When Is It Time to Quit?

I don’t know how other artists deal with failure. Failure, paradoxically, motivates me to work harder. As a self-taught artist, I am one of those stubborn people who believes that with time, I will find a solution or eventually discover something new and better. Intuitively, I try one thing and another, pushing the process even if I have to destroy all the work that was done before. Reckless, perhaps, but that is my process.

This paradigm has worked well, until I took on Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. For five months, on-and-off, I have been working on an adaptation. It is not my first Greek play. Over the last eight years, I have completed four Greek plays by Aeschylus. Extracting the essence of the story, I went back and forth between the text and the illustrations until they created a synergy. The process wasn’t easy but I had no reason to believe Oedipus would be any more difficult than those earlier plays.

Naivety is one of my strengths. Even though I am susceptible to stress, I often naively take-on difficult projects. I enjoy new challenges. With Oedipus Rex, however, naivety was rash foolishness. I took on this challenge without understanding the inherent difficulties and risks that it entailed.

Risks, you ask? My sleep was interrupted frequently as my mind obsessively poured over possible solutions to the Oedipus creative quandary. When finally morning arrived, I eagerly went to work in my studio trying my new ideas. Day after day, the ideas fell short of my expectations.

The pile of Oedipus-related drawings, collages, and prints kept growing, but I was no closer to what I thought the play required. Even my expectations kept changing. Eventually, the daily toil led me to doubt my own creative abilities.

I was becoming increasingly frustrated until I discovered the source of my difficulties: the structure of the play itself. King Oedipus, while attempting to cleanse Thebes of a deadly plague, gradually learns that he is the cause of the spiritual and moral pollution that grips his kingdom. Ignorant of his deeds but aware of the curse that haunts his life, Oedipus unknowingly has killed his father and married his mother.

The dramatic tension of the play is created by Oedipus’ gradual awareness of his fate. As such, most of the action takes place in Oedipus’ mind, and is reflected in his reactions to the horrible revelations he learns about himself. Surprise, anger, pride, distrust, shame, horror, denial, powerlessness, resignation, love, hate, sadness, hope and fear are some of the feelings Oedipus experiences. These are states of mind. The action, therefore, overwhelmingly consists of descriptive words that reflect these thoughts and feelings.

At first, I tried drawing the few events themselves, like the murder of Oedipus’ father. The drawings told the story, but they did not illuminate the play’s deeper psychological meanings.

Then I tried to interpret the play through a series of related abstractions, forms gradually took on a shape as they moved from darkness to light. Abstractions, I thought, could be used to reflect Oedipus’ realizations. Nothing worked. Nothing successfully reflected Oedipus’ process of self-discovery.

As the days and months went on, I began dreading my time in the studio. I was reminded of the eight months I spent teaching Macbeth, a weekly slog through murder and madness.

Finally, after careful consideration, I decided to stop and desist my Oedipus torture. I safely put away, in the recesses of my bookcase, the many translations and critiques I had collected. My pile of Oedipus Rex drawings went safely into my flat files.

Free at last? Not really. Just not waking up every night or working on Oedipus Rex every day. I am giving my mind a needed rest.

Is this the end of the story? Maybe. While I take a vacation, I hope my mind will, unbeknownst to me, continue mulling over my Oedipus Rex problems. A solution may be around the corner or may never be found, but those are the risks an artist must learn to live with.

Disappointed? Yes. Defeated? No. Ready to quit? Yes— temporarily.

At 76, An Artist Reflects

One is only 75 for a brief year, and then that age is gone. So as I await another New Year, I also await my new age with the joy and sadness that accompanies one-plus-three quarters of a century.

2022 was a productive year. Two shows of my Artist Books brought home to me the depth and breadth of my work in that medium. Sometimes you cannot see the forest for the trees. Solo shows can clarify and broaden  perspectives.

As time goes on, more than ever, making art has become my life. I work in my studio almost every day. When I miss a day, I feel lost. Art infuses my life with a sublime sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, even if it goes unobserved by anyone else.

I have become an increasingly self-sufficient, self-reliant artist. I know what I am doing. My work is my own, my voice, and that knowledge buttresses my efforts.

At 76 I enjoy shedding old patterns, and reinventing the way I do things. Each new work is a new  beginning even when it is related to an earlier work. I have grown accustomed to difficulties. Instead, I enjoy challenges. I am patient with myself. I have learned to wait, to let the process play out, to let the picture emerge. I don’t despair.

Besides the work, there is friendship. With age, I have grown more appreciative of my friends. They are my anchors. Our shared pasts give me perspective, past and present. If I need help with something that neither I nor Edwina can do, they are there for us, as I am for them. It is comforting to know one is not alone.

And as my age increases, I am happy to be healthy and well. So many others are fighting illnesses, and mortality is always not far from my mind. I am thinking about the way I want to be remembered, the good I hope to leave when I  depart this world.

After fifteen years of retirement, I finally have stopped setting my alarm clock. Life is just a brief moment between eternities.

Why am I still painting Still Lifes?

Still Life with Black-eyed Susan. Acrylic on Canvas. 40” x 30". 2021.

I didn’t expect to be painting still lives this summer. I had plenty of ideas for other subjects, motifs that reflected my thoughts about mortality, purpose and time. So how did I get involved painting still lives?

Paintings have a way of being born without my permission or knowledge. They happen as I work and watch them evolve. So when a still live emerged out of another painting, I just thought it was a moment on the way to something else. 

But the still life refused to go away. Try arguing with a painting. Since you are fighting yourself, you can’t win. I just went with the flow.

The painting knew how to survive: it made itself really difficult. I love difficulties so I got hooked. I also realized that I hadn’t painted a still life in years. When I first picked up a brush, I painted still lives. The subject matter, oranges, apples, plants and books, were readily available. My favorite artists painted still lives: Cezanne, Soutine, Matisse, Picasso. What better way to apprentice myself?

That was fifty years ago, and in the interim I struggled to define myself, to find the images that gave voice to my thoughts and concerns. I gave up still life painting because I didn’t understand how it could allow me the freedom I was searching for.

That was then. Now I am finding a subtle freedom in painting still lives. I am concentrating on composition, line and color, the fundamentals of drawing and painting. 

In still lives, expression is more indirect. What colors are chosen, what fruits or objects are used, the overall structure of the painting are clues to the artist’s state-of-mind. It is said that there is a universe in a Cezanne apple. If you are an artist, these are good problems to have.

So far, I’ve completed three or four still life paintings. The process isn’t any more harrowing than I fare normally, it’s just unfamiliar. I can never tell when a painting will give me a lot of trouble. You get used to uncertainty. I don’t know how many still lives I will do or where it will take me. I don’t care. 

This is why I call myself an artist.

PAINTING FRUSTRATION

PAINTING FRUSTRATION

Paintings are like people: some you always remember, and others, “ When did I do that?” And like old friends, paintings can remind you of the particular circumstances of their birth, while others continue to challenge you to understand them. 

This doesn’t mean that a painting is “good” or “bad.” The quality of a painting can be confused by its emotional baggage. For example, an artist might treasure a drawing because he/she was infatuated by the model.

“Annual Report.” is a special favorite of mine. It is large, 54 x 48 inches, painted in acrylics with text written with wax crayon. In 1998, I  was still hand-stretching and priming my own canvases. Preparing your own canvas encourages an early intimacy that is absent when a pre-stretched canvas is purchased from a store. 

I went about this painting in an odd way. At the time, I was frustrated by large canvases. I couldn’t finish them. I was unable to fill the space. In disgust, I would destroy the work.

But not this time, alone upstate, I swore that I would not leave my studio, even to eat or sleep, until I finished the painting. I placed the empty canvas on the floor instead of the easel, and grabbed my large brushes. I would not give up!

Thankfully, I was on vacation from my job as Communications Director. The previous week had been insane. Our Annual Report was due. All day long, the CEO screamed at everyone that the Annual Report wasn’t what she wanted, and the clock was ticking. The work was grueling: writing, editing, rewriting, editing again, ad nauseam.

I started the painting without any thought of my 9-to-5 job, but as I put color and line on the canvas, the madness of the last week took over. I gave in and let anger guide my brush. After working straight for 6 1/2 hours, the canvas was completed. The painting had painted itself.

Now I could eat dinner at my normal hour.   

Marc Shanker. “Annual Report.” Acrylic on canvas. 54” x 48.” 1998.