So often Ads in magazines for shows or announcements fall short- either the color or the design is off or sometimes the opposing page has some disastrous image on it that clashes with your own work. I was very impressed with this ad that The Costello Childs Gallery http://www.costellochildsart.com/index.html is running in the new magazine “Luxe” http://www.luxemagazine.com/digital-editions/This is a fabulous very high end design and interiors publication. The artist’s from Left to Right are Erik Gonzales, Chuck Johnson, Nicholas Wilton and Patricia Sannit.

Another fantastic week at Esalen. We stayed up till 3 am painting every night, ate more than our share of chocolate and wine, created amazing artwork, laughed a tremendous amount and from the steaming hot springs, watched the moon come up over the Big Sur mountains. Thank you all! We will post the dates of the next Esalen workshop up as soon as we finalize it–most likely Spring 2011.

This is an excerpt from a book I am working on about Creativity. The book, like the workshops we teach, utilize 6 Principles as a framework, roadmap to allowing more artistry, more creativity into our lives. This excerpt is taken from the chapter on Risk, Priciple #5. -NW

Almost every painting I make ends up somewhere along the line involving some kind of risk. What follows is the typical scenario. This example is just my process, just something that I have noticed again and again in the way I work, the process I often go through in making paintings.

When I initially set about to make a new work often I am spurred along by someone – perhaps a gallery saying or encouraging me to do something similar to a painting that “everyone seemed to like” and that in fact has just sold. Of course, I like to believe that I am not influenced at all by the outside response I get from people, that I am divinely inspired from a higher authority, a genius that doesn’t need or require kibitzing from the sidelines. But sheepishly, I admit that this is not the case with me, with my particular fragile ego. Like most people, I do like to get a positive reaction from an audience. It feels so good. We are social creatures after all and even though I work alone I do consider art making to be a socially minded endeavor. “Well, to re do a painting should be easy enough, I say to myself, as I have made the original painting just last month. I basically am just doing another version of this same painting. I know exactly what to do. In fact I could do this again and again, garnering more and more positive responses…My life could be filled to the brim with positive remarks, lots of sold paintings, bigger and better shows, leading to some kind of celebrity status, an artist to the stars perhaps. But then I snap out of it and realize that it is only Tuesday afternoon – I have practically zero celebratory status and the fact remains I still have a blank canvas in front of me and I have to re create something as good or better than a previous work. In reality it’s not always so easy to do.

I begin the painting that I already know will be successful before I have even started. My mind is clear and dead set on a certain outcome. This goes pretty well at first- I can lay in the basic composition knock in the colors so by the end of the first day I have a reasonable facsimile- a rough version of what my gallery called one of my best paintings. This one is looking good – doesn’t really have the same feeling as the original one…. I quit for the day and think I am just tired- Start again tomorrow- then I will be able to see, to understand what is missing. I have dinner and then pop my head back in the studio on the way to bed, as I just want to see if I do in fact like it better after eating. Paintings rarely get better when your not working on them and this time is no exception.

The next day arrives and with it comes a fresh determination to force this artwork into obedience, wrestle it’s look into the very same thing I made before—I want it, everyone else wants it so I am going to get my way. I even printed out a color copy of the prior painting, the one that just sold, so I can see where exactly I am going to end up. Hours roll along and it seems the painting is getting more similar to my print I have thumb tacked to the wall. But I feel tired, worn out a little bit. Something is missing here. I don’t’ feel particularly good anymore about this ugly stepsister of a painting. I stop to eat lunch—food is always a good distraction and often after eating lunch- giving it a visual break, I can see more clearly what is missing. This doesn’t work this time although I did manage to get involved in making a salad of such complexity that I was preoccupied for well over an hour…so I definitely am no longer hungry, but my painting is still not quite working. I plod on pushing paint around. The whole process is becoming tiring. Why do I want to paint what I have already painted before? Whose idea is this anyway? Yes but that’s what they want- that’s what everyone likes. Somewhere around 3:30pm I get the realization that like my painting before me, my interior, my insides the very core of my being is actually bored to death. This is not fun, not interesting- It’s like “fill in the colors” but with not very good ones. What do I do? I feel hemmed in, stuck on a mind-numbing course of my own design. I finally surrender and sit down in my paint-splattered chair I reserve for such moments. I usually work standing up and feel it’s important, at least for me, to utilize the whole body, but when I become defeated I sit down, rest and take a good long look at my situation. I might not figure it out at first or it might take several more painful days to realize what has gone so hopelessly wrong…But then I get the inkling, the remembrance of what I already know I know. That what is missing in this whole silly business of doing things that are too safe, trying to formulize art, trying to game this business of art making into predictability is simply, Principle #5, RISK. That thing that is always pushed outside the door, that has no place inside a factory that makes cars, a restaurant, a dry cleaners, no spot really anywhere inside our business work lives or for that matter our personal lives either. This thing called Risk is simply unwelcome most everywhere it shows up. Except in Art. And the closest I have ever gotten to wrapping my understanding around what makes one thing art and another just a regular thing has something to do with this crucial ingredient called Risk. It is simply essential to the making of Art.

Finally, left with no other option, humbled to a small shadow of my former self- I throw out the damn notion altogether of making art to get attention, to sell something or gather favorable reviews. I banish all those people standing around with me in my studio, the gallery owners, the beaming art collector couple, the adoring fans, the art critics and lock the damn door behind them. My pulse quickens, I just am going to do whatever the hell I want to do for a change. With a degree of frustration, anger really, anger at myself for thinking I can dabble around the edges, only go in up to my ankles-to actually not Risk something and think I could come up with something worthwhile. Who needs another pretty picture anyway? Is that what I am about? What do I want? What am I willing to say? No I need to reassert- to throw care to the wind and the only way I know how to do this is to sabotage this whole painting in front of me- to wreck it, destroy its pathetic overworked surface and take the chance that I can make something better in it’s place even if I don’t know what that will be. Before I even pick up the 5-inch brush and the half-gallon of black paint I am suddenly feeling better. Giddy more like. The excitement, the sense of aliveness in the room is palatable. I have no idea of what I am about to do – I am afraid, but even this feeling is way better than everlasting boredom. I don’t even want to make art if I have to be that bored ever again, I think, as my brush loaded with black paint hits the surface. I roll a thick wide brushstroke right across the canvas, covering over all this picky work I just spent 2 days doing. It feels right, instinctively – I can sense myself coming alive again…I don’t know where I am going but it doesn’t matter. I can feel this is right…paint is literally flying off the palette now suddenly I am squeezing colors out I have not used before-I am so excited that I don’t stop to put the caps back on –the possibilities are infinite- this painting can go anywhere now. It turns out the gate was unlocked the whole time and I just needed to give it a push. Within minutes this ugly painting starts to change- it’s moving, it’s alive and I am too. I am working too fast to even think about outcome now. I could care less. I am just in it all the way. There is no turning back, this painting is teaching me about who I am, what kind of a person I have become- even what kind of a father I am to my daughters, my insecurities, my smallness my dreams and my fears– its’ all here with me now in the room, in this painting…Its completely engaging, utterly transporting and to a small degree frightening…. And then I stop and step back, my shoes are covered in paint, my blue latex glove has torn and my thumb, uncovered, has been tinged with viridian green and maroon. This painting is strong. I can see that right away. There is a sense of immediacy about it. It resembles nothing I have ever made before.
My dog peers in at me from outside the studio glass door. Her nose steaming the glass. It’s dark outside now, I check my watch. I have been painting for 5 hours non-stop and in front of me quite possibly is one of the best things I have ever made. This appearance of excellence will, of course, change in time but for today I am happy. There is no one to tell. So I ease back down into my painting chair and smiling quietly tell the painting that now you look better. That that is what a real painting should look like.

Today, my neighbor, Lila Friday ( http://www.lilafriday.com/) knocked at my door carrying a Swedish cheese box from 1770. She purchased it from a friend who purchased it many years ago in San Francisco. I guess these were used to carry cheese before cellophane was invented or even cars for that matter…She just had to show me because it reminded her of my work and thought I would like it too. Well I did. Very much my colors, if I can be so presumptuous, and, yes, I especially loved how worn out it had become in all it’s carrying of cheese, probably back and forth across oceans aboard sailing ships. The colors, in fact, were very similar to a painting that I just had finished. She stood there next to the painting, holding the basket, looking at me, looking at the painting and then back again at the cheese box. She was smiling. I did too. The rain had finally stopped and there were squares of sunlight on the studio floor. I felt slightly very happy. And then I realized I was having one of those moments. A small little thing, an interaction, a gesture perhaps or even a cheese box that somehow takes an ordinary Tuesday and turns it into an especially good one.

I took this about a week ago and it’s fun to see how much I have already changed these paintings. Some are done now. The one on the way left on the wall being cropped out is a painting commissioned by a friend. It was especially challenging as this painting had to go into their home and I wanted it to work. Thankfully they have wonderful taste and their house colors are wonderful. That pea green painting, the one on the floor with the red lines totally changed. I got rid of almost all the colors and ended up with a grey painting with bits of colors coming through. What’s crazy is that this process always challenges me. When I took this picture I did not know what to do on several of these. Eventually I figure it out but one would think it would get easier with time. I keep making paintings, over and over again. Actually the one with the red dot in the upper right came very quickly and pretty much looks like it did last week and now it’s done.

When I finished my house I spent a fair bit of time adjusting this photo in photoshop. I deleted the background and made it white, fixed the proportions so it looked in perspective and even added a drop shadow. I thought that this would make it easy for it to be chosen to be included in some promotion of the event. As an artist, one of the fringe benefits of doing “volunteer” work is sometimes getting your name out there in addition to helping a cause you care about. When I was in the hardware store in town the other day I saw a stand of these publications which featured my house on the cover using this same photo that I had created earlier. There was a pretty good article about the project and some of the various houses that are being displayed around the Bay Area. Unfortunately the publication didn’t credit my name with the work in the publication. Oh well. It’s all still pretty great.
Here also is a Channel 2 segment the local news did on the project.: http://www.ktvu.com/video/22712153/index.html

I am involved in this amazing new organization, “The Redford Center” http://redfordcenter.org/ Robert Redford and his family have created this non profit to inspire positive social and environmental change through the arts, education and civil discourse. Besides doing great work in areas of the environment and social justice, what I feel is particularly potent about the Center is their group process they utilize to create dialogue and change. Along with all relevant experts in the particular field of concern, Robert Redford’s long standing personal vision of also having artists involved in problem solving and discussions adds an out of the box thinking that can help catalyze solutions.
Last week was one of their first public events in San Francisco. It was an evening of discussion led by Redford Center’s Director, Lee Bycel and Robert Redford. In additon, during the evening they honored two local actviists: Avery Hale, a young woman, 16 yrs. old who has started a organization” Step by Step” http://www.stepbystepforshoes.com/ that delivers shoes to poor villages in South America. Also honored was Victor Diaz a principal at Berkeley Technology Academy, a high school continuation school.http://www.berkeley.net/alternative-hs/
A particularly moving moment for me was when Robert Redford was describing early influences in his life. He told how he was a terrible student, and that he was rarely interested in what was being taught. He was constantly doodling in class. The teacher, in an attempt to shame him, forced him to stand in front of his 6th grade class and explain why his drawing was so much more interesting than what she was teaching. Totally humiliated, but lacking any recourse, he began to describe his drawing to the class. His drawing showed B-52 war airplanes shooting at cowboys who were driving a group of Indians off a cliff to their demise. To his surprise, the class actually found it very interesting too and were riveted. In a moment that could of gone either way, the teacher, recognizing the magic that was occurring in her now attentive classroom allowed him to continue. Putting her ego aside, she offered Robert a 15 minute time slot every Wednesday, at the end of class, so he could come up and describe and narrate his stories. As we all know, this is the work he still does today. Storytelling.
I was honored to be able to design the awards that were handed out that evening as well as having my work projected as the backdrop to this event. painting shown “May” 70″ x 90″ Oil and Beeswax on Panel.

This is a detail of one side of the roof. The snakes and ladders are from the original game that later was turned into chutes and ladders- a board game that deals with fate and the luck. I created a board game, calendar motif on the house to symbolize the passage of time and the unknown twists and turns in one’s life. The numbers represent the days of the month- passage of time.

I finished it. I was happy that there was only 3 sides and not 4. Painting a house is,well, like painting a house…there is a lot of space on the outside of a house!…I am happy that the figure feels like the house and to me really adds something dynamic to the shape. The inside is very open- pale blue sky in feeling to contrast with the density on the outside of the house. Up high, on the inside where very few will look, is a blue angel.

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This is a detail of one side of the roof. The snakes and ladders are from the original game that later was turned into chutes and ladders- a board game that deals with fate and luck. I created a board game, calendar motif on the house to symbolize the passage of time and the unknown twists and turns in one’s life. The numbers represent the days of the month and the passage of time. The house is 49″ x 48″ and is made with plaster, acrylic and oil paint. The sculpture is mahogany and oil paint.