I have a confession to make: sometimes I do a painting that brings up so much emotion for me I feel like crying. This morning it was with a five foot by seven foot, three-panel painting I’ve been working on for at least a year. Off and on, of course, and always thinking it was finished before I went at it again.
If I can remember correctly, at first it was a pale yellow, then a peachy yellow, then a bright yellow. It never felt quite right even though it was a good painting. I kept seeing red when I looked at it (and I don’t mean anger). So last week I went into it with rose madder, leaving a small portion of the first panel yellow. The yellow under the red gave it a glow that was interesting. It looked good, but not good enough. Once away from the painting, I “saw” that the yellow part needed to be black. And the red, more red. So that’s what happened this morning.
If my emotions are trustworthy at this point, finally it works. I’ll leave it as it is and have a photo soon.
My friend Suzanne and her dog, Lucky, came out today for a swim. As we sat in the sun on the dock after enjoying the delicious water, she was telling me about how another artist is working. Marilyn has been taking photographs from her visits to Mexico, crumpling them up, taking photos of that and making paintings from the final photograph. I was surprised when Suzanne told me Marilyn had always been working from photographs, all her paintings. In fact, Suzanne said, almost all painters these days are working from photographs.
But not me. I prefer not knowing what might happen when I start a painting, what accidents and circumstances of paint will create the final image. I might take a photograph when I think a painting is done and then realize, when I see the photograph, that it still needs more work. Working from photographs was always something I thought was a taboo. I guess it’s not.
My gallery in Switzerland, the Halde Galerie, set up an exhibition at the Canadian Ambassador's villa in Bern (the capital) and she sent these photos.
I was thinking all day I should post something about how much I love living in Canada, being a Canadian, thinking Canadian. I do, but I didn’t. She did it for me.
With great pleasure (and some necessary stress), I’ve spent the last week laboring over several shipments that just went out the door! With the help of my friend Brian, I’ve packed up eight paintings to go to Ottawa, six to England, and five to Denmark.
The hardest part was choosing what to send where. The gallery in Ottawa chose what he wanted which was very helpful. Denmark chose sizes and colors, also helpful. But for England I had to make my own decisions. I changed the selection daily and some days, hourly.
I find it very interesting what colors and types of paintings various parts of the country and other countries connect with. Here in Halifax, even though they talk about the intensity of my colors, most people gravitate (when they purchase a painting) to the softer colors. Ottawa chose the stronger colors: reds, indigo, bright yellow. Denmark too wants the reds and indigo paintings. England is a new gallery for me so it was more difficult to decide what to send. I’ll know when they get there if my choice was right.
And with all these paintings gone, my studio is still full! It seems I paint a lot.
On her blog, Allyson Stanfield posted a quote from Romare Bearden:
Painting and art cannot be taught. You can save time if someone tells you to put blue and yellow together to make green, but the essence of painting is a self-disciplined activity that you have to learn by yourself.There are no goals that I still want to reach. I don't believe in goals; goals are for a football team. An artist is just seeking what he might find.
My thoughts are: yes and no. What CAN be taught is discipline. What can’t be taught is vision. And vision, the energy of the artwork, is the most important ingredient. It’s the energy, the force, the reason that takes the artwork beyond the mere craft of the piece.
Discipline is very important in making art. It’s the foundation. It involves not only how you use your time in the usual sense (hours and concentration) but also how you coordinate your mind and body and, more specifically in most cases, mind and hand. What a good teacher can teach is methods to stimulate good useful discipline. Without discipline, art cannot happen. Without vision, it has no power.
The National Endowment for the Arts has released a new survey of artists working in the U.S. I found this on Alyson Stanfield's Art Biz Blog. The report is very interesting. First, as is obvious to any artist anywhere in the world, it seems the population of artists in the U.S. at least, has more than doubled since 1970. (They are needed to fill all the galleries that have also much more than doubled since 1970--my comment).
Where do all the artists come from? For all I know, from under the bed. But really, everywhere I turn, people tell me they want to make art. No matter what they are doing in their day-job. Maybe we should all be artists. Then, maybe, just maybe, the world would be a more pleasant place. Or would it? Not if we all became “cutting edge” artists. Putting that aside, making art for some is relaxing, a hobby, for others a life passion, a necessity, a compulsion and obsession. Whatever it is and whoever they count as artists, the report does point to the importance of art and artists.
Second, opportunities for artistic employment are greater in metropolitan areas. More than one-fifth of all U.S. artists live in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, and Boston. Half of all artists live in 30 metropolitan areas.
Unique regional concentrations emerge. New Mexico has the highest share of fine artists, Vermont has the highest proportion of writers, and Tennessee, the highest proportion of musicians.
In response to this, I must admit New York City was a powerful school with a big playground for me as a young artist and now living in a more rural setting is more nourishing as a mature artist. And I have heard that Nova Scotia, my current home, has more artists than any other province in Canada.
The next revelation is that artists are 3.5 times more likely to be self-employed. Well, how else are they to be able to support themselves! We are often not the type to work in a group, office, follow directions, be a good employee. Artists must, by necessity, be self-directed or the work wouldn't happen. And making art is very expensive.
The most interesting revelation is that artists are more educated: artists are twice as likely to have a college degree as other U.S. workers. Yup, making art is not for dummies. Not that college degrees mean everything either. But it does mean that making art requires discipline (in order to get a degree) and intelligence (in order to make the many decisions required in making art).
So that’s it folks. Art is a major industry.
Why do we have a need to make nice-nice? Granted I don’t enjoy listening to someone complain. But sometimes it seems to me it would be a good idea to say something isn’t very nice. Doesn’t feel good. If you can’t see the down side of something, how can you make the up side happen?
What makes me think about this is one of the many rejection letters I receive. This one came recently. It was in reply to a proposal for an exhibit. The writer told me they “admired the longevity and consistency of purpose you have demonstrated as a painter.” Nothing about the quality of the work. The omission makes it quite clear why they didn’t want to give me an exhibit. Why not just say they don’t like my work, or it doesn’t fit into their agenda, or really, that abstract art which doesn’t have an outright social message is not cutting edge right now. And cutting edge is very important these days. It would, in my opinion, be a daring act in these troubled times to show work that deals with the emotions of being human by connecting to the subtleties of emotions, not to ideology.
When I told a couple of friends that this letter upset me more than other rejection letters, they tried to find a positive slant on the writer’s comments. Personally, I don’t see them but what I do see is my need to rewrite my proposal in a more aggressive tone to match what is happening in the art world these days. Then maybe the reader will like what they see.
Hey, Everyone, check out this month’s Shambhala Sun Magazine (pp. 66, 69 and 70), July ’08. I have some watercolor figure paintings featured. They’ve surprised everyone—although, in fact, I’ve been teaching figure drawing for over twenty years and have always loved drawing the human body.
At one point in my art career (I was in my thirties at the time), several artist in the neighborhood got together and hired a model. We did this once a week. Gradually the group dwindled to just two of us and later just me. (Models were paid much less in those days.) I did this for several years. Often the drawings were quite large, sometimes more than life size. I’d roll the paper out on the floor to draw. They were line drawings. My request for a Christmas gift back then was a battery operated pencil sharpener. I would sharpen four-dozen pencils at a time; when one broke (and they did often because I was bearing down hard) I always had another by my side. People often think they are ink drawings because the pencil line is so firm. I now have a drawer full of these drawings. Occasionally I look through them.
I developed a way of working that in many respects is similar to my paintings. The figure took up more than the page, often extended beyond the paper. The space was very important to me, both the form of the body and how the space was used by the body, by where the body was and was not. Sometimes it was hard to see at first where the body was because so much of it was off the paper. It’s hard to explain, but the important point here is the similarity to my painting process. I’m drawn (pun intended) to mass and contour, to a sensuous space and eccentric (off-center) composition. And it can be done with or without a recognizable image. I’m most comfortable with the purity of abstraction, the removal from concept and context . With the freedom that gives me
Commenting on the work of Berthe Morisot, Edouard Manet said “This woman's work is exceptional. Too bad she's not a man.”
Although this was in the 19th century and now we are into the 21st, it still makes a woman artist stop and think. Fortunately, all my painting life, this thought has never taken root. I believe if you don’t acknowledge such a strange idea, then it can’t be true. And it seems it is less true now. This way of thinking, thankfully, has much less power than it did even a few years ago.
I’ve always loved Manet’s paintings. I still do, whatever he thought about Morisot being a woman. What I love about Manet’s work is its strength, it’s directness. These may be masculine qualities, but not qualities owned by men. Monet’s paintings are soft and gentle, feminine qualities. But also not qualities owned by women. So the only thing for an artist to do is to follow his or her heart—paint what has significance to them. To me, integrity is the most important ingredient in good art.
I may not be of the “Facebook generation”, haven’t yet found it much fun, but I do greatly enjoy the way people connect on the internet. I love the “accidental” ways people come across my artwork and similarly, the “chance” meetings on blogs. Recently I received a comment from Mary Ann on the West Coast who “found” my blog and has just started her own. Her artwork and writing is well worth taking a look, both sensitive and thoughtful.
In addition, my friend Jackie who lives in Ottawa saw a video of me on TV (the one on BRAVO where I was paired with a musician from Monitoba to create work from each other's work) and contacted me. She lives in Ottawa now but about fifteen years ago was a student of mine at NSCAD U. I always liked her artwork and was delighted to renew a friendship. She too has started a new blog. This one is about her explorations of a gluten free diet. Her recipes are well worth trying. When visiting her in Ottawa two weeks ago, I had a scone she made and it was delicious. It’s great: she does the research, I get the results!
These three paintings are 30" x 30". I had put four together to make a five foot square painting but it just didn't work. It was too predictable, if that makes any sense. Too much square: four squares to make a big square. Just no good. So I reworked each square and am much happier with the pieces now, as separate paintings.
I've been trying to find ways to make large paintings without having them too cumbersome for shipping. I also really like to work with multiple panels, to see the images jump from one canvas to another. It's also a way to get myself to allow images to be other than at the edges because the edges are inside the final painting. So here are two I feel good about, both five feet square.
Today I prepared (put down the collage elements) two more sets of two canvases (one five by two, one five by three) to start two new ones next week.
My studio is so crowded, I had to take this painting up into my living room to see what it looked like. I hung it over the piano, the only large wall space I have, (The painting is 5 feet high, 7 feet wide.) A friend pointed out the area that needed work and of course, once I saw the painting in a clean space, I could see he was right.
I brought the paint up into my living room, moved the piano and set up a ladder. Now it is done, finally.
I had some photographs taken last week of new work. Modern technology is fascinating and useful. Because I don't have a wall space big enough to hang the piece, we photographed each one of the twenty-five twenty inch squares individually and then Steve, my photographer, put i all together in Photoshop. Amazing.
Now that I can finally see it as one piece, I probably could work on it some more but right now I want to stop. Put it aside and think about it later.
A couple of nights ago I dreamed I went into a small room, probably a bathroom, put a scarf on my head and some new glasses and then came out of the room to tell the people there (I don’t remember who) that “I am now a different person.” In truth, I picked up new glasses the next day, yesterday. My old ones broke a couple of weeks ago and were just patched up so I could wear them. I loved those glasses, thought they were the best yet, but I think my new ones are even better. At least for now. My broken ones are six years old and the prescription was wrong so all and all it is a good change. Yet before picking them up I was getting minor “Did I make the right choice?” thoughts. Glasses are a major article of clothing, a major presentation of body. It feels like a major body renovation. Granted I don’t wear them all the time, but still, they feel like part of me, an appendage, attached.
I was also supposed to have my paintings photographed Wednesday evening but because of (yet another) snowstorm and icy roads, it was postponed until Monday evening. That was a lucky change. I, of course, reworked most of the paintings I intend to have photographed. Being away for a week gave me a fresh view. I am impressed with the changes. Change in glasses, change in paintings: what else is going to change (the word of the times!)? As they say, the only thing you can count on is change. It's inevitable but it still involves choices.
When I was in art school, my teacher told me not to look at other artists’ work, just to paint. Not to be influenced by others. Of course, it’s impossible not to want to see what other artists have done, are doing. I couldn’t follow his advice. Now I can see that what he meant was to trust myself.
For a long time, I listened to other people, was upset by what they said if it was critical of my work. When I was about twenty-six, a friend came down heavily on me for covering up old paintings, using them as a basis for the next one. I went under the covers for two weeks. Now I deliberately put down images I know I am going to cover up. That’s what I like to do. Make layers of possibilities resolve into one image.
Another time, back in the ‘60s, a friend came down heavily on me for using acrylics. I went under the covers again for a couple of weeks. A few years later, when I had gone back oils, he was using acrylics.
But now, after years of exposure to the critical eye of the public and friends, I trust myself. I know what I want a painting to do. I know how to get there most of the time. Still, there are times when a little helping eye is invaluable. I’ve been working on this twenty-five panel piece for a while, took some photos of it on the floor of my studio and sent it to the gallery owner who has someone possibly interested in it. The client saw it and said she didn’t like the dominance of blue in the piece. She had, apparently, seen a previous one I did that had some “ochres and rust” (probably alizarin crimson) in it and wanted one more like that. So it was back to the canvases. And, in this case, I am grateful to someone else’s opinion. The piece looks much better.
I think it's almost done--the twenty-five twenty inch square paintings--to become one big piece. I laid it out on the floor again this morning:
The party I went to Saturday night was all girls. Well, except for the boy dog of the house, a beautiful big (165 pound) Newfoundland Sheepdog. Usually I don’t find this kind of party much fun. Often there seems to be something missing. But this was a really enjoyable evening. Maybe it was because we were all in the arts and had that to bind us. And most of the artists I know do like to play.
Lila had a good time too. I always wanted a dog I could take everywhere with me. She’s turned into that kind of pet. And after such a difficult first two years, no can be more delighted than me. She played some with her Newfie friend and she worked her way around house. The worst thing she did Saturday was snitch a couple of pieces of pizza off the counter. Naughty but nice.
Or maybe I just have indulgent friends, friends who also enjoy my spirited pup. I certainly won’t complain about that!
I used Lila as an example, metaphor for making art during midterm critiques on Wednesday. We did a group session, everyone taking turns putting up their homework assignments and about six drawings from class. One student said disparagingly that her work was a struggle; drawing was a struggle. So I couldn’t help but tell them the story of Lila: how it has been a struggle. I’ve had four dogs (she’s the fourth) and none of them have been so difficult. But with persistence and determination, the struggle has relaxed and we have a strong bond.
My artwork seems to come in two main categories: the ones that paint themselves, just flow from the ether and those that are a struggle, take excessive revisions. When those difficult ones finally come together, they have a special charge, something that comes out of the resolution of struggle. So I told the students not to be afraid of the process of their work.
For a couple of days, Friday and Saturday to be exact, I was being followed. I wore a GPI tracker and wrote down exactly what I did by the minute all day. It was great fun; I felt very important for two days and I’m glad it lasted only two days. I was part of a Saint Mary’s University time management study. They will call me for a final interview soon. The purpose of the study is to help in basic urban planning.
It happened to be a busy couple of days. I did the usual (painting, walk the dog, clean up, eat, sleep) as well as my Tai Chi class, the park, some theatre, a party. But what became clear to me was how I don’t function in a linear manner. It was hard to write down what I did in an afternoon at home. I’d start one thing, start another, go back to the first, start a third, go back to the first (or second) and so on. It wasn’t multitasking because I was doing only one thing at a time. But I certainly didn’t finish one thing before starting another.
I paint that way as well. Work on many pieces simultaneously—have several paintings going at once. Part of it is the drying time but I don’t think I would work well any other way. My focus is very much where I am, what painting I’m working on, or what “thing” I am doing around the house, yet I seem to need the opportunity to move around from one thing to another. Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to stay with one thing to the end but that doesn’t happen very often. And this does work. For me.
Some of the best ideas come when I’m not even thinking about anything. When least expected. I was lying in the tub this morning and suddenly I knew what I wanted to do next with my paintings. I’ve been working on a piece made up of twenty-five twenty inch squares. It’s laid out on the floor of my studio, taking up a lot of space. (I did take Cheryl McClure's suggestion and photographed this with my digital camera to see how it is working. It helped. Definitely. I could see from the photo shot more clearly what was happening than when I looked at the painting itself. It’s interesting how that works. And it no longer, after this morning, looks like what you see below.) But it IS coming together, finally, and I may be able to send it out soon. (There is a possible potential client for it, maybe, I hope!) Assuming it will dry in time.
Then there is a nine-squares piece on the wall, but I’m not sure about that. And one of four squares, each thirty inch square, but I definitely am not sure about that one. So I’m eager to start something else, something big. Something satisfying, I assume. I recently put a three-panel piece up in my living room over the piano. The side panels are five feet by two feet and the middle panel is five feet by three feet. So it ends up being five by seven feet. Big. Once I put it up, I realized it still needed more work so I’ve been working on it slowly right where it is. It’s too big to move back downstairs to my studio. (And it also doesn't look like what you see below.)
But what I decided (this morning in the tub) to do (with my paintings) was to take two panels, one five by two and one five by three, to make a five by five foot piece. So I started two that size this morning. It’s exciting to be at this stage again, starting something new, a new size, new format, new paintings.
I recently had some photos taken of my new work. It seems sometimes I need to have the photos taken so I can see what I am doing, so I'm able to take a step back, have a different perspective, a different point of view. As a result, I need to rework several paintings, of course.
But here are a few I think I will not be changing:
Last Thursday in my T’ai Chi class, several people commented that my hair looked nice. And I had been thinking it was one of those bad-hair-days. So, whose to judge? Whose opinion counts, mine or the one who looks at me?
And, more important, what about “judging” good (or bad-hair days) in artwork? My answer there would be it’s up to me to know when the work works. But time is always the true test.
Also, in my T’ai Chi class, Jenny, Dr. Wu’s wife, told me they had noticed a lot of people here have poor posture. She wondered why. I’ve thought about it since then and surmise that good posture is not part of our culture, certainly not as it is in theirs. From an early age, they have been involved in body-flexibility exercises. Dr. Wu told us his 80 year old T’ai Chi teacher could bend backwards, almost to the floor. And when over 100, was running up and down stairs, no problem. All I can say is Very Inspiring!
My friend Jody gave me a small sketchbook, hand sewn with Japanese binding, for a Christmas present. On the cover was some small typed out writing. (I don’t know where it comes from and will investigate, but until then,) this is what it said:
It is Art that makes life, that makes Importance. I know of no substitute for the force and beauty of its Power… Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ARS LONGA, VITA BREVES… You know you have achieved perfection in design * not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away… Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one towards the future, toward eternity… WHAT IS ART BUT A WAY OF SEEING?... I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art… Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry… each of the arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them… Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life… THE ARTIST’S VOCATION IS TO SEND LIGHT INTO THE HUMAN HEART… Art is the signature of civilization … . . .
I wish I’d said that!
I heard on the radio a few days ago (I don’t remember the show but it must have been in the morning because I was painting in my studio and of course, it was on CBC) a discussion of what makes a good, lasting novel. The consensus was twofold: a story needs to have ambiguity and needs to be beyond nostalgia.
Ambiguity invites you to read and reread, telling you new things with every reading. Gives the sense of mystery that is life, the constant unfolding of news, surprises, deepening of understanding, new points of view.
To be beyond nostalgia gives you that universal quality, where anyone, anywhere, from any background, knowing different experiences, can relate to what is happening. Nostalgia, sentiment are limiting.
These same qualities are necessary for great art in any format: music, literature, theatre or any of the visual arts. This thought reminds me once again of the idea that there are two ways to make art. The first is to start with a universal theme, idea, and make it personal. The second, to start with the personal and make it universal. Art needs to transcend the personal in order to be great, to be read again and again, to be looked at over and over, to reveal its secrets over time but never completely, for there always to be more. And more. To be beyond.
After trying via several friends to get the video clip of my TV interview in Denmark last June edited and reformatted for North American use, I finally took it to a professional digital copy shop. A friend was then able to post it for me. So now it is up on my website! (It's under Media on the top bar.)
The questions the interviewer asked me were, first, what inspires me and second, do I having a problem letting go of the work once it is done. Now, because I have been painting for so long, feel more confidant in being able to paint a good painting, one that satisfies my intentions, I not only have no problem seeing a painting go off to a new home, I am eager to empty my studio as often as possible. But there was a time, when I first started painting, when it was much harder to let go. At that time if I did a few good paintings a year, maybe three or four, they felt more precious. I didn’t know if another one would follow.
This morning I went into my studio and planned to prepare canvases to work on, to put down the collage materials. I bought a large number of small stretched canvases when they were on sale recently so I have a lot of work to do to make them ready to receive paint. But it was hard not to pick up an oil bar and start working. (I must admit, one painting insisted I work, just a little, on it.) So my mind is churning for tomorrow’s studio time. And my studio is filling up again.
My friend Sean Kennedy, the one who taught the Irish Studies course at the Halifax Library the past few months, has been talking about the unthought known: what we know without thinking, what is inherently known, intuition perhaps. He mentioned, after seeing my new work recently, that “perhaps the unthought known is that which knows us; are we thinking or being thought? Painted or painting?”
So often I feel I am being painted. The work dictates to me what it wants, how it wants to proceed. I respect my training, yet the exciting part is when I just go along for the ride. I enjoy the struggle as well, those times when the work does not come together easily. I enjoy the challenge. But there is nothing like the experience of being involved with a painting that seems to paint itself.
It does take stepping out, being willing to climb the tree to the top, step out on a limb, leap to the next tree. Even if it doesn’t work at first (or even eventually), if I make poor decisions, it’s worth the trip.
I'd like to believe, like Plato, in absolute beauty, absolute truth, but I'm constantly reminded that it's only a concept. It just doesn't work that way. The other day a friend came into my studio and saw a painting I was working on—and saw it very differently than I had. It was going to be a triptych—three panels, the middle one being five feet by three feet, the two end ones, five feet by two feet. I had been trying to have the five by two panel exist as a single painting but that shape does not feel right to me. So I was making it a part of the other two panels. My friend saw the newer panels as one and the original five by two as a separate painting. I took another look and agreed: it looked right as a diptych. Later I continued to work on the newer panels and now the piece has come together as a triptych. But the thought of a diptych in that particular pattern lingers as a future possibility. Because someone else saw it for me.
A few years ago I was asked if I would sell a triptych (a Naples yellow painting I really loved) but the buyer wanted the first five by two panel turned on its side to put over the coffee table and the middle five by three panel to be beside the couch (or vice versa—I don’t really care to remember). That would leave one panel lonely. I said no. That painting is now back in my studio, all three pieces.
The recent exhibition of my paintings in Switzerland looked good. Evelyne’s sculpture in the gallery worked well in the space with my paintings. It all looked very elegant. This has been a very fruitful relationship. Evelyne is a superb gallery owner, honest, forthright, good with sales, a excellent business woman. I have great respect for her.
I did, however, want the five panel piece to have each panel touching the one next to it. It makes the painting much stronger—with the pieces being more intimate, being able to talk to each other. That is the way it was conceived. I couldn’t convince Eveyne to hang it the way I would have preferred. I had sent her a photograph, I wrote, I wrote again and when I got there, she had hung it with about an inch between each panel. It didn’t look bad but it wasn’t the same. What it did, in my mind, was make the piece more decorative. And that is not how I feel about my work.
When I came home I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Felt indignant, not in control. I decided to write her and state my needs (again) regarding my work. Yet once I realized I could tell her that as much as I appreciated all she did for me, and it is a lot, I need to have my wishes regarding my work respected, then, at that point, I stopped thinking about it. Just let it go. In the greater scheme of things, it just isn’t that important. She has her way of seeing my work, I have mine. I cannot control how people see.
I just finished reading Still Life by A.S. Byatt. She writes: “We all remake the world as we see it. . . We always put something of ourselves—however passive we are as observers, however we believe in the impersonality of the poet, into our descriptions of our world, our mapping of our vision.” I can only offer you my vision and hope, as well, to see what you see.
I traveled from Rome to Zurich by train, with a day and a half stop in Venice. I love traveling by train, seeing the terrain change from round to hilly to flat to the mountainous Alps. But by the time I arrived in Zurich, I was very shaky from so much travel, so many new sights.
This was my third exhibition at the Halde Galerie. This particular show was to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the gallery. My paintings were on the walls and the sculpture is by Evelyne Brader, the owner of the gallery. I was honored to be a part of this exhibition. The opening reception-party-celebration was the first night I was there and was enjoyable. The Canadian Consul came, talked a bit with me, gave a little speech. He’s from Quebec. Lots of other people talked to me as well. Usually they don’t bother because I don’t speak German. So it was nice. The party lasted way into the night.
The next day I met a friend of Ann’s for lunch in a Japanese restaurant where the food goes around on a dolly and you take off the plates that appeal. The food was great. Ann’s friend plays violin in the Zurich opera orchestra. I could have gone to see The Marriage of Figuro but I was just too tired to work out the logistics and of course, regret that decision now.
Before and after lunch I walked the charming streets of the old town part of Zurich. I also went into the Kunsthaus, the art museum and saw their permanent collection. My memories of it are better than the current show but it was, nevertheless beautiful.
On the way home, I took the wrong train and ended up far away, had to retrace my tracks, literally. I took an early morning flight on Monday and was/am happy to be home, painting again, filling up my studio, And using a Western English keyboard!
So that’s my trip! I expect I will be staying home for at least a couple of months. Then . . . who knows!
I’m off to Switzerland today! By way of Rome! I may be able to post here while I am away, but . . .
My exhibit opens in Switzerland October 26. I’ll be back the end of October with plenty of stories and photos!
. . . from the exhibit at the Secord Gallery that didn't get photographed. The first painting is 48" x 50" (each panel is 48" x 10"), the second is 46" x 46"
Now that my studio is almost clear of finished paintings, I've been stretching and priming more canvases so I can start new work. I've been working on a four panel piece, each panel 30" square, making a total of a five foot square painting. It's harder than I expected. I want the final piece to work as one painting, not as separate panels yet they will necessarily retain their individuality. Right now the painting is mostly red. I've tried introducing a yellow panel but the yellow keeps getting less and less. As usual, we will see what happens next . . .
Brian came over and helped me pack up my paintings last Thursday. The four (large) boxes were picked up by the shipper on Friday. On Tuesday they cleared customs in Zurich and were delivered to Halde Galerie on Wednesday. Fast!
So my plans are: I leave here on Wednesday, the 17th of October, fly to Rome, stay a week with my niece (who plays violin in the Rome Opera Orchestra), explore the area well for a week, see the opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg (I had bought the records to this opera fifty years ago—fifty! So when Ann told me it would be playing October 24, I was excited and she was so pleased to have my travel plans made around a musical offering.) From Rome, I will take a train to Zurich to be at the gallery for the 26th of October reception. This is the 5th anniversary of the opening of Halde Galerie and I am honored to be in this exhibit, along with Evelyne Brader, sculptor.
I will stay in Switzerland until the 29th. Then I'll be come home for Halloween, to go out to dinner and a movie with Yoko, our annual "let's avoid Halloween" treat.
So . . . in just two weeks, I’ll be in Rome! Not bad!
The opening reception Friday night at the Secord Gallery was great—very crowded, friendly, lots of very appreciative people. The arrangement of the works (by Phil Secord) was perfect. He had mixed Elin’s and my paintings, matched them by size and color tonalities. It worked well.
The exuberance spilled onto the floor, a perfect party.
I need to go back and take photos of the exhibit but right now I’ve been slowed down by a bad head cold. The kind of nuisance that actually feels right—makes me rest a little (although I’m not really resting too much, just thinking I about it!).
P.S. My shoes were a big hit. They are actually bright red--not sure if that shows up in this photo!
My exhibit with Elin Neumann at the Secord Gallery opens this evening. (hope you can come, 7 pm!) From my sneak preview yesterday, I must say it looks really good. Phil Secord has hung the works so they compliment each other, hers and mine. The abstract landscapes and the abstract abstracts. I am very pleased to see our work together. I hope to have photos soon so you can see what I mean.
Meanwhile, I spent the day cleaning house (a luxury sometimes) and giving Lila a much needed bath. Also, I’ve been thinking about a blog entry about creativity, or more precisely, about originality. The post (when I tried to find it again, I couldn’t, so sorry!) focuses on the old adage: there is nothing new under the sun. Nothing is unique. There are always references. We are not isolated in our thinking, doing, making. We are always, it seems, reinventing the wheel, with all the possibilities: new rims, decorations, sizes, combinations. But they all (all the wheels) need to function in the same basic manner: they need to make movement. So when someone says “I’ve never seen anything like it” perhaps they just haven’t seen that combination.
Elin’s work may originate from the outer landscape and move to the inner one: mine may move from an inner experience to create something totally outside my personal being. Both approaches end up in paintings. How they relate to history, to what has gone before and what will happen next, is an ongoing experience. It’s movement.
If you are in the area, do stop by! After spending some lovely days in Denmark with her, I am very happy to be exhibiting with Elin Neumann here in Halifax. Her work is great and it will be interesting to see our paintings together in the same space.
The gallery in Denmark sent me a copy of the review of my exhibit there. It was, of course, in Danish and I didn't have a clue what it said. This week a Danish friend of mine translated it for me. It's a good review. The reviewer obviously looked closely at the work, wasn't just parroting back what I or other people have said about it.
PURIFIED AESTHETICSLeya Evelyn’s paintings create resonance with everyone caught in her pictorial world. The abstract paintings reach and move all with an aptitude for aesthetic pleasure. In her paintings, Leya Evelyn is working from inside outwards. Inside, or firstly, she has glued pieces of fabric onto the canvas. Some of these pieces of thin fabric, whose strong colours and patterns are allowed to peek through, are strengthened by the art work’s further colour choices. Other of the collaged fabrics are pieces of thick canvas of various sizes cut into geometric shapes. The pieces are completely covered with paint, but their forms become visually distinct as shadow effects. These fragments are therefore included as important components in the overall composition of the art works. The layers of paint are many, and even if the colours must be said to be primarily strong and expressive, there are, in every coloured surface, an infinite variation of nuances.
These are strong contrasting colours but the result is never garish. Leya Evelyn seems to have an almost intuitive perception of all the colours' ability to interact. The composition of these art works can, in general, be said to have been built up by geometric, angular forms. But these are, at times, softened by circular movements, often in contrasting colours. In reality it is perhaps wrong to comment separately on colour, form and composition in Leya Evelyn’s paintings. It is clear that for her there is a great coherence, and that all parts are mutually dependent on each other. The art works testify to Leya Evelyn’s repeated experimentations with and investigations of relationships between form, colour and composition, and that she, through these, has reached her very own expression and pictorial language. The works are simply wonderful. One can only hope that this is not the last time that paintings will be sent from Leya Evelyn’s Canadian studio to Denmark.
By: Alice Bergholt Nilsson (kultur@nordjyske.dk)
At a time like this, when I am busy getting ready for two exhibits, one here September 21 with Elin Neumann and the one in Switzerland, October 26, it's good to feel my work is appreciated. I also spent about a week in front of the computer screen (not fun) preparing photos for perusal and use by the galleries. The hardest part is picking titles. I'm also busy stretching and priming canvases because there is no more room in my studio to paint. I'll be glad when I can ship some paintings out. The freedom not to be teaching has definitely helped my work, not only in amount but quality. So it will be interesting to see what happens when they are on public display.
I went to my mailbox on the way into town yesterday. This is rural delivery with all the neighborhood boxes in one place so I don’t stop by very often, maybe once or twice a week. I had a feeling it was time for my last grant application results to come in, so I was visualizing the proper size envelope as I was on route. And there it was: a sizeable grant from the Nova Scotia Arts Council. A very happy camper here!
This is a peer judged grant so it feels good to know my fellow artists voted for me. Last time I was turned down I called the person in charge and asked why. He said, as usual, if there were more money I would have been next, or near next. But he also said there was one person who commented my paintings are too formulaic for that person’s taste. I found that difficult to hear. That is the farthest from what I consider to be my working mode. Granted, I do have a handwriting that is obvious in all my paintings, certain marks do keep reoccurring. But basically, I work from intuition, spontaneity, chance. At least, that’s how I see it. So I rearranged my grant proposal, placed emphasis differently, and sent in a wider variety of images. I guess it worked!
The first thing I did when I got to town yesterday was turn in the signed acceptance letter. Then I went to the Art College and cleared out my locker. It was hard to let go of teaching (and the income); I kept thinking maybe they would change their rules. But it is not very likely and I am very happy to paint every day—and to be able to concentrate on it so completely. A new phase of my life.
Speaking of serendipity: the man who worked on my website (the technical side, Aaron did the design and original setup but doesn’t have time to help with the maintenance) came by last night to pick up a painting he wanted (I had told him to come get it quickly before I sold it to someone else as it is a new size, tall and thin, 5’ x 2’, and it seems a very appealing shape and the painting worked, all a surprise to me, so I think I will be working in that size again.) He arrived just when I was struggling to play the DVD sent to me from the gallery in Denmark of the TV interview from when I was there. It was very frustrating as they use PCs and I have a Mac. So the formatting didn’t work. He downloaded a program that works on both systems and now I can play it. Very cool!! He is also going to put it on my website and also make me an email copy so I can send it to people. Very Cool!!! So as soon as he does this, I will let you know.
Meanwhile, after four days of houseguests, I’m back to my usual routine of painting and playing with Lila. (Being a very sociable animal, she misses our company! Me too!) While working this morning, I kept simplifying, taking things out, turning paintings around, upside down and changing the focus. A few days away and everything looks different. And I want it to change. It doesn’t work for me to keep using the same solutions.
My digital camera is in for repairs so I can’t take photos of the paintings yet, but I’ve been using my (twenty-five year) old Nikon, and I must admit, I could get addicted to it. It’s a beauty. Metal casing, solid, good lenses. I can have the negatives scanned to a CD and get prints for very little money. If it weren’t for the weight of the camera . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe . . .
Leaving Denmark (so to speak) for a while, here’s a photo of me in front of one of my favorite paintings, taken in the gallery in Saltum.
I’ve since been working on two more paintings using five panels each with each panel being a different color. (My digital camera is in the hospital for repairs, having contracted sand on the lens from the beaches in Denmark. So, no pix yet.) It was hard not to repeat the same pattern of color change as well as hard because the size was slightly different, less tall. My (almost) final solutions have been to have one of the paintings to be very bright colors, the other more muted.
Another difficult part is the elimination of marks/ideas—not to have too much activity in such narrow panels. As usual, I have put down a lot of “information” and the task is, as usual, eliminating excesses. Choices. Over and over. So that the geography of the painting is concise and clear. Direct. Just right.
An interesting experience with this (above) painting is that, when I first saw it in the gallery, I felt uneasy about it. It didn't look as good to me as it had in my studio. I couldn't figure it out. I then asked them to hang it just six inches higher. And it looked much better. It was fighting with the floor. Interesting what just six inches can do.
Or rather, one of them:
The last two weeks I’ve been painting (almost) every day. At first when I went into my studio I thought: I don’t want to paint, I don’t want to do this, I don’t have anything to say. But as soon as I started, picked up some paint sticks, the paintings just worked themselves out. It’s been exciting to see the way they can still change, still have a life of their own, separate from me, from what I am thinking and feeling.
A couple of months ago I put a series of small paintings, 12” x 12”, around the room. Because of the size, the imagery seems bigger. So it looked like a series of circles. Every painting had one or more prominent circle in it. I had once said I’d Never Do Another Circle. Imagine that. Circles. No circles. Sometimes it feels like it’s not my choice; I may have some thoughts but the painting chooses, has the final say.
My friend, Sean Kennedy, recently wrote about my paintings on his blog on MySpace. What he said is closer to what I feel about my work than anything else I’ve read. Sean should know. He has several of my paintings in his home instead of a TV and he watches them change with the changing light throughout the day (and night). I was so impressed with what he wrote that I asked him if I could reprint it here;
Every Leya Evelyn painting carries a wound. A wound that, in turn, carries the painting. Often they are vaginal. Sartre, giving full rein to his misogyny and resentment of the female form, described the vagina as obscene, a gaping hole, "an appeal to being". His sense was that the vagina, like any gaping space, an open mouth at Burger King, demanded to be filled, satiated, and, by the same token, contained. If he was, perhaps, wrong in most of what he said in this, one thing rings true in the current instance. The idea of the wound as an appeal.In the case of Leya Evelyn's canvasses, there is no shouting, no hysteria, and certainly nothing of Sartre's all-too-easy misogynistic philosophy. But each painting carries a wound. And the wound is an appeal to being. A muted scream. When you first see one, all you can see is the scream, the difficult corner that will not go away. After a while, when the painting has agreed to be around you, the scream is the place you return to again and again. Like a tongue to a jagged tooth.
To try and explain how and why Leya Evelyn's art articulates any or all of this is not so much to mix metaphors as to simply intrude verbally upon a process that is written in, or on, or by and through the body. Samuel Beckett never got over the fact that he had to work with words, and all of their sullied etymological history, when his friends, Jack Yeats or John Beckett, could draw on the purer medium of the note or the brushstroke. These seemed cleaner to him, whereas words carried everything with them. Hoarders of hurt and history both. "I love you". Like putting your heart into a left luggage locker in Kings X and expecting it to be found by your intended. "I love you too".
Of course, wounds are everywhere. But nowhere more beautifully transposed than in Leya's canvasses. They don't just scream, they also sing. Sometimes they sigh. Often, they say nothing at all. They are, in fact, nothing more or less than ourselves. Hurt, hopeful, beautiful, and in search of redemption. Or, to use Leya's own word, resolution.
Not resolution in the sense of a neat and fitting end. Not solution. More like resolution as in the strength to go on, the resolve to continue. Courage. The courage, perhaps, not to lick our wounds so much as hear them out.
Well, I’m back! My physical body, that is. I’m not sure about the rest of me! It was a wonderful two weeks, touring beautiful Denmark, graciously hosted by Elin Neumann, meeting many fascinating people and ending with three amazing days in London.
So, needless to say, I have lots of photos (many hundreds) to sort through and stories to tell. But that will have to wait until my mental body catches up with being home. Meanwhile, I’m very happy to be back with Lila, to sleep in my own bed (although I still wake up in the night and wonder where I am), catch up on the news of friends here and weed my overgrown garden.
Here are a few photos (more to follow of my trip) from my exhibition at Galleri Saltum in Denmark, far far away just a couple of weeks ago.
Today is Day 1 of Studio Rally! I, along with ninety-some other artists and artisans in Nova Scotia, have open studio today and tomorrow, from 10 am to 6 pm. So get out your maps, folks, put on your wheels and come on by!
One of the best things about Studio Rally is my clean studio! If only it would stay this way on its own!
On the radio the other day, I caught the tail end of a musician being interviewed. His comments at the end, as I heard them, were that “All music is political.” This because we make music (art) in order to express the truth as we see it. Therefore it is political.
I understand his point but that’s quite a broad step—from truth to politics. I don’t generally think of politics as speaking about truth. Truth, to me, is inalterable, is totally itself, is not a concept, doesn’t need to be proven. Relative truth, what we know in order to understand, can change as circumstances change. But it is not an opinion.
Politics generally are directed towards a desired outcome. The outcome, as it is derived from the truth as the artist sees it, is, to me, not intended to influence people’s opinions, but to connect to feelings. For that reason, abstract art is so meaningful to me. It’s about truth as I see it and is not my opinion.
This reminds me so much of John Keat’s poem, Ode to a Grecian Urn with the final two lines
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
I can go for that.
At a party last Saturday, someone asked me what I’ve been doing, how my painting is going, how is it changing. I couldn’t really say. I’m too close to it. I told him to ask Dahlia, my talented, perceptive fifteen year old artist friend and student. It’s hard for me to talk about what I am doing, especially when I am in the middle of “it.” But Dahlia has a good eye; she will know how to describe “it.”
But if I had to describe “it” I would probably say something about how the under-painting, the images that I usually put down and cover up are now more visible, becoming more a part of the final painting, although still under the final resolution. So I the general feeling is more of openness.
Now that the paintings are in Denmark, I’m feeling like taking a mini-break. Not not painting, just not painting anything big, nothing ambitious, just small pieces, intimate paintings, ones that will make me feel quiet inside, not take as much physical effort. Yet even these are changing. And changing how I work on larger pieces. And that’s exciting. So really, there is no “break.” It feels more like a “lull”, a slowing down. A time to think, to wait and see.
This is a twenty-four hour seven days a week job, whether I’m in my studio or not, painting or not, working big or working small. I’m always thinking about it, feeling it, moving into and through it. In fact, I’ve been so focused on painting, I have found it hard to write anything much here. Or even to answer emails. Since January I’ve been painting almost every day with a focus so intense, it’s been hard to think about much else. So maybe it really is time for a mini-break, if I can do it.
Monday I packed up my paintings to go to Denmark. It was a hard decision—what to send. At the last minute, on Tuesday, I pulled a few paintings out, rearranged the boxes and felt better about the selection. So my paintings are in flight over the ocean. And I follow next month!
I’ve been totally obsessed for the past few weeks about the shipment. Making sure the paintings went well together, complimentary and enough variety in colors and sizes, and dry enough to send. Once everything was packed and out of my house, I felt that empty, lost feeling I’ve often felt after an exhibit is up. Then, appropriately, I received an email from another artist, David Hinske, who happened upon my blog and then my website when he googled “post-show depression” (which he was experiencing after a very successful exhibit). It felt good to connect to someone else feeling that same strange feeling.
But the next morning I decided to go into my studio and clean up the big bad mess I had made from so much painting and packing. I did some cleaning and then, just couldn’t resist, started painting. So much for my post-packing lull! Just can’t keep away. The best cure for me is to paint. I’m stuck with it!
As David wrote me this morning:
Not exactly on point, but I'm paraphrasing Van Gogh who said something like the only way to get past painter's block is to paint. Isn't it an amazing thing to watch the picture take form? Even when I'm not painting well, it is still transporting. O'Keefe claimed she never started a painting until it was fully and completely formed in her mind - we all come at it very differently.
That’s very true. I prefer to be surprised by what happens during the process of painting. Not know until it’s finished what that particular painting wanted to be. And also—preferably pleasantly surprised by how they will look in a new space.
This past weekend I taught a workshop in Clare, the French shore of Nova Scotia. It was a wonderful, enjoyable, exhausting experience. I took Dahlia with me, my talented fifteen year old friend and student (she’s been taking classes with me at NSCAD for four years).
Friday night I gave a talk on my work, using slides to show an almost fifty year painting career. (How did that happen!?!) It’s always interesting to see again what I have done, where I began, how I progressed. And how I've come full circle from where I started, only with more understanding of what I am doing. The group asked lots of questions and I talked a lot. Talked a lot. They talked; I talked.
Saturday morning I talked a lot about color and then gave some color exercises. The first was to rule a piece of paper with six one-inch squares across and six one-inch squares down, giving thirty-six in all. The challenge is to fill in all the squares with color in such a way that no color dominates, pops out. Then I had them do some free form color studies using solid color papers cut from magazines. The afternoon was talking about pigment sticks or oil bars (what I use) and some work with them.
By the time I left I was tired and feeling satisfied. Teaching a workshop is good: I go there, teach, and leave. No grades to mark. I like that. It is so hard to put a grade on creativity, art production. In the greater scheme of things, a grade is meaningless.
Then we went to Annapolis to visit Wayne Boucher and his family. Annapolis is a hopping place. There’s always something happening there. The weekend before it was a benefit for the Public Gardens. This time they were having an International Feast Night as a fund raiser for some charities. The food was Mexican, the art was local. I came home with a car full of animals: a wood-cut rabbit, a photo of a puppy in Thailand taken by a twenty-five year old who is part of a My Photo project, a dog from Wayne’s dog series and a “spiritual giraffe,” also by Wayne. Then I picked up my own dog (at her doggie resort), whom I missed very much.
Yesterday I was on the end of a yo-yo string. My friend Mindy called me in the early evening to tell me that mandatory retirement had been made illegal in Nova Scotia. With a few exceptions: firemen, policemen, etc. At first I felt hesitant. Do I really want to go back to teaching? It’s been so amazingly fruitful, and peaceful, not teaching. Having so much time to paint, think, walk with Lila, meet neighbors. But of course, I was excited about the idea of a steady income, spending time with students, talking about art to budding artists. So yes, I was happy about it. Then I checked on-line at the CBC News site. The exceptions to the rule included Collective Agreements. Which, of course, meant me. So no teaching job. And to tell you the truth, it doesn’t feel bad. Not right now.
Today CBC News on-line had a very interesting article about retirement.
Retirement is big business for banks. Bankers believe people hate their jobs as much as bankers hate theirs, so they set out to convince people that retirement - Freedom 55 … Take This Job and Shove It - is the solution to worry and the road to happiness.And yet, and yet … many people enjoy their jobs and dread being forced out of them merely because they have turned 65, which is a lot younger than 65 used to be in the 1920s, when pensions began. Someone turning 65 today is expected to live another 20 years.
It has been shown that those with the most education tend to enjoy their work and are reluctant to be turfed out at 65. Do you think for a moment that when Margaret Atwood turned 65 - on Nov. 18, 2004 - someone told the illustrious Canadian writer, "Jig's up, Atwood. No more novels for you."
"But… "
"Sorry, Peg, you've been at this game a long time. We need to make room for younger writers."
Yep, age is everything. To some people.
I’m going to Denmark! Imagine that! Wow! And all because I had deer in my garden. I met Elin when she googled to find a cure for deer in her garden (June 2005). She came up with the recipe I had posted. Then she said: “Could this possibly be the same Leya Evelyn who shows at the Agnes Bugera Gallery in Edmonton, Alberta where I am about to have a show?” The rest is history (which includes a lot of emails and sending photos back and forth).
Elin arranged with Galleri Saltum for me to exhibit a few paintings there last summer. My solo exhibit this year is June 4 to June 26 with the official opening reception June 10. And of course, I’m going over. I’ve been working on flights and to my surprise, it is cheaper to go to Europe than to Montreal or New York! And VERY easy (and inexpensive) to get around there. So of course I am going. (I know, I’ve said that before and I will probably say that a few times more!) For two weeks in June.
Meanwhile, when I can keep my feet on the ground, I’m stretching and priming canvases, putting on the collage elements, preparing them to paint. It’s hard, this part of the process. My hands are eager to put paint to canvas. I have enough work ready to send to Denmark (and a few more) but there is nothing like actually painting. Soon.
Also, my hands are itching to get into the ground and start gardening again. The soil looks so tempting. But it is still below freezing at night. A bit too soon to play in the dirt.
I'm plowing along through the 30" square pieces. It's very exciting working on so many at once (twelve!). It gives me the opportunity to experiment more, to try out images and painting ideas without the pressure of making the painting "work." It's almost like it was when I worked a lot on paper. But I enjoy canvas so much more, so it is even more exciting.
Yes, I guess I am more relaxed, even though the financial stress continues. I just don't think about it too much. I'm doing everything I can to make this "retirement" work. Teaching is much more stressful than anyone can say. Just not having to get up early and be on the road by 6:45 am no matter the weather is a relief. I'm even sleeping much better. Although sometimes I have dreams about being asked back to teach and feeling torn. I don't know what I would do if it happened soon. I feel I'm just getting started on a very real journey to some place I've never been before.
My exhibit in Denmark is scheduled for June 6. so now I have to start thinking practically, about what would look good there, what sizes, etc. Yesterday and today I started working on about six 30" x 30" paintings. When I start them I don't have a solid idea of what color they will end up being, but when working for a show, especially, I need to have a variety. I started one this morning that looks like it wants to be green. I've been told several times by various art dealers that green is a hard color to sell. But if the painting wants to be green, it will be. Time will tell. We will see.
When I've done multiple panel pieces before that aren't just vertical but need nails in the wall, I've put nails in, but if I do use four of these canvases in a multiple 60” square, the pieces will be heavier, being 30", not 20" square. And even those, the 20" ones fell down sometimes. But I guess that's just the chance I have to take if I'm going to do it. So far, I just want to get some 30" square pieces on their way so I can have a better idea what I might show in Denmark. I'm really excited bout going there.
We’ve been having real winter weather for the first time this year. Snow, rain, cold, and icy road. Our dog class was cancelled last night. Thankfully. Besides the snow, one of her dogs is about to give birth so she wants to stay home. I was relieved. I stayed here today too, cancelled my piano lesson. Environment Canada said to stay off the highways if possible. The roads are not nice. There have been a lot of accidents. Another day to stay in and paint. What luxury!
I've been busy gluing pieces of canvas and fabrics onto my new blank canvases for the past week. This morning I was able to put some paint on the canvases, It felt so good. There is so much to do to get ready to paint. It's always such a relief to start painting for real. But I love the anticipation, of what might happen.
I think I'm going to try arranging four 30” x 30” canvases together into a 60” square. The only problem I foresee is how to hang them while I am working on it. I'll have to put nails in the wall and hope the paintings don't fall down while I’m painting.
Without teaching, time feels so different. Bigger, broader, more air in a day. It feels good. More time to paint. More time to worry. (But I'm working on not worrying!) I’m finding time itself very satifying. Just time. Very real.
I went to see The Freedom Writers this afternoon. I’ve never cried that much in a movie—eve
