Skip to main content

More Thoughts On Critique: Your Comments

Toronto Workshop 2012


 There were many thoughtful comments to the last blog post on the Art of Critique: A Conversation with my friend Rebecca Crowell.  Several people wondered about the importance of putting words on paintings and if doing so might distract from insights that cannot be captured with words. One friend wrote today to ask me if there were guidelines to exploring painting in an non-verbal way.  These are great questions.

Non-verbal communication is what painting is all about.
I fully understand about the difficulty of putting words onto a painting, and the way that they limit.  It must be like translating poetry from one language to another.  Something is lost in the translation.

 Here are a few non-verbal guidelines I've developed when looking at my own work.  I wouldn't necessarily use all of these when I look at someone else's work.  They are just places where I begin.

-First, I feel the piece. How does it make me feel?  Calm?  Happy?  Joyful? Agitated? You don't have to put words on it. What's the energy like, is it really busy or soft and quiet. Am I relaxed and calm when I view the painting?  What am I aiming for?  Am I aiming to make a piece that is calm?

-Also, I LISTEN to the piece. Often my paintings seem to make a sound, a sort of music or a  swelling note.  I remember an earlier series of paintings made a deep chanting sound.  My new paintings make a much higher swelling sound like a violins playing together in an orchestra.  Are the paintings noisy or quiet.  Are they yelling, or are they speaking softly.  And what is it I am intending them to do.   Am I aiming for them to yell? Am I aiming to make music?

-I often put a painting in a place where I'll walk by it regularly so I can see how I live with it.  Is it growing on me? Am I continuing to learn new things about it?  A really beautiful but shallow painting is not what I'm after.  I want something that is even deeper than I meant it to be.  Does it live on it's own, separate from me? 

-Another way of looking at a painting is to pay attention to where my eyes travel as I look at the work.  Do my eyes just keep moving around and around and around, never stopping to rest?  That could mean that I'm looking for a resting place that isn't there.  Should I revise the painting then to make a resting place?   Sometimes my eyes go back and back and back to a certain spot, not resting, but in an agitated fashion.  What that usually tells me is that there's something wrong with that particular place...maybe the colour is too bright, maybe that place can be deleted.  I might hold my thumb up near my eyes as I stand back and look at the work, covering the difficult area.  How does it look if I delete that area?  

-Another thing I aim for in my painting is movement.  You could call it energy I guess too.  I want the viewer to feel it bending and flowing, back and forth, in and out, as though it were alive and you could hear the music it makes. 
Silence Red 10   36 x 60" Oil/cold wax on panel © 2013 Janice Mason Steeves
But let's talk about words now. To give feedback to another artist requires using words, no matter how inadequate they are. Trying to use words to give feedback or to discuss a painting, can encourage us to look longer, more carefully, and perhaps feel the painting in another way. It also gives us the language to communicate.  I'll talk more about that in my next blog post and address these thoughts in my upcoming studio workshop in April and at Cullowhee Mountain Arts in June.

Please feel free to comment on this post.  I love hearing your thoughts and questions.  They help me go deeper into my own ideas.

I


Labels:

Comments

  1. Judy WiseJanuary 20, 2013 at 3:31 PM

    I too think of music in relation to my own work. I like repeating riffs and a lyrical lightness. Sometimes. I've been thinking about how they are arrangements of things but of course you want to sum to be greater than the parts. I am only beginning to understand and be able to talk about what I do instinctively. Part of me doesn't want to do that at all and while I regret not having to defend my work in a Master's thesis, I know it would have been (probably) good for me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Janice Mason SteevesJanuary 21, 2013 at 9:45 AM

      HI Judy,

      Thanks for your comment. I think that it's difficult putting words on intuitive things too. But we can learn to do this in a relatively painless way. Everyone associates critique with pain....honestly, my workshops are very gentle and kind.

      Delete
  2. Chris BrownJanuary 21, 2013 at 8:46 AM

    This is so helpful! I never thought of listening to a painting before but I will now. Thanks for opening up these new ways to appreciate art.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Janice Mason SteevesJanuary 21, 2013 at 9:47 AM

      Hey thanks Chris,
      I will love to know if you can hear your work, and also, what you hear! Thanks for taking time to comment.

      Delete
  3. Michelle de VilliersJanuary 21, 2013 at 9:32 AM

    Nice post, Janice. I think every painting speak differently to every viewer. It is interesting to compare what other people hear and see. Sometimes the painting says something completely different on another day!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Janice Mason SteevesJanuary 21, 2013 at 9:48 AM

      Hi Michelle,

      Thanks for responding here. I love that idea of the painting saying something completely different on other days. I guess it would be interesting too to know if the series of paintings actually makes music together...or is it a cacophony? Ha!

      Delete
  4. Pat McCulloughJanuary 21, 2013 at 11:58 AM

    Jan, I love these ideas. Especially the idea of a painting making sound. Even seeing your work only on a computer screen - I can hear the sounds they make. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Janice Mason SteevesJanuary 21, 2013 at 2:54 PM

    Hi Pat,

    Good to hear from you. Wow, that's amazing you can hear them too! I've never asked anyone that before. Do you hear your own? What sound do they make if you do?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meet the Owners of a Scottish Castle

Anne Tristine Nguyen, Ali Orr Ewing, their children, Ava, Atticus and  their dog, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dunskey Estate, Portpatrick, Scotland Anne Tristine Nguyen and her husband, Alistair Orr Ewing are the owners of Dunskey Estate near Portpatrick, Scotland where I will teach a painting workshop in September. Dunskey is a splendid Edwardian castle on 2000 acres of ocean-front land with miles of walking trails. As well as daily workshop sessions in the studio on the top floor of the castle, our small group of artists will enjoy breathtaking hikes, superb accommodation and fabulous meals.  Not having met owners of a castle before, I asked Anne if I could interview her to hear a little of their background story and that of the castle. Can you tell me a little of your personal story and that of your husband, Alistair Orr Ewing? Anne emigrated to America when she was ten years old, but it was at an art gallery in Saigon, her birthplace, where s...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Silence in Art

Gathering Light 60x60"  Oil on canvas © 2014 Janice Mason Steeves  Michael David Rosenberg, the musician known as Passenger, sings, "See all I need is a whisper in a world that only shouts." In the workshops I teach, I find that one of the most common problems with paintings is that they shout. Most have too much going on: too many small shapes, too much texture, extremes of colour, too many lines, too much, too much. One thing I say most often as I walk around the classroom working with students individually, is 'make bigger shapes'.  But not only bigger shapes. Quiet shapes.  Where can your eye go and rest in the painting? That isn't a consideration in much of contemporary painting or much of contemporary life.  Ours is a noisy world both visually and auditorily.  Ours is a world that shouts.  People are afraid of silence. I wrote a blog post  3 years ago about planning a retreat in my own home, where I shut off the computer ...
1 comment
Read more

Liminal Time

 The word liminal comes from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. an in-between place, a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing. Dawn and dusk are considered liminal places. Crepuscular animals, like foxes and coyotes are most active at this time of day, a time that is considered a magical time in Celtic spirituality and to Indigenous people which is perhaps the origin of their designation as tricksters.   As I write this, the northern hemisphere has just passed the vernal equinox, where day and night are of equal length.We are in a liminal space between winter and spring right now, unsure if we will have one more storm or snowfall before spring finally settles in. We're also in a liminal place as we live through this pandemic with the  anxiety and discomfort of not  knowing. A  time of great transition for the entire world, wondering what we've learned from this and what lessons we'll carry forward.     Author and Fr...
Post a Comment
Read more