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.

I’m back from beautiful Mexico.  I have so much to tell.  I need a few days to let my thoughts, mix, combine,  rise and make sense.  I spent the first week with a most powerful and beautiful group of talented and creative women.   The second week was spent in the Heaven that is San Sebastian Del Oeste. 

I haven’t the words yet to describe my feelings.  During my stay I read even more magical realism.  I’d like to quote part of Barbara Kingsolver’s book The Lacuna here.  In just these few words she captures the essence of Mexico in a way that truly involves all of the senses.

“Most of all, Enrique cared for pan dulces made with wheat- flour dough.  Puffy and soft with a grit of coarse sugar on top, filled with pineapple, sweet and tart from the oven’s wood smoke.  Pan dulce is no easy trick.  The vanilla has to be from Papantla.  The flour is ground in a stone metate.  The flour must be ground so fine it comes up into the air in clouds.  The hard part was mixing in the water, going too fast. 

Let me show you how to do this.  Begin with two kilos of the flour.  Make a mountain on the counter.  Into this mound, with your fingers, crumble the flakes of butter, the salt and soda.  Then pull it out like a ring of volcanic mountains around a crater.  Pour a lake of cold water in the center.  Little by little, pull the mountains into the lake, water and shore together, into a marsh.  Gradually.  No islands.  The paste swells until there are no mountains left, and no lake, only a great blob of lava.  The dough should be smooth, fluid and solid at the same time.  It will sleep overnight in a covered bowl.  In the morning roll it flat, cut it with a machete into squares, spoon a dot of pineapple filling on each one and fold it into a triangle, sprinkled with sugar grains soaked in vanilla.”

                                                           from The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

I’ll have more to write later.  So much to tell about the class, the group of  beautiful exceptional women, my hosts Richard and Nancy and the magical new people I’ve met in Mexico this trip. 

I’m having surgery on May third.  I’ll continue my posts when I recover.  Much more on the class and the country.

It’s getting very close to our week long workshop in Mexico.  I am so excited I can hardly sit still.  Melaque is so beautiful, I have a wonderful collage of people in my class, and everything points to one of the best weeks I’ve ever had.  I’m madly re-reading all of my Magical Realism literature and spent time on E-Bay getting some DVD’s to take to La Paloma and share with the class.  This year I’m bringing Love in the Time of Cholera, starring the handsome Javier Bardem and based on the wonderful book of the same name by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Everything is Illuminated, starring Elijah Wood and based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, and last but not least Pan’s Labyrinth, a movie that will shock us and make us more fully understand magical and grotesque realism.  I also always bring Y Tu Mama Tambien starring Maribel Verdu, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna…”Wildly erotic,” commented Rolling Stone Magazine on this movie.  The actors in this movie actually stayed at La Paloma while filming in the area so it’s fun for Nancy Lennie and I to share stories with the class. (Those guys are as hot as the Mexican sun!)  So I’m ready.  Anyone interested in holding a place in next year’s class please contact me by e-mail at fenter@gorge.net and I’ll put you on the exclusive list! 

Speaking of movies, the awards season now has passed.  The Hurt Locker took best picture at the Academy Awards.  My friend Bill was devastated by the loss of James Cameron’s Avatar.  Both he and I loved the message in the movie and of course the special effects.  So I started thinking.  We live so far up in the woods I don’t get to see all of the Academy Award films until they come out on Net Flix so….get ready for it…here are a few winners I’ve chosen from movies I’ve seen on Net Flix during the last year.  Announcing THE JERRY AWARDS.

Best Film: Riding in Cars With Boys.  Made in 2001 and Based on the autobiography by Beverly Donofrio, directed by Penny Marshall, (Laverne) and starring Drew Barrymore, Steve Zahn and James wood, this is my favorite movie that I saw on my big flat screen (47″) this year.  Every time I watch this movie I cry for at least an hour afterwards.  It’s about a hesitant teen aged mom, who is very smart, but not smart enough to not get caught up in the moment and get pregnant.  She has plans.  Her plans change.  The story is sweet, sad and true.  Drew Barrymore is excellent in this role, as good as she was in Fifty First Dates.  Steve Zahn (who I’ve never noticed in any other movie or TV show) plays the teen aged husband, who attempts to do what’s right but just can’t seem to make things work.  His heroin addiction might have played a part in this.  His performance is award level!  What a ride.

Another of my “best” awards goes to The Invention of Lying starring my favorite comic of all time, Ricky Gervais.  He was the person responsible for The Office,  British style.  I won’t be a spoiler and tell you the plot but it is a funny movie. 

I also have some favorite TV shows that I try to catch each week.  Here are some of the winners. Breaking Bad will start it’s new season soon.  I miss Mad Men like crazy.  I will watch any of the three Law and Orders at any time during the day or night.  I especially like Law and Order Criminal Intent.  By the end of the day Ron and I are pretty tired of thinking so we also really enjoy The New Adventures of Old Christine, Medium and Two and a Half Men. I think Charlie Sheen is wonderful and I love his retro shirts. Pure eye candy.  I’ve just started watching American Pickers and Pawn Stars.  Great shows that involve finding and selling old junk and antiques.  Collecting is in my genes.  It’s so much fun to see some of the odd things that people value and carefully collect.  I can totally understand where they are coming from. 

Oh, we finally got a “new” car!  Ray Schultens Motors in the Dalles pulled through for us and found us our perfect car.  It’s a 2005 Ford Explorer, white, Eddie Bauer Edition, with four wheel drive and a moon-roof!  Austin Woolsey was our salesperson.  He was very good to us.  He used to be the chef at the Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles.  I would recommend him to anyone in this area looking for cars.  After selling us the car he’s off to Disneyland with his five kids for a vacation.  I think we wore him out. Photos of our new car (possibly named Eddie) will come soon.

I’m going to talk about the new “Mad Men” Barbie dolls in my next post.  I only wish they had the cigarettes and booze as accessories!  Unfortunately the designers of the dolls thought that these additions would be inappropriate.  But I remember the 60′s in suburbia…barbecues, parties, booze and cigarettes kept my parents busy while the kids played and got radical ideas about “free love” and “the war in Vietnam”.

What a wild time we had at the Crayon Mono-type Workshop at the Dalles Art center.  What a wild and crazy class!  I think it was one of the best two days I’ve spent in a long time.  The assignment was to make mono types, using a hot copper plate (heated with an iron), with crayons and pastels, on some beautiful BFK  French printmaking paper.  Everyone did some beautiful work.  I have been thinking about doing a class like this for a long time but finally got brave enough last month.  The six people at the class were a riot!  They got so into the process that they didn’t even want to take time to eat lunch on Sunday so they ordered in pizza!  Nancy Rooper even came up with a new way of printing with the crayons and pastels on fabric to create some wonderful garden prayer flags to welcome in spring!  Here are some visuals of how we did this.

First, we heated a piece of flat copper mounted on a box frame with an iron.  The heat spreads out over the entire piece of copper (hot!)  Next a picture is drawn in crayon or pastel right on the copper sheet. 

After creating the drawing you mark it’s position with a pencil, get your paper or fabric piece and lay it flat over the hot crayon image.  Then you rub with a flat bottomed spoon (like you’d get from a Chinese restaurant) so that you’ve  rubbed over the entire piece.

(This is Carrie and Vonda working.  You can see Valerie and Nancy in the background) When this is done, carefully pull up your mono-type and enjoy!

Here’s Nancy with her excellent dog print!

Or you might try this with fabric like the creative Nancy Rooper!

Towards the end of the second day we all created flags for Nancy’s yard and did a collaboration of our work on a ” bug”  flag for her.  Now we’re all waiting to be invited over to enjoy the flags and her fire pit with marshmallows and smores! 

Carrie did some wonderful images of coffee cups.

Vonda did lots of beautiful fish prints.

Valerie did some beautiful work, but I didn’t get a good picture. I get so busy I forget to take pictures sometimes.  She also helped Lily create this beautiful piece.

I did a few prints too.  Two for friends of mine and one of my poor Suzuki that Ron crashed and totaled right before the class. You can see my print at the top of this post.  If you can’t see what’s written on it, it’s a Hail Suzuki full of grace memorial.  It concludes by talking about it’s uncomfortable seats and how Cody loved the taste of it’s back seat when he chewed it up trying to get at a toy he’d dropped.  It’s a  prayer of thanks because Ron got away with just bad bone bruises.  He’s very sore but he’s ok.

It’s not spring here yet, but we had a wild double feature Dallas and Inglorius Basterds party here at the cabin last weekend.  Place cards, JR and Sue Ellen wine labels, costumes and even fake theatre EXIT signs were enjoyed by all of us.  Cody tried to eat every one’s food as usual and as usual I made excuses for his bad behavior.  He’s an exceptional dog you know!  He would NEVER beg. (I tend to stretch the truth here a little)

Spring is coming and so is my Mexico class.  I won’t be doing any classes at The Dalles Art Center until after Mexico because many of my students and myself are going to see the musical “Cats” during March and then leaving for Mexico in April.  I was going to have a class April 3rd and 4th but that falls on Easter weekend.  So more classes towards the end of April or May. 

I’m still excited about my story, “The Giveaway”.  I’m also back working in the studio.