WEEK # 47 / Still Life with Self Portrait

Still Life with Self Portrait

James Aponovich

oil on panel, 10" x 8", 2012

"I never was good looking

now I'm too old to let that get me down"

Chris Smither, singer songwriter

It had to happen, sooner or later I would have to face reality and deal with the self portrait. The last one I did was perhaps twenty five years ago. Good reason. This painting started as a farewell to the clementine orange, that little jewel from Spain and North Africa. They are now being replaced by an impostor from California appropriately called "cuties". A sales pitch.

Anyway, I decided to include a portrait of me impaled on a 'frog', a barbed florist stand ment to stick flower stems onto. I keep one next to my easel with a reproduction

of a painting, A Portrait of a Man by Hans Memling. I did not want to copy Memling so I painted a reproduction of another man....me.

THE CULT OF SELF

"......repurposed material folded into larger questions of identity, history, culture and the cult of self."

This is a portion of a review of an artist's show that was published in The New York Time last year. Cult of self? I called my art savvy Boston dealer, Dana Salvo, and asked him to translate that sentence from 'artspeak' to English. He told me not to worry about it.

Rembrandt

The Artist In His Studio

oil on panel, 10" x 12", 1628

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

REMBRANDT

I am often asked which artist is my favorite. That is a difficult question to answer but I would come down on the side of Rembrandt. His humanity, piety and outstanding technical ability puts him on top. I have chosen two self portraits out of the hundreds that he did in his life. Both are in relatively close proximity to me, one in Boston, the other in New York. This small painting shows Rembrandt at the age of twenty two in the full act of painting. He has stepped back from the easel and like a swordsman is about to lunge forward and attack that painting with his brush. His future all before him.

Rembrandt

Self Portrait

oil on canvas, 52" x 40", 1658

The Frick Collection, NY

Here sits the Master some thirty years later. He is fifty two and has just lost everything he acquired from his illustrious career. His house and belongings were sold to pay off his debts. He is broke, out of work, and out of fashion. Yet, he says to himself, screw it! I am a painter. So he paints one of the greatest portraits of all time. He is a King and portrays himself accordingly, the black eyes stare at you with the accumulated wisdom of triumph and tragedy. He died at my current age, broke.

Sixteen years later in Germany a child is born who was to bring to music what Rembrandt to painting......Johann Sebastian Bach.

Copyright 2012 James Aponovich

Content and Aponovich images are copyright 2012 J. Aponovich and can only be used with written permission.

WEEK # 46 / Moonrise Over the Gulf of Maine

Moonrise Over the Gulf of Maine

James Aponovich

oil on canvas, 10" x 13", 2012

I am very fortunate to live relatively close to the seacoast. Sometimes, particularly in winter I feel the need to wash my eyes clean with the blue of the sea and sky. I have written before about painting on the coast of Maine but now Beth and I are in New Castle, New Hampshire, just east of Portsmouth. ( click on: Aponovich and Johansson, At Home and Away )

We habitually sketch, not always to create art but to train our eyes, minds and hands to, as Beth puts it "organize space". That is the primary role of composition. Be mindful however, that we are always on the lookout for that situation where everything comes together....

...it's right in front of you.

Sketch, Moonrise

James Aponovich

Pencil on paper, 4.5" x 6", 2012

BASIC ELEMENTS

After a long day of looking at drawing sites in Southern Maine, we returned to New Castle and there it was, an outcropping of granite and basalt at high tide. Come two hours later and it completely changed. But for now, for me, this was as basic as it gets. Rock, both in the sea as granite and in the sky as the moon, and water, the sea and clouds. The rocks were leviathan like emerging from a primordial sea. This was earth for billions of years.

The sketch probably took me about twenty minutes to do, but it was enough information. The sea was an electric blue, ice cold, not a Mediterranean sapphire. The rocks were wet and black but the last fading rays of the sunset barely cast a warm light on the very top. The rocks were the fulcrum of sun and moon. The moment was out of time. This is why we always return to the coast, the rhythm of the tide and the screech of the gull is embedded in us.

Coming up next week: Let Me Introduce Myself

All content copyright James Aponovich and cannot be used without permission

copyright 2012 James Aponovich

WEEK # 45/ Roadside Pansies

Roadside Pansies

James Aponovich

oil on canvas, 14" x 14", 2012

FULL DISCLOSURE

Today is February 5th, the first Sunday of the month. About two months ago we decided to host a dinner party for friends of ours from New York who are returning ( they being "summer folk" here) to their Hancock home for a world premier. You see, Robert O., formerly a writer for Jim Henson's Sesame Street, now retired , has taken up the pen and scripted the lyrics to an operetta totally based on the local police log, aptly titled "Police Log".

A month ago it occurred to me that this day could be what is now an unofficial National holiday called Super Bowl Sunday, and the fact that New England and New York are combatants, it's a huge day around here. I say, fare forward fans for I declare this day the Super "O" Bowl in honor of our guests the Oksners! So, I am busy in the kitchen.

OH YEAH.........THE PAINTING

Seeing that New England is in the Northeastern corner of this hemisphere, winter comes early and leaves late. The joke is that there are a couple of months out of the year when the skiing is not too good. That means we are always on the look out for signs of Spring.

I was searching for a particular plant for the great "Appledore" painting, that is on my easel. We stopped into a sprawling roadside plant place , it holds the distinction for being open 365 days a year and for having free popcorn. What's not to like. As we pulled in there were racks of pansies outside....in January! I couldn't find what I was looking for, but upon returning home I kept thinking of those pansies. The next day I returned and also discovered, amongst the garden stuff, the Chinese porcelain balls. I could not wait to start the painting. The point is you never know where a painting will pop up, so keep your eyes open, it could be right in front of you.

WEEK #44 / Still Life with French Porcelain Hand

Still Life with French Porcelain Hand

James Aponovich

oil on panel, 10" x 8", 2012

"KINDA CREEPY"

At Christmas, one of the presents that we gave to our daughter Ana was, of course, a gift certificate to some place or other. While shopping, I discovered this porcelain hand at an antique shop and thought it would be clever to place the certificate in the hand. Bad idea. Her reaction to the hand was that it was "kinda creepy". She kept the gift card and returned the hand, thank you very much. O.K., I thought, maybe I'll find a use for it, then I found a discarded postage stamp sheet picked clean of stamps. Hmmmm.

MINIMALISM and the FOUND OBJECT

The grid on the stamp sheet impressed me with it's clean lines,both straight and revealing a perforated border. It had a cool whiteness. The Minimalist painter Agnes Martin immediately came to mind.

Agnes Martin

acrylic on canvas, 1997

Minimalism, as an art form, carries a complete economy of means. Nothing is superficial. I, on the other hand, am a Representational painter so it is difficult not to tell stories, whether you want to or not. With Minimalism it is almost impossible to "read into" a painting, even the Abstract Expressionists could not avoid that.

THE HAND

Along with the eye, the human hand is loaded with symbolism. In the position of the porcelain it can mean STOP! or peace. The "Hand of God" was portrayed by artists in the Middle Ages as a hand in the sky. In Buddhism the hand of Buddha with fingers out stretched would symbolize the turning of the Wheel of Dharma. In almost every city, for ten bucks you can have someone read your past and tell your future by looking at your hand.

Bronze Hand

Yemen, 100-300 AD.

British Museum

This Arabian hand was an offering to God, or more precisely, a god. It stood in for the real thing. To lay your hand down to God was a serious business.

THE ASSEMBLAGE

Joseph Cornell

Hotel de la Duchesse-Anne, 1957

The master of the found object was Joseph Cornell who led a very private, pedestrian life in Queens, New York, yet produced the most amazing visual poetry from random objects.

MY JOSEPH CORNELL MOMENT

My first New York art dealer was Allan Stone. One day he had me visit him at his home just outside the city. I had never seen so much art stuffed into one house before, DeKoonings all over the place, a major Franz Kline painting behind not over the sofa! So much art that there were only narrow paths leading through the rooms. Of course I was awestruck and slack jawed and as I was walking and looking, I nearly kicked a box that was on the floor....

a Joseph Cornell box!

This painting is my homage to Joseph Cornell.

WEEK # 43 / The White Sofa

The White Sofa

James Aponovich

oil on canvas, 14" x 16", 2012

"AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT "

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Due to a lifting of a deadline and accumulating snow outside, I am finding myself in need of a getaway. The problem is that I am still "chained to the easel" until this project is finished, so artistically anyway, I am going to Rome.

Beth and I share adjoining studios and by chance we are both working from drawings we did on our last trip to Rome.

The White Sofa

James Aponovich

pencil on Arches paper, 9.5" x 10.5", 2010

Hanging in our kitchen is a drawing I did a couple of years ago when I was a Visiting Artist at The American Academy in Rome. The Academy is housed in a magnificent group of buildings on the Gianicolo Hill overlooking Trastevere and the rest of Rome. The views are stunning. This drawing is of the interior of our apartment "Il Cortile", the courtyard, in the McKim, Mead and White building. It indeed overlooks the main courtyard with huge cypresses and a Paul Manship fountain. The rooms are brilliant white with deep Florentine Red tile floors. This sofa is in the living room and is the first thing you see as you enter.

Interior of Cortile apartment

Usually, Beth and I would start our day downstairs at the Bar/Cafe for a cappuccino and cornetto while trying to catch up on world news and baseball scores back home. As many places are closed during mid day we would spend our mornings walking down into Rome to visit galleries, churches,ruins, markets,restaurants and just about everything else we could absorb.

In Umbria we draw everyday. Here we looked and looked. Late in the afternoon I would draw for a few hours. Don't ask me why, but I was fascinated by this sofa. Technically it's an interior but I just view it as a big still life.

Courtyard

I really treasured my time at The Academy. I felt quite at home there, it's more like a monastery with writers, architects, historians, musicians and, oh yeah, artists concentrating on their work. The quiet beauty is intoxicating and I look forward to returning.

WEEK # 42 / Tulips in a Bronze Vase

Tulips in a Bronze Vase

James Aponovich

Oil on panel, 7" x 5", 2012

The central theme of the new, large painting that I am working on, now titled

Appledore Still Life , Incoming Fog, is a blue cloisonne vas loaded with heavy parrot tulips.This painting , Tulips in a Bronze Vase, is a study for that painting. It now has a life of it's own.

THE WEIGHT OF WATER

The flowers are in a bronze vase that I recently found in an antique shop. I love the surface and the historical significance of bronze, an ancient alloy of tin and copper. In portraying the tulips I am aiming to accentuate their physical appearance, how gravity presses them one onto another.

Each flower is delicate and fragile, their petals tear easily. The metal vase is heavy, cold and hard, the ultimate contrast. The background is dark, the flowers burning embers. For a small painting it is very, very heavy.

2012 copyright James Aponovich

All content, text and images copyright James Aponovich and cannot be used without permission.

Week #41 / Tidal Pool

Tidal Pool

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 8" x 12", 2012

When I paint on site I use very few materials. It begins with a pencil drawing, fairly detailed, on canvas, followed by oil washes that are transparent and gradually built up.The technique is basically what is known as grisaille, a monochromatic painting.

This is an oil sketch painted with sepia and indigo blue. Sepia originally was derived from the ink sack of the cuttlefish, so it seems fitting to use it on this edge of the land, beginning of the seascape painting. This is a study for the "great Appledore" painting and it represents the core theme of this piece, the juxtaposition of rock and sea with the lush vitality of flowers and fruit. It is a thematic polarity. There is no debris, no flotsam, no jetsam, a pure primordial world.

I have painted this to set the stage for the environment: rock,sea,and sky. I am becoming more and more absorbed into the painting. It is a necessary condition.

Copyright 2012 James Aponovich

All content and Aponovich images are copyright and cannot be used

without permission.