Henry Moore

I have been extremely busy. I have been accepted to Carleton University for September to do an MBA! So along with being generally more employable, I will be able to use the knowledge from my MBA in my art practice; to network and market myself and have business skills necessary to succeed.


In the meantime art has been in my thoughts lately. I went to Toronto for a weekend and visited the Art Gallery of Ontario. I hadn't realized that the biggest Henry Moore collection in the world is there.

'The Archer' by Henry Moore

City Hall, Toronto

I went to see Henry Moore's studio's in England in 2008 and was completely taken by his work. Despite having a keychain from there that I look at every day, I hadn't thought about his work in years. Walking through his works in the Art Gallery of Ontario, and even moreso discovering his work about the city, I once again was astonished by his use of form and space that had originally grabbed my attention years ago.

When I returned to Ottawa I listened to this Henry Moore documentary at work.

If you can possibly find an hour of your life to listen to some of the most sincere explanations an artist can give to their own work, watch this video. 

He led me to many thoughts about art. Some time ago I had given up drawing with the idea that a drawing is not generally an exhibitable piece of work and therefore has no value and is a waste of time. In this documentary Henry Moore describes drawing: 

"I think drawing, even for people who cannot draw, even for people not trying to produce a good drawing, it makes you look more intensely at whatever you are trying to draw... Just looking alone has no grit in it. Has no sort of mental struggle or difficulty. That only happens while you are drawing."

After this I went out and bought a sketchbook and paint markers. I have been drawing feverishly, looking at things more closely. And that is beginning to evolve to notes and ideas and sketches of potential paintings and objects that repeat themselves in my life. 

I have since been listening to more artist documentaries at work. In all of them I am finding inspiration, albeit some more than others. But at home I find time to sketch or at least lay down some words most nights. And with that the ideas in my head are constantly rolling. I am thinking about presence and absence and negative space and the apollonian and dionysian and form and things that I once used to roll over and over in my head but have since dissipated from my busy life. 

You never know what little thing will spark that love of art in you all over again. I've lost it and found it again so many times. I hope I never lose that spark, and there will always be Henry Moore's in my life to bring it back. 

<3 Lenore

Home

Here is an iPad sketch I did thinkin' about my next painting. I don't know how clear it is but the red is the ocean and the grey is beach rocks.

It is symbolic of course of my friend that passed away. But also of life in Newfoundland. I miss the ocean and I miss my home but standing on those rocks sometimes you can feel all of the sadness and destruction that place can bring you. I will forever be attached to it and never escape it no matter how far away I move. It is a part of me and I am a part of it.

You can always go home but you can never leave.

<3Lenore

Grief

I borrowed my brother's camera to take some better quality photos of my artwork to create a good portfolio and begin approaching some galleries. Check out the new photos at my updated artist website! LenoreGale.com

Here is a painting I finished some time ago. I was unsure of it and am still unsure of it. I considered painting over it but a friend of mine told me he would be very sad if I did.

 

Untitled

Acrylic on canvas

I need to pick up some new canvases and some phthalo blue (the best blue - I go through that stuff like nothin' else). I am unsure what to be painting next but I do know I have more painting to do.

Painting is still one of the few things I enjoy doing. My grief is changing. I thought it would be over by now. Sometimes I feel like it is, but it in fact has become less apparent, still hidden deep within me somewhere. My moods are erratic, I don't enjoy things that I used to and I am a bit of a shut in. I worked for years to become a very happy and positive person no matter how stressful my life became but I feel like that is fading away. I am a different person from three months ago. But things are improving. Day by day I am returning to some normal semblance of a human being. The good weather is helping. I am hoping by summer I will be mostly repaired.

At least I have painting to soothe me. I just hope that the sadness and the art are not synonymous, that my art can exist without the sadness. Only time will tell, but I will not stop trying.

<3Lenore

I am a mess.

I came home tonight from work after a 15 hour shift on two hours of sleep. I have been belligerently exhausted for most of the evening and my plan was to go to sleep. I put on Sleigh Bells and with the music and the exhaustion an overwhelming urge to paint without boundaries came over me.

I rarely paint abstract anymore. I have tried to keep my work conceptual in the last few years, and though the portraits I have been making are not conceptual per say they are to me and follow a form as well.

I didn't even make the conscious decision to paint this. This painting made me paint it.  In an almost manic-like state this came out of me in an hour and I have absolutely no idea where it came from.

 I am a mess.
Acrylic on canvas
20"x20"

My life as of late has been personal issue after personal issue. I have been a mess. I think something in me just snapped. All the messiness and sadness in my life and the lives of the people closest to me had taken it's toll. And I am very pleased with the result.

Will I paint more abstract? I doubt it. Perhaps if I have more to get out suddenly. We shall see.

<3 Lenore

Painting updates

I am still painting. This one is yet untitled, I finished it last night. I was getting tired of portraits. While they were expressing something very specific that I needed to get out, for me personally portraits are far from the artistic expression I am trying to reach. So this is my most recent painting:

Acrylic
20"x20"

Now to update you on some past works. This one is part of the blue series it was finished some time ago.

Phony
Acrylic

And this last one I posted before, but I took a better picture and cropped it. It is also part of the blue series.

Liar
Acrylic

There are more which I will update in the future. I am going to try revisiting my artist statement soon and updating my website so I can create a portfolio and hit up some galleries.

The other day my roommate told me I need to stop painting my dead friend. I have six paintings with her in them now. We'll see. If it's working it's working, right?

<3 Lenore

Tuesdays.

I hate Tuesdays now. It happened on a Tuesday.

It's been eight weeks. It still hurts, but I try to move on. Maybe not move on. Keep going. Keep my head above water. I'm more accepting of keeping my life in motion, whereas before I wanted everything to stop because I didn't want to let her go.

I have made a few, but here is one of the most recent paintings I've made of her.

Acrylic on canvas.

This one looks the most like her. I also like it because it's ghostly.

So here I am trying to pick up the pieces.

<3 Lenore

Kurt Vonnegut expresses in words how I express myself with paint

I can't stop painting her. It's become obsessive, in this same blue/brown mix that I can't put down. Since I returned from Newfoundland 17 days ago there is literally not a day that has passed that I haven't sat down with a paintbrush and painted. I can't sleep without doing so. And due to the fact that I only had a mere 20 minutes of painting before bed last night I could not sleep for ages and was haunted by nightmares of her when sleep did come.
There is a quote from Kurt Vonnegut, my favorite author when I was coming of age (and one of my favorites to this day) that has stuck with me for ten years:

"For my own part, though: It would have been catastrophe if I had forgotten my sister at once. I had never told her so, but she was the person I had always written for. She was the secret of whatever artistic unity I had ever achieved. She was the secret of my technique. Any creation which has any wholeness and harmoniousness, I suspect, was made by an artist or inventor with an audience of one in mind.
Yes, and she was nice enough, or Nature was nice enough, to allow me to feel her presence for a number of years after she died—to let me go on writing for her. But then she began to fade away, perhaps because she had more important business elsewhere.” 

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick

This stuck with me because at the time I was certainly making art for someone and hadn't realized it until I read that. I made art for that person for years. And then there came a time that I had no one to make art for anymore. And everything became stagnant and I lost my motivation for art.

Before she passed away she had written me out a Christmas card but had not put it in the mail. My other friend sent it to me upon finding it amongst her things. It was like words from beyond the grave, hearing from a ghost.

There were several things in that card that will haunt me but one thing will stick with me the most. She said "I love the new painting you posted. YOU NEED TO PAINT MORE."

And now suddenly I have someone to paint for again. Everything else seems trivial. Like Vonnegut said I feel her presence even after she's gone. And I cannot stop painting her, feeling her, trying to express that there is something behind those eyes that we could never understand and apparently didn't even see.

And here she is. The second in my still untitled obsessive series in the Blue period of my life.

 

May you all always have someone to create for. And may they always be alive and well.

<3 Lenore

New painting

I told you I couldn't put down a paintbrush. Here is a painting of my friend who passed away. And the blue period is certainly working out for me.

This is done in acrylic. It doesn't look exactly like her (the eyes are too big) but I think it expresses what I wanted to express, which is what is most important.

More to come!

<3 Lenore

Blue Period

So I'm going to talk about something I wouldn't normally on a public blog. But it is difficult for me to discuss my art currently without talking about it. And I guess, what I'm expressing in my art is going to show it more than anything.

One of my best friends of almost ten years recently committed suicide.

I went home for a week to spend time with my friends afterwards. Upon being home one of my friends told me that The Old Guitarist by Picasso was one of his favorite paintings.

The Old Guitarist 

Picasso

My first instinct was to promise to paint it for him when I returned. So upon returning to Ontario I began painting it. As I was painting it I started reading about it and discovered that Picasso painted it in his Blue Period, which he fell into after his friend committed suicide. I then painted it with all the sadness and grief I was feeling and love that was lost in my entire being. And I ended up with this:

Replica of The Old Guitarist

Lenore Gale

I am still shocked at what came out of me. I then decided that I would have a Blue Period of my own. Ever since I came back I have not been able to put down a paintbrush. It is the only thing that calms me. I haven't had to paint like this in years. 

I have started an original blue painting. It's already beautiful. I will post it as soon as I am done. 

I hope you all have been having a better time than I am. Always remember to tell your loved ones that you care. 

<3 Lenore