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 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.

Impetus

This garden of blue seduction, shimmering in opulent light; cool to the touch in emotions rush. A winged memory, a thread, a note of embrace that has long gone unnoticed.

Words bubble in noise unfiltered, pi unfolds the universe in infinity’s grasp. Unspoken, yet so powerful in silent thought as to be deadly.

We have forgotten the simplest of facts: that our thoughts have a life beyond our greed in their thinking. They rush upon wings of energy to stir forces not seen, changing the very nature of the fabric of time and memory, altering, in subtle touch, the course of destiny.

As they weld ever into infinity’s brilliant light, energies co-mingled and take flight triggering new thoughts, bumping up against muddled minds, enlarging and changing consciousness one letter at a time.

We need to step outside our caged lives and look within towards the Truth that awaits us in silent roar. Each of us has a purpose to be met. Few stumble upon the simplest of light that could ignite the path towards enlightened understanding.

This is the duality that we all abide by. Fractured, yearning for completeness, yet trapped in the ego driven need; without ever questioning the hollowness of our lives trapped within the steady drone of non questioning noise.

Everything known is within. The book of truth that holds multiple understandings of pathways towards understanding is only good for triggering this acknowledgement, of looking within to find the self, the soulness that is the mirrored opposite of the ego, which is the outward appearance of who we are.

This painting is that split, that duality and the liberation of words that have power to take flight upon the wings of soul fire; embracing with those who have gone before to light the way into the white light of the Source of all things.

--J.D.W.

In progress

The Story of Studio 2846: Part Five

This blog post is part of an ongoing series. Click to read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four

Over the next fifteen months, Wallace worked daily to renovate all four stories of the 20,000 square foot building by hand. In 1992, the space was finally complete, with his studio and living space spanning the top two floors, and the other two floors occupied by a total of 17 rental spaces.

Once settled in his new space, Wallace set about planning his first opening. After losing the New York gallery, he felt strongly that he needed to take control of his own destiny. “I didn’t need to rely solely on the galleries to show my work for me anymore – I had a beautiful new space, perfect for its purpose. I could show my work myself, in a way that illuminates them fully.”

“I was one of the first artists in Chicago to show my work directly from my studio,” he remembers. “People in the industry said it couldn’t be done. As an artist, the most you could do then was to open a gallery with a group of other artists and rotate shows. Showing your own work just wasn’t accepted.”

Wallace sent out 100 invitations to people he knew in the gallery and museum community, as well as collectors, artists and friends in the city. Of those 100 invited, only 12 showed up. “I sold one piece. It was hard. Everyone told me, this is why you can't do this.”

Wallace pushed forward, determined. Twice a year he opened up his studio to show his work. Each time, a few more people showed. Word spread, and soon each opening attracted about 80 people. “At first they were mostly friends and my older collectors, but then word started to spread and artists I didn't know would show up, new collectors who had heard from someone else about the studio would come, and before I knew it, over a period of 10 years, we had over 400 people at each event. Sales got progressively better, it created its own energy.”

Patricia Barber, a successful jazz musician and friend of the artist was interested in purchasing one of Wallace’s pieces. As part of the sale, they figured out a trade, and she and her trio began to play at one opening each year on the studio’s baby grand. The event increased again in popularity. “They were becoming so large as to be time consuming and expensive to throw, not to mention being too hard to talk with everyone about the work. We had so many people we hadn’t invited showing up. It was getting to be too much.” 

“The interesting thing is that when I would open up the studio, I noticed that people really look at the work; they spend time to try and decipher the language of the paint. I look around and see people talking in front of the paintings, or they’ll approach me to ask questions. There’s a connection without pretense that all too often doesn't happen in a gallery setting, where people feel they have to act a certain way, where they feel intimidated or afraid. It was truly a gift to me”.

In 2005, Wallace held one more studio opening, before heading to Montana to set about beginning to build his studio there.

Uncovered

During a bout of reorganization, Wallace unearthed this – his first painting!

“I started drawing from a very young age - I was 7 or 8. I remember that there was a little school competition, and the St. Louis Children’s Museum bought the piece for $25. My parents were so excited that they went to the museum and asked for it back - they thought it was so cool that a museum wanted my work. They kept that piece, and they framed it. As a result, of course, my work wasn’t a part of their collection! I think that’s hilarious.

It’s interesting to look at this in the context of my work today. It’s very surreal in a way.”

Work Continues: The Rapture of Recognition

To uncover the finished image that becomes the painting is to work on multiple levels at each instant, grabbing disparate fragments of color and shape and imbuing them with tension so that by the very end of this dance of endless hours of weaving harmonic vibrations together there is a surface that vibrates, alive and rich, revealing the intent within.

Yet, in this process there are only fragments of recollection and it is by unending faith that I continue to travel in this labyrinth of forgotten memories laid down before in recollecting conversation. Conscious always of the peril that lies ahead as both an artist and an observer.

--J.D.W.

Work in Progress: The Rapture of Recognition

If you follow @Studio2846 on Twitter, earlier this month you would have seen Jonathan share a photograph of one of his current works in progress, tentatively titled "The Rapture of Recognition". The work shown to the left of the photograph above shows the progress that has been made on the piece in the last few weeks.

Jonathan is now at the stage of glazing both this and the larger work to the right of the photograph. "The process of glazing is very intense," Wallace explains, "once it is laid down there is no removing it; I can only go forward. It's a delicate dance and an emotionally exhausting process. This process is part of what gives the paintings their depth, and this quality of inner light."