{"id":619,"date":"2017-05-28T22:09:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-28T22:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/?p=619"},"modified":"2017-05-28T22:09:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T22:09:45","slug":"the-power-in-painting-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/28\/the-power-in-painting-with-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power in Painting with Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Painting
Painting with the YWA, \u00a9 2015 Trowzers Akimbo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m a recluse by nature. I rarely\u00a0volunteer to leave my home studio. Necessity has to drag me out the door, kicking and screaming: re-supply needs or occasions it just would not be right to avoid. I\u00a0rarely initiate get-togethers, but do attend, when others put them together. I like to work, work, work! For me painting is a solitary undertaking, my best results achieved while all alone, uninterrupted, in the zone. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n

I’m primarily an abstract painter. It was a sudden realization in the late ’80s that I might have\u00a0something to say,\u00a0using\u00a0multiple viewpoint perspective, that drew me away from my commercial (animation direction, illustration, computer game creative direction) work towards fine art. As a kid, from birth through high school, I did create representational works and, of course, my commercial endeavors required my work to be representational, in one form or another, but my adult\u00a0fine art works were\u00a0abstractions.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, some portrait work from\u00a0artist friend, Terry Robinson, was posted on Facebook. Terry and I first met and worked together, when I was the Chief Creative Officer at Sierra Online, a computer game company in the Sierra Mountains (unbelievable, huh!). When I realized the postings were occurring weekly, I asked Terry about them. He let me know he was meeting weekly with a group that brought in a live model and encouraged me to join them.<\/p>\n

Like a lot of us, drawing from life had slowly migrated\u00a0to the bottom of my daily to do list, since I’d left art school, and here was an opportunity to move it\u00a0back towards the top.<\/p>\n

So, I showed up one Friday for a\u00a0Yosemite Western Artists<\/em> (YWA) live model\u00a0session. This one small, seemingly insignificant action broadly expanded my world.<\/p>\n

The Yosemite Western Artists are primarily\u00a0representational artists.\u00a0Fearing that my abstractions would cause these strangers to gather up torches and pitchforks and drive me from the building, I first worked representationally with the group. My first surprise was that I enjoyed working representationally again and that I had a lot of areas still to explore in this direction. I realized I was a different artist than the one who’d abandoned representational work in high school. Another was that, weeks later when I abstracted from the model during a session, that others were interested, not necessarily appalled, by what I was doing. In fact, based on member request, I’ve since hosted workshops on abstraction.<\/p>\n

YWA also introduced me to plein air painting (a big part of what I do these days), through their monthly group outings.<\/p>\n

\"Trowzers,
Plain air with friends, \u00a9 2017 Kerby Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The relationships I’ve developed with other artists, through the group has not only been good for the soul, but it’s provided me with kindred spirits that love to discuss art and art challenges as much as I do. I haven’t rolled art around this much in conversation, since I left art school. And collectively they’ve exposed me to art competitions, gallery and exhibit opportunities in the local area that, for the 24 years I’ve been painting up here, I had no idea existed. I’ve learned of brilliant artists whom I’d never heard of and museum exhibits I surely would have missed, left to my own devices. These accidental acquaintances have blown my world wide open. I suppose this is how and why so called schools<\/em> of painting, in distinct geographical areas, developed, like Impressionism, Post Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art: groups of artist circling the wagons and within painting, discussing,\u00a0critiquing\u00a0and supporting each other, as they drove their creative expessions in new\u00a0directions.<\/p>\n

I’ve since widened my creative circle by\u00a0joining\u00a0another organization, the Society of Western Artists<\/em>, a group originally established in the ’30s, with current locations in Fresno, CA (near my studio in the Sierras) and the San Francisco Bay Area. While newer to this organization, I’ve already had extended conversations on art, through road trips, as we’ve transported works for group exhibitions from Fresno to San Francisco.<\/p>\n

When I first stepped through the doorway of the historic Gertrude Schoolhouse (headquarters for YWA), I\u00a0never saw any of this coming. Thank you Terry for dragging me out of my\u00a0cocoon!<\/p>\n

If you, yourself, don’t already belong to an active artist group in your area, I recommend you join one quickly. The\u00a0rewards, both practical and spiritual, will be unpredicted\u00a0and immeasurable!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a recluse by nature. I rarely\u00a0volunteer to leave my home studio. Necessity has to drag me out the door, kicking and screaming: re-supply needs or occasions it just would not be right to avoid. I\u00a0rarely initiate get-togethers, but do attend, when others put them together. I like to work, work, work! For me painting … Continue reading “The Power in Painting with Friends”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4,51,8],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}