The summer exhibition at Hammertown gave me a chance to look at people while they looked at my work.  At the two official "Visit with the Artist" sessions, I also got a chance to talk with people about the paintings.  I want my work to be out in the world, to somehow make a difference.  I need pay attention to what people say about what they see.   Below are some of the ideas I shared with Hammertown visitors.  

Portraits through Objects

There were two paintings borrowed back from their owners for the show that I particularly wanted to talk about .  Both of them are in the category of what I call "Portraits through Objects."  Both paintings go beyond a simple depiction of what a person looks like.  They include objects that mean special somethings to people as a way to tell stories about people. 

In the case of the painting on the left, Portrait of Dorothy, we included objects that she collected over the course of her adult life.  All of them tell something about who, how, and why Dorothy is as a person.  The objects are pieces of jewelry, a map from Dorothy and her husband's antique map collection, and a 17th century Apostle Spoon from their British silver collection.   Dorothy and I selected these objects from the many that she brought to my studio.  For each object, Dorothy told me a story that taught me a lot about her, her life, and her family.  Watching and listening as she told the stories, I made observations that would provide an important foundation for the painting. We selected objects that carried especially important meaning and that would also make for an effective composition. The story telling and selecting were critical parts of the collaboration that happens between a painter and a model.   They helped me see beyond the surface.  As viewers talk about the kind of person they see in the portrait, I hear them going beyond the surface.

The painting on the right, Memory Painting for Jack and Rose, uses the objects that belonged to people who are no longer with us.  They convey something of who they were and what is remembered about them.  I was commissioned to do this piece by Jack and Rose's niece, Beth. Beth now lives in Jack and Rose's lake house, a home that had been a special part of her childhood summers. The porch that she now enjoys is the one on which many parties were celebrated, over many years.  She brought to my studio boxes of the objects that populated the porch.  They were used by her aunt and uncle and their many guests.  She told me stories about the card playing; her uncle's favorite books; the furniture, including the bar cart, that they collected; and the sheet music that her aunt used as she enjoyed playing the piano.  Having known her aunt and uncle a bit, I felt that this arrangement of their things expressed something of the vitality, fun, and seriousness of their spirits.  Knowing a bit about Beth's taste in art,  I also borrowed a bit from Cezanne as I did the painting.

Other artists have worked with this 'Portraits through Objects" idea.  A good example can be taken from the wonderful and not-to-be-missed Museum of the Hunt and of Nature, in the Marais section of Paris.  A room-sized installation is an amazingly evocative portrait of Francois and Jacqueline Sommer, the husband and wife hunters and conservationists who were the great patrons of the museum.  Mark Dion, the artist, recreated in the museum their hunting cabin and filled it with the couple's possessions:  medals and other decorations Mr. Sommer received for his heroism in WWII, in the Free French Army; photographs that document the Sommer family's role in the history of aeronautics; an African reliquary given to the couple as a wedding present; books, including several on hunting and social issues; photographic equipment; many objects of art; furniture; travel souvenirs; smoking and drinking paraphenelia, etc.  As you look into the room, it isn't hard to imagine that the lovers of nature and the woods have just gone off for a walk and would soon return.  Again, their objects spoke for many dimensions of their lives.   Interestingly -- showing all of the layers that a piece of art can involve, Dion's installation includes two other portraits of the Sommers by their close friend, Claude Lepape, from the 1960s.  These are small paintings of Mr. Sommer's personal belongings that the painter considered especially emblematic of the husband's personality.  

  

     Painting allows one to rediscover the wonder of seemingly very simple things.  These weeks in the studio, the joy is about fruit with leaves on it.  Yes, I love painting fruits and vegetables of all sorts without leaves.  But there is something very special about painting them when they have their leaves on.  Sadly, coming by fruits so adorned is not easy.  Not a leaf in site in the supermarkets I visit.  Even at the Union Square Farmers' Market that I am blessed to be able to enjoy on the way to my city studio, most apples and pears have been separated from their leaves.  Luckily, in Pine Plains, Northern Dutchess county, I have access to Farmers' Markets that are within walking distance of the orchards where the fruit are grown.  The short trip from orchard to farm stand to my country studio means I can find and paint fruit with leaves still attached.  

     Now, you could ask me:  "Suzanne, are the leaves really such a big deal?"  My answer is "yes."  Since the days of wall paintings in Pompeii and Herculaneum, painters have been painting fruit with leaves.  And they continued over the centuries to paint leaves.  Highlights are stunning fruits with leaves in the stll lifes or "kitchen paintings" of the 17th century Spanish painters, Cotan and Zubaran and the countless examples in Dutch still life genre paintings.  For me, the one painting that better than all others makes the point that leaves are the way to go is Caravaggio's (1573-1610) Basket of Fruit.

Who can resist the amazing variety in the leaves?  And isn't it wonderful how we know it has been a long time since some of these fruits have been picked because of the way Caravaggio has the leaves curl and even fold in on themselves?  The fruit are clearly still and not going anywhere but the leaves look as if they might dance away.  They bring an amazing energy to the painting.  They also show us how good a painter Caravaggio was.