Tag: Matisse

2025 Fare Thee Well

Finished my latest painting “Hat”. It is a 5×7 on French Cotton paper. I tried a few new things with this one, portraying the skin in a slightly different manner than I normally do.

There is a sort of “game” on social media where one says “I will die on this hill” and it’s something small (that is the bit) but which one feels strongly about, or that drives one crazy when done a different way.

It is supposed to be whimsical but it is one of many ingredients in the current unpleasant gumbo North America finds itself mired in. While reading of the different little things people have such strong opinions on can be funny, it has also become a sort of behavioral template, a permission to rage and scream. Not everything needs to become a culture war issue nor devolve into people you do not know swearing at you or just injecting negativity into a post.

A modest proposal: Let us make 2026 a better year, even for the jerks, since to paraphrase Marcus Aurelias they are always going to be around regardless.

It is very easy to do, suck the air out of all the negative conversations & postings on places such as Twitter. You are not going to change anyone’s mind, nor are you going to prove them wrong since it shan’t be acknowledge by them. Even a person 100% in the right, yelling at someone in the wrong is only contributing to the din.

Strongly do i believe at least half the trolls if not engaged will sort of drop away. Also there is definitely a good percentage of politicians and in general creeps who do and say horrible things and when citizens and the news discuss it while showing clips of what they said, their tweets and posts et al it only keeps the things alive while also spreading its visibility.

When the Nazis were on the verge of occupying Paris, many different people wanted to get Matisse out and to a country where he would be safe. He refused to go. His view was that if he and others like him left then what were people fighting for? What would France then be without its culture?

Culture is important, it reminds one that there are things bigger and greater than the “I”. It links us all together. Even though it is comprised of different things for each of us, we all dream, love and hope. Culture is the thing in which we put all these emotions and from which we also take inspiration.

History is littered with terrible moments and culture endures during, often it shines after. Now more than ever before it is easy for one to explore new music, art and literature via online. Do not write off an unfamiliar thing as “Not my thing” without giving it a try. This is a freedom which can lead to something that adds to you, who you are what you are about.

Don’t bother telling a fool they are acting foolish, don’t let a troll make your blood pressure rise, instead use the time to check out some new things. Like Matisse, I will stay here, brush in hand.

Happy & Healthy New years to all

Photos by me emblematic of my ’25

2025:

by Wayne Wolfson

Frisky Koi

I am deep into working on my novella. I have been painting and drawing only as I can not split my concentration to the degree that my Cinefield® requires.

Excitingly, in a little under a week I will find myself on the road again for a short trip to collect raw materials (photos) for my next Cinefield® work.

Here are recently done drawings. They are all executed quickly. A methodology I heard about via a book on Matisse which has served me well:

Do drawings as fast but accurately as possible. If one can capture the essence of a thing or spirit of a person via quick execution, then it becomes easier when going slowly drawing/painting.

On a personal level I also have learned to work fast as I never want to be lumped in with the “writers” and “artists” one sees in Starbucks et al, where it is more a performative thing than actually doing work. Yes, yes we see you, you are writing. Ok settle down Tarantino….

Most of my drawing and Lyra pieces are done in Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches

Wishing all a Happy Holidays!

by Wayne Wolfson

Dear Diary

If you look at some paintings & drawings by both Matisse and Picasso, they are child like. This is not a pejorative term though. When Matisse painted his wife reclining on couch, you knew you were seeing a woman in kimono on couch but one would never study anatomy via this type of piece, it was not (hyper) realism.

Emotion ruled out over technique.

Picasso would occasionally lay on the floor and paint with his children. There is a purity in when a child does art, they do not get hung up on rules and restrictions. He wanted to capture a spark from this.

Both men had said something along the lines of an artist should create with the seriousness of a child at play.

I had read some biographies where burgeoning painters at young ages were given blocks of cheap paper to let loose on. This was a sort of test by parents, the paper was inexpensive so if the child gave up, as children sometimes do with things which they show initial enthusiasm for, it would be no big deal.

Impulsively, while restocking needed art supplies, I bought myself a block of cheap newsprint paper.

I am currently working on my next short story/essay collection and a small painting.

A for fun project, I decided to do a page or two every day in this block, but each piece had to be loose. It’s just daily doodles 9×12 newsprint paper. I am earnest in this, like a child.

by Wayne Wolfson

Not Cool

I read a lot. I mix it up though, not sticking merely to one type of thing. One genre that I like to read is biographies on artists and/or artistic eras and movements. It has become much easier to appear in print, especially if one has a hook such as “Secret Lives of …”, so I highly recommend reading up on whether a work of non fiction is accurate or not beforehand.

Having read all the better biographies on the impressionists it spurred me on to seeing their work in person. Their works retains an emotional power, sometimes more than that of a few of the modern masters who came after them. Even with this retention of power though, their work has lost its “dangerous” aspect. Unless well versed with their era, looking now at a Monet or Renoir one would never suspect how they had upset and scandalized Parisian culture.

Matisse who proceeded them had similar problems. After a small showing of some of his works, newspapers said that the colorful “blobs” were germs and that viewers risked catching something by viewing them.  This taunt would even be repeated while he was within earshot in the streets. Looking at his works now with their radiant joy and color, it’s difficult to imagine that they had at  one point been considered scandalous.

All of this underscored what I had already known, I would rather put my energy & attention towards creating as I want, rather than trying to be “cool” or cutting edge. Today’s “dangerous” (which seems to go hand in hand w/ “cool”) work is destined to not necessarily become unappreciated but most likely made safer by whatever generationally comes down the line.

A then radical innovation I cribbed from the  Impressionists which many painters I admire continued with  is the  painting objects & people from my every day life. I do not look for the drama but rather the real and let the truth supply the emotion.

I have an ongoing Series titled “A Valentine of Sorts”.  All the pieces are 5.5×8.5 and compositionally, are often a small section of a larger scene (i.e just my hand instead of my entire body, just a glass instead of an entire tablescape). Their commonality is in being things from my every day life, observed and then captured.

“Her First Docs”  Watercolor & Paper 5.5×8.5

20200211_070148

by Wayne Wolfson