Interior Decorating

I've looked at petroglyphs for many years. At one point in
my painting I was imagining living near them. Perhaps I had
these thoughts because I had begun framing and hanging
my paintings of the wonderful and sometimes mysterious
designs. I've been places with hundreds of these designs are
amassed and imagine Ute families spreading their mats on the floors
of wikiups right next to several such pieces of art.
"Hunting Shaman" Mixed media painting by Phillip Hoyle

Last week I went to a friend’s condo to help her ready it for sale. She had already got rid of quite a bit of her furniture and didn’t know to arrange what she had left in order to make the place presentable and appealing to potential buyers. We dust mopped, rearranged furniture, moved it again and again seeking for that combination of placement, lighting, color, and so forth that would seem balanced and inviting. We moved paintings from here to there and even used marker to cover up dings in one frame. I refolded the sheets in her closet and suggested if she were to leave clothes in the closet, she should hang them in a particular way, emphasizing color, etc. I wanted her to put a rug at the side of her bed. On and on, we pushed, considered, moved, removed, and finally were satisfied. My friend Jan was happy and thanked me over and over. She introduced me to her daughter as a friend who knew a lot about art. That was okay (I do know a little about art), but what about interior decorating? Where did all this “know-how” and “opinion” come from? I had to think about that.

My influences were a teenage interest in such things paired with my watching HGTV shows over the past few years since I can no longer stand to watch the news. My old interest has seemed to regenerate although I mostly use what I learn for art projects rather than the arrangement of furniture! And thinking about this I recall a story I wrote about my long-time relationship with interior design! Here is an excerpt: something about its origins. Enjoy.

The House

We moved up to Clay Center, Kansas, on my fifteenth birthday, two counties away from my hometown Junction City. I was born in that Army town with population of around 20,000, adjoining Fort Riley, an Army post with a similar population, that sat next to another small city, Manhattan, with 20,000 population, home of a state university with about the same number of students. Although we weren’t leaving a metropolitan center, compared with the county seat town where we were headed, with its 5,000 population and one stop light, I felt like I was giving up civilization and moving to the center of nowhere.

At least we were moving into an interesting house. We’d looked at several, each with strong points that appealed to me. Finally Dad and Mom purchased a roomy place with four bedrooms and a bath upstairs; parlor, family, dining, and utility rooms, entry hall with an exposed staircase that my sisters fantasized walking down in formals or wedding gowns, plus a kitchen on the main level; full, though rough, basement below and unfinished attic above; and an unattached garage, all sitting on three lots on the corner of Crawford and US 24, just one block east of Highway 15. It was a beautiful old place, built sixty years before for a local banker and his family. As the only boy, I got my own room but also a power mower so I could tend the huge yard. Around the same time as our move I dropped my long-standing subscription to The American Indian Hobbyist and began reading House Beautiful.

Decorating became my theme. Mom was into the house project ordering drapes for the front rooms, buying an extra couch and slipper chairs for the parlor, shopping for a proper dining room set, bringing home fabrics, pillows, and endless ideas for making this house our home. I, too, started thinking about furniture, fabric, and fancy dishes. So immediately after the move, my next older sister Holly and I began haunting Mrs. Stedman’s antique store. We read House Beautiful and discussed our likes and dislikes. Then we shopped to see what we could find to realize our ideas. For months we saved our change and bought a Victorian marble-top coffee table as a gift for Mom. At the end of that first year my sister went off to college in another town. I still pored over the magazine to find ideas for my room.

One day I noticed an ad for an art print company in New York City and sent off a letter requesting their catalogue. In a couple of weeks I received the illustrated listing and found myself entranced by a print of a painting depicting the torso of a young man wearing no shirt and the top button of his Levi’s open. I wanted that print but couldn’t imagine how anyone would hang such a picture in their house or room. But there it was in a nationally-advertised magazine in full color like an invitation into another world.

I ordered several prints although not the one I most wanted. In figuring out what to do with them, I realized I needed frames and returned to the antique store we now called the junk shop. For years I had hung prints on my bedroom walls with straight pins. Now I needed to frame them, a need that has persisted throughout my adult life. I enjoyed my years in that beautiful old house with its fancy woodwork, neat window treatments, and the pictures I’d framed.

Ideas Galore!

ATC clown by
Phillip Hoyle

I seem never to be short on ideas but often do find myself short on motivation. I may list ten new art project ideas in my daily morning pages but not be able to corral my energy and focus long enough to even re-read the list. Organizing the project may wait in a long line of other needs, even some that had not occurred to me while I was making my list and that sometimes seem more like my attempt to dodge the creative process. I’ve never quite understood this in me except to accept it and work with it. 

ATC clown by
Phillip Hoyle

Making Artist Trading Cards has certainly kept my project ideas and motivational hang-ups in good shape. If I can’t face making a big mess—meaning resetting my studio for some large project, which would involve cleaning off all the counters, gathering the needed canvas or paper, and choosing tubes of paint; or in some other project organizing and cutting lino blocks, choosing inks, setting up my little press, getting all the other things I need to complete the idea, and sometimes sweeping the floor. If I cannot face all that, I can always work on a few ATCs! So I stay busy with my art.

My friend Sue says, “If you can do it as an ATC, you can do it as a large piece of art.” I quote (or misquote) her when deciding to focus on some ATCs, and in so doing I have discovered the truth of what she claims. 

A couple of weeks ago you may have looked at my clown ATCs. No, I haven’t made large paintings of those crazy characters, but I did make some new ATC collages of clowns constructed mainly of letters from ads in fashion magazines. My encounter with drawings clowns taught me the basic shapes I needed: lines, circles, boxes, triangles, lines, and curlicues. 

ATC clown by
Phillip Hoyle

In this new ATC project I looked for letters with those shapes in magazines and went to work. I liked this project. It seemed connected with many collages I made years ago when I cut out letters for messages and the like—emulating those cut-and-paste ransom notes in old TV shows. I discovered the best letters came from Madison Avenue ads in fancy magazines. This time I began with Vogue and Details. I also found some interesting smaller letters in other magazines. I cut out the most interesting letters and sat down with blank cards (2 ½ x 3 ½), my best scissors, a few pens, glue stick, glue bottle, varied sizes of plastic googly eyes, and my trusty pen knife, and began the task. 

ATC Clown by
Phillip Hoyle

What resulted I call clowns. You can decide for yourself. But I certainly had fun clowning around with the images.

Dancing Delight

Deer Shaman after an Osage Petroglyph
Mixed media on paper by Phillip Hoyle

Jim dropped me off in Colorado Springs at the space where I was going to hang a show. I’d brought over twenty paintings to display and knew I was going to have to work fast and furious to get them hung. I’d been at it for over three hours with one short break and was pleased to have only one piece left to hang. I was very tired and the painting was just a little too large for comfort since the only place left to hang anything was very high, like many steps up a ladder, and a long lean off to the front and left. I wasn’t looking forward to the stretch and hoped I’d be able to get it in place without dropping it or scratching the frame. I was studying the challenge when a woman came in the front door.

“I stopped by to see the art,” she announced.

“So pleased you did. I’m the artist.”

When she introduced herself I realized she had purchased several of my paintings. I had sent her thank you notes. We made a little small talk while she quickly looked over the paintings and asked me about one that most attracted her. We talked a bit more. “It’s different from your others,” she commented. I agreed.

The painting featured a design I had worked with before but had never displayed: a dancing shaman in a headdress. This painting featured a bright red accent in the center and a border of white paint that when it ran elicited a rather esoteric feeling, at least in me.

“I want to take it.”

I called for Marie, the owner, who happily greeted the buyer and rang up the sale.

I wrapped the painting in paper. The customer left pleased. The shop owner was also pleased at the sale. I felt pretty sure the nail had not even cooled from being pounded in the wall just before the sale.

As my customer (and fan?) left I told her I was so pleased because the sale solved what I was going to do with the final painting I needed to hang. We laughed. I thanked her again.

Elk Shaman after a Ute petroglyph
Mixed media by Phillip Hoyle

I was so pleased when I got the show hung and even more when a couple of months later Marie called me to tell me she'd sold three more of my paintings--two to the same customer and one to a young friend of hers. They were quite happy, as was Marie, as was I.

In the past month I have been working again with the white borders and just finished a set of six paintings. They’re not yet framed, but I suspect within a few months they’ll be displayed at Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown. Hope you’ll stop by!

Denver, 2014

Faking It

I continue being interested in Native American petroglyph
designs to provide content for my acrylic washes. These
three represent a warrior with bow and arrow, one of his
slain, and another warrior who luckily had a shield. At least
that's how I see it.
Acrylic washes on watercolor paper by Phillip Hoyle

I overheard a conversation between two professional artists who not only had earned graduate degrees in fine art, established successful art careers, and taught art to avid students, but also wrote professionally about art. One complained to the other, “So often I just feel like a fake.” She went further, “I sometimes wish I had never gone to art school. All the things I learned about art tend to impede my creativity.”

The other artist agreed, “I know what you mean. When I lead workshops, the people who never went to school are not afraid to try anything. They’re not uptight about the proper ways to go about doing things.”

As I listened to these fine artists I thought, "Maybe I’m in a good place, for although I was educated, it wasn’t in art! Maybe I have a chance to be an artist.” But then I had a more sane moment in which I realized I was going to do artwork the rest of my life but i had better clarify my aim: for instance: Did I want to live by my art? Did I want to be in a gallery? Did I want to paint for pleasure? So for me the aim was to do the work, to sell some of my art, and eventually to be represented by a gallery.

I have pursued my art, following the advice of my teachers, studying collections of art in galleries and museums, poring over Google-searched galleries, and otherwise immersing myself in an arts world. I do the work and most of the time, I really enjoy it. Still sometimes I say to myself, “I feel like a fake.” Who doesn’t have such moments?

Denver 2014

The clowns have it

Clowns usually entertain me, but sometimes they scare me. I got over my reluctance to start drawing and went to work. Pick up a pencil or pen and join me.

The next Artist Trading Card swap I’ll attend this month is about clowns. So I set out to make a set of clowns to make me smile. I am sure some folk at the group will proffer scary and demented clowns like those featured in horror movies. Somehow those clowns turn me off. I like joyful things and get enough adrenalin from them that I don’t pursue the horrific images that are so popular.

I looked online for real clowns, ones in circuses, the ones I saw in my childhood that used to pile out of a small car, run around the ring honking horns playing tricks on one another and otherwise entertaining their audience. They might spray seltzer water on one another or other tricks we boys could imagine doing to our playmates. We’d laugh and point and enjoy. Those are the kinds of clowns I like.

But for me to become a clown? No, becoming one would really seem a mis-match to my personality or interests. I don’t like to put on makeup, or hit my face with a powder filled sock, or get things in my eyes, wear ill-fitting clothing, or be the butt of the pranks of other clowns. I have enough friends who do like those kinds of things. I’ll stay just as I am. But I did enjoy drawing clowns for next week’s trade. 

Hope you enjoy looking at them. You might try making a few yourself.

While we’re on clowns and ATC’s, plan to attend the Denver County Fair. There will be a booth where you can try your own hand at making ATCs. All the supplies are there for free! And we’re looking for more artists who want to trade. Don’t be scared; just join the other clowns there for fun.

Also at the fair will be a display of ATCs by quite a few local artists.

French Music on the Night Air

I enjoyed a nice Saturday evening of French music a week or so ago. Early on that cloudy evening a friend drove Jim and me to the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception over on Capitol Hill for an Ascension eve organ concert, one dedicated to Frank Graboski’s memory. Frank, a life-long organist, died on Palm Sunday, just a few weeks ago. He had known the concert was coming up and had spoken with the organist who was planning it, Alan Dominicci. Upon hearing of Mr Graboski’s death, Mr. Dominicci altered the concert to memorialize Frank as well as celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Christ. To do so, he selected a number of compositions from 19th and 20th century French composers, some of Frank’s favorites. 

All but one selection was written by a French musician, the exception a J. S. Bach Prelude that opened the evening. Next was a four-movement piece “L’Ascension” written by Olivier Messiaen. I hadn’t heard that piece for many years and kept worrying that it might be so dissonant as to be off-putting to my partner who chooses pop, rock, and light jazz over classical music. I hoped the long tonal decay of the Bascillica (over 4 seconds) would make the music work and I was not disappointed. Dominicci’s registration and musicianship provided a wonderful musical experience that was made even better right at the end of the final movement the composer titled “Prayer of Christ Ascending toward His Father.” I was caught up in the music’s constant upward movement as if I were one of Jesus’ disciples watching him be lifted by the clouds into heaven, and just as the movement was drawing to a close, the clouds obscuring the sun moved letting the late evening sunlight fill the transepts and choir with light—at least that is my description of what happened. My friends didn’t notice. Was I having a vision? It doesn’t matter. The space around the altar glowed as light poured through the west windows and reflected off the gold-trimmed white walls, ceiling, and floor. 

Following an intermission we heard music by Cesar Franck, Charles-Marie Widor, Gabriel Pierne, and Louis Vierne. This last, Vierne’s “Finale” from Symphonie V was one of Frank Graboski’s great favorites, a piece he had played in concert many times. It ends with great feeling and volume, a feeling of triumph, and seemed so fitting as a memorial to Frank. 

From the Cathedral we drove to The Black Crown, a favorite bar and restaurant near our home. There we ordered drinks and settled in. A trio was setting up to entertain. They got underway with an instrumental composition I didn’t know. Then the singer/percussionist sang a French standard jazz tune, followed by two more, and then a Brazilian samba sung in Portuguese. (I always recall my brother-in-law’s description of Portuguese from when he lived in Brazil. He said it was kind of like speaking Spanish with a French pronunciation through pursed lips.) I loved the pianist's playing, the stand up bass player’s creativity, and the singer’s interpretations. All three provided distinctive improvisations. I also loved the French-inspired place as the location for a fitting nightcap.

Finally we went home; I with French music swirling around in my head and warm feelings related to friends, family, and Frank Graboski. 

Denver, 2014

Shopping Around

Hands and Feet, acrylic washes on watercolor paper
by Phillip Hoyle
Petroglyphs are found in groups like this painting of
some in western Colorado. When I'm in a more literal
mood, I paint groups of these rock carvings.

My daughter loves to shop for office supplies. One of my friends loves to roam the aisles of hardware stores. Another one rarely goes by a clothing store without looking inside. My partner loves to find bargains at groceries and shopping clubs. I like shopping for art, but not going from gallery to gallery even though I have done my share of that kind of shopping. I’m not talking about going on line to find a painting or print to hang in a just-right place in house or apartment. I’m not talking about going to silent auctions hoping to pick up a bargain or stopping by the neighbor’s garage sale looking for an undiscovered masterpiece. I used to go alone but finally have found a friend who shares my specific love of art shopping. Sue and I go on shopping forays for art supplies, one of my favorite activities and the only kind of shopping I can easily embrace.

Preparation calls first for the making of a list. I keep a growing list on the counter behind my art table. 

Set the date and hope I can make it.

On the day of a likely shopping trip, I gather coupons from the paper or on line just like Sue taught me.
I have a special factor: my hope she will be up to the next trip. Sometimes health factors limit her mobility.

One day I was looking around the locally owned Meiningers art supply store for a kind of pen I needed to finish some Artist Trading Cards. There I ran into Sue who immediately said, “Have you seen their sales?” Also shopping with Sue was Jan, another person who does art work and writing. As the three of us shopped, I realized I have an additional shopping partner! We had fun looking around and buying more things than we needed, at least I did so. While the shopping was pleasant, having Sue there served another purpose: she knows products, their use both from her teachers and from her years of using them often in surprising and experimental ways. She likes to teach what she knows.

You can imagine that now I have many more things to work with and a beginner’s knowledge of how to approach the things Sue has led me to. While digging deep into my drawers and boxes run across supplies I bought years ago and have never used. When that happens I evaluate if I can use the product right away, perhaps on some Artist Trading Cards. Then I open the package or bottle to see if it is still usable! I love the supplies I keep using and buying, and I so enjoy sorties to art stores to find replacements and brand new supplies: paints, pencils, paper, canvas, boards, lino-blocks, gouges and knives, replacement blades, mat board, new mixed-media papers, on and on. It’s almost like these things speak to me as I walk the aisles of the stores, and if they don’t, sometimes Sue or Jan will speak for them.

Have fun with art. I certainly am! AND I am anticipating another shopping trip this Friday!

Denver, 2014