The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

The Art Of Losing It — It’s A Good Thing

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Confession time. The last thing I do before I go to sleep at night, is think about what kind of treat I’m going to have in the morning. And after breakfast, it’s when can I have my next sweet morsel. I am in fact, much like Winnie the Pooh. Here’s a quote from the star of A.A. Milne beloved’s books.

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

 “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”

  “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today” said Piglet. 

   Pooh nodded thoughtfully, ”It’s the same thing” he said.

But every once in awhile, I am presented with a reminder that the thrill I get feeding my face, is nothing to the one I get when I feed my soul.

 Last weekend we did a video shoot for my new website. We needed some closeup shots of someone painting. That would be me. We had specific needs for the video: which brushes to stack, what colors to put on the palette.  But a funny thing happened once we were rolling. I forgot all about the shoot, and lost myself. When the shoot was over, I found myself still messing around with paint on canvas. It was a better high than the best chocolate I’ve ever inhaled. (Sorry about that, Teuscher.)

So, for the 1,765th time, I am reminded that I shouldn’t wait for a “reason” to do what I love. It’s not expensive, it’s not unhealthy, it doesn’t make you fat. My goal tonight, is to go to bed thinking about what art I can create in the morning — before breakfast.

Stop! There’s Beauty In Unfinished Art

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(Pic #1) Sketch by iconic French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. So much more interesting this way.

The underpinnings can tell us so much more….

There’s something about seeing how an artist works, why he chooses a particular line, and when he decides that’s enough. I love watching them create, or even catching signs of their intentions by what’s left for us to see. Sometimes I try to peel back the layers, and occasionally, they do it for me.

Check out the Lautrec piece above. That mid-section never needed to be painted. Those scratchy marks — all sketchy and loose — make the painting even better. They kind of let the viewer know how the artist saw his subject, and let us in on that very personal view. I like that his art seems to sit there for a moment in time, in its raw form, letting us finish the strokes or the color that he never added.

I felt the same way at the recent Italian Chalk Festival in Santa Barbara this week, when artists from all over the globe began their works in pastel on the hot mission pavement. They were all given two days to complete their 4 x 8 squares, but I couldn’t help but hope they would never finish.

(Pic #2) Technically incomplete — this is a way cooler art experience. Il Madonnari (the annual Santa Barbara Italian Chalk Festival)

(Pic #3) Pastel illustrating the benefits of leaving parts untouched. The lack of form in the bottom half of the blacktop asks the viewer to literally “fill in the blank.”

(Pic #4) LOVE the unfinished foot on this yoga gnome.

(Pic #5) Check out the sketchy, unfinished mountainous background in black and white. Loose, unexpected and interesting.

How Our Cat Unearthed My Creative Past

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(Pic #1) “Piglet” shuffles my trashed collection of art, and brings it back to life.

I had a wonderful epiphanic moment this week. A moment that was born of my insanely competitive nature, and brought into focus by my 14-year-old, deaf, asthmatic cat.

(Pic #2) Cumulus Pac Man  / Acrylic on board.

My husband recently went on one of his organization binges. The result was that his home office was spotless, everything in its place. Usually, I just get jealous that he has a pristine work environment, but this time, I got competitive. “If he can clean up his office, I can organize my art studio even better.”

So I did. I went through everything, organized and cleaned. When I finished, I had this huge pile of old paintings, collages, and drawings — some were half finished, and some had fallen victim to the inner critic, and were long ago consigned to the junk heap.  I dumped them on the living room floor, prepared to banish them once and for all.

(Pic #3) Test / Ink and dress patterns on board.

That’s when the cat came in. (Pic #1) As she often does, Piglet wanted to lie in the most inconvenient place, and that was right on top of the pile. At some xenical point, she began to play with the paintings — pawing and shuffling, shuffling and pawing. When I came back out, she had uncovered some of the artwork which had been hidden deep in the stack. (Pics #2, 3, 4, 5, 6) So I was forced to look at it again.

Suddenly I saw it all differently; maybe none was a masterpiece, but then again, some were actually okay. I had convinced myself that the time I had spent on those paintings was wasted, because I was not satisfied with the results. With the passage of time, I actually now really like some of those cast-aside pieces.

(Pic #4) Beverly Zen / Collage on board.

And more important, here is the epiphany: the time I thought I had wasted on those paintings, was actually time wonderfully well spent. Looking at that discarded art with a fresh set of eyes has inspired me. Right now I am loaded with ideas for what I want to paint next. And I have a clean studio in which to do it.

(Pic #5) Woosh / Acrylic on paper.

(Pic #6) Utility box, St. Petersburg, Russia / Photo, collage.