the Black Lives Matter movement and resulting baby steps towards police reform. As I listened more intently to the stories being told and the history behind them, I learned a great deal. I also reread the three Toni Morrison novels that I have on my bookshelves and made myself really sit with the horror, understanding that it is not behind us.
A piece by my friend Veronica Lawlor from late May.
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Deep breath.
The whole year was rich creatively for me in my studio. While I feel that my life has a nice balance between painting and time spent with family and friends, practicing and teaching yoga, hiking, gardening, and reading, I also see the rewards of decades of obsessiveness about my creative practice. I have so much momentum and so many ideas to be followed up on that I don’t get blocked, and that has served me beautifully during quarantine. My studio continues to be my refuge, the place where a world of things are possible.
I am very grateful for this video, brainchild of Silver Hollow audio—who created it first as an audio project—and the Emerson Resort, who added the slideshow to make this wonderfully produced six-minute survey of my work as a landscape painter in the Catskills. It was featured during their remote Community Week offerings. They had to take it down and relaunch to correct a typo, and I am afraid that there were a number of folks who tried to go to it a few hours after the launch and found the link broken. Here is a working link:
Sales have been robust. I have also done six commissions in 2020, when some years I don’t do a single one.
The commissioned painting that I did during lockdown was the largest painting I have done to date, an incredible project to have at such a time. Above is the 6’x8′ painting after it was installed by Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
The surgeon’s lounge at a well-known Florida medical facility, through Forrest Scott Group.
Private Commission, 20″x60″.
Fall has been busy, with folks returning indoors and seeking out new paintings to enjoy in their homes. Here is a sampling:
Glowing Grasslands, 12″X12″, Sold by Butters Gallery.
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Shore with Still Mists, 18″x52″, studio sale.
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Earth & Sky, 24″30″, sold in the WSA instructors show at Lockwood Gallery.
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Snow Fields, 24″x30″, sold at the WSA Instructors show at Lockwood Gallery.
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“Windstorm”, 30″x40″, sold by Thomas Henry Gallery.
Summer Hillside, 30″x30″, Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
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Resting Grens, 12″x12″, studio sale.
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Magic Hour with Drifting Clouds, 24″x48″, sold by the Louisa Gould Gallery.
Provincetown, 20″X30″, studio sale.
After months of Covid routine I still have moments of shock at where the world has landed. I was one of the folks who believed in the scientific predictions of an upcoming pandemic and had tracked the news about the H1N1, SARS, and Ebola outbreaks (the latter not over, by any means), feeling huge relief that they had been contained before a pandemic ensued.
So I was reading intently about Covid-19 from early January. (Thank-you NY Times. I have heard people say that there was no coverage early on but that is not true—they were reporting on it daily, but most readers were not paying attention.). It didn’t take more than a few articles, as the evidence emerged, for me to become convinced that this time we were in for it, all of us.
And yet, I could not conceive, really, of what that would look like. The wildfire spread and chaos in Wuhan wouldn’t happen here, right? We would learn from their mistakes and prepare, right? And then Italy’s mistakes and oh whoops it’s here and nobody has done a thing for containment, medical treatment, the economy…nada. No learning, no preparing, no leadership…and maybe worst of all, no efforts to create a national sense of community and responsibility towards each other.
But of course, we are shocked day after day by the poisonous indifference at the top, even marveling at our continued ability to be shocked at each ugly outburst, each new blatant lie and evidence of corruption and narcissistic failure to govern.
Cutting to the chase, I will summarize by saying that when we look back on this period, it will look like the Influenza Epidemic of 1918-20; the Great Depression, the McCarthy era, and the civil unrest of the late 1960s, all rolled into one.
Looking to the nearer future, I believe that we have to seek justice and redress for those who have committed crimes. And as for those who show signs of wanting to shake off the trance induced by the orange cool aid, we need to think about what deprogramming could look like. Shaming and raging (much as it would seem appropriate because many deaths have been caused) won’t help in that effort, and if we can recoup any citizens from this zombie apocalypse, we should.
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Deep breath.
Images of my newest work:
September Light, 36″x48″.
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Things Past/Esopus Valley, 30″x30″.
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Things Past/Hunter Mountain, 30″x30″.
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Horizon with Rising Clouds, 30″x60″, $7,500.
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Sunset Light/Open Road, 24″x36″.
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Warm Fields, 30″x40″.
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Blue Mountain, 12″x12″.
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Mountain Road, 24″x24″.
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Fall Reflections, 24″x30″.
Since last summer I have given a good deal of thought to this coming winter, mulling over ideas for how I can contribute to the comfort and engagement of others. With my back-to-back workshops for the Woodstock School of Art I have worked to inspire a creative spark, encouraging the kind of focus that is healing and invigorating. Nonetheless, I could envision winter, with its increased isolation and Covid anxiety, creating a bigger, deeper need.
So I dreamed up a workshop that I hope will bring us back to our most loved places. Going straight for the heart, it is called, “Love and Longing: Landscape and Mood”. Quite a departure from my roster of zoomed classes so far, which have focused on formal considerations, from color-mixing to composition.
CHRISTIE SCHEELE LOVE AND LONGING: LANDSCAPE AND MOOD
Summer Cloudbank, 10″x30″.
Surging Swell, 48″x48″.
I have long had artwork at my friend Dave’s beautiful shop in Phoenicia, the Tender Land Home. This month we are offering a raffle for a framed oil-on-paper painting with all proceeds going to the Phoenicia Food Pantry. Tickets cost $20 and you can call in to enter if you can’t stop by, 845 688-7213. The drawing is on New Year’s Eve.
View from Little Mountain, 6″x8″.
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It is in the present that we are truly alive, so I wish you connection, engagement, focus, and yes, joy, in the upcoming months.
A Large Commission/ Art in the Time of Coronavirus
In this post I will be documenting the planning, preparation, and creation of a 6’x8′ painting for returning clients through my Rhinebeck gallery, Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
The project has presented special challenges because of state restrictions imposed due to Covid-19. The planning began before our abrupt quarantines, and the piece was finished in late May, framed, and installed June 6th.
I met these folks at a reception at the gallery on February 15th. What followed was a 31 email chain discussing various possibilities for their beautiful, big wall:
They already had a good-sized marsh painting of mine, acquired from ASFA years ago when the gallery was located in Poughkeepsie:
A sea view was always the idea, either open sea or with Chatham sandbars or with big surf. I sent multiple jpegs with ideas and they sent me many others. It seemed that they liked several of the ideas and had to go through a process of narrowing down, until they honed in on their choice, a view of blue sea, sandbars, and Monomoy from a favorite bit of beach in Chatham, MA.
These were a few of my pieces that they were drawn to initially:
Carrying On, 6″x12″, oil on board.
Long Wave, 12″x48″.
Moving Clouds, 24″x48″.
In an email about 25 in, the clients were dialing in:
- In the first attachment, Moving Clouds: we really like the way you have angled the beach in contrast to the horizon. We feel this will work well with your rendition of the CBI waterfront. We also think that having a more active sky would be good, since the water is usually tranquil inside the bar.
- The second attachment shows the near shore section of the beach that we hope you might be able to represent similar to the way you already mentioned, “show just a bit of beach, a simplified swath of beach grasses off to the right… And some sky interest.” We would like to see more beach than grass though. We recognized that you would not be painting the scene exactly as is, and that is fine with us. We are going for something that looks natural, but for those of us who know the area, we can easily imagine it as the same section of shoreline.
- The third picture can be found at the following website. We really love the colors and contrast of the water and the nearshore beach, the middle bars, and the bright sand of the outer bar. We are hoping you could incorporate these elements along with the above.
All of this made perfect sense, after the discussions that we had already had. And since all of it is also perfectly within a subject matter that I hold dear and in my signature style, I was more than happy with their choice. That it wasn’t a tweaked or reformatted version of something that I had done before made it exciting and fresh.
I was lucky with several of the logistics that could have proven difficult under quarantine. First, that I could have a stretcher made in the needed size through my Vermont custom stretcher-makers Brickyard Enterprises—that they were healthy and willing and had the supplies. Next, that when I contacted Claussens linen in Belgium I was assured that the weight linen that I like to use —for its lovely slubbed surface–would be fine for a canvas of that size. Lastly, that I could get a porch drop-off delivery from Brickyard, since this canvas would not come even close to fitting in my Volvo wagon.
I always start a commission with a study, usually oil on paper and small, in the 8″x10″ range but to scale with the desired piece. Approval of the study is sought before moving forward. I agreed with the clients that the size of the painting called for a larger study, and when I realized that I had a 30″x40″ on hand , perfectly to scale with 6’x8′, I suggested that we do a way bigger study…seemed to make sense with a way big painting.
The day before the delivery of the stretched canvas, the clients decided to come by for a porch-viewing of the 30″x40″ study, since they were having a hard time seeing the true colors from the jpeg. I was so glad that they did, since it put a few questions to rest, and they left very happy.
Canvas (with 30×40 study) in my studio awaiting a sunny day for priming.
Priming with my usual off-black gesso proved to be a challenge. I usually do this flat, but realized that I wouldn’t be able to reach the middle section that way, so I opted to prop it on the ground against a table that I use for various outdoor jobs. I wired the back of the stretcher to the sides of the table with picture wire so that the wind wouldn’t catch it, which turned out to be a wise precaution later in the day when the breeze picked up.
I positioned the canvas so that the sun didn’t hit the front, since the gesso goes on more smoothly if it stays damp.
The first coat is wettest and the last coat the thickest, following an oft-used maxim in painting, thick over thin. I sand lightly between coats, and even very lightly, at the end.
After the second coat. With the third, I also do the sides.
By the end of coat #3, five hours later, I was exhausted. Using a 5-inch house-painting brush, the gesso has to be thoroughly worked into the fibers of the linen, and quickly. The physical part was one thing—wrist and shoulder of my right arm, though I did try to use the left a bit—but the mental another altogether.
My understanding is that repetitive motion releases serotonin in the brain, something that we enjoy with, for example, running or walking. So maybe that explains the level of brain-dead that I felt at the end of the afternoon. It was unlike anything I had felt before, like I was stunned into absolute mental disfunction. You might think that this would be accompanied with euphoria, but it was not!
The next day, canvas back in my studio, I was not satisfied with the evenness of my priming job and, knowing that once I started painting I would be stuck with whatever it was, I did a forth spot- coat and some very careful sanding, and then got the canvas back up on my easel (with help…a two-person job).
Next up: mix a palette, making a range of blues, sand colors, and a few greens, and adding nice amounts of my wax medium for easy spreading on the absorbent gesso.
Establishing the horizon line was the first step in applying paint. For such a large canvas, it is hard to see proportion while working up close and impossible get a level line without measuring. I used, as I have before, a standard equation for proportion, in this case x is to 72″ (the height of my canvas) as 30″ is to 40″, the height and width of the study: and so I came up with the placement for the horizon and measured across a few times. The sea does need to be level at the horizon, gravity doing its work. Then eyeballing it, I decided I wanted it a little higher.
Many passages in the painting of this large version can and will be spontaneous and based upon a lot of coming forward to paint and backward to examine. But given how hard it is to see proportion while working up close, it has been very helpful to measure based on the study and not reinvent the wheel at every turn. I calculated that one inch of study is equal to 2.4″ in the large piece, and then deviated a bit where I saw fit as the painting evolved.
This clip of video catches a bit of the of the process:
The next week, a pic of the painting after one layer was completed:
The composition and all of the major shapes have been worked out, following what was established in the study and then shifted a bit where it felt natural to do so.
I add layers of paint to an area based on what, to my eye, needs brightening up. For this painting, it ended up being three to four layers, with the original dark gesso showing through very subtly to mitigate flatness. I am at heart a minimalist, so often less is more in terms of detail; but within each area there is a good deal of color shift and soft brush work.
Going up in size means more play in each area of color. For example, going from a swath of green salt grass on the outer bar an inch high in the 30″x40″, to two and a half in the 6’x8′ gave me room to segue from varied warm greens (with quite a lot of white in them) above to some burnt reds at the edge of the sand. This created a visual link to the reds in the lighter sand colors, and also explores the warm green to warm red color-wheel interaction (think olive green to burnt sienna).
This is the final version, signed off on when the collectors visited for another yard viewing. You can see the difference in luminosity.
The way that I explain my version of minimalism is to point out that if you try to pack too many elements into a painting, it is hard to fully see and appreciate any of them. Further, the openness of large shapes and soft edges creates a strong composition that works with the image, or view, to invite contemplation. In that way my pieces are very much about the painting as abstraction, while also expressing a strong sense of place.
Named Chatham Bars by the collectors, signed in front with my initials and labeled on the back with my name, title of the piece, medium, dimensions and date, the piece was ready for framing. The final step in the whole process for me was to get the piece to my framer extraordinaire, Geoffrey Rogers, in Pine Hill. It’s a short hop from here, but still required hiring a mover, due to the size.
The clients had requested a walnut floater frame, so Geoff created his own molding, which he hand-finished. He suffered a broken collar-bone in the middle of the process after a bicycle mishap, so help from his son moved the project forward to completion. Here is the painting in the shop, awaiting pick up from Albert Shahinian.
I wasn’t there for the installation, which was carried off by Albert and another art installer that he brought on board, with help from the clients. As you can imagine, getting a large painting up on this wall was a process.
Chatham Bars, at home.
This project was particularly meaningful for me in the midst of staying home during the pandemic. It not only created a complex, multilayered point of focus for me, but also worked so beautifully as metaphor—a very large canvas of a particularly open and expansive view being created within a set of constraints unprecedented in our lifetime.
Special thanks to my husband Jack and son Tony, one of whom had to help with every out-into-the-sun and back into the studio later; each up-and-down from the easel to work different sections; and the final in and out of the truck for delivery to my framer. One day when unexpected dark clouds blew up and I was home alone, I managed to get it into the studio with no damage to myself or the painting…which made me appreciate all of the help even more.
Art and Life in the Time of Coronavirus, March 27-29.
Sunday, March 29:
My twins birthday today!
Tessa called last night from a remote, safe house in Wisconsin. The group of eight came out of the woods and started reading the news, and now they really understand what is going on. They will stay together and not have contact with others, then go back in today and finish maple sugaring in the next few weeks. She is thinking that she might just stay with those who live in the house for the duration. She was very happy to hear about the federal $1,200, since her season to work is April-October, and that work is in VT and probably does not exist right now.
Early spring in the Catskills, my (forced) forsythia catching some golden light.
This is the first finished painting on board, 6″x12″. This version is on a deep board that can sit on a shelve or table, as requested by Jupiter Gallery.
One of my big frustrations in the past few days, besides of course dangerous mixed messages from Potus, is this wishful-thinking theme of “oh, I had it, I am sure that I did, and the whole neighborhood, as well.” In some cases, in December, even November…yeah, uhum. The sad sorry thing is…you think it went through your community like a gentle flu, with no deaths or hospitalizations? You are so blessed that of all communities worldwide, mind you (because there is no record of this happening, anywhere globally), that now your community is safe, done?
Many but not all of those indulging in this dangerous narrative are followers of Trump’s continued undermining of the measures needed for containment. But at least yesterday Fauci and Birx managed to convince him that easing stay-at-home restrictions by Easter — dear god — would cost us thousands of lives and the guidelines were extended through April.
I’ll be zoom teaching my first online yoga class on Wednesday. It’s got its limitations, the modality, but it’s what we’ve got for now. After teaching the Zen Mountain Monastery classes with just a mat and a block per student and wrapping up in about 50 minutes, I am confident that I can safely adapt my classes.
This will be a gentle, basics 1-hour class, appropriate for beginners and those who have not practiced for a spell. Here is the link to the Catskills Yoga House website with instructions on how to sign up:
Art and Life in the Time of Coronavirus, March 26, 2020
Tuesday-Thursday, March 24-26:
In the past few days we have seen the news become worse and worse, with the NYC metro area suffering huge numbers of infected and new infections mounting exponentially. The issue of New Yorkers fanning across the country to flee—or just wait out— the problem is finally much in the news, with some states requiring quarantine.
This has been on my mind here in the Catskills, where every second or third home is a weekend place and many others are AirBnB investment properties, currently rented. I would do the same if I lived in nyc and had a place up here, but I would have come up weeks ago and then stayed, like my sister and brother-in-law did. It’s the recent arrivals that pose a risk to us all.
However, we are all supposed to be behaving as if we and every other person has it. I would say that, for those coming from the global epicenter, this should extend to face masks while shopping. And, since recently trailhead parking lots in the Skills are full when the weather is nice, remembering to keep your six feet from other hikers—it’s easy to forget while out in the fresh air. Gloves and speed at the post office, as many of us in this rural area have to pick up our mail.
On the whole, it seems that folks are good and buttoned up in their homes, as they should be, wherever they come from. Since we have a lovely series of hiking trails just up my dead-end road, our road is always the choice for neighborhood dog walkers and hikers, and it is so nice to stop for chats, as in the past, but with more distance between us. I haven’t seen many of the new arrivals in this mix, but we are all good as long as we maintain our six feet.
Cases are mounting in Ulster County, though we have had only one in Shandaken for quite a while now (maybe a week, in our new telescoped time). Otsego County, where my Dad lives in Oneonta, went from zero to five in the past few days. My dear friend Di (known locally as “Dr. Di” and also my Dad and his partner’s yoga teacher) is now City Health Officer for preparedness for Covid-19. When we chatted the other night she described their local efforts, but there had yet to be a known case in the county. I am sure that they are now on higher alert to avoid community spread.
In other Covid-19 news, the NY Times published an article yesterday by a woman in NYC whose husband has a pretty bad case—just teetering on hospitalization—and how she and her 16-year-old daughter are coping with nursing him and trying not to get it themselves. It is clear that at his level of misery, there is no way he could take even the most basic care of himself.
This brought it home in a very concrete way, since with this illness all previous protocols are out the window. Family is not supposed to step in, no one is supposed to get near—the only help can come from folks dropping off needed supplies, whether medical or food. Each household, no matter how small, is on it’s own, with a bit of doctor’s advice and the worst case solution of being hospitalized.
I am glad that we have worked so hard within our household to stay safe, though we could still, of course, be unlucky.
Daughter Tessa called yesterday, just a check in before she goes back into the Minnesota woods to continue maple sugaring until her original target date of April 13 or 14th. It was so great to hear her voice.
I had left her a voicemail with a little bit of info on what’s going on in this country, and she seemed unable to let go of the idea that Jack and I are reacting with outsized anxiety. It is such an unprecedented situation that if you are not living it, of course it would seem like that…
She is now with only six others of the original crew, all having ben there for over a month, safe and happily out of contact with the world. How she will get back here to pick up her car, and then onto her Vermont home has yet to be determined. I am dead set against using her plane ticket to Newark.
In the studio I finished the sand flats painting, Soft Glow over Tidal Flats, 30″x60″:
I wonder when I will see the sea again? Almost surely not the first of May, as originally planned, for my seasonal drop-off at Louisa Gould Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard.
Work is also progressing on the watershed Site Map; here, a detail of the most developed sections:
I have started painting the planned small oil-on-board pieces.
I am so focused on these projects that the studio constantly calls to me…I would happily spend even more time there every day, but there are both necessary and lovely other things to do—yoga, hike, cook, yard work, read, paperwork and phone calls (Jack’s job is shut down for the duration and mine—who knows?—so we are applying for all of the things), and all of the email and phone connecting with friends and family.
Atlas/Forms of Water 2019
As the finale of this show and thus this post, I offer a beautifully produced recording of my interview with audience Q&A by Brett Barry of Silver Hollow Audio. This discussion ranges from my decades of contemporary landscape painting to the environmental themes of this show to the gallery-artist relationship. You can listen here:
Water is ease, water is in our dreams, water kills. Water is 60% of our bodies and covers 71% of the planet. We float, swim, sink, ride on, drink, cook and grow with, own, fight over, drown in, boil, crave, gaze at, and are mesmerized by water. It bears repeating: Water is life.
Welcoming Sea, 24″x72″, oil on linen, one of the two largest pieces in the show, 2019.
Water use has also been political since the beginning of our time on earth. As thirst, water rights and fights; severe storms; droughts, fires, floods; and sea level rise become increasingly critical on much of the planet, I have been catapulted into creating an expanded rubric for water imagery in my work. This focuses in on our environment and the challenges it faces, while continuing to celebrate the beauty our planet provides.
After the Rains Came, 24″x36″, oil on linen, 2019.
Atlas /Forms of Water maps the environmental theme while mapping my body of work, revealing a web of meaning around and between the individual pieces that I create. The matrix that connects all of my landscape imagery is saturated with memory, both personal and collective. To make these connections, I have created a site map for the body of work on view.
Maps functions as an aid to find our way. In this context, I am mapping our bodies and states of water; the paintings in the exhibit; memory and self; and threats to our environment, among other, more elusive things.
Site Map/Forms of Water. mixed media/collage and printmaking, 48″x36″.
The Site Map has small monotypes running up both sides that are interpretations of the major paintings in the show. The four other prints are a conversation about threats from global warming: bigger hurricanes in upper left; sea-level rise in upper right: and stream/river flooding in the two at bottom, before and after.
At the top, I have included topographical contours, a loose and flattened version of the Escarpment that curves around Woodstock and then runs north parallel to the Hudson River.
Mountains are the first source of our surface water, and the painting below includes that form of water visible as the Catskill Mountains rising above the back shore, as well as mists, a cloud, and the Hudson River.
Light that Glows, 32″x60″, 2016. (Sold.)
Another new collaged map for the show is of the NYC watershed, water tunnels included. New York City has negotiated—and renegotiated, multiple times—a pass on national regulations that mandate the filtering of drinking water. This exemption is a huge deal, and requires constant monitoring and regulation of the watershed townships within the areas shown, and many mandates for property owners to keep the water flowing into NYC reservoirs clean. While this makes our relationship to our larger neighbor to the south a complex and co-dependent one, it also has transformed our stewardship of our land and streams.
Map Collage, Watershed. 12″x12″, 2019.
The below same-size collage from the year before is of the Hudson Canyon, which is essentially an underwater extension of the Hudson River, extending southeast until it drops off the continental shelf.
Hudson Canyon, collage on board, 12″x12″, 2018.
Also in mixed media/collage, “Forms of Water: A Taxonomy”. This small tintype drawer contains the following seven categories, from the top row moving down: states and phases of visible water; geographical bodies of water; wetlands; types of clouds; storms; waves; and human made forms of water.
Forms of Water: A Taxonomy, 17″x11.5″, 49 mixed media/collage pieces in a vintage tintype tray, 2019.
Creating pieces in vintage boxes, drawers, muffin pans, and child’s blackboards has been one of my ongoing series for some years now. It requires a listening attitude to select and then bend the imagery to work with the support that I have chosen, starting the process in a different way from a blank canvas. In the below piece, the box and the piece of wood that I painted on had elements that determined both what imagery I chose and how I painted it.
Snowplows at Work, oil on board in vintage box, 3″x7″, 2018. (Sold.)
Dusk Drive in 12, oil on board in a vintage muffin pan, 18″x11″, 2018.
For decades now, I have been devoted to painting fog, suspended water that softens our landscapes, sometimes obscuring, sometimes defining:
Blue Dawn, 12″x36″, oil on linen. (Sold.)
Blue/Green Mountain Fog, oil on 4″x12″ board, 2019. (Sold.)
Many of my paintings depict wetlands, so gorgeous and vital for controlling flooding caused by excessive rain events, storms, tidal flooding, and sea-level rise; as well as filtering sediment in water and providing habitat for wildlife. Visually, salt marshes in particular create color and shape that I return to paint over and over again.
Summer at the Creeks, 36″x24″, oil on linen, 2018.
Angle of Repose, 40″x30″, 2015.
Summer Reflected, 12″X12″, oil on linen, 2014.
Manmade forms of water are included in the show, as seen in the flood image near the top and in the vertical painting below, which depicts a wetland developed by humans to cultivate cranberries.
Cranberry Bog, 48″x24″, oil on linen.
The pieces in the show include landscape imagery in oil on linen; monotypes; small works in oil on board; water imagery using vintage boxes, blackboards, and other containers/support; and map collages.
Gale, 16″x16″, oil on linen, 2019. (Sold.)
Stillness, 16″x16″, oil on linen, 2019.
Flow, 16″x16″, oil on linen, 2019. (Sold.)
Drift, 16″x16″, oil on linen, 2019.
I was motivated in fall of 2016 to move towards creating shows that place my open, color-field landscapes within a complex experiential web. Three major factors came into play at just that time.
Sky Meets Water, 18″x24″, oil on linen.
The first was anticipation of a residency in Nantucket scheduled for that winter, and this dovetailed with the second, some thoughts about turning 60 later on in 2018. Given that my background is in contemporary art and that I have always viewed my progressions in landscape painting through that lens; my question to self was—what do I want to do, now, that I haven’t yet?
Among my answers to this question was learning monoprint and linocut techniques, which I now employ both for stand-alone prints and also for the Site Map. Below, some recent monotypes.
Color Field in Blue/Green, 16″x10″, Monotype, 2018.
Overlook with River, 8″x10″, Monotype, 2019.
Waterfall #2, Monotype, 14.25×7.5, 2019.
Reflected Sun #2, 10″x16″. (Sold.)
The third factor was key. Feeling profound grief over the outcome of the 2016 election, my mind returned repeatedly to the single biggest issue on the table, climate change. The conviction that time is running out here and that four years could be critical was decisive in determining the direction that my work has since taken. The acceleration of bad news in this arena since then is eye-popping—sea level rise predictions alone are much, much higher and sooner than was predicted while I was researching the topic in my February, 2017 Nantucket residency.
Moving Storm, 20″x62″, oil on linen.
Flooded Roadway, oil on 6″x6″ board, 2018.
Snow and ice appear in my work and in the context of Atlas/Forms of Water, depict one of the main three phases of water, solid.
Fields of Snow, 12″x12″, oil on linen, 2012. (Sold)
Ebullient Winter, 18″x24″, oil on linen, 2018.
Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is invisible. The closest thing that is visible is steam, such as the image of a geyser below.
Geyser with Winter Sun, oil on paper, 3 panels of 4.5″/each, 2019.
Globally, precipitation has shifted so that many of the wet places are wetter and the dry locales are dryer. For this reason, I decided to create and include several pieces that depict water’s opposite, fire.
Fire #1, oil on 6″x6″ board. (Sold)
Fire #2, oil on 6″x6″ board. (Sold)
Fire Snake, oil on 4″x12″ board. (Sold)
My imagery is heavily weighted toward the Northeast of the United States, as that is where I have spent much of my life. But I could be anywhere on the planet, exploring the same themes, and I bring with me memories of living in the arid Andes and central Castile; painting in rain-soaked Western Ireland; traveling Northern California to capture the coastal golden hillsides of late summer; and returning to the Nebraska flatlands of my early childhood. It all informs the matrix. It is all water.
Red Sky over Tidal Flats, oil on 4″x12″ board.
Yellow Gleam, oil on 4″x12″ board.
Affinity/Dusk Shoreline, 12″x16″, 2014. (Sold.) My Affinity Series involves these steps: fraying the edges of a piece of raw linen and affixing it to a slightly larger board; priming the whole thing dark and then gridding with graphite; painting the image; selectively regridding over areas where the graphite got painted out.
Affinity/Lightening Storm, 16″x16″, oil on linen with distressed edges on board overlaid with graphite gridding, 2013.
2 Shores/Reflected Sun, 12″x12″.
Evening Shoreline, oil on linen, 12″X12″.
This show builds upon my Atlas/Hudson River Valley show in March of 2017, which you can read about here:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/atlas-project-hudson-river-valley-and-catskills/
Serene Sea/Quirky Cloud, 40″x40″, oil on linen, 2005/2019.
Overlook with Sparkling River, 16″x20″, 2019.
Soft Greys from Peaked Hill, 10″X30″, 2015. (Sold.)
We are collaborating with Riverkeeper and Catskill Mountainkeeper on a fundraising benefit October 12th, 5-8. That evening, 15% of sales will go to these vital local environmental organizations, as well as the proceeds of a raffle for this 12″x12″ painting:
Stormy Sea, 12″X12″.
(Note: Raffle was drawn on 11-16. Tickets were $20. We raised almost $1,300 from the raffle alone!)
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Eagle Above, Fish Below: Summer 2018
The surface of a body of water is a reflective, moving, open expanse. Beneath it, the water roils with life—rooted or crawling or burrowing or swimming, lifeforms going about their business of feeding off of each other and reproducing and eventually dying. Above it, life also carries on.
Sky Meets Water, 18″x24″.
One day last July, while staying on Otsego Lake near Cooperstown, NY, I headed to the dock to sit and gaze at the water for a few moments. Looking down at the dock to find my seat, I heard a throaty, loud honk/squack. We had been enjoying visits all week from a mama duck and her nine ducklings, so my first thought as I turned my head was, “that was not a duck!”.
Nothing behind me, but as I straightened to face the side I was now seated at, I saw an adult eagle taking off from the water about 25 feet in front of me. It had been addressing my intrusion, I think!
Shortly after, I decided to make a call to my friend Jenny, with whom I had been playing phone tag. I got her voicemail, and the message went something like this: “Hi Jenny, we’re playing phone tag but I am around today so give a OH MY GOD THAT IT THE BIGGEST *#!%ING FISH I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A LAKE GOTTA GO BYE”.
The fish was directly below my dangling feet, at least two feet across, lit up by slanting sunlight. I know there are fish in these waters, despite an altered ecology due to Zebra mussels—my husband has caught some other years from our small boat and I have seen them feeding off of bugs at sunset. And yet, it was as if this big fish had crawled up on land and joined us on the deck for cocktails, such was my sense of worlds colliding.
I am puzzling out, ever since, what was so startling about this fish sighting. After all, I have been among whales in our 16 foot boat off Race Point in Provincetown—including a pod of killer whales; froliked with a mola and some dolphins in the harbor; snorkled off St. Thomas among all sorts and sizes of sea life.
I think that my jolt of surprise was about expectations, so often the case. I had for days been focused on the surface reflections, and I lost track of the awareness of how much is going on underneath and that during my daily swims, I was intruding upon their busy world. Seeing this large fish directly under my feet brought that crashing back.
As artists we are concerned with both surface appearance and deeper function and meaning. The surface is mesmerizing and ever-changing, feeding our visually-linked emotional hunger, and soothing our quotidian bumps and bruises. The complicated churn beneath, however, mirrors life in its day-to-day, demanding a nuanced and dedicated attention.
Indigos with Glowing Light, 18″x24″.
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This summer has served to remind me of how much I appreciate my galleries. It can be rewarding, sometimes, to hop off that train and do something self-generated like an open studio or studio tour; or an event at a non-gallery venue. But ultimately, a gallery is where people go to view and buy art. It is a business whose purpose is to exhibit and sell art, and therefore all effort is going to that end.
Invitations generally go out in a timely fashion, instead of getting buried in the more pressing things that a non-gallery venue might have to attend to. The galleriest installs the show, with beautiful results based on years of experience. Folks walk in off the streets who are interested in art; search for the local galleries when visiting; respond to invites. A showing of a grouping of selected works in a collector’s home gets on the schedule without delay, follow-ups are done to inquiries as a matter of course…and so on.
Rokeby Meadow, 24″x30″, at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck, NY.
That said, the mom-and-pop galleries struggle to stay afloat, with many more friends and lookers than buyers. So collectors, please support your favorite galleries!
Familiar Reds, 11″X14″, at Butters Gallery in Portland, OR.
And if you are an artist with gallery representation, this is how you can help:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/the-art-ethicist-your-relationship-with-your-gallery/
Forms of Water, 30″x36″, at Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham, NY.
Harbor with Sunset Mists, 24″x36″, at Thomas Henry Gallery, Nantucket.
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I had a lovely time teaching this past June in Woodstock and August on Nantucket, with a full house for my color-mixing workshop in both places.
My Woodstock group.
These are the demo pieces that came out of the two landscape workshops:
Summer Haze, pastel on paper, 12″x18″.
Saltmarsh with Soft Sky, 24″x36″.
Seablues with Brilliant Fog, 16″x20″.
Three Posts, 12″x24″.
My week on Nantucket was filled with not only with my wonderful students, but also with salt air and good food and warm friendship.
I organized an informal gathering at Thomas Henry Gallery so that my students could see my work there, all of the sea or the island:
A grouping of my work at Thomas Henry Gallery.
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The Woodstock School of Art invitational Monothon in July was a printmaker’s dream. Imagine having a printing staff at your beck and call, both master printmakers and monitors, facilitating your every move. Master printmaker Anthony Kirk guided and facilitated my hoped-for plan, my first monotype triptych (and then a few more).
Wave Triptych, three panels of 8″x10″, headed for a show at Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
One 8″x10″ was chosen from each participating artist, to be sold at the show there opening September 8th, 3-5pm This is my donation print that will be featured, followed by some of my other wave monotypes.
https://woodstockschoolofart.org/event/woodstock-monoprint-invitational-exhibition-2/
8″x10″.
10″x16″.
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We will be featuring monotypes and my vintage series, along with oil paintings, in my grouping for the upcoming four-artist show at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck, NY, their yearly Luminous Landscape exhibition. The show opens on September 29, 5-8pm.
Cloud over Green Valley, monotype, 8″x10″.
Dusk Drive in 12, oil on board in a vintage muffin pan, 18″x11″.
Reflected Sun, 32″x48″.
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Several of my summer sales:
Gleaming, 12″x24″, sold by the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, MA.
Swirling Winter Sky, 20″x24″, sold by the Woodstock School of Art.
One of my favorite pieces from the past decade, Perceived Acuity pleases me for its simplicity, movement, elegant shapes, and unusual color:
“Perceived Acuity”, 18″x52″, sold by the Louisa Gould Gallery, Vineyard Haven, MV.
Serene Sengie, 44″x68″, sold by the Louisa Gould Gallery.
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Link to in-studio available works in oil and on paper:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/available-workstudio/
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/available-workstudioworks-on-paper/
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Coming right up, my teaching week in Provincetown, Sept. 17th for Color Mixing and 18-20th for the Landscape Painting Intensive. If you are feeling inspired and spontaneous, come and join us!
Provincetown, 20″X30″, at the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown.
Also upcoming: another residency on Nantucket in November. My focus there and in my studio will be on Atlas/Forms of Water, from the sky to the land to the ocean, and everywhere in between.
Affirmation in Blues, 36″x72″ overall, at Louisa Gould Gallery, MV.
Spring into Summer 2018: News and Updates
Deep, happy, exhalation—spring is here!
I recently delivered fresh work to Louisa Gould Gallery on the Vineyard. She is currently hanging her first show of the season, including my new work, and then plans a big 15th anniversary show with a reception mid-summer. Here are a few of my additions to the gallery walls:
Brilliant Fog, 24″x36″.
Affirmation in Blues, 36″x72″ overall.
Meandering, 24″x36″.
In other shore news, I am very pleased to announce new representation on Nantucket at the Thomas Henry Gallery. I am still working on the pieces that will be delivered in early June, but here is a sneak preview:
Summer at the Creeks, 36″x24″.
Angle of the Cloud, 30″x36″.
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My solo show at Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham, NY, Atlas/Hudson River Valley, was very well received. I will continue updating the blog post on the show to label what has been been purchased, as the gallery has kept many pieces for follow-up viewing and acquisition. I have also labeled with a G the pieces still at the gallery.
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/atlas-project-hudson-river-valley-and-catskills/
Most of my spring sales have naturally come from this Chatham show, and have included oils, a pastel, monotypes, and a collage—a nice affirmation for all of these explorations. Here a is a handful of examples:
“September Dawn”, 12″x28″, pastel, the first with a red dot.
Sweeping Greens, 32″x68″, sold to the Emerson Resort and Spa.
Sold, happily, as a pair:
MVroman’s Nose/Green Fields, 8″x10″.
MSweeping Sky with Fields, 8″x10″.
Atlas/Hudson Valley Collage, 18″x14″, sold to the Emerson Resort and Spa.
This show was a wonderful experience for me from every standpoint. Parting words from them when I was done with pick-up—after expressing my deep appreciation for how well-handled every aspect of our interaction was—“happy artist, happy gallery”.
Those works that have returned to my studio are back on my available work post, as well a number of other pieces:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/available-workstudio/
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Iconic Cloud recently came back to me and I just touched it up, brightening both hillside and sky. I’ve done that a few times recently—must be a shift in my mood.
Iconic Cloud, 20″x40″.
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Here is a schedule of my workshops in Woodstock, Nantucket, and Provincetown. My color-mixing workshop has become very popular with painters of all levels and styles, so some version of that is being offered in the three locales.
I will participate in the Shandaken Studio Tour July 21-22. More on this as it approaches—it is such a pleasure for me to set up my studio as a gallery and host visitors both new and known.
Moving forward, a September show at Julie Heller East in Provincetown and the Luminous Landscape at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck later in the fall. Plus some as yet unknown opportunities will likely arise, as they usually do…
Blue Dusk, oil on board in vintage drawer.
News, Pictures, and a big Save-the-Date as we Launch into 2018
Hello all, happy oncoming 2018! I have quite a lot to report in this year-end update, both from 2017 and about events on the schedule so far for the coming year.
Atlas Project
Many folks have asked me to send out a save-the-date for my Atlas/Hudson River Valley show opening on Match 31 at the Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham New York. I’ll do a separate email soon so that it’s easy to find in the inbox, but here on my blog I can talk about the exhibition in more detail.
This will be the first full-size installation of one of my Atlas Project-themed exhibitions. Later themes might be Atlas/Cape Cod or Atlas/Forms of Water, but I an delighted to be launching this within my own Hudson River Valley/Catskills, both as the theme and the locale of the show. Included will be monoprints, mixed media/collages, and pastels along with the oils, and the Site Map that explains it all.
Downriver, 24″x24″, oil on linen.
The Site Map is an integral part of an Atlas Project installation, a map of the show itself which includes tiny monoprints of all of the oil paintings in the show overlaid on a collaged map of the Hudson River Valley. It includes numbered map tacks that show the locales of the scenes depicted; river towns and bridges and a key to the map and the show.
This map will have to be finished and photographed at the last minute, when I am sure of exactly which oil paintings are going into the show.
A side panel is Mapping Memory/Wildlife of Particular Interest that includes lino-monoprints and some text of my associated personal memories. Three panel extensions coming asymmetrically off the right side and top and bottom of the main map include a collage/lino/mono of the upper Hudson, the source of the river in the Adirondaks; another of Hudson Canyon, which continues out to sea from New York Harbor for 400 miles; and a third comprised of short discussion and collage/prints of three local trees endangered by climate change.
Hudson Canyon collage in progress, mixed papers (including hand-dyed rice papers) on map on board.
New Blog Post
In current news, I have recently published a blog post on the intersecting themes of teaching, independent studio practice, and group dynamic for the artist:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/teaching-creating-community-and-fostering-independence/
I welcome any comments on the post!
Many Things Nantucket
In January I will again be part of an exchange between artists of Woodstock and Nantucket, this time to take place at the Woodstock School of Art. We will be working together for three days in the graphics studio; doing a few studio visits and looking at the historical connection between the two arts colonies; eating and schmoozing. (What could be better?)
Part I of this exchange took place in September at the Artists Association of Nantucket with a show of the four Woodstock-area artists seen below, who had all taught and/or done a residency there:
The plan was for the four of us to show up for a closing reception and artist’s talk on September 23rd, and my plan was to to do a tour of the Cape and Islands with my husband, starting in Provincetown, checking in with and delivering to or picking up from my three galleries in the area.
Just as we were coming onto the Cape Tropical Storm Jose was approaching the area, causing concern over the Cape bridges closing as well as cancelled ferries. From Provincetown we saw some amazing sights during the storm, particularly the surf from the high dunes on Longnook Beach.
We had a ferry reservation to continue on to Martha’s Vineyard, and from there I had another res for the fast ferry to Nantucket a day later.
Three of the four artists did manage to get on Cape, or in my case, to Martha’s Vineyard, and then reschedule ferries to arrive for our reception at the AAN. We suffered a rocky crossing and then enjoyed a lovely evening of spirited discussion and camaraderie.
I also arrived in time to pay a visit to my new gallery on Nantucket, Thomas Henry Gallery. I am looking forward to painting some large, open seascape and marsh imagery for the 2018 season there:
http://thomashenrygallery.com/Christie_Scheele.html
My residency at the Artists Association of Nantucket in February was one of the highlights of 2017 for me, beautifully intensive and key in advancing the rubric for my Atlas Project:
Summer Dune, 9″x24″, oil on linen.
The below was my second prototype for a site map for a grouping of Atlas Project work. From here I was able to take what works best (the monotype thumbnails of paintings that I had done) and change things that I didn’t (particularly the text) for the next map, for Atlas/Hudson River Valley. I would also love to return to Nantucket for a more fleshed-out exploration of of the theme.
Site Map with lino map of Nantucket; monotype thumbnails; tracings; writing and letterpress.
Fall Studio Demonstrations
This fall I did three second-Saturday demo/open studios, starting in October. During the first I worked on small oil-on-paper pieces, like this:
Study/Headlights, oil on primed paper, 5″x12″.
The below I developed during the November demo, which had the theme of working large in oil. I had a nice group who I can only describe as riveted, watching for about two and a half hours while I painted and explained. Then the mood shifted to jolly when I called for a break and lively conversation ensued over a glass of wine.
The slightly textured surface of this piece is something I love to do every so often, allowing a little more of the underpainting to show through, creating a subtle vibration.
Reflected Suns, 32″x48″, to be included in my spring Atlas/Hudson River Valley show.
Here is a link to the video created by the Woodstock School of Art from a painting demonstration that I did there a few summers back:
https://woodstockschoolofart.org/author/christie-scheele/
For the last demo, in December, I worked in pastel, completing both of these during the two afternoons:
Oak Bluffs/Lights/Fog, 10″x10″, pastel on paper.
Trailing Fields, 6″x22″, pastel on paper.
Other Highlights from 2017
I had a successful show last winter/spring with my gallery of 20 years, Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck. It is such a pleasure to work with Albert and Joanna, who are also friends and neighbors in our Hudson Valley arts community.
Hill Beyond Hill, 3 panels of 24″x20″/ea., sold by Albert Shahinian Fine Art
Here is a link to my post on the show, updated to label pieces that sold later in the year, as well as those that went during the show (the others are, of course, still available):
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In April I went to Florida to do a large painting for my friends Karen and Len:
Working in the pool enclosure, enjoying the April warmth and humidity. Last touches.
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During my third year with Louisa Gould Gallery and my 18th or so showing on the Vineyard, we had the kind of year that the artist really looks for. I had some relaxing off-season visits that gave us more time to connect. The crazy Cape and Islands tour in September with Hurricane Jose was followed by several days of sun/fog/sun/fog, rolling in and out, that had even islanders exclaiming. This started as I was leaving Nantucket on the ferry, included a wild rainbow at sea, and continued into the next day while I photographed favorite and new locales on MV and Chappy with my husband. There will be paintings to follow!
This piece, which I delivered to LGG the next month, was of a moment just after the fog cleared.
Big Sky over Sengekontacket, 44″x68″.
In 2017 Louisa and I sold work big, medium, and small and in a range of palettes and formats. When this happens, I feel truly appreciated and at home in the gallery. The below are a few that found new homes since my last post.
Gleaming Sunset, 24″x24″.
Whispering Marsh, 12″x36″. sold by Louisa Gould Gallery.
Older Favorites Find New Homes
In the past several months I have been delighted to see a number of pieces that, despite generating admiration, have lingered too long in gallery or studio leave my walls for others:
Winter Light, 24″x30″, from my December demo/open studio; a view of the Jersey Turnpike with the gorgeous, polluted light of a winter afternoon.
Height of Summer, 36″x48″, from my September demo/open studio; a romantic piece with unusual color that has received much attention.
Mountain Fields, 20″x24″pastel on paper, a subtle-bright interpretation, sold by Albert Shahinan Fine Art.
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The Luminous Landscape at Albert Shahinian Fine Art continues through the month of January, closing with a last reception on January 27th. I have several pieces in the show and many more in inventory, accessible for viewing. I look forward to the reception, which is also a 20th-year anniversary party, an opportunity to enjoy the warmth of our arts community during the winter months.
http://www.shahinianfineart.com/ChristieScheele.html
En Masse, the dynamic small works show at Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham, NY, continues to January 7th. They have been generating anticipation for my spring show with the many small works they have of mine seeded throughout the gallery, as well as larger pieces in inventory. One of my last sales of 2017 was Blue Tidal Pool, one of my favorite paintings from the past decade:
BlueTidal Pool, 20″X24″, sold by Thompson Giroux Gallery.
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I have a new workshop at the Woodstock School of Art, rescheduled for March 3rd-4th. The theme, somewhat more descriptive than my workshops that emphasize formal elements, is for students to create a suite of paintings of the four seasons.
Many representational painters explore a zone on the spectrum of realism, on one end, and very abstracted imagery, on the other. I have often emphasized the abstract in my teaching, feeling that the go-to for landscape painters early on is to try to copy everything they see within a scene. So my approach is to encourage students to think instead about the needs of the painting, inventing an image that is not a copy but a new reality.
In the past year I have been closely examining my connection to place through my Atlas Project. The theme of this new workshop, more descriptive than abstract, may have emerged from these musings. That said, students will be focusing their attention, with my help, on all of those formal elements in order to create compelling, personal paintings.
https://woodstockschoolofart.org/course/form-color-narrative-landscape-painting-seasons/
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I look forward to a focused, productive year ahead. We have much work to do on the national level, and also need our creative retreats more than ever. I hope you enjoy yours, and am filled with gratitude that you have supported mine. ♥
Late Summer 2017 Newsletter
June brought two great-story sales. The first was of this piece, a favorite of mine since I did it a few years back. My husband delivered it to Louisa Gould Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard in early June and a few days later it was headed to Madrid on a private jet. The collector even helped unwrap it after being drawn into the gallery by my 50″x90″ piece in the window.
Rolling Cloud, 44″x62″.
This octych has received a great deal of attention, including a blog post of its own. It was shown and appreciated at Gold Gallery in Boston, and then at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck this past winter.
Green Waves, 13″x76″ overall, oil on linen.
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/the-evolution-of-a-new-concept/
In May I was contacted by a woman in NC who told me that she wanted to buy it, and had the perfect spot for it. She had read the blog post and loved the story. She had never bought original art before, except for one print. She found me through a google search.
After much back and forth, it turned out that she had seen the price on the small oil-on-paper study that I had done leading up to the final piece, and the actual cost was way beyond what she had anticipated or budgeted for. So I offered her some other, smaller pieces in the green palette that she prefers…and then didn’t hear back from her for a few weeks.
This happens with some frequency. For a discussion of why original art created by a career artist costs what it does, you can read this blog post:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/this-painting-costs-what/
In the end, she could not resist the piece and I could not resist making a price accommodation to enable her to have it, though it was still a huge leap for her both in cost and in faith, as she hadn’t set eyes on the actual piece.
My galleriest Albert Shahinian, who had the piece and is also an expert art handler, did the packing and shipping, and here is Green Waves in its perfect spot:
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My Atlas Project is gaining momentum and focus. I earlier began a description of the evolution of this endeavor and got so carried away that I found I needed a separate post, which I will be working on going forward.
In brief, motivated last fall by a number of factors including an upcoming residency on Nantucket and my fears over an acceleration of climate change with the new administration in Washington, I decided I needed to marry more concretely my deep love of the outdoor world and its complexities with my visual expression.
The third and most complex grouping, Atlas/Hudson River Valley had a trial run during a recent studio tour/open studio. Each site map circles closer to what I want, this most recent one being a collaged road map with map pins showing the locations of the paintings in the grouping and monotype thumbnails of the same. Like the earlier versions, this folds up into a small map.
I ran out of time—this was an excruciatingly slow process, with many design elements and much trial and error—and didn’t get any of the written piece figured out, but in discussion during the open studio I figured out how to approach this in a way that has integrity with the map.
This will all coalesce into a large solo show at Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham, NY, March 31-May 6 in 2018, of Atlas/Hudson river Valley and Atlas/Forms of Water. There will be many more paintings and therefore more thumbnails on the map; most likely an off-center extension at top right to show the source of the river in the Adirondacks; and a narrow extension the length of the left side to add written and visual detail about our area. The show will feature monotypes, collages, and pastels as well as oil paintings.
Overlook with River, 24″x36″, the last piece finished before the July Tour.
The Studio Tour overall was a sweet weekend with folks from my mailing list coming through as well as those who were new to me. Usually it is a low-pressure event for me and I have a lovely time at the outset setting up my studio for viewing. I had knocked myself out working on the Site Map and printing linocut wall tags for the Atlas Project this time around, but it was well worth it for how the deadline brought the project together enough for me to hone many aspects and trouble-shoot the things that are not yet quite right.
Front wall of studio arranged as Atlas/Hudson River Valley, for Studio Tour 2017.
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The day after the Studio Tour ended I was off for a week to teach on Nantucket. So lovely to see the island wearing its summer color, after spending two weeks there in February! I taught my composition workshop, Constructing/Deconstructing the Landscape, to a receptive and able group of six. These are the exercises that they had finished at the end of day #2.
For demo purposes I did several small oil-on-paper pieces, choosing subject matter according to the requests of my students:
Horizontal Wave, 5″x12″.
Warm Fall Fields, 5″x12″.
Dusk Palms, 5″x5″.
After my workshop was over I spent a long afternoon in the print shop, rediscovering what works for my imagery in monotype (there are always a row of failures before some successes). This is my favorite of the batch:
Monotype Sunset over Tidal Flats, 8″x10″.
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In June I had a discussion with some of the artists who I mentor about curating a show of their artwork, and got a very positive response. I contacted what I thought would be the perfect venue for a show of such an eclectic group of artists, the ArtBar in Kingston. The only slot Allie had open in 2017 was for August, so this exhibition of 18 artists had to come together very quickly!
It was interesting switching hats back and forth from mentor to curator, and there will be follow-up in my groups on my experience with the artists as curator. I have heard repeatedly from gallery owners that it is their quality-of-life choice to represent talented artists who are also easy and responsive to work with, so this is a theme that I pass along.
On the card, top to bottom: Betsy Jacaruso, Rebecca Darlington, Elizabeth Panzer, and Sandra Nystrom.
I selected the work and Allie, who owns the venue, hung the show. The opening reception was busy and the the comments very enthusiastic. The list of all of the artists involved: Polly Law, Sandra Nystrom, Rebecca Darlington, Linda Lynton, Linda Puiatti, Al Desetta, Betsy Jacaruso, Patti Gibbons, Lois Linet, Stacie Flint, Elizabeth Panzer, Dave Channon, Karen Schaffel, Julia Santos Solomen, Mary Katz, Loel Barr, Mark Loete, Cathy Metitchecchia.
This is my short description of the work I have done with these, and many other, artists over the years:
My mentoring work began as a way of helping other artists enter or expand their presence in the art market by providing support for both studio practice and exhibiting. The groups are a blend of coaching, support group, and targeted career advice for emerging and mid-level artists.
An article, written by Lynn Woods, will be coming out shortly on the show in the Kingston Times and I will add the link.
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Coming up, very soon, this four-person show at the Nantucket Artists Association, a brainchild of Program Coordinator Mary Emery: Due East, 4 Woodstock Artists on Nantucket, featuring the work of Polly Law, Kate McGloughlin, Jenny Nelson, and myself; all artists who teach and/or have done residencies at the AAN. Dates are September 1-22.
https://www.nantucketarts.org/dues-east-woodstock-artists-on-nantucket1.html
A medium-sized oil-on-linen that will be featured in the show:
Color Field/Incoming Tide, 30″x30″.
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Recently finished, my second Atlas/Hudson River Valley mixed-media/collage:
Atlas/HV Collage, 2 panels of 16″x8″/ea.
And in oil, an image of the tide coming in over the tidal flats mid-Cape, always a moment of bliss for me:
Sky Meets Water, 18″x24″.
This piece fits into the Atlas/Forms of Water segment. It is a different type of category from Atlas/Hudson River Valley, and there will be overlap, making for a more dynamic installation.
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A few of my other sales so far this season:
Calm Crossing, 38″x70″, sold by the Louisa Gould Gallery.
Monotype/Wave#5, 8″x10″, sold by the Julie Heller Gallery.
Haybales, 8″x24″, pastel on paper, studio sale.
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Upcoming workshops are at the PAAM September 11-14, the loveliest time of the year to be on the Cape:
And the Woodstock School of Art October 28-30, also a stunning time of year for the locale:
http://woodstockschoolofart.org/course/color-mixing-landscape-painters/
Enjoy your rest of summer season and beginning of fall!
“Gallery:Studio – A Symbiosis” Solo Show with Albert Shahinian Fine Art
Having a quiet chat during a lull in the reception…
Light that Glows, 32″x60″. $7,500.
Soft Greys from Peaked Hill, 10″x60″, $4,200.
Green Waves, 12″x75″, $8,000. (Sold)
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/the-evolution-of-a-new-concept/
Rare Summer Silence, 20″x30″, $3,200.
Cranberry Bog in Reds, 48″x24″, $5,000.
Affinity/WinterSunset, 36″x48″, $6,500. (Sold)
“Extravagant Sky”, 36″X60″. $8,000.
Triptych in Reds, 3 panels of 24″x24″/ea., $7,500.
White Field, 20″x40″, $3,600. (Sold)
Angle of Repose, 40″x30″, $5,000.
Drifting Clouds, 20″x20″, $2,200. (Sold)
“Affinity/Dusk Road”, 30″x30″, $4,000.
Sunset with Taillights, 40″x20″, $3,800.
Sunset Contours, 20″X20″, $2,200. (Sold)
Sunset Harbor, 20″X16″.
Hill Beyond Hill, 3 panels of 24″x20″/ea., $7,000. (Sold)
Height of Summer, 36″x48″, $6,500 (sold).
Summer Fields, 30″x30″, $4,000.
Moving Sky, 30″x36″, $4,500. (Sold)
Juncture, 18″x52″, $4,200.
Affinity/In Motion, 48″x12″, $4,000.
Sundrenched Field, 20″x24″. $2,500. (Sold)
Skyblues/Seablues, 10″x8″, $800.
Winter in Blue/White, 12″x12″, $1,300. (Sold)
Angular Tidal Flats, oil on paper on 12″x12″ board. (Sold.)
Mauve Sky, 6″x12″, oil on board, $650. (Sold)
Affinity/Duo/Palms, 2 paintings of 16″x8″/ea, $2,000. (Sold)
Glistening Greys, 10″X10″, oil on linen. (Sold.)
Gold Bush, 10″x10″. oil on board, $700. (Sold)
2 Suns, 10″x10″, oil on board, $700. (Sold.)
“Study/Sunset Sea”, 5″x5″, oil on primed paper, $550.
Study/Skyline, oil on paper, 7″x7″, $700.
“Factory at Work”, 7.5″x3.5″, $600.
Affinity/Boatyard, 10″x10″, 2014, oil on linen with frayed edges on board overlaid with graphite lines, $900. (Sold)
“Hilltop Contour”, oil on a vintage child’s slate, $750.
Additional works at the gallery:
Gleaming Bridge, 20″x40″, $3,600.
Summer Sky over Divided Fields, 20″x24″, $2,500 (sold).
Black Treeline, 36″x48″, $6,500. (Sold)
Sweeping Greens/Jostling Trees, 28″x68″, $7,500.
Mists from Palmer Hill, 12″X36″, $2,800. (Sold)
Dawn Headlights, 12″X36″, $2,800.
RefractedGolds, 20″x40″, $3,600.
Favorite Field/Soft Greens, 3 panels of 12″X12″/ea., $3,200.
“Intervening Space”, 20″X20″, $2,200 (sold).
Stormy Sea, 12″X12″, $1,300.
Evening Shoreline, 12″X12″, $1,300.
Study/Mountain Contours, oil on primed paper, 4″x14″, $800.
Affinity/Bridge at Sunset, 12″x24″, $2,000.
Green Waves, oil on paper, $1,600.
“Conviction of Beauty”, 12″x42″.
Red Sky with Gleam, pastel on paper, 5″x12″, $800.
River Sunset, pastel on paper, 11.5″x19″, $1,600.
Mountain Fields, pastel on paper, 20″X24″, $2,500. (Sold)
White Trail, 40″x30″, $5,000. (Sold)
Shape and Mood: 2 Paintings so Alike and so Different
In representational art, the formal aspects of a painting can contribute to a narrative or mood just as readily as the descriptive. This is a theme that I discuss often in workshops, talks, and here on my blog. I recently finished two paintings of the same locale and time of year—same day, in fact—using a very similar palette that illustrate this point well.
In fact, the difference between them really boils down to the mood that the shapes create.
In “Lingering”, below, the overall feel of the piece is warm and welcoming, despite the weather depicted being overcast. Putting ourselves in the scene, the misty/drizzly day creates a sheen and depth to colors in the marshes and a sense of intimacy—privacy, almost— within the landscape. On these sorts of days there are fewer people about; the air is thick and embracing; vistas tend to be limited. There is a boundary of trees at the horizon, enclosing the space.
“Lingering”, 10″x10″.
On the formal side, the eye is led into the piece by the wide open shape of the tidal pool at the bottom left, and then is invited to move around by the directionality of soft edges and dispersed accumulations of detail. Variations of color within the areas of orange marsh grasses encourage the eye to linger. Sky and water are a mauve, relating to the coolest of the reds in the marsh.
I would describe “Lingering” as warm; friendly; intimate. And descriptive, for sure.
In the second piece, the color is the same but the feel is much bolder. Now we have a highly structured piece with assertive directionality. The eye is swept into the image by the strong zig-zag created by the edges of the marsh and moves back to a open area with minimal detail along the horizon. The detail that does exist is necessary to balance the composition, keeping the eye moving within the painting rather than being swept off to the right by the strong edges of the tidal creek.
“Edge of Discovery”, 18″x24″.
The description of “Edge of Discovery” could include abstract; expansive; dynamic. Movement within structure.
As I was working on these pieces–about a month apart—I decided independently with each that the image needed some interest in the marsh as it went back in space. To create this, I added the back tidal pools in both cases, and then the evolving paintings clicked into place.
Even here, with a similar solution to a common problem, the feel of these pools is quite different. In “Lingering” there is quite a bit of detail to the two glimpses of white, while in “Edge of Discovery” the bit of water is minimal, austere (and right in the middle!), jibing with the overall reductive composition.
So, when we talk about mood in a landscape painting, we are discussing two things. One is the mood of the moment captured—how would it feel like to be there? The other is the feeling that the lines, shapes, and surface of the painting create for the viewer.
Color relates to both. It reflects the seasons; light; locale; and time of day of the views that we see around us. It also is inherently linked to mood and personal preference.
Kandinsky in his 1910 “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” posits that abstract elements have emotive power in their own right. In comparing these two paintings, it becomes clear how the shapes with their edges and directionality and the overall composition that they create impact the mood projected.
Unlike with color, many people are not consciously aware that these particular formal aspects are actively contributing to their experience of a representational painting. It is up to the artist to be adept at exploring the endless possibilities of these pictoral tools as the painting is being shaped, narrowing the gap between a good painting and an excellent one and finding variation in feel from piece to piece.
Available Work/Studio/Oil on linen and board
This post, designed primarily for the galleries and consultants that I work with, serves as a data-base for oil-on-linen paintings that are currently in my studio. As work sells or is consigned I will remove it, and new work will be added.
My website– created by Stephanie Blackman Design—was beautifully designed as a calling card. Since I create/sell/move work around frequently, it was never my plan to keep it current at all times. With this data-base I will have a comprehensive selection for you all to peruse and can reduce the number of emails that I send showing dealers my currently available work, as those become outdated quickly also.
For works on paper (pastel; oil on paper; mixed media/collage; monotype) consult this blog post: https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/available-workstudioworks-on-paper/
“Linked Pleasures”, 36″x48″, $7,000.
Blue: Rising Mists, 14″x48″, $4,000.
“Entering Marshlands”, 30″x58″, $7,000.
Often I am expecting some work back imminently or have a painting on the easel that is almost finished, so please feel free to inquire if you have a particular need: scheeleart@gmail.com.
Boundless Sky, 20″X30″, $3,200.
“Catskills Walking Rain”, 36″x36″, $5,000.
“Forest”, 20″x40″, $4,000.
“Light on the Ridge”, 15″x30″, $3,000.
Additional work can be found at my galleries: Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck, NY; Gallery Jupiter in Little Silver, NJ; Louisa Gould Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard, MA; Butters Gallery in Portland, OR; Thomas Henry Gallery on Nantucket, MA; and Thompson-Giroux Gallery in Chatham, NY.
Moving Sky, 24″x48″, $5,000.
“Joy of the Familiar”, 16″x20″, $2,000.
Summer Mists, 40″x40″, $7,000.
Contrasting Sunset, 18″x52″, $4,800.
“Taking the Back Way”, 18″x24″, $2,400.
Harbor with Shifting Light, 18″x24″.
“Sundrenched” 40″x40″, $7,000.
Affinity/Return at Dusk, 12″x24″, $2,000.
Layered Clouds, 20″x16″, $2,000.
“Smokey Sky”, oil on a vintage slate.13.5×9,5, $1,000.
Affinity/Dual Twister, 10″x10″, $900.
“Affinity/Smokey Sky”, 18″x18″, $2,000.
“Storm over the Lake”, 20″x24″, $2,800.
“Skyline at Sunset”, 14″x22″, $1,800.
“2 Shores/Reflected Sun”, 12″x12″, $1,400.
Small Studies in Oil on Primed Paper
I began using small oil-on-primed-paper studies as a teaching tool in my September 2013 workshop at the Provincetown Artists Association and Museum.
At work on one of the studies for “Blue Above”. (Photo courtesy of Carol Duke.)
As you can see above and below, I did several versions of the same image, moving elements around, encouraging my students to do the same.
Simple version, tidal pool coming off the bottom and corner of the picture plane.
It is not just a question of what is included and what is left out–though that is always a major consideration in my work (see https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/contoursdistillations-a-solo-show/ for more on that conversation). Even in this very reductive composition, there are many variables. What, exactly, is the shape of the tidal pool cutting toward us, and where does it leave the picture plane, both on the left and on the right? How high or low is the horizon line? Cool greens, warm greens, or both? Back shore more compressed and lighter, making it seem further away, or larger and darker, bringing it forward?
Version #2 with suggestion of houses in back land form, and Long Point lighthouse on the right. Tidal pool moves off the right side. (Sold)
I decided to go very white with the sky in the large piece, since I love the shore phenomenon of bright blue sky overhead and white at the horizon, which is due to the many miles of atmosphere, denser close to earth, that we are looking through.
Blue Above, 12″x36″ , currently at the Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, MA.
None of these versions is any better or worse than the other—they are just different. The choices that I made for the larger oil were largely mood-driven. For example, I opted to emphasize the simplicity of the major shapes by omitting the lighthouse and bits of detail on the back shore. Including them would have made it a more descriptive piece, which I do from time to time. But at heart I am a minimalist, enjoying the open feel that these compositions bring.
First set of small studies. (Mostly sold; two are currently at Edgewater Gallery, Middlebury VT.)
I soon saw that the studies function nicely as small paintings in their own right if I finish them the same way I do a larger piece. They look great framed with a mat and under glass, though I have also exhibited and sold a number of them mounted on board, sealed to be airtight, and presented without glass, such as the below. I did a grouping, example below, for a small works show without any intention to do them larger—some of them are images I already had done as pastels or larger oils. Switching it up!
Tidal Flats at Dusk, 6″x6″, sold by Thompson Giroux Gallery. (Sold)
Study/Triptych in Reds, 3 panels of 5″x5″/ea., private collection.
I decided to leave out the soft water-shape in the larger version, mostly because I knew that I was going to frame each panel separately and I felt that the simpler field dividers would work best, carrying the horizontal sweep of the composition through the strong verticals of the frames and the wall space between.
Triptych in Reds, 3 panels of 24″x24″, currently at Gold Gallery, Boston.
Study/Intervening Bay, 7″x7″, private collection.
Intervening Bay, 24″x24″, private collection.
Study/Open Road #1, 4.5″x14″. (Sold)
These two are quite similar, the main difference being the enhanced distance in the road that I created with the larger piece.
Open Road, 20″x60″, available at Gallery 901, Santa Fe, NM.
Study/Sunset Sea, 5″x5″ (at Thompson Giroux Gallery).
Yellow Band, 36″x36″ (at Julie Heller Gallery).
Study/Skyline, 7″x7″, (at Thompson Giroux Gallery).
In the larger size I needed to add more buildings, and I opted to make it more atmospheric. It turned out to be very useful to have established the front detail in the small piece, since I wasn’t at all sure how it was going to work out or even if I wanted to include it. I liked it well enough in the study to follow my own lead in the larger oil.
Skyline with Lifting Rain, 20″x20″ (sold by Edgewater Gallery).
Study/Mountain Contours, 4.5″x14″, currently at Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck, NY.
Study/View from Little Mountain, 6″x8″, currently at Edgewater Gallery, Middlebury VT.
Study/Lake Mists, 5″x5″ (currently at the Tenderland Home, Phoenicia, NY).
Study/Gleam over Tidal Flats, 6″X10″. (Sold.)
Study/Green Valley, 6″x10″.
Study/Late Summer Light, 5″x7.5″.
Study/Meadowlands with Mists, 3.5″x10.5″. (Sold.)
I was so enjoying the color on the above that I decided to do a version without the industrial detail in the back landform.
Study/Fall Marsh Mists, 4″X8″. (Sold)
And then I wanted to simplify even more and use the soft lavender with greens instead.
Soft Summer Light, 4″x8″.
Additional pieces (updated since the publication of this post):
Study/Yellow Bush, 4″x14.5″ (at the Tenderland Home).
Study/Waterspouts, 6″x9″ (at Julie Heller Gallery.
Study/It Looks Like Rain, 6″x9″.
Study/Summer Marsh, 5″x12″ .
Study/ClusteredClouds, 5″x12″. (Sold.)
Study/White Fields, 5″x11″ (Sold).
Study/Grey Dawn, 5″x7″.
Study/Winter Warmth, 7″x7″ (sold).
Study/Serene Winter, 5″x11″ .
Study/Reservoir from Little Mountain, 4″x12″ (sold).
Study/Green Fields, 5″x13″.
Study/Glowing Sky over Fall Marsh, 6″x8″ (at Tenderland Home).
The study below illustrates another use for the small format, as it was a a study for a commissioned painting (something that I have always done in a small pastel or oil to iron out the imagery that has been chosen by the collector):
Study/Resting Clouds, 4.5″x12″ (sold).
Lifting Clouds, 18″x42″, (private collection).
You may have noticed that some of the oil-on-paper pieces have a deckled edge and some have a clean edge. This does not translate with the large oil-on-linen work, but instead is something that I’ve been playing with in my pastels for a number of years. Some images have shapes within that relate to the uneven edge, and others have a more linear sweep to the composition. Those that have the deckled edge are framed showing it, and the others have the mat coming right up to the edge of the image.
December Newsletter 2014
It has been a busy, fruitful year, but I am not dwelling too much on the past! My sights are set on 2015, when I will have several shows that I am very excited about.
The first will be in March at Gold (Au) Gallery in Boston, my second solo show with the gallery. My solo in fall of 2012 was quite successful, but I am looking forward to this show taking place in a better economy. Below is the piece we have used for advance PR, just finished less than a month ago.
“Rolling Cloud”, 44″x68″.
There will be another version of “Trove”, 35 3″x5″ paintings in a divided frame—here is the one that I did and sold in 2007. This second frame is the last that I have been able to find, so only one more of these! The new one will have a weather theme.
“Trove”, 30″X48″ overall.
I am working on a new idea for a multiple-panel piece, waiting for the delivery of canvas to begin work on the final version, which will come in (framed) at something like 14″x82″. A planning stages photo is below.
Studies for “Green Waves”.
Some recent highlights have included three blog posts that I quite enjoyed writing. These often generate quite a bit of discussion on FB that I wish was taking place on the blog where more folks could enjoy it, so feel free to jump in.
Most recent, this short one about how grounding a creative process is:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/creativity-and-happiness/
Some stories that I love (and a few of you might recognize them!):
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/sweetest-sales/
And my version of a rant about the costs, hidden to many, of making an artwork and bringing it to the public eye:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/this-painting-costs-what/
My early fall was well-occupied with this commissioned piece which was challenging in certain ways. My clients–who are also friends–wanted a piece that was most definitely in my signature style, but that also included a fairly large structure.
44″x68″.
The small pastel looked great with some loose detail for the building, but when I got to the large oil, there was just too much of it to leave open. So I hunkered down and went after the architectural detail, surrendering to process. Then, however, the building looked too linear and didn’t fit with the rest of the painting. Finally, I made it all sit together by putting a fairly translucent layer of a lighter brown over the whole castle and embedding it with more blend into the white sky.
This is what makes each piece an adventure. I thought that the large Rhododendrons flanking the pond would be difficult to pull off/make interesting, but they fell right into place.
The reflection, however, was always going to be the star of the piece!
One other observation about process is that when it comes to a section that has quite a lot of of detail, I think of it as an abstract painting within a painting. This slows me down and enables me to focus with pleasure and patience, eventually backing up and scrutinizing how the area is working with the whole.
Below, a few recent pieces.
“Green Horizons”, 12″x48″, oil on canvas. (Studio.)
“Marsh at Dusk”, 12″x16″. oil on linen. (Studio.)
Five oil-on-paper paintings of just 3.25″x3″/ea. (Studio.)
“Affinity/Sunset Reflected”, 12″x36″. Oil on linen with frayed edges overlaid with graphite gridding. (At Albert Shahinian Fine Art.)
And this piece that I repainted last summer, brightening the color.
“Endless Sky”, 36″x72″, oil on linen. (At Gold Gallery.)
Some work that has sold recently through my galleries.
“Lifting Rain, 20″x60”. Sold by Louisa Gould Gallery.
“Mountain Sky with Mists”, 24″x30″. Sold by Chace-Randall Gallery.
“Seaside Reds”, 20″x20″. (Sold by Edgewater Gallery, to my dear and recently rediscovered friend from my year in Bolivia as an exchange student!)
“Counterlight Blues, 16″x20”. Sold by Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
“Sunset Sea with Sailboat”, 5″x14″, oil on paper. (Sold by the Julie Heller Gallery.)
My other shows coming up in 2015 are with the Louisa Gould Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard and a show exploring my most minimalist, color-field imagery with my gallery of longest-standing, Albert Shahinian Fine Art in Rhinebeck.
My fall workshops on in Provincetown and Woodstock were very focused and great fun. For 2015, I have two new themes on the schedule. (Contact me for a full course description.)
Constructing/Deconstructing the Landscape, WSA, February 14-16 Sat-Mon
Landscapes in Large Scale, WSA, June 20-23, Sat-Tues
Provincetown Artist’s Association and Museum, Sept. September 14-18 Mon-Thurs(Workshop will be similar to Constructing/Deconstructing the Landscape.)
Interpreting the Landscape in Oil or Pastel, WSA, October 17-19 Sat-Mon
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/painting-workshop-considering-composition/
Last comment for now is that I have been doing quite a bit of mentoring/coaching of other artists this past year and especially recently, enjoying working with both early career and experienced artists. I developed my mentoring programs years ago after meeting and conversing with many artists who had so much hope and conviction, but didn’t understand the ropes. The work is satisfying to me because I can clarify and demystify, and thus take some of the emotional weight out of the process of bringing artwork into the marketplace. I am grateful to the many artists who have trusted me to help them rewrite artist’s statements, brainstorm new series, scrutinize resumes for old contacts, and open themselves up to advice.
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/mentoring-for-artists-for-career-and-work-support/
Happy holidays, happy 2015!
So much happening! Summer Season 2014.
Over the top busy this spring and summer, with new galleries, a solo show in place and several other shows coming up between now and August.
We had a lovely, packed opening reception at Chace-Randall Gallery in Andes, NY. I will be updating the blog post I created about the work in the show as pieces continue to sell—but you really should see the show in person, if you couldn’t make the opening! Thank-you to Zoe Randall for the party and especially for a great job hanging the work. The show will be up through July 7th.
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2657&action=edit
With the largest painting in this show, “Interwoven Stories”.
Host Tom Lavazzi pouring wine…and tons of nice conversation passing around.
Owner/director Zoe Randall and I in front of the postcard piece, “Turquoise Light”.
I am showing again at Butters Gallery in Portland Oregon— and so pleased to add this reputable gallery in a new locale to my list. I participated in the “Line” show there last winter, curated by Melinda Stickney-Gibson, and have remained on the roster. Opening June 5th is a 4-artsist landscape show, invitation below. For my work in the show, see their website:
http://www.buttersgallery.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=486&sr=1&ppage=6
BUTTERS GALLERY LTD 520 NW DAVIS PORTLAND OREGON 97209 (503) 248-9378 (800) 544-9171 gallery hours: tuesday-friday 10-5:30 saturday 11-5 http://www.buttersgallery.com
East / West
June 5th – 28th 2014
Opening Reception: Thursday June 5th, 6 – 9 pm
My newest gallery is Edgewater Gallery in Middelbury, VT. This happened the way we artists love it to happen—a phone call offering representation. A beautiful space and locale, I am happy to be on the walls, and look forward to events there, starting with a visit and meet-and-greet in October. I just shipped off this triptych, painted with them in mind. See their website for additional work:
http://www.edgewatergallery-vt.com/scheele-christie.html
“Hill beyond Hill, 3 panels of 24″x20″/ea.
Up next is my duo show (with M.J. Levy Dickenson) at Julie Heller East in Provincetown, July 18-31, with an opening reception on July 19th from 6pm on. That same night we are also hosting a reception through the gallery at the Anchor Inn with larger pieces of mine and the work of Polly Law, 7-9pm. The idea is that viewers can go from East End to West End and see both shows.
Arriving at the Anchor Inn/JHG on June 5th, this new piece.
“Entering Province Lands”, 30″X60″.
In August I will be showing with Louisa Gould Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard in a show with Louisa herself and Paul Beebe. Dates are August 7-27. with opening reception August 9th, 5-7pm. I am new to this beautiful gallery in Vineyard Haven, though I have been showing on the island since 1998, beginning with Carol Craven Gallery and most recently with Dragonfly (thank-you, Carol, Don, and Susan!). The show will include several large-formeat pieces of Vineyard locales.
Here are a few pieces hanging now in her Memorial Day show, including several new ones recently delivered.
“Lifting Rain, 20″x60”.
“Summer Sunset/Tidal Creek”, 36″x12″.
Tucked in among all of these shows with my galleries is a very sweet happening, a show called “Three Generations” at Cano (Community Arts Network of Oneonta) in Oneonta, NY. This show will feature my mother, Gerri Scheele, with the ceramics that she was so well known for and the landscapes that followed; myself; and my daughter and son Tessa and Tony Scheele Morelli. This will be a special family affair staged at the Wilbur mansion, where I did my first oil painting at age 11 and where my mother showed extensively for many years.
Heading next week to Gold Gallery in Boston, this newly repainted piece. I am looking forward to my second solo show there in March of 2015.
“Endless Sky”, 36″x72″.
Some spring sales:
“Bridge Crossing in Violets”, 12″X12″. (Sold by Butters Gallery.)
Sunset River Expanse”, 20″x62″. (Sold by Albert Shahinian Fine Art.)
“Approach,” oil on vintage blackboard, 11″x13.5″. (Sold by Chace-Randall Gallery.)
ALL of my galleries have work of mine at all times, so wherever you are or travel to among these locales, check them out!
Workshops are upcoming at the Woodstock School of Art June 23-25 and Provinctown Artists Association and Museum, September 15-18.
Abstraction and Narrative in the Landscape
Working in Oil or Pastel
Using photograhic reference, we will investigate how the elements in a landscape painting serve the whole, accessing the formal qualities of color, shape, edge, and composition to create compelling imagery. The first day we will explore these tools and how they impact the implied narrative of the painting through exercises in oil or pastel on paper. In these studies we will add, subtract, move elements around and change color using our painterly hand. Instead of painting over changes, each study will remain intact while we start a new one so that all variations can be rigorously critiqued and compared before being used as a springboard for a larger painting.
Days 2-4 will include a demo of color-mixing from primaries; more compositional studies, and pursuing fully realized landscape paintings on canvas or larger pastels. Instruction will emphasize the reduction of detail to create a strong, clean composition, along with discussion of both the abstract and the narrative qualities brought out in individual paintings.
Autumn 2013 Newsletter
“Art is not meat. It does not go bad”, to quote Albert Shahinian.
I was thinking about that comment (again!) while assembling this post because I noticed that some recent sales have been of paintings that are not at all new.
So, why does a much-admired piece hang around, sometimes for years?
Usually the answer to that is that they have had many near-misses, and that something has come up at the last minute that has nixed the sale…each time. Bearing in mind that there is always a ratio of success to failure in every business, often in this one there are more almost-sales than sales. Bringing an object into the home that is not functional or strictly decorative, and that is also not cheap is, rightly, a big decision for potential collectors.
So, to put it another way, if you don’t have lots of nibbles you are unlikely to have lots of sales.
If there are no near-sales on a given piece it could mean that the painting doesn’t have wide appeal (which also doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good piece or that it won’t sell when the right person finds it) or that it is in the wrong gallery. But all of this is another story.
Here are two pieces that are a bit older and had been nibbled on many times before they recently found their wall in a new home. I will use them as examples of what can happen along the way.
Winter Brilliance just came under discussion in a recent blog post:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/bearing-bad-news-the-emotional-content/
I will quote from that, but before all of the below happened this past year, this piece also was sold and unsold in a day. It went out on approval for three days from my (now closed) gallery in Redbank, NJ, to an NYC apartment. On the second day they called and said that they loved it and were keeping it. On the third day they called and said that they were being transferred by the husband’s job to San Francisco, where a fully furnished and decorated house awaited them, so they had to return the piece. Since this was all within the agreed upon three day approval period, back it came.
Later…
“…the piece below, recently sold, had quite a busy time of it this year before reaching its new home. In March, it went to Chicago, where it was selected for viewing in a home. Much as they would have liked it, the piece didn’t fit the budget at that time, so a smaller piece was settled upon. Then, it was vetted for a possible swap with one of my dealers for a coveted Milton Avery print. But before I could bring it to her for her to decide, a private dealer asked me to hold it back for a likely sale through a designer. Months later and no word, I let it back out again to my gallery in Rhinebeck, and from there it went out to a home (through an architect, this time) where it looked as if I had painted it for the room in question.”
Winter Brilliance, 40″x50″. 2004.
River in 5 received a great deal of attention when I first stated showing it 2006. Not so exciting a history as Winter Brilliance, but I kept hearing from gallereists that this person or that couple had it under consideration. That was true also when it arrived at Albert Shahinian Fine art, with one collector of mine admiring both the soft monochromatic palette and the way it evoked the views he enjoyed while kayaking across the Hudson River from this spot.
Then…very quiet. Other work coming and going, but no nibbles on this piece for at least a few years…until last summer, when all at once two collectors spotted it in the gallery or on my website and were planning on buying it the next time they made it to Rhinebeck. First couple fell in love with a different piece and couldn’t manage both, and the second collector was still planning on acquiring the piece when it went out to the same apartment as Winter Brilliance and stayed there.
- River in 5, 5 panels of 10″x10″/ea., 2006.
Below, a few sales of recent pieces.
Affinity/Narrow Road, 48″x12″, sold by Gold Gallery.
Mutable Mists, 20″x20″, sold by Chace-Randall Gallery.
Wave, 24″x48″, sold by Van Ward Gallery.
Mists off the River, 12″X36″, 2013, sold by Chace-Randall Gallery.
A few newly finished pieces:
Triptych in Reds, 3 panels of 24″x24″/ea., just packed off to Gold Gallery in Boston.
Moving Light, oil on vintage blackboard, 9.5″x5.5″.
“Blue Above”, 12″X36″.
Soft Summer Sky, 30″x36″.
I have recently introduced a series of small oil-on-paper compositional/color studies in my painting workshops. I did this preliminary series beforehand, and now have others following—a wonderful way to work out placement of elements, using your painterly hand (instead of photoshop, which is a great tool but doesn’t help with the aforementioned!). I will be offering these small pieces for sale from my studio, tidbits that can be framed/hung individually or as a grouping, and are a great way to come up with an original—for yourself or as a gift—for the price of a print.
Small oil-on-paper studies, 6″x6″ or 5″x7″ or 3″x8″.
My recent workshop at the PAAM in Provincetown, with a wonderful group:
Color-mixing from primaries. (Photo credit Carol Duke.)
Last day. (Photo credit Carol Duke.)
See my blog post on how the workshop runs, with emphasis on composition:
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/painting-workshop-considering-composition/
In other news:
I am sad to announce the closing of my gallery on Martha’s Vineyard, Dragonfly, but happy for Don and Susan as they move onto the next phase for them (more time for artmaking!).
Also happy to have joined the Louisa Gould Gallery, located the next town over in Vineyard Haven. I look forward to a long and successful relationship with my new MV gallery! (And a big thank-you to Don and Susan for connecting us.)
Upcoming:
Boston International Art Fair, with Gold Gallery, Nov. 21-24
2014:
“LINE…”, Butters Gallery, Portland, OR, curated by Melinda Stickney-Gibson, Feb. 6-March 1
Solo show at Chace-Randall Gallery, Andes, NY, May21-July 4th.
Duo show at Julie Heller East, Provincetown, MA, summer or fall, TBA
Workshops at the Woodstock School of Art: Feb. 15-17 & late June: PAAM, Sept., dates TBA
2015:
Solo show at Gold Gallery in Boston, early March.
August Newsletter
At the height of this most lovely summer, things are going beautifully both inside and outside of the studio. I am currently busy replenishing my galleries, with recent deliveries to Chace-Randall in Andes and Albert Shahinian in Rhinebeck, and plans for another one to Gold Gallery in Boston.
During summer, I leave my studio door open and listen to the sound of the creek behind it, using my yard as an extended studio. I wish we could start all over again at the beginning of June…but plan on fully savoring what remains.
“Rare Summer Silence”, 20″x30″.
I recently published a blog post on creating an abstract painting, using three exhibitions that I attended in May-June as the basis for my discussion. I sent this out to my list of artists, but not to my whole list, so be sure and take a look if you think you would be interested. Collectors and friends have sometimes commented on how much they would like some sort of art historical/art appreciation primer. This discussion would serve that purpose in regard to the formal elements of constructing a painting (any painting, not just an abstract one).
The Shandaken Art Studio Tour was busy again this year, with the added bonus for me of my two 21-year-olds participating. We had nearly 100 people coming through, with good conversation, sales, and follow-up, as well. Below, “Rainy Road/Metal Box”, one of the last pieces that I finished before the Tour, was acquired by a friend.
Rainy Road/Metal Box,4.5″x9″, sold at the Shandaken Art Studio Tour.
Checking out my “Affinity/Waterspout” with a visitor.
These two pastels sold at the Tour to the same couple. Buying pastels unframed is a really nice way to go, since then the collectors can pick frame and mat that look good both on the piece and in their chosen spot. I accompanied them the weekend after the Tour to my fabulous framer, Geoffrey Rogers (since 1990!) to assist in picking out just the right presentation.
“Downriver”, 15″x28″.
Skyline with Sunset, 21″x8″.
Since this is the season when many of my galleries are in full swing, there have been a nice number of sales, each with their own story. As I started putting this post together, there emerged a series of short vignettes about these acquisitions, so I am running with that. Below, a handful of pieces sold recently and some accompanying stories. (This is one of the reasons that I like to stay in close touch with my galleries—to collect all of this information on what goes on and to impart to them observations of my own. It can also be helpful to share current news from one venue to the next, since they are too busy in their galleries to get much chance to exchange notes.)
“Seaview Morning Mists”, 12″X12″, 2013, sold through Dragonfly Gallery.
A fellow fell in love with the below piece in Andes, promising to bring his wife the next weekend.
“Mists off the River”, 12″X36″.
Fortunately, he also liked other work of mine in the gallery, including “Evening Headlights”, since his wife was smitten with it, and they decided that this piece was the one.
Couples work this out in differing ways. Sometimes they feel they need to agree 100% on each acquisition. Other times they take turns selecting the particular piece, but do need to agree on the artist.
“Evening Headlights”, 10″X30″, sold through Chace-Randall Gallery.
I finally managed to get one of my larger Affinities to my Boston gallery and it was the very next thing that they sold. This piece was admired last summer in my studio by another artist as “the darkest landscape I have ever laid eyes on”. (And it WAS meant as a complement!)
“Affinity/Seagleams”, 12″X48″, sold through Gold Gallery.
“Still Waters”, below, was finished last week and sold within a few days. I had a lovely time painting it, feeling mesmerized by the fog. It is going to a collector who has long wanted a large piece of mine.
“Still Waters”, 20″x60″, studio sale/Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
Both this triptych and the even larger one sold by Gold Gallery last fall from my solo show there went to first-time buyers. That is quite a leap!
Ongoingness of Summer, 3 panels of 24″X30″/ea., sold by Gold Gallery.
“Crossing at Dusk” was recently purchased by clients of my Andes, NY gallery. Interested at first in the above “Mists off the River”, as they weighed their options they discovered a piece on my Boston gallery’s website, and this ended up being their final choice. They knew to work through the original gallery, though, and the sale was a co-broke between the two venues.
Crossing at Dusk, 24″X48″, sold by Chace-Randall Gallery/Gold Gallery.
A couple visited my studio looking for an over-the-couch sized piece with subtle color. After checking out some possibilities here, they headed over to Albert Shahinan Fine Art to look at a particular piece there. While perusing their ample holdings of my work, they fell in love with this smaller piece, below. So, following their heart (instead of sticking to a strict purpose) they left with “When Autumn Glows Softly”, leaving the larger spot to be worked out in the near future, most likely with a commissioned piece.
“When Autumn Glowed Softly”, 18″x24″, sold through Albert Shahinian Fine Art.
They were no sooner home than they had it up and sent me a jpeg of the piece installed. So nice!
“When Autumn Glowed” hanging.
Two workshops are coming up, at the Provincetown Artists Association and Museum September 16-19, and the Woodstock School of Art October 18-20th I am planning a different sort of workshop for next year that dials in on issues of composition and color with a series of exercises on primed paper. This should be great with beginners, and also a big help for experienced painters in better understanding decision-making about the formal elements of painting.
I will be scheduling a 1-day intake seminar for mentoring for career support in September or October—see link below for more info. Let me know if you are interested!
https://scheeleart.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/mentoring-for-artists-for-career-and-work-support/
Happy August!
“Memory’s Waters”, 16″x20″, Cooper Lake in summer blue/greens.
Summer Preview
Summer Trees, 16″X20″.
The pleasures of late spring and early summer as they affect my studio experience and the tasks related to showing and selling my work are too many to list. Must-mentions: painting with windows and door open to the yard and the stream behind my studio; drying my paintings in the sun in my yard so that I can resume work on a second layer within just a day; doing my daily work on the computer sitting on my screened-in back porch with the sound of the stream as accompaniment; and driving my work around for deliveries surrounded by the visual joy of many-colored lilacs, poppies creating a splash of brilliant orange next to purple dame’s rocket, and amazing, shifting, spring-soft greens.
Ellsworth Kelly at Thompson Giroux Gallery
I had the pleasure of attending an exhibition and 90th birthday party for Ellsworth Kelly on May 31st, the day of his actual birthday, at my gallery in Chatham, NY, Thompson Giroux. Chatham is familiar turf for Ellsworth– the dinner was thrown in the same space that he rented for his first upstate studio back in the early ’70s, and is of course the source for the title of his “Chatham Series”.
It was lovely to see again the botanical prints that we studied and admired back when I was in art school as iconic line drawings from life—spare, fluid, and subtly quirky.
I was most interested to read that Ellsworth based his abstract paintings on “observed reality”, a departure from the ethic of the day. Comparing this with the work of the abstract artists that I am closest to, Jenny Nelson, Melinda Stickney-Gibson and Marie Vickerilla,, whose imagery evolves from within the process of developing each canvas (and whose shows I have also recently seen) has set me thinking. I plan a blog post on this discussion, coming up next.
Then, I may not be able to resist jumping into the issue of prices and how crazy the art market is. Discussing an artist whose work brings some of the highest prices of any living artist in the same breath as three mid-level artists makes it hard to avoid that particular elephant in the room.
What is the realtionship between quality and price in the art market? Why do these four artists have such different price points?
Shandaken Art Studio Tour July 20-21
Save-the-date for the Shandaken Studio Tour, when it is my pleasure to arrange and open up my studio to new folks doing the tour, my collectors, fellow artists, and friends. This is a busy weekend for me, though oddly grouped sometimes (last year about half the people who came by seemed to be there just after 2pm on Sunday!). Here are a few of the pieces that I plan on showing.
“Rare Summer Silence”, 20″x30″.
“Mountain Vista/Max Patch”, 24″x48″.
“Unreservedly Summer”, 10″X30″.
Favorite Pieces at my Galleries
Within the past month six of my galleries have either received new work or been delivered the whole grouping that they will show for the season. I have chosen a favorite piece from each location to show you below—I hope you get a chance to visit these wonderful galleries!
“Ongoingness of Summer”, 3 panels of 24″X30″/ea., at Gold Gallery in Boston.
“Cranberry Bog in Reds”, 48″x24″, Van Ward Gallery, Ogunquit, ME.
“Spring Light”, 36″X36″, Chace-Randall Gallery, Andes, NY.
“Sundrenched Saltmarsh”, 20″x16″, Julie Heller Gallery, Provincetown, MA.
“Oak Bluffs Morning Fog”, 3 panels of 14″x18″/ea., Dragonfly Gallery, Oak Bluffs, MA.
“Overlook Summit View”, 24″X48″, Albert Shahinian Fine Art, Rhinebeck, NY.
An Invitational Show in Newburgh
“Particularity of Place”, 36″x36″, one of three pieces of mine included in the show.
A Few Recent Sales
“Trove: From the Road”, 16 paintings of 3″X5″/ea., 22″X28″ framed. This sale was quite a story, involving a trip to Chicago where it hung perfectly on a particular wall, then back to my studio where it was almost shipped off to my Boston gallery; then the intervention of a purchase as a generous gift so that it ended up back in Chicago in its perfect spot. There were several co-conspiritors on this one!
“Mutable Sky”, 20″x40″, to a lovely home in Woodstock.
Upcoming painting workshops
Landscape and Mood, the Woodstock School of Art, June 24-26. http://woodstockschoolofart.org/
Landscape and Mood, The Provincetown Artists Association and Museum, September 16-19 (this will be on their website soon). http://www.paam.org/mspaam.html
Vintage Boxes, Slates and Sifters/The Occasional Found Object
When I work on or with found objects – antique boxes, distressed cupboard doors, old slate blackboards with lovely stains and unravelings at the rim, vintage sifters, and the like — I adjust both my choice of imagery and the way I compose and lay in the paint to honor what is already there. I see these pieces as a collaboration between my accumulated skills and the accumulation of history that is manifested in this unique object. This feels like process that is both conceptual and deeply intuitive.
My interest in this series began some years back when I was looking for a new exploration. I had, quite some time before, realized that for me, to stay fresh required more than just to find new subject matter. Reflecting my background in contemporary art, the presentation, process, and/or materials can also all be up for grabs.
And yet, I always want there to be at least an insinuation of a landscape within. How to get both of theses things—a newly painted landscape and an object full of the marks of its own history, to look as if they were made for each other?
Once I have my vintage or scavenged object, I generally have to look at it for many months. It drifts around my studio, claiming my attention from time to time. I examine it…free-associate…put it up, aside, or away. Come back to it…sift through possible images…think some more.
Often, I have to find just the right sized board to go inside of a box, drawer, or sifter, generally preferring that this be distressed as well. I have ridiculously good luck with this—serendipity after serendipity.
Finally, the way forward in terms of imagery emerges and I can begin work, trying to keep myself in a hyper-aware state while responding to the suggestions of the vintage or distressed object I am using. I am following, not leading, and the dance is intricate, even if the piece looks simple in the end.
I recently completed these three new pieces.
“Red/Green Fields”, oil on drawer slats in antique box, 7.5″x30″. An example of serendipity—I spotted the collapsed drawer slats on my friend Jenny’s porch and basically pounced on them; had them in my studio for some months; and then saw that they fit beautifully into the box. The shapes of the edges helped determine the choice of imagery.
“Sandflats with Seagrass”, oil on beach-weathered fiberglass, 4″x18″. This one came together quickly—I just found this piece of fiberglass on the tidal flats on the East End of Provincetown a few weeks ago.
“Gleam over Meadowlands”, oil on vintage blackboard, 9.5″x13″.
The below are several others completed in the past few years.
“Smokey Sky”, oil on a child’s vintage slate, hanging in my downstairs bathroom. Often the color in the slate pieces is warm, reflecting the wood, but this time I used only hints of red in an otherwise tonal palette.
Vertical Road/Contained, a distressed board in an old file drawer. (Courtesy ASFA)
“Winter in 6”, a vintage tin tray, use unknown to me.
“Hilltop Contour”, oil on a vintage child’s slate. (Courtesy JHG)
And finally, a few favorites that were sold several years back.
“Crossings”, a weathered board (probably a barrel-bottom) in an antique sifter. (Sold by JHG)
“Smoke in Four”, a distressed, compartmentalized box that was a lucky find. (Sold by ANG)
“Irrigated Fields”, an object (heavy!!) found on Overlook Mountain near the ruin of the mountain house. Someone once told me exactly what this is, but now I don’t remember! (Sold by ASFA)
Tidal Flats
“Sunset Contours”, 20″X20″, an intense moment when the setting sun coincides with the lowest tide, creating very black flats framing tidal pools.
Back on the Flats
Vacations, especially family ones, can be complex, and even when things go smoothly, it often takes a few days to relax.
On the tidal flats in Brewster on the Cape, it only takes me about three minutes into my first walk to melt into a blissed-out state, which is then repeated every time I set foot on the wet sand. From the beach entrance, it doesn’t look like much (where did all the water go?). Once you are striding across the sandflats, though, the effect is riveting. The shifting sky is vividly reflected in the tidal pools, so different from when the waves come in at high tide on the bay, and the constantly changing shapes of sandbars and tidal pools as I walk the mile or so out to the last bar are elegant and mesmerizing. The knowledge that I am walking on the bottom of the bay, that in a few hours the water on the sandbar that I tread will be over my head, intensifies the ephemeral wonder of the moment. My body in motion creates a stream of new shapes and colors, the movement of the tide alters the shapes of the tidal pools and sandbars, and the sky’s constant change is reflected in the pools. I move with purpose, as if I have a happy but important job to do.
Over the years, I become more and more fascinated with watching it in all its familiarity and constant transformation.
For a landscape painter, sense of place is always key. I often contend, though, that for the artist the painting needs to be more important than the place—that to even capture the place, any place, you need to keenly focus on the dynamics of color, composition, surface, and edges, while engaged in the process, and that mood will follow. The tidal flats experience transends this argument perfectly, though, providing the feel that I want to evoke both in my work and to experience while working—wide open, expansive, joy-infused serenity set in moments of crystalline focus—and this over a period of time, the body moving and engaged.
Moving from bliss to pictoral analysis, the shapes of the sandbars, tidal pools, and clouds over the flats lend themselves to the kind of color field painting that I love—essentially and yet barely a landscape. The interlocking shapes of the elements are sometimes subtle and others assertive; sometimes elegant and others odd, and like nothing else in the natural world.
Binary of mutually exclusive truths: the essence of sense of place and the purest abstraction.
“Blue Cloud” , 12″X12″, a storm rolling in over the flats.
“Blue Tidal Pool”, 20″X24″, all about the direction of the clouds.
Commanding Angles, 12″X24″, one of the quirkiest and most abstract pieces.
Evening Clouds, 12″X12″, the sky with two different types of clouds, the piece about angles and mood.
Sandflats with Cloudbank, 40″X50″, a color field painting, though the flats and sky really did look like that!
Vertical Sky over Tidal Pools, 36″X12″, the format seems counter-intuitive, but the slight tension created forces the eye back on the composition.
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