Jerry Fenter

Last week I talked to an artist who has just returned to painting after a long period of time.  The conversation finally got to a familiar place, “Where do your ideas come from?” I tried to think fast on how to give him an easy answer, when out came, “I have so many ideas I could work another lifetime on just the ones already in my head.”  Not very helpful to him, I know, but wow…expressing that thought lit a bulb inside my head. Conceptios, inspirations, ideas, and creative thoughts seem to be easier to come by for some more than others. Some artists agonize over getting them, and are afraid to follow through with them.  Others can’t seem to stop their minds from grinding  them out and expressing them in paint, ink, crayon, music, mud,  gardening, photography or what ever might be their way of making themselves understood.

Having ideas and then making great art is a skill that comes from  many different places. When we are children we have endless imagination that creates uncountable ideas each hour and each minute. We may or may not choose to fully express those ideas because they may be scary, dangerous or way above our capabilities. Most of us artist types do follow them. We let our imaginations run wild, we experiment, we scribble, we cut, we paste,  we sing at the top of our voices and we sometimes see things that aren’t really there (or are they?).  When an idea is inconvenient or impractical to develop at a particular time true artists  file them away in their creative brains and keep them fresh and at their fingertips.

Having an idea is defined as the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or not previously known or experienced.  This gives us as artists the freedom to go anywhere. We don’t need to travel the earth or the skies to paint what passes through our minds day or night (dreams).  If we feel stuck with no ideas it may be our own fault.

Self censorship. “I can’t put that on paper. It’s too embarrassing. My mother, father, teacher, children, the public will not be able to relate to what I’m imagining. It makes me too upset to write it.” So we stop ourselves and try to make only exact imitations of what we have seen or heard before. We try to make things so close to the real that we might as well take a picture.  But, artists, real life is just as interesting and weird as anything we can come up with. We must be brave, look hard at the world and express what is on our minds, in our heads and needs to get out.

Fear of rejection. Every artist I know fears rejection. The successful ones fear rejection less than the unsuccessful ones. That is why we’ve seen the weakest artists quit working during this awful recession. Some will never come back.  Financial ups and downs and rejection are both part of making a living from the creative process. Don’t paint for anyone but yourself.  My most successful paintings have been of ideas and subjects that I’m obsessed with. When I put them into a show, I find they sell better than any “pretty pictures” I might paint.  And they’re sure a lot more fun to finish.  They are real and I can be proud of them.

 How can I get and use ideas?  The answer is close enough to touch. You need to work to get ideas. You need to tap into that good memory of yours. Look at the world around you. Look at the real places and things that are happening each day. Pull from your childhood, teenaged years and from that crazy group of relations we all have.  Watch TV, look at websites, know what’s going on around you.  Find your place in it. “La vida te a sopresas.” (Life is full of surprises). Lucky for us. Be aware of them. Have no fear.  Use them. If you overhear an interesting conversation somewhere, LISTEN, and write down what you hear or draw what you see in a sketchbook.  I think at this moment in time artist’s sketchbooks have become way too precious.  There are even what I’ve heard are “very good” classes on how to keep one.  You don’t need a class!  A sketchbook should be down and dirty, messy and full of writing, quotes from books, new words, scribbles, songs, poetry, notes, sketches, bad drawings, bad language, jokes  and of course touches of genius. It doesn’t have to be perfect and organized and done in color or available for all to see. It’s YOUR private space to be uncensored and real and recollect all of the ideas you’ve had since you’ve been born.

 For the last few weeks my ideas are flowing like waterfalls. I’ve been doing what I call “En ese momento” (At that moment). These are small collages that I finish and send by mail to artist friends. I don’t censor myself. I just create.  Some make sense.  Some don’t.  But it’s fun.  It flows.  I have more ideas than I can handle. Work comes from work. Ideas come from ideas. I have countless great reasons to get up each morning and go into my studio. If you love something… happiness will follow.  Trust me.

“A painter can turn pennies into gold, for all subjects are capable of being transformed into poems.” –Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1780-1867

I’ll be having a weekend workshop on Saturday and Sunday, August 28th and 29th at The Dalles Art Center. I’ll be teaching “Making Monotypes with Pastels and Metallic Crayons”.  We had so much fun doing it last time that we’ll be doing it again.  The class will be from 11:00 AM to 4:00PM each day. Watch my website for more information. Sign up early by calling the center at 541-296-4759. I’ll be limiting attendance.

Also I have the dates for next year’s Mexico class. It will be held April 13th through 19th, 2011, in Melaque, Mexico. In 2011 we’ll be arriving and leaving in the middle of the week. This will save on airfare. More information will be available later. If you’re interested in being kept up to date just e-mail me at fenter@gorge.net.

I’m back and I’m feeling great. The class in Mexico was amazing. I had a class of strong, independent and creative women who worked hard, played hard and experienced the magical realism of Latin America first hand. We experienced

“an irrational geography where you can be born with a star on your forehead, a sign of the marvelous;”  Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows

Magical realism has it’s origin in the remembrance of childhood. Wonder and imagination runs wild. Mexico is a place where time can seem bent.

 “Why shouldn’t time slow down and stop occasionally, or even go into reverse?”  Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna

 Melaque was a beautiful setting for a wonderful class. I had an exceptional group of students who weren’t afraid to dive into the Mexican culture with everything they had. We each will remember it differently. One of the high points of the class was sharing our work and passing on the communal crown after a wild week of work and play.

We played and worked without boundaries like the children we are inside. We realized the need for stories in our lives. Each experience was a story. We created our own personal myths and shared some common myths that developed during the week. All around us was magic. It surprised some of us and others accepted it without question.

“ The things you’d least expect speak. There they are: speaking.  Bones, thorns. Pebbles, lianas. Little bushes and budding leaves. The scorpion….the butterfly with rainbow wings. The hummingbird….One and all have something to tell….I learned the story of some of the animals from them.”  Vargas Llosa The Storyteller

 The classroom became a sacred space.

“Books, quiet during the day, opened by night so their characters could come out and wander through the rooms and live their adventures.” Isabel Allende Eva Luna

We saw things we wouldn’t have seen without being aware of the sweet culture of Mexico.

“He knocked on every door up and down the coast, sweltering in the hot breath of the siesta, feverish in the humidity, stopping from time to time to give assistance to the iguanas whose feet were stuck in the melted asphalt.”   Isabel Allende Eva Luna

 We painted and wrote stories about the experiences we had.

 “All day they hauled mangoes, until there were none left on the trees and the house was filled to the roof-top….In the days that followed, the sun beat down on the house, converting it into an enormous saucepan in which the mangoes slowly simmered; the building…grew soggy and weak, and burst open and rotted, impregnating the town for years with the odor of marmalade.”  Isabel Allende Eva Luna

 The class seemed too short. It was over in a blink of an eye. I was lucky enough to stay for an extra week, traveling into the mountains with Nancy and Richard Lennie. Thanks to them for a wonderful time. And a special thanks to my students, Mary, Vonda, Judy, Cherie and Signe. I’ll soon have the dates for next year’s class. Again, I can’t wait.

 “Oh, Mexico, it sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low.”  James Taylor Mexico

Adios.