There is a saying about teaching; we teach what we need to learn. I have always loved teaching not only for what I can give another artist, but also for all that is given back to me. My comments on others art gets me to look and question my own work on a deeper level.

Last year I picked up a bunch of older work that had been in several galleries. Some they had for several years. Time to clear out the old and bring in the new. I was excited to get back the old art, excited to see old friends again! As I unwrapped the artworks some were met with delight as others were greeted with a perplexed look and the thought of, “What was I thinking?!!” A good way to see your own artistic evolution is getting back older work that you haven’t seen in years! I will admit some went straight to the dumpster. Others I held back to rework. There is sometime very freeing in both letting go of work that is not up to present standards and also going back into a piece knowing you won’t make it any worse. It challenges me to look at the piece through new eyes and intentions. Before I might have only seen certain areas of the painting that were working strongly. Now I see the whole and if it does not work as a whole the pieces fall away.

This brings me to teaching. Once a month I mentor a small group of artists in my studio. This month I was talking to them about getting old work back and deciding to edit some into the dumpster. They wanted to know what dumpster I use. It was a good time to talk about editing our work and not think everything is precious. Not all our art projects make it to the refrigerator door. One of the artists asked if I had one of the paintings that I was considering tossing or reworking, they wanted to see what that might look like. I dug one out I had picked up in the past year. At the time when I got it back to my studio I felt the colors were too harsh so I want back into it to create some natural areas, which made it worse. It was looking like two completely different paintings. So I faced it against the wall until that moment. I got it out and showed them. Then they asked where I would take it from here? I work on a black gesso ground so when things get worked and reworked I start to lose the pieces of black showing through and they quickly start looking over worked. Someone asked if I could just re-gesso the whole thing and start again. As I work in oils and the gesso is acrylic that would not be archival. But it got me to thinking how an acrylic artist I had read about often glazed their whole painting down and then brought out the lights. As I was talking to them it all of a sudden became very clear as to what to do next. This painting that had been 3 steps from the trash was now seen as a challenge with many possibilities! They helped me look at it from a different perspective. I started lying in thin glaze of dark translucent paint while they were still at my studio. This brought the values to a mid-range. From here I could wipe away the paint and bring back some of the bright tones and add in the darker values. I couldn’t wait to get my hands back into this one. After they left I stayed for hours breaking away from my distinct style to see what would evolve. The teacher became the student. I owe this painting to them for setting my thinking pattern off track and seeing more possibilities. The students are great teachers!

It takes a village to raise an artist.

In my next blog post I will show the evolution of this painting. Stay tuned!