Clara Lieu's Blog, page 45

Huffington Post

Some of you may have been wondering why I haven’t published any “Ask the Art Professor” articles for several weeks.  Well, it has to do with my big news that I hinted to a few weeks ago: “Ask the Art Professor” is moving to the Huffington Post! I’ll be a blogger for their Arts and Culture section and will be publishing my column weekly.

You can read my first column on their site, or read it below.  This first article is an introduction to the column, from here on I’ll be answering your questions as usual.

A few months ago, a former student of mine contacted me. At the Rhode Island School of Design, my conversations with her had been lively and positive, and revolved around honing her technique while also developing her ideas. This time though, it was a different conversation. She had been out of art school for two years and said she felt “dead.” Isolated from her local family and friends, deprived of an artistic community and dialogue, she had no one to talk to about how to go about living life as an artist in the real world. We talked through the new emotions she had been experiencing since graduation: the lack of energy and motivation, and the complete loss of creative direction and purpose. Being no stranger to any of these emotions of a new graduate, I was able to prescribe for her a concrete plan of action to confront these difficult challenges.

While it may seem like the student was the one being helped, this dialogue was mutually beneficial. For me, commiserating with another artist about these struggles makes me feel less alone and crazy in my thoughts. Despite my 14 years as a professional artist and professor of art, I still have the same fears and anxieties that loomed over me as a young art student–and they are not going anywhere any time soon. All of these intense emotions are hidden from the artist’s audience.

When we see art in person, it’s beautifully presented on impeccably clean, white walls. The frame is perfectly cut; the mat is pristine; and the artist’s signature effortlessly sprawls across the bottom of the artwork. When we see the artist, they are all smiles at the opening reception for their exhibition, glass of wine in one hand, accepting congratulatory gestures left and right from colleagues, friends, and admirers.

What we don’t see is what the artist thinking in the moments before their hand touched that paper, what they had to push through to get their art on those walls.

As a visual artist and professor of art, I’ve devoted my career to understanding what it means to live life as an artist in today’s reality. I want to see and understand exactly what the emotional, physical, and intellectual demands are to get to that immaculately framed drawing on the wall. I’m endlessly fascinated by the side of the artist’s life that isn’t seen or talked about.

So why aren’t we talking about this? Much of an artist’s life isn’t pretty or romantic. I have been there, scraping dry paint off my palette, having etching ink jammed into my fingernails, feeling the callouses on my right hand get tougher all the time. Assisting my students in class, I’ve watched as they aggressively push the charcoal deep into the surface of the paper with their hands, rubbing the tips of their fingers raw. Those are just the physical demands of being an artist.

On top of that, the creative process is unpredictable and temperamental at best, resulting in complex layers of emotional upheaval for many artists. Many of these emotions can be ugly and brutal, leaving most artists brimming with doubt and worry.

It occurred to me after talking to my former student that this is a conversation that needs to happen, not privately, but out loud for all to hear. The result is “Ask the Art Professor,” essentially an advice column for visual artists. It is your chance to ask me questions about being an artist, the creative process, career advice, about a materials, etc. Anything from the smallest technical question to the large and philosophical is welcome. I’ll do my best to provide a thorough, comprehensive answer with creative and realistic strategies for tackling these issues head on. Submit your questions to me at clara(at)claralieu.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Fear

I started a second drawing last night on Dura-Lar, knocking in all of the essentials in vine charcoal. I’ve become more comfortable with the scale of these drawings.  It took some time to get used to, as there’s a lot of moving around, standing back, etc. for me to even see what I’m doing in the entire drawing.

Once I had the vine charcoal drawing complete, my fear of the etching ink settled in very quickly. You can see that I did just a little bit of etching ink on the pelvic area in the drawing on the left hand side, but I’ll admit that I got stage fright and chickened out.  These drawings are intended to be very gestural and loose, and I knew last night that I was approaching the etching ink as if I was walking on egg shells. I could feel how tight and careful the drawing was feeling, so I stopped before I did any more damage. Just this week I was talking to my freshmen at RISD about battling the nervousness that comes with starting a large drawing and here I am struggling with the exact same thing.

I had worried before I moved into the studio that I was going to dread going there at night after a long day.  Actually, it’s been quite the opposite, I’ve been eager to go every time and the studio has a great, positive vibe that I am really enjoying.  Yesterday I had a full day, ate dinner, went to the gym for an hour, and then went to the studio for about an hour and a half. It’s not ideal to only be there for a short period, but my feeling is that it’s better to do a little bit at a time frequently rather than do only one very long session once a week.  I’m also a musician, (I play the oboe) and it’s the same with practicing an instrument. I would rather practice every day for 15 minutes than practice once a week for 3 hours. You can build continuity by working this way that helps maintain focus and concentration.

Busy

After a relatively slow summer, everything got really busy all at once. I have a couple of new commitments that I’m very excited about. On top of teaching RISD freshman drawing, I will be teaching a course this semester for RISD Project Open Door, RISD’s college access program for artistically talented teens attending RI urban public high schools. Although I’ve taught at the high school level in the past, this program has it’s own unique mission and context that will bring it’s own challenges. We start this week, and I’ll be blogging and posting photos about our progress as the course progresses.

Sculpture by Jessica Straus

The second commitment is I’m now working with my artist friend Jessica Straus on publicity for her upcoming exhibition at Boston Sculptor’s Gallery in Boston, MA. Most artists I know see publicity as a chore; I’m the exception in that I find publicity to be a fun and engaging task. It’s even more rewarding when you get to promote someone whose work you really believe in. I’ll get to visit her studio later this week and do an interview with her.  I absolutely love visiting artist studios, they’re so incredibly revealing about the artist and their process, so it will be fun to finally see Jessica’s work space.

I was out of town this weekend, so I haven’t gotten to my studio at all in a few days and already I feel like I’m going through withdrawal. I feel like it’s a plant that I need to water at least every few days or so. Mostly what I’m doing in the studio right now is hand sanding the Dura-Lar surface and sketching the figures out with vine charcoal.  I’m sort of dreading starting to draw with the etching ink, as it’s so permanent and there’s really no going back once it’s on the surface of the Dura-Lar. I feel out of shape with the etching ink, so I think I’m due for some warm ups with that material.

 

First session

I had my first session in my new studio last night. It was amazing, I was able to achieve a level of focus and concentration that I haven’t experienced in months. There were no distractions, (there’s no internet there!)  it was just me with my paper and a piece of vine charcoal for a full two hours.  It was thrilling to be able to work this way, I’ve been craving it for so long.

Working on these 7′ x 4′ drawings is definitely changing the way I draw because of the scale. I have to draw not just with my arm, but with my entire body because the strokes I’m making are so incredibly big and broad. I also find that I really have no sense of the entire drawing whatsoever when I’m up close to the drawing, so stepping back and looking at the drawing from a distance is going to be hugely important.

I was worried that the large scale was going to feel intimidating, but once I got started I was very pleasantly surprised at how great it felt to work so large. I guess I had this initial idea that I would work myself incrementally towards the large scale, but it seems like just diving in head first into the large scale is working just fine.

Jenny Saville

I’m gathering all of the various supplies necessary to make these drawings: etching ink, x-acto knives, lithographic crayons, Dura-Lar, rolls of white paper, and much more. The logistics are all falling into place, and I’ll have my very first drawing session in the studio later today. It’s been a really long time since I’ve drawn anything substantial, much less on the scale (7′ x 4′) that I will be working on. I’m thinking that I will have to put myself through a number of warm up drawings before I start working on the final sheets of Dura-Lar. Most likely it will be charcoal drawings on paper, with the sole purpose of getting myself back into shape. I feel really rusty, so it will be nice to get myself deep into the trenches again.

Recently I’ve been looking a lot at the British painter Jenny Saville’s work. I’ve always admired the audacity of her work, as well as the immense scale that she works at. Her paintings really feel larger in than life when you view them in person, and the scale has a lot to do with it.  I first saw her work in person at the Royal Academy of Art when I was in London on a travel grant from my graduate school.  I was astounded at how abstract her pieces were in person, especially when seen up close. It finally made sense to me that de Kooning was a major influence in her work. I’m going to strive in my own work to achieve a similar quality.

New studio!

Today I picked up the keys to my new studio, which is at the Waltham Mills Artist Artists’ Association. I’m thrilled at this new adventure I’m about to embark on.  This is my very first studio space, and I can’t wait to see how this is going to inform and support my work in new ways. It’s definitely going to take some getting used to, I’m imagining it to be like a new pair of shoes that need to be broken into. It’s perfect timing too; my order of the 7′ x 4′ sheets of Dura-lar just arrived the other day so I’m ready to go on these large scale figure drawings.

Book Ideas

I don’t know how, but the ideas for my next book came together incredibly fast last night. One of the ways I like to brainstorm is to figure out what I don’t want to do. I realized that I don’t want to write a textbook, as there are already plenty of books out there that already serve that purpose.  I don’t want to tell people what vine charcoal is, or how to position their easel. What I do want to talk about is thoughts, and the thinking process that occurs when making a drawing. I think too often instructional drawing books are focused solely on what the hand is doing, and don’t address the mental hurdles that an artist goes through.

With a working title of “Drawing Thoughts”, the book will talk about the mindset of drawing through each stage of development. I’m interested in how the artist’s mindset shifts and changes as their drawing progresses, how their thoughts are different at the beginning, the middle, and the end. What are the emotional and intellectual challenges that an artist faces as they work on their drawing?  What are strategies that can be employed to face these challenges?

My next book

I’ve been trying to brainstorm ideas for my next book. I’m fairly certain it will be a very large instructional book, and that I want to get my students heavily involved in the process of writing the book.  I want all of the imagery to be student work from my classes. Very few art books out there show college level student work, so I’m hoping that’s one way to distinguish the book from other instructional books.  I also want the book to have more quotes from students, and have personal stories from my experiences in the classroom. Basically, an instructional book that has a personal touch to it.

What do you think?  What kind of content would you like to see in my next book?

A student drawing from my freshman drawing class at RISD

Changes

I’m gearing up for some major changes in my work schedule. Next Monday I’ll be moving into my new studio, and this means a lot of rearranging is going to occur.  All last year, I worked in the studio in the mornings and spent my evenings writing. With this new studio, it will now be the reverse: writing in the morning and evenings in the studio. This is definitely going to take some getting used to.

I’ll alternate going to the gym and going to the studio in the evenings.  I hope that I can treat the studio the way that I treat the gym, i.e. I force myself to show up no matter how I’m feeling. I don’t know why, but I find it mentally really hard to actually get to the gym.  Once I’m physically there, I’m always glad that I went, but making myself get up to go is the hard part. I’m guessing that going to the studio will be a similar situation.

New fears

I now have 63 reviews of my book on Amazon!  I am so grateful to all of the reviewers for their time and attention to my book. As I excepted, with the positive reviews came negative reviews. The two people who didn’t like the book were very nice and sent me an email instead of posting on Amazon.   I asked them later to post the review on Amazon anyway, as I want a range of opinions of the book online.  Apparently, if you have all five star reviews, it makes some consumers suspicious, so it’s actually good to have a range.

As I read through one of the negative reviews today, I started thinking about my fears about my being a new author.  The greatest one is that people will think that what I have to say is shallow and oversimplified. I worry that I am taking complex issues and dumbing them down, minimizing their importance and impact. I am concerned too that since the writing isn’t written in an academic style, that somehow it will not be perceived as intelligent or thoughtful.

Many of you have expressed curiosity about my big news.  No, I’m not leaving RISD.  No, I’m not about to be rich. No, I don’t have a solo exhibition in New York City. Keep guessing…