ride

We've got a sweet new ride:

Buses & trains are fun and all, but THIS is freedom.

I used to marvel at the women biking around with multiple children strapped in to bike seats -- the Japanese Minivan. Now I AM THAT MAMA, god help me. And god help you, too, if you're walking or biking toward me.

*

upon arrival

So. The way to get to Japan is:

Headphones, coloring books, a very small amount of sleep...

 

...plus: deconstruction airport luggage delivery pose focus...

And suddenly, we are inside a tiny garden which is inside our house, on the other side of the world.

Kyoto smells like incense, cigarette smoke, laundry soap. Fish.

But, you know how you can't quite put your finger on it... Something vaguely medicinal? Something like damp tatami?

Everything is a jumble of memories... streets, sounds, words that surface before their meaning. It's overwhelming. How can I tell a coherent story? At least we are now sleeping through the night.

The streets are unbelievably clean. Our neighborhood is a labyrinthine network of narrow passages, the thing that so enchanted me before, this quiet, fragrant maze.

 

 I am almost compulsively visiting familiar places, routes, habits; eager to be oriented, I suppose. But it's more like I have to reconcile the notion that I could go back to those places... which I can't.

 

We played in the river today: the kids build guilelessly with rocks, while I contemplate the origin and the history of each one.

What I remember about this city is that its magic worked whether I was willing to believe or not, and I was transformed by it despite myself. Only a fool would get the same magic trick twice!

It's funny -- I'm at the same time more confident and more humble now than I was before. I used to try to maintain an aloof separation from other foreigners here, which is of course the mark of any insufferable gaijin. Now I won't conceal my curiosity or my magnanimity. Big, wide smiles! Knowing nods, which really mean, I don't know anything more than you do. I swear.

I was in a terrible mood the other day, wrangling whining children through the hubbub, resentful of the food I don't like and the language I can't fathom, and a little voice inside said, Don't waste your time feeling this way.

And I continued to have my quiet fit for a few more hours, but I knew it was right, that voice, because the sun was warm and we finally got a refrigerator and we discovered how to tease koi fish with pebbles, and there will be a rhythm soon, and I will feel silly for having wasted entire mornings fighting against the current.

But that's true no matter where we are.

*

in the bath

I've had the idea for this painting in my head for more than year. 

At some point last spring, I took some pictures of the kids in the bath, and loved the look of them: their perfect little bodies, so busy in the water.

I kept putting it off, mainly because I was busy with portraits, but also because I kind of knew that it was going to take something that I didn't have right then. I was aching to break out of my usual fussy, dense, perfectionistic line-making, but at the same time my stomach would tie itself in knots when I thought about having to render a likeness -- whether it was someone else's kids or my own. 

So, as clear as this idea was, and as much as I wanted to try it, I waited.

After we packed up shop in Providence and came to Michigan for the summer, I was sure I wouldn't have much time to paint. But I brought several canvases with me, just in case, and as soon as we got here, I sort of threw myself at them... taking an hour here or there to just slap some paint on. This is what I had been doing all winter, I realized -- experimenting, playing, learning. 

All those little steps, all those half-finished canvases! I had been assuming that any breakthrough in my work would happen dramatically, all of the sudden, in one flourish. So I wasn't looking for it as it unfolded quietly, one afternoon after another.

I've had very few pieces come together as effortlessly as this one, and as closely to my original vision:

"In the Bath," 24 x 30 inches

oil on canvas

It's funny, because the substance of this breakthrough, which I thought for sure would express itself as unbridled passion and furious productivity, has instead manifested as an almost accidental patience.

At the beginning of the summer, a painter friend wrote to me, Your art will come when you're ready.

It was a huge relief to read that, because I usually fall into the trap of thinking that I'm only productive if the paint is hitting the canvas, and dismiss everything else as extraneous. I focus all my attention on arriving, and resent the entire journey. I want to KNOW, and then DO.

Clearly, I've had that backwards.

First I do, then I know.

*

to study

Last summer a friend of mine gave me some simple advice about how to approach painting:

Take it easy, he said.

I was in a horrible mood, grumpy from a day of fighting with paint, so I did NOT want to hear it. I was determined to learn things the hard way. 

But of course he was right, and I think I am just now catching on. 

I used to feel too rushed to do a study for each portrait, and the result was that I would put more pressure on myself to get it right the first time -- ironically creating more work by incessantly "fixing" the places I'd messed up. 

Now I really see the value of the study, not least because that's where I take it easy:

And that feeling of looseness and spontaneity might be more important than getting the nose just right.

*

peonies

A few weeks ago, my dad & step-mom's peonies were in full bloom. My dad brought in some of the blossoms, which usually topple under their own weight if they bloom on the bush. They are so blousy, so ridiculously extravagant with all their petals, that I had to attempt a painting:

"Peonies"

oil on paper, 8 x 10"

I think I did a better job on the vase than the blossoms, but I still kind of like the look of them, mucked up as they are. It's a real trick to be deft and daft with that palette knife...

*

the lake

Our camera of eight years bit the dust not long after we got to Michigan. It was a good excuse to do some plein air painting at the beach:

If I were going to do justice to the lovely Lake, though, I would need a few more panels of just water in the middle there.

It was great to free up with the palette knife some more, and to work quickly before the light changed.

I think the Impressionists did their work after the advent of the camera -- they were free to paint a loose approximation of the scene because they no longer had to render things in exacting detail.

We've since gotten a new camera, but for me, photographs can't compare to haphazard blobs of paint arranged on a canvas.
*

clementines

When we buy a bag of clementines, we put them in this turquoise blue ceramic bowl, and they sit there looking gorgeous, and every time I think, I have to paint those colors together. 

So, I finally did:

"Clementines"

oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

I did it on a whim, using mostly palette knife, and finished it in one sitting. It was incredibly satisfying. It has all the looseness and serendipity in it that I want for my portraits. There's this really magic thing that happens when I'm uninhibited and unconcerned -- the paint has such life and freedom in it. I can never get that feeling when I try too hard. So, I either need to treat everyone's faces like bowls of fruit, or I need to do all my painting at the end of the day, with only an hour to go.

*