Planning #3 of the Palestine Series

First vision. June 11, 2022

Palestine Blues. 1st of series

Nearing completion of 2nd in the series

“It is very well to copy what one sees. It’s much better to draw what one has retained in one’s memory. It is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory. One reproduces only that which is striking, that is to say, the necessary. This one’s recollections and invention are liberated from the tyranny which nature exerts.”

Edgar Degas

“It’s hard to define how they come about,” Hopper said of his pictures, “but it’s a long process of gestation in the mind and a rising emotion.”

Brian O’Doherty, “Edward Hopper’s Voice” in American Masters: The Voice and the Myth

The three-week hiatus has been restful for me. As we approached the second anniversary of owning The Gallery at Redlands, Sandi & I decided we needed to take a couple of weekends off before the annual Dogwood Art & Music Festival gets underway. In three weeks we’ve enjoyed our fireplace during the Texas freeze, traveled Oklahoma, Missouri & Arkansas, and rested here at home.

Above all, I’ve bathed in the warm, soothing waters of imagination through sketching, reading, journaling and composting ideas for new art work. Edward Hopper has been my guiding spirit lately as I’ve pondered ways to continue my Palestine blues series of watercolors.

This series began on June 11, 2022 while walking across town one morning as I’m accustomed to doing during our weekend stays there. Looking across Spring Street (actually Highway 287 through Palestine), I was arrested at the beauty of the contrasting warm sun and cool shadows around what once was the Pearlstone Grocery.

On August 22, after a lengthy gestation, I finally began my first attempt at painting this, adding the ghost of Lightnin’ Hopkins walking along the tracks. This bluesman used to perform thirty minutes away at a juke joint in the town of Crockett.

I began my second painting on January 2, adding a harp player to Lightnin’. The harp player is actually a guy I watched play one Sunday morning in Dallas at the Sons of Hermann Hall some years back. We were beginning the final day of our Randy Brodnax Christmas Art Show. I took pictures of him with my phone and used them for this composition.

On January 18, something happened that gave me fresh inspiration for the 3rd of this series. I began work on it yesterday, though I’m still finishing the second one. The quotes above I posted because of the severe editing of this third in the series; there are a host of items removed from the scene as well as new objects added and others repositioned. I’ve already changed my mind a dozen times and chuckle at the thought of my characters and sign posts getting up, walking about and repositioning themselves somewhere else in the scene. I keep saying “Stop that!” but they won’t listen.

More later. . .

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Studio Eidolons Saturday Morning

Enjoying Cowboy Coffee on a Saturday Morning in the Studio

An artist must never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of a style, prisoner of a reputation, prisoner of success.

Henri Matisse

This is my first morning back in the studio after a short vacation home to St. Louis to visit my parents, siblings and friends. I’m getting ready to make some new and fresh art after a lengthy and restful hiatus and wanted to share some of my most recent moments and memories with my readers. I’ve been enjoying this new book Last Light that I have mentioned before, and am nearing the end of the Matisse chapter. The quote above arrested me, as I had been entertaining second thoughts about pursuing some art that lies outside my normal practice. The swift kick in the pants reminded me that a real artist is free to pursue whatever holds his/her attention. And I shall respond to these new stimuli.

I’m enjoying Cowboy Coffee made on our stovetop and thought I’d share the picture of the pot I brewed when our power was out. Much has been written of late about the political ramifications of Texas and its perennial boast of being a major energy capital of the world, yet cannot seem to keep electricity flowing when the state hits a winter deep freeze. We were fortunate that we only lost power for a few hours; many in this state have gone for days without it.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the photo taken above. It was during that winter that I converted our garage into a Man Cave and created probably my best still life while working in that space.

I now have this watercolor hanging in our Gallery at Redlands in Palestine. I used a full sheet of watercolor paper, so once the matting and framing were added, it turned out to be an enormous piece to display.

I have been more faithful recently to my pledge to sketch more, and have enjoyed the sensation of a pencil dragging across a page and leaving its tracks. I recall artist Paul Klee describing drawing as simply a line going for a walk. The act of sketching has ways of relaxing me that other activities cannot seem to accomplish.

After our St. Louis sojourn, Sandi and I headed south to Bentonville, Arkansas to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. After my recent watercolor experiments in rendering trees, I was held spellbound while viewing the paintings of George Inness, Asher Durand and William Trost Richards. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of watercolor landscape painting now. And I have little doubt that the works of these kindred spirits will improve my future endeavors.

George Inness, An Old Roadway

Asher B. Durand, Kindred Spirits

William Trost Richards, Landscape

We closed Gallery at Redlands for two successive weekends so we could enjoy some relaxing vacation time. The Texas winter storm occupied the first week and the Missouri/Arkansas travels filled the second. We plan to return to Palestine a week from today to resume our normal gallery hours.

Thanks for reading.