Elevating Small Things

I started reading about mindfulness and honoring the power of the present this past year (thank you His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle and Anthony De Mello). Painting still life offers me a valuable lesson in the power of presence--it's a rigorous practice in staying focused on the thing immediately before me. Painting also makes me mindful of the significance of small things.

This summer, I decided to partake in life coaching sessions with Marisa Weppner, owner of Sage Yoga & Wellness (learn about her integrative life style therapy here), to solidify my goals as a painter and business owner. I wanted to write a mantra for my business that captured my intentions as an artist. After a deep discussion about why I paint, why I paint what I paint and what I hope to share,  I honed my art business mantra to "elevating small things."

Small objects act like anthropomorphic symbols of our lives. Look around your office, your kitchen, your bedroom, your bathroom--what do you see? Some of my most treasured items are physically little--my grandmother's handkerchief, sewing shears of my mother's, a baseball, a Lego figurine, a Euro coin from travels abroad, handmade Mala beads. They feel like treasures because they represent a meaningful piece of my identity or conjure a happy memory.

I often find this kind of joy in small food items. My neighbor grows the lovely plums depicted in the painting in this post. She takes the time to cut a large bowl of plums for my family every year around early September and allows me to pick more whenever I wish. These plums have a beautiful frosty blue coating that reveals a vivid deep blue-purple beneath when rubbed. The golden marbled blue cheese came from the Boise Co-op, one of my favorite places to buy socially-conscious food for still life paintings.

Um, that still life painting looks like...

Boobs. There, I said it. Not that I tried to conceal my intention when I painted two rather voluptuous pomelos and called the painting "Double P's." Does still life always have to appear stuffy, taking itself soooo seriously? The theme of my blog post today is the significance of humor in art and assigning value to irreverent art.

Sometimes I feel so much passion, compassion, humanity, pain and joy that I wish I could create a painting that translates my emotions so provocatively that it moves people to tears, like the way I feel when I listen to a Sigur Ros song really, really loudly. And then I go and paint a pair of suggestive pomelos. Why? I believe sharing humor is one of my best contributions to humanity. Maybe my painting will not move you to cry, but what if it moves you to laughter?

Cancer Treatment Centers of America use "laughter therapy" to promote overall health and wellness in their patients. Laughter may help prevent a heart attack, according to a 2009 study performed by cardiologists at University of Maryland. 

"The old saying that 'laughter is the best medicine,' definitely appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart," says Michael Miller, M.D., director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center. (Source: Laughter is the Best Medicine for Your Heart | University of Maryland Medical Center)

Now, how do I determine the value of my flippant still life oil painting? Imagine a business person has to assign a monetary value to every deliverable he creates at work and then has to present the dollar amount to his coworkers at every meeting. If a given project took him 20 hours and he makes $25 per hour, he would announce his deliverable as worth $500. Or say a family physician must announce to her patient that the value of her effort toward that check-up is worth $150. Would you feel differently about your effort, your work? Does this make you feel awkward? Yeah, it does for us painters, too.

My "Double P's" painting currently hangs at Flying M Coffeehouse in downtown Boise, vulnerably announcing to the many patrons of this local favorite shop that it is worth $550. I did not arbitrarily assign that price. I take a price-per-square-inch approach, derived by calculating my target hourly wage (trust me, it's conservative), how many paintings I can make in a year, less my overhead. Operations aside, this painting achieves a balanced, interesting composition with beautiful pop-off-your-wall colors, and it involves honed technique of perspective and depth.

When you perform your annual spring cleaning, make a mental note of how much you spent on the junk you are now donating without hesitation. I bet it adds up to over $500. I would also wager a bet that you would not throw a $500 original oil painting into your donation pile, especially one that brings you heart-healthy laughter every day.

"The ability to laugh -- either naturally or as learned behavior -- may have important implications in societies such as the U.S. where heart disease remains the number one killer," says Miller. "We know that exercising, not smoking and eating foods low in saturated fat will reduce the risk of heart disease. Perhaps regular, hearty laughter should be added to the list." (Source)

Announcing Daily Paintings

I create still life paintings to bring attention to the visual exquisiteness of fresh produce, the seemingly everyday objects that provide us sustenance.  I initially started with "Still Life with Attitude," my irreverent series depicting produce set up in personified and often "suggestive" manners.  I am excited to announce a new still life series of daily paintings.

We all know the adage “you are what you eat.”  I want to be art.  The implication is that by consuming beautiful, wholesome foods, you will in turn inherit this beauty in the form of health.  I purchase fruit and vegetables for my subjects grown sustainably and local to Idaho whenever possible.  If not grown locally, I select foods from producers from small farms and with a commitment to fair trade and wages.

I use 4" x 5" and 5" x 5" canvases and paint the subject in one sitting, working alla prima (wet-on-wet paint). My goal is to capture the rich color and texture of the fruit or vegetable, those traits that make it desirable to consume.  I currently use a dark gray or matte black painted wood base for the subject to help the color and texture pop off the canvas.

I will show my first batch of these small oil paintings at my March show at Flying M Coffee House.  Watch my Etsy store for these little paintings, coming soon...