“Dear Adrienne,” or “Hi Adrienne,” are how my blogs and newsletters should begin. Blogs are letters to friends for me. Telling a friend about my mom wetting her handkerchief with spit to clean my ear on the way to church, or about dad not wanting to be bothered when fixing a car. Or dad spending hours in the basement fixing up a bike for me, bright red with chrome fenders. Adrienne is the friend who encouraged me to write blogs. Jordan encouraged me to make them more personal. Some of them are from sessions with models, but all of them are letters to Adrienne.
Painting the nude, drawing the nude one-on-one has always been nerve racking for me. Facing that blank canvas and having a stranger in the studio who might judge me and my painting, was too much for me. I found getting to know models helped. What helped even more was telling the model something about myself. I always noticed how the tension subsided with the model as I told her about myself and asked about her. Evelyn told me about lambing day on her parents ranch. I mixed better colors as she told me about frosty mornings in the barn pulling a lamb out and rubbing it to get it to breathe.
Painting the nude was developing my drawing and painting skills, but the stories improved my art. Getting a crooked nose became important. Getting the eyes to actually read was important. A slight smile when I told Margaret about mom always threatening us kids with "wait till your dad gets home,” led to a touch more work to her lips as I continued with my own story. Hearing about her violin lessons brought about a second painting of her practicing the violin in a living room.
My blogs and newsletters are about art, my art is about my life. Unexplainable is how mom spitting on a handkerchief to clean my ear fifty years later makes me look at stems of flowers in a glass and get excited at the lone stem catching sunlight. Telling my student to pick up a double chocolate muffin and coffee from Jake's Bagel was actually an art lesson in itself. Seeing and feeling what I see and feel is part of a lesson. I always tell people who want to study with me that I teach in a strange way. I remember David Leffel starting his lessons in his studio with long discussion on Shakespeare or some classical music. Leffel was one of my teachers, in more than one way, when I was much younger.
