As I have written about here before, I don’t typically enjoy summer all that much. Although I’m not sure how much that has to do with the season itself as opposed to the change in – or absence of – routines and structure and sociability that comes with the break from the teaching term, I did find this discussion of “Summer SAD” interesting (the segment starts about 20 minutes in). It’s definitely true that the expectation that you are having a wonderful time simply because it is summer can make it harder to be honest about how you are actually doing.
The expert advice in that discussion is to get out and do “fun” summertime things, but I don’t swim or bike or hike, and NS’s beaches (like most of its destinations!) are hard to get to without driving on highways, which I hate. So in the spirit of what they call “behavioural activation,” I decided to devise a summer activity list for myself that better reflects my actual interests and preference, including a list of local art galleries to visit. One of the main themes of the painting class I took in April and May was that aspiring artists need to look at a lot of art. Halifax does not have a major gallery on the scale of MOMA or the National Gallery or the Tate or MFA; our biggest, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, is (sorry) not a very rich or inspiring space, though over the years I have had some good visits there. But the city has quite a smattering of small galleries showcasing local artists, most of which I have never checked out. I put their names, and a few other ideas for outings and experiments, on a kind of ‘bingo’ card in my bullet journal. I don’t have a prize picked out for crossing them all off: while gamifying my plans will (I hope) help me actually do the things, the reward should be the experiences themselves.
That’s a lot of preamble – sorry! The main point is that, just as “Poetry Serendipity” has encouraged me to take more chances in the library in an extremely risk-free way, “Art Adventures” will hopefully encourage me to look around at more visual art, moving on from what I don’t like, enjoying what I do like, and not overthinking it. Since I am trying my hand at painting, but not at poetry, though, I am curious about what I might learn from what I see. As we talked about in the painting class, the possibilities are really infinite; figuring out what you actually want your own art to do or be like is easily as overwhelming as trying to master any of the technical stuff.
I have been to two galleries from my list so far. One, the Craig Gallery at Alderney Landing, was a bit chaotic when I was there as one exhibition was literally ending (people were taking down and packing up the paintings as I wandered around). I did see some paintings I liked, but it wasn’t really possible to absorb much, so I’ll have to go back, though I guess I won’t see any of those same ones again.
I had better luck this morning at the Prow Gallery on Lower Water Street. It’s a bigger space and there was quite a lot to look at, including some works in wood, or combining wood and fabrics or threads. I really liked “Mollusk,” by Douglas Drdul: there’s something so satisfyingly glossy and tactile about it, and the wood grain is so beautiful and used so ingeniously to create the look of the shell. If I lived with it, I know I would be constantly running my hands over it. (I was very good in the gallery and obeyed the signs saying no touching!)
I was mostly interested in the paintings, of course and here’s one thing I learned from them about my own taste or aesthetic. Quite a lot of the paintings were done in acrylics and were what I would call very highly finished (I don’t know the right vocabulary for this). They were perfectly smooth all over; the lines of the pictures or designs were also smooth and clear. You could not discern any brushwork; for some of them, even quite close up they could almost have been glossy prints, not originals. I’ll use this one as an example, not to call it out but because I actually think in some ways it is really lovely. Here’s another one: I really loved how the artist did the water and reflections. Despite their clear technical excellence, none of the paintings with these qualities really spoke to me, for lack of a better way to put it: I would not pick them for my wall. There’s something too smooth about them, not painterly enough.
The one artist whose works really did appeal to me was, as it happens, also the only one who had any watercolours on exhibit there. His name is David Lidbetter, and when I got home I looked him up and found his own website, where you can see more of his work, including a lot of oils but also more watercolours and others using mixed media. I’m going to be grasping for vocabulary here, and my previous experience with studying art has not led me to think there is necessarily a good set of terms ready to hand. What I like about Lidbetter’s paintings is that they are not completely abstract (I react much like Olivia to art that just looks like a big mess) but they are also clearly not attempted copies of reality but ideas about it, or impressions of it. They feel like looking through someone’s eyes, rather than just seeing what someone saw – does that even make sense, as a distinction? Something about the other paintings feels too fixed to me, too static; I like how Lidbetter’s evoke scenes without getting too literal about them. I particularly liked both “Northern Lake” and “Fading Light,” which are quite minimalist.
The painting at the top of this post is one of my own, from last year, of Black Rock Beach in winter. It remains a personal favourite, for its simplicity and minimalism. Simplicity is hard to paint, it turns out. Getting an even wash for the sky, for example – I was pretty happy with the way that turned out here, with the lighter glow near the horizon. Stopping before you do too much is also really hard, and, with watercolours, usually irreparable. This is not a very accomplished painting, and yet I haven’t done one since that I have been quite as satisfied with. I don’t know what to make of that, especially as I have been taking more classes and practicing diligently. It is possible that the effort I have been putting in has worked against me by making me more self-conscious.
Novel Readings 
This is a wonderful idea. Last summer the VAG had a “monochrome” show and I enjoyed the way that prompted you to look closely at the works and focus on differences in form and texture. Have you read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way? (That’s where Morning Pages comes from). One thing she suggests is “artist dates” which is more or less what you are doing—a date with and by yourself to go somewhere that inspires you: looking at art, nature, whatever. Her sort of spiritual approach might not appeal to you but I like the idea of doing more slow, attentive looking. Lovely paintings. I think looking through someone’s eyes rather than at what they saw makes sense. I grew up going to the Chicago Art Institute and looking at Impressionists so perhaps that explains my preference for that type of painting too.
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I did read The Artist’s Way but I’d focused on the morning pages and forgotten about the “artist’s date” – I like that way of thinking about it! I’ve been to the Art Institute once and was especially entranced by the miniature rooms.
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Hmm, you put it really well. I’ve never “enjoyed” summer in the way everybody thinks I should. I’m tired, but I also miss my teaching routine and the daily get-up-and-go that constitutes my day. I usually accumulate sundry things that need to get done and do them over the summer: practicalities like house repairs, big purchases that need home delivery, etc.
But, other than visiting with my mother in the nursing home, I thought it would be good to do a few things in Montreal (no highway driving for me either, can’t stand it). Unlike Toronto, we don’t have really big museum exhibitions coming to town, but we do have some interesting things this summer. (Montreal is a big festival town, but I hate crowds, get overstimulated and end up with massive headaches). The fine arts museum has an exhibition of Roman sculpture and the archaeological museum in Old Montreal, an exhibition on Troy and the “Greeks”. Both of which I plan to visit. The Olmsted park, what Montreal affectionately call “the mountain” (hardly, more of a hill) is celebrating its 150th and the McCord Museum (Montreal’s loveliest little secret) has set up an entire exhibition of Norris photos of the park in its past 150 years. Another great little outing (though it’s outside and I’ll have to wait for this heatwave to be over before I venture to see it.)
I think your watercolour is wonderful and wish you a fruitful, good summer.
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It seems like Montreal offers lots of good options! One of my longer-term ideas is to finally get there to see for myself, maybe by train. If I ever figure this out, I will hope very much to meet you in person at last!
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Oh, that would be lovely!!
I’m Montreal-bound with my mother in care, but some day I’d like to visit Pier 21 where my newly-married parents arrived from Greece in 1961. I’m not a good flyer, so I’d do train too. I hope to meet you too!
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I very much like the idea of visiting small galleries and might make a point of this once work ends in September (though the big project will be deep-cleaning the apartment and getting rid of a lot of stuff accumulated over 27 years in it, just in case I have to move). And I love your painting: the reflections and the (sunset?) glow, the composition.
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I visited one small gallery on my recent trip there, the Federation Gallery at Granville Island – because an old friend had a picture on exhibit there! I bet there are tons of places like this to explore. I should probably do some deep-cleaning myself. Just staying on top of the fuzz Fred is shedding now that it’s warming up here seems impossible!
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I can empathise – there seems to be this idea that we’re all spending our summers lazing around by a beach or a pool. That’s my idea of misery not fun! I much prefer your approach.
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I like walking along beaches, but I’m not a fan of the sand that always seems to get everywhere! It is a real frustration, though, that it is so hard to get near any here without taking a car.
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I don’t like summer either, but I’m happy to hibernate.
But I like your project. After Covid, we started going to regional galleries (i.e. within an hour’s drive) with another couple, but before long we ditched the men and started going by ourselves and have expanded into a little group of four, sometimes five women. Though we’ve all been to the major European galleries on our travels, none of us really know much about art but it nice to be out and about and we’ve seen some very interesting things in the small galleries we’ve visited. Sometimes we have lunch somewhere cheap and cheerful afterwards. If you can do it, get onto a mailing list for the gallery’s opening exhibitions, if they do a bit of a talk about the artworks it can be interesting, but mostly it’s useful for knowing what’s on.
Another excursion we do in our little group is to visit Open Gardens. Do you have these? Keen gardeners open their gardens to the public once a year on a weekend, and it is lovely to see how cleverly people make beautiful gardens out of spaces large and small. Inspirational for a painter, too, I bet!
I wish I could paint…
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That’s a nice thought about open gardens: my parents have participated in something along those lines regularly back in Vancouver. I don’t remember Halifax having them but I should look more carefully. This is where I miss local papers! Information can be so scattered now: sure, “it’s online,” but you need to know where to look and what to look for.
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As someone who was put in his own corner during art classes to mess around while the other kids were making real art, I admire your ability to paint (I’d struggle to paint a wall!).
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The recent class I took was mostly about encouraging us to “mess around,” so who knows, maybe you were just ahead of your time?
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Nope, just really untalented!
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