Surrendering at great depths: A View from the studio

"Great leaps in consciousness result from surrendering oneself to God at great depth"  JDW

Recently I have been thinking a lot about connections, how we make them, what is authentic, how do we strengthen those bonds and keep them true. The life of the creative mind, from my perspective, naturally leans towards long periods of introspection. Perhaps from this dialogue that is required within oneself we quickly realize that we must face our Truth.

For each of us this is a different path. This is why we tend to become isolated as artists.  As we try to pass between the twin guardians of desire and fear to find this ephemeral truth we struggle alone along a path that is uniquely ours. These are the gifts buried deep within our soul patiently awaiting the moment of reconciliation. These truths that bring to light, out of the nights’ long embrace, like a candle flame that flickers in staggering relief upon shadowed veil, the reconciliation of a deeper knowledge.   

There is a price to be paid for this unburdening, perhaps only the afore mentioned isolation, but for some it is the unveiling of secrets long protected that must be unearthed, exposed, in order to come to their personal truth.

This idea of surrendering oneself at great depths, how do we do this?

For me as an observer and as a painter I see common threads to be pulled, an unveiling of sorts, that then I can sort through to find a piece that I can identify with. Once found I can tap into a universal consciousness and letting go of my ego, apply paint to canvas in a truly personal way.  After deep exploration I hope then that these brush strokes, objects, symbols and color and movement translate into paint transforming into something universal.

We have no choice in what God reveals to each of us. However it is of our choosing whom we reveal these sacred gifts to and how we go about it. This is our sacred task, the sharing.

And in this, connections are made and gifts are given.

It is only with the knowledge invisible

 that dwells within the fringes torn,

Whispers in the deepest of memories held

 exposing the infinite fabric of dreams,

                        Stuttering in languid thought

                                    that I, now, find purchase

                        Within the dreaming of language borne.

JDW    January 24, 2014

Transitional Spaces: 12.19.13: Part 3

It is now the second week in December and I have been painting on this piece for over two months.  I am in the glazing stages, a process of layering translucent color upon color to achieve the light that my paintings hold. It is a process that, if done incorrectly, ruins the painting completely. It is intense and exhausting emotionally but gives me such joy when I step back from a canvas and see that I maintained my faith and held true.

                           “In Silent Touch My Purchase Seen”

                                  84”x60” oil on canvas 2013

                            Disparate

                                    Though they be

                            Distant, unimaginable, yet

                                    Divine in silent touch

                            Upon each singular moment

                                    In this, the tenuous convention

                            Trust, found, deep within to be.

                                     November 20, 2013

This painting comes out of the idea of finding purchase within this chaotic life, of finding a quiet balance, a quiet space within. Again, from my journal:

There are many gates that open upon this hill, this mountain that we all ascend towards understanding, towards enlightenment. Journeys that take one far and wide, to search, to struggle to find purchase and gain hope. It is this, to find that singular moment, that fragment, that glimpse that becomes the key that unlocks the gate into the garden of impassioned understanding free from convention and traditional thinking.

Angelic warriors, ancestors, those who have gone before, line up to offer solace, a shimmering glance of hope; a piece of illuminating light. This is the gift offered and one received. This is the purchase found that gains us balance as we continue upon this ascended path.

It is in this act of transcending that common value, of stepping outside of the humaneness, rejecting the chaos that surrounds and consumes us, even for brief moments. In this we find a quiet strength and a glimmer of the truth that we hold inside.

December 6, 2013

The next step is to frame this piece so I can see it as it will be when finished. Then after long hours of contemplation finish the glazing even as I begin the next canvas.

JDW

Transitional Spaces: 12.1.13: Part 2

I have been painting now on the painting for over two weeks and here is the next photo:

From my journal:

She sits, stunned into deathly silence, hands between tightened thighs, kneeling upon shimmering floor strewn with hopes alive. Pensive, head cocked slightly towards a sound not heard, her eyes travel upwards and ponder what lies ahead.

Spirits fly upon the night and whisper keys to open locks…locks locked tight.

In the distance 3 figures silhouetted by fires back lit in arched grove of which wonders framed. One holding the other in comfort-like mother to child while the second reaches out in shocked silence.

The night dances with spirit shapes. Time no longer relevant or linear. Nothing makes sense and all is chaotic. Yet…the figure remains in prayerful pose, contemplating, almost there, almost cognizant of purpose known.

October 31, 2013

How to find purchase within these words and transform them into paint, that is the quest each day as I struggle to comprehend how these disparate shapes will unify into a whole. This is the greater struggle within my painting world. To trust that inner voice and where it will take me, confident in my hands need to lay paint stoke upon stroke until out of this dense language form is revealed. 

Transitional Spaces: 12.1.13: Part 1

Time seems to have just flown this year of transition, 2013. Here we are in the last month before the page turns and we usher in new hopes as symbolized by the turning of the calendar. Another year escapes our grasp.  As I look around I see how time has taken us prisoner, turning us away from quiet thoughts as we are now in constant contact, always in demand. A product of advances technologically, which we eagerly embrace, but at what cost if in the process we get swept away and lose our selves in the process?

The difference between my studio in Montana and Chicago is the relationship I have with this chaos of constant contact and the press of time.  Now that I am back in Chicago, going on two months, I find this constant need to isolate and find long, uninterrupted hours to be another battle to contend with. It is not enough to push and find purchase within the studio, within a given painting; I now have to fight against those outside demands in a way that is absent in Montana.

I know that this is a struggle we all face within our daily lives of work and family.

For an artist, especially as we get older and the body does not take as kindly to the abuse of stress and lack of sleep, I find that quiet and deep isolation become more and more important. To be able to tap into consciousness at a deeper level it is so important to look within, to not get caught up in chaos, to observe and witness.

I came back to a studio in Chicago devoid of prepared canvases and spent the first two weeks building, stretching and priming 12 new pieces ranging in size from 2’x3’ to 8’x6’ before I had to shift gears and prepare for the studio opening and unveiling of the book on October 19th.  After the opening I began two new large canvases:  

                                                      68"x80"

84"x60"

Beginning new work is intense in itself as once I begin applying the turpentine washes I don’t stop or take a break until they are full, rich and dripping in paint. It is a dance of movement and abandon. The layering of colors on top of colors without intellectual thought, a process that can last over 10 hours or more.

If I have prepared properly with an idea and drawing I can just be totally in the moment without regard to whether the painting that begins to emerge is like the drawing.  In a deeply satisfying way it is a transcendent movement, a waking meditation, an almost out of body experience.

It is within this mezmerizing process that the pure essence of creativity unfolds.

I now have been working on the oil on the right for a month and will begin to share a series of post as this painting progresses. 

Looking Within: a series of Three: Part 3

Looking Within: a series of Three: Part 3

            As my time was winding down in Montana I turned to the last prepared rag paper piece that I had mounted early this summer. The book was off to the printer to print the hardcopy proof that I could sit and hold and edit, so I was free to attack this last image with abandon. I had three weeks before I had to shut down the studio and fly back to Chicago.

             

            This piece comes from thinking about the divide that separates awakening knowledge-that act of divine awareness that transcends all bonds, all limits.

“Divided, Within Oneself”  43”x62” 2013  oil and oil pastel on rag paper

           Within this dream state we are shaken in our concept of reality, our concept of time. The winged messenger transcends through the window of perspective shattering the myth of time, of linear understanding, of how we become truly awake. It is through the veil darkly, that transcendent state, where the conduit is discovered and tapped into.

To realize the significance of our Being transcends time and space, freeing us to become one with all things.

Looking Within: a series of Three: Part 2

Looking Within: a series of Three: Part 2

The 2^nd and 3^rd oil pastels began late in the summer as the book edits intensified. I was pushed to want to be creative as a balance to the hours of reading text and moving around images on the computer as I edited the book. I needed to get lost in that mystifying process of touching a blank surface and revealing an image that conveys a truth about what I was thinking about.

The second piece was also a vertical, entitled:

           “Empathy’s Grace”  62”x43” 2013 oil and oil pastel on rag paper

                                                           

Chaos

                                                            Spins in vortex held

Quickens a breath

                                                            Within slender thread,

Spun, then pulled

                                                            Revealing that terrors pause,

The still points edge deep within.

How do we find that still point within, especially when all around us it 

seems our world is in chaos?

Looking Within, a series of Three: Part 1

While still in Montana, deep within the studio, working on the book and finishing the glazes on the large oil painting, “Reflections Glimmer in Wavering Need”, I primed three rag paper pieces. These were mounted on rigid foam board that is very light and easy to move around. Especially easy and inexpensive to crate and ship back to my Chicago studio in the fall.

The first oil pastel was a vertical created around the idea of gifts. Gifts that are given and gifts that are received. Gifts received that come from an unending source, a source deep within our consciousness.  Gifts that are given through the cleansing of pain and suffering, that process of looking deep within to understand and embrace, then let go.

These gifts are found in beauty and truth and from gratitude in the unfolding.

     “In Grace Unfolding”  62”x43” 2013 oil and oil pastel on rag paper

The journey towards a book: Part 3

The journey towards a book: Part 3

To add pressure to all of this, as if this project wasn’t enough pressure, I decided in late spring after my April opening that I would finish the layout, the selection of paintings and other artwork and the writing, while I was isolated in my studio in Montana so that I could unveil the finished book at my October 19^th opening back in Chicago.

After building stretchers and beginning the painting that was in the last blog series posted by Rebecca, I began my intense studio days. Painting all day, then working on the rewriting of the narrative for the book at night. Soon, I was weaving in the painting and the writing so that it just all blurred.

By mid summer I had a very tight, focused flow of the book. I used the 3 big themes: historical changes in my work, the building of the three spaces and the philosophical dialogue that drives my thinking in both the journal entries and the poems I write while painting. These three elements are the woven fabric, the language that flows between the works of art and the images of space, landscape and structure.

Now all I had to do was learn a new software program, Adobe InDesign, and lay it all out in time to have blurb.com print a proof I could hold and read and then correct.

Needless to say, this was monumental.

As I need to be painting everyday, I continued in the studio finishing the large canvas and then starting three smaller pieces along with three oil pastels; which I will write about in the next blog series.

I must have read and re-read my narrative 300 hundred times honing the language, yet keeping my voice. Once I had the layout the way I wanted it I was up to 221 pages. But it was right and I felt really good about this.

It, for me, was a piece of art.

As with all pieces of art, the color of the paintings needed to be as near to perfect so I turned to my long time designer of my website and invitations, Les Sandelman, to painstakingly go over each and every image, over 200 in all, and make sure they were correct and would upload properly to the book printer.

The hard copy proof came back the second week of September and I poured through it for the final corrections then sent it off to be printed. It was cutting it close, but the finished books arrived a week before the October 19^th opening.

I had done it.

If you are interested you can find the link to the book here: jonathanwallacestudio.com

The journey towards a book: Part2

The journey towards a book: Part 2

Now having all the key pieces I had to begin to edit down the almost 300 photos of the artwork into a more concise and fluid number. Along with this came the writing of the narrative itself and the sorting of both the poetry and the journal pages. It was a very intense next 6 months of development.

Early on I realized that this was another art piece unto itself. So I approached it this way. Complex in finding a rhythm, in finding a flow that would hopefully draw the reader to want to uncover the story just as much as looking at the paintings and drawings.

I continued to edit and narrow down choices and realized, once again, that this was in some ways harder than creating a painting. With a painting, if someone didn’t follow at all my thoughts or concepts that went into the piece they could at least enjoy the surfaces, the light, the movement itself that makes up a painting. But in laying out this project I was laying out my deepest thoughts, exposing how I process the work, how I think about paintings in a very specific way: the philosophy that is the structure onto which I lay the paint.

In other words: I was exposing myself with nothing to hide behind.

Progress and Process in Montana: Part Six

Wallace has begun work on glazing. It's at this point in his process that the artist's focus falls upon "pushing into the space, highlighting and obscuring, charging the emotion of the painting."

Progress and Process in Montana: Part Five

At this point in the process, Wallace is spending long days, and even longer nights working with the painting.

Says the artist, "I continue to uncover the dialogue within this piece. Every surface has been touched. Still, there's much more to build before I start to think about the push and pull of space, of emotion and the dramatic sense of light and shadow."

Progress and Process in Montana: Part Four

In the original entry in this series, we touched on Wallace's unusual use of gesso in the early stages of preparing his canvasses. Gesso is blend of white paint mixed with chalk, and in most cases is used as a primer, adding a thick, even layer to the canvas before the process of painting itself begins.

In his work with the highly textured materials of his sculptural surrounds, Wallace found himself inspired to consider the canvas's surface in a similar way. He began experimenting with the use of gesso to inscribe contoured images directly onto the canvas. "I started to depart from the traditional way of priming a canvas, and instead began to think of the primer, the gesso, as a means to impart movement, texture and imagery that would be buried underneath the paint.”

“I found this to be a very meditative process, and it's one which has become a part of my understanding of the painting even before it has begun. The texture is barely visible when the painting is complete. In this way, I am fetishising the work in the historical sense of the word: the laying down of this scribed image, scratched into the primer, with the knowledge that the paint will obscure it. The marks become like ghost images laying underneath the painting, underpinning its entire creation."

Progress and Process in Montana: Part Three

Welcome to the third installment in this focus series, which takes a closer look at Wallace's creative process this summer at his studio in Montana.

Over the last week or so, Wallace has been focused on blocking the composition of his current canvas. "At this stage, my days are very much enveloped in the rhythm and flow of both the physical objects and the colors within the work, and with how these elements guide the eye through the piece."

These canvasses can take several months to complete, and at this moment, Wallace explains, "there are many weeks to go before I can really begin to think about glazing and playing with the push and pull of space with light and shadow, of what is obscured, and what is revealed, pushed into view."

“The symbolism within the painting is a dialogue that emerges with each stroke of the brush. As I paint, layers are unveiled. Each discovery leads to another and another. Some things that end up on the canvas are conscious and others are a result of simply allowing myself to paint and to let the dialogue emerge. It is a dance that sometimes feels very fragile, and other times is so rich as to be joyous.”

Return next week to watch as the work continues to unfold and take form. Meanwhile if you have a specific question about Wallace's process, or about the work, we'd love to hear from you - please leave a comment below.

Progress and Process in Montana: Part Two

The artist has begun to work on several of the canvasses he built and stretched last week. We are very pleased to be able to share these images with you during the time he is creating.

"The painting is unfolding, revealing itself to me by degrees, as long as I am able to set aside my intellect and allow for the spontaneous response to form and movement; a kind of dance of emotions and energy, sparked by a beginning thought and then allowed to burst forth."

"It is an intense, and exhilarating time, as well as being exhausting, in that every stroke of creation forever changes the direction that the painting will take."

Join us next week to watch as these works continue to unfold.

Montana Studio: Part Three

This post concludes an ongoing series. Click to read Part One and Part Two

Montana Studio: Part Two

This blog post is part of an ongoing series. Click to read Part One

Wallace spends his summers and sometimes a few months out of the rest of the year at his studio in Montana. “I can be totally isolated there for three months at a time. Being in Montana allows me to refresh and recharge, to commune with the quiet landscape. There, it’s just me and the paint.

I paint interiors—the interior of the mind—I’m not painting something specific in terms of landscape or cityscape. Truly, I could paint anywhere. But being in Montana has deeply affected me, and my work, in two ways in particular.

First of all, the light. The light in Montana goes on forever. There’s no pollution. The light changes every time you look at something—it imbues the object you’re looking at, whether that be a tree or a grizzly bear or any of the things you see every day there, there’s a quality that’s almost ethereal. The kind of light that is coming through in my painting now is certainly inspired by that. Without a doubt I owe that quality to Montana, to what Montana gives me.

The second thing is a sense of centeredness. I adore Chicago, I spend more than half my time here, but when you walk through a city, you’re assaulted by it: by the noise, the constant stream of people, the harshness and the structure of the buildings. And sometimes that’s the beauty of it.

In Montana, the property is in the thick of a forest. It’s isolated, it’s mountains, and grizzly bears, and mountain lions, and huge moose, and I don’t have any people around—I can go two or three weeks without ever seeing anybody. I’m alone within this space. I have this sense of awe and reverence. It allows me to be very centered and aware. It compels me to paint. It’s in the air that you breathe, in everything you look at. It brings me back consciously to simply asking, “Why are we here and why are we a part of all of this?”

Simply put, it is the perfect balance in my life, there are no comparisons. Each gives me what I need.”

Return next week to enjoy a slideshow of images of Wallace's studio in Montana.

Montana Studio: Part One

This week, we sit down with the artist to discover the story of his second studio in Montana.

“It’s a strange thing, like déjà vu. I have a vivid memory of being an undergraduate at the University of Illinois, walking with my friends to class down a gloomy side street, and of this clear image coming to me: my reflection in a lake—I was older, I had grey hair, I was with a woman. We looked out over this beautiful landscape, a house framed by towering mountains, trees and rocks. It was strange—it felt like a memory. And it stayed with me.”

Fast forward a few decades to 2005. Wallace was living and working at Studio 2846 in Chicago, “I adore Chicago,” he says, “but the summers are hard for me—they’re so hot and humid.”

 Wallace and his wife, Deborah, were taking a break from the city, hiking in the wilderness near Lake Tahoe. “We were near these beautiful mountains, and we looked out over a body of water. It reminded me so much of that experience that I had to remind Deborah about it. She turned to me and asked, “You don’t want to wait until your 60, not if this is something you really want. Let’s start looking. Do you know where this is?”

It really made me consider things differently, and after that, we started looking. We booked a trip to Montana and Idaho, consulted the listings and saw a photo of raw land, 20 acres.  Upon walking this property it was instant, it was just… it. Every tree, every rock. The only thing missing was the house. It was my memory. We didn't need to look any further. I was home.

Two months later I packed up my truck and drove to Montana, and began immediately to build a cabin to live in while I worked on building the space. It took me a year and a half to build my studio in the mountains. In the summers now, that’s where I go to paint.”

Return soon to find out more about Wallace's work in Montana, or subscribe on the right to receive updates as they're posted.

The Pause Between Breaths

Artist, Jonathan D. Wallace

Artist Jonathan D. Wallace has been painting for almost four decades. He divides his time between his studios in Chicago and Montana, working at various scales, and primarily in oils. A classically trained painter and printmaker, Wallace considers himself a philosopher first and foremost: “A philosopher and a journeyman. Leaving traces for people along the way, to help them I hope, in their own             journeys.”

An ethereal quality permeates Wallace’s works, which are luminous with vitality. Fertile forest environments compose the setting of his paintings, which are laden with a rich language of symbolism and motifs that can be followed and unearthed throughout his career. His pieces present a juxtaposition, featuring recognizable everyday objects within a dreamlike milieu, and are fixated around the internal experience – in his words, “the transitional moments of the mind, that pause between breaths.” However, he says, “truly, what I want the paintings to do is to be really beautiful. It makes no difference to me if somebody looks at the work and doesn’t understand the journey I took. I believe that if I am sincere about my journey, it will come across in some form to the person in front of my work.”

Since the mid-seventies, Wallace has exhibited frequently at museums and galleries across the country. His most recent museum showing was at the Butler Institute of American Art as part of the 2008 exhibition, Things I See, which featured five of his oil pastels on paper, a series which the artist was moved to create following the death of his father. “I was working maybe twenty hours a day at that point, desperate to get it all down, not to lose anything.” The dramatic works vibrate with energy and depth. Each of the pieces in the series focuses on one key moment in life, “those fleeting moments where we grasp an essential truth about our existence.”

Wallace describes the act of painting as orchestral, and often works on numerous pieces at one time. This allows him to layer his focus, concentrating on one canvas, glazing and moving to another, before returning to the first piece, bringing the works to completion in rotation. He paints in a spectrum of sizes from small canvases up to pieces of over 12 foot wide. In creating his works, Wallace will often begin with a few words or a line of poetry. “Sometimes that will trigger an image, it will be the seed for a painting. Other times I already see the painting before the first word is written. It’s all part of the same process for me – a fragmented thought, a thumbnail sketch.”

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1951, Wallace has a long and colorful history with the art world. During his early twenties, he was featured in his first museum exhibition at the Burpee Art Museum in Rockford, Illinois. Shortly afterwards, he helped build the Galveston Island Art Center in Texas, and later, was the Interim Director at the Rockford Art Museum, launching them into their new space as a regional art museum.

For eight months of the year Wallace lives and works in his studio in a 1920s factory building in Chicago’s Humboldt Park area. In 1990 when Wallace bought the building, the district was extremely troubled and rife with gang warfare. The factory was derelict at that time and had been completely trashed, the plumbing and structure ravaged by neglect. These days the building, which Wallace renovated by hand, is occupied by 17 artist studios. Wallace and his wife, interior designer Deborah Rogers, live and work on the top two floors. Their space is a 10,000 square foot light-filled loft, in which huge looming canvasses and smaller, intense studies compete for space. He estimates that around 90 completed works currently hang in the studio.

During the summer months, Wallace retreats to his studio in Trego, Montana, which he built in 2005. He says that Montana has influenced his work in many ways. “There’s no pollution at all, and so the light goes on forever. It imbues everything you see. In Montana I live with a constant sense of awe and reverence. It informs everything. It’s in the air you breathe. It compels me to paint.”