Mind Mapping

I wrote my name in the middle of a piece-of-paper. Drew a circle around it with ten radial lines off the circle. I had to put ten ideas of who I am and what is important to me on those ten radial lines. I felt the strongest emotion on one radial line—people (interestingly, not artist). I then spent a couple of months trying to figure out how "people" could lead me to the other nine radial lines. I have never regretted that process nor those months. It has sustained me for the past 25 years and I finally stopped spinning my wheels and could drive forward.

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

Semicolons and Periods

A visual artist is as sensitive when to change direction of a drawn line as a writer is sensitive when to use a semicolon.

A visual artist is as sensitive when to end a drawn line as a writer is sensitive when to end a sentence.

The above is in response to a writer criticizing me for using too many semicolons as he found them disruptive—a concept new to me.

Ida Kotyuk ©  www.portraits-oils.com

Reality TV and the Arts

A few years back I got a letter from one of those popular cable stations (Bravo?). The letter stated they wanted to run a reality program about visual artists and would I be interested in participating. If so, please fill out the following questionnaire. I’m not sure how they found me. My instincts told me the cable station purchased the Chicago Art Institute’s data base. One primary marketing goal I have is to be listed in as many data bases as possible. How can opportunity knock if I don’t stand behind as many doors as I can find.

The letter itself was only one page long. The questionnaire ran for fifteen pages. But, I am always happy to fill out questionnaires that require one answer only. As I skimmed over the pages I asked myself, well…how bad can it be?

Invasive! That’s how bad it could be. I had two thoughts: first, they asked questions which my own mother wouldn’t dare to ask, and I would never answer; and secondly, if the cable station wished to understand artists and the art world, then good luck getting me to tell you the truth about that stuff.

Worse yet, each question required an essay answer! What? Did they want artists to do their job for them? Is everyone in reality television exposed to this type of psychological profiling?

Today, I don’t remember one question and am fairly certain I didn’t save the letter; or, if I did save the letter, it is somewhere “safe.” That is, never to be found again, like much in my filing system.

But I did remember my own academic experiences. I knew there was no way a group of artists in one room would get along—forget compatible. Believe me when I say Donald Trump is an innocent when it comes to ambition and back stabbing. The program Survivor couldn’t hold a candle. Picture a room of musicians, each following their own mental drummer arguing who is the best performer, the best composer. They wouldn’t get their own work done. Or—remember the ambition and back stabbing in the movie “Black Swan.” The idea of presenting a reality program with artists as the protagonists is similar to the play Hamlet—everyone is dead at the end. Hmmm….so was the swan.

The participants in Donald Trump’s program and Survivor are fighting for a common goal; be it a job or money. For a visual artist to admit “I’m doing this strictly for the money,” is to be black-balled in the art world. Your art will never be taken seriously. (My denial to make a lot of money is also part of my hypocrisy.)

I wonder what percentage of artists responded to that mailing? What were the cable station’s parameters. Who were the artists?

In the years since I got that letter I keep looking for the completed program. Why hasn’t it been aired? Nothing. Nada. Did I miss it? Instinct tells me, the cable station was disappointed in the number of respondents. If so, I can only say—good for us.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.
Ida Kotyuk©
http://www.portraits-oils.com/

The Christmas Portrait

Standing at the window, I watched the young couple come up the walk. They looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. Are they newly weds? Why do I think they’re married? What could a young couple want from a portrait painter when their money should be tied up in their firsts: their first home, their first car, their first child. Couples that young should be paying off their wedding or honeymoon. What is more important—than their married firsts?

I opened my door to them and stepped back as we introduced ourselves. I asked what kind of portrait were they interested in and how could I help them.

It was the young wife who wanted the portrait. She reached into her purse to pull out a letter-sized envelope with five, faded and worn, small photographs of a laughing teenage boy. I spread them out on my drawing board.

“I would like an oil portrait,” she said.

She explained he was her brother and she wanted the oil portrait as a Christmas gift for her parents.

My clients know their own mind and what it is they want from me. But, yet, I had to ask, “You don’t think your mother and father would like a portrait of you and your husband for Christmas?”

“No. I definitely want one of him.”

“May I ask why.”

“Well. He died last summer and I want to give them something this Christmas.”

“He died. How old was he?”

“He was sixteen-years-old.”

Picturing the need for closure on a long-suffering illness I thought, perhaps, her parents weren’t ready for the next step.

“How did he die?”

“He was shot by his best friend.”

“Shot! What happened?” I asked, thinking what could a sixteen-year-old boy be doing that would get him killed.

“He and his buddy were washing his car when my brother aimed the water hose at him. As a joke his buddy pulled a gun from his car and waved it around as a threat. The gun accidentally went off and shot my brother in the stomach.”

“Oh. Hell.”

We stood shaking our heads in silent communion at life’s stupidities. Her husband never said a word, this was his wife’s story.

Looking down at my drawing board, I spread out her few photographs and asked, “Is any particular one your favorite?”

From the smiling five photographs she said, “Well, we sort of like this one,” and pointed to a young face tilted back with laughter.

“Excellent,” I said, asking for my deposit.

Without a single hesitation or question her husband reached into his back pocket to pull out his check book and opened it to write the specified amount.

A little surprised because he didn’t ask about size or the other myriad questions, I stepped back, and said “You’ve talked to other artists.”

“Yes. You’re our fourth.”

“What was wrong with them?” I asked.

“They said not enough information.”

“Not enough information! He’s a sixteen-year-old boy. I don’t need to know anything else,” I said, gathering up the photographs.

As they walked back to their car I became angry at those other artists who didn’t have enough information. That they didn’t understand she didn’t ask for an oil portrait to bring her brother back to life. But rather, it was the gift from a daughter to her mother and father. That, as an alternative, this Christmas they would talk about the good times.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

The Blue Ruler

Why does it have to be blue? I have yellow rulers, clear rulers, wooden rulers, wiggly rulers; but I only reach for the blue. “Oh yeah. I want to underline that. Where’s my blue ruler.” Or, when I read, I have my blue ruler to guide me sentence by sentence, by paragraph. I can’t read anything, except novels, without my blue ruler. What’s that about?

My blue rulers come in all sizes and shapes; long ones, shorts ones. And, all the numbers are faded. I like the blue plastic ones the best. What’s with that?

I ran out to an office supply store once because I felt I didn’t have enough blue rulers. Once home, there they sit in a pile. It is better to have too many blue rulers than not enough. I have them in my bedroom. I have them by the television. I have them by my laptop computer. I have them by my upright computer. There is a whole bunch in my studio. The only place I don’t have a blue ruler is in my kitchen. Hmm…. Maybe I need one there.

If I were an Egyptian I would ask that a bunch of blue rulers be packed away with me when I die. Stuck in my hand. Who knows what I’ll be doing on the other side and I don’t want to be without my blue rulers. Plastic, if you please.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

Ida Kotyuk©

www.portraits-oils.com

One Reason Why I Don’t Teach

If, after the third explanation, you do not understand what I am saying—you are hard of hearing.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.
Ida Kotyuk©
www.portraits-oils.com

Gainsborough’s Blue Boy

I’ll wager Thomas Gainsborough’s (1727-1788) “Blue Boy” began life as a “Blue Toddler” or a “Blue Infant.” I’ve seen three-month growth spurts in boys that obliterated their baby fat. Painting children in the middle of a growth spurt is as dramatic an experience as Van Gogh chasing his landscape shadows, just before he shot himself.

I believe growth spurts caused all sorts of problems for our early portrait painters and is one reason many early paintings of children look like an El Greco portrait, stretched and elongated. Imagine a young boy standing next to his favorite horse, growing taller, while the painter pursues spatial relationships.

At one time I delivered the wrong commissioned portrait to a mother who said “that’s not my daughter.”

“Are you sure?” I asked; as if a mother didn’t know her own child and thinking there had been another growth spurt.

One reason most children’s portraits are relegated to the attic or loosely tossed into some drawer is that our early images appear/ seem/ important only to us and recognizable only by us.

[Consider, if all portraits of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln were oil paintings of them as infants, what would our money look like?]

Luckily, I meet men and women (and briefly, become a part of their lives), who understand and recognize what they have; that is, these few moments in time that belong to them.

When we become adults we handle all our early images with indifference. We are unaware of our importance to our parents, our children, and to society. What pleasure to find my mother’s passport photograph when I was a decade older than that image; or, to see an old black-and-white film of her girlishly giggling and my father behaving in a goofy manner. What unbelievable wonder to view these images years after their death with a family of my own.

It can be a miserable time to be a portrait painter when we are able to delete an image with the press of a thumb or a flick of a finger. Thank heaven our predecessors did not live in a digital age. We should take a page from their example and capture our and others’ image to celebrate who we are today, everyday, and every decade of our lives.

Because in the end, we are all we have.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

The Other Boleyn Girl

Casting Directors

Notwithstanding the 1,001 historical inaccuracies, I love the film “The Other Boleyn Girl” (American version). It spoke to me: the actors; the characterizations; the director’s work; as well as the music score written for each character. It all came together. I am always impressed by the film industry’s efforts that you and I become part of, and understand, the events and characterizations we see on screen. The film industry spoon-feeds information to us, as we, the audience, allot them fewer than ten seconds to tell us who, what, when, where and why.

The profession I most admire in film is the role of the casting director. Many times I feel he should receive an additional bonus. [History Channels’ casting director for “Battles BC” should get a very, very, very special big bonus.] He requires a sensitivity special to his job; narrowing the field to the select few to be chosen who best represent the script’s character. He must comprehend the requirements of a wide international audience. It is crucial that he assist us, the audience, to know which character is which; in other words, to tell the characters apart. The casting director can handicap a viewer if he lacks the awareness of inherent visual similarities found in both cultural and familial resemblances. His is a complex responsibility. In reality, cultures and families resemble each other and to an outsider, like myself, watching a foreign film, at times it is hard to tell the father from the uncle, the uncle from the cousin, the aunt from the mother, and the sister from sister without the fine distinction of physical nuance.

Thanks to the visual dissimilarities of Anne, Mary, their family, and yummy Henry VIII, I could tell the characters apart. [Based on Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII, I never understood the seduction of a powerful king and the women who threw themselves at him. Or, did Henry fill his court with accommodating women?] I found the movie to be less about important historical figures than the dynamics of family and family ambitions. I am aware of two dissimilar sisters chasing the same boyfriend; sisters that, today, could live across from me.

While viewing families in movies, I ask myself, how would a portrait painter show the dynamics, similarities, and/or dissimilarities when, in truth, families look remarkably alike? Or put another way, how would a portrait painter show what’s going on.

Because a portrait painter tries to capture that same family dynamic that takes hundreds of personnel in the film industry. While the casting director works backward from what I do, our final results “must be the same.” He works from the script and the author’s and/or director’s ideas of a prescribed personality; whereas the portrait artist seeks out the personality in the existing image. The casting director picks an image from thousands of choices, whereas the portrait painter captures a thousand nuances in one image.

Double that dilemma by two. How would a portrait artist reveal the dynamics between two sisters knowing there are years of hidden emotions? I can’t just put them side by side and hope for the best. Who is dominant? What if one sister is a gray little mouse and the other sister a pit bull? Placement, alone, never offers a solution.

Also, much like the film industry, the portraitist must keep more than one or two people happy. We must consider all the other relatives who will view the finished portrait: aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and in-laws. At times a client doesn’t know how he or she feels about a portrait until someone says, “that’s really nice!”

In addition, the portraitist will want to consider the hundred years of past history and his/her place in it. The method of application, colors used, brush strokes, paint, pastel, watercolor, charcoal, pencil, and/or clay, all determine the era, and the artist’s perceptions within that era, in which the portrait was created.

A popular misconception is to assume a portrait captures what a camera captures; i.e., that one second in time. When, in fact, what a finished portrait accomplishes is similar to what the film industry accomplishes (and what the movie audience experiences); that is, the disclosure of personality that stands up to re-reviewing over time and future generations. Our photographs live their life in a drawer somewhere within our house, but an oil portrait lives its life somewhere on a wall.

Additionally, film industry advantages to illustrate one personality are: staff to bring the project to completion, moving time to reveal a character’s growth or change, each character’s music to describe that character’s inner-self, a longer period to complete a movie (possibly a year or two), and a captive audience. Whereas, the portraitist has the quiet slow-moving brush, pencil, or clay and only a few weeks to interpret an individual’s character, and the desire that such effort will be successful.

How would I paint a portrait of Anne or Mary Boleyn? I could consider giving each sister her own canvas; but that, in a way, is to cheat. The casting director knows both sisters will be on the screen at the same time, we see the similarity/dissimilarity in both, and I must do no less.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

Docent Story I

One of my pleasures is to volunteer as a docent at the Elmhurst Art Museum. There are many reasons why I enjoy volunteering. One reason is the manner in which visitors educate me with their views, their knowledge about a specific area of expertise (engineers, architects, etc.), and their own individuals stories. During one exhibit, contemporary photographs of Route 66, my primary function was to listen to, without interrupting, the stories of others.

For a number of summers the Transparent Watercolor Society would exhibit the winners of their annual national competition at the museum. And what winners they were working within restricted competition guidelines. Deep rich colors were achieved through layer upon fluid layer and white had to be the white of the paper. No direct opaque colors here.

During my tours, I would stop in front of a watercolor to discuss an artist and how he/ she achieved that unique quality of color, or some other topic. Or I would stop and explain why I like that particular watercolor. Personally, I favor paintings with a grid pattern and I would point out the grid worked in a particular watercolor, and the eroticism of grids.

The idea is that if the grid is broken it is much like a sin in Christianity, a breaking of a covenant or a commandment. At that moment one of the women in the tour told me of her experience with an art teacher who one day brought in one-hundred pictures of art and had each students pick one of, either their favorite, or one they felt they could live with. As each student picked their one art and returned to their chairs, the teacher went to him/ her and said “you’re from the east coast, you’re from New Mexico, you’re from the northwest, you’re from [fill in the blank], etc. Based on their choices, he knew where they had spent their childhood.

“Interesting,” I said. “I’m from northern Indiana and grew up among steel mills and refineries, all built on a grid.”

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk

www.portraits-oils.com

Black Swan

I saw and loved the movie Black Swan. Natalie Portman is outstanding as she immerses herself in her craft and portrays that obsession in which artists envelop themselves. It is an immersion that dominates an artist’s life. Hallucinations and all, what’s so strange about that?

Foolishly, some critics describe Portman’s goal as the pursuit of fame and glory. But Portman’s obsession is about recognition. And that is why the movie is popular; we identify with her. We have our own ambitions and goals, our own expectations, and we have our own illusions and hallucinations.

From office employees (both professional and non-professional) passed over for promotion, to students hoping for a top grade, and everyone in between; we are all subjected to a review. A review to be faced again and again, this year, next year, and again the following year. Think of those individual sports figures and teams who fall somewhere as number three or four, or lower, in ranking.

If one intends to do one’s best, pursuit of recognition is unrelenting. Not only are we as good as our last effort (for actors their last picture or play), but now we must haul ourselves up to be better for the next event. How often can we give, or improve on, one hundred percent? And all that labor is assessed by someone who may have had a good or bad day; to be judged by someone who had a fight with a spouse or was caught in a traffic jam for hours. Who and how we identify ourselves is tested by such individuals.

And then there’s the competition. Not only do we have to strive for personal best, but we must “beat out” others striving toward the same goal.

Portman’s pursuit of recognition is experienced across all cultures. We would like to be told “you did a good job.” Not to hear those words implies you were not good enough. My belief is that the Black Swan will become a classic because it speaks to many people on many levels.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk, Portrait Painter, MA

www.portraits-oils.com

A Happy Marriage

As my mother lay dying she motioned for me to come a little closer and I wondered what her last few words would be for me as she whispered, "to be happily married you have to be a little stupid."

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk, Portrait Painter, MA

www.portraits-oils.com

Tombstones

In times of life-changing decisions: should I quit what I am doing, should I move from where I am, what should I do; rather than visit my place of worship to look for answers, or consult with friends or family; I sit in a local cemetery among its tombstones. It’s a grand place for an uncommon and out-of-the-ordinary worldview. There, I find a serenity where each “should I,” “could I,” “would I” becomes insignificant.

While traveling I would visit the town’s local cemetery and read each tombstone. I searched for, and sometimes found, advice to age-old questions from others who went before me.

One day I came across a tombstone that read:

"As I was, you now are.

As I am, you will be."*

Long familiar with the quote, I wondered what was the intention of this departed soul. Were these words by which he wished to be remembered, bitter; or, were these words melancholic?

After years of visiting cemeteries I was compelled to speculate what sort of message would I choose to leave for the thousand generations to follow. My family always answers, “Well, we would put Blessed Heart.”

Hmmm… I think I would like something more descriptive. I’m an artist, after all. The problem is, every few years, I change my tombstone’s engraved inscription. [Is that a pun?] Each altered message is an indication of a new attitude.

The first time I gave any thought to my first epitaph, it would have read, in teeny, tiny print, forcing the viewer to bend and squint:

If you can read this, you can kiss my ass.

Oh—those angry years! Yes—indeed. That inscription lasted a long time.

Then there were the years trying to fit three lifetimes into one—Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda. I blame computers and multi-tasking.

I want to be clear about this idea of mine. I don’t want a “Huh” after reading my tombstone. How about a photograph of my self-portrait done in oil? There would be two ideas: one, I was a portrait painter; and two, this is what I looked like. But like Rembrandt, which self-portrait to use? At what age? Sigh… I want something that reflects the woman I had been and the woman I had become. This one lasted only a week. Where’s the message?

For a short while I chose the simple words—Thank You for Life. I was depressed that year. I don’t remember why; perhaps someone dear to me died, and I needed a positive affirmation. That’s the problem with inscriptions, I remember the inscription but forget the purpose.

Another year, there was—Oooops, I Got It All Wrong. Another problem; my cup is always half full and I forget my regrets the following year, if not following day. After all, what is the greatest regret—but not to try at all. And, if for those few moments I get it right, I have been gifted a lifetime to get it wrong.

Then I began to think of other people’s quotes. I seem to like quotes.

Jimmy Hendrix: I think it was he, from his autobiography “No One Gets Out of Here Alive”—stuck for a few years.

Or, Roald Dahl: his quote during his divorce from Patricia Neal, “I would have liked for someone to bring me a cup of tea.” Sort of says it all…

What words to answer future ramblers’ concerns? How to speak to the collective subconscious of various cultures for the next thousand years. [That’s how us artists think.] How many pixels do we need? How many canvases to paint? How many songs to sing? How many buildings to build?

I loved those early tombstone-rambling years, those lone messages unique only to me—how short is life. I have curbed my rambling. I recognize too many names, and come to acknowledge John Donne got it right—no man is an island. We are all connected by a continuous umbilical thread; we, tethered to a common destiny. Possibly my family’s “Blessed Heart,” is the most faithful. It is not what we did, nor what we left behind; but rather, we loved, and were loved in return.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk, Portrait Painter, MA

www.portraits-oils.com

*     *     *

*Following is one internet comment (in its entirety) regarding the various sources for the above quote: To read additional comments, follow this [link].

http://able2know.org/topic/79058-1

Posted by NF: Thu 3 Jun, 2010 01:19AM

“The earliest known portion of this quote I could find was on the epitaph of Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince of Wales, son of King Edward III.

He passed at the age of 45 on June 8th, 1376. The phrase composes the first two lines of the epitaph upon his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England.

His epitaph read as such:

Such as thou art, sometime was I.

Such as I am, such shalt thou be.

I thought little on th'our of Death

So long as I enjoyed breath.

But now a wretched captive am I,

Deep in the ground, lo here I lie.

My beauty great, is all quite gone,

My flesh is wasted to the bone

Hope this helps!  -NF”

[Thanks, NF — Ida]

URL: http://able2know.org/topic/79058-1

To Teach Art

Those Who Can. Do!

Those Who Can’t. Teach!

I first heard the above quote sometime in college. Those cliché-filled-and-fueled college years, when all-knowing freshman students scorn their professors; a time we believed professors became teachers because they couldn’t make it in the real world.

Interestingly, all the men… hmmm… most of the men in my immediate family marry school teachers, and school teachers are different from the rest of us. A typical Thanksgiving dinner becomes an unending litany of instructions, beginning with our entry at the front door.

“Take off your coat, hang it on that third hook. No! Not that one, the third hook. Sit in that chair over there. Not that one, the closer red one… .”

So it would go until the buffet line started.

“Pick up the plate, take a napkin. No. Not that napkin. Help yourself to… .”

Boy-oh-boy, Kotyuk men sure like bossy women.

Is it true teachers can’t do and doers can’t teach? Is this a cliché with an element of truth or a myth waiting to be debunked?

Subsequently, I had the opportunity to teach, one hour a week, within various elementary schools. I taught drawing for Young Rembrandts, an after-school program. A discipline that adheres to the idea to teach drawing fundamentals by rote. That is, teaching future visual artists is similar to teaching the alphabet to future writers.

Ah… my classes. Within that hour, my students ranged from 5-year olds to 12-year olds. A disadvantageous age range because a 5-year-old child’s needs are different from a 12-year old child’s needs. Particularly as a 12-year old begins to believe they know everything there is to know.

It was easy to pick out those students who were there for their mother or father and not because they had an interest in drawing. Or, their interest had more to do with copying what the teacher had done, than learning the process of drawing.

What an education...

How do I enthuse students to draw what they see. I found myself caught up in “oiling the squeaky wheel.” That is, spending my time on the slower students, my pet peeve of other teachers [and employers]. That wide age range kept me on my toes, because children will always test and push you.

I taught drawing for 18 months and learned—I loved to teach. What joy to show a child the skills and tools to draw.

I immersed myself in various methods to present analytical thinking. How to translate three-dimensional images onto a small two-dimensional surface. What a breathless experience; to see a mind grow and expand with different routes to age-old drawing problems.

But, in the process, I found myself forced to choose between preparing for class or preparing a canvas; forced to interrupt my flow of ideas, where I am in that painting, and where I wanted to go. At that moment in my studio, flowing with ideas (and more often than not, struggling); regardless of what I was doing, I must leave to teach.

To return to the above cliché, I learned two valuable lessons during those 18 months.

First, children need precise direction. Put your coat on THAT hook. Take YOUR name tag and PLACE it in front of you at THAT desk. Sit in THAT chair. Use THAT paper. Etc., Etc.

Well—now I sound like my sisters-in-law.

Secondly, when I taught, there was very little mental energy left over. It is what I call “loss of psychic space” in my brain. In the free crevices of time during my day, rather than face a blank or half-finished canvas with “fiddle-fart” ideas, my time was spent on how best to reach a particular student to better understand how to draw.

Teaching was eating into my studio time. Eating into my psychic brain, my psychic space, and my psychic time. And so, I had to make an either/or choice. I couldn’t do both. Artists need a lifetime to grow within their area of expertise. Dancers and athletes spend years preparing for a two-hour performance or game. In the Olympics, your performance lasts only three or more minutes. That “eye-on-the-prize” focus cannot be split. For those few moments of “getting it right” we need years to get it wrong.

But, thanks to those little hellions, er… children, those 18 months changed me into a different artist—one whose perceptions were influenced by the world-view of 5-to-12-year olds; and, hopefully, I am a more understanding sister-in-law, as well.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.

©Ida Kotyuk, Portrait Painter

www.portraits-oils.com