How to Edit a Landscape with Help from Twyla Tharp

How do you decide what elements to include in a landscape? I am regularly challenged by this. I typically want to paint it all... every damn leaf.  I watch other plein air painters include three people, not twenty, move a tree, change a tree shape, omit a building, or add clouds to a clear sky, without a hesitation. Exclusion for me is an inaccuracy, maybe a lie. I think plein air paintings are creating a moment of history. Cave walls tell us about the animals present, and sometimes the dress of the day… Not that I expect my paintings to last millennia.  Yet, I do see merit in editing for the composition especially.

Over the last couple weeks I began savoring a Christmas gift, reading, not too fast, Twyla Tharp’s 2003, The Creative Habit. Her stories of musicians, writers, and artists of all kinds are entertaining in themselves, but the exercises she suggests have inspired me. They are different from many other creativity books I've read. The one I want to wax on about, is led into with a story about Neil Simon, which you'll have to read for yourself.

Back to the challenge of editing a painting. Twyla talks about the power of seeing, you know, like Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” She recommends watching a couple and making a list of their actions and gestures until you have twenty. He puts his arm around her, she picks a piece of lint from his coat, she crosses her legs, he man splays, she pulls a Kleenex from her pocket, she blows her nose. It’s not hard, to list twenty items in a brief time, Twyla
comments. The second phase of the exercise is to watch another couple and list the actions that please you aesthetically or emotionally. A sign of tenderness in a touch on the arm, the slide of sunglasses onto the head, to see something more clearly, an elbow jab with a laugh, a slight step back at some news. Now judgement is added to powers of observation, and being selective becomes essential. 

Twyla’s point is that what catches your fancy is not as important as the difference between the two lists. What one includes or edits speaks to how you see the world. My thought is that what catches my fancy in a scene are the items I’m going to paint with more intention, might even be my focal point. And, if not my focal point, I will create a relationship to it… place it where it best tells the story I am painting. 

Once again, Twyla danced me into a new way of thinking.

As I wrap up this post, it reminds me of another one, I wrote a while back on making word lists to create a more accurate and interesting piece of writing. That process, coupled with asking yourself, what pleases you emotionally or aesthetically, offers another way to consider what to edit. This link will get you to it Lexicons and Writing. And, "That reminds me of..." is as always another powerful creativity prompt.

Photo: From Twyla Tharp Pinterest Page
Painting: Waiting for the Magic, Mary Longe, 2019, 16x20" Oil on Canvas

2017 - Progress on Becoming an Artist

On Facebook, the art supply company, Grumbacher tossed out a question about the year’s accomplishments in art.

I decided not to respond and closed my laptop… except the question nagged me. I showered and went about my day, with this nudge inside, asking myself, what have I accomplished not just in art, but in becoming an artist. 

The process began in earnest in July of 2014. By then, I had a vision of what I wanted, simply to stand at an easel and to paint outside. I’d learned that act was called, “plein air” and that plein air was a real thing with a long history. I bought an easel, paints, brushes, paper and a vat of sunscreen. I took a weekend workshop at Lill Street and a week-long workshop at Madeline Island and learned I needed to learn how to draw, let alone distribute paint so that it was recognizable. Classes, sketching, and painting, as much painting as possible, ensued.

 A fifteen-inch pile of water color paintings, a couple filled drawing pads, several sketch books and bins, shelves and wires hung with canvas boards filled with oil paintings are evidence of a continued pursuit of art since then. Yet, I still need to draw better and I still need to distribute the paint better. My inspiration to find some success is my former neighbor (by a mile or so,) Michael Jordan, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." 

Fast forward to 2017. My drawing has improved, but I don’t trust myself with the game winning line. My painting has improved but I’m still missing shots, but at this point, a lyric from Hamilton comes to mind, “I’m not throwing away my shot.” I continue to learn, ask for criticism and paint some more. In 2017, I completed (life changing) Painting Fundamentals 101 and 102 with Popovich and Krajecki through the Palette and Chisel, a 7-week perspective class with Krajecki thete too, a class taught br phenomenal artist, Steve Puttrich at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and a figure painting class with Ken Menami at the Evanston Art Center, and managed to have critiques by five other respected artists through the Plein Air Painters of Chicago. (Fred Polito, Don Yang, Errol Jacobdon, William Schneider, Nancy King Mertz.)

My easel accompanied me to paint plein air nearly every week April thru Oct and, I never went a week not "arting." I painted in two countries, three States, many states of mind and in two mediums. I painted over earlier paintings because they stopped being precious and I needed the canvas. I spent more money on paint and supplies than clothes, and found paint smears in more places than dust.

Firsts included: a plein air competition, a large format painting, a sale to stranger and one (almost two) off my easel, and, a paid commission (won't do that again.)

I bought a studio easel, took over a bedroom as a studio and stopped saying studio, as if it had quotes around it.

I participated in four shows; one juried. Two paintings were selected as year-long public works, two others are hanging in another town’s historical museum. An art critic reviewing one of the shows mentioned one of my paintings in a kind way. This year my Christmas list pretty much listed colors of paint. Gratefully, I received some. I continue to miss the majority of shots, but, I've hit a couple, for a change.  And, this year, the thought of painting as a hobby, never entered my mind. It's become my way of life.