Detail from “Berkeley No. 33″ by Richard Diebenkorn, oil on canvas, 24″ x 29”, 1955

Even though I have spent since January painting it has really been in the past 4-6 weeks that I have done most of the work. Things have finally gotten easier. Paintings tend to almost make themselves now. After months of consistent painting I am now painting more from the feeling, more from the heart, than the mind.

The other day an artist friend stopped by the studio. We got in a conversation about marks, brushstrokes, or anything you do that leaves a paint residue on the surface.

We came to the conclusion that there are two kinds. Decorative and Soulful.

Decorative marks are easier to make and require little thinking. These often end up making the picture pretty. They are, after all, decorative. They are pleasing in general, but usually they don’t add anything hugely significant to the work. I notice if I am not paying attention I tend to mostly make decorative marks. They at first feel good but tend to lose their impact within an hour or two. Painting in a decorative way is fun, but like decorating a Christmas tree, it is only fun for about 45 minutes and you also only really need to do it once a year and then you have had your fill. A painting that is mostly made up of decorative marks is pretty for sure, but often can fall kind of flat.

Soulful marks, however, are more rare. These are harder to make and take a bit more intention. A mark that is powerful is one that is made with an awareness of the entire painting. It holds potency because it relates, it contrasts more dramatically with what is already there in the work. So in order to produce this kind of mark the artist must be paying attention, she must be thoughtful, sensitive to resisting habitual repetition, willing to try something different and to sit with a feeling of vulnerability that always comes with trying something untested. Soulful marks carry strength within them because they are made when you are not entirely sure of the outcome. You have a hunch. You are following the feeling inside you.

There is risk involved.

Marks that we make, whether decorative or soulful, are simply answers to questions we have asked ourselves in our creative process. The sum total of these answers, results in our art. Hopefully, over time, our decision-making improves, resulting in stronger artwork.

Sometimes in my life, not just my art, I see that the answer I give to any question that is important can be made either from the mind or from the heart. Often a choice to be made can mentally be a yes, have all the practical, pretty reasons to be a yes, but something inside me is quietly and persistently saying no.

From my art I have learned that decisions I make from the heart, rather than from the mind, are stronger, more enduring and more in alignment with myself.

The parallel to our art making, the decisions made, not just in our lives but also in our creative process is quite obvious. It is all about improving our mark making, more accurately responding to the important questions that arise. The more awareness, the more soul we can bring to our creative process, the stronger and more like ourselves our resulting art will become.

Do you see this in your practice? Does this relate to your life too?

Regards, Nicholas

Here is a 25x magnified drop of seawater, photographed by David Liittschwager. When I look at this it reminds me of abstract painting. Something is defined as abstract when it is “apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances.”

We look at this photo of the water teeming with life and oddly this somehow seems familiar even though we have probably not seen it before. It is reminiscent of confetti, a new years day parade, it feels like an amusement park, it looks like some kind of crazy animation, a cartoon – I even think of “The Curse of Lono” pictures created by Ralph Steadman – it feels like jewelry, Japanese rice paper, a video game, perhaps, but mostly, I think of Cy Twombly’s large abstract paintings.

Art isn’t so much about creating something entirely unique, but rather making something in a new way that is reminiscent of something familiar. Art gains its potency from its ability to cross reference the utterly random flotsam and jetsam of life. The abstract marks of Cy Twombly’s paintings are so filled with references to nature, to so many expressions of feelings – joy, reckless abandon, exactitude – that they hardly feel abstract at all.

Looking at his random scratch marks individually, for example, would not be too impressive, but when arranged by him and en mass, something more potent, metaphorical and wondrous occurs. What is occurring, what he is so expertly offering us is an invitation to be reminded or even possibly re interpret our own life experience.

Art, and especially abstract art, is just teeming with connections and references to life. In many ways when something is hyper realistic, the opposite of abstract, (think of a realistic painting of a red Porsche, for example) it seems the connectivity factor – that is, the random associations one experiences when looking at the art – declines.

Art, and especially abstract art, is like good poetry. A poem is just a paltry assortment of words, but when expertly arranged on paper can imply to the reader ideas and feelings far beyond the specific meanings, the concreter realities of those little words alone.

My work over the years, and I think this is the case for many artists, has gone from the literal, the concrete and specific to the more abstract. It makes sense that an artistic journey would become more expansive, more life encompassing as it goes along.

In letting go of the specific, I have discovered that my art can hold more and more of the nuances and subtleties of the human experience. The abstraction, the nonliteral, is simply more like life. In an odd way it is more realistic. Art that doesn’t exactly describe or tell specifically how or what the viewer (or artist for that matter) should feel seems more expansive and as a result invites far more personal associations and connections with the world around us.

What do you think?

In anticipation, Nicholas

Generally we think things have a beginning, middle and an end. Movies are like this, stories, instructions, cookbooks, the lives of our pets, and I guess our lives too. But lately I have been realizing that art making doesn’t always follow this pattern. Ideas, inspiration, and bursts of creativity manifest things that don’t necessarily make sense at first and often don’t come in any particular order.

At the last workshop I gave, I worked with an artist who decided to make a series of paintings that collectively, when they were all done, would tell a story. He started the week with a series of blank cigar box size wooden panels. He didn’t have a clue as to what the story would be but just set about painting. The idea would simply emerge by the making of the art. The first paintings he finished told the middle of the story and the last paintings he finished told the beginning. None of it really made sense till most of the paintings came closer to completion.

Creativity often comes to us in this piecemeal fashion. I have seen writers speak about getting an inspiration to write 10 pages of a story, but have no idea whether the portion is from the beginning, middle or end, only that it is just a part of an important story not yet formed.

It is odd that things we create come to us in parts and pieces and seemingly in no particular order. This is how it is for me when I make art. For years I tried to determine a predictable way of working and in some ways I have achieved this, but in the end, I had to just leave a big space in my process for things to happen and only when they were good and ready. I sometimes have to wait a long time, but when it comes – and it always does – it is usually better or more worthwhile than I could have imagined.

When we look back upon our lives we tend to summarize in anecdotal fashion the sequence of events that led to something that occurred. It just all makes sense looking back. It seems to fit, or maybe we fit it into a narrative that we can understand, a story that fits the movie of our life.

In actual fact, I think life unfolds more like the creative process. Things fall into place in no particular order, you meet people and at the time don’t understand the significance, events happen that seem random at first but later are construed as pivotal and essential to your journey.

Everything seems to just be happening all at once in a gigantic swirl of synchronic chance and wonder. Out of this we pull pieces or maybe they somehow drop into our lives. Much of this is what Art is made from – the bits and pieces of a perfect story still unfolding that curiously is not readily understandable looking forward and only becomes so when looking back.

Are we actually seeing more accurately in hindsight? What is your experience?

In anticipation, Nicholas

I had never seen a full moon eclipse till the other night, but sitting in the hot springs overlooking the sea on the Big Sur coast of California made waiting and watching this very slow process palatable. At home I probably would not of even taken the time to walk outside and look.

In an eclipse, the Earth’s shadow slowly covers and hides the moon’s luminescence. As the moon became less bright all the reflections of its light also became less. The impossibly beautiful shimmering light upon the sea dulls. The moonlight slowly but surely diminished making everything more difficult to see. The details of the rocky cliffs that cascaded below me faded, the separation of the sea and the night sky blurred and the steam that normally rose from these hot springs like a diaphanous veil could no longer be seen. Everything was fading to black.

Everything but the remaining stars that now had multiplied in some kind of crazy coming out party. These pinpricks of lights, some bigger, some possibly planets with their subtle differences of color, usually are not all seen because of the relative brightness of our moon. It is so near our spinning Earth we can practically reach out and touch it and when it is full, its light overpowers all but the brightest of stars. We normally see but a tiny fraction of the stars that exist.

But now, tonight, on the eve of what was called a “blood moon eclipse”, the sky’s colossal amount of stars could be more easily seen. It is difficult in life to comprehend what a million or a billion of anything actually looks like, but that night, gazing at all the stars began to give me a sense. The infinite stars, now able to be seen because of the lack of moonlight just left me awestruck.

I realized that the darkening of the moon and its resulting effects in the night sky was actually just an example of the “Subtractive Art Principle” I have been teaching my students all this week in my ArtLife workshop here at Esalen.

In art–making, you sometimes have to muster up the courage to cover something up and to finally let something go, even if it feels precious and of value to you. There is a tendency to feel like you need to always add more to make things turn out right. But lately, especially in my art, I have been trying to do less and remember that, more than likely, what I really want is possibly already there sitting just below the surface of things. I just have to remove something so it can be seen.

There is fear and risk involved when finally, finally letting go of something but usually it is followed by something more appropriate and often surprisingly wonderful. The moon’s absence gave me a million stars I had never seen before.

It is with a huge sigh of relief, and no small measure of gratitude, that on this especially dark night I am reminded by a million stars above, and more coming every minute, of this essential, simple truth.

Thankfully, Nicholas

One of the challenges in Art is seeing it objectively. The reason it can sometimes be difficult is because there are two ways, two important views of what you are doing, that need to be seen simultaneously.

Firstly, there is the close up view. I refer to this as the “quiet conversation,” that you and your viewer will experience up close when standing directly in front of your artwork. It is the view that is seen at arms length, the artist’s intimate conversation that is revealed and recorded when actually making the art. The differences between things, colors and textures in this quieter conversation are usually more refined, subtle and nuanced.

Secondly there is the distant view and I like to refer to this as the “loud conversation.” It could be from the other side of the studio or even from across the street. As a result this has to be much bolder. This louder conversation or bold pattern of shapes and colors has to be engaging from a distance. Then, if the viewer becomes interested, they will come up and look more closely. It is at this point that the quiet conversation can be experienced.

What I have noticed over the years is that most people are better at one or the other. Often their art is missing one of these conversations. Interestingly, I have experienced that those who are more comfortable in a one on one conversation or smaller group settings are particularly good at the “quiet conversation” of their art. In this more intimate, up close setting, detail, refinement and in general, a higher level of subtlety is demonstrated.

However, without the ability to perceive yourself objectively, to rise above where you are standing, or to have an ability to embolden yourself to also be strongly clear in the “loud conversation,” a huge aspect of your art is not realized. There are those of us who excel in holding court, conducting ourselves in front of others and being a strong integral part of a group. You need to be louder, more demonstrative, and surely more self confident to participate. Those who find this easy, tend to spend more time within situations that are more synonymous with the loud conversation. They also sometimes can find it challenging to move towards the quiet conversation of their art. It is in this more intimate view, up close, where the viewer will experience a heightened sense of nuance and subtlety.

Like fire and water, these two conversations, the loud and the quiet are opposites and when presented together bring an exquisite richness into our Art.

It is my belief that the quiet and the loud conversations if not always present should at least be considered, not just in Life but especially in the Art we make. We need both. All of us have the capability to push ourselves somewhat outside of our comfort zone to become louder or more quiet, to become more bold or more subtle. If we can, our Art will end up becoming far more potent, far more engaging. and as a result, more like ourselves.

I am definitely better up close in the quieter conversations of my Art.  Which kind of conversation do you tend to have more often?  Does this reflect in your work?

In boldness, Nicholas

I am writing this in the small town of Sayulita, Mexico. The sun is bright, the air warm and the sound of chickens, dogs and children in the streets fill the air. Everything is different here, especially the pace. Time seems slower, the days longer, everything seems to be made by hand, and the small shops are all shuttered every afternoon to nap.

I always bring sketchbooks with me but unless the trip is very long I tend not to do too much art. My normal life at home is already filled with creating Art. I am always challenging myself to make something that is new and different.

It is a seductive enterprise; the act of making things. Someone once said, I don’t know who, that you can be having a pretty crappy day but if you make a piece of art that you actually like, then that day will forever be golden.

So why then, when I am here, a thousand miles from the answering machine, the morning and evening traffic back and forth to my studio, and the somewhat irrelevant errands, am I not diving into making Art. I clearly have the time.

I think the issue has to do with stimulation. When I am in a new environment I tend to notice much more of my surroundings. This makes sense, because to me, what I am seeing is brand new. Things tend to stand out, especially when they are different.

In just the past 24 hours I have seen a man running shoeless and shirtless, actually carrying his water bottle balanced upon his head, a dog that looked like a diminutive grey lion, a 2 1/2 yr. old child, sitting underneath her father’s chair, he making bead crafts, she using his smart phone to surf the internet, an iridescent green iguana running on his hind legs, a chicken who found his way into the neighbor’s compost pile, the Mexican Delineated Woodpecker with it’s magnificent crimson head, been awoken up by the cawing of the chachalaka birds with their gravely noisy calls, watching a man dressed in gold foil suspended all afternoon upon a pole in the blaring sun, motionless amongst all the busyness of the town, donkeys and horses who actually look hungry, a nation of ants that move upon any tiny scrap of food that is even momentarily left unattended, walls painted with jarring color combinations that somehow look fantastic in this place that is so bright, hundreds of pelicans dropping from the sky into the sea to feed and of course, the tell tale signs of a communities’ happiness, the perpetual smiles of almost everyone you meet in this small seaside town.

So it is in this respite, this pause of watching the sun slip behind the horizon every evening, and the moon just a thin crescent right now delicately floating upwards into the twilight that I am reminded again that the reason I make art is to awaken myself, to transport myself to a place of my own imaginings. But somehow here where all manner of unseen things exist, I find that need sated. Instead I just mostly feel a renewed sense of curiosity and wonder that all this exists. It is all so absolutely different from where I usually am. Unlike the complicated effort of creation, the art of seeing doesn’t require doing much of anything at all. It is all so refreshingly simple.

With gratitude, Nicholas

As I was painting today I was thinking about breath. In yoga there is a very deliberate inhalation and an exhalation to every pose. I was noticing how I hold, or slowly inhale, my breath when I work. This seems to occur when I am trying hard to do something. It comes when I am concentrating and there always is a certain amount of determination involved. In yoga the inhalation is the exertion part, the physical effort to align your limbs into a specific pose. The inhalation consolidates focus and attention.

Once the lungs are filled, the breath reverses, and we exhale. A slow and effortless release. An unfurling. The breathing out feels easier and it centers you back on the ground. Often, after an intense experience, we just automatically exhale which seems to return a measure of calm to our being.

I realized that these two states – the intense focus (inhale) and the letting go (exhale) coexist in the act of painting. They are, in fact, opposites and contribute to different kinds of mark making. For me, and this is something I am working on presently, having too much determination, too much effort can result in a painting, a work of art that feels forced. The effort, if it is desperately attached to outcome, will tarnish the final result. If there is a subject matter or an idea within the work, a large portion of it will be obscured by the sheer effort that is distractingly felt in the finished art.

“Trying too hard” unfortunately can become part of the subject matter. Like a guest at a dinner party, who incessantly tries to be funny, a painting that tries too hard can be slightly annoying.

So the remedy is to do more of the opposite. Just breathing out helps me. But what exactly are we doing when we exhale? What exactly are we letting go of? I don’t think it really matters but it generally has to do with control. It might be trying to control paint in such a way that it stays within the lines, it might be trying to control any aspect of our life. Whether is it about making sure your art always looks the same, having relationships go a certain way or expecting a business to go according to your plan–it just all never seems that controllable and at best it is just partially so.

Often things go completely, absolutely awry. Especially in art. We take a big breath in, make an intention, doggedly pursue our desire till it becomes apparent that things probably aren’t going to go our way exactly as we had hoped. And then we have to let go.

And this is exactly when something can sometimes happen that is simply far better than we could of imagined. There is something waiting in the exhalation that is better. It can’t be planned and it can’t be controlled. These are the happy accidents, the drips of paint that fall from the brush in just the most perfectly, unexpected places, the mistakes, the hunches, the chance meetings and the surprises along the way. Interestingly they seem to usually come on the exhale. The letting go of control seems to allow some kind of portal, some kind of invitation for wonder to occur. In the poem “What to Remember When Waking” the poet David Whyte writes, “What you can plan is too small for you”.

I love this line because it really encourages us to focus, not on what we were not able to forcibly achieve but rather to open up to the possibility of what can be accomplished when we are not even trying. We just have to let go.

In exhalation, Nicholas

About 4 months ago I had an Achilles surgery to fix a chronic injury caused by over training for long distance running. I am now on the road to recovery and am not only walking and hiking but also starting to be able to run again. I am doing only 5 minutes of running in an hour hike but it is a start. It is a baby step that in time will lead to more, which hopefully will get me running again.

These small steps, literally, will eventually add up. I have noticed in so many areas of life that it is these small steps that seem to be the most efficient way to accomplish something. I think it has to do with the fact that having the pauses in-between the attempts, the spaces when you are not trying, that allows you to recalibrate from the knowledge gained from the previous effort. In other words, instead of trying to accomplish one massive undertaking in one fell swoop; it is done from many efforts, utilizing time.

This, of course, relates to how I structure my art process. I find that coming and going frequently in my art practice gives me the best results. I often have wondered why. As I have been trying to run again, and applying the same thinking to my physical recovery I have come to some possible conclusions.

Firstly, if you start and stop more often, then there will simply be more moments of starting. I find that the first 30 minutes of making art, especially if I am returning to a half completed painting, are the most potent. If I am paying attention I often can accomplish a tremendous amount in this time. Breakthroughs generally happen during the beginning. I believe it has something to do with having objectivity. When I first start painting I am able to see the painting more clearly, more objectively simply because I have not been looking at this particular painting. After a few hours, and for me this is around 3, I lose the objectivity and my decision-making becomes compromised. Seeing things for the first time, repeatedly, seems to accelerate learning.

Secondly, and I think this one is really important, has to do with time. If on Monday I work briefly on a painting and then return to it on a Tuesday, I can look at Monday’s efforts having more life experiences, in this case one day, to better be able to adjust Mondays paintings to feel more current – more like Tuesday. It is subtle but I actually see that there is knowledge gained from working even briefly on a painting that then can be utilized when you return. This “find your way as you go” puts time on your side and uses, relies on actually, the notion that we are being influenced by everything around us all the time.

Coming and going often better allows your outside world to enter and influence the inside world of your art. Increasing the breaks, which increases the number of efforts can dramatically embolden your art.

Is this your experience? What works best for you?

In anticipation, Nicholas

There is this thing that I know. It has to do with making your art – no matter what discipline you create in – more authentic. I am now convinced, from my personal experience that it is one of the primary pieces of information needed to make remarkable paintings. This little bit of knowledge, this small smackeral of understanding not only helps your art go from good to great, it also relates – at least for me – to almost every aspect of my life. The problem is, that for some reason, I keep forgetting about it. I am not sure why, but I do. Constantly.

When I remember it, I feel a lightness wash over me. It feels a little like getting away with having your cake and eating it too – only in this case there are as many servings as you can imagine.

Does this idea always work? When didn’t it? So has it been this easy all along and it was just me making it so damn hard? When you remember it, things just turn out easier, better, especially art. Problem is, even though I teach this to people, I forget it sometimes. I forgot from Friday morning until today, Wednesday afternoon at about half past three, to remember it again. Once I did my paintings started improving in a way that till today I had been unable to imagine. I sensed I wanted things to be different, but I just didn’t know exactly how.

Sometimes I think I am just unable to hold things in my brain. As a teacher, a big part of my job is simply to remind people again and again of what they already know. Repeatedly they say the same thing to me…”I can’t believe I forgot that AGAIN!” I reassure them that when you are standing in front of a panting it is so absolutely transporting that often that you can leave a part of your thinking behind – everyone does this.

So what is this idea? So before I forget again, here it is….

Try to make your Art MORE from what you FEEL rather than what you THINK.

If you do, your work gets more personal. It is simply more like you. And lo and behold if it is, if it is a reflection of what you FEEL, then it will be more AUTHENTIC. And when that happens it changes from garden variety good, to amazing.

Give it a try.

In forgetfulness, Nicholas

My art was a delightful escape when I was a child. Creating pictures allowed me to create a new place, an alternative world, in addition to my regular life. It was so much fun that I got hooked early on. Over the years, if you go back to that place enough, if you revisit the feeling of it as well as consistently making art while there, it becomes more and more familiar. Things start to make sense, mostly because you begin to have a history, a residue of art trailing behind you. The more work that piles up in your wake, the better you are able to grasp where you/your art are heading.

If you keep going at it long enough, your work not only becomes better known to you, it also does to everyone else as well. Overtime, the work just seems to fit perfectly within and without the artist. And sometimes it is even hard to think of one without the other, because the art and the artist have become one. This is somewhat rare but always lovely to experience.

My dear friend, Noah Woods – artist, teacher, writer and illustrator – has accomplished such a feat. Noah’s imagery is created with a combination of hand painting, collage, typography, drawing and digital imagery. His work ranges from illustrations for children’s books, editorial and corporate clients as well as a never-ending stream of more personal fine art pieces. All of it walks the delicate line of being on the one hand, childlike, and on the other, supremely refined and sophisticated. Noah has grown up but unlike most everybody else, he somehow has managed to keep his childlike charm – a playful, don’t take yourself too seriously feeling – intact which translates seamlessly into his beautiful work.

I often think if I could be a child again, but knowing what I know now, if I somehow could combine these two worlds, it would be heavenly. Noah gives us a glimpse of this, what it might feel like to achieve this unlikely reality.

His pictures invite us into an entirely brand new world which makes us laugh, makes us ponder his amazing distillation of life into just the parts, that when placed together are at once familiar but also incredibly poignant. His highest skill set however, is his editing; there is an intelligence around what Noah leaves out that is most impressive. He has pared down his pictures to just what is needed. As a result he shows us a world that is still vibrant, crystal clear, inviting and just plain wonderful. I want to stay in every world he creates, to wander through his gardens of amazing plants, all arranged with perfection. Not to mention the bugs, the animals and all his people – I want to go on vacation with all of them.

Take a visual stroll at his website to see the full range of this gifted artist. Rumor has it that Noah is hard at work with yet another amazing book – although this one he says is going to be entirely different than the previous one…I can’t wait.

Also as a special treat, next Thursday we will be randomly choosing from the comments posted below on this piece. A lucky individual who will receive a personally signed copy of Noah’s award winning children’s book “Tom Cat.”

By the way, feel to ask Noah any questions if needed on this blog and I am sure he will answer them…

Hope your Thursday is turning out to be a good one.

Kind regards, Nicholas