Year's End: Last Radishes of 2011, paint, colors, radishes

Radishes on Blue Dinner Plate, © Sukie Curtis, 2011, oil on canvas

The same bunch of radishes lasted me through several paintings and a few of my classes at Artascope Studios in South Portland, Maine. I haven't checked recently, but I have a hunch they are still occupying some space at the back of the refrigerator, much faded in color and certainly more puckery than smooth-skinned.

Though I never ate any of these radishes, I believe I got good mileage out of them all the same. Much more than mileage, really.

Inspiration. Delight. Amazement. Humor (those funny root tails!). Instruction in color, shape, invention, and the astonishing life-ward orientation of organic things.

I'm not ready to swear off radishes-as-muses all the way until next summer when there will again be locally grown ones at the farmers markets. But for a while, other colorful and shapely creatures may join the dance--clementines, pears, apples, bananas, maybe even pomegranates!

Night of Radishes! Holiday joy! painting radishes

Radishing, oil on canvas, © 2011, Sukie Curtis

Yesterday a friend and fan of my paintings sent me a link to the morning's installment of the "Writer's Almanac," Garrison Keillor's daily NPR program, which had noted that last night was the Night of Radishes, Noche do Rabanos, in Oaxaca, Mexico! 

Here's the brief description: "Tonight in Oaxaca, Mexico, folks will be celebrating the Noche de Rabanos, the Night of the Radishes, and the zocalo [public square] will become the scene of a huge exhibition of figures carved from radishes. These are not the familiar little round vegetables that are eaten in salads--these are heavy, long, contorted roots that grow up to two feet in length and can weigh as much as ten pounds." They are carved into nativity scenes and other holiday decorations for display in the square.

My friend added: "I like your radishes better!" Which of course brightened my morning, just as radishes often do. 

I've taken a radish inventory recently, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit just how many radish paintings I have around in various states--from totally finished to almost to not at all. Three radish paintings are hanging in gallery shops (at Artascope Studios in South Portland, Maine and at Yarmouth Frame Shop in Yarmouth, Maine), and there are several more at home with me! I may have to name this the Year of Radishes!

My latest large painting, very nearly but not quite finished, also features radishes in a jumble of other objects--a French pottery vase, a large tin of olive oil, wine bottle, piece of fabric, and the rectangles of other canvases. Here's a peak at it:

The Way Things Hang Together, © 2011, Sukie Curtis

Anyway, the real point of this blog post is to wish you the delight and joy of radishes this holiday season.

May you and your loved ones have a joyful and peaceful Christmas-tide and/or Hanukkah and a very happy New Year!

Gone Radishing Again: painting, radishes, colors, delight

Radishing, oil on canvas, 9x12", © Sukie Curtis, 2011

More radishes! This time with a decidedly Christmas-y feel, now that we're in the season of red and green decorations. 

One fellow painter on Facebook commented that this could be "red boulders in a landscape;" do you see it? The red boulders aren't so convincing, but the radish foliage does have the look and feel of hilly shapes. And maybe even a streak of golden color in the sky!

This little painting--a real burst of color face to face--is at the Yarmouth Frame Shop and Gallery for the "Small Works" show that opens today. It is hanging together with three of my paintings of pears and a somewhat wacky and fun still life of a striped table with candlestick. 

If you live near Yarmouth (Maine, that is--not Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, or England, or . . . ), I hope you will stop by this afternoon or any other day before Christmas.

The gallery is at 320 Route One in Yarmouth. Today, Saturday, December 3, there's a reception from 4 to 7 pm. Art lovers of all kinds will be there--artists, lovers of artists, and lovers of art-lovers, too. And food!  and refreshments!

I would love to see you there. If today doesn't work for you, the gallery will be open seven days a week until Christmas.

Painting Radishes 1

Small Square Radishes, oil on canvas, © 2011 Sukie Curtis

I paint radishes more than I eat them. That's just the way it is! 

I can hardly resist buying new bunches of them at the farmers market, even when I have an older bunch at home. But I've learned that they keep an impressively long time in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, and can be my painting models and muses many times over, though their greens go limp and eventually rot. 

Even then, the life force and the "urge" to live and create new life is so strong in them that in the dark and cold of the refrigerator drawer, old radishes will sprout vigorous new root hairs and even pale, spindly greens. They are built to live and flourish.

And to ravish the eyes: such lovely round, though not perfectly round, shapes! such whimsical, quirky tails! and such colors! 

These days radishes come in more than just shades of red, crimson, and pink; there's deep blue-violet, wild magenta, pale pink, and a blush creamy white. And if that's not enough, you can always make up other colors as you paint them! Why not?

Which reminds me: the collage artist and children's book author and illustrator Eric Carle has a new book out, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. Carle calls it "an homage to the Expressionist painter Franz Marc." Carle was inspired at a young age by Marc's work when a teacher showed him his painting of a blue horse. 

Painting Make-over: Sharpie and More Paint!

Radishes, © 2011 oil (and Sharpie) on canvas

One of the great outcomes of teaching a class called "Expression in Paint" at Artascope Studios in South Portland is discovering what matters most to me in my own painting. What elements are (at least currently, since things do change) so essential to my own way of expressing myself in paint that I neglect them to my peril.

I can't say exactly how this has come about. It's a combination of slowing way, way down in order to watch what I do when I'm "not looking," by which I mean not over-thinking or over-editing myself. When I am trusting myself and whatever mysterious creative force it is that moves us all when we are open to it. That, and actually painting there in the class under different circumstances than at home; I paint a little differently there, and I'm still figuring out just how.

Some of my best (I think) paintings happen when I: 

• paint over old paintings (what's underneath provides plenty of opportunities for happy accidents of texture and color combinations and things peeking through from beneath)
• draw quickly over an old painting, either with paint or with black Sharpie marker to get my bearings and leave interesting marks showing through in places
• use more paint (it's easy to get "stingy" with paint) and push it around, either with a palette knife or with a pretty stiff brush.

The Sharpie first entered my repertoire as an ally when I once drew a quick freehand sketch on a yellow-painted wall in my garage, and I found it exhilarating! 

I've been a bit timid about admitting my Sharpie use in painting, as if some sort of Painting Orthodoxy Police might get wind of it and, and . . . what? Ban me from the world of "real art?" 

It's as if I think my Sharpie usage might disqualify me from some unnamed, desired realm, or immediately confirm my illegitimacy as a painter. (I comfort myself with the thought that if Sharpies had been around in earlier decades, somebody who is now a famous painter--Picasso is usually my go-to guy--would probably have used one. Right? And if not, who cares?)

So here are some radishes painted over an unsuccessful semi-impressionistic attempt at fall foliage from a few years ago. 

One other observation: I held myself back from "correcting" myself as I went along. I resisted fixing things up to be more right and proper and "better" (realistic?) according to some left-brain critic. I think that's why it works as well as it does. 

These Radishes have already gotten lots of "buzz" from my Facebook supporters (thank you, all!). "Free and beautiful" is one of the comments that's easiest for me to remember and that I will carry with me for the rest of today.

"Except you radish me"

Except you radish me, c 2010, Sukie Curtis, 24x24", oil on wood

Here's an image to help you welcome summer! It's a recently-finished painting called Except you radish me, which is a playful borrowing of a line from a poem by John Donne. The poem is his Holy Sonnet XIV, one of two John Donne poems that occupy some space in my memory bank. 

In the poem Donne begs God, in powerfully personal and sensuous terms, to make God's presence felt and known. The poem begins with the line, "Batter my heart, three-person'd God" and ends with these lines:

          Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

          Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

          Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

There's not always an obvious rational or reasonable explanation for why lines of poetry, hymns, or childhood songs  suddenly float up to consciousness from the recesses of memory. In this case, when I knew I was nearly finished with the painting, or perhaps even long before that, I found myself playing with the words, "Ravish/radish my heart, three person'd God," mixing up Donne's first and last lines.

Why radishes, you might ask? Simple!

I often feel "ravished" by the sensory world we live in, by the shapes and colors (oh, and yes, the flavors too, though I confess that is often a secondary consideration) of vegetables, fruits, flowers and trees. Last summer I was won over by a bunch of radishes I had purchased from a local farmer. 

I drew the radishes a few times, then started and nearly finished (members of my family thought it was finished) this painting, then put it aside for many months because I found it boring. I didn't even come close to conveying my true delight at the actual radishes from the farmers' market. A few weeks ago I decided I was ready to see what I could do to jazz it up a bit. And I'm very happy with the result!

If you or someone you know loves radishes (or not) and would enjoy being ravished by these glowing beauties, let me know! (I will also have new notecards available soon.)

In the meantime, enjoy some local fruits and vegetables of your own to welcome in the summer!