Karen Lynn Ingalls Contemporary Art
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Ekphrasis: a story of inspiration

4/15/2013

7 Comments

 
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Yvonne Henry is the genius behind the Ekphrasis show, which continues at the Calistoga Art Center through Saturday, April 20th, from 1 to 5 p.m each day. Her idea - what would happen if you combined a photographer with someone working in another medium, and the second artist began with a photograph from the first artist as the inspiration to create something new? Hence, Sharolyn Townsend's wonderful drawing, using Michelangelo as inspiration (one work of art begets another)....
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Ekphrasis show, at the Calistoga Art Center • photo © 2013 Chick Harrity
Yvonne presented the idea at the Calistoga Camera Club show late last year, and artists and photographers began pairing up. I was absolutely blessed to be able to work with Wes Thollander, whose photography I have long admired.
But in my case the inspiration works in multiple ways....
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Bug Haiku - illustrations by Earl Thollander
Long before I met Wes, I knew of his father, artist Earl Thollander. Wes's and my grandparents were friends – Swedes in Cloverdale, a small Sonoma County town with a reasonably good-sized Swedish community. After my grandparents moved to Santa Rosa, Wes's grandparents would visit whenever they came down to Santa Rosa, and Earl would drive them. My grandmother would tell me about Earl, and he autographed a copy of Bug Haiku for me.
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Back Roads of California and Barns of California, by Earl Thollander - two books which began what became a series of books of his sketches of the back roads of America
I loved the way he drew - with a freshness of vision, originality, and humor that inspired me. I was a drawer, too (it was many years before I thought of myself as a painter), and I was enchanted by his work. Such beautiful lines! (Oh, what he could do with a bamboo pen!) When Back Roads of California, and later Barns of California came out, I loved looking through them.
Wes, as it turned out, was accompanying his father on some of those sketching trips, and photographing the scenes they found – the beginnings of his photographic career.
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Left, Mund Road Trees by Wes Thollander, and right, In the Forest by Karen Lynn Ingalls (with Karen in the middle) • photo © 2013 Debbie Ames
It was not easy to choose only one of Wes's photographs as my inspiration – his work is profoundly beautiful. I narrowed it down to two images, but kept leaning to the one you see on the left, Mund Road. The trees twisting their way up to find the light, and the light streaming down to the forest floor, create a magical scene.
I wanted to give a sense of those trees nearly dancing in their places, and the light filtering in between them. I used to live in a forest – Wes and his family live in one, too – and there is something about it that feels magical and reverential.
I wanted to begin with Wes's composition, which required subtle shifts to make the painting work, because the canvas's proportions were different. Some people might have found that direction too literal, but that was part of what I so loved about it. I wanted to work with the image in black and white, so the painting could find its own color. It feels to me that it still wants more color – so I may see where else it may want to take me after the show. But I love the dancing of the trees – I think we caught them behaving as though unobserved, celebrating? – perhaps conversing? - in the circle of the light.
I am absolutely honored to have Wes's photograph as my inspiration for this show, just as his father's drawings have inspired me for so many years. There's a wonderful circularity about it, even though I never got to meet Earl. I just know my grandmother is up there smiling....
7 Comments
Stephen Sossaman link
9/14/2013 10:12:17 am

Art-inspired art can indeed be wonderful. I missed the 2013 Calistoga exhibition, unfortunately, but your blog entry immediately put me in mind of the great fusion of classic Chinese poetry and Chinese landscape paintings (often sharing one scroll), each so wonderfully minimalist and evocative, using suggestion so subtly as to require the reader (or viewer) as an active co-creator of the work, not a passive recipient. Chinese paintings might not appeal very strongly to a colorist, but the drawer in you probably loves them, too.

Reply
Karen Lynn
9/15/2013 10:28:42 am

Great connection - I hadn't thought of them! Yes, although I haven't studied Chinese landscape paintings recently, I do love them - and appreciate the incredible drawing that goes into them.

And I had forgotten the combination of poetry and painting incorporated into the scrolls. I will have to go back and study them! I used to love Arthur Waley's poem translations, and, now that it occurs, to me, think his translated phrase "Madly singing in the mountains" would make a great painting title!

Tangentiallly related to that, though - Earl Thollander drew with a bamboo pen (they create wonderful, slightly calligraphic-looking lines). I keep intending to get mine out again... they are a lot of fun to draw with.

Reply
Karen Lynn link
9/15/2013 10:30:43 am

And this painting is the one currently sitting on my easel, too... it's really still in process....

Stephen Sossaman link
9/22/2013 06:11:17 am

My first interest in Chinese poetry was also Arthur Waley's collection of translations, now dated. One Chinese painting-poetry connection, of course, is the nature of the language. A line of poetry is not an unambiguous declarative sentence, but a series of characters with sometimes unclear relationships. Some lines sound like internet "tags" for paintings, like Li Po's line: "dog-bark-water-sound-midst," or Wang Wei's "fisherman-song-enter-estuary-deep."
Like asking a child what she sees in a Beverly Wilson painting, maybe "tree, light, grass, tree, dance..."

Reply
Karen Lynn
9/23/2013 08:12:23 am

Perhaps both poetry and hashtags have this in common because they endeavor to sum up the essence of their subjects - I would not have connected the two before now, though!

Some years ago, I came up with the title "Land, Trees, Sky" to sum up the essence of a show. A couple of years ago I amended it to "Land, Trees, Skies, Vines." More poetic than prosaic – and not unhashtag-like, now that I think of it! I'm afraid I've overused the title since, because I liked it so well.

And thank you for mentioning it in context with Bev's work, too! She's one of my favorite painters – and someone for whom I have a deep respect and liking. We have something of a similar sensibility about our work, I think.

Reply
Stephen Sossaman link
9/24/2013 04:14:35 am

Actually, I meant to include your name, not Beverly's, since I had in mind your painting at the top of this blog entry. Her name must have occurred to me because you and she are the two artists I am most looking forward to visiting this weekend during the Open Studio hours. In my own occasional haiku, I try to eliminate as many empty words as possible, so I appreciate titles like your "land, trees, sky." Getting to the essence: how interesting that people as diverse as wild Picasso and the modest Shakers understood that, and aspired to that. But please don't go all abstract on us. One White-on-White is enough, I think.

Karen Lynn
9/24/2013 07:05:20 am

Thank you for the compliment! Never fear, I will not go all abstract – my roots as a figure drawer are far too strong. The abstract paintings come out of a teaching exercise I lead new painters through. It's a wonderful thing to return to when I want to simplify what I'm doing and just deal with the essentials of shape, pattern, color, and line.

Creatively speaking, I like being able to work in multiple ways – it keeps me stretching and trying new things, and keeps me, and, I hope, the work, from getting repetitive. It's kind of like going back to the well; I can return to my landscape painting refreshed and recharged. I wish you good visits during Open Studios this next weekend (say hello to Bev for me!) – and I look forward to seeing you then!

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    Karen Lynn Ingalls

    I am an artist in Napa and Sonoma Counties, in California. I paint colorist landscapes of rural California, teach art classes and lessons, and live in Calistoga, California. I also teach private, group, and corporate art workshops in Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and other parts of Northern California.

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