Artists Painting the Ordinary

My brother George sent me a link to the painting up above. It is called "Don Valley on a Gray Day" and it is by the artist William Kurelek. The painting is at the Art Gallery of Ontario and dates to 1972. George was just up in Toronto admiring the picture in person.

George and I share certain views on art and we both admire this picture no end.

There is a hidden crucifix in this picture. Kurelek was a Catholic convert and that had something to do with that. However that is a matter for another day. For now, what George and I admire about the painting is that Kurelek took a view no one would think is anything special, and depicted it so creatively and realistically.

I think this guy was influenced by Andrew Wyeth. A while ago I sent George and interview I found on YouTube with Andrew Wyeth. I will have to find it again and link to it. In that interview, Wyeth talked about how he loved dull landscapes with nothing in them. He didn't use the word dull but he meant that, kind of static. He found them interesting. I cracked up when Wyeth said about his famous painting "Christina's World," that sometimes he thought it would have been better without Christina in it. That is something I will never forget!

It's interesting to me how all these guys, the Don Valley painter and Andrew Wyeth and Charles Burchfield too, they worked with crazy uninteresting scenes that conventional artists would not ever have noticed or thought about painting. I identify with that way of thinking. I was thinking that way naturally when I began drawing things around Buffalo several years ago. Someone told me that my pictures reminded them of Burchfield, so I started researching Burchfield, and I loved learning that he thought that way. Burchfield believed that an artist did not have to live in Paris or Venice to create great art. What he saw before him in West Seneca was all he needed.

These artists knew you could do something interesting with anything. There was one artist, maybe it was John Singer Sargent, used to carry a chair and just set it down anywhere and start drawing. 

Sargent did a lot of paintings of great European scenes so I am not sure he was the one who did that. I will have to do some Googling. However he did leave advice I agree with and that reflects what we are talking about.

"You can't do sketches enough," he said. "Sketch everything."

He added: ".... and keep your curiosity fresh." However I prefer my abbreviated version. 

"Sketch everything."

Even the Don Valley Parkway!

Martha, Mary, and online Mass

Today being Sunday I got the trusty tablet and I heard Mass from St. John Cantius in Chicago. Remember, that was the church I went to that time where they gave me a holy card in the confessional.

I tuned in to this Mass last week and I liked it. It is live at 9:30 Chicago time, 8:30 Buffalo time. It is a Low Mass. There is a High Mass but it is something like noon, and that gives other things time to get in the way. One of these Sundays I will try the High Mass but today was not that day.

Instead I parked myself at the dining room table with the tablet. The Wi-Fi is good in there.

Everyone tells you to watch Mass online but it is easier said than done. Do you stand when you are supposed to? Do you kneel? How do you behave? I have decided the best thing to do is sit with my missal and I follow along. St. John Cantius is a huge and gorgeous church, rather like our dear departed St. Gerard's. I found myself just enjoying the pleasure of it all. It is actually a luxury to be able to follow along so carefully. At our usual in-person Mass I am so distracted by coffee hour and choir it is hard to think.

After all these years of being a Martha...

... I am turning into a Mary!

Mary is the one in the center of the picture at the top of this post. With her prayer book before her, like me.  I love the details and humor in the picture. The elaborate buffet in the foreground. The people eating in the other room. The birdcage! Of course there is a birdcage!

It's sweet how the artist captures St. Martha complaining about doing all the work and St. Mary just sitting there piously, having chosen the better portion. I always did have sympathy with Martha. Someone has to do the work. Also you have to remember that Martha is a great saint, as is Mary, and there is a high place in heaven for them both.

I did a little digging and the artist is a Renaissance German master, Georg Friedrich Stettner. I should have guessed German. We Germans, we love our food. And everyone in the picture looks German. I mean look at Mary, with her blond hair. I love the palette, the muted tones contrasting with that beautiful rich red. Nice work, Herr Stettner! Terrific job.

Back to my Low Mass. I am sitting there and Howard comes in to feed Jeoffry.

"Don't pay any attention to me," he said, getting on with his work.

So it was funny, all there was, was this silence. A Low Mass is quiet! There was nothing but silence and whispering and occasionally the tinkling of a bell. Once in a while a floorboard groaned.

Howard said, "I like the sound of this."

I did, too!

I can tell you what the Gospel was about. Go on, ask me. I know what the Secret Prayer was. I knew that it was the Fourth Sunday of Easter, alleluia, alleluia.

I miss being at actual Mass, that goes without saying. The situation can make me terribly uneasy when I think about it because I have not seen the like in my lifetime and I pray that when this is all over I never shall again.

But you cannot and should not ignore the blessings that are there!

Charles Burchfield and the Cheerios plant

I love industry. I do not know why this is.

I love observing and taking pictures of factories and such!

Once when I worked at the Niagara Gazette in Niagara Falls, I went to an art exhibit that was called "Smoke." The person took pictures of smokestacks and the smoke coming out of them, smokestacks that belonged to big plants. They were huge photos, beautifully framed.

Looking back now I am sure he or she aimed to make some kind of statement. I do seem to remember there was something, about pollution. But the message was lost on me. I am standing there staring, thinking: These pictures are beautiful! I want to do that!

So I packed up my Instamatic and the next day on the way to work I detoured down Buffalo Avenue so I could look at all the factories and take pictures.

I wish I knew where those pictures are now! But I do not. So I am sharing a picture I took a week or so ago, of a landscape including the Cheerios plant in downtown Buffalo, near where I work.

I used the above picture as my Facebook cover photo. Everyone was really nice with their kind words. One friend said it looked, ahem, like the work of Charles Burchfield. After that I was walking around with this big ego, I can tell you that.

And today I got a great surprise.

My friend Barry is turning my photo into a painting!

I believe Barry works in oils. He already posted a picture on Facebook of my photo roughed out.

I was thrilled. I asked him if he could post pictures of the painting's progress. It would be like "Sunday in the Park With George," where you see a painting coming to life!

Being into watercolors I would like to try my hand at my photo. Maybe some day. Right now I am too busy with Leonard Pennario, plus I think I should try easier stuff first, like wildflowers or a cup of coffee or something. The other day I painted my oatmeal. That is more my speed.

I will let Barry do the heavy lifting.

And I promise to post his progress!