standing one inch away

Non nobis domine, Non nobis domine

Sed nomine, sed nomine  Tuo da glorium

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13FrLGB_oK8&feature=player_embedded

There is a particular moment my Father, son, nephew and I shared in Ceder Hollow as the mountain burst into glow of yellow aspen and pine in a spectacular view.    We could not take our eyes off the mountain that day, it was simply overpowering in the golden glow and deep blue pine.   At one moment during the day my Father asked me to paint it.   This is my first draft of that request.   This oil painting is not yet finished, it is painted on stretched canvas 11×14.   I have a few pictures of this work in progress in different light still on my easel.   I really need to get a better camera and lighting because the images of my work are poor shadows of my actual work.   Dear Santa, may I suggest a Christmas Gift?      At this point in the painting, I want to pull out more variations in the aspen light and push in the deep distant hues on the range.   I hope to capture a piece of the awe we felt on that day.   I may feel a study coming on.  That would be fun.

     – please enjoy the painting in progress.

                      ND Pace

I was asked to donate a few small paintings to a local fundraiser to be sold with all proceeds to benefit a community  library.   Partly in response to that request, and partly to finish my Aspenshine Study, last night, I painted two very satisfying pieces as a final step in my aspen study.   They were actually the funnest pieces I have ever painted.  I felt I had a really good idea of what seemed to work and not work.  I was happy with the progress and the increased understanding I have now after focusing on this theme for a few weeks.   I have enjoyed the study and am ready to move on for a while.  I enjoyed playing with the thick applicatioon of oils.   I liked the blend of colors, using zinc and titanium white, medium naples yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, and french ultramarine blue in color mixed combinations.    I liked the simplification I did of what to me is an aspen grove experience.   It is not about the sky, or any one individual tree.  It is about the canopy of all encompassing color supported by the mass of trunk columns.   I was most satisfied that the final paintings I painted in this study really captured what I feel about aspen.   

These two oil paintings are 6×6 on stretched canvas.  They are for sale for the benefit of the swann library at a price of $20.00 each.

    –  Please enjoy my paintings.

          -ND Pace

    After a long day of depositions, my son Nate called me and asked if we could go golfing… It was the best day I ever spent with him.   We laughed, talked, admired each other’s nice hits, and groaned with our duffs.  We scored pars, bogeys, trees, and ponds.   We one putted, and four putted.   Best of all, I saw him smile in his eyes, and in his heart.   I love him.

      Later we grabbed a burger and fries and he just talked and talked and talked about what he likes.    I relaxed, smiled and sat, basking in the warmth of my son on the day after the last day of summer.

     In the coolness of the evening after the family had gone to bed, I stayed up late and continued my aspen study.   It is painted in oils on an 11×14 stretched canvas.     Please enjoy my work in progress – Aspen Autumn. 

     – ND Pace

Aspenshine – oil on stretched canvas – original 8×10 – painted in 2010

When you are in a large stand of aspen there are three things that seem to surround you.  One is a sense of the beauty of the white trunks standing all around you, surrounded by and holding the color overhead with their hands.   Most people think that the quaking leaves are the prettiest part of aspen, but they are wrong, it is the trunks and how they unitedly stand amidst the color.  

      The next thing is the movement of the color in the slightest breeze.   The leaves act in unison like a school of thick fish swimming with one mind.  It is moving color responding to and made more beautiful by its interaction with the wind and the outer world.   In early spring it is a yellow green glow,  in full summer it is a light green dark green shimmer, and in fall it is an overwhelming golden glow I call Aspenshine.

    The final thing you experience in an aspen grove is a connectedness to those you are with.    It binds you.   I believe this is inspired because each aspen is actually a living part of each other aspen in the same grove.  They are all connected by their root system as one,  forming living organisms, covering entire mountain sides, larger than any other living thing.  

     I love aspens.   

 This painting was a study of impasto application. I tried to capture the feel of an aspen grove with the glowing golden canopy overhead supported by the silent columns so thick that your brother can be twenty feet away and you can not see him with only aspen trunks in between.   

Please enjoy my Aspenshine.

– ND Pace

This is a small scene of an early summer morning looking out from my front porch. I painted this twice, the first time not capturing the just past dawn light the way I wanted to. It just did not have that misty just barely morning feel. Others thought it was fine, but I knew it did not feel right. After looking at it for a few very unhappy days, I painted over it again, right over top of the old painting. It all clicked and the colors just happened right and instantly I knew I had captured the feel of the scene.

Now it makes me laugh because if I ever put it up for sale I could say two for the price of one. 😉

This oil painting is a small 6×8 on stretched canvas.

Please enjoy the painting

– ND Pace

This is a small 6×8 oil on stretched canvas.  My great front porch is a wonderful sandstone with a sandstone ledge.  In the summer I like to paint there.  Our family gathers there to read together, talk, and pray.   It is a happy place.  One day I was painting and i liked the way the sun shone through a mason jar on the ledge and so I painted it trying to capture the porch and the grass beyond the bottle as part of the whole scene.

    enjoy the painting and one of my favorite poems by Teddy Roosevelt.

       – ND Pace

It’s not the critic that counts.

Not the man who points out where
the strong man stumbled or where
the doer of deeds could have done
them better.
The credit belongs
to the man
marred by the
dust and the sweat
and the blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes
short again and
again and again…
…who at best knows,
in the end, the triumph
of high achievements
and who, at the worst,
if he fails at least fails
while daring greatly,
so that his place will
never be with those
cold timid souls
who know neither
victory or defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt

This painting is A Little Candle Light.   It is an 8×10 oil on stretched canvas.    It was my first attempt at painting a scene that has often intrigued me, a small flame in the darkness.    I enjoyed painting the halo of light coming from the flame.   The paint is applied thicker than it appears and there is actually an intense halo of light in the paint under what appears on the surface that only the artist saw.   So in a sense the flame shines out to the eye and also into the canvas.   I plan on doing several small flames in the darkness as a study.

     – Please enjoy my small candle light. 

                                  –  ndpace

This is Aspen Grove.    My father grew up around a fire, on the mountain, hunting with his dad and brothers.  I grew up on scout camps, around a fire with my dad and brothers.   This is an aspen grove from the last deer hunt my dad and I went on.  It was a perfect day.  Pleasant crisp fall Uintah Mountain air.   Brilliant sweeping aspen groves covering the mountain sides.   The floor was thick with shuffling gold and orange leaves.   Dad and I spent the day in awe of nature’s palette.   I will never forget the day.

            This painting is from a spot we stopped to rest and eat lunch of sharp cheddar and apples.      

            Please enjoy  – ND Pace                    11×14 oil on stretched canvas

  ND Pace at the GOArt Orleans County Art Trail   August 28, 2010

What Is Art and What Is It For?

by Joseph G. Langen

A man who works with his hands is a laborer;

a man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman;

a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

 ~ Thomas Aquinas

In 1963 I began the reluctant study of Scholastic Philosophy as set out by Thomas Aquinas. The thirteenth century Dominican monk interpreted what Aristotle had to say on the subject of philosophy and how to understand the world and our experience of it. I still remember how Aquinas defined art, “right reason about something to be made.” That made about as little sense to me as the rest of his writings.

Preparing for this column, I reviewed his writing to see if I had been overly harsh in my judgment of him. In the process I ran across the quote with which I started above. Finally I had discovered a bit of Thomistic thinking which made sense to me.

I have been puzzling on a daily basis over the meaning of art since reading a newspaper column a few weeks ago about “bad art.” Do I believe in such a thing? Do I believe in Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny? Does it matter?

I also recalled a recent conversation with an artist at the GO ART! Orleans County Artist Trail. Admiring his work gave me a sense of joy and peace. I asked if he had considered exhibiting at one of the GO ART! Galleries. He looked a little surprised. After a little discussion, the truth came out. Standing amid his paintings in a tent out in the country, he admitted that he wasn’t sure his art was good enough for a gallery.

So what makes art good enough? When first exposed to art materials, children produce wonderful images of how the world looks to them. As they are taught the “rules” of art, their spontaneity often evaporates and they revert to what we think of as childish art. Critics have standards by which they judge the quality of art. Galleries have standards for what they will display. Patrons like some art, are indifferent to some works and dislike others. Yet critics, galleries and patrons don’t agree among themselves or each other on what art is or what makes it good or bad. Many artists, musicians and writers only found recognition long after they died.

I have started asking artists why they do what they do. Jen Scott said she uses her art to express her emotions in a therapeutic way. Doug Domedian uses his photographs to show people what is out there in nature. There are probably as many motivations for producing art as there are artists. I guess it is up to each of us to decide what art is and whether it is “good” or “bad.”