I love painting. It’s a very absorbing activity.
I was trained in Spain and in Northern California many years ago by a spanish master named Miguel Arguello, who changed my life by teaching me this, and other very useful things.
I studied intensively with him for about three years when I was at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and also in Galicia, Spain. I found it very, very challenging, but I did persevere, and to this day I know what I’m doing with oils and charcoal, thanks to my dear friend Miguel.
Today, I paint very infrequently, but I can get a lot done very quickly when I need to. I’m addressing this subject today because I’m on the eve of completing a commission, and I have been enjoying the process very much.
I’ve also noticed that I have retained my ability and improved as a painter, even though I haven’t painted very much for years and years.
Like a lot of things, painting doesn’t really involve luck. I always try and pull in some luck, but the reality is, you have to know what you are doing; the luck sometimes will show up, but it generally isn’t anything to hang your hat on. You have to know the rules and understand the materials.
That’s what was so rough when I was in Spain, trying to learn how to paint. That, and actually seeing what was in front of me.
The funny thing is, painting is one of those things that even I wonder why anyone does it anymore.
The art of painting would obviously have never gone anywhere if the camera had been invented about five hundred years ago. Most of our modern image making now rightfully utilizes a camera, and painting has never been less necessary to modern society. Still, it holds a deathless fascination.
I told a good friend of mine that I was working on a painting, and I could hear the relief and contentment in his voice when he acknowledged me. I know what that feels like, when someone tells me, for instance, that they spent the day doing something artistic, for its own sake. You’re happy they are doing that.
I think that the very thought that somehow there is space and time to work on something as out of step with modern culture as an oil painting, just because it is fun or interesting to do, is one that gives people relief.
The action of painting, for me anyway, is rather rough on the body, since one has to stand for hours, move very little, keep the palette arm immobile and the attention nailed to the canvas a few feet a way for hours at a time. Sometimes my arm or wrist is asleep from the stiffness, or hurts like hell when I notice it. But I seldom do notice it, or for that matter, notice the passage of time.
The fastest way I can think of to make time whiz by like in an Olympic swim meet is to pick up a pencil and paper, or a palette and some brushes. Six hours go by in the blink of an eye. It’s very dramatic.
There is a secret benefit to the artist, to the activity of painting.
The secret benefit of painting is not much spoken of, and I only within the last ten years really noticed it, and it is this: when one has been painting for a few hours and then stops and looks around his environment, the colors of the world absolutely SING. Even dreary things have a hyper-real, vivid quality that they normally lack.
Everything and everybody gets really beautiful.
Why is that? My teacher Miguel smiled in agreement when I told him about it a few years ago. He might have painted mainly for that reason alone. One thing I never completely grasped from my studies with Miguel was why he did it, and devoted so much time to it. It wasn’t the money or the fame. It wasn’t even to have an effect on a viewer. Maybe it was to see the beauty in the world and enjoy it for its own sake.
I’m not sure why the act of painting produces this heightened perception. Dali said once, “Dali doesn’t take drugs; Dali IS the drug.”
Perhaps one, in studying and painting from reality, begins to grant more beauty to reality. As you see something in front of you, you have to “Be” it, to create it. You get into “Being” lots of objects, the fall of light, the textures and colors of the world. Then you stop painting, but you don’t stop granting life to what is in front of you.
After I clean my brushes at the end of a day of painting, I look around, and all the hard work I have done, (which might not even look very impressive on the canvas) results in a world that to me appears bright, orderly, colorful and full of life.
I enjoy painting. It may well be an obsolete practice, and paintings may well be a curiosity only to the public at large, without real purpose except to art dealers and museum curators, but something about a painting, and the experience of painting, is worth more than the finished piece. And it’s nice to know that that has value to the people around one, who are just happy to know that somewhere, someone has time and reason and opportunity to paint.
Bayback Wedding by Jim Meskimen
Jim…very well said. I think it does heighten your awareness of your environment and in order to communicate the object or person you must experience it, duplicate it…be it. XOX Vicky
Wonderful! You hit the nail right on the head. I have a similar experience when I write. It’s really such a lovely experience, I wish more people would participate. Thanks, Jim!
Hey Jim,that was very cool to read.
My father was a painter, abstracts and portraits,and my mother a sculptor.
I remember as a kid it was always odd to answer the question what does your father do? “He’s an artist”
So I really enjoy when I see someone else who actually paint pictures in oil.
I love the feeling of having original artwork in your house.So many people nowadays say
“Oh I love art”
And then they buy and frame a poster? When there is so much original art work available.So it makes me feel good to see someone in this day still putting paint to canvas to create something aesthetic.
CB
Jim, this is so heartfelt. I feel the same way when I am out in the wilderness (or my backyard) with my camera. I find beauty in the most unexpected places. The world surprises, and amazes, me every day.
Here’s to more painting and more commissions! 🙂
This is an inspiration to anyone. I had to send it to my husband. He’s an excellent writer/poet and musician, but never seems to feel those things have enough importance to spend the time to create as he’d like. Let’s see if you can inspire him… Here’s to more creating!
Beautiful Jim. Just beautiful.
Tait
Jim,
I think it is wonderful that you paint. My mother was an art major in college and she took me to
LACMA many times when I was a child for classes and just for fun projects, like copying Egyptian hieroglyphs when I was six (my idea and my obsession at the time).
If I had the time, the space, and the budget, I think I would try to splosh around some quantities of paint… inspired by Pollock, Kandinsky, Klees, Rauschenberg, Rothko, etc. I see so much potential for myself to create beauty and art… which I would love to do.
Thank you for reminding me of the beauty of creation… Now that my knees are failing me, perhaps I should substitute painting lessons for the fencing lessons I have been taking for twenty years… The art of fencing, so similar to painting the canvas of the human body, in some ways, in a pointillistic sense, seems like a good preface to the pursuit of such right-brained delights…
Someday!
P.S. Is Professor Jackdaws still giving lessons?
You communicated that so perfectly. My mrs. has been studying painting for a couple years now. The paintings are wonderful to look at. More so than a photo. A photo is usually something that, in reality, exists somewhere. But a painting is something else.
I recently saw Professor Knestor Jackdaws give a lecture on a renaissance piece entitled “More Art” which was simply marvelous!! He made mention of many of the same points you refer to here. I worked for a time for an artist on the juried art fair circuit and it was a just phenomenal experience to learn why people love art. And the original-works-only shows were by far the Best!