Plein Air Easton 2008

The Academy  Museum of Art, an accredited museum in Easton, Maryland, is host to the Preview Party and the Collector’s Party, held back to back tonight beginning at 6. At the Preview Party, the competing artists can view the exhibition of the competition pieces and vote for an Artist’s Choice award. Each artist has submitted two pieces for the competition and more pieces for replacements. Only the two competition pieces are hanging at the beginning and these are the only pieces that are judged.

At 7pm the doors are opened to the collectors. The collectors have paid good money to attend this party and have a chance to buy paintings before the public show on Saturday. There are many volunteers standing by in case someone want to purchase a painting. The collector lets the volunteer know his choice, a red dot is placed on the painting label, and the volunteer escorts the collector to the cashier. Within minutes, the sold painting is removed and a replacement is hung. This all happens very fast so as to maximize sales. The organization is something to be admired.

As this is going on the artists are milling about in the crowd schmoozing as best they can. Generally, I think every artist is full of doubt at his/her choices of competition pieces. After all, there are forty some artists who have hung very good pieces. Some of these pieces are clearly superior. You think, I should have done that! Oh, this is so much better than mine. Ugh, I’m a failure. There you are, hung up for all to see. All the choices you made are there for everyone to see and judge. Every choice of color, every stroke, every choice of subject. This is the moment when you think to yourself, “What was I thinking?!” But it’s too late. Now is the moment.

The wedding dress, which I renamed “Left Behind” raised a question, would it qualify for the category called Vanishing Landscapes. The Vanishing Landscapes category requires depicting certain historic properties that are slated for demolition or removal. Eventually the painting was allowed in that category. One of the artists, Larry Moore, had talked about the dress. He suggested leaving out the bit of white carpet in the foreground. When I woke this morning I realized he was right and so at 6am I scraped off and the painting was complete.

Later, during the Collector’s Party, after the collectors have had plenty of time to buy up some work, the awards ceremony takes place. This year’s judge was well-known artist Gay Faulkenberry. She announced the winners. First place went to my old friend Greg LaRock, an artist I met a few years ago in San Luis Obispo at their plein air contest. Greg and I were put up in the same host house. Other winners included some new friend’s, including Scott Tallman Powers, a young man with a bright future who certainly would have painted “Left Behind” better than I, and Jill Carter. Tim Bell, one of my favorites, won the Vanishing Landcapes award with his painting of a skipjack. He is the master of skipjacks, that’s for sure.

I did not win any awards but two of my paintings sold immediately. It was nice that the first one to sell, “Garden of Arbors” was painted at the house of the mother of a woman who purchased a painting from me three years ago. Her brother bought this one. And later in the evening a friend of his purchased the “Sunflowers”. Both of these paintings removed, my “Cornfield through Pines” was put up. No interest so far in “Left Behind”, other than just a curiousity. I doubt that it will ever be purchased, being such an odd subject.

It was a grand evening of meeting new artists, visiting with old acquaintances, and catching up with staff and collectors from previous years. A precious time that is gone so soon. Now back now at Grafton Manour and tucked in cozy at the guest house, I look forward to recovering from so much work. For some reason, perhaps just age, this has been particularly physically painful. All joints and muscles ache and the aspirin and ibuprofen barely make a dent. One gets a sense of one’s mortality.

I took the day off today though, after delivering my pieces to the museum this morning, spending the day napping, reading, and, at one point, exploring the little cemetary that my host has uncovered nearby on the property. Bill Nielsen has spent a small fortune removing an overgrown tangle that strangled the stones. He’s exposed about twenty graves from the 1800s. But some of the stones are broken and lie about like a jigsaw puzzle scattered on the floor. Sallie Kilmon’s is lying embedded face up, toppled over decades ago, seperated from its base. I sat on the base of Sallie Kilmon’s grave and meditated on the place and the saying on her headstone, “Cherished in life, in death thou art remembered.” I wondered if Sallie is one of my ghosts. Sitting there in the quiet, the heat, and the humidity, I said aloud “Sallie, you’ve been gone 128 years now…thou art remembered.”

I’m Done

Tomorrow will be taken up packing, shipping, and attending the final artist brunch on an estate hear here.

As I said earlier, I woke up Friday morning with a change in mind for the wedding dress, which is now called “Left Behind”, a name suggested by the Nielsen’s.

This was a wonderful journey in which I learned a number of very important things that I can share later. Throughout the week I was in pain. My joints and my back hurt a lot and I lived on ibuprofen and aspirin just to be able to do what I had to do. This was not fun. On top of that the heat was relentless and so was the schedule. By far, this has been the toughest competition of all. And not just because of that. There were a lot a fine painters in this competition, some I know well, others I know better now. It was a lot of fun to compete as professionals. A lot of support goes around and we manage to put it all into perspective, I think: You win some, you lose some. But most importantly, you show up.

Okay, One More Thing…

Just showing up certainly is a lesson learned. And perserverance. Just rolling out of bed and doing what you ought to do. So, I’m showing up for one last entry in my Plein Air Easton journal…

The Quick Draw contest is on Saturdy morning, 10 to 12. That’s how long you have to paint in downtown Easton, then you pack up your gear and hoof it over a couple of blocks to the street they’ve blocked off. There you set up your easel again and put your framed painting on the easel. There is a big crowd of people looking at the work. This outdoor exhibition fills an entire block. And it is hot! Hot is not a good word for this but I can think of another word that starts with an h that would work. Here we stand for two hours while the public decides what to buy and the judges decide what they like. This is followed by another awards ceremony.

Here is why I showed up for this despite being sick of painting: if you win the Quick Draw you get a chance to compete at the Sunday Brunch. The winner’s painting at the Sunday Brunch competition gets his painting purchased by the Academy Museum of Art. So it is one last chance to make a sale and get some more glory.

The Sunday Brunch is an all out bash. Everyone is long white dresses and sailing buffs. So chic. These people have money. This year the Brunch was hosted at a 600 acre estate on the Chesapeake. See my photos. As I arrived the winners of the competition and the Quick Draw were scattered here and there, painting, over the 600 acres. Golf carts would take you from artist to artist. Or you could just hang out, drinking bloody mary’s, mimosas, or whatever you want, and eating from a buffet that stretched 100 feet. All very elegant and fun, because many of these people, including the Coca-cola heirs, you have met before. So it’s time to catch up.

After the Brunch paint out competition, the paintings are lined up on easels and the Museum announces their choice of purchase. This is followed by an auction of the remaining work. Tons of fun.

Then it is time to say congratulations and goodbyes to all of the artist and patron friends you have made, and to take time to personally thank as many of the organizers and volunteers that you can.

My hosts from this year and two years ago, the Nielsens, were there, as were my hosts from last year, the Hamiltons. I made sure everyone sat together and we had a fine time. I will see the Hamiltons in the morning to say goodbye over coffee and to leave them with 6 large boxes of paintings, frames, my easel, and my paints. They will take them to UPS for me. The Nielsens, my hosts this year, asked me to come to dinner tonight. “We know you are busy, but you have to eat!” Lovely people.

A big surprise when I went to pick up the remaining paintings, “Cornfield through Pines” and “Left Behind”: the wedding dress had sold. It had honestly never crossed my mind that this painting would sell. I just wanted people to see it because of the stories it implied. But, there was a blank spot on the wall. I asked where the painting was and the museum said that if the wall is bland the painting is sold. A few volunteers had to convince me. This was like winning a prize, I was so happy.

After picking up my last pieces at the Museum and feeling very good, I went back to Grafton Manour and had dinner with the Nielsen’s, then finished boxing and packing.

At sunrise, I stood outside the sweet house and just absorbed the great, green expanse of the place, the soy fields, the distant cemetery with Sallie Kilmon’s grave, the near barn glowing orange in the morning sun, a light breeze, not hot yet, played over my skin, a distant bird called, and far over the fields I could see the little herd of happy deer. I was supremely happy and grateful, a true moment of joy, and especially as I looked at the rising sun, standing as I was in the very spot where three years ago I painted that red sun rising, and that scene seemed the perfect ending to it all.

I left Grafton Manour and stopped by the Hamilton’s on the way, leaving them my boxes to ship for me, and having a final cup of coffee with George and Christie Hamilton.

This painting is now in the permanent collection of the Academy Museum of Art in Easton, Maryland.

The Boon

Joseph Campbell used to talk about the “hero”. In the archetypal hero story there are classic elements: the hero leaves the world on a quest, encounters magical helpers and struggle, and, in the end, brings back a “boon” to mankind. Presumptuous as it does sound, I have always thought of plein air painting as a hero’s story. I see myself as a hero when I go out into the world to bring back a boon to mankind, and this is true of every plein air painter. As you can see by the stories above, it is a struggle into another world, a world beyond the ordinary, where painters brave pain, insects, animals, tourists, heat and exhaustion to capture the beautiful essence of the world. We encounter magical helpers along the way, other artists, our hosts, friends, people who lend encouragement and help make it all possible, and all the volunteers and organizers of the event. We bring our experience and our vision back to the world on canvas. This is our boon to mankind. But there is a boon to us, the artists, as well. Plein air painting is a kind of furnace of experience that burns away unnecessary things, thoughts, attitudes, fears, burns them away and, at last, leaves us with the clear knowledge that the boon we bring back to mankind we also bring back to ourselves.