Final Comparison

“I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning . . . Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”
- Miles Davis

Why I can't stop with the Miles Davis stuff, when its Ann Gale week, is beyond me. The two have been linked for me for seven days now. This is an original Davis in pencil, paste and marker. It doesn't remind me of anything Ann Gale, except it makes me wonder what instrument she plays.

I have a mandolin and about a month of lessons down. But I quit. I think I will pick it up, turn it upside down, and play it the way I should have played it all along. With my left hand strumming, because I'm left handed.

Artist's Models, Inspiration, Meditation, Reps

Looking at Gary, you can wonder, “how long did he have to sit for this painting?” Ann Gale spends a great deal of time around her subjects even before “official” painting sessions begin. Once she starts with a model, she may have several sessions for a small painting or sketch. If the interaction between her and the subject coalesces, then three hour periods of painting, twice a week for anywhere from four months to three years begin.

That’s a long time to be sitting in one place and in Gary’s case, with no clothes. What makes a person agree to pose for three hours with only a short stretch break every half hour or so? Most of Ann Gale’s models are her friends or family, but others are professional models. One motivator can be money, but over and above that, some say that it’s the desire to be part of the creation of art, the artist’s inspiration.

During a painting session, the artist is busy, drawing or painting. What is the model doing other than holding still, holding a pose? Mostly they’re concentrating on what’s going on in the room, the sound of the pencil on paper or brushes on the canvas. Much like people who meditate, they watch their breathing and in many cases they’re monitoring their bodies, the muscles that may be cramping, the itch here, the chill there. Since Ann Gale’s portraits take years to complete in some cases, we the viewers are able to see changes in their moods and bodies. What we look like now is not what we’ll look like three years from now. Gale captures that transition in time, both in the portrayal of the subjects and the space around them.

Modeling is definitely hard work. Gary Stuart, one model, is quoted as saying “By the end of three hours I fell like I need traction.” Robert Treat, another model, says “For me, it is like reps. It is more of an athletic experience. That’s what the artists are doing as well, with their paintings and drawings: sketch, after sketch, after sketch.”

All of this discussion of modeling reminds me of the brief period five years ago when I posed for a group of artists in Santa Rosa. I was asked to wear different outfits of my choice for three separate sessions. Each session was broken into the classic minute, two minute, five minute, fifteen minute, half hour sketch periods. Since I had not done any posing before, the people participating were pleased with how well I could hold the poses. And yes, I did watch my breath and did become very attuned to what was happening in that room. One artist gave me this sketch to thank me for spending my time with them. She especially liked my choice of colorful biking clothes even though she did her sketch in black pencil.

Song One, Sixteen Minutes Long

Mission accomplished. I sat face to face with Gary, about seven feet away, and pressed play. Miles Davis and Gil Evans began Sketches of Spain with their rendition of Concierto de Aranjuez. It was written in 1939 by Joaquin Rodrigo for the palace gardens. The second movement is the one Davis and Evans cover, it was either inspired by the miscarriage of the composer's first child or the bombing of Guernica. Considering that, it surprises me that my take on Gary wasn't dark or depressing despite the pensive music and contrary to the descriptions of Ann's work, by critics I read online. In fact I felt immediately at peace with Gary and thought he seemed like someone who would enjoy the album with me, if he could hear it. Right away I noticed all kinds of places where the paint Ann used was brighter orange and fleshy pink. There is no light source in the paintings, but on the knees, wrists, ears and throat and in a band around his middle are these crisp pastel blocks. These are the areas most alive. Ann said in an interview once “the light is where the emotion is.” It isn't that Gary is, as John Motley of the Mercury said, “profoundly melancholy”, “vacant of expression” and “disconnected from the physical world.” I couldn't disagree more. It is that Gary seems to be human, and in this situation, as humans do, he has become a mirror of Ann. He is concentrating, with slow shallow breath and above all, patience. As the artist herself is patient, she is, after all, a self described "humanist".
Miles Davis said of the Concierto de Aranjuez “That melody is so strong that the softer you play it, the stronger it gets and the stronger you play it, the weaker it gets.” It was in the soft melodies that my heart beat hardest and when it began to grow louder it lost something. What I thought would be dark wasn't, This experience did not make me inward but open. I felt comforted by Gary and thought if he could say something it might be “could you please turn that up a bit?”

Floating Light

I haven't done my experiment yet, but I have done some research and I can give a teaser. Ann Gale has this way of making paint float on the canvas in front of and behind her subject which creates an almost ghostly atmosphere. It gives the figure a mood that is more than his or her expression.

The third piece on Sketches of Spain is called Will O The Wisp, taken from a 19th century gypsy ballet. More on the ballet later, but if you don't know what a Will O The Wisp is, I'll tell you it's another name for these flashes of light seen above bogs and marshes and thought to be spirits of the dead or ghosts. Folklore from the world over as long ago as the 14th century have included stories of these strange lights which science informs is the meeting of methane gas with hydrogen in the air that catch fire.

Ann Gale experiments with floating light as a paint technique, Miles Davis took a song about floating light from a ballet about a woman haunted by her dead lover. These two each created an atmosphere of another world and time using floating light as subject matter. This is just one thing Sketches of Spain and Gary have in common. Follow?

Lopez Garcia and Giacometti Also Inspired Ann Gale

Continuing directly from yesterday, Alberto Giacometti and Antonio Lopez Garcia are the other two artists Ann Gale cited as being influential in her development. The sculptor who places his subjects in motion with his control of his modeling has the spotlight on the left. A search on the "internets" and you'll find any number of other images of the people and creatures he has created to come into our lives. 

Antonio Lopez Garcia, on the right, is an amazing painter whose paintings look like photographs from a distance but as you come closer to them you find his brushstrokes adding atmosphere to his scenes. 

Another Ann Gale self-portrait is at the top looking towards two of the ones who influenced her.

Ann Gale Cites Lucian Freud

It was no surprise to me to read that Ann Gale credits three artists as influencing her work – Lopez Garcia, Alberto Giacometti and Lucian Freud. Freud's work has a similar effect, the subject is anchored to the painting but you very much feel that there you are sharing the same environment. It must have to do with the mark that each painter leaves creating light and movement. See if you can see the influences Sigmund Freud's grandson has had on Gale's work in these two self-portraits.

Sketches of Gary

Ann Gale’s portrait, Gary, hangs in the northwest gallery. When I find him, I stop. I don’t know what to think, so I don’t, I feel.

I am reminded of Miles Davis’ album, Sketches of Spain. It arrests me in a similar psychological place. Between being pulled in and pushed away.


In an attempt to understand this corner of my mind where these two pieces meet, I am going to do an experiment.
I will find out what happens when I sit with Gary for the duration of the Sketches of Spain album playing on my i-pod.

To be continued.