Abstraction sequence II

—Lesson plan—

About this time last year, I wrote about an abstraction sequence I have my students create based on work by several famous artists. Picasso, Matisse, and Mondrian—like many other artists—took a subject and abstracted it over a number of pieces to see how far they could go making it more and more abstract. I was reminded of the lesson plan, yesterday, when I got to see a similar series of paintings by Georgia O'Keefe.  In these paintings, O'Keefe starts out getting more graphic, but then she also crops in closer and closer to the subject until she eliminates most of the context for the shapes and colors.

Georgia O'Keefe, Jack-in-the-pulpit

Her progression reminded me of a similar project I did as a first-year art student. There are three parts to it:

1. Over five steps, move closer in to the subject.
2. With each step, as you crop in, also simplify the shapes.
3. With each step, use a relatively darker set of values so that the five steps reflect a full value range from high key to low key.

Abstraction Sequence by Brian Jacobs, 1985

This is a great project for students because it gives them a very concrete objective. It's easier to be creative when we are constrained by a certain number of panels and a distinct set of directions. Beyond the constraints, we can come up with our own ideas. But the constraints force us to focus.

The assignment also gives us context; it's easier to understand your final color scheme when you've started with a light set of values and worked darker. The same is true of the simplification of the shapes: it's easier to abstract in smaller steps. By the time we get to the last panel, we are organizing the painting in terms of design, not realistic representation.

O'Keefe's series is similar. We do not have the first painting in her series.  But if we compare Jack-in-Pulpit – No. 2 to Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, we can see that she is simplifying and hardening the edges. By No. IV, some of the previously rounded forms have become more square. But also, at this point, she starts cropping in closer to the inside of the flower. When she gets to No. VI, we sense that it references life, and from the context of the rest of the series, we know it is the spadix of the flower. But now our focus is on pure form. Using O'Keefe as a model, students can create their own progression to learn about abstraction as well as color and value.

CR 716 Jack-in-Pulpit – No. 2, 1930

CR 717 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 3, 1930

CR 718 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, 1930

CR 719 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 5, 1930

CR 720 Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. VI, 1930

One of my mentors always used to say, make small changes. He meant that we should advance our style and work through our ideas by making a number of works that are each slightly more developed toward the goal than the one before. This assignment is good preparation for that kind of practice. In addition, the relatively arbitrary combining of objectives makes it easier to make connections and discoveries.

The day job

—Creativity—

In Europe, centuries ago, an artist may have spent free time on his or her own projects and a lot more time building sets for Easter pageants or altars for churches. Back then, as it may still be in some cultures, art was a trade like any other profession. But we now live in a world where artists often have two separate occupations: a day job and their craft.

This is the norm, though we often feel badly about it. Day jobs, we tell ourselves, are necessary evils while we are getting started but real artists don't have day jobs. And yet, a quick internet search reveals many, many famous artists who worked non-art jobs their entire careers. Most of the dual-profession creatives I learned about are writers, only because they tend to write about themselves. But visual artists also have to work side jobs. Sometimes we work jobs that simply help us survive. Paul Gauguin claimed to have emptied bed pans in an insane asylum to support his art. Been there, done that. Jobs like this are only short-term solutions to desperate situations. But there are advantages to getting a good, permanent day job.

A secure, sustainable, livable salary can only make it easier to be an artist. When one has enough money (and that doesn't have to be a fortune for the starving artist), free time is unencumbered by the stresses of survival. These stresses can seem to dominate every hour of every day when we are in survival mode. But when the bills are paid and the refrigerator stocked, we can come home and get a couple hours of good, solid work accomplished. Most artists create better when they are able to get into a healthy flow with the work. Time helps but money, in many ways, helps more.

When your time for art is limited by your day job (time is always limited), you will hopefully find yourself using your time more aggressively for your art. This is where a good day job and a bad day job differ. Coming home from a job that doesn't even pay the bills does not inspire hard work at home. After all, you just worked your tail off for not very much at the office. But when the hard work at the office pays dividends, then you will want to keep reaping benefits at the easel as the day dissolves. Having limited time to make art forces us to focus more, cut straight to the essentials, and get our work done. Having money in the bank gives us permission to indulge in our craft instead of poring over bills and making emergency runs to recycle bottles and move cash around from one ATM to another.

Having financial security means that it is easier to carve out regular time for the art without interruptions. But there are other ways that a good day job can introduce routine to an artist's life. The regularity and responsibility of a day job means that your routines are set. Most successful artists structure their studio time in the same way as a regular job. Roy Lichtenstein went to work in his studio every day as though it were a nine-to-five job so that his family got used to the idea that his time there was essential. Having a regular job forces you to have a routine and hopefully teaches you how to maintain a routine after making it big and quitting the day job. Until then, your studio routine follows your day job routine.

We might see the day job as a distraction—and if it pays less than we need to live, it really is, as it would be for anyone. But a good day job gives us security and makes it easier to maintain discipline in our craft. A meaningful, healthy day job provides social interaction outside the studio. It gives us skills we can use in our art business: bookkeeping, marketing, construction, Web design, billing, accounting, and more. The seeming incongruity of some day jobs and art making also offers perspective that we otherwise wouldn't get if we saturated ourselves with non-stop creativity. Anyway, there's only so many hours a day we can create. I find that I can work a day job more hours than I can paint, because making art takes more energy than most other occupations. And art requires contemplation or at least stepping away.

Having a day job means something else that Oscar Wilde acknowledged when he wrote, "the best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread." Financial independence from the art world means that one doesn't have to compromise vision for salability. Often, our best work has financial value only later. Financial independence from art trends means one can challenge the trends and do something different, something that doesn't yet have currency.

"Make some sacrifice for your art and you will be repaid but ask of art to sacrifice herself for you and a bitter disappointment may come to you."—Oscar Wilde

These days, however, everything takes more energy and time and money than it did a century or even decades ago. Most professions demand 110% from employees (a mathematical impossibility). Most professions demand that instead of going home and writing the novel at the kitchen table, we go home and continue working on the laptop, doing research and professional development, or catching up on unfinished office work. Many famous creatives admit to stealing time at the day job and working on their art on the sly if they had to. One way or the other, there's no room for both the day job and the art career to occupy ALL of our time.

But the two occupations are not inherently incompatible.  Being an artist is more of a cultural and social role than a financial occupation. This is not to say that artists should not make money or want to be compensated. We know that the calling to be an artist is outside our economy—just as a minister's or doctor's calling is outside our economy. But that doesn't mean that it is wrong to make money off the art. The art economy is largely distinct from our regular economy. So we don't need to experience conflict between a day job and a profession as an artist. They are two separate things. One  provides a secure cash flow to invest in the other, but that investment is intended to pay off at some point, to some degree. Selling art in the art economy is more like receiving patronage, even in today's art marketplace. When we let art slip into the regular marketplace, we risk corrupting it more.

So getting that day job and using it well is a challenge. But if we can use it as a financial resource, it can benefit our art making, as long as we can safeguard the time we have left after the work day is done.

Building cardboard flat files

—News from the studio—

A pile of my prints.

Often, when I find a need for some resource in the studio, I will build it myself. This week, while in the process of organizing and documenting all my artwork, I found that I needed some flat files to separate and store my prints, drawings, and small paintings. Here's the story of how I found a cheap solution.

I began with a bunch of free boxes. I cut them in half and shortened the width of the side flaps so I could reassemble them only as deep as a strip of 1x2. This meant that the front and back flaps also had to be cut down to the same size.

Cutting down the box using my mat cutter.

Measuring the height of a 1x2.

Side cut to fit 1x2. The end flap isn't cut down yet.

For the 1x2 strips, I found eight foot sticks made of recycled wood fiber for $2.24 each. They come coated with white primer, so they were a perfect choice. I cut two pieces from each stick for the sides of the flat file and stapled the cardboard to the wood. Now, I had two parts for the flat file: a top and a bottom.

Stapling the cardboard sides to the wood

I stacked the top and bottom pieces and stapled the loose cardboard to the tops of the 1x2s on each side, leaving the staples off about 1/3 of the length from the top so I could make a larger top flap. I only had to staple down one half of the top and bottom since the cardboard wraps around and is stapled on the sides. To make the flap, I very, very lightly scored across the top with a utility blade. When making boxes, I always score the side that bends in.

A flap cut in the top for easy access.

I taped the flaps down in the back; they never need to be opened.

The back flaps are permanently taped.
The front ones can be taped closed with less tape as needed.

And here are my six finished flat files. I've already got one in use. They are light, sturdy, and easy to stack. And they each cost me only $2.24 in materials.

The flat files completed.

The first one with paintings stored and the flap labelled.