It's Just a Name

To this day I don’t know what happened. I zigged when I should have zagged, or the earth shifted to the left, or maybe my studio is haunted. At any rate, 2 entire trays of pastel sticks leapt off the table and crashed to the floor. That would be maybe 250 pieces of pigment ranging from palest to darkest in blues, greens and violets.

Pre-earthquake

  Y’know those times when you are so stunned all you can do is gape like a fish?

As luck would have it, a friend had recently sold me the last of her high-quality stash of pastels, and I knew that someday, somehow they would be integrated into my already full trays. What better time than the moment I am ankle deep – literally – in sticks already strewn hither and yon?

Four days later…

I ask you: what color is “wode”? Where does “heliotrope” fit on the color wheel? Is “aerial yellow” yellow-er than “atmosphere”?  And what about “#106”? Is it warmer than, say, “B712”?

I'm an equal-opportunity pastel purchaser. Great American, Diane Townsend, Art Spectrum - if its the right color, I'll buy it.

Oil paints are mostly labeled according to a historical system using clarifying words like ultramarine blue. This is a warm blue, always a warmer than prussian blue, which is always a very cool blue. Always. Cadmium red is an established color that varies only slightly from brand to brand. It is red. 

Pastel sticks are numbered and named according to whomever owns the label. Is “dead head” warmer than “sinopia”?  P12 lighter than 782.10? Compare 106 to orange, please.

Would you buy a painting if you knew it were splattered with “dragon’s blood”?

Same color, different value. Or is it? 

Is it warmer than "purange"? For those of you who keep up with my meanderings, as it turns out, purange is most likely dead head. Or sinopia. Caput mortuum, maybe. One of those. 

At any rate, re-configuring several hundreds of sticks of color has opened my eyes to all kinds of possibilities.  Two weeks ago my hand would have grabbed a color out of habit. Now I scan new hues, intensities and combinations, (regardless of their name). 

2016 Patricia Scarborough Coming and Going  9.5x9.5 pastel

What started out as disaster has actually given me a bump in a new direction, and I like it. 

Still, would Ray Charles's masterpiece sound the same if it were "Am I Wode?" 

New Direction

©2013 Patricia Scarborough  Hot Start to an August Day  12 x 12 pastel

Greetings Dear Reader -

The Day Trips exhibit is safely hung on the walls of The Burkholder Project. Suddenly I'm without an anchor; no deadlines, no focus, no theme to corral my ideas.

I feel a little like a kid in a candy store. Where do I start?

I enjoyed the challenge of the piece above from the Day Trips series. Could it be a new avenue for me to pursue?

For a long while I've been coveting the lanky spare lines of Nebraska's grain elevators. They are a completely different animal from my usual landscape, yet, in a way, still from the same rural place. Despite their very gritty, dusty machine-like appearance, elevators have a kind of exotic elegance that fascinates me.

I've been trying out some ideas. You get to be the first to see what's been on my easel.

It's not just about the structure of these gigantic insect-looking things. It's about what they represent, their purpose, the time of year...

...birds mysteriously roosting on invisible cables...

the unintended beauty of their architecture...

... the way they bump up against, and fade into, the atmosphere.

©2013Patricia Scarborough  As yet untitled pastel, about 14 x 16

 

It's a terrifically exciting challenge.  Rather than leap into what I know and allowing muscle memory to take precedent, I'm back in the game, wondering what...how...when...

There's no better place to be.

Great Moments

@2009 P Scarborough Square 9 12x12 pastel & graphite

Last post I promised you a very cool surprise. The plan was to unveil it this weekend, and as creative endeavors often go, it had a plan of it's own. Since it's important to make certain that this project is the best it can be, we'll just take a little bit longer to cross all the t's and dot all the i's.

Be patient. It'll be worth it. I promise.

The piece at the top of the post is another in my Square Series. It's a pastel and graphite, which is a combination that I've never used before. This time, it just felt right. Using a pencil to lightly cross-hatch over the soft tones of pastel helped created a tension that gave me what I was after. It's a loose application of both media, less a memorial to this small dot-on-the-map community than it is to that time when dusk becomes daylight in a working class town. It's about that moment that exists in a person's awareness, in the midst of all the lists of things to do and worry about, that instant when the brain is awakened to sunlight breaking through early clouds. It only lasts a second before being washed away by more lists and worry and the detritus of life. I think about this stuff when I paint. It's important to share, somehow.

In other news, I just got the nicest Christmas gift ever. Twice.

A very nice lady said to me the other day: "Since I've gotten to know you, my view of the world has changed. I see so much more color than I ever have. I see shapes and textures I've never noticed. Now, when I see a field of grass, I see so much more!"

And just this morning, on our daily constitutional, Handsome Husband said very nearly the same thing. "I enjoy our walks so much more than I used to", he said. "You've helped me notice things I would have overlooked before."

As an artist, it's my goal to touch another with my view of the world.

To actually hear that I have, in some small way, done that is, well, just really nice.

I understand that my kind of art will not cure cancer, nor will it stop people from fighting. The globe will warm - or not, and there'll be no magic cure for reality. That's okay.

If my small accounting of a flash of sunlight on a dusty grain elevator early in the morning can
snap your overloaded brain out of it's daily grind and give you pause to be refreshed, that'd be lovely.

It's an honor to know that what I create can give someone a sense of peace.

It's delightful to know that what I paint can give somebody a reason to step outside of their oh-so busy life and see the world in a fresh way.

Bring on the holidays, I'm ready. The nicest gifts ever have already been delivered.