Thank You Mr. Rand

For artists who use acrylic, w/c, oil, gouache, anything that squeezes from a tube; we owe a debt of gratitude to a fellow who has received far too little appreciation.

Few things have changed the way we artists work than a sweet little doohickey created by John Goffe Rand.

Without his clever invention we would not have had a little group called the Impressionists. Abstract art would have been a mere glimmer in Hilma Af Klint’s eye.

Kilma Af Klint 1907 The Ten Biggest No. 2, Tate Etc. Issue 27, Spring 2013, courtesy Tate.org.uk

Landscape painters would still be wistfully looking out windows. Yellowstone would still be waiting for Thomas Moran. 

Most recently, daily painters would find it impossible to make their quota.

Mr. Rand’s gift to artists and art lovers?

An apparatus for preserving paint. A collapsible paint tube.

My stash. Notice the lack of pig bladders.

For centuries artists would grind their own pigment, mixing it with oil to make just enough paint to get them through the day. More recently clever artists would use pig bladders, stuffing them full of pre-mixed pigment, and poking a pin through the skin when they needed paint. Working anywhere away from a studio was difficult and impractical. And pigs didn't like it much either.

©Tate Photography, London, 2003 

And then…the tube. Claude Monet knew a good thing when he saw it and promptly hauled his easel, brushes and shiny new paint tubes out into the French country side. 

The artist herself enjoying painting outdoors.

No longer were painters restricted to interior images or creating landscapes from memory. Easels were set out right smack dab out in fields, gardens and beaches. Light itself was the subject.

©2016 Patricia Scarborough 12x16 The Last of the Hot Days

Mr. Rand, thank you. This deceptively simple gadget has allowed me access to a way of life that has been fulfilling, and I am deeply grateful.

Pulling Myself Together

HH and The Fellas at The Getty Museum, waiting for me to un-discombobulate myself.

Handsome Husband, The Fellas and I were recently at The J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, home to some exquisite paintings by Degas, Cezanne, and Monet. 

I give up.

Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light by Claude Monet. Download courtesy Getty Museum.  

It seems to be impossible to share with you what it’s like to stand before a painting that communicates beyond words, beyond the seasons and across borders. What is it about the movement of a line, or a swirl of paint that causes a space to grow in my chest that fills with a deep ache of wonder?

My feet leave the floor and my senses go on hiatus.

Actually, that kind of reaction would be totally acceptable to me. No one but me needs to know that the world has tilted ever so slightly. It’s the tears that begin to leak and drip off my chin that cause museum guards and art patrons to eye me suspiciously. No one wants to stand near another person who appears to be on the edge of discombobulation.

Upon seeing "The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light", “Wheat Stacks, Snow Effect, Morning”, and “Sunrise, Marine”  all in a row, my innards began to vibrate. The Van Gogh…then the Cezanne…a Degas, and another Degas…back to Sunrise, the painting which started the ruckus we now call Impressionism. 

Sunset, Marine, by Claude Monet. Download courtesy Getty Museum

History. Change. The beginning. Dedication. Determination. Failure. Risk. Energy. Passion. Professional peril. Misfortune, lucky breaks. Uncertainty. Vulnerability.   

Being within inches of all of those natures, framed and presented so prettily, creates a vibration of feeling that rattles me to my core.