Emblems Of Love

Usually, when I visit my parents in Santa Barbara, California, I also set up my easel and make a painting in their yard. They have cultivated a garden and take care of their corner lot, with its giant pine trees, orange and lemon trees, and tall hedge that guards the perimeter of the property. The last time I spoke with my mother and talked about her beloved rose plants, she said, “Oh yes, they are beginning to bloom. You know Steven, I have eighty rose bushes and they each have at least ten flowers . . . that is 800 flowers!” 

   

I know the yard well—and all the varieties of color and scent of her roses. She has a special relationship with the plant life around her, and holds conversations with the growing things that exist in her surroundings. 

Although my parents are advanced in age and becoming frail, they take deep satisfaction in their surroundings. The bird feeder outside the dining room window is replenished, a man comes regularly to mow the lawn and trim the hedges, and my mother prays every day in thanks for the elements and nature around her.

I know that the jasmine outside their backdoor is now finishing its bloom. Its unmistakable fragrance is etched in my memory.

Hopefully, I can arrive there again in the next few months . . . and make another painting. I always call it “Mother's Backyard” and after I bring it back to Santa Fe, it always sells to someone who finds emblems of love within it.

"Mother's Backyard"   oil on linen,   16 x 20 inches

Boldness, Drama and Controversy

Garry Winogrand, Monkeys

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as I walked through a special exhibit of the photographs of Garry Winogrand (14 January 1928, New York City – 19 March 1984, Tijuana, Mexico), I suddenly realized that if the same photos were in my gallery, most of them would go unsold. I knew that they were curiosities and while intriguing to see, people would not buy them. 

Garry Winogrand, Untitled 

My most powerful and original work is the least likely to be bought. 

People enjoy experiencing boldness, drama and controversy in museums, but not in their homes. Only serious art connoisseurs, those who have art running in their veins, understand that great art involves risk taking, and want to be part of it. These collectors do not want to be associated with the mundane, but instead, what is cutting-edge, and advanced. And this is what arrives in museums.

Steven Boone, Paranoia

Impatient Friend

The sight of my sturdy green suitcase, waiting to be filled, resting by my front door, suddenly filled me with gladness. It had been in storage too long and now was like an impatient friend, beckoning to adventure. Just the sight of it reminded me of Paris and Rome, Nairobi, Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago and Auckland, and many places in between. A thrill passed through me. 

 

This trip is not so exotic, but more of a pilgrimage. After my oldest daughter Naomi died in 1999, for many years I would return to San Francisco in the spring to remember her and the life we lived there during the four months prior to her death. Those days were powerful, as we were constant partners, blazing through the days, burning the candle at both ends. Life seemed magnified by death—and so it is when I revisit places we visited during our last months together before she hastened on ahead of me into the next world.

The hotel I stay at in San Francisco, The Seal Rock Inn, is where Naomi and I lived. It is across the street from Sutro Park, where you can stand and see the Golden Gate Bridge. The first year, when I returned alone, a small shrine had been set up in my room as a gift by Cecilia, the manager of the front desk. The staff remembered Naomi. The Seal Rock is a family owned hotel with homespun values, and as I returned year after year, I counted on seeing Kate, an old woman who cleaned rooms. She was slow, but valued and we always had conversations. She read my book, A Heart Traced In Sand, about Naomi and our journey together. The last time I visited, Kate was 70 years old and still rode the bus to work and back home. That was four or five years ago, and now, I wonder, will she be there?

Best of May Posts

Here are some selections from six years of postings from the month of May :

Visual Vocabulary

May 06, 2012

Fluid In THE DREAM

May 22, 2011

 Ghosts, Beauty, And Suicide

  May 30, 2010

You Smell Good

May 02, 2009

 Intellect And Mystery

 May 11, 2008

 Shifting Sands Of Time

May 04, 2007

 

The Unknown

Oil on linen, 17 x 21 inches

To throw oneself into an activity with passion and abandon, and then lose the comfort of what has always been safe and known . . . this is the path of artistic discovery. I imagine Michelangelo, (1475-1564) confronting an immense slab of white marble, and wondering what is waiting for his hands to bring forth. No doubt he felt a bit of fear to embark on such a grand task as to chisel a sculpture such as the masterpiece David. What did Christopher Columbus, (1451-1506) feel when he looked out to the ocean's horizon and wonder what distant land waited for discovery? The immensity of the sea is quite capable of swallowing everything puny in its path. More recently, in art annals, is the story of Jackson Pollack, (1912-1956) who abandoned painting recognizable figures and instead hurled fluid color in all directions across his canvases. He famously said, "When I am in a painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well."

There have been many great artists who have come face to face with the unknown and been challenged to enter the ring, rather than stand to the sidelines. Perhaps this was a reason Pablo Picasso, (1881-1973) loved going to bullfights. When the matador enters the ring with the bull, the outcome is not known . . . certainly either the animal or the man will die. The man depends on his talent to guide him and gain the adulation of the crowd.

Recently, I have begun experimenting painting with three colors only: red, black and white.

Essential Substance Of Life

Self-portrait, taken in Montevideo, Uruguay

Matrix is a word that I arrive at often when thinking of my creative process. During my one-year sojourn around the world, I intended to disappear into the matrix, and from there, let my creative energies flow. What does it mean? For me, matrix describes the essential substance of life from which everything is born. It is always in flux, receiving the dying forms and casting forth the newborn upon the shores of existence.

The perfect place from which to create is one of boundlessness. A musician is in the flow and notes seem to come from out of nowhere. A painter is fluidly creating his painting and his marks sometimes are surprising . . . he has gone outside his boundaries and is in the realm of discovery.

Creation is timeless, and when an artist is creating he often is not aware of the passage of the moments. He begins, and when he looks up again, is finished, and then wonders, where did the time go?

Self-portrait, Paris, France

Art Collectors

The couple strolled through The Steven Boone Gallery front door like a spring breeze blowing in the April air. They checked to see if the little painting they had seen the day before was still hanging. Yes, and then the gentleman looked at me to say, “We want this, and will you sell it without the tax?” They went on to mention that they had a big painting of mine already. I replied, “Since you are collectors, I will be happy to pay the tax myself.” 

I am not usually in the gallery, so I am pleased to have met this couple . . . I enjoy having face-to-face experiences with collectors of my artwork.

The painting they bought is one I made outdoors in the autumn of a little country chapel in the high plains of New Mexico. (See Gushing Waters). They spoke of their extensive art collection and I remarked how wonderful it must be to visit their home, and what a delight for their friends. 

These days, as the temperatures warm and the air is balmy, we can leave the front door open so that people on the street can simply walk inside as they tour Canyon Road. Artwork hangs on the wall outside as an enticement, and the folks are like bee's attracted to flowers.

Best Posts of April

Random Act Of Kindness

April 13, 2007

 

Inspiration To Fly

April 18, 2008

Chicago

April 26, 2009

Pleasurable Dance of the Senses

April 10, 2010

Delirium

April 24, 2011

Spring Fragrance

April 22, 2012

No Bitterness

Naomi Boone, age 18

"I love my body, it has been so good to me." These were among the last words my daughter Naomi Boone spoke as she died at age nineteen. What is remarkable about Naomi's exclamation is that it came after a grueling two year battle with cancer.

I had been an intimate witness to her suffering. As soon as Naomi entered high-school she immersed herself into meaningful activity—joining the German club, the Ski club, and in sports running track and field and cross-country. When her cancer was diagnosed, she had been painfully lifting her leg into her car to drive to school. The verdict was grim for her survival.

The next two years were full of pain, exhilaration, uplifting victories and dreadful defeats. Naomi had expressed that she did not want to die a slow, painful death, but this is what fate had in store for her. In the end, she was forcing herself to eat, she could not walk, and was attached to an oxygen tank. Her lungs were full of disease, so that she suffocated to death. How was it then, that her final words were, "I love my body, it has been so good to me."

Naomi formed a special relationship with her mortal form. She knew that her body was in a life and death struggle, and she developed a tremendous compassion for it. She cheered it on, begging and supplicating, caressing and loving it. She saw her terrible conflict with cancer as an epic spiritual battle of light and dark, and she firmly planted herself on the side of light. As the disease gained the upper hand, and the life force she loved so dearly could not save her crippled form, she remained loyal and praised her troops for such a brave fight against insurmountable odds. Not a trace of bitterness.

When I meet tests, and get frustrated, I think of Naomi and her walk through the "valley of the shadow of death."


23rd Psalm, The Book of David

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 
 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 
 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 
 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 
 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 
 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
                                                         ~~~~~~

Groundbreaking

Paul Cezanne, (French: January 19, 1839 - October 22, 1906)

Pablo Picasso, (Spanish:  25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)

In the pursuit of artistic creativity, it often occurs that an artist is influenced by his peers, and by art history. Even when someone does something radical and new, essentially, a groundwork has been laid by others that allows this new breakthrough to occur. For instance, Picasso was a seminal figure in art in the twentieth century, and when his cubist paintings emerged, they shattered the barriers for art. And yet, these paintings did not appear in a vacuum, for Picasso had been a great admirer of Paul Cezanne, who years earlier had been taking impressionist painting into new territory with his careful constructing of picture planes using basic shapes of cones, rectangles and squares.

Claude Monet, (French: 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926)

The crucial quality of groundbreaking artists, is their fearless pursuit of new ways of seeing, and their willingness to take risk and break from the crowd. Another great innovator of the twentieth century was Georges Seurat, who developed his signature style of painting, called pointillism, using uniform sized dots of color to make a depiction from nature. Yet, Seurat was keenly aware of the work of the impressionists, who had broken with traditional painting styles when they went from depicting stories in their paintings, into painting light itself.

Georges Pierre Seurat, (French: 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891)

Piet Mondrian, (Dutch, March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944)

Steven Boone, (American: 13 May 1952 - present.)

The Dutchman Piet Mondrian, migrated to Paris during the time Paris was the art capital of the world, when Picasso and a slew of other famous artists were there. Mondrian developed a highly refined abstract style of his own, which broke the picture plane down into a grid of horizontal and vertical bisecting lines, using some of the resulting  shapes to carefully be filled with primary colors. Many years later, I hearkened back to Mondrian in my street photography, when I captured images that resembled Mondrian's abstracts, using a lens instead of brush and paint.

Wanderlust

A bedouin on his camel. at the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller (American, December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980)

In some profound ways, I have not adjusted to the ending of my year of travel, in 2008. Then, I was single, unencumbered by material things, free to move in any direction, was full of wanderlust, and leisurely moved across the face of the earth, living in exotic and fascinating places, making new friends and acquaintances. Since I arrived back in the USA, I have not felt the urge to own a home or settle down in any fundamental way, even though I have married. My lovely wife owns a home and I also rent a separate home, studio, and art gallery—but I am not attached to any of these places. Since 2008, I have been to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and lastly, with my wife, Morocco. Now, I wonder if my dancing vagabond days are over for me.

During the early days of my traveling, I carried two suitcases—one for clothing, laptop, camera and supplies, and one for my painting gear, i.e. paints and easel, canvas and brushes. I made paintings along the way, occasionally sending them back to my assistant in the US and my gallery. Midway through the journey, I sent the cumbersome painting suitcase home, since I had evolved into a passionate street photographer. Each day, camera in hand, I would saunter forth to find the unexpected and seek to capture ephemeral moments of sublimity.

A field of poppies amid olive trees, in the Puglia region of Italy

The task of landscape painting is different than photography. To paint, a subject must be found, and then the easel set up and as the day goes by and the sun moves across the sky, I stand in one spot, studying and recording until a finished work is completed. For example, see: Flux Of The Street.
Photography is simply having the camera at hand, with a heightened sense of awareness, ready to click the shutter at an opportune time . . . and then go forth again for more. For example, see: Ducking.

Chicken seller in a market in Hoi An, Vietnam

Generally, paintings are far more valuable on the market, since they are made entirely by the artist’s hand are unique, whereas photos become prints that are massed produced.

 “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark (born 31 January 1893 in Paris, France; died 9 May 1993 in Asolo, Italy)